Remarks on the Sabbath and the First Day of the Week.
[The following we take from a tract, with the above title, published by John Butchart, Sen., of Canada, and kindly forwarded to us. The views on the Sabbath here advocated he embraced and began to disseminate among the people, according to his statement, before he learned that there was such a people as the Seventh-day Baptists, or Advent-Sabbath-keepers, in the States. As far as we know, he was influenced by nothing in arriving at these conclusions, but the plain teachings of the Word. We therefore cite him as an illustration of a plain truth which we have often repeated; namely, let a man divest himself of all prejudice and the influence of human teaching, and take the Bible alone for doctrine and duty, and he would never dream of a First-day Sabbath, from any of its teachings. The seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord our God would be impressed upon him from Genesis to Revelation; nor would he arrive at any other conclusion so long as he searched the sacred Volume for the truth's sake, and followed the teachings of the Holy Spirit.—Ed. Review.] THE observance of the Sabbath is one of the ten precepts which are denominated by God as his laws, as may be learned from Ex. xvi, 28. "How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws;" and again, [Hosea viii, 12] "I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing." The Sabbath being established on the second day of Adam's existence, [Gen. ii, 3,] and he not having then sinned, is sufficient evidence that it is an institution required by Adam and all his posterity, even though he had not sinned; and the record of its commencement bears all the solemnity that so important an event required. It is true that the circumstances attending its announcement were not so imposing, nor associated with that glory and demonstrations of power which attended the delivery of the laws from mount Sinai; but it should be borne in mind that in the former case, God directly communicated his will to two perfect and holy beings; whereas in the latter, there was a medium between God and man, and there required a demonstration to command the attention of a vast multitude of fallen and degenerate creatures. These facts unquestionably prove that the seventh day was holy to the Lord, and was therefore the Lord's day. That the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week is unquestionable; but such change cannot be binding but by the authority of God, and to prove that authority the record must be found wherein his sanction is given to it. For my own part I know of no such record. But let us examine for a little the grounds on which this is founded. The writings, sayings and doings of the apostle Paul are the authority upon which both those who have changed, and those who have abolished the Sabbath, have proceeded: let us investigate them as recorded in the Scriptures. Paul in six separate places preached on the Sabbath as may be learned from the following quotations: "But when they departed from Perga they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. Acts xiii, 14. And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. Acts xiii, 42. And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. Acts xiii, 44. And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river-side where prayer was wont to be made. Acts 13. They came to Thessalonica where was a synagogue of the Jews, and Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures. Acts xvii, 2. And he reasoned in the synagogue and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. Verse 11. And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them." As the foregoing sufficiently demonstrates that St. Paul, neither by word nor deed, made any change in the day on which the Sabbath was observed—whilst he strictly reverenced it—it ought to prove conclusive evidence on the question. But further to elucidate the subject, I will present one more evidence, which ought to satisfy any one who venerates the word of the Lord. Matt. xxiv, 20. "But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day." This proves beyond dispute, that not only did St. Paul observe the seventh day, but that Christ himself, in his predictions of the future, gave his sanction to its continued observance. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is frequently asserted that the Scriptures contain no command from God to Adam to observe the Sabbath, yet it is written that "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." What do our Lord and his apostles mean, by saying "it is written"—undoubtedly that a revelation from God is recorded, for it could neither be written nor communicated whilst it remained in the divine mind alone. And not only did Adam receive oral instructions from God to reverence the Sabbath, but we read that the divine Being sanctified it by his own example, as we read that "he rested the seventh day from all his work." Were it necessary to demonstrate that the instructions of the Most High to Adam were much more full and complete than the very abridged history which we possess of the creation and the earlier ages of the world, reference might be made to the character of the sacrifices of Cain and Abel. "The Lord had respect to Abel and to his offering, but to Cain and his offering he had not respect"—not being in accordance with the law. Again, when Noah came forth from the ark, and consecrated the post-deluvian world by an act of sacrifice, as recorded in Gen. viii, 20. "And Noah builded an