The Safe Side is the Best.
By R. F. Cottrell
You say you believe that if we keep one-seventh part of time to the Lord, let it be what day of the week it may, it will be acceptable with God. If you are right, we that keep the seventh-day—the only day which God has ever appointed for the weekly Sabbath—are certainly doing that which is acceptable and well-pleasing in the sight of the Lord; for we are keeping a seventh part of time. Therefore, whether we are bound to a particular day, as we think we are, or not, we are right and safe, according to your judgment as well as ours. But supposing your opinion, that any seventh part of time is acceptable should prove to be false—and there is no intimation in Scripture to sustain it—supposing it prove to be the truth that God has appointed the particular day of the seven he would have us observe, and that a substitute is not acceptable with him, as his word abundantly teaches, Lev. x, 1–3, 1 Sam. xv, 21, 22, Matt. xv, 1–9, in that case, what will be the result in the day of reckoning, to those that choose another day? Is it not best to be on the safe side? In worldly matters men choose the safe side. They always prefer gold to doubtful paper currency, though the latter might possibly pass. When they can choose, they always take that about which there is no doubt. Why is it, that in religious matters men choose doubtful paper to genuine gold? Nadab and Abihu may have reasoned thus: Fire is fire; and what difference is there between the fire upon the altar and any other? Other fire will cause the incense to smoke as well as that, and I cannot see that it makes any difference. The essential thing evidently, is to burn the incense; and the fire from my own hearth will do it as effectually as that from the altar of the Lord, and I believe it will be just as acceptable. But what was the result? They offered strange fire—offered God a substitute for what he had commanded—and a fire came out from before the Lord and they died—died a fearful example to all who should follow in their steps. Our friends tell us that though it makes no difference what day we keep—that any seventh part of time is equally acceptable, yet it is much better that there should be uniformity. Therefore they choose to keep the first-day, since that is the prevailing custom. Now if uniformity is so very desirable, the Lord certainly knew it. Accordingly he has appointed the day, so that there might be this desirable uniformity with all those who choose to obey him. He is not the author of confusion. It would have been the hight of folly and absurdity, to make any seventh part of time the Sabbath, as each man might choose, when it was altogether best that they should be agreed in some one day. Only think of a State legislature decreeing that every man should do military duty one day in a year, whenever and wherever he chose. Would not each farmer choose to do it in his own corn-field, about the time his corn was coming up? And would any one expect to see them all turn out on the first Monday in September, as we used to do? The Lord has not committed an oversight so fatal to his plan and so subversive of the design of the Sabbath as a day of public and social worship, but has appointed the day, so that there might be no need of confusion, but that all might harmoniously worship him together upon the day of his own choice. Reader, since you feel free to choose for yourself, will you not choose the day that God has chosen and sanctified and blessed? If all will do this, there will be uniformity; but if others do not choose it, still it is safe. God will not fail to accept of the day of his own choice—the day which he blessed and sanctified; "because that in it he had rested from all his work." But if you choose a substitute, no matter how popular it is, the Scriptures do not authorize me to promise you that it will go any better with you in the day of judgment than it did with Nadab and Abihu, with Saul or with those Jews, in the days of our Saviour, who "made the commandment of God of none effect" by their tradition.
R. F. COTTRELL.