Chapter IX: Part 9

Fifthly, that Pliny, a heathen writer, employs neither the term Lord’s day nor Sabbath, but simply speaks of a stated day, without identification.

Sixthly, that Irenæus is not properly represented as speaking of the Sunday in the use of the title Lord’s day, since that expression, in both the instances alluded to, was the language of Eusebius, who lived in the fourth century, and not of Irenæus, who lived in the second.

Seventhly, that Tertullian, who lived at the close of the second and the commencement of the third century, and who was a wild fanatic of the Montanist school, utterly unworthy to represent the sentiments of his times, is the first witness from whom the gentleman has succeeded in obtaining an unequivocal application of the term, Lord’s day, to the first day of the week; also, that he had connected with it, prayers for the dead, the sign of the cross, &c., &c.

Eighthly, that Origen was a man of great learning; that it was questionable whether he believed in a septenary Sabbath, or in one that covered the whole dispensation; and that, in fact, it is admitted by his friends that his works have become so corrupt as to be utterly untrustworthy in the matter of deciding respecting his real opinions.

Ninthly, that Cyprian and his colleagues addressed us from a point of time too far removed from the period of the alleged change of Sabbaths, and too fully within that of the great apostasy, to be of service in an exegesis of the Scriptures.

Tenthly, that three of the most pointed and satisfactory of the testimonies heretofore employed by first-day writers, are now abandoned as having been the result of mistake in translation, or in the matter of attributing them to the proper persons. Summing, up, therefore, in a word we inquire again, What has been gained by this departure? We believe that all must see that it has been an entire failure; for, so far as the Sabbath is concerned, we think the reader will hesitate long before he will leave the Scriptures, in the matter of deciding upon its obligation, in order to build the structure of his faith from such material as we have been handling over.

Also, as to the question of what day John referred to in Rev. 1:10, when he said, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day,” he will deliberate very much before he will decide that it was the first day of the week, simply because an untrustworthy man, admitted to have been heretical on many points, called it such 200 years after the birth of Christ, while Jehovah himself has given to the seventh day that honor, styling it the “Sabbath of the Lord,” “the holy of the Lord, honorable,” &c., and while Christ himself has declared in so many words, that he was the Lord of the Sabbath day. Mark 2:27, 28.

STATESMAN’S REPLY.
ARTICLE NINE.
THEORIES OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.

With the facts of history before us concerning sacred time for nearly three centuries after the resurrection of Christ—facts drawn from the inspired writers of the New Testament and their immediate successors, we are prepared to consider the different theories of the Christian Sabbath. These theories may be summed up in three. Of one or another of these, all the remaining theories are simply modifications.

The first of these three leading theories is as follows: “The Sabbath was a Jewish institution, and expired with the Jewish dispensation. The Lord’s day is not in any proper sense a Sabbath. It has an origin, a reason, and an obligation, not drawn from the fourth commandment, but peculiarly its own, as an institution belonging specially to the New-Testament dispensation.”

The second theory, in the order in which we notice these different views, maintains that the observance of the Sabbath, as required under the Old-Testament dispensation, knows no change in any particular. The observance of the seventh day of the week is essential to the proper observance of the Sabbath under the gospel dispensation. The observance of the first day of the week is without divine warrant—a departure from the law of God through the corruptions which crept into the church.

The third theory agrees with the second in maintaining that the Sabbath existed from the beginning, and that it has never been abolished or superseded. It disagrees with the second theory in maintaining that the essential idea of the law of the Sabbath is not the holiness of a portion of time, but the _consecration of a specified proportion of time_, one day in seven; that, in accordance with this, a change of day was admissible; that a change was actually made by divine warrant from the resurrection of Christ; and that the first day of the week, the Lord’s day, is the true Christian Sabbath, having its moral sanction in the fourth commandment.

By many of those who hold the first of these theories, the Lord’s day is made a purely ecclesiastical institution, without any other warrant for its observance than the action of the church, by whose authority and in whose wisdom, the day is set apart for divine service. By others who accept the same general theory, apostolic authority in the early church is admitted to afford a divine warrant for the observance of the day. In a complete treatise on the Lord’s day, a careful discussion of this theory would be required. Its want of any sufficient foundation could be satisfactorily shown by a presentation of the following points: (1.) The declaration of the Lord of the Sabbath is explicit—“The Sabbath was made for man.” It was not made for any portion of the human family, but for the race of mankind. (2.) Thus, from the design of its Lord, and the very nature of the institution, the Sabbath cannot be limited to any locality or dispensation. (3.) Accordingly, it was given to man at his creation. (Gen. 3:3.) (4.) For the same reason, the law of the Sabbath has its proper place, not among ceremonial, local, or positive enactments, but among the immutable moral precepts of the decalogue. (5.) This law is, therefore, of universal and perpetual obligation upon our race. These points would give room for many articles; but, inasmuch as on all of them there is entire agreement between our seventh-day Sabbatarian friends and ourselves, we pass to a consideration of the second theory, which they accept as correct.

