Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/sabbathOOthom No. 596. THE SABBATH \ T OT A MERE JUDAIC AL APPOINTMENT; WITH AN EXAMINATION OF THE MORE PREVALENT ARGUMENTS BY WHICH IT HAS BEEN ATTEMPTED TO SHOW TPIAT THE SABBATH LAW HAS BEEN ABOLISHED OR RELAXED. BY Rev. ANDREW THOMSON, B.A., UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, EDINBURGH. LONDON: '1HE RL IGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY; Instituted 1799. SOLD AT THE \ EPOSITORY, 56, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 65, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD ; AND BY THE BOOKSELLERS. ak3.y- ~Ts8^ THE .SABBATH. ' The purpose of the present tract in defence of the sabbath, is the examination of some of the more plausible statements, advanced by those who assert the sabbath-law to be of Jewish origin and temporary obligation . TVe have looked at these statements, we have even sought to discover the strongest objection put in the most skilful and attractive form, and we confess ourselves aston- ished at the meagre and insignificant array. The objectors do not all belong to one class. Some there are who, ani- mated by hostility to the sabbath, and having no sympathy with its hallowed associations and benign provisions, clinch tenaciously to sophisms and fallacies, because harmonizing with their prejudices. There are others who, perplexed by the fallacies which have been so lavishly and confidently thrown, of late, upon the public mind, are unsettled rather than opposed, and to be regarded not in the character of enemies, but of honest inquirers. While there is a third elass, whose mistaken views on the subject are, for the most part, to be referred to unfavourable educational circum- stances, . and who, while rejecting the sabbath as a Divine institution, still vindicate and observe it as an invaluable scclesiastical appointment. In reference to the first of :hese classes, something else is needed than argument, .hough an important point is gained, when they are even | mt to silence : in reference to the second, everything is to 3e hoped from candid examination and discussion ; and as -egards the third, we do not think it will be difficult to mow them that, in cherishing the sabbath as a human ap- pointment, they have, like the venerable Jewish patriarch, )een entertaining an angel unawares.” Let us then, once for all, set before us the real question it issue. It is not whether there have not been men who 1 vhile asserting the unrepealed and unrelaxed authority of ; he sabbath-law, have acted inconsistently with its require- nents : this may affect the character of the men, but in no ray does it affect the authority of the sabbath. .Neither is b 2 ■ 4 NO. 596. — THE SABBATH. it whether there have not been some men of powerful intel- lect and sincere piety, who have denied the permanent obligation of the sabbatic institute ; for this may prove nothing more than that there have been great and good men who have erred. Neither is it whether it be not our duty to carry the spirit of religion into every scene, and to make it the animating principle of every service ; for it may be that the sabbath is one of the most valuable means of effecting this very result. The simple question is, (which propositions, like those now hinted at, though very pro- fusely mingled with the discussion, do not even touch,) whether there is evidence from the only authoritative source , the Scriptures , that the sabbath was intended to have autho- rity over all men , and to the end of time . It is of little consequence in what particular form this evidence is pre- sented ; the simple question is, Is it there ? A beautifully luminous, and to our mind most convincing, summary of this evidence has been presented in the first of this series of tracts,* in which the sabbath has been represented as published at the creation ; republished from Sinai ; ob- served and sajictioned by our Divine Master, who “ came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it and, unchanged in essence, though becoming the memorial of the spiritual as w r ell as of the material creation, continued by the apostles as a permanent institute of the Christian church. The force of this evidence has been denied, and we shall now endeavour to follow the objectors from link to link of the chain of proof, and to see whether they have succeeded in destroying its coherence, or in weakening its strength. I. Examination of Dr. Paley’s argument. Dr. Paley asserts that the sabbath was first given to the Jews by Moses in the wilderness of Sin ; that, like the passover, it began with Judaism, and was a part of it, and, like it too, its authority ceased when Jesus said on the cross, “ It is finished/’ The well-known passage in Gen. ii. 1 — 3, which seems to the plain reader to make the institution of the sabbath coeval with creation, and com- memorative of it, is affirmed to be proleptical ; that is, it does not declare that the sabbath was appointed at the creation, but merely assigns the reason why it was ap- pointed 2500 years afterwards to the Jews. This was the * See No. 595. NO. 596. THE SABBATH. 