d. 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 a