Brief Outline of the Sabbath Question
By W. A. S.
No. 2—Sunday not the Sabbath
WHAT God says, not what men say, is to be received. A child who believes is wiser than the great man who does not believe. But here are a few statements, selected from many, showing that eminent scholars have freely admitted that there is no instruction in the Bible to keep Sunday, the first day. In some of these quotations the writers wrongly call Sunday the Lord's day. But remember that Jesus says he is Lord of the Sabbath day, the seventh day, and God calls that day, “My holy day.” So that not Sunday, but the Sabbath is the Lord's day:— The Sabbath is Saturday, the seventh day of the week. The late Dr. R. W. Dale, of England, the most eminent Congregationalist theologian of this day, said:— It is quite clear that however rigidly or devoutly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath. There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday. Dr. Lyman Abbott, the leading Congregationalist of America, says:— The current notion that Christ and his apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament. Dr. Eyton, canon of Westminster (Church of England) says:— There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday. The observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands on exactly the same footing as the observance of Sunday. The leading Methodist paper, New York Christian Advocate, says:— Without doubt there is no text commanding the christening of babies, nor is there any commanding the substitution of the Lord's day for the Sabbath. Principal Donaldson, LL. D., of Scotland, a leading Presbyterian, says in the Contemporary Review:— There is no command in the New Testament to keep the Sunday. Pastor E. T. Hiscox, D. D., author of the “Baptist Manual,” said before a Baptist ministerial meeting in New York:— There is no Scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week. I wish to say that this Sabbath question, in this aspect of it, is in my judgment the gravest and most perplexing question connected with Christian institutions which at present claims attention from Christian people. Cassell's “Bible Dictionary” (London) says:— A very large class of persons, including a very considerable portion of English writers, as well as a great majority of German, agree in considering the first day's rest to be an ecclesiastical institution, and not a divine ordinance. The famous Bishop Jeremy Taylor said:— The primitive Christians did all manner of work upon the Lord's day [meaning Sunday], even in the times of persecution, when they are the strictest observers of all the divine commandments; but in this they knew there were none. The Lord's day did not succeed in the place of the Sabbath . . . and the Lord's day was merely an ecclesiastical institution. It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth commandment, because they for almost three hundred years together kept that day which was in that commandment [Saturday]. Professor Brerewood, long ago professor in Gresham College, London, said:— It is commonly believed that the Jewish sabbath was changed into the Lord's day by Christian emperors, and they know little who do not know that the ancient Sabbath did remain, and was observed by the Eastern churches three hundred years after our Saviour's passion. It was not the “Jewish” sabbath. God calls it, “The Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” “My holy day,” and he asks us also to call the Sabbath “the holy of the Lord.” Isa. 58:13. One of the leading organs of the Church of England, the Church Times, says:— The Sabbath, “Dies Sabbati” (as still in Acts of Parliament), never meant anything but Saturday. Till the sixteenth century no Christian ever called “Sunday” the Sabbath. The great Lightfoot, a Puritan, says, “I have diligently searched the Fathers to find ‘Sabbath’ used in the sense of Sunday; would that I could so find it!” The Church of England journal, Fireside News (London), quoting with comments, from the “Encyclopædic Dictionary,” says:— “In the Middle Ages, Sabbath meant only Saturday. According to the elder Disraeli, it was first used in England for Sunday in 1554.” The Sabbatarians, or those who still keep the Christian Sabbath on Saturday, were not such a small sect as seems to be inferred, in the seventeenth century; and in the United States the sect have even now very many adherents. Cardinal Gibbons (Roman Catholic) says:— There is but one Protestant denomination in our country that lives up to our Protestant Bible, and that is the Seventh-day Adventist people. You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The London Daily Telegraph (to quote one secular newspaper) says in a leading article:— For the day of rest as a useful institution we have every respect. It can not be considered a divine ordinance, unless by the small sect of English Christians who observe Saturday. They and the Jews are the only people who obey the fourth commandment; all others deliberately violate it when they work on Saturday. It is not that men who have investigated the matter do not know, but that, knowing there is no Scriptural authority for Sunday observance, they choose the easy pathway of custom and tradition. But Christ said: “In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. . . . Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” Matt. 15:9, 13. Now comes the message preparing the way of the Lord, that is to lay bare the true foundation. The standard of the Christ-life is to be lifted up before all the world:— “Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people. Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.” Isa. 62:10, 11. In a word, there is no divine authority for keeping Sunday. The Lord our God made the seventh day his own holy Sabbath, or rest day. Men have set up a rival day. Now the Lord challenges Christians to decide whether his way or man's way shall be supreme in their lives. There is blessedness now and forever in the way of obedience in which Jesus walked as our example. Let us follow him. W. A. S.