BY REV. JAMES MACLEOD, Greenock.
“A Sabbath well spent,
Brings a week of content
And health for the toils of the morrow;
But a Sabbath profaned
Whate’er may be gained
Is a certain forerunner of sorrow.”
THAT is a very true statement. Part, and probably a great part of our national unrest, and political turbulence, is due to Sabbath desecration by the Royal Court, and the Ministers of the Crown. Some of us can go back, 40, 50, and 60 years ago and see the great change that has taken place in our national life, religiously, morally, and politically! It can be admitted that the change in the social welfare of the people is far better than it was 50 years ago. That is a good thing in itself. The medical attention the people receive is 100 per cent. better than it used to be, better organised, better attention, excellent maternity attention, nursing, and the care of infants and of young children is certainly unique, and probably the best in the world. We pay no attention to what the malcontents say, the creatures who always grumble about the weather, and blame the Doctor that he is not sitting at their bed-side night and day attending to their imaginations! Such are in the minority, but generally very troublesome. Some very able men have been complaining in recent years that our schools are not what they ought to be. The teachers, on their part, complain that the classes are far too large to pay that attention to the children that is so necessary for proper training. We can, without any hesitation, agree with the teachers that they are right, in many cases, and in many places. The money spent on education is simply staggering, and yet more is needed every year to meet the demands of pupil, teacher, and State. The children of to-day are the men and women of to-morrow, and let the children get all the education that the State can afford to give them, and no doubt it will pay good dividends to the State in the coming generation. It is for the State, teachers, and parents to see to that now. To-morrow will be too late!
The youth have great and splendid opportunities, provided they will make proper use of their talents, gifts, and the facilities that are theirs. In fact, they are entering into the wonderful achievements of scientific results which are unparalleled in the history of the world. Aeroplanes with scores of passengers on board, travelling up to six (or maybe more) hundred miles an hour through the air from one country to another! Millions of people travelling by this modern mode of locomotion every year, and the numbers increasing each year. It would appear that this will be the mode of travelling in the future from one nation to another—from city to city! These extraordinary events pass before our eyes, as if they were just quite common. That is not the case. It is without the shadow of a doubt a preparation for future events. How are these means of transportation, Wireless, T.V., Telephone, Aeroplanes, etc., used by the nations that have invented and developed them? It is not easy to pronounce judgment because that much good is being done, although on the other hand great evil is also being done by all these modern inventions. That is the natural tendency of man to abuse the mercies of God. There is no doubt whatever the wireless has been of great benefit to thousands of human beings on sea and land since it became useful, and workable for the good of man. On the other hand, the abuse of it is appalling, not only on week-days, but in a more marked degree on the Lord’s Day. Perhaps there is no other modern invention or instrument that is so abused on the Lord’s Day than the wireless, by millions of men and women who have no need of it on the Sabbath Day but to please their own carnal minds. It is a State monopoly in this country, and there is ample power in the hands of the State to close it down on Saturday till Monday morning. But you have to bear in mind that the State does not consider God, and therefore is thoughtless, and utterly callous where the honour of God and the salvation of souls is concerned. As you all know, much political policy is “the greatest good to the greatest number.” God knows the hearts of all men. We know what is written about the human heart!
It is obvious to all who fear God in this nation that the drift of Sabbath desecration is on the increase since the end of the last war, and that men, women, and the Press are doing their very utmost to blot out the Sabbath Day from our national life. It is a supreme effort in every possible way—by rail, air, cars, in hotels, private homes, crofters’ homes, in the Highlands and in the Lowlands, to annihilate the Sabbath Day from the whole land, Church, home, and State. There is no doubt whatever that there is a large body of men, and women, in this nation who are labouring strenuously to change the Lord’s Day into a day of sport and pleasure.
