Untitled article by D. T. Bourdeau; Geo. I. Butler

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · September 3, 1867

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 12

REPORT FROM IOWA.

By D. T. Bourdeau; Geo. I. Butler

Our last report brought us to the conclusion of our labors at Clermont. From thence we removed to Fayette, where we have remained till the present time. This village is twenty miles south of Clermont, and ten from West Union. It contains not far from eight hundred inhabitants, we should judge, and is a pleasant, enterprising town.

For several years there has been an earnest desire to have the truth preached here, on the part of one of our brethren who resides in the place; and as it was necessary during harvest to be in a place large enough to support evening meetings, and as our way seemed hedged up in other directions, after making it a subject of prayer we concluded it was duty to pitch the tent here.

But we expected from the beginning we should have a heavy influence to contend with, for the Methodists have an Institution of learning in the place which exercises a controlling influence over many minds; and their preachers are very numerous, and of course the people are more or less church-bound.

We commenced our meetings July 25th, and have given twenty-one discourses thus far, commencing on the Advent doctrine, and then taking up the Sabbath question, on which we have given some nine discourses. Our audiences have averaged from one hundred to two hundred, evenings, while Sunday evenings we have had a tent full; we have quite a number of attentive hearers who are always present, who seem much interested.

When the Sabbath question was introduced a week ago last Sunday, it created quite a stir. The next day knots of men in every part of the street, and in the shops, were seen discussing the subject, some in favor, and some against; and an unbeliever remarked yesterday that the Bible had never been read so much in this town as it has since we have been here. Some are already convinced that the Sabbath is binding, but whether they will have grace to keep it, remains to be seen.

Last Sabbath evening after the discourse and after the appointments had been given out for Sunday, the Methodist minister who preaches upon the circuit here, arose and stated that he would preach upon the Sabbath question in the chapel, Sunday morning, by request of some of his members, in which he would prove that they were keeping the true seventh-day from creation.

We told him we should be glad to have him use the tent, as we desired our audience to hear him; but he would not consent. So we withdrew our appointment, and desired all our congregation to attend, and hear both sides. Of course we were present and took notes, and after he dismissed his meeting we informed them that the subject would be reviewed at the tent in the evening. In his discourses, for he spoke in the forenoon and afternoon upon it, he took substantially Mr. Aker's position, claiming that the fourth commandment required us to keep the seventh part of time, but that Sunday was the true seventh-day of the Adamic week. That it was necessary to know the exact number of days from creation in order to know when the true seventh-day comes. He claimed that the Septuagint version contained the only correct chronology, and called in Josephus for proof, stating that after the coming of Christ the Jews corrupted the genealogical tables of the other version. After trying to establish these points by a series of mathematical calculations with the solar cycle of twenty-eight years for a basis, claiming that in that length of time exactly the same day of the week would come on the same day of the month, and year, he tried to fix the day of the week in which the fourteenth day of the first month spoken of in Ex. xii, 18 would occur, and then with this cycle, taking the number of years to Christ, and applying it, tried to show that Christ arose from the dead on the true seventh-day of the Adamic week. That at the time the Israelites came out of Egypt they changed the commencement of their year, their month, and also their Sabbath, from the seventh to the sixth day of the week, and then at the resurrection the disciples all commenced keeping the resurrection or true seventh-day again.

In his afternoon discourse he tried to make his audience believe with quite a flourish of trumpets that should this chronology of Dr. Aker's be upset, it would destroy the reckoning of sea voyages, the calculation of eclipses, and almost the regularity of the seasons; that it was quite a job one had on hand to show the falsity of this position; for he said it would take eighteen years to go through the figures and disprove them. That this view was the one being generally adopted in the Methodist denomination; that all their young ministers were being instructed in it, &c. We could see very plainly how the large audience drank down the remarks, by the way many of them would look around at us. The professors on the platform and the people on the floor seemed to think the argument triumphant; although it was an effort almost entirely outside of the Bible, and probably not a dozen persons in the room could follow it through or comprehend it, and it was as contrary to their own position, before the meeting, as it was to ours; for this involved two changes of the Sabbath, and their former position but one. But it shows the eagerness with which people will grasp at any thing that releases them from their obligation to keep the Sabbath of the Bible. We do not know how nearly he followed Mr. Aker, not having his book; but these were his positions.

In our reply at the tent we tried to show that the commandment required a definite day, the very day upon which God rested; that no other day could satisfy his demands; and that it referred back to the creation, for its institution. All the readers of the Review are familiar with the argument on this point. We tried to show that it was impossible to find the exact number of days from the creation of the world; that no chronologist but Dr. Aker pretended to give even the exact number of years, and the reason he did it, was because he had a special theory to sustain; that Usher, Hales, and others, whose fame was world-wide as chronologists, and who had given to this subject long years of patient study, only claimed to come at it approximately, and all chronologists differ more or less among themselves, and differ also from Mr. Aker. We then contrasted the language of St. Paul with that of Mr. Aker. Paul when speaking of different periods of time which enter into these very calculations of Aker says, Acts xiii, 18, 20. “And about the time of forty years,” “and about the space of four hundred and fifty years,” &c. Thus the inspired apostle does not even profess to give the exact number of years, in these limited periods; but Mr. Aker claims to give the precise number of years, days, and minutes,

from the creation of the world! And Mr. Anderson told us in his discourse that the loss of one day would destroy the whole theory; and any one can see that the difference of one day might bring the Jewish Sabbath from the sixth to the seventh day of the week.

