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August-September 1999 The Sabbath Sentinel
Why So Few Sabbatarians?
First edited edition by Kevin Butler
The following article was published in the May 1999 issue of
the Sabbath Recorder, the general church
paper of the Seventh Day Baptists since 1844.
Because we know God says: "The Seventh-day is the Sabbath
of the Lord," we keep it. However sabbath keeping is not
the assurance of our success.
"Why so few Sabbatarians?" As a newcomer to Seventh
Day Baptists, Rev. Madison Harry (see Pearls from the
Past, page 12) asked this question in 1890. Harry went on
to pose more questions and posit even more answers and
theories. His article, "Why has not God blessed
Sabbath-keeping Christians more?" appeared in The
Sabbath Recorder on August 28, 1890. A revised version
became a separate American Sabbath Tract Society
booklet in 1894. The following is from his introduction:
"Why has not God blessed Sabbath-keeping Christians
more?"
This is both a perplexing and painful question to all who
"delight in The law of God, after the inward man." The
meager success of Sabbatarians deters many from joining with us,
though convinced of the scriptural foundation of our position,
and not a few have abandoned our cause on that account. This is
a sad and depressing fact. Why is it? Is it God's will it should
be so? How much of our little success is necessary or
unavoidable, and how much is due to our inefficiency as an
aggressive power and evangelizing agency? This is a practical
question. If it is due to the first cause wholly, then we are
blameless. If in any degree to the latter, then "sin lieth
at the door." We surely, if possible, should know how this
matter stands. How much of our meager success is necessary and
unavoidable?
Some palatable causes for our smallness Rev. Harry listed the
following as some of the causes that have efficiently retarded
our progress.
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The advocates of a pure religion have always been few,
compared with those who have departed from the simplicity of
the faith. This is true of every dispensation [He sites Noah
and Abraham as examples.
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Some reforms must needs be last. They are never
complete. They proceed step by step.
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There are several special reasons why Sabbath reform is slow
or last. Harry noted that Sunday-keeping was, perhaps, the
"first violent departure from the plain command of
God," commencing even before infant baptism or effusion
(pouring). He also viewed Sunday-keeping as "the point
of formal entrance by Satan into the realm of
Christianity."
"The number ten signifies completeness," Harry
explained. The Decalogue (the ten words) is the circle
of man's duties. Satan has broken that circle at the Fourth
Commandment. He has compelled the Christian world to acknowledge
his right at that point.
"Now having considered the principal discouragement in our
way," Harry then inquired, "if they are a sufficient
account of the small success of Sabbatarians in the world? Has
it been God's will it should be so?"
He answers by pointing out that "the most violent
persecutions did not prevent the spread of the Gospel in the
early period of the Christian era, nor in later times. Even the
Sabbath cause seems to have made progress at different times,
especially in England shortly after the Reformation. Truth must
command its own recognition, even by the offering of the blood
of its friends if need be."
What We Are Doing Wrong
In light of the above, Harry asks, "Are we not compelled to
believe that there is some other account of the little success
of Sabbath-keepers, than the powerful opposition and persecution
they have met? Be patient with me brethren, if I now say that
this hindering cause lies in the methods and spirit of
Sabbatarians. Allow me then to call attention to some
discouraging facts that have forced themselves upon my attention
in my short experience among them." (The remaining
excerpts are Harry's words; I added the sub-titles -- Ed.)
"We have the truth!"
Well, do something with it.
Christian denominations which are strongly convinced that they
have the whole truth are very liable to console themselves with
this flattering conviction: "Why, we have the truth, and of
course we must succeed," and because they believe and feel
thus, give themselves little concern about spreading the
truth. Because a man has a plow of the most approved pattern is
not proof that he will raise a better crop than his neighbor
will, with his wooden moldboard plow. Why? The first admires and
boasts of his plow and doesn't do much else, while the latter
makes good use of his.
So brethren, because we know God says: "The Seventh-day is
the Sabbath of the Lord," and we keep it, it is not the
assurance of our success. Nor will publishing tracts and
circulating them insure it. The only efficient way to make men
consider our claims of truth is to carry it to them not in print
merely - but in person. If we have more truth than others, by so
much ought we to be more active, vigorous and
self-sacrificing. Our responsibility is greater, our weapons are
mightier, because we have the whole word of God, and our
spiritual blood ought to be purer because it is not vitiated by
so much error.
Truth is a leavening power, an active force, and must find
expression or die. The purest water held at rest stagnates, and
if the "whole counsel of God" is to prevail in the
world, it must be carried through it, and to it, in living
vessels. The Gospel cannot be sent by carrier-doves; somebody
must "go." Let us not be deceived. Our possessing the
whole truth will not convert the world; we must use the
truth. We must bring it in living vessels to them.
"Sabbath truth cannot prevail!"
Where is your faith?
Another source of weakness among Seventh Day Baptists is the
conviction that Sabbath truth cannot prevail. Elder A.H. Lewis
thinks the majority of them have never yet risen to the
conception that our views can prevail. That they should feel so
is somewhat natural and almost to be expected. All the powers of
earth and hell have been especially combined against them. Not
only the world, but the whole church, corrupted by tradition,
have been joined in unholy wedlock against them. We have been
peculiarly "the sect everywhere spoken against" and so
legislated against, hunted, fined, bruised, and peeled
incessantly, until at last Sabbatarians were quite willing to
hide away in some secluded spot where they might he tolerated
and believe and practice according to their convictions, and
also quite as willing that the rest of the world should move on
in the possession and under the domination of traditions.
