Editorial Correspondence.
By John Nevins Andrews
We have now been in the vicinity of Elberfeld about twelve days. We have had meetings nearly every day since our arrival, and some of the time have had two meetings a day. These have all been lengthy meetings, owing to the fact that two languages must be used, the English and the German, for each sentence that was spoken. But every meeting has been solemn and interesting, and it has been evident that the Spirit of God has been specially present to make the hearts of the people tender, and to set home the truth with power upon each heart. I have made each discourse partly doctrinal and partly practical. The practical part I have made as close and as searching as by the help of the Spirit of God it was possible for me to make it. I desired to see how such preaching would be relished. But instead of causing offense, this has given us the hearts and the confidence of this people to the fullest extent. On sixth-day last we went to Gladbach, near the frontier of Holland, where quite a number of these Sabbath-keepers reside. As we returned on first-day at noon to fill an advertised appointment in a public hall, we could only have four meetings in G., but these were very interesting though very lengthy. In my first two discourses, I spoke so earnestly upon the necessity of faithful obedience to all that God has commanded, and of the danger of apostasy from God, and of final ruin as the result, that some first-day Baptist friends who were present, and who were strong Calvinists, came to me before the third discourse and said that they were believers in the doctrine that God elected his people before the foundation of the world, and that the elect would never fall away; and that my doctrine concerning the necessity of strict obedience to God could not be true. They wished to know what I had to say on the subject. It was time for meeting to commence again, and so I told them that I would speak on the subject. God gave me great freedom in speaking. I took as my text the passage on which they placed the greatest reliance, viz., Eph. 1: 4-6. I stated that the Bible does certainly speak of election before the foundation of the world, and that I was disposed to admit every principle of truth involved in this subject, and disposed to deny only the erroneous inferences drawn from these principles. I stated that without doubt God foresaw the fall of Adam when he purposed to create him, and that he formed a purpose as to what he would do in that event, so that the fall of Adam did not take him by surprise, or find him unprepared for the event; that he would gladly have made the first Adam and his family the everlasting possessors of the earth had they remained in innocence; but that, foreseeing the fall of Adam, he formed the following fixed purpose:— 1. That there should be a second Adam to take the place of the first, and that to this second Adam and his family he would give the earth. 2. That this second Adam should be God's own Son, clothed with humanity. 3. That he should die to redeem sinful man. 4. And that those who were finally possessors of the inheritance through the second Adam “should be holy and without blame before him in love.” Thus much God fixed without condition and without uncertainty. He appointed the way of salvation through the second Adam, and chose him and his family in place of Adam the first and his natural descendants. 5. Another thing which he fixed in his purpose was that the offer of adoption into the family of the second Adam should be made to all mankind. 6. But now comes the point which God did not fix. He did not decree that a part should receive this salvation, and shut out the remainder from the possibility of sharing it. He offered it to every man, and extends to each grace to accept, but he compels none. And this offer he holds open from age to age till the number necessary to his purpose have accepted. God has provided the way of salvation without man's asking it, and of his own sovereign will has determined what character the saved shall bear, but he has left each man to choose whether he will have a part in this great salvation. I also quoted some of the words of warning found in the Bible with regard to the apostasy of the righteous. Finally, I showed that the day of Judgment is to decide the cases of all men according to their works—a plain proof that not God's decree, but their own conduct, determines the fate of men; and that a day of Judgment is absolutely inconsistent with the idea that God selected or rejected each individual before the foundation of the world. The meeting closed with a very solemn impression upon all present. During the night, my mind was much exercised on the subject of election, and I determined that if those Calvinist friends came again I would speak further on the subject from Rom. 9: 15, 16. I was not disappointed; for they came, and certain others with them, so that we had quite a number of persons present who are not Sabbath-keepers. I gave first a general view of the doctrine of election in the chapter, showing that it relates here not to the salvation nor to the damnation of men, but to God's choice among men