THE ground of objection to Sunday laws is much broader than can be covered by the mere necessity of guarding against the violation of human rights. Sunday laws are antichristian; and it is just as important, to say the least, that no law should be enacted which would be in opposition to the work of God, so that laws should be passed for the preservation of the rights of the people.
Of course, all invasion of human rights is contrary to the gospel; but Sunday laws strike directly against the conception of God as the Creator. They exalt another day than the day set apart by the Creator as the memorial of his power and the sign of his Godhead. Hence they represent the working of a power that stands directly opposed to God.
The Creator rested from his work of creation upon the seventh day. He blessed and sanctified that day, making it the Sabbath for mankind. He gave men his Sabbath in order that they might know, as they observed it, that their God was the Creator. They might know that their God was one in whom they could trust, being he who made the heavens and the earth by his word.
The need of mankind in this respect has certainly not lessened to-day. As men realize their inherent sinfulness and weakness, they seek for some power in which they can trust for deliverance from the chains they have vainly endeavored by their own strength to rend asunder. They realize that only a power [76] which passes their conceptions can raise them from the depths of sinful depravity to a condition of holiness and perfection. And the Sabbath presents to them just that power which they seek. It points them to the Creator, as the One who can make them new in Christ by the power of his word, just as he made all things by that word in the beginning.
The whole power and influence of Sunday laws, however, is against the realization of this blessing. For they command the observance of the first day of the week, which God neither blessed, nor rested upon, and tend to nullify and obliterate the observance of the seventh day. They tend directly to obliterate the conception of God as the Creator and Redeemer, by exalting a day which does nothing to call the mind to the power of which creation and redemption are the manifestations, and by striking against the observance of the day divinely set apart and made the Sabbath for that very purpose.
Such laws are therefore antichristian, and destructive of the highest interests and blessings of mankind.