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The Sunday in Scotland

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 16, 1866

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 27, No. 7.

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The Sunday in Scotland.

By Editor

OUR readers are already informed, that quite an animated discussion has been going on in Scotland, over the determination of the North British Railway to run trains on Sunday. In connection with this discussion, two letters from the pen of James A. Begg have been printed, which we copy below.
From the North British Mail, Oct. 25th.
WHICH DAY IS THE SABBATH OF THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT?
To the Editor of the North British Daily Mail.
Sir,—Fifteen years ago I was permitted, in the columns of the Mail, to put to the Rev. Dr. James Gibson, and those then taking part with him, a question somewhat similar to that which stands above this letter. I am not aware of any answer having been attempted to be given, then or since; and as the Rev. Dr. Calderwood intimates that the late demonstration against Sunday trains, is but the commencement of a warfare intended to be continued, in the interests of truth I request your permission to call his attention to it. To me it appears that there is a very serious defect in the foundation of all the arguments maintained in the speeches made by him upon the subject, at the Presbytery and in the City Hall—a defect fatal, indeed, to the stability of the whole superstructure which he seeks to raise. And as, in his preface to the reprint of the former speech, he admits that "the true conclusion is to be reached by clear, candid, comprehensive discussion of the matter in dispute," perhaps I may be more successful in eliciting from him a response to a question which truly much concerns both his argument and his duty.
Dr. C. has assumed throughout, that Sunday has rightfully the place and authority of the Sabbath of the Lord—an assumption which, with full recognition of my responsibility, I confidently assert, the Scriptures nowhere sustain. And, surely, both the church and the world are entitled to ask satisfactory evidence, from those who imagine it can be adduced, that the sanctions divinely given to the Sabbath, apply now, not to it, but to a different day. Let, then, such evidence be produced; for it may fairly be questioned whether any zealous advocate, truly seeking the honor of its Lord in his advocacy, could, in the present day, find for himself a more important theme.
By his repeated allusions to the fact that there is in the Scriptures a divinely appointed law of the Sabbath, Dr. C. makes it all the more necessary that his hearers and his readers should be distinctly informed what and where that law really is. He acknowledges that "the only warrant for a Sabbath-day is the Bible;" and he speaks not only of "the Sabbath law," and of "the command which makes the day sacred to God," but also of the duty of "obedience to the divine law." Further, he inculcates "submission to a divine command expressed in the word of God," and states that "the authority which ordains a Sabbath, ordains a holy day of rest." All these expressions, however Dr. C. applies to what he calls "the Christian Sabbath;" not to the day which the Lord of Creation sanctified and blessed. What I ask of him, therefore, is, that he would cite for our consideration, "from the Bible," (which he acknowledges to be "the only warrant for a Sabbath-day,") the texts which contain "the divine command," "the divine law," the "authority which ordains" any change of the day, or a "command" by which the blessing originally pronounced upon the seventh-day has since been revoked, or transferred to the first.
But while such of your readers as are willing to give the subject consideration, "ponder the rule of Sabbath observance," as presented by Dr. C., I must avow my conviction, that the fourth commandment, which he truly says contains this one rule for its observance, "Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy," is a commandment which expressly condemns him. It is not a commandment which leaves us at liberty to choose for ourselves, or to allow others to choose for us, which day we will keep holy. It, on the contrary, distinctly enjoins the remembrance of a day which Dr. C. wholly repudiates as the Sabbath, affirming that "what God asks is, that we consecrate to him one day in seven." But, in so saying, he not only employs words which are not in the commandment, nor anywhere else in the Bible, but he uses those words to convey a sense directly opposed to the express injunction of the commandment. The "one day in seven," which he alleges God asks us to consecrate, is the first day of the week; but, so far is this from being the case, that he has put into the commandment itself, Exod. xx, 10, the discriminating declaration, "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Not only so, indeed, but in the same commandment has the Lord of the Sabbath been pleased to assign the reason for his choice of that seventh day rather than of any other, in these words, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." Verse 11. This is the only reason that is assigned in the commandment for the institution of the Sabbath, whatever other uses that day at the same time serves; and clearly it is a reason which does not, and can not, apply to the first day, or to any other day of the week than the seventh.
