Within twenty-five years of the ascension of Christ, Paul said, “The mystery of iniquity doth already work.” 2 Thess. 2:7. However, a counter influence was then checking the development of this wickedness; but when the restraint should be removed, the full-grown strength of the apostasy would appear. In the same chapter the apostle spoke of a fearful backsliding in the church, which would bring forth and foster a monster of iniquity, called the “man of sin,” who, said the apostle, “opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” 2 Thess. 2:4.
None but a professed Christian power backslidden from God could fulfill these predictions, and that by establishing laws of its own, contrary to the laws of God, and then demanding that its laws be obeyed as of divine appointment in the place of the law of God.
But all this was done by the apostate church, the center developed in Rome. Of this apostate power the prophet declares: “And he shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High; and he shall think to change the times and the law; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time.” Dan. 7:25, R. V.
The papal church comes forward and claims to have done precisely what is predicted regarding a change in the law of God.
Her history also accords with her claim, and shows, too, that she has fulfilled all the other specifications of the prophet.
In a work entitled the “Abridgment of Christian Doctrine,” the Roman Church sets forth her claim of power to change God’s law by a series of questions and answers, one of which is as follows:—
Question—How prove you that the [Catholic] church hath power to command “feasts and holy days”?
Answer—BY THE VERY ACT OF CHANGING THE SABBATH INTO SUNDAY.
In answer to a similar question propounded in the “Doctrinal Catechism,” the answer is: “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.”
Here is a veritable fulfillment of the prophecy which says this power should think himself able to change the times, and the law of God. The above is a confession of the crime; and the same is argued again and again in many books of tradition written by the Roman Catholic writers. Equivalent statements are also found in most apologies and attempted defenses of their course by Catholics.
Eusebius, in writing of what had been done by Constantine, Pope Sylvester, himself, and others who lived in the early part of the fourth century, said, “All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s day,” meaning Sunday.
That which Catholics boastfully display as a badge of their authority, the Lord points out as an evidence of their apostasy, and charges it against them as a great crime committed against him and in opposition to the eternal law of his government.
What Paul classes with the “mystery of iniquity,” the papal church claims, upon the authority of the “fathers.” Those errors which to Paul showed a “falling away” the Roman Church holds sacred as “apostolic tradition.” Its rites and customs are little else than a compilation of heathen mysteries, and if these were taken away, that church would not exist.
But the most ancient of them all is the Sunday festival. The first Sunday law was issued by Constantine in A.D. 321, yet in the law he referred to the antiquity of the heathen institution of sun worship when he asked judges, townspeople, and tradesmen to “rest on the venerable day of the sun.” It was then hoar-headed with very age, having constituted a large factor of Baalism from the earliest period of authentic history. It was taught in the Babylonian system that the sun, or Baal, was the one only god, or god incarnate.8
Baal, was worshiped as the sun incarnate.
In these heathen “mysteries” the “sun” was sometimes represented as born incarnate in the person of some hero for the purpose of subduing the enemies of the gods. See “Researches of Col. Vans Kennedy,” p. 438. In these instances the mother of the incarnate “sun” usually claimed a sunbeam from the orb of day to be the father of the god. Every nation of ancient times had gods which called for the adoration of the sun.
In Egypt the sun was worshiped through a disk-crowned serpent, the bull Apis, Osiris, and many other forms. It was adored in India, Babylonia, Persia, and other places, as Mithra, Tammuz, etc.; in Greece, as Apollo; in Pagan Rome, as Jupiter and other kindred divinities. The figures representing these gods were usually adorned with a luminous circle about the head. Modern Roman idolatry still retains the disk, a sure badge of the sun divinity.
God gave the Sabbath to man as a memorial of his love to his creatures, and an ensign of his power to keep and bless them. But Satan darkened the mind of man through idolatry, and then substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath of the Lord.
Idol worship, including the Sunday festival, was the principal means of leading the children of Israel astray in all their backslidings from the time they left Egypt until their captivity by Nebuchadnezzar.
Within forty days of the making of the first covenant they had made a golden calf—an image to represent the Egyptian sun god Apis, and had worshiped it, after the rites of sun worshipers.
