Chapter VIII: Part II: The Fourth Kingdom and the "Little Horn" (2)

Conybeare and Howson (of the Church of England), in that standard work, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," tell the plain fact of the inspired record, save that manifestly they should not have applied the title "Jewish" to God's Sabbath; for it was not the Sabbath of the Jews, but "the Sabbath of the Lord thy God:"

"It was the evening which succeeded the Jewish Sabbath. On the
Sunday morning the vessel was about to sail."--_Chapter 20, p.
520._

Describing the road between Troas and Assos, they add:

"Strength and peace were surely sought and obtained by the
apostle from the Redeemer as he pursued his lonely road that
Sunday afternoon in spring among the oak woods and the streams
of Ida."--_Id., p. 522._

Once again the "first day of the week" is mentioned, in 1 Cor. 16:2. But that scripture says no word of any sacredness of the day or of any religious observance of it. The apostle was gathering a fund for the poor at Jerusalem, and asked every believer to "lay by" something every first day of the week, so that the money would be ready when he came. As Dean Stanley (Church of England) comments:

"There is nothing to prove public assemblies, inasmuch as the
phrase [Greek: par heautô] ('by himself, at his own house')
implies that the collection was to be made individually and in
private."

And Neander's Church History says:

"All mentioned here is easily explained, if one simply thinks
of the ordinary beginning of the week in secular life."--_Vol.
I, p. 339 (German ed.)._

To meet the emergency of need in Judea, these believers were asked to look over their business affairs at the beginning of each week, until Paul should come, laying aside a gift as God had prospered them.

No Sunday Sacredness in the New Testament

This is the record--not one suggestion in all the New Testament of Sunday sacredness, to say nothing of precept or commandment of the Lord. The late R.W. Dale, D.D., a leading Congregationalist of England, wrote:

"It is quite clear that, however rigidly or devotedly we may
spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath.... The Sabbath
was founded on a specific, divine command. We can plead no such
command for the observance of Sunday.... There is not a single
line in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty
by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday."--_"The Ten
Commandments," pp. 106, 107._

That religious classic, Smith and Cheetham's "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," says that the "notion of a formal substitution" of the first day for the seventh,

"and the transference to it, perhaps in a spiritualized form,
of the Sabbatical obligation established by the promulgation of
the fourth commandment, has no basis whatever, either in Holy
Scripture or in Christian antiquity."--_Article "Sabbath."_

Dr. E.F. Hiscox, author of "The Baptist Manual," says:

"There was and is a commandment to 'keep holy the Sabbath day,'
but that Sabbath was not Sunday. It will, however, be readily
said, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was
transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week....
Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the
New Testament--absolutely not."--_The New York Examiner, Nov.
16, 1893._

Such declarations by well-known scholars might be multiplied, but it is not necessary. The record is open--any one may see it. There is not a word in the Holy Scripture of any first-day sacredness. The Sunday institution is not a plant of our heavenly Father's planting.

How the Change Came About

There has been no change of the Sabbath by divine authority. Men may choose to rest on any other day, but that cannot make such a day God's rest day, His holy Sabbath. One cannot change one's birthday by celebrating another day as such. It is a fact of history that on a certain day of the month one was born. That fact cannot be changed by choosing to celebrate another day as the birthday. Just so it is a fact of divine history that God rested on a given day of the week, and on no other. That made the seventh day His rest day.

It is different from other days in character also, for He blessed it and made it holy. To deny the difference between common days and the holy day is to say that when the great Creator blesses and makes holy, it is a vain performance. That cannot be. It would take away all hope of holiness or salvation for men. The blessing is upon the day, as every soul finds who keeps it by faith.

When men choose to set apart another day than that blessed and sanctified of God, it is plainly a setting up of the humanly appointed time against the divinely appointed time. It is exalting man's sabbath against God's Sabbath. It is man exalting himself "above all that is called God." 2 Thess. 2:4.

This was what made the Roman Papacy. The apostle Paul wrote that in his day the spirit of lawlessness was already working. He said it would lead to a "falling away" from the truth of God, and the full exaltation of the man of sin. 2 Thessalonians 2. The falling away came. As Dr. Killen (Presbyterian), of Ireland, says in the preface to his "Ancient Church:"

Blessed and sanctified in Eden. Gen. 2:3. Christ the Lord of the Sabbath. Mark 2:28.

Written by God in His law. Ex. 20:8-11. To be observed in the new earth. Isa. 66:23.]

