02.10. The Lord's Day: Unfair Methods of Advancing the Cause of the Sabbath and of Opposing ...
CHAPTER III
UNFAIR METHODS OF ADVANCING THE CAUSE OF THE SABBATH, AND OF OPPOSING THE LORD’S DAY
I. Adventists usually take advantage of the desire of the people for something new. There are hundreds of Athenians yet in the world, who spend their time in nothing else than to tell or hear of something new. Such persons are able to find that many things which we now know to be true were once denied. The conservative forces have many times been in the wrong. Hence, they jump to the conclusion that, in all matters in which some new theory is opposed, the opposition must necessarily be wrong, and the novel doctrine right. About all, therefore, necessary to be done to carry any cause in the minds of such persons, is to convince them that the doctrine in question is new; that it is feared and avoided by many who are unwilling to accept any change, and they at once accept the novel position as being correct. Of course such persons are not of much account to them or anybody else; they will change that for something else as soon as the tide shall run some other way. They are light clouds having no water, and are, therefore, carried about with every wind of doctrine. But they count. The piety of this class rarely becomes more than a hobby-riding zeal. But there is an evidence of success in the addition of numbers. And in the newness of zeal and in the enjoyment of the new fellowship, they are willing to be tithed. While they do not sustain the cause in that locality, their contributions carry the work into some other community where there may be found other people like themselves who are willing to assist for a time, and in that way the cause is kept moving.
II. Advent preachers usually light upon some undefended community. They find some place where the sectarianism of the times has so divided and weakened the churches that no one party is able to have preaching but a small part of the time, and this not by the ablest men. These communities are not in communication with those who can defend the doctrine of the Scriptures respecting this Institution, and they would not be able to obtain his service for the want of means. Here the Adventists find a good field, and are able to get the people to commit themselves in a covenant to keep the Sabbath before any defense of the gospel can be had. A discussion, if one obtains at all, is usually after they have succeeded in fastening the masses to their opinions, when it is not easy to change the current after the recent shower. A mistake is generally committed, too, by the friends of the truth, in saying: “Let them alone, they will come to naught themselves." No doubt that the storm will pass by, and that a calm will follow. But how much timber will be destroyed is another question. As the prick of a needle in the spinal marrow of the child may make a hunch-back for life, so by these views here lodged in the souls of the young of that community, their religion is maimed forever. If these men could always be met by the proper means at the right time, they would never do any lasting damage to any people. But from a false policy, a divided Christianity, or from indifference, the work of ruin is not checked.
III. Everything is turned into persecution. They come into town and continue a meeting for one or two months, during that time they challenge the people in one way or another fifty times for an investigation. But if someone proposes to investigate, they raise the cry of persecution. They claim to have been peaceably preaching what they believe, and that someone is disturbing them. They learned this of the Mormons, from whom Mrs. White, their Prophetess, learned to have revelations. This has been their mode of claiming the sympathy, and begging the toleration of an injured people.
IV Many honest and intelligent people are deceived by the statements of history which they have published. I know of no work more deserving of censure for unfairness than “The History of the Sabbath," by J. N. Andrews. Scraps of statements are taken out of their legitimate connections, and testimonies wrung from authors who testified nothing in their favor. To call such procedure pettifogging, is to apply a term entirely too feeble for the expression of the true thought. He has not only quoted every erratic statement which could be so applied as to favor his theory, but he finds history which other men cannot find. In the second edition of the work the author acknowledges to have quoted from an edition of Neander not now in use, and to have used a statement which the historian did not put into his revised work. Many Sabbatarians have been found in the different ages of the church. Of course these can be had to testify in favor of that institution. After the year 585, the church of Rome combined the Sabbath with the Lord’s Day, or taught that the Lord’s Day was given to take the place of the Sabbath. Hence, since that time it has been common to speak of the Lord’s Day as the Sabbath. Many writers have spoken of the Institution by that term, and Sabbatarians commonly take advantage of the fact to make it appear that the author was testifying to their institution, the seventh day.
