h ye had from
the beginning. The old commandment is the _word_ which ye have heard
from the BEGINNING." What do you mean by _beginning_? Turn to my Gospel,
1st ch. "In the _beginning_ was the word,"--"the same was in the
_beginning_ with God." 1, 2. See Gen. i ch.: "In the _beginning_ God
created the heavens and the earth." Then you are pointing us to the
seventh day of creation, in which God instituted the seventh day Sabbath
of rest, for the _old_ commandment in the _beginning_. ii: 3. Certainly
there is no other place to point to. Does not Jesus point us to the same
place for the _beginning_ when marriage was first instituted. Matt. xix:
4. [24]In my second letter to the church, I have taught the same
doctrine: viz. "This is the commandment that as ye have heard from the
_beginning ye should walk in it_." (practice it.) ii: 5, 6. "A _new_
commandment I write unto you." 7th v. This is the one that Jesus gave us
on that memorable night in which he was betrayed, after he had
instituted the sacrament and washed our feet. He said "By this shall all
men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another." xiii:
34, 35. The first then teaches us, Love to God, 2d, to Love our neighbor
as ourself; "on these two commandments (says Jesus) hang all the law and
the prophets." Then we understand this is the essence of the ten
commandments, and if we do not keep the Sabbath we do not love God.
Jesus says, "If ye love me ye will keep my commandments." We are
repeatedly told that the Sabbath was changed or forever abolished, at
the crucifiction of our Lord, and it is stated by the most competent
authorities that John wrote this epistle about sixty years afterwards,
and that about six years after this our blessed Lord revealed to him the
state of the Church down to the judgment of the great day. In the xiv
ch. Rev. 6-11, he saw three angels following each other in succession:
first one preaching the everlasting gospel (second advent doctrine); 2d,
announcing the fall of Babylon; 3d, calling God's people out of her by
showing the awful destruction that awaited all such as did not obey. He
sees the separation and cries out, "Here is the patients of the Saints,
here are they that keep the _commandments_ of God and the faith of
Jesus." And this picture was so deeply impressed on his mind, that when
the Saviour said to him "Behold I come quickly and my reward is with
me," he seemed to understand this, saying--"Blessed are they that