DOCTOR BENSON'S SUNDAY BOOK by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 24, 1880

DOCTOR BENSON'S SUNDAY BOOK.

By Editor

THERE are two just criteria by which we judge of the nature of a book: 1. The spirit in which it is written, and, 2. The spirit which it inspires in the hearts and minds of its admirers. For the first we refer again to Dr. Benson's preface, in which he spoke of Seventh-day Adventists in an unjust manner. If we have been at all severe in our review, it has been the severity of plain truth, couched in terms to which no objection can be raised. We have not returned railing for railing; the Doctor and his indorsers placed themselves in an unenviable light, and it is enough for us to show where they stand. As to the spirit of the admirers of that book, we subjoin an extract from a correspondent of the California Christian Advocate. The writer discreetly conceals his name, of which, in charity, we hope he is ashamed. Under date of June 16, he speaks as follows:—

"It was intended to meet a want of the day, to correct a peculiar phase of error, propogated by a sect of Sabbatarians now itinerating through the country. A kind of school-house iconoclast or ecclesiastical gipsy that invests this part of the country, living in tents and exhibiting curious pictures, distributing tracts and denying the immortality of the human soul, misleading a few good, ignorant people, and increasing the market price of gunpowder and derringers by stimulating bad people to commit suicide."

And so on, in a manner as unjust as unchristian. It might be unpleasant to the writer of the above, to remind him of the early days of Methodism, of the unpopularity of its doctrines and its methods, when it was the pioneer of religious radicalism, and of sufficient purity to invite the opposition of the formalist and self-sufficient. Happily, even now, vituperation and scurrility do not pass for argument with all classes. Such efforts to villify those who dare to obey the dictates of the word of God without regard to popular sentiment, will live only to suffer the scorn of the candid; while every effort to uphold the truth by honorable means will be respected, and bear fruit to the glory of the Creator of heaven and earth. By such methods as are adopted by this writer and others, to entrench their traditions behind popular prejudice, the name of Christianity is reproached. Many thinking people now look upon religion as the natural ally of bigotry and superstition; and no wonder, considering the means used by many who bear the sacred name of Christ, to uphold their traditions against the precepts of the word of God. In this case we feel no indignation at all—we only pity those who are so blind as to think they are doing service to God in dealing in revilings and slanders.

After carefully reading chapter 4 more than once, we are yet at a loss to determine just what the Doctor intended the reader should understand it to mean. He seems at one time to indorse the Sabbath as a universal institution, while he actually teaches that it was Jewish, and that its observance was not enjoined by the Saviour. He says that "man," in Mark 2:27, "The Sabbath was made for man," comprises the whole race, and that all need rest; but he follows this with a direct blow against the sacredness and obligation of the Sabbath. It is a fair specimen of non-committalism. With, perhaps, the fear of the Methodist Discipline before his eyes, he evidently desires to avoid the charge of opposition to a Sabbath in this dispensation, while he labors to undermine the Sabbath—the only Sabbath—of which mention is made in the New Testament.

Every reader of the New Testament knows that only one weekly Sabbath is mentioned therein; that in all cases where Jesus and the evangelists refer to this subject they speak of the Sabbath. An indefinite Sabbath is not known to either Testament. "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." An indefinite Sabbath is an invention of modern theology,—the "untempered mortar," with which Protestants are daubing the "slight wall" erected by Romanism. The following paragraph contains all that is of importance in the Doctor's chapter 4:—

"In the summaries of the law, as found in the gospels the fourth commandment is not mentioned. See Matt. 16:16-24; Matt. 22:36-40. The Sabbath is not specifically named, and yet whoever loves God supremely and his neighbor as himself, will obey God faithfully in all other duties. The greater certainly includes the less. The Sabbath, as kept by the Jews, was a task, a burden, and oppressive; while much of that which was authorized in the word was limited to that people, and could not be binding under the gospel dispensation. Hence, while Jesus taught with boldness and divine authority the truths of his own everlasting gospel, he never once enjoined upon his disciples the observance of the Jewish Sabbath; nor did he ever rebuke any one for desecrating that day, which the rabbis regarded as peculiarly holy."

