Most Christians believe many things ABOUT the Bible
that are simply NOT IN the Bible.

This relates to one of those beliefs.

SUNDAY WORSHIP -- WHY?
by John T Webb
"The Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit." Jer. 16:19

PROTESTANTISM SPEAKS
CATHOLICISM SPEAKS below

BAPTIST: "There was and is a command to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will, however, be readily said, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, with all its duties, privileges and sanctions. Earnestly desiring information on this subject, which I have studied for many years, I ask, where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament - absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week." --- Dr. E.T. Hiscox, author of the "Baptist Manual."

CONGREGATIONALIST: "It is quite clear that however rigidly or devotedly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath. . . The Sabbath was founded on a specific, divine command. We can plead no such command for the observance of Sunday. . . There is not a single line in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday." --- Dr. R. W. Dale, "The Ten Commandments," p. 106-107.

LUTHERAN FREE CHURCH: "For when there could not be produced one solitary place in the Holy Scriptures which testified that either the Lord Himself or the apostles had ordered such a transfer of the Sabbath to Sunday, then it was not easy to answer the question: Who has transferred the Sabbath, and who has had the right to do it?" --- George Sverdrup, "A New Day."

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL: "The day is now changed from the seventh to the first day . . .but as we meet with no scriptural direction for the change, we may conclude it was done by the AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. --- "Explanation of Catechism."

BAPTIST: "The Scriptures nowhere call the first day of the week the Sabbath. . . There is NO SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY for so doing, nor, of course, any Scriptural obligation." --- "The Watchman."

PRESBYTERIAN: "There is no word, no hint in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday. The observance of Ash Wednesday, or Lent, stands exactly on the same footing as the observance of Sunday. Into the rest of Sunday no Divine Law enters." --- Canon Eyton, in "The Ten Commandments."

ANGLICAN: "And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are NOWHERE COMMANDED to keep the first day." --- Isaac Williams, "Plain Sermons on the Catechism," pp. 334, 336.

DISCIPLES OF CHRIST: "There is NO DIRECT SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY for designating the first day 'the Lord's Day.'" --- Dr. D.H. Lucas, "Christian Oracle," January 1890.

METHODIST: "It is true that there is no positive command for infant baptism. Nor is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week. Many believe that Christ changed the Sabbath. But, from His own words, we see that He came for no such purpose. Those who believe that Jesus changed the Sabbath base it only on a supposition." --- Amos Binney, "Theological Compendium," pp. 180-181.

EPISCOPALIAN: "We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of the one holy, catholic, apostolic church of Christ." --- Bishop Symour, "Why We Keep Sunday."

SOUTHERN BAPTIST: "The sacred name of the Seventh day is Sabbath. This fact is too clear to require argument (Exodus 20:10 quoted) . . . On this point the plain teaching of the Word has been admitted in all ages. . . Not once did the disciples apply the Sabbath law to the first day of the week - that folly was left for a later age, nor did they pretend that the first day supplanted the seventh." --- Joseph Judson Taylor, "The Sabbath Question, " pp. 14-17, 41.

AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALIST: "The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament." --- Dr. Layman Abbot, in the "Christian Union," June 26, 1890.

CHRISTIAN CHURCH: "Now there is no testimony in all the oracles of heaven that the Sabbath is changed, or that the Lord's Day came in the room of it." --- Alexander Campbell, in "The Reporter," October 8, 1921.

BAPTIST: "To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' discussion with His disciples, often conversing with them upon the Sabbath question, discussing it in some of its various aspects, freeing it from its false (Jewish traditional) glosses, never alluded to any transference of the day; also, that during the forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was intimated. Nor, so far as we know, did the Spirit, which was given to bring to their remembrance all things whatsoever that he had said unto them, deal with this question. Nor yet did the inspired apostles, in preaching the gospel, founding churches, counseling and instructing those founded, discuss or approach the subject. - - - Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from the Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of Paganism, and christened with the name of the sun-god,
then adopted and sanctified by the Papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism." --- Dr. E.T. Hiscox, report of his sermon at the Baptist Ministers' Convention in "New York Examiner," November 16, 1893.

