Rome's Challenge
Why Do Protestants Keep Sunday? - PART 2
[From the Catholic Mirror of Sept. 16, 1893.]
When his satanic majesty, who was "a murderer from the
beginning," "and the father of lies," undertook to open the eyes
of our first mother, Eve, by stimulating her ambition, "You shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil," his action was but the first of many
plausible and successful efforts employed later, in the seduction of millions of
her children. Like Eve, they learn too late, alas! The value of the inducements
held out to allure her weak children from allegiance to God. Nor does the
subject matter of this discussion form an exception to the usual tactics of his
sable majesty.
Over three centuries since, he plausibly represented to a large
number of discontented and ambitious Christians the bright prospect of the
successful inauguration of a "new departure," by the abandonment of
the Church instituted by the son of God, as their teacher, and the assumption of
a new teacher - the Bible alone - as their newly fledged oracle.
The sagacity of the evil one foresaw but the brilliant success
of this maneuver. Nor did the result fall short of His most sanguine
expectations.
A bold and adventurous spirit was alone needed to head the
expedition. Him has satanic majesty soon found in the apostate monk, Luther, who
himself repeatedly testifies to the close familiarity that existed between his
master and himself, in his "Table Talk," and other works published in
1558, at Wittenberg, under the inspection of Melanchthon. His colloquies with
Satan on various occasions, are testified to by Luther himself - a witness
worthy of all credibility. What the agency of the serpent tended so effectually
to achieve in the garden, the agency of Luther achieved in the Christian world.
[Of course we have not the least sympathy with what is said here
about Luther. Only the Lutherans think that Luther had all the truth, but his
was nevertheless a grand work. He was a Christian hero. Had his work only been
continued as it began, papists would not now be taunting "Protestants"
with the inconsistency of professing to accept the Bible alone and then
following the traditions of the Catholic Church - Ed.]
As the end proposed to himself by the evil one in his raid on
the church of Christ was the destruction of Christianity, we are now engaged in
sifting the means adopted by him to insure his success therein. So far, they
have been found to be misleading, self-contradictory, and fallacious. We will
now proceed with the further investigation of this imposture.
Having proved to a demonstration the Redeemer, in no instance,
had during the period of His life, deviated from the faithful observance of the
Sabbath (Saturday), referred to by the four evangelists fifty-one times,
although He had designated Himself "Lord of the Sabbath," He never
having once, by command or practice, hinted at a desire on His part to
change the day by substitution of another, and having called special attention
to the conduct of the apostles and the holy women, the very evening of His
death, securing beforehand spices and ointments to be used in embalming His body
the morning after the Sabbath (Saturday), as Luke so clearly informs us (Luke
24:1), thereby placing beyond peradventure, the divine action and the will of
the Son of God during life by keeping the Sabbath steadfastly; and having called
attention to the action of His living representatives after His death, as proved
by Luke; having also placed before our readers the indisputable fact that
the apostles for the following thirty years (Acts) never deviated from the
practice of the divine Master in this particular, as Luke (Acts 18:4) assures us
"And he [Paul] reasoned in the synagogues every Sabbath [Saturday],
and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks." The Gentile converts were, as we
see from the text, equally instructed with the Jews, to keep the Saturday,
having been converted to Christianity on that day, "the Jews and the
Greeks" collectively.
Having also called attention to the texts of the Acts bearing on
the exclusive use of the Sabbath by the Jews and Christians for thirty years
after the death of the Saviour as the only day of the week observed by
Christ and His apostles, which period exhausts the inspired record, we
now proceed to supplement our proofs that the Sabbath [Saturday] enjoyed this
exclusive privilege, by calling attention to every instance wherein the
sacred record refers to the first day of the week.
The first reference to Sunday after the resurrection of Christ
is to be found in Luke's Gospel, chapter 24, verses33-40, and John 20:19.
The above texts themselves refer to the sole motive of this
gathering on the part of the apostles. It took place on the day of the
resurrection, not for the purpose of inaugurating "the new departure"
from the old Sabbath (Saturday) by keeping "holy" the new day, for
there is not a hint given of prayer, exhortation, or the reading of the
Scriptures, but it indicates the utter demoralization of the apostles by
informing mankind that they were huddled together in that room in Jerusalem
"for fear of the Jews," as John, quoted above, plainly informs
us.
The second reference to Sunday is to be found in John's Gospel,
20th chapter, 26th and 29th verses "And
after eight days, the disciples were again within, and Thomas with them."
[1] The resurrected Redeemer availed Himself of this meeting of all the apostles
to confound the incredulity of Thomas, who had been absent from the gathering on
Sunday evening. This would have furnished a golden opportunity to the Redeemer
to change the day in the presence of all His apostles, but we state the simple
fact that, on this occasion, as on Easter day, not a word is said of prayer,
praise, or reading of the Scriptures.