5 favourite answer given to the Puritan defenders of the sab- bath, when courtly writers arose to vindicate the infamous “ Book of Sports.” From them it was borrowed by Paley, who, though he exhibits it with less of elaborate learning than those from whom be received it, presents it with all his characteristic compactness and plausibility. That we may have the argument before us in its greatest force, we give it in his own words : — “ If the sabbath had been instituted at the time of the creation, as the words in Genesis may seem at first sight to import ; and if it had been observed all along from that time to the departure of the Jews out of Egypt, a period of about two thousand five hundred years ; it appears unac- countable that no mention of it, no occasion of even the obscurest allusion to it, should occur either in the general history of the world before the call of Abraham, which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs of its early ages, and those extremely abridged ; or, which is more to be wondered at, in that of the lives of the first three Jewish patriarchs, which, in many parts of the account, is suffi- ciently circumstantial and ‘domestic. Nor is there, in the passage above quoted from the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, any intimation that the sabbath, when appointed to be ob- served, was only the revival of an ancient institution which had been neglected, forgotten, or suspended ; nor is any such neglect imputed either to the inhabitants of the old world, or to any part of the family of Noah : nor lastly, is any permission recorded to dispense with the institution during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, or on any other public emergency.”* On these various grounds it is concluded that the sab- bath was unknown in the world, until the transactions referred to in the wilderness of Sin. We submit whether the following considerations do not deprive the argument of every particle of its seeming force. 1. Suppose we admit that in the inspired records of the first twenty-five centuries of the world’s history, there is no reference to the seventh-day rest, would the inference against the primeval appointment of the sabbath, follow as a matter of course ? Consider how brief and scanty the records of those twenty-five centuries are. They are all * Moral Philosophy, book v. ch. 7. 6 NO. 596.“— THE SABBATH. included in one book, and in the first twelve chapters of another. Even those records never pretend either to the continuity or the comprehensiveness of history ; they are rather the memorials of selected events : the life of one patriarch alone occupies several chapters ; the account of the plagues of Egypt spreads through many more. Apply Paley’s mode of reasoning to analogous cases, and into what palpable errors would it speedily conduct us? We have a comparatively full account of the Jewish nation from Joshua to David, a period of five hundred years, and yet we search in vain for one remote allusion to the sabr bath : were the Jews then without a sabbath during those five hundred years ? The history from Joshua to Jeremiah includes a period of eight hundred years, in the course of which circumcision is never named. Had the Jews then, during all this time, set aside this Divine institute and national badge ? And yet, the inference would be quite as legitimate against the existence of the sabbath and of cir- cumcision in these two periods, as against the existence of the sabbath in patriarchal times. 2. But we do not admit that, even in those brief re- cords of the first ages of the world, no traces of the sab- bath are to be found. We shall not descend to minute criticism on disputed Hebrew phrases, though even from some of these, we are persuaded, something might be gathered favourable to our cause. We lay our finger on the undisputed fact, which stands out so frequently and in such bold relief in the book of Genesis, the division of time into weeks, or periods of seven days ; * and we com- bine with this, the existence of the same practice as proved by the most ancient uninspired documents, in nations the most dissimilar in all their other customs, and the most re- mote from Palestine and from each other. Explain to us this undoubted fact. A custom so universal, it is evident, can only be accounted for in one of two ways. Either there was some prominent natural phenomenon visible to every eye, that at once suggested the division ; or there must have been some institution coeval with our race, and that has descended all along the numerous streams into which the population of the world was eventually sepa- * Gen. vii. 4, 10 ,* viii. 10, 12 ; xxix. 27, 28 ; 1. 10. Also, Job ii. 3 ; Exod. vii. 25. NO. 598. THE SABBATH. 7 rated, from which it would spontaneously originate. The former of these suppositions explains the division of time into days, and months, and years ; but what is there in the aspect of the heavens, or in the revolutions of the seasons, to explain why the week should consist of seven days, and not of six, or eight, or ten ? and why this should be the measure everywhere ? But suppose God at the creation to have blessed and hallowed the seventh day, and’ you at once suggest an adequate cause. A primeval sabbath ex - plains alL It is the key to an otherwise inexplicable enigma. And until some better explanation is afforded, we must be allowed to regard the division of time into weeks as an unequivocal indication interwoven with the earliest customs of our race, and indelibly imprinted on the sacred page, that the sabbath was instituted at the creation. 