Why Have the People No Sabbath?
By R. F. Cottrell
THERE are those who are pleading for Sunday laws, and bewailing the prevalent and increasing disregard for the day. What has tended to bring about this state of things? Who is responsible for the fact that no Sabbath is kept by the people? One reason is that the people are learning the fact that Sunday-keeping is not a divine institution, and consequently is not binding upon any man's conscience. The apostle says, "They be no gods, which are made with hands." Such gods have no claim upon our reverence and adoration. In like manner, that is no Sabbath that is made with hands. Sunday-keeping is no more than a man-made institution, and consequently has no claim upon the conscience. Those that deplore the fact that the people have no Sabbath, are themselves rejecting the Sabbath of the Lord, and calling for civil legislation in support of the human institution which has usurped its place, an institution of which Calvin said, "The Fathers put in the place of the Sabbath the day we now call Lord's day." It may be truly said of them as Jesus said to the Jews: "Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." They talk very sanctimoniously about the Sabbath, the law of God, and the fourth commandment, while they observe a day which has no Scriptural title to the name of the Lord's Sabbath, having never had any place in the divine law. Weekly they trample the Lord's Sabbath under foot, while they deplore the fact that the people keep no Sabbath, and are anxious that the Government should give them one. If they would keep and teach the Sabbath of the Lord according to the commandment, they might reach the consciences of the people, and have no need of State laws to enforce it. Men would keep the Sabbath, because it is indeed the Lord's day, the day on which he rested, and which he blessed, and, by an explicit command, set apart for man's observance. It is the want of any command of God for the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, which creates the necessity for human legislation. Hence the urgent appeal to the Government to give the people a Sabbath. God has given us his Sabbath as a memorial of himself and his creative work; and all we ask of our hitherto free Government is still to protect us in the inalienable right to worship God according to the dictates of his word and our own conscience. Buffalo, N. Y. R. F. COTTRELL.