can this law fail till heaven and earth passes? This was virtually showing how impossible it would be for one tittle of the law of God to fail. Here Jesus reverts to the seventh commandment, 18th verse, and shows that the law of the decalogue was what he meant. But he does not say that any law was annulled here. If you say that any part of the law of Moses was abolished here, you upset all the foundation that infidelity raises to overthrow the whole law of God. I wonder that all the second advent editors are not out against you, for if this be true they have no more foundation for their no-law and no-commandments of God system to stand upon than many who are hung on the gallows for venturing to practice after such teaching, by violating the eighth and sixth commandment. I am aware that their Judge Advocate, Joseph Marsh of Rochester, N. Y. has filed in his plea, (see Advent Harbinger, Nov. 9th,) that we are under the law of grace, the new testament, and not the law of Moses, which he asserts embraced the ten commandments. Why does not the law of grace save thieves and murderers and liars from the gallows here, and eternal death hereafter. (Rev. xxi: 8.) Answer – because there is no precept by which it can be done out of the law of commandments, which was made for all men, Jew and Gentile. How would murderers and robbers understand their sentence, viz. You are to be hung until you are dead for violating the law of the new testament, and may the Lord have mercy on you for violating his law of grace. Stop, says the American, you are bound to show me the precept. I ask where it is to be found if the commandments are abolished? Oh, sir, but you have violated the spirit of them. Well, but do tell me, sir, how I have violated the spirit of a law that you say was abolished and forever done away more than eighteen hundred years ago. I am ignorant, I never professed religion, I do not understand the meaning of grace in the new testament – I pray you, sir, don't hang an innocent man.
I have already shown what they tell us that their foundation is for the abolition of God's law; it is in Gal. ii.; Cor. iii, and Col. ii: 14-17. The very day that our Lord was nailed to the cross – (every writer that I remember to have read before on this subject begins at the cross, where Paul directs us to look for the abolition of offerings and oblation, Moses' ceremonial mode of worship) – but you have attempted, without proof, to show that this was done three years before, and that without a shadow of proof that the fourth commandment, or any of them, was done away.
In this second article, you cite us for the same proof to Col. ii: 8-17. How unfortunate for your argument; first that Christ annulled the law, and of course the Sabbath, when he began to preach, according to Luke iv: 18-20, and xvi: 16. And then in another place quote Col. ii: 8-17, for the same point of time. How could Christ annul any law twice. First, at his preaching and second at his death, three and a half years apart. Your argument is groundless and futile; therefore the uncalled for blasphemous language of yours, that the Jews were right in killing him (the Son of God) as a notorious Sabbath breaker, will fall on your guilty head. Hear the proof: “They that forsake the law praise the wicked. – He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” See also James ii: 10. Once more, the law that Jesus says shall not pass away, &c. Luke xvi: 17, is proved to be the same as in ch. x: 25-28. Jesus says, how readest thou? what is written in the law? He answers by quoting the two great commandments in the law, in Matt. xxii: 36-40 – the same as given in ch. v: 17-19, the keeping of which then and thenceforward would make them of great esteem in the reign of heaven. Compare also xix: 16-19 with Luke xviii: 18-20. If Jesus' promise of eternal life by our keeping the law of – or, and commandments fails us here, then all his new testament teaching, the “law of grace,” so termed, will fail with it.
In conclusion, you call us foolish adventists, and wish to know who has bewitched us? Answer – not the strictly keeping the holy Sabbath and other commandments, but by listening to, or following such unrighteous and deceptive teachings as you set forth. No marvel that you would like to preach it in all the sectarian synagogues in the land, if they would hear you. Fallen Babylon is a more suitable place for such teaching than you will ever find any where else. John describes their condition, Rev. xviii: 2. But I pass. There is but one more remark of yours that I deem worthy of a reply, and I should not most probably have reviewed your articles, only for the defence of God's law and the suffering little flock, my brethren, who are endeavoring to stand where John, in his vision, saw them at this present hour, viz. In their patient waiting time, “keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”
You say, “If a tree may be known by its fruits, we have a woeful tree here. First, shut door; next, seventh-day Sabbath, or the bondage of the law; next, Oh, it would be a shame to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. God grant them repentance which is unto life.” That we believe in the shut door, and seventh-day Sabbath, is true; that we wash one another's feet, as Jesus taught, and greet one another as Paul has taught, is true of a great portion of those who keep the Sabbath and believe in the past and present truth. If you mean these, that it be a shame to speak of, we answer that we do it openly and avowedly, and teach and practice the same wherever we go, and prove it clearly by the scriptures. If there is any thing secretly practiced by us, it is as much unknown to the church as it is to you. The days of J. Turner and some other leaders of fanaticism in Maine, I trust, have about all subsided, since they have crawled into the Laodocean state of the church. If you know of any thing that we secretly practice in our worship or service of God, that which is a shame to us, we are not unwilling for you to make it as public as you please. We have no faith nor fellowship for any such thing, neither have we any claim on them.
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