The Evils of Sabbath Laws
THE keeping of the Sabbath is a duty belonging to God. With that duty man has no right to interfere. If men desire, they may worship now, if they do no injury to their neighbors' life, chastity, property, or reputation, and the law protects them in that worship. A Sabbath law could do no more in that direction. It cannot compel worship; worship is a matter of the heart as well as of form. Law could compel form, but form compelled without the motive, is but a sham. Many would favor such a law in order to curry favor with those who demanded the law, and thus hypocrisy would be encouraged. The more conscientious who oppose such a law would be the ones who would suffer most, while the most time-serving and hypocritical would be loaded with favor. These are only a fragment of the evils which such a law would develop. Christ's kingdom is not of this world; its principles are not to be propagated with carnal weapons; and when an institution which claims to be Christian is pushed forward by civil law, it loses its divine and sacred character, and is no longer an institution of Christianity, but of evil and evil only.