Part 1 (2/2)

Your erroneous doctrine is heartily welcomed by some here, and many I understand in New Bedford, and very likely many in other places. Yes, I have heard of it away on the Lakes. I was told by one the other day who had backslidden like yourself, that it was the best argument he had yet seen. Now if you undertake to rectify your mistake, it is possible you may destroy all their joy, until some one presents another error-for the truth, it seems, they are determined not to have. Again, you say, ”let my brethren remember that the law of Moses, made the first day of the feast of the pa.s.sover, a sabbath in which no work should be done; this was the Sabbath that drew on. Moreover, I will here prove that the next day following the crucifixion, was not the Sabbath of the Lord, which the Jews at that time kept.-See Luke xxiii: 54.” Now, I say if you will read the next two verses, 55 and 56, which are connected with 54, it will positively contradict your a.s.sertion, for it proves that they did keep the next day as the Sabbath, according to the commandment, and the seventh-day Sabbath was and is, the only Sabbath commandment in the whole bible. You pa.s.s this over and cite us to Matt xxvii: 62, 64, and base your whole proof on _inference_. It is this, that the Jews were so strict and pious in the observance of the Sabbath that they would not have gone to Pilate on that day to have asked him to set a watch over the body of Jesus, if it had been the Sabbath, because it would be an important fact to record against them. ”How easy to have said in this record that the Jews on the Sabbath,” &c. Yes sir, it would have been just as easy for _your_ purpose, to have said in this record also, that ”OUR SABBATH _is the Seventh day_.”

Then probably you would not have to answer for the sin which you have in these instances, knowingly committed. Besides this, you must have calculated largely on the credulity of your readers, to suppose that _all_ of them would swallow such absurdities. As that men, who had just committed one of the most aggravating crimes ever recorded in the annals of history, in barbarously and cruelly murdering the son of the living G.o.d, should then for fear of having it recorded against them as touching the purity of their motives that they had violated the holy Sabbath of G.o.d by calling on the Governor, on the Sabbath of the Lord G.o.d, to set a watch over their victim, for fear that some of his disciples would come and steal him away, and thus openly expose them to the scorn of the world.

This is your proof why the next day after the crucifixion could not be the Sabbath. How unfortunate and trying it must be to you, who, after being so highly extalled by your hearers in New Bedford, Fairhaven, &c., for your clear and plain Holy Ghost living and preaching, to have to flee to such mean subterfuges to establish a position to justify your backsliding from the plain and positive texts which stand right in your way.

Respecting your text in Matt. xii: 40. If you made use of it as it stands, it would positively prove the resurrection to be on the closing hours of Monday, between 3 and 6 P.M. and not in the morning, as every where recorded. So then, to fulfill your text to the very extent, and have the resurrection in the morning, it must be on Tuesday morning, for, Monday morning would bring you twelve hours too soon, only two and a half days instead of three. This would make _your_ Sabbath, as you exultingly claim it for your adherents, come on Monday; that is, by your new mode of establis.h.i.+ng the Sabbath. And then D. B. Wyatt, if he followed your strange view, would have to recall his address to his brethren and change the time of celebrating the Lord's Supper on Monday evening, and have it on Tuesday. I presume the editor of the Harbinger would have no objections to the alteration, provided Mr. W. was satisfied.

I know it is stated that Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly. I know of no way to prove it but by the recorded time that our Lord was in the earth. You see that Matthew says _as he was_ three days, &c. Now for the proof of how long _he was there_. First testimony-his disciples, Luke xxiv: 21-23. Second testimony-Angels, v: 7.

