Opposers of Truth Should Have a Good Memory.
By R. F. Cottrell
ThE truth is ready made at our hands; and the arguments which support it are in harmony with it and themselves. No two truths contradict each other, therefore it is easy to tell a straight story in defending the truth. Though memory may be poor, and the mind cannot comprehend the whole range of the arguments which sustain it, yet if any one argument be presented, there is no danger that it will conflict with any other. But in opposing the truth, a man should have the very best memory, or he will contradict himself. Yet men of bad memory will undertake it. The law of God is the truth. Says David, "Thy law is the truth." Each separate commandment of that law is the truth. "All thy commandments are truth." And when men oppose the law or the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, they oppose the truth. Those who undertake it, having no knowledge of the evidence on the side of the Sabbath, are rash; those who do so knowing these evidences are short-sighted; and their memory always proves to be very treacherous. They will tell you that they esteem every day of the week alike in this dispensation; but soon they will tell you that the first day of the week is set apart to be observed in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ. They fear for us, as Paul did for the Galatians, because we "observe days," while they observe as many days, in the course of fifty-two weeks as we do. At one breath they assure us that it is a matter of perfect indifference whether we observe the Sabbath or not, that if we regard it to the Lord, it is perfectly right to do so; and in the next, they will apply the curse to us for preaching another gospel, and tell us that to neglect the first day and to keep the seventh, is to reject Christ. They tell us that the Sabbath institution is indefinite as to the day, that it requires one day in seven and no day in particular; and all this with the very serious and candid object in view, and to lay the foundation to prove that the Sabbath has been changed from the definite seventh to the definite first day of the week! I wish some one versed in logic would state this argument in the form of a regular syllogism. I will make the attempt, but I may not be correct: The Sabbath commandment requires the observance of one day in seven, but no definite day. But the ancients obeyed it by keeping the definite seventh day, and this they were required to do on pain of death; and we moderns keep the definite first day on pain of excommunication. Therefore, there is no need of any scriptural testimony to prove that the Sabbath has been changed. Again, our friends of short memory tell us that the reckoning of time has been disarranged, so that we cannot possibly tell which day of the week is the seventh day; but that the next day after the Sabbath, when the disciples came to the sepulchre of Jesus and found he had risen, has been weekly observed, to commemorate the resurrection, from that day to the present. In one part of a conversation they will tell us that the seventh-day Sabbath was a shadowy institution and abolished by Christ, and if we keep it now, we deny Christ and fall from grace; but before the conversation is done another lucky thought will come into their mind, and they will tell us that they believe that Sunday is the true seventh day and ought to be kept. No fears of falling from grace by keeping the seventh day, provided it comes on Sunday. They tell us that we cannot keep the seventh day, because the earth is round and turns on its axis, causing the day to begin at different times in different places, and that the inclination of its axis to the plane of its orbit makes it six months day and six months night at the poles, and that sailing round the earth we either gain or lose a day; but none of these form any objection to the keeping the first day—they all vanish into thin air with respect to that day. The decalogue with the Sabbath in it, to them is a curse—a yoke of bondage; but remove the Sabbath and insert the first day of the week in its place, and the yoke is easy and the burden is light. In short, they can never succeed in their argument, unless their memory can be improved; and if by some system of mnemonics this can be done, their theory will be spoiled. Oh, that they had a better memory!