HOW I CAME TO KEEP THE SABBATH.
By James Hardy
In the fall of A. D. 1877, I located in Afton, Union Co., Iowa, among a few Seventh-day Adventists. To gratify my curiosity and to learn the truth, if they had it, I attended their meetings of worship. The first thing I took notice of was their Christian energy and Christian devoutness. There were four other churches in town, and occasionally I attended all of them. I took notice of the marked difference there was in dress and ornament between the Adventists and the other worshiping congregations. I made up my mind that if the outward adorning would take people to Heaven they would all go there except the Adventists. I made up my mind also, that if there was any virtue in the keeping of the commandments of God, (which constitutes the inward adorning,) the Adventists had show for that. Nevertheless, I perceived that outward adorning among them which is disapproved in the law of the Lord. I hope they will take this thing into consideration, and so arrange their toilet as to conform to God’s requirements, and make that distinction to the world between the saint and the sinner which the commandments of God and the Christian virtues and graces require. I, firstly, made it a specialty to investigate their claim to the seventh day as being the Sabbath. For this purpose I read about three thousand pages. In the Bible, in the book of Genesis 2:3, I found God blessed the seventh day and set it apart as a day of rest. In the 20th chapter of Exodus [2,513 years from the time the Sabbath was instituted], I find it was incorporated into the ten commandments, written by the finger of God on the tables of stone and given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Thus it reads verbatim as given by the hand of God: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Thus I perceived that the Sabbath had stood good for 2,513 years. A little further on in the book of Exodus, beginning with the 12th verse of the 31st chapter, we read that “the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you. Every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done, but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy, to the Lord; whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.” Again we read in Lev. 19:1, 2: “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy. Ye shall fear every man his mother and father, and keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.” We are now far away from its origin, but the Sabbath is yet kept good, or in other words, the command yet stands in full force. In the 30th verse of this same 19th chapter we have the injunction again; “Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.” In the 16th chapter of Exodus, beginning with the 16th verse, I found the injunction very strenuously given to the Israelites in the wilderness to observe the Sabbath to keep it holy. A synopsis of it I will give. It will be remembered that God miraculously fed the children of Israel forty years in the wilderness on manna. A sufficient quantity of this bread food for one day’s use fell on five nights in succession, and on the sixth night a double quantity fell, so as to last over the Sabbath. This shows the respect God had for his rest day. Of this manna the Israelites were commanded to gather daily supplies during the five days, and on the sixth a double supply. So they had it on hand for the seventh day. When I took into consideration that God in heaven was keeping the Sabbath, what, thought I, can the end be of those on earth who keep it not? I had been brought up to strictly keep Sunday as the Sabbath, and I never had a thought but all was right in that respect, until, in the providence of God, I fell in here with a society of Seventh-day Adventists. And here, with this people, for the first time in my life, did I have the conviction that the Sabbath was kept in Heaven. But here it is just as plain that it is observed in Heaven as it is that it is observed on earth. No manna fell on the Sabbath-day: “Moses said to them, six days shall ye gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day.” I could but be astonished with myself, that in occasionally reading this, for the last half century, I had never before realized the strictness of the Sabbath, both in Heaven and on earth. It was at this age of the world more than twenty-five hundred years after the Sabbath was instituted, and eight hundred and sixty-eight years past the flood; and yet the observance of the Sabbath was rigidly enforced; so much so that Moses told the Israelites that the Lord hath said, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord; bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over, lay up for you to be kept until the morning.” And in Lev. 23:3, the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, “Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation: ye shall do no work therein; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.” And again in the 13th chapter of Nehemiah, beginning with the 15th verse, I read the reprimand Nehemiah gave for breach of the Sabbath in Jerusalem. He says, “In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day; and I testified against them in the day wherein they sold victuals. There dwelt men of Tyre also therein, which brought fish, and all manner of ware, and sold on the Sabbath unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath.” From the Old Testament I passed into the New. In Acts 13:14, 15, and 27, I found it was a practice to read a portion of the law and the prophets every Sabbath day. And again in Acts 16:13 it is told that prayer was wont to be made by a river side on the Sabbath day. This occurrence being 53 years in the Christian era, shows that the Sabbath of the Lord is yet observed, and is yet as obligatory as it ever was. A very strict observance of it is brought to view in the 23d chapter of Luke and last verse, and in the beginning of the next chapter. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is spoken of. And as he was crucified on Friday, it is said, “That day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on.” And it is also said that the women which prepared spices and ointments for the embalming of the body of Jesus rested on the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Then it followed that on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared. The strict observance of the Sabbath is very manifest here. Here the Marys, notwithstanding they loved Him who was crucified most dearly, made no attempt to embalm him until the Sabbath was passed away. But the thought is overwhelming when we take into consideration that the immaculate Son of God, who is Lord of the Sabbath, as though to keep the Sabbath, should rest on that day in the tomb, and the work of the resurrection not be exercised until the Sabbath was past. In view of this circumstance, and that of withholding the fall of manna on the Sabbath, who can say that the Sabbath is not kept in Heaven? There is much scripture in the New Testament to show that Christ and his apostles preached on the Sabbath days. Luke, speaking of Christ in his 4th chapter, says, “And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read.” In Acts 18:4, it is said that Paul reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. To quote all the places where the Sabbath is spoken of would be supererogation; for it is found one hundred and six times in the Old Testament and sixty times in the New. Of this number, one hundred and forty times reference is had to the seventh day weekly Sabbath, and twenty-six times to the festival days, sabbaths of the land, and those local sabbaths, which expired by limitation, and ceased at the cross. The next thing that I looked for was the change; how it became changed from the seventh day to the first day of the week. The first clue to it that I found was in the second volume of Mosheim’s commentaries, on the 470th page. This law was enacted in A. D. 321. Says Eld. J. H. Waggoner: “We admit that Constantine did not institute the first day of the week as the Sabbath, for neither he nor any other person had called it Sabbath at that time. He enforced it under the venerable name of the sun (sun’s day—Sunday).” The emperor Constantine at the time, being a pagan himself, threw around it the protection of law. And Alexander Campbell says this was the first protection of the kind it had ever received. Mosheim says here Constantine, “Who does not know that in those times many others also combined the worship of Christ with that of the ancient gods, whom they regarded as the ministers of the Supreme God in the government of human and earthly affairs?” That an amalgamation of paganism, papacy, and Christianity has prevailed from that time to this, who can deny? Symmachus ascended the pontifical throne in Rome A. D. 498, and reigned sixteen years. He received adulations as successor to St. Peter. The flatterers of the pope maintained that he was judge in the place of God, and Vicegerent of the Most High. Catholicism became predominant in A. D. 508, and carried on a successful war against the civil authorities of the empire and the Church of the East; 65,000 of the heretics were slain. It seems to be clear that paganism was overruled at this date, 508; so says Mr. Croly, page 311. See “Thoughts on Daniel,” by U. Smith. And Mr. Croly further says, “I found the whole detail of Justinian’s grants of supremacy to the pope formally given. The entire transaction was of the most authentic and regular kind, and suitable to the importance of the transfer. Such were the circumstances attending the decree of Justinian.”