To make good their case, the advocates of the second theory must show that the seventh day continued to be the Sabbath observed by the church after the resurrection of Christ, just as before; and that, in the observance of the first day, a great departure took place from the original practice of the Christian church. They must not make _bare_ statements, but they must furnish proof. Instead of appealing to the letter of the law, and insisting that fact must conform to their interpretation of it, they must accept the facts of history, and put their interpretations to the test. It is more reasonable to conclude that an interpretation of law is wrong, than to reject the attested facts of history, when the interpretation and the facts do not harmonize.

Let us briefly sum up the facts already fully brought to view. Christ himself, after his resurrection, passed by the seventh day, and repeatedly put special honor on the first day of the week. This same day was honored by the Pentecostal gift of the Holy Spirit. Christian congregations met for regular weekly service, not on the seventh day, but on the first day of the week. The inspired apostle Paul pointedly condemned the Judaizing teachers who insisted on the observance by Christians of the seventh-day Sabbath. The early writers, companions of the apostles, and others of the succeeding generations, bear the clearest and most explicit testimony to the same facts—the non-observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, and the stated meetings of Christians for divine service on the first day of the week, the Lord’s day. Now, if their theory is correct, how will the seventh-day Sabbatarians explain the fact that Christ himself, the Holy Spirit, inspired apostles, and Christian congregations all through the early church, ignored the seventh day and honored the first? A general and vague statement to the effect that an unwarranted change was made from the original practice of the Christian church will not do here. Was not the practice of the apostles and first organized congregations of Christians the original practice of the Christian church? That practice was, as we have seen, to observe the first day of the week. We repeat what we have already proved at length, viz., that there is not an instance in the Scriptures of the observance of the seventh day by any Christian church, nor of any regard to that day, after Christ’s resurrection, by apostles or their fellow-laborers, except as they availed themselves, in their missionary work, of the meetings of Jewish assemblies in Jewish places of worship. “An unwarranted change!” Let those who take such language upon their lips consider that their charge lies at the door of Christ and his Spirit, and the inspired apostles.

But now, for the sake of the argument, let us leave all the testimony of the inspired writers of the New Testament to the first-day Sabbath out of view. Again we have the vague charge of unwarranted change. Perhaps the most definite form of this charge is that which makes the change the work of the little horn in Daniel’s prophecy, chapter seven. But will the expounder of Daniel be a little more explicit, and tell us who the historical personage is, and give us the dates and names of history? Does the little horn represent Antiochus Epiphanes? if so, then, of course, his change of the law of the Sabbath must have been before the Christian era. Will our expositor give us some facts just here? If the little horn means the papacy, then, according to the prophecy itself, it did not arise until the Roman Empire, represented by the fourth beast, was broken into ten fragments, represented by the ten horns. The little horn sprang up after these, and its change of the law of the Sabbath must date after the fall of the old empire of Rome. But for centuries before this event, we have the testimony of numerous writers that the Christian churches everywhere observed, not the seventh, but the first, day of the week, the Lord’s day. Again we ask for facts, not mere statements and theories.

Leaving this vague attempt to connect the assumed unwarranted change with Daniel’s prophesy, we come to what is, if possible, still more vague and indefinite. A change, it is asserted, was made by some particular officer or council of the church, as it became corrupt and began to depart from the practice of the original church of Christ. Who was this officer? or where did this council meet? But we will not make unreasonable demands for historical testimony. Let us grant that such an officer or such a council there was at some time or other. The question then arises, When did the change take place? In the days of Cyprian, A. D. 250? The answer is clear. The change most have been made before his day. Origen and Tertullian, fifty years earlier, knew only the first day of the week, the Lord’s day, as the Christian Sabbath. Was the change then made in their day? We might assume that it was, only for the clear testimony of Irenæus and Justin Martyr, carrying us back another half century, and the equally explicit testimony of still earlier writers, carrying us back to the apostles themselves.

Notwithstanding all this dearth of historical testimony as to the existence of the supposed ruler or council, let it be further granted that by some such corrupting authority, at some time a decree changing the day for Sabbath observance was issued. How did the supposed legislators establish their decree? How did they make it effectual over all the different parts of the church? Must we we suppose that a change like this was effected in the church, and not a scrap of a record left concerning it? The attempt made by the church to establish a common day for the anniversary of Christ’s resurrection gave rise to long and bitter controversy, and led to division. And yet, as Prof F. D. Maurice has well said, “It is supposed that this far more important change, affecting all the daily relations and circumstances of life, took effect by the decree of some apostle or some ecclesiastical synod, of which no record, no legend, even is preserved! Or, perhaps, a half-heathen, more than half-heathen, statute of Constantine,[14] about the _Dies Solis_ accomplished what the legislators of the church could not accomplish—succeeded not only in securing its adoption by Athanasians, Arians, Semi-Arians, whose controversies Constantine could never heal, but in securing the allegiance of all the barbarous tribes which accepted the gospel under such various conditions in later times. Can any suppositions make greater demands on our credulity than these?” A Procrustean bed indeed must be that interpretation of the law of the Sabbath which, to conform them to itself, must thus deal with the facts of history and the probabilities of historical evidence.

