The Stennetts of England

Thought

My soul is bent to follow the Lord." 093 This is Edward Stennett's controlling consecration. He believes he must come to God for his guidance in living. God has established a moral law, so essential to the world, that in the form of the Ten Commandments, it is written in the hearts of men from Adam onward, not just on stone tablets at the time of Moses. It is written in the very natures of all men 094

Man was created good 095 , but Stennett calls himself "a poor unworthy servant", "a poor sinful wretch". 096 The Law of God is the eternal means by which he discovers sin. 097 It is necessary for man to be under the moral law in order to be eligible for salvation, for Christ, when he died for man, was under the law. 098 The law is an excellent guide, not a burden: "Is it a yoke to have no other God but Jehovah, and to abstain from murder, theft, adultery, and the like." 099 "The Lord has no controversy with his Law, but with man for breaking the law." 100

Stennett recognizes the Christian contribution to the understanding of the law:

"we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter ...[speaking of Paul] He endeavoreth to show the difference between the ministration of the spirit and of the letter, the one being a bare reading of the law, ... whereas they lived under the hearing of the bare letter of the law, which gave no strength to perform, we live under the hearing of the gospel, which is spirit and life." 101

The moral law is superior to the Ceremonial law in its "eminency and perpetuity," 102 and penalty. 103 Christ did away with the Ceremonial law by "nailing it to the cross", 104 the Levitical priesthood was also discarded. 105

To Stennett, the fourth of the Ten Commandments is an important one, telling man of the seventh day Sabbath. To him, the writing of the commandments in stone is significant. "If all you Sabbath breakers should lay your heads together, you would never be able to prove that ever one Ceremonial Law was thus wrote and spoke by God. 106

The death penalty is a major reason Stennett supplies for the perpetuity of the Sabbath. He feels he cannot throw out this argument even though there are objections to it. He refuses to put himself in the place of God and deny the penalty that was once set up. There are no magistrates to wield the penalty nor was it ever in the time of Nehemiah. Besides. Stennett says God does not punish sins of ignorance. Of course, if you know of the Sabbath and want to completely avoid the penalty, keep it. 107

Stennett prefers God's Sabbath and thinks it is a duty for all men. 108 He does say the Sabbath was a remembrance of what was past, 109 but it also has personal meaning to him. It provides "inward and spiritual rest." 110 It has a mystical value in worship:

And this I may say modestly say, to the praise of the Lord of the Sabbath, and without boasting, that if the saints did know how the Lord delights to meet with his people in this way of obedience in celebrating the Sabbath, they would soon call the 'Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable,' and honor him by ceasing from their own works which are suitable for the blessed season. 111

The Sabbath is also a "mercy" from God to men for their refreshing especially as some men would not otherwise give their servants a time to rest. 112

Stennett keeps the Sabbath from sunset to sunset, a custom that is yet practiced with meaning by modern Seventh Day Baptists. 113

"will not be afraid of the Sabbath because it was given to the Jews, any more than they are afraid of the adoption, and the glory, and the promises, and the other nine lively oracles, which were all given to the Jews." 114

(In this he sounds like Karl Barth, the twentieth century Swiss theologian: "The man who is ashamed of Israel is ashamed of Jesus Christ and therefore of his own existence.") 115

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