DOCTOR BENSON'S SUNDAY BOOK.
By Editor
THERE are two expressions in the quotations we gave last week which call for notice. One is, that the "earnest Christians of the different churches" are "the sinners saved by their ministry." We are not going to deny that there are many sinners in the different churches who greatly need to be saved. The Lord says, "Cry aloud, spare not, . . . show my people their transgressions." "Sin is the transgression of the law," and when God's professed people "make void the law," or teach "for doctrines the commandments of men," and "make the commandment of God of none effect by their tradition," this cry ought to be heard. God's truth must be vindicated. But if the Doctor intends to insinuate, as we think he does, that none but members of other churches are converted by our ministry, then his words are unjust. It is a misrepresentation. It is a matter of personal experience with us that the preaching of the fulfillment of prophecy (too much neglected by the popular ministry), has power to convert unbelievers now, as it had in the days of the apostles. In those days appeals were made to the "sure word of prophecy," and preaching consisted in expounding the words which the prophets have spoken. Essays on everything but the Bible, styled sermons, were not then in vogue. And the prophecies are yet being fulfilled. Therefore it is still "present truth" to proclaim their fulfillment. We have seen many infidels led to a belief in the Bible, and to lives of faith and prayer, by the preaching of Seventh-day Adventists. We regret that the Doctor has suffered his prejudice to lead him to do us such injustice. The other expression is found in the following words:— "The day kept is holy because of the act of obedience; and the moral quality of the act, as in all cases, is found in the intention." The first part of this quotation was noticed, and its falsity exposed, last week. The last part he does not use lawfully. It is true that intention determines, to a large extent, the quality of an action. But we would ask him, Does the sanctity of the Sabbath depend on the intention of the keeper or breaker thereof? If it does, as he intimates, then if all should unite in desecrating the Sabbath, as an institution it would cease to exist! Thus man could utterly annihilate one of the ten commandments by disregarding it! This is surely so if "the day kept is holy because of the act of obedience." If there were no obedience there would be no holy day—no holy Sabbath, and the commandment would refer to a myth. Does the Doctor really believe this? Are his eminent indorsers prepared to accept it? We venture that not one of them dares to accept this conclusion, and yet they take this very position in their zeal to put down the seventh day. Such declarations are unworthy of review; notice of them is only called for by the prominence given to them by bodies of learned men, and editors of religious papers. We sincerely wish that some of the admirers of such arguments would try to vindicate the conclusions to which they logically tend. It would furnish a rare treat in "theology." We come now to chapter 2. The burden of this chapter is to make it appear that a new Sabbath was instituted in the wilderness of Sin, according to Ex. 16. (We incline to the opinion that all the theories of new Sabbaths, as substitutes for the Lord's Sabbath, take their origin in "the wilderness of sin," but not that one in Arabia.) We quote his words:— "In this chapter we have a historical account of the institution of the Jewish Sabbath. The manna fell on the morning of the 16th, and fell regularly for six consecutive nights. On the morning of the 22d of the month, as Moses had foretold them, there was no manna. It was the Sabbath. Had it been on the day of the Patriarchal Sabbath, the seventh day preceding (which was the 15th day of the month) would also have been the Sabbath; but, as the record shows, the fifteenth day, just one week previous to the day on which no manna was found, was a secular day. Had it been holy, the pillar of cloud would have hovered over the camp, and the people would have remained in their tents all day. Now one of two hypotheses must be true; either this Sabbath in the wilderness of Sin is a new institution, or the day of the Patriarchal Sabbath was changed. That it was a Jewish Sabbath day, ordained for a single purpose, is evident from the record." If Dr. Benson had made it his endeavor to crowd many errors into a small space he might be proud of his achievement. Let the reader carefully note the record, and see if he can find any evidence that the Sabbath of Ex. 16 was then first given. If the record shows it, then why did Dr. Clarke use the following language on this chapter?— "There is nothing either in the text or context, that seems to intimate that the Sabbath was now first given to the Israelites, as some have supposed; on the contrary, it is here spoken of as being perfectly well known, from its having been generally observed." That is to say, the Sabbath of Ex. 16 was one well known and not a new one. What light has Dr. Benson got on this chapter that Dr. Clarke did not have? We will state a few points, which we wish the reader to carefully note, and then examine the ground of the Dr.'s conclusion. 1. There is no intimation in Ex. 16 of a Sabbath being then instituted. If any one dissents, we will thank him to point to the verse or sentence which will show our error. 2. The Sabbath of Ex. 16 is every time called "the seventh day," without any explanation, which would be necessary if it was different from that seventh day, namely, of the week, which God sanctified from creation. 3. There is no reason given in Ex. 16 why the seventh day, or any day, is the Sabbath. That information we gather elsewhere. As Dr. Clarke truthfully said, there is no intimation of the introduction of a new Sabbath in Ex. 16. 4. There is no act recorded in Ex. 16 which bears resemblance to erecting or introducing a new institution. No day was then sanctified for any purpose or reason. 