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^*7 3/^
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
Ingersoll’s Advice to Parents.
keep children out of church
AND SUNDAY SCHOOL.
Nothing is More Outrageous than to Take Advantage
of the Helplessness of Childhood to Sow
in the Brain the Seeds of Error.
By
,
ROBERT
G. INGERSOLL.
Should parents who are Infidels, unbelievers, or Atheists
send their children to Sunday schools and churches to give
them the benefit of Christian education ?
Parents who do not believe the Bible to be an inspired
book should not teach their children that it is. They should
be absolutely honest. Hypocrisy is not a virtue, and, as a
rule, lies are less valuable than facts.
An unbeliever should not allow the mind of his child to
be deformed, stunted, and shrivelled by superstition. He
should not allow the child’s imagination to be polluted.
Nothing is more outrageous than to take advantage of the
helplessness of childhood to sow in the brain the seeds of
falsehood, to imprison the soul in the dungeon of fear, to
teach dimpled infancy the infamous dogma of eternal pain
—filling life with the glow and glare of hell.
No unbeliever should allow his child to be tortured in the
orthodox inquisitions. He should defend the mind from
attack as he would the body. He should recognise the
rights of the soul. In the orthodox Sunday schools children
are taught that it is a duty to believe, that evidence is not
�( 2 )
essential, that faith is independent of facts, and that religion
is superior to reason. They are taught not to use their
natural sense, not to tell what they really think, not to
entertain a doubt, not to ask wicked questions, but to accept
and believe what their teachers say. In this way the minds
of the children are invaded, corrupted, and conquered.
Would an educated man send his child to a school in which
Newton’s statement in regard to the attraction of gravitation
was denied; in which the law of falling bodies, as given by
Galileo, was ridiculed; Kepler’s three laws declared to be
idiotic, and the rotary motion of the earth held to be utterly
absurd ?
Why, then, should an intelligent man allow his child to be
taught the geology and astronomy of the Bible ? Children
should be taught to seek for the truth—to be honest, kind,
generous, merciful, and just. They should be taught to love
liberty and to live to the ideal.
Why, then, should an unbeliever, an Infidel, send his child
to an orthodox Sunday school, where he is taught that he
has no right to seek for the truth, no right to be mentally
honest, and that he will be damned for an honest doubt;
where he is taught that God was ferocious, revengeful,
heartless as a wild beast; that he drowned millions of his
children; that he ordered wars of extermination, and told
his soldiers to kill gray-haired and trembling age, mothers
and children, and to assassinate with the sword of war the
babes unborn ?
Why should an unbeliever in the Bible send his child to
an orthodox Sunday school, where he is taught that God
was in favor of slavery, and told the Jews to buy of the
heathen, and that they should be their bondmen and bond
women for ever—when he is taught that God upheld
polygamy and the degradation of women ?
Why should an “ unbeliever,” who believes in the uni
formity of nature—in the unbroken and unbreakable chain
of cause and effect—allow his child to be taught that
miracles have been performed ; that men have gone bodily
to heaven; that millions have been miraculously fed with
manna and quails ; that fire has refused to burn the clothes
�( 3 )
,
f
and flesh of men; that iron has been made to float; that
the earth and moon have been stopped, and that the earth
has not only been stopped, but made to turn the other way;
that devils inhabit the bodies of men and women; that
diseases have been cured with words; and that the dead,
with a touch, have been made to live again ?
The thoughtful man knows that there is not the slightest
evidence that these miracles ever were performed. Why
should he allow his children to be stuffed with these foolish
and impossible falsehoods ? Why should he give his lambs
to the care and keeping of the wolves and hyenas of super. stition ?
Children should be taught only what somebody knows.
Guesses should not be palmed off on them as demonstrated
facts. If a Christian lived in Constantinople he would not
send his children to the mosque to be taught that Mohammed
was a prophet of God and that the Koran is an inspired
book. Why ? Because he does not believe in Mohammed
or the Koran. That is reason enough. So an Agnostic,
living in New York, should not allow his children to be
taught that the Bible is an inspired book. I use the word
“ Agnostic ” because I prefer it to the word “ Atheist.” As
a matter of fact no one knows that God exists, and no one
knows that God does not exist. To my mind there is no
evidence that God exists—that this world is governed by a
being of infinite goodness, wisdom, and power—but I do
not pretend to know. What I do insist upon is that children
should not be poisoned, should not be taken advantage of
'
that they should be treated fairly, honestly ; that they should
be allowed to develop from the inside instead of being
crammed from the outside; that they should be taught to
reason, not to believe ; to think, to investigate, and to use
their senses, their minds.
Would a Catholic send his children to school to be taught
that Catholicism is superstition and that science is the onl
savior of mankind ?
Why, then, should a free and sensible believer in science
in the naturalness of the universe, send his child to a
Catholic school ?
�.
( 4 )
Nothing could be more irrational, foolish, and absurd.
