"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 shalt notdo 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, amongthe all things that are to be restored before the second advent of JesusChrist, seeing that the Imperial and Papal power of Rome, since the daysof the Apostles, have changed the seventh day Sabbath to the first dayof 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. It is still clearer in Luke x. 25,28. "What is written in the law? how readest thou?" Here he gives theSavior's exposition in xxii. Matt. as above. Jesus says, "Thou hastanswered right, this do and live." See also Matt. v: 17, 19, 21, 27, 33.Paul comments thus. "The law is holy, and the commandments holy, justand good." "Circumcission and uncircumcission is nothing but the keepingthe commandments of God." "All the law is fulfilled in one word: thoushalt love thy neighbor as thyself." John says, "the old commandment isthe word from the beginning."—2, 7.—Gen. ii: 3. "He carries us fromthence into the gates of the city." Rev. xxii: 14. Here he hasparticular reference to the Sabbath. James calls it the perfect, royallaw of liberty, which we are to be doers of, and be judged by. Take outthe fourth commandment and the law is imperfect, and we shall fail inone point.
The uncompromising advocate for present truth, which feeds and nourishesthe little flock in whatever country or place, is