If, then, the commandment still be obligatory, "the seventh day," still is the Sabbath. It is mere delusion to suppose otherwise. Palpable contradictions are not to be imputed to the Divine Author. There is no principle which will admit of its being affirmed that the Sabbath has been changed to the first day of the week, which will still leave inviolate the authority of the commandment which declares "the seventh day" exclusively to be the Sabbath of the Lord. Either that seventh day is still the Sabbath, or the commandment which so enjoined, must have been divinely abrogated. The day therein named is as much and as essential a part of the commandment, as that it promulgates a Sabbath at all; just as truly and as emphatically as it speaks of the one it declares also the other. Let those who teach the opposite, consider whether they be not responsible for laying a stumbling-block in the way of their fellow-men, and be chargeable with the guilt of impairing in their eyes the beauty and significance of divine revelation.
I am, &c.,
Glasgow, Oct. 24th, 1865.
J. A. BEGG.
From the North British Mail, Nov. 4th.
WHICH DAY IS THE SABBATH OF THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT?
To the Editor of the North British Daily Mail:
Sir,—In my letter in the Mail of the 25th inst., I requested that the Rev. Dr. Calderwood would furnish us with his evidence of a "divine command" for the sacred observance of the first day of the week. I intimated, as the reason for this my request, that I did not find any injunction in the fourth commandment to that effect, as it speaks only of the seventh day as the Sabbath. Referring to my letter, the Mail of the 27th inst. contains one from a correspondent, who, under evident mistake as to the real meaning of his words, subscribes himself "An Observer of the Seventh Day." Instead, however, of furnishing me with the evidence I had asked, that the fourth commandment contains the "divine command" to observe the first day, he says quite positively, "I assert that the commandment mentions no day of the week in particular." Even if he had given proof of this, instead of assertion, it would obviously have done nothing toward supplying the desiderated evidence of a divine command for the observance of the first day, but would, on the contrary, have of itself, swept away the foundation on which all Dr. Calderwood's arguments were designed to rest. For, according to the Doctor, the first day is in some particular way in the commandment, and there too with sufficient authority, upon those who accept it, to prevent their running upon it both passenger and traffic trains
I must, however, leave it to the Doctor to defend himself in his own way from this new opponent.
Still, it is requisite that I should test, by the Scripture, the truth of this interposed assertion; for, if true, it would set aside all divine authority in the fourth commandment for any particular day, and is therefore as much opposed to my view as it is to the other. Besides, while the writer says that which implies an assertion that the commandment makes no mention of the first day in particular, he yet seems to think that, although it is without such mention, it is yet right to observe that day. I am therefore led to examine this altered ground of the argument also.
So far do I agree with Dr. Calderwood, that I regard it to be the very design of the fourth commandment, to enjoin the observance of one and only one particular day of the week. But I further believe, that the one special day so designed, is the day on which the Creator rested from His creation work, not the first day, on which that work was begun. Now, the divine resting day, the commandment itself informs us, was not merely a seventh day, but was "the seventh day" following the preceding six creation working days, for of that week alone does the commandment speak. Its work and its completion, and the Sabbath appointment on its seventh day, we are distinctly informed in the account of creation before mentioned, is not made of any other week or any other day. And before the Sabbath rest is announced, not only the creation work, but the divine rest also, had taken place. It was altogether because of the order in which these stood to each other, that the Lord chose the seventh day as his Sabbath, in memorial of his creation work, and resting from it. "God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." Gen. ii, 2, 3. And accordingly, the proclamation to Israel in the fourth commandment is, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 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; . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
Looking at this connection, and at the assigned reason for blessing and hallowing the seventh day, we are not led to understand that God blessed and hallowed prospectively, in an indefinite way, any one day of the seven, which men at any time, and for any existing or arising reason, might prefer, so that in one age the seventh day, and in another age the first day, should both, and equally, be blessed and hallowed by the same commandment, while that commandment received no alterations, either in form or in substance. If indeed that writer's view, that the commandment mentions no day of the week in particular, would thus admit of its sanctifying different days to be observed in successive ages, I can see no reason why it ought not also to invest with the same sanction and blessing different days appropriated respectively by different persons at the same time, so that (for the sake of illustration) that writer himself might observe with approbation the first day of the week as the Sabbath of the Lord, while Dr. Gibson observed the second day, and Dr. Calderwood the third day of the week, and this in all successive weeks, while each took the satisfaction of pleasing himself with the imagination that he faithfully observed the blessed seventh day.
