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Here is a Christian Sabbath observed by the disciples and _owned_ by _our Lord_. The visit Christ made to his disciples was on the first day of the week, and the first day of the week is the only day of the week or month or year ever mentioned by numbers in all the New [30]Testament, and that is several times spoken of as a day _religiously_ observed.
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The fourth commandment is so expressed as to admit of a change in the day, --thus striking vitally every argument he had before presented. Hear him--he says the seventh day is the Sabbath;
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I ask, in the name of common sense, how we should know how or when to keep the Sabbath if it did not matter which day. If the President could not see the sanctification of the seventh day in the decalogue what did he mean by quoting Gen. ii: 3, so often, where it says
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Redemption is a greater work than creation, hence the change. Fifthly, God early consecrated the Christian Sabbath by a most remarkable outpouring of his spirit at the day of Pentecost. And that Jesus has left us his own example by not saying a syllable after his resurrection about keeping the _Jewish Sabbath_. He also quotes the four passages about Jesus and his disciples keeping the first day of the week. Here, he says, the inference to our minds is _irresistible_--for keeping the first day of the week instead of the _seventh_. And further says,
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&c. All this may be very true in itself, but it all falls to the ground for the want of one single precept from the bible. If Redemption, because it was greater than Creation, and the remarkable display of God's power at the [31]Pentecost, and Christ never saying any thing about the _Jewish Sabbath_ after his resurrection are such _strong_ proofs that the perpetual seventh day Sabbath was changed to the first day at that time, and must be believed because learned men say so, what shall we do with the sixth day, on which our blessed Saviour expired on the cross; darkness for three hours had covered the earth, and the vail of the Temple was rent from top to the bottom, and there was such an earthquake throughout vast creation that we have only to open our eyes and look at the rent rocks for a clear and perfect demonstration that this whole globe was shaken from centre to circumference, and the graves of the dead were opened. Matt. xxvii: 50, 53. You may answer me that Popery has honored that day by calling it good Friday, and the next first day following Easter Sunday, &c., but after all, nothing short of bible argument will satisfy the earnest inquirer after truth. The President had already shown that the _Jewish_ Sabbath was abolished at Christ's death. What reason then had he to believe that the Saviour would speak of it afterwards. So also the Pentecost had been a type from the giving the law at Sinai to be kept annually for about 1500 years, consequently it would be solemnized on every day of the week, at each revolving year, as is the case with the 4th of July: three years ago it was on the fourth day and now it comes on the seventh day of the week. Further, see Peter standing amidst the amazed multitude, giving the scripture reason for this miraculous display of God's power. He does not give the most distant hint that this was, or was to be, the day of the week for worship, or the true Sabbath, neither do any of the Apostles then, or afterwards, for when they kept this day the next year, it must have been the second day of the week. We must have better evidence than what has been adduced, to believe this was the Sabbath, for according to the type, seven Sabbaths were to be complete, (and there was no other way given them to come to the right day,) from the day they kept the first, or from the resurrection. Here then is proof positive that the Sabbath in this year was the day before the Pentecost. See Luke xxiii: 55, 56. If President H. is right, then was there two Sabbaths to be kept in succession in one week. Where is the precept? No where! Well, says the inquirer, I want to see the bible proof for this '_Christian Sabbath observed by the disciples, and owned by our Lord_.' W. Jenks. Here it will be necessary for us to understand, first how God has computed time. In Gen. i. we read,
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And [32]God said let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. 14 v. 16 v. says,
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--from sunrise to sunset. Now there are many modes invented for computing time. We say our day begins at 12 o'clock at night; seamen begin theirs twelve hours sooner, at noon; the Jews commence their days at 6 o'clock in the evening, between the two extremes. Are we _all_ right? No! Who shall settle this question? God! Very well: He called the light day, and the darkness he called night, and the evening and the morning were the first day. Gen. i: 5. Then the twenty-four hour day commenced at 6 o'clock in the evening. How is that, says one? Because you cannot regulate the day and night to have what the Saviour calls twelve hours in the day, without establishing the time from the centre of the earth, the equator, where, at the beginning of the sacred year, the sun rises and sets at 6 o'clock. At _this_ time, while the sun is at the summer solstice, the inhabitants of the north pole have no night, while at this same time at the south it is about all night, therefore the inhabitants of the earth have no other right time to commence their twenty-four hour day, than beginning at 6 o'clock in the evening. God said to Moses '_from even, unto even, shall you celebrate your Sabbath_.' Then of course the next day must begin where the Sabbath ended. History shows that the Jews obeyed and commenced their days at 6 o'clock in the evening. Now then we will try to investigate the main argument by which these authors, and thousands of others say the Sabbath was changed. The first is in John xx: 19,
gpt
Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week when the doors where shut where the disciples were assembled _for fear of the Jews_ (mark it) came Jesus and stood in their midst, and said peace be unto you. Here we understand this to be the same day of the resurrection. On that same day he travelled with the two disciples to Emans, sixty furlongs (7-1/2 miles), and they constrained him to abide with them, for it was toward evening and the _day was far spent_. Luke xxiv: 29. After this the disciples travelled the 7-1/2 miles back to Jerusalem and soon after they found the disciples, the Saviour, as above stated, was in their midst. Now it cannot be disputed but what this was the evening after the resurrection, for Jesus rose in the morning, some ten or eleven hours after the first day had commenced. Then the evening of the first day was passing away, and therefore the evening brought to view in [33]the text was the close of the first day or the commencing of the second. McKnight's translation says,
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Purver's translation says,
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Further, wherever the phrase first day of the week, occurs in the New Testament, the word day is in _italics_, showing that it is not the original; but supplied by translators. Again, it is asserted that Jesus met with his disciples the next first day. See 26v:
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And _after_ eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them, then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said peace be unto you. Dr. Adam Clark in referring to this 26v, says:
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It seems likely that this was precisely on that day se'night on which Christ had appeared to them before; and from this we may learn that this was the weekly meeting of the Apostles.