PAPAL CLAIMS The bible says, Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. The Catholic church says, No! By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day, and command you to keep holy the first day of the week. And, lo the entire civilized world bows down in reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic Church! -- Father T. Enright, C.S.S.R. of Redemptorist College, Kansas City, Mo., in American Sentinel June 1 1893. Sunday as a day of the week set apart for the obligatory public worship of Almighty God, . . . is purely a creation of the Catholic Church. -- American Catholic Quarterly Review, January, 1893. Cardinal Gibbons, an a letter to Mr E. E. Franke, of Williamsport, Pa., under date of October 3, 1889, says:- The Catholic Church changed the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week because the most memorable of Christs works was accomplished on Sunday. They ( the Protestants ) cannot prove their point from scripture; therefore, if sincere, they must acknowledge that they draw from their observance of the Sunday tradition, and are therefore weekly contradicting themselves. The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the Authority of the ( Catholic ) Church. Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today. by Monsignor Segur. You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scripture enforces the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify. -- Faith of our Fathers by Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore. The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday . . . The Christians Sabbath is therefore to this day the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church as spouse of the Holy Ghost, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant world. -- The Catholic Mirror (Cardinal Gibbons official organ) September 23, 1893. The Bible commands you to keep the Sabbath day, Sunday is not the Sabbath day; no man dare assert that it is; for the Bible says as plainly as words can make it that the seventh day is the Sabbath, i.e. Saturday; for we know Sunday to be the first day of the week . . . I will give $1000.00 to any man who will prove by the Bible alone that Sunday is the day we are bound to keep . . . The observance of Sunday is solely a law of the Catholic Church . . . The Church changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and all the world bows down and worships upon that day, in silent obedience to the mandates of the Catholic Church. -- Father Enright in Weekly Call February 22, 1884. With what boldness do the papal Authorities lay claim to the Sunday institution as the day of their own appointing, and with what confidence do they challenge the Protestant world to produce scriptural authority for their observance of that day. And in the absence of such Biblical authority, upon what grounds can Protestants, who worship on that day, deny the accusations that they worship on that day in silent obedience to the mandates of the Catholic Church? But further, on one occasion a Dr. James Blake, a Roman Catholic, was in debate with a Protestant, when he drove the latter to the wall with the following unanswerable charges:- Christ never wrote, but God the Father did. He wrote the Ten Commandments on the tables of stone, and the only commandment He emphasized was that to keep the seventh day. Remember to keep holy the seventh day; and there is no command so often repeated through the Old Testament. If the Bible alone be the gentlemans rule of faith, he is bound by this commandment; but does he observe it? No, he does not. Why, then, does he not observe it? Because the church saw fit to change it. Here the gentleman admits the authority of the Church to superior to the handwriting of God the Father; and yet he will look you in the face, and declare that the Bible, without church authority, is his rule of faith. And are not first-day observers doing substantially this very thing, i.e. when they continue to observe the first day after being enlightened as to its origin? Are they not practically confessing the authority of the church to be superior to the handwriting of God the Father? It cannot be otherwise when done with a full knowledge of the facts. For when, without a word of remonstrance they bow down and worship on that day in silent obedience to the mandates of the Catholic Church, and fear to disregard their command, while they do not fear to break Gods command, in so doing, do they not indeed place the authority of the Catholic Church above the authority of the God of Heaven? And now, let us gather up other evidence from other sources concerning the change of the day. Neander, who is recognized as the prince of church historians, bears this testimony:- The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intention of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin. Church History Trans. by H.J. Rose, pg. 186. The festival of Sunday then being only a human ordinance, there is nothing divine about it, and its observance as a sacred day or day of worship is not of divine requirement. Then we recall the fact that the first law on record for the observance of the first day of the week was, as the Encyclopedias informed us, that enacted by Constantine in AD 321. Now Constantine was a Roman emperor, and was originally a pagan-a sun worshipper. But about the time of his issuing his Sunday law he professed conversion to Christianity. It was only a profession, however, it was not a genuine conversion. And not only did he connect himself with the church, but Wahroys Church History page 56, informs us that he placed himself at the head of the church, usurped supreme power over it, and claimed the right of modeling and controlling it in such a manner as would best subserve the public good. And so delighted no doubt, were the bishops with the idea of having the emperor at the head of the church .... that there was not found one disposed to question his right to exercise this most unscriptural usurpation. Mosheim also states that at the time of his professed conversion, Constantine became Bishop of the Catholic Church. Thus in dual capacity as Bishop of the Catholic Church and Emperor, Constantine issued the first law ever known either ecclesiastical or civil for the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week. The following is his decree. On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrate and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however, persons engaged in agricultural work may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain growing or for vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them for the second time). -Schaffs History of the Christian Church vol.III chap. 75. Commenting on this decree Dr.. Schaff says:- He enjoined the observance, or rather, forbade the public desecration of Sunday, not under the name of Sabbatum (the Sabbath), or Dies Domini (Day of the Lord), but under its old astrological and heathen title Dies Solis (Day of the Sun), familiar to all his subjects, so the law was as applicable to the worshippers of Hercules, Apollo, and Mithras, as to Christians. Ibid Vol. VIII, chap. 75, par. 5. Following close on this, in the year AD 325, Pope Sylvester authoritatively bestowed upon the first day of the week the title, Lords Day. Then in 338, Eusebius, the court bishop of Constantine, wrote,:- All things whatsoever that it was the duty to do on the Sabbath (the seventh day of the week) we (Constantine, Eusebius, and other bishops) have transferred to the Lords Day (the first day of the week) as more appropriately belonging to it. Later, in AD 364, the Council of Laodicea issued another very definite decree that:- Christians shall not Judaise and be idle on the Sabbath (the seventh day), but shall work on that day; but the Lords day (the first day) they shall specially honor, and as being Christians, shall if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they be found Judaising, they shall be accursed from Christ. The reason for this decree is stated by the Rev. William James, when addressing the University of Oxford. He said:- When the practice of keeping Saturday Sabbaths, which had become so general at the close of this (the third) century, was evidently gaining ground in the Eastern Church, a decree was passed in the council held at Laodicea (AD 364) that members of the church should not rest from work on the Sabbath like Jews, but should labour on that day, and preferring in honor the Lords day, then if it be in their power should rest from work as Christians. -Sermons on the Sacraments and the Sabbath pages 122-123. Then about the year AD 458 or 459, Pope Leo the Great issued the following decree, We ordain, according to the true meaning of the Holy Ghost, and of the apostles as thereby directed, that on the sacred day (Sunday) wherein our own integrity was restored, all do rest and cease from labor. Cited by Justin Edwards in Sabbath Manual page 123. Such then is the evidence that identifies the Papacy as being the power represented by the little horn, the power that should think to change times and laws. Let it be noted that while Constantine placed himself at the head of the church as its chief bishop, and issued the very first Sunday law on record, there are four other acts recorded in respect to Sunday, all of which were issued by the Catholic Church, but not one can be found as coming from Christ or His Apostles. Thus the fifth point of identification in the specification of the work of the little horn finds its fulfillment in the acts of the Papacy. And here it will be appropriate to let the historians tell us what Constantines object was in issuing his Sunday law. We have drawn attention to the fact that Constantine was originally a pagan, a sun worshipper. Sun worshippers had their special time for worship, a distinctive day, and that day was Sunday, the wild solar holiday of all pagan times, as the North British Review, Vol. 18, page 409, describes it. Against this worship God warned His people under penalty of death. Ancient Israel was warned not to esquire even after the gods of the heathen saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise (Deuteronomy 12:30). Sun worship is shown in the Bible to be the greatest abomination of all in Gods sight (See Ezekiel 8:5-18). He will have none of it in His church. But Constantines object in issuing his decree was evidently to introduce it. The historian Milman says:- If we may believe the biographies in the Augustian history, a more ambitious scheme of a universal religion had dawned upon the mind of the emperor. The Jewish, the Samaritan, even the Christian, were to be fused and recast into one great system, of which the sun was to be the central object of adoration. History of Christianity Book 2, chapter 8. Stanley also says:- The retention of the old pagan name Dies Solis, or Sunday, for the weekly Christian festival is, in a great measure, owing to the first day of the week and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the venerable day of the sun,. . . It was his mode of harmonizing the discordant religions of the empire under one common institution. History of the Eastern Church Lecture 6, Par. 15. Thus Constantines aim was to establish universal Sun-Worship; and the first step towards this was his decree for the observance of the suns day (Sunday); and as the ultimate result, nearly all Christendom has been (*keeping this) festival. And thus it was that Dr.. Hiscox, in presenting his treatise on Sunday observance before the New York Conference in 1893, was obliged to make the following admission:- (*keeping this added to make sense of this statement.) 