Seventh-day Keeping Consistent by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 24, 1874

Seventh-day Keeping Consistent.

By Uriah Smith

CLARK BRADEN, in the Christian Standard of Sept. 26, 1874, states four general positions that are taken on the Sabbath question. With three of these he acknowledges that the keeping of the seventh day is consistent, and the keeping of the first day inconsistent, as follows:—

“Then let us examine briefly the various positions taken by the different parties in reference to this subject:—

“1. The law of the Sabbath was given by God to Adam and is of universal obligation. Some entertaining this view observe the seventh day. They are consistent. Others claim, without one scrap of evidence, that this universal law has been changed from the seventh day to the first.

“2. Not only was the law of the Sabbath given at creation, but it was reaffirmed in the decalogue, which is the law of God in a universal sense, and was, and is now, binding on all men in the form in which it was given at Sinai. Some of these observe the seventh day. They are consistent. Others observe the first day, contending, without one particle of evidence, that the commandment has been changed from the seventh day to the first.

“3. Some, while admitting that originally the decalogue was given to the Hebrews, contend that in the gospel it has been extended to all mankind, and appeal to the fourth commandment as now binding on all men. Some of these consistently observe the seventh day. Most of them, however, take the inconsistent position that the observance of the first day can be sustained by an appeal to the fourth commandment, which enjoined the observance of the seventh day.”

THE SABBATH SURRENDERED.

Mr. Braden then states the fourth, his own, position as follows:—

“4. The Sabbath, or the observance of the seventh day, was given to the Hebrews alone after the exodus, and was national in its character, and was abrogated by the death of Christ, and is now binding on no one. The first day is to be observed as the Lord’s day, in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ, in obedience to the inspired example of the apostles and apostolic churches. This we believe to be the only tenable and the true position. Although the first position has the prestige of the name of Alexander Campbell to sustain it, and the prepossessions and prejudices of our older brethren in its favor, we are compelled to regard it as utterly untenable.”

This is a surrender of the entire Sabbatic institution; for if the seventh day is now binding on no one, there is no Sabbath binding; inasmuch as the fourth commandment, which he admits enjoins the seventh day, is the only Sabbath law in all the Bible.

Nothing is easier than to show that the Sabbath was not given to the Hebrews alone, but was instituted in Eden, and through Adam given to all the human family.

Nothing is easier than to show that the first day of the week is not the Lord’s day; it does not commemorate the resurrection of Christ; there is no example, inspired or uninspired, of apostles or apostolic churches, for its observance as a sacred day; there is no law concerning it, nor the least intimation of any duty peculiar to that day, above any other of the laboring days of the week.

What then becomes of Mr. Braden’s “only tenable position”? It has no existence. Being made of nothing it instantly vanishes when submitted to the test of fact.

U. S.