[From pages 8 and 9 of the Catholic
Mirror of Sept. 23, 1893]
THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH
THE GENUINE OFFSPRING OF THE UNION
OF THE HOLY GHOST AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HIS SPOUSE. THE CLAIMS OF
PROTESTANTISM TO ANY PART THEREIN PROVED TO BE GROUNDLESS,
SELF-CONTRADICTORY, AND SUICIDAL
"Halting on crutches of unequal size,
One leg by truth supported, one by lies,
Thus sidle to the goal with awkward pace,
Secure of nothing but to lose the race."
In the present article we propose
to investigate carefully a new (and the last) class of proof assumed to
convince the Biblical Christian that God had substituted Sunday for
Saturday for His worship in the new law, and that the divine will is to
be found recorded by the Holy Ghost in apostolic writings.
We are informed that this radical change has found
expression, over and over again, in a series of texts in which the
expression, "the day of the Lord," or "the Lord's day," is to be found.
The class of texts in the New Testament, under the title
"Sabbath," numbering 61 in the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles; and the
second class, in which "the first day of the week," or Sunday, having
been critically examined (the latter class numbering nine [eight]); and
having been found not to afford the slightest clue to a change of will
on the part of God as to His day of worship by man, we now proceed to
examine the third and last class of texts relied on to save the
Biblical system from the arraignment of seeking to palm off on the
world, in the name of God, a decree for which there is not the
slightest warrant or authority from their teacher, the Bible.
The first text of this class is
to be found in the Acts of the Apostles, 2d chapter, 20th verse: "The
sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that
great and notable day of the Lord shall come." How many Sundays have
rolled by since that prophecy was spoken? So much for that effort to
pervert the meaning of the sacred text from the judgment day to Sunday!
The second text of this class is to be
found in 1st Epistle Cor., 1st chapter 8th verse: "Who shall also
confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless in the day of
our Lord Jesus Christ." What simpleton does not see that the
apostle here plainly indicates the day of judgment? The
next text of this class that presents itself is to be found in the same
Epistle, 5th chapter 5th verse: "To deliver such a one to Satan for the
destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day
of the Lord Jesus." The incestuous Corinthian was, of course,
saved on the Sunday next following!! How pitiable such a
makeshift as this! The fourth text, 2d Cor.,
1st chapter, 13th and 14th verse: "And I trust ye shall acknowledge
even to the end, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord
Jesus." Sunday or the day of judgment, which? The fifth text is from St. Paul to the
Philippians, 1st chapter, 6th verse: "Being confident of this very
thing, that He who hath begun a good work in you, will perfect it until
the day of Jesus Christ." The good people of Philippi, in
attaining perfection on the following Sunday, could afford to
laugh at our modern rapid transit!
We beg to submit our sixth of the
class; viz., Philippians, first chapter, tenth verse: "That he may be
sincere without offense unto the day of Christ." That day was
next Sunday, forsooth! no so long to wait after all, The seventh text, 2 Ep. Peter, third chapter,
tenth verse. "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief
in the night." The application of this text to Sunday passes the bounds
of absurdity. The eighth text, 2 Ep. Peter,
third chapter, twelfth verse: "Waiting for and hastening unto the
coming of the day of the Lord, by which the heavens being on fire,
shall be dissolved," etc. This day of the Lord is the same referred to
in the previous text, the application of both of which to Sunday
next would have left the Christian world sleepless the next
Saturday night. We have presented to our readers eight of the nine
texts relied on to bolster up by text of Scripture the sacrilegious
effort to palm off the "Lord's day" for Sunday, and with what result?
Each furnishes prima facie evidence of the last day,
referring to it directly, absolutely, and unequivocally.
The ninth text wherein we meet
the expression "the Lord's day," is the last to be found in the
apostolic writings. The Apocalypse, or Revelation, first chapter, tenth
verse, furnishes it in the following words of John: "I was in the
Spirit on the Lord's day;" but it will afford no more comfort to our
Biblical friends than its predecessors of the same series. Has St. John
used the expression previously in his Gospel or Epistles? —
Emphatically, NO. Has he had occasion to refer to Sunday hitherto?
