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Signs of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 17.

The Law Given to Israel

Signs of the Times

May 6, 1886

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 6, 1886

The Law Given to Israel.

By Mrs. E. G. White

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
WHEN the Lord was about to deliver his people from Egyptian bondage, he selected Moses as their leader. Moses was learned in all the knowledge of the Egyptians, and was a skilled and mighty warrior. He had also been fitted for his duties by long years of quiet meditation and communion with God in the wilderness of Horeb. Through Moses the Lord wrought many signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. He brought his people out of the house of bondage “by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors,” even parting the waters of the Red Sea to make a way for them.
At length they came to the wilderness of Sinai, and camped before the mount; and there, in the most solemn manner, the Lord made a covenant with them. Moses was called up into the mountain, and given this message for the people: “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; . . . and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” Moses returned to the camp, and laid before the people all the words that the Lord had commanded him to utter; and they answered together, and said, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.”
The Lord then graciously condescended to come down upon Mount Sinai, not to give a new law, but to speak with an audible voice, in the hearing of all the people, the law which had been from the beginning the foundation of his government. He would not permit even angels to communicate these sacred precepts to men, nor did he trust them to the memory of a people who were prone to forget his requirements. He would remove all possibility of misunderstanding, of mingling any tradition with the ten commandments of the moral law, or of confusing the divine requirements with the practices of men; and to do this, he not only spoke the ten words of the moral law in the hearing of all Israel, but he wrote them with his own finger upon tables of stone.
The Lord made the occasion of speaking his law a scene of awful grandeur and sublimity, in accordance with its exalted character. The people were to be impressed that everything connected with the service of God must be regarded with the greatest reverence. They were required to sanctify themselves and wash their clothes, and “be ready against the third day,” when the Lord would “come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai.” Bounds were set about the mountain that was so soon to be honored with the divine presence; and it was commanded that if so much as a beast touched the mountain it should be stoned or thrust through with a dart.
The third day came; and there were “thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount.” “And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.” The glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mount in the sight of the assembled multitudes. So terrible were the tokens of Jehovah’s presence that the hosts of Israel shook with fear, and fell upon their faces before the Lord. Even Moses exclaimed, “I exceedingly fear and quake.”
Then above the warring elements was heard the voice of Jehovah, speaking the ten precepts of his law. The people of Israel were overwhelmed with terror. The awful power of God’s utterances seemed more than their trembling hearts could bear. They entreated Moses: “Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” For as God’s great rule of right was presented before them, they realized, as never before, the offensive character of sin, and their own guilt in the sight of a pure and holy God.
Speaking out of the thick darkness that enshrouded him, as he stood upon the mount surrounded by a retinue of angels, the Lord made known his law. Moses, describing the scene, says: “The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints; from his right hand went a fiery law for them.” Thus were the sacred precepts of the decalogue spoken amid thunder and flame, and with a wonderful display of the power and majesty of the great Lawgiver. God accompanied the proclamation of his law with these exhibitions of his power and glory, that his people might never forget the scene, and that they might be impressed with profound veneration for the Author of the law, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. He would also show to all men the sacredness, the importance, and the permanence of his law.
The law of ten precepts was by no means given exclusively to the Hebrews, but God highly honored them by making them the depositaries of his law for future generations. Those who trample upon God’s authority, and show contempt for the law given in such grandeur at Sinai, virtually despise and set at naught the Lawgiver. For that law is Heaven’s great standard of right, with which we are to compare our lives and characters. Because the law points out our sins and declares our guilt, we are not to trample it under our feet, nor to turn away when our characters stand revealed in all their moral deformity. But we are called upon to exercise repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. We must be doers of the word, and not hearers only. The heart, the seat of the affections, must be transformed; the moral nature must be renewed by grace.
It is a precious truth that the only one who can give peace to the weary, sin-sick soul is the originator of the law the sinner has violated. Christ knows the enormity of man’s guilt; and for this reason he came to earth to open a way by which man may be released from the bondage of sin, and render acceptable obedience to the divine law. Thus may we become a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, to show forth the praises of Him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.
But He who so freely pardons and receives the penitent sinner, will by no means justify those who remain willfully and persistently disobedient. The children of Israel, who had transgressed the first and second commandments, were charged not to be seen near the mount when God was about to descend to write the law a second time upon tables of stone, lest they should be consumed by the burning glory of his presence. And when Moses returned to the camp after spending forty days in the mount, communing with his Maker, they could not even look upon his face for the glory of his countenance. Even Aaron shrank from him in terror. How much less can transgressors look upon the Son of God when he shall appear in the clouds of heaven, in the glory of his Father, surrounded by all the angelic host, to execute judgment upon all who have disregarded the commandments of God, and have trodden under foot the blood of Christ.

