A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath and the Commandments of God

After this squall had blown over and things had become more settled, a mysterious letter is presented to sister Stowe, signed Lydia B. Weston, setting forth your helpless condition – not actually asking for money, because it would not comport with her severe remark about “dying first,” – but to draw still more on her sympathy, it states that her husband had fell and lamed, or sprained his ancle, &c. &c. Sister S., although about forty miles from this scene of suffering and distress, requested a friend and neighbor of yours to ascertain what was needed, and she was ready to assist, notwithstanding all the past. Your house was visited and inquiry made for the lame man, but he was away. “Well, you have heard from Washington?” Your wife. L. B. Weston, replied, “she did not know how?” [Another statement is, “have you heard from Washington?” “No.” “Have you not written to Washington?” (or sister Stowe.) “No.”] The messenger was much surprised! “Well, are you in need of any thing?.” “No, we have all that we need at present!” and she then proceeded to enumerate all the comfortable things she had.

From this it is evident that your wife was an entire stranger to this letter and its contents. Who wrote this forged letter? The capitals, it was said by those who examined it, were J. Weston's, but the hand-writing was rather finer than his. When you have been told of this your reply has been that sister Stowe lies if she says that I wrote that letter! It is all in vain for you to reiterate such assertions. The question is, where is the person in New Ipswich, whose hand-writing will compare with this letter, and who is so interested in your behalf that they will even contradict your wife, who manages your household affairs; and state falsehoods, and then commit the high crime of forgery, by affixing her name to their assertions, to obtain for you what you did not need; and among other things, what could they mean by lying so about your lame leg? If you can find this daring, loving, and insultingly magnanimous person in your neighborhood, do, for the sake of the community at large, expose him, and let this sister and others whom you have maligned, have their real name. And then if you go to Nelson again, to preach the doctrine of the second advent by a notice in the Bible Advocate of July 30th, or Aug. 5th, “Squire Hale will not refuse you the use of the meeting house, because of said forgery.” And possibly they may then sympathise with you more in respect to your poverty in having but one feather bed in your house, &c. &c., when it is well known that you have three, and other things in proportion.

That must have been rather a stirring exhortation that you gave the man who called to see you, a short time since; that the Lord was coming in about three weeks. Did you cite him to the Bible Advocate of Dec. 9, and tell him to read the caption that your old friend Timothy Cole had published for you; that the time for the Lord's coming was revealed, and that you felt so impressed with the truth of the above that you could not hold your peace any longer, &c. Well, possibly he did feel the force of the truth, that the Lord would soon come, but it soon vanished from him when you read the note for twenty dollars, in his favor, which he now presented, and which you told him was not negotiable, and that there was no law by which he could collect it. Did you not feel rather singular, for a professed ambassador of Christ, to be told by this man “how strange it appeared to him that you should go and put such a note on to an old woman.” [This is an old lady, partially deranged, who having a little money, finally consented to loan it to him on a note for interest.] It seems you had consulted a lawyer, to know whether it could be collected in her life time for her.

Are you aware of the heinousness of these things? Did you ever read the life of the pious Dr. Dod of England, who was hung for forgery; people no doubt liked his preaching. I know a professed minister, who, not many years since, was elected pastor of a church, with but two or three dissenting votes, in a place situated in North latitude 41° 33', and longitude 70° 53' W., who was told by one of his members, in a church meeting, that he had committed the high crime of forgery, which he did not attempt to deny. The member for daring to utter this and connected things, was suspended from their communion until he should make ample satisfaction. The minister was retained, and a great revival, by his exertions, immediately followed, and numbers were added to their church. So, you see, ministers are not to be known by their great preaching and revivals. “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” So, I trust, the second advent believers will know you hereafter. They will also know that God never employed a righteous man to stigmatize and attempt to make void his Sabbath and commandments. That is, and ever has been, the work of “the Devil and his angels.” “Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he reveals his secrets unto his servants, the prophets.” Amos. But “he that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” All men are liable to err and make mistakes, but when persevered in, under disguise, they are to be rebuked.

To The Editor Of The “Advent Harbinger.”

Sir: – After your repeated and unsuccessful attempts to stigmatize, put down, demolish, and forever abolish the TEN WORDS, the law and commandments of the living God, the only foundation for the bible, you come forth in the A. H. of Nov. 9th, and say “We are not under the law (of Moses,) but under (the law of) grace, the New Testament, and now all we want to know is, does the New Testament either by precept or example require us to keep any day as a SABBATH?.. We do not want your inferences, but plain, direct New Testament testimony; nothing else will do in a case of this character and importance.” Your term, law of Moses, according to all your teachings on this subject, includes the law of commandments. We have given it to you in our work on the Sabbath, and again in the Way Marks, pp. 76-78. Why do you still continue to demand proof, until you have found out some new method to explain those texts away. It is evident that your object on this point is to confuse the minds of your readers and not give them the clear word of God. What would Christ and his apostles have done for proof from the old testament, if your new restricted rule had been laid before them? and you had told them seven months previous, (April 28th,) that the law of commandments, when they were abolished, were incorporated into the new testament, or law of Christ. And now we are under the law of grace. It appears to me that Jesus would have replied as he did on one occasion, “Get thee behind me Satan.” Is the law of Christ and the law of grace, synonymous terms? or are you so privileged now in the high station which you have assumed, that you can change the name of your new law once in seven months, and make Christ and grace the same. It is impossible for any man to depart from the clear word and abide in the truth. Call the commandments of God what you will, and incorporate them where you will, you are bound, as I have told you before, to show the precept, (i. e. how they read,) and then if you refer us to the teachings of Jesus and his apostles, and the Revelation of John, you will only point us directly to the ten commandments of God, which as clearly proves that they are not, nor ever have been abolished, any more than the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah or Ezekiel; and just so sure as Jesus has spoken the truth, that eternal life is obtained by the keeping of them, and that James wrote by inspiration, we are to be judged by them; and not by what you have misnamed them, the law of grace. How can the commandments of God be abolished, and yet the keeping of them give us an entrance into the city. Rev. xxii: 14. And yet if they are abolished, as you assert, who can ever know when they fail in one precept or when they keep the whole? Your attempt to incorporate God's law, after – as you say – it has been abolished, and now enforce it without a precept, because it is all incorporated in the new testament, is a thousand times more inconsistent than a temporal millenium. “Grace is the gift of God.” Then, according to your logic, this is the law that we are now under. How shall we enumerate all the gifts of God, and incorporate them into the new testament? One thing I know, you will never mend the law of God: It is as immutable as the sun in the heavens! and it would be far easier work for you and all of like faith to blot out that luminary than to prove that one jot or tittle of the ten commandments had failed by being changed or abolished. I intend to prove this from the new testament as I pass on, and if you and your adherents will still misrepresent the plain teaching and lead others to do so, then the words of Jesus will surely condemn you, and you “will be in no esteem in the reign of heaven.”

