EllenWhite.info — The Ellen G. White Information Website

Did God send a prophet?


Return to http://www.ellenwhite.info/future-of-protestantism-5d.htm.

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  

Descent into Apostasy (Part 4)

Accepting the Papal Sabbath

There was a time when Protestants held that the Bible is the only authoritative source of doctrine. And during the centuries, there have always been groups of Protestant believers who were keeping the seventh-day as the Sabbath, as instructed in the Ten Commandments. However,

It is a fact generally admitted by Protestants that the Scriptures give no authority for the change of the Sabbath. This is plainly stated in publications issued by the American Tract Society and the American Sunday School Union. One of these works acknowledges “the complete silence of the New Testament so far as any explicit command for the Sabbath [Sunday, the first day of the week] or definite rules for its observance are concerned.”—George Elliott, The Abiding Sabbath, page 184. . . .

Roman Catholics acknowledge that the change of the Sabbath was made by their church, and declare that Protestants by observing the Sunday are recognizing her power. In the Catholic Catechism of Christian Religion, in answer to a question as to the day to be observed in obedience to the fourth commandment, this statement is made: “During the old law, Saturday was the day sanctified; but the church, instructed by Jesus Christ, and directed by the Spirit of God, has substituted Sunday for Saturday; so now we sanctify the first, not the seventh day. Sunday means, and now is, the day of the Lord.”

As the sign of the authority of the Catholic Church, papist writers cite “the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; . . . because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin.”—Henry Tuberville, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine, page 58. What then is the change of the Sabbath, but the sign, or mark, of the authority of the Roman Church—”the mark of the beast”?

The Roman Church has not relinquished her claim to supremacy; and when the world and the Protestant churches accept a sabbath of her creating, while they reject the Bible Sabbath, they virtually admit this assumption. They may claim the authority of tradition and of the Fathers for the change; but in so doing they ignore the very principle which separates them from Rome—that “the Bible, and the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants.” . . .

Romanists declare that “the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church.”—Mgr. Segur, Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today, page 213.

The Great Controversy, pp. 447-448

This downward trend of Protestantism—does Mrs. White tell us where it will end? Will Protestants wake up and turn around? Or will they be drawn into a current that will completely derail the Protestant movement from its original purpose? You might be amazed to learn what Mrs. White has written regarding the climax of the Protestant apostasy.

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  


Copyright © 2007
AdventWeb Ministry

Send comments and questions by going to:  /var/www/ellenwhite.info/web/FEEDBACK_EMAIL. AdventWeb
AdventWeb