Another Decision Upholding Sunday Laws
ANOTHER decision upholding Sunday laws has come from a State supreme court. An exchange says:— Justice Davy, of the Supreme Court, at Rochester [N. Y.], October 3, handed down a decision in the case of the People versus M. J. Zimmerman, upon a writ of habeas corpus, in which it is held that the Sunday law of New York State is constitutional because the “Christian sabbath is one of the civil institutions of the State, and that the legislature has authority to regulate its observance and prevent its desecration by any appropriate legislation, is unquestioned.” If the Christian sabbath were a civil institution, then it would follow that its observance should be regulated by the civil power. But we find that God himself has regulated the observance of the Sabbath, which he calls “my holy day.” He has expressly and plainly directed just how it is to be observed (see Ex. 20: 8-11; Isa. 58: 13, 14), and no man has any right to depart from his instructions in the matter, nor can any legislature alter what God has spoken, nor absolve any person from a single jot or tittle of his obligation to obey the divine commands. What business, therefore, can the legislature properly have with the regulation of Sabbath observance? God has left nothing unsaid in respect to its proper observance, and has left no room for any human regulations concerning it; and he has done this because the Sabbath is his day, and its observance a matter between him and the observer or non-observer alone. And this takes the Sabbath wholly out of the realm of man-made regulations, and conclusively shows that the Christian sabbath is not a civil institution, any opinions of man to the contrary notwithstanding.