The Signs of the Times

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ABSURDITY OF A SECOND OBJECTION. 33 her strength or comfort to mitigate the horrors of the murderer's mind, till in despair he cried out, Mypunishment is greater than I can bear .' ! ! Hence, the circumstance of Cain's concealed crime, and the Divine revelation of his punishment, (which was to him, a dying life, and a living death, as it is doubtless the case, in a greater or less degree, with all concealed murderers;) can afford no valid objection to the subsequent Divine enactment of the penalty of death for murder, required to be inflicted in all cases, and at all times, when the crime can be proved, and the guilty murderer be brought to justice; and especially so, when it is considered that no Divine Law, nor penalty, for the prohibition and punishment of murder, had been specifically enacted and promulgated by the Almighty, before the murder of Abel. Do we again hear another objection against the penalty of death for murder, on the plea, that the Moral Law was binding only on the Jewish nation; and not on them, longer than the coming of Christ, who abolished the penalty of death, previously due to the Jewish murderer ? In reply, we remark, that the plea to sustain this objection, is replete with absurdity. It amounts to an affirmation, that all mankind, except the Jews, were never prohibited by the Moral Law, from worshipping whatever idols they pleased, instead of God. That none of the Gentile nations of the earth, were forbidden to make graven images in the likeness of anything on earth, in the air, or sea, and to bow down and worship them. That none of mankind but the Jews, were forbidden to take the name of the Lord God in vain; nor required to keep the Sabbath day holy; nor their children required to honor and obey their pa- 34 CHRIST DID NOT ABOLISH THE M...