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The Congregational
Church
"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," pg. 106-107.
" 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 Lyman Abbot, in the "Christian Union," June 26, 1890.
"There is no command in the Bible requiring us to observe the first day of
the week as the Christian Sabbath." Orin Fowler, A.M., Mode and Subjects of Baptism
"The Christian Sabbath (Sunday) is not in the Scriptures, and was not by
the Primitive Church called the Sabbath." Dwight's Theology, Vol. 4, pg. 401.
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The Lutheran Church
"The observance of the Lord's day [Sunday] is founded not on any command of
God, but on the authority of the church." Augsburg Confession of Faith, quoted in the Catholic Sabbath Manual, Part
2, Chap. 1, Sec.10.
"They [the Catholics] allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord's
Day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it appears, neither is there any example more
boasted of than the changing of the Sabbath day. Great, say they, is the power
and the authority of the church, since it dispensed with one of the Ten
Commandments." Martin Luther, Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art. 28, Par.9.
"But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old
Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the seventh day had to be kept
by the children of Israel. In other words, they insist that Sunday is the
divinely appointed New Testament Sabbath, and so they endeavor to enforce the
Sabbatical observance of Sunday by so called blue laws...These churches err in
their teaching, for the Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the
week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to
that effect."
John Theodore Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday, pp. 15,16
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The Episcopal Church
"The Bible commandment says on the seventh day thou shalt rest. That is
Saturday. Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on
Sunday." Philip Carrington, Toronto Daily Star, Oct. 26, 1949.
"Where are we told in Scripture 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...... The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of
the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not
because the Bible, but because the church has enjoined it." Isaac Williams, D. D., Plain Sermons on the Catechism, Vol. 1, pp. 334-336.
"Sunday (Dies Solis, of the Roman calendar, ‘day of the sun,’ because
dedicated to the sun), the first day of the week, was adopted by the early
Christians as a day of worship. The ‘sun’ of Latin adoration they
interpreted as the ‘Sun of Righteousness.. No regulations for its observance
are laid down in the New Testament, nor, indeed, is its observance even
enjoined." Schaff Herzog, Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1891 Edition, Vol.4, art: 'Sunday’
"The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human
ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a
divine command in this respect, far from them and from the early apostolic
church to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday." Neander, History of the Christian Religion and Church, p.186
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The Presbyterian
Church
"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"
"We must not imagine that the coming of Christ has freed us from the
authority of the law; for it is the eternal rule of a devout and holy life, and
must therefore be as unchangeable as the justice of God, which it embraced, is
constant and uniform." John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Gospels, Vol. 1, pg. 277.
"The Sabbath is a part of the Decalogue - the Ten Commandments. This alone
forever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution... Until,
therefore, it can be shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the
Sabbath will stand... The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the
Sabbath."
T.C. Blake, D.D., Theology Condensed, pp.474,475
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The Anglican Church
"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 commanded to keep the
first." Isaac Williams, "Plain Sermons on the Catechism," pp. 334, 336.
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The Disciples
of Christ Church
"There is no direct Scriptural authority for designating the first day 'the
Lord's Day." Dr. D.H. Lucas, in the "Christian Oracle," January 23, 1890.
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The Moody Bible
Institute
"The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. This
fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing that the Sabbath
already existed when God wrote the law on the tables of stone at Sinai. How can
men claim that this one commandment has been done away with when they will admit
that the other nine are still binding?"....."I honestly believe that
this commandment [the fourth, or Sabbath commandment] is just as binding today
as it ever was. I have talked with men who have said that it has been abrogated
(canceled), but they have never been able to point to any place in the Bible
where God repealed it. When Christ was on earth, He did nothing to set it aside;
He freed it from the traces under which the Scribes and Pharisees had put it,
and gave it its true place. `The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
Sabbath.' It is just as practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever
was - in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense age." D.L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting, pg. 47.
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The Methodist Church
"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.
"No Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments
which are called moral."
"The Sabbath was made for MAN; not for the Hebrews, but for all men."
