Candid Confessions - On What The Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Etc. Say About Sunday Sacredness...

Anglican:

"There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about abstaining from work on Sunday.... Into the rest of Sunday [i.e., Sunday as a day of rest and worship] no divine law enters.... The observance
of Ash Wednesday or Lent stands on exactly the same footing as the observance of
Sunday." Canon Eyton, The Ten Commandments.

"Where are we told in Scripture that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day.... The reason why we keep the first
day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many
other things, not because the Bible, but because the church has enjoined it."
Isaac
Williams, D. D., Plain Sermons on the Catechism, vol. 1, pp. 334-336

"We have made the change from the seventh day to the first day, from Saturday to Sunday, on the authority of one holy Catholic Church." Bishop Seymour, Why We Keep Sunday. Article 12.

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Baptist:

"We believe that the law of God is the eternal and imperishable rule of His moral government." Baptist Church Manual.

"The first four commandments set forth man's obligations directly toward God.... The fourth commandment sets forth God's claim on man's time and thought.... Not one of the ten words
[commandments] is of merely racial significance.... The Sabbath was established originally
[long before Moses] in no special connection with the Hebrews, but as an institution for
all mankind, in commemoration of God's rest after six days of creation. It was designed
for all the descendants of Adam." Adult Quarterly, Southern Baptist Convention
series, Aug. 15, 1937.

"There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday.... It will be said however, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the
seventh to the first day of the week.... Where can the record of such a transaction be
found? Not in the New Testament - absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the
the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week.

"To me [it] seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' intercourse with His disciples, often conversing with them upon the Sabbath question.... never alluded to any transference of
the day; also that during forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was
intimated.

"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 that it comes
branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, when
adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to
Protestantism!" Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, author of The Baptist Manual (still in
print), in a paper read before New York ministers' conference held Nov. 13, 1893.

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Catholic:

Q. Which is the Sabbath day?

A. Saturday is the Sabbath day.

Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.

Q. Why did the Catholic Church substitute Sunday for Saturday?

A. The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday, because Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday, and the Holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles on a Sunday.

Q. By what authority did the Church substitute Sunday for Saturday?

A. The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday by the plenitude of that divine power which Jesus Christ bestowed upon her.

The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine by Re. Peter Geiermann C.SS.R.

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Christian: (non-denominational)

"There is no direct scriptural authority for designating the first day the Lord's day." Dr. D. H. Lucas, Christian Oracle, Jan. 23, 1890.

"I do not believe that the Lord's day came in the room [place] of the Jewish Sabbath, or that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day, for this plain reason, where there is no
testimony, there can be no faith. Now there is no testimony in all the oracles that the
Sabbath was changed, or that the Lord's day came in the room [place] of it." Alexander
Campbell, Washington Reporter, Oct. 8, 1821.

[Ed. note: Then why does he persist in calling Sunday the Lord's day?]

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Congregationalist:

"It must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day." Buck's Theological Dictionary.

"The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without authority in the New Testament." Dr. Lyman Abbott, Christian
Union, Jan. 19, 1882.

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Lutheran:

"I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me that I should reject the law of Ten Commandments.... Whosoever abrogates the law must of necessity, abrogate sin also."
Martin Luther,
Spiritual Antichrist, pp. 71,72.

"They [the Catholics] allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord's day, contrary to the decalogue, as it appears, neither is there any example more boasted of than the changing of the Sabbath
day. Great, they say, is the power and authority of the church, since it dispensed with
one of the Ten Commandments." Authored by Philipp Melanchthon
with approval by
Martin Luther, Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art.
28, Par. 9.

But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the seventh day had to be kept by the children of Israel. In other words, they insist that
Sunday is the divinely appointed New Testament Sabbath, and so they endeavor to enforce
the Sabbatical observance of Sunday by so-called blue laws.... These churches err in their
teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the week in place of the
Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to that effect." John T.
Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday?, pp. 15,16.

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Methodist:

"This 'handwriting of ordinances' our Lord did blot out, take away, and nail to His cross. (Colossians 2:14.) But the moral law contained in the ten commandments, and enforced by the prophets, He did
not take away.... The moral law stands on an entirely different foundation from the
ceremonial or ritual law.... Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind
and in all ages." John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions, 2 vol. ed., vol. 1,
pp. 221, 222.

"The Sabbath was made for MAN; not for the Hebrews, but for all men." E. O. Haven, Pillars of Truth, p. 88.

"The people became Christians and were ruled by an emperor named Constantine [312-327 AD]. This emperor made Sun-day the Christian Sabbath, because of the blessing of light and heat which came from
the sun. So our Sunday is a sunday, isn't it?" Sunday School Advocate, Dec. 31,
1921.

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Moody Bible Institute:

"The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. The fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote the law on the tables
of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away when
they will admit that the other nine are still binding?" Dwight L. Moody, Weighed
and Wanting, p. 47

"When Christ was on earth He did nothing to set it [the Sabbath] aside; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. 'The Sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' It is just as practicable and as necessary for
men today as it ever was - in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense
age." ibid., p. 46.

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Presbyterian:

"The Sabbath is part of the decalogue - the Ten Commandments. This alone forever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution.... Until therefore it can be shown that the whole moral law
has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand.... The teaching of Christ confirms the
perpetuity of the Sabbath." T. C. Blake, D. D., Theology Condensed, pp. 474, 475.

"We must not imagine that the coming of Christ has freed us from the authority of the law; for it is the eternal rule of a devout and holy life, and must therefore be as unchangeable as the
justice of God, which if embraced, is constant and uniform." John Calvin, Commentary
on a Harmony of the Gospels, vol. 1, p. 277.

"For the permanency of the Sabbath, we might argue for its place in the decalogue, where it stands enshrined among the moralities of a rectitude that is immutable and everlasting."
Thomas
Chalmers, D. D., Sermons, vol. 1, p. 51.