Third testimony-Jesus himself, 46 v. ”Thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the _third_ day.” This testimony, be it remembered, was given a few hours after the resurrection, on the same day. Here then is the proof of what Jesus had before a.s.serted, recorded ten times by the evangelist, and once by Paul; 1st Cor. xv: 4; Matt. xvi: 21; xvii: 23; xx: 19; Mark ix: 31; x: 34 and viii: 31;(1) Luke ix: 22; xiii: 32; xviii: 33; John ii: 19. And five times by his accusers, Matt. xxvi: 61; xxviii: 40 and 63; Mark xiv: 58; xv: 29. Every one of these eighteen texts records the resurrection _in_ three, some of them _within_ three days; and not a syllable about _nights_. The one in Matt xii: 40, says three days and three nights, referring to Jonas, as above. Now I ask, shall we take this one isolated text, out of the harmony of the whole eighteen, _and then pervert it_, to prove that some how or other the world have lost one day, and therefore the first day of the week is the seventh. We all know that our judgment always rests on the majority or weight of evidence. Here then we have seven to one besides the testimony of Jesus himself after his resurrection, that he arose the _third_ day, and clearly demonstrating that he did not lie there three days and three nights, and proving, to my judgment, that Jonas was also delivered the third day. See other scripture rules, Esther iv: 16, 17, and v: 1. Here the Jews were to fast three days, but Esther ended it the _third_. See also 1st Kings, xx: 29, the seven days ended on the seventh. Also, Gen. xvii: 12, eight days. Lev. xii: 3, shows the eighth the same. Thus we see that the testimony of Jesus is clear.

It is clear to my mind that the Lord Jesus was not at furthest, more than thirty-eight hours in the tomb, and yet he was there, according to scripture proof, a part of Friday, the sixth day, _all_ of the seventh day, Sabbath, and a part of Sunday, the first day, which last was the third day. Proof, Luke xxiii: 54-56. ”And that day was the preparation and the Sabbath drew on.” Mark this, that the preparation had come, and they were drawing to the Sabbath. _See here_, the preparation was always on the day of the Pa.s.sover, the fourteenth of the first month. The feast day was the fifteenth, the next day. Let Moses give the time: ”And ye shall keep it up [the Lamb] until the fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole a.s.sembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.” Exo.

xii: 6. The original-see margin-reads _between the two evenings_. See the same in Num. xxviii: 4,-practiced and carried out even to lighting the lamps in the tabernacle. Exo. x.x.x: 8.

Now our blessed Lord expired on the cross at the very time that this preparation always took place for 1670 years before, namely, the ninth hour, (Matt. xxvii, and Mark xv,) three o'clock in the afternoon. Then between the two evenings is just three hours, from 3 to 6 P. M. Keep this clear in mind and you will clearly understand how the disciples could have three hours from the death of their master to see him put in the tomb, to have gone and ”bought sweet spices.” (Mark xvi: 1,) and be ready to keep the Sabbath according to the commandment, (please read it in Exo. xx: 8-11,) as stated in Luke xxiii: 54-56. You will understand Mark xv: 42, ”Now when the even was come because it was the preparation, _that is the day before the Sabbath_,” that it was the ninth hour, or 3 P.M. Here the preparation goes on for three hours, until the Sabbath commenced. You see he says this was the day before the Sabbath, and when the Sabbath was pa.s.sed, early in the morning of the first day, they found he had arisen.

Mark xvi. Here then is the three days: The day before the Sabbath he was entombed, between the hours of 3 and 6 P.M., and the day after the Sabbath, the first day of the week, he arose. As J. B. Cook says, I can conceive of nothing more definite. Whitby and Scott say, ”It is a received rule among the Jews that a part of a day is put for a whole day.” And so, let me add, it is with the commercial nations of the earth. Every bill, or note, or deed, counts the day of its date and the day of its extinguishment. For instance, the transaction of an interest note takes place at half past 11 o'clock in the evening of the first day of January, 1847, and the interest is cast to the first day of January, 1848, the demand for it would be valid if called for at 30 minutes A. M. after midnight. Both of these dates are counted days in this and all other kinds of business transactions, as we reckon time. And I say it is impossible for any rational being to understand it in any other way. When one day ends the next begins, and so I have amply shown is the bible rule. Then, according to the testimony adduced, if the Saviour was placed in the tomb any where between the hours of 3 and 6 o'clock P. M. on Friday, then I say that day was as much counted for one, as the day on which he arose; and no man, not even J. Turner, undertakes to say that it was more than a part of a day. That this work of preparation was all accomplished before the Sabbath came, is perfectly clear from the two pa.s.sages already quoted in Luke and Mark. See also John xix: 31. Here then the antetype agrees perfectly with the type, all the preparation work accomplished between the hours of three and six in the evening, called between the two evenings.

