(Excerpt)
CHAPTER VII. “APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE,” OR CHRIST’S EXAMPLE?
ACTS 20:7
In continuing his search for the origin of the first day of the week as the Lord’s day, the author of “The Abiding Sabbath” comes to Acts 20:7. As this text mentions a meeting of disciples on the first day of the week, at which an apostle preached, it is really made the foundation upon which to lay the claim of the custom of the primitive church, and the example of the apostles in sanctioning the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath. But although there was a meeting held on the first day of the week, and although an apostle was at the meeting, as a matter of fact, there is in it neither custom nor example in favor of keeping Sunday as the Sabbath. Here is what Mr. Elliott makes of the passage:—
“The most distinct reference to the Christian use of the first day of the week is that found in Acts 20:7: ‘And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them.’ ...The language clearly implies that the apostle availed himself of the occasion brought about by the custom of assemblage on the first day of the week to preach to the people.... Here, then, is a plain record of the custom of assemblage on the first day of the week, less than thirty years after the resurrection. The language is just what would be used in such a case.”—Pp. 194, 195.
It is hard to see how he can find “a plain record of the custom of assemblage on the first day of the week,” when the record says nothing at all about any such custom. In all the narrative of which this verse forms a part there is no mention whatever of anything that was there done being done according to custom, nor to introduce what should become a custom, nor that it was to be an example to be followed by Christians throughout all coming time. So the fact is that Mr. Elliott’s “plain record” of a custom lacks the essential thing which would show a custom.
Nor is his statement that “the language is just what would be used in such a case,” any more in accordance with the fact; for when Luke, who wrote this record, had occasion to speak of that which was a custom he did so plainly. For example: “And he [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read.” Luke 4:16. Again: “And Paul, as his manner [custom] was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.” Acts 17:2. In these two passages, the words, “as his custom was,” and “as his manner was,” as Luke wrote them, are identical—Kata to eiothos—and in both instances mean precisely as his custom was; and that “language is just what” Inspiration has used in such cases as a plain record of a custom. Therefore we submit that the total absence of any such language from the passage under consideration, is valid argument that it is not a record of any such thing as the custom of the assemblage of Christians on the first day of the week.
If the record really said that it was then a custom to assemble on the first day of the week; if it said: Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together, as their custom was, as the same writer says that it was the custom of Christ and of Paul to go to the Sabbath assemblies; if it said: Upon the first day of the week Paul preached to the disciples as his custom was; then no man could deny that such was indeed the custom: but as in the word of God there is neither statement nor hint to that effect, no man can rightly affirm that such was a custom, without going beyond the word of God; and that is prohibited by the word itself—“Thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.” Deuteronomy 12:32. More than this, reading into that passage the “custom” of assemblage on the first day of the week, is not only to go beyond that which is written; it is to do violence to the very language in which it is written. The meaning of the word “custom” is, “A frequent repetition of the same act.” A single act is not custom. An act repeated once or twice is not custom. The frequent repetition of an act, that is custom. Now as Acts 20:7 is the only case on record that a religious meeting was ever held, either by the disciples or the apostles, on the first day of the week, as there is no record of a single repetition of that act, much less of a “frequent repetition” of it, it follows inevitably that there is no shadow of justice nor of right in the claim that the custom of the apostles and of the primitive church sanctions the observance of that day as the day of rest and worship—the Sabbath. There was no such custom.
We have a few words more to say on this passage, and that we may discuss it with the best advantage to the reader we copy the whole connection:—
“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep; and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed.” Verses 7-11.
