The Seventh Day Sabbath

The Seventh Day Sabbath, a
Perpetual Sign,
by Joseph Bates

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seventh Day Sabbath, a
Perpetual Sign,
from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City,
According to the Commandment, by Joseph Bates This eBook is for the
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Title: The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning
to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the
Commandment
Author: Joseph Bates
Release Date: July 18, 2007 [EBook #22098]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEVENTH
DAY SABBATH ***

Produced by Cally Soukup, Heiko Evermann, Lisa Reigel, and the
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THE SEVENTH DAY SABBATH,
A PERPETUAL SIGN,
FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE ENTERING INTO THE GATES
OF THE HOLY CITY,
ACCORDING TO THE COMMANDMENT.
BY JOSEPH BATES:
"Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old
commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old
commandment is the WORD which ye have heard from the beginning."
John ii: 7.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Gen. i: 1.
"And God blessed the seventh day, and rested from all his work." ii: 3.
"Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right
to the tree of life and enter in," &c. Rev. xxii: 14.
NEW-BEDFORD PRESS OF BENJAMIN LINDSEY 1846.

[1]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. If
he did not mean all the rest, then he deceived the lawyer in the two first
precepts, love to God and love to man. See also Matt. v: 17, 19, 21, 27,
33. PAUL comments thus. "The law is holy, and the commandments
holy, just and good." "Circumcision and uncircumcision 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.

[3]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