Untitled article by WM. G. SPRINGER

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 30, 1859

PERPETUITY OF THE MORAL LAW NO. 3

By WM. G. SPRINGER

DEAR BRO. SMITH: Your No. 2 is before me. I find again abundant room for the exercise of charity. Your flings of "puerilities, quibblings, being hard pushed," &c., are cheap commodities, and almost any person can afford to deal in them, except a christian. The numerous points and side issues, you say were raised "by following me." Did I cause you to raise repentance before faith, Adam's inability in the fall, his having the ten commands

in the garden? I leave you to say. You are unfortunate, sir, in the event of raising such points and driving the thrust at me that it is "inconceivably puerile" to discuss them! As to the preliminaries of our discussion, I thought them satisfactory. Is the Bible not sufficient authority as the umpire? It is with me. You say, "We must both have some common ground on which to anchor; then we can test the legitimacy of our deductions." Most true; this is that at which I was trying to arrive when I asked you for the definitions of the terms in your proposition; for manifestly could I see by your use of those terms, that there was the theater of discussion, to some extent. Why then any unkindness here? Why accuse me of being hasty? This was a strange freak. Your six question, you think underlie this whole theme. I regarded them in part, at first sight as being secondary in this discussion and a part of them as having no importance. But as I delight to please, and you seem to stand over them in breathless anxiety, waiting to see whether or not I will awkwardly gore myself on those many long sharp horns, I will for your special accommodation answer them.

No. 1. As we are required to develop moral character must not God give us a standard by which to do it? Ans. Certainly.

No. 2. Where do we find this standard? Ans. In the word of God of course; but the Sabbath was not a moral command.

No. 3. If man had never broken the law would he have needed a Saviour? This is an unlearned question and should be avoided. 2 Tim. ii, 23; "But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they gender strifes." Show me the book that tells what would have been if Adam had not violated the law and then I will answer the question.

No. 4. Will God judge the world at last by diverse rules of judgement? Ans. Reason and revelation alike show, that men will be judged by those laws positive and moral, that existed in their respective dispensations, under which they lived and died. The Jews who lived and died before Christ, were under the law of Moses; the Gentiles were not. Therefore the one will be judged by it, the other will not. Can you show that this is "insanity."

No. 5. After we are justified shall we live in sin? "God forbid." Rom. vi, 1.

No. 6. If we do not continue in sin, what shall be our course of action? Ans. There are sundry duties for christians to do, some of them are positive duties, and some of them are moral duties. The positive commands grow out of the relation that exists between God and man simply; these are not the same in every dispensation, all of them, and are nowhere found but in the book of God. The moral commands grow out of the relation that exists between man and his fellows, and are deeply planted in our nature as well as in the word of God.

The definition of those terms are the next matter. I could wish my friend had not been in such an unpleasant mood and tense, when defining them. He has not given full satisfaction by any means. He makes no difference between positive and moral laws! I understand him to so connect and condense the definitions of the first two terms as to make them all moral law. Is my friend's religion all morality? If I am right here, then he fails to "rightly divide the word of truth." But I feel sure of one distinction he has made, which it behooves him to prove by Bible usage, viz. That the law of Moses is not the law of God, and that the law of God is not the law of Moses. For in his definition he does not class the law of Moses with that law which regulates the relation between God and men and between man and men. Then we are led to the conclusion by his definitions that Moses had a law, and God had a law in the former dispensation; and that one of them regulated the relations that existed between God and men, and man and men, but the other did not. Bro. S. you must come up to the work here; your cause demands it. For we shall clearly prove, if God permit, that some law has been "abolished;" has been "nailed to the cross." Make therefore your definitions stand by an appeal to Bible usage. I claim that no divine speaker or writer has made this distinction.

The next item is a rare bit of newly coined theology, fresh from the mint at Battle Creek. It runs as follows: "The prohibition laid upon Adam in regard to a certain tree was not the moral law; but only a test of his obedience to that law." Wonderful! A positive law given to Adam to test his obedience to a moral law!! Believe it who can. But more. Adam in violating this positive command did at the same time violate three commands of the decalogue; one of them a positive command and the others moral commands. Thus Adam! At one fell stroke, you violated two positive commands and two moral commands! Yes, the whole, poor Adam!! But this bare assertion of yours will be thoroughly refuted in my reply to you on the Sabbath item in this No. to which you are referred.

