Книга - The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign

The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign
Joseph Bates






The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign / 1847 edition





PREFACE TO THE LITTLE FLOCK


"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." "Six days work may be done, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work." This commandment I conceive to be as binding now as it ever was, and will be to the entering into the "gates of the city." Rev. xxii: 14.

I understand that the seventh day Sabbath is not the least one, among the all things that are to be restored before the second advent of Jesus Christ, seeing that the Imperial and Papal power of Rome, since the days of the Apostles, have changed the seventh day Sabbath to the first day of the week!

Twenty days before God re-enacted and wrote the commandments with his finger on tables of stone, he required his people to keep the Sabbath. Exo. xvi: 27, 30. Here he calls the Sabbath "my commandments and my laws." Now the Savior has given his comments on the commandments. See Matt. xxii: 35, 40. – "On these two (precepts) hang ALL the law and the prophets." Then it would be impossible for the Sabbath to be left out. A question was asked, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Says Jesus, "If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments" – xix. Here he quotes five from the tables of stone. It is still clearer in Luke x. 25, 28. "What is written in the law? how readest thou?" Here he gives the Savior's exposition in xxii. Matt. as above. Jesus says, "Thou hast answered right, this do and live." See also Matt. v: 17, 19, 21, 27, 33. Paul comments thus. "The law is holy, and the commandments holy, just and good." "Circumcission and uncircumcission is nothing but the keeping the commandments of God." "All the law is fulfilled in one word: thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." John says, "the old commandment is the word from the beginning." – 2, 7. – Gen. ii: 3. "He carries us from thence into the gates of the city." Rev. xxii: 14. Here he has particular reference to the Sabbath. James calls it the perfect, royal law of liberty, which we are to be doers of, and be judged by. Take out the fourth commandment and the law is imperfect, and we shall fail in one point.

The uncompromising advocate for present truth, which feeds and nourishes the little flock in whatever country or place, is the restorer of all things; one man like John the Baptist, cannot discharge this duty to every kindred, nation, tongue and people, and still remain in one place. The truth is what we want.

Fairhaven, August, 1846. JOSEPH BATES.




PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION



TO THE LITTLE FLOCK

My reasons for issuing a second edition of this book are, First, the increasing demand for them, from different quarters. Second, it affords me an opportunity of spreading additional light from the Word on this important subject of present truth. Much more is said about it than any doctrine in the bible, beginning in Genesis, and continuing down to the closing up of the last message which God ever gave to man, proving clearly that the doing of these commandments saves the soul; showing it more clearly than a strict adherence to the Constitution of these United States proves the man a sound patriot. Therefore in this sense they are strictly the constitution of the bible, the everlasting covenant between God and man, and can never be changed or altered while man is stamped with the image of God. Why then has the church lost sight of them? or rather the Covenant in them of the 7th day Sabbath? See history 43d page, and Dan. vii. 25. Well then how does it come to be understood at this point of time? Answer. – The angel Gabriel told Daniel that knowledge should increase in the time of the end. This of course included the scriptures, particularly since the proclamation of the everlasting Gospel in Rev. xiv: 6, 13. It is well known how this knowledge has increased since 1840. These ten Commandments being the foundation of the scriptures. (See Matt. xxii.) God, in a peculiar manner, to instruct his honest, confiding children, shows them spiritually under the sounding of the seventh Angel, the ark of his testament after the temple of God was opened in heaven. xi: 19. These are the ten commandments. Here then I understand is where the spirit made an indelible impression to search the scriptures for the testimony of God. It was done, and published to the world by many, that the professed church had been walking in open violation of the fourth commandment since the days of the Apostles. – Every one that has read the history of this testimony of God in the ark, must see the mighty power that accompanied it through Israel and Philistine, one of the greatest wonders that ever existed in this world, a pattern only of what was seen in the opening of the Temple in heaven. In the xiv: 12, John sees them obeying its dictates. In the xv ch. he describes the division as in the xiv ch. they were rejoicing over the victory of the beast, (got out of the churches,) standing on or by the sure word of prophecy, (some say immortality.) The 4th v. says, "for all nations shall come (in the future) and worship before thee." "After that I looked and behold the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in heaven was open," 5th v. (that is after their songs of rejoicing.) The Temple which contained the Tabernacle, the ark of the testimony, or ten commandments was open. Now this Temple without doubt is the new Jerusalem. Who cannot see that this Temple has been opened for some purpose, but not to be entered by man until the seven last plagues are fulfilled. Here is a space of time in which the commandments will be fully kept. I do not say that this view of the Ark in Rev. is positive, but I think the inference is strong. I cannot see what else it refers to.

