Whoever takes up Eld. P.'s “First-Day Sabbath” expecting to find therein a connected statement of the author's peculiar views of the Sabbath will certainly be disappointed. To Eld. P.'s own mind the work may seem to be orderly, logical, and harmonious. But such will not be the judgment of the unprejudiced reader. It is a medley of confused and discordant ideas. It advocates some truths, but it obscures and darkens these as far as the author is capable of doing it, by advocating also the opposite errors.
His own views of the Sabbath form the first part of the work, and will therefore first engage our attention. Could we find a well-ordered statement of the author's views of the time when God made the Sabbath, the nature and design of this institution, the biblical history of the same as understood by Eld. P., and finally a clear, connected view of his theory of the perpetuity, or abrogation, or change of the same, with a plain straightforward presentation of the reasons for the faith that is in him, we should take pleasure in giving the work due credit for the same, however widely we might be compelled to differ from the doctrines therein advanced. But the reading of the work reminds one of Milton's description of chaos:
“For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring
Their embryon atoms.”
The confusion which reigns throughout the work is not however its only or even its principal objectionable feature. The author's pen is dipped in gall, and he not once or twice only, but many times, mistakes sneers for arguments.
That we may discuss the Sabbath question in an understanding manner, and that we may do justice to the entire subject, we must regard the order of time in the events of its history as presented in the Bible. And therefore in examining Eld. P.'s book we shall endeavor to get the principal points of his theory into something like the proper order of time, though to do it we shall be compelled to search through his entire work to find them, and shall have to bring them now from one part, and then from another, always however giving his exact idea upon the point in question, and doing it in his own words.
But we shall treat his quotation from the London Quarterly Journal of Prophecy on pages 147–149, as though it were his own words, for he confesses to have made some changes in it, as a comparison with the original article shows to be the case. It may therefore be fairly held to present his exact ideas upon the points which it treats. For still stronger reasons shall we treat his quotations from Sylvester Bliss, found on pages 140–147, as though they were the very words of Eld. P.
1. He prefaces the quotation by terming it “a clear and comprehensive view of the Sabbath.”
2. Besides some omissions which he does indicate, he makes nine (9) omissions which he in no way indicates, some of which change the sense materially. The first of these which he does not mark is an omission of thirteen (13) lines; the second of six (6); the third of twelve (12); the fourth of six (6); the fifth of seventeen (17); the sixth of eight (8); the seventh of seven (7); the eighth of about one (1) line; and the ninth of twelve (12) lines.
3. He makes several changes in the words of Mr. Bliss without indicating that he has changed them at all.
4. He emphasizes the article in many places, showing that the points therein met his mind, and that he wishes them to stand out very distinct to the eye of the reader.
5. And finally he takes a portion of Dr. Jennings' Jewish Antiquities and inserts it into the middle of his extract from Mr. Bliss, and passes it all off for the words of the late, lamented Sylvester Bliss.
He cannot therefore complain if we treat these extracts as though written originally by himself, it being manifest that he has fixed them over to his heart's content.
We now invite attention to the examination of this book. We shall call out the points of Eld. P.'s work by asking questions, giving the answers in his own words, and when occasion demands it, commenting upon the positions which he takes.
When, according to the teaching of Elder P., did God make the Sabbath?
Answer. “It so happens that I believe its origin was at the creation.” P. 271.
What scripture, according to Eld. P., records the act of instituting the Sabbath and shows that God gave commandment for its observance at the close of the creation?
Ans. “The institution of the Sabbath was coeval with the creation. Gen. 2:3. ‘God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work.’ To sanctify, in the sense of the word here used, is to separate, to set apart, or appoint to a holy, sacred, or religious use. By a formal appointment, God thus distinguished from the other six one day in every seven, and commanded it to be observed as a day of rest—not as a local, but as a universal, observance.” P. 143.
Did Adam need the Sabbath in Paradise?
Ans. “Adam in Paradise, Israel in the wilderness, when there was no bustle, no tempting world around, needed a Sabbath for fellowship and worship.” P. 147.
What does Elder P. state to be the design of the seventh-day Sabbath?
Ans. “The seventh-day Sabbath was designed to commemorate the work of creation.” P. 122.
Was the Sabbath observed by the people of God during the whole four thousand years covered by the historical records of the Bible?
Ans. “For four thousand years God kept up this memorial of creation as a thing that was needed; and where is his declaration that creation needs no memorial now?” P. 147.
For the entire period from Adam to Moses, men had no Bible, for Moses wrote its first book. In what way does Eld. P. show that mankind could know the very word used by the Creator in his act of instituting the Sabbath?