First Pillar For No Sabbath

There are four Pillars in the temple of your no-Sabbath, no-commandment system, which we are always referred to as positive proof that you are right. Now if I can prove from the new testament that they and all others that you may present, are only your “inferences,” (and you say you don't want any,) what will you do? Further – these pillars of yours, be it forever remembered and never forgotten, are fixed at the day of the crucifixion of our Lord. Say, if you like, it was in A.D. 33. This is the point where you have to bring your scripture to prove any thing of the kind, i. e., if you go one week on either side of the death of our blessed Lord, your arguments or pillars, all fall to the ground. Now, by this plain rule, we will try the first two no-Sabbath texts: First – 1 Rom. xiv: “One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike; let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord.” Read the whole chapter; Paul's whole argument here is against their feasts, and this of course included their feast days, which some esteemed and others did not. “Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died,” says Paul, 15th verse. Compare this with the first, third, and last four verses, where he closes with “He that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith,” 23d verse, and then tell me if you can, what other day or days is here brought to view than feast days, as in Lev. xxiii chapter, which Hosea said were to cease. This same chapter, 3d and 38th verses, positively designates and separates the Sabbath of the Lord God from all these feast Sabbaths, or days; also Num. xxviii: 9. Now as God's Sabbath was not a feast Sabbath, it was impossible to connect it with these. And that is not all – it is not even alluded to here – only guessed at from among the feast days. Once set such a rule as this at work and there is not a law in christendom that would restrain men. For all will have one day for a holy, or holiday in the week. Now give them, by your bible rule, their choice, and I don't believe that Satan himself would bring them to order. Oh, but we have a law that the first-day shall be regarded as the Sabbath. Well, that is what you now contend for, and so does almost all christendom, and still it is an unrighteous and an unscriptural law, because the first day is not, nor never was, the Sabbath. You have no right by this rule to fix on any day, and yet every body would be right if every day was kept. But, you may say, it means we shall have no day for the Sabbath. It does not read so. It says, “let every man be persuaded in his own mind,” and if that were the case, what kind of order would there be in God's house. I ask if there be a rational being on earth that for a moment would believe that God ever intended to give the whole human family such a choice as this, after he had required them to keep the Sabbath day. No, he is a God of order, and he sanctified and set apart the seventh day for man and beast. Does not the beast require rest now as much as he did 1900 years ago? Who is to advocate for them, if man does not? The great mass of professed christians are insisting on the first day for one of these days, and it is not at all likely that they would ever refer to this test for this purpose were it not to destroy the idea of a seventh-day Sabbath. See work on the Sabbath, pp. 11-12. This subject is continued from the xiiith chapter, where the apostle had been enforcing the commandments, and one is equally binding as the other, except the fourth, which is more insisted upon than the rest. This letter is dated Corinthus, A.D. 60.

Second Pillar For No Sabbath

Col. ii: 14-17. – “Blotting out the hand writing of ordinances that was against us; which was contrary to us, taking it out of the way; nailing it to his cross.” Now Paul says it was the hand-writing of ordinances that was blotted out. You say it was the Sabbath, because he further says, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come,” &c. Now I say that the Sabbath of the Lord God is not included in this text. 1st. Because it never did belong to the hand-writing of ordinances. 2d. It never is called an ordinance in the scriptures; it is a commandment. 3d. God's Sabbath never was taken out of our way because it was against us. Jesus says it was made for us, (for man.) Then pray tell me, if you can, why Jesus has taken away from us the very thing, (the Sabbath) he had said was made for us? You see this is impossible; but he did take away at the very hour that he yielded up his life, the ceremonial worship of sacrifice and oblation, because his blood was now shed once for all for the whole world, therefore the shedding of bullocks blood, here at this hour, ceased forever; see also Heb. x: 1-10, particularly the 9th verse. The angel Gabriel's testimony is directly to this point; Dan. ix: 27. Therefore the mode of worshipping God, in the law of Moses, ceased forever. But all of this no more affected God's code of laws, the ten commandments, than the shining of the sun would upon the inhabitants of Massachusetts after he had gone down below the western horizon. The “hand-writing of ordinances” is what Moses wrote with his hand in a book and put it into the ark with the tables of stone: which tables were not the hand-writing of either God, or man, but written by the finger of God. Deut. xxxi: 25-26. Neither can it ever be proved that God's law on these tables of stone, was a shadow – it is a substance. Paul says the things that were nailed to the cross here, were shadows; see 17th verse. Now if the Lord's Sabbath, the fourth commandment, was taken out here, and forever erased from the tables of stone —where is the evidence? Further, if it was a shadow, as you say, would not all the other nine commandments be shadows too? See if you can make the first and second ones, shadows; if you can, the worship of idols is just as valid as the worship of God; and so of the third – where would be the penalty of taking God's name in vain, or to steal, or murder, or commit adultery? You see the idea itself is ridiculous. I know you say the spirit of them is as binding as ever. I ask how are we to know what the spirit of any thing is, without the precept (the letter) to guide us? It is impossible for any human being to know that it is wrong to worship idols and bow down to them unless it read so in the scriptures. If the apostle has taught it so, he has quoted from the decalogue. Thus you see the commandments can no more be abolished than salvation. In the 20-22d verses, Paul further explains, and says, “Why are ye subject to ordinances which are to perish?” Why perish? because “they are after the doctrines and commandments of men.” “Touch not, taste not, handle not.” Now, if these are not the ordinance of the ceremonial law, the hand-writing of Moses, they are nothing; see also Eph. ii: 15, and Heb. vii: 16. The holy day, new moon and Sabbath days were their holy convocation, which, with the new moon and Sabbaths is the same that is connected with their feasts, as in Rom. xiv, and as distinctly separate, as I have shown in Lev. xxiii: 3, 38, and Num. xxviii: 9. Now I say God's law containing the Sabbath is not even mentioned here. Their Sabbath days, and not God's Sabbath days is here abolished; as Hosea said they should be, ii: 11. It would be far more reasonable to assert that Paul had abolished all the ordinances in 20-22 verses. But who undertakes to say that baptism and the Lord's Supper are abolished here. Nobody. Why? Because neither of them are the hand-writing of ordinances, but they are equally as much so, and as certainly made for us as the Sabbath is. Jesus says it was made for man. You say it was made for the Jews only. Shall the scriptures decide this, “Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.” “Man dieth and wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the ghost and where is he – So man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more.” – Job. “And as it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment.” – Paul. Now just as certain as the Jews and Gentiles are the “man” alluded to here, just in the same sense and no other, is he alluded to by Jesus in Mark ii: 27 – “The Sabbath was made for man,” – Jew and Gentile, for every living human being. Therefore it is impossible, yea it is a contradiction of terms to say that the Sabbath of the Lord God, which was made for man, just as much as the day of judgment is to judge him, was taken out of his way, because it was contrary to him, and against him, or that the Sabbath is an ordinance or a shadow, but all the seven Jewish convocation Sabbaths that were nailed to the cross, were shadows, as in Heb. x: 1-10. The woman was also made for man, in the same sense. See how your rule will work here. This letter is from Rome, A. D. 64.

