SUNDAY AND THE DECALOGUE.
It makes one sad to read such utterances as the following, which comes in a clipping from the Epworth Herald (without date). The author is Mr. Edwin K. Hart, of the editorial staff of the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, and the words were spoken before the Ministerial Union of that city. The Herald calls these sentences “strong and timely.” To us they seem wofully inconsistent, a mixture of fact and fancy, of truth and error. Before we quote them we wish to state a few Bible facts, and then ask our readers to read these “strong and timely sentences” in the light of these facts. 1. It is true, as stated, that “you can not pinch holes in the Decalogue. These ‘Ten Words’ stand or fall together as they came from Sinai.” 2. The fourth commandment of the Decalogue enjoins the observance of one day and only one, namely, “THE seventh day” of the seven, the day on which the Creator rested, which He blessed and sanctified. Gen. 2:2, 3; Ex. 20:8–11. 3. This seventh day, this “Sabbath day according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56), is the day just before “the first day of the week” (Luke 24:1; Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 2); hence it is the seventh day of the week. 4. But Sunday is known everywhere to be “the first day of the week,” the day which came just following “the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” Therefore Sunday is not the Sabbath of the “Ten Words as they came from Sinai.” 5. Sunday has no basis of authority as a holy day in the Scriptures either in divine precept or example. It has therefore no more connection with the fourth commandment than has Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday. 6. Therefore the world, through apostate and corrupt religions, has, in substituting Sunday for God’s Sabbath, attempted to “alter or amend” the Ten Words. It has presumed to do what God has not done,—change the unchangeable law. It has attempted to “take the fourth commandment out and leave the rest.” Here is the quotation:— The preservation of Sunday as a day of rest is the one guarantee to the American workman of freedom. Its preservation as a day of worship, undisturbed by the godless recklessness and folly and wickedness of those who refuse to recognize the claims of their Creator, is the one guarantee of the church and is essential to the preservation and maintenance of Christianity. When the Christian Sunday goes, everything goes. You can not break into it without breaking it altogether. If the “continental Sunday” is to succeed the American Sunday, then continental methods, morals, and vices will come as the night follows the day. The fathers laid the foundations broad and deep. We can not tear them up without imperiling the superstructure. The Christian Sunday is at once the corner-stone, the keystone, and the capstone in the temple of American liberty and self-government. You can not punch holes in the Decalogue. These “Ten Words” stand or fall together as they came from Sinai. The world has never yet dared attempt to alter or amend them; it either obeys them or defies them. Even the “higher critics” have not been equal to this. You can not take the fourth commandment out and leave the rest, without striking a fatal blow at the true, religious faith. Certainly the Decalogue does not enjoin both the first and seventh days. The Creator did not rest on both the first and seventh days. He did not bless and sanctify both the first and seventh days. To claim Sunday as the Sabbath of the Decalogue is therefore grossly misleading, altho doubtless the result of ignorance. No true worship day can be truly preserved apart from the truth. Sunday sacredness rests only in falsehood. It can be preserved only by falsehood and force, which are effectual only till God’s presence sweeps away “the refuge of lies” with which Satan by cunning craft has invested the Sunday idol. The only original, religious Sunday is a continental Sunday. Inevitably it is that or the Sabbath of the Lord. Men have their choice between God and tradition, between truth and error. When the government comes to that place that Sunday is recognized as the corner-stone, the keystone, and the capstone, then will this government fall forever; for that which is based on falsehood can not stand. O Christian brethren and friends, why not face the matter now in the light of the facts of God’s Word? Why cling to the counterfeit coin when God offers the genuine?