p. 60 | QUESTIONS by James White

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 23, 1861

QUESTIONS.

By James White

Bro. White: Will you please answer the following questions, and oblige those who are seeking for truth.

Attica, Ohio, July 7, 1861.

QUESTION. Does the new birth spoken of in John iii, 3, take place in this life, or at the resurrection?

ANSWER. We think that natural birth is used in some places in the sacred Scriptures to represent conversion, and in others the resurrection of the just. John iii, 3-8, evidently refers to the resurrection.

1. Seeing, or entering the kingdom of God, mentioned in the text, follows being born again. It does not follow conversion, but will follow the resurrection.

2. Said Jesus, verse 6, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Those who are converted are not spirit; but those brought forth from the dead by the Spirit will be spirit. God is a Spirit, that is, a Spirit Being. The children of the resurrection to life will be spiritual beings.

3. He continues, verse 8, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit." This is not true of mortals, though they be converted; but it will be true of the immortal saints.

QUESTION. Do you make the Sabbath a test of fellowship?

ANSWER. God has made it a test. If the law of the great God be not a test, what can be a test? or what use have we for the word? Even the Seventh-day Baptists, at their late Association at Genesee, N. Y., passed a resolution making the observance of the Ten Commandments a test of communion, as the following shows—

"Resolved, That it is the judgment of this Association, that we should not join in the celebration of the Lord's Supper with any but those who live in obedience to the Ten Commandments of the Lord, and in visible union with his church, according to gospel order; and we therefore request our members, from love to Christ, and from regard to the prosperity and peace of the churches, to commemorate the Lord's death only in accordance with this our judgment."

QUESTION. Who changed the Sabbath? Please give us history. Prof. Wilson says in one of the religious journals, that it is a libel on the Catholic Church to blame them for it.

ANSWER. "Who Changed the Sabbath?" is the title of a tract for sale at this Office, devoted to extracts from Catholic works, in which they claim that their church has the honor of changing the Sabbath. We give from the tract the following extracts:

"The word of God commandeth the seventh day to

be the Sabbath of our Lord, and to be kept holy: you [Protestants] without any precept of Scripture, change it to the first day of the week, only authorized by our traditions. Divers English Puritans oppose against this point, that the observation of the first day is proved out of Scripture, where it is said the first day of the week. Acts xx, 7; 1 Cor. xvi, 2; Rev. i, 10. Have they not spun a fair thread in quoting these places? If we should produce no better for purgatory and prayers for the dead, invocation of the saints, and the like, they might have good cause indeed to laugh us to scorn."

"QUESTION. By whom was it changed? ANSWER. By the Governors of the Church, the Apostles, who also kept it; for St. John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day [which was Sunday]. Apoc. i, 10.

Q. How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days? A. By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church.

Q. How prove you that? A. Because by keeping Sunday they acknowledge the church's power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin; and by not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power."

"Q. Had the church power to make such change? A. Certainly, since the Spirit of God is her guide, the change is inspired by that Holy Spirit. The uniform, universal and perpetual tradition of all ages and nations, attest the antiquity of, and consequently the divine assent to, this change; even the bitterest enemies of God's church admit and adopt it."

"Q. What warrant have you for keeping the Sunday, preferable to the ancient Sabbath which was the Saturday? A. We have for it the authority of the Catholic Church, and apostolic tradition.

Q. Does the Scripture say where command the Sunday to be kept or the Sabbath? A. The Scripture commands us to hear the church [Matt. xviii, 17; Luke x, 16], and to hold fast the traditions of the apostles. 2 Thess. ii, 15. But the Scriptures do not in particular mention this change of the Sabbath. John speaks of the Lord's day [Rev. i, 10]; but he does not tell us what day of the week this was, much less does he tell us that this day was to take the place of the Sabbath ordained in the commandments. Luke also speaks of the disciples meeting together to break bread on the first day of the week. Acts xx, 7. And Paul [1 Cor. xvi, 2] orders that on the first day of the week the Corinthians should lay by in store what they designed to bestow in charity on the faithful in Judea; but neither the one nor the other tells us that this first day of the week was to be henceforward the day of worship, and the Christian Sabbath; so that truly, the best authority we have for this, is the testimony and ordinance of the church. And therefore those who pretend to be so religious of the Sunday whilst they take no notice of other festivals ordained by the same Church authority, show that they act by humor, and not by reason and religion; since Sundays and holy days all stand upon the same foundation, viz., the ordinance of the Church."

"Q. Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept? A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her; she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no scriptural authority."

Our publications are prepared with care to meet the various positions of our opponents. Let "those who are seeking for truth" send for them and read up. Bro. Andrews' History of the Sabbath will furnish all the facts necessary to show who changed the Sabbath.

QUESTION. Do you make the belief in the non-immortality of the soul a test of fellowship?

ANSWER. We do not. Our people, with hardly an exception, are all right on that subject. Those who reject our views of this question, generally stand far off from us. The truth, not we, does the testing.

QUESTION. Can a man feel and know that his sins are forgiven in this life?

ANSWER. He can. Read the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles.

QUESTION. Is it right to receive money on the Sabbath?

ANSWER. It is not, excepting it might be justifiable under some circumstances for charitable and religious purposes.