p. 85 | WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION IS THIS?

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 7, 1876

WHOSE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION IS THIS?

By Dudley Marvin Canright

When Christ was asked whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Cæsar or not, he required his questioners to show him a piece of tribute money, and they did. Looking at it he said, Whose image and superscription is this that I see upon the money? They said it was Cæsar’s image. He said, Then give to Cæsar what belongs to him. So when we come to examine the Sunday Sabbath we readily see that it bears the image and superscription of Rome, the old mother of harlots. It was coined in her mint and unmistakably bears her mark.

About the first thing that the school boy learns is the time table, telling him how many days there are in a year, how many months, how many weeks, how many days in the week, how many hours in the day, &c.; and that the day begins at midnight, and that this mode of reckoning is Roman time, i. e., it originated with the Romans and we have adopted it. He is told that the other nations reckon their time in a different manner, that in the Bible the day is reckoned, not from midnight to midnight, but from evening to evening, or from sunset till sunset. See Gen. 1; Lev. 23: 32; Mark 1: 32, and numerous authorities. That was God’s way of reckoning time. Now how is Sunday reckoned, Bible time, or Roman time? It is reckoned by Roman time of course, as we all well know, viz., from midnight to midnight. We ask then, Where did this mode of reckoning come from? Every body must agree in the answer, It came from Rome: it is wholly a Roman day. Thus we readily see that the Sunday Sabbath was coined in the old Roman mint. It bears the image and superscription of Rome. It carries the mark of the old mother of harlots upon its face. If it had come from God and the Bible it would have commenced at sundown, and not at midnight.

Again, if in the Bible God did set apart the first day of the week as the holy Sabbath day, then Sunday-keepers are all guilty of breaking it, because the Bible time, God’s time, commences at sunset, and the first day of the week would commence when the sun goes down Saturday night. But Sunday-keepers work several hours after sunset Saturday night, and thus break the very day they pretend to keep. Then they keep a part of Sunday night which is a part of the second day of the week. Thus they keep a part of two days, but actually work on every day in the week, and so really keep no day.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Rome, N. Y.