Читать книгу The Constitutional Amendment: or, The Sunday, the Sabbath, the Change, and Restitution - Wolcott H. Littlejohn - Страница 13

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We have given not a little space to the argument against the Christian Amendment of our National Constitution from the stand-point of the advocates of the seventh-day Sabbath. This argument, in brief, is this: The proposed amendment, in its practical working, is intended to secure the better observance of the first day of the week, as the civil Sabbath. But the Bible, the revealed law of God, it is affirmed, contains no warrant either for individual or national observance of the first day of the week. The amendment, therefore, it is maintained, should not be favored, but earnestly opposed, by those who acknowledge the supreme authority of the law of the Bible.

This, it will be seen at a glance, is no argument against the principle of the proposed amendment. On the other hand, it bases itself on that very principle, viz., that it is the bounden duty of the nation to acknowledge the authority of God, and take his revealed word as the supreme rule of its conduct. The argument, therefore, instead of being directed against the amendment itself, is directed almost entirely against that interpretation of the divine law of the Scriptures which fixes the Christian Sabbath on the first day of the week. We consented to admit to our columns a short series of brief articles presenting an argument against the amendment. Pressing the lines of courtesy and fairness far beyond the limits of our agreement, we have, in fact, admitted many long articles, the burden of which has been to show that there is no warrant in the word of God for the observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath of divine appointment. We shall expect equal generosity from the journals of our seventh-day Sabbatarian friends.

The amendment proposed is in substance as follows: An acknowledgment of God as the ultimate source of all power and authority in civil government; of Jesus Christ as ruler of nations; and of the Bible as the fountain of law, and the supreme rule of national conduct. Let this be distinctly borne in mind. We have here a clear assertion of the very principles for which the seventh-day Sabbatarian most strenuously contends.

Just here, we would take occasion to say that even if the proposed amendment contained an express acknowledgment, in so many words, of the first-day Sabbath, and if the argument for the seventh-day Sabbath were a perfect demonstration, there would still be, on that account, as matters actually stand in our land at present, no valid objection against such explicit Constitutional acknowledgment of the first day.

Suppose a company of the advocates of the seventh-day Sabbath, going forth as missionaries, should discover, in a distant sea, an island inhabited by a people in many respects highly civilized, possessing a portion of the Bible, and observing one day in seven, say the fourth day of the week, as a day of rest and worship of the true God, and acknowledging it as such in their Constitution of government. Suppose that in the same island should be found a large and active minority, thoroughly infidel and atheistic, striving in every way to overturn the Sabbath. The missionaries, perceiving much room and opportunity for doing good to the people, settle among them, and seek, among many things, to change the Sabbath to what they regard as the proper day. In what way would they attempt to accomplish this? Would they permit themselves for a moment to be classed with the infidel and atheistic opponents of the Sabbath? Would they not stand side by side with those who defended the Sabbath observances of the country against the attacks of immoral and unbelieving enemies of all Christian institutions?

If these missionaries were advocates of the first-day Sabbath, and we were of the number, for our part, this is what we would do: We would practice for ourselves the observance of what we are persuaded is the Christian Sabbath. We would multiply and scatter abroad copies of the entire Bible, and seek to convince the people and the nation that God’s law requires the observance of the first day. In the meantime, confident that, by the blessing of the Head of the church, the circulation of the divine word and the proclamation of its truths would at length change the conviction of the islanders, we should say to them: “Do not cease to observe a day of rest and worship. To have one such a day in every seven is right. Do not blot out its acknowledgment from the Constitution. You need its legal safe-guards. True, there is no divine warrant for the observance of the fourth day of the week instead of the first. But a fourth-day Sabbath is better than no Sabbath at all. We will help you to preserve from the assaults of our common enemies the observances of the Sabbath, that you may have them to transfer, as we urge you to do, to the first day of the week.” Would the advocates of the seventh-day Sabbath do otherwise, except in substituting the seventh day for the first? And now let us take the actual, corresponding case in our own land. The great mass of Christians here, as elsewhere, regard the first day of the week as the Sabbath of the Lord. Admit, for the sake of the illustration, that they have no better ground for their opinion than the islanders mentioned above. Is it not right for them to have a day of rest and worship? Is it not right for them to observe one such a day in seven? Is it maintained that, because the day is not the proper one, there is and can be nothing right about these Sabbath observances? Then, if all is wrong, it must be better to have no Sabbath at all, and utterly secularize the week. This, our seventh-day friends cannot and will not admit. They gladly testify that our first-day Sabbath, poorly as it may be observed, is infinitely to be preferred to the unbroken current of the worldliness of the week. A Sabbathless week; successive rounds of equally secularized days, marked, if marked at all, by the recurrence of unusual worldly gayety and dissipation; this is what infidelity and atheism would give us for the existing Sabbath. Do the friends of the seventh-day Sabbath desire any such substitution? Their argument against the proposed amendment on the ground that it expressly or impliedly contains an acknowledgment of the first-day Sabbath, is, that it will enforce existing Sabbath laws, and strengthen first-day Sabbath observances. But is it not better to do this than accept the dread alternative? Even from this point of view, then, we claim for the proposed amendment, what in some cases it has actually, and, we believe, most consistently, received, the approval and support of seventh-day Sabbatarians.

But we return to the form of the proposed amendment. It expresses, as it should, only the most fundamental principles. It asserts the duty of the nation to acknowledge God in Christian relations. It recognizes the Bible as the fountain of the nation’s laws, and the supreme rule of its conduct. Now, if we were among either the first-day or the seventh-day missionaries, in the case of the islanders already referred to, such a national acknowledgment of the authority of the Bible is just exactly what we would desire. If the islanders had this principle, as has been supposed, incorporated into their written Constitution, we could ask for nothing more advantageous for our missionary work. If they had it not, and certain citizens were laboring to secure its insertion by an amendment of the instrument, we would most assuredly accord these laborers our heartiest encouragement and support. We should suspect ourselves of prejudice, or rather of a deficiency in good common sense, if we found ourselves inclined to pursue an opposite course. Believing that God’s law requires the observance of another day than the fourth, how could we reasonably do anything else than co-operate and rejoice in the work of leading such a people to acknowledge the supreme authority of that law, and to register their purpose in the fundamental instrument of their government, to adjust all national affairs according to its requirements?

And now, what can be said of our seventh-day Sabbatarian brethren? Are they not inconsistent? They proclaim the duty of the nation to acknowledge “the highest of all laws.” So far, we are agreed. They maintain that the Bible is that law. Here, too, we are at one. And yet they—not all of them, we are happy to state—oppose a movement which aims to secure in the organic law and life of the nation a sincere, reverent, and obedient acknowledgment of the authority of the Bible—an acknowledgment which forecloses discussion on no question on which Christians or others may differ, but which brings the final appeal in all national controversies to the tribunal of the unerring word of God.

The inconsistency of this attitude of opposition to the Christian Amendment cannot but create unfavorable presumptions in regard to the soundness of judgment of any who may occupy it. An attack from so weak a point, upon the Constitutional acknowledgment of the Christian Scriptures, it will be generally felt, does not betoken a very formidable assault upon the Sabbath of the Christian church. And yet, notwithstanding this, to our mind, exceedingly unfortunate connection, we would bear cheerful testimony to the fact that the articles we have inserted, so far as they are an argument against the first-day Sabbath, and this is manifestly the point which the writer had principally in view, contain a clear, calm, courteous, and attractively written presentation of one side of a very important subject. We shall present the other side of the question in succeeding issues of this journal.