The Sabbath Agitation by G. I. B.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 23, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 37.

The Sabbath Agitation.

By G. I. B.

No observing person will deny the fact that the Sabbath question is assuming a prominent place in the public mind. We consider this fact to be a special indication of the nearness of Christ's advent, a fulfillment of prophecy, and a striking evidence that Seventh-day Adventists have an important message to give to the world. To make our meaning more plain we will elaborate these statements somewhat, that the reader may get a clear idea of the subject.

In reference to the suggestion that a spirit of inquiry is abroad concerning the Sabbath question, such as has not been seen for generations, or even many centuries, we call attention to a few facts.

We are living in an age of inquiry. Scarcely anything in the world is considered settled. It is a reading age. Minds are active and everything is being scrutinized closely. It is an unbelieving age. Sacred things are lightly regarded. Everything supernatural is questioned. A great effort is made to explain away God's agency in many things, and ascribe to natural law the works of Omnipotence: the origin of the world, the creation of man, and the miracles of the Bible. Therefore it is not strange that the Sabbath question should come in for its share of consideration.

The spirit of this age is secular, lax in spirituality, earthy, and pleasure loving. The current is strong

in these directions and it sets against any sacredness of regard for any day. A strong tendency exists to make all Sabbaths days of pleasure merely. This tendency alarms the most devoted people of the churches, and they fear that all piety and reverence for God will be swept away from the public mind. These know that a weekly Sabbath is a great bulwark of true religion, and they greatly fear that the day they have considered sacred will become a mere pleasure day, as Sunday is regarded on the continent of Europe. Therefore they raise their voices loudly in behalf of Sunday sacredness as they view it. This adds to the agitation of the subject.

During the last forty years a body of people has arisen in many parts of the world who believe in the sacred obligation of the seventh-day Sabbath. These are advocating it by public speakers, missionary workers, and many other agencies; talking with the people, giving their reasons for observing it, claiming for God's original Sabbath the same sacredness it had ever had, though it lay trampled under feet by the great apostate power which has thought to change it. They have used millions of dollars in the aggregate in creating agencies and sustaining them in bringing this important institution before the public mind.

In carrying forward this work, they are publishing many periodicals, books, pamphlets, and tracts in all the leading languages of Christendom, and strenuous and persistent efforts are being made to circulate them in all directions. Tract and Missionary Societies are organized in many States and countries, to scatter these publications. In the leading commercial cities of the world, ship missionaries are placing them on a large number of ships and steamers going to every part of the globe. It would be strange indeed if these efforts had no effect. The result is seen in all directions. The public prints both secular and religious often have in them references to the Sabbath question. Those papers which have a question department often have in them questions and answers upon this subject. Much is being said about it everywhere.

A respected brother connected with one of the city missions in one of our metropolitan cities, informed the writer that in a dozen successive issues of one of the leading dailies there were some nine or ten which had articles bearing on the Sabbath question. In another instance the editor of one of the leading religious journals, when personally solicited to answer in his journal some leading questions concerning the Sabbath, said he could not open the columns of his paper to this subject, giving as a reason that every week a score of such questions come in to be answered. These straws show which way the wind is blowing, and how great is the interest upon this subject.

These efforts of Sabbatarians to uphold the claims of the ancient Sabbath of the Bible, necessarily disturb the adherents of Sunday keeping, as the Sunday institution is shown up in its true light as devoid of all Bible authority. The effect is twofold at least upon first-day observers. The reasons for keeping the seventh day, lead the more candid and those who are seeking for light and truth to become unsettled, and they question the grounds of first-day observance, and many change their practice. The effect upon those who make no profession of religion, is to make them lose what little respect they had for Sunday.

While with many others who are thick and thin supporters of Sunday, the effect is opposite. They are stirred up and enraged because Sunday authority is questioned. The stronger the arguments used against it the more bitter such become in their feelings, and the more they are determined to sustain their pet institution. So the greater the agitation in behalf of the ancient Sabbath, the more energetic the supporters of Sunday become. Already a strong party is formed who are exerting themselves to the utmost to create a public sentiment sufficient to enforce the observance of the day by the pains and penalties of the law of the land. This appeal to the secular power is always the last step taken by supporters of a crumbling, falling, man-made institution, when it has lost the respect of the people. What they lack in argument they propose to make up in force. So it has been in the past. And it would seem that this experience is to be repeated in our own free Government.

To the careful observer it is wonderful what a change has come over the public mind on this Sabbath question. The agitation is not confined to America but it is going on in Great Britain, and on the continent of Europe, and in Australia, and really throughout Christendom. Plenty of evidence can be given to sustain these statements.

