"HAVING EYES THEY SEE NOT."
By J. H. W.
THE following extract is copied from an article in the Family Guardian, entitled, "A Plea for the Sabbath." "There are certain primeval doctrines concerning the seventh day, that no treatises ever written can gainsay. First, there is the declaration of the Saviour, 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' The next is, that the day of rest is coeval with the creation; it is not as many would have us believe, a Hebraic institution, coeval with the promulgation of the ten commandments. Our record of it is coeval with the work of creation; it followed the creation of MAN; it was coeval with that other divine and wise, unerringly wise, institution, which men try equally hard to subvert as old fashioned, the institution of the human family. But though men in their madness say of these two witnesses for God: 'Let us break their bands asunder, let us cast away their cords from us,' yet do they but 'imagine a vain thing.' Immutable are the decrees of the Almighty, and as at the beginning of the world so now doth 'he set the solitary in families,' and bless the seventh day and the man that keepeth it holy." The writer in the same article confounds the seventh with the first day, and speaks of "Sunday desecration" with as much assurance as though Sunday had been blessed of God, and its observance enjoined in the commandment. It seems strange that any one having eyes to see the facts set forth above, should not also see the following truths: 1. Not a single "primeval doctrine" can be adduced to sustain the claims of the first day of the week. 2. The "primeval doctrines" of the Bible explicitly "gainsay" every argument in favor of the first day. 3. The claims of the first day are not only independent of facts coeval with the work of creation, but they contradict or subvert these facts making them of no effect. Thus: (1). The fact that "God blessed the seventh day" is no reason that the first day is holy. (2). The fact that man was commanded to keep holy the seventh day is no reason for observing the first day. (3). The fact that a blessing was promised to them that keep the seventh day is no reason why any are blessed for keeping the first day. (4). The fact that the Lord calls the seventh day "My holy day," is no evidence that the first day is "the Lord's day." It is plain enough to be seen by any one that they who endeavor to sustain Sunday by Bible doctrines, "imagine a vain thing." Bibles are plenty enough, but professed Christians talk, write, and act, as if they had none. "Eyes have they, but they see not." "The spirit of deep sleep" is fast being poured out upon this people, and when such plain "primeval doctrines" are so abused and perverted, it is no wonder that the "sure word of prophecy" is to them "as the words of a book that is sealed." They will not know the time of their visitation!
J. H. W.