the requisite evidence of a change in the sabbatic law. Surely, if
there had been such a change, and this, with one more instance of
meeting on the first day of the week, were to contain the evidence for
all after generations, we should have been informed of the fact.
Something would have been said to determine that the first day of the
week was regarded as a Sabbath, and that it had taken the place of the
seventh. But there is nothing of this. The record is perfectly silent
in regard to either point. Besides, it is evident that the original
Sabbath continued to be observed, as already noticed, throughout the
entire period of New Testament history. This is so plain a fact, that
no one who gives the subject a candid examination will deny it. This
shows the opinion of a new Sabbath--observed, as it must have been, in
connection with the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, and without a
word being said on the subject, or the least objection, stir, query,
or excitement whatever being raised--to be perfectly preposterous.
Such is the result of this reasoning from a supposed Apostolic
example, giving the passage its widest possible scope, as implying a
common practice of meeting for public worship on the first day of the
week. But in reality there is nothing in this text which proves or
implies that such a practice was common at that period. For aught
appears, it might have been an occasional meeting, appointed merely in
consequence of Paul's being about to depart on the morrow. Therefore,
to adopt a practice so important as the one in question, upon such
vague, uncertain, and inadequate testimony--especially when, in order
thereto, we must dispose of a plain and positive command of God
respecting the observance of the seventh day, and of a usage as old as
the completion of the creation--is unreasonable in the extreme.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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