The following pages, containing a brief discussion of a small but intensely interesting portion of the Sabbath controversy, are designed especially for the perusal of those Christians, styled orthodox, who do not keep holy the seventh day of the week.
Dear brethren, this is a subject of fearful importance. If the views herein advocated are correct, you are guilty both of breaking and of teaching men to break one of God's holy commandments; if they are incorrect, I am no less guilty. Need I say any thing more to convince you that you ought to give this subject a candid and prayerful examination? "Ye are the light of the world;" take heed, brethren, that your light be not darkness! You know—you cannot but know—that there is much, very much, said in the Bible about the Sabbath, and that men are very often commanded to keep it holy. You must know, also, that God has said in the fourth commandment, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work;" and that, for more than four thousand years, no other day of the week ever claimed to be holy. Moreover, you cannot but know, if you have read the Bible carefully, that the first day of the week, which you call "the Christian Sabbath," is very seldom mentioned; that there are only six passages in which the name occurs, and that four of these may be viewed as one, being the records of the same events, by different Evangelists; and how can you have failed to notice the fact, that in not one of these six passages are we, or any of our fellow-creatures, commanded to keep the first day holy? Yet you are convinced that the first day of the week is the very Sabbath-day, while among all those Scripture commands, before referred to, you find nothing to sustain the claims of the seventh. O brethren, you "put darkness for light, and light for darkness." Let us bow before the mercy-seat of Him who is the Author of life and light, and, renewing our personal covenant with him, plead his precious promise: "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
I shall endeavor, in the following pages, to establish the truth of the following proposition:—
That the seventh day of the week is the only weekly Sabbath of God's appointment.
I intend to present and enforce four reasons for believing this proposition:—
First—Because the original Sabbath law requires the sanctification of no other day.
Second—Because Adam and all his posterity have solemnly covenanted to keep holy the seventh day.
Third—Because Christ and his Apostles honored this day; and did not intimate that it would ever cease to be the Sabbath, but the contrary.
Fourth—Because God has never blessed and sanctified any day of the week but the seventh.
As the discussion is limited by design to a narrow range, you will please to bear in mind, that the following points are assumed as true:—