“The Christians of this century, assembled for the worship of God, and for their advancement in piety, on the first day of the week, the day on which Christ reassumed his life: for that this day was set apart for religious worship, by the apostles themselves, and that, after the example of the church of Jerusalem, it was generally observed, we have unexceptionable testimony.”—Murdock’s Mosheim, cent. 1, part ii. chap. iv. sec. 4.
[465] Neander’s Church History, translated by H. J. Rose, p. 186. To break the force of this strong statement of Neander that “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,” two things have been said:—
1. That Neander, in a later edition of his work, retracted this declaration. It is true that in re-writing his work he omitted this sentence. But he inserted nothing of a contrary character, and the general tenor of the revised edition is in this place precisely the same as in that from which this out-spoken statement is taken.
In proof of this, we cite from the later edition of Neander his statement in this very place of what constituted Sunday observance in the early church. He says:—
“Sunday was distinguished as a day of joy, by being exempted from fasts, and by the circumstance that prayer was performed on this day in a standing and not in a kneeling posture, as Christ, by his resurrection, had raised up fallen man again to Heaven.”—Torrey’s Neander, vol. i. p. 295, ed. 1852.
This is an accurate account of early Sunday observance, as we shall hereafter show; and that such observance was only a human ordinance, of which no feature was ever commanded by the apostles, will be very manifest to every person who attempts to find any precept for any particular of it in the New Testament.
2. But the other method of setting aside this testimony of Neander is to assert that he did not mean to deny that the apostles established a divine command for Sunday as the Christian Sabbath, but meant to assert that they did not establish a divine command for Sunday as a Catholic festival! Those who make this assertion must know that it is false. Neander expressly denies that the apostles either constituted or recognized Sunday as a Sabbath, and he represents Sunday as a mere festival from the very first of its observance, and established only by human authority.
[466] See chapters [x.] and [xi.], in which the New Testament has been carefully examined on this point.
[467] Epistle of Barnabas 13:9, 10; or, as others divide the epistle, chapter 15.
[468] Eccl. Hist., cent. 1, part ii. chap. ii. sect. 21.