“To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.”[413] In giving the ten commandments, the Law-giver thus stated his claim to this day:— “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.... For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”[414] He gives to man the six days on which himself had labored; he reserves as his own that day upon which he had rested from all his work. About eight hundred years after this, God spoke by Isaiah as follows:— “If thou turn away thy foot from THE SABBATH, from doing thy pleasure on MY HOLY DAY, ... then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth.”[415] This testimony is perfectly explicit; the Lord’s day is the ancient Sabbath of the Bible. The Lord Jesus puts forth the following claim:— “The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.”[416] Thus, whether it be the Father or the Son whose title is involved, the only day that can be called “the Lord’s day” is the Sabbath of the great Creator.[417] And here, at the close of the Bible history of the Sabbath, two facts of deep interest are presented: 1. That John expressly recognizes the existence of the Lord’s day at the very close of the first century. 2. That it pleased the Lord of the Sabbath to place a signal honor upon his own day in that he selected it as the one on which to give that revelation to John, which himself alone had been worthy to receive from the Father. PART II—SECULAR HISTORY. CHAPTER XII. EARLY APOSTASY IN THE CHURCH. General purity of the apostolic churches—Early decline of their piety—False teachers arose in the church immediately after the apostles—The great Romish apostasy began before the death of Paul—An evil thing not rendered good by beginning in the apostolic age—How to decide between truth and error—Age cannot change the fables of men into the truth of God—Historical testimony concerning the early development of the great apostasy—Such an age no standard by which to correct the Bible—Testimony of Bower relative to the traditions of this age—Testimony of Dowling—Dr. Cumming’s opinion of the authority of the fathers—Testimony of Adam Clarke—The church of Rome has corrupted the writings of the fathers—Nature of tradition illustrated—The two rules of faith which divide Christendom—The first-day Sabbath can only be sustained by adopting the rule of the Romanists.