Upon the face of this whole narrative it is evident that this meeting was at night. Let us put together several of the statements: (1) “Upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together ...there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together.” (2) “Paul preached unto them ...and continued his speech until midnight.” (3) At midnight Eutychus fell out of the window, and Paul went down and brought him up, and then he broke the bread and ate, therefore we may read, “The disciples came together to break bread,” and after midnight the bread was broken. (4) After that Paul “talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed.” Therefore we may read, (5) Upon the first day of the week, the disciples came together, and there were many lights where they were gathered together. They came together to break bread, and after midnight the bread was broken. Paul preached unto them until midnight, and even till break of day. When the disciples came together, Paul was ready to depart on the morrow, and when he had talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. There can be no room for any reasonable doubt that the meeting referred to in Acts 20:7 was wholly a night meeting, and not only that but that it was an all-night meeting.
This meeting being therefore in the night of the first day of the week, the question properly arises, According to the Bible, what part of the complete day does the night form? Is the night the first or the last part of the complete day? The Bible plainly shows that the night is the first part of the day. There was darkness on the earth before there was light. When God created the world, darkness was upon the face of the deep. Then “God said, Let there be light, and there was light.” Then “God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.” As the darkness was called night, as the darkness was upon the earth before the light, and as it takes both the night and the day—the darkness and the light—to make the complete day, it follows that in the true count of days by the revolution of the earth, the night precedes the day. This is confirmed by the Scripture: “The evening [the darkness, the night] and the morning [the light, the day] were the first day.”
This is the order which God established in the beginning of the world; it is the order that is laid down in the beginning of the book of God; and it is the order that is followed throughout the book of God. In Leviticus 23:27-32, giving directions about the day of atonement, God said that it should be “the tenth day of the seventh month,” and that that was from the ninth day of the month at even; “from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.” Thus the tenth day of the month began in the evening of the ninth day of the month. And so according to Bible time every day begins in the evening, and evening is at the going down of the sun. Deuteronomy 16:6. Therefore as the meeting mentioned in Acts 20:7-11 was in the night of the first day of the week, and as in the word and the order of God the night is the first part of the day, it follows that the meeting was on what is now called Saturday night. For if it had been on what is now called Sunday night it would have been on the second day of the week and not on the first. So Conybeare and Howson, in “Life and Epistles of Paul,” say: “It was the evening which succeeded the Jewish Sabbath.” And that is now called Saturday night.
This meeting, then, being on what is now called Saturday night, as Paul preached till midnight, and after the breaking of bread talked till break of day and departed, it follows that at break of day on the first day of the week, at break of day on Sunday, Paul started afoot from Troas to Assos, a distance of twenty miles, with the intention of going on board a ship at Assos and continuing his journey, which he did. For says the record: “We [Paul’s companions in travel, Acts 20:4] went before to ship, and sailed unto Assos, there intending to take in Paul; for so had he appointed, minding himself to go afoot. And when he met with us at Assos, we took him in, and came to Mitylene.” Verses 13, 14. Paul not only walked from Troas to Assos on Sunday, but he appointed that his companions should sail to that place—about forty miles by water—and be there by the time he came so that he could go on without delay. And when he reached Assos he went at once aboard the ship and sailed away to Mitylene, which was nearly forty miles further. That is to say, on the first day of the week Paul walked twenty miles and then sailed nearly forty more, making nearly sixty miles that he traveled; and he appointed that his companions—Luke, Timothy, Tychicus, Trophimus, Gaius, Aristarchus, and Secundus—should sail forty miles and then take him aboard, and all sail nearly forty miles more, making nearly eighty miles travel for them, all on Sunday. And this is exactly how these Christians kept that first day of the week of which mention is made in Acts 20.
But nowadays men try to make it appear that it is an awful sin to travel on Sunday. Yes, some people now seem to think that if a ship should sail on Sunday, the sin would be so great that nothing but a perfect miracle of grace would keep it from sinking. Paul neither taught nor acted any such thing, for says the record: “We went before to ship, and sailed; ...for so had he appointed.” Paul and his companions regarded Sunday in nowise different from the other common working days of the week. For, mark, the first day of the week they sailed from Troas to Mitylene, “the next day” they sailed from Mitylene to Chios, “the next day” from Chios to Samos and Trogyllium, and “the next day” to Miletus. Here are “the first day of the week,” “the next day,” “the next day,” and “the next day,” and Paul and his companions did the same things on one of these days that they did on another. They considered one of them no more sacred than another. They considered the first day of the week to be no more of a sabbath than the next day, or the next day, or the next day. True, Paul preached all night, before he started on the first day of the week; but on the fifth or sixth day of the week he preached also at Miletus, to the elders of the church of Ephesus.
