Revelation 14:12

 Rev 14:12  Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. 

We must make sure we are keeping the commandments of God and not man-made commandments disguised to appear as God's. No matter how clever the disguise, God will allow those who are His to see through Satan's greatest deceptions. God will also allow those who want to believe lies to believe them, He will allow the blind to remain blind. Not all who claim to want to see -say that in truth, but God knows all the truth, He knows our hearts. He will clean our hearts, this must be our desire.

(Excerpt)

CHAPTER IX. THE FATHERS, ETC

As we have shown, the author of the “Abiding Sabbath” fills up, with the heathen edict of Constantine for the partial observance of Sunday, the blank left by “the complete silence of the New Testament” so far as any command or rules on that subject are concerned; yet his system is not complete without the sanction of the Fathers. So, as is the custom of the advocates of Sunday observance, he gives to the Fathers, the Councils, the popes, and the Catholic saints, a large place in his five-hundred-dollar-prize argument for Sunday keeping. We have before cited one of the rules laid down by the Rev. Levi Philetus Dobbs, D. D., for proving a thing when there is nothing with which to prove it, and have given an example from the “Abiding Sabbath” in illustration of the rule. We here present another of the Doctor’s rules, and in Mr. Elliott’s treatment of the Fathers, our readers can see its application. Says Dr. Dobbs:— 

“I regard, however, a judicious use of the Fathers as being, on the whole, the best reliance for anyone who is in the situation of my querist. The advantages of the Fathers are twofold: first, they carry a good deal of weight with the masses; and secondly, you can find whatever you want in the Fathers. I don’t believe that any opinion could be advanced so foolish, so manifestly absurd, but that you can find passages to sustain it, on the pages of these venerable stagers. And to the common mind, one of these is just as good as another. If it happens that the point you want to prove is one that never chanced to occur to the Fathers, why, you can easily show that they would have taken your side if they had only thought of the matter. And if, perchance, there is nothing bearing even remotely or constructively on the point, don’t be discouraged; get a good strong quotation and put the name of the Fathers to it, and utter it with an air of triumph; it will be all just as well; nine-tenths of the people don’t stop to ask whether a quotation bears on the matter in hand. Yes, my brother, the Fathers are your stronghold. They are Heaven’s best gift to the man who has a cause that can’t be sustained in any other way..” (See Appendix.)

The first of the Fathers to whom Mr. Elliott refers is Clement of Rome, who he says died about A. D. 100. From Clement he quotes a passage which says nothing about any particular day, much less does it say that Sunday is the Lord’s day, or the “abiding Sabbath,” and of it the author of the “Abiding Sabbath” says:— 

“This passage does not indeed refer by name to the Lord’s day, but it proves conclusively the existence at that time of prescribed seasons of worship, and asserts their appointment by the Saviour himself.”—P. 214. 

But for all it mentions no day, it is, says he, an “important link in the argument” that proves that Sunday is the Lord’s day and of “perpetual obligation.” An argument in which such a thing as that is counted “an important link,” must be sorely pushed to find a connection that will hold it up.

His next link is no better. This time he proposes a quotation from Ignatius, and of it says:— 

“The passage is obscure, and the text doubtless corrupt, but the trend of meaning is not indistinct.”—P. 215, note. 

It seems to us that an institution that has to be supported by an argument that is dependent upon a “trend of meaning,” drawn from an “obscure passage,” in a “corrupt text,” is certainly of most questionable authority. True, he says “the argument can do without it if necessary;” but it is particularly to be noticed that his argument does not do without it, and he deems it of sufficient importance to devote more than a page of his book to its consideration. We would remark, also, that we have never yet seen nor heard an extended argument for the Sunday institution that did do without it. 

His next quotation is from a writing of about equal value with this of Ignatius. He says:— 

“Here may be introduced a quotation from the so-called Epistle of Barnabas.... The external evidence of the authorship of this writing would be convincing but for the discredit which its internal characters casts upon it.”—Pp. 216, 217, note. 

That is to say, we might consider this epistle genuine if the writing itself did not show the contrary. And as if to make as strong as possible the doubt of its genuineness, he adds:— 

“There is a very close relationship between this writing and the ‘Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.’” 

And to the “Teaching” he refers by the doubting phrase, “if genuine.” Well let us see what this “Teaching” is worth. We need not go outside of the document itself to successfully impeach its credit in the estimation of all people who have any regard for the rights of property. We here make the distinct charge that the document entitled “The Teaching of the Apostles,” plainly teaches that it is right to steal. Proof: in Chapter I we find these words: “If one that is in need taketh, he shall be guiltless.” And to show that it is theft that is meant, we have but to read right on: “But he that is not in need shall give account whereof he took and whereunto; and being in durance [imprisonment] shall be questioned touching what he did, and he shall not go out thence until he give back the last farthing.” 

According to this precious document then all that is requisite is to be “in need,” and then if he “taketh, he shall be guiltless.” A man is sorely in need of a suit of clothes; he “taketh” one and “shall be guiltless.” Another is in need of a horse; he “taketh,” and “shall be guiltless.” Another is in great need of bread; he “taketh” a sack of flour, and “shall be guiltless;” and so on to the end of the catalogue. How the socialists, the communists, the nihilists, and the anarchists generally, may be glad and shout for joy, and fling their ready caps in air at sight of “The Teaching of the Apostles,” this wondrous screed, this last, best gift to the rascals! 

