-^^\<..^- Of mfic^^^ OG/CAL SEW^>^' BV 110 .F68 1886 ^ Four essays on the Sabbath FOUR ESSAYS ON ^V TO WHICH WERE AWARDED PRIZES OF £100, £50, £30, AND £20, BY THE SABBATH ALLIANCE OF SCOTLAND. I. OUR REST DAY ; ITS ORIGIN, HISTORY, AND CLAIMS, With Special Reference to Present Day Needs. By the Rev. THOMAS HAMILTON, A.M., Belfast. II. HEAVEN ONCE A WEEK : AN ESSAY ON THE SABBATH. By the Rev. WILL C. WOOD, A.M., secretary, massachussets sabbath committee, boston, U.S. Ill THE SABBATH : SCRIPTURALLY AND PRACTICALLY CONSIDERED, ^ With Special Reference to the State of Sabbath Observance at the Present Time. By the Rev. JAMES ORR, D.D., Hawick. IV. SOME ASPECTS OF THE SABBATH QUESTION. by "A MEMBER OF THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE, EDINBURGH." WITH PREFACE BY ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., EDINBURGH. EDINBURGH: JAMES GEMMELL, 16 GEORGE IV. BRIDGE. 1886. SABBATH ALLIANCE OF SCOTLAND. Prize Essay on the Sabbath. Sums of £100, £50, £30, and £20, are offered as First, Second, Third, and Fourth Prizes, for an ESS A Y on the SABBATH. The following are the subjects and conditions prescribed by the Donor : — I. The Sabbath instituted at the Creation of Man (Gen. ii, 1-3), and of which the Son of Man declared Himself to be Lord (Mark ii. 28).* II. The Sabbath, as defined in the Fourth Commandment, not a merely Jewish institution. m. The question whether the appointment of the last of the seven days of the week as the Sabbath was peculiar to the temporary Jewish dispensation, t IV. Explanation of the word "Sabbath" in the various places where it occurs in the New Testament. V. The relation of the Fourth Commandment to the other precepts of the Decalogue, special reference being made to present errors in this connection, and to the teaching and practice of the Church of Rome. VI. The proper observance of the Sabbath by nations and private Chris- tians, considering also existing and proposed encroachments upon the sanctity of the Sabbath in our own time (Isa. Iviii. 13, 14). Essayists are recommended to read the discussion of these questions in a Pamphlet by the Rev. James Johnstone, and a Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge by the Rev. Samuel Lee, D.D., both to be obtained (price Is. 6d. each, free by post) from Mr. Andrew Elliot, Bookseller, 17 Princes Street, Edinburgh. The Donor desires a full and exhaustive con- sideration of Nos. I. and VI., along with a careful treatment of the subject under HI. , with notes (a), (b), (c). t The Essays must be lodged under a Motto, accompanied by a sealed en- velope enclosing the name of the Competitor, with the Secretary of the Sabbath Alliance, on or before 31st July, 1884. The copyright of the Prize Essays will become the property of the Donor of the Prizes, * Also alluding to Col. i. 16 and Heb. 1. 2, inferentially connected with this, as showing the Son identified with the Father in the creation of the world, and therefore necessarily with the appointment of the Sabbath. t E.g. (a) Whether the day sanctified In Paradise, and kept by the patriarchs, was the day observed, or marlced as sacred, in all ages and almost all lands under tlie name of Sabbatha, or Sunday? (b) Whether the day for the commencement of the week, as well as of the year, was changed by God at the exodus from Egypt, changing thereby the Sabbath day of the Jews during their temporary dispensation, so that this might account for the Christian Lord's Day coinciding with the Sunday or Lord's Day of other lands ? (c) Whether the commencement of the year, as directed by Moses after the exodus from Egypt, woiild in any way interfere with the Jewish Sabbath day being the same seventh day in each year, as every distinct year was ordered to have a distinct commencement ? PREFACE. rpHE four Essays of which this vohime consists, while devoted in common to the proof of the divine origin and the universal and permanent obli- gation of the Sabbath Institute, possess the advantage of edifying diversity in the manner in which the great subject is handled by the respective authors. This has arisen, not only from the difference in the indi- viduality but in the nationality of the waiters. One is an Irishman, a second an American, and while the two others are Scotsmen, the one is a clergyman and the other a layman, spending his days amidst the cares and conflicts of our courts of law. Each essayist has, in this way, drawn largely upon his own experience and surroundings for his illustrative facts and colourings, so that while we are conducted by all over the same field, each has his own separate points of view at which to place us, and his favourite aspects to bring into pro- minence ; and it will be found that the subject has not been exhausted, nor the freshness dissipated, when all the four treatises have been read. It seems to us, however, that, in their united service, the authors of these valuable compositions have not only reproduced, in various forms, the arguments and defences of earlier writers, but, in more than one important re- iv Preface. spect, have added to the force and fuhiess of the evi- \ dence for the divine authority and benignity of the Day of sacred Rest. We shall specify a few instances of this. 1. In reference to the jjrimeval origin and divine appointment of the Sahbath. Our essayists, while taking their firm stand on the famous passage in Genesis ii. 2, 3, and contending, on its authority, that the institution of this hallowed day was contemporaneous with the crea- tion of man, not a mere temporary observance for a nation, but a God-given boon for the human race and for all time, have, in addition, gathered from many quarters outside the Bible, a mass of very interesting confirmatory evidence for this truth, which had not been known to the same extent and with the same rich variety, by any of their predecessors. Gleaning from the discoveries of savants and learned excavators, especially during the last two ages, they have proved, beyond all reasonable dispute, that, many a century before there was a Jewish Church or a Jew^ on the earth, there was the know^ledge and observance of a seventh day of sacred rest, among the most ancient and widely separated nations and communities in the world. And nothing has seemed more natural and unavoidable than the con- clusion that this common observance must have had a common source. The clay tablets found among the ruins of Babylon, the cuneiform inscriptions on the alabaster slabs of Nineveh, the decyphered records on the tombs of Egypt, as well as the imjierial almanacs of China, not to speak of the unequivocal notices in the poems of Hesiod and Homer, all with one consenting voice bear testimony to the existence, among the gentile Preface. v nations, of a day of sacred rest, in the earliest ages, and to this rest as occurring one day in seven. The sealed letters which had been written in the "grey dawn of time " have been broken open and read. '' Truth has sprung out of the earth." All this seems to pohit back for the secret of its origin, to those historic lines in Genesis : " On the seventh day God ended his work which He had made ; and He rested on the seventh day from all His w^ork which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sancti- fied it : because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." 2. I have been struck with the convincing fulness of statement with which some of the essayists have illustrated the hearing of Old Testament propJiecy on the evidence for the designed iDerpetuity of the Sahhath rest, under Christianity. As this holy day existed anterior to Judaism, so was it also distinctly and frequently fore- told that it should continue, with enlarged significance and more exuberant blessing, under the more spiritual dispensation, after Judaism had become extinct, even as nio'ht's candles all o-o out when the sun has risen. And these clear and repeated divine predictions indicated the divine purpose. This argument had been touched upon by earlier writers, but our essayists have gone into the golden mine, and w^rought it with a will. They have shown us a Sabbatic gleam lighting up many of the old prophetic oracles, and indicating that the only change which the Sabbath was to undergo after the advent was one of increased significance, as becoming not only the memorial of the finished creation, but of finished vi Preface. redemption in the resurrection of oui" Lord Jesus Christ. "When the stone which the builders rejected had be- come the chief stone of the corner," /. e., when Christ had died, and risen again, and become the foundation and corner-stone of His Church, there would be the many-voiced cry from many a land, " This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it." Ps. cxviii., 22-24. 3. We have also good reason for thanking our essay- ists for the elaborate attention they have given to those numerous iDassages in the gospel histories, ivhich record our Lord's conversations vnth the unfriendly Pharisees, on the subject of the Sabbath. These passages are very numerous. And many persons ignorant of the circum- stances in which the conversations took place, and not sufficiently taking into view the state of mind of those whom He was addressing, have imagined the Pharisees to be, on the whole, a fair representation, in their spirit and conduct, of the Sabbath law and our Lord's teaching as intended to alter or to abrogate it. But the teaching of the Great Prophet, in all that He said, was not directed against the real Sabbath law, as it had been given to our first parent in Eden, and after- wards republished from amid the clefts of Sinai, but against the miserable puerilities and the minute and intolerable restrictions with which those Pharisees and rulers had robbed it of all its simplicity and benignity ; and, by explaining it, to make it put on anew its beau- tiful garments of holiness and love. And our essay- ists have done well in o-oino^' round the whole circle of our Lord's teachings on this great subject, interpreting Preface. vii them one by one, and showing, by an exhaustive treat- ment, what a heavenly benison His Sabbath bore in its bosom for every child of man. Though, perhaps, they would have added to the value of their service and made their work yet more complete, if the}^ had more fully shown that the very frequency and patience with which Jesus sought to explain the true nature of the Institute, and to present it before men in its primeval beauty, placed it beyond all reasonable doubt that it did not belong to the thingfs which were to be shaken or removed. We may be sure that He would not have taken so much pains with the explanation of an ordinance which was on the point of being cast aside, as belonging to the beggarly elements of a system that had outlived its day. Suppose we saw a man removing the rubbish and the tangled weeds from the base of an ancient monument, chiseling out the moss from its inscriptions, sharpening the edge of its every letter, and even adding to the inscription, we should conclude, without fail, that it was designed for perpetuity. It was thus that our great Master and Lawgiver did with the Sabbath law. He removed the glosses and perversions with which the Pharisees had turned it into the opposite of itself, and beneath the word " Creation " which His hand had engraved on it at the beo-innino- of time, carved out the words " Resurrec- tion and Redemption," not abrogating its earlier memorial use, but adding to it a second and a greater. 4. Our essayists have also done eminent service to the cause of the Sacred Day, hy the fulness of statement cmd the skill lohich they have sheiun, in their treatment of the jyhysiology of the Sabbath. They have clearly seen that, viii Preface. Avhen our Lord gave utterance to that j^regnant sayings " The Sabbath was made for man," He did not merely intend to declare that it was designed for man in all countries and through all time, but that it was divinely adapted to man, to the whole man, to every part of his complicated being, whether physical, intellectual, moral, or spiritual. There is scarcely a fact on which physi- cians and physiologists are more entirely agreed in their judgment, looking at the matter from merely scientific grounds, than the necessity of the weekly rest, in order alike to the maintenance of our mental and bodily health and vigour. In other words, that the nightly repose and sleep do not entirely rejiair the waste of power that has been incurred by the six previous days of toil, but that, in addition to this, an entire cessation from "the common round and daily task," on every seventh day, is indispensable in order to restore the balance, and render the compensation complete. The facts in evidence of this are continually accumulating, and it is to the praise of these wTiters that they have brought the statement of these facts, many of them profoundly interesting and coming from unexpected sources, up to date. Physio- logy has, in fact, demonstrated, on its own independent ground, that " man is a seventh-day resting animal," and this is a testimony which suggests much, and points in the direction of important conclusions which we reach on other lines. How w^as it, for instance, that, thousands of years before there was such a science as physiology in the world, Moses should have recognised this law of our nature, and his legislation have been perfectly adapted to it ? Proudhon, the celebrated French Socialist, placed Preface. ix the name of the great Hebrew, on this account mainl}^ among the greatest lawgivers of the world. We have another explanation from the highest source of know- ledge. It was He who made man, that made the Sab- bath for man. Its origin is before Moses. Its date is as old as time. And yet, with this great and varied array of evidence, not only for the divine authority, but for the beneficent influence of the Lord's Day upon the spiritual life, and the temporal prosperity of a people, there are hostile agencies powerfully and incessantly at work, whose aim and tendency are to mar the integrity, and, if possible, even to destroy the existence of this divine institution. Could we imagine a good man, in this country, to have fallen asleep two generations ago, and now to awake and look around him, he would be certain to give it as his sorrowful judgment, that, with some improvements per- haps in other respects, the change in the matter of Sab- bath-loving and Sabbath-keeping, had, on the whole, been slowly to the worse. How shall we account for this ? Are we mistaken in the impression that there prevails, even in our churches, an imperfect acquaintance with the Scripture law of the Sabbath, and that multi- tudes of our present generation need to be educated on this vital subject anew ? This imperfect knowledge has led, of course, to a weakening of attachment and a partial unsettling of belief Then certain prejudices have been industriously created and fostered by false, or greatly exaggerated, pictures of the manner in which the Sab- bath is observed, in the more earnestly religious circles of our country. These have, indeed, formed the stock sub- X Preface. ject of some of our popular novel-writers. Everything in their representations has been stern, sullen, severe, forbidding, and, except, it may be, in rare instances, untrue. If such a method of Sabbath-keeping exists, now-a-days, in our land, we have failed to see it ; and w^e venture to affirm of those who write thus, that they have never spent a Sabbath in an English, or Scottish, or American family of average intelligence and piety. Another hostile influence which is powerfully at work, comes from inveterate pleasure-seekers and their supporters. They accept the day wdiich God has com- manded to be kept holy to Himself, only to turn it into a holiday. There are seasons for amusement and recrea- tion,— no enliofhtened Christian man would seek to dis- courage them in their own time, and place, and measure ; but the Sabbath's sacred hours are not to be stolen from their higher and nobler uses for such gratifications as these. And then, how can we speak in words of too loud alarm and w^arning, of that intense spirit of money- making which is operating against the integrity of the Lord's Day, in so vast and constantly increasing a scale, especially in the form of Sabbath traffic and unnecessary Sabbath travelling, and breaking down one fence after another, w4iich God Himself had placed around that sacred day, which, in its turn, enshrines and guards so much that is most precious to man both for this world and the next. " The world were dark but for Thy light, Thy torch doth show the way." Much else is certain to pass away when our Sabbaths are lost. Only let us begin to give up our opportunities Preface. xi of public religious instruction and worship, and gradu- ally, but surely, we shall part with religion itself. And when once the fountains of religion are dried up, how precarious and superficial is the morality that exists without it. And when our moral life is blio-hted, where are our national strength, our solidity, our order, our liberty, our elements of greatness and power ? It will require no visible judgments from heaven to insure such a nation's decline and fall. The secret of its ruin is within it. And already has the finger of God inscribed on it " Ichabod, the glory is departed." Jfirst ^ri^^ d^ssag. OUR REST-DAY: ITS ORIGIN, HISTORY, AND CLAIMS. WITH SPECIAL REFERENCES TO PRESENT DAY NEEDS. BY THE Eev. THOMAS HAMILTON, A.M., YORK STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BELFAST. BEING THE ESSAY TO WHICH WAS AWARDED A PRIZE OF ONE HUNDRED POUNDS OFFERED BY THE SABBATH ALLIANCE OF SCOTLAND. " Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum." ■ Q. Horatius Flaccus, EDINBURGH: JAMES GEMMELL, GEORGE IV. BRIDGE. 1 8 S fi TO The Rev. W. D. KILLEN, D.D., PRESIDENT AND PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY, ASSEMBLY'S COLLEGE, BELFAST, rO THE TEARS SPENT AT WHOSE FEET THE WRITER OF THE FOLLOWING PAGES LOOKS BACK AS AMONG THE HAPPIEST OF HIS LIFE, AND TO WHOSE SAGACIOUS COUNSEL, PROPOUND LEARNING, AND FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP HE HAS OFTEN SINCE BEEN INDEBTED, THIS TREATISE IS RESPECTFULLY JBetiicateti, PREFACE. THE history of this treatise may be told in a few words. In 1883, tlie Sabbath Alliance of Scotland offered four prizes of £100, £50, £30, and £20 respectively, for the fonr best essays on the Sabbath, which should be sent to them before July 31sr, 1884.* The difficult task of adjudicating on the merits of these was entrusted to the Rev. Professor Mitchell, D.D., St. Andrews (now Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland); the Rev. John Marshall Lang, D.D., Barony Parish, Glasgow; the Rev. Principal Rainy, D.D., New Collese, Edinburiili ; the Rev. Andrew Thomson, D.D.. Edinburgh ; and the Rev. J. Chalmers Burns, D.D., Corstorhine. Over two hundred and forty essays were lodged with the Secretary of the Sabbath Alliance before the specified date, and out of these the adjudicators, in the July of this year, unanimously selected that which appears in the following pages as the best. To the writer thereof was accordingly awarded the prize of £100, and it is now published in accordance with the terms of the original proposal, and with the earnest hope that its circulation and perusal may do some service to the cause of the Sab- bath of the Lord. * The Alliance were enabled to offer these prizes through the liberality of a large hearteJ friend of the Sabbath, J. T. Morton, Esq., London. vi Preface. It is rio;ht to mention that the line of discussion to be pursued in the essays was fixed by the Committee of the Sabbath Alhance. Possibly, had the present writer been left to his own free choice, the consideration of some topics of which he has treated might have been omitted, and that of others added. The literature of the Sabbath question is immense, and not much of it was left unexamined in the course of the writer's study. To mention all the volumes which were consulted would be to compile a very tedious catalogue. The larger works on the subject, such as Dr. Hessey's Bampton Lectures, and Mr. GilfiUan's treatise on " The Christian Sabbath viewed in the light of Reason, Revela- tion and History," must of course be made use of by every student of the question. Professor M'Gregor's little book, "The Sabbath Question : Historical, Scriptural and Practical" (Edinburgh, Duncan Grant, 1866), is not so well known, at least on this side of the Channel, although it contains much excellent matter. There are also two pamphlets, small in size, but replete with sound thought and accurate reasoning, which the writer has special pleasure in mentioning, inasmuch as their authors are two of the ornaments of the Church to which he has the honour to belong. These are: "The Permanent Obliga- tion of the Decalogue," a Sermon by the Rev. Robert AVatts, D.D., Professor of Divinity in Assembly's College, Belfast, and "The Sabbath not a Church Holiday, but a Divine Ordinance under all dispensations," by the Rev. Thomas Witherow, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History. Magee College, Londonderry. Both of these have been consulted with great advantage in the pre- paration of this essay. The help derived from other Preface. vii sources will be found acknowledged iu the body of the work. AVith these prefatory observations, the treatise is noAv left to the kindly consideration and unbiassed judgment of the reader. Let its arguments and conclusions be tried by the unerring standard of the Word of God, to which appeal is made throughout, and tlie writer cannot doubt that their correctness will be admitted. May the Lord of the Sabbath use the book for the service of the Day which He Himself has made ! Brookvale House, Belfast, October, 1885. I. INTRODUCTORY. " Of all Divine institutions, the most Divine is that which secures a Day of Rest for men. I hold it to be the most valuable blessing ever conceded to humanity." — The Earl of Beaconsfield, speaJdng in the House of Lords on May 5, 1S79. " The religious observance of Sunday is a main prop of the religious character of the country. From a moral, social, and physical point of view, the observance of Sunday is a duty of absolute consequence." — The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, in speech in the House of Commons, CONTENTS. The " Sunday-Stone " — Status qucestionis defined — A world-wide observance of a Day of Rest to be accounted for — Postulates. Pasres 5 — 8. OUE EEST-DAY. I CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. N some of the coal-mining districts of England there is found a curious deposit which the miners call " Sunday stone." On making a section of a piece of it, it is seen to consist of layers of stalagmitic matter, regularly superimposed on each other, with this peculiarity, that after six strata of a blackish hue there appears, with the utmost regularity, one stratum of pure white — then six more of the black, with a seventh of the white, and so on through the entire thickness of the deposit. The explanation of this remarkable formation is easy. Down in the coal-mine, water, filtrating through the limestone roof, becomes highly impregnated with carbonate of lime. Dropping on the floor in a continual trickle, this forms a deposit. While the miners are at work, the coal-dust which pervades the atmosphere, mingling with the dropping water, imparts a blackish hue to the deposit. But when the Day of Rest comes round, on which the mine is quiet, the water, having nothing to sully its purity, deposits a layer of beautifully white mineral ; and so by examining such a section as we have spoken of, one can trace back the history of the mine through all the weeks up to the first Sabbath which has left its white mark upon the rock. Now, let us imagine for a moment that, ages hence, all our present institutions and order of things, civil and religious, had disappeared, swept away by successive national catastrophes. The familiar New Zealand savage sits upon the broken arch of London Bridge, and meditates on what London may have been in 6 Our Rest-Day. the ages long gone by. He roams through the country, as the traveller now wanders among the mounds of Assyria. He peers curiously into all the relics of the life of the great empire which is no more. Among the rest he comes on a block of this " Sun- day stone " in some disused mine of the Black Country. He notes with wonderment its bands of snowy white recurring so regularly after the six of smutty black. In other parts of the deserted colliery he discovers other blocks of similar stalagmite in process of formation before his eyes ; but these all are pure white — no layer of black running through them. Being an in- telligent New Zealander, as one of such an era, the heir of all the ages, is likely to be, he hits upon the secret of the formation of the " Sunday stone." He concludes, according to the fact, that this mysteriously-marked piece of rock in his hand has been formed by deposition, like the mass of stalagmite now forming upon the mine floor in its snowy purity. But he reasons further that, during six days in the lives of those people, among the ruins of whose civilization he is treading, the water which per- colated through the rock and dripped upon the floor was con- taminated with dust — dust raised by toil among those black coal-seams, portions of which still remain, raised by some of those picks which lie broken at his feet ; but that during the seventh day no grimy particles defiled the air or water ; no work therefore was done ; that the rule of these lands, in the days whose remains he is examining, was six days' work and one day's rest. And he sets himself to solve the problem thus pre- sented to him — How came it that these busy old Englishmen stopped all labour for a seventh of time ? Our position in entering upon the inquiry to be pursued in this essay, we desire to be a somewhat similar one. We find recurring at its regular septenary intervals in the course of the world's affairs this white-marked day. Six days the dust of the world's business darkens. One is free from it, more or less. Here is a phenomenon to be accounted for — surely a very remarkable pheno- menon. "We are so familar with it that it strikes us as nothing strange that over all Christendom, after every six daj^s of toil, comes one of intermission, devoted to rest by common consent. But surely a most impressive thought it is that thus over all the earth, from Labrador to the Coral Isles, from India in the East to the Rocky Mountains in the West, this Day of Rest is kept Our Rest-Day. 7 — kept by people of many different races — Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Teutonic, Slav ; of many different creeds — Protestant, Latin Church, Greek Church ; and kept through age after age so far back as history carries us. What is the explanation of this ob- servance ? Whence this common consent ? Does it rest on any authoritative basis ? If so, Mdiat is that basis ? Is it a basis laid down by human authority or Divine ? Where is that authority discoverable ? What is its history ? How far back does it extend ? How widely does it reach ? What is the exact nature of its requirements ? These are the topics now to be dis- cussed. They are topics of widely reaching interest. They con- cern the antiquarian, the theologian, the historian, the social economist, the philanthropist. Not one of their domains is untouched by this marvellous Sabbath institution. But it con- cerns more than these. It concerns every man to know is he called upon to observe a weekly day of rest — if so, by what authority and in what manner of observance, and for what ends ? Why, to recur to our illustration, this septenary streak of white after the six of dusky black ? Into this inquiry I invite the reader to accompany me. Let us endeavour to divest ourselves of all prejudice or bias in one direction or other. Let us only desire to know what is the truth. It concerns us to know it. Interests of the vastest importance depend on the knowledge, and on the carrying of that knowledge into practice. Let us throw open all the windows of the soul to all the light we can find. Let us breathe a prayer as we do so, that He who himself is Light may shine in upon us, that in His light we may see light on this great subject, and may learn truly what is His will regarding it ! To avoid confusion or misapprehension, let it be understood at the outset, that in this essay certain things are assumed. It is assumed, for instance, that there is a God, and that this God has spoken to us in the Bible — the W^ord of God. If there are any among the readers of these pages who traverse either or both of these positions, we cannot here stay to argue with them. Our inquiry proceeds on a Theistic basis, and on a Biblical basis. The fact of the existence of God im]3lies the authority of God. Su- preme authority is involved in the very idea of a Supreme Being. It is His to command. Being God He will command nothing but what is right. It is for His creatures to obey, satisfied that 8 Our Rest-Day. implicit obedience is at once their duty and their interest. Therefore, if He has spoken, as He has, in the Bible, whatever He has declared there is most surely to be believed, because it is so declared, and whatever He has indicated as His will is most carefully to be obeyed, because it is His will. Moreover, that revelation of His is to be taken in its plain grammatical mean- inof. Its histories are neither to be transmuted into myths nor alleo-ories. Its statements are not to have read into them non- natural senses, such as similar statements in any other book would never be subjected to. The fact that this Bible is a revelation for man, therefore intended surely to be understood by man, so far as he is capable of understanding it, is to be kept in view. No doubt there may be expected in it things "hard to be understood." The lly, which creeps over the enriched capital of some splendidly carved column in a cathedral, can as little comprehend all the proportions of the vast building in which he walks, as man all the greatness of the Temple of Inspiration. But this he can comprehend, and must believe, that this Book of Inspiration is not a mocker}^, professing to give to him what in reality it does not, keeping the word of promise to the ear but breaking it to the hope, putting into his hands a revelation of the will of his God which is in reality no revelation, but a mystical, allegorical, obscure utterance, out of which when he strives to extract the plain meaning, which its plain words bear upon their face — he is told he has extracted a meaning which is not there. The Bible, being God's book for man, man must be able, by the exercise of the powers with which that God has en- dowed him, to comprehend its meaning, else it ceases to be a revelation — an unveiling of the mind of God, and sinks to the level of Delphic or Dodonian oracles, with its characteristics like theirs, equivocation and ambiguity. Postulating these necessary things — the existence of a God and the reality of a revelation, we proceed with our inquiry. II. • *'HOW OLD ART THOU?" " The first sunrise that our first parents saw, Dawned on their day of consecrated rest ; Of all days, even in Paradise, the best ; From such original that gift we draw ; And wedded love, even like the Sabbath law. Ordained in Eden, has outlived the Fall ; And these the bliss of Paradise recall, Even in the wilderness.'' CONTENTS. The Story of Creation — Its principle six days of work and one of rest — The Day-Period theory — Hugh Miller's view — The Proleptical interpretation of the Genesis account of the Sabbath — Paley's argument — The Sabbath appointed at Creation, and intended for man, because {».) God needed no rest for himself; (/s.) the Sabbath was the first day man ever saw ; (y.) it was given to the first father of the human race ; (§.) our Lord declares, " The Sabbath was made for man ; " (s.) God " blessed " the Day and " sanctified " it ; (^J The .Fourth Commandment bases man's Sabbath rest on the Divine rest after Creation ; («.) we have a septenary division of time from Creation onwards, whicli is only to be accounted for by the fact of the existence of a Sabbath — Christ the Creator alike of the earth and of the Sabbath. Pages 13—23. CHAPTER II. "HOW OLD ART THOU?" TAKING up the Bible, and opening it at its first book, we find that it commences (as we should naturally expect a book intended for the instruction of man in God's will to com- mence) with an account of the creation of the world in which man dwells. We are told in this account that the world is a created world, not a self-evolved one, and that its Creator was God. The manner and order of this creation are then described. We are told that the work occupied the Divine Artificer for six days. On the sixth the creation of man took place. Earth, over which he was to have dominion, and which was to be his home, being made and fully furnished, he is introduced to his destined dwelling and receives directions as to his care of it and of himself. So that wondrous week terminates, and then we read — " And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made ; and He rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, be- cause that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made " (Gen. ii. 2-3). Or, as the passage literally rendered from the Hebrew would read — " Then finished God on the seventh day his work which he had made, and rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. Then blessed God the seventh day and hallowed it, because in it he had rested from all his work which created had God to make." Here is a plain statement — plain at least thus far, that it indi- cates a certain action on the part of the Almighty and a certain purpose. Some things about these opening chapters of the Scriptures may not be plain. Science and theology may not be able yet to see precisely how God's two revelations, that whose pages are the rocky strata of the Stone-Book, and these pages written with ink by His inspiration, precisely fit into each other Two independent witnesses, they give their separate accounts of 14 Onr Rest- Day. ^ the earth's past, both leading up to a beginning, and neither con- tradicting the other. Being both Divine, the Work and the Word proceeding from the same hand, they could not contradict each other. But where the one record fits into the other, opinions may and do differ. With which of the great geological periods does such and such a day in Genesis correspond ? Does it correspond precisely with any of them ? Where in the Genesis story is the parallel passage to this in the Earth story, or is there an exact parallel passage to it there at all — does it not belong to some interval not spoken of there? — these and such-like questions are relevant and permissible, for the record in Genesis makes no statement as to its points of correspondence with the record in the rocks. But no question is permissible or possible as to this fact — that after six days of work " God rested on the seventh day," nor as to this other, that, in addition, " he blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work." There is a plain statement, which, unless words were intended really to conceal and not to reveal thought, clearly con- veys to the reader, and, because it conveys, must have been in- tended to convey to him, that the Creator, having spent six days in work, devoted the seventh to rest, and because he did so " blessed and sanctified " that day. THE DAY PERIOD THEORY. Some have, we know, interpreted these " days " of this open- ing portion of Genesis as not ordinary days of twenty-four hours each, but periods of indefinite length. This view is not a modern one. Many people are under the impression that it is to the dis- coveries of geology that it owes its origin. The fact, however, is not so. Long before the researches of the palaeontologist had caused the first chapter of the Pentateuch to be re-studied in the light which they have shed on the early history of the world, men like Josephus and Philo among the Jews, and Descartes and Whiston among Christians, held that the Mosaic days were long periods. More than one modern name of eminence can be quoted in support of this theory. It does not fall within the scope of our inquiry to discuss it. Undoubtedly the word day is used in Scripture in various senses. In Daniel it means a year. Even among ourselves, if we make the sun the arbiter of Our Rest-Day. 15 its length, we must remember that at the poles the sun sets on the 25th of September and does not rise again till the IGth of March, and at another time of the year he does not disappear for weeks together below the horizon. Nor, if we adopt the day- period theory, do we, say its advocates, at all lose the force of the argument for the Sabbath from the Scripture before us. Hugh Miller, in an eloquent passage in his " Testimony of the Rocks," maintains this, arguing that as it is a seventh portion of time that is claimed for God, that seventh portion remains demandable whether the Genesis day be long or short. " It has been urged," he says, " that this scheme of periods is irreconcileable with that Divine ' reason ' for the institution of the Sabbath, which He who appointed the day of old, has in His goodness vouchsafed to man. I have failed to see any force in the objection. God the Creator, who wrought during six periods, rested during the seventh period, and, as we have no evidence whatever that He recommenced His work of creation, as, on the contrary, man seems to be the last formed of crea- tures, God may be resting still. The presumption is strong that His Sabbath is an extended period, not a natui-al day, and that the work of Redemption is His Sabbath-day's work. And so I cannot see that it in che least interferes with the integrity of the reason rendered to read it as follows — Work during six periods and rest on the seventh ; for in six periods the Lord created the heavens and the earth, and in the seventh period He rested. The Divine period may have been very great — the human periods veiry small; just as a vast continent or the huge earth itself is Very great, and a map or geographical globe very small. But if in the map or globe the proportions be faith- fully maintained, and the scale, though a minute one, be true in all its parts and applications, we pronounce the map or globe, notwithstanding the smallness of its size, a faithful copy. Were man's Sabbath to be kept as enjoined, and in the Divine pro- portions, it would scarcely interfere with the logic of ' the reason annexed to the fourth commandment,' though in this matter, as in all others in which man can be an imitator of God, the imitation should be a miniature one." Happily it is not required of us that in these pages we should adjudicate on the merits of this theory. Certain difficulties suggest themselves regarding it to the ordinary reader of Scrip- 1 6 Our Rest- Day. ture. Why, for instance, are "evening" and "morning" men- tioned in speaking of the days, if ordinary days are not intended ? Why does the group of days pi-ecisely amount to a week, if the days are not really the days of a week but great ages ? If each of the six days, again, is a long age, then the seventh must be the same, and the question arises and demands an answer — in what sense has it been " blessed and sanctified ? " It is, we must suppose, still in progress. We are probably living in it. How is it blessed and sanctified beyond those which preceded it ? It would divert us too far from our proper purpose to inquire into these difiiculties. One thing, however, is clear, and that one thing is all that is necessary for our purpose. We have here a Rest-day, observed by the Divine Being, and not only observed by Him, but blessed and sanctified by Him. What is this, we ask any unprejudiced reader, but the institution by Divine ex- ample of the Sabbath Day and the setting apart of that Sabbath Day for holy uses by mankind ? THE PROLEPTICAL ARGUMENT. It has been argued, indeed, that we have in the verses quoted only an instance of the figure of speech called prolepsis. Paley, in his " Moral and Political Philosophy," after citing the passage to which we are referring, says — "The words do not assert that God then blessed and sanctified the seventh day, but that he blessed and sanctified it for that reason, and if any ask why the Sabbath or sanctification of the seventh day was then mentioned, if it was not then appointed, the answer is at hand — the order of connection, and not of time, introduced the mention of the Sabbath in the history of the subject which it was ordained to commemorate." But where, we ask, is there any hint in the narrative of anything of the kind ? On Paley 's principles, we must read the passage somewhat thus — "On the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And, many years afterwards, God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." But such an interpretation really amounts to an interpolation. It alters the passage. To get Paley's meaning into it, we must in- sert additional words. Once admit such a mode of dealing with Scripture, or with any other book, and we may bid farewell to Our Rest- Day, 1 7 certainty regarding any author's meaning. Take the other Edenic ordinance, marriage — how could we tell, on Paley's prin- ciples, that it was instituted in Eden ? The account given of its institution may be proleptical as well as that given of the insti- tution of the Sabbath. No history could stand if subjected to such treatment. The plainest and most unvarnished statement might be so twisted and distorted as to bear a meaning the exact contrary of that intended by its author. Leaving this, however, we proceed to make the following remarks on THIS FIRST SABBATH. Evidently the institution was intended for man. Because (a.) God needed no rest for Himself. " The everlasting God the Lord, the Creator o£ the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary." In His resting, therefore. He cannot have had a view to Himself. He must have had a view to man. This will further appear if we reflect that — (6.) The very first day whose dawn man ever saw was the Day of Rest. He was brought into being on the sixth day of the crea- tion week. The Sabbath was instituted on the seventh. It was not given to the world before he came into being, because not needed, and liable to be misunderstood, as not for him. It was not given after the lapse of an interval, lest again he should mistake its purpose and application and meaning. But imme- diately after his creation it is presented to him, that his first entire day of life may be given to God — the first fruits of all his time — that he may learn impressively his obligation to God, and learn also the truth afterwards put into words by the Lord of the Sabbath — '* The Sabbath was made for man." (c.) The Sabbath was given to the first father of the human race. Not to Abraham, the father of the Jews. If it had been there would have been ground for the cry — the Sabbath is a mere Jewish institution. But it is given to Adam, the father of Jew and Gentile alike, the father of us all. No doubt the institution was subsequently re-given to the Jews, with fresh sanctions and penalties, as marriage, its twin Edenic sister, was also re-given. But as no one will attempt to argue that the re-enaction of the marriage law, in a Jewish form, for Jews, does away with the B 1 8 Our Rest-Day. • original gift of wedlock to all mankind through their first parents, so neither can the same be properly argued of the Sabbath, It was to man the gift was originally made, and unless it can be shown (which no one has yet done, and no one can), that the gift has been revoked, we must rank it among the gifts of God which are " without repentance." (d) In consonance with all this comes in our Lord's declaration — " The Sabbath was made for man." In another part of this essay this text will be fully commented on and its exegesis traced. Here, taking but one limb of the antithesis, I lay stress upon that broad statement — " made for man " — not for God, who needed it not, but for man ; — not for unfallen angels, who have the better Sabbath of the upper sanctuary, but for man ; not for the fallen spirits, " Sabbathless Satan," as Charles Lamb strikingly calls him, and the legions of the pit, where no sweet Day of Rest ever breaks in upon the eternal woe, but for man, universal man ; not Jewish man, nor Gentile man, not savage man, nor civilised man, not fallen man, nor unfallen man, not for Eastern races to the exclusion of Western, nor for Western to the exclusion of Eastern, but for man, for the race, so that wherever there is a human being on God's broad earth, that man can claim his Sabbath rest, and whosoever deprives him of it robs both him and God. (e.) The same truth also appears from the phraseology of the verses in Genesis which we are considering. It is not only said God "rested," but he "blessed," the day and " sanctified " it. Now God's action of resting on the day would, we believe, have been sufficient warrant for our keeping it as He kept it. Why should he have divided his creative work over that precise por- tion of time, working six days and then resting one, if not to give his creatures a specimen of the kind of weeks he wished them to keep, divided after the same model and occupied in the same manner? Can any other good reason be given for his action ? It is admitted on all sides that the example of our Lord and His Apostles in observing the First Day of the week as the Lord's Day is sufficient warrant for our observing it. The advocates of the Dominical theory hold that that example is the charter of the day, which they dissociate altogether (most wrongly, as we hope to show further on) from the Sabbath of the Old Testament. Why should they lay such stress on the example of the Master and His Apostles after the Resurrection, Our Rest- Day. ig and refuse all weight and significance to the example of the Divine Being after creation ? If, on their theory, the former example establishes a Lord's Day, why not the latter ? Why attribute meaning and purpose to the one act and refuse mean- ing and purj^ose to the other act performed under circumstances so similar ? But, in addition to resting on that first Sabbath, the Creator " blessed " and " sanctified " the day. What was the meaning of these actions? A blessing, it is to be noted, had been pre- viously given to man on his creation, and to other living crea- tures. The account given of those blessings may help us to understand the nature of this. In Gen. i. 22 it is said of the living creatures which the water brought forth — " God blessed them, saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let fowl multiply in the earth." Again in Gen. i. 28, on the creation of man, it is said " God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." These two blessings consisted in constituting these two portions of His creation his agents for the performance of the duties given them to do, and bestowing upon them his bene- diction in the performance of these duties. When he blessed tlie Sabbath he simply, mutatis mutandis, did the same for it. He constituted it a vehicle of blessing to mankind, and stamped it with his approval as such a vehicle. But he not only blessed but " sanctified " the day. What is this sanctification ? Just what it is when the word is used of the Tabernacle and its vessels in the later books of Moses. It is said in Exodus that these were to be " sanctified." And the Hebrew word used there is the same as here in Genesis ^"!i^. It is generally agreed that this word, when used of the Tabernacle and its furniture, means to set apart to a holy use. You cannot communicate a moral quality to an insensate utensil. What you can do is to dedicate it to a holy service. This was done with the Tabernacle and its vessels, and obviously the word has the same meaning when applied to the Sabbath. God sanctified the Sabbath by setting it apart to sacred uses for all time — sacred uses by maai, for his own good and his Maker's glory. If all this do not amount to the institution of a weekly Sabbath for man in all time coming — this Divine example this Divine blessing, this Divine sanctification, so expressly and so 20 OiLV Rest-Day. expressively narrated — then we do not fear to assert that we fail to see what intelligible meaning or purpose is to be ex- tracted from the narrative. Nor can we see how, when the Creator wished to establish a Day of Rest, He could have done so, if the words in this narrative do not amount to such an estabKsh- ment. If these words do not do it, what other words would ? (/.) Let us now link on this Genesis narrative to the Fourth Commandment of the Decalogue, as God himself has in the Commandment linked it on, and see how the case stands. In a subsequent section we shall consider this commandment at length, in its character, and intention, and reach, as a command- ment of the Decalogue. Here we merely notice how the view which we have given of the meaning of the Divine rest on the first Sabbath, and the Divine blessing and sanctification of it, is borne out in the commandment. It expressly bases man's Sabbath rest on that Divine rest. " Remember the Sabbath day," it says, " 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 man servant, nor thy maid ser- vant, 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." The Sabbatic rest of the Creator is expressly made the argument for the Sabbatic rest of the creature, and the significance which that rest had from the first is expressly given to it in legal form. A strong a fortiori argument for the universal and continual observance of the Sabbath can be built upon this fact of its orig- inal institution. If it was needed by man in those early days of the world's existence, when there was no sin, no sorrow, no harassing toil, no carking care, to burden and weary mind and body — when every day was, in a sense, a Sabbath — how much more is it needed now by a world steeped to the lips in business, and drawn incessantly away from God by the enticements of the evil heart ! If in the first century, A.M., it was needful, when the Creator was constantly walking among His then little family of mankind, how much more is it demanded by this nineteenth century, A.D., with its incessant din of business drowning the sound of the holy voices which speak to the soul ! Who shall Our Rest- Day. 2i say that for a Sabbath fenced in by the same Divine sanctions as guarded the primeval Sabbath, there is not now a need as much stronger as this age is more drawn away from the love and ser- vice of the Creator, and from its own peace and quiet rest by its insatiable appetites, and by the demands of modern civilisation ? If God provided in the beginning for the lesser need, are we to say that He has now left us in our greater, uncared for by the same beneficent legislation which in the beginning so mercifully blessed Adam and his children ? Who that has any knowledge of the love of God will say so ? (g.) The fact that in this rest of the Creator upon the first Sabbath, and in the concomitant blessing and sanctification of the day we have the institution of the Sabbath, is further borne out by the incidental traces of a septenary division of time which we meet with from creation onwards. Those to which we refer are such statements as that Cain and Abel presented their offer- ings before God " at the end of days " ( what days, if not some known and familiar series ?) — that God observed the weekly in- terval in the preparation for the Deluge (Gen. vii. 4, 10) — that Noah observed the same interval while in the ark (Gen. viii. 10, 12) — that wedding festivals were accustomed to last for a week (Gen. xxix. 27), and funeral ceremonies for the same period (Gen. 1. 10) — that the passover feast lasted a week (Exod. xii. 3-20) — and that the Sabbath was a well known institution at the time of the fall of the manna, before the Decalogue was given (Exod. xvi. 22-30). Whence did this septenary division come ? Whence this week ? All our other great divisions of time are suggested by Nature — day and night by sunrise and sunset — the month by the moon's period — the year by the cycle of the seasons. But whence the week? Some would have us believe that it is merely the period of one of the lunar changes. But these periods are not periods of precisely seven days. I take up an almanac for this present year, and turning to the month in which I write, the month of June, I find that the moon's first period for that month consists of eight days, the second of eight days, the third and fourth of seven each. This explanation therefore will not hold. As little will that which refers this septenary division of time to the number of the seven planets. What did they know in those primeval ages of the number of the planets ? The fact is, we can find no possible explanation of the existence of the 22 Our Rest-Day. m week save that which bases it on the existence of the Sabbath. If we take the plain meaning of the Scripture records, all is clear. If, in our dislike of them, we fly to any theory which will enable us to dispense with the information which they supply, we only land ourselves in confusion and mistake. One more point and this portion of our argument will be com- plete. It is the uniform representation of Scripture that our Blessed Lord was identified with the Father in creation work. As examples of passages which assei't this, the reader is referred to such Scriptures as — Col. i. 16 — " By Him were all things created, that are in Heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities- or powers ; all things were created by Him and for Him," — Ileb. i. 2 — "His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds," — John i. 3 — "All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made." What a light these passages throw on that remarkable utterance of the Master — " The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath," (Mark ii. 28) ! Leaving out of account for the present the part taken by the Father and the Holy Spirit in Creation work, and confining our attention to the Son's action, which we are told by the passages iust referred to was an all- pervadiug action, so much so that, " without Him was not any- thing made that was made," — we see how and why and to what extent He was the Sabbath's Lord. He made it. It is His appointment. He first sanctioned and sanctified it by His example. Therefore He can interpret it, alter it, use it as He pleases. Especially, when he comes to earth as the legate of Heaven, what He does and says regarding it has all the authorit}'' of the law of the Creator. If foreign accretions, alien to the spirit and meaning of the day, have clustered round it, marring its beauty, obscuring its light, making it a burden instead of a blessing, all which the petty, peddling, teaching of the Rabbins had done in the days of the Incarnation, it is for the Son of Man, who is also the Son of God, to stretch forth His hand and raise it again into true life and beauty — to vindicate it from the mis- interpretations of men, and present it once more, cleared by his teaching from the false ideas which had gathered round it, and illustrated by His perfect example — the example of its first Founder — for continual observance. Our Rest- Day. 23 A careful study then of Holy Scripture and of the early history of mankind, must lead the unprejudiced inquirer to the undoubted conclusion that the Sabbath dates from Creation. It is no new religious appointment. It is the oldest sacred institution in the world — thousands of years older than the Decalogue, older than the Bible itself, older than its twin Edenic relic — marriage, only a little younger than this old earth. The hoary rime of thousands of years is on thy head, O blessed Sabbath ! Old, yet art thou still young — no trace upon thee of effeteness or decay, and as beautiful as ever thou wast — * Time writes no -wrinkle on thine azure brow ; Such as Creation's dawn beheld thee first, thou shinest now." III. TRACES OF THE SABBATH IN ANCIENT LANDS AND LITERATURES. " Bright days I we need you in a world like this. Be brighter still ! ye cannot be too bright. The world's six days of vanity and toil Would, but for you, oppress us with their might. Bright days ! in you heaven cometh nearer earth ; And earth more fully breathes the balm of heaven ; The stillness of your air infuses calm ; Fairest and sweetest of the weekly seven ! Bright days ! abide with us ; we need you still. Ye are the ever-gushing wells of time ; Ye are the open casements wnere we hear The distant notes of heaven's descending chime. " Horatius Bonar. CONTENTS. Traces of the Sabbath in ancient lands and literatures — Greek Literature — Homer — Hesiod — Linus — Callimachus — Letter of the Rev. T. S. Hughes regarding quotations from these authors — His views examined — Latin Literature — Assyrian Records — The Fifth Tablet from the Library of King Assur- bani-pal — An Assyrian Religious Calendar — Sabbattu — Traces of the Sabbath in Chinese History — Its supposed silence on the subject — Chinese funeral customs — An old Astronomical Table — " The Book of Diagrams " — " The Imperial Almanac of China " — Egyptian Records — A re- markable table — The Sanscrit days of the week. Pages 29—37. CHAPTER HI. TRACES OF THE SABBATH IN ANCIENT LANDS AND LITERATURES. IT may be said — if the Sabbath was instituted immediately after creation and given to mankind to be observed ever after, one should expect to find traces of its existence and obser- vance in other books than the Bible and among other peoples than those whose life is there recorded. No doubt we should. Of course, as we know from sacred story, the knowledge of God became dim at a very early period of the world's history, and these traces of a Sabbath may therefore be expected to be dim likewise, and impregnated with corrupt notions. Still there ought to be such traces, more or less clear. And there are. Let me proceed to put some of them before the reader. That a sacred seventh day was known to the Greeks at a very early period, a considerable series of quotations from Homer, Hesiod, Linus and Callimachus can be adduced to prove. In Homer, whose date was about 900 B.C., we find the following — Then came the seventh, the sacred day. *E/3So(Kj) 5» hp^ : The seventh (day) was sacred. "E/sSo^ov TJf^ap s»v xai ru TiTiKirro a-jravra '. It was the seventh day wherein all things were finished. 'E/3S«/«dT!) S' Ml XiTOfim pSay l| A^ipetTe; : We left the' flood of Acheron on the seventh day. In Hesiod, whose date was about 800 B.C., the following occur — Xlpur'v iivt, TiTpdir ts, xai e^'Hifi.n hpev 7if/.ap : The first, the fourth, and the seventh days are sacred. 'E/SS»j(*dr>j VduTiir Xaf^-rpoD }t mentioi\ of the Sahbath is in connection ivith the cessation of the (jreat periods or creative days in vdiich God made the world. The simple account by the historian Moses is known by heart : " Thus the heaven and earth were finished, and all the host of them." And on the seventh day God ended his work which He had made, and God blessed the seventh day and sancti- fied it ; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." What is this seventh day, God's Sab- bath Day of rest after creation, and what is its connection with the rest day appointed for man ? It is sometimes imagined, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that it is somehow felt, that when God's working is spoken of, it is intended to denote something which we conceive has been laborious in the sense of tasking and straining the enermes of the mind ; and that when we talk of the rest of God, we have the conception that He gave up the strain of labour, as One who had laboured long enough, and was glad to have the burden of the excessive strain taken oft*. We somehow feel, I say, that even the Divine mind had been thus tasked, in the greatness, the ex- tent, the multiplicity, and the duration of those exertions of thought and creative skill and determination which we think were necessary to produce the wonder of the creation of the world, of the universe. It is not surprising that our finite minds should have this conception. That work which required at once the telescope and the microscope to measure it, which is seen in planetary systems and galaxies, and in the animalculse and in- fusoria, which necessitated that the Divine mind should at once consider what orbit He would give to a comet, and what savour He would give to salt, and what flavour to each fruit and berry, and which by necessity, exacted that all this, the whole and its particulars, should stand in His mind at one and every instant, while He went on, in continuance, to fashion them, through ages; it is excusable, I say, if for a moment our finite minds leap to the conception that even God must somehow be wearied with that immense strain, and be relieved when it was over. But this is 4 Heaven Once a Week. probablj^ in no respect a just conception, natural as it may be. " Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlast- ing God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary ? There is no searching of His understand- ing." We can, indeed, predicate little of the mode of God's mental activity ; but philosophic thought cannot. allow us to regard Him as weary or exhausted to any degree. " Thei-e is no searching of His understanding," of the infinitude of His power to put worlds and systems of worlds with all their infinite detail into their position in space. We stand baftied before God's unique power to create. A Being who, from His own mind, can put an infinity of things into existence we cannot feel like limiting. There is every reason to suppose that He created all He ever has created with infinite ease. Tiiere is no mark anywhere in the discovered realms of the universe that seems to show hard work on the part of the Creator. There is nothing left unfinished, there is no creaking of hinges, no " rudis indigestaque moles " left un wrought; but all seems to have been set into its place with perfect ease and finish, as are the productions of crystallography. There is, in short, no hint anywhere in creation, of any such thing as a tasking of the Almighty's powers. If in the Scripture there is any word which figuratively seems to say so, it is anthropomorphic, and to encourage man. If then, God's activities and the cessation from them are not called work and rest, because the Creator painfully exerted Him- self, and needed repose to restore His Y>owers and equanimity, what shall we understand is meant by God's work and rest ? This is not a mere senseless speculation, but has important bear- ings on the whole subject of the Sabbatli. Let us penetrate the heart of the subject. What is work ? and what is rest? May we not regard work as the exertion of the energies without present fruition, but in view of future fruition ? The fruition of an orchard is when the sight, the smell, tlie taste of the fruit are affording jn-esent gratification to the faculties they immediately affect. That is the fruition. But up to that hour, all is work, the planting of the trees, the care of them in the seasons and the years, and even the plucking of the fruit. At every moment in all that score of j^ears the man exerts himself for a future anticipated good. During all those years he has neither sight nor taste of apple from the ti'ee. That exertion is work. Heaven Once a Week. 5 Of course tliere arc pleasnves in labour ; but examination will disclose that the satisfaction of the workman is largely in the skill in adapting means to the anticipated results which are yet to come. The workman enjoys his work by anticipation of its fruits. "Work is labour bestowed on the means ; fruition is the ] present enjoyment of the ends for which all labours were merely means or preparations. In this sense, then, God worked six days or periods. If we take the simple and concise Scripture story of creation, which gives in the most unadorned and unelaborate description the narrative of those days of Jehovah's work, even then shall we be impressed that not in all those six days till near the close was there anything which to the Divine mind can be thought of as the fruition of His work. He was working for the fruition of the great seventh day. All the six days are of value and interest, principally as means to that end. It is true that the Lord ever- more taketh pleasure in the works of His hands ; but in this case the pleasure large!}' consisted in the passing gratification of a skilful workman conscious of unbounded wisdom. What was the fruition at wdiich God was aiming dviring the creative week ? Was it not the joy of the impartation of Himseli to man whom He was to create in His own image ? Was it not the society of children who should have bestowed on them the great boon of life to glorify and enjoy him forever ? Eden before the fall when God daily walked in the garden in the cool of the day with the innocent happy paii', this same Eden to be extended to embrace the whole round o-lobe and include a whole race of men walking uprightly, rejoicing in God, this was the fruition, the seventh day. The whole six days of creation passed in exertions and labours, without and lacking that companionship, but looking forward to it, were the work, which prepared for that fruition. First was created the Tohu-va-Bohu, the formless mass; and God said, " Let there be lio;ht ; and lio-ht was : " then he made the fir- mament and shaped the deep basins for the waters which He called seas ; then by successive creations. He brought forth ver- dure, grass and cereals and trees, the reptiles and whales, the birds of all kinds, and finally man. Thus he was ready for the joy for which He had done all this. In all those six days or periods there was no fruition such as he sought. He did, indeed, delight in the fish, the fowl, the cattle as his handiwork, and also as they dis- 6 Heaven Once a Week. ]3orted themselves in their happy life for which He had made them. But could he reveal Himself to the fish ? Did the fowl recognise their Creator? Did the cattle praise God? Lacking the joy he sought, God went on, putting the earth into higher and still more advanced preparation and perfection, giving to reptiles, fish, and fowl, and cattle temporary yet only transient dominion but still as if he were alone ; without the companionsliip for which he was making all this. It is as if a father, a king, were preparing a mansion for his son abroad, but returning at his majority, a mansion near his own. The carpenters, the masons, the workmen of all kinds are labouring under his eye. He delights in every advancement of the work towards the end for which He is making it. His satisfaction is great at the plan, the execution, the finish. And yet through the halls and rooms paces the restless father, for there is no son there. But when the labour is complete, and the son has come, then commences the fruition. The work is done. So the Scripture account gives us to see man's creation as the signal for the Sabbath to begin. If man had not been created till the seventh day or the eighth day or the ninth, the Sabbath would have been the day succeeding. It would not hav^e begun till man came, with whom God would rest in the display to him of his love and wisdom. Much more impressive, and perhaps even more distinct, does this view become when we turn to the fuller and more elaborate history of those great creative days or periods, as geology records it on the " great stone page." If, as seems most probable, Hugh Miller's theory is the only correct one, that God showed to Moses his great creative periods and the break between them as seven visions of light and darkness, altogether more satisfactory for God's purpose than a scientific and geologic revelation would have been, we see how natural and inevitable that they sliould be called days. But even Augustine queried whether these were common days or lengthened periods. So geology enlarges on the succinct Scripture record, and shows the apparent days expanded into periods of immense extent, pro- bably of millions of years. Thengeology amplifies and particularizes, the reptiles, fish, fowl, beasts, concisely so named, into many strik- ing classes and individuals, as the mastodons, and the great saur- ians, ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus,theiguanodon and pterodactyl- Then God laboured to produce the coal formation in the great Heaven Once a Week. "j i-arboniferous peiioil. Slowly he caused the deposits of sandstone and limestone, by attrition of mountain ranges and the sliells of diatoms on the sea-floor ; then God caused those vast convulsions which upheaved continents and changed the face of the world. Doubtless God enjoyed this work; at ever}'- age it was a skilfuU}'' planned and divinely executed progression towards what was to come next and what was to come last ; and yet, through all these vast periods — and how much more impressive is the consideration when we see that they are not days, but ages — through all these vast periods, God lacked the companionship for which He was preparing all this. Was God exerting Himself thus to please the pterodactyl ? Was it for the iguanodon, though of huge bulk of fifty feet that He was so lavish in His exertions ? Was it when He created the huge saurians that the mornino; stars saw that the heir and the repose had come and sung for joy ? No, God was preparing for man. All those vast ages wero work and not fruition ; for man was not yet. HeVe, then, we come to the first grand idea of the Sabbath, that it is the period when God having made his vast preparations to make a home for man, and a world, a universe which should fitly display his love and wisdom to man, and having introduced man into the world, paused and sought the fruition of his labours in imparting himself to man. All the creative and formative activi- ties have ceased or largel}' so ; and now, in this after age, God is occupying Himself with that which is His life and joy, the im- parting of Himself to His children. We therefore regard as the first Sabbath to be set before the thought, the present period of the world's existence, in which, by God's plan, he was no more to occupy Himself with azoic rocks, and senseless saurians, and decaying carboniferous forests, but would devote Himself in this vast and amply furnished world He had constructed for them, to loving His children and being loved by them. This is the seventh day and God's rest. Indeed, I greatly question whether the statement in Genesis is not a statement of God's rest rather than a command for man to rest. Irresistible inferences seem to lurk in the account, it is true, as we may point out hereafter ; but primarily and mainly, the account itself has reference, I take it, to this vast period of God's own rest, into which he has entered and sanctified it. Read the account anew and see if it is not so : " Thus the heaven and 8 Heaven Once a Week. earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day (his own Sabbath Day), because that \i\ it lie had rested from all his work which God created and made." He ha& sanctified and set apart for the impartation of Himself to man,, that man may be a sharer of himself, his joy and glory, this great period. That is the end for which He laboured in the bye-gone ages. 2. ^iit man failed to carry out his Maker s plan. He did not enter into God's rest day. He broke away from that communion and companionshi]:) which in the most favourable circumstances- God commenced with the human race in Eden. He broke a slight commandment but in a way which involved an unwilling- ness to be a child of God, and an intention to be only the equal of God. Of course companionship with the Divine Being could not go forward on those terms. Then he became alienated from God by a wicked work, hid from God even amid the beauty of hi& creations and was banished from Eden. Another six days of work God was now obliged to inaugurate, the labour of brin2:in2: man back to Himself ; instead of " Paradise Lost," to make " Paradise Regained." It was an old Talmudie idea, shared by some of the early Fathers, and we have always thought, most likely to be the true one ; that the world is to last seven thousand years ; 2,000 1 oliVb-va-Bolm, " formless and void," i.e.y without the law ; 2,000 under the law ; and 2,000 under the Messiah. These are the six days, in which by Nature, by law,, by grace, God is obliged to exert himself, if He would bring back what man lost in his folly, and in which six days he is working towards the seventh day, the millennium, the restoration of the human race to its original union with God. We do not say that in some sort, even if man had not sinned, the seventh millennium would not have been the crowning glor}' of earth, the best of the feast ; but since man did sin and nullify God's rest, the six days of a thousand years are absolutely neces- sary for the ushering in of the great millennium, the Sabbath Day of the world, which is to be righteousness and peace. Only the millennium of restoration will be no more than a thousand years, when God meant the whole of the period of man upon the earth to be His Jivine rest day of righteousness, peace and joy in Him. Heaven Oiiee a Week. 9 We must proceed in this section of onr writing, allowing our thoughts to run out on those other topics which are connected with the Sabbath as the seventh day rest of God. Perhaps the most natural topic next to remark upon is that — 3. There is, as everi/ Scripture reader is aivare, a series of sep- tenary rests commanded hy God, and either coinimemorative of God's creative rest, or anticiputive of the coming millennial rest. The first of this remarkable series is the Sabbath day. This is distinctly designated and commanded in connection with the Divine Exemplar's rest after creation. This is either taught or cogently implied in the Genesis account : " And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made ; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it ; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made." It would seem that the completion of God's long creative periods likely enough synchronised with Friday, and so He per- haps actually commenced His long period of rest with man, His seventh-neriod of rest with man's first day. Or the narrative may read paraphrastically thus : " And God blessed the seventh day (man's) and sanctified it ; because that in His own seventh day He had rested from all His work which God created and made." But afterwards, at least, man's seventh day rest is dis- tinctly declared to be founded and modelled on God's creative rest ; for we read in the " Ten Words " from Sinai : *' Remembe-* 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, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger which 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 ; therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it." This is stated again in Exod. xxxi. 17 : " In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed ; " where, anthropomorphically and in sj'mpathy with the human race, God's fruition of His work is called " refreshment." Next came the seventh week (Deut. xvi. 9, 10) and it is written: " Thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God I o Heaven Once a Week. with a tribate of a freewill offering of tliine hand." "And thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God." Then came the seventh month which commenced with a day of rest and convocation. This month was signalised as the month of feasts. The Feast of Trumpets on the first day was followed on the tenth day by the Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, the great event of the year, a truly Sabbatic day ; for on that day the year's sins came to a ■close by the expiation of blood at the Mercy Seat. It was a Talmudic thought, " Alas for him who dies on the eve of Yom Kippur ; but joy to him who dies on the evening of Yom Kippur r Then came the Feast of Tabernacles on the fifteenth day of this thrice sanctified month. Such was the hallowed seventh month. Next in order came the Sabbatic year, commanded in Exodus xxiii. 10 : — " Six years shalt thou sow thy land and shalt gather in the fruits thereof ; but the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still." " I will command My blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years : And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of the fruit until the ninth year" (Lev. XXV. 21, 22). This Sabbatic year opened in the Sabbatic seventh month, and the whole Law was to be read every such year on the Feast of Tabernacles. "It was thus, like the weekly Sabbath, no mere aiegative rest ; but was to be marked by high and holy occupa- tion and connected with sacred reflection and sentiment." During the year the land as well as the people enjoyed the Sabbath. Then after stretching on for seven times seven years, seven weeks of years came that remarkable institution the Jubilee year :— " Thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years ; a jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you ; 3^6 shall not sow neither reap that which groweth of itself in it ; for it is the Jubilee ; it shall be holy unto you." And in Lev. chap. xxv. and following, we find it is a year of release, as to debts, lands and servitude. Thus by a double underscoring, so to speak, of two Sabbatic years in succession, ■God emphasised still more the great Sabbatic ideas of creative and millennial rest. Heaven Once a Week. 1 1 We may also profitably read here a valuable statement from Smith's Dictionary : — " The frequent recurrence of the Sabbatic number in the •organisation of these festivals is too remai-kable to be passed •over, and as Ewald has observed, seems, when viewed in connec- tion with the Sabbatic sacred times, to furnish a strong proof that the whole system of the festivals of the Jewish law was the product of one mind. Pentecost occurs seven weeks after Pass- over ; the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles last seven days each ; the days of holy convocation are seven in the year, two at the Passover, one at Pentecost, one at the Feast of Trumpets, and one on the Day of Atonement, and two at the Feast of Taber- nacles ; the Feast of Tabernacles as well as the Day of Atone- ment falls in the seventh month of the year : and lastly the cycle 'Of annual feasts occupies seven months, from Nisan to Tisri." On these Sabbatic occasions two observations should be made : First, they were all of them commemorative of God's creative rest, and significant of man's like need of rest after six periods of ^;oil : and second, they were anticipatory of the great Sabbatic millennium of God's rest after He should have finished His work ■of saving men and completing the renovation of the world. These two views have been finely brought out by two dis- tinguished writers. Dr. Hessey and Dr. Gordon. Dr. Hessey worthily observes : — " The creation labour and rest were exemplar}'-, typical, and •consolatory, and were so understood by the writers of Holy Scripture and by the Fathers, the antithesis being — " Labour and rest generally : " Israel's labour in Egypt and in the wilderness and rest in •Canaan : " The old Dispensation and the new : " The Christian's labour on earth and the Divine peace which .alleviates it : " The Christian's general course in this world and his rest in the world to corne."^ Dr. Gordon grandly remarks : " In the Hebrew calendar, there was the seventh day pointing ■onward to the seventh week — the seventh week to the seventh month — the seventh month to the seventh vear — the seventh ' Bampton Lectures on " Sunday," 12 Heaven Once a Week. year to the seventh year of years which introrluced the Jubilee ; each Sabbatic period thus conducting to a larger, and all seeming- designed to carry the thoughts on to some final era of blessed fruition and release, as the successive barrels of a telescope con- duct the vision onward to a star." " We are only asking that the spoiler may not be allowed to tear down the way marks to the millennium ; that he be not permitted to oblitei'ate the guide posts which direct our toiling and tired humanity to the golden age of its redemption.'"^ A most important and even vital question leaps out and em- phasises itself after viewing all these Sabbatic periods, and con- sidering that the Sabbatic rest, rest after toil, is as living a. necessity as ever. Why do we not Sabbatize or keep the signifi- cant seventh day, significant of these reposes and the millennial repose ? This question is too important to be passed over ; we shall give it full consideration in its place. 4. One of the most important inquiries connected loith the Sahhath as God's seventh day of rest is this: Did God immediately initiate man into the observance of the Sahhath day '! Here we have not the distinct assertions which we might desire, but perhaps all we can fairly expect when we consider that, until Moses, the world was " without law," and living under a great degree of patriarchal freedom. It is perhaps impossible at present to demonstrate that the Sabbath day was kept by Adam. The time may come when evidence may accumulate of a more distinct kind from the nations around the early home of the human race. But we can present the evidence, considerable in degree and strong in kind, which shows a probability and almost certainty that a seventh day of rest and worship wa? known in the primitive age of the world. (1.) The Genesis account, by its immediate mention of the Sabbath's sanctification, seems to imply that the hallowing of one day in seven began then and there. It is true that we may consider the account as referring to God's own great seventh day,, the period of rest in this age when He would enjoy the imparta- tion of Himself to man after the long preparations for it. But ' " Sabbath Essays," Papers and Addresses presented at the Massachusetts Sab bath Conventions, at Boston and Springfield, October, 1879. Boston Congrega- tional Publishing Society. Heaven Once a Week. 1 3 there are terms of expression which seem to say or imply tliat He also hallowed the seventh day as known to man. " Thei'efore God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it." When ? Two thousand years later ? Nay, but tlien He sanctified His own great seventh day of rest which we have considered. And as He con- descended to connect His vast periods with man's laborious days, calling His jicriods (kiys, to accommodate them in divine sympathy with the smaller things of His children, He seems to have halloived mans seventh day lohea He halloived His oivn, to commemorate His own work and rest, and to signify man's toil and repose. While God hallowed His seventh day at once, was man to go two thousand years before hallowing his rest day ? If indeed God, two thousand years later, by statute called man to observe the seventh day as hallowed from the analogy of the creation rest, could the seventh day have lain unhallowed all those centuries ? It is not reasonable to believe it. Every seventh day after six days of toil from Adam to Moses must have been hallowed and sanctified, just as much and for the same reasons that every seventh day was sanctified from Moses to Christ, because God rested from His work in the seventh day of Sabbatic repose. Tiie Exodus statutory institution of the Sabbath gives as the ground of the Sabbath a basis which had continued from the foundation of the world : — " Remember tlie Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shall 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 . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day ; therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it." There can be no doubt here that God hallowed man's seventh day in general, a hallowing founded on His own rest, and there- fore a hallowing from the time of creation. (2.) There is every probability from the character of God and His intercourse with the patriarchal race after the fall of Adam, and his purposes of mercy and grace shown to them, that God would impart the story of creation to them, and the rest con- cluding it, of which we may say that God regarded His rest with as much satisfaction as He did His labour. There is ever}' leason to suppose from God's known intercourse with the primeval race that the antediluvians and even Adam himself had some 14 Heaven Once a Week. histoiy of God's creation given them which could not have failed to set vividly before them the six days of creation and the close of the creative week in a hallowed and sanctified day. It was therefore no stretch of imagination in Milton when he describes God, out of love for the first man, sending Raphael " the affable archangel " to Adam, to give him full account of all things advantageous for him to know, who addressed Adam on first seeino; him : " Adam, I therefore come, nor art thou such Created or such place hast here to dwell As may not oft invits, though spirits of heaven To visit thee." In the seventh book of" Paradise Lost" Raphael gives to Adam, as they converse in the lovely bower of Eden, an account of the six days of creation. For Adam had said : " Deign to descend now lower and relate Which may not less, perhaps, avail us known ; How first began the heaven which we behold, Distant so high, with moving fires adorned. Innumerable," — ■" What cause Moved the Creator in his holy rest Through all eternity, so late to build In chaos ? " And Raphael finds it entirely in his heart to relate the story of creation, as it proceeded day by day ; and he goes on : " And now on earth the seventh Es'ening arose in Eden, for the sun Was set and twilight from the east came on Forerunning night " — "And from work Now resting blessed the seventh day, As resting on that day from all his work." This, indeed, is poetry, and not God's Word or historic record ; but poetry is " beautiful truth ;" and it has some weight that to Milton's mind one of the most natural things to enter into the first communications to the first man, was an account of creation and the succeeding hallowed seventh day of rest. (3.) There are not wanting, as keen students of the Scriptui'es have pointed out, indications that the seventh day rest was early known. {a) For we have worship in the primitive Scripture record — Heaven Once a Week. 1 5, Cain and Abel were worshippers. The one brought apparently to a certain locality, of the fruit of the ground, the other of his flock. Cain was hardly in the mood to originate the custom of worship, and of worshipping at a designated place. We may fairly pre- sume that both these young men acted in accordance with a cus- tom established by their father Adam. This worship was agree- able to God, although one of them offered unworthily. It would seem that God reo-ards their comincj with offerino-s as not extraordinary. It has always been God's manner to draw men to Him in worship. It has not been His manner to appoint wor- ship without setting a "place and time for it. It does not seem likely that He could have desired or expected man to be righteous without setting apart a day for instruction and devotion. The indications are abundant, that in Seth's time men beo-an to call on the name Jehovah ; that Enoch walked with God and preached righteousness ; that Noah preached and built altars.^ These places of worship have their natural correlative in times for worship. (h) Certain expressions seem to point to a day observed. In the narrative of Cain and Abel occurs the expression, " At the end o^ days Cain brought his offering," where our version reads, "In process of time." This is a singular and probably significant expression. We might be wrong to press it. Still it would seem to convey the idea of a ])eriod closed by a day of worship. " At the end of days " '^''P'? TifiP Mikets Yamim, not at the beginning of days. This would seem to point to a day which closed a period. It might, perhaps, be imagined to refer to some day in the autumn, when the field and flock yielded perfect products, in fact, to some thanksgiving day. But we can not readily believe that they had got so far as to observe yearly and not divinely designated periods, certainly not before they had observed days. Abel, indeed, might spontaneously have kept an unappointed thanksgiving day ; but how about the earthly-minded and ungodly Cain ? How should both have chosen the same time and the same day for that offer- ing ? Moreover, if it were a thanksgiving feast, at the harvest time, at the end of the year, should we not expect "^^^ I'l'P Mikets Shanah, at the year's end, or D'trin )'|P.p Mikets Kodashira, at the end of months ? But no, " At the end o^days," a simultaneous act of worship, an act to which they were apparently accustomed, seems to fall in not unreadily with the seventh day of rest. 1 6 Heaven Once a Week. In the same direction is the expression \)f Job, yet not to be pressed, which seems to indicate that stated days of worshipping Ood were customary. The argument lies in the form of expres- sion : " Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord." Dr. Tucker acutely points out that " It is not a forced exegesis which holds that the attempt of Moses in Egypt was to lighten the oppressive burdens of Israel by securing for them the seventh day of rest. That was Pharoah's charge against the Hebrew chiefs ; *■ Behold the people are many, yet ye make them Sahbatize ' " (rest from tlieir burdens.) ^ The Hebrew word is t]Jy)3^^n, And Dr. Tucker also finely points out, quoting from Dr. Phelps, that the jjaucity of mention of this day is no argument against its existence : " Professor Phelps has reckoned tha't the Sabbath is mentioned only five times in the Hebrew Scriptures from Moses to the return from the Babylonian captivity, some one thousand years of much more stirring interest. From Josliua to David, five hundred years, the day is not once referred to, yet certainly it was then a regular institution. Some things have to be taken for granted in writing out such memorials ; and the things apt to be omitted are those which by common consent, are looked npon as matter-of-course occurrences. It is very probable that Sabbath-keeping habits fell off into much neo-lect during the bad times of antediluvian violence and of the Egyptian bondage. But tlie silence of Scrip- ture, whether in enjoining this observance or in reproving its cessation, does not prove that there was no Sabbath then. On the contrary, there is good proof that the Sabbath survived the irreligious influences of those many centuries. "- (c) But the most distinct indications of the pre-Mosaic Sabbath are in clear Scripture expressions of the Septenary Division of Time. The clearest of these is probably the reference to the week, dis- tinctly by that name. This dates back to the time of the family of Jacob, about 17G0, B.C., while the statute to Israel at the giving of the manna was about 1490, B.C., some 270 years later. Laban says to Jacob in regard to Leah, " Fulfil her weel;" etc., and in the next verse it is added, " And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her tueek." " The word in Hebrew is V-nt^'^ of which Gesenius says : ' " Sabbath Essays," p. 194. = " Sabbath Essays," p. 192-3. 3 Genesis xxix. 27-28. Heaven Once a Week. 1 7 "Denominative from y?t?*, seven, a mven, a sennight, e;35«,««,-, — i.e., a week, viz., a week of days, seven days." If we are stopped by the objection that tliere is 2i possihilitij that Moses might transfer to the days of his ancestors, a phrase which was in use in his own time, in place of some old Syrian obsolete phrase, then our reply adds force to the argument. The phrase is not elsewhere used by Moses or later writers, and seems indeed to be a primitive and Syrian expression. And, moreover, which is perhaps the principal thing, whether this were the original Syrian ]>hrase or not, Moses the historian here uses the expression, in reference to a period nearly three hundred years before his time. He was too good a historian to commit a glaring anachronism ; and his use of the word iveek in the mouth of Laban is an admission, in the most emphatic way, that the week was not a period of his own origination, three hundred years later than Laban. This expression, then, at such a period, and from such a source, is worthy of examination. It was uttered as a common and colloquial, and even household expression, more than two centuries and a half before the Mosaic statute in the desert — i.e., about as long before the statute as since the time when England sent out her colonies to Jamestown and Plymouth, The speaker is Laban the Syrian, who dwelt in Mesopotamia, " in the land of tlie people of the East." This was several hun- dred miles away, and so much nearer the original home of the human race. So it seems that off there, this Mesopotamian had a perfect and familiar knowledge of the V^y^* or week. The sep- tenary division of time was therefore widely and familiarl}^ known, at a date long before Moses. The one to whom the in- junction is addressed is Jacob. He, too, understands the yihrase as it is spoken. It may be that he has become familiar with it in Laban's household. While close reasoning here is unnecessary, we ma3^ rationally believe it more probable that he had heard the same word, and had known the same period of time in his Judean home in the tent of his father Isaac. But whether that be so or not, which is most probable, it is hardly possible that we can be wrong in tracing the establishment of this septenary period fai- beyond Laban the materialistic and gross, even back at least to Nahor, his great grandfather, who was brother to Abraham. If, in addition, we suppose this word J?''^^ or week, io have been well- B i8 Heaven Onee a Week. known to Jacob in his father's home, then it would naturally be traced back to Abraham. And having traced it thus far, to about 1990, B.C., or more than five hundred years before Moses, we can hardly stop there. Abraham was born about 1946 Anno Mundi ; and at this time there were still living Terah, Reu, Peleg, Eber, Salah, Arphaxad, and what is startling, Shem, and even Noah himself Noah died 2001 A.M., so that Abraham lived contempor- aneously with him during sixty years. With Shem who had also been an antediluvian, Abraham was contemporary one hun- dred and fift}^ years longer. Indeed, the Talmud legend is that Abraham received his religious training in "the academy of Shem." It is, now, hardly probable that such a man as Terah originated the week ; it is much more likely that he and his fathers received it from Shem and Noah. Coming now to Noah, it is interesting to see his employment of septenary periods. After all the caravan of animals had been housed in the ark, we read that Noah paused, or rather Grod paused a septenary period. For " it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth."^ The Eabbinic tradition is that Methusaleh died, and that that week was spent in mourning for him. Again we read" that " he stayed yet other seven days ; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark." And still again we read :'' " And he stayed yet other seven days ; and he sent forth the dove, which returned not to him any more." Thus three times, in a year's duration, does Noah observe a septenary period. It is not, indeed, called a week. But this is not all. Here, in this narrative of the flood, we have distinct re- cord of the months and days of the rising and subsidence of the water. For we have, " the second month, the seventeenth day of the month," " a hundred and fifty days," " seventh month, seven- teenth day of the month," " tenth month, first day of the month," " first month, first day of the month," " second month, and seven and twentieth day of the month." What does this denote but that Noah was a careful observer of times and seasons, keeping^ the record daily of his strange and awful navigation ; and is it not entirely improbable that by chance he happened to obsever three periods of seven days in the course of a year ? This carries the week back to 2,349 years before Christ, or ' Gen. vii. 10. -Gen. viii. 10. K4eu. viii. 12. Heaven Once a Week. 19 almost 1,000 ^^ears before the Mosaic statute ; or reckoning from creation, al)out 1,G50 years after man was made. It is now hardly probable that Noah would originate the week, in presence of the great patriarchs, Lamech, Methusaleli, Jared, Gainan, and Enos with whom he walked for a time, as contemporary. Seth, indeed, died only fourteen years before Noah was born, and Adam had been dead only a little over one hundred years. But Methusaleh his grandfather, whom Noah knew for about six hundred years, had been contemporary with Adam some two hundred and fifty years. From Scripture and from probable inference we should say there was no stopping short of ascribing the origin of the week or " seven days," to the earliest antediluvians, and even to Adam, the first man. To go back a little, it is interesting to observe that one of these septenary periods is a period of God's own observing rather than man's. We mean the period between the housing of the animals and the commencement of the deluge. " It came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth." For some reason, good to the Divine mind, either for a last season of repentance, or to bury Methusaleh, or because ho relucted from commencing his "strange work" of judgment, for a week of Divine rest and forbearance before He began the out- pouring of destruction, God waited seven days. When, then, we can hy probability on the one hand trace the week to the early antediluvians, and presumably to the earliest, and when we see the Almighty Himself observing the week, is not the inference almost irresistible, even if the argument has not been demonstrative, that the week was a divine period, given to the earliest men of the race ? If a week, then a rest day. An era requires an epoch. If seven days were marked out to the primitive man, and divinely marked out, there must have been a terminus a quo and a terminus ad quern, or as the prophet said later, " from one Sabbath to another." There must have been this day at the beginning or close of that period to separate one week from another. What day could that have been, recurring once in seven days, but the day of rest, the Sabbath, hallowed from the beginning ? (4.) Outside the Scripture record and beyond the chosen people, this septenary division of time was known. Indeed the first use of the word week is in the mouth of a Mesopotamian. 20 Heaven Once a Week. At this point we do not cave to develope this argument ; but we state here a few simple facts. The septenary division of time is an ancient and wide-spread institution. Laplace assigns to the week a high antiquitj^ " The septenary arrangement of days," says Scaliger, " was in use among the Orientals, from the remotest antiquity." '•' We have reason to believe," observes President Goguet, that the institution of that short period of seven days called a v)ee]<,, was the first step taken by mankind in dividing and measuring their time. We find, from time immemorial, the use of this period among all the nations." Humboldt remarks, " It appears that no nation of the New Continent was acquainted with the week, or cycle of seven days which we find among the Hindus, the Chinese, the Assyrians, and the Egyptians, and which, as Le Gentii observes, is followed by the greater part of the nations of the Old World." In connection with another part of our theme, we shall elaborate some of this evidence. But in this succinct form it abundantly shows the week, and if the week, then a day of separation, as one of the original institutions of the human race. 5. An interesting topic in connection tvith the creation Sabbath is Christ^ s connection with the Original Sabbath. Several passages in Scripture collated have, like a flint, struck out the question, What significance should we attach to what is said in the New Testament as to Christ's authority over the Sabbath ? We have His own emphatic and mighty word, " The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath. "1 In ColossianSj i. 15-17, we have tliis statement concerning Christ:— " Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature. For by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or piincipalities or powers, all things were created by Him, and for Him ; and He is before all things, and by Him all thinrrs consist." In Hebrews, i. 2, we have another grand affirmation of His Divine agency in creation : " ^j whom He made the worlds." The same great declaration had been made by John the disciple, in his Gospel, i. 3 : " All things were made by Him : and without Him was not anything made that was made." ' Mark, ii. 28. Heaven Once a Week. 21 When we hear Christ affirniing- that He is Lord of the Sabbath, when we see Him, or His religion, changing the Sabbath, are we rationally led to connect these with the primitive origin of the Sabbath ? Especially are we in any way led to conclude that Christ changed back the day to the original day, and that this is hinted at in Christ's lordship over the Sabbath ? Does Christ convey any fore-gieara of the coming change of day ? Does He mean to impl}^ that the seventh day of the Jew is not the true Sabbath, and He as Lord of the Sabbath will " reform the calendar," by re-establishing the true day of rest ? It is no doubt an interesting thought that Christ, as Son of God, had stored in the hidden archives of His being, in His inmost con- sciousness, His own part in the creative work. He once said, " Before Abraham was, I am," He might have said, " Before Creation was, I am." For He once said, " Glorify Me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." And He might have, in His inner consciousness, developed or un- developed, a reminiscence of His execution of the Father's will, when He made the worlds and decreed the rest of the Sabbath- day, Was it this He had in mind when He called Himself the Lord of the Sabbath ? This does not seem to us the unforced meaning of Christ's words. The Lord here chooses that appellation of Himself which con- nects Him with man rather than with the Father, which sets Him before the mind as the archetypal man rather than as the Son of God. " The Son of Man," — not the Son of God — " is Lord also of the Sabbath." Christ is not here saying as a careless writer puts it, that " the human race is lord of the Sabbath." But the same writer more nearly expresses his real meaning and the truth when he says that " the Son of man is plainly speaking of Himself as the Man, the Representative and Exemplar of all mankind."^ Only we would go beyond that, and say with Langc, " as the Holy Child, the head of hum- anity appearing in the name of God." It is not as ruling the Sabbath in an exterior way, as God instituted the Sabbath, and as He, as Son of God, participated in that act of institution ; but rather. He is speaking of Himself as the God-Man, as God entered into humanity, and declaring that as the Divine Man, He has that perfect sense and insight which enables Him to know what to do • ''Smith's Dictionary." 22 Heaven Once a Week. on the Sabbath. It is as if one shonld say oi* a great oarsman, " He is perfect master of that boat," even though He might not have been builder or owner. So related to the Sabbath as the complete man, " the second Adam which is the Lord from heaven," a man liaving the plerorna of manhood. He senses at once whether he ought to heal on the Sabbath ; His sense, as the Divine Man makes Him Lord of the Sabbath ; and so could it be with any man, but only so far and so fast as he comes to the perfect stature of manhood in Christ. Here then we discover no reference to the glory He had as joint- creator of the world at the outset when He was Son of God ; but lather to His sense as the Divine man, the Son of man, when He liveil incarnated. It is true the Son of God was Lord of the Sabbath, in the creation ; but it is also true that the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath as to its use and employment. It will be recollected, as a parallel case that Christ also puts His own judicial function and prerogative on the same basis, His dis- cernment as the Divine Man, among and superior to men. " TJie Father hath given Him authority to execute judgment also because He is the Son of Man." By that same insight, by that same one- ness yet superiority to humanity, Christ as the Son of man was Lord of the Sabbath ; because " the Sabbath was made for man ; " therefore the God-man, working in conditions of humanity kne w exactly how to act in it. We return to another, and in this section the final topic, a most important question, suggested by much that has gone before, — 6. Why do we not Sahbatize I Since the whole drift and gravitation in the creative and millennial rests and all the rests divinely ordained which are memorial of creation or anticipative of the millennium, is towards a seventh day of rest, a rest after labour, what is the philosophy of a first day of I'est, instead of the seventh ? It would seem sufficient to set the first-day in our thoughts that Christ's resurrection changed the day to the first. His own after hallowing of the daj^-, apostolic usage and perhaps ordainment, the spontaneous reception of this day by the early church as " the chief and queen of days " would account for the change. Agreed ; we admit that the day has been changed. But this does not set the mind at ease. There are unexplained remainders. It is true that Christ's completion of His redeeming work by the resurrection Heaven Once a Week. 2 3 does sufficient!}^ stamp the resurrection day as the chief day of the week. Still it remains that first come six days' toil and then rest ; not first the rest, and then the toil. " Not first tlie bright and after that the dark, But first the dark, and after that the bright ; First the thick cloud and then the rainbow arc, First the dark grave, then resurrection light. " 'Tis first the night, stern night of storm and war, Long night of heavy clouds and veiled skies, Then the bright shining of the morning star That bids the saints awake and dawn arise." Still all the analogies are true of the new life after the old, the peace and calm after the unrest; still, emphaticall}'-, earth looks forward to her millennium, the seventh thousand years, and this by the Divine will. We cannot wonder that many minds, wdiich have been impressed with the great Sabbatic idea, should be unable to accommodate their feelings to the^irs^-day rest. The indications are striking; that there is this strong; feeling: and inclination towards the Sabbatic rest of the seventh day. The analogies, as we have said, at first seem all in that direction. The reasons for keeping the seventh day seem more potent and philosophical than those for keeping the first. Grod keeps the •seventh day ; man rests his seventh day. Still we expect earth to plod on through its weary six millenniums of years to find its rest in the seventh. Prose and poetry follow this idea, " 0 long expected day, begin. Dawn on this world of woe and sin." If we may coin a word, this afterness of the rest is not abolished. The gravitation is evermore with full and undiminished weight towards the rest after toil, the seventh millennium after the six of struggle and martyrdoms. Who has not felt this great diffi- culty ? What is its solution ? This difficulty has found expression in several ways which have become prominent even in the full blaze of Christ's resur- rection and its celebration. One of these has been an actual return to the observance of the seventh day by the Seventh-Day Christians, as in that entire community at Battle Creek, Michagan, where the Saturday is kept as the Sabbath. These people not only dwell on the fact that the creation Sabbath was never formally 24 Heaven Once a Week. abrogated, but on what would beafargreatermatterto some, that the seventh day stands forever as the way mark to the millennium. Another expression of this troubled tliought — for no men are more scrupulous to do right than these men — is the recent theor}-, elaborated by two or three writers of some note and ability, that the first day of Christ was the real and original seventh day of creation, that the seventh day was, in fact, the first in disguise. The feeling which has argued this point so earnestly is the one we have spoken of, that it is strange God should have abrogated the real creation-rest day for another, and that it would seem the afterness of the rest should be preserved as pointing backwards and forwards, memorial and prophetic. We are free to confess that while these views have never com- mended themselves to us as the true ones, and somehow not con- sonant but quite dissonant with Christian feeling, we have felt the full force of the objection as to the incongruity of setting aside the great creation day, and more especially of turning back the great tendency of the mind towards the great rests after toil, consummating in the millennium. It would seem that the mil- lennium ought to be symbolised by the seventh day and not by the first, AVhat reference is there in the first day to all those rests after toil, those calms after disturbance and struggle ? On first view, the objection seems insuperable. We seem to have a chief of days which is not in accord with the great Sab- batic idea on which the whole history of man, fi'om creation to the millennium, is constructed. We do not wonder that this view should lead some thous^htful men into theories which are not in accord with Christian feelino- and sound exegesis. For Chiistian feeling and Christian history must certainly be set aside before we can leave the Lord's day for the old seventh day ; and the theory certainly seems on first view a strained and improbable one that the first day is really the old seventh day restored. What is the philosophy of the first-day rest ? What is the oxitionale of it ? What is the place of a first day of sacred repose in lieu of the seventh in a system of revelation and course of history v/hich are from beginning to end Sabbatic, " Calming itself for the long-wished-for end, Close on the promised good t " It is true we hold things on trust. We believe because revela- Heaven Once a Week. 25 tion speaks. But the mind alwaj's rests when it takes in tlie philosophy of a subject. A few daj-s ago, after an hour's drive, I stood on an eminence where I had an all-around view of the landscape for ten miles.^ If we can come to a point where we can see the whole philosophy of the fii-st day in its connection with the week, we shall never again, I am sure, be cramped to any narrower theory. Can we gain such a view ? Deeper reflection and a broader understanding will vindicate the Lord's day, and will show why we instinctively repudiate such views of the Rest Day as throw it back upon the seventh day. Reflection will bring us to a plane where we could, in- deed, rejoice in the seventh day as the emblem of millennial bliss, but keep the first day as the true day of glory. We shall see that the first day not only has its place, but is necessary and essential to a history of the human race which is more than Sabbatic. Premise then two things : first, that Christ could have ordered His resurrection so that it wonld have taken place on any day He chose ; that, therefore, it was by design and fore-ordination that, so to speak, He purposely " timed " the terminal events of His course in such a way that He should be " three days " and not four in the grave, and that He should rise one day after the seventh and not before the seventh — not two days or three days after the seventh, nor — what many have wished and regretted— on the seventh itself. We are reminded how our Lord abode still in His place when He heard Lazarus was sick, purposely remain- ing absent, and afterwards saying, "I am glad for your sakes tliat I tvas not there." In the same way, Christ, knowing what day He should be crucified, purposely avoided rising on the great rest day of creation. It was from express design that He rose after the seventh day, and just one day and no more after the seventh. Then premise, secondly, that Christ knew the whole course of human events, for in Him " all things consist;" and nothing could have been further from His thought than to set aside the method of history. Advance upon it He might; set it aside never ; for " He came not to destroy but to fulfil." Long reflection, that climbing which reaches the mountain top, will give us the true coif^j cVoeil of the whole subject, which is that the seventh day indeed represents the millenniimi, hut the ' Stanstead Hill, on the Canada border, whence a view of Lake ^Memphremagog, country and towns. 26 Heaven Once a Week. • resurrection day secnves and represents that which is just heijond the millennium ivhich is heaven. The grand key to the whole matter of the change of the seventh day to the first is this, until Christ rose, the greatest rest day liad been God's creation rest ; thereafter it was the Resurrection rest of Christ ; before that the most ])erfect consummation man could attain to was the earthly millennium, the final period of the world's history ; after Christ's resurrection and by it, another period more glorious opened to man, the rest of eternity, beyond the grave ; until the Lord's resurrection, consummations and rests after toil and moil were sought for ; after that new besfinninos, every one a rest from the past in the first step on a higher plane as of one who is mounting terraces. All this became possible only with the resurrection ; nay, not only possible, but essential. After the resurrection, therefore, it is unphilosuphical to keep the seventh day as the rest day and the best day ; until that, the seventh day is, philosophically, the best of all the seven. In a word, with the resurrection, beoinnino^s which are evermore beginnings of a labour and a life which are all rest, are the new word ; up to that time consummations were man's best word. The seventh day. indeed, may not be despised, for it is the emblem of earth's best rest ; but the first is the chief of days, because each Lord's Day is to introduce a better week than the past; resurrection intro- 2;in the world to come." Passing by their error as to the sixth instead of the seventh millennium which is a misconception of the view of the Talmud safres, their main thought is correct — there is something better than Messiah's glory on earth, it is that which immediately follows, the world to come, which begins with the resurrection. The ■Chi'istian knows that Christ's resurrection involves the general resurrection and the glory beyond ; therefore, since Christ's resurrection it is consonant with Christian hope to keep, as the •emblem of heaven won by the Lord's resurrection, the first day, but no more the seventh. It is instructive now to take up the early Fathei'S, and to see how with all their mixed and somewhat confused ideas as to the Lord's Day, this idea seems to stand before them, dimly it must be confessed and unenunciated, but so prominently that we at least can see tliat the idea was struggling to become conscious and clear to them. It is seen in their frequent reference to the Lord's Day as the eighth clay lohlch is also the jirst. Even as early as the Epistle ascribed to Barnabas, the compan- ion of Paul, we read : " We celebrate the eighth da}^ with j oy on which Jesus rose from the dead." What light this lets in upon the whole subject. The day was 28 Heaven Once a Week. indeed, the first day of a new week, but as regards tlie seventh day, it was the eighth, an advance upon it. Justin Martyr, indeed, brings out i\\Q firstness in a well known passage : — " On the day called Sunday. . . . Because it is the first day on which God dispelled the darkness and the original state of things (the Hyle) and formed the world, and because Jesus Christ our Saviour, rose from the dead on it," " Therefore it remains the first and chief of days." But, deeply considered, it will be felt that this reference to creation's first day, is used only as a figure, that the Christian thought does not o-q backward to the actual emergence of matter out of darkness; that would indeed be a retrogression inexcusable from the perfected creation as completed, but the first creation- day s^sjigure of the first day when there are new heavens and new earth. Therefore they add "the eighth day which is also the first;" that is, the eighth day as regards the seventh and all the past days, but also the first, that is, of a new and better time to come. We may note right here that it is a misapprehension to imagine we are to reckon the first day by going hack to begin over again. We are not to count from one to seven, and then o-q back to re- peat the same in a never-ending round. Far different is the real numeration of these days. We are to reckon them as ice luou/d count octaves on the ke3^board of some mighty instrument, first finishing one octave, then striking eight which is also one of the next higher, and so on, in a glorious never-ending succession of octaves. Such are man's weeks on earth, since Christ rose from the dead. They " go from strength to strength," they are the eighth day which is also the first; they are evermore new beginnings^ of ' This accordant bit of poetry goes singing tlirough our mind : " Every day is a fresh lieginning, p]very morn is the worhl made new, You who are weary of sorrow and sinning. Here is a l)eautiful hope for you, — A liope for me, and a hope for you. " All tlie past things are past and over, Tlie tasks are done and the tears are shed ; Yesterday's errors let yesterday cover, Yesterday's wounds which smarted and bled, And healed with the healing which night has shed." Susa)i Cooliihje, Heaven Once a Week. 29 better weeks Avliicli are brightening towards the perfect first day of heaven. Athanasius sa3^s that, " The Sabbath, the end of tlie old creation has deceased, and tlie Lord's day the commencement of the new creation has set in." Cyprian of Carthage says : — " For the day of circumcision, be- cause it "was the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sab- bath, would 1)6 the day on which the Lord wouhl rise and renew us and give us spiritual circumcision; tldn eightlt day, that is the first after the Sabbath was the type ; we now have the reality." Hilary of Poictiers, to cite only one more, on the Ninety-Second Psalm observes : — " Although the name and keeping of the Sab- bath are instituted for the seventh da}', yet we on the cigldh day lohich is also the first, enjoy the felicity of a perfect Sabbath." It becomes clear, from this view how just thought might admit a subordinate and secondary celebration of the seventh day, pro- vided it were not thrust forward to take the place of the first. The Ebionite Christians kept both days. Socrates the church historian speaks of the Sabbath and the Lord's day, both men- tioned as weekly festivals on which assemblies were held. Gregory of Nj^ssa calls them " sister da3^s." And this these men could do in strict propriety, not merely from attachment of early Hebrew training, but because there is reason to observe the seventh day, provided we do not give it precedence to the first. It represents earthly rests and the world's millennium. But the early Christians never lost that just feeling which sanctified the Lord's da}^ in place of the seventh day. It is also observable how these earl}^ Christians clearly noted that the day they kept was the eighth day, the day after the Sabbath. They do not, indeed, draw the inferences from it which we are now drawing, and which one would think, are irresistible, that as the Hebrew rabbins observe, the world to come follows immediately after the millennial age. But they would have resisted the thought and have felt an incongruity had the resurrection-day been the sixth day or the ninth da}^ They felt if they did not per- ceive and enunciate the force of their favourite assertion that it was "the eighth day also tlie first," the " day after the Sabbath." And here we may fittingly point attention to two occasions which seem like fore-gleams of the Lord's day, in the Jewish order of life. Seven times seven years came, ending with a Sabbatic year; then immediately followed the Jubilee year, a year of doing 30 Heaven Once a Week. away with the past, the fiftieth 3'ear, of release, that foreshadowed the eighth day after the seventh. So also did the day of Pente- cost, the fiftieth day after Passover, when the first-fruits were- presented. In their true meaning these two occasions were really dominical and Christian. They point to heavenly renewal and restoration, something beyond the seventh. Our thought summed up is this : There is, since Christ's re- surrection, a day beyond the seventh day and better, " the eighth day which is also the first." There is, indeed, a Sabbath, the seventh day ; and all life gravitates irresistibly towaixls the rest after labour. That is true ; but beyond that day, there is a new beginning, as on a higher plane, more laborious and vigorous, in- deed, even as that of the caterpillar becomes soaring and wider, yet easier and more delightful when he commences his life with wings. This is " the eighth day which is the first." The best that earth affords, if there is no resurrection, is the last millennium and the seventh day is its type ; but if there is a resurrection,, there is something beyond the millennium ; for " that which is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater," heaven begun ; and thei-e is something better than the seventh day, which is " the eighth day which is also the first." Thus is explained our irresistible feeling that somehow there is- a degradation in seventh-day keeping, and in the forced attempt, as we nuist regard it, to prove that the first day is the primitive seventh day. Prove these things if you can ; but when you have done so, you indicate that the seventh day and the millennium are the best thing you hope for, and you deny the dawn of eternity after resurrection. Thus while God hallowed the seventh day because of His- cessation of creation, and the cessation from His great work of man's restoration in the millennium, Christ hallowed the first day because He commenced the resurrected life on earth, and by the resurrection hope secured eternal day, the Lord's Day in which we shall be with Him. The seventh day is indeed the Day of Creation and the Day of the Millennium ; but the Lord's Day is the Day of Heaven. What Christian can go back from the first day to the seventh day ? The Hebrew sages used to say, " To deny the Sabbath is to deny the creation." To go from the first day back to the seventh day is to deny the resurrection, and the heaven after the resurrection. Heaven Oiue a Week. 31 II. THE SECOND GllAND TOPIC WE MUST ATTEND TO IS THOSE CON- SIDERATIONS WHICH FALL UNDER THIS HEAD : — THE TWO GREAT REST-DAYS OF THE WORLD I-AVE BEEN EFFECTUALLY PROMULGATED BY THE JEWISH RACE. 1. It is not ajjfirmed that the treatiou rest-day was not observed and its ohsercance extended far aiid luide Before Moses. In fact we hftve already asserted and proved that this was the case. Indeed, we think it in place here to dwell upon the great rest- day and its observance pre-Mosaic, and in lands outside of Judea. To that we now address ourselves. Humboldt is a scientific luminary of the fii'st magnitude, bright and permanent. His evidence has been already given. He says: " It appears that no nation of the New Continent was acquainted with the week or cycle of seven days which we find among the Hindus, the Chinese, the Assyrians, and the Egyptians, and which,, as Le Gentil has very justly observed, is followed by the greater part of the nations of the Old World." Gilfillan, who continues to be an eminent standard on the Sabbath, has massed evidence in this direction. We run tocrether some of his collected facts : — " The Phoenicians, according to Porphyry, consecrated the seventh day as holy. Before Mohanniied's time, the Saracens kept their Sabbath on Friday ; and from them he and his followers adopted the custom. It is stated by Purchas that the natives of Pegu had a weekly day on which they assembled to receive instruction from a class of men appointed for the purpose. The Pagan Sclavonians held a weekly festival. In the greater part of Guinea, the seventh day Tuesday, is set apart to I'eligious worship. It would appear that the Chinese, who have now no Sabbath, at one time honourey Rev. James Johnston of Glasgow in his able essay, "The Primitive Sabbath Restored by Christ." He tells us that Dr. Morrison tried, at an early stage of the missionary intercourse with the Chinese, to account for their having no Sabbath. Johnston frankly admits that Chinese scholars do not give the interpretation which he gives to the facts. Yet they agree with Humboldt's asser- tions ah-eady quoted respecting the Chinese. The facts are these : In the Chinese classics which were flncient in the days of Con- fucius, 500 3^ears before Christ, we find two passages given by Dr. Legge, the first Chinese scholar of his day. In one passage occur the words, " Seven da3^s complete a revolution ; " in the other, " On the seventh day all the passages {i.e., public roads and canals) are closed." Dr. Johnston remarks : — " The true import of these passages had been in all likelihood lost before the days of Confucius, who with his usual reverence for what was ancient, put them among the words of their holy men ; and there they stand, witnesses, we think, to a primeval revolution of seven days, and a day of rest 'when the passages were closed.'" The Chinese had a cycle of twenty-eight days. Johnston re- marks :- — " This cycle seems an attempt to combine the measure of time by the moon with a multiple of the seven days of the week ; and so admirably does this fit in with our custom as Christians, that our missionaries have only to tell the converts that the four characters Fang, Heu, Maou, and Sing stand for the day of rest." " The imperial almanac of China is issued by the Board of Rites. It is regarded as of such importance that it is a penal offence to issue an edition without the sanction of the Emperor. In this almanac there is a particular character found occurring throughout the year on every seventh day, and that day is our 'Gilfillan. " The Sabbath."' Heaven Once a Week. 33 Christian Sabbath. Tlie character employed is not found in common use, the meaning given to it in their dictionaries is ' secret ' or 'closed.' How it first got there, or what it indicates in that position, no one can tell. The literary graduate who was appointed by the Emperor or the Board of Rites to publish the almanac for the province of Foh Kien in 1854, wrote in answer to a friend of ours, " The character means ' secret ' or ' closed,' but who put it there I never heard. I only know that it has always been there, from time immemorial, and must ever continue there.'" Another fact he adduces " from the existincj customs of the country, but still a mere fossil of the Sabbath." It is connected with their funeral rites, which are observed by 400,000,000 people. On the death of a father the following customs are ob- served : — " In front of the wooden tablet bearins; the name and titles of the departed, incense tapers are lighted, and the children prostrate themselves before it every morning during the first seven days ; and for the next seven weeks, on each seventh day the same jDro- strations are performed morning and evening, with offerings to the departed spii'it. In some cases of great devotion or display the prostrations are extended to seven tueeks ; and then the seven times seven weekly prostrations follow as in ordinary cases. This, to say the least, is in striking harmony with the patriarchal custom in Gen. 1. 10, when Joseph mourned for his father seven days. In Dr. Morrison's account of these funeral rites of the Chinese, the re- semblance to those of the Egyptians is striking : ' During the first seven days, they prostrate themselves every morning and evening. After three times seven days, the funeral procession takes place. After interment, they bring back the tablet and place before it whole roasted pigs, etc. ; and for seven times seven days present oblations and make prostrations at morning and evening.' " ^ Mr. Johnston remarks : — " I have no desire to conceal the fact that no heathen Chinese scholar interprets these passages as the Christian has done, of a week and a Sabbath. This divison of time, as well as the practical observance of a day of rest, was lost at an early period, along with the true knowledge and worship of God. The decimal system was applied by them to time as to other things, and like the Greeks they have long regulated the recurrence of market-days and the like, by decades." ' Morrison's Views of China. C 34 Heaven Once a Week. But he quotes an interesting sermon from the Chinese Reposi- tory of March 1849, by a Chinaman, one of Dr. Morrison's first converts. The Chinaman says : — " If we trace the matter up, it will be found that there is now no country which does not know the Sabbath ; and even the Chinese speak of it. The diagram Fiili in the Book of Changes says, ' This rule goes and returns, in seven days it comes again.' Twan (Prince Wan) says, ' This rule, going and in seven days coming again, refers to the revolution of heaven.' This is a trace of a seventh day rest coming round. The age of Fuhi from whom the first quotation was made, was not far from the creation, and the time of a Sabbath was not yet altogether forgotten in China. As to the expressson, ' The ancient kings ordered that on that day the gate of the great road should be shut and traders not permitted to pass, nor the princes to go and examine their states,' it is plainly to be seen, that in the time of the ancient knigs, on the day of the Sabbath all classes kept at rest and observed it." We consider this evidence of a septenary rest-day in China as- remarkable. We are not in condition to sift it as scholars of the Chinese language and antiquities might do ; but we incline to the belief, especially since the careful Humboldt reckoned China as among the nations who have traces of the Sabbath, that the evidence when scrutinized, will probably be found in the end to be significant, as it seems to be on the face of it, of a primitive seventh day of rest in China. From India, the same essayist gathers evidence that the Hin- dus have a week of seven days, the record of which is contained in the Sanskrit, the most ancient language. He gives a table of Indian days, from an article in the British and Foreign Evan- gelical Review for April, 18G6. SANSKRIT DAYS. ROMAN DAYS. ENGLISH DAYS. Aditya-war. Sonia-war. Mangala-war. ' Buddha-war. Brahaspat-war. Sucra-war. Shun-war. Dies Solis. Dies Lunae. Dies Martis. Dies Mercuric. Dies Jovis. Dies Veneris. Dies Saturni. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday. Heaven Once a Week. 35 "Here is an uncommonly curious and interesting series of facts. Not merely is there a division of weeks in various lands, the several days being named after the sun, moon and planets, but making allowance for difference of longitude, the Sunday of any one country has, it would appear, always fallen on precisely the same day with the Sunday of all others, and so with the remain- ing days of the week." The coincidence of the sun's day in different countries is not able; but our holding the sun's day as sacred, and their holding the sun's day as sacred, are on entirely different grounds. They hold the day sacred because it is the day of the sun, worshipped by them ; we hold the day sacred because Christ's resurrection happened to coincide with the Sunday. The facts are explainable on a more unforced hypothesis than that presented by certain late writers. We shall recur to it later ; but we rescard the evidence of a septenary Sabbath in India as conclusive and valuable. But perhaps the most clear and striking evidence is from As- syria, lately brought forth. Rev. W. W. Atterbury of New York says : — " The Chaldean cuneiform inscriptions prove that the weekly Sabbath was observed not only by the Assyrians and Babylonians, but by the earlier primitive inhabitants of Chaldaea (at and before the times of Terah and Abraham), and was believed to have been ordained at the creation." Rev. Dr. Wm. De Loss Love, in one of his fine essays on the Sabbath in the Bibliotheca Sacra of Andover,^ sets forth this evi- dence more fully from Smith and Sayce as follows : — " We have other important ancient evidence, in the Chaldean account of the Creation, as given by the cuneiform inscriptions found in the ruins of ancient Babylon. The lamented George Smith, noted in As- syrian researches, says ; ' In the year 1869, I discovered among other things a curious religious calendar of tlie Assyrians, in which every month is divided into four weeks, and the seventh days or Sabbaths are marked out as days on which no work should be undertaken.' H. Fox Talbot, F.R.S., in his translation of these Creation Tablets, renders two lines thus : — On the seventh day He appointed a holy day, And to cease from all laljoars He commanded.' ' Sabb. Ess. 26.— From Transac. of Soc. of Bib. Arch, vol 5. p. 427 sq. ; Acad. vol. 6. p. 554 ; Sayce, Babylonian Literature, p. 55, etc. 36 Heaven Once a Week. He also says : — ' This fifth tablet is very important, because it af- firms clearly in my opinion, that the origin of the Sabbath was coeval with Creation. It has been known for some time that the Babylonians observed the Sabbath with considerable strictness. On that daj;- the king was not allowed to take a drive in his chariot ; various meats were forbidden to be eaten ; and there were a number of other minute restrictions. But it was not known that they believed the Sabbath to have been ordained at the Creation. I have found, however, since this translation of the fifth tablet was com])leted, that Mr. Sayce has recently published a similar opinion.' "^ Dr. Love goes on to quote from Mr. Sayce as follows : — " Rev. A. H. Sayce, M.A., so far as appears, has translated more of this ' Babylonian Saints' Calendar,' than any other person. Both he and Mr. Smith have translated a Babylonian list of the thirteen months of the year and their patron deities. Mr. Sayce has trans- lated in full the memorandum of each of the thirty days of the month in this calendar. That for the seventh days reads : — ' The seventh da}'-, A feast of Merodach (and) Zir-Panitu. A festival. " ' A Sabbath. The prince of many nations, the flesh of birds (and) cooked fruits eats not. " ' The garments of his body he changes not. White robes he puts not on. Sacrifice he offers not. The king (in) his chariot rides not. " ' In royal fashion he legislates not. A place of garrison the general (by word of) mouth appoints not. Medicine for his sick- ness of body he applies not. " ' To make a sacred spot it is suitable. In the night, in the presence of Merodach and Istar, the king his offerinof makes. Sacrifices he offers. '' ' Raising his hand the high places of the god he worships.' "- " That this is not merely for the seventh day of the month, without any weekly significance is manifest from the fact that nearly the same language is used in these memoranda for the fourteenth, the twenty-first and the twenty-eighth days. And, nothing like it is used for any other of the thirty days, except the nineteenth which seems to have been another sacred day, like the day of Atonement in the Hebrew calendar. Mr. Sayce says ' Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct., 1879, quoting Transac. of Soc, Bib. Arch. vol. 5, part 2, p. 427-, 8. - Records of the Past, vol. 7. p. 160, 1. Heaven Once a Week. 37 further of this calendar : ' But the chief interest attaching to it is due to the fact that it bears evidence to the existence of a seventh day, Sabbath, on which certain works were forbidden to be done, among the Babylonians and Assyrians. It will be ob- served that several of the regulations laid down are closely an- alogous to the Sabbatical injunctions of the Levitical law and the practice of the Rabbinical Jews. What I have rendered Sabbath is expressed by two Accadian words, which literally signify dies nefastiis, and a bilingual syllabary makes them equivalent to the Assyrian yum sulumi or, day of completion (of labours) or a day unlawful to work upon. The word Sabbath itself was not un- known to the Assyrians, and occurs under the form Sabbatu.' " " The original text must have been transcribed at some period anterior to the 17th century, B.C." "These cuneiform inscriptions therefore, seem to give positive evidence that the ' Sabbath ' ex- isted at least two centuries prior to the giving of the Decalogue on Sinai."! Thus these nations between Ararat and Sinai received, prob- ably from Noah, their father, the Sabbath day, to obey and enjoy ; received but not publislied. It was reserved for Israel, the first-born and chosen, to set the Sabbath day distinctly in a statute, and by the life of the Divine Spirit accompanying, empha- size and promulgate to all the world a rest-day that shall advance like morning light through the continents and shall fill the earth. We shall advance in this section to other points of interest connected with these two rest days, promulgated to the world through Israel. 2. The Mosaic Sabbath, xohat were the grounds for it ? (a) The ground most commonly and most justly laid for it is in God's creation-rest. It was to be a memorial of that. It was also to be an example and model for man. "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy ; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord rested the seventh day and hallowed it." (h) What was the connection of the seventh-day Sabbath with the Exodus ? A passage in Deuteronomy is often quoted (in a carping spirit) as though the Sabbath were there represented as having a foundation different from that stated in Exodus and Genesis, and inconsistent with it. ' Bib. Soc, Oct., 1879. 38 Heaven Once a Week. Moses is there reliearsinsr the statutes of the Lord to all Israel toward the close of his life, and among them the Ten Command- ments. He savs : — " Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee." " The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ; in it thou shalt not do any work . . . nor thy stranger that is within thy gates ; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. 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." The following observations are pertinent : — It is not asserted that the Exodus was made on the Sabbath day. Moses, in the same Pentateuch, has already twice affirmed, once in narration and once in a statute, that the ground of the Sabbath was God's creation-rest. He certainly cannot mean to say any- thing inconsistent with that. He may add another reason for keeping the Sabbath ; but he will not set aside a reason he has already given seriously and even solemnly. In fact the terms of this command here, recall his previous statements and therefore endorse them. " Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee." There are often many reasons for a reasonable thing. A Penn- sylvanian interrogated why he celebrated the Fourth of July might say, because of Gettysburg ; on that day the State and the nation were saved ; but he would not, in this more recent reason, deny the celebration of the day as Independence Day. One of the great Sabbatisms of which the seventh-day rest was a lovely emblem was Canaan after the toil and bondage of Egypt. The very drift and phrasing of the language discloses why Moses here turned the thought to this Sabbatism rather than that after creation. There is a similar branching of thought in the mouth of our Lord. On one occasion He gave the Lord's Prayo", and followed it immediately by some sayings on forgiveness of injuries ; on another occasion, He immediately proceeded to give utterances in regard to importunity in prayer. In the one case His mind dwelt upon and branched off from the thought, " For- give our debts ; " in the other case, His thought was carried Heaven Once a Week. 39 forward to the general subject of "how to pray," brietly yet effectually. So we can discern in the phrasing how Mc.ses' mind branched off to give this secondary reason and ground of the Sabbath. His mind is caught by the words, " nor thy stranger that is within tliy gates ; " which he goes on to enforce by the gracious word, '" that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou." This starts the reminiscences of their own bondage in Egypt, which had moved Moses' heart in bye-gone days of his early manhood : and so he goes on : " 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 stetched out arm." Then he branches off into his secondary, but in this connection most naturally mentioned reason for the Sabbath rest, the recollection of the great Sabbatism of release from bondage and Canaan their home : " Therefore the Lord th}^ God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." It might even be plausibly argued, that the " therefore," pointed to some other word than " Sabbath day." It might refer to " Lord thy God," and express the ground on which God had a right to command them ; or the emphasis might come upon the word '' thee " for a similar reason. Or. it might be argued that some word like mevcifiilly or consideratehi is implied or felt after " Sabbath day." These would by no means be far fetched ; and these thoughts aie perhaps latent in the words. But we incline to believe, though these things are implied, that the real process of Moses' mind is a branching off upon a secondary ground for the Sal^bath, the Sabl)atism of release from bondage. But this is as far as possible from denying the great ground of the Sabbath as God's creation-da}^ (c ) It has also been queried, and this likewise in a carping spirit, whether a third different ground for the Sabbath were not found in God's statement in Exodus xxxi. 13 : " Speak thou unto the Children of Israel, saying. Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep ; for it is a sign between me and you, throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore." The same is asserted in Ezekiel xx. 12: "Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." But it is not said that God arbitrarily chose the Sabbath as a 40 Heaven Once a Week. sign, somewhat in the way the white and red roses were taken as the sign of the houses of York and Lancaster; but it is rather a sign from a previous reason, as when an Enghshman floats his flag on the Queen's birthday, or the American on Independence day, that is a dgn of their nationality and loyalty. But the ground why those days rather than others become a sign is in the events they commemorate. God called his chosen people to ob- serve the seventh day, by perpetual statute ; in so honouring them that they should observe and promulgate the Sabbath, it was a sign that He had chosen and sanctified them ; in their observing it, there was a sign that they stood to the covenant to be His people. But the choice of tJiis day as a sign between them was not arbitrary, but was grounded in the great Sabbatic rest of God, imparted to man, to be kept and enjoyed by all who are His. (cZ.) Another, a true ground of the Sabbath, lies in the great millennial rest at the end of the world. If this is not so explicitly declared, it is everywhere implied in all the Sabbatic rests, which point to " restitution of all things which hath been declared by all the holy prophets since the world began." The Ninety-Second Psalm was understood in this sense. 3. God not only gave Israel the day of the Sabbath ; He also gave them a Sabbath series of loeehs, months, years, and iieriods. This has already been sufficiently developed in another connec- tion, where we wished to show that God's seventh day of creation and millennium are emphasised everywhere in Scripture. But we must refer to it here as showino; how faithful Isi^ael was in the development of that great Sabbatic idea which God gave to this His people to hold and promulgate. We need, for this purpose, only recall the series as previously described. " In the Hebrew calendar, there was the seventh day pointing onward to the seventh week, the seventh week to the seventh month, the seventh month to the seventh year, the seventli year to the seventh week of years which introduced the Jubilee." " Pentecost occurs seven weeks after Passover ; the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles last seven days each ; the days of holy convocation are seven in the year . . . the Feast of Taber- nacles as well as the Day of Atonement falls in the seventh month of the sacred year ; and lastly, the cycle of annual feasts occupies seven months ; from Nisan to Tisri." Heaven Once a Week. 41 So far as Israel i-ecorded these statutes and kept them, that nation promulgated the Sabbath ; and they did this so effectually as to make the Sabbath one of their great peculiarities in the eye of the Roman satirist. 4. It luas, of course, entirely natural and a thing to T>e exj)ected, that the j^eople of Israel should have developed a SaLhatic vocahn- lai^. The study of the Sabbatic words is important, and will not only be interesting and instructive, but will guard us against certain wreat errors into which some late writers have fallen. HEBREW SABBATIC WORDS, (I). The verb 1^5^)\ which Gesenius defines, to be fixed firm ; hence — (a) To rest from labour, to lie by, to keep holy day. It is used of ordinary rest, as Isa. xxxiii. 8 — the wayfarer resteth, does not journey because of war. The land rests when untilled. Lev. xxvi. 34, 35. (6) To cease, as Josh. v. 12, the manna ceased ; also Pro v. xxii. 10, from strife ; and Isa. xxiv. 8, from joy. (c) Especially to keep the Sabbath absolutely, as Exod. xvi. 30 ; and with 1^?*^, Lev. xxiii. 32. Derivative from this is (II.) The noun ri?^, which Gesenius defines as follows : — {a) A Sabbath day of rest, the seventh day of each week, fron:i Friday evening to the evening of Saturday ; Lev. xxiii. 22 ; Neh. xiii. 19. Also nsti'n or, the Sabbath day; Exod. xx. 8-11; Numb. xv. 32 ; Neh. x. 31 ; also nnbn nr? nac'n or^ is equivalent to each Sabbath ; also 1 Chron. ix. 32 ; n3ti> T\2,U also equivalent to every Sabbath. (h) Specially, the Sabbath is a name for the great day of Atonement in the seventh month. Lev. xxiii. 32. (c) Every seventh year, when the fields lay untilled, the Sabbath year. {d) There is another meaning of Sabbath which we will take np later. Next comes a most important, though not frequent, word ; be- cause a failure to discriminate it allows us to fall into grave errors and strange theories as some have done. 42 Heaven Once a Week. (III.) fiJ^?^-', Shahhcdhon, of which Gesenius says, an abstract noun, a kee[):ng of the Sabbath, Sabbatism, Sabbath rites, for a lying by, rest ; found only in Exodus and Leviticus. This word Shahhathon is misleading to the English reader be- <^avise it is not so rendered in our King James' version as to show its force ; and it is translated by two diffei'ent words. In Exod. xvi. 23, xxxi. 15, xxxv. 2 ; Lev. xvi. 31, xxiii. 3, xxiii. 32, and XXV. 5, it is translated "rest ;" in the following it is translated " Sahhath;" Lev. xxiii. 24; Lev. xxiii. 39 (twice). Now, neither of these translations is good or fair. The first, " rest,'" fails to bring out the idea of a hohj rest, a rest similar to the Sabbatic rest, ; the second, " Sabbath,''' is positively misleading, as it makes of a mere day set apart for sacred rest necessarily a seventh day Sabbath, which is not the fact, and whicli introduces confusion. To the careful Hebrew scholar it is plain that the author used the word f^^W — which possibly he had to coin for that purpose — partly to avoid the use of the word Sabbath. Li the most distinct manner he has kept the distinction between Sabbath and Shabbathon. But it is essential, in order that we may introduce light upon matters which have been obscured by a few recent writers, that we set before our minds all the uses of the word. We would pre- sume that the new translation will have the words translated dis- criminatingly. Probably that word will be Sabbatmn.^ A. In the followincr cases the word describes the sacred rest of the seventh day, Salibath. ns^ ffni^'—Shabbathon Shabbath. (a) In one single instance, we have the rest described by con- nectino- it with the Sabbath. Exod. xvi. 23 — To-morrow is the Sabbatism of Sabbath unto the Lord. |Tn3L^' ni'^JShabbath Shabbathon. (b) In the remainder of the instances, the Sabbath is described by saying that it is observed as Sabbatic rest. Exod. xxxi. 15 — In the seventh is the Sabbath of Sabbatism. Exod. xxxv. 2 — An holy day, a Sabbath of Sabbatism. Lev. xxiii. 3 — The seventh day is the Sabbath of Sabbatism. This Shabbath Shabbathon is also applied to Atonement Day, which, as we have seen, is the one festival day called the Sabbath, ' The Revision has " solemn I'est." Heaven Once a Week. 43 from the reason, probably, that it secured the t'est froin sin in atonement. For we have, Lev. xvi. 31 — It shall be a Sabbath of Sabbatism unto you. So also, Lev. xxiii. 32 — It shall be unto you a Shahhath Shahhatlion. Even when the Sabbatic year is spoken of, the same expression is used once : Lev. xxv. 5 — It is a Shenath Sliahhathon, a year of Sabbatism to the Lord. B. We come now to the cases in which the writer carefully avoided using the word Shahhath, while he greatly desired to convey the idea that a rest similar, but not identical, to that of the Sabbath was enjoined. Lev^ xxiii. 24 — In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Shahhathon — Sabbatism. Lev. xxiii. 39 — Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days ; on the first day shall be a Shah- hathon, and on the eighth day shall be a Shahhathon. The Shabbathon was similar but not identical with the Sab- bath in its method of keeping. The diference is seen in this, that while on the Sabbath the command is, " Thou shalt not do any work " on both these days of Shahhathon, the command is, " Ye shall do no servile work therein (Lev. xxiii. 35, 36). This is seen further in the command, Lev, xxiii. 40, 42 : " Ye shall take unto you, on the first day, the boughs of goodly trees," &c. " Ye shall dwell in booths seven days," acts for which on the Sahhath one would probably have been stoned. The similarity of the rest is seen in that no servile work was to be done on those days, and that there should be a holy con- vocation. The two days probably were as similar, yet as different, as our Sabbath and our Fast days or Thanksgiving days. It is plain, after this scrutiny of the words employed, that Moses particularly avoided saying that the fifteenth and twentieth days of the seventh month should each be a Shahhath ; he took pains to discriminate that they should each be a Shahhathon or Sabbatism. (IV.) We recur now to the word ^W, used in another signifi- cation, Gesenius says. (4) Sometimes a Sabbath is nearly equiva- 44 Heaven Once a Week. lent to a week; Lev, xxiii. 15, "And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, seven Sabbaths shall be com- plete ; even unto the morrow after the seven Sabbaths shall ye number fifty days ; " here the seven complete Sabbaths are parallel to the seven weeks, nyn^ J?3^ of Deut. xvi. 9. So, too, seven Sabbaths (of weeks) of years, Lev. xxv. 8. He adds in a note : In the kindred dialects, Chald. ^^P, emph. ^K^W or «ri?^. Sabbath, also week. (The Syriac, Samar., Arabic, Ethiop., and Amhar., also have Sabbath both of Jews and Christians.) It is worth remarking here that ^W Shabbath, and V^^^ week, though similar in sound, have no connection by derivation. It is easy to see how this people reckoned by Sabbaths. It was as natural as that the Indians should reckon by " moons." The epoch implies the era. " From one new moon to another " is a month. From one Sabbath to another is a week. In the Old Testament we do not see any expression which shows that the epoch was lost sight of Still the Sabbaths are in mind. But in later Hebrew and in Hellenistic Greek, the Sabbath became the loeek, as the " moon " grew to mean the month. The plural, also, accordins: to Lano-e,^ means a lueeJc The Rabbinical nomenclature of the days of the week was according to the same idea : n3L*'3 int^ one of the week, i.e., Sun- day ; r\2)P2 ''TC' two of the week, Monday ; and so on.- GREEK SABBATIC WORDS. In the Greek which became the literary language of the Jews in connection with Europe, the Sabbath likewise made a vocabulary. (I.) There is no Greek verb to keep the Sabbath used in the New Testament ; but outside the New Testament we have ffajiiiaTiZeo, used abundantly by Jewish writers and by the Christian Fathers. (II.) Ta (ra[i(iscTov, witli thc artlclc, the Sabbath. The article con- veys a quiet reference to the use of the Sabbath, the Rest Day. The places where it is found are : Matt. xii. 5, 8 ; Mark ii, 27 (twice). The Sabbath was made for man : Mark ii. 28 ; xvi. 1 ; Luke vi. 5, 7, 9 ; xiii. 14, 15; xiv. 3 ; xxiii. 5G; rested ro a-d/S/SaTov, (accusative of time) ; John v. 18 ; ix. 16 ; xix. 31 (twice) ; Acts xiii. 42, to fiiralu ^ Lange, note on Matt, xxviii. 2. - Lange, note on Matt, xxviii. 1, and Lightfoot, p. 500. Heaven Once a Week. 45 cv.^^a.rot \ xiii. 44 ; ri \(y^r,iji.ut^ ca.^P>iTiJ ; XVll. 2, \xi aa^^aTO. rplx ; alsO, with definite meaning, but without article, Col. ii. IG : b fiipu ffa^^arav; Luke vi. 6, h erifv (i6.Tuv, day of the Sabbatli or Sabbath day, which is found with .rajSfSdTau Luke xiii. 14, 16 ; XIV. 5 ; John xix. 31 ; hv yap //.lyaM h riftipa Ixiivou aafi^arou :, With aa^p>a.Tuy, Luke iv. 16 ; Acts xiii. 14 ; xvi. 13. (VI.) Peculiar or difficult are the following. Acts i. 12; o-a/s/SaVai; if^av oSsv, a Sabbath day's journey ; also Luke vi. 1 ; h v, and 1 Cor. xvi. 2 ; xard filav (ra.(-,p>a.Tou, on the first day of the week. Besides these uses of Sabbaton, we have : (X.) Once only, Heb. iv. 9, the word rafifiiiTiffte; Sabbatism or Sabbath-keeping, almost exactly the equivalent of the Hebrew ]m^ Shabbathon. Heaven Once a Week. 47 The only words really bearing on the great themes we are just now discussing are precisely these two, ^-'^?E^' and *' 'Twas great to speak a world from nought, 'Twas greater to redeem." We need hardly recall the prominence of the Resurrection in 72 Heaven Onee a Week. their early preaching, and the explanation by every Father that C'hrist's Resurrection made the Lord's day. The entire patristic testimony is all one way. It was the Divine Spirit in them which led them to this sense of the Resurrection. We doubt if our age so fully feels the power of the Resurrection. Yet we read in Hessey these fervent and admirable sentences : — " Is it not an event which increases in interest, yea, which becomes more overpoweringly mysterious, year h^ year, and hour by hour, as soul upon soul enters upon this scene of the flesh ? . . . He who knows the power of Christ's resurrection cannot celebrate it as a man simply commemorates an event. " ' Like cii'cles widening round, Upon a clear blue river, Orb after orb, the wondrous sound Is echoed on forever.'" (cZ.) The Lord's day was celebrated, not only because it was the first day, but also because it was the eighth. This interestino; fact we have brous^ht out from the Fathers, but we have not exhausted Its interest nor its meaning. The Fathers stated it, but none of them seem to have evolved its deep significance. We ordinarily say, and truly, that the Lord and His disciples honoured His resurrection day because on it He rose from the dead. But back of that is the question, which we nev^er heard asked, Why did Christ choose the first da}^, the day after the seventh, as the day to break the bars of the tomb, abolish death and bring to light life and immortality ? He said truly of His life, " I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." Whatever He did, providentially or b}^ His own foresight, always was done with purpose. Why did He so time the terminal events of His life that He should rise the eujldh day ? Who has not felt at times in his less advanced thousfht, a resfret that Christ had not timed His resurrection so that it should come on Saturday, so that the two great rest-days could have come together, that of the Father and that of the Son, so that thus there would not have been all this disturbance of mind about two rest-days and their conflicting claims ? But Christ did what He did wittingly, and not without a pur- pose so vast and significant as not only warranted such a change. Heaven Once a Week. 73 but — if we may speak it reverently — woukl liave made the omission of the chanofe the most inexcusable of failures on our Lord's part. He did not fail to do the right thing there any more than He failed in Gethsemane or at Calvar3^ It was not witliout a reason that He timed His resurrection so that it should take place, not the ninth day, nor the tenth, but the eighth ; not the sixth, nor the fifth, nor even the seventh, but the eighth. Thus it was exactly one day after the seventh day. Why would it not have been just as well had He risen the ninth daj^ ffi'O days after the seventh day? Wh}^ is not the Moham- medan's Friday or the Tuesday of another nation the best time for the sacred day ? For the reason we have already indicated that the seventh day and all the Sabbatic series symbolized the millennium at the end of the earth's history ; the day of the Lord's resurrection finished the creation of another world for redeemed sinners, the world to come, immedlatelif following this. To keep Friday implies that heaven comes first, then the millennium ; to keep Tuesday would imply that between the millennium and the heavenly rest intervene periods which signify nothing. No ; Christ rose the eighth day, because heaven comes at the close of the millennium, when " it begins to dawn towards the first day of the week." As we have seen, the Fathers are frequently sa3'ing that the Lord's day is "the eighth day which is also the first." " We on the eighth day which is also the first," says Hilary, " enjoy the felicity of a per- fect Sabbath." " Which is also the firsts Some seem to have the feeling that the Sabbath represents going backward to the first day of the week, and commencino- anew. No ; but it goes forward to that ■' O 'CD fii'st day which is also the eightli, the first da}^ of a neiv week. Whenever a Christian keeps the Lord's day, then, he says in effect, "Every loeeh, 1 commence anew and better." Thus i\\e, first day means all first things which are of God's grace. But that " eighth day which is also the first, and that first day which is also the eighth — that eighth dav which comes after the seventh, and that first day which comes after the seventh, is the begin- ning of the celestial life. That it is the eighth shows that it comes to man after the millennial seventh ; that Christ rose the eighth day was Christ's declaration that His resurrection secured our resur- rection to bliss, and that that because He lives we shall live also. 74 Heaven Once a Week. (6.) What is the historical connection of the LcrcVs day with the Fourth Commandment I (a.) In the early church, the testimonies of the Fathers do not seem to show that the Fourth Commandment was ever quoted and applied to the Lord's day. This fact may for a moment starile, but on second thought it will stir no one from his equanimity. It does not prove that the Fourtli Commandment does not ayjply to the Lord's day because the Fathers did not know it. The Lord's day won its way by God's providence and its own inherent propiiety and glory; with interest they beheld it develop first as stalk and branch, then into the bud and fruitage. As to its relations while they had planted the vine in the place appointed, and rejoiced in its growth, they were not heedful that it was a scion of the same old stock, nor prophetic that it was preordained to cover with more verdurous shade and richer clusters the very same ever-during bower of septenary rest which God had from of old established, once and forever, for all mankind. They were too near this great new day to have a proper sense of its connections ; all they yet saw was that the seventh day was superseded, and that the tirst day was to be rejoiced in as the day of the Lord Jesus' great triumph. Whether it was connected with any other day or not they did not care ; it was by itself all glorious. "It is the opinion of some persons," says a recent writer,^ "that the change pre-suj^poses a sense perpetuated in the Church of a continued obligation of the Fourth Connnandment, Such an interpretation of tlie change I deem untenable in view of the facts of ^history. Nor is it put in any such connection, so far as I am aware, by any teacher of the Church in the early centuries." Granting that this were exactly so, it does not change the real obligation to keep the Lord's day in the same hallowedness which the Fourth Commandment enjoins. The same writer concedes: — " It is not necessary that I should defend the Patristic view of the ancient Sabbath. The Fathers, I am ready at once to con- cede, in their antgonism to a Judaism which was hostile to Christ, may not have fully appreciated a Judaism which was pre- paratory to His coming. We are in a better position than they were to see the true relations of the new economy to the old. ' Sab. Ess., p. 222. Heaven Once a Week. 75 And, to say the least, their interpretation of the relation of the Lord's day to the teaching of the Old Testament is no final authority for us." It may be conceded then, without prejudice to the argument, that the obligation of the seventh day has passed into the first, that in all the testimonies of the Fathers in the first three hun- dred years, Ave are not aware of any one of them who quotes the Fourth Commandment as making obligatory the keeping of the Lord's Day as the legal substitute and legal successor of the old Sabbath. This is true as far as it goes ; that it does not express all the truth we shall pi-esently see. (6.) The early Fathers of the Church never asserted that the Fourth Commandment was abrogated. This is just as universal as the last proposition, we believe. They did not perhaps assert that it was binding; but neither did thev assert that that commandment was done away. They were constantly saying, as we have seen, that the Sabbath, meaning the seventh day, was done away ; they said frequently that the old Mosaic ritual and ceremonial law was done away ; but tliey were restrained from asserting that the Fourth Commandment was done away. Rev. Dr. Love seems to have been the first to draw attention to this important negative consideration. He says in his contribu- tion to the Sabbath Essays ^ : — " But did the Fathers teach that the Fourth Commandment was abolished ? Some say they did. I do not believe one sentence can be produced sustaining that jiosition. Their writings are misinterpreted. They argue that the Fourth Com- mandment in respect to keeping the seventh day is no longer binding. And that is just what we now hold, whether or not maintaining that that command is still obligatory in other respects." " But carefully observe that in all cases the Fathers speak of the Jewish seventh day in their time, and do not affirm or assume that their view annuls the totality of the Fourth Com- mandment. They may not have had full conceptions of the true philosophy of the case ; but they seem to have been kept by a gracious Divine Providence from assertino- falsehood on this subject." (c.) The early Christian Fathers did connect the Lord's day with the seventh day, more and more absorbing the moral ' Sabb. Ess., p. 138. 76 Heaven Once a Week. ■elements of the Fourth Commandment, so that as we can see, they said and did, in the keeping of a day whose institution and ■development were left to Providence and the Spirit, just what they might be expected to say and do if the Lord's day, when coming to its full place, were designed to contain in it the obliga- tion of the Fourth Commandment. The Lord's day was largely left to its free development in the Christian Chui-ch. It was new wine shaping a new wine-skin. If instituted by Christ and the apostles, they certainly do not seem to have distinctly ti'ansferred to it the obligation of the Fourth Commandment. The Church, therefore, went on more and more developing this rai-e tree of life, and observing and remarking upon its nature and relations. Let us observe first what they said, and second what they did. (^.) First, what words did the Fathers use in connecting the Lord's day with the old economy ? (1.) What did they say in regard to the Decalogue ? We have seen that they did not quote and apply it to tlie Lord's day. Dr. Love, whose masterly essays we have had so frequent occasion in some directions to quote, keenly observes that Paul makes several references to the commands of the Decalogue, as though the laws written on those stone tables by the finger of God were of everlasting obligation. Thus he says : " Honour thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with pro- mise." He addresses this Jewish commandment, as some would have us think it, to Gentile residents at Rome. ^ Again he brino-s forward the law as still the law and obligatorv. " He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this thou shalt not commit adultery ; thou shalt not kill ; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness ; thou shalt not covet ; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying — namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" The apostle James also refers to the Decalogue as an abiding law : " Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said. Do not commit adultery, said also. Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art a transgressor of the law."- If now, it should be said that there is no specific mention of the Sabbath ; the same is true here of idolatry. The reason why this ' Ro;n. vi. 14. =^ James ii. 9-11. Heaven Once a Week. 7/ command is not mentioned is partly because it does not fall under love to God or love to men ; it is a means to increase both. Our Lord and His disciples never said but that the Fourth Com- mandment, as well as the others in the Decalogue, is still binding. Christ said He was Lord of the Sabbath ; and by reforming its. abuses rather than abolishing it, He showed that the day was to- live. Dr. Mackenzie puts tliis forcibly and finely : — " Men say that Christ did away with it. It was a very singular method of doing away with it. It would be strange- conduct for a man with a ruined house to put it in repair the day before he pulls it down. It would be strange conduct for a man with a ship which has outlasted its usefulness to put the sails- upon it the day before he would break it up. Yet men say that our Lord repaired the Sabbath, took off its burdens, and restored its true spirit the day before — nay, the same day that he sought to abolish it." " He who thus reforms and restores the day, re- stores and reforms it because he means to have it last."^ It was not the time, at the on-coming of a day which was to take root in the Christian life and freely develop itself, to hamper that freedom by a legal statute connecting the two days. Time would better show their " essential elements and legitimate- union." The Fathers honour the Decalogue. Irena^us says : — " The Lord did not abrogate the natural precepts of the Law ; preparing" man for this life, the Lord Himself did speak in His own person to all alike the words of the Decalogue ; and therefore, in like- manner, do they remain permanently with us, receiving, by means of His advent in the flesh, extension and increase, but not abrogation." - Clement of Alexandria teaches that the Mosaic law was the source of all moral truths. " Tertullian speaks of " the primor- dial law of God. . . given to Adam and Eve in Paradise," ^ The Clementine Homilies say, " The original law, perpetual to all,, and cannot be abrogated." ' The Apostolical Constitutions as- sert : " The law, complete in ten commands, is never to fail ; the additional precepts Christ abolished, but He confirmed the Deca- logue." " Archelaus : " The law of Moses is established, and is. £3 ' Sabb. Ess. 10. = Ante Nic. Lib. v. 412, 424, 425. 3 Ante N. Libr. xii. 47. ■* Ibid xviii. 203, 4. 5 Ik, xvii. 141. 6 iijjj^ xvii, 163, 166. y8 Heaven Once a Week. consonant with tlie law of Christ." ^ Augustine sa3^s : " A law which Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil ; parts of a law were in Christ fulfilled and removed."- The permanence of the Decalogue, though not asserted so strongly by the Fathers, and so universally as we could have wished, was perhaps spoken of as emphatically as we could have expected, considering the relations of Christianity to an effete Judaism in which they had been embedded. (2.) What did the Fathers say in regard to the connection of the Lord's day with the Sabbath ? If there were no explicit assertions that the sacredness of the seventh day had passed into the first, there were, and increas- ingly more and more, assertions which showed that that would come to be the conviction of the church when it had come to think itself clear on the subject. Two of the most interesting among the earlier testimonies to a connection of the two days are those by Archelaus and Clement. Archelaus says : — " As to the assertion, that the Sabbath has been abolished, we deny that He has abolished it plainly {plane) for He was Himself also Lord of the Sabbath. And this (the Lord's relation to the Sabbath) was like the servant who has charge of the bridegroom's couch, who prepares the same with all carefulness, and does not suffer it to be disturbed or touched by any stranger, but keeps it intact against the time of the bride- groom's arrival, so that when he is come, the bed may be used as it pleases himself, or as it is granted to those whom he has bidden enter along with him." ^ Clement of Alexandria remarks in words which ai'e somewhat confusing, but plain as to the point in hand : — " The seventh day, therefore, is proclaimed a rest — abstraction from ills — pre- paring for the primal day, our true rest ; which, in truth, is the first creation of light, in which all things are viewed and pos- sessed. . . The discourse has turned on the seventh and the eighth. For the eighth may possibly turn out to be properly the seventh, and the seventh manifestly the sixth, and the eighth properly the Sabbath ; and the seventh a day of work." ■' ' Ante Nic. Lib., xx. .368. = Works 321, .32,3. 3 Ante Nio. Libr., xx, 373. His date is 278 a.m. * Ante Nic. Libr., xii. 386. Heaven Once a Week. 79 From this a writer in Sabbath Essays draws these conclusions among others as to what Clement implies : — " In the new dispensation the seventh day in a sense becomes the sixth, ' a day of work ; ' and the eight becomes the seventh, a day of rest : — the first or eighth day has Sabbatic endowments, might properly be tei'med the ' Sabbath,' and possibly will yet be so named." Justin Martyr declares : — "The new law requires you to Sabbatize every day, and you, because ^'■ou are idle one day, think you are pious. The Lord our God does not take pleasure in such things. If there is any per- jured person, or thief among you, let him cease; if any adulterer, let him repent ; then he has kept the sweet and true Sabbatiis of God." This may be expansion and spiritualizing of the Sabbatic law, but not its abrogation. Justin speaks also o£ a " perpetual Sabbath." Tertullian tells us of a Sabbath temporal and one eternal. He bids men also " defer their business, lest they should give place to the devil on that day.'"" Gregory of Nyssa, 872 A.D., calls the Sabbath and the Lord's day dSfiXipai hii'ifat, " sister days." " He probably means," remarks Hessey, who is not inclined ordinarily to give these passages quite their full weie^ht, " to allegorize them both, and to make the Sab- bath a type of this life, the Lord's Day of the next ; " for he concludes with the words, hvli IfcfinXus ^oiii r% (raurov aS-aixrU; Thy Wi[/.i\iia,v, Athanasius says : — *' The Sabbath, the end of the old creation, has deceased ; and the Lord's day, the commencement of the new creation, has set in." Eusebius, a man of great learning, in his commentary on the Ninety-Second Psalm, " A Psalm for the Sabbath-day," says : — " Wherefore as they — the Jews — rejected it — the Sabbatic command — the Word (Christ) by the New Covenant translated and transferred the feast of the Sabbath to the morning lioht, and gave us the symbol of true rest, the saving Lord's Day, the first day of the light, in which the Saviour of the world, after all His labours among men, obtained the victor}' over death, and passed the portals of heaven, having achieved a worh superior to the six days' creation. . . . On this day, which is the first day of the ' Ante Nic Libr., ii. 101. ^ lb. xi. 199. 8o Heaven Once a Week. light and of the true sun, we assemble after an interval of six clays, and celebrate lioJy and spiritual Sabbaths, even all nations redeemed by Him throughout the world, and do those things ac- cording to the spiritual law which were decreed for the priests to do on the Sabbath."^ Augustine declares : — " Observe the Sabbath day is enjoined on us more than on them, because it is commanded to be spiritually observed. For the Jews observe the Sabbath in a servile manner, using it for luxuriousness and drunkenness. How much better would their women be employed in spinning wool than in dancing that day in the balconies ! God forbid, brethren, that we should call that an observance of the Sabbath. The Christian observes the Sab- bath spiiitually, abstaining from servile work. For what is it to abstain from servile work ? From sin. And how prove we it ? Ask the Lord : ' Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.' Therefore is the spiritual observance of the Sabbath enjoined upon us. Now all these commandments are more enjoined upon us, and are to be observed : Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not com- mit adultery," &c. And in another passage quoted by Hessey, Augustine says (395 A.D.) :— " The ordinances of the Old Covenant were the burdens of slaves ; those of the New Covenant are the glory of children. And, therefore, the holy doctors of the church enjoined that all the glory of the Jewish Sabbath should be titans/erred to it — i.e., the Lord's day, so that what they celebrated in figure, we should celebrate in reality, abstaining from all agricultural work and from all business that we may be at liberty for divine service alone." Hessey also remarks concerning Chrysostom's view of the Lord's day : — " We gather from it no more than that the Lord's day was conceived by Him to have an analogy to something in the Jewish law, and to come under the general head of foreseen and fore- ordained rest."" Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, 170 A.D., to the Church of Eome, writes : " To-day we have kept the Lord's holy clay, in which we read your letter." Notice here two significant words — namely, ' Patrologie Graecae xxiii. 1170, 1. - Bamptoii Lects, 10-i. Heaven Once a Week. 8i " holii day " — the same word as in the Septuagint version of the Fourth Commandment, to keep the seventh day Ixohj ; and alao ^' kept" observed as sacred ; and these two words are united and. used in a brief epistle in such circumstances as to represent the sentiment and opinion of the Roman and of the Corinthian Churches in the year 170 A.D. Now, it may be said that most of these passages are from 300 A.D. to 400 A.D. Most of them are so, but not all. The earlier Fathers were neither so clear in thought nor distinct in speech in this direction. But anj'one who views the testimonies already given will discern that, unawares to themselves, they were float- ing on the current of a Sabbatic, as united with a dominical, use of the Lord's Day. They would compare the two days together ; they looiild assert the superiority of their day ; they woidd, even while protesting against confounding the two days, use similar expressions of honour. Dr. Hessey thinks this a degraded tendency towards legalism. We explain it rather as the calm thought of the Church beginning to see the Lord's Day not only, but also its connections and its relations to the entire econom}^ of Him who ordained both the dispensations. It was the colt, after its glad sense of freedom had subsided, settling down to his true pace ; it was the agitated water quieted to reflect an image truly. These names adduced were great names — that of Auo-ustine and the rest. They not only represented their day, but past Christianity. Later the same tendency goes on increasing. Pope Leo, the philosopher, asks, after commanding abstinence from labour : — " For if the Jews honoured the Sabbath, d fortiori, should Chris- tians honour that day which God has chosen for His service ? " And Alcuin, at the close of the eighth century, no doubt sums lip the thought of the Church when he says : — " The observance of the former Sabbath has been transferred very fitly to the Lord's Day by the custom and consent of Christian people." B. If now we turn to what the primitive Church did with and on the Lord's Day, we shall see how, consciously or unconsciously, they were acting as if recognising that the sanction of the seventh day was passing into the first. We need pause only to note a few particulars briefly. F S2 Heaven Once a Week. (1.) Perhaps the most striking of all proofs is the simplest con- sideration of all, yet I believe first brought out by the writer in the Bihliothetica Sacra^ which we prefer to present in his own words: — " It was assumed by all of the early Christians that their first or Lord's Day was to come as often as the seventh day had. In effect, they assumed that the septenary proportional time element was to remain. This came by intuitive deductions and divine assumptions, and therefore was not debated." This we regard as a most significant fact, the quiet assumption that the new day was to come as often as the old. Why did they suppose that Christ's resurrection was to be observed more frequently than once a year, at Easter ? They fell naturally intO' the road so long trodden and divinely ordained of keeping tacred one day in seven. (2.) It is significant also that Christianity had its day. " The modern view ol some that keeping every day alike (Rom. xiv. 5) involved no special observance of the Lord's Day not only had no favour, but seems to have had scarcely a thought from the Fathers." (3.) Whatever they do on that day to distinguish it, they feel they are doing by divine constraint. They say, We do so and so, implying that they feel it is to be done. Augustine says : " All things whatsoever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's Day as more appropriately belonging to it, because it has a precedence, and is first in rank, and more honourable than the Jewish Sabbath ; wherefore it is delivered to us that we should meet together on this day, and it is ordered that we should do these things announced in the Ninety-Second Psalm." Some of the things which they did on the Lord's Day by divine constraint, by a compulsion they would not and could not have shaken ofi", which identified the new day with the old, are these : — They met for religious worship on the Lord's Day, as they had before met on the Sabbath. This is the universal testimony as we have seen. This was even apostolic. " Upon the first day of the week, whenthedisciplescametogethertobreakbread, Paul preached unto them." Justin Martyr's words have been quoted : — ' Bib. Sac, Apr., 1881, p. 258. Heaven Once a Week. 83 " On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place ; and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits." " Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly/' Tertullian speaks of " the sacred rites of the Lord's Day in the Church." The Lord's Day is identified in observance with the Sabbath, because on it labour was to be omitted. It is true that in the Church's coltish days, as we have called them, exulting in its new freedom fi'oni the restraint of Sabbatic bondage, there were occa- sional utterances as of license unrestrained. But this did not last long ; it «oon sobered down. The fact that the day celebrated the resurrection, and that, as Justin says, they assembled for reading and worship, shows they could not have made a full work day of the Lord's day. Justin says that assembling was the custom both in city and country. But we have an early record, quoted by Hessey, of Paula and others, who " on returning from church, would apply themselves to their allotted works and make gai-ments for themselves or others." But this extravagance of exultation of freedom from Jewish bondage which perhaps was only to have been expected, soon passed, by the sure Christian sense and unction of the Holy One into a more perfect hallowing of the day. Tertullian, 200 A.D., while holding the dominical view of the Lord's day observ- ance, and saying, " We have nothing to do with Sabbaths or other Jewish festivals . . We have our own solemnities, the Lord's day, for instance, and Pentecost," at the same time says : " But we, as we have received, should not only refrain fi'om kneeling in prayer on the Lord's day, but we ought (dehemus) to abstain from every kind of anxiety and service, deferring even our business lest we should give place to the devil." The rescript of the Emperor Constantine, 821 A.D., is well known : — " On the venerable day of the sun, let the magistrates and the people residing in cities rest, and all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in the work of cultiva- tion may freely and lawfully continue these pursuits, because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-grow- ing or for vine-planting ; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost." 84 Heaven Once a Week. It is to be observed bere tbat Constantine is making a law which lie knew accorded with the general sense of his Christian subjects. Moreover, he seems to feel by his mode of reference to rural labours, that that exception needed defence ; yet he is, as we must bear in mind, not delivering a homily, but he is making an imperial statute which is to be obej^ed. That law must per- mit all that can be 'permitted. He is, then, by law, merely |)er- mitting rural labours. But the s/iop.s are to be closed. This shows that no work was to be done on the Lord's day except such as the supposed necessities of agriculture seemed to demand." Augustine, that great name in the early church, a landmark and a Pharos, says : — " The holy doctors of the church en- joined that all the glory of the Jewish Sabbath should be trans- ferred to the Lord's day, so that what they celebrated in figure we should celebrate in reality, abstaining from all agricultural work and from all business, that we may be at liberty for divine service alone." The second council of Macon, 585 a.d., decreed : — "That no one should allow himself on the Lord's day, under plea of necessity, to put a yoke upon the necks of his cattle; but all be occupied with mind and body in the hymns and the praise of God ; for this is the day of perfect rest; this is shadowed out to us by the seventh day in the law and prophets." " Keep the Lord's day on which we were born anew and freed from all sins." Pope Leo the philosopher forbade rural labours on the Lord's day, on the ground that " it pleased the Hoi}'- Ghost and the apostles ordained by Him, that all on this sacred day wherein we were restored to our immortal nature should abstain from labour. For if the Jews honoured the Sabbath, d fortiori, should Christians honour the day which God has chosen for his service ? " The council of Orleans, 538 A.D., recommends "abstinence from rural labours ; but such ordinances as travelling or prepaiing food or cleaning men or houses on the Lord's day, belong to Jewish rather than Christian ordinances." Gregory the First wrote against Sabbatism ; yet he also wrote : " Another matter has been reported to us that you have been exhorted by perverse men that no one ought to bathe on the Lord's day (dominico die). And, indeed, if any one desires to bathe for a luxury and a mere pleasure, this we do not permit on any day. But if for the body's need, we do not Heaven Once a Week. 85 forbid this 011 the Lord's day. On the Lord s day, it is true, we should cease from earthly labour, and should devote ourselves to prayers, that if" any negligence has come through the six days, it may be expiated by the day of resurrection." We have also the opinion of Theodolphus, bishop of Orleans in the 8th century, as to labour: "Since in it God created the light ; in it He rained down manna in the wilderness; in it the Redeemer of the human race, who of His own will died for our salvation, rose from the dead ; in it He poured out the Holy Spirit on His disciples, such ought to be our reverence for it that nothing should be performed but prayers and the solemnities of the mass, and what is connected with the preparation of food. And if there be occasion for sailing or travelling, and license should be given, it should be under the condition that the attendance on mass and prayers should not be omitted if there be opportunity." He goes on to exact the spiritual employment of the whole day. We have not felt like omitting any one of these interesting testimonies, both as to the deeds and the words of the church, which are ample to show that there was an entire breaking away from Sabbatism or Sabbatizing, the burdensome yoke of the Sab- bath not as Moses but the rabbis had made it ; that for awhile and by some persons this unfettered liberty ran into licence as to some degree and some kinds of work ; that after men became more thoughtful in their use of Christian liberty from Jewish yokes they began to feel both that the Lord's day, as the better day, oiujld to have a better and more holy observance than the seventh day, and also that the same Divine will lay back of the Lord's day as a day ordained for sacred rest and worship which had been in the seventh day as given by statute to Moses. Li this section we must consider one more topic : — (7.) Wliat reasons do we in our age discern for afirming that the obligation of the seventh day has passed into the first 1- We in our age, I say ; for in many respects we ought more truly than any other age to estimate the designed relation of the Lord's day to the seventh day ; we ought to have a truer view of God's entire course in history than any who have preceded us. The two classes whom in some respects we should look to most reverently for light as to the Sabbath, the Fathers and the Reformers, are precisely the two classes who on the matter of the 86 Heave /I Once a Week .relation of the two days are likely to give us the least satisfac- tory guidance. The Fathers in their revolt against Judaizing and against a Sabbath grown tyrannous, and in the eagerness of their first love for a better day kept by glad consent of the heart, were in no mood to connect that burdensome day with their new day of liberty and delight in a risen Lord. Even Dr. Symth^ says : " The Fathers, I am ready at once to concede, in their anta- gonism to a Judaism which was hostile to Christ, may not have fully appreciated a Judaism which was prepararory to his com- ing. We are in a better position than they were to see the true relation of the new economy to the old." A similar thincj is true in re^-ard to the Reformers. Richard Baxter judiciously remarks : — " For Calvin, Beza and most of the great divines of the foreign churches, you must remember that they came newly out of Popery, and had seen the Lord's day and a superabundance of other human holy days imposed on the churches, to be ceremoniously observed ; and they did not all of them so clearly as they ought discern the diffei'ence between the Lord's day and those holy days or church festivals, and so did too promiscuously conjoin them in their reproofs of the burdens imposed on the church. And it being the Papists' ceremonious- ness and their multitude of festivals that stood altoo-ether in their eye, it tempted them to too undistinguishing and inaccurate a reformation." We ought to be more dispassionate. The time, indeed, is not ripe for a general perfect discernment of the subject of God's two great rest-days and their connection ; but the thoughtful few, watchmen on the tower, are in a position to get a better view of the Sabbath, if they will, from the following considerations : — (1.) We in this age have come to those great views of history as one whole, which allow the glance to see those things which like threads run through it all. (2.) We know the Bible more and more in the same way as one economy though in several dispensations. (3.) And perhaps above all other considerations, bearing on the subject, the studies of this age have disclosed that the law of a septenary rest is founded in the necessities of the human race, which God made a law lono- before He wrote it on the tables of ■ Sabb. Ess., p. 2.30. Heaven Once a Week. 87 stone, a law universal and permanent ; that therefore it is in the liigliest degree unlikely that God meant ever to abrogate any ex- pression of that law which He had once uttered ; or meant in His change of methods or dispensations to destroy the sanctity of a day which He had made an eternal law to meet the essential and permanent needs of man. This age, we say, is coming by its studies no less than by its observation of the past to a sense which will grow more and more just and profound, that there is an eternal law of the Sabbath founded in the eternal needs of man. We must here, though briefly, yet with sufficient copiousness, produce some of the results of these studies and observations. (a.) Medical. The testimony of Dr. Farre is standard. In 1832, the British House of Commons appointed a committee to investi- gate the effects of labouring seven days in a week, compared with those of labourino- only six, and restinof one. That com- mittee consisted of Sir Andrew Agnew, Sir Robert Peel, Sir Robert Inglis, Sir Thomas Baring, Sir George Murray, Fowell Buxton, Lord Morpeth, Lord Ashley, Lord Viscount Sandon, and twenty others, members of Parliament. They examined a great number of witnesses, of various professions and employments. Among them was John Richard Farre, M.D., of London, of whom thej^ speak as an acute and experienced physician. The follow- ing is his testimony : — "I have practised as a physician between thirty and forty years, and during the early part of my life as the ])hysician of a public medical institution. I had charge of the poor in one of the most populous districts of London. I have had occasion to observe the effect of the observance and non-observance of the seventh day of rest during the time. I have been m the habit, during a great many years, of considering the uses of the Sabbath, and of observing its abuses. The abuses are chiefly manifested in labour and dissipation. Its use, medically speaking, is that of a day of rest. " As a day of rest, I view it as a day of compensation for the inadequate restorative power of the body under continued labour and excitement. A physician always has respect to the preser- vation of the restorative power, because if once this be lost, his healing office is at an end. A physician is anxious to preserve the balance of circulation as necessary to the restorative power 88 ■ Heaven Once a Week. of the body. The ordinary exertions of man run down the cir- culation every day of his life ; and the first general law of nature by which God — who is not only the Giver but also the Preserver and Sustainer of life — prevents man from destroying himself, is the alternating of day and night, that repose may succeed action. But although the night apparently equalises the circulation, yet it does not sufficiently restore its balance for the attainment of a long life. Hence one day in seven is thrown in as a day of com- pensation to perfect, by its repose, the animal system. " Take that fine animal, the horse, and work him to the full extent of his powers every day in the week, or give him rest one day in seven, and you will soon perceive, by the superior vigour with which he performs his functions on the other six days, that this is necessary to his well-being. Man, possessing a superior nature, is borne along by the very vigour of his mind, so that the injury of continued diurnal exercise and excitement on his animal system is not so immediately apparent as it is in the brute ; but in the long run he breaks down more suddenly. It abridges the length of his life, and that vigour of his old age which, as to mere animal power, ought to be the object of his preservation." Dr. Farre continues : — " I consider, tlierefore, that in the bountiful provision of Pro- vidence for the preservation of human life, the Sabbatical ap- pointment is not, as it has sometimes been theologically viewed, simply a precept partaking of the nature of a political institution, but that it is to be numbered among the natural duties, if the preservation of life be admitted to be a duty ; and the premature destruction of it a suicidal act. This is said simply as a physi- cian, and without reference at all to the theological question. But if you consider, further, the proper effect of Christianity — namely, peace of mind, confiding trust in God, and good will to men — you will perceive in this source of renewed vigour to the mind, and through the mind to the body, an additional spring of life imparted from this higher use of the Sabbath as a holy rest." This valuable testimony has been repeatedly endorsed by phy- sicians and associations of physicians. Rev. Dr. Edwards, some fifty years ago, collected for popular reading such facts as the following in his " Sabbath Manual." " Two neighbours, in the State of New York, each with a drove of sheep, started on the same day for a distant market. One Heaven Once a Week. 89 started several hours before the other, and travelled uniformly every day. The other rested every Sabbath ; yet he arrived at the market first, with his flock in a better condition than that of the other. In orivincj an accoant of it, he said that he drove his sheep on Monday about seventeen miles, on Tuesday not over sixteen, and so on, lessening each day, till on Saturday he drove them only about eleven miles ; but on Monday, after resting on the Sabbath, they would travel again seventeen miles ; and so on each week. But his neighbour's sheep, which were not allowed to rest on the Sabbath, before they arrived at the market could not travel without injury more than six or eight miles a day." This is only one of many recorded instances. But this matter has been studied still more scientifically. Dr. Paul Niemeyer, Professor of Hygiene in ths University of Leipsic, has published a treatise of which he says : " If the author does not deceive himself, he has exhibited for the first time the medical reasons which demonstrate tlie necessity of the Sunday rest in a manner as certain as other reasons demonstrate the necessity of disinfection in case of an epidemic or vaccination, in case of small-pox."^ He says that " A medical philosopher, Cabanis, has established theoretically a like significance for medical tests ; and modern medicine has found by very exact methods that the fiuctuations of the heat of the body, that criterion of good or bad health, move in a cycle of seven days." Niemeyer then shows that his own investigations lead him to the same proportion. He sums up his argument by saying, " If religion calls the seventh day the day of the Lord, the hygienist, for the reasons I have exhibited, will call Sunday the day of man." Dr. Haegler of Bale follows a similar course of argument and illustration. " He uses with eflTect the evidence of this law which the superior vitality of the Jewish race exhibits." Richardson, in " Diseases of Modern Life," says that, " from some cause or causes this race presents an endurance against disease which does not belong to the other portions of the civilised communities among whom its members dwell. The average life of Jews, according to these German statistics, is eight or ten years longer than that of their non- Jewish neighbours." ' Sabb. Ess., p. 32. go Heaven Once a Week. William von Humboldt says : — " Whsn I was in Paris, during the time of the Revolution, every tenth day was directed to be observed as the Sunday, and all ordinaiy business went on for nine days in succession. When it became distinctly evident that this was far too much, many kept holiday on the Sunday also, as far as the police laws allowed ; and so arose, on the other hand, too much leisure. In this way, one always oscillates between the two extremes, so soon as one leaves the regular and ordained middle path." Proudfhom, who practised neither religion nor medicine, arrived at the same result when he said, " Shorten the week by a single day, and the labour bears too small a })roportion to the rest ; leno-then the week to the same extent, and labour becomes ex- cessive. Establish ^\Q\y three days a half day of rest, and you increase, by the fraction, the loss of time, while in severing the natural unity of the day you break the numerical harmony of thino-s. Accord, on the other hand, fortv-eight hours of rest after twelve consecutive days of toil, you kill the man with inertia after having exhausted him with fatigue." From all these considerations and many more, philosophic scientists are declaring, as Dr. Atterbury, the Secretary of the New York Sabbath Committee, has shown in an exceedingly able ■essay, that there is a " Natural Law of Weekly Rest." The same law is seen in the need of the rest of the brain. The " Standard " said some 3^ears ago : " We never knew a man work seven davs a week who did not kill himself or kill his mind." A distinguished financier, charged with an immense amount of property during the great jiecuniary pressure of 183G and 1837, said, " I should have been a dead man had it not been for the Sabbath. Obliged to work from morning till night through the whole week, I felt on Saturday, especially Saturday afternoon, as if I must have rest. It was like going down into a dense fog. Everything looked dark and gloomy as if nothing could be saved. I dismissed all, and kept the Sabbath in the good old way. On Monday it was all bright and sunshine. I could see through and I frot througfh. But had it not been for the Sabbath, I have no doubt I should have been in the grave." There is an eternal law of the Sabbath written on man's body ■ Letters, i. 207, Sabb. Ess. Heaven Once a Week. 91 and brain, and God never could have meant to strike the autho- rity out of the Fourth Commandment. (h.) There has been observed, by modern philosophers, a similar need for one day in seven for the sake of moral, social, and ]iolitical advancement. Blackstone says, "A corruption of morals usually follows a profanation of the Sabbath." Montalembert writes : " There is no religion without Avorship, and no worship without the Sab- bath." John Foster declares that this day is " a remarkable appointment for raising the general tenor of moral existence." " It prevents strong temptations to intemperance," says Gilfillan, " by giving rest instead of unnatural stimulant to further activity." Baron Gurney, when passing sentence on two boatmen at the Stafford assizes, said, " There is no body of men so destitute of all moral culture as boatmen ; they know no Sabbath, and are possessed of no means of religious instruction." Mr. Edge, of Manchester observed, respecting the London bakers some j^ears ago, that, " the low mental and moral condition of the trade generally, in London at the present time, is notorious." Mr. Henry Ellis, a master baker, says of them, " Those good and moral impressions which they first receive in their earlier days are entirely lost from the continual practice of working on the Sab- bath." The Chaplain of the Model Prison, London, says, " We are called to minister to few but Sabbath-breakers." The Chap- lain of Clerkenwell affirms, " I do not recollect a single case of capital offence where the party has not been a Sabbath -breaker. Indeed, I may say, in reference to prisoners of all classes, that in nineteen cases out of twenty, they are persons who have not only neglected the Sabbath, but all religious ordinances." (c.) The connection of the Sabbath with civil and religious liberty is striking. Joseph Cook says : — " I am no fanatic, I hope, as to Sunday ; but I look abroad over the map of popular freedom m the world, and it does not seem to me accidental that Switzerland, Scotland, England, and the United States, the countries which best observe Sunday, constitute almost the entire map of safe popular government." Hallam saj-s that European despotic rulers have cultivated, as Charles II. did in the days of the " Book of Sports," a love of pastime on Sunda^^s, in order that the people might be more 92 Heaven Once a Week. quiet under political distresses. A holiday Sabbath is the ally of despotism ? Wherever either the E,oniisli or the Parisian Sunday has prevailed for generations, it has made the lives of peasant populations a prolonged childhood.^ President Mark Hopkins of Williams College, whose words are always weighty, in a discourse in I8G0, on "The Sabbath and Free Institutions," maintained these propositions : — " First, A religious observance of the Sabbath, or the religious Sabbath, would secure the permanence of free institutions. " Second, Without the Sabbath religiously observed, the per- manence of free institutions cannot be secured. " Third, The civil, as based on the religious Sabbath, is an in- stitution to which society has a natural right, precisely as it has to property." As to the second statement, he adds : " In my own belief the comprel>ensive reason for this is that God will not permit it. The Sabbath is His ; and He will not suffer that the highest result of moral forces should be reached, except in obedience to Him. History shows that where both have been in question, the enemies of freedom and of the Sabbath have been the same. Here Pilate and Herod have become friends. Here infidelity and formalism, despotism and anarchy, join hands." Now, to glance at the meaning of ail these statements, is it conceivable that while it is clear to discerning minds that morality and religion depend upon a rest-day, the worship of the Almighty and instruction in righteousness, and God has once in wisdom ordained such a day, and the needs ai'e just as strong, and even stronger than ever, is it conceivable that, in changing the day of worship and instruction, God did not mean to transfer the obli- gation of one rest-day to the other ? True, the Clu-istian heart will keep the Lord's day, hallowing it without a statute ; but how about the lawless ? By nature and the needs of man, one rest-day in seven is for- ever obligatory : did God intend that the affirmation of that law, " written on stone in token of everlastingness," should be muffled and silent ? (c/.) And right here it is in place to observe the essential relation of the Sabbath to the Decalogue. I do not know whose remark • Sabb. Ess., 44. Heaven Once a Week. 93 it is, but I think I have read it somewhere, tliat the position of the Fourth Commandment is remarkable and significant, just be- tween those commandments whicli refer to God and those suc- ceeding commandments which refer to man ; and thus this Fourth Commandment is the keystone to the whole arch, essential to it. This is no mere coincidence and fancy ; it will be found to be significant, and according to good logic and history . There is no time for God's worship without a Sabbath ; and no time for systematic instruction in our duties to man without the Sabbath. If the other commandments are to be kept, then the fourth must be kei)t. Take out this keystone, tlie arch falls. "There is no religion without worship, and no worship with- out the Sabbath," says Montalembert. A sceptical lawyer, converted by reading the Ten Command- ments, said, when he came to the fourth, " The fourth fixes a time for religious worship. If there be a God He surely ought to be worshipped. It is suitable that there should be an outward homage, significant of our inward regard. If God be worshipped, it is proper that some timp, should be set apart for that purpose, where all may worship Him harmoniously and without interrup- tion. One day in seven is not too much, and I do not know that it is too little." Just as essential is the Sabbath for systematic religious instruc- tion. As just as it was eloquent, was Dr. Peck's outburst in the Massachusetts' Sabbath Convention in Boston : "At least nine-tenths of all the Christian work of America is done on the Sabbath. Overthrow the Sabbath, and you paralyse at a stroke seventy-five thousand Sabbath schools, stop the work of eight hundred thousand officers and teachers, and orphan seven millions of the youth of our land of their chief religious instruc- tion. Overthrow the Sabbath, and yow silence sixty thousand pulpits, the tremendous artillery which God has planted to bombard the fortresses of wickedness and inunorality : you silence sixty thousand trumpets calling sinners to repentance, and in- spiring the hosts of Israel in gospelling the world for Christ." Break the Fourth Commandment, and in that crevice enters the seed of evil which shall become the tree to dry up and dis- place the virtue commanded in all the rest ; break the Fourth Commandment and teach men so, and you shall find, perhaps to your son-ow, that you have untaught them the other nine. 94 Heaven Once a Week. What time is there to read to the people the Ten Comuiand- ments which guard life and property, and chastity and truth- telling, without a day of holy convocation ? Is it conceivable that God in changing the day meant to relax the command to keep one rest-day in seven which is not only eternally necessary to man, but is necessaiy to the other nine commands of the Decalof'ue which stand or fall with that one which is their centre and keystone ? If God meant to abrogate the Fourth Command- ment, then He intended to abrogate them all. Yet an able writer in " Sabbath Essays," singular and almost alone in that admirable volume, asserts : — " We cannot claim for the first day of the week any positive pre- scription to this effect, nor directly appropriate to it the law given on Mount Sinai. For that law does not require the observance of the first day of the week, but that of the seventh. Nor is this a mere accident of the command, but a part of its substance, and is founded on the reason which is given in the book of Exodus for its institution. Nor has any one but the Giver of the law any right to alter it. Nor can any modification of it become legally binding, — that is, obligatory as an explicit ordinance, and as a part of this command, which has not been enjoined as such by Him."^ Then, certainlv, the Fourth Commandment cannot but be obligatory, for neither by Christ or apostles, or the consent of the church, has it ever been abolished by statute. That is to say, if^ the Ten Comuiands were a perpetual statute, founded in eternal reasons, and if the Fourth of those Ten cannot be modified by God's providence and the Spirit's intimation, and still remain legally obligatory in substance, then the statute remains un- changed as to the " seventh day ; " for the proposition we hold sound that " The Seventh-Day Rest is obligatory if the First is not."' Can it be possible that God from the inception of creation ordained on the septenary plan His own vast periods of work and rest so that they should be an archetype and example for His child when man should be created, and He should make His creation and His rest by a command to celebrate it, yet that this rest of man, after God's model and celebrating it, should fall into desuetude in the Divine government of the race, and cease to be obligatory ? ' Sabb. Ess., 224. ^ Sabb. Essays. Heaven Once a Week. 95 Can it be possible that God, founding the Sabbath in the un- changeable nature and needs of mankind, gave to His chosen Israel, it not to the Patriarchs, the statute for its observance, and has never abrogated it, yet that that statute should not, in sub- stance, remain obligatory ? Can it be possible that God with His own finger wrote this command on stone, as if to endure, and in the centre of nine other Commands, confessedly, universally, obligatory, the Com- mands being Ten, as if to signify completeness, and j^et, without statute, it may have ceased to be, like the other nine, obligatory ? Can it be possible that Christ, who said " the Sabbath was made for man," and wlio honoured His claim to be " Lord of the Sabbath," and who came not to abolish the law, but to fulfil,, could have intended to abolish one command, the centre and support of all the nine, so that it has ceased to be like them,, obligatorv ? This essayist seems to establish that tlu Fourth Command ap- pears not to have been explicitly applied by the primitive church to the observance of the Lord's Day. And perhaps no nobler utterance than his can be found as to the Divine force and glory of the Dominical day, a Gulf Stream propelled from the fervent heart of early Christianity commemorating their risen Lord, to fiow far, and to gladden wherever flowing. But that e.ssay fails to take account of other circumstances no less truly historic, which, patiently studied and comprehensively considered, give what Ave must regard as the broader and more conclusive view of Dr. Love. Moreover, to be carefully distinguished from the historical which he ])resents, are the dogmatics of that essay as to the lack of permanence of validity of the Fourth Command, which dogmatics the acceptance of his historical does not bind us to accept. We prefer to pause at his candid and philosophical concession : — " It is not necessary to my purpose that I should defend the Patristic view of the ancient Sabbath. The Father.'-,. I am ready at once to concede, in their antagonism to a Judaism which was hostile to Christ, may not have fully appreciated a Judaism which was preparatory to His coming. We are in a better position than were they to see the true relations of the new economy to the old. And, to say the least, their interpre- tation of the relation of the Lord's Day to the teaching of the Old Testament is no final authority for us." 96 Heaven Once a Week. Now this writer, eminent as he is, and admirable and fervent as he is in pressing the dominical obligation of the Lord's day, fails, as we think, to observe several things which, as we have seen, we are in our age in a position to discern surely — first, that the New Testament contains no abrogation of the Fourth Com- mandment ; second, that nature is more and more disclosing em- phatic affirmations of that law; tldrd, that church history shows that, by Christ's example and the sense of the Church, the day was changed. Now the only question is this : The old law being permanent by its necessity, and God never having abrogated the command to keep a seventh day of rest, but causing the first to become the rest-day, and the old to fall into disuse, does that change of the day, according to legal principles, abrogate the command ? T)v. Smyth asserts that it does. We do not believe his opinion is good law or good sense. We quote against him the legal maxim, Matione nianente manet lex. Were this a correct legal principle in human or divine govern- ment enunciated by Dr. Smyth, would it have escaped the penetration of that man of large understanding, Sir Matthew Hale, Lord High Chancellor of England, of whom his successor as Chief Justice said he was " a man that was so absolute a master of the science of law, and even of the most abstruse and hidden parts of it, that one may truly say of his knowledge of the law what St. Austin^ said of St. Hierom's^ knowledge in divinity, Quod Hieronymus nescivit nidlus mortalium unquam scivit."^ Sir Matthew Hale, this master in law, remarks : — " This seventh por- tion of time under the old law given to the Jews, was determined by the precept and command of God, in the Fourth Command, and likewise by His own example confined to the seventh day from the creation, upon which the Lord rested from His works of creation. "But our Saviour, Christ, who is the Son of God, blessed foreve r and is Lord of the Sabbath (Matt, xii.), fulfilling the work of our redemption by His resurrection upon the first day of the week, and by His mission of the Holy Ghost miraculously the first day of the week, and by the secret message of the Spirit to the Apostles and primitive Church, hath translated the observation of the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week, ' Augustine. - Jeiome. ^ Directions for keeping the Lord's Day. Heaven Once a Week. 97 which is our Christian Sabbath, that as our Christian jxucha, the sacrament of the Eucharist, succeeded the Jewish Passover, so our Christian Sabbath, the hrst day of the week, succeeds the Sab- bath of the seventh day of the week ; and that morality which was by Almighty God under that covenant confined to the seventh day is by the example of Christ and His apostles to us Gentiles transferred to the first day of the week ; and that which would have been morally a violation of the morality of the Fourth Command under the Jewish Sabbath is a violation of the same Fourth Command, if done upon the Christian Sabbath^ though the strictness and severity enjoined to the Jews be not altogether the same that is now required of Christians. And thus you have the reason of the obligation upon us Christians to observe the first day of the week, because by more than a human institution the morality of the Fourth Command is transferred to the first day of the week, being our Cluistian Sabbath ; and so the Fourth Command is not abrogated but only the day changed ; and the morality of that command is only translated, not an- nulled."^ We consider the world fortunate that it has on record the ex- pressed judgment of this great master in law, that " the morality of the Fourth Commandment is transferred to the first day of the week." If Sir Matthew Hale cannot be regarded as competent authority as to when a transference of legal obligation has taken place, where shall we look ? In the same direction is the opinion of another great man, as great in metaph3'sics and logic, as also in divinity, as Hale was in legal understanding, and as calm and profound in judgment as he, Jonathan Edwards. The world echoes the words of his epitaph at Princeton, composed by President Finley : — " Ingenii acumine, judicio acri, et prudentia Secuudus nemini uiortalium : Criticorum sacroriim optimus, Theologus exiniius Ut vix alter aequalis : Disputator candidus." President Edwards says in his sermon on " The Perpetuity and Change of the Sabbath : — " I design now, by the help of God, to show that it is sufiiciently revealed in the Scriptures to be the mind and will of God that the first day of the week should be • Sir Matthew Hale, Life and Works, I. 197. G 98 Heaven Once a Week. distinfjuishecl in tlie Christian Church from other davs of the week as a Sabbath to be devoted to religious exercises. " In order to this, I shall here premise that the mind and will of God concerning any dutj'" to be performed by us may be sufficiently revealed in His word without a particular precept in so many express terms enjoining it. The human understanding is the ear to which the word of God is spoken ; and if it be so spoken that that ear may plainly hear it, it is enough. God is sovereign as to the manner of speaking His mind, whether He will speak it in express terms, or whether He will speak it by saying several other things which imply it and from which we may by comparing them together plainly perceive it. If the mind of God be but revealed, if there be but sufficient means for the com- munication of His mind to our minds, that is sufficient ; whether we hear so many express words with our ears, or see them in writing with our eyes, or whether we see the thing that He would signify to us by the eye of reason and understanding. If God discovers His mind in any way whatsoever, provided it be accord- ing to our faculties, we are obliged to obedience, and God may expect our notice and observance of His revelation in the same manner as if He had revealed it in express terms .... " It is sufficiently clear that it is the mind and will of God that one day of the week should be devoted to rest and to re- ligious exercises throughout all ages and nations ; and not only among the ancient Israelites till Christ came, bilt even in these gospel times, and among all nations professing Christianity. " The mind of God in this matter is clearly revealed in the Fourth Commandment. The will of God is there revealed, not only that the Israelitish nation, but that all nations, should keep every seventh day holy; or, what is the same thing, one day after every six. This command, as well as the rest, is doubtless everlast- ing and of perpetual obligation, at least as to the substance of it, as is intimated by its being engraven on the tables of stone. Nor is it to be thought that Christ ever abolished any command of the ten ; but that there is the complete number Ten yet, and will be to the end of the world. " The particular determination of the proportion of time in the Fourth Commandment is also founded in the nature of things, so that the command of God, that every seventh day should be devoted to religious exercises, is founded in the universal state Heaven Once a Week. 99 and nature of mankind, as well as other commands ; only man's reason is not sufficient, without divine direction, so exactly to determine it ; though perhaps man's reason is sufficient to deter- mine that it ought not to be much seldomer nor much oftener than once in seven days. " It further confirms it that it is the mind and will of God that such a weekly Sabbath should forever be kept that God appears in His word as laying abundantly more weight on this precept concerning the Sabbath than on any precept of the ceremonial law ; not only by inserting it in the Decalogue, and making it one of the Ten Commands, which were delivered by God with an audible voice, by writing it with His own finger on the tables of stone. . . but it is inserted among moral duties, as par- ticularly in Is. Iviii. 14. " It is foretold that the command should be observed in gospel times, as in Isa. Ivi. " The Christian Sabbath, in the sense of the Fourth Command, is as much the seventh day as the Jewish Sabbath ; because it is kept every seventh day as much as that ; it is kept after six days of labour as well as that ; it is the seventh, reckoning from the beginning of our first working day, as well as that was the seventh from the beginning of their first working day. " Therefore by the institution of the Christian Sabbath there is no change from the Fourth Command ; but the chano-e is from another law, which determined the beoinnino- and ending of the working days. The words. For in six days, etc., are not made insignificant to Christians by the institution of the Christian Sabbath ; they still remain in their full force as to that wliicli is principally intended by them. They were designed to give us a reason why we are to work but six days at a time and then rest on the seventh, because God hath set us the example ; and taken so, they remain still in as much force as ever they were. This is the reason still, as much as it ever was, why we may work but six days at a time. What is the reason that Christians rest every seventh and not every eighth or every ninth or tenth day ? It is because God worked six days and rested the seventh. "^ Edwards was so great a metaphysician, so clear a reasoner and so broad in understanding, yet his living words are sealed from so many in his great volumes that we make free to transcribe ' Edward's Works, viii. Serin. 26, ou 1 Cor. xvi. 1 2. 100 Heaven Once a Week. what he says as to the gradual change of the day of the Sabbath : — " The apostles were in the same manner careful and tender of those to whom they preached and wrote. It was very gradually that they ventured to teach the cessation of the ceremonial laws of circumcision and abstinence from unclean meats. . . . " However, I will say this, that it is very possible that the apostles themselves at first might not have this change of the day of the Sabbath fully revealed to them. The Holy Ghost at His descent revealed much to them, yet after that, they were igno- rant of much of gospel doctrine ; yea, they were so a great while after they acted the part of apostles in preaching, baptizing and ixoverninor the church. Thus tender was Christ of the church while an infa]it. He did not feed them with strong meat but was careful to bring in the observation of the Lord's day by degrees \ and, therefore, took all occasions to lionour it, by appearing from time to time of choice on that day, by sending down His Spirit on that day in that remarkable manner at Pentecost, by ordering Christians to meet in order to break bread on that day, and by ordering their contributions and other duties of worship to be holden on it ; thus introducing the observation of it by degrees. And though as yet the Holy Ghost did not speak very plainly about it, yet God took special care that there should be sufficient evidences of His will to be found out by the Christian Church when it should be more established and settled, and should have come to the strength of a man."^ These two great minds have thus given their judgment — and where among mortals will you find greater ? — that, among other things plain, these two things are : Jivst, tliat divine and providential indications may change the day of rest originally given by positive enactment ; and second, that the authority of the original enactment (mutatis Tnutanclis as to the particular day and the spirit of observance),, in commanding a day, one day in seven, a day of rest from labour and devoted to the worship and service of God, remains and passes without statute into the new day providentially desig- nated. This valuable judgment is more than doubled in weight by the concurrence of these two great men. Our age, then, is in a condition to see these things, after our long historical observations and by its keen scientific research and study ; — ' Edwards, viii. Serm. 26. Heaven Once a Week. loi (1.) God in nature has ordained a periodic rest-day, ona day in seven, for man and beast, by a law essential, universal, and ever- lasting. {'!.) God declared this day of rest, one day in seven, on Sinai, and Avrote it on stone, by His finger, "in token of everlastingness." To that command there were two parts — -fird, one day in seven for sacred rest. This is the ground principle of the command, as every one can discern ; for that is the main thing sought, " the Sabbath was made for man ; " second, the specific day, the seventh, as a memorial of creation, a secondary, though not un- important consideration. This Decalogue is re-enforced as a whole, and without making exceptions, by the apostles, the Church primitive, and the men of superior understanding in the Church all the way through. (3.) God by Divine indications has changed the day. This, indeed, is not so demonstrably certain as that He has ordained in nature a periodic rest of one day in seven, nor so lerjally sure as that God has commanded by statute on Sinai a Decalogue, universal and everlasting, that one day, the seventh day, should be kept sacred ; but it is morally certain that God has so far adapted that command in nature and modified that law of Mount Sinai as now to designate the first day in place of the seventh as the dav to be observed, (4.) God by His providences and His spirit in the Church has emphatically indicated, and that growingly in the apprehensions of good men, that the first day, as Augustine said, has had trans- ferred to it all the glory and authority of the seventh. In other words, not only does the Decalogue itself bear every mark of being everlasting, and the apostles seem to declare it perpetual, but the providence of God and the shaping of the Lord's Day plainly indicate that, so far as not modified, the commandment in the Decalogue stands with undiminished authority like the rest. One of the most convincing proofs of this is that the Lord's Day im- mediately fell into the old track in the Decalogue, one day in seven. That princijile was not only not removed, but Christ and Christianity shaped the keeping of the new day in obedience to it. Another indication is that the}'' considered the entire day sacred ; not merely the Lord's morning, because He rose in the morning, but the Lord's Day, because the old command said, one Jay in seven. All the indications are in this direction that the 102 Heaven Once a Week. command in the Decalogue, so far as the principle of it went, and so far as not modified specifically, still ruled, and more than that, shaped the institution and the keeping of the Lord's Day. In a word, this age is cognizant that a day holy to God and man's rest was made a law in nature, and declared at ci-eation and Sinai, that the first day was pointed out as the day by Christ's resurrection. A day was commanded by law ; the day was designated by Christianity. Perhaps we cannot better conclude this topic than b}^ setting before our minds two or three of the best utterances which will make clear and emphatic to us the authority of the day, and the authority of the day as changed. The words of Sir Matthew Hale deserve to be recalled : — "That morality which was by Almighty God under that covenant confined to the seventh day is by the example of Christ and His ajiostles to us Gentiles transferred to the first day of the week ; and that which would have been a violation of the moralit}" of the Fourth Connnandment under the Jewish Sabbatli is a violation of the same Fourth Commandment, if done upon, the Christian Sabbath, though the strictness and severit}' enjoined to the Jews be not altogether the same that is now required of Christians. And thus you have the reason of the obligation upon us Christians to observe the first day of the week, because by more than human institution, the morality of the Fourth Com- mandment is transferred to the first day of the week, being our Christian Sabbath ; and so the Fourth Commandment is not abrogated, but only the day changed ; and the morality of that command is only translated, not annulled." In the same direction as to the everlastingness of one day in seven, as a holy rest to the Lord, are these fine w^ords of Rev. Dr. Duryea of Boston : — " My own view of the sacredness of the Sabbath rests back upon wdiat was essential and eternal in the original precept. God does not arbiti-arily ordain and enact. He is always at one with Himself Whatever He does, receives into it His intelli- ojence. His love, and His risrhteousness. If He has ever done anv- thing, it was because he saw a worthy end, and devised appropriate means of accomplishing the end, and both the end and the means were consonant with love and justice. Whenever the time comes that the end shall cease to be desirable, and the means suitable. Heaven Once a IFeek. 103 then tlie ordinance may be revoked, the institution may come to its term. Tliese remarks are pointed towards the common notion in some minds that the law of Sabbath has been revoked. I simply ask, Why ? " Now, in the other direction, as to the power of the reason which changed the day, and was able to glorify and hallow the day even at first independently, but now how much more a,s seen to be rio-litful successor and heir of the hallowedness of the original Sabbath, these words of Professor Smyth are eloquent: — " Wlien we think that the apostolic method carried the obser- vance oj" the Lord's day victoriously into every city and town and village and hamlet which had been ruled by Greek and Roman Paganism, that it changed the calendars of the nations, that it ontrolled legislation, that it has secured for the slave, the downtrolden, the ignorant, the prisoner, the despised and out- cast, the immunities and the privileges of a weekly day of rest from toil, and of opportunity for spiritual instruction and wor- ship, we need not fear that an adherence to their wisdom will jeopard the day. ' The revelations of God's will, in act and history, are no less auhoritative than specific commands. A principle which com- mends our reason is no less sacred and imperative than a statute. Tie Resurrection of Jesus was a divine act, of commanding sig- nilcance to the ancient church, and it should be so to us. It miy well be the foundation of a commemorative observance no les obligatory than that required in the Decalogue. The Logos of the new creation is the Logos of the old. Redemption is a higher revelation of God than Nature. This august purpose of Dvine Love is celebrated by the church on the Lord's Day. Tie intrinsic reasonableness of such a celebration is a divine aithorization of it. Its Christianity is reason enough for him wio is willing — to use Ignatius' most expressive words — to ' live ccconling to Christianity.' "^ And Dr. Hessey, in words no less noble, says : — " That on the whole the Lord's day, being an institution so Divine and especially Christian, so commended to us by prescrip- ion and universal adoption, even from the Apostles' time, so vvonderfully preserved to us through many vicissitudes, so founded on moral obligation, so recommended to us by the an- ' Sah. Ess., 232, 3. 104 Heaven Once a Week. alogy of the Jewish polity so adapted a priori to the whole nature of man, so recommended a posteriori by the advantages which many ages have enjoyed under it, should be jealously guarded from vitiation, should not be made a yoke of bondage on the one hand nor a cloak for licentiousness on the other/ This last sentence fitly introduces our final topic for considera- tion : — An interesting question is ; — 8. Should tve call tlie LorcTs Day the Sahbath ? and should we regard it as substantially the Sabbath ? (a.) Should we call the Lord's Day the Sabbath ? It is well to call the day by its own distinctive and honourable name which the Beloved Disciple and the primitive chuxh gave it, " The Lord's Day." But even they would sometimes call it by the other name, the Sunday. We are not confined to tiie name Lord's Day, though it is the best name. It is perfectly right to call the Lord's Day the Sabbath. Sahbath means rest, and day of rest, as we saw in Gesenius. There is no reason why we should not, in our day — when the odium of Jewish Sahhatizing is done away — use the same divine name. The Lord's Day, as we have seen, is the new day, in place of tlie old, a day of rest unto the Lord, to be kept hdy, with a hoi}'' convocation, and therefore the Lord's day has a rigit, as Augustine pointed out, to all the glory of the seventh diy. One circumstance of that glory was its appointment to be a hallowed Sabbath, a divine rest day. Christians should therefcre never hesitate, but rather be forward to call it, " tlie Sabbath," or " Christian Sabbath." Hessey indeed says that Heylin assets that that designation was first used by Petrus Alphonsus wlio wrote : — " Dies dominica dies resurrectionis rpiae suae salvatioris causa exstitit, Christianorum Sahlmtiim est." But late discovery is only an evidence of the perspicacity >f the discovei-ei^ if his discovery is true. The Lord's day has every mark of being a divine Sabbath ; anl it is the Christian Sabbath, the Christian's hol}^ rest. 1 Not only so, but we go farther and say that, | {b.) One who celebrates the First day, the Lord's day, virtually and inclusively celebrates the original Sabbath. One wa}'-, indeed, of keeping in mind the seventh-thousand ' Bamp. Lects., 25. Heaven Once a Week. 105 3'ears, the inillciiniain, is by some slight reminder on the Saturday, as a Saturday night millennial hymn. But perhaps we may still better hold that he who celebrates the greater celebrates the less. Suppose a king sends out a royal governor into a province ; then he supersedes him ; and then he supersedes this one by a better ; in paying homage to the greater, j'-ou pay homage to all he had sent. In either case it was the homage to the king who sent them. A caterpillar has a rest at the end of his life ; it is the stupid rest of the chrysalis state ; but he soon emerges into the restful- ness of flying. That supersedes but in a sense includes the rest of the chrysalis. God has done three mighty works — (creation, pi-eparation for millennium, the redemption. In celebrating the rest after His greatest work, you celebrate all His rests. Then again, the Lord's day, so far as it is a rest-day after six da3^s of labour, is so fiir forth a seventh day Sabbath as much as the original ; and so far, is a proper emblem of creative rest. The Lord's day, for the same reason, that it is after certain toil, is so far an emblem of the millennium. But on the other, so far as it is Hie first day of a new seven, it is a better rest, that of a bird just beginning to use its wings. So that while keeping a better Sabbath, you gather into the Christian Sabbath the old rest with a better superadded. Our final topic for consideration is : — IV. THE KEEPING OF THE SABBATH. A. The Civil Sabbath, how shall that he kept ? What is the Civil Sabbath ? It is the Sabbath, or rest-day, as the Civitas or State can discern its benefits and necessity to the State and her citizens, and can take measures to secure them. In this view we eliminate the religiousness of the day, except so far as it enters into the citizen's nature to make him a better citizen. The Sabbath is viewed as a means to secure the welfare and perpetuity of the State, and of giving such rest and oppor- io6 Heaven Once a Week. tunities of moral culture as will make better citizens. This civil Sabbath is legitimately within the sphere of government, as the great jurists and statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic have declared. As President Hopkins observes : " The Civil Sabbath is an institution to which society has a natural right precisely as it has to property." The following considerations presented by a writer on this topic ^ will show what the State and statesmanship can see, en- tirely ignoring the matter of religion, makes the Sabbath one day of rest in seven a prime necessity to the State. (a.) " The Sabbath is a Benefactor to the State in bestowing- physical rest upon her citizens." Dr. Farre's testimony ought to- be sufficient. But there is abundant testimony, no fewer than 641 medical men of London, including Dr. Farre, subscribed a petition to Parliament against the opening of the Crystal Palace for profit on Sundays, containing the following sentence : — " Your petitioners, from their acquaintance with the labouring^ classes and with the laws which regulate the human economy, ar& convinced that a seventh day of rest, instituted by God, is essential to the bodily health and mental vigour of man in every station of life." " It is very significant," says Joseph Cook, " that while sixty hours of labour may not be too much for body or brain, if per- formed on six days of the week, and followed by a day of rest, the same number of hours of labour, if distributed equally through the seven days, may ruin both body and brain. It is chiefly this physiological and arithmetical fact which has preserved Sunday as a civil institution since Constantine.'' " Since the State can perceive these advantages to her citizens,, one and all, it is as bound to maintain the civil Sabbath as to secure good drainage and pure water. (5). " Equally evident is the ample benefaction which the State, in the general welfare ot her citizens, receives in intellectual health, cheerfulness and vigour." A prize essay on the Sabbath has the title " Heaven's Anti- dote to the Curse of Labour." Dr. Carpenter, himself a host, wrote in 1852 : — ' Will. C. Wood, " State and Religion : Five Problems," 1877, Congregational Book Store, Boston, Mass. '' Sabb. Ess., 41, "Physical, lutell. and Econ. Advants. of the Sabbath." Heaven Once a Week. 107 " My own experience is very strong as to the importance of the complete rest and change of thought once in the week." Dr. Farre says : — "The workino: of the mind in one continued train of thought is destructive of life in the most distinguished class of society ; and senators themselves stand in need of reform in that parti- cular. I have observed many of them destroyed by neglecting this economy of life." Observe these considerations have nothing to do with the Sabbath as a day of religion, but simply as a day cognizable by the State and statesmanship as a day beneficial to the community. (c). " The State is greatly indebted to the Sabbath for its pros- perity in labour and business." " The stokers on the Thames said that the steamboat blew up because they were worn out and disturbed in mind by Sabbath work, which made them reckless. This shows how abuse of the Sabbath destroys property." There were probably lives lost in that explosion. Lord Macaulay says : — " If the Sunday had not been observed as a day of rest, but the axe, the spade, the anvil and the loom had been at work every day during the past three centuries, I have not the smallest doubt that we should have been at this moment a poorer people and a less civilized than we are." Macaulay spoke as a statesman. John Stuart Mill makes the striking statement : — " OPERATIVES ARE PERFECTLY RIGHT IN THINKING THAT IF ALL WORKED ON SUNDAY, SEVEN DAYS' WORK WOULD HAVE TO BE GIVEN FOR SIX DAYS' WAGES." William E. Dodge of New York, for half his life a great rail- road manager, says : " You go on Monday morning and see a poor haggard engineer, all dirty, kept up all day Sunday and all night, and worn out perhaps. He steps upon the engine ; if you are a railroad man, you feel intense anxiety all the time." The State can thus take cognizance that her property and wealth and valuable lives, are preserved by the great measure of periodic rest. (d) "For much of her moral virtue and tone of character, the State is indebted to the Sabbath." Blackstone says : " A corruption of morals usually follows a 1 08 Heaven Once a Week. profanation of the Sabbath." Gilfillan calls our attention to the fact that "the family flourishes where the Sabbath is realli/ observed, and nowhere more than in Great Britain and America." Madame de Stael, Tocqueville and others laud the conjugal happiness of these countries. Of Scotland, Dr. Currie remarks, " A striking peculiarity of the character of the Scotcli peasantry is the one which it is hoped will not be lost, the strength of their domestic affections." Burns' " Cottar's Saturday night," is as logical as it is delightful in joining the home and the Sabbath, and it is a poet's intuition which sa3^s, " From scenes like this, Old Scotia's grandeur springs." Henry Ward Beecher says : — " The one great poem of New England is her Sunday. Through that she has escaped material- ism. That has been her crystal dome overhead. When she ceases to have a Sunday she will be as a landscape growing dark, all its lines blurred, its distances and gradations fast merging into sheeted darkness and night." Prideaux remarks : — " It is not to be doubted, that if the public teaching of religion on the Sabbath were once dropped among us, the generality of the people, whatever else might be done to obviate it, would in seven years relapse into as bad a state of barbarism as was ever in practice among the worst of our Saxon or Danish ancestors." {c.) The State can recognise too, without interfering with re- ligion, that " the Sabbath bestows and secures liberty and the blessings which follow in its train." Dr. Hopkins has been quoted : " Without the Sabbath, free institutions cannot be preserved." Long ago, Jefferson remarked to Webster, on a quiet Sabbath, at Monticello, " The Sunday Schools present the only legitimate means under the constitution of avoiding the rock on which the French Republic was wrecked. Riakhes has done more for our countr}'^ than the present generation will acknowledge." Webster says of the Sabbath School, " As a civil institution it i^s priceless. It has done more to preserve our liberties than grave statesmen and armed soldiers." Pierre Duval, a French Catholic, after a visit to the United States, wrote of the American Sabbath thus : — " When I bethink me that this medley of men have withdrawn themselves for prayer and meditation, I confess that I feel myself impressed — Jieaven Once a ]Veck. 109 I understand why this people is a great people. I know wli}- for a century it has been free. As to France, I understand why this- people so in love with liberty is not yet free." Joseph Cook says : — " There can be no diffusion of conscienti- ousness adequate to protect society from dangei-, under universal suffrage unless a day is set apart for the periodical moral and religious instruction of the masses. Sunday laws are justified in a republic by the right of self-preservation. The Sunday is the only adequate teacher of political sanity. It is the poor man's day of rest. The enemy of laws providing opportunity for the religi- ous instruction and the physical rest of society is the enem}'' of the working masses. Among the enemies of the masses, therefoi-e, are to be reckoned railroads that break Sunday laws; Sunday theatres and public amusements ; the opponents of the law for closing rumshops on Sundays ; immigrants who favour the Parisian Sun- day ; churches, Romish or Protestant, that turn half of Sunday into a holiday ; and secularists who would abolish all Sunday laws." Again he says, in just, yet ringing words : — " How are men to be made honest without a time set apart for moral and religious culture? The population which habitually neglects the pulpit or its equivalent, one da.y in seven, can ultimately he led by charlatans, and ivill he!' The State, then, has sometliing to do with the Civil Sabbath. It is under obligation to maintain it as a civil institution, and to secure its benefits to the citizens. How ? (1.) It must select as that civil Sabbath the day which the large majority of its citizens desire to observe as a rest-day, and maintain it as a general rest-day, while allowing conscientious minorities some other rest-day of their choice. A Mohammedan ruler should make Friday the legal rest-day unless, with prevision of its future prevalence he should choose, like Japan of late, to substitute our Sundav. The men in a Jewish state should make Saturday the legal rest-day ; the rulers in a state where most rest on Sunday should, like Constantine, establish Sunday as the legal Sabbath. (2.) Tlie State sJtould cause the Best-Day to be observed in all her oivn places of labour. There should be no labour in her workshops or navy-yards, in her armies, or in her mails. Washington, Lincoln, McClellan were statesman-like in their no Heaven Once a Week. Sabbatli orders. McClellan's noble order, Sept. 6th, 1861, reads thus : — " The General Comniandincj resjards this as no idle form ; one day's rest in seven is necessary to men and animals ; more than that, the observance of the holy day of the God of merc}^ and of battles is our sacred duty." So Lincoln, from the Executive Mansion, Nov. loth, 1862, gave order : — " The President, Commander in Chief of the army and navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service." In 1850, when London had two million inhabitants, a sub- scription against Sunday mails in the United Kingdom was headed by the great name of the Barings. In their petition, they state : — " That the metropolis, containing a population of two million, two hundred thousand, has never experienced any necessity for the opening of the metropolitan post-offices on Sundays." Let diplomac}^ and dij^lomatic dinners cease on Sabbath, the mails cease to be carried, in a word, let the State commence the observance of that civil Sabbath by which a nation abides right- eous, prosperous and happy. (3.) The State should secure hy laic the hlessinys of the seventh- day rest to all her citizens. It being as patent a fact that the Sabbath is essential to her citizens, as much as drainage, the State has just the same right to declare and enforce a seventh day cessation from toil as it has to insist on drainage. It is sometimes thoughtlessly said that if the Sabbath is so obviously necessary and essential to men's well-being, they will not fail to observe it. But the reply is obvious (1) that all men are not observant of cause and effect ; and (2) that tlie competitions of trade are tyrannous and break over all principle and intellectual con- viction. When Macaulay in 1846 in the House of Commons spoke on the Ten Hour Law, on the right and expediency of guarding the liberty to rest, he met objectors who said, " If this Ten Hour Law be good for the working people, rely on it they will them- selves establish it without any law." "Why not reason," answered Macaulay, " in the same way about the Sunday ? Why not say, if it be a good thing for the people of London to shut their shops Heaven Once a Week. 1 1 1 one day in seven, they will find it out, and will shut their shops without a law ? Sir, the answer is obvious. I have no doubt that if you were to poll the shopkeepers of London, you would find an immense majority, probably a hundred to one, in favour of closing shops on the Sunday ; and yet it is absolutely necessary to give to the wish of the majority the sanction of a law ; for if there were no such law, the minority by opening their shops, would soon force the majority to do the same." The London Times affirms : — " If the sacred character of the day be once obscured, there would not remain behind any in- fluence strong enough to keej:) a thrifty tradesman from his counter for twelve hours togethei" ; competition and imitation would at length bring all to the common level of universal pro- faneness and continuous toil." An amusing instance is given b}^ Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bacon of " a coal dealer near a steamboat landing who found that in the competitions of business his Sunday rest has been completely taken away from him. All the little tugs and propellers find they can get their coal put in on Sunday, and so they come on Sunday, in preference to any other day. Says he, ' I don't so much as get time to go to early mass, and I am compelled to keep busy from morning to night. I can't refuse them ; for if I do, they will quit me altogether, and I shall lose my busi- ness. / wish to heaven someone would j^rosecute me ! ' " There was a movement in a town in Connecticut amono- bar- bers to have all the barbers' shops closed on Sunday. "All right," said one, "you go right on, and shut up your shops. Never mind me." And so all the shops had to be kept open. And so Dr. Bacon enunciates his great proposition in regard to the Sabbath keeping enforced by the State, the subject of his essay ,^ — " The Law of Rest for all necessary to the Liberty of Rest for each." The State should therefore, for the protection of all her citizens who need rest, and the majority of citizens who desire that rest, prohibit all trade, and all labour not for purposes of charity or mercy. Especially should the State keep a watchful eye over all such trade and labour as under false pretences of necessity, like those ' Sabb. Ess., .306 foil. 112 Heaven Once a Week. of fruit stands and cigar shops, encroach on the great rest day of the people. Still more jealously should the State guard, and with a high hand repress, those great corporations loMch inflict the ojyjyression of Sahhath labour upon their e'^irployees. These corporations are almost as potent as the State. They are almost like the barons in English history who could defy the king. It has been some- times said that our railroad corporations rule the land. We hear of "Railroad Kings." God and the State say to a man : "You shall not woik on the Sabbath." The Railroad Kings and corporations say to the man: "You are my bondman: go to work on the Sabbath; neither the State nor God can save you from my oppression." The State should therefore, in behalf of oppressed men who cannot help 'themselves, keep strongly in check, if it do not wholly repress, all labour by these corporations. Should the State think one through train a day a necessity, which we do not hold, there is no necessity for freight or excursion trains. The cor- poration should be under bonds not to employ on the Sabbath the same employees ; so that no man should be used on the Sabbath who did not bargain specifically, and by malice prepense, to work on the Sabbath. It might be well, to test whether the Sunday trains were for public necessity or money making, to give all the Sabbath proceeds to the railroad employees. But the better way is to "reform it altogether ! " Close the public libraries — they require attendants and they are not the place to get Sabbath rest; shut the museums and zoological gardens — they are the tedium of worldly sight-seers ; repress excursions, which are too often what one wittily calls them " pleasure exertions " from which the gay return not recruited but dragged out ; imitate the United States Centennial Com- mittee who ordered b}" vote of twenty-nine to nine. " The Ex- hibition shall be open from nine o'clock in the morning till six o'clock in the evening daily, except Sunday." Gen. Ilawley said : " Before God, I am afraid to open the Exhibition gates on the Sabbath ; " and Corliss said of his great engine, " All the good that would be accomplished by this grand Exhibition will be neutralised if it is opened on Sunday . . . Under no circumstances would I consent to have it run Sunday." The right arm of the State that would repress all labour not Heaven Once a Week. 1 1 3 that of charity and necessity will be a beneficent right arm whose strength will be the rest and joy of the people. (4.) The State sJtoidd especially give -protection and encourage- ment to those several most important fountains of good lohich the Sabbath provides. The State should have its eye on these public benefits, and should especially repress and prevent any kind of labour which, under whatever pretext of necessity, would tend to ])revent them. Chief amono- these are : (a.) Worship. The State should not only protect places of worship, but times of worship. It should never allow corpora- tions, however potent or apparently necessary the work, least of all should it allow itself to set such tasks as will absent any citizen from ]~»ublic worship. Apart from the beneficent effects of the quiet hour of divine service, if there is a God, every State stands by His favour ; and the State cannot afford, not only that her citizens should provoke the King of kings by failing to render the tribute of worship on His chosen day, but even to lose the supplications of her citizens. We believe " God bless our native land," aiid " God save the Queen," are no impotent words in the mouths of a devout people. Let every State secure the devout spirit, and the supplications of its citizens, if it would have the blessing of Him who " doeth His will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth." Several years ago, a large steamship arrived at East Boston, and on Sabbath morning preparations were made for her dis- charge. " There were about a hundred men all ready with coats off and sleeves rolled up, to commence to discharge. But an officer came on board and said : ' You must suspend ; this is Sabbath in America, as sure as you are alive ; ' and the work was suspended, the great ship lay there all day quietly, and the liard-vvorking men went home, and some of them went to church, for I saw them in the evening ; and at the close of the evening they said, ' Who did this ? '" ^ {b.) The opportunity for education in righteousness. The State has no right to legislate men to hear religion, but it cer- tainly ought to legislate oppoi'tunity for every man to go where duty is taught. The State is secure only when are taught the Ten Commandments, and the Sermon on the Mount. If men ' Rev. L. B. Bates in Sabbath Essays, 394. H 1 14 Heaven Once a Week. aie not once a week taught honesty and fidelity, benevolence, brotherly love, loyalty, what is to become of the State ? Whatever else the State might think permissive in the way o£ labour, she should by law make, and then enforce the limit of nine in the morning. (c.) Family Life. Henry Fourth of France used to say that " he wanted France to be so prosperous that every peasant in France might have a fowl in his pot every Sunday." Robert Burns recognised that the Sabbath is a Family Day. A member of the French Institute said, " Whenever a nation fails to keep this commandment . . . there would be an end to domestic life, to family ties ; and civilisation would soon be succeeded by bar- barism." Grahame's familiar lines are " beautiful truth : " " Hail ! Sabbath ! thee I hail, the poor man's day ! On other clays the man of toil is doomed To eat liis joyless bread, lonely ; the ground Both sea t and board ; screened from the winter's cold Or summer's heat, by neighbouring hedge or tree ; But on this day, embosomed in his home, He shares the frugal meal witli those he loves." Had I imperial power, I M^ould make it a punishable offence not only to compel, but to ask, entice or allure a boy to leave his home on Sabbath morning, to hawk Sunday newspapers, and this I believe a constitutional government could fairly, as it could beneficently do ; but had I imperial power, no men but celibates should be allowed to be engaged by any corporation or in any other business on the Sabbath. Every man sliould, by the com- pulsion of the law, have his right to a day with his family guaranteed to him. (cZ.) But Rest, at the very least, cessation from the toil and moil of work of body and brain, should not only be encouraged but secured by the State. The State should not merely secure to those who ask it, the immunity from toil ; but it should also put the boon, like that of compulsory education, into the hands of men who might be tempted to keep their necks in the 3^oke for pecuniary or other advantages. For it is no more for the advan- tage of the State that her citizens should work Sunday, and break down in health and brain, for a few dollars, than it is that they should work Sunday, and break down with only six days' wages for seven days' work. In either case, the State loses a Heaven Once a Week. 1 1 5 citizen who should be such as to increase the vahie of the State; or, perhaps, the State has him on her hands, broken in body and mind, and without a relig^ious education, one of the danQ;erous classes. The State should make work by her citizens impossible through any compulsion or allurement, and possible only by their seeking. That is the only case in which works not of necessity or charit}^ should be possible in a clear-eyed and beneficent commonwealth. B. The Religious Sabbath is the Rest-day considered not in its physical, intellectual, and economic advantages, but considered as " a day of rest unto the Lord." The religious Sabbath is essentially a day of sacred rest which each man is to devote to God, and to such other sacred uses, according to the will of God, as may promote the divine life. How have men kept their sacred Day of Rest ? is perhaps the <]^uestion first in place. It may show how the instincts of man as well as the authority of God have hallowed their religious days. (ci.) The Pagan nations have kept some days sacred. We would imagine they would be lax and worldly in such celebration. But they seem not to have been. We have seen how the Assyrians and Babylonians kept the day. George Smith, the Assyrian authority, says : " It has been known for some time that the Babylonians observed the Sabbath with considerable strictness. On that day the king was not allowed to take a drive in his chariot ; various meats were for- bidden to be eaten ; and there were a number of other minute restrictions." And all this care in hallowing their seventh day is borne out by translation of the tablets by Mr. Saj'ce, already quoted in full. In the Roman calendar the fixed and regular festivals numbered forty-seven. Claudius reduced the number to thirty-seven.