CONFUSION ON THE SUNDAY QUESTION.
By A. S. Hutchins
On the presentation of the Sabbath truth at Cabot, a goodly number followed the example of David as recorded in Psalms 119:60, while others waited to hear the other side. And if error on the Sabbath question were not a hydra-headed monster, we should say, They have had a chance to hear all sides by the present time. The Congregationalist minister preached a sermon for the benefit of his hearers one Sunday in the forenoon after we left there. In the P. M. of the same day, Eld. Forrest, Methodist minister, of the same village, preached on the Sabbath question. He taught, in harmony with the Methodist discipline, that the ten commandments are all binding, that the first day should be kept by Christians, though the fourth commandment requires no definite day further than the day following any six days of labor. This, of course, set the matter at rest with those that loved to have it so. Within one mile of there, the same day, Eld. Thurber set the question at rest among the Adventist brethren, or tried to, coming to the desired point in altogether another way. He taught the abolition of the ten commandments and the existence of the Sunday Sabbath. So to a class, both Bro. Forrest and Bro. Thurber have it right, and we are wrong, notwithstanding we hold to the perpetuity of the law of God as a whole, just as do the Methodists. But if there was any lack in the total destruction of the law of God, up to a few days prior to our leaving Marshfield, it may be said to have been accomplished here at that time, if it could be done. Eld. Morse, a professed Adventist, came to town to instruct the people. His attack upon “the old dead law” was “dreadful and terrible,” devouring and breaking in pieces, and stamping it under his feet. Why should this minister, who is a member of the Christian denomination, feel so terribly about the law, and why talk so loftily about it? What harm has it ever done him? He affirmed that the Sabbath could not be traced this side of the birth of Christ, as the generation of the Jews there ran out. Between this period and the cross, five of the commandments were re-enacted. Matt. 19:18, 19. He said that Christ here told the young man all that is necessary to salvation. Christ said nothing about the Sabbath, hence this was not binding. The elder did not observe that Christ said nothing about first-day keeping, hence that could not be binding. Then again the law was abolished at the cross, and finally Paul takes the law and in his letter to the Romans shows that it is abolished. Now it seems the carnal mind might rest; for since that no law has been given. But in spite of all the contradictory positions of the first-day supporters, this charitable institution, which “beareth all things,” lives. It lives, whether the ten commandments are all abolished or are all binding. Like an over-dosed and over-drugged patient, who lives notwithstanding the efforts of physicians, so lives the Sunday Sabbath, notwithstanding the strange work of the doctors of divinity to support it. Everywhere and always, without respect to the reign of darkness, error, and confusion, the venerable day of the sun rears its head and cries, Behold I am here. When will ministers learn that “the priest’s lips should keep knowledge”?