p. 1 | NEW AND ENOURMOUS ARGUMENTS FOR SUNDAY-KEEPING

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 17, 1857

NEW AND ENOURMOUS ARGUMENTS FOR SUNDAY-KEEPING.

By Editor

No class of people would be more glad than ourselves to join the prevailing custom, and unite in practice with many whom we esteem in keeping the first-day of the week as the Sabbath of the Lord, could it be made to appear that the fourth commandment of that Law which God has given us by which to regulate our lives and develop our characters, would be satisfied with such a service at our hands. It is not from any pleasure we take in being at variance with our fellow-men, that we cannot thus unite with them. Harmony and union are at all times more pleasant and desirable; but we cannot for the sake of these, or for popularity, or convenience, or the friendship of the world, or the esteem of friends, violate our own consciences, or the just and established rules of interpretation. And in saying that we would willingly return to Sunday-keeping, would the Law permit it, we do not say that that Law, however much its requirements may lead us to differ in practice from those around us, is not our delight, or that we do not esteem it holy, just and good. We do. With the Psalmist we can call the Law our delight, and the Sabbath, with the Prophet, the holy of the Lord, and honorable. Ps. cxix; Isa. lviii, 13. Its principles and its requirements we trust it is the unwavering purpose of every saint to follow, though they should lead him to the block, the halter, or the stake.

Much is said for First-day observance, many are the well measured hymns that go up devoutly in its favor, which would be most convincing proof, all that could possibly be required, were they not pure and unqualified assumptions. Many are the articles also that are written in the same spirit for its support; and it is painful to witness the devious turnings, and flimsy reasons behind which men seek to entrench themselves in extenuation of their practice.

The object of these remarks is an article in the Advent Herald of the 5th inst., on this subject. Some of its correspondents after quoting Ex. xx, 9, 10, put home this plain question: "Now we keep the first day of the week in the place of the seventh day. Please inform us when this change from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week took place, and by whose authority." The Herald commences its reply by attempting to throw an air of indefiniteness over the fourth commandment, and thus rob it, as it seems to us, of its essential principles. It says:

"The 'seventh day' in the texts referred to, is the seventh that follows six days of labor without any direction as to the place in the week where the weekly cycle should commence."

A portion of this statement is partially true. It is true that the seventh day mentioned in the commandment is the seventh that follows six days of labor; but much more than this is true, as we shall endeavor to show. For, (1) any day and every day is the seventh in reference to the preceding six; and if this be the whole intent of the commandment, then every day of the week, in the light of that commandment, is the Sabbath; but, (2) the commandment cites us back to the creation for the institution of the Sabbath, and mentions two great eternal and immutable facts connected therewith: namely, God's resting upon the seventh day, and then blessing and setting apart for man that same day; and as Sabbath means rest, and the Sabbath-day means the Rest-day, it inevitably follows that the Sabbath day is the day of the week on which God rested, and the very day which he blest. But God did not rest upon every day of the week; he did not bless every day of the week; and therefore the conclusion that every day of the week may be the Sabbath, cannot stand. Consequently the position of the Herald overthrows the main pillars by which the Sabbath institution is sustained, by allowing six days of the week to be the Rest-day, on which God did not rest. It destroys its sanctity, by allowing six days of the week to be the Sabbath, which God did not sanctify nor bless. It destroys its principles of commemoration; for resting upon either of the first six days of the week, will not fitly commemorate a rest which took place on the seventh. It admits that the weekly cycle had its origin in the six days of labor and one of rest, that composed the first week of time; [See Herald of May 24th, 1856;] and yet it says that the commandment gives no direction as to the place in the week where the weekly cycle should commence, when it expressly declares to us that we should rest upon the seventh day of each week, for the very reason that God rested upon the seventh and last day of the first week of time, set it apart for man, and there placed his blessing.

