The sons of Aaron departing from God’s commands represents those who transgress the fourth commandment of Jehovah, which is very plain—“Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,” &c. Nearly all the professed followers of Christ do not keep the day God has sanctified and required them to keep sacred, to rest upon it because he has rested upon it himself. They labor upon God’s holy time, and honor the first day of the week by resting upon it, which is a common working day, a day upon which God did not rest, and upon which he has placed no sacred honor. (4aSG 14.1) MC VC

A departure from the fourth commandment will not now be visited immediately with temporal death. Yet God does not regard the violation of his commandments any more lightly than he did the transgression of Aaron’s sons. Death is the final punishment of all who reject light, and continue in transgression. When God says, Keep holy the seventh day, he does not mean the sixth, nor the first, but the very day he has specified. If men substitute a common day for the sacred, and say that will do just as well, they insult the Maker of the heavens and of the earth, who made the Sabbath to commemorate his resting upon the seventh day, after creating the world in six days. It is dangerous business in the service of God to deviate from his institutions. Those who have to do with God, who is infinite, who explicitly directs in regard to his own worship, should follow the exact course he has prescribed, and not feel at liberty to deviate in the smallest respect, because they think it will answer just as well. God will teach all his creatures that he means just what he says. (4aSG 14.2) MC VC