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Roman Catholic and Protestant Confessions About Sunday
From: Darryl McDowell ROMAN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT CONFESSIONS ABOUT SUNDAY The vast majority of Christian churches today teach the observance of
Sunday, the first day of the week, as a time for rest and worship. Yet
it is generally known and freely admitted that the early Christians
observed the seventh day as the Sabbath. How did this change come about? History reveals that it was decades after the death of the apostles
that a politico-religious system repudiated the Sabbath of Scripture and
substituted the observance of the first day of the week. The following quotations, all from Roman Catholic sources, freely
acknowledge that there is no Biblical authority for the observance of
Sunday, that it was the Roman Church that changed the Sabbath to the
first day of the week. In the second portion of this booklet are quotations from
Protestants. Undoubtedly all of these noted clergymen, scholars, and
writers kept Sunday, but they all frankly admit that there is no
Biblical authority for a first-day sabbath. ROMAN CATHOLIC CONFESSIONS James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89. "But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will
not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The
Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we
never sanctify." Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed., p. 174. "Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has
power to institute festivals of precept? "Answer: 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." John Laux, A Course in Religion for "Some theologians have held that God likewise directly determined the
Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, that He Himself has
explicitly substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is
now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His
Church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem
suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the
week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days." Daniel Ferres, ed., Manual of Christian Doctrine (1916), p.67. "Question: How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts
and holy days? "Answer. 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.' James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore (1877-1921), in a
signed letter. "Is Saturday the seventh day according to the Bible and the Ten
Commandments? I answer yes. Is Sunday the first day of the week and did
the Church change the seventh day -Saturday - for Sunday, the first day?
I answer yes . Did Christ change the day'? I answer no! "Faithfully yours, J. Card. Gibbons" The Catholic Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons,
Sept. 23, 1893. "The Catholic Church, . . . by virtue of her divine mission, changed
the day from Saturday to Sunday." Catholic Virginian Oct. 3, 1947, p. 9, art. "To Tell You the
Truth." "For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the
Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We
have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day,
that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep
Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the[Roman Catholic] church
outside the Bible." Peter Geiermann, C.S.S.R., The Converts Catechism of Catholic
Doctrine (1957), p. 50. "Question: Which is the Sabbath day? "Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day. "Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? "Answer. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic
Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday." Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics Are Asked About (1927),p. 136. "Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed
from Saturday to Sunday .... Now the Church ... instituted, by God's
authority, Sunday as the day of worship. This same Church, by the same
divine authority, taught the doctrine of Purgatory long before the Bible
was made. We have, therefore, the same authority for Purgatory as we
have for Sunday." Peter R. Kraemer, Catholic Church Extension Society (1975), "Regarding the change from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath to
the Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to the facts: "1) That Protestants, who accept the Bible as the only rule of faith
and religion, should by all means go back to the observance of the
Sabbath. The fact that they do not, but on the contrary observe the
Sunday, stultifies them in the eyes of every thinking man. "2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible as the only rule of faith.
