New Testament

This is the record--not one suggestion in all the New Testament of
Sunday sacredness, to say nothing of precept or commandment of the Lord.
The late R.W. Dale, D.D., a leading Congregationalist of England, wrote:

"It is quite clear that, however rigidly or devotedly we may
spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath.... The Sabbath
was founded on a specific, divine command. We can plead no such
command for the observance of Sunday.... There is not a single
line in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty
by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday."--_"The Ten
Commandments," pp. 106, 107._

That religious classic, Smith and Cheetham's "Dictionary of Christian
Antiquities," says that the "notion of a formal substitution" of the
first day for the seventh,

"and the transference to it, perhaps in a spiritualized form,
of the Sabbatical obligation established by the promulgation of
the fourth commandment, has no basis whatever, either in Holy
Scripture or in Christian antiquity."--_Article "Sabbath."_

Dr. E.F. Hiscox, author of "The Baptist Manual," says:

"There was and is a commandment to 'keep holy the Sabbath day,'
but that Sabbath was not Sunday. It will, however, be readily
said, 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."--_The New York Examiner, Nov.
16, 1893._

Such declarations by well-known scholars might be multiplied, but it is
not necessary. The record is open--any one may see it. There is not a
word in the Holy Scripture of any first-day sacredness. The Sunday
institution is not a plant of our heavenly Father's planting.

How the Change Came About

There has been no change of the Sabbath by divine authority. Men may
choose to rest on any other day, but that cannot make such a day God's
rest day, His holy Sabbath. One cannot change one's birthday by
celebrating another day as such. It is a fact of history that on a
certain day of the month one was born. That fact cannot be changed by
choosing to celebrate another day as the birthday. Just so it is a fact
of divine history that God rested on a given day of the week, and on no
other. That made the seventh day His rest day.

It is different from other days in chara