Blakeslee in "the Pacific" on the Sabbath.
By Editor
THERE is no subject in the church or in the State—in religion or in politics—which is exciting more interest at the present time than that of the Sabbath and Sunday. The message of Rev. 14:9-12 is now being given by the Seventh-day Adventists to the whole world. This message contains "the commandments of God AND the faith of Jesus." The commandments of God in distinction from the gospel, or the faith of Jesus, are those which God himself declared from Mount Sinai. These have always been considered pre-eminently "the Law of God." Alexander Campbell, in his debate with Bishop Purcell, styled them "a synopsis of all religion and morality." Dr. Webster says the ten commandments are a summary of moral law. In them are briefly given our complete duties to God and to our neighbor. Not a principle of moral obligation in regard to the worship of God, or to the rights of our neighbor is omitted. It is a most remarkable document bearing the impress of the divinity which framed it, and spoke it, and wrote it on tables of stone. The examination of this law alone has led men of ability and legal culture to confess the inspiration of the Bible. To vindicate the claims of this law is the special work of Seventh-day Adventists. Indeed we would have no need to exist as a denomination, were it not that "the message" must be given, and "the Sabbath of the Lord thy God" must be rescued from its down-trodden position, where human tradition and the carnal mind have placed it under the feet of men. This must be accomplished before the Son of man comes to reap the harvest of the earth. Rev. 14:9-14; Isa. 58:13, 14; Rom. 8:7. We have no doubt that our presenting the claims of the seventh day, which the Bible says "is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," has done very much to arouse the prejudices of the lovers of "the venerable day of the sun" into activity in its behalf. This agitation we do not regret. It is the order of the Lord: "Cry aloud, spare not; show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins." As long as God's people are transgressing the commandment of God, so long it is our duty to warn without sparing, "whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear." An article appeared in the Pacific of San Francisco several weeks ago which we have been requested to notice. It is signed by "S. V. Blakeslee," and dated Selma, Cal. Of all the weak efforts to bolster up the failing cause of Sunday, few can equal this in bold assertions and misstatements. The spirit of the article, or of the man, is shown by the expressions which he used. Once he accuses us of "sophistical falsehood;" but twice of "intellectual falsehood;" and eight times of simple "falsehood!" Thus much in one column. We will not retort; we cannot accuse him of "intellectual falsehood." He does not excuse us on the ground of ignorance! and he need not. We never make any statements ignorantly about the Sabbath or Sunday. We know what we say, and we know the reason for saying it. But any writer who flings epithets as promiscuously as Mr. Blakeslee, ought to be very accurate in his statements. We shall see. Carefully examining his list of assertions we find that he has not given a particle of evidence to sustain them, or any one of them. We will now notice them as briefly as possible. 1. Of our claim that the Catholics changed "the Sabbath into Sunday," as the Catechism expresses it, he says:— "This is a positive historical falsehood, for there was no Roman Catholic Church till nearly six hundred years after this change was made, and not till nearly three hundred years after Constantine, who, not a Roman Catholic, made a law for Sunday observance." This is mere random talk. The pontificate or primacy of the Roman Bishops commenced under Constantine. It was he who united the civil with the ecclesiastical power in their hands, by constituting them the highest judges in his realm. We give the proof. Sozomen, an early historian, says:— "Constantine likewise enacted a law in favor of the clergy, permitting judgment to be passed by the bishops, when litigants preferred appealing to them rather than to the secular court; he enacted that their decree should be valid, and as far superior to that of other judges as if pronounced by the emperor himself; that the governor and subordinate military officers should see to the execution of these decrees; and that sentence, when passed by them, should be irreversible."