The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign

Once more, "One came and said unto him, good master what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? He said, If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments. Then he asked him which. He cited him to the last part of what he called the second, loving his neighbor as himself." If he had cited him to the first table, as in the xxii, quoted above, he could not have replied "all these have I kept from my youth up." Why? Because he would have already been perfect, for Jesus in reply to his question, what he should do to inherit eternal life, said he must "keep the commandments." Matt. xix: 16-20. – Is not the Sabbath included in these commandments? – Surely it is! Then how absurd to believe that Jesus, just at the close of his ministry, should teach that the way, the only way, to enter into life, was to keep the commandments, one of which was to be abolished in a few months from that time, without the least intimation from him or his Father that it was to take place. I say again, if the Sabbath is abolished, we ask those who teach it to cite us to the chapter and verse, not to the law of rites and ceremonies which are abolished, for we have already shown that the Sabbath was instituted more than twenty-five hundred years before Moses wrote the carnal ordinances or ceremonies. God said, "Abraham kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws." Gen. xxvi: 5. This must include the Sabbath, for the Sabbath was the first law given, therefore if Abraham did not keep the Sabbath, I cannot understand what commandments, statutes, and laws mean in this chapter. Jesus says, "As I have kept my Father's commandments," John xv: 10. Did he keep the commandments? Yes. Mark and Luke, before quoted – (but more of this in another place.)

In John vii: 19, Jesus speaks of "Moses law," "your law," x: 34. Again, "their law." xv: 25. Here then we show that Jesus kept up a clear distinction between what God calls my law and commandments and Moses law, "their law," "your law." Let us now look at the argument of the Apostles. Paul preaching at Antioch taught the brethren that by Jesus Christ all who believe in him "are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses." Acts xiii: 39.

The Pharisee said "that it was needful to circumcise them and commend them to keep the Law of Moses." xv: 5.

Again, when Paul had come to Jerusalem the second time, (fourteen years from the time he met the Apostles in conference where they established the decrees for the churches. See Acts xx: 19; Gal. ii: 1,) the Apostles shewed him how many thousands of Jews there were which believed and were zealous of the law; "And they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles, to forsake Moses and the customs." xxi: 20, 21. Any person who will carefully read the eight chapters here included, must be thoroughly convinced that the Apostle's troubles were about the law of ceremonies written and given by Moses, and nothing to do with the ten commandments. For you see a little before he comes to Jerusalem, he had been preaching at Corinth every Sabbath for eighteen months. xviii: 4, 11. And this, be it remembered, was more than twenty years after the Jewish Sabbaths and ceremonies were nailed to the cross. – And you see that Paul was the man above all the Apostles to be persecuted on account of the abolition of the Jews' law of ceremonies, for he was the "great apostle to the Gentiles: " and if the "Sabbath of the Lord our God" was to have been abolished when the Saviour died, Paul was the very man selected for that purpose. It is clear, therefore, that he did not abolish the seventh day Sabbath among the Gentiles. This same Apostle tells the Romans "that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." x: 4. Again, that "sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace." vi: 14. Once more: He says the Gentiles having not the law, are a law unto themselves. – Why? Because, he says in the next verse, it shews the law written on their hearts. The law of ceremonies? No that which was on tables of stone. ii: 14-16. We might quote much more which looks like embracing the whole law. Let us now look at a few texts in the same letter, which will draw a distinguishing line between the two codes of laws. Paul, in the vii ch. 9-13v, brings to view the carnal commandment, and the one unto life, and sums up his argument in these words: "Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good." In the 7v he quotes from the decalogue. Again, he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. How? Why thou shalt not steal, nor commit adultery, nor bear false witness, nor covet, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Rom. xiii: 8, 10. – This then is what the Saviour taught the young man to do – to secure "eternal life." Matt. Once more, in concluding a long argument on the law in Rom. iii: 31 he closes with this language: "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid ye, we establish the law." – What law is here established? Not the law of rites and ceremonies. What then, for Paul means some law. It can be no other than what he calls the law of "life," of "love," the ten commandments. How could even that be established twenty-nine years after the crucifixion if one of the greatest commandments had been abolished out of the code, that is the Sabbath.