My advice to all Agnostics is to keep their children from
the orthodox Sunday schools, from the orthodox churches,
from the poison of the pulpits.
Teach your children the facts you know. If you do not
know, say so. Be as honest as you are ignorant. Do all
you can to develop their minds to the end that they may
live useful and happy lives.
Strangle the serpent of superstition that crawls and hisses
about the cradle. Keep your children from the augurs, the
soothsayers, the medicine-men, the priests of the super- «
natural. Tell them that all religions have been made by I
folks and that all the “ sacred books ” were written by
ignorant men.
Teach them that the world is natural. Teach them to
be absolutely honest. Do not send them where they will
contract diseases of the mind—the leprosy of the soul. Let
us do all we can to make them intelligent.
The Pioneer Press, 2 Newcastle-street, Farringdon-street,
London, E.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Ingersoll's advice to parents : keep children out of church and Sunday School
Creator
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 4 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Not in Stein checklist but cf his No. 67. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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The Pioneer Press
Date
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[189-?]
Identifier
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N362
Subject
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Child rearing
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Ingersoll's advice to parents : keep children out of church and Sunday School), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
Language
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English
Children
Church Attendance
NSS
Sunday Observance
Sunday Schools
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24b768124f2b969eb32690e414b848cb
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Text
W ”8
'
"
SUNDAY HARVESTINC.
To the Editor of the “ Free Sunday Advocate.”
October, 1881.
I am glad to see that in your paper for this month you
have copied the letter of a South Oxfordshire “ Landlord and
Parmer,” inserted in the Times of the 1st Sept., in which he
forcibly points out how much better the Clergy would have
been employed on Sunday, the 28th August, if, instead of
offering up the weak prayer of their well-meaning, amiable
Primate, they had given their parishioners words of en
couragement, bidding them gather in the harvest while yet
it could be saved. To those who like myself believe that
no divine commandment has ever been laid upon man to
abstain from work on any day; that neither Jesus of Nazareth
nor any of his Apostles ever said a word to enforce the Sab
bath which Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews, promulgated as
a command emanating from their God; and more particularly
believing that no God “answers prayer” in the ordinary sense
of these words, and which if they mean anything, mean this,
—that an almighty, all-wise, all-beneficent Being is to be
stirred up by a few of us puny mortals, (a mere handful out
of the teeming millions of the inhabitants of this earth) into
altering at their dictation or persuasion, the fixed laws of this
Universe,—Sunday harvest work in seasons like the present
would be a matter of course. But that this ‘ Christian
liberty’ may be accepted universally we must first break
down that rigid Sabbatarianism so naturally engendered and
kept alive by the reading out in solemn form, in all our
churches Sunday after Sunday, the Fourth Commandment
of the Jewish Decalogue.
It may help to this end if I summarize the grounds upon
which Christians should hold themselves unfettered by that
commandment, as well as the grounds for my assertion that
it was no divine commandment but a mere piece of human
legislation, by Moses or some other J ewish Legislator.
The introduction to the Ten Commandments £ I am
the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt’
__ the reason given to the Jews in the Fourth Command
ment, as written in Deut. V.15,‘ remember that thou wast
a servant in the land of Egypt ’ —and ‘ It is a sign between
�2
me and the people of Israel for ever ’ (Exod. 31, 17) prove
conclusively that it was not designed for observance by
any other people.
Next, note how little respect Jesus had for Moses’ Sab
bath law. He went out of his way on many occasions to
offend the Jews by needlessly “ breaking ” it and never
denied that his acts were breaches. (See Mark II. 23, allow
ing his disciples to pluck corn on the Jewish Sabbath—Mark
III. 5—Luke XIII. 14—LukeXIV. 4—John IX. 16) while
as above stated, not one word is to be found in the New
Testament, attributed to him or to his Apostles, in favor of
or urging its observance. On the contrary, what an oppor
tunity was lost by Jesus of enforcing a Sabbath had he so
intended—when asked (MarkX. 17) what we should do to
inherit the kingdom of God and he repeated only the fifth
and other moral commandments of the Decalogue; and again
St. Paul in well known passages in his Epistles, while unwil
ling to interfere with his disciples’ liberty, as nearly as
possible forbids sabbatizing and the observance of days.
‘One man esteemeth one day above another; another
esteemeth every day. alike. Let each man be fully assured
in his own mind.’ (Romans XIV. 5) ‘Let no man, there
fore, judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of a feast
day or a new moon or a sabbath day ’ (Colos. II. 16) ‘ 0 foolish
Galatians . . Ye observe days and months and seasons and
years. I am afraid of you lest by any means I have bestowed
labour upon you in vain’ (Gal. III., 1 and IV. 10-11)
When Jesus, healing a man of a long standing in
firmity and telling him to take up his bed and walk, was
properly accused of sabbath-breaking, he replied ‘My Father
worketh hitherto and I work,” and thus used words in express
contradiction to the reason assigned in the Fourth Com
mandment for keeping a Sabbath, namely, that God had
‘ rested the seventh day.’ This singular and absurd sugges
tion of a God Almighty taking rest afterthe labor of creating
our little globe, put forward as a ground for human beings
keeping a Sabbath, ought to satisfy both Jews and Christians
that the Sabbath of Moses was a mere human institution.