—Sozomen, Eccl. Hist., page 11. Stanley, of Oxford (Scribner & Co., from 2d London edition, page 305), says:— "According to the fable of Sylvester, Constantine retired to Greece in leave Italy for the Pope; Per cedere al Pastor si fece Greco. So said the legend, and it was undoubtedly the case, that by retiring to the East he left the field clear for the bishops of Rome. In the absence of the emperors from Rome, the chief Christian magistrate rose to new importance. When the barbarians broke upon Italy the Pope thus became the representative of the ancient Republic. It is one of the senses in which the saying of Hobbes is true, that the papacy is but the ghost of the deceased Roman empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof." Thus much for the origin of the civil authority of the pope of Rome. We all know that his church primacy dates from the council of Nice, A. D. 325. In 451 the council of Chalcedon elevated the bishop of Constantinople to be next in rank to the bishop of Rome. But the Roman Church, jealous of her supremacy, protested against this action, and appealed to the decision of the council of Nice in favor of the Roman primacy. Imperial commissioners were appointed to hear the case, who thus decided:— "From what has been brought forward on either side, we acknowledge that the primacy over all and the most eminent rank are to continue with the archbishop of old Rome."—Schaff, ch. Hist., vol. 2, page 281. This is sufficient, though more might be given. We accuse Mr. Blakeslee of neither ignorance nor falsehood, but leave it to the reader whether his accusation against us is just. It is true that on the invasion of the Ostrogoths, the bishop of Rome had to depend upon the aid and decree of Justinian to fix him in his Roman throne; but the primacy, the pontificate, the papacy, originated under Constantine. 2. Of Constantine he says:— "He had been a heathen, and on becoming Christian, took Christianity just as he found it then, including the general observance of Sunday." We invite the careful attention of the reader to the article which follows, this, entitled, "Constantine and his Sunday Law." We could not bring out all the facts in this article; but they ought to be understood. Consider the object and tenor and extent of that first law for the observance of Sunday. Now Mosheim confesses that by reason of this law of Constantine the Sunday was better observed than it had been before. The truth is that there never existed before that decree any public authority, either in church or State, for cessation of labor on that day. If Mr. Blakeslee disputes this and will furnish the authority, the decree or order, by either Christ, the apostles, any bishop or ruler, either civil or ecclesiastical, we will publish it and give it a very wide circulation. It is easy to mutter "falsehood," but he will not find it so easy to furnish evidence to sustain his assertions and accusations. 3. "Justin Martyr, who was born about sixty years after Christ's crucifixion, speaks of Sunday by name as the day all Christians observed." Yes, he called it by name, and so did Constantine: the day of the sun, or Sunday. But Justin did not call it the Sabbath, nor give it any ecclesiastical or religious title; nor did he ascribe to it any religious character. These are his words:— "And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles, or the writings of the prophets, are read as long as time permits." There are two facts stated in history which robs this of all point as far as Sunday observance or Sunday sacredness is concerned. (1) Friday was also observed as a day of religious exercises in honor of the crucifixion; but neither Friday nor Sunday was regarded as a Sabbath. (2) Justin's words, "as long as time permits," refer to their practice of holding these services for a certain time, after which they returned to their labor or recreation. Thus Dr. Heylyn, in his History of the Sabbath, said:— "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." And to this agree the words of Morer in his "Dialogues":— "Being taken up and made a day of meeting for religious exercises, yet for three hundred years there was no law to bind them to it, and for want of such a law the day was not wholly kept in abstaining from common business; nor did they any longer rest from their ordinary affairs (such was the necessity of those times) than during the divine service." Were Mr. Blakeslee's inference from Justin's words true, it would prove nothing as to the Sabbatic character of Sunday. They might even have regarded it as the Sabbath, and called it so, but that would have proved nothing in its favor in the absence of divine institution and commandment. But it is not true. Justin does not say what he claims. As we take considerable space in which to bring out the facts concerning Constantine and his Sunday Law—facts which are generally ignored by those who wish to Christianize "the venerable day of the sun"—we are obliged to defer till next week a notice of what Mr. Blakeslee says concerning the seventh day and the first day.