A New Champion with New Arguments.
As proposed in last week's Review, we resume our examination of Eld. Sheldon's effort against the Sabbath, found in the Voice of the West of May 2. It is a pitiful sight to see a man in the present state of astronomical science, stand up and roundly assert that the earth is flat, that it has four square corners, that it is stationary, and that the sun performs his daily circuit around it, either ignorant of the light that exists on this question, or in his willful bigotry despising it. If any man of ordinary intellect and information, would be ashamed to take such a position as this, then theologians, those who set themselves up for teachers in Israel, ought to be ashamed to be found year after year plodding doggedly along through the stupid arguments which have been a thousand times refuted, and making assertions, in comparison with which the declaration that the earth is flat, is glorious and consummate wisdom. Says Eld. S. "The law entire, of which the decalogue was a part, expired at the cross." "The law entire, of which the decalogue was a part." The great truth that the decalogue is of itself a separate and distinct law, is thus quietly ignored. Yet nothing can be plainer than this. We will not discuss the subject here. Those not familiar with it, are referred to Ex. xxiv, 12; Deut. xxxii, 2, and to the pamphlet entitled, The Two Laws, published at this Office. "Expired at the cross." Is he sure of this? His colleagues do not all agree with him. Some place the death of the law at John: "The law and the prophets were until John." Others put it at the cross; others at the resurrection; and some at all three of those places! We would advise them before attacking the enemy to become united among themselves, for a house divided against itself cannot stand. But rather, think of this: The law entire ceased at the cross. God found it necessary to abolish all his laws there. Omniscient wisdom could not frame a law that would be adapted to the race till the close of their probation! But the time came when it was found to be faulty, and must be taken out of the way. There too, God must abolish his own constitution and government, repeal the moral principles binding on man, and sweeping aside all his former work as faulty, imperfect, and unworthy longer to endure, commence entirely anew! And then too, to represent Christ as dying, and offering up his infinite sacrifice to pay the penalty of an imperfect law! No language can be found fitly to describe the mental or moral obliquity involved in such a view. These are the legitimate fruits of the position set forth by Eld. S. and his coadjutors. He professes to find something in our theory which he calls absurdities. We hand these back and call them blasphemies. Having stated that the law expired at the cross, he continues: "But some of its prohibitions and commandments are enforced under the gospel arrangement." Yes. When? where? how? and by whom? These are questions which our opponents forget to answer. It is very easy to assert that the law has ceased, and to be very positive in the matter. And the careless and unthinking will perhaps accept the assertion without further investigation. But let people place the abolition of the law at what point they please, it is impossible to enter into an argument to show just how much of the law has been re-enacted, when it was done, and by whom it was done, and in what manner the change was promulgated, without manifesting their folly to the most superficial and casual observer. Hence on these points they very wisely forbear. In relation to the re-enactment, however, they are pretty sure to state this, as Mr. S. does not fail to do: "But never is the seventh day Sabbath enforced under the gospel arrangement." Until the opponents of the Sabbath show the necessity for the re-enactment or enforcement of that institution in the gospel dispensation, and state what they will acknowledge to constitute an enforcement of it, they cannot justly call upon us for our evidence. When they will do either of these things, we stand pledged to produce a five-fold more frequent recognition of the Sabbath law, and Sabbatical institution in the New Testament, than of any other one of the ten commandments. Mr. S. now writes himself down as a worshiper of images as follows: "We observe only that part of the law which is enforced under the gospel arrangement whether from the tables or from the book." As he cannot find in the New Testament an express re-enactment of that portion of the old law which prohibits the worship of images, such as he demands in respect to the Sabbath, he has positively declared that he does not observe it, hence he must be a worshiper of images. He next gives us the heading, "The decalogue not in force in the gospel age." Over against this we set the words of our Lord, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all [things] be fulfilled." Being, as they are diametrically opposed to each other, we are not long in determining which declaration to adopt, nor will any one be, who prefers the words of the Lord Jesus Christ to the assertions of men. But outside of the decalogue, is there a command anywhere to be found in the Bible for the keeping of any day as a Sabbath? There is not, and none will claim it. If then the decalogue is not in force in the gospel age, and the Sabbath is not enjoined, where is the Sabbath for this dispensation? There is none. This fixes upon him the stigma of "no Sabbath" beyond the possibility of evasion, to say nothing of what it does for the Voice of the West, notwithstanding its editor strenuously spurns (that is in word), the idea of being a no-Sabbath man. We now approach a portion of Eld. S.'s effort, in which for reasons assigned in our former article, we are presented with something which has at least the credit of being tolerably new. On these points we will quote from his article more at length. In answer to the question whether or not the law on tables of stone may continue in force through the gospel age he says: "We reply, no; because several items in that writing on the tables of stone are not in harmony with the gospel arrangement, and are applicable only to the obsolete law of Moses. Let us look at several points: " 'I am the Lord thy God which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.' (Ex. xx, 2). This was true of the Israelites, but is not true of Gentile Christians. They were never in 'bondage' in Egypt; but if this old arrangement of law, engraven on stones, is still in force without change, and obligatory upon Christians, it makes God constantly proclaim an untruth to them, for this statement is a part of the writing on the tables of stone. This is invulnerable proof that this law was arranged, not for Gentiles, but for Jews." If Eld. S. had taken the trouble to examine this point a