Just here is the difficulty in the theory of Seventh-day Sabbatarians. They have somehow got lodged in their mind the idea that the last one of the seven days of the week is the sacred day, the observance of which is absolutely essential to the proper keeping of the Sabbath. What has already been proved from history, inspired and uninspired, is sufficient to show that this theory is unworthy of men who, like Christ and his apostles, would grasp the true significance of the law of the Sabbath. But as so much stress is laid upon the question of time, we shall devote our next article to this crucial and very practical point.

Footnote 14:

The attempt to attribute the change of day to Constantine’s decree is
hardly worth noticing. It is enough to remember that it was issued in
the beginning of the fourth century. No one who knows anything of the
writings of Tertullian and Origen dating back more than a century
before Constantine, to say nothing of still earlier writers, will
venture to ascribe the change to Roman Emperor’s decree. Besides, the
language of the very decree referred to recognizes the honorable
diameter of the first day of the week. It recognizes that day as
already “venerable.”—_The Christian._

A REJOINDER.
“THEORIES OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.”

The thoughtful reader need not be told that the article which he has just read, entitled, “Theories of the Christian Sabbath,” has advanced the discussion of the question before us in no material respect. The space devoted so generously to the consideration of theories, in regard to the unsoundness of which there is no difference of opinion between the gentleman and myself, is thrown away, so far as the present argument is concerned. While this is true, however, if it serves no other purpose, it has at least made it clear that, if the gentleman fails to make out his case in the end, it will not be because he has not had ample room for the presentation and elaboration of facts and arguments, since one who was crippled in his effort by a lack of space would hardly be willing to devote so much time and attention to subjects foreign to the present issue.

That which is said with reference to these theories might also be repeated in reference to the statement and restatement of points which it is claimed have been proved. Of course, it is the prerogative of any writer to conduct his own argument in his own way. All that we would call attention to is the fact that the line of policy pursued, in these things, is of a nature to satisfy even the most casual observer, that one who felt that he had resources upon which to draw, without limit, would not compel us to pass again and again over the same ground. There is, however, an apology which might properly be offered in the case of the gentleman, for calling our attention to these trivial points so repeatedly, which is found in the fact that his articles were written before our rejoinders were in print. We believe that, were not this the case, and had he perused what has been said in reply to them, we should be spared the monotony of answering them again. However, lest we should seem to avoid them, it will only be necessary that we say enough, bearing upon each point, to revive, in the mind of one who has followed us thus far, the fuller consideration given to all of them heretofore.

To the statement that Sabbatarians, in order to make good their case, must make their views harmonize with the facts of history, it is enough to say that, if it is meant by this, the facts of sacred history, as contained in the Bible, this we have already done; for before it can be urged that the opposite is true, as we have elsewhere seen, it must be shown that there is some transaction found in the sacred record which is in conflict with our interpretation of the law. This has not been done; for not only has it been made to appear that the Sabbath law is explicit in its requirement of the observance of the seventh day of the week, but also that there is not a single case of its violation, by a good man, to be found in the inspired pages.

Nor is this all; we have gone beyond this, and proved, by the record, that the opposite was true of the Sunday, since upon it Christ and two of his disciples, on the day of his resurrection, as well as Paul and Luke and others at a subsequent period, did perform upon it labor, which the gentleman himself has not attempted, and will not undertake, to harmonize with any just conception of intelligent Sabbath-keeping. So far as it regards the absence of any mention of meetings of Christians on the Sabbath, it is sufficient to say, as we have already done, that, as in the history given, the account relates largely to missionary trips, where there was no church as yet developed, and, consequently, no possibility of separate meetings, such a record would be out of the question; also, that the argument is only a negative one, and really can have no force, until it can be demonstrated that God’s plan is first to command, and then show, in every instance what the commandment means, by practical illustrations furnished from the history of his people; a doctrine which is not only unsound and untrue, but absurd in the extreme.

If, on the other hand, the gentleman means to be understood as insisting that the history of the church since the close of the canon of inspiration must be made to teach the faith which we hold as one which has always been entertained by the church, and therefore sound, we repudiate, in the name of Protestantism, this most pernicious view, and in all matters of practical duty, such as Sabbath-keeping, we decide according to the written word. To the first source (church history), the gentleman has appealed, and if every candid man and woman who has witnessed his effort has not been disgusted with the source to which he has applied, then we know of nothing which would be calculated to create in him this condition of mind.

With the summary, in which it is claimed that Christ, and the apostles, and the Holy Spirit, and the early church, did repeatedly honor the first day of the week, we will not weary the reader here. We have disproved every one of these points, and we trust to the intelligence of those whom we are addressing, in the confident belief that what has been said, in the absence of even an attempt at refutation, needs not to be reproduced here.

