THE INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 19, 1856

THE INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH.

By Editor

We give below an article which we find, headed as above, in the Advent Herald, for May 24th, 1856. It is one of a series of articles which are now appearing in the Herald on "The Earth: its Curse and Cure," and may therefore be considered a standard work on their side of the question; the best that they can present in defense of their own practice, which is Sunday-keeping. It is on this account that we notice it; since viewed in any other light, it is unimportant.

We would here remark that in our discussions of the Sabbath question, we are not actuated by a spirit of sectarian controversy, or a desire merely to maintain our theory. It is not from any wish to be odd, or to seem so, that we separate ourselves from the mass of the world by observing as the Sabbath, the seventh instead of the first day of the week; but it is only from the firm conviction that in no other way could we answer the requirements of God's holy law; and that that justice which is the habitation of his throne would demand no less than this at our hands. There is no class of people who would be more willing than ourselves to have it proved from the "lively oracles," that the first day of the week is the day which claims our special regard as a Sabbath, holy unto the Lord, or who would more willingly observe it, when it should be thus proved.

We therefore wish to let all the arguments of our opponents have all their bearings in their broadest and fullest extent, that it may be proved, if possible, that the Sabbath falls on Sunday; for we would be bigoted indeed, if, without reason, we should persist in a practice which causes us some inconvenience, and much opprobrium. We cannot however, in this matter, for the sake of popularity, or convenience, or the friendship of the world, or the esteem of friends, violate our own consciences, or any just and established principle of interpretation. But to the article. Our remarks from time to time will be found enclosed in brackets. The Herald says:—

Israel departed from the Red Sea [Ex. xv, 22] "into the wilderness of Shur" three days' journey, where the people murmured because the waters were bitter. The Lord made the waters sweet; and then [verse 27] they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and three score and ten palm trees; and they encamped by the water." till [xvi, 1] "They took their journey from Elim" and "came into the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt;" which was just four weeks from the seventh of Adar.

There [verse 2] "the whole congregation" murmured against Moses and Aaron, because they hungered; when the Lord [Jehovah] said to Moses, [verse 4,] "Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you," that "I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or no." Moses said to the people, [verse 8,] "The Lord [Jehovah] shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full; for that the Lord [Jehovah] heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him; and what are we? your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord [Jehovah]" And as "the whole congregation" [verse 10] "looked toward the wilderness, behold the glory of the Lord [Jehovah] appeared in the cloud." "And it came to pass" [verses 13-15] "that at even the quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning" "there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground; and they said it is manna; for they wist not what it was. And Moses said, This is the bread which the Lord [Jehovah] hath given you to eat." Thus the Elohim [Psa. lxxvii, 24-27] "rained down manna," gave "them of the corn of heaven," and "man did eat angels' food." He also "rained flesh upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea."

This manna they gathered every morning for six days; and [verse 22] "on the sixth day they gathered twice as much," at which they wondered and went and told Moses. He replied, [verses 23-30,] "This is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord [Jehovah] . . . six days shall ye gather it; but on the seventh day which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none . . . The Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day."

This is the first recorded instance of the formal observance of a day of rest by the descendants of Abraham. The manna had fallen six days, and on the day preceding its fall, Israel had taken a long journey [verse 1] from Elim to the wilderness they were then in; which day, therefore, was not observed by them as a day of rest, as it would have been had they regarded it as their established Sabbath.

[We do not by any means consider it certain that the manna had fallen just six days, and that consequently they had taken a long journey the seventh day previous. We have no warrant for making the first day on which the manna fell, the day from which to commence the numbering of the week. God spoke of the sixth day. We claim that he spoke of it with reference to its position in the week, regardless of the time in which he commenced to rain manna. But admit that it is as the writer asserts, that journey performed under the direction of the Lord, would no more have been a violation of the Sabbath law, than was the marching around Jericho, seven successive days, one of which must of course have been the Sabbath.]

