A Perversion of the Word of God.
By Editor
The “Harbinger and Advocate” of Dec. 1851, contains a “Report of Conferences, &c,” by C. He gives a lengthy account of “a bible class on the Sabbath question,” held at Fredonia, N. Y. We do not design to reply to his whole account of that bible class, at this time; but only to refer to the following singular statement. “Ex. xvi, was read. It was claimed that this chapter speaks familiarly of the Sabbath, as though it was an old institution, one month before the Israelites, came into the wilderness of Sinai. But it was shown that the testimony [the tables of stone] were spoken of at the same time even more familiarly than the Sabbath: And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it up before the Lord, to be kept for your generations. As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony to be kept. Verses 33, 34, One might suppose from this that the Testimony was then actually in existence, and that the pot of manna was at that time laid up before it. But that was not so: the Testimony was not given till more than a month after this.” To represent that the “testimony [the tables of stone]” is spoken of in the same manner that the Sabbath is, and that they really existed, as much as the Sabbath, in the wilderness of Sin, is a perversion of the plain word of God. It is true that Moses told Aaron to “Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it up before the Lord.” But when did he lay it up before the Testimony? He could not thus do until after the tables of stone were given at Sinai, more than a month later. “As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept. And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years,” &c., Ex. xvi, 34, 35. This is a simple relation of facts relative to Israel in the wilderness, and affords the same proof that the children of Israel ate manna forty years in the wilderness of Sin, that it does that the pot of manna was there laid up before the Testimony, a month before the tables of the testimony were given. There is nothing in this statement concerning the pot of manna but that is perfectly explainable, without making it disagree with the fact that the tables of the testimony were not given till Israel came to Sinai. The Sabbath is by no means a parallel case. The children of Israel did understand and observe it in the wilderness of Sin, more than a month before the tables of the Testimony were given at Sinai. This any one may understand by reading the statement of facts in Ex. xvi. It is a statement of what actually occurred in the wilderness of Sin. Said Moses “To day is [not will be] a Sabbath unto the Lord.” Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day which is [not will be, after the Lord comes down on Mount Sinai] the Sabbath.” When some went out on the Sabbath to gather manna, the Lord said to them, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the Lord HATH GIVEN [not will give in a little more than a month] you the Sabbath.” If the Sabbath law did not then exist, then we ask, how could it be a violation of God’s “commandments and laws” for them to go out to gather manna on the seventh day? The next verse shows that they well understood the Sabbath. “So the people rested on the seventh day.” These are the plain facts in the case, which are perfectly destructive of the view that the Sabbath was first made known, when God came down on Mount Sinai. And it is not in the power of man, thank Heaven, to conceal these69plain facts, by such means as resorted to by C. We ask our readers to examine Ex. xvi with care, and compare it with the remarks of C. This will give you some idea of the strange positions those are driven to, who, teach that the commandments of God are abolished. It is a very common thing to be told by the readers of the “Harbinger,” that the word Sabbath is not mentioned in the Bible, till after the giving of the law at Sinai. We suppose the reasons why they make this untrue statement is, first, because they have not searched the Scriptures for themselves to know what they do teach relative to the weekly Sabbath, and second, because what has appeared in the Harbinger on this point has been written in a manner to hide, as far as possible, the plain facts that the Sabbath was guarded by a three-fold weekly miracle in the people’s food, observed by Israel, and its violation, by “some,” rebuked by Jehovah, a month before they saw Mount Sinai.