The Change of the Sabbath

Was It by Divine or Human Authority?

by George I. Butler

Southern Publishing Association

Nashville, Tennessee, 1904

Preface
THIS book has been written with the hope that it may find
access to a large number of people who desire information
concerning the change of the Sabbath,-a subject which is attracting
more attention at the present time than it has for ages. Frequent
inquiries concerning the day are being sent to prominent
theologians and scholars, and to the leading secular and religious
papers, asking for light; and the question is fast becoming a
prominent one. Thousands of sermons, in the aggregate, have
been preached in recent years upon this subject; nor is the agitation
likely to subside. As the public mind is being stirred, there seems to
be a demand for more stringent laws, both State and national, in
behalf of the popular rest day; and as we are living in an age when
libraries are being searched, ruins of ancient cities are being dug
up, and everything questioned to find the substratum of truth on
every subject, it is certainly appropriate that the Scriptural and
historic al evidences relative to the Sabbath institution should be
considered.
The questions are often asked, How was the change from the
observance of the seventh to the first day of the week brought
about? On what authority does it stand? The following pages will
quite fully answer these queries, although the work does not aim to
be a thorough exposition of the subject treated. Those in search of
such a volume are referred to the History of the Sabbath,
4
which may be obtained from the publishers of this book. [For
prices see advertisement in back of book.] The History of the Sabbath
carefully canvasses the entire ground of sacred and profane history,
noticing every point, and answering every question. But as many
cannot take the time required to read such an exhaustive treatise,
this book has been prepared, which covers the ground of the
change of the Sabbath as briefly as is consistent with a clear
discussion of the subject, and. gives a concise outline of the steps
taken in bringing about the change. It is hoped that this work will
prove a fair synopsis of the subject, and answer in a satisfactory
manner the question, Who changed the Sabbath?
-George I. Butler.

Chapter 1- The Sabbath a Living Issue

THE question of the Change of the Sabbath From the seventh
to the first day of the week, is one that is agitating the public mind
throughout Christendom. It is one of the leading questions of the
age, and promises to become more and more important. In past
centuries it has engaged public attention more or less. Theologians
have often wrestled with it, and fondly thought they had settled it;
but the revolving years still bring it to the surface; it will not be
repressed. Legislatures have considered it, and from time to time
have placed the heavy hand of civil power in the scale to make the
result decisive. Yet the public mind is not at rest; the interest in the
subject revives; and it is safe to say that at the present time there is
more real desire to know the whole truth upon this question than
there has been at any time for a thousand years past.
The age in which we live is peculiar. There is little reverence in
its spirit for the opinions of the hoary past.
10
Everything is being investigated, and it is not surprising that the
Sabbath question should have its share of public attention; the
nature of the subject is such that it merits consideration.

An Ancient Institution

The Bible presents the Sabbath as the most ancient institution,

excepting marriage, which man was to observe as a moral duty.
Genesis 2:1-3. Its existence has run parallel with that of the race.
Multitudes of the most intelligent and conscientious believe that its
universal observance is necessary if man is to attain to his highest
physical, moral, and spiritual development. The most civilized and
powerful nations of the earth have even made rigorous laws to
enforce a weekly rest-day upon their subjects. It comes to the
hundreds of millions of our race every seven days of our mortal
life. It furnishes a day of worship and religious instruction to a
large portion of the human family. It cannot be denied that it has
furnished one of the most powerful impulses that have molded our
modern civilization. The importance of the subject, then, cannot
be overestimated.

A Religious Day

But the Sabbath, above all else, is a religious day. It called into
being the division of time into weeks. No other cause can be found
for the week, other than the appointment of a day to be observed
in memory of God's work of creation. All we know of its origin we
learn from Moses' record of creation in the Bible. The Gentile
nations have received its benefits since their conversion from
heathenism, till now it is known to earth's remotest bounds. As the
Sabbath relates to God, for he appointed its rest and made it a
religious day, and as all we know of its institution and moral
obligation is derived from his word, the question becomes one of
religious duty, a question of conscience,
11
relating primarily to human salvation, and but secondarily to man's
physical and social welfare.

The Day of the Sabbath

There can be no Sabbath institution unless some day is observed

as a Sabbath. This is self-evident. Some particular day, recurring
every week, must be used as a day of rest and religious observance
in order to have such an institution. Since God is the author of the
institution, he must have appointed some day for its celebration. To
leave any day of the seven to be observed as the Sabbath, at the
option of humanity, would have much the same effect as to have no
Sabbath at all; the days of the week would stand upon an equality.
The essence of the institution requires the appointment of a
particular day of the seven as a day of rest and worship. Did God
appoint such a day? If so, what day was it? Has the original
appointment continued till the present time? Or has God f or some
important reason, changed it to another day? What day is now
obligatory?
These are questions of great moment. In religious
12
truth, upon which our salvation hinges, we want to know God's
will. Human authority is not sufficient. In this age, everything
which can be shaken will be shaken. We want to anchor to those
things which will stand the test of the closest examination. It is an
investigative age. Everything is being criticized. Our souls demand
the truth. Truth will bear examination; but it is not so with error.
In the great Sabbath agitation of the present age, every point
will receive the closest scrutiny by unbelievers. Christians should
therefore know whereof they affirm. We want the divine warrant
for religious institutions. Human authority is but as chaff to the
wheat. What has the Lord said? should be our inquiry. "Thy word
is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." "All Scripture is
given by inspiration of God. . . . that the man of God may be
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
 We therefore propose to investigate the subject of the Sabbath
with special reference to the question, What day should we observe
as the Sabbath in this age of the world? The public mind is
interested in it. Thousands of children, coming to years of
understanding, ask their parents why they observe the first day of
the week, while the commandment requires the seventh. We want
to help these parents to answer that question truly. Multitudes are
perplexed upon this point; and we hope to assist somewhat in
answering
13
it. We propose to examine the Scriptures; which should ever be of
primal authority; also to consider the statements of history bearing
upon it, and thus give the ground a brief but faithful examination.
If the Bible will thoroughly furnish us "unto all good works," it will
enable us to settle this question correctly. Where shall we look for
light upon it, if not to God's revealed truth? "To the law and to the
testimony;" if they do not afford us light, it is useless to look to
human authority.

Chapter 2- The Origin of the Sabbath

OUR Savior says, "The Sabbath was made for man." Mark 2:
27. The term man must here be used in its generic sense,
comprehending the whole race. If the Sabbath, then, was made for
mankind, it must have been made at the time when man himself
was created; hence we must go back to the creation for the
institution of the Sabbath.
The first part of Moses' record of the creation (Genesis 1 and 2)
is devoted to the origin of the weekly cycle and the Sabbath
institution. Here God sets before us the result of each day's work.
He carefully distinguishes between the days, stating that each was
composed of an "evening and a morning,"-a dark part and a light
part, thus describing the twenty-four-hour day. After carefully
enumerating the labor of six of these days, he declares that the
work of creation is completed.
 What he did on the next day, the seventh of this first week of
time, is stated in Genesis 2:2, 3: "On the seventh day God ended
his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day
from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh
day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his
work which God created and made."
15
Here we have the origin of the weekly cycle, the Sabbath
institution, and the distinction between the days of the week. The
Bible speaks of "the six working days" and the "Sabbath day."
Ezekiel 46:1. That brief narrative in the very first record of the
world's history, makes this distinction plain. God himself employed
six specific days of the first week in the labor of creating, and the
seventh day of that week in resting. The word "Sabbath" means
rest.
Why did God choose to work just six days and rest the seventh?
He might have made the world in a moment, or he could have
employed any other length of time in doing it. He did not, rest
because he was weary, for he "faints not, neither is weary." Isaiah
40: 28. No other reason can be assigned than this: He was laying
the foundation of that glorious institution which our Savior
declares was made for the race of men, the Sabbath of the Lord.
But to bring out this point still more clearly, let us notice
carefully the language we have quoted from Genesis 2:2, 3. The
first act of God on the seventh day was to rest; it thus became
God's rest-day, or Sabbath. His second act was to place his blessing
upon it: thus it became his "blessed" rest-day. His third act was to
"sanctify" it. To sanctify signifies to "set apart to a holy or religious
use." Webster. By this appointment, the seventh day of the week
became the day of holy rest and religious observance for those for
whom it was designed, until such appointment should be revoked.
Notice how definite is the language: "God blessed the seventh
day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his
work which God created and made." The blessing and
sanctification of the seventh day were not therefore bestowed upon
it until that particular day on which he rested was in the past. The
blessing bestowed pertained to its future recurrence, as it returned
in the weekly cycle. Every time it returned after this blessing was
placed
16
upon it, those who reverenced Cod were to understand that it was
his blessed day, and must not be treated as the other six days were
treated. It was also "sanctified," that is, it was now the day
appointed for religious uses. While it was proper to use the other
six days for secular work and ordinary business, the seventh day of
the week was to be used only for religious purposes. All this
occurred, according to the inspired record, at the close of creation
week.
It is sometimes objected that we have no command for the
observance of the seventh day Sabbath till the giving of the law to
Israel on Mount Sinai. Such objectors fail to comprehend the
record in Genesis 2:1-3. When God sanctified the seventh day, thus
appointing it to a sacred use, he must have made known this fact to
Adam and Eve, for whose benefit it was instituted. They stood as
the representatives of the race, through whom the instructions
from God were to be given. We cannot conceive how God could
appoint this day to this special purpose in any other way than by
informing them of it.
The Hebrew word kadash, here rendered sanctified, is defined
by Gesenius, "To pronounce holy, to sanctify. . . . to institute any
holy thing, to appoint." This word in the Old Testament commonly
implies a public appointment by proclamation. When the cities of
refuge were set apart for that particular purpose, the record states
(Joshua 20:7), "They appointed [Hebrew sanctified,
17
margin] Kadesh in Galilee in Mount Naphtali, and Shechem in
Mount Ephraim," etc. Here we see that a public announcement
was made of the fact to all Israel. In Joel 1:14 another instance is
furnished: "Sanctify [i.e., appoint] you a fast, call a solemn
assembly, gather the elders." This could not be done without a
public notification of the fact. When King Jehu wished to entrap
the worshipers of Baal and destroy them, he made this public
announcement: "Proclaim [Hebrews sanctify, margin] a solemn
assembly for Baal. And they proclaimed it." 2 Kings 10:20. It
would not have been possible to make this appointment otherwise
than by making the people acquainted with the fact.
But the most remarkable instance of this use of the word is
found in the record of the sanctification of Mount Sinai. Exodus
19:12, 23. When the Lord was about to speak the Ten
Commandments, he sent Moses down to command the people not
to touch the mount, lest they be destroyed. "And Moses said unto
the Lord, The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai. For thou
charged us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it."
Going back to verse 12, we learn how this was done. "And thou
shall set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to
yourselves, that you go not up into the mount, or touch the border
of it." Here we see that to sanctify, the mount was to tell the people
that Cod would have then treat it as sacred to himself.
18
From these and many other instances of the use of the word
sanctify in the Scriptures, we must understand that when God
sanctified the seventh day at creation, he told Adam and Eve that it
was sacred unto the Lord. The statement that "God blessed the
seventh day, and sanctified it" positively proves that the Lord
commanded our first parents to treat the seventh day as holy time.
It is a record of that fact; for in no other way could it have been
"appointed" to such a use. This fact that God gave a
commandment at the creation of the world to the representative
heads of the race, to keep holy the seventh day of the week has an
important bearing upon the Sabbath question for every succeeding
age.

Chapter 3- The Sabbath before Sinai

THE giving of the law, according to Usher's chronology, was
about twenty-five centuries after creation week. It is interesting to
trace the Sabbath through this long, remote period. The only
written history extant covering it is the book of Genesis, with its
fifty short chapters, written by Moses. The facts presented in it are
invaluable. It gives us brief glimpses of the long-lived race previous
to the flood, and of the rise of the most powerful nations of
succeeding ages, and of the call of Abraham, with the experiences
of his immediate descendants. It presents most valuable historical
instruction relative to God's plan of dealing with his creatures, and
the principles of his moral government. It is in no sense a book of
laws, but only a very brief history of the earliest ages of antiquity.

The Weekly Cycle

As we have already seen, the book of Genesis commences with

the origin of the weekly cycle, as brought to view in the account of
creation, and the institution of the Sabbath, without which that
cycle would never have existed. The division of time into days,
months, and years is easily traceable to nature. The revolution of
the earth on its axis,
20
the changes of the moon, and the circuit of the earth around the
sun, originate these divisions of time. But no such origin can be
found for the weekly cycle. Beyond all question, it owes its existence
to the act of Jehovah in setting apart the seventh day at the
creation of the world. Not even a plausible conjecture has ever
been found for any other origin of it. It is a well-attested historical
fact that the weekly cycle was observed, and the seventh day was
kept sacred, by nearly all the most ancient nations of the earth
besides the Jews. There are decisive evidences to show that the
Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Arabians, Greeks, and Romans,
and even the Chinese, knew of the Sabbath, and at an early period
regarded it as a sacred day. We may notice this point more fully
hereafter, but will introduce brief evidences of it here.
John G. Butler, a Free-Will Baptist author in his Natural and
Revealed Theology, p. 396, says: "We learn, also, from the testimony
of Philo, Hesiod, Josephus, Porphyry, and others, that the division
of time into weeks and the observance of the seventh day were
common to the nations of antiquity. They would not have adopted
such a custom from the Jews. Whence, then, could it have been
21
derived but through tradition, from its original institution in the
garden of Eden?"
The Asiatic Journal says:
"The Prime Minister of the empire affirms that the Sabbath was
anciently, observed by the Chinese, in conformity to the directions
of the king."
The Congregationalist (Boston), Nov. 15, 1882, referring to the
"Creation Tablets" found by Mr. Smith on the banks of the Tigris,
near Nineveh, gives the following:
"Mr. George Smith says in his Assyrian Discoveries (1875): 'In the
year 1869 I discovered, among other things, a curious religious
calendar of the Assyrians, in which every month is divided into
four weeks, and the seventh days, or Sabbaths, are marked out as
days on which no work should be undertaken. The calendar
contains lists of work forbidden to be done on these days, which
evidently correspond to the Sabbaths of the Jews.'"
Much more testimony on this point might be presented, but this
is sufficient to show that the weekly cycle and the Sabbath were
extensively known among these ancient nations. Brief references to
the same thing in the books of Genesis and Exodus demonstrate
the existence of the week and the Sabbath previous to the giving of
the law.
In the history of the deluge there are several references to the
weekly division of time. "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to
rain upon the earth." Genesis 7:4. "And he stayed yet other seven
days," etc. Genesis 8:10, 12. Three different weekly periods are
brought to view in this short account of the flood. It could not have
been accidental that this period of seven days should be chosen
three successive times. It points unmistakably to the fact that the
weekly cycle was in constant use in that age of the world.
In the history of Jacob's marriage to the daughters of Laban,
the week is also mentioned. "Fulfil the week of this one, and we will
give thee the other also for the service which thou shall serve with
me yet seven other years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week."
Genesis 29:27, 28.
22
The Sabbath is inseparably connected with the weekly division
of time; hence, if the week existed, the Sabbath must also have
been known. We are forced to conclude, therefore, that these
inhabitants of Chaldea were well acquainted with its sacred
obligation. Notice the testimony, already referred to, of those
tablets dug out of ancient ruins found in that country.

The Sabbath before Sinai

A decisive proof that the Sabbath was well known to the

Israelites previous to the giving of the law, is found in Exodus 16:4,
5, 22-30: "Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain
bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather
a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will
walk in my law, or no. And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth
day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be
twice as much as they gather daily." Then we have an account of
the falling of the manna. He continues in verses 22-30: "And it
came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much
bread, two omers for one man; and all the rulers of the
congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is
that which the Lord hath said,
23
'Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord; bake that
which you will bake to-day, and seethe that you will seethe. And
that which remains over lay up for you to be kept until the
morning.' And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade; and
it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses
said, Eat that today; for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord: to-day
you shall not find it in the field. Six days shall you gather it; but on
the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. And
it came to pass that there went out some of the people on the
seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said
unto Moses, How long refuse you to keep my commandments and
my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath,
therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide
you every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the
seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day."
From the foregoing language the following conclusions are
inevitable:
1. God had a law, of which the seventh-day Sabbath was a, part,
more than a month previous to proclaiming his commandments
from Mount Sinai.
2. He proved his people by giving them bread from heaven, to
see whether they would obey his law or not, the test coming on
their observance of the Sabbath, which, therefore, must be a most
important part of that law.
3. The language shows that the people had a knowledge of the
Sabbath, and that many of them desired to keep it before any
commandment whatever was given them as a people concerning it.
For the record of their deliverance from Egypt does not give a
single hint concerning the Sabbath previous to this point.
4. We are constrained, therefore, to conclude that when he says,
"How long refuse you to keep my commandments and my laws?"
He must refer to the original institution of the Sabbath at creation,
the knowledge of which had been
24
preserved by the patriarchs and the general acquaintance of the
ancient nations with the Sabbath.
The fall of manna, which continued through the forty years of
their wanderings, with its double portion on the sixth day of the
week and none upon the seventh. Its being kept from corruption on
the Sabbath, while it would soon spoil on other days, attested
which was the true creation Sabbath at that time, and their perfect
knowledge of it.
An objection is sometimes offered upon the passage, "See, for
that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath," etc., that it belonged
wholly to the Israelites. But surely it must have had a previous
existence or it would not have been proper to say he had given it to
them. He did this in precisely the same sense that he gave himself
to that people, and thus became the God of Israel. The nations
had gone into idolatry, or were fast doing so, rejecting alike the true
God and the great memorial of his creation work, the Sabbath. He
had separated from among them the descendants of Abraham who
still regarded both. From this time on, the Sabbath and the
knowledge of the true God rapidly disappeared from the nations of
the earth, and they became heathen. While the Israelites
remembered God and his Sabbath, and preserved the knowledge
of each, to be given again under more favorable auspices to the
Gentile nations.
From these considerations we cannot doubt that Israel regarded
the Sabbath more or less sacredly while in Egyptian bondage,
although it is not to be supposed that they could keep it as fully
then as they were able to do afterward. It seems unreasonable to
conclude, however, that they lost all regard for it, or that the most
pious among them gave it no respect. God says of their great
progenitor, "Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my
commandments, my statutes, and my laws." We are certain that
Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph followed the same example, and therefore
must have kept the Sabbath. The last two were in Egypt, and no
doubt their kindred followed their example,
25
and regarded the Sabbath as sacredly as the circumstances would
permit. They looked back to these noble patriarchs with the
deepest respect. They still had a regard for the Sabbath, as we
learn in Exodus 16, even before the giving of the law. Hence it was
not to them a new institution.
In this brief account it has been plainly shown that the Sabbath
of the Lord was given to the human family at creation, and was
well known to those who had any regard for the true God. It
certainly was not a Jewish institution; for it existed, and was
commanded to be observed by the God of heaven, long ages
before a Jew lived. The Jews sprung from Judah, one of the sons of
Jacob; but the Sabbath was set apart in Eden for man's benefit. It
was "made for man."
Chapter 4- The Sabbath at the Giving o f the Law
WE now come to that sublime event in the history of God's
dealings with mankind, the proclamation of his law from Sinai. In
the sixteenth chapter of Exodus we have the account of his giving
his Sabbath to Israel; in chapter nineteen we have the full
statement of his giving himself to that people by a solemn
covenant; and in chapter twenty, the history of his committing his
law to them. This was a wonderful honor which he conferred upon
the posterity of Abraham, the friend of God. The Jews were
indeed favored in this respect above all the nations of the earth.
The apostle Paul inquires, "What advantage, then, hath the Jew?"
and he immediately answers, "Much every way; chiefly because
that unto them were committed the oracles of God." Romans 3:1,
2. But while these acts honored that people, they in no way
dishonored God, or the law, or the Sabbath, nor made them
Jewish.
Some thirty days after the manna began to fall, all Israel were
camped at the base of Sinai, waiting to hear from the mouth of
Jehovah the Ten Commandments. The mountain burned with fire,
and the smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace. Thundering
and lightning were seen, and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud
was heard. The solid earth trembled. So terrible was the sight, that
Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake." The voice of God was
then heard proclaiming the "ten words which, not only in
27
the Old Testament but in all revelation, are the most emphatically
regarded as the synopsis of all religion and morality."
In this law he thus speaks of the Sabbath:
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shall thou
labor and do all thy work but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God. In it thou shall not do any work. Thou nor thy son,
nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy
cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the
Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is and
rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath
day and hallowed it." Exodus 20:8-11
Here we have a precept, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it
holy," then an explanation of the precept, and, finally, the reason
why it is given. It begins with the word, "Remember." This word
recognizes it as already existing; therefore the fourth
commandment did not originate the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a
commemorative institution; it plainly points us back to the creation
of the world for its beginning. "In six days the Lord made heaven
and earth, the sea, and all that in them is; wherefore [for this
reason] the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." The
Sabbath is God's memorial of creation; hence every intelligent
creature is under obligations to keep it. This is far higher than any
mere Jewish reason. It existed at the birth of the race. There is
nothing about the wilderness
28
of Sin or the coining out of Egypt, in this original Sabbath
commandment. It sets forth reasons for its observance which
should convince every man and woman who lives on the earth.
How forcibly these words harmonize with the historical account
in the second chapter of Genesis: "God blessed the seventh day,
and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work
which God created and made." In the fourth commandment he
states, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth.....and
rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day,
and hallowed it." It would be folly and presumption to undertake
to separate between the Sabbath of creation and that of the fourth
commandment.

Chapter 5- What the Fourth Commandment

Requires
THE fourth commandment simply requires that day of the
week to be kept holy on which the Creator rested. This, we have
proved over 12 over again, was the seventh day of the week.
 He rested on one day only of the weekly cycle, and this rest was
long ages in the past when the command was given, and could not,
therefore, be changed. Hence the fourth commandment can be
made to sanction Sabbatizing on no other day of the week than the
seventh. One cannot change his birthday. Independence day
cannot be separated from the Fourth of July; for the events
occurring in 1776 fix it on that day, and they cannot now be
changed. So of God's rest day; the facts are such that before it
could be changed, the whole work of creation would have to be
done over again. God rested on the seventh day of the first week of
time. We are to rest on the same day of the week to keep that great
fact in memory. What would we think of the propriety of
appointing some other day besides the fourth of July to
commemorate the independence of these United States? It would
be no more absurd than to observe some other day than the
seventh to answer the claims of the fourth commandment.
This command is inseparably connected with the day of
Jehovah's rest. It is the particular day of God's rest
30
which the command requires to be kept holy, and no other. It is not
a seventh part of time that the commandment specifies. Neither
merely one day in seven after six of labor; but it is the seventh day
on which God rested from the work of creation, which is appointed
for man to keep as it comes to him in the weekly cycle.
God was at this very time showing the people, by weekly
miracles in the fall of the manna, which day this creation Sabbath
was. There could be no doubt on this point, no time lost. They
then had the right day from creation. The God of all the earth was
pointing it out to them every week. The true weekly cycle was
therefore known at the time the law was given. Doubtless, it had
always been kept by the patriarchs from the time of creation to this
time, as it was by the Jewish people till the time of Christ.
The speaking of the law on Sinai by the Creator of the universe,
and his writing it on the imperishable tablets of stone with his own
finger, marks a most important epoch in the religious progress of
the race. The fact that the creation Sabbath was given such great
prominence as to be made the central and most lengthy precept in
it, demonstrates the exalted position it occupied in the Lawgiver's
estimation. No satisfactory reason can be assigned for this high
honor, other than that the Sabbath, which was "made for man,"
was exceedingly important for his well-being. It was the day for
religious benefit, for spiritual improvement,-the day in which to
remember our Creator, and that we are the workmanship of his
hands. Mark this fact well: the principal object of the Sabbath,
according to the commandment, is not mere rest from physical toil.
It is to be kept "holy," for it was made holy at the creation. The
facts of creation are to be remembered. Religious contemplation
and rest from secular labor are the main objects of the day. It is
God's day, and not ours. He has never given us this day to use for
our purposes.

Chapter 6- The Sabbath from Sinai to Calvary

ALL theologians agree that during the fifteen centuries between
the giving of the law on Mount Sinai and the resurrection of our
Lord, the seventh day of the week was observed with more or less
strictness by the Jewish people, and was obligatory upon them by
divine authority. We shall not, therefore, devote much time to its
consideration during this period, but we will notice a few
prominent points.
That law of which the Sabbath was a part, spoken by God upon
Mount Sinai, was written by his own finger on two tables of stone,
thus indicating its enduring character. And being placed within the
ark in the most holy place of the sanctuary, beneath the mercy seat,
where, between the cherubim, the visible presence of God rested, it
was the central object of interest in their system of religion. Exodus
31:18; Deuteronomy 4:12, 13; 5:22; 10:1-5; Exodus 40:20, 21.
The Sabbath is mentioned in various scriptures during this long
period, showing that it was observed by the pious among that
people; while there are many reproofs given by the sacred writers
for transgressions of the Sabbath law. Nehemiah 10:31, 33; 2
Kings 4:23; Amos 8:4-6: Isaiah 56:1-8, etc.
 32
One striking fact showing God's regard for the Sabbath is found
in the prophecy of Jeremiah (chap. 17:20-27): "Hear you the word
of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates. Thus says the
Lord, Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath
day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. Neither carry forth a
burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day; neither do you any
33
work, but hallow you the Sabbath day, as I commanded your
fathers. But they obeyed not, neither inclined their car, but made
their neck stiff, that they might not hear nor receive instruction.
And it shall come to pass, if you diligently hearken unto me, says
the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on
the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work
therein, then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and
princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on
horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall REMAIN FOREVER.
And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places
about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the
plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt
offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and
bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the Lord. But if you
will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to
bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the
Sabbath day, then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it
shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be
quenched."
On this text Dr. Adam Clarke comments thus: "From this and
the following verses we find the ruin of the Jews attributed to the
breach of the Sabbath; as this led to a neglect of sacrifice, the
ordinances of religion, and all public worship, so it necessarily
brought with it all immorality. This breach of the Sabbath was that
which let in upon them all the waters of God's wrath."
 What could exalt the importance of the Sabbath more than
these statements of Holy Writ? Had they kept the Sabbath
sacredly, other religious blessings would have followed, and would
have preserved their city and nation forever: whereas their neglect
of the Sabbath ultimately caused their ruin as a nation. They were
very lax in its observance previous to their captivity in Babylon,
and were often reproved
34
for this. But after their return, they were much more strict. Indeed,
they were so particular in regard to its observance that they would
sometimes suffer themselves to be overcome rather than fight on
the Sabbath. They would not attack their enemies on that day, even
when their neglect to do so endangered their safety. Josephus gives
many instances of this kind. (Antiquities, b. 12, chap. 6; and b. 13,
chap. i; also the books of the Maccabees.)

Tradition Exalted by the Jews

Previous to the time of Christ, and after the Lord's prophets

ceased to appear, the Jews became very fond of tradition, exalting
it even above the authority of the Scriptures. Many instances of
this kind are given in the Gospels. Christ sharply reproved the Jews
on this point. There was no requirement of God more abused by
tradition than the Sabbath; indeed, it was greatly perverted from its
original design by this means.
Dr. Justin Edwards, in his Sabbath Manual, pages 214, 215, gives
the following list: "They enumerated about forty primary works,
which they said were forbidden to be done on the Sabbath. Under
each of these were numerous secondary works, which they said
were also forbidden. . . . Among the primary works which were
forbidden, were plowing, sowing, reaping, winnowing, cleaning,
grinding, etc. Under the head of grinding was included the
breaking or dividing of things which were before united.
"Another of their traditions was, that, as threshing on the
Sabbath was forbidden, the bruising of things, which was a species
of threshing, was also forbidden. Of course, it was a violation of
the Sabbath to walk on green grass; for that would bruise or thresh
it. So, as a man might not hunt on the Sabbath, he might not catch
a flea; for that was a species of hunting.
"As a man might not carry a burden on the Sabbath, he might
not carry water to a thirsty animal; for that was a
35
species of burden; but he might pour water into a trough, and lead
the animal to it. . . . Yet, should a sheep fall into a pit, they would
readily lift him out, and bear him to a place of safety. . . .
"They said a man might minister to the sick for the purpose of
relieving their distress, but not for the purpose of healing their
diseases. He might put a covering on a diseased eye, or anoint it
with eye-salve for the purpose of easing the pain, but not to cure
the eye."
These foolish traditions, when carried out made the Sabbath a
burdensome yoke instead of the merciful institution which God
designed it should be, a delight and blessing to his creatures. How
wonderfully this explains many of the references to the Sabbath in
the Gospels!
The Jews found fault with Christ because he paid no respect to
these traditions. But he found fault with them for making the
commandments of God of none effect by their tradition. Matthew
15:4-9. The Pharisees accused him of breaking the Sabbath,
because he healed the sick (Matthew 12:9-14), cast out devils (Luke
4:33-36), gave sight to the blind (John 9:1-16). Permitted his
disciples to pluck and rub out the wheat heads and eat (Matthew
12:1-8), and directed a man to carry his bed-a burden like a cloak
or mat (Matthew 9:1-6)-on the Sabbath day.

Christ Kept the Seventh Day

Modern enemies to the seventh-day Sabbath have sometimes

united with the ancient haters of Christ ii accusing our Lord of
being a transgressor of the law, i.e., a sinner. But it is impossible to
show a single instance where he violated the Sabbath
commandment. Had he done so, he would not have been sinless;
he could not have been our Savior. The law would have
condemned him; for all admit that it was obligatory all through
Christ's ministry till his crucifixion. We utter an emphatic protest
against thus attributing disobedience to God, our only perfect
example. Just as he was about to be offered for the sins of others,
he declared, "I have kept my Father's commandments." John 15:10.
He certainly had not broken them if he had kept them, and the
Sabbath command was one of those which he had kept.
Our Saviour constantly justified his course against the accusers,
who claimed that he or his disciples had broken the Sabbath.
When they complained because his disciples had plucked and eaten
the wheat, lie declared they were "guiltless." Matthew 12: 7. They
had not broken the law. They had only violated one of those
human traditions. When he healed the man whose hated was
withered (Matthew 12:9-14), they sought to destroy him for it; but
he declared his course in thus doing well was "lawful," i.e.,
according to law. He had done no wrong. But they had erected
their traditions, as we have seen, and they were angry because he
would not regard them.
The time had come for Christ to strip off these wretched
perversions of God's truth, and restore the law to its own naked
purity. He says, "In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines
the commandments of men." Matthew 15:9. Our Savior ever
exalted the law of his Father, and taught its eternal perpetuity.
Matthew 5:17-20; 15:1-20;
37
19:16-22; 22:34-40; etc., etc. The Sabbath is an important part of
this law.
It was our Savior's "custom" to attend divine service on the
seventh-day Sabbath, and to instruct the people. Luke 4: 16.
"Custom" implies a constant practice. He placed the most
distinguished honor upon it, by teaching that the Sabbath was
made for the race of man, and that lie was its Lord. Mark 2:27, 28.
It was not made merely for the Jews, but for all men. This
statement recognizes its existence when man was first created. This
was some twenty-three centuries before Judah, the father of the
Jewish people, was born. Hence our Savior teaches that it was in no
sense a Jewish institution.

Christ the Lord of the Sabbath

The fact that God's only begotten Son claims to be the "Lord of
the Sabbath," is the highest honor which could be conferred upon
it. Some in these days greatly misunderstand and pervert this
important fact. They would have us believe that because he is its
Lord, therefore he might conclude to set it aside, change it, or
abolish it altogether. A strange conclusion! Christ is Lord of his
people. "You call me Master and Lord, and you say well, for so I
am." But we do not conclude, therefore, that he will destroy or
abolish his people because he is their Lord. Sarah called Abraham
lord. 1 Peter 3:6. She certainly did not have the remotest idea he
would destroy her. We read of the House of Lords of England.
This title of high honor does not signify that they are the destroyers
of the people. The word rather implies a protector, a guardian, one
who will defend the rights of those over whom he is lord.
The fact that the Son of God is Lord of the Sabbath implies
that he understands its nature, origin, and rights better than any
one else, and will guard them sacredly. And why should he not?
Christ himself made the world.
38
John 1: 3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1: 2. He was present, and
performed the very acts which laid the foundation of the Sabbath.
He rested, therefore, himself from his acts of creation. He was also
with the church in the wilderness when the commandments were
spoken. Exodus 23:20, 21; Acts 7:37, 38; 1 Corinthians 10:4. The
Sabbath is, then, the Lord's day in a special sense. Thus we have
traced the seventh day with an unvarying sanctity from creation to
the crucifixion of Christ.