The day of this journey, "the fifteenth day of the second month," was the thirty-first from "the fourteenth day" of the first month, when they departed [xii, 27] from Rameses to Succoth. As they encamped at Succoth the first night, in the edge of the wilderness the second, [xiii, 30,] and crossed the Red Sea during the third night, which was the commencement of the seventeenth day—their time being reckoned from even to even—it was on the seventeenth day that they sang their song of deliverance [xv, 1] on the eastern shore of the Red Sea. From the seventeenth day of the first month to the fifteenth day of the second, the day of their journey from Elim, would be just twenty-eight days, or four even weeks; and therefore the seventh day, from the day of that journey, the seventh day after the manna had fallen six, and the first of its cessation, would have been the fifth Sabbath in regular order, after they had left the Red Sea, had they celebrated that as a Sabbath in which they sang their deliverance.

The institution of the Sabbath was coeval with the creation. Gen. ii, 3. "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work." To sanctify, in the sense of the word here used, is to separate, to set apart, or appoint to a holy, sacred or religious use. By a formal appointment, God thus distinguished from the other six, one day in every seven, and commanded it to be observed as a day of rest—not as a local, but as a universal observance.

Whether there was an observance of the Sabbath during the period from Adam to Moses is not distinctly indicated in the Scriptures. In Gen. vii, 4, 12, and viii, 10, 12, the days are numbered by seven, which is of some significance; and in Gen. xxix, 27, the week is known as a division of time. The earliest Greek poets make distinct reference to the week as a cycle of time, as do the ancient Chaldeans, Romans and Egyptians; and it is inconceivable how a period, not marked by any natural division of time, should have become universally known unless it was observed from the creation and transmitted among the heathen by tradition.

"The Sabbath," said the Saviour, [Mark ii, 27,] "was made for man." This declaration clearly refers to its original institution as a universal law. It was made for man: not as he may be a Jew, or a Christian, but as a man, a creature on trial for eternity, and under obligation to love, worship and obey his Creator. It was made for man's comfort and convenience: it gives him opportunity for that physical rest which his bodily nature imperatively demands, without which the race would speedily deteriorate, and it gives him opportunity to call his thoughts away from earthly cares and objects, and to center them on God. It is a reprieve, during one seventh part of his probationary existence, from the sentence which would otherwise doom him to constant toil; and is so much left of what was given to man before the fall: to remind him of the Eden which he has lost, and to typify to him the Eden that is to be restored, when all toil and weariness shall forever cease. His well-being in this world and the next, is thus subserved by God's having blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.

Dr. Clarke happily remarks, "God has spoken well of the Sabbath, and good to them who conscientiously observe it." And Bishop Patrick says: "The more pious any people were, the greater respect they had to this day." As men became wicked, the observance of one day in seven, doubtless, became mostly, if not entirely, disregarded; and the children of Israel in their Egyptian bondage, must have been unable to gain time from their "task masters" for its observance; and they had probably become careless, if not indifferent, respecting it. But now that Jehovah their Elohim had taken them under his special guidance, he re-instituted the Sabbath, re-consecrated and sanctified it, and again gave it to them; so that Moses said, [Ex. xvi, 29,] "See, for that the Lord [Jehovah] hath given you the Sabbath,"

[We see no necessity for here taking the position that the Sabbath was here "re-instituted, re-consecrated and sanctified." The writer has admitted that "the institution of the Sabbath was coeval with creation;" and it was then blessed and sanctified; and how can a thing be re-instituted, till it has been abolished, or re-consecrated until it has been rendered profane? But we have the best evidence that the Sabbath had been observed from creation; because (1) God would not give an institution to man before he intended that he should observe it; and (2) we have repeated mention of the division of time into weeks, which, if it was not derived from the events of the first week of time, would be unnatural and arbitrary. God had now liberated the children of Israel from their Egyptian bondage, and cruel task-masters, where they could keep his Sabbath, and he therefore reminds them of his ancient institution, and gives them manna to prove them whether they would walk in his law or no.]

Whether, or no, the day designated for their observance, coincided with the seventh in regular succession from the paradisaical week, there are no means of determining; but as it was the seventh, after six days' work in the gathering of manna, its observance answered all the purposes for which the Sabbath was instituted; and which were of a two-fold nature.