Ans. “They did not need a law written with ‘ink;’ for Adam alone could be a teacher of the people for almost a thousand years, for he lived ‘nine hundred and thirty years,’ and he received the words directly from the mouth of God.” P. 119, 120.
What else does Eld. P. say concerning the Sabbath from Adam to Moses?
Ans. “During this long period, the old patriarchs most likely had a law in their hearts (Rom. 2:12–15), which led them to observe a Sabbath.” P. 119.
Eld. P. need not say “most likely had a law in their hearts,” for the text cited shows that a copy of the law of God exists in the hearts of men “by nature.” Were it not that this copy is marred by the fall which introduced “the carnal mind” or “law of sin” (Rom. 7:22–25; 8:1–7), there would be no need of the work of conversion which takes away the carnal mind and gives to man a perfect copy of the law of God. Heb. 8:10–12. But does Elder P. hold that the law of which the Sabbath is a part existed before God proclaimed the ten commandments from Mount Sinai?
Ans. “The fourth commandment is the only one of the decalogue which designates time. But the Sabbath was contained in the law, and observed by God's people previous to the giving of the ten commandments from Mount Sinai.” Pages 127, 128.
What poetical quotation does Eld. P. use to express his conviction that God ordained the Sabbath at the beginning?
Ans. “Day ever blessed,
Thy light, thy rest,
I hail with glad emotion;
Ordained for man,
When time began,
For solace and devotion.” P. 131.
What just distinction between the weekly Sabbath and the sabbaths of the ceremonial code (see Lev. 23 and 25) does Elder P. plainly express?
Ans. “The sabbaths of the ceremonial code pertained to the earthly inheritance—the land of Canaan. When that inheritance came to be trodden down of the Gentiles, as it was ever after their dispersion, so that these sabbaths could not be kept, the weekly Sabbath remained unaffected. This belonged to a higher order of institutions.” P. 128.
Paul testifies in Col. 2:14–17, that the sabbaths, new moons, and feast days, of the typical system were abolished when Christ was crucified. Does Elder P. hold that this higher institution, the Sabbath of the Lord, is one of the sabbaths which Paul there mentions?
Ans. “And it is thus worthy of special attention that whenever the seventh-day Sabbath is mentioned in the New Testament, it is always to be found in the five historical books; and never once found in the epistles of any of the apostles.” P. 47.
Did God make the Sabbath for a particular class or portion of mankind, or did he make it for the entire family of man?
Ans. “‘The Sabbath,’ said the Saviour (Mark 2:27), ‘was made for man.’ This declaration clearly refers to its original institution as a universal law. It was made for man; not as he may be a Jew or a Christian, but as a man, a creature on trial for eternity, and under obligation to love, worship, and obey, his Creator.” P. 143.
Eld. P. thus clearly teaches that the institution of the Sabbath pertains to the whole family of man, and he therefore maintains that it originated with Adam. But let no one think that Elder P. favors the observance of that day which God sanctified at the beginning. He professes to honor the sabbatic institution; but he despitefully uses the seventh day and treats it with exceeding contempt and bitterness. He must thrust out the last day of the week in order to bring in the first day. The Sabbath is the holy of the Lord and honorable if Sunday be the day observed. But should you keep that day of the week on which God rested, you are a Judaizer and a despiser of Christ. But how does Eld. P. go to work to get the seventh day of the week out of the sabbatic institution? He affirms that God appointed to a holy use the seventh day of only one week, the first of time, and that he did not sanctify the seventh day of the weeks that were to follow. How does he state this point?
Ans. “Remember, God did not bless ALL of the seventh days of the week, and sanctify them; but he blessed the seventh DAY and sanctified IT.” P. 119.
What does Eld. P. hold that sanctifying the seventh day means?
Ans. “To sanctify in the sense of the word here used, is to separate, to set apart, or appoint, to a holy, sacred, or religious use.” P. 143.
Did God set apart the seventh day before he had rested upon it, or afterward? That is, did he rest upon the seventh day because that he had sanctified it, or did he sanctify the seventh day because that in it he had rested? If the first were the truth, the sanctification of the seventh day took place at or before the commencement of the first seventh day of time. But we know it to be false from the express language of the Bible, and that the second statement is the truth. The rest had taken place when God sanctified the day. God employed the seventh day in rest, and when he had thus rested, he appointed the seventh day to a holy use. But what does Eld. P. teach concerning the point of time at which God sanctified the seventh day?
Ans. “How did God rest from his work? Answer. He sanctified the day on which he rested, ‘BECAUSE that in it he HAD RESTED.’” P. 131.
