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Roman Catholic and Protestant Confessions about Sunday
The vast majority of Christian churches today teach the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, as a time for rest and worship. Yet it is generally known and freely admitted that the early Christians observed the seventh day as the Sabbath. How did this change come about?
History reveals that it was decades after the death of the apostles that a politico-religious system repudiated the Sabbath of Scripture and substituted the observance of the first day of the week. The following quotations, all from Roman Catholic sources, freely acknowledge that there is no Biblical authority for the observance of Sunday, that it was the Roman Church that changed the Sabbath to the first day of the week.
In the second portion of this booklet are quotations from Protestants. Undoubtedly all of these noted clergymen, scholars, and writers kept Sunday, but they all frankly admit that there is no Biblical authority for a first-day sabbath.
Roman Catholic Confessions
James Cardinal Gibbons,
- "But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify." - The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89.
- "Is Saturday the seventh day according to the Bible and the Ten Commandments? I answer yes. Is Sunday the first day of the week and did the Church change the seventh day -Saturday - for Sunday, the first day? I answer yes . Did Christ change the day'? I answer no! "Faithfully yours, J. Card. Gibbons" - Archbishop of Baltimore (1877-1921), in a signed letter.
- "The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her Divine mission, changed the day [of worship] from Saturday to Sunday. ... The Christian Sabbath is therefore to this day the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church, as Spouse of the Holy Ghost, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant world." - Editorial, The Catholic Mirror (Baltimore), September 23, 1893.
- "Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible." - Catholic Mirror, Dec. 23, 1893.
- "The Divine institution of a day of rest from ordinary occupations and of religious worship, transferred by the authority of the [Catholic] Church from the Sabbath, the last day, to Sunday the first day of the week, ... is one of the most patent signs that we are a Christian people." - James Cardinal Gibbons, The Cross and the Flag, Our Church and Country (New York: The Catholic Historical League of America, 1899), pp. 24, 25.
Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed., p. 174.
- "Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?
- "Answer: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her-she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."
John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies (1936), vol. 1, P. 51.
- "Some theologians have held that God likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, that He Himself has explicitly substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His Church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days."
Daniel Ferres, ed., Manual of Christian Doctrine (1916), p.67.
- "Question: How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holy days?
- "Answer. By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of, and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the same Church.'
Catholic Virginian Oct. 3, 1947, p. 9, art. "To Tell You the Truth."
- "For example, nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the[Roman Catholic] church outside the Bible."
Peter Geiermann, C.S.S.R., The Converts Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1957), p. 50.
- "Question: Which is the Sabbath day?
- "Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day.
- "Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
- "Answer. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."
Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics Are Asked About (1927),p. 136.
- "Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday .... Now the Church ... instituted, by God's authority, Sunday as the day of worship. This same Church, by the same divine authority, taught the doctrine of Purgatory long before the Bible was made. We have, therefore, the same authority for Purgatory as we have for Sunday."
Peter R. Kraemer, Catholic Church Extension Society (1975),Chicago, Illinois.
- "Regarding the change from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian Sunday, I wish to draw your attention to the facts:
- "1) That Protestants, who accept the Bible as the only rule of faith and religion, should by all means go back to the observance of the Sabbath. The fact that they do not, but on the contrary observe the Sunday, stultifies them in the eyes of every thinking man.
- "2) We Catholics do not accept the Bible as the only rule of faith. Besides the Bible we have the living Church, the authority of the Church, as a rule to guide us. We say, this Church, instituted by Christ to teach and guide man through life, has the right to change the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and hence, we accept her change of the Sabbath to Sunday. We frankly say, yes, the Church made this change, made this law, as she made many other laws, for instance, the Friday abstinence, the unmarried priesthood, the laws concerning mixed marriages, the regulation of Catholic marriages and a thousand other laws.
- "It is always somewhat laughable, to see the Protestant churches, in pulpit and legislation, demand the observance of Sunday, of which there is nothing in their Bible."
