Continued from
yesterday…
The change from the
Seventh to the first day, was effected by the power of the little horn, who
thought " to change times and laws." Dan. 7: 25.
Here I will give
some extracts from "Sabbath tract" No. 4, published by the "New
York Sabbath tract society," which gives the history of the change.
Early in the seventh
century, in the time of Pope Gregory I, the subject to the Sabbath attracted
considerable attention. There was one class of persons who declared, "
that it was not lawful to do any manner of work upon the Saturday, or the old
Sabbath ; another that no man ought to bathe himself on the Lord's day, or
their new Sabbath."* Against both of these doctrines Pope Gregory wrote a
letter to the Roman citizens. Baronius, in his Councils, says. " This year
(603) at Rome, St. Gregory, the Pope, corrected that error which some preached,
by Jewish superstition, or the Grecian custom, that it was a duty to worship on
the Sabbath, as likewise upon the dominical days ; and he calls such preachers
the preachers of Antichrist."
According to Lucius,
Pope Urban II., in the eleventh century, dedicated the Sabbath of the Virgin
Mary, with a mass. Binius says, "Pope Innocent I. constituted a fast on
the Sabbath day, which seems to be the first constitution of that fast; but dedicating
the Sabbath to the Virgin Mary was by Urban IX in the latter part of the
eleventh eentury.1
The observance of
the first day was not so early in England and in Scotland as in most other
parts of the Roman Empire. According to Heylyn, there were Christian societies
established in Scotland as early as A. D. 435 ; and it is supposed that the
gospel was preached in England in the first century by St. Paul. For many ages
after Christianity was received in these kingdoms, they paid no respect to the
first day. Binius, a Catholic writer, in the second volume of his works, gives
some account of the bringing into use the Donainical day [Sunday] in Scotland,
as late as A. DI 1203. "This year," he says, " a council was
held in Scotland concerning the introduction of the Lord's day, which council
was held in 1203,- in the time-of Pope Innocent…
* Dr. Peter Heylvn's
Hist. Sab. part 2, p. 135. t Eccl. Met. p. 29* # Bampfield's Enq. p. 101.
…and quotes as his
authority Roger Hoveden, Matth, Paris, and Lucius Eccl. Hist. He says, "By
this council it was enacted that it should be holy time from the twelfth hour
on Saturday noon until Monday." Binius says that in A. D. 1201, Eustachius,
Abbot of Flay, came to England, and therein preached from city to city, and
from place to place. He prohibited using markets on Dominical days ; for he
said that this command under- written concerning the observation of the
Dominical day, came from heaven.
The history of this singular epistle, entitled, A holy command of the Dominical day, the pious Abbot stated to be this : " It came from Heaven to Jerusalem, and was found on St. Simon's tomb in Golgotha. And the Lord commanded this epistle, which for three days and three nights men looked upon, and falling to the earth, prayed for God's mercy. And after the third hour, the patriarch stood up; and Akarias the_ archbishop stretched out his mitre, and they took the holy epistle of God and found it thus written." [We will give some extracts from this epistle, partly as a matter of curiosity, and partly to show the credulity of our ancestors, and by what means they were awed into what was to them a new religious observation ]
" I, the Lord,
who commanded you that ye should observe the Dominical day, and ye have not
kept it, and ye have not repented of your sins, as I said by my gospel, heaven
and: earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away; I have caused repentance
unto life to be preached unto you, and ye have not believed; I sent pagans
against you, who shed your blood, yet ye believe not: and because ye kept not
the Dominical _day, for a few days ye had famine : but I soon gave you plenty,
and afterwards ye did worse : I will again, that none from the ninth hour of
the Sabbath until the rising of the sun on Monday, do work any thing unless
what is good, which if any do, let him amend by repentance; and if ye be not
obedient to this command, Amen, I say unto you, and I swear unto you-by my
seat, and throne, and cherubim; who keep my holy seat, because I will not
change any thing by another epistle ; but I will open the heavens, and for rain
I will rain upon you stones, and logs of wood, and hot water by night, and none
may be able to prevent, but that I may destroy all wicked men. This I say unto
you, ye shall die the death, because of the Dominical holy day, and other
festivals of my saints which ye have not kept. I will send unto you beasts
having the heads of lions, the hair of women, and tails of camels ; and they
shall be so hunger-starved that they shall devoure your flesh, and ye shall
desire to flee to the sepulchres of the dead and hide you for fear of the
beasts; and I will take away the light of the sun from your eyes ; and I will
send upon you darkness, that without seeing, ye may kill one another ; and I
will take away my face from you, and will not show you mercy ; for I will burn
your bodies and hearts of all who keep not the Dominical holy day. Hear my
voice, lest ye perish in the land because of the Dominical holy day. Now know
ye, that ye are safe by the prayers of my most holy mother Mary, and of my holy
angels who daily pray for you. Provided with this new command from heaven, "
Ettstaaius preached
in various parts of England against the transgression of the Dominical day, and
other festivals; and gave the people absolution upon condition that they
hereafter
THE PRESENT
TRUTH. 13
reverence the
Dominical day, and the festivals of the saints." The time appointed as
holy, was from the ninth hour on the Sabbath until Monday morning-at sunrise.
