The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign: 1847 editionBates, Joseph
Religion
The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign: 1847 edition
Bates, Joseph
Sabbath; Seventh-Day Adventists -- Doctrines
what he calls them in Exo. xvi: 27, 30.) This, of course, includes the
whole. Then Abraham reverenced God's Sabbath. Once more, there is no
mention of the circumcision from the days of Joshua till the days of
Jeremiah, a period of more than eight hundred years. Will it be believed
that Samuel and David, and all those pious worthies with the whole
Jewish nation, neglected that essential seal of the covenant for eight
hundred years? It cannot be admitted for a moment. How [7]then can any
one suppose from the alleged silence of the sacred history that Adam,
Enoch, Noah and Abraham, kept no Sabbath because the fact was not
stated? If we turn to Jer. ix: 25, 26, we find that they had not
neglected this right of circumcision, only they had not circumcised
their hearts; so that the proof is clear, that silence respecting the
keeping any positive command of God, is no evidence that it is not in
full force.
Again, if the Sabbath was not instituted in Paradise, why did Moses
mention it in connection with the creation of the world? Why not reserve
this fact for two or three thousand years in his history, until the
manna fell in the wilderness, (see Exo. xvi: 23) and then state that the
seventh day Sabbath commenced, as _some_ will have it? I answer, for the
very best of reasons, that it did not commence there. Let us examine the
text. "And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as
much bread as on any preceding day, and _all the rulers of the
congregation came and told Moses_. And he said unto them this is that
which the Lord hath said, _to-morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath_,
bake that which ye will bake, &c. &c." If this had been the establishing
of the holy Sabbath and Moses had said to-morrow _shall be_ the Sabbath,
then would it have been clear; but no, he speaks as familiarly about it
as we do when we say that to-morrow is the Sabbath, showing conclusively
that it was known before, or how could the people have known that they
must gather two day's manna on Friday the sixth day, unless they had had
some previous knowledge of the Sabbath? for Moses had already taught
them not to "leave any of it until the morning"--v. 19. The 20th verse
shows that the Sabbath had not yet come since their receiving the manna,
because it spoiled and "bred worms by the next morning;" whereas, on the
Sabbath morning it was found sweet and eatible--24th v. This was the
thirtieth day after leaving Egypt (1st v.) and twenty days before it was
given on Sinai. The weekly Sabbath then was appointed before this or
before the days of Moses. Where was it then? Answer in the second
chapter of Genesis and no where else; and the same week on which the
manna fell, the weekly Sabbath was revived among or with God's chosen
people. Grotius tells us "that the memory of the creation's being
performed in seven days, was preserved not only among the Greeks and
Italians, but among the Celts and Indians." Other [8]writers say
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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