p. 240 | Let Us Have Proof by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 15, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 15.

Let Us Have Proof.

By Editor

THE Baptist Flag is considerably stirred up because we said that Sunday-keeping, like sprinkling and infant "baptism," is a legacy which the Protestant churches have received from the Catholic church, and that the Baptists are therefore only half way out. It says:—

"We are surprised that the SIGNS OF THE TIMES is so badly posted as to affirm that the keeping of Sunday was received from the Romish Church! The keeping of the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath was established by the example of Christ and his apostles, and observed by the apostolic churches—the churches of Christ—hundreds of years before the Roman Catholic church existed."

Now we would like to have the Flag give us the Scripture proof that Jesus ever kept a single first day of the week, or that he ever commanded anybody else to do so. Moreover, we would like to see proof that any one of the apostles ever kept the first day of the week. Surely if Christ and his apostles by their example established the keeping of the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath, there must be numerous instances of such practice on their part, and the Flag will doubtless kindly favor us with two or three instances, in support of its assertion. We affirm, what every Bible student knows, that Sunday observance among Christians dates from a time a long way this side of the days of Christ and his apostles. When the Flag refers us to a single recorded instance of Christ's keeping Sunday, or a single "Thus saith the Lord" for Sunday observance, we will subscribe for a hundred copies of it with which to do missionary work. Let us have facts, not fancies; Scripture statements, and not inferences and conjectures.