Chapter 7- Did Our Saviour Change The Sabbath?

 THERE is a general agreement among leading commentators
and ministers of nearly all denominations that the Sabbath was
kept in the garden of Eden by Adam and Eve. That it came down
through the patriarchal age as an institution of Jehovah,
unimpaired in its obligation, and that the commandment given on
Mount Sinai simply repeats the events which occurred at the close
of the first week of time. All Christians believe that the Israelites
were under obligation to keep the seventh day till the resurrection
of Christ; but concerning its obligation since that time, opinions
widely differ. Many Christians believe that the seventh day ceased
to be the Sabbath, and that the first day of the week, upon which
Christ rose from the dead, took its place as the Sabbath, by divine
appointment, to be kept throughout the new dispensation. Others
believe that the Sabbath law was abolished, and that we have no
sacred day of rest now binding upon us.
Before examining the evidence usually adduced in support of
Sunday keeping, it may be well to look briefly to the probabilities of
the case. Could we reasonably expect that the Sabbath day, which
had been kept for four thousand years, would be set aside, and
another day, hitherto used for secular purposes, substituted? This
would indeed be an act requiring great changes both in the lives
and in the habits of the people,-one which would attract universal
40
attention. No one claims that the first day of the week had ever
been recognized as a sacred day in any sense whatever among the
Jewish people before the crucifixion of Christ. The seventh day
had always, from the Exodus up to that point, been recognized by
them as a weekly Sabbath. All admit that there never was a period
in their history when it was more universally and strictly regarded
than during our Savior's ministry. Indeed, they carried their
strictness to a great extreme, till it had become a burdensome yoke.
This was the condition of things at the death of Christ, and the
disciples and early believers, for several years after the crucifixion,
were every one of Jewish birth, trained from their infancy to the
strictest observance of the seventh day Sabbath. No Gentile was
converted till Cornelius received a visit from St. Peter about three
and a half years after the ascension. Acts 10. Now, are we to
suppose that all these Jews who believed in Christ suddenly
changed their Sabbath day from the one they had always observed,
and yet no record whatever was made concerning it? No command
whatever for them to do this is claimed by any one. We cannot
conceive of anything more improbable. Within a short time after
Christ's ascension, many thousands of pious Jews accepted the
gospel. These not only regarded the moral law as binding, but still
continued zealous observers of the ceremonial law. Many of them
went so far as to teach that Gentiles must be circumcised also, and
thus caused the apostles Paul and Barnabas great trouble. They
were great sticklers for the rites and services of the law of Moses.
Acts 15:1, 5, 21:20, 21. This feeling affected some even of the
apostles, so that they requested Paul himself to show his respect for
these Jewish customs. They evidently considered every Jewish
convert tinder obligation to treat the ceremonial law with
deference.
Can we suppose, then, without evidence of the strongest kind,
that all at once they would drop the observance of
41
the day they had always regarded as the Sabbath, and commence
to observe another which they had never kept? Consider what a
great change this would imply. The Jewish people had complained
bitterly of Jesus because he would not treat with respect their
traditions concerning the Sabbath, and tried to make it appear that
he was a Sabbath breaker. Because he healed several persons of
disease on the Sabbath day, or permitted his disciples to rub out the
wheat heads when they were hungry, they made a great outcry, and
tried to effect his condemnation. What shall we think, then, of the
position which supposes that thousands of his disciples openly
broke the Sabbath they had always kept before, and began the
observance of the first day of the week as another Sabbath, when
no complaint on the part of the Jews can be cited? It is true that
not a word of censure can be found in all the gospel history after
Christ's crucifixion because of the disciples' breaking the Sabbath.
When we consider that these very disciples were persecuted bitterly
by the Jews, who were most glad to find any occasion against them,
would not such an omission be indeed most marvelous if the
apostles were not still keeping the seventh-day Sabbath? And is not
this fact evidence most positive that they did continue to observe it
as before?
A change in the observance of a weekly Sabbath from the one
which is customary in any community, always marks as peculiar
those who do so, If they rest while others are busy, it is quickly
noticed; if they work while the great majority rest, they are still
more conspicuous. Even in this age of lax Sunday observance,
when so many pay but little regard to it, let a person begin to keep
the seventh day as the Sabbath, and he will be marked for miles
around. He will be watched, and his course commented upon.
Ministers in their pulpits will warn their hearers against such an
example. And in some instances he will be arrested, if the laws will
permit of it, even while men fish and hunt openly
42
and railway trains run regularly, and other business is transacted.
What, then, would have been the effect at such a time of Jewish
strictness in observing the seventh day, had the disciples no longer
kept it, but taken up another day, never before held sacred, as the
Sabbath? Every one of them would have been arrested and
brought before the magistrates, charged with Sabbath-breaking,
and most likely would have been either imprisoned or stoned. The
law existing and at that time universally acknowledged as in full
authority, would have been on the side of the Jews. But not a single
instance of the kind occurred, proving most emphatically that all
these disciples continued to observe the seventh day Sabbath as
they always had, and as the people around them did. Hence it is
utterly improbable that any change in the practice of Sabbath-
keeping on the part of the disciples occurred at the time of Christ's
resurrection.

Evidence in the Evangelists

 What does the sacred record say concerning the Sabbath and
first day during this time? All of the four Evangelists speak of the
Sabbath and first day in close connection with
43
Christ's resurrection. If any change of the Sabbath was ever made
by divine authority, it must have been done at that time. All
believers in the sacredness of Sunday admit this. They claim that
previous to Christ's resurrection the seventh day was the Sabbath
by divine appointment; but subsequent to that event, the first day
of the week was to be observed by Christians. They teach that this
change was by the authority and example of Christ himself.
The only historical record existing in our world of the events
occurring in connection with our Lord's life, is that given by the
four evangelists-Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are
emphatically Christian historians. We depend on them for our
knowledge of the facts concerning the life and incarnation of the
Son of God. They wrote for the Christian world in all ages. They
were devoted Christians themselves. They were inspired by the
Holy Spirit; for Christ promised that it should bring all things to
their remembrance, whatsoever he had said unto them. John 14:26.
These things they wrote for our instruction; and we must suppose
they call things by their right names, and use language correctly,
else their writings would not be reliable.
It is supposed by the best authorities that Matthew wrote his
Gospel about six years after Christ's ascension; Mark about ten
years; Luke, about twenty-eight years; and John, about sixty-three
years. These historians, then, being Christians, writing for the
Christians of all ages, and writing, too, many years after the
Christian dispensation had begun, must have given all the facts
essential to a perfect understanding of the doctrines of the gospel.
Do they give us to understand that any change of the Sabbath had
occurred and that the first day of the week had now become the
weekly Sabbath by Christ's appointment, while the seventh day had
ceased to be such? Had such a change occurred, they must have
been aware of it; and if they do not mention it, we may be sure no
such change had been made. We will now notice every instance in
which
44
they speak of these two days in connection with Christ's
resurrection.

Matthew's Testimony

Matthew says: "In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn

toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the
other Mary to see the sepulcher." Matthew 28:1. Sunday-keepers
claim that six years before this was written, the Sabbath was
changed and the first day of the week made the Sabbath. But
Matthew states that the day before the first day was the Sabbath,
and that the first day of the week did not come till the end of the
Sabbath. Did the Spirit of God, speaking through this Christian
historian, tell the truth? If so, the day before the first day of the
Week, viz., the seventh day, was still the Sabbath. Surely, nothing is
said by this Evangelist implying any change.

Mark's Testimony

Mark gives this statement: "And when the Sabbath was past,
Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome,
had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.
And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came
unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun." "Now when Jesus was
risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary
Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils." Mark 16:1, 2,
9. These words, written some ten years after the events recorded,
state that the Sabbath was past before the first day of the week
began. First-day writers tell us that Mark, with the other disciples,
had been keeping the first day of the week as the Sabbath for ten
years when he wrote this. Can we believe such a statement? Would
he apply "Sabbath" to a day which he did not regard as such, and
refrain from calling the one "Sabbath" which he did observe. This
would be most surprising, yea, utterly unreasonable. We must
conclude that Mark still acknowledged the ancient Sabbath as
identical with the one he observed.

Luke's Testimony

Luke speaks of these days as follows: "That day was the

preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. And the women, also,
which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the
sepulcher, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and
prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day
according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the
week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher,
bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others
with them." Luke 23:54-56; 24:1.
More than twenty years after the supposed change of the
Sabbath, this historian, perfectly conversant with the facts of gospel
history (Luke 1:3), makes these statements:
46
(1) The day previous to the first day of the week was the Sabbath.
(2) It was the "Sabbath day according to the commandment". (3)
The holy women, the affectionate companions of Christ, still kept
it as such. (4) They did things on the first day of the week they
would not do on the Sabbath, i.e., came to do the laborious work of
embalming a dead body, thus showing conclusively that they had
not yet learned that any sacredness was attached to Sunday.
From these plain facts we must conclude, first, that Luke had not
been keeping Sunday as the Sabbath during the twenty-eight years
since Christ's crucifixion, or he would have given it that title, and
not called the day before it such.
Secondly, if the day before the first day of the week was the
"Sabbath day according to the commandment," as Inspiration says,
then most certainly the commandment does not at the same time
require or authorize us to keep Sunday. The same command does
not require us to keep two different days. "Remember the Sabbath
day, to keep it holy." "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord
thy God," consequently Sunday is not the Sabbath according to the
commandment.
Thirdly, this commandment does have an authoritative existence
this side of the cross of Christ; for it still required these women to
rest on the seventh day. It had not expired when Christ was
crucified, nor had it been "nailed to the cross"; for an abolished
commandment can require nothing. If it existed one day this side
of the cross, it still exists; and no one claims it was abolished unless
done at the cross. Therefore, the law requiring the observance of
the seventh day Sabbath still exists. Nothing whatever in this
connection indicates any change of the Sabbath.

John's Testimony

John speaks as follows: "The first day of the week comes Mary
Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and sees
the stone taken away from the sepulcher."
47
"Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week,
when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for
fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and says unto
them, Peace be unto you." John 20:1, 19. These words were written
by the "beloved disciple" more than sixty years after the
resurrection of our Lord, after nearly all the other disciples who
were personally acquainted with our Savior had passed away. If he
had been keeping Sunday as the only true Sabbath, or giving it tiny
divine honor during this time, who can believe he would not have
indicated it in some way? But he does not; he simply calls it by its
usual secular title,-the one by which it had been known for four
thousand years. He attaches no sacredness to it whatever. He does
not call it the Sabbath or the Lord's day, and gives no command for
its observance, not a hint of any superiority above the working
days; nor do any of these writers.
There are certain claims put forth by first-day writers
concerning this last-mentioned instance, which we will notice in
due time. We know of no first-day advocate who claims to find any
evidence of Sunday sacredness, or of a change of the Sabbath, in
any of these six instances where the first day of the week is
mentioned, except the one last quoted. If the Sabbath was
changed, is this not surprising? If it was ever changed by divine
authority, here is the point where all admit the change must have
been wrought. Yet none of the Christian historians who give any
record of the events where this change is supposed to have
occurred, mention such a change, or give a single hint of it. They
wrote at different periods for about two-thirds of a century, and
give an account of all the events in Christ's life and all of his
teachings which the Holy Spirit thought necessary for the proper
instruction of the generations to come, but failed entirely to
mention or notice any change of the Sabbath. On the contrary,
they state positively, over and over,
48
that that day was still the Sabbath which had been since God
instituted it.

The Law Honored by Christ

We may well inquire at this point, Why should any person

suppose the Son of God would desire to change the creation
Sabbath? This day was a memorial of the Creator, given to man as
he was made, to be kept, and was perpetuated through all the
patriarchal ages. Placed in God's moral law of Ten
Commandments by the Creator himself, proclaimed by his voice
and written by his finger in the imperishable tablets of stone.
Deposited in the ark under the mercy-seat, the very center of that
whole system of worship, in the most holy place of the sanctuary
and temple: honored as God's day for four thousand years. Why
should Christ desire to change it for another day? Was there lack of
sympathy and union between the Father and the Son? Jesus says, "I
and my Father are one." John 10:30. He prayed that his disciples
might be one as he and his Father are. John 17:11, 21. This
oneness is not in personality, but in purpose, in effort. They are
perfectly united in all they do. Would the Son then set aside his
Father's memorial, and institute another to take its place?
The prophet declares that the Messiah "will magnify the law,
and make it honorable." Isaiah 42:21. The Sabbath was an
important part of that law. Could he make the law honorable by
abolishing the Sabbath, which was a part of it, or changing it to
another day? Such changes would disgrace rather than honor it. It
would be a strange way to make a thing honorable, by putting it
out of existence.
When the Messiah came, he declared that he did not come to
destroy the law. "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever,
therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall
teach men so, he shall be
49
called the least [be of no esteem, as Whiting translates it] in the
kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:17-18. Therefore every portion of
the law shall continue till the heavens pass away. This must include
the Sabbath which that law enjoins. Thus our Savior magnified
every part of the law.
Christ declares he "kept his Father's commandments." John
15:10. Is not his example to be followed by all his disciples? He
declares himself "the Lord of the Sabbath," and says it was "made
for man." Mark 2: 27, 28. The word "Lord" here must be used in
the sense of protector or guardian, and not destroyer. Sarah called
Abraham "lord" (1 Peter 3: 6); she certainly did not mean that he
was her destroyer. We call Christ "our Lord;" we mean he has
authority over us, cares for us, and looks after our welfare. This was
what he intended to do for the Sabbath, according to this
statement. Most assuredly, then, he did not abolish it, or change it
for a secular day.

A Memorial

But would not Christ desire to change the Sabbath to the first
day of the week, that he might have a memorial set apart to
commemorate his own work? Many claim this. We reply, The
seventh day Sabbath answered this very purpose. Who was the
active agent in making this world, in calling into existence this
creation? The Son of God. He it was who "made the worlds"; "for
by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in
earth." Hebrews 1:2; Colossians 1:16. God "created all things by
Jesus Christ." Ephesians 3:9. "All things were made" by Christ, the
Word. John 1:3. Therefore the seventh-day Sabbath, which is a
memorial of the work of creation, Christ himself taking six days in
which to perform this grand origination, commemorates the work
of the Son as much as that of the Father. We thus see beauty and
propriety in the language of Jesus, when he calls himself the "Lord
of the Sabbath." The miserable perversion of the institution by
50
Jewish traditions, from one of gratitude, mercy, and refreshment to
a burdensome yoke, demanded such action from one of the
founders of the Sabbath.

The Destruction of Jerusalem

One of the last instructions of our Lord to his disciples, about

two days before his crucifixion, shows his interest in them and his
solicitude for the Sabbath: "Pray you that your flight be not in the
winter, neither on the Sabbath day." Matthew 24:20. He was
foretelling the terrible destruction of Jerusalem, and giving his
disciples directions how to escape it. Eleven hundred thousand
Jews, rejecting that instruction, miserably perished. He says, "When
you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the
desolation thereof is nigh." Luke 21:20. Some little time previous
to the final surrounding of Jerusalem by the Roman army under
Vespasian and Titus, the sign was fulfilled. Cestius, another
general, did compass Jerusalem with a Roman army, and according
to Josephus (Jewish Wars, Book 2, Chapter 19) might easily have
taken it; but "he retired from the city without any reason."
Whereupon, every Christian left the city, and fled away to Pella,
sixty miles distant. When the Romans returned to invest the city,
the disciples were in safety.
Christ foretold this event, and instructed his followers to pray
that the time of this flight might not occur upon the
51
Sabbath day or during the winter season. In the latter case it would
have involved much suffering, as they were to go in the greatest
haste. No other reason can be given why they were instructed to
pray that their flight might not be on the Sabbath, than the Lord's
desire that they should not be compelled to break it in order to
escape.
For nearly forty years, the disciples in Judea, as instructed by the
Lord of the Sabbath, were to plead with God that their flight might
not occur on the Sabbath. This proves, (1) That there was to be a
Sabbath in the year A. D. 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed. (2)
That this was certainly the Sabbath which was in existence when
Christ spoke these words, viz., the seventh day Sabbath, as it would
be most absurd to suppose that Christ spoke of any other day than
the one they were then keeping. (3) That we have here the strongest
indication of the Savior's desire that his disciples should keep the
ancient Sabbath after the Christian dispensation had begun.
If he wished them to keep it, is not his desire just as great that
we should keep it? Could such an injunction be found in the words
of Christ, that the disciples should thus regard Sunday, how eagerly
would first-day observers claim it as evidence in their favor!
In view of these considerations, we again ask, Why should any
one conclude that Christ had the remotest idea of instituting
another Sabbath, and setting aside the ancient Sabbath of four
thousand years' standing? No intimation of it is given in a word of
his or of his historians. That ancient Sabbath had answered all the
wants of God's patriarchs, prophets, and holy men for all these
ages. He had told the Jews that if they would keep it sacred, their
city should stand forever. Jeremiah 17:25. Christ himself had
observed it all his life, as had all his disciples. What reason can be
assigned for its being changed? Do not Christians as well as Jews
need to keep in mind the great work of creation? We must
conclude that no such change occurred.

Chapter 8- Reasons Assigned For Sunday

Sacredness
WE will now briefly notice the leading reasons given for the
supposed change of the Sabbath.

John 20:19

"Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week,
when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for
fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and says unto
them, Peace be unto you."
It is supposed by many that the disciples were assembled to
commemorate the resurrection of Jesus, and that when he came
among them and said, "Peace be unto you," he indicated his
approval of their act in assembling upon that day, and thus
honored the first "Christian Sabbath." But does the language justify
such an inference? From this and other scriptures we draw these
conclusions:
1. The reason the disciples were together was "for fear of the
Jews," and not to celebrate Christ's resurrection.
2. The place of their meeting was undoubtedly the upper room
where they all abode (Acts 1:13), and not the temple or any other
house of worship.
3. The time of this meeting must have been very late in the day,
just before sunset. (By the Bible mode of reckoning time, the day
closed at evening, or sundown. Genesis 1:5; Leviticus 23:32; Mark
1:32). We are forced to this conclusion from the facts stated by the
other evangelists, and because St. John declares it was evening.
Luke gives
53
an account of the journey of two disciples to Emmaus, seven and a
half miles, that very afternoon, and of how Jesus made himself
known to them "as they sat at meat," after conversing with them
and explaining the Scripture predictions concerning himself. Then
"he vanished out of their sight." This was "toward evening," and
"the day was far spent." Then they "returned to Jerusalem, and
found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with
them." As they spoke of what had transpired, Jesus appeared. This
must be the identical meeting spoken of by John, for he uses the
same expression, "Peace be unto you," and it was at the same time
of day. He then asked them, "Have you here any meat?" and ate in
their presence. Mark records the same meeting. He gives a brief
account of the two as they walked and went into the country, and
of his appearing unto them; and states that the other disciples did
not believe them. "Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they
sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness
of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after
he was risen." Mark 16:12-14.
4. We are forced to conclude that they could not have been
celebrating or honoring Christ's resurrection, for they did not
believe it had occurred.
5. We can see clearly how the disciples regarded this first day of
the week, as two of them walked to Emmaus and back, a distance
of fifteen miles, and Jesus made the same journey, and not a hint
did he give that such a use of the day was wrong. A strange way to
celebrate the day, if it was the first "Christian Sabbath"! They
simply regarded it as a secular day, and nothing more.
The little flock of disciples were in a retired place, fearing the
Jews, who had just crucified their Lord. A few of their number
ventured out to the sepulcher to embalm the Savior's body, and
were astonished to find it was not there. A few others went into the
country. What a contrast
54
to the origin of the Sabbath of the Lord! The Creator "rested"
upon it himself; then he "blessed" it, and set it apart to a sacred use,
evidently by telling Adam how to keep it. His example and
command were both given in its favor. But how different with this
first day, on which Christ rose! If there is any divine authority for
keeping Sunday, this day must have been the first of the new order
of Sabbaths. But it was a busy day. Christ gave no example of
resting upon it; he gave no command for his disciples to rest, nor
did he hold any religious service on that day. Some of his disciples
traveled fifteen miles on foot upon it, he keeping them company in
thus laboring. Not a hint is given in all the Bible that it should be
used in any other manner than as a day for labor. Who can believe
that God would in such a manner set aside the ancient Sabbath of
his own appointment, and put in its place a new day, never giving a
hint that the old one was abolished or the new inaugurated?

John 20:26

We next notice the claim that it was customary for Christ to

meet with his disciples on the first day of the week, thus giving
evidence of his regard for it, and proof of its sacredness. "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."
This scripture, in connection with the one just noticed, is relied
upon to prove that it was the practice of Jesus to meet with his
disciples on the first day of the week, between his resurrection and
his ascension. It will be noticed that the record does not say that it
was on the first day of the week when Christ had this interview
with Thomas and the disciples. The statement is that it was "after
eight days" from the previous meeting. That previous meeting was
at the very close of the first day, most of it probably
55
occurring on the day following. It is claimed that the expression
"after eight days" signifies just a week. But what proof is there of
this? "After seven days" is the expression employed by inspiration
when defining a week. Compare 1 Chronicles 9:25 with 2 Kings
11:5. The expression "after six days" (Matthew 17:1) is given by
another writer, "about an eight days after." Luke 9:28. On what
grounds, then, shall we conclude that "after eight days" really
means seven days or less? From the closing hour of Sunday, a
period of time covered by the expression "after eight days," if the
language be taken literally, would reach at least to the Monday
night or Tuesday morning of the next week. How, then, can one
rightfully claim that this meeting occurred on the first day of the
week? It must be evident that this meeting was held because of the
presence of Thomas, who was absent on the previous occasion,
and not to honor any particular day of the week. Had the latter
object been in view, the record would most certainly tell us what
day of the week it was, and not use such an indefinite expression as
"after eight days."
But even if we grant all our first-day friends claim, viz.,
56
that the meeting in question did occur on the first day of the week,
what evidence is thereby furnished in behalf of Sunday sacredness?
Our Savior ascended to heaven on Thursday, just forty days from
his resurrection. Acts 1:1. Another prominent meeting held with
his disciples was on a fishing occasion. John 21:3-25. This was the
third occasion that Christ manifested himself to his disciples. Verse
14. Our friends will hardly claim that this visit occurred on Sunday.
There were five first-days between the crucifixion and the
ascension. No mention whatever is made of any of these five first-
days, excepting the first one, on which he rose from the dead. If we
admit that "after eight days" occurred on the second of those five
first-days, which we are sure is not true, what could that prove? The
evidence would then come far short of proving a custom, since the
two following meetings-the fishing occasion and the ascension-were
not on that day. A "custom" is a long continued practice. More
than two instances are required to constitute a "custom." The
"custom" of our Savior was to honor the Sabbath of the Lord, and
teach the people on that day. Luke 4:16. It is utterly impossible to
establish such a custom of his with reference to Sunday.

Acts 2:1, 2

The pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost is

supposed by many to be an evidence in favor of first-day
sacredness. The Bible record is as follows: "When the day of
Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one
place. And suddenly there carne a sound from heaven as of a
rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were
sitting."
It is well to notice that not a word is said in the text about the
first day of the week. Yet this is regarded by the adherents of
Sunday sacredness as one of the strongest evidences in its behalf. It
is claimed that the disciples
57
were assembled on this first-day Sabbath, and that the Lord poured
out his Spirit in honor of the day and of their act, thus adding to
its sanctity. To this claim we answer:
1. There is no evidence whatever that there was any first day
Sabbath at that time to commemorate.
2. Their being assembled on that day was nothing more than
had occurred on each of the previous nine days, as they were all
commanded by the Savior, "Tarry you in the city of Jerusalem,
until you be endued with power from on high." Luke 24:49. They
had been thus waiting "with one accord in prayer and
supplication," about one hundred and twenty in number. Acts
1:12-26.
3. There is no hint from the connection that this occurred on
the first day of the week. If God had intended to honor that (lay,
he most assuredly would have told us that the occurrence took
place then.
4. This outpouring of the Holy Spirit came, evidently, as the
antitype of the feast of Pentecost. This is doubtless the reason why
that day is mentioned.
A strong effort is made by some to prove that Pentecost came
that year upon the first day of the week, though this is disputed by
a large number of the ablest authors, themselves observers of
Sunday. The word Pentecost signifies "the fiftieth," so many days
being reckoned from the Passover. Olshausen, the celebrated
German commentator, says: "Now since, according to the accounts
given regarding the time of the feast, the Passover, in the year of
our Lord's death, fell so that the first day of the feast lasted from
Thursday evening at six o'clock till Friday evening at the same
hour, it follows, of course, that it was from Friday evening at Six
o'clock that the fifty days began to be counted. The fiftieth day fell,
therefore, it appears, upon Saturday."
58
Jennings, in Jewish Antiquities, concludes his arguments by saying,
"The day of Pentecost must fall on the Saturday, or the Jewish
Sabbath."
Dr. Albert Barnes says: "If the views of the Pharisees were
followed, and the Lord Jesus had with them kept the Passover on
Thursday, as many have supposed, then the day of Pentecost would
have occurred on the Jewish Sabbath, that is, on Saturday. It is
impossible to determine the truth on this subject."
Dean Alford, in his "New Testament for English Readers," says:
"The question on what day of the week this day of Pentecost was,
is beset with the difficulties attending the question of our Lord's last
Passover. . . . It appears probable, however, that it was on the
Sabbath, i.e., if we reckon from Saturday, the 16th of Nisan."
Prof. H. B. Hackett, D. D., Professor of Biblical Literature in
Newton Theological Institute, in his Commentary on the Original Text of
the Acts, p. 40, thus remarks:
"It is generally supposed that this Pentecost, signalized by the
outpouring of the Spirit, fell on the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday."
Other eminent authors-Lightfoot, Kuino1, Hitzig, Weisler, etc.-
take the same position. We conclude, therefore, that, taking the
authority of first-day authors themselves, it cannot be established
that Pentecost came upon the first day of the week at this time, and
if it could be so established, it would be no evidence of Sunday
sacredness.

Redemption Greater than Creation

Another claim made in behalf of the first day Sabbath is this:

Redemption is greater than creation, therefore we should observe
the day of Christ's resurrection in preference to that of the
Creator's rest.
In reply we would say that this is merely human opinion. Who
knows that redemption is greater than creation, since both require
omnipotent power? Is man prepared to decide
59
the comparative greatness of works that he is wholly powerless to
perform, and of which he cannot have any adequate conception?
And who knows that God would have us keep a Sabbath to
celebrate redemption? Not a hint has he given us in his word to
that effect. Would he not have told us so, had he wished us to do it?
Paul says that the Holy Scriptures thoroughly furnish us unto all
good works. 2 Timothy 3:17. As the keeping of Sunday as a
Sabbath in honor of the work of redemption is in no instance
implied in God's word, we must conclude that it is not a "good
work." Every religious institution of divine appointment, has for it
the authority of God's word. But there is none for the observance
of a (lay to commemorate redemption. Such observance must
therefore be merely "will worship." But we inquire, Is redemption
yet completed? Certainly not, while our earth groans under the
curse, and the people of God are either waiting in the grave for the
final resurrection, or are living in a world of wickedness, longing
for immortality. It is most surely out of place to appoint a memorial
to commemorate a work yet unfinished. Christ our Advocate still
intercedes for us, while we "groan within ourselves, waiting for the
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Romans 8:23. Our
friends are at least eighteen centuries too early in appointing their
redemption Sabbath.
And even if a day were to be appointed to commemorate
Christ's work of redemption at his first advent, should it not be the
day of his crucifixion rather than of his resurrection? The Bible
nowhere says we have redemption through his resurrection; but it
does say, "In whom we have redemption through his blood."
Ephesians 1:7. Again, "Thou was slain, and has redeemed us to
God by thy blood." Revelation 5:9. Christ shed his blood (the great
agent in our redemption) on Friday, the sixth day of the week. The
death of Christ is the most marvelous event ever beheld in this
world. It is not surprising that God should raise
60
his Son from the grave after he had died for the sins of men; but it
is mercy most astonishing that lie should ever consent that his "only
begotten Son" should die that ignominious death on the cross.
Shall we therefore keep Friday as a Sabbath to commemorate this
sublime act of mercy and love? 0h, no! God has instituted his own
memorials to commemorate this as well as other important events.
The Lord's supper answers this purpose. "As often as you cat this
bread, and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he
come." 1 Corinthians 11:26. In baptism we have a beautiful and
appropriate memorial of Christ's burial and resurrection. See
Romans 6:3-5; Colossians 2:12. How beautifully fitting is this act to
commemorate Christ's resurrection!

God's Memorials

We shall find, if we investigate the subject of God's memorials in

his word, that there is always a peculiar fitness, a likeness, a
similarity, between the memorial and the thing commemorated by
it. This principle is illustrated by the creation Sabbath, the rest
signifying a completed
61
work; the rite of circumcision, a circle cut in the flesh, may signify
the surrounding of Abraham's seed with peculiar providences as
his peculiar people. The feast of the Passover and the sprinkling of
the blood bring forcibly to view the fleeing out of Egypt, and the
act of the destroying angel in passing over the houses of the
children of Israel, thus saving their first-born. The feast of
tabernacles brings to view their dwelling in tents; the joyful sending
of gifts at the feast of Purim shows the gladness felt at their escape
from the malice of Haman. So of the Lord's supper and baptism.
Every Bible memorial is appropriate. But how about this man
made memorial of Sunday-keeping? What fitness is there in
keeping as a Sabbath one out of every seven days to celebrate the
resurrection of Christ, as a part of the work of redemption, when
it is yet incomplete? We have seen that the resurrection day was a
busy one. The disciples hunted here and there to find Christ, two of
them traveling fifteen miles on foot, and Jesus doing the same. It
was a day of anxiety, for they did not believe he was risen until just
as the day was closing. So there could have been no religious
meeting or public speaking. What likeness is there between the day
most Christians keep as a Sabbath, and the original day they
propose to keep in memory by it? In order for it to be a fitting
memorial, it should be true that the work of redemption occupied
six days, and that Christ rested the day following something no
person ever claimed. As baptism is a memorial of Christ's
resurrection, we would, in that case, have two memorials of the
same event-a thing unprecedented in the Scriptures. We therefore
conclude that the claim that Sunday is set apart to commemorate
redemption, is absurd, and entirely contrary to the facts in the case.