of those who shall fill certain important places in his work, and that this choice, while placing a heavy responsibility upon the man chosen, does not make it certain that he will be saved; while the men not chosen and not thus highly honored have nevertheless the full privilege of receiving salvation through Christ if they will. I illustrated this by God's choice of Abraham, which seems to be the starting point of Paul's statement concerning election in this chapter. Thus, at the very time when God chose Abraham as the father of the family of the faithful there lived a greater than Abraham, Melchisedec, whom he saw fit to pass by or reprobate. I showed secondly that it is God's just prerogative to fix the terms on which he will pardon sinful man, and that man cannot complain that God has never consulted him on the point or asked his opinion of the justice of the conditions. God's sovereignty is here seen, and must be here acknowledged. Thirdly, I showed what conditions God has fixed. “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” Now upon whom will the great King have mercy? He answers it himself: “Let the wicked man forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” Isa. 55: 7. I also showed, out of Hebrews 3: 12, 13, how men harden their hearts by sin, and that God hardens men's hearts only by withdrawing his tender Spirit when they persist in grieving it. Such a man as this was Pharaoh, and because Egypt was very wicked, and Pharaoh fixed in sinfulness, God opened the way for this extremely wicked man to take the throne, and to contend with the Almighty. When the meeting closed, the chief speaker among these Calvinists came forward, and expressed his thanks for what had been said, and stated that he believed I had spoken the truth. My first discourse here in Prussia was addressed to the brethren from 2 Pet. 3. It was a very solemn season, and the word made so much impression upon them that they asked me if I would repeat it to the public in case they would hire a hall for first-day last, and would advertise the meeting and the subject. I said, Certainly I will, so they advertised that I would speak in English, and that Bro. Ertzenberger would interpret in German. Doubtless the novelty of the announcement helped to call out the people. We returned from Gladbach direct to this meeting, and on entering the hall found it filled with an intelligent-looking, well-dressed audience. As the hall was insufficiently seated, more than half of those present had to stand up. It was not without some misgivings that we entered upon this service, but God helped us both. We began at once, and the Spirit of God soon raised us above the embarrassment of the situation. God gave a good degree of liberty in speaking, and I think the subject must have been of interest to the people. Though the discourse was of necessity quite lengthy, and though the position of many was not one of rest, every person present paid strict attention from beginning to end. As soon as the meeting closed, I returned at once to the place where we were to stop for the night, at some little distance from the hall. In a few minutes who should come in to converse, but the pastors of two of the principal national churches in that place. Indeed, one of these gentlemen is the superintendent over the national churches in this section, an office corresponding somewhat to that of bishop in the English national church. They had both been present in our meeting. This superintendent can speak English. He said he wished to know the object of our mission. I told him that I would answer his questions with the greatest pleasure; that I had come to Europe to preach to the people upon the prophecies which indicate the speedy return of the Son of man, and also to preach in behalf of the Sabbath of the Lord which the great apostasy has trodden under foot. He said in reply that there is in Germany and Switzerland an extensive association of ministers that are engaged in the study of the prophecies, and that they are generally agreed that the coming of Christ must be near. He said that he is a member of this association. I asked him if he thought I had taught the people error in what I had said in his hearing. He said, “No; I cannot deny anything you have said, but would it not have been better to preach the gospel?” I asked him if a description of the day of Judgment was not a part of the preaching of the gospel as we found it in the New Testament. He said, “Oh! yes.” Then I gave him quite a definite account of the Sabbath cause in America, and of the nature of our work. This was what he wanted to know. Then he said if we kept the Sabbath we ought to keep the Jewish feasts. I told him that we recognized the obligation of the moral law, but not that of the ceremonial, and I asked him if he did not do the same thing, and in particular if he did not believe and teach that men should keep the ten commandments. He said, “Yes.” Then I added that this very position constrained us as honest men to hallow the seventh day, and that I was unable to see how he could honestly do otherwise. He replied, “Christ when he arose entered into his rest, and his rest must be our