IN religion, the voice of authority is not that of the people, but the voice of God alone.
LEGISLATURES and courts exist to protect rights, not to manufacture or annul them.
IF the national Government or a State government can profess religion, it can with equal propriety join a church.
“CIVIC righteousness”—righteousness by law—is the righteousness that was boasted by the Scribes and Pharisees. It is a counterfeit.
THE right of every man to rest from work on Sunday, implies also his right to labor on that day; for if labor is not a right on Sunday, it is not a right on any day.
THE gospel of Christ is not a command, but an invitation; and if changed to a command by the coercion of the civil power, it ceases to be the gospel at all. And this is why the state cannot be religious without working against Christianity.
NO PERSON’S conscience is to be interfered with by law, unless it has become so perverted as to lead him to do violence to the rights of others. And in such a case the civil authority acts not for the purpose of chastising or correcting the conscience, but only to protect the rights that are suffering invasion.
IF the millions of people who labor on the seventh day do not thereby harm the few thousands who observe that day, how does it appear that these few thousands will harm the millions by doing work on Sunday?
THE Sabbath belongs to God, for he calls it “the Sabbath of the Lord,” “My holy day,” etc. And since we are to render to God that which is his, and to Cesar only that which is Cesar’s, it is plain that Cesar has no business to command us to keep the Sabbath.