WHICH IS THE TRUE SEVENTH DAY?
By R. F. Cottrell
THE most common objection against turning to the Sabbath of the Lord, from those who are convicted on the subject, is the difficulty of ascertaining the true seventh day. "The seventh day is the Sabbath," say they, "if we could only certainly tell which day that is." Now if God requires us to keep the seventh day, and has left it so that we cannot tell which day it is, who is to blame? The Law-giver, of course. If he is not to blame in requiring impossibilities of us, we can be sure which day he wishes us to keep. If there was no cross or choice in the matter, this objection would soon evaporate into thin air. When a person feels that he must and will keep the seventh day, he finds no difficulty in ascertaining the day. The pigs in the garden sometimes cannot find the hole that they came in at, till they receive a sore chastisement, when they find their way out in a hurry. To those that are troubled with this difficulty I would say, Keep the day you honestly believe is the seventh. You have always honestly believed that the day on which the mass of professed Christians professedly celebrate the resurrection of Christ, is the first day of the week. If you honestly believe that Sunday is the first day, you just as honestly believe that Saturday is the seventh day. All you have to do in the matter is to be honest, and if you deceive yourself, the great loss will be yours. You need not suffer that loss—you can obey God if you will. The true Sabbath was known when Christ was upon earth. It was his custom to teach in the synagogue on the Sabbath-day. When accused that his disciples broke the Sabbath by plucking ears of corn to eat, he did not inform them that it was not the Sabbath, but said, "It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath-days." And when he had bid the man with the withered hand stand forth in the midst, he said, "Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath-days?" thus recognizing the day the Jews were then observing as the true Sabbath-day. Thus the true Sabbath was then known, notwithstanding Joshua had commanded the sun to stand still so long before. It would seem that some who refer us to Joshua, suppose that he lived in the Christian dispensation, and commanded the sun to stand still in the time of the crusades! Since the commencement of the Christian era, all the Jews have been counting the days of the week and keeping Sabbath, and they all keep the day commonly called Saturday, calling it the seventh day. The Christian world keep Sunday because it is the first day—the day on which the pious women, after they had prepared spices and ointments and rested the Sabbath-day according to the commandment, came to the sepulchre and found that the Lord was risen. Jews, Christians and all the world agree in the reckoning of the days of the week. It is impossible then that they have lost the true count, unless all lost it at the same time. This could never take place unless God wrought a miracle, causing all the world to lose a day at the same time, so that nobody ever discovered the error; and all this for no other purpose but to make it impossible for men to keep his commandment! "A day been lost! and yet men all agree!
I marvel greatly how the thing can be.
Suppose one town alone, should chance to make,
And all agree, in such a gross mistake.
Abroad like lightning would the news be hurled,
And soon 't would be the wonder of the world.
To think, then, all on earth, for so they view it,
All lost a day and no one ever knew it,
Is far beyond conception:—in a word,
This theory is preposterously absurd." No one that has reflected on this can seriously offer this objection against turning to the Sabbath of the Lord.