Jews and the Sunday

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 11, 1883

Jews and the Sunday.

THE NEW YORK Witness, in discussing the new Sunday Law, says:—

“One menacing element is starting up in this Sunday question. The Jews claim a right to use Sunday for traffic, seeing they keep Saturday as the day of rest.”

From the experience we have had with the Sunday Law, we would say that the law is the “menacing element” in the case, menacing those who have observed one day, and obliging them, for their own good of course, to keep two-sevenths of the time.

But the probability is that this obstruction to the law will soon be removed. The leading Jews are counseling an abandonment of the ancient Sabbath. Dr. Kohler, of New York, in a recent sermon on the Sabbath plead for this, not because the Bible record is insufficient to prove man’s obligation to keep the ancient Sabbath, but as a concession to the large number of Jews who use the day for business. He said:—

“As to the Jewish historical day, alas! its pristine glory is gone, and, unless we willingly deceive ourselves, we cannot even cherish the hope of ever seeing it carry the palm of victory. All credit and honor to those faithful few who spare no efforts in upholding and defending it; but we are not blind to the fact that God and Mammon cannot be worshiped at one and the same time. Whether, acknowledging the fact or not, the Jews as a class must, by necessity of competition, keep their day of rest in common with their fellow-citizens, and only the wealthy can afford to make an exception to the rule. I am far from favoring a sudden transfer of the Sabbath, which could only injure the roots of the sacred institution; but I cannot help finding, with the ever-increasing number of enlightened Jews, the only safety for Judaism to consist in Sunday services.”

The San Francisco Jewish Times, comments on this sermon thus:—

As prayer is acceptable to God at all times, only the best results could flow from frequent gatherings in the synagogue, whether the same be on Sunday or any other day. Sunday being by custom and usage a general day of rest, our places of worship would attract more worshipers on that day, and why deny the privilege to those whose longings are to praise God in his temple—in his sanctuary?”

Truly “the glory is departed from Israel.” Their “longings” to praise God in his sanctuary are not strong enough to draw them away from their business on the day which he has appointed. “God and Mammon cannot be worshiped at one and the same time,” therefore God must give place to Mammon. What a humiliating confession. Yet it is one which we often hear professed Christians make. The indications are that a few Sabbath-keeping Christians will soon be all that will uphold the law of God as of more consequence than the law of man. Although we do not expect that the Lord’s Sabbath will ever be kept except by a few, we do cherish the hope that it will yet “carry the palm of victory.” And our hope is well grounded, for God and his truth will prevail, though all the hosts of earth and hell combine against them; and we have the promise that in the new earth “all flesh” shall “come to worship” before the Lord “from one Sabbath to another.” For this time we work and pray.