Lord's Day

“ What a history, therefore, has the Sabbath of the Lord! It was instituted in Paradise, honored by several miracles each week for the space of forty years, proclaimed by the great Law-giver from Sinai, observed by the Creator, the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, and the Son of God! It constitutes the very heart of the law of God, and so long as that law endures, so long shall the authority of this sacred institution stand fast. ”

“ The Lord's Day is a Christian institution for regular observance, and should be employed in exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private, resting from worldly employments and amusements, works of necessity and mercy only excepted. ”

“ Not the Lord’s day, not Pentecost, even if they had known them, would they have shared with us; for they would fear lest they should seem to be Christians. We are not apprehensive lest we seem to be heathens! If any indulgence is to be granted to the flesh, you have it. I will not say your own days, but more too; for to the heathens each festive day occurs but once annually; you have a festive day every eighth day. ”

“ It is the day which the Lord has made, has made remarkable, made holy, has distinguished from other days; he has made it for man: it is therefore called the Lord's day, for it bears his image and superscription. ”

“ Zonaras, an ancient commentator on these words of Peter, explains the day of joy by saying, “We ought not to fast; for it is a day of joy for the resurrection of the Lord.” [597] Next in order, we quote the so-called Apostolical Constitutions. These command Christians to assemble for worship every day, “but principally on the Sabbath day. And on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, which is the Lord’s day, meet more diligently, sending praise to God,” etc. ”

“ Christianity knows no classes of days, as holy or profane ; all days are the Lord's days, all time holy time. But then comes the other question, What is the best use to be made of the day; the use most conducive to the highest interests of mankind? Will it be most profitable to "give up the Sunday," to use it as the Catholics do, as the Puritans did, or to adopt some other method? To answer these questions fairly, let us look and see the effects of the present notions about the Sunday, and the stricter mode of observing it here in New England. ”

“ No man can be so blind, as not to see how ridiculously silly it would have been for the beloved disciple to have talked in this manner. What is intended by the Lord’s day is exceedingly obvious. We know perfectly well what is intended by it, as well as we can know the import of any word, in the New Testament, or in any antient language. In the first ages of Christianity, the whole Church used this expression, the Lord’s day, to denote the first day of the week. ”

“ Another instance is ready at hand in the practical abandonment of the religious observance of Sunday. To Christians Sunday is the Lord's day, and is to be observed as such. It is not true that an hour in the morning is the Lord's day, and is to be given to worship, and that the rest of the day is given to us to do what we will with. ”

“ It is our privilege, as we gather, on each Lord's day, round the Lord's table, to show forth the Lord's death, to be able to say, "This may be the last occasion of celebrating this precious feast; ere another Lord's day dawn upon us, He Himself may come." ”

“ We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord’s day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whitsunday [the Pentecost] . We feel pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be cast upon the ground. ”

“ And therefore Good Friday, Easter Day, Ascension Day, are set as great lights in the firmament of the spiritual year,—to remind us that we are not animals, born to do what we like, and fulfil the sinful lusts of the flesh, the ways whereof are death; but that we are moral and rational beings, members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven; and that, therefore, I say it again, like Christ our Lord, we must die in order to live, stoop in order to conquer. They remind us that honour must grow out of humility; that freedom must grow out of discipline ”

“ For we are no way bound to time, but time ought so to serve us, that it is lawful, and permitted to each church, when necessity urges (as is usual to be done in harvest time) , to transfer the solemnity and rest of the Lord’s day, or Sabbath, to some other day.” [955]
Zwingle could not, therefore, have considered Sunday as a divinely appointed memorial of the resurrection, or, indeed, as anything but a church festival. ”

“ That the Lord’s day is the Bible Sabbath, admits of clear and certain proof. The argument stands thus: When God gave to man six days of the week for labor, he did expressly reserve unto himself the seventh, on which he placed his blessing in memory of his own act of resting upon that day, and thenceforward, through the Bible, has ever claimed it as his holy day. ”

“ The Sabbath was generally observed, while the Lord's day was regarded as a festival of no greater importance or authority than Good Friday or Holy Thursday. No text of Scripture, or edict of emperor, or decree of council, could be produced in its favor. But from this time forth may be found emperors and councils combining to give importance to the Lord's day and to oppose the Sabbath. ”

