"Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an oldcommandment which ye had from the beginning. The oldcommandment is the WORD which ye have heard from thebeginning." John ii: 7.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."Gen. i: 1. "And God blessed the seventh day, and rested fromall his work." ii: 3.
"Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may haveright to the tree of life and enter in," &c. Rev. xxii: 14.
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." "Six days work may be done,but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shaltnot do any work." This commandment I conceive to be as binding now as itever was, and will be to the entering into the "gates of the city." Rev.xxii: 14.
I understand that the seventh day Sabbath is not the least one,among the all things that are to be restored before the second advent ofJesus Christ, seeing that the Imperial and Papal power of Rome, sincethe days of the Apostles, have changed the seventh day Sabbath to thefirst day of the week!
Twenty days before God re-enacted and wrote the commandments with hisfinger on tables of stone, he required his people to keep the Sabbath.Exo. xvi: 27, 30. Here he calls the Sabbath "my commandments and mylaws." Now the Savior has given his comments on the commandments. SeeMatt. xxii: 35, 40. "On these two (precepts) hang all the law and theprophets." Then it would be impossible for the Sabbath to be left out. Aquestion was asked, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Says Jesus,"If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments"—xix. Here hequotes five from the tables of stone. If he did not mean all the rest,then he deceived the lawyer in the two first precepts, love to God andlove to man. See also Matt. v: 17, 19, 21, 27, 33. Paul comments thus."The law is holy, and the commandments holy, just and good.""Circumcision and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping thecommandments of God." "All the law is fulfilled in one word: thou shaltlove thy neighbor as thyself." John says, "the old commandment is theword from the beginning."—2, 7. Gen. ii: 3. "He carries us from thenceinto the gates of the city." Rev. xxii: 14. Here he has particularreference to the Sabbath. James calls it the perfect, royal law ofliberty, which we are to be doers of, and be judged by. Take out thefourth commandment and the law is imperfect, and we shall fail in onepoint.
The uncompromising advocate for present truth, which feeds and nourishesthe little flock in whatever country or place, is the restorer of allthings; one man like John the Baptist, cannot discharge this duty toevery kindred, nation, tongue and people, and still remain in one place.The truth is what we want.
Fairhaven, August 1846. JOSEPH BATES.
Those who are in the habit of reading th