^ How did they keep these days ? Dr. Love says : — " Theodore Parker, discussing the Sabbath question, here and often correct, says : — * The Romans, like all other nations, had certain festal da3^s in which it was not thought proper to labour unless work was pressing. It was disreputable to con- tinue common labour on such da3^s without an urgent reason ; they were pretty numerous in the Roman calendar. Courts did •not sit on those days ; no public business was transacted.' "" ' Le Repos Hebdoinaedaire, Rabunrl. - Theod. Parker, Christian Use of Sunday, p. 22. 1 1 6 Hca 1 'cn Once a J J 'cck. Rev. James Johnston presents some more explicit valuable views of the Koman keeping of sacred days : — " This idea of the sacredness of a portion of time to rest and worship is clearly brought out in the laws and customs of the Romans . . . On the jeriae or sacred days, to most only holidays, 'free-born Romans suspended their political transactions and their lawsuits, during which their slaves enjoyed a cessation from labour.' " " The people generally frequented the temples ot the gods and oftered up their prayers and sacrifices." On the more sacred of these days " the rex sacrorum and fiamens were not even allowed to see any work done ; hence, when they went out they were preceded by heralds, who enjoined the people to abstain from work. Those who neglected this admonition were not only liable to a fine, but in case their disobedience were intentional, their crime was considered to be beyond the power of any atonement."^ " It seems," says Dr. L. Schmitz, " that doubts as to what kind of work might be done on public feriae were not unfrequent ;, and we have some curious and interesting decisions by Roman pontiffs on this subject. One Umbro declared it to be no viola- tion of the feriae if a person did such work as had reference to the gods, or was connected with the offering of sacrifice. All work, he moreover declared, was allowed which was necessary to supply the urgent wants of life." " The Pontifi" Scaevola, when asked what kind of work might be done on a dies feriaius, answered that any work might be done if any suffering or injury should be the result of neglect or delay ^ as, for example, if an ox should fall into a pit, the owner might employ workmen to lift it out, or if a house threatened to fall down, the inhabitants might take such measures as would prevent it falling, without polluting the sacred day." " Here we see the pagans " doing without the law, the things contained in the law, showing the work of the law written on their heart." It seems that man's natural sense leads him to con- secrate days, entire days, to be strictly hallowed, in which labour is to be abstained from and secular pursuits, on which men are to assemble to worship God. We are even surprised — and are we not instructed ? — to observe how strictly these pagans are taught to sanctify these days. They are not holidays, but holy days. ^ Smith's Class. Diet., Feriae. - James Johnston, Prim. Sabb. Restored. Heaven Once a Week. 1 17 (^.) The Hebrew Sabbatli-keeping requires consideration. We do not need to dwell upon the burdens imposed by Rab- binism, such as we have already noted and every one is aware of; because it is admitted that we have nothing to do with those burdens except to avoid them for ourselves and others. The points at which the Hebrew Sabbath keeping is in any way instructive to us, as making plain what a sacred day should be are : (1) the designated things to be done or omitted on the Sabbath, most of which are recited in the Old Testament ; and (2) those things which were done or permitted in our Lord's time. We do not need to dwell upon many ot these. In fact only one of them needs any particular examination. Yet we need to set before us briefly how the Hebrew was to kee}i the Sabbath. The Hebrew was to sanctify the day, (]) not working nor travelling (Ex. xx. 10 and xvi. 29), "not doing thine own ways nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words " (Is. Iviii. 14) ; (2) the entire day fi-om sunset to sunset ; (3) as- sembling for worship, for it was to be " a holy convocation," con- vened Viy silver trumpets ; (4) probably spending some of it in family devotion and instruction (Lev. xxiii. 3, 1. c. and Deut. vi. 7) ; (5) and in our Lord's time not even attending to the prepar- ations for burial, even of Christ, for the}^ made read}^ the spices, and " rested the seventh day according to the commandment," as the New Testament seems to narrate approvingly. There is an unfolding of the same spirit of reverence for the Sabbath all along in Jewish history. Ptolemy, son of Lagus, entered Jerusa- lem without resistance, because the Jews were unwilling to take up arms on the Sabbath. It was not till the times of the Maccabees that this abstinence from battle in face of an enemy seemed to force attention. Hearing the particulars of the slaughter at the caves, Matthias and his friends took the matter into consideration and decreed that, " Whoever shall come to make battle with us on the Sabbath day, we will fight against him." But tliis decree did not authorise them to repair or strengthen their own defences on the Sab- bath. Pompey took advantage of this in his attack on Jerusalem. Philo, in his work " On the Life of ]\Ioses," remarks that, " in accordance with the honour due to the Creator of the universe, the prophet hallowed the sacred seventh day, beholding with •eyes of more acute sight than those of mortals, its pre-eminent beauty. For this reason the all-great Moses thought fit that all 1 1 8 Heaven Once a Week. who were enrolled in his sacred polity should follow the laws of nature, and meet in a solemn assembly, passing the time in joy and cheerful relaxation, abstaining; from all works and from all acts that tend to i^roduce anything, and from all business con- nected with securing the means of living, that they should keep a complete trace, avoiding all laborious thought and care, and de- voting their leisure to the study of philosophy." Remarking on the above, Dr. Hovey justly asserts : — " It must be evident to an impartial student of history, that the Sabbath was scrupulously observed by pious Israelites in the time of Clmst. It must likewise be evident that the Saviour did not con- demn Sabbath-keeping in itself, but only the Eabbinic regulations- by which it was made unnatural and sometimes cruel. " Since the time of Christ," he continues, "the Jews have kept the Sabbath in about the same spirit and manner, generally speaking. A large majority of the race have honoured the in- struction of the Rabbis and have observed, with singular faith- fulness, the specific rules prescribed by Rabbinic wisdom." And he quotes Milman, concerning the Jews of the time of Ferdinand and Isabella : — " They attended the services, they fol- lowed the processions, they listened to the teachings of the Church . . To discover how widely Jewish practices still pre- vailed, nothing was necessary but to ascend a hill on their Sab- bath, and look down on the town or villasre below. Scarce half the chimneys were seen to smoke; all that did not were evidently those of the people who still feared to profane the holy day by liohtina: a fire." ^ This historic view we are taking is for the purpose of assuring ourselves what is a sacred and hallowed day, in the best sense of men who have been earnest to know God's will and do it. We must therefore not omit but particularly examine, as pertinent to this end, our Lord's connection with Sabbath feasts. The objection is made that Christ attended a feast on the Sab- bath. The account is given in Luke xiv. : " And it came to pass, as He went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath day, that they watched Him." Many say that when Jesus ate bread with the Pharisee " the meal must have been a costly and ceremonious one," a " splendid entertainment." ' Sabb. Ess. , 209. = Alford and Trench. Heaven Once a Week. 119 Another writer says : — " Chri.st attended a feast made on that day in his honour. . , . Jewish usage, in that age, justified social gatherings on the Sabbath, and Christ by His practice sanctioned this usage, while by His words He never rebuked it.''^ " It was usual for the rich to give a feast on that day ; and our Lord's attendance at such a feast," &c." " It was customary to give feasts on that day, and our Saviour is expressly said to have been a guest at one."^ " Nehemiah, a Jewish reformer of the strictest principle, gave directions for eating tlie fat, and drinking the sweet, and sending portions unto them for wdiom nothing is pre- pared, on the Sabbath after the sermon." When fairly looked in the face, the facts hardly bear out these statements, in the meaning they are designed to convey. The passage from Nehemiah has no reference to the Sabljath, but to the Feast of Trumpets. For the rest it is no doubt true that while the Jew was more and more hedging himself out from all productive labours, he did consider the Sabbath in some degree festive. Of course, there were some who ran to licence and excess on the Sabbath, like those who on frivolous excuses went to the theatres in Alexandria. We do not refer to them ; for we can learn nothinir as to Sabbath sane tifi cation from such. We refer to pious and devout Jews. There is no doubt they made the Sabbath, not a feast day, but a festive day. Some of the language of the cliaj^ter in Nehemiah might characterize a Sabbath. It was not a day to mourn but to rejoice. Rabbi Chiia bar Abba, as the Talmud relates, about 220 A.D., visited a rich butcher who ate from gold plates. The rabbi questioned, " Son, how came you to deserve all this ? " He replied, " I was a butcher, and I always set apart for the Sabbatli the best of the cattle.'' At just about our Lord's time Shammai, the rival of the great Hillel, used to have the best meats reserved for the Sabbath. Other rabbis prepared for the Sabbath. The pious Chasda chopped the herbs for the Sabbath ; the very learned Rabba and Rabbi Joseph split the wood ; Rabbi Zeira lit the fire ; Rabbi Nachman swept the house and prepared the table. One rabbi used to sweep away the cobwebs in preparation for the Sabbath. It is also true that a certain degree of liberty was allowed ' Diet. Relig. Knowl., Abbott and Conant. - Smith's Bib. Die. ' Kitto"s Bib. Cyc. ■* Questions of the Day, by John Hall, D.D. 120 Heaven G nee a Week. in the use of implements of table service. Yet when fairly looked at, the liberties will be found to be such as betoken a family dinner rather than a splendid feast. We read in the Talmud ^ :— " A man may take a hammer to crack nuts, or a hatchet to chop fig-cake, or a handsaw to saw cheese, or a shovel to take up dried figs, or a fan or a foik to give food thereon to a child, a spindle or a shuttle to pick up fruit, or a bewing-needle to pick a splinter out of his skin, or a packing-needle to open [undo] the door." But all these preparations were not for an elaborate feast, such as we understand the word, that is, a day of banquet and many invited guests. It was a family day, a family gathering to the liest dinner of the week. But it should be borne in mind that it was a dinner previously prepared and cold ; for no fire was lighted on that da}^ We do not believe there is any evidence to sustain the theory that there were, among pious Jews, ^'feasts " or banquets on the Sabbath, at least among the " devout and honourable." A few familiar friends may have " dropped in " (but could not have come from far), to share their Sabbath dinner : but the Jewish Sabbath is a family day, a day of giving the father's blessing ; it is foreign to the Jewish idea to make the Sabbath a day of general banqueting. However that may be, the narrative shows several things. We do not get the idea of ample preparations, or rather of a banquet- ing spirit and intent in the quiet, " He went to eat bread on the Sabbath day." " Ihey watched Him " seems to indicate a con- siderable number of guests. We gather the same from the parable and the way the evangelist introduces it: " He put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when He marked how they choose out the chief rooms or places." It would seem that was a con- siderable number, perhaps from twelve to a score or more. " Those which were bidden " seems to denote that they were regularly in- vited guests, as also the drift of the parable. Still we cannot press these particulars. His word to the host seems to indicate that He perhaps had invited his friends, brothers, kinsmen and rich neighbours. Then one verse, the 15th, contains a significant expression: " One of them who reclined with Him." ' Treatise Sabbath, in the Mislina. Heaven Once a Week. 121 Now these considerations seem to show a considevaV»lc number of guests " called," or called in, to the house of this man, " one of the cldef oi the Pharisees," probably a rich man. Now, on this narrative, we remark, it does not follow that be- cause our Lord was there, he entirely approved such a gathering of guests, though the presumption is that lie did not object. One says, " He would seek to do good, even in such a place." Nor is there anything more in the narrative which necessitates any- thing more than that this was an after synagogue lunch — it is not called dinner or a feast — when this Pharisee of ample means urged twenty or thirty of those he had met at synagogue to stop at his house near at hand, and " eat bread " with this great rabbi, and hear what he had to say and teach. We are reminded of those old Sabbath days in New England when people, coming from a distance " stopped over at noon," and perhaps half a score of them would sometimes go into the deacon's house near the church ; and his house was always open. Perhaps this was a similar after-synagogue hospitality on a larger scale, because of his ampl e means, and because it was a special occasion, as he wanted " the lawyers and Pharisees to see Jesus." ^ We are the more inclined to this view because the exegesis of tlie words employed does not seem to ])oint to a feast. There are three words at least in Greek to denote feast, ^'ox*-h &piv ffa^^aruv. EDINBURGH: JAMES GEMMELL, GEORGE IV. BRIDGE. 18 8 6. NOTE EXPLANATOEY. THE Author has kept in view the prescribed subjects, but has taken the liberty of embracing them in a Plan. The relations of the Essay to these subjects may be thus ex- hibited : — - I. 'J'he Sabbath instituted at the Creatiox of Man, &c. This receives full treatment in Part I., Sect. I., pp. 8-35. The relation of Christ to Creation (Col. i. 16 ; Heb. i. 2) and tlie bearings of this on Christ's Lordship of the Sabbath are considered, pp. 10, 17- Other aspects of Christ's Lordship are discussed in Part 1., Sect. III., pp. 58-02 (" Christ's relation to the Sabbath "), and specially in pp. 01, 02 (on Mark ii, 27, 28). The subject under Note {a) as to the day kept by the patriarchs, ami its relation to the sacred days of ancient peoples, comes naturally into connection with the Creation institution, and is discussed, on the basis of facts stated in pp. 21-23 and 26-29; in the concluding pages (p}). 34, 35) of Sect. I. II. The Sabbath, as defined in the Fourth Commandment, NOT A merely Jewish Institution. This, with Subjects III. and V., also relating to the Fourth Commandment and to the Jewish Dispensation, is considered in full in Part I., Sect. II., pp. 35-57. On the definition in the Fourth Commandment, see ])p. 30-39 ; and that the Sabbath is not a mere Jewish Institution, see (in ad. From tin Connection of the Sublmlh n'ilh Cridtion — The Sabbath a memorial of Creation — Paley and P. ^^'. Robertson on tiiis point — (1) An argument for univeisal obligation — Hessey viii Table of Contents. quoted — (2) All argument for institution ;it Creation — (3) Creation work ordered with a view to the Sabbath— Argument from this — Hebrews IV. : its bearing on this subject — Untenableness of the contrary view — Christ the Creator — Christ's lelation to tlie .Sabbath as Creator of the World and Redeemer — Note. —The Days of Cr( at (Oil., . . . , 13 — IS 4. From the Connection of tlit Sabbath with the Xature oi Man — The Sabbath a necessity for man — Its adaptations — Loring Brace quoted — R. Cox quoted — F. W. Robertson quoted — Mr. Glad- stone quoted — Xeed of the Sabbath constantly becoming greater — Admissions of the secular press — Argument from these con- siderations— •' The Sabbath made for man " — Harmony of Scripture, ...... IS — '20 5. From External Corroborative Erhlenos — Thrti. (///v'sjoms — (1) Evidence from early Babylonian literature — Nature of the records — (i.) Existence of a Sabbath — Sayce quoted — Sabbath, " a day of rest for the heart" — Deductions — (ii.) Account of tlie Creation — Supposed reference in Creation tablets to the Sabbath — (iii.) Rre- Chaldean use of the week — Deluge tablets — Note. — IVie Chaldean and B'ddlcal Trailltionx (2) Evidence from existence and use of the week — Prevalence of the week in antiquity — Egypt, Assyria, Persia, India, &c. — How account for the facts ? — Biblical theory accounts best for the preralciici' of the week — Biblical theory accounts best for the oriijln of the week — (i.) Planetary theory — Its assumptions— Its difficulties — (ii.) Lunar theory — Its in- sufficiency (3) Evidence from traces of a sacred daj' — A sacred day implied in the use of the week — Sacredness of the number seven — Babylonian and AssyriaiU Sabbaths — Mr. Proctor on the Sabbath in Egypt — Sun worship and the day of the Sun — Traces of a Sabbath in China — Sunday at Commencement of Cliristian era — Philo Juda'us and Josephus on the prevalence of Seventh-day observance — Other traces of a Sabbath, 20 — 2!) Arguments against the primeval origin of the Sabbath — These refuted by anticipation 1. The argument a sllentio — Hessey quoted in reply to himself — Precariousness of the argument — Are there no traces in the history of the patriarchs ? — Views of Grotius, &c. — Hessey on the duty of periodical worship — Kurtz quoted 2. Argument from the narrative of the giving of the manna — Points founded on: (I) Surprise of the rulers — (2) Indefinite references to the Sabbath — (3) Disobedience of the people — Mr. Johnston's view of a change of day — Reply to these objections — The narrative really supports the early origin of the Sabbath — Inferences from details — Conclusion, . 29 — 32 III. Results and Deductions — The Sabbath a i^rimitive institute — Tlie Sabbath an iii.stitute for man — Man the rest-point in Creation — Determinations of the nature of the Sabbath : 1. A day of r(.st (bodily and spiritual) — 2. A day oijoy—'i. A holy day — The Saljbath a gift and privilege— Sabbath observance in patriarchal +imes — Which day was observed : seventh or first? — Views of Lee, &c. — Pagan observance of Sunday — Babylonian testimony — Result, 32 — .^.T Table of Co Ji tents. ix SECTION SECOND. The Place of the Sabbath ix the Decalogue and in the Jewish Law. I. The Place of the Sabbath in the Decalogue — The law-giving at Sinai : its significance — Tiie code of the Decalogue — Place given in it to the Fourth Commandment — The Commandment quoted — Primeval origin assumed in the Commandment — Force of "Remember" — View given of the Sabbath — Distinction from record in Genesis — (1) What appeared as gift now appears as law — (2) Full expression of duty of abstaining from work — Nature of the prohibition of work in the Com- mand— Meaning of terms — Narrow view sometimes taken — "Thy work : " self-regarding toil forliidden — Force of the expression "Keep holy" — • All that is man's own to be laid aside — The Sabbatli not man's but God's — Yet works of necessity and mercy not forbidden — Mercy a positive duty of the day — This shown from nature of the case, and from Christ's example — Interdiction of works of necessity would make the command self-defeating — Assumptions of this argument — 1. That the Decalogue is a code of fundamental moral duties, universally obligatory — 2. That the Sabbath has a rightful place in this code — Proof, . . 35 — 39 1. That the Decalogue is a moral code, distinct from the Jewish ceremonial law, and perj)ctually valid as a rule of duty — Distinction of moral from ceremonial and judicial law — This dis- tinction shown : (1) from the circumstances attending the pro- mulgation of the Decalogue — Argument from these — Objections repelled — (2) From inspection of its contents — Remaining part of the code moral — Many Sabbaths, but this alone mentioned — Hessey's objection — (3) From recognition of continued obligation in the New Testament — Teaching of Christ and the Apostles — Summing up of the Argument, . . . 39 — 42 2. That the Sabbath, as a m.oral institute, has a rightful place in this code — Its place in a moral code a difficulty to opponents — Distinction of "moral" and "ceremonial" in the Commandment — This dis- tinction examined — Its difficulties— Vagueness of the alleged " moral element" — Views of the Reformers — View of Hessey — Hessey a witness to the insufficiency of " the moral element " per se — View of Cliurch of Rome — Statements of Tridentine Catechism— Festivals included under Fourth Commandment — Hessey quoted on effects of this perversion — Alleged grounds for this distinction : (1) Mention of the particular day — (2) Sabbath- breaking not charged against the heathen — But neither is poly- gamy charged — Examination of objection founded on mention of the day — Nature of moral duties — Determined by man's nature and conditioris — Abstract principles alone do not determine duties — Proof tliat man's physical nature requires the seventh day's rest — Testimony of Luther, Chateaubriand, Proudhon, and Dr. Farre — The seventh day's rest a moral duty — Rest enjoined in the Fourth Commandment for ends of religion — Time-law in the spiritual sphere — The Creator lias indicated His will in our constitution — Two confirmatory considerations : (1) Alleged "moral element" practically ineffective — (2) It is the other which occupies tlie bulk of the Commandment — Relation of K X Tabic of Contents. Foui'th Cominanclment to other precepts of the Decalogue — An evil of the distinction of "moral" and "ceremonial:" that it obscures this — Central place of the Commandment — The Sabbath the guardian of both tables — Without it neither religion nor morality possible — Brewin Grant quoted — Objection that the argument binds us to observe the Seventh day — Replies to this — What lias been established — Conclusion, . . 42 — 51 II. The Place of the Sabbath in the Jewi.sh Law — How to be considered — The Sabbath modified by the law — Question : Did this modification extend to the day of observance? — Dr. Lee's theory — Assumptions of this tlieory — Disproof of it from dates in Ex. xvi. — Another view of order of Sabbaths — Traces of Sabbaths in the journey- ings — Probabilities in favour of a change of day — The order congruous with the legal dispensation — Other respects in which the Sabbath was modified : (1) Special legal enactments — (2) Ceremonial holiness — The law and its shadows — The essential character of the Sabbath nevertheless Xireticrved under the law — Mosaic and Rabbinical Sabbaths — Jewish Sabbath often misrepresented — A day of freedom, of joy, and of religion — Hessey quoted — Exceptional honour put upon the Sabbath : (l) Made a "sign" between God and Israel — (2) Its sanctity specially guarded — (3) Exceptional respect shown to it by the prophets, . . 51 — 57 SECTION THIRD. The Place of the Sabbath in the New Testament, and the Right of the Lokd's Day to be regarded as the Representative of the Sabbath of Creation, and of the Fourth Commandment. I. Relation of Christ to the Sabbath — Cln-ist's relation to the Sabbath often misrepresented — His Example pleaded for Sabbath-breaking — This shown to be an error — Christ a strict obser- • ver of the law — Did not admit tlie charge of having broken the Sabbath — Defended iiimself against it — What Christ really did with the Sabbath — Rabbinical pervei'sions — His care over it shows that he did not con- template its abolition — Positive utterances of Christ 1. Import of John V, 17 2. Import of Mark ii. 27 — The Sabbath made for man — Hessey criticised 3. Import of Mark ii. 28 — Christ the Lord of the Sabbath— Meaning of title "Son of Man"— As " Son of Man" Christ takes the Sabbath iinder his special jurisdiction — Force of this — Christ's Lordship — how shown ?— Christ's example the authoritative interpreta- tion of the Sabbath law — What this example teaches, . 58 — 62 II. The Lord's Day the New Testament representative of the Sabbath — Previous considerations lead us to expect a sacred day in the New Testament — Tlie nature of the case points in same direction — Need of a Sabbath as great as ever — Its need for piety — GilfiUan quoted — " Dictionary of Bible " quoted — We find what we look for in weekly festival of the Apos- tolic Church — Three important facts 1. Complete dissociation of life of the Church from Old or Jeivish Sabbaths — Tlie Law still standing — Table of Contents. xi Sabbaths still observed — Yet the life of early Church entirely divorced from them 2. Concentration of life of the Church round the fir^t day of the week — Illustrations of this 3. Orhjhi of this respect for the first day of the week — Not a mere decision of the church — (1) Its Historical Origin — The Resurrection of Christ— " The Lord's Life" — (2) Special Divine Sanctions — The Resurrection itself a sanction — Christ's appear- ances on first day of the week — The gift of the Spirit — (3) Apostolic sanction — Ecclesiastical view of origin of Lord's Day — Whately quoted — This view rejected — Testimony of Justin Martyr — That the Lord's Day is the representative of the Creation and Fourtli Commandment Sabbath shown — ........ 62 — 66 1. From the Cogjiate character of the. Institutions — Opponents admit them to be "analogous" — Better word would be " identical " — (1) Both are seventh-day festivals — Seven-day cycle belongs to the institution — Hessey criticised — (2) The Lord's Day a holy day — Proof of this from Hessey — Not simply " commemorating an event " — (3) The duties of the day are re- ligious— Bishop Prideaux quoted — (4) The Lord's Day a rest- day — Hessey's assertions of this — A day of rest for body and for soul — Hessey on the duty of the State — Hessey on early Christian practice — Similar views in Kitto's Cyclopaedia (Henry Rogers)^These writers abolish the Sabbath in name but retain it in fact, ...... 66 — 68 2. From the x>lace of the LortVs Day in the Sahhatic Week — Providential preparation in prevalence of the week — Scriptural view of the week — The week a sacred institution — The Sabl^ath a constituent part of it — " Sabbath " the name for the whole week under this aspect of it — Old Testament usage — New Testament "sage — Brewin Grant quoted — Christianity adopts the Sabbatic week — The Lord's Day built into it — The Lord's Day the " first of the Sabbaths " — Texts re-read in this light — Brewin Grant's inference — Conclusion — Reason for change of day at the Resur- rection— The reason probably that already suggested — The Re- surrection a restoration of the day — The first day in keeping with the Dispensation, . . . . 68 — 70 Ohji'ctions to the Sabbatic character of the Lord's Day. These arise from inattention to the phenomena of the Apostolic age — Four objections commonly urged 1. The name Sabbath is not given to the Lord's Day— It could not be without creating confusion— Jewish Sabbaths still existing— Need of keeping the Lord's Day clear of Jewish associations 2. The Lord's Day appears as a distinct festival — So in many respects it was — What Christianity makes new in the Sabbath — Dr. Ward law quoted • 3. New Testament believers did not think of the Lord's Day as a Sabbath — The fact would not affect our argument — Not per- ceived at' first that the law was to be abolished — Truth only gradually revealed— Even to Apostles — The question is, what did the Spirit mean? — Another difficulty arising out of expectations of the Lord's coming — But it is not clear that the disciples did not xii Table of Contents. recognise any Sabbatic relation — Rest on the Lord's Day woul connect itself with Fourth Commandment— Two special facts — (1) The Lord's Day built into the Sabbatic Week— (2) The rest remaining for tlie Christian called a "Sabbath Rest "—Argu- ment from this — Epistle of Barnabas 4. The New Testa- ment dtdares Sabbaths to. be abolished — Passages usually advanced, (1) Gal. iv. 9-11 ; (2) Col. ii. 16-17; (3) Rom. xiv. 5-6 — Dean Alford's inferences from these passages — Faults in his logic — The passages do not, according to himself, exclude all ob- servance of days — His Ecclesiastical view rejected— Examination of passages, (1) Gal. iv. 9-11 ; Col. ii. 16-17 — These passages refer only to Jewish daj's — State of the Churches — Hessey's un- exceptionable statement — Nothing inconsistent with observance of Lord's Day — (.3) Rom. xiv. 5-(J — State of Church at Rome — Jewish days alone in dispute — Extreme views in the Church — Paul gives no formal judgment — Inculcates mutual forbearance — Jewish view of sanctity of days — -This left behind in Christian- ity— What makes a day holy — No dayt?i itself more sacred than another — The whole week sanctified in its Sabbath — Hessey thinks these passages inconsistent with the Lord's Day being a Sabbath — Yet he ascribes to the Lord's Day all the characters of a Sabbath — Inconsistencies of his position, . . 70 — 79 Conclusion of first part of the inquiry — Its importance — Only on the basis of a full Scriptural testimony can a high standard of Lord's Day observance be maintained — Teaching of history on this point 1. The ecclesiastical view — Has never secured vSabbath ob- servance— Effects on the Continent— In England — The view of the secularist 2, The middle view of Paley and Hessey — Its unsatisfactory character — Its want of influence 3. The only view which has produced extensve reform of practice is that based on full Scriptural testimony — Dr. Bownd's book — Its effects in England — The Sabbath among the Puritans, in New England, and in Scotland — Sabbath Defence Societies — Heng- stenberg's closing words — Dr. Story on relaxed Sabbath obser- vance, ....... 79 — 82 PART II. Practical Observance of the Sabbath. (Under this head it is deemed sufficient to give main headings only.) SECTION FIRST. FUNDAMENTAL POSITIONS IN REGARD TO SABBATH OBSERVANCE. I. The SABBATH IS TO BE MAINTAINED AS A DAY OF REST — 1. We are to observe it as such ourselves. 2. We are to respect the 7-i(jhfs oj ofher-i in. connection ivith It. 3. Work is to be forwarded tvith a rieii; to the Sabbath rest, , 85 — 92 Table of Contents. xiii III. The 8ABBATH IS TO BE INIAIXTAINED AS A DAY OF RELIGION — The day given ns for sacred purposes — lu keeping with its sacred character is to be — 1. The. Spirit of the. Da]i. 2. The Conversation of the Day. 3. The Occupations of the Day. (1) Worsliip : private, domestic, pnhlic — (2) Reading: study of the Bible, otlier books — (3) Instruction of families — (4) Works of beneficence, &c. , ..... 92 — f)9 III. The state as well as private christians is to maintain the sabbath. Province of tlie State in connection with the Sabbath— 1. To respect the Sabbath in its own action.. 2. To maintain the external rest of the Sabbctth. (1) As secui-ing to each man his right to rest and worship — (2) From regai'd to the religious convictions of a majority of the subjects — (3) On civil grounds, ..... 99—107 SECTION SECOND. Bearings of Scriptural Observance of the Sabbath on individual and social well-being. i. bearings of the sabbath on health, .... 108 — 110 ii. bearings of the sabbath on morality — Of individuals — of nations, ..... 110 — 115 III. BEARINGS OF THE SABBATH ON FAMILY LIFE, . . . 115—117 IV. ECONOMICAL BEARINGS OF THE SABBATH — ITS BEARINGS — 1. On Production, ...... 117 — Hi) 2. On Wages. Tends to increase wages — (1) By increasing efficiency, while limiting the days of labour Seven days' pay for six days' work — (2) By increasing the vwrth of the labourer — (3) By raising the standaid of comfort, . 119 — 121 3. On Expenditure — (1) Checks wasteful expenditure— (2) Encourages thrift, &c., 121, 122 V. National bearings of the sabbath, .... 122 SP:CTI0N THIRD. Defective Views of Sabbath Observance — Sunday Society Principles AND Aims. Movements for the Secularisation of the Sabbath, . . , 123, 124 I. EXPOSURE OF the CHARACTER OF THESE MOVEMENTS. Motives and aims stripped of some disguises — Not merely movements for the openings of a few museums, &c. — The line not drawn at profit — The real aim — A perfectly free Sunday . . . . 124 — 127 xiv Table of Contents. II. THESK MOVEMENTS PROCEED ON WRONG *.INES. (1) Amount to giving up the Sabbath as a day of religion — (2) The higher benefits of the Sabbath being given up, the lower would not be reaped — (3) No true benefit to the poorer classes — How these are to be really reached — (1) Temperance — Tlie "Sunday Society" opposes "Sunday Closing," — (2) The Gospel — The "Sunday Society" draws the people away, ........ 127—132 III. THE AIMS ARE SELF-DEFEATING. Would result in the convei'sion of the Sabbath into a day of labour — This denied. But — (1) If the day is spent in the way proposed, some inihut labour — What this involves — (2) If the religious sanctions of the day were broken down, labour would extend itself — Pressure on the day — Would self-interest be a sufficient protection — (I) The employer's in- terest— (2) The worker's interest — This hope shown to be vain — Religion the only safeguard, ...... 132 — 137 SECTION FOURTH. EXISTING SABBATH DESECRATION AND THE REMEDIES FOR IT. Sabbath observance of the present compared with that of the beginning of the century — Means uscl then to promote a better observance of the day — Lessons for ourselves — Sermons — Instruction of young — The con- nection of Sabbath observance with Church revival — Much can be done by pei'sonal effort — Discouraging features in the outlook — Encourage- ments— (1) Revival on Continent — (2) Working classes averse to the change — (3) Public sentiment — (4) Acknowledgment of need of maintain- ing the day of rest — (5) Sunday Closing movement — Our duty to the Sabbath — Conclusion, ...... 137 — 144 THE SABBATH SCRIPTURALLY AND PEACTICALLY CONSIDERED. INTRODUCTO R V. w E cannot doubt that the ao;e we live in is frauQ^lit with perils for the Sabbath. An age of rapid increase of population/ of unexampled development of the industries, of vast unrest of thought, of great extremes of wealth and poverty, of bewildering political clianges, of keen competition in trade — it is not surprising that difficulty should be felt in maintaining the integrity of the Day of Rest, and even of keeping alive in men's minds the feeling of its sacredness. The increase of population is a peril to the Sabbath, in so far as the Church fails to retain her hold upon the masses. Industrial progress is unfavourable to the Sabbath, as creating new pretexts for Sabbath labour, and new temptations to engage in it. Great material prosperity is a danger to the Sabbath, as generating a comfort-loving disposition, which sets light store on spiritual possessions. The sceptical spirit is a deadly peril, as eating the heart out of religious earnestness, and loosening men's liold on sacred convictions. The extremes of wealth and poverty are perilous, begetting at one end of the scale an intense worldliness, and engendering at the other a despised, outcast, hungry proletariat, disaffected to society, and eager only about bare subsistence. The keenness of competition is hurtful to the Sabbath, as driving men to do what they would rather avoid, in order to hold their own with their neighbours The wonder would be if, amidst so many influences hostile to ' From seven millions in England at the beginning of the century. 2 The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. its maintenance, clays of trial did not come for the sacred insti- tution. On the other hand, our age needs the Sabbath. Never age needed it more. The physical rest, the change of thought and occupation, the relief from worry, the opportunities of worship and edification which the Sabbath brings, are an absolute necessity to our hard-wrought artizan classes and busy pro- fessional men. More than anv other single cause, the Sabbath has made our nation what it is — has promoted health, fostered morals, raised intelligence, given stability to our institutions, made our people thoughtful, self-respecting, content. It is difficult to conceive what society would be without this enforced pause in the wheels of labour. The duty of preserving the Sabbath as a day of rest is at the present time very generally acknowledged. Statesmen, econo- mists, philanthropists, journalists, working-men's i-epresentatives, Sunday Society advocates themselves — however self-defeating the aims of the last — are practically at one on this point. " Most of those," says Professor Tyndall, '' who object to the Judaic observance of the Sabbath recognise not only the wisdom, but the necessity of some such institution. . . . There is nothing that I should oppose more strenuously than the conversion of the seventh day of the week into a common working day." ^ Here at least is common ground to start with. We are glad of it, and argue from it to the necessity of maintaining the day, not only, as Professor Tyndall would have it, as a day of "rest and liberty," but as a day of " rest and worship." For it is certain, Professor Tyndall notwithstanding, that it is only as a day devoted to the uses of religion that the Sabbath can long be maintained as a day of rest. It is the religious character of the day which has protected it hitherto, and when encroachments on its rest are threatened, it is not the friends of Sunday recreation, the advocates of the Sunday train and steamboat, those who spend the day at their club or with their newspaper, who are generally foremost in resisting the aggression. The idle, the dissolute, the profane, the irreligious, are the enemies of the Sabbath by long prescription. It is, as already noticed, a special peril of the Sabbath that, in the present day, the classes living in neglect of religion seem greatly on the ' Glasgow Speech, October 25, ISSO. TJie Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered, 3 increase. Witli tliein must be joined the covetous, who, keen only after gain, neither fear God nor regard man in their ceaseless pursuit of it. These are they whom Neliemiah in his day had to contend with — whom he saw "treading wine-presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes, figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day^" — whose cry in the days of the prophets was : " When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn, and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit." " This class is as eager to encroach on the Day of Rest as ever. Pretexts for encroachment are already found in the need of supplying public wants, in the perishable character of goods, in the pecuniary loss attending the stoppage of public works, and in the pressure of foreign competition. With the new demands that would arise for Sabbath labour in the event of any extensive change in the employment of the day, the new openings that would be made for it, and the r^o.^^ opportunities that would present themselves for making gain by extending facilities for travel and amusement. Mammon's victory over the Sabbath would be complete. On special forms of antagonism to the Sabbath, the movement for the opening of museums and the like, we do not at present dwell. We hasten to note, as a yet more imminent danger to the Sabbath than any we have named, the supineness and laxity of view and practice among the religious classes themselves. We are not insensible to the many cheering tokens that exist of the strono- hold that the Sabbath yet has on the affections of the people. This is our encouragement. It is the ground we have to work upon. But there are not wanting symptoms of another kind. It is a matter of common complaint that the Sabbath is nob kept as it used to be. There is a waning sense of the Divine obligation of the day, and a growing disposition to take liberties with it in practice. In country towns, for instance, it is no unusual thing to see leading men of all the churches hastening to the post office at the close of forenoon service to obtain their business letters, presumably to read and answer them on their return home. Nothing could be more fitted to break down the sense of sanctity in the day, both in themselves and others. ' Keli. xiii. 15. ^ Amos viii. 5. 4 The Sahbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. Given love for the Sabbath and zeal for its honour among its own friends, and the efforts of Sunday Societies, the cupidity of employers, the lawlessness of the profligate, and the attacks of a hostile secular press, will be able to accomplish little for its over- throw. But the Sabbath cannot stand ao-ainst coldness and indifterence among those who ouo-ht to be its warm defenders. This we take to be the special peril of the day. Here, if anjavhere, reform must begin. If the Sabbath is not zealously maintained by its own friends, it is hopeless to look for its preservation from any other quarter. The perils arising to the Sabbath from the causes we have described form a sufficient reason for anew directing attention to the subject, and for asking those who desire to see the Sabbath retained to reconsider its Divine claims, the duties which belong to it, the invakiable benefits it is fitted to confer, and the need there is for steadfastly resisting encroachments on its sanctity, and for taking such measures as are possible to promote its better observance. These are the topics which are to occupy us in the following pages. We trust to make it clear that the Sabbath can be maintained only under two conditions : first, that it be based explicitly on Divine Law ; and, second, that it be guarded for religious use. We have no faith in any bulwark other than that which the Law of God affords. We have no hope of preserving the Sabbath as a day of rest, unless it is maintained also as a day of religion. If we can but plant deeply in the minds of our readers these two essential convictions, that the Sabbath is an institute of God for the use and benefit of man, and that the Law of God requires that the Sabbath be kept holy, a main object of our labours in this Essay will be gained. We divide our subject into two parts, and treat — First, of The Scriptural Basis of the Sabbath ; and. Second, of The Practical Observance of the Sabbath. PART I. THE SCRIPTURAL BASIS OF THE SABBATH. PART I. THE SCRIPTURAL BASIS OF THE SABBATH. THE views which we oppose in this Essay are the three following : — 1. That there is no Divine institute in the matter, but that the observance of the Sabbath, or Day of Rest, must be based, like any other human institution, solely on considerations of humanity, or of expediency/ In opposition to this, we maintain that the Sabbath is an institute of God, clearly revealed in Scripture, and resting, there- fore, on a basis of Divine Law. 2. That the Sabbath in the Old Testament is a purely Jewish institution, taking its origin at Sinai, or a few weeks earlier, at the giving of manna in the wilderness. - In opposition to this, we maintain that the Sabbath is a prim- eval institution, appointed in Eden, designed for man as such, and needed for his mental, moral, and religious, as well as for his physical, good. 3. That the Sabbath, as a Jewish institution, ended with the Dispensation of Moses, and that the Lord's Day is a distinct institution, having no connection with the former, but resting on some basis of its own — the command of Christ or His Apostles,^ Apostolic practice,'* or the authority of the Church.'* In opposition to this, we maintain that the Lord's Day of the Christian Church is the New Testament representative of the Sab- bath of Creation and of the Fourth Commandment, and comes under the law of Sabbath observance laid down in the Decalogue. We maintain, in short, that the Sabbath is of Primeval Origin, of Moral Character, of Perpetual Obligation, and that its New Testa- ment representative is the Lord's Day. We proceed to the proof of these positions, dealing with collateral questions as they arise. ' Tyudall, Cox. &c. - Paley, Hessey, &c. 3 Paley, Hessey. '» Isaac Watts. 5 Arnold, Whately, Alford, F. W. Robertson, &c. 8 The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. SECTION I. THE PRIMEVAL ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH. The view that the Sabbath was instituted at Creation im- mediately on the completion of the six days' work, and ere man fell, and was therefore, like marriage, designed, not for any one time, or any one section of the race, but for all time and all men, might seem a sufficiently fair inference from the terms of the record in Genesis, from the existence of the week among the patriarchs, from the language of the Fourth Commandment, from Christ's declara^tion that " the Sabbath was made for man," ^ and from such an allusion as that in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Ch. iv. 3-5, where the Creation origin of the Sabbath seems certainlv implied. It is the view which naturally commends itself on a first survey of the evidence, and has been taken, not only b}'- Sabbatarian writers, but by many others, who have had a counter theory to support. It seems to have been the view of Philo and Josephus among the Jews; it was the view of at least Tertullian among the early Fathers ; ^ and it is given as their view by both Luther and Calvin among the Reformers. " The Sabbath," says Luther, " was from the beginning of the world set apart to Divine worship."" And Calvin writes — " God, therefore, first rested, then blessed this rest, that in all aoes it mio-ht be sacred amono- men ; in other words. He con- secrated every seventh day to rest, that His own example might be a perpetual rule.""* In recent times this view has received strong confirmation, while the view opposed to it is proportion- ally discredited, by the discoveries which have been made of an observance of the Sabbath among ancient Oriental peoples. As, however, the position we defend is one still hotly contested, the points involved in it will require close attention. We shall. First, state clearly, and more fully than has yet been done, the issue between ourselves and our opponents ; then Second, consider the bearings on this of the different branches of evidence. ' Mark ii. 27. - Advcr. Marc. Bk. IV. ch. xii. — " Christ fialfilled the law, whilst that very day, Avhich was holy from the beginniug by His Father's benediction, He made more holy by His own benefaction." i On Gen. ii. 3. ^ On Gen. ii. 3. Calvin uses similar language in expounding Exodus xx. 8. The Sabbath Scriptii rally and Practically Considered. 9 I. The ISSUE between ourselves and our opponents may be stated thus : We hold that the Sabbath was instituted at Creation at the close of the six days' work. They hold that the first clear notice of the institution of the Sabbath is in the account of the giving of the manna in the wilderness of Sin.^ We appeal in proof of our position to what we regard as the plain narrative of the institution of the Sabbath in the second chapter of Genesis. They reply, in efiect, that Moses is speaking there anticipatively, and that the actual sanctification of the seventh day took place, not, as the words would seem to imply, at the close of tlie six days' work, but some thousands of years after, in the time of Moses. In support of this view — known as the "proleptic" view — we shall (juote the words of two of its ablest advocates. We shall first hear Di-. Paley. " Now, in my opinion," says this lucid writer, " the transaction in the wilderness above recited was the first actual mstitution of the Sabbath. The passage in the second chapter of Genesis, which creates the whole controversy on the subject, is not inconsistent with this opinion ; for, as the seventh day was erected into a Sabbath, on account of God's resting upon that day from the work of creation, it was natural enough in the historian when he had related the history of the creation, and of God's ceasing from it on the seventh day, to add : ' And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it : because that in it He had rested from all His work wdiich God created and made ; ' althouo-h the blessing and sanctification — i.e., the religious distinction and appropriation of that day — were not actually made till many ages afterwards.' The words do not assert that God then ' blessed ' and ' sanctified ' the seventh day, but that He blessed and sanctified it for that reason ; and if any ask, why the Sabbath, or sanctification of the seventh day, was then mentioned, if it was not then apj^ointed, the answer is at hand ; the order of connection, and not of time, introduced the mention of the Sabbath, in the history of the subject which it was ordained to commemorate." - We next quote Dr. Hessey : " The Sabbath was not enjoined on man at the Creation. It was revealed in the first instance to the Jews, a short time before it was formally published in the Decalogue. Though one urge that a reference is made to the creation in the terms of the Fourth Commandment, this reference was only made ' Exod. xvi, - Mor. Phi/., Bk. V. — Of the Scr'qdure account oj Sahhutlcal Institutions. 10 The Sabbath Sa'iptit rally and Practically Considered. by anticipation or proleptioally. The Sabbath was a sign between God and the Jews, and expired with the Jewish Dispensation." ^ Whately, Arnold, Hengstenberg, F. W. Robertson, and others express themselves in nearly similar terms. A Creation Sabbath — or a proleptical allusion to a Sabbath not actually instituted till the days of Moses — these are the alternatives. We accept the former and reject the latter. Our position is now to be made good by survej^ of the evidence. II. The ARGUMENT for the primeval origin of the Sabbath em- braces a variety of particulars. Our first proof is drawn — (1.) From express testimony of Scripture. The texts of cardinal importance here, of course, are (1) the passage from Genesis already citied : " And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made ; and he rested on the seventh clay from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it ; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."- (2) The Fourth Com- mandment : " Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. . . 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." ^ Nothing, to an ordinary reader, might seem plainer than these two testimonies. Both assert, in the most unambiguous manner possible, that the Sabbath was appointed at Creation as a memorial of the rest of God, following on the six days' work. We take them in their order. The passage in Genesis is part of a connected history of crea- tion. It is the conclusion of the magnificent account of the making of the heavens and the earth, with which the Bible opens. It is an integral part of that narrative. It contains no hint of allusion to any later event. The style of narration is simple, dignified, and obvious. It is out of all keeping with its structure to suppose a sudden break, and a proleptical leap in the story to .something which took place thousands of years afterwards in the wilderness of Sin. It is not too much to say that such a break would never have been thought of, but for the exigencies of a preconceived theory. ' Bampton Lectures (2iul Ed.), p. 10. = Gen. ii. 2, 3. 3 Ex. xx. S-11. ■^ " If the Sabbath had been instituted at the time of the Creation, as the words in Genesis may seem at first sigJit to import," &c. Paley, Mor. Phil., ut supra. TJie Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. 1 1 Closer scrutiny of the passage does not remove this first im- pression of its meaning. It consists of three simple sequences, set down as part of one series of events — " God ended His worlc which He had made " — " God rested on the seventh day " — " God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it." Each step follows on the other in a natural, unconstrained fashion. There is neither hint of interruption nor room for it. It would do violence to all the laws of language were we to suppose that in a simple inarti- ficial narrative of this sort, the author either had in his own mind, or meant to convey to his readers, the idea of a prolepsis of which his plain succession of clauses gives no intimation. It is not otherwise with the Fourth Commandment. We find nowhere an account of God blessing and hallowing the Sabbath in the wilderness of Sin. But we do find an account of God blessing and hallowing the Sabbath at the Creation. It is to this, therefore, that the Fourth Commandment looks back. The institution of the Sabbath at Creation gives a sufficient reason why this command should be found in a code of fundamental moral duties ; whereas, on the other supposition, its appearance in such a code is wholly anomalous. We plead, then, the plain, obvious sense of express testimonies of Scripture in favour of our assertion of the primeval origin of the Sabbath. It is not every Scriptural institution which can plead express Scriptuial testimony on its behalf. Infant baptism cannot, assuming this to be a Scriptural ordinance. The Lord's Day cannot, if it is a distinct institution from the Sabbath. Those who, like Hessey and Paley, still uphold the Divine institution of the Lord's Day, have to reason inferentially from notices in the Acts and Epistles to obtain for it the sanction they desire. But the Sabbath may claim to rest on express institution. This is an advantage. There is no necessary weakness in the other mode of arguing, but the mind desiderates something positive as at least the ultimate basis of belief.^ Hessey indeed objects that institution is not equivalent to command. But if the Sabbath was instituted for man's benefit at his creation, we cannot doubt that it was also then made known to him. ' Agreeably with this, the Pfedobaptist will be found to rest his case less on intimations in the New Testament, than on the fundamental identity of the Old and New Covenants, and the connection between parent and child e.Kpressly esta blished in the Old Testament. A 12 The Sabbath Scriptunilly and Practically Considered. (2.) As confirmatory of this first argument, we plead next, eaThj Sci'ifture notices of the loeeh. Assuming, as on the theory of a primeval origin of the Sabbath we are entitled to do, that a seven days' cycle of work and rest was established for man at Creation, it is reasonable to expect that traces of this cycle — if not of the observance of the holy day — will be discoverable in the sacred narrative. We leave untouched for the present the question of whether the origin of the week, and its undoubted prevalence in ancient nations, can be accounted for satisfactorily on other than Biblical grounds. We ask only whether, as a matter of consist- ency with itself, the Bible, in its earlier pages, I'ecognises this division of time. Now, we do find traces of this division at different points in the history in Genesis. The seven-day period is noticed in the narrative of the Deluge.^ " Yet seven days," says God, " and I will cause it to rain upon the earth." ^ Noah " stayed yet other seven days : and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark."'' " And he stayed yet other seven days, and sent forth the dove."* The week is noticed in the history of Jacob. " Fulfil her week," said Laban, " and we will give thee this also."^ Joseph, a generation later, mourns for his father " seven days," as the Egyptians had previously mourned for him " threescore and ten days," or ten times seven.*^ The seven days' cycle appe^i-rs again in the book of Job. The notices here are peculiarly inter- esting. We are first told how, each seventh day. Job " sent and sanctified " his sons.^ On this Dr. Sam Cox remarks — " Job invited his sons to his own house that he might ' hallow ' or sanctify them, i.e., see and cause them to go through the cere- monial ablutions by which men in the earliest ages prepared themselves for worship ; for Job's day was a holy day, a day devoted to God, whether it were, as some suppose, the seventh day, or as others, with more probability conjecture, the first day of the week."^ Next, there is mention made of a recurring day — " the day " — on which it was customary for the Sons of God, i.e., angels, to present themselves before the Lord.^ " Just as the sons of Job were gathered in their father's house below, so, above ' The hepdomadal period is yet more marked in the Chaldean Story of the Deluge, which presents such striking similarities to the Biblical. Smith's Chaldean Genesis, by Sayce, p. 285. 2 Gen. vii. 4, 10. 3 Gen. viii. 10. '♦Gen. viii. 12. sGen. xxix. 27, 28. «Gen. i. 10. 'Job. i. X 8 Expositor, Vol. IV., p. 93. » Job. i. G ; ii. 1. TJic Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 1 3 the Sons of God .... are gatliered round the Father of an Infinite Majesty."^ " The day " can hardly be other than the familiar day of worship. Lastly, when Job's friends came to comfort him, they sat down with him on the ground " seven da3's and seven nights."" Few as these notices are, they imply the existence and use of the week among the anti-deluvians, amono- the Hebrews, in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, and in the land of Uz, adjacent to the Sabseans and Chaldeans.'^ In addition, not a few instances occur of a special sacredness attached to the number seven.* Years, also, as well as days, seem to run naturally into sevens.^ Possibly, even, as many have thought, the weekly period is glanced at in the words in the history of Cain — " in pro- cess of time," literally, " at the end of days ; " "^ a mode of speech which finds illustration from the words of Laban — " Let the damsel abide with us days or ten " (Heb.),'' where " days " almost certainly means a week. On this view the week goes back to the very gates of Paradise. The result reached is, that Scripture is entirely in accord with itself as to the early institution of the week. (3) A third important argument for the primeval origin of the Sabbath is based on tlie connection of the Sabbath luith Creation. It is not disputed that, on Scripture showing, the Sabbath was appointed as a memorial of Creation. Paley allows that the Sabbath was blessed and sanctified " for that reason," if not " then."^ Whately and Hessey agree with him. F. W. Robertson says : " The reason why the seventh day was fixed on, rather than the sixth or eighth was, that on that day God rested from His labour. The soul of man was to form itself on the model of the Spirit of God." ^ But it is surely obvious that a theory which allows the Sabbath to be a memorial of Creation, yet regards it as a purely Jewish institution, of late origin, and of temporary obligation, does not hold well together. The Creation is not a matter which concerns Jews only. Jew and Gentile are equally bound to study the Creator's perfections as revealed in his works, and to adore the Power and Godhead therein made manifest. It is therefore reasonable to think that an institution set up for the special purpose of commemorating the Creation, would, from its 'Cox. £a;po.s«7or, Vol. IV.,p. 95. =Job. ii. 13. 3 Job. i. 15, 17. t Gen. vii. 2, 3, 10. 5 Qen. xxix. 27, ch. xli. * Gen. iv. 3. 7 Gen. xxiv. 5. ^ Mor. Phil., ut supra. 5 Sermon (1st Series) on TJie Shadoio and Substance of the Sabbath, p. 87. 14 TJie Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. nature, be intended as an institution for the race.^ Even con- ceding to Dr. Hessey that " its early mention, and the early de- claration of its existence as a Sabbath, in the mind of the Almighty, by no means necessitates an equally early promulgation to man," ^ it must surely at least be admitted that, whenever promulgated, it is indeed " man," and not Jews only, to whom the promulgation is made. This is seen by the able writer of the article Sahhath in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, who thinks the argument for a primeval Sabbath " precarious," but has no doubt from the broad and comprehensive ground on which the Commandment is placed in Exodus that the Sabbath is intended as an institute for all. When Jews specially are addressed, another and more special reason is given for the observance of the Commandment — " And remember that thou wast 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." ^ But this is not the ground on which the command is based in the original promul- gation of the law at Sinai. This ground is local and national : that is broad and universal. The one is for Jews only ; the other, on the face of it, for mankind. This first conclusion may now be used as a step to a second. The Sabbath being granted to be a monument in commemoration of Creation, and intended for all, as alike interested in Creation, what shadow of plausibility attaches to the conjecture that the monument was not set up at the time at which the event com- memorated took place, but ages after ? It must prima facie be held more likely that the Sabbath would be coeval with man — that it would take its orio^in from the time when the Creative works, of which it is a memorial, were finished ^ — than that holy ' " Can anything whatever," says Dr. Wardlaw, " be more comprehensive ? To what people, or nation, or kindred, or tongue, does such celebration specially pertain, more than to another? Surely if there be aught that belongs to the entire human race, it is this. The duty is universal ; the reason of it is universal. Creation is a common theme ; the Creator a common object of adoration." — Tract on Sahhath, p. 6. ^ Bampton Lectures, p. 139. 3 Deut. V. 15. " Dr. Wardlaw says — " If, as is admitted, the Sabbath was a commemoration of God's ivork of Creation, — then why should not the commemoration commence from the time the work to be commemoi'ated was completed ? — Was it not thus with the Passover ? — Was it not thus with the Lord's Supper ? And why not with the Sabbath ? " — Tract on Sahhath, p. 2. The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. 1 5 patriarchs, to whom Creation was surely of not less interest than to Jews — who also were required to worship their Creator, and jnay be believed capable of as strong emotions of awe and wonder in the contemplation of His wonders as the Jews were, should be totally left without this memorial of the Creator's work and rest. Exception may be taken to the doctrine otherwise, but it cannot be seriously denied that the view of a primeval Sabbath is that which accords best with the ground on which the institution is presumed to be based. Even this, however, does not exhaust the argument. A con- sideration remains which goes deeper than any yet advanced. Whatever perplexing questions may be raised as to the nature of the Creative Days — whether literal or seonic ^ — there will at least be general agreement in the statement that the Almighty is re- presented as ordering His work according to this particular plan — giving it the shape of a Creative week of six days' work and one day's rest — mainly in Order that he might found, and by His example give sanction to, a similar division of time for His creature man. Dr. Hessey does not refuse this view of the matter. "God," he says, " condescended to exhibit Himself, the great Architect of the world (though 'He fainteth not, neither is weary'), as the great Archetype both of labour and of rest. In six days He made the world, and on the seventh day He rested from His work, and ' was refreshed.' " ^ And he speaks elsewhere of " the mysterious example of the Creator" as seeming to "denote that rest and labour are to alternate." ^ The idea of the Rest of God as founding a rest for man is carried even further in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. In this Scripture, the Rest of God in Genesis is identified with the " My Rest " of the ninety -fifth Psalm, and from the fact that in the Psalm the Rest is still spoken of as iuture, the writer argues that the Sabbath and Canaan cannot be regarded as more than temporary types of what it pledges to the saint. The line of thought is this. God, by His rest, has founded a rest for man.* Our rest is participation in His.® We enter it by faith.^ This rest of God, however, is not entered fully on earth.^ It is a Sabbath rest, yet the earthly Sabbath does not do more than partially and typically introduce us into it, as seen by the fact that the works were finished from the foundation of the ' See Note, p. IS. ^ Bmnpton Lectures, p. 151. 3 ibid, p. 307 ; cf. p. 209. •• Heb. iv. 4. s Ver. 1. « Vers. 2, 3. 7 Vers. 1, 8. 1 6 The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. world, while yet in David's time the rest is spoken of as still to come.i Neither did the possession of Canaan realise this rest.^ It remains, therefore, for the people of Grod — a Sabbath rest still to be entered.^ Its Sabbatic character has been further heightened by Christ's entrance into Kis rest.* On this view of the writer's meaning the Sabbath appears as a primeval institute, a present, though partial and anticipative, means of initiation into God's rest, and a type of the Eternal Sabbatism. It is not, however, necessary to press this point. It is sufficient for our argument that the Sabbath is represented as taking its origin from the pattern of work and rest set by the Almighty Creator — a pattern which must be thought of as designedly given for the express purpose of sanctioning this law of work and rest for man. The rule by which the Creator bound Himself in His work had as its object the founding of a like rule for man — the being made in His own image.-^ But can it be reasonably supposed that an ordinance, the foundations of which are thus built deep uito the original time-plan of Creation — which rests on an example expressly set by the Creator in His own stupendous? work of making and ordering the world — is not an ordinance dating from the beginning of things, and intended for all, but is a mere ceremonial institute, originating in the wilderness, and passing away with the economy of Moses. Creation work arranged to found a temporary institute for one chosen nation ! The thought is inadmissible. On the view of a primeval Sabbath, instituted for the race, everything is in pro- portion, is harmonious; on the view of Paley and Whately, nothing is. The disproportion between the ordinance and its basis is even ludicrous. We would fail to bring out the whole fulness of Scripture teaching on this subject, did we omit at this stage to notice the interesting light thrown back on the connection of the Sabbath with Creation by the New Testament doctrine of Christ as Creator. Intimations are not wanting in the Old Testament itself of a plurality of Persons engaged in the work of Creation ; ® and the doctrine of an " Angel of the Lord," mysteriously identified with Jehovah, yet distinct from Him, who mediates all acts and revela- ' Heb. iv. 3—7. =^ Ver. 8, 3 Ver. 9. "■ Ver. 10. We adopt Alford's view of the reference to Christ. s The Creative work had regard to man — I. As tending towards him as its goal ; 2. As preparing an abode for him ; and 3. As affording a rule of labour and rest for him. « Gen. i. 26. The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. 1 7 tions of the Godhead,^ gives support to the same view. The New- Testament enables us to put clear meaning into these intimations by teaching us that all revelation is through the "Word" or " Son," who at the first was the immediate Agent in Creation,' and is now, in Christ, sole "Mediator between God and man"^ — who was " before all things," and by whom " all things " still " consist." ^ It Avould unduly lengthen the discussion to dwell on the numerous and explicit passages which affirm this truth, but if, with the help of those above noted, we turn anew to the record of Creation and of the institution of the Sabbath, it is impossible not to be struck with the unexpected harmonies that reveal themselves. The say- ing of Christ — " The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath " ^ — receives a new significance. Christ is necessarily Lord of the Sabbath, because He made it. He made it, and He made man, whose physical and spiritual well-being it is intended to subserve. It is His own rest after Creation which the Sabbath commemo- rates, and the glory of His works in Creation which the Sabbath gives opportunity for celebrating. It was through Christ, the writer to the Hebrews assures us, that God " made " or " con- stituted " the " world," literally, the " ceons." ^ Assuming the "days" in Genesis to be — as we think most probable — feonic days or periods, we may connect them with these " aions " which Christ constituted, and we are reminded that one end in the con- stitution of them was to afford to man His rule of work and rest. In this light, further, we perceive the underlying identity of the Sabbath and the Lord's Day. The Sabbath turns out to be a " Lord's Day " too, as founded by Christ, who is the " Firstborn " in Creation, as well as " Firstborn " from the dead, " that in all things He might have the pre-eminence." '' And the Lord's Day is a " Sabbath," as retaining, in addition to its special significance as a memorial of the Resurrection, the reference to Christ's work and rest as Creatoi*. This cannot be thought of as dropped in a day expressly devoted to the celebration of the glory of the Divine Word. The New Testament doctrine forbids that this reference to Creation should be dropped. Christ has entered on a higher rest — intensifying the Sabbatic character of the Day ^ — but the allusion to the former rest is in no wise lost. 'Gen. xvi. 7-14; xxi. 17, 18; xxii. 11-18; xxxi. 11-1.3, &c. ^.John i. 1-18 ; Col. i. 15-18; Heb. i. 1-3; 10-12, &c. 3 i Tim. ii. 5. ••Col. i. 17. sMarkii.28. «Heb. i. 2. ^Col. i. 16-lS. « Heb. iv. 10. 1 8 The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. Note. — The Days of Creation. We are not to be driven from our belief in the six clays' work by any difficulties which may be raised in harmonizing the record in Genesis with the results of modern science. These difficulties, we believe, can be met, but apart from conjectural solutions, the fact of the Divine rest at the close of six days' labour is too plainly stated, and too much is built on it, both in the Old Testament and in the New, to permit of us regarding it in any other light than as a veritable reality in the divine experience. The term expresses not simply the return of the Divine Nature into repose after the exceptional forth putting of energy involved in the work of Creation, but also the joy and satisfac- tion of the Creator in the contemplation of His finished works. On the other hand, we have not thought fit to enter into the qucestio vexata of the nature of the days. We have indicated in the text our preference for the view which re- gards them as agonic. This, which is most in accord with Geology, also gives the grandest view of the basis of the Sabbath. In favour of it is the fact that the rest of God, at any rate, can hardly be regarded as other than aeonic. It is a prolonged, still continuing rest, and so is represented in the Epistle to the Hebrews.' The difficulty felt on this theory, that it seems to introduce an equivocal use of the word "day" into the fundamental text in Genesis, God's day being a long- continuing period, but man's day an ordinary period of 24 hours, may be met by pointing out that, even in the latter case, " day " is used in a certain generic sense. It is not one solitary day of 24 hours in the beginning of man's history which God blessed and sanctified, but each successive day in all the ages of man's exist- ence. It needs, as it were, all man's recurring Sabbaths to equate in this passage with God's one Sabbath. The representation in Gen. ii. 4, is simply that of a Great Week of Work, and no information is given, absolutely, as to the duration of the week, or of the days which compose it.* The object is to bring God's work, as far as possible, into line with man's, with the view of setting an example ; but it does not follow that the scale of duration in the two cases is the same. Just as we can speak of " degree " in geography, meaning at one time the extensive section on the earth's surface, and at another, the tiny section which represents this on a map, so we can speak at one time of God's day, and at another, of man's. (4.) Yet a fourth argument in favour of the primeval origin of the Sabbath may be drawn from the connection of the Sabbath toith the nature of man. It may be held as admitted that such a connection exists. The Sabbath is a necessity for man as at present constituted. Mind and body need periodic rest, and the Sabbath provides it in precisely that proportion — one day in seven — which experience shows to be most beneficial. Its adaptations to man's nature in other respects are not less obvious. It is the corner stone of family life ; a necessity for moral culture ; an indispensable condition o£ fulfilling the duties of religion. " If," says a living historian of humane progress, " the world, by any madness or degeneracy, should ever renounce its ' Heb. iv. ^ It is noteworthy tliat the Chaldean account of Creation appears to represent the days as long-continuing periods. See Vigouroux, La Bible et les D6couvertes Modernes, Vol. I., p. 186. The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 1 9 faith in the supernatural, it would be compelled to renew the Sabbath under some other name, so indispensable is it for human progress." ^ There is no keener anti-Sabbatarian than Mr. R. Cox, yet he says : " I know of no man who desires the abolition of the weekly day of rest — an institution so plainly adapted to the bodily, intellectual, and emotional wants of human nature." " We quote another witness — one, also, from whose views on most subjects connected with the Sabbath we are compelled earnestly to dissent. " If," says the Rev. F. W. Robertson, " the Sabbath rest on the needs of human nature, and we accept His decision that the Sabbath was made for man, then you have an eternal ground to rest on, from which you cannot be shaken. A son of man may be lord of the Sabbath day, but he is not lord of his own nature. He cannot make one hair white or black. You may abrogate the formal rule, but you cannot abrogate the needs of your own soul. Eternal as the constitution of the soul of man, is the necessity for the existence of a day of rest. Further still, on this ground alone can you find an impregnable defence of the •proportion, one day in seven : — on the other ground it is unsafe. Having altered the seventh to the first, I know not why one in seven might not be altered to one in ten. The thing, however, has been tried ; and by the neces- sities of human nature the change has been found pernicious. One day in ten, prescribed by revolutionary France, was actually pronounced by physiologists insufficient. So that we begin to find that, in a deeper sense than we at first suspected, ' the Sabbath was made for man.' Even in the contrivance of one day in seven, it was arranged by unerring wisdom. Just because the Sabbath was made for man, and not because man was ordained to keep the Sabbath-day, you cannot tamper even with the iota, one day in seven." ^ What does this come to ? It means simply that the Sabbath is an unchangeable necessity of man's nature, as much as food or drink — that he cannot, if he would, do without it — that, if he would maintain his health, morality, and working efficiency, he must continue to observe it — that, in short, to use the forcible words of Mr. Gladstone, " from a moral, social, and physical point of view, the ' Gesta Christi, by C. Loring Brace, p. 142. ^ Cox, Literature of the Sabbath Question, Vol. II., p. 362. 