[If we believe that the Sabbath institution is one institution, and was binding on men from the day it was given to the time of Israel, it seems to us a very singular position to question whether the day that God designated as his Sabbath was the seventh in regular succession from the first. Did not God know which the true seventh day was? To say that he did not would be an abuse of faith; and to admit that he did, would obviate the necessity of raising any question on the point. Concerning the purposes of the Sabbath, and the day that is required to answer those purposes, we shall speak in another place; as the Herald itself admits that it was designed to commemorate God's work of creation in the following language:]

1. The Sabbath was commemorative of God's great work of creation in six days; which those do not commemorate who keep no Sabbath. And those who pretend to keep one, but deny the Mosaic cosmology of the earth, do not keep it as a day commemorative of God's creative power.

[We are glad to see this great truth so frankly admitted; but we have to inquire of any candid person, if those who keep no Sabbath, do not commemorate the first-day of Jehovah, can they do it by resting on the first day of the week, when his rest took place on the seventh? We dare not contend that they could. If the division of time into weeks is the result of the events of the first week of time, wherever this division is regarded, and a day kept to commemorate the rest of God on the seventh day of that first week, it must of course be the seventh day of each week. It is utterly futile to deny this; because it is a fact, and facts will not yield to sophistry,—it is a fact that resting on the first day of a week will not commemorate a rest which occurred on the seventh. Even if we did not know the true seventh day in succession from creation, we must nevertheless keep the seventh day of what we regard the week, or our practice would carry with it no significance whatever. The Herald now presents us with the fourth commandment, which we are always glad to see quoted, though the efforts sometimes made to wrest and pervert its meaning are extremely painful.]

One of the most prominent of the ten commandments is, [Ex. xx, 8-11,] "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work: but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God [Jehovah Elohim:] in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord [Jehovah] made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord [Jehovah] blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

The words of this command are positive and unequivocal, that after six days of labor there must follow a day of rest. But no intimation is given of the point of time at which the enumeration should set out, and the weekly cycle begin. Had the command indicated this, it would have been accompanied by some rule so that all nations might observe the same hours. But the law is not fettered with that circumstantial exactness which would require difficult and sometimes astronomical calculations to insure its uniform and simultaneous observance, and which now varies according to the latitude and longitude of different places. As there are no means of learning the day that corresponds to the original Sabbath; and as nothing is added respecting the commencement of the days for work, it cannot be reasonably disputed that the command is truly obeyed by the observance of every seventh day, after six days of labor, independent of any particular method of computing the septenary cycle.

[The fourth commandment requires the observance of the seventh day of the week; and we think there is some "intimation" where the weekly cycle should begin: it begins with no other than the first day of the week! It is not at all difficult to see in it; and then the commandment positively declares that the seventh day of that cycle is the Sabbath, and as positively commands us to keep it. The puerile remarks about the "same hours," "circumstantial exactness," "astronomical calculations," "latitude and longitude of different places," we might have expected from some other source. We know not that it has ever been claimed by any people that the Sabbath law requires the simultaneous observance of the same hours. But as the Herald and most other First-day advocates use it to sustain and defend the practice of Sunday-keeping, we claim at least an equal privilege with it, in regard to the seventh day to which alone it has any application. There is nothing plainer than that the commandment requires the observance of the seventh day of every weekly cycle; and the Bible is elsewhere very explicit in informing us where the day commences: "The evening and the morning were the first day." "From even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath." It requires no very great stretch of faith to believe that we have now the day that "corresponds to the original Sabbath," as it was designated by God himself, and carefully preserved by Israel till the days of Christ; and since that time there has been no discrepancy between the reckoning of Jews, Christians or Mahommedans. As it is therefore sufficiently evident that we have now the true seventh day, at any rate, "it cannot be reasonably disputed that the command is truly obeyed" by keeping that day; while it cannot be reasonably claimed that it is obeyed by keeping any other day.]

2. The seventh day is also typical. There is "a promise" left [Heb. iv, 1] of entering into God's "rest;" "for" which, the apostle says, [verse 2,] "unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them." He also [verse 5] quotes Psa. xcv, "If they shall enter into my rest," as evidence [verse 9] that "there remaineth therefore a rest," or, as in the margin, a keeping of a Sabbath "to the people of God;" and he exhorts Christians to labor [verse 11] to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief," by which the Jews failed to enter in. Because the day of rest is thus typical of the future, and because one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, the belief has been generally prevalent, that at the close of six Chiliads in the work of redemption, the seventh millennium would usher in the "rest" thus typified.