Recent events have shown how quickly prosperity could be turned into national disaster and national poverty. The slender thread upon which national prosperity and the individual welfare hangs, is very tender and weak. It may easily snap, and the whole nation cast into fearful confusion in a few days. The Suez Canal business was simply a warning, perhaps a loud warning, to our nation to walk humbly and softly before the Lord. No event, small or great, can happen without His immediate knowledge, and divine permission. All the millions gained last year on Sabbath traffic and Tourist traffic went down the drain in a few hours. We blame Nasser of Egypt: for we must, like old Adam find some scapegoat to lay the blame on for our own sin, and individual guilt! “I am the innocent party, and I am pure from blame.” Oh, that cursed man, “Myself.” But supposing we were as guilty of breaking the sixth commandment—”Thou shalt not kill,” as we are of transgressing the Fourth Commandment, what kind of State should we have? It would be no State at all—it would be a grave-yard. Is Sabbath desecration no sin at all? We know that the desecration of the Seventh Commandment is simply appalling among high and low, but what can be trusted to any man, or woman, that robs God of the Fourth Commandment? What can be trusted to a known murderer, or a well-known adulterer? What can be trusted to a convicted thief? Nothing. Can any Free Presbyterian believe that in the light of the Second Commandment, a Roman Catholic can worship God according to His Word, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”? Where the Lord’s day is not honoured, on a par with, and equal to all the other Commandments, there never was, and never shall be, the true religion. There may be religion, but not the true religion. The man or the woman who robs God of His due rights by desecrating the Lord’s Day, is at heart an enemy to all righteousness. He or she may have a very religious tongue, but the heart is rotten! The conscience is loaded with guilt, and the tongue coated with religion. We know that the Free Presbyterians are up against terrific odds, even ministers, elders, members, and adherents, in this age of what can be classified as semi-pagan. In Protestant Churches outside the pale of your Church discipline is completely broken down. If the Free Church, the Church of Scotland (perhaps we may include the Baptists), adhered to the discipline of the word of God regarding the Lord’s Day in Scotland, the vast majority of our people would be as careful of observing the Sabbath as their fathers were, but the Churches (Sessions, Presbyteries, Synods, and Assemblies) went to pieces on the Sabbath question well over 60 years ago, and the declension is going from bad to worse in all parts of the kingdom. Sabbath desecration, or Sabbath keeping, is the clearest evidence of the religious character of the nation.
The behaviour of the people on the Lord’s Day reveals the general conduct of the father, mother, and children. If the father works on Sabbath, and the mother works for hours on Sabbath, as her washing day, the children grow up to pay no respect to the Sabbath. We have noticed (by long observation) where the father was employed on the Lord’s Day (at his usual weekly employment), when the children grew up to manhood and womanhood, that they almost all severed connection with the Church, whether living in the home country or abroad. What is the cause and reason which can be given why the children left the Church of their Fathers? We have long ago concluded in the most of cases that it was because the parents showed no respect to the Lord’s Day.
When they (the children) found out that our Church could not give Church privileges to their parents, such as baptism, etc., because of their Sabbath work, and Sabbath desecration, they left the Church, went to the Free Church, or Church of Scotland, or in many cases to no Church at all. Now, if the other Protestant Denominations kept to the Word of God, and the holy discipline of the Word, a large percentage of our people would have remained loyal, and nominally faithful to their own Church. This is what the Free Presbyterian Church has been up against for the last 60 odd years. If 10,000 men are working in the yards of the Clyde on the Lord’s Day, the religious organisations of the country are largely to be blamed for this state of neo-paganism. The employer of labour is verily guilty before God, and so is the Government, but we would not hesitate to lay the greater part of the blame and guilt on the Churches, Kirk-Sessions, Presbyteries, and General Assemblies of the Protestant bodies. It is sad, and painful, how God is dishonoured by the sons and daughters of Scotland. We warn our young people who may be employed in hotels and boarding-houses during the coming season that the first thing they should do is to arrange that they are free on the Lord’s Day to worship God according to His Word, whether in your private room or in your own Church. Hotel proprietors and managers of hotels are out to make money and there is no Sabbath keeping in hotels. You may get good wages, etc., but are you to sell your soul, and maybe body, for the mammon of unrighteousness? “Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife” (Pro. 17, 1). Pay attention to what the great preacher said to those who eat the bread of wickedness: “The morsel which thou hast eaten thou shalt vomit up, and lose thy sweet words” (Pro. 23,8). What is then the value of ill-gotten gain when you must “vomit it up” in mercy or in judgment? What was the value of his great wealth to the rich man in the flames of hell? It only added grief to his pain! All the miserable man had of it was his cursed memory. What have rich men and women of their great wealth? If they die Christless they have nothing but a cursed memory in a lost eternity, weeping, and wailing for ever! We would warn parents to look well to their young daughters before they let them fall into the gins, and snares of wicked men. We have also noticed that where some of our young people are engaged within reach of their own Church during the “season” that they never enter the Church, the excuse is too busy money-making, and getting “tips.” Cursed money, and cursed “tips.”
