CHANGE OF GODS—CHANGE OF TIMES.
By R. F. COTTRELL
A RECENT writer advocating the claims of the first day as the Sabbath, endeavors to make it appear that Sunday is the original seventh day from the creation; that, at the exode of Israel from Egypt, God gave them the sixth day of the original week for the Sabbath, calling it the seventh, to distinguish them from the heathen around them who had departed from God into idolatry, but still held sacred the true Sabbath, worshiping the sun upon it, and called it Sunday. It is to be observed, 1. That there is no record that God changed the time of the Sabbath for Israel. 2. The fourth commandment is well calculated to give the Jewish people the impression that the day commanded was the seventh day in order from the creation. 3. The Jews always understood it so, and to this day believe they are keeping the same seventh day on which God rested at the creation. Now, since it cannot be disputed that some one day of the present week is the seventh day in order from the creation, and we have no proof from Holy Writ that God ever changed the day, is it not bold, daring, and presumptuous to say that when God says, in the fourth commandment, that the seventh day is his Sabbath or rest-day, because that in it he rested from the work of creation, he did not mean that those who heard his voice should keep the day on which he rested, but another day? If it was a fact that the nations, at the time of the exode, were keeping the day that God blessed at the beginning, the Israelites would have known it, had there been a change of the day. Either the change was made, and they did not know it, or else the miracles of giving the manna on six days, withholding it on the seventh, and preserving that gathered on the sixth to be eaten on the seventh, were wrought to convince them that the day of the Sabbath was changed, and that they ought to keep the sixth day of the original week, instead of the seventh. It would be strange indeed, yes, a miracle, should the thousands of Israel forget at the same time the day of common observance, so that the day could be changed, and they not know it; and it is blasphemous to suppose that God, who cannot lie, deceived them in the matter, giving them the Sabbath commandment in a manner best calculated to make them believe, and which does, in fact, make the Jews of the present day believe that they were required to keep the same seventh day on which He rested at the beginning. It is wonderful how men will labor to set aside the word of God that they may keep their own traditions! and especially so since the pointed testimony of our Saviour against it (Mat. xv.) has been left on record. According to the writer in question, the heathen were right,—they that had departed from the true God still kept the right day; and it follows that the fourth commandment was wrong. Would not the heathen, in their apostasy, be as likely to choose a different day from the Creator's memorial, when they chose to forget God, and worship idols? We have no record that those who would not retain God in their hearts, still retain the memorial of his creative work. But we have a case on record of men leaving God and setting up gods of their own, and instituting a festival similar to what God had commanded, but changing the day for the purpose of perpetuating their separation from the true people of God. After the revolt of Israel under Jeroboam (1 Kings xii,) he said in his heart, "Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: If this people go up to sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go to Jerusalem: behold thy gods O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar, (so did he in Beth-el,) sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Beth-el the priests of the high places which he had made. So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Beth-el, the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burned incense." Now is it reasonable to think that, when Satan first led the heathen to revolt from the Creator, and worship the creature instead, he was less crafty than Jeroboam, and would still have the people keep in mind the true memorial of the true God? How much more natural to think that, with their new gods, they would choose new days of observance, in rivalry with the institutions of Him they did not wish to remember. Thus, reason combines with revelation on this subject. “Let God be true, and every man a liar.”