Sunday Laws to Enforce Sabbath Observance! by Roswell Fenner Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 22, 1883

Sunday Laws to Enforce Sabbath Observance!

By Roswell Fenner Cottrell

BY ELD. R. F. COTTRELL.

"JUST in proportion as the minds of our rulers are impressed with the truth that the Sabbath has been divinely ordained from the beginning, and meant as a rule of order for all ages, will we be likely to have Sunday laws to guard it. In proportion, too, as this truth is clearly and energetically apprehended by the people, will such laws have the moral support that will be effective."—Rev. Prof. Valentine, in Christian Statesman.

What have "Sunday laws" to do in guarding and enforcing the claims of the Sabbath which was "divinely ordained from the beginning, and meant as a rule of order for all ages"? Are our rulers so void of intelligence as not to know that the Sunday and the Sabbath are two days—the first, and the seventh, days of the week? How, then, can laws for the observance of Sunday secure the observance of the seventh day—the day on which God rested in the beginning, and which he blessed and set apart from other days for the observance of mankind? The fourth commandment, the only law in the Bible for the observance of a weekly Sabbath, says expressly, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." And we learn from the New Testament that the "Sabbath day according to the commandment," and the first day of the week, are two days, the former being past when the latter dawns. Luke 23:56; 24:1. This testimony proves that the week of the New Testament and that of the Old correspond exactly; so that the Sunday is truly what it is constantly called in the New Testament, namely, "the first day of the week," while the only divine commandment which requires us to keep a Sabbath once in seven days expressly says that the seventh day is that day.

Now the fraud of the Roman Church is in their pretended power to set aside the word and the law of God, and to substitute a requirement of their own, obedience to which will be acceptable to God, while it releases them from their obligation to do what God has expressly and plainly commanded; while that of the Protestant church consists in asserting that that substituted duty is not an innovation or substitution, but the very thing required of God in his commandment.

A comparison of the testimony of Romanists and Protestants will illustrate this. First, we quote the words of Romanists as follows: "The church, by virtue of the power she has received from Christ, abolished the Jewish Sabbath and substituted Sunday in its stead."—F. Weninger, D. D.

Again, it is argued in the "Doctrinal Catechism," another Catholic authority, that had not the church power to make new institutions which would be binding upon men, "she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."

But while Romanists claim that "the governors of the church" have "changed the Sabbath into Sunday," have "abolished" the one and "substituted" the other, Protestants claim, as in the quotation at the head of this article, that "Sunday laws" are to guard the Sabbath "divinely ordained from the beginning." To illustrate this view, we quote the following from a Catechism published by the Presbyterian board:— "Q. Gen. 2. God did not make anything on the seventh day; what did he do? A. He rested. Q. Was he tired? A. He was not. Q. What is meant by saying that he rested? A. That he created nothing more. Q. Had this day any other name than the seventh? A. It had. Q. What was it? A. The Sabbath. Q. Who gave it this name? A. God. Q. What has God told us about this day in the first part of the fourth commandment? A. 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' Q. To whom does this day belong? A. This day belongs to God alone, He chooses Sunday for his own; And we must neither work nor play, Because it is the Sabbath day."

"How fraudulent!" do I hear you exclaim, "to teach innocent and credulous children that Sunday is the day on which God rested, and which he claims as his own—the day he sanctified to himself!" It looks bad, truly, but they hold it to be perfectly explainable in a manner to vindicate themselves. But we will close this writing by showing how Romanists view it. The Boston Pilot, a Roman Catholic paper, gives the following: "The world, said the preacher, knows how, three centuries ago, the 'reformers' went into churches, mutilating the statues, destroying the paintings, pulling down the altars, stripping the priests of their sacred vestments, changing the name of Sunday and calling it 'the Sabbath,' the name that properly belongs to the Saturday," &c.

James Blake, M. D., a Roman Catholic, in a debate with a Protestant, said, "Christ never wrote, but God the Father did. He wrote the ten commandments on the tables of stone, and the only commandment he emphasized was that to keep the Sabbath day. 'REMEMBER to keep holy the seventh day;' and there is no command so often repeated throughout the Old Testament. If the Bible alone be the gentleman's rule of faith, he is bound by this commandment; but does he observe it? No, he does not. Has he any Scripture authority for rejecting it? No, he does not. Why, then, does he not observe it? Because the church thought fit to change it. Here the gentleman admits the authority of the church to be superior to the hand-writing of God the Father. And yet he will look you in the face and declare that the Bible, without church authority, is his rule of faith."

One falsehood or fraudulent transaction makes way for another; but neither of them can be vindicated. A false foundation cannot support the truth. Neither can "Sunday laws" induce the observance of the Sabbath "divinely ordained from the beginning."