The Fourth Commandment and Sunday-Keepers.
By Editor
In resuming our remarks upon this subject, we will state again our proposition, that it may be distinctly before the mind. It is, the attempt that is made by those who observe the first day of the week, to sustain that practice on the authority of the fourth commandment, and the impropriety of so doing. The frequency with which appeal is made to the fourth commandment, by the most zealous Sunday-keepers, is a significant fact. It shows that they know, what even the most superficial reader of the Bible must know, that there is the only source from whence to derive authority for a weekly Sabbath. That commandment still remains in all its binding force. There is nothing in the word of God to show its abolition or its change. Whatever it has required of God's servants in any age, it requires of them at the present time. The claims that it had on Israel, God's chosen people, when it was spoken from Sinai, it has on his true Israel in these last days. Yet, apparently, if the religious teachers of the present time, can so impress the minds of the people that they will believe, when they quote the fourth commandment, that it means Sunday, and raise no question on that point, they can rest satisfied. And the boldness and fervency with which they appeal to the fourth commandment to enforce the sanctity of what they call the "Christian Sabbath," shows either that they themselves have grown blind in the repetition of it, or that they have the utmost confidence in the credulity of their hearers. They sanctimoniously appeal to the Bible and to the fourth commandment, as if they supported their creed and custom; and they have succeeded in making the mass of the world believe that this is the case. But there will be a few inquiring and honest minds who will search for themselves, and who will not fail to see the false colors under which they are sailing. We present a few extracts this week also, an illustration of our remarks. We take the following from the Genesee Evangelist, a paper that, for aught we know, is as zealous for its Sunday as any of our contemporaries: "The Bible is the great anti-sin text-book; the church, the great anti-sin society. No reform can be successful and complete which is not founded on the great fundamental principles contained in the Ten Commandments. All else is surface work, and must prove abortive. As well might you kill a tree by clipping off here and there a twig, as kill a moral evil, while its root is still striking deep in a luxuriant soil." When we see such ideas advanced as the above, and know the practice of those who advance them, it is natural for us to inquire, Upon what principle of the ten commandments is the observance of the first day of the week, as a day of rest, founded? Is there anything in the fourth commandment, from which any one could justly dream of setting apart the first day of each week as holy time? There is nothing. The very "principle" of that commandment confines us to another day; hence we shall adopt the sentiment expressed above, and unhesitatingly say, that the practice of Sunday-keeping is "surface work" and "must prove abortive." No such sabbatizing as this, after mankind have had an opportunity of seeing the light and learning God's will, will ever secure them an entrance through the gates into the city. Rev. xxii, 14. The following remarks on "The Fourth Commandment," we also take from another number of the Evangelist. Those who keep the commandments according to its requirements; who understand the relation the world sustains to the law of God, and the ministration of Christ in the Sanctuary for those who have violated it, will perceive their force and beauty. We only wonder how men can work themselves up to a belief that such remarks are applicable to Sunday: "THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.—It having been the purpose of God that the dishonor done to his law in its violation should be repaired in a way in which it is exhibited as more glorious and more highly valued by him than it ever had been before, ought not means to have been used forcibly to impress this on the minds of men, till that reparation should take place? The precautions, therefore, employed for the preservation of the two tables of the law, after the first had been broken, which in any other view would, from their strictness and minuteness, be altogether unaccountable, were admirably adapted to the end for which they were appointed. Here then we have a demonstration of the permanent obligation of the fourth commandment of the decalogue, since it constitutes a part of that law which was so signally distinguished in its promulgation, and so carefully deposited for its preservation; of that law which the Redeemer fulfilled for the justification of his people; and that law by which they are justified, they must be bound in all its parts to obey. How, then, shall it ever be supposed that the ten commandments belong only to Israel, and are not of everlasting and universal obligation? Or on what ground can it be affirmed that the fourth commandment is to be separated from the rest, so that one is blotted out of their number, and that they are now reduced to nine." The reasoning contained in the above for the perpetuity and universal obligation of the fourth commandment, are well-grounded and unanswerable. But when men stand up and defend the claims of that commandment, and then disregard the day therein specified and keep another, there is a discrepancy between their teaching and their practice which cannot be reconciled. There is one portion of the world, however, who are more consistent on this subject than Protestants. We refer to the Catholic Church, which claims to have instituted Sunday-keeping, and defends its practice on those claims alone. They will own to you that the fourth commandment contains no law for Sunday, but that it enjoins the observance of another day; but they claim that their church has a right to change and has changed the day of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. Protestants will not admit this claim, and yet with almost one consent they adopt the fruit of it, the observance of Sunday, which has nothing else for its support. We give below the extraordinary document which we promised in our last. It is one of the means by which the Church of Rome deceives her blind and credulous disciples into whatever practices she wishes. We find it in the "American and Foreign Christian Union" of 1851. The "Union" introduces it with the following remarks:— "A friend has just sent us a large and handsomely printed German hand-bill, lately issued at Philadelphia for the benefit of the 'faithful' in this country who speak the language of Luther. It is likely that many an edition of the same document has appeared among us, in years gone by, for it is now nearly seventy years since the original, as it is pretended, descended from heaven! But, by whom it was received, and under what circumstances, we are not informed. What a pity it is that Rome will betake herself to 'lying wonders,' even to expose what is in itself good, rather than send her votaries directly to the Bible, where the infinite GOD has revealed His will in the clearest and fullest manner! But, so it is, and so it ever will be, whilst Rome continues what she is. Here is the extraordinary document in question, translated into English. 'A LETTER, WRITTEN BY GOD HIMSELF, and which was handed down at Magdeburg.