Third Pillar For No-Sabbath, No-Commandments

Gal. ii. – vi. chapters. Here we are told that the whole law and commandments are abolished. I say the man was never yet born that can prove it. You say “we want none of your inferences.” Neither do we want yours, unless you can back them up by scripture testimony. Paul begins with the Gospel; in his second chapter he brings up the law of circumcision, and goes on to show that it is abolished. Just look at the 7th and 8th verses, where he begins his argument, and then 11-14th. His controversy with Peter respecting this point and eating, meets; then the 16th, 18th and 21st verses show again most clearly that he is contrasting the Gospel of Christ with this law of meats and circumcision. He now passes through the 3d chapter, (so much relied on for the abolition of all law,) without intimating any other law whatever. In the 4th chapter, 4th verse, he says, God sent forth his son, made, or born under the law. What law? Answer – the law of Moses. There is not an intimation of the law of commandments here; neither is there an intimation in God's law, relating to Jesus, but there is in Moses'. In the 10th verse he begins again, and says “yea, observe days and months and times and years.” These are the same feast days that I have been treating of in the two first Pillars, viz. Rom. xiv. and Col. ii., for when he comes to the 21st verse, he says again, “tell me ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law.” What is it? Why, Abraham had two sons, one by his bond maid, Hagar, the other by Sarah, his wife. These two women represent the two covenants. Hagar represents mount Sinai, where God gave the first covenant. Hagar also answers to the present Jerusalem, now in bondage; Sarah represents the second covenant, (which gives entrance into the) New Jerusalem. See 9.

In the fifth chapter he begins again with circumcision, 2d and 3d verses. In the 4th verse he says, “Whosoever of you are justified by the law are fallen from grace.” This is the law of circumcision; see 6th and 11th verses: “If I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution.” Now see the contrast at the close of his argument. Here is the law of God; see 14th verse: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This was his very expression to the Romans, four years previous; see xiii: 9. Here he has cited them to the second table of stone in God's law, in respect to their neighbor, which is alone, the clear meaning; and we are saved by “keeping the commandments of God and faith of Jesus.” – Rev. xii: 12; xxii: 14. Paul did not stop to explain about these two covenants, but merely alluded to them to show the two entirely different modes of worship under the two dispensations. His letter to the Hebrews six years afterwards, explains, “Now the first covenant had ceremonies of divine service and a worldly sanctuary,” ix: 1. Now the covenant itself was in the ark; see 4th verse. Now these rites and ceremonies which stood in meats and drinks, &c. were carnal ordinances, a figure for the time then present, until the reformation, or coming of the new covenant. Not a syllable about the fourth commandment in 4th verse being a figure, or ordinance or ceremony, or being done away. Why? Because in the preceding chapter, 6-10th verses, he shows is the new or second covenant, which was to succeed the first, and Jesus was to be the mediator of it. Now the first covenant was the ten commandments, with ceremonies, &c. The second covenant is (my laws) the same ten commandments, (not as before, on tables of stone,) but in our minds and on our hearts; 10th verse. Connected with this is the testimony of Jesus Christ – proof, Rev. xii: 17; xix: 10, and xiv: 12. This is the New, or Gospel Covenant, which Jesus Christ came to confirm. Then all that was nailed to the cross was the ceremonial law, the Jewish mode of worshipping God. The first covenant the law of God, is here transcribed from the tables of stone and placed on our hearts; see Rom. ii: 15: Heb. viii: 10. This entirely changes the mode of worship, and shows us “without faith it is impossible to please God.” If the law of God is not the same in both covenants, with Jew and Gentile, tell me if you can the chapter and verse for the second, or new law of God. It is the very same that Jesus had given in Matt. xxii: 39; the last six commandments. Here he closes this chapter by contrasting the works of the flesh with the fruits of the spirit, and then in the 6th chapter, 12th, 13th and 15th verses, he alludes again to circumcision, and says, in 15th verse, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision,” &c., showing conclusively that the great burthen of his argument from first to last, was to abolish circumcision and vindicate God's law, instead, as you and your adherents will have it, abolish the commandments in the law. I say then in the 5th chapter, 14th verse, he has positively taught us that the law of God was untouched in his argument. Suppose we take his letter to the Romans, to explain how he sustains this law. “If there be any other commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” xiii: 9. “Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” In the first place he is here showing us our duty to our neighbor, (not to God), 8-10 verses – for he has quoted only five of the commandments from the second table of stone. Will you say that because he omitted the fifth one, it is abolished; see his letter to the Ephesians, four years after this: “Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment, with promise,” vi: 2. Now Paul has here quoted from the tables of stone, and this is proof positive that these six are not abolished. But because he has not quoted the first four, will you say they are abolished? If you say they are, then you make void the Saviour's words in Matt. xxii: 37, 38; and also Paul's in the 7th chapter, 12th verse, where he says “the law is holy and the commandments holy, just and good.” Again, because Jesus, in Matt. v: 19, 21, 27, 33, only quoted the 3d, 6th and 7th commandments, are the other seven abolished? If so, how strange that he should add three more, respecting love to our neighbor, in chapter xix: 18, 19, viz. the 5th, 8th and 9th. And in the 15th chapter quote only one. Further, because he never mentioned the fourth commandment separately, you would have us believe there is none – he abolished it. Then, by the same rule he abolished the first, second, and tenth, for he has not mentioned them. In this case Paul has taught heresy, for he has mentioned the tenth commandment twice in Romans. Paul nowhere speaks of the first four commandments, but he quotes the other six. James only quotes two, the sixth and seventh, for his perfect royal law of liberty, by which man is to be judged; but that we might not misunderstand that he meant what he said, that it was a perfect law, including the whole ten, he declares that “if we fail with respect to one precept, we become guilty of all.” Here you, and all of like faith, must see the fallacy of your reasoning, which is, that because the fourth commandment has not been distinctly expressed, then there is no Sabbath. I say, by your rule, it is just as clear that Jesus and Paul never taught us that we should not worship images, and bow down to idols, for they have never quoted us the precept. But they both have taught us the whole law and commandments; see Matt. xxii: 36-40; Luke x: 25-28; Rom. vii: 12; 1st Cor. vii: 19. The reason, no doubt, why Jesus never quoted the 1st, 2d, 3d and 4th commandments separately was because he never had occasion to use them for an argument with his hearers. Now this certainly explains Paul's meaning in Gal. v: 14, “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” That is – this is the law respecting our duty to one another, as Jesus has taught us in Matt. xxii. This, then, is the law from the decalogue. Paul says this law is fulfilled by keeping it, while that which was added to the law (or covenant) is abolished; see Heb. ix. Then here the law of God is established, and not, as you say, abolished. This letter is dated at Rome, A.D. 58.

