himself, after his resurrection, passed by the seventh day, and
repeatedly put special honor on the first day of the week. This same day
was honored by the Pentecostal gift of the Holy Spirit. Christian
congregations met for regular weekly service, not on the seventh day,
but on the first day of the week. The inspired apostle Paul pointedly
condemned the Judaizing teachers who insisted on the observance by
Christians of the seventh-day Sabbath. The early writers, companions of
the apostles, and others of the succeeding generations, bear the
clearest and most explicit testimony to the same facts—the
non-observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, and the stated meetings of
Christians for divine service on the first day of the week, the Lord’s
day. Now, if their theory is correct, how will the seventh-day
Sabbatarians explain the fact that Christ himself, the Holy Spirit,
inspired apostles, and Christian congregations all through the early
church, ignored the seventh day and honored the first? A general and
vague statement to the effect that an unwarranted change was made from
the original practice of the Christian church will not do here. Was not
the practice of the apostles and first organized congregations of
Christians the original practice of the Christian church? That practice
was, as we have seen, to observe the first day of the week. We repeat
what we have already proved at length, viz., that there is not an
instance in the Scriptures of the observance of the seventh day by any
Christian church, nor of any regard to that day, after Christ’s
resurrection, by apostles or their fellow-laborers, except as they
availed themselves, in their missionary work, of the meetings of Jewish
assemblies in Jewish places of worship. “An unwarranted change!” Let
those who take such language upon their lips consider that their charge
lies at the door of Christ and his Spirit, and the inspired apostles.
But now, for the sake of the argument, let us leave all the testimony of
the inspired writers of the New Testament to the first-day Sabbath out
of view. Again we have the vague charge of unwarranted change. Perhaps
the most definite form of this charge is that which makes the change the
work of the little horn in Daniel’s prophecy, chapter seven. But will
the expounder of Daniel be a little more explicit, and tell us who the
historical personage is, and give us the dates and names of history?
Does the little horn represent Antiochus Epiphanes? if so, then, of
course, his change of the law of the Sabbath must have been before the
Christian era. Will our expositor give us some facts just here? If the
little horn means the papacy, then, according to the prophecy itself, it
did not arise until the Roman Empire, represented by the fourth beast,
was broken into ten fragments, represented by the ten horns. The little
horn sprang up after these, and its change of the law of the Sabbath
must date after the fall of the old empire of Rome. But for centuries
before this event, we have the testimony of numerous writers that the
Christian churches everywhere observed, not the seventh, but the first,
day of the week, the Lord’s day. Again we ask for facts, not mere
statements and theories.
Leaving this vague attempt to connect the assumed unwarranted change
with Daniel’s prophesy, we come to what is, if possible, still more
vague and indefinite. A change, it is asserted, was made by some
particular officer or council of the church, as it became corrupt and
began to depart from the practice of the original church of Christ. Who
was this officer? or where did this council meet? But we will not make
unreasonable demands for historical testimony. Let us grant that such an
officer or such a council there was at some time or other. The question
then arises, When did the change take place? In the days of Cyprian, A.
D. 250? The answer is clear. The change most have been made before his
day. Origen and Tertullian, fifty years earlier, knew only the first day
of the week, the Lord’s day, as the Christian Sabbath. Was the change
then made in their day? We might assume that it was, only for the clear
testimony of Irenæus and Justin Martyr, carrying us back another half
century, and the equally explicit testimony of still earlier writers,
carrying us back to the apostles themselves.
