Elder Preble on the Twelfth Chapter of Sabbath History.
By John Nevins Andrews
THE History of the Sabbath covers the period of 6000 years. It is divided into two parts. Part first, embracing chapters 1–11, is the Biblical history of the Sabbath, and covers more than 4100 years. This part of the History of the Sabbath, Elder Preble does not formally attack. Part second, embracing chapters 12–19, is the secular history of the Sabbath, and includes the period from the close of the New Testament to the present time. This part of the work he professes to impeach. If he really does this with respect to the first edition; the second, now just issued, is not to be esteemed worthy of credit. But an examination of this alleged impeachment will show that it is such in name and pretense only. He has certainly attempted to find false statements in my work, and the peculiar bitterness with which he has written shows that he felt determined to succeed in the undertaking. The reader shall have a chance to see what he has put forth as the most serious faults he could point out in the first edition of the History of the Sabbath. His first charge (First-day Sabbath, pp. 388–390) is that I have quoted from a “huge mass of publications,” what amounts to about sixty-six pages of my work, and that such is the smallness of the space filled by my quotations, compared with the “cart load of books” from which they are taken, that they are “in plain English—garbled.” But if that be good proof of garbling, it would be good proof had I quoted three times as much, as the quotations would not even then be the ten-thousandth part of the entire works quoted. The charge of garbling is sustained when it is shown that any extract makes the author from whom it is taken say what he never intended to say, or that gives a false view of his teaching upon the subject. We shall see whether Eld. P. has been able to find a single instance of this in the History of the Sabbath. Elder P.’s attack commences with the twelfth chapter of the History of the Sabbath. That chapter was written to show that the age immediately succeeding the time of the apostles was, according to prophecy and history, marked by false teachers, and by great apostasy, and therefore utterly unworthy to be referred to as authority for changing the institutions of the Bible. In order to show what kind of a reply Elder P. makes to this, I present an analysis of the chapter, stating each point, with the proofs on which it rests. After this analysis will be given his reply. EARLY APOSTASY IN THE CHURCH.
1. General purity of the apostolic churches, as shown in the book of Acts. 3. An evil thing not rendered good by beginning in the apostolic age. Proved by the rise of Romanism. 4. How to decide between truth and error. Test them by the Scriptures. What is the character of a doctrine at its commencement? 5. Age cannot change the fables of men into the truth of God; because it cannot change wrong into right. Satan’s 6000-year-old lie, a falsehood still. 6. Historical testimony concerning the early development of the great apostasy, from Dowling’s Hist. Romanism, b. 2, c. 2, s. 1. Robinson’s Eccl. Researches, c. 6. The modern Sabbath examined, pp. 123, 124. 7. Such an age no standard by which to correct the Bible; shown by Bower’s statement concerning tradition, Hist. Popes, vol. 1, p. 1, Dowling’s testimony concerning the Protestant rule of faith, Hist. Romanism, b. 2, c. 1, secs. 3, 4, and Dr. Cummings’ remarks concerning the character of those fathers whose writings have come down to modern times, and how far they represent the views of the church of their age; and Dr. Clarke’s testimony concerning the contradictory character of their writings. 8. The writings of the fathers corrupted by the church of Rome. Testimony of Ephraim Pagitt, Christianography, part 2, p. 59, and of Wm. Reeves’ Translation of the apologies of Tertullian, Justin Martyr, and others, vol. 2, p. 375. 9. Unreliable character of even apostolic tradition, illustrated from John 21:20–23. 10. The two rules of faith which divide Christendom; first, the rule of the man of God, the Bible alone, 2 Tim. 3:16, 17; second, the rule of the Romanists, the Bible and tradition. Note of Douay Bible on same text. 11. The first-day Sabbath can only be maintained by adopting the second of these rules. Statement of W. B. Taylor. Obligation of Sabbath, pp. 254, 255, and the pointed rebuke of Protestants for their use of Romish traditions, by a Roman Catholic, in a Treatise of thirty controversies. The following is Eld. Preble’s entire reply to this chapter:— “The first ten pages of ‘Secular History—Part II,’ are devoted to the early apostasy of the Church; and his reasoning appears to have about as much bearing on the Sabbath question as it would to argue that all money should be cast away as worthless, because there is some counterfeit.” First-Day Sabbath, pages 391, 392. This is simply no answer at all. If we throw away some bills as worthless, and hold fast to others as valuable, it is because the detector shows a radical distinction between them. Now if the great detector, the Bible, shows that the first ages after the apostles was to be full of apostasy, and of false teachers, and if history records these things as having actually occurred, there is just one safe course for us to take with the writings of that age, which is, that we subject them to the test of the Bible. If they agree with that, well and good; if they contradict that book, they are of no account. It is because our first-day friends virtually amend the Bible by the early fathers, and actually adopt on this question the rule of the Romanists that chapter twelve was written. Its subject matter is in the highest degree important, and the reply of Elder Preble is as good as anything that can be fairly said on the other side.