—Yes, twice. How did he designate Sunday on these occasions? Easter
Sunday was called by him (John 20:1) "the first day of the week." Again,
chapter twenty, nineteenth verse: "Now when it was late that same day, being
the first day of the week." Evidently, although inspired, both in
his Gospel and Epistles, he called Sunday "the first day of the week."
On what grounds, then, can it be assumed that he dropped that
designation? Was he more inspired when he wrote the
Apocalypse, or did he adopt a new title for Sunday, because it was now
in vogue? A reply to these questions would be supererogatory especially
to the latter, seeing that the same expression had been used eight
times already by St. Luke, St. Paul and St. Peter, all under
divine inspiration, and surely the Holy Spirit would not inspire
St. John to call Sunday the Lord's day, whilst He inspired Sts. Luke,
Paul, and Peter, collectively, to entitle the day of judgment "the
Lord's day." Dialecticians reckon amongst the infallible motives of
certitude, the moral motive of analogy or induction, by which we are
enabled to conclude with certainty from the known to the unknown; being
absolutely certain of the meaning of an expression can have only the
same meaning when uttered the ninth time, especially when we know that
on the nine occasions the expressions were inspired by the Holy
Spirit.
Nor are the strongest intrinsic grounds wanting to
prove that this, like its sister texts, contains the same meaning. St.
John (Apoc. first chapter, tenth verse) says "I was in the Spirit on
the Lord's day; "but he furnishes us the key to this expression,
chapter four, first and second verses: "After this I looked and behold
a door opened in heaven." A voice said to him: "Come up hither, and I
will show you the things which must be hereafter." Let us
ascend in spirit with John. Whither? — through that "door in heaven,"
to heaven. And what shall we see? — "The things that must be
hereafter," chapter four, first verse. He ascended in spirit to heaven.
He was ordered to write, in full, his vision of what is to take place
antecedent to, and concomitantly with, "the Lord's day," or the day of
judgment; the expression "Lord's day" being confined in Scripture to
the day of judgment exclusively.
We have studiously and accurately collected from the New
Testament every available proof that could be adduced in favor of a law
canceling the Sabbath day of the old law, or one substituting another
day for the Christian dispensation. We have been careful to make the
above distinction, lest it might be advanced that the 3rd (6) Commandment was abrogated under the New
Law. Any such plea has been overruled by the
action of the Methodist Episcopal bishops in their Pastoral 1874, and
quoted by the New York Herald of the same date, of the
following tenor: "The Sabbath instituted in the beginning and confirmed
again and again by Moses and the prophets, has never been
abrogated. A part of the moral law, not a part or tittle of its
sanctity has been taken away." The above official pronunciamento has
committed that large body of Biblical Christians to the permanence of
the 3rd commandment under the new law. We again beg to leave to call
the special attention of our readers to the twentieth of "the
thirty-nine articles of religion" of the Book of Common Prayer; "It is
not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to God's
written word."
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(6) In the
Catholic enumeration, the Sabbath commandment is the third of the ten
commandments. — ED.
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CONCLUSION.
We have in this series of
articles, taken much pains for the instruction of our readers to
prepare them by presenting a number of undeniable facts found
in the word of God to arrive at a conclusion absolutely irrefragable.