Jennings, in writing of the attitude of the heathen nations upon this subject, at the time Israel left Egypt, says: “The day which the heathen in general consecrated to the worship and honor of their chief God, the sun, which, according to our computation, was the first day of the week.”—Antiquities, book 3, chap. 3. Many historians and lexicons give equivalent testimony. The ten tribes of Israel were absorbed by the heathen because they had become wholly idolatrous. 2 Kings 17:15–17, 23. The people of Judah were carried into Babylon for the same offense. 2 Chron. 33:3–7, 36:14–17.
It was through these idolatrous influences that the Sabbath was transgressed by Israel even in the wilderness. “Neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt.” “Because they despised my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, but polluted my sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols.” Eze. 20:8, 16.
As with Israel in leaving Egypt, so with many professed Christians in leaving heathenism,—“they did not every man cast away his idols.” Yes, it was even worse with thousands in the early church, for they remained in the midst of an idolatrous people.
The Roman Church was established in the midst of a sun-worshiping population, who in general observed no sabbath except the weekly festival of the sun, which was celebrated on the first day of the week. As the membership of the church increased, multitudes of half-Christianized pagans came in, and with them many heathen philosophers.
Princes and politicians began to see by this time that the church could be used as a means of advancing their own interests. Therefore they united with it to control its rites, and shape it in policy to suit their own ends.
They were then in the midst of the “falling away” spoken of by the apostle. Of that time it is said that princes were anxious that politics should become questions of theology, and the clergy were equally solicitous that theology should become questions of politics. Thus it came to pass that each party sought the help of the other, and the consequence was a union of church and state.
Among the first things brought into the controversy by this church and state alliance was the Sabbath question, which in time resulted in anathematizing the Sabbath of the Lord—the memorial of what the Creator and Redeemer is to man—and putting in its place the Sunday of heathenism.
Dr. Peter Heylyn, a noted scholar of the Church of England, in speaking of how the Sunday got into the church, said it was taken up amongst them [church members] and made a day of meeting in the congregation for religious exercises; yet for three hundred years there was neither law to bind them to it, nor any rest from labor or worldly business required upon it. And when it seemed good unto Christian princes, the nursing fathers of God’s church, to lay restraints upon their people [about observing Sunday], yet at the first they were not general; but only that certain men in certain places should lay aside their ordinary and daily works, to attend God’s service in the church. Those whose employments were most toilsome were allowed to follow and pursue their labors because most necessary to the commonwealth. And in the following times, when, as the prince and prelate, in their several places, endeavored to restrain them [farmers] from that also . . . it was not brought about without much struggling and opposition of the people, more than a thousand years being past, after Christ’s ascension, before the Lord’s day had attained that state in which it now standeth.—History of the Sabbath, Part II, chap. 3, sec. 12.
The “princes and nursing fathers” referred to above were such men as Constantine, Eusebius, Pope Sylvester, etc. And such as they changed the Sabbath. The Christian(?) Prince Constantine made the first Sunday law while he was a heathen and worshiper of the sun, A.D. 321. The law reads:—
Let all the judges and townspeople, and the occupation of all trades, rest on the venerable day of the sun; but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty attend to the business of agriculture.
A little later (A.D. 323), Constantine professed the Christian religion, but made no change in the Sunday law, because he had not changed his religion. He only called his religion by another name. Sir William Domville says:—
Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed as the sabbath.—Examination of Six Texts, p. 291.
“Chambers’ Encyclopedia” says:—
By none of the fathers before the fourth century is it [Sunday] identified with the Sabbath.
William Prynne, an English divine, says:—
The Council of Laodicea, A.D. 364, first settled the observance of the Lord’s day [meaning Sunday], and prohibited the keeping of the Jewish Sabbath [Sabbath of the Lord] under anathema.—Dissertation on Lord’s Day, p. 32.
“Chambers’ Encyclopedia” further says:—
It was not till 538 that abstinence from agricultural labor on Sunday was recommended rather than enjoined by an ecclesiastical authority [the third council of Orleans], and this expressly that the people might have more leisure to go to church and say their prayers; nor was it till about the ninth century that the Emperor Leo, “the philosopher,” repealed the exemption which it enjoined under the edict of Constantine.—Article Sabbath.