3. Dr. Paley’s other assertions are equally questionable. He says, that no permission is recorded to dispense with the sabbath, during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt; but whaf if it should appear that one reason for the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, was that they t might have liberty to keep the sabbath, and to present those sacrifices and observe those ordinances which were connected with it ? There are not wanting tokens that this was the case. What is the demand which Moses makes of Pharaoh in the name of Jehovah ? “ Let my people go that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.” “ Let my people go that they may serve me.” Does not this imply that, latterly at least, while sojourning in Egypt, the Israelites had been pre- vented from observing their religious ordinances, and that their cruel bond-master having blotted out their sabbath, had made their life one ceaseless round of misery and toil? We are confirmed in this opinion by the words of Pharaoh to Moses and Aaron. “ Wherefore do ye let the people from their works ? Behold the people are many, yet ye make them rest from their burdens;” The undaunted Hebrew leader had demanded in behalf of his oppressed brethren, the restoration of their ordinances, and among them of their sabbath, with its connected privileges. The infatu- ated despot refuses. But God himself shall restore them to the Hebrews, and all their other religious privileges. A miracle lays prostrate every first-born child in Egypt ; another miracle opens before them the waters of the Bed Sea, whose waves rise up on either side of them “as an 8 K°. 596. THE SABBATH, heap,” and on the borders of the Arabian wilderness the children of Israel stand free. They hasten to keep their feast, and Dr. Paley himself informs us that that feast was the sabbath. He asserts that the sabbath was then insti- tuted ; the whole history of the transaction leads to the conclusion that the sabbath was then restored . For when an important institution is for the first time introduced, we expect it to be done formally. We expect the reasons of its appointment to be specified, the themes which it was to commemorate detailed, and the modes of its observance minutely prescribed. This is done in the insti- tution of the passover, as described in the twelfth chapter of the same book. But the whole history of the trans- action in the wilderness of Sin, suggests the idea of an institution already known, and the liberty of observing which is now perfectly restored. The passage, Exod. xvi. 22-30, is too long for quotation, but supposing the candid inquirer to turn to it in the Bible, we ask him to notice and duly consider the following remarks. In the first place, the people gather of their own accord , twice as much bread, two omers for one man, on the sixth day ; a fact which it is difficult to account for on any other supposition than that they anticipated and prepared for the rest of the seventh day. In the second place, Moses mentions the sabbath only incidentally , in answer to a question put to him by the rulers. They approach him, and inquire whether the people had done right, in gathering a double quantity of manna on the sixth day, and it is this question which leads him to notice the sabbath. 6 c And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said.” What had the Lord said, and to whom had he said it? The fourth and fifth verses of the chapter inform us, u Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. 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 daily. 5 ’ The meaning of his words to the rulers then is, The people have done quite right ; their conduct is in accordance with what the Lord said to me, that they are to gather a double quantity on the sixth day, and that they are also to prepare what they bring in. And then he adds, “ To-morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord : bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe ; and that which NO. 596. — THE SABBATH. 9 remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morn- ing’.” In the third place, Moses does not speak in the style of one promulgating a new law, nor do we find him giving any instructions whatever as to the manner in which it is to be kept. Indeed, it does not appear that he would, but for the question of the rulers, have adverted to the sabbath at all on this occasion ; and when he does ad- vert to it, it is simply to intimate that because it was a season of holy rest, no manna would fall on that day, and that they were not to seek for it. He does not say to the rulers, The Lord has commanded that to-morrow and every succeeding seventh day, shall he kept holy to the Lord, but, “ To-morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord ; and this is the reason why a double quan- tity of manna has fallen on the sixth day. Six days ye shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the sab- bath, in it there shall be none.” And when some went on the sabbath seeking for manna, he reproved them, saying, “ See, for that the Lord hath given you the sabbath, there- fore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days ; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.” Had the sabbath now been en- joined for the first time, can we doubt that Moses would have