Some later lawgiver of the Jews, probably seeing this ab
surdity, rewrote the Fourth Commandment and substituted
the other reason for the Jew keeping it, that ‘ thou wast a
servant in the land of Egypt.’ But thus with two varying
�3
versions, it is impossible to say we even know what the
Fourth Commandment was, for both versions cannot be
correct and we know not which to choose.
I conclude with words of St. Augustine’s, 4 Qui labored,
orat.‘ 4 He who works prays.’ Your obedient Servant,
W. Henry Domville.
It is also interesting to note that the Roman Emperor
Constantine, the first recorded lawgiver to the Christians
who ordered any abstinence from ordinary work on the
first day of the week—‘the venerable day of the sun,’
as he terms it—in his Edict (a.d. 321) expressly reserved
to the dwellers in the country the free use of the day
for agriculture, lest haply the crops “ bestowed by
heavenly provision, should perish,” in this respect showing
greater wisdom than those 44 foolish Galatians,” and, let
me add, greater reverence, than those modern Sabbatarians
who would rather see the whole harvest perish than lift
up a hand to save it on a Sunday. The Act of 29 Charles
2nd c. 7 in more general terms excepts 4‘ works of
necessity and charity ” from its penal clauses.
The letter above quoted of 44 A Landlord and Farmer ”
on the subject of Sunday harvesting, is as follows :—
44 Many country congregations who last Sunday on
their way to church passed acres of cut corn, which
through the last three weeks of bad weather has been
ready for carrying, must have thought of the second
lesson (Mark II. 23) they would hear read in their churches,
and have wondered why the saying of Jesus 4 the Sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath ’ was not
applicable to the present time. As the precious hours of
sunshine—sunshine for which the Archbishop had
ordered a prayer to be offered up in all congregations—
passed by, how many in the congregations must have
thought of the proverb 4 God helps those who help them
selves,’ and have longed for words of encouragement from
their clergy, bidding them gather in the harvest while it
could yet be saved. No such words of practical religion
came, I fear, from any pulpit in the country; and the
rain, which recommenced on Monday, has injured and
destroyed thousands of quarters of corn which, but for the
�4
bitter observance of the Sabbath, might have been saved.
In the face of the bad seasons we have now had for so
many years, is it not a question for the country to decide
whether or not the superstitious, and I might add
un-Christlike, views entertained with regard to Sunday
labour should be allowed to endanger the capital and
industry of our country? Daring the present season
could the fine Sundays that have come between days of
rain have been utilized, a large portion of our crops
would have been saved, and the harvest thanksgivings,
which have become a general institution in the Church,
would have had more of genuineness in them than they can
have had of late years. In this county finer crops of wheat
and oats have seldom been grown, and the peas and beans
have been fairly good. Of the former crops only a small
part is housed in any condition, the remainder, still lying
in the fields, is day by day becoming less fit for food.
The crops of peas and beans still out will serve only as
food for the pigs, which will be turned into the fields to
pick up the seeds shed abroad through the wet weather.
That landlords, farmers, and labourers must suffer in
consequence of this needless waste of their capital and
labour every one will see at a glance; but all do not
recognize the fact that an insufficient or bad harvest
means depression to every trade and industry in England.
It is for the press to point this out; and if you, Sir, will
use your powerful influence in teaching that it is no more
a sin to save the hay and corn crops from needless
destruction on a Sunday than to lift an ass or an ox from
a pit they may have fallen into, you will confer a
material and moral benefit on this country.”
Copies of the above will be forwarded on receipt
of a ready directed pre-paid wrapper, enclosed to
W. Henry Domville, 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde
Park, W.
The Second Volume of the late Sir Wm. Domville's
work on ‘ the Sabbath,' (now out of print) is entitled
i An inquiry into the supposed Obligation of the
Sabbaths of the Old Testament ’ and comprises an
elaborate statement of all the arguments on this subject.
Women’s Printing Society, Limited, 21&. Great College Street, Westminster, S.W.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Title
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Sunday harvesting
Creator
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Domville, William Henry
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 4 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Letter to the editor of the Free Sunday Advocate, October 1881. Author's name handwritten in pencil on title page. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Women's Printing Society, Limited
Date
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1881
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N198
N199
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Christianity
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Sunday harvesting), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Farming
NSS
Sunday Observance
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a90ffc05f6516872196989b0183522f5
PDF Text
Text
ANSWERS
TO
QUESTIONS
CONCERNING
SABBATH-K EEPING.
OES not man need a day which, by its peculiar duties and
its holy influences, shall be sacred to communion with his
God, with himself, and with his fellow-men ? — with his fellow-men in
thoughts of the higher things of life ? ”
This is a fair question. Let us, in preparation for answering it,
give a glance at what men now think, and why they think so.
