ELD. WAGGONER'S FIRST NEGATIVE.
By Eld. Waggoner
Elder Vogel's closing of the last proposition calls for a notice. I would suggest that his “untamed blood” be subjected to some cooling process; he may discover that I shall do no very “naughty thing.” I deny his charge that my brethren have interfered with this discussion. Not a sentence has been written or published with any reference to it. I have the best of reasons for believing that my brethren are as fully satisfied with it as his are. I may refer to this again. And his ninth paragraph calls for explanation. Although it is too obscure to be understood, it contains an insinuation, which I insist on having cleared up. I have noticed, in many cases, his tendency to cover up with words, professing to answer points when no answer was given. I demand as a right that he shall tell what he means by my forgetting the “position which at least some of my brethren used to occupy.” If he wishes the “last word,” he must not crowd such things into a closing article. A man who clamors so much about “honor,” ought to set a good example. Now to our proposition. The question is, in one sense, a limited one, and in another sense, very extensive. In one view it concerns only the supposed existence of a certain positive institution; in another, it involves a consideration of the objects of the new covenant, and the relation or position of its mediator, the Son of God. This a negative argument may embrace these points: I. Sunday observance is no part of the spiritual (moral) law which is written in the heart in the new covenant. II. The Sunday does not bear even a single mark of a positive institution. III. Sunday-keeping stands opposed to one of the precepts of God's moral law, and is false worship, by which its institutor is honored above the true and living God. The first point will not be contested. If it shall appear that the second is truth, that Sunday has no just claim as a positive institution, then the truth of the third point will follow as a necessary conclusion; no obligation then exists for Sunday: it is “will-worship.” Here I take decided exceptions to his proposed use of his five methods of proof, as not being applicable to this question. But it was well understood that they were framed for the benefit of this proposition. 1. Express command; no such exists for Sunday. 2, 3 and 4. Inference and implication, either probable or less than probable. These are not admissible as evidences to establish a positive institution. 5. Approved precedent or example. Nothing of the kind can be shown for the Sunday. Moreover, to prove a positive institution by example there must not only be a declaration of continuous action, but a specific declaration that the action related to the institution. Otherwise the very existence of the institution depends upon mere inference, which is never sufficient to establish a positive institution. He quotes approvingly my remarks on the “evidence required,” but falls almost infinitely short of what I volunteered to (and did) give for the Sabbath. I repeat my words:— “I inquire, What is sufficient proof of the obligation of an institution? Two things are necessary:—
“1. The act of instituting.
“2. The record of appointment.” If neither of these exists, we have no right to infer the existence of the institution. Why does he not follow my example, with such proof for the Sunday? Because it does not exist. He cannot produce the act of instituting, or any reference to such an act, or any law of the institution, or any example of obedience to such a law. When I compare the proof offered for the Sabbath and Sunday (which is the summary to which I referred), these facts will be fully appreciated. Eld. Vogel (and others for him) claims that he has “something new” and very important on this subject; but as he has laid out his argument, this is not true. (1.) His position on the “genius of this dispensation,” that positive duties may rest on principles, rather than on specific declarations, has been often argued by those who plead that infant baptism may be inferentially established. Thus an old work from the Pres. Bd. of Pub. says of Sunday-keeping that doubts “arose chiefly among the same people who denied, because there is no command in the N. T. enjoining it, the propriety of infant baptism.” In the same work, it was declared that the glory and power of Christ were most strikingly manifest in that he could bring into use ordinances without precept! I commend this idea to Eld. Vogel for his adoption. He has re-produced the old Pedo-baptist argument, but has not improved it. (2.) His argument on “a Lord's day,” is nothing new, only the writer who first employed it, gave a more euphonious title—“a Lordly day”! But what is effected by it? There is no practical difference between “the Lord's day” and “of” or “pertaining to” the Lord; the common translation stands undisputed. But his position is one of great difficulties, resting on an unnecessary inference, viz., that the term “Lord” belongs exclusively to the Son, which I might admit without detriment to my position. I prepared a rejoinder to his previous contradictory assertions