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قراءة كتاب The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign 1847 edition
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The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign 1847 edition
blessed in his deed." i: 25. "If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well." Why? Because the Saviour in quoting from the commandments, in answer to the Ruler, what he should do to inherit eternal life, taught the same doctrine. Matt. xix: 19. Further: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, shall be guilty of all." In the next verse he quotes from the ten commandments again, namely, Adultery and Murder (what the Saviour in the fifth chapter of Matt. calls the least, that is the smallest commandment,) and says if we commit them we become transgressors of the law. Of what law? Next verse says the law of liberty by which we are to be "judged." ii: 8, 11.
Now will it not be admitted by every reasonable person that James has included the whole of the ten commandments, by calling them the perfect law of liberty. 2d, "The royal law according to the scripture," and 3d, "the law of liberty by which we are to be judged." (Royal relates to imperial and kingly.) Perfect means COMPLETE, entire, the WHOLE. Then I understand James thus: This law emenated from the king, the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and to be perfect must be just what it was when it came from his hand, and that no change had, or could take place, (and remember now, this is more than twenty-five years since the ceremonies with the Jewish Sabbaths were nailed to the cross,) for the very best of reasons, until the Judgment, because he shows we are to be judged by that law. Then I ask by what parity of reasoning any one can make the law of the ten commandments perfect, while they at the same time assert that the fourth one is abolished? and that on no better evidence than calling it the Jewish Sabbath. Now let us look at the Apostle John's testimony.
"And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a LIAR, and the truth is not in him." Now no man, more especially one who professes to abide by the whole truth, feels entirely easy if he is called a liar. Now John please explain yourself.—Hear him: "Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment that ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning." What do you mean by beginning? Turn to my gospel, 1st ch. "In the beginning was the word,"—"the same was in the beginning with God." 1, 2. See Gen. i ch: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Then you are pointing us to the seventh day of creation, in which God instituted the seventh day Sabbath of rest, for the old commandment in the beginning. ii: 3. Certainly there is no other place to point to. Does not Jesus point to the same place for the beginning when marriage was first instituted. Matt. xix: 4. In my second letter to the church, I have taught the same doctrines: viz. "This is the commandment that as ye have heard from the beginnings ye should walk in it." (practice it.) ii: 5, 6. "A new commandment I write unto you." ii: 8 v. This is the one that Jesus gave us on that memorable night in which he was betrayed, after he had instituted the sacrament and washed our feet. He said "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another." xiii: 34, 35. The first then teaches us, Love to God; 2d, to Love our neighbor as ourself; "on these two commandments (says Jesus) hang all the law and the prophets." Then we understand this is the essence of the ten commandments, and if we do not keep the Sabbath we do not love God. Jesus says, "If ye love me keep my commandments." We are repeatedly told that the Sabbath was changed or forever abolished, at the crucifixion of our Lord; and it is stated by the most competent authorities that John wrote this epistle about sixty years afterwards, and that about six years after this our blessed Lord revealed to him the state of the Church down to the judgment of the great day. In the xiv ch. Rev. 6-11, he saw three angels following each other in succession: first one preaching the everlasting gospel (second advent doctrine); 2d, announcing the fall of Babylon; 3d, calling God's people out of her by showing the awful destruction that awaited all such as did not obey. He sees the separation and cries out, "Here is the patience of the Saints, here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." And this picture was so deeply impressed upon his mind, that when the Savior said to him "Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me," he seemed to understand this, saying—"Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Now it seems to me that the seventh day Sabbath is more clearly included in these commandments, than thou shalt not steal, nor kill, nor commit adultery, for it is the only one that was written at the creation or in the beginning. He allows no stopping place this side of the gates of the city. Then, if we do not keep that day, John has made out his case, that we are all liars. We say in every other case the type must be continued until it is superseded by the antetype: as in the case of the passover, until our Lord was crucified. So then, as Paul tells us, "there remaineth a keeping of the Sabbath to the people of God;" and that we believe will be in the Millenium, the seven thousandth year, so that the seventh day Sabbath and no other will answer for the type, and those who keep the first or the eighth day Sabbath cannot consistently look for the antetype of rest or the great Sabbath, short of one thousand years in future.
Again: Isaiah says: "To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to his word it is because there is no light in them." viii: 20. Now if the Gentiles are under no law, as is asserted, pray tell me what right, the Gentiles, have we to appeal to the law and testimony, or to this text.
In the xxiv. of Matt. our Saviour says to his disciples in answer to their questions, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world? "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place," &c. 15v. "Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day." 20v. The first question is, at what age of the world is this, where our Lord recognizes the Sabbath. 1st. It is agreed on all hands that this time to which he here refers, never transpired until the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70, about 40 years after his crucifixion. 2d. Some others say down to the second Advent! The first mentioned is safe ground and sufficient for our purpose; nor need we stop to inquire why our Lord gave these directions, it is forever settled that he directed the minds of his followers to THE, not a Sabbath. Keep it in remembrance, that he told the Pharisees that he was Lord, not of a, but of THE Sabbath, meaning that one which of course had already been established. The 2d question is, did our Lord ever trifle with or mislead his disciples? The response is No! Then it is clear that if he taught them to pray at all, it must be in faith, and he of course would hear them and mediate with the Father to change the day of their flight. I ask what kind of a prayer and with what kind of faith would his disciples have asked to have this day changed, if, as we are told, it was abolished some forty years before, and they had, contrary to the will of God, persisted in keeping up the seventh day Sabbath. Any one who has confidence in God's word, knows that such a prayer never would be

