In the body of the book the reader had been shown the foundation upon which the Sunday-sabbath rests; his attention is now called to a very brief examination of the foundation upon which the true Sabbath rests, that he may contrast the baseless fabric of heathenism with that which cannot be shaken.
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is; and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex. 20:8-11.
The fourth commandment is the solid foundation upon which Sabbathkeeping rests. They who tremble at the word of God, can desire no other. If we analyze it, we shall find that it consists of a simple command to keep the Sabbath day holy, and then such an explicit definition of the Sabbath as distinguishes it from every other day, so that no attentive person can fail to know what day the Sabbath is.
"The seventh day is the Sabbath." What seventh day? The most natural conclusion is that it is the seventh day of the week; for the fact that six days of labor precede it, shows that it is the last in a period of seven days; and the only period of seven days is the week. Besides, the commandment specifies what is meant by saying, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is; and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.' The "creation week" is a very common term to express the time of God's creation and rest. The day on which God rested was the seventh day of the creation week; the day on which we are commanded to rest is the seventh day of the week, which took its rise from the first week of time, in which God created the heavens and the earth, and rested.
That the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath, and that this is what the commandment enjoins, is evident from a passage in the New Testament. The writers of the four Gospels all record with more of less minuteness the events of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. They all state that the crucifixion was on the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath. They likewise all mention the fact that certain women came to the sepulcher very early on the first day of the week, and found it empty. Luke says (24:1) that they came "upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning;" and Mark says (16:1) that it was "when the Sabbath was past." Now read in consecutive order what Luke says immediately following his account of the burial of Jesus:--
"And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. And the women also which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared." Luke 23:54-56; 24:1.
From this text we learn that the preparation day immediately preceded the Sabbath day. Verse 54. We learn also that the first day of the week immediately followed the Sabbath. Then since there are but seven days in the week, that Sabbath day must have been the seventh-day of the week. "Well," says one, "nobody questions that; what is the use of stating it so explicitly?" Simply because that Sabbath day which is proved beyond all possibility of denial to have been the seventh day of the week, was kept by the women, "according to the commandment." Thus we have it most positively proved by an inspired writer that the Sabbath day which the fourth commandment says we must remember to keep holy, is the seventh day of the week.
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," not to make holy. Man cannot make anything holy; God alone has that power. It is an unwarranted, almost a blasphemous, assumption, to say that men can sanctify as the Sabbath any day on which they may choose to rest. The Lord made the Sabbath day holy, and he requires man to keep it holy, and not to pollute it by unholy words and deeds.
But the Sabbath did not originate with the giving of the commandment from Sinai. At that time God only declared the law which already existed. The sacredness of the Sabbath, which is guarded by the fourth commandment, did not begin at that time, any more than the sacredness of human life, which is guarded by the sixth commandment, began at that time. The commandment itself refers us to creation. Why are we commanded to keep the Sabbath day holy? "For [because] in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is; and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it."
The statement that God blessed and hallowed the Sabbath day, is equivalent to saying that he blessed and hallowed the seventh day, for "the seventh day is the Sabbath." It became the Sabbath from the time when God rested upon it. The Sabbath is the name of the seventh day of the week, which God sanctified. That God did bless and sanctify, or make holy, the seventh day in particular, and not merely the Sabbath institution in general, is plainly declared in the record to which the commandment refers.
"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."
This statement that God sanctified the seventh day, because that in it he had rested, upsets the theory that God's Sabbath is an immensely long time; that the Sabbath which he begun when he finished the work of creation, is not yet completed. Such a theory makes nonsense of the fourth commandment, which enjoins upon us the day on which God rested; but if it were true that God's Sabbath has continued since creation, and is even now going on, a command for us to keep the Sabbath of the Lord would be the same as a command for us never to do any work! But the fact is clearly stated, that when God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, his rest upon it was in the past. He blessed and sanctified it, not because he was resting in it, but because he had rested in it.