Methodist Church Discipline (1904), p.23
"But the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments, and enforced by the
prophets, He [Christ] did not take away. It was not the design of his coming to
revoke any part of this. This is a law which can never be broken.... Every part
of this law must remain in force upon all mankind and in all ages; as not
depending either on time or place, or any other circumstances liable to change,
but on the nature of God and the nature of man, and their unchangeable relation
to each other."
John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions, Vol. 1, Sermon XXV.
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The Mormon Church
\Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
"In this, a new dispensation, and verily the last - the dispensation of the
fullness of times - the law of the Sabbath has been reaffirmed unto the
church... We believe that a weekly day of rest is no less truly a necessity for
the physical well-being of man than his spiritual growth; but primarily and
essentially, we regard the Sabbath as divinely established, and its observance a
commandment of Him who was and is and ever shall be, Lord of the Sabbath." James E.
Talmage, Articles of Faith, 25th Edition, Art. 13, Chap. 24, pp.
449, 451, 452.
"The acceptance by the Latter-day Saints of what is usually called the
'Christian Sabbath,' or 'Lord's Day,' as the proper day of special service and
worship of the Lord is sometimes challenged. Such acceptance is challenged as
being in violation of one of the Ten Commandments- the fourth- which directed
ancient Israel to keep holy the Sabbath day- the Seventh day of the week; and
which, it is held, was designed to be a perpetual law unto all who accept God as
Creator and Law-giver." Brigham H. Roberts, The Lord's Day (13 page pamphlet), p. 3.
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The Baptist Church
"There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that
Sabbath day was not Sunday... It will be said, however, and with some show of
triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of
the week... 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...’To me it
seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years intercourse with His
disciples, often conversing with them upon the Sabbath question, never alluded
to any transference of the day; also, that during forty days of His resurrection
life, no such thing was intimated...’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,
when adopted and sanctioned by papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy
to Protestantism." Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, author of the Baptist Manual, in a paper read
before a New York minister’s conference held Nov.13, 1893
"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."
"The first four commandments set forth man's obligations directly toward
God.... But when we keep the first four commandments, we are likely to keep the
other six....The fourth commandment sets forth God's claim on man's time and
thought....The six days of labor and the rest on the Sabbath are to be
maintained as a witness to God's toil and rest in the creation.... No one of the
ten words is of merely racial significance....The Sabbath was established
originally (long before Moses) in no special connection with the Hebrews, but as
an institution for all of mankind, in commemoration of God's rest after the six
days of creation. It was designed for all the descendants of Adam." Adult Quarterly, Southern Baptist Convention series, Aug. 15, 1937.
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Jehovah's Witness
Kingdom Hall
"Therefore God gave his law through Moses to the Israelites and which
applies to all who want to do right, and the first in order and first in
importance of his commandments or fundamental law is this, to wit.' Exodus 20:1-6,".."which is the first part of the Ten Commandment law...'The
law of God never changes, because God never changes. (Malachi 3:6). His law
points out the way to everlasting life. No creature will ever be given life
everlasting who willfully, that is, intentionally, violates God's law....For a
man to violate the fundamental law of God means that that man puts himself on
the side of the devil, who therefore leads him to destruction." Enemies, Watchtower publications, 1937, pg. 94.
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The Nation of Islam \
note: their holy day is Friday
The leader of the Nation of Islam Minister Farrakahn, in addressing White
America said "You have not obeyed Divine
Law, you have set yourself up as a law beside God, so whatever God says thou
shall not do, you said 'it's all right, hang in there, go on and do
it."........"God says you should keep the Sabbath. You didn't do it,
so we (Black people) don't do it. See, we were your slaves, we came up under
you, you were our teacher, you taught us and wanted us to call you master."
Quoted from Minister Louis Farrakahn's speech at the Jacob Javit Center, in
New York City, December 18, 1993,
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The Church Of England
"Not any ecclesiastical writer of the first three centuries attributed
the origin of Sunday observance either to Christ or to His apostles." Sir
WILLIAM DOMVILLE, Examination of the Six Texts," pages 6, 7. (Supplement).