HOME.

By Julia L. Colegrove

BY JULIA L. COLEGROVE.
I WOULD not shrink from tangled ways, Though thorns may pierce my feet; I would not lay my burdens down, Till life's work is complete.
But oh, blest mansions rise so fair Before my tearful eyes, I half forget the darksome vale 'Tween me and Paradise.
I know my armor must be on; There's use for sword and shield; But home and rest are sweeter than This dusty battle field.
And I am told that earth renewed Shall be our dwelling-place; And God's own hand shall wipe away The tears from every face.
The hands now laid o'er forms of clay Shall be in mine once more; The ties that bind us each to each Be stronger than before.
The voices hushed shall sing for joy; The scattered ones shall meet, And praise for aye the Lord of life, And worship at his feet.

Christian Zeal.

ZEAL is an element of character of great power, and he is not to be despised who possesses it. Where it promotes a bad cause it is to be regretted, but the element is none the less important. Christians should be zealous. They should not allow the man of the world, in his efforts to accomplish some worldly object, to excel them in the manifestation of zeal to promote that which is true and worthy. “It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing.” “The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up.” The cause of Christ demands all the energy and power that we can command. It should pervade the faculties of the soul. It is the chief good as it respects ourselves and others.—Methodist Recorder.

Jephthah's Daughter Devoted.

