[From pages 8 and 9 of the Catholic Mirror of
Sept. 23, 1893]
THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH
THE GENUINE OFFSPRING OF THE UNION OF THE
HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HIS SPOUSE. THE CLAIMS OF
PROTESTANTISM TO ANY PART THEREIN PROVED TO BE GROUNDLESS,
SELF-CONTRADICTORY, AND SUICIDAL
"Halting on crutches of unequal size, One leg by
truth supported, one by lies, Thus sidle to the goal with
awkward pace, Secure of nothing but to lose the
race."
In the present article we propose to
investigate carefully a new (and the last) class of proof assumed to
convince the Biblical Christian that God had substituted Sunday for
Saturday for His worship in the new law, and that the divine will is to
be found recorded by the Holy Ghost in apostolic
writings. We are informed that this radical change has
found expression, over and over again, in a series of texts in which the
expression, "the day of the Lord," or "the Lord's day," is to be
found. The class of texts in the New Testament, under
the title "Sabbath," numbering 61 in the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles;
and the second class, in which "the first day of the week," or Sunday,
having been critically examined (the latter class numbering nine
[eight]); and having been found not to afford the slightest clue to a
change of will on the part of God as to His day of worship by man, we
now proceed to examine the third and last class of texts relied on to
save the Biblical system from the arraignment of seeking to palm off on
the world, in the name of God, a decree for which there is not the
slightest warrant or authority from their teacher, the
Bible. The first text of this
class is to be found in the Acts of the Apostles, 2d chapter, 20th
verse: "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
before that great and notable day of the Lord shall come." How many
Sundays have rolled by since that prophecy was spoken? So much for that
effort to pervert the meaning of the sacred text from the judgment day
to Sunday! The second text of this class is to
be found in 1st Epistle Cor., 1st chapter 8th verse: "Who shall also
confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless in the day of
our Lord Jesus Christ." What simpleton does not see that the
apostle here plainly indicates the day of judgment? The next text of this class that presents itself is
to be found in the same Epistle, 5th chapter 5th verse: "To deliver such
a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be
saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." The incestuous Corinthian
was, of course, saved on the Sunday next following!! How
pitiable such a makeshift as this! The fourth
text, 2d Cor., 1st chapter, 13th and 14th verse: "And I trust ye shall
acknowledge even to the end, even as ye also are ours in the day of the
Lord Jesus." Sunday or the day of judgment, which? The fifth text is from St. Paul to the Philippians,
1st chapter, 6th verse: "Being confident of this very thing, that He who
hath begun a good work in you, will perfect it until the day of
Jesus Christ." The good people of Philippi, in attaining perfection
on the following Sunday, could afford to laugh at our modern
rapid transit! We beg to submit
our sixth of the class; viz., Philippians, first chapter, tenth verse:
"That he may be sincere without offense unto the day of
Christ." That day was next Sunday, forsooth! no so long to
wait after all, The seventh text, 2 Ep. Peter,
third chapter, tenth verse. "But the day of the Lord will come
as a thief in the night." The application of this text to Sunday passes
the bounds of absurdity. The eighth text, 2 Ep.
Peter, third chapter, twelfth verse: "Waiting for and hastening unto
the coming of the day of the Lord, by which the heavens being
on fire, shall be dissolved," etc. This day of the Lord is the same
referred to in the previous text, the application of both of which
to Sunday next would have left the Christian world sleepless
the next Saturday night. We have presented to our readers eight of the
nine texts relied on to bolster up by text of Scripture the sacrilegious
effort to palm off the "Lord's day" for Sunday, and with what result?
Each furnishes prima facie evidence of the last day, referring
to it directly, absolutely, and unequivocally. The ninth text wherein we meet the expression "the
Lord's day," is the last to be found in the apostolic writings. The
Apocalypse, or Revelation, first chapter, tenth verse, furnishes it in
the following words of John: "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day;"
but it will afford no more comfort to our Biblical friends than its
predecessors of the same series. Has St. John used the expression
previously in his Gospel or Epistles? Emphatically, NO. Has he had
occasion to refer to Sunday hitherto? Yes, twice. How did he designate
Sunday on these occasions? Easter Sunday was called by him (John 20:1)
"the first day of the week." Again, chapter twenty, nineteenth
verse: "Now when it was late that same day, being the first day of
the week." Evidently, although inspired, both in his Gospel and
Epistles, he called Sunday "the first day of the week." On what grounds,
then, can it be assumed that he dropped that designation? Was he
more inspired when he wrote the Apocalypse, or did he adopt a
new title for Sunday, because it was now in vogue? A reply to these
questions would be supererogatory especially to the latter, seeing that
the same expression had been used eight times already by St. Luke, St.