Neander, translated by Rose, page 186, gives this statement:—
The festival of Sunday was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect, and far from them and from the early apostolic church to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday.
It was not claimed by any one in the early part of the Christian dispensation that there was scriptural authority for Sunday observance. It was known by those who brought it forward that the Scriptures enjoined the seventh and not the first day as the Sabbath of the Lord.
What was done was enacted as a measure of policy or expediency, that large numbers of heathen might unite with the church and still retain their weekly holiday. This defense was made by one who said:—
That very day was the Sunday of their heathen neighbors and respective countrymen, and patriotism gladly united with expediency in making it at once their Lord’s day and their sabbath.—Heylyn.
Policy, expediency, patriotism, convenience, tradition, old-established custom, public favor, promise of office and position, flattery, and finally state laws and force, were the principal arguments used in establishing Sunday on its present basis.
And now the papal church comes forward and points to what it has done in bringing this about, and claims the Sunday institution as the chief ensign, badge, or mark of its authority.
Having done such a work, in the way that facts show that it has been done, the Sunday holy day may well be regarded as a mark of her power; but it is not an evidence of righteousness. It is an ensign of apostasy, and has earned for the great apostasy the titles given to it by the apostle,—“the man of sin” and “the mystery of iniquity.”
THE CHURCH AND SUNDAY.
By Geo. E. Price
BY GEO. E. PRICE.
We wonder at the Israelites of old,
That they so oft should disobey their God,
Who wrought such wonderful deeds to prove his love;
But, O, how soon, when Christ our Lord was gone,
His children wandered from their early love!
How soon were they with all the heathen mixed,
From whom to separate them he had died!
The pagan superstitions thick and fast
Came crowding in where God was wont to dwell.
The holidays that pagans had observed
Were sacred made by change of name, or by
Ascribing to that day some great event
In man's redemption, which to celebrate
Was then observed as an high festival,
Little distinctive from the heathen mode;
Thus came the Christmas and the Easter-tide,
And thus too came the Sunday, wearing still
Its character and name, as when the priests
Of Baal shouted in their sacred groves:
Only they said it was to celebrate
Our Saviour's resurrection from the dead—
That Son of Righteousness, which then arose,
And shed o'er all the world his glorious light.
And this “wild solar holiday” retained
The same pretensions that it had at first,
Till, waking from her long night of debauch,
Still drunken with the wine her mother made,
The church endeavored to maintain the claims
Of all the bastard children that she held
And wished to father off upon her God.
'Tis true the claims of some were so absurd
That forthwith they were cast aside as false,
But some, more dearly clasped, she still retained
Because of memories clustering round their birth.
In spite of all her God and Saviour said,
She could not disinherit this pet child,
So much admired for his lovely form;
And yet, while fondling with maternal care,
She still expects the Bridegroom's benison.
“REFORM” ON THE SABBATH—FALSE.
By W. N. Glenn
BY W. N. GLENN.
The Scriptures teach that just before the coming of the Lord will be a time of great deception. His coming is “after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” 2 Thess. 2:9, 10. They are to be deceived into acknowledging the “mark of the [Roman] beast,” even great miracles being wrought to accomplish this purpose. See Rev. 13:13, 14. There is no means of deception more effective than the cunning imitation of something genuine, especially of something that is good and right. So when Satan would “deceive if it were possible” even “the very elect” (Matt. 24:24), he adroitly turns to counterfeiting the institutions or work of God.
He instigated Cain to disobey God and dishonor the prescribed sacrifice by means of a counterfeit offering, and Cain was deceived into believing that one offering is as good as another, so long as it is offered to God. Later, men were led, in imitation of the worship and sacrifice which God had instituted, to worship false gods and make offerings to them. Even those who had not yet come to believe that a common object or creature was really the true God, were deceived into using such objects merely to represent God, deeming it necessary to have something visible before them in order to fasten the attention. Men do not jump into apostasy suddenly; estrangement from God is always a gradual process.
