Stephenson’s Renunciation of the Law
By L. H. Bond
Bro. Smith: What think you of the course of J. M. Stephenson? I have just been reading his apology for renouncing the holy law of the blessed God, and I assure you that I felt lonely and sick at heart to think it possible for a man, professing as he did to be governed solely by the Word and Spirit of God, to turn square around and deny the plain meaning and teaching of the Word. I would like to ask him when the cause for the institution of the Sabbath was annihilated? or, when will it cease to be a fact that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and rested and sanctified the seventh? When, I would ask, will he be able to show satisfactorily that it was intended alone for the Jews, and not for man generally, as our Saviour has said? When he shows clearly the above considerations, and where, in all God's universe, we shall go to find sin in the absence of law, I will think that he may set up a claim that he has in his wisdom and foresight discovered what the Eternal has neglected or forgotten to reveal. It is a fact that men who indulge in speculation on the revealed word of God, are often left to themselves, and given up to pursue their own course, and believe a lie, that they may be damned. My brother, I do not say that this will be the final issue of the course pursued by J. M. S. but my Bible informs me that he that breaketh the least of these commandments and teacheth men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; as much as to say, he shall never enter there. I should be glad indeed if the Lord would not cut him off forever, but show him his sin and give him a heart to repent, that he may be saved. Yours in Christ.
Milton, Wis., Jan. 24th, 1853.