p. 126 | Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · April 21, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 16

A Greater (?) than Joshua.

The Mail and Express, of April 9, contains a sermon by Rev. David Gregg, of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, from Ex. 23:12: “Six days thou shalt do all thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest,” etc. In its personal comment the Mail and Express says of Dr. Gregg, “His sermons always show that scholarship which is so prominent a characteristic of the man,” and in the course of the sermon quotes him as saying:—

We have spoken of the abolition of the Sabbath in California. One reason for its abolition there is the wrong views which are scattered broadcast in California. The Seventh-day Adventists have their stronghold there. They insist that the seventh day must be observed, or no day, and so are hand in glove with the infidel in destroying the Sabbath. This is an illustration of the power of wrong views, and of the church defeating itself because of wrong views. There is no proof, and, consequently, no certainty, that the seventh day of creation, which Adventists claim, and the seventh day of our almanac are one and the same day. Besides this, the whole controversy about the seventh and the first day can be settled in a simple way. Here is a man who believes in the first day of the week as the Sabbath, and here is a man who believes in the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath; let them turn themselves back to back and start around the world. When they meet at the point opposite the starting point on the other side of the world, they will find that one has lost half a day, and the other has gained half a day and that they are keeping precisely the same Sabbath. Let them turn around and come back the same way and they will have the same Sabbath when they get home. Simply crossing over what is known by navigators as the Sunday line at 180 degrees changes the day, either backward or forward.

Certainly there is a greater than Joshua among us, for while at his behest the sun stood still, it yet continued to be the measure of the day, but Dr. Gregg is able to ignore the office of the sun in day-making entirely.

In the whole paragraph there is not a single correct statement, as applied to the Sabbath or Seventh-day Adventists, and on every point mentioned any intelligent man could set himself right with a moment’s thought, or a few moment’s investigation. Such “scholarship” as this reminds one of the wise remark of the humorist, that he would rather not know so much, than know so many things that weren’t so.