on this point, but he removed it to the present proposition, saying that he would “show in the proper place,” &c., and I therefore waived it till he shall develop further. When he does that I shall show the nature and bearing of his inference, and also expose his other inference, that it is a new institution. There is a marked uniformity of faith, as to what is necessary to establish a positive institution. The principles governing this question are so plain that almost all men agree in their statement, however much they may differ in practice; each applies the principles without hesitation when arguing on the nature of positive obligation. On this subject, I can confidently appeal to Eld. V. and to all his brethren, in the words of the apostle: “For I write none other things unto you than what ye read or acknowledge;” for every sentence which I shall write or quote on positive institutions will be acknowledged and indorsed by him, and then, when baptism is the subject; but when the Sunday is to be sustained they ignore these same principles, well knowing that they literally cut up their Sunday arguments by the roots. All who are conversant with theological literature have read as plausible inferences for infant baptism as can be furnished for Sunday. Eld. Vogel's list of learned authorities, without which his inferences would have been too bald to be presentable, may be rivalled by authorities for infant baptism. His illustration of his position by the want of “direct legislation” in regard to the Lord's supper is peculiarly defective, and contains the very root of all error on positive institutions. (1.) The Lord's supper was plainly instituted. (2.) It is plainly commanded. (3.) It is plainly revealed in what it consists; that is, the action is described. But, (4.) the frequency of its observance as he admits, is not revealed; of that nothing is said, and of course that is no part of the law of the institution, and there is no obligation in respect to it. Only two instances are given: its appointment by the Saviour, and its observance at Troas; and these were on different evenings, without a word connecting it with either. No matter if a thousand great names are given in its favor, it yet rests solely on human and uninspired testimony, and is therefore of no authority. In advocating stated periods for its observance, Eld V. makes faith come without the word of God (Rom. 10:17), and imposes duty where nothing is revealed. In this he has not stopped on Pedo-baptist ground—he occupies the ground of the Roman Catholic. In his argument I, Isa. 56 is used in a manner which may be made to subvert the prophecies. He rests altogether on the hypothesis that if one text of a prophecy is used in an accommodated sense, the whole prophecy or context must be; or if one part is literal, the whole must be. A prophecy may apply partly to that which is immediately before the reader, and partly to that which is remote. His rigid method applied to Ps. 69, would either prove Christ a sinner or deny its literal application to him, contrary to the express statements of the N. T. I have before shown that the Sabbath is, by the prophecy, thrown forward into the gospel dispensation. I also proved that it is “recognized” in the New Testament. And his point II, is that a “sacred day” is recognized in the gospel. But notice, it is recognized, not instituted. We meet on the common ground of its “recognition,” but he cannot show any act of instituting. And therefore his III, is not an argument, not susceptible of proof, but only an inference. There is no new institution. It has been abundantly proved that the moral law of God is the rule of right and of action in this dispensation, and the Sabbath of the Creator is a part of that law. To this the prophet refers, and this the New Testament “recognizes.” And no man ever assumed a more inconsistent position than he takes right here. He affirmed that it must take as plain and direct testimony, to transfer an existing institution to this dispensation, as it took to institute it, but now insists that an entirely new institution may be erected without any direct testimony! Let him prove the existence of a new institution, and I will allow all that he claims of allusion or recognition. But I deny the right to claim its existence by allusion or recognition, when there is another well-known institution to which the allusion refers. The very allusion is proof of the continued existence of the old institution, unless the existence of the new is proved outside of the allusion. But every one knows that an inference from the allusion, is his only proof of the existence of his institution! Again, he admits that, so far as the direct testimony of “the Scriptures” is concerned, it is not revealed whether his new institution is the first day or some other day; or the first day of the week, or the month, or the year. That is to be settled by inference and human authority! Let the reader note the proposition, “Do the Scriptures teach,” &c., and then consider how much of his argument would be left if he should strike out his quotations from uninspired writers. His quotations from “The