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Review and Herald, Vol. 43, No. 19.

The Giving of the Law

Review and Herald

Apr 21, 1874

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 21, 1874

The Giving of the Law.

By John Nevins Andrews

BY ELD. J. N. ANDREWS.
TEXT: “Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises.” Rom. 9:4.
The things here enumerated as pertaining to the Israelites are worthy of our particular attention. These are said to be, 1. The adoption; 2. The glory; 3. The covenants; 4. The giving of the law; 5. The service of God; 6. The promises. And if we quote the next verse (which reads, “whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.”), we shall be able to make the following important addition to this list of Hebrew “advantages”: 7. Whose are the fathers; 8. Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came.
Those who speak derisively of the moral law as a Jewish code, because “committed” or “given” into the hands of the Hebrews at a certain time, and for a certain period, would do well to study this list of things which “pertain” to the Hebrew people quite as much as does the giving of the law. Here is, first, the adoption, i. e., the choice of Abraham and his posterity through Isaac, to be the heritage of God, while all other nations were left to the false gods of their own choosing; secondly, the glory, as manifested in God’s wonderful revelation of his glory to the patriarchs, to Moses, to the judges, the prophets, and the people of Israel; thirdly, the covenants, i. e., the old and new covenants, both of which are made with this people (see Jer. 31:31, 32; Heb. 8:8, 9); fourthly, the giving of the law upon Mount Sinai; fifthly, the service of God in the priesthood, and in the worship which he accepted at the hands of this people; sixthly, the exceeding great and precious promises which were made by God unto the fathers; seventhly, the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; eighthly, and lastly, what is indeed a very great honor, of them “as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever.”
We can now appreciate the language of Paul, Rom. 3:1, 2: “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way; chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” After reading his enumeration of the eight distinguished blessings and honors conferred by the God of Heaven upon the Hebrew people, we may say with Paul that the advantage pertaining to the circumcision was “MUCH EVERY WAY.” But the Spirit of God led Paul to distinguish, among these eight “advantages” which the Israelites possessed over the Gentiles, that one which is greatest. And here is the manner in which he does this: “Chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.”
The greatest of all these advantages conferred on ancient Israel was, therefore, “the giving of the law.” This grand event took place at Mount Sinai, about twenty-five hundred years after the creation. When the law thus “entered,” it was by the personal descent of the Lawgiver with the thousands of his angels in flaming fire, and its proclamation was ushered in by the sound of the trump of God. Ex. 19; Deut. 33:2; Ps. 68:17. The Almighty spoke his law in ten precepts. The fourth precept of the law reads thus:—
“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 man-servant, 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.” Ex. 20:8–11.
This precept has one very remarkable feature. It asserts its authority from the time that God blessed and sanctified his rest-day in Eden. Man’s obligation to observe this precept rests upon what God did at the close of his work of creation. Even the statement that God hallowed his rest-day is equivalent to saying that he appointed it to a holy use. And that original appointment is the fourth commandment in the form in which it existed in Eden. We may therefore assert, without fear of reasonable contradiction, that the law of the Sabbath was in full force from Adam to Moses; and those who during this entire period kept God’s commandments and walked with him in holiness, were, of necessity, observers of this hallowed rest-day of the Lord.
What Paul has designated in the book of Romans as the “giving of the law,” or the entrance of the law, or the committing of the oracles of God to the circumcision, was not, therefore, the commencement of the existence of the law of God. Indeed, no dispute exists concerning nine of the commandments. Idolatry and blasphemy and murder have never been acts against which God has had no law. And so of all the nine commandments. But it is a remarkable fact that the fourth commandment, concerning which all the dispute in this case exists, is the only one of the ten which asserts its own existence from the beginning of the world.
