J. B. Cook on the Sabbath.
By Editor
THE following brief remarks of J. B. Cook on the Sabbath, published in his Advent Testimony of 1846, are to the point. We publish this short article for the truth it contains, also, that his present erroneous position may be compared with his past true one.—We do not, however, agree with him that the Sabbath is a type. Who now sails wittingly 'under the Pope's sabbatic flag?' Read the article, and then answer. ED. 'I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day,' said the beloved disciple. 'The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.' Matt. xii, 8. Now setting human opinion aside, and taking 'Divine testimony,' I ask what day is 'the Lord's day?' In Isa. lviii, 13: the Sabbath is by the Lord, called 'My holy day.'—The word employed to designate the Lordship of Messiah is frequently used for the Divinity, without distinction of Father and Son. The Lord's day is clearly, from this testimony, the Sabbath day. It did not end with the Jewish dispensation; for we learn from Isa. lvi, 1—7, that it was to be observed by the sons of the stranger—others beside 'the outcasts of Israel.' Gen. ii, 1—3; Ex. xx, 8—11; Matt. v, 17—19. Every enactment relative to the religious observance of the first day, originated with the Pope, or Potentates of Rome, and those who, in this matter sympathize with them; but every enactment that ever originated in Heaven, relative to the keeping of the Sabbath, confines us to the seventh day. The seventh day is 'the Sabbath of the Lord our God.' My space will not allow me to adduce the historic testimony; but the above I solemnly believe, is the exact truth. From the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries we trace the effects of the Man of Sin, to set aside 'the Lord's day,' and introduce the first day—the day on which the European nations had been accustomed to idolize the Sun. Let scripture testify, and let us throw off the last rag of 'the mother of harlots.' Jesus did not after his resurrection, meet his assembled disciples till about or in the evening of the first day, as we reckon time. It was the early part of the Jewish second day, or the very close of the first.—They began their day about six o'clock, or sun setting. Mark! The two disciples and Jesus had been to Emmaus—were at Emmaus seven and a half miles distant when that first day 'was far spent.'—He went in to tarry with them and made himself known to them in breaking of bread; then they returned seven miles and a half to Jerusalem, found the disciples, and while announcing the resurrection, Jesus himself came in. John xx, 19; Luke xxiv, 29, 33—36. Then eight days after he met with them again, (John xx, 26,) which must have been on the second day of the subsequent week. Paul met the disciples on the first part of the first day, answering to our Saturday night—preaching all night 'till the break of day,' and then 'departed,' or set off on his journey.—If he had met them on our Sunday night, it would have been the Jewish second day. Then he did not keep that first day as a Sabbath. Those who dream that he did, only give evidence that they are so far 'drunk with the wine' of Papal Rome. My feelings were inexpressible, when I saw this. The truth I must confess. This is the true testimony. Thus easily is all the wind taken from the sails of those who sail, perhaps unwittingly, under the Pope's sabbatic flag. The passage 1 Cor. xvi, 2, though adduced as testimony, makes no mention of the Sabbath, or even of assembling116for worship! Col. ii, 16, does not speak of the Sabbath; but sabbaths—called in our version incorrectly sabbath days; (days being supplied by the translator.) These sabbaths are like the new moons and other mere Jewish institutions, mentioned in Lev. xxiii, 39. This feast was of eight days duration, the first and last being a sabbath. As the feast began on the fifteenth of the seventh month, it could not, only in a series of years, commence on the day originally set apart as the Sabbath of the Lord our God. These sabbaths, and all institutions peculiar to the Mosaic ritual, our blessed Lord 'nailed to the cross;' so that no one is now condemned for their non-observance.—But God's law of Eden—his type of Paradise restored—the Sabbath which was made, like marriage for man, as man, and consequently, alike needful through all dispensations, he did not abolish. Man needs still, all that 'was made for' him. 'Your assertion is not worth a groat,' says the objector, in the absence of scriptural testimony. So say I. My expectation to 'overcome' is based on the true 'testimony.' Jesus said, 'Pray that your flight be not in the Winter, neither on the Sabbath day.'—Matt. xxiv, 20. He thus recognizes the perpetuity of the Sabbath, many years after having abolished the Jewish feasts, as really as the seasons of the year. That 'is a nail in the right place, fastened by the Master of assemblies!' Therefore I say again, he did not abolish the Sabbath, which was 'made for man'—for the good of man. From the dreadful wreck, occasioned by 'the fall' in Eden, there have been two institutions preserved; the Sabbath and Marriage. Both were 'made for man.' This, is the type of Christ's union with 'the Church.' Eph. v, 23—33. That, of the rest that remaineth for the people of God.' Heb. iv, 4—9. Both are binding till the realities they represent, are ushered in, at the Advent of Jesus. Amen!'