MAKING IT "EASY TO DO RIGHT."
By G.
A STOCK-IN-TRADE plea for Sunday enforcement laws is that it is the business of the government to enact such laws as will make it easy for people to do right and hard for them to do wrong. This doctrine is an encouragement to men to do right just because that is the easier way. It is a bid for the exercise of hypocrisy, rather than a desire to do right because it is right. Christ laid down this principle, "Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." The idea that the secular government is under obligation to take away the cross from the service of Christ is well designed to smooth the way for designing hypocrites to secure membership in the church. As an illustration of God's way of testing the integrity and loyalty of men, we have the example of His dealing with our first parents in the Garden of Eden. He made their consciences,5their personal convictions, the arbiter of their duty as to whether they would obey His commandments or not; there was no attempt to make it easy to obey or hard to disobey. He planted two trees "in the midst of the garden" (Gen. 2:9; 3:3). The trees were in close proximity; there was no fence around either of them; one was just as easy of access as the other, altho God was exceedingly anxious that the man and woman should eat of one and not partake of the other. Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil He said, "Thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Chapter 2:17. Thus the only barrier to the act of disobedience, the commission of sin, was the commandment of God. The question of its being easy to obey or hard to disobey was altogether a question of conscience, of personal conviction, not of civil barriers set about the choice of evil. It is just so with Sabbath observance. God set apart a certain day of the week as His Sabbath day, and gave commandment to men that they should observe it. "The Sabbath [the seventh day of the week] was made for man." Gen. 2:2, 3; Mark 2:27. Altho it was made for man's use, it is God's "holy day" (Isa. 58:13). He blessed the day, and attached a blessing for all who observe it. It is His blessing that accompanies the true observance of the Sabbath, and the obligation of obedience lies to Him alone. He has not transferred to man the prerogative to make another sabbath, nor to add a human commandment concerning any day. It is man's duty to regard the Sabbath to the Lord only, and not in any case or in any manner to human authority. All that man can do to encourage others in the true Sabbath observance is to himself set the example of obedience to the commandment of God. It is the Christian's duty to let the light of truth shine in his own example, that others may see his good works and glorify the Father in heaven. But for man to add to the commandment of God, or set up any substitute for it, is sheer presumption. And no human authority has a right to attach penalties to any religious act not in itself unevil, nor to enjoin under penalty any act pertaining to religion. The Sabbath being the Lord's, the service of the day is due to Him, according to His commandment, and not to the state according to state law. But even on the plea of making it easy to do right and hard to do wrong, if we view the matter from the standpoint of God's law, enforced Sunday observance is a perversion of the doctrine. The Sunday law makes it physically hard to keep the Sabbath commandment of the Lord, while making it hard also for all who have no conscience in the observance of any day. It is right "to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29), but the Sunday law enjoins a practical fine of one day's labor upon every one who obeys the fourth commandment of the Decalogue.