Worldly Wisdom and Clerical Folly.
A SERMON was recently preached against the Sabbath in East Oakland (Brooklyn). The minister dealt out to his hearers the views drawn directly from the work of Dr. Junkin, which he seemed to think are conclusive on the Sabbath question. We were requested to notice the sermon. We will notice the foundation of it. Were it not that people with honest intentions look up to the educated in the ministry and are thereby led astray by their vagaries, we might be amused at the absurdities of many of their utterances. But the subject is important. It is solemn in its importance, and in its consequences. We cannot find it in our hearts to tolerate the trifling in which learned men indulge when treating of the Sabbath, or rest day, of the Lord God. “Sabattismos” is the title of a small book by a person of the imposing appellation of “George Junkin, D. D., LL. D.” Such a trumpet-flourish of names is well calculated to bespeak respect for the production; but we find in it an essay only worthy of the unfledged theological belligerent. The author seems, however, to have a high sense of the appropriateness of means to accomplish the end he has in view. Thus, to convince an opponent of the correctness of his counting of the days, he resorts to the following logic:— “If we fix the start-point of the count on Tuesday, and call that first-day, we shall call Sunday seventh-day. And this could be insured in individual cases by a little artifice. Suppose you hold a sponge saturated with mesmeric power to the nose of a seventh day advocate, or lay him up in sleep, by an opiate, for a whole day; when he awoke to consciousness, having lost a day out of his count, his seventh will be Sunday.” Surely this is appropriate for his work. “A little artifice,” with a due degree of “mesmeric power,” is all that is required to transfer the homage due the seventh day to Sunday! The man who could devise this plan is worthy of the titles Mr. J. wears. We are ready to acknowledge that we should be ashamed if a mere beginner in Bible reading would use such an argument in behalf of the true Sabbath; but the cases of the two days are vastly different. For the seventh day we have the example and commandment of Jehovah, with all revelation, to sustain it. For the Sunday “a little artifice” and “mesmeric power,” are the best dependences. In the entire absence of Scripture evidence anything is allowable in behalf of Sunday, on the principle that “Necessity knows no law.” But we remember that “the Sabbath was made for man,”—for the human race; and it was made in the infancy of the world. It will take more than a few grains of morphine to change the rest-day of the Creator from that day on which He rested when the heavens and earth were made. We would that the field of theology could be forever free from such irreverent nonsense. We next copy a statement as presumptuous as the preceding one is irreverent. It is professedly a reading of the fourth commandment: “Wherefore the Lord blessed, not the seventh, but the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”—Junkin. Compare this with the Bible:— “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Gen. 2:3. It is true that the Lord blessed the Sabbath day; it is also true that he blessed the seventh day. Is it then true that he blessed two days? No; he did not. The harmony of these two statements is found in these words of the Lord himself: “The seventh day is the Sabbath.” The truth that he blessed the Sabbath day lies in the truth that he blessed the seventh day. Had he blessed any other day than the seventh day he would not have blessed the Sabbath day. Sabbath means rest. The Sabbath day of Jehovah (“my holy day,” Isa. 58:13,) is the rest day of Jehovah. We pity the man who professes to teach the word of God, and who presumes so directly to contradict the word of God. His responsibility is great. And we pity the people who, accepting him as their teacher and leader, are so blindly misled by his misrepresentations of the sacred Scriptures. “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” Let no one “handle the word of God deceitfully,” and say God did “not bless the seventh day.” The following paragraph contains all the errors and inconsistencies we have time, or care to notice in this work:— “The change of the name and day—not of the thing, for the observance of the holy day is the same with all Christians; but on what ground do we vindicate the Sunday as the day of sacred rest? We admit that any other day, Tuesday, Thursday, if agreed upon over the whole country, and the whole world, would answer as well. We deny any holiness in time: the thought is absurd. The holiness lies in the heart of the worshipers. With the unbelieving world, Sunday is the most polluted of all days. In all popish-governed countries, their Sabbath is the devil's day. The interests of Satan's kingdom are more abundantly advanced on that day than on any one of the seven. But some day is indispensable. This must be agreed upon, or public worship is impracticable. Instead, however, of leaving man to settle this question by experiment and consultation, conventional adjustment and agreement, God was pleased to decide it for us. The first law he gave to man was the Sabbatic law—the day following the six days' labor is sacred to God by his own command. In imitation of the Creator's own example, he has given us also the glorious and blessed privilege of resting, and worshiping himself. And Paul tells us, God the Son, in imitation of God the Creator, when he had said, ‘It is finished,’ bowed his head, and gave up the ghost and entered into his rest. ‘For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.’ Paul had just said, ‘There remaineth therefore a Sabbatismos for the people of God.’ Heb. 4:10, 9. Christ's finishing his work, for the salvation of lost men, is followed by his entering into his rest and securing a Sabbatismos for his people. Thus the creation example is imitated, and this is a most satisfactory reason of the change. Jesus rose from the dead and went to his heavenly glory, and thus consecrated the first day to holy services. His church obeyed his command, and followed his example.” Note some points of the above. 