Fourth And Last Pillar For No-Sabbath, No-Commandments

2d Cor. iii. Here a host of second advent believers join in with you, and labor to prove that Paul has certainly and positively abolished the commandments of God. Yes, one of your old correspondents, G. Needham, of Albany, has publicly declared to the world that God told him so. Now if I prove him to have uttered a positive falsehood, I suppose he will still be considered in good standing, as a second advent lecturer and coadjutor in carrying forward this work of heresy. If God ever told him any thing about this text, he did not contradict Paul, who spake by the Holy Ghost. The principal verses to sustain this heresy, are 7, 8, 11, 13, 14th, “But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?.. For if that which is done away is glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious… And as Moses which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds were blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil, untaken away in the reading of the old testament, which veil is done away in Christ.” Now every bible student must admit that Paul was contrasting the ministration of the Jewish nation with that of his own, the Gospel ministration, (11th v.) under the two dispensations. If Moses' ministry was glorious, then is the Gospel much more so. Now that which was to be done away was not the decalogue itself, the ten commandments, but the ministration of it, which was emblematically illustrated by the glory of Moses' countenance, which was only for the time being. This clause refers expressly to the glory of his countenance, and not to the glory of the law on the tables of stone. So also the clause, “that which is abolished,” does not refer to the decalogue, but to the ministration of Moses, including what he writes to the Heb. ix: 9-11, and x: 1-10; see particularly 9th verse: “He taketh away the first that he may establish the second.” How? Answer – “I will put my law (the same law of the ten commandments) in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” viii: 10, 5-9. Again, “we are not without law to God, but under the law to Christ.” This certainly is the same law and so is the following, “Do we make void the law through faith? God forbid ye, we establish the law.” It is impossible for this to be the law of ceremonies in Moses' ministration, for that was nailed to the cross, certainly twenty-five years before. Here then it is plain, as in Heb. ix: 4, that the tables of stone, on which was the whole law of God, remained unmoved, to be written on our hearts. No other law of God can be found for this purpose. The 14th verse says, “which veil was done away in Christ.” Again, if the commandments were done away here, how could those “who teach them be of great esteem in the reign of heaven;” and how could they teach them without knowing the words from the decalogue? “The law of grace and the law of Christ” would darken counsel without knowledge. If the tables of stone were done away here, where are the commandments referred to so many times in the new testament for us to keep, and how useless for Christ to come at the first advent and write them in our hearts, if they were not to be kept. Now this epistle is dated at Phillippi, A.D. 60; twenty-seven years after the crucifixion.

The date of the other three Pillars, as stated, are, 1st, Rom. xiv: 5, 6, Corinthus, A.D. 60. 2d, Col. ii: 14-17, Rome, A.D. 64. 3d, Gal. ii-vi., Rome, A.D. 58. Now remember what I stated before, that if the commandments or Sabbath ever were abolished, the proof is contained in these four principal texts or Pillars, and it was all done at the crucifixion or death of Jesus; see Col. ii: 11, “nailing it to the cross,” (in A.D. 33). Now Paul's first letter to the Corinthians was dated at the same place one year before his second letter, A.D. 59. Here he says, chapter vii: 19, “circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but the keeping of the commandments of God.” Again, we will now go to the chapter to which you exultingly point your readers, for the abolition of this same law and commandments, viz. Rom. vii: 6, “But now we are delivered from the law,” &c. What law? Answer – the very same that you have had to make your four Pillars of, viz. the law of Moses, the Jewish ritual. “What shall we say then, is the law sin?” [You say it is.] Paul says, “God forbid,” and he quotes the tenth commandment to prove it; 7th verse, and then in the 12th directs us to the whole law of God, thus – “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandments holy, just and good.” Now, I say, here is testimony that all the opposers of God's law cannot impeach, and it utterly demolishes and overthrows every idea that has been presented for the last fifteen hundred years against the whole ten commandments and law of God. It nails the point down twenty-seven years after the Jewish rites and ceremonials in the law of Moses were nailed to the cross, as you and all of your faith say it was, and fully and clearly sustains all the scriptural arguments herein presented, as in Rom. iii: 31; xiii: 8-10, same year, and Gal. v: 14, two years before, and Eph. vi: 2, six years after. You may object to these dates. If they could be altered and carried back twenty years, it would not help your case, for without any date, a child might know that Paul was not even converted to Christianity until years after the ceremonial law was nailed to the cross.