V. It is common, I might say universal, to claim that Sunday had no existence till the time of Constantine, or that it was never regarded as sacred till that time, and then only by virtue of the edict of a king who was a heathen. If you hear a lecture from one of them it will be clearly affirmed; if you read a tract, it will be boldly stated, but if you have before you a work which is expected to fall into the way of the critical world, you will find it only hinted. After the patched work of quotations has been furnished, the author will assume such to be the purport of what has been produced. As a sample of many things which might be cited, I call attention to Mr. Andrews on the Sabbath, pp. 346-7:
"On the seventh day of March, (321,) Constantine published his edict commanding the observance of that ancient festival of the heathen, the venerable day of the sun. On the following day, March eighth, he issued a second decree in every respect worthy of its heathen predecessor. The purport of it was this: ’ That if any royal edifice should be struck by lightning, the ancient ceremonies of propitiating the Deity should be practiced, and the haruspices should be consulted to learn the meaning of the awful portent. The haruspices were soothsayers who foretold future events by examining the entrails of beasts slaughtered in sacrifice to the gods. The statute of the seventh of March enjoining the observance of the venerable day of the sun, and that of the eighth of the same month commanding the consultation of the haruspices, constitute a noble pair of well-matched heathen edicts. That Constantine, himself, was a heathen at the time these edicts were issued, is shown not only by the nature of the edicts themselves, but by the fact that his nominal conversion to Christianity is placed by Mosheim two years after his Sunday law.’ This is the manner of the argument. What is lacking in the testimony is to be made up by telling the readers what is the sum or the purport of an edict. I have no interest in defending Constantine. He exhibited many inconsistencies. He was s politician, and, while he came eventually to regard Christianity as the only religion which could be of any particular value to any person, and though we could not say that he had reached that conclusion in the year 321, we must say, if we have paid any attention to the edict itself, that it was his purpose to set Christians at liberty to worship as they preferred. This, however, was not all; he extended the same rights to all his subjects. As to his requiring any day to be kept as a day of heathen worship, there is not a particle of evidence in its favor. History cannot even be distorted into such a thought. No Christian understood it so, and if that had been the idea which attached to that edict, Christians would not have submitted. They were yet ready to die for their faith in Christ, and would not, under any circumstances, have submitted to a heathen worship. But instead of that, they regarded it as a release for their religion and a restoration of their liberties.
Nothing more than disgust can be excited for the shallow pretensions or utter disregard for truth of a man who will say that Constantine wished to favor heathenism by the so-called Sunday law of 321. From 313 he had been removing all obstructions to Christian worship, and those who were in slavery were released. Those who had lost their lands had them restored to them again. He even went so far as to urge his people to accept of this religion. Hence no man can find an easier way of convincing all readers of history of his entire unworthiness as an author than to make such statements respecting Constantine and his edicts as are made by Mr. Andrews. In Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Am. ed.. under the “Lord’s Day," I find the following very sensible view of the whole matter as it relates to Constantine:
"4th. That Constantine then instituted Sunday for the first time as a religious day for Christians.
"The fourth of these statements is absolutely refuted, both by the quotations made above from writers of the second and third centuries, and by the terms of the edict itself. It is evident that Constantine, accepting as facts the existence of the Solis Dies, and the reverence paid to it by someone or other, does nothing more than make that reverence practically universal. It is venerabilis’ already. And it is probable that this most natural interpretation would never have been disturbed, had not Sozomen asserted, without warrant from either Justinian or Theodosian code, that Constantine did for the sixth day of the week what the codes assert he did for the first
"It is a fact, that in the year A. D. 321, in a public edict which was to apply to Christians as well as to Pagans, he put especial honor upon a day already honored by the former, judicially calling it by a name which Christians had long employed without scruple, and to which, as it was in ordinary use, the Pagans could scarcely object. What he did for it was to insist that worldly business, whether by the functionaries of the law or by private citizens, should be intermitted during its continuance. An exception indeed was made in favor of the rural districts, avowedly from the necessity of the case, covertly, perhaps, to prevent those districts, where Paganism (as the word Pagus would intimate) still prevailed extensively, from feeling aggrieved by a sudden and stringent change. It need only be added here that the readiness with which Christians acquiesced in the interdiction of business on the Lord’s Day, affords no small presumption that they had long considered it to be a day of rest, and that, so far as circumstances admitted, they had made it so long before.