"In the interval between the days of the apostles and the
conversion of Constantine, the Christian commonwealth changed
its aspect.... Rites and ceremonies, of which neither Paul nor
Peter ever heard, crept into use, and then claimed the rank of
divine institutions."

In his "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine," Cardinal Newman (Roman Catholic) tells how rites and ceremonies were borrowed from paganism:

"Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the
infection of evil, and to transmute the very instruments and
appendages of demon worship to an evangelical use,... the
rulers of the church from early times were prepared, should the
occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing
rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of
the educated class."--_Pages 371, 372._

Thus along with other adaptations came "the venerable day of the sun" (Sunday). It was by gradual process that it supplanted the Sabbath. Sir William Domville wrote:

"Centuries of the Christian era passed away before Sunday was
observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not
furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any
time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of
Constantine in A.D. 321."--_"Examination of Six
Texts," p. 291._

This law of Constantine's was as follows:

"On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrates and people
residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In
the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely
and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens
that another day is not so suitable for grain sowing or for
vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such
operations, the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th
day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of
them for the second time.)"--_Schaff, "History of the Christian
Church," Vol. III, chap. 5, sec. 75._

Commenting on this law, Prof. Hutton Webster, of the University of Nebraska, says:

"This legislation by Constantine probably bore no relation to
Christianity; it appears, on the contrary, that the emperor, in
his capacity of Pontifex Maximus, was only adding the day of
the sun, the worship of which was then firmly established in
the Roman Empire, to the other ferial days of the sacred
calendar."

"What began, however, as a pagan ordinance, ended as a
Christian regulation; and a long series of imperial decrees,
during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, enjoined with
increasing stringency abstinence from labor on Sunday."--_"Rest
Days," pp. 122, 270._

Dean Stanley (Church of England) writes:

"The retention of the old pagan name _Dies Solis_, or Sunday,
for the weekly Christian festival, is, in a great measure,
owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which
the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his
subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the 'venerable day of
the sun.'"--_"History of the Eastern Church," lecture 6, par.
15._

Thus the Sunday institution comes in, marked by its pagan origin, and adapted to ecclesiastical purposes by the church of the "falling away" that grew into the Roman Papacy. To quote again from the Baptist author, Dr. Hiscox:

"Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in
early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from
the Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that
it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with
the name of the sun god, when adopted and sanctioned by the
papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to
Protestantism."--_New York Examiner, Nov. 16, 1893._

No wonder that with the coming of the latter days, and the proclamation of the message of preparation for Christ's second coming, there should come a call to Christians to follow Christ and Holy Scripture in keeping God's holy Sabbath.

Again the voice of Jesus is heard in protest against traditions that make void the commandment of God.

"Every plant," He says, "which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." Matt. 15:13.

Made for Man

The God that made the earth,
And all the worlds on high,
Who gave all creatures birth,
In earth, and sea, and sky,
After six days in work employed,
Upon the seventh a rest enjoyed.

The Sabbath day was blessed,
Hallowed, and sanctified;
It was Jehovah's rest,
And so it must abide;
'Twas set apart before the fall,
'Twas made for man, 'twas made for all.

And when from Sinai's mount,
Amidst the fire and smoke,
Jehovah did recount,
And all His precepts spoke,
He claimed the rest day as His own,
And wrote it with His law on stone.

The Son of God appeared
With tidings of great joy;
God's precepts He revered,
He came not to destroy;
None of the law was set aside,
But every tittle ratified.

Our Saviour did not die
To render null and void
The law of the Most High,
Which cannot be destroyed;
But, bruised for us, our stripes He bore,--
We'll go in peace and sin no more.

--_R.F. Cottrell._

"The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." Matt. 12:8.]

"They returned,... and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment." Luke 23:56.]

GLIMPSES OF SABBATH KEEPING AFTER NEW TESTAMENT TIMES

Not at once did the innovation of Sunday observance set aside the Sabbath of the Lord in the practice of even the general church. And through history, when the general church had fallen away, we catch glimpses here and there of faithful witnesses to God's holy Sabbath truth.