Instead, therefore, of the Sunday deriving any sacredness from the word of God, or resting for its observance upon the authority of that word, or upon that which is just and right, or upon the example of the apostles, or the custom of the primitive church, it is contrary to all these. It is essentially an interloper, and rests for its so-called sacredness and for its authority upon nothing but “the commandments of men.”
Of all the arguments that are made in support of the first day of the week as the Sabbath, or Lord’s day, the one which above all is the most thoroughly sophistical and deceptive is this that proposes to rest its obligation upon “the example of the apostles,” or of the “primitive Christians.” We want to look into this thing a little and see what the claim is worth, upon its own merits. “The example of the apostles.” What is it? If the phrase means anything at all, it means that the example of the apostles is the standard of human duty in moral things. But if that be so, their example must be the standard in every other duty as well as in the supposed duty of keeping the first day of the week. But nobody ever thinks of appealing to the example of the apostles in any question of morals, except in the (supposed moral) matter of the observance of the first day of the week as a sacred day. By this, therefore, even those who make the claim of apostolic example do, in effect, deny the very claim which they themselves set up.
Who ever thinks of resting upon the example of the apostles, the obligation to obey any one of the ten commandments? Take the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Who ever thinks of appealing to the example of the apostles in impressing upon men the obligation to obey this? And what should be thought of a person anyhow who would do it? That commandment is the will of God, and the basis of its obligation is as much higher than the example of the apostles as Heaven is higher than earth, or as God is higher than man. And the obligation to obey that commandment rested just as strongly upon the apostles as it ever did, or as it ever will, upon anybody else.
It is so with every commandment of the decalogue, and with every form of duty under any one of the commandments. Who would think of impressing upon children the duty to honor their parents by citing them to the example of the apostles? The duty to honor parents possesses higher sanctions than the example of the apostles, even the sanctions of the will of God. And to inculcate upon the minds of children this duty, upon the basis of the example of the apostles, would only be to turn them away from God, and would destroy all the force of this duty upon the conscience. It is so in relation to every moral precept. The apostles were subjects and not masters of moral obligation. Moral duties spring from the will of God, and not from the example of men; and a knowledge of moral duties is derivable alone from the commands of God, and not from the actions of men; all of which goes to show that in point of morals there is no such thing as apostolic example. This is shown by other considerations as well. In fact every consideration only the more fully demonstrates it.
The law of God—the ten commandments—is the supreme standard of morals for the universe, and so expresses the whole duty of man. That law is perfect, and demands perfection in every subject of it. Therefore, whoever would be an example to men in the things pertaining to the law of God, that is, in any moral duty, must be perfect. Whoever would be an example to men in moral duties must not only be perfect, but he must have always been perfect. He must always have met to the full every requirement of the law of God. But this no man whom the world ever saw has done. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” “They are all gone out of the way.” The perfection of the law of God has never been met in any man whom the world ever saw. Therefore, no man whom the world ever saw can ever be an example to men in moral duties. Consequently there is not, and there never can be, any such thing as apostolic example in moral things. To many this may appear to be stating the case too strongly, because the apostles were inspired men. We abate not one jot from the divine inspiration of the apostles, nor from the respect justly due them as inspired men; but we say without the slightest hesitation that, although the apostles were indeed inspired, they are not examples to men in moral duties.
Because, first, no degree of inspiration can ever put a man above the law of God; and because, secondly, although we know that the doctrine and the writings of the apostles are inspired, yet we know also that all their actions were not inspired. This we know because the inspired record tells us so. Here is the inspired record of one instance in point: “When Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles; but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all,” etc. Galatians 2:11-14.