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 it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism. At the very best then, Sunday observance is a man-made institution-an institution of the Catholic Church, and view it as we will, it is a relic of paganism-Sun worship-the mark of an idolatrous system which the Lord has denounced as in His sight, the greatest abomination; and against which He declares that He will deal in fury. But, in connection with the little horn, there is still one more point of identification to be dealt with, viz:- They (the saints, the times, and the laws), shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. Concerning the interpretation of the expression time, times, and the dividing of time, we have no need of conjecture. In Revelation 12 we find practically the same expression used and also the interpretation given. To the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. In verse 6, time, and times, and half a time are shown to be 1260 days, but adopting the Bible rule of counting in Prophecy a day for a year, they are 1260 years. Applying this interpretation to time, times, and the dividing of time a found in Daniel 7:25, the question is, will it fit the prophecy? Did the Papacy hold sway for such a period of 1260 years? Yes, it will fit the prophecy, for history shows that the papal power did hold sway for just such a period. And the events that mark off that period of papal supremacy are of such a definite character, that there can be no mistaking it. In the year AD 533, the Emperor Justinian issued an edict appointing the Bishop of Rome head of all the churches. But owing to the opposition of the three Arian powers, already referred to, that edict could not take full effect until the Ostrogoths (the last of the three horns that were subdued) were driven from Rome. And this as we have already stated, was accomplished in the year AD 538. This being done, the last opposing horn had been plucked up, an the papacy was free to enter upon that career of ecclesiastical tyranny for which it had long been preparing; and the mystery of iniquity which had been working so long, was given full liberty. And now with the year AD 538 so definitely marked as the starting point of that long, dark night of papal supremacy, we now reach forward 1260 years and inquire for evidence to confirm the prophecy which calls for the breaking of the papal power at the end of that period. Adding, then, 1260 to 538, we are brought down to the year AD 1798, and what do we find? In that year, history records the fact, that the French Directory ordered the invasion of Rome; Berthier entered the city February 10, 1798, and took possession of the castles of St. Angelo. Pius VI was called upon to renounce his temporal sovereignty, and on his refusal, was seized, February 20, and carried away to Siena and afterward to. . . Valence. . . where, worn out by age and the rigor of confinement, he died in August 1799. Thus at the end of the 1260 years (in the year 1798) true to the prophecy the power of the Papacy was broken; and for a short period it was practically abolished. Of this one writer says:- The Papacy was extinct: not a vestige of its existence remained; and among all the Roman Catholic powers not a finger was stirred in its defense. The eternal city had no longer Prince or Pontiff; its Bishop was a dying captive in foreign lands; and the decree was already announced that no successor would be allowed in his place. Rome and its papal Rulers page 449 Then upon the death of the Pope in 1799, it is stated by another writer that Half Europe thought that, with the Pope, the Papacy was dead. In this, however, they were greatly mistaken, for very soon after, on March 14, 1800, another Pope was elected, but shorn of all temporal power. And what more is needed to demonstrate that the Papacy is identical with the little horn? Every detail of the specification outlined in Daniel 7:24-25, has found its fulfillment in the acts of the Papacy. Who then but the papal power has been guilty of tampering with the law of God, and the foisting upon the World a counterfeit Sabbath-a relic of Pagan worship? With all this evidence it must be clear to every candid mind that the observance of the first day of the week, as a day of worship, is not in the order of Heaven, but is the invention of a rebel power. And can we suppose that the Majesty of Heaven will tolerate such an invasion of His rights, such an overriding of His will? We will find the answer to this in the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the book of Revelation. In the thirteenth chapter and the first three verses, there is brought to view a beast having seven heads and ten horns. This beast is in all respects the counterpart of the little horn of Daniel 7:7-8, 24-25, and it is generally agreed that, like the little horn it represents Rome in its papal form. The seven heads symbolize Romes successive form of government, while the ten horns, as in the non- descriptive beast of Daniel 7:7, represent the ten divisions of the western portion of the Empire. The wounding of one of its heads or forms of government (Revelation 13:3) had reference to the overthrow of the papal rule in AD 1798, when the Pope was taken prisoner and the church shorn of its temporal power, and by which act it was then supposed that the papal rule had been forever silenced. It is thus referred to as a deadly wound. The healing of the deadly wound (verse 3) symbolizes the revival of the Papacy which began with the election of another Pope on March 14, 1800. Since that time the healing has been progressing slowly but surely, until now we see the wound all healed, at least, to the extent that the Pope once more ranks as a temporal ruler, recognized by every nation in the world. The complete healing of the wound is to come, when the Papacy will once again exercise supreme power over the nations.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 18:08:56 +0000
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