Through the kindness of a friend I had the pleasure, a few days since, of attending the closing lecture of Prof. ——, before the graduating class of Theological Students in the city of ——. It was not the lecture, however, but the remarks which preceded it, that caused me the deepest interest. A few days prior to the lecture in question, the Professor had favored his class with a lecture on the Divine authority for the change of the Sabbath to the first day of the week. On the present occasion several members of the class asked the Professor a variety of questions concerning the arguments which he had adduced in his previous lecture to prove the change of the Sabbath. It was this part of the proceedings that I thought most interesting.
The Professor had assigned as his first reason for the change of the Sabbath, the statement that Christ met with his disciples on the day of his resurrection, and on successive first-days afterward. One of the class pointed him to the fact that besides the day of his resurrection, Christ did not at most meet with his disciples but one first-day afterward. See John xx, 19, 26. In view of this fact, the student asked the Professor what he meant by successive first-days. He replied by denying that the foregoing were all the first-days that Christ met with his disciples, and affirmed that he met with them, at least, eight or ten successive Sundays!
I could not help thinking that this was a most valuable piece of information for those who are hard pressed for Sunday argument, forming as it does a large addition to the existing stock. But when I remembered that the first chapter of Acts testifies that there were but forty days in all between the resurrection and the ascension of Christ, I came to the conclusion that Sundays must have occurred in former times every four or five days, or else the Professor had made an egregious blunder.
How did he know that Christ met with his disciples eight or ten successive Sundays? Certainly he did not learn such a thing by reading the New Testament. For, giving in the doubtful instance in John xx, 26, there are then but two first-days in all in which Christ met with his disciples. I ask again, where did he get his authority for a statement which is not sustained by a single text, and which directly contradicts the first chapter of Acts? The best answer may be gathered from his own statement, that had he thought that this subject would be called in question, he would have had his proof texts all looked up. But he had regarded this as so clear a subject that he thought that no one would call it in question. It occurred to me at this time that I had rather be ignorant of Popular Theology, than ignorant of the New Testament.
His second evidence that the Sabbath has been changed, [Acts xx, 7,] was then called in question by one of the students. The attention of the Professor was called to the fact that Paul on this occasion broke bread after midnight. So that if this was on Sunday morning, Paul used Sunday as a day for traveling from Troas to Assos! But if this was not upon Sunday, but upon Monday morning, then Paul honored Monday, and not Sunday, by the breaking of bread. To this he replied, that they had doubtless attended to the breaking of bread on Sunday, but as Paul was about leaving them for the last time they attended to it again on Monday. Another item of rare and valuable information!
After some further conversation on the reasons for changing the Sabbath to the first day of the week, the question was asked, whether it could be considered a sin for a non-professor to work on Sunday. It was decided that the sin would consist only in the neglect of the means of grace which he might otherwise attend on that day. I could not help wishing that some one would read Rom. iv, 15. “Where no law is, there is no transgression,” and then ask the question, Is it a sin for Christians to labor in any honest calling on Sunday, just as they would on Monday? In the face of the foregoing text, there are few persons of sufficient assurance to answer in the affirmative; and to honestly answer, No, would be to upset the Sunday fabric, and leave it in ruins.
In the course of this effort to show that the New Testament now requires the observance of the first day of the week, the doctrine was laid down that the fourth commandment never required anything more definite than one seventh part of time. As I listened to this idea, the question arose in my mind, How then could the Sabbath be changed to another day of the week? For, according to this logic, the commandment would have been carried out to the letter had men chosen Sunday in Old-Testament times, as the one day in seven to keep holy unto the Lord. But it may be said that the change consisted in substituting the first day of the week for the indefinite one-day-in-seven system, which had before prevailed.
But it struck me as singular, that the Professor, after having thus established to his entire satisfaction the doctrine that Sunday has been substituted for the day which men were once required by the fourth commandment to observe, and that this day is the divinely authorised memorial of redemption, should then gravely inform his class that Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday would answer equally as well as Sunday, as a day of religious observance. Thus tacitly acknowledging that the Sabbath had not been changed to Sunday, that Sunday was no better than any other day, and that it is as great a sin to work on Wednesday or Thursday, as on Sunday.
The question was finally proposed to the Professor, whether Christ did not, in Matt. xxiv, 20, recognize the existence of the original Sabbath as late as the destruction of Jerusalem? To this he replied that the inquirer seemed to regard the Sabbath as something definite, like baptism, whereas the term did not apply to a definite day, but simply meant the day that would be observed by them at that time, namely, the first day of the week. The idea, he said, was this: Christ taught his disciples to pray that their flight might not be on the day of their religious observation; as in such case they would be deprived of their accustomed means of grace. Those who can allow the falsification of God’s word, and have the weekly Sabbath of the Bible mean any day in the seven, which they choose, will doubtless receive this exposition with joy, and henceforth firmly believe that Christ taught his disciples to pray that their flight from Jerusalem might not occur upon the first day of the week!
The foregoing is a fair specimen of the arguments with which grave Doctors of Divinity overthrow the fourth commandment. Let the reader weigh them in the balances of truth, with the fourth commandment in the opposite scale, and let him decide the matter as it will be decided in the day of God.
There is no fact plainer than this in the Book of God, that the fourth commandment requires the observance of that day of the week which Jehovah rested upon and sanctified. If he rested upon one day in seven and no day in particular, this kind of reasoning which we have here presented is just. But if the Rest-day of the Lord means the day on which he rested, then the effort of Doctors of Divinity to make some other day his Rest-day or Sabbath, must prove a total failure.