How do we know that Christ ever designed that his example should produce in our minds the conviction that he had withdrawn his regard from the day of his Father’s rest, and placed it upon that of his own resurrection? Did he, in laying the foundation for the new institution—as in the case of the Lord’s supper—inaugurate the same by his own action, and then say to his disciples, As oft as ye do this, do it in remembrance of me? Did he ever explain to any individual that his especial object in meeting with his followers on the evenings of the first and second Sundays (?) after his return from the dead was designed to inspire in the minds of future believers the conviction that those hours, from that time forward, had been consecrated to a religious use? If so, the record is very imperfect, in that it failed to hand down to us a most significant fact. I say significant, because, without such a declaration, the minds of common men, such as made up the rank and file of the immediate followers of Christ, were hardly competent to the subtile task of drawing, unaided, such nice distinctions. How natural, how easy, by a single word, to have put all doubt to rest, and to have given to future ages a foundation, broad and deep, upon which to ground the argument for the change.
But this, as we have already seen, was not done! and after the lapse of eighteen hundred years, men—in the stress of a situation which renders it necessary that they should obtain divine sanction, in order to the perpetuity of a favored institution—are ringing the changes of an endless variety of conjectures drawn from transactions, which, in the record itself, were mentioned as possessing no peculiar characteristics, which should in any way affect the mere time upon which they occurred.
Let us, therefore, with a proper sense of the modesty with which we should ever enter upon the task of deciding upon the institutions of the church, when there is no divine precept for the guidance of our judgment, examine for ourselves. As we do this, it will be well, also, to bear in mind the fact that our prejudices will be very likely to lie entirely upon the side of life-long practice and traditionary inheritance. In fact, nearly every consideration, political, financial, and social, will be found, if not guarded with the strictest care, wooing us to a decision which—though it might dishonor God, and do violence to the principles of a clear, natural logic—would exempt us, individually, from personal sacrifice and pecuniary loss.
ARTICLE IV.
First, then, we suggest that it would be well to collate all the texts in the New Testament in which the first day of the week is mentioned. They are as follows: “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.” Matt. 28:1.
“And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint Him. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun.” Mark 16:1, 2.
“Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.” Mark 16:9.
“And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.” Luke 23:56, and 24:1.
“The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulcher.” John 20:1.
“Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.” John 20:19.