Learned Men on the Sabbath.
By J. B. Frisbie
ADDRESS OF THE PHILADELPHIA CONFERENCE.—DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN:—When you connected yourselves with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and acknowledged us as your pastors and spiritual teachers, you doubtless expected we would diligently watch for your good, and faithfully admonish you of approaching danger. And even if you had not, we should ill deserve the confidence you have placed in us were we to be silent on any point where we believe your welfare is involved; and we should certainly become obnoxious to the threatenings of God against the watchman who beheld the sword, but warned not the people. See Eze. xxxiii, 6. And believing you will regard it as an evidence of our pastoral affection and fidelity, we, according to our conviction of its necessity, submit you the following address on the sanctification of the Lord's day. As this is so expressly enjoined upon us in the Bible and the Discipline of our church, it is unnecessary to argue at length its moral obligation. It was instituted by God, and given man when first created and placed in Eden, designed to assist his intellectual and spiritual exercises, and periodically call to his mind a future heaven of rest and happiness, of which it is a type. If this was given to man in his pure state, how much more needful is it in his fallen state! Accordingly God re-enjoined its sacred observance upon the Jews in their ceremonial, civil and moral laws. Nor was it commanded merely, but to its proper sanctification were promised the special blessings of its great Author:—"For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my Sabbath, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant, even unto them will I give in my house, and within my walls, a place and a name better than that of sons and of daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." Isa. lvi, 4, 5. "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob, thy father; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it." Isa. lviii, 13, 14. In perfect accordance with the Scriptures on this subject, it is stated in the General Rules of the Discipline of our church, "It is expected of all who continue in these societies, that they continue to evidence their desire of salvation by doing no harm, avoiding evil of every kind; such as the profaning the day of the Lord, either by doing ordinary work therein, or by buying or selling." And at the close it is added, "These are the general rules of our societies, all of which we are taught of God to observe, even in his written word. If there be any among us who observe them not, who habitually break any of them, let it be known unto them who watch over that soul, as they who must give an account. We will admonish him of the error of his ways; we will bear with him for a season: but then, if he repent not, he hath no more place among us; we have delivered our own souls." Where the profanation of the Lord's day is great and alarming, to this may be added the prevailing practice in the cities and large towns of buying and selling bread, milk, ice, and other articles of food, or luxuries, which previous attention might have prevented; the habit of shaving, or being shaved, blacking boots and shoes, and performing various other little offices and culinary labors on the Sabbath, which certainly ought not to have been omitted on Saturday, and which conflict with the proper discharge of the sacred duties of this holy day. Thus much we say of the church generally; but suffer us to speak plainly to you as Methodists. DR. CHAMBERS says, "It was Constantine the Great who first made a law for the observance of Sunday, and who, according to Eusebius, appointed that it should be regularly celebrated throughout the Roman empire. LAW OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.—"There shall be no shooting, hunting, fishing, sporting, playing, horse-racing, gaming, frequenting of tippling-houses, or any unlawful exercises or pastimes, on the first day of the week, called Sunday; nor shall any person travel on that day, unless in cases of charity or necessity, or in going to or returning from some church or place of worship; nor shall there be any servile laboring or working on that day, excepting works of necessity and charity." Most, if not all the States in the Union have laws essentially agreeing with the above; and this protection of the Sabbath has obviously grown out of the conviction of all intelligent legislators, that a holy day of rest, and the public worship of God, "are," as the statutes of Vermont well express, "in the highest degree promotive of the peace, happiness, and prosperity of a people." REVISED STATUTES OF MICHIGAN.—For the observance of the First Day of the Week. SECTION 1. No person shall keep open his shop, warehouse or work-house, or shall do any manner of labor, business or work, except only works of necessity and charity, or be present at any dancing, or at any public diversion, show or entertainment, or take part in any sport, game, or play, on the first day of the week; and every person so offending shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten dollars for each offense. SEC. 6. If any person shall, on the said first day of the week, by rude and indecent behavior, or in any other way, intentionally interrupt or disturb any assembly of people met for the purpose of worshiping God, he shall be punished by fine not less than two nor more than fifty dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding thirty days. SEC. 7. No person who conscientiously believes that the seventh day of the week ought to be observed as the Sabbath, and actually refrains from secular business and labor on that day, shall be liable to the penalties provided in this chapter, for performing secular business or labor on the said first day of the week, provided he disturbs no other person.—p. 191. We see that there is a provision made for the Sabbath in Mich.; but it is not so in all the States. Some are already threatening that there must be a stop put to this Sunday-breaking in this State. Some think that we should be "subject to the powers that be." We intend to be if they are ordained according to the law of God. But to say that we shall be subject to the law of man when it stands in direct opposition to the law of God, would make God contradict himself. The proverb is, "When Doctors disagree, who shall decide." We not only find learned Doctors disagreeing with each other, but contradicting themselves, as in the case of Watson, Humphrey, Stone and Edwards. They will first argue for the perpetuity of the Sabbath, which is the seventh day; and then turn around and say it is the first day instead of the seventh, for various no-reasons, and contradictory assertions. Many say the day is changed. Many say it is not. Some say the change of the day does not effect the law. Others say that it destroys or abolishes it. Mr. Stone says that "it is highly probable, when the Sabbath was revived in the wilderness, the old seventh day had been lost, and a new one was substituted." Then a few pages further in his book he says, "The change of the Sabbath, from the seventh to the first day of the week was at first introduced by Christ and his apostles." How Christ and his apostles could have changed it from the seventh day to the first, when they were not keeping the seventh day, it will take a learned doctor to tell. Such consummate folly we have to meet on this question everywhere, whether it is by their dead or living authors, that it is enough to make any enlightened man sick of such worldly wisdom, (I had almost said worldly folly.) I will close these learned extracts by quoting one more learned man of modern times, "If, then, the original Sabbath law is still in force, our First-day-keepers are Sabbath-breakers; but if what they keep is the true Christian Sabbath, then the original institution is done away. It is sheer perversion of language to call that the same, which differs in so many particulars. As well might we say that the fourth of July is the same as Christmas."
J. B. FRISBIE.
Battle Creek, Mich., May, 1856.