Sabbath Observance Has Been Continuous
By G.
Sabbath Observance Has Been Continuous.
ALTHOUGH the observance of the Sabbath of the Lord began to wane after the time of the apostles, there were always those who adhered to the Word of the Lord, that "one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." Nor did they deem the law ended because Christ Himself fulfilled it in His life. He did not fulfil it for the purpose of putting an end to it, but to "magnify" it and "make it honorable." In this was manifested His righteousness. Isa. 42:21. True disciples of that time understood that God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, to condemn sin in the flesh, "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:3,4. Authors of note, who themselves held to the observance of the first day, leave records in evidence that the Sabbath—which the Lord blessed and sanctified in the beginning, and of which He declared Himself to be the Lord when on earth—has not been left without witness in the church of Christ. Morer, one of the authors referred to, says: "The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and sermons. And it is not to be doubted that they derived their practise from the apostles themselves, as appears by several scriptures to that purpose." Also Lyman Coleman testifies that during the early ages of the church the first day of the week was not entitled Sabbath, "this word being confined to the seventh day of the week, which continued to be observed for several centuries by the converts to Christianity." Also Cox's work, "Sabbath Laws and Sabbath Duties," tells of the "ancient Sabbatarians, a body it is well known of very considerable importance in respect both to numbers and influence, during the greater part of the third and the early part of the next century." Another evidence that the true Sabbath had its adherents during the early centuries is found in the opposition they met by those who upheld the observance of the first-day holiday. For instance Justin Martyr, who was opposed to any set Sabbatical institution, charged the Sabbath-keeping Christians with "weak-mindedness," and he, as all their opponents, charged them with adhering to the institutions of Moses. That Sabbath-keepers must have been a considerable force in the church in the fourth century, is shown by the desperate efforts of the Catholic power to put them down. The Sunday law of Constantine in 321 gave a marked impetus to the growing popularity of that "venerable day of the sun" in the church, but the Council of Laodicea, in 364, found it necessary to go much farther than the emperor's decree in order to firmly establish the solar holiday in the church. So it was decreed that members of the church should not rest from work on the Sabbath like the Jews, but should labor on that day. And to this was added the penalty of anathema, or excommunication. Nor was this all. It was further declared by Eusebius that "all things whatsoever that it was the duty to do on the Sabbath, these we [Eusebius, Constantine, et al.] have transferred to the Lord's day [Sunday], as more appropriately belonging to it, because it has a precedence and it is first in rank, and more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath." But as proof that even this did not put down Sabbath-keeping, we find the Emperor Leo, more than a hundred years later, making more stringent Sunday laws, including the country people (who had been exempted by Constantine), and adding severer penalties. This was in the latter half of the fifth century, when both the historians, Socrates and Sozomen, mention the extensive observance of the Sabbath by Christians, especially in Constantinople and in the Egyptian cities. There is good evidence that the chain never has been broken in Abyssinia. By the close of the fifth century, however, Sabbath observance had been pretty well stamped out of what was known as the Catholic Church, whose greatest strength was in the West. But the Lord can preserve His Word and his institutions, as also a people, when human judgment would deem all destroyed. This was demonstrated in Elijah's day. 1 Kings 19:13-18. So a distinguished English clergyman named Buchanan gives us another connecting link with the fifth century. Having spent some time in the British Empire of India, he is a competent witness, and testifies in part as follows:— The Bible was translated into the Armenian language in the fifth century, under very auspicious circumstances, the history of which has come down to us. It has been allowed by competent judges of the language to be a most faithful translation. La Cruze calls it the "queen of versions." This Bible has ever remained in the possession of the Armenian people. . . . The Armenians in Hinduism are our own subjects. They acknowledge our government in India, as they do that of Sophi in Persia; and they are entitled to our regard. . . . They maintain the solemn observance of Christian worship throughout our empire on the seventh day. In the latter part of the eleventh century Pope Gregory VII felt constrained to issue an edict of anathema against those who kept the Sabbath. So prominent was this question at that time, that Gregory's legates who were sent to Constantinople to endeavor to re-unite the Greek and Latin Churches, found it necessary to discuss, among other points, the Sabbath question. A traveling writer named Purchas, of the seventeenth century, also mentions several sects among Eastern Christians as "continuing from ancient times," and states that "they keep Saturday holy." He also says that they did not esteem it lawful to fast on Saturday, as had been commanded by the papacy, in order to make the day as noxious as possible as compared with the Sunday holiday. Thus the records show a continuous line of Sabbath-keeping Christians, even through the most perilous ages; and this, too, in face of the fact that the papacy, the dominant power for thirteen centuries, made continual effort to squelch Sabbath-keeping and to erase the record of it, as far as possible. Persistent effort was made to destroy even the Word of God, in order that the people would be kept in ignorance of everything that did not have the sanction of the Roman Church. Dissenters from papal dogma were not allowed to publish anything, and of course accounts of them were, in the main, distorted; yet when they are accused of maintaining only the Scriptures as a ground of faith, and of rejecting the papal traditions, we can safely believe the charges, for that was the ground of the long persecution. So there are various allusions to sects of the Waldenses as being observers of the seventh-day Sabbath. Such mention is made by Mosheim, D'Aubigne, Benedict, Dr. Allix, a Catholic, Dr. Francis White, of the Church of England, and others of note. The lifting of the cloud of oppression by the influence of the Reformation brought to light a large number of Christians of various names who were keeping the Sabbath of the Lord. And, continuing the practise already shown to have been in vogue in Asia, Africa, and Europe, we have the more modern sect known as the Seventh-day Baptists, whose history is not less than two hundred and fifty years old. They sent a missionary (Stephen Mumford) to7America in 1664; and Elder William Gibson came over from England in 1675. For the past fifty years the Seventh-day Adventists have given a new impetus to the Sabbath reform of the last days, a work designed to "prepare the way of the Lord, and make His paths straight." The judgment message is going forth to the world, and those to whom it has been especially entrusted, because they have heeded the call, have encircled the world with their missionary stations. They proclaim the duty of loyalty to the commandments of God in connection with the good news of the near coming of the Lord. The Scriptures emphatically couple the law of God and the final judgment of the world. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Eccl. 12:13,14. This shows conclusively that every work, with every secret thing, is being compared in the court of heaven by the standard of the commandments of God—the same commandments that our Saviour made the rule of His life during His sojourn on earth as our infallible example. G.