The Proper Foundation of Sabbath Observance.
By C. P. Bollman
THE question of the proper basis for Sabbath observance is one about which a great deal is said nowadays; and yet it is a subject that should be free from all difficulty. In fact, there is but one reason for Sabbath observance, and that is because God requires it. It may indeed be true that man needs a weekly day of rest to meet his physical wants; but the proof is far from conclusive, and even granting all that is ever claimed in that direction, it must be admitted that one day will meet the physical wants quite as well as another. But no believer in revealed religion will admit that Sabbath-keeping consists alone in physical rest; all will insist that there are certain moral elements which are essential to true Sabbath observance. God has commanded, saying: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." Here, then, is, as all must admit, the only proper and sufficient basis or foundation for Sabbath observance; and were this commandment generally obeyed just as it reads, there would be no trouble; all the difficulty arises from the fact that another day is substituted for the one enjoined in the commandment, and of course another reason must be given for its observance. One who keeps the seventh day can, when asked to give a reason for his practice, say that he keeps it because God has so commanded; but he who keeps another day must give another reason. That is, the seventh-day keeper can and does quote the fourth commandment in support of his practice, but the first-day keeper cannot use the commandment; for there is not a single fact stated in it that is true of the first day except that it was one of the six days upon which God worked. And no one will so stultify himself as to say, "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; and because of that fact I rest on the first day." Therefore the conclusion is unavoidable that to change the day of the Sabbath is to change the reason for keeping the day. But to change the day, and to change the reason for keeping the day, is to change the nature of the institution. Yea, more: it is to destroy the original institution and to set up another in its stead; therefore Sunday-keeping is destructive of the original Sabbath institution. But again: the fourth commandment contains no reason whatever for first-day observance; and not only so, but each fact stated therein is an argument against the practice; therefore the fourth commandment cannot be made to support the Sunday institution, and the conclusion is again inevitable, that to change the day necessarily changes the reason for keeping the day; therefore the first day of the week cannot be observed as the Sabbath in obedience to the fourth commandment. The Sabbath, we say, rests entirely upon the will of the Creator, because it is based upon facts relative to the acts of the Creator only, and is in no wise contingent upon the will or act of any creature or creatures whatever. But to base the Sabbath solely upon the will of the Creator is to clothe it with the highest morality, for obedience to the will of God is the essence of all morality; indeed, without obedience, there can be no morality. And as God does not require the observance of Sunday, and as it cannot be kept in obedience to any divine law, therefore Sunday keeping is devoid of all morality. That the observance of Sunday does not rest upon the fourth commandment, or indeed upon any divine law whatever, is freely admitted by many even among the most zealous first-day people; for instance, the Christian at Work of January 8, 1885, said:— "The selection of Sunday, thus changing the particular day designated in the fourth commandment, was brought about by the gradual concurrence of the early Christian church, and on this basis, and on none other, does the Christian Sabbath, the first day of the week, rightly rest." But while this is a confession that the Sunday-sabbath does not rest upon the fourth commandment, but solely on the "gradual concurrence of the early Christian church," it is somewhat ambiguous as to the time of this change; but this lack of definiteness is supplied by the following from the same paper under date of February 18, 1886:— "We hear less than we used to about the apostolic origin of the present Sunday observance, and for the reason that while the Sabbath and Sabbath rest are woven into the warp and woof of Scripture, it is now seen, as it is admitted, that we must go to later than apostolic times for the establishment of Sunday observance." That is to say (and it is the truth) that not only does the Sunday institution lack the authority of the law of God, but it lacks even the example of the apostolic church; and is not only not based upon the will of God as expressed in the fourth commandment, but it is based solely upon the will and action of the church this side the days of the apostles; therefore, being found to lack the essential element of divine authority, the first day of the week is not and cannot be the Sabbath.