Paul and St. Peter, all under divine inspiration, and surely
the Holy Spirit would not inspire St. John to call Sunday the Lord's
day, whilst He inspired Sts. Luke, Paul, and Peter, collectively, to
entitle the day of judgment "the Lord's day." Dialecticians reckon
amongst the infallible motives of certitude, the moral motive of analogy
or induction, by which we are enabled to conclude with certainty from
the known to the unknown; being absolutely certain of the meaning of an
expression can have only the same meaning when uttered the ninth time,
especially when we know that on the nine occasions the expressions were
inspired by the Holy Spirit. Nor are the
strongest intrinsic grounds wanting to prove that this, like its sister
texts, contains the same meaning. St. John (Apoc. first chapter, tenth
verse) says "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day; "but he furnishes us
the key to this expression, chapter four, first and second verses:
"After this I looked and behold a door opened in heaven." A voice said
to him: "Come up hither, and I will show you the things which must
be hereafter." Let us ascend in spirit with John. Whither?
through that "door in heaven," to heaven. And what shall we see? "The
things that must be hereafter," chapter four, first verse. He ascended
in spirit to heaven. He was ordered to write, in full, his vision of
what is to take place antecedent to, and concomitantly with, "the Lord's
day," or the day of judgment; the expression "Lord's day" being confined
in Scripture to the day of judgment exclusively. We have
studiously and accurately collected from the New Testament every
available proof that could be adduced in favor of a law canceling the
Sabbath day of the old law, or one substituting another day for the
Christian dispensation. We have been careful to make the above
distinction, lest it might be advanced that the 3rd (6)
Commandment was abrogated under the New Law. Any such
plea has been overruled by the action of the Methodist Episcopal bishops
in their pastoral 1874, and quoted by the New York Herald of
the same date, of the following tenor: "The Sabbath instituted in the
beginning and confirmed again and again by Moses and the prophets,
has never been abrogated. A part of the moral law, not a part
or tittle of its sanctity has been taken away." The above official
pronunciamento has committed that large body of Biblical Christians to
the permanence of the 3rd commandment under the new law. We again beg to
leave to call the special attention of our readers to the twentieth of
"the thirty-nine articles of religion" of the Book of Common Prayer; "It
is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to
God's written word."
(6) In the Catholic
enumeration, the Sabbath commandment is the third of the ten
commandments. ED. |
CONCLUSION.
We have in this series of articles, taken
much pains for the instruction of our readers to prepare them by
presenting a number of undeniable facts found in the word of
God to arrive at a conclusion absolutely irrefragable. When the Biblical
system put in an appearance in the sixteenth century, it not only seized
on the temporal possessions of the Church, but in its vandalic crusade
stripped Christianity, as far as it could, of all the sacraments
instituted by its Founder, of the holy sacrifice, etc., etc., retaining
nothing but the Bible, which its exponents pronounced their sole
teacher in Christian doctrine and morals. Chief amongst their
articles of belief was, and is today, the permanent necessity of keeping
the Sabbath holy. In fact, it has been for the past 300 years the only
article of the Christian belief in which there has been a plenary
consensus of Biblical representatives. The keeping of the Sabbath
constitutes the sum and substance of the Biblical theory. The pulpits
resound weekly with incessant tirades against the lax manner of keeping
the Sabbath in Catholic countries, as contrasted with the proper,
Christian, self-satisfied mode of keeping the day in Biblical countries.
Who can ever forget the virtuous indignation manifested by the Biblical
preachers throughout the length and breadth of our country, from every
Protestant pulpit, as long as yet undecided; and who does not know
today, that one sect, to mark its holy indignation at the decision, has
never yet opened the boxes that contained its articles at the World's
Fair? These superlatively good and unctuous Christians,
by conning over their Bible carefully, can find their counterpart in a
certain class of unco-good people in the days of the Redeemer, who
haunted Him night and day, distressed beyond measure, and scandalized
beyond forbearance, because He did not keep the Sabbath in as
straight-laced manner as themselves. They hated Him for
using common sense in reference to the day, and He found no epithets
expressive enough of His supreme contempt for their Pharisaical pride.
