“During nearly all our American history the churches have influenced the States to make and improve Sabbath laws.”—Rev. W. F. Crafts, in Christian Statesman, July 3, 1890.
Notes.—“These Sunday laws are a survival of the complete union of church and state which existed at the founding of the colony.”—Boston Post, April 14, 1907.
“Such laws [as the Maryland Sunday law of 1723] were the outgrowth of the system of religious intolerance that prevailed in many of the colonies.”—Decision of Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, Jan. 21, 1908.
The first Sunday law in America, that of Virginia, in 1610, required church attendance, and prescribed the death penalty for the third offense. See “American State Papers,” edition 1911, page 33.
24. Why is a national Sunday law demanded?
“The national law is needed to make the State laws complete and effective.”—Christian Statesman, April 11, 1889.
25. Since the Sunday sabbath originated with the Roman power (the beast), to whom will men yield homage when, knowing the facts, they choose to observe Sunday, instead of the Bible Sabbath, in deference to compulsory Sunday laws?
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?” Rom. 6:16.
Notes.—“The observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] church.”—“Plain Talk About the Protestantism of Today,” page 213.
The conscientious observance of Sunday as the Sabbath on the part of those who hitherto have supposed it to be the Sabbath, has, without doubt, been accepted of God as Sabbath-keeping. It is only when light comes that sin is imputed. John 9:41; 15:22; Acts 17:30. See page 700.