"Were any other testimony wanting to the existence of Sunday as a day of Christian worship at this period, it might be supplied by the Council of Nicea, A. D. 325. The fathers there and then assembled make no doubt of the obligation of that day—do not ordain it—do not defend it. They assume it as an existing fact, and only notice it incidentally in order to regulate an indifferent matter, the posture of Christian worship on it.
"Richard Baxter has well summed up the history of the Lord’s Day at this point, and his words may not be inaptly inserted here: That the first Christian emperor, finding all Christians in the unanimous possession of the day, should make a law (as our kings do) for the due observance of it, and that the Christian Council should establish uniformity in the very gesture of worship on that day, are strong confirmations of the matter of fact, that the churches unanimously agreed in the holy use of it, as a separated day even from and in the apostles days.’ Richard Baxter on the Divine Appointment of the Lord’s Day, p. 41." This is rather a long quotation, but it is so directly to the point that it seemed best to give it in its connection. I could quote from almost any number of good authors, showing that the use made of the edict of Constantine by Mr. Andrews is unjust and unreasonable. I do not know of any historian who will agree with his use of that edict. It is not only unfair and unreasonable, but it shows that the mind of the gentleman is greatly warped by his particular views of theology. In Blackburn’s Church History, page 70, the author says.
"The edicts of Constantine from 312 to 325 show an ecclesiastical spirit. They refer largely to the building and repair of churches, and liberal gifts to them; the restoration of property of Christians, who must be equally just to the Pagans; mutual toleration of religions; the settlement of religious disputes; the calling of local councils; the exemption of the clergy from civil offices and taxes; the burning of Jews who should assail Christians; the emancipation of slaves; the general observance of Sunday (solis dies); restoration of property to the heirs of martyrs; careful provision for the poor; the release of Christians from the mines; the forbidding of images—even his own statue must not be set up in the temples; severe penalties upon heathen diviners and priests who should perform sacrifices in private houses, and practice magic; and the earnest advice that all his subjects adopt Christianity."
Remark would seem to be unnecessary. It must be evident that if Mr. Andrews is right in his use of the edict of Constantine there is nothing to be gained by reading history.
Two very distinct views are entertained respecting Constantine. One is that he was a saint. This comes from the services which he rendered the church, and the extravagant views of Eusebius of Nicomedia, who baptized him, a short time before his death. A truer judgment is, however, generally indulged; that he was an ambitious statesman, who had knowledge of the innocence of those Christians who had suffered severely at the hands of the Pagans, and that he aimed to redress them; that he knew that this religion was for the good of the nation, and hence, that in rendering it any real service, he would advance his people in the elements of refinement and prosperity; and that in using the solis dies he only employed a term which was already in existence, and which was known to refer to the first day of the week. That heathens may have observed this day, has nothing to do with the edict, nor its purpose.
VI. Adventists insinuate that the Lord’s Day is a creation of the Catholic Church; that it came into existence as many other customs of purely human origin. That this position is quite antagonistic to the one just mentioned, namely, that it was of heathen origin, does not seem to disconcert them in the least. I will cite one quotation as a sample of many which might be given.
Hist. Sab. Andrews, p. 228:
“The Lord’s Day of the Catholic Church can be traced no nearer to John than A. D. 194, or perhaps, in strict truth, to A. D. 200, and those who then use the name show plainly that they did not believe it to be the Lord’s Day by apostolic appointment. To hide these fatal facts by seeming to trace the title back to Ignatius, a disciple of John, and thus to identify Sunday with the Lord’s Day of that apostle, a series of remarkable frauds have been committed which we have had occasion to examine."