CATHOLICISM SPEAKS

"Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles. . . From beginning to end of scripture there is NOT A SINGLE PASSAGE that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first." --- Catholic Press, Sydney, Australia, August, 1900.

"Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the (Roman Catholic) Church, has no good reasons for its Sunday theory, and ought logically to keep Saturday as the Sabbath." --- John Gilmary Shea, in the "American Catholic Quarterly Review," January 1883.

"It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians, that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. SUNDAY IS AN INSTITUTION OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, and those who observe a commandment of the Catholic Church." --- Priest Brady, in an address, reported in the Elizabeth, N.J. "News" of March 18, 1903.

"Ques.: Have you any other way of proving that the (Catholic) Church has power to institute festivals of precept (to command holy days)?"
"Ans.: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her: she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is NO SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY." --- Stephan Keenan, "A Doctrinal Catechism," p. 176.

"Reason and common sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday, or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible." --- "The Catholic Mirror," December 23, 1893.

"God simply gave His (Catholic) Church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The CHURCH CHOSE Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days,* as holy days." --- Vincent J. Kelly, "Forbidden Sunday and Feast-Day Occupations," p. 2
[* Lent, Easter, etc., Christmas]

"Protestants . . . accept Sunday rather than Saturday as the day for public worship after the CATHOLIC CHURCH MADE THE CHANGE. . . But the Protestant mind does not seem to realize that . . .in observing the Sunday, they are ACCEPTING THE AUTHORITY OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE CHURCH, THE POPE." --- "Our Sunday Visitor," February 5, 1950.

"We hold upon this earth THE PLACE OF GOD ALMIGHTY." --- Pope Leo XIII, in an encyclical Letter, dated june 20 1894.

NOT THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE, in Genesis 2:1-3, but the Catholic Church "can claim the honor of having granted man a pause to his work every seven days." --- S.D. Mosna, "Storia della Domenica," 1969, pp. 366-367.

"The POPE is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but HE IS JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF, hidden under veil of flesh." --- "The Catholic National," July 1895.

"If Protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping the Sunday, they are following a LAW OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH." --- Albert Smith, Chancellor of the Archidocese of Baltimore, replying for the Cardinal, in a letter dated February 10, 1920.

"We define that the Holy Apostolic See (the Vatican) and the Roman Pontiff holds the primacy over the whole world." --- A Decree of the Council of Trent, quoted in Phillippe Labbe and Gabriel Cossart, "The Most Holy Councils," Vol. 13, col. 1167.

"It was the Catholic Church which, by the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest (from the Bible Sabbath) to the Sunday . . . Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an HOMAGE THEY PAY, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the (Catholic) Church." --- Monsignor Louis Segur, "Plan Talk about the Protestantism of Today," p. 213.

"We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the CATHOLIC CHURCH TRANSFERRED THE SOLEMNITY from Saturday to Sunday." --- Peter Geiermann, CSSR, "A Doctrinal Catechism," 1957 edition, p. 50.

"We Catholics, then, have precisely the same authority for keeping Sunday holy instead of Saturday as we have for every other article of our creed, namely the authority of the Church . . . whereas you who are protestants have really no authority for it whatever; for THERE IS NO AUTHORITY FOR IT (Sunday sacredness) IN THE BIBLE, and you and we do, in fact, follow tradition in this matter; but we follow it, believing it to be a part of God's word, and the (Catholic) Church to be its divinely appointed guardian and interpreter; you follow it (the Catholic Church), denouncing it all the time as a fallible and treacherous guide, which often 'makes the commandments of God on none effect' (quoting Matthew 15:6)." --- The Brotherhood of St. Paul, "The Clifton Tracts," Vol. 4. tract 4, p. 15.