T. Enright, C.S.S.R., in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, Feb. 18,1884.
- "I have repeatedly offered $1,000 to anyone who can prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church alone. The Bible says, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' The Catholic Church says: 'No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week.' And lo! The entire civilized world bows down in a reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic Church."
D. B. Ray, The Papal Controversy, 1892, page 179
- "From this same Catholic Church you have accepted your Sunday, and that Sunday, as the Lord's day, she had handed down as a tradition; and the entire Protestant world has accepted it as tradition, for you have not an iota of Scripture to establish it. Therefore that which you have accepted as your rule of faith, inadequate as it of course it is, as well as your Sunday, you have accepted on the authority of the Roman Catholic Church."
Catholic Record, Sept. 17, 1893
- "Sunday is founded, not on Scripture, but on tradition, and is distinctly a Catholic institution. As there is no Scripture for the transfer of the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week, Protestants ought to keep their Sabbath on Saturday and thus leave Catholics in full possession of Sunday."
Ecclesiastical Review, Feb. 1914.
- "They (the Protestants) deem it their duty to keep the Sunday Holy. Why? Because the Catholic Church tells them to do so. They have no other reason... The observance of Sunday thus comes to be an ecclesiastical law entirely distinct from the divine law of Sabbath observance... The author of the Sunday law... is the Catholic Church."
Albert Smith (Chancellor of the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore), replying for the Cardinal in a letter of February 10, 1920.)
- "If Protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church."
Louis Gaston de Segur, Plain Talk About The Protestantism of To-day (Boston: Patrick Donahoe, 1868), p. 225.
- "It was the Catholic Church which, by the authority of JESUS CHRIST, has transferred this [Sabbath] rest to the Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church."
The American Catholic Quarterly Review, 8 (January, 1883), 152.]
- "Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the [Catholic] Church, has no good reason for its Sunday theory, and ought, logically, to keep Saturday as the Sabbath. ..." John Gilmary Shae, "The Observance of Sunday and Civil Laws for Its Enforcement,"
The Catholic Universe Bulletin, 69 (August 14, 1942), 4.
- "The (Catholic) Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her Founder, Jesus Christ. The Protestant, claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith, has no warrant for observing Sunday. In this matter the Seventh Day Adventist is the only consistent Protestant." "The Question Box,"
Editorial, The Catholic Mirror (Baltimore), September 2, 1893.
- "The Israelite respects the authority of the Old Testament only, but the [Seventh-day] Adventist, who is a Christian, accepts the New Testament on the same ground as the Old, viz: an inspired record also. He finds that the Bible, his teacher, is consistent in both parts, that the Redeemer, during His mortal life never kept any other day than Saturday. The Gospels plainly evince to Him this fact; whilst, in the pages of the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and the Apocalypse, not the vestige of an act canceling the Saturday arrangement can be found."
Bertrand L. Conway, The Question Box Answers (New York: The Columbus Press, 1910), p. 254.
- "If the Bible is the only guide for the Christian then the Seventh-day Adventist is right in observing the Saturday with the Jew. But Catholics learn what to believe and do from the Catholic Church, which in Apostolic times made Sunday the day of rest. ... Is it not strange that those who make the Bible their only teacher should inconsistently follow in this matter the tradition of the Church."
F. G. Lentz, The Question Box (New York: Christian Press Association, 1900), p. 98.
- "If you follow the Bible alone there can be no question that you are obliged to keep Saturday holy, since that is the day especially prescribed by Almighty God to be kept holy to the Lord."
Canon Cafferata, The Catechism Explained, p. 89.
- "The Sabbath was Saturday, not Sunday. The Church altered the observance of the Sabbath to the observance of Sunday. Protestants must be rather puzzled by the keeping of Sunday when God distinctly said, 'Keep holy the Sabbath Day.' The word Sunday does not come anywhere in the Bible, so, without knowing it they are obeying the authority of the Catholic Church."
Plain Talk about Protestantism of Today, by Msgr. Segur (RC).
- Plain Talk: "The observance of Sunday by Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the (Catholic) Church."