First Centuries

An old English writer, Professor Brerewood, of Gresham College, London, put in shortest phrase what many writers say:

"They know little who do not know that the ancient Sabbath did
remain and was observed by the Eastern churches three hundred
years after our Saviour's passion."--_"Treatise on the
Sabbath," p. 77._

Fourth Century

Canon 29, of the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 364), shows that the ecclesiastical system was laboring to put an end to Sabbath keeping:

"Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday [the
Sabbath], but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day [as
they called Sunday] they shall especially honor, and, as being
Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If,
however, they be found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from
Christ."--_Hefele, "History of the Councils of the Church,"
Vol. II, book 6, sec. 93, canon 29._

Fifth Century

Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History shows Rome evidently leading in the effort to abolish any recognition whatever of the Sabbath:

"The people of Constantinople, and of several other cities,
assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the next day;
which custom is never observed at Rome, or at
Alexandria."--_Book 7, chap. 19._

Seventh Century

There were true Sabbath keepers in Rome itself, teaching the truth of God among the people, and bringing upon themselves the denunciation of Pope Gregory the Great, who wrote "to his most beloved sons the Roman citizens:"

"It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit
have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to
the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the
Sabbath day. What else can I call these but preachers of
Antichrist?"--_"History of the Councils" (Labbe and Cossart),
Vol. V, col. 1511; see also "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,"
Vol. XIII, book 13, epistle 1._

Eleventh Century

The Pope's legates at Constantinople (A.D. 1054) were called to discuss with Nicetas, "one of the most learned men at that time in the East," says Bower, whose position was "that the Sabbath ought to be kept holy, and that priests should be allowed to marry."--_"History of the Popes," Vol. II, p. 358._

The people of north Scotland, the ancient Culdee church founded by Columba and his followers, far removed from direct papal influence, was still keeping the seventh-day Sabbath in the eleventh century. Of this church Andrew Lang says in his "History of Scotland:"

"They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a Sabbatical
manner."--_Volume I, p. 96._

Skene, in his classic work, "Celtic Scotland," says of these Sabbath keepers:

"They seemed to have followed a custom of which we find traces
in the early monastic church of Ireland, by which they held
Saturday to be the Sabbath, on which they rested from all their
labors."--_Book 2, chap. 8._

Margaret, of England, married Malcolm the Great, the Scottish king, in 1069. An ardent Catholic, Queen Margaret at once set about Romanizing the Celtic church. She called in the church leaders, and held long discussions with them. At last, with the help and authority of her royal husband, and quoting the instructions of "the blessed Pope Gregory," she succeeded in turning the ancient Culdee church in Scotland away from the Sabbath. (See "Life of St. Margaret," by Turgot, her confessor.)

Twelfth to Fourteenth Century

Among the numerous sects of southern Europe and the Alpine valleys, that were pursued and persecuted by Rome, were at least some who saw and obeyed the Sabbath truth. Thus, of one of these bodies, the historian Goldastus says:

"They were called Insabbatati, not because they were
circumcised, but because they kept the Sabbath according to the
Jewish law."--_"Deutsche Biographie," Vol. IX, art. "Goldast.,"
p. 327._

Fifteenth Century

Sabbath keepers in Norway drew the condemnation of a church council held in 1435:

"The archbishop and the clergy assembled in this provincial
council at Bergen do decide that the keeping of Saturday must
never be permitted to exist, except as granted in the church
law."--_Keyser's "Norske Kirkes Historie," Vol. II, p. 488._

Sixteenth Century

With the setting free of the Word of God by the Reformation, and the protest against the doctrine of papal tradition, multitudes saw that the Sunday institution was not of divine origin; while not a few went farther, recognizing the claims of God's Sabbath. Moravia was a refuge, in those early Reformation days, for many believers in the Reformed doctrines, and among these were Sabbath-keeping Christians:

"Destitute, afflicted, tormented;... they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." Heb. 11:37, 38.]

"Even most prominent men, as the princes of Lichtenstein, held
to the observance of the true Sabbath. When persecution finally
scattered them, the seeds of truth must have been sown by them
in the different portions of the Continent which they
visited.... We have found them [Sabbath keepers] in Bohemia.
They were also known in Silesia and Poland. Likewise they were
in Holland and northern Germany.... There were at this time
Sabbath keepers in France,... 'among whom were M. de la Roque,
who wrote in defense of the Sabbath against Bossuet, Catholic
bishop of Meaux.' That Sabbatarians again appeared in England
by the time of the Reformation, during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth (A.D. 1533-1603), Dr. Chambers testifies in
his Cyclopedia [art. 'Sabbath']."--_Andrews and Conradi,
"History of the Sabbath," pp. 649, 650._

In this century also, Sabbath keepers appeared in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. In 1554 King Gustavus Vasa, of Sweden, addressed a letter of remonstrance "to the common people in Finland," because so many were turning to keep the seventh day.

