[Sabbath Controversy #3] A Vindication of the Seventh-day Sabbath, and the Commandments of God

THIRD PILLAR FOR NO-SABBATH, NO-COMMANDMENTS

Galatians 2-6 chapters. Here we are told that the whole law and commandments are abolished. I say the man was never yet born that can prove it. You say “we want none of your inferences.” Neither do we want yours, unless you can back them up by Scripture testimony. Paul begins with the Gospel; in his second chapter he brings up the law of circumcision, and goes on to show that it is abolished. Just look at the 7th and 8th verses, where he begins his argument, and then 11-14th. His controversy with Peter respecting this point and eating, meets; then the 16th, 18th and 21st verses show again most clearly that he is contrasting the Gospel of Christ with this law of meats and circumcision. He now passes through the 3rd chapter, (so much relied on for the abolition of all law,) without intimating any other law whatever. In the 4th chapter, 4th verse, he says, God sent forth his son, made or born under the law. What law? Answer - the law of Moses. There is not an intimation of the law of commandments here; neither is there an intimation in God’s law, relating to Jesus, but there is in Moses’. In the 10th verse he begins again, and says “yea, observe days and months and times and years.” These are he same feast days that I have been treating of in the two first Pillars, viz. Romans 14. and Colossians 2, for when he comes to the 21st verse, he says again, “tell me ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law.” What is it? Why, Abraham had two sons, one by his bond maid, Hagar, the other by Sarah, his wife. These two women represent the two covenants. Hagar represents mount Sinai, where God gave the first covenant. Hagar also answers to the present Jerusalem, now in bondage; Sarah represents the second covenant, (which gives entrance into the) New Jerusalem. See 9 SC3 155.2

In the fifth chapter he begins again with circumcision, 2nd and 3rd verses. In the 4th verse he says, “Whosoever of you are justified by the law are fallen from grace.” This is the law of circumcision; see 6th and 11th verses: “If I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution.” Now see the contrast at the close of his argument. Here is the law of God; see 14th verse: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This was his very expression to the Romans, four years previous; see 13:9 here he has cited them to the second table of stone in God’s law, in respect to their neighbor, which is alone, the clear meaning; and we are saved by “keeping the commandments of God and faith of Jesus.” - Revelation 12:12; 22:14 Paul did not stop to explain about these two covenants, but merely alluded to them to show the two entirely different modes of worship under the two dispensations. His letter to the Hebrews six years afterwards, explains, “Now the first covenant had ceremonies of divine service and a worldly sanctuary, 9:1 Now the covenant ITSELF was in the ark; see 4th verse. Now these rites and ceremonies which stood in meats and drinks, etc. were carnal ordinances, a figure for the time them present, until the reformation, or coming of the new covenant. Not a syllable about the fourth commandment in 4th verse being a figure, or ordinance or ceremony, or being done away. Why? Because in the preceding chapter, 6-10th verses, he shows is the new or second covenant, which was to succeed the first, and Jesus was to be the mediator of it. Now the first covenant was the ten commandments, with ceremonies, etc. The second covenant is (my laws) the same ten commandments, (not as before, on tables of stone,) but in our minds and on our hearts; 10th verse. Connected with this is the testimony of Jesus Christ - proof, Revelation 12:17; 19:10, and 14:12 This is the New, or Gospel Covenant, which Jesus Christ came to confirm. Then all that was nailed to the cross was the ceremonial law, the Jewish mode of worshipping God. The first covenant the law of God, is here transcribed from the tables of stone and placed on our hearts; see Romans 2:15 Hebrews 8:10 This entirely changes the mode of worship, and shows us “without faith it is impossible to please God.” If the law of God is not the same in both covenants, with Jew and Gentile, tell me if you can the chapter and verse for the second, or new law of God. It is the very same that Jesus had given in Matthew 22:39; the last six commandments. Here he closes this chapter by contrasting the works of the flesh with the fruits of the spirit, and then in the 6th chapter, 12th, 13th and 15th verse, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision,” etc., showing conclusively that the great burden of his argument from first to last, was to abolish circumcision and vindicate God’s law, instead, as you and your adherents will have it, abolish the commandments in the law. I say then in the 5th chapter, 14th verse, he has positively taught us that the law of God was untouched in his argument. Suppose we take his letter to the Romans, to explain how he sustains this law. “If there be any other commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” 13:9 “Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” In the first place he is here showing us our duty to our neighbor, (not to God), 8-10 verses - for he has quoted only five of the commandments from the second table of stone. Will you say that because he omitted the fifth one, it is abolished; see his letter to the Ephesians, four years after this: “Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment, with promise,” 6:2 Now Paul has here quoted from the tables of stone, and this is proof positive that these six are not abolished. But because he has not quoted the first four, will you say they are abolished? If you say they are, then you make void the Saviour’s words in Matthew 22:37, 38; and also Paul’s in the 7th chapter, 12th verse, where he says “the law is holy and the commandments holy, just and good.” Again, because Jesus, in Matthew 5:19, 21, 27, 33, only quoted the 3rd, 6th and 7th commandments, are the other seven abolished? If so, how strange that he should add three more, respecting love to our neighbor, in chapter 19:18, 19, viz. the 5th, 8th and 9th And in the 15th chapter quote only one. Further, because he never mentioned the fourth commandment separately, you would have us believe there is none -he abolished it. Then, by the same rule he abolished the first, second, and tenth, for he has not mentioned them. In this case Paul has taught heresy, for he has mentioned the tenth commandment twice in Romans. Paul nowhere speaks of the first four commandments, but he quotes the other six. James only quotes two, the sixth and seventh, for his perfect royal law of liberty, by which man is to be judged; but that we might not misunderstand that he meant what he said, that it was a perfect law, including the whole ten, he declares that “if we fail with respect to one precept, we become guilty of all.” Here you, and all of like faith, must see the fallacy of your reasoning, which is, that because the fourth commandment has not been distinctly expressed. then there is no Sabbath. I say, by your rule, it is just as clear that Jesus and Paul never taught us that we should not worship images, and bow down to idols, for they have never quoted us the precept. But they both have taught us the whole law and commandments; see Matthew 22:36-40; Luke 10:25-28; Romans 7:12; 1st 1 Corinthians 7:19 The reason, no doubt, why Jesus never quoted the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th commandments separately was because he never had occasion to use them for an argument with his hearers. Now this certainly explains Paul’s meaning in Galatians 5:14, “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” That is - this is the law respecting our duty to one another, as Jesus has taught us in Matthew 22. This, then, is the law from the decalogue. Paul says this law is fulfilled by keeping it, while that which was added to the law, (or covenant) is abolished; see Hebrews 9 Then here the law of God is established, and not, as you say, abolished. This letter is dated at Rome, A.D. 58 SC3 156.1