ark unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl and offered burnt offering on the altar"—had there been no fuller revelation than that referred to, how could Noah have discovered which were clean and which were unclean? But even in the giving of the law from mount Sinai, there is evidently reference to principles already laid down for the guidance of the people, when God himself says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Remember what? That I blessed and sanctified the seventh day when I instituted it, therefore keep it holy—for what God does is perfect and durable as himself. Having showed the grounds that exist for believing that the appointment of the Sabbath on the seventh day was positive and irrevocable, I will next take up the arguments generally adduced in favor of a change to the first day of the week. First. Acts xx, 7. "And upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread Paul preached unto them." From this sentence of Scripture the inference is attempted to be drawn that Paul concurred in and acted upon a change in the Sabbath; but to support this supposition it is necessary to show that Paul did not preach nor break bread on any day but the first day of the week, or that at least he abstained from so doing on the seventh day; whereas the scripture informs us that it was Paul's "manner" to preach or reason every Sabbath. It also appears that it was the custom of the church at Troas to break bread on the first day of the week, so that Paul's preaching unto them was not necessarily connected with the breaking of bread. Nor is the celebration of the Lord's supper confined to any day of the week—"And they continued daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart." Acts ii, 46. It is believed by some that the breaking of bread from house to house by the first Christians was not eating the Lord's supper; but whatever it was at Jerusalem, it was the same at Troas, for the same distinction is made in both places between breaking of bread and eating a common meal. The un-tenableness of the argument in favor of a change from the acts of St. Paul, at Troas, is at once shown by the foregoing quotation; for the same principle would support the doctrine of every day as a Sabbath, from the proceedings of the first converts to Christianity. But the object of the historian in mentioning St. Paul's service on the first day of the week, was not to convey the idea that he regarded it as the Sabbath, but for the purpose of mentioning the miracle which the Apostle performed on that occasion by the recovery of Eutychus, as may be plainly seen by reading the context. Another inference in favor of a change in the day is drawn from St. Paul's writings to the Corinthian church, where he says, "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come," 1 Cor. xvi, 2. The idea that the laying up of money for a special purpose out of the week's profits, should mark the Sabbath, is rather too far-fetched to require any argument in refutation; but in juxta-position we may remind the reader that the same Apostle, "reasoned in the synagogue [at Corinth] every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks;" "and he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them." But, say objectors, when Paul left the synagogue he ever after preached upon the first day of the week, and by that signified that the Sabbath was changed; yet the Scriptures are altogether silent on this subject. Moreover, when Paul preached in the synagogue he gave the Jews and the Greeks to understand that he believed the seventh day to be the Sabbath. And what would Justus and Crispus and all his house, with the believing Greeks, think of Paul's practicing such dissimulation as preaching a different doctrine from that he had preached in the synagogue. How heavily would his own anathema have fallen upon himself; [Gal. i, 8, 9] and would not such conduct be very inconsistent when contrasted with his reproving Peter before them all for using dissimulation. Gal. ii, 14. But St. Paul was not a dissembler. The Holy Ghost falling on the apostles on the first day of the week is made use of as another argument in favor of an alteration of the Sabbath. Granting that it was likely that God would permit such change under the new and vastly more important dispensation; or supposing that the epoch of the gospel dispensation being ushered in by a change so important on the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; to establish it as an act of the Divine Being, or giving the change such an impress as would authorize his creatures not to "remember the seventh day to keep it holy"—or the expunging of any portion of the decalogue and the retention of the remainder—it is absolutely requisite that authority should be shown, or the period so definitely so distinctly marked that his creatures could have no doubt on the subject. For instance, had the death of our Saviour produced the change, or his resurrection have sanctioned it; the period must have been definitely marked by the acts of the apostles themselves, have been part of their teaching to the Jewish converts, and the reason for it have been pointed out as distinctly as in the case of the change in the Levitical law. Until this is done it is clearly a violation of God's commands not to "keep holy the Sabbath day;" and yet St. Paul scrupulously kept the seventh day thirty years after the first promulgation of the gospel, there was no command ever given to the contrary, and the alteration is a device of man and not the act of God!