Sabbath-Breaking Partnerships
By Editor
From the Sabbath Recorder.
SABBATH-BREAKING PARTNERSHIPS.
Suppose a professed Sabbath-keeper to start business on his own account, no partner being concerned with him. Suppose that, as the Sabbath draws near, he makes no arrangement for suspending business, but continues right on. Suppose him, on the Sabbath-day, to give his orders to the men in his employ just as on all other days of the week, and that the work of the establishment ceases not during all the sacred hours. Would he be guilty of sin? Would he be justly chargeable with the violation of God's law? "In it (the Sabbath) 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." Say, reader, in the light of this most explicit law, would the man who conducted his business in the manner supposed be guilty of sin against God? There can be but one answer to this question. Now, if such a man, a professed observer of the Sabbath, would sin in doing so, is it not sinful for any and every body else to do it? For what is sin? Is it any thing else but transgression of the law? And if the law binds all mankind, then whoever fails to do what it requires, sins. The fact that one has never pretended to keep the Sabbath alters not the case; he is as much a transgressor as if he had made never so great pretensions. Is a man who takes the life of another not a murderer, because he never pretended to hold human life sacred? Is one who steals another's purse not a thief, because he never pretended to respect other people's property? Is one who defiles his neighbor's wife not an adulterer, because he never pretended to regard the law of purity? There is no sophistry which can make these things any thing else but transgressions of the divine law, and therefore sins, let the pretensions of those who are convicted of them be what they may. He who fails to remember every seventh day of the week, to keep it holy, does sin against God, simply because he fails to do what the law requires. We do not say that the same amount of criminality attaches to the one who makes no pretensions to keeping the Sabbath, as does to the one who professes to keep it, and yet allows his business to go on. That depends on the amount of instruction he has received as to the nature and claims of the Sabbath. He may have had so little instruction, that his criminality is very small compared with that of the other. But the actual fact of his transgression is in no wise affected by the degree or amount of knowledge which he possesses. Now, if all Sunday-keepers, or (which amounts to the same thing) all who fail to keep holy the seventh day of the week, are in point of fact transgressors of the law, is it not our duty as Sabbath-keepers to tell them so? Is it not our duty to act in such a way as will best tend to make them feel it? Have we any right to be mealy-mouthed about it? Have we any right to talk, or act, so as to make them feel comfortable in their sin? What though they be not as criminal in their transgression as they would be if they had more knowledge—does that give us a right to withhold knowledge from them? Does it make it right for us to tell them that they are not guilty? Does it make it right for us to act so that they would naturally infer that we did not consider them guilty? Sins of ignorance are indeed less criminal than sins against knowledge. There is less moral turpitude in them. But if the ignorance under which they are committed so far destroys their nature that they are not sins, then there is no room for reformation. If it may be argued, that a man is not a Sabbath-breaker simply because he does not know himself to be such, why give him any instruction on the subject? Why not let him alone as a righteous man? If men are not guilty of adultery, murder, theft, lying, oppression, when they do these things in their ignorance, why not let them alone as righteous? Why tell them that they are doing wrong? Why introduce the law to their notice, so making their offense to abound? (Rom. v. 20.) Why preach the gospel to them, implying that they are sinners? Why send missionaries to the ignorant heathen? But our Sabbatarian brethren who have entered into Sabbath-breaking partnerships, do (in effect) say to their associates:—"Your refusal to keep holy the seventh day is not sin. Your prosecution of business every Sabbath-day is not sin. When you go into the shop, or store, and call all hands to work, post books, and settle accounts, and keep the noise and turmoil of business going all the sacred hours of the Sabbath, you commit no sin, notwithstanding God says, Thou shalt not do any work—thou nor thy servant. You are committing no transgression of the divine law in all this, because you do not know84that you are! And we are determined not to tell you that you are, for it is much better for our reputation as Christians, seeing we are associated with you, that your course should seem consistent with the strictest regard for righteousness. We will, therefore, by our continuance in partnership with you, and by our willingness to share in all the gains that may be acquired by the business of the Sabbath, give you to infer that we do not object to the thing, nor regard it as a breach of the Fourth commandment. What renders us the more willing to do this is, that your course is held in esteem among men, while ours is rather looked down upon. You, by keeping Sunday, honor a human tradition, which, in the eyes of men, gives you a better standing for piety than if you kept what God requires of you. We will not therefore, bear any emphatic testimony against your practice, farther than to occasionally suggest, in a modest way, that we differ from you in opinion, and to absent ourselves from the shop, or store on the seventh day." Such is, to all intents, the language of the practice of our brethren associated in business with those who keep the first day of the week. How long will our brethren be content to bear such contradictory testimony? At one time, they say that the refusal of men to keep holy the seventh day of the week is sin. At another, they hardly dare utter such a sentiment. In their church relations, they proclaim that there is no other Sabbath but the seventh day, and that God will accept no other observance in place of it. In their business relations, they are ready to endorse the popular sentiment. When will they learn that even in their business they must glorify God?