A Word to Protestants

S. D. A. Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 7, 1882

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 8, No. 34; Special Edition, No. 1

A Word to Protestants.

With all Protestants we rejoice in the grand Reformation so auspiciously begun in the 16th century. “Justification by faith” as a ground of acceptance with God, and “the Bible and the Bible alone as a rule of faith and practice,” were truths which constituted a most precious boon to Christendom groping its way amid the darkness and errors of papal superstition.

But it would be a marvel of marvels if in any such movement all truth was discovered at once. It ought not to surprise us, nay, should we not consider it absolutely certain? that some truths would be left to be brought out by the research of subsequent generations, and that that they would from time to time discover relics of superstition not yet discarded, and new steps to be taken in the same work of reform.

Truth is progressive. Said the devoted Robinson to the pilgrim fathers as they were about to embark from Leyden, in 1620: “I am verily persuaded, I am very confident, that the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word.” And of the incompleteness of the work of the Reformation yet discernible among Protestant sects, A. Campbell, in his work on Baptism, p. 15, says:—

“All of them retain in their bosom, in their ecclesiastical organizations, worship, doctrines, and observances, various relics of popery. They are at best a reformation of popery, and only reformations in part. The doctrines and traditions of men yet impair the power and progress of the gospel in their hands.”

No consistent Protestant, certainly, can wish to retain any doctrine or institution of that great anti-Christian system against which the noble men of the 16th century “protested,” and so gave birth to that division of Christendom to which he considers it an honor to belong. And every sincere Protestant will be glad to learn if there still are features of his faith or practice which had their origin in the great Romish apostasy, that he may renounce and discard them.

There is one institution warmly cherished in all the Protestant world, of the origin of which the mass of religionists are very little aware—an institution of the papacy, which has been foisted into the creeds of almost all Protestant denominations, and retained under the mistaken idea that it is sanctioned in the Scriptures. We refer to the observance of the first day of the week as the weekly Sabbath. Till this is discarded and the church returns to the observance of the seventh day, the Sabbath of the Bible, the rest-day of the decalogue, the Reformation will not be complete. Multitudes are not aware that Sunday-keeping is a papal ordinance. With many a knowledge of this fact has been sufficient to lead them to turn from it, as promptly as they would from the worship of images, or the offering of masses for souls in purgatory. It is not the object of this article to give the evidence that the Sunday Sabbath is of papal origin. We here simply call the attention of Protestants to the fact that it is so. And it is a fact which all Protestants ought to know. If they wish to cherish an institution of the papacy, let them do so understandingly. Abundant evidence on this point will be given in these columns hereafter. It is a truth which must, and will, be loudly heralded through all Christendom.