[It is not our purpose to discuss the question here whether or not the seventh day is typical of a future rest. We will take our opposers on their own ground; and if the Sabbath is a type, and they would keep it as such, they are necessarily confined to the seventh day of the week, until the antitype shall be reached. A First-day rest cannot be typical of a seventh thousand years rest. We are at a loss to know which one of his "figures of speech" the editor of the Herald would bring forward to make it perform such an office. By their own position therefore they are bound to keep the seventh day till we are ushered into that rest that remains for the people of God, of which they contend that the Sabbath is a type.]

This commemorative and typical significance of the Sabbath being of universal application, a seventh day of rest is needful to be observed by all who worship Jehovah. But it is not left to every individual to decide for himself where his week shall commence, or at what place in the weekly cycle his rest-day shall fall. The day has its public as well as its private uses; and these require that some day shall be observed by all in the same community. God indicated to Israel where their week should commence and end, by withholding the fall of manna; and there was a propriety in the selection of that day for them; for that day had a national significance, which it was profitable that Israel should commemorate, in addition to its universal significance. God said to them [Deut. v, 15] "Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God [Jehovah Elohim] brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath holy." How sweet to them must have been the remembrance of that first resting day from their Egyptian bondage—the first they had ever enjoyed from their cruel trials and fatiguing flight—when they sang their song of deliverance on the sea shore? And therefore there was no more appropriate epoch from which to count their weekly cycle than that on which they rested from their pursuing task-masters.

[We have before remarked that we have no warrant for making any event in the history of the children of Israel, an epoch from which they were to reckon their weekly cycle. Such a position could only originate in a lack of faith that God knew how to preserve the numbering of his weeks. Our readers will please detect the speciousness of the argument in the first part of this last extract. The artful method here used to virtually strip the fourth commandment of its vitality and power, is by no means original with the Herald. By various assertions, the attempt is made first to render the fourth commandment vague and indefinite; and then by special circumlocations they light upon the first day of the week, as being a notable day and very proper to be observed as a day of rest! Who does not see that an attempt to attach such a disgraceful laxity to the fourth commandment, which is defended by the definite article, the, and that continually, destroys the Sabbath and does dishonor to its divine Author. We find by the record at the beginning that the blessing was placed upon the day. It was the day which was set apart and sanctified. It is the day which we are commanded to keep holy. There is nothing said about blessing the institution, abstractly, or setting it apart for man; and the command does not read, a seventh day is the Sabbath, in which thou shalt not do any work. Take away the particular day, and the institution is destroyed. No man can honestly deny this. But if any before admitting this must know the opinions of learned men, we have only to remark that there are men who admit this, as learned and reliable as any who deny it. We need not enlarge upon this point. Much has been written touching it; and if the Herald has not acquainted itself with these writings it is poorly qualified to discuss the Sabbath question; and if it has, we marvel at the position taken. We do not wish to impugn any man's motives; but the Bible speaks of some who are "willingly ignorant!"]

As the particular day designated for its observance by Israel, was needful only for its national significance, [We would here inquire if the creation of the world, which the Herald has admitted was commemorated by the Sabbath, was an event which concerned the nation of Jews only!!] it follows that should it cease to be a national and come into universal observance, its universal significance might be commemorated on any other succession of seventh days that should be regularly preceded by six days devoted to secular pursuits, provided God should change it. [Yes, provided God should do it! It remains to be proved however that God has done it.] And as God indicated the day he would have the Jews observe, [He did more this: he indicated the day he would have every one observe, since the Sabbath day was given to man centuries before a Jew existed.] it would be expected—should any event transpire of more general interest than one that affected only a single nation—that, either by precept or by his providence, he would designate a day that should commemorate that, while it should still retain its original significance. [We do not believe that such an institution as the Sabbath is dependent for its existence or particular observance on any event in human history, since its first institution.]

