The Sabbath and Sunday Legislation

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 23, 1908

The Sabbath and Sunday Legislation

The following words are from a sermon by the Rev. Wallace Radcliffe of the New York Avenue Presbyterian church, Washington, D. C.:—

The Sabbath was made for man, not for money making, not for pleasure, not for ease, not for sloth, not for a third of the man, not for the Jew or Gentile alone, but for the race, for humanity, for the whole physical, intellectual, social, moral, spiritual man. It was not ordained by Moses nor abrogated by Christ. Its principle is as broad as the race and as deep as human nature. It was not instituted at Sinai. The command was not to do something untried, but to “remember” something already experienced. Christ did not abrogate it. He came not to destroy, but to fulfil. It continues with the same authority as does the seventh or eighth commandment. The decalogue in its entirety is perpetual.

This strong argument for the perpetuity of the Sabbath and the immutability of the law of God—strange inconsistency—was not made in support of God’s Sabbath at all, but in support of that institution which has done more than anything else to trample under foot the Sabbath of the Almighty. It was made in support of the Sunday sabbath, and to give force to a demand for legislation that will compel the keeping of that rival sabbath in opposition to the Sabbath of the “perpetual” decalogue. It was not made in support of the law graven on stone on Sinai, but in support of a perverted interpretation of that law, which robs it of the intent of the Law-giver, and makes it seem to stand for the thing that subverts it.