Now, this is the most remarkable statement that I ever saw in a religious book. Indeed, the quotations he has made himself, prove his statement perfectly untrue. I know no way to account for such rash utterances but to suppose the man to have been exceedingly mad against the first day of the week, and, therefore, willing to go to any length to find something or make it, that would show the Lord’s Day in a bad light.
I think some Catholic priest can be found somewhere who will claim that his church changed that day. I think I remember having seen that claim set up, and Acts 20:7, referred to as proof. And yet every reader of history knows that from the very days of the apostles the first day of the week has been observed as a day of worship. It is known, too, that the church was quite free from anything that would entitle it to such designations as Catholic, (in the sense of Roman Catholic,) for several hundred years. To show how perfectly unreliable Mr. A. is concerning facts, and consistency both, I will give the quotation he makes from Mosheim, and that, too, on the very next page to that from which I have quoted already. Let it be remembered that Mosheim is writing of the first century, and telling of customs which existed before John was dead, indeed, before he was cast away upon the Isle of Patmos.
"All Christians were unanimous in setting apart the first day of the week, on which the triumphant Savior rose from the dead, for the solemn celebration of public worship. This pious custom, which was derived from the example of the church of Jerusalem, was founded upon the express appointment of the apostles, who consecrated that day to the same sacred purpose, and was observed universally throughout the Christian churches, as appears from the united testimony of the most credible writers."
Now what can be said of the consistency, say nothing of the veracity, of a man who, with this language staring him in the face, can muster the courage to say that the Lord’s Day (which we know refers to the first day of the week, in the language of the Catholics) cannot be traced nearer to John than A. D. 194. When he was writing the statement he knew that the very best historical authority which can be found traces that observance to the first century, and finds it even before the death of that apostle. Nor is this all, Mr. A. has given the statements of the most reliable historians to the effect that the first day of the week, or Lord’s Day, or Sunday, was religiously observed all the way from the apostles down to the time he says it may first be found. Why, then, he chooses to fly in his own face and contradict himself, as well as all reliable history, is a most difficult question. Does he mean to discredit history, and simply quote those men to show what fools they have made of themselves? or does his Judaism really interfere with his sanity?
VII. Adventists constantly play upon words. Find the ancients observing Lord’s Day, and so affirming, then it does not mean the first day of the week, but the day of the Lord’s Judgment, or it must mean the Sabbath, which, in the Old Testament, was regarded as “My holy day." There may be every evidence of the sense in which the author employs the term, but that must pass for nothing To be able to quibble out of its evident import seems to be the only aim.
If Justin Martyr spoke of the first day of the week by the term Sunday, then it must count for nothing: it is a heathen word. If the first day of the week is spoken of as a day of Christian gathering, then it was for some other purpose than the worship of God. If they are spoken of as meeting on that day for the purpose of breaking bread, then it was an accident, or a mere incident, and can have nothing to do with giving the practice of the people. And when they can find nothing else to say, they demand that somewhere it ought to be found that the Savior commanded his apostles to observe the first day of the week as a sacred day. I presume if this could be found, it would be said: “Yes, it was a sacred day, and so are all days sacred to the Lord."
If they find anywhere that the word "festival “has been used in connection with the Lord’s Day or Sunday, then it is proof that it was only a day of recreation, and in no sense a day of worship. Though it be found that they did act unadvisedly in respect of festivities on that day, and some man can be found saying that these Sunday festivities were only a human institution, it must be found that he means that Sunday is a human institution! Though if the language was submitted to any class in rhetoric or logic in the country, the unanimous decision would be that the author meant to say that it was the unscriptural use of the day, and not the day itself, that was condemned as a human institution, still, as they can clip the quotation and retain a jingle of words suitable to their purpose, they are willing to sacrifice the evident meaning of the language, that a hobby may be sustained.