Sunday Not the True Seventh Day.
By John Nevins Andrews
BETWEEN Mr. F. and Dr. A., the whole truth respecting the original Sabbath is confessed; yet each connects with that part of the truth which he confesses, sufficient error to completely drown it. And each sees the errors of the other, and denies them. Thus, Mr. Fuller states that the original week began with Sunday and ended with Saturday; which week, he teaches, has come down to us. This is a very important truth. But he drowns it in an ocean of error, by saying, (1), That the first six days of Genesis were not admitted into the original week, (2), That God's rest day was the first day of man's week, (3), That the week thus began with God's seventh day, and ended with his sixth. Thus Mr. F. states two very important truths, and hides them under three strange errors. But Dr. Akers is just the counterpart of Mr. F. He says: The week began with the first day of creation, and thus the Sabbath came upon the seventh day of Adam's week. And so God's seventh day and Adam's seventh day were one and the same. But he covers up these precious truths with an error equally as pernicious as those of Mr. Fuller. Thus he teaches: The first day of the week was Monday, and the seventh day, Sunday. Between the two, however, the whole truth is confessed, and all the errors of both are denied. Thus the truth is acknowledged: 1. The original week began with the first day of creation, and ended with the rest-day of the Creator. Adam's week corresponded to this.—Akers. 2. Adam's weeks began with Sunday, and ended with Saturday.—Fuller. 3. This week has come down to us unchanged in its reckoning.—Fuller. 4. The seventh day of Adam's week is still sacredly binding upon all mankind.—Akers. Thus Mr. Fuller corrects the error of Dr. Akers that Sunday is the seventh day of the original week; and Dr. Akers shows no countenance to Fuller's idea that the first six days of Genesis were not counted in the first week; nor to the idea that the week began with the rest-day of the Lord. According to Dr. Akers, we should observe the seventh day of that week which God gave Adam; which day, according to Fuller, is Saturday, and which week, according to the same writer, has come down to us unchanged. Mr. F. is an outspoken first-day man. Dr. A., on the contrary, is a most decided seventh-day man. Both, however, are earnest champions of Sunday as the true Sabbath. Mr. F. vindicates it on the ground that it is the genuine first day of the week; Dr. A. maintains it because it is the only day that has any right to the designation of seventh day of the week. What is remarkable, Dr. A. vindicates his Sunday-seventh day by an exact count of the days; and Mr. F., who cites this reckoning as reliable, uses it to establish his own theory that Sunday is the first day of the week, and is not the seventh. When the same set of figures can be made to sustain two diverse positions, we may justly suspect some error in the use of the figures, or some slight of hand and cunning craftiness in the matter somewhere. Let us see how Mr. F. establishes his first day of the week. We shall find it a costly operation on his part; yet it is easy to understand why he enters into it. It is to avoid the difficulties of Dr. Akers' theory. If the rest-day of the Lord was actually upon the first day of the week, then he can avoid Dr. A.'s dilemma of having a week at the exodus with only six days in it, as has Dr. A.; and also when he reaches the New Testament he finds his favorite day bearing the right name—first day of the week—whereas Dr. A. has the ugly fact of finding his genuine seventh day on which Christ arose from the dead, called by inspiration first day of the week. And whereas Dr. A. at the exodus has to change not only the day of the Sabbath, but also the reckoning of the week itself, Mr. F. only has occasion to change the day of the Sabbath, and is able to leave the week unchanged. Yet it is to be noticed as a singular feature of this Sunday-seventh-day theory, that, whereas, Dr. A. and Mr. F. both assert that the Sabbath was changed on the day of the exodus, Dr. A. asserts that it was changed from the seventh day of the week to the sixth day, and Mr. F. asserts that it was changed from the first day to the seventh! Yet each of these gentlemen, by the change which he alleges, establishes the sanctity of Sunday on a firm basis! Mr. F. does not wholly steer clear of difficulty in his theory of God's rest-day on the first day of the week. His week from Adam to Moses begins with a Sabbath for its first day. And when he changes the Sabbath at the exodus, from first day to seventh, it compels him to put two Sabbaths into one week! That is, the last week in Egypt, which began with first-day Sabbath, had its seventh day also made into a Sabbath by the act of setting the Sabbath back from Sunday to Saturday! So here was a very highly-favored week with a Sabbath for its first day and a Sabbath for its last, and with five working days between! But on the whole Mr. F. has fewer difficulties, after the first start, than Dr. A. As both of them mean to come out in the New Testament, first-day men, it is evident that that process of reasoning which can make God's rest day, in the beginning, come upon the first day of the original week, will steer clear of a number of very serious difficulties that the Sunday-seventh day has to encounter. But let us see what it costs Mr. F. to get started. His grand idea is this: The first day of the original week was the day on which the Creator rested, and which he blessed and sanctified for time to come in memory of that rest. How does he establish this remarkable declaration? By the statement of three palpable untruths as follows:— 1. That the six days of creation belonged to eternity and were not counted as the first six days of time. 2. That Adam's first day of existence was the Creator's rest-day. 3. That Adam counted the day of the Creator's rest the first day of the week. These are very remarkable declarations to be made by a student of the Bible. Let us weigh them well. 1. Mr. Fuller makes the first of these statements for the alleged reason that time began with Adam's first day. Let us admit the proof. Now what follows? Simply this: as Adam must have been created quite early on the sixth day, as will presently be proved, it follows that the division between time and eternity, on Mr. F.'s own showing, does not lie between the sixth day and the seventh, but between the fifth day and the sixth. But it is really no proof at all, being simply coined out of his own vain imagination, and never in any way sanctioned by the words of inspiration.