In 1664, Stephen Munford introduced the Seventh Day Baptist Church and its observance of the seventh-day Sabbath to North America. Nearly two centuries later, the Sabbath was introduced to, and accepted by, a portion of William Miller\u2019s failed Adventist movement.<\/p>\n
A member of the Seventh Day Baptist Church named Rachel Oakes convinced Frederick Wheeler, a Millerite Adventist pastor, and his congregation at Washington, New Hampshire, to begin observing the Sabbath in March 1844. T. M. Preble submitted an article supporting Sabbath observance to Joseph Turner\u2019s Adventist publication, The<\/em> Hope of Israel<\/em>, which appeared February 28, 1845. Preble\u2019s article caught the attention of Joseph Bates, an activist in William Miller\u2019s Adventist movement. After an all-night Bible study with Wheeler, Bates began observing the Sabbath. In 1846, he introduced Sabbath observance to a portion of the Millerite Adventists\u2019 defunct movement through James and Ellen White, founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.<\/p>\n Bates also convinced Gilbert Cranmer and Merritt E. Cornell, both Millerite Adventists, to become Sabbathkeepers in 1852. In March 1858, Cranmer established the Church of Christ, in southwestern Michigan. Cornell, employed by James White as an evangelist, founded the Church of Jesus Christ, Marion, Iowa, in June 1860. These churches were the earliest predecessors to the Church of God (Seventh Day).<\/p>\n Since the observance of the Sabbath is stated in the fourth of the Ten Commandments, Sabbathkeeping became synonymous with the phrase \u201cthe observance of the whole law\u201d in the 1850s. Those who worshipped on Sunday were said to be keeping nine-tenths of the law, and their salvation was suspect by many Sabbathkeepers.<\/p>\n The Church of God\u2019s position on the law of God in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was addressed by Alexander C. Long. His tract titled The Two Laws<\/em> was published in January 1898 and became a permanent part of the Church\u2019s Bible Tract Series. It supported the Church\u2019s decades-old position on the nature of God\u2019s laws by stating that God gave Israel two laws: one, the Ten Commandments \u2014 a universal, eternal, moral, and unchanging law; and the second, the law containing instructions on Judaism\u2019s annual Sabbaths, ceremonies, and sacrifices, written by Moses in a book.<\/p>\n Based on Long\u2019s concept of the law, the Church of the 1860s through the early 1900s did not teach her members to tithe their increases for the support of her gospel endeavors, nor to abstain from the use of meats that the Bible declared unclean. The Church considered those laws to be a part of Moses\u2019 law and, therefore, no longer in force.<\/p>\n In 1915, Andrew N. Dugger, treasurer of the General Conference, resurrected a resolution that the General Conference had adopted in 1891. It recognized the \u201ctithing system,\u201d not the \u201claw of tithing,\u201d to be its main source of funding. Throughout the 1920s, his implementation of the tithing system resulted in a great increase in the Conference\u2019s tithe receipts and unprecedented growth in the Church\u2019s membership.<\/p>\n However, by the 1930s the tithing system and the distinction between clean and unclean meats were being taught as an obligation of law in some quarters of the Church. The Church\u2019s revision of her doctrinal statement, What the Church of God Believes, And Why<\/em> in 1949, made them an obligation of the law.<\/p>\n But by the 1970s, the Church of God\u2019s theology was undergoing a dramatic change from her legalisms. It became Christ centered and grace based and abandoned the concept of the two laws. Further, the Church concluded that the new covenant established in Christ\u2019s blood retained only the moral precepts, including the Sabbath, of the Ten Commandments. This change of emphasis was reflected in the revision of her doctrinal statements in 1994.<\/p>\n The Church\u2019s present position on the Sabbath, tithing, and diet are non-legalistic, as stated in her Statement of Faith<\/em>, 2010:<\/p>\n Article 8, The Sabbath: The seventh-day Sabbath is God\u2019s gift to humanity from creation, was written into the Ten Commandments . . . kept and taught by Jesus, and observed by the apostolic church. A memorial of both creation and redemption, the Sabbath should be faithfully celebrated by believers now as a day of rest, worship, and well-doing.<\/p>\n Article 10, Christian Living: Christians\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 are called to holiness in thought, word, and deed and to express faith in Christ through devotion to God and godly interaction with others. As a result \u2014 not a cause \u2014 of redemption, believers should . . . observe these Bible principles: give tithe and freewill offerings for the support of the church and its gospel ministry; eat for food only those meats the Bible describes as \u201cclean.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n The Church of God continues to celebrate Sabbath rest as a gift to humanity by the God of creation, among the other moral precepts of the Commandments. She does not observe because they were given as law, as previously taught by the Church, but as a new creation in Christ, devoted to pleasing our God and Savior in love!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Read Alexander Long\u2019s extensive <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1664, Stephen Munford introduced the Seventh Day Baptist Church and its observance of the seventh-day Sabbath to North America. Nearly two centuries later, the Sabbath was introduced to, and accepted by, a portion of William Miller\u2019s failed Adventist movement. A member of the Seventh Day Baptist Church named Rachel Oakes convinced Frederick Wheeler, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":4653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[99,87,1229,573,1562,163,139,112,778],"yoast_head":"\n
\nlist of the two laws in contrast at
\n<\/em>baonline.cog7engage.net.<\/p>\n