REMEMBER that the law and the whole Old Testament condemns human sacrifices. If Jephthah had done so horrible a thing, instead of being commended in Heb. 11 : 32, he would have been cursed and condemned as all other Israelites were who so far departed from the law of God as to be guilty of this heathen abomination. See 1 Kings 16 : 3; 2 Kings 21 : 6; 2 Chron. 33 : 2, 6, where Ahaz and Manasseh are condemned for doing what some claim Jephthah did. "But the entreaty of the daughter, that he would grant her two months' time, in order that she might lament her virginity upon the mountains with her friends, would have been marvelously out of keeping with the account that she was to be put to death as a sacrifice.
"To mourn one's virginity does not mean to mourn because one has to die a virgin, but because one has to live and remain a virgin."—Keil and Delitzsch—Com., in loco. If she had been mourning on account of her youth and premature death, "it would be altogether opposed to human nature that a child, who had so soon to die, should make use of a temporary respite to forsake her father altogether." "It would, no doubt, be a reasonable thing that she should ask permission to enjoy life for two months longer before she was put to death; but that she should only think of bewailing her virginity, when a sacrificial death was in prospect, would be contrary to all the ordinary feelings of the human heart." "Inasmuch as the history lays special emphasis upon her bewailment of her virginity, this must have stood in some peculiar relation to the vow"—so much so that virginity, instead of death, was meant by the vow. "And this is confirmed by the expression, to bewail her virginity 'upon the mountains.' If life had been the question, the same tears might have been shed at home. But her lamentations were devoted to her virginity, and such lamentations could not be uttered in town, and in the presence of men. Modesty required the solitude of the mountains for these. The virtuous heart of the maiden does not open itself in the ears of all; but only in sacred silence does it pour out its lamentations of love."
"And so, again, the still further clause in the fulfillment of the vow, 'and she knew no man,' is not in harmony with a sacrificial death. This clause would add nothing to the description in that case, since it was already known that she was a virgin. The words only gain their proper sense if we connect them with the previous clause, he 'did with her according to the vow which he vowed,' and understand them as describing what the daughter did in fulfillment of the vow. The father fulfilled his vow upon her, and she knew no man; i. e., he fulfilled the vow through the fact that she knew no man . . . in a life-long virginity."
Auberlen's remarks, alone, ought to cast grave doubts upon the "human sacrifice" interpretation. "The history of Jephthah's daughter," he says, "would hardly have been thought worth preserving in the Scriptures, if the maiden had been really offered in sacrifice; for, in that case, the event would have been reduced, at the best, into a mere family history, without any theocratic significance, though, in truth, it would rather have been an anti-theocratic abomination, according to Deut. 12 : 31 (cf. chapter 18 : 9; Lev. 18 : 21; 20 : 1-5). Jephthah's act would, in that case, have stood upon the same platform as the incest of Lot (Gen. 19 : 30), and would owe its adoption into the canon simply to genealogical considerations, or others of a similar kind.
"But the very opposite is the case here; and, if from the conclusion of the whole narrative in chapter 11 : 39, 40, the object of it is supposed to be simply to explain the origin of the feast that was held in honor of Jephthah's daughter, even this would tell against the ordinary view. In the eye of the law the whole thing would still remain an abomination, and the canonical Scriptures would not stoop to relate and beautify an institution so directly opposed to the law."—Quoted by Keil and Delitzsch. "But burnt offerings, that is to say, bleeding, in which the victim was slaughtered and burnt upon the altar, could only be offered upon the lawful altar at the tabernacle, or before the ark, through the medium of the Levitical priests, unless the sacrifice itself had been occasioned by some extraordinary manifestation of God; and that we cannot for a moment think here." See Lev. 1 : 5; 2 : 9, 16; 3 : 5, 13, 16; 4 : 7, 10, 14, 18, 19, 26, 29, 31, for law of burning on the altar.
"But is it credible that a priest or the priesthood should have consented to offer a sacrifice upon the altar of Jehovah, which was denounced in the law as the greatest abomination of the heathen? This difficulty cannot be set aside by assuming that Jephthah put his daughter to death, and burned her upon some secret altar, without the assistance and mediation of a priest; for such an act would not have been described by the prophetic historian as a fulfillment of the vow that he would offer a burnt-offering to the Lord, simply because it would not have been a sacrifice offered to Jehovah at all, but a sacrifice slaughtered to Moloch." So it would have been recorded if the priests, as in the cases of Ahaz and Manasseh, had helped him offer his daughter as a burnt offering.—Keil and Delitzsch's Com. on Judges and Ruth, pp. 392-394.
