Who Changed the Sabbath?

Notes

1. The Catholic Church has sought to change the Sabbath of the fourth commandment through the Papacy. In other changes there is no claim to intentionally alter these precepts, but with the Sabbath it is different. They openly admit that they have deliberately thought to change the law. They say this:—

"Ques.—What warrant have you for keeping the Sunday, preferable to the ancient Sabbath, which was the Saturday?

"Ans.—We have for it the authority of the Catholic Church and apostolical tradition."—Catholic Christian Instructed, page 202.

"Ques.—Have you any other way of proving that the church has the power to institute festivals of precept?

"Ans.—Had she not the 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, page 174.

The following is a copy of the law of God as it appears in a standard Catholic catechism:—

The Law of God as Changed by the Papacy.

"1. I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before Me. "2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. "3. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. "4. Honor thy father and thy mother. "5. Thou shalt not kill. "6. Thou shalt not commit adultery. "7. Thou shalt not steal. "8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. "9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. "10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods."—Butler's Doctrinal Catechism.

2. Dr. Scott, the noted commentator, says: "The change from the seventh to the first appears to have been gradually and silently introduced, by example rather than by express precept."—Comment on Acts 20:7.

This expresses the truth concerning the change of the Sabbath. "Gradually" and "silently" the church fell into the custom of observing this heathen festival day, till, in the days of Constantine, A. D. 321, the first command for the observance of Sunday was given.

3. "It was Constantine the Great who first made a law for the proper observance of Sunday."—Encyclopedia Britannica.

"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."—Neander's Church History, translated by Rose, page 186.

"We hear less than we used to about the apostolic origin of the present Sunday observance, and for the reason that while the Sabbath and Sabbath rest are woven into the warp and woof of Scripture, it is now seen, as it is admitted, that we must go to later than apostolic times for the establishment of Sunday observance."—Christian at Work, 1884.

4. The Papacy can, and did actually, blaspheme God's holy name and His tabernacle, and put to death millions of His faithful subjects; but he can only "think" to change His law. The Revised Version reads, "the law," and the Douay version, "Think himself able to change times and laws." He can, of course, no more alter a jot or tittle of God's law than he can abolish its Author.

5. "In the interval between the days of the apostles and the conversion of Constantine, the Christian commonwealth changed its aspect. The bishop of Rome—a personage unknown to the writers of the New Testament—meanwhile rose into prominence, and at length took precedence of all other churchmen. Rites and ceremonies, of which neither Paul or Peter ever heard, crept silently into use, and then claimed the rank of divine institutions."—Killen's Ancient Church, preface.