As to your assertion that on my premises Adam might have blasphemed God and killed Eve, and yet been all right; it needs no reply until you show that it is a fair deduction from my premises. The Sabbath then, is the next, and an important item. I am glad to see Bro. S. come up here with his proof. I will examine the witnesses. Remember the proposition to be proved. It is that God gave the Sabbath law to Adam while in the garden; and therefore it was in existence and binding on all men down to the exode. Mark ii, 27, is cited. What does he say? Ans. "The Sabbath was made for man." Most true Mark, but when was it made? before or after the exode? The witness is silent. Then there is no proof in it. Next Gen. ii, 2, 3. What does this witness say? Ans. "God rested on the seventh day; he blessed it and sanctified it." Most true Moses; but did God bless it as the Sabbath then? Did he sanctify it as the Sabbath then? Did he command Adam to keep it as the Sabbath then? On all these indispensable points, the witness is silent. But Bro. S. says it is proven to any reasonable mind. I suppose he has a reasonable mind; and it is well for him if he has, for he must take it out in reasoning, as there is no real proof from his witnesses. God did set this day apart as a peculiar day unto himself; not only to divide time into weeks (as there was no natural divisions of this kind), but to be ominous in its bearing of the thunders and awful grandeur of Sinai where it became an engraven law; and being portentous of good it looked to the rest in Canaan, and still on to the more quiet conscience of christianism, "Which do believe and enter into rest." Heb. iv, 3. But to make this as clear as a sunbeam, I will present rebutting arguments in order.

1. My first is that the facts on which this command is based, and out of which it grew, had not all transpired until the exode. The first fact is already seen in Gen. ii, 2, 3. God rested on that day and sanctified it. The second fact is seen in Deut. v, 12, 15. Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it as the Lord thy God commanded thee; and remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and a stretched out arm; therefore (for this reason) the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." Here it is clearly seen that the Israelites were commanded when keeping the Sabbath day, to remember that God had delivered them from bondage. This deliverance is clearly then one of the facts out of which the command grew. For the passage says therefore or for this reason the Lord commanded you to keep the Sabbath.

2. My second is that this Sabbath is associated by the divine writers with the other Sabbaths given to the Jews as having the same design. And this design points directly to their deliverance from Egypt. Ex. xxxi, 13. "Speak thou unto the children of Israel saying, verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you." Again Eze. xx, 10, 11, 12. "Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness. And I gave them my statutes and I showed them my judgements, which if a man do he shall even live in them. Moreover I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." According to the above, when did God give them his statutes? Ans. When he brought them out of Egypt into the wilderness. When did he shew them his judgements? Ans. When he brought them into the wilderness. When did he give them his Sabbaths? Ans. When he brought them into the wilderness. Now I ask Bro. S. if there is any getting away from this. The observance of the Sabbaths then, pointed to that deliverance out of which they as positive commands grew. And pointed also to God as the deliverer and benefactor, and was a sign to ancient Israel that God had taken them to himself to be a "peculiar people," a sanctified, set-apart people, distinct from all other people. Of whom also the Messiah should come.

Once more. Neh. ix, 9, 14. Here Nehemiah relates the history, in brief, of the exode even up to Sinai. And at verse fourteen he says, "And thou madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandest them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant!" How could the Sabbath have been made known by the hand of Moses, if they knew it before? Here Bro. S. is at issue with Ezekiel and Nehemiah. Their evidence is unique. In clearest lines they say, that the Sabbath law was given in the wilderness after the exode, by the hand of Moses. Still Bro. S. says it was given to Adam; and of course through him to his descendants. The difference between him and the Bible as to the giving of this law, is about 2500 years. His object here is clearly seen. If the law was given before the exode, surely the Sabbath existed before the exode. Nay more; if the law was given as such, before God separated Abraham and his posterity, to be his covenanted and peculiar people, then the Gentiles had it, were under it, and were obliged by it to observe the Sabbath. This is indeed, a fanciful argument. It seems a pity to clip its wings, still the Bible does it. Deut. v, 1-3. "And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O, Israel, the statutes, and judgements, which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep and do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day." If this covenant was not made with the fathers, the fathers did not have it. If the fathers did not have it, it did not exist: oral or written. Again, Rom. ii, 14. "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which shew the work of the law written in their hearts," &c. Here the Apostle tells you twice in one verse, that the Gentiles have not the law. Is not this enough? What more could you ask? Once more. Rom. iii, 1, 2. "What advantage then hath the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way; chiefly, that unto them were committed the oracles of God." It is clearly seen here, that among many advantages the Jew had over the Gentile, the chief one was, that he had the oracles of God. Will you give it up now? Why not?