Such an event did occur; he who instituted the Sabbath asserted his prerogative over it, to change, abrogate or to perpetuate its observance, when he declared [Mark ii, 28,] that "the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." He did not abrogate it, but re-affirmed it when he acknowledged the binding force of the entire Decalogue, [and in so doing he acknowledged the seventh day which alone the decalogue recognizes.] which, written on two tables of stone, he denominated, [Matt. xxii, 36-40,] the "two" commandments. He was the end of all those observances which typified his death: but the Sabbath typified the rest that he will give at his second coming, and therefore it is to be observed till then. Being of universal significance, it survives those observances which were merely national.

[We would here inquire what it is which is of universal significance. The Herald has told us that the Sabbath is commemorative of the work of creation, and we suppose is therefore of universal significance: and then it says that the day which the Jews observed was commemorative of their deliverance from Egypt, and was consequently only of national significance; and then says that the Sabbath "being of universal significance survives those observances which were merely national." By this we can only understand that the institution commemorates one thing, and the day on which the institution is observed commemorates another; and that the institution being of universal significance, survives the day on which the institution was observed, which was only of national significance!! We conceive then that the institution bears the same relation to the day that the immaterial and invisible, immortal soul of popular theology bears to the body: the body dies, and away flies the soul in immortal existence; so the day of the Sabbath expires, but the undefinable principle of the institution still remains, ready to re-enter any other day which shall be designated! But while the Jews were so zealously observing the Sabbath on the seventh day, which day was only of national significance, and belonged to them, as is claimed, on what day should the other nations have observed the Sabbath, and then what would the day they kept have commemorated! Thus we see the absurdity of talking about an abstract institution of rest independent of a definite and particular day. If there is no specific day, there is no institution: remove it from a definite day, and you destroy it immediately and thoroughly; and thus the matter is ended.]

The observers of the Jewish day crucified the "Lord of the Sabbath;" and while they were hypocritically keeping the day that commemorated their deliverance from Egypt, his body was a tenant of a tomb.

[As there is no Sabbath without a specified day, the assertion here is that the Sabbath commemorated the Jews' deliverance from Egypt. But the Herald in this very article has claimed that the Sabbath was commemorative of the work of creation. Can then two events, over two thousand years apart and bearing no resemblance to each other, be commemorated by the same memorial? If so it might be well for the American people to consider their weekly Sabbath as commemorating the Landing of the Pilgrims, and the Declaration of Independence, and so dispense with the yearly ceremonies by which those events are now celebrated. We admit that it was proper for the children of Israel, as a nation, to commemorate their deliverance from Egypt, and we claim also that God, according to the harmony of all his works, gave them all that was necessary to do this in the feast of the Passover.]

He passed over their day; and on the first day of the week, he who [Rom. iv, 25] "was delivered for our offences, was raised again for our justification;" which event was of more momentous interest to the whole race than any that had transpired since he first rested from his work of creation.

[By what authority is it called above "their day?" The day of the Sabbath is no more peculiar to the Jew than to any other man on the globe; since the Sabbath was made for man; and according to the Herald's own admission, was made in the beginning and designed for all. The resurrection of Christ is spoken of as being an event of "more momentous interest to the whole race, than any that had transpired since he first rested from his work of creation." Well, what if it was? Tell us how this affects the fourth commandment of the decalogue! We have heard no voice, as yet, from all the scriptures, repealing the declaration which was uttered from the mount of Sinai. We have seen no edict removing from God's holy Rest-day the blessing and the sanctity, with which it was consecrated in the beginning. We have seen no arm raised by the appointment of God, to strike down those divine barriers which were given to guard the Sabbath, and thus render secular and profane, what was once set apart to a holy and sacred use. Till we find some such records in the word of God, we cannot mistake our duty.]

This event was worthy of universal commemoration, and it was a type of the future resurrection of all the redeemed; and as such, its day was more fitting for Christians of all nations to observe, than a day that commemorated only the national deliverance of the Jews. By resting on it, it was no less "the seventh," after six days of labor, than had been the last day of the week: and therefore, as well as that, its observance was commemorative of God's rest from his work of creation and was typical of the future rest reserved for his people.