Chapter 9- The Sabbath during the Lives of t he

Apostles
THE Acts of the Apostles is supposed to have been written
more than thirty years after the resurrection of Christ. The book
contains the principal historical facts regarding the apostolic
church in the days when the Christian church was in a condition of
the greatest purity and most glorious success. It has been an
invaluable treatise to all Christians for eighteen centuries. In it is
given a practical illustration of the principles of gospel religion,
exemplified in the labors of all the apostles, and it is in this book
that we obtain a view of their understanding of Christ's teaching.
For they continued to teach and enforce what they had learned
from him. They did not claim to originate new doctrines. They
were to go "into all the world, and preach the gospel "that they had
learned from Christ.
What was their attitude toward the Sabbath? Did they treat it as
an existing institution, as sacred writers in the Old Testament
treated it, and as Christ and themselves had done previous to the
resurrection? Or did they call the first day of the week the Sabbath,
and enforce that as a new institution, to take the place of the
ancient Sabbath? Most certainly, if Sunday did thus enter into the
place of the creation Sabbath at the resurrection of Christ, the
historical
63
record of the first thirty years would give many instances where this
new Sabbath is observed, and it would narrate conflicts between
the adherents of the new day and the old, and tell of the struggles
this new day had to obtain a position as a Sabbath. We should have
statements concerning the efforts of leading men in the church to
instruct the people concerning the importance of their keeping
sacredly the new day, and have many references to it. We should
have some command given concerning it, and plain statements of
its binding obligation.
Such was the case with other ordinances, doctrines, and
requirements which came into force with the gospel dispensation.
For example, notice baptism. Christ commands it. Matthew 28:18;
Mark 16:16. St. Peter does the same. Acts 2:38; 10:48. Many
instances of its performance are given in which the mode,
administration, and necessity of it are intimated. Acts 8:12, 36-38;
16:33; 22:16; Romans 6:3-5; Colossians 2:12, etc. The Lord's
supper was instituted by Christ himself, and commanded by divine
authority. Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:15-17; 1
Corinthians 11:20-26. Other illustrations of the same principle
might be presented.
Do we find such illustrations of the obligation of Sunday
keeping? All its adherents claim that it originated with the
Christian dispensation. Not a single command can be found for it,
not an instance where it was observed as a Sabbath, not a hint that
Christ bestowed upon it any sanctity. Indeed, it is mentioned only
once in the whole book of Acts:

Acts 20:6-14
 "We sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened
bread, and carne unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode
seven days. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples
came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to
depart on the morrow,
64
and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many
lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together.
And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus,
being fallen into a deep sleep; and as Paul was long preaching, he
sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was
taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and
embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him.
When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and
eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he
departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a
little comforted. And we went before to ship, and sailed unto Assos,
there intending to take in Paul; for so had he appointed, minding
himself to go afoot. And when he met with us at Assos, we took
him in, and came to Mitylene."
We give this narrative in full, because it is considered by first day
observers as one of the strongest evidences in behalf of Sunday.
This is the only instance given in the New Testament where a
religious meeting is said to have been held on the first day of the
week.
We learn from this scripture and its connection the following
facts: This was a night meeting, "many lights" being necessary, as it
continued till daybreak. Eutychus fell out of the window about
midnight, Paul went down and healed him, after which he
continued to speak till daylight, then departed on his journey to
Assos, nineteen and a half miles across the peninsula. Luke and his
companions, with the ship, "went before," i.e., started earlier,
intending to go around this point of land, and take in Paul when he
reached Assos. In this way Paul gained several hours in which he
could speak to the disciples.
 To understand this narrative correctly, it becomes important to
ascertain whether this meeting occurred on what we now call
Saturday night or on Sunday night. It is very easily shown that it
must have been the former. We have
65
already stated that in the Bible reckoning of time the civil day
began at the going down of the sun. "The evening and the
morning were the first day" (Genesis 1:5), and the same statement
is made of other days of creation week also. The Bible is consistent
with itself throughout on this subject, and it is impossible to find in
it any other time for beginning the civil day. "From even unto even
shall you celebrate your Sabbath." Leviticus 23:32. The Sabbath
began at the same time as the other days. The evening began at the
going down of the sun. "At even, when the sun did set." Mark 1:32.
No intelligent person will dispute the fact that the Jews, from
time immemorial to the present day, have begun the civil day at the
going down of the sun. The "Bible Dictionary" of the American
Tract Society says, "The Hebrews began their day in the evening."
We use Roman time, which came into vogue among Christians
some centuries this side of the Christian era.
What, then, must we conclude? In order for this night meeting
to have been on the first day of the week, it would have to be on
what we call Saturday night. That first day began at sundown.
These facts, then, must follow: Paul traveled on foot to Assos,
nineteen and one-half miles, during the daytime of that Sunday;
and Luke and his companions spent still more of the hours of that
day in traveling to the same point by ship. This conclusion is
inevitable from the record, so plain, indeed, that a large number of
first-day observers have felt compelled to admit its truthfulness. We
quote from a few of them as follows:
H. B. Hackett, D. D., Professor of Biblical Literature in Newton
Theological Institute, in his comments on Acts 20: 7, says: "The
Jews reckoned the day [in its broad sense, Genesis 1:5] from
evening to evening. And on that principle the evening of the first
day of the week would be our Saturday evening. If Luke reckons so
here, as many commentators suppose, the apostle then waited for
the
66
expiration of the Jewish Sabbath, and held his last religious service
with the brethren at Troas at the beginning of the Christian
Sabbath, i.e., on Saturday evening, and consequently resumed his
journey on Sunday morning." Prof. Hackett tries, however, to make
it appear that Luke reckons according to the pagan method in this
instance.
Dr. John Kitto says: "The evening of the first day of the week
would be our Saturday evening. If Luke reckoned so here, as many
commentators suppose, the apostle then waited for the expiration
of the Jewish Sabbath, and held his last religions service with the
brethren at Troas at the beginning of the Christian Sabbath, i.e.,
on Saturday evening, and consequently resumed his journey on
Sunday morning."-Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, art. Lord's Day.
In Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of the Apostle Paul, it
is said, speaking of this meeting, "It was the evening which
succeeded the Jewish Sabbath. On the Sunday morning the vessel
was about to sail." And of the journey that day it says: "He [Paul]
pursued his lonely road that Sunday afternoon in spring, among
the oak woods and the streams of Ida."-People's Edition of 1878, p.
629.
Professor McGarvey, of the Disciple (Church of Christ)
denomination, says: "I conclude, therefore, that the brethren met
on the night after the Jewish Sabbath, which was still observed as a
day of rest by all of them who were Jews or Jewish proselytes. And
considering this the beginning of the first day of the week, spent it
in the manner above described. On Sunday morning Paul and his
companions resumed their journey."-Commentary on Acts.
Other authors might be quoted; but let it be noticed that these
are all writers who observed Sunday themselves. They would not
make these admissions unless their sense of truth required it. They
express the fact that "many commentators" hold the same opinion.
Professor McGarvey admits that all the Jewish disciples and
proselytes still
 67
regarded the Sabbath sacredly as a day of rest. That was in the
year 59, some twenty-six years after the resurrection. According to
the Bible chronology, all the apostles, Paul included, with all the
companions of Christ, still regarded the seventh day as sacred.
Surely this is a good admission, coming from a first-day
commentator. These apostles had not learned, then, that another
Sabbath had taken its place.
We see, therefore, that this scripture, which on the whole is
regarded as the strongest text to be found in the Bible in behalf of
Sunday, proves just the opposite from what it is cited to prove. This
instance is really the second mention of the first day of the week
we have seen thus far in the historical record, the day of Christ's
resurrection being the first, on which some of the disciples walked
fifteen miles. It is strange that such instances should ever be
thought to furnish evidence in behalf of the institution of a new
Sabbath.
Should any desire to imitate apostolic example concerning
Sunday, they should hold meetings on Saturday night, and work
during the light part of the day; for this is precisely what Paul and
his companions did.

1 Corinthians 16:1, 2

We have now noticed every instance where the first day of the
week is mentioned in the New Testament, excepting one, which we
here present: "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I
have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do you. Upon
the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as
God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I
come."
This scripture is claimed as evidence for Sunday on the ground
that public collections were taken up on that day, hence there must
have been public meetings held, and therefore the first day of the
week was the day for public assemblies of Christians. But does this
language say that public
 68
collections were taken up on the first day of the week? The whole
question turns upon the expression, "lay by him in store." Would
the act of taking money from the purse or pocket and placing it in
a box or plate, be laying by him, i.e., by himself ? Most certainly it
would be just the opposite; it would be putting the money away
from himself. The money would be gone. This is evidently an act to
be done, not in a public gathering, but at home. This is most
certainly the meaning of the original Greek. Various translations
collected by J. W. Morton, late Presbyterian missionary to Hayti,
read as follows:-
"Greenfield, in his Lexicon, translates the Greek term, 'by one's
self, i.e., at home.' Two Latin versions, the Vulgate and that of
Castellio, render it 'with one's self, at home.' Three French
translations, those of Martin, Osterwald, and De Sacy, 'at his own
house, at home.' The German of Luther, 'by himself, at home.' The
Dutch the same as the German. The Italian of Diodati, 'in his own
presence, at home.' The Spanish of Felipe Scio, 'in his own house.'
The Portuguese of Ferreira, 'with himself.' The Swedish, 'near
himself.' Dr. Bloomfield renders it 'by him, Fr., chez soi, at home.'
The Douay Bible, 'Let every one of you put apart with himself.' Dr.
Justin Edwards, in his Family Testament of the American Tract Society, p.
286, thus gives it, "Lay by himself in store; at home; that there be
no gatherings; that their gifts might be ready when the 'apostle
should come.'"
Surely all these authorities, and others which might be cited, are
sufficient to settle the question beyond all controversy, that no
public collection was intended, but on the contrary that the act
required was to be done at home.
Again, the act required is not such a one as would be consistent
with Sabbath sacredness. They were to lay by them on the first day
of the week as God had prospered them. To tell how God had
prospered them during the week past, if a business man, would
necessitate the reckoning
69
of accounts. Our first-day friends would hardly relish the idea of
finding some of their church members who were merchants, busy
reckoning up columns of figures to ascertain their amount of
prosperity during the past week, on what they call the "Christian
Sabbath." Yet this is precisely what this command of the great
apostle to "lay by him in store, as God had prospered him," would
necessitate in the case of any one who had large business
transactions.
Here we see the same fact stated which has been apparent in the
other cases where the first day of the week is mentioned. Secular
labor is spoken of as being done on that day; and in this last
instance the apostle required it. Surely this is not consistent with
Sabbath holiness. We therefore conclude that this last mention of
the first day utterly fails to prove the practice of holding religions
meetings on the first day of the week in the apostolic age, and fails
to give the slightest sanction to any claim of sacredness.

Acts 13:4, 42, 44

We next notice references made to the Bible Sabbath during the

days of the apostles. "When they departed from Perga, they came
to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath
day, and sat down." Acts 13:14. After this Paul gave a masterly
discourse to those assembled, proving that Jesus is the Christ. We
learn from this scripture that the day St. Luke called the Sabbath
some twelve years after, which many claim had been changed, was
still the seventh day, the very day when the Jews met in their
synagogues. At the close of this discourse, we read: "When the Jews
were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these
words might be preached to them the next Sabbath: . . . and the
next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the
word of God." Acts 13:42, 44. Here again the inspired word of
God positively declares that the seventh day, on which the
70
Jews met in their synagogues, was the Sabbath day in the year A.
D. 45.
 We are well aware how first-day advocates try to avoid the force
of this argument by saying, "It was the Jewish Sabbath, of course,"
and "the apostles went into the synagogue to preach, simply
because they could not get opportunity to speak to the Jews any
other day," "the apostles did not hold religious meetings with the
Gentiles on the Jewish Sabbath," etc. But the very fact that these
men in every case place the word "Jewish" before the word
"Sabbath," when speaking of the seventh day of the week, as a
term of reproach, while they speak of the first day of the week as
the Sabbath, without any such qualifying phrase, shows the sense in
which they speak of that day, as distinguished from the manner in
which the inspired writers speak of it many years this side of the
cross. Why did not St. Luke speak of the day as the "Jewish
Sabbath," if his practice then was the same as that of many
Christian ministers now? We could not persuade these estimable
men to speak of the seventh day as the Sabbath day before their
congregations in public. They never do it. They would feel at once
that all who heard them would draw the conclusion that they
considered it a sacred day, should they do so. The observers of the
seventh always call it "the Sabbath day," because they regard it as
such.
How shall we explain the fact that St. Luke, whenever he has
occasion to speak of the seventh day Sabbath, always calls it by the
same name that its modern observers do, and never the Jewish
Sabbath, except on the supposition that he observed it himself, and
considered no other day of the week the Sabbath day. This writer
was a Christian, writing for the Christian dispensation. He calls
those institutions which he names, what they really are. He always
calls the seventh day, when he has occasion to speak of it, "the
Sabbath," just as writers had been doing for four thousand years,
showing that no change had occurred.
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He never in a single instance calls the first day of the week by any
such title, or by any sacred title whatever. Yet many good people
believe that he had been keeping the first day of the week as the
Sabbath for thirty years, and not keeping the seventh day as such.
We leave it for first-day observers to explain such inconsistency.
We next notice the claim that the apostles did not hold meetings
on the seventh day Sabbath, except with the Jews, for the sake of
reaching them. Acts 13:42 implies that this meeting on the first
Sabbath mentioned, was a mixed meeting of Jews and Gentiles; for
the latter requested that these words might be repeated to them on
the next Sabbath. This shows at least that they were somewhat
conversant with the discourse. What an excellent opportunity this
presented to the apostle to inform them of the first day Sabbath, if
there had been any instituted! How readily our modern ministers
would have remarked, "You need not wait a whole week: tomorrow
is the Christian's Sabbath, the day in which we instruct the
Gentiles." But not a word of this do we find. They waited a whole
week; then nearly the whole city turned out to hear the gospel.
Luke says it was "the next Sabbath day" when this great gathering
occurred. It was evidently a week later than the other meeting. If it
was the next Sabbath day, then most certainly Sunday was not a
Sabbath day. Here was a Gentile meeting on the Sabbath day, and
no one can truthfully deny it. Here we have two consecutive
Sabbath days in which the great apostle held religious services,
instructing far more Gentiles than Jews.

Acts 16:13

"On the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where
prayer was wont to, be made; and we sat down and spoke unto the
women which resorted thither." Here we have another religious
meeting of the apostle to the Gentiles, in the Gentile city of
Philippi, on the seventh-day Sabbath.
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As the Greek language puts it, it was "the Sabbath day," so called
by a Christian writer.

Acts 17:1, 2
 "Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia,
they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews.
And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three
Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures."
Twenty years after the resurrection we have another in stance, in
a Gentile city, of Paul's using the ancient Sabbath as a day for
religious meetings, and of Luke's declaring to the Christian world
that the day in which the Jews met in their synagogues was still the
Sabbath day of Holy Writ.
Another very significant remark made by the historian is that it
was "Paul's manner" thus to use the Sabbath day for religious
teaching. In this respect he followed Christ's example perfectly. The
same writer declares that it was our Savior's "custom" to do the
same thing. Luke 4:16. All agree that our Lord in doing this was
keeping the Sabbath commandment, and showing proper respect
for the worship of God on that day. The Sabbath was ordained for
that purpose, as a day for religious worship. It would be impossible
to show a particle of difference between Paul's "manner" of
treating the Sabbath and Christ's "custom." They pursued the
same course toward the Sabbath, because their relation to
Jehovah's rest-day was just the same. It was the day appointed for
religious instruction. It was obligatory in both cases.
Another very significant point in connection with this text of
scripture, is the fact that here we have an account of the origin of
the Thessalonian church, to which Paul addressed one of his
epistles. We cannot question but that the members of this church
were observers of the seventh day Sabbath. Paul, in his letter to
them, uses this language: "You, brethren, became followers of the
churches of God
73
which in Judea are in Christ Jesus." "You became followers of us,
and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with
joy of the Holy Ghost, so that you were ensamples to all that
believe in Macedonia and Achaia." 1 Thessalonians 2:14; 1:6, 7.
Jesus declared, "I have kept my Father's commandments." St. Paul,
when he arrived in Rome AD. 62, called the "chief of the Jews
together," and said unto them, "I have committed nothing against
the people, or customs of our fathers." Acts 28:17. None will deny
that the observance of the Sabbath was one of these "customs."
Hence we are forced to conclude that Paul kept the Sabbath.
These Thessalonian brethren followed Paul and Christ;
therefore they also were observers of the Sabbath. The brethren of
Macedonia and Achaia followed the same example. The churches
of Judea even, according to the admission of many first-day
commentators, still kept the Sabbath. We see, therefore, that the
early Gentile Christians imitated them in this practice. We note,
also, this fact, which is brought to view in the text we are
considering: here were three more Sabbath days in which Paul held
religious meetings, making six, with the three previously
mentioned.

Acts 18:4, 11

We next notice Paul's visit to Corinth. "He reasoned in the

synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the
Greeks. . . . And he continued there a year and six months,
teaching the word of God among them."
Paul taught for a portion of the time in the synagogue; but after
the Jews "opposed," he continued to teach the people at the home
of Justus, "whose house joined hard to the synagogue." The record
states that he reasoned in the synagogue, teaching Gentiles as well
as Jews "every Sabbath," and that he continued in the synagogue
and the house which "joined hard to" it, a year and six months.
There would be seventy-eight Sabbaths in that period.
74
These, with the six previously noted, would make some eighty-four
Sabbaths in which Luke records the fact of Paul's holding meetings
in Gentile cities with both "Jews and Greeks." Paul was the great
apostle to the Gentiles: and all these instances of Sabbath meetings
mentioned, occurred in Gentile cities and not in Judah. Is not this
significant? It would have been much more easy to explain away, if
it had been in the Jews' own country where all these meetings on
the Sabbath occurred. We find no instances in which any secular
work occurred in connection with any of these Sabbath meetings,
no long journeys traveled, no reckoning of accounts.
Sunday observers cite Paul's night meeting in Acts 20, and dwell
upon it with much satisfaction. Yet he and his companions used the
light part of that day for ordinary secular business. One night
meeting they consider strong evidence for first day sacredness. Yet
that very instance really counts more for the Sabbath than for the
first day; for the disciples remained there over the Sabbath, and as
soon as the light of the first day dawned, they started on their long
journey toward Jerusalem. They did not start on the Sabbath, but
they did on Sunday. Doubtless the reason why that night meeting
was mentioned, was the remarkable occurrence of raising the dead
man Eutychus. This was one of the greatest miracles that Paul ever
wrought.
But here we have scores of religious meetings on a day which
Inspiration declares to be the Sabbath, in which Jews and Gentiles
are instructed in the truths of the gospel; and yet men teach that it
was not the Sabbath day, but the first, which is never in a single
instance called the Sabbath. So hard is it to see a truth which
involves a cross.

"The Lord's Day" Revelation 1:10

We next notice a text which is claimed by first-day observers as

evidence in behalf of Sunday, but which we claim
75
affords excellent proof in behalf of the Lord's holy Sabbath. "I was
in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice,
as of a trumpet."
This language is supposed to have been written in the year AD.
96, sixty-five years after the resurrection of Christ. It is claimed
that by the term "Lord's day" is meant the first day of the week, the
day on which our Savior rose from the dead. But the very point to
be proved is assumed. We want evidence of a substantial character
that the first day of the week is the "Lord's day." Not a hint from
the Scriptures is ever cited to prove this important point. No sacred
writer ever calls it such. In every case where it is mentioned, as we
have seen in eight instances, it has the same secular title. St. John
himself, in writing his Gospel, some two or three years later than
the book of Revelation was written, as is generally supposed, calls it
twice "the first day of the week." John 20:1, 19. If he had intended
the first day of the week to be understood by the term "Lord's day,"
why did he not call it so still later when he wrote his Gospel?
No good reason can be assigned for calling it the Lord's day.
The Lord never intimated any more regard for it than for any
other secular day. The fact that he rose from the dead on it does
not entitle it to any higher regard from us than the sixth day, the
day of his crucifixion, the one on which our salvation was
purchased by his spilt blood. Or Thursday, the day on which he
ascended, to become our high priest. Not one well authenticated
instance can be found where Sunday was ever called the Lord's day
before the year AD. 194, just about one hundred years later than
the time when this was written by St. John,-a point where
Christianity had become much corrupted.
We confidently claim that this "Lord's day" is God's holy
Sabbath day. For four thousand years it had been constantly
recognized as a day peculiarly sacred to the Lord. He rested upon
it, and set it apart to a holy use,
76
placing his blessing upon it. Genesis 2:3. In the law of God he said,
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is
the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. . . . The Lord blessed the
Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Exodus 20:8-11. The prophet says,
"If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy
pleasure on My holy day." Isaiah 58:13. Surely this language
unmistakably identifies which day is "the Lord's day." It can be
none other than the one he has always claimed.
But it is sometimes objected that in the original Greek, the term
"Lord" used in the text refers to Christ, and not to God the Father;
that it is not Jehovah's day, but a special day which Christ claims as
his own. Very well; of what day does Christ claim to be the Lord?
"The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2:28. Is not
the day of which Christ says he is Lord, the Lord's day? So we
believe. Does he anywhere say he is Lord of the first day of the
week? Not a text is ever quoted by any one to show it. We therefore
conclude that the day on which St. John had this heavenly vision
was the Lord's holy Sabbath, the seventh day. Let it be noticed by
all that at the very close of the first century of the Christian era,
the Lord has a day which he still calls his own, which we have
shown to be the holy Sabbath. All days, then, are not alike. God
claims at the very close of the canon of inspiration, in the book of
Revelation, as he did at its beginning, in the book of Genesis, that
one day is his own.

The Sabbath in the New Earth

We will quote one text more concerning the time the holy
Sabbath will continue, with which to close the Biblical argument of
this question: "As the new heavens and the new earth, which I will
make, shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your seed and
your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new
moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh
come to
77
worship before me, says the Lord." Isaiah 66:22, 23. The new
heavens and the new earth are created a thousand years after the
coming of Christ. 2 Peter 3:8-13; Revelation 20:4-15; 21:1. The
new earth will be the abode of the saved to all eternity. The holy
city, the New Jerusalem, will be in it, and there, also, will be the tree
of life, bearing its twelve manner of fruits, and yielding its fruit
every month. Revelation 22:2. To this blessed metropolis of the
new creation will the saints of God come each month, to partake of
its fruits, and each week, on the holy Sabbath, to worship God.
That blessed day which God set apart at creation to serve as a
memorial of the works of the Creator, will be still more gladly kept
when sin and the curse have been forever abolished. Why should
not this blessed institution forever exist as a reminder of the glory
of God in creation? Nothing could be more fitting. The word of
God positively declares that the holy Sabbath, that Sabbath with
which the prophet Isaiah was well acquainted, will be kept in the
new heavens and the new earth.
What, then, is the conclusion which the Scriptures compel us to
make in reference to the continuance of the Bible Sabbath? The
great majority of Christians admit that for four thousand years the
seventh day was the only weekly Sabbath. Here we find the same
day being kept in Eden restored, continuing to all eternity. Can we
suppose that an intermission of about two thousand years occurred
between these two eternities? And that another Sabbath was set up
to take the place of this great memorial of the work of Christ and
Jehovah, which God has ordained to be kept in the eternal world?
Can we think such an event probable? Such a conclusion would be
unphilosophical, absurd, preposterous.
The prophet of God in holy vision beholds the Sabbath of the
Lord carried far beyond this world of sin. Thus the Holy Scriptures
place the seventh day Sabbath like a grand
78
arch at the beginning of the race of man, spanning the six
thousand years of human probation, and reaching into a renovated
world after sin is forever destroyed. No place is left for another
weekly Sabbath to come in. Few realize the vast importance of the
Sabbath institution. It is the golden clasp which binds man to his
Maker. It keeps in memory the true God as the creator of all
things. Had man always observed it in the true spirit, idolatry could
never have had an existence.

Chapter 10- The Two Rest Days In Secular History

IN the consideration Of the Sabbath and its supposed change,
we have now reached an important point. We have had, hitherto,
the inspired, unerring word of the Lord as our text book of
authority; and we need not discount a single statement it has made
on the subject under investigation. We have found the Sabbath of
the Lord still standing with undiminished obligation, at the close of
the canon of inspiration, at the end of the first century of the
Christian era. Now we enter upon a very different order of things.
We know that a change of the Sabbath has been attempted, for the
majority of professed Christians are found observing the first day
of the week and not the seventh. As no account of a change is to
be found in the Bible, we must look for it this side of the close of
the first century.
The authorities to which we must now look will be the so-called
"Christian Fathers," ecclesiastical historians, the decrees of
emperors, and the decisions of councils. We shall find much of
fable, contradictory statements, unreliable traditions, and doctrines
never taught in the Bible. In the second, third, and fourth centuries,
great changes came into the church. It ceased to be the humble,
pure church of Christ and the apostles, but became rather a
worldly, popular church, paying more heed to ambition, vain show,
the love of supremacy, and traditions of men, and heathen notions,
than to the word of God. The great errors which
80
finally culminated in the full development of the Catholic Church,
here had their rise.
It is not the design of this comparatively brief treatise to notice
all the points and questions raised on the subject of the Sabbath
and its change, by the multitude of authors and authorities who
have discussed this subject. The History of the Sabbath, by Elder J. N.
Andrews, does this in a most thorough and conclusive manner; and
all who desire to see every argument raised by first-day authors
fully considered, should certainly secure this book. It is a work of
great thoroughness, comprising over 800 pages.
Our object in this treatise is to present, in as brief a manner as
possible, a connected view of the attempted change of the day, and
the authority for it. The authorities we quote will, in almost every
case, be those who kept the first day of the week for the Sabbath,
as far as they kept any day, and not those who favored the seventh
day.
Let us briefly notice some predictions of the Scriptures
concerning this period upon which we are now entering, as well as
the statements of leading Protestant authors concerning the
character of these early times.

The Great Apostasy

"I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter
in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall
men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after
them." Acts 20:29, 30. "The time will come when they will not
endure sound doctrine. But after their own lusts shall they heap to
themselves teachers, having itching cars; and they shall turn away
their ears from hearing the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."
2 Timothy 4:3, 4. "Let no man deceive you by any means, for that
day shall not come, except there come a falling away [literal Creek,
apostasy] first, and that
81
man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and
exalts himself above an that is called God, or that is worshiped; so
that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is
God. . . . For the mystery of iniquity does already work; only he
who now lets [hinders] will let, until he be taken out of the way.
And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall
consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the
brightness of his coming." 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4, 7, 8.
These scriptures are very explicit in predicting a great apostasy
in the church, the beginning of which was already existing in Paul's
day. It is not enough, therefore, to trace a doctrine or practice back
almost or even quite to the days of the apostles; for great errors
had their rise in that very period. The real question is, Does such a
doctrine owe its origin to the Bible? The Roman Catholic Church
holds many doctrines which are very ancient, and yet are wholly
contrary to the Bible.
The prophet Daniel foretold the rise of a power which should
undertake to make great changes even in the law of God. "He shall
speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the
saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws [the
times and the law, R.V] and they shall be given into his hand until
a time and times and the dividing of time." Daniel 7:25. The best
commentators agree that the Catholic power is here intended. The
fourth beast mentioned in the vision of the seventh chapter of this
book, is said to be the "fourth kingdom." Verse 23. This was
certainly the Roman kingdom. Rome under the popes was more
marvelous than Rome under the Caesars. This power was to "think
to change" the times and the law of God. This expression clearly
refers to the Sabbath of God's law. Will history bear out this
prediction?
According to the best Protestant authors, what was the character
of the religious changes occurring during the
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second and third centuries, and what credence should we give to
the so-called Christian Fathers?
"From Adrian [A. D. 117] to Justinian.... few institutions, either
human or divine, were permitted to stand on their former basis."-
Gibbon's Decline and Pall of the Roman Empire, chap. 44, par. 7.
Says Robinson, the Baptist historian:
"Toward the latter end of the second century, most of the
churches assumed a new form, the first simplicity disappeared, and
insensibly, as the old disciples retired to their graves, their children,
along with new converts, both Jews and Gentiles, came forward
and new-modeled the cause."-Ecclesiastes Researches, chap. 6, page
51, Edition 1792.
Says Mr. Bower, in his History of the Popes
"To avoid being imposed upon, we ought to treat tradition as we
do a notorious . . . liar, to whom we give no credit unless what he
says is confirmed to us by some person of undoubted veracity. . . .
False and lying traditions are of an early date, and the greatest men
have, out of a pious credulity, suffered themselves to be imposed
upon by them."-Volume 1, Page 1, Philadelphia Edition 1847.
Dr. Adam Clarke uses the following language concerning the
Fathers:
"We should take heed how we quote the Fathers in proof of the
doctrines of the gospel, because he who knows them best, knows
that on many of those subjects they blow hot and cold."-
Autobiography of Adam Clarke, p. 134.
Martin Luther says:
"When God's word is by the Fathers expounded, constructed,
and glossed, then in my judgment it is even like unto one that
strains milk through a coal sack, which must needs spoil the milk
and make it black. Even so, likewise, God's word of itself is
sufficiently pure, clean, bright, and clear; but through the doctrines,
books, and writings of the Fathers, it is very surely darkened,
falsified, and spoiled."-Table Talk, pages 2-8.
Says Du Pin, one of the most celebrated and reliable of the
Catholic historians:
"It is a surprising thing to consider how many spurious books we
find in antiquity, nay, even in the first ages of the church!"
83
Dr. Clarke says again of the Fathers, in his comments on
Proverbs 8:
"But of these we may safely state that there is not a truth in the
most orthodox creed that cannot be proved by their authority, nor
a heresy that has disgraced the Roman Church, that may not
challenge them as its abettors. In points of doctrine, their authority
is, with me, nothing. The word of God alone contains my creed."
We could multiply statements of this kind from eminent authors
almost ad infinitum. We have introduced them simply to show how
unreliable for authority on religious duties these Fathers are, and
what an age of corruption was that portion of the historical field
we are considering. Our only safety is to take the Bible alone as
authority in matters of religion. By it Paul says the man of God
may be "thoroughly furnished unto all good works."
It is in such an age as this, and from such authorities as these
Fathers, that the principal evidence of a change of the Sabbath is
derived. The ante-Nicean Fathers are those Christian writers who
flourished after the time of the apostles and before the Council of
Nicea, AD. 325. As we have seen, the best of authorities, like Dr.
Clarke, declare that the Fathers sustain the heresies of the Roman
Church, as well as many of the essential truths of the gospel. In
short, they lived in that age of transition from the pure truths of
the word of God to that great system of corruption which
developed into Roman Catholicism.
To bring briefly before the reader a comprehensive statement
related to the bearing of the Fathers upon the subject of the
change of the Sabbath, we quote from Andrews's History of the
Sabbath, pp. 206, 207:
"But next to the deception under which men fall when they are
made to believe that the Bible may be corrected by the Fathers, is
the deception practiced upon them as to what the Fathers actually
teach. It is asserted that the Fathers bear explicit testimony to the
change of the Sabbath by Christ as a historical fact, and that they
knew that this was so because they had conversed with the
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apostles, or with some one who had conversed with them. It is
also asserted that the Fathers called the first day of the week the
Christian Sabbath, and that they refrained from labor on that day
as an act of obedience to the fourth commandment.
"Now it is a most remarkable fact that every one of these
assertions is false. The people who trust in the Fathers as their
authority for departing from God's commandment, are miserably
deceived as to what the Fathers teach.
1. The Fathers are so far from testifying that the apostles told
them Christ changed the Sabbath, that not even one of them ever
alludes to such a change.
2. No one of them ever calls the first day the Christian Sabbath,
nor, indeed, ever calls it a Sabbath of any kind.
3. They never represent it as a day on which ordinary labor was
sinful; nor do they represent the observance of Sunday as an act of
obedience to the fourth commandment.
4. The modern doctrine of the change of the Sabbath was
therefore absolutely unknown in the first centuries of the Christian
Church."
We are now prepared to notice the steps by which the Sabbath
gradually lost its position of eminence, and also how the first day of
the week gradually usurped its place.
Chapter 11- The Sabbath in the Early Centuries
after Christ
THE seventh day continued to be kept for several centuries after
Christ, but with a sacredness gradually decreasing in proportion to
the rising influence of Sunday, until the Roman Catholic Church
became so powerful that, wherever it had sway, it put down the
Sabbath, and exalted the first day of the week to its place in the
observance of the people. This, as we shall see, was a gradual work,
taking several centuries for its accomplishment.
Says the learned Mr. Morer, of the Church of England:
"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 that they derived this practice from the apostles
themselves, as appears by several scriptures to that purpose."-
Dialogues on the Lord's Day, p. 189.
A learned English writer of the seventeenth century, William
Twisse, D.D, thus states the early history of these two days:
"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 alone, but by the pious Christians also,
as Baronius writes and Gomarus confesses, and Rivet also, that we
are bound in conscience, under the gospel. To allow for God's
service a better proportion of time than the Jews did under the
86
law, rather than a worse."-Morality of the Fourth Commandment, p. 9.
London, 1641.
The learned Geisler also states the same fact, and that this
practice of observing the seventh day was not confined to the
Jewish converts:
"While the Jewish Christians of Palestine retained the entire
Mosaic law, and consequently the Jewish festivals, the Gentile
Christians observed also the Sabbath and the Passover, with
reference to the last scenes of Jesus' life, but without Jewish
superstition."-Ecclesiastical History, Volume I, chapter 2, section 30.
These statements are certainly very explicit proof of the
continued observance of the Sabbath in the centuries immediately
succeeding the apostolic age, and they come from those who could
have no prejudice in favor of the seventh day.
But we notice others of similar import. Coleman speaks as
follows:
"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 diminishing until it was
wholly discontinued."-Ancient Christianity Exemplified, chapter 6,
section 2.
In this extract, the writer speaks of the first day's being observed
also. In the same chapter he tells us how it was regarded in these
early ages:
"During the early ages of the church it was never entitled 'the
Sabbath,' this word being confined to the seventh day of the week,
the Jewish Sabbath, which, as we have already said, continued to
be observed for several centuries by the converts to Christianity."
He tells us again in a few words how the first day of the week,
which he, like many other first-day writers, calls "the Lord's day,"
though without good authority for so doing, came gradually to
work its way into the position of the true Sabbath:
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"The observance of the Lord's day was ordered while yet the
Sabbath of the Jews was continued; nor was the latter superseded
until the former had acquired the same solemnity and importance
which belonged, at first, to that great day which God originally
ordained and blessed. . . . But in time, after the Lord's day was fully
established, the observance of the Sabbath of the Jews was
gradually discontinued, and was finally denounced as heretical."
We shall see that the facts of history fully sustain the statement
of this first-day writer. The Sunday festival at first only asked
toleration; but as it gradually gained strength, it undermined the
Sabbath, whose adherents were finally denounced as heretical.
Bishop Jeremy Taylor, of the Church of England, a man of
great learning, also bears testimony incidentally to the same fact,
the observance of the Sabbath for centuries after Christ, though he
was a decided opponent of Sabbath obligation:
"It [the Lord's day] was not introduced by virtue of the fourth
commandment, because they for almost three hundred years
together kept that day which was in that commandment."-Ductor
Dubitantium, part 1, book 2, chapter 2, rule 6, section 51.
We quote another testimony from a member of the English
Church, Edward Brerewood, Professor in Gresham College,
London:
"The ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed, together
with the celebration of the Lord's day, by the Christians of the East
Church, above three hundred years after our Savior's death. And
besides that, no other day for more hundreds of years than I spoke
of before, was known in the church by the name of the Sabbath
but that."-Learned Treatise of the Sabbath, p. 77, Oxford, 1631.
These testimonies should certainly satisfy reasonable minds of
the continued observance of the Sabbath of the Lord for a long
time after the death of the apostles. As will be shown when we
consider the growth of the Sunday institution, it gradually
increased from several causes, till it became a rival of the ancient
day. By the end of the third century it had acquired almost an
equality with the
88
Sabbath itself in the regard of many of the Gentile Christians. In
the same ratio, the latter was decreasing in relative importance in
the minds of many.
In the beginning of the fourth century an event occurred which
vastly accelerated this process, and raised the first day and
correspondingly depressed the seventh day in the balancing scale of
esteem in the minds of the people. This was an edict of the
emperor Constantine, issued AD. 321, which required all trades-
people and towns-people to rest on "the venerable day of the sun,"
though it did not forbid labor in sowing or planting in the country.
This is the first law commanding rest on the first day of the week,
which can be found on record in all history, either human or
sacred. We shall fully consider it when we notice the steps by which
the first day rose to authority. The effect of this law upon the
ancient Sabbath was greatly to decrease the regard of the people
for it, and to turn the tide of influence strongly in favor of its rival.
On this point an able writer, Mr. Cox, remarks:
"Very shortly after the period when Constantine issued his edict
enjoining the general observance of Sunday throughout the
Roman empire, the party that had contended for the observance of
the seventh day, dwindled into insignificance. The observance of
Sunday as a public festival, during which all business, with the
exception of rural employment, was intermitted, came to be more
and more generally established ever after this time, throughout
both the Greek and Latin churches. There is no evidence, however,
that either in this, or at a period much later, the observance was
viewed as deriving any obligation from the fourth commandment.
It seems to have been regarded as an institution corresponding in
nature with Christmas, Good Friday, and other festivals of the
church; and as resting with them on the ground of ecclesiastical
authority and tradition!"-Sabbath Laws Examined, pp. 280, 281.
However, even with this powerful influence of the great Roman
emperor thrown into the scale against the ancient Sabbath, it still
continued to share public esteem for a long time. It took a strong
combination of influences, secular and religious, entirely to
obliterate from the public memory
89
this grand ancient institution, the Sabbath of creation; but the
gradual disintegrating influences continued to wear away its God-
given sanctity. A heathen Roman emperor, a tyrant, a murderer,
one who killed his own wife and his own son and many other
innocent persons, took one prominent step to debase it. The
Sabbath never fully recovered from this blow, although it was still
regarded as a day for religious meetings. Dr. Heylyn, speaking of
the Sabbath in Constantine's time, says:
 "As for the Saturday, that retained its wonted credit in the
Eastern churches, little inferior to the Lord's day, if not plainly
equal; not as the Sabbath, think not so; but as a day designed unto
sacred meetings."-History of the Sabbath, part 2, chap. 3, sec. 5.
After Constantine's time, there seems to have been in a measure
a revival of interest in, and reverence for, the Sabbath in the minds
of many Christians, at least in the Eastern churches, where the
influence of the Roman Church was less powerful.
Professor Stewart, in speaking of the period from Constantine to
the Council of Laodicea, AD. 364, says:
"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
belonged 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 History, etc., of the
Sabbath, pp. 115, 116.

