A FEARFUL LEAP by J. G. Wood

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, May 20, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 21

A FEARFUL LEAP.

By J. G. Wood

ELD. J. G. WOOD.

As the Disciple Church are at the present time quite unanimous in the position that Christ fulfilled the law and abolished it, and that as a consequence we now have no Sabbath by divine authority, I wish to quote a few extracts from Alexander Campbell, the founder of that church, as taken from his debate with Bishop Purcell in 1837. This will show the fearful leap which, as a denomination, they have taken some time during the last forty-four years.

On page 193, in speaking of the “immoral tendency of the Romish rule of faith,” he says: “License is given to violate, in some way or other, every precept of the decalogue. The Sabbath, as a divine institution, is thus set aside.” Again on page 204: “I was sorry to hear the gentleman defending white lies and little sins. When I think of the nature of sin, and the holy and immutable laws of God, against whom it is committed, I see no difference between one sin and another. But when He against whom every sin is committed, and that divine and holy law, which is violated in the least offense, is considered, we must say with the apostle James, ‘Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.’ He who said that not one jot or tittle of his law should fall to the ground, He who magnified his law and made it honorable, will suffer no person to add to or to subtract from, to change or to violate a single point with impunity.”

On page 214 he shows that the Catholic Church have rejected the second commandment of the decalogue, and says: “What myriads, then, through this fraud, must have lived and died in the belief that the

second commandment was no part of God’s law! It is clearly proved that the pastors of the church have struck out one of God’s ten words, which not only in the Old Testament, but in all revelation, are most emphatically regarded as the synopsis of all religion and morality.”