WILLIAM BACON STEVENS ON THE SABBATH.
By Wm. Penniman
“The Rt. Rev. William Bacon Stevens, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of The Diocese of Pennsylvania,” says, in the preface to his work of 376 pages, entitled, “The Sabbaths of our Lord:” “This question has a wide compass, and a full discussion of all the points involved in it would fill volumes. Hundreds of books, more or less elaborate, written by the most thoughtful and educated men, have been published on all the branches of this important subject, so that it is doubtful if there is any one phase of it which has not already been fully discussed. The controversies of past generations, however, are being revived in this. The discussions which at different times raged with such fierceness around the fourth commandment, are reappearing now, though in new forms and dress, corresponding to the modern aspects of thought and action. “So important a place does a Sabbath, or holy rest-day, hold in every Christian country, and in the Christian church, that its sacred observance will ever call out the bitter opposition of the prince of darkness and his human allies. It needs but a slight knowledge of the ‘signs of the times’ to see what inroads are already being made desecrating the Lord’s day, and what efforts are put forth to weaken the tone of the public conscience on this point, and to make us relax our hold upon it as a divine and obligatory institution. We cannot be blind to the fact that, in various parts of this land, open attempts are now made to turn this rest-day into a continental Sunday, and make it the weekly gala-day of society through all its grades. We shall soon be called upon to meet these questions face to face. They rise up in our literature, in politics, in social life, and we cannot shrink from them. “The keeping holy of the Lord’s day is essential to the very existence and perpetuity of our nation, and it becomes all Christian men, and especially all ministers of Christ, to stand upon their watch towers and give the needed note of warning as the danger of wresting it from us approaches, that the people may take heed to the incoming evil and learn the true nature, the real value, and the divine sanction, of this holy day.” The writer of the above seems to be fully aware of the Sabbath agitation at the present day. He indorses the seventh-portion-of-time theory, in saying “so important a place does a Sabbath or holy rest-day hold in every Christian country,” etc., yet he is not consistent with his position, as he is very strenuous in regard to the observance of the Christian Sabbath, or, as he terms it, the Lord’s day. In presenting the claims of a Sabbath he shows at once that he is upholding no particular day, however zealous he may be in his efforts to substantiate Sunday. The signs of the times prove him a true prophet in saying, “We shall soon be called upon to meet these questions face to face.” Already many of the leading minds of the nation are actively at work to enact stringent Sunday laws, and to introduce the religious element into the Constitution; and when this amendment is accomplished, then woe to dissenters. When we see these things in the air it is not hard to tell which way the wind is blowing. The very fact that the observance of this counterfeit day is deemed necessary to the perpetuity of the nation, will urge on this change in the Constitution, and then soon, with what will follow, there will be a complete fulfillment of Rev. 13:11–16. Why all this talk about the divine sanction of this holy day? Who has ever sanctioned it? Who but man has ever called the first day a holy day? It has been said by a certain writer that the Lord made the world right side up, but that Satan has turned it wrong side up. This is true in regard to God’s moral government; Satan has changed order into confusion, and reversed God’s plan. Thus God says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Satan says, No, it shall not die, it shall live forever. God commands man to be baptized, or immersed. Satan says, No, a little water on a sponge and applied to the forehead will do. Christ says his coming is near, even at the doors. Satan would have his followers believe that the coming of the Lord is thousands of years in the future, or that he will not come at all. The word of God teaches that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Rev. 19:10. That part of the prophecy of Joel which pertains to this gift (Joel 2:28, 29), Satan would make the world believe was all fulfilled at Pentecost, and this point is the ne plus ultra of some men’s theology. The law of God enjoins the observance of the seventh or last day of the week. Satan has reversed this order, and attempts to make a Sabbath of the first, the day on which God commenced his work; thus making a rest-day of the first working day instead of making a rest-day of the day in which God did not do any work. We will next quote the strong arguments (strong when he has the truth on his side) of the same writer in regard to the origin, history, and design of the Sabbath, the perpetuity of the law, the morality of the fourth commandment, and lastly quote him in regard to the change and show the inconsistency of his reasoning. Pages 18 and 19 read as follows: “Let us turn back to the old Hebrew Sabbath, and look at its origin, history, and design. As to its origin, it was instituted at the end of the six days’ work of creation by God himself, and was designed to commemorate his rest on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. Hence, he blessed the Sabbath day, and sanctified it. By ‘blessing the Sabbath day,’ we are to understand that he designed it to be a fountain and source of blessing; for only thus can time, which has no personality, be blessed. He therefore constituted this day as one fraught with special blessings. “By sanctifying the seventh day, we understand, in accordance with the use of Old-Testament language, the hallowing or setting it apart from other days by specific acts, and consecrating it for an holy purpose.” This reasoning is good with little exception; but his good philosophy does not accord with his real position. What right has he to call the Sabbath the “old Hebrew Sabbath”? He might as well talk about a Hebrew God or a Hebrew world. Notice the contradiction in the following: “As to its origin (speaking of the Hebrew Sabbath) it was instituted at the end of the six days’ work of creation by God himself.” Is it possible that the HEBREW Sabbath was instituted at the end of the six days’ work of creation, over two thousand years before Heber was born? It is absurd; and what further adds to the absurdity, this identical Hebrew Sabbath was made by God himself. Had it been made by Heber, then it might properly be called after his name. “The Sabbath was designed to commemorate God’s rest on the seventh day.” True; then why not observe the commemoration day? On the same principle the Jews observed it, and on this principle it should ever be observed. Had the Jews not been particular in regard to this, they might have chosen some other day when it was convenient, or they might have celebrated the great day of Pentecost, or some other day. Why do not the people celebrate the birth-days of Shakespeare and Burns on some other days and not on their birth-days? He understands the sanctifying of the seventh day to be “the hallowing or setting it apart from other days.” If the seventh day was hallowed and set apart from other days, as the writer claims, then how can he be so inconsistent as to advocate the seventh portion of time or any other day in its stead? Thus in his efforts to support a counterfeit day he plainly contradicts his own argument. Again, on page 19, we notice: “Thus, on the first page of Revelation, we find these three great facts: that God, having completed the works of creation, ‘rested the seventh day from all his work that he had made’—that a seventh day’s rest, or Sabbath, was, in consequence thereof, designated for all the future as a day of blessing, or a ‘blessed’ day—that this seventh portion of time was henceforth, by divine ordering, to be set apart as ‘sanctified’ time, and kept apart from all secular uses and pursuits.” By what authority does he call a seventh day’s rest, or a seventh portion of time, sanctified time, when God has never so called it? To agree with this, the commandment should read, “Remember a Sabbath day, or a seventh portion of time, to keep it holy; six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but a seventh day, or seventh portion of time, is a Sabbath, or a seventh portion of time, of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on a seventh day, or seventh portion of time; wherefore the Lord blessed a Sabbath day, or a seventh portion of time, and hallowed it.” The whole commandment is quoted that the reader may see the absurdity of this theory, especially in regard to the Lord’s resting on a seventh day, just as though there were other seventh days before it! Who cannot see that a father, who should command his household after him, could not keep the Sabbath and give his children the privilege of keeping any other day within his gates? Notice the injunction of our Saviour to his disciples, “But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.” Matt. 24:20. What sense would this make if it read, “Pray ye that your flight be not in the seventh portion of time?” How would the disciples have known on which part of the week to make their escape? But it is unnecessary to multiply cases of this kind to prove the theory false. The very fact that the Jews at the present time observe the Sabbath and not a day or any day merely is weighty evidence against this man of straw. On pages 22–28 inclusive, the language is forcible and mostly to the point, and should be carefully noticed by those who deny the perpetuity of the law and the morality of the fourth commandment. Speaking of the reinstitution of the Sabbath, and the giving of the law, he adds: “Again, therefore [having previously spoken of the mention of the Sabbath, and falling of the manna] did God determine to reinstitute his almost forgotten Sabbath, and to re-enact it under such circumstances as should strike the beholder with awe, and illustrate his own majesty. Hence, on the top of Sinai, upon which he had descended in fire, and up to which he had called Moses, and amidst thunderings, and lightnings, and earthquakes, he gave the ten commandments and wrote them with his own finger upon two tables of stone, as if too jealous of their sacredness and their accuracy to permit Moses, or even Gabriel, to be an amanuensis on so solemn an occasion. Remarkable indeed must those laws be, which God did not trust Moses, his great prophet, no, nor yet angels, to write out or even copy from his mouth, but which he must write with his own finger, and on tables, not of brass or gold of man’s make, but of stone of his own handiwork, that man might have the exact and literal transcript of his will, so that there