Late Experience

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

OF THE PEOPLE OF ST. LOUIS, MO., ON THE SABBATH QUESTION.

In The Christian Standard (Cincinnati) of Sept. 26, 1874, Clark Braden says:—

Advocates of the observance of the first day stultify themselves by taking contradictory and inconsistent positions. A notable instance of this transpired in St. Louis last fall. The preachers of the city organized a Sabbath Association. The first address before the Association predicated the observance of the first day on the fourth commandment of the decalogue. The next day a Jew, in one of the daily papers, demanded why he appealed to the law of Moses, which the New Testament declared to be abrogated—why he observed one command of the law of Moses, and not all—why he appealed to a command to observe the seventh day to sustain his practice of observing the first day, an entirely different day.

A rationalist appealed to the New Testament declaration that the decalogue was abrogated—the fourth commandment with the rest; and to Paul’s declaration in the Roman, Galatian, and Colossian letters, to show that all days are alike. A seventh day advocate wanted to know why he appealed to a positive and definite command to observe the seventh day, to sustain his observance of the first day—and if the seventh day was sanctified at creation and man commanded to observe it, then where was his authority for changing the law and observing the first day? Unable to answer, the Sabbath Association went down for want of a rational basis on which to base an intelligent defense of the observance of the first day.