Candid Confessions

ANGLICAN:

"There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday. . . . Into the rest of Sunday [i.e., Sunday as a day of rest and worship] no divine law enters. . . . The observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands on exactly the same footing as the observance of Sunday." Canon Eyton, The Ten Commandments.

"Where are we told in Scripture that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day. . . .The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the church has enjoined it." Isaac Williams, D. D., Plain Sermons on the Catechism, vol.1, pp. 334-336.

"We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of one holy Catholic Church." Bishop Seymour, Why We Keep Sunday, Article 12.

CHRISTIAN:

"There is no direct scriptural authority for designating the first day the Lord's day." Dr. D. H. Lucas, Chrislian Oracle, Jan.23, 1890.

"1 do not believe that the Lord's day came in the room [place] of the Jewish Sabbath, or that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day, for this plain reason, where there is no testimony, there can he no faith. Now there is no testimony in all the oracles that the Sabbath was changed, or that the Lord's day came in the room [place] of it." Alexander Campbell, Washingion Reporter, Oct. 8, 1821. [Ed. note: Then why does he persist in calling Sunday the Lord's day?]

BAPTIST:

"We believe that the law of God is the eternal and imperishable rule of His moral government." Baptist Church Manual.

"The first four commandments set forth man's obligations directly toward God. ... The fourth commandment sets forth God's claim on man's time and thought. ... Not one of the ten words [commandments] is of merely racial significance. ... The Sabbath was established originally [long before Moses] in no special connection with the Hebrews, but as an institution for all mankind, in cornmemoration of God's rest after six days of creation. It was designed for all the descendants of Adam." Adult Quarterly, Southern Baptist Convention series, Aug.15, 1937.

"There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. .... It will be said, however, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week. ... Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament -- absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week.

"To me [it] seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' intercourse with His disciples, often conversing with them. upon the Sabbath question ... never alluded to any transference of the day; also that during forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was intimated.

"Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from the Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, when adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism!" Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, author of The Baptist Manual (still in print), in a paper read before New York ministers' conference held Nov.13, 1893.

CONGREGATIONALIST:

"It must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day." Buck's Theological Dictionary.

"The current notion that Christ and His aposfies authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without authority in the New Testament." Dr. Lyrnan Abbott, Christian Union, Jan.19, 1882.

LUTHERAN:

"1 wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me that I should reject the law of Ten Commandments. ... Whosoever abrogates the law must of necessity abrogate sin also." Martin Luther, Spiritual Antichrist, pp. 71, 72.

"They [the Catholics] allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord's day, contrary to the decalogue, as it appear, neither is there any example more boasted of than the changing of the Sabbath day. Great, they say, is the power and authority of the church, since it dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments." Martin Luther, Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art. 28, Par. 9.

"But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the seventh day had to be kept by the children of Israel. In other words, they insist that Sunday is the divinely appointed New Testament Sabbath, and so they endeavor to enforce the Sabbatical observance of Sunday by so-called blue laws. ... These churches err in their teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to that effect." John T. Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday? pp.15, 16.

METHODIST:

"This 'handwriting of ordinances' our Lord did blot out, take away, and nail to His cross. (Colossians 2:14 ) But the moral law contained in the ten commandments, and enforced by the prophets, He did not take away. ... The moral law stands on an entirely different foundation from the ceremonial or ritual law. ... Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind and in all ages." John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions, 2 vol. ed., vol.1, pp. 221, 222.

"The Sabbath was made for MAN; not for the Hebrews, but for all men." B. 0. Haven, Pillars of Truth, p. 88.

"The people became Christians and were ruled by an emperor named Constantine [312-327 AD]. This emperor made Sunday the Christian Sabbath, because of the blessing of light and heat which came from the sun. So our Sunday is a sun-day, isn't it?" Sunday School Advocate, Dec.31, 1921. [ed. note: What profound theology!]

MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE:

"The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. The fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote the law on the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?" Dwight L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting, p. 47.

"When Christ was on earth He did nothing to set it [the Sabbath] aside; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' It is just as practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever was -- in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense age." ibid., p. 46.

PRESBYTERIAN:

"The Sabbath is part of the decalogue -- the Ten Commandments, This alone forever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution. ... Until therefore it can be shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand. ... The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the Sabbath." T.C. Blake, D. D., Theology Condensed pp. 474, 475.

"We must not imagine that the coming of Christ has freed us from the authority of the law; for it is the eternal rule of a devout and holy life, and must therefore be as unchangeable as the justice of God, which it embraced, is constant and uniform." John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Gospels, vol.1, p. 277.

"For the permanency of the Sabbath, we might argue for its place in the decalogue, where it stands enshrined among the moralities of a rectitude that is immutable and everlasting." Thomas Chalmers, D. D., Sermons, vol.1, p. 51.