Peter “was to be blamed.” He “walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel.” Then what kind of “apostolic example” was that to follow? and where were those led who followed it? They were being carried away with dissimulation—two-facedness, hypocrisy; they were being led away from “the truth of the gospel.” But they could claim apostolic example for it, and that too with the very apostles—Peter and Barnabas—present, whom they might claim as their examples. But God did not leave them there; he rebuked their sin, and corrected their fault, and brought them back from their blameworthiness to uprightness once more according to the truth of the gospel. And in the record of it God has shown all men that there is no such thing as “apostolic example” for anybody to follow, but that the truth of the gospel and the word of God is that according to which all men must walk.
Another instance, and in this even Paul himself was involved: “Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do. And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark. But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work. And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other.” Acts 15:36-39.
“The contention was so sharp between them.” Is that “apostolic example” which is to be followed by all men? Everybody will at once say, No. But why is it not? Because it is not right. But when we say that that is not right, in that very saying we at once declare that there is a standard by which the apostles themselves must be tried, and by which their example must be measured. And that is to acknowledge at once that there is no such thing as “apostolic example.”
We do not cite these things to reproach the apostles, nor to charge them with not being Christians. They were men of like passions with all the rest of us; and were subject to failings as well as all the rest of us. They had weaknesses in themselves to strengthen by exercise in divine grace, and defects of moral character to overcome by the help of God. They had to fight the good fight of faith as well as all the rest of us. And they fought the good fight and became at last “more than conquerors through Him that hath loved” them as well as us, and hath washed us all “from our sins in his own blood.” Far be it that we should cite these things to reproach the apostles; we simply bring forth the record which God has given of the apostles, to show to men that if they will be perfect they must have a higher aim than “the example of the apostles.” By these things from the word of God we would show to men that, in working out the problem of human destiny under the perfect law of God, that problem must be worked by an example that never fails. We write these things not that we love the apostles less, but Christ more. And this is only what the apostles themselves have shown. Ask the apostles whether we shall follow them as examples. Peter, shall we follow your example? Answer: “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.” 1 Peter 2:21, 22. Paul, shall we not follow your example? Answer: “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1. John, “that disciple whom Jesus loved,” shall we not follow your example? Shall we not walk in your ways? answer: “He that saith he abideth in Him, ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.” 1 John 2:6. Wherefore, as the apostles themselves repudiate the claim of apostolic example, it follows that there is no such thing as “the example of the apostles.”
Jesus Christ is the one only example for men to follow. To every man he commands absolutely, “Follow me.” “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.” “I am the door.” “He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way [by the “other way” of apostolic example, for instance], the same is a thief and a robber.” “By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” The Lord Jesus is the one only person whom this world ever saw who met perfectly every requirement of the perfect law of God. He was made flesh, and he, in the flesh, and form, and nature of man, stood in every place and met every temptation that any man can ever meet, and in every place and in everything he met all the demands of the perfect law of God. He did it from infancy to the prime of manhood, and never failed. “He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.” Therefore, as he is the only person whom this world ever saw who ever met to the full all the perfect requirements of the law of God, it follows that he is the only person whom the world ever saw, or ever shall see, who can be an example for men, or whose example is worthy to be followed by men.
Therefore, when preachers and leaders of theological thought anywhere present before men any other example, even though it be the example of the apostles, and seek to induce men to follow any other example, even though it be proposed as apostolic example, such conduct is sin against God, and treason against our Lord Jesus Christ. And that there are men in this day, Protestants too, who are doing that very thing only shows how far from Christ the religious teachers of the day have gone. It is time that they and all men should be told that the law of God is the one perfect rule of human duty; that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one perfect example that has been worked out in this world under that rule; and that all men who will correctly solve the problem of human destiny must solve it by the terms of that rule as exemplified in, and according to, that example. Whoever attempts to solve the problem by any other rule or according to any other example will utterly fail of a correct solution; and whoever teaches men to attempt to solve it by any other rule or according to any other example, even though it be by “the example of the apostles,” he both acts and teaches treason against the Lord Jesus Christ.
