It is worth mentioning, before we pass on, that the Karaite Jews, like the Sadducces before them, understand the word “Sabbath” in Leviticus 23:11, 15, 16, to mean, not the first day of unleavened bread, which was kept as a Sabbath, on whatever day of the week it might fall, but the seventh day of the week, the regular weekly Sabbath of the Jews. According to this understanding, the fifty days would always be reckoned from the morrow after the seventh day, and Pentecost would always fall on the first day of the week.

Having thus been at some pains to establish the fundamental position in this argument a position to which scholars generally are coming with constantly increasing unanimity, we need not dwell long upon the manifest application of what has been proven. The facts here, after Christ’s ascension, are full of significance, as we have seen the facts to be concerning the days just succeeding his resurrection. After the Lord’s ascension, his disciples abode in Jerusalem, awaiting the promised gift of the Spirit. Many days passed by, including two seventh days, and still no fulfillment of the promise. On the first day of the second week after the ascension, the disciples were all with one accord in one place. Once more, the day which the Lord had singled out and honored is specially honored by the plentiful effusion of the Spirit of God. And thus the day which Christ taught his disciples to regard with special sacredness, by repeatedly appearing to them in their collective gatherings, and blessing them, is even more clearly and significantly marked out from the other days of the week by this most marvelous outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

If it be objected that it was the Jewish festival, and not the first day of the week, that was honored, it is readily replied that there is no trace of the services of the Jewish festival on that blessed day. The Holy Ghost was given, not to persons observing Jewish ordinances and keeping the Pentecost of the old dispensation with a new meat-offering and first-fruits. He was given to Christian disciples met on the Christian’s honored day; and the disciples who on that day had received important spiritual instructions from the Lord just after his resurrection, and who now, on the same day, received the promised Spirit, begin the true work of the Christian Sabbath by preaching the gospel of salvation, and three thousand souls are added to the church of Christ.

The objection, on the score that Pentecost only happened to fall on the first day that year, is unworthy of any one who believes that “not a sparrow falls to the ground, without our Heavenly Father’s notice.” It has been admitted that if the view of the Karaite Jews were true, and Pentecost occurred every year on the first day of the week, then would there be a strong argument for the first-day Sabbath in the pre-arrangements of God’s providence. But to our mind, the argument from the pre-arrangement of providence is stronger on the other and better interpretation of Leviticus 23:11, 15, 16. He who in infinite wisdom arranged everything from the beginning, so ordered all events connected with Christ’s death, as to make the day of Pentecost coincide with the Christian Sabbath, and then gathered to himself, not the first-fruits of the fields of grain, but three thousand immortal souls, the first-fruits of the ingathering of the spiritual fields white to the harvest—the harvest of all the Gentile nations yet to be brought into the church of Christ, with the restoration of the covenant people of old. This is a Pentecost worthy of the church of Him who died for sinners of every race, and of the honored day which commemorates his rising from the dead.

A REJOINDER.
“ARGUMENT FOR THE FIRST-DAY SABBATH FROM THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST.”

It is always a source of satisfaction to one, in examining opinions from which he is compelled to differ, to feel that the presentation of them which he is considering is the best which could be made under the circumstances. With pleasure, therefore, we recognize the manifest tokens of research and erudition on the part of the author of the views presented in the columns of the Statesman, in the communication entitled, “Argument for the first-day Sabbath from the gift of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.” We do not flatter ourselves, however, that all which has been said in that article was for our benefit. It is not a little remarkable that three-fourths of its contents are devoted to the settlement of a point, which—while indeed it affects the question at issue—is not one upon which we bestowed many words, having preferred to consider, for the sake of argument, that the Pentecost did, on the year of our Lord’s crucifixion, fall upon the first day of the week; and then, having done this, to prove that this coincidence in no way affected, necessarily, the nature of that day.

Nevertheless, we must beg leave here to express our gratitude that, notwithstanding the concession in question, the readers of the Statesman are at last instructed by an abler pen than our own in reference to the diversity of opinion which exists among the learned as to whether, indeed, it is safe to conclude that the Sunday, to the exclusion of the Sabbath, was the day upon which the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles. Be it remembered, also, that the learned men who stand as the advocates of the seventh day as the one which God thus honored were not observers of that day as the Sabbath. All the authorities quoted are men who, if they regarded any Sabbath at all, gave their preference to the first, and not to the last, day of the week. This being the case, they certainly cannot be charged with any bias in favor of the creation Sabbath. Not only so, but all their predilections were doubtless against that day, and favorable to its rival. Hence we see that when, under these circumstances, it is admitted that such distinguished men as Lightfoot, Weiseler, and Hitzig, have agreed that the last day of the week was the one on which the Pentecost occurred at the time in question, they did so—not in the interest of preconceived notions, nor for the purpose of bolstering up a theory which was in desperate need of help—but because there was, to their minds, at least, much which compelled a conclusion they would gladly have avoided.