Christianity Becomes Popular

The church had by this time become greatly corrupted. When

Constantine professed Christianity, it became the popular religion.
In order to serve in the army or in the courts, or hold any official
position, men had to profess to be Christians; and Gibbon declares
that many did this, but
90
continued to worship their idols in secret. Vast numbers joined the
church. The bishops sought high positions, wealth, and place,
dressing in gorgeous attire, and there was very little resemblance
indeed between religion then and in the days of persecution.
Council of Laodicea

What did this great Catholic Church now do, when they saw the
Sabbath once more gaining some of its former sanctity, and an
interest in it reviving? They held a great council at Laodicea, and,
among other things, passed a decree that Christians should not rest
on the seventh day Sabbath, and pronounced a curse upon all who
should do so. We present the following statements of eminent
authors on this point.
Mr. James, in addressing the University of Oxford, used this
language-
"When the practice of keeping Saturday Sabbaths, which had
become so general at the close of this century, was evidently
gaining ground in the Eastern church, a decree was passed in the
council held in Laodicea [A. D. 364]. That members of the church
should not rest from work on the Sabbath day, like Jews, but should
labor on that day, and preferring in honor the Lord's day. Then, if
it be in their power, should rest from work as Christians."-Sermons on
the Sacraments and Sabbath, pp. 122, 123.
Prynne thus testifies:
"It is certain that Christ himself, his apostles, and the primitive
Christians for some good space of time, did constantly observe the
seventh-day Sabbath.... the Evangelists and St. Luke in the Acts
ever styling it the Sabbath day.... and making mention of its . . .
solemnization by the apostles and other Christians. . . . it being still
solemnized by many Christians after the apostles' times, even till
the Council of Laodicea, as ecclesiastical writers and the twenty-
ninth canon of that council testify, which runs thus: 'Because
Christians ought not to Judaize and to rest in the Sabbath, but to
work in that day (which many did refuse at that time to do). But
preferring in honor the Lord's day (there being then a great
controversy among Christians which of these two days . . . should
have precedency), if they desired to rest, they should do this as
91
Christians. Wherefore if they shall be found to Judaize, let them
be accursed from Christ.' . . . The seventh-day Sabbath was . . .
solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and primitive Christians, till the
Laodicean Council did in a manner quite abolish the observation
of it. . . . The Council of Laodicea . . . first settled the observation
of the Lord's day, and prohibited . . . the keeping of the Jewish
Sabbath under an anathema."-Dissertation on the Lord's Day Sabbath,
PP. 33, 34, 44, ed. 1633.
We also quote from an old English writer, John Ley:
"From the apostle's time until the Council of Laodicea, which
was about the year 364, the holy observation of the Jews' Sabbath
continued, as may be proved out of many authors; yea,
notwithstanding the decree of that council against it."-Sunday a
Sabbath, p. 163, ed. 1640.
From this time onward the general disregard of the ancient
Sabbath was a foregone conclusion. It did continue, as we shall
show, in some localities where the Catholic Church had not the
power to abolish it. But the influence of that church was so great,
its jurisdiction so extensive, its hatred to the Sabbath of the Lord so
bitter, and its efforts in behalf of the Sunday Sabbath so active,
that for centuries the ancient Sabbath made but little figure among
Christian communities. We charge plainly and squarely upon the
corruption of that Christianity which developed into the Roman
Catholic Church, the change of the Sabbath, and the abolition of
the ancient Sabbath of the Lord, contrary to the practice of the
church of Jesus Christ. The influences which hastened this result
dwelt in Rome itself in a special sense, far more than in other
sections. The bishops of Rome manifested their enmity against the
Sabbath far more than those of any other city.

The Sabbath a Fast Day

About the year A. D. 200, the Church of Rome turned the

Sabbath into a fast day, evidently to make the Sabbath
disreputable. Says Mr. James, before the University of Oxford-
92
"The Western church began to fast on Saturday at the beginning
of the third century."
 Dr. Charles Hase, of Germany, says:
"The Roman Church regarded Saturday as a fast day in direct
opposition to those who regarded it as a Sabbath. Sunday
remained a joyful festival," etc-Ancient Church History, part 1, div. 2,
AD. 100-312, sec. 69.
Says the great German historian, Neander:
"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 in
particular as a fast day."-Neander, p. 186.
By Judaism is doubtless meant the observance of the Sabbath.
Fasting is never popular, and of course, seeing the Sunday was
made as joyful a day as possible, the Sabbath was disliked. The
Eastern churches did not follow in this practice of fasting on the
Sabbath for a long time, and censured the Roman Church for
doing it.
The Roman Church made the first edict in behalf of Sunday. It
required the observance of the Passover on the Sunday following
Good Friday, while the great majority of the other churches
celebrated it on the fourteenth day of the first month, no matter
what day of the week this might be. Victor, bishop of Rome, in the
year 196, tried to impose this upon all the churches; that is, to
compel them to observe it on Sunday. Dowling calls it the "earliest
instance of Roman assumption." The churches of Asia Minor
would not comply with his wishes. Bower says that upon receipt of
their letter saying this, Victor, giving way "to an impotent and
ungovernable passion, published bitter invectives against all the
churches of Asia," etc.-History of the Popes, under Victor.
Constantine's edict in behalf of the "venerable day of the sun"
went forth backed by the whole influence of Rome, A. D. 325,
through the powerful influence of Constantine, where, indeed, it
had its source. At the Council of Nicaea,
93
the position of the Roman Church concerning the celebration of
the Passover on Sunday, was carried through. Thus Rome secured
a victory in behalf of Sunday.
 One special reason urged by the emperor in behalf of Sunday
was this: "Let us, then, have nothing in common with the most
hostile rabble of the Jews." This hatred of the Jews was one of the
strongest causes why the Sabbath was suppressed. Sylvester, bishop
of Rome at this time, and Eusebius, the historian, were special
favorites of the emperor, and doubtless used their utmost influence
with him to bring about these results.
We see, therefore, the Roman influence in all these moves to
suppress the Sabbath. They culminated in the Council of
Laodicea, AD. 364, when the keeping of the Sabbath was
denounced, and those who observed it were placed under a curse.
Who can fail to see the leading spirit in this movement? Whenever
the Roman Church has had authority, the Sabbath has been
degraded. It continued much longer in the Eastern churches than
in the Western, where the Roman influence was paramount. After
the removal of the capital city from Rome to Constantinople by the
emperor Constantine, there was quite a struggle on the part of the
bishop of the latter city for the mastery. But to no purpose, though
it finally resulted in the separation of the Roman and Greek
Catholic churches. But throughout the Western churches the
adherents of the Sabbath had little favor; though we find here and
there traces of Sabbath-keepers in retired places all through the
Dark Ages. Of these we will speak hereafter.
Thus we see that the Roman Catholic Church, with the pope at
its head, "exalted" itself "above God" by setting aside his law. Thus
he fulfilled the prophet's prediction, "he shall think to change the
times and the law."

Chapter 12- How Sunday Rose Into Prominence

IN this treatise, giving an account of the change of the Sabbath
from the seventh to the first day of the week, it is but reasonable
that we should present the prominent causes which led to this
result. We have shown that the Bible gives no account of such a
change: but it has been made, and the great mass of Christians are
now observing the first day of the week. There must have been a
united action of powerful causes to accomplish this. We present, as
the most prominent of these, the following:
1. Sunday was an ancient heathen festival, which, from time
immemorial, had been looked upon with favor, and regarded as
more or less sacred by worshipers of the sun; so that when
Christianity made progress among the idolatrous Gentile nations, it
came in conflict with this custom.
2. The difficulty of keeping the seventh-day Sabbath,
surrounded as Christians were by the great masses of the people
who did not observe it, but who paid more or less respect to
Sunday.
3. The voluntary observance of memorable days, such as the
day of the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension, etc., as the
church lost its purity, and began to wander away from the
Scriptures.
4. Hatred of the Jews, which was cherished among the Gentile
nations, especially the Roman people, and after the
95
death of the apostles, among Christians, on account of the
persecutions they received, and because the Jews put Christ to
death.
5. Especially, as the work of apostasy proceeded, the acceptance
of tradition in place of the Bible. Here the church lost its
connection with God, and wandered into heathenish practices,
setting aside precious truths of divine authority, and accepting the
inventions of men.
6. The hatred of the Church of Rome to the Sabbath of the
Lord, seeking constantly to lower it in the estimation of the people,
and to exalt the first day in its place. When this church came fully
into power, it accomplished the work.
These influences combined, in the space of centuries, gradually
to undermine the Sabbath, and to exalt the first day of the week in
popular estimation, till, in the observance of the masses, it wholly
superseded the Sabbath. We will notice more particularly some of
these causes.
Antiquity of Sun Worship

The festival of Sunday is very ancient, reaching back into hoary

antiquity. No person can tell where or when it did originate. It was
of idolatrous origin, and was consecrated to the worship of the
sun. There was a time, in the days of the early patriarchs, when the
worship of the true God was universal. But Satan, the great enemy
of God, instituted idolatry. The worship of the sun, moon, and
stars, especially the former, was the most ancient and prevalent
form of idolatry. Under various names, in all the heathen nations,
the sun was adored. Sunday was evidently a rival to God's ancient
Sabbath, as idolatry was a grand counterfeit system to the worship
of the true God. In proof of these statements we cite various
authorities, all of them persons who did not observe the seventh
day, but the first day of the week, as far as they observed any day.
Webster thus defines the word Sunday:-
96
"Sunday; so called because the day was anciently dedicated to
the sun or to its worship. The first day of the week."
Worcester, also, in his large dictionary thus defines it:
"Sunday; so named because anciently dedicated to the sun or to
its worship. The first day of the week."
The North British Review, in a labored attempt to justify the
observance of Sunday by the Christian world, styles the day,
"THE WILD SOLAR HOLIDAY [i.e., festival in honor of the
Sun] OF ALL PAGAN TIMES."-Vol. 18, P. 409.
This, from such an intelligent authority, is certainly a strong
proof of the general regard for the Sunday among the heathen. It
is indeed surprising how Sunday should thus generally have come
to be a holiday each week. This is strong evidence of the antiquity
of the weekly division of time.
Verstegan says:
"The most ancient Germans being pagans, and having
appropriated their first day of the week to the peculiar adoration of
the sun, whereof that day does yet in our English tongue retain the
name of Sunday."-Verstegan's Antiquities, page 10, London, 1628.
 Again he says:
"Unto the day dedicated unto the special adoration of the idol
of the sun, they gave the name of Sunday, as much as to say, the
sun's day, or the day of the sun. This idol was placed in a temple,
and there adored and sacrificed unto, for that they believed that the
sun in the firmament did with or in this idol correspond and
cooperate."-Idem, p. 68.
Jennings, speaking of the time of the deliverance of the
Israelites from Egyptian bondage, thus speaks of the Gentile
nations as-
"The idolatrous nations who, in honor of their chief god, the
sun, began their day at his rising."-Jewish Antiquities, book 3,
Chapter I.
Again:
"The day which the heathen in general consecrated to the
worship and honor of their chief god, the sun, which, according to
our computation, was the first day of the week."-Idem, chap. 3.
97
We see, therefore, according to this author, that Sunday was
more ancient than the coming out of Egypt.
Morer says:
"It is not to be denied but we borrow the name of this day from
the ancient Greeks and Romans, and we allow that the old
Egyptians worshiped the sun, and as a standing memorial of their
veneration, dedicated this day to him. And we find by the influence
of their examples, other nations, and among them the Jews
themselves, doing him homage."-Dialogues on the Lord's Day, pp. 22,
23.

Origin of Sun Worship

These statements of respectable authors place Sunday in the

very earliest ages of antiquity, as a "memorial" of the first form of
idolatry among the Egyptians, from whom the Romans and the
Greeks largely derived their forms of heathen worship. It is well
known that their most famous philosophers went to Egypt to
become acquainted with their sacred mysteries. Among the
Assyrians and Persians, two other very ancient nations, it is well
known that Sabianism-the worship of the sun, moon, and stars-was
the most ancient form of religion. Thus sun-worship, with its
attendant "memorial," was struggling for recognition away back in
the earliest ages, and that, too, in direct antagonism with the
"memorial" of Jehovah's rest, the Sabbath of the Lord.
No one can fully grasp the Sabbath and Sunday question
without viewing it in these extended relations. The change of the
Sabbath is the result of one of the deepest plans ever conceived by
the author of all evil. As the Sabbath is the memorial of God's
creative power, a grand monument of the work which shows his
divinity as an omnipotent being, Satan aims against it his most
cunning schemes, to set it aside and to put in its place a day which
commemorates false worship and apostasy from God. We have
seen that the Sunday holiday was regarded throughout the whole
98
heathen world, even in the earliest ages before the exodus from
Egypt.

The Sabbath among Gentile Nations

Though not exactly in the line of the argument we are now

considering, we cannot refrain from noticing the position of the
Sabbath among the Gentile nations in this first great struggle of its
rival, the Sunday. This reference will be valuable, inasmuch as it
proves the existence of the Sabbath among other nations, long
before it was specially committed to the Jewish people for
preservation till the knowledge of the true God should be once
more restored to those nations who had wandered into idolatry.
Calmet gives the following:
"Manasseh Ben Israel assures us that, according to the tradition
of the ancients, Abraham and his posterity, having preserved the
memory of creation, observed the Sabbath also, in consequence of
natural law to that purpose. It is also believed that the religion of
the seventh day is preserved among the pagans; and the observance
of this day is as old as the world itself. Almost all the philosophers
and poets acknowledge the seventh day holy!"
This statement that Abraham observed the Sabbath is in perfect
harmony with the statement in the book of Genesis, that Abraham
"kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws,"
and with the fact that in that age they reckoned time by weeks.
Genesis26:5; 29:27. We know that the Sabbath was in existence
before the law was given on Sinai, because the children of Israel
kept it a month before the promulgation of that law; and God set it
apart at the creation. Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 16. Abraham, who
came from the Assyrian country, kept the Sabbath; and this writer
intimates that it was known among all the ancient nations.
The Arabs are also a very ancient nation. They existed in
Abraham's time. William Jones, missionary to Palestine, says:
99
"The seventh day is known throughout Arabia by 'Yorn-es-Sabt,'
or day of the Sabbath. Neither the word 'seven' nor any other
name is given by the Arabs to the Sabbath day. It is always the
Sabbath; and the reason for it, they say, is that this has been its
name from the beginning."
This is valuable testimony. The Arabs were never united with
the Jews. They have always inhabited the country in which they
settled in Abraham's time, and have nearly always maintained an
independent existence as a people.
Gilfillan says:
"It would also appear that the Chinese, who have now no
Sabbath, at one time honored the seventh day of the week."-The
Sabbath, Page 360.
The Asiatic Journal has this item:
"The prime minister of the empire affirms that the Sabbath was
anciently observed by the Chinese, in conformity to the directions
of the king."
On page 359 he says:
"The Phoenicians, according to Porphyry, 'consecrated the
seventh day as holy.'"
Josephus bears this testimony:
 "There is not any city of the Grecians, nor any of the
barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our custom of
resting on the seventh day has not come."-Against Apion, book 2, par.
40
Gilfillan says:
"The Greeks and Romans, according to Aretius, consecrated
Saturday to rest, conceiving it unfit for civil actions and warlike
affairs, but suited for contemplation."-The Sabbath, p. 363.
John G. Butler, a Free-will Baptist author, says:
"We also learn from the testimony of Philo, Hesiod, Josephus,
Porphyry, and others, that the division of time into weeks and the
observance of the seventh day were common to the nations of
antiquity. They would not have adopted such a custom from the
Jews. Whence, then, could it have been derived, but through
tradition, from its original institution in the Garden of Eden?"-
Natural and Revealed Theology, Page 396.
100
Archbishop Usher gives the following:
"The very Gentiles, both civil and barbarous, both ancient and
of later days, as it were by universal kind of tradition, retained the
distinction of the seventh day of the week."-Usher's Works, part 1,
chap. 4.
Hesiod (BC. 870) says:
"The seventh day is sacred."
Homer (BC. 907) says:
"Then comes the seventh day, that is sacred."
Tibulus says:
"Bad omens detained me on the sacred day of Saturn!"

Assyrian Tablets

We come now to one of the most interesting discoveries of

modern times. In the investigations of the ancient ruins of Nineveh
and Babylon during the past fifty years, many marvelous things
have been brought to light, things showing an extensive knowledge
of the arts and sciences, which have been lost for ages, and among
them are ancient monuments and tablets, on which historical facts
were sculptured. Learned men have, after much investigation, been
enabled to read these inscriptions, and many facts have been
obtained which corroborate the record of the Holy Scriptures.
Among others, records have been discovered showing conclusively
that in those early times the seventh day Sabbath was observed. We
quote from the Congregationalist (Boston), Nov. 15, 1882:
"Mr. George Smith says in his Assyrian Discoveries (1875): "In the
year 1869, I discovered, among other things, a curious religious
calendar of the Assyrians, in which every month is divided into
four weeks, and the seventh days, or Sabbaths, are marked out as
days on which no work should be undertaken." Again, in his History
of Assur-bani-pal, he says, "The 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th [days
of the month] are described by an ideogram equivalent to sulu or
sulum, meaning "rest." The calendar contains lists of work
forbidden to be done on these days, which evidently correspond to
the Sabbaths of the Jews.""
101
H. Fox Talbot, F. R. S., one of the learned Assyriologists of
Europe, says of the fifth "Creation Tablet" found by Mr. George
Smith on the opposite side of ancient Nineveh, on the bank of the
Tigris, and now to be seen in the British Museum:
"This fifth tablet is very important, because it affirms clearly, in
my opinion, that the origin of the Sabbath was coeval with the
creation.... It has been known for some time, that the Babylonians
observed the Sabbath with considerable strictness. On that day the
king was riot allowed to take a drive in his chariot; various meats
were forbidden to be eaten; and there were a number of other
minute restrictions.... But it is not known that they believed the
Sabbath to have been ordained at creation. 1 have found, however,
since the translation of the fifth tablet was completed, that Mr.
Sayce has recently published a similar opinion. See the Academy of
Nov. 27, 1875, P. 554."-Records of the Past, V01. IV, PP. 117, 118.
A. H. Sayce, in his lecture before the Royal Institution
concerning the Assyrian tablets discovered in the excavations on
the site of ancient Babylon, says:
 "The Sabbath of the seventh day appears to have been observed
with great strictness; even the monarch was forbidden to eat
cooked meat, change his clothes, take medicine, or drive his chariot
on that day."-Northern Christian Advocate.
Here we have testimony, which could be greatly multiplied,
showing that away back in the earliest ages the Chinese,
Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Arabians, Greeks, and
Romans, and many other nations, did regard the Sabbath as a
sacred day. The farther we get back, the more sacredly they seemed
to regard it. It is not surprising that Abraham, who came from
Assyria, was a Sabbath keeper. These tablets were engraved long
before histories, in the ordinary sense of the term, were written; or
at least none so ancient were extant, unless it be the books of
Moses. Yet these facts were preserved all these ages on the tablets of
stone, and now come to light as testimony to the sacredness of the
Sabbath from the most ancient nations.

The Sabbath Superseded

But let the thoughtful reader notice the striking fact that when
idolatry came to prevail fully, the sun-worship became general
among all the nations but the Jews, the Sabbath gradually
disappeared, and the Sunday, the "memorial" of idolatry, took its
place in general esteem. It is in the earliest record of these nations
that we find references to the Sabbath. In the later ones there are
very few. Satan, the author of false worship, suppressed the
Sabbath wherever his influence was paramount.
But God chose the children of Abraham because this devout
man kept his, charge, his commandments, his statutes, and his laws.
He surrounded them with special circumstances, customs, and
ordinances, to keep them from the heathen nations around them,
till the "seed" Christ should come, through whom all the nations of
the world should be blessed, by the calling of the Gentiles again.
God gave himself to that people, and with himself his great
"memorial," the Sabbath, which kept in mind his work at creation.
The other nations once had it; but through their idolatry, God and
his memorial were nearly forgotten by them. Satan tried his best to
rob God's chosen people of this keepsake; but because of God's
chastisements and the constant warnings of the prophets, he could
not quite accomplish this work.
After Christ came, and the apostles were sent to the Gentiles,
they carried with them, as we have shown, the Sabbath of the
Lord. The early Christians kept it as Christ and the apostles had
done; and as Christianity spread abroad to all the nations of the
earth, the two "memorials" once more came in conflict. The
Sunday "holiday of all pagan times" was entrenched among all the
nations. The people everywhere regarded it as a special day of
pleasure and recreation. It came every week. This fact made it
difficult for those who kept the seventh day as the Sabbath,
103
something in the same manner as it makes it difficult now for those
who turn from the observance of Sunday to the Sabbath. All who
have tried it, know how hard it is. Gradually, after a generation or
two, the sense of sacredness began to weaken, and feelings of
expediency were cherished. The great struggle between the two
memorials then began, and continued, as we shall see, till the
Sabbath of the Lord was generally abandoned.
These influences are well presented by a clergyman of the
Church of England, Mr. Chafle, who published in 1652 a work in
vindication of first-day observance. After showing the general
observance of Sunday by the heathen world in the early ages of the
church, he thus states the reasons which forbid Christians'
attempting to keep any other day:
"1. Because of the contempt, scorn, and derision they thereby
should be had in, among all the Gentiles with whom they lived. . . .
How grievous would be their taunts and reproaches against the
poor Christians living with them and under their power for their
new-set sacred day, had the Christians chosen any other than the
Sunday. . . . 2. Most Christians then were either servants or of the
poorer sort of people; and the Gentiles, most probably, would not
give their servants liberty to cease from working on any other set
day constantly, except on their Sunday. . . . 3. Because, had they
assayed such a change, it would have been but labor in vain; . . .
they could never have brought it to pass."-The Seventh day Sabbath,
pp. 61, 62.
These reasons present powerful inducements which we cannot
deny to those who regard expediency more than principle. The
early church had begun already to apostatize from God, and to
accept traditions in preference to the Scriptures. Many of the early
Fathers had been heathen philosophers. It ever comes natural for
human nature, when it changes its religious belief, to take with it
more or less of the old notions and practices.
Gradually the church began to be less strict in its observance of
Bible truths, and to conform more and more
104
to the spirit of the world around them. No Protestant will dispute
this in reference to their regard to many of the gospel
requirements. Many thought by uniting more or less with their
heathen neighbors they would be more likely to convert them. In
this way the Sabbath partially lost its sacredness, and the first day
gained its position and influence.
Morer, after stating the fact that the first day of the week, as we
have quoted, had long been the "memorial" of sun-worship, as its
name, "Sunday," implies, places before us the reasons why the
church was led to adopt it:
"These abuses did not hinder the Fathers of the Christian
church simply to repeal, or altogether lay by, the day or its name,
but only to sanctify and improve both, as they did also the pagan
temples polluted before with idolatrous services, and other
instances wherein these good men were always tender to work any
other change than what was evidently necessary, and in such things
as were plainly inconsistent with the Christian religion. So that
Sunday being the day on which the Gentiles solemnly adored that
planet, and called it Sunday, . . . the Christians thought fit to keep
the same day and the same name of it, that they might not appear
causelessly peevish, and by that means hinder the conversion of the
Gentiles, and bring a greater prejudice than might be otherwise
taken against the gospel."-Dialogues on the Lord's Day, pages 22, 23.
 It is such politic reasoning as this which has always led to
apostasy and conformity to the world. It finally developed fully into
the Roman Catholic Church, a mixture of heathenism and
Christianity. This conformity to the heathen custom of regarding
Sunday as a festival day, was carried so far that many thought the
Christians worshiped the sun as a god; so that Tertullian, one of
the Christian Fathers, defended them from this charge. He
answered that though they worshiped toward the east, like the
heathen, they did it for another reason than sun worship. He
acknowledged that these acts-prayer toward the east, and making
Sunday a day of festivity-did give men a chance
105
to think the sun was the god of the Christians. (See Apology, chapter
67, section 16.)
Tertullian is therefore a witness to the fact that Sunday was a
heathen festival when it was adopted by the Christian church, and
that they were taunted with being sun-worshipers.
When we see the striking changes which have occurred in the
manner of observing Sunday within the past one or two hundred
years, even when nearly all regard it with more or less sacredness,
and when we note the general laxity of practice as compared with
the strictness of our ancestors, we cannot wonder at the changes
which two or three centuries produced when strong influences were
brought to bear against the Sabbath, and so many other
perversions of Bible doctrines were introduced. Thus we see how
these two causes-the general regard for Sunday as a weekly heathen
holiday, and the difficulty of keeping the seventh day where
Sunday observance was almost universal-would powerfully tend to
discourage those who kept the Sabbath, and gradually undermine
it in the esteem of all.

Chapter 13- Other Reasons Why Sunday Was

Favored
 THE general observance of memorial days in the second and
third centuries of the Christian era, was also another reason why
Sunday was exalted. Doubtless the practice was innocent at first,
and originated from the best motives, being prompted by reverence
for Christ. The same principle in the human heart which has
always led people to commemorate important events in which they
have felt a deep interest, by celebrating with appropriate services
the special days upon which these events occurred, led the disciples,
after the apostles' death, to regard with more or less interest the
days of Christ's betrayal, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.
To this day, Good Friday, Holy Thursday, etc., are considered as
quite sacred in the state churches of Europe, especially in the
Roman and Greek Catholic Churches. "Holy week," as the week
connected with the last scenes in Christ's life is called, has been
regarded with great reverence for ages in the Catholic and other
national churches, and is really becoming popular in many
Protestant churches. But all such services and observances have no
authority in Scripture; they are derived from tradition alone. It was
in this way that Sunday, the day of Christ's resurrection, first
became prominent among Christians. At first it was little, if any,
more prominent than Friday, the day of his crucifixion. Mosheim
says:
"It is also probable that Friday, the day of Christ's crucifixion,
was early distinguished by particular honors from the other days of
the week."-Ecclesiastical History, cent. 1, part 2, chap. 4, note to sec.
4.
He says of the second century:
"Many also observed the fourth day of the week, on which
Christ was betrayed; and the sixth, which was the day of his
crucifixion."-Idem, cent. 2, part 2, chapter 1, sec. 12.
Dr. Peter Heylyn says of those who chose Sunday:
"Because our Savior rose on that day from among the dead, so
chose they Friday for another, by reason of our Savior's passion,
and Wednesday, on the which he had been betrayed; the Saturday,
or ancient Sabbath, being meanwhile retained in the Eastern
churches."-History of the Sabbath, part 2, chapter 1, sec. 12.
 107
Of the comparative sacredness of these voluntary festivals, the
same writer testifies:
"If we consider either the preaching of the word, the
ministration of the sacraments, or the public prayers, the Sunday
in the Eastern churches had no great prerogative above other days,
especially above the Wednesday and the Friday, save that the
meetings were more solemn, and the concourse of people greater
than at other times, as is most likely."-Idem, part 2, chap. 3, sec. 4.
But the fact that Sunday was a general public holiday of the
heathen world around them, and that the Church of Rome made
persistent efforts to give it precedence, and, above all, the effect of
Constantine's decree in its favor, gave the Sunday at last a great
superiority over these other voluntary festival days, as well as over
the Sabbath itself. The efforts of the Church of Rome, and those in
sympathy with it, in behalf of Sunday, making it a day of joy and
gladness, freedom from fasts, etc., at the same time turning the
Sabbath into a fast day, as we have seen, did much toward giving
prestige and dignity to the former.