On pages 15, 16, I have added about 24 lines in further explanation of Coll. ii: 14, 17. On 16th page, I have also added about as much more to illustrate and distinguish the Sabbath feasts of the Jewish nation. On the nineteenth page I have given about forty lines on the 2d Cor. iii, which I think must settle these points fully.

The last fourteen pages are principally devoted to the covenants and what they are intended for. The two covenants made with man in this state of mortality, is first by God delivered to Moses. The second or new, by Jesus Christ and his disciples. Paul in speaking of them to the Gal. iv: 24, says these are THE TWO COVENANTS. All the others belong to the Saints after the second advent.

If any of the brethren feel it a duty to help pay for the paper and printing of this edition the way is open, otherwise it will be done by a few individuals here, as was the first edition. This work is sent forth gratuitously, with a fervent prayer that these present precious truths may be set home on the soul preparatory to the coming judgment.

Since issuing the first edition in August last, we have publicly called on all the advent lecturers and believers to show us if we were wrong on the Lord's Sabbath. Once more we now challenge the Christian world to show us if they can from the Bible, where we have taken a wrong view of the seventh day Sabbath.

Fairhaven, Jan. 1847. J. B.




THE SABBATH





FIRST QUESTION IS, WHEN WAS THE SABBATH INSTITUTED?


Those who are in the habit of reading the Scriptures just as they find them, and of understanding them according to the established rules of interpretation, will never be at a loss to understand so plain a passage as the following: "And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." Gen. ii: 3. Moses, when referring to it, says to the children of Israel. "This is that which the Lord hath said, to-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord." Exod. xvi: 23.

Then we understand that God established the seventh day Sabbath in Paradise, on the very day when he rested from all his work, and not one week, nor one year, nor two thousand five hundred and fourteen years afterwards, as some would have it. Is it not plain that the Sabbath was instituted to commemorate the stupendous work of creation, and designed by God to be celebrated by his worshipers as a weekly Sabbath, in the same manner as the Israelites were commanded to celebrate the Passover, from the very night of their deliverance till the resurrection of Jesus from the dead; or as we, as a nation, annually celebrate our national independence: or as type answers to antetype, so we believe this must run down, to the "keeping of the Sabbath to the people of God" in the immortal state.

It is argued by some, that because no mention is made of the Sabbath from its institution in Paradise till the falling of the manna in the wilderness, mentioned in Exo. xvi: 15, that it was therefore here instituted for the Jews, but we think there is bible argument sufficient to sustain the reply of Jesus to the Pharisees, "that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath." If it was made for any one exclusively it must have been for Adam the father of us all, two thousand years before Abraham who is claimed as the father of the Jews was born. John says, the old commandment was from the beginning – 1; ii: 7.