The third instance on record, wherein the apostles were
assembled on Sunday is to be found in Acts 2:1 "The apostles were all of
one accord in one place" Now, will this text afford to our Biblical
Christian brethren a vestige of hope that Sunday (It is a "Protestant"
claim that this passage refers to Sunday. The Mirror not only notices it,
but admits the correctness of the claim. But how anybody can find in this text a
reference to Sunday or the first day of the week, is a mystery. The previous
meeting was on the first day of the week; the word says so. From this to the
next first day of the week would be just one week. Now in one week there are
just seven days and no more. But the Sacred Word says that this meeting
was after EIGHT days. How anybody can get more than eight days into a
week is a mystery of numbers and of the calendar, to say nothing of its
confusion of the Sacred Word, that is bewildering to plain minds. However, this
mystery is no greater nor any more bewildering than that by which Sunday has
been substituted for the Sabbath of the Lord - Ed.) substitutes, at length,
Saturday? For when we inform them that the Jews had been keeping this Sunday
for 1500 years, and have been keeping it for eighteen centuries after the
establishment of Christianity, at the same time keeping the weekly Sabbath,
there is not to be found either consolation or comfort in this text. Pentecost
is the fiftieth day after the Passover, which was called the Sabbath of weeks,
consisting of seven times seven days; and the day after the completion of the
seventh weekly Sabbath day, was the chief day of the entire festival,
necessarily Sunday. What Israelite would not pity the cause that would seek to
discover the origin of the keeping of the first day of the week in his festival
of Pentecost, that has been kept by him yearly for over 3,000 years? Who but the
Biblical Christian, driven to the wall for a pretext to excuse his sacrilegious
desecration of the Sabbath, always kept by Christ and His apostles, would have
resorted to the Jewish festival of Pentecost for his act of rebellion against
his God and his teacher, the Bible?
Once more, the Biblical apologists for the change of day call
our attention to Acts 20:6,7 "And upon the first day of the week,
when the disciples came together to break bread" etc. To all appearances,
the above text should furnish some consolation to our disgruntled Biblical
friends, but being a Marplot, we cannot allow them even this crumb of comfort.
We reply by the axiom "Quod probat nimis, probat nihil" - "What
proves to much, proves nothing." Let us call attention to the same, Acts
2:46 "And they, continuing daily in the temple, and breaking bread from
house to hose," etc. Who does not see at a glance that the text produced to
prove the exclusive prerogative of Sunday, vanishes into thin air - an ignis
fatuus - when placed in juxtaposition with the 46th verse of the
same chapter? What the Biblical Christian claims by this text for Sunday
alone the same authority, Luke, informs us was common to every day of the
week "And they, continuing daily in the temple, and breaking
bread from house to house."
One text more presents itself, apparently leaning toward a
substitution of Sunday for Saturday. It is taken from Paul, 1: Cor. 16:1,2
"Now concerning the collection for the saints." "On the first day
of the week, let every one of you lay by him a store," etc. Presuming that
the request of Paul had been strictly attended to, let us call attention to what
had been done each Saturday during the Saviour's life and continued for thirty
years after, as the book of Acts informs us.
The followers of the Master met "every Sabbath"
to hear the word of God; The Scriptures were read "every Sabbath
day". "And Paul, as his manner was to reason in the synagogue every
Sabbath, interposing the name of the Lord Jesus," etc. Acts 18:4. What
more absurd conclusion than to infer that reading of the Scriptures, prayer,
exhortation, and preaching, which formed the routine duties of every Saturday,
as has been abundantly proved, were overslaughed by a request to take up a
collection on another day of the week?
In order to appreciate fully the value of this text now under
consideration, it is only needful to recall the action of the apostles and holy
women on Good Friday before sundown. They brought the spices and ointments after
He was taken down from the cross; they suspended all action until the Sabbath
"holy to the Lord" had passed, and then took steps on Sunday morning
to complete the process of embalming the sacred body of Jesus.
Why, may we ask, did they not proceed to complete the work of
embalming on Saturday? - Because they knew well that the embalming of the sacred
body of their Master would interfere with the strict observance of the Sabbath,
the keeping of which was paramount; and until it can be shown that the Sabbath
day immediately preceding the Sunday of our text had not been kept (which
would be false, inasmuch as every Sabbath had been kept), the request of
Paul to make the collection on Sunday remains to be classified with the
work of the embalming of Christ's body, which could not be effected on the
Sabbath, and was consequently deferred to the next convenient day; vis., Sunday,
or the first day of the week.
Having disposed of every text to be found in the New Testament
referring to the Sabbath (Saturday), and to the first day of the week (Sunday);
and having shown conclusively from these texts, that, so far, not a shadow of
pretext can be found in the Sacred Volume for the Biblical substitution for
Sunday for Saturday; it only remains for us to investigate the meaning of the
expressions "Lord's Day," and "day of the Lord," to be found
in the New Testament, which we propose to do in our next article, and conclude
with apposite remarks on the incongruities of a system of religion which we
shall have proved to be indefensible, self-contradictory, and suicidal.
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