ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIVE STRIPES FOR FIRST-DAY-KEEPING.
By A. S. Hutchins
It is rather hard to believe that a Christian brother has been so severely treated for no other offense than observing the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath. And yet, a large audience who were listening to a sermon last Sunday in defense of Sunday-keeping, were so informed by the speaker. I had previously read of the whipping of this servant of the Lord, but had not learned the reason for it. The record stands thus: “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.” 2 Cor. 11:24. In this chapter, Paul is speaking of what one minister has called the apostle’s salary. In the same connection he says, “Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned.” In the book of the Acts of the Apostles, we have the account of the stoning of Paul, also the commandment of the magistrates to beat Paul and Silas. Where the proof comes in that these five separate whippings were for first-day keeping we were not told. May it not be found in Acts 16, where we read: “These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans”? And if so, is not the first-day Sabbath “Jewish” as well as the seventh-day? If the fact that the pious Jew kept the Sabbath of the Lord made that day Jewish, would not the observance of the first-day by this great apostle from that people render this day Jewish? But seriously, who ever heard or thought of this before? The preacher had come to town to show that the ten commandments were abolished, and that first-day keeping arose in triumph over their ruins. And this declaration respecting the reason why Paul was whipped was filed in as an evidence in behalf of the first-day Sabbath in the days of Paul. Let any one who did not hear this sermon take this reckless statement as a measuring rod, applying it to the arguments and strong statements against the law of God, and he will have a fair idea of the efforts made and the dish served in Marshfield, Vt., against our views on the law and Sabbath. By the kindness of the Universalists, their house was secured and the sermon reviewed immediately, before a large audience, it being too wet to come to the tent. Had this minister stated that there is no doubt but that Paul would have been whipped and imprisoned for keeping the first-day, had he kept it, he would have been safe in the expression. Paul’s testimony is: “So worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things written in the law and in the prophets.” “Saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come.” “Though I have committed nothing against the people or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.” Did Paul keep the first-day?