The Discussion in Portland, Me.
QUESTION. The Seventh-day Sabbath observed by God's people prior to the crucifixion of Christ, is still binding upon mankind. Affirmative, M. E. Cornell. Negative, T. M. Preble. Cornell. In reply to an assertion by P. that he was claimed as the founder of the sect of Sabbath-keepers, Bro. C. showed that bodies of Christians who kept the seventh day have always existed. The quotations from Morer and Coleman by Eld. P. were met by counter testimony from the same authors, showing that the Sabbath was strictly kept in the Christian church down to the fifth century, and that for three hundred years there was no semblance of any law for the first day of the week. See Hist. Sab. pp. 246, 254. Takes up Preble's admission that the Sabbath as an institution has never been changed, and re-argues the point that the institution cannot be separated from the day. To separate it, destroys it. As P. had asserted that he could prove a change of the day, he was urged to show proof on these three points: When was it changed? how was it changed? and by whom was it changed? We must have the whole modus operandi. P. says that God blessed, in the beginning, only one day, and that was the particular day upon which he rested; not that he blessed it, as it should return every week. This was answered by the fact that God's act of resting was past, and the day upon which he rested was past, when God pronounced the blessing upon it. But a day already in the past could not be blest and set apart for the use of man. This would be impossible. God's blessing therefore could not have reference to that particular day on which he had rested, which was past, but must have reference to the seventh day for time to come. Hence in Isaiah we read of God's holy day, &c. Reminds the negative that he has not yet noticed the reasons on which the Sabbath's institution is based and the steps required to make such an institution, namely, a period of rest on the part of the Divine Being after his creative work, and then his blessing and sanctification given to the day. All these pertain to the seventh day of the week, and to no other day. Shows that the only object direct or indirect, of the blessing and sanctification, is the day. The only object of the fourth commandment is the day. The commandment requires us to keep the rest-day. Whose rest day? Man's? No; but God's. Preble. Admits that Morer's statement is all right, that for 300 years there was no law for Sunday-keeping, and then asserts, that for 2000 years from creation there was no law for keeping the seventh day, notwithstanding Bro. C. had showed that the sanctification of the seventh day in the beginning was the giving of a law or commandment for its observance. Admits that he has no doubt that the people of God kept the seventh day from creation, though there was no law for it; and asks why Christians could not keep the first day for 300 years under similar circumstances. Quotes Coleman, p. 527, not Bible, to show that the sanctity of the seventh day has passed wholly over into the Sabbath of the Christians. Admits that the seventh day was sanctified, but asks, seventh day of what? to which he replies, seventh day after six days of labor. God has instituted the Sabbath, and has sanctified that after six days of labor, man shall rest. [This description of what was sanctified, will doubtless strike the reader as a little peculiar. We do not remember to have read anything of the kind in the Bible.] Makes the following admission: When the affirmative will show that it was meant that man should observe every seventh day, reckoning in successive order from creation, he has gained his point, and I will abandon the whole thing. Expects to prove, but not by any positive precept or command, that the seventh day has been abandoned in favor of the first. Does not contend that there is any command or precept for it in the New Testament; but thinks we have divine precedent for it, for which he argues as follows: The Holy Spirit is a superior teacher to Christ himself. Refers to the passages which speak of Christ's going away and sending the Comforter who should guide them into all truth. I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. [They couldn't bear the announcement, so we must infer, that they were to keep Sunday.] It was necessary for Christ to leave the world, before they could get the whole truth. Now what day did they keep after that? If they kept the first day, it was proof that they had divine sanction for it. The word Sabbath does not occur in the Hebrew scriptures for 2000 years. It is shavath not Sabbath. Argues that on the same ground Sunday could be kept as the Sabbath, though not called such. The following rather novel argument was now introduced to prove that redemption was greater than creation: The world is to be consumed by fire. Then if it was not redeemed it would be lost. Therefore the work of redemption is greater than creation. Shall we not commemorate, he asks, the day on which Christ accomplished the work of redemption? Argues that we can commemorate both creation and redemption by the first day of the week, but we can only commemorate one by the seventh. The redemption involves the creation. The seventh day commemorates one event, the first day two. Cornell. Refers to the authors quoted, Morer, Coleman, &c., as being good on his side if they are on the other; but he did not go to them. Relies on the Scriptures to prove his position. This is the position of all Adventists, the Bible and the Bible alone. Nothing should be kept but what is appointed in the Bible. We might just as well keep Good Friday, Ash Wednesday, Holy Thursday, &c., as the first day of the week; for they are all equally proved by testimony outside of the Bible, and all rest upon the same foundation. Again reminds