Which Is the Sabbath? by Merritt E. Cornell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 2, 1873

Which Is the Sabbath?

By Merritt E. Cornell

DR. BUSHNELL, editor of the Pacific Observer, in an editorial with the above caption, seems somewhat mixed up on the Sabbath question. He wants to believe there is authority for the change of the Sabbath, but thinks it not conclusive. Considering that the Doctor is an able scholar in theological lore, and a popular and representative man of his denomination on the Pacific coast, the following statements and admissions have great weight on the side of the true Bible Sabbath. “Their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.”

“The primary idea of the Sabbath is found in the short and simple history, given of its institution in the second of Genesis: ‘And on the seventh day, God ended his work which he had made. 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.’ The true idea of the Sabbath, therefore, is that of rest, and the word in the Hebrew signifying rest was applied to it. Hence it is called the Sabbath. It is generally believed that the Sabbath was observed from the time of the creation, until its formal announcement from Heaven through Moses, as it was afterward, to the end of the Jewish dispensation. Through this long period, the seventh day of the week was observed as a Sabbath. From the resurrection of Christ to the present time, the first, instead of the last, day of the week has been kept by those who hold to the Christian Scriptures. Here, then, is a discrepancy. A conflict really, for there are thousands of people who stoutly insist that the seventh, and not the first, day of the week is the Sabbath. There is some importance in the question, at least so far as it affects uniformity of observance among those who keep the Sabbath. In determining this question, one point must always be considered settled, namely, the antiquity of Sabbatarianism. Prior to the resurrection of Christ, the seventh day of the week was the only Bible Sabbath. And it is not conclusively settled that it did not continue to occupy this distinction through the whole period of revelation.”

M. E. CORNELL.