At the present day we have a remarkable spectacle presented to us by the religious world. 1. The authority of the fourth commandment is very generally acknowledged. 2. But almost the entire body of professed Christians who thus acknowledge the authority of the law of God, observe, as the Sabbath, a day not enjoined in the commandment. Here is, indeed, a very palpable contradiction between the theory and the practice of the so-called Christian world. Yet a way has been devised by which it is supposed that the two are made to harmonize. Very few people know the date of this discovery, or even the name of the discoverer. Indeed, the most of those who quiet their consciences by this convenient doctrine suppose that it is as old as the law of God, and that it is really a part of the faith once delivered to the saints. Here, then, is the doctrine which is now almost universally accepted: “The fourth commandment enjoins the observance of one day in seven, but not the definite seventh day.”
This important doctrine was first announced to the world in the year 1595, by <PRIVATE_PERSON>. It soon found general acceptance in the religious world; for it enabled men to observe the first day of the week, and yet to keep a commandment which every one had previously supposed required the observance of the Creator’s rest-day. It was welcomed everywhere by the observers of the first-day Sabbath, for it appeared to show that they were obeying the fourth commandment, a thing which previously they had not even imagined to be true. But let us consider this modern explanation of the law of God. The fourth commandment, according to this interpretation, enjoins the observance of “one day in seven, but not the definite seventh day.”
Is this doctrine true or false? It ought to be true, inasmuch as almost every one believes in it, and all persons who keep the first day of the week depend upon this “seventh-part-of-time theory” as the means of satisfying their own consciences for the serious difference between first-day observance and the letter of the fourth commandment.
1. No one claims that the commandment actually says, “One day in seven, and no day in particular.” Indeed, no one ever taught such a doctrine till the year 1595. Up to that time every one supposed it to require the observance of the very day of the Creator’s rest. And, in fact, it is by no means strange that such an idea should have prevailed respecting this precept, inasmuch as the very letter of the commandment does necessarily teach it.
2. There is not one indefinite expression contained in this precept. It does not say, “One seventh part of time;” it does not say, “A seventh day;” it does not say, “A Sabbath after six days of labor.” Such language is constantly used by men respecting the commandment, but never used in it. The indefiniteness is all in the mind of the expositor.
3. But it does say in plain terms, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy;” “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” “in it thou shalt not do any work;” “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, . . . and rested the seventh day;” “the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
4. There is something to be remembered; it is not the sabbatic institution, but the “the Sabbath day.” What does this term signify? It signifies literally the rest-day. Whose rest-day is it? The commandment answers this question: “The seventh day is the Sabbath [or rest-day] of the Lord thy God.” But how did the Lord ever happen to have a rest-day? The commandment answers this question also: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, . . . and rested on the seventh day.” But what of all that? How does that indicate any obligation on our part respecting that rest-day? The commandment answers this question also: “Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” This word, hallowed, is the same in the Hebrew as the word rendered sanctified in Gen. 2:3. It signifies, in that language, just what hallowed and sanctified signify in English, i. e., “to set apart to a holy use.”
5. The fourth commandment does therefore, expressly enjoin the observance of the day of the Creator’s rest.
6. We are to keep that day holy which he himself blessed and hallowed. But that work did not relate to an indefinite portion of time, or to an indefinite seventh day. It related only to the day of his rest.
7. Nor is the rest-day of the Lord something indefinite in its signification. The Creator employed six days in the work of creation. The seventh day he rested from all his work. This, his rest-day, he set apart to a holy use. Now it is impossible to confound the day of the Creator’s rest with any one of the days on which he wrought in the work of creation.