Much also has been said about the next day, the fifteenth being a Jewish festival Sabbath, and therefore G.o.d's seventh-day Sabbath could not possibly be until the day after. Just as well might it be a.s.serted when our fourth of July happens to fall on Sunday, that it could not be Sunday, because it was the anniversary of our independence, but the next day would be Sunday. This explains all the difficulty. This feast day of theirs always following the Pa.s.sover day, happened this year to come on G.o.d's holy Sabbath day, hence the peculiar expression of John, ”for that Sabbath was an high day.” G.o.d's instruction to Moses respecting all the feast days is right to the point, ”_Every thing upon his day._” Lev. xxiii: 37. You see there is no provision to defer the Sabbath festivals whenever they happened on the Sabbath of the Lord our G.o.d.

Now I think the above Scriptures do clearly and incontrovertibly establish the resurrection to have been on Sunday morning, the first day of the week, and the day before, on which the Saviour rested in the tomb and his disciples in the city of Jerusalem, was the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath of the Lord our G.o.d, according to the commandment; and the day before that, viz. on Friday, he was crucified and buried. This clearly overthrows your unscriptural arguments to establish the first day of the week for the seventh-day Sabbath.

I have gone much further into this argument than I should, had I not have heard and seen the incalculable mischief that was being accomplished by the spread of such an argument; from one too, who is looked upon by those not personally acquainted with him as an amba.s.sador, fully approved of G.o.d; a pillar in the church of these last days; one who is fully competent to preach and take the lead in camp-meetings, &c. &c. And still I feel there is a duty devolving upon me, which I ought not to shrink from, notwithstanding his high profession, and being fostered, and upheld as a brother beloved, by the Advent papers.

It is that since the winter of 1845, you have, by your deceptive arts, and false expositions of G.o.d's Word, taught and practiced ridiculous things in the churches, such as G.o.d never has, nor ever will approve. Your confession last spring in the Boston Conference seemed more like justifying and exalting yourself from your debased and fallen condition, than a bible confession, which says, ”confess your faults one to another.”

But you perceived, I suppose with others, that it had become fas.h.i.+onable to confess the monstrous errors in our past experience in the advent doctrine to those who had drawn back and organized under the Laodocean state of the church. And also, that J. Marsh of Rochester, and others from different places, were distinguis.h.i.+ng themselves by their wonderful confessions; therefore you also confessed how sorry you were for the mischief (or injury) that you had done the cause of G.o.d by writing and preaching the doctrine of _shut door_ and _Bridegroom come_. Here you attempted to put down and destroy two of the most important and prominent truths according to the types and new testament teaching, with our history in the past, that is connected with the ”twenty-three hundred days,” and ”cleansing of, or vindicating the sanctuary”; and use them as a scape goat to carry off and hide your unholy and iniquitous practices from their view. Why not confess that after you and A. Hale had published this clear scriptural view, that you had been so positive that you were right in your position, that at one of your meeting places in Portsmouth, N. H., you declared that you was ready to seal it with your own heart's blood, and that the appointment which you afterwards made to meet at Richard Walker's, if not, you would state the reason by writing, had been utterly disregarded, although you had pa.s.sed through there several times. Why not confess with contrition your unscriptural teachings and practices? And lastly, why not inform your listening audience of the wonderful discovery and proficiency which you had made during that time, in the growing science of your predecessors, ”Jannes and Jambres?” and what a loving drawing and wonderful effect this mesmeric influence produced on some of the dear sisters! You was aware that such kind of satanic practices would not go down with your hearers, therefore you withheld it probably for a more convenient season. The response from heaven to this confession (I think) is long since recorded by a servant of the Lord. Isa. i: 10-15.