[We think as highly as any other people of the resurrection of our Saviour, and admit that the event was worthy to be commemorated. But has not God given us a beautiful and appropriate memorial of this event? Are we not, in the ordinance of baptism, planted in the likeness of his death, and raised in the likeness of his resurrection to walk in newness of life? And have we need of any other memorial? God has not told us that it was "more fitting" for Christians to observe the first day for this purpose: the apostles have not told us so: it is nowhere in the Bible told us so: it is a human assertion, and human only. Then where is the necessity of outraging all propriety and calling that a memorial which has no shadow of resemblance to the event to be commemorated? The Herald says that the first day is no less "the seventh" (!) after six of labor. Then here is an admission that the seventh day is necessary to commemorate the works of creation; but who would endeavor to keep the first day and evade the commandment by such a miserable subterfuge? Every day is the seventh, compared with the preceding six; so is every week, and every year; and we may as well keep every seventh year, or seventh week, if this be the principle on which we are to act.]

After this there is not on record any marked Christian observance of the Jewish Sabbath. [We presume not. We do not know of any "Jewish Sabbath." The apostles did not know of any. It is not a real existence: it is a child of the prejudice which some degenerate Christians in the time of apostasy bore towards the people of the Jews.]

Apostolic practice is equally significant with apostolic precept; [but neither their precept nor practice bear any intimation to Sunday-keeping. We appeal to the inspired record which all can read for themselves.] and since then the first day has been universally recognized as "The Lord's Day." [The first day has not been universally recognized as the Lord's day. Prof. Brerewood says, "They know little who do not know that the ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed by the eastern churches, three hundred years after the Saviour's passion."] The Saviour recognized it twice [John xx, 19, 26] by meeting his disciples on it. [Will the Herald tell us what day that was on which the Saviour met his disciples when they were out fishing. John xxi, 1-5. Was this the first day of the week? If so, it seems they were not very reverent towards their new Sabbath; for they must have known that it was the Sabbath, if, as the Herald claims, he had met with them and "recognized it" twice before. Chap. xx, 19, 26. If this meeting was not on this "Christian Sabbath," we think it rather goes to prove that the meeting of Christ with his disciples on any day did not make a rest-day of it! He met with them on the day of his ascension, [Acts i, 3-9,] but the Christian world seem to have forgotten to rest on that day!]

It was honored as the Pentecostal season when the Holy Spirit was poured out. [It was the feast of Pentecost, and not the first day of the week which was thus honored. Christ told his disciples just before his ascension that they should be baptized with the Holy Ghost "not many days" from that time; and if it had been his intention to honor the first day of the week, why did not the Holy Ghost descend the next first day after his ascension? But it was not until the second that it was poured out upon his waiting disciples; and the reason of all this is very evident: the antitype of the Feast of Pentecost had not till that time fully come; and therefore the inspired record is silent concerning the day of the week upon which it occurred.]

"The first day of the week" [Acts xx, 7] was observed by the apostles in coming together to break the bread that commemorated the death of Christ. [Our First-day friends are in a dilemma on this text, as some of them must be aware. We care not which horn of it they take, as they are both destructive, in an equal degree, to their cherished theory. If we admit the Bible reckoning of time, from evening to evening, that the twenty-four hour day commences with the setting of the sun, the meeting here recorded took place on what would now be called Saturday night, and the breaking of bread was after midnight, on what would now be called Sunday morning. The point now to be marked is that the day following this night meeting and breaking of bread, which would be the day time of Sunday, the disciples started off upon a long journey, some by ship, while Paul accomplished the first part of his journey on foot; which seems to us a very singular event to regard as a precedent for going to church. Second, if any contend for the present reckoning of days, namely, from midnight to midnight, it follows that the meeting was held on Sunday night, and as the breaking of bread was after midnight, that took place on Monday; and if this act makes a Sabbath, our First-day Sabbath is inevitably transferred to Second-day. We repeat, we care not which of these positions our friends take; for according to the first, the apostles and disciples traveled all day Sunday, and the Herald says that "apostolic practice is equally significant with apostolic precept;" so they have as much as told us that we may travel too; and according to the second, there was no meeting held till Sunday night and then the breaking of bread was attended to on Monday! Now any one upon an examination of this passage, cannot fail to see all we have claimed, and should be in view of the still urge that the passage proves Sunday-keeping, we see not how he could defend himself from the charge of dishonesty, provided it should be brought against him.]

