DR. BENSON'S SUNDAY BOOK.
By Editor
"The Lord's Day, The Christian Sabbath, The First Day of the week, Not the Seventh." This is the title of a 70-page pamphlet issued by the Methodist publishing houses of Cincinnati and New York, written by H. C. Benson, D. D., editor of the California Christian Advocate. This pamphlet seems to be somewhat highly considered by the Methodists, as a note says it "was read before the San Francisco Preacher's Meeting, Rev. Dr. M. C. Briggs presiding; also before the Ministerial Association of Petaluma District, Rev. Geo. Clifford, Presiding Elder, presiding. Each body, by a unanimous vote, requested its publication in permanent or book form for general circulation on the Pacific Coast and elsewhere." It has been a great pleasure to us that we have kept on the best of terms with our contemporaries of the religious press on this coast. We have been courteous to all; we have esteemed Dr. Benson as an able editor, and felt some regret when we learned that the M. E. General Conference had placed another in his office. The same feeling of courtesy which has uniformly actuated us, now leads us to notice this little book. He wrote it on our people's account; the preface is devoted to us; he has made large if not altogether honorable mention of us. Under such circumstances he might reasonably feel disappointed if we made no response to his mention. The readers will better appreciate our position in reviewing his work after reading his notice, as follows:— "An organization of Sabbatarians calling themselves 'Seventh-day Adventists,' commenced missionary and evangelistic work on this coast some twelve or fifteen years ago. They travel through the country, circulating their pamphlets and tracts, spending a fortnight or a month in a place; they deliver lectures on prophecy, and with maps and charts make a show of learning. The closing week of a siege is given to lectures on the Sabbath question—urging that the seventh day of the week only ought to be kept as holy. "They usually succeed in bewildering and misleading a few good, earnest Christians of the different Churches, who are frightened at the thought of habitually desecrating the Sabbath. The converts to the dogma are then led away to the most convenient Jordan and immersed. These are the fruits of their labors, the sinners saved by their ministry. "Having realized the object for which they labor they leave their proselytes without pastoral oversight and hasten to other fields, to pass through the same routine of performances. "Christians, once unsettled and drawn away from the fellowship of the Churches in which they were converted, are left outside the fold to be buffeted by the enemy, and to lose their piety and their confidence in the people to whom they are indebted for all the religious instruction they have ever received." We charitably trust that the Doctor did not intend to present our people in a false light, but he has left the reader liable to draw, from the last paragraph in this quotation, a conclusion very far from the truth. Very many people in California are well aware that the Seventh-day Adventists are thoroughly organized, having a conference in this State, and other State Conferences, and a General Conference, also General and State Missionary Societies, the General Conference having the oversight of foreign missions. Our churches are regularly organized, with local elders, deacons, and clerks, maintaining their Sabbath-schools and temperance organizations. Our conferences have Executive Committees, who take oversight of the work during the year, within their respective bounds. Our ordained ministers are all evangelists, not being located, except a few who act as editors of our publications. While the ministers visit the churches to look after their welfare, the churches are taught to be working bodies, and not to look to the preacher as the sole source of their life and strength. Our houses of worship are not closed in the absence of a preacher, as is too frequently the case in other denominations. We do not intend to have them "preached to death" as the editor of the Louisville Recorder says is generally the case in these days. Rejoicing in the precious truth which they have heard and the "blessed hope" (Titus 2:11-14) which they have imbibed, they willingly forego the pleasure of having a settled pastor, outside of their local elders, that the truth may be carried to others who are yet in darkness. We are certain that no other body of Christians of equal members do so much missionary work, or afford so much Bible instruction in their Sabbath schools. If there is any one body of Christians in the land to whom the Doctor's querulous remarks will not at all apply, it is the Seventh-day Adventists. But we do not speak complainingly. It will not injure us. Our "manner of life" is too well known to be seriously affected by such remarks. So much for the personal feature of the book. We will now proceed to pay attention to the argument. We cannot safely judge that a paper is "weighty and powerful" because it has been indorsed by religious bodies, even of eminent men, before whom it has been read. The circumstances are every way unfavorable to their placing a just estimate upon it. 1. It was only read to them, and they could not have the opportunity for a careful and critical examination of it. 2. The case being prejudiced by them, they having a desire to have it even as the Doctor said, their opinion carries but little weight as a critical indorsement of it. Our estimate of it, of course, differs from theirs, and we have the advantage of a careful reading. We think we can point out a number of weak spots, sufficient to place it even below the ordinary rate of controversial pamphlets. The first point in the argument is as follows:— "If Adam kept a calendar in his Eden home, he doubtless made his own first day the date-period, since he could have no method of computing the indefinite periods while matter was in chaos with darkness brooding over it. No importance, however, can possibly attach to the question, since no day was intrinsically holy. The ordinance could require no more than that man should labor on six days and rest on the seventh. The day kept is holy because of the act of obedience; and the moral quality of the act, as in all cases, is found in the intention." This is a hapless paragraph for the writer. Seldom is so much error found in so small a compass. 