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CHRISTIAN SABBATH

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Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 27, 1860

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 17, No. 2.

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"CHRISTIAN SABBATH."

By Editor

"WESLEYAN Tracts, Large Series, No. 5, The Christian Sabbath, by Rev. Luther Lee," is the title of a pamphlet which has just been sent to this Office with a request that it be examined and its positions noticed. For the sake of any who may be in doubt about the distinctness between the institution which this writer calls "The Christian Sabbath," and that institution which the Bible calls "The Sabbath of the Lord thy God," we cheerfully comply with the above request.
The position of the writer may be noticed under three heads: 1. The Christian Sabbath in prophecy. 2. The Christian Sabbath in apostolic example. 3. The Christian Sabbath in History.
Before taking up these points in order, let us introduce the author's definition of his position, and a statement of what he intends to do, in his own language, as follows:
"A third class hold that we are under the law of the Sabbath as much as the Jews were, but insist that while the gospel continues the law of the Sabbath in full force, it has changed the day on which it is to be celebrated from the seventh to the first day of the week. This is the view held by the great majority of Christians, and it is this view that is proposed to be advocated in this brief treatise."
We are told that "we are under the law of the Sabbath as much as the Jews were." While we yield a hearty assent to this, we must just remind the reader of that distinctive feature of the Sabbath law which particularly designates the seventh as the day to be observed, and to which the institution is with the utmost strictness confined.
We are further told that "the gospel continues the law of the Sabbath in full force," to which also we respond a hearty Amen. But now comes the strange work which it is proposed to have the gospel accomplish. While it continues the law of the Sabbath in full force, it has nevertheless, it is claimed, "changed the day on which it is to be celebrated." On this declaration we join issue,
1. Because it must be evident to all, that as the original law designates the seventh day to the exclusion of all others, if that day is to be discarded and another taken in its place, there must be a change in the law. Paul once said of the ceremonial law, that, "the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law." Would he not much rather have said of the moral law, had the rest-day been changed, that, the Sabbath being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. The law must in this case be revised so as to read "first-day" instead of "seventh;" for certainly a law requiring one definite day cannot be taken to enforce another and a different day. And then we must have an account of such revision, and a copy of the revised law, or it is of no force whatever. But we have no record of either one or the other. The assumption is therefore without foundation.
That a change of the Sabbath cannot be maintained is evident,
2. Because in the very nature of the case a change is impossible. How did any day of the week become a Sabbath, or rest-day? Because God rested upon a certain day of the week. And how did that day ever become incorporated into the institutions given of God to man? Because God, if we may so speak, took that day upon which he had rested, placed his divine blessing and seal upon it, and sanctified or set it apart for the use of man. And he assigned as a reason for so doing the fact that upon that day he had rested from the work of creation and was refreshed. And around this institution he has thrown the safeguard of a moral precept, incorporating into the law the reason on which the institution is based, and giving it to man as a weekly memorial of the formation of the heavens and the earth, and of the great God whose handiwork they are.
Upon this institution thus founded and sanctioned, let us now try the effect of a change. Let us suppose the first day put in place of the seventh. What effect does this have upon the institution? We have seen that the whole reason for the institution—the reason why God blessed and set apart a certain day of the week, was because he had rested upon that day. But did he rest upon the first day of the week? He did not. Thus by changing the seventh to the first day of the week, the whole reason for the institution is carried away at one fell sweep.
But further, we have seen that the great object of the institution was to be a memorial of the works of creation, to keep man in remembrance of his Creator; and this is accomplished by the observance of that day of the week on which God rested after his six days of labor. But is this object gained by the observance of the first day of the week It is not; for God did not rest upon that day; and he has never blessed, or commanded us to keep, any day but that upon which he rested. It is thus clear that by the substitution of any day of the week for the seventh, both the reason for the institution, and the object for which it is designed, are completely obliterated, and the institution destroyed. Viewed in the light of these first principles, the first-day Sabbath is destitute of all these essential elements, which, according to the Bible, enter into the Sabbath's institution: it is without a reason and without an object. Custom may indeed make it a day of rest; but it does not thereby become the rest-day (Sabbath) of the Lord; it is not the Sabbath of the Bible; it is not the Sabbath which we are commanded to keep. The observance of any other day but the seventh must be of human origin, and be sanctioned only by human authority; since no day but the seventh can claim to itself those great facts without which the institution cannot scripturally exist. The moment we undertake to make a day the rest-day of the Lord on which he did not rest; when we endeavor to make a sanctified rest-day out of that which God has never blessed for that purpose; when we endeavor to make a day commemorate an event which did not take place on that day; and when we try to enforce the observance of a day by a law which as plainly requires another day; the inconsistencies of our position stare us in the face at every turn. And when the great Judge of all the earth, the great Author of the sanctified Sabbath, shall make inquisition for the honor of his law, all those who have suffered the human institution to usurp the place of the divine, will most assuredly stand abashed and speechless at that heart-searching challenge, "Who hath required this at your hand?"
(To be continued.)