"The Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her founder, Jesus Christ. The Protestant claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith, has NO WARRANT FOR OBSERVING SUNDAY. In this matter, the Seventh-Day Adventist is the only consistent Protestant." --- "The Catholic Universe Bulletin," August 14, 1942, p. 4.



The following was found at http://www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/resurrection/res6.htm



SO WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT?


Thousands of years ago, the controversy between Cain and Abel was NOT over which God to worship they both worshipped the same God but it was over HOW to worship that God. Abel worshipped as God had ordained, but Cain chose to do it HIS OWN WAY, man's way!

The problem is still the same today. How - and when - are we to worship God? Are we to follow God's instructions or man's?

There is a great movement by Christians in America to return to God. That's a wonderful concept that I agree with. But how is that to be accomplished? By changing the hearts of individuals by introducing them to Jesus or by passing laws to force them to worship in a certain way or on a certain day? God certainly does not use force to compel us to obey Him. That is the method of Satan.

Yet the Pope has called for CIVIL LEGISLATION to make Sunday a day of worship and this is being endorsed by the "Lord's Day" Alliance, a group of prominent Protestant leaders in the U.S. with the goal of bringing America "back to God" and particularly endorsing Sunday as a day of worship. They even refer to Sunday as "the Sabbath," a designation that has NO Biblical basis. Even calendars are beginning to reflect Monday as the first day of the week and Sunday as the seventh day, a dramatic and erroneous change in the weekly cycle from what God designated. However, these are the Adversary's devices to confuse the people. Only earnest study will yield the truth.

One group of people has honored the Seventh-Day Sabbath for thousands of years - - - the Jews! They still keep Saturday, the Seventh day, as the Sabbath, and correctly so. In fact, we can see that the Seventh day Sabbath has been kept by numerous nations throughout time because it is reflected in the name they give to the seventh day, the day Americans call Saturday. In over 105 languages it is seen that all of the words for Saturday either contain the root word for Sabbath or are synonymous with Sabbath. Following are a number of examples: Sabado or Sᢡdo (Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, and Tagalog); Shapat (Armenian); Sᢡdu (Asturian); Al Sabit (Arabic); Sabtu (Malaysian and Indonesian); Subota or Subbota (Croatian, Serbian, Russian, and Ukrainian); Sobota (Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Slovenian); Sa'bato (Greek); Shabat (Hebrew); Szombat (Hungarian); Shanivar (Hindu); and Shabes (Yiddish). This continuation of the root word for Sabbath reflected in so many languages as the seventh day of the week, what we call Saturday, confirms that the Seventh day was honored as the Sabbath day of worship in many countries of the world for centuries.

The "Lord's Day" Alliance also supports the premise that the United States is a Christian nation and therefore there should be NO separation of church and state. Yet the First Amendment to our United States Bill of Rights, ratified Dec. 15, 1791 states the following


"Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."


If Congress passes a law mandating Sunday as the day all businesses must close to allow everyone to be off work, what happens to the people who believe in a different day of worship, such as the Jews, the Seventh-day Adventists and others who keep the Biblical Seventh-day Sabbath, or what happens to the Muslims who revere Friday?

Businesses would strongly resist a Sabbath keeper's request to refrain from work on Saturday because the employee already will have Sunday off, by law! Even if he were allowed Saturday off, the person would NOT have the option of making up the time off by working on Sunday. So he would either lose another day's wages every week, or might even lose his job --- or he may become unemployable because no one will hire him.

Ominously, in 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (in Employment Division vs. Smith) "The free exercise of religion is a luxury that a well-ordered society cannot afford."

Whatever happened to our first Amendment rights?

In May of 1998, the Pope issued an Apostolic Letter Dies Domini (available at www.CIN.net) calling for civil legislation to force all businesses to close on Sunday. The Pope's letter states: "Christians will naturally strive to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy" (?67).