"During the 'two months' which intervened between Jephthah's return and the supposed sacrifice, it is scarcely credible that the priests should not have interposed to prevent the barbarous deed, or that Jephthah himself should not have 'inquired of the Lord,' respecting a release from his vow."—Haley. (See release from vows in Lev. 27 : 1-8, etc.) One of the moral nature that Jephthah was, certainly would have been prevented from the barbarous deed by that moral insight into right and wrong which is the invariable power of such souls as spoken of in Heb. 11 : 32. As did David, on the impulse of the moment under passion, a good man may do a bad thing or deed; but not when in the religious state of mind and with the time for consideration, as was the case with Jephthah.
In verse 29, it is positively affirmed that Jephthah was in "the Spirit of the Lord" when he made the vow. As well believe God could cause sin as to, therefore, believe Jephthah burnt his daughter. Verse 31 of Judges may be rendered, (a) "Shall surely be the Lord's, or I will offer it up for a burnt offering." Dr. Davidson, an eminent Hebraist, says: "It cannot be denied that the conjunction 'vav' may be rendered or."—Introd. Old Test., Vol. 1, p. 476. Dr. Robinson says: "Gesenius, in 1 Kings 18 : 27, . . . himself admits it is a disjunctive."—Ges. Lex. Heb., p. 266; Ges. Thesaur., p. 679. (b) Dr. Randolph, J. Kimchi and Auberlen render: "Shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer to him a burnt offering." Dr. Davidson says: "We admit that the construction is grammatically possible; for examples justify it, as Gesenius shows." "Either of these translations removes the difficulty."
The objection to this last rendering—that the Hebrew is the dative instead of the accusative—is groundless. For there are exceptions to the rules governing all languages. For example, the Greek in Acts 2 : 38, where instead of hekastos anton—each of them—we have hekastos humon—"each" in third person, and "of you," in second person, while the verb baptisato is third person. Were we to attempt to translate this by the rules of grammar, we would have something like: "Be baptized each of them of (or which are of) you." But translators so translate this as to make "of you"—second person—agree with hekastos—each, which is in the third person. But in the case before us no such abruptness is necessary to render, "I will offer to him a burnt offering;" for Gesenius clearly shows (see Heb. Gram., sec. 138, 2) that there are not a few exceptions where the accusative is equivalent to the meaning or use of the dative. I believe this rendering—"offer to him"—is the true rendering. Some other renderings need correction in this connection. In verse 39, we should render, "she knew no man and it [i. e., to vow daughters to perpetual virginity.—Ex. 38 : 8; 1 Sam. 2 : 22, in ministering at the tabernacle] was a law in Israel." Verse 40: "From year to year the daughters in Israel came to celebrate [or praise] the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite," etc. Gesenius defines, tanah—rendered by our version "lament"—"to praise, rehearse, celebrate." So do professors Harper (Heb. Voc., p. 106), Young, Fuerst, and others.
In chapter 11 : 5 our version renders it rehearse, instead of "lament." The Hebrew verbs for lament are: anah, nahah, saphad, qun; and to these may be added others, as, bakah. The English reader would naturally infer that the word rendered by our version "lament" is one of the same meaning, if not the same word, as the one rendered "bewail" in verse 37. But the word there rendered is bakah, which really means "bewail." Jephthah's daughter being sacrificed to the Lord by perpetual virginity, to minister at the tabernacle—she was his only child (verse 34)—cut off all hope of the perpetuation of his family. Besides, the sacrifice of all hope of ever becoming a mother was the greatest sacrifice which a daughter of Israel could make. Because of this, there was the bewailing of her virginity (verse 37). Had the wailing been because of her death, it would more naturally read, "Bewail my death." Besides, who ever heard or read of such an ante-mortem funeral! The noble act of self-sacrifice to the Lord which verse 40 records, was celebrated by "the daughters of Israel" going "yearly to celebrate [or praise] the daughter of Jephthah." But how unnatural, how absurd, to suppose that they "went yearly" to praise the daughter of Jephthah for helping to commit the fiendish crime of human sacrifice! There is every philological, historical, and common-sense evidence against any such crime as human sacrifice in the case of Jephthah's daughter.
To remove the supposition of his offering his daughter as a burnt offering, it is only necessary to show that a different translation and interpretation can be fairly made. Our rules in chapter 2, and the law condemning such an abomination, compel us to adopt the position that Jephthah did not offer a human sacrifice. So Bush, Cassel, Delitzsch, Keil, Grotius, Lange, the Kimchis, Le Clerc, Lilienthal, Hengstenberg, Saalschutz, Schudt, Houbigant, Waterland, Levi Ben Gersom, Bechai, Drusius, de Dieu, Bishop Hall, Dr. Hales, Adam Clarke, Richter, and many other eminent Biblical scholars, agree that Judges does not say he sacrificed his daughter; and they agree that he did not do so. See Haley's Alleged Discrep., p. 239, and others.
Only her virginity was mourned. Inasmuch as she was his only child, the only hope of his posterity; inasmuch as, in the estimation of a Jew, to have no posterity and remain a virgin was a great loss, there was much wailing. She was probably devoted to perpetual service in the tabernacle. See Ex. 38 : 8; 1 Sam. 1 : 2; 2 : 22. It "was a custom in Israel" (Judges 11 : 39) to mourn her virginity. It is, then, clear that there is not a shadow of justification for the charge that the Bible sanctions human sacrifice.—Old Testament Ethics Vindicated.

