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The Change of the Sabbath

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    First Instance of Sunday Observance

    The first recorded instance of Sunday observance which has any claim to be considered genuine, is mentioned by Justin Martyr, AD. 140 in an address to the Roman emperor. He states in substance that the Christians met together on Sunday, when the writings of the apostles and prophets were read, a discourse was given, prayers offered, the consecrated elements-bread and wine and water-distributed to, and partaken of by, all that were present, and sent to the absent by the hands of the deacons, a collection taken up, etc. We here see some innovations introduced, such as sending the emblems to the absent, and using water in connection with them. He does not intimate that this day has any divine authority from Christ and the apostles, or any command whatever for its observance. It would seem to be a purely voluntary practice. Neither does he hint that the day was regarded as a Sabbath, or that it was wrong to work on that day. He only states that they held a religious meeting on it. Sunday had not, up to this time, acquired any title of sacredness. It bore simply its old heathen title. He does not call it the Lord’s day, nor the Christian Sabbath. It was more than fifty years later before a recorded instance can be found where it was called by the former, and many years elapsed before it was called by the latter title.ChSa 107.4

    Perhaps it will be proper at this point to introduce the testimony of Neander, the greatest of church historians. This German author speaks as follows of Sunday observance in the early church:ChSa 108.1

    “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.””-Neander’s Church History, translated by Rose, p. 186.ChSa 108.2

    This statement truly gives the origin of Sunday observance; it was purely voluntary, standing solely upon human authority.ChSa 108.3

    Sir William. Domville states the same fact:ChSa 109.1

    “Not any ecclesiastical writer of the first three centuries attributed the origin of Sunday observance either to Christ or to his apostles.”-Examination of the Six Texts, Supplement, pp. 6, 7.ChSa 109.2

    The authors living nearest the days of the apostles never heard of the arguments put forth at this remote day for the change of the Sabbath. For hundreds of years no hints, even, were given that Christ or the apostles changed the Sabbath. We have seen before that Victor, bishop of Rome, AD. 196, made an edict in behalf of Sunday, trying to compel the other churches to celebrate the Passover on that day. Also that the same church turned the Sabbath into a fast day, to place a stigma upon it.ChSa 109.3

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