Baptist:

"We believe that the law of God is the eternal and imperishable rule of His moral government." Baptist Church Manual.

"The first four commandments set forth man's obligations directly toward God.... The fourth commandment sets forth God's claim on man's time and thought.... Not one of the ten words [commandments] is of merely racial significance.... The Sabbath was established originally [long before Moses] in no special connection with the Hebrews, but as an institution for all mankind, in commemoration of God's rest after six days of creation. It was designed for all the descendants of Adam." Adult Quarterly, Southern Baptist Convention series, Aug. 15, 1937.

"There was and is a commandment to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. .... It will be said, however, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week. ... Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament -- absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week.

"To me [it] seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' intercourse with His disciples, often conversing with them. upon the Sabbath question ... never alluded to any transference of the day; also that during forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was intimated.

"Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from the Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, when adopted and sanctioned by the papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism!" Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, author of The Baptist Manual (still in print), in a paper read before New York ministers' conference held Nov.13, 1893.

Catholic:

Q. Which is the Sabbath day?
A. Saturday is the Sabbath day.

Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?
A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.
Rev. Peter Geiermann, The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1957 ed.), p.50. Copyright 1930 by B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis.

"Q. Have you any other way of proving that the [Catholic] Church has power to institute festivals of precept?"
A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her; ... she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority." Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism (3rd American ed., rev.; New York: T. W. Strong, late Edward Dunigan & Bro., 1876), p. 174.

"From this same Catholic Church you have accepted your Sunday, and that Sunday, as the Lord's day, she had handed down as a tradition; and the entire Protestant world has accepted it as tradition, for you have not an iota of Scripture to establish it. Therefore that which you have accepted as your rule of faith, inadequate as it of course it is, as well as your Sunday, you have accepted on the authority of the Roman Catholic Church." D. B. Ray, The Papal Controversy, 1892, page 179.

"I have repeatedly offered $1000 to anyone who can prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the holy Catholic Church alone. The Bible says, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' The Catholic Church says: 'No. By my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week.' And lo! The entire civilized world bows down in a reverent obedience to the command of the holy Catholic Church. Priest Thomas Enright, CSSR, President of Redemptorist College, Kansas City, Missouri, in a lecture at Hartford, Kansas, and printed in the American Sentinel, June 1883, a New York Roman Catholic journal.

"The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her Divine mission, changed the day [of worship] from Saturday to Sunday. ... The Christian Sabbath is therefore to this day the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church, as Spouse of the Holy Ghost, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant world." Editorial, The Catholic Mirror (Baltimore), September 23, 1893.

"You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify." Cardinal Gibbons (for many years head of the Catholic Church in America), The Faith of Our Fathers (92d ed., rev.; Baltimore: John Murphy Company), p.89.

"Reason and sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible." James Cardinal Gibbons, Catholic Mirror, Dec. 23, 1893.

"Nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath Day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the [Catholic] Church outside the Bible." "To Tell You the Truth," The Catholic Virginian, 22 (October 3, 1947), 9.

"The Divine institution of a day of rest from ordinary occupations and of religious worship, transferred by the authority of the [Catholic] Church from the Sabbath, the last day, to Sunday the first day of the week, ... is one of the most patent signs that we are a Christian people." James Cardinal Gibbons, The Cross and the Flag, Our Church and Country (New York: The Catholic Historical League of America, 1899), pp. 24, 25.

"Sunday is founded, not on Scripture, but on tradition, and is distinctly a Catholic institution. As there is no Scripture for the transfer of the day of rest from the last to the first day of the week, Protestants ought to keep their Sabbath on Saturday and thus leave Catholics in full possession of Sunday." Catholic Record, Sept. 17, 1893.

"But the Protestant says: How can I receive the teachings of an apostate Church? How, we ask, have you managed to receive her teachings all your life, in direct opposition to your recognized teacher, the Bible, on the Sabbath question?" The Christian Sabbath (2nd ed.; Baltimore: The Catholic Mirror, 1893), p. 29, 30.

"If Protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church." Albert Smith (Chancellor of the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore), replying for the Cardinal in a letter of February 10, 1920.)

"It was the Catholic Church which, by the authority of JESUS CHRIST, has transferred this [Sabbath] rest to the Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church." Louis Gaston de Segur, Plain Talk About The Protestantism of To-day (Boston: Patrick Donahoe, 1868), p. 225.

"Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the [Catholic] Church, has no good reason for its Sunday theory, and ought, logically, to keep Saturday as the Sabbath. ..." John Gilmary Shae, "The Observance of Sunday and Civil Laws for Its Enforcement," The American Catholic Quarterly Review, 8 (January, 1883), 152.

"If you follow the Bible alone there can be no question that you are obliged to keep Saturday holy, since that is the day especially prescribed by Almighty God to be kept holy to the Lord." F. G. Lentz, The Question Box (New York: Christian Press Association, 1900), p. 98. 

Christian: (non-denominational)

"There is no direct scriptural authority for designating the first day the Lord's day." Dr. D. H. Lucas, Christian Oracle, Jan. 23, 1890.

"I do not believe that the Lord's day came in the room [place] of the Jewish Sabbath, or that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day, for this plain reason, where there is no testimony, there can be no faith. Now there is no testimony in all the oracles that the Sabbath was changed, or that the Lord's day came in the room [place] of it." Alexander Campbell, Washington Reporter, Oct. 8, 1821.[Ed. note: Then why does he persist in calling Sunday the Lord's day?]

