p. 801 | In the Question Chair

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 10, 1901

In the Question Chair.

(Designed for the consideration of such questions as will be of interest and profit to the general reader. All correspondents should give their names and correct post-office address, that queries not replied to here may be answered by mail.)

842.—Within Thy Gates.

The Fourth Commandment forbids on the seventh day the labor of the man and woman, their son and daughter, manservant, maidservant, cattle, and stranger within their gates. How much is included in the words “Within thy gates”?

N. L. McC., Pomeroy, Wash.

Ans.—The whole question reveals the fact that the querist wishes to know if we consider it right for a Sabbath-keeper to hire out his horse to work on the Sabbath, or loan any tool or farm implement to be used on that day. The same question might be extended to the question of renting a farm or land to non-Sabbath-keepers; and questions of this class have been live questions among our people for the past fifty years, and have been presented with every modification of construction, and fine shade of meaning, that would naturally arise with those laboring for a practical solution of the problem.

Years ago the consensus of opinion among Seventh-day observers seemed to settle down on these points; namely, that so far as inanimate things are concerned, like tools or farm implements, where no intelligence nor moral obligation is involved, no blame could attach to a man who is disposed to accommodate his neighbors by lending them the use of such implements on the Sabbath, they being non-Sabbath-keepers and having no scruples about using them on that day. The same reasoning would apply to a certain extent in regard to the use of land on a rented farm on that day. But on this point certain conditions would necessarily be taken into account; that is, a person living on a farm, and making that his home, should take steps to safeguard his situation against annoyance and disturbance on the Sabbath day, which would interfere with his proper observance of the institution.

One, then, in letting a farm to a tenant who is not a Sabbath-keeper should, if he wishes to keep the Sabbath himself, stipulate in the rental that said tenant should not engage in any violent or boisterous labor on that day which would interfere with, or prevent, the peaceful and quiet observance of the day by any on the premises who desired so to regard the day. This the tenant could agree to and easily observe without surrendering any of his rights.

When it comes to the use of horses or other working animals, on the Sabbath, still another principle is involved; for the Sabbath commandment is designed to guard them, as well as men, against the constant strain of labor; and to secure this they must have regularly recurring seasons of rest from labor. Of course they have no intelligence or conscience which would confine them to just the seventh day as their period of rest. But it is generally thought that the periods of rest and labor enjoined in the commandment, that is, one day in every seven, is well-proportioned for the best good of working animals.

At this point comes in the question of taking pay for work done on the Sabbath. Here there ought not to be any dishonesty or trickery which it would be necessary to guard against. But in the present state of human nature, any one can see what would follow if it should come to be understood that one would hire out his horses or other animals on the Sabbath without compensation, or the physician would follow his profession on that day without fee; these free Sabbath workers would be subject to all the demands which their physical nature could endure, however light the demands might be on other days. Therefore in agreeing that my neighbor might employ my horse in his own business for a season, I would make this restriction, though there would be nothing in his case to confine his labor to the seventh day, yet I would stipulate that he should have whatever physical advantages might be secured by the proportion of labor and rest specified in the Fourth Commandment.

“Within thy gates” would naturally cover and be confined to that area over which one has control. In case of a rented farm, it is virtually sold, as long as the tenant controls it; and if the owner reserves a portion as a home, as long as nothing is done to disturb his quiet and proper observance of the Sabbath, he is obeying what the commandment specifies as to “the stranger within thy gates.”