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And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a LIAR, and the truth is not in him. Now no man, more especially one who professes to abide by the whole truth, feels entirely easy if he is called a _liar_. Now John please explain yourself. Hear him:
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Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you but an _old_ commandment which 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.
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In the _beginning_ was the word, --
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1, 2. See Gen. i ch.:
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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.
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This is the commandment that as ye have heard from the _beginning ye should walk in it_. (practice it.) ii: 5, 6.
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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
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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;
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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,
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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,
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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
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Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me, he seemed to understand this, saying--
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Blessed are they that _do_ his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. xxii: 14. Now it seems to me that the seventh day Sabbath is more clearly included in these commandments, than thou shalt not steal, nor kill, nor commit adultery, for it is the only one that was written at the creation or in the _beginning_. He allows no stopping place this side of the gates of the city. Then, if we do not keep that day, John has made out his case, that we are all _liars_. We say in every other case the type must be continued until it is superseded by the antitype, as in the case of the passover, until our Lord was crucified. So then, as Paul tells us,