We had barely mentioned, in our original articles, that Seventh-day Adventists held to the opinion that the pope of Rome had been instrumental in bringing about the change of the Sabbath. No effort was made to develop the argument on that point, since we did not dare to presume that room would be granted for the perfecting of the work; in fact, what was said was uttered rather with a view to calling the attention of the curious to our published works upon that subject, than for any other purpose. Now, however, this point is made to assume a prominence which does not really belong to it, in an argument so largely doctrinal rather than historic.

With this, nevertheless, we have no fault to find. Nothing is more satisfactory than the awakening of a spirit of investigation on all branches of this great subject; at the same time, we submit that the attitude of the gentleman must be very unsatisfactory to himself, since he will readily perceive that to an opponent, chafing under a denial of the privilege of answering him in the columns of his own paper, this whole affair wears the aspect of an empty bravado. “Tell us,” says the editor, and he repeats his invitation again and again, “Whom did this little horn represent? Was it Antiochus? or the pope? If the latter, then how, and when, and where, did he bring about the transition?”

But we reply, Whom do you mean, sir, by the term, “us”? Truly, you would not require us to come to Philadelphia to enlighten you personally upon that point. Certainly, you are not particularly anxious that we should write a series of articles for the benefit of the readers of the _Review_, on a matter with which they are as familiar as they are with the history of their own country; but if, indeed, you had in your mind the readers of the _Statesman_, then it may be inquired again, How has it been possible for us to reach them, under the circumstances? since, throwing your forces behind the wall of your editorial prerogative, and closing against us the gate of possibility, you have shut us out from all access to them. Gladly would we have availed ourselves of the opportunity of doing that which we have been denied the privilege of attempting before the men, many of whom, we believe, would have been glad to follow this matter to the end; but as this cannot be done, a brief reply will be made here.

The first inquiry, relating, as it does, to the point whether Antiochus Epiphanes or the pope, was meant by the “little horn,” in the seventh of Daniel, need not consume time. It has been urged by some that the “little horn,” of Dan. 8:9, applied to the former character. We believe the papists still insist upon this; but the gentleman, upon reflection—if in what he has said he has confounded the two—will not seriously argue against the almost universal admission of Protestant writers, that the power brought to view in the seventh chapter of Daniel’s prophecy, is that of the papacy. In fact, reasoning as he does himself, most satisfactorily, that it could not arise until after the appearance of the original ten, which represented the final breaking up of the Roman Empire into ten parts, he more than intimates his personal conviction that it could not represent Antiochus Epiphanes, who reigned one hundred and seventy-five years before Christ, since the Roman Empire was not partitioned among the barbarians who invaded it, until A. D. 483, more than six hundred years after the death of the Syrian king.

The following, from a standard authority, will serve to show an almost universal agreement on this subject; and with its presentation we pass to the investigation of questions more difficult, and more worthy of our reflection. “Among Protestant writers, this (‘the little horn,’ of Dan. 7:8) is considered to be the popedom.”—_A. Clarke, Com. in loco._

“To none can this (‘He shall speak great words againt the Most High’) apply so well, and so fully, as to the popes of Rome.”—_Idem_, v. 25.

The real point of debate, as intimated above, is the question whether the Roman Catholic church has been instrumental in bringing about the change of the Sabbath. The gentleman errs in asserting that we have anywhere stated that such a change was brought about by any particular officer or council. This we have never urged, nor does it accord with the view held by us. The “little horn” represented, not one, merely, but a whole line of priest-kings, who were to extend from the time of their rise, to the Judgment, and the setting up of the kingdom of God. Of this line of rulers, it is stated—not that they should really succeed in bringing about an actual change in the requirements of the law of God—but that they should “_think_” to accomplish this end. It is also said that, for a time, times, and dividing of time (1260 years), the saints of God and the law of God should be delivered into their hands. Not, indeed, that God would forsake either his people or his law, utterly, but that, for the period in question, they should be permitted to pursue a course destructive to the one, and antagonistic to the other. In other words, that they should put to death the saints, and presume to alter the commandments of God.

These specifications are simply introduced by way of identification. It is not said that the power indicated should spring into life suddenly, and without a previous stage of development; nor is it declared that the principles which were to characterize it in its mature life should be wholly peculiar to itself. Other powers, such as pagan Rome, might have persecuted the people of God before the rise of the papacy, as they unquestionably did. Other men might have begun the work of tampering with the law of God, long before the days of the hierarchy, and might have prepared to its hands the materials necessary to the accomplishment of the final blasphemous work of the man of sin.

In the days of Paul, “the mystery of iniquity began to work,” and from that point, its history was one of gradual development. Some of the most destructive heresies afterward incorporated into the faith of papists, it is well understood, were fully fledged, and quite generally accepted, before the installation of the first pope. So, too, concerning the first-day Sabbath. There can be little doubt that before the bishop of Rome became the “Corrector of Heretics,” in A. D. 538, or entered the chair of St. Peter, the Sunday had come to be regarded, by many, as the rival, if not the superior, of the ancient Sabbath. Just how extensively the sentiment prevailed, however, it is hard to determine from church history, because, as has been shown in a previous article, the sources of our information have been so corrupted by unprincipled Romanists, that it is difficult to arrive at the facts in the case.

