Some One-Thousand-Dollar Reasons for Keeping Sunday.
By J.
Our readers have seen Mr. Waffle’s, and the American Sunday-school Union’s, one-thousand-dollar reasons for disregarding and abandoning the plain precept to observe the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord. There yet remains to be noticed the reason why the first day of the week is kept. Mr. Waffle tells us that the apostles “were led to observe the first day of the week as the Sabbath, and gradually to abandon the seventh by a variety of occurrences which seemed to them to warrant the change, and which, when carefully studied, leave no doubt in our minds that they acted in accordance with the divine intention.” But how Mr. Waffle knows that these things seemed to the apostles to warrant the change, he nowhere tells us. And, as the apostles themselves have nowhere said a word on the subject, we have no confidence in Mr. Waffle’s imagination of motives which he attributes to them. Of these “occurrences” he says:— “The first of them was the resurrection of our Lord. Each of the evangelists mentions very particularly the fact that this took place upon the first day of the week, showing that they felt it important to mark the day. . . . But they might not have given the day the prominence they did if Christ had not distinguished it, by choosing it for most of his appearances to them and other disciples. On the same day on which he arose, he appeared no less than five times. . . . But the fact that Christ rose on that day and manifested himself so often to the disciples, would not necessarily imply a purpose on his part to honor it, had it not been for subsequent occurrences.”—Pp. 192–194. Here it is admitted that our knowledge of the purpose of Christ to honor the first day of the week depends upon occurrences other than his resurrection, and upon occurrences after those of that same day. Therefore, if these “subsequent occurrences” should not be what Mr. Waffle claims, then the fact stands confessed that we have nothing that implies a purpose of Christ to put honor on the first day of the week. Now the first of these subsequent occurrences he relates as follows:— “For six days he did not appear to them at all, so far as the record shows; but on the eighth day, or, as we should say, on the seventh day afterwards, he appeared to the eleven as they were gathered in a closed room.”—P. 194. But there is no such record as that he appeared to his disciples “on the eighth day.” The reference here is, of course, to John 20:26, which reads: “And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.” And when Inspiration has written “after eight days,” we should like to know by what right, or rule, it is that Mr. Waffle reads “on the eighth day,” and then, not satisfied with that, gives it another turn and reads, “as we should say on the seventh day afterward.” “On what meat doth this our Caesar feed that he is grown so great” that he can thus boldly manipulate the words of Inspiration? And what can a cause be worth that can be sustained only by resort to such unworthy shifts? It is true that Mr. Waffle quotes the clause from Canon Farrar, but we deny the right of Canon Farrar, or any other man, just as much as we deny the right of Mr. Waffle, to so manipulate the word of God. And it is one of the strongest evidences of the utter weakness of the Sunday cause that, to sustain it, such a consummate scholar as Canon Farrar is obliged to change the plain word of God. But some one may ask: Will not the Greek bear the construction that is thus given to the text? We say, No, emphatically. The words exactly as John wrote them, using English letters in place of Greek letters, are these, “Kai meth, hemeras okto,” and is, word for word, in English, “And after days eight.” These are the very words that were penned by the beloved disciple, exactly as he penned them, by the Spirit of God; and when any man, we care not who he may be, changes them so as to make them read “on the eighth day,” or “on the seventh day afterward,” he is guilty of deliberately changing the word of God, as it was written by his own inspired apostle. And no cause can be the cause of God that is dependent for its support upon a change of the truth of God. The next occurrence is the claim that Pentecost was on the first day of the week. But even though it were admissible that Pentecost was on Sunday, the word of God is still silent about the first day of the week being thereby set apart and made the Sabbath. And so long as we have only the opinions of men, and these opinions only the fruit of their own wishes, and these wishes supported only by their own imaginations, that Sunday is the Sabbath, or the Lord’s day, so long we have the right to deny the truth of it, and to stand upon the “plain precept” of God, which, as Mr. Waffle says, “directs” that “the seventh day of the week” shall be kept holy. “The Christians, at a very early date, were accustomed to hold their religious meetings on that day. The custom seems to have been begun a week from the day of the resurrection (John 20:26), though a single instance of the kind would not make this certain. But there can be no doubt concerning their habit at a later date. We read in Acts, ‘Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them.’ The plain implication of these words is that it was the custom of Christians to meet on that day for the Lord’s Supper.”—Pp. 197, 198. Notice that he says of this “custom” that “a single instance of the kind would not make this certain.” Now it is a fact as clear as the word of God can make it, that the instance in John 20:26 was not on the first day of the week. It is likewise a fact that, so far as the word of God tells, the meeting recorded in Acts 20:7 is the only religious meeting ever held on the first day of the week. This, then, being the one single instance of the kind, and as “a single instance of the kind” would not make it certain that it was the custom; therefore it is plainly proved that there is nothing that would make it certain that it was the custom for the apostles to hold meetings on the first day of the week. Well, then, it seems to us that service that has for its authority only a custom about which there is nothing certain, is most certainly an unsafe foundation upon which to rest the reason for disregarding the plain precept of Jehovah. Reader, we want something more substantial than that to stand upon when every work shall be brought into the Judgment. Next Mr. Waffle quotes 1 Cor. 16:2: “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store,” etc., and says:— “It is evident that Paul desires them to bring in their offerings week by week and leave them in the hands of the proper church officers.” It is certainly evident that if that is what Paul desires he took the poorest kind of a way to tell it. Just think of it, Paul desires that Christians shall bring their offerings week by week and leave them in the hands of the proper church officers. And so, that his desires may be fulfilled, he tells them, “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store.” That is, each one is to lay by him his offerings, by leaving them in the hands of somebody else! And such are these one-thousand-dollar reasons for keeping Sunday. There is one more; he says:— “John speaks of this as ‘the Lord’s day.’ He says, ‘I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.’ If he had meant the Sabbath, he would have called it by that name. His expression is analogous to ‘the Sabbath of the Lord,’ which we find in the Old Testament; but it cannot mean the same day.”—P. 199. And why not, pray? “Analogous” means “correspondent; similar; like.” Now if the expression “the Lord’s day” is correspondent to; if it is similar to; if it is like the expression “the Sabbath of the Lord,” then why is it that it cannot mean the same day? Oh, we have Mr. A. E. Waffle’s one-thousand-dollar fiat that it cannot. Christ said, “The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.” The day of which Christ is Lord, and that day alone, is the Lord’s day. But the day of which he was speaking, when he said those words, is the seventh day. He had not the slightest reference to any other day. He was speaking of the day which the Pharisees regarded as the Sabbath, which everybody knows was the seventh day of the week. Therefore, when “he said unto them,” “The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day,” it was with sole reference to the seventh day. God had said, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord,” and now when, with sole reference to the seventh day, Christ says, “The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath,” it shows that the seventh day, and that alone, is the Lord’s day. Here we shall present a series of syllogisms, and anybody in this wide world is at full liberty to find any flaw in them. MAJOR PREMISE: “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28. MINOR PREMISE: “The seventh day is the Sabbath.” Ex. 20:10. CONCLUSION: Therefore, the Son of man is Lord of the seventh day. Just as surely as the Scripture is true so surely is this conclusion true. Then using this conclusion as a major, we form a MAJOR PREMISE: The Son of man is Lord of the seventh day. MINOR PREMISE: The day of which he is Lord is the Lord’s day. CONCLUSION: Therefore, the seventh day is the Lord’s day. Now with this conclusion as a major, we form our MAJOR PREMISE: The seventh day is the Lord’s day. MINOR PREMISE: John says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” Rev. 1:10. CONCLUSION: John was in the Spirit on the seventh day.313 There, if there is any flaw anywhere in that, we shall be glad to have some one point it out. We shall not, however, offer a prize of one thousand dollars to have it pointed out, because we haven’t a thousand dollars; but we will, and by these presents we now do, offer a one-thousand-dollar-prize—essay, to the Committee of Publication, or to the Board of the American Sunday-school Union, or to Mr. A. E. Waffle, if they, or either of them, will point out a flaw in the above series of syllogisms. We promise to give their manuscripts “a painstaking and protracted examination,” and to send the grand prize—essay by return mail. We can assure them that the essay which we offer is worth $1,000, especially to the Union, for the Union paid $1,000 for it. J.