DOCTOR BENSON'S SUNDAY HISTORY.
IT has been well said that a truth concealed is sometimes equivalent to a falsehood told. What Dr. Benson has stated is not nearly so important as that which he has not written. Take the case of Origen, of whom he speaks as follows:— "Origen, who was born A. D. 185, says of the Lord's day: 'If you cease from all worldly works, and execute nothing worldly, but give yourself to spiritual exercises, repairing to church, attending to sacred reading and instruction, . . . this is the observance of the Christian Sabbath.'" Now the truth is that neither Origen nor any one of that early age ever applied the term "Sabbath" to the first day of the week. See Matthew Henry's Commentary. Origen was the father of the mystical system of interpretation. He said:— "To the perfect Christian, who is ever in his thoughts, words, and deeds, serving his natural Lord, God the Word, all his days are the Lord's, and he is always keeping the Lord's day." Origen's "Christian Sabbath" was not one particular day of the week, but the every-day life of the perfect Christian. We have found some men advocating the same idea in this age. This, too, by theological manipulation, is turned in favor of Sunday. But did not Origen prefer the first day to the seventh? Yes; he partook of the common prejudice against the Jews, and opposed the seventh day, for just such reasons as prejudice would dictate. He argued that the fact that the manna fell in the wilderness on the first day, and did not fall on the seventh, shows that the first was even then preferred to the seventh! An argument which would hold good in favor of all "the six working days," as the Bible calls the first six days of the week; an argument which might pass with those who had no Bibles, for the Bible distinctly informs us that it was because of God's high regard for his holy day that he withheld manna from falling on the seventh day. And the writings of such vagarists are fixed up by theological ingenuity to set aside the claims of the fourth commandment of Jehovah, and of his holy rest-day. The case of Eusebius is nearly parallel to that of Origen. There is not even a hint in the writings of Eusebius of any Scripture warrant for Sunday observance. He was the eulogist of Constantine, and his time-serving proclivities brought upon him the censures of other historians. Thus he wrote:— "And all things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day, as more appropriately belonging to it, because it has a precedence and is first in rank, and more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath." Please notice the points he makes: 1. The Sabbath he calls "Jewish," contrary to the invariable usage of the Scriptures. 2. He calls the first day the Lord's day, contrary to the Scriptures, which thus designate no day but the seventh. 3. He says Sabbath duties "more appropriately belong" to a day which never was a Sabbath, or rest-day, which never was sanctified or set apart to such uses, than to that day which was constituted a Sabbath by Jehovah, which was blessed and sanctified, and to which alone the Lord appropriated Sabbath duties. 4. He said it was "first in rank, by which he means that it came—in the week—before the seventh, and, 5. It has a precedence, or, as he said elsewhere it came before the seventh day, and in it the light was created. These were reasons in his mind, but not in the mind of God, for they existed in the day when He chose the seventh day as His own, and set it apart as a holy Sabbath. 6. He says, "We have transferred" these duties to the first day. But who are we? And where will "we" stand in that day when "God shall bring every work into judgment" in the light of "his commandments"? Eccl. 12:13, 14. If there were nothing more worthy to be said of the seventh day than Eusebius urges in favor of the first we would never more advocate its claims. Tertullian is the first author who applies the term "Lord's day," to the first day of the week. But he directly disclaimed any Scripture warrant for his practice. He ascribed first-day observance to tradition, together with many other practices in the African churches. He was the first to make mention of three immersions or three sprinklings for baptism; the first to mention sponsors and penance for sins after baptism. Africa, in that age, was a very hot-bed of traditional superstition, as any reader of history knows. Milner, who could not be accused of undue prejudice against early traditions and customs of the church, said:— "Superstition had made, it seems, deep inroads into Africa. It was rather an unpolished region, certainly much inferior to Italy in point of civilization. Satan's temptations are suited to tempers and situations; but surely it was not by superstitious practices that the glad tidings of salvation had been first introduced into Africa. There must have been a deep decline. One of the strongest proofs that the comparative value of the Christian religion in different countries is not to be estimated by their distance from the apostolic age, is deducible from the times of Tertullian." We will refer to Tertullian again, in another connection. Dr. Benson says: "Mosheim is a witness whose testimony no scholar will attempt to invalidate." But Neander did contradict him, and so have other historians. And Mosheim has weakened his own evidence on early Sunday keeping by other statements. Dr. Benson quoted from Maclaine's Mosheim. But Maclaine, in his Preface, said: "I have sometimes taken considerable liberties with my author." Not a very commendable practice for a translator. He took liberties in the case in question. Murdock's translation of the oft-cited passage reads thus:— "The Christians of this century assembled for the worship of God and for their advancement in piety, on the first day of the week, the day on which Christ assumed his life; for that this day was set apart for religious worship by the apostles themselves, and that, after the example of the church of Jerusalem, it was generally observed, we have unexceptional testimony. Moreover, those congregations which either lived intermingled with Jews, or were composed in great measure of Jews, were accustomed also to observe the seventh day of the week, as a sacred day; for doing which the other Christians taxed them with no wrong. As to annual religious days, they appear to have observed two; the one in memory of Christ's resurrection." In Rose's translation of Neander, we