Such a work as this, then, the papacy must accomplish according to the prophecy; and the prophecy cannot fail. And when this is done, what do the people of the world have. They have two laws demanding from them obedience: one, the law of God as originally enacted by him, an embodiment of his will, and expressing his claims upon his creatures; the other, a revised edition of that law, emanating from the pope of Rome, and expressing his will. And how is it to be determined which of these powers the people honor and worship? It is determined by the law which they keep. If they keep the law of God as given by him, they worship and obey God. If they keep the law as changed by the papacy, they worship that power. But further, the prophecy does not say that the little horn should set aside the law of God and give one entirely different. This would not be to change the law, but simply to give a new one. He was only to attempt a change, so that the law as it comes from God, and the law as it comes from the hands of the papacy, are precisely alike, excepting the change which the papacy has made therein. They have many points in common. But none of the precepts which they contain in common, can distinguish a person as the worshiper of either power in preference to the other. If God's law says, "Thou shalt not kill," and the law as given by the papacy says the same, no one can tell by a person's observance of that precept whether he designed to obey God rather than the pope, or the pope rather than God. But when a precept that has been changed, is the subject of action, then whoever observes that precept as originally given by God, is thereby distinguished as a worshiper of God; and he who keeps it as changed is thereby marked as a follower of the power that made the change. In no other way can the two classes of worshipers be distinguished. From this conclusion, no candid mind can dissent; but in this conclusion we have a general answer to the question before us, "What constitutes the mark of the beast?" THE MARK OF THE BEAST IS THE CHANGE HE HAS MADE IN THE LAW OF GOD.
We now inquire what that change is? By the law of God, we mean the moral law, the only law in the universe of immutable and perpetual obligation, the law of which Webster says, defining the terms according to the sense in which they are almost universally used in Christendom, "The moral law is summarily contained in the decalogue, written by the finger of God on two tables of stone, and delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai."
If, now, the reader will compare the ten commandments as found in Roman Catholic catechisms with those commandments as found in the Bible, he will see in the catechisms that the second commandment is left out, that the tenth is divided into two commandments to make up the lack of leaving out the second, and keep good the number ten, and that the fourth commandment (called the third in their enumeration) is made to enjoin the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath, and prescribe that the day shall be spent in hearing mass devoutly, attending vespers, and reading moral and pious books. Here are several variations from the decalogue as found in the Bible. Which of them constitutes the change of the law intended in the prophecy? or, are they all included in that change? Let it be borne in mind, that, according to the prophecy, he was to think to change times and laws. This plainly conveys the idea of intention and design, and makes these qualities essential to the change in question. But respecting the omission of the second commandment, Catholics argue that it is included in the first, and, hence, should not be numbered as a separate commandment. And on the tenth they claim that there is so plain a distinction of ideas as to require two commandments. So they make the coveting of a neighbor's wife the ninth commandment, and the coveting of his goods the tenth.
In all this they claim that they are giving the commandments exactly as God intended to have them understood. So, while we may regard them as errors in their interpretation of the commandments, we cannot set them down as intentional changes. Not so, however, with the fourth commandment. Respecting this commandment, they do not claim that their version is like that given by God. They expressly claim a change here, and also that the change has been made by the church. A few quotations from standard Catholic works will make this matter plain. In a work entitled, Treatise of Thirty Controversies, we find these words:—
"The word of God commandeth the seventh day to be the Sabbath of our Lord, and to be kept holy; you [Protestants,] without any precept of Scripture, change it to the first day of the week, only authorized by our traditions. Divers English Puritans oppose, against this point, that the observation of the first day is proved out of Scripture, where it is said, the first day of the week. Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10. Have they not spun a fair thread in quoting these places? If we should produce no better for purgatory and prayers for the dead, invocation of the saints, and the like, they might have good cause, indeed, to laugh us to scorn; for where is it written that these were Sabbath days in which those meetings were kept? Or where is it ordained they should be always observed? Or, which is the sum of all, where is it decreed that the observation of the first day should abrogate or abolish the sanctifying of the seventh day, which God commanded everlastingly to be kept holy? Not one of those is expressed in the written word of God."
In the "Catholic Catechism of Christian Religion," on the subject of the third (fourth) commandment, we find these questions and answers:—
"Ques. What does God ordain by this commandment?
"Ans. He ordains that we sanctify, in a special manner, this day on which he rested from the labor of creation.
"Q. What is this day of rest?
"A. The seventh day of the week, or Saturday; for he employed six days in creation, and rested on the seventh. Gen. 2:2; Heb. 4:1; &c.
"Q. Is it then Saturday we should sanctify in order to obey the ordinance of God?
"A. During the old law, Saturday was the day sanctified; but the church, instructed by Jesus Christ, and directed by the Spirit of God, has substituted Sunday for Saturday; so now we sanctify the first, not the seventh, day. Sunday means, and now is, the day of the Lord."
In "Abridgment of Christian Doctrine," we find this testimony:—
"Ques. How prove you that the church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
"Ans. 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.
"Q. How prove you that?
"A. Because by keeping Sunday they acknowledge the church's power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin."
In the "Catholic Christian Instructed," again we read:—
"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 apostolic tradition.
"Q. Does the Scripture anywhere command the Sunday to be kept for the Sabbath?
"A The Scripture commands us to hear the church (Matt. 18:17; Luke 10:16), and to hold fast the traditions of the apostles. 2 Thess. 2:15. But the Scriptures do not in particular mention this change of the Sabbath."
In the "Doctrinal Catechism," we find further testimony to the same point:—
"Ques. Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?
"Ans. 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."
And finally, W. Lockhart, late B. A. of Oxford, in the Toronto (Cath.) Mirror, offered the following "challenge" to all the Protestants of Ireland; a challenge as well calculated for this latitude as that. He says:—
"I do, therefore, solemnly challenge the Protestants of Ireland to prove, by plain texts of Scripture, these questions concerning the obligation of the Christian Sabbath. 1. That Christians may work on Saturday, the old seventh day. 2. That they are bound to keep holy the first day, namely, Sunday. 3. That they are not bound to keep holy the seventh day also."
This is what the papal power claims to have done respecting the fourth commandment. Catholics plainly acknowledge that there is no scriptural authority for the change they have made, but that it rests wholly upon the authority of the church; and they claim it as a token or mark of the authority of that church; the "very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday," being set forth as proof of its power in this respect. For further testimony on this point, the reader is referred to a tract published at the SIGNS OF THE TIMES Office; entitled, "Who Changed the Sabbath?" in which are also extracts from Catholic writers, refuting the arguments usually relied upon to prove the Sunday Sabbath, and showing that its only authority is the Catholic Church.
"But," says one, "I supposed that Christ changed the Sabbath." A great many suppose so; and it is natural that they should; for they have been so taught. And while we have no words of denunciation to utter against any such for so believing, we would have them at once understand that it is, in reality, one of the most enormous of all errors. We would therefore remind such persons that, according to the prophecy, the only change ever to be made in the law of God, was to be made by the little horn of Dan. 7, and the man of sin of 2 Thess. 2; and the only change that has been made in it, is the change of the Sabbath. Now, if Christ made this change, he filled the office of the blasphemous power spoken of by both Daniel and Paul—a conclusion sufficiently hideous to drive any Christian from the view which leads thereto.