the negative that he has not yet noticed the main propositions upon which rest the institution of the Sabbath. Again stirs him up by way of remembrance by rehearsing anew the acts of God at the beginning and the reasons on which the institution rests. Thinks he can make the congregation see that God does require us to keep the seventh day in regular succession. What does the 4th commandment require men to keep? Is it only the seventh part of time? I deny it. When God gave the Sabbath he gave a reason for it. He did not rest upon a seventh part of time and no day in particular; but he rested upon a particular day; and we are commanded to keep the rest-day, the very day upon which he rested. Calls on negative again for proof in regard to change of day, to show when it was done, how it was done, and by whom it was done. All this can be shown in relation to the institution of the seventh day, and if another day has taken its place, the proof must be equally clear. Calls for proof that the disciples kept the first day of the week. In regard to creation and redemption, asks Eld. P. how he knows, provided redemption is greater than creation, that we should keep a day to commemorate it. If God has revealed that fact to us, we are to believe it, but not otherwise. How can we have a memorial of a thing that has not yet taken place? Who ever heard of such a thing? But the world is not yet redeemed; the work of redemption is not yet completed. There is involved in this position the fatal error, of getting up a memorial of something that is not yet accomplished. Draws a parallel between the marriage institution and the Sabbath, two institutions revealed to us as having their origin in the garden of Eden. Both holy and primeval institutions. Spiritualists are trying to do away with one, Preble with the other. We have no more right nor reason to say that the Sabbath has been changed than to say that the Marriage institution has been changed. The Devil has always been trying to do away with both. I deny that there is any proof of the change of either. Eld. C. here introduced an elaborate argument on the subject of memorials, showing that whatever is designed as a memorial in the word of God is plainly appointed for that purpose, so that it can not be misunderstood. Second, that in all Bible memorials there is a correspondence between the memorial and the event commemorated. Third. God does not give unnecessary memorials, hence we do not have two memorials of the same event. But we have memorials expressly appointed in the Bible, for those great events by which Christ secures the redemption of the world, namely, his death and resurrection; these memorials are, baptism and the Lord's supper. To have another memorial of the same things is both unnecessary and contrary to the order of the Bible. In the rest of the Sabbath to commemorate God's rest at creation, there is a fitness. But there is no fitness in Sunday-keeping to commemorate the resurrection. There is not a hint in the Bible about its ever being used for any such purpose. We are not told to keep the day of the crucifixion, resurrection, or ascension. Redemption is not yet finished. When the work is all accomplished, it will be time enough to talk of instituting thereof some appropriate memorial. Preble. Tries to build up his demolished breast-work that God sanctified the seventh day after any six of labor, and not any particular seventh day—simply the old seventh-part-of-time theory. Says the commandments of the decalogue are not binding because the penalty has been changed; yet there is a law against the same things, in this dispensation, and a law for the seventh-day Sabbath too. But we are not to keep the Sabbath written with ink, but that which is written on the heart. Turns to Heb. iv, 10, and argues from the record that it is Christ who is there said to have ceased from his work, as God did from his. How did God cease from his work? He sanctified the day on which he rested. Christ finished the work of redemption when he came out of the grave. Then he must have sanctified that day just as the Father did his rest day. [Query; Did Christ sanctify only that particular first-day on which he arose? or did he sanctify the first-day for time to come? or did he sanctify only one day in seven and no day in particular?] Declines it to be a misapprehension to say that he is commemorating redemption. What purchased the world back from the Devil? The blood of Christ. When was that blood shed? [This question we hoped he would answer, as it would decide at once which day should be kept to commemorate redemption, provided any day should be observed for that purpose. But he went on.] Christ has purchased it, and the work so far as he was concerned, was accomplished when he rose from the dead. Refers to the call for proof that the apostles kept the first day of the week, and says, Paul preached on the first day of the week. Acts xx, 7. Sabbatarians argue that Paul held this meeting in the evening because there were many lights in the upper chamber where they were assembled. Nux [very comically pronounced with a short u] is the word for night, and hemeron is the word for day. Now I ask, what day was it? It is the hemeron, day of the week, and he continued the meeting till evening. It was the first day of the week, not the first-six of the week. [Eld. P. evidently overlooked the fact that hemeron means a period of twenty-four hours as well as the interval between daylight and dark.] Paul preached on the Sabbath to accomodate himself to the Jews. Where did any other apostle do it? The Sabbath in the New Testament is confined to the historical books. It is never mentioned in the epistles. To make good this assertion, he closed this speech with the very truthful admission that Col. ii, 16, has no reference to the weekly Sabbath.