Notice now the steps by which the Sabbath was made: First, God made the heavens and the earth is six days-six days such as we are familiar with, composed of a dark part and a light part, caused by the revolution of the earth upon its axis, and each completed in twentyfour hours. Second, God rested on the seventh day. Third, he blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested. Then it became God's holy Sabbath day.
At the close of God's rest upon the seventh day, he sanctified it. To sanctify means to appoint, to set apart by specific directions and injunctions. Thus the Lord says: "Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly." Joel 1:14. The children of Israel appointed (margin, sanctified) six cities as places of refuge (See Joshua 20:7.) They sanctified them by setting them apart for that purpose, and letting everybody know it. Still more clear is the evidence in the nineteenth of Exodus. When the Lord would come down upon Mount Sinai, he said to Moses: 'And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it." Ex. 19:12. And afterwards Moses said unto the Lord: "The people cannot come up to mount Sinai; for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it." Verse 23. So God sanctified the Sabbath, by placing around it the sanctions of his word, and commanding the people then living--Adam and Eve--and through them their descendants, not to step over those bounds.
On these three facts the Sabbath rests: God created the heavens and the earth in six days; he rested on the seventh day; he blessed and sanctified, or appointed as sacred, the seventh day. Before the Sabbath can be changed, the facts of creation must be changed. But a fact is that which has been done, and a fact cannot be changed. Even if the heavens and the earth were destroyed, it would still remain a fact that God created them, and that he rested upon and blessed and hallowed the seventh day, as a memorial of his creation; and upon these facts the Sabbath rests. To abolish the Sabbath, or to change it to another day than the seventh, it would be necessary to annihilate the heavens and the earth, and not only so, but to annihilate the fact that they were ever created, so as to make it a truth that they never had an existence. But this even omnipotence cannot do.
What stability there is to the works of God! "The works of his hands are verity and judgment; all his commandments are sure. They stand fast forever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness." Ps. 111:7, 8. Therefore "it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." Luke 16:17.
The Apostles and the First Day of the Week
In the chapter on "Sun-worship and Sunday" it is shown that Sunday was from the most ancient times a heathen festival day, devoted to the licentious sun-worship, and that the adoption of it by the early church was a link which joined the church to paganism. Its existence in the church to-day, although it has been clothed with something of the semblance of the Sabbath, whose place it has usurped, is a standing reminder of the great apostasy, and a proof that the Reformation did not entirely clear the church from pagan corruption. This being the case, it is evident that there can be no authority for it in the Bible, and this has been expressly stated. It may, however, be well to note those passages which mention the first day of the week, since if there be at least intimated. The argument must, as a matter of course, be negative.
Our task is not very great, for the first day of the week is mentioned only eight times in the New Testament, and six of these instances of its occurrence have reference to a single first day,--the day on which Christ rose from the tomb. These six tests are Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19. They read, in order, as follows:--
"In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher." Matt. 28:1.
"And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had brought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun." Mark 16:1, 2. "Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils." Mark 16:9.
"Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared." Luke 24:1.
"The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulcher." John 20:1.
"Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and said unto them, Peace be unto you." John 20:19.
In none of these texts is there the least hint that the day was sacred, or was henceforth to be considered so. They simply state that Jesus met with certain of his disciples on the day of his resurrection. Those incidents are mentioned to show that Christ did really rise from the dead the third day, as he had said. That he should show himself at once to his disciples, was the most natural thing in the world, in order to relieve their sorrow. The meeting referred to in John 20:19 was not a religious meeting, not a gathering for prayer, or to celebrate the resurrection, but simply such a meeting as Jesus had with Mary in the garden, with the other women, and with Peter, being one of the "many infallible proofs" of his resurrection. That this is so, is evident from the fact that the eleven had one common abode (Acts 1:13), and that just before Jesus came into the room where they were, the two disciples to whom Jesus appeared "as they walked, and went into the country" had returned and told the eleven that Jesus was risen, but their story was not believed Mark 16:12, 13. Moreover, when Jesus himself appeared unto them, they were sitting at meat, and he "upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen." Mark 16:14. They could not have celebrated his resurrection, when they did not believe that he had risen. A comparison of Acts 1:13 with Mark 16:14, and Luke 24:36-43, is sufficient to show that when Jesus met with his disciples on the evening of the day of his resurrection, they were simply eating their supper at home, and did not believe that he had risen.