Seventeenth Century

There was much discussion in England over the authority for Sunday observance. When other church festivals were ignored, as Easter, King Charles I wanted to know why Sunday should be kept. He wrote:

"It will not be found in Scripture where Saturday is discharged
to be kept, or turned into the Sunday; wherefore it must be the
church's authority that changed the one and instituted the
other; therefore my opinion is that those who will not keep
this feast [Easter] may as well return to the observation of
Saturday, and refuse the weekly Sunday."--_Cox, "Sabbath Laws,"
p. 333._

It was during this time that the idea first obtained of enforcing Sunday obligation by the fourth commandment and calling it the Sabbath. It was argued that any "one day in seven" was what the commandment meant. Of this argument, John Milton, the statesman-poet, wrote:

"It is impossible to extort such a sense from the words of the
commandment; seeing that the reason for which the command
itself was originally given, namely, as a memorial of God's
having rested from the creation of the world, cannot be
transferred from the seventh day to the first; nor can any new
motive be substituted in its place, whether the resurrection of
our Lord or any other, without the sanction of a divine
commandment."--_"Prose Works" (Bohn), pp. 70, 71._

Again Milton wrote, in a manuscript which his publishers at the time feared to print:

"If we under the gospel are to regulate the time of our public
worship by the prescriptions of the decalogue, it will surely
be far safer to observe the seventh day, according to the
express commandment of God, than on the authority of mere human
conjecture to adopt the first."--_Cox, "Sabbath Literature,"
Vol. II, p. 54._

While kings and poets and ecclesiastics discussed, here and there believers began to follow the plain Word of God and Christ's example in Sabbath keeping.

"Loved Not Their Lives unto the Death"

In 1618 John Traske and his wife, of London, were condemned for keeping the Sabbath of the Lord, the man being whipped from Westminster to the old Fleet Prison, near Ludgate Circus. Both were imprisoned. Mr. Traske recanted under the pressure, after a year, but Mrs. Traske, a gifted school-teacher, was given grace to hold out for sixteen years,--for a time in Maiden Lane prison, and then in the Gate House, by Westminster,--dying in prison for the word of the Lord. An estimable woman she was, says one old chronicler, save for this "whimsy" of hers, that she would keep the seventh day. All that she asked of men, on her prison deathbed, was that she might be buried "in the fields."

By 1661 Sabbath keepers in London had further increased. In that year John James was minister to a considerable congregation, meeting in East London, off the Whitechapel Road. As part of the stern proceedings against dissenting sects after the restoration of the monarchy, he was arrested and condemned to death on "Tyburn Tree." His wife knelt at the feet of King Charles II as he came out of St. James's Palace one day, and pleaded for her husband's life; but the king scornfully rejected her plea, and said that the man should hang. Bogue says:

"For once the king remembered his promise, and Mr. James was
sent to join the noble army of martyrs."--_"History of
Dissenters," Vol. I, p. 155._

Nothing daunted, the number of Sabbath keepers increased. In a letter by Edward Stennet (between 1668 and 1670), it is stated.

"Here in England are about nine or ten churches that keep the
Sabbath, besides many scattered disciples, who have been
eminently preserved in this tottering day, when many once
eminent churches have been shattered in pieces."--_Cox,
"Sabbath Literature," Vol. I, p. 268._

Francis Bampfield was formerly an influential minister of the Church of England, and prebendary of Exeter Cathedral, but later pastor of a Sabbath-keeping congregation meeting in the Pinners Hall, off Broad Street, near the Bank of England. Calamy said of him:

"He was one of the most celebrated preachers in the west of
England, and extremely admired by his hearers, till he fell
into the Sabbatarian notion, of which he was a zealous
asserter."--_"Non-Conformist Memorial," Vol. II, p. 152._

He was arrested while in the pulpit preaching, and in 1683 died of hardships in Newgate prison, for the Sabbath of the Lord. An old writer says that his body was followed to burial by "a very great company of factious and schismatical people;" in other words, dissenters from the state church.

Thomas Bampfield, his brother, Speaker of the House of Parliament at one time, under Cromwell, published a book in defense of the Sabbath of the Lord. In fact, many published the truth in this manner, and doctors of divinity and even bishops wrote replies.