And the people vowed to God, that hereafter they would neither buy nor sell any
thing but food on Sunday. " Then," says Binius, " the enemy of
man , envying the admonitions of this holy man, put it into the heart of the
king and nobility of England, to command that all who should keep the aforesaid
traditions, and chiefly all who had cast down the markets for. things vendible
upon the Dominical day, should be brought to the king's court to make
satisfaction about observing the Dominical day." Binius relates many
miraculous things that occurred on the Sabbath to those that labored after the
ninth hour—i. e. after three o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh day, or
S.turday. He says, upon a certain Sabbath, after the ninth hour, a carpenter,
for making a wooden pin, was struck with the palsy ; and a woman, for knitting
on the Sabbath, after the ninth hour, was also struck with the palsy. A man
baked bread, and when he broke it to eat, blood came out. Another grinding
corn, blood came in a great stream instead of meal, while the wheel of his mill
stood still against a vehement impulse of water. Heated ovens refused to bake
bread, if heated after the ninth hour of the Sabbath ; and dough left unbaked,
out of respect to Eustachius's new doctrine, was found on Monday morning well
baked without the aid of fire. These fables were industriously propagated
throughout the kingdom ; " yet the people," says Binius,
"fearing kingly and human power, more than divine, returned as a dog to
his own vomit, to keep, markets of saleable things upon the Dominical day:'
Bampfield says,* "The king and princes of
England, in 1203, would not agree to change the Sabbath, and keep the first
day, by this authority. This was in the time of
King John, against whom the popish clergy had a great pique for not
honoring their prelacy and the monks, by one of whom he was finally
poisoned." The parliament of England met on Sundays until the time of
Richard II., who adjourned it from that to the following day. In A. D. 1203,
"A council was held in Scotland to inaugurate the king, and [concerning]
the feast of the Sabbath : and there came also a legate from the Pope, with a
sword and purple hat, indulgencies and privileges to the young king. It was
also there decreed, that Saturday, from the twelfth hour at noon, should be
holy."-t
The Magdeburgenses
say, this Council was about the observation of the Dominicai day newly brought
in', and that they ordained that it should be holy from the twelfth hour of
Saturday even till Monday.$ The first law of England made for the keeping of
Sunday, was in the time of Edward VI , about 1470. " Parliament then
passed an act, by which Sunday and many holy days, the feasts of all Saints, of
holy Innocents, were established as festivals by law. This provided also, that
it should be lawful for husbandmen, laborers, fishermen, and all others-in
harvest, or any other time of the year when necessity should require, to labor,
ride, fish, or do any other kind of work, at their own free will and pleasure,
upon any of the said days."11
By such means as
these, the observation of the…
* Enq. p. 111.
t Bcethua, B. 13, of Scotland, p. 788. Bamp. Enq. 114. # Ibid. it Bamp.
p. 118.
…first day was
gradually but forcibly urged upon the people, wherever they owned allegiance to
the Pope as head of the church, and in England and Scotland, as late as the
thirteenth century, and the Sabbath was as gradually brought into contempt and
disuse.
The Sabbath.
As the Sabbath was
made for man ; for the whole race of mankind; and as man has needed all its
blessings ever since it was first instituted in Eden ; it is reasonable to
conclude that God designed that it should be observed as strictly in one
dispensation, as in another. I cannot see any reasons why the Jew should keep
it any more strictly, than the Christian. I design to show that there is a
perfect harmony in all the Scripture testimony of both Testaments, in relation
to the observance of the Holy Sabbath.
The fourth
commandment in the decalogue is the great Sabbath law. It is the standard to
which all other Scripture testimony relating to the Sabbath should be brought,
and carefully compared. "Remember the sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six
days shalt thou labor, and do all THY work : But the seventh day is the Sabbath
of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor
thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor the
stranger that is within thy gates." Ex. 20 : 8-10.
TO BE CONTINUED
Taken from-
THE PRESENT
TRUTH,
PUBLISHED
SEMI-MONTHLY—BY JAMES WHITE.
Vol. 1. MIDDLETOWN, CONN. AUGUST, 1849. No.2
*******
We are now studying
- 'The Present Truth' papers published in the middle 1800's. These are called
the 'Present Truth' because it WAS Present Truth for that time. So why study
them now? Because TRUTH at any time is worth studying, and we KNOW that often ORIGINAL
truth presented before Satan has had an opportunity to corrupt it, can be very
enlightening. At the very least we will see, by the grace of God, through the
Holy Spirit, what truth then is still uncorrupted today and still very relevant
for us living in these dark, dark times. Our world today compared to a hundred
and seventy years ago is so much worse than it was, with so much evil being
called good, and good being called evil.
May God bless us as we seek HIS truth for us in our present, bringing us
only closer to Him and prayerfully the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ!
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