Besides the Bible we have the living Church, the authority of the
Church, as a rule to guide us. We say, this Church, instituted by Christ
to teach and guide man through life, has the right to change the
ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and hence, we accept her change of
the Sabbath to Sunday. We frankly say, yes, the Church made this change,
made this law, as she made many other laws, for instance, the Friday
abstinence, the unmarried priesthood, the laws concerning mixed
marriages, the regulation of Catholic marriages and a thousand other
laws. "It is always somewhat laughable, to see the Protestant churches, in
pulpit and legislation, demand the observance of Sunday, of which there
is nothing in their Bible." T. Enright, C.S.S.R., in a lecture at "I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who can prove to me from
the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such
law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church alone. The
Bible says, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' The Catholic
Church says: 'No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and
command you to keep holy the first day of the week.' And lo! The entire
civilized world bows down in a reverent obedience to the command of the
holy Catholic Church." PROTESTANT CONFESSIONS Protestant theologians and preachers from a wide spectrum of
denominations have been quite candid in admitting that there is no
Biblical authority for observing Sunday as a sabbath. Anglican/Episcopal Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism , vol. 1, pp.334, 336. "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
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." Canon Eyton, The Ten Commandments , pp. 52, 63, 65. "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." Bishop Seymour, Why We Keep Sunday. We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from
Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of the one holy Catholic Church." Baptist Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, a paper read before a New York Ministers'
conference, Nov. 13, 1893, reported in New York Examiner , Nov.16, 1893. "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. "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 . . . . But what a pity it comes branded with the mark
of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, adopted and
sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to
Protestantism!" William Owen Carver, The Lord's Day in Our Day , p. 49. "There was never any formal or authoritative change from the Jewish
seventh-day Sabbath to the Christian first-day observance." Congregationalist Dr. R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments ( " . . . it is quite clear that however rigidly or devotedly we may
spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath - . . 'Me Sabbath was
founded on a specific Divine command. We can plead no such command for
the obligation to observe Sunday .... There is not a single sentence in
the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the
supposed sanctity of Sunday." Timothy Dwight, Theology: Explained and Defended (1823), Ser. 107,
vol. 3, p. 258. " . . . the Christian Sabbath [Sunday] is not in the Scriptures, and
was not by the primitive Church called the Sabbath." Disciples of Christ Alexander Campbell, The Christian Baptist, Feb. 2, 1824,vol. 1. no.
7, p. 164. "'But,' say some, 'it was changed from the seventh to the first day.'
Where? when? and by whom? No man can tell. No; it never was changed, nor
could it be, unless creation was to be gone through again: for the
reason assigned must be changed before the observance, or respect to the
reason, can be changed! It is all old wives' fables to talk of the
change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be
changed, it was that august personage changed it who changes times and
laws ex officio - I think his name is Doctor Antichrist.' First Day Observance , pp. 17, 19. "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 from Saturday to Sunday. There is not in any place
in the Bible any intimation of such a change." Lutheran The Sunday Problem , a study book of the "We have seen how gradually the impression of the Jewish sabbath
faded from the mind of the Christian Church, and how completely the
newer thought underlying the observance of the first day took possession
of the church. We have seen that the Christians of the first three
centuries never confused one with the other, but for a time celebrated
both." "They [Roman Catholics] refer to the Sabbath Day, a shaving been
changed into the Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it seems.
Neither is there any example whereof they make more than concerning the
changing of the Sabbath Day. Great, say they, is the power of the
Church, since it has dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments!" Dr. Augustus Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and
Church Henry John Rose, tr. (1843), p. 186. "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." John Theodore Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday , pp. 15, 16. "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 Methodist Harris Franklin Rall, Christian Advocate, July 2, 1942, p.26. "Take the matter of Sunday. There are indications in the New
Testament as to how the church came to keep the first day of the week as
its day of worship, but there is no passage telling Christians to keep
that day, or to transfer the Jewish Sabbath to that day." John Wesley, The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., John Emory, ed.
( "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 never can 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." Dwight L. Moody D. L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting (Fleming H. Revell Co.: The Sabbath was binding in Presbyterian T. C. Blake, D.D., Theology Condensed, pp.474, 475. "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 http://www.biblesabbath.org/confessions.html
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Yeshua from Genesis to Revelation
This DVD series reveals Yeshua in the entire Bible (Psalm 40:7, Luke 24:44). Yeshua is in the Torah. He created the heavens and earth, made covenant with Abraham, led the children of Israel out of Egypt, gave the Torah at Mount Sinai, is the bridegroom of Israel and the glory of God that filled the tabernacle. Yeshua died on the tree to unite the twelve tribes of Israel (John 10:16-17, 11:49-52). Yeshua will gather the twelve tribes of Israel during the tribulation period and be glorified. He will reign during the Messianic Era as King over the whole earth teaching the Torah to all nations. While revealing Yeshua from Genesis to Revelation, this DVD series also teaches the basic principles of the Hebraic roots of Christianity, including who is the house of Jacob, Torah is for all believers in Yeshua, and Two Houses and the New Testament. Finally, this DVD series gives a Hebraic perspective of the end of days. In all, twelve hours of power packed teaching! |