We will briefly notice some points in the above.

1. There is no summary of the law, nor of any part of the law, in Matt. 16. It has no more bearing on this subject than it has upon any other part of the law. It is often quoted by those who affirm that the whole of the ten commandments are abolished. But it affords no aid to the Doctor's theory.

2. In Matt. 22:36-40, not one of the ten commandments is "specifically named." If this is an argument against the Sabbath, it is likewise against every precept of the decalogue. We do not suppose that either the Doctor or his indorsers would openly confess to antinomian views. Why, then, do they resort to the stale arguments of antinomianism? And every pretended argument against the Sabbath has the same tendency to subvert all law and authority.

3. Jesus "never once enjoined upon his disciples the observance of the Jewish Sabbath." We would like to inquire of the Doctor if Jesus ever enjoined the observance of any Sabbath at all? Why does he not come out squarely and at once onto no-Sabbath ground? He certainly argues it—why not openly avow it? The Doctor is not ignorant of the fact that the distinction of "Jewish Sabbath" is without authority of the Scriptures; that the Jews knew but one weekly Sabbath, namely, the seventh-day Sabbath; that Jesus and his apostles never recognized the existence of any other. It is against this that he is so feebly wasting his ammunition. He intimates that there is such a distinction; but of this he offers no proof, and none exists.

4. To show that the Doctor is aiming his attacks against the Sabbath of the Lord, we ask the reader to notice his commencement of this line of argument. "In the summaries of the law, as given in the gospels, the fourth commandment is not mentioned." It is true that he has referred to no summary at all,—that his pretended argument is non. But that does not destroy the fact that he is assailing "the fourth commandment," and trying to undermine its authority. Will the Doctor, or some of the admirers of his work, tell us what Sabbath obligation would remain if the fourth commandment were invalidated? That is the only Sabbath law in the Bible. We have now the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, or none at all. It was the fourth commandment that was sanctified when God made the heavens and the earth. This was it, and only this, that was kept in the New Testament. They "rested the Sabbath-day according to the commandment." Luke 23:56. In noticing another professed argument we shall give evidence of a more direct assault upon the fourth commandment which the Doctor has made. And yet the constitution of the Methodist church accepts as ever binding the fourth commandment. Why, then, is it thus assailed by professed Methodists? The Seventh-day Adventists are abroad in the land. "Anything to beat" the seventh day. But alas! the seventh day is in the decalogue; it is in the fourth commandment, and the Discipline recognizes this as moral. No matter. The "Sabbatarians" must be put down, whether the means used be lawful or unlawful.

5. The Doctor says the rabbis regarded that day as peculiarly holy. Did not God himself regard that day as peculiarly holy? What do the Scriptures say about it? This is an important consideration. Though the Jews had corrupted the truth by their traditions, they did not receive the idea that the seventh-day Sabbath was holy. They received it by revelation from Heaven. We are sorry that the Doctor is willing to even seem to cast suspicion upon this truth. While the rabbis had loaded it with tradition, and were tenacious of it, the Saviour had little need to offer a rebuke to any for violating it. But we do most emphatically deny that he ever offered any license or warrant to violate it. He confirmed "all the law" most decidedly. And this we can prove by the Scriptures, and also by the first authors of the Methodist denomination, including John Wesley and Adam Clarke.

The tendency of the day is to formality and laxity of morals. And such teaching as this of Dr. Benson aids and hastens on the demoralizing process. It tends to undermining the authority of law, to destroying the foundations, to inducing the restless to cast off the just and healthy restraints of authority. Few, too few, are now ready to acknowledge that "the law is spiritual," and that "we establish the law" by the system of grace through faith in Christ.