"Sabbatarian Baptists," these English witnesses to God's Sabbath were first called in those times, and then "Seventh Day Baptists." In 1664 Stephen Mumford, from one of these London congregations, was sent over to New England. He settled in Rhode Island, where the Baptist pioneer of religious liberty, Roger Williams, had founded his colony. In 1671 the first Sabbatarian church in America was formed in Rhode Island. Evidently this movement created a stir; for the report went over to England that the Rhode Island colony did not keep the "Sabbath"--meaning Sunday. Roger Williams wrote to his friends in England denying the report, but calling attention to the fact that there was no Scripture for "abolishing the seventh day," and adding:

"You know yourselves do not keep the Sabbath, that is the
seventh day."--_"Letters of Roger Williams," Vol. VI, p. 346
(Narragansett Club Publications)._

Through the following century numbers of Seventh Day Baptist churches were founded in America.[F]

Sabbath keepers were springing up also on the continent of Europe, in Bohemia, Moravia, Transylvania, and Russia, where here and there Bible believers saw that tradition had made void one of the commandments of God. Then, as the events at the end of the long period of papal supremacy had moved Bible students to the earnest study of the prophecies, and as the predicted signs of the near approach of Christ's coming began to appear, there arose the great advent awakening in the earlier decades of the nineteenth century.

The prophecies regarding the work of the Papacy in seeking to change the law of God began to be understood, and it was seen that the last message of the everlasting gospel was a call to turn from human traditions to the New Testament standard--"the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Rev. 14:12. Then began the great movement for Sabbath reform and the proclamation of Christ's second coming, which has given rise to the Seventh-day Adventist people, with a work spreading through all lands, leading thousands every year to keep the Lord's blessed Sabbath day.

Soon Christ is to be revealed in righteousness and judgment. One burden of God's message for the last days is:

"Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for My salvation is near to come, and My righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil." Isa. 56:1, 2.

Through all the dark centuries, the Lord had somewhere a little remnant keeping the light of the Sabbath truth glowing. They, too, overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, loving not their lives unto the death. Now, with the clear light shining from the open Book, it is for Christians everywhere to turn from tradition to the way of God's commandments and the example of Jesus Christ.

"Closing Sabbath! Ah, how soon
Have thy sacred moments passed!"]

FOOTNOTES:

[F] In connection with this topic of Sabbath observance in colonial America, it is of interest to note that Count Zinzendorf, the leader of the Moravian missionary movement, was a believer in the sanctity of the Sabbath of God's appointment. In his life, by Bishop Spangenberg, it is stated that the Sabbath question was discussed by Zinzendorf with the Moravians, on his visit to Pennsylvania in 1741. The record states:--

"As a special circumstance it is to be remarked that he determined, with the church in Bethlehem, to celebrate the seventh day as a rest day. The matter was previously fully gone over in the church council, with consideration of all the reasons for and against it, when the unanimous agreement was reached to observe the day Sabbatically.... The Count had already long held the seventh day of the week in special honor."--_Zinzendorfs "Leben," band 5, pp. 1421, 1422._

The Bethlehem congregation evidently did not follow the practice long. "But as for himself," says Spangenberg, "with his house, he adhered firmly to this aforementioned practice until his end."--_Id., p. 1437._

THE LAW OF GOD

I

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

II

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything: that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

III

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

IV

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 manservant, 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.

V

Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

VI

Thou shalt not kill.

VII

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

VIII

Thou shalt not steal.

IX

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

X

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

"Whosoever shall do and teach them ... shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:19.]

THE LAW OF GOD

It is a common saying, "The majesty of the law." It means that the character and genius of a government are embodied and expressed in its laws. The words of Inspiration declare to us the majesty of the law of the Most High.

The Character of God's Law

The infinite perfection of the divine character is reflected in it.

"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." Ps. 19:7.

As God is holiness and justice and goodness, so also is His law.

"Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good." Rom. 7:12.

Its Office

The law of God gives knowledge of the righteousness of its great Author.

"Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law." Isa. 51:7.

It marks every departure from righteousness as sin.

"Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4.

It is not a code merely for the regulation of outward conduct. It is the moral law--the primal standard of righteousness established by the Creator for His creatures. There is not an impulse of the inmost soul that is not reached by it. It is the word which, living and powerful, is "sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Heb. 4:12.

Face to face with this holy law, we hear in it the voice of God saying, "Be ye holy; for I am holy." Every soul must confess its guilt before the searching power of God's law. All things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. "Guilty!" we confess. Left alone with our guilt, there could be no ray of hope.

"The threatenings of the broken law
Impress the soul with dread;
If God His sword of vengeance draw,
It strikes the spirit dead."

Thank God, we are not left alone; help is laid upon One mighty to save.

