Unity and Disagreement by R. F. Andrews

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 7, 1873

Unity and Disagreement.

By R. F. Andrews

“For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together.” Mark 14:56.

These words were brought forcibly to my mind while laboring with the tent at Monmouth last summer. The claims of God’s Sabbath had been presented, and it became apparent that something must be done to stay up the tottering Dagon of Sunday observance. The consistency with which this was done, we leave the reader to judge.

Our United Presbyterian friends agreed with us that the law was immutable and still binding; but claimed that the Sabbath was changed to the first day of the week, by divine appointment, at the resurrection of Christ. Consequently, they were doing the will of God in observing Sunday.

The Methodists said, You are right, brethren, in claiming that the ten commandments are immutable and still obligatory. We cannot see your consistency, however, in claiming the change of an “immutable law.” We believe we have a better way of explaining the seeming difficulty. When God delivered Israel from bondage, he gave them for a Sabbath the sixth, instead of the seventh, day of the week. This, he designed they should observe till the resurrection of Christ, then the day of this event was ever after to be observed; this, the way they then computed time, was the first day of the week; but was in reality the true seventh day. So we are now fulfilling the command of God to the letter by observing Sunday, for it is really the true seventh day. We are glad, however, brethren, that on the main point at issue—Sunday observance—we are agreed.

Right here, our Disciple friends expressed their surprise that their brethren should take such positions, and warned them that if they did, “these men at the tent would demolish their arguments.” For, first, if the law of ten commandments is immutable, as you claim, “it cannot be changed;” and if it is still binding, every precept of it must be. And, second, to say that “Sunday is the true seventh day,” cannot be the truth; for not only the united testimony of the heathen, Jews, and Christians, forbid such an idea, but the Scriptures expressly forbid it. Luke 23:56, and 24:1. Our position is the only tenable one; that is, that “the ten commandments are abolished, taken out of the way, and nailed to the cross;” and the law being no longer binding, of course the Sabbath is not. But there is one thing, brethren, that gratifies us very much in this matter, and that is that we all agree in the vital point, viz., in the observance of the day.

There are two points very noticeable in these advocates for Sunday observance. First, that they have no confidence in each other’s positions; each can see the unsoundness of the other, while they seem to be blind to their own. And, second, that notwithstanding the position of one destroys that of the other, yet they all arrive logically (?) at the same conclusion, viz., that it is right to trample under foot God’s “holy day,” and exalt in its stead a laboring day. Eze. 46:1.

Here is disagreement and yet unity. But it resembles strongly the unity connected with the trial of our Saviour: though the witnesses did not agree in their testimony, yet in the “vital point” they were all agreed: that was, to condemn the Lord. What if their testimony did clash; in the final issue they were agreed—his blood should be spilt, he was not fit to live. In like manner, though these friends’ positions are contradictory, yet their conclusions are happily the same: they are released from the observance of God’s sanctified day, and have now one authorized by the “traditions of the fathers,” and after their own hearts.

Now, supposing the position taken by the Methodists with reference to the day was correct, the United Presbyterians would be compelled to observe Monday to be consistent with their position that the Sabbath was changed to the first day of the week. But this they will not do, for it would be almost, if not altogether, as unpopular as to observe the Saturday. Again, if the position of the United Presbyterians (with reference to the day) is correct, our Methodist friends will have to observe the Saturday with us; for the United Presbyterians acknowledge that Saturday is the true seventh day, and the Methodists admit that the seventh day is the one enjoined in the law. But this they are determined they will not do; for that would prove these Seventh-day Adventists right. And again, if the position of the United Presbyterians with reference to the change, and the position of the Methodists as regards the day is correct, then the Methodists would also be compelled to observe Monday, as it must be the true “first day,” if Sunday is the true seventh.

Query. Why do they not labor to set each other right on these points? Answer. The main point is to observe the Sunday, and on this they are all agreed. What if their positions do devour each other? whose business is it? Both of these bodies could see that it contradicted both reason and Scripture to teach that God’s immutable law of ten commandments was abolished, as taught by the Disciples. And the Disciples could not shut their eyes to the fact that if the law was still binding, the Sabbath, of necessity, must be. But how comforting the thought that, on the point that called for action, they were all happily agreed.

How can any observer of the seventh day ever show his face around Monmouth, since here are three lines of argument, and either one proves our release from its obligation? O Consistency! thou art a jewel. How applicable the words of the Saviour, addressed to the Pharisees of his day, “Full well do ye reject the commandment of God that ye may keep your own tradition.” As Micah says in his seventh chapter, this is their “mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.” Oh! that God may open the eyes of the honest, and help them to see that “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”

It is the willing and obedient that God delights in. But the rebellious will soon be destroyed; “for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” May the Lord save us from the union that there is in opposing his holy law, and despising his down-trodden Sabbath. But may we seek that union that there is in obedience to his holy will. R. F. Andrews.

Pontiac, Ill., Dec. 27, 1872.