Paul's letter to the Corinthians teaches that "circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." vii: 19. Again, in his epistle to the Galatians, his phraseology is somewhat changed, but the argument is to the same point, although some passages read as though every vestage of law was swept by the board when Jesus hung upon the cross. For instance, such as the following: "But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God it is evident, for the just shall live by faith, and the law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live by them." "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." "But before faith came we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith, but after that faith has come we are no longer under a schoolmaster." Gal. iii: 11-23, 23-25. Again: "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse." 10v. Now are we to understand from these texts that whosoever continueth in the law is cursed, and that the law the whole law, was abolished when Christ came as our schoolmaster, he being the "end of the law?" Rom. x: 4. If so, how is it possible for any man, even Paul himself, to be saved. But we do not believe that Paul taught these brethren any different doctrine than what has already been shown in the Acts, Romans, and Corinthians, and also the Eph., Phil., Col., and Heb. If he did not mean the law written by the hand of Moses, distinguishing it from the law of the ten commandments, written by the finger of God on tables of stone, then pray tell me if you can, what he means (in the closing of this argument,) by saying, "For all the LAW is FULFILLED in one word, even this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." v: 14. Surely he is quoting the Saviour's words in Matthew xxii: 39, relative to the commandment of the Lord our God. – To his son Timothy he says: "Now the end of the commandment is charity," (love) meaning of course the last part of the ten commandments. In vi: 2, he says: "Bear ye one anothers burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ." Does this differ from the law of God? Yes, a little, for it is the new commandment, (some say the eleventh.) See John xiii: 34. "A new commandment I give unto you, (what is it, Lord?) that ye love one another." And also xv: 12. The other is to love our neighbor as ourself. – John says: "And this commandment have we from him (Christ,) that he who loveth God loveth his brother also." John iv: 21, and ii: 8-11. In his letter to the Ephesians he says: "Having abolished in his flesh the enmity even the law of commandments contained in ordinances." ii: 15. See the reverse in vi: 2 v. To the Collossians he asks, "Why as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances which all are to perish with their using?" And says: "Touch not, taste not, handle not." (Does Paul here teach us to forsake the ordinances of God, instituted by the Saviour – Baptism and the Lord's Supper? Yes, just as clearly as he does to forsake the whole law.)

When writing to the Hebrews more than thirty years after the crucifixion, he calls these ordinances carnal, imposed on them (the Jews) until Christ our High Priest should come. ix: 10, 11. He also calls the law of commandments carnal too, and says: "For there is verily a disannulling of the commandments going before, for the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did." vii: 16, 18-19. "For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people." ix: 19. Now we see clearly that the book of the law of Moses, from which Paul has been quoting through the whole before mentioned epistles, is as distinctly separate from the tables of stone (or fleshly table of the heart,) as they were when deposited in the Ark thirty-three hundred years ago. Therefore we think that here is clear proof that he has kept up the distinction between the "handwriting of ordinances" (meaning Moses' own handwriting in his book,) and the "ten commandments writen by the finger of God."

Let us now turn to the Epistle of James, said to be written more than twenty-five years after the law of ceremonies was nailed to the cross, and see if he does not teach us distinctly, that we are bound to keep the commandments given on tables of stone. He says, "the man that shall be a doer of the perfect law of liberty shall be blessed in his deed." i: 25. "If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well." Why? Because the Saviour in quoting from the commandments, in answer to the Ruler, what he should do to inherit eternal life, taught the same doctrine. Matt. xix: 19. Further: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, shall be guilty of all." In the next verse he quotes from the ten commandments again, namely, Adultery and Murder (what the Saviour in the fifth chapter of Matt. calls the least, that is the smallest commandment,) and says if we commit them we become transgressors of the law. Of what law? Next verse says the law of liberty by which we are to be "judged." ii: 8, 11.

Now will it not be admitted by every reasonable person that James has included the whole of the ten commandments, by calling them the perfect law of liberty. 2d, "The royal law according to the scripture," and 3d, "the law of liberty by which we are to be judged." (Royal relates to imperial and kingly.) Perfect means COMPLETE, entire, the WHOLE. Then I understand James thus: This law emenated from the king, the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and to be perfect must be just what it was when it came from his hand, and that no change had, or could take place, (and remember now, this is more than twenty-five years since the ceremonies with the Jewish Sabbaths were nailed to the cross,) for the very best of reasons, until the Judgment, because he shows we are to be judged by that law. Then I ask by what parity of reasoning any one can make the law of the ten commandments perfect, while they at the same time assert that the fourth one is abolished? and that on no better evidence than calling it the Jewish Sabbath. Now let us look at the Apostle John's testimony.

