Untitled article by Isaac Sanborn

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 19, 1867

MEETINGS IN WISCONSIN.

By Isaac Sanborn

In my last report I referred to a promise of Eld. Bushly, E. P. M., to preach against the Sabbath, which he did yesterday, first-day; and I confess that never till then did I see the prophecy in 2 Tim. iii, 5-9, have such a fulfillment: “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away; for of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts; ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth; men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be made manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.”

His positions were,

1. That we could not understand the days of the creation week to be literal days, but indefinite periods of perhaps thousands of years in length.

2. That it was just fifty days from the day that the children of Israel left Egypt to the giving of the ten commandments.

In the evening I showed by the fourth commandment that his first position was a perfect failure. I also showed from Ex. xix, 1, that it was in the third month after they left Egypt that they pitched in the wilderness of Sinai; therefore the Elder could not tell what day of the week they left Egypt, and therefore it was not on the Sabbath, as he affirmed.

3. He said we could not keep the Sabbath and sail round the world. I answered by supposing that his two men were twin brothers, leaving New York on the fourth day of last July, both being 21 years old that day. One year from that day they both got back to New York, and one says he is two days older than the other. Thus showing that their loss of time was only imaginary, and not real as the Elder supposed.

4. He asserted that there was not one passage in the New Testament showing that the apostles ever met on the Sabbath for religious worship; but I showed him the following scriptures: Acts xiii, 42-44: “And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. . . . And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.” Acts xvi, 13: “And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made.” Acts xvii. 2: “And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.”

5. The Elder asserted that the Jews commenced counting on Sunday the first day of the week and therefore Saturday was the seventh day of the week, which is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: Remember it and keep it holy. Then he asserted that if we kept any particular day of the week regularly we kept the seventh day. Here I showed that the Elder denied his own position and was against reason and common sense, for I showed that God taught the Jews to count the days of the week as they are now counted, as all who believe the Bible must admit, by first pointing out the seventh day of the week by the bill of manna on the six working days, and withholding it on the Sabbath, for forty years. This is also proved by the resurrection of Christ on the first day of the week, which was the day following the Sabbath, or seventh day.

Now as the Elder taught, and some believe, that if we keep any day of the week it will answer for the seventh day, I wish to illustrate that position in the following manner: We will suppose that there are six silver candlesticks, placed in a row before us, numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6; then a gold one numbered 7. Let these seven candlesticks thus numbered represent the creation week. Now if Eld. Bushly, or any other person, was told that if they could find the seventh candlestick in the row they might have it as a gift, does any one think they would take either of the silver ones, and then contend they had the seventh or the gold one? All will answer, No; there never would be such a mistake made. Then as there is but one golden candlestick in the row, so there is but one holy day in the week, which God says is the seventh day, and therefore is the last day of the week, the one before the first day of the next week, and the day upon which God rested after laboring six days in creating the heavens and earth, the sea, and all that in them is. And after he had rested upon it he sanctified and blessed it, and called it his holy day, and tells us if we will turn our feet from the Sabbath, from doing our pleasure on his holy day, and call it a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor him, then we shall delight ourselves in the Lord. Isa. lviii, 13.

But why is it people do not see the Sabbath and cease trampling it under their feet by doing their pleasure upon it? See Eze. xxii, 26: “Her priests have violated my law and have profaned my holy things; they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths and I am profaned among them. . . . And her prophets [teachers] have daubed them with untempered mortar [false positions], seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord God [the first day is the Sabbath], when the Lord hath not spoken.”

In chap. xiii, 4, the Lord says, O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts. Travelers tell us that these foxes are very cunning. As they burrow in the ground, they make many holes to their hiding place, so that when the hunter puts his trap at one place the fox will go out at another, and so on. This peculiarity illustrates the characteristic of the latter-day prophets or teachers. Eld. Bull, of this place, first took the position that the ten commandments were all binding. In two weeks from that time he said they were all done away. Two weeks later Mr. Bushly took the position that they were all binding. But why can they not all tell the same story about it. For the simple reason that they have no Bible proofs to sustain them.

Eld. Bushly at the close of his sermon against the Sabbath said he would answer every argument that I would offer, if he did not die, but after I got through my reply in the evening he tried to make fun of the subject, and then gave notice that he would preach in four weeks on the immortality of the soul, which I expect to hear and review at half-past 2 P. M. of the same day, which will be on November 24, at the Okey brick school-house.

The good work is still onward in this place. The people are turning to the Lord. It is truly a solemn time in which we are living, yet we see ministers and professors of religion scoffing at the last solemn work that God is doing in the earth, fitting up a people for the coming of his Son. I am glad that it is our privilege, brethren, to lift up our heads and rejoice, because our redemption draweth nigh. May the Lord help us all to live so that we may say when he comes, “Lo! this is our God; we have waited for him and he will save us, . . . we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” Isa. xxv, 9.

Pray for me, brethren, that God may give me wisdom to do the work of an evangelist.

ISAAC SANBORN.