The emphasis is that of Eld. P. It is manifest therefore that the first seventh day of time was past, even on Elder P.'s own showing, when God set apart the seventh day. But is it certain that Elder P. does hold that the sanctification of the seventh day pertained only to that one day on which God had rested, and which was therefore past at the very time when God set it apart to a holy use? He is so confident that this is the truth that he challenges the proof to the contrary. But what are his words?
Ans. “Is there a passage in the Bible to prove that the Lord ever sanctified but one seventh day of the WEEK? and that, the day on which he rested? If such a passage is to be found, where is it?” Introduction, p. 5.
This language can have but one meaning. There is but one seventh day in each week. When, therefore, Elder P. calls for proof “that the Lord ever sanctified but one seventh day of the WEEK” (the emphasis is his), and when he says, “God did not bless ALL of the seventh days of the week and sanctify them,” it is the same as saying that God blessed the seventh day of the first week, but did not bless the seventh day of the second week, nor indeed that of any subsequent week.
So the only seventh day appointed to a holy use by God at the beginning was that one day on which he had rested, and which was past at the time that this appointment was made! The commandment of God to Adam could not be obeyed at all, neither by himself, nor by his posterity. It could not be obeyed by his posterity, for it did not relate to the seventh day for time to come. It could not be obeyed by Adam, for it pertained only to the first seventh day of time, and that day was past before the commandment was given.
Elder P. professes to think very highly of the Sabbath as an institution, but he thinks meanly enough of the seventh day of the week, as we shall have occasion to discover. And if his views are correct, the Lord shares this feeling with him, for he did82not, it seems, touch that first seventh day of the week till it had ceased to exist, and he was careful to refrain from touching the seventh day of any subsequent week.
The dragon attempted the destruction of the Lord of the Sabbath day at the very moment of his birth; and our friend, Eld. P., desires to perform the like act in the case of the Sabbath day itself at the very moment when God caused its existence to commence. The sanctification of the seventh day as taught by Eld. P. is of such a character that it expired before it was fairly ordained.
Eld. P., as is shown in the quotations already made, holds that the Sabbath was made at creation, and intended for the whole family of mankind; also that it was made by God's act of resting on his seventh day, and blessing that day, and sanctifying it; also that the Sabbath was observed for four thousand years, even from Adam to Christ, and finally that though they had no written precept concerning the Sabbath during the period from Adam to Moses (for no part of God's law was then committed to writing), yet to a large extent this lack was made good by the presence of Adam as a teacher for almost one thousand years, and he could give them the very words used by the Creator when he instituted the Sabbath.
But how strangely the teaching of Adam must have sounded to the generations of his posterity if he enforced the observance of the Sabbath day in words such as these: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day.” Wherefore he set apart to a holy use that one seventh on which he had rested, but did not thus set apart the seventh day of any subsequent week.
The reader can see that Eld. P.'s anxiety to get rid of the seventh day of the week causes him to nullify the authority of the Sabbath at the very commencement of its existence. The men who kept the Sabbath during the patriarchal age had no command for doing it, if we can believe Eld. P.'s theory; for the command which God gave when he made the Sabbath expired with that one seventh day of the week which he appointed to a holy use; or rather it was a self-contradiction at the very moment when it was given, as the single day which it set apart to a holy use was already ended when the command was given to keep it, because God had rested upon it.
Instead therefore of saying that the sanctification or setting apart to a holy use of the seventh day of the week pertained to that one day only which God had just used in rest, and which was in the past when the Sabbath precept was given, we do say that God commanded Adam, and through him all his posterity, to keep as a day of holy rest, each returning seventh day in memory of that one on which he had rested.
If Eld. P. is correct, then the Sabbath never had a living existence; for it came into the world like an infant dead before its birth. But if it be true that the act of God in blessing the seventh day and sanctifying it pertained to the seventh day for time to come in memory of his rest from the work of creation on that day of the week, then the weekly returning rest day of the Lord, and the blessing and sanctification of the same (for reasons that never can exist in the case of any other day of the week), have been by the Creator joined in an inseparable union as the living memorial of the great Creator; and what God hath thus joined together, the power and the skill of man combined cannot put asunder. When therefore Eld. P. puts away the seventh day he also puts away the sacredness which God has placed thereon, for the two cannot be severed.
But Eld. P. has a new position to take concerning the origin of the Sabbath. On page V he asks a series of questions which he evidently regards as incapable of being answered except in accordance with his own views. We have already cited the third of these questions in which he plainly teaches that God sanctified the “seventh day of the WEEK” (the emphasis is his) in the case of the first week of time, but challenges the proof that he sanctified the seventh day of each week. In his fourth question, what does Eld. P. say that it was which God sanctified?