Notwithstanding all this dearth of historical testimony as to the
existence of the supposed ruler or council, let it be further granted
that by some such corrupting authority, at some time a decree changing
the day for Sabbath observance was issued. How did the supposed
legislators establish their decree? How did they make it effectual over
all the different parts of the church? Must we we suppose that a change
like this was effected in the church, and not a scrap of a record left
concerning it? The attempt made by the church to establish a common day
for the anniversary of Christ’s resurrection gave rise to long and
bitter controversy, and led to division. And yet, as Prof F. D. Maurice
has well said, “It is supposed that this far more important change,
affecting all the daily relations and circumstances of life, took effect
by the decree of some apostle or some ecclesiastical synod, of which no
record, no legend, even is preserved! Or, perhaps, a half-heathen, more
than half-heathen, statute of Constantine,[14] about the _Dies Solis_
accomplished what the legislators of the church could not
accomplish—succeeded not only in securing its adoption by Athanasians,
Arians, Semi-Arians, whose controversies Constantine could never heal,
but in securing the allegiance of all the barbarous tribes which
accepted the gospel under such various conditions in later times. Can
any suppositions make greater demands on our credulity than these?” A
Procrustean bed indeed must be that interpretation of the law of the
Sabbath which, to conform them to itself, must thus deal with the facts
of history and the probabilities of historical evidence.
Just here is the difficulty in the theory of Seventh-day Sabbatarians.
They have somehow got lodged in their mind the idea that the last one of
the seven days of the week is the sacred day, the observance of which is
absolutely essential to the proper keeping of the Sabbath. What has
already been proved from history, inspired and uninspired, is sufficient
to show that this theory is unworthy of men who, like Christ and his
apostles, would grasp the true significance of the law of the Sabbath.
But as so much stress is laid upon the question of time, we shall devote
our next article to this crucial and very practical point.
Footnote 14:
The attempt to attribute the change of day to Constantine’s decree is
hardly worth noticing. It is enough to remember that it was issued in
the beginning of the fourth century. No one who knows anything of the
writings of Tertullian and Origen dating back more than a century
before Constantine, to say nothing of still earlier writers, will
venture to ascribe the change to Roman Emperor’s decree. Besides, the
language of the very decree referred to recognizes the honorable
diameter of the first day of the week. It recognizes that day as
already “venerable.”—_The Christian._
A REJOINDER.
“THEORIES OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.”
The thoughtful reader need not be told that the article which he has
just read, entitled, “Theories of the Christian Sabbath,” has advanced
the discussion of the question before us in no material respect. The
space devoted so generously to the consideration of theories, in regard
to the unsoundness of which there is no difference of opinion between
the gentleman and myself, is thrown away, so far as the present argument
is concerned. While this is true, however, if it serves no other
purpose, it has at least made it clear that, if the gentleman fails to
make out his case in the end, it will not be because he has not had
ample room for the presentation and elaboration of facts and arguments,
since one who was crippled in his effort by a lack of space would hardly
be willing to devote so much time and attention to subjects foreign to
the present issue.
That which is said with reference to these theories might also be
repeated in reference to the statement and restatement of points which
it is claimed have been proved. Of course, it is the prerogative of any
writer to conduct his own argument in his own way. All that we would
call attention to is the fact that the line of policy pursued, in these
things, is of a nature to satisfy even the most casual observer, that
one who felt that he had resources upon which to draw, without limit,
would not compel us to pass again and again over the same ground. There
is, however, an apology which might properly be offered in the case of
the gentleman, for calling our attention to these trivial points so
repeatedly, which is found in the fact that his articles were written
before our rejoinders were in print. We believe that, were not this the
case, and had he perused what has been said in reply to them, we should
be spared the monotony of answering them again. However, lest we should
seem to avoid them, it will only be necessary that we say enough,
bearing upon each point, to revive, in the mind of one who has followed
us thus far, the fuller consideration given to all of them heretofore.
To the statement that Sabbatarians, in order to make good their case,
must make their views harmonize with the facts of history, it is enough
to say that, if it is meant by this, the facts of sacred history, as
contained in the Bible, this we have already done; for before it can be
urged that the opposite is true, as we have elsewhere seen, it must be
shown that there is some transaction found in the sacred record which is
in conflict with our interpretation of the law. This has not been done;
for not only has it been made to appear that the Sabbath law is explicit
in its requirement of the observance of the seventh day of the week, but
also that there is not a single case of its violation, by a good man, to
be found in the inspired pages.
