The First-Day Sabbath vs. the History of the Sabbath.
By John Nevins Andrews
The articles in examination of Eld. Preble’s “First-day Sabbath” were suspended in consequence of the deep affliction which came upon my family in the death of my wife. I had, however, taken up nearly every one of his Biblical arguments, and I should not think it worth while to pay any further attention to his book were it not that in the part which I had not examined he professes to impeach the veracity of the first edition of my Sabbath History. After my great bereavement, I found myself so far broken in health as to be unable to write to any extent. The new edition of the History of the Sabbath was urgently demanded, and yet a very large amount of labor must be bestowed upon it before it could be given to the press. My duty was therefore clear to suspend other matters and to finish this work as soon as possible. Knowing his accusations of dishonesty to be in every respect unjust, and many of them such that every well-informed reader could see that they were not founded in fact, I have felt that I could afford to wait till other duties were first discharged before giving them attention. I have felt the more willing to act thus, because I wished not merely to repel his charges of personal dishonesty, but at the same time to solve several historical questions involved in his attack. The preparation of my second edition has enabled me to do this, and I now defend, not myself, but the cause of truth and righteousness. In the examination of Eld. P.’s Biblical argument, I came very unexpectedly upon several remarkable frauds, or blunders that are unaccountable if they are mere blunders. I was the more surprised at these because Eld. P. was attempting to prove me dishonest and untruthful wherever he could detect the accidental omission of anything in my quotations, and even where there was an error that was manifestly typographical. These frauds were noted as I came to them in my articles in volumes 38 and 39 of the REVIEW. They were serious enough to demand some reply. And as there was only one way in which Eld. P. could be shielded from the charge of deliberate fraud, which was by stating that the blunders were made in the office of the Advent Times, where his “First-day Sabbath” was printed, the editor of that paper came out and took the responsibility upon his office. He stated that it became necessary to abridge Eld. P.’s manuscript, and that with his consent this was done in the Times office. He then says:— “And in cutting down such extracts in our haste, we unintentionally omitted the signs of omission. Hence the omission charged to Eld. P., and the mixing of different authors’ writings together, of which Eld. A. complains, occurred after the MS. left Bro. Preble’s hand”—Advent Christian Times, May 14, 1872. This is certainly a very remarkable statement, and we cannot pass it without calling attention to its bearing upon the case. The Advent Christian Times, in its effort to shield Eld. P. from the charge of deliberate fraud which must stand against him if his book is what he made it, takes upon itself the responsibility of the false statements in that book, by saying that these are mere blunders, committed at that office in their effort to abridge his manuscript. Here are some of these blunders or frauds:— Dr. Peter Akers is the author of a work entitled “Introduction to Biblical Chronology.” This book puts forth the singular theory that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh day back to the sixth, the day that Israel fled out of Egypt. On pages 136-138 of his “First-day Sabbath,” Eld. P. quotes, with some changes and omissions which he does not mark, pages 100-105 of Dr. Akers’ book. The quotation is a portion of Dr. A.’s argument for the change of the Sabbath from the seventh day back to the sixth on the fifteenth day of Abib, the year of the exodus. This quotation he introduces thus:— “The late Sylvester Bliss, while editor of the Advent Herald, made the following remarks on this subject.”—First-Day Sabbath, p. 136. QUERY. Who wrote the sentence just quoted, Eld. P., or the editor of the Times? If Eld. P. wrote it, how could it be otherwise than a culpably false statement? But if Eld. P. sent this extract from Dr. Akers to the Times office with a correct credit of the same to Dr. A., how could so gross a blunder be made as that the editor should innocently strike out the credit to Dr. Akers, and then pen the statement that this was written by Sylvester Bliss while editor of the Advent Herald? But in Eld. P.’s book, immediately following this quotation from Dr. Akers, he actually quotes Mr. Bliss. And this quotation is thus introduced:— “For a clear and comprehensive view of the Sabbath, we will once more quote the late Sylvester Bliss.”—First-Day Sabbath, p. 140. QUERY. Who wrote this sentence? Was it written as a blunder on the part of the one who abridged Eld. P.’s book at the Times office, or was it written by Eld. P. himself, knowing as he must that the former quotation was not taken from Mr. Bliss? But on page 467, the quotation from Dr. Akers is indexed thus:— S. Bliss’ views on the Sabbath, 136-138. QUERY. Who wrote the index? Was it not the author, Eld. P.? Or if we must suppose that this was written for him in the Times office, did not Eld. P. read the proof sheets? Could he have read these three statements in which the words of Dr. Akers are attributed to Mr. Bliss, and never notice one of them? To say nothing of the false statement thrice repeated, did not Eld. P. know that, in attributing the words of Dr. A. to Mr. Bliss, he made the latter responsible for doctrines that he did not believe? Could all this have been a blunder, or was it something worse? By these three false statements, Mr. Bliss is made responsible for the theory of Dr. Akers that the Sabbath was changed just before the passage of the Red Sea, though Mr. B. had no faith in such a doctrine. The next thing is to make him responsible for the views of Dr. Jennings that the Sabbath was changed just after the passage of that sea. So on pages 140-147, he actually quotes Mr. B., though with some changes of his words, and numerous omissions which he does not mark. In this article, Mr. B. expressly declares that “there are no means of determining” “whether, or no, the day designated [by the fall of the manna] for their observance, coincided with the seventh in regular succession from the Paradisiacal week.”