John O'Brien, Ph.D., LL.D. Faith of Millions, pp. 543 and 544:
- "But since Saturday, not Sunday, is specified in the Bible, isn't it curious that non-Catholics who profess to take their religion directly from the Bible, and not the Church, observe Sunday instead of Saturday? Yes of course, it is inconsistent; but this change was made about 15 centuries before Protestantism was born, and by that time the custom was universally observed. They have continued the custom, even though it rests upon the authority of the Catholic Church and not upon an explicit text in the Bible. That observance remains as a reminder of the Mother Church from which the non-Catholic sects broke away - like a boy running away from home but still carrying in his pocket a picture of his mother or a lock of her hair."
Catholic Mirror.
- "Hence, the conclusion is inevitable; namely that of those who follow the Bible as their guide, the Israelites and the Seventh-day Adventists have the exclusive weight of evidence on their side, whilst the Biblical Protestant has not a word in self defense for his substitution of Sunday for Saturday."
Gallery
People who think that the Scriptures should be the sole authority, should logically become 7th Day Adventists, and keep Saturday holy. "Pastor's Page," Saint Catherine Catholic Church Sentinel (May 21, 1995). [1]
Christopher Morgan, "Pope launched crusade to save Sunday," Sunday Times (July 5, 1998), regarding Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter Dies Domini.
Sunday rest legislation in Canada. Source: WorkRights.ca.
John A. O'Brien, The Faith of Millions: 472-473: "The third commandment is: 'Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath Day'...the early church thought that the most effective way to drive home to them the arrival of the New Law of Christ was to transfer the traditions day of public worship to the Sunday."
Protestant Confessions
Protestant theologians and preachers from a wide spectrum of denominations have been quite candid in admitting that there is no Biblical authority for observing Sunday as a sabbath.
Anglican/Episcopal
Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism , vol. 1, pp.334, 336.
- "And where are we told in the Scriptures 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."
Canon Eyton, The Ten Commandments , pp. 52, 63, 65.
- "There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday .... into the rest of Sunday no divine law enters.... The observance of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands exactly on the same footing as the observance of Sunday."
Bishop Seymour, Why We Keep Sunday .
- We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of the one holy Catholic Church."
Baptist
Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, a paper read before a New York ministers' conference, Nov. 13, 1893, reported in New York Examiner , Nov.16, 1893.
- "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.
- "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 . . . . But what a pity it comes branded with the "mark of paganism", and christened with the name of the sun god (SUN-DAY), adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism!"
William Owen Carver, The Lord's Day in Our Day , p. 49.
- "There was never any formal or authoritative change from the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath to the Christian first-day observance."
Baptist Church Manual
- "We Believe that the law of God is the eternal and imperishable rule of His moral government." B
Adult Quarterly, Southern Baptist Convention series, Aug. 15, 1937
- "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 (the 10 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 commemoration of God's rest after six days of creation. It was designed for all the descendants of Adam."
Congregationalist
Dr. R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments (New York: Eaton &Mains), p. 127-129.
- " . . . it is quite clear that however rigidly or devotedly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath - . . 'Me Sabbath was founded on a specific Divine command. We can plead no such command for the obligation to observe Sunday .... There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday."
Timothy Dwight, Theology: Explained and Defended (1823), Ser. 107, vol. 3, p. 258.
- " . . . the Christian Sabbath [Sunday] is not in the Scriptures, and was not by the primitive Church called the Sabbath."
Dr. Lyman Abbott, Christian Union, Jan 19, 1882.
- "The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without authority in the New Testament."
Buck's Theological Dictionary
- "It must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day (Sunday)."
Disciples of Christ
The Christian Baptist, Feb. 2, 1824,vol. 1. no. 7, p. 164.
- "'But,' say some, 'it was changed from the seventh to the first day.' Where? when? and by whom? No man can tell. No; it never was changed, nor could it be, unless creation was to be gone through again: for the reason assigned must be changed before the observance, or respect to the reason, can be changed! It is all old wives' fables to talk of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august personage changed it who changes times and laws ex officio - I think his name is Doctor Antichrist.'