5. The manna was withheld on the seventh day, not to constitute it a Sabbath, but, because it was the Sabbath. The fact of its having been constituted a Sabbath, long before that time, we learn in Gen. 2:3, and Ex. 20:8-11. Again we invite any one to point to one sentence in the record which will invalidate these positions. Now we will notice what Dr. Benson assumes to arrive at his conclusion, for which he has not offered one particle of proof. 1. He assumes that all the murmuring of the people, as recorded in this chapter, occurred on the very day of their arrival in the wilderness of Sin. If this is not true his fabric falls to the ground. But he offers no proof that it is true, for he has none. 2. He assumes that the quails fell on their encampment the very day of their arrival there. We say of this as we said of the first. We wait for the proof. 3. He assumes that the manna began to fall on the 16th day of the month. We want something more than his assertion to be assured of any such fact. He cannot possibly know that it is so. 4. He assumes that the manna fell a full week, or six successive days before the Sabbath. For ought he or any one knows it may have first fallen in the middle of the week. It would not affect the Sabbath in either case. He only asserts; let him bring his proof. 5. He assumes that a new Sabbath was set up in the wilderness of Sin; of which no intimation is given in the sacred record. 6. He assumes that the Sabbath of Ex. 16 was not the Patriarchal Sabbath, though it is introduced, as Dr. Clarke remarks, as a new institution, but as one well known. 7. To meet the demands of this assumption he further assumes that the Sabbath of Ex. 16 was on the sixth day of the week, the record positively and repeatedly says it was the seventh day. There is no intimation in all the Bible that any other day was ever blessed, hallowed, or constituted a weekly Sabbath than that seventh day upon which Jehovah rested when he made the heavens and the earth. And to prove by his own showing that he does not know the day of the week on which they came to the wilderness of Sin, and how long the manna fell before that Sabbath mentioned in Ex. 16, we have only to refer to his mention of their leaving Rameses on the 15th day of the first month. He says: "It was probably on the sixth day of the week, Friday." He does not even give a reason why that is probable. But if he cannot establish that, how can he establish the day of the week of the 15th of the next month? Any reader can see that his conclusions are based on conjectures and assumptions contrary to the direct words of the sacred record. He concedes that the Sabbath was regarded before the exode. He says they could not have left Egypt "on the seventh day, as that was the Patriarchal Sabbath. God would not have his people enter upon a long and laborious journey on that day which he himself had hallowed." This contradicts all that he has said about the holiness of the day depending on the act of obedience. He acknowledges here that God had hallowed it previously, and independently of their obedience. And this every one knows is truth. The only wonder is that he had the temerity to deny it. But according to his statements and calculations, the 16th day of the second month was on the Patriarchal Sabbath, and this day they first gathered manna (he says), which the Lord would not permit them to do on the Sabbath! "Your ways are not equal." We come now to the climax of absurdities, and errors. He knows that his calculation thus far would leave the Israelites with two weekly Sabbaths—one on the sixth day, and one on the seventh day. In this manner he disposes of this difficulty, speaking of giving the law:— "The deliverance from captivity is not mentioned. The day of the Jewish Sabbath, however, was retained, the two Sabbaths were blended and kept on the same day. The two-fold memorial was kept, the Patriarchal day dropping back to the time of the Jewish Sabbath, the day was to be as long as the dispensation continued." By the day of the Jewish Sabbath he means the sixth day, or the day preceding the "Patriarchal Sabbath" which was the seventh day. And the seventh day Sabbath then dropped back upon the sixth day Sabbath, and the seventh day and the sixth day were one and the same thereafter! Or, God's sanctified seventh day was thereafter observed on the sixth day, which is precisely the same thing. Here a couplet of Dr. Young's rises to our mind:— "If anger rise, let anger be my praise,
And sin the grateful indignation raise." We are not sure that reverence will permit us to altogether restrain our indignation at such an abuse of the word and institutions of the Most High. Where did the Doctor learn all this? Not from the Bible, for there is no intimation there of such a thing as the "dropping back" of the Lord's Sabbath to a day which was not his Sabbath—which he had not sanctified. He does not venture to give a line of proof to justify this bold assertion. It rests solely upon his word. Did the Jews themselves ever know anything of the instituting of a sixth-day Sabbath? They never heard of it. Did they know that the seventh-day Sabbath was dropped back to the sixth day? They did not. Moses and the prophets "died without the sight," and it was reserved to Dr. Benson to make the grand discovery, which throws all the inventions of Edison into the shade,—before which even the electric light grows dim. Where did the Doctor find this wondrous light, concerning which the Bible is silent, and of which the people to whom "were committed the oracles of God" were ignorant? Reader, we can tell you. He found it in the necessity of his Sunday theory! It was "hard up" for arguments. The Seventh-day Adventists had taken the word of God and demolished its traditional citadels. They had convinced "good, honest, earnest Christians" that Sabbath-keeping and Sunday-keeping are not the same thing—that to keep "the Sabbath day according to the commandment," we must keep the seventh day, and not the first day of the week. To save "the venerable day of the sun," these flimsy conjectures are invented, of which the Bible does afford the faintest shadow of proof. We have now examined all there is of the foundation of his argument. We will notice his conclusions hereafter.