From: Darryl McDowell
To: heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: Roman Catholic And Protestant Confessions about Sunday

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 Catholic High Schools and
Academies (1936), vol. 1, P. 51.

"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), Chicago, Illinois.

"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 Hartford, Kansas, Feb.
18,1884.

"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 (New York: Eaton
&Mains), p. 127-129.

" . . . 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 United Lutheran
Church (1923), p. 36.

"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."

Augsburg Confession of Faith art. 28; written by
Melanchthon, approved by Martin Luther, 1530; as published in The
Book of Concord of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Henry Jacobs, ed. (1 91 1), p. 63.

"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 Israel .... These
churches err in their teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of =
the week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New
Testament to that effect."

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. (New York: Eaton & Mains), Sermon 25,vol. 1, p. 221.

"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.:
New York), pp. 47, 48.

The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force
ever since. This fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,'
showing that the Sabbath already existed when God Wrote the law on
the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one
commandment has been done away with when they will admit that the
other nine are still binding?"

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
shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the Sabbath will
stand . . . . The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the Sabbath."

http://www.biblesabbath.org/confessions.html

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