Washington Reporter, Oct. 8, 1821.
- "I 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 be 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." Quote from the founder of the Church of Christ,
First Day Observance , pp. 17, 19.
- "The first day of the week is commonly called the Sabbath. This is a mistake. The Sabbath of the Bible was the day just preceding the first day of the week. The first day of the week is never called the Sabbath anywhere in the entire Scriptures. It is also an error to talk about the change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. There is not in any place in the Bible any intimation of such a change."
"The evidence of Christianity" Page 302 Saint Louis: Christian Publishing co. 1906, Quoted from a debate between Robert Owen and Alexander Campbell (The founder of the Church of Christ), .
- "The seventh day was observed from Abraham's time, nay, from creation. The Jews identified their own history with the institution of the Sabbath day. They loved and venerated it as a patriarchal usage."
Dr. D. H. Lucas
Christian Oracle Jan. 23, 1890.
- "There is no direct scriptural authority for designating the first day the Lord's day." ,
Bible Standard, May, 1916, Auckland, New Zealand.
- "But we do not find any direct command from God, or instruction from the risen Christ, or admonition from the early apostles, that the first day is to be substituted for the seventh day Sabbath." "Let us be clear on this point. Though to the Christian 'that day, the first day of the week' is the most memorable of all days ... there is no command or warrant in the New Testament for observing it as a holy day." "The Roman Church selected the first day of the week in honour of the resurrection of Christ. ..."
- "... If the fourth command is binding upon us Gentiles by all means keep it. But let those who demand a strict observance of the Sabbath remember that the seventh day is the ONLY Sabbath day commanded, and God never repealed that command. If you would keep the Sabbath, keep it; but Sunday is not the Sabbath. The argument of the 'Seventh-day Adventists' is on one point unassailable. It is the Seventh day not the first day that the command refers to." G. Alridge, Editor,
Lutheran
Martin Luther, Spiritual Antichrist, pages 71, 72
- "I 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."
The Sunday Problem , a study book of the United Lutheran Church (1923), p. 36.
- "We have seen how gradually the impression of the Jewish sabbath faded from the mind of the Christian Church, and how completely the newer thought underlying the observance of the first day took possession of the church. We have seen that the Christians of the first three centuries never confused one with the other, but for a time celebrated both."
Augsburg Confession of Faith art. 28; written by Melanchthon, approved by Martin Luther, 1530; as published in The Book of Concord of the Evangelical Lutheran Church Henry Jacobs, ed. (1 91 1), p. 63.
- "They [Roman Catholics] refer to the Sabbath Day, as having been changed into the Lord's Day, contrary to the Decalogue, as it seems. Neither is there any example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the Sabbath Day. Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments!"
- "The observance of the Lord's Day (Sunday) is founded not on any command of God, but on the authority of the Church." Augsburg Confession of Faith.
Dr. Augustus Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and Church Henry John Rose, tr. (1843), p. 186.
- "The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday."
John Theodore Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday , pp. 15, 16.
- "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 .... 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."
Methodist
Harris Franklin Rall, Christian Advocate, July 2, 1942, p.26.
- "Take the matter of Sunday. There are indications in the New Testament as to how the church came to keep the first day of the week as its day of worship, but there is no passage telling Christians to keep that day, or to transfer the Jewish Sabbath to that day."
John Wesley, The Works of the Rev. John Wesley,
- "But, the moral law contained in the ten commandments, and enforced by the prophets, he [Christ] did not take away. It was not the design of his coming to revoke any part of this. This is a law which never can be broken .... Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind, and in all ages; as not depending either on time or place, or any other circumstances liable to change, but on the nature of God and the nature of man, and their unchangeable relation to each other." - A.M., John Emory, ed. (New York: Eaton & Mains), Sermon 25,vol. 1, p. 221.
- "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, (the Ten Commandments), 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." - Sermons on Several Occasions, 2 vol, ed., Vol. 1, pages 221, 222
E.O. Haven, Pillars of Truth, Page 88
- "The Sabbath was made for MAN; not for the Hebrews, but for all men."
