Another Sunday-Law Convention

G. E. Fifield • April 2, 1891 • American Sentinel, Vol. 6, No. 14

The American Sabbath Union recently held a convention in Boston for the purpose of organizing an auxiliary State association. Such an organization was effected, and bears the name of the Massachusetts Sabbath Association. The following officers were elected:—

President, Hon. Rufus S. Frost; Vice-Presidents, Ex-Governor W. Chiffin, Rev. A. S. Gumbart, Hon. Newton Talbot, Mr. Robert Gilchrist, Mr. C. B. Botsford; State Secretary, Rev. George A. Crawford, D. D.; Treasurer, Rev. W. C. Wood; Board of Managers, Rev. J. H. Twombly, D. D., Rev. W. R. Clark, D. D., Rev. A. H. Plumb, D. D., Rev. R. J. Adams, D. D., Rev. M. D. Kneeland, D. D., Rev. A. A. Miner, D. D.

After such a striking array of Reverends and D. D.'s as officers and directors, it would seem a trifle difficult for the Sabbath Union to continue as of old, to declare that the movement is not in any sense a clerical one, but that it is only the effort of the poor overworked laboring man to secure his rest. Nevertheless, even this manifestation of assurance has, through much practice, become habitual to the Union, and so, if it should be repeated here in Massachusetts, there would still be "nothing new under the sun." The convention delivered itself of the usual number of speeches against Sunday newspapers and Sunday travel, and all sorts of Sunday work; and resulted in the appointment of a committee to intercede with the Massachusetts Legislature for such a change in the State Sunday laws as will prohibit the publication of the Sunday papers, the great "competitors of the Sunday sermon."

The Chair announced as the committee to petition the Legislature relative to the publication of Sunday papers, the following:—

Rev. Dr. Cook, Rev. Dr. Miner, Rev. Dr. Gordon, Rev. Dr. Thomas, Rev. Dr. Brodbeck, Rev. Dr. Chadbourne, Hon. Jonathan A. Lane, and Hon. E. H. Dunn, with power to fill vacancies.

Another list of Rev. D. D.'s, which makes the poor-overworked-laboring-man plea look as though it were smitten with consumption. When these Reverend gentlemen are lecturing before popular audiences, for the purpose of arousing sympathy and support for their Sunday-law schemes, one would often think, to hear them, that they had so utterly forgotten themselves and their own clerical interests, and had so completely become en rapport with the hard-fisted toilers, that they stood there before the people, the personification of the combined interests of organized labor, a sort of a national Knights of Labor combination, boiled down to one man. When, however, you hear them, in their own convention, tell the real reason why they want these Sunday laws, this rose-tinted illusion of supernal unselfishness quickly vanishes, and it is seen that they, too, are men of like passions with common humanity, and even (shall I say it?), with all the persecutors and inquisitors of old. Not a word about the interests of the poor toilers then, only in so far as they can twine that so-called interest into the support of their own Sunday-law schemes. All is about the post-offices, and the Sunday papers, and the Sunday trains being competitors of the churches, and so for this reason they must be controlled by law.

The first resolution passed by this Boston Convention was as follows:—

Resolved, That we believe that when Christ said, "The Sabbath was made for man," he uttered a principle of perpetual validity. We deprecate that theological instruction which severs all connection between the Lord's day and the principle of one day's rest in seven as recognized in the Revelation at the creation, and in the fourth commandment.

And yet, no organization in the world has ever done so much to "sever the connection" between the Sabbath of to-day, and the divine commandment at creation and at Sinai, as the American Sabbath Union. They have everywhere insisted that there really was no necessary connection between them, that there really were two separate Sabbaths, the "civil American Sabbath," and the religious Sabbath, i. e., the Sabbath resting on the divine commandment.

They have everywhere insisted that these two Sabbaths were so totally separate in nature that the civil American Sabbath could and should be enforced by law, without these laws being religious laws or in any way affecting the religious Sabbath. When we have denied that total separation, and have declared that Sunday laws were religious laws in disguise, they have ever said we were unfair, and that we misrepresented them.

Now a convention of the American Sabbath Union, right while it is working for stricter laws to enforce Sunday observance, declares that we are right, and have been right all the time, and that they too deprecate all attempts to sever the connection between the Sabbath and the divine commandment.

Well, we are glad they have acknowledged it; but it must be remembered that this was all done in their own convention before their own people. Undoubtedly the American Sabbath Union will play the civil Sunday-law game before the public here in Massachusetts as it has done elsewhere. In fact, one of the prominent speakers in that convention has already done so very adroitly, from the Tremont Temple platform, since the convention.

The next resolution passed by the convention reads as follows:—

Resolved, That we believe that the substitution of the first day of the week for the seventh day, as a Sabbath, with undiminished moral obligation, was intended by "the Lord of the Sabbath" as a perpetual memorial of his resurrection, and that it was confirmed by apostolic precept and example.

