Sunday in the Fourth Commandment.
LOYALTY to the law of God we highly respect, wherever we find it. Of all the dangerous isms of the age, antinomianism holds the lowest place in our estimation. And we think deservedly so, because the law of God is fundamental; it is of the very first importance. All other relations in life grow out of our relation to the law of our Creator and Supreme Governor. Therefore disloyalty to that law is the strongest evidence of treasonable feelings against the divine government. With regret we have noticed, during the last quarter of a century, a growing disregard for the claims of the decalogue as a code of morals, even among those whose professions would lead us to expect better things. One of the most distinctive features of Methodism, in its early rise, was its repudiation of antinomianism. Wesley and Fletcher battled manfully against this heresy which was largely prevailing in the established church. But how is it with their successors? Dr. Benson, late editor of the California Christian Advocate, published a pamphlet which was indorsed by denominational action, which, in its method of argument, and in its treatment of the fourth commandment, struck at the very life of the decalogue as a moral and perpetual rule of life. And Mr. Armstrong, of one of the eastern Conferences, wrote a pamphlet which, with an introduction by a Methodist D.D., was published by the Methodist Publishing Concern, which directly undermines the fourth commandment. But the wise men of that great and influential denomination surely know that it is impossible to destroy reverence and respect for that commandment and still maintain reverence for the other nine of the code. When they repudiate that, calling the seventh day, which is the only subject of the commandment, “the Jewish Sabbath,” they are strengthening the hands of those who repudiate the decalogue as a rule of Christian life, or the basis of Christianity. The gospel system is remedial—it is for “the remission of sins.” But “sin is the transgression of the law.” And he who invalidates the law nullifies the gospel as a means of remission. The commandment says, “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” not the Sabbath of the Jews. Why will Methodists and Presbyterians perpetuate and spread the error of calling the seventh day the Jewish Sabbath, against the plain terms of the commandment? We have tried, and tried in vain, to get the authorities of the Methodist church, to defend Mr. Armstrong's position in regard to the Sabbath, especially his argument on Ex. 16 and 20. We are forced to the conclusion that they will not repudiate his argument, and that they cannot defend it. We are willing to stand corrected in any and every point wherein we erred, if we did err, in our review of Armstrong's argument. And if we did err, why do they not point it out, on our repeatedly requesting it? If we did not err, if Mr. Armstrong perverted the testimony of the Scriptures, why do they continue to indorse and to circulate the perversion? These are serious matters. On the authority of his commandments “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” Eccl. 12:13, 14. We observe that the recent State Sunday-school Convention at Stockton, upheld the authority of the fourth commandment. We are glad of it; only we wish they were consistent, and would not try to throw the authority of the commandment over the first day of the week. Some years ago a Mr. Baird, a Congregationalist minister, made this application of the law in a labored argument. By request we reviewed the argument at the time; and as the same position is taken almost every day by some religionists, we copy the following paragraphs from that review:— In presenting the reason of Sabbath obligation God never refers to Adam, nor to the day of his creation, but to the creation of the world in six days and to his own rest on the seventh day. The work of creation in six days, dating from “the beginning,” and the seventh day of rest, cover the first week of time, and here only is the origin of the week of seven days. Yet Mr. Baird gravely asserts that the fact that the seventh day rest was not the seventh day of Adam's life is sufficient to entirely disprove the position of Seventh-day Adventists! Every Bible reader knows, or may know, that the day of Adam's creation has nothing whatever to do with the time selected and consecrated as the Sabbath. The word Sabbath means rest. And we inquire, Whose rest-day was man to observe? It was God's rest-day. “The seventh day is the Sabbath [rest-day] of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” How came the seventh day to be God's rest-day? “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.” These are the words of Jehovah himself. And they show, inasmuch as Sabbath means rest, and the Lord's Sabbath day is the Lord's rest-day, that no day can be the Lord's Sabbath, or rest, but that day on which the Lord sabbatized or rested. The Lord said, “Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep,” not our own, nor any one that we may choose. The following points should be carefully considered, as they are beyond dispute, and cover the whole question: 1. The resting of God on the seventh day is the only reason given in the Bible for the institution of the Sabbath. And, 2. The day on which God rested is the only day which, in the Bible, is required to be kept as the Sabbath. Thus the record in Gen. 2:3, reads: “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work.” The fourth commandment literally translated reads: “Remember the rest-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the rest of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work.” From “the beginning” God ordained that “the seventh day”—his own rest—should be set apart to a sacred use; and this, not to make it a rest-day, but because it was his rest-day; not dependent at all on our action, as Mr. Baird says, but to make our action conform to his example, both in his work and his rest. The fourth commandment of the decalogue is the only precept of Sabbath obligation in the Bible. Let this be borne in mind. This precept is based expressly on the events of the first week of time; and