Amos Binney, "Theological Compendium" pp. 180-181
- "It is true that there is no positive command for infant baptism. Nor is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week. Many believe that Christ changed the Sabbath. But, from his own words, we see that he came for no such purpose. Those who believe that Jesus changed the Sabbath base it ONLY on a SUPPOSITION."
Bishops Pastoral
- "The Sabbath instituted in the beginning, and confirmed again and again by Moses and the prophets, has never been abrogated. A part of the moral law, not a jot or a tittle of its sanctity has been taken away."
Dwight L. Moody
D. L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting
- "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." - Weighed and Wanting, Page 46
- The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. This 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 with when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?" - (Fleming H. Revell Co.: New York), pp. 47, 48.
Presbyterian
T. C. Blake, D.D., Theology Condensed, pp.474, 475.
- "The Sabbath is a 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."
John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Gospels, Volume 1, Page 277.
- "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."
Thomas Chalmers, D. D., Sermons, Volume 1, page 51
- "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."
Dwight's Theology, Vol. 14, p. 401.
- "The Christian Sabbath (Sunday) is not in the Scriptures, and was not by the primitive church called the Sabbath."
Works of Jonathon Edwards, (Presby.) Vol. 4, p. 621.
- "A further argument for the perpetuity of the Sabbath we have in Matthew 24:20, Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter neither on the Sabbath day. But the final destruction of Jerusalem was after the Christian dispensation was fully set up (AD 70). Yet it is plainly implied in these words of the Lord that even then Christians were bound to strict observation of the Sabbath."
Church of England
Rev. Lionel Beere, All-Saints Church, Ponsonby, N.Z. in Church and People, Sept. 1, 1947.
- "Many people think that Sunday is the Sabbath. But neither in the New Testament nor in the early church is there anything to suggest that we have any right to transfer the observance of the seventh day of the week to the first. The Sabbath was and is Saturday and not Sunday, and if it were binding on us then we should observe it on that day, and on no other."
P. Carrington, Archbishop of Quebec, Oct. 27, 1949.
- "Nowhere in the Bible is it laid down that worship should be done on Sunday. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. ...! That is Saturday."
Rev. Isaac Williams, Ser. on Catechism, p. 334.
- "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 holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many things, not because the Bible, but because the Church, has enjoined them."
Rev. Geo. Hodges.
- "The seventh day, the commandment says, is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. No kind of arithmetic, no kind of almanac, can make seven equal one, nor the seventh mean the first, nor Saturday mean Sunday. ... The fact is that we are all Sabbath breakers, every one of us."
Encyclopedia
Britanica
Article Sunday
- "It was Constantine the Great who first made a law for the proper observance of Sunday; who appointed it should be regularly celebrated throughout the Roman Empire."
Americana
"Constantine the Great made a law for the whole empire (AD 321) that Sunday should be kept as a day of rest."
Chambers
Art. Sunday.
- "Unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the Sabbatical observance of Sunday is known to have been ordained, is the Sabbatical edict of Constantine, AD 321."
Others
Socrates
Socrates, "Ecclesiastical History," Book 7, chap.19.
- "The people of Constantinople, and almost everywhere, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the first day of the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria." [2]
Socrates, "Ecclestical History," Book 5, chap. 22, p. 289.
- "For although almost all churches throughout The World celebrated the sacred mysteries (the Lord's Supper) on the Sabbath of every week, yet the Christians of Allexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, refuse to do this." The footnote which accompanies the foregoing quotation explains the use of the word "Sabbath." It says: "That is, upon the Saturday. It should be observed, that Sunday is never called "the Sabbath' by the ancient Fathers and historians." [3]
Link
- Confessions about Sunday (Original Link)
- Is Sunday Sacred and Holy
- Sabbath Observance Through the Centuries
TODO: Link all other Sunday Laws Material from http://www.angelfire.com/la2/prophet1/issundaysacred.html