Bible Readings — Bible Questions Answered

The Mark of Apostasy

What is the Papacy’s mark, or sign, of authority? BR-ASI9 311.5

“Ques.—How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and holy days? BR-ASI9 311.6

“Ans.—By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of.”—Henry Tuberville, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine (1833 approbation), p. 58. BR-ASI9 311.7

Note.—In a letter written on February 8, 1898, Mr. C. F. Thomas, chancellor to Cardinal Gibbons, replying to an inquiry addressed to the cardinal said: BR-ASI9 311.8

“If Protestants observe the first day of the week are they in that act recognizing the authority of the Catholic Church? . . . It looks that way: Since The custom they observe is of the Church and from the Church.” BR-ASI9 311.9

The official newspaper of the Cleveland Diocese says: BR-ASI9 311.10

“By what authority did the Church change the observance of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday? BR-ASI9 311.11

“The Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her Founder, Jesus Christ. The Protestant, claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith, has no warrant for observing Sunday. In this matter the Seventh Day Adventist is the only consistent Protestant. Sunday as the day of rest to honor our Lord’s Resurrection dates to Apostolic times and was so established, among other reasons, to mark off the Jew from the Christian. St. Justin the Martyr, speaks of it in his Apologies.”—The Catholic Universe Bulletin, Aug. 14, 1942, p. 4. BR-ASI9 311.12

The true Sabbath being a sign of loyalty to the true God, it is but natural that the false sabbath should be regarded as a sign of allegiance to the apostate church. Such we find to be the case. BR-ASI9 312.1

What do Catholics say of Protestant Sundaykeepers? BR-ASI9 312.2

“The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] church.”—Monsignor Louis Segur, Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today (1868), p. 213. BR-ASI9 312.3

Note.—A full realization of this fact will lead those who honestly, but ignorantly, have been observing Sunday as the Sabbath, to refuse any longer to pay homage to apostasy, and return to the observance of that which is the sign of loyalty to heaven—the only weekly day of rest which God, in His word, has commanded men to keep holy, the seventh day. BR-ASI9 312.4