Nor is this all; we have gone beyond this, and proved, by the record,
that the opposite was true of the Sunday, since upon it Christ and two
of his disciples, on the day of his resurrection, as well as Paul and
Luke and others at a subsequent period, did perform upon it labor, which
the gentleman himself has not attempted, and will not undertake, to
harmonize with any just conception of intelligent Sabbath-keeping. So
far as it regards the absence of any mention of meetings of Christians
on the Sabbath, it is sufficient to say, as we have already done, that,
as in the history given, the account relates largely to missionary
trips, where there was no church as yet developed, and, consequently, no
possibility of separate meetings, such a record would be out of the
question; also, that the argument is only a negative one, and really can
have no force, until it can be demonstrated that God’s plan is first to
command, and then show, in every instance what the commandment means, by
practical illustrations furnished from the history of his people; a
doctrine which is not only unsound and untrue, but absurd in the
extreme.
If, on the other hand, the gentleman means to be understood as insisting
that the history of the church since the close of the canon of
inspiration must be made to teach the faith which we hold as one which
has always been entertained by the church, and therefore sound, we
repudiate, in the name of Protestantism, this most pernicious view, and
in all matters of practical duty, such as Sabbath-keeping, we decide
according to the written word. To the first source (church history), the
gentleman has appealed, and if every candid man and woman who has
witnessed his effort has not been disgusted with the source to which he
has applied, then we know of nothing which would be calculated to create
in him this condition of mind.
With the summary, in which it is claimed that Christ, and the apostles,
and the Holy Spirit, and the early church, did repeatedly honor the
first day of the week, we will not weary the reader here. We have
disproved every one of these points, and we trust to the intelligence of
those whom we are addressing, in the confident belief that what has been
said, in the absence of even an attempt at refutation, needs not to be
reproduced here.
We had barely mentioned, in our original articles, that Seventh-day
Adventists held to the opinion that the pope of Rome had been
instrumental in bringing about the change of the Sabbath. No effort was
made to develop the argument on that point, since we did not dare to
presume that room would be granted for the perfecting of the work; in
fact, what was said was uttered rather with a view to calling the
attention of the curious to our published works upon that subject, than
for any other purpose. Now, however, this point is made to assume a
prominence which does not really belong to it, in an argument so largely
doctrinal rather than historic.
With this, nevertheless, we have no fault to find. Nothing is more
satisfactory than the awakening of a spirit of investigation on all
branches of this great subject; at the same time, we submit that the
attitude of the gentleman must be very unsatisfactory to himself, since
he will readily perceive that to an opponent, chafing under a denial of
the privilege of answering him in the columns of his own paper, this
whole affair wears the aspect of an empty bravado. “Tell us,” says the
editor, and he repeats his invitation again and again, “Whom did this
little horn represent? Was it Antiochus? or the pope? If the latter,
then how, and when, and where, did he bring about the transition?”
But we reply, Whom do you mean, sir, by the term, “us”? Truly, you would
not require us to come to Philadelphia to enlighten you personally upon
that point. Certainly, you are not particularly anxious that we should
write a series of articles for the benefit of the readers of the
_Review_, on a matter with which they are as familiar as they are with
the history of their own country; but if, indeed, you had in your mind
the readers of the _Statesman_, then it may be inquired again, How has
it been possible for us to reach them, under the circumstances? since,
throwing your forces behind the wall of your editorial prerogative, and
closing against us the gate of possibility, you have shut us out from
all access to them. Gladly would we have availed ourselves of the
opportunity of doing that which we have been denied the privilege of
attempting before the men, many of whom, we believe, would have been
glad to follow this matter to the end; but as this cannot be done, a
brief reply will be made here.
The first inquiry, relating, as it does, to the point whether Antiochus
Epiphanes or the pope, was meant by the “little horn,” in the seventh of
Daniel, need not consume time. It has been urged by some that the
“little horn,” of Dan. 8:9, applied to the former character. We believe
the papists still insist upon this; but the gentleman, upon
reflection—if in what he has said he has confounded the two—will not
seriously argue against the almost universal admission of Protestant
writers, that the power brought to view in the seventh chapter of
Daniel’s prophecy, is that of the papacy. In fact, reasoning as he does
himself, most satisfactorily, that it could not arise until after the
appearance of the original ten, which represented the final breaking up
of the Roman Empire into ten parts, he more than intimates his personal
conviction that it could not represent Antiochus Epiphanes, who reigned
one hundred and seventy-five years before Christ, since the Roman Empire
was not partitioned among the barbarians who invaded it, until A. D.