Ans. “Is it not always the case that it is the Sabbath which was sanctified; the particular day of the week not specified? If this is not the case, point to chapter and verse which disproves it.” p. 5.
So his fourth question makes clean work of it. His third question acknowledges that God did sanctify “one seventh day of the WEEK,” but his fourth question denies even this, and affirms that it is ALWAYS the Sabbath which was sanctified, the particular day of the week not being specified.
But how many times do the Scriptures speak of this act of sanctification? Only twice. Here are the instances:
Gen. 2:3: “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”
Ex. 20:11: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
These two texts are all that are embraced in Eld. P.'s question, “Is it not always the case that it is the Sabbath which was sanctified; the particular day of the week not specified?” The word “sanctified” does not indeed occur in Ex. 20:11, but the word “hallowed,” which is there used, is not only the same in signification as “sanctified,” but they are both translated from the same Hebrew word. We have then just two texts which speak of the sanctification of the seventh day by the Almighty.
Eld. P.'s fourth question teaches that “it is always the Sabbath which was sanctified; the particular day of the week not specified.” But his third question expressly admits that the first of these two texts does teach that God sanctified the seventh day of the week, though he affirms that this was limited to the first week of time. So Eld. P.'s “always” is narrowed down to the last of the two texts that record what God sanctified.
What, then, does Ex. 20:11 declare that God hallowed or sanctified? “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Does not this text sustain Eld. P. in asserting that it is “always the case that it is the Sabbath which was sanctified; the particular day of the week not specified”? That is, if we can understand the word always to mean only the second of two texts, the first of the two not at all agreeing with such an interpretation. Does not this second text say that “the Lord blessed the Sabbath, and hallowed it”? Eld. P. seems to have read it thus. He says truly on page 3 that “Sabbath signifies ‘rest,’” and he now asserts that it is “always the Sabbath that is sanctified,” while the day of the Sabbath or rest is never specified. That is to say, God set apart the rest to a holy use, but did not appoint any day on which to celebrate it.
But every careful reader of the Scriptures knows that the fourth commandment does not read thus. It declares that “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the SABBATH DAY and hallowed it.” What was it that God blessed and hallowed? Was it the Sabbath, or was it the Sabbath day, which was hallowed? That is to say, Was it the rest or the rest day which God set apart to a holy use?
The language is explicit. It was the Sabbath day, that is the rest day which was appointed to a holy use. But what day is this which is called the rest day? And what was it which caused this day to bear that name? The commandment fully answers these questions. The Lord made the heaven and the earth in six days, “and rested the seventh day; WHEREFORE the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” The rest day is so called because that it is the day on which the Creator rested. He rested on the seventh day. This seventh day is the last or seventh day of the week, because there had only six days of time elapsed when he entered on his rest. When he had rested on the seventh day, he set apart that rest day to a holy use. That is, he appointed the seventh day of each week to be observed in memory of his rest on that day. It is this appointment of six days for labor, and this setting apart of the seventh day to a holy use as the memorial of his rest from the work of creation, that gives existence to the week itself. It is not the Creator's rest that was sanctified, but his rest day. That rest day is the seventh day. That seventh day is the seventh or last day of the week, for that was certainly the day in which he rested, for there had been, prior to it, only six days of time, and those six days were the six days which he had used in the work of creation. The two texts which record the sanctification of the seventh day are therefore in exact agreement. One says: “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work.” The other, that he “rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” The same fact is stated in both these texts. One tells us that God sanctified the seventh day because he had rested upon it; the other, that he hallowed the rest day. The two statements are therefore exactly identical. As Eld. P. teaches that the first one relates to the sanctification of the seventh day of the week, and as there is but one other text of this class, and that one, as we have seen, exactly identical in meaning with the first text, what becomes of Eld. P.'s teaching, that it is “always the case that it is the Sabbath which was sanctified; the particular day of the week not specified”?
We conclude this chapter with a statement of Eld. P.'s doctrine as thus far examined. The Sabbath was made at creation, and designed for the whole human family. And it was made by God's act of sanctifying, i. e., setting apart to a holy use, the seventh day. But that all this sacred truth may be observed he teaches that this sanctification, though it pertained to the seventh day of the week, was limited to the first seventh day of time; and as though it were admitting too much truth to acknowledge that God sanctified even one seventh day of the week, he next declares that it is always the Sabbath that is sanctified, the day of the week not being specified. But we have seen that these two positions, which are, first, that God sanctified only the seventh day of the first week, and second, that he never sanctified the seventh day of the week at all, are not only contradictory to each other, but are both false and absurd, and that the act of the Creator in setting apart to a holy use that day of the week on which he had rested was that he might establish a lasting memorial of his creative power.