thing following another, then we have failed to
profit by it. Let me entreat you, my brethren, to critically examine the
next three verses: viz. "Here is the patience of the saints, here are they
that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."--12th verse.
What is the faith of Jesus? Answer,--Chapter 12th, 17th verse says it is
his "testimony;" chapter 19th, 10th verse, says his "testimony is the
spirit of prophecy." "Teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you."--Matt. xxviii: 20. Now observe, the faith, or
testimony of Jesus, embraces all his teachings. Now mark, this is what our
opponents call the New Testament _commandments_, or _grace_, which they
say embraces all the commandments that we are bound to believe or keep!

The text says that these people that are in their patience, their _trying
time_, keep the commandments of God, besides the testimony of Jesus. Here
then, we are absolutely directed, not only to the old testament but to the
decalogue--Exo. xx: 1-17, and even before there was any decalogue in the
form of a precept; see Exo. xvi: 27-30. This one text, in itself,
positively overthrows all of their unscriptural teaching about their New
Testament commandments, and clearly demonstrates the perpetuity of God's
holy Sabbath, because the commandments of God are one thing, and the
testimony of Jesus is another. These are the people, then, and the only
ones too, who abide by the whole word of God, in the Old and New New
Testament teaching, and they that deny the teachings of this text, deny
the word of God, and trample down His Holy Sabbath.

In the three preceding verses, God's people are called away, and required,
under penalty of their salvation, to continue disconnected from Babylon,
the churches to which the great mass before this belonged. Now the very
next thing after these messages, John declares that they are keeping the
commandments of God; that is, they are keeping the seventh-day Sabbath.
Where is the proof? says the objector. Here it is--when this same people
were making their sacrifice, in 1843 and '44, expecting the Lord to come,
they were walking out in all the commandments of God, as far as they were
taught or knew them at that time; and we all fully believed then, and do
now, that _all_ the honest ones were in a saved state; and if called away
then, as was brother Fitch and others, the same hope would follow them;
but we know that they could not be honest