Well may Mr. Elliott attach to this document the saving clause “if genuine.” But why should he want to receive and use it, as he does, even with that qualification? Does he not know that such is not the genuine teaching of the apostles? Oh, yes, of course he does, but in this precious document there is a phrase that can be made to do duty in support of Sunday as the Lord’s day, and that blessed consideration sanctifies all else, even to its tenets sanctioning theft. And between “the so-called Epistle of Barnabas” and this document “there is a very close relationship”! We do not doubt it in the least. But there is no relationship at all between either of these productions and the genuine teaching of the apostles. No, such is not the teaching of the apostles of Christ; but it shows how very degenerate the Christianity of the day has become, when it receives so gladly, and extols so highly, as the veritable teaching of the Spirit of God, a production that is a shame to man. 

Then after mention of Pliny’s letter to Trajan, Justin Martyr, Melito, the “Teaching,” and Irenaeus, he comes to Clement of Alexandria, of whom he speaks as follows:— 

“Clement of Alexandria, A. D. 194, in a mystical exposition of the fourth commandment, in the midst of fanciful speculations on the religious signification of numbers, comes down long enough from the loftier flights of his spiritual arithmetic to tell us that the seventh day of the law has given place to the eighth day of the gospel... Nobody, of course, can tell what far-fetched and unheard-of meanings may lie underneath the words of the good semi-Gnostic Father; but as far as his testimony goes, it helps to establish the fact that the first day of the week filled the same place in the minds of the church of that time, that the seventh day had occupied in the Jewish system.”—P. 223. 

Certainly. It matters not what “mystical expositions,” nor what “fanciful interpretations,” nor what “far-fetched and unheard-of meanings” there may be, they all “help to establish” the heathen institution of Sunday, in the place of the day made holy and commanded to be kept so, by the Creator of the heavens and the earth. 

With just one more witness he closes the second century. And it is most fittingly done, as follows:— 

“This century will be concluded with the mention of that most brilliant and erratic of all the ante-Nicene Christian writers, Tertullian, of Carthage...This vehement writer fitly closes this list of evidences of the honored place filled by the Lord’s day in the first two centuries of the Christian church.”—Pp. 223, 224. 

Fitly, indeed, does this “vehement writer,” and most erratic of all the ante-Nicene Fathers, close the list of the first two centuries. But what a list! He gives us a list of ten witnesses to prove that Sunday is the Lord’s day, and that it was observed as such in the first two centuries, and by his own words it is shown that the first one does not mention the day at all; the second is an obscure passage in a corrupt text; the third is doubtful; the fourth speaks only of a “stated day,” without giving it any title at all; the fifth “calls it by its heathen name;” the seventh is doubtful but teaches that men may steal if they are in need; the ninth is so mystical, so fanciful, that “nobody can tell what far-fetched and unheard-of meanings may lie underneath his words;” the tenth is the “most brilliant and erratic [having no certain course; roaming about without a fixed destination] of all,” and this “vehement [“furious; violent; impetuous; passionate; ardent; hot”] writer,”—we do not wonder that Dean Milman calls him “this fiery African”—this witness “fitly closes the list of evidences of the honored place filled by the Lord’s day in the first two centuries!” Well we should say so. But what is a point worth that is “proved” by such evidences? It is worth all that the Sunday-sabbath is, which is supported by it, and that is—nothing. Yet these are the only witnesses that can be called, and false, doubtful, and untrustworthy though they be, they must be used or the Sunday institution will fail. But whether the failure would be any greater without such proofs than with them, we leave the reader to decide. And that is part of the argument for the obligation of Sunday, that was accounted worth a prize of five hundred dollars! We should like very much to see an argument on that question which that committee of award would consider to be worth nothing. 

After this array of five-hundred-dollar-prize witnesses for Sunday, we hope our readers will justify us in declining to follow Mr. Elliott through a further list, composed of Origen, and Athanasius, Theodosius the Great, and Emperor Leo the Thracian, and a number of Catholic saints, such as Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, “Chrysostom the golden-mouthed,” and Jerome, “the foul-mouthed” (Mosheim, Cent. 4, part 2, chap. 2, last par. but one); through the Councils of Nice, Sardica, Gangra, Antioch, First of Toledo, Fourth of Carthage, and that of Laodicaea, and so on down to the Synod of Dort, and the Westminster Assembly. 

Yet his work on this division of his subject would be incomplete, and out of harmony with his method of argument throughout, if he should not turn about and upset it all. Accordingly, therefore, he at once destroys the edifice which he has thus so laboriously erected. Among the dangers which threaten the Sunday institution of to-day he declares that:— 

“Dangerous is the substitution of the dictum of the church for the warrant of Holy Scripture...To make the Lord’s day only an ecclesiastical contrivance, is to give no assurance to the moral reason, and to lay no obligation upon a free conscience. The church cannot maintain this institution by its own edict. Council, assembly, convocation, and synod can impose a law on the conscience only when they are able to back their decree with ‘Thus saith the Lord.’”—P. 263. 

The only dictum that the author of “The Abiding Sabbath” has shown for the Sunday-sabbath is the dictum of the church. 

The only means by which he has fixed the day to be observed is “by a religious consensus of the Christian church” (P. 203). 

The only edicts which he had presented are the heathen edicts of Constantine, additional laws by Constantine and Theodosius the Great, and the decree of Emperor Leo the Thracian.

 It is only in these, and the action of council, assembly, convocation, and synod that he obtains authority to impose the observance of Sunday as a law upon the conscience. 

He has given no “Thus saith the Lord” for the institution nor for its observance; but on the contrary has confessed the “complete silence of the New Testament,” in regard to any command or rules for either the institution or its observance. Therefore, by his own argument, the observance of Sunday as the Sabbath is of “no obligation upon a free conscience.” And that is the truth. (End Excerpt)