TO CORRESPONDENTS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 27, 1869

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

J. S. BLODGETT: You have failed to read Gen. ii, 1–3 with proper care. You say that “in the second chapter of Genesis is an account of the Lord’s resting on the seventh day, and blessing that day, but nothing is intimated that man was ever to keep a day of rest.” This is, no doubt, your exact idea of the chapter, but if you will read it again with candor, you will see your mistake. God did three things which pertain to the seventh day. You mention only the first two. 1. He rested on that day. 2. He put his blessing upon it. 3. He sanctified it. The third act you overlook entirely. Having blessed the day of his rest, he sanctified it, i. e., set it apart to a holy use; for that is the literal signification of the word sanctify. To set apart the seventh day to a holy use was simply to inform Adam that that day must not be given to dressing the garden, but devoted to sacred rest. Not that Adam was wearied, nor that the Creator was wearied who first rested on that day. But the Creator rested in order to lay the foundation of a divine memorial of creation, and Adam was to rest in commemoration of the like act by the Creator. But you will see that the act of setting apart the seventh day to a holy use in memory of his own rest thereon, was simply commanding Adam to use that day differently from the other days.

You speak of the act of gathering a double portion of manna on the sixth day as being a sufficient proof that the people had some knowledge of the Sabbath. See Ex. xvi, 22. You think the people understood the Sabbath, but that the rulers had not been informed on the point. Yet were it really true that but one class understood the Sabbath, it would have been the rulers and not the people; for God spoke to the people by addressing Moses personally, who communicated with the people through their rulers. It does appear, indeed, by the act of gathering a double portion of the manna on the sixth day, that the people did have knowledge of the Sabbath, and a disposition to observe it. For the manna was designed to prove the people, whether they would walk in God’s law or not. So Moses did not communicate to the people what God said to him in verses 4, 5, until they had first shown by their own action whether they had any regard for the Sabbath or not. Compare verses 4, 5, 22, 23.

And if you will read carefully verses 4, 27–29, you will see that God had at that very time a law, and in that law a precept relating to the Sabbath. You will also see that the violation of the Sabbath in Ex. xvi, 27, was not the first time that that people had violated it; for God says, “How LONG refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” The Sabbath did not originate, therefore, at the fall of the manna, but was an existing institution, forming a part of his law, and as such had “LONG” been transgressed by many of the Hebrews. No command is given in Ex. xvi for the observance of the Sabbath till after the people had violated it. See verses 28, 29. It is therefore absolutely certain that the Sabbath did not originate at the fall of the manna, but did exist as a sacred institution before God rained the bread from Heaven.

When the fourth commandment is given, it traces its obligation back to its real origin. And observe that this is not the fall of the manna in six days, and its cessation on the seventh; but it is that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh, and that he, for that reason, hallowed, i. e., appointed the seventh day to a holy use. Ex. xx, 8–19.

You seem to suppose that the commandment is entirely indefinite as to what is meant by the seventh day. In fact, any seventh day after six days of work will answer your conscience. Yet, if you will read the commandment carefully, you will see that it is the day of God’s rest that we are commanded to keep holy. And if you will read Luke xxiii, 56; xxiv, 1, you will see that those who keep the Sabbath day according to the commandment do keep the day that precedes the first day of the week. As to the week itself, it owes its origin to the six days of creation, and to the rest of the seventh day. The rest day of the Lord is certainly a definite day, quite distinct from the six days in which he wrought in the work of creation.

The Sabbath of the Lord is the rest day of the Lord. The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, because on that day he rested from the work of creation. If, Bro. B., you have hitherto trampled this sacred day in the dust, will you not, for the honor of God, and for your own conscience’s sake, hereafter observe this sacred memorial of the creation of the heavens and the earth?