Advent Harbinger---No-Sabbath.
By Editor
PROBABLY no religious paper has taken so firm a stand for no-Sabbath as the Advent Harbinger.—Several writers in that paper have not only taught that the Sabbath is not now binding, but have represented the Sabbath to be an institution opposed to the gospel of Christ, and if observed by Christians they would fall from grace, and be in danger of "irretrievable ruin." We say this has been the position of the Harbinger. But we see by the number of that paper for Oct 22d, the following short, but excellent article in vindication of the Lord's Sabbath. OBSERVANCE OF THE LORD'S DAY.—If any doubt the necessity of a day of rest in order to the maintenance of our civil and religious institutions, let them look to those nations which have made the experiment of living without one. What was ancient Rome with her 6,000,000 or 7,000,000, when she had no Sabbath, but the grand theater of inhumanity and crime, whose delirious influence has ever since been felt all over the world? What was France, when she introduced her decades and blotted out the weekly Sabbath? What have been Mexico and South America? And it may be asked, what are they now? And what has been that of every christian nation who have neglected to observe a day of rest and thanksgiving. The phrase, Lord's day, used at the head of the article, is found in Rev. i, 10. John says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." This was in the year 96, fifty one years this side of the crucifixion of Christ. The Harbinger has taught that all seven days of the week are alike in the Gospel—that there is no holy time—that at the cross the Lord ceased to reserve one of the seven days of the week to himself as holy time. But such teachings cannot be harmonized with the testimony of John, who says, A. D. 96, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." Fifty-one years of the gospel dispensation had past, yet John esteemed one day as the Lord's. But it may be said that the first day of the week is meant by "Lord's day," and it should be esteemed by Christians as a day of rest and worship. If so, then it is our duty to esteem one of the seven days above the others." The Harbinger has declared that Paul taught [Rom. xiv,] that we should not esteem one day of the week above the other six. So Rev. i, 10 is perfectly destructive of the position of the no-Sabbath men, that Rom. xiv, refers to the weekly Sabbath, and that all seven days of the week are alike. Let this fact be understood, that in the gospel there is a day which the holy Apostle regarded as the Lord's. What day of the week is the "Lord's day?" This we shall decide by the "plain word of the Lord."—"The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Ex. xx, 10. "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day." Isa. lviii, 13. "The Son of man is Lord, also, of the Sabbath." Mark ii, 28. Here are three testimonies, showing that the seventh day is the Lord's day. On that day God rested. He then put his blessing upon it, and sanctified, or set it apart for the use of man. It is the Lord's (not our) Sabbath. "In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established." It may be said that the Christian Fathers call the first day of the week the Lord's day. If plain testimony on this point could be produced from those uninspired men, it should not have a feather's weight on the mind of any consistent christian, in the absence of inspired testimony. Our faith shall rest on the plain word of God, and not on inferences, or the tradition of the Elders. It will be seen that the writer of the article is in harmony with the Bible on this point; for he calls the "Lord's day," Sabbath, twice in the short article. We are gratified to see the Harbinger, which has for years been devoted to the soul-destroying work of "blotting out the weekly Sabbath," now bearing testimony in its defense. Whether the Editor of the Harbinger is convicted of his past course in opposing the Sabbath, and is convinced of the truth of the perpetuity of the Lord's day since A. D. 96, or whether the insertion of the article was an oversight, his future course will decide.