little more critically, he might have saved himself the mistake of making an assertion so utterly erroneous. Is it not true that the words which preface the ten commandments in Ex. xx, "I am the Lord thy God," &c., were ever engraven on the tables of stone? There is no record of any such thing, but everywhere the contrary. Concerning the writing on the first tables we have in Deut. iv, 12, 13, the following testimony: "And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments, and he wrote them upon two tables of stone." This testimony is sufficiently explicit. "He declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform." What is his covenant? To make the matter plain beyond misapprehension, Moses adds, "even ten commandments." Then God's covenant, not the Sinaitic or first covenant, mark, but God's covenant consisted of something to be performed, even ten commandments. Nothing then belongs to that covenant except something to be performed, something that is a commandment. But the preface to the ten commandments is not a commandment, and nothing to be performed; therefore it is no part of the covenant of which Moses speaks. The inspired writer then proceeds to say in relation to these ten commandments, nothing else, "and he wrote them upon two tables of stone." Nothing but the commandments, therefore, were written upon the tables. That exactly the same writing was upon the second tables, as upon the first, Moses thus testifies in Deut. x, 4: "And he wrote on the tables [the second tables which Moses made and carried up, after he had broken the first] according to the first writing, the ten commandments." See this point discussed at length in History of the Sabbath, pp. 79-81. But Mr. S. should have followed his own reasoning to its legitimate conclusion. Had he done this he would have seen that the language that prefaces the ten commandments, could no more apply to the generations of literal Israel, then future, than to spiritual Israel under the gospel dispensation. For it was not literally true of any of the Israelites, except those then living, that they had been brought up out of the land of Egypt. Thus Eld. S.'s own argument "makes God constantly proclaim an untruth" to all Israel, after the generation that came out of Egypt had passed away. He should be more careful in his conclusions. As an introduction of God to the people as he was about to utter the ten commandments, the words with which he prefaced these commandments were proper. Of that generation to whom they were spoken they were true. Of no other would they be true. They could therefore form no proper part of what should be engraven upon the tables. Hence Moses is ever careful to discriminate between them, and what the tables did actually contain. The second proof that the decalogue cannot be binding in the gospel age is given as follows: " 'For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,' (Ex. xx, 5). This principle does not hold good in the gospel age, for Jeremiah plainly predicted its termination at the introduction of the New Covenant: 'In these days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. [Why? Because] Behold the days come saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel' &c. (Jer. xxxi, 29-31). Under the old covenant, the Jews understood that the 'iniquity of the fathers' might be visited upon the children; hence, they inquired concerning the blind man, 'For whose sins was this man born blind? For his own, or for his parents?'—recognizing the principle that the iniquity of his father might have been visited upon him. The same thought was in their minds at the crucifixion, when they exclaimed, 'His blood be on us and on our children.' This principle is not an ingredient of the New Covenant, and is in opposition to it; but if the decalogue, as an unchanged instrument, in its original form, is still in force, this obsolete rule of a dead law must still be in force, and clashing with the principles of the gospel." We behold in this the same lack of discrimination that is so discernible in the preceding argument. Visiting upon the children the iniquity of the fathers, is not visiting upon the children the punishment due to the fathers for their iniquities. These Mr. S. confounds together, and charges the abhorrent doctrine last stated upon the holy, just and good law of God, and its great author. Having stumbled upon this infidel doctrine, cross-eyed prejudice sees in it a fancied objection to the Sabbath, and greedily swallows it. It is no credit to the no-Sabbath side of this controversy to be made to shoulder upon itself assertions by which infidels have tried to blacken the character of the Bible and the God of the Bible. A few pages of Nelson on Infidelity, pp. 271-278, would doubtless do Mr. S. good right here, if we had room to transcribe it. Has he never read Eze. xviii? God there expressly declares that the son shall not bear the iniquities of the fathers. Verse 20. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." This certainly does not belong exclusively to the new covenant. It was applicable under the old, as well. And it seems to have been spoken to correct an error into which the Jews had fallen, expressed in verse 19, thus: "Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity189of the father?" Or in the passage quoted by Mr. S., Jer. xxxi, 29, it reads, "They shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape and the children's teeth are set on edge." Then this is something that they say. Has God ever said it? Never. And cannot our friend discriminate between what God says and what man says? If not, we shall next expect to hear him trying to prove a temporal millennium from Isa. ii, and Micah iv. But when does the language which he quotes have its special application? To the new or gospel covenant he answers. Then that covenant has not yet commenced, for at the time when that language was to apply, God says of Judah and Israel, "And it shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy and to afflict; so will I watch over them to build and to plant." Then follows the language in question, "In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape," &c. But Israel and Judah, as he views them, are not yet planted and builded, but scattered all over the earth. Hence on his own ground the time has not yet come for the new covenant to take effect! But the second commandment refers to nothing of this kind. The effects of the fathers' vices physical and moral, are seen in the children. They are visited upon them. And this principle is just as true under this dispensation as under the former, and will be so long as sin exists and is transmitted from father to son in a long line of transgressors. Our space is again exhausted and we are compelled to defer the examination of the remainder of Mr. S.'s article to some future paper.