When the Biblical system put in an appearance in the sixteenth century,
it not only seized on the temporal possessions of the Church, but in
its vandalic crusade stripped Christianity, as far as it could, of all
the sacraments instituted by its Founder, of the holy sacrifice, etc.,
etc., retaining nothing but the Bible, which its exponents pronounced their
sole teacher in Christian doctrine and morals. Chief amongst their
articles of belief was, and is today, the permanent necessity of
keeping the Sabbath holy. In fact, it has been for the past 300 years
the only article of the Christian belief in which there has been a
plenary consensus of Biblical representatives. The keeping of the
Sabbath constitutes the sum and substance of the Biblical theory. The
pulpits resound weekly with incessant tirades against the lax manner of
keeping the Sabbath in Catholic countries, as contrasted with the
proper, Christian, self-satisfied mode of keeping the day in Biblical
countries. Who can ever forget the virtuous indignation manifested by
the Biblical preachers throughout the length and breadth of our
country, from every Protestant pulpit, as long as yet undecided; and
who does not know today, that one sect, to mark its holy indignation at
the decision, has never yet opened the boxes that contained its
articles at the World's Fair?
These superlatively good and unctuous Christians, by
conning over their Bible carefully, can find their counterpart in a
certain class of unco-good people in the days of the Redeemer, who
haunted Him night and day, distressed beyond measure, and scandalized
beyond forbearance, because He did not keep the Sabbath in as
straight-laced manner as themselves.
They hated Him for using common sense in reference to the
day, and He found no epithets expressive enough of His supreme contempt
for their Pharisaical pride. And it is very probably that the divine
mind has not modified its views today anent the blatant outcry of their
followers and sympathizers at the close of this nineteenth century. But
when we add to all this the fact that whilst the Pharisees of old kept
the true Sabbath, our modern Pharisees, counting on the
credulity and simplicity of their dupes, have never once in their
lives kept the true Sabbath which their divine Master kept to His
dying day, and which His apostles kept, after His example, for thirty
years afterward, according to the Sacred Record.
This most glaring contradiction, involving a deliberate
sacrilegious rejection of a most positive precept, is presented to us
today in the action of the Biblical Christian world. The Bible and the
Sabbath constitute the watchword of Protestantism; but we have
demonstrated that it is the Bible against their Sabbath. We
have shown that no greater contradiction ever existed than their theory
and practice. We have proved that neither their Biblical ancestors nor
themselves have ever kept one Sabbath day in their lives. The
Israelites and Seventh-day Adventists are witnesses of their weekly
desecration of the day named by God so repeatedly, and whilst they have
ignored and condemned their teacher, the Bible, they have adopted a day
kept by the Catholic Church. What Protestant can, after perusing these
articles, with a clear conscience, continue to disobey the command of
God, enjoining Saturday to be kept, which command his
teacher, the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, records as the will of
God?
The history of the world cannot present a more stupid,
self-stultifying specimen of dereliction of principle than this. The
teacher demands emphatically in every page that the law of the Sabbath
be observed every week, by all recognizing it as "the only infallible
teacher," whilst the disciples of that teacher have not once for over
three hundred years observed the divine precept! That immense concourse
of Biblical Christians, the Methodists, have declared that the Sabbath
has never been abrogated, whilst the followers of the Church of
England, together with her daughter, the [pg. 9] Episcopal Church of
the United States, are committed by the twentieth article of religion,
already quoted, to the ordinance that the Church cannot lawfully ordain
anything "contrary to God's written word." God's written word
enjoins His worship to be observed on Saturday absolutely,
repeatedly, and most emphatically, with a most positive threat of death
to him who disobeys. All the Biblical sects occupy the same
self-stultifying position which no explanation can modify, much less
justify.
How truly do the words of the Holy Spirit apply to this
deplorable situation! "Iniquitas mentita est sibi" —
"Iniquity hath lied to itself." Proposing to follow the Bible only
as teacher, yet before the world, the sole teacher is
ignominiously thrust aside, and the teaching and practice of the
Catholic Church — "the mother of abomination," when it suits their
purpose so to designate her — adopted, despite the most terrible
threats pronounced by God Himself against those who disobey the
command, "Remember to keep holy the Sabbath."
Before closing this series of articles, we beg to call the
attention of our readers once more to our caption, introductory of
each; viz., 1st—The Christian Sabbath, the genuine offspring of the
union of the Holy Spirit with the Catholic Church His spouse. 2nd—The
claim of Protestantism to any part therein proved to be groundless,
self-contradictory, and suicidal.
