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An Old-Time Answer to an Old Objection

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 31, 1914

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 91, No. 55.

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An Old-Time Answer to an Old Objection

By W. A. S.

IN a work entitled “All in One,” published in London in 1677, Francis Bampfield, one of the old-time Seventh-day Baptists of London, gave his answer to the one-day-in-seven theory:
There are few new objections to be urged against the Sabbath. Nearly all the arguments in use today to turn aside the force of the fourth commandment have done service for generations wherever the claims of the truth were being pressed. Evidently in Bampfield’s day some were arguing that not only was one day in seven all that the commandment implied, but that the first day should really have the preeminence because it came first in order. It may be of interest to some to read the old Sabbatarian’s answer to this quibble. He said:—
Some rise up against it [the Sabbath truth] and object that no special honor is put by the Lord and by his Word upon the seventh day more than upon any other day of the week, and that it is but a seventh, not the seventh; and that that part of time that is and will be accepted with God is declared and determined to be the seventh part of it, or one day in seven; and that one day in seven hath and must have a natural priority unto the seventh day, because, say such, the seventh day is one of the seven.
Whereas such should have more deliberately considered that one day of seven was not before the seventh day in order of time. It could not be truly affirmed of any one day that it was one of seven before the seventh day was created. For when the one day was so named, there was but that one day; so but two on the second day, but three on the third day, but four on the fourth, but five on the fifth, but six on the sixth, till the seventh had its natural existence, and its created being; and until then no one of the foregoing days of the week could be called one in seven. For, till then, there were not seven; and the seventh day is the last number of days, and the only seventh in the days of the week. So that here is a stop made, and we go no further forward, as to the natural created order and accompt of a week.
And therefore that objection which some do bring in against this from ten lambs, any of which may be the tenth according as they may run out, is nothing pertinent and applicable to the present matter. For the days of the week do not run voluntarily at their pleasure which can be before or behind as they will, to go backward or forward when they list; but they keep their created order in this successive continued weekly course, by a well-established natural, unalterable law: although in the exception and objection this should be noted, that when the ten lambs were run out, they had each distinct names, and the last was the only tenth, and no other but the last.
That particular day of the week is the weekly Sabbath day which alone (as to this of the weekly Sabbath) has proper marks of note and of honor put upon it, as Jehovah’s own peculiar day, which he has called out from all the rest of the days of the week for his created ends and instituted purposes.—Part 2, page 25.
Yet doubtless some who listened to Bampfield’s argument could not see the point. Some principles recognized as perfectly plain in matters of everyday life become very abstruse when applied to Bible doctrine. A will, for instance, that provided certain bequests to seven sons, would involve no difficulty whatever in specifying the first son or the seventh son to be the recipient of a certain gift. No one would for a moment think that the seventh son could be any one of the seven.
But all these hundreds of years since the Reformation restored the Word of God and revealed the fact that Christendom had departed from the fourth commandment during the days of apostasy and darkness, multitudes have argued that, after all, “the seventh day” may be any one of the seven.
His stand for the true Sabbath in that olden time sent Bampfield to prison, and to death from the hardships suffered.
W. A. S.