3 Sermon on The Shadow and Substance of the Sabbath, First series, p. 92. 20 The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. observance of Sunday is a duty of absolute consequence."^ It cannot be questioned, further, that this necessity for a Sabbath, instead of becoming less, is becoming, as time advances, increas- ingly greater.- All this strongly conflicts vs^itli the view of those who regard the Sabbath as a mere Jewish ordinance, now passed away ; and as powerfully corroborates the other view that the Sabbath was given to man at the beginning of his existence, and was intended for his use and benefit in all ages. How can that be regarded as the temporary ordinance of an obsolete economy, which so entirely accords with the wants of man's corporeal and spiritual being ; which becomes even increasingly necessary to him, the longer he exists ? To contend for, and even extol the wisdom of these adaptations, and yet speak of the Sabbath as part of the " beggarly elements " now s^/ept away, is to take up a curiously illogical position. The Sabbath, we have seen, is a necessity of man's creaturehood — as Christ declares, it was " made for man." ^ The reasonable inference from this would be that it dates from the time of man's creation. Scripture, accord- ingly, is an agreement with itself, and accords with the facts of human nature, in representing it as part of the earliest established order — as antedating sin itself. (5.) Lastly we adduce in proof of our position various external corroborative evidences. These may be grouped into two classes : 1. Evidence from early Babylonian monuments. 2, Evidence ^ In reply to a deputation, March, 18G9. ^ We may quote two examples of admission ot this, from tlie secular (anti- Sabbatarian) press :— " Nor can there be any doubt that as civilisation Las extended, as labour has increased by the discovery of new and vast industries, the Sunday rest lias become more imperative, and more of a blessing. ... If ever there was a com- mandment, or institution, or custom, call it what we w-ill, that has become, through course of time, more needful for the industrious races of mankind, it is the commandment, or institution, or custom, regarding the Day of Rest." — Glas- goto Herald, on TyjidaU's Speech, Oct. 26th, 1880. "Few thinking men would deny that it is a right and necessary thing to guard carefull}', and even jealously, against encroachment on the privileges of the ' day of rest. ' It is not good for a man, considered simply as a money- making machine, to have mind and body constantly stretched on the rack of business, and humanity has much higher and more complete needs and aims than the accumulation of wealth. He is a public benefactor who does anything to preserve or to increase the common fund of leisure for the refreshment and recreation of the physical and spiritual faculties of man after the toils of the week." — Scotsman, May 27th, 1884. 3 Mark ii. 27. TJie Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 2 1 from other sources, respecting (1) the early existence of a seven- day division of time ; and (2) the existence of a weekly sacred festival. 1. Evidence from early Babylonian monuments. Recently de- ciphered Chaldean records have cast a flood of light on the early observance of the Sabbath. These records are preserved in copies made of them by Assyrian Kings in the 7th century B.C., and their sense has been tolerably well established. The originals in the Accadian dialect go back to the time when Babylonia was in possession of a people speaking this language, that is, to about 2000 B.C., or earlier. They contain accounts of the Creation, the Deluge, the Building of the Tower of Babel, and of other matters, strikingly in accord with the narratives in Genesis, though overgrown by a debasing polytheism. Their testimony to the subject we are investigating is of the following nature : (1) It is now perfectly definitely ascertained that a Sabbath was observed in ancient Babylonia, not only prior to Moses, but long before the time of Abraham. We are told — " There can be no doubt that the Sabbath was an Accadian institution, intimately connected with the worship of the seven planets. The astronomi- cal tablets have shown that the seven-day week was of Accadian origin (?) each day of it being dedicated to the sun, moon, and five planets,^ and the word Sabbath itself, under the form of Sabattu, was known to the Assyrians, and explained by them as ' a day of rest for the heart.' A calendar of Saint's days for the month of the intercalary Elul makes the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th days of the lunar months Sabbaths, on .which no work was allowed to be done. The Accadian words by which the idea of Sabbath is denoted, literally mean, ' a day on which work is unlawful,' and are interpreted in the bilingual tablets as signify- ing ' a day of peace,' or ' completion of labours.' " ^ In another passage, translated by Mr. Sayce, the 19th day Sabbath, which had its origin in a peculiar double mode of computation, disappears. The words are — " The moon, a rest for the 7th day, the 14th day, the 21st day, the 28th day, causes."^ A peculiarity of the Chal- dean system of reckoning was that a new series of weeks began with the first of every month. The effect of this would be to throw the Babylonian Sabbaths out of line with the Sabbaths • See this on pp. 22, 23, 25. = Smith's Chaldean Genesis, by Sayce, p. SO. 3 Trans. Bib. Arch. Soc, Vol. III., p. 313. 22 The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. of any nation that counted right on. The points here established are, that a Sabbath was observed in ancient Babylonia, and among the still older Accadians ; that it was a weekly festival ; that it bore the name " Sabattu," meaning, " a day of rest for the heart ;" that it was a holy day, and was marked by abstinence from ordinary Ip.bours. The day of its observance was the seventh, not the first, of each week. It may further be observed, as bear- ing on the planetary theory of the origin of the week, that the Sabbath in Babylonia was dedicated to no one god exclusively. This is shown by the Calendars. The 7th day was a festival to Merodach ; the 14th was consecrated to Beltis and Nergal ; the 21st to the moon and sun ; and the 28th to Hea and Nergal, whose " rest day " it is expressly said to be.^ (2) There was a Chaldean account of Creation agreeing in the main with the Biblical account of the Creation of the world in six days. It is preserved to us in an Assyrian version which is not older than about 677 B.C., but the tradition which it embodies must be of far earlier date.^ Mr. Sayce says, " The last tablet probably con- tained an account of the institution of the Sabbath." ^ Lines are found in the fifth tablet which are thought by some to contain an allusion to the Sabbath, thus — " On the seventh day a holy day he appointed, And to cease from all business he commanded." But this translation is not sustained by exact scholars. The word rendered " holy day" is literally "a circle," and the second line is of doubtful meanino-. A literal rendering is said to be — •t> " On the seventh day a complete circle They open when at dawn. " ■* Yet even in this amended form there is a reference to the week as a completed revolution of time. (3) The oldest records testify to a pre-Chaldean use of the week. Sayce, Proctor, and others, ' Sayce in The, Academy, Nov., 1875. ' Mr. Sayce says — " It does not appear that this last was of Accadian origin, at all events there is no indication that it was translated into Assyrian from an older Accadian document." — Fres/i Light froin Ancient Monuments, p. 26. But most follow Mr. Smith in thinking that the account represents a very old tradition. Cf. Chaldean Genesis, p. 56. 3 Fresh Light, &c. p. 26, 4 Johnstone in Catholic Presbyterian, Jan., 1881. The renderings given by different writers widely vary. TJie Sabbath Scripttirally and Practically Considered. 23 indeed, speak freely of the week as an Accadian invention.^ But it is overlooked that the Accadian documents themselves trace the week to a remote antiquity. In the Deluge tablets, e.g., the seven day period frequently recurs. It has been said of the re- cital that it " proceeds by hepdomads." The introduction of solar months seems early to have given rise in Babylonia, as in other countries,^ to a double mode of computing. Mr. Sayce says — " The month was divided into two halves of fifteen days each, these being further sub-divided into three periods of five days."^ But he adds — "A week of seven days was also in use from the earliest ages." * The fact that at a later period " the days of the week were named after the sun, moon, and five planets," ^ affords not the slightest reason for thinking that this was the origin of the seven-day division. NoU. — The Chaldean and Biblical Traditions. We are aware that the facts we have adduced as confirmatoi-y of Genesis are put by some to a very different use. Tlie newest fashion is to speak of the Chaldean "legends," as the originals, of which the Biblical accounts are simply "expurgated" copies.* Similarly, the Jews are supposed to have derived their Sabbath from Chaldsa, either through Abraham, or at a later period, through connection with Egypt. 7 We cannot adopt this hypothesis. The Biblical accounts must rather be held to represent the older and purer traditions, of which the Chaldean stories — containing as is acknowledged, "much fabulous matter, and not a little that is monstrous " ^ — are the distorted and corrupt representations. 5 Mr. Johnston justly says — "The purity and simplicity of the Bible narrative strikes us as all the more certainly in- spired by the Spirit of God, when we see the admixture of truth and error, wisdom and folly, that ai-e mixed up in the early legends which must have been current in the daj's of Moses and the pati'iarchs. " '° We have our Lord's authority for re- garding the Genesis narrative as an authentic source of information in what relates to the primitive condition and arrangements. His appeal to it as proof of what was "in Uie beginning " in the case of marriage," leaves us no alternative but to accept it as authoritative on the question of the Sabbath. The hypothesis of a Chaldean origin of the Sabbath is opposed by the cuneiform documents themselvesj which, as we have seen, suggest an account in agreement with Genesis. 2. Babylonian momuments, however, are only one quarter from which a variety of evidences corroborative of Scripture are ob- tained. The testimony from other sources relates : — ' Sayce, ut supra. Proctor, Pleasant Ways in Science, p. 400 : and Contemp. Review, Vol. XXV., p, 617. =^ E. g Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, see p 24. 3 Babylonian Literature, p. 54. •» lb. s /6. * Sayce, Lenormant, Proctor, &c. 7 This is Mr. Proctor's theory, Contemp. Review, Vol. XXV., p. 021. ^ Proctor, Pleasant Ways, &c. , p. 390. 5 Vigouroux, La Bible et les Decouvertes Modernes, Vol. I., pp. 191-193. '° Catholic Presbyterian, Jan., 1881, p. 43. " Matt. xix. 4-6. 24 The Sabbat Ji Scriptttrally and Practically Considered. (1) To the existence and use of the week. It is generally acknowledged that the septenary division of time was known to most nations of antiquity. In Egypt the months were, from a very early time, divided into decades — the simplest division of a solar month — but this did not exclude the seven-day division. Canon Rawlinson indeed says : — " There is no indication that the week of seven days was admitted by the ancient Egyptians, or even known to them," ^ but in this opinion he stands nearly alone. Wilkinson, in the same author's " Herodotus," gives evidence of the existence of the week." Dion Cassius expressly says that the existing nomenclature of the days of the week was derived from the Egyptians.^ So certain is Mr. Proctor of the existence of the week in Egypt, that he supposes it to have been from this source that the Jews obtained their knowledge of it.* The Assyrians received the week, with its Sabbaths, from the Babylonians. " The Assyrian months," says Mr. Smith, " were lunar, and were divided into four parts, corresponding with the four quarters of the moon, the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days beins: the Sabbaths." ^ The Persians had the week.'' Its exist- ence among the Medes, Phoenicians, and Arabians may be inferred from the devotion of these peoples to the worship of the seven planetary bodies.'' Of India, Mr. Johnstone says, " The fact of the existence of a week in the literature of India from the most remote antiquity needs no proof; "* but Max Miiller is of opinion that the planetary week, at any rate, is a comparatively modern importation into the country.^ He dates it from the times of the Greeks and Romans. Decades are at present in use in China, but a yet older form of computation seems to have been that by a week of seven daj's.^** The Greeks also reckoned by decades, though in the Homeric poems there are not indistinct traces of an ' Pulpit Commentary, Exodus, p. 261. ^ Vol. II., pp. 335-6. sxxxvii. 28. 4 ConUmporary Review, Vol. XXV., p. 621. ^History of Assyria, p. 13. ^ Hessey's Bampton Lectures,^. 139; Cox's Literature of the Sabbath Question, Vol. I., p. 114. 7 Lenormant's Ancient History, Vol. II., pp. 46, 221, 324 ; Chaldean Magic, p. 227. 8 Catholic Presbyterian, March, 1881, p. 203. 9 Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 314. '"Johnston's Primitive Sabbath, pp. 9, 13 ; Catholic Presbyterian, March, 1881. pp. 198, 203 ; U.P. Magazine, June, 1884, pp. 240-1. The Sabbat 1l Scriptuj'ally and Practically Considered. 25 earlier septenary division.^ The system of naming the days of the week after the sun, moon, and five planets, in their present order, is a distinct invention. It had its origin in Chaldsea or Egypt, though probably not at so early a date as is supposed," and, previously to the Christian era, had spread throughout the whole East. The Romans received the week in this form, and from them it was communicated to the Teutonic nations. These l)eing the facts,^ what do they prove ? How, apart from the Bible explanation, account, in the first place, for the origin of this particular division of time ? Some, as we have seen, give the week a planetary origin ; others, like Hessey and Cox, prefer to explain it as a rough sub-division of a lunar month. The plane- tary theory we have already rejected as insufiicient. It rests on unproved assumptions, and is at most the explanation of a system of ncwiing. It is opposed by the fact that in the oldest notices we have of the septenary period,^ the days are counted simply by numbers, and the planetary reference is wholly wanting. Yet those who advocate this theory are acute enough to perceive the weakness of its rival. The lunar hypothesis is alleged to be com- mended by its " obviousness." But is it obvious ? A lunar month consists alternately of twenty -nine and of thirty days, and seven days is not an exact aliquot part of either. Unless intercalation were resorted to, a few months would suffice to throw the whole i-eckoning out of gear. But even supposing this difficulty got over, how account, in the next place, for the prevalence of the ' See these collected by Mr. Hughes in Cox's Literature of the Sabbath Question, Vol. 1,, p. 282. We agree with Mr. Johnston that much cannot be proved from the passages usually quoted from ancient writers on the authority of Aristobulus, Eusebius, and Clement of Alexandria. The utmost they suggest is a certain sacredness attaching to the number seven. ^ The system had an astrological basis. The hours were devoted in succession to the planetary god ruled by them, and each day was devoted to the j)lanet, which, following this succession, ruled its first hour. This would hardly be practicable in a country where each month began the weeks afresh. We know little of early Babylonian tlieories, and astronomy in Egypt does not appear to have been far advanced. See Renouf's Hibbert Lectures, 1879, pp. 29-30. 3 We have not entered into the evidence of the week among the lower races, but Hessey is quite wrong in asserting, " It is only in the East a septenary division is found to prevail. ... If we turn to the New World we find septenary institutions utterly unknown to the aboriginal inhabitants of the two Americas and of Polynesia."— Bamjjtoii Lectures, p. 140. See evidence to the contrary in U.P. Magazine, June, 1884, pp. 240-42. + The Bible, the Deluge Tablets, the Sabbath Calendars, &c. 26 TJie Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considei'ed. week ? The nations known to liave possessed the week are tor. numerous, and too widely spread, to admit of the supposition that one invented it, and communicated it to the rest. It is not a division of time which nations, left to themselves, have shown any proneness to adopt, but one, rather, which they have shown a disposition to depart from. No supposition is so credible, or fits in so entirely with the facts, as that of a wide-spread immemorial tradition, handed down from the times succeeding the flood, and carried by the nations with them to their respective seats.^ .A.nd this is the view which the Bible sanctions. (2) The existence of a weekly sacred festival. The septenary period is itself a witness to the existence of a sacred day. " It is not necessary," says Mr. Johnston truly, " to prove that a week must have one day which stands out distinct from all the others by some peculiar feature of its own ; and it would be easy to prove that every division of time corresponding to our week has always had a day of sacred character." ^ Except on the supposi- tion of a sacred day, marking off one weekly period from another, it is difficult to see how a septenary division could be maintained. Another indirect trace of the sacredness of the seventh portion of time is found in the peculiar sanctity universally attributed by ancient nations to the number seven. Everywhere, as Lenormant felicitously expresses it, this number bore a " sacramental " char- acter. Abb^ Vigouroux says it was " un nombre mystique." ^ In an article on The Holiness of the Numher Seven among the Accadians, Mr. Sayce says : — " Innumerable are the evidences of this opinion which are found in the tablets."^ Seven was a sacred number in Egypt.^ The evidence for the existence of a sacred day among the Babylonians and Assyrians has already been exhibited. With respect to other nations, the evidence flows in two lines, one tend- ing to identify the first, and the other, the seventh, day of the week with this sacred day. Beyond the mystical character attached to the number seven, no reliable evidence, so far as we know, exists to show that a sacred day was observed among the ' It is in our favour that the nations showing most distinct knowledge of tlie week are those about the original seat and cradle of the race. ^ Primitive Sabbath, p. 16. See also Hodge's Theology, Vol. III., p. 327. 3 La Bible et les D&couvertes Modernes, Vol. I., pp. 97, 92. 4 Records of the Past, Vol. III., p. 143. 5 Vigouroux, ut supra. The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. 27 Egyptians. Mr. Proctor is assured " that the Egyptians dedicated the seventh day of the week to the outermost or highest planet," and adds, "it is presumable that this day was a day of rest in Egypt ; " ^ but as his only proof of this is the fact that the Jews, who came from Egypt, and are supposed to have brought the Sabbath with them, thus observed it, his argument cannot be held to be of much account. We are on safer ground when we pass to the worship paid throughout antiquity to the Sun Deity. In countries addicted to the worship of the heavenly bodies, the towers appropriated to this worship were built in seven stages, each faced with the colour of one of the planets. The Sun was gold, the Moon silver, Mars vermilion, &c.^ This seven-staged tower has been called " an architectural s3'mbol of the week." It is certain that in any system of naming the days of the week after the celestial bodies, the day devoted to the Sun would be- that appointed for special honour. On the other hand, supposing a sacred day already to exist, it is this day which would be specially consecrated to the Sun. When, therefore, we find the planetary week, with the Sun's Day at the head of it, willingly accepted by most Eastern nations, we are entitled to infer that in many of these countries a special respect was paid to the first day of the week, or the day which we now denominate Sunday. It is a striking fact that to this day the Mandasans of Southern Mesopotamia, among whom old Chaldean customs are preserved, observe Sunday, and dedicate the days of the week to the planets.^ Other interesting traces exist of the honour anciently paid to the Day of the Sun. 'Ilie Imperial Almanac of China, for example, is found to have a particular mark attached to each recurring- seventh day. This mark is now ascertained to be a sign for the name of the Persian Sun-God Mithras, and the day to which it is affixed is that which corresponds with the Sunday of other nations. "It was," says Mr. Johnston, "introduced into China from India, and at the same or a later time than the planetaiy week, was combined with the old system of astronomy and astrology."^ The same writer mentions another fact. The Chinese, it appears, count 28 constellations, which they divide ' Gontemp. Review, Vol. XXV., pp. 615, 620. ® Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 227; History, Vol. I., p. 463, &c. 3 U. P. Magazine, Dec, 1883, p. 534. 1 Catholic Presbjyterian, Mar., 1881, p. 202. B 28 TJie Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. into groups of sevens, assigning a day to each. The central one in each group is that marked by the astronomical character for the Sun, and is identical with our Lord's Day, or Sunday. This division ot the constellations is said to go back to the remotest antiquity.^ While speaking of China, two passages may be quoted from the oldest classics bearing on our subject. The first affirms — " Seven days complete a revolution : " and the second says — " On the seventh da}^ all the passages {i.e., public roads and canals) are closed." ^ When, to these proofs of earlier reverence, we add the general esteem in which the Day of the Sun was held at the beginning of the Christian era, and the high-sounding epithets bestowed on it — " Lof d's (Apollo's) Day," " Venerable Day of the Sun," tfec.,^ we miglit almost be entitled to regard the first day of the week as the sacred day of oldest standing in the East. It is clear, however, from notices we possess, that there was another day of the week held in special respect among ancient nations, which rivalled the Day of the Sun as a candidate for sacred honours. This was the seventh day, in the planetary week the day devoted to Saturn, or our Saturday. The Babylonians and Assyrians, as we have shown, kept holy the seventh, the fourteenth, the twenty-first, and the twenty-eighth days of each month. The Syro-Phoenicians are known to have had the same sacred day as the Jews. Saturday was the sacred day in Central Arabia, previous to the time of Mahommed, It is still called el sebt, the Sabbath.^ Philo, Josephus, and Clement of Alexandria, bear express testimony to the extent of the observance of a seventh day festival. Thus, Philo speaks of the seventh day as '' the festival, not of one city or country, but of all the earth ; "^ and Josephus says, "There is no town of Greeks, nor of bar- barians, nor one single people, where the custom of the seventh day, on which we rest, has not spread."^ It can be judged whether so widespread an observance'' is to be attributed wholly, ' Ibid., p. 199. ^ IblcL, pp. 200, 201 ; U. P. Mag., June, 1884, p. 241. 3 This is even made a point of by those who would seek to derive Christian in- stitutions from pagan sources. "■ See authorities in U. P. Magazine, Dec, 1883, p. 534. s Creation of the World, Sect. 30. ^ Contra Apion II., 39. On these passages cf. Proctor, Coiitemp, Review, Vol. XXV., p. 613, and Max Muller, Science of Religion, pp. 309-11. 7 Traces of a weekly sacred day are found even among; African tribes, the Gallas and the Ashantes. XJ. P. Mag., June, 1884, p. 240 The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. 29 as the vanity of Josephus \\'onld attribute it, to imitation of the Jews. To these various evidences of the pro-Mosaic and primeval origin of the Sabbath, what remains to be opposed ? As respects the pre -Mosaic origin, we might rest the case on the monuments alone. Their evidence is decisive. We now know that whatever ingenious arguments are adduced to prove that the Sabbath was not older than Moses, they must be illusory, for we have records in hand which show it to have been in existence as early as the times of Abraham. In the light of Assyrian discovery, the proleptic interpretation of Gen. ii. 3 must soon come to be regarded as an anachronism. We are content, however, to examine the reasons usually advanced. (a.) The first argument is that a silentio. If the Sabbath existed before Moses, it is unaccountable, say Paley^ and his school, that there should remain no trace of it in the history of the patriarchs. Dr. Hessey also uses this argument.^ Ttie best reply to it is a passage found in his own pages. " It is," he says, " impossible to estimate the comparative importance of an institution in the ancient church by the mere number of times on which it is mentioned. The Sabbath is seldom spoken of in the historical parts of the Old Testament,^ albeit it was the ' sign ' between God and the Israelites. It was always and everywhere implied." ^ Even could it be shown, which it cannot, that the patriarchs did not observe any stated days of worship, this would not overthrow the testimony in Genesis ii., any more than their admitted polygamy overthrows the primeval institution of marriage. But it is not so clear that there are absolutely no traces of an observance of a Sabbath by the patriarchs. Many writers,^ such as Grotius, Baxter, Isaac Watts, Bishop Beveridge, Dr. Hawkins, and the authors of the articles Sabbath, in Kitto's Cyclopcedia and Encyclopcedia Britannica (8th edition), hold the Lord's Day and the Sabbath to be distinct institu- tions, yet regard the existence of a patriarchal Sabbath as ex- ' Moral Philosophy, Bk. V. - Bampton Lectures, p. 137. 3 It is not once mentioned in any of the historical books after the Pentateuch till the 2nd Book of Kings. •* Bampton Lectures, p. 67. 5 The opinions of these writers may be seen in Hodge's Theology, Vol. III., p. 326 ; Hessey's Bampton Lectures, pp. 14, 146, 357 ; and Cox's Literature of the- Sabbath Question, Vol. L, p. 220; Vol. II., pp. 188-90. 30 The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. tremely probable. Not to press the passage in Genesis iv, 3, there is the evidence afforded by the existence of the week, and the fact that Job's seventh day seems to have been a holy one/ Kurtz says — " At any rate the division by weeks was known in the patriarchal age. We find it, in fact, as early as the history of the flood, and we have a proof of its symbolical or religious meaning in its connection with marriage festivals (ch. xxix. 27, 28) ; and also with the rite of circumcision (ch. xvii. 22). Hence it is not in itself an improbable thing that there may have been some kind of festival connected with the seventh day as early as the days of the patriarchs." - If, besides, as Dr. Hessey admits, the Fourth Commandment involves a moral element — viz., an obliga- tion recognisable by the moral sense, to devote some time, perhaps a periodically recurring time, to God's service, and, inferentially, to rest from worldly occupations as a necessary condition to the performance of such obligation," ^ — how can he consistently hold that the patriarchs were exempt from this obligation, and observed no holy days ? (Z).) A second argument, confidently founded upon, is that drawn from the narrative of the giving of the manna in the wilderness.^ In this passage, it is alleged, we have not only the first distinct trace of the existence of the Sabbath, but positive evidence that the Sabbath was previously unknown. For first, had the rulers and congregation been familiar with the Sabbath, they could scarcely have shown the surprise they did at the double fall of manna on the sixth day.® Next, Moses, in explain- ing the occurrence, uses indefinite terms in speaking of the Sab- bath. He does not say, as in the Authorised Version, "To-mor- row is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord," but, as the Revised Version correctly gives it, " To-morrow is a solemn rest, a holy Sabbath unto the Lord," ® and after the manna had come, " To-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord," "^ and " On the seventh day is a Sabbath (Heb.), in it there shall be none." ^ Finally, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather manna, another proof that they were unaccustomed to Sabbath keeping." Mr. Johnston, in his " Primitive Sabbath Restored," so far agrees with these arguments, that he thinks them a reason for suppos- ' See p. 12, and cf. Lange's Genesis, p. 197. = The Lord's Day, p. 7. ^ Bampton Lectures, p. 24. * Ex. xvi. 5 Ver. 22. ^ Ver. 23. ^ Ver. 25. ^ Yqv. 26. 9 Ver. 27. Tlie Sabbath ScripUirally and Practically Considered. ^ r ing that the day of observance was at this time changed — the Sabbath being shifted back from the first day of the week to the seventh.^ But if this were the reason of the surprise of the rulers, it would be natural to expect plainer intimations of the fact ; and, surely, if such a change took place, it was more likely to have been effected, as Dr. Lee thinks it was,^ at the time of the Exodus, than four or five weeks after. All the difficulties of the narrative are met by the supposition that the Sabbath had fallen into considerable desuetude in Egypt, and that the people, escaped from a long and degrading bondage, had no very clear ideas of its holy observance. It does not follow, however, that this was the first institution of the Sabbath. Many things con- flict with this idea. It is on the face of it incredible that an institution so important should be introduced in this casual, un- announced way — should be taken for granted in certain outward arrangements, then, when surprise had been awakened, should be first made known by the side door of an explanation of the novel injunctions. Such a case of the existence of an important insti- tution being assumed before the law which gave it existence has been either promulgated or heard of, is without precedent or parallel in history. It seems clear enough that whether Israel knew of the existing Sabbath or not, God did, and framed His ar- rangements with a view to it, and in such a way as to restore to it its pristine honour. The narrative, in its details, entirely sup- ports this view. In ver. 5, Moses is told, as a matter requiring no explanation, that on the sixth day the people are to gather twice their usual quantity. The Sabbath is not mentioned, yet Moses, when challenged by the people, has no difficulty in assigning the Sabbath as the reason of the double fall. Throughout the trans- action, a clear distinction is drawn between the six days and the seventh. The expressions, " The seventh day, which is the Sab- bath," ^ " See, for that the Lord hath given (or gave) you the Sabbath," * " So the people rested on the seventh day," ® almost read like an echo of Genesis ; and the command is peremptory, " Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day." ® It must surely be regarded as a noteworthy circumstance that, in arrang- ing the affau-s of Israel, with a view to the recovery of the people from the low and demoralised condition, physically, morally, and ' pp. 25, 48. = Sermon on the Sabbath, p. 7. ^ Ver. 28. 4 Ver. 29. s Ver. 30. * Ver. 29. 32 Tiie Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. spiritually, into which they had fallen, and with a view to their elevation to a state of prosperous national existence, God's first step, even before the law was given from Sinai, was to put on a proper foundation the observance of the Sabbath. So far, therefore, from conflicting with our previous conclusions, this episode in the wilderness, rightly considered, is found materially to support them. III. We might here conclude this part of our inquiry. Before however, doing so, it may be well to gather up kesults, and ask ourselves what view is reached from the passages we have studied as to the nature of the Sabbath, and its primeval shape and mould. We have found that the Sabbath had a place among the first, the earliest, the original things in society. It was, like marriage, from " the beginning." ^ It was an institute for man, not for any one section of the race.^ It was given to man while yet unfallen, is adapted to the con- stitution of his nature, and was designed for his highest good. Sin has not abolished the Sabbath, but has made it more a necessity than ever. In man God stayed His creative hand. The works were " com- pleted " or " finished " only when there stood at the head of them a rational, immortal being, capable of entering into tlie Creator's plans, of holding intelligent converse with his Maker, of sharing with Him the joy and satisfaction with which He surveyed the orderly universe, of adoring, serving, and enjoying Him. Man himself was the rest-point in creation. " And as God in him, so he, again, in God, must find his satisfying and refreshing rest." = The primary text upon the subject gives us the following determinations as to the nature of the Sabbath : — 1. It was a day of rest. Grotius ■• and others have thought that the patriarchs, whilst they observed a seventh-day festival, did not observe it as a day of rest. But rest from earthly labours ' Matt. xix. 4. " Paley acknowledges — "If the Divine command was actually delivered at the creation, it was addressed no doubt to the whole human species alike ; and continues, unless repealed by some subsequent revelation, binding ou all who come to the knowledge of it." — Mo7\ Phil., Bk. V., sect. 7. 3 Fairbairn's Typology, Vol. I. (3rd Ed.), p. 267. * De Veritata Edigionis Christiana', V. 10. The Sabbath S crip tiLV ally and Practically Considered. 33 enters into the very idea of the Sabbath as an imitation and com- memoration of God's rest. God " rested the seventh day," says the Fourth Commandment, " whereupon the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.^ The rest, however, is not a rest of mere idleness. Man rests from Iiis earthly labours only that hio-her powers may be brought into activity." ^ It is a spiritual rest — active entrance into, and participation in, the rest of his Creator. 2. It is a day of joy. " God," it is said, " blessed the seventh day."* This can only mean that He blessed it for man, settled a dowry of blessing upon it for man's benefit. He made it, in the words of Dr. Taylor Lewis, " a holy and beneficent thing among the things of time." ^ This sets the Sabbath before us as meant, in God's design, to be a day of richest happiness for man,^ as every one who spends it in accordance with the ends of its appointment finds it indeed to be. Christ has dowered the Sabbath with new blessing. 3. It is a lioly day. God " sanctified it." ^ To sanctify is more than merely " to separate." It is to separate in a particular way, and for a particular purpose, viz., for the service of a holy God. " Man had to release his body and soul from all their burdens, with all the professions and pursuits of ordinary life, only in order to gather himself together again in God with greater purity and fewer disturbing elements, and renew in him the might of his own better powers.'' Only thus could the day be sanctified to the Lord. This disposes of the view of Cox and others that the Sabbath enjoined only physical rest." ^ Dr. Taylor Lewis has pointed out that the religious aspect of the Sabbath appears more in the universal hallowing in Genesis than even in the later command at Sinai, " where mere rest from labour seems more prominent than religious worship, or that holy ' Ex. XX. 2. - " They rest," says Hooker, " which either cease from their work when they have brought it to perfection, or else give over a meaner work because a better ami worthier is to be undertaken." — Ecc. Pol., Bk. V., Sect. 70. 3 Gen. ii. 3. 4 Lange's Genesis, p. 196. s Cf. Is. Iviii. 13. « Gen. ii. 3. 7 Ewald's Antiquities of Israel, p. 102. « Cox's Lit. ofSabb. Question, Vol. II., pp. 460-2. 34 The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. contemplation of the divine which is the living thought in the cieative account, and which comes out again so emphati- cally in the Christian institution." ^ We shall recur to this again. Another view of the Sabbath is to regard it as tribute — man's tribute of time to his Creator. This is a view not to be overlooked. It is a fitting thing in itself that the Creator should receive from man a tribute of his time. Nature dictates this. The Sabbath provides for it. It is an acknowledgment of our dependence on our Creator, of His sovereignty over us, of His right to our sei'vices, and of His proprietorship in our time as in all else that we possess. But this view is not prominent in Genesis. Agreeably to its beneficent character, the Sabbath appears rather as gift and privilege than as a thing exacted. Promise is before law. Sabbath observance in patriarchal times may be presumed to have been of a simple and primitive kind, consisting, probably, of simple sacrificial worship, and of such rites of purification as we have seen employed by Job,- conjoined with prayer, instruction ' and blessing. Agricultural toils would be suspended. An inter- esting point relates to the day of observance. Was it, as after- wards among the Jews, the seventh day of the week, or as now among ourselves, the first ? God's rest was on the seventh day, but this does not settle the matter, for, as has often been pointed out, the seventh day, relatively to the work of Creation, was the first day, relatively to man's existence — that is to say, God's seventh dav was man's first. Man's week began with the Sabbath. On the supposition that the days of Creation were lengthened periods, the case is even clearer. On this view, God's seventh day was not a day of 24 hours at all, and the week for man began absolutely with the day which God sanctified and blessed. " Seventh," in this case, means only seventh in proportion, or as, commemorative of God's seventh-day rest; it does not imply that the day termed seventh was not properly man's first. If this be so, there is no inherent incredibility in the theory, supported by many learned writers, that, in the way of reckoning among the patriarchs, it was the first day of the week which was kept holy.* We have found Dr. Cox giving his sanction to this view in cora- ' Lange's Genesis, p. 198. ^ Job i. 5. 3 Gen. xviii. 19. * Gale, Lee, Blomfield, Johnstone, &c. The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. 3 5 meriting on the book of Job.^ If the Sabbaths of the earliest times were on the first days of the weeks, it would follow that the original Sabbath coincided with our Sunday, that a change was introduced under the temporary Jewish dispensation, and that the Lord's Resurrection on the first day of the week was really a transference of the sacred day back to the primeval day of celebration. The theory cannot be proved, but it may at least be admitted as plausible conjecture. In its favour is the fact, already dwelt on, that throughout antiquity, it was the first day of the week which was immemorially devoted to the Sun, the chief object of worship. On the other hand, the oldest Sabbaths known to us — those of Babylonia — were not on the first, but on the seventh days of their respective weeks. We liave seen, however, that the Sabbaths in Babylonia and Assyria were not reckoned continuously, like those of other nations, but were counted afresh from the first of every month, so that, after all, their testimony is not so decisive against this theory as might at first sight appear. SECTION II. THE PLACE OF THE SABBATH IN THE DECALOGUE AND IN THE JEWISH LAW. Passing from the primeval origin of the Sabbath, we proceed to consider the position which the Sabbath holds in the Decalogue, as a divinely-given summary of fundamental moral duties, and also the place which it holds in the national system of the people with whom of old God entered into covenant. What we discover here will be found strongly confirmatory of the conclusions already reached, and will bring to light aspects of the Sabbath not yet adequately considered. I. We consider, first, the place which the Sabbath holds IN the Decaloguk ^ See p. 12. The writer who most fully works out this argument is Dr. Homes, 1673. 36 The Sabbath ScriptuTally and Practically Consideyed. The law-giving at Sinai marks a distinct stage in the histoiy of revelation. It implies that man's knowledge of his moral duties liad become dim, and that he needed to be reminded of them , that the authority of conscience had become weak, and needed to be reinforced by the voice from Heaven ; that in man's nature there were rebellious tendencies which needed to be restrained and curbed.^ The design of the law-giving was to make man distinctly aware of the compass of his obligations ; to reawaken in his mind a just sense of the Majesty and Holiness of the Sovereign Ruler ; and to bind his moral duties on his conscience by new sanctions. The principles which the law embodied were, as we shall see, of permanent obligation. " It is a brief summary of the whole compass of our duty to God and man. It is a law of supreme excellence — 'holy, just, and good.'^ God's own character is expressed in it ; it bears witness to His unity, spirituality, holiness, sovereignty, mercy, and equity; truth and righteousness are visible in its every precept. Listening to its ' Thou shalts ' and 'Thou shalt nots,' we cannot but recognise the same stern voice which speaks to us in our own breasts, addressing to us calls of duty, approving us in what is right, condemning us in what is wrong." ^ In this divinely promulgated summary of moral duty, the Com- mandment relating to the Sabbath holds a place of honourable prominence. It is the Fourth Commandment in order, and con- cludes the laws of the first table. The First Commandment relates to God's being, the Second to His worship, the Third to His name, and the Fourth to His day. It is the longest of all the precepts, occupying 20 lines out of a total of 54 in the Bible before us. Its terms are these : " 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 shMt 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." * It will be seen that, alike in its preceptive part, and in the ■ Cf. I Tim. i. 9. = Rom. vii. 12. ' Pulpit Commentary on Exodus, p. 486. "* Ex. xx. 8 — 11. The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 37 reason given for its observance, the Commandment is entirely in agreement with the results of previous inquiries. Its express testimony to the primeval hallowing of the seventh day we have already considered. Assuming that the Decalogue is a code of universal human duty, it might be argued either, that if the Sabbath is primeval, it would be likely to find a place in this code ; or, conversely, that since it is found in this code, it must be an institution dating from the beginning of man's history. Both arguments are in favour of the institution at Creation. And with this agrees the word " Remember," standing like a finger- post at the commencement, and pointing back to a tradition hallowed past. It may be noted also, as refuting the notion that the patriarchs observed a seventh day festival indeed, but not the Sabbath, that the Commandment gives this name to the institution in its earliest form. " God blessed the Sahhath day and hallowed it." The view given of the nature of the Sabbath is likewise in harmony with previous deductions. The Sabbath appears in the Commandment as 1. A rest day. Work is not to be done in it. 2. A holy day. God hallowed it at the beginning, and man is to keep it holy. And 8. A day of heneficence. It brought blessed rest from labour for man and beast : for heads of households, for sons and daughters, for man-servants and maid-servants, for the stranger within the gates, for the very ox and ass.^ It brought the members of the household togetlier, united bond and free in the worship of God, gave opportunity of attending to the things of the soul. The chief distinctions are — 1. That what formerly appeared as boon, gift, privilege, rather than as commandment, now, in accordance with the severer atti- tude which man's sin compels God to take up toward him, appears as laio — is couched in the form of the imperative. 2. That more full expression is given to the duty of abstain- ing from work. It is of some importance to note precisely what this prohibition of work in the Fourth Commandment means. Two terms are employed. The first, " labour," in the command, " Six days shalt thou labour," signifies properly servile or menial work. ' Cf. Ex. xxiii. 12. ^ " This is not so much a command as a prohibition. ' Thou shalt not labour more than six (consecutive) days.' In them thou shalt do all thy necessary work, so as to have the Sabbath free for the worship and service of God. "— Ptt/p. Com., in loc. 38 The Sabbath Scripturally a jid Practically Considered. The second, " work," used also in Genesis of God's work,^ is of wider signification, and denotes, generally, any kind of toil. On the one hand, it is to narrow down the meaning of this word too much to identify it simply, as some would wish to do, with " pro- ductive activity," "- or " with the sort of occupation, whether of body or of mind, the condition of which is toil, and the end gain," ^ The work contemplated by the Commandment is rather that kind of work, whether bodily or mental, which takes its origin from man himself, and relates to the objects of his tem- poral existence. " Thy work," the Commandment says. It includes all ordinary pursuits and avocations, though specially, of course, those toils through which men make their living. Nor is this part of the Commandment to be dissociated from the other, which requires that the day be kept " holy." As man is to lay aside his own " work " on that day, so not less is he to lay aside all that belongs to himself — his own pleasure, his own thoughts, his own words and ways, ■* — in order that he may the more entirely devote his powers to God. This is the express reason given why man is not to labour on the Sabbath — viz., that the dav is not his own, but Another's, It is "the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," the sacred portion of time reserved by Jehovah for Himself. To God, therefore, the day is to be sanctified. To Him the thoughts are to be directed ; to Him the aftections are to be elevated ; to Him worship is to be rendered ; for Him work is to be done ; in Him the soul is to rejoice. On the other hand, the precept is certainly not to be read as excluding works which come under the categories of necessity and mercy. It would be as wrong to press the letter of the law to the exclusion of these as it would be to press the words, " Thou shalt not kill," ^ to the exclusion of the right of taking life in self-defence, or in war, or in punishment of crime. Works of mercy, strictly speaking, are not among the works to which the prohibition, even in its letter, applies. They are rather to be regarded as part of the positive duties of the day embraced in the command to keep it holy. And neither works of necessity nor of mercy can be regarded as excluded without making the Commandment, as framed in man's interest, self-defeating, the end in that case being sacrificed to the ' Gen. ii. 3, ^ Jewish Chronicle, February 3, 1865. 3 Kitto's Cyclopcedia, Art., Sabbath. ■* Is. Iviii. 13. s Ex. XX. 13. The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 39 means. Our highest authority on this subject is Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath, and both hj example and precept, supported by- citation of Old Testament precedents. He has taught us that " the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," ^ and that " it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days." - Six days, then, man is to labour and do all his work, following the example of the Divine Architect and Archetype, and on the seventh day he is to rest, and keep holy Sabbath to and with God. Our argument, up to this stage, has proceeded on the assump- tion that the Decalogue is a code of fundamental moral duties binding on all, and that the Sabbath is rightfully entitled to a place in this code. These, however, are positions which, in view of the denial of them by opponents, we must be prepared to support by careful proof. The ground taken — e.g., by such writers as Whately and Hessey — is the exact opposite of ours. With them tlie very fact that the Sabbath is found in the Decalogue is evidence that it was part and parcel of the now abrogated Mosaic system, and was not designed for mankind as such. In vindication of our argument, therefore, it is necessary to show — (1) That the Decalogue is distinct from the Jewish Ceremonial law, and is perpetually valid as a rule of duty ; and (2) that the Sabbath, as a moral institute, has a rightful place in this code. Both of these positions we think it possible to establish on unchallengeable grounds, and the investigation will yield us further valuable light on the nature of the Sabbath. 1, We hold, then, first, that the Decalogue is a moral code dis- tinct from the Jewish Ceremonial law, and perpetually valid as a rule of duty. The ten precepts, uttered by God from Sinai, we take to be distinguished from the ceremonial and judicial statutes subsequently given — (1) As the moral is distinguished from the merely positive ; (2) as the universally obligatory is distinguished from what is local and temporary ; (3) as the fundamental is dis- tinguished from what is derivative and secondary. The Judicial law, e.g., not only drew its spirit and derived its highest authority from the law of the ten words, but was, in its own nature, simply an application of the maxims of this law to the problems of government in Israel. The Ceremonial law, again, with its dis- tinctions of meats and drinks, its sacrifices, &c., bore throughout • Mark ii. 27. = Matt. xii. 12. 40 The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. the character of a positive institution, and had no independent moral worth. It vanished with the economy to which it belonged. That this distinction between the Ten Commandments and the other parts of the law is a valid one is shown — (1) By the remarkable circumstances attending the promulga- tion of the Decalogue. The Ten Commandments, it will be remem- bered, were uttered by God's own voice from Sinai ; they were delivered under circumstances of unexampled majesty and terror; they were inscribed by God's own finger on two tables of stone, the symbols of perpetuity ; they alone were deposited in tlie ark of the Covenant. The names given to them are also significant : they are called " the testimony," ^ "the covenant," ^ " the words of the covenant," '^ " the tables of testimony," ^ " the tables of the covenant." ^ All this bespeaks for the law of the ten words a high and exceptional character. The rest of the law was com- municated privately to Moses, and was through him delivered to the people. This, then, is our first ground. " That the Decalogue had a rank and authority above the other enactments of the law," says the writer in 'Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, "is plain to the most cursory readers of the Old Testament, and is indicated by its being: written on the two tables of the Covenant. And thoucrh even the Decalogue is affected by the New Testament, it is not so in the way of repeal or obliteration. It is raised, transfigured, glorified there, but itself remains in its authority and supre- macy." * The objection commonly urged on the other side — viz., that, notwithstanding these exceptional circumstances in the manner of its promulgation, the Decalogue proves itself to be a merely national code by the words of its preface : " I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt," and by the local colouring of some of its precepts, is without substantial force.'' It is not disputed that tliis law was originall}^ promul- gated to the Israelites, and was intended as the basis of a covenant which God was about to make with that nation. But ' Ex. XXV. 16. = Dent. iv. 13. 3 Ex. xxxiv. 2S. tEx. xxxi. 18 ; xxxii. 15. s Y)ei\t. iv. 9-12. « Art., Sabbath. 7 See this ai-gument stated in Whewell's Elements of Morality, Book III., chap. 16 : Whately's Essay on The Abolition of the Lazu, sect. 2 ; Hengsteii- berg's LonVs Day, pp. 81, 82, &c. TJie Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. 41 this does not affect the question of the nature of the law. All revelation, even that which is most universal in its substance, takes its origin from particular historical occasions, and has a particular liistorical setting. This is as true of the teachings of Christ and of the Epistles of Paul as it is of the law of the Decalogue. The Epistles were written to particular churches, and took their origin and shape from particular circumstances in these churches. Yet they are documents of authority for the Church universal. The real question in regard to the Decalogue is not: To what people was it originally given ? but, In what character was it given ? Was it as a law which concerned Jews only, or was it given as the abiding law of man's duty, embracing in the scope of its obliga- tions Jew and Gentile alike ? That the latter is the right view to take of it is shown by the wholly exceptional circumstances of its delivery, and by the fundamental place which it occupied in God's dealings with Israel. (2) The moral character of the Decalogue is further shown by inspection of its contents. The purely moral character of at least nine of its precepts is not disputed by any. If the Fourth Com- mandment is ceremonial, it must be admitted to be the only frag- ment of ceremonialism which has found its way into the tables. The duty of giving to God the supreme place in our regard, of wor- shipping Him without idols, of reverencing His name, of honouring parents, of respecting human life, of being chaste, honest, and truthful, of not coveting our neighbour's possessions, are duties which in the nature of things cannot be abrogated. They will remain man's duties so long as he is man, conditioned as earth conditions him. Why should it be supposed different with the Fourth Commandment ? Is not the presence of this Commandment in a code in all other respects so entirely moral, a strong reason for thinking that it also must have a moral character ? It is Dr. Hessey himself who reminds us that the seventh-day Sabbath did not stand alone in the Jewish religion — that it was not an isolated ordinance. " There was also a seventh- week Sabbath, a seventh-month Sabbath, a seventh-year Sabbath, a seven-times seven-year Sabbath, or year of Jubilee." ^ We have these manifold Sabbaths in the Mosaic law, yet not one of them appears, or is hinted at, in the Decalogue, save only the seventh-day Sabbath, originally appointed at Creation. Does not this show that it * Bampton Lectures, p. 152. 42 The Sabbath Scnptiirally and Practically Considered. possessed a distinct character ? And is it not preposterous in Dr. Hessey to argue that because these other Sabbaths have passed away, therefore the seventh-day Sabbath must have passed away also, and that the Fourth Commandment, which enjoins it, must be " not purely of a moral character," but, "in many respects, positive, temporary, local, and national ? " (3) A third reason for holding the Decalogue to be a distinct part of the law, of moral character, is found in the recognition of its continued obligation in the New Testament. That diSerent language is used in the New Testament in speaking of the pre- cepts of the Decalogue from that employed in speaking of the ceremonial observances, must be obvious to every one who gives attention to the subject. The shadowy and temporary character of the ceremonial law is constantly insisted on, but both directly, and by implication, the continued obligation of the law of the Ten Commandments is asserted. That there is a law, other than the ceremonial law, which is " holy a.nd just and good," ^ the " commandments " of which are still binding in " the Kingdom of Heaven," ^ which the Gospel does not " make void," ^ but " es- tablishes," and teaches men to " fulfil," * and through the appli- cation of which to the conscience is "the knowledge of sin," is declared in so many words by Christ and the Apostles. That the precepts of this law are those of the two tables is sufficiently shown by numerous quotations from them. The duties of the second table are expressly quoted by Christ in His answer to the young Ruler, " and again by Paul, in enforcing the fulfilling of the law on •Ciiristians.'' Even the Fifth Commandment, which bears the strongest local colouring of the ten, is referred to by Paul as binding on believers, and as " the first commandment with promise." But if the duties of the second table are binding, surely much more those of the first.^ The onus probandi at least lies on those who would show that the Sabbath was an exception. Paul's references to the abolition of Jewish Sabbaths do not, as we shall make clear later on, prove that it was. The Decalogue then is rightly regarded as a moral code. We have further to show that the Sabbath, as a moral institute, has a rightful place in this code. 2. The Sabbath, as a moral institute^ has a rightful place in the ' Rom. vii. 10. " Matt. v. 19. 3 Rom. iii. 31. "* Rom. xiii. 8. s Rom. iii. 20. ^ Matt. xix. 18, 19. ? Rom. xiii. 9. ^ Eph. vi. 2, 3. The Sabbath Scriptitrally and Practically Considered. 43 Decalogue. The presence of the Sabbath in a code which in other respects must be admitted to be a moral one, is felt by those who deny its moral rank to be a difficulty. The common way of getting over this difficulty is to distinguish in the Commandment a so- called "moral" element, in union with a "positive" or "ceremonial" element, the former being still binding, the latter being thrown off, as a Jewish excrescence, with other parts of the transitory Jewish system.^ One serious objection to this viev/, apart from the improbability of moral and ceremonial elements being mixed up in the manner described, is its great vagueness. Writers speak of the " moral element " in the Fourth Commandment, but hardly two agree in their statement of what this moral element is, and, in the case of many, admissions are made which go a considerable way towards obliterating the distinction. The Reformers, e.g., generally held the moral part of the Commandment to require the setting apart of stated times for the worship and service of God, and the ceremonial part to lie in the appointment of the seventh day, and interdiction of all servile work. This interdiction of labour they looked upjn as typical of spiritual rest from sin. Yet not one of them denied the duty and necessity of setting apart one day in the Aveek for the worship of God, and of observing it, literally, as a day of rest from labour.'- Hessey takes a somewhat similar view. The " moral element " in the Commandment is, according to him, "the obligation, cognisable by the moral sense, to devote some time, perhaps even a periodically recurring time, to God's service, and inferentially to rest from worldly occupations as a neces- sary condition to the performance of such obligation."^ Else- where he says that the moral ])art of the Fourth Command- ment " demands a periodic devotion of time to God's service, and inculcates by the mysterious example of the Creator, the alter- nation of rest with labour." ■* It must be plain, we think, that this so-called " moral element " is, apart from direction as to the day, altogether too vague to take much hold on conscience. No one sees this more clearly than Dr. Hessey himself when treating of the grounds of our obligation to observe the Lord's Da}^ He ' Many writers, however, as Witsius, distinguish a "moral" and a "positive" or "ceremonial" element in the Fourth Commandment, and yet hold the Coin- maiulment to be of perpetual obligation. - See the opinions of tiae Reformers discussed in Fairbairn's TypoLoiju, Vol II. 3rd Ed., pp. 478-82. 3 Bampton Lectures, p. 24. * Ibid, p. 209. C 44 ^^^- Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. is not willing to rest iliat on any "obligation, cognisable by the- moral sense, to devote somie time, perliaps a periodically recurring- time, to God's service," leaving it to the church or other authori- ties to say which day shall be observed.^ This, lie rightly says, would ffive the institution no secure hold unon the conscience." He demands for the Lord's Day Divine and apostolic sanction.^ To- the low views entertained by the Reformers on this subject, he attributes most of the evils of the Continental Sunday.'' Does not the argument hold as good for the mention of the seventh day in the Fourth Commandment ? Nay, seeing he founds on the " example of the Creator," which defines the proportion of rest to labour to be one day in seven, must he not, to be consistent, regard the "period" also as entering into the substance of the command. The most conclusive illustration of the perilousness of this distinction of " moral " and " ceremonial," however, is found in the theory and practice of the Romish Church. This Church retains the distinction in her exposition of the Fourth (to her, the third) Commandment, and connects it with the doctrine that the Commandment embraces in the scope of its obligation, not only the Lord's Day, but all church festivals as well. According to the Tridentine Catechism, this Commandment, " if considered as to the time of its observance, is not fixed and unalterable, but sus- ceptible of change, and belongs not to the moral, but to the cere- monial law."^ This ceremonial part — the moral being the dut}^ of appropriating some time to the worship of God'* — is assumed to have been abolished at the death of Christ,^ yet (somewhat incon- sistently) the preceptive and prohibitive part of the Command- ment is taken over in its entirety, and is applied as a rule for the observance of the Lord's Day,*^ which is declared to have been in- stituted by the apostles.^ The Catechism even says, " It hath pleased the Church of God in her wisdom that the religious cele- bration of the Sabbath should be transfei'red to the Lord's Day."^" But as in the ancient Church there were other festivals, beside that of the seventh day, observed by the Jews," so also " from the infancy of the Church and in subsequent times, other days were ' Bampton Lectures, pp. 189, 191. ^ Ibid, pp. 188, 220. 3 Ibid, 191. 4 Ibid p. 253. 5 Cat. of Council of Trent, Cli. lY. Sect. 4. « Sect. 6. 7 Sect. 5. ^ Sects. 20-2-1. 9 Sect. 7. '° Sect. 18. " .Sect. 17. The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 4 5 instituted by the Apostles, and by our holy Fathers," ^ the obser- vance of which, together with the Lord's Day, is included in the scope of this command. This, as respects the Jewish Church, is not unlike Hessey's opinion that the Fourth Commandment was " a general head " under which all Sabbatic ordmances were ranged,"^ yet no writer has shown more forcibly the practical mis- chiefs which have resulted from the working-out of this theory in the Church of Rome. These mischiefs were early apparent. The command, " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," became divested of all significance by being spread over an indefinite number of festivals and Saints' days. Surrounded by these other days, the Lord's Day sank to a place of inferior im])ortance ; all sense of special sacredness in connection with it was lost ; holydays and feast-days multiplied till they " became holidays of the worst kind, mere excuses for licentiousness." The desecration of these reacted on the Lord's Day, and involved its desecration also.' In Romish countries, accordingly, a Sal^bath, in the strict sense of the word, cannot be observed. Holidays annul the observance of the Hohj ^ day, which no longer stands on its grand, simple basis, as the one weekly, God-appointed Day of Rest.' ' Sect. 19. - Bampton Lectures p. 153. -Ibid, pp. 115, 215, 31S. ■* Elsewhere Dr. Hessey, speaking of Sabbath desecration on the Continent, says — " To what may much of this be traced ? In the case of the Cliurch of Rome, I believe to the fact that she has, in order to raise her other festivals in es- timation, lowered the Lord's Day to a mere church ordinance, and liaving done so, is unable to induce her members to consider it anything but a Church daj^ or more binding on their consciences than many of her indefensible ordinances. She still teaches her cliildren the Catechism drawn up by Bellarinine, and sanctioned by the Bulls of Clement VIII. a.d. 1558, and of Benedict XIII. a.d. 1728. That document, I should inform you, travesties the Fourth Commandment thus, 'Remember to keep holy the festivals,' placing every other festival on an equality with the Lord's Day, and by the existence of more festivals than can pos- sibly be observed, producing an irreverent use of all." pp. 252-3. 5 The Rev. Henry J. Piggott, writing from Rome in 1875, says — " The Festivals of the Madonna, and in general those appointed by the Church witliout sanction iu the Scriptures, are far more religiously observed than the Lord's Day. The proportion of shops closed, for instance, on the Festival of the Annunciation, or Assumption, or Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, is always far greater than on au ordinary Sunday, and the number of persons who attend Mass on such a day is far larger than on any Sabbath." The same writer says — " A Society has been formed among the Catholics for the observance of the ' Festivals ' (Sunday being in- cluded, as you are aware, in the Papal countries, under the generic appellation oijete days)." — In Hill's Continental Labour, pp. 39, 41. 46 TJic Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. Grave evils are thus shown to follow from the attempt to tamper with the integrit}^ of the Fourth Commandment as ordaining the keeping holy to God of one day in seven. We proceed to inquire whether good grounds can be shown for this division of the Com- mandment into a moral part and a ceremonial part, or whether there cannot be vindicated for it a right to take full rank as moral. The most obvious reason for reo-ardincr the Fourth Command- ment as partaking of a positive character, — that indeed commonly given, — is its mention of the particular portion of time which is required to be kept holy. This, it is thought, savours of the ceremonial. Natural conscience may show us the propriety of worshipping our Creator, and even of having stated times for God's worship, but the proportion of time to be employed in this way it leaves wholly indeterminate. Natural duties are in- tuitively perceived to be such. We perceive within ourselves the duty of speaking truth, of respecting our neighbour's life, property, good name, &c., but we do not thus perceive an obliga- tion to sanctify precisely one day in seven. It is sometimes added that in the list of charges brought against the Gentiles, Sabbath-breaking is not included, which it would require to have been, were it the breach of a natural obligation. As, however, this last remark might be made with equal truth about polygamy — which i§ a breach of the primitive natural order — it need not further detain us. The other objection merits fuller consideration. It is based, we are convinced, on insufficient observation of the manner in which moral duties arise. What is duty for man is not determined simply by abstract spiritual principles. The law, indeed, ex- presses immutable demands of holiness, but what these are is determined in any given case by two things : by the abstract nature of holiness, and bv the constitution and circumstances of the being to whom the law is given. Man is a free, immortal spirit, but he is at the same time an inhabitant of earth, bound by natural conditions, and standing to his fellowmen in relations, some of which at least belong only to his present state of existence. Hence we find in the Decalogue precepts relating to marriage, to the parental relation, to the institution of private property, &c. These precepts are founded on our nature, and are universally obligatory. They show what duty immutably requires of us as The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 47 possessing such a nature ; but obviously their application will cease under different conditions of existence.^ Only in its funda- mental principles of love to God and to our fellow-beings, and in its spiritiuil demands for truth, purity, uprightness, reverence, and fidelity, is the law ahsolutely immutable. Now why should it be diiferent with the Sabbath ? From abstract considerations alone, without knowledge of man's par- ticular constitution and relations, it would be impossible to deduce hardly any of our acknowledged duties. Conscience would give us no information about them. It would tell us as little of marriage, of the duty of honouring parents, of the sin of theft, as it does of the observance of one day's rest in seven. Supplemented b}^ knowledge, it might pronounce the Sabbath Commandment to be as moral as any of the rest. Have we any evidence that it would do so ? As respects man's physical nature, it has already been shown that there is good reason to believe that the requirement of one day's rest in seven is not an arbitrary enactment, but is based on deep-seated laws in his bodily constitution. Experience proves that the weekly rest-day cannot be dispensed with. Both body and mind break down without it. Man needs not only the rest of sleep, but periodic rest at longer intervals, "and, what is as im- ])ortant to health as sleep itself, he needs change of mood."'' But the period which seems best adapted to him is precisely that which the Sabbath law prescribes. " Nature," says Luther, "requires that one day in the week should be kept quiet, without labour either for man or beast." '■ We have the following testi- mony of Chateaubriand : " We now know by experience that the fifth day is too near, the tenth day too remote, for rest. Terror, which affected everything in France, was never able to compel the peasant to ' fultil the decade,' because there was want of DOwer in human strength to do it, and also, as has been observed. in the strength of animals." ^ Yet more remarkable is the testi- mony of the French socialist and atheist Proudhon, in his pamphlet De la Cdebratlon dw Dimanche, in which he shows that "the precise measure of time allotted to work and rest is so exactly in ' Matt. xxii. .SO. ^ Kitto's Cydopcedia, Art, Sahhafh. 3 Annotations on Fourth Commandment. ■* Genie du Christianisme, Vol. II., cb. iv. 48 TJie Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. accordance with the nature of man, and the surest conchisions of economic science, that by nothmg sliort of consummate wisdom could this proportion have been selected." ^ We quote only one witness further, Dr. Farre, who, in his oft-cited evidence before the House of Commons, in 1832, said, "I consider therefore that the Sabbatical appointment is not, as it has been sometimes theologi- cally viewed, simply a precept partaking of the nature of a political institution, but that it is to be numbered among the natural duties, if the preservation of life be admitted to be a duty, and the premature destruction of it a suicidal act." If these views are sound, what ground remains for the assertion that the proportion of rest to labour prescribed by the Fourth Command- ment is not part of the moral substance of that Commandment ? A "natural duty" must surely also be pronounced moral. The law may not be written on the heart, but it is indelibly inscribed en the constitution of the body. This is sufficient to justify its inclusion in a moral code. In the Fourth Commandment, however, rest is enjoined only in connection with religion. The table which contains the precept is that which prescribes man's duties to God. The rest from labour has for its main object to leave man free to wait on the service of his Maker. If, therefore, the Creator may be allowed to interpret His own ordinance, we may infer that, as the nightly rest recuperates the exhausted energies of the body, so the weekly rest, also required by man's constitution, is mainly intended to recuperate the energies of his spiritual and immortal part. This brings the spiritual nature also within the sweep of the time law of the Commandment. Indeed, so closely related are mind and body, that what is found to be a law for the one may be presumed also to be a law for the other. It may not be possible for man to say what portion of his time is most proper to be devoted to the worship of God and the cultivation of the principles of godliness, but if the Creator, by laws impressed upon his being, has given him an indication that one day in seven is the time most suitable for that purpose, it is obviously a moral duty to observe this proportion. This view of the moral character of the Fourth Commandment is greatly strengthened by two considerations. One is that ' A number of stfiking pcassages from this pamphlet are quoted in Kitto's Cyclo- pvedia. Art. Sahhath. The Sabbath ScripturaUy and Practically Considered. 49 already adverted to : viz., that without connection with a par- ticular day, the alleo-ed " moral element " in the command becomes practically ineffective and imperative. The second is, that, on the contrary view, it is the ceremonial part which occupies the bulk of the Commandment, while the moral part is present only by imphcation. This is unlikely in a code so generally moral. Finally, we may notice the important relation which the Fourth Commandment — this precept which some would obliterate so lightly — holds to the other precepts of the Decalogue. It is no small part of the evil of the distinction between " moral " and "ceremonial" in the Commandment that it tends to neutralise this relation and make it appear as if the Fourth Commandment might be dropped out of the Decalogue without detriment to the precepts that remain. No fallacy could be greater. The Fourth -Commandment proves its right to be regarded as of one piece with the rest of the law, by the fact that without it obedience to the remaining precepts could not long be maintained. A moment's consideration will show the truth of. tliis. The Sabbath, standing in the midst of the DecaloQ;ue, is jTuardian at once of the duties we owe to God, and of the duties we owe to our fellowmen. It brings to most the only opportunity they have of attending adequately to the interests of religion — of waiting on God in worship, of studying the record of His will, of receiving and imparting religious instruction, of raising the thoughts to things that are above. It brino-s the soul into communion with the Source of all light and strength, and so renews the springs of obedience ; frees the heart from worldliness and care ; braces to moral endeavour by reflection on the meaning of existence and the duties and responsibilities of life ; teaches man to love his neighbour as himself. Without a Sabbath, neither could religion be kept alive, nor would man long retain the sense of his spiritual dignity. With loss of self-respect, there comes of necessity Vv'eakened regard for the lives, property, persons, character — in general, for the rights and claims — of others, so that ever}^ Com- mandment suffers. The Fourth Commandment, therefore, lias justly been termed, " the very centre and heart of ' The Ten Words,' and if that, and all that it represents and embodies, be taken away or neglected, the life-circulation, that vitalises the whole body, will fail." ^ A precept of this paramount importance cannot ' Brewin Grant's Essay on the Sahhath, p. 4S. 50 TJie Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. be regavded as auglit but an essential and inseparable part of the law to which it belongs. To this argument the objection is sometimes made that it proves too much — that it would prove us to be bound, not only to the observance of a seventh day, but, like the Jews, to the observance of the last day of the seven/ We reply — 1. Even the appointment of the day is not arbitrary. It rests on broad moral grounds, the commemoration of Creation, the deliverance from Egypt, the Redemption of Christ. 2. A modifiable element — to this extent — might be admitted in the Fourth Commandment without detri- ment to its moral character. " It does not require to be proved," says Dr. Wardlaw, " that a change of the day, for any specially and divinely assigned reason, makes no alteration in the moral character and obligation of the institution."- 3. Nevertheless, it is not apparent that it is any part of the design of the Command- ment to fix the particular day. It defines the Sabbath as the seventh day in relation to previous six days' labour, and com- mands its observance, but it leaves untouched the question of wliicli ])articular day it may please the Creator, at different times, to select for this eminence. It does not, for example, touch the question of whether the Sabbath appointed for Adam, and the Sabbatli as reckoned from the gift of manna, fell on identically the same day of the week. 4. If days are pressed, it may turn out that the first-day Sabbath of Christians has a better right to be regarded as the representative of the original day of institution than the Saturday Sabbath of the Jews. We claim then to have established : — 1. That the Decalogue, or law of the Ten Commandments given from Sinai, is a moral code, and contains the fundamental and unchanging law of man's moral duty. 2. That the Sabbath has a rightful place in this code. 3. Therefore, that the Sabbath is not a purely Jewish institu- tion, but is binding upon all. We have found that the Fourth Commandment is in agree- ment with the Book of Genesis as to the creation origin of the Sabbath and the reason of its institution ; and it confirms the inference drawn from the primitive record that the Sabbath is of universal and perpetual obligation. ^ E.g., Whately, Thoughts on the Sabbath, pp, S, 9 ; Hessey, Bamp. Led., p. 153. =^ Wardlaw's Tract on the Sabbath, p. 8. The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 5 \ The stud}^ of this branch of the subject has yielded us further light as to the moral basis of tlie institution ; as to its observance- as a day of rest ; and as the paramount importance of the Fourtli Commandment as the vitalising precept of the whole moral system. II. The subject which is next to occupy our attention is THE. PLACE OF THE SaBBATH UNDER THE JEWISH LAW, This part of OUr inquiry connects itself naturall}^ with the preceding. Except^ however, in relation to one or two special questions, we purpose to treat it onl}^ under general aspects. It is first to be observed that by incorporation into the national system of tlie Jews the Sabbath was necessarily in some respects modified. A special question here is— Did this modification ex- tend to the day of observance ? In other words, was any change made upon the day of observance of the Sabbath at, or in con- nection with, the Exodus ? It is the view of many that such a change was made, and the question is of sufficient importance tO' merit consideration. One of the best known advocates of this view is Dr. Samuel Lee, in his University sermon on " The Duty of Observing the Christian Sabbath." We shall briefly examine his positions. Dr. Lee assumes that the interference with the Sabbath at the Exodus was very extensive indeed. Not only, in his opinion,, was the Sabbath changed, but the whole system of Sabbath - keeping was put upon a moveable basis. The Sabbath was made- to coincide with the loth day of the month Abib, that is, on his. view, the day succeeding the egress from Eg3q3t, and the first day of the feast of unleavened bread. From this, as a fixed date, the other festivals of the Jewish relio;ion — the feast of weeks, and the- feast of tabernacles, together with the Sabbatical years, and the years of Jubilee — were to be reckoned, the first and last days of the feast of unleavened bread and the feast of tabernacles being always Sabbaths — and the computation of Sabbaths began each year anew. The Jews therefore are wrong in observing their Sabbaths every perpetually recurring seventh day. " The com- mand that the seventh day should be the Jewish Sabbath was general, and must have been subject to the more particular one,. viz. ; that the loth day of Abib, and consequently the 1st, should be a Sabbath." ^ ' Sermon, p. SO. o- The Sabbath ScriptiLvalty and Practically Considci cd. The theory is plausible, but it is not difficult to show that its foundations will not bear examination. It rests on assumptions, all of them in a measure violent. It assumes that the Exodus took place on the 14th, not, as is commonly understood, on the 15th of Abib. The command was that the people were to kill the passover on the 14th day "in the evening-/' literally, " between the evenings," ^ or between early afternoon and sunset. This they did, the feast in-doors taking place at night, or after the loth day had begun. This is the natural reading of the historj^, l3ut the exigencies of Dr. Lee's theory compel him to set it aside, and to take the expression " between the evenings " as meaning "between sunset one day and sunset the next,"- a sense unsup- ported by analogy. The loth day was the day afterwards ob- served as the first day of unleavened bread, and the halt at Succoth, which Dr. Lee identifies with this, and supposes to be the first Sabbath, did not take place till the 16th day. Another assumption is, that the feast of tabernacles was held in the eighth month of the year, whereas the Scripture states expressly that "in the loth day of the seventh month "^ shall this feast be held. The reason for putting it in the eighth month, is, of course, that -otherwise the reckoning would not square, and it is only by an extremely forced interpretation that Dr. Lee gets over the testi- mony to its being held in the seventh.'