The first proposition needs little proof. The Catholic
Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a
Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from
Saturday to Sunday. We say by virtue of her divine mission, because He
who called Himself the "Lord of the Sabbath," endowed her with His own
power to teach, "he that heareth you, heareth Me;" commanded all who
believe in Him to hear her, under penalty of being placed with "heathen
and publican;" and promised to be with her to the end of the world. She
holds her charter as teacher from Him — a charter as infallible as
perpetual. The Protestant world at its birth found the Christian
Sabbath too strongly entrenched to run counter to its existence; it was
therefore placed under the necessity of acquiescing in the arrangement,
thus implying the Church's right to change the day, for over three
hundred years. The Christian Sabbath is therefore to this day,
the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church as spouse of the Holy
Ghost, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant world.
Let us now, however, take a glance at our second
proposition, with the Bible alone as the teacher and guide in
faith and morals. This teacher most emphatically forbids any
change in the day for paramount reasons. The command calls for a "perpetual
covenant." The day commanded to be kept by the teacher has
never once been kept, thereby developing an apostasy from an
assumedly fixed principle, as self-contradictory, self-stultifying, and
consequently as suicidal as it is within the power of language to
express. Nor are the limits of demoralization yet reached. Far from it.
Their pretense for leaving the bosom of the Catholic
Church was for apostasy from the truth as taught in the written
word. They adopted the written word as their sole teacher, which
they had no sooner done than they abandoned it promptly, as these
articles have abundantly proved; and by a perversity as willful as
erroneous, they accept the teaching of the Catholic Church in direct
opposition to the plain, unvaried, and constant teaching of their sole
teacher in the most essential doctrine of their religion, thereby
emphasizing the situation in what may be aptly designated "a
mockery, a delusion, and a snare."
[ADVENTIST EDITORS' NOTE. — It was upon this very point that
the Reformation was condemned by the Council of Trent. The Reformers
had constantly charged, as here stated, that the Catholic Church had
"apostatized from the truth as contained in the written word.
"The written word," "The Bible and the Bible only," "Thus saith the
Lord," these were their constant watchwords; and "the Scripture, as in
the written word, the sole standard of appeal," this was the proclaimed
platform of the Reformation and of Protestantism. "The Scripture and
tradition." The Bible as interpreted by the Church and according
to the unanimous consent of the Fathers," this was the position and
claim of the Catholic Church. This was the main issue in the Council of
Trent, which was called especially to consider the questions that had
been raised and forced upon the attention of Europe by the Reformers.
The very first question concerning faith that was considered by the
council was the question involved in this issue. There was a strong
party even of the Catholics within the council who were in favor of
abandoning tradition and adopting the Scriptures only, as the
standard of authority. This view was so decidedly held in the debates
in the council that the pope's legates actually wrote to him that there
was "a strong tendency to set aside tradition altogether and to make
Scripture the sole standard of appeal." But to do this would manifestly
be to go a long way toward justifying the claims of the Protestants. By
this crisis there was developed upon the ultra-Catholic portion of the
council the task of convincing the others that "Scripture and
tradition" were the only sure ground to stand upon. If this could
be done, the council could be carried to issue a decree condemning the
Reformation, otherwise not. The question was debated day after day,
until the council was fairly brought to a standstill. Finally, after a
long and intensive mental strain, the Archbishop of Reggio came into
the council with substantially the following argument to the party who
held for Scripture alone:
"The Protestants claim to stand upon the written word
only. They profess to hold the Scripture alone as the standard of
faith. They justify their revolt by the plea that the Church has
apostatized from the written word and follows tradition. Now the
Protestants claim, that they stand upon the written word only, is not
true. Their profession of holding the Scripture alone as the standard
of faith, is false. PROOF: The written word explicitly enjoins the
observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath. They do not observe the
seventh day, but reject it. If they do truly hold the scripture alone
as their standard, they would be observing the seventh day as is
enjoined in the Scripture throughout. Yet they not only reject the
observance of the Sabbath enjoined in the written word, but they have
adopted and do practice the observance of Sunday, for which they have
only the tradition of the Church. Consequently the claim of 'Scripture
alone as the standard,' fails; and the doctrine of
'Scripture and tradition' as essential, is fully established,
the Protestants themselves being judges."
