REPORT FROM CALIFORNIA by D. T. BOURDEAU

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 13, 1868

REPORT FROM CALIFORNIA.

By D. T. BOURDEAU

We have held two Sabbath meetings, and given thirteen more discourses since closing our last communication for the Review. Also two opposition sermons have been reviewed by Bro. Loughborough; one given by Eld. Lippitt, on errors and tendencies of Adventism, and the other by Mr. Charles Mock, a leader of an Independent church in this place, against our position on the Sabbath question.

At our Sabbath meetings some thirty were present. About ten have embraced the Sabbath, and others are deeply convicted, and seem to tremble at the cross. May they have grace and decision to take it up with cheerfulness. Some have doubtless waited to see what the preachers would have to say to build up the Sunday institution; but until now the efforts of the preachers in this direction have been very futile, and have rather turned in our favor, in giving us an opportunity to further vindicate the truth, and oppose error.

In his last effort, Eld. Lippitt repeated much of what he had said on ascension robes, and Adventists’ being sensual; scoffed at the idea of the New Jerusalem being let down from Heaven; represented us as believing that God and Christ were no more than men; that God was simply a lump of clay, with the breath of life in it; and said that he had a thousand times rather be a Spiritualist than to believe these things. How the Professor could make such false statements with our works before him, was a query to our minds. Had he heard a discourse on the atonement, given in the tent three hours before, he might have been prepared to set forth our views in a different light, unless he was determined to misrepresent. Such kind of preaching may satisfy those who do not want the truth; but such as desire the truth, will not receive mere scoffing for a candid refutation of our arguments.

He tried to make a point on the idea that Christians had been blessed so much on the first day of the week. How could this be if the Lord did not sanction the observance of that day? Query: Was there no other reason why the Lord should bless the church on Sunday? Would he not bless them for worshiping him on any day of the week? Have not Christians been blessed on other days of the week? Then how can men say that Christians have been blessed on the first day, because they kept that day as the Sabbath, especially as the observance of that day as the Sabbath has no foundation, or support, in the Scriptures, and supplants the ancient Sabbath of the Lord, which is enforced by the fourth commandment?

Again, he said, How did it happen that the church was prospered and blessed while breaking one of the ten commandments? To which it was replied, that God winked at those times of ignorance, that he would not have favored his people if they had sinned in the light, and that now he commands men everywhere to repent.

He used but one text in support of the doctrine of man’s consciousness in death, and that was the one setting forth the case of the thief on the cross. Luke xxiii, 42, 43. After giving our position, which was a complete refutation of his, he referred to the original, and said that there was a contrast between ὅταν and σήμερον upon which he based his argument. But what does this amount to? He might as well have said there is a contrast between “when” and “to-day,” without referring to the Greek; for this is as true of the English rendering, as it is of the Greek, with its punctuation.

The contrast between the request of the thief, Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom, and the promise of Christ, as it stands in the text, depends wholly on the strength of a comma in the Greek as well as in our English version. But the comma did not exist in the original nor in the English language until the eighth or ninth century; so that it is not a sacrilege to remove it to produce a harmony. In the Greek, and in the English version, the comma is before to-day, making Christ promise the thief that he would be with him in paradise that very day, and thus producing a contrast, or opposition, not only between the promise of Christ and the request of the thief, but also between the promise of the Saviour and his own declaration to Mary, three days after, that he had not yet ascended to his Father. Jno. xx, 17. But by placing the comma after to-day, you make Christ promise the thief that day, that he should be with him in paradise, in the future, according to his request, and all is harmonious. Punctuated thus, the original reads literally, “Amen, I say unto thee to-day, With me thou shalt be [future tense] in the paradise.”

Prof. Lippitt still clung to the Fathers, making the epistle of Barnabas the connecting link with the first century. This made it necessary for Bro. L. to read further from that epistle, and to bring out facts which, because of their vulgarity, indecency, and incredibility, we had never felt free to read before a congregation. Of course the responsibility was thrown on Prof. L. This turned the scales in our favor, and ended a long controversy on the Fathers. We do not expect to meet Prof. L. again, as he promised to no more speak on the subject.

Mr. Mock’s main position was, that the precepts to love God with all the heart, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, were so much greater than the ten commandments, that they superseded them; that the law was binding on sinners, but that believers were far above it; that the precepts to love God with all the heart, and our neighbor as ourselves, were only a dead letter among the Jews; that because we were not justified by the law, and were not under the law, it had no binding force upon us, &c. In reply, Bro. L. showed that it was in keeping the commandments that we proved the genuineness of our love to God and man, 1 Jno. v; that there was danger of outgrowing the holy law of God too soon; that if the law of love superseded the ten commandments, they were not binding on the Jews; for they were commanded to love God with all the heart, and to love their neighbor as themselves, and God never gave them dead laws; that no righteous law could justify its violators; and that therefore no law should be kept, if Mr. Mock’s position was correct; that to be under the law was to be guilty, and shut up under the penalty of the law, which state could not exist if there was no law, &c. Mr. M. speaks again next Sunday afternoon; or, rather, he will then read from Paley’s evidences, and from the discussion between Elders Waggoner and Stevenson.

Our congregations are not large, but the interest is increasing with our hearers; and we intend to remain weeks longer, as we have many more subjects to present in order to be thorough in our work. We visit much. The political excitement will forbid our pitching our tent again this season. We were happy to meet with Bro. Dr. Kellogg last Sabbath, on his return from the East. His heart is in the work, and he appears willing to do anything that the Lord may require him to perform to advance it, even if it should be to work with his hands to provide a home for preachers, and to furnish means to support them. He is at work at his trade for the present, and seems to be like a minute man, ready to help us at a moment’s warning. We now expect that he will enter with us in the tent enterprise next spring. This will certainly be a relief to us, and give us a better opportunity to visit, and give ourselves more fully to the work of the ministry without being confined so much to the tent, as one of us must necessarily be, when we have no tent master.

We had hoped that some preacher would meet us on the immortality theme, as some are halting on this question. One was preparing to defend the doctrine of natural immortality, but concluded, upon the whole that it was wiser to let the subject alone.

D. T. BOURDEAU.

Petaluma, Cal., Sept. 24, 1868.