Sunday Observance

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Mar 30, 1876

Sunday Observance.

The Sunday Chronicle, March 19, under the above caption, gives quite a full report of a recent sermon preached by Dr. Fallows of Chicago, from which we take the following:—

The question of the obligation and mode of observance of the Sabbath has caused very serious disagreement of opinion among the most learned, consistent, and devout teachers of the Christian Church. Any one who is at all conversant with the history of the controversy which has gathered around the subject, and who desires to present his own conclusions after a mature and candid survey of all the points at issue, will be the last person in the world to dogmatize and hurl his opprobrious epithets at his opponents.

VIEWS OF THE REFORMERS.

Differences of opinion exist first as to the ground of obligation. The reformed Swiss churches held that the Sabbath was simply a Jewish institution, and was abrogated by our Lord. Their confession declared that the observance of the Lord's Day [Sunday] is founded, not on any commandment of God, but on the authority of the Church, and that the Church may alter the day at pleasure.

The Augsburg Confession, which was drawn up by Melanchthon, avows that the Lord's Day, Easter, Whitsuntide, and other such holidays, ought to be kept, because they are appointed by the church.

Cramer, in his Catechism, published in 1548, says: “We now keep no more Sabbath on Saturday as the Jews do; but we observe the Sunday and certain other days as the magistrates do judge convenient, whom in this thing we ought to obey.”

Tyndale said: “As for the Sabbath, we be lords over the Sabbath, and may yet change it into Monday, or into any other day as we see need, or may make every tenth day holy only if we see cause why.”

It is also stated that “it is on record that Calvin debated whether the reformed, for the purpose of estranging themselves more completely from the Romish Church, should not adopt Thursday as the Christian Sabbath.”

On the authority of Bishop Horsley it is also stated that Calvin regarded the Sabbath as one of those cardinal ordinances of the Jewish religion which our Lord had blotted out.

All these eminent men, and many others that might be mentioned, held that there was no obligation in the Old or New Testament for the observance of the Sabbath by Christians, but that it simply rested on the authority of the Church or on the basis of expediency. Many hold that the Sabbath was simply a Jewish institution, that its authority perished when Christ came, but believe that the Christian Sabbath, or the first day of the week, was instituted by the apostles, and is therefore binding upon all Christians to the end of time. Others believe that the Sabbath is a primitive institution, given by God at the creation, and re-enacted amid the most impressive circumstances at the giving of the law on Sinai. Some of these contend that the law thus given has never been repealed, and that the very day of the Mosaic institution is still binding; while others, holding the views of the primitive, Mosaic Sabbath, believe that the obligation was transferred to the first day by the apostles.

Not only is there this divergence of opinion respecting its obligation, but also its observance. Zwingle, one of the greatest of reformers, declared that it was lawful on the Lord's Day, [Sunday] after divine service, for any man to pursue his labors. Beza taught that no cessation of work on the Lord's Day is required of Christians. Bucer, still more radical, says it is not only to be called “a superstition, but an apostasy from Christ, to think that working on the Lord's Day, in itself considered, is a sinful thing.” Others, who maintain with these reformers that there is no religious obligation to keep the day, yet plead for a far different mode of its observance. The profound and revered Dr. Arnold of Rugby, in a letter to Justice Coleridge, said: “Although I think that the whole law is done away with, so far as it is the law given at Mount Sinai, I hold it to be all binding; and, believing that our need of a Lord's Day is as great as ever it was, and that, therefore, its observance is God's will, and is

likely, so far as we see, to be so to the end of time, I should think it most mischievous to weaken the respect paid to it.”

WHAT DR. FALLOWS HIMSELF THINKS.

My own view is, as I have before stated, that the Sabbath was instituted at the creation of man; that it was re-announced at the giving of the law.

It seems to me, upon a careful perusal of God's word, that this is the correct view. “God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work, which God created and made.” Gen. 2:2, 3. I know that many very able divines would make this language anticipatory of the giving of the law, so that it is to be understood as if Moses had said, “God rested on the seventh day, which He has since blessed and sanctified.”

I cannot take the language to be thus anticipative, because I believe that in the very nature or constitution of man the necessity for the Sabbath is written, and that the Creator made the outward law because he had already stamped in man's being the inward law.

Second—There appears to be a recognition of a division of time into weeks by Noah. He was commanded to enter into the ark seven days before the flood came (Gen. 7:4, 10); seven days elapsed between the times of sending forth the dove (Gen. 8:10, 12); Jacob fulfilled a week for Rachael (Gen. 29:25); and Joseph made a mourning for his father seven days (Gen. 1:10).

Third—The Sabbath is mentioned in Exodus 16:25–30, on the occasion of the giving of the manna in the wilderness, prior to the giving of the law of Sinai. Everything connected with that occurrence points, I think, to an acknowledged, though perhaps neglected, observance of the Sabbath.

Fourth—It is a well-known fact that nearly all the nations of antiquity observed a division of time by weeks. Among these we may mention the Phoenicians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Slavonians, Chinese and Mexicans. It is next to impossible to suppose that they derived the idea from the Jews. While preparing this sermon, I came across an item in one of our leading periodicals for March, to the effect that an Oriental scholar, in deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions of the ancient Chaldeans, had found unequivocal reference to the hebdomadal division of time, and also the word Sabbath, which means in that language, “the rest of the heart.” He thinks the Jews may have derived the Sabbath from the Chaldeans. To me it is important cumulative testimony to the primeval, universal Sabbath given at the creation.