WHY SINGLE OUT THE SABBATH.
By E. F. Cottrell
GOD gave to mankind the principles of his moral law briefly comprised in ten moral precepts. These commandments are of equal authority, so that he who transgresses any one of them is guilty of a violation of the law. In these days iniquity abounds, as foretold by the Saviour, and the love of many has grown cold; so that there is not a precept in the decalogue that is not abundantly transgressed, even by professors of the religion of the Bible. Yet no professed believer will take the ground that any one of the ten commandments, except the fourth, has been blotted out or changed in the least; but it is generally held that the Sabbath of this commandment is the Sabbath no more. The question is, Why this partiality in the law? See Mal. 2:7-9. Why single out the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, the seventh day, as unworthy of a place in the moral law? I think I can see clearly enough why Satan, the great enemy of God and man, should hate the Sabbath, and plant his batteries against the fourth commandment; but why enlightened Christians of the nineteenth century should follow his lead, instead of standing in the gap and repairing the breach in the divine law (Eze. 13:5; Isa. 58:12, 13), is more than I can tell: I therefore simply ask the question, and leave it for others to answer. The Sabbath is a memorial of the only living and true God, a monument erected to the memory of Him who made the heaven and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. Satan, who has a better knowledge of theology than most doctors of divinity, saw that, if he would be successful in warring against God and leading men into sin, he could do it in no other way so effectually as by demolishing this monument, reared to the special honor of the Creator. Therefore he brings his forces to bear, sappers and miners, small arms and ordnance, to demolish this sacred institution. To induce men to forget their Creator, nothing is more effectual than to destroy his memorial. So he suggests the worship of the sun, and in order to imitate and counterfeit the divine worship, sets apart a day for its worship, calling it Sunday. This form of idolatry was the most plausible, and probably the most popular, in all ancient heathendom. And when we come down this side of the first advent, to the time of the apostasy which placed the Pope of Rome in the temple of God, it was just the time to foist this pagan festival into the place of the Lord's Sabbath, with the claim that "the fathers put in the place of the Sabbath the day which we now call Lord's day." It remained for the Protestants of the sixteenth century to first put forth the claim that this first-day Lord's day is the veritable Sabbath of the fourth commandment. Romanists have never made that claim; but they claim that the church has "substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no scriptural authority." Thus many ages and generations have shared in the work of demolishing the memorial of the Creator's work and rest. And, without doubt, Satan is well pleased to see how well he has succeeded. But why do good men, in the face of all the light that is now shining on this subject, still adhere to this work, so evidently not of God? Why do they say that this commandment has been abolished? or, admitting the ten commandments as the moral law and still binding, why do they single out the Sabbath of that law consigning it to oblivion, adhering to a pretended memorial of another event instead of the memorial of the creation instituted by the Creator? Is it because the doctrine of this Sabbath is a new doctrine? It is as old as the human race. Is it the Sabbath of the Jews? "The Sabbath was made for man;" and it existed thousands of years before there was a Jew. Does the fact that God commanded the Jews to keep the Sabbath make it Jewish? Why are not the other nine commandments Jewish for the same reason? Was the Sabbath nailed to the cross? How did the remainder of the decalogue escape the same fate? Is the precept unabolished, but changed? How do we know but that the other nine commandments also have been changed? Matt. 5:18. Was the Sabbath never commanded to the Gentiles? When and where were the other nine commanded to them? Was the Sabbath law not repeated in the New Testament? Neither were the first, second, third, eighth, and ninth precepts of the same law there repeated. Why single out the commandment enjoining the observance of the Sabbath, the memorial of God, from among those commandments, where he placed it with his own hand? It is true that the Sabbath has some peculiarities which the other commandments have not. This commandment points us back to the creation for the origin of the Sabbath. No other commandment does the like. The Sabbath law was revealed when God sanctified, set apart, or appointed the seventh day. We have no account of any other of the ten precepts being so early revealed. The Sabbath is mentioned oftener, especially in the New Testament, than any other precept in the decalogue. From Genesis to Revelation it is known as the sanctified rest-day, Sabbath of the Lord, or Lord's day. Rev. 1:10. It was instituted in paradise, before sin and the curse entered, and it will exist in paradise restored, when sin and the curse are no more. In the world to come, the heavens and earth renewed, it will be observed by all the holy throng of the redeemed. "For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord." Isa. 66:22, 23. Israel redeemed and saved will "remain." So God's Sabbath and worship shall remain to the endless ages. Why single out the Sabbath for destruction, since it is distinguished with honor throughout revelation?