Since you began to preach in New Bedford, where it was said such a wonderful revival was following your preaching and practice, that some in Fairhaven were looked upon as sinners, because they would not believe that you were filled with the Holy Ghost. Here in New Bedford, I am told, that in reply to some of these charges: that you had studied or looked into the subject of mesmerism that you might ascertain the cause, or meaning, of the delusions practiced by the advent people. I think that by comparing dates, it may pretty clearly be known that this is one of the first and princ.i.p.al causes of the state of things now among many in Maine, especially where your influence was felt. In the course of this conversation you stated something else, which you will remember, and for fear, or something else, that it would not be believed, you said you could prove it by certain persons whom you named. I have since ascertained that these persons neither _know_, nor have ever _known_, or _have intimated any such thing_. Now, I ask, how much your confessions are worth in Boston or any where else. In the name of my Master, I here warn the little flock to beware of your unG.o.dly teaching.

Since answering your argument on the first day for the seventh, I see by the Advocate of Dec. 16th, your exulting reply to J. B. Cook. Because he has not met every point of your twisted, sophistical argument, you now think it will stand forever. You say ”The position _I_ have taken will stand the onset of _all_ while the eternal rock of inspiration stands secure; hence with confidence calm as heaven, I take my pen to reply,” &c.

We read that ”the Devils believe and tremble,” while this wonderful man is _calm_ as _heaven_, because he thinks he has gained one day since the crucifixion, which would destroy the law of G.o.d, the fourth commandment, when in fact he has only stole six or eight hours. Perhaps he will try to borrow or take the balance in the forthcoming articles which he promises.

And here he says again, ”_the matter shall_ REST _without a_ REVIEW ON EITHER SIDE”!! ”Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher!” Will G.o.d's word forever remain unvindicated, because of your veto? Your one mistake that I have shown, proves your infallibility. Let me repeat it in connection: In your text, Matt. xii: 39, 40, it states three days and three nights. This itself overthrows the whole of your argument-for three days are just as long as three nights. See how it will work by _your_ rule: Jesus entombed just about 6 P.M. on Friday. Now count-Friday evening, one night; Sat.u.r.day evening, two nights; Sunday evening, three nights. Now for the days: Sat.u.r.day, one; Sunday, two; and Monday three. But to make it three, the resurrection must be on Monday evening, at 6 o'clock, and the scripture says he arose in the morning! Then if you wait until Tuesday morning, you make it just three and a half days and four nights, and _your_ Sabbath commences on Monday. But if you say it must be Monday morning, then you have but two days and twelve hours. You say this would be the third day, just as I say-true, but this text says ”three days.” Besides, you say in your second article, ”some have been so _vain_ on this point as to count the day of the crucifixion, one; the next day, one; and then the morning while it was yet dark, one; and therefore the third day. _This is almost wicked._ Does not Jesus Christ in whose word we trust-say three _nights_?”

Yes, sir, and does he not as expressly say three _days_, too? If we are almost wicked in counting, as _you_ say, then all the evangelists were, Mark and Luke especially. I say there is no other rule but the one you call us _vain_ for using. If it is almost wicked to count a part of the first day, for one day, by what authority do you count a part of the last day, for one day? The scripture no where says, _two_ days, and _three_ nights.

