No Law--No Transgression.
By J. M. McLellan
Those who keep the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord, are sometimes branded by those who keep the Sunday, the first day of the week, as sinners, because they labor upon the so-called Christian Sabbath, or Sunday. Is it a sin to work upon the Sunday? I think not. God has given us a law of ten precepts, and whosoever breaks any one of those precepts of which this law is composed, is a sinner, and is guilty before God. Says John, "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law; for sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John iii, 4. One of the precepts in the law of God says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." By this we learn that one of the days of each successive week is to be kept holy as the Sabbath of the Lord, and if any one should work upon that day which God has honored and commanded to be kept holy, he would be a "transgressor of the law," and consequently a sinner. Now which day of the week is it that God has commanded to be kept holy, which is to be observed as the Sabbath? Is it the first or seventh day of the week? Says the word of God, "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." The reason given why the seventh day is to be kept as the Sabbath is, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it." Ex. xx, 9-11. By this we learn that the seventh day, and not the first, is the Sabbath enforced by the decalogue; and in vain have we searched through the pages of inspiration for a command to keep Sunday; and we feel safe in saying that it cannot be found only in the traditionary legends of the Catholic church, "the mother of harlots," and her prostitute daughters. And Paul says in Rom. iv, 15, "For where no law is there is no transgression." And "sin is not imputed where there is no law." Hence if there cannot be found a law in the Bible that says that Sunday is the Sabbath, and that labor should not be done on that day, how is a man that works on Sunday a sinner for so-doing. I know that nearly all christendom is keeping Sunday in place of the Sabbath, and some urge this in favor of Sunday-keeping. They say that they keep Sunday because the multitude do. Says the prophet, "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil." Deut. xxiii, 2. "My son, if sinners entice thee consent thou not. My son, walk not thou in the way with them, refrain thy foot from their path." Prov. i, 10, 15. Again, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." Prov. xiv, 12. Sunday-keeping seems right to the multitude, (or at least they say so,) but "the end thereof are the ways of death;" for in keeping Sunday they break the Sabbath, and that is sin, and Paul says that "the wages of sin is death." There is not a single promise in the Bible for those who keep Sunday; but many precious promises there are for those who keep the Sabbath. They will have "right to the tree of life and enter in through the gates into the city." Rev. xxii, 14. Let those who charge Sabbath-keepers as being sinners because they work upon Sunday, beware lest the guilt be found upon their own selves in keeping it to the neglect of the true Sabbath. Hastings, Feb. 25th, 1857.