The Sunday-Rest Bill of California.
By Editor
WHILE such papers as the San Jose Mercury, and such persons as Dr. G. L. Tufts, declare that the proposed Sunday-rest law is in no sense a religious law, the Rev. James Whitaker, Ph.D., writes in the California Christian Advocate, a strong Sunday-law paper, as follows: "The question of Sabbath observance is of vital importance to the individual, the state, and to the nation. . . . California is in great need of a Sabbath law. . . . A nation that sets aside the Sabbath as a day of worship and uses it as a day of pleasure, recreation, and sport can not expect to hold a place of influence and power among the nations very long. The European Sabbath must be destroyed by the American people and the Christian Sabbath restored if we are to save our nation from corruption and ultimate death. We see with alarm the growth of Sabbath desecration. Picnics, excursions, baseball games, horse racing, automobile racing, and pleasure-seeking on the Sabbath appear to be growing." (Boldface ours.) Now there can be no doubt as to what Dr. Whitaker wants; he wants a religious Sabbath, and a law to enforce the at-least outward observance of the religious Sabbath, to prevent its "desecration" by "pleasure-seeking," "recreation," "picnics," etc. Some men take their recreation in fishing, some in picnics with a few friends, some in physical labor of various kinds, but all this would "desecrate" the Sunday of Dr. Whitaker, and violate his ideal law. When the San Jose Mercury secured its "benevolent," "reasonable" non-religious Sunday-rest law, Dr. Whitaker would see to it that it was made the religious Sabbath he desires. Not to leave in doubt, Dr. Whitaker further says: "Some people are not in favor of a Sabbath law, because it will violate the conscience of those who do not believe in the Lord's day. But what is conscience? Is it a sovereign, is it a law, is it that which applies a law to the actions of men? It is not a sovereign, neither is it a law, unless it be in accord with the law of God. God's law is supreme, for He is the Sovereign of the universe. . . . I have a right, and am bound, to restrain men from wrong-doing, no matter how conscientious he may be in it.9"The laws of the state or nation must conform to the law of God, so as to restrain the actions of men whenever they are detrimental to the public good. It is the duty of the state to enact laws for Sabbath observance, and enforce them, because it is in accord with God's law and for the good of the people and the nation. Men may cry bigotry and intolerance, and say that this is contrary to civil liberty; but liberty to sin always involves injury to others. . . . The Christian Sabbath is enshrined in the tenderest memories and holiest associations of our national life." Surely we can not misunderstand this. It is to make the state God's vicar, the judge to religious controversy, and the one who speaks for God. It is fearful assumption. All sin is of the heart and motive. All sin is detrimental to the one who commits it, and injurious many times to one's neighbor. It is sin to hate one's neighbor. It is sin to lust after the other sex. Inspiration says of the one that it is murder, and Jesus says of the other that it is adultery. It is sin to covet. It is sin to take God's name in vain, not alone in profane swearing, but in hypocritical prayers and professions. And so with scores of other things. All those things which affect the individual's life for evil affect the public good, affect the state; but it is utter folly to say the state should correct them, because the state can not, in the nature of the case, correct them. It would renew the Inquisition, and rightly determine nothing. So with the Sabbath. God commands that the Sabbath shall be kept "holy," "not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words;" but to truly keep the day is to "call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable." Ex. 20:8-11; Isa. 58:13. God's "law is spiritual." Rom. 7:14. The Sabbath precept is a part of that law; therefore the Sabbath is spiritual. But no civil law, no state, no coercion, can enforce a spiritual law. Men can only enforce its empty shell and compel men to be hypocrites. They can do no more. When man can assume to act for God in civil law, in matters of conscience, it is not difficult to assume the authority to do, as did Saul of Tarsus, "persecute unto the death," thinking one is doing God service. And the one justification of it all is, "We are enforcing the law of God for the public good." Well did the United States Senate say in 1829 over the very question of Sunday legislation: "Among all the religious persecutions with which almost every page of modern history is stained, no victim ever suffered but for the violation of what government denominated the law of God." ("American State Papers," page 93.) One party may call it civil or police regulation to deceive itself, and to deceive the people in order to secure it; but when it is secured its religious proponents will exalt it as the law of God, and the state as God's executive. But God's government neither asks nor permits such interference, nor does His Sabbath need such protection or support. He who would thus put his hand to the ark of God would do well to take warning from the rash Uzzah and the entire history of such legislation. What Does God's Law Teach?
Of that Law Dr. Whitaker says: "God's law is supreme, for He is the Sovereign of the universe." Again, concerning that part pertaining to the Sabbath, he declares: "The manner of its observance has been determined by God, and His directions can not be disannulled nor modified by man. It has been stated by some that Christ has Himself modified the Sabbath law and allowed greater liberty both as to labor and recreation." Dr. Whitaker does not believe this, and cites in proof of the fact that Christ did not change the law Matt. 5:17, 18: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Now God's law of the Sabbath reads as follows: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is: and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex. 20:8-11. That is "the supreme law." That is "the supreme law" as regards the particular day as truly as it is regarding the proportion of time. It is the day, the particular day, which is emphasized. Upon it God rested. Sabbath means rest, and Sabbath day, means rest day; and God rested only upon the seventh day of the cycle, the day which came just before the first day of the week. Mark 16:1, 2. That seventh day He blessed; that seventh day He sanctified. Gen. 2:2, 3. That seventh day of the cycle He pointed out by a threefold weekly miracle for forty years. Exodus 16. That same seventh day — rest day — He calls "My holy day." Isa. 58:13. That same seventh day Jesus, our blessed Lord and perfect Example, observed. No other day is named a weekly holy day or Sabbath day in the Scripture. It is an unwarrantable liberty; it is a perversion of truth; it is heaven-daring presumption, to presume to change the law of the Most High. That power which would demand and enforce such substitute under penalty places itself contrary to God's law and God's plan of the Gospel in Jesus Christ.