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THE KING’ S BUSINESS
preface to this important document, the editors, Professors Hitchcock and Brown in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, say: “The genuineness o f the docu ment can hardly be doubted. The docu ment belongs undoubtedly to the second century; possibly as far back as 120 A. D .; hardly later than 160” (Introduction). Chapter fourteen o f the “ Teaching o f the Apostles” says: “ But every Lord’s Day do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving,” etc. This testimony is clear and decisive that the Lord’s Day was the' established day o f worship at that early day. JUSTIN MARTYR. I quote from “ The Testimony o f the' Fathers,” by Elder Andrews.: “Justin’s ‘Apology1 was written at Rome about the year 140, ‘and this at a distance o f only forty-four years from the date o f John’s vision upon Patmos.’ ‘It does not appear that Justin, and those at Rome who held with j him in doctrine, paid - the slightest regard to the ancient Sabbath. He speaks o f it as abolished, and treats it with con tempt’ ” (page 33). This is the confession which even the historian o f the Seventh Day Adventists is compelled to make. The Jewish Sab bath was disregarded by Christians within forty-four years o f the death o f the last apostle. And this is proven by the testi mony o f an eminent Christian minister- who lived right there. Justin, in his “Apology” for them to the emperor, fairly represented what Chris tians generally held then, just as he should have done. Elder Andrews conveys the impression that Justin represented only a small party o f apostate Christians at Rome and that he is quite unreliable. But the facts are just the reverse. He was a Greek, born in Palestine and held his “Dia logue with Trypho” at Ephesus, Asia Minor, in the church where St. John lived and died, the very center o f the Eastern Church, and only forty-four years after John’s death. O f Justin the “Encyclopedia Americana” says: “ One o f the earliest
notions which none o f us now believe. Hence their testimony must be unreliable. This argument they repeat over and over at great length in the case o f every early writer who witnesses for. Sunday. Now it occurs that one o f their writers, Elder J. H. Waggoner, when it happens to suit his purpose, has himself answered this argu ment. O f the Reformers he says: “We think the Reformers retained a grievous error o f their early training; but that does not invalidate their testimony in regard to a matter o f fact with which they were well acquainted.” Now apply that to the early Fathers. They lived there, and state over and over, all agreeing in it, that they themselves and all Christians then observed Sunday. This was a simple matter o f fact with which they were well acquainted. Waggoner says such testimony is reliable. O f course it is. It proves beyond question that the Lord’s Day was an unquestioned practice o f the early Church. We do not quote these Fathers to prove a doctrine; for that we go only to the Bible.' W e quote them to prove a simple historical fact, viz,: that the early Chris tians did keep Sunday, hence it could not have started with the Popes centuries later. “ TEACHING OF -THE APOSTLES.” This was not written by the apostles; yet its date is very early. Som eplace it as early as A. D. 80. Professor Harnack, o f Berlin, says many place it between A. D. 90, and A. D. 120. This is the date most favored. It cannot be much later. .The New York Independent says o f it: “ By all odds the most important writing exterior to New Testament.” Prof. D. R. Dungan, President o f Drake University, says: “ It is evident that it is not' far on this side o f the death o f the apostle John.” The noted scholar, Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, in his “ Sabbath for Man,” page 383, says: “ It was written, as the best scholars almost unanimously agree, not later than forty years after the death o f the last o f the apostles, and during the lifetime o f many who had heard John’s teaching.” In the
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