Sunday Legislation and Religious Liberty
Sunday observance and Sunday legislation are two very different propositions. As far as human right is concerned, any man has a right to observe Sunday as religiously as he chooses. But when he seeks law to compel others to do as he does, he manifests a spirit of tyranny. He sets himself up as a judge of what other men shall do in a matter of conscience. He asks the state to enforce his convictions upon his fellow-men. This the Lord Himself did not do. He said, "If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." Now if Christ did not assume to judge men who did not believe as He did, what right has any professed disciple to do so? He committed to His disciples only the kind of work that He did, which they were to do in all the world; and He asked no aid from the civil government, nor did any of His apostles. It is true that all who do not believe His Word and follow His example will have to meet it in the judgment; but when He was a preacher of the Gospel, He recognized every man's right to believe or not to believe, leaving them to be judged by the Word "in the last day." See John 12:47, 48.