Sabbath, or No Sabbath?
By Nahum Orcutt
Bro. White: For several months past, until quite recently, in view of the above query, I have been led to ask with Pilate "What is truth?" Instead of turning carelessly away, as did Pilate when he had asked this question, I have felt like sitting at the feet of Jesus and learning of him, the meek and lowly. Since Jan. 1858, I have been looking for the Lord soon to come; and among other topics that have claimed my attention, the Sabbath has presented itself before me. I endeavored to give it a candid examination, but can now see that prejudice and preconceived opinions had their influence over me. I only saw one, instead of "Both Sides." Those with whom I associated and the periodicals which I read, misrepresented the position and views of Sabbath keepers, and I settled down on the position that there was no Sabbath for the present dispensation. This view I honestly advocated in private, until within a few months. In public, as I have in weakness tried to preach the word, I have occupied the negative position, tearing down instead of building up, arguing against the Sabbath, and saying nothing about the "Pope's Sunday." Thus I stood when Eld. Preble commenced writing upon the subject, early in 1864. With his first articles I was well pleased, as I mentioned in a note to the Crisis which was copied in the Review. His position "If there is any one day mentioned in Scripture, which is now more holy than another, then the seventh day is the one;" also that "the law of the ten commandments was abrogated by Christ," was just my view of the matter. But when he put in the claim that not only was the law abolished, but the first-day of the week substituted for the Sabbath of the fourth precept; when he brought all the testimony that has any bearing to sustain the position, and much that has no bearing upon it, I could not see it. Although I had drank so deeply of the wine of the mother of harlots, that I could not see the Sabbath, instituted in Eden, commemorative of the work of creation and the rest of Jehovah; still I was not so intoxicated that I could see the first-day Christian(!) Sabbath, for which there is neither precept nor example. This inconsistency, in one occupying such a position, like the question by Eld. J. Marsh to Eld. P. "opened to me a new door of thought;" but more than "three full weeks' careful review of the whole matter" was necessary to satisfy me that I was wrong. Six months I read and reflected upon what I read. I prayed earnestly for the influence of that Spirit which guides into all truth, that the Lord would direct. That prayer, as it ascended to the Father's throne, mingled with others that were offered for me, he heard, and answered. The truth fastened upon my mind and I was constrained to "rest the Sabbath-day according to the commandment." With the fourth command unabrogated and unchanged, (save by edict of the beast,) what other course could I pursue? The "first-day" following the first Sabbath that we kept, I met with the brethren that I have associated with in years past and confessed "that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things that are written in the law and in the prophets." At the close of the meeting I was excused by one of backsliding from God. Said he, "I never knew an Adventist to embrace the Sabbath without first getting in a backslidden state." What an evidence of the truth of his statement, that such take the unpopular position of keeping the commandments of God! Is not this course an indication that they love him, rather than that their love has grown cold? "But none of these things move me." Though stepping out upon the truth, may subject me to the scorn and derision of the world, and even of those who profess to be children of God by adoption; God is with his people, and if we fear him and keep his commandments he will be a refuge for us, a "sun and shield; he will give grace and glory; no good thing will he withhold from them who walk uprightly." May he direct, leading in a plain path, we be sanctified through the truth, enabled to "lay aside every weight, and the sin that so easily besets, and run with patience the race set before us," that, when Jesus comes, we may hear from his lips, "Come ye blessed of my Father."