Christian System, by A. Campbell,” serve him a much better purpose than any he could make from “the Scriptures” by the inspired servants of God. His quotation of 1 Cor. 16:2, as of a day of meeting, or stated day of worship, is worthy of the purpose for which it is used! Even Dr. Justin Edwards, the chief of all Sunday-tradition theorists, is constrained to admit that this laying “by him” is “at home,” and not in the meeting-house. And this is so clearly the sense of the original that he could but admit it. Eld. V. also admits, what I before proved, that “the Lord's day” must refer to some “mutually-known time,” but infers that it was Sunday! Let him show that anybody knew that Sunday was the Lord's day; that anybody knew that John alluded to that day. If supposition must settle the terms of positive institutions, the Disciples may disband and unite with the Pedo-baptists. On such a course as he pursues in this argument, we will hear A. Campbell:— “Be it then emphatically stated that their method is not to produce either a precept or a precedent for infant baptism, but to infer it from sundry passages of Scripture, never presuming to find in any one passage premises for the whole rite, but for a part of it. Then, by putting these parts together, supposed to be logically inferred from sundry sayings, they construct positive authority for a positive rite. This is, most certainly, as unprecedented among men, as it is illogical in point of propriety. Who ever heard, in any other case, of inferring one part of an ordinance from one sentence in another passage, referring to something else, and then, by converting these two inferences into one, make it a positive and explicit authority for a Christian institution?”—Chris. Baptism, pp. 384, 5. These words apply with most cutting force to the course of Eld. Vogel; for even his inferences depend for plausibility on the thick glossing they receive from uninspired testimony. I shall quote much further on this subject. For the present, let the reader weigh well the following words:— “All commemorative institutions are positive, and dependent as to obligation on the will of the institutor, and HENCE NOT BINDING ON MAN, TILL FORMALLY PROCLAIMED.”—P. Vogel, in his first article in this discussion. “Of course,” he will now proceed to give us the formal proclamation of the institution of the Sunday! or cease to teach it as of obligation. Eld. V. is not an ignorant man; he well enough understands the laws of evidence to know that his affirmation calls upon him (1) to give proof of the formal proclamation of the Sunday; or (2) to deny that it is a positive institution, and give it a moral basis; or (3) to renounce his affirmation and yield the question. This is so reasonable, that I have a right to insist on his taking well-defined ground on these points. As his affirmation says nothing of the reason or ground of Sunday obligation, I requested him to define his position, to which he replied: “The first day is with me a sacred day, in a similar sense that the Sabbath was a sacred day.” He should then give similar evidence of its sacredness. Let us compare the two:— 1. The divine blessing was placed on the Sabbath. Did God bless the first day? Give the proof. 2. God sanctified the Sabbath day. Did he sanctify the Sunday? Chapter and verse asked for. 3. He claimed the seventh as his own—the holy of the Lord—the Lord's day. Did he ever claim the Sunday as his? Where is it found? 4. He explicitly gave a reason for the sacredness of the Sabbath. Did he ever give any reason for Sunday sacredness or observance? Where, and what is it? McGarvey (a Disciple Prof., Eld. Vogel's own denomination), in his Commentary on Acts, says, “The day of the week on which the Holy Spirit descended, has been celebrated from that time till this; though no formal reason is given in the N. T. for its observance.” The reason is all of man's devising; it is will-worship. 5. God expressly commanded the seventh day to be kept as holy time. Did he command to keep the Sunday? When, and where? 6. God uttered severe threatenings against those who refused or neglected to keep the seventh day. Did he threaten those who do not keep Sunday? Where and why? 7. God gave promises of rich blessings to those who keep the seventh day. Did he ever promise anything for keeping Sunday? What, and where found? If the first day is to be sacredly kept, it is sin not to keep it; but a. “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” b. “Where no law is there is no transgression.” c. “Sin is not imputed when there is no law.” I do not keep Sunday. Will Eld. Vogel please to show what law I transgress; by what I am proved a sinner therefor. Every positive institution must have its limits well defined; otherwise, there is confusion. Eld. Vogel dodges this by saying that he is not to inquire if the worldling is under obligation to keep Sunday. True, the terms of the proposition do not compel him to do so; but the inference is unavoidable, that, if it is a positive institution of the gospel, they who reject Christ have no more right to keep Sunday than they have to be baptized, or partake of the Lord's supper!