p. 498 | A Check on Adventism by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 8, 1883

"A Check on Adventism."

By Editor

IT is a general practice in courts of justice that a person's testimony is not to be rejected for an inaccuracy on a point not material to the issue. But if, with the facts before him, he contradicts the facts directly in issue, he is impeached. And if, in addition to this, he contradicts himself, his testimony is entirely discredited. Mr. Woodward occupies a position peculiarly unfortunate in every way in telling his Sunday story.

1. He blunders in almost every incidental statement he makes. 2. He contradicts the plainest facts of Scripture. 3. He contradicts himself, not once or twice merely, but, many times, and that on the main issue. As we shall impeach him on the main issue, both by the Bible and by his own testimony, it will not be necessary to follow him in all his meanderings.

His work being a direct assault upon the Adventists, of course he makes many assertions concerning them. And we cannot believe that any man could make so many misstatements as mere mistakes. We are forced to the conclusion that he intentionally misrepresented us to make us appear to disadvantage before his readers, and to build up a prejudice against us. A few of his statements we will notice.

1. "The SIGNS OF THE TIMES last fall was willing to unite with the League of Freedom, a band of abandoned men leagued to break law."

All the readers of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES know that that statement is false, and maliciously false. If Mr. Woodward has no respect for the fourth commandment of the decalogue, that is no reason why he should so flagrantly break the ninth. The Methodist ministry very generally supported a ticket nominated by a convention which ignored the temperance question; which was presided over by a liquor dealer; which nominated for the first office in the State a wine producer; they voted for him and for other anti-temperance men, in hope to save the "Sunday Law;" and in this they more nearly coincided with the League of Freedom than we did. We heard the representative of the League of Freedom pledge the support of the League to the Convention, Sunday Law and all, if they would ignore the temperance question, which was done. We opposed the liquor interest because it is a great and growing evil in this State; and we opposed the Sunday Law because it was unconstitutional, discriminating against us in religious faith and practice. We claim the right from the law of God, "the higher law," to work six days and rest the seventh; and we shall always oppose those religious bigots who wish to trample on our civil and religious rights and liberties to gratify their own selfish feelings.

2. "Adventism teaches, regarding man, that the body and soul are one; or, in other words, that man has no spirit."

The words we have italicized are untrue, as regards our belief; and every one who knows about our faith knows that they are untrue. As to the first part of the statement, it is true only in part. All who have investigated the subject know that in the majority of the instances of the use of the word soul, neh-phesh, in Hebrew, it means the entire being, or person; it is sometimes rendered body, and in a few instances, dead body. But it does not always mean the body; and there is the deception of his statement. He intended that the reader should think that we assert that it means the body only, in all cases. We do not believe that man is immortal in the present state, but must seek for immortality. Rom. 2:7. We will believe that he is immortal if one text can be given from the Bible which says so. But we do not argue that point now; we only wish to point out the deception of his statement.

3. "Adventism teaches that Christ is only relatively good, while God is absolutely good."

Adventism teaches no such thing. To make out that we err in this matter he quotes passages to prove that Christ was sinless! as though we denied it. Methodism cannot produce any testimony which exalts Christ above that which Adventism can produce. And whatever any may think of the statement of Rev. 3:14, which says that Christ was "the beginning of the creation of God," his argument must appear to all but a fallacy. He says:—

"That he was not the first being created is evident, from the first verse in the Bible: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.'"

This is astonishing. Is it possible that Mr. Woodward thinks that the heavens and earth spoken of in Gen. 1:1 were the first of all things in the universe which God created? "All the sons of God shouted for joy" when the earth was created. Job 38:7. Were they all uncreated beings, or were they a part of the heavens and the earth created at that time? Were the cherubim who guarded the way of the tree of life no older than Adam? Did Lucifer, or "Satan and his angels," who "kept not their first estate, but sinned," create themselves? Or was the tempter as inexperienced as Eve? Or, finally, does Mr. Woodward ever think when he writes?

4. "We have often heard Advent teachers affirm that a day in the Bible always means from evening to evening, or one year."

He never heard "Advent teachers" affirm any such thing, for not one of them believes any such thing. In a work (against the "Age to Come") which we wrote in 1856, which is accepted by all Seventh-day Adventists, we argued at length to show that "the day of the Lord," mentioned in many Scriptures, means a period of time more than one thousand years in length. And, as an example of the use of the word day, we there refer to "the day of salvation," which has now existed more than eighteen hundred years, admitting that it commenced with the proclamation of the gospel by the Saviour and his apostles. We do say that a solar day always means from evening to evening, and we prove it. And we say that when the word day is used as a symbol, connected with other symbols, in prophecy, it means a year, and this is easy of proof. But to say that we affirm that in the Bible it has no other meaning than these two, is to say what is not true.

5. "They find a definition of a certain word somewhere in the Bible, and ever after, wherever that word is found, attach to it the same definition."

