[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 GHOST 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.
[Article XXVIII: Of Ecclesiastical Power.
33. They refer to the Sabbath-day as having been
changed into the Lord's Day, contrary to the
Decalog, 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! ]
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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University has the relevant issues of the Catholic Mirror
archived on microfilm.