When Jesus met with them he did not tell them that thenceforth they must observe the first day of the week in honor of his resurrection, nor did he pronounce any blessing on that day. In short, he made no reference whatever on that day. To the disciples he gave the salutation of peace, saying, "Peace be unto you," and he breathed on them, and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost;" but that affected the disciples, and not the day. Thus we see that in connection with the resurrection of Jesus there is not the remotest hint of Sunday sacredness.
The next reference to the first day of the week is in Acts 20:7, and there we find that a meeting was held on that day. And here one thing may be noted, namely, that this is the only direct mention in the New Testament of a religious meeting on the first day of the week. If there were the record of fifty meetings on that day, however, that would not in the least affect its standing, for meetings were held every day in the week. The New Testament contains an account of many meetings held on the Sabbath, but that is no reason why the Sabbath should be kept. The Sabbath stands on a different foundation than that, even on the unchanging word of God.
But what of this one meeting on the first day of the week. We note first that it was in the night, for "there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together" (verse 8); and Paul preached until midnight (verse 7), and then, after a brief intermission, until break of day, when he departed. Verse 11. But every day, according to the Bible method of reckoning time, ends at the setting of the sun. (See Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31; Lev. 23:32; Mark 1:32.) Therefore, since this meeting at Troas was in the dark part of the first day of the week, it could not have been at the close of that day, but must have been at the beginning, corresponding to what is popularly designated as "Saturday night."
Now not what immediately followed that Saturday night meeting. As soon as it was break of day, on Sunday morning, Paul's companions went to the ship, and resumed their journey to Jerusalem, while Paul himself chose to walk across the country and join the ship's company at Assos. The distance from Troas to Assos was about sixty miles by water, but only about nineteen by land, so that Paul could easily reach that place before the ship did. That this trip was taken on the first day of the week is so evident that few, if any, commentators suggest any different view. The Scriptures need no indorsement from men; but it may help some minds to know that this view of the text is not a peculiar one. "Conybeare and Howson's Life of Paul" says of this trip of Paul's:-
"Strength and peace were surely sought and obtained by the apostle, from the Redeemer, as he pursued his lonely road that Sunday afternoon in spring among the oak woods and the streams of Ida."--Chapter 20, paragraph 11.
So far, then, as the example of the apostles goes, Sunday is to be used in secular employment.
One more text completes the list of references to the first day. It is 1 Cor. 16:2, and, together with the preceding verse, reads as follows:-
"Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come."
A literal rendering of this would be, "Let each one of you lay by himself at home, treasuring up in store, as God hath prospered him," and that Paul's injunction has reference to private stores and not to public collections is evident from the language, as well as from what the apostle wrote in his second epistle, in which he says: "I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness." 2 Cor. 9:5. But if their offerings had been cast into the collection box, and so kept all together in the treasury of the church, there would have been no need of sending the brethren ahead to make up beforehand their bounty.
These are all the texts that speak of the first day of the week, and not one of them intimates that it was in any sense a sacred day. Indeed, at the time the New Testament was written, no one in the world had ever heard of "the day of the sun" being kept as a sacred day, for the heathen observed it only as a wild festival day.
But throughout the New Testament the seventh day of the week is called the Sabbath--the same title that is given to it in the commandment. This is not because the New Testament writers were Jews, for they did not write as Jews, but as men inspired by the Holy Spirit. They were Christians, writing, under guidance of the Spirit of God, for the comfort, encouragement, and instruction of Christians until the end of time. If the seventh day were not the Sabbath for Christians and for all men, then the Holy Spirit would not have given it that name. But the truth is, as shown before, that the seventh day is the Sabbath-made so by the unchangeable act of the Creator--and no other day can ever be the Sabbath. And so we see that Dr. Scott and the Christian at Work told the exact truth when they said that we must go to later than apostolic times to find Sunday observance, and that it came in gradually and silently. But for everything that came into the church after the days of Christ, the church is indebted to paganism.