How can we account for this fact? After centuries of apparent quiet, where at least little stir and interest has been manifested in the subject, all at once the agitation begins upon the question of what day is the true Sabbath for Christians to keep.

The history of the ancient Sabbath of Jehovah from the creation of the world to the present time is one of the most interesting of theological studies. For 4,000 years it was always recognized as the only Sabbath day. History is perfectly clear in recording its continued observance for several hundred years after Christ. Gradually, however, another day began to assume a certain degree of prominence among Christians. First it received a sort of voluntary consecration as not a hint can be found in the Scriptures requiring any such consecration, then a custom was established in its favor as a mere festival day. Then some 200 years after the birth of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church began to bestow upon it special favors, calling it the Lord's day and making it a joyful festival, while at the same time the ancient Sabbath was turned into a fast day. After a little a heathen emperor made a law that the townspeople should rest on “the venerable day of the sun,” while farmers might still work upon it. This was the first law ever made in behalf of this day. Then the Catholic Church, taking advantage of the existence of this heathen law, exalted it still higher. Finally the Catholic council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, pronounces a curse upon all who should keep the ancient Sabbath. The new day is still further advanced and all labor upon it finally forbidden, and pains and penalties are inflicted upon those who will not keep it. Bogus miracles are invented to add to its sacredness. It was never called the Sabbath however till more than a thousand years after Christ. Every effort of the Roman Catholic Church was put forth to bolster up and add to the sacredness of the new day till the time of the Reformation.

The Reformers at first treated it like other festival days of the church and did not regard it as any more sacred than Easter or Christmas. But in 1595 Rev. Nicholas Bound invented the modern seventh-part-of-time theory, since which the new day has undertaken to hide under the sacred folds of the fourth commandment. For more than twelve hundred years after Christ not an instance can be found in history where such a claim was ever made, that the new day could be enforced by that commandment, and very few instances indeed till after Dr. Bound made this great discovery. Since that time this is the popular claim.

What was this new day which thus invaded the sanctity of the ancient Sabbath kept for 4,500 years? All understand that it was the Sunday. What was the Sunday? It was “the wild solar holiday of all ancient times,” as a high authority dignifies it. It was the weekly memorial of sun worship, the most ancient form of idolatry. The worship of Bel, Baal, Apollo, and many other gods of ancient times was really homage of the sun. Sunday, i. e., the day of the sun, as a weekly holiday in honor of sun worship, can be traced back into the remotest ages of antiquity. This very fact should forever stamp it as a rival to the ancient Sabbath. It was set up in honor of idolatry, and its adoption by the Catholic Church when it observed a vast number of heathen rites, is not to be wondered at. But that the Protestant church, which has professed to take “the Bible and the Bible alone” as its sole authority, should adopt this ancient idolatrous memorial appropriated by the Roman church, is indeed astonishing, when not a text of Scripture could be found in its favor.

But it would seem as though the ancient Sabbath had been entirely supplanted by this successful rival, when so many centuries had passed and Protestantism had adopted the Sunday of “Pope and pagan.” All did seem quiet and settled, very few voices were raised against it. Sunday had the field, and the conflict seemed to be settled forever. But when the great Advent message was proclaimed, it contained one clause which had in it a disturbing element, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14: 12. The prophet of God had foretold the rise of a power which should think to change the “times and the law.” Dan. 7: 25, Revised Version. These were given into his hands for “a time and times and the dividing of time,” i. e., 1260 prophetic days, or years. This time covers the supremacy of the Papacy. This language implies a change. When the last message is proclaimed God's commandments are again proclaimed in their purity. When lo! the agitation commences and extends by land and by sea, and never has there been seen such an agitation of the Sabbath question as we are now entering upon.

Dear reader, this agitation is but fairly commencing. It will stir the world more and more. It will reach to every land and every clime. The religious bodies cannot stop it. The secular powers with their pains and penalties cannot squelch it. It is going in all directions through the land. The nations must and will hear it. God's ancient Sabbath will have such a consideration as it has not received for ages. Hoary fables will be exploded. Man's inventions in behalf of Sunday sacredness will be exposed. God has reserved this grand, ancient memorial, the Sabbath of the Bible, as the last great truth with which Christendom will be tested. That Sabbath which patriarchs, prophets, the church for 4,000 years, Christ, and the apostles kept as the Sabbath of the Lord, and which will be kept in the new heavens and new earth (Isa. 66: 23), will be kept by the true church when our Lord and Saviour shall return.

G. I. B.