"The Ante-Nicene fathers are those Christian writers who
flourished after the time of the apostles, and before the Council of Nice, A.D. 325.
---Those who govern their lives by the volume of Inspiration do not recognize any authority in these fathers to change any precept of that book, nor any authority in them to add any new precepts to it.
---But those whose rule of life is the Bible as modified by tradition, regard the early fathers of the church as nearly or quite equal in
authority with the inspired writers.
They declare that the fathers conversed with the apostles; or if they did not do this, they conversed with some who had seen some of the apostles; or at least they lived within a few generations of the apostles, and so learned by tradition, which involved only a few transitions from father to son, what was the true doctrine of the apostles.
*** On such authority as this the multitude dare to change the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. But next to the deception under which men fall when they are made to believe that the Bible may be corrected by the fathers, is the deception practiced upon them as to what the fathers actually teach.
The people who trust in the fathers as their authority for departing from God's commandment are miserably deceived as to what the fathers teach.
But though no statement asserting the change of the Sabbath can be produced from the writings of the fathers of the first three hundred years, it is claimed that their testimony furnishes decisive proof that the first day of the week is the Lord's day of Rev.1:10.
Yet the first day is seven times mentioned by the sacred writers before John's vision upon Patmos on the Lord's day, and is twice mentioned by John in his gospel which he wrote after his return from that island, and is mentioned some sixteen times by ecclesiastical writers of the second century prior to A.D. 194, and never in a single instance is it called the Lord's day!
We give all the instances of its mention in the Bible.
Here are all the instances in which the inspired writers mention the day:
*John says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." Rev.1:10.
Now it is evident that this must be a day which the Lord had set apart for himself, and which he claimed as his. This was all true in the case of the seventh day, but was not in any respect true in that of the first day.
He could not therefore call the first day by this name, for it was not such. But if the Spirit of God designed at this point to create a new institution and to call a certain day the Lord's day which before had never been claimed by him as such, it was necessary that he should specify that new day.
He did not define the term, which proves that he was not giving a sacred name to some new institution, but was speaking of a well-known, divinely appointed day."
J.N.Andrews
---Those who govern their lives by the volume of Inspiration do not recognize any authority in these fathers to change any precept of that book, nor any authority in them to add any new precepts to it.
---But those whose rule of life is the Bible as modified by tradition, regard the early fathers of the church as nearly or quite equal in
They declare that the fathers conversed with the apostles; or if they did not do this, they conversed with some who had seen some of the apostles; or at least they lived within a few generations of the apostles, and so learned by tradition, which involved only a few transitions from father to son, what was the true doctrine of the apostles.
*** On such authority as this the multitude dare to change the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. But next to the deception under which men fall when they are made to believe that the Bible may be corrected by the fathers, is the deception practiced upon them as to what the fathers actually teach.
The people who trust in the fathers as their authority for departing from God's commandment are miserably deceived as to what the fathers teach.
1. The fathers are so far from testifying that the apostles told them Christ changed the Sabbath, that not even one of them ever alludes to the idea of such a change.
2. No one of them ever calls the first day the Christian Sabbath, nor indeed ever calls it a Sabbath of any kind.
3. They never represent it as a day on which ordinary labor was sinful; nor do they represent the observance of Sunday as a act of obedience to the fourth commandment.
4. The modern doctrine of the change of the Sabbath was therefore absolutely unknown in the first centuries of the Christian church.
But though no statement asserting the change of the Sabbath can be produced from the writings of the fathers of the first three hundred years, it is claimed that their testimony furnishes decisive proof that the first day of the week is the Lord's day of Rev.1:10. Yet the first day is seven times mentioned by the sacred writers before John's vision upon Patmos on the Lord's day, and is twice mentioned by John in his gospel which he wrote after his return from that island, and is mentioned some sixteen times by ecclesiastical writers of the second century prior to A.D. 194, and never in a single instance is it called the Lord's day!
We give all the instances of its mention in the Bible.
Here are all the instances in which the inspired writers mention the day:
Moses, "The evening and the morning were the first day." Gen.1:5.After the resurrection of Christ, and before John's vision, A.D. 96, the day is six times mentioned by inspired men, and every time as plain first day of the week.
Matthew, "In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week." Matt.28:1.
Paul, "Upon the first day of the week." 1Cor.16:2.
Luke, "Now upon the first day of the week." Luke 24:1.
Luke, "And upon the first day of the week." Acts 20:7.
Mark, "And very early in the morning, the first day of the week." Mark 16:2.
"Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week." Verse 9.
*John says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." Rev.1:10.
Now it is evident that this must be a day which the Lord had set apart for himself, and which he claimed as his. This was all true in the case of the seventh day, but was not in any respect true in that of the first day.
He could not therefore call the first day by this name, for it was not such. But if the Spirit of God designed at this point to create a new institution and to call a certain day the Lord's day which before had never been claimed by him as such, it was necessary that he should specify that new day.
He did not define the term, which proves that he was not giving a sacred name to some new institution, but was speaking of a well-known, divinely appointed day."
J.N.Andrews