'It was written in golden letters, and sent from God himself, by an Angel; whoever wishes to copy it, to him it shall be given; whoever despises it, from him will THE LORD DEPART.'
'Whoever labors on Sunday, is cursed. Therefore I command that ye labor not on Sunday, but devoutly go to church; but not to decorate your faces; ye shall not wear false hair, nor be proud of your riches; ye shall give to the poor; give liberally, and believe that this letter is written by my own hand, and sent down by Christ himself; and that ye do not as the irrational beasts. Ye have six days in the week: but the seventh (namely, Sunday) ye shall sanctify; if ye will not do this, I will send war, famine, pestilence and scarcity among you, and punish you with many plagues. So I also command you, every one of you, whoever ye may be, young and old, small and great, that ye never work late on Saturday, but ye shall repent of your sins, that they may be forgiven unto you. Nor desire silver and gold; gratify not the lusts of the flesh and its desires; remember that I made you, and that I can destroy you.
'Be not rejoiced if your neighbor be poor; much more have compassion on him, so it shall be well unto you.
'Ye children! honor father and mother, so it shall be well with you on earth; whoever does not do this is damned and lost.
'I Jesus, have written this with my own hand; whoever contradicts and blasphemes it, shall have no help to expect from me; whoever has the letter and does not reveal it, he is cursed from the CHRISTIAN CHURCH; and if your sins be ever so great, they shall be forgiven if ye exercise repentance and sorrow.
'Whoever does not believe it, shall die and be tormented in hell, and I too shall inquire at the last day after your sins, when ye must answer me.
'And that person, who carries the letter with him, or keeps it in his house, shall not be injured by any thunder-gust; he shall be secure from fire and water; and whoever shall reveal it before the children of men, shall have his reward, and obtain a blessed departure from this world.
'Keep my commandment, which I have sent to you through my Angel. I, true God of the Throne of Heaven, one of God and of Mary. Amen.
'This is written at Magdeburg in the year 1783.'" The remarks of the "Union" which introduce the above "letter," furnish another illustration of the presumption with which men appeal to the Bible in support of a custom which is there recognized. "What a pity," it exclaims, "that Rome will betake herself to 'lying wonders,' even to expose what is in itself good, rather than send her votaries directly to the Bible, where the infinite God has revealed his will in the clearest and fullest manner." The fact that God has revealed his will in the clearest and fullest manner, in his word, we gratefully acknowledge, and we are glad to see the "Union" acknowledge it also; and now we earnestly ask, Where has God revealed in that word that Sunday-keeping is according to his will? We have searched and cannot find it. Others have searched and cannot find it; and as Rachel mourned for her children, so they mourned and would not be comforted because it was not; until they were forced to yield to the power of truth and humbly do God's will as he had revealed it, and as he required it at their hand. If the "Union" will go to that Word for God's will for Sunday-keeping, it will not find it. If Rome should send her votaries there, the first thing they would do, would be to renounce a day of human sanctification, and turn to the original Sabbath that God instituted, blest, and hallowed. We say then, Go to that Word where God has revealed his will concerning us, and as you go, arm yourself with the firm resolution, that you will obey his will, however much it may cause you to differ from the customs of the unsanctified world around you; however contrary it may be to the teachings and practice of the mass who are traveling the broad road to ruin. You will, indeed, there find that will revealed in the "clearest and fullest manner," but be not faithless or unbelieving when you find that it is not in accordance with the traditions by which the world practice at the present day. It is time that men, that Protestants, who profess to take the Bible alone as their rule of faith and practice, should order their lives accordingly, or renounce its teachings.