You may contradict Paul if you will, and call out all your professed second advent adherents and brethren, (whom you say will not see much of any difference on this subject after they have examined the new testament,) and they will not in the least strengthen your arguments unless G. Needham should come out again and publicly declare that God also told him that Paul's testimony respecting his law and commandments, was not to be credited. And this he can as readily establish as he can his first blasphemous assertion. You might still go on and contradict James' perfect, royal law of liberty, whose testimony is to the same point and in the same year, and tell John the beloved disciple also, whose testimony is thirty years beyond James', that he ought to have called his old commandment, which he received from the Father, “which ye have heard from the beginning,” (1st John ii: 7, and 2d epistle, 4-6 verses.) “The law of grace.” because that would eventually be the right name that you should give them in 1847, after you had been designated one of the two great reformers in the world, to give light on the second coming of Christ, and so make him and James, who had heard their Lord declare that he had kept his Father's commandments; and Luke and Matthew testifying to his declaration that “the law and the prophets hung upon them,” and that the teaching and keeping of them would ensure “great esteem,” and “eternal life in the reign of heaven,” he would most likely have cited you to the epistle again, and said, read your sentence: “He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandment is a Liar and the truth is not in him.”

I should not be at all surprised if you called all this inferential, irrelevant New Testament testimony, because your grand object is to destroy the seventh-day Sabbath. If the Sabbath is not to be found in the commandments of God, then where is it to be found?

If those to whom I dedicate this work believe that I have proved beyond controversy that the commandments are valid and still to be kept, as the Revelation also teaches, xii: 17; xiv: 12; xxii: 14; then they are a perfect law, and cannot fail in one point without risking our salvation. Then the seventh-day Sabbath is included or the testimony of Jesus and his Apostle would be false. Again, there is but one Sabbath that was ever required to be kept, in the bible, and that is

THE SABBATH

Jesus kept the Sabbath, and when he was giving them the signs of his coming and the end of the world, he pointed them at least thirty-five years after his death, to the very same Sabbath. On the 29th of June last, you replied to J. Gifford's inquiries on this point, and perverted the word, and called the, their Sabbath. You also say, “The day before the resurrection was the Jewish Sabbath, which Christ kept in the tomb. When that Sabbath ended, the law of types ended, and of course the typical Sabbath ceased – a new dispensation commenced on the first day, which should be observed in commemoration of the death of Christ, until he come.” Now look at your zig-zag course. First, that the whole law with the decalogue was nailed to the cross. But here, to get rid of this brother's argument, about the Sabbath being kept the day before the resurrection, and after the crucifixion, you stretch out the Sabbath in the fourth commandment about twenty-seven hours, (as long as you wanted it,) and then put it back with the other nine that died the day before. Here too, you say, “ended the law types, and of course the typical Sabbath,” and then about twelve hours after a new dispensation commenced. Your argument looks like this – the Jewish dispensation ended at the preaching of Christ. Oh no, it was at his death – where the law of Moses, with the commandments of God, were all nailed to the cross. But stop again – the Sabbath did not end, nor the types, until twenty-seven hours after; and finally – come to think of it – the dispensation did not end until about twelve hours after that, when Christ arose. Surely J. Turner, with all his mesmeric influence, could not do much better. How much better to follow Paul in Col. ii: 14, “blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances (the ceremonial law) and nailing it to the cross” on Friday, the 14th day of the first month, “finished” at 3 o'clock, P. M. – John xix: 30; Mark xv: 33, 37. Again, you say “the Jews were so tenacious about the strict observance of their Sabbath, that they would have prevented the disciples fleeing on that day, had they made an attempt to do so; hence for their own salvation, Christ taught his disciples to pray that their flight might not be on that day, not because it would be wrong to save their lives on that day, which the Sabbatarian view seems to teach.” In the first place Christ never intimated a word about their Sabbath; it was the Sabbath, the same that he had kept. Your sophistical argument about their flight, &c. &c. touches not the main point. Christ did here recognize the Sabbath of the Lord thirty-five years beyond the time which you say it was abolished. At that time, if it never did before, as you have it, it belonged as much to the Gentile as the Jew, unless you make another attempt to stretch out the Jewish dispensation thirty-five years to cover it. His disciples certainly kept the Sabbath, the day after his death, and you cannot prove by the scriptures that the disciples ever held a meeting but once of an evening on the first day. Therefore you must be very much pushed for a Sabbath, to continually call that day one, as you do, at the same time reiterating, “we want none of your inferences!” Luke also recognizes the Sabbath twenty years beyond the resurrection, and shows that Paul kept it, and the Gentiles also. – Acts xiii: 42, 44. You attempt to destroy all this proof too, because you say this was the Jews' day for worship, and Paul could get a better hearing. Don't you see that the Gentiles invited him to preach to them – they kept the same day, 44th verse. See xvi: 13; here they are by the river's side. Paul's manner was to reason with them on the Sabbath; see xvii: 2, and xviii: 4, 11. So was it the custom of the Saviour; Mark vi: 2, and Luke iv: 16, 31. Now if all this is not New Testament evidence enough for honest believers, in the absence of any other testimony for an abolition, or change of the Sabbath, then it is because men would rather pervert the word of God than keep it.

God's Code of Laws in the New Testament

“Why do ye transgress the commandments of God.” – Matthew xv: 3.

“What is written in the law, how readest thou?” – Luke x: 26.

“Even as I have kept my Father's commandments.” – John xv: 10.

“Yea, we establish the law.” – Rom. iii: 31.

“The law is holy and the commandment is holy.” – Rom. vii: 12.

“Not subject to the law of God.” – Rom. viii: 7, also xiii: 8-10.

“But the commandments of God.” – 1st Cor. vii: 19; 1st Tim. i: 8.

“For whoever shall keep the whole law,” &c. – James ii: 10.

Moses' Code of Laws, by Jesus and His Apostles

“That is written in their law, they hated,” &c. – John xv: 25.

“Justified by the law of Moses.” – Acts xiii: 39.