The question arises further, Suppose God had wished to point out definitely the seventh day of the week, and confine the Sabbath inseparably to that, what language should he have used? For if we take the position that the commandment requires one day in seven and no day in particular, we must show how its language will admit of such a construction; and in doing this, we must show how it should have read, had a particular day been meant. What language therefore should have been employed, again we ask, to point out the seventh day? By thinking upon this point a moment we shall see that the utmost stretch of the English language has been called into requisition, to render the commandment plain, definite, and unequivocal. If the language employed, and the facts connected with the institution, do not confine it exclusively and immovably to the seventh day of the week, nothing else could.

Again the Herald says, "But the commandment is not made to individuals, but to the whole community; and as the keeping of different days by different persons would lead to confusion, and would not be a compliance with the command, it is necessary that all should observe one and the same day in all places."

Are we to understand by this that we are not individually holden by the commandment, and that it would not be the duty of an individual to adhere strictly to its requirements, though the whole community besides should disregard them? No one can take this position. Then how does it follow that the observance of different days by different persons, would not be a compliance with the command, according to the exegesis which the Herald itself has laid down? It cannot be shown. The Herald must explain further on this point.

It is also claimed by the article in question, 1st, That on the seventh day previous to the withholding of the manna, [Ex. xvi,] the children of Israel took a long journey which they could not have done had it been the Sabbath. But here the proof is utterly lacking. Days are spoken of in Ex. xvi, as the sixth and seventh in reference to their position in the week, and without any regard to the falling of the manna, or the journeying of Israel. 2d, That the Lord commanded them to keep the Sabbath in commemoration of their deliverance from Egypt. Deut. v, 15. But we read in chap. xxiv, 17, 18, "Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless, nor take a widow's raiment to pledge; but thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee from thence; therefore I command thee to do this thing." Now are we to suppose that the command not to pervert judgment &c., owes its existence to the fact of Israel's deliverance from Egypt? that they might have done so, and been guiltless had not that event occurred in their history, or that it is binding upon none who were not included in that redemption? Of course not. But as an additional motive to their observing this injunction, they are referred to their bondage in Egypt, where they were exposed to the same evil, and their deliverance therefrom. So with the Sabbath: God had delivered them from their Egyptian taskmasters, and brought them out where they could have liberty to sacrifice unto him, and keep his statutes; and this fact is held out as an additional motive to their obedience. But this rehearsal of Moses [Deut. v, 15] was forty years after the Lord had proclaimed from the trembling summit of Sinai, the original command and the reasons on which it is based, citing us back for them to the creation of the world. They were not therefore commanded to keep the Sabbath as a memorial of their deliverance from Egypt. But the Herald says, "they were, and also to commemorate the rest of God after creating the world." Look then at the events commemorated: the first is a day of rest, after six of labor; the other is a mighty rush on the fourteenth of the first month from the land of Egypt; events so similar and so nearly allied to each other in their nature that one memorial will answer for both!! But we will here inquire if the Bible will admit of two memorials of the same event, or suffer one memorial to be commemorative of two events. God gave the children of Israel a memorial of their deliverance from Egypt, in the passover. This is plainly declared to be a memorial, and its office described. Ex. xii. The broken body and spilt blood of our Lord, are kept in remembrance by the institution of the last supper; and his glorious resurrection by the ordinance of baptism. These are sufficient. There is beauty and harmony in them; but there is no fitness, as any one can see in wrestling the Sabbath from its proper office and connecting it with events like these. The Herald has the Sabbath, (instituted remember before the fall,) typical of our future rest, (a most gloomy institution it must have been to Adam,) and a memorial at the same time of creation, and then for a while a memorial of Israel's redemption from Egypt, and finally, it still being commemorative of creation and typical of our future rest, it becomes a memorial of the resurrection!

The Herald further says, (and we begin to come now to the enormous arguments intimated in our heading,) "He (Christ) knew that the day of his resurrection would be commemorated by his followers as their Sabbath, unless he instructed them to the contrary; but he gave them no such instructions!" This peevish argument then stands thus: The Lord knew we should keep the day of his resurrection; and if he did not want us to do it, he might have told us better! The Lord knew that a monster man of sin would arise upon earth, and lay violent hands upon his Law; but he did not see fit to prevent his developement.

