FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD.
By Waitstill Phillips
TO REV. J. MCCANDLISH, PASTOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AT LEWISTON. CONSIDERING ourselves as having been repeatedly rebuked in public as Sabbath-breakers, in your discourses, particularly in that of yesterday, (Oct. 2, 1853,) in the school-house in our vicinity, we think it time that you forbear, or that we repent. You must be aware that, from some motive, we endeavor to sanctify the seventh or last day of the week, according to the manner enjoined in the Fourth Commandment, and practiced by Jesus Christ and his apostles. In so doing, we are aware that we shut ourselves out from many lucrative callings and honorable situations, which otherwise we might be as eligible to as others of similar abilities; but we do it, we think from the fear of God, and with regard to the retributions of eternity. But now, if you, or any other person, will make the way plain for us, so that we can, without conscientious scruples, devote to labor the seventh day, and also enable us to esteem the first day as "the holy of the Lord," we hope immediately to reform. The difficulties in the way may be gathered from the following queries:—3 1. You told us that the ten commandments were delivered to more than two millions of hearers, by God's own voice, from the summit of Sinai, and now, we think, if one word is to be altered, it should be done in the same public manner. Will you show that "First-day" has been substituted for "Seventh-day" in such a public manner? 2. You showed that the ten commandments were engraved on tables of stone by the finger of God. Will you show that "seventh day" was not so engraved, but was only written with ink, that it might be blotted out in the fullness of time, like the Jewish ritual? or will you show how God can be "without variableness or shadow of turning," (James i, 17,) if he alter one word publicly proclaimed to millions, and twice engraved with his own finger on tables of stone? 3. If the seventh day observance was designed by God to be succeeded by the first day, we ask, 1. Why was not the Fourth Commandment excluded from the decalogue, like circumcision, and other observances, never intended for the Gentiles under the gospel? 2. Why are we informed, in the only place where the prophets intimate a change of times and laws, that the change should be by a power adverse to the Saints of the Most High, and that it should not be perpetual? (Dan vii, 25.) 3. If the Fourth Commandment was to be altered by divine authority, why did Jesus Christ say, It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail? (Luke xvi, 17.) Why are we constantly directed in the New Testament, to "follow Christ," who, as his adversaries had to admit, kept the Sabbath—the same seventh-day Sabbath that the Jews did, and never, so far as we are informed, observed the first day at all as a season of rest or a Sabbath. 5. If a commandment of the Decalogue might, under pretence of piety to God, be altered with impunity, why did our Lord prepare such a severe scourge for the perpetrators of such a deed, as is to be found in the 15th of Matthew and the 7th of Mark, where notice is taken of an infringement on the Fifth Commandment, with as plausible a reason, perhaps, as man could devise for infringing upon any? "Honor thy father and thy mother," said God; but hypocrisy said, Though your parents need your support, you may take the property you owe for their sustenance, and cast it into the treasury of the Lord, your great Father in heaven, and then say to your parents, It is corban, and then let them beg or die, but you are free. 6. Why did our Lord say, that on love to God and love to man, hang all the law, (Matt. xxii, 40,) if the seventh-day of the Fourth Commandment was not affixed thereto? 7. Why did he say, (Mark ii, 27,) The Sabbath (which he knew the Fourth Commandment declared to be the seventh day) was made for man, thus teaching that it was made for mankind in general, if He intended it to be superseded by another, the "first day," in a few years? And why did He own himself to be Lord of the Sabbath, thus making it the true Lord's day and Christian Sabbath, if it was not then so, and so to remain? 8. We are informed, (1 John iii, 4,) that "whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law;" and if Matt. vii, 23 is correctly rendered, it may read thus, "And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work transgression of the law;" and Matt. xiii, 41 thus, "The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them that do transgress the law." Is this true? And if so, why has Christ thus spoken, but to show that the law would be transgressed both by teachers and people, in his kingdom, at their awful peril, and his supreme displeasure? 4. If the Apostles knew that the first day was the Sabbath, or a Sabbath after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, why did Paul say, "The prophets were read to the Jews every Sabbath day?" (Acts xiii, 27.) And why did James say, [Acts xv, 21,] "Moses of old time hath in every city, them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day?" And why did Luke, the writer of Acts say, (Acts xviii, 4,) "And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks?" Did the unbelieving Jews keep first day for the Sabbath, keeping as they did, every Sabbath day; or did these Apostles testify false; or do they who now say that first day became the Sabbath at the resurrection of Christ? 5. If the weekly return of the time of Christ's resurrection is to be kept holy, where is the precept for it, or where an example in holy record, and what was the hour and the moment? for it occupied not a day, like the example of Sabbath rest; for, at the rising of the sun, the event had already transpired. 6. If the weekly Sabbath is intended in Col. ii, 16, "Let no man judge you in respect to the Sabbath days," ought we not to disavow all human authority on the subject, and simply conform to the authority of God, and of Jesus Christ, as it is written, "We ought to obey God rather than man?" (Acts v, 29.) 