BY WM. H. ARMSTRONG.
The question of closing on Sunday the gates of the World’s Fair is one that not only interests our nation but also the nations of the world.
On September 3, eighty members of the National World’s Fair Commission, and one hundred members of the Board of Lady Managers, listened to the arguments of representatives of the American Sabbath Union for closing the World’s Fair Sundays. The arguments for Sunday closing were presented by Col. Elliott F. Shepard, President of the American Sabbath Union; Rev. Dr. S. F. Scoville, President of Wooster University, Ohio; Rev. T. A. Fenley, Secretary of the Philadelphia Sabbath Association; Gen. O. O. Howard; Col. Alex. F. Bacon; Hon. L. S. Coffin; Rev. F. L. Patton, President of Princeton University; Dr. P. S. Henson of Chicago; and Mrs. T. B. Carse, as the representative of the W. C. T. U.
On reading the addresses and petitions presented by the above named persons, I was surprised to see the diversity of names given to the first day of the week. Some called it “the Sabbath day,” others “Sunday,” while another class termed it “the American Sabbath”—none of them having Bible authority for the names given. This inadvertence might be excused if these gentlemen were not poising as moulders of public thought and teachers of Bible truth, while they are endeavoring to palm off Sunday upon the National Columbian Commission as a “holy day,” for which they cannot produce Bible authority.
Nowhere in the Bible can they find any command to keep Sunday as a “holy day,” neither can they there find where the Jewish Sabbath was ever changed to the first day of the week—Sunday. This change was made by Constantine’s edict, in 321 a.d., which was the first law either ecclesiastical or civil by which the sabbatical observance of Sunday was known to have been ordained. Does anyone claim that Constantine was inspired? The sabbatical observance of Sunday, as prescribed by Constantine, or of “the American Sabbath,” as prescribed by statutory law, is yielding obedience to the commandments of man and not of God, and all their advocates are confronted with the Scripture: “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matt. xv. 9.
As Dr. Francis L. Patton, of Princeton University, was the only speaker who attempted to speak on the Biblical aspect of the Sunday question, I shall direct my remarks to him. The doctor is quoted as saying: “The Ten Commandments represent the high water mark of morality. The Jew had contributed the greatest feature of the civilization of the nineteenth century. The Sabbath had become the inheritance of every civilized nation. God had issued His command as to the observance of the Sabbath, and that command was imperative.” These words would be more appropriate coming from a Pharisee, but when spoken by a Gentile claiming to be a minister of the New Testament, 2 Cor. iii. 6, they come with bad grace, and are not in harmony with the Scriptures.
The Ten Commandments made on Sinai were delivered to the Jews alone and never were intended for the Gentiles, for Paul said: “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.” Rom. ii. 14. An appeal to the law itself shows that it was always and only addressed to the house of Israel, “to you and your children, to your man servants, and maid servants, and to thy stranger that is within thy gates.” It cannot be proven that God ever commanded a Gentile to keep the Sabbath. “The Ten Commandments,” says Luther, “do not apply to us Gentiles and Christians, but only to the Jews.” “A law,” says Grotius, “obliges only those to whom it is given, and to whom the Mosaic law is given, itself declares: ‘hear, O Israel.’”
When the Gentiles first began to accept Jesus Christ, we read in Acts xv. that the Apostles, elders, and brethren at Jerusalem wrote them letters as follows: “Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law; to whom we gave no such commandment…. For it seemeth good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if you keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.” Here is freedom for the Gentiles from the Ten Commandments and especially the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, the most valued of the ten.