And then as I have shown where you borrowed a part of a night, by counting Friday night for one of your three nights, when you insisted upon it that it was past, because the disciples had no time left of Friday to even prepare their spices. Did you not see that if you claimed six hours of Friday, to break the scriptures, that the disciples would have just as much time to prepare for the Sabbath? How is it that you do not understand what the angel Gabriel said should be in the last days: ”But the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand.” I really hope no one will be troubled with your forthcoming article. It would be far easier for you to shovel the Alleghany mountains into Lake Ontario than to attempt to gain one day, or prove that we have lost one.

Your threat about the fallacy of history, and what you will do about it, is also vain; yet, if you could do so, the bible is a sufficient rule in this case. You have therefore made but two and a half days and two nights, and work it which way you will, you will fail. You cannot destroy the validity of the other eighteen texts.

It is clear that the Jewish feasts always occurred when they fell on the Sabbath of the Lord. Lev. xxiii: 37, last cl.

BARNABAS AGAINST THE SABBATH.

Barnabas would fain have the world believe that G.o.d has made one law which man could never keep without leading him into bondage. He says, ”Sister Stowe, nor any others of like faith pretends to keep the seventh-day according to the commandment, that reads, 'thou shalt not do any work.'

Exo. xx: 10. 'Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.' There stands the command with all its terrible sanctions of thunder and lightnings. If this command is now in force sister S. and all the rest must stand condemned at the dread tribunal of G.o.d, for they all break that commandment as much as we who do not pretend to keep it.” The speciousness of B.'s reasoning is a great deal more likely to lead saints into bondage, than what he has said of sister Stowe. He begins in the very onset to mislead the mind. He quotes ”Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day,” and says, there stands the command with all its terrible sanctions of thunder and lightnings, and then says sister S. and Br. Bates and all the rest must stand condemned at the dread tribunal of G.o.d, for they all break that _commandment_. Now I say this is not a commandment, but a command given to the children of Israel twenty days before they heard that terrible thunder and lightning at mount Sinai, where the ten commandments was made known to them by the Almighty G.o.d's speaking them all out in an audible voice, and then writing them with his own finger on tables of stone. These are all the commandments that G.o.d ever gave to man, and they were as equally binding on the stranger, (the Gentile) that was within their gates, as on the Jew. Every one can see how difficult it would be for a man well versed in scripture to remember every direction, or a ”thus sayeth the Lord,” for a commandment, especially the millions who cannot read. They were of that character, of so few words, that G.o.d directed them to ”bind them for a sign upon their hands, and they shall be as a frontlet between thine eyes,” (”that the Lord's law may be in thy _mouth_.” Exo.

xiii: 9,) ”and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” Num. xv: 38-40; Deut. vi: 8, 9. This, G.o.d's code of Laws was put into the Ark. Deut. x: 5. And he says that ”one law shall be to him that is home born and to the stranger that sojourneth with you.” Exo. xii: 49. Now Moses' code of laws was written in a book and placed in the same ark. Deut. x.x.xi: 24-26. This law from the xiv. ch. and onwards, and in Lev. was to be read to the whole a.s.sembly once in seven years; see x.x.xi: 10-12, and Neh. viii: 1-6. Six hours, reading from morning to noon. But the ten commandments as in Exo. xx: 1-17, can be read in three minutes. If you want to understand G.o.d's code of laws separately set forth and enforced, see from iv. to xiv. of Deut. His reasons for giving them to the Jews, vii: 6-8, and x: 22. He tells them they shall not add nor diminish from them. Deut. iv: 2. (Mind this.) ”The man for gathering sticks (either to kindle a fire for his comfort, or cook some food, B. says,) was by the command stoned to death.” This is all supposition; n.o.body knows what he gathered sticks for, or what size they were; he was stoned to death for it, and so we might be now if the law of Moses was in force. Let it be distinctly understood, that G.o.d's code of laws, which comprises the ten commandments, does not forbid us to kindle fires on his Sabbath; nor require us to stay in our houses, nor forbid us to a.s.semble together to wors.h.i.+p; neither does it forbid us to administer to the sick on his Sabbath, nor do any _work_ of absolute necessity. These I propose to treat upon more at large, under the head _Scriptural Observance of the Sabbath_.