1. “Jesus rose from the dead, and went to his heavenly glory, and thus consecrated the first day to holy services.” This is designed as the “entering into his rest,” spoken of in Heb. 4. But did Jesus ascend on high, to the glory of his Father, on the first day? He did not. The whole statement is a deception. It was no doubt framed to carry the inference that Jesus entered into his rest when he “went to his heavenly glory.” But this was on the fifth day—not the first. 2. There is neither example or command from the Lord to devote “the first day to holy services.” Jesus honored the Sabbath day by word and action, but, as “the seventh day”—not the first—“is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” it was the seventh-day Sabbath which he honored. In the Scriptures no other weekly Sabbath but the seventh day is recognized. 3. Notwithstanding Jesus “consecrated the first day to sacred services,” “any other day, Tuesday, Thursday, if agreed upon over the whole country, would answer as well.” And in keeping the first day “his church obeyed his command;” and yet if Tuesday or Thursday, or any other day were agreed upon, it “would answer as well!” Surely, the consecration and commandment of the Saviour cannot be worth much if it may properly be set aside by human agreement! That he does not believe there is any consecration or commandment binding us to the observance of the first day is further evident in that he argues, in another place, that, in consequence of the rotundity of the earth, it is impossible to keep any day in particular. We know that in arguing thus he only shows himself ignorant of the truth on the point; but that does not destroy the evidence contained in the argument that he does not believe it either necessary or possible to keep the first day, notwithstanding his claim of a consecration and commandment of the Saviour in its behalf. If the apostle's injunction were obeyed, to avoid “vain babblings,” such works as this of Dr. Junkin would have few admirers. 4. He contradicts all that he says on this point of agreement, by saying that God did not leave “man to settle this question by experiment and consultation, conventional adjustment and agreement.” What did the learned doctor really believe? No one can tell by his expressions. 5. He says there is no “holiness in time; the thought is absurd.” But God says, the seventh day is holy. It was made so by his own action. Why are we commanded to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy?” Because God sanctified, hallowed, or made it holy. Therefore Jehovah speaks of it thus: “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day.” Isa. 58:13. Here is another scripture which Dr. Junkin contradicts in direct terms. The fitting rebuke for such recklessness as the Dr. has thus manifested is found in Eze. 22:26,—“Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things; they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.” These words again prove that there is a difference between the holy and profane,—God has a holy day; a day which is “holy to the Lord.” Ex. 31:15. Men may hide their eyes from it,—they may profane it—but it remains God's holy day. 6. Closely related to the above is the declaration that the “holiness lies in the heart of the worshipers.” That is to say, that if people do not make a day holy by worshiping on it, then it is not holy! A man who is entirely ignorant of the teachings of the Bible might be presumed to be honest in making such a statement. Look at Ex. 16:23. Speaking of the seventh day of that week, which was yet in the future, it was said, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath.” If Mr. Junkin's words are true, “to-morrow” was not yet the “holy Sabbath,” because “the hearts of the worshipers” had not yet taken cognizance of it! More than two thousand years before that time God blessed and sanctified the seventh day. People might hide their eyes from it, and profane it, or put it under their feet, and still it was God's holy day—“the holy of the Lord.” But now arises Dr. Junkin, and says that this is all a mistake; the idea of a day being holy is absurd; God has not made any day holy; the holiness is only in the heart of the worshipers. It is not left to men to choose the day, nor to make it holy. God chose the seventh day as his own, “because that in it he had rested from all his work.” It thereby became his rest day, or, which is the same thing, his Sabbath day. For this cause he hallowed it; thus it became the hallowed rest—the holy Sabbath—of the Lord. 7. As far as any sabbatic nature or obligation of Sunday is concerned, we can readily allow what Dr. Junkin says of it,—“it is the devil's day.” But what then becomes of the Saviour's “consecration” of which the Dr. speaks? The seventh day is holy—the holy of the Lord—whether men keep it or profane it. But it appears that the “consecration” and “command” claimed for Sunday is not of that nature. They do not prevent it becoming “the devil's day,” in the estimation of Dr. Junkin! The doctor's expression is harsh—we do not like it. Yet, under the circumstances, we do not know that there is great irreverence in it. But we are glad to know that the Lord's claim to the seventh day, in the decalogue and in other places in the Scriptures, is so plainly established that such language cannot be used in reference to it. While the strongest advocates of Sunday have to confess that, even in the hands of its originators, it has become “the devil's day,” the seventh day remains “the Sabbath of the Lord God,” “the holy of the Lord,” and “honorable.” Isa. 58:13. Blessed be the Lord for the clear light of truth. How brightly it shines over the record of the holy Sabbath. Made when the great Creator founded the heavens and the earth; “made for man;” blessed and sanctified before man fell from his innocency; guarded by the commandment of God, given in the majesty and glory of the divine presence; written by the finger of Jehovah; observed by all the “holy men of God” in all the ages; honored by the Saviour in precept and example; and still kept by his church through the darkness of the apostasy, when “the mystery of iniquity” triumphed over the consciences of men—when the “man of sin” compelled “all the world” to bow in honor of “the venerable day of the sun.” May the Lord give his people grace to still cling to the sacred day in the dark hours of worldly rule which lie between us and the day of redemption. Not long have we to wait for the coming glory. Soon the Son of man will come to vindicate the truth of the divine word, to save all those “who keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” At some future time we will comment on Heb. 4:1–9.