Sunday Law and Legalism

50%

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 5.

Read the full edition

Sunday Law and Legalism

WHEN we preach the necessity of obedience to the commandments of God, there are many who charge us with being legalists, notwithstanding the fact that we preach "the faith of Jesus" at the same time as of equal importance. Those who repudiate the Sabbath of the Lord, seem to have a terrible horror of anything like legalism. But here an anomaly presents itself. The same people who would not dare keep the Sabbath, lest they should be called legalists, are very zealous in their efforts to have laws enacted to enforce the observance of Sunday. Law, law, law, is their main theme. "We must have a law," say they, "in order to check this Sunday desecration." Is not this legalism? If not, what is it? It seems from their actions as though the only law to be shunned is the law of God. After all, this is but natural, for that is the law which brands the Sunday as a base counterfeit. No wonder Sunday devotees wish to throw the law of God into the shade; but when they actually have a law requiring Sunday observance, their fear of legalism will be gone.