483, more than six hundred years after the death of the Syrian king.
The following, from a standard authority, will serve to show an almost
universal agreement on this subject; and with its presentation we pass
to the investigation of questions more difficult, and more worthy of our
reflection. “Among Protestant writers, this (‘the little horn,’ of Dan.
7:8) is considered to be the popedom.”—_A. Clarke, Com. in loco._
“To none can this (‘He shall speak great words againt the Most High’)
apply so well, and so fully, as to the popes of Rome.”—_Idem_, v. 25.
The real point of debate, as intimated above, is the question whether
the Roman Catholic church has been instrumental in bringing about the
change of the Sabbath. The gentleman errs in asserting that we have
anywhere stated that such a change was brought about by any particular
officer or council. This we have never urged, nor does it accord with
the view held by us. The “little horn” represented, not one, merely, but
a whole line of priest-kings, who were to extend from the time of their
rise, to the Judgment, and the setting up of the kingdom of God. Of this
line of rulers, it is stated—not that they should really succeed in
bringing about an actual change in the requirements of the law of
God—but that they should “_think_” to accomplish this end. It is also
said that, for a time, times, and dividing of time (1260 years), the
saints of God and the law of God should be delivered into their hands.
Not, indeed, that God would forsake either his people or his law,
utterly, but that, for the period in question, they should be permitted
to pursue a course destructive to the one, and antagonistic to the
other. In other words, that they should put to death the saints, and
presume to alter the commandments of God.
These specifications are simply introduced by way of identification. It
is not said that the power indicated should spring into life suddenly,
and without a previous stage of development; nor is it declared that the
principles which were to characterize it in its mature life should be
wholly peculiar to itself. Other powers, such as pagan Rome, might have
persecuted the people of God before the rise of the papacy, as they
unquestionably did. Other men might have begun the work of tampering
with the law of God, long before the days of the hierarchy, and might
have prepared to its hands the materials necessary to the accomplishment
of the final blasphemous work of the man of sin.
In the days of Paul, “the mystery of iniquity began to work,” and from
that point, its history was one of gradual development. Some of the most
destructive heresies afterward incorporated into the faith of papists,
it is well understood, were fully fledged, and quite generally accepted,
before the installation of the first pope. So, too, concerning the
first-day Sabbath. There can be little doubt that before the bishop of
Rome became the “Corrector of Heretics,” in A. D. 538, or entered the
chair of St. Peter, the Sunday had come to be regarded, by many, as the
rival, if not the superior, of the ancient Sabbath. Just how extensively
the sentiment prevailed, however, it is hard to determine from church
history, because, as has been shown in a previous article, the sources
of our information have been so corrupted by unprincipled Romanists,
that it is difficult to arrive at the facts in the case.
One thing is certain; there was a mighty struggle on this question, the
gentleman to the contrary, notwithstanding, which has left the marks of
its existence in the records of the past. Clear down to the rise of
Roman Catholicism, there were men who were strenuous for the observance
of the seventh day, and rejecters of its rival. Doubtless the Sunday, by
slow degrees, had worked itself into almost universal acceptance as a
festival resting upon human, and not divine, authority; but the Sabbath
of the Lord still continued in the faith of many, especially in the
East, as a day to be sacredly devoted to the worship of God. On this
point, Neander, the learned church historian, has given distinct and
unequivocal utterance:—
“The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was only a human
ordinance, and it was far from the intention of the apostles to
establish a divine command in this respect; far from them and from the
early apostolic church to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday.