"There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstaining from
work on Sunday. . . into the rest of Sunday no divine law enters. . . The
observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands exactly on the same footing as the
observance of Sunday." CANON EYTON, "The Ten Commandments,"
pages 52, 63, 65
"Is there any command in the New Testament to change the day of weekly rest
from Saturday to Sunday? None." Manual of Christian
Doctrine," page 127
"The Lord's day did not succeed in the place of the Sabbath ... The Lord's
day was merely an ecclesiastical institution It was not introduced by virtue of
the fourth commandment, because for almost three hundred years together they
kept that day which was in that commandment.... The primitive Christians did all
manner of works upon the Lord's day even in times of persecution when they are
the strictest observers of all the divine commandments; but in this they knew
there was none." BISHOP JEREMY TAYLOR, "Ductor Dubitantium,"
Part 1, Book II, Chap. 2, Rule 6 Sec.51,59.
"Sunday being the day on which the Gentiles solemnly adore that planet and
called it Sunday, partly from its influence on that day especially, and partly
in respect to its divine body (as they conceived it), the Christians thought fit
to keep the same day and the same name of it, that they might not appear
causelessly peevish, and by that means hinder the conversion of the Gentiles,
and bring a greater prejudice than might be otherwise taken against the
gospel." T. M. MORER, "Dialogues on the Lord's Day," pages
22,23.
"Where are we told in Scripture 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.... The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of
the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not
because the Bible, but because the church has enjoined it." ISAAC
WILLIAMS, B.D., "Plain Sermons on the Catechism," Vol. 1, pages
334-336.
"Dear Madam:
"In reply to your letter of May 7th, I am asked by the Archbishop of
Canterbury to say that from the first century onward the Christian church has
observed the first day of the week as the weekly commemoration of the
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many of the early Christians . . .
deliberately substituted the first day of the week for the seventh on the ground
that it was on the first day that our Lord rose from the dead. [Italics ours.]
"Yours faithfully,
"ALAN C. DON."
"The Puritan idea was historically unhappy. It made Sunday into the Sabbath
day. Even educated people call Sunday the Sabbath. Even clergymen do.
"But, unless my reckoning is all wrong, the Sabbath day lasts twenty-four
hours from six o'clock on Friday evening. It gives over, therefore, before we
come to Sunday. If you suggest to a Sabbatarian that he ought to observe the
Sabbath on the proper day, you arouse no enthusiasm. He at once replies that the
day, not the principle, has been changed. But changed by whom? There is no
injunction in the whole of the New Testament to Christians to change the Sabbath
into Sunday." --D. MORSE- BOYCOTT, Davy Herald, London, Feb. 26, 1931.
"The Christian church made no formal, but a gradual and almost unconscious
transference of the one day to the other." F. W. FARRAR, D.D.,
"The Voice From Sinai," page 167.
"Take which you will, either of the Fathers or the moderns, and we shall
find no Lord's day instituted by any apostolical mandate; no Sabbath set on
foot by them upon the first day of the week." PETER HEYLYN, History of
the Sabbath, page 410.
"Merely to denounce the tendency to secularize Sunday is as futile as it is
easy. What we want is to find some principle, to which as Christians we can
appeal, and on which we can base both our conduct and our advice. We turn to the
New Testament, and we look in vain for any authoritative rule. There is no
recorded word of Christ, there is no word of any of the apostles, which tells
how we should keep Sunday, or indeed that we should keep it at all. It is
disappointing, for it would make our task much easier if we could point to a
definite rule, which left us no option but simple obedience or disobedience....
There is no rule for Sunday observance, either in Scripture or history."
DR.
STEPHEN, Bishop of Newcastle, N.S.W., in an address reported in the Newcastle
Morning Herald, May 14, 1924.
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The Christian Church
"It has reversed the fourth commandment by doing away with the Sabbath
of God's Word, and instituting Sunday as a holiday." DR. N. SUMMERBELL,
"History of the Christian Church," Third Edition, page 415.
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The Church Of Christ
NOTE: The current official position of the Church of Christ is that the Sabbath
was abolished entirely and Christians need not keep either Saturday or Sunday as
a day of worship.
