A New Champion With New Arguments.
By Editor
The Conference and Association meetings with their necessary reports prevented our noticing last week the remainder of the effort of Mr. Sheldon against the Sabbath. But one more point remains to be examined, and this, like the last of a weak and degenerate race, is the most lifeless and imbecile of all. Nature, by some unaccountable freaks occasionally produces her monstrosities; but nature has produced nothing in her department more misshapen than is this effort in the department of Biblical criticism. It would seem that in this the no-Sabbath arguments have reached their climax, and the ingenuity of falsehood and nonsense has become completely exhausted. Without detaining the reader further, we will state the argument which is simply this! The decalogue cannot be binding in the gospel age; because the fourth commandment recognizes and enforces slavery; but the gospel forbids anything of the kind; hence the one cannot exist with the other. That the reader may see that we are not misrepresenting, we give what he says on this point entire, though it is somewhat lengthy. "3. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant [Eved—'bondman'—'slave'] nor thy maid-servant [amah—'bondwoman.']' (Ex. xx, 10.) It will be observed that there were two classes of 'servants' under the law—hired servants, and bond-servants. When a hired servant is meant, the original term sokheer is employed, (when males are referred to): but here a different term is used—a term that is elsewhere rendered 'bond-man' and 'bond-servant,' and has this signification where not so rendered, as the following text will show: 'And if he smite out his man-servant's tooth, or his maid-servant's tooth; he shall let him go free.' (Ex. xxi, 27.) Now if the decalogue is still unchanged, and in force, this system of 'bondmanship' is brought into this age. The bondman and the bondmaid are recognized in the writing on the tables of stone—not hired servants—and as long as the engraving on the tables of stone remains unobrogated or unchanged, so long will that ancient Mosaic system of bondmanship be sanctioned; for it was as really written by the 'finger of God' as the commandment enclosing the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath. They are parts of the same law, and where one goes, there the other goes. I hardly need argue that this Mosaic permission does not extend into the gospel age:—'Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.*'—(Lev. xxv, 4.) Yet precisely this class of servants are recognized on the tables of stone, and while the decalogue retains its original standing, this system, as well as the seventh day Sabbath will receive its sanction. But as the gospel invalidates this system, the claim that the decalogue must be brought into this age as a whole, is overthrown; therefore whatever of the decalogue is needed in the new arrangement, or whatever of the written Book of the law is agreeable to the gospel scheme, has been enjoined by Christ or his apostles—thus sanctioning some features of both departments of the law as harmonizing with the principles of the 'law of Christ;' but never have they enjoined the seventh day Sabbath on Christians. So no claim can be laid to the seventh day because it was on the tables of stone, unless we take all that was written there, some of which would be untrue of Gentile Christians, and opposed to the principles of the gospel of Christ. Thus this prominent argument for the seventh day falls to the ground." We are at a loss to know in what pro-slavery cesspool our author has been wallowing, that he should come forth reeking with the filth of such statements as these. There have been professed ministers of Christ, lickspittles of the great moloch of slavery, with blinded vision and blunted moral sensibilities, who have professed to find in various parts of the word of God sanction for this great crime; but it has been left for a no-Sabbath Adventist to make himself conspicuous in the catalogue of those who have insulted the morality of the Bible, by claiming and declaring that the great God in the words which he uttered in holiness and majesty from Sinai in the audience of the people, sanctioned and endorsed this institution of evil, and that the law which he wrote on the tables of stone, the only document that he ever gave to this world in his own hand writing, is the foundation and defense of this foul iniquity. No other writer of whom we have yet heard, has dreamed of descending to such a depth as this. We do not wonder that infidelity flourishes, that Christianity is considered a mockery, that the Bible is derided, and its author contemned. It is not alone from outside foes that Christianity suffers. Its least excusable enemies are those who under the cloak of religion, having obtained a hypocritical entrance within its enclosure, trample with foul and lawless feet over the fairest beauties of the place, treading its choicest flowers into the dust, and rendering them distasteful, if not disgusting to the world without. We believe it will be more tolerable for Voltaire and Paine in the day of Judgment than for these. The only point to be noticed in the extract given above is the declaration concerning the words manservant, and maidservant; and of this we have not much more to say than that it is utterly false. The word rendered man-servant in the fourth commandment, occurs in the Old Testament seven hundred and eighty-three times. Concerning its use Dr. Roy, a learned Jew, thus testifies: "There is no word in the Bible for slave. Aved is the only word to be found there and means a hired man, servant, laborer, soldier, minister, magistrate, messenger, angel, prophet, priest, king, and Christ himself. Isa. lii, 13." In the light of this statement what becomes of the declaration of Mr. S. that when hired servants are meant another term is used, and that this always means a bondman or slave! Such ignorance should be exposed, or such perversions rebuked. The fact is, this word is the general word for servant in the Old Testament. When the angels came to Abraham, Gen. xviii, 1-6, he said, "Pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant." When David came to Saul, he said, "Thy servant kept his father's sheep," &c. Very numerous are the instances in which it is used in this sense; and it no more means a person in involuntary and abject bondage than it does at the present day when a person addressing another, out of respect subscribes himself "Your obedient servant." The expression many times occurs, "My servant Moses," "My servant David," "My servant Hezekiah," "My servants the prophets." And where the term is rendered bondman, it does not mean slave in any such sense as is understood by that term at the present time. The term corresponding to this in the New Testament, is doulos; as, "Paul a servant of God," "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ," &c. For the Bible argument against slavery, and concerning the use of these terms, see the articles of Luther Lee in Review Vols. xx and xxi, and "The Bible against Slavery," published by the "United Presbyterian Board of Publication, Pittsburgh, Pa." If the Sabbath stands, till it can be made to appear that the fourth commandment endorses slavery, we think it will be able to prolong its existence for a few weeks more at least.