WE notice in the Harbinger for March 4th, an article by L. W. of Fredonia, headed the Fourth Commandment, in which the writer says:—
“I fully believe that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh from all his works, and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he rested from all his works.’ This is the last that we hear about the seventh day for over 2500 years, until the children of Israel left Egypt, and reached the wilderness, when God gave them the Sabbath, and wrought a miracle that they might keep it.”
Here the writer has the Sabbath given at the time of the miracle in giving the manna in the wilderness of Sin, about one month before the children of Israel came to Mount Sinai, where the ten commandments were spoken, and written on tables of stone. See Ex. xvi, 1; xix, 1, 2. Now read L. W. again:—
“But our Sabbatarian brethren say we will find Christ himself saying the Sabbath was made for man, and that it was made when the first seven days were made, and that the Sabbath was not made for the Jews in particular, but was a gift of God to mankind universally of all nations and in all ages of the world. If the fourth commandment was given at creation the whole ten must have been given at that time; but where in God’s word is the evidence that they were then given? so where; for any one who has read the history of Israel from Egypt to the land of Canaan, knows that the ten commandments were given at Mount Sinai.”
The amount of the writer’s argument is this, that the “Lord of the Sabbath” must have been mistaken when he said “the Sabbath was made for man;” for “if the fourth commandment was given at creation, the whole ten must have been given at the same time.” He then states that it is a well-known fact that they were given at Mount Sinai.
If this reasoning be correct, that the Sabbath was not made at the close of the first week of time, because the ten commandments were not then delivered by an audible voice from heaven, or given in the form of a code of precepts, it proves also that the Sabbath was first given when the ten commandments were spoken and written by the Almighty at Sinai. And if the assertion of L. W. be correct, that man had no Sabbath till the ten commandments were spoken at Mount Sinai, in the third month, then what stupidity to talk of its being given at another place, in the second month, (one month earlier) when God wrought the miracle in giving the manna! Here are two positions taken which flatly contradict each other, therefore eat each other up. We would not be too severe; but we sincerely think that such groundless assertions, pitiful reasoning and stupidity, or an effort to wrest the word and hide the truth, deserve a faithful rebuke.
Now if our no-Sabbath friends wish to convince us that it is an error to keep the fourth commandment, they must not talk of the Sabbath being first given in the wilderness of Sin, at the giving of the manna, and then reason that it could not have been given till a month later, when the ten commandments were spoken at Mount Sinai! About a month before Israel saw Mount Sinai, God said to Moses, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? see, for that the Lord [will give you the Sabbath in about one month? no] HATH GIVEN you the Sabbath.”
The Sabbath, then, existed before the giving of the law at Sinai, and it is not possible to show that it was made for man at any other time than at the close of creation, when God after he had rested the seventh day, sanctified the day of his rest. There is no record that he blessed the seventh day but once. What did he hallow? Answer, The Sabbath-day. “Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.” Ex. xx, 11. Then the Sabbath dates from the very hour that Jehovah hallowed the day of his rest at the close of the first week of time. The history of about 2300 years from creation is crowded into fifty-two chapters of the Bible, and in this brief sketch of events, why should we expect to find the Sabbath mentioned? The fact of its not being mentioned is no proof that it did not exist. It is a fact of a hundred-fold greater surprise that the Bible passes over the history of several hundred years after the law was given, without naming the Sabbath, even in the period when the Sabbath-breaker was stoned to death.