The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 575
object in ages past. If he would know how papists and Protestants united
will deal with those who reject their dogmas, let him see the spirit which
Rome manifested toward the Sabbath and its defenders.
Royal edicts, general councils, and church ordinances sustained by
secular power were the steps by which the pagan festival attained its
position of honor in the Christian world. The first public measure
enforcing Sunday observance was the law enacted by Constantine. (A.D.
321; see Appendix note for page 53.) This edict required townspeople
to rest on “the venerable day of the sun,” but permitted countrymen
to continue their agricultural pursuits. Though virtually a heathen
statute, it was enforced by the emperor after his nominal acceptance of
Christianity.
The royal mandate not proving a sufficient substitute for divine
authority, Eusebius, a bishop who sought the favor of princes, and
who was the special friend and flatterer of Constantine, advanced the
claim that Christ had transferred the Sabbath to Sunday. Not a single
testimony of the Scriptures was produced in proof of the new doctrine.
Eusebius himself unwittingly acknowledges its falsity and points to the
real authors of the change. “All things,” he says, “whatever that it
was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s
Day.”—Robert Cox, Sabbath Laws and Sabbath Duties, page 538. But
the Sunday argument, groundless as it was, served to embolden men in
trampling upon the Sabbath of the Lord. All who desired to be honored
by the world accepted the popular festival.
As the papacy became firmly established, the work of Sunday
exaltation was continued. For a time the people engaged in agricultural
labor when not attending church, and the seventh day was still regarded
as the Sabbath. But steadily a change was effected. Those in holy office
were forbidden to pass judgment in any civil controversy on the Sunday.
Soon after, all persons, of whatever rank, were commanded to refrain
from common labor on pain of a fine for freemen and
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