Perhaps at the end of the second century, a false application of this
kind had began to take place; for men appear, by that time, to have
considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.”—_Rose’s Translation of
Neander_, p. 186.[15]
Giesler also remarks as follows: “While the Christians of Palestine, who
kept the whole Jewish law, celebrated, of course, all the Jewish
festivals, the heathen converts observed only the Sabbath, and in
remembrance of the closing scenes of our Saviour’s life, the passover,
though without the Jewish superstitions. Besides these, the Sunday as
the day of our Saviour’s resurrection, was devoted to religious
worship.”—_Church Hist., Apostolic Age to A. D. 70._
Lyman Coleman, in his “Ancient Christianity Exemplified,” testifies as
follows: “The observance of the Lord’s day as the first day of the week
was at first introduced as a separate institution. Both this and the
Jewish Sabbath were kept for some time; finally, the latter passed
wholly over into the former, which now took the place of the ancient
Sabbath of the Israelites. But their Sabbath, the last day of the week,
was strictly kept in connection with that of the first day for a long
time after the overthrow of the temple and its worship. Down even to the
fifth century, the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the
Christian church, but with a rigor and solemnity gradually diminishing,
until it was wholly discontinued.... Both were observed in the Christian
church down to the fifth century, with this difference, that in the
eastern church, both days were regarded as joyful occasions; but in the
western, the Jewish Sabbath was kept as a fast.” Chap. 26, sect. 2.
Wm. Twisse, whose antique style comports with that of the period in
which he wrote, most pointedly declares the same fact in a work
entitled, “The Morality of the Fourth Commandment:” “Yet for some
hundred years in the primitive church, not the Lord’s day only, but the
seventh day also, was religiously observed, not by Ebion and Cerinthus
only, but by pious Christians also, as Baronius writeth and Gomaius
confesseth, and Rivut also.” Page 9, London, 1641.
Morer, in speaking of the early Christians, remarks of them as follows:
“The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and
spent the day in devotion and sermons, and it is not to be doubted but
they derived the practice from the apostles themselves.”—_Morer’s Lord’s
Day_, p. 189.
Edward Brerewood, professor in Gresham College, London, writes: “The
ancient Sabbath did remain, and was observed by the Christians of the
east church above three hundred years after our Saviour’s death, and
besides that, no other day, for more hundred years than I spoke of
before, was known in the church by the name of the Sabbath.” Page 77,
ed. 1631.
Prof. Stuart, in speaking of the period between A. D. 321 and the
council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, furnishes the following interesting
statement, which discloses the historic fact concerning the ebb and flow
of discussion on this subject in the early church: “The practice of it
[the keeping of the Sabbath], was continued by Christians who were
jealous for the honor of the Mosaic law, and finally became, as we have
seen, predominant throughout Christendom. It was supposed at length that
the fourth commandment did require the observance of the seventh-day
Sabbath [not merely a seventh part of time], and reasoning as Christians
of the present day are wont to do, viz., that _all_ which belongs to the
ten commandments was immutable and perpetual, the churches in general
came gradually to regard the seventh-day Sabbath as altogether
sacred.”—_Appendix to Gurney’s Hist. of Sabbath_, pp. 115, 116.
Concerning the same council, Prynne has made a similar historic record;
“The seventh-day Sabbath was solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and
primitive Christians, till the Laodicean Council did, in a manner, quite
abolish the observance of it.... The Council of Laodicea, A. D. 364,
first settled the observance of the Lord’s day, and prohibited keeping
of the Jewish Sabbath, under an anathema.”—_Dissertation on the Lord’s
Sabbath_, pp. 33, 44, ed. 1633.
In alluding to the differences in practice between the eastern and the
western churches, Neander distinctly sets forth the resolute animosity
of the latter to the ancient Sabbath of the Lord, and the manner in
which they sought to bring it into disrepute, while elevating the Sunday
into favor. He says: “In the western churches, particularly the Roman,
where opposition to Judaism was the prevailing tendency, this very
opposition produced the custom of celebrating the Saturday as a fast
day. This difference of customs would, of course, be striking, where
members of the Oriental church spent their Sabbath day in the western
church.”—_Hist. Chris. Rel. and Church, First Three Centuries. Rose’s
trans._, p. 186.