They have scarcely asked or expected more than that they might
enjoy the privilege of keeping God's Sabbath among
themselves. Now it is evident that if we are not profoundly
desirous of success of the whole truth, and have not also a
strong faith in the success of the Sabbath, it will never
prevail - at least in our hands. "According to your faith
be it unto you."
"Move to a Sabbath church!"
No, move and build one.
[We] have mainly depended upon the colonization plan for
building up in new places. It is our reproach in the eyes of
other denominations, and the proof to them of the
impracticability of our views. Is that the way Christianity
started in the world? Is it on that plan that any reformation
worth naming ever did succeed? Think of Paul taking twenty or
thirty Christians from Judea and colonizing them at Phillipi,
for instance, in order to establish a church! The Christian body
that pursues that policy will never take the world,
never. That policy is the proof that they don't expect
to do so. And therefore few indeed are the Seventh Day Baptist
churches that have been built up in new communities by
evangelizing them to Christ and the Sabbath.
Our people depend mainly on importation of the Sabbath element
into new places to organize and build up new churches. Moreover,
our people are unwilling to move into some new places. It does
not seem to occur to them to put their letters into the nearest
struggling church - they don't know whether it will succeed or
not, and they prefer to wait until they perhaps move into the
neighborhood of some strong Sabbatarian church.
The moral effect of this spiritual practice is to teach our
young people that it is about impossible to keep the Sabbath,
except in Sabbath communities. Here, no doubt, is the secret
cause of so much Sabbath defection. Our young people, imbibing
this spirit and seeing this policy, naturally conclude that when
they move into Sabbath-less places, they cannot - need
not - keep the Sabbath. They are taught by the spirit and
policy of a denomination that Sabbath-keeping is out of the
question except in the presence of a well-established Seventh
Day Baptist Church. Two things are wanting here: sacrifice, and
faith in the future triumph of all God's law.
"Come to us!"
Go to them!
Another serious lack in our spirit, and defect in our method, is
the absence of purpose and a plan to evangelize the surrounding
neighborhoods and country where our churches are established. So
far as I am able to discover, the custom of our churches is to
have one regular preaching service a week, usually in the
forenoon on the Sabbath. I confess brethren, I was greatly
surprised at this. Sixth-day night is usually given to
prayer-meeting, and Seventh-day night to a singing or some
entertainment. If Sunday churches were to do likewise, that is
have preaching services in the forenoon on Sunday, their success
in gathering in would perhaps not be more than half what it is.
One instance will illustrate. In less than twenty miles of one
of our strongest western churches, a minister of the Gospel had
lived for seventeen years in the same county, and had spoken in
public in various places in the county, and up to the time of
his keeping the Sabbath, themselves into these places and shine
away the darkness, or salt the interest that is "ready to
die."
We never can bring the world back to the whole Word of God while
we cling to the custom unwittingly contracted, perhaps of
segregating in a few desirable localities. And now pardon me if
I say we need the spirit of the Scotch preacher who about three
years ago, had not even heard of said Seventh Day Baptist
Church. And yet this is a large and vigorous church, but so far
as I know is not regularly holding any missionary post far or
near.
How can we expect to evangelize the world with such a policy as
this, or want of any policy? Is it any wonder that other
denominations despise us, and consider us clannish? They see us
huddling together and trying to own every farm in our immediate
neighborhood, or every house and lot on a certain street, or in
the vicinity of our church, and get the idea that the only way
to be a Sabbatarian is to go and do likewise.
Be Salt and Light
Now if we are "the light of the world," let us not put
all the light under one bushel; if we are "the salt of the
earth," let us not put all the salt on one piece of
meat. The Seventh Day Baptists have both more talent and wealth
than I expected to find. And there are thousands of places in
the land sadly in need of light and salt. Let us send it to them
in the shape of a living epistle, and if we can't send one, no
doubt many might go who divided the text, "They that turn
the world upside down have come hither also" as follows: 1)
The world is turned wrong-side up. 2) It must be turned right
side up. 3) And we are the chaps to do it.
We Have a Special Mission
We must believe that we have a special mission, and that that
mission is to the whole world, and not in the exceedingly few
localities of our churches. It is futile to wait for the world
to get ready to receive the Sabbath. "The field is already
white unto the harvest." "Pray the Lord for
laborers." "Go ye out into the highways and compel
them to come in." Surely we need one huge camp meeting, and
to "tarry at Jerusalem until we are endowed with power from
on high" that then we may "go into all the world and
preach the Gospel to every creature." We lack evangelizing
power. We need "power with men and God." But we surely
never will receive it until we rise to the conniption "that
every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be
rooted up," the Sunday-Sabbath and all. How many of us are
ready to say, "Here am I, Lord, send me."
Kevin Butler is editor of the Sabbath
Recorder. Correspondence to him can be sent to TSS
and it will be forwarded to him.
TSS
August - September 1999 The Sabbath Sentinel
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