This clearly is civil legislation that, in essence, forces Sunday as a day of worship for all Christians. What happens to Christians (and possibly non-Christians) who don't believe that Sunday is God's ordained day of worship, that instead the Seventh-day Sabbath is God's day of worship and always has been since creation? In addition, both Catholics and Protestants have stated publicly that there is NO Biblical evidence to support keeping Sunday as the Sabbath. What will happen to these resisters?

Pope John Paul II also added an enforcement document, Apostolic Letter "Motu Proprio AD TUENDAM FIDEM," by which certain norms are inserted into the code of Canon law, and which also establishes related canonical sanctions.

What does that mean in plain English? It means when something is made "canon" it is regarded as sacred, (an authoritatively established rule) and there are penalties (sanctions), some very severe, dictated by the church for not obeying these rules.

In this enforcement document, one finds the following:

"Canon 1371 The following are to be punished with a just penalty:

"A person who, when warned by the Apostolic See, does not retract;

"A person who in any other way does not obey the lawful command or prohibition of the Apostolic See or a Superior and, after being warned, persists in disobedience.

"Canon 598: Those things are to be believed by divine and catholic faith which are contained in the word of God as it has been written or handed down by tradition. . . all Christian faithful are therefore bound to avoid any contrary doctrines. (NOTE: Apparently they feel they have jurisdiction over ALL Christians.)

"Canon 1436 - ? 1. Whoever denies a truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or who calls into doubt, or who totally repudiates the Christian faith, and does not retract after having been legitimately warned, is to be punished as a heretic."

(NOTE: In the past "punishment as a heretic" has meant death! for both Catholics and non-Catholics.)

In his apostolic letter, Dies Domini, the Pope states nearly 30 times that Sunday is the chosen day of worship because "Jesus was resurrected on Sunday." However, the documentation in this study shows that the Bible clearly reveals that Jesus was resurrected on Sabbath, --- Saturday --- the 7th day of the week, not Sunday!

In addition, it should be noted that this is an official change from the past in the stance of the Catholic Church on this issue. The Catholic Church has always acknowledged that the Seventh-day Sabbath is the day of worship ordained by God, the day God made Holy, and nowhere in the Bible is there any directive by God to keep Sunday holy. However, the Pope claims that the Catholic Church has the power and authority to CHANGE the day God has chosen for worship of Him, from the Seventh day Sabbath, Saturday, as declared by God in His fourth Commandment, (See Ex. 20) to the first day, Sunday.

By definition, the Pope is claiming to be equal with, or even above, God.


{From here, see "Catholicism Speaks" and then "Protestantism Speaks" above.}

So the TRADITION of keeping Sunday holy in honor of Christ's resurrection has NO BIBLICAL VALIDITY whatsoever!

Jesus was resurrected on the Seventh day Sabbath. He said "I am Lord of the Sabbath." Mark 2:28

"The Seventh Day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." Exodus 20:8-10

The Seventh Day Sabbath (Saturday) is the Lord's Day!

What ever happened to the right to worship as one chooses?

History has confirmed that every time civil power and religious power are combined in one government, the result is ALWAYS persecution of those who don't agree with the majority. Look at the Dark Ages!

God is NOT a God of force! Forced worship of any designated type, or on any designated day, is of Satan! Anytime anyone is forced to worship on a particular day, or in any particular way, not of his own choosing, this is against ALL the principles of Christ.

Jesus said "I, if I be lifted up, will DRAW ALL to me." John 12:32. Jesus "draws" us to Him with His love. He does NOT push or force!

There is a power that is inseparable from the truth of the gospel of Christ -- that is the power of God. The gospel is the manifestation of that power, for the gospel "is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth." The power of God remains with any group or organization of people of Christ as long as they maintain in sincerity the principle of that gospel. They will have no need of any other power to make their influence felt for good.

But just as soon as any person or association professing the gospel loses the spirit of the gospel, the power is gone also. When the church or association loses the power of God and of godliness, then they greedily grasp for the power of the State to legislate laws to enforce the church's discipline and dogmas upon those whom they have lost the power either to convince or to persuade.

