ELDER GRANT’S NINTH SPEECH
My friend argues that there are two laws. We seem to be coming together. I have not denied that there are two laws. The first law was the old covenant of bondage, but the second law is the new law of liberty. Galatians 5:1. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty where-with Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Those who have kept the Sabbath have felt that they were in bondage. If we adopt one of the feast-days we should adopt them all. We think we are at liberty from that law of ordinances. We can now come to Christ without going around with a meat offering.DSQ63 48.1
I will now refer to some learned authors to show that the patriarchs did not keep the Sabbath. Peter Heylen, in the preface to his work, says. “When you give it out as a matter of fact that before Moses time the Sabbath was observed, I will let you see that it was not so. It is all your [original illegible] to show it was moral.” In his work he says, “There was no Sabbath kept till the time of Moses, as I will show from the fathers. None were circumcised till the time of Moses, when the Sabbath was instituted [original illegible] and Eusebius declare that “the religion of the patriarchs was quite different from that of the Christians. Justin Martyr says, “There was no use for the Sabbath until Abraham’s time, and Moses was the first lawgiver among the Jews.” St. Augustine says, “The Sabbath is no part, of the moral law.” Athanasius says, “It was abolished at the resurrection of Christ. Clement of Alexandria says, “We keep the Lord’s day, if we would glorify the Lord in his resurrection.”DSQ63 48.2
The Lord’s day we now keep is kept in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ. If the Jew does not keep the first day he virtually denies the resurrection.DSQ63 49.1
The bondage of the old covenant was in the Sabbath. Were they not stoned to death for breaking the Sabbath?DSQ63 49.2