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
In Deut. vii: 6-8, God gives his reasons for selecting the Jews to keep
his covenant in preference to any other nation; only seventy at
first--x: 22. God calls it his "Sabbath," and refers us right back to
the creation for [10]proof. "For in six days the Lord made heaven and
earth and sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the _seventh_,"
&c. Here then we stand fixed by the immutable law of God, and the word
of Jesus, that "the Sabbath was made for man!" Paul says, "there is no
respect of persons with God." Rom. ii: 11. Isaiah shows us plainly that
the Jew is not the only one to be blessed for keeping the Sabbath. He
says "Blessed is the _man_ (are not the Gentiles men?) that keepeth the
Sabbath from polluting it." "Also the sons of the stranger, (who are
these if they are not Gentiles?) every one that keepeth the Sabbath from
polluting it, (does he mean me? yes, every gentile in the universe, or
else he respects persons) even them will I bring to my holy mountain and
make them joyful in my house of prayer; for my house shall be called an
house of prayer for _all_ people." Isa. lvi: 2, 6, 7. If this promise is
not to the Gentile as well as the Jew, then "_the_ house of prayer for
all people" is no promise to the Gentile.
Now we ask, if God has ever abrogated the law of the Sabbath? If he has
it can easily be found. We undertake to say without fear of
contradiction, he has not made any such record in the bible; but on the
contrary, he calls it a perpetual covenant, a "sign between me and the
children of Israel forever," for the reason that he rested on the
seventh day, Exo. xxxi: 16, 17. Says one, has not the ceremonial law
been annulled and nailed to the cross? Yes, but what of that? Why then
the Sabbath must be abolished, for Paul says so! Where? Why in Cols. 2d
chapter, and xiv. Romans. How can you think that God ever inspired Paul
to say that the _seventh_ day Sabbath was made void or nailed to the
cross at the crucifixion, when he never intended any such change; if he
did, he certainly would have deceived the inhabitants of Jerusalem, in
the promise which he made them about two thousand four hundred and
forty-six years ago! Turn now to Jer. xvii: 25, and tell me if he did
not promise the inhabitants of Jerusalem that their city should remain
forever if they would hallow the sabbath day. Now suppose the
inhabitants of Jerusalem had entered into this agreement, and entailed
it upon their posterity (because you see it could not have been
fulfilled unless it had continued from generation to generation,) to
keep the Sabbath holy, would not God have been bound to let Jerusalem
remain forever? You say yes. Well, then, I ask you to show how he could
have [11]kept that promise inviolate if he intended in less than six
hundred and fifty years to change this seventh day Sabbath, and call the
first day of the week the Sabbath, or abolish it altogether? I say,
therefore, if there has been any change one way or the other in the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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