It is certain that the New Testament contains no appointment of Sunday for the solemn celebration of public worship. And it is equally true that there is no example of the church of Jerusalem on which to found such observance. The New Testament therefore furnishes no support[466] for the statement of Mosheim. The three epistles which have come down to us purporting to have been written in the apostolic age, or immediately subsequent to that age, next come under examination. These are all that remain to us of a period more extended than that embraced in the statement of Mosheim. He speaks of the first century only; but we summon all the writers of that century, and of the following one prior to the time of Justin Martyr, A. D. 140, who are even supposed to mention the first day of the week. Thus the reader is furnished with all the data in the case. The epistle of Barnabas speaks as follows in behalf of first-day observance:— “Lastly he saith unto them, Your new-moons and your sabbaths I cannot bear them. Consider what he means by it; the sabbaths, says he, which ye now keep, are not acceptable unto me, but those which I have made; when resting from all things, I shall begin the eighth day, that is, the beginning of the other world; for which cause we observe the eighth day with gladness, in which Jesus arose from the dead, and having manifested himself to his disciples, ascended into Heaven.”[467] It might be reasonably concluded that Mosheim would place great reliance upon this testimony as coming from an apostle, and as being somewhat better suited to sustain the sacredness of Sunday than anything previously examined by us. Yet he frankly acknowledges that this epistle is spurious. Thus he says:— “The epistle of Barnabas was the production of some Jew, who, most probably, lived in this century, and whose mean abilities and superstitious attachment to Jewish fables, show, notwithstanding the uprightness of his intentions, that he must have been a very different person from the true Barnabas, who was St. Paul’s companion.”[468] In another work, Mosheim says of this epistle:— “As to what is suggested by some, of its having been written by that Barnabas who was the friend and companion of St. Paul, the futility of such a notion is easily to be made apparent from the letter itself; several of the opinions and interpretations of Scripture which it contains, having in them so little of either truth, dignity or force, as to render it impossible that they could ever have proceeded from the pen of a man divinely instructed.”[469] Neander speaks thus of this epistle:— “It is impossible that we should acknowledge this epistle to belong to that Barnabas who was worthy to be the companion of the apostolic labors of St. Paul.”[470] Prof. Stuart bears a similar testimony:—