There is pretty strong inference that the antideluvians measured time by weeks from the account given by Noah, when the waters of the deluge began to subside. He "sent out a dove which soon returned." At the end of seven days he sent her out again; and at the end of seven days more, he sent her out a third time. Now why this preference for the number seven? why not five or ten days, or any other number? Can it be supposed that his fixing on upon seven was accidential? How much more natural to conclude that it was in obedience to the authority of God, as expressed in the 2d chap. of Gen. A similar division of time is incidentally mentioned in Gen. xxix; "fulfil her week and we will give thee this also; and Jacob did so and fulfilled her week." Now the word week is every where used in Scripture as we use it; it never means more nor less than seven days (except as symbols of years) and one of them was in all other cases the Sabbath. But now suppose there had been an entire silence on the subject of the Sabbath for this twenty-five hundred years, would that be sufficient evidence that there was none. If so, we have the same evidence that there was no Sabbath from the reign of Joshua till the reign of David, four hundred and six years, as no mention is made of it in the history of that period. But who can be persuaded that Samuel and the pious Judges of Israel did not regard the Sabbath. What does God say of Abraham? that he "obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws." (See 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 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 writers say Assyrians, Egyptians, Arabians, Britons and Germans, all of whom divide their time into weeks. Philo says "the Sabbath is not peculiar to any one people or country, but is common to all the world." Josephus states "that there is no city either of Greeks or barbarians or any other nation, where the religion of the Sabbath is not known." But as they, like the great mass of God's professed people in christendom, paid little or no heed to what God had said about the particular day, (except the Jews, and a few others) they (as we are informed in history) adopted peculiar days to suit themselves, viz: the christian nations chose to obey the Pope of Rome, who changed the seventh day Sabbath to the first day, and called it the holy Sabbath; the Persians selected Monday; the Grecians Tuesday; the Assyrians Wednesday; the Egyptians Thursday; the Turks Friday, and the Jews the seventh day, Saturday, as God had commanded. Three standing miracles a week, for about forty years annually, ought to perpetuate the Sabbath. 1st, double the quantity of manna on the sixth day; 2d, none on the seventh; 3d, did not spoil on the seventh day. If it does not matter which day you keep holy to the Lord, then all these nations are right. Now reflect one moment on this, and then open your bible and read the commandment of the God of all these nations! "REMEMBER! (what you have been taught before) the Sabbath day to keep it holy;" (which day is it Lord?) "the SEVENTH is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger, that is within thy gates." Who is the stranger? (Gentiles.) Now the reason for it will carry us back to paradise. "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is; and rested on the SEVENTH; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." "Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations for a perpetual covenant; it is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever." (Why is it Lord?) "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the SEVENTH day he rested and was refreshed." Exo. xx and xxxi. – Which day now will you choose? O, says the reader, the seventh if I knew which of the days it was. If you don't know, why are you so sure that the first day is right? O, because the history of the world has settled that and this is the most we can know. Very well then, does not the seventh come the day before the eighth? If we have not got the days of the week right now, it is not likely that we ever shall. God does not require of us any more than what we know; by that we shall be judged. Luke xxii: 55, 56.

Once more; think you that the spirit of God ever directed Moses when he was giving the history of the creation of the world, to write that he (God) "blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work." unless he meant it to be dated from that very day? Why, this is as clear to the unbiassed mind as it is that God created man the sixth day. Would it not be the height of absurdity to attempt to prove that God only intended Adam should be created at some future period, or that the creation of the heavens and earth was not in the beginning, but some twenty five hundred years afterwards? All this would be as cogent reasoning as it would be to argue that God did not intend this day of rest should commence until about twenty-five hundred years afterwards. (The word Sabbath signifies rest.)

It follows then irresistibly, that the weekly Sabbath was not made for the Jews only, (but as Jesus says, for 'man') for the Jews had no existence until more than two thousand years after it was established. President Humphrey in his essays on the Sabbath says, "That he (God) instituted it when he rested from all his work, on the seventh day of the first week, and gave it primarily to our first parents, and through them to all their posterity; that the observance of it was enjoined upon the children of Israel soon after they left Egypt, not in the form of a new enactment, but as an ancient institution which was far from being forgotten, though it had doubtless been greatly neglected under the cruel domination of their heathen masters; that it was re-enacted with great pomp and solemnity, and written in stone by the finger of God at Sinai; that the sacred institution then took the form of a statute, with explicit prohibitions and requirements, and has never been repealed or altered since; that it can never expire of itself, because it has no limitation."

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 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 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 Sabbath, since that promise, it would be impossible to understand any other promise in the Bible; how much more reasonable to believe God than man. If men will allow themselves to believe the monstrous absurdity that forever, as in this promise, ended at the resurrection, then they can easily believe that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week. Or if they choose the other extreme, abolished until the people of God should awake to be clothed on with immortality. Heb. iv: 9.

