p. 299 | A CUTTING REPROOF

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 10, 1878

A CUTTING REPROOF

stand me if you supposed I was quarreling with you for acting in this manner on a true and right principle—in other words, a Catholic principle, viz., the acceptance, without hesitation, of that which has been handed down to you by an unbroken tradition. I would not tear from you a single one of those shreds and fragments of divine truth which you have retained. God forbid! They are the most precious things you possess, and by God's blessing may serve as clues to bring you out of that labyrinth of error in which you find yourself involved, far more by the fault of your forefathers, three centuries ago, than by your own. What I do quarrel with you for is, not your inconsistency in occasionally acting on a true principle, but your adoption, as a general rule, of a false one. You keep the Sunday, and not the Saturday; and you do so rightly, for this was the practice of all Christians when Protestantism began; but you have abandoned other Catholic observances, which were equally universal at that day, preferring the novelties introduced by the men who invented Protestantism to the unvarying tradition of above fifteen hundred years.

“We blame you, not for making Sunday your weekly holiday, instead of Saturday, but for rejecting tradition, which is the only safe and clear rule by which this observance can be justified. In outward act, we do the same as yourselves in this matter; we, too, no longer observe the ancient Sabbath, but Sunday in its stead; but then there is this important difference between us, that we do not pretend, as you do, to derive our authority for so doing from a book; but we derive it from a living teacher, and that teacher is the church. Moreover, we believe that not everything which God would have us to know and do is written in the Bible, but there is an unwritten word of God, which we are bound to believe and obey, just as we believe and obey the Bible itself, according to that saying of the apostle, 'Stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle.' 2 Thess. 2:14. [Douay Bible.]

“We Catholics, then, have precisely the same authority for keeping Sunday holy, instead of Saturday, as we have for every other article of our creed, namely the authority of 'the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth;' 1 Tim. 3:15; whereas, you who are Protestants have really no authority for it whatever; for there is no authority for it in the Bible, and you will not allow there can be authority for it anywhere else. Both you and we do, in fact, follow tradition in this matter; but we follow it, believing it to be a part of God's word, and the church to be its divinely appointed guardian, and interpreter; you follow it, denouncing it all the time as a fallible and treacherous guide, which often 'makes the commandment of God of none effect.'”

A CUTTING REPROOF

In another Catholic work, called a “Treatise of Thirty Controversies,” we find the following cutting reproof:—

“The word of God commandeth the seventh day to be the Sabbath of our Lord, and to be kept holy; you [Protestants] without any precept of Scripture, change it to the first day of the week, only authorized by our traditions. Divers English Puritans oppose, against this point, that the observation of the first day is proved out of Scripture, where it is said, the first day of the week. Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10. Have they not spun a fair thread in quoting these places? If we should produce no better for purgatory, prayers for the dead, invocation of the saints, and the like, they might have good cause indeed to laugh us to scorn; for where is it written that these were Sabbath days in which those meetings were kept? Or where is it ordained that they should be always observed? Or, which is the sum of all, where is it decreed that the observation of the first day should abrogate or abolish the sanctifying of the seventh day, which God commanded everlastingly to be kept holy? Not one of those is expressed in the written word of God.”

And finally, W. Lockhart, B. A., of Oxford, in the Toronto (Cath.) Mirror, offered the following “challenge” to all the Protestants of Ireland; a challenge as well calculated for this latitude as that. He says:—

“I do, therefore, solemnly challenge the Protestants of Ireland to prove, by plain texts of Scripture, the questions concerning the obligation of the Christian Sabbath. 1. That Christians may work on Saturday, the old seventh day. 2. That they are bound to keep holy the first day, namely, Sunday. 3. That they are not bound to keep holy the seventh day also.”

This is what the papal power claims to have done respecting the fourth commandment. Catholics plainly acknowledge that there is no scriptural authority for the change they have made, but that it rests wholly upon the authority of the church; and they claim it as a token, or mark, of the authority of that church; the “very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday” being set forth as proof of its power in this respect.

That many should suppose that Christ wrought this change is not strange; for they have been so taught. But this misapprehension should no longer exist; for, according to the prophecy, the only change ever to be made in the law of God was to be made by the little horn of Daniel 7, and the man of sin of 2 Thess. 2; and the only change that has been made in it is the change of the Sabbath. Now, if Christ made this change, he filled the office of the blasphemous power spoken of by both Daniel and Paul—a conclusion sufficiently hideous to drive any Christian from the view which leads thereto.

But why should any one labor to prove that Christ changed the Sabbath? Whoever does this is performing a thankless task. The pope will not thank him; for, if it is proved that Christ wrought this change, then the pope is robbed of his badge of authority and power. And no truly enlightened Protestant will thank him; for, if he succeeds, he only shows that the papacy has not done the work which it was predicted that it should do