"There is no direct Scriptural authority for designating the first day
the Lord's day." DR. D. H. LUCAS, Christian Oracle, Jan. 23, 1890.
"The first day of the week is commonly called the Sabbath. This is a
mistake. The Sabbath of the Bible was the day just preceding the first day of
the week. The first day of the week is never called the Sabbath anywhere in the
entire Scriptures. It is also an error to talk about the change of the Sabbath.
There never was any change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. There is not
in any place in the Bible any intimation of such a change." First-Day
Observance, pages 17, 19.
"To command ... men ... to observe ... the Lord's day ... is contrary to
the gospel." Memoirs of Alexander Campbell," Vol. I, page
528.
"It is clearly proved that the pastors of the churches have struck out one
of God's ten words, which, not only in the Old Testament, but in all revelation,
are the most emphatically regarded as the synopsis of all religion and
morality." ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, "Debate With Purcell," page
214.
"I do not believe that the Lord's day came in the room of the Jewish
Sabbath, or that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day, for
this plain reason, where there is no testimony, there can be no faith. Now there
is no testimony in all the oracles of heaven that the Sabbath was changed, or
that the Lord's day came in the room of it." ALEXANDER CAMPBELL,
Washington Reporter, Oct.8, 1821.
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Historical
"During this indefinite time a considerable amount of a sort of
theokrasia seems to have gone on between the Christian cult and the almost
equally popular and widely diffused Mithraic cult, and the cult of
Serapis-Isis-Horus. From the former it would seem the Christians adopted Sunday
as their chief day of worship in- stead of the Jewish Sabbath." H. G.
WELLS, "The Outline of History" (New and Revised), page 543.
"The first who ever used it [the Sabbath to denote the Lord's day (the
first that I have met with in all this search) is one Petrus Alfonsus-he lived
about the time that Repurtus did (which was the beginning of the twelfth
century)-who calls the Lord's day by the name of Christian Sabbath." PETER
HEYLYN, "History of the Sabbath," Part 2, Chap. 2, Sec. 12.
"Bear in mind that the substitution [of the first for the seventh day] was
not a coerced happening; it could not be a sudden, but only a very slow
development, probably never anticipated, never even designed or put into shape
by those chiefly interested, but creeping almost unconsciously into being."
WILLIAM
B. DANA, "A Day of Rest and Worship," page 174.
The first direct reference to Sunday as a day of rest from physical toil we find
in Tertullian, in about A.D. 200 in his Liber de Oratione, chapter 23. "We,
however ( just as we have received ), only on the day of the Lord's resurrection
ought to guard not only against kneeling, but every posture and office of
solicitude; deferring even our businesses lest we give any place to the
devil." TERTULLIAN, "Ante-Nicene Fathers," Vol. 111, page
689.
"The early Christians had at first adopted the Jewish seven- day week with
its numbered week days, but by the close of the third century A.D. this began to
give way to the planetary week; and in the fourth and fifth centuries the pagan
designations became generally accepted in the western half of Christendom. The
use of the planetary names by Christians attests the growing influence of
astrological speculations introduced by converts from paganism. ... During these
same centuries the spread of Oriental solar worships, especially that of
Mithra (Persian sun worship) in the Roman world, had already led to the
substitution by pagans of dies Solis for dies Saturni, as the first day of the
planetary week.... Thus gradually a pagan institution was ingrafted on
Christianity." HUTTON WEBSTER, Ph.D., Rest Days, pages 220, 221.
Eusebius, fourth-century bishop and friend of the wicked Emperor Constantine,
whose Sunday law is the first on record, flatly says: "All things,
whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to
the Lord's day [as they had begun to call Sunday]." --"Commentary on
the Psalms."
"Opposition to Judaism introduced the particular festival of Sunday very
early, indeed, into the place of the Sabbath.... The festival of Sunday, like
all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the
intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect, far
from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the
Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps, at the end of the second century a false application
of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have
considered laboring on Sunday as a sin." AUGUSTUS NEANDER, General
history of the Christian Religion and Church" (Rose's translation), Vol. 1,
page 186.