One thing is certain; there was a mighty struggle on this question, the gentleman to the contrary, notwithstanding, which has left the marks of its existence in the records of the past. Clear down to the rise of Roman Catholicism, there were men who were strenuous for the observance of the seventh day, and rejecters of its rival. Doubtless the Sunday, by slow degrees, had worked itself into almost universal acceptance as a festival resting upon human, and not divine, authority; but the Sabbath of the Lord still continued in the faith of many, especially in the East, as a day to be sacredly devoted to the worship of God. On this point, Neander, the learned church historian, has given distinct and unequivocal utterance:—

“The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect; far from them and from the early apostolic church to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century, a false application of this kind had began to take place; for men appear, by that time, to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.”—_Rose’s Translation of Neander_, p. 186.[15]

Giesler also remarks as follows: “While the Christians of Palestine, who kept the whole Jewish law, celebrated, of course, all the Jewish festivals, the heathen converts observed only the Sabbath, and in remembrance of the closing scenes of our Saviour’s life, the passover, though without the Jewish superstitions. Besides these, the Sunday as the day of our Saviour’s resurrection, was devoted to religious worship.”—_Church Hist., Apostolic Age to A. D. 70._

Lyman Coleman, in his “Ancient Christianity Exemplified,” testifies as follows: “The observance of the Lord’s day as the first day of the week was at first introduced as a separate institution. Both this and the Jewish Sabbath were kept for some time; finally, the latter passed wholly over into the former, which now took the place of the ancient Sabbath of the Israelites. But their Sabbath, the last day of the week, was strictly kept in connection with that of the first day for a long time after the overthrow of the temple and its worship. Down even to the fifth century, the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian church, but with a rigor and solemnity gradually diminishing, until it was wholly discontinued.... Both were observed in the Christian church down to the fifth century, with this difference, that in the eastern church, both days were regarded as joyful occasions; but in the western, the Jewish Sabbath was kept as a fast.” Chap. 26, sect. 2.

Wm. Twisse, whose antique style comports with that of the period in which he wrote, most pointedly declares the same fact in a work entitled, “The Morality of the Fourth Commandment:” “Yet for some hundred years in the primitive church, not the Lord’s day only, but the seventh day also, was religiously observed, not by Ebion and Cerinthus only, but by pious Christians also, as Baronius writeth and Gomaius confesseth, and Rivut also.” Page 9, London, 1641.

Morer, in speaking of the early Christians, remarks of them as follows: “The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and sermons, and it is not to be doubted but they derived the practice from the apostles themselves.”—_Morer’s Lord’s Day_, p. 189.

Edward Brerewood, professor in Gresham College, London, writes: “The ancient Sabbath did remain, and was observed by the Christians of the east church above three hundred years after our Saviour’s death, and besides that, no other day, for more hundred years than I spoke of before, was known in the church by the name of the Sabbath.” Page 77, ed. 1631.

Prof. Stuart, in speaking of the period between A. D. 321 and the council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, furnishes the following interesting statement, which discloses the historic fact concerning the ebb and flow of discussion on this subject in the early church: “The practice of it [the keeping of the Sabbath], was continued by Christians who were jealous for the honor of the Mosaic law, and finally became, as we have seen, predominant throughout Christendom. It was supposed at length that the fourth commandment did require the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath [not merely a seventh part of time], and reasoning as Christians of the present day are wont to do, viz., that _all_ which belongs to the ten commandments was immutable and perpetual, the churches in general came gradually to regard the seventh-day Sabbath as altogether sacred.”—_Appendix to Gurney’s Hist. of Sabbath_, pp. 115, 116.

Concerning the same council, Prynne has made a similar historic record; “The seventh-day Sabbath was solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean Council did, in a manner, quite abolish the observance of it.... The Council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, first settled the observance of the Lord’s day, and prohibited keeping of the Jewish Sabbath, under an anathema.”—_Dissertation on the Lord’s Sabbath_, pp. 33, 44, ed. 1633.

In alluding to the differences in practice between the eastern and the western churches, Neander distinctly sets forth the resolute animosity of the latter to the ancient Sabbath of the Lord, and the manner in which they sought to bring it into disrepute, while elevating the Sunday into favor. He says: “In the western churches, particularly the Roman, where opposition to Judaism was the prevailing tendency, this very opposition produced the custom of celebrating the Saturday as a fast day. This difference of customs would, of course, be striking, where members of the Oriental church spent their Sabbath day in the western church.”—_Hist. Chris. Rel. and Church, First Three Centuries. Rose’s trans._, p. 186.

