DECEIVED AND BEING DECEIVED.
By Ethan Lanphear
WHY deceive yourselves, “God is not mocked.” Piety and zeal are not Christianity unless it is of God and Christ. There seems to be a wonderful sight of zeal for Sunday of late; and ministers preach and talk about Sunday legislation, and that our Constitution should have the Sabbath and God legislated into it. Do men think that they can strengthen God by legislation? and by legislation support God’s law by substituting the heathen Sunday in place of God’s ordained Sabbath? Do they think they can deceive God as they do men? Let them not pretend that they are working for God, while they are teaching for doctrine the commandments of men. To call Sunday, or the first day of the week, Sabbath, is to place man above God and his Son. And that is just what they are doing in trying to legislate for men to observe Sunday in place of the Lord’s Sabbath. Why, friends, the first day of the week is not mentioned but seven or eight times in the whole Bible; and never as taking the place of the Sabbath. Then why this effort to substitute it by law unless to maintain the heathen sun’s day! Which God are you endeavoring to advocate? “Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” “Be not deceived;” for the world and the souls of men are at stake.