"And hereby we do know that we know him if we keep his commandments. He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a LIAR, and the truth is not in him." Now no man, more especially one who professes to abide by the whole truth, feels entirely easy if he is called a liar. Now John please explain yourself. – Hear him: "Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment that ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning." What do you mean by beginning? Turn to my gospel, 1st ch. "In the beginning was the word," – "the same was in the beginning with God." 1, 2. See Gen. i ch: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Then you are pointing us to the seventh day of creation, in which God instituted the seventh day Sabbath of rest, for the old commandment in the beginning. ii: 3. Certainly there is no other place to point to. Does not Jesus point to the same place for the beginning when marriage was first instituted. Matt. xix: 4. In my second letter to the church, I have taught the same doctrines: viz. "This is the commandment that as ye have heard from the beginnings ye should walk in it." (practice it.) ii: 5, 6. "A new commandment I write unto you." ii: 8 v. This is the one that Jesus gave us on that memorable night in which he was betrayed, after he had instituted the sacrament and washed our feet. He said "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another." xiii: 34, 35. The first then teaches us, Love to God; 2d, to Love our neighbor as ourself; "on these two commandments (says Jesus) hang all the law and the prophets." Then we understand this is the essence of the ten commandments, and if we do not keep the Sabbath we do not love God. Jesus says, "If ye love me keep my commandments." We are repeatedly told that the Sabbath was changed or forever abolished, at the crucifixion of our Lord; and it is stated by the most competent authorities that John wrote this epistle about sixty years afterwards, and that about six years after this our blessed Lord revealed to him the state of the Church down to the judgment of the great day. In the xiv ch. Rev. 6-11, he saw three angels following each other in succession: first one preaching the everlasting gospel (second advent doctrine); 2d, announcing the fall of Babylon; 3d, calling God's people out of her by showing the awful destruction that awaited all such as did not obey. He sees the separation and cries out, "Here is the patience of the Saints, here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." And this picture was so deeply impressed upon his mind, that when the Savior said to him "Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me," he seemed to understand this, saying – "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Now it seems to me that the seventh day Sabbath is more clearly included in these commandments, than thou shalt not steal, nor kill, nor commit adultery, for it is the only one that was written at the creation or in the beginning. He allows no stopping place this side of the gates of the city. Then, if we do not keep that day, John has made out his case, that we are all liars. We say in every other case the type must be continued until it is superseded by the antetype: as in the case of the passover, until our Lord was crucified. So then, as Paul tells us, "there remaineth a keeping of the Sabbath to the people of God;" and that we believe will be in the Millenium, the seven thousandth year, so that the seventh day Sabbath and no other will answer for the type, and those who keep the first or the eighth day Sabbath cannot consistently look for the antetype of rest or the great Sabbath, short of one thousand years in future.

Again: Isaiah says: "To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to his word it is because there is no light in them." viii: 20. Now if the Gentiles are under no law, as is asserted, pray tell me what right, the Gentiles, have we to appeal to the law and testimony, or to this text.

In the xxiv. of Matt. our Saviour says to his disciples in answer to their questions, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world? "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place," &c. 15v. "Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day." 20v. The first question is, at what age of the world is this, where our Lord recognizes the Sabbath. 1st. It is agreed on all hands that this time to which he here refers, never transpired until the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70, about 40 years after his crucifixion. 2d. Some others say down to the second Advent! The first mentioned is safe ground and sufficient for our purpose; nor need we stop to inquire why our Lord gave these directions, it is forever settled that he directed the minds of his followers to THE, not a Sabbath. Keep it in remembrance, that he told the Pharisees that he was Lord, not of a, but of THE Sabbath, meaning that one which of course had already been established. The 2d question is, did our Lord ever trifle with or mislead his disciples? The response is No! Then it is clear that if he taught them to pray at all, it must be in faith, and he of course would hear them and mediate with the Father to change the day of their flight. I ask what kind of a prayer and with what kind of faith would his disciples have asked to have this day changed, if, as we are told, it was abolished some forty years before, and they had, contrary to the will of God, persisted in keeping up the seventh day Sabbath. Any one who has confidence in God's word, knows that such a prayer never would be answered. What if you do say the Jews always kept that Sabbath, and it was the same seventh day Sabbath that they kept when he was teaching them in their synagogues? I say so too! and that fact will be presented by and by, in its place. This does not touch the point. Jesus was here, giving instruction to his followers, both Jew and Gentile, respecting the Sabbath which they would have to do with. It is immaterial what kind of sophistry is presented to overthrow the point, nothing can touch it short of proving it a mistranslation. Jesus did here recognize the perpetuity of the seventh day Sabbath. And John will continue to make all men liars that say they know him, and refuse the light presented and disregard this commandment. If God instituted the Sabbath in Paradise and has not abolished it here, then it must be perpetual. If Paul's argument in iii. Rom. that the law is established through faith, is correct, then it is perpetual. If James' royal perfect law of liberty, which we are to be doers of, and judged by, means the commandments, then is the Sabbath perpetual. If the Apostle John has made out a clear case by citing us back to the beginning of creation, and by walking in and doing these commandments, we shall have right to the tree of life and enter in by the gates into the city; then it must be perpetual. If the earthly Sabbath is typical of the heavenly, then must it be perpetual. If not one jot or one tittle can ever pass from the law, then must it be perpetual. If the Saviour, in answer to the young man who asked him what he should do to inherit eternal life, gave a safe direction for Gentiles to follow, viz: "If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments" (and these included those commandments which his Father had given,) then, without contradiction the Sabbath is perpetual, and all the arguments which ever can be presented against the fourth commandment being observed before God wrote it on tables of stone to prove that it is not binding on Gentiles, fall powerless before this one sentence: If thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments. I say the proof is positive that the Sabbath was a constituent part of the commandments, and Jesus says the Sabbath was made for man. The Jews were only a fragment of creation.

