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Descent into Apostasy (Part 4)
Accepting the Papal Sabbath
There was a time when Protestants held that the Bible is the
only authoritative source of doctrine. And during the centuries, there have always
been groups of Protestant believers who were keeping the seventh-day as the
Sabbath, as instructed in the Ten Commandments. However,
It is a fact generally admitted by
Protestants that the Scriptures give no authority for the change of the
Sabbath. This is plainly stated in publications issued by the American
Tract Society and the American Sunday School Union. One of these works
acknowledges “the complete silence of the New Testament so far as any explicit
command for the Sabbath [Sunday, the first day of the week] or definite rules
for its observance are concerned.”—George Elliott, The Abiding Sabbath,
page 184. . . .
Roman Catholics acknowledge that the change
of the Sabbath was made by their church, and declare that Protestants
by observing the Sunday are recognizing her power. In the Catholic
Catechism of Christian Religion, in answer to a question as to the day to
be observed in obedience to the fourth commandment, this statement is made:
“During the old law, Saturday was the day sanctified; but the church,
instructed by Jesus Christ, and directed by the Spirit of God, has substituted
Sunday for Saturday; so now we sanctify the first, not the seventh day. Sunday
means, and now is, the day of the Lord.”
As the sign of the authority of the Catholic Church, papist
writers cite “the very act of changing the Sabbath into
Sunday, which Protestants allow of; . . . because by keeping Sunday,
they acknowledge the church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under
sin.”—Henry Tuberville, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine,
page 58. What then is the change of the Sabbath, but the sign, or mark, of the
authority of the Roman Church—”the mark of the beast”?
The Roman
Church has not relinquished her claim to supremacy; and when the world
and the Protestant churches accept a sabbath of her creating, while they reject
the Bible Sabbath, they virtually admit this assumption.
They may claim the authority of
tradition and of the Fathers for the change; but in so doing they ignore
the very principle which separates them from Rome—that “the Bible, and the Bible only, is the
religion of Protestants.” . . .
Romanists declare that “the observance of
Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the
authority of the [Catholic] Church.”—Mgr. Segur, Plain Talk About the
Protestantism of Today, page 213.
The Great Controversy, pp. 447-448
This downward trend of Protestantism—does Mrs. White tell us
where it will end? Will Protestants wake up and turn around? Or will they be
drawn into a current that will completely derail the Protestant movement from
its original purpose? You might be amazed to learn what Mrs. White has written
regarding the climax of the Protestant apostasy.
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