When the church turns away from the power of God and cloaks herself with the power of the State, she does not declare open warfare against God, but instead pretends, and possibly believes, that she is still doing God's work on earth. She wars against God covertly, maintaining the deception by continuing to use the names of all the institutions of true Christianity. In other words, she becomes a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Force is the LAST resort of EVERY false religion!


What About the "Lord's Day"?
Doesn't the "Lord's Day" mean Sunday?


The ONLY time the words "the Lord's Day" are used in the Bible is in Rev. 1:10 where John says "I came to be in the Spirit in (not "on") the Lord's day." John was in the Spirit (in vision) IN (original Greek) the Lord's Day. The King James Version has changed it to "on" the Lord's day.

"In Spirit, John is transported into the future day of Jehovah of which the prophets have often spoken. The Hebrew phrase `the day of the Lord' is changed to `the Lord's day' in order to shift the emphasis from the character of the day to the time, which is the important point in this passage." (Concordant Commentary, pg. 384)

The entire book of Revelation is John's vision on what would be happening at the end of time, in "the day of the Lord." Peter speaks about this "day of the Lord" in 2 Peter 3:10,

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." Paul refers to the "day of the Lord" as the "end of the world" or the end of this era or age.

1 Cor 5:5 "To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord."

1 Cor 1:8 "Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ."

2 Cor 1:14 "As also ye have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus."

Phil 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Phil 1:10 "That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ."

Phil 2:16 "Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain."


These texts all confirm that "the day of the Lord" is looking forward to the time when Jesus returns. It is NOT referring to a specific day of the week, and certainly there is NOTHING to link it to the specific day of "Sunday."

There is no text in the Bible saying that Sunday is "The Lord's Day" nor that Sunday is in any way a day of worship. God ordained the Seventh day Sabbath as His Holy Day and He says "I never change!" Malachi 3:6

Sunday is the first day of the week and a day that for thousands of years has been set aside to worship the pagan sun god! Therefore, it is named Sunday!

In addition, Jesus has designated which specific day is His:

Jesus, Himself, said "the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath!" Luke 6:5 The Seventh day, the day that He set aside at creation and the day that He kept when He was on earth.

So the Seventh-day Sabbath, Saturday, IS "The Lord's Day."


But wasn't the Seventh-day Sabbath done away with at the Cross?


Wasn't that the Old Covenant? Aren't we now under the New Covenant - Grace - rather than the Law?

Remember, God wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger - in stone! This was one of ONLY two times we are told that He wrote anything for us, Himself. He obviously wanted us to understand its importance. It was written in stone because it was to be everlasting. It was the ONLY thing placed INSIDE the ark. The Ordinances, or Mosaic laws, were placed in the SIDE of the ark along with Aaron's rod that budded.

There is NOWHERE in the Bible that Jesus, either before or after his death and resurrection, tells us He changed His day of worship. In Col 2:13, Paul tells us that God "blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was AGAINST US, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross."

Certainly, the Ten Commandments are NOT against us nor contrary to us. If the Ten Commandments were blotted out and nailed to the Cross, that would mean it's acceptable to lie, steal, murder, commit adultery, worship idols and profane God's name. The ordinances were the Mosaic laws, the system of feasts and animal sacrifices. THESE were done away with at the Cross, NOT the Ten Commandments.

It's interesting to note that when Christians talk of the Law, the Ten Commandments, being nailed to the Cross, the ONLY commandment that is abandoned is the Fourth Commandment, the Seventh-day Sabbath Commandment. All the others are kept intact.

The New Covenant, God says, is NOT doing away with the Law, but putting the LAW, the Ten Commandments, in our minds and in our hearts. Heb 8:10 says "For this is the NEW COVENANT that I will make with the house of Israel saith the Lord: I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." God wants us to keep the commandments, by His grace and power, because we agree that is the right way to live, NOT just because God has told us to.

