Discussion on the Sabbath Question at Pilot Grove, Iowa.
This discussion, between Eld. Evans of the Methodist church and Eld. Canright of the Seventh-day Adventist, commenced March 21, and ended the 27th. The question was shaped in two propositions: 1. Resolved, That the Scriptures teach that the Sabbath made at creation is binding upon all men in all time. Eld. Canright affirmed; Eld. Evans denied. 2. Resolved, That the Scriptures teach that the first day of the week is the Sabbath since the resurrection of Christ. Eld. Evans affirmed, and Eld. Canright denied. Six days were consumed on these two questions, three on each. The attendance was from three to five hundred. This discussion was of more than usual interest for two reasons: the first was, it had been some months in anticipation; the second was that Eld. Evans was the acknowledged champion of his side of the question in this part of Iowa. His positions on the first question were mainly as follows: First, that creation week was seven thousand years long, and hence could not mean common days. He argued this position from 2 Pet. 3:8; showing, first, that in this chapter Peter is speaking of the creation; secondly, that the Sabbath was not made at creation, from the fact that the blessing and sanctifying did not take place for twenty-five hundred years after that. During this twenty-five hundred years there was no Sabbath. In the next place he took the position that the ten commandments with the ceremonial law passed away at the cross; that the one was only an expansion of the other; that the law had become a source of idolatry to the Jews, hence the necessity of its destruction, that the Jews might thereby be brought to Christ; and that at the present and since the cross it is idolatry to obey the ten commandments; therefore he argued that the seventh-day Sabbath was dead. Eld. Canright showed that the six days of creation were six literal days, equally divided between evening and morning, or darkness and light; that the blessing and sanctifying took place immediately after the resting, hence at creation. According to Webster, “at” means “near by,” etc.; then if Eld. Evans was correct, Adam did not live long enough to see the first Sabbath day finished. He next showed from the Scriptures that the ten commandment law and the ceremonial law were two distinct laws; that the ceremonial law, being typical, passed away; but that the ten commandments, not being typical, but of universal application, remained; that the seventh-day Sabbath was recognized by Christ and his apostles as continuous after the crucifixion as before; that the word, “Jewish,” was never used in either Testament in connection with the Sabbath; that inspiration calls the seventh day the Sabbath both before and after the crucifixion, and hence, till the same power disannuls that created, the seventh-day Sabbath must stand; that if it is never changed, it must forever remain. On the second proposition Eld. Evans founded an argument on the following scriptures: Isa. 65:17–19; Ps. 118:22–24; applying them to the resurrection day and Pentecost, both of which occurred on the first day of the week, according to his showing. He also combined with the foregoing, Acts 20 and 1 Cor. 16. By the quotation from Isaiah he endeavored to show that the new heavens and earth applied to the Christian dispensation. From Ps. 118 he showed that as the rejected stone was Christ, he became head of the corner on the resurrection day, and hence the day spoken of was the same, and became from that time forward the Christian Sabbath; that as redemption was greater than creation it required a day to commemorate it. Eld. Canright showed that Isaiah’s new heavens and earth went beyond this dispensation, and would be the everlasting home of the saints in the next, which he proved by 2 Pet. 3; that the day mentioned in Psalms was the Christian dispensation; that the day of Pentecost was necessarily, by the type, preceded by seven seventh-day Sabbaths, which would of course run six of them into the Christian dispensation; that as the type could not pass the antitype, the position of Eld. Evans failed. He showed in the next place that Christ met only once with his disciples on the first day of the week; that this was on the resurrection day, which Eld. Evans acknowledged they did not keep as a Sabbath from the fact that they did not believe he had risen till near the close of the day. He also showed from Acts 20 that Paul traveled on his journey Sunday morning, and from 1 Cor. 16, that the laying by was at home. The foregoing are but a few of the more prominent features of the discussion. No doubt it will be reported by abler hands, and more fully in detail from the notes. That which produces the greatest excitement here is the position Eld. Evans has taken with regard to the moral law. This is new ground for Methodism, and we wait with some anxiety to see how his brethren will receive it. There were some five or six of his ministerial brethren present. We didn’t hear any of them say, Amen; and from their looks we judged that they felt rather sad. But we are fully satisfied that while the truth has had a good scouring up, the seventh-day brethren are more firmly rooted and grounded, and much stronger than before, and will be better able to meet the enemies of God’s holy Sabbath and law than if the discussion had not occurred. [Since the foregoing was in type, we have received the following report of the same discussion. As each contains facts and circumstances not mentioned in the other, all of which will be of interest, we present them both in connection.—Ed.] The Discussion at Pilot Grove.
