A LITTLE CONFUSED by A. S. Hutchins

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 20, 1881

A LITTLE CONFUSED.

By A. S. Hutchins

BY ELD. A. S. HUTCHINS.

IT is customary in some Sunday-schools for all to repeat the ten commandments in concert. After the close of one of these schools not long ago, it was suggested that there is no proof for first-day observance in the fourth commandment. To this one of the teachers, an intelligent lawyer, remarked, “I don’t believe in theological humbuggery; I don’t believe in any day as being sacred.”

The superintendent of the school, another professional gentleman, expressed an opinion that all days should be kept holy; while the minister in charge seemed inclined to the opinion that first-day keeping does find support in the fourth commandment. It is not uncommon for an individual or individuals to take positions in vindication of Sunday-keeping as antagonistic and self-destroying as the above. And yet many of them do not seem to see or feel the weakness of their position.

In judicial proceedings, witnesses upon the stand testifying as diversely as men do for the first-day Sabbath, would, before any candid court and jury, invalidate their own testimony. In courts of justice, testimony is by no means always received as evidence. And why, with respect to the law of God, should strong assertions or mere inferences pass for proof?

The commandment enjoining the observance of the Sabbath of the Lord speaks clearly, defining the day of the Creator’s rest without ambiguity of terms or confusion in the obedience required. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”

Christians unanimously concede that this precept was binding upon the people of God under the former dispensation. Now if the law so enjoining its observance has been abolished, or so modified as to make it obligatory upon us to hallow every day in the week, or to sabbatize upon the first day of the week in place of the seventh, when, where, and by whom was this change made in the law of God? Who lived when the change was made? Who made the record of the fact, and who has assigned the reason for the change? If the first day of the week is now the Sabbath, owned and blessed of God, when did the seventh day cease to be binding, and the first day press itself up in its stead? Or when, clothed with authority from Heaven, did it supersede God’s rest-day? When was the time that Christians labored seven days and then rested upon the first day? Or when did two Sabbaths come in conjunction, the seventh day closing out the Sabbath of the former dispensation, and the first day introducing the glorious Christian Sabbath, removing the galling yoke of the fourth commandment to labor six days and rest upon the seventh, henceforth giving to Christians the day of rest prior to the labor of six days?

For the candid consideration of those holding to the change or abolition of the decalogue, we commend the following from Tappan’s Logic, pp. 482, 487: “When a law is once enacted by the proper authority, it must remain in force until the same authority repeals it; and the repeal must be as plainly stated as the original enactment.”

Who will undertake the task of lifting up the first-day Sabbath, of placing it upon a Scriptural basis, and honoring and crowning it with one “thus saith the Lord,” as a day of sacred rest?