First Instance of Sunday Observance

The first recorded instance of Sunday observance which has any

claim to be considered genuine, is mentioned by Justin Martyr, AD.
140 in an address to the Roman emperor.
108
He states in substance that the Christians met together on Sunday,
when the writings of the apostles and prophets were read, a
discourse was given, prayers offered, the consecrated elements-
bread and wine and water-distributed to, and partaken of by, all
that were present, and sent to the absent by the hands of the
deacons, a collection taken up, etc. We here see some innovations
introduced, such as sending the emblems to the absent, and using
water in connection with them. He does not intimate that this day
has any divine authority from Christ and the apostles, or any
command whatever for its observance. It would seem to be a purely
voluntary practice. Neither does he hint that the day was regarded
as a Sabbath, or that it was wrong to work on that day. He only
states that they held a religious meeting on it. Sunday had not, up
to this time, acquired any title of sacredness. It bore simply its old
heathen title. He does not call it the Lord's day, nor the Christian
Sabbath. It was more than fifty years later before a recorded
instance can be found where it was called by the former, and many
years elapsed before it was called by the latter title.
Perhaps it will be proper at this point to introduce the testimony
of Neander, the greatest of church historians. This German author
speaks as follows of Sunday observance in the early church:
"The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a
human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions 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 begun to take place; for men appear by
that time to "have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.""-
Neander's Church History, translated by Rose, p. 186.
This statement truly gives the origin of Sunday observance; it
was purely voluntary, standing solely upon human authority.
109
Sir William. Domville states the same fact:
"Not any ecclesiastical writer of the first three centuries
attributed the origin of Sunday observance either to Christ or to
his apostles."-Examination of the Six Texts, Supplement, pp. 6, 7.
The authors living nearest the days of the apostles never heard
of the arguments put forth at this remote day for the change of the
Sabbath. For hundreds of years no hints, even, were given that
Christ or the apostles changed the Sabbath. We have seen before
that Victor, bishop of Rome, AD. 196, made an edict in behalf of
Sunday, trying to compel the other churches to celebrate the
Passover on that day. Also that the same church turned the Sabbath
into a fast day, to place a stigma upon it.
Sunday a Festival

We will next notice the efforts of the Roman Church and its
sympathizers to make Sunday a very joyful festival, in opposition to
the Sabbath, which it had thus stigmatized as a day of sorrow and
fasting. It was considered a sin to fast on Sunday; and on that day
they must stand, not kneel, during prayer, this act of standing in
prayer being a symbol of the resurrection.
Tertullian, the oldest of the Latin Fathers, who wrote about A.
D. 200, says:
"We devote Sunday to rejoicing."-Apologeticus, paragraph 16.
Dr. Heylyn says:
"Tertullian tells us that they did devote Sunday partly unto
mirth and recreation, not to devotion altogether. When in a
hundred years after Tertullian's time there was no law or
constitution to restrain men from labor on this day in the Christian
church."-History of the Sabbath, part 2, chapter 8, section 13.
Tertullian himself says:
"We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord's day to be
unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to
Whitsunday."-De Corona, section 3.
110
From Peter of Alexandria, another Father, we quote the
following:
"But the Lord's day we celebrate as a day of joy, because on it he
rose again, on which day we have received it for a custom not even
to bow the knee."-Canon 15.
We could give many other similar statements, but it is not
necessary. We will not, however, omit one statement from
Tertullian. In speaking of "offerings for the dead," the manner of
Sunday observance, and the use of the sign of the cross upon the
forehead, he gives the ground of these observances as follows:
"If for these and other such rules you insist upon having positive
Scripture injunction, you will find none. Tradition will be held
forth to you as the originator of them, custom as their strengthener,
and faith as their observer."-De Corona, section 4.
 Truly, this is a frank statement, which cannot be disputed. In this
statement we have presented, clearly and boldly, one of the reasons
why Sunday gradually advanced in sacredness in the popular view,
the acceptance of tradition instead of the word of God being the
real ground of first day observance, as well as of a vast number of
other doctrines and customs which came into the church at this,
time. Tradition vs. Scripture is the great point of difference
between Catholicism and Protestantism. The moment we admit
tradition as a proper authority for religions duty, we step down
from the Protestant rock, and can find no good reason why we
should not receive all the heterogeneous practices of the Catholic
Church.
We close this part of the subject, relating to the authority for
Sunday keeping previous to the edict of Constantine, by giving the
conclusions of one who has spent many years in investigating the
writings of the early Fathers, He gives the substance of their
testimony concerning the earliest observance of Sunday as follows:
"We shall find, 1. That no one claimed for first-day observance
any divine authority; 2. That none of them had ever heard of the
change of the Sabbath, and none believed the first-day festival
111
to be a continuation of the Sabbath institution; 3. That labor on
that day is never set forth as sinful, and that abstinence from labor
is never mentioned as a feature of its observance, nor even implied,
only so far as is necessary in order to spend a portion of the day in
worship; 4. That if we put together all the hints respecting Sunday
observance which are scattered through the Fathers of the first
three centuries (for no one of them gives more than two of these,
and generally a single hint is all that is found in one writer), we
shall find just four items. (1) An assembly on that day in which the
Bible was read and expounded, and the supper celebrated, and
money collected. (2) The day must be one of rejoicing. (3) It must
not be a day of fasting. (4) The knee must not be bent in prayer on
that day."-Andrews's History of the Sabbath, pages 285, 286.
Chapter 14- A Law for Resting On Sunday
WE have now reached an important point in the consideration
of the advance of the Sunday institution. We have seen it creeping
stealthily into prominence in various ways, through one influence
or another, until it has become quite generally recognized as a day
for religious meetings. But hitherto it has never claimed Sabbath
honors. Not a single instance can be found of any law given in its
favor as a day of rest and no instance of its being observed as a
Sabbath, of its taking that title, or being recognized in that
character.

Constantine's Edict

For three hundred years of church history the rulers of the

Roman empire have been pagans. In the early part of the fourth
century there came a change; Constantine the Great, so called,
professed the Christian religion. Before this, because of
persecution, the church had maintained some degree of purity,
though many practices had been adopted for which there was no
warrant in Scripture. But from this time on, most rapid changes
were seen. To obtain favor with the emperor, with their own profit
in view, vast multitudes of pagans embraced the Christian religion
113
nominally, though at heart they remained unchanged. All
Protestants admit that the age of Constantine and the one
immediately succeeding were periods of great corruption. From
this time forward the progress was most rapid, till it finally
culminated in the full development of the Roman Catholic
Church. We shall see that during this very time the most rapid
advance of the Sunday institution also occurs.
In the year A. D. 321, Constantine issued the following edict:
"Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all
trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun. But let those who are
situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the
business of agriculture; because it often happens that no other day
is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines. Lest, the critical
moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by
Heaven."
In no document, human or divine, can any command be found
to rest on Sunday, the first day of the week, previous to this law by
Constantine. Let the discerning reader note carefully the language
of this famous law. It does not command us to rest on the Christian
Sabbath, on the first day of the week, or the Lord's day, or on the
day in which Christians generally meet to have divine worship; but
it is the "venerable day of the sun" which is thus honored, "the wild
solar holiday of all pagan times." The reader will recall what has
been stated in former chapters concerning the conflict between the
two "memorials," the one of the Creator's rest, the other of the
earliest form of idolatry-sun worship. Constantine, with the arm of
civil law, now strikes the first heavy blow in behalf of the
"venerable day of the sun," thus strengthening the positions taken
concerning the antiquity of the heathen custom of sun worship on
the first day of the week. It was, then, a very "venerable" day in the
year 321. Constantine was still a heathen when he put forth this
decree. This edict went into effect on the seventh day of March.
The day following,
114
viz., March 8, 321, another heathen decree was issued, the purport
of which was:
"That if any royal edifice should be struck by lightning, the
ancient ceremonies of propitiating the deity should be practiced,
and the haruspices were to be consulted to learn the meaning of
the awful portent. The hartispices were soothsayers who foretold
future events by examining the entrails of beasts slaughtered in
sacrifice to the god's."-Andrews' History of the Sabbath, pp. 347, 348,
ed. 1887.
Any one who has read heathen history knows this was a practice
very common among them.
Constantine was a worshiper of Apollo, or the sun. Thus
Gibbon says:
 "The devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly directed to
the genius of the sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology;
and he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of the god
of light and poetry. . . . The altars of Apollo were crowned with the
votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude were
taught to believe that the emperor was permitted to behold with
mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity. . . . The sun
was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of
Constantine."-Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 20, par. 3.
Here we plainly discern the reason why the emperor put forth
his decree in favor of the "venerable day of the sun." He was an
ardent worshiper of the sun. Mosheim places the nominal
conversion of Constantine two years later than the edict. We say
"nominal" conversion, for there is no good reason to believe that he
was ever a genuine Christian. He was a tyrant, a murderer of
many innocent persons, and gave evidence of being anything but a
follower of the Prince of peace.
The first law for keeping Sunday as a day of rest, then, was a
heathen law in favor of sun worship. This is admitted by many of
the best Protestant historians and authors. Dr. Milman, the learned
editor of Gibbon, says:
"The rescript commanding the celebration of the Christian
Sabbath bears no allusion to its peculiar sanctity as a Christian
institution.
115
It is the day of the sun, which is to be observed by the general
veneration. The courts were to be closed, and the noise and tumult
of public business and legal litigation were no longer to violate the
repose of the sacred day. But the believer in the new paganism, of
which the solar worship was the characteristic, might acquiesce
without scruple in the sanctity of the first day of the week."-History
of Christianity, book 3, chapter 1, Page 396, edition 1881.
In a subsequent chapter he adds:
"In fact, as we have before observed, the day of the sun would
be willingly hallowed by almost all the pagan world, especially that
part which had admitted any tendency toward the Oriental
theology."-Idem, book 3, chapter 4, Page 397.
Thus it is fully admitted that the design of this decree was
wholly pagan. It was a step in the great contest which had been
going on for ages to crowd out the Sabbath of the Lord, and exalt
the "memorial" of idolatry in its place.

Effect on the Church

How did this heathen decree affect the practice of the Christian
church? We have already seen that the two days, the seventh and
the first, were balancing in popular favor, and that the Roman
Church had been doing what it could to suppress the Sabbath and
exalt Sunday. We shall now see that the so-called Church of Jesus
Christ took advantage of this heathen decree in behalf of the
"venerable day of the sun," to complete the work already begun.
This edict was a heavy blow to the Sabbath, and as great an aid to
the Sunday. We quote from the Encyclopedia Britannica as follows:
"It was Constantine the Great who first made a law for the
proper observance of Sunday, and who, according to Eusebius,
appointed it should be regularly celebrated throughout the Roman
empire. Before him, and even in his time, they observed the Jewish
Sabbath, as well as Sunday. . . . By Constantine's law, promulgated
in 321, it was decreed that for the future the Sunday should be kept
as a day of rest in all cities and towns; but
116
he allowed the country people to follow their work."-Art. Sunday,
seventh edition, 1842.
Mosheim, who was a strong advocate for Sunday, says of this
law:
"The first day of the week, which was the ordinary and stated
time for the public assemblies of the Christians, was, in
consequence of a peculiar law enacted by Constantine, observed
with greater solemnity than it had formerly been."-Ecclesiastical
History, cent. 4, part 2, chapter 4, section 5.
 This is quite an admission for this historian to make. This
heathen law, permitting those who followed the occupation of
agriculture to plow, sow, plant trees, etc., but which forbade the
town people to work, caused the Christians to observe Sunday
more strictly than they had formerly. As the law required only a
part of the people to rest on Sunday, while the others could freely
work, we must conclude that before the issue of this edict, none of
the people had refrained from labor on Sunday. This we have seen
was the case, since there was no law in existence before this
requiring it. Sir William Domville says:
"Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday
was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does
not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any
time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of Constantine in
AD. 32l."-Examination of the Six Texts, page 291.
This edict of Constantine's greatly accelerated the current
already setting strongly against the ancient Sabbath. It furnished
some authority, if it was only heathen, in behalf of the Sunday.
Every advance it made correspondingly depressed the Sabbath,
inasmuch as keeping two days in each week as a rest-day would be
absurd. An able writer thus expresses the result throughout the
Roman empire:
"Very shortly after the period when Constantine issued his edict
enjoining the general observance of Sunday throughout the
Roman empire, the party that had contended for the observance of
the seventh day dwindled into insignificance. The observance of
Sunday as a public festival, during which all business, with the
exception
117
of rural employment, was intermitted, came to be more and
more generally established ever after this time, throughout both the
Greek and the Latin churches. There is no evidence, however, that
either at this or at a period much later the observance was viewed
as deriving any obligation from the fourth commandment; it seems
to have been regarded as an institution corresponding in nature
with Christmas, Good Friday, and other festivals of the church.
And as resting with them on the ground of ecclesiastical authority
and tradition."-Cox's Sabbath Laws, pp. 28o, 281.
We see, therefore, that that which caused the Sabbath to be
greatly neglected was the heathen decree of the emperor.
Heathenism and corrupted Christianity united their forces in
putting down the Sabbath and exalting Sunday in its place.
It might be said that this decree was the expiring act of
heathenism. In one sense it was so; but the kind of Christianity
which took its place really resembled heathenism more than it did
the pure and humble religion of Christ and his apostles. This
remark at first may seem harsh and incredible; but truly the
reflecting, observing mind must admit its truthfulness.

Where is the Resemblance?

What resemblance is there between the plain, simple forms of

worship observable in the ministry of Christ and the apostles, and
the gorgeous, pompous ceremonials of the Catholic Church? What
resemblance is there in the appearance, manners, and dress of the
two, in our Savior going about on foot, a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief, healing the sick and benefiting all, clad in his
seamless coat, the garb of the poor; and the lordly priest, clad in
his official robes of purple and scarlet, bowing before images with
his train of attendants, and exacting the highest homage? What
resemblance is there in the doctrines of the two? Christ taught the
need of repentance, faith, baptism, and the living of a humble,
pure, holy life of
118
obedience to the truths of God's word and the principles of God's
law. But look at the Catholic ceremonials, the confessions to the
priest, the prayers for souls in purgatory, the holy water, vows of
celibacy, worshiping of images, elevating and adoring bread,
believing it to be the actual flesh of our Lord and Savior! And what
resemblance is there in the spirit of the two? Our Savior was ever
seeking to alleviate suffering, to benefit all within his reach. He
wept over the people of Jerusalem because they would not let him
save them; he prayed, even for his enemies, while hanging on the
cross in the greatest agony. On the other hand, look at the bloody
Crusades, at the massacre on St. Bartholomew's day, when the
blood of poor Huguenots ran down the streets of Paris, when the
papists surprised them through deception. And look at the poor
Waldenses, butchered by thousands-men, women, children-because
they would not take the pope's authority instead of the Scriptures
as their rule of action. See the Inquisition with its horrors. Men
and women tortured on the rack, or starved to death in deep
dungeons. These things were done when the Roman Church had
the power. What, we say, are the resemblance between their
practices and the pure religion of Jesus?
But there is a striking resemblance on the other hand between
heathenism and the ceremonies, manners, forms of worship,
bowing to images, resplendent robes, and
119
persecuting spirit of Catholicism; indeed, many Catholics
themselves admit that many of their customs were derived from the
heathen. On this interesting point we will venture to quote from
two eminent Catholic writers. Cardinal Baronius, perhaps the most
reliable writer in that church, says:
"That many things have been laudably translated from. Gentile
superstition into the Christian religion, bath been demonstrated by
many examples and the authority of the Fathers. And what wonder
if the holy bishops have granted that the most ancient customs of
the Gentiles should be introduced into the worship of thee true
God, from which it seemed impossible to take off many, though
converted to Christianity?"
Bervaldus, another Catholic writer, speaks as follows:
"When I call to mind the institutions of the holy mysteries of
the heathen, I am forced to believe that most things appertaining to
the celebration of our solemnities and ceremonies are taken
thence. As, for example, from the Gentile religion the shaven heads
of the priests, turning round of the altar, sacrificial pomps, and
many such like ceremonies which our priests solemnly use in our
mysteries. How many things in our religion are like the Roman
religion? How many rites common!"
Truly our remark that Catholicism resembles the heathen
worship more than it does the religion of Christ, cannot be denied.
Catholicism is a system of mixed Christianity and heathenism,
with the latter predominating.

A Heathen Union Consummated

The edict of Constantine, and the full adoption of the heathen

Sunday by the church, marks the point where this heathen union
was consummated. Constantine at this point represented the
heathen, being an ardent sun-worshiper. Pope Sylvester, at that
time bishop of Rome, represented the Catholic Church. In its
efforts to elevate Sunday, this church joyfully accepted his heathen
decree and heathen day, and thus fully blended the heathen system
with their corrupted form of Christianity. From that point the
barriers were broken down, and heathen and heathenism largely
took possession of the church. At this point, so history informs us,
many of the humble, God-fearing Christians withdrew into retired
places, where they could still worship God according to the
Scriptures.

Sunday First Called "Lord's Day"

Pope Sylvester, by his apostolical authority, changed the name of

the day, giving it the imposing title of "Lord's Day." (See
Ecclesiastical History of Lucius, cent. 4, cap. 10, Pages 739, 740.) It
had been called by that title by a few writers before; but Sylvester,
as head of the church, now officially decided that its title should be
"Lord's Day." Thus Constantine elevated the Sunday as a heathen
festival to be observed throughout the empire, while Sylvester
changed it into a Christian institution, dignifying it by the title of
"Lord's Day."
Concerning the grounds upon which Sunday stands, we will
here give a quotation from Dr. Heylyn:
 "Thus do we see upon what grounds the Lord's day stands: on
custom first and voluntary consecration of it to religious meetings;
that custom countenanced by the authority of the church of God,
which tacitly approved the same; and finally confirmed and ratified
by the Christian princes throughout their empires. And as the day
for rest from labors and restraint from business upon that day, [it]
received its greatest strength from the supreme magistrate
121
as long as he retained that power which to him belongs. As after
from the canons and. decrees of councils, the decretals of popes
and orders of particular prelates when the sole managing of
ecclesiastical affairs was committed to them."-History of the Sabbath,
part 2, chapter 3, section 12.
Here we have truly set before us the authority on which the
Sunday Sabbath rests. How different from that for the Sabbath of
the Lord! The former is wholly human; the latter, wholly divine.
The former originated in heathenism and idolatry, and was finally
adopted as a rest-day by a corrupted church on the authority of a
Roman tyrant. The latter began by the act of God himself, at the
creation of the world, in resting, blessing, and setting apart the day
for man to keep, and in commanding his people to observe it for all
time.
Eusebius, who was a bishop, and a great flatterer and favorite of
the Emperor Constantine, seems to admit that the change wrought
in the Sabbath at this time was by human authority. He says:
"All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath,
these we have transferred to the Lord's day."-Cox's Sabbath Literature,
Volume I, Page 361.
We see at last a change of the Sabbath quite fully wrought, at
least to this extent, that the Sabbath was degraded by a Catholic
council, and denounced under a curse as heretical, and that the
Sunday was generally considered a day for public worship, and for
at least partial rest. We will next notice other steps by which the
latter was rendered still more sacred in the eyes of the people.
Chapter 15- Sunday Down To the Reformation
HAVING noticed quite carefully the steps by which Sunday
reached an influential position in the time of Constantine, it will
not be necessary to cite many more authorities. We will give only a
few evidences showing, how the Roman Church still carefully
fostered this favorite child, and left nothing undone that it could do
to render it still more sacred.
It will be remembered that the important decree by
Constantine, which was the first command in behalf of Sunday
requiring any one to rest on the first day of the week, gave
permission to those engaged in agriculture to work on that day. It
was not long until this permission was set aside, and all were
commanded to rest on the venerable Sunday.
Pope Leo took certain steps in the fifth century to make up the
deficiencies in the Sunday laws, and add to the honor of this
favorite institution. He required that all ordinations should be
conferred on this day and no other. Heylyn says:
"A law [was] made by Leo, then pope of Rome, and generally
since taken up in the Western church, that they should be
conferred upon no day else."-History of the Sabbath, part 2, chapter
4, section 8.
According to Dr. Justin Edwards, this same pope made this
decree in behalf of Sunday:
123
"We ordain, according to the true meaning of the Holy Ghost,
and of the apostles as thereby directed, that on the sacred day
wherein our own integrity was restored, all do rest and cease from
labor."-Sabbath Manual, p. 133.
Emperor Leo, AD. 469, put forth the following decree in behalf
of Sunday:
"It is our will and pleasure, that the holy days dedicated to the
most high God, should not be spent in sensual recreations, or
otherwise profaned by suits of law, especially the Lord's day, which
we decree to be a venerable day, and therefore free it of all citations
executions, pleadings, and the like avocations. . . . If any will
presume to offend in the premises, if lie be a military man, let him
lose his commission: or if other, let his estate or goods be
confiscated. . . . We command, therefore, all, as well husbandmen
as others, to forbear work on this day of our restoration."-Dialogues
on the Lord's Day, Pages 259, 260.
Here we see, first, the pope ordaining that all cease from labor
on Sunday. Then the emperor steps in and supports this action.
Full human authority is now given to rest on Sunday. All classes
must obey, on penalty of fines or confiscation of all their property.
We do not wonder, then, that in that age, when few had Bibles and
tradition was generally followed, Sunday carne to be generally
observed. We learn that just previous to this time, however, Sunday
was riot very strictly observed as a rest day.
Kitto says:
"Chrysostom (AD. 360) concludes one of his homilies by
dismissing his audience to their respective ordinary occupations."-
Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, article Lord's Day.
Heylyn bears witness concerning St. Chrysostom, that he:
"Confessed it to be lawful for a man to look unto his worldly
business on the Lord's day, after the congregation was dismissed."-
History of the Sabbath, part 2, chapter 3, section 9.
St. Jerome, in his commendation of the very pious lady Paula,
speaks thus of Sunday labor:
124
"Paula, with the women, as soon as they returned home on the
Lord's day, they sat down severally to their work, and made clothes
for themselves and others."-Dialogues on the Lord's Day, page 234.
The bishop of Ely thus testifies:
"In St. Jerome's days, and in the very place where he was
residing, the devoutest Christians did ordinarily work upon the
Lord's day, when the service of the church was ended."-Treatise of
the Sabbath Day, page 202.
There is a vast difference between divine and human authority.
The latter cannot control the conscience as the former can. These
persons knew very well that the Sunday rested upon only human
authority. It was a gradual process, taking quite a space of time
before Sunday gained the position it now holds. Dr. Heylyn bears
the following testimony concerning the status of Sunday during the
fifth and sixth centuries:
"The faithful being united better than 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 an holy festival.
Yet was not this done all at once, but by degrees, the fifth and sixth
centuries being well nigh spent before it came into that height
which bath since continued. The emperors and the prelates in
these times had the same affections; both [being] earnest to
advance this day above all other; and to the edicts of the one, and
ecclesiastical constitutions of the other, it stands indebted for many
of those privileges and exemptions which it still enjoys."-History of
the Sabbath, part 2, chapter 4, section 1.
Here we see the same solicitude in behalf of Sunday on the part
of the "prelates" of the church, which has appeared all along since
apostasy and corruption first entered after the days of the apostles.
They were "earnest to advance this day above all other." This
change of the Sabbath was really the work of the Roman Catholic
Church. it was this that influenced the emperors and civil rulers.

Sunday First Called Sabbath

There was one honor, however, still belonging to the seventh

day, which Sunday had not acquired. Thus the bishop of Ely says:
"When the ancient Fathers distinguish and give proper names to
the particular days of the week, they always style the Saturday,
Sabbatum, the Sabbath,' and the Sunday, or first day of the week,
'Dominicum, the Lord's day.'"-Treatise of the Sabbath Day, p. 202.
This statement, however, must not be taken as referring to an
earlier writer than Tertullian. He first called it the Lord's day about
A. D. 200. It is doubtless true of the later Fathers. Brerewood says:
"The name of the Sabbath remained appropriated to the old
Sabbath, and was never attributed to the Lord's day, not of many
hundred years after our Savior's time."-Learned Treatise of the Sabbath.
page 73, edition 1631.
 Dr. Heylyn says of the term "Sabbath" in the ancient church:
"The Saturday is called among them by no other name than
that which formerly it had, the Sabbath. So that whenever for a
thousand years and upwards, we meet with Sabbatum in any writer
of what name so ever, it must be understood of no day but
Saturday."-History of the Sabbath, part 2, chapter 2, section 12.
Again he says:
"The first who ever used it to denote the Lord's day (the first that
I have met with in all this search) is one Petrus Alfonsus-he lived
about the time that Rupertus did [which was the beginning of the
twelfth century]-who calls the Lord's day by the name of Christian
Sabbath."-Idem, part 2, chapter 5, section 13.
This is a striking fact which should never be forgotten in the
investigation of this question. It was not until the middle of the
Dark Ages that Sunday was ever called the Sabbath. The ancient
Sabbath retained its own distinctive title for eleven hundred years
after Christ, and no other
126
day during all this period was known by this title but the seventh
day. Not an instance can be found in history to the contrary.
Sunday steadily advanced in popular favor down to the
beginning of the sixth century, becoming the usual day on which
public meetings were held, and at least a partial rest day, but had
never yet been called the Sabbath.
The next six or seven centuries from this time was an age of
great barbarism and spiritual darkness. Men's minds were
controlled by the grossest superstitions. The power of the pope was
almost supreme. Not one person in a hundred could read or write,
and books were very few and expensive. The Bible was banished
from the hands of the common people, and nearly every copy was
in either Greek or Latin, languages which at this time were not
spoken by the masses. Very few persons, comparatively, ever saw a
Bible. During a part of this time, it was considered a great crime
for a common person to be found reading the Bible, and the
offense was punishment by the Inquisition.
 It is not necessary that we should carefully note the steps by
which Sunday attained to a higher power in such an age. We have
already seen how, step by step, it stealthily advanced until that time,
first asking only toleration, next claiming equality with the ancient
Sabbath, and then taking a position above it as a joyous day, while
the latter was made a fast day. Afterward it was called the Lord's
day of apostolic times. Finally it was advanced by heathen emperor
and Roman pope to the dignity of a day of partial rest. It cast the
creation Sabbath aside by Catholic counsel, declaring that all who
observed it were heretics, and placed them under a curse; and
lastly, it was sustained by popes, emperors, and councils, claiming
the whole field as its own. From this time forward, at every
convenient occasion, a Catholic council would put forth a canon in
behalf of the "venerable day of the sun," striving to make the
people observe it more sacredly.

Councils Favoring Sunday

It would weary the mind of the reader were we to give a list of

all these, and what they said concerning this pet institution of the
Church of Rome. We will, however, mention a few of the Roman
Catholic councils.
The first Council of Orleans, AD. 507, "obliged themselves and
successors to be always at church on the Lord's day." The third
Council of Orleans, AD. 538, required agricultural labor to be laid
aside on the Lord's day, "in order that the people may not be
prevented from attending church."
In 538 another council was held at Mascon, a town in
Burgundy, because "Christian people very much neglect and slight
the Lord's day," giving themselves to common work etc. The
bishops warned them against such practices, and commanded
them to keep the Lord's day.
About a year later another council was held in Narbonne, which
forbade all persons from doing any work on the Lord's day, on
penalty of a "fine if a freeman," or of "being lashed if a servant."
 In 654 a council was held at Chalons, another in England in
692, also one in 747, one in Bavaria in 772, again one in England
in 784. Five councils were called by Charlemagne in the year 813,
and one was held in Rome in 826. In all of these, strong efforts
were made to build up the Sunday sacredness. Many others were
also held for the same purpose.
But as these laws failed to accomplish all that the Catholics
desired, and Sunday was still but poorly kept, they had recourse to
miracles, a very popular argument with the Roman Church.
Gregory of Tours, AD. 570, furnishes several. A husbandman went
out to plow on the Lord's day, and trying to clean his plow with an
iron, "the iron stuck fast to his hand for two years. . . . to his
exceeding great pain and shame." Some were killed by lightning for
128
working on that day. Others were seized with convulsions.
Apparitions appeared to kings, charging them to enforce Sunday
sacredness. A miller was at one time grinding corn on Sunday, and
instead of the usual production of meal, a torrent of blood came
forth. At another time a woman was trying to bake her bread upon
this venerable day, but upon putting it in the oven, it remained only
dough. It was said of the souls in purgatory that on every:
"Lord's day they were manumitted from their pains, and
fluttered up and down the lake Avernus in the shape of birds."-
Heylyn's History of the Sabbath, part 2, chapter 5, section 2.

Divine Authority Claimed for Sunday

It seems a little strange to us to read of such things; but they

were regarded as sober facts by the historians of those times, and as
strong arguments for Sunday sacredness.
We must not fail to mention the roll "which came down from
heaven," in which the first authority from Christ is found in behalf
of Sunday. The one great lack hitherto had been divine authority
for it. None was claimed by the early Fathers. "Tradition" and
"custom," as we have seen, were all the authority for it which could
be found until emperors and popes added theirs. But even in those
dark ages the want of something more was needed. Council after
council was held to enforce it, yet the people were not so impressed
by them that they would wholly refrain from labor on the venerable
Sunday. Something more must be obtained.
In the year 1200, Eustace, the abbot of Flaye, in Normandy,
came to England, and labored very ardently in behalf of Sunday.
But meeting with opposition in his efforts, he returned to
Normandy. Although repulsed, he did not abandon the contest.
After remaining there about a year, he returned with this
remarkable roll. It was entitled:
129
"The Holy Commandment As To The Lord's Day,
"Which came from heaven to Jerusalem, and was found upon
the altar of Saint Simeon, in Golgotha, where Christ was crucified
for the sins of the world. The Lord sent down this epistle, which
was found upon the altar of Saint Simeon, and after looking upon
which three days and three nights, some men fell upon the earth
imploring mercy of God. And after the third hour, the patriarch a
rose, and Acharias, the archbishop, and they opened the scroll, and
received the holy epistle from God. And when they had taken the
same, they found this writing therein:
"I am the Lord who commanded you to observe the holy day of
the Lord, and you have not kept it, and have not repented of your
sins, as I have said in my gospel, "Heaven and earth shall pass
away, but my words shall not pass away." Whereas I cause to be
preached unto you repentance and amendment of life, you did not
believe me, I have sent against you the pagans, who have shed your
blood on the earth. And yet you have not believed; and because
you did not keep the Lord's day holy, for a few days you suffered
hunger, but soon I gave you fullness, and after that you did still
worse again. Once more, it is my will that no one from the ninth
hour on Saturday until sunrise on Monday, shall do no work except
that which is good.
"And if any person shall do so, he shall with penance make
amends for the same. And if you do not pay obedience to this
command, verily I say unto you, and I swear unto you, by my scat,
and by my throne, and by the cherubim who watch my holy seat,
that I will give you my commands by no other epistle, but I will
open the heavens, and for rain I will drop upon you stones, and
wood, and hot water in the night, that no one may take precautions
against the same, and so that I may destroy all wicked men.
"This do I say unto you; for the Lord's holy day, you shall die the
death. And for the other festivals of my saints which you have not
kept, I will send unto you beasts which have the heads of lions, the
hair of women, the tails of camels, and they shall be so ravenous
that they shall devour your flesh, and you shall long to flee away to
the tombs of the dead, and to hide yourselves for fear of the beasts.
And I will take away the light of the sun from before your eyes, and
will send darkness upon you, that not seeing, you may slay one
another, and that I may remove from you my face, and may not
show mercy upon you. For 1 will burn the bodies and the hearts of
you, and of all those who do not keep as holy the day of the
Lord." (See Andrews's History of the Sabbath,
130
Second Edition, pages 386-389; Matthew Paris's Historia Major,
pages 200, 201, edition 1640; Heylyn's History of the Sabbath, part 2,
chapter 7, section 5; Morer's Lord's Day, page 288-290; Gilfillan's
The Sabbath, page 399, and many others.)
We have given over one half of this famous document, which in
view of our brief space, will perhaps suffice. That such a document
was actually brought into England at the time mentioned, and used
with strong effect to enforce the observance of Sunday, does not
admit of any doubt. It is substantiated by all the reliable historians
of that age. To read such a document in this skeptical age, may
appear to us a little ludicrous. But at the time it was written, the
height of the Dark Ages, it was far different. That was the age of
relics, an age when a nail or a piece of wood of the true cross was
of inestimable value; when the bones, toe-nails, and other
mementoes of the saints were considered of the highest worth. The
credulity of the people knew no bounds, and the Romish priests
took every advantage of it. It was by such means as this, that
support was supplied and holiness ascribed to the "venerable day of
the sun."
There is no question but that this remarkable document came
from the pope himself. This is stated on the authority of Matthew
Paris, who, Dr. Murdoch says, "is accounted the best historian of
the Middle Ages-learned, independent, honest, and judicious!"
Mosheim also says that the first place was due to him as "a writer
of the highest merit."
This writer says:
"But when the patriarch and clergy of all the Holy Land had
diligently examined the contents of this epistle, it was decreed in a
general deliberation that the epistle should be sent to the judgment
of the Roman pontiff, seeing that whatever he decreed to be done,
would please all. And when at length the epistle had come to the
knowledge of the lord pope, immediately he ordained heralds,
who, being sent through different parts of the world, preached
everywhere the doctrine of this epistle, among whom the abbot of
Flay,
131
Eustachius by name, a devout and learned man, having entered
the kingdom of England, did there shine with many miracles."-
Matthezu.Paris's Historia Major, Page 201.
Innocent III. was pope at that time, and no pontiff that ever sat
in the papal chair exceeded him in efforts to elevate and strengthen
the popish power. It was by such steps as these that the Roman
Church advanced the interests of Sunday. Custom, tradition, the
edicts of emperors, popes and councils, counterfeit miracles, and
rolls manufactured by priestly craft, and palmed off as of heavenly
origin, upon the ignorant, bigoted, and credulous multitude by the
sanction of the pope and higher prelates, these are the foundations
upon which the Sunday Sabbath rests.
It is stated by historians that the Lord's day was better observed
because of this second roll, and the work of this zealous abbot in
England. It had, doubtless, a strong influence in many places in
that superstitious age.
 Having thus traced the Sunday down to the middle of the Dark
Ages, we will next notice it in the time of the Reformation.