In his last report, Bro. Canright gave an account of our visit to Peru and Winterset. From the latter place we went to Monroe where we held an evening meeting with the brethren, and departed on the morning following for Washington, where we spent the Sabbath and Sunday, delivering six discourses to attentive congregations, which, through the courtesy of the people known as the church of God, were permitted to convene in their house of worship. On Monday afternoon we reached Pilot Grove. At this point our brethren have a comfortable house of worship, which, as a matter of favor, they have allowed other denominations to occupy from time to time. On one of these occasions, some months since, Eld. F. W. Evans, a presiding elder of the M. E. church, preached several discourses against the perpetuity of the Sabbath of the Lord, and in favor of the first day of the week, which he claimed had taken its place. This, of course, demanded attention, and as the friends of Eld. Evans confided in the strength of his position, matters so shaped themselves that a debate seemed necessary. Accordingly, after considerable correspondence, the time was fixed for the meeting on the 21st of March, and the following questions were agreed upon:— 1. Do the Scriptures teach that the seventh day of the week was instituted as the Sabbath of the Lord at the creation of the world, and as such, is binding on all men through all time? Eld. Canright affirms.
Eld. Evans denies. 2. Do the Scriptures teach that the first day of the week is the Christian Sabbath? Eld. Evans affirms.
Eld. Canright denies. At the appointed time the people assembled in large numbers to listen to the proposed argument, which it was arranged should last six days, two sessions each day, of two hours each, speakers occupying the time with alternate speeches of thirty minutes. One very gratifying feature of the matter was found in the fact that our opponents were perfectly satisfied with the ability of Eld. Evans to present their side of the question in a satisfactory manner, so that all were agreed that as he was a man of experience and unquestioned talent, should he fail to make out his case, it would be because he was not found defending the truth. All preliminaries in regard to moderators, etc., being arranged, Bro. Canright commenced his affirmative argument about 2 o’clock Tuesday. The positions taken on the first question were substantially as follows:— It was urged in favor of the seventh day of the week that God rested upon, blessed, and sanctified it at the creation; that it was given to Adam as the federal head of the race for the benefit of all his descendants; and that when Mt. Sinai was reached, God incorporated a command respecting it into his moral law, which is binding on all men through all time, and which, consequently, still requires the observance of the Sabbath which it ordains. The argument thus made was clear and forcible, and well calculated to carry conviction to the minds of the hearers. To it, Eld. Evans raised the following objections:— 1. That the blessing and sanctifying occurred after the end of the seventh day (according to Eld. C.’s position), and therefore could not be said to be at the creation, even though it had occurred but five minutes subsequent to the close of that day. This, however, bordered so nearly upon a quibble that it had no weight with the congregation. 2. He argued that the Sabbath was not given to Adam at all, and that the days mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis were not literal days, but indefinite periods of time, and that the seventh day mentioned in Gen. 2:1–3 had not yet ended, and that God is still resting. 3. He insisted that the Sabbath was never instituted until the exode, and, consequently, that that was the point when God sanctified and blessed it because he had rested on it, even while in the very midst of that rest which is not yet complete. 4. That the ten commandments were only designed for the Jews, and were repealed by Christ; that they constituted a very imperfect code; that in them are no requirements to love God, and that they were even inferior to the Mosaic law since that inculcated love to God and man and provided for the education of children, etc. These were novel positions for a Methodist presiding elder to take, and afforded abundant proof that his situation was a desperate one. Therefore, after showing the terrible cost at which the elder purchased exemption from the requirement to keep the Sabbath of the Lord, viz., by giving up the literal days of creation, and first berating, and then repudiating, the law of God, he was shown to have opposed himself to the Protestant world generally, and to the M. E. church in particular, since John Wesley, Adam Clarke, an association of M. E. preachers, and the discipline of the body, recognized in unequivocal terms the continued obligation of the decalogue.135The presentation and examination of the above positions occupied the time of the speakers nearly the whole of the first three days. At the expiration of that time, the second question was taken up, and the speakers reversing positions, it became the duty of Eld. E. to present a positive argument in favor of the first-day Sabbath. Here he found himself badly hampered by many assertions which he had made in the first part of the debate. For instance, while trying to tear down the Sabbath of the Lord he had declared with