should be no possibility of mistake as to its words or its meaning. The code of laws, or ten commandments, which God thus gave on Mount Sinai, is the moral law of the world given at that time in special charge to the Jews, because to them were to be committed the oracles of God, and deposited by Moses, at God’s command, in the ark of the covenant; the only laws thus secured, and designed, by their very tenor, for the whole world, and recognized as such by our Lord and his apostles, and by the church of God wherever found. “The law of the Sabbath stands as the fourth of these commandments. It is graven on the same stone tables with the other nine. It was written with the same finger which wrote the others. It was deposited under the mercy-seat in the ark of the covenant, and between the outstretched wings of the cherubim in the holy of the holies with the rest; and if the other nine are moral laws, the fourth is also; if the fourth is not, the other nine are not. If the nine are designed for all men, so is the fourth; if the fourth is not designed for all, neither are the other nine. They stand or fall together. The attempt made by men who would relax the obligation of the Sabbath to sever the fourth command from the decalogue, and designate it as ceremonial and partial, is a rude dislocation of that command from its true articulations and attachments that destroys at once the majesty and symmetry of that moral code, the ten laws of which seem to be the ten fingers of the two hands of God, whereby he upholds the moral government of the world. “The majesty of this fourth commandment comes out more clearly if we dwell a moment on its peculiar construction. It was ushered in by an emphatic word which marked no other—‘Remember!’ not only implying that they should recall the original institution of their patriarchal Sabbath, which tradition, perhaps, had handed down, but also implying that they should give this command in special charge to their memory, that it might not be forgotten throughout all their generations. It is drawn up with a minuteness of specification which we find in no other command. It is based as none other is on God’s special example. It is the only one linked with his special blessing and hallowing. It is the only one given both negatively and positively. No command was more frequently repeated, none more carefully guarded; and it is the only command of which God said that it was a ‘sign’ between him and the children of Israel, throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant, and this peculiar language170is repeated no less than four times by Moses and Ezekiel. “To those, then, who calmly look at these points, it becomes perfectly clear that the fourth commandment is of perpetual moral obligation,—that it is still binding with all its original force,—that it demands of us the same obedience which we pay to the first, the sixth, or the tenth; for it is as much the expression of God’s will, and as much the requirement of God’s authority, as any one in the decalogue. It is to be observed, in this connection, that there are two phases under which the law of the ten commandments is to be viewed: “1. As a code designed for the whole world; 2. As a code specially adapted to the Jews. And these two phases are discernible in the very structure of the decalogue, as a moment’s contemplation will show. “The germ, the root principle, of each of the ten commandments is invariably enunciated as a distinct proposition, and in the briefest and most emphatic language; e.g., the second commandment, which in our Bibles is divided into three verses, is all expressed in the original by three or four words—thou shalt not make to thyself idols. The third commandment, in four words—thou shalt not take up the name of the Lord thy God in vain. The fourth commandment, in five words—remember the rest-day, to hallow it. The fifth, in four or five words—honor thy father and thy mother. The sixth, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, in two words each, and the tenth, though occupying several lines, is really contained in the two Hebrew words translated, Thou shalt not covet. So that the entire ten commandments are comprised in the original Hebrew in less than forty words, and these few words embrace the principles of the moral law as designed for the whole world. To this day, they form the basis of all moral law and obligation, and the ethics and the laws of the world are perfect and effective just in proportion as they accept and develop and guard these foundation principles of duty and justice to God and man as laid down in the ten commandments. “The fourth of these commandments reads, ‘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; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; 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.’ Ex. 20:8–11. This was the formal proclamation of the Sabbatic law. It is imbedded in a divine code, not one provision of which has been abrogated or is set aside. “It should be observed that in the very enacting of this law of the Sabbath, the divine Law-giver traces it back to its very origin in his own rest on the seventh day, deduces from that the reason for its perpetual and universal observance, and is the only one of the ten commandments for which a historic reason is assigned. “This law has never been abrogated; the day has been changed, but the obligation to set apart a seventh portion of time as hallowed time still holds, and will hold till the end of time.” We have quoted thus largely on the preceding subjects, hoping it might weigh with some, coming from such a source. The author thinks the fourth commandment should not be designated as “ceremonial and partial.” But does he not attempt to make it such, and in reality wrest it from its “true articulations and attachments,” and thereby attempt to destroy the “majesty and symmetry of that moral code” when he would substitute another day for the one the Creator has sanctified and made holy? “It is based, as none other is, on God’s special example.” Very true; then if we have God’s example for resting on the seventh day, why rest in the first day, especially as there is no example for so doing? What is “linked with God’s special blessing and hallowing”? Is not the day as well as the command? “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested.” Gen. 2:3. Is it right to speak of the Sabbath as a sign between God and the children of Israel? But what kind of a sign is Sunday to the Jews, or what sign should it be to any intelligent being? Simply a sign of pagan worship, as it was dedicated to the worship of the sun. True, “the fourth commandment is still binding with all its original force.” What was its original force? And how can we keep it with all its original force, and attempt to keep a day which has never been sanctified or made holy? “It is imbedded in a divine code, not one provision of which has been abrogated or set aside.” Strong language! Oh! that the author could truly appreciate the force of his own words. Is there not one provision abrogated in substituting a day for the day? Most certainly there is a “historic reason” for keeping the seventh day as the Sabbath, but where is the Bible reason for keeping any other day? Echo answers, Where? If an artist, after he had drawn a very beautiful and attractive painting, should with one needless stroke of his brush mar its beauty, we should call him foolish. What shall we say of Mr. Stevens, who has so ably defended that law which has “never been abrogated,” when he attempts, not with a brush, but with his theological pen, to mar the majesty, beauty, and perpetuity of the law by saying, “The day has been changed”? and asserting that the seventh portion of time is hallowed time? Can there be a change in the day and no change in the law? If a father makes a law requiring his son to do important business on Monday (and which can be rightly done on no other day), and the son thinks it best to do it on some other day, does not the child attempt by so doing to change that law, and even to abrogate it? Can not the learned writer see this point? Lastly, we notice a few points on pages 366 to 370 on the change. “The change does not affect the binding authority of the command, if it can be shown that the change was made by competent authority.” True; this change from the seventh day to the first does not affect the binding authority of the command if it can be shown that the change was made by competent authority. It is well that the writer has a little candor. What a consolation it would be to the opponents of the Sabbath, if they could only get rid of that little word if. If Napoleon’s marshals had not been behind time, he might have conquered at Waterloo. Where is the “competent authority”? We cannot find it, neither does he give it. The fact that “the Christian world with scarce an exception keeps as sacred the first day of the week,” is no argument in its favor. For has not the majority always been in the wrong? Did not Christ teach that broad is the way that leads to destruction? &c. He is compelled to acknowledge that there is “no express command for the change;” yet like an unskillful workman he attempts to wrest the command from its “true articulations and attachments” by saying, “Be it remembered, the command does not read, ‘Remember the seventh day, to keep it holy;’ but, ‘Remember the rest-day.’” True, it so reads; but is not the seventh day the rest-day? Does it not so read in so many words? We now will quote and call Sabbath rest-day: “Remember the rest-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the rest-day of the Lord thy God.” Then does it not follow that the rest-day is the seventh day according to the well-known grammatical rule? Among the days of the week, it must therefore always follow that the rest-day is the seventh day, that is, beginning to count where God did. Again, how will this “be-it-remembered” position accord with 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 had created and made”? God has blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. It is therefore right for the commandment to read, “Remember the seventh day, to keep it holy,” for the seventh day is the Sabbath or rest-day. Once more, Mr. Stevens contradicts his own reasoning. On page 266, speaking of Jesus as the “light of the world”: “Let us not forget, too, the intense force of the definite article the, here, that Jesus is the light of the world, not a light; one among many others, and of equal value, and no more; but the article the being exclusive as well as emphatic, shows that Jesus, and Jesus only, is the light of the world.” The same reasoning will apply to the Sabbath, not forgetting the intense force of the definite article the; for it is not a Sabbath, one among many others, and of equal value, and no more; but the article the being exclusive as well as emphatic shows that the Sabbath and the Sabbath only is the true Sabbath of the Lord. Thus it is plain to be seen that if Jesus was only a light