Now this convention evidently met to organize for the purpose of securing stricter 'Sunday legislation. We would like to inquire what that resolution has to do with the securing of so-called civil Sunday laws in harmony, as they say, with our Federal Constitution? No one doubts their civil right to believe that, or to believe anything else they choose; but the right to force others by law to believe it, or to force them to act as though they believed it, is a very different thing. If they really had a good reason for their belief, they would be content to show that reason to others, and then trust to the awakening of their moral sense for stricter Sunday observance.

Truth has always been willing to stand on its own foundation, trusting to its own inherent strength. The early Christian Church while it remained true to the simple and beautiful principles that Jesus and the apostles taught, needed not the support of the civil power. Strong in the power of truth, which is the power of God, it went forth conquering and to conquer, and in spite of the civil power, in spite of an established and venerable paganism, in spite of the world, the flesh, and the devil, it did conquer till the gospel was preached to the civilized world. It was only after, according to Gavazzi, "a pagan flood, flowing into the Church, had carried with it its customs, practices, and idols," till the teaching of the Church was false instead of true, that the Church sought the support of the civil power. Then an unholy alliance was made with the unholy State, and Christianity and the world darkened down into a night of a thousand years. We repeat, in history it has not been the true but the false in religion that has ever sought the support of the civil power, and it has sought such support that it might force for a little longer upon the minds and consciences of men dogmas that they were outgrowing.

This is the philosophy of religious legislation, and of persecution. Viewed in this light it is easy to see what relation that resolution has to the effort of the Sabbath Union to secure Sunday laws. "Chambers' Encyclopedia," article "Sabbath," has the following:—

At what date the Sunday, or the first day of the week, began to be generally used by Christians as a stated time for religious worship, we have no definite information either in the New Testament or in the writings of the fathers of the Church. By none of the fathers before the fourth century was it identified with the Sabbath, nor is the duty of observing it grounded by them either on the fourth commandment, or on the precept or example of Jesus or his apostles.

Kitto, in his "Encyclopedia of Biblical Literature," article "Lord's Day," says:—

We will merely remark that though in later times we find considerable reference to a sort of consecration of the day, it does not seem at any period of the ancient Church to have assumed the form of such an observance as some modern religious communities have contended for. Nor do these writers in any instance pretend to allege any divine command or even apostolic practice in support of it.

So we see that, though such a doctrine was never taught by Christ, or the apostles, or by the Christian Church for the first four centuries, the American Sabbath Union now declares that Christ and the apostles changed the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week; and as in the case of all past religious legislation, because they have no better evidence for their belief than mere assertion, they seek to force it upon the world by the civil power. This is the only relation that resolution can have to the object of their convention to secure stricter Sunday laws. Not that they would have any more right to enforce that belief by law, if it were true; but that if it were true, and they could show it to be true by undisputed evidence, that would suffice, and they would not be found trying to compel such belief and practice by law. One more resolution I will notice. (It is the third, and reads as follows:—

Resolved, That we will resist all attempts to divest the Christian Sabbath, as a day of rest and worship of the sacredness of the divine law.

Now the inevitable result of all attempts to enforce the divine law by the civil power, is to "divest" that law of the sacredness of divinity, and to lower it to the standard of human civility. The divine law reaches to the thoughts and intents of the heart. The civil power, though backed by all the infernal machinery of an Inquisition, can only occasionally reach the thoughts and enforce that law. It follows that in the great majority of cases its greatest attempts to enforce religion and divine morality result only in the enforcing of a human civility, that is, it takes cognizance of the act only and not of the thought, or if it occasionally does reach the thoughts through torture, even then it fails to bring them to submission. As the State comes to be acknowledged as the authorized teacher and enforcer of religion and morals, and it only punishes the outward act, the conception of the divine law in the public mind is soon lowered to the mere human standard of outward sin.

Even in the theocracy of Israel, after it ceased to be a true theocracy, by rejecting God as king, and neglecting the warnings of his prophets, this was the inevitable result. They came to think that unless a man broke the law of the State against murder, however much he might hate his brother and wish to kill him, he had not broken the divine law, which says, "Thou shalt not kill;" and however lustful they might be, unless they committed the open act they were not adulterers. Jesus had to teach them otherwise, and magnified the law by lifting it to its high position in the heart.

So while the American Sabbath Union resolves that they will resist all attempts to divest the Christian Sabbath of the sacredness of the divine law, if what they call the "Christian Sabbath" ever had any such sacredness, they themselves by seeking to enforce it by the civil power, upon all, whether they recognize its divine sacredness or not, are doing more than all others combined to lower it to a mere civil institution. Verily consistency is a jewel.