Love in God’s Service

By Watson

The attempt to serve God without love, is like rowing against the tide. The angels are swift-winged in God's service, because they love him. Jacob thought seven years but little for the love he had for Rachel. Love is never weary.—Watson.

Christian Affection

Be kindly affectioned one to another.—Bible.

The Proper Foundation of Sabbath Observance.

By C. P. Bollman

THE question of the proper basis for Sabbath observance is one about which a great deal is said nowadays; and yet it is a subject that should be free from all difficulty. In fact, there is but one reason for Sabbath observance, and that is because God requires it. It may indeed be true that man needs a weekly day of rest to meet his physical wants; but the proof is far from conclusive, and even granting all that is ever claimed in that direction, it must be admitted that one day will meet the physical wants quite as well as another. But no believer in revealed religion will admit that Sabbath-keeping consists alone in physical rest; all will insist that there are certain moral elements which are essential to true Sabbath observance.
God has commanded, saying: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."
Here, then, is, as all must admit, the only proper and sufficient basis or foundation for Sabbath observance; and were this commandment generally obeyed just as it reads, there would be no trouble; all the difficulty arises from the fact that another day is substituted for the one enjoined in the commandment, and of course another reason must be given for its observance. One who keeps the seventh day can, when asked to give a reason for his practice, say that he keeps it because God has so commanded; but he who keeps another day must give another reason. That is, the seventh-day keeper can and does quote the fourth commandment in support of his practice, but the first-day keeper cannot use the commandment; for there is not a single fact stated in it that is true of the first day except that it was one of the six days upon which God worked. And no one will so stultify himself as to say, "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; and because of that fact I rest on the first day." Therefore the conclusion is unavoidable that to change the day of the Sabbath is to change the reason for keeping the day. But to change the day, and to change the reason for keeping the day, is to change the nature of the institution. Yea, more: it is to destroy the original institution and to set up another in its stead; therefore Sunday-keeping is destructive of the original Sabbath institution.
But again: the fourth commandment contains no reason whatever for first-day observance; and not only so, but each fact stated therein is an argument against the practice; therefore the fourth commandment cannot be made to support the Sunday institution, and the conclusion is again inevitable, that to change the day necessarily changes the reason for keeping the day; therefore the first day of the week cannot be observed as the Sabbath in obedience to the fourth commandment.
The Sabbath, we say, rests entirely upon the will of the Creator, because it is based upon facts relative to the acts of the Creator only, and is in no wise contingent upon the will or act of any creature or creatures whatever. But to base the Sabbath solely upon the will of the Creator is to clothe it with the highest morality, for obedience to the will of God is the essence of all morality; indeed, without obedience, there can be no morality. And as God does not require the observance of Sunday, and as it cannot be kept in obedience to any divine law, therefore Sunday keeping is devoid of all morality.
That the observance of Sunday does not rest upon the fourth commandment, or indeed upon any divine law whatever, is freely admitted by many even among the most zealous first-day people; for instance, the Christian at Work of January 8, 1885, said:—
"The selection of Sunday, thus changing the particular day designated in the fourth commandment, was brought about by the gradual concurrence of the early Christian church, and on this basis, and on none other, does the Christian Sabbath, the first day of the week, rightly rest."
But while this is a confession that the Sunday-sabbath does not rest upon the fourth commandment, but solely on the "gradual concurrence of the early Christian church," it is somewhat ambiguous as to the time of this change; but this lack of definiteness is supplied by the following from the same paper under date of February 18, 1886:—
"We hear less than we used to about the apostolic origin of the present Sunday observance, and for the reason that while the Sabbath and Sabbath rest are woven into the warp and woof of Scripture, it is now seen, as it is admitted, that we must go to later than apostolic times for the establishment of Sunday observance."
That is to say (and it is the truth) that not only does the Sunday institution lack the authority of the law of God, but it lacks even the example of the apostolic church; and is not only not based upon the will of God as expressed in the fourth commandment, but it is based solely upon the will and action of the church this side the days of the apostles; therefore, being found to lack the essential element of divine authority, the first day of the week is not and cannot be the Sabbath.