Peter Heylyn also marks the peculiar favor shown to the first day of the week in the western church; and while he declares at one time that it was near “nine hundred years from the Saviour’s birth before restraint of husbandry on this day [Sunday] had been first thought of in the east,” he elsewhere records the fact that in the fifth and sixth centuries general unanimity respecting the exaltation to divine honor was reached. He writes: “The faithful, being united more than ever before, became more uniform in matters of devotion, and in that uniformity did agree together to give the Lord’s day all the honors of a holy festival, yet this was not done all at once, but by degrees, the fifth and sixth centuries being fully spent before it came unto that hight which has since continued. The emperors and the prelates in these times had the same affections, both earnest to advance this day above all others; and to the edicts of the one, and to the ecclesiastical constitutions of the others, it stands indebted for many of those privileges and exemptions which it still enjoyeth.”—_Hist. Sab._, part 2, chap. 4, sect. 1.

Thus it has been proved, by citations from men who have possessed the resources, as well as the disposition, to make themselves acquainted with the history of the first centuries of the Christian church, first, that the first day of the week was looked upon for a long time as a merely human institution; secondly, that the Edenic Sabbath was for centuries after the crucifixion of Christ quite generally celebrated; thirdly, that prejudice against it seems to have been strongest and to have originated earliest at Rome, where, in order to bring it into odium, it was made a day of fasting, while the Sunday was treated as a festival; fourthly, that after a struggle, which extended through hundreds of years, the ancient Sabbath was finally quite generally repudiated, and the Sunday, through the united efforts of prelates, councils, and emperors, was enthroned and enforced upon all.

Into the details of this long and varying conflict, in which victory seems first to have favored the one side and then the other, we are restricted by the limits of our communication from entering. The intelligent reader can readily fill in the outlines which have been given, and will not be slow to perceive that the contest, from the very nature of things, must have been one of intense interest and heated debate. If he would satisfy himself most fully that the gentleman is mistaken in saying that it has left no traces, we refer him for a more full discussion to the authorities quoted.

Changing now the point of view, we will come to the present time. We return once more to the charge that the church of Rome, availing itself of the condition of things which preceded its rise, has consummated the terrible work which was begun with the great apostasy, long before the papacy proper was fully developed. In prosecuting the labor thus entered upon, the reader is invited to pause a moment and decide upon certain principles which ought to govern in the decision of the question. He will remember that if he has been educated in the observance of Sunday, he will be in danger of requiring more testimony than could reasonably be demanded, since his education, and personal interest, and standing, would all incline him to a conservatism which needs to be guarded with a jealous care, lest it should result in a bias which would terminate in the rejection of sufficient light.

All that we ask him to do is to treat this subject the same as he would any other matter of fact. To illustrate: If the body of a murdered man were discovered upon the street, and if there should be found in the community one whose character was bad in every respect, concerning whom those who knew him best had given warning; if on the garments of this suspicious personage blood stains were found; if, in the meantime, a careful examination of the wounds should show that they had been inflicted by a weapon peculiar to the notorious individual; and if, in addition to the foregoing, he should step forward and frankly confess that he had done the deed, no court in the world would hesitate to inflict the penalty of the law, because of any doubt regarding the guilt of the offending party. Now applying the same principles to the case in hand, if every one can be shown to hold good in every particular, then consistency demands that they should produce a conviction equally clear and strong with that in the mind of the court, in determining in the case of the homicide upon the infliction of punishment.

But is it true that the charge against the Roman Catholic church can be made out as conclusively as that against the individual mentioned above? Let us see. The first point there brought forward was the unquestionable fact that the man had been murdered. This was the starting point of the whole affair. That which answers to it in the case before us is the fact that the change of the Sabbath has been made out beyond reasonable doubt; for God commanded the observance of the seventh day, while, somehow, Christendom is generally observing the first, though utterly incapable of furnishing Scripture warrant for the change.

The second point was that respecting the bad reputation of a certain character in the community—its parallel in the persons of the popes is found in the fact that, as we have seen, their rise and history were symbolized centuries before their appearance under the type of the “little horn” of the seventh of Daniel, by one who never errs in his analysis of character, and who declared of the “man of sin” that he should “think to change times and laws,” and that they should be given into his hands for “a time and times and the dividing of time,” thus proving that this blasphemous power who was to open his mouth in blasphemy against God is capable of attempting the transfer of God’s holy Sabbath to a day different from that pointed out in the commandment.

The third point, which related to blood stains upon the garments of the suspected person, finds its counterpart in the teachings of Romanism, most clearly. We learn, in the writings of Moses, that the blood is the life of the individual. This, however, is not more true than it is that the fourth commandment is the life of the Sabbatic institution. If you mar that commandment, you mar the Sabbath in the same ratio. If you destroy that commandment, you destroy the Sabbath. But the assumed ability to alter this precept as well as others of the decalogue is one of the very crimes of which Rome has been guilty, by which she has blotched all over in the most loathsome manner the garments of a once spotless Christianity, and a profoundly reverent faith. That this is so will become manifest when we present a copy of the decalogue as it has been mutilated by the Romish church in the exercise of a pretended divine right to accomplish such a work. For this purpose we append the ten commandments as they stand in Butler’s catechism.[16]

“1. I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me, &c. 2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. 3. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. 4. Honor thy father and thy mother. 5. Thou shalt not kill. 6. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 7. Thou shalt not steal, 8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. 9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.”