Biographical Notes
Johann August Wilhelm Neander was born in Gottingen, Germany, January 15, 1789, and died July 14, 1850. He was by birth a Jew, but in 1806 he renounced Judaism. His name was originally Mendel, but upon his baptism he adopted the name Neander, from two Greek words signifying "new man." He was at various times professor in the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin. He was the author of numerous works, the greatest of which was his "Church History." He is universally conceded to be by far the greatest of ecclesiastical historians, and is commonly called "the father of modern church history."
Archibald Bower was born at Dundee, Scotland, January 17, 1686, and died in London, September 3, 1766. In early life he was a Catholic, and became a Jesuit. In 1726 he became a member of the Established Church of England, and was made librarian to the queen in 1747. His "History of the Popes" (London, 1750) contains the most copious account of the popes that has ever appeared in the English language.
Eusebius of Caesarea, called the "father of church history," was born A. D. 270. He was the first to collect the scattered annals of the first three centuries of the Christian church, in his "Ecclesiastical History," which covers the ground from the birth of Christ to the defeat of Licinius, A. D. 324. He was very prominent in the Trinitarian controversy, though just which side he espoused in the Council of Nice it is difficult to decide, as his policy through life was to be on the winning side. This led him to be the eulogist of Constantine, whose intimate friend he became, and whose life he wrote, completing it just before his death, which occurred A. D. 340.
John Karl Ludwig Gieseler was born at Petershagen near Minden, Prussia, March 3, 1793; he died at Gottingen, July 8, 1854. He was appointed director of the gymnasium of Cleve, in 1818, and professor of theology in Bonn University, in 1819. In 1831 he accepted a call to the University of Gottingen, where he spent the remainder of his life. His reputation rests chiefly on his "Church History." The "Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia" says that this work is in its kind "one of the most remarkable productions of German learning, distinguished by its immense erudition, accuracy, and careful selection of passages." And "Mcclintock and Strong's Encyclopedia" declares it to be "beyond question, the most learned, faithful, and impartial compendium of church history that has ever appeared."
Philip Schaff, D. D., LL. D., was born at Coire, Switzerland, January 1, 1819. He studied at Coire, in the gymnasium at Stuttgart, and in the universities of Tubingen, Halle, and Berlin. After traveling through Europe as tutor to a Prussian nobleman, he became lecturer on exegesis and church history in the University of Berlin. From 1843 until 1863 he was professor in the German Reformed Theological Seminary at Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Afterwards he lectured on church history in the theological seminaries at Andover, Hartford, and New York, and since 1869 has been a professor in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. He is one of the founders of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance, and has been prominent in the councils of that body, both in this and foreign countries. He was president of the American Bible Revision Committee, and attended several meetings of the British Committee, in the Jerusalem Chamber, London. He is the author of very many works, both in German and English, and some of his works have been translated into French, Dutch, Greek, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Syriac, and Arabic.
Frederic William Farrar, D. D., was born in Bombay, India, August 7, 1831. He was educated at King William's College, Isle of Man, King's College, London, University of London, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was ordained deacon of the Church of England in 1854, and priest in 1857; in 1876 he became cannon, and in 1883 archdeacon, of Westminster. He is quite prominent as an educator and a temperance worker, and is the author of very many works.
Thomas De Quincey was born in Manchester, England, August 15, 1785, and died December 8, 1859. He was noted for his conversational powers, and his rare and varied stock of information. He became so proficient in Greek at an early age that his teacher said he could harangue an Athenian mob. His published works are numerous, and stored with information, which is conveyed in a most interesting manner.
William D. Killen, D. D. (Presbyterian), was born at Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, April 5, 1806. He was educated at the Royal Academical Institution in Belfast, and in 1829 became minister of Raphoe, County Donegal, Ireland. In 1841 he was called to Belfast, became Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Pastoral Theology to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and in 1869 he became president of the faculty.