R. F. COTTRELL

By R. F. Cottrell

From the Beginning.

CONVERSING with one who would have the "new commandment" supersede the ten, especially the fourth, I referred him to the statements of the apostle John, namely: 1. "I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning." 2. "Again, a new commandment I write unto you." My friend claimed that the beginning here referred to was the beginning of the gospel, the day of Pentecost, to which Peter referred when he said, "The Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning." Acts 11: 15. The old commandment, then, was the new commandment which Jesus gave to his disciples, that they should love one another. That being the case, said I, John's new commandment must be newer still; something he had introduced since Jesus gave his new commandment, and since the beginning of the gospel proclamation on the day of Pentecost. Consequently that has been superseded. Rather late to introduce new principles. My friend looked abashed, and attempted no reply.
It appears that the "beginning" of the apostle dates a little further back. He says, "For this is the message [margin, commandment] that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother." It seems that Cain was bound by, and violated the principle of, the old commandment, in that, instead of loving his brother, he killed him, thus breaking the commandment of the decalogue that says, "Thou shalt not kill."
From the beginning, the old commandment required that we should "love one another." How, then, is the commandment of Christ to his disciples, that they should love one another, a new commandment? Not because the principle required is new, but because a new motive and measure of our love has been given and exemplified in the love of Christ for us. "As I have loved you, that ye also love one another." Said he, "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 13: 34; 15: 12, 13.
I close by submitting that we cannot keep either the old commandment or the new, and at the same time violate one of the last six commandments of the decalogue. And can we love God with all our heart and break one of the first four? "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments."

R. F. COTTRELL

Shall Death Have Endless Victory?

DEATH, the enemy, is to-day a victor. He may be personified as "the king of terrors," persistently carrying on his fell work, regardless of age, position, or prospects. Shall this dread enemy of humanity be stayed in his course of destruction? Shall his domain be invaded and the captives released?
The voice of inspiration has pronounced his doom. Hear the testimonies of seers and Saviour, as with united voice they promise a coming deliverance. Has the enemy snatched a loved child from our embrace? The "weeping prophet" says: "Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border." Jer. 31:16, 17.
Are we mourning the loss of kindred dear to us? The evangelist of the Old Testament heralds the tidings: "He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall be taken away from off all the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it." Isa. 25:8.
Has death its terrors to us as we near the time of decease? Listen to another voice of the olden time: "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death; O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction; repentance shall be hid from mine eyes." Hosea 13:14.
Confirming and continuing the gospel of victory, our Saviour states: "The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." John 5:28, 29. Defining his own relation to the work, he says, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forever more, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." Rev. 1:18.
Based upon such statements as the ones we have noted we found our faith in the rescue of the sainted dead. We believe that they will be placed beyond the reach of the dread foe. And with Richard Baxter we are ready to say: "Hasten, O my Saviour, the time of thy return; delay not lest the grave should boast of victory; and having learned rebellion of its guest, should plead prescription, and refuse to deliver thee up thy due. Oh, hasten that great resurrection day, when thy command shall go forth and none shall disobey; when the seed that thou sowest corruptible shall come forth incorruptible; and graves that received but rottenness and retained but dust shall return thee glorious stars and suns. Therefore, dare I lay down my carcass in the dust, intrusting it not to a grave but to thee; and therefore my flesh shall rest in hope, till thou raise it to the possession of the everlasting rest."

The Law and the Testimony

"To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Isaiah 8:20.
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