The Constitutional Amendment: or, The Sunday, the Sabbath, the Change, and Restitution / A discussion between W. H. Littlejohn, Seventh-day Adventist, and the editor of the Christian Statesman

by Wolcott H. Littlejohn

“Ques. How prove you that the church has power to command feasts and holy days? Ans. By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same church.

“Ques. How prove you that? Ans. Because, by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin; and by not keeping the rest by her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power.—Abridgment of Christian Doctrine.

“It is worth its while to remember that this observance of the Sabbath—in which, after all, the only Protestant worship consists—not only has no foundation in the Bible, but it is in flagrant contradiction with its letter, which commands rest on the Sabbath, which is Saturday. It was the Catholic church which, by the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest to the Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the church.”—Plain Talk about Protestantism of To-day, p. 225.

Instinctively anticipating some providential mode of escape from the terrible consequences of that great apostasy, out of which the religious world has for centuries been endeavoring to work its way, conscientious men and women will catch the notes of warning which for twenty-five years have been sounding through the land, in these words: “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12.

Inquiring into the origin of the message which is thus being given to the world, they will find that, for a quarter of a century, God has been calling attention to the subject of his law and his Sabbath, and that a denomination of earnest men and women, but little known as yet among the learned and mighty of the land, have been devoting themselves with zeal and a spirit of self-sacrifice to the tremendous task of restoring God’s downtrodden Sabbath to the hearts and judgments of the people. They will find, also, that these persons have not entered upon this labor because they anticipated an easy and speedy victory; nor, indeed, because they ever believed that the great mass of mankind would so far shake off the trammels of tradition and the fear of reproach as to be able to venture an unreserved surrender to the teachings of the Bible; but simply because they saw in it that which was at once the path of duty, and that of fulfilling prophecy.

Having accepted Dan. 7:25, in common with the religious world, as applying to the papacy, and learning, as the result of investigation, that the days of the great persecution were to reach from the decree of Justinian (A. D. 538,) giving authority to the Bishop of Rome to become the corrector of heretics, to A. D. 1798—when the pope was carried into captivity, having received a wound with the sword agreeably to Rev. 13:10—these students of God’s word at once perceived that the next thing in order would be the completion of the restitution, which had begun in the taking away of his ability to put the saints to death, by a work equally called for in the inspired prediction; namely, that of rescuing from his hands the “times and laws” which he thought to change. Or, in other words, that the effort of the pope to remove the Sabbath of the Lord from the seventh to the first day of the week should be made to appear in its true light; namely, as the work of a blasphemous power which had held the world in its grasp for centuries.

But, while they were clear in those convictions which led them in 1846, under the title of Seventh-day Adventists, to claim that they were fulfilling the prophecy of Rev. 14:9-12, they discerned that the same facts which brought them to this conclusion also compelled the conviction that theirs was to be the road of persecution: hardship, and privation. They read in Rev. 12:17, in these words, “The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ,” the history of the last generation of Christians; and saw that, in God’s inscrutable providence, it was to be their fortune to be the object of diabolic hate, because of the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, to which they cling with determined perseverance.

Once more: In studying the 11th to the 18th verses inclusive of the 13th chapter of the same book, they saw that—if their view of the work which was assigned them was correct—that portion of the Scriptures was applied to the United States of America, and indicated that this country was to be the theater of a mighty contest between those who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” and the government under which they live, from which they could only be delivered by the coming of Christ. This view they unhesitatingly proclaimed. For twenty years, they have announced it as a part of their faith. When they first declared it to be such, they brought upon themselves ridicule and contempt, for, humanly speaking, every probability was against them. The government was ostensibly republican in form, and professedly tolerant to the very extreme, in all matters of religious opinion. The Constitution had even provided that “Congress should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Nevertheless, so firm were they in the conviction that they had the right application of the prophecy, that they unhesitatingly walked out upon their faith; and for a fifth of a century they have talked it, and published it everywhere, notwithstanding the odium it has brought upon them. Lest we might appear to be drawing upon our own imagination in a matter of such importance, we append the following extracts from their works. The words in parentheses are our own, and serve to explain that which a larger quotation from the context would make clear of itself:

“When the ‘beast’ (the papacy) had the dominion, all in authority must be Catholics. The popular sentiment then was that none should hold offices in the government, except they professed the Catholic faith. The popular religion at that period was Catholicism. They legislated upon religious subjects, and required all men to conform to the popular institutions and dogmas of the papacy, or suffer and die. The image must be made in the United States, where Protestantism is the prevailing religion. Image signifies likeness; therefore Protestantism and Republicanism will unite; or, in other words, the making of laws will go into the hands of Protestants, when all in authority will profess the popular sentiments of the day, and make laws binding certain religious institutions (i. e., Sunday observance, &c.), upon all, without distinction.”—Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 6, No. 6, 1854.