Selections from My Scrap Book by Dudley Marvin Canright

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 19, 1875

Selections from My Scrap Book.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

EVERY preacher who goes out to explain and defend the present truth, finds it very convenient, and often highly necessary, to sustain his positions and interpretations of Scripture by quotations from history and eminent authors bearing upon the point presented.

When I first began lecturing twelve years ago, I bought a blank book in which, from time to time, I have preserved testimonies of this nature, upon the different points of our faith which I always use in a course of lectures. Wishing now to revise this, I thought it might be of advantage to others and of interest to the readers of the SIGNS to publish them in short articles. They will necessarily be brief, as we do not find it good to read very long extracts in a lecture, the briefer the better if it only covers the point. Reading long extracts in a sermon always wearies the attention of the people. Short ones and more of them is better.

WHEN THE DAY BEGINS.

In the Bible the days were reckoned from evening to evening. Thus we read in Gen. 1:5: "And the evening and the morning were the first day." And so the 8th verse says: "And the evening and the morning were the second day." And so the Lord in Lev. 23:32 expressly says: "From even unto even, shall ye celebrate your Sabbath." "Even" is when the sun sets, as is proved by Deut. 16:6: "Thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun." "And it came to pass, that when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the Sabbath, I commanded that the gates should be shut, and charged that they should not be opened till after the Sabbath." Neh. 13:19.

In the New Testament the day is reckoned in the same manner. Thus we read that Christ healed in the synagogue on the Sabbath. But the bigoted Pharisees thought this was wrong, yet as soon as the sun set, and the Sabbath was past, then they came with their sick to be healed. "And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils. . . And he healed many that were sick." Mark 1:32-34.

Here the testimony of several eminent authors upon this point:—

"The Jews reckoned their days from evening to evening, according to the order which is mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis, in the account of the work of creation: 'The evening and the morning were the first day.' Their Sabbath, therefore, or seventh day, began at sunset on the day we call Friday, and lasted till the same time on the day following."—Nevin's Biblical Antiquities, p. 171.

"The Hebrews began their day at evening. Lev. 23:32."—Union Bible Dictionary, Art., Day.

"The Jews kept their Sabbath from evening to evening, according to the law. Lev. 23:32. And the Rabbins say, 'The Sabbath doth not enter but when the sun is set.' Hence it was that the sick were not brought out to our Lord till after sunset, because then the Sabbath was ended."—A. Clark on Matt. 8:19.

"One of the priests stood of course, and gave a signal beforehand, with a trumpet, at the beginning of every seventh day, in the evening twilight, as also at the evening when the day was finished, as giving notice to the people when they were to leave off work, and when they were to go to work again."—Josephus Wars of the Jews, book iv., chap. 9, sec. 12.

The time of commencing the day has an important bearing upon the meeting held upon the first day of the week, mentioned in Acts 20:7. That meeting was held upon the night part of the first day of the week. As the first day commences with the setting of the sun Saturday night, and ends at sundown Sunday night, this meeting must have been held on Saturday night, for, if it began after sundown Sunday night, then it would have been on the second day of the week, not on the first. Here follows the testimony of several eminent authors confessing that meeting was upon Saturday night.

I have before me "The Life, Times, and Travels of St. Paul," by Conybeare and Howson. It is highly recommended by Bishop Simpson of the M. E. church and by others. Of this meeting at Troas they say, "The labors of the early days of the week that were spent at Troas are not related to us, but concerning the last day we have a narrative which enters into details with all the minuteness of one of the gospel histories. It was the evening which succeeded the Jewish Sabbath. On the Sunday morning the vessel was about to sail." Of Paul's journey that day to Assos they say, "He pursued his lonely road that Sunday afternoon in spring among the oak woods and streams Ida." Vol. 2, pp. 206, 209.

Prof. Hacket, in his commentary on Acts, pp. 329, 330, says: "The Jews reckoned the day from evening to evening, and on that principle the evening of the first day of the week would be our Saturday evening. If Luke reckoned so here, as many commentators suppose, the apostle then waited for the expiration of the Jewish Sabbath, and held his last religious service with the brethren at Troas, at the beginning of the Christian Sabbath, i. e., on Saturday evening, and consequently resumed his journey on Sunday morning."

"It has, from this last circumstance, been inferred that the assembly commenced after sunset on the Sabbath, at which hour the first day of the week had commenced, according to the Jewish reckoning, which would hardly agree with the idea of a commemoration of the resurrection."—Cyclo. of Bib. Literature, Art., Lord's Day.

Prof. McGarvey, of the Disciple denomination, in his "Commentary on the Acts," says: "I conclude, therefore, that the brethren met on the night after the Jewish Sabbath, which was still observed as a day of rest by all who were Jews, or Jewish proselytes, and considering this the beginning of the first day of the week, spent it in the manner above described. On Sunday morning, Paul and his companions resumed their journey, being constrained, no doubt, by the movements of the ship, which had already been in the harbor of Troas seven days."

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL ON THE LAW AND SABBATH.

"The single fact that the four archbishops of Ireland, and the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth should have impiously dared to strike one commandment from the ten, which God wrote on two tables with his own finger, and should have changed and divided the tenth into two, speaks volumes in proof of my allegata against the Romanist's rule of faith. . . . It is a poor apology for this expurgation of the decalogue, that it is not so done in the Douay Bible; for when these catechisms were introduced, and even yet in most Catholic countries, not one layman in a thousand ever read the Bible. The catechism intended for universal consumption contains all his knowledge of God's law. What myriads, then, through this fraud, must have lived and died in the belief that the second commandment is no part of God's law! It is clearly proved that the pastors of the church have struck out one of the ten words, which not only in the Old Testament, but in all revelation, are the most emphatically regarded as the synopsis of all religion and morality. They have also made a ninth commandment out of the tenth, and their ninth, in that dependent position, becomes identical with the seventh commandment, and makes God use tautology in the only instrument that he wrote with his own hand! But why this annulling of the second commandment? Because it is a positive prohibition of the practice of bowing down to images and doing them homage; a custom dearer to the Romish church than both the second and the seventh commandment."—Debate with Purcell, pp. 214, 215.

"No license is given (by the gospel) to offend—the moral law is unrepealed—a day of Judgment is still appointed."—Christian System, p. 43.

"The moral and religious institutions of the Patriarchal, or family worship, which continued from the fall of Adam to the covenant of circumcision, were the Sabbath, the service of the altar, oral instruction, prayer, praise, and benediction."—Christian System, pp. 128-130.

"The Sabbath was observed from Abraham's time, nay, from the creation."—Evidences of Christianity, pp. 302, 303.

"But some say it was changed from the seventh to the first day. When? Where? and by whom? No man can tell. No, it never was changed, nor could be, unless creation were gone through with again; for the reason assigned must be changed before the observance or respect to the reason can be changed. It is an old wive's fable to talk of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august person changed it who changed times and laws, ex officio. I think his name is Dr. Antichrist."—Bible Advocate, January, 1848.

"Was the first day set apart by public authority in the apostolic age? No. By whom was it set apart, and when? By Constantine, who lived about the beginning of the fourth century."—A. Campbell, Lecture in Bethany College in 1848.

BLOOMFIELD ON ACTS 13:42.

"The words us to metaxu Sabb. are by many commentators supposed to mean 'on some intermediate week day.' But that is refuted by verse 44, and the sense expressed in our common version, is no doubt, the true one. It is adopted by the best recent commentators, and confirmed by the ancient version."—Note on verse 42.

It will be seen that all these quotations have an important bearing upon different points of the present truth.