Sunday Dreaming by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 20, 1874

Sunday Dreaming.

By Uriah Smith

We do not mean dreaming on Sunday, but dreaming about it. The spirit of sleep is not yet lifted from Christendom on this question; and in their state of somnolence, people seem to think that the Sunday Sabbath is very easily established. Like those who dream, they talk of it, if not incoherently, at least contradictorily, calmly, and complacently urging reasons in its favor which utterly devour each other.

A friend of ours proposed to a relative of his, a Baptist minister, some questions on the subject of the Sabbath. The minister replied by a quotation from a book entitled “Moses and Israel” by Dr. Franklin Johnson. The quotation illustrates how easily persons are satisfied on this question; for the positions taken by Mr. Johnson are summarily these:—

Only an indefinite seventh part of time is required by the commandment.
The Creator’s rest from the work of creation, was a type of the Redeemer’s rest from toil and anguish, when he triumphed over death in his resurrection.
The apostles changed the Sabbath to the first day of the week.

We propose to say a few words upon these propositions on their own merits, and then see how they stand together.

1. The indefinite seventh part of time theory is an opiate on the Sabbath question in about as free use among theologians as quinine is among western doctors. They seem to think that that never comes amiss anywhere. But of all loose theories upon the Sabbath question, this is the loosest. It is everything and therefore nothing. It is a virtual abandonment of the whole Sabbath institution; for by it, any day of the week, being a seventh after six days of labor, is the Sabbath, and therefore all days, as people may choose, are Sabbaths. But what is common to all days, cannot be used to distinguish any day; therefore, so far as divine appointment is concerned, this theory leaves us with no Sabbath; for to talk of all days being the Sabbath, is a most manifest absurdity.

Again, this theory supposes that the commandment requires every seventh day, with unvarying regularity to be observed as the Sabbath. If this is not so, then a person under a great pressure of business might work continuously six weeks, forty-two consecutive days, and then rest one entire week. This would be devoting one seventh part of his time to rest, if that is all that is required by the commandment. But this would make the Sabbath so loose an institution, as to practically abolish it. If then every seventh day with no disturbance of the interval, is required by the commandment, when the Sabbath was once established, a change would be an impossibility.

Thus at the first advent of Christ, the only divine Sabbath upon the earth was the day observed by that people who were then the depositaries of the word and truth of God, the seventh day of the week. Now we ask how a change to the first day of the week, for instance, could have been effected without breaking the commandment. We come up to the time when the last Jewish Sabbath had been kept according to the law. When could the observance of the first day commence? Could it have been the next day after that last Jewish Sabbath? No; for that would not be after six days of labor, as they had rested the day before, as the law required. We go on through the week. Before they come to another first day, they must pass the seventh. But when they come to the seventh day, six days of labor have passed, and they must rest again or break the commandment. Having then rested, they could not rest the following day, the next Sunday for the reason already given. We may take any other day of the week, and the result is the same. Whatever change therefore has been made in the Sabbath, even on this ground, has been made in violation of the Sabbath law, and he becomes participes criminis, who continues the practice.

This indefinite seventh-part-of-time theory is as unnatural as it is unscriptural. Everything about the institution is definite; everything about the commandment is definite. Not one particular is satisfied with any such indefinite arrangement as is proposed. God rested on a particular and definite day. The commandment requires the observance of the day corresponding to that very one in the numerical order.

It is more than a marvel to us how persons with the commandment before them, can deliberately say, “The expression, ‘the seventh day,’ seems not to point out any particular day of the week.”

In the name of reason, what then is it the seventh day of? Of the year? No. Of the month? No. It is not in this way that the days of the year and month are spoken of. We say that common sense demands that we refer such expressions to the most simple and common division of time, and that is the weekly cycle.

Here stands the week, a period of just seven days, unvarying through months or years, unaffected by the motions of sun, moon, or stars. It owes its origin to the great facts of creation. God there established it by working the first six days of time and resting on the seventh, or last day, of that cycle. The week comes from nothing else. Now, says the commandment, referring to this very fact, and God’s rest on that definite seventh day, You shall rest on the seventh day because God rested on the seventh day, and set it apart to a sacred use. Yet doctors of divinity have so dosed the theological world that we hear on every hand the response, This does not have any reference to any particular day of the week. Yet they betray their convictions by making the period of labor and rest just a week in length, showing that they know that all this does come from the events of the first week of time, and then nullify it all by not allowing their week to begin anywhere or end anywhere.

Strange to say this theory is used against the observers of the seventh day; whereas if it be true, we are obeying strictly the requirements of the fourth commandment. But custom has established the first day, and we should conform to custom. It is true if we thought that God had left this matter to be decided by custom, we would conform thereto; for we take no pleasure in differing with our fellow-men. But there is nothing binding in custom; there is nothing sacred about it. It was all wrong in Noah’s time, in Christ’s and in Luther’s. It may be wrong now.

But it is so inconvenient. Very true; but what is that to any but those who choose to keep the seventh day upon whom the burden of that inconvenience falls.

As to the Sabbath being a type, that is an impossibility, as it was instituted before the fall, before a type of anything connected with the work of redemption could have had an existence. But there is a fatal flaw in this argument in another respect. If it was a type of “Christ’s rest from toil and anguish” in his resurrection, when that point was gained, the type ceased; for types always cease when the antitype is reached. This leaves us again with no Sabbath.

Lastly, “the apostles by the direction of the Holy Spirit” appointed the first day of the week in place of the seventh. This argument is borrowed from the Roman Catholics. Alas! that Protestants should still be found following the leadings of that mother of errors and abominations. But if the apostles changed it Christ did not. That is some improvement on the common argument, as it relieves Christ from the fearful charge of changing his Father’s law. But if Christ or the apostles made such change, why has not some one of the sacred writers told us about it?

But further if Christ’s rest on the first day was the antitype of the Sabbath, and that fact fixed it to the first day of the week, as our writer argues, why need the apostles meddle with the matter at all? How could they change it, when it was already fixed by that great fact? Thus the argument falls to pieces.

Summed up, the instruction furnished us respecting the first day of the week, is as follows: 1. That the Sabbath is an indefinite seventh part of time, but no day in particular, which makes all days Sabbaths, and hence virtually none of them the Sabbath. 2. That the Creator’s rest, the old Sabbath, was a type of a definite day under the gospel when Christ rested; from which it follows that when this day is reached, the type accomplished its object and ceased, which leaves us with no Sabbath. 3. That after all this the apostles changed the day. Sunday somnambulists, what next?

U. S.