For years people were content to keep the first day of the week as the Sabbath because they were taught from childhood that this was right. No one felt called upon to give a special reason for doing that which no one questioned. We say that no one questioned the correctness of their action, not because there were none who condemned first-day observance both by word and act, but because those who kept the seventh day were so few in number as to be practically unknown. And so people kept Sunday because their parents did, and were content. Whenever the good people wished to reason with a worldling who would persist in finding his own pleasure on the first day of the week, they would quote, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” taking it as a matter of course that “Sabbath” meant Sunday, and that the fourth commandment was gotten up for the express purpose of protecting the first day from worldly toil and pleasure.
But the time came when their quiet was disturbed. Those who read the commandment far enough to find out that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord,” and had the courage to obey the commandment as it reads, preached the “new” doctrine with such vigor as to attract general attention. To the surprise of all the people who were quietly following custom, and to the disgust of many of them, it was found that the seventh day really is the Sabbath of the Bible, that it was that day that received the divine blessing and sanctification in the beginning, and that unfortunately the Bible writers had omitted to say anything about a change of the day of weekly rest. Some persons very sensibly concluded that if the Lord had wanted men to observe the first day of the week instead of the seventh he would have said something about it, and immediately adopted God’s original plan. The reason that God was abundantly able to make known his will, that he had done so very clearly in times past, even concerning matters of seemingly little importance, and that when he had not spoken it was very presumptuous in man to speak for him. See Ezekiel 13:7
Others, however, acted on the principle that Sunday-keeping must be right because, (1) It has been kept by nearly all the world for many centuries; (2) The leaders of the church do not accept the seventh-day Sabbath (see John 7:47, 48), and they certainly ought to know what is right; (3) It would be very inconvenient to make a change; and therefore (4) They were determined not to change. Having come to this conclusion, they felt that it was incumbent on them to give some reason for their course of action, especially since they were very strongly urged to do so by those who kept the Sabbath “according to the commandment.” Accordingly they promptly gave, substantially, the following “reasons:”—
1. “The Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, because Christ rose from the dead on that day.”
2. “The first day of the week is the one that was originally sanctified. The Jews were too wicked to be allowed to keep it, so the Lord let them keep Saturday for a while; but there has really been no change at all in the Sabbath day.”
3. “We keep Sunday because the world is round, and it is impossible to keep any one
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