"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. There is no Scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath
institution from the seventh to the first day of the week.
"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 as a religious day, as we learn from the Christian
Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded
with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun
god, when adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed
as a sacred legacy to Protestantism! "-DR. EDWARD T. HISCOX,
author of "The Baptist Manual," in a paper read
before a New York ministers' conference held Nov. 13, 1893.
"We
believe that the law of God is the eternal and unchangeable rule
of His moral government."-"Baptist Church Manual,"
Art. 12.
"The
first four commandments set forth man's obligations directly toward
God.... But when we keep the first four commandments, we are likely
to keep the other six. . . . The fourth commandment sets forth God's
claim on man's time and thought.... The six days of labour and the
rest on the Sabbath are to be maintained as a witness to God's toil
and rest in the creation. . . . No one of the ten words 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
the six days of creation. It was designed for all the descendants
of Adam."-Adult Quarterly, Southern Baptist Convention
series, Aug. 15, 1937.
"There
was never any formal or authoritative change from the Jewish seventh-day
Sabbath to the Christian first-day observance." -WILLIAM OWEN
CARVER, "The Lord's Day in Our Day," page 49.
"It
may be that Jesus gave them an explicit command so to do [to change
the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first ; but of this we have
no revelation."-C. C. A. WALLACE. "What Baptists
Believe," page 167.