When we were young we do remember the “well-to-do” holidaying on the Continent, Spain, Italy, France, and the Austrian Alps, etc.; nowadays, hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of the working classes are the “well-to-do” folk who travel to these parts during the Summer holiday season. Our people need a holiday, after being cooped in small offices, or in shops, etc., for 10 or 11 months of the year. No sane man would grudge them a good holiday, relaxation, quietness, peace of mind and body. It is also nice to travel abroad, see new things, people, and their way of life, their cities, and so on. But what about the Lord’s Day?
Can you keep the Sabbath holy to the Lord abroad? Can you serve the Lord in these countries? What are you doing with the Sabbath Day while abroad? Can you enjoy the “Continental Sunday”? Bull-fighting in Spain; football matches in Italy; music, dancing, and mountain climbing in Austria; “sun-bathing” in France on the Lord’s Day. Some of us have travelled large stretches of the earth and we never saw any part that can excel Scotland for sheer natural beauty. No Sabbath kept in Spain, nor in poverty-stricken Italy. Let us now quote the Fourth Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. Six days thou shalt labour 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.” We ask all who love the Lord, and His Cause, to ponder in their minds the words of this holy command of Jehovah. Turn to Matthew, v. 17. Hear what Christ says, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” Again, verse 18: “For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (See Luke 16: 17.) Would it not be blasphemous to maintain that the Lord Jesus had abolished the Sixth Commandment, as people maintain, and declare that He abolished the Fourth Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy”?
Our Crofting communities are expected to accommodate the Summer Tourists, and to make the visitors as comfortable as possible. It is very difficult (almost impossible) to get the “stranger within thy gates” to conform to the rules of a well-regulated family, especially on the Lord’s Day. The whole responsibility rests on the householder who receives the “stranger within his or her gates.” How can it be done? The vast majority of the Tourists are from the Southern centres of the Kingdom, and from overseas, some from the Continent. And it must be admitted (and seen on our public roads on the Lord’s Day) that many Tourists have no respect to your religion, and none at all to the Lord’s Day. How can Free Presbyterians cope with this situation who may be tempted to accommodate the Tourists? Can you “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy to the Lord,” and your house, maybe overcrowded with men and women who know not the Lord, and have probably no religion at all? Impossible! “The curse of God is in the house of the wicked.” What will prevent you, without solid Scriptural reason, from the worship of God in the family and the public worship, is not only wrong but, worse still, you dishonour God; and how then can you expect His blessing? Let our people weigh up the matter carefully, and prayerfully, and decide in the light of God’s Word, death, eternity, and the great day of judgment what they should do, and, after all, what is their best interest here, and hereafter?
Let us hear what the Westminster Divines had to say:
“The Fourth Commandment requireth of all men the sanctifying or keeping holy to God such set times as He has appointed in His Word, expressly one whole day in seven; which was the seventh from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, and the first day of the week ever since, and so to continue to the end of the world; which is the Christian Sabbath, and in the New Testament called the Lord’s Day.” The Sabbath or Lord’s Day “is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, not only from such works as are at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful; and making it our delight to spend the whole time (except so much of it as is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy) in the public and private exercises of God’s worship: and to that end, we are to prepare our hearts, and with such foresight, diligence, and moderation, to dispose, and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of that day.” “The charge of keeping the Sabbath is more specially directed to governors of families, and other superiors, because they are bound to keep it for themselves, but to see that it be observed by all those that are under their charge; and because they are prone oft-times to hinder them by employments of their own.” The reasons annexed to the Fourth Commandment, the more to enforce it, are taken from the equity of it, God allowing us six days of seven for our own affairs, and reserving but one for Himself, in these words: “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy works”; “from God’s challenging a special propriety in that day, ‘The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord Thy God'”; “from the example of God, who in six days made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: and the blessing that God put upon that day for His service, and in ordaining it to be a means of blessing to us in our sanctifying it: ‘Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath Day, and hallowed it.'” (Questions 116, 117, 118, in Larger Catechism).