Barnabas says, ”if the covenant is not altered, amended nor repealed, then it means just what it says. 'Thou shalt not do any work,' stands out in bold relief against those who talk so much about the command, but never yet pretend to keep it. If they say they have a right to alter the phrase,” &c. Now we answer, that we never have attempted to alter it. It is perfectly right, and your bare a.s.sertion, in the absence of any kind of proof, does not, nor ever will prove, that we do not refrain from work on the Sabbath, according to the commandment, as set forth in the Scriptures.

Two kinds of work are specified or inferred in the law of Moses. ”In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” &c. The way this is done, ”man goeth forth to his work and to his labor until evening.” This of course includes from the first day to the seventh. Then Sunday is the first working day of the six. This is distinguished _servile_ work, because in Lev. xxiii. chap. and xxviii. and xxix. ch. of Numbers, the Lord's Sabbath and the Jewish Sabbaths of holy convocations are all brought to view, so that from the 14th day of the first month to the 22d, is the feast of unleavened bread with offerings, and fifty days from the wafe sheaf or resurrection is another. See Lev. xxiii: 16-18, and then from the first day of the 7th month until the 23d of the same, viz. 1st, 10th, 15th and 23d. The eight last days is a continual feast. Now the Sabbath of the Lord G.o.d must inevitably be included in this last eight day feast of Tabernacles; once every year, and very frequently on the first and tenth day Sabbaths, and so from the pa.s.sover feast to the end of unleavened bread, always must include the weekly Sabbath every year; sometimes on a feast day, which John calls ”an high day.” Now the order of these Jewish Sabbaths and feasts. G.o.d says of them ”_every thing upon his day, besides_ the Sabbaths of the Lord,” &c. All the work was to be performed in these feasts, come on what day they did, besides the offerings on the Sabbath of the Lord. Lev. xxiii: 37, 38. Well, what was the work for every weekly Sabbath? See Num. xxviii: 9, and on Sabbath two lambs, besides the daily, which was two more; see 3d v. So we see here were always four lambs, with the meats, &c. offered every seventh day, and sometimes thirty bullocks, rams and lambs; and in all of the Jewish Sabbaths except that on the tenth of the seventh month, it is expressly said ”ye shall do no _servile work_ therein.” Now all this was work and labor, but it was ceremonial wors.h.i.+p and obedience to G.o.d, hence it was not _servile_ work. It is explained in Exo. xii: 16, ”No manner of work shall be done save that which every _soul_ must eat. That only may be done.” What will you do with all these commands, Barnabas. Did they not have to go out of their places after G.o.d gave them the law from mount Sinai? Did they not a.s.semble for wors.h.i.+p? Did they not prepare them food to eat, think ye, after the manna ceased? and did not the Saviour say of his disciples, when reproached for eating corn on the Sabbath day by the Pharisees, that they were guiltless? Was it wrong to take it without leave? See Deut. xxiii: 24, 22. Was not the work of circ.u.mcision always going on every weekly Sabbath? Now Jesus being the Lord of the Sabbath, shows us under the Gospel, where he transposes these ten commandments from the tables of stone, and gives them in our minds and writes them on our hearts; shows us that this work or labor on the Sabbath, were henceforth acts of necessity and mercy, instead of _servile work_ because our mode of wors.h.i.+pping G.o.d was entirely changed. Hence Jesus said, ”My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” John v: 17. See what kind of work, xvii: 4. ”Done the will of G.o.d, finished his work,” after supper. See also iv: 34, and v: 36. See his good works, x: 25, 32. This then was the work that Jesus and his Father were doing, and for these he is called a notorious Sabbath breaker. Well he is now doing a marvellous work. Hab. i: 5, yet ye will not believe. ”It is time for the Lord to work for men have made void thy law.” Psl. cxix.

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