Rome's Challenge
Why Do Protestants Keep Sunday? - PART 3
[From the Catholic Mirror of Sept. 23, 1893.] "Halting on
crutches of unequal size, One leg by true 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 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 sixty-one 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 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 2:20 "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 1 Cor 1:8
"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, chapter 5:5 "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, 2 Cor. 1:13,14 "And I
trust ye shall acknowledge even to the end, even as ye also are ours in the day
of our Lord Jesus."
Sunday, or the day of judgment, which? The fifth text is
from Paul to the Philippians, chapter 1, verse 6 "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 Philipi, in attaining
perfection on the following Sunday, could afford to laugh at our modern
rapid transit!
We beg leave to submit our sixth of the class; vis.,
Philippians, first chapter, tenth verse "That he may be sincere without
offense unto the day of Christ." That day was next Sunday, forsooth!
Not so long to wait after all. The seventh text 2 Peter 3:10 "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 Peter 3:12 "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 furnished 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, chapter 1:10, 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 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
Luke, Paul, and Peter, all under divine inspiration, and surely the Holy
Spirit would not inspire John to call Sunday the Lord's day, whilst He inspired
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 uttered eight times, we conclude that the same
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. John (Rev 1:10) 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 was 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 4, 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 third [In the Catholic version the 4th
commandment is the 3rd of the ten ] 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
proinciamento has committed that large body of Biblical Christians to the
permanence of the third commandment under the new law.
We again beg 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."
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 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. 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 the question of
opening the World's Far on Sunday was yet undecided; and who does not know
today, that one sect, to mark its holy indignation at the decision, has never
yet opened that boxes that contained its articles at the World' Fair?
These superlatively good and unctuous Christians, by conning
over their Bibles 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 has no 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, the 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 watch word 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 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; vis.,
1. The Christian Sabbath, the genuine offspring of the union of the Holy Spirit
with the Catholic Church His spouse. 2. 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 the "heathen and publican;" and promised
to be with her to the end of the world. She hold her charter as teacher from Him
—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 be 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."
[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 there 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 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 was devolved upon the ultra-Catholic portion
of the council the task of convincing the others that "Scripture and
tradition" was 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 intense mental strain,
the Archbishop of Reggio came into the council with substantially the following
argument to the party who held for Scripture along:
"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."
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.
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.
Thus, it was the inconsistency of the Protestant practice with
the Protestant profession, which 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 ambition rebellion against 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 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? -Ed.]
Should any of the reverend 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 disjectamembra of the hybrid, and to restore it
to a galvanized existence, will be met with a 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 antiscriptural question would necessarily entail. Their
policy now is to "lay low", and they are sure to adopt it.
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