The Papacy Selects Its Flag

On the other hand the pope claims to be Christ’s representative on earth, having authority to act in His name, so that “the sentences which he gives are to be forthwith ratified in heaven.” — Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, art. “Pope,” par. 20, p. 265.FAFA 291.2

Any one who makes counterfeit money tries to make it as near like the genuine as possible. And when Christ has chosen the Sabbath as His sign, the Papacy, in selecting a counterfeit sign, would naturally choose one as near like the genuine as possible, and so it took the very next day. And after having changed the day of rest from the seventh to the first day, the Papacy would naturally point to such a vital change in God’s law as evidence of its power; for no one could validly change God’s moral law without being authorized to act in Christ’s stead.FAFA 291.3

Hence if, after we have carefully searched the New Testament, and found no command there for the change of the day, we still rely on the custom of the church by keeping the Sunday, we thereby acknowledge the authority of the church that made this change. The Roman Catholic Church sees this point, and uses it as a challenge to Protestantism, as the following quotations from Roman Catholic authorities will show:FAFA 291.4

Rev. Stephen Keenan says:FAFA 292.1

“Q.- Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?

“A.- 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.” — “Doctrinal Catechism,” p. 174. New York: P. J. Kenedy and Sons, 1846.FAFA 292.2

Rev. Henry Tuberville, D. D., says:FAFA 292.3

“Q.- How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holy-days?

“A.- By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church.FAFA 292.4

“Q.- How prove you that?FAFA 292.5

“A.- Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the Church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin: and by not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power.” — “An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine,” p. 58. New York: Kenedy, 1858.FAFA 292.6

J. F. Snyder, of Bloomington, Ill., wrote Cardinal Gibbons asking if the Catholic Church claims the change of the Sabbath as a mark of her power.” The Cardinal through his Chancellor, gave the following answer:FAFA 292.7

“Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act. It could not have been otherwise, as none in those days would have dreamed of doing anything in matters spiritual and ecclesiastical and religious without her. And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical power and authority in religious matters.”FAFA 292.8

(Signed) “H. F. Thomas,FAFA 293.1

“Chancellor for the Cardinal.”FAFA 293.2

“Nov. 11, 1895.”FAFA 293.3

We will now let the Catholic Church tell when it changed the Sabbath day. Here is its answer:FAFA 293.4

“Q. - Which is the Sabbath day? A. - Saturday is the Sabbath day. Q. - Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? A.- We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A. D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.” — “Convert’s Catechism,” Rev. P. Geiermann, p. 50. London: 1934. Sanctioned by the Vatican, Jan. 25, 1910.

“The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her Divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.” — “The Christian Sabbath,” p. 29. Printed by the “Catholic Mirror,” the official organ of Cardinal Gibbons, Baltimore, Md., 1893.FAFA 293.5

Kindly notice how often Catholic authors refer to the fact that there is no Scripture proof for Sunday, but that it rests solely on the authority of the Catholic Church. Rt. Rev. John Milner says:FAFA 293.6

“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. 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 on 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 whatever, except the unwritten word, or tradition, of the Catholic Church.”-“End of Religious Controversy,” p. 89. New York: P. J. Kenedy, 1897.

The Brotherhood of St. Vincent de Paul says:FAFA 294.1

‘The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.’ (Exod. 20:8, 9).... Such being God’s command then, I ask again, Why do you not obey it? ...

“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.FAFA 294.2

“But Sunday is not the Sabbath-day, Sunday is the first day of the week; the Sabbath-day was 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 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 on the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it.’ 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.... Genesis 2:2, 3. Nothing can be more plain and easy to understand than all this; and there is nobody who attempts to deny it.... Why then do you keep holy the Sunday, and not Saturday?FAFA 294.3

“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 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.FAFA 294.4

“You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and the Bible only.... 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?FAFA 295.1

“We blame you not for making Sunday your weekly holy day instead of Saturday, but for rejecting tradition, which is the only safe and clear rule by which this observance can he justified.” — “Why Don’t You Keep Holy the Sabbath-Day? ” pp. 2-4, 8. London: Burns and Oates. Found also in “The Clifton Tracts,” Most Rev. John Hughes, D. D.FAFA 295.2

“That the Church has instituted the Sunday as the Lord’s day instead of the Sabbath ... shows forth her great power which she solemnly received from Christ.” — “Manual of the Catholic Religion,” p. 186.FAFA 295.3