it covers the entire week. When God created the heavens and earth, just six days were employed. But in establishing the week, another day was added to the six days of his work, and thus the week became seven days in length; and so it has continued to this present time. But as his work was finished in six days, the remaining day was God's rest-day of the week. Because he rested upon it, he blessed it; that is, he put honor upon it. And he sanctified it; that is, he separated it from the other days, and set it apart to sacred observance. Because it was his rest-day he blessed it; and because it bore the divine benediction he commanded man to keep it holy. Now we appeal to every reader if it is not contrary to both reason and Scripture to apply these facts, or any of them, to any day but the seventh day. Why did God number off just seven days, if not to establish a week of seven days? All know that the cycle of seven days, or the week, had no other origin. And God's providence and his word has preserved, always and everywhere, this reckoning of seven days to the week. He said that in the first day he created the elements of which all things were formed, and caused the light to shine upon them. But he did not, therefore, set apart the first day to a sacred use. For that he chose the seventh day, because that, and that only, would be a memorial of all his work. A rest supposes a work performed. Inasmuch as each of the first six days was employed in work, and a different work was done in each, no one of them could possibly be a memorial of “all his work, which God created and made.” The cycle of seven days to the week was plainly pointed out at creation, and no one can point to any thing else as its origin. And we have seen that no fact recorded in connection with the institution of the Sabbath will apply to any day but to the seventh day of that first week of time. Therefore, to assert, as Mr. Baird repeatedly does, that the commandment does not refer to the seventh day of the week, is an evasion and a perversion of the law of God. It is only folly to assert that the phrase, “the seventh day,” means a seventh day, or any seventh day after any six days. If that is the meaning of the language, then the phrase, “the sixth day,” in Ex. 16, would mean any sixth day after an interval of five days. That is, if “the seventh day” is a term of proportion, and marks indefinitely a seventh of a cycle of seven, then also “the sixth day” marks merely a sixth part of a cycle of six. From this, it is easy to see that the order to gather manna on the sixth day, that is, on a day of a cycle of six, would soon come in conflict with the order to gather none on the seventh day; for the end of the sixth cycle of seven would coincide with the end of the seventh cycle of six. So absurd is this indefinite seventh-day theory. Dr. Edwards leads the way in which Mr. Baird has followed, saying, in his (so-called) Sabbath Manual, that the words six and seven in the commandment denote proportion, and not order. But the falsity of this assertion is too evident to require much argument for its refutation. For the word “seven” is not in the commandment, but the word “seventh,” which is an ordinal number. Order, and not proportion, is the idea of the law. To justify this perversion, Mr. Baird says the commandment does not say the seventh day of the week. This is a very weak evasion. It refers to no seventh day but that of the week. When God rested, and blessed the seventh day, only one week had elapsed; hence it was of necessity the seventh day of that week. No other computation but that of the week was, at that time, possible. At the falling of the manna the seventh-day Sabbath immediately succeeded “the sixth day.” Now this sixth day was either the sixth day of the week, or it was a sixth part of a cycle of six, after Mr. Baird's favorite method of computing cycles. But it could not have been a part of a cycle of six, for in seven such cycles it would coincide with the seventh day of a cycle of seven; and therefore the requirement to gather a double portion of manna, and that not to gather any, would have fallen on the same day. Hence it was the sixth day of the week and the seventh day following it was the seventh day of the week. Again, while the Saviour lay in the grave, his disciples “rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” And the day following was “the first day of the week.” As every week has seven days and no more, the seventh day of one week must immediately precede the first day of the next week. Therefore it was the seventh day of the week which was then kept “according to the commandment.” Nor could they have kept any other day of the week and kept the commandment. For the commandment is based entirely on the fact that God wrought six days and rested the seventh day of the first week of time. No other cycle but that of the week then existed, and the weekly cycle originated there, and there only. We will illustrate the folly of Mr. Baird's method of identifying the seventh day. Say a man has seven sons; the first-born is named John; the youngest, Robert. The father makes a will, bequeathing to each of his sons one thousand dollars, but having a customary fondness for his youngest, bequeathes to his seventh son ten thousand dollars. John determines to gain the ten thousand dollars for himself; therefore he calls the family together, and places them in a circle; commencing just next to himself he counts around, and of course reckons himself the seventh, and on that enumeration claims the ten thousand dollars. Now John has thoroughly instructed them that “the seventh son” means one son after six others, no matter where you begin to count! And while Robert fully believes in the correctness of this method in regard to the claims of God and of his commandments, he is not so ready to admit it when his own rights are involved; and therefore he throws the matter into court where John's method of determining “the seventh son” is condemned on short hearing. And so, when God shall bring every work into judgment in the light of his own commandments, will be condemned all the petty evasions by which men seek to escape God's requirement to keep the seventh day.