done, as we find him doing on all similar occasions, delivered it to the people in the name of the Lord, saying, “ Thus and thus shall ye keep it.” But when we consider that the people gathered spontaneously a double quantity on the sixth day ; that Moses notices the sabbath only inci- dentally, in reply to the questions of the rulers ; that he gives no explanation of its nature, or directions as to its observance'; and that all that he says regarding it, refers to the fact that on that day no manna was to fall, and that the people were not to go out from the camp to search for it, we feel ourselves shut up by all these considerations to the conclusion, that the wilderness of Sin was not the birth- place of this benign institute, but that the scenes transacted there, evidently point back to an earlier and primeval appointment. 4. And when we examine the passage in Genesis, which, we assert, contains that primeval appointment, we are con- firmed in this conclusion. Everything about it favours the opinion, that it records not only what took place in refer- ence to the creation, but at the creation. We quote it, and b 3 10 NO. 596. THE SABBATH. invite the reader to ponder it with unbiassed judgment. “ Thus the heavens 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 God created and made/ 5 Now, the first question that arises in one’s mind on reading these words is, would it ever enter into the heart of any person that had not a preconceived theory to support, to imagine that they were intended to declare any thing else, than that the sabbath was instituted at the creation ? The conjecture is so bold as to stagger and surprise us, that the passage is merely explanatory, and refers to an appointment that took place two thousand five hundred years afterwards. Why may not a similar conjecture be entertained regarding any other transaction recorded as having taken place at the creation, and thus the whole authority and certainty of in- spired history be unsettled and undermined ? A plain and honest reader, on hearing such an interpretation suggested to him, is tempted to say, “ Well, if I cannot understand so plain a narrative as this, I am compelled to distrust my own judgment in seeking the meaning of the simplest state- ment of Scripture, and must hand over the interpretation of the Bible entirely to the learned.” 5. And our view of the passage is unspeakably confirmed, when we consider what the sabbath was appointed to com- memorate, and wdiat blessings it was intended to secure. Its first theme of commemoration was the completed crea- tion. And is this theme interesting to the Jew only, or to man ? Creation is finished ; the sabbath, its memorial, it is said, is given to the Jews to keep them in mind of it, two thousand five hundred years afterwards ! Is this cre- dible ? Or, is it not antecedently far more credible, that the memorial of the event was appointed at the time of the event, and that, as it was universally and unchangeably interesting to the whole race, so it was given to the whole race? And then, in reference to the blessings v r hich it confers and secures, rest for the body, and opportunity of religious instruction and worship, for the mind ; are these, suited to the Jew only, or to man ? Experience has proved that man needs a sabbath. Let it be wrested from him by NO. 596. — THE SABBATH. 11 tyranny, or wrung from him by avarice, or voluntarily sacri~ ficed by his own indifference, and health decays ere he has passed through early manhood, and the springs of action are relaxed, and the whole being degraded, while having no time or opportunity for anything like continuous and undisturbed fellowship with God, the knowledge of God is effaced from his mind, and he becomes the ready victim of superstition, or secularity, or scepticism. The sabbath was intended by Him who knows our frame to prevent these evils, to mitigate the primeval sentence of labour on fallen man, to soothe the sorrows of a labouring world ; and con- secrated by an authority which no power might violate, or avarice bribe. Every seventh sun as it rose on the hori- zon was to come with “ healing in its wings,” announcing to a burdened world its day of holy jubilee, and inviting every child of man to the meditation of immortal themes, to worship and praise. So perfect has experience shown the adaptation of the sabbath to be to man in all the de- partments of his complex nature, that it may almost be affirmed, on this consideration alone, that he that made the one appointed the other. 6. And the evidence for its primeval appointment and permanent obligation becomes complete, and to our mind^ irresistible, when we observe that in a few weeks after the scene which we have been witnessing in the wilderness of Sin, it was “ enshrined among the eternal verities of the moral law.” For the peculiar solemnity with which the ten commandments were proclaimed, the permanent form in which they were inscribed upon the two tables of stone, the fact that they alone were deposited in the ark, as well as the nature of the commandments themselves, all invest them with this distinctive and peculiar character. There were, in truth, two classes of appointments given to the Israelites at Sinai : those which, being merely ceremonial in their character, began with their peculiar polity and perished with it ; and those which, arising