And it is very probably that the divine mind has not modified its views
today anent the blatant outcry of their followers and sympathizers at
the close of this nineteenth century. But when we add to all this the
fact that whilst the Pharisees of old kept the true Sabbath,
our modern Pharisees, counting on the credulity and simplicity of their
dupes, have never once in their lives kept the true Sabbath
which their divine Master kept to His dying day, and which His apostles
kept, after His example, for thirty years afterward, according to the
Sacred Record. This most glaring contradiction,
involving a deliberate sacrilegious rejection of a most positive
precept, is presented to us today in the action of the Biblical
Christian world. The Bible and the Sabbath constitute the watchword of
Protestantism; but we have demonstrated that it is the Bible against
their Sabbath. We have shown that no greater contradiction ever
existed than their theory and practice. We have proved that neither
their Biblical ancestors nor themselves have ever kept one Sabbath day
in their lives. The Israelites and Seventh-day Adventists are witnesses
of their weekly desecration of the day named by God so repeatedly, and
whilst they have ignored and condemned their teacher, the Bible, they
have adopted a day kept by the Catholic Church. What Protestant can,
after perusing these articles, with a clear conscience, continue to
disobey the command of God, enjoining Saturday to be kept,
which command his teacher, the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation,
records as the will of God? The history of the world
cannot present a more stupid, self-stultifying specimen of dereliction
of principle than this. The teacher demands emphatically in every page
that the law of the Sabbath be observed every week, by all recognizing
it as "the only infallible teacher," whilst the disciples of that
teacher have not once for over three hundred years observed the divine
precept! That immense concourse of Biblical Christians, the Methodists,
have declared that the Sabbath has never been abrogated, whilst the
followers of the Church of England, together with her daughter, the [pg.
9] Episcopal Church of the United States, are committed by the twentieth
article of religion, already quoted, to the ordinance that the Church
cannot lawfully ordain anything "contrary to God's written
word." God's written word enjoins His worship to be observed on
Saturday absolutely, repeatedly, and most emphatically, with a
most positive threat of death to him who disobeys. All the Biblical
sects occupy the same self-stultifying position which no explanation can
modify, much less justify. How truly do the words of the
Holy Spirit apply to this deplorable situation! "Iniquitas mentita
est sibi" "Iniquity hath lied to itself." Proposing to follow
the Bible only as teacher, yet before the world, the sole
teacher is ignominiously thrust aside, and the teaching and
practice of the Catholic Church "the mother of abomination," when it
suits their purpose so to designate her adopted, despite the most
terrible threats pronounced by God Himself against those who disobey the
command, "Remember to keep holy the Sabbath." Before
closing this series of articles, we beg to call the attention of our
readers once more to our caption, introductory of each; viz., 1stThe
Christian Sabbath, the genuine offspring of the union of the Holy Spirit
with the Catholic Church His spouse. 2ndThe claim of Protestantism to
any part therein proved to be groundless, self-contradictory, and
suicidal. The first proposition needs little proof. 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. We say by virtue of her divine mission, because He
who called Himself the "Lord of the Sabbath," endowed her with His own
power to teach, "he that heareth you, heareth Me;" commanded all who
believe in Him to hear her, under penalty of being placed with "heathen
and publican;" and promised to be with her to the end of the world. She
holds her charter as teacher from Him a charter as infallible as
perpetual. The Protestant world at its birth found the Christian Sabbath
too strongly entrenched to run counter to its existence; it was
therefore placed under the necessity of acquiescing in the arrangement,
thus implying the Church's right to change the day, for over three
hundred years. The Christian Sabbath is therefore to this day,
the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church as spouse of the Holy
Ghost, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant
world. Let us now, however, take a glance at our second
proposition, with the Bible alone as the teacher and guide in
faith and morals. This teacher most emphatically forbids any change
in the day for paramount reasons. The command calls for a
"perpetual covenant." The day commanded to be kept by the
teacher has never once been kept, thereby developing an
apostasy from an assumedly fixed principle, as self-contradictory,
self-stultifying, and consequently as suicidal as it is within the power
of language to express. Nor are the limits of demoralization yet
reached. Far from it. Their pretense for leaving the bosom of
the Catholic Church was for apostasy from the truth as taught in the
written word. They adopted the written word as their sole teacher,
which they had no sooner done than they abandoned it promptly, as these
articles have abundantly proved; and by a perversity as willful as
erroneous, they accept the teaching of the Catholic Church in direct
opposition to the plain, unvaried, and constant teaching of their sole
teacher in the most essential doctrine of their religion, thereby
emphasizing the situation in what may be aptly designated "a mockery,
a delusion, and a snare."
[EDITORS' NOTE. It was upon this very point that the
Reformation was condemned by the Council of Trent. The Reformers
had constantly charged, as here stated, that the Catholic Church
had "apostatized from the truth as contained in the written
word. "The written word," "The Bible and the Bible only,"
"Thus saith the Lord," these were their constant watchwords; and
"the Scripture, as in the written word, the sole standard of
appeal," this was the proclaimed platform of the Reformation and
of Protestantism. "The Scripture and tradition." The
Bible as interpreted by the Church and according to the unanimous
consent of the Fathers," this was the position and claim of the
Catholic Church. This was the main issue in the Council of Trent,
which was called especially to consider the questions that had
been raised and forced upon the attention of Europe by the
Reformers. The very first question concerning faith that was
considered by the council was the question involved in this issue.
