Good Testimony | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 7, 1870

Good Testimony.

We are always delighted with good testimony in favor of the truth; and that delight is greatly enhanced when we meet with such testimony where we are not expecting it. It is then like coming suddenly upon a rare flower in the wilderness, or a refreshing oasis in the desert. The unexpectedness adds greatly to the pleasure of the discovery. It was with such emotions that we came across the following testimony in favor of the Sabbath in a work entitled “Man in Genesis and in Geology” by Jos. P. Thompson, D. D., LL. D. Not that we would liken this work to a wilderness or a desert; for, as a whole, it is excellent on the subject upon which it especially treats, namely, man, in reference to the claims of geology and the record of Genesis, rooting up most thoroughly that blatant theory that the human race has come up from the zoophyte through the tadpole and the monkey; though we are sorry to see the author frightened by the quaker guns of pretended science, into the concession that the seven days of Genesis are seven vast periods of time, and to see him also borne away by the tide of popular opinion into the view that the day of the Sabbath is a matter of complete indifference as regards the institution. But notwithstanding these things, in the principles he lays down in the extract which we give below he surrenders the citadel, and leaves the vantage ground wholly to the truth. Having established the propositions he here defends, we scarcely care what contradictory arguments he thereafter sets up; for he who occupies this position commands the field; and all the bamboo breastworks of error are easily swept away by the batteries of this strong hold. He maintains that the Sabbath was instituted in the beginning; that it was a well-known institution before Sinai; that the reason upon which it is based does not pertain to the Jewish commonwealth, any more than to any other people; and that it is perpetual in its nature and obligation; and so far, in behalf of all the friends of the Sabbath, we thank him for giving to the truth the strength of his sound logic, and the weight of his great name. Beginning with the subject of the week on page 116, he says:—

“The blessing and the hallowing was the solemn establishing of the institution, since such a formality would hardly have been entered upon for a mere passing occasion. It was with reference to an institution to be continued through after-times; and the proof of this appears all along in the early history of the race. For instance, we trace the division of time into weeks, in the account of the flood, where Noah is said to have sent forth the dove at intervals of seven days. Again, in the life of Jacob, we find mention of a week as a recognized division of time, and so in other portions of the early history of the world. Some have supposed that this division was suggested by the phases of the moon; the lunar month being subdivided into four equal periods. But the phases of the moon, at the point of transition from one to another, are too obscure to have suggested this as a division of time so early in the history of the race. That would imply a knowledge of astronomy, which we can hardly suppose to have been then attained. The year and the month are marked off on the great dial of the firmament, as is the shortest division of the day and the night. The lights in heaven are for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years; but there is nothing in the phenomena of Nature which corresponds to the seventh-day division in a manner so striking as to have impressed upon an unscientific observer such a measurement of time. This would require much nicety of astronomical observation; and hence we must regardthe week as an arbitrary division, and look for its explanation in some other quarter. The week was a widespread usage among the nations of antiquity. The Egyptians and the Hebrews had it, and so had other early people of the East. It was well known, also, far back in Hindoo and Chinese history. This general consent of antiquity to a division of time which is not strongly marked as a division of Nature, can best be accounted for upon the supposition of some common tradition as its source; and what more reasonable than the statement of the text, the designation by Jehovah of a sacred day to be observed by man from the beginning of the world? The exceptions to this seven-days period in the history of nations are just enough to prove the rule; for the usage prevailed among those nations that were connected most nearly by language and emigration with that part of Asia which was the cradle of the human family.

“Again, the Fourth Commandment treats of the Sabbath as an institution already known. “REMEMBER the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” This is not merely an emphasis for the future. It does not mean simply—keep in mind hereafter this day with a view to its sacred observance; the word remember recalls the past. An institution entirely new would have required a different phraseology. For instance, it would have been enjoined in some such language as this: Thou shalt keep a holy rest every seventh day. But the Sabbath day was recalled as an institution known to their fathers, and formerly to themselves, to be ‘remembered’ as something that ought to be known, but had been allowed to slip out of mind. We find mention of this day in the history of the Israelites in the wilderness before the giving of the law at Sinai. When the manna appeared, it is recorded that ‘on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man, and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, ‘This is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord;’ and on the following morning Moses said, ‘To-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord; to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none.’ Ex. 16: 22, 23, 25, 26. From this it is evident that the institution of the Sabbath had long been known, although its observance may have pretty much died out among the children of Israel during their sojourn in Egypt. Now, it was revived with the memory of the patriarchal times and the history of creation, and reinforced by specific command as an institution to be remembered. Furthermore the primary reason for keeping holy the Sabbath does not at all pertain to the Jewish commonwealth, but belongs to the history of humanity. It existed from the day of the first man, and is perpetual in its nature and obligation.