8. Nor is the rest-day of the Lord something that the people who listened to the fourth commandment could not identify. The manna had been falling several weeks. And there stood the Sabbath of the Lord each time unmistakably identified. Six days of manna, and one day in which no manna fell, could not otherwise than establish two great facts with the children of Israel: (1) That the commandment did not mean one day in seven, but the definite seventh day. (2) That it was possible to determine with perfect certainty that definite seventh day on which the Creator rested. For the commandment plainly enjoins the day of the Creator’s rest; and the fall of the manna left no possible chance to dispute what day this was.
9. In fact, the definite character of the fourth commandment is established on yet another ground. That precept does not aim, as its principal object, to secure rest for man from wearisome toil; nor yet to secure merely a stated day of weekly worship. Were either of these objects the chief or primary object of the Law-giver, we might well reason that there was no importance to one day of the seven above another. But the commandment has another object in view. It is the celebration of a memorial. There is something to be remembered. That something is the rest-day of the Lord. The reason for that remembrance is that we may keep in mind the fact that God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Hence it is that a definite day, the day of the Creator’s rest, was hallowed by him, to be observed by all his creatures, in grateful acknowledgment of the fact that they owe their existence to him. We cannot change the day, nor render the commandment indefinite, without destroying its character as a memorial of the creation of the heavens and the earth.
10. Nor is there any lack of distinctness as to the day of the Sabbath in the New Testament. The gospels do each plainly distinguish the Sabbath as the last day of the week, in that they speak of the day following as the first day of the week. Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 2; Luke 23:56; 24:1; John 19:31, 42; 20:1.
11. But the language of Luke is peculiarly worthy of our notice, inasmuch as it makes distinct reference to the commandment. We learn that those who kept the Sabbath day according to the commandment observed the day preceding the first day of the week. Compare Luke 23:56; 24:1. Then it is certain that they kept the seventh day of the week in keeping the day designated in the commandment. And as that commandment enjoins the observance of the seventh day, and as the New Testament, in recording the observance of that day according to the commandment, makes it come on the seventh day of the week, it is evident that the seventh day of the commandment and the seventh day of the New-Testament week are identical.
12. Finally, the measurement of time by weeks is a conclusive argument for the definite seventh day. The week is not a natural or providential measurement of time, like the day, or month, or year. It is measured by divine appointment in commemoration of God’s rest on the seventh day. Weeks exist in consequence of the sabbatic institution. The last day, therefore, of each week is the Sabbath of the Lord. This divine arrangement originated at the close of the creation week, by God’s act of appointing the seventh day to a holy use in memory of his own rest upon that day. And the week thus ordained has come down to us, its close each time being marked by the rest-day of the Creator.
The law of God was given to the Hebrew people. In that law is the precept which enjoins the observance of the sacred day of the Creator’s rest. The law and the Sabbath were not rendered Jewish by being thus intrusted to the hands of that people. Indeed, if we object to the law of Godon this ground, then we must, as Paul shows in Rom. 9:4, 5, disclaim all part in the new covenant; for that, as well as the old one, was made with the Hebrew people; we must exclude ourselves from the promises made to the fathers, for they were Hebrews; and we must even decline to accept of Christ as our Saviour, because, as concerning the flesh, Christ came of the Jews. Surely, the law of God and the Sabbath were in good company when they were associated with these inestimable blessings which were conferred on the Hebrew race.
Certainly, we have nothing to boast of in the fact that we are Gentiles by nature. If we are the people of God, we belong now, ourselves, to Israel. If God has preserved to us the knowledge of his Sabbath and his law by means of the Hebrew people during all the time that all our Gentile ancestors went astray after false gods, let us not boast ourselves against the oracles of God, nor against that people who were for a time their depositaries. We may now share in the blessings of the law of God, his promises, his new covenant, and his Sabbath. Let us not despise these inestimable blessings.

