Having listened to the debate just closed, between Eld. Grant and Eld. Canright, we feel it to be our duty to the public to state some facts concerning it. The question was, “Do the Scriptures teach that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment of the decalogue is now binding on mankind?” Eld. Canright affirmed, and Eld. Grant denied. Bro. C.’s first speech was a clear and able argument from Matt. 28: 19, 20, and chapter 5.
Eld. Grant’s first words were a direct appeal, not to the word of God, but to the prejudice of the people. Said he, “If all who work on Saturday are sinners, and are to be damned; if nobody but a few Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists are to be saved, then this is an important question.” This statement he made many times, and closed up with it in his last speech. Did he do this because there was really any truth in the statement, or soundness in such reasoning? Certainly not. He knew, as Bro. Canright often stated, that we held no such views.
People will be condemned only when they reject light. We should search the Scriptures for the truth, then teach it, and bring the people up to it as fast as we can. We neither judge nor condemn any one. God is the judge. We believe there are many good Christians who are not now keeping the seventh day. Why then did Eld. G. repeat this statement so often in the debate? Manifestly to place us in a false light before the people, and thus create prejudice against us. No honorable opponent would condescend to such unfair means to accomplish his ends.
Again, Eld. Grant urges that as many had lived and died, and would be saved without keeping all the ten commandments, the Sabbath especially, therefore that law was of no account, and need not be kept. Thus he exactly reverses God’s order; for he judges God’s law by the actions of the people. But in the Judgment, God will judge the actions of men by his law. Eccl. 12: 13, 14; James 2: 8–12. This same mode of arguing, from the old Pharisees down, has always been used by time-servers against every reformation. “Our fathers,” said they, “believed and practiced thus and so. They were good men and God blessed them. Therefore they were right, and any other doctrine must be false.” This was the strong argument of the Roman Catholics against Luther, and of the English priests against Wesley. To these great reformers they said, “If the new doctrines which you are preaching be true, then all before you will be damned, hence your doctrines must be false.”
But it is especially astonishing that Eld. Grant should use this same old hackneyed argument against us. The popular churches everywhere he goes use this very argument against him, and his favorite doctrine of the sleep of the dead, and destruction of the wicked. “This is a new doctrine,” say they, “and all our pious forefathers believed in the immortality of the soul, and God blessed them in preaching it. Hence Eld. Grant’s doctrine must be false.” This argument he has answered scores of times, and shown its utter fallacy. But now when it will serve his own purpose, he turns square about, and uses it against us! Thus he blows hot or cold, just as will best suit his purpose, without any apparent regard for the soundness or truthfulness of his argument.
Another fact will illustrate this trait in him. In the early part of the debate, as an objection to keeping the seventh day, he urged that as the world was round it was impossible to keep a definite day of twenty-four hours, and travel around the world. We could not keep the same day here which they had in Asia, as it was noon here when it was midnight there. Neither could we keep a definite day at the north pole where the sun could not be seen for weeks. Bro. C. easily answered these objections, showing that a definite day could be kept all over the globe. But near the close of the debate, when Eld. Grant came to defend the first day, he said that Sunday was the very day of the week upon which Adam rested in Eden, as near as we can ascertain, the same day upon which Christ arose from the dead, in Palestine, and was a definite day of twenty-four hours, as definite as our seventh day, and begun and ended at the same time of day that ours did. Then Bro. C. turned Eld. Grant’s objection upon him, and pressed him to tell how he could keep his definite first day on the round world, and at the north pole. He said that he could keep it just as Eld. Canright had shown that he could keep the seventh day!
Thus he not only contradicted himself, but showed that he had raised an objection where he knew there was no difficulty, his object being to confuse the people by any means, fair or foul.
Frequently he took occasion to tell how holy he was, how honest, how much of the love of Jesus he had, what peace of mind, and what confidence in his secret devotions,—all this, too, said he, while breaking the fourth commandment. From this he argued that the keeping of the Sabbath was of no account, thus using his assumed sanctification as an argument in the debate. It shows the egotism and self-righteousness of the man.
We could mention many contradictions, evasions, and unfair tricks to which he resorted to carry his points, but must leave the reader to judge from the sample given. It was astonishing to see how coolly he would assume and boldly assert, that he had proved important points for which he had not even attempted to produce the least evidence, though called upon and urged to do it.
At the sixth session he ran out of talk from the Bible, and said that he should now go to history to prove that the first day of the week was the Lord’s day. Eld. Canright objected to his going to history, urging that the question which they had both agreed upon was, “Do the Scriptures teach”? &c., and not what does history teach. This was a Bible question, which they had agreed to settle by the Bible. Bro. C. offered to go with him to history and discuss it to his heart’s content, after they had finished the discussion from the Bible. But no; Eld. G. persisted that he must go to history now to prove his position.
Bro. C. appealed to the chairman, who decided that he should not go out of the Bible for proof. So Eld. G. had to give it up for that evening. But at the last session he said that notwithstanding that the chair had decided against him, he should now read his history. Eld. Canright again objected to this as unfair, unjust, and a violation of the rules of honorable debate.
Eld. Grant then instead of allowing the chairman to inquire of the congregation, “Shall the decision of the chair be sustained?” according to parliamentary usages, took the matter into his own hands, and appealed to the congregation whether he should bring in his history. And amid the cheers of that class, who usually occupy the back part of the house, Grant led off the mob spirit, and cried out, “All who are opposed to my going to history, raise your hands!” None raised their hands, though we had scores of brethren and friends there. Neither did we ourselves, for we all felt that it was wholly out of order, unjust, and simply an appeal to a mob spirit, with which we would have nothing to do. Grant then called on those to raise their hands who favored his going to secular history. Of course there were those ready to sustain him.
Thus he broke his agreement to debate the question as stated, setting aside the decision of the chairman, and violating the parliamentary rules of honorable discussion. Eld. Grant rode right over the chairman, and put the question to suit himself, calling for the negative first, a thing of itself entirely out of order. The reader can judge from the foregoing of the unprincipled tricks which this man will resort to, when closely pressed, in order to defeat his opponent.