The Change of the Sabbath.
By G. C. Tenney
To convince people that the seventh day is the Sabbath according to Bible testimony is not a very difficult task. And to show them that there is no divine authority for the observance of the first day of the week may be easily done. Were those who are thus convinced ready to promptly reject the false and accept the true, the work of spreading the Sabbath truth would be comparatively light. Though nothing short of an overwhelming volume of evidence will do this work with many, the required amount is at hand in the simple fact that God has said, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work." And he has never spoken anything to the contrary. And the examples and teachings of all Bible writers, including Christ and his apostles, are in harmony with the word of the Lord. To make this apparent is a pleasant and easy work; and then the way of duty would seem to be clear. But at the time we would naturally look for people to embrace the truth of God "flesh and blood" must be conferred with, and questions begin to arise. "Drowning men will catch at straws," we say, and there are many such frail supports floating on the stream of Sunday-keeping. It is surprising upon how small a straw some will endeavor to keep their heads above water on the streams of popular favor (of which Sunday observance is one branch), and support a profession of religion, while the Saviour says, "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Matt. 15:9. One of the first questions which arises in the mind of serious inquirers is, How has this change come about? God appointed the seventh day, and for ages he has suffered his people to observe the first day. Since the change has been so universally acknowledged, has it not thus received his sanction? We say, God often permits what he does not sanction. There are times of ignorance at which God "winks," but there comes a time when he calls upon men to repent. Many cases of this kind occur to every mind at all familiar with the history of God's people. Is the experience of the Sabbath truth a similar one? We believe it is. It is not necessary to inquire into the reason why it should be so, why this important part of God's worship should be for a long time hidden from his people. It has been so, and it cannot be denied. And a more significant fact is, that God said many centuries before the change took place that it should be so, and that it should be by the action of a persecuting, blasphemous power, the "man of sin," who, as Paul says, "opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God." The prediction is found in Dan. 7:25, a prophecy referring without doubt to the papacy. Here it is said, "he (the papacy) shall think to change times and laws; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." That this language applies to the papacy but few others than papists will deny. How then could it perform the work which is here allotted to it? Something more than human times and laws are referred to, as changing these would not distinguish any power. But this power is to exalt himself above God. In no way can this be done so effectually as in opposing the law of God. How well this work has been accomplished the history of the Sabbath since the days of primitive Christianity will fully illustrate. No one would for a moment suppose that human power could effect this change at a single step or decision. The hold which the truth obtained upon the early disciples could not be shaken at once. It was by the slow, stealthy approach of an enemy into the heart of a fortified camp. Says Paul, of his own times, "The mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now leth [hindereth] will let, until he be taken out of the way. Paganism gave place to the papacy, and when this iniquitous system was strengthened by the arm of the Roman Empire, actuated by a Satanic influence, nothing within the range of human possibilities could restrict its action." The Saviour set his seal to the Sabbath by saying: "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Had this language been applied to the first day of the week, designating that day as the Sabbath, it would have been regarded as a precept for the observance of Sunday. And rightly too. How much short of a command does it come applied to the Sabbath of the Lord? Not any. An unbroken line of testimony for the observance of the seventh day may be found in the lives of the apostles, and to the close of the sacred volume. In the Bible there is no account of a change of the Sabbath except in its prediction of the work of the "man of sin." Upon the manner of this change, and how it was brought about, it is the principal object of this article to introduce the testimony of "Chambers' Encyclopedia." We do so with satisfaction, on account of the standard and unbiased nature of its authority:— "Hitherto we have spoken of the observance of Saturday, the day of rest prescribed to the Jews, and to which exclusively the name of the Sabbath-day was anciently applied, and still continues to be given by every nation but the English and its offshoots. At what date the Sunday, or first day of the week, began to be generally used by Christians as a stated time for religious meetings, we have no definite information either in the New Testament, or in the writings of the Fathers of the church. By none of the fathers before the fourth century is it identified with the Sabbath, nor is the duty of observing it grounded by them either on the fourth commandment, or on the precept or example of Jesus or his apostles. . . . 