3. In the case cited, the infidel minority is supposed to be on the point of mounting the throne of power, and of sweeping away every vestige of the Sabbath institution; whereas, in our case, as seen above, the danger which threatens the people of God in these last days, is not to be apprehended alone from those who scoff at God and the Bible, but from those who, according to Paul, having “a form of godliness,” shall “deny the power thereof.” In other words, who, while accepting the Scriptures, if you please, shall disregard their explicit statements, as in the case of the commandments, substituting in the place of the seventh day, which God has styled his Sabbath, the first, which he has never claimed as his own, nor enjoined on any man.
With this statement of our views, further remark is uncalled for. We think that even our reviewer will now perceive that, before he could bring us to accept as logical the proposition numbered three, above, it would be necessary for him to overturn the very foundations of the system of truth which we now hold. This, however, we fancy is a task which our opponent judging from the line of argument which he has thus far pursued, would not undertake with much prospect of success, until he has become more thoroughly conversant with the scope and nature of the work in which we are engaged.
Fourthly. It is suggested that we are in danger of being classed with infidels and atheists.
So far as this peril is concerned, we simply remark that it is generally found to be best in the long run to do right for the sake of right, regardless of what men may say concerning you, leaving the result with God. The individual who would desert sound principles because some wicked man or set of men might, for the time being, be confounded with him, is destitute of true morality. Besides, in the matter in question, who is it from whom Seventh-day Adventists need apprehend that such an erroneous impression will receive publicity? We trust not from our friend, because, in the article in question, he frankly acknowledges their devotion to the Bible in its strict construction.
Is it, then, from the infidels themselves? Well, if it should be, we think we can undeceive them. I will tell you what we will do. Whenever they attempt to “fawn upon us overmuch,” we will preach to them the law of God, Sabbath and all, and my word for it, they will themselves shortly draw a line of demarkation between them and us, so broad and distinct that all who are not willfully blind will have no difficulty in discerning it; for it is a remarkable fact that it is as true now as it formerly was, that the “carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” The infidel of the present day hates that law with a hatred, the intensity of which is only equalled by that of the large body of first-day observers—we are happy to say not of the Statesman school—who have abolished the ten commandments in order to dispose of one of them, and whose special delight seems to consist in berating the law which David pronounced “perfect,” and Paul declared to be “holy, just, and good.”
Finally, we submit that when it can be shown, 1. That God would be better pleased with a nation having a Constitution which contained his printed name, while wielding the whole power of that Constitution against the only Sabbath which he has ever commanded, than he would be with one which—while his name would fail to appear in its fundamental law—was nevertheless administered in the interests of civil and religious liberty; and 2. That the best method of converting atheists is one by which they would be exasperated by fines and imprisonments inflicted in the name of the God of the Bible for the desecration of a day which they know that it nowhere commands; and 3. That it would be reasonable to expect that men should, by their votes, elevate to place and authority those who are destined to put manacles upon their wrists, and padlocks upon their tongues; then, and not till then, can Seventh-day Adventists be expected to support an amendment which, though in many respects desirable, will inevitably be employed against God, his people, and his law.
STATESMAN’S REPLY.
ARTICLE TWO.
THE SEVENTH DAY NOT OBSERVED BY THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
Having shown in our last article that seventh-day Sabbatarians, to be consistent with themselves in appealing to the Bible as of supreme authority, should be among the earnest friends of the Religious Amendment, we come now to consider their argument against the first-day Sabbath.
On many points dwelt upon in the articles we have published, there is no difference of view. We believe that the Sabbath was instituted, not in the wilderness, for Israel; but in Eden, for mankind. We maintain, also, that the law of the Sabbath is an essential part of the great moral code of the ten commandments, spoken by God’s voice amid the awful manifestations of Sinai, and written by the finger of God on tables of stone as a law of perpetual obligation for the whole human family. These, and other points admitted on both sides, need not occupy time and space in this discussion. We are concerned here, and now, simply with the transfer of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. Our readers have had before them an argument, of considerable length, to show that God never authorized a change of day. We proceed to prove that the transfer was made by divine authority and approval.
In doing this, we shall first have to inquire into the facts of history. We shall have to ask, Was the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, acknowledged as binding up to the resurrection of Christ, continued by the apostles and the early church after that event? Was any other day substituted by them in its place? For an answer to these questions, we must appeal to facts. We make our appeal to the records of the New Testament. A careful and thorough examination of these authoritative records shows conclusively that the seventh day was not observed as the Sabbath after the resurrection of Christ by the apostles and the early church.