If, again, the commandment mentions no day in particular as the day it blesses and hallows, but merely blesses and hallows in an indefinite way, we may extend our illustration, and suppose that besides the three individuals already specified to have a right of selection—a right which one of them seems to claim in virtue of the very terms of the commandment, and a right which all of them exercise—suppose every one else also to have the right of selection, and the will to exercise it likewise, might not the result be, that in the same city, or even in the same house, there might be persons beginning when they pleased to "work six days and rest every seventh," with such varied will and purpose of preference in selecting, and with such varied result, that each day of the whole week would require to be regarded as sanctified, and that by the commandment, which yet says expressly, "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God."
In point of fact, according to the theory put before us, we must suppose that in order to the high purpose being accomplished for which "the Sabbath was made for man," the God of creation, the Author of the commandment, has blessed and hallowed not only the day on which he himself rested, but must have blessed and hallowed, at the time of the creation of the world, whatever day it was possible for man to prefer as a day of rest—that is, all the days of God's working days, as well as that of his rest. We, however, learn from his word, that he neither blessed and hallowed every day, nor the first day, but only the seventh day, and that because that on it alone he rested from his work.
But if indeed the commandment mentions, and therefore means, "No day of the week in particular as the Sabbath of the Lord," but leaves us to choose according to our several preferences, then must that commandment at all times have given that discretionary power. The commandment, as we have it, is still the same as when it was proclaimed from Sinai in the hearing of the Israelites, and when it was written on a tablet of stone for future reference. It was made known as the divine law on the subject, by which they were to guide themselves, and as such, they were enjoined to "remember" it. If, then, the terms in which it is expressed give to us in present times a right of choice as to which day of the week we will observe and on what others we will work, those same terms must have left to the Israelites the same right of choice, so that any one of them might, without rebuke or penalty, have observed the first day or any other, rather than the seventh, as under such a view of the law as that supposed, they would be violating none of its injunctions, no day of the week being named in the commandment.
Let us then compare this with the actual facts in a recorded case. After Israel had heard the voice of the Divine Lawgiver saying, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," in circumstances, in short, when a rebellious spirit alone seems sufficient to account for such a violation of the law among them, a man was found daringly setting the commandment at naught, by presumptuously gathering sticks upon the Sabbath day. His case was referred for decision to the Lawgiver himself, by whom he was commanded to be stoned to death. Numb. xv, 32. No exemption of punishment was made for his working on the Sabbath on the ground that "the commandment mentions no day of the week in particular" as the Sabbath. It would not have availed him that he chose to sanctify another day as the Sabbath, even if he had offered to take the first day of the ensuing week. We thus find, that in the eye of the Lawgiver, the Sabbath of the commandment is a definite day. It was so in the age in which it was proclaimed to Israel. The commandment remains the same; none of its provisions or terms have been altered. Are we then at liberty to read and interpret those terms in such a manner as would have rendered the decision to which I have referred absolutely impossible? Do not we rather require to interpret the commandment as still determining definitely which day is the Sabbath, when it says, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God?" The commandment itself, in its reason for the blessing and hallowing of the Sabbath, refers us back to the creation week. That week was no arbitrary or artificial assortment of days. It consisted of the first seven days; and those days followed each other in a natural and proper sequence. Consequently, the seventh day was necessarily the last day of the week; and the commandment declares that "the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord." The second week also necessarily began with the first day, and as necessarily ended with the seventh, which seventh day was again "the Sabbath of the Lord." And so the week and its Sabbath must ever stand in the same relation till the Lawgiver otherwise appoint. God's creation week formed to that extent a true and not a fictitious calendar of time, as respects man, and the world in its condition of relation to him. To him, the first seven days formed his first week, and every subsequent week corresponds with it, having, like its predecessor, its own first and its own seventh day, which days are to it the first and the seventh days respectively.
But the man who, in disregard of the divine arrangement and appointment, arbitrarily devises a weekly calendar for himself, and by his collocation of days of work and rest excludes the real seventh day from its proper place, instead of sanctifying "every seventh" day in the sense of God's commandment, would, on the contrary, never observe its sanctified and blessed Sabbath day at all. The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord our God, only when that seventh day is reckoned in God's own way.
I am, &c.,
Glasgow, Oct. 31st, 1865.
J. A. BEGG.