GILFILLAN ON THE SABBATH.
By John Nevins Andrews
“Thoughts suggested by the Perusal of Gilfillan and other Authors on the Sabbath. By Rev. Thomas B. Brown, Pastor of the Seventh-day Baptist Church at Little Genesee, N. Y. Alfred Center N. Y.: Published by the American Sabbath Tract Society. A. H. Lewis, Agent. 1869.” Such is the title page of a new work in behalf of the Bible Sabbath. Its author is one of the ablest ministers of the Seventh-day Baptist denomination. He is a man of original mind, having something to offer upon the subject, worthy of the reader’s attention. He has the wisdom to select from the vast pile of incongruous matter in Gilfillan’s work, the few points of vital consequence on which the decision of the whole question turns. He states these points with fairness, and answers them in a manner that commends the truth to every man’s conscience. The writer uses great brevity, yet makes a very complete and satisfactory statement of the argument against those who corrupt the words of the fourth commandment. He is courteous in manner, and candid in the statement of the argument to which he replies. His defense of the truth may be characterized by a single sentence from the book of Job: “How forcible are right words!” The reader will be interested in the following quotations which are presented as samples of his style of argument. Having stated at some length the favorite fallacy of first-day writers, that the Sabbatic institution is distinct from the day of the Sabbath, and therefore capable of being moved from one day to another, the writer thus answers on pages 13, 14: “But the notion that the Sabbatic institution was ordained before the day of rest was designated, is a sheer fallacy: there is nothing in the Bible to support it. The inspired account is simply this: that the Creator, having rested on a certain day, from all his work, blessed and sanctified that DAY. Gen. ii, 2, 3. The fourth commandment is simply an injunction to remember that DAY, and to keep it holy. Ex. xx, 8–11. Careful examination of these two passages shows that every thing predicated concerning the Sabbath has reference166to the day, and not to the institution apart from the day. The Creator’s rest is represented as taking effect on a certain day; that day he blessed and sanctified; that day we are required to remember and keep holy; in that day we are forbidden to do any work. There is no account of an institution previous to a day. On the contrary, the Creator sanctified the day on which he rested, and the Sabbatic institution is the result growing out of it.” The argument so largely dwelt upon by Sunday advocates that the observance of that day is of pecuniary advantage to men, he thus notices on page 30: “What would be thought of the Christian minister, who should urge men to embrace the gospel, chiefly on the ground that ‘godliness has promise of the life that now is’? Would he not be justly chargeable with losing sight of the great end for which Christ commanded the gospel to be preached? Would he not lessen the dignity of his subject? Would he succeed in winning souls? Would the Holy Spirit honor such preaching? Yet it were about as wise thus to commend the gospel to the unconverted,—for they could feel the force of such arguments,—as to urge Sabbath observance on the ground of its temporal advantages.” He further treats this part of the subject on pages 30–32: “We believe that all the physical, intellectual, and temporal advantages, which are claimed as resulting from the keeping of Sunday, would be as surely secured by the observance of the day of the commandment. But though these additional advantages would be reasons for greater thankfulness on the part of those who have already come into possession of the holy rest, it is not on such grounds that we urge men to observe it. We urge them to keep the Sabbath, even though they should be impoverished by doing so. We plead for it as the memorial of God’s rest at the close of creation. We urge it as the divinely appointed observance, through which the creature man is to make a solemn expression of his obligation to, and dependence on, the Author of his being.” “Is it because the Sunday observance has no such ground to stand upon, that its advocates are unwilling to rest the argument here? Do they see that the first day of the week is not a suitable time for commemorating a rest which occurred on the seventh? Do they see that an observance, held on the weekly return of the day when God began his work, is not suited for the commemoration of a rest entered upon after his work was finished. Do they thus see and feel, that their Sunday celebration is no suitable memorial of creation completed, beautified, gloriously furnished, and all ‘very good’? And is it for this reason, that they drop all allusion to the creation, after barely stating it, and begin to talk of the redemption work of Christ as the foundation of their festival; and then, as if this were too much above the appreciation of carnal men, turn to the consideration of the temporal benefits of the institution? These are questions for themselves to ponder, but we certainly think they are pertinent to the subject.” The book of Gilfillan, like the well known Sabbath Manual of Justin Edwards, deals largely in statements respecting the calamities which have in many cases fallen upon those who have neglected the proper observance of Sunday. On pages 42–44, Mr. Brown thus answers: “Now, these facts, for aught we know, may have occurred just as related; but to the interpretation put upon them we demur. If a calamity following an act determines the act to have been one of rebellion against God, what shall we say of those who had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment; who were stoned, sawn asunder, slain with the sword, wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented? If worldly prosperity is a sign of God’s approbation, then what shall we say of those who are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men; whose eyes stand out with fatness and they have more than heart could wish? Do calamities never overtake the righteous? Does prosperity never come upon the wicked? In the final summing up of all things at the great Judgment day, no doubt, it will be well with the righteous and ill with the wicked; but the veriest tyro in the school of Christ knows, or ought to know, that a person’s earthly condition is no certain index of his standing in the sight of God.
“We do not mean to intimate that calamities such as are here referred to come without cause, or that they are not ordered and directed by God. But God has his own reasons for sending them, and he has not made it our province to say what those reasons are. Whenever we undertake to determine matters so intricately wrapped in mystery, we are certain to show how little is our knowledge of the counsels of Heaven. The facts referred to are facts to be studied; their meaning carefully and solemnly pondered. But it could be wished that the attempts to interpret them in the interest of a day, the divine authority of which is yet far from undisputed, were made with a little more modesty. To the authors of such attempts we commend a passage in the life of the apostle Paul. See Acts xxviii, 3–6.” The real ground of Sabbatic observance is thus stated on page 47: “We urge the observance of the Sabbath, therefore, not because, like the other duties of the moral law, it is obviously founded in nature; not because of its conduciveness to health, long life, prosperity in business, worldly comfort; nor principally because of its conduciveness to good morals. But we urge it as a grand celebration, pointing to the great First Cause of all things, rebuking the atheism and idolatry of those who know not God, testifying against the impiety, profaneness, and vice, which are the fruits of such ignorance, and declaratory of the gladness which the works of God are fitted to inspire. Ps. xcii, 4.” On pages 54–56, Mr. Brown presents the following forcible illustration of the nature of the work wrought in the alleged change of the Sabbath, and who it was that did this work: “Now, the Sabbath is a monument which has been set up as a memorial of creation, and upon it is this inscription, which God wrote with his own finger: that having created heaven, earth, and sea, and all that in them is, in six days, he rested the seventh day, and therefore blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, constituting it the day of rest for man.
“Who then shall undertake to destroy, alter, or change this inscription? Yet our Sunday brethren (we grieve to say it) have undertaken this sacrilegious act. They have sought to alter the inscription so as to make it testify to another and different fact. What is worse, they pretend that Christ and his apostles took the lead in this matter. No, brethren, Christ never undertook to mutilate a monument which his Father had built. He did not go about to erase from its tablet the testimony which it bore against atheism and idolatry, that he might put in its place a testimony to his own proper work. He never thought of having redemption commemorated at such an expense. Not Christ, but Anti-Christ was the originator of this movement, even that Wicked One concerning whom it is said, ‘He shall think to change times and laws.’ Dan. vii, 25. The Sabbath-day, which from the beginning was a sacred day, this Anti-Christ has changed into a working day, so that it has become the busiest day of the week; and Sunday, which had always before been a working day, Eze. xlvi, 1, he has changed into a sacred day.” J. N. A.