21. Does the Scripture ever apply the name, _Sabbath_, to the first
day of the week? Even in the _New_ Testament, where the term is used,
is not the reference always to the _seventh_ day?
22. If Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles ful thirty years after
the death of Christ, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, still
calls the seventh day of the week the Sabbath, can it be wrong in us
to do so? (See Acts 13:14, 42, 44; 16:1, 3; 17:1, 2; 18:4.) If this be
the _inspired_ application of the term so many years after all the
ceremonial institutions were nailed to the cross, is it not our duty
to make the same use of the term now?
23. Is it not a manifest perversion of the scriptural use of terms, to
take away the sacred name from the seventh day of the week, and give
it to the first day?
24. When the first day of the week is so generally called the Sabbath,
are not the common people thereby led to suppose that the Bible calls
it so? Are they not thus grossly deceived?
25. If the name _Sabbath_ were no longer applied to this day, and it
should simply be called first day of the week, as in the Bible, is it
not probable that it would soon lose its sacredness in the eyes of the
people?
26. Is it possible, then, that God has not given the day a name
sufficiently sacred to secure for it a religious regard, nor even
guarded it with a law sufficient to prevent its desecration?
27. _What then?_ HAS GOD LEFT HIS WORK FOR MAN TO MEND! IS IT NOT SAFE
TO LEAVE THE DAY AS GOD HAS LEFT IT! "Who hath directed the Spirit of
the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?" (Isa. 11:13.)
28. Are you very sure that by the Lord's day, (Rev. 1:10,) is meant
the first day of the week? Have you any _Scripture_ proof of it? Have
you any other proof of it than the testimony of those who are called
the early Fathers?
29. If the testimony of the early Fathers is to be relied on, that the
Lord's day means the first day of the week, ought not their testimony
to be just as much relied on, as to the manner in which the primitive
Christians observed the day?
30. If it were even certain that by the Lord's day the writer of the
book of Revelations meant to designate the first day of the week,
would it thence follow that it is a day _sacred_ by _divine_
appointment, any more than that the "_Sabbath day's journey_" (Acts
1:12,) was a distance limited and prescribed by _divine_ authority? If
Luke could select the latter expression from the vocabulary of _human
tradition_, without intending to sanction it as being of divine
origin, could not John do the same with regard to the former
expression?
31. Do the Fathers, or any one of them, inform us that the Lord's day
was observed by _abstinence from labor_?--that it was observed as the
Sabbath? Mark the question. It is not, was the day _observed_, simply;
but, was it observed _as the Sabbath_?
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