Hero it will be seen that the second commandment is dropped out altogether, and that the tenth is divided; a portion of it retaining its ancient number, and the remaining portion of it being numbered as the ninth commandment, thereby making the complement of the original ten, which would have been reduced to nine by ignoring the one against image worship. It will also be perceived that with the exception of the words, “Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day,” the fourth commandment is left out entirely. True, it may be that in the Douay Bible the original commandments are allowed to remain intact, but we shall see hereafter that the above arrangement is not accidental, and that the power to make these changes is unhesitatingly claimed.

The fourth point was that concerning the form and nature of the wound, whereby it was discovered that it was made with a weapon precisely such as one possessed by the suspected party. The correspondence in this particular will be found in the boundary of the new Sabbath; in its beginning and ending, occurring as they do at twelve o’clock, midnight, are the unmistakable marks of the band of one who most assuredly did not live at Jerusalem, and who left upon the creature of his own power the badge of its origin at Rome.

The Jews, as we have seen heretofore, by the agreement of commentators and scholars generally, as well as by the testimony of the Bible, commenced and ended their days with the setting of the sun. At Rome, on the other hand, as well as in other parts of the world, the day began as we now begin the Sunday—at midnight. In this, it is made apparent that some one has been tampering with a day which it is claimed was hallowed by Christ eighteen hundred years ago; since, if it had originated at that time and in that place, it would have conformed in its beginning and ending to the weekly Sabbath, the day of Pentecost, and the other days in the Jewish calendar. The presumption concerning whom this person is, is already made out. The certainty respecting it will be established under the next heading.

The fifth point cited above was the confession of the culprit. Under ordinary circumstances, this alone would have made a conviction inevitable. Answering to it in the fullest degree are the oft-repeated declarations of Romanists, that they have changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, and that they had the ability and the right thus to do. Respecting these assumptions, we might introduce quotations almost without number, but we must content ourselves with a few brief but pointed ones.[17]

“_Ques._ What are the days which the church commands to be kept holy?”

“_Ans._ 1. The Sundays, or our Lord’s day, which we observe by apostolical tradition instead of the Sabbath. 2. The feasts of our Lord’s nativity, or Christmas day; his circumcision, or New Year’s day; the Epiphany, or twelfth day; Easter day, or the day of our Lord’s resurrection, with the Monday following,” &c.

“_Ques._ What was the reason why the weekly Sabbath was changed from the Saturday to the Sunday?”

“_Ans._ Because our Lord fully accomplished the work of our redemption by rising from the dead on Sunday and by sending down the Holy Ghost on Sunday; as therefore the work of our redemption was a greater work than that of our creation, the primitive _church_ thought the day in which this work was completely finished was more worthy her religious observation than that in which God rested from creation, and should be properly called the Lord’s day.”

“_Ques._ But has the church power to make any alterations in the commandments of God?”

“_Ans._ The commandments of God, as far as they contain his eternal law, are unalterable and indispensable, but as to whatever was only ceremonial they cease to oblige, since the Mosaic law was abrogated by Christ’s death; hence, as far as the commandment obliges us to set aside some part of our time for the worship and service of our Creator, it is an unalterable and unchangeable precept of the eternal law in which the church cannot dispense. But, forasmuch as it prescribes the seventh day in particular for this purpose, it is no more than a ceremonial precept of the old law which obligeth not Christians, and therefore, instead of the seventh day and other festivals appointed by the old law, the _church_ has prescribed the Sundays and holidays to be set apart for God’s worship, and these we are now obliged to keep in consequence of God’s commandment, instead of the ancient Sabbath.”

“_Ques._ What warrant have you for keeping the Sunday preferable to the ancient Sabbath, which was the Saturday?”

“_Ans._ We have for it the authority of the Catholic church and apostolic tradition.”

“_Ques._ Does the Scripture anywhere command the Sunday to be kept for the Sabbath?”

“_Ans._ The Scripture commands us to hear the church (Matt. 18:17, Luke 10:16), and to hold fast the traditions of the apostles. 2 Thess. 2:15. But the Scriptures do not in particular mention this change of the Sabbath. John speaks of the Lord’s day (Rev. 1:10); but he does not tell us what day of the week this was, much less does he tell us that this day was to take the place of the Sabbath ordained in the commandment; ... so that truly the best authority we have for this, is the testimony and ordinance of the church. And, therefore, those who pretend to be so religious of the Sunday, whilst they take no notice of the festivals ordained by the same church authority, show that they act by humor, and not by reason and religion, since Sundays and holy days all stand upon the same foundation, viz., the ordinance of the church.”—_Cath. Christian Instructed_, pp. 209-211.