There was a strong party even of the Catholics within the council
who were in favor of abandoning tradition and adopting the
Scriptures only, as the standard of authority. This view was
so decidedly held in the debates in the council that the pope's
legates actually wrote to him that there was "a strong tendency to
set aside tradition altogether and to make Scripture the sole
standard of appeal." But to do this would manifestly be to go a
long way toward justifying the claims of the Protestants. By this
crisis there was developed upon the ultra-Catholic portion of the
council the task of convincing the others that "Scripture and
tradition" were the only sure ground to stand upon. If this
could be done, the council could be carried to issue a decree
condemning the Reformation, otherwise not. The question was
debated day after day, until the council was fairly brought to a
standstill. Finally, after a long and intensive mental strain, the
Archbishop of Reggio came into the council with substantially the
following argument to the party who held for Scripture alone:
"The Protestants claim to stand upon the written
word only. They profess to hold the Scripture alone as the
standard of faith. They justify their revolt by the plea that the
Church has apostatized from the written word and follows
tradition. Now the Protestants claim, that they stand upon the
written word only, is not true. Their profession of holding the
Scripture alone as the standard of faith, is false. PROOF: The
written word explicitly enjoins the observance of the seventh day
as the Sabbath. They do not observe the seventh day, but reject
it. If they do truly hold the scripture alone as their standard,
they would be observing the seventh day as is enjoined in the
Scripture throughout. Yet they not only reject the observance of
the Sabbath enjoined in the written word, but they have adopted
and do practice the observance of Sunday, for which they have only
the tradition of the Church. Consequently the claim of 'Scripture
alone as the standard,' fails; and the doctrine of
'Scripture and tradition' as essential, is fully
established, the Protestants themselves being
judges." [The Archbishop of Reggio (Gaspar
[Ricciulli] de Fosso) made his speech at the last opening session
of Trent, (17th Session) reconvened under a new pope (Pius IV), on
the 18th of January, 1562 after having been suspended in 1552.
J. H. Holtzman, Canon and Tradition, published in
Ludwigsburg, Germany, in 1859, page 263, and Archbishop of
Reggio's address in the 17th session of the Council of Trent, Jan.
18, 1562, in Mansi SC, Vol. 33, cols. 529, 530.
Latin.] There was no getting around this, for the
Protestants' own statement of faith the Augsburg Confession,
1530 had clearly admitted that "the observation of the Lord's
day" had been appointed by "the Church" only. The
argument was hailed in the council as of Inspiration only; the
party for "Scripture alone," surrendered; and the council at once
unanimously condemned Protestantism and the whole Reformation as
only an unwarranted revolt from the communion and authority of the
Catholic Church; and proceeded, April 8, 1546, "to the
promulgation of two decrees, the first of which, enacts under
anathema, that Scripture and tradition are to be received
and venerated equally, and that the deutero-canonical [the
apocryphal] books are part of the canon of Scripture. The second
decree declares the Vulgate to be the sole authentic and standard
Latin version, and gives it such authority as to supersede the
original texts; forbids the interpretation of Scripture contrary
to the sense received by the Church, 'or even contrary to the
unanimous consent of the Fathers,'" etc. (7)
This was the inconsistency of the Protestant practice with the
Protestant profession that gave to the Catholic Church her
long-sought and anxiously desired ground upon which to condemn
Protestantism and the whole Reformation movement as only a
selfishly ambitious rebellion against the Church authority. And in
this vital controversy the key, the chiefest and culminative
expression, of the Protestant inconsistency was in the rejection
of the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day, enjoined in the
Scriptures, and the adoption and observance of the Sunday as
enjoined by the Catholic Church. And this is today
the position of the respective parties to this controversy. Today,
as this document shows, this is the vital issue upon which the
Catholic Church arraigns Protestantism, and upon which she
condemns the course of popular Protestantism as being
"indefensible", self-contradictory, and suicidal." What will these
Protestants, what will this Protestantism, do?]
(7) See the proceedings of the Council;
Augsburg Confession; and Encyclopaedia Britannica, article "Trent,
Council of." |
Should any of the Rev. Parsons, who are
habituated to howl so vociferously over every real or assumed
desecration of that pious fraud, the Bible Sabbath, think well of
entering a protest against our logical and scriptural dissection of
their mongrel pet, we can promise them that any reasonable attempt on
their part to gather up the "disjecta membra" of the hybrid, and to
restore to it a galvanized existence, will be met with genuine
cordiality and respectful consideration on our part. But we can assure
our readers that we know these reverend howlers too well to expect a
solitary bark from them in this instance. And they know
us too well to subject themselves to the mortification which a further
dissection of this anti-scriptural question would necessarily entail.
Their policy now is to "lay low," and they are sure to adopt it.
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