THE SUNDAY QUESTION IN ENGLAND by Editor

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 22, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 4

THE SUNDAY QUESTION IN ENGLAND.

By Editor

IN REVIEW of Jan. 8, we noticed the fact that the Manchester (Eng.) Presbyterian had protested against the opening of the exhibition of statuary and painting in the Royal Institution, and that a letter had appeared in the Weekly Times of that city, exposing the weakness of the Sunday argument.

A later issue of that paper has been put into our hands, in which the question is still further discussed. While the writer in arguing on the no-Sabbath ground falls into the fallacies common to that error, he nevertheless says some things relative to the Sunday arguments which are worth repeating. We instance the following:—

“Having established to his satisfaction the universal and permanent obligation of the fourth commandment, Mr. M’Caw proceeds to take liberties with it. The commandment speaks of the seventh day, but he says that any other day will do as well. He says that any candid man will admit that the principle of the commandment is the consecration of the seventh part of our time. I trust that I am a candid man, and yet I must profess myself unable to follow him. We are dealing with a chapter in a statute book. The statute orders the observance of the seventh day. Mr. M’Caw says the particular day is of no importance. The statute gives reasons why it should be the seventh day, and no other; but Mr. M’Caw still says that it does not matter. The common notion of a law is that you may either keep it or break it, but that you are not at liberty to change its terms without the consent of the lawgiver. Mr. M’Caw does so, and cites no permission. Coming to Christian times, Mr. M’Caw admits that there is no Sabbatic law in the New Testament. He says that our Lord neither abrogated nor re-enacted the fourth commandment, but left it where it was.”

No better position could be taken on the fourth commandment than the one stated in this closing sentence. And no position will more surely help on the Sabbath cause. For let the principle once be established that the fourth commandment remains unchanged, and the battle is more than half fought; inasmuch as it can most easily be shown that the commandment is not kept by the observance of simply an indefinite seventh part of time, but that it does require the hallowing of the seventh, and not the first, day of the week.