Enormity of the Sin of Sabbath-Breaking.
By W. E. Dawson
To determine the enormity of any offense, it is necessary to consider the circumstances of the perpetrator, the opportunity he had to consider the consequences of his act, and the defiance of the authority of the law-giving power which that act manifests. In other words, the degree of deliberation with which a man approaches the commission of a wrongful act affords a certain means of determining the degree of malice by which that act was inspired, and the contempt for law which it indicates. Blinded by sudden passion, one may be driven to the commission of a deed from which he would have recoiled in horror if he had been given sufficient time to reflect on its enormity or on the allegiance he owes to the laws of God and society. Assailed by sudden and overpowering temptations, men of the strongest principle may for the moment, unless restrained by the grace of God, swerve from the path of rectitude, while if they had known the temptation to which they were to be exposed, they would have stood erect, and scorned to think that they could stoop to so base a crime. Sudden passion and temptation cannot justify a wrongful act, but its commission in the absence of these motives shows in the wrong-doer a degree of depravity which leaves him without excuse. In the administration of human law, the darkest crime that can be committed against the persons of individuals—the taking of human life—does not rise to its full height of enormity unless accompanied by that condition of mind known as “malice aforethought.” Most of the commands of the decalogue are of such a nature that the one who breaks them may plead thoughtlessness or sudden temptation. For instance, no one can tell at what moment of great provocation he may so lose control of his passions as to seek the life of his enemy, nor at what period of his career he may become so absorbed in pursuing the object of his earthly ambition as to elevate it to a place in his esteem higher than that occupied by his Creator. Not so, however, with the sin of Sabbath-breaking. The duty enjoined by the fourth commandment, in this respect, stands on ground peculiarly its own. No one who has been once convinced of the duty of keeping holy the seventh day can ever plead in extenuation of his offense that he knew not when he would be called upon to obey that precept, and therefore was unprepared to do his duty. One cannot always tell when he will find his neighbor’s pocket-book and be tempted to appropriate its contents; but one can always tell when he will find God’s holy time and be tempted to appropriate it to his own unholy use. Six days we are given to consider our duty and decide whether we will obey God or not. On the seventh day we are called upon to render our decision. There is no escape. There is no way of stepping from the working days of one week to those of the next except by the use of God’s holy time. There are but two ways of using that time. One is to make such use as the Creator has enjoined—keep it holy. This constitutes obedience. The other is to use this holy time for our unholy purposes. This is disobedience. There is no middle ground. There is no postponement of the question—no evasion. The lapse of each hour of the working days brings us nearer and nearer to the question, Shall I obey or disobey? And when the seventh day has at last been reached, and its hours have been kept holy or desecrated according to our decision to obey God or our own desires, still we are not released from responsibility. Six days more elapse and we are again called upon to render our decision; and again and again, as long as life shall continue, with the recurrence of each seventh day we are brought face to face with the precept, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” What can be pleaded in extenuation of his guilt who has just broken one of God’s commandments, who through six days preceding that act intended to break it, and now enters upon a new week with the determination that at the end of six days he will break the same commandment again? One whose conscience has once been aroused to the duty of keeping holy the Sabbath day, and who, notwithstanding, continues in a life of disobedience, can never truthfully plead in excuse the circumstances which are admitted in extenuation of crimes of a different character. He has ample time to reflect on the consequences99of his disobedience. The crime of which he is guilty is committed with full deliberation. The malice borne by him toward the law of God is “malice aforethought.” As it has accompanied every act of disobedience in this respect in the past, so it enters into all his calculations for the future, and causes him to turn every Sabbath he may spend into a monument of his deliberate and premeditated defiance of God and his authority.