Right here, also, in order to widen the breach in the wall of evidence, we beg leave to act in harmony with the plan pursued by the writer, and to present a note from the pen of one no less distinguished than Professor Hackett, which will make it manifest beyond dispute that the scholars who at the present time sympathize with those cited above, who regard the seventh day of the week and not the first as having been the day of the Pentecost, are both numerous and celebrated: “It is generally supposed that this Pentecost, signalized by the outpouring of the Spirit, fell on the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday.” Quoted in “Hist. of Sab.,” by J. N. A., page 150. Let the reader bear in mind that we are not assuming to decide between these long lines of doctors who differ so widely upon a very important point, as regarded by some; but that our purpose is simply to call attention to the fact of this discrepancy, and to show its bearing upon the subject under discussion.

The first query which should be propounded, therefore, is this: Has God ever declared that the day of the Pentecost, which we are trying to locate, was identical with the first day of the week? The answer is in the negative. There is not one word in the text (Acts 2:1, 2), or in the Testament, in regard to the day of the week on which these events occurred. It is simply stated that they took place “when the day of Pentecost was fully come,” How remarkable, if the object was not to honor a feast which occurred annually, but especially for the purpose of distinguishing the first day of the week! Before, however, that day could be illustrated by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon it, it must first he decided—and that, too, from Bible evidence—that such outpouring did occur on the day specified. Can this be done? We appeal for a response to the average Christian men and women of this time. Tell me, after having read the three-column argument of the gentleman, has not the effect of what he has said been to unsettle, rather than to establish, your convictions upon the point before our minds? If never before, is it not now true that you feel somewhat shaken in regard to the identity of the Sunday with the Pentecost, on the year of the crucifixion? In view of what has been written, would you undertake to establish your faith from any deduction which you yourself could make from plain Scripture declarations? Is it not true that your opinion in the promises depends entirely upon the faith of the one or the other class of scholars who have ranged themselves on both sides of this subject? Has the religion of Jesus Christ then changed? Is it no longer true that its great and important practical truths are withheld “from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes”? Has God left the important question of first-day sanctity, not upon the solid basis of explicit command, but upon the doubtful inference which is to be derived from certain transactions which occurred on a certain day, and then left the day of their occurrence to occupy a position in the week so doubtful that the most learned of those who had a desire to keep it should be honestly divided in opinion as to which day it was? We believe not. To our mind, it is simple presumption to intimate that God—who is not willing that any should perish, and who has said that he will do nothing but he will reveal it to his servants the prophets—should deal with his creatures in a manner at once so indirect and so obscure.

Having seen that there is a wide divergence of views among the very men who are the observers of the modern Sunday, in regard to its claims to distinction on the score of its having been first honored by the outpouring of the Spirit on the fiftieth day after the resurrection, let us look for a moment at the situation with reference to the possible effect upon the seventh day, of the logic employed. Taking it for granted that our friends would not fly from their favorite deduction provided it should prove to be true that they are mistaken in regard to the time of the Pentecost, let us concede, for the time being, that the long line of celebrities, headed by such men as Lightfoot, Weiseler, and Hitzig, were right in arguing that Saturday, and not Sunday, was the day on which the great Jewish festival occurred; then, beyond all dispute, it must be conceded by our opponents that this was but another effort on the part of Jehovah to illustrate, for the benefit of succeeding generations, the day which he had previously made memorable by his resting, his blessing, and his sanctification. In other words, with this view of the design of the outpouring of the Spirit, the effect upon the ancient Sabbath would be the same as it is now claimed to have been upon the first day of the week. The point, therefore, of the identity of the days is to them a vital one. If they are wrong in this, they are wrong in all. We appeal to them, therefore, in view of the infinite consequences which hang upon the proper celebration of the right Sabbath, to at least make their logic so plain that it will be accepted by men of their own faith, before they speak of its strength with great assumption of confidence. Before any person has a right to employ the events which transpired at the time of the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit in the interest of Sunday sanctity, he must be able to solve, at least to the satisfaction of his own mind, all the difficulties which complicate this question. As God has never seen fit to say that the Jewish feast, at the time under consideration, transpired on the first day of the week, he must be able to establish that proposition independently of an explicit thus saith the Lord.