Now does it not appear plain that the Sabbath is from God, and that it is coeval and co-extensive (as is the institution of marriage) with the world. That it is without limitation; that there is not one thus saith the Lord that it ever was or ever will be abolished, in time or eternity. – See Exod. xxxi: 16, 17; and Isa. lxvi: 22, 24; Heb iv: 4, 9. But let us return and look at the subject as we have commenced in the light of Paul's argument to the Romans and Collossians, for here is where all writers on this subject, for the change or the overthrow of the seventh day Sabbath attempt to draw their strong arguments. The second question then, is this:




Has the Sabbath been abolished since the seventhday of Creation? If so, when, and where is the proof?


The text already referred to, is in Rom. xiv: 5, 6. – "One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord, he doth not regard it." Does the apostle here mean to say, that under the new or Christian dispensation it is a matter of indifference which day of the week is kept as a Sabbath, or whether any sabbath at all is kept? Was that institution which the people of God had been commanded to call a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, now to be esteemed of so carnal a nature as to be ranked among the things which Jesus "took out of the way, nailing it to his cross." If this be true, then has Jesus, in the same manner, abolished the eight last verses in the fifty-eighth of Isaiah, and the 2d, 6th and 7th verses of the 56th chapter have no reference to the Gentile since the crucifixion. O Lord help us rightly to understand and divide thy word. But is it not evident from the four first verses in the same chapter of Romans, that Paul is speaking of feast days; Hear him explain. "Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink." 15, 17 v, also 20, 23. Giving them again in substance the decrees which had been given by the Apostles in their first conference, in A. D. 51; held at Jerusalem. See Acts xv: 19. James proposes their letter to the Gentiles should be "that they abstain from pollution of Idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood;" to which the conference all agreed. Now please read their unanimous decrees (xvi: 4,) from twenty-three to thirty verses. "For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things." "That ye abstain from meats offered to Idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication, from which if ye keep yourselves ye shall do well." Reading along to the 13th of the next chapter, we find Paul establishing the Churches with these decrees; (see 4, 5,) and at Philippi he holds his meeting, (not in the Jews Synagogue) but at the river's side, on the Sabbath day. A little from this it is said that Paul is in Thesalonica preaching on the Sabbath days. Luke says this was his manner. What was it? Why, to preach on the Sabbath days (not 1st days.) Observe here were three Sabbaths in succession. xvii: 2. A little while from this Paul locates himself in Corinth, and there preaches to the Jews and Greeks (or Gentiles) a year and six months every Sabbath. Now this must have been seventy-eight in succession. xviii: 4, 11. Does this look like abolishing the Sabbath day? Has anything been said about the 1st day yet? No, we shall speak of that by and by.

Before this he was in Antioch. "And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue the GENTILES besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God." xiii: 42, 44. Here is proof that the Gentiles kept the Sabbath. Now I wish to place the other strong text which is so strangely adhered to for abolishing or changing this Sabbath along side of this, that we may understand his meaning. "Blotting out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross."

"Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days." Coll. ii: 14, 16. Now here is one of the strong arguments adhered to by all those who say the seventh day Sabbath was abolished at the crucifixion of our Lord: while on the other hand by the great mass of the Christian world, (so called,) the seventh day Sabbath ceased here, and in less than forty-eight hours the change was made to the first day of the week. Now remember Paul's manner, (before stated) itinerating from city to city and nation to nation, always preaching to Jews and Gentiles on the seventh day Sabbath, (for there is no other day called the Lord's Sabbath in the Bible.) Now if the Apostle did mean to include the Sabbath of the Lord God with the Jewish feasts and Sabbaths in the text, then the course he took to do so, was the strangest imaginable. His manner always was, as recorded, with the exception of one night, to preach on the very day that he was laboring to abolish. If you will look at the date in your bibles, you will learn this same apostle had been laboring in this way as a special messenger to the Gentiles, between twenty and thirty years since (as you say) the Sabbath was changed or abolished, and yet never uttered one word with respect to any other day in the week to be set apart as a holy day or Sabbath. I understand all the arguments about his laboring in the Jewish Synagogue on their Sabbath, because they were open for worship on that day, &c., but he did not always preach in their Synagogues. He says that he preached the Kingdom of God, and labored in his own hired house for two years. He also established a daily meeting for disputation in the school of Tyranus. – Acts xix: 9. Again he says, I have "kept back NOTHING that was PROFITABLE unto you. (Now if the Sabbath had been changed or abolished, would it not have been profitable to have told them so?) and have taught you publicly, and from house to house." "For I have not shunned to declare unto you ALL the council of God." – Acts xx; 20, 27. Then it is clear that he taught them by example that the Sabbath of the Lord God was not abolished. Luke says it was the custom (or manner) of Christ to teach in the synagogues on the Sabbath day. iv: 16, 31. Mark says, "And when the Sabbath day was come he began to teach in their synagogue." Mark vi: 2. – Now if Jesus was about to abolish or change this Sabbath, (which belonged to the first code, the moral law, and not the ceremonial, the second code, which was to be nailed to his cross, or rather, as said the angel Gabriel to Daniel, ix: 27, "he (Christ) in the midst of the week shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease," meaning that the Jewish sacrifices and offerings would cease at his death.) Jesus did not attend to any of the ceremonies of the Jews except the passover and the feasts of tabernacles. Why did he say, "Think not I am come to destroy the law or the prophets? I am not come to destroy but fulfill. One jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the law until all be fulfilled." "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments" &c. Did he mean the ten commandments? Yes; for he immediately points out the third, not to take God's name in vain; sixth and seventh, not to kill nor to commit adultery, and styles them the least. Then, the others, which include the fourth, of course were greater than these. Matt. v; 17-19, 21, 27, 33, and were not to be broken nor pass away. Then the Sabbath stands unchanged.

Almost every writer which I have read on the subject of abolishing or changing the seventh day Sabbath, calls it the Jewish Sabbath, hence their difficulty. How can it be the Jewish Sabbath when it was established two thousand years before there was a Jew on the face of the earth, and certainly twenty-five hundred before it was embodied in the decalogue, or re-enacted and written in stone by the finger of God at Sinai. God called this HIS Sabbath, and Jesus says it was made for man, (not particularly for the Jews.)

"Well," says one, "what is the meaning of the texts which you have quoted, where it speaks of Sabbaths?" – Answer: These are the Jewish Sabbaths! which belong to them as a nation, and are connected with their feasts. God by Hosea makes this distinction, and says, "I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts." These then belong to the text quoted, and not God's Sabbath. Do you ask for the proof? See xxiii Levit. 4. "These are the FEASTS of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons, EVERY THING UPON HIS DAY" – 37th v. (May we not deviate a little? If you do it will be at your peril.) Fifteenth and sixteenth verses give them a fifty day's Sabbath; twenty-fourth verse says: "Speak unto the children of Israel, saying in the seventh month in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation."

"Also on the tenth day of the seventh month there shall be a day of atonement. It shall be unto you a Sabbath of rest." 27, 32.

"Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month when ye shall have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days. On the first shall be a Sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a Sabbath. 39th v. And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the FEASTS of the Lord." 44th v. Now here we have FOUR kinds of Jewish Sabbaths, also called "FEASTS of the Lord," to be kept annually. The first fifty days or seven weeks Sabbath ends the third month, seventh. In three months and twenty-four days more commences the second Sabbath, seventh month, first; the next, the tenth; the last the fifteenth of the month. Between the first two Sabbaths there is an interval of one hundred and twelve days; the next two, ten days, and the next, five days. Now it can be seen at a glance, that neither of these Sabbaths could be on the seventh day any oftener than other annual feast could come on that day. These then are what Hosea calls HER Sabbaths. Paul calls them holy days, new moons, and sabbaths; and this is what they are stated to be. The first day of the seventh month is a new moon Sabbath, the tenth is a Sabbath of rest and Holy convocation, a day of atonement, and the fifteenth a feast of Sabbaths. Do you ask for any more evidence that these are the Jewish Sabbaths, and that God's Sabbath is separate from them? Read then what God directed Moses to write in the third verse: "Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation, ye shall do no work therein, it is the Sabbath of the LORD in your dwellings." Now Moses has here declared from the mouth of the Lord, that these are ALL the feast of the Lord, (there is no more nor less) and every thing is to be upon his day, and he has clearly and definitely separated his Sabbath from the other four. But let us look at the text again. Coll. ii; 14-16. See 17 v. "which are a shadow of things to come." What did the apostle say were shadows? Why, meat, drink, holy day, new moon, sabbath days. 16th v. Heb. ix: 10. What does he mean by shadow? See Heb. x: 1, 2. Just what I have stated on page 14. Now here we have one clear, positive point. If the seventh day Sabbath is included in the 17th verse, then it must be a shadow; if it is not a shadow, then Paul has no reference to it, and it stands forever! Moses says the ten commandments were written by the finger of God on tables of stone; whatever God has done with his own hand is stamped with immortality, and is as enduring as the sun, moon and stars. Psl. viii: 3. But if the 4th commandment, the Sabbath of the Lord is a shadow then all the other nine commandments must be. Let us look at what are called by our Lord the least commandments, the 6th and 7th. "Thou shalt not kill." – "Thou shalt not commit adultry." Math. v: 19, 21, 27. Are these shadows? Is there an individual with common sense in the world that dare risk his reputation in such kind of logic? Then it is as clear as a sun beam that all the others are tangible substances, and will continue in full force while immortality endures; especially the 4th commandment, the Sabbath. See Isa. 66: 23, Heb. iv: 9, Rev. 22: 14. And in the 28th and 29th chapters of Numbers the sacrifices and offerings for each of these days are made so plain, beginning with the Sabbath, 9th v. that we have only to read the following to understand. 26. xxix: 1. First day, seventh month, (new moon;) 7th v., 10th day Sabbath; 12th v., 15th day Sabbath, and 35th v., 23d day Sabbath. I will endeavor to present it in a clearer point of view:



Feast by fire connected with the Lord's and the Jewish Sabbaths.

The Daily or continual [always] 2 lambs morning and evening.

3 quarts of flour for a meat offering, 2½ pints of oil, 5 pints of wine – xxviii: 3-7.

THE Sabbath day. 2 lambs, and six quarts of flour with oil.


Here follow the Jewish feasts with their Sabbaths:



1st. – 7th week Sabbath, 2 bullocks, 1 ram, 7 lambs, 1 goat, 24 quarts of flour – xxviii: 16, 17.

2d. – 7th month Sabbath, 1 bullock, 1 ram, 7 lambs, 1 kid, 36 quarts of flour – xxix: 1-5.

3d. – 10th of 7th month Sabbath, 1 bullock, 1 ram, 7 lambs, 2 kids, 36 quarts of flour – 7-11.

4th. – 15th of 7th month Sabbath, 13 bullocks, 2 rams, 14 lambs, 2 kids, 4½ bushels of flour – 12-16.

5th. – 8th day Sabbath, 1 bullock, 1 ram, 7 lambs, 1 goat, 36 quarts of flour – 35-39.


"And Moses told the children of Israel according to all that the Lord commanded Moses." Here is the 8th day Sabbath, which makes 5 Jewish Sabbaths, every one of them differing from the other and the Lord's Sabbath, no more connected with them than in the xxiii of Levit. just named. Here then is an unanswerable argument for a separation of the Jewish from the Lord's Sabbath, and shows conclusively what Paul calls "shadows" in ii Col: 17, and Hosea "her Sabbaths." And in the days of Nehemiah when Ezra had read the law to the people, viii (more than one thousand years after they were promulgated,) they bound themselves under an oath "to walk in God's law which was given by the hand of Moses, the servant of God." "And to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord, our Lord." x: 29. And that there might be no misunderstanding about the kind of Sabbaths, they say, "If the people bring ware or any victuals on the Sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy it of them on the Sabbath or on the holy day," (31 v.) but they would "charge themselves yearly with a third part of a shekel" (to pay for) "the burnt offerings of the Sabbaths, of the new moons, for the set feasts," &c. (33 v.) for the house of God, including what has already been set forth in Leviticus and Numbers. Now as their feast days commenced and ended with a Sabbath, so when their feasts ceased to be binding on them these Sabbaths must also, and all were "nailed to the cross." Now I ask if there is one particle of proof that the Sabbath of the Lord is included in these sabbaths and feast days? – Who then dare join them together or contradict the Most High God, and call HIS the Jewish





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