It is commonly thought, even by men whose actions are at variance
with their belief, that God requires of men the observance of Sunday
as a Sabbath.
They think so because the clergy everywhere preach this doctrine,
and also teach it in Sunday schools, tracts, and religious magazines
and newspapers.
It is assumed or declared in these sermons, tracts, and other publi
cations, that we know this to be God’s requisition, because he has so
commanded in the Bible.
Unfortunately for these clergymen, these declarations and assump
tions are absolutely incorrect.
Not only does the Bible, as a whole, make no appointment of either
Sunday or any other day for special religious observance by all men,
but the New Testament expressly declares that Christians are not
bound by the sabbatical ordinances of the Old Testament, which
were made for Jews, and Jews only.
Ask your minister to show you where in the Bible an observance
of Sunday is commanded.
He cannot show you, because it is nowhere commanded.
Nowhere in the Bible is it even recommended, or suggested.
Yet the clergy still continue to preach it.
The Sunday-sabbath doctrine is a part of their church-system, and
they want to have it thought that their church-system is copied from
the Bible. So they keep on preaching that it does come from the
Bible.
You have heard of “ pious frauds.” This is one of them.
�2
Now, before entering on- the question whether man needs a day
separated from other days for religious purposes, we shall do well
clearly to recognize these two truths ; namely: —
1. It is certain that the Bible appoints neither Sunday nor any other
day to be specially observed by Christians.
2. If the Bible is “ God’s word,” and the perfect, complete, infal
libly inspired rule of life which these clergymen pretend it to be,
then it is certain that God has not specified any day to be particularly
observed by Christians.
Now we are ready to consider, —Is it desirable for us to separate
one day of the week from the rest for religious observance, or to
make a point of using in that manner a day which we find already
separated by custom ?
Here is an axiom, or self-evident truth, bearing upon the subject.
Just in proportion as you exalt one member of a series, you inevi
tably proportionately depress the other members.
If the sergeant has more authority, the privates must have less
authority.
If Mary is more compassionate than God the Father, or than Jesus
her son, they must be less compassionate than she.
If one day of the week is to be made more religious than the rest,
the others must be made less religious.
This is an objection to separating one day from the rest for relig
ious observance. We ought not to recognize a diminution of the
force of religious obligation for any portion of time. We should
insist on the binding force of duty to God at all times.
The key to the differences of opinion between different people on
this point lies in their different estimate of what religion is. The
profusion of holy days in the Hebrew and Roman Catholic faiths is
due to the fact that rite and ceremony largely constitute their religion.
In Roman Catholic countries the very name of a monk is “ a religious
man ; ” of a nun, “ a religious woman.” To become a monk or a nun
is called there “ going into religion.” These are assumed to be the
only thoroughly religious people, because their lives are spent in per
forming religious ceremonies; and those there who are not monks or
nuns, and who occupy themselves only with the duties of daily life,
are supposed to have religion only in fragments, if they have it at all.
The theory of religion here described is neither honorable to God
nor useful to man, and there is not the slightest reason for accepting
it. A far better definition of religion is, —Voluntary obedience, in all
the details of the business of life, to what is understood to be the will
of God. Those who do not understand God to have required, or to
I
�3
desire, any rite, ceremony, or formality whatever, want no separation
of a day for worship. If what he desires of us is daily obedience,
instead of weekly ceremonies and professions, our allegiance to him
will be clearly expressed in our daily lives. If that daily life is
frivolous or vicious, a Sunday ceremony added to it will not help the
matter. The thing needed in that case is to reform the daily life,
and to apply ourselves, every day in the week, to the work of reform
ing it.
But, whether or not we need a day separated to be more religious
than other days, there are several things which we do need, and
which men will always continue to need, which require us to take
advantage of the existing discontinuance of labor and business on
Sunday.
All men — especially those whose employment is bodily labor —
need a periodical cessation from ordinary business, such as is now
afforded by the Sunday’s rest.
Again, we need to meet together as human beings, without hurry,
pre-occupation, or distraction, to obtain social and spiritual com
munion.
Again, all men need instruction in religion and morals,—the de
partment of conscience and the spiritual department. Even the pure,
as an apostle intimates, need to have their minds stirred up by way
of remembrance; still more need the impure to be admonished, and
the ignorant to be enlightened.
For all these reasons, then, it is desirable to continue the existing
custom of desisting from ordinary labor on Sunday, of meeting to
gether in a social and fraternal manner, and of making arrangements
for religious instruction to be given in these meetings.
But should we not say arrangements for worship also, as well as
for instruction?
This also is a fair question.. Let us look at it.
Worship is understood to consist of prayer and praise.
Prayer — the expression of our individual desires, aspirations,
feelings of every kind, to the ever-present Father — is an unspeak
ably precious privilege. But it seems to me that there are very few
occasions when the mind of an assembly is so moved by one impulse
as to enable an official, or any one person, to be appropriately their
mouth-piece in prayer. The actual wishes of the congregation are
nearly as various as their persons. I think therefore, not only that
public prayer (so called) generally fails to be what it is assumed to
be, the earnest desire o/* the congregation, but that periodical public
prayer must be such a failure in the majority of cases, and thus is not
�4
worship “in spirit and in truth,” the only acceptable worship. For
this reason I would have prayer left, as Jesus recommended it to be
left, ior private use.
As to praise, — “ singing praises to God,” — 1 think that what God
wants of us is not applause, but obedience. I don’t think he values
palaver, profession, wordy demonstration, periodically repeated.
Music is a delightful solace and recreation for human beings, and
makes a good expression of devotional feeling when he, she, or they
who make it have such feelings to be expressed. But elaborately to
make such music twice a week, to please God, seems to me as much
a blunder as the old Jewish fashion of periodically setting hot bread
and roast veal before him.
If we rest on Sunday from our ordinary bread-earning labor, seek
the best religious instruction within our reach, help others with
instruction as we have opportunity, and spend the rest of the time in
family meetings, social intercourse with neighbors and friends, or
quiet recreation at home or abroad, we shall have used the Sunday’s
opportunities pleasantly and profitably, and certainly we shall not
have violated either the letter or the spirit of any rule of Scripture.
If, however, any one chooses to spend that day in giving help —
physical, mental, or spiritual — to the many who are in need all
around us, he, no doubt, will have made the best use of Sunday; the
best use, whether he shall have spent it in sawing wood for the sick
and childless widow, or in taking the poorest of the city children out
into the green fields for recreation, or in explaining the love of God
to one who has been left in doubt and darkness by the preaching of
some theology of the dismal sort.
Let us keep Sunday separate from the customary labors of the
week, because of the manifold uses to which such separation may be
instrumental. Let us, as a general rule, keep it separate, even while
recognizing the fact that the Bible lays down no rule whatever upon
that subject.
“ The Two
For .this Tract, and another entitled
Doctrines of the Bible on Sabbath-keeping,”
Address
CHARLES K. WHIPPLE,
43 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Mass.
Two of each sent by mail for 10 cents.
�
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Answers to questions concerning Sabbath-keeping
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Whipple, Charles K. (Charles King)
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Place of publication: [Boston, Mass.]
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Conway Tracts
Sabbath
Sunday Observance
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THE TWO DOCTRINES OF THE BIBLE ON
SABBATH-KEEPING.
I.
THE OLD TESTAMENT.
qpHE Seventh Day Sanctified.—Near the opening of the
second chapter of the book of Genesis we find this passage : —
“ God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he
had rested from all his work which God created and made.”
The comment made by Jesus upon this statement of the Hebrew
historian (mentioned on page 4 of this tract) is very significant and
instructive. All that needs to be said here upon the passage above
quoted from Genesis is, that it does not direct any human being to do,
or not to do, any thing whatever. It alleges something to have been
done by God, but gives no command to men.
First Command to Men to observe a Sabbath. — The original
institution of a Sabbath to be observed by human beings (the first men
tion of it in the Bible) is in the twenty-third verse of the sixteenth
chapter of Exodus. Speaking to the Hebrews “ on the sixth day ”
(verse 22d), Moses said to them, “ To-morrow is the rest of the holy
Sabbath unto the Lord.”
On the morrow, the seventh day, Moses said (speaking of the
manna which they had previously gathered) : “ Eat that to-day; for
to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord; to-day ye shall not find it in the
field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which
is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none.” But the people, having
evidently known nothing of Sabbath observance before, did not put
perfect confidence in this statement; and the narrative proceeds:
“ And it came to pass that there went out some of the people on the
seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said
unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my
laws ? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore
he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days ; abide ye every
man in his place ; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So
the people rested on the seventh dayT
Now my point is, that the observance of the Sabbath was here
expressly fixed for a definite day. On that day travel and one kind
of labor were expressly forbidden. The Hebrews were not to gather
manna, and were not to go out of their place on a certain fixed day,
�2
the seventh. And the record proceeds to state that they did rest on
that day.
Now, when, four chapters after (about one month after: compare
Ex. xvi. 1-29, and Ex. xix. 1, xx. 8), the solemn command is given to
these same people, — “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,” —
is it not in the highest degree probable that the Sabbath here spoken
of is the same that they had been observing for the month past? And
does not this probability become certainty when it is immediately
added, “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh
day is the Sabbath"1'1^
The day is here proved to be not merely a seventh part of time, to
be chosen by each according to his pleasure, but a particular day of
the .week, which the Hebrews were already getting accustomed to
observe. This day they still observe; and the name of this day is
Saturday, alike by their usage and ours. There is no more doubt
that the seventh day of the Fourth-Commandment-Sabbath is Satur
day than that the “first day of the week,” spoken of in the New
Testament, is Sunday.
The Fourth Commandment.—Having thus shown the connection
of the Fourth Commandment of the Hebrew Decalogue with the first
command in the Bible to any man to observe a Sabbath (recorded
Exodus, sixteenth chapter, and occurring chronologically only a
month earlier), I proceed to give the whole of that Fourth Command
ment. It is as follows : —
“ Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou
labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor
thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor
thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh
day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.” —
Ex. xx. 8-11.
This command has a wider scope than the one recorded in the six
teenth chapter. That one (addressed to the Hebrews, and to them
only, since no other nation depended on manna for food) forbade
them to gather manna, and also to leave their appointed places, on
Saturday, the seventh day of the week. This one, addressed to the
same people, required them to remember that same Saturday-Sabbath,
and to observe it by not doing “any work.”
The Sabbath appointed and intended only for the
Hebrews. — We have seen that the first command in the Bible
directing any man to keep a Sabbath was given to the children of
Israel in the wilderness, and reaffirmed at the giving of the law at
Mount Sinai. In accordance with this, the lawgivers and prophets
of the Hebrews continually repeated the injunction to them to con
�3
tinue this observance, and to regard it as a sacred duty, no less than
circumcision, the observance of the new moons, and the offering of
sacrifices ; and, moreover, in many of these commands the limitation
Of them to the Hebrews is distinctly expressed, declaring sabbatical
observance to have been given to them as a mark of distinction between
them and other nations. Here is some of the evidence : —
“ And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the
children of Israel, saying, Verily, my Sabbaths ye shall keep : tor it is a
sign BETWEEN me and you throughout your generations. —fix. xxxi.
12 13.
Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe
the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is
a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever.
Ex. xxxi.lo, 7.
“ And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and
that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand
and by a stretched-out arm: Therefore, the Lord thy God commanded
thee to keep the Sabbath-day.” — Deut. v. 15.
“ I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them. — EzeK.
xx. 12.
Thus it appears by the Old Testament Scriptures that the Sabbath
was not only an important part, but a peculiar and distinctive part,
of the Jewish system. Nobody supposes that the Philistines, the
Amalekites, the Moabites and Ammonites, the Hittites and Hivites,
were required to observe the Sabbath. This observance was devised
expressly as a mark of distinction between Jews and Gentiles. But
the term Gentiles includes all who are not Jews; and thus Christians,
unless Sdbbalism is commanded in the Christian Scriptures, have no
more to do with that observance than the Philistines or the Assyrians
had. It was never intended for any but Jews ; of course it was never
intended for us, unless the distinctive law of the Christians commands
it. Our next business, then, is to examine the Christian Scriptures
and to inquire what says
II.
THE NEW TESTAMENT.
Neither Jesus nor any Apostle enjoins Sabbath-keeping.—
Not a single writer in the New Testament commands or recommends
the observance either of Saturday or of any other day as a Sabbath.
We find there no requisition for the observance of any day as peculiar
and sacred, or as to be specially devoted to rest or to worship. The
Christian law being silent on this subject, the times of rest and worship
are left free to be decided by human beings for themselves. Those
who wish to set aside a particular day for religious observance have
an undoubted right to do so ; but they are not authorized to proclaim
that God requires this observance.
Neither Jesus nor any Apostle forbids Sabbath-breaking. —
There is need of making this statement in this form, since so many
�4
persons who call and think themselves followers of Jesus cry out
against what they call Sabbath-breaking. But, in fact, it necessarily
follows from the statement next before this — the fact that neither
Jesus, nor any apostle, nor any New Testament writer enjoins Sab
bath-keeping—that in the Christian system there is no such thing as
Sabbath-breaking. Where no Sabbath is commanded there is no
Sabbath to be violated; of course, then, to Christians, there is no
such thing as Sabbath-breaking. If an Episcopal minister should
stigmatize dissenters as Lent-breakers, or Christmas-breakers, he
would be no more absurd than those who, claiming to be Christians,
cry out against Sabbath-breaking. The Christian system, judged by
the New Testament, gives no injunction respecting either Lent, or
Christmas, or a weekly Sabbath. The rules of particular churches
bind only the members of those churches, and bind even those only
while they choose to remain members. But if all the churches in the
world should unite for the purpose, they could not manufacture a new
Christian duty.
The Anti-sabbatical Position of Jesus. —The ground taken by
Jesus upon this subject was such, that he was popularly known to the
devout Jews as a Sabbath-breaker. This man, they said, “cannot
be of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath-day.” He accepted
an invitation to a feast on that day; and the record sets forth in no
fewer than eight cases that his miracles were performed on the Sab
bath ; as if he purposely used that opportunity to show his perfect
independence of their sabbatical system. He justified his disciples
in travelling and laboring on that day. And in the controversy which
he had with the Pharisees on that occasion, while they were maintain
ing the binding force of their Fourth Commandment upon his dis
ciples, and he was denying it, he unhesitatingly made the claim that
he was “ Lord of thq Sabbath; ” a phrase which, in that connection,
could have no other meaning than that he was Lord of it to reject it;
that he and his disciples were authorized to disregard their Sabbath,
were freed from the obligation of their fourth commandment, and
might decide (as he said in another place) “ even of themselves,”
what they should do, or not do, on the seventh day of the week. He
also commanded, in one case, the bearing of a burden on that day, in
direct opposition, not only to the fourth commandment, but to the
express and emphatic injunctions of Nehemiah and Jeremiah. And
when accused in regard to this last act, he not only defended himself,
but denied the statement (which they seem to have quoted to him
from Genesis as authoritative) about God having “ rested” after the
work of creation. Jesus said plainly, “My father worketh hitherto.”
He never needed rest and never did rest.
�5
Paul’s Teaching against Sabbatism. — Paul, born and educated
a Jew, and taught from his youth to consider Sabbath observance a
duty, would of course have continued to teach and practise it under
the new religion if such observance had formed a part of the new
religion. It is a highly significant fact, Considering his antecedents,
that no word of injunction to keep either the Sabbath or a Sabbath
ever dropped from his lips after he became a Christian. But we are
not left to this negative evidence. He plainly teaches, in strong,
varied, and multiplied forms of expression, that Christian proselytes
from Judaism are delivered from the sabbatical obligation, as from all
other distinctively Jewish obligations. Observance of days, to the
Jew who became a Christian, was utterly abolished; and to Jew and
Gentile alike, as soon as they received the doctrine taught by Christ,
Paul proclaimed their entire freedom from all sabbatical ordinances.
Hear him: —
“ And you, being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all tres
passes ; blotting out the handw’riting of ordinances that was
against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing
it to his cross; let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink,
OR IN RESPECT OF A HOLY DAY, OR OF THE SABBATH-DAYS J which are
a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” — Col. ii.
13-17There were at that time many Judaizing Christians, persons dis
posed to incorporate the old faith with the new, instead of turning
decisively to the latter as preferable. To such Paul speaks of their
disposition to Sabbatize as a suspicious circumstance, — as showing a
remainder of subjection to the obsolete ordinances (“ beggarly ele
ments,” he calls them, Gal. iv. 9) of the Jewish system. To such he
says: “Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am
afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” — Gal.
iv. 10, 11. Still he claims for every man—under the Christian
system — the right to make special and peculiar use of that day, or
any other, if he shall think it desirable: “ One man esteemeth one
day above another; another esteemeth every day alike: let every man
be fully persuaded in his own mind.” — Rom. xiv. 5. This passage
is eminently noteworthy, for two reasons : first, it expressly allows to
Christians the observance or non-observance of a Sabbath, according
to the preference of each person; next, the fact of such allowance
proves that Christianity, as a system, does not require, nor include,
Sabbath-observance.
“ The First Day of the Week.” — “The first day of the week”
is several times mentioned in the New Testament; and the use of this
phrase is so insisted on by Sabbatarians, that one would naturally
expect to find, in connection with it, some authority for the pretence
�6
that the Sabbath has been “ changed” from the seventh day of the
week to the first. It is on the assumption of some authority con
nected with this phrase that the man who, going to church on Sunday
morning, and meeting you setting out for a walk, accuses you of
Sabbath-breaking. Let us look at the record, and see what ground
he has for this charge.
We will clear the way for this examination by noticing that the first
day of the week is never in the New Testament called the Sabbath.
There, as in the Old Testament, wherever the word Sabbath occurs,
it means the Saturday-Sabbath of the Hebrew Decalogue. The fact
that “ Sabbath” in the New Testament means quite a different day
from “ the first day of the week” is clearly shown in Matt, xxviii. 1,
which says, “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards
the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene,” &c.
The cases in the New Testament where this phrase, “ the first day
of the week,” is mentioned in connection with an assembly of people,
a coming together of numbers (whether for food, worship, preaching,
or any thing else), are just two; two, and no more. They are the
following: —
“ Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when
the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the
Jews, came Jesus,” &c. — John xx. 19.
“ And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came to
gether to break bread, Paul preached unto them (ready to depart on the
morrow), and continued his speech until midnight.” — Acts xx. 7.
Here are two historical facts: 1. The disciples of Jesus met to
gether as quietly and secretly as possible on a Sunday evening in
Jerusalem, two days after their dispersion in consequence of the
crucifixion of their master. 2. A considerable time after this, the
Christians in Troas, in Asia Minor, came together on a Sunday even
ing to break bread, and to hear an exhortation from Paul, who was
going away the next morning.
From just these two little facts, the mention in the Christian
records of Sunday evening as the time when two meetings were held,
the following unauthorized assumptions are made :
That all Christians, everywhere, are to hold meetings every
Sunday.
That they are not merely to copy these scattered instances of what
the early disciples did, by meeting on Sunday evening, but to devote
the whole of every Sunday to rest and worship.
That these things are God's command, instead of merely some
body’s inference from insufficient premises !
And that God intended, by the mention that these two scattered
meetings took place on Sunday evening, to have it understood that a
�Sunday-Sabbath was thenceforth to be binding upon Christians, in
place of the obsolete Saturday-Sabbath of the Jews?
Is it not absurd, to attempt to manufacture a Christian Sabbath out
of these two evenings of “ the first day of the week” ?
But they do it because there is nothing else in the New Testament
to make a Sabbath of.
Let it further be noted that, even on the unproved supposition that
these two evening meetings were held for worship, there is not the
slightest reason to doubt that the disciples went to them after spend
ing the daylight hours in their ordinary bread-earning occupation.
The pretence of a sabbatical day preceding these evening assem
blages is destitute alike of evidence and probability.
Our State Sunday Laws founded in Error. — It is certain
that the Sunday laws in our various States had their origin in an
erroneous impression (derived from the teaching of certain religious
sects), that a sabbatical observance of Sunday is one of the injunc
tions of Christianity ; and this error continues to be taught by various
organs of sectarian propagandism, — the pulpit, the periodical relig
ious press, and the various tract societies. If these powerful instru
mentalities attempted only to persuade men that it is desirable to use
Sunday as a Sabbath, no one would object to their doing so. Their
right is unquestionable to hold that belief, and to express it; but
when they go further (as they systematically do), and say that God
commands such observance, that Christianity includes it, and that the
BiSZe requires it, they teach false doctrine,, libel the Creator, misrep
resent the system taught by Jesus and Paul, seek to graft a new duty
upon the Christianity which Jesus and Paul taught, and make a claim
utterly without foundation in regard to the teachings of both Old and
New Testaments. It is time that popular intelligence, and a just esti
mate of Christian liberty, should put a stop to this presumption.
The Right Uses of Sunday. — Christianity does not set apart
any day for religion ; but it does something much better : it requires
that we apply religious principle to the labor and rest and recreation
of every day. The New Testament leaves the uses of Sunday just as
much to the choice of mankind, and the choice of each individual,
as those of Monday. Therefore, he who demands of another special
acts or special omissions as the Christian duty of Sunday, or who
rebukes another for acts or omissions on that day which would be
right on any other day, usurps a power altogether unauthorized, and
sets up a claim of lordship over God’s heritage. The man who accuses
you of Sabbath-breaking shows himself either utterly ignorant of
Christianity, or disposed to exercise an unauthorized interference
with your Christian liberty.
�Let it be noted, however, that in claiming, as to the uses of Sun
day, all the liberty that Christianity and the New Testament give us,
we do not propose either to make an ill use of that day, or to abandon
a single one of the advantages belonging to the prevailing custom of
holding it separate from the ordinary course of labor and business.
So far as the customary observances of Sunday are good, accordant
with reason, suited to promote the welfare of the community, let them
be continued on those grounds. Let us keep such of the Sunday
customs as are salutary, because they are salutary; and of this sort
are rest, recreation, the social meeting of relatives and friends, and
public assemblage for religious instruction.
In this way all classes can have benefit from the common freedom,
each obtaining the particular solace he desires, undisturbed by the
fact that others are differently employed. Those who want ceremonies
of worship can assemble for that purpose in the churches; those who
want religious instruction can meet for that purpose ; those who want
simply rest, or social enjoyment, can stay at home; those who want
quiet recreation abroad, can go there. Why should not each pursue
the course which he finds salutary, without seeking to constrain the
will of others ? The people who wish to spend Sunday in a sabbat
ical way are perfectly free to do so; nobody tries to prevent them;
nobody proposes to shut up their churches. Why should they bolt
the door of the Public Library in the face of the people, its owner?
Why should they try to stop the Sunday cars, the people’s only
means of locomotion ? Why should they insist on the maintenance
of a Sunday Law unwarranted by the Bible, and at variance with the
Constitution ? a relic of the superstition of an unenlightened age.
A False Pretence exposed. — The pretence that the disuse of
Sabbatarian observance indicates disregard for religion, or neglect of
religion, or the absence of religion, though very commonly made by
certain classes in the community, is a gross imposture. The indus
trious propagandism practised by these classes has, indeed, caused a
wide diffusion of false ideas and unsound inferences in the commu
nity. One baleful result of their labors is to make many people feel
guilty while doing innocent things ; another is to produce a comfort
able sense of self-approval in people who are doing useless things.
For this Tract, and another entitled '
“Answers to Questions concerning Sabbath-keeping,”
Address
CHARLES K. WHIPPLE,
43 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Mass.
Two of each sent by mail for 10 cents.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The two doctrines of the Bible on Sabbath-keeping
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Whipple, Charles K. (Charles King)
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [Boston, Mass.]
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[The author?]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[186-]
Identifier
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GG5532
Subject
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Bible
Sabbath
Rights
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The two doctrines of the Bible on Sabbath-keeping), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bible
Conway Tracts
Sabbath
Sunday Observance