The Weekly Sabbath. Page 161
By W. M. F.
From the Sabbath Recorder.
# THE MINE EXPLORED. On opening a work, recently purchased, with the above title, I am led to exclaim, in the popular appreciation of the passage in Job: "Oh, that mine adversary would write a book;" for, in this instance, I could confidently add: "Thine own mouth condemneth thee, not I; yea, thine own lips testify against thee." The full title of the book is, "The Mine Explored, or Help to Reading the Scriptures." It is made up, principally, of Scriptural references to scriptural subjects, and is published by the "American Sunday School Union." We are informed in an introductory note, that "it was written by the late Benjamin Elliot Nicholls, M. A., of Queen's College, Cambridge, (Eng.) and was originally published by the (London) Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. It has required no material alterations to fit it for the purpose of the present publishers. It has a value for religious teachers of all grades, for Bible Classes, and for advanced members of Sunday Schools, which will not fail to be discerned by the diligent and discriminative reader. It recommends itself to the student of the Holy Scriptures, as affording great facilities to the reading, marking, learning, and inwardly digesting, their precious truths." And further, the reader is advertised that "no books are published by the AMERICAN SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION without the sanction of the Committee of Publication, consisting of fourteen members from the following denominations of Christians, viz., Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Reformed Dutch." With this introduction, that all its contents are certified and endorsed by nearly all the evangelical denominations in the land, and as it purposes to afford "great facilities" to the student of the Scriptures, and as it is not any part of its object to obscure or withhold any matter connected with Scriptural authority for any Scriptural institution I, therefore, make advantage of their chapter on the "Weekly Sabbath," to show what authority they derive from the Scriptures, and what a specimen these First Day sticklers find in the Scriptural Mine for sanctifying the Rest-Day. Be it as they have made it. The Weekly Sabbath. Page 161.
Were the Jews reminded of the duty of its observance before the giving of the Fourth Commandment, and on what occasion? (Ex. xvi, 22-26.) How were the Jews reminded of the antiquity of its institution in the Fourth Commandment? A.—By its being spoken of as an ESTABLISHED festival and by the reference made to God's having hallowed the seventh day, at the creation of the world. What additional sacrifices were offered on that day, morning and evening? (Num. xxviii, 9, 10.) Was there any assembly of the people for public worship? (Gen. xxiii, 3.) Mention some passages, by which it may be shown that it was a spiritual service which was required of them. (Isa. lviii, 13, 14; Ps. xcii, the title of which is remarkable.) What punishment was threatened for its neglect? (Ex. xxxi, 14.) Is there any instance of this threat being executed? (Num. xv, 35.) The restoring and ascertaining the Sabbath was the first point of religion that was settled after the children of Israel came out of Egypt, as being of the greatest moment, and this in relation to the original institution, for the law at Mount Sinai was not then given. To this, all Seventh-day Baptists can cry, Amen! Amen! The Mine has been explored, and what is found? Not an iota for the First Day of the Week—not an atom for "Lord's Day"—not a mark for the so falsely called "Christian Sabbath."—Nay, had there been the most distant Scriptural allusion to a change of the Sabbath, or the slightest authority to maintain man's subterfuges for the substitution, would not these sticklers have given it, if they legitimately could? Their own paucity of proof betrays them. Their own position condemns them. Such a production is a sufficient confutation of their pretensions—such a labor is a sufficient triumph for us. We can afford to pass it round, and ask them to eat their own words. We want no greater triumph.
W. M. F.