John Lawrence von Mosheim, or Johann Lorenz, was an eminent German theologian, pulpit orator, and historian. He was born at Lubeck, in 1694, and died in 1755. He was educated at Kiel, and at the age of thirty-one became professor of theology at Helmstedt, where he obtained a wide celebrity as a teacher. In 1747 he was called to the chair of theology in the university of Gottingen, with the title of chancellor. Though not a prolific writer, he was an able one, and his great work, "Institutes of Ecclesiastical History," originally written in Latin, has been translated into German, French, and English. Besides the work already mentioned, Mosheim wrote "Commentaries on Christianity before the Time of Constantine the Great" (referred to in this work as "Ecclesiastical Commentaries"), and "Morality of the Holy Scriptures," a work in nine volumes, besides other works of minor importance. He also translated Cudworth's "Intellectual System' into Latin.
Alexander Carson, LL.D., a man eminent for his learning and for his ability as writer, was born in Ireland in 1776, and died in his native land in 1844. He was educated in Scotland at the Glasgow University, and was for a time a Presbyterian minister, but his allegiance to the plain reading of the Bible caused him to become a Baptist. He was a prolific writer, and the author of numerous religious and theological works, prominent among which is his able and exhaustive work entitled, "Baptism, Its Mode and Subjects."
Joseph Bingham was one of the most learned divines that the Church of England ever produced. He was born in Wakefield, England, in 1668, and received his education at Oxford. He afterwards became a fellow of the University College, but being called upon to preach before the University, he expressed some opinions upon the Trinity, which, being regarded as heretical, raised a great storm, which induced him to leave the University. His opinions did not, however, place him under the ban of the church, and he afterwards received the rectory of Havant, in Hampshire, where he continued until his death, in 1723. The great work of his life was his "Antiquities of the Christian Church," comprising eight volumes, the last of which appeared in 1722. Of this work, Mcclintock and Strong's "Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Cyclopedia" says: "This great work is a perfect repertory of facts in ecclesiastical archaeology, and has not been superseded or even approached in its own line by any book since produced." It has been translated and printed in German by the Catholics.
Henry Hart Milman, D. D., a distinguished ecclesiastic of the English Church, was born in London in 1791, and died in the same city in 1868. He was educated at Eton and at Oxford, where he took the degrees of B. A. and M. A. Mr. Milman was the author of quite a number of works, but it is to his historical works that his fame as a scholar is mostly due. His "History of the Jews" was first published in 1829, and still later, his "History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire." The work, however, which has made for him the greatest reputation, is his "History of Latin Christianity, Including that of the Popes to the Pontificate of Nicholas V." This work consists of eight volumes, and was published in both London and New York in 1854. Though complete in itself, it is really a continuation of the author's "History of Christianity." Among Milman's other works are "Life of Keats" and "Hebrew Prophecy." In 1849 Mr. Milman was appointed dean of St. Paul's, a position which he held till his death. He had previously been rector of St. Margaret's and rector and canon of Westminster.
Socrates Scholasticus, the ecclesiastical historian, was born in Constantinople, near the close of the fifth century. He was educated in Alexandria, where for a time he practiced law and taught philosophy. Finally, however, he seems to have devoted himself entirely to the study of ecclesiastical history, and in the latter part of his life undertook to write a history of the church from A. D. 309, where Eusebius's history ends, down to his own time; the work, which comprises seven books, was completed, however, down only to A. D. 440. It is said of Socrates that "he is generally considered the most exact and judicious of the three continuators of the history of Eusebius, being less florid in his style and more careful in his statements than Sozomen, and less credulous than Theodoret." Like all the early church historians, he was a Catholic, yet "his impartiality is so strikingly displayed," says Waddington, "as to make his orthodoxy questionable to Baronius, the celebrated Roman Catholic historian; but Valesius, in his life, has shown that there is no reason for such suspicion;" and he is now held in high esteem by Romanists generally.
Adolph Harnack, D. D., Ph. D., was born at Dorpat, Russia, May 7, 1854. He studied in the famous university of his native town from 18691872; became tutor at Leipsic in 1874, and professor in 1876. In 1879 he became professor of church history at Giessen, and 1886 at Marburg. His reputation as a scholar and author is very high in the theological world.