Bro. S. still thinks, that Adam was so mangled in the fall, that he lost all mental, and physical ability, to obey God. This is not only a fogyism, but it is the more befogged by his attempt to prove it. Whence these nine passages of scripture here? Does either of them say that Adam, or any other man, by committing a sin, was, or is, by consequence, rendered unable to obey God afterwards, if willing to do so? Not a bit of it. Remember, this is not a question of will, or inclination, on the part of man; but a question of power, a question of ability. My friend I presume is a believer in total hereditary depravity! I believe every word in those scriptures you present; the only trouble is, they do not prove what you assert. But again you say, "The gospel is not something to be transgressed or obeyed." For you say, that "the gospel as such, furnishes us no standard of right by which we are to regulate our conduct." I have you now! In another place you say, "We are freed from the law as a conditional covenant of life." Now you say, "The gospel as such, furnishes us no rule of life." Then sir, according to you, we have no rule of life! No conditional covenant, or rule of life!! Law nor gospel!! The question is not any more, what will you say, but what is it that you will not say. You are hors de combat here. But here comes the proof, that repentance is the first step towards justification by Christ! Acts ii, 38. Does this say that repentance is the first step? Far from it. Notice the change in those persons to whom the command was given. Awhile ago, they were the despisers and murderers of Christ; but now they call on him for mercy. Why this great change? Clearly this. They believe now, from Peter's preaching, that this murdered Jesus is now risen, and exalted as their final judge. Yes, they believe on him—and that the gospel is a "Rule of action;" and they ask what they must do—Peter then tells them to repent and be baptized. A fatal witness this, to my friend. Did Paul announce to the trembling jailor, repentance as the first step? Did Peter tell Cornelius that repentance was the first step? Did Philip proclaim to the Eunuch repentance as the first step? Did he preach to the Samaritans repentance as the first step? No sir. But in every instance faith preceded it. But here is a classification argument. Acts xx, 21. The passage reads, "Repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ." Because repentance stands before faith, in the passage, our Bro. thinks it is the first step. Very well. See 2 Thess. ii, 13. "God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." These classifications are both from the apostle Paul. If the one proves repentance before faith, the other proves that we are sanctified by the Spirit before we believe the truth. What! we sanctified in unbelief? Yes sir, if there is any proof in your argument. But to settle this point for ever, see Heb. xi, 6. "Without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Repentance cannot be acceptably performed in coming to God unless we believe in Christ. It is then, like baptism, an act of faith. Faith then must precede it; therefore repentance is not the first step. Here my friend is transfixed. His philosophy is gone by the board.

Please try again. If you can show that the law is the basis and conditions of the promises of God, and yet, that it is not to be complied with in order to the promises; or, if you can show that we are not to be justified on condition of obedience to the law, and yet, cannot be justified without obedience to the law, you shall be considered by me as the philosopher of the age. Next, I called on you to speak like the apostle Paul. Rom. vii, 4. "Wherefore my brethren, ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ." Again, chap. viii, 2. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath made me free from the law of sin and death." The latter of these sayings of Paul Bro. S. wisely passed in silence. I presume he has no use for it in this debate. It is as clearly in the negative of his proposition as it well could be. He attempts to speak like the Apostle on the former, but how does he speak it? He says, "we are only dead to the law when being justified through Christ from our past sins, we live in obedience so that it can exercise over us no condemning power." You admit then, that we are dead to the law for a time! But then you do not admit that we remain dead to it. No; for as soon as Christ is done justifying us, we are as alive to it as ever! so much so, that we live in exact obedience to all its principles!! And this is what you think Paul means by becoming dead to the law!! Fortunately, there is in the preceding chapter the same kind of an expression from the Apostle; Rom. vi, 2. "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein." Are we only dead to sin while being justified by Christ? Are we alive to it as ever as soon as we are justified? We are, beyond all controversy according to your interpretation. The Apostle asks, How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? And in apostolic style, I ask you, How shall we that are dead to the law live any longer thereunder?

In conclusion I ask you three questions:

Must we comply with the commands of the law in order to our justification by Christ?
Must we comply with the commands of the gospel in order to our justification by Christ?
Is Christ our divine lawgiver?

Millersburgh, Iowa.

WM. G. SPRINGER.