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The Sabbath

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 9, 1863

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 22, No. 2.

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The Sabbath.

By Editor

QUESTION. Would it be right for a Sabbath-keeper to rent a house, or farm, or a mill to be used on the Sabbath?
ANSWER. It is a pleasure to notice these questions which arise from a conscientious desire to correctly observe the Sabbath.
The design of the fourth commandment is to secure to the people of God rest and freedom from worldly care upon the seventh day. Any arrangement of secular matters which would endanger the quiet of the Sabbath, and be liable to take the mind from sacred subjects, is not in harmony with the great object of the Sabbath. Hence all within our gates should yield to the claims of the Sabbath law.
With this view of the subject, we do not see how those who conscientiously reverence the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, can take those into their houses as boarders who labor on the seventh day. In most cases boarders coming in for their meals, would require that attention upon the Sabbath which would disturb the quiet upon that day which was designed to be secured to the people of God.
Again, if a brother rents a shop to a Sabbath-breaker which is on the same village or city lot on which he lives, he and his family may often have their minds called from the sacredness of the Sabbath by circumstances connected with the business of that shop. Hence all within his gates should rest. Or if he rents the home farm, or any part of it, to a Sabbath-breaker, those within his gates are liable to have their minds caught away from the heavenly to the earthly by the usual stir of ploughing and sowing, driving and carting, reaping and threshing. If a special contract be made not to have labor performed on the home premises on the seventh day, then in most cases Sabbath disturbances are prevented.
But suppose the home, or farm, or mill is not connected with the Sabbath-keeper's place of residence and he rents either for one year and puts it from his control, and is in no way disturbed by the labor that is done on the farm &c during that time we do not see that he violates the great principle of the Sabbatic institution.