The New Covenant is the SAME law, but instead of being written on stone as the Old Covenant was, it is now written in our minds and on our hearts. So we DO right, because it IS right - because we want to do right, not because we have to!
 

 

 


CONTINUE: The Meaning of the Sabbath

The following was found on a message board/forum:


We all like to receive mail. Here is a letter from the Roman Catholic Church, originally published in America in 1869. The message was written to Protestants and is forceful and to the point, with lots of Scriptural proofs for its position. Here is the letter....

I am going to propose a very plain and serious question to those who follow "the Bible and the Bible only" to give their most earnest attention. It is this: Why do you not keep holy the Sabbath Day?

The command of Almighty God stands clearly written in the Bible in these words: "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" (Exodus xx. 8-10). And again, "Six days shall work be done; but on the seventh day there shall be unto you an holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord; whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death" (Exodus xxxv. 2, 3).

How strict and precise is God's commandment upon this head! [in this matter!] No work whatever was to be done on the day which He had chosen to set apart for Himself and to make holy. And, accordingly, when the children of Israel "found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath day," "the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp" (Numbers xv. 32, 35). Such being God's command, then I ask again: Why do you not obey it? Why do you not keep holy the Sabbath day?

You will answer me, perhaps, that you do keep holy the Sabbath day; for that you abstain from all worldly business and diligently go to church, and say your prayers, and read your Bible at home, every Sunday of your lives.

But Sunday is not the Sabbath day. Sunday is the first day of the week; the Sabbath day is the seventh day of the week. Almighty God did not give a commandment that men should keep holy one day in seven; but He named His own day, and said distinctly: "Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day," and He assigned a reason for choosing this day rather than any other--a reason which belongs only to the seventh day of the week, and cannot be applied to the rest. He says "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" [Exodus xx. 11].

Almighty God ordered that all men should rest from their labor on the seventh day, because He too had rested on that day; He did not rest on Sunday, but on Saturday. On Sunday, which is the first day of the week, He began the work of creation, He did not finish it [then]; it was on Saturday that He "ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made" (Genesis ii. 2). Nothing can be more plain and easy to understand than all this; and there is nobody who attempts to deny it; it is acknowledged by everybody that the day which Almighty God appointed to be kept holy was Saturday, not Sunday. Why do you then keep holy the Sunday, and not Saturday?

You will tell me that Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath [God gave the Bible Sabbath to mankind 2,000 years before the first Jew, Abraham, existed], but that the Christian Sabbath has been changed to Sunday; changed! but by whom? Who has authority to change an express commandment of Almighty God? When God has spoken and said, Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day, who shall dare to say, Nay, thou mayest work and do all manner of worldly business on the seventh day; but thou shalt keep holy the first day in its stead? This is a most important question, which I know not how you can answer.

You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and Bible only; and yet in so important a matter as the observance of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against the plain letter of the Bible, and put another day in the place of that day which the Bible has commanded. The command to keep holy the seventh day is one of the Ten Commandments. You believe that the other nine are still binding; but who gave you authority to tamper with the fourth? If you are consistent with your own principles, if you really follow the Bible and the Bible only, you ought to be able to produce some portion of the New Testament in which this fourth commandment is expressly altered.

Let us see whether any such passages can be found. I will look for them in the writings of your own [Protestant] champions, who have attempted to defend your practice in this matter.

1. The first text which I find quoted upon the subject is this: "Let no man judge you in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days" (Colossians ii. 16). [That refers to the ceremonial-sacrificial-yearly sabbaths of Leviticus 23, which were done away at the cross.] I could understand a Bible Christian imagining from this passage, that we ought to make no difference between Saturday, Sunday, and every other day of the week. But not one syllable does it say about the obligation of the Sabbath being transferred from one day to another.

2. Secondly, the words of St. John are quoted, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day (Apocalypse [Revelation] i. 10). Is it possible that anybody can for a moment imagine that here is a safe and clear rule for changing the weekly day of worship from the seventh to the first day? This passage is utterly silent upon such a subject; it only give Scriptural authority for calling some one day in particular (it does not even say which day) "the Lord's day."

