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The Broken Barrier

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 5, 1916

FromSigns of the Times, December 5, 1916

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The Broken Barrier

By Lucas A. Reed

What Opened the Way for Evolution
By LUCAS A. REED
In these last days, the record of the life of Christ has been winnowed, by many, of all references to the miraculous or the supernatural, with a result that we have only a human Christ, with only human powers, or such powers as any man possesses, if he will but exercise them.
This rejection of the miraculous and the supernatural from the life of Christ and from all His teachings leaves man without any power to give him a spiritual birth, a redemption from sin. It leaves him with only natural forces, ordinary powers,—forces of nature, so to speak,—with which to combat malignant evil.
This rejection of the miraculous and the supernatural from modern religion is a result of the assaults of evolution, which began its attacks upon the record of creation. Having cleared the board so far as Genesis was concerned, it went on until it has destroyed, in the minds of thousands, any belief whatsoever in anything supernatural or miraculous, wherever it may appear.

Evolution in the Pulpit

This evolution is taught in the schools and the colleges, has even entered the theological schools, and has gone into the pulpits to preach to the audiences in the churches. It may be fairly said to-day to be ascendant, to have control.
The passive attitude of the world, and especially of the clergy, has been due to the fact that the great principle of God's working was not understood, because the Sabbath, God's memorial, had been cast down, and another institution had been exalted in its place. In a previous article, it has been shown that the Sabbath truth is in reality the fundamental truth of God's workings; that if it be rejected, everything is rejected, because all God's work, in principle, is thereby discountenanced.
How came it, then, that the Sabbath had been lost? For an answer to this question, we may appeal to two sources: to prophecy—that is, God's foreknowledge; and to history—that is, the fulfillment.

What Was Predicted

First, as to prophecy: Hundreds of years before there was any sign of the apostasy, to the prophet Daniel was revealed the fact that there would come a time when an apostate power would cast down the truth to the ground, and would practice and prosper (Dan. 8: 12)—one that would “speak words against the Most High,” and would “wear out the saints of the Most High,” and “think to change the times and the law” of God (Dan. 7: 25). In this wearing out of the people of the Most High, it was foretold that the saints would “fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil, many days.” Dan. 11: 33.
To John, it was specified that this power would open “his mouth for blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, even them that dwell in the heaven,” and that he would “make war with the saints, and . . . overcome them: and there was given to him authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation. And all that dwell on the earth shall worship him, every one whose name hath not been written in the book of life of the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world.” Rev. 13: 6-8, margin. According to the prophecy, this apostate power was to make a change in the times and in the law of God. Those who have made that change, say themselves that they have made no real change in the law save in the fourth commandment; but this commandment they acknowledge they have changed.

What Catholics Assert

The Catholic Church claims that it is consistent in changing the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. It claims to have authority to do this. For example, we quote:
“410. Whence does the church get the right to give commandments?”
“From Jesus Christ Himself, who charged His church to guide and govern the faithful in His name.”
“411. Can the church do more than give commandments?”
“She also has the right to see that these commandments are obeyed, and to punish those who disobey them.”
“412. Which are the commandments of the church?”
“These six: First, to rest from servile work and to hear mass on all Sundays and holy days of obligation. Second, to fast,” etc.—“A Catechism of the Catholic Religion,” by the Rev. Joseph Deharbe, title, S. J.; translated from German; edited by the Rt. Rev. P. N. Lynch, bishop of Charleston.
You will note that this Catholic teaching is that since Christ authorized the church to guide and govern the faithful in His name, it has a right to put forth commandments in violation of the commandments of God as contained in the Bible; and you see that in this, the Catholic Church has gone outside of any authority given the church by Christ. It has taught the obligation to rest from secular work on Sundays instead of the Sabbath, and thus has caused men to work upon the Sabbath day in violation of God's commandment, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work.” To such lengths do men go in their assumption of power over human souls. But the prophecy predicted that an attempt would be made to change the law. Thus is the prophecy fulfilled.
That the papacy acknowledges that it has changed the Sabbath may be further discovered from the following:
“Question.—How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days?”
“Answer.—By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feast days commanded by the same church,”—“Abridgment of Christian Doctrine,” by the Rev. Henry Tuberville, of Douay College, France (1649), page 58.
“Ques.—Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?”
“Ans.—Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her,—she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.”—“A Doctrinal Catechism,” by the Rev. Stephen Keenan, page 174.
“The Catholic Church of its own infallible authority created Sunday a holy day to take the place of the Sabbath of the old law.”—Kansas City Catholic, February 9, 1893.
“The Catholic Church, . . . by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.”—Catholic Mirror, official organ of Cardinal Gibbons, September 23, 1893.
“Ques.—Which is the Sabbath day?”
“Ans.—Saturday is the Sabbath day.
“Ques.—Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?”
“Ans.—We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A. D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.”—“The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine,” by the Rev. Peter Geiermann, C. SS. R., page 50, third edition, 1913, a work which received the “apostolic blessing” of Pope Pius X, January 25, 1910.
“You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.”—Cardinal Gibbons, in “The Faith of Our Fathers,” edition 1892, page 111.
“Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. . . . From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first.”—Catholic Press (Sydney, Australia), August 25, 1900.
Protestant writers also acknowledge that there is no Scriptural authority for the change of the Sabbath. Note the following:
“Is there no express commandment for observing the first day of the week as Sabbath, instead of the seventh day?—None whatever. Neither Christ, nor His apostles, nor the first Christians celebrated the first day of the week instead of the seventh as the Sabbath.”—New York Weekly Tribune, May 24, 1900.
“The Scriptures nowhere call the first day of the week the Sabbath. . . . There is no Scriptural authority for so doing, nor of course any Scriptural obligation.”—The Watchman (Baptist).
“The observance of the first instead of the seventh day rests on the testimony of the church, and the church alone.”—Hobart Church News (Episcopalian), July 2, 1894.
This is only a fragment of the testimony that might be brought to bear upon the subject. In addition, we might quote from many

The Broken Barrier

(Continued from page 9)
church histories and Protestant authorities to show the same fact,—that it is the Catholic Church that has made the change in Sabbath observance.
And since it is the loss of the Sabbath that caused hundreds of Christians to be passive under the assaults of evolution against the creation record in Genesis, the Catholic Church is responsible for this spiritual anaesthetic delivered to the Protestant as well as the Catholic world.
We may even now see that the prophecy recorded in Daniel is in process of fulfillment. The truth is cast down to the ground, while apostasy, skepticism, infidelity, and atheism practice and prosper.