p. 3 | Sabbath and Sunday by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 5, 1905

“Sabbath and Sunday”

By Editor

IN an editorial in its issue of Dec. 28, 1904, with the title quoted above, the Washington Post gives some attention to the subject which is now being agitated in this city as the result of the proposed campaign by the Protestant ministers of Washington in behalf of “Sabbath observance.”

Some of the admissions and statements in this article are worthy of consideration. The Post says truly that “the contention that Sunday is not the original day of rest specified in the Bible is so well established as to be beyond further dispute. Sunday is a modern institution, comparatively speaking.” In view of the recently invented fiction, now so persistently advocated by some who are demanding Sunday laws, that Sunday is the original seventh-day Sabbath, this frank admission, so abundantly justified by the facts in the case, does credit both to the research and to the candor of the editor of the Post.

Again it says: “It was common, at first, when the Jewish element was strong in the Christian church, to observe both Saturday and Sunday.” This is a more candid admission of the record of history than is usually found in the discussion of this question. The truth is, however, that the seventh day was the only day observed as a sabbath in the early church, and that was due not to the Jewish element in the church, but to the fact that they were Christians. Sunday, “the wild solar holiday of all pagan times,” was brought into the Christian church by a gradual process, and was established by both civil and ecclesiastical law as the direct result of the union of the professed Christian church and the pagan state in the fourth century. The general situation of that period is well set forth by Neander, the church historian, as follows: “The vast numbers who, from external considerations, without any inward call, joined themselves to the Christian communities, served to introduce into the church all the corruptions of the heathen

world. Pagan vices, pagan delusions, pagan superstition, took the garb and name of Christianity, and were thus enabled to exert a more corrupting influence on the Christian life.”

The Bible Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, was observed in the Christian church so long as it remained Christian, but when the Christian element was lost out of it, and paganism took its place, then naturally enough the pagan Sunday supplanted the true Sabbath.

After stating that “the action of Constantine in the year 321 was the earliest recognition of the observance of Sunday as a legal duty,” and that “upon his decree much of the Sunday legislation rests, not only as respects secular statutes, but also canonical and ecclesiastical law,” the Post observes: “There is, therefore, very considerable ground for the doubt which many people express concerning the necessity of observing Sunday as a day of holiness, but the trouble is that very few people who neglect Sunday are willing to be as consistent as the Seventh-day Adventists, and regard the Sabbath as sacred.” In all candor we ask, How can a Christian do otherwise than “regard the Sabbath as sacred” after reading the facts given by the Post in its editorial?

To increase this “doubt” to a certainty we need simply to give due weight to the following facts: The Lord of heaven and earth, “whose name is Holy,” and who alone has the power to make any day holy, has said, “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.” For this reason he has given the command, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Here is a most satisfactory basis for the necessity of observing the seventh day of the week “as a day of holiness.” In contrast with this divine institution of the Sabbath we have the law of Constantine, a pagan law enacted by a pagan emperor (for by the utmost stretch of the truth Constantine could not be regarded as a Christian at the time he issued this decree), upon whose decree, as the Post states, “much of the Sunday legislation rests,” as the basis of the Sunday institution. No human legislation, openly pagan or professedly Christian, can make a day holy; and as Sunday is not a holy day, there is plainly no “necessity of observing Sunday as a day of holiness.” If professed Christians do not have sufficient regard for the commandment of the Lord to keep holy the day which he has made holy, they can not atone for their sinful course by attempting to keep holy a day which has never been made holy. It is certainly a scathing indictment of present-day Christianity to say that “very few people who neglect Sunday are willing to be as consistent as the Seventh-day Adventists, and regard the Sabbath as sacred.”

The closing paragraph of the editorial in the Post sounds a mild note of warning which ought to be emphasized with a mighty emphasis. It says: “The only danger is that those who observe it [Sunday] will become intolerant of those who regard it more as a holiday than a holy day.” The voice of history declares that this “danger” is more than a theoretical one, and even in this country within the last ten years many men have been fined and imprisoned for no other crime than because they did not see and acknowledge “the necessity of observing Sunday as a day of holiness.” And bills are even now pending in Congress, with penalties of fines and imprisonment attached to them, requiring the residents of the District of Columbia to regard Sunday as a holy day, and not as a holiday. We heartily invite the Post to join us in the effort to avert this “danger.”