p. 5 | What Shall We Do with the Fourth Commandment?

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 19, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 12.

What Shall We Do with the Fourth Commandment?

By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle

V—The Change of the Sabbath

FOLLOWING the article of last week, the question comes, Who, then, dared presume to make the change of the Sabbath, or attempt to make it—for the Sabbath never has been and never can be changed in reality? Who? I repeat with emphasis, The Church of Rome.

Methinks I see a shudder of apprehension and dread pass over many honest souls who help to fill the Protestant churches of the land—those churches that have declined to swear allegiance to the apostate power, and who are supposed to take the Bible and the Bible alone as their guide.

Church of Rome! At mere mention of that name the heart grows sick as memory turns the page of history, where are recounted by the faithful historian the awful deeds committed by the fourth beast of the wonderful vision of Daniel 7,—aptly called the "nondescript."

Read the prophet's words; they are wonderful: "And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time."

The Church of Rome answers every specification of the prophecy. What power has so worn out the saints of the Lord? Let the blood of a million martyrs make answer. Persecuted, hunted, and hated; driven from cave to den and from forest to mountain; brought before magistrates and inquisitors; banished to dreary cells and tortured in the dark chambers of the bloody Inquisition, until the long period specified by the prophecy had run its dreary length, the church of the Most High tasted the cup of misery pressed to her trembling lips by the Church of Rome.

But not only shall the saints be given into his hand, but he shall "think to change times and laws." Again the specifications of the prophecy are perfectly met. Have "the times" been changed?—Virtually the whole civilized world follows the "Roman time" in reckoning the day from midnight to midnight, instead of "the evening and the morning" of creation—or from sunset to sunset.

Has God's holy law been changed?—Yes; this "horn" having "eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things," has thought "to change the times and the law" of the Eternal. The fourth command has been the especial target of the enemy, because it contains the SEAL of the living God—the mark of His authority as Creator of all things.

Does the Church of Rome acknowledge these facts?—She glories in them. She boasts of her authority, and tauntingly laughs at the whole Protestant world for bowing to her mandates.

I quote from "The Catholic Christian Instructed," pages 252, 253:

Question: What warrant have you for keeping the Sunday preferable to the ancient Sabbath, which was Saturday? Answer: We have for it the authority of the Catholic Church and apostolic tradition. Question: Does the Scripture anywhere command the Sunday to be kept for the Sabbath? Answer: . . . The Scripture does not in particular mention this change of the Sabbath; . . . and therefore those who pretend to be so religious observers of the Sunday, whilst they take no notice of other festivals ordained by the same church authority, show that they act by humor and not by reason and religion; since Sunday and holidays all stand upon the same foundation; viz., the ordinance of the church.

What plainer testimony could be brought? And there are numerous other undisputed Catholic authorities that claim the Church of Rome has changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. The prophecy calls for a power that would attempt to change the law of God, and the Papacy claims she has done it. Can any rational man doubt the evidence?

What other power has ever so "stood up against the Prince of Princes" as to defy His power even to the extent of changing His law?

What power alone has the right to change the laws of man?—Evidently the same power that made them. But if the law of the land is changed by any other power save the power which made that law, what is proved thereby?—That the power which was able to change it is greater than the power which made it. And therefore, if the Church of Rome presumes to alter the law of God, what does she assume by that act?—She seeks to exalt her power and her claims above the throne of the Eternal!

In view of these facts, what are we to do? What are you going to do in future, reader? Can you longer plead ignorance of the facts in the case? Can you truthfully declare that you knew them not? Can you stand, in the fast hastening judgment-day, by the side of that holy law by which we are to be judged, and plead "not guilty," if you go recklessly on, week after week, defying the law of the Almighty, and bowing the knee to the mandates of Rome?

"To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey."