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More Confusion

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · May 20, 1875

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 1, No. 28.

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More Confusion.

By R. F. Cottrell

THOSE who have the truth are in harmony with each other. They do not have a thousand discordant and contradictory reasons for their faith and practice. The reason is, truth is ready made, and all they have to do is to accept it as it is; and therefore their inventive faculties are not taxed to find a reason for their position. They are thoroughly furnished with all that is necessary in the word of God.
The enemies of the Lord's Sabbath, on the contrary, are in confusion. The builders of Babel were never more so. Each advocate of error adds a little to the confusion. As an example, I give some extracts from a short article on the Sabbath by M. G. in the World's Crisis, as follows:—
"Jesus and his disciples were doing that which was a violation of the Sabbath law, hence the inquiry, 'Why do they on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful?'"
There is nothing new in this. The enemies of the Sabbath are wont to take sides with the enemies and accusers of Christ, thus making him a sinner—a transgressor, or violator of the law—and this before the time when they claim that he took it out of the way, that is, at the cross. The evidence of the guilt of the blessed Saviour and his disciples they find in the accusation of their enemies: "Why do they on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful?" If they would permit the Lord Jesus to take the witness' stand, they would find him testifying that the accusers of his disciples had "condemned the GUILTLESS," and that "it is LAWFUL to do well on the Sabbath days." Matt. 12 : 7-10.
That which is lawful is according to the law. The question between Christ and his accusers was the lawfulness of what the disciples did in the presence, and under the sanction of the Master. The accusers claimed that it was "not lawful." Jesus affirmed that it was, and that consequently they had condemned the guiltless. Which shall we believe? M. G. coolly says, "JESUS and his disciples were doing that which was a violation of the Sabbath law." We give further quotations from his article as follows:—
"The sacredness of any day consists in the manner of keeping it. We are acquainted with no one who keeps the Sabbath day in harmony with the regulations given by the Lord in the time of Moses. If that is the one to be kept now, it should be kept now as then."
"The Lord worked six days during the creation week, and then rested the seventh day. This is the general law regulating man's rest-day. After working six days of twenty-four hours each, like his Creator, then he should rest the next twenty-four hours."
"There is no evidence that Adam observed the same day kept by the Creator. In fact, he could not do it without violating the established rest-day law, which requires six days' labor to precede the day of rest. When, it is said, 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,' the obvious meaning is that God did not make man to keep some particular day of rest, but that man, after laboring six days, would need a Sabbath day to advance his own welfare. Whoever works six days, beginning with either day of the week, and rests the seventh, commemorates the creation week, and the following rest-day."
In these quotations I have followed copy in the use of italics. It will be noticed that in the first he emphasizes the manner of keeping the Sabbath, and gravely argues that if the same Sabbath is now kept, it must be kept in the same manner. But he sees no one doing this. Therefore, he leaves the reader to infer for a certainty that as no one is keeping the Sabbath as it was anciently required to be kept, the day kept now must of necessity be some other day. What logic! How convincing! It would certainly be convenient to us to have the new day revealed, together with the manner of keeping it. But we need not be discouraged because such a revelation is not. Our author tells us there is a "general law" regulating the keeping of the Sabbath, which is to work six days and then rest the seventh. Is no one doing this? And does the fact that no one is, necessitate the conclusion that the day is changed?
But G. tells us that Adam "could not" observe "the same day kept by the Creator," without violating the established rest-day law, which requires six days' labor to precede the day of rest. And as man was created on the sixth day, he thinks that should not be counted as his first working day, but that he must have commenced work on the seventh day, the very day on which God rested, and so Adam's first Sabbath would be on the sixth day in the order of the creation week. It may seem strange that the author of the fourth commandment should set his "man servant" to work on the same day on which he was resting. But of necessity he must work that day, so that of necessity he must rest on another day, the sixth, otherwise he would violate the established day law.
Other first-day writers with equal assurance have told us that at the Exodus God set the Sabbath back one day, for the particular use of the Jews, and set it forward again one day for the use of Christians. And thus they claim that the "Christian Sabbath" is the original seventh day. But G. has equal claim to credence; therefore, as the day has been twice set back to the preceding day, it must be set forward one day more to place it upon the original Sabbath, the Sabbath of the Lord.
But let us lay two of G.'s assertions together. He makes it necessary for man to work just six days, and then rest the seventh, else he will violate the Sabbath law. Again he represents that whoever rests one day after working six, "beginning with either day of the week," truly keeps the Sabbath in accordance with the commandment. Put these two propositions together and it amounts to this: Every person must of necessity keep that day which is the seventh from the time that he as an individual begins to labor, or violate the established law for keeping the Sabbath; therefore, different men must keep different days for the Sabbath, or violate the law, unless they do their first work on a particular day of the week. How careful parents should be to have their children do their first work on Monday! Otherwise they cannot keep Sunday without violating the Sabbath law!
Is the reader satiated with such puerility put forward as grave argument in a subject involving the honor of God and obedience to him? Then turn with me to the grand and majestic facts as stated in divine revelation. 1. "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day." The fact that he rested on that particular day made it the rest-day, or Sabbath day of the Lord. 2. "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work." The sanctification of the day of his rest separated it, or set it apart from the "six working days," making all future seventh days a memorial of the one on which God rested. 3. This is the day that he has commanded all men to remember and keep holy, not doing their own work upon it. Man is to rest on that day, because that God rested on it. "After making all things in six days, he 'rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day [i. e., the day of his rest], and sanctified it." All this is worthy of a God, and yet suited, or I might say, because it is suited to the capacity of a child. Reader, will you honor the word of the Lord, rather than the silly and blasphemous sophisms by which men attempt to set it aside.
R. F. COTTRELL.