"But Thine illustrious sacrifice
Hath answered these demands,
And peace and pardon from the skies
Are offered by Thy hands."

God's Law from the Beginning

The law of God existed from the beginning. When Adam sinned, he transgressed this holy law; for "sin is the transgression of the law." God's law was not committed to writing until the days of Moses, when the Lord began to make His written revelations to the children of men. But from Adam to Moses the precepts of the law of God were teaching righteousness and convicting of sin.

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (for until the law [the giving of it at Sinai] sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses.)" Rom. 5:12-14.

The declaration of this scripture is: Without the law there can be no sin. But sin and death were from Adam to Moses, in whose day the law was spoken on Sinai; therefore the law of God was in force from the beginning. Its precepts were witnessed to by every preacher of righteousness raised up by God in the days before the deluge and in the patriarchal age following. Of Abraham the Lord says,

"Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws." Gen. 26:5.

The Lord called His people out of Egypt, that they might keep his law. His message to Pharaoh was, "Let my people go, that they may serve Me." Ex. 9:1. He delivered them from bondage by His mighty arm, and cleft the Red Sea to lead them forth to obedience, as the psalmist said,

"He brought forth His people with joy, and His chosen with gladness:... that they might observe His statutes, and keep His laws." Ps. 105:43-45.

In Egyptian bondage the children of Abraham must have lost much of the purity of God's truth; yet the Lord held them under obligation to know His law--the Sabbath precept particularly--before they came to Sinai, or ever He had proclaimed the law in their hearing. He tested them in the matter by the giving of the manna, as He said,

"That I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or no." Ex. 16:4.

From the beginning, God's holy law demanded the loyal obedience of every human being.

Proclaimed Anew at Sinai

The Lord had delivered the people of Israel from Egyptian bondage that they might serve Him and make His ways known to the nations. This was according to the promise made to Abraham. To them was committed the written revelation of God, and through them was to come in the fulness of time the promised Messiah.

"He wrote them upon two tables of stone." Deut. 4:13.]

While the Lord at this time "made known His ways unto Moses," and there was begun the written revelation which grew into "the volume of the book," the Holy Scriptures, one portion of revelation was not left for the prophet of God to speak or for the inspired pen to write. The Lord proclaimed His holy law with His own voice, and gave to men a copy "written with the finger of God." Moses said of this:

"The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. 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." Deut. 4:12, 13.

This display of majesty and glory indescribable was designed to teach how sacred and holy is the law, and to cause men to fear to transgress its precepts. Ex. 20:20.

It was not for themselves alone that the law was committed to Israel. They were to teach the truth to others. As the New Testament says, it was greatly to their advantage that "unto them were committed the oracles of God." Rom. 3:2. But they "received the lively oracles to give unto us." Through obedience to the divine law, they were to be a light to the nations.

"Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them?" Deut. 4:6, 7.

An interesting comment upon these words is supplied by a speech of Phalerius, librarian to Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt. Urging the king by all means to secure copies of the sacred books of the Jews for his great library in Alexandria, Phalerius said:

"Now it is necessary that thou shouldst have accurate copies of
them. And indeed this legislation is full of hidden wisdom, and
entirely blameless, as being the legislation of God; for which
cause it is, as Hecateus of Abdera says, that the poets and
historians make no mention of it, nor of those men who lead
their lives according to it, since it is a holy law, and ought
not to be published by profane mouths."--_Josephus,
"Antiquities," book 12, chap. 2, sec. 4._

Unfaithful as the Jewish people oftentimes were, yet through their testimony and the dealings of God with them, the fame of the living oracles was spread abroad among the ancient nations.

One God--One Moral Standard

"There is one Lawgiver." James 4:12. He is ever the same, and His law is the standard of righteousness for all mankind. There was not one moral standard before Christ and another after. Christ's death upon the cross because man had broken the law, is the divine testimony to all the universe that God's law can never be set aside nor its force suspended. Jesus opened His public teaching with the declaration:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:17-19.

The moral law of ten commandments is one code, every precept equally sacred and equally binding:

"Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." James 2:10-12.

The law of God still speaks with all the force of that voice from Sinai, and it speaks to every soul on earth:

"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." Rom. 3:19.

Thus the law of God convicts all men of sin, and would drive every one to Christ for pardon and for the divine gift of the grace and power of obedience.

