We will now sum up this part of the discussion: Admitting that the Sabbath was instituted in Eden for mankind; that it is of perpetual obligation; that it was observed by Christ himself before his death, and by his disciples until his resurrection, as by the Jews of old, on the seventh day of the week; we have gone on to see that the apostles and the early church, still having one stated day each week as a holy day, did not continue the observance of the seventh day. We have seen that the seventh day, after the resurrection, is mentioned only in connection with assemblies, in Jewish places of worship, of Jews, Jewish proselytes, and, in some instances, a larger or smaller addition of Gentiles, among all of whom the apostle labored as a missionary for the conversion of souls, and the formation of Christian congregations, or churches. We have found that no instance can be adduced of the apostles in their relations to Christian churches, nor of assemblies of Christian disciples, meeting to observe the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord. On the other hand, we have found them ignoring the seventh day and honoring another, in perfect harmony with the apostle Paul’s rebuke of Judaizing teachers who insisted on having Christian disciples observe the seventh day, and his condescending toleration of their weakness.
A REJOINDER.
“THE SEVENTH DAY NOT OBSERVED BY THE EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH.”
It is, we confess, with some degree of embarrassment, that we attempt the answering of the second article from the pen of the editor of the Statesman, in reply to the argument which we presented in the columns of that paper. Our difficulty does not arise from any confusion into which we have been thrown by the superior logic of our opponent; it consists, rather, in knowing just where and how to commence the work.
So far as statements are concerned, they are numerous and repeated again and again, in substance. But we have no disposition, nor have we the space, to take them up singly, in their numerical and repetitious order, for consideration. And, besides, the fallacy of nearly every one of them has been demonstrated in what we have already written. This being the case, we have determined to take the general scope of the criticism, and thus, as briefly as may be, make suggestions which, if carried out, will answer its assumptions, as well as its attempted efforts at deduction.
We remark, then, in the outset, that we are happy to meet the writer upon the common ground of a Sabbath having originated in Eden, and inserted in a law of perpetual obligation on both Jews and Gentiles.
Let the reader keep these mutual concessions continually before his eyes. They are of great significance in this debate. 1. They prove that the Sabbath is not Jewish in its origin, but was given to Adam, as their representative head, for the benefit of the whole race, more than two thousand years before there was a Jew in existence. 2. They also prove that the Sabbath institution was rendered obligatory upon all men by a divine precept, with the phraseology of which we are all acquainted. 3. That that precept is explicit in its declaration that the last and not the first day of the week was the Sabbath. 4. That before any other day can be substituted in the place of the one designated, the Power which originated it must authorize the change.
So much for the important results which necessarily flow from the principles which we hold in common, if indeed we are right in supposing that the writer really means what he actually says; namely, that he holds to the perpetuity of the fourth commandment of the decalogue. We shall see, hereafter, whether or not his statements are to be taken for all which they express.
We advance, now, in our examination of the criticism before us.
What direction, then, does the effort take in the main? It will be granted that the plan of defense adopted is that of attempting to prove that the early church did violate the seventh, and did honor the first, day of the week. But with what success has the effort been attended? We know that it is stated several times that the apostles disregarded what the author is pleased to call the Jewish Sabbath—after he had conceded the principle that that of the commandment was Edenic in its origin—but did he make out his case? So far from it, in every instance where he has found them connected in the record with the Sabbath day, it has ever been in the performance of duties religious in their nature. For should we concede that he is right in supposing that Paul went into the synagogues to teach on the Sabbath day, simply because he would find hearers there, this, assuredly, would not prove that Paul was a Sabbath-breaker.
Let me take the gentleman’s favorite illustration of a missionary in a foreign land, at the present time. Now suppose that his lot were cast in a country where the first day of the week, or the day of the sun, was regarded as holy by the natives, and he should be found on that day regularly teaching them in their places of assembly, would that decide the question that he was necessarily a violator of the first-day Sabbath? You answer immediately in the negative. So, too, in the case of Paul. The fact that it can be shown that it was his custom to teach in the synagogues on the seventh day of the week, if it has no power to prove that he was a conscientious observer of that day, cannot at least be cited as furnishing evidence that he disregarded it. We ask, then, again, Has a scintilla of positive testimony been given that Paul ever broke a single Sabbath of the Lord, as contained in the divine precept? Once more it must be conceded that there has not. But is it not a little singular that in a history of thirty years, where the Sabbath is so often mentioned, not one single action has ever been discovered in the least incompatible with Paul’s veneration of the seventh day? We let the reader answer.