“It is written in your law, I said, ye are gods?” – John x: 34.

“Have ye not read in the book of Moses.” – Mark xii: 26.

“Judged according to our law.” – Acts xxiv: 6.

“Out of the law of Moses.” – xxvii: 23, and xxi: 20, 22, 24, 28.

“And your law.” – Acts xviii: 15. Paul.

This and much more could be given to show the clear distinction that Jesus and his Apostles and the Jews always kept up between the law of God and the law of Moses. This is why so much confusion pervades our minds, when we read Paul to the Cor., Rom., Gal., and Col. If we carefully read his letter to the Hebrews, his Jewish brethren, we shall see a clearer distinction. In the 7th chapter, and first part of the 8th, he describes the priesthood; the change to Christ in his sanctuary in the heavens, and then the second covenant, the law of God written on our hearts. 9th chapter explains the first covenant, with its appendages, and the change. 10th chapter shows that these appendages never could make us perfect. 9th verse speaks of the change; 16th verse of the law of God again, and the 28th of the law of Moses. These four chapters will give more light respecting the two codes of laws; how one is abolished, except the types, and the other established, than all that ever I read from the pens of these no-commandment professors. May God help us to see the clear light.

To the Editor of The Bible Advocate

Sir – I was very glad when learned that your columns were to be opened for the discussion of the Sabbath question, for I thought if you would allow this subject to be fairly brought out, God's holy law would be vindicated and more strictly revered; but I soon see this was, and would be, an unequal warfare. To prevent any one's writing but C. Stowe of N. H., you say her argument will cover, or about cover, the whole ground in favor of the Jewish, or seventh-day Sabbath, and then no one else, until some one had replied against it, &c. This was very well, but I soon perceived that you did not keep the ship on her course. The first part of C. Stowe's article, to cover the whole ground, has never yet appeared, and should it come forth at this late hour of the discussion, it would probably avail as much as you mean it shall in its isolated state. But to prevent what you did publish for her, in the same paper, (Sept. 2d,) you gave your own unscriptural view, to go with it. This, of course, still more prejudiced your hearers, as you had before that stated objections. I am not sorry, however, that it is still going on in some shape, if it is partly in disguise. We hear that you have now on hand five times as much matter against the Sabbath as you have for it. This is all natural enough, God's word has ever been advocated by the minority. And when such blasphemous language against the Saviour we are looking for, was permitted to blacken your columns, and again reiterated that he was right, and you not only let it pass unnoticed, but was endeavoring to screen him by withdrawing his real name from God's children. The inference is, and must be, strong against you. Look at your position now! THE BIBLE ADVOCATE!! Show if you can the chapter and verse where the Bible allows any man to advocate God's word, that ever withheld his real name and where those that stood in high places were trying to screen them, because as we should have a good right to suppose, that they were in fellowship with their doctrine. How do the columns of THE BIBLE ADVOCATE look now, since you have opened the way for them to follow your unrighteous course, to debase and still hold up God's holy law as a Jewish ritual, that had been abolished. It looks to me like the same horn that is to “prevail against the saints until the ancient of days comes.” “He thought to change times and laws;” (God's laws without doubt.) He, then, through this agency, has been blackening your columns with his iron hoof. The Devil has been too long engaged in this war to pass any one's enclosure, who has left his gate open, without walking in and taking possession. How could you be so careless or wilful, after warring with him as you have done in the past, to leave the way open for him to tread you down. Another thing: In your paper of Dec. 23d, you say, “Br. Turner, have you sent your second article on the Sabbath? We have not received it.” Why in so much haste for this wonderful promised article, to overthrow history, after he has overthrown himself by the bible? Why not publish some of the so much manuscript you have already on hand? I cannot help thinking, after all, that you have no faith in your own argument of a no-Sabbath, no-commandment system, hence this partial call for J. Turner to speak again. His view is really the very thing! It is just as it used to be. If T. has got it right the discussion is forever ended, and we have always been right, but did not know it; if we had, we should not have resorted to these puzzling arguments of Paul to prove that there is no Sabbath, to get clear of plain, bible doctrine!

As I have answered nearly all your arguments against the Sabbath and commandments, in my work on the Sabbath, and Waymarks, and lastly in my reply to the Advent Harbinger, under the head of the Four Pillar system, I shall be brief because I want to say a word upon another subject that you have named. You say, “to assume or infer that the Sabbath was commanded to men before the Exode from Egypt, is to walk as blind men. But at creation Adam's first day was the seventh day, or day on which God rested. Hence, if Adam kept Sabbath, he kept the first day, and then worked six days.” Who said so? Not the bible. You would try to make out that Adam contradicted and disobeyed God's law, just as you have. Suppose you were born on Friday, the sixth day, would the next day, the seventh, be your first or second day? Your argument is not worth a straw; Adam's first day was Friday, the sixth day, and if he had been created the seventh day, that would have made no difference. How strange you talk! Because man should happen to come into life upon any other than the first day, then he must surely violate the Sabbath by doing his six days work first! This is in perfect keeping with “let every man be persuaded in his own mind,” and not keep any. God rested the seventh day and blessed and sanctified it. Surely it is not so dangerous to follow God's example as it is to contradict and disobey him. Such as these are the blind men. [See first three pages of work on the Sabbath.]

Again, you say, “how long was the covenant or law of ten commandments to remain in force and effect, and answer Gal. iii, till Christ shall come.” Under the third Pillar, I have answered this. The law of circumcision, and not the law of God, is Paul's whole argument here. The 17th verse shows the covenant is the one with Abraham, four hundred and thirty years before the law to Moses. There is not an intimation of the abolition of the law of commandments. Here it is the law of Abraham and Moses. Therefore it is right for the advocates of the seventh-day Sabbath to demand of you to prove a change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day; and the reason we demand it is, because we positively know you have none. You also say that the Apostles availed themselves of the opportunity to preach to the judaizing christians in their synagogues on the seventh day, at the same time keeping up the christian solemnity and worship on the first day. I say you cannot prove this. You cannot present a passage in the scriptures that shows that the disciples ever met together for worship, in the day time, on the first day of the week, and only once of an evening; and not one word about that being a holy day or a day for them to worship, but to break bread. But why do you want to prove this if all the commandments are abolished? The fact is, as soon as you leave the law of God, you are all adrift, with neither oar nor rudder, at the mercy of the tide. Again, you say “the ministration of the law is done away, is abolished.” That is just what we say. Suppose you had ceased your ministration ten years ago, would that have abolished the Gospel? This is your reasoning, and it is the best argument you and others bring for the abolition of the commandments in 2d Cor. iii. There is nothing there but the ministration abolished, which no more affects the law of God, than the moving of your old sermons out of your house would affect the house.

