[Sabbath Controversy #3] A Vindication of the Seventh-day Sabbath, and the Commandments of God

FIRST PILLAR FOR NO SABBATH

There are four Pillars in the temple of your no-Sabbath, no-commandment system, which we are always referred to as positive proof that you are right. Now if I can prove from the New Testament that they and all others that you may present, are only you ‘inferences,’ (and you say you don’t want any,) what will you do? Further - these pillars of yours, be it forever remembered and never forgotten, are fixed at the day of the crucifixion of our Lord. Say, it you like, it was in A.D. 33 This is the point where you have to bring your scripture to prove any thing of the kind, i.e., if you go one week on either side of the death of our blessed Lord, your arguments or pillars, all fall to the ground. Now, by this plain rule, we will try the first two no-Sabbath texts: First - 1Romans 14: “One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike; let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord.” Read the whole chapter; Paul’s whole argument here is against their feasts, and this of course included their feast days, which some esteemed and others did not. “Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died,” says Paul, 15th verse. Compare this with the first, third, and last four verses, where he closes with “He that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith.” 23rd verse, and then tell me it you can, what other day or days is here brought to view than feast days, as in Leviticus 23 chapter, which Hosea said were to cease. This same chapter, 3rd and 38th verses, positively designates and separates the Sabbaths of the Lord God from all these feast Sabbaths, or days; also Numbers 28:9 Now as God’s Sabbath was not a feast Sabbath, it was impossible to connect it with these. And that is not all - it is not even alluded to here - only guessed at from among the feast days. Once set such a rule as this at work and there is not a law in Christendom that would restrain men. For all will have one day for a holy, or holiday in the week. Now give them, by your Bible rule, their choice, and I don’t believe that Satan himself would bring them to order. Oh, but we have a law that the first day shall be regarded as the Sabbath. Well, that is what you now contend for, and so does almost all Christendom, and still it is an unrighteous and an unscriptural law, because the first day is not, nor never was, the Sabbath. You have no right by this rule to fix on any day, and yet every body would be right if every day was kept. But, you may say, it means we shall have no day for the Sabbath. It does not read so. It says, “let every man be persuaded in his own mind,” and if that were the case, what kind of order would there be in God’s house. I ask if there be a rational being on earth that for a moment would believe that God ever intended to give the whole human family such a choice as this, after he had required them to keep the Sabbath day. No, he is a God of order, and he sanctified and set apart the seventh day for man and beast. Does not the beast require rest now as much as he did 1900 years ago? Who is to advocate for them, if man does not? The great mass of professed Christians are insisting on the first day for one of these days, and it is not at all likely that they would ever refer to this test for this purpose were it not to destroy the idea of a seventh-day Sabbath. See work on the Sabbath, pp.11-12 This subject is continued from the 13th chapter, where the apostle had been enforcing the commandments, and one is equally binding as the other, except the fourth which is more insisted upon than the rest. This letter is dated Corinthus, A.D. 69. SC3 151.1