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Dictionaries
"As the Sabbath is of divine institution, so it is to be kept holy unto
the Lord. Numerous have been the days appointed by men for religious services;
but these are not binding, because of human institution. Not so the Sabbath.
Hence the fourth commandment is ushered in with a peculiar emphasis-'Remember
that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.' ... The abolition of it would be
unreasonable." CHARLES BUCK A Theological Dictionary," 1830
Edition, page 537.
"But although it [Sunday] was in the primitive times indifferently called
the Lord's day, or Sunday, yet it was never denominated the Sabbath; a name
constantly appropriate to Saturday, or the seventh day, both by sacred and
ecclesiastical writers."-Id., page 572.
"The notion of a formal substitution by apostolic authority of the Lord's
day [meaning Sunday] for the Jewish Sabbath [or the first for the seventh
day]... and the transference to it, perhaps in a spiritualized form, of the
sabbatical obligation established by the promulgation of the fourth commandment,
has no basis whatever, either in Holy Scripture or in Christian
antiquity." SIR WILLIAM SMITH AND SAMUEL CHEETHAM, A Dictionary of
Christian Antiquities," Vol. II, page I82, Article "Sabbath."
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Encyclopedias
"Sunday was a name given by the heathens to the first day of the week,
because it was the day on which they worshipped the sun, ... the seventh day was
blessed and hallowed by God Himself, and ... He requires His creatures to keep
it holy to Him. This commandment is of universal and perpetual obligation. ...
The Creator 'blessed the seventh day' declared it to be a day above all days, a
day on which His favor should assuredly rest. ... So long, then, as man exists,
and the world around him endures, does the law of the early Sabbath remain. It
cannot be set aside, so long as its foundations last.... It is not the Jewish
Sabbath, properly so-called, which is ordained in the fourth commandment. In the
whole of that injunction there is no Jewish element, any more than there is in
the third commandment, or the sixth." Eadie's Biblical Cyclopedia,
1872 Edition, page 561.
"Thus we learn from Socrates (HE., vi.c.8) that in his time public worship was
held in the churches of Constantinople on both days. The view that the
Christian's Lord's day or Sunday is but the Christian Sabbath deliberately
transferred, from the seventh to the first day of the week does not indeed, find
categorical expression till a much later period.... The earliest recognition
of the observance of Sunday as a legal duty is a constitution of Constantine
in A.D. 32l, enacting that all courts of justice, inhabitants of towns, and
workshops were to be at rest on. Sunday (venerabili die Solis), with an
exception in favor of those engaged in agricultural labor.... The Council of
Laodicea (363) ...,forbids Christians from Judaizing and resting on the Sabbath
day. preferring the Lord's day, and so far as possible resting as Christians.
" Encyclopedia Britannica l899 Edition, Vol. XXIII, page 654.
"Unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the
sabbatical observance of Sunday is known to have been ordained is the sabbatical
edict of Constantine, A.D. 321. Chambers' Encyclopedia, Article "Sunday.
"It must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the, first
day. " M'CLINTOCK AND STRONG Cyclopedia of Biblical, Thedogical, and Ecclesiastical literature, Vol. IX page 196.
"Sunday (Dies Sotis, of the Roman calendar, 'day of the sun,' because
dedicated to the sun), the, first day of the week, was adopted by the early
Christians as a day of worship. The 'sun' of Latin adoration they interpreted as
the 'Sun of Righteousness.'... No regulations, for its observance are laid
down in the New Testament, nor, indeed, is its observance even enjoined. "
.SCHAFF
HERZOG, Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1891 Edition, Vol. IV, Art.
"Sunday."
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Miscellaneous
"You will tell me that Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath, 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 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 will answer.
"You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and the 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; 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." --"The Library of Christian
Doctrine" pages 3,4.
"The first precept in the Bible is that of sanctifying the seventh day:
'God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.' Genesis 2:3 This precept was
confirmed by God in the Ten Commandments: 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it
holy. ... The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God 'Exodus 20: 8, 10.
