"WHO CHANGED THE SABBATH?"
By C. P. B.
As intimated in an article upon this subject, published in last week's SIGNS, the question "Who changed the Sabbath," is answered by history just as fully as are questions relative to the origin of Good Friday, Easter, Ascension Day, prayers for the dead, the worship of saints, the adoration of pictures and images, and other like papal festivals and customs. But in order to the proper rejection of the Sunday sabbath, it is not necessary that we should be able to point to the exact date of its introduction. In his "History of Romanism," book 2, chap. 1, sec. 3, Dowling has well said:— "Protestantism, as opposed to Popery, has been defined by Isaac Taylor, in his Ancient Christianity, as 'A REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE INNOVATIONS BEARING AN ASCERTAINED DATE,' and to this definition we have no particular objection, inasmuch as the date of most, if not all of the Popish innovations, both doctrinal and ritual, can be ascertained with considerable accuracy. Still we must be allowed to add, that should innovations be discovered, either in that or any other communion the date of the admission of which is entirely unknown, if they are contrary to the doctrine and spirit of the Bible, if they are not found in God's word—that is to say, if they are innovations at all—then true Protestantism requires their unqualified rejection, just as much as if their date were as clearly ascertained as is the date of the Papal supremacy, or the absurd dogma of transubstantiation. 'THE BIBLE, I SAY, THE BIBLE ONLY, IS THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS!' Nor is it of any account in the estimation of the genuine Protestant, how early a doctrine originated, if it is not found in the Bible. He learns from the New Testament itself, that there were errors in the time of the apostles, and that their pens were frequently employed in combating those errors. Hence, if a doctrine be propounded for his acceptance, he asks, Is it to be found in the Inspired Word? was it taught by the Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles?" Concerning the introduction of some of the Romish errors and practices, Dowling says:— "There is scarcely anything which strikes the mind of the careful student of ancient ecclesiastical history with greater surprise, than the comparatively early period at which many of the corruptions of Christianity, which are embodied in the Romish system, took their rise; yet it is not to be supposed that when the first originators of many of these unscriptural notions and practices, planted those germs of corruption, they anticipated or even imagined that they would grow into such a vast and hideous system of superstition and error, as is that of Popery. Thus remarks a learned and sagacious writer: 'Each of the great corruptions of later ages took its rise in a manner which it would be harsh to say was deserving of strong reprehension. . . . The worship of images, the invocation of saints, and the superstition of relics, were but the expansions of the natural feelings of veneration and affection cherished toward the memory of those who had suffered and died for the truth. . . . The very abuses which make the twelfth century abhorrent on the page of history, were, in the fourth, fragrant with the practice and suffrage of a blessed company of primitive confessors. The remembered saints who had given their bodies to the flames, had also lent their voice and example to those unwise excesses which at length drove true religion from the earth. Untaught by experience, the ancient church surmised not of the occult tendencies of the course it pursued, nor should it be loaded with consequences which human sagacity could not well have foreseen.'—Id., book 2, chap. 1, sec. 1. The same might be said of the observance of Sunday, that it was but natural that those who had before regarded it as a day sacred to the sun, should, upon becoming Christians, retain some of that reverence; nor is it strange that they should seek to connect the observance of the first day, with their new religion, especially as the fact of the resurrection of Christ on that day afforded them an excellent pretext for so doing. And that is just what they did; and it is significant that the practice of keeping Sunday as a Christian festival originated among Gentile Christians—those who had as pagans worshiped the sun upon that day. Recognizing this fact, the North British Review, Vol. 13, p. 409, thus defends the change:— "That very day was the Sunday of their heathen neighbors and respective countrymen; and patriotism gladly united with expediency in making it their Lord's day and their Sabbath. . . . If the authority of the church is to be ignored altogether by Protestants, there is no matter; because opportunity and common expediency are surely argument enough for so ceremonial a change as the mere day of the week for the observance of the rest and holy convocation of the Jewish Sabbath. That primitive church, in fact, was shut up to the adoption of the Sunday, until it became established and supreme, when it was too late to make another alteration; and it was no irreverent or undelightful thing to adopt it, inasmuch as the first day of the week was their own high day at any rate; so that their compliance and civility were rewarded by the redoubled sanctity of their quiet festival." It cannot be claimed that this paragraph was written by an enemy to the first-day sabbath, for it is a defense of the Sunday institution; and it is evident that had the writer known any better argument for the practice of Sunday-keeping than "expediency," or any higher authority for it than the practice and decree of a corrupt and time-serving church, he would never have made such humiliating and damaging admissions. And this lack of scriptural authority for Sunday-keeping, together with the plea of "expediency" marks it as a child of the Papacy; not that it was begotten by the man of sin, for, as we have seen, it was a heathen festival long before there was such a thing as the Papacy; but that it was early adopted by the mystery of iniquity, and given a place in the Christian church which rightfully belonged to another day, namely, the seventh, the one specified in the fourth commandment. But what especially marks the Sunday sabbath as the child of the Roman Church is the fact that it was a Roman Catholic Council that first decreed that it should be kept instead of the ancient Sabbath. Upon this point, Rev. Mr. James, in addressing the University of Oxford, said:— "When the practice of keeping Saturday Sabbaths, which had become so general at the close of this [the third] century, was evidently gaining ground in the Eastern church, a decree was passed in the council held at Laodicea [A. D. 364] 'that members of the church should not rest from work on the Sabbath, like Jews, but should labor on that day, and preferring in honor the Lord's day, then if it be in their power should rest from work as Christians.'" William Prynne, famous in the history of English Puritanism, also says:— "It is certain that Christ himself, his apostles, and the primitive Christians, for some good space of time, did constantly observe the seventh-day Sabbath, . . . the evangelists and St. Luke in the Acts ever styling it the Sabbath day, . . . and making mention of its . . . solemnization by the apostles and other Christians, . . . it being still solemnized by many Christians after the apostles' times, even till the Council of Laodicea [A. D. 364], as ecclesiastical writers and the twenty-ninth canon of that council testify, which runs thus: 'Because Christians ought not to Judaize, and to rest in the Sabbath, but to work in that day [which many did refuse at that time to do]. But preferring in honor the Lord's day [there being then a great controversy among Christians which of these two days . . . should have precedency]; if they desired to rest they should do this as Christians. Wherefore if they shall be found to Judaize, let them be accursed from Christ.' . . . The seventh-day Sabbath was . . . solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean Council did in a manner quite abolish the observation of it. . . . The Council of Laodicea . . . first settled the observation of the Lord's day, and prohibited . . . the keeping of the Jewish Sabbath under an anathema." Of the effects of the decree of this council, John Ley, another old English writer, speaks thus:— "From the apostles' time until the Council of Laodicea, which was about the year 364, the holy observation of the Jews' Sabbath continued, as may be proved out of many authors; yea, notwithstanding the decree of that council against it." About the year 468 or 469 A. D., Pope Leo issued the following decree:— "WE ORDAIN, according to the true meaning of the Holy Ghost, and of the apostles as thereby directed, that on the sacred day [Sunday] wherein our own integrity was restored, all do rest and cease from labor." It was thus that the Sunday institution gained a place in the church; and that we do not err in saying that the Papacy changed the Sabbath will be further shown in another article. C. P. B.