Chapter 16- Attitude of the Reformers toward

Sunday
THOUGH the position the Reformers took in relation to the
first day of the week is not directly connected with the main object
of these articles, we cannot forego a brief chapter on this subject.
Our investigation of the rise of Sunday to prominence as a sacred
day in the church, has thus far been wholly connected with the
apostasy, which finally developed into the papacy. The rise of
Sunday kept even pace with the work of corruption in the church,
so that the highest point of Roman apostasy was contemporary
with the highest degree of Sunday sacredness. The inquiring
reader will be anxious to know what ground the great Reformers
took relative to this institution. We will answer briefly.
The great Reformation of the sixteenth century arose in the
bosom of the Catholic Church itself. Many of the Reformers were
priests of that church before the Reformation commenced. All of
them had been trained up in its communion, and were accustomed
to observe its festivals, and had, at first, full respect for its authority.
They were, in short, good Catholics when they began the work of
reform. From their earliest infancy they had reverenced the
institutions of the church, and at first never dreamed of leaving the
church or of rebelling against the pope. They doubtless
133
would have remained in the bosom of the church had they not
been so pressed by their enemies that, driven to the wall, they had
to take their stand.
Under such circumstances it could not be expected that these
men in that age of reverence for the hoary past would be able to
see all the errors into which the church had drifted, or come back
at once to the complete purity of apostolic religion. These men are
deserving of high honor for the great advance out of darkness
which they did make, and God greatly blessed their labors. But
reformation since their time has still continued, and doubtless will
continue till the close of time. No men of any one generation are
entitled to all the credit for the blessed light of our age. It has been
gradually dawning.
Mosheim well says:
"The vindicators of religious liberty do not discover all truth in
an instant, but like persons emerging from long darkness, their
vision improves gradually."
Dean Stanley says.
"Each age of the church has, as it were, turned over a new leaf
in the Bible, and found a response to its own wants."-History of the
Eastern Church, p. 79, ed. 1872.
The Protestants of the present day would not accept all that the
early Reformers believed. It is well known that Martin Luther and
many others held fast to the doctrine of consubstantiation, that is,
"to a real and corporeal presence of the body and blood of Christ,
in, under, or along with the bread and wine."-Mosheim. Many
things were held and tolerated which we would not now think
consistent. It causes no surprise, therefore, that most of the
Reformers did not see all the truth of God's word concerning the
ancient Sabbath. After a thousand years of such gross darkness,
while tradition was generally reckoned to be of supreme authority,
this would have been too much to expect.
But what was the position taken by them concerning Sunday
sacredness? Did they regard it as the day which
134
Christ had set apart as the Christian Sabbath? Did they consider
there was any scriptural authority for it? That it was sin to do
ordinary work upon it? Or that there was and command of God
that it should be kept holy? Or did they consider it merely a festival
day, like Christmas, Good Friday, or other days appointed by the
church? We quote as follows:
"In the Augsburg Confession, which was drawn up by
Melanchthon [and approved by Luther], to the question, 'What
ought we to think of the Lord's day?' it is answered that the Lord's
day. Easter, Whitsuntide, and other such holy days ought to be
kept, because they are appointed by the church, that all things may
be done in order; but that the observance of them is not to be
thought necessary to salvation, nor the violation of them, if it be
done without offense to others, to be regarded as a sin!"-Cox's
Sabbath Laws, p. 287.
The Confession of the Swiss churches says on this point:
"The observance of the Lord's day is founded not on any
commandment of God, but on the authority of the church; and
the church may alter the day at pleasure."-Idem.
Tyndale, the great English Reformer, said:
"As for the Sabbath, we be lords over the Sabbath, and may yet
change it into Monday, or into any other day as we see need, or
may make every tenth day holy only if we see cause why!"-Tyndale's
Answer to More, book 1, chapter 25.
Zwingle, the great Swiss Reformer, regarded it thus: "For we are
no way bound to time, but time ought so to serve us, that it is
lawful, and permitted to each church, when necessity urges (as is
usual to be done in harvest time), to transfer the solemnity and rest
of the Lord's day, or Sabbath, to some other day."-Hessey, p. 352.
John Calvin said respecting the Sunday festival:
"However, the ancients have not without sufficient reason
substituted what we call the Lord's day in the room of the
Sabbath. . . . Yet I do not lay so much stress on the septenary
number that I, would oblige the church to an invariable adherence
to it; nor will I condemn those churches which have other solemn
days for their assemblies, provided they keep at a distance from
superstition."-
135
Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated by John Alien,
book 2, chap. 8, sec. 34.
These word from Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian
Church, the strictest observers of Sunday, perhaps, of any
denomination, may surprise many. But we shall find that their
views of Sunday strictness were of later origin. Certainly Calvin
did not share in them; for it seems he himself was not particularly
strict as a Sunday-keeper. Dr. Hessey says:
"Knox, the intimate friend of Calvin, visited Calvin, and, it is
said, and on one occasion found him enjoying the recreation of
bowls on Sunday."-Hessey's Bampton Lectures on Sunday, p. 201, ed.
1866.
Calvin had Servitus arrested on Sunday. John Barclay, a learned
man of Scotch descent, whose early life was spent near Geneva,
published the statement that Calvin and his friends at Geneva-
"Debated whether the reformed, for the purpose of estranging
themselves more completely from the Roman Church, should not
adopt Thursday as the "Christian Sabbath," one reason assigned
by Calvin being, "that it would be a proper instance of Christian
liberty!""
These statements have been credited by many learned
Protestants, and we are not aware that they have ever been
disproved. Knox was not such a believer in the sacredness of
Sunday as Presbyterians now are. Thus we see the leading
Reformers were not believers in Sunday sacredness, as many
modern Protestants are. They considered it a church festival, and
not as receiving its authority from the fourth commandment.
Carlstadt, the German Reformer, kept the seventh day Sabbath.
He was a leading Reformer, one who went farther in opposition to
the Roman Church than Luther and many others. His position was
in some respects more consistent than Luther's. He insisted on
rejecting everything in the Catholic Church not authorized by the
Scriptures, while Luther was determined to retain everything not
expressly
136
forbidden. Had Carlstadt's position been taken, the Protestant
churches would have come much nearer the truth of the Bible on
the Sabbath question than it has.
Many will doubtless be surprised at these evidences of the low
regard these early Reformers had for the Sunday Sabbath,
admitting, as they did, that it was wholly an institution of the
church, and not required in the Scriptures. It is well known that
this is not now the general position of many of the Protestant
churches. They consider Sunday the Sabbath by divine
appointment, and would highly resent such sentiments as history
records concerning the opinions of the leading Reformers. Some
may doubt the truthfulness of these statements; but we assure them
that there are no facts better attested, and that we could present
much evidence on this point substantiating what we have already
said.
The real facts are these: In the great controversy in England
between the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians, in the latter part
of the sixteenth century, the Presbyterians rejected the authority of
the church and most of its festivals, while the Episcopalians
required men to observe all the festivals of the church. Hence it
was clearly seen that in order to maintain the authority of Sunday,
which the Presbyterians kept, they must find some other arguments
in its behalf than those which had sustained it for so many ages.
They had therefore either to give up Sunday, or try to find
arguments for it in the Bible. They chose the latter course.

The Seventh Part of Time Theory

Lyman Coleman, a first-day historian, thus states the

promulgation of the modern opinion:
"The true doctrine of the Christian Sabbath was first
promulgated by an English dissenter, the Revelation Nicholas
Bound, D. D., of Norton, in the county of Suffolk. About the year
1595 he published a famous book, entitled 'Sabbathum Veteris et
Novi Testamenti,' or the 'True Doctrine of the Sabbath.' In this
book he maintained 'that the seventh part of our time ought to be
devoted to God; that
137
Christians are bound to rest on the Lord's day as much as the
Jews were on the Mosaic Sabbath, the commandment about rest
being moral and perpetual. And that it was not lawful for persons
to follow their studies or worldly business on that day, nor to use
such pleasures and recreations as are permitted on other days.'
This book spread with wonderful rapidity. The doctrine which it
propounded called forth from many hearts a ready response, and
the result was a most pleasing reformation in many parts of the
kingdom. 'It is almost incredible,' says Fuller, 'how taking this
doctrine was, partly because of its own purity, and partly for the
eminent piety of such persons as maintained it; So that the Lord's
day, especially in corporations, began to be precisely kept; people
becoming a law unto themselves, forbearing such sports as yet by
statutes permitted; yea, many rejoicing at their own restraint
herein.'"-Coleman's Ancient Christianity Exemplified, chapter 26, section
2.
This new doctrine "spread with wonderful rapidity," and has
since been substantially adopted by many of the Protestant
churches, but not by all. It is now the popular doctrine of the
change of the Sabbath which is generally held. Scattered hints of
this doctrine in parts have been held before by a few; but it had
never been put forth as a whole in the form of a system. During
some fourteen centuries of first-day Sabbath agitation, such a
doctrine had never been promulgated. The Christian Fathers, to
whom Sunday elevation is remotely traced, never heard of such a
doctrine. The change they wrought was for an entirely different
reason. It was founded upon "custom," "tradition," "voluntary
choice," but never upon any Bible authority, never upon the fourth
commandment.

A Preposterous Claim

Of all the arrogant, preposterous claims-and they have been

many-put forth in behalf of the "venerable day of the sun," the
most preposterous is reserved for the last-that of claiming for it the
authority of the fourth commandment. It took some fourteen
centuries to invent this claim, so contrary to the Bible record. If it
is not "stealing the livery of heaven," for the first day of the week to
shield
138
itself under and clothe itself with the commandment of God.
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," "the seventh day is
the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,"-then we know not what would
be. The command requiring us to observe the day of Jehovah's rest
which he blessed and set apart for a sacred use at the creation of
the world, for man to keep ever holy, is now sanctimoniously
appropriated to bolster up another day entirely, the one on which
he began his work of creation. We do not know how mortal man
could go farther in doing despite to the rest-day of the great God.
Here is where first-day observers have entrenched themselves for
some two hundred years past. Here is where we find them today.
The great heathen "memorial" of idolatry entrenched in the sacred
temple of the memorial of the Creator! The first day of the week
claiming as its fundamental authority the commandment of God
which was given to enforce the observance of the seventh day, an
entirely different day!
Well does J. N. Andrews say concerning this last step taken to
save Sunday:
"Such was the origin of the seventh-part-of-time theory, by
which the seventh day is dropped out of the fourth commandment,
and one day in seven slipped into its place, a doctrine most
opportunely framed at the very period when nothing else could
save the venerable day of the sun. With the aid of this theory, the
Sunday of 'Pope and pagan' was able coolly to wrap itself in the
fourth commandment, and then, in the character of a divine
institution, to challenge obedience from all Bible Christians. It
could not cast away the other frauds on which its very existence
had depended, and support its authority by this one alone. In the
time of Constantine it ascended to the throne of the Roman
empire, and during the whole period of the Dark Ages it
maintained its supremacy from the chair of St. Peter; but now it
had ascended to the throne of the Most High. And thus a day
which God 'commanded not nor spoke it, neither came it into' his
'mind,' was enjoined upon mankind with all the authority of his
holy law."-History of the Sabbath, pages 479, 480.
Chapter 17- Traces of Early Sabbath Keeping
HAVING traced the Sunday Sabbath from its first beginnings
through the Dark Ages to its full adoption by the Protestant
churches, we now return to the true Sabbath, to notice briefly its
status since the Roman Catholic Church caused it to be
discontinued where it had the power to do so. It will be
remembered that we gave clear proof that it was kept in the early
church for centuries, even till the Catholic Council of Laodicea, in
AD. 364, abrogated it by an anathema. From that time forward it
gradually disappeared from view in those countries where the
Catholic Church had supreme influence. That church has made
the most persistent efforts, in every way possible, to crush out the
ancient Sabbath, seeming to realize that those who clung to it
struck at the very foundation of her claims.
Sunday stands upon the authority of tradition; the Sabbath
stands upon the authority of the commandments of God. When
Sunday is observed, one really recognizes the ground-work of
Catholic authority, viz., tradition, and, logically speaking, would be
bound to accept her other festivals, ordinances, etc., which stand
on precisely the same authority. But when a person ignores Sunday
and keeps the Sabbath of the Lord, he sets aside every scrap of
Catholic tradition,
140
so that the whole Catholic stock in trade is gone, together with
their strongest hold on Protestants. Hence we shall ever find
Catholics stoutly opposed to the true Sabbath.
We shall now inquire whether the Sabbath did not continue to
be observed in various places where the Roman Church had not
influence enough to suppress it. If this be so, it will afford strong
additional evidence that the change of the Sabbath was wrought by
the power of the Catholic Church. We shall be able to give only
brief historical references in proof of this point, referring those
who wish to investigate the matter thoroughly to the work before
noticed, Andrews's History of the Sabbath.
The Culdees

We first notice the early Christians of Great Britain who were

not connected with Rome before the mission of Augustine in AD.
596. These were a pious, humble class of people, and were in an
eminent degree Bible Christians.
"An Irish presbyter, Columba, feeling himself stirred with
missionary zeal, and doubtless knowing the wretched condition of
the savage Scots and Picts, in the year 565 took with him twelve
other missionaries and passed over to Scotland!"-M'Clintock and
Strong's Cyclopedia, Vol. II, p. 601.
They were called Culdees, and settled and made their
headquarters on the little isle of Iona. They had, for the most part,
"a simple and primitive form of Christianity" very different from
the pomp of Romanism.
Two eminent Catholic authors speak of Columba as follows:
"Having continued his labors in Scotland thirty-four years, he
clearly and openly foretold his death, and on Saturday, the ninth of
June, said to his disciple Diermit, 'This day is called the Sabbath,
that is, the day of rest, and such will it truly be to me. For it will put
an end to my labors.'"-Butler's Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal
Saints, art. St. Columba, AD. 597.
"Today is Saturday, the day which the Holy Scriptures call the
Sabbath, or rest. And it will truly be my day of rest, for it shall
141
be the last of my laborious life."-The Monks of the West, Vol. II,
Page 104.
This language proves that Columba believed that Saturday was
the true Bible Sabbath. It also shows his satisfaction in the fact, in
view of his immediate death. We have never known an observer of
Sunday to have any feelings of pleasure on his death bed in view of
the fact that Saturday was the Bible Sabbath. Hence we conclude
that this man of God, the leader of these missionaries, was an
observer of the ancient Sabbath.
The Waldenses

There has been no class of dissenters from the Catholic Church

more worthy of regard than the Waldenses, or Vaudois, whose
principal settlement was in the valleys of the Alps in Piedmont,
though at times there were companies of them scattered in many
of the countries of Europe. Their locating in these valleys occurred
between the time of Constantine and the full development of the
Roman Catholic Church. There is some confusion among the
various authorities as to the exact time. It seems to be a settled fact
among historians that the cause of their seeking these retired
valleys was their desire to maintain the purity of their religion, and
to escape the corrupting influences so prevalent in the more thickly
populated portions of the country. So they retired from public view.
They had a translation of the Bible in their own tongue, and
taught it with great diligence to their children. Catholic writers
declare that some of them could repeat nearly the whole of the
Holy Scriptures. They sent out missionaries to all parts of Europe
during the darkest days of the papacy, many of whom witnessed
for the truth with their lives. Multitudes of them died in the various
persecutions by the Catholics. Time after time they were driven
from their homes into the mountains and caves, and many
thousands
142
of men, women, and children were put to death, and their
property and homes confiscated and destroyed.
There is conclusive evidence that a portion, at least, of the
Waldenses observed the ancient Sabbath in the days of their
greatest purity. A considerable portion of this people were called by
the significant designation of Sabbati, Sabbatati, or Insabbatati.
Mr. Robinson, the historian, quotes out of Gretser the words of
Goldastus, a learned Swiss historian and jurist, born in 1576, and a
Calvinist writer of note, as follows:
"Insabbatati [they were called] not because they were
circumcised, but because they kept the Jewish Sabbath."-
Ecclesiastical Researches, chap. 10, p. 303.
 Archbishop Usher acknowledges that many understood they
were called by these names because they kept the Jewish Sabbath,
though he thought it was for another reason.
Just before the great Protestant Reformation,
"Louis XII, king of France, being informed by the enemies of
the Waldenses inhabiting a part of the province of Provence, that
several heinous crimes were laid to their account, sent the Master
of Requests a certain doctor of the Sorbonne, who was confessor
to His Majesty, to make inquiry into the matter. On their return
they reported that they had visited all the parishes where they
dwelt, had inspected their places of worship, but they had found
there no images nor signs of the ornaments belonging to the mass
nor any of the ceremonies of the Roman Church. Much less could
they discover any traces of those crimes with which they were
charged. On the contrary, they kept the Sabbath day, observed the
ordinance of baptism according to the primitive church, instructed
their children in the articles of the Christian faith and the
commandments of God. The king, having read the report of his
commissioners, said with an oath that they were better men than
himself or his people!"-Jones's Church History, Vol. II, chap. 5, sec. 4.
"The respectable French historian De Thou says that the
Vaudois keep the commandments of the decalogue, and allow
among them of no wickedness, detesting perjuries, imprecations,
quarrels, seditions, etc."-History of the Vaudois, by Bresse, p. 126.

The Passaginians

One portion of the Waldenses were called Passaginians,

probably because they lived high up in the passes of the Alps. Thus
Mosheim speaks of them:
"In Lombardy, which was the principal residence of the Italian
heretics, there sprung up a singular sect, known, for what reason I
cannot tell, by the denomination of Passaginians, and also by that
of the Circumcised. Like the other sects already mentioned, they
had the utmost aversion to the dominion and discipline of the
church of Rome; but they were at the same time distinguished by
two religious tenets which were peculiar to themselves. The first
was a notion that the observance of the law of Moses in everything
except the offering of sacrifices, was obligatory upon Christians; in
consequence of which they circumcised their followers, abstained
from those meats the use of which was prohibited tinder the
Mosaic economy, and celebrated the Jewish Sabbath."-Ecclesiastical
History, century 12, part 2, chap. 5, sec. 1.4.
But Mr, Benedict, in his History of the Baptist Denomination, speaks
of them as follows:
"The account of their practicing circumcision is undoubtedly a
slanderous story, forged by their enemies, and probably arose in
this way: Because they observed the seventh day, they were called,
by way of derision, Jews, as the Sabbatarians are frequently at this
day. And if they were Jews, it followed, of course, that they either
did, or ought to, circumcise their followers. This was probably the
reasoning of their enemies; but that they actually practiced the
bloody rite is altogether improbable."-Vol. II, P. 414, edition 1813.
Such has ever been the conduct of the Roman Church to
blacken the character of its enemies by false reports. It is nothing
uncommon at the present day for even Protestant ministers to
make such charges upon Sabbatarians that they are Jews, and keep
all the law of Moses, because they observe the Sabbath. They
might know, if they cared to, that Sabbatarians make a great
distinction between the moral law of ten commandments, which
requires the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, and the
ceremonial law of types, shadows, circumcision, etc. The former
144
they believe to be binding on all. The latter was abolished at the
cross of Christ.

The Petrobruslans

The Petrobrusians were a sect of French Christians who, in the

twelfth century, witnessed for God in opposition to the papacy.
They were also observers of the Sabbath. This is stated by Dr.
Francis White, lord bishop of Ely, who was appointed by the king
of England to write against the Sabbath, in opposition to Mr.
Brabourne, a Sabbatarian. He says:
"In St. Bernard's days it was condemned in the Petrobruysans."-
Treatise of the Sabbath Day, p. 8.
The Sabbath-keepers of the eleventh century were of sufficient
importance to attract the attention of the pope. Gregory VII., one
of the most lordly, domineering popes that ever occupied the papal
chair, was at that time ruling the church with an iron hand. Dr.
Heylyn says that-
"Gregory, of that name the seventh [about AD. 1074],
condemned those who taught that it was not lawful to do work on
the day of the Sabbath."-History of the Sabbath, part 2, chapter 5,
section 1.
This is clear evidence that there was still a respectable number
of Sabbath-keepers, even in those countries where that church had
authority; for surely the pope would not pronounce a curse upon
them unless such persons existed. Thus we see the Sabbath still
existing among those opposed to the Catholic Church, even in Italy
itself, where the pope's power was greatest. We now look abroad to
countries where the pope never had jurisdiction, in search of those
who still revere the Sabbath of the Lord.

Sabbath-keepers in Africa

The gospel extended its influence all through Northern and

Central Africa in the early part of the Christian dispensation.
There were many Christian churches on that continent. Africa
indeed "stretched out her hands to God."
145
But after the conquest of the northern portions of that country by
the Mohammedans, and for a long time before that, the Christians
of Abyssinia were lost to the rest of the Christian world. Says
Gibbon:
"Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the
Ethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world, by
whom they were forgotten."-Decline and Fall, chap. 47, par. 38.
 But after the great discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, they became known again to the Christian world. They
were found observing the ancient Sabbath, although they were
greatly affected by the pagan and Mohammedan errors so long
surrounding them, as might be expected. Yet it is a fact of no little
significance in the consideration of this subject, that this large body
of Christians, which had been so long separated from the influence
of the Catholic Church, were found after a thousand years still
observing the seventh day. At the time of their separation from the
rest of the Christian world they, with others, were observing both
Sunday and Sabbath. When found nearly a thousand years later,
they were doing the same, as Mr. Geddes says:
"They deny purgatory, and know nothing of confirmation and
extreme unction; they condemn graven images; they keep both
Saturday and Sunday."-Church History of Ethiopia, pp. 34, 35.
The ambassador of the king of Ethiopia, at the court of Lisbon,
gave the following reasons for keeping the Sabbath:
"Because God, after he had finished the creation of the world,
rested thereon. Which day, as God would have it called the holy of
holies, so the not celebrating thereof with great honor and
devotion seems to be plainly contrary to God's will and precept,
who will suffer heaven and earth to pass away sooner than his
word. And that, especially, since Christ came not to destroy the law,
but to fulfill it. It is not, therefore, in imitation of the Jews, but in
obedience to Christ and his holy apostles, that we observe that
day."-Church History of Ethiopia, pp. 87, 88.
146
This account was given by the ambassador in 1534. In the
beginning of the next century the emperor of Abyssinia was
induced to submit to the pope in these words:
"I confess that the pope is the vicar of Christ, the successor of,
St. Peter, and the sovereign of the world. To him I swear true
obedience, and at his feet I offer my person and kingdom."-Gibbon's
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 47, par. 39.
 Let the reader now mark what followed: As soon as the emperor
had thus submitted himself, he was obliged to put forth a decree
forbidding the observance of the Sabbath. Geddes says he:
"Set forth a proclamation prohibiting all his subjects, upon
severe penalties, to observe Saturday any longer."-Church History of
Ethiopia, pages 311, 312.
Gibbon expresses the edict thus:
"The Abyssinians were enjoined to work and play on the
Sabbath."-Decline and Fall, chap. 47, par. 39.
Thus we see the Roman Church never missed a chance to give
the ancient Sabbath a thrust when the opportunity presented itself.
This one desire has marked its course throughout. After a space of
time the tyranny of the Catholics brought a terrible struggle, which
caused their overthrow, and the Abyssinians returned to the
observance of the Sabbath, and have continued to do so ever since.
These facts present a striking evidence of the hatred of the Roman
Church toward the Sabbath. It also conclusively proves the
existence of the Sabbath in the church where the popish power
could not abrogate it.

The Armenians

We next notice the Armenians of the East Indies. Here was

quite a large body of Christians who had had little or no
connection with the churches of Europe for many centuries. So
they were preserved from many of the false doctrines
147
of the great apostasy. Mr. Massie describes them as follows:
"Separated from the Western world for a thousand years, they
were naturally ignorant of many novelties introduced by the
councils and decrees of the Lateran. And their conformity with the
faith and practice of the first ages laid them open to the
unpardonable guilt of heresy and schism, as estimated by the
church of Rome. 'We are Christians, and not idolaters,' was their
expressive reply when required to do homage to the image of the
Virgin Mary. ... La Croze states them at fifteen hundred churches,
and as many towns and villages. They refused to recognize the
pope, and declared they had never heard of him; they asserted the
purity and primitive truth of their faith since they came, and their
bishops had for thirteen hundred years been sent, from the place
where the followers of Jesus had first been called Christians."-
Continental India, Vol. II, pp. 116, 117.
Mr. Yeates hints at the sabbatarian character of these Christians.
He says that Saturday-
"Among them is a festival day, agreeable to the ancient practice
of the church."-East Indian Church History, pages 133, 134.
The same fact is also again hinted at by the same writer as
follows:
"The inquisition was set up at Goa in the Indies, at the instance
of Francis Xavier [a famous Roman saint], who signified by letters
to the Pope John III, Nov. 10, 1545. 'That THE JEWISH
WICKEDNESS spreads more and more in the parts of the East
Indies subject to the kingdom of Portugal, and therefore he
earnestly besought the said king, that to cure so great an evil he
would take care to send the office of the Inquisition into those
countries.'"-Idem, pages 139,140.
There can be no reasonable doubt that the "Jewish wickedness"
here referred to is the same as observing Saturday "agreeable to the
ancient practice of the church," spoken of above. We here have
another evidence of the hatred of the Roman Church to the
Sabbath. It must be put down by the inquisition, if found in
existence where that church has authority.

In the East Indies

Since that time the Fast Indies have fallen under the dominion
of Great Britain. Some years since, Mr. Buchanan, a distinguished
minister of the Church of England, visited India for the purpose of
becoming acquainted with this body of Christians. He says they
have preserved themselves most free from Mohammedan and
papal corruption, and that they have a translation of the Bible in
the Armenian language, which has been pronounced the "queen of
versions." He says:
"They have preserved the Bible in its purity; and their doctrines
are, as far as the author knows, the doctrines of the Bible. Besides,
they maintain the solemn observance of Christian worship
throughout our empire ON THE SEVENTH DAY, and they have
as many spires pointing to heaven among the Hindoos as we
ourselves."-Buchanan's Christian Researches in Asia, p. 2.59.
Purchas, a writer of the seventeenth century, also speaks of
several sects of Eastern Christians, "continuing from ancient
times," as Syrians, Jacobites, Nestorians, Maronites, and
Arhlenians. It seems evident that these are identical with those now
known as Armenians. He says:
"They keep Saturday holy, nor esteem Saturday fast lawful but
on Easter even. They have solemn service on Saturdays, eat flesh,
and feast it bravely like the Jews."-Purchas, His Pilgrimage, part 2,
book 8, chap. 6, sec. 5.
This writer, like many first day authors, Catholic and Protestant,
even at the present time, speaks disrespectfully of those Christians
who observed the Sabbath. But this testimony, with the others,
seems to leave no possible doubt that the Armenians observed the
Sabbath.
Andrews, in his History of the Sabbath, page 463, says concerning
other Sabbath keepers:
"When the Reformation had lifted the vale of darkness that
covered the nations of Europe, Sabbath-keepers were found in
Transylvania, Bohemia, Russia, Germany, Holland, France, and
England. It was not the Reformation which gave existence to these
Sabbatarians;
149
for the leaders of the Reformation, as a body, were not friendly
to such views. On the contrary, these observers of the Sabbath
appear to be remnants of the ancient Sabbath-keeping churches
that had witnessed for the truth during the Dark Ages!"
 He proceeds to cite various classes of these in the countries
mentioned, and gives the authorities to prove it, which the
inquiring reader can investigate in that valuable work.

Summary

In summing up the facts presented concerning these Sabbath-

keeping bodies which continued through the Dark Ages, we reach
the following conclusions:
1. The Waldenses (at least a large portion of them) who sought
retired places in the valleys of the mountains, to be able to worship
God according to the ancient practice of the church and according
to the Bible, kept the ancient Sabbath till persecuted by the
Catholic Church and almost exterminated.
2. The Abyssinian Church, shut away from the papal church for
a thousand years, when discovered were found observing the
seventh day of the week as the early Christians did. But as soon as
the Catholics got power to do so, they at once abased the Sabbath,
and would not allow it to be observed while they remained in the
kingdom.
3. The Armenian Christians, also shut away from the Roman
Church for the same length of time, when visited by Europeans,
were found keeping the seventh day, or Saturday, according to the
ancient practice of believers during the first centuries. But true to
their hatred of the Sabbath, as soon as the Roman priests could do
so, they had the cruel Inquisition brought in to abolish by torture
the practice of keeping the ancient memorial of creation. So also
was it in many other countries. It is the same old story in every
instance.
We have now followed for fifteen centuries the work of the
Roman Catholic Church in its continued, persevering
150
effort to overthrow the Sabbath which God commanded, and to
elevate the Sunday, the weekly memorial of sun worship. The first
form of idolatry, into its place, transforming it into a Christian
institution; and we see, but one purpose throughout. This work
always centered at Rome, from the time the first step was taken
turning the Sabbath into a fast to disgrace it. While making
Sunday a joyful festival, till we reach the famous roll "which came
down from heaven," threatening destruction upon those who
should "fail to keep the Lord's day;" yes, continuing even till the
present day, since Protestants have joined in the same work of
elevating Sunday. We cannot question the fact that the papal
church changed the Sabbath. But lest any should think we have
unfairly judged that church in thus speaking, we propose to give the
testimony of many Catholic writers themselves on this subject.

Chapter 18- What Catholic Authorities Say About

Sunday
IN considering questions of importance, like the subject under
discussion, it is certainly reasonable that the parties accused should
have the privilege of testifying for themselves. We have said very
plainly that the papists, during the long continuance of the great
apostasy, which resulted in the development of their church,
changed the Sabbath from the day which the Holy Scriptures
required to another day, without the slightest Bible authority for so
doing. Do they admit this charge to be true, or do they deny it?
This is a question of real importance, one which we wish fairly and
candidly to examine. We will quote Catholic authorities alone on
this point.

The Roman Decretalia

The pope is the head of the Catholic Church; the head directs
the body. The Roman Decretalia is an authoritative work in the
Roman ecclesiastical law. Each pope, when invested with the
"succession," declares the papal decretals to be true. The Decretalia
ascribes power to the pope to change God's law or any other law.
Thus:
 "He can pronounce sentences and judgments in contradiction to
the right of nations, and to the law of God and man .... He
152
can free himself from the commands of the apostles, he being
their superior, and from the rules of the Old Testament," etc.
"The pope has power to change times, to abrogate laws, and to
dispense with all things, even the precepts of Christ."-Decretal de
Translat. Episcop. Cap.
"The pope's will stands for reason. He can dispense above the
law, and of wrong make right by correcting and changing laws."-
Pope Nicholas, Dis. 96.
"The pope is free from all laws so that he cannot incur any
sentence of irregularity, suspension, excommunication, or penalty
for any crime."-Dis. 40.
Surely the pope is a wonderful personage. He can be no other
than the embodiment of that power which was to "think to change
times and the law." Daniel 7:25. Here we see claims of plentitude
of power sufficient to make any changes whatever which he might
desire to make. What do papists say about changing the Sabbath?

