LETTER ON SABBATH RAILWAYS - Robert Murray Mcchene

TO ALEXANDER M‘NEILL, ESQ., ADVOCATE

SIR, —I have read the report of your speech at the meeting of Directors of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, on Tuesday, 16th November last, and also the motion which you propose to lay before the shareholders on the 24th of February. As a Christian minister, and a free British subject, I take leave to express in this manner the deep feelings of righteous indignation which these have awakened, not in my breast only, but in the breast of every believing man whom I know.

You candidly acknowledge that in the ranks of your opponents are to be found “men of lofty intellect, of great learning and piety, and unbounded benevolence,” and yet, in the same breath, you say, “You must judge for yourself, according to the reason and plain sense of the matter.” That is to say, that the host of intellectual and pious men who are arrayed against you do not judge according to reason or plain sense in this matter, but by some airy superhuman notions, which a man of sense may brush aside as so many cobwebs. Ah! sir, speak out your mind. Tell what it is that lies at the bottom of your enmity to the entire preservation of the Lord’s day. It is the concealment of your sentiments that is the darkest part of your whole address. You are an utter stranger to me, and I dare not judge as to your true motives. But every thinking man cannot but form this opinion in his own mind, that the reason why you despise the lessons of all God’s holiest and wisest servants in this land, is not that you think little of the resolutions of popular assemblies (that is a miserable subterfuge, unworthy of any but a mere debater), but that you despise and trample underfoot the divine message which they bring. You say you are threatened to be overwhelmed with a flood of obloquy. Do not be afraid. You are on the world’s side— “the world cannot hate you”. There are not many to lift up their voices in behalf of the holy Sabbath. Those who do, are the followers of one who bade us bless and curse not. You say “you do not court approbation, and you care nothing for condemnation.” This may be a brave speech; few will regard it as a wise one. If you mean that you do not care for the condemnation of worldly men, there would be something right in that, for in doing our duty we must expect that the world which crucified our Lord will not spare his servants; but if you mean that you do not care for the condemnation of God’s people, and of the word of God, and of the Lord Jesus, who is to be your Judge, then will you soon repent your words with bitter tears. Why, sir, what are you, that you should say, “I care nothing for condemnation?” “Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with thee?” “Hast thou an arm like God, or canst thou thunder with a voice like Him?” If the condemnation of your words, which God’s people are now testifying in every part of the land, be righteous condemnation—if it be in accordance with the word of God and the mind of Christ—is it the part of a wise man to say, “I care not for it?” You may say so now in the blindness of your heart, but the day is at hand when you will feel the reverse.

And now one word as to your proposed motion. It runs as follows: — “Whereas it is the duty of the directors of the company to give implicit obedience to the law of God, etc., —This meeting resolves that it is not inconsistent with the duty of the directors as aforesaid, and they are hereby enjoined to provide trains to be run from the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively, in the morning and in the evening of Sunday,” etc.

I do not know whether this motion has come entirely from your own mind, or whether several have agreed with you in it; but I here freely state my conviction, formed upon the calm and deliberate study of the motion, and without the slightest desire to use a harsh or improper term, that THE MOTION IS BLASPHEMOUS. You say, first, that it is your duty to give implicit obedience to the law of God. What is the law of God? “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou 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 manservant, 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.” Exod. 20:8–11. Now, sir, if, as I presume, you spent your early years in Scotland, trained up, perhaps, under the watchful eye of one who prayed for her child that he might walk in wisdom’s ways, you cannot be ignorant of the explanation given of this commandment in the Shorter Catechism. (Qu. 60.) “The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days, spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God’s worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.” This is the law of God, and this is the received interpretation of it, both of which were, no doubt, in your eye when you penned that memorable sentence, “It is the duty of the directors to give implicit obedience to the law of God.” And yet, before the ink was dry, you write down, “The directors are enjoined to provide trains to be run in the morning and evening of Sunday.” In other words, you hold in your hand the two Tables of Stone, written with God’s finger, and you say we should obey this; and then you dash them on the ground, and say it is our duty, notwithstanding, to trample on and defy them. Ah! sir, you may call this reason and plain sense, but simpler men can see that it is open mockery of God’s holy law, and of Him on whose heart it was graven from eternity. Such lipacknowledgment of God and his law God hates and despises. I solemnly declare, and it is the feeling of many besides me, that I would have been less shocked if you had written down, “It is the duty of the directors to break God’s law.” That would have been honest and downright, and thousands would have applauded you. But when you set out with the hypocritical declaration that it is your duty to give implicit obedience to the law of God, and then conclude by declaring your resolution to break it, I believe in my I heart, that not only will God’s children abhor the blasphemy, but honest, worldly men will despise your cowardice. And now, sir, I have done. You little know the feelings of deep compassion with which you, and the unhappy men who voted with you, are regarded by many an humble and holy believer, who loves, because he knows, the preciousness of an unbroken Sabbath-day. Never in all my experience did I meet with a child of God who did not prize, above all other earthly things, the privilege of devoting to his God the seventh part of his time. It is still a sign between God and his Israel. It is this simple fact, sir, that affords me ground to fear that, with all your talents, with all your reason and plain sense, you are yet an utter stranger to the peculiar tastes and joys and hopes of those who love the Lord. You proclaim your own shame. You prove, even to the blind world, that you are not journeying toward the Sabbath above, where the Sabbath-breaker cannot come. If you shall really carry your motion, against the prayers and longings of God’s people in this land, then, sir, you will triumph for a little while; but Scotland’s sin, committed against light, and against solemn warning, will not pass unavenged. I am, sir, etc.

P.S.—As an advocate learned in the law, you must be well aware that the law of God, as expounded by the Confession of Faith of the Established Church of Scotland (and which is subscribed by every denomination of orthodox Dissenters in Scotland), is also the law of the land, as ratified and enacted by the Act 1690 of the Parliament of Scotland, in the two following clauses:

“As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God, so, in his word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, He hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto Him; which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord’s day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath.”

“This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts, about their worldly employments and recreations, but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.”

If this be true, which you know it is, then you stand convicted before the British public as one who proclaimed it to be the duty of the directors to break both the law of God and the law of the land. ST PETER’S, DUNDEE, 1st December 1841.