find the following statement:— "The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and 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." This statement of Neander, who, as a historian, is no way inferior to Mosheim, is sustained by many other authors of high standing. Mark, also, Mosheim's concession that the seventh day was kept "as a sacred day," a truth which cannot be said of the first day in that century. Maclaine makes Mosheim say that the early Christians were "unanimous" in the observance of the first day of the week—which is notoriously false. Mosheim says that the day of the resurrection was observed as an "annual religious day." This is truth; this was the manner of its first observance. Dr. Heylin, of the Church of England, in his History of the Sabbath, says:— "Tertullian tells us that they did devote the 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." If any one sees fit to deny this statement of Dr. Heylin, which is corroborated by many authorities, let him produce the law which existed prior to one hundred years after Tertullian's time, and that will settle that part of the controversy! The death of Tertullian is by some said to have occurred in the year 216—by others in 220; the latter is supposed to be more nearly the correct date. To one hundred years from this time the statement of Dr. Heylin brings us. And do we find any law about this time restraining men from laboring upon Sunday? We do. It was the law of Constantine, made in 321. This first Sunday law reads as follows:— "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." Constantine is much lauded by Sunday advocates; and Dr. Benson says of his law:— "It was only giving legal form to an expression of the Christian faith, which was just as prevalent before Constantine's day as after it." But this fact is significant: in the abundance of Sunday literature we have never yet seen, in any instance, this law of Constantine quoted by a Sunday writer! Why did not Dr. Benson give it? The truth appears to be, that they do not want the people to know what it is. This first Sunday law is a blow against the Sunday-Sabbath from which it can never recover. Now we take another statement of Mosheim, as follows:— "The first day of the week, (on which Christians were accustomed to meet for the worship of God,) Constantine required by a special law, to be observed more sacredly than before." This is a remarkable statement for Mosheim to make; remarkable in view of his statement before quoted. Notice a few points in the edict of Constantine:— 1. The day is given no other title but that of "the day of the sun." 2. It forbids the holding of courts and labor in cities on this "venerable day." 3. The country people and agriculturists were permitted—"at full liberty"—to labor on that day. And this, says Mosheim, was "more sacredly" than it had before observed! This exactly agrees with Dr. Heylin, Bishop Taylor, Coleman's "Ancient Christianity Exemplified," and a host of other authors. Of this law of Constantine, Dr. Schaff speaks as follows in his Church History:— "He enjoined the observance, or rather forbade the public desecration of Sunday, not under the name of Sabbatum, or dies Domini, but under its old astrological or heathen title, dies solis, [day of the sun,] familiar to all his subjects, so that the law was as applicable to the worshipers of Hercules, Apollo, and Mithras, as to the Christians." It was applicable solely to the worshipers of Apollo, the sun-god, and not at all to Christians. At the time when this edict was given, Constantine had not even professed the Christian faith. Dr. Schaff says:— "He reverenced all the gods as mysterious powers; especially Apollo, the god of the sun. . . . So late as the year 321 he enjoined regular consultation of the soothsayers in public misfortunes, according to ancient heathen usage; even later, he placed his new residence, Byzantium, under the protection of the God of the martyrs and the heathen goddess of fortune; and down to the end of his life he retained the title and the dignity of a Pontifex Maximus, or high priest of the heathen hierarchy. His coins bore on the one side the letters of the name of Christ, on the other, the figure of the sun-god, and the inscription, ‘Sol invictus.’" His order to consult soothsayers, "according to ancient heathen usage," enjoined the examination of the entrails of beasts to determine the causes of public calamities, and this edict was proclaimed on the day following that of the Sunday edict. About two years after the date of these edicts he professed to accept Christianity; but even then placed the image of Apollo on his coins, with the inscription "Sol invictus." He was in truth an idolater—a sun worshiper. Such is the origin and association of this first and famous Sunday law, which Doctors of Divinity so highly applaud, and so carefully conceal from their readers! Only one historical statement further needs to be examined. It is that concerning the question said to have been asked to the early Christians and martyrs: "Hast thou kept the Lord's day?" The question is contained in these Latin words: "Dominicum servasti?" The Lord's day, in either word or idea, is not contained in the question. It will be fully canvassed. The reader will gather from our remarks that we have doubts of the Doctor's candor in some of his positions. Indeed we have great reason to doubt him in this respect. It appears that he must have known that some of his positions were groundless, and some of his professed history was spurious. To think otherwise is to ascribe to him a degree of ignorance of the subject for which we know not how to give him credit. And let the reader notice his professed quotation in the following extract. Speaking of the commandments which the apostles received of the Saviour, he says:— "These 'commandments' were well understood by the disciples. They related to 'the assembling of themselves on the first day of the week,' for worship, the sacraments, and almsgiving." We have conversed with men who actually believed until we set them right, that Heb. 10:25, contained the order to not forsake assembling together on the first day of the week. The Doctor's quotation marks would lead us to believe that he thought so; and he a D. D.! but if he does not so believe, what is the intention of his quotation marks? And what effect are they designed to have in that connection on the mind of the reader? Who can answer?