great emphasis that if the Lord should give a Sabbath, it would be his duty to make it just as plain as he (Eld. E.) could make it. It being insisted, therefore, that this rule should be made to apply to the first as well as the seventh day, he was appealed to again and again for a specific command, which he was compelled to admit was not to be found in the New Testament. Unwilling, however, to yield the point, or, rather, unable to extricate himself in any other way from the consequences of his previous concessions—which, indeed, were just and proper in themselves—he argued that circumstantial evidence is sometimes better than positive, and then presented testimony of this nature from the Bible. He labored with great energy, and at times with considerable shrewdness, to make out his case. 1. He appealed to Ps. 118:22–24; but here he was reminded that the day alluded to was not spoken of as a day of the week nor as the Sabbath, nor was it stated whether it should be observed annually, if at all, or that it would ever recur again; and in fact that it did not refer to a twenty-four-hour day at all, but to the Christian dispensation. John 8:56. 2. He then brought forward the 65th chapter of Isaiah, as finding its fulfillment in the Christian dispensation. Here again the fallacy of his argument was made manifest; and it was shown from 2 Pet. 3:5–13, which he himself had applied to the literal earth, that Isaiah 65 could only have its fulfillment in the earth made new. 3. He then passed into the New Testament and appealed successively to John 20:19, 26; 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10; Acts 2:1; and the other texts which relate to the first day of the week, claiming that they furnish apostolic example for Sunday keeping. Here again, however, his argument was sadly defective, reminding one forcibly of the passage in Isaiah which says: “For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it.” Isa. 28:20. For according to the same record which he adduced, that day which he endeavored to prove to be the first Christian Sabbath was one of the greatest confusion and excitement, since the disciples were hurrying to and fro, giving and imparting information respecting the resurrection of the Lord, which but few of them believed till a late hour in the afternoon, when he appeared unto them as they sat in their own private chamber partaking of their evening meal, while the doors were shut for fear of the Jews. Mark 16:13, 14; John 20:10, 19; Acts 1:13. Again, from Acts 20:7, etc., which he evidently relied upon as affording clear and satisfactory testimony in favor of his theory, was produced the most conclusive evidence that the apostle Paul had no idea of the sanctity of the first day of the week, since upon it he traveled on foot from Troas to Assos, a distance of nineteen miles. Having exhausted his skill in the vain effort to lay a foundation for Sunday keeping in the Scriptures, Eld. E. stepped outside of them, and introduced an argument which he was pleased to call the “Triumph of Truth,” the substance of which is this: 1. The number of those who observe the first day of the week is vastly greater than that of those who keep the seventh. 2. God has greatly blessed first-day keepers in spreading the truth. They have more churches, more schools and institutions of learning, have done more for the conversion of the heathen, etc., etc., than Sabbatarians, and therefore the latter are either men of less ability or energy, or God is not with them, but is with those who keep the first-day Sabbath and consequently approves their conduct in this respect. As the latter line of argument was entirely out of order since the question required adherence to the Scriptures, the speaker evidently damaged himself by resorting to it. The congregation were reminded that he had left the Bible altogether, evidently because he could not maintain his position there, and manifestly with a design to excite the prejudices of the congregation by resorting to a comparison of the resources, ability, and numbers, of those who keep the two days respectively. Nevertheless, as the debate drew to a close, this argument was presented again, and again, although entirely irrelevant and exactly calculated to produce personal altercation and bad feeling had it been met in the same spirit in which it was presented. This, however, was carefully avoided; and the whole object of the speaker was entirely defeated by showing that his conclusions were unsound, since, if true, the family of Noah, Elijah the Tishbite, the disciples, in the days of Christ, the Waldenses and other churches that rejected the Catholic heresies, and Luther and his followers, in the Reformation, as well as Wesley at a later period, could not have been the favorites of Heaven. Thus closed the discussion. From first to last perfect order was maintained, and the speakers, though contending earnestly for their respective positions, treated each other with Christian courtesy. So far as the results are concerned they must be eminently satisfactory to the friends of truth since the Lord rendered that assistance in its defense that its superiority over error was most forcibly demonstrated even when attacked by one who, while guilty of having made some gross blunders in his logic, nevertheless discovered a capacity for debate which would have insured success in a better cause. State Center, Iowa, March 31, 1871.