p. 67 | MR. CRAFTS' FALLACIES

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

MR. CRAFTS' FALLACIES.

IN the Christian Statesman of November 18, 1893, the editor, Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, has an article entitled "Fallacies of Saturday-keepers." We wish to notice three points. Says the Statesman:—

The first day of the week, say they, has no authority but the Roman Catholic Church. For proof they cite whole pages to that effect from the Roman Catholic Church, which they count infallible only on this one point where their argument is habitually rested on Roman Catholic support.

In reply we simply wish to state again, what we have before said so many times, that the prophecies of God's word (Dan. 7: 25; 2 Thess. 2:3-8; Rev. 13: 4-8) have predicted the very criminal which would attempt to change God's law, and Roman Catholic testimony is simply brought forward as the unwitting confession of the criminal to the crime. That the criminal would claim justification of his deed is only natural, and so that church claims to have done its work instructed by Jesus Christ, or by the Holy Spirit, or through the apostles. All this has no bearing on the case at all. The Spirit of God said that an attempt would be made to change God's law in the matter of time, and the Roman Catholic Church apart from that word says, I am the one that made that change. That she would falsely claim divine power to do this is also predicted in the prophecy.

But this is not the only evidence which Seventh-day Adventists have presented. For years the "History of the Sabbath," by Andrews, has been before the public; and that history gives an abundance of historical testimony apart from the Roman Church. They have published a little pamphlet, No. 90 of the Bible Students' Library, entitled "Origin of Sunday Observance in the Christian Church" (price 15 cents), which bases the whole argument on Protestant testimony. Our new tract on "Who Changed the Sabbath?" No. 107 of Bible Students' Library, gives not only the testimony of Roman Catholics, but of reputable Protestant authorities, as to the change of the day. We commend the reading of these to Mr. Crafts, and we commend their widest circulation by the friends of the Sabbath.

Again says the Statesman:—

Another favorite theory of Seventh-day Adventists is that if the United States Government should pass a law against Sunday trains and mails it would be necessary to go forward in "religious legislation" until the government at last would define true religion and persecute all who fell short of its standard. Now all this "almighty-must-be-ity" of prophecy is refuted by history, for we have always had laws in defense of our national Christian institutions, and they have not led to any official surveillance of religion. What such laws have not caused in the States, there is no reason to expect they will cause in the nation.

But this is not a theory of Seventh-day Adventists. Richard M. Johnson, in a report adopted by the United States Senate in January, 1829, said on this very matter:—

If this principle [legislating on a matter of religious controversy] is once introduced, it will be impossible to define its bounds. . . . Extensive religious combinations to effect a political object are, in the opinion of the committee, always dangerous. This first effort of the kind calls for the establishment of a principle which, in the opinion of the committee, would lay the foundation for dangerous innovations upon the spirit of the Constitution, and upon the religious rights of the citizens. If admitted, it may be justly apprehended that the future measures of the government will be strongly marked, if not eventually controlled, by the same influence. All religious despotism commences by combination and influence; and when that influence begins to operate upon the political institutions of a country, the civil power soon bends under it; and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequence.

If the principle is once established that religion, or religious observance, shall be interwoven with our legislative acts, we must pursue it to its ultimatum.

Says Gibbon ("Decline and Fall of Roman Empire," chap. 37, par. 23, part 5):—

It is incumbent on the authors of persecution previously to reflect whether they are determined to support it in the last extreme. They excite the flame which they strive to extinguish; and it soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy as well as the crime of the offender. The fine which he is unable or unwilling to discharge, exposes his person to the severity of the law; his contempt of light penalties suggests the use and propriety of capital punishment.

Much, very much, more might be quoted from the best of men. See Macaulay's essay on Gladstone, and the expressed determinations of Sunday-law people demonstrated in their persecutions of Sabbath keepers in Tennessee and Maryland. But these evidences are not needed by observing minds. Our country has already entered upon the career of religious despotism. The dignity of the government will at last demand the visitation of the death penalty upon those who deny its blasphemous assumptions, but who walk blamelessly before God. Persecution is always the ultimatum of religious legislation; and this is what Mr. Crafts and his associates are demanding.

One more of his utterances:—

Just as Seventh-day Adventists read "United States Government" in Revelation where the Bible says "the third beast," so they insist on calling "the seventh day" after six days of work in the fourth commandment, the seventh day of the week, adding the last three words, which are neither included nor implied in the Bible text.

"The seventh day" of the fourth commandment of the Decalogue is "the seventh day of the week." Proof: (1) "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;" (2) the Sabbath comes just before the first day of the week:—

"In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, to see the sepulcher." Matt. 28: 1.

"And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun." Mark 16:1, 2.

"And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them." Luke 23: 56; 24: 1.

(3) The day just before "the first day of the week" is "the seventh day of the week," and that Inspiration declares to be the Sabbath "according to the commandment."

Upon such "arguments" as the above, from Mr. Crafts, is builded the entire Sunday fabric, and the saddest thing about it is that so many believe them without looking further. Seventh-day Adventists make no claim concerning the Sabbath of the Decalogue which cannot be proved by evidence from God's word, and this is admitted by first-day observers. May the friends of the truth let their light shine.