out of the essential relations between God and man, were obligatory before the publication of the Jewish code ; obligatory in- dependent of it ; obligatory after it had vanished away ; and were binding on them, not simply as Israelites, but as men. It was natural to expect that these laws would be republished with peculiar indications of their permanence ; and such indications appear to have accompanied the giving of the decalogue. But the sabbath-law stands in the very 12 NO. 596. THE SABBATH. midst of the decalogue ; and is the conclusion to be avoided that, like the other nine statutes, it is a part of that common law of the race, which, beginning with the race, was never to become obsolete ; and which, though not binding upon us simply because it was given to the Israelites, was now republished to the Israelites, because, from the first, it was binding upon all. The language of the commandment evi- dently looks back to an earlier and formal appointment. “ 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.” It is readily admitted that, in other parts of the Mosaic code, the sabbath is associated with peculiar sanctions and penalties that are undeniably Jewish and temporary ; but so it is also with the first commandment, which forbids idolatry, and with the fifth, which commands obedience to parents. But may not the law be moral, and yet the sanction Jew- ish ? In the other two cases it must be so, and why not in this ? Of that, Mount Sinai itself, from which the law was given, may afford our fittest illustration. From the beginning of time, it had reared its sublime summit to the heavens. After the lapse of twenty-five centuries, a thunder-cloud was seen resting upon it ; mysterious and awful sounds issued from that dread pavilion ; the lights flashed athwart and around it ; there was the peal of a trumpet, and the voice of words. “If so much as a beast touched the mountain, it was thrust through with a dart.” Anon the clouds rose from off it, the mysterious sounds ceased, and Sinai was beheld as before. So it was with the sabbath, the thunder-clouds and awful sanctions of Judaism encircled it for a season, but it existed before, and it is to exist now that those have passed away. The sanc- tions have vanished : the sabbath remains. “ Time writes no wrinkles on its brow, Such as creation’s dawn beheld, we see it now.” Paley himself admits that, “If the Divine command in re- ference to the sabbath was actually given at creation, it was addressed, no doubt, to the whole human species alike, and continues, unless repealed by some subsequent revela- tion, binding upon all who come to the knowledge of it.” We now ask, Has he succeeded in unsettling the evidence that it was so given ? NO. 596. THE SABBATH. 13 It is affirmed, however, that such a repeal has taken place, that it was relaxed by our Lord, and entirely repealed by his apostles, and that now, under the Christian dispensation, so far as any Divine appointment is concerned, all days are alike. Let us examine the grounds on which these assertions are made. II. Examination of the argument from certain PASSAGES IN THE HISTORY OF OUR LORD. One favourite resort of those who contend for a relaxed or repealed sabbath under the Christian dispensation, is to certain facts in the evangelic narratives. Two especially are referred to : our Lord’s repeated working of miracles on the sabbath, and his disciples plucking the ears of corn, as they passed through the corn-fields, on that day. These acts, it is affirmed, together with the defence which our Lord addressed to the Pharisees in regard to them, plainly implied, that he wished to loosen the bonds of the sabbath, and that it was among those things which were soon to vanish away. A very few statements will be sufficient to dispose of this argument, and to show how utterly the facts are misunderstood and perverted, when they are used for such a purpose. 1. It is important to observe that our Lord was u made under the law,” and that in submitting to circumcision, he acknowledged his subjection even to those appointments which were peculiarly Jewish. 2. We find him paying habitual respect to the sabbath. “ As his custom teas , he went into the synagogue on the sabbath-day, and stood up for to read,” Luke iv. 16. 3. But there is evidence that the sabbath-law had be- come encumbered and perverted by J ewish interpre- tations and traditions. Its benignant spirit had been extracted from it, and what in its Divine simplicity was a boon of inestimable value, had become a burden and a bondage. It seemed as if man had been made for the sabbath, and not the sabbath for man. For example ; according to the interpretations of the rabbins, a man might fill a trough with water for beasts to come and drink, but he might not carry water to them. In like manner, according to one school, it was not lawful to heal, or to minister to the sick, on the sabbath-day. Most impious b 4 14 JN°. 