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SUNDAY-KEEPING

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Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 13, 1859

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 13, No. 8.

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SUNDAY-KEEPING.

By Editor

A RARE bit of testimony in favor of the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath, has lately fallen under our observation. If it be proper to dedicate an extract, we would respectfully dedicate it to all Sunday-keepers. If any have doubts of its authenticity, we will warrant them that it is as good as the Epistle of Barnabas and much more explicit. Unfortunately for them, the passage was omitted by the Council of Nice A. D. 325. It finds its appropriate connection in the last chapter of Luke, immediately after the 29th verse, as follows:
"Verse 30. And when they were entered into the house, Jesus continued talking and expounding the Scriptures unto them.
"31. And before the lights were brought, for it was not yet dark, he said unto them, Wist ye not that it behooved Christ to rise again from the dead on the third day?
"32. And behold this day hath been the first day of the week: henceforth therefore it shall be a Sabbath unto you; for the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day.
"33. Therefore ye shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath, throughout your generations. It shall be a sign unto you forever.
"34. From the second day of the week, even unto the end of the seventh day, may ye labor, and do all your work: but the first day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God; for it is written, He rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made; wherefore the Lord hath blessed the first day and hath hallowed it.
"35. Behold now ye have walked hither from Jerusalem these threescore furlongs. This ought ye not to have done.
"36. But I wot that through ignorance ye did it, not having understanding to discern the day which the Lord hath made: go henceforth, and sin no more.
"37. Verily I say unto you, on the first day of the week, hereafter ye shall not do any work. Tarry here, therefore, and rest until the day be fully past, and then go straightway and tell the disciples what ye have heard, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever ye have been commanded.
"38. And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking, the two disciples marvelled greatly within themselves if this were indeed Jesus who was risen from the dead; for he spoke as one having authority: howbeit they knew not his voice.
"39. Then the disciple whose name was Cleopas answered and said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no parable; now we understand that of a surety the first day of the week is the holy Sabbath of rest."
There! what can be plainer than that! If there only was such testimony as this, with a claim to inspired authority well established, the Sunday Sabbath would no doubt be placed above board. But mark! it will take testimony just as explicit as this to show a change in the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, and which must show a much better title to inspiration. The need of some testimony of this kind in support of the darling offspring of tradition was doubtless felt in the early years of the Christian dispensation, as well as at the present day. But why should it be without such testimony in an age when pious frauds were considered a virtue, and when grievous wolves, ecclesiastical corruption, and holy(?) Fathers, lost their identity in each other? It need not. We may therefore reasonably suppose that some one, bolder than his brethren in the practice of pious impositions, conceived the idea of filling the vacancy with such testimony as the case might require, and bequeathing it to posterity as a divine legacy of inspiration. The providence of God, however little else it may have had to do with the Nicene council doubtless influenced its deliberations to preserve the Bible from this spurious reading. But the days of pious frauds are past, and therefore the Sunday institution, driven from its natural covert, has naught to hide its nudity from the peering eyes of the profane world. It has been unclothed from the robe of sanctity which antiquity has endeavored to throw around it; but haplessly for its friends and adherents, it has not yet been clothed upon with any more sacred or divine mantle.