MY SAVIOUR.

My Saviour! what a theme for mortal tongue! For never yet hath burning spirit flung O'er thrilling chord, his rapture-waking hands, To theme so great, 'mid Heaven's seraphic bands. Through the long silence of eternal night, Thou wast, enthroned in uncreated light; Thyself a universe—thyself thine all! And when, of thy mere goodness, thou didst call Angelic worlds around thee, sweetly rolled Their strains o'er harps of pure ethereal gold. They sung thee, God—Creation's fount and end, Their Sovereign, Benefactor, Lord, and Friend. Their Holy, holy, holy, pealed around, Deep echoing through immensity's profound; Yet none among their shining hosts of light, E'er hailed thee Saviour! that supreme delight Reserved for guilty man—for guilty me!— To sing through time and through eternity.

Signs of the Nearing Advent of Christ.

By Horatio Bonar

BY HORATIO BONAR, D. D.
(Concluded.)
8. The Maturity of the Papal Antichrist.—Popery itself is no new thing on earth, so that its mere existence is no peculiar sign of the last day. But its progress and prevalence are entirely new. There is a maturity about it which, in other ages, it could not claim. It is rising in stature and fast hastening to its consummation. In extent of circle she stretches far beyond the territories of other days. In all regions of the earth she is planting her banner and claiming dominion over the nations. Never did she show herself more thoroughly in earnest. She is flinging her chains across the globe. With stealthy foot she has been advancing, step by step, till now she walks abroad at noonday with the sound of the trumpet, lifting up her head in bold defiance. Her hand, like Amalek’s, is “upon the throne of the Lord;” and she acts and speaks as if in nothing she would be restrained of all that she has imagined to do.
Never, since the Reformation, has popery made so deadly and determined a struggle for the recovery of throne and altar. Hundreds of missionary priests are thrusting themselves into every corner, winding themselves into the confidence of the influential, and insinuating themselves with serpent-stealth and subtlety into all seats of power. They mark off their districts, and rear their churches everywhere, carrying on their work of proselytism at any expense, and by every method. They build with costly splendor; they adorn with most attractive grace; they cast the net with consummate art, that beneath its ample stretch they may entangle the thousands of every age, and class, and temper, who love a theatrical religion, that will gratify the carnal sense, and furnish men with a license for the commission of any amount of iniquity. They talk proudly, too, and boast openly of their success, casting off the mask of meekness and modesty which they had in some measure assumed; proclaiming loudly that as no heresy was ever allowed more than a duration of three centuries, the British apostasy has now reached its close. Thus they prophesy of their own speedy triumph, and of our hastening doom.
It is not my part either to confirm or to confute the prophecy. A few years will unfold it all. There may be darker days in reserve for Britain than many will believe. Her day has been long bright, her sky long cloudless. What nation has ever enjoyed a century of such profound tranquillity as we have experienced, unbroken save by a few political commotions, or a few murmurs of fretful discontent. The cup of trembling, which was put into the hands and pressed to the lips of every nation in Europe, in 1793–1815, passed us by. The revolutionary earthquake shocks that have during this century successively laid waste every kingdom around us, convulsing nations and overturning thrones, tearing up a thousand hearths, and agitating ten thousand fearful bosoms with alternate despair and hope, reached us not, nor stirred even one ripple on our sea-bound shore. When God raised up Napoleon Bonaparte as the scourge of the papal empires; when he called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him ruler over kings, giving them as dust to his sword and as driven stubble to his bow, he appointed him his bounds that he could not pass over, and we were preserved, unmolested and secure. When every capital in Europe was in flames, from Moscow to Madrid, we were sitting each man under his own vine and fig-tree, with none to make us afraid. The enemy, with the vanquished might of Europe in his train, prepared to overwhelm us. He threatened, boasted, numbered his armies, talked of a second Armada; but in vain! We were secure. We needed “no bulwarks, no towers along the steep.” We were Protestant, and therefore invincible. Our protest was our palladium. From our far-off lonely island, there went forth upon the earth the solitary voice that testified for Christ against Antichrist, in the midst of a world of idolatry and darkness. God heard the testimony, and he blessed the witness!
But since that time what has taken place? We have laid aside our protest as too bigoted for an enlightened age like ours. We have struck our Protestant colors, and hung out the flag of neutrality; or rather we should say, of religious indifference. With our own hands, we have taken down the old ancestral standard which has braved three centuries of storm; allowing the spoiler to tear in pieces and trample under foot the inheritance of our fathers, the birthright of our sons; proclaiming to the world that our past protest was a stain upon our history, and that it matters nothing to a nation’s well-being whether the Bible or the Koran be the basis of her statute-book, or whether the national ensign be surmounted by the cross, the crescent, or the triple crown. We have little reason to hope that we shall ride out another storm as we have done the last. The anchor of our national Protestant testimony is gone!
