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

All this speculation in regard to what might have been done with perfect consistency under a given state of facts is worse than idle. What we demand is this—What has been done? Instead of concluding that Christ did a certain thing because it would have been right so to do, first show us, by actual Scripture quotation, that he really performed the work in question, and the consistency of his action will take care of itself. A theology which has no broader, firmer basis than individual conception of the propriety of certain occurrences which may never have taken place at all, is not worth the paper on which it is drawn out. This, nevertheless, is the very material with which we are dealing.

Eleven articles, ostensibly written to afford divine authority for the change of days, are concluded; and, from beginning to end, there is not found in them a “Thus saith the Lord” for the transfer. Again and again it is inferred that such and such transactions meant so-and-so. Again and again it is concluded that such and such things are admissible, not because of any scriptural warrant, but because they seem good in the eyes of those with whose practice they best conform. The reason why this is so, the reader will readily perceive. It is found, not in the fact that the learned gentleman who represents the opposition is insensible to the superiority of positive Bible statements over individual surmise, but in the necessity under which he is placed, to employ the only material which he has at hand. Meeting him, therefore, where he is, let us prove the unreliability of such deductions as he is indulging in by actual test. The points which he is attempting to establish are these: 1. The original idea of the Sabbath can be met by the observance of the first day of the week, as well as by that of the last. 2. That the commemoration of Christ’s resurrection can only be suitably carried out by hallowing the first day of every week.

Now, as to the first of these propositions, it will only be safe to decide that it is correct after giving it mature reflection. We have already seen that God’s original plan for preserving the memory of creation week was that of setting apart the last day of each subsequent week for the imitation, on our part, of his rest thereon. To say, therefore, that it would have answered just as well to allow the individual to take any other day—say the first day of the week—for this purpose, is to argue that God acted without cause in making the selection which he did and enforcing it for four thousand years. If the question were one of indifference, why did he not leave the day unfixed? Why not allow them then to commemorate his rest on the first day, as the gentleman would have done now, arguing that the ends of the original Sabbath would, in this way, be fully met. Certain it is that no good reason can be assigned why it would now be more proper to commemorate the rest of Jehovah by a variable Sabbath than it has been heretofore. This being true, the gentleman’s logic is found to be unsound, or else the action of the Deity was inconsiderate.

Turning, now, to the second proposition, the reader will be instantly struck with its unqualified antagonism to the first point which is sought to be made out.

Remember, now, that the gentleman is arguing stoutly for first-day sanctity. He is not so particular when the week begins, but it must have just seven days, and the first of them must be devoted to the commemoration of the Lord’s resurrection, Should you ask him why he is thus particular in the selection of the first day of the week, he would reply, “Why, that is the day on which the Lord arose, and it is his resurrection, as the crowning act in the work of redemption, which we seek to honor.” But, reader, would it not occur to you, immediately, that this is a repudiation of all which he has said concerning the Edenic Sabbath? Nosy, mark it; what God demands, is, that we should honor the seventh day of the week, as the one which he rested upon, blessed, and sanctified. If, therefore, the rest, the blessing, and the sanctification of that day can be suitably remembered by the observance of another day differing from it, then the assumption that an event is most impressively handed down by the dedication, for this purpose, of the very day on which it transpired, is unsound.

But if this assumption be unsound, then all of the gentleman’s talk in regard to the necessity for a change of days, in order to the suitable commemoration of the resurrection of Christ and the completion of the work of redemption, is without force. For, assuredly, if he is right in supposing that God’s rest in Eden, on the seventh day, can he commemorated as well on the first day as on the seventh, then the same principle will hold good in regard to the events which transpired on the first day of the week, i. e., they can be kept in remembrance by the hallowing of the seventh day as well as by that of the first. But this being true, his argument for the necessity of the change of Sabbaths is gone, and his philosophy of the change proved to be unsound. The only purpose which it has served in this controversy has been the revelation of that which is really the conviction of its author, as it is that of men generally, that there is no time in which great transactions can be so suitably commemorated as that of the day on which they took place. When the nation wishes to celebrate the anniversary of its independence, it sets apart for this purpose the fourth of July, which answers exactly to the day of the month on which the Declaration of Independence was made. Substitute for this another day, and you have marred the impressiveness of the occasion.

So, too, with God’s rest on creation week; it must be so celebrated that all the associations connected with it will be calculated to lead the mind back to its origin and object. Turn it around, as the gentleman proposes to do, i. e., substitute the first day of the week in the place of the last, and you have precisely reversed God’s order. You have put the rest-day first, and cause the six laboring days to follow; whereas, God, knowing that rest was only needed after labor, worked six days and then rested the seventh, not because he was weary, but because he desired to put on the record for us an example to be strictly followed. The gentleman, however, without the slightest warrant, has, with a rash hand, laid hold of the divine procedure, and now says that the order pursued was not necessary to the inculcation of the great lessons which God designed to impart.

To this, I reply, 1. That God’s actions are never superfluous. 2. That, if we err at all, it is safer to err on the side of the divine example. 3. That if the idea of God’s working six days is in any way connected with a proper Sabbath rest, then it is indispensable that the Sabbath should follow, and not precede, the working portion of the week. 4. That if the rest of God, merely, is the object which we should keep before our minds by a proper regard for the Sabbatic institution, the gentleman has himself shown, by the logic which he has employed, that the only suitable period for the keeping of that rest is found in that portion of the week on which God ceased from his labors.

The remark of the gentleman that the work of redemption furnishes a subject worthy of being remembered by observance with Sabbatic honor of the day on which it was completed, is worthy of passing notice. The idea which he advances is one which is quite prevalent, and employed with great satisfaction by clergymen generally, when controverting the claims of God’s ancient rest-day. The strength of the position lies in the fact that it distinguishes between redemption and creation, assuming, perhaps correctly, that the latter is more exalted than the former. Having won the assent of the mind to this proposition, the reader is quietly carried over to conclusions much less obvious than the first. Almost unconsciously he is led to decide, with his instructor, that, since redemption is a greater work than creation, it ought, therefore, to be honored by a day of rest.

Now we shall not enter into this matter largely, but we simply suggest that either this decision is the result of human, or else it is the product of divine, wisdom. If it is human wisdom, then its teachings should be followed with extreme caution. If it is divine wisdom, then they can be obeyed with the most implicit confidence. Just at this point, therefore, it is all-important that the test be applied. Has Jehovah ever said that the commemoration of creation week had become less desirable on account of the possible redemption of a fallen race, by the death of his Son? The most careful reader of the Bible has failed to find any such language; in fine, the intimation that such is really the fact is rather a reflection upon the Deity himself, since, from it, it might be inferred that the glory of his work had been dimmed by the fall of the race.