40
Darkness Before Dawn
of the people and force them to refrain from labor on the Sunday. At
a synod held in Rome, all previous decisions were reaffirmed with
greater force and solemnity. They were also incorporated into the
ecclesiastical law and enforced by the civil authorities throughout
nearly all Christendom. (See Heylyn, History of the Sabbath, pt. 2, ch.
5, sec. 7.).
The Authority for Sundaykeeping
Still the absence of Scriptural authority for Sundaykeeping occa-
sioned no little embarrassment. The people questioned the right of
their teachers to set aside the positive declaration of Jehovah, “The
seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” in order to honor the
day of the sun. To supply the lack of Bible testimony, other expedients
were necessary. A zealous advocate of Sunday, who about the close
of the twelfth century visited the churches of England, was resisted
by faithful witnesses for the truth; and so fruitless were his efforts
that he departed from the country for a season and cast about him
for some means to enforce his teachings. When he returned, the lack
was supplied, and in his after labors he met with greater success. He
brought with him a roll purporting to be from God Himself, which
contained the needed command for Sunday observance, with awful
threats to terrify the disobedient. This precious document—as base
a counterfeit as the institution it supported—was said to have fallen
from heaven and to have been found in Jerusalem, upon the altar of
St. Simeon, in Golgotha. But, in fact, the pontifical palace at Rome
was the source whence it proceeded. Frauds and forgeries to advance
the power and prosperity of the church have in all ages been esteemed
lawful by the papal hierarchy....
But notwithstanding all the efforts to establish Sunday sacredness,
papists themselves publicly confessed the divine authority of the Sab-
bath and the human origin of the institution by which it had been
supplanted. In the sixteenth century a papal council plainly declared:
[27]
“Let all Christians remember that the seventh day was consecrated by
God, and hath been received and observed, not only by the Jews, but
by all others who pretend to worship God; though we Christians have
changed their Sabbath into the Lord’s Day.”—
The Great Controversy,
281, 282
. Those who were tampering with the divine law were not