* Equally unwarranted and opposed to history are the assumptions that the Jewish months were solar, not lunar, and above all, that the Sabbath was reckoned anew from the beginning of each year, and always fell on loth of the month Abib. We have, however, the means of a decisive refutation of this theory in another set of facts, strangely overlooked by Dr. Lee. We refer to the facts connected with the giving of the manna in the wilderness, which give us the means of absolutely dating the ■Sabbaths from the time the Israelites left Egypt. The Israelites, Ave are told, came into the wilderness of Sin "on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt." ^ The manna was given on the next morning, that is, the IGth, and the Sabbath fell on the seventh day thereafter, that is, the 22nd. ''' Reckoning backwards, it is easy to see ■^vhich days must have been the Sabbaths in the first month, or ' Ex. xii., 6. " Sermon, pp. 5, 23. s Lev. xxiii. .39. -* Sermon, p. 28. s Ex. xvi. 1. ^ Johnstone's Primitive Sahhath, p. 43. The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 5 3 tlie montli when the Israelites caine out. Assumhig Abib to be a lunar month of 29 days, the backward reckoning gives — Sabbaths in the second month, 22nd, loth, 8th, 1st ; Sabbaths in the first month (Abib), 23rd, IGth. Therefore Dr. Lee is wrong in countino- the first Sabbath as falling on the loth. It could not have done so, compatibly with the dates in Exodus xvi. The matter is not helped if, with Dr. Lee, we assume the Jewish months to have been solar months of 30 days. This would only put him a da}^ still further out of count, for the Sabbaths in Abib would fall, in that case, not on the 23rd and IGth, but on the 24th and 17th. This, we conceive, settles the matter, and leaves room for no further argument. On the other hand, following out the notices of Scripture, we reach a view which has at least internal consistency. We assume that the Sabbath had fallen into considerable disuse in Egypt, and that the transactions in the wilderness may be viewed as, in some sense, a reorganising of its observance. It does not, how- ever, follow that there were no Sabbaths from the time of leaving Egypt till this camping in the wilderness of Sin. It must rather be supposed that, whether Israel remembered Sabbath days or not, God had in view His own ordinance, and gave His people their weekly Sabbath rest. Whichever day He selected to be the " sign " between Him and Israel, that day would be marked by the cloudy pillar guiding the people to some place where the journey might be safely broken. Do we find indications of this in the history ? We think we do. The first Sabbath, we have seen, fell on the IGth of Abib, and syn- chronised with the rest at Succoth. ^ From this the people pushed on to Etham- — about two days' journey^ — then to Pi-hahiroth^ — about three days' journey® — arriving at the shores of the Ked Sea towards the close of the second week. 'Ex. xxi. .S7. There is no ground for thinking, with Di-. Lee, that the Israelites encamped for seven days at Succoth {Sermon, p. 7). They could not have done so, and reached Sin on the 15th day of the 2nd mouth. = Ex. xiii. 20. 5 " The first two days' march brought the Israelites from Rameses to Etham." Canon Cook, Spraktr's Commtntary, Vol. I., p. 435. •* Ex. xiv. 2. 5 '• We should suppose at least three days to have been occupied by the march from Etham to ri-hahiroth." Rawlinson in Pidpil Com., Exodus, Introduction, . 33. 54 The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. Pharaoh's pursuit seems to have been immediate, so that we may •suppose the Red Sea to have been crossed ere that week ended, and the second jubilant Sabbath to have been spent at the Wells of Moses, where the people sang their strain of triumph to Jehovah. ^ A three days' march to Marah - followed, succeeded by a short stage to Elim/' where, amid the palm trees, and beside the abundant springs, an encampment of some days was per- mitted, and where a third Sabbath would be spent. Between this and the encampment at Sin there intervened a fortnight, and midway between the halts we find notice of another encamp- ment " by the Red Sea." -^ The fact that it alone is mentioned shows it to have been a special one, and we may conclude it to have been the encampment on the Sabbath. This brings us to the wilderness of Sin, where the Israelites are found encamping on the next Sabbath, the loth of the second month. It is, at least, as reasonable to suppose that the date given refers to the first day of their encampment, as to think, with Mr. Johnston and others, that it marks the day of their journey into it. We thus find traces of Israel's weekly rests, even prior to the giving of the manna ; we can even fix the dates on which these rests occurred. This, however, does not settle the question with which we set out — whether at the Exodus the day was changed from that previously observed ? Dr. Lee's theory has been re- jected, but it in no way follows that the fundamental idea of his " Sermon " is a wrong one. Considerable plausibility attaches to the conjecture that, in reviving Sabbath observances at the Exodus — making the Sabbath even a " sign " between His chosen people and Himself — God v/ould stamp upon the day a special character, fitting it to be a memorial of the great national deliver- ance. We know that it was made such a memorial,' and we have the analogy of the Christian dispensation to guide us in inferring that the day would be altered to suit the new circumstances. Whatever force attaches to our previous suggestions'' that the original sacred day of the race was, not the seventh, but the first day of man's week ; this also is reason for belief that the da}' was subsequently changed. It is, to say the least, strikingly character- istic of the legal dispensation that in it the six days' labour, should 'precede the rest, while in the new, as perhaps also in the ' Ex. XV. 1. = Ex. XV. 22. ' Ex. xv. 27. 4 Num. XXX. 10. 5 Deut. v. 15. « Pp. 80—83. The Sabbath Scnptit rally and Practically Considered. 5 5 patriarchal dispensation, the day of joy is reckoned first, and the work days follow. For the rest, we hold the Sabbaths to have flowed on in uninterrupted course, unaffected by the beginning of the year, or the reckoning of other festivals.^ In other respects, besides that of a possible change of day, the Sabbath received modification from connection with the law. It is declared to be a " sio^n " between God and the Israelites.'- As in- corporated with the civil polity of the Jews, it became the subject of special enactments.' l\\ the ritual of worship special sacrifices were appointed for it.' In a way still more marked, it was affected by the idea of ceremonial holiness pervading the whole law. To impress the idea of holiness on the mind, the law in- vented for the Jew an elaborate system of distinctions, and taught him to attach an external holiness to many things in themselves indifferent — to particular kinds of meats and drinks, to persons, places, acts, things, times and seasons, which thus, in virtue of the characters ascribed to them, became "holy." As in- cluded among religious festivals, the Sabbath fell under the cate- gory of holy times. A sacredness was attached to it simply as a portion of time. It was bound up with tabernacle, priestly, and ritual associations. The sanctification of the Sabbath in this ceremonial aspect of it consisted in rest from labour, and the performance of certain outward acts. Its holiness was more negative than positive, more ritual than inward. It is under this aspect of the Sabbath, as a purely ceremonial, Jewish thing — •saturated throuefh and throuo-h with Jewish associations — that the Apostle contended for the abolition of Sabbaths, and declared them to be done away in Christ. At the same time, it is important to observe how entirely, even under this system of times and seasons, which so far "gendered the bondage," the essential character of the Sabbath was preserved, and what high honour was put upon it. The duties of the Jew ' Among writers who have ably advocated the idea of a change of day at the Exodus, we may mention Mede, Woi-ks, Discourse XV. ; Homes, Essay con- O'.niing the Sabbath, 1673; Chafie, The Fourth Commandment, 1692; Sharp, Archbishop of York, Theological Works, Vol. III. ; Wright, Treatise on the Relifjious Observance of the LorcVs Day, 1724 ; Blomfield, Lee, Johnstone, &c. = Exodus xxxi. 13 ; Ezek. xx. 12. > E.g. Ex. xxxv. 2, 3. ^ Num. xxviii. 9 ; Lev. xxiv. S. 5 Rom. xiv. 6 ; Gal. iv. 9, 10 ; Col. ii. 16, 17. 56 The S abb at J L Scripturally and Practically Considered. to his Sabbatli were far from exhausted by mere fulfihTaent of its ceremonial obligations. It would be a libel on the Mosaic system to judge its Sabbath by the minute, burdensome, and vexatious rules laid down for its observance by the later Rabbins. As little would we be justified in regarding the Mosaic Sabbath as a mere holiday — a day of "bodily inaction "^—o£ feasting, jolity, and marketing.' The Sabbath of the law, as exhibited in the law's prescriptions, in the notices of history, in the teachings of the prophets, and, above all, in the example of the Son of Man, who, in this particular as in others, did not come '"' to destroy," but " to fulfil " the law, bore a very different character. It was a day of rest, but a day also of freedom, of joy, of religion. Dr. Hessey well remarks — " It was a festival to God as well as to themselves. It was marked publicly by double sacrifices, and by change of the shewbread, hj the receiving of instruction (this is evidenced by the provision that the whole law should be read in the Sabbatical year) from the Priests and Levites who were scattered up and down the country, and from the Prophets, as appears from the question, ' Wliy resorted thou to the Prophet to-day, it is neither new moon nor Sabbath.' ^ It was further marked by the institu- tion of convocations, which would not have been holy meetings, but mere crowds, except they were employed in prayer and instruction. Singing praises to Gotl must also be considered to have formed a part of Sabbath worship, if we may trust that head- ing of one of the Psalms, ' For the Sabbath Day.' In families, the day was marked by release of servants and of cattle from their ordinary work, and in the case of Israelites, no doubt contempla- tion of God's works and meditation in God's law found a place in the rest provided for them." ^ The representation of the Jewish Sabbath as a day of gloom and austerity, of " penal gloom," ^ is therefore destitute of all foundation. We find further that, under the Jewish system, exceptional honour was put upon the Sabbath — such honour as amply to justify the belief that, though incorporated among Levitical ordinances, ^ Thus Dr. Reichel, Donellan Lecturer, \w sermon on Tht Lord's Day not the Sabbath, 1859. - Thi;s Micha?lis, Laws of Moses, Art. 194. 3 2 Kings iv. 23 ; Lev. xxiii. 3 ; Is. iv. 5. •* Bampton Lectures, p. 15G. See also Kitto's Cyclopaedia, Art. Sabbath, and Fairbairn's Typology, Vol. II., pp. 400-406. Josephus' Antiq., xvi. '2, 3. 3 Tyudall. The Sabbalh Scriptm'ally and Practically Considered. 57 it liad a higher rank than these ordinances. First, it was the Sabbath which was selected as a " sio-n " between God and the children of Israel. Its very selection for this purpose was a tribute to its importance. The reason of the selection could only be that the Sabbath was in itself a boon of the highest kind to Israel, and had important bearings on the state of morals and religion. A well or ill-spent Sabbath, as all history shows, has much to do both with the character of the individual and of the community. The Sabbath, further, was fitted to be a "sign" in this respect, that it was once a means for the promotion of true religion and a test or indication of its presence. A disregard of Divine authority shows itself in nothing more readily than* in a disposition to break in upon the day of rest — to take from it its sacred character. Second, the very precepts and penalties by which the sanctity of the Sabbath was guarded form a testimony to its peculiar importance. It is the one command of the Deca- logue to which, in winding up the series of instructions about the tabernacle, reference is made. The Sabbath was not to be in- fringed on, even for the work of the sanctuary. The breaker of the Sabbath was to be put to death. Lastly, we see the im- portance of the Sabbath in the great honour put upon it by the prophets. The language employed by the prophets in regard to the Sabbath is very different from that which they are accus- tomed to use of purely ceremonial institutions.^ It is sufficient to refer here to Isaiah Iviii. 13, 14, so striking a testimony at once to the manner in which the Sabbath should be kept, and to the respect which the prophets paid to it — " If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine words ; then thou shalt delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth,"- &c. There is even in Ezekiel what looks like an intimation of a change of day in a future dis- pensation.-' • " Neglect of it (the Sabbath) was spoken of by tlie Jewish prophets as the cry- ing sin of the nation." — Hesscy, p. 27-. = Cf. Is. Ivi. 2. 3 Ezekiel xliii. 27. 58 The Sabbath ScripturaUy and Practically Considered. SECTION III. The Place of the Sabbath in the New Testament, and THE Right of the Lord's Day to be regarded as the Representative of the Sabbath of Creation and of the Fourth Commandment. We now advance to a division of our subject which admittedly presents some delicate problems — the place of the Sabbath in the New Testament. After examining the teaching of our Lord, we «hall ■ endeavour, with due regard for the phenomena of the Apostolic age, to show the full right of the Lord's Day to be regarded as the representative of the primeval and Fourth Commandment Sabbath. I. No student of the position of the Sabbath in the New Testament can overlook the teachings of Jesus on this subject. His conduct, and the principles involved in His replies to His accusers, throw valuable light on the Sabbath institution. That Christ was often found in antagonism to the Pharisees on the subject of Sabbath observance is interpreted by many to imply that He repudiated the obligation of the Fourth Com- mandment. They suppose Him to have deliberately chosen this <, Vol. II., pp. 55-.j7. The Sabbath Scripturail}' and Practically Considered. loi business should not be carried on, railway offices should be closed, on the Sabbath, and this out of regard for the Divine law. Much more is the nation, through its representatives, bound to show respect for the sanctity of the day. National business should, as far as possible, be intermitted on this day, public offices should be shut, puljlic servants should be released I'rom duty, national col- lections should be closed. The greater care should be exercised in this, that the e.Kample set by Government is certain to have a ])owerful effect upon the nation. To the triumph of the anti- Sabbath party in the struggle concerning the Sabbath mails in the United States Congress, some fifty years ago, and " the deliberate purpose of the Government evinced on that occasion to set aside all State laws for the observance of the Sabbath, so far as relates to the transmission and delivery of mails," ^ a writer on Habhath Laim in the United States chiefly traces " the un- favourable change in public sentiment in America in regard to Sabbath observance." -' He says : " The natural consequence of this determination of the general Government to override the Sabbath laws of the States, the all-pervading influence of the mail-carriers, and the ever-present example of the postmasters violating the State laws with impunity, gradually led to the setting aside the Sabbath laws of the State as obsolete by all who chose to violate them." ^ "Who can doubt that the effect of a law ' " The law, as it now exists, makes no distinction as to the days of the week,, but is imperative that the postmasters shall attend at all reasonable hours in every day to perform the duties of their offices ; and the Postmaster-General has given liis instruction to all postmasters that, at post-offices where the mail arrives on Sunday, the office is to be kept open one hour or more after the ai'rival and assort- ing of the mail," &c. — Col. Johnson's Report, quoted by Cox, Liter, of Sabbat k Quontion, Vol. II., p. 412. - Dr. Stuart Robinson in Catholic Presbytertan, Aug., 1879. ^ Ibid., p. 94. The effect is thus traced on railways : " The plea that the Govern- ment lays upon them the necessity of carrying the United States mail opens the way for the plea of the necessity, first of Sabbath travel, and then of general traffic, on tlie Sabbath day. The railway corporations — especially since the con- solidation of most of the railways in the country under a few powerful companies — have become strong enough to set the Sabbath laws of the States at defiance. . . . . Backed Ijy the authority of the general Government in violating the Sabbath as regards one portion of their work, they fear not to take the responsi bility of violating the Sabbath in every part of it. Thus thousands on thousands of honest labouring men who cannot afford to starve tlieir families by giving up their places, groan under tlie tyranny of soulless coi-porations, which compel them to desecrate tlie Sabbath day by servile labour. And beside this, furnishing cheap and rapid accommodation to Sunday pleasure-seekers in the cities and large towns, they have become the most potent of all agencies for the desecration of the Sabbath and the demoralisation of the people." — p. 94. 102 The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. authorising Sunday opening in our own country would be pre- cisely similar ? On this account we look with no little anxiety on certain tendencies which have recently been developing them- selves. The Sunday opening movement — opposed by the great majority of working men's representatives ^ — receives powerful support in the House of Lords.- Royal personages on various occasions have not scrupled to set at defiance the religious senti- ment of the nation in travelling and other ways. The Legislature ha^ more than once prolonged its sittings far on into the Sabbath morning. There is still much Sunday labour in the different departments.'^ The Report of the Royal Commission on Technical Education was issued in May, 1884, and contains a recommenda- ' This was clearly brought out in the recent debate in the House of Lords (March 21st), and is conclusively shown in an article by Mr. Charles Hill on Thu Day of Beit, in tlie Nineteenth Centur// for April, 18S4, and in a i-emarkable pamphlet published by the " Working Men's Lord's Day Rest Association," con- taining a list of 2,412 Trade Unions and other working-class organizations having 501,705 members, who approved of Mr. Broadhurst's amendment in the House of Commons, May 19, 1SS2. The pamphlet states that, "in addition to the above, tlie officers of 116 societies, having 175,403 members, have signed the form in their individual capacity, because their rules prohibit the discussion of political subjects, or for other reasons, but many of them state their opinion that tlieir members are in favour of Mr. Broadhurst's amendment." Against .Sunday opening, in 18S3, there were 208 petitions, representing 70,000 names ; in favour, 12 petitions were presented, containing 522 names. The Earl of Shaftesbury stated that Mr. Chubb, the eminent safe manufacturer, took a ballot of his men on the subject. The decision was 47 in favour of opening, and 181 against. ^ The House of Lords has taken various divisions on the subject. In 1881, the votes were — 41 against and 34 for, majority against, 7 ; in 1883, 91 against and '67 for, majority against, 24; in 1884, 46 against and 38 for, majority against, 8. The result of the debate in the House of Commons in 1SS2 was — 208 votes against Sunday opening, and S3 in favour of Sunday opening. 3 The Salilmth Alliance Report, 1884, quotes the following fi-om Dr. Gritton : — " When it is remembered that Sunday telegraphs, like Sunday trains, are very largely used by the racing and gambling world, far more tlian by other classes, our regret is deep that thousands of postal servants are burdened in this matter ; and it is special matter of regret that some hundreds of boys are thus employed on the Lord's Day who ought to be in our Sunday schools or in Bible-classes." We have referred to the meeting of Edinburgh telegraph clerks to petition in regard to Sunday labour (June 21st, 1884). The petitioners recognise that Sunday labour is now to some extent a necessitj^, but desire that it be minimised as much as possible, and that it should be performed in all offices nnder similar conditions. We could have desired that the discussion had turned more on the duty of pre- serving the Day of Rest intact, and less on the mere question of payment of over- time for Sunday work. (See Report in Glasgow Herald, June 23.) Meetings were also held in Dublin, Livei'pool, and Birmingham, to press for a satisfactory solution of this question. The Sabbat Ji Scriptumlly and Pnutically Considered. 103-. tion that museums of art and science and technological collections be opened to the public on Sundays. These tendencies sIjow the need of enlightenment of the public conscience, that they may be effectively resisted. It is gratifying to observe that in other countries efforts are being made to reduce the Sunday labour of public servants, though not as yet with much success.' 2. It is the duty of the State to secure the rest and quiet of the Sabbath /or i^s 5u?>/ec?s. Not only to respect the Sabbath in its own action, but to secure the rest and quiet of the Sabbath to those under its rule. And this on three grounds — as part of its own duty to the subject, in respect for the religious convictions of its subjects, and on civil grounds. (1) As part of its own duty to the subject. The merely civil ■ground is not the only one. Nor is the Sabbath to be maintained solely on the ground that the majority in the nation wish it. There is a higher point of view. The position we take up is a perfectly straightforward one. We hold that it is the duty of the legislator to take light from God's Word on all matters relating to his proper sphere. He is entitled to take that light. If light is given — as in the case of marriage — it is his dihty to take it. ' The Sabbath question is at present exciting a good deal of interest in Germany. Mr. Lingen, a member of the German Parliament, availed himself last year (18S;^) of the occasion of the Budget of the Postmaster-General of the Empire to make a motion to release the under-class of post-ofBcers from being occupied throughout every Sunday. "Mr. Lingen proposed," says Dr. Brandes, "that their work should be reduced as much as possible on Sunday ; the indispensable alone should be done; and that only letters and cards, but no parcels, should thereafter be delivered on the Sabbath. The hours of work the mover wished to be diminished, and especially that during the hours of service no work should be done in the post-ofBces." — Catholic Preshyf., Oct., 1883. The motion was passionately opposed, yet the number of votes for and against was equal (103-103). It was rejected, but will doubtless be revived. France is passing through a similar experience. A debate took place in the Senate in May, 1880, when M. Chesenelong submitted the following proposals : — " 1. Works executed or conceded by the State, the Depai'tments, or the Com- munes, shall be suspended on Sundays, and on ft-fe days that are recognised by law. . . . "2. In railways, the goods stations shall be closed, and tlieir traffic suspended on these days. "3. The Government shall take steps to ensure that employes attached to railways, the post-office, and the telegraph service, have a free day every alternate Sunday, at least frcin nine to five. " There was keen competition, and the proposals were rejected, yet cnly by a vote of 165 to '[W:'— Catholic Prcshi/K July, 1880. & T04 TJie Sabbath Scriptnrally and Practically Considered. He is not at liberty to ignore or neglect it. He need not be ashamed on tbe floor of the House of Commons, or anywhere else, to avow that this is the source from whence he gets his light. But God's Word ordains that man shall rest on the Sabbath. It o-ives to every individual, rich or poor, in society, a right to the Sabbath rest. It requires of him, as a solemn duty, that he should observe this rest. This gives the individual a double claim upon the State. He is entitled to ask that he be protected in his rio'ht, and he is entitled to ask that opportunity be secured to him for the fulfilment of his duty. The State, on its side, has a duty to the individual. It is bound to uphold him in his right to the day of rest, to see that the arrangements of society are such as to permit of him enjoying it, that he is not wantonly deprived of it by the cruelty or cupidity of others. It will not compel men to worship — this lies beyond its province — but it will secure that as far as possible each individual has the opportunity of rest and worship, that he is not interfered with or disturbed in his rightful use of the day. It is further to be observed that it is onlj^ through interposition of the legislature, in a case of this kind, that the in- dividual can be protected in his right. It is easy to say " Inter- fere with no man's liberty. Abolish all laws, and let those rest who will, and those work who will, and those play who will. Appeal to moral motives for the observance of the day." It is overlooked that if all laws were abolished, not only is the quiet of the day destroyed, which of itself interferes with the right discharo-e of its duties, but multitudes no longer have it in their option to say wliether they will rest or not.^ Were every one considerate and kind, as anxious to secure his neighbour's rest as to preserve his own, the case would be different. Laws might be dispensed with. But this is not the state of matters in society. Selfishness rules. The Continent is our warning here also. " The Sunday," sa3^s the E,ev. W. Guest, "is a day of leisure to the moneyed classes of society, to whom all must be made easy, and a day of toil to the poorer. To the richer classes it is a gala day, ' "In the absence of laws prohibiting labour on the Sabbath," says the Report of flic Committee on the Judkkinj, of the New Yoi-k Legislature, defending their Sabbath laws, " all that portion of the people who are in the service of others, who are employed as clerks, apprentices, in manufactories, as laboui'ers, and otherwise, would be without any protection for their rights of worship or of rest, they would be left at the mercy of others, and subject to the caprice, cupidity, or legalised immorality of their employers." The SabbatJi Scripturally and Practically Considered. 105 but to those who have to provide for the dress, pleasures, and excursions of those above them, it is a time when these labours are more in demand than on any day of the week. Everywhere have I found that the workers were not considered on the Sunday. They had toiled for six days, and demands on them were multi- plied on the seventh." ^ The poor man has thus his choice taken from him. There is no remedy for this but the strong arra of the law. The law steps in and enjoins a general cessation of business. It shields the poor man's right. It further enables the trader to •close his shop without fear of being subjected to a disadvantage. But for this, the same difficulty would be felt as is felt in regard to early closing. The many would close, but their desire is frustrated through the obstinacy of a few.- Sabbath legislation, then, is a necessity, if the rights of man in the Sabbath are to be upheld, if the day is to be maintained as a da}'' of rest and quiet. The cry is raised of interference with freedom ; but the aim is rather the protection of freedom. Society is full ot interferences with freedom of the kind complained of Every law that protects rights is an interference with the freedom of those who would over-ride these rights. The freedom of some must be limited if the freedom of others is not to be taken awa}". What freedom do those seek, if not freedom to rob others of that which they hold most dear — their Sabbath rest and peace. We uphold the right of man to his complete Sabbath. We call upon the State to respect that right. It is those who would break down the safeguards which protect it, which by protecting it create a true realm of liberty, who are the real enemies of freedom.' ' Tract Refit or no Rest (Religious Tract Soc). - The tradesmen examined before the Royal Commission in 1832 — butchers, cheesemongers, poulterers, fishmongers, greengrocers, &c., "all concurred in the benefit that would arise to all parties concerned, buyers and sellers, if there were a, law protective of tradesmen on the Sabbath, so that they should not be necessi- tated, as at present, in self defence, to continue Sunday trading." — Jordan's Sahhath of God, p. 170. ^ Interference with freedom was the cry by which the proposal to relieve the postmen was resisted in Germanj\ "They ventured," says l)r. Brandes, "to represent it as of the essence of freedom not to allo"' a motion to pass which had no other intention than to give freedom to a large portion of our people on Sunday. But they did not consider that they, of course, were laying a lieavy burden on the shoulders of the postmen ; and as little did they seem to understand that the * freedom ' which they felt compelled to defend against the ' tyrannical desires of lo6 TJie Sabbath Scriptitrally and Practically Considered. (2) In respect for the religious convictions of its subjects. The- will of a majority is not necessarily right, and there may be times when a legislature, alive to its responsibility and careful of the best interests of society, may feel it to be its duty to resist the popular will. Things may be demanded even in the name of conscience which are wrong, unreasonable, tyrannical. Conceding this, we yet claim that the State is bound to guard very sacredly the rights of conscience in its subjects. It will respect scruples, even if they are the scruples only of individuals.^ Much more if they are the earnest conviction of the body of the people, and based on the principles of a great religion like Christianity. The minority cannot reasonably claim that the business of the State shall be conducted on their principles rather than on the principles of the majority. They cannot claim that their will shall rule in the arrangements of society rather than the will of the majority. They are not entitled to prevent the majority paying any homage to the Almighty which they may think fit, provided their own consciences are not infringed on. If, therefore, the body of the people hold that it is indispensable for the proper fulfilment of their duties to their Maker, that one day in seven be set apart and upheld by law as a day of rest and religion, that this is due from them also as a public token of respect to the Creator, that it is further for the general good of society, who shall say they are not entitled to have this conviction given effect to in the arrange- ments of society ? To hold otherwise is to ask that the conscience of the many be prostrated at the feet of the dissentient few." In the clergy ' .... is but the freedom of tlie rich and of those who, because of their riches, are independent What kind of freedom is that which those men will establish who say, ' We neither like nor desire to attend the church ser- vices as regards ourselves, and therefore wc will not afford those of our countrymen who feel they want according to their religious convictions the possibility of satisfying it.' "—Caih. Pres., Oct., 1883. ' An illustration is afforded by the enactment of the State of New York in regar to seventh-day Baptists. "No person, whose religious faith and practice is to keep the seventh day of the week, commonly called Saturday, ns a day set apart by divine command as the Sabbatli of rest from labour, and dedicated to the wor- ship of God, shall be subject to perform military duty, or jury duty in a justice's court, on such day, except that such persons shall be subject to perform military duty on such day in case of invasion, insurrection, or in time of war." — Lmos pf New York r^ 1847. Quoted by Cox, Lit. of Sahh, Question, Vol. II., p. 433. - See the paragraphs on this subject in Hodge's Systematic Theology, Vol. III.,, pp. 340-347. TJic Sabbath Scriptnrally and Practically Considered. 107 our own country many cheering tokens exist to show that, not- withstanding the desecrations wliich we deplore, the great body of the people is yet sound in its desire to see at least public respect maintained for the day of rest/ With some this may be mere traditional sentiment ; in more it is the result of religious convic- tion, of intelligent appreciation of the benefits of the Sabbath, of a shrewd foresight of what would happen were the religious sanc- tions of the day done away with. In any case, the feeling is there, as evidenced by the hitherto abortive efforts of Sunday Societies, and the expressed views of working men's representatives, and the legislature is bound to respect it. The repeal of Sabbath laws, in the present state of conviction, would be an act of tyranny perpetrated on the consciences, not of a few, but of millions. (3) On civil grounds. The Sabbath, when properly observed, yields a multitude of benefits, moral, social, domestic, economical, which, on civil grounds alone, that is, having regard only to the temporal order and well-being of the State, well entitles it to the protection of the laws. We think this ground, taken by itself, to be inadequate, as lacking hold on conscience. Yet as a broad ground of public polic}^, it undeniably appeals to many who are incapable of being influenced by other considerations. It should therefore by all means be upheld. What the benefits of the Sabbath to the State are we are immediately to see.- It will be found that it is not every kind of Sabbath observance which yields these benefits, but only a rational and holy obser- vance. The State should have regard to this in the protection it extends. ■ An instance of this came to light recently in connection with tlie opening of an exhibition of pictures on two Sundays in Galasliiels. Feeling was violently aroused, but though the matter was magnified almost to national dimensions, yet not more than about 1000 (many of them young people) could I>e got to attend the first day, and fewer the second. Another proof was the sympatliy almost universally felt for the Strome Ferry fishermen in their unhappy collision with the authorities. We may further instance Mr. Broadhurst's noble speech in the House of Commons, May, 1882. - They are well stated by Paley, Mor. PhlL, Ch. v., and are excellently drawn out in the Report qftht Committee on the Judiciary, of the State of New York, 1837. The full text of this R.eport is given by Cox, Literature of the Sahb. Question, Vol. II., pp. 41SI-4-24. G io8 TJic Sabbat Ii Scriptnrally and Practically Considered. SECTION II. BEARINGS OF SCRIPTURAL OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH ON INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL WELL-BEING. The test of a system is its fruits. If the principles we have laid down are sound, they will verif}' themselves as such in experience. We proceed to show that they do so. I. We have frequently referred to the bearings of the Sabbath on HEALTH. These are very great. The Medical Committee of Campagna recently ordered its secretary, Dr. Arzillo, to draw up answers to some questions on the subject. The questions were those asked by Dr. Hoegler of Basle at the close of his hrocliure on the " Hygienic Aspects of the Hepdomadic Rest." Dr. Arzillo, in his reply, divides men into three classes, according as they wholly, partially, or not at all, observe the Sabbath rest. He gives his experience as follows : — Those who observe the Sabbath are freest from disease, preserve longest their capacity for woik, live longest, and die ordinarily of old age, or of those maladies to which old age is subject. Those who only partially observe the rest of the Sabbath take ill more frequently, and more quickly exhaust the vital forces. They are carried away by diseases of the respiratory organs, of the nervous system, and of the heart.. Those who spend the Sabbath in cultivating their vices have a short, miserable life, and are liable to a whole train of maladies. He concludes — "A rest general, simultaneous, the same for all, and sanctified (un repos general, simultane, le meme pour tons et sanctified), such are the necessary and indispensable conditions," of obtaining the physical, moral, and economical benefits of this- institution. Similar was the testimony of Dr. Farre in the Committee of the House of Commons, which we need not quote, so well known is it. We touch on but one point. When pressed on the beneficial influence of tea-gardens and places of amusement on tlie working-classes, Dr. Farre replied — " I think that devoting to pleasure the day of repose (which should be given to the rest of the bodv, and to that chancre of thoucrht and exercise of the uiind wliich constitues the real sources of invigoration), amidst ' See the document in full in the Bidletin Dominical, No. 32, March, 188+ The date of the report is Jan. 30th, 1884. TJic Sabbath Script itrally and Practically Considered. 1 09 the multitudes congregated for purposes of pleasure, actually tlefeats the primary objects of the Sabbath, as adapted to the higher nature of man." - Wilberforce affirmed, " that he could never have sustained the labour and stretch of mind required in his early political life, if it had not been for the rest of the Sabbath ; and that he could name several of his contemporaries in the vortex of political cares, whose minds had actually given way under the stress of intellectual labour, so as to bring on a premature death, or the still more dreadful catastrophe of insanity and suicide, who, lumianly si^eaking, might have been preserved in health, if they would but have conscientiously observed the Sabbath." - The allusion is understood to be to Pitt and Canning, who shortened their days, and to Whitbread, Castlereagh, and Romilly, who lost their reason, through incessant work. The last named terminated their own existence. Dr. Wm. Guy instituted an inquiry into the condition of journeyman bakers, who work long hours on week days and Sundays, and found 70 per cent, of them subject to various complaints, as compared with 36, 26, 25, 19, ]8 per cent, in other trades which enjo}' the whole of Sunday for rest." Nowhere, however, are the effects of life without a Sabbath so clearly seen as among the labouring classes on the Continent. One writer speaks of " the dwarfed stature, and pallid aspect, and wretched inefficiency " of the French workmen ■* ; and Mr. Smiles says — " Their continuous devotion to bodily labour without a seventh day's rest .... gives to the men, and especiall}^ to the women of the country, the look of a prematurely old and over- worked race." ^' A lady writing from Paris testifies — "The woi'king l>opulation in Paris are stunted in growth, pallid and plain in ap}tearance. The French soldiers are a poor-looking body of men, but numbers do not even come up to the standard required by the French army."" To these testimonies we may add that of an '■ Operative Bricklayer," who, writing in the Times, says — '■ I asked if they had any hard-working, hearty old men. They answered me, No. The men were completeh^ worn out by the ' Evidence, 183-2. - Funeral Sermon, bj' Rev. J. Scott, of Hull. "^ The facts are given in Mr. Hill's Sunday, p. .^l. ^ British Ensign, Feb. 23rd, 1859, quoted in Hill's Continental Sunday Labour, ?• 51- 5 Smiles' Hitgutnots, p. 303. '' Tract in reply to Mrs. Craik's Sinless Sabbath Breaking. no The Sabbath Scripttwally and Practically Considered. time they readied forty years." ^ We need not, however, dwell on a matter which no one disputes. Even the " Anti-Sabbath Convention " of Boston is found bearing its testimony to the need of the seventh-day's rest. " We have no objection," say they, *' either to the first or the seventli day of the week as a day of rest from hodily toil, both for man and beast. On the contrary, such rest is not only desirable, but indispensable. Neither man nor beast can long endure unmitigated labour."- The Sabbath, by its pliysical rest;* the change it introduces into the train of thought, its calming and soothing influence on the mind, its effect on morals, its tendency to promote cleanliness, and to raise the .standard of living, is, beyond doubt, the most powerful hygienic instrument in our possession. II. Not less conspicuous than its influence on health, is the in- fluence of the Sabbath on morality. The Sabbath is the focus of all the agencies which operate to make men morally and spiritually better. Dr. Hodge draws from this an argument for the Divine origin of the Sabbath. " God," he says, " has given the world the Church, the Bible, the ministry, the sacraments ; these are not human devices. And can it be supposed that the Sabbath, without which all these Divine institutions would be measurab-y inefficent, should be left to the will or wisdom of men ? This cannot be supposed. That these divinely appointed means for the illumination and sanctification of men are in great measure without effect, where the Sabbath is neglected or pro- faned, is a matter of experience." * Nothing, accordingly, can ex- ceed the influence of a well-kept Sabbath as an elevating agency in character. Dr. Chalmers' testimony has been often quoted — " We never," says he, "in the whole course of our recollections, met with a Christian friend, who bore upon his character every other evidence of the Spirit's operation, who did not remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy." ^ The Rev. (now Dr.) Fergus Ferguson, of the United Presbyterian Church, says — "We have no hesitation in saying, that the best men we have ever met — the ' July .SOtli, 1867. Quoted in Continental Sunday Labour, p. 28. ' Quoted in Cox's Literature of the Sabbath QiieMon, Vol. II., p. 423. The italics ate not ours. The Convention, howevei', objects to civil laws compelling men to rest. On this, see above p. 104. ' A Sabbath properly observed is equal to one year's r.?st in seven. * Systematic Theolotjy, Vol. III., p. 331. -^ Works, Vol. IX., p. 265. The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. 1 1 1 most upright, tlie kindest and truest in heart — men whose ver}'- })resence ^yas ennobling, have been men who devoted their Sab- baths to God." ^ He adds—" On the other hand, some of the saddest specimens of our humanity we have ever seen have been working men, with a bleared and restless look, trailing their poor wives and children into the country, and wandering after pleasure in a most melancholy way." Mr. Thomas, a superintendent of police, bore evidence before the Government Commission (1832) — • " I know from experience that persons who are in the habit of attending a place of worship are more careful in their pecuniary transactions, they are more economical in their arrangements at home, they are more affectionate and humane and in every respect superior beings by far than persons of contrary habits. Those who neglect a place of worship generally become idle, neglectful of their person, filthy in their habits, careless of their children, and especially careless in their pecuniary transactions." Sunday work is proverbially demoralising. The Koyal Commission state in their report — " Sunday labour is generally looked upon as a degradation, and it appears in evidence that in each trade, in pio- })ortion to its disregard of the Lord's Day, is the immorality of those engaged in it." We have evidence of this in the condition of bakers, iron-workers, gas-stokers, railway employes, cab and car drivers, ship loaders, and others who have to do this work." Testi- mony was borne by a master baker that young men coming up from the country, and obliged to devote nearly the whole of the Sabbath to labour, " feel themselves degraded and lost in the scale of society, and not to hold the place which they ought to do ; and those good and moral impressions which they first re- ceived in their early days are entirely lost, from the continual ]iractice of working on the Sabbath day."" M. Cochery recently ' The Lav) of tin- Lord of the SabJiath, p. 16. - Baron Gurney, when passing sentence of death on two boatmen at the Stafford assizes, said — " There is no body of men so destitute of all moral culture as boat- men; they know no Sabbath, and are possessed of no means of moral instruction." — -Quoted by Gilfillan on T/ie Sabbath, p. 214. On the following page, Mr. Gil- lillan says — ' ' It has been said that no class of men are more frequently before the magistrates than the London cab and omnibus drivers, who are employed evertj day from 13 to 16 hours in their calling. Habits of intoxication and profane swearing prevail to a great extent amongst both classes," p. 215. '^ Evidence, 1832. Mr. Edge of Manchester observes, respecting the London bakers, that " the low mental and moral condition of the trade generally in Lon- don at the present time is notorious." — Quoted by Gilfillan, p. 215. 1 1 2 The Sabbath Sci'ipturaUy and Practically Considered. (juoted the following words from a high official in a French post office — " Sunday work has poisoned my long administrative career." An interesting class of cases is that of those who for- merly engaged in Sabbath labour, but no longer do so. The effect on the gas men is stated to be — "For his own part he (Mr, Wood- all) could assert that there was a most decided alteration in the manner and conduct of the men under his charge as the result of this change of system." " The following evidsnce was given re- garding canal boatmen by Mr. Panther, of the house of White- house & Sons, carriers between Birmingham and London — " They have found that by depriving the men of the Sabbath day, they have become demoralised ? Entirely so. Has there been sufficient time, since they departed from the practice (about two months) to see whether any good effect has been produced on the men ? For my own part, I can say, that since they have left off working on Sunday, when I have loaded the boats, I have noticed that they have been loaded without an oath being sworn ; previous to this there would be an oath almost every word. Last week there was a boat laden without an oath." ^ Not less remarkable was the effect produced by the suspension of the sailing on the Lord's Day of the steam packets of the South Eastern and Continental Steam Packet Company in 1847. Mr. Swan testified — "Among all the classes of the population in Folkstone, the mechanics and stokers are the most regular in attendance upon public worshij) . . . The stokers are now almost looked up to by the I'est of the inhabitants, instead of being regarded as the scum of societ}^, as in some other parts ... I have not for months been cognizant of a single case of intoxication, nor have I chanced by any accident to overhear profane or improper language during many months. "•' The influence of Sabbath observance is as conspicuous in the morals of nations as of tliose of individuals. France, with all her superficial gaiety, is frivolous, sensual, corrupt. Statistics here tell a terrible tale. In 1869, there were 458 murders in France, to a population of 37 millions, as compared with 34 murders in Eno"land, to a population of 21 millions. The suicides in Paris ' Stated in 5th Report (1882) of English Committee of International Federation of Lord's Day Societies, p. 9. = Stated at meeting of Gas Managers' Association, June ]4tb, 1876. ' Evidence, 1832. '^ In a letter to Lord's Day Ohservana Society. The Sabbalh ScriptnraUy and Practically Considered. 113 wei'e 127 as compared with 0-i in London. Illegitimate births were 29 per cent, in Paris as compared Avith 4 per cent, in London. Miss Ada Leigh, writing in the Times of January, 1882, says — " It appears from official statistics that between the years 187G and 1880, IDS boys and -10 girls below 15 years of age destroyed themselves in France,"^ and she asks for an explanation of "the depth of anguish and despair which could so obliterate the hope and jo^^ousness of child-life at the tender age of seven to fifteen, that within four short years, 288 children become so palled with life's history as to seek, by their own hand, the mystery of death.'' A writer in the North Brttish Review, says — "We well remember that one individual, thoroughly conversant with that society in all its circles, distinctly predicted the Revolution of February more than a year before it occurred, not on the ground of any political symptoms or necessities, but solely from the corruption of morals and manners which pervaded the higher and middle classes — the politicians, the writers, the commercial men, the artists, the circles of fashion — all alike." In the lower classes, the fruits are seen " in the thriftless condition of a vast proletaire population, living from hand to inouth, restless in spirit, ferocious in temper, kept from rebellion by a numerous soldiery, or quieted by Government labour and food." - What of Germany, the coun- try which, next to France, holds up an example of wanton Sabbath desecration ? We have no hesitation in saying, both from per- so)ial observation, and from facts furnished by others, that that ■country is going back morally. Luthardt, in a recent work, says — "It .is statistically demonstrated that immorality has increased in a terrible degree of late years ... In Prussia, in the eight older provinces, the number of investigations on account of crimes ' Article on France Since IS4S, Vol. XV. - Quoted by ]\Ii-. Hill from British Eimarties disturb the day of rest by music and loud noise ; early on Sunday mornings the beer-gardens resound with music, and the inns are crowded ; and especiall}^ the night between Saturday and Sunday is spent in banquets and in drinking parties.'"^ Sun- day labour creates the craving for strong drink, and Sunday amusements would drive men to the public houses just as holi- days do at present. A sanctified Sabbath will cure drunkenness ;. a Continental one would only increase it." III. We need not stay long on the bearings of the Sabbath on FAMILY LIFE. These are obvious. The Sabbath brino-s the mem- bers of the family together, gives time for attention to family duties, and cements the bonds of family love. When Scripturally observed, it is the great promoter of domestic union and happiness. It strengthens family virtues. Dr. Arzillo, in the Report before referred to, gives it as his experience of those who spend the Sabbath properly — viz., by rest and sanciijieaiion — that " tlieir families prosper " (leurs families prosperent). On the other hand, Sabbath labour disorganises families. It separates the head of the household from his wife and children, and compels neglect of ' Cnth Preshy., Jan. 188.3, p. 24. = Ibid, p. 23. 3 Mr. Hill saj's — " The places of amusement are all open on the weekdays and evenings ; but drunkenness is not lessened, the public houses are just as fulL On national holidays, when every possible amusement is in full swing, the publicans reap their richest harvest, and the police courts show that amusements and holi- days do not diminish drunkenness." — Continental Sumlay Labour, p. 69. AVhat we have stated above finds appalling confirmation from a Parliamentary paper, issued in -June, 1885, containing diplomatic and consular reports on the consumption of intoxicating liquors abroad. It is estimated that in Germany at least 200,000,000 litres of pure alcohol were produced in 1875 and 1876 for mere consumption. This is 20 litres per head yearly for the male population above 15, or 50 litres of ordinary schnaps. In I8S0, the quantity had risen to 71 litres per head. In Prussia, for 1882, the estimated expenditure on spirits was 261,000,000 marks, while all the direct State taxes for the same period produced but 150,000,000 mai-ks. The increase in disease, crime, lunacy, suicides, &c., was what might have been expected from these figures. In Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, France and Austria, the drinking is scarcely less excessive, though in Holland and France a slight improvement has been etiected by restrictive laws. The whole report deserves careful study. Ii6 Tlic Sabbath Scripturally and PracticaUy Considered. family duties. We have seen this in tlie ease of iron-workers.' Gas managers bear witness to the same thing in their department. '" The effects produced on gas-stokers by such labour," was the statement made at a recent meeting," " were demoralising not only to themselves, but doubly so to the young minds in their families." Still more serious in its effects on the family is the conversion of the Sabbath into a day of recreation. Let ])eople's minds be taken up only with worldly things, " let them," to use words of Dr. Brandes, " become alienated from regular public worship, at which their minds are again and again led into that eternal truth which combines religion and morality, and can alone lay the foundation of both in man's soul ; let them also give up inter- course with Him who is the centre of the Gospel, and you will soon experience what perhaps you did not expect. , . that the souls of men will become like a devastated field which has been neither cultivated, nor has received rain and sunshine in due sea- son. There you will see rank weeds of every kind growing up from the neglected soil in appalling luxuriance — -the thorns of dark and cruel desires, and the thistles of o^risy, hatred, and malice, with ever}^ kind of evil passion destroying souls and devastating society."-' Under such conditions, the family cannot flourish. The country where this can be best studied is France. The fruits of French life are seen in the abounding immoralit}', the constant divorces, the list of infanticides, and the numbers of children thrown upon the public. " The general domestic condition of the French oiivvier" says Mr. Bramhall, in the " Reports of Artisans selected by a Committee appointed by the Council of the Society of Arts to visit the Paris Universal Exhibition, 1867," "is greatly inferior to that of the British workman. If we speak of him with regard to his family comfort, adjudged by the English stan- dard, home he has none — the idea has never been conceived — ^but he has a French home, which is eight stories hio-h." fee* Another reporter, Mr. Coningsby, says, " The house of the French workman is not, according to English notions, a comfortable one. . . To be candid, I have not been favourably impressed by the married From carticle on the Report in Good WorJ^, 1S6S. ■ The Sabbat Jl Scriptitrally ami Practically CoJisidered. 117 once seen actually seated in a cait smoking his pipe, while his wife was between the s]iafS. Mill holds " the future well-being of the labouring classes ''to be " prin- cipally dependent on their own mental cultivation." — PoL £c. Bk. IV. ch. vii. ' Work and Wagti^, pp. 93, 94, 95. ■* It is further economically advantageous as tending to increase the demand for commodities. The Sabbath Scviptiirally and Practically Considered. i2l oy the higher late of wages in this countiy tlian in France. They oonstautl}^ refer to it in their I'eport.^ " Without one ex- ception," says M]'. Ludlow, in an article on the subject in Good Words^- " the delegates hncl their English ' mates ' better paid than themselves,, generally working shorter hours, supplied with the necessaries of life at no greater, or even at a less cost than they, and living on better terms with their employers ; and to this they ascribe generally, where they admit it, the excellence of English work." The Lvons coachmakers m\e as cause of their inferiority " that the English workmen being better paid, can s])end more time in perfecting his work."'' The Paris tanners, curriers, and morocco- workers declare that English waoes in their trade are 30 per cent, higher than in France.^ The Paris engineers,, after visiting Maudslays, express their astonishment at finding- workmen who have never left the shop since it was opened,, thirty years ago, and at the fact that " with wages 50 per cent, higher, England produces machinery at lower prices than France."' In every other trade it is the same. What a tale this tells ! We would not affirm that there are not other causes on the Continent operating to reduce wages — e.n., protection — but in view of what has been said we cannot doubt that the way in which the Sabbath is spent is one of the ver^- chief. 3. The Sabbath has important bearings on exiienditure. It limits wasteful expenditure. Professor Kogers saj's — " I shall oppose the opening of the Crystal Palace, British Museum, and JS^ational Gallery (on Sundays), and ever}- other such measure, as unfriendly to the best interests of the people .... because seducing the common people into a habit of squandering their earnings yet more recklessly' than at present on transient grati- fications, to the detriment of those habits of economy, the want of which is the great bane of our artizans and operatives, and which the proposed legislation will render it impossible to correct."" ' See also Brassej-'s Work and Wct'je-^, pp. 9"2, 93, &c. ^ Good Words, 1864, pp. 874, &c. :^ Good Woi-d>i, 1864, p. 875. Higher wages thus react on skill, and tend still further to the improvement of the position of the labourer. ■» lb. = lb. ^ Thrti' ktt' rs to a Frknd on th: Sunday Qii(-^tion (1856), pp. 21, 22. Professor Rogers' other reasons are — " Because cruel to multitudes who will be ti;rned into ' beasts of burden ' on your public holiday that others may ride them to death ; because inviting the people at large to modes and kinds of pleasure which are too 122 The Sabbat Ji Scriptn rally and Practically Considered. Sabbath-keeping discourages intemperance. On the other hand, by promoting self-respect, intelligence, morality, family affection, desire for improvement, &c., it fosters thrift and economy, and directs means into useful channels. The bearings are obvious on economical prosperity. V. The bearings of Sabbath observance on National well-being is involved in all that has been already stated. It will be found by comparison that the Bible-loving, Bible-obeying, Sabbath- keeping nations exhibit (1) an intellectual superiority; (2) an •ethical superiority ; (3) a superiority in political institutions ; (4) a superiority in material respects (trade, commerce, wealth, &c.),' over those which are Sabbath-desecrating. It is these nations that " ride upon the high places of the earth." We have an in- stance of this in the stability of political institutions in Britain as compared with those in Continental countries. France is sick at heart, and politically unstable. Germany is eaten through with democratic and socialistic ideas. British institutions rest on the strong, broad basis of the virtue, intelligence, piety, and affec- tion of the people. Thus, in every point of view, the Sabbath is found to be of incalculable benefit to individuals and to society. An institution so precious it is the duty of every Christian, patriot, and philan- thropist most earnestly to guard. often only anothei- Ucame for a peculiarly jading sort of toil, and destructive of the real purposes for which such a day is instituted ; because multiplying temptations to vice and immorality, which even atheists cannot afford to encourage." ' The Roj'al Commissionei-s on Technical Education report (1884), that "great as has been the progress of foreign countries, and keen as is their rivalry with, us in many important branches, we liave no hesitation in stating our conviction, which we believe to be shared in by Continental manufacturers themselves, that taking the state ot the arts of construction, and the staple manufactures as a whole, our people still maintain their position at the head of the industrial world." France, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland, however, are stated to have made great progress in recent years. This, notwithstanding their disadvantages. What would France and Germany accomplish if they had a Sabbath ? The Sabbath Script2trally and Practically Considered. i "• ' 0 SECTION in. DEFECTIVE VIEWS OF SABBATH OBSERVANCE. Most, as wo have seen, profess to sympathise with tlie preserva- tion of the weekly day of rest.^ They acknowledg-e its physical, intellectual, and emotional benefits. Many, however, are in favour of removing it from its religious basis, and putting it on grounds of humanity and expediency alone. They make little of the religious sanctification of the day. The present mode of obser- vance they describe by such e])ithets as " dull and tiresome,"- ^' penal gloora,"^ "an irksome yoke,"^ "ghastly,"' "a long, dull day.'"" They desire to relieve the tedium, and give the day a more agreeable character — as well as make it more elevatino- and refining — by opening museums, art-galleries, &c., and promoting a variety of "innocent" recreations, such as gardens, parks, reading-rooms, bands, concerts, excursions, &c. It is thouo;ht that by these means many will be kept out of public-houses, who are at present driven into them through sheer ennui " The working- classes, and the poor living in slums and alleys are those who are to be specially benefited. We do not dispute that reading-rooms, museums, picture- galleries, and art exhibitions, are aids to knowledge and refine- ment, and that, both as a means of culture, and as a counteractive '(George Combe remarks on the Fourth Commandment, "Every line of our bodily and mental constitution coincides with this precept. . . . Indeed our natux'al constitution commands not only an extent of repose equal to tliat pre- scribed by the commandment, but greatly moi'e." — Moral Pldlosophy, Lect. IS. - Rev. Wm. Rogers, at the opening of Gallerj' of Paintings, Bishopgate, Sunday, Nov. 2nd, 1879. 3 Professor Tyudall, in Glasgow Speech, Oct. 25th, ISSO. ■» Ibid. 5 Arthur Helps, speaking of scenes in Germany, says, " In those fortunate regions, they have not made a ghastly idol of the Sunday." — Companions of my SoHtudf-, p. 127. ^ Mrs. Craik, in article in tlie Graphic and Sunday Bevieic, on Sinless Sabbath Breaking, signed. An Earnest Christian Woman. 7 " Everything is dull — shut up — no sport allowed — restraint upon every move- ment— solemnity upon eveiy face. Eaten up with ennui, he creeps into some corner witli a few fellows similarly situated, and resorts to gambling for amuse- ment; or he collects his companions in some out-of-the-way beer-shop," &c. — In Cox"s Literature of (he Sabbath Que-^fioii, Vol. TI. p. 307. H 1 24 Tlie Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. to temptation, the working classes ought to be encouraged to take advantao^e of them. We would be glad to see the woi'king classes take fuller advantage of them than they do. But we object to the opening of such places on Sunday as contrary to the ends for which the Sabbath has been given ; as part of an organised attempt to convert the Sabbath into a day of ordinary amuse- ment ; as ineffective, in the case of the poorer classes, for the ends proposed ; and very specially, as tending to deprive the Avorking man of his day of rest. 1. It is desirable at the outset that n^o doubt should remain upon the mind as to the CHARACTER of these movements. With the motives of the promoters of these movements we have nothing directly to do. It casts doubt upon the philanthropy of some of them, that, while so eager in advocating encroachments on the Sabbath — Sunday trains, Sunday steamboats, Sunday' cars, &c., all involving labour — their voices should be so seldom hearil lifted up in 'protection of the day of rest. It casts doubt on others, that while professing to desire to abate drunkenness, they should be found consistent opponents of the Sunday closing of public-houses.^ The motives of a third class are not free from the suspicion of pecuniary interest. We cannot doubt that under the specious cry of recreation for the people there is often hidden the more tangible consideration of profit for tlie shareholder. Much was said of " necessity and mercy," in connection with Sunday trains. But the hollowness of such professions was never so clearly unmasked, nor the great object in view more honestly and straightforwardly stated, than by the late Mr. Hodgson, the then chairman of the N. B. Railway Company, who, in replying to an intluential deputation, said in effect, " Gentlemen, it is simply a question of revenue ; if the Sunday trains pay the company, we will run them ; if they don't, we will give them up."" It will be ' Mr. P. A. Taylor, M.P., tlie champion of this party, votes against Sunday closing. Lord Rosebery, a late president of the Sunday Society, said, " I am not one of those who would have public-houses closed on Sundays." Tlie late Secretary of the >Sunday League gave evidence before a Parliamentary Committee in 1868, " stating tliat when he went to the bands in the parks on Sundays, he required drink to refresh him ; therefore he was opposed to the closing of public- houses on the Lord's Day. He stated his opinion that of those who went to listen to the Sunday bands, 500 to 1000 would go to a public-house afterwards." — Hil in Continental Sundmj Labour, p. 69. = Another case, exhibitmgthe financial motive, is that of tiie Brighton Aquai'ium. Proceedings lacing instituted against the Directors of this place of amusement for The Sabbath Scriptitrally and Practically Considered. 125 a .sany day for the working- man if. he allows his Sabbath to be lilched from him to fill the pockets of grasping shareholders. It is not, however, the motives of individuals which concern us, but their aims, and to set these in their true light, it is necessary that they should be stripped of some disguises. It is a disguising ot these aims, for example, to represent them as directed only to the opening of a few museums, art galleries, and similar public collections. This is the way the matter is often put, to quiet down fears as to the introduction of a Continental Sunday. But the pretence will not serve. It is absurd to say that if the Sabbath, as at present observed, is a day of " penal gloom," the opening of a few institutions of this sort would have any appreciable effect in relieving that gloom, or that the multi- tudes wlio are not disposed to a religious use of the Sabbath would be satisfied with that measure of relief. If the principle is de- parted from that the Sabbath is to be observed as a da}^ of leligion, why sltoiild the movement stop there ? How many of those who promote the movement really desire that it should stop there ? With an " Earnest Christian woman," like Mrs. Craik, advocating the introduction of a Parisian Sundav ; ^ with a writer like Mr. Arthur Helps, di-awing fascinating pictures of a German Sunday ; " with Mr. Cox quoting " pleasing accounts," of how in Germany and Switzerland, " the citizens stroll or sit . on the summer evenings, chatting, listening to the bands 'which play on the promenade, reading and talking over the newspapers, drinking coffee or beer at some of the many refreshment rooms, and enjoy- ing life and the society of their fellows ;"^ with Mr. Hooper, in the Artizans' Reports enchanted with French working class life,^ how can it be said that a Continental Sunday is not within the bounds of possibility'? Where do the aims of Sunday openers actually stop ? Are they not the advocates of the Sunday train, the Sunday steamboat, of bands and concerts, of everything in opening on Sunday tor money, these gentlemen stated in their Report (1875) — •' That an adverse decision would be of serious financial consequence to the com- ]iany, and it would then become necessary to resort to the most strenuous eflforts, in combination with otlier institutions similarly affected, to obtain a satisfactory modification or repeal of the Act in question." ' Sinless Sahhath BreaJc'mg, in the Graphic. ' Companions oj my Solitude , p. 127. 3 Littrature, of the Sahh. Question, Vol. II. \). ?,\o. " Good Words, 18GS, p. 471. 126 The Sabbath Scripfurally and Practically Considered. the shape of lively recreation ? Would they object to the pleasur- able excitement of the boat-race, to football, to cricket, to dances, to similar diversions ? They give Sunday concerts, and sing secular music — would they, but for the present state of public opinion, object to Sunday theatres ? None more loudly praise the theatre as a means of entertainment and moral instruction — why, in the name of a rationally spent Sunday, should they not introduce it ? It is said indeed that our national staidness, good sense, respect for religion, &c., would prevent matters going to excess. Are we more staid than Germans ? And is it not the very object of these movements to break down that religious staid- ness of character, which yet is depended on to curb excess? Were Sunday Society principles generall}^ adopted, how much staidness would remain V- We do not, say some, propose to legalise amusements carried on for profit. The line will be drawn here. 1'his is a second disguise of these movements which it is desirable to sweep away. If I'ecreations are lawful and needed, why should they not be paid for ? Who believes that if the religious sanctions of the day were abolished, the public would be hindered from having its enjoy- ment by any such scruple as this ? Why should railways, and cars, and steamboats, draw money for their service, and concerts, and circuses, and public exhibitions, not be allowed to draw money for theirs ? Were some company, in defiance of the law, to open their place for mone}^, would Sunday Societies, in the event of proceedings being taken against the offenders, uphold or oppose them ? Would this be included in the programme of al- lowing to every person, as far as possible, " the uncontrolled use of his Sunday."- We are not left in the darkness as to the aims of Sunday Societies on this point. We find them in the city of Glasgow opening Sunday concerts, and drawing money for them, in defiance of the law as it is. It is not here, therefore, the barri- cades must be erected. Our national institutions are, as it were, the key of the position. Concede the principle that holidaying and sight-seeing are proper ways of spending the Sabbath, and there is no logical halting place between the opening of museums • The Tim<'S, in an able article, Dec. 9th, 1865, points out that our national " sobriety, steadiness, and thouglitfulness " of character, is itself, in large measure, a product of a religiously kept Sunda_y. "^ Edward Higgiuson, in Christian Riformci\ April, 1 356. TJic Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 127 and the full-blown gaiety of a " Dimanche Programme." The Continental Sunday, then, is no phantom. For good or for evil, it is wrapped up in the aims of the promoters of Sunday opening, and no sophistry should be allowed to blind us to the fact. The proposal to open national institutions is, as has been well said, " like probing a bank that keeps out the sea in Holland. You may probe that bank only to get a bucketful of water, but you may thereby flood a nation, or drown a province. You cannot keep the hole the size you first made it. You cannot govern the flood. The ' letting out of water ' is proverbial."^ II, The proper character of these movements being ascertained, we next remark concerning them that, having regard to the aims which they propose to themselves, viz : the rational and moral improvement of man, they proceed on wrong lines. They miss the highest benefits of the Sabbath, they lose the lower ones, which alone they profess to aim at ; infinite mischiefs are created instead. 1. In the first place, it is to be observed regarding these views that they amount practically to the (jiving up of the Sabbath as a day of religion. It is said, " No, each man's freedom would still be secured to him. Those who wished to spend the Sabbath a.s a day of religion would still be at liberty to do so." But we have shown that this is impossible. Many would have the liberty of spending the Sabbath as a day of religion taken from them." The majority would have no thought of religion. The few who did desire to attend to religious duties would find it, except in some cloistered retreat, difficult or impossible." There would be, as on the Continent, empty churches, neglect of spiritual interests, practical forge tfulness of God. Is this a state of things to be de- sired ? Are the benefits which religion has yielded to our country of so little moment that we can afiord thus readily to part with them ? Sir Walter Scott is quoted as saying, " G i ve to the world one half of Sunday, and you will find that religion has no strong ' Sir Thomas Chambers, M.P., quoted by Mr. Plill in article 011 The Day of Hest in Nineteenth Century, April, 1884. ' InMr. Cox's pretty picture, e.ij., " of the citizens of Germany strolling or sitting, and drinking coffee or beer at some of tire many refreshment rooms always erected near," what extent of liberty is possessed by the ivaiters attached to these " many refreshment rooms," " always " so conveniently situated ? ' Perhaps we find an illustration of what the Sabbath would become in the present observance of our Scottish " Fast Days." 128 The Sabbath Scriptura/ly and Practically Considered. hold of the otlier." With the loss of the sense of sanctity in the day, the destruction of its external quiet, and the multiplication of temptations and inducements to s})end the day in folly, what hope would remain of the promotion of religion ? We do not say that this is what religion in our land actually will come to. But we say it is what it would come to, were Sunday Society principles generally accepted. And who that reflects though tfull}^ on the matter would regard it as anything else than a calamity ? ^ 2. The higher benefits of the Sabbath would be missed, but tlie CD ' loiuer benefits would not be secured. What is the kind of recrea- tion which Sunday Societies advocate, but just what Professor Rogers calls it, " a peculiarly jading sort of toil, destructive of the real purposes for Avhich such a day is instituted," and who that knows of what he speaks will compare it for a moment with a quiet day spent by the artizan in his own home in complete re- laxation. Are brass bands, gala decorations, sipping coflTee in the open air, reading or chatting over newspapers, not to speak of wandering through crowded museums and picture-galleries, to be compared in their influence on mind or heart with the still after- noon hour spent with the Bible, or the evening passed in instruct- ing the household ? " The sudden change of thought," says a writer in the Times, " the universal break, the pause in every business, afford a refreshment to the mind scarcely less than that of sleep to the body, and give opportunities for family intercourse and (|uiet reflection which it would be impossible otherwise to ob- tain."" This the Sunday Society asks us to exchange for a Sun- day which is " a mere holiday, marked by all the hurry and bustle of sight-seeing." Who can believe that the change is for the better ? In repl}^, it may be urged that all do not care for this quiet ' For the effects on morals, ViC must refer to what has been already said in con- sidering that subject. Sect. II. Paris society looks well on the surface, but its very gaiety is forced, and beneath there ai-e unconceivable depths of social iniquity. Mr. Coningsby says in the Artizan-^' /reports, "I admit that the Sundaj' in France is livelier than in England, and tliat the French working classes appear to enjoy themselves more on that day than the poor in England do : but ... I do not see . . . that we should be wise in imitatins; the French in this matter, believinjr as I do, that the extra liveliness of our streets on week-days, and the tremendous wealth of this nation, are partly the results of the quiet way in which Ave spend .Sunday." = Three Letters (18,56), pp. '21, 22. "^ Times, 9 th December, 1865. The Sabbath Scriptumlly and Practically Considered. 129 mode of spending Sunda}^, and that recreations must be provided for those who desire them. Further, as regards museums, &c... til at Sunday is tlie only day which the working man has for visiting these places at leisure, and improving his mind witli their contents. The first answer to some extent shifts the o-round. We are not at present inquiring, which mode of keeping Sunday do men prefer ? but, which mode yields the highest amount of rational and moral benefit ? If the recreative mode of keeping Sunday is ilissipating to mind and body, if it is the least helpful and profit- able, it can be no duty of ours to change public customs in order to aftbrd greater scope for it, still less to organise societies to induce men to keep Sunday in this way rather than in the other.^ Activity will go out in the direction of Lord's Day Observance Societies, rather than of Sunday Societies. It is, besides, no kindness to the careless and irrelio;ious classes to seek to alter the character of the Lord's Day on their behalf. It is not always sufliciently considered what a powerful educative influence there is in the very stillness of the streets on a Sabbath day, in the hallowed quiet resting over everything, in the music of church bells, in the sight of worshippers thronging to the house of God. It is a weekly testimony to God and to eternal things which even the most hardened nature cannot be wholly unsusceptible to. All this the Sunday Society method of things would sweep away. As respects the opportunities for visiting museums, &c., it may be answered that it is possiljle to over-rate the benefit \yhich the working man is capable of receiving from an occasional survey of paintings and antiijuities." It is certainly not so great that he is entitled to neglect for it the far holier duties for the riofht dis- charge of which the Sabbath has been specially given him. ^y proper arrangements, there is no difiiculty in giving every work- man opportunity of inspecting National Collections on week-day •evenings and afternoons ; and it will be for both his soul's and body's health tliat he employ his Sabbaths in seeking culture of a higher sort. The less he thrusts museum studies into the o ' From this point of view, tlio Suntlay Society agitation is singularly gratui- tous. There is no evidence, even, that any great number of working men want tiie Sunday Society Sabbath. The movement does not come from them at all. - See the remarks of Rev. F. W. Robertson, Sermom, 2nd. Series, pp. 169-70. 1 30 The SahhatJi Scriptiirally and Practically Considered. Sabbatlj, the more justice will be recognised in his claim for week-day time to improve his mind in this and other ways. The use of his Sundays for museum visiting deprives him of this plea, and perils what holidays he already has. (0) There remains the case of the poor in the lower parts of our great cities, is it desirable to open museums and places of recreation in the outskirts for their benefit ? We trust we sympathise with these poorer classes. We are touched by their great and bitter " cry," We know how unfavourable all the influences around them are to relie-ion.^ We recognise the need of their being taken out from their present surroundings, of having light and fresh air given tliem, of being placed in a purer moral atmosphere. We read with dismay of their filth and squalor, their drunkenness and vice, the traffic that goes on in their streets, their Sunday fairs, their heathenish ignorance of religion. Remedies have been proposed for their condition — some of them far-fetched and impracticable. But surely of all remedies that have been suggested the most Utopian is this that seeks to reform them by confirming and encouraging them in the sin of Sabbath breaking — that seeks to lift them out of their un- speakable squalor by admitting them to visions of the Old Masters and of Assyrian Antiquities — that hopes to break them off gin- drinking by inducing them to frequent parks and band-stands miles away from their wretched habitats. The idea is prepos- terous, absurd." As if these classes would go to such places — as - " Regarding such neighbourhoods as a whole, it is evident tliat in addition to a debased population the dregs of society creep unto them, to hide themselves from the world. Old and young, educated and illiterate, the trained thief and the pauper born, the sinned against and the double-dyed in sin, graduate towards those centres of squalor and depravity. . . . One result of this is, the exclusion of good influences; for when to the danger of taking contagious diseases, which is always present in those plague spots, is added the danger of personal violence, who can be found daring enough to brave the forlorn hope?" — Round the Toioer, p. 116. ^ "Who are the poor neglected ci'eatures with whom our public-houses are filled on vSundays, if they are filled ? Tliey are those who are the most unfortunate of my class — the least skilled, and therefore the worst paid, and consequently the worst housed amongst our population. But surely you will not attempt to per- suade this House to believe that this class of people. , . ai-e the people who are thirsting to worship your exhibitions of the Fine Arts miles from their homes. Will you suggest that these are the class of people who would rush in their teem- ing thousands to the British Museum to make scientific and historical examina- tions of the mummies and other curiosities that crowd the galleries, and tO' The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 1 3 1 if they would receive any benefit if they did go — as if an liour or two in a park hearing lively airs with return to unaltered condi- tions of misery and filth would to any appreciable degree benefit even health. Museums for " Outcast London," for the occupant of the fever den, for the naked, the starved, and the demoralized, for the costermono;er who never knows what a Sabbath is, for the overwrought needlewoman, for the match-maker, earning his few ])ence a day, for the neglected street arab, for the thief and harlot, for the gin-sot, what mockery ! No, the problem must be attacked from a different side than this. Those who are engaged in the actual work of trying to elevate these lost masses know well that nothing can be accomplished with them except under two conditions, that they be induced to stop drinking, and that they be got to observe something like a Sabbath.