[The Archbishop of Reggio (Gaspar
[Ricciulli] de Fosso) made his speech at the last opening session of
Trent, (17th Session) reconvened under a new pope (Pius IV), on the
18th of January, 1562 after having been suspended in 1552. — J. H.
Holtzman,
Canon and Tradition, published in Ludwigsburg, Germany, in
1859, page 263, and Archbishop of Reggio's address in the 17th session
of the Council of Trent, Jan. 18, 1562, in Mansi SC, Vol. 33,
cols. 529, 530. Latin.]
There was no getting around this, for the
Protestants' own statement of faith — the Augsburg Confession, 1530 —
had clearly admitted that "the observation of the Lord's day" had been
appointed by "the Church" only.
[Article XXVIII: Of Ecclesiastical Power.
33. They refer to the Sabbath-day as having been changed into the
Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalog, as it seems. Neither is there any
example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the
Sabbath-day. Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has
dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments! ]
The argument was hailed in the council as
of Inspiration only; the party for "Scripture alone," surrendered; and
the council at once unanimously condemned Protestantism and the whole
Reformation as only an unwarranted revolt from the communion and
authority of the Catholic Church; and proceeded, April 8, 1546, "to the
promulgation of two decrees, the first of which, enacts under anathema,
that Scripture and tradition are to be received and venerated
equally, and that the deutero-canonical [the apocryphal] books are part
of the canon of Scripture. The second decree declares the Vulgate to be
the sole authentic and standard Latin version, and gives it such
authority as to supersede the original texts; forbids the
interpretation of Scripture contrary to the sense received by the
Church, 'or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers,'"
etc. (7)
This was the inconsistency of the Protestant practice with
the Protestant profession that gave to the Catholic Church her
long-sought and anxiously desired ground upon which to condemn
Protestantism and the whole Reformation movement as only a selfishly
ambitious rebellion against the Church authority. And in this vital
controversy the key, the chiefest and culminative expression, of the
Protestant inconsistency was in the rejection of the Sabbath of the
Lord, the seventh day, enjoined in the Scriptures, and the adoption and
observance of the Sunday as enjoined by the Catholic Church.
And this is today the position of the respective parties
to this controversy. Today, as this document shows, this is the vital
issue upon which the Catholic Church arraigns Protestantism, and upon
which she condemns the course of popular Protestantism as being
"indefensible", self-contradictory, and suicidal." What will these
Protestants, what will this Protestantism, do?]
(7) See the proceedings of the
Council; Augsburg Confession; and Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Trent,
Council of." — The
original Editor's note was apparently written by G. E. Fifield, as an
article of his titled The Sabbath, the
Fathers, and the Reformation, presenting the same information,
appeared later in Signs
of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 47, Nov. 22, 1899, pgs. 6-7.
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Should any of the Rev. Parsons,
who are habituated to howl so vociferously over every real or assumed
desecration of that pious fraud, the Bible Sabbath, think well
of entering a protest against our logical and scriptural dissection of
their mongrel pet, we can promise them that any reasonable attempt on
their part to gather up the "disjecta membra" of the hybrid, and to
restore to it a galvanized existence, will be met with genuine
cordiality and respectful consideration on our part. But we can assure
our readers that we know these reverend howlers too well to expect a
solitary bark from them in this instance.
And they know us too well to subject themselves to the
mortification which a further dissection of this anti-scriptural
question would necessarily entail. Their policy now is to "lay low,"
and they are sure to adopt it.
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