p. 210 | Untitled article

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · September 17, 1867

SABBATH AND SUNDAY IN CINCINNATI.

The following from the Chicago Daily Tribune of Aug. 15th, will be of interest to our readers:

“The Sunday question is exciting some controversy at Cincinnati. A clergyman of that city, Rev. N. Summerbell, has preached and published a sermon to show that the divine appointment of the seventh-day of the week, to be observed as the Sabbath, has never been changed, and that there is no authority for the substitution of the first day of the week (Sunday,) except custom, enforced by a Roman decree in the fourth century. He holds that it is impossible for custom, even when enforced by the edict of a Roman Emperor, to set aside a Divine ordinance. He makes the broad assertion, that ‘those ministers who testify against the Sabbath, (the seventh-day of the week,) contradict their uniform pulpit teaching.’ That the early Christians did not regard the seventh-day, he pronounces wholly irrelevant as against the plain words of the Decalogue. Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible treats of the subject under two distinct heads, entitled respectively, ‘Sabbath’ and ‘Lord’s Day.’ It shows that the two have no connection, and that it is a misnomer to call Sunday (the dies solis of the Emperor Constantine,) the Sabbath.”

Below we give an abstract of the sermon referred to in the foregoing, taken from a Cincinnati paper of July 29, 1867:

THE SABBATH NOT DONE AWAY BY CHRIST.

[Abstract of Sermon preached in Cincinnati by N. Summerbell, July 28, 1867.]

Genesis ii, 2, 3: “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.”

This is the institution of the Sabbath. It antedates all Jewish or Gentile institutions or nations. It was made not for the Jew, but for man. God rested, giving us divine example. God sanctified the day, and as long as the day lasts, and as far as the day extends, the sanctification reaches.

The law was afterward placed in the Decalogue, every one of the laws of which is eternal in its nature, and irrepealable. No man can point to any other law of the ten and say this is repealed. Therefore it is an error to regard the fourth commandment as repealed. To be repealed the sanctification must be removed by the same power that sanctified. The law must be repealed as plainly as it was made. God made the Sabbath “for man;” gave it to him for a blessing, a joy, a “delight;” therefore those who argue against it, calling it Jewish, and its observance unchristian, bear witness that their spirit is at war with God.

I. The example of Jesus proves that he did not change or do away the Sabbath.

First Example.—Jesus, after his baptism, returned to Galilee, and “straightway, on the Sabbath day entered into the synagogue and taught.”

Second Example.—“When the Sabbath was come he began to teach.” Mark vi, 2.

Third Example.—“He came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, and as his custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read.” Luke iv, 16.

Fourth Example.—“He came down to Capernaum and taught on the Sabbath days.”

These examples show that it was the custom of Jesus to observe the Sabbath. Those who profess to be his disciples should follow his example.

II. When the hypocritical Pharisees accused Jesus of violating the Sabbath, because he allowed his disciples when an hungered to rub out the corn to eat on the Sabbath, he referred them to such Sabbath-keepers under the law as David and the priests in the Temple. The former eating the shew bread only lawful for priests, and the latter profaning—that is, doing labor in offering the sacrifices on the Sabbath, and were blameless. He thus convinced that there were exceptions to the rigid observance of the law, by past precedents under the law; then announced himself Lord of the Sabbath, and informed them that it was made for man; that is, for man’s benefit.

When they again accused him of violating the Sabbath, because he healed on the Sabbath day, he convicted them of duplicity by their own custom of relieving even a brute on the Sabbath. Thus Jesus explained his conduct by no future “is to be” changed, but the past, “had been,” under the law, and by their own Sabbath-law-abiding customs. Every excuse is, therefore, removed from those who would accuse Jesus of changing or doing away the Sabbath. In his instructions to his disciples that they should pray that their flight from Jerusalem (Matt. xxiv, 20) be not on the Sabbath day, Jesus supposes the Sabbath to be in force forty years after his resurrection. When he had finished his work he rested in the grave over the Sabbath, and arose on the first day of the week, when the “Sabbath was past,” to his new work.

III. The disciples, like their master, observed the Sabbath. Though the spices were prepared, yet they visited not the tomb, but “rested the Sabbath according to the commandment.” And the Sabbath being past, some hasten to the sepulchre to the work of embalming on the first day of the week, and others are traveling to Emmaus, over seven miles distant.

IV. The same rule held good with the apostles afterward, when they ordered attendance to money affairs on the first day of the week, (see 1 Cor. xvi, 2,) but were uniformly found preaching on the Sabbath.

1. At Jerusalem, Acts xv, 21, where the apostle James presided, Paul was a delegate, and Peter a speaker. This first council refers the Gentiles to the Scriptures “read in the synagogue every Sabbath day,” thus proving that they both knew and approved the stated, general, and regular worship of the Gentile Christians on the Sabbath.

2. Not only, therefore, the Jews at Jerusalem, but the Gentiles at other cities, understood the Sabbath to be the day of worship. At Antioch, “On the Sabbath day Paul preached.” The Gentiles requested preaching on the next Sabbath. (Why not on the morrow?) On “the next Sabbath-day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.” Acts xiii, 14, 42, 44.

At Philippi they “On the Sabbath day went out by the river side, where prayer was wont to be made,” and preached and baptized. Acts xvi, 13.

At Thessalonica “Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them” and preached three Sabbath days. Acts xvii, 2.

At Corinth Paul taught the word of God every Sabbath for a year and six months, that is, over seventy consecutive Sabbaths. Acts xviii, 4.

Such was the “custom” of the divine Lord, and such the “manner” of the true disciple. Jesus “taught on the Sabbath days,” as was his custom. Paul “every Sabbath,” as was his manner. And the Gentile Christians heard the Scriptures “every Sabbath-day.” No contrary can be called evangelical Christian, English divines to the contrary notwithstanding.

V. The Lord’s Day—Rev. i, 10. There is no doubt but John, by the Lord’s day, signified the Lord’s holy Sabbath, as the Scriptures never call any other day the Lord’s; and there is no evidence that John meant any other day.

VI. The objection founded on Col. ii, 16, “Let no man judge you in meat, drink, new moon, or the Sabbath day;” has, as seen by the preceding verses, reference to the ceremonial law, and its new moons and Sabbaths therewith connected, as in Isa. i, 13, “Your new moons and Sabbaths my soul hateth.” These Sabbaths were the rest days of the many feasts and moons, and had no reference to the Sabbath of the Lord. These were against us, Col. ii, 14, but done away by Christ; but the Sabbath was made for (us) man. The same is true of the days. (Rom. xiv, 5.)

VII. Appeals to the fathers and to tradition are of no force against the positive law of God. Jesus says that men “make void the law of God by their traditions.” (Mark vii, 7–13.) Nor is the assertion that the law of the Decalogue was done away true. Jesus said that whosoever does away the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven. He told the young man to do the commandments. Paul said the law is holy, just and good. “Do we,” said he, “make void the law? God forbid! Yea, we establish the law.” Not one other of the Ten Commandments will any true man say is done away. Then why the fourth? God made the Sabbath for man—for man’s good, for rest, for a “delight,” for a sign. To the good it has ever been a delight. It is, and ever has been, a sign by which the good were distinguished. In arguing against it, therefore, men bear witness against themselves, for the good love the day.

“Day of all the week the best; Emblem of eternal rest.”

The fact that the Romans, in the fourth century, changed the day, is the secret of much that is said against it. But men have no right to change God’s law without Divine authority, and then make their own change a pretext for disobedience.