of the world, then Confucius, Mahomet, or Brigham Young, might present their claims; or we might adopt Friday, Sunday, or any day, on the same principle. It is plain then that according to his own philosophy, his “change” position, and “a-day theory” cannot stand. We find in the chapter upon the change, (which is very brief, as there is not much which can be said upon it), the usual assumptive reasoning founded upon inferences that God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost, have set their seal to the change of day; and that the apostles and the church have set their seal to the change. The fact that God said, “Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples,” Isa. 8:16, is ignored by the opponents of the Sabbath. The word “seal” means to confirm or establish, and as the law of the Sabbath is a part of that law which is sealed, it is impossible for any man to seal Sunday or any other day but the day. Another truthful admission is found in the following: “The Jews formed so large a part of the church [the Christian] it did not ignore altogether the seventh day, because the shock would have been too great to Jewish prejudices.” No doubt it would be shocking to a Jewish Christian to witness an attempted abolishment of an unchangeable law. Let it be shown that the Christians did ignore the day until that ignoring was brought about by “imperial edicts.” In fact, his own language proves this: “After the lapse of three centuries, the Christian element had permeated and molded the political world;” the observance of “the first day was enforced by the imperial edicts of Constantine, Theodosius, Valentinian, Honorius, and by the synodal decrees of the councils of Carthage, Illiberis, Sardica, Trullo, and Laodicea.” In the statement of these facts in regard to the change, the writer is plainly turning the tables against himself; for is it not a fact that instead of Christianity’s permeating and molding the “political world” at that age, political heathendom had molded, or attempted to mold, to a greater or less degree, Christianity? Even in Paul’s day this heathen element or leaven had begun to work. 2 Thess. 2:1, 2. Away with imperial edicts, synodal, papal, or Satanic decrees or licenses. “To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isa. 8:20. Finally, he attempts to prove the change right from the fact that there has been so many; and in speaking of them, says, “The law was changed, the Levitical for the evangelical.” Mark, he does not say the moral for the evangelical. He asks the question, “Would it not have been a marvel had it [the day] not been changed?” Certainly it would if we do not consider the power that Satan has in the world, and forget that God “made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.” Lastly, he uses the time argument, as follows: “We add the remarkable fact that the church of Christ has kept this first day of the week as the Lord’s day for over eighteen hundred years.” If it was necessary, “after the lapse of three centuries,” to bring about the change by “imperial edicts,” how can he prove that the first day was observed so long before these edicts? The very fact that they were obliged to make these edicts shows that the day had not been observed. There certainly must have been many more Gentile Christians than Jewish; and if the former were already observing the day, is it likely that they would make these decrees for comparatively a few Jews? Certainly not if Jews were no more thought of then than they are in these days. So this 1800 years argument cannot stand, and even if it was true that Sunday has been kept for 1800 years, does that make it right? If so, then Henry Clay’s logic is correct, for he said that “three hundred years had sanctioned and sanctified negro slavery.” There is a great effort made by the enemies of the Sabbath to prove that the fourth command is not moral, but positive. The defenders of this position admit that nine-tenths of the law is moral, and binding; but one-tenth is positive, therefore not moral, and consequently subject to change. They contend that the Sabbath is a type, and that a moral law is not typical. This reasoning is merely assumption. Let them prove that it is a type; and even could it be shown that the law of the Sabbath is positive and the Sabbath itself typical, what is there in the definition of the words positive and typical to overthrow the morality of the fourth command? This class of reasoners freely admit that the command, “Thou shalt not steal,” is moral. They must also admit that it is wrong to “rob God in tithes and offerings.” Then when they admit that the Sabbath day is God’s holy time, it must therefore follow that those who knowingly appropriate this time to their own selfish interests, just as effectually rob God as they would in appropriating the tithes and offerings to their own use. Those who admit that it is wrong to steal from man certainly must admit that it is wrong to steal from God. It may be said by some that there has been enough in the REVIEW on the Sabbath question; why add more? It must be borne in mind that the REVIEW is constantly going into new fields, and that it is the Herald of the Sabbath; therefore its supporters must not only uphold it, but must wage a constant warfare against the claims of a counterfeit day, and meet all doctrines and theories which conflict with the word of God, thereby teaching the people that “truth crushed to earth will rise again,” and that “the eternal years of God are hers.”