This statement is so absurd that Mr. Woodward could not honestly make it unless he were so ignorant of us that he is not competent to testify at all. If we were not known; if our publications were not scattered in every direction, then might he make people believe such falsities, but now he cannot. We are willing to let our publications be compared with those of any denomination in the land, as far as the adoption of just rules of Biblical criticism are concerned. If the Methodists hope to put a "check" on us they must do it by other means than by such bald misrepresentations. Our literature is so well known that the day is past for any to hope to triumph over us by misrepresenting our faith or our methods of advocating it.

6. "If the Saturday-Sabbath people think that they can observe the same time as Sabbath the world over, they are very much mistaken."

It is not necessary to quote further on this point. He argues as though he had a point to make; but it is of no use, for we do not think any such thing, and if he does not know it, it is because he is surprisingly ignorant of our faith. It is singular that men will pretend to know all about our faith, and imagine an absurdity of their own devising, and then argue against it as zealously as though they were meeting something more substantial than a figment of their own brains. Every intelligent reader knows that we do not think that the seventh day comes in all latitudes and longitudes at the same time. God made the sun to rule the day; and so it does round the entire globe, and not only at one particular point. Our opposers take to themselves great credit for knowing enough not to begin to keep Sunday at the same moment in all places! So they know when we begin to keep the seventh day? Yes; at the setting of the sun. And do they really think that the sun sets all round the world at the same time? They must think it does to us so that we may begin to keep the day together! But they know our practice; and to argue against their own "whimsys," as if they were overthrowing our positions, when they know we never took such positions, is not paying a high compliment to the intelligence of their readers. But it gives them a chance to show their smartness, and seems to please them amazingly. Perhaps these are among the "cogent," the irresistibly powerful things which Dr. Stratton found in the book. But we have much more wonderful things to notice. The following is an inexcusable deception.

7. "There is frequently mentioned by these lecturers, and others, the change from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar. Some say there was time lost; others, that no time was lost, but that the dates were simply changed; others are in doubt whether the days of the week were disturbed in their order, or not, by this change."

Every reader who is unacquainted with us would gather from this paragraph that "these lecturers" are certainly among those who take these several positions; but that is not true. Mr. Woodward goes on to state some facts with which every person of reading is acquainted, and in his conclusion says: "Neither were the days of the week disturbed in their order; the date of the day of the month was simply changed." This is the exact truth for which we constantly contend. We very often have to meet those who, to avoid the force of our arguments for the seventh day, say that time has been lost, or that dates were changed or disarranged so that the definite day is a matter of uncertainty, and others ease their consciences by saying, "We do not know anything about it." But Seventh-day Adventists have never considered it a matter of any uncertainty; the days of the week have never been disturbed in their count or order. If the reader wishes to be assured to this point he may procure a tract at this office entitled, "The Lost-Time Question," in which he will find the whole matter made plain, and these several positions noticed by Mr. W. are treated as objections and disproved. Every candid reader must condemn his course as dishonorable in trying to fasten such positions upon us when they are exactly the opposite of what we believe.

These are sufficient to show the animus of Mr. Woodward in his course toward the Seventh-day Adventists. Much more might be quoted, but we pass them by. To show the importance which he attaches to the day of the Sabbath, we quote as follows:—

"The question as to which of the days of the week is the Sabbath of the Lord takes precedence of all other questions; for if some hold one day and others another day of the week to be the Sabbath, we shall fall into confusion, and the result will be, in this age of recklessness, no Sabbath at all, which means the end of the Christian Church, anarchy in society, and moral darkness over the entire world."

We do not think that he overestimates the importance of the Sabbath, as a beneficent institution; nor the importance of "the question as to which of the days of the week is the Sabbath of the Lord." This, he says, takes precedence of all other questions. So we think, because, if one certain day of the week is the Sabbath of the Lord, and men keep another day, then they do not keep the Sabbath of the Lord at all. This cannot be disputed by any one. Nor is the result changed if all should agree to keep that other day, for it would be simply an agreement to substitute some other day for the Sabbath of the Lord, and all the world united cannot give authority to set aside an institution of Jehovah and to set up something else in its place. And thus it will be seen that the important point to consider is that of obedience, not merely of uniformity. And this shows beyond mistaking that the position of the California Christian Advocate is a material error when it said that it made no difference whether Sunday, or Saturday, or Friday be kept, so that men are agreed upon it! Human agreement cannot make a truth of a falsehood, or sanction a departure from the commandment of God.

Now if we are able to prove by indisputable facts, by the plain reading of the word of God, that the seventh day, and not the first day, is the Sabbath of the Lord, as we insist that we can, by what authority, or for what reason does Dr. Stratton declare that we are contending for a mere "whimsey"? His own "cogent" and "timely" work declares that the settlement of the question, which of the days of the week is the Sabbath of the Lord, takes precedence of all others, and this is the question we are pressing upon the public mind. Will the Doctor consent that it is an all-important question, and declare that it is a mere whimsey also? Or is it important when we consent "to the established usages of Church and State," and a "whimsey" when we plead for the Bible and the authority of the commandment of God?

We shall next week commence the examination of his position on the pentateuch, with which he takes most unwarrantable liberties.