9. The Diffusion of Infidelity.—This at least is new. Our fathers knew comparatively little of this, and our fathers’ fathers almost nothing. An infidel was rare indeed in their day—a man wondered at and shunned. Toward the close of the last century, infidelity burst forth in France, and partially extended itself elsewhere. Of late years it has developed itself with prodigious swiftness, and assumed a bold and lofty attitude of assault. Its extent is incredible. The masses are thoroughly leavened with it. It has insinuated itself everywhere, and is eating out the very heart of everything like deep principle among men. It has corroded the cement by which society hangs together, so that nations and communities are now like walls or towers without mortar, ready to fall to pieces of themselves, or be leveled by the first blast. Its ferocity is alarming, its activity unceasing. Much of it is undisguised and confessed; but very much of it is still secret and unavowed. It taints the air; it blights life; it ossifies conscience; under it all good things wither. It is the worm at the root of all that is noble and excellent in these last days. Hence the hollow condition of things among us—the chill that is upon life’s fellowships and offices of love. Social, political, kindred ties are worm-eaten and ready to break asunder. The erect bearing and manly vigor which religion imparts is no longer visible. Superstition has come to the rescue, and is trying to supply its place. But in vain! Expediency rules. Large masses of the people are either openly or secretly infidel, if not atheistical. God is not acknowledged. His yoke seems to gall men’s shoulders. The nations are ready to cast it off. And what hope is there, what token, that this is to end before the Lord return to end it? Is it not a sign of his approach, and a denial of the possibility of a previous millennium of holy blessedness upon the earth?
10. The Increase of Immorality. Like a flood it is swelling and widening in its course. It is without shame and without fear. Crimes that our fathers knew not of, are common among the nations. Licentiousness riots fearfully, perpetrating deeds without a name, so that it is “a shame even to speak of those things that are done of them in secret.” Drunkenness staggers along every street. Blasphemy pours itself forth, till we shudder, and close the ear against its horrid sounds. Murder has broken loose, and every day our newspapers are telling some horrible tale of bloodshed; man slaying his fellow-man, in fiendish hatred, or more fiendish love of gain; none spared; the parent slaying his children, the child his parent, the husband the wife, the wife the husband; no sanctity of relationship is any safeguard from the poison, or the bullet, or the knife, or the more brutal hammer. Oh, what a cry is going up to God from this land of ours, the cry of innocent blood, blood which a righteous God will yet avenge! But the picture of our spreading immorality is one not easily drawn, save by the record of facts, facts which one man scarcely ventures to whisper to another, too awful to be laid bare before the public eye. It calls for a prophet’s eye to see it, a prophet’s pen to record it, and a prophet’s soul to weep over it “in secret places” before the Lord. Men are truly “lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” All this is to come to pass in the last days, and to wax worse and worse till the Lord come. How vivid, then, and how numerous, are the signs of the advent,—signs of whose nature, whose progress, and whose termination, demonstrate irresistibly that there can be no millennium before his coming.
11. The Prevalence of Superficiality and Formalism in Religion.—Form without power, a body without a soul, religion without vitality,—these are among the signs of the last days. The show of piety is widespread, but the thing itself occupies a narrow circle. There is much profession, but profession lies on the surface, and underneath all may be worldliness. Depth and solidity are wanting; the aspect of religion is unhealthy; the fresh hue of primitive times is departed; the intense vitality, which of right belongs to it, is dried up, so that, instead of its being the living source of motion to the world without, controlling, or counteracting, or impelling its currents, it lies inert and passive, at the mercy of every outward movement. It is a worldly, self-pleasing religion, adopted for fashion’s sake, and used according to convenience.
Satan has now transformed himself into an angel of light, and under this fair disguise he is working with marvelous success. He is teaching us to build the tombs of our fathers, that we may rest content with the mere approbation of their principles without any imitation of their practice. He leads some astray into fatal error under the pretext of candor and the love of truth; others he saturates with the orthodoxy of the head, that they may become indifferent to the state of their heart before God. Some he persuades to deny the Bible; to others he lauds it, that he may make it a substitute for the God of the Bible. He allows us a wide range of religious feeling and sentiment, if he can only succeed in making them a substitute for God. He hinders not our being serious, earnest, solemn, if he can thereby feed the cravings of a restless, empty soul with something which may prevent us from seeking the bread of life. He permits us to denounce the world’s vanity and hollow pleasures—to be weary of its unsatisfying round of folly, that he may delude us into the idea that this dissatisfaction with the world is a proof that we are religious, and thereby cause us to sit down contented, when yet a great way off from our Father’s house.
These outward things may be in themselves right and good, but what are they without the indwelling Spirit! What is truth without the True One? What is the perfection of church order without the vital power from above? The body is there, but the living spirit has fled.
And are not these the signs of the last days? Is it not when the virgins are slumbering that the midnight cry is to be heard, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh,” and “when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Where, then, is there room for a millennium before the advent?
12. Religious Deceivers.—The extent to which these are flourishing in our day is much overlooked. We have grown so familiar with strange opinions that we have almost ceased to notice them. Yet in all countries and in all churches these are springing up. Besides the great leaders in our day, Romanists, Jesuits, and Tractarians, there are the Unitarians, the Mormons the Latter-Day Saints, the Swedenborgians, the spiritualists, and suchlike, who are all saying, “Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, there.” Incredible and absurd as these systems are, they are believed in by tens of thousands, who seem to be given over “to strong delusion that they should believe a lie.” And, then, in addition to these, there are sad heresies springing up around us in various forms, and indicating a restless, feverish state of mind, which must, ere long, issue in something more hideous and fatal.
These are a few of the many signs of the times. Some of them belong specially to our own day, not having been witnessed by any former age. Others, though seen by former generations, have shone out far more fully and decidedly in our own. No previous age can point to signs so many and so vivid as we can do; and it is this that renders our position so very solemn and responsible.—Signs of the Times.