The ceremonial law--the precepts and ordinances commanded for the sacrificial system--ceased with the sacrifice of Calvary, as all these ceremonial observances pointed forward to the cross. There can be no confounding of the moral law and the ceremonial law. The ceremonial law of types and shadows showed in itself that a primary or higher law--the moral law--had been violated, making necessary a divine sacrifice if transgressors were to be saved from death and restored to obedience.

The Standard in the Judgment

The law of God's moral government, which is the rule of life for every creature, must necessarily be the standard in the great judgment day. The Scripture states the sum of all human obligation and responsibility in the words:

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Eccl. 12:13, 14.

Every son and daughter of Adam's lost race is judgment bound, to answer before the bar of God the demands of the perfect law. Divine justice cannot abate one jot or tittle of the requirements of the holy law, nor by any means clear the guilty. But divine mercy has provided the way by which God can "be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."

"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son." John 3:16.]

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 18:3.]

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH

"How should man be just [righteous] with God?" asked the patriarch Job. It has been the vital question ever since Adam sinned, and lost his righteousness and forfeited his life. The answer of Scripture is:--

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Rom 5:1 "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." Eph. 2:8, 9.

In the beginning, life and righteousness were the gift of God to man. Only the Creator could bestow the gift at the first; when lost, only creative power can restore it.

Man Cannot Justify Himself

The law of God declares all men sinners. Not only did Adam's posterity inherit of necessity a sinful nature, but every soul of man has wrought sin as the fruit of that nature.

"As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Rom. 5:12.

"There is no difference," Jew or Gentile, bond or free, they are in the same lost condition; "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Rom. 10:12; 3:23.

The sinner finds himself a transgressor, condemned to death by a holy law. He turns to it with the thought, "I will do what it says, and become righteous and win life." But he cannot undo the fact that he has sinned. A holy law can only cry, "Guilty! guilty!" to one who has transgressed it. The law declares righteousness; it cannot give it. As the Scripture says:

"We know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Rom. 3:19, 20.

The guilt exists. No deeds that man can do can undo it or cover it from a righteous law. Not only that, but as soon as the law declares what righteousness is, the sinner finds that its demands are altogether beyond the power of his flesh to meet. It calls for a kind of work that fallen human nature cannot so much as approach. Paul cried out, when struggling under conviction, "We know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin." Rom. 7:14.

The carnal cannot bring forth the spiritual. But the law demands a spiritual work of righteousness. It is impossible for the carnal mind to undertake it. The Scripture says:

"The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Rom. 8:7, 8.

But the awakened sinner is yet in the flesh. He finds the law thundering his guilt and condemning him to death. He cannot wash away the past, nor hide it; he cannot obey God's law with a carnal mind, and that is all the mind he has. He is lost, and helpless of himself, but longs for a way of escape. Paul's cry in the same position is the cry of the despairing heart that has not found the Saviour, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Rom. 7:24. Thank God, there is an answer to that cry, for every sinner.

"Plunged in a gulf of dark despair,
We wretched sinners lay,
Without one cheering beam of hope,
Or spark of glimmering day.

"With pitying eyes the Prince of grace
Beheld our helpless grief:
He saw, and, O amazing love!
He came to our relief."

The Free Gift of Christ

Following that despairing cry of human helplessness, "Who shall deliver me?" there came the believer's shout of praise, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." He is the deliverer; for He "gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us." Rom. 7:25; Gal. 1:4.

The way of escape and salvation is the gift of God's love. "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.

No sinner has need to plead that God may be willing to forgive him; the Lord's infinite love that gave His Son to die, is pleading with the sinner to believe and accept salvation.

In order to be the sinner's Saviour, the divine Son of God must take man's place before the broken law. He came in human flesh, with all its weakness. "I can of Mine own self," He said, "do nothing." He trusted the Father, and lived a life of perfect righteousness in human flesh. He who knew no sin, bore man's sin in His body on the cross. "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." For man's sin He died, "that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man." In Him was met the penalty of the law. But it was a sinless sacrifice. He "through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God." Heb. 9:14. Therefore death could not hold Him. He rose in the power of an endless life to be man's advocate and priest and savior, ministering His grace and righteousness and life to every one who will receive them.

The righteousness that He wrought out for man in human flesh He longs to put into every human heart. As in His own flesh in Judea He walked and lived the life of righteousness, so now, by the Holy Spirit, He walks in human lives today. That means forgiveness, and deliverance from the power of the flesh, and a new life of power, and righteousness and justification wrought within by the divine indwelling Saviour. How may we receive Him with all this great salvation?--By faith; by believing His promises; "that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." Eph. 3:17.