Catechism

In the "Catholic Catechism of Christian Religion" we have the

following questions and answers:
"Question: What does God ordain by this commandment?
"Answer: He ordains that we sanctify, in a special manner, this
day on which he rested from the labor of creation.
"Question: What is this day of rest?
"Answer: The seventh day of the week, or Saturday; for he
employed six days in creation, and rested on the seventh. Genesis
2: 2; Hebrews 4: 1, etc.
"Question: Is it, then, Saturday we should sanctify in order to
obey the ordinance of God?
"Answer: During the old law, Saturday was the day sanctified;
but the church, instructed by Jesus Christ, and directed by the
Spirit of God, has substituted Sunday for Saturday; so now we
sanctify the first, not the seventh day. Sunday means, and now is,
the day of the Lord.
"Question: Had the church power to make such a change?
"Answer: Certainly; since the Spirit of God is her guide, the
change is inspired by the Holy Spirit."
153
In another Catholic work, called the Abridgement of Christian
Doctrine, page 58, the Catholic Church asserts its power to change
the law, in the following manner:
"Question: How prove you that the church bath power to
command feasts and holy days?
"Answer: By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday,
which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict
themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other
feasts commanded by the same church.
"Question: How prove you that?
"Answer: Because by keeping Sunday they acknowledge the
church's power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin;
and by not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny, in
fact, the same power."
In the Catholic Christian Instructed, page 202, is presented the
following list of feast-days, which all rest upon the same
foundation, namely, the authority of the Catholic Church. Of
these, Sunday takes the lead.
"Question: What are the days which the church commands to
be kept holy?
"Answer: 1. The Sunday, or our Lord's day, which we observe by
apostolic 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; the day of our Lord's ascension; Whitsunday,
or the day of the coming of the Holy Ghost; Trinity Sunday;
Corpus Christi, or the feast of the Blessed Sacrament. 3. We keep
the days of the Annunciation, and Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary. 4. We observe the feast of All-Saints; of St. John
Baptist; of the holy apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul. 5. In this
kingdom [Britain-Ireland] we keep the feast of St. Patrick, our
principal patron!"
From pages 202, 203 of the work last quoted, we take the
following additional testimony, which also has a very important
bearing on the question of the Sabbath, as the points referred to
are vital ones in this issue:
"Question: What warrant have you for keeping the Sunday
preferably to the ancient Sabbath, which was the Saturday?
154
"Answer: We have for it the authority of the Catholic Church,
and apostolical tradition.
"Question: Does the Scripture anywhere command the Sunday
to be kept for the Sabbath?
"Answer: The Scripture commands us to hear the church (St.
Matthew 18:17; St. Luke 10:16), and to hold fast the traditions of
the apostles. 2 Thessalonians 2: 15. But the Scripture does not in
particular mention this change of the Sabbath. St. John speaks of
the Lord's day (Revelation 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 commandments. St.
Luke also speaks of the disciples meeting together to break bread
on the first day of the week. Acts 20:7. And St. Paul (1 Corinthians
16:2) orders that on the first day of the week the Corinthians
should lay by in store what they designed to bestow in charity on
the faithful in Judea; but neither the one nor the other tells us that
this first day of the week was to be henceforward the day of
worship, and the Christian Sabbath; 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 other 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."
The Doctrinal Catechism, pp. 174,352 offers proof that Protestants
are not guided by the Scriptures. We present two of the questions
and answers:
 "Question: Have you any other way of proving that the church
has power to institute festivals of precept?
"Answer: 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 Scriptural authority."
"Question: When Protestants do profane work upon Saturday,
or the seventh day of the week, do they follow the Scripture as
their only rule of faith do they find this permission clearly laid
down in the Sacred Volume?
"Answer: On the contrary, they have only the authority of
tradition for this practice. In profaning Saturday, they violate one of
God's commandments, which he has never clearly abrogated,
"Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.""
155
Then follows a statement and refutation of the arguments which
Protestants usually rely on to prove the change of the Sabbath,
such as the resurrection of Christ, the pouring out of the Spirit, the
Lord's day of Revelation 1:10; Acts 20:7. And 1 Corinthians 16:2,
showing that these Scriptures contain no evidence of the institution
of Sunday observance, but that the practice rests solely upon the
authority of the Catholic Church.
In a Roman Catholic work entitled The Shortest Way to End
Disputes about Religion, by the Reverend Dr. Manning, approved by
the Right Reverend Bishop Fitzpatrick, Coadjutor of the Diocese
of Boston, Mass., page 19, we find the following:
"As zealous as Protestants are against the church's infallibility,
they are forced to depend wholly upon her authority in many
articles that cannot be evidently proved from any text of Scripture,
yet are of very great importance.
"1. The lawfulness for Christians to work upon Saturday,
contrary, in appearance, to the express command of God, who bids
us 'keep the Sabbath holy,' and tells us the seventh day of the week
is that day."
 "2. The lawfulness and validity of infant baptism, whereof there
is no example in Scripture."

Clifton Tracts

In accordance with the instruction given in the catechisms from

which the foregoing quotations were, made, a work entitled The
Clifton Tracts (Catholic), Vol. IV, chap. 4, under the title, "A
Question for all Bible Christians," makes a precise statement of the
positions held respectively by Catholics and Protestants on this
question, in the following forcible language:
"I am going to propose a very plain and serious question, to
which I would entreat all who profess to follow 'the Bible, and the
Bible only,' to give their most earnest attention. It is this: Why do
you not keep holy the Sabbath day?
"The command of Almighty God stands clearly written in the
Bible in these words: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
156
Six days shall thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh
day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shall not do any
work.' Exodus 20:8, 9. Such being God's command, then, I ask
again, Why do you not obey it? Why do you not keep holy the
Sabbath day?
"You will answer me, perhaps, that you do keep holy the
Sabbath day; for that you abstain from all worldly business, and
diligently go to church, and say your prayers, and read your Bible
at home, every Sunday of your lives.
"But Sunday is not the Sabbath day; Sunday is the first day of
the week; the Sabbath day was the seventh day of the week.
Almighty God did not give a commandment that men should keep
holy one day in seven. But he named his own day, and said
distinctly, Thou shall keep holy the seventh day; and he assigned a
reason for choosing this day rather than any other, a reason which
belongs only to the seventh day of the week, and cannot be applied
to the rest. He says, 'For in six days the Lord made heaven and
earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day;
wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.'
"Almighty God ordered that all men should rest from their labor
on the seventh day, because he too had rested on that day; he did
not rest on Sunday, but on Saturday. On Sunday, which is the first
day of the week, he began the work of creation, he did not finish it;
it was on Saturday that he 'ended his work which he had made;
and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had
made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because
that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and
made.' Genesis 2:2, 3. Nothing can be more plain and easy to be
understood than all this, and there is nobody who attempts to deny
it; it is acknowledged by everybody that the day which Almighty
God appointed to be kept holy was Saturday, not Sunday. Why do
you, then, keep holy the Sunday, and not the Saturday?
"You tell me that Saturday 'Was the Jewish Sabbath, but that the
Christian Sabbath has been changed to Sunday. Changed! but by
whom? Who has authority to change an express command of
Almighty God? When God has spoken, and said, Thou shall keep
holy the seventh day, who shall dare to say, Nay, thou may work,
and do all manner of worldly business on the seventh day; but thou
shall keep holy the first day in its stead? This is the most important
question, which I know not how you can answer.
"You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible, and
the Bible only; and yet in so important a matter as the observance
157
of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against the plain letter
of the Bible, and put another day in the place of that day which
the Bible has commanded. The command to keep holy the seventh
day is one of the ten commandments; you believe that the other
nine are still binding; who gave you authority to tamper with the
fourth? If you are consistent with your own principles, if you really
follow the Bible, and the Bible only, you ought to be able to
produce some portion of the New Testament in which this fourth
commandment is expressly altered, or, at least, from which you
may confidently infer that it was the will of God that Christians
should make that change in its observance which you have
made. . . .
"The present generation of Protestants keep Sunday holy
instead of Saturday, because they received it as a part of the
Christian religion from the last generation, and that generation
received it from the generation before, and so on backward from
one generation to another, by a continual succession, until we come
to the time of the (so called) Reformation, when it so happened
that those who conducted the change of religion in this country,
left this particular portion of Catholic faith and practice
untouched.
"But, had it happened otherwise. Had some one or other of the
reformers taken it into his head to denounce the observance of
Sunday as a popish corruption and superstition, and to insist upon
it that Saturday was the day which God had appointed to be kept
holy, and that he had never authorized the observance of any
other, all Protestants would have been obliged, in obedience to
their professed principle of following the Bible, and the Bible only,
either to acknowledge this teaching as true, and to return to the
observance of the ancient Sabbath, or else to deny that there is any
Sabbath at all. And so, in like manner, any one at the present day
who should set about, honestly and without prejudice, to draw up
for himself a form of religious belief and practice out of the
written word of God, must needs come to the same conclusion. He
must either believe that the Sabbath is still binding upon men's
consciences, because of the divine command. Thou shall keep holy
the seventh day; or he must believe that no Sabbath at all is binding
upon them, because of the apostolic injunction, Let no man judge
you in respect of a festival day, or of the Sabbaths, which are a
shadow of things to come, but the body is Christ's. Either one or
the other of these conclusions he might honestly come to. But he
would know nothing whatever of a Christian Sabbath,' distinct
from the ancient, celebrated on a different day and observed in a
different manner, simply because Holy Scripture itself nowhere
speaks of such a thing.
158
 "Now mind, in all this you would greatly misunderstand me if
you supposed I was quarreling with you for acting in this manner
on a true and right principle, in other words, a Catholic principle,
viz., the acceptance, without hesitation, of that which has been
handed down to you by an unbroken tradition. I would not tear
from you a single one of those shreds and fragments of divine truth
which you have retained. God forbid! They are the most precious
things you possess, and by God's blessing may serve as clues to
bring you out of that labyrinth of error in which you find
yourselves involved, far more by the fault of your forefathers, three
centuries ago, than by your own. What I do quarrel with you for is,
not your inconsistency in occasionally acting on a true principle,
but your adoption, as a general rule, of a false one. You keep the
Sunday, and not the Saturday. And you do so rightly; for this was
the practice of all Christians when Protestantism began. But you
have abandoned other Catholic observances, which were equally
universal at that day, preferring the novelties introduced by the
men who invented Protestantism to the unvarying tradition of
above fifteen hundred years.
"We blame you, not for making Sunday your weekly holiday,
instead of Saturday, but for rejecting tradition, which is the only
safe and clear rule by which this observance can be justified. In
outward act, we do the same as yourselves in this matter we too, no
longer observe the ancient Sabbath, but Sunday, in its stead; but
then there is this important difference between us, that we do not
pretend, as you do, to derive our authority for so doing from a
book; but we derive it from a living teacher, and that teacher is the
church. Moreover, we believe that not everything God would have
us to know and to do is written in the Bible, but that there is an
unwritten word of God, which we are bound to believe and obey.
Just as we believe and obey the Bible itself, according to that saying
of the apostle, "Stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have
learned, whether by word or by our epistle." 2 Thessalonians 2:14
[Douay Bible].
"We Catholics, then, have precisely the same authority for
keeping Sunday holy, instead of Saturday, as we have for every
other article of our creed, namely, the authority of 'the church of
the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth' (I Timothy 3:15).
Whereas, you who are Protestants have really no authority for it
whatever; for there is no authority for it in the Bible, and you will
not allow that there can be authority for it anywhere else. Both you
and we do, in fact, follow tradition in this matter; but we follow it,
believing it to be a part of God's word, and the church to
159
be its divinely appointed guardian and interpreter; you follow it,
denouncing it all the time as a fallible and treacherous guide, which
often 'makes the commandment of God of none effect.'"
In another Catholic work, called a Treatise of Thirty Controversies,
we find the following cutting reproof:
"The word of God commands the seventh day to be the
Sabbath of our 1,ord, and to be kept holy; you [Protestants],
without any precept of Scripture, change it to the first day of the
week, only authorized by our traditions. Divers English Puritans
oppose against this point, that the observation of the first day is
proved out of Scripture, where it is said, the first day of the week.
Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; Revelation 1:10. Have they not spun
a fair thread in quoting these places? If we should produce no
better for purgatory, prayers for the dead, invocation of the saints,
and the like, they might have good cause indeed to laugh us to
scorn; for where is it written these were Sabbath days in which
those meetings were kept? Or where is it ordained that they should
be always observed? Or, which is the sum of all, where is it decreed
that the observance of the first day should abrogate or abolish the
sanctifying of the seventh day, which God commanded
everlastingly to be kept holy? Not one of those is expressed in the
written word of God."

A Challenge

And finally, W. Lockhart, B. A., of Oxford, in the Toronto

(Catholic) Mirror, offered the following "challenge" to all the
Protestants of Ireland, a challenge as well calculated for this
latitude as that. He says:
"I do, therefore, solemnly challenge the Protestants of Ireland to
prove, by plain texts of Scripture, the questions concerning the
obligation of the Christian Sabbath, 1. That Christians may work
on Saturday, the old seventh day; 2. That they are bound to keep
holy the first day, namely, Sunday; 3. That they are not bound to
keep holy the seventh day also."

Statements by Catholic Authors

In pursuing this subject further, we quote the language of John

Gilmary Shea, LLD, a representative man among Catholics, and
an accomplished writer:
160
"The Sunday, as a day of the week set apart for the obligatory
public worship of Almighty God, to be sanctified by suspension of
all servile labor, trade, and worldly avocations, and by exercises of
devotion, is purely a creation of the Catholic Church." "Nothing in
the New Testament forbids work, travel, trade, amusement, on the
first day of the week. There is nothing which implies such a
prohibition. The day, as one especially set apart, had no authority
but that of the Catholic Church; the laws requiring its observance
were passed to enforce decrees of councils of the Catholic
Church." "For ages all Christian nations looked to the Catholic
Church, and, as we have seen, the various states enforce by law her
ordinances as to worship and cessation of labor on Sunday.
Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the church, had no
good reason for its Sunday theory, and ought, logically, to keep
Saturday as the Sabbath, with the Jews and Seventh Day Baptists.
For their present practice, Protestants in general have no authority
but that of a church which they disown."-The American Catholic
Quarterly Review, Jan., 1883.
James Blake, M. D., another Roman Catholic, in a debate with a
Protestant, thus drove the latter to the wall:
 "Christ never wrote, but God the Father did. He wrote the Ten
Commandments on the tables of stone, and the only
commandment he emphasized was that to keep the seventh day.
'Remember to keep holy the seventh day;' and there is no
command so often repeated throughout the Old Testament. If the
Bible alone be the gentleman's rule of faith, he is bound by this
commandment; but does he observe it? No, he does not. Why,
then, does he not observe it? Because the church thought fit to
change it. Here the gentleman admits the authority of the church
to be superior to the handwriting of God the Father; and yet he
will look you in the face, and declare that the Bible, without church
authority, is his rule of faith."-Review and Herald, Feb. 27, 1884.
The following statements were made by a Catholic priest in the
opera-house in Hartford, Kansas, Feb. 18, 1884, as reported in the
Hartford Weekly Call of February 22:
"Christ gave to the church the power to make laws binding upon
the conscience. Show me one sect that claims or possesses the
power to do so save the Catholic Church. There is none, and yet all
Christendom acknowledges the power of the church to do so, as I
will prove to you. For example, the observance of Sunday. How can
other denominations keep this day? The Bible commands you
161
to keep the Sabbath day. Sunday is not the Sabbath day; no man
dare assert that it is; for the Bible says as plainly as words can make
it, that the seventh day is the Sabbath, i. e. Saturday; for we know
Sunday to be the first day of the week. Besides, the Jews have been
keeping the Sabbath day unto the present time. I am not a rich
man, but I will give $1,000 to any man who will prove by the Bible
alone that Sunday is the day we are bound to keep. No, it cannot
be done; it is impossible. The observance of Sunday is solely a law
of the Catholic Church, and therefore is not binding upon others.
The church changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and all the world
bows down and worships upon that day in silent obedience to the
mandates of the Catholic Church. Is this not a living miracle that
those who hate us so bitterly, obey and acknowledge our power
every week, and DO NOT KNOW IT?"
 The number of extracts from Catholic authorities might be
much enlarged, but these ought to be sufficient to show any candid
person the position taken by that church upon this point. It will be
noticed that many of these come from catechisms and other
doctrinal works which are officially issued by the Catholic Church
itself. There can be no higher evidence of the position of a
denomination than its doctrinal books put forth to teach its own
people. Thus the papal church acknowledges point-blank that it
has dared to change the law of God by "substituting Sunday for
Saturday." It puts forth this claim to all the Protestant world as the
highest evidence of its authority.

Chapter 19- Admissions of Some Protestants

WE quote a few declarations relative to the change of the
Sabbath, from those who are not Catholics, men who are in no
wise interested to say anything which would favor the seventh day,
but whom love of truth impels to speak as they do.
N. Summerbell, a noted minister and author in the Christian
Church, and once president of Antioch (Ohio) College, says in his
History of the Christians, p. 418:
"It [the Roman Catholic Church] has reversed the fourth
commandment, doing away with the Sabbath of God's word, and
instituting Sunday as a holy day!"
Alexander Campbell, in a lecture in Bethany College, 1848,
said:
"Was the first day set apart by public authority in the apostolic
age? No. By whom was it set apart, and when? By Constantine,
who lived about the beginning of the fourth century."
The Chicago Inter Ocean, answering the questions, "Who
changed the Sabbath day, and when?" and, "Is Sunday the first day
of the week?" says:
"The change of the day of worship from the Sabbath, or last
day of the week, to Sunday, the first day of the week, was done by
the early Christians. But the work was so gradual that it is almost
impossible to determine when the one left off and the other began.
 163
It was not until after the Reformation that the change was
confirmed by any legal enactment. In the first ages after Christ it
does not appear that the Christians abstained from their regular
business upon that day, but they were accustomed to meet early in
the day, and indulge in singing and some other religious services. It
was not until the beginning of the third century that it became
customary for Christians to abstain from their worldly business and
occupation on that day."
The Christian Union of June 11, 1879, answers the following
questions concerning the change of the Sabbath:
"When, why, and by whom was the day of rest changed from
the seventh to the first? Has the Christian Sabbath been observed
since the time of the apostles? Reader.
"Answer: The Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first
day of the week, not by any positive authority, but by a gradual
process. Christ was in the tomb during the seventh day. He rose
upon the first. The Christians naturally observed the first day as a
festal day in the early church, and as gradually the Gentile
Christians came to be the vast majority of the church, they cared
little or nothing about Jewish observances of any kind, and
abandoned the Jewish Sabbath along with temple services and the
like, and thus, by a natural process, the first day of the week came
to take its place."
We make these quotations, not for any proof that the seventh
day is the Sabbath, but that the reader may see the positions which
intelligent persons are taking upon this subject. The high,
puritanical claims concerning the change of the Sabbath by Christ
and his apostles, basing it upon the fourth commandment, and
seeking to sustain it by the authority of the Bible, are being
abandoned by many well informed persons. They see it cannot be
maintained, for to do so they are compelled to place it upon the
Catholic ground of "custom and tradition," and the "authority of
the church." It will be noticed that the extracts already given in this
pamphlet virtually place it there. It was a "gradual process;" it first
began as a "festal day;" it grew tip by a "natural process;" the
"Gentile Christians" "abandoned the Jewish Sabbath" when they
"came to
164
be the vast majority of the church;" and so Sunday at last came to
be observed as the Sabbath day by the Catholic Church, from
whence the whole Protestant world has received it.
Well, this expresses as nearly the truth in the matter as we could
reasonably expect from the eminent Protestant journal from which
these expressions are quoted. It well knows that Sunday has no
divine authority for its sanctity; if it had, it would certainly give it.
Our readers who have traced this argument through, have found
therein plenty of evidence that this "natural process" of the
Christian Union was never secured until emperors, popes, and
councils had used their utmost authority to force the Sunday
Sabbath upon the people. That men were placed under a curse,
and sometimes whipped, fined, and imprisoned, yes, and the
inquisition with its tortures was resorted to, and some were burned
at the stake, before the "natural process" was fully consummated,
and the Sunday of "pope and pagan" fully recognized as a sacred
institution.

A Retrospect

We have now traced the process of changing the Sabbath from

the seventh to the first day of the week, from the apostolic age,
when it was ever regarded as merely a secular day; through the
second century, when it began to be regarded, with Good Friday
and other days, as a "voluntary festival" on which religious
meetings were held, and to which some little honor was paid by
Christians, seeing that it was generally regarded among their
heathen neighbors as a weekly festival day in honor of the sun.
In the third century "custom and tradition," and the efforts of
the bishop of Rome and his sympathizers, exalted Sunday still
higher, and lowered the Sabbath in public estimation, by turning
the latter into a fast and the former into a joyous festival. They had
also by this time begun
 165
calling it by the honorable title of "Lord's day," for which there is
no warrant in Scripture.
The process went on still more rapidly during the fourth century,
inasmuch as heathenism and Christianity at this time espoused
each other in unholy wedlock. Then Constantine, a heathen
emperor, issued a heathen decree making the "venerable day of the
sun" a rest day by imperial power, which Sylvester, bishop of
Rome, cunningly sanctioned and enforced as a Christian
institution, by the power of the Catholic Church. And after a
season the Catholic Council of Laodicea placed the observance of
the true Sabbath under a curse.
With the perseverance of a sleuth hound following his game, the
Roman Church still pursued its work of suppressing the Sabbath
during the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and following centuries, and
elevating the Sunday in its place, by decrees of councils, curses of
popes, crusades of extermination, tortures of the inquisition, lying
miracles, and rolls said to come from heaven, but really originating
in the pope's palace. Wherever the papacy had the power, Sunday
was established, and the Sabbath of the Lord condemned.
When the Reformation arose, its leaders, though men whom
God honored by making them a blessing to the world, had through
early training so lost the Sabbath from view, and had such a great
work of reform on other points to carry through under the greatest
difficulties, that many of them did not embrace the Sabbath in
their work of reform, though they attributed very little sacredness
to Sunday, plainly stating that it stood on a level with such festivals
as Easter, Christmas, Good Friday, and other church holidays.
Later, the Presbyterians took the positions held by our Protestant
churches generally at the present time, of trying to place the
Sunday under the protecting cover of the fourth commandment,
and of Christ and the apostles,-
166
positions never taught during the previous sixteen hundred years.
This late invention to cover a hoary fraud is now very popular with
many.
 We have seen that various bodies of Christians in different parts
of the world not under the domineering influence of the papal see,
still continued to keep the ancient Sabbath long after the Catholic
Church had changed it. But that church never neglected, in a
single instance, to abolish its observance by persecution wherever it
had the power to do so.
We have examined many Catholic authors relative to this
change, and they always agree that it was their church which
changed the Sabbath. They present this fact as one of the greatest
claims of this church to popular regard, and as the highest
evidence of its ecclesiastical authority over all Protestant bodies.
And intelligent Protestant authorities, with every reason for a bias
in favor of Sunday, admit that its introduction was a gradual
process, first as a festal day, then gradually coming into favor as a
rest day, but with no higher authority than the Catholic Church.
With a brief notice of several texts of Scripture speaking
prophetically of this very change, and some general observations,
we will close this treatise.

Chapter 20- General Observations and

Conclusions
IN the seventh chapter of Daniel we have one of the most
remarkable prophecies of the Bible. it presents a chain of prophecy
covering the principal kingdoms of the world for nearly 2,000
years. Babylon, Media, and Persia, Grecia, Rome, and the ten
kingdoms into which the latter was divided, were presented to the
prophet under the symbols of four great monsters coming up out
of the sea. A lion with eagle's wings, a bear with three ribs in its
mouth, a leopard with four heads, and a terrible nondescript beast
with ten horns, great iron teeth, and a ferocity unprecedented. This
last was presented under two phases, corresponding to the two
diverse appearances in which Rome presented itself to the world,
Rome ruled by the Caesars as a heathen power, and Rome ruled by
the popes as a professedly Christian power. The latter form was to
continue until the fires of the judgment day should utterly destroy
it.
We have not space to enter into a lengthy exposition of this
chapter. Suffice it to say that in our application of these symbols
mentioned we agree with the best Protestant expositors; and
indeed, we could not give an intelligent exposition of the chapter
without taking their positions.

The Four Universal Kingdoms

Verse 23 reads: "Thus he [the angel] said, The forth beast shall
be the fourth kingdom upon earth." Daniel lived in the time of
Babylon. The fourth great kingdom
168
from that time could be no other than that of Rome. This power is
first presented as a beast with ten horns, and subsequently with
three of these "horns plucked up by the roots" and a "little horn"
with "eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great
things." Then the solemn scene of the great judgment day is
presented, one like the "Ancient of days"-God the Father- sitting
with myriads of heavenly angels in attendance. "The judgment was
set and the books were opened." Then he beheld the body of this
beast destroyed in the burring flames of the last day. In the
explanation of these symbols given by the angel of God, he
informs the prophet that these four beasts are "four kings," or
kingdoms, the fourth being Rome. The ten horns, he also says, are
"ten kings," or kingdoms, which are evidently the kingdoms of the
Western empire, into which Rome was divided between the years
351 and 483 AD. These the commentators inform us were the
Huns, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, Vandals, Suevi, Burgundians,
Heruli, Anglo-Saxons, and Lombards.

The Triple Crown

"And another shall rise after them, and he shall be diverse from
the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great
words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the
Most High, and think to change times and laws; and they shall be
given into his hand until a time, and times, and the dividing of
time." Verses 24, 25.
There is one ruling power in Europe which wears three crowns
in one-a triple crown. No traveler who has ever visited Rome will
need to be told who that is. Every statue of a pope in that city (and
there are many) wears such a crown. How plainly this ruler has
distinguished himself as the power which plucked up three
kingdoms! Just before AD. 538, the kingdoms of the Heruli,
Vandals, and Ostrogoths, through the influence of the Catholics,
169
were uprooted, and in that year Justinian, emperor of Eastern
Rome, ruling in Constantinople, proclaimed the pope head over all
the churches.
From this point the papacy rapidly increased in power and
arrogance, till the mightiest kings of Europe trembled before this
political and religious ruler. His power was unique. Nothing in
history resembles it. Never ruling a large territory as his peculiar
kingdom, he still possessed an authority over the heart; and
consciences of men which no mortal ever exercised before. He had
"eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things," and
a look "more stout than his fellows." Here is strikingly portrayed
that far-seeing sagacity and discernment, and ability to grasp the
motives of men, which has held so many millions in thralldom
never before equaled. The language also indicates those arrogant
pretensions and blasphemous claims never surpassed by any other
kind of ruler. His look so stout was indeed clearly presented by a
power of endurance through many centuries, which has never been
equaled by any other.

Presumptuous Claims

"He shall speak great words against the Most High." Here are
pretensions seen nowhere else. He either calls himself, or is called
by his votaries, "Lord God the Pope," "Christ's Vicar or Vicegerent
on earth," "A very God on earth," "with power to open and shut
heaven at his pleasure," and "ability to forgive sins," " even to grant
indulgences."
He "shall wear out the saints of the Most High." Behold the
millions of martyrs whose blood has been shed in crusades, in
massacres, in horrible dungeons, torn upon racks, and burned at
the stake. This power has caused the death of more people for
conscience' sake than all other political powers together which have ever existed
on this earth. Surely this power fulfils the statements of the angel
170
to the prophet. The best-informed Protestant historians have
estimated his victims at upwards of fifty million. Kind reader, think
of it, nearly as many people as live in these United States of
America to day, put to death for religious opinion!

"He Shall Think to Change"

He shall "think to change times and laws," or "the times and the
law," as it is rendered by many other versions. The late revised
version has it "the law." It was not mere human laws to which the
angel referred, but the law of the Most High, the power against
which he was warring. He shall speak "great words against God",
"wear out the saints" of God, and undertake ("think himself able,"
Dr. Clarke) to change the law of God.
"They shall be given into his hand until a time and times and
the dividing of time." This can only mean that he shall seem to
have accomplished his purpose of changing the law of God during
this period. A time is one year (the ancient year of 360 days); times
(plural), twice as much, 720; a dividing of time, half as much, 180;
making in all 1260 prophetic, or symbolic, days, each day
representing a year. Ezekiel 4:6; Numbers 14:34. He received his
power from Justinian, AD. 538, and retained it until 1798, a period
of just 1260 years, when the French Republic captured Rome, and
carried the pope into France, where he died in exile. The papacy
then received a terrible blow, from which it has not yet fully
recovered.
 This language plainly implies, even to a certainty, that the law of
God would be changed by a blasphemous apostate power. Those
who have read the foregoing chapters can hardly fail to see how
wonderfully the Roman Catholic power has fulfilled these
predictions, by changing the Sabbath of the fourth commandment,
and placing the Sun-day of "pope and pagan" in its stead.

"That Wicked"

"Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day [the
coming of Christ] shall not come, except there come a falling away
first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who
opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is
worshiped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing
himself that he is God. . . . For the mystery of iniquity does already
work; only he who now lets [restrains now, R. V.] will let, until he
be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked [lawless one,
R. V.] be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of
his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming." 2
Thessalonians 2:3-8.
Here the same blasphemous power is presented which is
referred to in the scriptures already considered. He comes to the
same end at the great burning day, when Christ comes. There
(Daniel 7:25) he speaks great words against the Most High, and
attempts to change his law; here he opposes and exalts himself
above all that is called God and sits in the temple, i.e. the church, of
God, claiming God-like power. He is the "lawless one," i.e., one
who places himself above all law, is amenable to no law. He can do
as he pleases.
We know of no other power on earth that claims such
prerogatives as the papacy. As we have already seen, the Catholic
catechisms and doctrinal books, and eminent authors of that faith,
boldly put forth the claim that their church has changed the
Sabbath. Indeed, they cite this act as the one above all others
which demonstrates their authority, their right to be considered the
one infallible church which can command the consciences of men.
The fact that the whole religious world follows the practice of the
church, with really no other authority for so doing than that of the
church, is boldly presented as proof of its power to change the law
of God.
172
Thus we see fulfilled the plain predictions of the Scriptures, that
such a power should arise, and should think itself able to change
the law of God. And after centuries of effort put forth to
accomplish this very object, the power in question stands forth
before the world, and boldly claims to have done it. He "exalts
himself" in this very way above God himself. Indeed, it seems he
could exalt himself above God in no other way. He could not
ascend into the heavens, and seize the throne of the Highest. He
could not grasp the dominion of the universe, command the forces
of nature, or keep the vast machinery of creation in orderly
motion. But by really succeeding in making millions of professed
Christians, believers in the inspiration of the Bible, accept the
memorial of sun-worship in place of the Sabbath of the Lord God,
thus seeming to change the law of the Most High, he has indeed
"exalted himself" above God, as the apostle declared he would.

