p. 292 | The Great Uncertainty by D. E. Maxson

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 29, 1882

The Great Uncertainty.

By D. E. Maxson

The careful reader of the current standard authorities for the observance of the Sunday as of divine appointment, cannot fail of surprise at the doubt and unsatisfaction these writers feel at the result of their own efforts to find the desired sanction of the Scriptures for Sunday keeping. It seems that the most thorough investigations have always led to the least satisfactory results. Let us examine some of these accepted standards.

Dr. Paley, a celebrated English divine who lived in the latter part of the last century, in his "Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy," published in London in 1785, after an exhaustive attempt to find New Testament authority for the change of the day, concludes that "there was probability that the practice had originated from some precept of Christ or his apostles, though none such be now extant" (italics our own). The probability of some precept of Christ or his apostles, which the inspired writers of the New Testament did not think worth while to take note of, surely is not very formidable proof. Why he rests on this slender foundation, he informs us, by admitting that "he was not able to produce direct and positive proof that it was the practice of the Christian Church to observe the Sunday in the time of the apostles." Then he throws up the defense of an inference from an inference as the best he could do, as follows: "There is evidence that would fully justify the inference, that the practice was familiar and established, which would justify the further inference, that the practice had originated from some precept of Christ or his apostles, though none such be now extant."

Take a single example of the learned Doctor's method of making up his inferences as the bases of his probabilities. Upon 1 Cor. 16:2, he comments as follows: "This text affords a probable proof that the day was distinguished by some religious application or other." Upon the texts in John 20, usually quoted to prove apostolic practice for Sunday keeping, he makes this dubious comment: "This first meeting, for anything that appears in the account, might, as to the day, have been accidental." Upon the second meeting, after eight days, he comments, "which second meeting upon the first day of the week following, looks like an appointment and design to meet on that particular day."

No one of logical mind is ever satisfied with what only looks like proof. Dr. Cox, in "Literature of the Sabbath Question," Vol. ii, p. 263, justly remarks, "It would be absurd to believe that Dr. Paley himself believed he had actually proven that these two meetings were designedly held on that particular day."

This vigorous author (Dr. Cox), in further strictures on "Paley's Defense of Sunday," says: "Paley was probably of opinion, that the masses of people were taught that this practice was not only useful but of divine appointment, it would be generally neglected," to which he replies, "On the contrary, I think the Sunday would be more generally and more religiously observed, were the observance of it placed on the secure ground of utility, rather than on the debatable ground of Scripture authority." He goes on to express the decided opinion that "great advantage" would accrue to Sunday observance, to consider it "an institution of human origin." Among the advantages he claims would be the giving of the "clergy and those not the least intelligent of them, free scope to advocate from their pulpits the religious observance of the day," adding "as it is, many of the clergy," not least intelligent and eloquent are silent upon this subject in their public discourses, because, being opposed in opinion to the puritanical doctrine of a Sunday-Sabbath, they prefer saying nothing to saying what they would wish to say, "lest it should create a spirit of dissension and controversy." This is indeed a candid and pregnant confession of the weakness of the Sunday claim as felt by its "most intelligent and eloquent advocates."

That Dr. Paley was conscious of his failure to prove the Sunday doctrine to be true, is most evident from the language of doubt and uncertainty with which he draws all his conclusions. Of this uncertainty of Dr. Paley, Dr. Cox, Vol. ii, p. 267, remarks: "Even in his conclusion itself, we see the same manifestation of imperfect conviction which marks the whole argument, an avowal of his consciousness of the insufficiency of his premises." It is refreshing to come upon such candor among the master minds of the Sunday advocacy. Such minds have looked far enough into the claim for Sunday-keeping to see and feel its inadequacy and emptiness.

Our own Dr. Wayland is just as much undecided on this question of authority for Sunday. See "Moral Science," p. 185. He says, "It seems reasonable to conclude that they (the apostles) intended to teach, that the first day was that which we, as Christians, to observe." How much strength of moral obligation there is in this "intended" apostolic teaching is seen in the same paragraph. Their example is sufficient to "teach us that the keeping of this day is acceptable to God; and we are, on this ground, at liberty to keep it (italics his own) as the Sabbath." "If, however, any other person be dissatisfied with these reasons, and feels under obligations to observe the seventh day, I see no precept in the word of God to forbid it." He goes on to say he thinks "both days allowable, and acceptable to God," and that the preference for Sunday, amounting to an "obligation," is based on the greater convenience of observance, a day in which "I can enjoy more perfect leisure, and suffer less interruption," etc. Nothing but a very weak case could involve so strong a mind in such a maze of uncertainty and accommodating indecision!

If we study the standard encyclopedia treatment of this question, we shall find the same uncertainty and consciousness of lack of Bible authority for Sunday-keeping. See Kitto, article "Lord's-day." "The evidence for the actual institution, so far as the New Testament is concerned, is, in fact, very scanty. We cannot say that the evidence for any particular observance of the day (Sunday) amounts to much. We find no mention of any commemoration of the resurrection in the apostolic records," and "the earliest or apostolic fathers make no mention whatever of such an institution unless we except one passage, which is at most a mere allusion. It does not appear, at any period of the ancient church, to have assumed the form of such an observance as some modern religious communities have contended for. Nor do these writers in any instance pretend to allege any divine command, or even apostolic practice in support of it."

Now, see "Smith's Dictionary of the Bible," article "Lord's-day." "Scripture says very little about it." After examining all the passages supposed to have reference to the first day of the week, the writer says: "Taken all together, these passages seem scarcely adequate to prove that the dedication of the first day of the week to religious purposes was a matter of apostolic institution, or even of apostolic practice." "It was never confounded with the Sabbath, but carefully distinguished from it, so that work does not appear to have been interdicted, nor rest enjoined. Four years before the Council of Nice, it was recognized by Constantine as the 'venerable day of the sun.'"

The historians of the Sunday substantially agree with these statements of the want of an apostolic authority for Sunday observance.

Dr. Hessey: "It was never confounded with the Sabbath, but carefully distinguished from it."

Dr. Cox, before quoted, in "History Sabbath Literature," says of all the reasons anciently given for Sunday observance, that they were "fanciful in most cases, and ridiculous in some." After enumerating those reasons, he concludes, "From which the inevitable inference is, that they neither found in Scripture any commandment appointing the Lord's day to be honored or observed, nor knew from any tradition any such commandment by Jesus or his disciples."

Dr. Neander, "History of Christian Church," etc., first three centuries: "The festival of Sunday 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."

Sir Wm. Domville says, after a most exhaustive treatment of the early history of Sunday observance, "Centuries of the Christian era passed before the Sunday was observed by the Christian Church as a Sabbath." With this statement Dr. Kitto and others fully agree.

When the standard authorities thus signally break down and despair of finding any divine authority for Sunday-keeping, there remains the alternative, to (1) Give up the claim, and go sabbathless. (2) Enforce the claim by human authority. (3) Accept God's holy Sabbath-day, and follow the example of Christ and his apostles, and the Christian Church for five centuries of the Christian era; follow the example of the dear disciples of the crucified Christ, who, after preparing the materials for love's last office, "rested the Sabbath-day according to the commandment," before going to perform the office.—Dr. D. E. Maxson, in Sabbath Recorder.