The Seventh Day Well Known.
THE following, which we copy from the Sabbath Memorial, was written by Edward Elwall, in 1738. It is an extract from "An Answer to the Dissertation of my beloved Brother, Thomas Chubb, concerning the Time for keeping a Sabbath." We preserve the quaint style of the original, both as to expression and capitalization, but the reader will see that Sabbatarians have not had to make any change in their argument in the last one hundred and fifty years. Now nothing can be more vain and quibbling, than pretending to doubt, and query which is the seventh Day, on which God rested at the Creation; and which he blessed, and sanctified, viz., set apart to be kept holy. Because thou must confess, that God certainly knew which was the seventh Day, from the Creation to that Time, when he gave the Law. And thou must own that the people knew which was the seventh Day: For, otherwise, God would have spoke unintelligibly to 'em, which I am sure, a man of thy Sense, will not so much as think, he being infinitely wise, and just, and good; and would not command them to keep a Day which they did not know. Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right? And now I have brought the certain knowledge of it down to two thousand five hundred Years at least, after the Creation, let me from thence bring it down to the Time wherein we live. No one will pretend, or suppose, that the Israelites could lose the Knowledge of the seventh Day, whilst they lived in Canaan: If there was any possibility of it, it must be in the Captivity. And yet nothing of this happened, nor ever was so much as pretended. For when Nehemiah returned from the Captivity, and saw some irreligious People leading Asses, with Sheaves, etc., on the Sabbath, he loudly exclaims at their prophaning the Sabbath-Day. And tells them, that these were some of the Sins, which caused God to send their Fathers into Captivity, and exhorts 'em not to provoke the Lord, by those Sins of prophaning the Sabbath; as the Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the rest, had warned them before. And long after this, in the Time of the Grecian Empire, we find by all the History of Maccabees, constant Testimonials of the Sabbath-Day, down to the Time of the Roman Empire. And then no Man was at any Loss to know which was the Sabbath-Day. The Prophet Jesus knew it as well, as the Prophet Moses did before. And told us the Sabbath was made for Man, not for Israel only, but for Mankind, as the Word Man there signifies. And all the Disciples, and Holy Women, that followed Christ through all his Preaching, and Suffering, and to his Death and Burial, they all knew which was the Day: And therefore on the sixth Day, they prepared Spices, and Ointments, and rested the Sabbath Day, according to the commandment. And early on the first Day, they went about their Work, carrying their Spices, Ointments, etc. And so did the Apostles travel quite to Emmaus on the first Day, and back again to Jerusalem, fifteen English Miles. But all of 'em knew the Sabbath, and preach'd every Sabbath Day, as one may see, by reading the 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, Chapters of Acts. Christ had taught 'em the same; for as his Custom was, he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath Day, so that he knew it well. The Apostle Paul did the same long after; as his Manner was, he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath Day. And from that Time, to this, all Nations that worship the true God, have known which is the seventh Day, yea, our own Parliament Rolls, even to this Day, call it Die Sabbati, the Sabbath Day. And the Jews, who are almost in every trading Nation under Heaven, do all know the seventh Day, and never were at any Loss to avow it, but continue to keep it in its constant Rotation to them in every different Longitude and Latitude where they live upon the Face of the Earth. Neither is it possible ever to be lost, because God hath said, while the World endureth, the Seed-time and Harvest, Summer and Winter, Heat and Cold, Day and Night, shall not cease. Therefore as Day and Night will never cease, so neither did, nor ever will the seventh Day, cease to be known, while the World endureth. For though the Heathens, who had forsaken the most High, thought Scorn of his Law, and forsook his Way; notwithstanding the Law perisheth not, but abideth in its Force. And though they have called the seventh Day, by their heathenish Name, Saturday, because they worshiped on that Day the Planet Saturn (as they call it), and have changed the Names of the first Day, second Day, third Day, fourth Day, fifth Day, sixth Day, which God gave them; and the Generality of People still chose to call 'em by their heathenish Names, rather than follow God, and call 'em by the Names that he gave them, and thereby seem to desire to darken the Light of God's holy Sabbath, because their Popes, and Prelates, and Priests, have hid their Eyes from God's Sabbath, and have set up a Day that they have devised out of their own Hearts, which neither God, nor his Prophets, Christ, nor his Apostles, ever commanded; yet God hath joined the seventh Day, and the Sabbath, together; and, as Christ said, in a like Case, What God hath joined together, let not Man put asunder.