Joseph Bates - A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath and the Commandments of God

Joseph Turner in attempting to prove that Sunday, the first day of the week is the seventh day of the week, and therefore the proper Sabbath, has failed to make out his case. His proposed foundation is from Matt. xii: 39, 40. “But he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas, for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” He says, “to rear the temple of this body in three days, or to remain in the heart of the earth three nights and to rise the third day was, according to the above scripture, to be a sign. I will now prove by Christ and his disciples that this sign was literally given, and that he arose, not the second, but third early in the morning.” This statement is not true. The above scripture states three days, and not as you say you will now prove in three days. If it proves any thing, it proves three whole days, and then of course the Saviour would rise on the fourth day. This, according to your mode of calculating, would make the seventh day come on Monday. If you want the third day, or within three days, why not take as many as you need for your argument, from the eighteen other texts, and not take this isolated one, and then pervert it, as you have done. The only object that I can see, in your perversion of the text, is to prove, as you say, that Jesus was three nights in the heart of the earth, viz.: Friday night, one; Saturday night, two, and Sabbath night, three. You say, “that Christ was actually raised the third day and not the second, as tradition holds it.” I am not aware of any such tradition. That would be perverting the whole eighteen texts instead of the one you have done. But that he was raised the third day, and that third day was the first of the week, is the joint testimony of the four evangelists, Matt. xxviii: 1; Mark xvi: 2; Luke xxiv: 1; John xx: 1. But let us see how you have obtained these three nights as stated above, which, as you say, “proves triumphantly that ‘OUR SABBATH’ is the seventh day.” First read the second paragraph in your P. S., where you have attempted to pervert the plain and clear testimony of Luke, in chap. xxiii: 54, 56. Here you stated one scriptural fact: That the Sabbath always commenced at evening. “From evening to evening shall you celebrate your Sabbath.” Then, as a most natural consequence, the next day would begin where the Sabbath ended, and so of every other day thenceforward, or chaos and confusion would follow. This also perfectly agrees with God's manner of commencing time at the creation: “The evening (first,) and the morning is the first day,” &c. Now as you have shown that Friday was the first day of the crucifixion and that it was so far spent and passed away at the time our Lord was buried, that the women could not have got home and prepared spices, (which probably was not more than twenty minutes labor,) before the next day began. How, and by what authority do you claim Friday night? Does Friday night come after twenty-four hours of that day are spent? You see how difficult God makes the way of transgressors. You may reply that you made a mistake. Will you allow me to tell you where your mistake commenced on this subject. If I am not very much mistaken it was when you gave up keeping the true seventh day, the only historical, chronological or biblical day of the week ever given to man. Well, you may say, I have made some converts. True – but they are also deceived, and many very likely rejoicing in it like D. B. Wyatt, who seems to have swallowed the whole, and is endeavoring, with the assistance of the Advent Harbinger, (although they are at antipodes respecting the commandments of God,) to spread the glad tidings far and wide. This editor is in no wise particular about men and measures to accomplish his Jesuitical purpose, to annihilate the very foundation and superstructure of the Bible, “the commandments of God.” Matt. xxii: 40. This wonderful piece of Advent intelligence is recorded in the same paper with D. B. Wyatt's, Sept 9, 1847. See also April 28, page 38. Let it be well understood here also, that this man and J. V. Himes, editor of the Advent Herald, are the two, and only two, editors and papers in this country, which William Miller of Lowhampton, N. Y. recommends to give the light on the second Advent. The meat in due season.

Your erroneous doctrine is heartily welcomed by some here, and many I understand in New Bedford, and very likely many in other places. Yes, I have heard of it away on the Lakes. I was told by one the other day who had backslidden like yourself, that it was the best argument he had yet seen. Now if you undertake to rectify your mistake, it is possible you may destroy all their joy, until some one presents another error – for the truth, it seems, they are determined not to have. Again, you say, “let my brethren remember that the law of Moses, made the first day of the feast of the passover, a sabbath in which no work should be done; this was the Sabbath that drew on. Moreover, I will here prove that the next day following the crucifixion, was not the Sabbath of the Lord, which the Jews at that time kept. – See Luke xxiii: 54.” Now, I say if you will read the next two verses, 55 and 56, which are connected with 54, it will positively contradict your assertion, for it proves that they did keep the next day as the Sabbath, according to the commandment, and the seventh-day Sabbath was and is, the only Sabbath commandment in the whole bible. You pass this over and cite us to Matt xxvii: 62, 64, and base your whole proof on inference . It is this, that the Jews were so strict and pious in the observance of the Sabbath that they would not have gone to Pilate on that day to have asked him to set a watch over the body of Jesus, if it had been the Sabbath, because it would be an important fact to record against them. “How easy to have said in this record that the Jews on the Sabbath,” &c. Yes sir, it would have been just as easy for your purpose, to have said in this record also, that “Our Sabbath is the Seventh day .” Then probably you would not have to answer for the sin which you have in these instances, knowingly committed. Besides this, you must have calculated largely on the credulity of your readers, to suppose that all of them would swallow such absurdities. As that men, who had just committed one of the most aggravating crimes ever recorded in the annals of history, in barbarously and cruelly murdering the son of the living God, should then for fear of having it recorded against them as touching the purity of their motives that they had violated the holy Sabbath of God by calling on the Governor, on the Sabbath of the Lord God, to set a watch over their victim, for fear that some of his disciples would come and steal him away, and thus openly expose them to the scorn of the world. This is your proof why the next day after the crucifixion could not be the Sabbath. How unfortunate and trying it must be to you, who, after being so highly extalled by your hearers in New Bedford, Fairhaven, &c., for your clear and plain Holy Ghost living and preaching, to have to flee to such mean subterfuges to establish a position to justify your backsliding from the plain and positive texts which stand right in your way.

Respecting your text in Matt. xii: 40. If you made use of it as it stands, it would positively prove the resurrection to be on the closing hours of Monday, between 3 and 6 P.M. and not in the morning, as every where recorded. So then, to fulfill your text to the very extent, and have the resurrection in the morning, it must be on Tuesday morning, for, Monday morning would bring you twelve hours too soon, only two and a half days instead of three. This would make your Sabbath, as you exultingly claim it for your adherents, come on Monday; that is, by your new mode of establishing the Sabbath. And then D. B. Wyatt, if he followed your strange view, would have to recall his address to his brethren and change the time of celebrating the Lord's Supper on Monday evening, and have it on Tuesday. I presume the editor of the Harbinger would have no objections to the alteration, provided Mr. W. was satisfied.