Defending the Seventh-Day Sabbath
By Z. Marsh
DEAR BRO, WHITE :—I am some ten or twelve miles from any of like precious faith, yet I feel that I am not alone; for I have the Bible and the love of God to comfort me; and I will fear no evil, though I have a continual warfare with nominal Adventists, the church and the world, in regard to keeping the Sabbath of the Lord. Many of the church in this place have endeavored to have me keep the Sabbath of Constantine or the Pope; and if I will, they say they will be satisfied, if I do also keep the seventh day. But I find that the fourth commandment is exceeding broad, and is very plain that we are to work six days, and not, simply, five. I have often told them that if they would bring one precept or even an example from the Bible that the day was changed at the resurrection of Christ, I would keep it; and some of them have tried and found themselves confounded at the very commencement; for the very passages which they have quoted they have found to prove the opposite of what they intended, and show that the disciples did follow their ordinary employment on the first day of the week. Again, I have been met by those Adventists with whom I formerly belonged, and they tell me that the Sabbath and all the ten commandments were abolished at the cross, and done away, and that nine of them were re-enacted by Christ and the apostles; thus striving to destroy Gods holy Sabbath; and the same ones will speak of the First-day Sabbath, as if this was all perfectly right! O that they who have for years cried in the ears of the people for consistency would themselves be consistent! If the Sabbath was nailed to the cross, and is done away, as they say, it is neither right nor consistent for them to speak of it as still existing. But let us see if it was so fulfilled at the cross as to be done away. See Luke xxiii, 56. "And they returned and prepared spices and ointments, and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment." What! rest the Sabbath day when there was none! for, according to what they say, it was nailed to the cross; but Christ was then taken from the cross, and40of course it had then ceased. O that the Advent people who profess to have no theory but the Bible would be consistent. I might quote much from the New Testament to show that the Sabbath was not abrogated at the cross; and likewise much in the Old, to show that it will be kept in the new earth. Yours striving to keep the commandments. South Hadley, Mass, Sept, 1854. Z. MARSH.