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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 46

(1. Primitive.)

(1. Primitive.)

After the time of the Apostles we find that the early Christians did not specially and as a rule keep the Sabbath-day holy. No doubt those who were Jews, or descendants of Jews, for some time longer kept up their weekly assembling on that day; but such observance,—not having been appointed by the Apostles and left free (as we have seen),—naturally fell into neglect. Bingham says,—"If it be inquired, why the ancient church continued (for a time) the observation of the Jewish Sabbath, when they took it to be only a temporary institution given to the Jews only, as circumcision and other rites of the law; (which is expressly said by many of the ancient writers, particularly by Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Tertullian, and Eusebius;) it is answered by learned men,—that it was to comply with the Jewish converts, as they also did in the use of many other indifferent things, so long as no doctrinal necessity was laid upon them. For the Jews being generally the first converts to the Christian faith, they still maintained a mighty reverence for the Mosaic institutions, and especially for the Sabbath,— —and were therefore very loth it should be laid aside. For this reason, it seemed good to the prudence of those times, (as in other of the Jewish rites so in this,) to indulge the humour of that people, and to keep the Sabbath as a day for religious offices; but when any one pretended to carry the, observation of it further,—either by introducing a doctrinal necessity, or pressing the observation of it after the Jewish manner, they resolutely opposed it as introducing Judaism into the Christian religion." Some, indeed, kept both days, the Jewish Sabbath and the Sunday; yet in rites and ceremonials a difference was made, and the preference was given to the Lord's-day (or Sunday) above the Sabbath. "For first," (Bingham continues,) "we find no Ecclesiastical laws obliging men to pray standing on the Sabbath; nor, secondly, any imperial laws forbidding lawsuits and pleadings on the Sabbath; nor, thirdly, any laws prohibiting the public shows and games; nor, fourthly, any laws obliging men to abstain wholly from bodily labour. But, on the contrary, the Council of Laodicea has a canon for-bidding Christians to Judaize, or rest on the Sabbath, any further than was necessary for public worship; but they were to honour the Lord's day, and to rest on it as Christians; and if any were found to Judaize, an anathema is pronounced against them.— — —For this reason the sect of the Ebionites were condemned for joining the observation of the Sabbath according to the Jews, with the observation of the Lord's day after the manner of Christians. Against such the Council of Laodicea pronounces anathema, that is,—such as taught the necessity of keeping the Sabbath a perfect rest with page 19 the Jews. And in this sense we are to understand what Gregory the Great says, That antichrist will renew the observation of the Sabbath." (Origines Ecclesiasticæ, lib. xx.)

And this, to me, appears as an additional witness,—of no distinct rule, no law, having been ever laid down by any express apostolic authority respecting the keeping of the Sabbath, or substituting (as some will have it) the first day of the week to be kept Sabbatically instead of the seventh. For when the early Christians met together on the first day of the week, they did not dream of taking the 4th Commandment, and putting that forward as prescribing a rule for the religious observance of the first day. That the first day of the week, "the day of the Sun," was observed from very early times among Christians, as a day on which they specially assembled for religious purposes, we know from un-doubted authority. But no writer of the first three centuries has attributed the origin of Sunday observance to any apostolic authority.—"In the first century, Barnabas (or whoever else wrote the epistle ascribed to him), Justin Martyr, A.D. 147, Dionysius Bishop of Corinth, A.D. 170, Tertullian, A.D. 192, Clement of Alexandria, A.D. 192, Origen, A.D. 230, Cyprian Bishop of Carthage, A.D. 250,—all mention or allude to the religious observance of the Sunday; but not one of them even hints that it originated in any precept of Christ, or in any recommendation of the Apostles, either by precept or example. Yet, had any such precept been given, or example set, it is incredible that it should not have been known in the times of the writers above-named, and hardly to be believed that, if known, it would not have been mentioned by them, or by some of them." (Sir "Wm. Domville, The Sabbath.)

I may here quote, also, the words of Justin Martyr,—in his famous Apology for the Christians, made to the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius,—"We all of us assemble together on the day of the Sun, because it is the first day in which God changed darkness and matter and made the world. On the same day also Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead. For he was crucified the day before Saturn's day; and on the day after Saturn's day, which is the day of the Sun, he appeared to his apostles and disciples, and taught them what we now submit to your consideration."

St. Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, A.D. 345, says, to his flock,—"Turn thou not out of the way into Samaritanism or Judaism, for Jesus Christ hath redeemed thee; henceforth reject all observance of Sabbaths, and call not meats, which are really matters of indifference, common or unclean."

St. Jerome, A.D. 392, also says:—

"On the Lord's day" (and, note well, this shows you the manner of its observance amongst the early Christians,) "they went to church, and returning from church they would apply themselves to their allotted works, and make garments for themselves and others. The day is not a day of fasting, but the day is a day of joy; the church has always considered it a day of joy, and none but heretics have thought otherwise." So that the early Christians did not think it was wrong to make garments for themselves and others on the Lord's-day. Such an idea never once entered into their heads! As a modern Divine correctly remarks, (on those words of Jerome,)—"There was no Sunday League in those days, and the only Sabbatarians were Jews. It is curious to observe, that whilst the modern Christians have seldom-converted the Jews, the Jews have con verted modern Christians in whole sects to Sabbatarianism."(!!)