3. Next we are reminded that St. Paul bade his Corinthian converts, "upon the first day of the week, lay by them in store, that there might be no gatherings" when he himself came (1 Corinthians xvi. 2). How is this supposed to affect the law of the Sabbath? It commands a certain act of almsgiving [doing one's finances at home] to be done on the first day of the week. It says absolutely nothing about not doing certain other acts of prayer and public worship on the seventh day.

4. But, you will say, it was "on the first day of the week" when the disciples were assembled within closed doors for fear of the Jews, and Jesus stood in the midst of them" (John xx. 19). What is there in these facts to do away with the obligation of keeping holy the seventh day? Our Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week, and on the same day at evening He appears to many of His disciples. Let Protestants, if they will [in obedience to Catholic tradition], keep holy the first day of the week in grateful commemoration of that stupendous mystery, the Resurrection of Christ, and of the evidences which He vouchsafed to give of it to His doubting disciples; but this is no scriptural authority for ceasing to keep holy another day of the week which God had expressly commanded to be kept holy for another and altogether different reason.

5. But lastly, we have the example of the Apostles themselves. "Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his speech until midnight" (Acts xx. 7). Here we have clear proof that the disciples heard a sermon on a Sunday. But is that not proof they had done the same on the Saturdays also? [Acts xiii. 14, 42-44; xvi. 12-13; xvii. 1-2; xviiii. 1-4, 11]. [After the night meeting on the first day in Troas (Acts xx. 7), Paul held a meeting on Tuesday in Miletus (Acts xx. 17-38). But no one considers that meeting sacred.]

You will say, is it not expressly written concerning those early Christians, that they "continued daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house?" (Acts ii. 46). As a matter of fact, do we not know from other sources that, in many parts of the church, the ancient Christians were in the habit of meeting together for public worship, and to perform the other [religious] offices, on Saturdays? Again then, I say, [in obedience to our command] let Protestants keep holy, if they will their first day of the week; but let them remember that this cannot possible release them from the obligation of keeping holy another day which Almighty God has ordered to be kept holy, because on that day He "rested from all His work." [The Troas meeting was held on Sunday in Acts 20:7, just prior to a Miletus meeting on Tuesday in Acts 20:17-38, although no one today keeps Tuesday sacred because of that meeting].

I do not know of any other passages of holy Scripture which Protestants are in the habit of quoting to defend their practice of keeping holy the first day of the week instead of the seventh; yet, surely those which I have quoted are not such as should satisfy any reasonable man, who looks upon the written word of God as they [the Protestants] profess to look upon it, namely, as the only appointed means of learning God's will, and who really desires to learn and to obey that will in all things with humbleness and simplicity of heart. For in spite of all that anyone might say to the contrary, it is fully and absolutely impossible that a reasonable and thoughtful person should be satisfied, by the texts that I have quoted, that Almighty God intended the obligation of Saturday to be transferred to Sunday. And yet Protestants do so transfer it, and never seem to have the slightest misgivings lest, in doing so, they should be guilty of breaking one of God's commandments.

Why is this? Because, although they talk so largely about following the Bible and Bible only, they are really guided in this matter by the voice of [Roman Catholic] tradition. Yes, much as they may hate and denounce the word [tradition], they have in fact no other authority to allege for this most important change.

The present generation of Protestants keep Sunday holy instead of Saturday, because they received it as part of the Christian religion from the last generation, and that generation received it from the generation before, and so on backwards from one generation to another, by a continual succession, until we come to the time of the so-called "Reformation," when it so happened that those who conducted the change of religion [from Catholicism to Protestantism] left this particular portion of Catholic faith and practice untouched.