^ Better houses — open spaces — improved sanitary conditions — protection from rack-renting, certainly ; but above all temperance and the Gospel. These workers, accordingly, ask for the Sunday closing of public-houses ; the Sunday Society is in favour of them being kept open. The workers seek to bring the people within the reach of means of grace ; the Sunday Society does its best to scatter them. The workers try to introduce Sabbath observance; the Sunday Society scouts and ridicules it.'- \Vhich are the true friends of the masses whom both profess to desire to help ? The answer, surely, is not doubtful. The labours of Mr. M'AU, Miss de Broen, Miss Leigh, and others like them, among the ouviders of Paris;' the work of city missionaries and evangelistic bodies in the slums of our greater cities, such operations as those of Mr. Charring- ton ■* and the Congregational Union in the east end of London, worship at the feet of the M'orks of the ohi masters in the National Galleries?'" Mr. Broadluu-st's Speech, 19th May, 1882. ' See Bound the Tower — the story of the London City Mission, ch. vi. = The Report of the London City Mission, e.rir>. - Glasgow SiKcch, 1S80. The Sabbat It Scriptnrally and Practically Considered. 133 the manner proposed, some must labour. Tliey must labour to supply the wants, or provide the amusements of others. Plow broad this network of labour would soon become, it is difficult to realise. There would be labour of servants and coachmen ; cab, car, railway, and steamboat labour ; labour of waiters and others in places of refreshments ; public- liouse labour ; ^ labour of attendants at public institutions ; labour of those supplying the amusements ; " police labour, &c. Thousands of sliops would be open to supply lesser conveniences. How much labour, e.cj., is required to furnish the gaiety of Mrs, Oraik's Parisian Sundaj'^, or Mr. Cox's German one. The Sunday Societies are extremely distressed about the working man not being able to enter a museum on the Sunday. Have they no compunction for the multitudes who are to be driven as beasts of burden, and deprived of a Sabbath altogether, to carr\^ out their hobbies ? 2. The religion of the day being parted with, labour icoukl ex- tend itself in other ways. There would no longer be the same motive to refuse to work. Some would work because they wished to, thinking they might as well work as play; others would be compelled to work. The reply to this is, that the economical advantages of a day of rest are now so well understood that self-interest alone will prove a sufficient bulwark against the encroachments of labour. The employer, consulting his own interest, Avill not ask men to work. The men, valuing their holiday, would not do it if he did.'' This supposes that self-interest is always understood, but even if it were, the follow inn- considerations will show that self-interest alone is a very feeble barrier against aggressions on the day. ■ The Lords' Committee report : " There are upwards of 340,000 barmen and barmaids in England and in Ireland. ... In the country they can be kept at work for 108 hours (in the week), and in London for 123^ hours." — Report, p. 52. ' The Brighton Aquarium employed 44 persons. 3 " Some persons fear tliat if the stringent divine authority of tlie day be givcji up, it may soon come to be claimed as a working day like the other six. I do not fear this . . . The labourer knows that the addition of a seventh day of work would not permanently add anything to his earnings. He therefore cannot be tempted to forego his Sabbath. The employer of labour believes, too, that six days of toil, thus intermitted, and relieved by the seventh, are as effective as seven would be without such interval. He tlierefore is under no temptation to invade, if he could, his workman's Sabbatli," &c. — Edward Higginson, quoted in Cox's Literal, of Sahhath Question. Vol. IT,, p, 2G7, 134 1^^^<^ Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 1. The proposition that the employers interest is incompatible with Sunday labour is subject to obvious limitations. (1) It applies chiefly to skilled labour. No doubt even un- skilled labour will be better done with the aid of the Sabbath's rest, but the employer ma}^ not deem the gain equal to the loss of the day's work. (2) It does not apply to labour that can be had in unlimited quantities. Grant that men break up, there are others to take their place. In the case of seamstresses, &c., wdiere payment is according to work done, interest affords no protection. (3) It does not apply to labour, the gains of which can only be secured on the Sunday. This alone opens an enormous field for Sabbath labour — shops, newspapers, cars, exhibitions, tfec, &c. (4) It does not always apply — or may not be thought to apply — where machinery is involved. Machinery does not tire as man does.^ " Everything," say Mr. Coningsby, " which has a tendency to make Sunday m(3re like one of the other days of the week helps to bring on the time when capitalists will discover that it is against the laws of political economy to keep mills empty and machinery standing idle during one whole seventh of the week." "- This is an element of profound danger in connection with our existing industrial system. (5) The view of interest will often be affected by competition. The shop — the mill — might be closed, and welcome — if others would keep theirs closed ; but if rivals insist on working, the shopkeeper or capitalist may feel compelled to work also.-' A few individuals have thus the power to force the hands of a great man}^. (6) Urgency may be pleaded. There is pressure to execute a contract, or some public work is hurried, or a crop waits to be gathered in — a thousand pleas may be urged to warrant labour in particular cases. But these would suffice to break down the moral safeguards of the day. ' On the alteration in the problem introduced by machinery, see Brassey's Worlc and Wcujc.s, cli. vi. - Aj-tizans' Bepoi-ff. 3X116 Times says — " These considerations are not overstrained. The unavoid- able necessities of competition soon turn an exception into a rule. We know that the persistence of a single tradesman in extreme or inconvenient hours of trade compels all his brethren to the same course.'' — Quoted in Hill's Continental Sunclaif Laliour, p. CO. The Sabbat Ji Scriptin'ally and Practically Considered. 135 (7) There is a last consideration. ^.n employer mio-ht not unreasonably think that his interest in preserving the Sabbath as a day of rest ceased, if the employe no longer used it for this purpose. " As for the rest which is obtained," says Mr. Coningsby, " by exploring museums and studying pictures, I am quite certain that an employer would get more work on Monday out of a man who had passed the day before in the factory, than from the one who had been all the Sunday instructing himself and ' improvino- his mind,' — an occupation which most people find very tiresome."^ 2. We perceive then that little is to be hoped for from the interest of the employer in preserving the day of rest, even sup- posing his view of his interest to be always enlightened, whicli in a multitude of cases it would not be. How stands the case with the interest of the men .? (1) An initial question here is, are the men, any more than the employer, always alive to their true interest ? Undeniably, they are not, if interest means not Vv-orking on the Sunday. In every branch of trade there are men, not a few, who would be glad enough to work the whole, or a part of the Sabbath, were they but paid for doing it. The majority are averse from Sunday work, but a minority have no scruples. In gas labour, in railway labour, in post-office labour, in telegraph labour, this is found to be the case. The view expressed at a recent meetino- of Gas Managers" was that the first to object to any reduction of Sunday labour would be the men themselves, and the proposal was made that, as an Association, they shoukl encourage freedom from Sun- day labour, whether the men liked it or not.' In the strike of the gas-stokers in London, much more was heard of double pay for Sunda}^, than about relief from work ; and when increased pay was given for Sunday work, " the men," says Mr. Woodall, " preferred to stay in the retort house, and draw the laro-e wao-es, rather than take the relief from work." * In tjie evidence taken by the Royal Commission on Railway Accidents (1874-1877) tlie question was asked — '•' Is tlie dislike of the men to having the seventh day's work so often, or is it that they want extra pay for it ? " ^ The answer was — " Extra pay is what they would like. It is not so much the work of the Sunday, as not being as they say paid for it." •* In the recent meetings of telegraph clerks, stress ' Arilza}is' /Reports. = .July 24th, 1SS4. 3 Scotsman Report. ■» Meeting of Association, 1876. ^ Quest. GG51. * Ibid. 1 36 IJic Sabbath Scriptui'ally and Practically Considered. was laid fully as mucli on the being paid overtime for their labour, as in obtainino- entire relief It is also to be remembered that in these and similar cases, the few who are willing to work have often the power of forcing the hand of the others. (2) A second and more serious consideration is, that in most of the lower occupations, and at least some of the higlier, the employes are without the power to give effect as they might wish to do to their views of self-interest. Of two evils they must choose the least, and generally the only alternative open to them is — submit, or be dismissed ; submit, or starve. Clei'ks, shopmen, attendants on libraries, post-ofl&ce officials. Government servants generally, as well as men on cars, boats, and railways, &c., are all in this jjre- dicament. Self-interest, therefore, is no safeguard here. (3) Lastly, it is to be noticed that even skilled artizans — the most highly organised trades — often find it not possible to re- sist the will of employers in lengthening hours, reducing wages, and enforcing Sunday labour. Trades-unions, powerful in many things, are not omnipotent. " In times of good trade and abun- dant demand for labour," says the Earl of Shaftesbury, "the work-people could, and would, resist such an encroachment ; but in days of stagnation of commerce, and with an immense com- petition for employment, they must earn their wages on any con- ditions ; and, the legal and exclusive character of the Sunday being taken away, it would fall into the general number of days, and become altogether subservient to the imperious and irresis- tible requirements of capital.''^ It casts a lurid light on the aims of the Sunday Society, that in the steel-works belonging to Dr. Siemens,' a late Vice-President of that society, Sunday work has recently been compulsorily intro- duced. On Sept. 14th, 1882, the men employed at these worka were reported to be out on strike " in order to resist Sunday labour, which the einployers contend is necessary to enable them to compete with Continental manufacturers."" Another report stated the directors " to be firm as to the introduction of Sunday work, which they regard as very desirable in the interests of the men themselves, and would lead to cheapening the production, so that the company would be able to compete with other pro- = Preface to Hill's Continental Sunday Labour. - At Landore. 3 Evening Standanl, Sept. 14tli, 1SS2. The Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 1 37 ducers."^ The Avorkmcii were oft'ered an advance of 2 J per cent on their wages, if they would submit to keep the furnaces on Sundays. At first they refused, but within a fortnight, thej' gave in to the employers' terms. " Ex uno disce omnes." In this one instance the whole character of recent movements lies un- veiled. Yet as late as March, ISSi, Lord Dunraven had the hardi- hood to assert — " Even if masters desired to keep their factories, mines, shops, and commercial undertakings open on Sundays, which they do not, the}'' could not possibly compel men to work in them.""- The view that, if the relio-ious sanctions of tl\e Sabbath were taken away, self-interest would suffice to protect its rest against the encroachments of labour, is thus shown to be a fallac}'. Nothing will suffice for this purpose but a strong and earnest conviction of the sacred character of the day, as based, not on man's will, but on Divine Law. Blessings untold, indeed, lie in the observance of the Sabbath. But it does not follow that these are visible to the superficial onlooker, or can be always calculated beforehand to the satisfaction of the man of the world. Obedi- ence to Sabbath law must from the nature of the case, often be an act of faith. Nothing will keep such faith alive in men's hearts but the conviction of Divine Command. Would we see our country saved from the curse of Sabbath labour, it is to the upholding of this conviction we must direct our efibrcs. SECTION IV. EEMEDIES FOR EXISTING SABBATH DESECEATIOX. It remains only to gather up the results of our discussions in a few concluding remarks on existing Sabbath desecration, and the best means of counteracting it. We have stated our opinion that at the present time Sabbath observance is declining. It is probably not worse than it was at ' Swansea paper, Sept. 5th, Quoted in Nlncttcnih Century, April, 1884. ^ Nineteenth Century, March, 1884. 138 The Sabbat Ji Scripturally and Practically Considered. the beginning of the century. At that time, parti}- as a baleful inheritance from the Deism and Moderatism of the ISth century, and partly as a result of the changed condition of society consequent upon the introduction of machinery,^ Sabbath desecra- tion had risen to very great heights. In 1829, we find the secretaries of the Religious Instruction Society of London pre- senting to a meeting of its subscribers an alarming Statement on the Aiufiil Profanation of the LorcTs Day, and, in consequence, issuing Pespectful Addresses from the Societ}^ to tlie clergy of the United Kingdom, to tradesmen and shopkeepers, and to masters and heads of families. Bishop Blomfield, in A Letter on the Present Neglect of the Lord's Day (1830), mentions as abuses, traffic in food, drinking in gin-shops, resorting to tea-gardens, sailing in steamboats on the Thames, loading and unloading canal boats, reading Sunday newspapers, liolding festive and convivial meetings, card parties, literary conversationes, but above all, resorting to gaming houses on Sunda}^- These evils, impressing the minds of Christians, led to a remarkable outburst of zeal on behalf of better Sabbath observance, the eflects of which are seen in the improved state of opinion and practice lasting to the present day. " The Evangelical party," says Mr. Cox, " holding the views of the Puritans respecting the Sabbath, and of which Wilberforce and Hannah More were then distinguished ornaments, gained influence rapidly, and the seeds were sown which ha^^e since produced so abundant a crop of zeal for the strict observance of the Lord's Day." ^ At the same time a revival of zeal for the Lord's Da}^ took place in America. We may learn something ' The population had increased by many millions, and the volume of trade had greatly expanded. There was much poverty, ignorance, and discontent among the lower classes of the people. The superseding of hand labour by machinery neces- sarily had a disorganizing effect upon society. ^ Cox, Literature of Sahhath Question, Vol. II., p. 334. 3 Cox, Literature of Sabbath Question, Vol. II., p. 323. A large amount of esecration, however, remained to be deplored. Mr. Jordan, in his Sahhath of God, published in 1848, gives a picture which, if not overdrawn, proves that the evil was still growing. " Sabbath desecration is becoming rapidly, if it has not already be- come, a national siu. . . . It is found undermining, and threatening with ruin, our Avhole social system," &c. — Introduction, pp. 19-21. ■* " Tlie Presbyterians in many places formed themselves into societies for pro- moting; the observance of the Christian Sabbath, held numerous conventions with the same object, reprinted the volumes of Mr, Macbeth and Bishop Wilson, and produced tliemselves a series of works," &c. — Cox, Vol. II., p. 414. TJie Sabbath ScripUirally and Practically Considered. 139 from these past efforts for the remedy of Sabbath desecration The serious thing in the present aspect of affairs is that we are declining from past hard-won attainments. There have been periods of as great Sabbath desecration, but we are not holding fast that we have. We are content to take Mr. Cox'& statement of the means which brought about the improvement in Sabbath observance in the early part of the century, and to urge that the means should be adopted now. " The Bishops in England, and the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland," we are told, "issued Charges and Addresses on the duty of Sabbath observance." Further, " Sermons enforcing it were more frequently heard from the pulpit." Again, " More serious attention was paid in families to the religious instruction of youth." ^ In addition, societies were formed, books written, meetings held, tracts circulated, every means taken to diffuse abroad correct ideas of the nature, obliga- tion, value, privileges, and blessings of Scriptural Sabbath ob- servance. We would specially direct attention to the importance of addresses from the pulpit, and of careful instruction of the young. Congregations hear too little on this subject of the Sabbath from their spiritual guides. They are entitled to hear more. The pulpit might be made a mighty engine for the enforcement of Sabbath duty. Discourses should frequently be preached explaining the principles, defining the duties, enforcing the obli- gations, and illustrating the benefits of sound Sabbath observance, as well as warning against the evils of neglect and laxity. Still more should diligence be used in instilling sound principles of Sabbath observance into the minds of the young. Every Christian home should be a nursery of piety, rearing up for God and the Church a young generation of Sabbath-keepers. This will only be accomplished if home-life is based on Sabbath-keeping principles, and if parents are careful of their personal example. The scepticism that is abroad, cutting at the root of Sabbath obligations, may be met by direct efforts, but the best cure for it is to seek revival in the Church itself It is noteworthy that, at the beginning of the century, both in this country and in America, zeal for the observance of the Sabbath was connected with a revival of the spirit of warm Evangelical religion. It is the luke- warm state of piety which gives the present Anti-Sabbatarian ' Literature of the Sabbath Question, Vol. II., p. 323, I 140 The SahbatJi Scriptitrally and Practically Considered. movements so much of their power. Every means, accordingly, should be used to revive this spirit, and to incite the churches to their proper work of seeking to reach and elevate the morally degraded masses. In seeking to arouse them^ the Church will be kindled into warmth herself; in feeling the necessity of teaching them Sabbath keeping, she will be taught to improve her own practice. Many pleasing instances exist to show how much may be done by personal effort. It is chiefly through efforts of individuals, themselves interested in Sabbath observance, that the question of Sunday labour has been brought under the notice of the different trade societies; often, as in the case of the gas and iron industries, with the result of effectino- extensive reforms.^ The efforts of individuals, or of societies represented by individuals, have been the means of securing important concessions for postmen, railway employes, &c.," and of preventing not a little Sabbath desecra- tion.^ The improvement in Sabbath observance which has taken place at Geneva is stated to be in no small measure due to one gentleman, Mr. Alexander Lombard, who, about twelve years ago, was led to retire from business as a banker, and consecrate his life to efforts for promoting the observance of the Lord's Day.^ ' "Thanks, however, to the exertions of Mr. Morton, of the London Gas Works, one of our Vice Presidents, and to the Rev. Jolin Gritton, Secretary to the Loi'd's Day Observance Society, our eyes have been opened to the necessity of relieving the stokers, as far as possible, from Sunday labour, with the result that it has been found to be quite possible to give a large proportion of the men complete i-elief from labour on that day." — Inaugural Address of Mr. Livesey at meeting of Gas Managers' Association, June 9th, 1874. ^ E.g., At the instance of the Lord's Day Rest Association, Sir Charles Reed, in the House of Commons, took up the cause of the provincial Postmen, obtaining concessions by which the Sunday work of many hundreds of post-office officials has been abolished. — Hill's Sundaxj, Appendix. 3 On the occasion of the annual meeting of the German Iron Trade, and the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain at Dusseldorf, 1880, a Sunday excursion was arranged for with feasting, music, &c. ; but, at the representations and remon- strances of individuals and Lord's Day Societies, the Councils of the two Societies were constrained to withdraw the excursion from the programme, and instead thereof two special services of Divine worship were arranged for in Dusseldorf. At the Paris Exhibition many of the exhibitors were persuaded to close on Sunday. ^ Through Mr. Lombard's efforts, " the Sunday work of postmen in Geneva has been much diminished ; a large number of the architects and builders of the city have been induced to insert in their contracts a clause providing for the cessation The Sabbat Ji Scriptu rally aii'd Practically Considered. 141 Through personal effort, the missionaries in the east of London have been able to accompb'sh remarkable results in inducing shop- keepers to close on Sundays/ By efforts of individuals much might be done in closing shops, reducing the employment of cabs, inducing persons to attend church, and preventing a thoughtless and unprofitable use of the day. We reiterate in closins^ what we said in the Introduction, that there is need at the present time for all the efforts we can put forth. The enemy is very active. A powerful secular press casts ridicule on all attempts to preserve the sanctity of the day. Sabbath labour, — especially railway labour," — is extending itself in many insidious ways. Perils to the Sabbath are multiplying from the expansion of our trade, and the increasing difficulty that is felt in maintaining our ground industrially against foreign competi- tion.'' Sunday Societies and infidel clubs are putting forth bold, aggressive efforts, and Sunday Society aims can count their friends among Peers and Princes. Worse than all, many " love to have it so." The behaviour abroad of not a few of our countrymen and countrywomen, show conclusively how far they are at heart from having any aversion to a " Continental Sunday." It would be wrong, however, to dwell only on this dark side, and to shut our eyes to other things in the state of society which are operating in our favour. Of these, the following may be noted : — On the Continent itself, an unmistakable desire is springing up for a better observance of the day of rest. Hessey, in 1860, could say — " There seems to exist at present, not merely in Germany, of work on the Lord's Day ; and many railway servants have had a fixed nnmber of Sundays secured to them," &c. — Hill's Continental Sunday Labour, p. 22. ' E.g., " A missionary, after labom'ing for several years upon a district on which one hundred and sixty shops were opened upon the Lord's Day, discovered a desire on the part of many tradesmen for the day of rest ; there was also an improved feeling upon the matter among the great body of the people. He therefore made soecial calls upon leading traders, urging them to sign a paper to the eifect that they would close on the Lord's Day if others in their line would do so. This had the effect of closing many grocers, tailors, and shoemakers. A like effort was then made with the butchers .... and, as the result, thirty-nine agreed to keep closed. When the day arrived, the aspect of the neighbourhood was changed. Twenty-nine butchers joined the missionary who was waiting for them, and they all entered church together." — Round the Tower, p. 138. ^ See Report of the Sabbath Alliance, 1884. 3 See the Report of the Lords' Commissioners on Technical Education. 142 The Sabbath Scriptitrally and Practically Considered. but in other parts of the Continent, at least here and there, a longing for something like the English Sunday."^ The feeling- has since gone on increasing." More shops are shut in Paris than used to be. The Sunday question has been debated in both French and German lec^islatures. Greater efforts are being made to obtain for post-office and railway em|)loy^s at least part of the day of rest. In Italy, it is reported, "there is a remarkable awakening as to the social and religious importance of the Lord's Day."^ From Spain, " the newspapers inform us recently that there has been a Lord's Day movement at Cordova."^ -At Paris, " M. le Comte L. de Cissey, the chief apostle of this movement, multiplies his special conferences, distributes thousands of the magazines of which he is editor . . . Amoncj the results is the closing of manufactories, work-sliops, and many shops in different towns."'' Catholics and Protestants are alike interested in the reform. These are cheering facts. They ought to strengthen and encourage us. They teach us the value of an institution which many are disposed lightly to abandon. Shall the Con- tinent make efforts to regain a Sabbath, and Britain fling av/ay hers ? It should cheer ns also that as yet the great bulk of the work- ing classes in this countrv are sound in their desire to retain the day of rest. There are exceptions, chiefly among those who are already demoralised to some degree by Sunday work. But the movement for the secularisation of the day does not come from the working classes. It comes from the classes above them. Working men, as a class, resist it. In the main, also, public sympathy is with us in this question. There is much individual desecration of the Sabbath ; there is unwarrantable exaction of labour from others ; but there is im- ' Bampton Ltdure^, p. 24S. ^ Dr. Brandes says : — "In the Protestant part of Germany . . . an enterprise is on foot, the importance of which no one will readily question. The object is to reinstate Sunday in its due position, especially to restore to the working classes tlieir day of rest, and for this object the most opposite parties are united. Even those who are quite alienated from religion . . . feel compelled to concede that a day on which all work must cease is necessary for the bodily as well as for the spiritual welfare of the people ; and some remarkable essays have been published." —Catk. Preshyt., Jan., 1SS3. 3 Report of International Federation of Lord' a Day Societies, 18S3, pp. 8, 9. • Ibid. s Ibid. TJie Sabbath Scripturally and Practically Considered. 143 mediate opposition to any proposal to secularise the day on prin- ciple. Open, public, wanton aggression on the Sabbath at once provokes antagonism,^ We are entitled, further, to reckon as in our favour, the very general admission of the physical necessity — to rise no higher — of a weekly day of rest. The importance of this admission, as a ground from wliich to argue to tiie higher uses of the day, has already been made apparent. It is the religion of the Sabbath which is the safoQ-uard of its rest. Powerfully on our side, also, is the temperance " Sunday Clos- ing," movement. The progress already made by this movement is a good omen for the future, and the benefits are seen whenever it has succeeded. Intemperance and Sabbath breaking go so closely hand in hand, that whatever tends to reduce one, limits also the other. As a mere reduction of Sabbath labour, the liber- ation of 340,000 barmen and barmaids from Sunday employment is no mean goal to aim at. Lastly, we can reckon on the support of almost the whole of the religious, and of part, also, of the secular press. If influential journals in Scotch centres are against us, it is gratifying to retlect that the leading Metropolitan organ — The Times— in a steady up- holder of Sunday observance. Our task, then, lies before us. To set in our own example, in the arrangements of our households, and in our church relations, a strict and careful pattern of observance of the Sabbath ; to in- struct our children in the same principles ; to use what personal influence we possess in promoting Sabbath observance, and checking Sabbath desecration; to join with others — if that is possible — in forming societies for this purpose; to support and strengthen, in every way we can, the societies that already exist ; to difluse as widely as possible information in regard to the physical, domestic, moral, and economical advantages of the Sabbath ; to inculcate its Scriptural principles ; to uphold tem- perance ; above all, to labour and pray for spiritual revival, that greater zeal in this cause may animate the hearts of God s children. ' "At present the great masses of the people of this country have a deep con- viction that it is wrong to pursue their regular work on Sundays. This conviction is the result of the religious teaching in our churches and chapels and schools for centuries past," — Nintteenth Century, April ISS-i, p. 701. 1 44 The Sabbath Scriptiirally and Practically Cottstdered. Maj^ He who, in time's dawn, gave tlie Sabbath to man as a. day of priceless privilege and holy communion, — who, when He called His chosen people out of Egypt, set the Sabbath as the T)rightest jewel in the covenant He made with them, — and who, in the fulness of time, re-consecrated and re- blessed it hj the Hesurrection of His Son Jesus Christ from the dead, — may He, in these last davs, when cjainsaving is loud, and the love of many is waxing cold, still show Himself its Defender and King, make bare His arm of misht on its behalf, and rescue it from the depravation of those who would no longer have it "Holiness to the Lord." END OF THIED ESSAY. S. Cowan <£.• Co., Strathmore Printing Works, Pa'th. SOME ASPECTS OF THE SABBATH QUESTION, Jfoitrtlj lirije ^ssag. SOME ASPECTS OF THE SABBATH QUESTION. ^tt ^ssag. BY A MEMBER OF THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE, EDINBURGH. BEING THE ESSAY TO WHICH WAS AWARDED A PRIZE OF TWENTY POUNDS OFFERED BY THE SABBATH ALLIANCE OP SCOTLAND. EDINBURGH: JAMES GEMMELL, GEORGE IV. BRIDGE. 1886. INDEX. Page. 1. The Sabbath instituted at the creation of man and of which the Son of Man declared Himself to be Lord, ..... 1 2. The Sabbath, as defined in the Fourth Commandment, not a merely Jewish institution, ■ . . . . . . .13 3. The question whether the appointment of the last of the seven days of the week as the Sabbath was peculiar to the temporary Jewish dispensation, ........ 1 4. Explanation of the word " Sabbath " in the various places where it occurs in the New Testament, ...... 37 5. The relation of the Fourth Commandment to the other precepts of the Decalogue, with special reference to present errors in this connection, and to the teaching and practice of the Church of Eome . . 51 6. The proper observance of the Sabbath by nations and private Christians, considering also existing and proposed encroachments upon the Sanctity of the Sabbath" in our own time, . . , . 62 SOME ASPECTS OF THE SABBATH QUESTION. THE SABBA TH INSTITUTED AT THE CREA TION OF MAN, AND OF WHICH IHE SON OF MAN DECLARED HIMSELF TO BE LORD. IF we accept the Bible as containing a true revelation and record of events, we must accept as true the first verse of its first chapter, which reveals and records the fact that there was a beginning to the heavens and the earth, and that their beginning was due to the creative energy of God. " He spake, and it was done." By His simple fiat all things were created and called into being out of nothing. The theory, therefore, that matter is eternal, and that all things have been gradually evolved and developed, or the theory that all things simply emanated from the Divine, is thus necessarily excluded. The very first verse of the first chap- ter of God's revelation to man through His written word compels us to ascribe the origin of matter to the creative energy of a living and personal God, and the importance of ascribing it to Him will become apparent as we proceed in the discussion of our subject. It is clear from the narrative of the creation that the Creator had special regard for man. This appears from the evidence of deliberation, or of completed preparation for his creation, expressed in the words, " Let us make man," which deliberation is not shown to have preceded the creation of anything else. It appears like- wise from the fact that man M^as made in the image of God, that dominion over the creatures was committed to him, that all things were put under his feet, and that he was commanded to subdue the 2 ^oiiie Aspects of the Sabbath Question. earth, and to make it, by the superior force of his intelligence and will, subject to him in all its capacities and forces . Further, of all created thino-s and bein2i;s, man alone is immortal : but as all thino;s were made for man at the creation, and on his fall were cursed for his sake, so they shall all in God's time perish, and for man, restored to perfection, a new heaven and a new earth shall be created, of which righteousness shall be the grand character- istic. Endowed with dominion over all other creatures, and with authority to subdue the whole earth, man received on his creation the blessing of his Maker. Paradise was prepared for him, and in it he was placed. His work was appointed him, to dress it and to keep it. He received a help meet for him in woman. Marriage was instituted, and the whole economy of nature was set in motion. The earth was as yet uncursed ; it was fresh and smiling in its beauty. Man was as yet untainted in body, soul or spirit ; he was richly endowed with vast potentialities of mind and will. With the ])ure joys of natural affection ever re- freshino; him, and ever disclosing new and wonderful and un- dreamt of delight, with all that his nature required or could reasonably desire, his Creator endowed him with lavish hand that he might be perfectly happy. He was indeed the crowning glory of creation, and, like him, all things else were pronounced " very good." But the blessincr of Jehovah rested not on man alone, but on the seventh day as well. Its dawn beheld the earth complete in its beauty. The end of the preceding days, it is true, must have witnessed striking beauties of many kinds, but the beauty of com- pleteness, the beauty due to the accomplishment of a preconceived plan, was peculiarly that of the seventh day. Nature was then set upon its course of duty in bearing perpetual testimony to the glory and goodness of its Creator. And we are prepared here to assert (although it is anticipating our argument to do so) that on this day which God blessed at the creation, the Sabbath, in the great wisdom and goodness of God, was instituted for man as necessary for his nature, whether upright or fallen, as essential for the maintenance of pure religion on the earth, and for the proper refreshment and development of man in body, soul and spirit. But before we consider the import and significance of the So } lie Aspects of tJic Sabbat Jl Question. 3 sanctifioation of the seventh day at the creation, it is proper to consider whether or not it is the fact that God did sanctify it then, because by some it is denied that He did so. Gen. ii. 1, 2, o. " Thus the heaven and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made ; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it ; because that in it He had rested from all His work, which He created and made." Certainly this passage seems perfectly plain and explicit, and there is no shadow of ambiguity about it, and consequently, if the fact be denied that God blessed the seventh day at the creation, it is evident that the onihs of supporting the denial is a very heavy one. Two objections, however, have been urged against this early institution of the Sabbath. First, it is contended that Moses may have written the narrative of the creation after the giving of the Fourth Commandment from Mount Sinai. If so, it is said he may quite naturally have assigned the sanctification of the seventh day to the period of the creation, so as to account thereby for God's havino; selected in the Fourth Commandment the seventh in preference to the other days of the week for the Sabbath. But this objection, even should it be otherwise good, can have no force or effect unless it can be shown that the promulgation of the Fourth Commandment preceded the writing of the narrative of the creation. This, however, it is probably impossible to prove, and the objection, therefore — an objection, be it observed, against the plain meaning of the narrative — rests on a mere conjecture, which has not the balance of authority in its favour ; nor has it the balance of probability in its favour, for it puts a forced and un- natural construction upon the passage which in itself is simple, direct, and explicit, and fits quite naturally into the narrative of other events, which, it is not disputed, took place at the creation. Valuable light is thrown upon this point by the words of our Saviour : Matt. xix. 4. "Have ye never read that He who made them dt the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife," which words evidently refer to the second chapter of Genesis where marriacje is declared to have been instituted in 4 Siowe Aspects of the Sabbath Question. Eden. In all fairness, therefore, the institution of the Sabbath^ like the institution of marriage, must be held as having taken place " at the heginming,'^ according to the simple language of the narrative, and the interpretation thereof by Christ ; and we have htus no more reason to doubt that God did in point of fact bless and sanctify the seventh day at the creation, than we have to question the other events wliicli arc recorded in the chapter as having at that period occurred. The second objection to this early institution of the Sabbath is of an entirely different character, and, in order to understand it, some preliminary remarks are necessary. Before the science of geology was much advanced, the common belief was that the six days of creation referred to in the first chapter of Genesis were days in the usual acceptation of the term, namely, periods of twenty-four hours. But as progress was made in this and in other sciences it became evident that this view was untenable. The earth, it was clear, had been in existence for ages before vege- table and animal life appeared, and vegetable and animal life had been in existence for ages before man was created. These facts — and it could not be denied that they were facts — were inconsistent with the idea that creation had been accomplished in six literal days, and the idea was accordingly abandoned. It was abandoned reluctantly enough by some, who thought that to do so was to discredit the written word of God, but to most people then, and it may safely be said, to all people now, the matter presents no difficulty at all. If the word " day " in the narrative may be in- terpreted in the sense of era or indefinite period, it will be apparent that there is no conflict on this point between God's revelation through nature and His revelation through Scripture, and the only question is whether we are warranted in so interpreting the word. The question may readily and properly be answered in the af- firmative, for the word " day " does not always bear in Scripture the meaning of a fixed period of twenty-four hours' duration ; it sometimes means the period of time the sun is above the horizon ; sometimes it means a whole year; in such expressions as "the day of your calamity," it refers to a period without reference to its duration, and notably, in the very context (Gen. ii. 4), it will not bear the ordinary meaning, but manifestly refers to the whole period of creation. We think, therefore, that we are warranted in understanding by the word "day" throughout the narrative Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 5 of the creation an indefinite period of time or era, and Scripture, therefore, is not at variance with the facts of science on this point. This being so, the objectors to the view that the Sabbath was in- stituted at the creation were not slow to urge that there is here an insuperable difficulty, for while they could understand God's resting on and sanctifying the seventh literal day of creation, which had occupied the six days immediately preceding, they can see no meaning and no propriety in His resting on and sanctifying the seventh geologic era in which we are now living;. But the answer to the objection is this : we can recognise both meaning and propriety in the fact, if it be a fact, that every seventh day was set apart and sanctified from the beginning as a memorial that creation was begun and carried to completion, not by mere evolution or development of pre-existent and eternal matter and force, but by six successive fiats of a personal God. As the holy oommunion is a memorial of the redemption of the world, so the Sabbath is a memorial of the creation of the world, which as truly deserves commemoration whether it occupied six days or sixty thousand millenniums. Having thus considered the objections to the view that God blessed and sanctified the seventh day at the creation, let us now consider the evidence in favour of His having done so. There is evidence from holy Scripture, and also from profane history, that from the earliest period of the human race the division of time into weeks was known and observed. No doubt many deny that this fact has any significance in this connection. They say that it was just a rude division of the lunar month, or that it was suggested by the worship of the seven planets, or by the seven notes of the tonic scale ; or, at all events, that seven was, for some inexplicable reason, a peculiar number to the super- stitious peoples of the ancient East, and that there is no real ground for holding that this septenary division had its origin at, or was in any way connected with, the sanctification of the seventh day at the creation. Let us look, however, at the fact in the first instance before considering these objections. In sacred history the division of time into weeks is referred to before the flood : " For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth." During the flood : 6 Some Aspects of tJie Sabbath Question. " Noah stayed yet other seven days " in the ark while the- waters were abating ; And after the flood : " Fulfil now her week," in the course of Jacob's negotiations with Laban for the hand of Rachel. There is also a possible allusion in Job, and another in the fourth chapter of Genesis and third verse ; where it is said that, "in process of time," or, as it reads in the margin, " at the end of days," Cain and Abel brought offerings unto the Lord. We do not lay much stress upon the passage, because some commentators are doubtful whether there is any allusion in it to the week or the Sabbath, considering that the words are, perhaps, too indefinite to justify such an inference. At the same time, there is abundant authority on the side of those- who draw this inference, and they cannot therefore be justly charged with undue eagerness or partiality if they do so. There is plainly a reference in the passage to a religious service, a refer- ence, however, intended merely as an introduction to the narrative of the first murder, that of Abel by his brother. In such an introduction we need not look for the details of the religious service, especially in a book like Genesis whicli compresses the history of vast periods of time into small compass. But. brief as the narrative is, it is certainly remarkable that the religious service is referred to as having taken place at " the end of days," for, though the words, we admit, are not enough to suggest the division of time into fixed periods, much less fixed periods of a week's duration, yet when other passages not only suggest, but explicitly refer to, the early knowledge of septenary divisions, the words are perhaps sufficient to warrant us in holding them as referring to the end of the week. It has been pointed out that the word " brought " sacrifices was never used of private or domestic sacrifices, but only of such as were brought to the tabernacle; and further, that it is probable that others, besides Cain and Abel, were present at the sacrifices, for Cain is recorded to have spoken to his brother then, but only to have killed him when they were in the fields, implying perhaj^s secrecy. These facts, taken together, would seem to show the periodical recurrence of seasons of worship after seasons of ordinary work — most probably Sabbaths. True, it is conjecture, but by no means remote con- jecture ; and, if it appear to the reader to be justified by the narrative, the force which it must carry, as showing not only a Some Aspects of tJie Sabbath Question. 7 Sabbath, but a Sabbath of reUgious concourse and service, is plainly very great. But, whether we regard this incident of importance in this connection or not, it is abundantly clear from the other passages just alluded to that both before and during the flood, and after it, in the time of the patriarchs, the division of time into weeks was commonly recognized. As to the objection that this was just a rough division of the lunar month into four parts, it is right to keep in view that the ancients in the clear atmosphere of Central Asia knew more of astronomy than we are apt to suppose, and they must have known at a very early period that the number of days in a lunar month was not four times seven, but much more nearly six times five, and three times ten, the number of days in a month being not twenty-eight, but twenty-nine and a large fraction. Five and ten, therefore, would have been more natural and more convenient divisions of the lunar month than seven, and, in point of fact, the Egyptians found it so, as we shall see further on, and pre- ferred ten to seven, although seven was with them much the earlier in use. As to the objection that they worshipped the sun and moon and the five planets, and probably therefore intro- duced the week in order to dedicate a day to each planetary god, this much is certain that it seems highly imj)robable. Some short division of time, such as the week, must have been found indispensable for purposes of business, and it is far more likely that it was introduced for these purposes at a very remote period, designating the days originally, perhaps, by numbers, and only in later times dedicating them to, and naming them after, their planetary deities, than that the week was introduced merely as part and parcel of their religious worship. Moreover, in China, there are indications of the week having been recognized as a division of time, and also of the seven planetary bodies having been well known, at a very early age, and yet we find no corre- sponding indications of the planets having been associated with the days of the week in any sense whatever. And, on the other hand, among the Aztecs, the week was unknown although the planets were well known. Besides, it is in the countries from which the race spread after the Deluge that we find clearest traces of the week, and of the Sabbath, which is just what we should expect if the week had its origin, as we contend it had, at the creation. 8 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. Having these proofs from sacred history of the early division of time into weeks, we should expect, if it had its origin at the creation, to find traces of it in profane history as well, nor are we disappointed. In Egypt the week is found at a very early period, although it seems to have been, to a large extent, although never entirely, superseded by the more convenient division of the month into decades. In explanation of this circumstance, Mr. Proctor, the popular astronomer, says : " It would seem that a contest between the advocates of a five daj^s' period and those of a seven days' period arose in early times and was carried on with con- siderable bitterness. There are those who find in the great pyra- mid of Egypt the record of such a struggle, and evidence that finally the seven days' period came to be distinguished, as a sacred time measure, from the five days' period which was regarded doubtless as a profane, though, perhaps, a more exact and scien- tific sub-division." In India the week was very early known, the days being called by nearly the same names as at present. It was known to the ancient Phoenicians. The Saracens, before the time of Mahomet, observed it. The Chaldeans, Assyrians and Baby- lonians not only recognized it, but, as we shall show in the next part, were familiar with the Sabbath from a very remote period. To the ancient Accadians, dating back nearly to the Flood, the week was well known. In China (except among the Buddhists, who brought it from India) it has been unknown for ages, al- though there seems to be some evidence of its having been known in very ancient times. On the other hand, the Greeks did not observe the week till a late period, their practice being to divide the month into three periods of ten days. The Romans divided the month into three unequal periods, and it was not till the first century of the Christian era that they employed the week. Yet, Homer and Hesiod and other Greek poets, and also some Latin poets, in passages almost invariably quoted in treatises on the Sabbath, allude to the seventh day in a mysterious way indicative of completeness and Creation — not necessarily to the seventh day of the week, however, for in Hesiod it is plainly the seventh day of the month. But such allusions, though not directly, perhaps, in point, are not without significance. " These fragments from Homer and Hesiod," it has been well said, " must be the remnants of primeval traditions of patriarchal religion which had been transferred by the descendants of Japheth to the Isles of Chittim." Some Aspects of the Sabbath Quest ion. 9 As for the ancient nations of the American continent, the Aztecs, like the Chinese, had periods of five days, and the Peruvians of nine days, and as Humboldt remarks in this connection, " no nation of the new continent was acquainted with the week or cycle of seven days, whicli we find among the Hindus, Chinese, Egyptians and Assyrians. " And this is a fact greatly relied upon by opponents of the Sabbath. It is worthy of notice, however, that the Aztecs on the west coast of America, and the Chinese on the east coast of Asia, emplo3^ the same division of time, and if they are, as is generally believed, related to each other, the discovery of ver}- ancient traces of the Sabbath in China go far to relieve us of this difficulty, for, if we had the records of the Aztecs, as we have of the Chinese, we should find, perhaps, in the former, as we have found in the latter, distinct vestiges of an early septenary division. We shall endeavour, in the next part, to show that the Sabbath was not a merely Jewish institution, and to show this by evidence very recently discovered. But, even without such evidence, the all but universal acknowledgment of the seven days' division of time in antiquity so remote warrants us in ascribing its origin — ■ for we have no other adequate explanation — to the institution of the Sabbath at the Creation of the world ; certainly, we have no other satisfactory theory on which to account for it, because the number five would have been more accurate, scientific, and con- venient for the division of the solar month and year, and was for that reason adopted, as we have seen, by the Egyptians, in preference to the number seven, which at first they had adopted, and which had always a certain sacredness attached to it — a sacredness inexpli- cable to them, it is true, but deeply significant to us. Clement of Alexandria writes, " The seventh day is acknowledged as sacred, not by the Hebrews only, but also by the Gentiles, according to which the whole universe of animals and vegetables revolves ; " and Josephus writes, " There could be found no city, either of the Grecians or of the Barbarians, who owned not a seven dav's rest from labour ; " and Philo called the Sabbath the feast of all nations. No doubt, these are exaggerations, or may be ascribed, in part at least, to the knowledge of the Sabbath diffused by the Jews at the dispersion, yet, making all due allowance, the evidence they afford in support of our proposition is of no mean value. Akin to this septenary division of time is the mysterious 10 Some Aspects of tJic Sabbath Question. reverence paid to the number seven throughout Holy Scripture from its very beginning to its very end. Nor is it confined to Holy Scripture and the Jews, for, in the Ancient Vedas, and, indeed, uniformly throughout the East, the word seven has the same mystic character. For example, the caste of the Brahmins is divided into seven sections, which have their origin in the seven RisJiis or Penitents, and the days of initiation accomplished by Indra were seven. And Rawlinson tells us that, in Egypt, " The frequent recurrence of seven shows that it was a favourite number with the Egyptians, as it was with the Jews ; " and again, " The number seven was common to all the Semitic nations, and to those of India." We need not cite additional instances : the remarkable coincidence of thought among independent nations as to this, however, affords strong corroboration of our proposition that there was, in point of fact, the consecration and setting apart of the seventh day at the creation of the world, which is recorded to have taken place in the beginning of the book of Genesis. Another piece of evidence in favour of the early institution of the Sabbath is found in the fact that it is referred to, before the giving of the law from Sinai, as an already existing institution. This appears from the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, where we are told that Moses explained to the Rulers of the Congregation ; '■ To-morrow is [not shall be] the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord ; bake that ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe. . . . Six days shall ye gather the manna, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, on it there shall be none See for the Lord hath given you the Sabbath. Therefore He giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days." Now, re- ferring to the beginning of this chapter, we find that the only communication on this subject given to Moses by the Lord was the bare announcement that on the sixth day the people should gather twice their daily allowance, and prepare what they brought in. Yet brief as the announcement was, it seems to have been perfectly understood by Moses, so that without any explanation, amplifi- cation or instructions whatever, he was able to explain the matter to the Rulers of the Congregation and to give them the detailed instructions contained in the verses quoted. It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that he re(:[uired no special revelation at that time to make him aware that the seventh day was the Some Aspects of the Sabbath Qucstioji. 1 1 Sabliath, that it was to be a Sabbath of rest, and that it was holy to the Lord. It is true the people did not seem to understand why there was on the sixth day a double supply of manna, and it is probable from this circumstance that they had not observed the Sabbath to any great extent in Egypt. Bat this fact does not militate against the views we are at present advocating, because the fact of their non-observance may be sufficientlj'- accounted for by the severity of their bondage. Nor does it follow that because they had failed to observe the Sabbath in Egypt they must necessarily have forgotten it altogether ; still less that because it is here so explicitly commanded it must have been given to the world for the first time on this occasion. The very terms in which the instructions were conveyed to the rulers seem to show that the idea of the Sabbath was not unknown to them, althouo-h the manner of its due observance apparently required to be pre- scribed ; while the fact that Moses understood and could amplify for the ruler's information in such explicit language a comrauni- ■cation from the Lord expressed in such scanty terms, shows tliat lie, at all events, and perhaps the finer minds among the people, were previously familiar with the Sabbath. Very important light, it seems to us, is shed upon this passage by the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel : " Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness. And I gave them my Statutes, and showed them my judgments, which, if a man do, he shall even live in them. More- over, also, I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Here the Sabbath is referred to as an institution already ■existing, and, as such, distinguished from a mere statute which has no existence until it is promulgated. True, the Sabbath was enjoined in one of these statutes, and yet it is here referred to and singled out as an institution in itself, quite independent of the statute which prescribed it ; and not only so, but an institution peculiarly Jehovah's, in which He " claimed a special propriety." Men may speak then as they like of the Fourth Commandment, and of its being first enjoined upon mankind from Mount Sinai, but let it not be forgotten that there is authority in the Bible for the view that the Sabbath is an institution in itself, and, as such, ■distinct from, and wholly independent of, any commandment of 12 Some Aspects of tJie Sabbath Question. the Law. Christ proclaimed Himself Lord of the Sabbath. He made it, and made it for man. Had He made it for the Jews alone, He would not have said that He made it " for man." But if He made it for man, when should we expect it to be made ? Why, surely at the creation of man, and not several centuries later. A merely human worker might be guilty of some over- sight, and, however skilful and careful, might yet omit something ; but " God, who made the world," could not be guilty of any inadvertence — the idea is absolutely excluded — and hence we should, as a matter of course, and quite naturally, expect thfr Sabbath which " was made for man " to have been made at his creation. Because light and heat and air are necessary for man's bodily life, we reasonably infer that they existed from the begin- ning ; and, in like manner, because the Sabbath of rest is indis- pensable for the true and normal development of the human race in purity and holiness, we may quite reasonably infer that it was coeval with the race. And if the Sabbath was made for man at his creation, when should we expect it to be given to him ? Why, surely when he was created. If our " Heavenly Father knows how to give good gifts unto His children," how could He have withheld the gift of the Sabbath for ages from man, when He prepared for him and gave to him so many good things at the very first, and sent him forth with His blessing ? And if God made the Sabl>ath for man and gave it to him at his creation, should we not expect to find some record of it, seeing there is a record of lesser gifts ? Surely we might ; nor are we disappointed, when we read how that " God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all His- work which God created and made." II. THE SABBATH, AS DEFINED IM THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT^ NOT A MEREL Y /EWISH INSTITUTION. WE have endeavoured to show in the preceding part that the Sabbath was instituted at the creation of the world, and given then to man. The importance of this fact, if established, is obvious; for if the Sabbath was given at the creation, it was given to mankind, and not certainly to the Jews alone, who did not come into existence till many centuries later. The presumption^ indeed, that what was given to man at the creation was meant for mankind is so strong that the opponents of our proposition have no alternative but to deny that the Sabbath was instituted at the creation. Paley, for instance, in his Moral Philosophy (and there have been few writers more acute, logical, and vigorous), takes up a position hostile to our view ; yet, cautious reasoner as he was, he makes this admission : " If the divine command was actually delivered at the ci-eation, it was addressed no doubt to the whole human species alike, and continues, unless repealed by some subsequent legislation, binding upon all who come to the knowledge of it." We value such an admission from so keen a logician as Dr. Paley, and, using it as a major proposition, we venture to add a minor proposition (for the proof of which we refer to the preceding part), that the divine command was actually delivered at the creation. The conclusion, then, necessarily follows that the com- mand was addressed to the whole human species alike, and (inas- much as it has not been repealed by any subsequent legislation) continues binding upon all who come to the knowledge of it. It was in 1491, B.C., according to the commonly accepted chron- ology, that the Exodus took place, and the commandments were given from Mount Sinai, but at least two centuries before that date, in the Chaldaso-Assyrian kingdom, there existed a ritual and rubric, the tablets containing which were only discovered 14 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. a few years ago, and have quite recently been translated and given to the world by the genius and learning of our Oriental scliolars. These tablets bear that each day of the year was as- signed to its particular deity, in whose honour special ceremonies and services were performed. But the most interesting feature is this, that the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of the month ware observed as Sabbaths. On these days, the king was forbidden to eat cooked fruit, or the iiesh of birds, or meat, to change his clothes, or to wear white robes, to drive his chariot, or to sit in judgment, to review his army, or even to take medicine should he be unwell. Strict Sab- batarians truly, those old Chaldeans ! It is right, however, to explain that the word, rendered " Sab- bath," is expressed in these tablets by two words which literally signify dies nefaustus. But it is not to be imagined that these days were merely days of bad omen on which it might be unlucky to work, for the word Sabbath was well known to the ancient Assyrians and occurs in their inscriptions under the form " Sab- bath,' where it is explained to mean "a day of rest for the heart," and also "complete," and it is interesting to notice that in the oft- quoted lines of Homer and Callimachus the seventh da}^ is spoken of as " complete : " thus Homer writes : " The seventh dawn was at hand, and with this, all the series is complete ; " and so Callimachus, "Tlie seventh day is the first, and the seventh day is the complement." The calendar is written in Assyrian, but it bears to be of Accadian, and therefore of non-Semitic origin, and as the Accadian language became extinct at a very early period, it is thought that the calendar must have been written anterior to 1700, B.C., but how long anterior no one can tell. A good deal of speculation has been awakened as to the curious fact of the nineteenth of each month being interjected as a Sabbath, but the explanation probably is that it was 30-l-]9 = 49, or the forty-ninth day after the commencement of the preceding month, and so a Sabbath of Sabbaths. Referring to another set of tablets, Mr. George Smith, in his Assyrian Discoveries, says, " In the year 1869 I discovered a curious religious calendar of the Assyrians in which every month is divided into four weeks, and the seventh day or ' Sabbaths 'are marked out as days on which no work should be undertaken." Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 1 5 And again in his Assr/rian Epomjin Canon, referring evidently to the same discovery, he says, " Among the Assyrians the first twenty-eiglit da3'S of every month Avere divided into four weeks •of seven days each, the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days respectively, being Sabbaths, and there was a general prohibition of work in those days." Such discoveries — and their genuineness we cannot doubt — are conclusive in favour of our proposition, and it is, consequently, reasonable to believe that the Sabbath was well known in Ur of the Chaldees when Abraham was called of the Lord to go into the land of Canaan in the year 1918. The Sabbath, therefore, is not a merely Jewish institution. So clearly is this now established, that some recent writers not favourable to the strict observance of the Sabbath — among others Mr. Proctor — are disposed to maintain that the Sabbath did not originate among the Jews at all : that its real orio^in is to be found in an Egyptian, or rather, primarily, in a Chaldean source. This was the view maintained long ago by Philo Judaeus, Josephus, and Clement of Alexandria, to this extent at least, that they agree in stating that the week was common to all the Oriental nations, and did not originate with the Jews. Mr. Proctor says " that the Egyptians dedicated the seventh day of the week to the outermost or highest planet Saturn, is certain, and it is presumable that this day was a day of rest in Egypt." It is very clear, as we saw in the last part, that the Israelites in the wilderness of Sin, showed a previous acquaintance with the Sabbath, though, in their slavery, they had probably not been allowed to observe it either regularly or in its true spirit. With such explicit testimony to the existence of the Sabbath in the cradle of the human race, we do not require to dwell again upon the importance in this connection of the fact of the heb- domadal division of time having been so commonly known and adopted in the East ; but it serves to confirm the truth and the lessons of these discoveries, and leads us to surmise that traces of a Sabbath would be found in all those countries in which the Septenary division of time is recognized if we only had the records of their history. Before these discoveries in Chaldaea and Baby- lon were made, it was common for the opponents of the Sabbath to minimize the importance of the fact of the week having been so widely known ; it was said to be simply a convenient, although 1 6 Sovie Aspects of the Sabbath Question. not quite exact, division of the month into four parts. But in view of the fact that the Sabbath was known in these ancient Eastern Monarchies, this wide-spread recognition of the week may fairly, we should think, be held as pointing to a Sabbath instituted at the Creation, when God rested on the seventh day and gave it for a perpetual blessing to all mankind. But in addition to this valuable extrinsic evidence, we have intrinsic evidence, hardly less valuable, that the Sabbath was not a merely Jewish institution. The stranger, for example, was not admitted to the sacrifices or to the Passover, or even to the Tabernacle, yet it was ordained that he was to enjoy the rest of the holy Sabbath. Rest on that day was as truly his privilege as it ' was that of the true Israelite. In Sabbath observance, therefore, there was to be " neither Greek nor Jew," but a merciful provision of rest for all. The Sabbath was thus a type of the rest in heaven, when the redeemed " of all nations, and kindreds^ and tongues, and peoples" shall enjoy the perpetual Sabbath rest which remains for the people of God. Moreover, the universality of the commandment appears from the universality of the purposes of its observance. It was intended to bear witness to the simple, but pregnant, truth of the one God, the Creator of heaven and earth. Perhaps the radical error o^ heathenism was its forgetfulness of the one Personal God, who created all things out of nothing, and the true preventive of that error would have been the proper observance of the Sabbath, for on that day their thoughts would have reverted to the one living and true God, the Creator of all things — a privilege certainly not exclusively the Jews'. Man is sometimes described as the creature of habit, and the essence of habit is periodical recurrence. On the recurrence, therefore, of the seventh day, he will naturally, if the Sabbath be observed, conform to the habit of uniting in social worship, with- out which pure religion and true piety can hardly exist. It is very reasonable to suppose that the patriarchs observed a Sabbath for this very end, although no special mention is made in Genesis of their having done so. Indeed, it is one great end of the Sabbath to ensure this habitual opportunity of worship, devotion,, and reflection, so essential to man's spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. We feel justified, therefore, in inferring that a means of grace so powerful for good, so indispensable indeed for Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 1 7 man in all aQ:es and under all circumstances, was oiven to man at his creation rather than appointed ages subsequent thereto for a single people. So that all the purposes which the Sabbath was intended to subserve show that it must be deemed not merely useful, but absolutely indispensable to man, as man, and not to one nation only; and thus confirmation is gathered for the words of our Saviour, whose words should really be conclusive on this point — namely, that the Sabbath was made for man ; and we conclude therefore that the Sabbath cannot be held to be a purely Jewish institution. It is worth noticing that a useful corollary may be deduced from this conclusion. If the Sabbath was not merely a Jewish institution, it is not easy to see the force of that reasoning which holds the Sabbath as abrogated along with the laws, types, and ceremonies of the Jewish Church. If the Sabbath did not originate along with these, there seems no reason wh}'^ it should be held as havins^ been abroofated along- with these. And if it was not abrosfated along; with these, there seems to be no ground for holding that it ever was abrocrated at all ; and it is safe, there- fore, to conclude that the Sabbath, not being a merely Jewish institution, is still in force for the good of humanity. III. THE QUESTION WHETHER THE APPOINTAJENT OF THE LAST OF THE SEVEN DA YS OF THE WEEK AS THE SABBATH WAS PECULIAR TO THE TEMPORARY JEWISH DISPENSATION. THE question whether the appointment of the last of the seven days of the week as the Sabbath was 'peculiar to the temporary Jewish Dispensation cannot, we think, be answered positively either in the affirmative or in the negative. The sub- ject is discussed by Dr. Samuel Lee in an ingenious pamphlet, embodying a sermon preached by him before the University of Cambridge, and copious notes in which the arguments set forth in the sermon are presented in greater detail, and supported by authorities. The position he takes up is this, that the Sabbath given by God to man at the creation occurred upon what is now the first day of the week — or Sunday — but that on the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt the Sabbath for them was changed to the last of the seven days of the week, or Saturday ; that this innovation was not intended to be permanent, but to last only during the temporary Jewish Dispensation, and to revert to the original Sabbath day, or Sunday, when the Jewish was superseded by the Christian Dispensation. Dr. Lee thinks that if he succeeded in establishing this theory, he would furnish an argument of great, indeed of irresistible, cogency for the ])er- petual obligation of the Sabbath upon humanity. We have carefully considered his argument in the light of the authorities he has cited, and with the aid of many other works, especially the publications of eminent Assyriologists and Egypto- logists, and while we most heartily believe in the perpetual obliga- tion of the Sabbath, and could wish that Dr. Lee had succeeded in establishing his theory, we regret that we cannot pronounce his arguments in support of it conclusive. Dr. Lee's second argument we shall consider first ; it may shortly be stated thus : — Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. ig The Patriarchs kept a Sabbath clay, and it is highly probable that those who apostatised from them would continue to observe the same day, although they would in some respects depart from the patriarchal manner of observing it. While, then, the heathen would not and perhaps could not discard at once all the ideas of true religion inherited from their fathers, yet they overlaid them with error, and, in endeavouring to explain them by vain metaphysics, explained them awa}^, and grew ever darker and darker in their minds as they imagined tliemselves becoming wiser and wiser. They saw the universe around them, and they must needs discover how it came into being. It must, they reasoned, have had an origin out of a pi'e-existent thing or being ; from what or from whom, then, if not from the great and inexhaustible Deity ? And if all things emanated from Him, must He not be the upholder and destroyer of all ? So that the more glorious any object of Nature appeared, the more directly must it have emanated from the Deity, and the more closely would it resemble Him. But of all objects the sun seemed the most glorious and the most bene- ficent, and " was considered and still is in all heathen nations the chief and prime minister of the one invisible and unapproachable God." Hence, Dr. Lee goes on to argue, if any day was regarded as peculiarly sacred, that day would be dedicated to and named after the sun. There are reasons, therefore, he says, for believing that the Sabbath day of the Patriarchs was observed by the heathen, and that, esteeming it above other days, they named it after the sun — Sunday. Hence, presumably, the Sabbath day of the Patriarchs, being the Sabbath day of creation, was held on that particular day of the week which we now call Sunday, and as nothing ever occurred which could have induced the heathen to interrupt the recurrence of this as the seventh day, its obser- vance must have come down to us from times as ancient as those under which the first-appointed Sabbath was kept. Such is Dr. Lee's argument. It involves the following pro- positions : — (1.) That many heathen nations recognized hebdomadal divisions of time. (2.) That they called the seven days of the week after the sun and the moon and the five planets which were known to them. (3.) That one of these seven days of the week was deemed sacred ; and 20 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. (4.) That the sun was the great god of all nations, and that the sacred day would be called Sunday in honour of the sun-god. Now before Dr. Lee can succeed in his contention he must sub- stantiate each of these propositions, for they are all involved in his case, and the chain of his argument will not be stronger than the weakest of these links. Then (1.) That many heathen nations recognised the heb- domadal division of time. This is now a fact established beyond question. In the first place, in regard to the number seven simply, there are traces in the great Eastern Monarchies of antiquity, as there are among most of the great nations of the ancient world, that peculiar re- gard was paid to it. According to Rawlinson, " the frequent occurrence of seven shows that it was a favourite number with the Egyptians as it was with the Jews." And again he says, " The number seven was common to all the Semitic nations, and to those of India." But more directly in point is the fact also mentioned by Rawlinson, that " the week was probably of very <3arly use among the Egyptians, judging from the seven days fete of Apis, and other hebdomadal divisions, though they generally make mention of decades or tens of days, which are still in use amono* the Chinese." This subject has, however, been so fully discussed in the pre- ceding parts, that it is unnecessary to discuss it further. The facts adduced are amply sufficient to substantiate the proposition. (2.) That they called the seven days of the week after the sun and moon, and the five planets which were known to them. This proposition also is now established beyond question. Dion Cassius attributes the origin of the names of the seven days to the Egyptians ; and Herodotus, although he refers to the division of the month into decades of days, corroborates this view. On the other hand, we have the high authority of two eminent modern scholars, Lenormant and Sayce, who agree in ascribing it to the Chaldaeo-Assyrians ; while a writer in Chamber's Encyclo- pedia ascribes it to the Turanian races, and others, again, to the inhabitants of India. The most probable view seems to be that it originated with the Turanian races, and was transmitted to the Egyptians through the Chaldaeo-Assyrians. But if it be doubt- ful to whom the honour is due of having originated the naming of the days of the week, it is beyond doubt that it originated in Some Aspects of the Sabbath Qnestioii. 21 very remote antiquity, and that the names of the days have come down to us ahuost unchanged through the Eastern nations first, iind afterwards throurdi our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. As Mr. Proctor puts it : " We have the clearest possible evidence that all nations which adopted the week as a measure of time have named the seven days after the same planets." (3.) That one of the seven days of the week was deemed sacred. As yet there is not much evidence to be found in support of this proposition. It is probable that the week was employed for the most part for secular purposes. The month, whether lunar or solar, was too long a period for the necessities of life, just as a sovereign is too large a coin for all purposes of business; the same division was consequently required, the length of division varying very much among the different nations; the Egyptians, as we have seen, had periods not only of seven, but also and more generally of ten days. The Chinese and all the Mongolian races had periods of five days, as had the Aztecs of Mexico. The Peruvians had periods of nine days, while the Greeks divided the solar month into three equal, and the Romans into three unequal, parts. Now it may have been that one day in each of these short and regularly recurring periods had some sacredness attached to it ; but we are not entitled to infer this from the mere fact of the observance of weeks and decades of days. Whatever their origin may have been, these periods were required, and consequently were employed, for business purposes. Possibly one of the days may have been the market day in which the people from the country flocked into the cities and towns, like the Nonclina' in Rome, which we know were so observed without being in any special sense religious days. But the view that wherever the week was known, one day out of the seven was regarded as a holy day and consecrated to religious worship, is, we have no hesitation in affirming, utterly unsupported by evidence. And here we may be permitted to observe that writers in defence of the Sabbath have, in our opinion, been prone to generalize too much in their liistorical researches, and have done a good cause no good thereby. They conclude, as we do, that the very general recognition of the week in ancient times is a strong argument for the very ancient institution of the Sabbath, and so far their con- clusion is just, or, at all events, not unreasonable. But when B 22 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. the^^ go further, and conclude that wherever the week was recog- nised there must necessarily have been a recognised sacred day or Sabbath, they go much further than our present historical knowledge warrants them in going. Indeed, we venture to lay down in contradiction of the above proposition that, with the two remarkable exceptions noticed in the preceding part, we are not yet in a position to assert positively that the heathen nations of remote antiquity, even such of them as recognised the week, held one day in seven as a sacred day. That they had many things sacred — temples and sacrifices, priests and shrines, deities and demons, festivals and ceremonies, without number almost — is- established beyond question. But that on the recurrence of a certain day, and that day one out of every seven, they in any special sense worshipped the gods, or any one god, or in any other way treated it as a specially sacred day, has yet to be proved. The exceptions to which we have referred are Assyria and Babylon, and they certainly furnish valuable evidence so far as they go ; but we require evidence from other nations before we can admit the third proposition in the general way in which it is- stated by Dr. Lee. That evidence may possibly be in time forthcoming, but as yet, it must be confessed, we have not suc- ceeded in discoverino- it. (4.) That the sun was the great god of all nations, and. that the great weekly sacred day (if there was such) would be called Sunday in honour of the sun-god. The religions of the great Eastern monarchies of antiquity were remarkable in this, that while on the surface there was apparent only the grossest polytheism, j^et underneath them all (as perhaps the initiated understood) lay the original monotheism. The Creator, however, was confounded with the manifestation of His power in His creatures, and pantheism, in course of time, smothered the worship of the one living and true God. The deity had become transformed into a god-world, whose manifestations were to be found in all the wonders of nature. But although these religions resembled one another to this extent, yet from this point they diverged, and wore different aspects. The Egyptians saw the most imposing manifestations of deity in the sun, while the Glial daeo- Assyrians, who were specially devoted to astronomy, saw the grandest manifestations of deity in the astral, and more particularly in the planetary system. Yet, according to Eawlinson^ Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 23 4-1 their religion, although to a certain extent astral, was far from being mere Sabeanistn, the simple worship of " the host of heaven." " It is doubtful indeed," he sa3's, " whether these gods of the Chaldaeo-Assyriaus were really of astronomical origin, and not rather primitive deities, whose characters and attiibutes were to a great extent fixed and settled before the notion arose of connecting them with certain parts of nature." However this may be, it must be carefully observed that the Assyrians, although they certainly did worship the sun, by no means worshipped him as their supreme god. Berosus, it is true, whose opinion is universally esteemed as of high value [he was a contemporary of Alexander the Great], writes of the Assyrians, " They worship Belus, and the stars, and the sun, and the moon- and the five planets;" from which we might infer that the sun, whether su]3reme or not, was, at all events, m their estimation, a gi'eater divinity than the moon. But Rawlinson corrects this in- fluence, explaining that Berosus has inverted the true Chaldean order solely in condescension to Greek ideas, and has placed the sun before the moon in his enumeration of the heavenly bodies quite erroneously, for he says : — " Chaldean mythology gives a very decided preference to the lesser luminary, perhaps because the nights are more pleasant than the days in hot countries." Indeed it is plain that the order in which the heavenly bodies are mentioned by Berosus was not intented to represent them in their true order of dignity, because the stars appear in it to be of greater dignity even than the sun and the moon, and this we know they were not. The fact, therefore, was that the moon was a greater god than the sun in the estimation of tlie Assy- rians, and was worshipped with deeper reverence and constancy. Nabonidus, the last native monarch, calls the moon " the chief of the gods of heaven and earth ; " " the king of the gods, and god of gods." And in a tablet translated by Professor Sayce, the sun is stjded, curiously enough, " the Lady of the World," while the moon is called " the Mighty God." Thus it clearly appears from the most recent authorities that the sun was not " the great god " of the ancient Chaldaeo- Assyrian kingdom, that the moon was more exalted, and, what is more, that both the moon and the sun were only in the second triad of divinities ; that above their triad was 24 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. another triad of greater gods, and above them still, perhaps, their one supreme god. Now this being so, let us go a step farther, and note what Lenormant says of these very Chaldaeans. He says that to them is to be attributed the institution of the week of seven days dedicated to the seven planetary bodies, and that the order assigned by them to the days has not been changed from time immemorial. And this statement is corroborated by Sayce, who says, " The daj's of the week were named after the sun, moon, and five planets, and our own week days may be traced back to the active brains of the long forgotten people of Chaldaea." This being so, should we not expect that if the Assyrians had one specially sacred day in the v/eek, that day would be, not as Dr.