They commanded that on that day [1 Cor. xvi, 2] their brethren should lay by for those poorer than themselves according as the Lord of the Sabbath had prospered them. And that was the day that John, in the isle of Patmos [Rev. i, 10] had a view of his risen Saviour. [Paul does not command his brethren in 1 Cor. xvi, 2, to assemble at church and take up a public collection, that there might be no collection when he came; but he commands every one to lay by him in store; and why did not the Editor of the Herald, in throwing in his coloring, say, as the Lord of the First-day had prospered them? This text to prove what people generally claim for it, ought not to be more than half expressed; thus, "Now upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by 1?" On Rev. i, 10, we inquire, How does the Herald know but that John was in the Spirit on Thursday? That is supposed to be the day of Christ's ascension, and isn't that therefore the Lord's day?! and how does it know but that John had a view of his ascended as well as "risen" Saviour? We deny, point-blank, that Rev. i, 10, refers to Sunday, and would earnestly entreat those who think it does, since they have had the satisfaction of repeating it so often, to just bring forward now some proof to sustain their assertions. We ache for a little proof on this side of the question; some little tangible foundation, which the poor First-day dove, so often sent out, may find to rest the sole of her foot upon.]

The first day of the week was thus honored by Christ and his apostles. [The first day of the week was never especially honored by Christ or his apostles. We are happy to inform Bro. Bliss that this point is also open for proof; and we would ask him also what they meant by mentioning the Sabbath day at least fifty-nine times in the New Testament, and what day it was which they so often recognized and referred to?]

The voice of the Church has ever since uniformly testified to its observance. [The voice of the Church has not uniformly testified to its observance as can be shown by numerous witnesses; unless the Herald would refuse to recognize any as belonging to the Church, except such as would advocate and practice this traditionary festival.]

The Providence of God has abundantly indicated that this is the day that he has sanctified for Christian worship and communion. [The Providence of God has abundantly indicated that he was willing to bless his people on any day of the week.]

And as those who observe the Sabbath neither commemorate God's work of creation nor typify his promised rest, so those who do not keep the Lord's day as the Sabbath, neither commemorate Christ's resurrection from his work of atonement nor symbolize their faith in the resurrection of the just at his second appearing. [As those who observe no Sabbath do not commemorate God's work of creation, so those do not do it who keep First-day; for they keep another day and for another reason. And those who attempt to show forth their faith in the resurrection by keeping the first day of the week, enter upon a service they are nowhere in the Bible commanded to perform, and have imagined an uncouth memorial which God has nowhere given. But to say that those who do not keep the first day, do not commemorate Christ's resurrection, nor symbolize their faith in the resurrection of the just, is scripturally false; for Paul expressly declares that to do this very thing is the import of baptism. Rom. vi, 3-5; Col. ii, 12. True the Papacy corrupted the ordinance of baptism so that it failed entirely to signify what it was intended to; hence the necessity of some other memorial; which has given birth to the view we have just noticed. We come now to closing paragraph of the Herald's article, which we heartily endorse; and had it been carried out in the world thus far, there would have been no chance for a discussion on so plain, yet so important a subject as the Holy Sabbath.]

To keep Jehovah's Sabbath, it is needful to observe the day he recognizes, and which is significant of all the truths, for the perpetuation of which he has instituted it.

["To keep Jehovah's Sabbath it is necessary to keep the day that he recognizes." In the fore part of this article the Herald labored to destroy the definiteness of the fourth commandment, and claimed that the command was truly obeyed by keeping any day after six of labor. Now, it seems, it admits the necessity of a definite day. We are glad to see so much of an advance towards the truth. The whole question now between us is reduced to this one point. What day does Jehovah recognize as his Sabbath? On this question we are willing to rest the issue. And we would respectfully invite any man in christendom to lay his finger on the record where God has acknowledged as his holy Sabbath aught else but the seventh day of the week, in regular succession from the first week of time.]—Ed.