Yet Once More by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 29, 1883

Yet Once More.

By Editor

THE California Christian Advocate has noticed our queries, and answered them in part. We promised to republish them with its replies if it would reply to them. We more than fulfill our promise, as the reader will see in the course of this article.

"1. Do Sunday-keepers keep 'exactly the same time' from the Atlantic to the Pacific?" "No. They never pretended to do so." Neither did Seventh-day Adventists ever pretend to do so. It was a side issue raised by our opponents, and a very foolish one at that. To expose its folly we asked these questions.

"2. Do you ask that a legal enactment shall compel all the people, all over the land, to keep exactly the same time for Sunday?" "Nobody ever asked anything of the kind."

"3. Can the Sunday—exactly the same day—be kept by all people from New York to San Francisco, and they not keep exactly the same time?" "Sunday is kept by Christians according to the well-known necessities of the case." Very nicely done, Mr. Editor! Now will you please to inform us what you mean by that answer. We pronounce it just no answer at all—merely an evasion. In regard to the seventh day we answer the same question without casting any obscurity over it. Why will not the Advocate do the same for Sunday? What are the possible "necessities of the case" which this question involves? Are they of such a nature that the keeping of the same day is left a matter of doubt?

"4. If Sunday can be universally kept without keeping exactly the same time, cannot the seventh day be kept also without keeping exactly the same time?" "Each can be kept with equal certainty, but you teach that God set apart twenty-four hours of a fixed period, and that it is a great sin not to keep this time." If it were not for the obscurity in the third reply we should take the word "certainty" in its full extent, and accept his admission that the day may be kept to a certainty. But with the apparent evasion in the preceding reply we have a right to believe that "equal certainty" is a certainty of degrees, or admitting of an if. That is to say, if one is certain the other is equally certain. His ambiguous "necessities of the case" leaves the whole question a matter of doubt.

As to a "fixed period," we believe that God sanctified or set apart the seventh day; that the seventh day, the same as the other days, is twenty-four hours in length. But the editor of the Advocate has been trying to make his readers believe that we held to "the same identical time" all round the world, or that we thought the seventh day commenced all round the world at the same time, and ended all round the world at the same time. What we complained of was that he persistently harped upon it when he knew that we distinctly denied it. Our questions were asked for the purpose of bringing him to state before his readers that the seventh day stood, in that respect, as does the first day. In the writings of a Sabbath-keeper some years ago we saw the idea quaintly expressed, that > "— he is but a dunce > Who thinks the Sabbath comes all round at once." Both seventh day and Sunday are of the same length—twenty-four hours. Now if the editor means that we teach that God sanctified the seventh day; that the seventh day is twenty-four hours in length; that its commencement and close are definitely marked; that in any locality we are to keep it when it commences in that locality, but that it does not commence in all places at the same time; if that is what he means, we accept it as our faith. And he must accept exactly the same thing if he argues in favor of the first day of the week. But if he means that we teach that a fixed period of twenty-four hours is to be kept for the Sabbath at the same time all round the world, without any regard to the rising and setting of the sun, then we call upon him to give us the reason of his declaration. The truth is that he knows that such is not our belief, and he knew it all the time when he was throwing dust in the eyes of his readers about "the same identical time." There is not a man of ordinary intelligence in the United States who thinks, or ever thought, that we believed any such absurdity; for all who ever heard of us know that we teach that the Sabbath commences at the setting of the sun. Will the editor now innocently aver that he thought we believed the sun set all round the world at the same time? That would be the "necessity of the case" in his "identical same-time" theory. But another question remains.

"5. And finally. Does the pretended 'exactly-the-same-time' argument involve any difficulty in keeping the Sabbath which is not involved in keeping Sunday?" This is not squarely answered. But he defines his position, if anyone can be said to have a position who leaves everything indefinite as he does. The following are his remarks on this question:— "The Signs of the Times demands that all men shall keep the last day of the week as it was originally given. Christians generally believe that God's commandment required that a seventh part of time should be given to rest and to his service, without specifically setting apart definite hours. We believe that any sacred keeping of the seventh part of time would be acceptable to service to God. The Signs of the Times makes a hobby of keeping its own time, and tries to build up a system on this special doctrine. If any class of people, by any means, find themselves keeping for the Sabbath any seventh division of time, whether it would be Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or Friday, whether from sundown to sundown, from midnight to midnight, from sunrise to sunrise, or from noon until noon, such service would be, we believe, in perfect accordance with the law of God."

Yes, we do believe it is right to keep the day "as it was given;" without any human amendments or inventions to evade the precept of the Creator. But if we keep the day "as it was originally given," where is the authority for your indefinite seventh-part-of-time Sabbath? Who gave that? Will you point us to the precept which justifies your action? The Advocate says we make a hobby of keeping our "own time," and yet confesses that what we claim is the keeping of the seventh day of the week as it was originally given! "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work." Can the editor of the Advocate understand that? It is said that variety is pleasing; and in the above extract there is a spice of it. It has been so long the custom to read, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Jews," that it is refreshing to hear a D. D. now declare it is our own time. And we thought by what the Advocate once said about Sunday and the "very foundations of our holy religion," that it really believed the modern fable that the first day of the week is a sacred day. But, lo! we now find that either, "Saturday, Sunday, Monday or Friday" would answer equally well, and each be equally in "accordance with the law of God." That is to say that God equally blessed and sanctified the seventh, the first, the second, and the sixth days of the week! From being too severe the Doctor has become too clever. "Who hath required this at your hands?" He then proceeds to ask us a few questions, which we are much pleased to answer, but must reserve the answers for our next paper.