HOW ARE THEY ANSWERED?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 4, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 43.

HOW ARE THEY ANSWERED?

WE take the following from a recent number of the Christian Statesman; the reader will notice that it is from the lips or pen of one of the leading Sunday advocates:—

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS ANSWERED.—Our opponents declare, “We are not satisfied with inferences and suppositions; show us where the first day is spoken of as holy, or as being observed instead of the seventh; we must have a direct and positive command of God.” We admit there is no such command. But if we are to be limited by such a demand, all of us shall soon find ourselves in a very entangling predicament. Let us point to one as an illustration. Polygamy is an institution recognized in the Old Testament. Its conditions were provided for by divine enactment. Now polygamy is utterly prohibited by the church, and it is a crime punished by the State. Yet there is no positive divine command recalling that permission of polygamy which was granted in the Old Testament. The Mormon can intrench himself behind the same breastwork of argument as that put up by the Seventh-day Baptists and the Seventh-day Adventists. He can triumphantly demand the text of Scripture which repeals polygamy. He, too, can claim that the State pronounces on the religious question when it legislates against his belief. Further, these Sabbatarians tell us, “If this change went on as you suppose, it is strange that the apostles do not speak of it.” To this we reply: The apostles preached in many heathen communities where infanticide and polygamy were common; but we have no record of anything they said against these grievous sins. Likewise with the institution of slavery. We have as much scriptural authority for the observance of the first day as we have for the abrogation of slavery. Therefore the demand of the Sabbatarian for a text of Scripture is a weapon of the boomerang sort, which flies back and hits them as severely as it strikes us.

—Rev. Geo. S. Mott, D.D., Acting President American Sabbath Union.

There are some points in the above to which we wish to call attention:—

1. Dr. Mott, and the Christian Statesman, evidently, as it quotes with approval his words, plainly say with reference to a divine command for first-day observance, “We admit there is no such command.” Good! Let it be remembered; and let not the fourth commandment be used to inculcate Sunday observance again.

2. Polygamy was one of those things which God suffered because of the blindness and hardness of the hearts of the people (Matt. 19:8); it was among the things of “the times of ignorance” which “God winked at” (Acts 17:30). And every law which seems to recognize the institution simply and rather recognized the rights of those who were victims of the institution, such as the wives and children. See Deut. 21:15–17. Never once has God given command that polygamy should be recognized, or even intimated that it was a divine institution. He simply recognized the rights of those who were compelled to submit to an institution which was contrary to the divine oracle, and the rights of those whose existence came through it. As evidence that it was not God’s order that man should have more than one wife, read the following scriptures: Gen. 1:27; 2:20–24; Matt. 19:4–6; Mark 10:5–9; Mal. 2:14–16; Eph. 5:31.

Every one of the above scriptures recognizes but the one wife. God made male and female, not male and females. “They twain,” “the two”—not the three or four or five—shall be one flesh. In the very ones to whom the people would look for an example, God expressly forbade polygamy. The king of Israel could not without disobeying God have more than one wife, for he should not “multiply wives to himself,” which command he would certainly transgress by taking more than one. The same restrictions are placed upon officers in the Christian church (1 Tim. 3:2, 12). If this was the case with those who ought to be examples in the faith, it is just as true on the part of those who should follow the examples. Much more might be said, but the above is sufficient to show that God never sanctioned polygamy. He never commanded it; all his commands were implicitly against the institution; he therefore needed not to repeal what he had never commanded.

3. It is just so with slavery. God recognized the rights of those who were in slavery; but he never commanded slavery. It was recognized, for the reason that it was held as part and parcel of the laws of governments which had not yielded to God, and therefore would not obey him. The truly converted nation, the nation which has the Spirit of Christ, will never hold slaves; but, in the nature of the case, the converted nation will never be, can never be, till God gathers home his holy nation one by one. God therefore overlooked their ignorance and blindness, and, as far as it was possible in the condition of the people, guarded the rights of those in slavery. Therefore, as God never commanded slavery, why should a demand be made for its abrogation? He cannot abrogate what has not been commanded. How God regards the relative position of men, how he shows that they are all on the same level, is shown by such scriptures as Deut. 16:17; Acts 10:34; Matt. 23:8-11; Acts 17:24, 26. These principles when received in the heart will utterly abolish every form of bondage.

As a similar instance of God's dealing with men, take his instructions in Deut. 17:14-20, regarding the qualifications and duties of a king. God gave these to guard his people from the tyranny which kings often exercise, but did he mean by this that he thought a king would be a good thing for them, and that it was of his order?—Not at all. Read how God regarded a king, in 1 Sam. 12:16-19. They rejected God's rule when they asked a king. See chap. 8:5-9. Yet God in his mercy did not cast them off; he guarded by the best of instruction those who were victims of unrighteous rule.

Yes, Seventh-day Adventists are "answered," but how are they answered? Why, two institutions are taken which God never commanded, which are in spirit against all his commandments, from which unrighteous institutions God guarded his people by the best laws the people would bear,—and concerning these institutions the Rev. Geo. S. Mott, D.D., asks for one text which shows that God has abrogated what he never gave!! Such "reasoning," such "logic," is the wickedest sophistry, which hides truth by words without knowledge. Oh, the pitiableness of it!

God has permitted slavery, just as he has permitted Sunday observance. The Mormon polygamist and the slave owner are paralleled by the Sunday keeper. The two former institutions were never given of God; they were and are against his law and nature; they have proved a curse to mankind; but God has never repealed them, because he never gave them. He has blessed both polygamist and slaveholder, not because of polygamy or slavery, but in spite of it, because of His mercy, in order to win erring man to the truth. The Sunday sabbath was never given of God; it was and is contrary to God's law; it has perverted his truth and ruined souls; but God has never repealed it, because he never gave it. God has blessed the Sunday keeper, not because he kept Sunday, but in spite of it, because of His mercy, in order to win erring man to the truth. But the seventh-day Sabbath God gave through Christ (Ex. 20:8-11; Mark 2:27, 28), and he has never abrogated his law. This is our answer. Dr. Mott is not skilled in boomerangs.