God's Vindication

There is one question more which we can but briefly notice: Will
God permit this power, which was to "think to change" the law of
God, to carry through this deception to the very last? or will he
bring to light this great iniquity before time closes, so that the truly
honest in heart shall understand this work of apostasy before
Christ comes? But one answer can reasonably be given to this
question: It would be inconsistent and most unreasonable to
suppose that God would permit such indignities to be placed upon
his law, and never bring to light this work of the man of sin.
There are certain scriptures which plainly indicate that the last
and closing work of reformation at the very close of the Christian
dispensation, will have reference to this apostasy, and the
restoration of the law, as God gave it, to its proper position in the
affections and service of the true people of God.
173
The scripture we have already quoted (Daniel 7:25) strongly
intimates this. Speaking of the power which should think to change
the law and should oppress God's people, it states that they should
"be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of
time." This period, embracing 1260 years, commencing in AD. 538
and closing in 1798, brings us to the "time of the end." The word
"until" marks the limit or close of the period during which this
power should have supremacy, and the time that the law and
people should be given into his hands.
Leading Protestant commentators agree that the power
predicted here is the papacy, and the Catholic authorities
themselves claim that their church did make a change in the
Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. So we
conclude that when the 1260 years allotted to that power in which
to hold under his control God's law and people, closed, a change
would certainly come. Such a change did come, so far as the power
to persecute is concerned. All know the Catholic Church has no
longer power to persecute as before. Shall we not, then, for the
same reason, look for a great movement to restore God's law to its
former position? So we must conclude from this language

The "Woman" of Revelation 12

In Revelation 12 we find a most striking prophecy of the church

of Christ, under the symbol of a woman clothed with the light of
the sun, and having on her head a crown of twelve stars, who
brought forth a man-child "who was to rule all nations with a rod
of iron," etc. The woman fled into the wilderness from the face of
a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, where she was
preserved for a period of 126o prophetic days (or years) from the
face of the serpent. The woman symbolizes the true church, which
commentators generally admit. The man-child is our Savior, who
was "caught up unto God, and to his
 174
throne." The great red dragon symbolizes the Roman power, which
stood before the woman "to devour her child as soon as it was
born," in the person of Herod, a Roman governor, who tried to
put Jesus to death when he killed all the male children in
Bethlehem that were two years old or under.
The reader will notice with peculiar interest the fact that the
woman, or true church, was hidden away in the wilderness from
this persecuting power precisely the same length of time that the
"little horn" of Daniel 7 was to persecute the church of God and
seem to change his law. That period began AD. 538, when the last
of the three kingdoms was plucked up by the papacy. About the
same time the adherents of the true church, as we have seen, no
longer remained in union with the Roman Catholic Church; and
they were ever after known as heretics. They hid away in retired
places, while the apostate power "exalted himself above all that is
called God or that is worshiped," in the very "temple," or church,
of God himself. Thus Inspiration represents this wonderful period
of human history.

The "Remnant"

"The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war
with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of
God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." Verse 17. The
remnant of the woman's seed can only be the very last portion of
the true church. For we all know the remnant is what remains at
the very last, as a small portion of a web of cloth after the main
part is gone, or a few survivors of an army after the greater portion
are dead. We are distinctly informed, then, by the words of
Inspiration, that the very last portion of the church are to have a
peculiar experience, and are to be marked by certain striking
characteristics, which will distinguish them from all others. The
dragon, "that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan," will be
"wroth" with them. This can only imply that a vindictive
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spirit of hatred and persecution will be kindled against them. This
must come because of certain great truths and reforms, which
Satan hates, that will be accepted and promulgated by the
"remnant" church. As he has always done in the past, he will
oppress and harass the defenders of these truths in the last great
conflict.

What it Means to Keep the law

What distinguishes this "remnant" church? They "keep the

commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."
They are not Jews, but Christians. What is it to "keep the
commandments of God"? Is it to keep merely a part of them?
"Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point,
he is guilty of all. For he that said [that law which said, margin],
Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit
no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the
law." James 2:10, 11.
The law of God, embracing the Ten Commandments, contains
all the principles of moral duty. To keep that law, we must obey
every part of it. In suspending our weight upon a chain, we shall as
surely fall if one link breaks as if all broke. It is not enough that we
keep part of the precepts of God's law; we must obey all. The same
God that spoke part, spoke all. All stand upon the same authority.
The same reasoning which James applies to the two
commandments, "Thou shall not commit adultery" and "Thou
shall not kill," applies to the fourth command as well: "Remember
the Sabbath day to keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is the Sabbath
of the Lord thy God: in it thou shall not do any work." Keeping
Sunday never fulfilled that commandment; for as plain as the sun
shining at noonday is the fact that Sunday is not the day which
God, in this the only Sabbath law, commands men to observe.
Millions have transgressed the fourth commandment, honestly
believing they were keeping it. That God mercifully
176
accepted them while they were living up to all the light they had,
we will not dispute. So great has been the influence of the "mystery
of iniquity" upon the minds of men, that the greater part of the
world's inhabitants have been deceived. The Scripture declares that
"all the world wondered after the beast [papacy]," and that "all that
dwell upon the earth shall worship him." Revelation 13:3, 8. This
work which the great apostasy has wrought has been a most
extensive one; but we truly believe that myriads have honestly
thought they were doing God service in keeping Sunday. But that
fact does not change the wording or intent of the fourth
commandment, nor make God authorize men to keep the first day
of the week, when he commands them to keep the seventh.
We may all feel a deep sense of gratitude that we have a God so
merciful that he makes allowance for men's ignorance of his
requirements when they live up to all the light he gives them. He
said to the Jews: "This is the condemnation, that light is come into
the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their
deeds were evil." John 3: 19. "If you were blind, you should have
no sin; but now you say, We see; therefore your sin remains." John
9:41. When men honestly seek to live up to all the light they have,
and earnestly desire all the light God has for them, they place
themselves where God can save them. When men see their duty
and will not do it, then their sins stand against them, and they are
under condemnation. So we hope for the salvation of multitudes of
those who lived in ages of darkness, those whose lives were truly in
accordance with all the light they enjoyed.
But we see a positive statement of Inspiration that the
"remnant" of the true church will "keep the commandments of
God." This cannot mean that they will keep merely a part of the
commandments, or keep them as changed by the papacy; but that
they will keep them as God originally gave them. This is a
distinguishing feature of
177
the last generation of Christians living on the earth. This will stir
the ire of Satan, and they will have misrepresentations and
persecutions to meet, and a bitter spirit of opposition to encounter.
So the Scriptures teach.

The Three Angels' Messages

We also have a plain reference to this same great movement in

Revelation 14:6-10.11 This scripture presents to our view the
proclamation of three symbolic messengers, doubtless symbols of
movements of those whom God has specially raised up to give
important truths in the last days, to prepare a people for Christ's
coming. These must be last-day messages. They are to be
proclaimed to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and
people."
The first message brings us to the "hour of his judgment," which
must denote the preliminary work of judgment which takes place a
little before Christ comes. This first proclamation evidently is
designed to call special attention to the fact that Christ is soon to
come. Such a message has been in process of proclamation for
forty years in the past, in the great advent movement specially
prominent from 1840-44. It is still being given in every part of the
earth.
The second message of warning proclaims the fall of Babylon.
There is no great literal city of that name upon the earth. The
term must therefore be used as a symbol. The word "Babylon"
signifies confusion or mixture, a religious condition where truth
and error are mixed together in systems of doctrines partly true
and partly false. This must include a large portion of Christendom.
The language indicates a state of moral declension in piety and
devotion, which will largely prevail throughout the world
178
in the last days; a state of conformity to a worldly standard a lack
of that earnestness, among many who have professed the religion
of Christ, which was seen in ages past. We think no thoughtful,
candid person can deny that we have reached just such a time.
The third message of Revelation 14 reads as follows: "The third
angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship
the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in
his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God,
which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his
indignation. And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in
the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.
And the smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever; and
they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his
image, and whosoever receives the mark of his name. Here is the
patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments
of God, and the faith of Jesus."
Whatever may be the reader's views of the meaning of this
scripture, if he has any reverence for the word of God he must
believe that here is brought to view a most solemn and important
work. No other threatening in all the Bible is so fearful as this.
Some great issue is here to be brought to bear upon mankind. We
cannot question the fact that this is a last day message, the very last
to be given to the world previous to the time when one "like unto
the Son of man" is beheld coming on a white cloud to reap the
harvest of the earth. Revelation 14:14-16. "The harvest is the end
of the world." Matthew 13:39. Christ ascended on high from
Olivet, and a cloud received him out of the sight of his disciples.
The shining ones who stood by said, "This same Jesus, which is
taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you
have seen him go into heaven." Acts 1:10, 11. We see the
prediction fulfilled in the scripture we are noticing, and we
therefore conclude that this third message is a special proclamation
of some important
179
truth which is to test the world just before the Savior comes the
second time.
What is the nature of the work indicated in this warning
message? First, it is a threatening against those who worship a
power called the "beast;" secondly, it brings to view a people who
"keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
The "Beast" of Revelation 13

What is this beast power, against which the terrible threatening

is pronounced? It is brought to view in the preceding chapter,
Revelation 13. The prophet beheld a beast having seven heads and
ten horns, rise out of the sea. His body was like that of a leopard,
his feet like those of a bear, and his mouth like that of a lion, and
"the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority."
He beheld one of his heads wounded to death, but that wound was
finally healed. "All the world wondered after the beast," and "there
was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and
blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and
two months." He had power to make war with the saints and
overcome them, and "power was given him over all kindreds, and
tongues, and nations." This beast was finally led into captivity.
The explanation of this symbol is very simple. As the great red
dragon of the twelfth chapter, with seven heads and ten horns,
symbolizes the Roman power in its pagan form, this symbol of a
beast made up of parts of a lion, a bear, and a leopard, can only
refer to that power which contained within itself the three
kingdoms symbolized by these beasts, viz., Babylon, Medo-Persia,
and Grecia. Daniel 7. Rome conquered the territory and subjects
of these divisions, and absorbed them, so to speak, into itself.
Hence its presentation in the symbol as a composite power. Its
seven heads represented the seven different forms of government in
which Rome presented itself to the world; viz.,
180
kingly, consular, triumvirate, decemvirate, dictatorial, imperial, and
papal. The ten horns were the ten kingdoms of the Western
empire, into which Rome was divided. It held supremacy, as we
have seen, 1260 prophetic days, or years, i.e., 42 months, reckoning
each month, as is usual, at thirty days. Rome ruled by the popes
received its power, seat (the city of Rome), and great authority from
the preceding symbolic form, the dragon, when Justinian, the
imperial ruler located in Constantinople, proclaimed the pope head
over all the churches, AD. 538.
 This beast received a "deadly wound" in 1798, just 42 months
or 1260 days (prophetic) afterward, when the soldiers of the French
Republic removed the head, the pope, and carried him into exile,
where he died. His government was then destroyed by the creation
of a republic in its stead. This "deadly wound was healed" when
the pope was restored by the allies in 1814.
The pope has spoken blasphemous words against God in the
titles he ascribes to himself; he has "overcome" many millions of
the saints of God in crusades, by the Inquisition, the stake, the
dungeon. There is no possible way of escaping the conclusion that
the leopard beast of Revelation 13 and the little horn of Daniel 7
are identical. Both predictions are wonderfully fulfilled in the papal
power.

The Crisis

Now we see the force of the fearful threatening of the third

angel of Revelation 14. The time has at last come for God to
reckon with this proud, blasphemous, persecuting power, which has
dared to change his law, to claim divine prerogatives, and to
persecute his saints. God did not choose to do this in the Dark
Ages, when not one in a hundred could read or write, when one
copy of the Bible would cost hundreds of dollars, and when it was
almost impossible to find any copies which the common people
could read, very few indeed being written in the language then
spoken,
181
but all hidden in the dead Hebrew, Greek, or Latin tongues. But he
has waited until the great researches and discoveries of later times
have opened up all the world to mankind. Till the earth is one vast
network of railroads, and every river, yes, and every ocean, is
constantly traversed by the sailboat or steamship. Till men talk to
each other by means of the telegraph and telephone from town to
town and from country to country. Till the busy printing-presses
have scattered the Bible like leaves of autumn, in nearly four
hundred languages, to every people, race, and tongue; and until
nearly every nation can read and write.
Yes, God reserves this great crisis till all can know his word, if
they desire to do so. As it was an age of great light when Christ first
came, the Augustan age of poets, philosophers, and statesmen, so
God has designed that the last great conflict of truth and error
shall come in a special age of light and knowledge. In the time of
the end, knowledge shall be increased. Daniel 12:4. God is
merciful. He will give all who desire to do so a chance to know his
will. Then he sends forth this fearful threatening: "If any man
worship the beast. . . . he shall drink of the wine of the wrath of
God." With an open Bible in every man's hand, God can
consistently threaten those who violate his holy law, and follow
longer that apostate power which thinks to change it.
We may now ask, What is the position of God's true people?
"Here are they," says the third angel, "that keep the
commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." They keep them
as God gave them, and not as an apostate church changed them.
And for that work that church is threatened with wrath without
mercy. God's people will be distinguished by obedience to him in
this crisis, and will not follow another power. It would be absurd to
suppose that when Christ comes he will find his people, who are to
be translated alive to heaven, following the work of this wicked
182
power, in disobedience to God's law. We cannot, therefore, question
the fact that the last great reform, the final conflict between truth
and error, will be over the law of Jehovah. This issue is reserved as
the last great test.
Would any say the issue is an insignificant one? They cannot
truthfully do so. God has ever exalted his law as very sacred. He
spoke and wrote it himself. Christ magnified it and made it
"honorable." He says, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in nowise pass from the law." In the very last chapter of
the Bible, Christ, the Alpha and Omega, declares, "Blessed are they
that do his [the Father's] commandments, that they may have right
to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city."
Revelation 22:14. The wise man says: "Let us hear the conclusion
of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for
this is the whole duty of man." Ecclesiastes 12:13. He says again,
"He that turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer
shall be abomination." Proverbs 28:9. This law is not abolished by
the gospel, for Paul says, some thirty years after the cross of Christ,
"Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we
establish the law." Romans 3:31. This law is of universal
application. "Now we know that what things so ever the law says, it
says to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be
stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God."
Romans 3:19. So we might proceed, and fill page after page with
just such quotations, showing the immutability of God's "perfect,"
"holy, just, and good," "spiritual" law. Such are the expressions
everywhere to be found in the blessed Bible concerning this law
which the Deity promulgated in thunder tones from Sinai's summit,
with a voice that shook the earth.
Oh, no! This great conflict in the last days concerning this law
which demands the obedience of every man, the transgression of
which is sin, is no light thing. The very foundations of morality and
true reverence for God are
183
involved in the conflict. This law will be the main point of the
struggle. God's holy Sabbath, given to man at the creation of the
world, kept for thousands of years by his people till changed by the
man of sin, will have its proper position in the affections of God's
people, who will be translated at the coming of Christ.
The light is already shining on this subject. The reform
connected with the third angel's message in the restoration of the
Bible Sabbath is extending to all parts of the earth. It is published
already in the leading languages of the world. Printing offices for
its promulgation are to be found in the United States, England,
Switzerland, Norway, and Australia. Observers of the true Sabbath
are to be found in the United States, Great Britain, France,
Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark,
Holland, and Rumania, and in some portions of Africa, South
America, the Sandwich Islands, Australia, and New Zealand. Its
adherents are being rapidly increased by the extensive circulation
of publications, and by the active labors of ministers, missionary
workers, colporteurs, and canvassers in every part of the globe.
Very recently there has been a wonderful growth of interest in
the Sabbath question in all parts of the world. It is becoming a live
question: it must and will be heard. We live in an age of
investigation, and there is no theological question agitated today
more plain or more important than this. Let the good work go on
till the hoary error is exposed in all its deformity, and precious,
blessed truth shines out clearly to all mankind.

Chapter 21- Summary of Facts about the Sabbath

IN this chapter we give a brief summary of the facts concerning
the seventh-day Sabbath as presented in this treatise.
1. The great God closed his six days of labor in creating the
world, by resting on the seventh day of the first week of time, and
thus laid the foundation of the Sabbath institution.
2. The seventh day of the week thus became God's rest day, i.e.,
Sabbath day, Sabbath meaning rest. One day of the week is
therefore God's rest day, because he rested upon it, and no other
can become such until his act of resting is repeated upon some
other day. This no one claims has ever occurred.
3. There are therefore in each week, as the prophet says (Ezekiel
46:1), "six working days," and one rest or "Sabbath day," and that is
the seventh day of the week.
4. That original "rest-day" of Jehovah, God himself blessed,
because that in it he had rested. Genesis 2:3. Thus it became a
better day than the other days; for what God blesses is made better
by that act. Therefore all days are not alike.
5. God also, at the very time when he blessed the seventh day,
"sanctified it," i.e., "appointed it to a holy or sacred use," for
human beings to use as a Sabbath. Genesis 2: 3. In no other way
could this have been done except by informing Adam and Eve, the
only living persons, of their duty
 185
thus to observe it. Thus the Sabbath was made for man at the
beginning of human history, at the creation of the world.
6. The only origin of the weekly cycle is the appointment of the
Sabbath. And as this cycle has been known to all ages, the existence
of the Sabbath in the earliest times is demonstrated. Genesis 7: 4;
8: 10, 12; 29: 27.
7. The seventh day Sabbath is not Jewish, because it originated
more than two thousand years before there was a Jew. The word
Jew is derived from the name Judah, one of the sons of Jacob.
8. We have given the clearest evidences from heathen historians
of the existence and knowledge of the Sabbath among other
ancient nations not descended from Abraham; and tablets dug up
in ancient cities and a variety of other authorities clearly prove that
it was not derived from the Jewish people.
9. As the Sabbath originated thousands of years before there
was a Jew, and was committed to the ancestors of a multitude of
other nations besides the one Jewish nation, even before they
received it; therefore it would be more fitting to call it the Gentile
Sabbath than the Jewish.
10. Inasmuch as God's rest implies the completion of his work of
creation, and since he appeals to the fact that he created all things
in six days and rested on the seventh as the great reason why he
commands all men to observe the Sabbath, therefore we must
conclude that the seventh-day Sabbath is God's great memorial of
his work as creator.
11. All Gentiles owe their existence to God's act of creating, as
much as do the Jews; hence, primarily, they are Just as much under
obligation to observe the memorial of creation as the Jews are.
12. The reason why God placed this great memorial in the
hands of Abraham's seed for a period of time is the same precisely
that led him to place his law in their keeping, to give himself to
them as the God of Israel, to allow his
186
word to be written by them, and then brought the Savior himself
through that nation, viz., because all the world except the nation of
the Jews had rebelled against him and gone into idolatry. None of
these particulars are Jewish in character; all the world is interested
in them.
13. As positive proof that the Sabbath did not owe its existence
to the proclamation of the law from Sinai, but that God already
had a law of which the Sabbath was a part, we cite the account in
Exodus 16, where "he proved then whether they would walk in his
law or no," more than thirty days before he spoke his law to the
people. Exodus 16:4, 22-24.
14. The miraculous falling of the manna on the "six working
days," with a double portion on the sixth day of the week, while
none fell on the seventh, and its preservation on the Sabbath, while
it became corrupt if left over on other days, continued for forty
years, thus attesting by more than six thousand miracles in the
aggregate, which day God regarded as the rest-day of his people. It
forever annihilates the seventh-part-of-time theory, and
demonstrates beyond the peradventure of a doubt that God has
one particular day of the seven which he desires his people to keep
holy.
15. In the most solemn, impressive manner, God proclaimed his
law on Mount Sinai, wrote it with his own finger on the
imperishable tablets of stone; and in the very midst of the nine
moral precepts, which all admit are immutable and of universal
obligation, he placed the seventh-day Sabbath, and commanded
men to remember it to keep it holy, thus showing it was like the
other commandments in character and moral obligation, or it
would have been placed with the ceremonial precepts.
16. In the fourth commandment no reasonable ground is given
from which to claim that it is merely one day in seven and no day
in particular which God requires to be kept holy; but it is the day of
God's rest which he commands
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us to observe. This is as definite as one's birthday or Independence
day, as God rested only on the seventh day of the weekly cycle.
Therefore it is utterly impossible to cover the first day of the week
with the mantle of that command which requires men to observe
the seventh day.
17. All the reasons given in the commandment for the
observance of the Sabbath are such as apply to the Gentiles just as
much as to the Jews. One needs rest as much as the other; both
need to keep in mind the true God; both need a day of worship;
both owe their existence to creation; therefore both should keep its
memorial.
18. As the Sabbath is a memorial of the creation, the
observance of it by any person is a "sign" that such a one is a
worshiper of the true God, the Creator. It ever distinguishes him
from idolaters. Had men always observed it, it would have
preserved the race from idolatry. Hence the Sabbath is a "sign," or
token, between God and his people. Exodus 31:13-17: Ezekiel
20:20.
19. The fact that God promised the Jews that their city should
stand forever if they would always observe the Sabbath (Jeremiah
17:24, 25), and then, because they did not keep it, he destroyed
their city, and sent them into captivity (Nehemiah 13: I8; Ex.
20:13), strongly attests his high regards for it.
20. By the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, in a prophecy referring
wholly to the Christian dispensation, God pronounced a great
blessing upon all the Gentiles Who should keep the Lord's Sabbath
holy (Isaiah 56: 6), thus clearly proving that it was not a Jewish
institution, confined to that nation alone.
21. Our Savior, when lie came, kept the Sabbath, with the rest of
his Father's commandments. John 15:10. It was his "custom" to use
it as a day of religious meetings in which to preach the gospel to
the people. Luke 4:16. He stripped off the burdensome traditions
the Jews had placed around it and restored it to its proper position
as
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a day of rest and refreshment, a blessing to mankind. And he
declared himself to be its Lord, its protector (Mark 2:28), and that
it was made for the race of man.
 22. Christ had the right to call himself the special guardian of
the Sabbath, inasmuch as lie was the one who created the world
(John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2), and so was a partner in
the rest upon the first seventh day in the first week of time, and
thus helped to make the Sabbath. Hence we see why the seventh-
day Sabbath is truly the Lord Jesus Christ's day, in a sense that no
other day can be.
23. Christ also taught the present, future, and eternal obligation
of all the commandments of the moral law, of which the Sabbath
command is a part, solemnly declaring that not a letter or a point
of a letter should pass from the law till heaven and earth pass away,
and that whosoever should break one of the least of these
commandments should forfeit heaven by so doing, thus enforcing
the authority of the Sabbath in the most forcible manner possible.
Matthew 5:17-19.
24. Our Savior not only imitated his Father in resting himself on
the Sabbath during his earthly life, but showed his solicitude that
his disciples should observe it after his death, even in times of great
national calamities, by teaching them to pray continually for forty
years that the time of their flight from Jerusalem, just before its
destruction, should not occur on the Sabbath day. Matthew 24: 20.
25. After our Savior's death, the disciples, faithful to his example
and instructions, continued to treat the Sabbath as sacred time.
The holy women would not even anoint his body on that day, but
"rested upon the Sabbath day according to the
commandment" (Luke 23:56), and came upon the first day of the
week to do that which they would not do upon the seventh.
26. For some thirty years after Christ's death we have an inspired
history of the apostolic church, in which we learn of the exceeding
bitterness and hatred of the Jews against
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the disciples, making them take every possible occasion to
persecute and destroy them. But in not a single instance is there the
slightest hint that they ever found them breaking the Sabbath. This
negative argument affords the strongest proof that the disciples
continued to observe that day as they always had.
 27. But in addition to this we have the positive statement of
Scripture that it was Paul's "manner" to use the day for religious
worship. Acts 17: 2. This is evident when we consider that
Inspiration gives an account of some eighty four different Sabbaths
in which these religious services were held. Acts 16:13; 17:2; 18:4,
11; 13:14, 44. The last one of these was a distinctively Gentile
meeting, held by the special invitation of the Gentiles of Antioch, a
service which nearly the whole population of the city attended.
28. Not only was it the practice of the apostolic church to
observe the seventh-day Sabbath, and hold religious services on
that day, but the Holy Spirit has settled the question forever as to
which day of the week in the Christian dispensation is entitled to
the sacred name of "the Sabbath day," by calling that day the
Sabbath after Christ's resurrection which had been such for four
thousand years before, and never calling any other day by that title.
29. Inasmuch as all the inspired writers of the New Testament,
from St. Matthew, writing during the first decade after the
resurrection, to St. John, who penned his Gospel at the very close
of the first century of the Christian era, always call the seventh day
the Sabbath when they have occasion to speak of it, and never give
the first day of the week that title, it clearly demonstrates that they
had never learned of any change during that time, or made any in
their practice. For they surely would have called that day the
Sabbath which they kept as such.
30. And in the case of St. Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles,
we have his explicit statement that he had "committed nothing
against the people, or customs of the fathers."
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Acts 28: 17. Hence he must have kept the ancient Sabbath. For all
agree that this was one of their customs; and as it is evident that he
taught what he practiced himself, inasmuch as he commanded the
disciples to follow him as he followed Christ, both he and Christ
must have kept that day. Therefore Paul taught the Gentiles to
observe the Sabbath. Thus the churches in Thessalonica, Gentile
churches, followed the example of the Sabbath-keeping churches of
Judea. 1 Thessalonians 2:14.
 31. St. John, the last writer in the Bible, just at the close of the
first century of the Christian dispensation, still recognized the
existence of that Sabbath day of which Christ said that he was
"Lord" (Revelation 1:10), thus demonstrating that all days are not
alike, but that the Lord still has a day which he calls his own, just as
much as lie had four thousand years before that time.
32. We have clearly proved from a variety of first-day historians
that this same seventh-day Sabbath was still observed more or less
sacredly by the mass of Gentile Christians for centuries after the
death of Christ, until by the machinations of the Roman Catholic
Church, it was treated with indignity and contempt. Finally, all
who observed it were placed under a curse by the Catholic Council
of Laodicea, AD. 364.
33. We have also learned from history that the true Sabbath
continued to be observed by Christians whom the Catholic Church
could not control. It denounced them as heretics, and, persecuted
and killed even those who were remote from its influence, during
all the dark ages of papal supremacy.
34. We have also shown, that in the last great reform entered
upon by God's people just before Christ comes, God's ancient Sabbath,
trampled upon for ages by the great apostasy which has thought to
"change" God's law, and which has exalted itself "above all that is
called God," in the very church or "temple of God," shall once
more
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stand forth in its pristine glory, and be observed by the people of
God as the great memorial of his creative work.
35. Thus we see that the people whom Christ will translate at his
coming, to reign with him in glory, will agree in practice
concerning the seventh-day Sabbath with God the Father, Christ
the Son, all the faithful patriarchs and prophets of ancient times,
the apostles of the Lord Jesus, the early apostolic church, and all
others who take the Bible for their authority and obey the Jaw of
God.
36. And finally, the prophet Isaiah, in a glorious view of the new
heavens and earth, after all rebellion, sin, and death shall be forever
abolished, beholds all the children of God observing the original,
ancient Sabbath of the great Jehovah, meeting together every time
of its recurrence to worship him for whom that day is the great
memorial. Isaiah 66:22, 23. How, then, can men believe that the day
has lost its sacredness and importance?

Chapter 22- Summary of Facts about Sunday

1. GOD commenced his work of creating the world by working
on the first day of the first week of time, while he rested on the
seventh day of that week; thus distinguishing the first day as a
"working day," while he made the seventh a rest day. Can it be
wicked to follow the example of the God of heaven, and work on
Sunday?
2. Not an instance can be found in the Bible where Sunday was
ever observed as a rest day, or a hint given that its character as a
"working day" was ever changed to that of a rest day. Indeed, God
in the fourth commandment (Exodus 20:8-11) permits or
commands men to work upon it; and the prophet Ezekiel calls it
one of the "working days." Ezekiel 46:1. Can it be a sin to treat it
as God expressly permits in his own law?
3. Not a command in all the Bible can be found to observe
Sunday as a rest-day or a day for religious worship. No record of
its ever being blessed or set apart for any sacred use whatever, no
command to break bread upon it, no hint of any change of the
Sabbath in any way, nor the slightest proof that the sacredness of
the original Sabbath was ever transferred to it.
4. Jesus worked at the carpenter's trade (Mark 6:3) till he was
nearly thirty years old. He worked six days, and rested on the
Sabbath; hence he performed many
193
a day's work on Sunday. Is our Savior's example safe to follow?
5. The apostles and early Christians also worked on the first day
of the week, and not an instance can be found of their treating it in
any other way than as a "working day." Indeed, as no law was ever
given in the Bible to observe it as a Sabbath, it cannot be wrong to
work upon it. "Where no law is, there is no transgression." Romans
4:15. "Sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3: 4. Hence it
cannot be sin to do ordinary business on Sunday.
6. There are only nine instances in all the Bible where the first
day of the week is mentioned: Genesis 1:5; Matthew 28:1; Mark
16:2,9; Luke 24:1, John 20:1,19; Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2.
These instances refer to only three different days, the first being the
day when God began to create. The next six referring to that first
day on which Christ was raised from the dead. While the one in
Acts 20 is the last particular day referred to; and the direction
concerning the "laying by in store," in 1 Corinthians 16:2, does not
refer to any one first day, but to a duty to be done on all of them. It
is remarkable that in every instance here referred to, the Scripture
record gives plain evidence that it was a "working day."
7. The first instance we have already noticed, in which God
commenced his work of creating. The day of Christ's resurrection
was one of the busiest days of which we have any record in the
word of God. The disciples went out with the materials which they
had prepared for the anointing of Christ's body, which work they
would not do on the day previous. When they did not find him,
they spent the time hurrying here and there, inquiring of one
another concerning the strange occurrences. Two of them walked
fifteen miles on that day, out to Emmaus and back, and Christ
himself walked much of the way with them. A strange way to
observe a Sabbath! As the first Sabbath of a series gives the proper
example for all the rest, it is therefore perfectly
194
proper to travel on a journey afoot many miles on the first day of
the week. Thus we have the example of Christ and his disciples for
treating the first day as a working day since the resurrection of
Christ.
8. So also of the last specific instance in which the first day is
mentioned, Acts 20: 7. Paul walked nineteen and a half miles from
Troas to Assos on the first day of the week. And though there was
one religious meeting held in the dark part of that first day, the
only case of the kind brought to view in all the Bible, yet the fact of
his journeys plainly proves that Paul regarded it simply as a
"working day."
9. The recommendation of Paul to the Corinthians for every
one to "lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him," on the
first day of the week proves the same thing. This laying by him was
"by himself at home," as many versions render it. Their doing this
as God had prospered them would imply a reckoning of their
accounts, a business inconsistent with the sacredness of a Sabbath,
but every way consistent with a "working day." How strange that
upon such evidence good people should try to change a "working
day" into the Sabbath!
10. After the death of the apostles, during the second century,
we find some voluntary regard being paid to Sunday, with Good
Friday and other festival days, for which no command of Scripture
was ever assigned, and later on, "custom" was quoted as additional
evidence. Subsequently some held religions meetings upon it, and
finally the Catholic Church favored it, calling it the Lord's day,
about A. D. 200. At last Constantine, a heathen, passed a law (AD.
321) commanding a portion of the people to rest from labor on
"the venerable day of the sun." This heathen law was the first ever
made requiring cessation from labor on Sunday.
11. From various first-day authors we have shown that Sunday
was a heathen "memorial" of sun worship, the
195
first form of idolatry; hence the name Sunday. It was regarded all
through the heathen world as a weekly festival; hence Constantine
calls it "the venerable day of the sun." This fact enabled the
Catholic Church the more readily to exalt it among the vast body
of heathen nominally converted to Christianity.
12. The Roman Catholic Church continued till the Reformation
to exalt the Sunday, fining and whipping men who would not keep
it, appealing to base frauds and false miracles to sustain it, till its
partial observance became general, while the ancient Sabbath was
suppressed. Yet it took nearly a thousand years before the first clay
was called the Sabbath, even by the Catholic Church.
 13. In the Protestant Reformation, those who were engaged in it
came from the Catholic Church, and brought Sunday along with
them, though many of the Reformers regarded it simply as a
festival day, like the other church festivals.
14. The doctrine of a Sunday Sabbath, as now taught, was
never promulgated in its present form, claiming divine authority
for the change, and sustaining itself from the fourth
commandment, until put forth by Revelation Nicholas Bound in
1595, and hence is an entirely modern doctrine. It has been
extensively taught in Great Britain and the United States, but has
not been generally adopted on the continent of Europe. It is a
doctrine having no foundation whatever in Scripture.
15. The Catholic Church everywhere claims to have changed
the Sabbath, and the facts of history abundantly verify the
statement. The prophet clearly foretold the change (Daniel 7:25),
and the final reform (Revelation 12:17; 14:12). When this heathen
"memorial," entrenched by the power of the Catholic Church in
the very "temple" or church of God, would be cast aside by the
people who prepare for the coming of Christ. These will "keep the
commandments of God" as the Father gave them.
196
Dear reader, on which side of this last conflict will you place
yourself ? Which of these days will you keep? Will you take God's
ancient Sabbath, recognized in the Holy Scriptures as his holy day
for more than 4,000 years? Or will you take the festival of "pope
and pagan" as your day of rest, and still trample under foot the law
of the great Jehovah? "Choose you this day whom you will serve."
 1 We cannot give a full exposition of this most important scripture; but those who
desire to investigate this and other kindred texts more fully, will find them further
expounded in works published by the Southern Publishing Association of Nashville,
Tenn., entitled, "The Three Angels' Messages of Revelation 14," or "The Position and
Work of the True People of God."