What, then, is the example of Christ in regard to keeping the first day of the week? There is no example about it at all. He never kept it. No one ever can—in fact no one ever does—claim any example of Christ for keeping the first day of the week. But where there is no example of Christ there can be no example of the apostles. Therefore there is not, and cannot be, any such thing as the example of the apostles for keeping the first day of the week.
What, then, is the example of Christ in regard to keeping the seventh day? He kept the first seventh day the world ever saw, when he had finished his great work of creation. When he came into the world, everybody knows that he kept it as long as he lived in the world. And “he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked.” Therefore those who walk as he walked will have to keep the seventh day. His steps led him to the place of worship on the seventh day, for thus “his custom was” (Luke 4:16), and he taught the people how to keep the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Lord (Matthew 12:1-12). And he has left “us an example that ye should follow his steps.” And all who follow his steps will be led by those steps to keep the seventh day, and to turn away their feet from the Sabbath, for such is his example.
Paul said, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” Now was Paul a follower of Christ in the matter of the seventh day? Let us see: “And he [Christ] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read.” Luke 4:16. And of Paul it is said, by the same writer, “They came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews, and Paul, as his manner [custom] was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.” Acts 17:1, 2. Paul did follow Christ in his “custom” of keeping the Sabbath day—the seventh day—therefore if any man will obey the word of God by Paul, and will be a follower of Paul as he followed Christ, it will have to be his “custom” to go to the house of God, and to worship God, on the seventh day.
For the keeping of the seventh day we have the commandment of God, the example of the living God (Exodus 20:8-11; Genesis 2:3), and the example of the Lord Jesus Christ both in Heaven and on earth, both as Creator and Redeemer. And there is neither command nor example for the keeping of any other day. Will you obey the commandment of God, and follow the divine example in divine things? or will you instead obey a human command and follow human examples in human things, and expect the divine reward for it? Answer yourself now as you expect to answer God in the Judgment.
1 Corinthians 16:2.
The next reference noticed by Mr. Elliott is 1 Corinthians 16:1, 2, of which he writes—
“Another incidental allusion to the religious use of the day—an allusion none the less valuable because incidental—is the direction of Paul in 1 Corinthians 16:1, 2: ‘Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.’ ...The Corinthians were on that day to deposit their alms in a common treasury.”—Pp. 195, 196.
Paul’s direction is, “Let every one of you lay by him in store;” Mr. Elliott says they were “to deposit their alms in a common treasury.” Now can a man lay by him in store, and deposit in a common treasury, the same money at the same time? If there are any, especially of those who keep Sunday, who think that it can be done, let them try it. Next Sunday, before you go to meeting find out how God has prospered you, and set apart accordingly that sum of money which you will lay by you in store by depositing it in the common treasury of the church. Then as you go to church, take the money along, and when the collection box is passed, put in it that which you are going to lay by you in store; and the work is done! According to Mr. Elliott’s idea, you have obeyed this scripture. That is you have obeyed it by putting away from you the money which the Scripture directs you to lay by you. You have put into the hands of others that which is to be laid by you. You have carried away and placed entirely beyond your control, and where you will never see it again, that which is to be laid by you in store. In other words you have obeyed the Scripture by directly disobeying it.
True, that is a novel kind of obedience; but no one need be surprised at it in this connection; for that is the only kind of obedience to the Scripture that can ever be shown by keeping Sunday as the Sabbath. The commandment of God says “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.... The seventh day is the Sabbath.” And people propose to obey that commandment by remembering the first day instead of the seventh. The word of God says: “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do any work;” and people who keep Sunday propose to obey that word by working all day on the day in which God says they shall do no work. And so it is in perfect accord with the principles of the Sunday-sabbath that Mr. Elliott should convey the idea that 1 Corinthians 16:2 was obeyed by doing directly the opposite of what the text says.
