A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath and the Commandments of God. Joseph Bates
and honoreth me with their lips,” [They are advocating his speedy coming to judge the world.] “but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Oh, but say some, we believe that the commandments are as valid now as they ever were. Why do you then constantly and perseveringly reject, scoff at, and sneeringly deride, and denounce, those that are as honest as you are, while they are endeavoring to keep the fourth commandment just as God had directed them? When you have been so repeatedly shown by their writings, drawn from the clear word that the fourth commandment is not abolished and never has undergone any change more than the other nine, and that there is no other weekly sabbath recorded or intimated in the old and new testaments. If you will follow such downright infidelity as is taught in all the second advent papers respecting God's holy sabbath, and still continue to stigmatize the holy law of God, how can you expect to be treated otherwise than the rebellious house of Israel, and be made to feel in a very little while from this, all the horrors of a guilty conscience, urging you to do that which you now detest and abhor: even to come and bow at the feet of these very despised – as you are now disposed to term them – “door shutters,” “mystery folks,” “Judaizers,” “feet washers,” “deluded fanatics,” &c. &c. See Isa. xlix: 23, and lx: 14; Rev. iii: 9. Here your characters are delineated. You say no, these mean the nominal church. It is not so. They have rejected the message of the second advent. And you since that time (1814) have rejected the word of God. Our testimony will not be rejected when called for that you with us left them with all their creeds and confessions of faith and professed to take the whole word of God for our rule of faith and practice. This then is your clear position, even while opposing the commandments of God. If you ask why I speak in such positive terms about or concerning the commandments of God, allow me to cite you to our history, Rev. xiv: 12. Is not this positive proof?
Also in xii: 17. Do you not read your own characters as described above, on the remnant of the last end? and are not these individuals who enter the gates of the city the same remnant that are at last saved by keeping the commandments? xxii: 14. Does not the 15th verse describe those who are left out, “and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.” How perfectly this compares with what I quoted above, Rev. iii: 9. See also 1st John ii: 4. “He that saith I know him and keep not his commandments is a LIAR and the truth is not in him.” You will possibly say the three texts which I have quoted in Rev. xii., xiv. and xxii., have no reference to the Sabbath. When I come to treat on the xiv. of Rev. I will look at this point. But allow me to state here, that the first three commandments in the decalogue have never been a subject of dispute (separately) in Christendom, while the fourth has been for fifteen hundred years. We know positively that this is true in our second advent experience. Therefore it is plain that by keeping the fourth commandment or the seventh-day Sabbath as it stands recorded, and in the very time too in our history, we are clearly fulfilling the prophecy, viz.: “Here is the patience of the saints, here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” Allow me to state my conviction here with reference to the great mass of advent believers especially, that if they could quietly dispose of the seventh-day Sabbath and sink it with the Jewish rituals, then they would never raise their voice against the other nine commandments of God. This, then, is the evident reason why they are wielding their puny weapons to smite down the only foundation that upholds the old and new testament. It would be much easier work for them to stop the raging of the hurricane. God has them in derision, he will laugh them to scorn. But I must pass to the examination of this subject, as I intimated in the beginning.
IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK THE SEVENTH?
Before entering upon this subject, it will be proper for me to state, that some time last August the editor of the Bible Advocate, being pressed by his brethren to open his columns for the discussion of the Sabbath question, rather reluctantly complied, by first giving his views against it. He stated that he should first give C. Stowe's view, in the affirmative, covering the whole ground, and then the view of some other writer in the negative, before he published any thing more on the other side, and so on. Sister Stowe's piece, accompanied by the views of the editor, appeared in the B. A., Sept. 2d, 1847. C. Stowe sent the editor two articles, as she says. The editor saw proper to publish her second article and withhold the first, for purposes best known to himself. Perhaps it was considered objectionable, as the editor of the Advent Harbinger had refused to publish it for her. So for some reason or other, only part of the ground was covered, and not one candid objection or examination offered to her second, except by a certain character, who, apparently, was ashamed to have his real name known among honest seekers for the truth. So far as the subject has advanced, J. Croffut, of N. Y. city, J. B. Cook, of New Bedford, Mass. and A. Carpender, of Sutton, Vt. have spoken in the affirmative. The negative is advocated by the editor, Joseph Turner and Barnabas, and perhaps two others; besides what has been teeming from the Advent Harbinger, in the negative. Now, I do not re-examine Turner and Barnabas, because they have not been ably replied to by J. Croffut, J. B. Cook and C. Stowe of N. H., but because I see the necessity of taking up the subject in a different form, without being restricted, as all generally are, who write for papers. Another important point which governs me, is, that all the little flock may understand the true bearings of the subject, for there are undoubtedly a great many that do not see the Bible Advocate, and because I felt like taking a part in this great subject, in which I feel deeply interested, and I see from the commencement that I was excluded from that paper, by the statement that C. Stowe would cover the whole ground in the affirmative. I furthermore perceived there were additional objections to their unscriptural views, which continued to be presented to my mind.
Joseph Turner in attempting to prove that Sunday, the first day of the week is the seventh day of the week, and therefore the proper Sabbath, has failed to make out his case. His proposed foundation is from Matt. xii: 39, 40. “But he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas, for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” He says, “to rear the temple of this body in three days, or to remain in the heart of the earth three nights and to rise the third day was, according to the above scripture, to be a sign. I will now prove by Christ and his disciples that this sign was literally given, and that he arose, not the second, but third early in the morning.” This statement is not true. The above scripture states three days, and not as you say you will now prove in three days. If it proves any thing, it proves three whole days, and then of course the Saviour would rise on the fourth day. This, according to your mode of calculating, would make the seventh day come on Monday. If you want the third day, or within three days, why not take as many as you need for your argument, from the eighteen other texts, and not take this isolated one, and then pervert it, as you have done. The only object that I can see, in your perversion of the text, is to prove, as you say, that Jesus was three nights in the heart of the earth, viz.: Friday night, one; Saturday night, two, and Sabbath night, three. You say, “that Christ was actually raised the third day and not the second, as tradition holds it.” I am not aware of any such tradition. That would be perverting the whole eighteen texts instead of the one you have done. But that he was raised the third day, and that third day was the first of the week, is the joint testimony of the four evangelists, Matt. xxviii: 1; Mark xvi: 2; Luke xxiv: 1; John xx: 1. But let us see how you have obtained these three nights as stated above, which, as you say, “proves triumphantly that ‘OUR SABBATH’ is the seventh day.” First read the second paragraph in your P. S., where you have attempted to pervert the plain and clear testimony of Luke, in chap. xxiii: 54, 56. Here you stated one scriptural fact: That the Sabbath always commenced at evening. “From evening to evening shall you celebrate your Sabbath.” Then, as a most natural consequence, the next day would begin where the Sabbath ended, and so of every other day thenceforward, or chaos and confusion would follow. This also perfectly agrees with God's manner of commencing time at the creation: “The evening (first,) and the morning is the first day,” &c. Now as you have shown that Friday was the first day of the crucifixion and that it was so far spent and passed away at the time our Lord was buried, that the women could not have got home and prepared spices, (which probably was not more than twenty minutes labor,) before the next day began. How,