1. Does the Doctor compute his own week from the day of his own birth? If not, why not? What can he know of the periods preceding his own existence? He might, indeed, say that he received by tradition or transmission a knowledge of events far in the past, and he celebrates those events by reason of the knowledge so obtained. But was Adam ignorant of the work of creation? Did he hold converse with the Creator, and have wisdom to give names to the Creator's works, and be more ignorant of those works than Dr. Benson will allow that himself is? By what authority does he assume that when God sanctified the seventh day, and made the Sabbath "for man," that Adam was ignorant of the fact that it was the seventh day, but mistook it for the first day? 2. By what authority does he say that that sanctified seventh day was Adam's first day? Does he believe that Adam was created on that seventh day? He cannot; for the Bible was created a fully developed man, on the sixth day; so that his first day was. Even the Doctor, we doubt not, counts the day on which he was born as his first day. At least, we never yet knew any man to commence his life-reckoning on a day on which he was not born. Is such a puerility as this worthy of a scholar, and of the indorsement of scholars? 3. We would like to know why the Dr. speaks of "the indefinite periods while matter was in chaos with darkness brooding over it." He professes to hold the Scriptures in reverence while admitting the indefinite-period theory of science (perhaps "falsely so called"—Paul). But how can he be unmindful of the fact that light was shed forth upon this chaotic matter on the first day—the first period, if you like? The reader will notice that every step taken to invalidate the fourth commandment in its literal import, is a step either away from, or in direct contradiction to the inspired word. There were no indefinite periods of darkness while matter was in its chaotic, or unformed state, if the Bible can be depended upon. If it cannot, then we do not care what theory prevails. If you invalidate the Bible, our foundation is gone, and we are thenceforth indifferent to results. But we shall plead for the exact and literal truthfulness of the holy Scriptures, and insist upon our right to hold opponents to that point as long as they profess to believe in them. 4. He says "no day was intrinsically holy." This is not true. Webster says, intrinsically means really or truly. God blessed and sanctified the seventh day. Did he bless and sanctify any day beside the seventh day? He did not. He therefore called the seventh day, the Sabbath, "my holy day," "the holy of the Lord," and said, "It is holy unto me." Will Dr. Benson affirm that all this left the seventh day undistinguished from other days as to sacredness? If he will not venture such a reckless assertion as this, then what do his words mean? We consider that his language is in direct contradiction to the express words of the Bible. 5. We grant that the commandment requires no more than that man shall work six days and rest the seventh day, with the understanding that it refers to that seventh day—namely the seventh day of the week—which God consecrated to sacred uses because that in it he rested from his great work of creation. But the Dr. does not intend to be so understood. His argument tends to leaving it indefinite. In that sense his words are not at all in harmony with what God has revealed on the subject of the Sabbath. 6. "The day kept is holy because of the act of obedience." This is the worst of all, and most subversive of the obligation of the Sabbath law. Question: was the seventh day made holy by the act of man's keeping it, or by God's blessing it and sanctifying it. A mere child who has read the Bible should be at no loss to answer this. When Moses said, on the sixth day, "To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath," did he mean to say—To-morrow will be the holy Sabbath, provided you keep it? In Eze. 22:26 the Lord says they have hid their eyes from his Sabbaths—they have profaned it. On the Dr.'s theory this could not be so. No man could break the Sabbath; no man could profane it; for if he did not keep it, it would not be holy, and hence not subject to profanation. This theory of the Dr., which, however, is not original with him, as it has been many times asserted, is as unreasonable as it is unscriptural. We wonder that the anti-Sabbath writers cling so tenaciously to a position which so evidently betrays their weakness. We affirm with all confidence that the sacredness of the holy Sabbath does not, and never did, rest on the will or the action of man. It was by the express act of Jehovah that it was blessed and hallowed, and to keep it because he sanctified it is the express revelation of his will. In a subsequent paragraph he says: "After the world's seventh period, and man's first day was hallowed," &c. We have a right to protest against such a play upon words to produce an effect upon the minds of the readers. The Bible record of the institution and commandment of the Sabbath says not a word about "man's first day." The hallowed Sabbath was not man's first day—it was his second day. The sixth day of the week was man's first day. But if it had been man's first day, it was not hallowed because of such a fact. It was set apart and blessed as a memorial of all his work which God created and made. It was God's rest day from the whole work of creation, as both Gen. 2 and Ex. 20 positively assert. This lugging in of a supposed first day, and very erroneously supposed at that, can have no object of which we can conceive, but to prepare the way for a transition to the real first day, for which there is no warrant in the Scriptures. We wish, for the sake of that respect which we gladly bear to all who profess to love the Lord, that the Sunday advocates would never try to maintain their theory by such flimsy reasonings and questionable methods. It is not necessary to say much about time varying in different longitudes, as no one supposes it is necessary to keep "the same hours as holy" all around the world. But we affirm that they can keep the same day on all the earth. The same hours are not kept in all places, because the day does not commence in all places at the same time. It takes no great knowledge to understand this. No one doubts that all nations have Sunday—the real, genuine, first day of the week—and that it is observed by many nations in different parts of the earth. But this difficulty over the same time is intended to apply only to the seventh day; it does not at all stand in the way of the first day! So much for chapter 1. We will notice chapter 2 next week.