The Unpardonable Sin,

By D. T. Bourdeau

OR THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST.
This sin stands at the head of the sins of presumption. It is the crowning sin of rebellion against God with a full knowledge of sin and duty, and has no promise of forgiveness. It can be committed only by those who have enjoyed great light and exalted privileges in the service of God. It is not, therefore, a sin of ignorance; neither is it a sin committed through the weakness of the flesh while the mind is opposed to evil; nor is it even one of those transgressions which are common in ordinary cases of backsliding and hardness of heart.
This is a particular sin. By comparing Matt. 12:22, etc.; Heb. 6:4-6; 10:26-29, which are the principal New Testament scriptures that treat on this subject, we learn that in order for man to commit the unpardonable sin, 1. He must have been once enlightened—must have seen his sins as opposed to righteousness, and understood the plan of salvation. 2. He must have tasted of the heavenly gift; by faith must have taken hold of Christ, the gift of God, the bread of life that came down from Heaven. John 4:10; 6:32; Eph. 2:8. 3. He must have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost in the special sense that the early Christians were when they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. This implies more than a common blessing. It supposes a physical contact with that holy influence, that mighty agency proceeding from God; a baptism of the Holy Spirit, giving a mighty impetus to the new covenant in the way of righteousness. 4. He must have tasted the good word of God, realized its sweetness and preciousness by making experiments in living it out. 5. He must also have tasted of the powers of the world to come; have been so impressed with the power of the coming kingdom by personal experience in overcoming through the efficacy of the Holy Spirit that the powers and glories of the world to come will have become a living reality. When these blessings have been realized, then to willfully turn away from them, repulse them, fall away, and attribute the operations of God's Spirit to the devil, or to a bad influence, calling the good work of God's Spirit an evil work, would be committing the unpardonable sin.
At the time that the Pharisees were accusing Christ of doing his works by the power of Satan, many who were hearing Christ and had been enlightened and felt the power of his Spirit in their own bodies removing disease, etc., were in special danger of coming under the rebellious influence of Christ's enemies and committing the unpardonable sin.
The more powerfully the Lord works by his Spirit on the earth, the greater the danger of God's children committing this sin, if they give way to a rebellious spirit. The sin of Satan and his angels in rebelling against the government of Heaven and lowering God and his blessings in their minds was irremissible, because they had enjoyed the light, power, and glory, of Heaven, and had been made partakers of the Spirit of God in a special sense. When God manifested his mighty power in delivering ancient Israel from Egyptian bondage, not a few of the children of Israel committed the unpardonable sin; and when God, through a series of trials and by the mighty workings of his Spirit, shall fit up a people for the final conflict with the powers of darkness and for the final deliverance, many will close their probation by sinning against the Holy Ghost.
While we cherish a tender conscience, and a fear of offending God and grieving his Holy Spirit, while we hate sin and love righteousness, while we cherish a love for God's people and delight to see his cause prosper on the earth, we may know that we have not committed the unpardonable sin. These dispositions being the fruit of the Spirit are good evidence that the Spirit of God is still striving with us and has not wholly left us. May that Spirit never take its flight from us for the last time.
D. T. BOURDEAU.

A Sensible Question.

An infidel was lecturing on his favorite topic, against the Bible and Christianity, in one of the largest towns in the north of England. He was particularly bitter against the word of God. At the conclusion of the lecture, feeling much delighted with his effort, he said, “Any one who wishes to reply, let him come forward and speak.”
After a brief period, a middle-aged woman came up to the stand, and said, “Sir, I wish to ask you a question.”
“Well, my good woman, what is the question?”
“Ten years ago,” said she, “I was left a widow with eight small children; my husband died poor; he left me not much except a Bible. That book has been read daily, and I have found sweet comfort and great support in its gracious truths. God has blessed me and my children, and has mercifully supplied my wants and theirs. I have a good hope of Jesus Christ, and expect when I die to dwell with him forever. Now, sir, what has your belief done for you?”
Rather confused, the infidel replied: “My good woman, I have no desire to interfere with your enjoyment.”
That is not the question. What has your way of thinking done for you?

