The Change of the Sabbath

IT is now proper that we inquire concerning the Sabbath of the Lord in these ages in which the foundation of the great apostasy was laid. The very same work that undermined the Sabbath and the law of God, laid the foundation of the Romish apostasy. It does not appear that the change of the Sabbath to Sunday was contemplated by those who first made Sunday a day of religious assemblies. Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, were thus honored with very nearly equal honors. But as the work spread to the gentiles, and as the first love of the disciples was succeeded by a spirit of seeking convenience and worldly good, it was perfectly natural that they should prefer that one of the three festivals to which they had ever been accustomed, and which was, indeed, the day of general observance by their fellow-men. And when this day was established by the authority of Constantine, and hallowed by the act of Pope Sylvester, it was not strange that it should effectually supplant the ancient Sabbath. Sunday was observed as a voluntary festival, while the Sabbath of the Lord was cherished as a divine institution; but, when the Sunday festival became strong enough, then it attempted the utter destruction of the Sabbath. Giesler thus states the position of those two days in the early church:—

"While the Jewish Christians of Palestine retained the entire Mosaic law, and consequently the Jewish festivals, the gentile Christians observed also THE SABBATH and the passover, with reference to the last scenes of Jesus' life, but without Jewish superstition. In addition to these, Sunday, as the day of Christ's resurrection, was devoted to religious services."—Ecclesiastical history, vol. i, chap. ii, sec. 30.

Morer speaks thus, concerning the Sabbath at this time:

"The primitive Christians had a great veneration for the Sabbath, and spent the day in devotion and sermons. And it is not to be doubted but they derived this practice from the apostles themselves."— Morer's Lord's Day, p. 189.

Here is a further statement of the case by Coleman:-

"The last day of the week was strictly kept in connection with that of the first day, for a long time after the overthrow of the temple and its worship. Down even to the fifth century, the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian church, but with a rigor and solemnity gradually diminishing, until it was wholly discontinued."—Ancient Christianity, chap. xxvi, sec. 2.

It thus appears evident that the Sabbath of the Lord was long observed, even by the body of the Christian church. And though they had regard to the first day of the week, yet it was a long time before this became a sacred day. Thus the same writer further states the case:—

"During the early ages of the church, it was never entitled 'the Sabbath,' this word being confined to the seventh day of the week, the Jewish Sabbath, which, as we have already said, continued to be observed for several centuries by the converts to Christianity."—Id.

This historian thus states the utter lack of divine authority for the change from the seventh to the first day of the week:—

"No law or precept appears to have been given by Christ or the apostles, either for the abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, or the institution of the Lord's day, or the substitution of the first for the seventh day of the week."—Id.

This is a very important acknowledgment for a first day historian. It does not very well accord with Mosheim's statement that the observance of Sunday "was founded upon the express appointment of the apostles." Now let us listen while this historian relates how the Sabbath of the Lord was crowded out and superseded by a day which he acknowledges had no divine warrant for its observance. Thus he states the facts:—

"The observance of the Lord's day was ordered while yet the Sabbath of the Jews was continued; nor was the latter superseded until the former had acquired the same solemnity and importance which belonged at first to that great day which God originally ordained and blessed. . . . But in time, after the Lord's day was fully established, the observance of the Sabbath of the Jews was gradually discontinued, and was finally denounced as heretical."— Id. Ib.

This is a very extraordinary statement. Were it made by an observer of the Sabbath, it might be suspected of being unfairly stated. Coming from an observer of the first day of the week, it is open to no such suspicion. The period of five hundred years was sufficient to work a marvelous change in the relative position of these two days. At the commencement of that period, the one stood in its strength, a divine institution, clothed with the majesty of the law of God, and the other was only a voluntary festival, having no support in the law of God, or the precepts of the apostles. At the end of this period, the law of God itself had become of little authority, even in the professed church of Christ; the observance of the Sabbath had become heretical, and its right even to exist at all was vehemently disputed; while the first day of the week had become the Lord's day, and was clothed with the authority of the civil law of the empire, and backed by the authority of the church now far advanced in the work of apostasy.

The following testimony of Bishop Jeremy Taylor, though expressing his opinion concerning the abrogation of the fourth commandment, is nevertheless an explicit statement of the continued observance of the Sabbath for several centuries. He says:—

"The Lord's day did not succeed in the place of the Sabbath; but the Sabbath was wholly abrogated, and the Lord's day was merely an ecclesiastical institution. It was not introduced by virtue of the fourth commandment, because they, for almost three hundred years together, kept that day which was in that commandment; but they did it, also, without any opinion of prime obligation; and, therefore, they did not suppose it moral."—Ductor Dubitantium, part i, book ii, chap. ii, sec. 51.

Here, also, is the testimony of another competent witness, who, though an observer of Sunday, and a believer in the abrogation of the Sabbath, makes a very plain and express statement respecting the observance of the Sabbath by the early church. It is Edward Brerewood, professor in Gresham College, London, who speaks thus:—

"The ancient Sabbath did remain, and was observed, together with the celebration of the Lord's day, by the Christians of the east church, above three hundred years after our Saviour's death; and, besides that, no other day, for more hundred years than I spoke of before, was known in the church by the name of Sabbath, but that. Let the collection thereof, and conclusion of all, be this: the Sabbath of the seventh day, as teaching the obligation of God's solemn worship to it, was ceremonial; that Sabbath was religiously observed in the east church three hundred years after our Saviour's passion. That church being a great part of Christendom, and having the apostles' doctrine and example to instruct them, would have restrained it if it had been deadly."—Learned Treatise of the Sabbath, p. 77, edition of 1631.

Even after the enactment of Constantine's Sunday law, in A. D. 321, the Sabbath of the Lord again rallied, and its observance became very general. Thus Prof. Stuart writes of the period between Constantine's edict and the council of Laodicea, A. D. 364. He says:—

"The practice of it [the keeping of the Sabbath] was continued by Christians who were jealous for the honor of the Mosaic law, and finally became, as we have seen, predominant throughout Christendom. It was supposed at length that the fourth commandment did require the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath [not merely a seventh part of time], and reasoning as Christians of the present day are wont to do; viz., that all which belongs to the ten commandments was immutable and perpetual, the churches in general came gradually to regard the seventh-day Sabbath as altogether sacred."—Appendix to Gurney's History of the Sabbath, pp. 115, 116.

Now it was time for the advocates of Sunday to come to the rescue. And this they did at the council of Laodicea, A. D. 364. Here an awful curse was pronounced upon those who should observe the Sabbath and should not observe Sunday. William Prynne, in his "Dissertation on the Lord's Sabbath," pp. 34, 44, edition of 1633, thus states the action of this council:—

"The seventh day Sabbath was solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and primitive Christians, till the Laodicean council did in a manner quite abolish the observation of it. . . The council of Laodicea, A. D. 364, first settled the observation of the Lord's day, and prohibited the keeping of the Jewish Sabbath under an anathema."

But even at this time, Sunday labor was considered perfectly lawful. Thus Dr. Heylyn, in his "History of the Sabbath," part ii, chap. iii, sec. 9, speaking of the latter part of the fourth century, says:—

"St. Chrysostom confessed it to be lawful for a man to look to his worldly business on the Lord's day, after the congregation was dismissed."

Dr. Francis White, bishop of Ely, thus testifies concerning Sunday labor at the beginning of the fifth century:—

"In St. Jerome's days, and in the very place where he was residing, the devoted Christians did ordinarily work upon the Lord's day, when the service of the church was ended."—Treatise of the Sabbath, p. 219.

St. Augustine was the cotemporary of Jerome, and he gives a summary of the reasons which were urged at that time for Sunday observance, as follows:—

"It appears from the sacred Scriptures, that this day was a solemn one; it was the first day of the age, that is, of the existence of our world; in it the elements of the world were formed; on it the angels were created; on it Christ rose also from the dead; on it the Holy Spirit descended from Heaven upon the apostles, as manna had done in the wilderness. For these, and other such circumstances, the Lord's day is distinguished; and therefore the holy doctors of the church have decreed that all the glory of the Jewish Sabbath is transferred to it. Let us, therefore, keep the Lord's day as the ancients were commanded to do the Sabbath."— Clex's Sabbath Laws, p. 284.

St. Augustine did not regard the Sunday festival as a divine institution. He gave the credit of the work, not to Christ or his inspired apostles, but to the holy doctors of the church, who, of their own accord, had transferred the glory of the ancient Sabbath to the venerable day of the sun. Of the fifth and sixth centuries, Heylyn bears the following testimony:—

"The faithful, being united better than before, became more uniform in matters of devotion; and, in that uniformity, did agree together to give the Lord's day all the honors of an holy festival. Yet was not this done all at once, but by degrees; the fifth and sixth centuries being fully spent before it came unto that height which hath since continued. The emperors and the prelates in these times had the same affections; both [being] earnest to advance this day above all others; and to the edicts of the one, and to the ecclesiastical constitutions of the other, it stands indebted for many of those privileges and exemptions which it still enjoyeth."— History of the Sabbath, part ii, chap. iv, sec. 1.

But the first day of the week had not yet acquired the title of Sabbath. Thus Brerewood bears testimony:—

"The name of the Sabbath remained appropriated to the old Sabbath; and was never attributed to the Lord's day, not for many hundred years after our Saviour's time."—Learned Treatise of the Sabbath, edition of 1631.

And Dr. Heylyn, in his "History of the Sabbath," part ii, chap. ii, sec. 12, says of the term Sabbath in the ancient church:—

"The Saturday is called amongst them by no other name than that which formerly it had, the Sabbath. So that whenever, for a thousand years and upwards, we meet with Sabbatum in any writer of what name soever, it must be understood of no day but Saturday."

Of Sunday labor in the eastern church, Heylyn says:—

"It was near nine hundred years from our Saviour's birth, before restraint of husbandry on this day had been first thought of in the East; and probably being thus restrained, did find no more obedience then than it had done before in the western parts."—History of the Sabbath, part ii, chap. v, sec. 6.

Of Sunday labor in the western church, Dr. Francis White, bishop of Ely, in his "Treatise of the Sabbath-day," pp. 217, 218, thus testifies:—

"The Catholic church, for more than six hundred years after Christ, permitted labor, and gave license to many Christian people to work upon the Lord's day, at such hours as they were not commanded to be present at the public worship by the precept of the church."