But the crowning deception of all the ages is the attempt to destroy the law of God by taking out of it the seal, the Sabbath day, and causing man to honor a rival institution dedicated to the honor of a false deity. And when God would send a last message to the church and to the world, to incite a true Sabbath reform and preparation for the judgment, there is interposed a false sabbath reform. This false sabbath being always a state-supported institution, both under heathen auspices and as an alleged Christian memorial, any so-called reform with reference to its observance must needs be through the medium of the state.
And this is just what is being attempted all over the professed Christian world at the present time. The National Reform Association began some thirty years ago to urge the recognition by the United States Constitution of all Christian laws, institutions, and usages. But in their work the enforcement of Sunday observance by law has been the first and foremost effort. At first this movement was sustained by a single denomination, but at the last national convention there were representatives of a large proportion of the alleged Protestant churches, besides those of the popular reform societies.
This false sabbath reform is being tacked onto almost every reform now being agitated, religious, political, and social. Even the laudable temperance reform is made to carry it so conspicuously that temperance laws are allowed to go by default in many places unless they can be made to subserve the interest of the Sunday institution. It is put forward in all manner of seductive guises,—as a sanitary measure, as a commendable industrial measure, as a holiday recreation, as a religious measure first and foremost when it is thought that plea will win, and as a political measure when its votaries appear sufficiently strong to influence voters and politicians.
Congress after Congress is besieged to further the Sunday institution, till at last that body has recognized it as the Sabbath of the Decalogue in lieu of the day specially mentioned. This action is hailed as a great victory for Sabbath reform, and immediately national enforcement receives a new impetus. Dormant and well-nigh obsolete state Sunday laws are dragged forth from their slumbering repose and set to work at their historic duty of persecuting dissenters. Everywhere we hear the cry for “better Sabbath observance,” and the people are being deceived by the assurance that it means the honor of God and respect for his law.
Alliances of reform societies with the original National Reform Association has swelled its influence until to-day it maintains “Christian lobbyists” at Washington, and essays to distribute its literature in the colleges and seminaries of the land. The Sabbath reform department of the W. C. T. U. is doing likewise, as also the Sabbath Unions, the Sabbath Leagues, and the Christian Alliances. So also the Y. P. S. C. E., the Y. M. C. A., and confederacies by the score, great and small, are set for the exaltation of the false sabbath. The great “Christian citizenship” movement, having for its purpose the control of the state by the church, puts forth the recognition of Sunday by municipalities and counties as its opening wedge to further their aggression. The public is being roused in every quarter by glowing representations of the great importance of the Sunday in all matters of life. And in it all is made prominent the ostensible duty of the state to sustain this man-made sabbath by stringent laws.
The work of creating sentiment in support of this covert tyranny under the pretext of sabbath reform is growing apace. In the very near future it will be a leading political issue. For the last decade prominent politicians of the most irreligious character have foreseen the expediency of standing with this Sunday legislation, and it will be but a short time when the national Legislature will be ready to do all that is predicted of it in the prophetic word. See Rev. 13:11–17. There are many honest-hearted people who are deluded by the siren song of the deceiver, just as our mother Eve was “beguiled” by his wily assurances. There are others who see the iniquitous tendencies of current movements, but are confident that a vigorous showing that the tyrannies of past centuries are concealed beneath the “reform” cloak, will be sufficient to turn the tide. But they, too, are deceived. The testimony of the “more sure word of prophecy” is against their sanguine expectations. They think it impossible that such things can be done in this “enlightened nineteenth century,” but if they would only contemplate current events in the light of the word of God, they would soon see their mistake.
It is not only in the United States that this false sabbath reform is pressing rapidly to the front in face of the true Sabbath reform, which is supported solely upon the authority of God’s word, and hence is unpopular with the world, but it is also being pushed in other lands. In Great Britain, France, India, Cape Colony, Russia, Canada, Australia, and Switzerland, the government authorities are either becoming more zealous, or are being importuned to become more active in hindering the true Sabbath reform and in encouraging the false reform.
May the minds of the people be turned to the word of God, and thus be saved from the deceptions of the last days, which are now upon us.
