The Complete Testimony of the Fathers of the First Three Centuries Concerning the Sabbath and First Day - J. N. Andrews

it sheds upon the state of things when it was
written. It gives us a correct idea of the progress of
apostasy with respect to the Sabbath in the time of
the writer. He speaks against Jewish superstition in
the observance of the Sabbath, and condemns days
of idleness as contrary to the declaration, “In the
sweat of thy face shall thou eat thy bread.” But by
days of idleness, he cannot refer to the Sabbath, for
this would be to make the fourth commandment
clash with this text, whereas they must harmonize,
inasmuch as they existed together during the
former dispensation. Moreover, the Sabbath,
though a day of abstinence from labor, is not a day
of idleness, but of active participation in religious
duties. He enjoins its observance after a spiritual
manner. And after the Sabbath has been thus
observed, “let every friend of Christ keep the
Lord’s day as a festival, the resurrection day, the
queen and chief of all the days.” The divine
institution of the Sabbath was not yet done away,
but the human institution of Sunday had become its
equal, and was even commended above it. Not long
after this, it took the whole ground, and the
observance of the Sabbath was denounced as
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