On the other hand, Christ declares that He is not come to destroy the law, but
to fulfill it. (Matthew 5: 17.) He Himself observed the Sabbath: 'And, as His
custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.' Luke 4: 16. His
disciples likewise observed it after His death: 'They ... rested the Sabbath day
according to the commandment.' Luke 23: 56. Yet with all this weight of
Scripture authority for keeping the Sabbath or seventh day holy, Protestants of
all denominations make this a profane day and transfer the obligation of it to
the first day of the week, or the Sunday. Now what authority have they for doing
this? None at all but the unwritten word, or tradition of the Catholic Church,
which declares that the apostle made the change in honor of Christ's
resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Ghost on that day of the week. "--JOHN
MILNER, "The End of Religious Controversy, " page 71.
".Sabbath means, of course, Saturday, the seventh day of the week but the early Christians changed the observance to Sunday, to
honor the day on which
Christ arose from the dead "--FULTON DURSLER, Cosmopolitan, Sept 1951,
pages 34,35.
"I do not pretend to be even an amateur scholar of the Scriptures. I read
the Decalogue merely as an average man searching, for guidance, and in the
immortal 'Ten Words' I find a blueprint for the good life. "--Id., page
33.
"Most certainly the Commandments are needed today, perhaps more than ever
before. Their divine message confronts us with a profound moral challenge in an
epidemic of evil; a unifying message acceptable alike to Jew, Moslem, and
Christian. Who, reading the Ten in the light of history and of current events,
can doubt their identity with the eternal law of nature? "--Id , page 124..
"The Sabbath is commanded to be kept on the seventh day. It could not be
kept on any other day. To observe the first day of the week or the fourth is not
to observe the Sabbath.... It was the last day of the week, after six days of
work, that was to be kept holy. The observance of no other day would fulfill the
law. "--H. J FLOWERS, B.A., B D, "The Permanent value of the Ten
Commandments, "page 131.
"The evaluation of Sunday, the traditionally accepted day of the
resurrection of Christ, has varied greatly throughout the centuries of the
Christian Era. From time to time it has been confused with the seventh day of
the week, the Sabbath. English- speaking peoples have been the most consistent
in perpetuating the erroneous assumption that the obligation of the fourth
commandment has passed over to Sunday. In popular speech, Sunday is frequently,
but erroneously, spoken of as the Sabbath. "--F. M. SETZLER, Head
Curator, Department of Anthropology, .Smithsonian Institute, from a letter
dated Sept.1, 1949.
"He that observes the Sabbath aright holds the history of that which
it celebrates to be authentic, and therefore believes in the creation of the
first man; ho the creation of a fair abode for man in the space of six days; in
the primeval and absolute creation of the heavens and the earth, and as a
necessary antecedent to all this, in the Creator, who at the close of His latest
creative effort, rested on the seventh day. The Sabbath thus becomes a sign by
which the believers in a historical revelation are distinguished from those who
have allowed these great facts to fade from their remembrance. "-- JAMES
G MURPHY, "Commentary on the Book of Exodus, " comments on
Exodus 20: 8-11.
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Infidel
"Probably very few Christians are aware of the fact that what they call
the 'Christian Sabbath' (Sunday) is of pagan origin. "The first observance
of Sunday that history records is in the fourth century, when Constantine issued
an edict (not requiring its religious observance, but simply abstinence, from
work) reading 'let all the judges and people of the town rest and all the
various trades be suspended on the venerable day of the sun. At the time of the
issue of this edict, Constantine was a sun-worshipper; therefore it could have
had no relation whatever to Christianity. "-- HENRY M TABER, "Faith
or Fact" (preface by Robert G. Ingersol) page. 112.
"I challenge any priest or minister of the Christian religion to show me
the slightest authority, for the religious observance of Sunday. And, if such
cannot be shown by them, why is it that they are constantly preaching about
Sunday as a holy day? . . The claim that Sunday takes the place of Saturday, and
that because the Jews were supposed to be commanded to keep the seventh day of
the week holy, therefore the, first day of the week should be so kept by
Christians, is so utterly absurd as to be hardly worth considering.... That Paul
habitually observed and preached on the seventh day of the week, is ,shown in
Acts 18:4-- 'And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath' (Saturday). "--Id.,
pages 114, 116.
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