Sabbath Discussion in Ohio.
By Joseph H. Waggoner
While in Battle Creek, in March, I received a letter from Bro. St. John in which he said that Eld. Z. S. Vail had sent propositions for a discussion, and he requested me to open correspondence with him. This I declined to do, not wishing to have anything to do with it unless it was pressed upon me. This is that Eld. Vail who had a debate of about eight days with Eld. Loughborough, in Ohio, several years ago. As near as I could learn, he has spent much of the time since that debate in boasting what he then did. On my return to Ohio I found it had been worked up so that Bro. St. John thought a discussion could not well be avoided, and it was accordingly agreed to discuss the Law and Sabbath, and the Sunday, six evenings. Before my return, Eld. V. had published his propositions in the Clyde Sentinel, one of which stated that the New Testament and church history warrant us in keeping Sunday. In our conversation he affirmed that the early history of the church was as good authority on this question as the New Testament; but being pressed upon the point he was unwilling to go before the people on that position, and changed the question, insisting, however, on the privilege of appealing to history, which was granted to him. In affirming, I first noticed the distinction of the two laws, and gave the reasons of the Sabbath institution; that it was sanctified, set apart to sacred use from creation, &c. To the surprise of all, Eld. V. did not attempt to invalidate my argument, but read what he had written beforehand, having no manner of reference to the points I had made. In regard to the word sanctify, to which I specially called his attention, he said he did not care about definitions of words, he had nothing to do with them! He said, and several times too, that Nehemiah said the Sabbath was made known to Israel at the time the manna fell, which proved that it was not known before. I read from Nehemiah, showing that this was on Mt. Sinai, thirty days after the manna first fell, as also Eze. 39:7, showing that his inference was directly contrary to the Scriptures; yet he continued to repeat his assertions. These are but examples of his course. The third evening I made the following points in the New Testament: The law is the revealed will of God. Compare Matt. 7:21-23; John 7:16, 17; Rom. 2:17-23. By the law sin is made known. It proves all the world, both Jews and Gentiles, sinners. It is not made void by the gospel. The gospel is necessarily based on it, as the gospel relates to sin, and sin is the violation of the law. And judgment will finally be by the law. Rom. 2:12, 16; Eccl. 12:13, 14. Instead of replying to these, he read from his manuscript, occupying fifteen minutes, and said he had nothing more to do, and threw up his time, not even attempting to touch one of my arguments. In all my knowledge of discussions I never knew a man to make such an utter failure. He confessed to the difference of the two laws, as claimed by me, but in his pretended argument he ignored this difference, saying it was all one law and was all abolished, so contradicting himself. He asserted that the Sabbath precept was not moral but the other nine were, but I could not, with much urging, get him to offer a reason for the assertion. I gave reasons why the whole ten are moral, and offered to examine any reason he would give to the contrary. He only said it was so; and finally said he had shown it to be so, though he could not tell why it is so. When he had obtained consent to occupy the remaining three evenings on the Sunday question, he promptly withdrew one, saying his business would not permit him to be there more than two evenings. On the first, he instituted an argument on the conditions of salvation, to show that the keeping of any day is not one of them; he said it is conceded there is no commandment to keep Sunday, and it is no condition of salvation. On this, and regarding the first question, he consumed the whole evening. Seeing his evident object, to hastily run over all his proofs and historical statements at the close, without giving time to have them examined, I took up the New Testament and examined the texts which speak of the first day. He said the primary duty under the new dispensation is, to repent. When I showed that repentance is a relative duty, and that the existence of sin, of which to repent, proves the existence of the law, as the primary rule of obligation, he tried to make the audience believe that I had said that to sin was the first duty, and to repent a secondary duty. I felt it in place to sharply rebuke such dishonest quibbling, and it told strongly on the hearers. The next evening, as I anticipated, he read a few texts, and hastily went over the usual quotations from Barnabas, &c., &c. I showed by well-accredited authorities that some of his quotations were apocryphal, and others misconstrued, to make them teach to the purpose, and he made no effort to vindicate them. So far as could be determined from his course, I think he is utterly ignorant of the facts of history with which he pretended to deal. Had he stood to his agreement, and occupied the three evenings, I had histories present from which to fully prove the fallacy of his position. I had the privilege, however, of reading some good testimonies from the fathers, such as are kept from the people by the advocates of Sunday. Amongst his own people Eld. Vail has passed for a strong man. He is unusually strong in assertions, but not otherwise. He is one of that class, unfortunately too numerous, who pay no regard to the plainest Bible statements when they stand in his way. It is always trying to the feelings to be compelled to deal with such men; yet the discussion has done good. Some who had heard of him as an able man expected he would do something to uphold the Sunday; but he really overthrew it. He conceded everything that could be asked of him, before he took up the cause of Sunday at all. People generally suppose that it is a duty to keep Sunday, and not to keep it is to incur the displeasure of the Lord. But he destroyed all that by removing it entirely from the conditions of salvation. And many heard the reasons of our faith on the Sabbath as an institution dating from the creation, who were not aware that the foundation was so strong as it was then made to appear. Some have confessed that the Sabbath argument is much clearer to their minds than it ever before appeared. And some are reading with interest who had no interest before.