The Seventh Day Sabbath | Page 7

Sabbath stands unchanged.
Almost every writer which I have read on the subject of abolishing or changing the seventh day Sabbath, call 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 [13]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 gives 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. 39v. And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the FEASTS of the Lord." 44v. 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 all 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. And in the 28th and 29th chapters of Numbers the sacrifices [14]and offerings for each of these days are made so plain, beginning with the Sabbath, 9v, that we have only to read the following to understand. 26. xxix: 1. First day, seventh month, (new moon;) 7v, 10th day Sabbath; 12v; 15th day Sabbath, and 35v, 23d day Sabbath. 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