A Judicial Error Regarding the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment
By C. E. HOLMES
In looking over some court decisions relating to Sunday laws, the writer recently came across a very interesting and striking statement concerning some mistakes made in dealing with this question. This statement was attached as a note to a decision given by Judge Caldwell, of the United States Circuit Court, E. D., Arkansas. It is found in “Federal Reports,” 1884, page 308. We believe that in many instances the courts have failed properly to discriminate between religious and civil matters, especially in dealing with Sunday legislation, and our belief is confirmed by the facts thus authoritatively stated:— The Fourth-Commandment Sabbath Is Not Sunday
“Remarks may occasionally be found in opinions of courts, seemingly laying some stress on the religious view of the question, and the fourth commandment. In illustration of this fact, the case of Hill vs. Wilker, 41 Ga., 499, may be cited, where the court, to support the presumption that the law of Kansas, like that of Georgia, forbids contracts on the Lord’s day, says: ‘We are sustained in this presumption by the fact that a contrary view would suppose the people of Kansas to have annulled the decalogue, and to have permitted by law the disregard of Christian obligations, and not only forgotten, but violated, the injunction: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy; on it thou shalt do no manner of work.”’ The court overlooks the fact that the fourth commandment, a part only of which it quotes, relates to the seventh day of the week; and that if the laws of Kansas were in harmony with that commandment, the contract which the court was considering, to have been invalid there, must have been executed on Saturday.” “The curious and obvious error of the court in Hill vs. Wilker illustrates the danger of a civil court, which deals only with the temporal affairs of men, predicating a judgment on its interpretation of the Bible commands relating to spiritual affairs, and justifies a brief reference to the origin of the Lord’s day, and the legal distinction between that and the Sabbath. It is a common error to confound Saturday, the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath of the Jews, and the day of rest in the fourth commandment, with Sunday, the first day of the week, properly called the Lord’s day. . . .” “Writers on ecclesiastical law are not quite agreed as to what extent the obligations of the commandments and Levitical law were abrogated by the advent of our Saviour; but conceding that the fourth commandment delivered to the Jews is of universal obligation, the fact remains that that commandment has never been observed by the Christians so far as relates to the day of the week.” The Sabbath a Definite Seventh Day
At this point the writer of the statement clearly sets forth the fact that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the seventh day of the week. It is also frankly admitted that there is no divine proof for the keeping of Sunday as a religious institution:— “The commandment declares explicitly that ‘the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.’ While many of the commandments are very short, that relating to the observance of the Sabbath is worked out at considerable length, and great stress is laid on the day of the week to be observed, and the reason for observing that day.” “The command to observe a day of rest is not any more explicit than the direction as to what day it shall be. Ex. 20: 8, 11. There is no account in the New Testament of the change from the seventh to the first day of the week, or even of the institution of the Lord’s day. Just when and by whom it was instituted, and when it was first observed as the day of worship, and how it was otherwise observed, are questions involved in some obscurity.” When the measure known as the Johnston District Sunday Bill was reported to the United States Senate, during the Sixty-second Congress, we find its accompanying report falling into the same error mentioned above. It was submitted from the Senate District Committee by Mr. Johnston, of Alabama. He argues thus:— “The seat of government of the United States is, with one exception, the only territory within its jurisdiction in America where the fourth commandment has been repealed or is practically ignored, or where at least the universal sentiment in favor of a legislative day of rest does not prevail.” The senator erroneously supposes that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment is Sunday. But if Sunday were the true Sabbath, there would be no place in civil law for its enforced observance.