But he seeks to justify his theory by the following remark:—
“That this laying in store did not mean a simple hoarding of gifts by each one in his own house, is emphatically shown by the reason alleged for the injunction, ‘that there be no gatherings’ (i. e. “collections,” the same word used in the first verse) ‘when I come.’ ...If the gifts had had to be collected from house to house, the very object of the apostle’s direction would have failed to be secured.”
This reasoning might be well enough if it were true. But it is not true. This we know because Paul himself has told us just what he meant, and has shown us just what the Corinthians understood him to mean; and Mr. Elliott’s theory is the reverse of Paul’s record of facts. A year after writing the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote the second letter; and in the second letter he makes explicit mention of this very “collection for the saints,” about which he had given these directions in the first letter. In the second letter (chap. 9:1-5), Paul writes:—
“For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you; for I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath provoked very many. Yet have I sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this behalf; that, as I said, ye may be ready; lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting. Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up before-hand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness.”
Now if Mr. Elliott’s theory be correct, that the Corinthians were to deposit their alms in a common treasury each first day of the week, and if that was what Paul meant that they should do, then why should Paul think it “necessary” to send brethren before himself “to make up” this bounty, so “that it might be ready” when he came? If Mr. Elliott’s theory be correct, what possible danger could there have been of these brethren finding the Corinthians “unprepared”? and why should Paul be afraid that they were unprepared? No; Mr. Elliott’s theory and argument are contrary to the facts. In the first letter to the Corinthians (16:2), Paul meant just what he said, that on the first day of the week every one should “lay by him in store;” and the Corinthian Christians so understood it, and so likewise would everyone else understand it, were it not that its perversion is so sorely essential in bolstering up the baseless fabric of the Sunday Lord’s day. But the Corinthians, having no such thing to cripple or pervert their ability to understand plain language, understood it as it was written, and as Paul meant that it should be understood. Each one laid by him as directed; then when the time came for Paul to go by them and take their alms to Jerusalem, he sent brethren before to make up the bounty which had been laid by in store, so that it might be ready when he came. Therefore, 1 Corinthians 16:2 gives no sanction whatever to the idea of meetings on the first day of the week.
And now after all his peregrinations in search of the origin of the first day of the week as the Lord’s day, Mr. Elliott arrives at the following intensely logical deduction:—
“The selection of the Lord’s day by the apostles as the one festival day of the new society seems so obviously natural, and even necessary, that when we join to these considerations the fact that it was so employed, we can no longer deny to the religious use of Sunday the high sanction of apostolic authority.”—P. 198.
All that we shall say to that is, that it is the best illustration that we have ever seen of the following rule, by “Rev. Levi Philetus Dobbs, D.D.,”—Dr. Wayland, editor of the National Baptist—for proving something when there is nothing with which to prove it. In fact we hardly expected ever to find in “real life” an illustration of the rule; but Mr. Elliott’s five-hundred-dollar-prize logic has furnished a perfect illustration of it. The rule is:—
“Prove the premise by the conclusion, and then prove the conclusion by the premise; proving A by B and then proving B by A. And if the people believe the conclusion already (or think they do, which amounts to the same thing), and if you bring in now and then the favorite words and phrases that the people all want to hear, and that they have associated with orthodoxy, ‘tis wonderful what a reputation you will get as a logician.”
If “Dr. Dobbs” had offered a five-hundred-dollar prize for the best real example that should be worked out under that rule, we should give a unanimous, rising, rousing vote in favor of Rev. George Elliott and his “Abiding Sabbath” as the most deserving of the prize.
Yet with all this he finds “complete silence of the New Testament so far as any explicit command for the [Sunday] Sabbath or definite rules for its observance are concerned.” What! A New Testament institution, and yet in the New Testament there is neither command nor rules for its observance!! Then how can it be possible that there can ever rest upon anybody any obligation whatever to observe it? How would it be possible anyhow to observe it without any rules for its observance? We shall now notice how he accounts for such an anomaly.
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