Again this theory is all based upon the Septuagint version of the Holy Scriptures. What authority have we for saying that its dates are more perfect than those of the original from which it and all other versions are translated? The fact that the translators of the Bible used the dates given in the original Hebrew, shows that they regarded them as correct; and their opinion would be as good certainly as Mr. Akers' who has a pet theory to sustain. Thus we see on what an insecure basis this theory stands. It is like a mighty pyramid standing on its apex. Without the certainty of having a correct starting point, if the calculations were correct, we should not be sure to come out right.

Again if Mr. Anderson's effort to find the length of time from creation to the fourteenth day of the first month, Ex. xii, 18, could be established, it would not prove his position, for the seventh-day Sabbath is not mentioned in that chapter, and the exact number of days from that period to Christ is not known. He tried to make it appear that the Passover Sabbath mentioned there was the weekly Sabbath, and stated that the reason the Jews did not keep it weekly, was that they backslid, and so did not keep it but once a year. The absurdity of this position can be seen by thinking of keeping the 4th of July as a weekly institution. We thought he must presume much upon the ignorance of his hearers.

We took the ground that it was utterly impossible to tell upon what day of the month the seventh-day Sabbath brought to view in Ex. xvi, and in the fourth commandment, did occur at the time of the exode from Egypt.

Let us examine now his position on another point. That at the exode the children of Israel changed their Sabbath from the seventh to the sixth day of the week. This was two months before the giving of the law, and one month before the fall of the manna, recorded in Ex. xvi. Where is the evidence that any such change was made? There is none whatever; but the word of God directly contradicts it. In this chapter, verse 22, we learn that the people gathered twice as much on the sixth day as on others, and the rulers came and told Moses; and in the 23d verse we learn that Moses tells them, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord,” &c., and in verse 30, “So the people rested on the seventh-day.” Mr. Anderson says they had commenced resting on the sixth-day a month previous.

Again, when we come to the giving of the law, one month after the event just noticed, God commands the people to keep the seventh-day, the very day of his rest at the creation of the world. The position of Mr. Anderson involves the absurdity of supposing that God would have them keep a day contrary to the one he had just commanded them to keep. According to this position, all of God's prophets who spoke by inspiration of the Holy Spirit were breaking one of his commands and keeping a day he never commanded, and did not know it.

Mr. Anderson quoted Josephus to prove his chronology correct. If he is good evidence on that point he is certainly competent to testify what day of the week the Jews were keeping as the Sabbath, being a Jew himself and fully acquainted with their history in the past. He says positively (Ant. of the Jews. Book 1, chap. 1, speaking of the creation of the world and the rest on the seventh-day), “Whence it is that we (the Jews) celebrate a rest on that day and call it a Sabbath,” &c., while Mr. Anderson says it was on another day.

But Mr. Anderson tells us there was another change made at the resurrection of Christ; that the resurrection day was the true seventh-day. Having traced down the day and shown by positive proof that the Sabbath mentioned in Ex. xvi, and Ex. xx, was the true seventh-day that God blessed in the beginning, we will next try to identify the day that we kept at the resurrection of Christ. Luke xxiii, 55, 56. Here we learn that the holy women rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment, and furthermore, that this was the day next preceding the day on which Christ arose from the dead. As the day according to the commandment, was the one God blessed and sanctified at the creation of the world, and as this was the day before the resurrection, what shall we think of Mr. Anderson's assertion?

We next proved, that if the Jews and holy women were keeping the sixth-day of the week as is claimed, Paul and the disciples went on keeping it, and continued to do so till set right by the Man of Sin; for we learn in Acts xiii, 42, 44; vi, 13; xvii, 2; xviii, 3, 4, 11, that the day Paul observed, and upon which he preached to Jews and Greeks, was the same day in which the Jews met in their synagogues, which Mr. Anderson tells us was the sixth day of the week; and those who have read the extracts from first-day writers in Bro. Andrews' History of the Sabbath, know that the early Christians continued to observe it for three hundred years, and some who did not come under the influence of the Man of Sin, even observe that old sixth-day Sabbath, as Mr. Anderson calls it, even till the present time.

We think beyond all controversy that this modern view of Mr. Aker is as much more absurd than the one so commonly received, as two absurdities are greater than one. First-day believers generally claim that the Sabbath was changed once. No good reason is ever assigned for this, and no record is ever shown in the Bible where this change was made; but this theory tells us that two such changes were made, of which the Bible gives no account. But perhaps enough has been said on this subject.

There is still an interest to hear on these subjects here. Brethren, pray for us.

D. T. BOURDEAU. GEO. I. BUTLER.