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Consistency

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 18, 1873

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 41, No. 10.

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Consistency.

By N. Orcutt

CONVERSING recently with an aged preacher of the Methodist church, upon the law of God and Sabbath of the Lord, the following dialogue (in substance) closed the conversation.
Methodist. I acknowledge the perpetual obligation of the moral law, but claim that the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week.
Orcutt. You believe that the Scriptures are profitable, able to make the man of God perfect and thoroughly furnish him unto all good works?
M. I do. It is our rule of faith and practice. We are bound to believe and practice what it teaches.
O. Upon subjects of which it treats, are we justified in believing and practicing what it does not teach?
M. Certainly not.
O. Well, how is it about the Sabbath of the Lord? The Scriptures teach us that it is the seventh day.
M. Yes, but I am satisfied that it has been changed to the first day.
O. Changed by whom? Where is the testimony from the Bible to prove that point?
M. I must admit that I have no positive testimony. But the change was made by the Saviour, who was Lord of the Sabbath.
O. How do we know this?
M. Why, he met with his disciples on the first day of the week, after his resurrection.
O. And did he not meet with them on other days? Was he not seen of them forty days, during which time he spoke to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God? If his meeting with them on the first day made it the Sabbath, is not the same true of the other days?
M. Well, we have the example of the apostles to sanction the change.
O. Where recorded? I have been unable to find it in the Scriptures.
M. At any rate, you must admit that almost the whole Christian world have kept the first day for sixteen hundred years.
O. I admit that, from about A. D. 321, the great mass of professed Christians have kept the first day as the Sabbath, in obedience to the edicts of the little horn—the papacy. And a more numerous class, for more than twice that length of time, have bowed down and worshiped idols. Will that justify us in the practice of idolatry? The second precept is no more definite in condemnation of idolatry, than is the fourth in defining and enforcing the duty of Sabbath keeping—the sacred weekly observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord.
M. Yes, but we learn from history that for sixteen hundred years Sunday has been kept by the church; and I have so much confidence in the providence of God, that I believe if the church had been wrong God would have sent some judgment upon them to convince them of their error and set them right in the matter.
O. His judgments may be sent to convince those who will not take the testimony of his word, but I fear it will be too late to “set them right.” It were wisdom for us who profess to take his word as the rule of life, to conform to its teachings, instead of practicing and teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
N. ORCUTT.
Jamaica, Vt., Jan., 1873.