Now will you just turn over your file to Nov. 4th, where you come out against J. P. M. Peck, about the sanctuary. As I have twice presented my view of the sanctuary's being in the heavens, I shall not stop here, only to say, that there is abundant bible proof for this view, and but one place for it, where Jesus, the High Priest is. But the one you advocate is first one thing and then another. Palestine, or Canaan, or Jerusalem, or mountains about Jerusalem; Mount Zion, and generally, the whole world. The reason for this is, because you have no proof of any certain place, after you leave Paul, in Heb. viii: 2. But you say, “I deny that it has been any thing like a general belief that the twenty-three hundred days ended in '44. There were a portion of the adventists that embraced, for a while, that theory. But they soon abandoned it, with the exception of a few, who have followed anything but the word of God and sound reason; and they now have no fellowship for, or connection with those who truly look for the cleansing of the sanctuary, at the end of the days; and we have as little fellowship for their teaching as they have for us and our view of the plain word of God. We know enough of the effect of that theory that teaches the 2300 days ended in '44, and scores of Shakers can tell you more even than we can.”

Out of the great mass of advent believers in '44, I do not believe you knew of twenty that did not think the days were ended in '44. We will try to show, by-and-by, who have followed sound reason; and who have got “the plain word of God.” You say you “know enough of the effect of that theory that teaches the 2300 days are ended.” Allow me to tell you that you do not know so much about it as you think you do, or as you will wish you had. You are as much afloat here as you are on the subject of the Sabbath and commandments. That portion who abandoned the idea of the days being ended, of which you boast, are of those that organized and entered the state of the Laodocean church, “neither hot nor cold;” neither in one position nor yet in another; “always learning and never coming to the knowledge of (the present) truth.” The ending of the 2300 days was the great burden of the advent teaching in '43 and '44; “then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.” You will have it that this cannot be before the coming of the Lord, and you see he may come at any time; yes, now, by the first of January, as your Bible Advocate states. You have now heard something of the character of this J. Weston. He would have us believe that he was so full of the spirit of the Lord, that God had revealed to him that Jesus would come the 24th of December, or by the 1st of January. All good – we will publish it! What about the 2300 days, Br. W.? Oh, no matter, Jesus is coming now. H. H. Gross has refuted this time, but look at him last spring; the 1335 days must end the 18th day of April, and the resurrection, or they would not end under forty-five years. Well, he confessed that he was wrong in ever believing that they had ended in '44. Come, then, where will they end here? Oh, somewhere a little while before the 1335 days end in the spring of 1847. Well, time has passed on; out he comes again and says the Lord will come in the spring of 1848. Where will the 2300 and 1335 days end, friend Gross? Can't say – that is, he don't say – neither does J. Weston, and he does not correct him for this; it is only because the advent cannot be until spring. And here I will ask an opinion – that there is not a man in the whole advent ranks – (it seems to me that I will not even except you) – that can show that the Lord will come this winter or next spring. H. H. Gross is just as much mistaken in his calculation this coming spring, as he was the last. Now you may go on and call us what it seems to you good, we are confident that you have not got the present truth, neither have you had it since you have followed any thing but “the word of God and sound reason.” And this is the main reason why you cannot answer brother Fuller's important questions on the open book of Rev. x: 2. It requires some one that has followed the truth, the present truth, nearer than you have, to reply to such questions, and they as surely involve the days as a cry at midnight brought us to the end of them. Do you not see how you are first blowing hot and then blowing cold? Six weeks ago, you said you knew enough of the effect of that theory that the days are ended. You say “all will see by reading the article, what are Br. F.'s views.” That is, he is one that we have no fellowship for. But, you say, we hope that he and many others may be benefitted by a careful and prayerful investigation of some of the many questions he has asked. &c. &c. Now this is the right and only way to investigate. But if some one undertakes to follow your advice by the scripture, it would not amount to much, for we should expect to see you right out against them, for those that have rejected plain scripture, connected with experience, as you have, and ridiculed those who had faith in it, have but little hope now, since you have become an editor. We deeply lamented that you should have taken such a course; but we have seen since, that it required something more than common moral courage, for a shepherd to remain with the tried and tempted flock, when he sees that all his fellow shepherds were deserting them. The warnings you have had, have no doubt brought many solemn convictions to yours and their minds, or else we should not find you in this lukewarm state. Yes, you have been faithfully warned by your old, firm friends, not to come out with your Advocate; you have heard their voice, that two were enough to give the light on the doctrine of the advent, and they had hard work to get along. But no, your paper was going to take different ground, in some things! In one respect, it has shown pretty clearly, as the scriptures fully demonstrate, that “the dead know not any thing;” and allow me here to tell you, if you go on with your no-law-of-God and no-commandment system, and continue to reject the clear fulfillment of prophecy, in our past experience, you will as clearly prove that you know but a very little more. But after all you have said and done, you are following hard on in the track – the same old deep-cut rut, made by your predecessors. Pharaoh's host like, the ruts so deep you can neither back nor turn out; but on you drive after them, thinking, no doubt, that you are going to accomplish something for God and his cause. The only way that I can see for you to do that, will be, either to abandon your load, or shift the tongue of your chariot on the opposite end, drive back with all speed, and get into the highway of the Waymarks and high heaps, that you so wilfully abandoned more than three years ago.

