advent of Christ, to load down the Sabbath with
the most rigorous exactions, making its observance a burden. Now, taking
advantage of the false light in which he had thus caused it to be
regarded, he cast contempt upon it as a Jewish institution. While
Christians generally continued to observe the Sunday as a joyous festival,
he led them, in order to show their hatred of Judaism, to make the Sabbath
a fast, a day of sadness and gloom.

In the early part of the fourth century, the emperor Constantine issued a
decree making Sunday a public festival throughout the Roman empire.(77)
The day of the sun was reverenced by his pagan subjects, and was honored
by Christians; it was the emperor's policy to unite the conflicting
interests of heathenism and Christianity. He was urged to do this by the
bishops of the church, who, inspired by ambition and thirst for power,
perceived that if the same day was observed by both Christians and
heathen, it would promote the nominal acceptance of Christianity by
pagans, and thus advance the power and glory of the church. But while many
God-fearing Christians were gradually led to regard Sunday as possessing a
degree of sacredness, they still held the true Sabbath as the holy of the
Lord, and observed it in obedience to the fourth commandment.

The arch-deceiver had not completed his work. He was resolved to gather
the Christian world under his banner, and to exercise his power through
his vicegerent, the proud pontiff who claimed to be the representative of
Christ. Through half-converted pagans, ambitious prelates, and
world-loving churchmen, he accomplished his purpose. Vast councils were
held from time to time, in which the dignitaries of the church were
convened from all the world. In nearly every council the Sabbath which God
had instituted was pressed down a little lower, while the Sunday was
correspondingly exalted. Thus the pagan festival came finally to be
honored as a divine institution, while the Bible Sabbath was pronounced a
relic of Judaism, and its observers were declared to be accursed.

The great apostate had succeeded in exalting himself "above all that is
called God, or that is worshiped."(78) He had dared to change the only
precept of the divine law that unmistakably points all mankind to the true
and living God. In the fourth commandment, God is revealed as the Creator
of the heavens and the earth, and is thereby distinguished from all false
gods. It was as a memorial of