Tracts on the Sabbath

by Unknown

20. If it be necessary that the work of redemption be commemorated weekly by a positive institution, must not the obligation so to commemorate it arise from some law which directly and specifically requires it? But when, instead of this, the attempt is made to derive the obligation from the Sabbath law, is it not a tacit acknowledgment that there is no law requiring the weekly commemoration of the work of redemption?

21. Does the Scripture ever apply the name, Sabbath, to the first day of the week? Even in the New Testament, where the term is used, is not the reference always to the seventh day?

22. If Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles ful thirty years after the death of Christ, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, still calls the seventh day of the week the Sabbath, can it be wrong in us to do so? (See Acts 13:14, 42, 44; 16:1, 3; 17:1, 2; 18:4.) If this be the inspired application of the term so many years after all the ceremonial institutions were nailed to the cross, is it not our duty to make the same use of the term now?

23. Is it not a manifest perversion of the scriptural use of terms, to take away the sacred name from the seventh day of the week, and give it to the first day?

24. When the first day of the week is so generally called the Sabbath, are not the common people thereby led to suppose that the Bible calls it so? Are they not thus grossly deceived?

25. If the name Sabbath were no longer applied to this day, and it should simply be called first day of the week, as in the Bible, is it not probable that it would soon lose its sacredness in the eyes of the people?

26. Is it possible, then, that God has not given the day a name sufficiently sacred to secure for it a religious regard, nor even guarded it with a law sufficient to prevent its desecration?

27. What then? HAS GOD LEFT HIS WORK FOR MAN TO MEND! IS IT NOT SAFE TO LEAVE THE DAY AS GOD HAS LEFT IT! "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?" (Isa. 11:13.)

28. Are you very sure that by the Lord's day, (Rev. 1:10,) is meant the first day of the week? Have you any Scripture proof of it? Have you any other proof of it than the testimony of those who are called the early Fathers?

29. If the testimony of the early Fathers is to be relied on, that the Lord's day means the first day of the week, ought not their testimony to be just as much relied on, as to the manner in which the primitive Christians observed the day?