A Religion to Use.

The following forcible expression occurs in a letter from a pastor’s wife. “It seems to me people do not use their religion in earnest nowadays, but do as they please in spite of it. It disheartens my husband sorely, and I am sure it does me.”
Is religion something to be used in every-day life? or is it an ornament, or an implement, to be laid away for an emergency? The apostle James certainly presents it as a practical principle, when he pronounces a man’s religion vain which consists in a mere creed without consistent conduct accompanying it, and declares that pure religion consists in the denial of self, as well as in purity of heart and life. And this, we suppose, is what our friend meant by using religion in earnest—working out the principles of faith in our daily conversation and conduct. If we believe the declarations of God’s word, that the fashions of this world pass away, that riches are deceitful, that all earthly pleasures are transitory, we should remove our affections from “those things that may be shaken” to those which “can not be shaken,” and “remain.”
If we believe that Christ calls us not alone for salvation, but for service, we should busy ourselves with the multiplied opportunities of usefulness which he gives us. If we are assured that we are our brother’s keeper, that our influence tells either for or against Christ, we should be reverently careful how we walk, lest by an indiscreet act, a questionable amusement, a single self-indulgence, we should betray our trust, and lead our unsuspecting brother into sin. And if we believe that time is short, life uncertain, and our eternal destiny self-made and irrevocable, we should walk each day as if it were our last, and so occupy ourselves that we may step unhesitatingly from time into eternity.
Have we any reason to think we have any true faith or religious principle if we only seek to please ourselves? Jesus says, “Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple;”; and, “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees [mere formalism], ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of God.” No wonder the devoted pastor is disheartened, who, while striving to lead his people up to the heights of holy living, feels them continually dragging back, groping in the low, murky atmosphere of worldliness and self, “doing as they please in spite of” teaching, conviction, and profession. And can we think it strange that such professed disciples of Christ know so little of joy in the Lord and have so little power for good in their daily lives?
“If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him;” and if love be wanting, faith, which works by love, must be equally so, and all the blessed fruits of faith must be lacking too. Barren and unfruitful indeed is the life of the Christian who never uses his religion, and who does as he pleases in spite of it. May the Holy Spirit convert such, and give to the hearts of godly pastors and their companions the pure, sweet joy of leading their people, no longer self-pleasing, into the green pastures and beside the still waters of holiness.—Advocate and Guardian.

Did Abraham Keep the Sabbath?

By S. B. Whitney

ALTHOUGH the argument for the Sabbath does not turn upon this question, yet as he was a man approved of God for his obedience, satisfactory evidence that he did keep the Sabbath would go far, in some minds, toward establishing its ancient obligation, and removing the objection that it was only a Jewish institution. And such evidence we think can be produced.
1. The ten commandments are God’s commanded covenant. Deut. 4:13. “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.”
2. This covenant Abraham had. In 1 Chron. 16 is contained a psalm that David composed to be sung before the ark of ten commandments, after he had brought it from the house of Obededom, and set it in the tent that he had pitched for its reception. In verses 15–17 is the following: “Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations; even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac; and hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant.” This testimony identifies the law of ten commandments, and shows that it did not originate at Mt. Sinai, but was there only confirmed to the Hebrew people, the same having been known to Abraham and Isaac. This covenant is said to have been made with Abraham in the sense of its being the condition of the promise made to him.
3. Abraham kept this covenant. Gen. 26:5. “Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” All the expressions used above, such as voice, charge, &c., are applied to the ten commandments, making this testimony very explicit as to Abraham’s practice; but that, in keeping God’s “commandments” and “laws,” he kept the Sabbath, more direct evidence is found in Ex. 16. In verse 4, God says, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.” The record shows that the trial related to the Sabbath, and when some of the people went out to gather manna on the Sabbath, God says, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” This testimony shows that the Sabbath existed before the law was spoken upon Mt. Sinai; and it follows that, if they broke God’s “commandments” and “laws” by violating the Sabbath, therefore in keeping his “commandments” and “laws,” Abraham must have kept the Sabbath.
S. B. WHITNEY.
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