Tracts on the Sabbath

by Unknown

No where in the Inspired Word have we any other weekly Sabbath appointed. No where has that Sabbath ever been abrogated or superseded. No where in the Scriptures is any other day called the Sabbath-day. No where is any other day required to be observed as the Sabbath. If, then, He, the Almighty, gave the seventh day, and sanctified and hallowed it as his Sabbath, and has not abrogated it—has not absolved us from its duties, nor delegated authority to others to do so—it remains in as full force as when first instituted by Jehovah himself, and will stand in the Judgment against all the crafty inventions and futile subterfuges of perverse, rebellious man.

The foregoing summary is a plain, unvarnished, unmutilated scriptural account of God's rest-day, which He enjoined on all mankind, for all ages, for all nations, tongues, and kindred. Some persons, nay, the great mass of the Christian world, have been taught, that the Sabbath alluded to is a "Jewish Sabbath," and "has been done away;" in proof of which position, they adduce the passages in Paul's Epistle to the Colossians—"Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath-days, which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ."[11] Col. 2:16, 17. "Who blotted out the hand-writing of ordinances, that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." Col. 2:14. This, I must remark, proves too much; for if it has abrogated the seventh-day Sabbath, it has blotted out the sabbatic law also; unless it be shown, that it is reserved, or that another has been re-enacted, clearly and expressly ordained. If so, let its advocates point to a single requirement, an unequivocal injunction, to observe any other day as the Sabbath, and it will terminate all controversy on the subject. The "hand-writing of ordinances," which was "nailed to the cross," was merely "the ceremonial law," the onerous burdens of the Levitical ritual, not the "moral law of commandments"—the Decalogue! If the opposite view be correct, then the Sabbath, or any "rest-day," is "against us," contrary to our nature and wants, and is not for our good, and ought to be annulled and obliterated forever. Then, also, we are driven to the doctrine of the "Friends," that all days are alike holy under the gospel dispensation. The advocates for the first day of the week can not consistently escape this dilemma. They must accept the Sabbath hallowed by the Lord, or hallow all days alike.

Much as man has attempted to obscure and pervert this holy institution, the Word of Truth is clear, express and emphatic, in regard to the perpetuity of the particular day to be hallowed, as well as it is explicit in the precise time to be sanctified. The Scriptures no where speak of a "Jewish Sabbath" or a "Christian Sabbath." The Sabbath of the Bible is but one, and has but one name—"the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;" which the Scriptures declare is the seventh day, instituted more than two thousand years before there was a Jew in the world, and, consequently, could not have been a "Jewish Sabbath." The Sabbath, Christ, who is "Lord of the Sabbath," asserts, "was made for man"—the whole race of man—not for a particular nation or people, but for mankind at large.

It is proper here to remark, that this sneering at the "Jewish Sabbath," which in times past was, and still is, by weak minds, constantly resorted to, in the absence of legitimate argument, to prejudice the populace against giving this subject a fair and impartial examination, and thereby to lead them to prejudge the case, has, within a few years past, been abandoned by all sensible and consistent advocates for the sabbatic institution. They find that it stultifies their own pretensions, and has done much damage to themselves in sustaining the claims of sacredness for any other day; for, while they maintain that the ancient Sabbath was a Jewish institution, they unwittingly prove that there is no longer any Sabbath to be observed, since they fail to show that another has been ordained or established for the Christian Church. If a "Jewish Sabbath," it was done away with by the Jewish dispensation; and if no other Sabbath has been expressly appointed by Divine authority, the Christian Church is certainly left without the Sabbath, or any substitute possessing any of its sacredness—a sacredness which can only be derived from an express and explicit mandate from the Lord of the Sabbath. That puerile quibble, the nick-name "Jewish Sabbath," has, therefore, been abandoned by the most prominent writers of the present day; who generally fall back and found the institution (the origin and grounds for its perpetuity) long anterior to the "Jewish," the Mosaic dispensation—even back to the Sabbath of Paradise. Thus Dr. Barnes, of Philadelphia, in a series of sermons on this subject, delivered and published in the fall of 1845, advocates this position, and contends strenuously for the Ante-Mosaic Sabbath. The same view was inculcated by the "National Lord's Day Convention," held at Baltimore, November, 1844; and it has been reiterated more distinctly and emphatically by "The Rhode Island Sabbath Union," in an address to the people of that State, in 1846, to which, among others, we find attached the name of Dr. Wayland, the honored President of Brown University. The Committee of the Rhode Island "Sabbath Union," in calling attention to the claims of the Sabbath, remark:

"The Lord of the Sabbath has here said, 'The Sabbath was made for man.' Man is here used, most certainly, as a generic term, and, therefore, presents a universal proposition. The Sabbath was not made for man, for man as a genus, as a race, unless it was made for every individual of the race; for the first, and for the last man; for the first generation, and for every other. The Sabbath, then, must have existed from the beginning, and is as old as the human race. Our Lord says, moreover, 'The Sabbath was made for man.' He says not, the Jewish Sabbath, or the Christian Sabbath, but the Sabbath, the common, the universal one, which belongs to mankind. Is this not the very language to denote a universal and perpetual institution?

"Let us look at the connection of the Sabbath with the work of creation. 'God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.' If the Creator had merely rested on the seventh day, it would have been an impressive consecration. But when he proceeds to bless and sanctify it, there is authority, a positive Sabbath, forming a part of the primeval arrangement, when God fixed the order in which the world should go—six days labor and one day rest, over and over forever. The first week of the world, then, was not completed till there had been a Sabbath, as well as a first day or a sixth. Is not this indicative of the universality and perpetuity of the institution?"

Here we might rest the question, with perfect safety, if the mass of mankind would be content with the plain teachings of the Bible; but, having "itching ears," they, unfortunately, are too apt to leave "the law and the testimony," and cleave to "the commandments of men;" which teach them, that "Christ or his Apostles" have transferred the sacredness of the seventh day to the first day of the week. The writer, therefore, feels constrained to bring before his readers the passages on which that notion is predicated, to exhibit the weakness of their untenable position, and thereby establish the Sabbath of the Bible.

What saith the Scriptures to support the claims of the first day of the week to be holy time? The first notice we have of the disciples being together on "the first day of the week," on which the assumed "change" is predicated, is found in the Gospel by John:—

"Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut for fear of the Jews (mark that!) came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he showed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." John 20:19, 20.

This passage contains no command, no intimation whatever, to sanctify that day. It does not even claim that they were there for any sacred purpose, much less to celebrate the Sabbath, or institute a new day of worship, but simply for common protection, "for fear of the Jews;" and a design to comfort them in their trepidation is all the legitimate inference we can draw from the circumstance of Christ's appearing unto them. All the Apostles were not together; Thomas was absent! If they had met together to sabbatize, he, certainly, would have been with them. Not having been present, and not having seen the risen Saviour, while doubting and disputing on the subject of his resurrection, "eight days afterward," Christ appeared again, to confound the incredulity of Thomas, and for no other ostensible purpose.