WHO IS TO BLAME? by T. S. Parmelee

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 24, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 37.

WHO IS TO BLAME?

By T. S. Parmelee

BY T. S. PARMELEE.

THE blame for all the uproar about opening or closing the gates of the World's Fair on Sunday lies somewhere. Those who acknowledged that it is a religious question ought to know that the blame rests upon those who have departed from the standard of true religion, which is the Bible. A Methodist pastor of Chicago has acknowledged that the church has departed from the Bible. The Chicago Herald of May 22 quotes Rev. James Miller, pastor of the Marshfield Avenue Methodist Church, as preaching the following words to his Methodist congregation the day before:—

"Then, again, if this ancient Sabbath law is still in force, it is still good for the day as well as for the manner of its observance; but we Christians have changed the day and have decreed that the first and not the seventh day shall be observed as the Sabbath, and we have done this without any pretense of authority from either the Old or New Testament except that which is strained and forced to meet the emergency of an argument."

In this Mr. Miller has told the exact truth; and in a standard work on theology, in the Methodist Church, Binney's "Theological Compend," the author plainly states that, as there is no positive command for infant baptism, neither is there any for keeping holy the first day of the week.

These admissions are significant when they are connected with the fact that no church is more forward than the Methodist Church to force people to keep Sunday on the ground that it is a sin to do ordinary work on the first day of the week. They are significant because the Bible, the standard of true religion, says, "Where no law is there is no transgression."

Who cannot see that, instead of knowing the righteousness of God, they are going about to establish their own righteousness? They admit that there is no divine law for keeping Sunday, yet they are determined to have laws of their own to force men to keep Sunday.

But it may be asked, "Do not Methodists attempt to show that the Bible requires Sunday keeping?" They do; but as Mr. Miller candidly confesses, all their arguments are strained and forced to meet the emergency. A divine law against making Sunday a common day, without which there can be no transgression, never has been found, and never will be found. Dr. Potts, the editor of the Michigan Christian Advocate, undertook to prove that God requires Sunday keeping, and he wrote a good-sized tract on the subject, entitled "The Lord's Day, Our Sabbath." In this tract he too admits that a demand for such a law cannot be met, when he says, "Such a demand is absurd."

The commandments of God are his righteousness. His righteousness is revealed in the gospel of Christ; this is the reason why the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation; and this is why the apostle Paul was not ashamed of it. A gospel that men go about to establish, because it reveals their own righteousness, cannot be the same as the gospel of Christ, even though it may be called by the same name.