rest, and it is much superior to the seventh-day rest,” etc. He spoke here at some length, and in an animated though good-natured manner. As soon as he paused, I told him that I had only one objection to offer, and that was that nothing of this kind was said in the Bible. He smiled, and then said, “But we have the apostolic meetings upon this day to show that it is the right day.” I answered that there was barely one such meeting in the book of Acts, and that though Luke is very particular when recording any act that is a custom to mark it as such (see Luke 1: 8, 9; 2: 27, 42; 4: 16; 22: 39; Acts 16: 13; 17: 2; 18: 4 and other places), he does not intimate that meetings on the first day were customary, though if they were such it was of the utmost importance that he should state the fact. It was therefore only a meeting caused by Paul's departure next morning. To this he made no reply, only that there were some other texts which mention the first day. I referred him to 1 Cor. 16: 2, as perhaps the text he wanted. He then took out his Greek Testament to read the passage when I made this direct appeal to him: Does not “par heauto” signify that each individual was to lay apart by himself, and not to put his offerings on that day into the public treasury? He was frank enough to own, what indeed it was impossible for him honestly to deny, that this text related to what each one should do at home. But, said he, the day itself is called “one of the Sabbaths.” I asked him if he would translate it thus instead of the common translation “first-day of the week”? He said, “Yes.” Then said I, if you translate it thus how do you know it is the first day that is intended? He asked if I did not believe that the first day was here intended. I told him I did, but that it had no Sabbatic character in this text, for that the Hebrews spoke of all the days from one seventh-day to another in this manner, as “the one of the Sabbath,” “the two of the Sabbath,” etc. I asked him if he was not aware that the best authorities confirmed this. He said, “Yes,” and dropped the point. But, said he, there is the Lord's day, and he quoted the Greek of Rev. 1: 10. I replied, There is nothing in the connection nor in any other part of the Bible to show that Sunday is here intended, or that it has any right to that title, but there are many facts to prove that the seventh day is God's holy day, and the day which Christ claims as his own. But, said he, “We have the Christian fathers to prove that Lord's day is the proper title of Sunday.” I told him that I had carefully examined all of the Christian fathers on this subject down to the Council of Nice, and that I have them now in my library at Neuchatel. I told him that no one of them gave Sunday this name till about two hundred years after the birth of Christ. And yet several of them speak of the day before that time, but only as Sunday or first-day. He referred to Barnabas. I told him that the epistle of Barnabas was spurious, and asked him if he did not think so. He assented to that view. But I said that he would find in Barnabas no sacred title for first-day, much less that of Lord's day. “Well,” he said, “there are the writings of Papias.” I said, Yes; but Papias does not mention the first day, or even allude to it. “But,” said he, “why was there not a violent controversy on this subject between the adherents of the two days?” I told him that the apostasy was a gradual departure from God, like that which in the lapse of years elevated the pastors of the church of the Romans to claim supreme authority. I said to him that Sunday was a day of ordinary labor85during the first three hundred years. At this point it was necessary that he should leave to take the cars. He acted like a gentleman throughout our entire interview, and never appeared in the slightest degree vexed. He invited me to call upon him, which perhaps I shall hereafter do. The other pastor remained a little longer. I said to him, I will change the form of pastor E.'s question, and give it to you to answer. If the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day by Christ, why do we never find the Jews laying this change of action to the charge of the apostles? There is never a hint of controversy between them on this point. Can you explain this? He thought the seventh-day was a point of no importance. I told him in God's sight it was important enough to be put into the ten commandments. But, said he, we can call Sunday the seventh day. I said, Yes; but God has called the previous day by that name. I referred him to Luke 23: 56; 24: 1, to show him that the Sabbath according to the commandment is the day preceding the first day of the week. I also referred him to James' statement that he who violated one of the commandments becomes guilty of all. I said to him, I do not judge you, but I have very decided convictions that you and all others should keep the Sabbath of the Lord. Here our interview ended. This gentleman also was perfectly courteous throughout our entire conversation. Probably I cannot hope to lead either of them to the truth, but I do believe they were made to see it and to feel its force. Elberfeld, Prussia, Feb. 15, 1875.