Christ in all His fulness abiding within,--this is the wonder and mystery of the gospel, "which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." It means an ever-present, ever-living Saviour, able to save to the uttermost.

What abundance of grace is received with His indwelling presence!

_Forgiveness._--"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9.

_Deliverance from the Flesh._--The cleansing by Christ's indwelling power means that the old life of self is subdued. "Our old man is crucified with Him." Rom. 6:6. "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.... And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Rom. 8:9, 10.

_A New Heart._--"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Eze. 36:26.

_A New Life._--"Be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Eph. 4:23, 24. It is in blessed fact Christ Jesus living the life in the believer by faith, as the apostle Paul says:

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gal. 2:20.

_Righteousness and Justification._--"This is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." Jer. 23:6. Well does the King James Version print the blessed name in capital letters. It is the great name of salvation to every believer. By faith we receive Him, and by faith His righteousness is imputed unto us. His life of obedience covers all the believer's surrendered life, past and continuous, and in God's sight the life of the believer in Jesus is justified from all sin. It is the triumph of Him who was not only "delivered for our offenses," but was also "raised again for our justification:"

"Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." Rom. 5:18, 19.

Christ died and rose again to bring this experience to sinners who have struggled helplessly under condemnation. As Christ Jesus with all His righteousness is received by faith, "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:1.

Praise the Lord! It is all of Christ, and not of any works that we have done. Therefore it is as sure as the oath and promise of God. We can lose the experience only as we let Christ go out of the life by unbelief. God forbid that we should do this; and help us to be quick to repent and again lay hold of Him by faith if ever we find we have let Him go and have lost the covering of His righteousness.

"Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
'Mid hosts of sin, in these arrayed,
My soul shall never be afraid."

"That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.]

Christ's righteousness is, of necessity, the righteousness demanded by the law of God. He lives that law in the believer. This is what justification is. "Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." Rom. 2:13. Justification by faith makes the man a doer of the law by faith, Christ living every one of its sacred precepts in the believer's life. This is what He died to accomplish, to bring the righteousness of the law to the sinner who could never attain to it himself.

"What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3, 4.

Christ writes God's law in the new heart: "I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." Heb. 8:10. It is the rule of His own righteousness. For before He came into the world to work out perfect righteousness for us in human flesh, He said, through the psalmist, "I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart." Ps. 40:8.

It is a perfect righteousness and a full salvation that Christ brings into every believer's heart. In Him all fulness dwells, "and ye are complete in Him."

The wondrous plan of salvation is so deep that only "in the ages to come" will God be able to "show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." Eph. 2:7. But thank God, even here below sinners saved by grace may "know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge."

"The wonders of redeeming love
Our highest thoughts exceed;
The Son of God comes from above,
For sinful man to bleed.

"He knows the frailties of our frame,
For He has borne our grief;
Our great High Priest once felt the same,
And He can send relief.

"His love will not be satisfied
Till He in glory see
The faithful ones for whom He died
From sin forever free."

--_R.F. Cottrell._

"Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Matt. 3:15.]

"John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there." John 3:23.]

BAPTISM

THE MEMORIAL OF THE RESURRECTION

Baptism is the divinely appointed memorial of the resurrection of Christ. The great fact of the gospel is that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3, 4), to be our great High Priest and Saviour.

Baptism is a profession of faith in the Saviour, who went into the grave for us, and rose again to life. It is the great object-lesson to teach the truth that the sinner must die to sin and the world, and have a resurrection by the power of divine grace to a new life of obedience. The ordinance is the sign of an actual experience, the means by which the believer confesses the work of grace in the soul.

The Scriptures teach the essential conditions necessary to baptism:

"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Mark 16:15, 16.

"What doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest." Acts 8:36, 37.

"Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." Acts 2:38.

Thus it is seen that instruction in the gospel, belief in Christ, and repentance are conditions to precede baptism.

Baptism for Believers

The experience of which baptism is the sign is thus stated:

"We are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Rom. 6:4.

"As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." Gal. 3:27.

"Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead." Col. 2:12.

In this ordinance, commanded of God, the believer is following the example of Christ, who, when baptized by John in Jordan, said, "Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness."

"Thus through the emblematic grave
The glorious suffering Saviour trod;
Thou art our Pattern, through the wave
We follow Thee, blest Son of God."

The Form of Baptism

The Scriptural form of baptism is shown in these texts:

"Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water." Matt. 3:16.

"They went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him." Acts 8:38.