The Saviour's admonition to the Philadelphia state of the church, which was forming in '43 and '44, was to hold fast that which we had – and he would “write upon us his new name.” This is what we are endeavoring to do; and when we see you doing the opposite, we know you are wrong. You quote Paul to the Hebrews, viii: 10, “Saith the Lord I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts.” Whose hearts? Answer – the house of Israel; of course, all of God's people. What is this done for? Answer – that he may be our God and we may know him and be his people. Can you tell your no-law no-commandment readers which law of God Paul meant? Whether it was the one you say he abolished in Col., Gal., Cor. and Romans, or was it another code of laws which he had made for our purpose, and then hid them from us. If you know in what book, or chapter, or verse they are in the bible, I beseech you to let us know immediately, for I see by John's visions in the Rev. that in the last days there certainly will be a company keeping them, and the Devil will persecute them for it; but they will eventually be saved, and enter the city. Rev. xii: 17; xiv: 12; xxii: 14. And finally, if you cannot find any others than those which God gave by his own mouth and wrote with his own finger on Mount Sinai, more than 3300 years since, the same which Jesus confirmed to us more than 1800 years ago with his Gospel, won't you make that known by publicly confessing that it is impossible for you to tell what other object God had in view than our keeping these same laws; and that you had, contrary to the direct teachings of God, derided both his law and his willing, obedient children. Don't tell us that this law is the “law of Christ or the law of grace,” or any other name unless you can show us how many commandments they contain, because James has told us “if we fail in one we are guilty of the whole.” Jesus never gave but one commandment.

P. S. As I predicted on your second page, J. Turner's piece has come. The child is fairly born, and you have fallen in love with it. Now brethren, just haul down all your other colors, J. Turner has got the very thing! The first day of the week is the seventh-day Sabbath! We have always been right, but we never knew it till now! Thanks to J. Turner for confounding the whole world, and now no more about this much vexed question! “We shall fill our paper mostly with other matter for the future.” The wind has favored us and we have made a first rate tack to windward, and now we can breathe much freer seeing our enemies are under our lee. Hear what he says? “We supposed and still do suppose that Barnabas had reference to a class well known to the adventists in Connecticut and Massachusetts, who went into the shut door, and staid in, and almost every other door but the true one into the sheepfold, and many of which became great sticklers for the seventh day.” &c. Now he goes on and speaks in high praise of those who have been writing for the Sabbath —they are consistent Christians, &c. And now, says he, “we must all be exceedingly careful how we write and speak; the enemy seeks to devour us, and one of his most artful wiles is to divide the saints by dark insinuations, evil speaking, and jealousies,” &c. – See Bible Advocate, Dec. 30th, p. 160. Why this caution after the above unsparing epithets; are you afraid that some of these misguided, mistaken people will get into your open door? If they should happen to, and confess that they were wrong in believing in the shut door, no matter how many others they had been guilty of entering into what you call almost every door, they would immediately become consistent Christians! Out of hundreds who have crawled into your open door and made such confessions, causing the hypocrites and unbelievers to rejoice, and the hearts of the righteous to be sad, &c., I will just name a few: J. and C. Pearsons, F. G. Brown, of wonderful memory; and now a few Sabbath keepers: W. M. Ingham, John Howell, of vascillating memory, and J. Turner, your fellow laborer. Well, you are not so far to windward as you think for; here comes another head flaw, that will drive you down on that lee shore again, where you may see the awful havoc you have made of those who are following in your wake. See them dashing there upon the rocks and into those overwhelming breakers! Your whirlwind of doctrine has utterly dismantled them, and their cry for help is unavailing! and unless you put forth some more strenuous efforts to avoid these dangerous seas, you will never get off from this lee shore, while under these deceitful and flattering winds of doctrine.

Again he says – “We take the liberty to add, that Br. T.'s article is irrefutable, and that we are now observing the Sabbath of the Lord our God, and not the Jewish, nor a Pagan Sabbath.” Where is he now? Does he mean that J. T.'s Sabbath is “the Sabbath of the Lord our God?” He has always insisted, in his former articles, that “the Sabbath of the Lord our God,” was the Jewish Sabbath. There is but one named in the bible. If this what he calls “the plain word of the Lord,” I doubt whether any one will understand him.

He says further – “If Friday was the sixth day – every transaction on the day of our Lord's crucifixion is involved in utter confusion – and the law of types in a like failure, and makes it an impossibility for the Sabbath of the Lord our God to be kept the next day, for this [wise] reason, that it was a feast day”! and quotes John xix: 31, again and again, for positive proof. I wonder if he can tell how, and when, and where the Jews lost that day, since the crucifixion, and where is the history to show that they did really pass over the seventh-day Sabbath and keep the first day for the Sabbath? I have already answered this in J. Turner's article; there you will see the reason why John called this “an high day.” Now, as he has spoken of the law of types, I ask where is the chapter and verse in the bible in which the Jews were ever forbidden to hold a feast, when it fell on the seventh-day Sabbath? for, as I before stated, this always did occur every year. Besides this Jewish feast was an holy convocation; no servile work was to be done on this day. This was always continued seven days, and the last day was like the first. Lev. xxiii: 6-8. Now then, all that they did on these feast Sabbaths, was to worship God by their offerings. You see that on God's holy seventh-day Sabbath, [see J. T.'s article,] they always offered four lambs; therefore, whenever the other Sabbaths, or holy convocations fell on the seventh day, they were equally observed, as is positively proved by the direction of God in the 37th and 38th verses of this same chapter, “every thing upon his day besides the Sabbaths of the Lord,” &c. Now see – here are seven holy convocations, Sabbath feasts named in this chapter, which the Jews were required to keep besides the weekly seventh-day Sabbath, and when their feasts fell on the holy Sabbath of the Lord, all the extra labor was in offering to God the extra bullocks, lambs &c. Do let me entreat you, before you further expose yourself, to read in connection with this, the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth chapter of Numbers, for here you will find every identical thing specified: therefore, when one of these seven holy convocation days of every year came on the weekly Sabbath, it was of more importance, inasmuch that they had more offerings to make to God, and hence John or any one else, might call it “an high day;” but none the less holy, any more than for us, instead of assembling together on the Sabbath, in our several places for worship, to have a general conference meeting in Boston, to continue over the Sabbath.

But J. Turner, instead of overthrowing history, as he promised he should, is exulting, and says, “unless I utterly misapprehend the technical veracity of Christ and his apostles, I have the argument by their concurrent testimony.” In his Note 3, he says, “But if the day that followed the crucifixion was the seventh-day Sabbath, it could not be said that the Sabbath drew on, for it was even then began. It commenced at evening, at the same time the pascal lamb was slain in the law, at which time according to the record, Jesus expired.”