No one of these fathers ever claims for this title any apostolic authority; and it has been already shown that they could not have believed the day to be the Lord’s day by divine appointment. So far, therefore, is the use of this term by these persons as a name for Sunday from conflicting with the statement that Sylvester, by his apostolic authority, established this name as the rightful title of that day, that it shows the act of Sylvester to be exactly suited to the circumstances of the case. Indeed, Nicephorus asserts that Constantine, who considered himself quite as much the head of the church as was the pope, “directed that the day which the Jews considered the first day of the week, and which the Greeks dedicated to the sun, should be called the Lord’s day.”[750] The circumstances of the case render the statements of Lucius and Nicephorus in the highest degree probable. They certainly do not indicate that the pope would deem such act on his part unnecessary. Take a recent event in papal history as an illustration of this case. Only a few years since, Pius IX. decreed that the virgin Mary was born without sin. This had long been asserted by many distinguished writers in the papal church, but it lacked authority as a dogma of that church until the pope, A. D. 1854, gave it his official sanction.[751] It was the work of Constantine and of Sylvester in the early part of the fourth century to establish the festival of the sun, to be a day of rest, by the authority of the empire, and to render it a Christian institution by the authority of St. Peter.
The following from Dr. Heylyn, a distinguished member of the Church of England, is worthy of particular attention. In most forcible language, he traces the steps by which the Sunday festival arose to power, contrasting it in this respect with the ancient Sabbath of the Lord; and then, with equal truth and candor, he acknowledges that, as the festival of Sunday was set up by the emperor and the church, the same power can take it down whenever it sees fit. Thus he says:—
“Thus do we see upon what grounds the Lord’s day stands; on custom first, and voluntary consecration of it to religious meetings; that custom countenanced by the authority of the church of God, which tacitly approved the same; and finally confirmed and ratified by Christian princes throughout their empires. And as the day for rest from labors and restraint from business upon that day, [it] received its greatest strength from the supreme magistrate as long as he retained that power which to him belongs; as after from the canons and decrees of councils, the decretals of popes and orders of particular prelates, when the sole managing of ecclesiastical affairs was committed to them.
“I hope it was not so with the former Sabbath, which neither took original from custom, that people being not so forward to give God a day; nor required any countenance or authority from the kings of Israel to confirm and ratify it. The Lord had spoke the word, that he would have one day in seven, precisely the seventh day from the world’s creation, to be a day of rest unto all his people; which said, there was no more to do but gladly to submit and obey his pleasure.... But thus it was not done in our present business. The Lord’s day had no such command that it should be sanctified, but was left plainly to God’s people to pitch on this, or any other, for the public use. And being taken up amongst them 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 from 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, yet at the first they were not general; but only thus 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 and most repugnant to the true nature of a Sabbath, being 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 from that also, which formerly they had permitted, and interdicted almost all kinds of bodily labor upon that day; it was not brought about without much struggling and an 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 now it standeth.... And being brought into that state, wherein now it stands, it doth not stand so firmly and on such sure grounds, but that those powers which raised it up may take it lower if they please, yea take it quite away as unto the time, and settle it on any other day as to them seems best.”[752]
Constantine’s edict marks a signal change in the history of the Sunday festival. Dr. Heylyn thus testifies:—
“Hitherto have we spoken of the Lord’s day as taken up by the common consent of the church; not instituted or established by any text of Scripture, or edict of emperor, or decree of council.... In that which followeth, we shall find both emperors and councils very frequent in ordering things about this day and the service of it.”[753]
After his professed conversion to Christianity, Constantine still further exerted his power in behalf of the venerable day of the sun, now happily transformed into the Lord’s day, by the apostolic authority of the Roman bishop. Heylyn thus testifies:—
“So natural a power it is in a Christian prince to order things about religion, that he not only took upon him to command the day, but also to prescribe the service.”[754]