Church of Christ

"I do not believe that the Lord's day came in the room (place) of the Jewish Sabbath, or that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day, for this plain reason, where there is no testimony, there can be no faith. Now there is no testimony in all the Oracles that the Sabbath was changed, or that the Lord's day came in the room (place) of it." Quote from the founder of the Church of Christ, Alexander Campbell, in the Washington Reporter, Oct. 8, 1821.

"There is no direct scriptural authority for designating the first day the Lord's day." Dr. D. H. Lucas, Christian Oracle, Jan. 23, 1890.

"The seventh day was observed from Abraham's time, nay, from creation. The Jews identified their own history with the institution of the Sabbath day. They loved and venerated it as a patriarchal usage." "The evidence of Christianity" Page 302 Saint Louis: Christian Publishing co. 1906, Quoted from a debate between Robert Owen and Alexander Campbell (The founder of the Church of Christ), Saint Louis: Christian Publishing co. 1906.

"But we do not find any direct command from God, or instruction from the risen Christ, or admonition from the early apostles, that the first day is to be substituted for the seventh day Sabbath." "Let us be clear on this point. Though to the Christian 'that day, the first day of the week' is the most memorable of all days ... there is no command or warrant in the New Testament for observing it as a holy day." "The Roman Church selected the first day of the week in honour of the resurrection of Christ. ..." Bible Standard, May, 1916, Auckland, New Zealand.

Congregationalist:

"It must be confessed that there is no law in the New Testament concerning the first day [Sunday]." Buck's Theological Dictionary.

"The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without authority in the New Testament." Dr. Lyman Abbott, Christian Union, Jan. 19, 1882.

"It is clear that, however rigidly or devoutly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath ... The Sabbath was founded on a specific divine command. We can plead no such command for the obligation to observe Sunday ... There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday." Dr. Dale, The Ten Commandments, pp. 106, 107.

Lutheran:

"I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me that I should reject the law of Ten Commandments.... Whosoever abrogates the law must of necessity, abrogate sin also." Martin Luther, Spiritual Antichrist, pp. 71,72.

"They [the Catholics] allege the Sabbath changed into Sunday, the Lord's day, contrary to the decalogue, as it appears, neither is there any example more boasted of than the changing of the Sabbath day. Great, they say, is the power and authority of the church, since it dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments." Authored by Philipp Melanchthon with approval by Martin Luther, Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art. 28, Par. 9.

But they err in teaching that Sunday has taken the place of the Old Testament Sabbath and therefore must be kept as the seventh day had to be kept by the children of Israel. In other words, they insist that Sunday is the divinely appointed New Testament Sabbath, and so they endeavor to enforce the Sabbatical observance of Sunday by so-called blue laws.... These churches err in their teaching, for Scripture has in no way ordained the first day of the week in place of the Sabbath. There is simply no law in the New Testament to that effect." John T. Mueller, Sabbath or Sunday?, pp. 15,16.

"The observance of the Lord's Day (Sunday) is founded not on any command of God, but on the authority of the Church." Augsburg Confession of Faith.

Methodist:

"This 'handwriting of ordinances' our Lord did blot out, take away, and nail to His cross. (Colossians 2:14.) But the moral law contained in the ten commandments, and enforced by the prophets, He did not take away the moral law, [the Ten Commandments], stands on an entirely different foundation from the ceremonial or ritual law.... Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind and in all ages." John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions, 2 vol. ed., vol. 1, pp. 221, 222.

"The Sabbath was made for MAN; not for the Hebrews, but for all men." E. O. Haven, Pillars of Truth, p. 88.

"The people became Christians and were ruled by an emperor named Constantine [312-327 AD]. This emperor made Sun-day the Christian Sabbath, because of the blessing of light and heat which came from the sun. So our Sunday is a sunday, isn't it?" Sunday School Advocate, Dec. 31, 1921.

"It is true that there is no positive command for infant baptism. Nor is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week. Many believe that Christ changed the Sabbath. But, from his own words, we see that he came for no such purpose. Those who believe that Jesus changed the Sabbath base it ONLY on a SUPPOSITION." Amos Binney, "Theological Compendium" pp. 180-181.

"The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. The fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote the law on the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away when they will admit that the other nine are still binding?" Dwight L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting, p. 47

"When Christ was on earth He did nothing to set it [the Sabbath] aside; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.' It is just as practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever was - in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense age." Dwight L. Moody, Weighed and Wanting, p. 46.

Presbyterian:

"The Sabbath is part of the Decalogue - the Ten Commandments. This alone forever settles the question as to the perpetuity of the institution.... Until therefore it can be shown that the whole moral law has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand.... The teaching of Christ confirms the perpetuity of the Sabbath." T. C. Blake, D. D., Theology Condensed, pp. 474, 475.

"We must not imagine that the coming of Christ has freed us from the authority of the law; for it is the eternal rule of a devout and holy life, and must therefore be as unchangeable as the justice of God, which if embraced, is constant and uniform." John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Gospels, vol. 1, p. 277.

"For the permanency of the Sabbath, we might argue for its place in the Decalogue, where it stands enshrined among the moralities of a rectitude that is immutable and everlasting." Thomas Chalmers, D. D., Sermons, vol. 1, p. 51.

"The Christian Sabbath [Sunday] is not in the Scriptures, and was not by the primitive church called the Sabbath." Dwight's Theology, Vol. 14, p. 401.

"A further argument for the perpetuity of the Sabbath we have in Matthew 24:20, Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter neither on the Sabbath day. But the final destruction of Jerusalem was after the Christian dispensation was fully set up (AD 70). Yet it is plainly implied in these words of the Lord that even then Christians were bound to strict observation of the Sabbath." Works of Jonathon Edwards, (Presby.) Vol. 4, p. 621.

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