REPLY TO A LETTER FROM A FRIEND
By Jos. Clarke
REPLY TO A LETTER FROM A FRIEND.
Good Sunday-keepers, bad Sabbath-keepers. No doubt there are Sunday-keepers, who have not heard much of the argument in favor of the true Sabbath, who conscientiously keep Sunday. And there may be those who are keeping the seventh day, who do so from a wrong motive. This does not affect the question at issue. The question is, Has God abolished the seventh-day Sabbath, and transferred its sanctity to the first day? If so, the fact is clearly stated somewhere in the Bible. The moment you prove that God has done this, that moment we will confess our error, and resume the keeping of the first day of the week. Don't know the day. The objection Mrs. —— propounds is this: No one knows that Saturday is the true seventh day, or that Sunday is the day on which Christ arose. If this is so, then we are released wholly from any divine sanction for Sabbath-keeping, and all is at loose ends; for the only claim or authority for Sabbath keeping is contained in the fourth command; and this claims a special day as holy time, and no other day. But the miracle of the manna ceasing every seventh day for forty years, and this, too, in connection with the promulgation of the Sabbath from Sinai; and its practical illustration, in the practice of the Hebrews in the desert, connected with the reference to the first institution of the same in Eden, in the command itself; all this, connected with the expression in Luke 23: 56, that “they returned and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment,” presents an unbroken chain, down to the time of Luke; and no one in his senses can claim the opposite; nor will any be so blind as to claim that the day has been lost since that time. Only a few keep it. True, only a few keep the seventh day; and of that few, some are no honor to the name; but this is no proof that the Sabbath has lost its sanctity, or its identity. As to the objection that only a few are observing the seventh day, the same objection was no doubt often presented to Noah by the antediluvians; but as to its futility, you need no other evidence than the examples furnished in the history of the past. Custom against it. The question is one which the custom of the professing Christian world should not affect. Rather should we propound to ourselves the question, Has the Protestant world continued the Reformation begun so gloriously by Luther and his associates? or have they set their stakes there, and said, by adopting certain creeds, “we will advance no further than our ancestors led the way.” Responsible for light. We live in an age of light. Bibles are found in almost every cottage in our land. This is the work of God, and he requires us to advance with the age, and the opening prophecies. That this is obligatory, read the preface to the book of Revelation, chap. 1: 3: “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein; for the time is at hand.” Can you keep that you do not understand? Also, read Prov. 1: 6. What is more difficult to understand than the prophecies? Yet this is your duty from these proofs. Also read Deut. 29: 29. “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever.” Is not prophecy a revelation? and what is the use of prophecy if only understood after fulfillment? The Jews might have been saved if they would have fully understood Isa. 53, before they crucified Christ. It would have kept them from taking the life of the Lord of glory. Are you sure that no such mistake will be made by the professed church of this age, by not understanding the symbolic representations of Daniel and John? But you will say, It is dark. But is that a good reason for avoiding the study of arithmetic, or of geography? Do you thus talk to your pupils? Read the closing paragraph of Deut. 29: 29: “That we may do all the words of this law”; as though understanding the revelation of God's will was connected with keeping his commandments. Prophecies cannot be called secret things in any sense whatever, at present; for John says, Rev. 22: 10, “Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book; for the time is at hand;” and Daniel is shown to be unsealed by the angel of Revelation 10. But there is another point in the letter of Mrs. ——, to which I will reply briefly. She says, The tracts prove nothing as to the state of the dead, and then she adduces the case of Moses and Elias. Now it is stated that Elijah (Elias) was translated to Heaven, alive, and Moses, we must believe, was resurrected soon after death; for it is said, “no man knoweth of his sepulcher.” Deut. 34: 6. Jude states that Satan disputed with Michael about the body of Moses; and it must be that Michael (Christ) had come for Moses' body, or Satan would have had no cause of dispute respecting that body. Therefore I think that a further reading of the tracts will prove them Scriptural. Also, Mrs. —— adduces the happy deaths of those who believe as she does, that Heaven immediately follows death. I would reply that the moment of death is not one chosen of God to correct an error of this sort; but those who have been in darkness on this point, if they have been faithful to the light they possessed, will be rewarded; and the lapse of time, however great, will be but a moment to them, and Heaven will burst upon them in the resurrection, seemingly only an instant from the dying hour. Angels are often sent from Heaven to smooth the pillow of death, but not always to correct old, stereotyped, errors. Great, and long established, and extensively prevailing, errors, require consideration, and time, and research, and discussion, in order to correct them; and when God would correct his people, he raises up men for the occasion, as he did in the time of Luther, and of the age of the apostles. No doubt many died before the age of Luther, and while he was laboring, who honestly believed the pope was the true vicar of God upon earth; who, while living, were blameless, and dying, were blessed. But had they lived fifty years afterward, they would have died in the faith of Luther. The Reformation called for progress; and those dying previously, who were misinformed upon the doctrines of the Reformation, will not lose Heaven if they were pure in heart. A new age is upon us. Spiritualism, the masterpiece of Satan, is assuming a practical phase; and depend upon it, a knowledge of man's condition in death, and his destiny, is of the greatest importance. We should be able to meet the agents of Satan at present, and at hand. Beware of ignorance on this point. Respectfully,
Jos. Clarke.