96 ABROGATION OP THE SABBATH. 



The " Fathers" conclusive against a transfer. Ignatiis. 



churcb, as we lera-n from tlie early writers, retained the observ- 

 ance of the Sabbath, through the long and uninterrupted suc- 

 cession of fifteen Jewish bishops. (Eusebius, HUt. Eccl. lib. 

 iv. cap. 5. Compare also Actsxxi. 17 — 21, with Matt. xxiv. 20.) 



J. N. B. appeals to " Ecclesiastical History" (p. 52) to "con- 

 firm" what he utterly fails to establish by the authority of the 

 Scriptures, — a change of the Sabbath. Though my own position 

 in the controversy does not require it, I am perfectly wiliing 

 to follow my friend (if space be permitted) into this extensive 

 and interesting field of Biblical illustration : but here as be- 

 fore we must have " chapter and verse '/' we must have careful 

 translations, and not paraphrases. I am prepared thus to show 

 by citations, that a chain of "Fathers'' from the apostolic 

 age to the fifth century — that Ignatius of Antioch (a. d. 90) 

 — JusTiN Martyr (a. d. 140) — Irenæus of Lyons (a. d. 

 170) — Tertullian of Carthage (a. d. 200) — Clement of 

 Alexandria (a. d. 210) — Origen (a. d. 230) — Cyprian 

 (a. d. 250) — Eusebius (a. d. 315) — Athanasius (a. d. 

 330) — Cyril of Jerusalem (a. d. 370) — Chrysostom (a. 

 D. 395) — Jerome (a. d. 400) — Augustine (a. d. 415) — 

 Theodoretus (a. d. 425) — and various other early writers, 

 — all " agree in their views of the Lord's day, or the day of 

 Chrisfs resurrection/' as an institution altogether independent 

 of the Decalogue, and entirely different f rom the " Sabbath!" 



Says Ignatius (a. d. 90) : "If we still continue to live ac- 

 cording to the Jewish law, we acknowledge that we have not 

 received grace ;'' and he boasts of those " arrived at the new- 

 ness of hope, no longer observing the Sahbath, but living ac- 

 cording to the Lord's life,* in which, also, our life is sprung 



* This passage, in Archbisliop Wake's translation of Ignatius, is 

 most iinaccountably rendered — " No longer obser\ång Sabbaths, but 

 keeping the Lorcfs day ;" — though, even this false translation "vrould not 

 help my friend a particle, since the first day, instead of being identified 

 with the "Sabbath," would be dii-ectly con/ras^ec? with it. But the 

 reading is utterly unwarranted. The original is — Mjjxetj aa^^ari- 



