CONCERNING THE CHANGE OF THE SABBATH TO SUNDAY
By M. E. Cornell
Testimony of Eminent Authors.—No. 5.
CONCERNING THE CHANGE OF THE SABBATH TO SUNDAY.
Many suppose that if there is no Scripture proof for the change of the Sabbath, there is, at least, some good, reliable history in favor of the change, showing that it was effected as early as the second or third century, and giving an opinion that it was done by the apostles. But when we carefully examine all the evidence, we find that the proof against Sunday-keeping and in favor of the ancient Sabbath, is overwhelming. It appears that the substitution of the Sunday in the place of the ancient Sabbath was at first a matter of mere human policy, to please the pagans, by imitating them in the observance of their chief day dedicated by them to the god of day. Dr. Priestley well observes: “The primitive Christians had no festivals besides Sunday on which they always met for public worship, as may be inferred from Justin Martyr. This day Constantine ordered to be observed as a day of rest from labor; but husbandmen were allowed to cultivate the earth on that day. By degrees, however, in imitation of the Jews or heathens, but chiefly the latter, Christians came to have as many annual festivals as the heathen themselves.”—Corruptions of Christianity, p. 131. Dr. Cox, in his Literature, &c., says: “All who claim any knowledge of the works of the fathers say that these ancient writers usually, if not invariably, speak of the Lord’s day [Sunday] as an independent institution, of which neither the fourth commandment, nor a primeval Sabbath, is once referred to as the foundation.”—Cox’s Lit., p. 12. See also Heylin, part ii, chap. ii; Taylor’s Life of Jesus, part ii, sec. xii, dis. x, § 24; Baxter’s Practical Works, xiii, 386; Cook, ii, 291–303; Holden, p. 334; Bannesman, 130; Neale, 90, 237; Domville, i, 291–9; Bunsen, Hippolytus, iii, 76. Did the fathers ascribe the observance of Sunday to the injunctions or example of Jesus or his apostles? “In regard to the fathers who wrote before the reign of Constantine, and whose opinions are alone of importance, Domville, after elaborate inquiry, answers this question in the negative, nor can he discover that any of them has appealed to the Christian Scriptures in proof of a Christian Sabbath. Equally unable is Mr. Baden Powell to find that these writers, in any instance, pretend to allege any divine command, or even apostolic practice in support of its observance.”—Kitto Cyc. Bib. Lit., ii, 270; Cox, p. 125. Of Luther, Calvin, and others, Dr. Cox says: “They failed to see in the New Testament any of those indications which the puritans were the first to discover, of a transference of the Sabbath to the first day of the week, by Jesus or the apostles.” Cox, vol. i, p. 127. In a note in vol. i, p. 257, Cox says: “The early fathers give no support, direct or indirect, to the notion that the Sabbath had been transferred at all; but it is not surprising that those who wrote after the enactment by Constantine that Sunday should be kept as a Sabbath, were more apt to discover reasons for such observance of it.” Of the change of the Sabbath, John Milton says: “The reason for which the command itself was originally given, namely, as a memorial of God’s having rested from the creation of the world, cannot be transferred from the seventh day to the first; nor can any new motive be substituted in its place, whether the resurrection of our Lord or any other, without the sanction of a divine commandment.” “If we under the gospel are to regulate the time of our public worship by the prescriptions of the decalogue, it will surely be far safer to observe the seventh day according to the express commandment of God than on the authority of mere human conjecture to adopt the first.”—St. John’s ed., B. iv. The National Cyclopedia has the following: “It has been held by many eminent divines, that there is not sufficient evidence in the New Testament for such an institution; that the change of day from the seventh to the first day of the week is an insuperable difficulty.”—Nat. Cyc., Art. Sabbath. On keeping Sunday, Taylor remarks: “The historic reason for believing that they did so is drawn partly from the two or three allusions to it in the New Testament; and partly, we might say chiefly, from the incidental and the explicit mention of the practice by the early Christian writers, as well as by Pliny, Plutarch, and others. “If we imagine ourselves entirely deprived of this latter portion of the evidence on this point, it must be admitted that the argument in support of an institution so vitally connected as it is found to be with the very existence of religion in the world, would be reduced to a slender and precarious inference, or argument from analogy. Here, then, we are absolutely compelled, and those especially who are rigid more than others in their regard to the Lord’s day are compelled to resort to the aid of ancient usage, as recorded, not by inspired, but by uninspired, writers.”—An. Christianity, p. 51. Gregory says: “Constantine commanded the first day of the week to be celebrated with peculiar solemnity: and, in time, this practice extended over the whole Christian world.”—Hist. Church, p. 190. Dr. Peter Heylin, on the festivals, Sunday, and saint’s days, inquires: “Indeed, why should not both be observed alike, the saints’ days being dedicated unto God as the Lord’s day is, and standing both of them on the same authority,” &c. “The choosing of the times was left to the church’s power, and she designed the saints’ days as she did the Lord’s; both his, and both allotted to his service only. This made St. Bernard ground them all, the Lord’s day and the other holy days, on the fourth commandment.”—Hist., p. 457. Alexander Campbell, on the change of the Sabbath, says: “But some say it was changed from the seventh to the first day. Where? when? and by whom? No man can tell. No; it never was changed, nor could it be, unless creation was to be gone through again; for the reason assigned must be changed before the observance or respect to the reason can be changed! It is old wives’ fables to talk of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august personage changed it who changes times and laws ex officio. I think his name is Dr. Antichrist.”—Christian Bap., vol. i, p. 44.