Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Volume 1 of 2)

by B. H. Roberts

Justin Martyr, one of the most learned and highly esteemed of the apostolic fathers, is very clear upon this subject. He says, writing in the first half of the second century, almost within shouting distance of the inspired apostles:

"In all our obligations we bless the Maker of all things, through his son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost, and on the day which is called Sunday, there is an assembly in the same place of all who live in cities or in country districts; and the records of the apostles, or the writings of the prophets, are read as long as we have time. Then the reader concludes, and the president verbally instructs and exhorts us to the imitation of those excellent things. Then we all arise together and offer up our prayers. And, as I said before, when we have concluded our prayer, bread is brought and wine and water, and the president in like manner offers up prayers and thanksgiving with all his strength, and the people give their assent by saying, amen. * * * But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God when he changed the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead: for the day before that of Saturn he was crucified, and on the day after it, which is Sunday, he appeared to his apostles and disciples and taught them these things which we have given to you also for your consideration" (I Apology, Ch. 67).

We have not the space to further examine the testimony of the fathers, nor is it necessary. Sufficient has been quoted to show that in that age immediately succeeding the apostles, the practice, which seems to have begun even under the immediate supervision of the Lord himself, was firmly established in the early church. The learned writer in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Rev. James Augustus Hessev, who there treats this subject, says:

The result of our examination of the principal writers of the two centuries after the death of St. John are as follows: The Lord's day (a name which has now come out more prominently; and is connected more explicitly with our Lord's resurrection than before) existed during these two centuries as part and parcel of apostolical, and so of scriptural Christianity. * * * Our design does not necessarily lead us to do more than to state facts; but if the facts be allowed to speak for themselves, they indicate that the Lord's day is a purely Christian institution, sanctioned by. apostolic practice, mentioned in apostolic writings, and so possessed of whatever divine authority all apostolic ordinances and doctrines (which are not obviously temporary, or were not abrogated by the apostles themselves) can be supposed to possess" (Vol. II, page 1679).

Yet after all this is admitted, and the strength of the argument is very great in my judgment, it must still be confessed that it falls somewhat short of being absolutely conclusive. It cannot be made out clearly and positively that Jesus or the apostles by direct, official action authorized the observance of the first day of the week as a day of public worship, dedicated to the service of God, and designed to take the place of the Jewish Sabbath. The most that can be claimed for the evidence here adduced—and it is the strongest if not all that can be marshalled in support of the proposition is that it is probable that such a change was instituted. Revelation Baden Powel, professor of geometry at Oxford University, states the case as it stands most truly. He says:

"To those Christians who look to the written word as the sole authority for anything claiming apostolic or divine sanction, it becomes peculiarly important to observe that the New Testament evidence of the observance of the Lord's day amounts merely to the recorded fact that the disciples did assemble on the first day of the week, and the probable application of the designation of the Lord's day to that day."[A]

[Footnote A: Kitto's Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature. Art. Lord's Day.]

That Catholics regard what is written in the New Testament as insufficient to justify them in the observance of the first day of the week instead of the seventh is evident from the fact that they appeal to the tradition of the church or "the unwritten word of God" in justification of their practice, and upbraid Protestants for their rejection of the authority of tradition, which alone, in their view, justifies the change from the seventh to the first. The author of the Catholic work, "End of Religious Controversy," after citing the scripture commanding the observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath, then says:

"Yet with all this weight of scripture authority for keeping the Sabbath or seventh day holy, Protestants of all denominations make this a profane day, and transfer the obligation of it to the first day of the week, or Sunday. Now what authority have they for doing this? None whatever, except the unwritten word, or tradition of the Catholic church; which declares that the Apostles made the change in honor of Christ's resurrection and the descent of the Holy Ghost on that day of the week" (End of Religious Controversy, letter 11).

It is this element of uncertainty in the evidence, and the consequent inconclusiveness in the argument that those who contend for the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord take advantage of; but, as stated in the beginning, the Latter-day Saints need not share the embarrassment that other Christians generally feel over the question, for the Lord has set the matter at rest by a revelation in the last days to his church. In a revelation to his servant Joseph Smith, given in August, 1831, he said: