The Constitutional Amendment: or, The Sunday, the Sabbath, the Change, and Restitution / A discussion between W. H. Littlejohn, Seventh-day Adventist, and the editor of the Christian Statesman

by Wolcott H. Littlejohn

Of a full feast; and the out-courts of glory.’”

A REJOINDER.
“THE TRUE THEORY OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.”

It is a peculiarity of this discussion that we are prevented, in our rejoinders, from anticipating the positions which our opponent has in store for us. Were it possible to proceed upon principles of consistency, in debate, and conclude that he, having adopted such and such views, would continue to maintain them steadily for the future, there would be a sort of satisfaction found in preparing material to be employed hereafter. But we have learned, by actual experience, that in this debate such anticipatory action would be labor lost. For example: In the last reply, which had to do with the seventh-part-of-time theory, we had intended to show that, were it true, and that, were the observance of one day in seven all that is now required, even then Sabbatarians stood upon a footing as safe as that of their opponents, since the observance of the seventh day answered to the keeping of one-seventh part of time, equally with that of the celebration of the first day of the week.

Being prevented by want of space from indulging in these reflections, we laid them over for another week, supposing that they would come in play equally well at this time, Alas! what a mistake! We should have struck when the iron was hot. Unfortunately, we are not now confronting the no-day-in-particular doctrine, as we were then; but it is the “Lord’s day” again, the first day of an indefinite week, “a particular, definite day, enforced by the command and the example of Christ and the apostles,” which once more stands before us. How it is that we have been borne so rapidly over the space which separates these antagonistic positions, the reader will have to decide for himself; for we confess to a perfect want of ability, on our own part, to render him any assistance. Without the slightest attempt at logical deduction, we are first informed that the essential idea in Sabbath observance is not that of the keeping of a particular day, but the consecration of one day in the week, allowing the week to begin wherever it may. This, we are told, would suitably commemorate God’s rest at the creation of the world; and, also, that if, in addition, we make the day of our rest identical with the first day of the week, we can thereby celebrate both creation and redemption. For this very purpose, we are informed, the Sabbath commandment was changed, so as to admit of the introduction of a new day.

But pause a moment. Has the gentleman told us just what change was made? Has he told us what words were stricken out? and how it now reads? The reader has not forgotten that this is the very thing the opposition were challenged to perform. He will perceive that this, also, is the very thing which the gentleman has failed to accomplish, and cannot hereafter do, since the reply under review is the last of his series. If it be said that he has cited us to the fourth commandment, as given in the twentieth of Exodus, as containing the law as it now reads, then he is self-condemned; for he admits that the phraseology of that commandment did enforce a definite day, and that, the last day of the week.

But once more: Passing over the absurdity of claiming a change in the law, where there is no ability to produce the statute as amended, let us go back from Sinai to Eden, along with the gentleman, and see if we cannot find, independent of the commandment, evidence that the creation Sabbath was not a portable institution, to be trundled about at the caprice of any and every individual. Mark it, now, it is granted that what is called the Jewish Sabbath law enforced the keeping of the seventh day, and admitted of no other as a substitute. But whence is this conclusion drawn? Undeniably, from the words, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.”

But where has the gentleman learned that the creation Sabbath was enjoined in the use of language less explicit and limited in its meaning than are the words of the decalogue? If he knows anything about the original decree of Jehovah, and the limitations with which he guarded the Sabbath in the outset, he, like ourselves, is compelled to go to the sacred record for information. If, in going there, he has been able to find anything which would prove that the Edenic Sabbath was less fixed in its character than that of Sinai, then he has made some progress. The only scripture which will throw any light upon the subject will be found in Gen. 2:1-3.

Unhappily for the gentleman, however, it is fatal to his conception that the original Sabbath varied in any way from that of the Jews—so-called. In the account of its institution, the language employed is almost precisely the same with that subsequently traced upon the tables of stone. It is there declared that God sanctified (i. e., set apart to a holy use) the seventh day. The reason for this action is the fact that he had rested upon it. Now, it will be observed that it was the “seventh day” that God blessed and sanctified, and no other. It is submitted, therefore, as the gentleman concedes, that the same expression (i. e., the seventh day), when employed in the commandment given to Moses, did locate the Sabbath institution immovably upon the last day of the week, until the law was changed; that the same language, when employed originally, must have produced the same result; in other words, if the command to keep the seventh day, as given on Mount Sinai, held the people strictly to the observance of the last day of the week, so, too, Jehovah, in the beginning, restricted the whole race to a Sabbath which was, equally with the other, the seventh, and, therefore, the last day of the week.

In order to avoid this conclusion, it will be required that, by some means, he should be able to show that the same terms which were employed by God, at one time, have a different meaning from that attached to them, as employed by him at another time. Not only so, the Sabbath in Genesis, like that in Exodus, is further limited and defined by two additional facts. First, it was the day on which God rested; secondly, it was the day which he blessed because He had rested upon it. Therefore, before any other day could be substituted for it, these two things must be true of it, as matter of history. This, however, can never be the case, as it regards any day of the week, save the last; consequently, he who celebrates any other is not celebrating the one which God imposed in the beginning. So much for the definiteness of the Sabbath which was given to Adam.

Should it be replied that what has been remarked is correct, and that it is not argued that any one was at liberty to keep any other day than the seventh of the week, until Christ changed the law, and thereby authorized them so to do, we reply, Very good; that brings us back again to the original proposition, which is, Did he make such a change? If he did, then it is just as important that we should have clear and conclusive evidence that such an alteration was made by him, as it is that we should have the abundant testimony which we now possess that a definite Sabbath was originally given to mankind.