If the Constitution may be infringed upon to put down the observers of the seventh day, no one can say how long it will be before other minor denominations may be put down too. Already attempts are making to exact a confession of faith, unknown to the Constitution, as a qualification for a legal oath. If the religious sanctification of the first day of the week may be enforced by statutory requirements, so may the forms and hours of worship. He who says, that there is no danger of the latter being enforced, while statutory regulations violate two of the most sacred provisions of the National Constitution, knows but little of the history of mankind, or pays but little attention to the tendencies of human nature. A single standing violation of the Constitution is an example and an authority for others to follow. One religious observance established by law, is the admission of the main principle of national hierarchy, and will come in time to be referred to as authority for similar infractions of the Constitution. The laws for the observance of the first day are in fact a union of Church and State. It is not pretended that they are designed to subserve directly a political or civil object. It is altogether a religious object which they subserve. It becomes every friend of equal rights, as he loves the Constitution of his country, to oppose these infractions of its just principles, until equal liberty is secured to all citizens by statutory provisions, as by the fundamental laws of the nation.
Our opponents often remind us of their pretence, that we are under no more restrictions than other citizens; we may do as we please about keeping the seventh day. To this we reply, that the tyrants of the Roman people deprived the Republic of its liberties by professing themselves the guardians of their interests. "By declaring themselves the protectors of the people, Marius and Cæsar had subverted the Constitution of their country." Augustus established a despotism by artfully affecting to be governed himself by the same laws which he procured to be enacted to take away the rights of the people. These are the same principles upon which religious coercionists conjure us to be quiet under the loss of our constitutional rights. The progress of these things towards despotism is as dangerous in the American Republic as in that of Rome, and may be as rapid. Their success would be as deadly to human happiness, and all the best interests of mankind, in the nineteenth century, as they were in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Human nature now affords no better guaranty for the safety of our national rights, than it did to the Romans at the summit of their greatness. Liberty can be preserved only at the expense of perpetual vigilance, and by the popular support of individual rights. If ever the doctrine which has been urged before one of our legislative bodies, "The greatest good of the greatest number," should become a popular political axiom, to justify the course of the many in taking away the rights of the few, the halls of legislation will become scaffolds for the execution of liberty, and that odious principle will be the shroud in which it will be buried. Despots may establish a round of religious observances, and exact an unwilling and insincere conformity to their arbitrary prescriptions; but they can never convince the understanding nor win the heart of one who knows the voice of truth. They can only make him a slave, while the effects of their arbitrary prescriptions on the popular mind will be to wither up all interest in the religious tendencies of an observance sustained only by the enactments of heartless politicians. All that makes religion vital and effective for its own holy objects, expires when the sword is drawn to enforce it. Liberty, humanity, religion, and our National Constitution, then, require that the laws enforcing the observance of the first day of the week should be repealed.
As American Citizens, as independent Freemen, and as responsible Stewards of the glorious heritage bequeathed to us by the Fathers of the Revolution, we shall, with the aid of the Majesty of Heaven, maintain unimpaired the high privileges secured to us by the Charter of our Liberties. We ask for no exclusive immunities. We disclaim all right of human government to exercise over, or fetter in the least, the religious rights of any being. Might is not right, neither does the accident of being a majority give any, claim to trample on the rights of the minority. It is a usurpation of authority to oppress the minority, or set at naught their indefeasible rights. In civil affairs we respect the authorities that be, but in religious service, resent being forced to keep the commandments of men. We recognize the laws of the land in all secular matters, and the laws of God, and of God alone, in religious faith and practice. These are the inalienable rights of all the members of a Republic. These are rights reserved by the people to themselves, in the formation of our Government, which no power can legitimately wrest from us, and with the help of God none shall.
[10] This letter was translated into the German at Ephrata, Penn., and the present copy of the letter is probably a re-translation of it into English from the German.
MISUSE OF THE TERM "SABBATH"
It is quite common, in these days, to hear the term Sabbath used to designate the first day of the week or Sunday. But such a use of the term is not only unscriptural, but calculated to mislead the people. Throughout the Bible, there is but one sacred day of weekly occurrence called the Sabbath, and that is the seventh or last day of the week. When, therefore, men talk about a Christian Sabbath, and a Jewish Sabbath—a first-day Sabbath, and a seventh-day Sabbath—that so they may slily fix the term Sabbath upon the first day, and then persuade people that all those texts of Scripture which speak of the Sabbath day are meant of the first day, they pursue a course which is unauthorized, and deserve to be sharply rebuked. There are circumstances, however, which many persons seem to regard as justifying the common practice of calling the first day by the name Sabbath. Let us examine some of them.
1. It is said that the term Sabbath signifies rest; therefore the first day, being commonly observed as a day of rest, may properly be called the Sabbath. In reply to this, it may be said, that when, by custom and common consent, any term is used to express a particular place or thing, it then becomes a proper name for that thing, and signifies only that thing to which it is applied. For instance, a tabernacle means a place of worship. Yet, in New York, where this name is used to express a particular and well-known place of worship, it would be absurd and false to say you were at the Tabernacle, and mean the Church of the Messiah. So with the term Sabbath; although the word strictly means rest, yet after the Scriptures throughout the Old and New Testaments have used this term to express a particular rest, which occurred on the seventh day, it would be foolish and deceptive to speak of the Sabbath and mean the first day of the week. It may be farther said, that if this argument be good for calling the first day the Sabbath, and if the fact of its being a rest-day makes it the Sabbath, then may the Mohammedans properly call the sixth day the Sabbath, and the fact that they rest upon that day makes it the Sabbath. Yes, and those Mexican Indians, whom Cortes found keeping the fourth day, may properly call that day the Sabbath, and directly it is made such. Even those people in Guinea, whom Purchase describes as having a rest-day, but which, says he, "they observe not upon our Sunday, nor upon the Jews' Sabbath day, but hold it upon Tuesday, the second working day of the week," may properly call that day the Sabbath, and straightway it becomes such. Are the observers of the first day ready to rest upon such ground for calling that day the Sabbath, or to continue to call it Sabbath when there is no better ground? We hope not. And we feel bound, as those who respect the Bible, and dare not charge the Author of that Book with folly in calling the seventh day only the Sabbath, to protest against such abuse of the language of Scripture.
2. The second reason frequently urged, is, that the first day comes in the room of the seventh day, and may therefore properly be called the Sabbath. Aside from the fact that the Scriptures say not a word about a substitution of the one day for the other, it may be said in reply, that if the argument be good, then the Lord's Supper may be called the Passover, and King Solomon may be called King David.