"The principle is settled in all governments that there are but two ways in which any law can cease to be binding upon the people. It may expire by its own limitations, or it may be repealed by the same authority which enacted it; and in the latter case the repealing act must be as explicit as that by which the obligation was originally imposed." Now we have it in proof that the Sabbath was instituted in Paradise, the first of all laws without any limitation, and no enactment by God to abolish it, unless what we have already referred to can be considered proof. One more passage which I have not alluded to will show that it was not abolished at the crucifiction, for his disciples kept the Sabbath while he was resting in his tomb. See Luke xxiii: 55, 56. Let us now pass to another part of the subject. The third question:
Was the seventh-day Sabbath ever changed? If so, when, and for what reason?
Here we come to a question which has more or less engaged the attention of the whole christian world, and the greater portion of those who believe in a crucified Saviour say that this change took place, and is dated from his resurrection. Some say subsequently, while a minority insist upon it that there is no proof for the change. Now to obtain the truth and nothing but the truth on this important subject, I propose to present, or quote from standard authors on both sides of the question, and try the whole by the standard of divine truth. 1st. Buck's Theological Dictionary, to which no doubt thousands of ministers and laymen appeal to sustain their argument for the change, says: "Under the christian dispensation the Sabbath is altered from the seventh to the first day of the week." The arguments for the change, are these: 1st. "The seventh day was observed by the Jewish church in memory of the rest of God; so the first day of the week has always been observed by the christian church in memory of Christ's resurrection. 2d. Christ made repeated visits to his disciples on that day. 3d. It is called the Lord's day. Rev. i: 10. 4th. On this day the Apostles were assembled, when the Holy Ghost came down so visibly upon them to qualify them for the conversion of the world. 5th. On this day we find Paul at Troas when the disciples came together to break bread. 6th. The directions the Apostles gave to Christians plainly alludes to their assembling on that day. 7th. Pliny bears witness of the first day of the week being kept as a festival in honor of the resurrection of Christ."
"Numerous have been the days appointed by man for religious services, but these are not binding because of human institution. Not so the Sabbath. It is of divine institution, so it is to be kept holy unto the Lord."
Doct. Dodridge, whose ability and piety has seldom or rarely been disputed, comments on some of the above articles thus: (Commentary p. 606.) "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." 1 Cor. xvi: 2. "Show that it was to be put into a common stock. The argument drawn from hence for the religious observance of the first day of the week in these primitive churches of Corinth and Galacia is too obvious to need any further illustration, and yet too important to be passed by in entire silence." Again, p. 904, "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day," &c. Rev. i: 10. "It is so very unnatural and contrary to the use of the word in all other authors to interpret this of the Jewish Sabbath, as Mr. Baxter justly argues at large, that I cannot but conclude with him and the generality of Christian writers on this subject, that this text strongly infers the extraordinary regard paid to the first day of the week in the Apostle's time as a day solemnly consecrated to Christ in memory of his resurrection from the dead." There is much more, but these are his strong arguments. I shall quote some more from the Commentaries by and by. I wish to place by the side of these arguments one from the British Quarterly Theological Review and Ecclesiastical Recorder, of Jan. 1830, which I extract from 'the Institution of the Sabbath day,' by Wm. Logan Fisher, of Philadelphia, a book in which there is much valuable information on this subject, though I disagree with the writer, because his whole labor is to abolish the Sabbath; yet he gives much light on this subject, from which I take the liberty to make some quotations.
But to the Quarterly Review of 1830: "It is said that the observance of the seventh day Sabbath is transferred in the Christian church to the first day of the week. We ask by what authority, and are very much mistaken if an examination of all the texts of the New Testament, in which the first day of the week or Lord's day is mentioned, does not prove that there is no divine or Apostolic precept enjoining its observance, nor any certain evidence from scripture that it was, in fact, so observed in the times of the Apostles. Accordingly we search the scriptures in vain, either for an Apostolic precept, appointing the first day of the week to be observed in the place of the Jewish Sabbath, or for any unequivocal proof that the first christians so observed it—there are only three or, at most four places of scripture, in which the first day of the week is mentioned. The next passage is in Acts xx: 7. 'Upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them.' All that St. Luke here tells us plainly is, that on a particular occasion the christians of Troas met together on the first day of the week to celebrate the Eucharist and to hear Paul preach. This is the only place in scripture, in which the first day of the week is in any way connected with any acts of public worship, and he who would certainly infer from this solitary instance that the first day of every week was consecrated by the Apostles to religious purposes, must be far gone in the art of drawing universal conclusion from particular premises."
On page 178, Mr. Fisher says, "I have examined several different translations of the scriptures, both from the Hebrew and the Septuagint, with notes and anotations more extensive than the texts; have traced as far as my leisure would permit, various ecclesiastical histories, some of them voluminous and of ancient date; have paid considerable attention to the writings of the earliest authors in the christian era, and to rare works, old and of difficult access, which treat upon this subject; I have read with care many of the publications of sectarians to sustain the institution; I have omitted nothing within my reach, and I have found not one shred of argument, or authority of any kind, that may not be deemed of partial and sectarian character, to support the institution of the first day of the week as a day of peculiar holiness. But, in the place of argument, I have found opinions without number—volumes filled with idle words that have no truth in them. In the want of texts of scripture, I have found perversions; in the want of truth, false statements. I have seen it stated that Justin Marter in his apology, speaks of Sunday as a holy day; that Eusebius, bishop of Cesarea, who lived in the fourth century, establishes the fact of the transfer of the seventh to the first day, by Christ himself. These things are not true. These authors say no such thing. I have seen other early authors referred to as establishing the same point, but they are equally false."
Here then is the testimony of four authors, two for the change and two against it, from the old and new world. No truth seeking, unbiased mind can hesitate for a moment on which side to decide, after comparing them with the inspired word.
Doctor Jenks of Boston, author of the Comprehensive Commentary, (purporting to comprehend all other commentators on the bible,) after quoting author after author, on this subject, ventures forth with his unsupported opinion in these words: "Here is a Christian Sabbath observed by the disciples and owned by our Lord. The visit Christ made to his disciples was on the first day of the week, and the first day of the week is the only day of the week or month or year ever mentioned by numbers in all the New Testament, and that is several times spoken of as a day religiously observed." Where? Echo answers, where!
Heman Humphrey, President of Amherst College, from whose book I have already made some quotations, after devoting some thirty-four pages to the establishment and perpetuation of the seventh day Sabbath, comes to his fourth question, viz. 'Has the day been changed?' Singular as this question may appear by the side of what he had already written to establish and perpetuate the seventh day Sabbath from the seventh day of creation down to the resurrection of the just, but as every man feels that it his privilege to justify and explain, when precept and practice does not agree—so is it with President Humphrey, he can now shape the scriptures to suit every one that has followed in the wake of Pope Gregory for 1225 years. He says, "The fourth commandment is so expressed as to admit of a change in the day,"—thus striking vitally every argument he had before presented. Hear him—he says the seventh day is the Sabbath; "it was so at that time, (in the beginning) and for many ages after, but it is not said, that it always shall be—it is the Sabbath day which we are to remember; and so at the close, it is the Sabbath which was hallowed and blessed and not the seventh day. The Sabbath then, the holy rest itself, is one thing. The day on which we are to rest is another." I ask, in the name of common sense, how we should know how or when to keep the Sabbath if it did not matter which day. If the President could not see the sanctification of the seventh day in the decalogue what did he mean by quoting Gen. ii: 3, so often, where it says "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it."