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Truth Triumphant - Benjamin G. Wilkinson

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321). A comment upon this by a leading Roman<br />

Catholic journal states the case clearly:<br />

The emperor Constantine after his conversion<br />

to Christianity, made the observance of Sunday a<br />

civil duty, and the law which commanded it is<br />

found in the Roman code. “Let all judges and<br />

people of the town rest, and the trades of various<br />

kinds be suspended on the venerable day of the<br />

sun. Those who live in the country may, however,<br />

freely and without fault apply to agriculture,<br />

because it often happens that this day is the most<br />

favorable for sowing wheat and planting the vine,<br />

lest an opportunity offered by divine liberality be<br />

lost with the favorable moment.” Now we can<br />

scarcely conceive that Constantine would have<br />

excepted agricultural labor, if the church had from<br />

time immemorial strictly forbidden among<br />

Christians that kind of work which it prohibited at<br />

a later period. ... Hence it has been the unanimous<br />

doctrine of divines, from time immemorial, that<br />

cessation from servile work is not only a point of<br />

discipline liable to change but it can be dispensed<br />

with by the ecclesiastical authority whenever a<br />

586

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