THE PROTEST WEAKENING

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 5, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 39.

THE PROTEST WEAKENING.

A FEW years ago, when Protestants were told that the Sunday institution was a creature of the Papacy, that the Roman dignitaries held it up as a mark of papal authority to change even the law of God, they would at least pause and reflect. Some would decide that, if such were the case, they would no longer observe the first day of the week, but would accept the Sabbath which the Lord blessed and sanctified

in the beginning. Now, however, this distrust of things Roman is passing away. The Sunday imitation of God’s memorial day has become so entrenched in the professed Protestant mind that Rome is even accredited with doing a pretty good thing in maintaining the substitute “sabbath” with so much tenacity. The so-called Protestant churches are no longer the outspoken antagonists of Romanism that they used to be. They no longer stand upon the high pedestal of hostility to a religion of works, a position that once gave them prestige and power as the champions of justification by faith in the plain Word of God. They are now reaching across the ever-narrowing chasm to clasp the hand of their old-time enemy, and according her a place of recognition as at least a “branch” of the church of Christ. But in recognizing this Sunday “mark” or badge of Roman authority to change the law of God, Protestants are paving the way for eventually conceding all that Rome claims, namely, that she is the church”—the whole church, the only church, of Christ on earth. The attempt to change the Sabbath, and the recognition of the attempt by professed Protestants, tells the whole story of Roman assumption and Protestant surrender. And the prophecy of Rev. 13:1-14 is being fulfilled in a remarkable manner. There is a decided weakening of the Protestant protest.