In determining the origin of the seventh day Sabbath, we must of
necessity refer to that source of all religious ordinances, the ancient
astrolatry, the founders of which, having taught that God Sol was
engaged in the reorganization of Chaos during the first six periods of
the twelve thousand year cycle, corresponding to the months of Spring
and Summer, they conceived the idea that he ceased to exert his
energies, or rested from his labors on the seventh period,
corresponding to the first of the Autumn months. Hence, deriving the
suggestion from the apparent septenary rest in nature, they taught that
God ordained the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath or rest day for
man.
In conformity to this ordinance the founders of ancient Judaism
enforced the observance of the seventh day Sabbath in the fourth
commandment of the Decalogue, which, found in Gen. xx. 8-11,[1] reads
as follows, viz: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days
shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the
Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt 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." Thus was the seventh day of the week made the Sabbath
of the Old Testament; but the authors of the Jewish or ancient
Christianity, looking for the immediate fulfillment of the prophecies
relative to the second judgment, ignored its observance, as may be seen
by reference to Mark ii. 23, 27; John v. 2-18; Romans xiv. 5; and Col.
ii. 16; and the founders of modern Christianity, perpetuating the
belief in the speedy fulfillment of those prophecies, made no change
relative to the Sabbath in their version of the New Testament.
After Constantine's pretended conversion to Christianity, and the time
for the fulfillment of the prophecies had been put off to the year
10000, as previously stated, the hierarchy of the church appealed to
the Emperor to give them a Sabbath, and although they knew that the
seventh day of the week was the Sabbath of the Old Testament, and that
Sunday was the first of the six working days, according to the fourth
commandment, their hatred to the Jews for refusing to accept their
Christ as the Saviour induced them to have it placed on the first day
of the week. Hence that obliging potentate, in the year 321,
promulgated the memorable edict, which, found in that Digest of Roman
law known as the Justinian Code, Book III., Title 12, Sec. 2 and 3,
reads as follows, viz.: "Let all judges and all people of the towns
rest and all the various trades be suspended on the venerable day of
the Sun. Those who live in the country, however, may freely and without
fault attend to the cultivation of their fields lest, with the loss of
favorable opportunity, the commodities offered by Divine Providence
shall be destroyed." Thus we see that the primary movement towards
enforcing the observance of Sunday, or Lord's Day, as the Sabbath, did
not originate in a Divine command, but in the edict of an earthly
potentate.
This edict was ratified at the third council of Orleans, in the year
538; and in order, "that the people might not be prevented from
attending church, and saying their prayers," a resolution was adopted
at the same time recommending the observance of the day by all classes.
From merely "recommending," the Church of Rome soon began to enforce
the observance of the day; but, in spite of all her efforts, it was not
until the 12th century that its observance had become so universal as
to receive the designation of "The Christian Sabbath."
Cognizant of the manner in which Sunday was made the Sabbath, Luther
issued for the government of the Protestant communion the following
mandate: "As for the Sabbath, or Sunday, there is no necessity for
keeping it;" see Michelet's Life of Luther, Book IV., chapter 2. Luther
also said, as recorded in Table Talk, "If anywhere the day (Sunday) is
made holy for the mere day's sake; if anywhere anyone sets up its
observance upon a Jewish foundation, then I order you to work on it, to
dance on it, to ride on it, to feast on it, and to do anything that
shall reprove this encroachment on the Christian spirit of liberty."
Melancthon, Luther's chief coadjutor in the work of Reformation,
denied, in the most emphatic language, that Sunday was made the Sabbath
by Divine ordainment; and in reference thereto John Milton, in reply to
the Sunday Sabbatarians, makes the pertinent inquiry: "If, on a plea of
Divine command, you impose upon us the observance of a particular day,
how do you presume, without the authority of a Divine command, to
substitute another in its place?"
During the reign of Elizabeth, Queen of England, a sect of fanatics,
known as Dissenters or Nonconformists, basing their action upon the
fallacious arguments derived from the fourth commandment, and upon the
plea that the Saviour was raised from the dead on the first day of the
week, inaugurated what is known as the Puritan Sabbath, which having
been transferred to our shores by the voyagers in the Mayflower, and
enforced by those statutory enactments known as Blue Laws, caused the
people of New England to have a blue time of it while the delusion
lasted; and now a large body of Protestant clergy perverting the
teachings of scripture, and, ignoring the authority of the Reformers,
are disturbing the peace of society by their efforts to enforce the
code of sundry laws, which were enacted through their connivance. Thus
have we shown that, originating with the Catholics and adopted by the
Protestants, the Sunday Sabbath is purely and entirely a human
institution, and, being such, we must recognize all Sunday laws as
grave encroachments upon constitutional liberty; and it behooves the
advocates of individual rights to demand their immediate repeal; for
unless a vigilant watch is kept upon the conspirators who secured their
enactment, our fair land will soon be cursed by a union of church and
State, the tendency in that direction having been indicated by the
unprecedented opinion recently handed down by one of the Justices of
the United States Supreme Court that this is a Christian Government.