248 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



Testimony of Justct Marttr — JK^('-sabbatarian. 



of tlie Sun [Tt;v St tov 'y^xiov lyufpai'],* we commonly all meet 

 together, because it is the first daj in which God, transforming 

 the darkness and the chaos, made the world/' (Ist Apologi/; 

 addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, A. D. 147.) It is 

 too plain for discussion that this day could not be the Lord's 

 Sahhath. Xot only does Justin omit all notice of any prac- 

 tice among the early Christians of abstaining from labor on 

 Sunday, or of any supposed obligation to do so, but he informs 

 us in the most explicit manner that the day was not observed 

 as a Sabbath. He contends that the Sabbath,like circumcision, 

 was whoUy and unconditionally abolished by the gospel ; and 

 that there was no more need for a Sabbath since the advent of 

 Christ, than there had been use of it among the Patriarchs 

 before its enactment by Moses. (Quoted ante, p. 97.) "The 

 new law/' says he, in refutation of the Sabbatarians, " will 

 have you keep a perpetual Sabbath ; but ye think when ye 

 have passed a day in rest that ye have fulfilled your religious 

 duty. . . . If any one among you is perjured, or dishonest, let 

 him cease to do evil; if any one is adulterous, let him repent, 

 and he will have kept the true Sabbath, and the one acceptable 

 to God.'' (^Dialog, c. Tri/ph. p. i.) I call my friend's atten- 

 tion to the circumstance that this is not " a happy metaphor" 

 (p. 79) ; it is given as literal truth ; it is the calm consistent 

 doctrine of all his writings; and not alone of his, but of those 

 of all the early Fathers. I tender my friend this witness as 

 a most conclusive one that Sunday is not the " Sahhath." 'f 



* Not the day "of the Lord," be it observed. 



■f Notwithstanding that Jcstin Martyr expressly denies that there 

 ■was any Sabbath before Moses (cum Tryph.), J. N. B. seems really 

 disposed to extort from this Father some countenance of that chimera, 

 a patriarchal Sabbath! After exalting the Sabbath, as "at once 

 combining in its weekly rotation the three grandest displays of the 

 Divine glory [!], and establishing the real harmony of the Patriarchal, 

 the Mosaic, and Christian dispensations," he adds : "Although the 

 deliverance from Egypt is less prominent [!] in our thoughts as Gen- 



