TRUTH IS HARMONY by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · November 27, 1879

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 54, No. 22

TRUTH IS HARMONY.

By R. F. Cottrell

From a notice clipped from some paper, which I have not the means of naming, I am informed that Rev. D. B. Byers has written a book against the seventh-day Sabbath and in favor of the first day, or Sunday. Not having the book, I can only notice the recommendations given. If the book is equal to these recommendations, it is a marvelous work indeed. Hear these witnesses, and mark well their testimony:—

“The Nashville Christian Advocate, chief organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, says of it:—

“In the West the seventh-day Sabbatarians have made quite a stir during the last few years, disturbing the minds of many and unsettling the faith of some. Here in the more conservative South we have had but little trouble from these hobby-riders. Here and there, however, a neighborhood has been disturbed by some extremist who thinks the salvation of the world depends upon going back to the obsolete Jewish Sabbath. Such a book as this was wanted. Mr. Byers has done his work well. He makes out his case. He shows that the Sabbath law did not enjoin specific time or a specific day reckoning from creation-week in weekly cycles, but only a proportion of time, as one day in seven. This point he establishes conclusively. It is then shown that Sunday synchronizes with the Sabbath of creation-week; that the children of Israel were ignorant of the seventh-day Sabbath until the Exodus, and that the change was then made from the first to the seventh day of the week to wean them from idolatry. The argument is, that as the Lord has separated the Jewish people by giving them a peculiar Sabbath on a day of the week not regarded most sacred by the idolaters about them, so he separated the Christians from the ceremonial worship of the old dispensation by restoring to them the original Sabbath in which to perform their devotions and abstain from all secular pursuits. This is the argument, and it is strongly put. We trust this work will be circulated freely—it is a word in season.”

“The Northern Christian Advocate says: ‘A timely publication lies before us, in which the history of the Sabbath, its nature and design, its law and time, the change of the day and the authority of the change, are taken up and lucidly set forth. The historical sketch is brief, but prepares the way for the argument against the Sabbatarians in which he engages. The absurd posture of this sect is considered as amply as it deserves, and both by Scripture text and scientific fact, the position is successfully assailed. So long as any men are simple enough to believe that they can discover a day corresponding to that on which the Lord rested, or that all men on earth can observe the same physical Sabbath, such books as this must be written.’”

Both these witnesses seem satisfied that Mr. Byers has done his work well, and made out his case. The first says that he “establishes conclusively that the Sabbath law did not enjoin specific time or a specific day reckoning from creation-week in weekly cycles, but only a proportion of time, as one day in seven.” How does he show this? What other means has he to show what the Sabbath law enjoins but Gen. 2:2, 3, and the fourth commandment found in Ex. 20:8–11? These testimonies of Scripture are squarely contradicted by these assertions. The Sabbath was pointed out by the fall of manna on the other six days, the withholding of it on the seventh, and the preservation of that which was gathered on the sixth for use on the seventh. No man of the people could keep any other day, except that definite seventh, and have his daily bread. Then in the fourth commandment the Lord told them to keep the seventh day, and not only so, but he assures them that this seventh day is his Sabbath, that is, the day on which he rested, and as a reason, he refers them back to the creation for the fact that when he made the world he rested on this day, as recorded in Gen. 2:2, 3.

But our witness says, “It is then shown that Sunday synchronizes with the Sabbath of creation-week.”

Right here we must let our other witness speak. Says he, “So long as any men are simple enough to believe that they can discover a day corresponding to that on which the Lord rested (the very thing our first witness says that Mr. Byers has shown), or that all men on earth can observe the same physical Sabbath, such books as this must be written.” Yes; I suppose they must be written; but what is the use of writing them?

It is esteemed silly to suppose that all men can “observe the same physical Sabbath.” Doubtless he wishes all to observe Sunday the world over. Is Sunday any less physical than Saturday? What contrast is suggested by this word physical? Is it spiritual? If so, what reason can be given why Sunday is more spiritual than the Lord’s Sabbath? Is it because God did not rest on it, that he never blessed it, never sanctified it, never commanded it nor mentioned it in all the Bible as a sacred day? Where is the “Scripture text” with which Mr. Byers has “successfully assailed” our position? This and his “scientific fact” are only bold assertions without proof.

But, going back to the testimony of our first witness, it is easy enough for these men to say that “the children of Israel were ignorant of the seventh-day Sabbath until the Exodus.” Where is the proof of it? Is it in the fact that they, of their own accord, prepared for the first Sabbath after the manna began to fall, and then came in the persons of their rulers and told Moses what they had done, which appeared to be a transgression of the charge he had given them not to gather any to be kept over night? Here is the evidence that they knew this seventh-day Sabbath before Moses had mentioned it to them.

And where is the proof that the surrounding nations, who had forgotten God and turned to idolatry, were still holding the true Edenic Sabbath, making it necessary for God to give his loyal people another day, one that he did not rest upon, nor sanctify, nor bless, in order to distinguish them from the heathen? It is reasonable to suppose that God’s true people knew the original day, as well as the heathen idolaters. What a tumult it must have raised in the camp when Moses told them they must profane that day and keep another sacred in its place! But not even a murmur is recorded.

This reminds me of the tumult the Jews must have made against the apostles when they changed the day back again to Sunday. And this, too, by some inadvertance, is not recorded.

I am in correspondence with a lone brother in the interior of Pennsylvania, far from others of like faith; and I will conclude this writing by giving in his own words a dream which he recently dreamed, as related in his last. He says:

“I will give you a strange dream I had some time ago. The ideas were quite new to me, for I never saw them in print. I thought some one spoke to me about the change of the Sabbath, the zeal and prejudice of Sunday advocates, etc. And said he, ‘How could a handful of Christians have changed a divine institution that had been in existence for more than 4,000 years, and was interwoven with all their sacred writings? The first Christians were all Jews by birth. Would not such a change have caused great confusion? Would it not have been a stumbling-block and a hindrance to the spread of the gospel? Would not the Jews have been ten times more prejudiced against such a change than people are now? No, no! the apostles did not change the Sabbath.’”

The inevitable confusion and disputation which must have attended such a change was all avoided. No writer, sacred or profane, has recorded a word of it. But what a stir it now makes for a few to return to the Sabbath of the Lord; while at the same time these very persons hold that any one day in seven is all that the Sabbath law ever required!

R. F. COTTRELL.