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

Into the details respecting the fasts; the decrees of councils; the bulls of popes: the myths concerning the calamities which have befallen those laboring on the Sunday; the forgery of an epistle in its interests, which it was claimed fell from Heaven; and the astounding miracles with which the hierarchy has accomplished the prodigious task of making the transfer, we are not permitted to enter here, nor will it be required that we should do so. Any person acquainted with the arts usually employed at Rome will readily perceive the methods which she has called to her assistance. All that a reasonable man could possibly ask is found in the transition from one day to another, in the fact that the law of God was to be tampered with by a persecuting power which was to continue its oppressions of the saints of God for twelve hundred and sixty years, and in the further consideration that no persecuting power except that of Rome has ever continued for that length of time.

Concerning the decree of Constantine, the only place which we assign to it in the controversy between the friends of the Lord’s Sabbath and its rival, is that which it holds because of its having made the transition easy. The first day of the week being the one generally observed by the heathen and by this decree enforced by statute, had in its favor the practice and sympathy of the masses of men. This law, though passed by a heathen, and in the interest of the heathen religion, was, as would naturally have been the case, of great service to those who subsequently favored the change of day, since it gave to their effort not only the color, but also the material advantage, of legality; by it, men, under certain circumstances, were compelled to celebrate the day of the sun even though they had previously regarded that of the Lord. This, of course, was burdensome, and worked greatly to the advantage of the heathen festival.

One of two views must be taken of the statute of Constantine: If it were Christian, then it proves that Sunday observance, at the time of its passage, was exceedingly lax, since by its terms only men in the cities and towns were prohibited from laboring upon it, while those in the country were by it allowed and encouraged to carry on the vocations of the farm. If, on the other hand, it were heathen in its origin, then the suggestion that it recognizes the venerableness of the day of the sun, even at so early a period as that of its promulgation, is entirely without force, since it thereby becomes manifest that it received this dignifying appellation, not because it had long been venerated by the disciples of our Lord, but because from time immemorial it had been honored by the heathen—a doubtful compliment to the Christian Sabbath.

STATESMAN’S REPLY.
ARTICLE TEN.
THE PRINCIPLE AS TO TIME IN SABBATH OBSERVANCE.

Our readers will recollect that the chief difference between the second and the third theories of the Christian Sabbath, as we stated them in our last issue, is in reference to the question of time. Seventh-day Sabbatarians, on the one hand, maintain that the last one of the seven days of the week is the sacred day, and that the observance of this very day is absolutely essential to the proper observance of the Sabbath of the Lord, and the keeping of the fourth commandment. On the other hand, we set forth what we believe to be the true theory of the Christian Sabbath, according to which the essential idea of the law of the Sabbath is the consecration to God of an appointed proportion of time—one day in seven, and not the essential holiness of any particular day.

We have already seen that the interpretation of the fourth commandment which insists on the essential holiness of the last day of the week would convict the risen Lord, and his inspired apostles, and the whole church of Christ, even in its purest days, of the violation of that precept of the divine law. But let us now examine a few practical points in connection with this second theory.

1. If the seventh day of the week is to be rigidly adhered to, as the law of the fourth commandment, it must be the seventh from the creation, in regular weekly succession. Will any seventh-day Sabbatarian venture to affirm that, through all the changes of our race, through all the breaks of history, through the bondage in Egypt, and the repeated captivities of God’s ancient people, to say nothing of the miracles in connection with Joshua’s victory, and Hezekiah’s sickness, unbroken succession of the weekly divisions of time has been maintained? Does the last day of our week answer, in an exact numbering of days, to the seventh day on which God rested after completing the work of creation? The interpretation which we are now considering demands this conformity to the fourth commandment in its letter. He would be a bold man indeed, who would affirm that his seventh day in this nineteenth century is the exact day which his own view of the law of the Sabbath would require him to keep holy. Our present first day may correspond to the original seventh day. Who knows?

2. But admit that these essentially holy twenty-four hours, at the close of each week, may be marked without doubt, how can all Christians in different parts of the world keep them? How can men in different longitudes and latitudes so mark off the week as to have it end with this intrinsically holy portion of time? The difference in local time in different parts of the earth is a fact familiar to every school-boy. The circumference of the earth, for the convenience of calculation, is divided into three hundred and sixty degrees. As the sun appears to make a circuit round the earth every time the earth rotates on its axis, that is, every twenty-four hours, the apparent motion of the sun from east to west will be fifteen degrees each hour. Let it be noon of the seventh day at any given point in our land, and it will be sunset ninety degrees east, and sunrise ninety degrees west. At what point of the earth’s surface shall men claim the right to have the seventh or holy day begin with their sunset or their midnight, and demand that all others east and west shall measure their holy day from so many hours before or after their own midnight or sunset, as their portion may require?

Or, again, in extreme northern and southern latitudes, where perpetual day and constant night alternate with the annual revolution of the earth, how shall the seventh day be marked? How shall this essentially holy day of twenty-four hours be known? As God, in his infinite wisdom, has seen fit to make our earth, and ordain the laws of its diurnal revolution on its axis, and its annual orbit round the sun, it is simply impossible for the inhabitants of the world to keep holy the same identical period of time. The interpretation of the law of the Sabbath at which we are looking is in conflict, therefore, with the laws of the solar system.

3. Our seventh-day friend, perhaps, retreats to his last refuge. There is no portion of absolute time essentially holy. That was never meant. Very well, then, what is meant? Why, that each one in his own longitude or latitude should observe the seventh day as it is measured by his own local time. We apprehend that, in some latitudes, the seventh day, measured by local time, running through some thousands of hours, would be a weariness to the strictest even of seventh-day Sabbatarians. But we will leave these extreme cases. They must keep holy the appointed proportion—one-seventh of their time. That must be the law of the Sabbath to them. But in the belt of the earth nearer the equator, local time, measured by the natural division of days, must be followed.