Dr. Martin Luther and Melancthon felt the stinging force of this Catholic argument in proof of the power of the papal church, although they knew that the time had not then come for a Sabbath reform. Dr. Eck, disputing with Luther, said:FAFA 295.4

“If, however, the Church has had power to change the Sabbath of the Bible into Sunday and to command Sunday keeping, why should it not have also this power concerning other days? ... If you omit the latter, and turn from the Church to the Scriptures alone, then you must keep the Sabbath with the Jews, which has been kept from the beginning of the world.” “Enchiridon,” pp. 78, 79. 1533.FAFA 295.5

Calling attention to this Roman Catholic assumption of authority, the Reformers said:FAFA 295.6

“They also point out, that the Sabbath is changed to Sunday, contrary as it seems, to the Ten Commandments; and there is no example over which they make more ado than the change of the Sabbath. Great, they assert, must be the power of the Church, when it can grant release from one of the Ten Commandments.” — “The Augsburg Confession,” art. 28, in “Book of Concord,” p. 79. (Norwegian ed., printed in Christiania, 1882.)FAFA 295.7

At the great Council of Trent (1545-1563), which was called to determine the “doctrines of the Church in answer to the heresies of the Protestants” (Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XV, art. “Trent,” p. 30), the question of the authority of the church over that of the Bible was decided in the following manner:FAFA 296.1

“Finally, at the last [session] opening on the eighteenth of January, 1562, their last scruple was set aside; the archbishop of Reggio made a speech in which he openly declared that tradition stood above Scripture. The authority of the church could therefore not be bound to the authority of the Scripture, because the church had changed Sabbath into Sunday, not by the command of Christ, but by its own authority. With this, to be sure, the last illusion was destroyed, and it was declared that tradition does not signify antiquity, but continual inspiration.” — “Canon and Tradition,” Dr. J. H. Holtzman, p. 263. (“Source Book,” pp. 603, 604.)FAFA 296.2

After the Jesuits were expelled from England in 1579 they determined to recapture that country, and at their school at Rheims, France, they translated their New Testament from the Vulgate Latin into English in 1582. (Their Old Testament was printed at Douay, 1609, so that their whole Bible has come to be called the Douay version.) In their English New Testament, translated from the Vulgate Edition of 1582, printed in New York, 1834, we read on page 413, note on the Apocalypse 1: 10:FAFA 296.3

“And if the Church had authority and inspiration from God, to make Sunday, being a work-day before, an everlasting holy day: and the Saturday, that before was holy day, now a common work-day: why may not the same Church prescribe and appoint the other feasts of Easter, Whitsuntide, Christmas, and the rest? For the same warrant she hath for the one she hath for the other!’FAFA 296.4

Thus we see that the Roman Catholic Church always and everywhere points to her change of the Sabbath as the mark, or evidence, of her having the power and inspiration from God to legislate in Christ’s stead for His church on earth, and that this power is vested in the pope. Pope Leo XIII says: “We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.” All must yield “complete submission and obedience of will to the Church and to the Roman Pontiff, as to God Himself.” — “Great Encyclical Letters,” pp. 304, 193. And Pope Gregory says of the power of the pope:FAFA 296.5

“Hence he is said to have a heavenly power, and hence changes even the nature of things, applying the substantial of one thing to another - can make something out of nothing - a judgment which is null he makes to be real since in the things which he wills, his will is taken for a reason. Nor is there any one to say to him, Why doest thou this? For he can dispense with the law, he can turn injustice into justice by correcting and changing the law, and he has the fullness of power.” — “Decretals of Gregory” (R. C.), Book I, title 7, chap. 3. Gloss on the Transfer of Bishops.FAFA 297.1

The Roman “Decretalia,” an authentic work on Roman ecclesiastical law, says of the power of the pope:FAFA 297.2

“He can pronounce sentences and judgments in contradiction to the right of nations, to the law of God and man.... He can free himself from the commands of the apostles, he being their superior, and from the rules of the Old Testament.FAFA 297.3

“The pope has power to change times, to abrogate laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts of Christ.” — “Decretal, de Translat. Episcop. Cap.”FAFA 297.4

“The Pope’s will stands for reason. He can dispense above the law; and of wrong make right, by correcting and changing laws.” — Pope Nicholas, Dist. 96; quoted in “Facts for the Times,” pp. 55, 56. 1893.FAFA 297.5