—First-Day Sabbath, p. 144. But it happened by chance, or else by a remarkable fraud for which somebody is responsible, that Mr. Bliss is made in this very article to declare that the Sabbath pointed out by the fall of the manna could not be identical with the seventh day from Paradise. And so in the only place where such an act was possible without the connection indicating the fraud, a sentence taken from Dr. Jennings’ Jewish Antiquities is boldly interpolated into the middle of the quotation from Mr. Bliss, and made to appear as the words of Mr. B. Here it is:— “And if this had been the Sabbath in course, according to the Paradisiacal computation, the fifteenth must have been so too, and would have been doubtless kept as a Sabbath, and not have been any part of it spent in marching from Elim to Sin.”—First-Day Sabbath, p. 143. QUERY. How did these words of Dr. Jennings find their way into the middle of Mr. Bliss’ article? In this place, there is no abridgment of Mr. B., but the sentence from Dr. J. comes in between two connected sentences of Mr. Bliss. How did it get in? The excuse that Eld. P.’s manuscript was abridged at the Times office cannot cover this extraordinary act and show it to be a mere blunder, for here there was no abridgment. To make Mr. Bliss teach that the Sabbath was changed on the west shore of the Red Sea, Dr. Akers is quoted, and Mr. B. is thrice declared to be the author of the words. And that he may be made to teach that it was also changed a few days later on the east shore of that sea, the words of Dr. Jennings are interpolated into the middle of an extract from Mr. Bliss. Neither of these acts would have been committed were it not that Mr. B. sleeps in death. And can any one suggest how the abridgment of Eld. P.’s manuscript at the office of the Advent Times caused Sylvester Bliss to become the author of words taken from Dr. Akers, or how the words of Dr. Jennings came to stand in the middle of an article of Mr. B.’s and between two connected sentences of his? But now we come to an actual abridgment, and it is very worthy of notice. Eld. P. undertakes in his book to prove that the term “Sabbath between” in the margin of Acts 13:42, means the so-called Christian Sabbath. Amongst other authorities cited to prove his position, he has occasion to quote Dr. Whitby, which he does as follows:— “Whitby: ‘In the week between—or in the Sabbath between.’”—First-Day Sabbath, p. 99. The words of Dr. Whitby before being abridged read thus:— “Verse 42. [Eis to metaxu Sabbaton.] This phrase doth not signify the intermediate week, as some conceive, or on the second and fifth day of the week, but on the following Sabbath; for we learn from the 44th verse, that they came not together till the following Sabbath.”—A Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament, by Daniel Whitby, D. D., vol. 1., p. 657, London, 1703. Whoever took these words of Whitby and abridged them into the sentence which Eld. P. professes to quote from him on this verse cannot clear himself from the charge of deliberate fraud except by the plea of idiocy. Whitby says: “This phrase doth not signify the intermediate week.” Eld. P.’s book has it thus: “Whitby: ‘In the week between—or in the Sabbath between.’” Who did this abridging? Was it Eld. P., or was it the editor of the Times? If Eld. P. sent the words of Whitby, correctly copied, to be published in his book, then unquestionably the responsibility of so abridging his words as to make them say the opposite of what Dr. W. taught rests upon some one at the Times office. But it is evident that this abridgment was made by Eld. P. himself. For he could not have sent Whitby unabridged, inasmuch as it would be a direct testimony against the point he was attempting to prove. It is only after the “not” has been stricken out that this quotation helps Eld. P. It is manifest, therefore, that he must have made this extraordinary abridgment, and that he must be held responsible for the same. But let the responsibility of this act rest upon whom it may, it is a sin of no trifling magnitude. It could not be a blunder, for integrity and truth must have been deliberately sacrificed in the act. But how does the editor of the Times know that these things were all right in Eld. P.’s manuscript, and that the serious errors above named are mere blunders committed at his office? The manuscript has doubtless long since perished. He can, therefore, only know whereof he affirms by being able to remember that he made such changes in Eld. P.’s language. But if he knew when he abridged it that he made these changes, then they cannot be called blunders on his part, but changes in matters of fact for which he should consider that he is justly censurable. Whether these things are the205acts of Eld. P. or of the editor of the Times, they are not blunders except in the sense that every sinful act is a blunder. But the evidence very clearly indicates that they were in the manuscript before it reached the office of the Times, unless, indeed, the editor of that paper compiled a part of Eld. P.’s book. A few brief articles will follow this in answer to Eld. P.’s attack upon my Sabbath History.