7. As the mystery of iniquity (lawlessness) was at work in Paul's time, (2 Thess. ii, 7,) is it safe to follow the Fathers, as they were called, in anything at variance with the holy commandment delivered unto us? 8. When God says, "The seventh day is the Sabbath," will you show us how we can say The first day is the Sabbath, and neither lie ourselves, nor give God the lie? 9. When God says, "Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt do no work," (Ex, xx, 9,) will you show how we can live without transgression, if we refuse to work on either of the first six days of the week or refuse to rest on the seventh? 10. If the Apostles and primitive Christians left the observance of seventh day for that of first day, how happened it that those who contended so hard for circumcising gentile converts should not have one word to say on this subject? And why were they never accused, after Christ's resurrection, of being violators of the Sabbath, by unbelieving and persecuting Jews? Or how could Paul, (Acts xxiv, 14,) say he believed all things written in the law, if he did not believe that the seventh day was then the Sabbath? Or how say (Acts xxv, 8,) "Against the law of the Jews have I offended nothing at all? 11. When you say that Christ, after his resurrection, repeatedly met with his disciples on the first day of the week, do you mean that he happened at any appointed meeting on that day? If so, where is the proof? Or do you simply mean, that on first day He showed himself first to Peter, second to Mary, third that he traveled sixty furlongs to Emmaus with two disciples, and, fourth, then returned to Jerusalem, and at evening showed himself to the ten, when they sat with closed doors for fear of the Jews? If this is all, please show us how it binds us to keep that day as a day of rest, more than the ninth day after, when he met Thomas with the rest of the Apostles, or more than to keep every day for forty days in succession, as he was thus seen of them. (Acts i, 3.) 12. You mention the meeting at Troas on the first of the week, "day" being, as you know, confessedly supplied, both here and elsewhere where first day occurs in our version of the Scriptures, as is shown by the translators placing it in italic. Now, can you prove that this meeting commenced before evening? If not, might it not have been the evening after seventh day worship, and Paul started on his journey on first day morning? As the Lord's Supper was instituted, in the evening, it seems not at all improbable that they attended to it in the evening on that account. 13. You farther mention 1 Cor. xvi, 2, "Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him," &c. Have you any proof that this service was not designed for the evening after the seventh day service? as they are said to have reckoned the day to commence at evening, as it is written, "The evening and the morning were the first day." (Gen. i, 5.) After their hearts had been warmed by the holy exercises of the church on the Sabbath, and the wants of the poor saints had been presented to their minds, they might return home, and at evening, when the Sabbath was passed, sit down, and each look over his gain and loss, and without letting his left hand know what his right hand did, lay by him in store his charity, to be ready when called for. But how does the circumstance prove the day a Sabbath, or a worship day? 14. You say that John was in the spirit on the Lord's day. (Rev. i, 10.) Can you prove that that day was not the very seventh day Sabbath, of which Christ said that he was Lord? for you must mark, that he made the world (Heb. i, 2, John i, 3,) and rested on the seventh day, and afterwards made propitiation for our sins by his sufferings; and when it was finished, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost, and rested, according to general tradition, as well as the scriptures, on the seventh day from all his sufferings,—his body in the tomb, and his soul in paradise; and at the same time, his affectionate female followers rested the Sabbath-day according to the commandment. (Luke xxiii, 56.)
Are these all your scripture evidences for a change? and must we not be children, carried about with every wind of doctrine, to let them outweigh in our minds the united force of all the scriptures of truth? 15. The Sabbath you call also a figure of future blessedness. The Apostle Paul, it seems, taught the same sentiment, (Heb. iv, 9,) saying, "There remaineth therefore (that is, because of this future rest or blessedness) a rest, (margin, a keeping of a Sabbath,) to the people of God." Then why should not that Sabbath follow our toil, as we hope that blessedness will follow all the labors of life?—for to have our rest before our labor, might signify that, like the rich man, we have our good things in this life, and our evil things in the future. 16. What adverse power is that mentioned in Dan. vii, 25? And are we authorized to follow his change in times and laws? 17. Does spiritual fornication consist in embracing human authority, rather than that of God, or not? 18. What power is meant by the "mother of harlots," in Rev. xvii, 5? And what corrupt powers are the harlots? And should we not beware of being seduced, either by the mother or the daughters? 19. To close—is it wrong for us to assimilate to those mentioned in Rev. xii, 17; xiv, 12; xxii, 14, "who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus?"
And now we offer, for the first written tract, to be presented to us on or before the first day of January, 1855, which shall so dispose of the foregoing queries, as to satisfy us that God, in the holy Scriptures, requires us to follow our labors on the last day of the week, and to rest on the first day of the week, the sum of five hundred dollars; and we implore editors of newspapers every where, who either fear God or love our Lord Jesus Christ, or have any regard for religious truth, or any sympathy for sufferers for conscience' sake, to give the foregoing a place in their columns.
Writers may address the subscriber, post-paid, Lewiston, Fulton Co., Illinois.
In behalf of the observers of the Bible Sabbath, in the vicinity of Lewiston, Ill.
WAITSFILL PHILLIPS, Scribe.
October 3, 1853.