THE LINK IS STILL MISSING.
By W.
A VERY zealous defender of the first-day sabbath has unearthed the following. It is not new, but it is just as good as new, for its extreme thinness has hindered its being used very much:— "Consider a few facts as to why the Jewish Christians did not immediately give up the observance of the seventh day. How carefully and gradually Jesus unfolded his new doctrines, even to the chosen apostles. To the multitude he spoke only in parables, 'as they were able to hear it.' Mark 4:33. Had Jesus at once and plainly told the people the radical change which he had come to make in the Jewish system of worship, they would have killed him immediately. Even the apostles would have been horrified, and doubtless would all have left him. During all the ministry of our Lord, nothing stands out more prominently than the fact that he was gradually but cautiously preparing the minds of his disciples for the great change which his gospel was destined to make in the worship of God. . . . Just before Jesus died, he said: 'I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.' John 16:12, 13." Well, now, what a pity that, after spending the three years and a half of his ministry in "cautiously preparing the minds of his disciples for the great change which his gospel was destined to make in the worship of God," he did not once even so much as intimate to them what that change was to be! Surely this was an excess of caution. True, indeed, he spoke to the multitude in parables, but to his own disciples he spoke plainly. Many things he said to them that would not have been listened to by the mass of the Jews. But he gave his disciples the following commands and exhortation, which would insure that everything that he said should have the widest publicity:— "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Matt. 28:19, 20. "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? Fear them not therefore; for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops." Matt. 10:25-27. It is certain that the disciples followed this counsel, for but a few weeks after the resurrection, Peter stood before the entire Jewish Sanhedrim, and boldly charged those men with the murder of Jesus. When threatened with imprisonment and stripes, the apostles plainly told the Jews that they should743pay no attention to their commands not to preach, but should obey God rather than men. And that they did proclaim all that they had learned of Jesus, is shown by the words of Paul, who, like the rest, had seen the Lord and learned of him. To the Ephesian elders he said: "I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you;" "wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." Acts 20:20, 26, 27. This he did in the face of death, showing that he was not deterred by fear, yet never a word did he say about the change of the Sabbath. Why this silence on so important a subject? If anything more were needed to show that a disregard for the law of God is always accompanied by a low estimate of Christ's character and work, it is shown in the statement that Christ refrained from telling the Jews about the change of the Sabbath, for fear that they would kill him. Such a base charge could not be made except by one whose disregard for the law has blunted all his finer sensibilities. The idea that Jesus, who came to earth for the express purpose of giving his life for man, should, through fear of man, keep back part of his message, is too absurd for sober comment. Read the eighth chapter of John, and learn how he called the Jews liars and murderers, and charged them with being children of the devil; read the denunciations in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew, and then try to imagine him cowering before their hard looks, to the extent that he would not tell them necessary truth. Such an imputation indicates that the one making it regards Christ as less than man. It is indeed true that Jesus said that he had many things to say which the disciples could not then bear; but if the change of the Sabbath was one of those things, how does it happen that the Holy Spirit did not reveal it, so that it could appear in some of the writings of the apostles? Is it claimed that the Holy Spirit did gradually lead the church into Sunday-keeping? Where is the proof? If the church was gradually led to that practice, it must be that at first only a very few were led to that practice. Where are their credentials? What have they to show that they were led by the Spirit more than others? Nothing but their own assertion, even as "the church" can give nothing but its own assertion to show that it is led by the Spirit in its practice of Sunday-keeping. But if we are to believe every man who claims to be led by the Spirit, we shall have to accept all the errors that flood the earth. No, we will "try the spirits, whether they are of God," and we can try them by nothing except the law and the testimony. It would seem as though the frantic efforts of the Sunday advocates to find something to support their cause, ought in itself to be sufficient to show thinking persons its inherent weakness. Never did evolutionists search more eagerly for the "missing link" than do the advocates for Sunday for some direct evidence to show that the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week. They have no doubt but that the change was made, only both Jesus and his apostles neglected to say anything about it. We appeal to candid people, who desire to know and obey the truth, if the fact that the Bible nowhere mentions the change of the Sabbath, nor intimates that any change was made, nor commands anybody to keep the first day of the week, is not sufficient evidence that the Sabbath never was changed by divine authority, and that the Lord did not design that anybody should ever keep the first day of the week. Shall we be Bible Christians? If not, can we be Christians at all? Two separate French writers of note have recently made the statement that "in these times it is no longer the church which influences society, but that society influences the church." This is said of Protestantism. The Christian at Work remarks that "doubtless they are right now;" and adds that "it is, unfortunately, too true that the church everywhere is too much inclined to compromise with the world."