"The message of “the everlasting gospel,” in this generation, is a message of Sabbath reform; for it is in the Sabbath of the fourth commandment that Christendom has in doctrine as well as in practice set aside the commandments of God and followed papal tradition. The call of God, in this threefold message of Revelation 14, opens with the words:
“Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water” (verse 7).
This call to reformation in the worship of God is based on the terms of the fourth commandment. It is an appeal to worship the God who “made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:11).
But the Roman Papacy has set up a mark of its own, a badge of the assumed power of the Catholic Church, to speak for God
independently of His Holy word. The Papacy points to the existence of the Sunday institution in Christendom as a mark of its power and authority; and so it is.
It was on this very point that the famous Council of Trent based Rome’s answer to the Protestant Reformation, that tradition and not Scripture alone is the guide, with the voice of the Catholic Church the living voice, instead of the Bible, the living word of God. The council had long debated the ground of its answer. The history records:
“Finally, at the last opening on the eighteenth of January, 1562, their last scruple was set aside; the archbishop of Rheggio made a speech in which he openly declared that tradition stood above Scripture. The authority of the church could therefore not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the church had changed Sabbath into Sunday, not by the command of Christ, but by its own authority. With this, to be sure, the last illusion was destroyed, and it was declared that tradition does not signify antiquity, but continual inspiration.” Dr. J. H. Holtzman, Canon and Tradition, page 263."
W.A.Spicer
“Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water” (verse 7).
This call to reformation in the worship of God is based on the terms of the fourth commandment. It is an appeal to worship the God who “made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:11).
But the Roman Papacy has set up a mark of its own, a badge of the assumed power of the Catholic Church, to speak for God
It was on this very point that the famous Council of Trent based Rome’s answer to the Protestant Reformation, that tradition and not Scripture alone is the guide, with the voice of the Catholic Church the living voice, instead of the Bible, the living word of God. The council had long debated the ground of its answer. The history records:
“Finally, at the last opening on the eighteenth of January, 1562, their last scruple was set aside; the archbishop of Rheggio made a speech in which he openly declared that tradition stood above Scripture. The authority of the church could therefore not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the church had changed Sabbath into Sunday, not by the command of Christ, but by its own authority. With this, to be sure, the last illusion was destroyed, and it was declared that tradition does not signify antiquity, but continual inspiration.” Dr. J. H. Holtzman, Canon and Tradition, page 263."
W.A.Spicer