Replies to Elder Canright’s Attacks on Seventh-day Adventists

ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN

We notice quite a difference in the tone of Eld. C.’s arguments, according to the views of the paper for which he writes. Thus, while writing for the Methodist paper, the organ of a denomination which has strenuously maintained the unceasing obligation of the ten commandments, he says:— RCASDA 98.1

P.S.: Lest my position should be misunderstood before I have time to explain it, I will say here that I believe as strongly as Sabbatarians do in the perpetuity of the holy immutable law of God, and every moral precept taught in the Old Testament. The Methodist Discipline (Articles of Religion, sect. 6) exactly expresses my position on the law: “Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites, doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth; yet, notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral.”—Advocate, Sept. 24, 1887. RCASDA 98.2

Now he knows, as all know, that the Methodist Discipline by the expression, “the commandments which are called moral,” means the decalogue, the ten commandments, as they were spoken by God from Sinai, and written on the tables of stone. So the Methodists will get the idea that Eld. C. agrees with them in this, and so be much pleased. But when he is writing to an Antinomian paper, as the Christian Oracle, of Des Moines,Iowa,instead of saying what is to be understood that no Christian whatsoever is free from obedience to the decalogue, he says that all Christians are free from it; for it has been nailed to the cross, and taken out of the way. Thus in the Oracle of June 9, 1887, we read the following from his pen:— RCASDA 98.3

The simple facts, I believe, are these: Paul [in Colossians 2:14-17] refers to the entire Jewish system, the law of Moses as a whole, of which the decalogue was only a small part. Every word of the ten commandments, Sabbath included, was written by the hand of Moses, on parchment, right in with the rest of the law of Moses. (See Duet.5, and other places.) As an entire system, as a law taken in all its parts, it was a burdensome system, a yoke of bondage, a school master designed only to lead us to Christ. It was against us and contrary to us, and as such it was nailed to the cross. The decalogue being written on parchment in the book of the law, it would be proper to speak of it as blotted out, nailed to the cross, etc., with the rest of the law. RCASDA 98.4

Eld. C. would not dare address such language to the Methodist Advocate. If he did, it would not be published. This is being all things to all men with a vengeance. U.S. RCASDA 99.1