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

(1.) In the beginning God rested on the seventh day, thereby laying the foundation for its Sabbatic honor (Gen. 2:3); whereas, he never rested upon the first day.

(2.) He blessed the seventh day; whereas, he never blessed the first day.

(3.) He sanctified the seventh day, or devoted it to a religious use; whereas, he never sanctified the first day.

(4.) The day of his rest, his blessing, and his sanctification, he commanded to be kept holy, in a law of perpetual obligation; whereas, he never commanded the observance of the first day.

(5.) The Lord Jesus Christ recognized the obligation of the seventh day by a life-long custom of observing it (Luke 4:16); whereas, the Lord Jesus Christ never rested upon the first day of the week; but always treated it as a secular day.

(6.) He also recognized its perpetuity forty years after his death, when speaking of events connected with the destruction of Jerusalem, by instructing his disciples to pray that their flight might not occur thereon (Matt. 24:20); whereas, he never spoke of the first day as one to be honored in the future, nor, indeed, so far as we know, did he ever take it upon his lips at all.

(7.) It is the day which the holy women kept, according to the commandment, after the crucifixion of our Lord (Luke 23:66); whereas, there is no account that any good man has ever rested upon the first day out of regard for its sanctity.

(8.) It is the day on which Paul, as his manner was, taught in the synagogue (Acts 17:2); whereas, Paul never made the first day of the week, habitually, one of public teaching, a thing which he would have been sure to do had he looked upon it as sacred to the Lord.

(9.) Being mentioned fifty-six times in the New Testament, it is in all these instances called the Sabbath; whereas, the first day is mentioned eight times in the New Testament, and in every case it is called, simply, the first day of the week.

(10.) In the year of our Lord 95, it is spoken of by John as the Lord’s day (Rev. 1:10); whereas, the first day is in no case mentioned in the use of a sacred title.