'On what grounds, then, did the Christians observe the first day of the week as a time for religious assemblies? How and when did the custom of so distinguishing it begin? To these questions very different answers have been given.'" After giving some of the conflicting reasons which are usually offered for first-day observance, the author continues by bringing up the first mention of Sunday meetings, and commenting as follows:— "By Justin, in whose 'Apology for the Christians to Antoninus Pius,' written between 138 and 150 A. D., the earliest undoubted mention of Sunday meetings in the works of the Fathers occurs. Several reasons for holding them then are assigned—the first being, that on this day of the week the world and light were created; and the second being the resurrection of Christ. 'We all of us,' says he, 'assemble together on Sunday, because it is the first day in which God changed darkness and matter, and made the world. On the same day, also, Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead; for he was crucified on the day before that of Saturn, and on the day after that of Saturn, which is that of the sun, he appeared to his apostles and disciples, and taught them what we now submit to your consideration.' To these reasons, Origen adds the fact that manna was first given to the Israelites on a Sunday; while subsequent writers adduce various other events, either recorded or by them imagined, to have occurred on that day. In arguing with Trypho, Justin opposes Sabbath-keeping by Christians, on grounds which would have been retorted by the Jew as condemning equally the observance of a first-day Sabbath, had the Sunday at that time been regarded as the Sabbath; from which fact, and the circumstance that in his 'Apology' already mentioned, where he professes to give the Emperor Antoninus a full account of the observance of the day, no mention is made of rest from labor as a part of that observance, the inference has been drawn that, except during the time of divine service, the Christians in this Fathers' age thought it lawful to follow, and actually did follow, their worldly pursuits on the Sunday. It is true that by Tertullian, who wrote in the latter half of the second century, the Christians are described as 'putting off even their business on the Lord's day, lest they might give place to the devil; an indication, in Neander's opinion, that now the Jewish law of the Sabbath had begun to be applied to the Lord's day. But the soundness of this interpretation has been questioned—Dr. Hussey, for instance stating that he can find in it 'nothing Sabbatarian—nothing, in fact, more than I should have expected, considering that the church had become somewhat settled—that, rather than that the duties peculiar to the Lord's day should be neglected, worldly business was to be put off to another day.'" "But whatever may have been the opinion and practices of these early Christians in regard to cessation from labor on the Sunday, unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the sabbatical observance of that day is known to have been ordained, is the edict of Constantine, 321 A. D., of which the following is a translation: 'Let all judges, inhabitants of the cities, artificers, rest on the venerable Sunday. But in the country, husbandmen may freely and lawfully engage in the business of agriculture; since it often happens that the sowing of corn and the planting of vines cannot be so advantageously performed on any other day; lest, by neglecting the opportunity, they should lose the benefits which the divine bounty bestows on us.' . . ." "It was a natural result of Constantine's law, backed by such interpretations of the Old Testament as these, that, in the words of Dr. Hussey, 'a new era in the history of the Lord's day now commenced, tendencies toward Sabbatarianism, or confusion of the Christian with the Jewish institution, beginning to manifest themselves. These, however, were slight until the end of the fifth century, and are traceable chiefly to and in the civil legislation of the period.' . . . But it was not until the year 538 that abstinence from agricultural labor on Sunday was recommended, rather than enjoined, by an ecclesiastical authority (the third council of Orleans), and this expressly that the people might have more leisure to go to church and say their prayers. Nor was it till about the end of the ninth century, that the Emperor Leo, 'the philosopher,' repealed the exemption which it enjoyed under the edict of Constantine." "And now the Lord's day being thoroughly established by law, as a sabbath, the fourth commandment would more than ever be employed by the clergy as a means of persuading to its observance." The points we have presented in this article on the change of the Sabbath are, that there is no sacred authority for the change; but the Scriptures foretell that it shall be undertaken, and temporarily accomplished by the action of a blasphemous power under the semblance of religion. We have produced a concise account of how the change was brought about, corroborating the prediction, and showing that although the change was a gradual one, it kept pace with, and denoted at every step, the development of the power of the "man of sin." If any further evidence could be required it may be found in the admissions or bold claims of the papal church, which proudly boasts of having accomplished this work, and offers this fact as an evidence of its supreme power. These claims are set forth in their numerous catechisms, and the reader is already, or may become, familiar with them. G. C. TENNEY.