But the reader must hear another strain still further down the murky regions of folly and absurdity: "If these things were not done on the day which he designed should be the Sabbath of his church, then [he] rescinded the command to work six days; for they could not work six on the week in which three thousand were attending meeting on Sunday and keeping Sabbath the next Saturday; but the command to rest one, synchronized with that to work six, and hence the change in the day, if not by his appointment, was by his providence and with his sanction."

Reader, did you ever before meet with anything like this? We never did. We confess to its novelty. It is something new in the line of argument. But let us analyze it a little.

Because the day of Pentecost came upon Sunday, and the disciples spent the day in preaching, and three thousand were added to the church, therefore that day must have been the Sabbath, unless the command to work six days and rest one, had been rescinded; for they could not work six days in that week, if they attended meeting on Sunday, and then kept the Sabbath the next Saturday. Therefore, how can it be doubted! Sunday must have been the Sabbath! The disciples held a meeting upon Sunday; and as the next seventh day could not be kept without violating the divine command to work on that week six days, how could the Jewish Sabbath be kept any longer! Who can suppose that it would survive an array of circumstances like these! What matters if the great God did utter with his own voice, and then with his own finger engrave upon the tables of stone, an express edict fixing the Sabbath to a certain day!—what matters this, since by so special a 'providence,' another day is designated for this christian age!

And then Christ met with his disciples on a certain First-day, and upbraided them with their unbelief; [Mark xvi, 14.] and again after eight days, which is an indefinite expression meaning just a week! he met with them once more; [John xx, 26.] and again he met them as they were out fishing; [chap. xxi;] and upon the Thursday when he ascended, he had another interview with them, having been seen of them forty days; [Acts i,] but as these last facts are generally overlooked by First-day sticklers, we will not urge them to a disagreeable degree;—but to return, how can it be supposed that the seventh-day Sabbath could stand against such an opposing array of divinely sanctioned circumstances as these! Proh pudor! that men laying claim to common capacity, should put forth such reasons on a subject so clear and so momentous as the Sabbath of the Lord.

So then, it seems, a meeting cannot be properly holden all day upon a week-day, unless the command to work six days and rest one has been rescinded. We cannot help wondering at the blindness of the poor Jews anciently, who held so many holy convocations in which they did no manner of servile work, besides the Sabbaths of the Lord. Lev. xxiii. But probably the plea of ignorance could be urged in palliation of their course, as they did not know that they were breaking thereby the fourth commandment; and the age in which they lived contained no such embodiments of wisdom, as have in these modern days arisen to dazzle the world into total blindness.

But how shall we designate such arguments as we are here reviewing? Their enormity consists in their littleness. They are profound for their weakness. They would look well saddled with the old political adage,

"The mountain in labor gave birth to a mouse!"

This review, as others have been before it, may be characterized as being "perfectly savage." If so, we can say that its ferocity is only such as enters into the "righteous indignation" which the defenders of the truth are sometimes permitted to exercise. Its savaginess may be like that contained in the Saviour's words, when he cried out, "Wo unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in;" [Matt. xxiii, 13;] or when he said again, "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men;" [chap. xv, 9;] or the same that actuated Elijah, when he bade the infatuated prophets of Baal send up a louder howl to their dumb god, for perhaps he was gone a journey, or was engaged. 1 Kings xviii.

It may be an infirmity in us—and if so the reader will readily pardon it—but we never feel like handling this traditionary pet of Sunday-keeping with gloved hands. The divinity of the Bible is the object of our worship; the Laws of the Bible demand our implicit obedience; but we have as yet heard no voice from all the Scriptures repealing the declaration which was uttered from 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; and until we find some such record in the word of God, we cannot mistake our duty.