Sin and Crime by H. W. Cottrell

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 11, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 23.

Sin and Crime

By H. W. Cottrell

GOD’S government has its moral law, the violation of which is sin. It deals with men’s motives, thus entering the secret recesses of the soul. It directs in all questions of conscience and religion, leaving the individual free to choose his religion, or to choose to be unreligious, as he may decide for himself, and will in the last day call each to an account, that he may receive the reward of his choice.

Civil government has its civil laws, and penalties attached thereto; the transgression of which is a crime. The State is endowed with a Heaven-ordained right to punish the criminal for his crime. But the crime may also be a sin, for which he must render account to God. God will punish for sin, and the State will punish for crime.

Every candid, fair-minded person will concede that it is not a crime to work. It is a crime to kill, and it is also a sin to kill. The State determines and executes the punishment for the crime. But it is out of the purview of the State either to determine or to execute punishment for sin. God only can determine the punishment for sin. It is just as truly a crime, and just as great a crime, to kill a man on Sunday as it would be to take his life on Wednesday, but no greater. Murder is murder; and the day of the week the depredation is committed neither adds to nor detracts from the crime.

As working to earn bread is not a crime, the day upon which work is done would not determine it a crime. And inasmuch as the civil government can not punish for sin, but for crime only, leaving sin to be accounted for to God by the individual transgressor, civil government can not, by divine right, determine penalties for work performed on any day of the week.

For the State to legislate on the Sabbath question, attaching a penalty for the violation thereof, is for civil government to assume to dethrone God, be seated in His stead, and deal with and punish for sin; a work which God, and God only, can do. Let not “Cæsar” enter further the realm of conscience.