"The First Day or Nothing"
By Editor
A MAN, an Adventist, who claims to be a believer in Christ, a believer in our Lord's near coming, and who holds the Bible to be "the only divine standard of faith and practise," thus speaks in one of his published sermons in his own paper: The Christian Sabbath.—We believe that the first day of the week, as the day set apart by the early church in commemoration of Christ's resurrection, should be observed as the Christian sabbath, and used as a day of religious rest and worship. This article in our Declaration of Principles was specially needed because another body of people spoken of as "Adventists," lay peculiar stress on the assumed obligation of observing the seventh-day, Jewish Sabbath, and virtually unchristianize all who do not observe it. As against their claims, we stand with the overwhelming majority of all Christians in all ages—believing that the obligations of the Jewish Sabbath ceased at the resurrection of Christ, and that the first day of the week took its place as a day of rest and religious worship, tho not under its legal penalties. We deplore the growing desecration of the first day, and the increasing efforts of Jews, infidels, and Seventh-day Adventists to break down the remaining barriers which hedge about the world's only possible rest-day; clearly perceiving—what only those blinded by prejudice fail to see—that it is— That day ceasing to be a day of rest, the toiler will have no sure protection against the greed of capital, and the Christian no quiet day for religious meditation and worship. We stand with all evangelical Christians in the forefront of the battle for the preservation of the Christian sabbath: shall we not be welcomed in this hour of conflict? There are many things in this short extract,—all, however, that he says upon this phase of his "hope,"—but we wish to note just four points: 1. It is not taking the Bible as the STANDARD of faith and practise to depend upon the "early church;" pedo-baptists, trine immersionists, sprinklers, and pourers, sign-of-the-cross believers, and others can allege the same authority. When Jesus Christ died upon the cross, He sealed with His blood, confirmed forever, God's will in the new covenant, with His holy law of the ages unchanged in jot or tittle. Matt. 5: 17-20; 19: 17. He observed that law Himself in its fulness, and left us an example, that we should follow in His steps. John 15: 10; 1 Peter 1: 21, 22; 1 John 2: 6. He died to save from sin and sinning; and sin is the transgression of God's law. Matt. 1: 21; Titus 2: 14; 1 John 3: 4; Rom. 7: 7. Therefore He died to save us to obedience to that law, not by the change of the law, but by the change of the carnal mind to a mind which delights in God's law, in which God's law is established. Rom. 8: 3, 7; 1 John 5: 3; Rom. 3: 31. To hold otherwise makes Christ a "minister of sin," which God forbid. Moreover, the very moment Christ died, God's covenant was sealed and confirmed forever. "Tho it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto." Gal. 3: 15. We find no first-day sabbath, no abolition of the Decalogue or the seventh-day Sabbath, in all the teaching of the prophets or Christ. In His teaching and life the law and the Sabbath were held holy and perfect. Therefore if anything were added to that covenant or law one minute this side of the cross by the whole apostolic college, it would be spurious and of no effect. But there is nothing. The apostolic church followed their Master; and it is not until later, in the times of backsliding and substitution, that the first-day sabbath creeps in. Sunday is not even called the sabbath for a thousand years after Christ, nor Lord's day till 200 years after. It is purely Catholic ground to plead the "early church." In the words of Dowling: "He who receives a single doctrine upon the mere authority of tradition, let him be called by what name he will, by so doing, steps down from the Protestant rock, passes over the line which separates Protestantism from popery, and can give no valid reason why he should not receive all the earlier doctrines and ceremonies of Romanism upon the same authority." Christ with one soul is a majority. 2. There can be no "DESECRATION" of a day which is not sacred. Man can not make a day sacred or holy; God has not so made it; how then can it be desecrated? This claim of desecration is also good Roman Catholic doctrine. 3. Seventh-day Adventists do hold to the Bible Sabbath, the only Sabbath given, taught, or observed by Christ, hence the only Christian Sabbath. Around that Sabbath God has erected the immutable ramparts of His holy law. Inclosing it is the hedge of His eternal truth; not altered with Him, for "forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven;" but forgotten by His professed children. To restore that hedge, to build up that breach in the hearts and practise of His professed followers, Seventh-day Adventists are laboring, according to His prophecies. Isa. 56: 1-8; 58: 12, 13. And that is "the only possible rest-day," for it is the only day, as a day, in which God has placed His rest. Men may call it "Jewish;" His eternal law calls it "the Sabbath of Jehovah," and again the Spirit of Christ calls it "My holy day." To us it is a denial of God to say that He, the Creator of the heaven and the earth, is not able to care for His own, that man must needs furnish for God a purely human substitute, and support it by human enactments. It is well to remember the words of the Master, "Every plant, which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." We do not condemn our brethren who keep the first day; but we would not be true to God did we not tell them that the day is spurious, that it has no foundation in God's Word or claim upon His loyal children, and plead with them to come with us and find the sweet rest of true Sabbath-keeping in Jesus Christ, Creator and Redeemer. God's own appointment and Christ's example are much better than "nothing." 4. Yes, indeed, this man and all whom he can influence will be welcomed by the men who are working for a Sunday law, for what they are pleased to call "the preservation of the Christian sabbath." It has ever been true that when God's professed church has with any sort of zeal substituted tradition for truth, the human for the divine, she has also endeavored to enforce the substitute with divers sorts of penalties, and always by civil law if possible. But this too is of the Papacy and not of Christ. Let our critic turn to the Bible and the Bible alone, and he will not be troubled. He can worship God tho all Babylon is bowing at the behests of men.