"The principle is settled in all governments that there are but two ways in which any law can cease to be binding upon the people. It may expire by its own limitations, or it may be repealed by the same authority which enacted it; and in the latter case the repealing act must be as explicit as that by which the obligation was originally imposed." Now we have it in proof that the Sabbath was instituted in Paradise, the first of all laws without any limitation, and no enactment by God to abolish it, unless what we have already referred to can be considered proof. One more passage which I have not alluded to, will show that it was not abolished at the crucifixion, for his disciples kept the Sabbath while he was resting in his tomb. See Luke xxiii: 55, 56. Let us now pass to another part of the subject. The third question:

WAS THE SEVENTH DAY SABBATH EVER CHANGED? IF SO

WHEN, AND FOR WHAT REASON?

Here we come to a question which has more or less engaged the attention of the whole christian world, and the greater portion of those who believe in a crucified Saviour say that this change took place, and is dated from his resurrection. Some say subsequently, while a minority insist upon it that there is no proof for the change. Now to obtain the truth and nothing but the truth on this important subject, I propose to present, or quote from standard authors on both sides of the question, and try the whole by the standard of divine truth. 1st. Buck's Theological Dictionary, to which no doubt thousands of ministers and laymen appeal to sustain their argument for the change, says: "Under the christian dispensation the Sabbath is altered from the seventh to the first day of the week." The arguments for the change are these: 1st. "The seventh day was observed by the Jewish church in memory of the rest of God; so the first day of the week has always been observed by the christian church in memory of Christ's resurrection. 2d. Christ made repeated visits to his disciples on that day. 3d. It is called the Lord's day. Rev. i: 10. – 4th. On this day the Apostles were assembled, when the Holy Ghost came down upon them to qualify them for the conversion of the world. 5th. On this day we find Paul at Troas when the disciples came together to break bread. 6th. The directions the Apostles gave to Christians plainly alludes to their assembling on that day. 7th. Pliny bears witness of the first day of the week being kept as a festival in honor of the resurrection of Christ."

"Numerous have been the days appointed by man for religious services, but these are not binding because of human institution. Not so the Sabbath. It is of divine institution, so it is to be kept holy onto the Lord."

Doct. Dodridge, whose ability and piety have seldom or rarely been disputed, comments on some of the above articles thus: (Commentary p. 606.) "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." I Cor. xvi: 2. "Show that it was to be put into a common stock. The argument drawn from hence for the religious observance of the first day of the week in these primitive churches of Corinth and Galacia is too obvious to need any further illustration, and yet too important to be passed by in entire silence." Again, p. 904, "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day," &c. Rev. i: 10. "It is so very unnatural and contrary to the use of the word in all other authors to interpret this of the Jewish Sabbath, as Mr. Baxter justly argues at large, that I cannot but conclude with him and the generality of Christian writers on this subject, that this text strongly infers the extraordinary regard paid to the first day of the week in the Apostle's time as a day solemnly consecrated to Christ in the memory of his resurrection from the dead." There is much more, but these are his strong arguments. I shall quote some more from the Commentaries by and by. I wish to place by the side of these arguments one from the British Quarterly Theological Review and Ecclesiastical Recorder, of Jan. 1830, which I extract from 'the Institution of the Sabbath day,' by Wm. Logan Fisher, of Philadelphia, a book in which there is much valuable information on this subject, though I disagree with the writer, because his whole labor is to abolish the Sabbath; yet he gives much light on this subject, from which I take the liberty to make some quotations. But to the Quarterly Review of 1830: