Sabbath Petition

The Synod in May endorsed a proposal of the Sabbath Observance Committee that a Petition should be addressed to the Scottish Parliament, requesting it to "legislate in favour of a weekly day of rest from work throughout Scotland, with Business and Commerce closing on that day, and that the day appointed be the Christian Sabbath". The petition, now with the Parliament's Petitions Committee, makes the point that the general lack of legislation prohibiting Sabbath work reflects the fact that in past centuries such legislation was considered unnecessary in Sabbath-keeping Scotland. The situation is very different now and Scotland is behind Europe in its legal recognition of a weekly day of rest.

The petition appeals to the divine authority and perpetual obligation of the Fourth Commandment, the Christian and Protestant Constitution of our Nation, and the duty of Government to legislate for the good of the people of our land. It claims that the failure to keep the first day of the week as a day of worship and rest from work, according to God's appointment, is causing the nation to suffer economically, socially, morally and spiritually.

It is common today to divorce morality from religion, and many indignantly protest that they can be perfectly moral without subscribing to any belief in God or accepting biblical doctrines and precepts. Such persons repudiate claims that there is a connection between the attitude to the Fourth Commandment and morality. However, rejection of divine authority at this point reveals an attitude to God which cannot but permeate the whole moral outlook and undermine the foundations upon which conformity to absolute moral standards depends. The rapid decline in morality undoubtedly reflects resentment at that interference with personal sovereignty over one's own life and arrangements which is seen to be embodied in the Fourth Commandment.

Daniel Wilson, in The Divine Authority and Perpetual Obligation of the Lord's Day, describes the Sabbath as "the institution which sustains Christianity". He also claims that it "sustains those duties and habits, those virtues of the heart, that mildness and humanity, that regard to truth and the sanctity of an oath, that sense of conscience and prospect of the tribunal of Christ, which strengthens human authority, preserves the peace of communities and nations, and is the bond of human society" (p 181). There is so much involved even in the outward observance of the Lord's Day which makes its recognition beneficial to body, mind, morality, family life, social relations, business efficiency and national life, not to speak of its contribution to the spiritual well-being of individuals and communities.

Apart from the specific ways in which a neglected Sabbath is detrimental to the overall well-being of individuals, families, businesses and social and national life, there is the consideration that it deprives the guilty nation which has abandoned the once-acknowledged Sabbath of the blessing of the Lord. "Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath" (Neh 13:17,18).

We may feel ourselves to be in the position of those endeavouring amidst much opposition to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, of whom Sanballat contemptuously said, "What do these feeble Jews?" (Neh 4:2). But, like them, we should seek to have "a mind to work" and make our appeal to God. No doubt we should be more diligent than we often are in bringing this matter before the attention of those in, or seeking, public office. May those who value the Sabbath and the well-being of our nation pray that this petition will receive favourable attention, first by the Petitions Committee of Parliament, and then by Parliament itself. It is to the Lord Himself we must look for the revival of religion among us, which will undoubtedly promote the recovery of the Christian observance of the Lord's Day. But we must acknowledge our responsibility to use means and face the question put in the metrical version of Psalm 11:3: "If the foundations be destroyed, what hath the righteous done?"

HMC