p. 760 | A REMARKABLE SUNDAY SERMON by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, December 2, 1884

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 61, No. 48

A REMARKABLE SUNDAY SERMON.

By Editor

The Boston Daily Advertiser, of Nov. 10, 1884, contains a report of a sermon by the Rev. Mr. Savage, of the Mt. Pleasant Congregational church, Roxbury district, which must have fallen somewhat like a wet blanket on the enthusiasm of Sunday advocates. Our readers will be interested with a few extracts. His subject was “The People’s Sunday,” and he knocked away every divine prop for the institution in the following introduction:—

CONTRADICTORY POSITIONS.

“The attitude of Christendom on the Sunday question is perplexing and contradictory in the extreme. At the very outset we find there is no agreement, even as to the name by which the day shall be called. Shall we say Sabbath, or Sunday, or Lord’s day, or first day of the week? Neither is the day itself fixed upon with any degree of unanimity; for the Adventists, the Seventh-day Baptists, and many others are very strenuous in their opinion that only those who keep Saturday are obedient to the divine commands. And on Biblical grounds their position is certainly impregnable.”

Mr. Savage could not have made an admission more to our mind. We are content to stand in the position to which he has assigned us. There are no grounds on the Sabbath question worth anything except “Biblical grounds;” and on these grounds he admits that our position is impregnable.

HOW TO KEEP IT.

Of the difficulties which beset the question of how to observe the day, according to the popular view, he thus speaks:—

“Then, when the day is fixed upon, there is no sort of agreement as to what shall be done with it. Shall we have the Jewish Sabbath, the Continental Sunday, the Puritan Lord’s day, a secular holiday, or shall we blot out all distinctions between that and the other days of the week? And even within the circle of our liberal churches there are many unsolved parochial problems, troubles of conscience and questions of casuistry. Would it be wrong for the ladies to sew on Sunday? Shall the reading be the same as on other days, or shall a difference be made? What of recreations for good people?”

Had people not departed from the “Biblical grounds,” there would be no trouble over questions like these. A few words from the Lord through the prophet Isaiah points out the way to every observer of the Bible Sabbath. Isa. 58: 13, 14.

REIGNING CONFUSION.

Another paragraph shows how unaccountably in the public mind the questions of the Sabbath and Sunday are confused. It is this:—

“When I say, then, that the Jewish Sabbath began simply as abstinence from all labor on the seventh day; that it grew to be a burden of petty and oppressive restrictions, and that at last it was abolished, so far as the Christian world was concerned, I have summed up all that need be said of Sunday in the Bible.”

But what, in the name of reason, has the abolition of the ancient Sabbath, even if it has been abolished, to do with the Sunday question?

SUNDAY IN THE CHURCH.

Now Mr. S. comes to speak of the Sunday in the church; and on this point he talks more intelligently. Read his words, and wonder, as you read, that these are the utterances, not of a Sabbath-keeper, but of one who believes in “the people’s Sunday.” Have the people no better institution than this? He says:—

“We are all aware that throughout Christendom for 1500 years it is not the seventh day of the week—the day of the fourth commandment—but the first day that has been observed. And it is popularly supposed that at some special time and place a divinely authoritative transfer was made. But this supposition is entirely without foundation in fact. The first law ever issued to regulate the use of the first day of the week is the famous edict of Constantine, promulgated in the year 321 A. D. That is, for over 300 years the church said not a word about it, and it was not until 528 A. D. that all labor was prohibited on Sunday. The teaching of the church from the beginning clear down to the date of the Reformation has been substantially uniform. Sunday has been neither more nor less holy than any or all the other sacred or festival days. It existed by church appointment and custom. As some day was expedient for holding religious services and teaching the people, and as some day was wanted for rest, so this has been chosen and kept on account of the sacred memories gathering about it.”

Consistently enough with his previously stated positions, Mr. Savage finally winds up with advocating

A CONTINENTAL SUNDAY.

For what he proposes does not differ materially from the manner in which the day is observed in those European churches which are sunk in the depths of superstition, formality, and worldliness. They attend religious worship, such as it is, in the morning, and then devote the afternoon and evening to every kind of indulgence and pleasure. And for the same course here Mr. S. pleads as follows:—

“What would I do for the people on Sunday? In the first place I would have all the dramshops hermetically sealed; and then, at however great a cost, I would have cheap Sunday afternoon trains to the country on every road leading out of the city. I would have cheap steamers down the harbor. I would have all the art galleries and reading-rooms wide open and free. I would have just as many active oppositions to evil as possible. I would do all I could to break up the weary monotony of drudgery and commonplace. I would make trees, and flowers, and light, and air so attractive and easy of access, that people would leave the attics and cellars, the slums and the warm streets, to seek them with a simple and hearty relish. This for the afternoon. On Sunday morning I would have everybody, so far as possible, go to church. To everybody, no matter what their occupations during the week, an earnest religious service on Sunday morning—a service that lifts the imagination and brings them into wider sympathetic relations with the larger life of the world, that touches and quickens the sense of duty, that thrills with elevated thoughts of worship, that awes and chastens as in the presence of the divine—such a service ought to rest both body and brain, and fill the whole life with a stronger life. Sunday evenings should be given to the home, in the company of wife and children and friends. Let it be a time of all joy and freedom and simple festivity; a time in which all the week-day burdens of life should roll off and be forgotten.”

It is very easy to advocate innocent amusements, and cultured and elevating associations and occupations. But all experience testifies that this feature is theoretical only. Give human nature the reins, and the practical is a different thing altogether. Keep the day that God enjoins, and keep it as he enjoins; for in this way only can the true blessings of the Sabbath be secured.