|Lee contends, the Sun's day, but the Moon's day rather, or perhaps the day of a divinity greater than either ? The weight of authority is thus strongly against the proposition under con- sideration, and as it is the most important link in Dr. Lee's chain of argument, his argument is proportionally weakened by its failure. The fact that the sun was not the chief object of adoration even in the astral worship of Babylonia and Assyria receives an interesting confirmation from the writings of Mr. Loftus. He describes a temple at Borsippa, near Babylon, which has excited the 'admiration and curiosity of all that have seen it, and specu- lations as to what it meant, have been, he tells us, exceedingly numerous. It was taken by many to be the veritable tower of Babel, until Sir Henry Rawlinson, in the course of excavations near. its base, discovered a cylinder on which was found written the history of the tower. It appeared that it was the Temple of the seven planets, begun, but not completed, by a very ancient king, and partially rebuilt and finished by Nebuchadnezzar, in whose time even it was regarded as ancient. Loftus describes it as consisting of six distinct ]3latforms or terraces, rising one above another, and forming an oblique pyramid. Upon the top stands a " vitrified mass," probably the sanctum of the temple. Each storey was dedicated to a planet, and stained with the colour attributed to it. The lowest was coloured black in honour of Saturn ; the second orange for Jupiter ; the third red for Mars ; the fourth yellow for the Sun; the fifth green for Venus; the sixth blue for Mercury, and the temple was probabl}^ white for Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 25 the moon. Now here was a temple of magnificent size, erected to the sun, moon, and planets, and yet the sun is not assigned a position indicative of any pie-eminence. On the contrary, it is placed in the middle of the stages, just as it must have appeared in the heavens to the builders according to their geocentric notions. Besides, the supreme god of the Assyrians was not Shamash — the sun god — but Asshur ; and, according to Rawlinson, " it is indicative of the (comparatively speaking) elevated character of Assyrian polytheism that this exalted, awful deity continued from first to last the main object of worship, and was not super- seded in the thoughts of men by the lower and more intelligible divinities, such as Shamash and Sin, the sun and moon ; " and the supreme god of the Babylonians was not the sun, but 11 or Ra, and " there is no evidence that this Babylonian god was in any way connected with the sun." Further, the astrology of the ancients led them to consecrate not so much the day, as each hour in the day, to a particular planet. It was not so much that Sunday was consecrated to the sun, as that the first hour, as well as the eighth, fifteenth, and twenty-second hours of that day were consecrated to him. Their system was this : — there were seven planets (including the sun and moon), and their order, beginning with the most remote from the earth (the earth being regarded as the centre of the system), was Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. To Saturn, with which they always began, they consecrated the first hour of Saturday, and to each of the other planets in tlie above order they consecrated an hour of that day. So that Saturn had not.only the first, but also tlie eighth, fifteenth, and twenty- second ; and Jupiter had not only the second, but the ninth, six- teenth, and twenty-third ; and Mars in the same way had the third, tenth, seventeenth, and twenty-fourth ; while the twenty- fifth hour, which of course would be the first hour of the next day, Sunday, would be tlie sun's. The result was that Sunday was not exclusively consecrated to the sun ; for the otlier planets had their sacred hours on the Sunday, just as they had, and as the sun had, on the other days of the week ; and we do not find, therefore, in this system anything to indicate that Sunday was in a peculiar sense a sacred day, as being exclusively dedi- cated to a pre-eminently great deity. Nor do we attach supreme importance to the fact that they named one day after the sun ; 26 Sonic Aspects of tJic SabbatJi Question. that circumstance merely shows that the sun was an object of honour and worship, which no one denies. It is, however, quite another thing to say, as Dr. Lee does, that the sun was " the great god of all nations," and that consequently Sunday must have been peculiarly sacred because it was the day called after the sun. Moreover, we should expect, not that one day in seven would be set apart for the special worship of the sun, but rather that three times on each day, at sunrise, noon, and sunset, he should have been approached in worship ; and this surmise is confirmed by the fact that among the Egyptians who, beyond almost all other nations, certainly beyond the Chaldaeans, reverenced the sun, he was worshipped three times a day. Wilkinson, in his work The Ai'icient Egyptians, tells us that, "so great was the veneration paid to this luminary that, in order to propitiate it, they burnt incense three times a day." That they had also certain festival days in his honour at different seasons is very well known. Plutarch says that there was a custom of sacrificing solemnly to the bun on the fourth day of every month, and we have other authority for the fact that in the Spring and Autumn solstice, festivals in his honour were held. But, with all these facts in our possession as to their worship, we have no evidence at all of any one day in seven having been observed by the Egyptians, any more than by the Chaldaeans, as peculiarly sacred to the sun. We referred above to the interesting discovery by Mr. George Smith, that among the Assyrians the first twenty-eight days of every month were divided into four w"eeks of seven days each, and to the no less interesting one of Professor Sayce that the Babylonians observed the seventh, fourteenth, nineteenth, twenty- first, and twenty-eighth days of each month as Sabbaths, and the question arises whether these days were consecrated to the sun* They ought to be, to support Dr. Lee's theory, but we have no evidence that they were. On the contrary, in the Babylonian tablets, every day of the month is consecrated to a difierent divinity, and special sacrifices and services are appointed for each. So that while it is in the highest degree interesting to know that in these great kingdoms of antiquity there was a Sabbath, yet. for our present purpose of considering Dr. Lee's argument, we cannot rest satisfied witli anything short of this, that the Sabbath — recognized by them as a sacred day — was specially consecrated Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 27 to the worship OF THE SUN. It is not enough for his argument that he makes out that they held one day in seven as a Sabljath ; it must be proved that this Sabbath occurred on the day cor- responding to our Lord's day, or Sundaj^ Now, not only is there no proof that it corresponded to it, but it is clear that it could not possibly have corresponded to it. We know that their month consisted not of twenty-eight, but of thirty days, for the solar year of three hundred and sixty-five and a quarter days was known to them at a very early period, and if, for the sake of argument, we hold that tlie twenty-eightli of one month — one of their Sabbaths — fell on Sunday, the Sabbath next ensuinof would not fall till the seventh of the following month, which would be Tuesday. Hence it is manifest that their Sabbaths did not recur every seventh day throughout the years and centuries on the Sunday, as Dr. Lee would fain hope, but only four times every month, and not always then on the Sunday, Dr. Lee says that, " as nothing could have induced the heathen to interrupt the recurrence of this [Sunday] as tlie seventh day, its observance must have come down to us from times as ancient as those under which the first appointed Sabbath was given." Unfortunately he has overlooked the fact that " the heathen," in order to eke out their year of twelve solar months of thirty days each, had to intercalate five days every year, and a sixth day in leap years, or to intercalate a whole month occasionally, or had to adopt some other means to effect this end. And the important point is, that the way of intercalating differed very much among the different nations, some adding da3^s at the end of each year, others adding a month at the end of a certain number of years, and so on. Hence the " regular recurrence " to which Dr. Lee refers, must of necessity have been broken in upon, and any agreement among the nations could not be expected, nor is any proved. But if this fourth proposition derives no support from Assyrian and Babylonian history, does it derive any support from Egyptian liistory ? We think not. No doubt the sun was an object of much higher reverence among the Egyptians than among the Chaldaeans, but the worship of the Egyptian was not pure Sabeanism, the worship of the host of heaven. Macrobius, indeed, is cited by Dr, Lee to show that nearly all the Egyptians gods corresponded to the sun ; but Wilkinson specially notices this view and very 28 Some Aspects of the Sahhatli Question. stronoiy condemns it, and not only it, but the equally strong, and wrong, view of Chaeremon that, " the Egyptians had no gods but the sun and planets, and that all related to corporeal and living essences/' They did worship the sun, certainly, but not as the Sabeans did, and when some stranger kings, probably Asiatic Cushites or Ethiopians, introduced the worship of the real sun's- disc, the innovation was odious to the Egyptians, and was expelled along with the usurpers who had forcibly established it. In Assyria, Asshur, we have seen, was the supreme god. So great and so universally worshipped was he, that there was no temple erected specially to him. But in Egypt the sun did not by any means hold the exalted and unapproachable position that Asshur held in Assyria, for he had a shrine and a chief city, Heliopolis, and in this respect was quite like the other gods, the god Ainun having Thebes, and Pthaw, Memphis, and other gods their respective cities. We are not warranted, therefore, in sup- posing that even in Egypt, if there was one day in seven regarded as sacred in a special sense, that day must have been consecrated to the sun on account of his pre-eminence as a god, nor have we any evidence that one day in seven was a sacred day. We conclude, therefore, that no more from Egypt than from Assyria or Babjdon can we find any countenance of Dr. Lee's theory ; indeed the weight of evidence is decidedly against it. Nor will it do to say that although neither in the Chaldean, Babylonian, Assyrian, nor Egyptian kingdoms, was the sun re- o-arded as a supreme god, yet that, in primitive Sabeanism, it was so regarded ; for Mr. Proctor assures us that Sabea^nism assigned the chief place among the star-gods to Saturn, and not to the sun. Saturn indeed was " the great god " of many nations, amongst others, of the Phoenicians, according to Porphyry ; and Rawlinson is of opinion that Asshur and Assarach, the supreme god of the Assyrians, may be identified with the Greek god Chronos or Saturn, and it is generally considered almost certain that " the Star of your god Kemphan," alluded to in the speech of St. Stephen, was none other than Saturn. He was indeed the dim, dread, deity whom the wise would endeavour to propitiate, and he was conse- quently dreaded and adored beyond others who were regarded as more benevolent in character. To sum up, we think it is proved : (1.) That the number seven was a sacred number, and that tlie Some Aspects of tJic Sabbath Question. 29 hebdomadal division of time wa.s well known to many of the great heathen nations of remote antic^uity. (2.) That many of these nations called the seven days of the week after the same planets. But we are not satisfied that it is proved : (3.) That amongst all these nations one of the seven days of the week was deemed a sacred day, although there is evidence that in Ass3ana and Babylon four days in each month, at intervals of seven days, were in some sense observed as Sabbaths, work on these daj^s being prohibited. And we think that the weight of evidence is strongly against the view : (4.) That " all nations " adored the sun as " the great god," or regarded Sunday as a peculiarly sacred day in honour of the sun. Hence we are of opinion that Dr. Lee's first argument, which requires that these four propositions should all be conclusively established, has not been satisfactorily made out. The second question to be considered is, whether at the Exodus from Egypt, the Sabbath was by divine appointment changed ta the seventh day of the week or Saturday. This question Dr. Lee is disposed to answer in the affirmative, but his argument fails to satisfy us that such a change was made. A change was certainly made in the year, for when Moses and Aaron received instructions for the institution ot the Passover, the Lord spake unto them, saying, " This month shall be unto you the beginning of months ; it shall be the first month of the year to you." But a close examination of the narrative of the Exodus fails to convince us that any change in the commencement of the week was then made. The circumstance upon which Dr. Lee founds in support of the supposed change is simply this, that the feast of Unleavened Bread which followed the Passover was to commence and close with a holy convocation, or, as he puts it, " that the first and last days of this first feast must have been Sabbath days, and that as the observance of this was appointed before the Israelites had left Egypt, the first Sabbath day of Mosaic institution must have been kept at their first encampment at Succoth, where it should seem they continued for seven days at least. That the march (to Suc- coth) could not have continued more than one da}', and during the remainder of the fourteenth of Abib, after the paschal had 30 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. been eaten, appears probable from this, viz., that the day of march is ever after referred to as being one only. And if this be the case, then was the fifteenth on which the tents had been pitched at Succoth the first of Jewish rest after their toils in Egypt, and their march out of it, and likewise the first Sabbath day of Jew- ish observance." Now it is clear from a comparison of passages relating to the feast of Unleavened Bread that its beo-innino- and end could not possibly both have been Sabbath days (i.e. weekly Sabbath days, in which sense Dr. Lee is always careful to use the word), as Dr. Lee contends, especially when we contrast with them the begin- nino^ and end of the feast of tabernacles. Both feasts were alike in this, that they lasted seven days, but Dr. Lee disregards a very remarkable difference, thus : In the feast of Unleavened Bread: Numb, xxviii. 18. "That on the first day there was to be an holy convocation." Deut. xvi. 8. " Sic days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and on the SEVENTH day there shall be a solemn assemhly to the Lord:'' Whereas, In the feast of TaBemacles : Numb. xxix. 12. "On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, ye shall have an holy convocation, and ye shall keep a feast to the Lord seven days." v. 28. " On the eighth dai/, ye shall have a solemn assembly." So that both feasts were alike in commencing with an holy convocation, in lasting seven days, and in closing with a solemn assembly ; but they differed in this respect, that whereas, in the feast of Unleavened Bread, this solemn assembly was held on the seventh dav of the feast, in the feast of Taber- nacles it was held on the eighth day, which, strictly speaking^ would be the day after the closing day of the feast. Now, if the first day of each feast was a Sabbath day, the eighth day of the feast of Tabernacles would also be a Sabbath day, but the seventh day of the feast of Unleavened Bread could not possibly be. A person could say on the first day of the former feast ; " This day week will be the da}^ of the solemn assembly ; " whereas, a person could only say on the first day of the latter feast : " This day week will be the day after the solemn assembly.^' Dr. Lee is, therefore, palpably wrong in holding that the feast of Unleavened Bread began and ended on a Sabbath day. It Some Aspects of t!ic Sabbath Question. 3 1 •could not possibly have clone so. Either the first or the last day of the feast might have been a Sabbath ; but it is impossible that both could have been ; and hence his argument is wrong at the very outset. Although, therefore, the first and the last day of the feast of Unleavened Bread could not both have fallen on a Sabbath, yet, let us assume that one or other of them did : let us assume that thQjirst day fell on the Sabbath. We are entitled to assume that it did, for it may have done so, and it is the view most favourable for Dr. Lee's argument. Now the paschal lamb was slain on the fourteenth of A.bib, and eaten as the fourteenth was merging into the fifteenth ; for the Jewish days were reckoned from sunset to sunset. At mid- night the first-born were slain. In the early hours of the fifteenth, *' in the nio^ht," Moses and Aaron were sent for and bidden to de- part. " The Egyptians were urgent upon the people," " and the people took their dough before it was leavened," and they began their journey to Succoth in the earl}^ hours of the morning of the fifteenth, " with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians.'' ^'And they departed from Raraeses in the first month, on the morrow after the Passover." So that the first day of unleavened bread was this fifteenth of Abib on which they Avere marching from Rameses to Succoth. Yet Dr. Lee holds that this fifteenth da}', on which they were marching, was " the first Jewish Sabbath ; " that it " was kept at Succoth." If he objects to our reckoning and wishes to hold that they did their marching on the fourteenth of Abib, we can support our calculation by referring to the very explicit directions given for calculating the recurrence of the day of atonement,. thus, Lev. xxiii. 27. " On the tenth day of the seventh month there shall be a day of Atonement : it shall be an holy convocation, and ye shall do no work on that same day." v. 23, " On the ninth day of the month at even, from even to even, shall ye celebrate your Sabbath." So that the tenth day, which was to be observed as the day of atonement, was to begin on the evening of the ninth day, as it merged into the tenth ; and in like manner, if the passover was to be observed on the fourteenth day at- even, it was to be kept just as the fourteenth was merging into the fifteenth. Moreover, there is no doubt that the passover was eaten very shortly before the midnight when the first-born were slain, and that the Hebrews 32 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. left Rameses a short time after the same midnight. It is not likely, therefore, that the fifteenth of Abib was observed as a Sabbath, inasmuch as it was not a day of rest, but a day of marchincr. Nor did they observe the feast of Unleavened Bread at their first encampment at Succoth, as Dr. Lee strangely contends. The command given them was that they were to observe it when they came to the Promised Land ; thus, Exod. xiii. 5. " And it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites," »fec., " that thou shalt keep this service in this month. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread." Again Dr. Lee mistakes the importance of the Exodus when he says, "everything peculiarly Jewish took its date and origin from the i^eriod of egress." He mentions as examples, (I) The Safjhatlcal years and JuTnlees as " all to be computed from this particular epoch." But this is manifestly incorrect, for these years were not ordained till the Hebrews were come to Sinai (Ex. xxiii. 2), and they were to be computed (Lev. xxv. 2) as from their coming into the promised land. (2) " The feast of Tabernacles," he says, " was to begin after seven months had been numbered from this month ; " whereas, throughout the Old Testameiit, in as many as eight passages, it is referred to as taking place on the seventh month of the year, and so the standard Bible Dictionaries refer to it. It is certainly to reverse accepted ideas to hold that this feast took place on the eighth month, and it is much against Dr. Lee's view that it requires the support of so untenable a construction. (3) " From this time teas the redemption of the first-born to be observed." But this is only admitted subject to the explanation that tlie actual observance of tlie custom was not to be begun until they entered the promised land. We think, therefore, that Dr. Lee mistakes the importance of the Exodus in these particulars, al- though, no doubt, it was a time " greatly to be remembered." We assumed, for Dr. Lee's argument, that the fifteenth of Abib occurred on a weekly Sabbath. But why sliould it ? It is true no work was to be done on it, and there was to be a holy convocation ; but these were not enough to make it a weekly Sabbath, for, if they were enough, they would make the twenty-first of Abib (the seventh day of the feast), on which likewise no work was to be done, and on which likewise there was to be a solemn assembly. Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 33 to be a weekly Sabbath ; that is to say, the fifteentli and twenty- fh'st woiikl both be weekly Sabbaths, which is absurd. Hence the fifteenth may not have been a weekly Sabbath day. Again, there is a i)resumption against the year always begin- ning with a weekly Sabbath, so as to make the fifteenth a Sabbath day. Long before the time of Moses the solar year ot 365J days, and the solar month of 30 days were well known to the Egyptians, and also to Moses. Indeed, Moses introduces the solar month into his narrative of the Deluge, in which 150 days are spoken of as 5 months. It we suppose, then, as Dr. Lee contends was the case, that the Jews reckoned their time by this solar year, the weekly Sabbath could not regularly occur on the first of Abib, unless there was an adaptation by skipping a day every year. It really does not matter when the year was held as beginning, whether on the sun entering Aries, as Dr. Lee says it began, or on its entering Taurus or Scorpio ; so long as it consisted of 360, or 365, or 366 days, it could not possibly begin naturally on two consecutive years on the same day of the week, for the extremely simple I'eason that none of these numbers is a multiple of seven. Any one can verify this by examining a calendar ; but it must be apparent to any thoughtful person at first sight. Yet according to Dr. Lee's theory, the Jews, between the Exodus from Egypt and the death of Christ, were observing a Sabbath every seventh day regularly recurring on Saturday, and the heathen world were, during the same period, observing every seventh day regularly recurring on Sunday, the one a dajT- behind the other, till the Resurrection of Christ, when they were merged into each other again. He forgets that every year there would require to be this adaptation by the Jews with a view to their year beginning with the Sabbath, while the heathen world would not be under the same necessity. Hence their days would have no relation to each other in their recurrence, and the theory founded on their doing so completely breaks down. If, on the other hand, we suppose that the Jewish year began with the first of Abib, and that the first of Abib began with the first new moon after the vernal equinox (and this was un- doubtedly the way in which the Jews did reckon the commence- ment of their ecclesiastical year), then every year would not begin on the Sabbath, nor would the fifteenth of Abib fall on the Sabbath ; for, of course, the fifteenth must necessarily fall on 34 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. the same day of the week as the first, and indeed Dr. Lee admits that with this method of calculating the beginning of the year his theory will not work. We are at a loss, therefore, to under- stand how the fifteenth of Abib or the fourteenth could every year fall on the same day, unless by so appointing it arbitrarily ; and to appoint it arbitrarily, in disregard of the regular sequence and recuirence of the days, would take away the very point of Dr. Lee's theory, which depends upon the heathen Sunday keeping- step, in its regular and uninterrupted recurrence, with the Jewish Sabbath throughout the whole period of the temporary Jewish dispensation. This theory of Dr. Lee's finds an advocate in the Rev. James Johnstone, who has written a pamphlet of considerable length in support of it. He thinks the change of the day from Sunday to Saturday must have occurred about the time of the Exodus, and most probably in the wilderness of Sin, and he finds evidence in favour of the change in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus : — " And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the childi'en of Israel came into the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their dejDarting out of the land of Egypt. And the- whole concrreo-ation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, and when we did eat bread to the full ! for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you ; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or no. And it- shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in ; and it shall be twice as much as they gather dail3^" Now from these verses Mr, Johnstone seems to infer the following facts : — (1.) That the murmuring began on the fifteenth, being the day the Israelites came into the wilderness. (2.) That the manna fell for the first time on the sixteenth. (3.) That it fell until and on the morning of tlie twenty-first ; and Some Aspects of tJic Sabbath Question. 35 (4.) That it did not fall on the twenty-second which, he saj's, was the Sabbath now commanded. " They doubtless expected it to cease falling on the twenty-third, which would be the old creation Sabbatli, and hence their astonishment." Before proceeding further we may remark that if Mr. Johnstone be rio-ht. Dr. Lee is wrong ; for, if the new Sabbath fell on the twenty-second of the month in question, it must have fallen not on the fifteenth and twenty-second of Abib, as Dr. Lee con- tended, but on the tenth, seventeenth, and twenty- fourth of Abib, which would not suit Dr. Lee's argument at all. But it is not certain, nor indeed can it be said to be even highly probable, from the verses quoted, that the murmuring began on the fifteenth, the very day they entered and pitched tlieir camp in the wilderness, although it is quite possible that it did. But we require more than possibility ; we must have absolute certainty on this point to make Mr. Johnstone's reasoning and conclusion of any value. But if they did in fact murmur on the fifteenth, and if the manna first fell on the sixteenth, why may it not have stopped on the twentieth rather than on tlie twenty-first ? . or on the nineteenth, or even the eighteentli ? In the chapter there is nothing to show that it must have fallen for six days prior to the first ensuing Sabbath. " The sixth day," referred to in the fifth^ and again in the twenty-second verse, may refer not to the sixth of successive daily falls of manna, but to the sixth day of the week, it being, as we think, left quite uncertain by the narrative on which day of that week it began to fall. We have endeavoured to expose the weak points of Dr. Lee's argument, and our remarks in regard to them will serve against Mr. Johnstone's argument, which is substantially the same. The gist of his argument will be found on page 16 of his pamphlet, where he says : — " The Sunday was always regarded as sacred to the snpreme deity of EVERY heathen nation, and both the day and the deity ■were looked upon as being superior to other days and other gods, as the sun is superior to the moon and the five other j^'la^iets" A very strong, unqualified, and sweeping assertion ! An assertion which we must pronounce not in accordance with the views of the best historians, and which, in the light of our present historical knowledge, we feel warranted in broadly and squarely T)6 Sojuc Aspects of t lie Sabbath Question. denying. It is, however, only fair to Mr. Johnstone to say that many of our authorities have been published since he wrote his pamphlet. His arg-ument is certainly ingenious, but we fear little more can be said in its favour. It is founded on a basis of fact which has been historically disproved, although at one time, judging from the positive way in which he lays it down, it must have been pretty firmly believed and perhaps commonly accepted. We are of opinion, therefore, that both he and Dr. Lee have failed in their endeavour to show either that there was at the Exodus a change from Sunday to Saturday as the day for the observance of the weekly Sabbath, or that the Sabbath given in Paradise was held upon the Sunday. We know, of course, that the Jewish Sabbath occurs on our Saturday, but we have no evidence to warrant the conclusion that the sacred day of the week among other nations occurred on any particular day ; and hence we are unable to conclude and to affirm positively that the appointment of the last of the seven days of the week as the Sabbath was PECULIAK to the temporary Jewish Dispensation. IV. EXPLANATION OF THE WORD ''SABBATH" IN THE VARIOUS PLACES WHERE IT OCCURS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. " Walking through the cornfields." — Matt. xii. i ; Mark ii. 23 ; Luke vi. I. THESE passages record a serious charge preferred against Jesus and His disciple.?. The oft'ence charged was the desecration of tlie Sabbath, and naturally one's first inquiry is what was the species facti. It certainly could not have been the fact of walking beyond the measure of the Sabbath day's journey ; for the strict legalists who preferred the charge were, in tliis respect, in the same position as Jesus, and they could not well have charged the disciples so indignantly for doing the very thing they were doing themselves. Nor could it have been the fact of plucking and eatins: another man's corn without the owner's consent, for the law expressly allowed this to be done in their circumstances : — " When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour's, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thy hand, but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn." The gravamen of the charge evidently lay in this, that the disciples had ijluched the ears of corn, and had rubbed them in their hands on the Sabbath day ; they had " done work," they had performed a whole harvesting operation, they had actually reaped and threshed. True, they had done so only in miniature, but then the principle of the thing ! The law said, " In it thou shalt not do cmy work," but they had done some work, and there- fore had broken the law quite as truly as if they had reaped and tlu'eshed a whole field of corn. The fact certainly could not be denied that they had plucked, rubbed, and eaten. The Pharisees had followed them that day, and had been watching them closely. No sooner had the disciples 'begun,' but the Pharisees were upon them with 'i^e/ioZcZ.' In a moment they were buzzing about Jesus, and part addressed them- C 2,8 Some Aspects of tJie Sabbath Question. selves to Him and part to the disciples. The disciples attempted 110 repl}' ; indeed, in a moment oi confusion, the weak involun- tarily leave to the strong the burden oi replying, and so they left the matter to the Master. Jesus, although often in the midst of confusion, seems never to have been confused. Unquestionably this was a remarkable characteristic of His. He was ever self- possessed, and always in readiness \ni\\ a suitable reply. On this occasion He was not merel}'" composed, but He was possessed with the true Sabbath spirit, a spirit in striking contrast to the excitement and malignity of those orthodox Sabbatarians. They fancied that they had caught Him ; that for Him there could be no escape out of this dilemma, either a confession of wrong, or a strictly legal argument, in which the onus would lie upon Him of showing tliat plucking and rubbing were not " work." Had they been acquainted with the laws of other na- tions, had they realised the true spirit of all law, they would have known the truth of this grand aphorism, " Scire leges, non hoc est verba earum tenere, sed vhn ac potestatem" It was the vis ac IJOtestas of their great Sabbath law that Jesus was about to teach them, and their conduct clearly showed that they were greatly in need of the lesson. Jesus cited only two authorities, one from their historical books, the other from the law. "Have ye not read even this, what David did when he was an hungered, &:c." Would the}'" insist always as matter of principle upon the strictly literal intei^preta- tion of the law as they were insisting now ? Then they were bound to conclude that David and the Hioh Priest had deliberately broken the law. But, as such a conclusion would to them savour almost of blasphemy, to avoid it they would have no alternative but to avow the great principle that law is to be interpreted in- telligently, not judaically — in the spirit and not merely in the letter. And if the Sabbath law, when intelligentlj' interpreted, sanctioned work done of necessity, or of rational propriety, then the work done by the disciples on this occasion might perhaps have been found to fall under that head, if proper inquiry had been made, and, inasmuch as they had condemned the disciples, without making any inquiry at all, they had, in their haste, been guilty of injustice. Having cited an authority from their historical books, Jesus went on to quote from their law how that the Priests in the Sonic Aspects of tJic Sabbath Question. 39 Temple profane the Sabbath and arc blameless. If the Sabbath law yielded to the duties of the Priests in conducting the Temple services, the Sabbath law plainly could not be an end in itself. If its observance, then, tended in any circumstances to defeat the fullest accomplishment of the purposes it was intended to sub- serve, and if its ends could be more fully attained by its partial and temporary suspension, then its suspension to this extent was justifiable. Now worship, rest, and holy contemplation were the ends of the Sabbath. These ends were furthered by the sus- pension of the Sabbath law in the matter of the Temple services, and hence the Priests in performing these services were violating no law and were therefore blameless. But before them that day was one greater than the Temple, and since duty and devotion to Him, and the ministrations which He required of the disciples, tended to the furtherance of the great ends of the Sabbath — the good of man, and the glory of God — they, the disciples, in rendering these services, were "Priests unto God," and were blameless. The nature of the acts and their objects must therefore in all cases be ascertained before it can be determined whether or not as to them the Sabbath law is sus- pended. Hence the Pharisees, in having condemned the disciples without any inquiry, had acted, to say the least, unwisely. Did they understand Him ? Probably not in the full meaning of His words, but the dignity of the speaker they could not fail to ob- serve, and could not possibly ignore ; and as He proceeded in His earnest and terse statement — the earnestness and terseness so characteristic of clear views and forcible convictions — His earnest- ness increased : " I say unto you that one greater than the temple is here. But if ye had known what this meaneth, ' I will have mercy and not sacrifice,' ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." Their history and their law afforded no countenance to a ridiculous adherence to the letter and rejection of the spirit. The spirit of the law was everything, and what it was He proceeded to show by a quot- ation from the Prophets : " Mercy, not sacrifice," is acceptable to God. He made the Sabbath to do man good, not to make him miserable; for enjoyment not for restraint; He demanded no sacrifice or supererogatory suffering ; He was actuated by mercy and love, not by the exacting spirit of a tyrant or a publi- 40 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. can. If a man, then, be liungiy on the Sabbath, by all means let him eat and be filled. How can his gfood be nromoted, or God's glory exalted, by his suffering hunger. The Sabbath was made for man — the whole man — for his body, therefore, as well as for his soul, but not for either to the detriment of the other. Nay, even regard for the soul miglit reasonably suggest the expediency of satisfjdng the natural cravings of the body which otherwise might distract the soul. "Whatever is necessary is permissible, and by necessity is not meant absolute necessity to life, for it is not likely that David or the disciples would have perished had their hunger not been appeased at the moment they ate. ^Yhat is meant is reasonable necessity, with a view to body, mind, and soul, acting normally and harmoniously and to their full extent in the proper exercises of the Sabbath da}^ Ease and comfort of body, calmness and tranquillity of mind, loftiness and purity of spirit are therefore all to be studied that the day of rest and wor- ship may be as far as possible enjoyed without distraction, and the whole man refreshed and exalted by the services of the holy day. " The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," and man is therefore in no sense to be subservient to the Sabbath law to his own j^rejudice. And as a simple extension of this idea, Jesus adds, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." With him a new Dispensation opened. He as the Head of those made, like Himself, perfect, obeyed the law of the Sabbath, as God's other laws, not because it compelled or obliged Him, for it exercised no felt compulsion and imposed no felt obligation, but He obej^ed it rationally, as if He were imposing it upon Himself — as if He were its Lord. He obeyed it in the spirit of the supreme intelli- gence and wisdom which had prescribed it, and so in effect He Himself prescribed it for Himself His will and the will of God being coincident. He obeyed it in the liberty of the spirit and not in the bondage of the letter. Dared they then accuse Him of breaking the Sabbath law, His own law ? Why He Himself was Lord of the Sabbath, and the Judge of the law, to interpret it in its applicability to existing and ever varying cii'cunistances. Then the more completely His people are identified with Him in Spirit, the more certainly will they act in the same spirit of high moral intelligence, prescribing the Sabbath to themselves, interpreting it intelligently, and obeying it reverently for its own benefi- Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 41 <;ent ends, and not in blind subservience to the bondac-'e of tlie letter. Three lessons are worth notincj : — (1) If Jesus as the Son of Man, as the Author of the new dis- pensation under which we are now living, proclaims Himself the Lord of the Sabbath, how can the Sabbath be said to be ab- rogated ? Neither here, nor elsewhere, we submit, does Christ utter any word of contempt for the Sabbath, or declare that all days either were, or were to become, alike. (2) If Jesus is held as having in this passage relaxed the bonds of Sabbath observance, it was the observance of the Mosaic Sab- bath, not of the Christian Sabbath, which had not yet dawned. (3) If the Sabbath was made for man, it was made not for one nation alone, but for all nations and for all ages. Matt. xii. 10 ; Mark iii. 1 ; Luke vi. 1. The passages which we have just examined show that works of necessity as explained therein may rightly be done on the Sab- bath day. The passages which we are now to consider show that works of mercy and charity also may quite properly be done on the Sabbath day. Jesus entered into the synagogue on the Sabbath as His custom was. He kept the Sabbath and habitually reverenced the sanct- uary, and attended service regularly notwithstanding the spiritual ignorance of those in authority. It was not the same Sabbath as that on which the incident in the cornfields had occurred, and the Pharisees had had time to recover from their discomfiture on tb.at occasion, and were hopeful apparently of finding fresh oppor- tunity to accuse Him in the, to them, difhcult matter of Sabbath observance ; so " they watched Him." It happened that a man was present who had a withered hand. He was perhaps seated at the door, begging, like the man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. The Pharisees, in quite an off- hand, general way, incj^uire of Jesus whether, in His opinion, it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath day. Jesus, however, knew their purpose, and resolved to unmask it there and then, and ac- cordingly, without at once answering their questions, He said unto the man which had the withered hand, " Rise up and stand forth in the midst." They had put a general inquiry to Him, but now He puts a very special and direct inquiry to them, " / ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm ? to save a 42 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. life, or to destroy it?" Thei^e was no reply. He continued, " What man shall there be of you that shall have a single sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out ? How much then is a man of more value than a sheep ? Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day." Ihere was a plain and direct answer ! and as He uttered it with deliberate force and emphasis He looked round upon them calmly, confident in His own rectitude and wisdom. He could read in their eyes and faces the hardening of their hearts, and while He felt indicjnant, He could not but feel grieved. He then looked upon the maimed man, and to the relief of all, broke the painful silence. He said, " Stretch forth thine hand ; " and he did so, and his hand was restored. The scene was over. They did not wait for the service. They were filled with madness, and went out, and straightway with the Herodians took counsel against Him how they might destroy Him. Now Jesus in this passage plainly teaches that it is lawful on the Sabbath day " to do good " — i.e., to perform all acts of mercy having for their end the saving of life or the relief of suffering ; that it is our duty to do good as we find opportunity ; and that any notion of Sabbath observance which would allow life to con- tinue in danger, or destitution or suffering to remain unrelieved, lest by relieving on the Sabbath that day should be desecrated, is false. The wonder is that anyone could question such reasonable propositions. The Pharisees certainly did — so far, at least, as human beings were concerned, as we shall see in subsequent passages — e.g., in Luke xiii. 10, where it is recorded that Jesus cured a poor old woman who had for eighteen years been bent nearly double, and could not lift herself up at all. Wliereupon the Ruler of the Synagogue Avas moved with indignation because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, and said to the people, " There are six days in which men ought to work, in them therefore come and be healed." But Jesus used nearly the same words as in the last mentioned incident, only with greater indignation, " Ye hypocrites, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away to watering ? " If ye do so much for dumb animal from self-interest, why may I not do as much for a rational fellow-creature from love ? It is interesting to observe in Luke iv. 40, that the people spontaneously adopted the course recommended here by the Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 43 Ruler of the Synagogue. On the Sabbath day Christ taught in the Synagogue and performed a striking miracle, and afterwards went into the house of Simon, and healed Simon's wife's mother. Yet the multitudes refrained from bringing their sick to Jesus, till the " sun was setting," and the Sabbath past. And still a third instance of an act of mercy is recorded in Luke xiv. 1-10, where Jesus cured a man of dropsy in the house of a Ruler — one of the Pharisees — having previously to the cure asked the Pharisees present whether in their view it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not. To tliis question they made no reply, and He thereupon healed the man and dismissed him, and said, using what was virtually the same illustration as He had employed before, " which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a well, and will not straightway draw him up on the Sabbath day?" Before leaving this incident, however, it may be well to advert to the fact that Jesus was present at a social meal on the Sabbath day. We ai-e aware that some people say that it must have been after Sabbath hours — after sunset — but such a view seems un- tenable, even if it is not, as we fear it is, indicative of a biassed and prejudiced mind. It was a custom among the Jews, however strictly Sabbatarian, to give feasts on the Sabbath day. They repudiated the notion that the Sabbath was a fast day, " a day on which to afflict the soul," or that the law prohibited social gatherings ; and though the viands were necessarily cold because fires for culinary purposes were prohibited, yet they had the best cheer that their means could afford. Now our Lord uttered not a single word of objection to this custom ; nay, he recognised it by partaking of proffered hospitality. Yet it must be re- membered that these strict Sabbatarians would tolerate no labour of servants any more than of themselves on the Sabbath, nor would they allow their feasts to interfere with the services of the Temple or the Synagogue. Li the mere act of eating together there need, of course, be no impropriety whatever, provided due care be observed that the great ends of the Sabbath are furthered by religious intercourse. All will depend upon the character and disposition of those who partake, and if they are imbued witli the true Sabbath spirit their intercourse will be for good. Nothing hinders that body and soul be refreshed together, a truth which is plainly inculcated in a very striking verse of Holy 44 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. Scripture, where it is written, " Also they saw God, and did eat and drink." John V. 27, The man at the Pool of Bethesda, At the feast of Purim Jesus beheld a sick man Ij'ing on his pallet near the Pool of Bethesda, and said to him, " Arise, take up thy bed and walk ; " and straightway the man was made whole, and took up his bed and walked. And all this occurred on the Sabbath. Now Jeremiah had said, " Take heed to yourselves and bear no burden on the Sabbath day," and here is a man carrying his bed or pallet. The Jews, noticing him, say, " It is not lawful for thee to take up thy bed." The man replied, " He that made me whole, the same said unto me, 'Take up thy bed and walk.' " He was not able to tell them who it was that had given him this com- mand, for the place was crowded at the time, and Jesus had slipped away unobserved. It is probable that the Jews suspected that Jesus was the author both of the miracle and of the com- mand, but they could say nothing against Him for want of witnesses, the best witness being unable (or as it would seem to them, unwilling) to identify Jesus, and to press the matter there and then, in the presence of the multitude, seemed neither practi- cable nor prudent. Sometime afterward Jesus greeted him in the temple, and admonished him to sin no more lest a worse thing should befall him. He then knew who his Restorer was, and he went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him whole. No harm intended by the poor man, surely ! He had been out of the current of life for yeai's, did not know Jesus by sight, and perhaps had heard of Him for the first time in the interval between the cure and his meeting Jesus in the Temple. Naturally, he would be stopped every now and then, and asked who had cured him, and, on his replying that he didn't know, his interrogators would say, Oh, it must have been Jesus of Nazareth, and would describe him. So that by the time the man reached the Temple he would know enough of Jesus to re- cognise him, and could not easily conceive that any harm would be likely to follow, but rather great honour, on so wonderful a miracle being ascribed to Him. Far more probable this, surely, than the view that he was so base and unorateful as to inform upon his benefactor so soon after his cure. And, on account of this miracle, did the Jews persecute Jesus Sonic Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 45 because He did these things on the Sabbath day. And He seems to refer sometime afterwards to this incident in chap. vii. 22, where He says : " I did one work, and ye all marvel, Moses gave you circumcision, and on the Sabbath ye circumcise a man. If a man receiveth circumcision on the Sabbath that the law of Moses may not be broken, are ye wroth with me because I made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath day ? Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." And He showed in His own defence what righteous judgment was : " My Father worketh even until now, and I am working." God rested on the seventh day, but the seventh day, had they only known it, was still, is still, going on, and may last for centuries and millenniums yet, and God has been, and still is, unceasingly active in works of necessity and mercy for His creatures, and that not only for their good, but as an example to them. Every deliverance He accom- plished for their fathers was attributable to " His strong right hand which had gotten them the victory." Every prayer they offered was for the help and blessing of a working God. Every miracle was a direct act of His, the miracle on that Sabbath no less than others. If creation was the product of a working God, no less so were " redemption, preservation, and all the bless- ings" of their daily life. All things they enjoyed or could hope to enjoy were due to His merciful activity. Nothing in nature of majesty or beauty, nothing in redemption of truth or grace, but came by Him, and if we imitate Him in resting on the seventh day, we may and ought to imitate on our Sabbath day His Holy and beneficent activity. Labour and rest, modelled on God's labour and rest, are idea"' inherent in the constitution of man, and of the whole universe. John ix.. The cure of the man born blind. This was still another miracle of mercy wrought by Jesus on the Sabbath day, and, as similar miracles had done, it aroused the indignation of the Pharisees. The chapter does not contain any vindication by Christ of His healing on the Sabbath day, and therefore we need not notice it further in connection with our special subject. Christ in the Synagogues. Mark vi. 2. " And when the Sabbath was come, Jesus began to teach in their synagogues." Luke iv. 15. " And He taught in their synagogues ; " v. 16. " And He came to Nazareth, where He 46 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. had been brought up ; and He entered, as His custom was, into the synagogue on the Sabbath da^^, and stood up for to read ; " v. 31. " And He came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and He was teaching them on the Sabbath day ; and they were astonished at His teaching, for His word was with authority." Compare with these passages the following : — Acts xiii. " Paul and his company came to Antioch of Pisidia, and they went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying. Brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on," &c. " The voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath." Acts XV. 21. "For Moses, from generations of old, hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day." xvi. 13. " And on the Sabbath day we went forth without the gate by the river side, where we supposed there was a place of prayer." xvii. 1. " The}^ came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews ; and Paul, as his custom was, went in unto them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures." xviii. 4. " And at Corinth he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks." From these passages it is clear that it is the duty of those who would be disciples and imitators of the Lord Christ to attend regularly and as a custom the courts of the Lord's house. The reading of the law and the prophets once a week on the Sabbath day was a practice among the Jews in every city, and had been so for generations, and when Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he quite naturally, and in accordance with what is specially noted as his custom, repaired to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. St. Paul made use of his practice to preach the Gospel of the kingdom to the Jews whom he was sure to find assembled in the synagogue. The early Christians assembled once a week for the breaking of bread and for prayer, and the Epistles of St. Paul were read in their assemblies, thus : 1 Thes. V. 27. '■ I adjure you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the brethren." Col. iv. IG. "When this epistle hath been read among you cause that it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans, and that ye also read the epistle from Laodicea." And as Noah is declared to have been a " preacher of righteous- Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 47 ness " in patriarchal times, so Timothy in the New Dispensation was directed " to preach the Word ; " and again, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews enjoins them not to forsake the assembhng of themselves together. After a consideration of these passages, who can deny the obligation upon Christians of regular attend- ance upon divine service ? No doubt, the preaching is often poor and the service bare, but the same could be said in Christ's time, and who more than He might have refrained from attending service on such a plea ? No one needed it less than He ; to no one could narrow views have been more repulsive than to Him, yet He made it a custom, notwithstanding, regularly to attend the services of the synagogue. It is a custom proper in itself ; it is an example of good to others ; it constrains to the habitual con- templation at recurring periods of religious subjects ; it secures a season of devotion, undistracted by worldly affairs ; it encourages others in respect for religion ; it glorifies God to praise Him in social worship, and at the same time it exalts the spirit of man, and subdues and ennobles the human heart ; and, apart altogether from the instructions to be received, there is surely a seemliness and propriety in a multitude of God's rational creatures assembling as with one mind for the worship and praise of the God of all. Col. ii. 16, compared with Rora. xiv. 5-6, Gal. iv. 9-11. " Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ." This passage in Colossians, with which the two passages from Romans and Galatians referred to above are usually associated, has been and is still frequently cited as showing that in the opinion of the Apostle Paul all days under the Christian Dispen- sation are alike, and that the observance of the Sabbath day is no longer binding upon Christians. From this proposition we entirely dissent, and on the following grounds : — These words were written with the view of quieting a con- troversy which was every day growing in bitterness in the primitive Church. The Church was composed of two classes, those who had renounced paganism and those who had renounced Judaism, in order to embrace Christianity. Both classes were agreed in this, that it was proper to observe the Lord's day, the day commemorative of Christ's resurrection, by religious services and by the breaking of bread ; but those who had renounced 48 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. Judaism claimed that the Jewish Sabbath, along with the Passover and other Jewish feasts, was to be observed by the whole Church in all tlie details of the Levitical law. This the converts from paganism were not dispossd to accede to, and hence the controversy. The one class said the Sabbath of the seventh d?vy, with all the details regarding its observance to be found in the laAV, is of perpetual obligation ; tlierefore the Church is bound to observe it. The other class replied : We admit that the Sabbath is of perpetual obligation in so far, but in so far only, as it is moral and permanent ; with merely typical or ceremonial details we have now nothing, and will have nothing, to do. We are willing to observe it in its essential features on one day out of seven — namely, on our Lord's Day, which is all that the Decalogue prescribes. As to the ceremonies, sacrifices, and types to be practised on the Sabbath day, as prescribed in other parts of the Levitical law, what have w^e to do with them, now that the antitype is come in Christ ? All that is moral and permanent may be transferred to the first day, quoad xiltra the Sabbath is superseded. Now, it was just in regard to this quoad ultra that the controversy arose. The whole question was whether the Jewish Sabbatli as a ichole was to be observed, or onl^^^ in so far as it was moral, permanent, and universal. Now the Colossian Church had been much perplexed by this question, and some person of influence had been stirring up the flames, so tlmt the Church was in great danger. This Avas brought to the knowledge of St. Paul, and, on being consulted as to the best means for assuaging the controversy, he wrote this Epistle. What ! wrangling about meats, drinks, new-moons, Sabbath days, as if such things as these were, or could possibly be, all in all. Is not Christ the very substance of your religion ? Did He not die for you all ? Don't submit, then, to any busybody, I don't care who he is, judging you, and seeking to make others judge you, as good Christians or bad, by your observing or failing to observe these types and ceremonies. Your controversy^ what is it all about ? Don't you see it is merely about " Shadows ? " As for the Sabbath days, 3^ou are agreed as to the keeping of all that is truly moral and permanent in them, why then wrangle about its typical and ceremonial details, now that the antitype is come, and His universal Church established ? You are agreed in keeping one day in seven holy : that is enough : what matters it in Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 4P essence v\'hether you keep the first day or the seventh ? whether you regard or discard its sacrificial asjDect ? Keep the substance, all else is non-essential, and the Chui-ch is not to be distracted, still less is it to be ruined, over non-essentials. As for new-moons, meats, drinks, and holy days, well, keep them up if you will, but don't insist upon any one else keeping them up. They are mere shadows : Christ is the true substance : don't, then, let them be a criterion : let Christ be all and in all. If it be argued that St. Paul meant b}^ this that to the Christian every day should be holy, without distinction of Sabbath over Monday, we reply that this applied quite as strongly to the Jev/- His motto, like the Christian's, was " holiness to the Lord," and therefore he was bound to keep all days holy, week days as well as Sabbaths. The Jew needed a Sabbath because he was a man, and the Christian needs it for the very same reason. But on the other hand, the details of the law as to Sabbath observance the Jew required to obey for local and national reasons peculiar to his circumstances ; whereas the Christian, living in the new dis- ]iensation, is under no obligation to keep them at all. We repeat then that there was here no controversy as to the Lord's day, nor yet as to the observance of the permanently obligatory elements of the Sabbath. The question at issue was whether the Sabbath, with all its merely Jeiuish features, was to be kept up forever within the Christian Church, and to be held as a test matter, instead of Christ, St. Paul cast his vote Avith those who took the negative, but he only did so in so far as issue was raised on the question, and no issue was laised as to the observ- ance of the permanent features of Sabbath rest and holiness. The whole matter must be viewed, and the Apostle's words must be construed, in the light of the actual controversy then being waged. St. Paul did not write, " Sabbath days are merely and ivholly shadows ; " that would have taken both parties by surprise. What in effect he did write was, " Sabbath days, in so far as you are in controversy regarding them, are shadows ; " and no doubt the parties to the controversy so understood him and followed his advice, for we learn from Pliny the Younger, in his famous letter to the Emperor Trajan about the Christia.ns, that it was their custom to meet for worship stato die. This day must have been either the Sunday or the Saturday, but it was " stato,'' and hence a general custom appears to have grown up within the 50 Sonic Aspects of the Sabbath Question. Church to meet for worship on one clay. From Ignatius, writing about 110 A.D., we know that the clay observed was the Lord's Day, the day consecrated to the resurrection ; and from Justin Martyr, who died about the middle of the second century, we learn that the Christians neither celebrated the Jewish festivals, nor observed the Sabbaths, nor practised circumcision ; and farther, that they assembled on Simday, " because Jesus our Lord arose on this day from the dead." So that St. Paul's advice given in the passage under consideration appears to have been understood and adopted. And this view receives strong confirmation from Eusebius about the beginning of the fourth century. " On this day we assemble after the interval of six days and celebrate holy and spiritual Sabbath; even all nations redeemed by Him assemble and do those things according to the spiritual law, which were decreed for the priests to do on the Sabbath. All things tuhich it uKis right to do on the Sabbath, these lue have transferred to the Lord's day as more appropriately belonging to it, because it has the precedence, and is first in rank, and more honourable than the Jewish Sabbath. It is delivered to us that we should meet to- gether on this day." No doubt it was not till about the middle of the fourth century that the Church formally ordained cessation from labour on Sunday, but Constantino had prescribed it before this, for all except agricultural labourers, and the Emperor Leo, in the end of the fifth century extended it to all classes. But it must be kept in view that it would have been impossible for the early Christians to have observed the first day as a day of cessation from labour, for they had, for life's sake, to conceal their religion ; and, being for the most part of the humbler classes, their masters might not have allowed them to desist from work. But whether thev did or not, the rest of the Sabbatli, the discontinuance of the routine of daily toil, is obviously so bene- ficial, if not absolutely indispensable, to the human race, that we have no hesitation in affirming that the appointment of it in the fourth commandment was a most beneficent provision for the good of mankind, and is worthy of being perpetuated, as well by the world for its temporal interests, as by the Church for the spiritual and eternal good of man. V. THE KELA TION OF THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT TO THE OTHER PRECEPTS OF THE DECALOGUE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PRESENT ERRORS IN THIS CONNECTION, AND TO THE TEACHING AND PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. THE fact that the Sabbath was assigned a place in the Deca- logue is a strong argument in favour of, its perpetual obligation. The other precepts of the Decalogue have, we shall show, been binding wherever and whenever man has been gifted with a moral sense, and the consequent power of dis- tinguishing even in broad lines between right and wrong. We see no difficulty, therefore, and no improbability in man's observ- ing them even in the most primitive times. The Patriarchs, ages before the giving of the Decalogue from Mount Sinai, were " men of God," that is, were true to the God in whose imago they were created ; or, in other words, true to themselves and their own inhei'ent sense of right and wrong ; and when God issued His command to Abi-aham, " Walk before me, and be thou perfect," it was not felt to be indefinite or meaningless. Within himself Abraham felt that there was a law, a law with as true a sanction as the law afterwards declared to his descendants from the burning Mount. And we experience no surprise when we read of Jacob commanding his household to put away their imasres, or of Ham beincj cursed for want of reverence for his father, or of Cain being punished for the murder of his brother, or of Joseph's refusing to commit fornication and to sin against God. True, the Decalogue had not yet been promulgated, but man, notwithstanding, knew what was right and what was wrong. And why ? Because his nature, although fallen, was that of a moral and responsible being, and the princijiles of morality were as truly a part of his being as any faculty he possessed. St. Paul, indeed, expressed this thought very happily when he wrote, " When the heathen which have not the law do 52 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. by nature the things contained in the law these having not the law, are a law nnto themselves. They show the work of the law written in their hearts, their consciences also bearing* witness, and their thoughts accusing or else excusing." If then the principles of morality which we hold to be sum- marily comprehended in the Ten Commandments are funda- mental, moral ideas inherent in every being who is endowed with a moral sense, what of the Fourth Commandment ? Does it occupy an entirely exceptional position ? Is it positive, cere- monial, local, temporary, national ? Was it prescribed arbitrarily ? Was it intended merely as a iy^Q ? Was it given to the Hebrews alone ? Was it appointed to last only so long as their dispensa- tion lasted ? If so, it differs from all the other commandments, and we are surely warranted in demanding a reason why it is different ; and if it be different, why it occupies a place in the Decalogue at all? Many reasons have been given . for this alleged exceptional position of the Fourth Commandment, none of them, as we hope to show, sufficient to overcome the presump- tion against its being unlike the rest. But even should we succeed in showing this, we should still have to answer those who affirm that the Decalogue, as a whole, is no longer binding, having heen abrogated with the old Jewish dispensation under which it was given. Hence we are prepared to maintain two propositions : — (1.) That the Fourth Commandment is as binding upon us as the other nine. (2.) That the Ten Commandments were never abrogated, but are binding upon us still. If the Sabbath was not given to the Jews alone, but was as old as creation, and given then to the human race, as we have en- deavoured to show in the preceding parts ; if it was given to meet the necessities of mankind, to refer him to the one God, the Creator of all things, and to induce him to worship his God on an assigned motive of universal application, then the Sabbath, as enjoined in the Fourth Commandment, was intended by its Lord to be universal and permanent, and to be in a special sense a holy day unto the Lord, and the Commandment itself to be of perpetual obligation. Notwitlistanding, the Church of Rome has taken a different view, and unfortunately, with many other Churches on the So)nc Aspects of the Sabbath Question. 53 Continent of Europe, regards the Sabbath as in no sense binding upon Christians, the Fourth Commandment and all the rest being regarded as abolished with the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish Church. The Church of Rome compiled a catechism after the famous Council of Trent in 1545, which embodied the judgment of the Council on, inter alia, the Fourth Commandment. This •catechism contains the 'error — a cardinal one as subsequent experience has shown — of holding that the religious celebration of the Sabbath was transferred to the Lord's Day by the mere authority of the Church, an authority which has appointed many holidays, which holidays, having the same authority as the Sabbath, are eijually binding upon the true sons of the Church. The Sabbath is thus reduced to the level of these holidays, or saints' days, and instead of being kept holy is given up to pleasure a,s soon as the morning mass is over. Indeed it is reduced even below the level of certain of the saints' day which are observed with no little solemnity. As a result of this apparently slight, but really cardinal error, we have the Continental Sundays which we believe are chiefly to blame for the languishing state of religion on the Continent. But this unfortunate error is not confined to the Church of Rome, for some Protestant churches on the Continent, e.g., the Lutheran and Mennonite Churches, hold nearly the same views. Luther, though he stoutly maintained the supreme authority of the "Word of God, and denied the right of Pope or Council to act to the contrary thereof, yet admitted the right of the Church to institute holy days, which was the duty of all to observe, although they were not to be considered binding upon any man's conscience. For the sake of order, union, and tranquillity he recommended that the Sabbath should be observed, but it was not to be regarded as in any sense the Sabbath of the Levitical law ; that had been abrogated. His views are thus set forth in the Augsburg Confession : — " In like manner is the regulation concerning Sunday, Easter, Pentecost, and the like holy days and rites. Those who are of opinion that the regulation of Sunday, instead of the Sabbath, was established as a thing necessary, err very much. For the Holy Scripture has aholished the Sabbath, and it teaches that all ceremonies of the old law since the regulation of the Gospel may be discontinued. And yet, as it was of need to ordain a certain D 54 Some Aspects of the Sabbath Question. e deprived of their rest, we hold that 76 Some As-pects of tJic Sabbath Qjiestion. this circumstance is insufficient to justify the infringement of the right to rest, whicli is a perfectly normal and natural right. We said Ave did not admit that the number employed on and in connection with the railway was small in comparison with those who would use the railway on the Sabbath, were facilities for travelling on that day and the number of trains increased ; nor can we admit it ; it is not the case ; and if the opponents of the Sabbath had their way the result would probably soon be that the Sabbath would be the busiest day of the seven, not only on the railway, but in all the other lines of business in connec- tion with the railway. The railway staff would require to be increased ; more cabs, ])orters, refreshment buffets, restaurants, newspaper stalls, and shops would be kept busy, and in short, it is simply impossible to sa}' where it would stop, one thing is so closely connected with another. But if you stop all railway trains on the Sabbath, how can you provide for matters of emergency, sickness and all that class of cases ? We answer, we would not stop all trains on Sunda}?- just because there are such cases of necessity and mercy to be met. Many a country doctor can attend divine service, and yet visit patients in different parts of a parish on the same day, by the aid of the train, which he could not very well do if there were no trains. But we would reduce the number to the very lowest limit, and would prevent entirely all goods traffic as quite un- necessary and wrong. The conduct of the railway officials in runninf oroods trains some time ago from Strome Ferry on the Sabbath, in utter disregard of the rights and the feelings of the people, we hold to be simply shameful, and deserving the sternest reprobation. No sufficient reason was shown for persisting in it, and while we cannot approve of the course taken by the people in attempting by force to vindicate their own rights, and what they conceived to be not only the law of God, but the law of Scotland, we must confess to a feeling of strong sympathy with them. The principle pervading these remarks as to railway trains is a broad one, and may be held applicable as well to the post-office^ and other great public institutions. And we would oppose the opening of museums and picture galleries on the Sabbath, because to open them would be to deprive many, directly and indirectly, of their Sabbath rest. But it is objected that, inasmuch as they exercise an elevating and humanizing effect, those who serve there Some Aspects of the Sabbath Quest ioit. 77 areas truly ministers for good as clergymen and otheis whose working on Sabbath is admittedly proper, and at all events, that there might be volunteers to do the service without remuneration, that the masses ma}^ derive the benefit of art and science and beauty on the Sabbath. But the masses may on their Saturday half holidays see them then, or in the evenings, after their work tor the day is over. If they have no opportunities^ for seeing them during the week, either from being employed too closely at work, or from these ])laces being shut when they have opportunity^ then ])ublic opinion should be directed to this matter that the wrong thus done ma}^ be redressed, as it might, we are persuaded, very easily be. But, indeed, the tendency of these places, instead of being elevating, may be comparatively degrading if they are resorted to in preference to places of public w^orship, and in disregard of family and pei'sonal religion, which is infinitely more ennobling and refreshing. After all, sa}'- what they like, it must be perfectly well known that, as society is at present constituted, drinking, excitement and disorder will inevitably ensue upon the secularization of the Lord's Day. We would not advocate any unnecessary restraint, but restraint in this direction for the good of society and for the sake of religion, is absolutely necessary. If men have spiritual cravings, will paintings and music satisfy them ? If they have no such cravings, will paintings and music arouse them ? It may be said that to great number.^ of working men, the Sabbath is a daj^ of weariness, of idleness, of utter vapidity, if not of vice. If this be true we can only regret it, and trust that in time it may be foimd to be otherwise. T(^ find a remedy for the evil is most difficult we confess ; indeed it must be a work of time. When improvements in the dwellings and surroundings of the working classes are effected, when they are thoroughly ]5er- meated with the good results of education, when enlightened ideas on temperance and self-restraint have been accepted, we may hope that they will crave a Sabbath of rest and religion, and be able to find and to call the Sabbath a delight. But that this is to be accomplished by opening the museums and galleries on the Sabbath is chimerical. One thing which the working classes and all classes should keep in view is, that society is like an endless chain ; if any part is set in motion, the whole is set in motion ; if one part is to rest, the F 78 So)ne Aspects of the Sabbath Question. whole mu^>t rest ; if one part is kept busy, the whole will be kept bu.sy. The analogy is not exactly true, we admit, but it will be found lo be sadly true if any great motion is communicated. If you work the railway trains, for example, you will set society in motion, and find yourself in motion too, and not at rest as you had fondly expected. Before closing, we must advei't to one of the most deplorabh' instances of Sabliath desecration that our land has ever witnessed: we mean the continuance of the sittings of the House of Commons long into Sunday morning. It was with a feeling of shame and dismay that the people learned of it. The House of Commons is so intimately identified with the nation, that such a glaring- breach of the Christian customs of our Christian land was felt to be in the highest degree painful and scandalous. Are the whole traditions of our country to be? ignored, the feelings of the nation outraged, the laws of God slighted, and the law of the land broken by the makers of the law ? The people of Britain should answer most firmly, no! The constituencies should cal' their rejjresentatives to task, and public o[)inion should be plainh^ expressed, lest the country be again disgraced by a repetition of a Sunday sitting. Take these words of eminent men and consider them, remeni- bering that words as strong and earnest have been spoken by the Earl of Beaconsfield and ]\Ir. Gladstone in favour of the Christian Sabbath. •folta Fof^tcr : The Sabbath is a remarkable appointment for raisino- the creneral tenor of existence. Montalenibci't: There is no religion without worship, and there is no worship without the Sabbath. And best of all, in his commentaries on the laws of England, a famous classic. Sir Willi am Blackstone, says : — " Profanation of the Lord's Day, called Sabbath breaking, is a ninth offence against God and religion punished by the Municipal law of England. For besides the notorious indecency and scandal of permitting any secular business to be })ublicly transacted on that day in a country professing Christianity, and the corruption of morals which usually follows its profanation, the keeping one day in seven holy, as a time of relaxation and refreshment, as well as for public wor.ship, is of admirable service to a state considered merely as a civil institutio)i. It humanizes by the help of con- Souir Aspec/s of the Sabbath Qncstioii. 79 versation and .society the nuwmcrs of tlic lower classes, wliicli would otliervvise degonei'ate into a sordid ferocity and savage selfishness of s|)irit; it enables th(^ industrious workman to pur- sue his occupation in the ensuing week with hedth and cheerful- ness ; it imprints on the minds of the people tliat sense of their duty to ve been revised by tlie author liiniself."— Litek.VUV Wohlp. Candid Reasons for Renouncing the Principles of Antipivdobaptisni. By Peter Edwards, ('i'. 8v(i, rl. 2s, (Ul. IvECO.M JIKNDATUK Y X( iTK. " The following treatise, written by a man who was for ten years a Baptist minister, wc very earnestly recommend to the careful study of those who desire to make themselves aciiu;unted with the argument in favour of infant Baptism. The book contains this argument sunnuarily stated, and most logically defended. There is probably no treatise in the English language oai a theological subject in which the reasoning is closer. We consider that its careful perusal is fitted, by the blessing of God, to lead Christian parents to understand clearly the ground on whicli the ordinary doctrine of the Church is maintained, and t^ n