Commencement of the Sabbath.
By Editor
PETER said he wrote his second letter, not to acquaint them with the things of which he wrote, but, because they knew them and were established in the truth; his desire was to stir them up by putting them in remembrance. The truth cannot be made too plain nor be too often stated. And yet we should hardly have thought of writing on the time of the commencement of the Sabbath had we not received a request so to do. We consider that no point is better settled than this. But certain friends in a distant State have commenced the observance of the seventh day by reading; they are alone in their place, and this subject is not clear to them. When God created the heavens and the earth all was in darkness. He then called forth light, which appears to have been diffused o'er the whole extent of the earth's surface. And he separated the light from the darkness, so that the light was gathered to one side of the earth, while the darkness was on the other side, as it continues to this day. But it was not until the fourth day that the sun was constituted the bearer of light to the earth, and to this system. This order in the work of creation and formation is the basis of the declaration: "And the evening and the morning were the first day." And so of the other days. The word day is used in the record in two senses. 1. Meaning the light in distinction from the darkness, which is also called morning. 2. Meaning the period of a complete revolution of the earth, twenty-four hours, including one period of darkness and one period of light; and the period of darkness has two terms applied to it, namely, night and evening. In measuring off the day the evening naturally comes first, because when the earth was created there was darkness, and afterward light. From the very beginning the day was divided into two periods, one of darkness and one of light, the darkness coming first. And so it has continued until this day. This fixes the commencement of every day with the evening, or, with the beginning of the darkness. This is sufficient to settle the question of the time to commence the Sabbath, or, rather, the time when the Sabbath commences. But God has spoken on the subject defining the time when the observance of a day should begin. Thus, the tenth day of the seventh month was the day of atonement—the most notable of all the yearly sabbaths. Of this the Lord said in Lev. 23:32, "It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls; in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even shall ye celebrate your sabbath." Of course all days commence at the same point of time; otherwise there would be constant confusion. And therefore every Sabbath must be observed "from even unto even," which indeed is equivalent to saying it must be observed from its commencement to its close. We will quote a few texts of Scripture confirming what we have drawn from Gen. 1 and Lev. 23. In Josh. 8:29 these are words:— "And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide; and as soon as the sun was down Joshua commanded that they should take his carcass down from the tree." And again, in chapter 10:26, 27, we find as follows:— "Joshua smote them, and slew them, and hanged them on five trees; and they were hanging upon the trees until the evening. And it came to pass at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees." And the same language is used in the New Testament. In the first chapter of Mark there is an account of Jesus teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. After they left the synagogue he entered into the house of Simon and healed his wife's mother of a fever. But the people would not bring their sick to him on the Sabbath; they waited until the close of the day. And the record says:— "And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased." Thus the time when the day commences is clearly given in the Scriptures, namely, at even, or at the setting of the sun. The idea of commencing the day at midnight, in the middle of one of the periods into which a full day is divided, was never derived from the Bible. It originated with those who did not follow the Bible, and who cared nothing for the ways of God. We endeavor to follow the rules given by the Lord, and not to learn "the way of the heathen." Jer. 10:2. And this is a matter of importance. God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, and commanded its observance. If we rest a part of the seventh day and a part of the first day, we do not rest upon that time which God has said is holy unto himself. Ex. 31:14, 15. As the day commences at the setting of the sun or at the commencement of the evening, if we do not commence our Sabbath rest until midnight, one quarter of the sacred day (on the average) is past when we commence our rest, and then, after it is all past, we rest a quarter of another day, until the midnight following. The Bible is so plain on this subject that we shall be without excuse if we do not follow its teachings.