“_Ques._ Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?”

“_Ans._ Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her—she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no scripture authority.”—_Doctrinal Catechism._

“_Ques._ If keeping the Sunday be a church precept, why is it numbered in the decalogue, which are the commandments of God and the law of nature?”

“_Ans._ Because the substance, or chief part of it, namely, that the day be set apart for the service of God, is of divine right and of the law of nature; though the determining this particular day, Sunday, rather than Saturday, be a church ordinance and precept.”—_Abridgment of Chris. Doc._, pp. 57, 59.

Thus much for the connection of the papacy with the change of the Sabbath. The reader, repudiating the claim for apostolical tradition, which is of no value with Protestants, and rejecting as fallacious the assumed antiquity of the Roman Catholic church, will discover that there still remains the bold assumption of the ability on the part of that church to change the Sabbath, and also of the historic fact that it has done so. Mr. Gilfillan, while, of course, from his standpoint rejecting the notion that the pope has either in reality changed, or even possessed the ability to change, the divinely appointed day of rest, frankly acknowledges that he arrogates to himself the power so to do, in the following language:—

“Rome, professing to retain, has yet corrupted every doctrine, institution, and law of Jesus Christ, recognizing for example, the mediator between God and man, but associating with him many other intercessors; avowing adherence to the Scripture, but the Scripture as supplemented and made void by the writings and traditions of men; and, in short, without discarding the Lord’s day, adding a number of encumbering holidays, giving them in many instances an honor equal and even superior to God’s own day, and claiming for the ‘Vicar of Christ’ lordship even of the Sabbath.”—_The Sabbath_, p. 457.

Into the details respecting the fasts; the decrees of councils; the bulls of popes: the myths concerning the calamities which have befallen those laboring on the Sunday; the forgery of an epistle in its interests, which it was claimed fell from Heaven; and the astounding miracles with which the hierarchy has accomplished the prodigious task of making the transfer, we are not permitted to enter here, nor will it be required that we should do so. Any person acquainted with the arts usually employed at Rome will readily perceive the methods which she has called to her assistance. All that a reasonable man could possibly ask is found in the transition from one day to another, in the fact that the law of God was to be tampered with by a persecuting power which was to continue its oppressions of the saints of God for twelve hundred and sixty years, and in the further consideration that no persecuting power except that of Rome has ever continued for that length of time.

Concerning the decree of Constantine, the only place which we assign to it in the controversy between the friends of the Lord’s Sabbath and its rival, is that which it holds because of its having made the transition easy. The first day of the week being the one generally observed by the heathen and by this decree enforced by statute, had in its favor the practice and sympathy of the masses of men. This law, though passed by a heathen, and in the interest of the heathen religion, was, as would naturally have been the case, of great service to those who subsequently favored the change of day, since it gave to their effort not only the color, but also the material advantage, of legality; by it, men, under certain circumstances, were compelled to celebrate the day of the sun even though they had previously regarded that of the Lord. This, of course, was burdensome, and worked greatly to the advantage of the heathen festival.

One of two views must be taken of the statute of Constantine: If it were Christian, then it proves that Sunday observance, at the time of its passage, was exceedingly lax, since by its terms only men in the cities and towns were prohibited from laboring upon it, while those in the country were by it allowed and encouraged to carry on the vocations of the farm. If, on the other hand, it were heathen in its origin, then the suggestion that it recognizes the venerableness of the day of the sun, even at so early a period as that of its promulgation, is entirely without force, since it thereby becomes manifest that it received this dignifying appellation, not because it had long been venerated by the disciples of our Lord, but because from time immemorial it had been honored by the heathen—a doubtful compliment to the Christian Sabbath.

Footnote 15:

For the extracts given in this connection, the reader is referred to
“Sabbath and Sunday,” by A. H. Lewis, and to “The History of the
Sabbath,” by J. N. Andrews.

Footnote 16:

The commandments as given above are supposed to be repeated by the
individual Romanist in response to the injunction, “Say the ten
commandments of God.”

Footnote 17:

The following citations will be found in a small tract published at
the “_Review_ and _Herald_” Office, entitled, “Who Changed the
Sabbath?”

STATESMAN’S REPLY.
ARTICLE TEN.
THE PRINCIPLE AS TO TIME IN SABBATH OBSERVANCE.

Our readers will recollect that the chief difference between the second and the third theories of the Christian Sabbath, as we stated them in our last issue, is in reference to the question of time. Seventh-day Sabbatarians, on the one hand, maintain that the last one of the seven days of the week is _the_ sacred day, and that the observance of this very day is absolutely essential to the proper observance of the Sabbath of the Lord, and the keeping of the fourth commandment. On the other hand, we set forth what we believe to be the true theory of the Christian Sabbath, according to which the essential idea of the law of the Sabbath is the consecration to God of an appointed proportion of time—one day in seven, and not the essential holiness of any particular day.