But, had it happened otherwise--had some one or other of the "Reformers" taken it into his head to denounce the observance of Sunday as a Popish corruption and superstition, and to insist upon it that Saturday was the day which God had appointed to be kept holy, and that He had never authorized the observance of any other--all Protestants would have been obliged, in obedience to their professed principle of following "the Bible and the Bible only," either to acknowledge this teaching as true, and to return to the observance of the ancient Sabbath, or else to deny that there is any Sabbath at all. And so, in like manner, any one at the present day who should set about, honestly and without prejudice, to draw up for himself a form of religious belief and practice out of the written Word of God, must needs come to the same conclusion: He must either believe that the seventh-day Sabbath is still binding upon men's consciences, because of the Divine command, "Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day," or he must believe that no Sabbath at all is binding upon them. [Paul would have no right to abolish any of the Ten Commandments.] Either one of these conclusions he might come to--but he would know nothing whatever of a "Christian Sabbath" distinct from the Biblical Sabbath, [that is] celebrated on a different day, and observed in a different manner--simply because Holy Scripture itself nowhere speaks of such a thing.

Now, mind, in all this you would greatly misunderstand me if you supposed I was quarrelling with you for acting in this matter on a true and right principle--in other words, a Catholic principle (viz., the acceptance, without hesitation, of that which has been handed down to you by an unbroken tradition). I would not tear from you a single one of those shreds and fragments of Divine truth [Catholic truth] which you have retained. God forbid! They are the most precious things you possess, and by God's blessing may serve as clues to bring you out of that labyrinth of [Protestant] error in which you find yourselves involved, far more by the fault of your forefathers three centuries ago [when they left Rome during the sixteenth-century Reformation] than by your own.

What I do quarrel with you for, is not your inconsistency in occasionally acting on a true principle [such as Roman Catholic Sunday-keeping], but your adoption, as a general rule of a false one [your Protestant refusal to accept the rest of Roman traditional teachings; such as the Mass and the veneration of saints]. You keep the Sunday, and not the Saturday; and you do so rightly, for this was the practice of all Christians when Protestantism began [Catholic leaders erroneously say there were no Protestants prior to the sixteenth century]; but you have abandoned other Catholic observances which were equally universal at that day, preferring the novelties introduced by the men who invented Protestantism, to the unvarying tradition of above 1500 years [of Catholic teaching]. We blame you not for making Sunday your weekly holyday instead of Saturday, but for rejecting tradition [the sayings of the popes and councils of Rome], which is the only safe and clear rule by which this observance [of Sunday] can be justified.

In outward act we do the same as yourselves in this matter; we too no longer observe the Sabbath, but Sunday in its stead; but there is this important difference between us, that we do not pretend--as you do--to derive our authority for so doing from a book [the Bible], but we [Catholics] derive it from a living teacher, and that teacher is the [Roman Catholic] Church. Moreover, we believe that not everything which God would have us to know and to do is written in the Bible, but that there is also an unwritten word of God [the sayings of popes and councils and canonized saints], which we are bound to believe and to obey . .

We Catholics, then, have precisely the same authority for keeping Sunday holy instead of Saturday as we have for every other article of our creed, namely, the authority of "the Church of the living God, and ground of truth" (1 Timothy iii. 15); whereas you who are Protestants have really no authority for it [Sunday sacredness] whatever; for there is no authority for it in the Bible, and you will not allow that there can be authority for it anywhere else. Both you and we do, in fact, follow [Catholic] tradition in this matter; but we follow it, believing it to be a part of God's word, and the [Catholic] Church to be its divinely appointed guardian and interpreter. You follow it [Catholicism], denouncing it all the time as a fallible and treacherous guide which often "makes the commandment of God of none effect" (Matthew xv. 6).

"Why Don't You Keep Holy the Sabbath Day?" pages 3-15, in The Clifton Tracts, Vol. 4, published by the Roman Catholic Church. Originally released in North America in 1869 through the T. W. Strong Publishing Company of New York City, so that those outside the papal fold might return to the not partial, but full, authority of the Mother Church of the Vatican.

END OF ARTICLE