“ LORD’S DAY. The first day of the week is so designated in the Christian Church;—it is the κυριακὴ ἡμέρα of St. John and Ignatius (see Schleusner in voc.) ;—and as Friday is appointed as the weekly fast, in commemoration of our Lord’s crucifixion, so is Sunday the weekly feast, in commemoration of his resurrection.
God has commanded us to dedicate at least a seventh portion of our time to him. We read in Genesis, (ii. 3,) that God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. ”

“ The writer evidently believed in the observance of the Sabbath as an act of obedience to that law on which they were to meditate on that day. And the nature of the epistle indicates that it was observed, at all events, in the country where it was [326] written. But mark the work of apostasy. The so-called Lord’s day for which the writer could offer nothing better than an argument drawn from the title of the sixth psalm (see its marginal reading) is exalted above the Lord’s holy day, and made the queen of all days! ”

“ All manner of persons within the Church of England shall from henceforth celebrate and keep the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday, and other holy-days, according to God’s will and pleasure, and the orders of the Church of England prescribed on that behalf ”

“ People. Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.
Minister. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His Name in vain.
People. Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.
Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. ”

“ In the Directory for the Public Worship of God which was drawn up by the Westminster Assembly, and accepted by the Church of Scotland in 1645, there is an appendix which declares that there is no day commanded in Scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord’s day, which is the Christian Sabbath; festival days, vulgarly called holy-days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are not to be continued ”

“ A. D. 1533. “Let the people assemble at their parish churches on the Lord’s day, and other holidays, and be present at mass, sermons and vespers. Let no man on these days give himself to plays or dances, especially during service.” And the historian adds: “In the same year another synod at Tours, ordered the Lord’s day and other holidays to be reverently observed under pain of excommunication.” [862]
A council which assembled the following year thus frankly confessed the divine origin of the Sabbath, and the human origin of that festival which has supplanted it:—
A. D. 1584. ”

“ All Saints' day is a solemn and glorious festival for all heaven as well as for all the world; for to-day God is praised, and the great salvation by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ magnified and lauded by a common, universal act of holy congratulation and worship among all the saints—that is, among all souls that are united to God in the communion of saints, whether in the church triumphant, in the church suffering, or in the church militant. ”

“ Soon after this edict of the pope, the emperor Leo, A. D. 469, put forth the following decree:—
“It is our will and pleasure, that the holy days dedicated to the most high God, should not be spent in sensual recreations, or otherwise prophaned by suits of law, especially the Lord’s day, which we decree to be a venerable day, and therefore free it of all citations, executions, pleadings, and the like avocations. ”

“ We next read of the Sabbath as follows:—
“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy. Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.... Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.” [138]
These constant references to the Sabbath contrast strikingly with the general disobedience of the people. ”

“ In the year of our Lord's incarnation 729, in which the Easter of our Lord was celebrated on the 24th of April, he performed the solemnity of the mass, in memory of the same resurrection of our Lord, and dying that same day, thus finished, or rather never ceases to celebrate, with our Lord, the apostles, and the other citizens of heaven, that greatest festival, which he had begun with the brethren, whom he had converted to the unity of grace. ”

“ If, then, the Lord accepted the devotions of those who worshiped Him yesterday, calling the day Sunday, and accepts the worship of those living a short distance eastward who call today Sunday, the important question seems to be, not so much the exact time as the fact that one day in every seven is set apart to be a day of rest. ”

“ It is the Lord's day, and I do believe that cheerful hearts and faces are not unpleasant in His sight. ”

“ Those who live in the country, however, may freely and without fault attend to the cultivation of their fields lest, with the loss of favorable opportunity, the commodities offered by Divine Providence shall be destroyed." Thus we see that the primary movement towards enforcing the observance of Sunday, or Lord's Day, as the Sabbath, did not originate in a Divine command, but in the edict of an earthly potentate. ”

“ Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. ”

“ And Inspiration declares the eternal perpetuity of the blessed Sabbath day in the future home of the saved, when the prophet describes the felicity of the redeemed, as from month to month, and "from one Sabbath to another," all flesh shall come to worship before the Lord. Isa. 66:23.
Thus we find the seventh-day Sabbath a plant of the heavenly Father's planting, rooted deep in all Holy Scripture, and abiding eternally in the world to come. ”

“ Forty days after his resurrection, our Lord ascended into heaven, in the sight of his disciples. This is celebrated on what is called Ascension-day, or Holy Thursday. Ten days after his ascension, our Lord sent the Holy Spirit to be the comforter and guide of his disciples. This blessing is commemorated on Whit-Sunday, which is a very great festival, and may be profitably observed; for the assistance of the Holy Spirit can alone support us through all temptations, and guide us into all truth. ”