596- THE SABBATH. and absurd perversions ! But what was needful in such a state of society, evidently was, not so much that the sabbath-law should be republished, as that it should be rescued from perversions alien from its whole spirit and design. And that its genuine character might be all the more effectively and impressively brought out, let the lesson be taught in connexion with certain incidents that shall make it memorable. We find our Lord doing this with other appointments of a moral and permanent kind. And he would only be acting in character, did he do so with this. 4. Now this, we are convinced, is the true view of the facts in our Lord’s history, on which we are now com- menting. They were not meant to relax , hut rightly to expound the sabbath-law. This is evident from the modes of defence which he adopts, in all of the cases referred to. These vindications vary, but they all speak with one voice, not “ I am about to abrogate the sabbath ;” but, “ I wish to deliver it.” On one occasion he appeals to his Divinity ; My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” That is, u In performing miracles, such as you have now seen me perform, I act as God. And even as my Father, in con- ducting his providential administration, never suspends its movements, so it is with me in performing miracles.” But on other occasions, he makes his appeal to analogous cases in the history of their nation, or to their own conduct. u David ate of the shew-bread in the tabernacle to relieve the cravings of hunger, and thus to save health and life. Why, then, blame my disciples for eating the ears of corn, when prompted by a similar necessity. Go and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” Again, u If an ox or an ass fall into a ditch on the sabbath-day, will ye not draw it out again ? Am I then justly charged with violating the sabbath, because I have healed this man with the withered hand ; or, because this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, hath been loosed by me from her bonds, on the sabbath-day?” Now we ask, is this like the course of defence that our Lord would have adopted, had the sabbath been on the eve of its decay ? But is it not the very mode of defence that we should have expected him to adopt, had his design been to relieve it from the rubbish of pharisaism, and to present it in its primeval and untarnished beauty ? NO. 598. — THE SABBATH. 15 Suppose you saw a man taking pains to restore a defaced inscription on a pillar, to remove from it the rubble that had been heaped around its base, and to tear away the ivy that surrounded its summit, would you not infer that it was his intention, that the pillar with its inscriptions should remain for the information of after ages ? Such was now the conduct of our Lord in reference to the sabbath-law. And it is very much to the point to remark, that a case cannot be produced from the whole evangelic history, in which he took similar pains with the explanation of a mere ceremonial appointment. “ Our Lord,” says a profound and accurate thinker, “ corrected those errors alone which had disfigured the pure maxims of the law of universal obligation ; we find no corrections mad£ by him of tempo- rary or national ordinances.” * As for the fact of our Lord’s “ eating ” in the house of a certain Pharisee on a sabbath -day, we may safely allow the apologist for a relaxed sabbath to make all the use he can of this circumstance, when, like the Divine Saviour, he is without a home, and when a desire to be instant in season and out of season for the glory of God is the only motive of his visit. Has it never occurred to those who appeal to this fact, that even the Pharisees themselves saw nothing in it inconsistent with their highest notions of sabbath-keeping ? III. Examination of the argument from the change of the day, and from certain passages in the APOSTOLIC EPISTLES. The objector further appeals to apostolic history and epistles. It is said, u If the sabbath be an institution of permanent and unchanging obligation, why was it not enjoined by the apostles ? You reply, indeed, that its observance was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, and that this transference by apostolic authority amounted to an injunction ; but in the case of a moral appointment, such as you affirm the sabbath to be, we can no more suppose the day to be changed, than the institution itself. And besides, we can discover no apos- tolic authority for such a change. Produce a text com- manding it, and we will believe you. TV r e,” say the * Stopford. 16 NO. 536. — THE SABBATH. objectors, “ can produce more than one text commanding its entire abolition, and declaring that, under the Christian dispensation, every day is to be alike. 4 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/ Col. ii. 16, 17. /One man esteemeth one day above another : another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind/ Rom. xiv. 5.” This objection is more frequently insinuated than for- mally stated ; but if we have not very much misapprehended the scope of many passages in pamphlets and in public journals, there are some such thoughts as these lurking in the minds of their authors. It will be observed, that the objection consists of various links, some of which must be examined singly, but, when closely scrutinized, the whole will be found to fall to pieces. We submit to the candid inquirer the following remarks. 1. Let us settle first principles, and understand what is the essence of the sabbath-law. Is it not this, that a cer- tain portion of time, say a seventh, shall be separated from common to sacred uses, and consecrated to religious wor- ship? Whether that day shall be the sixth, or the seventh, or the first, is a mere matter of external and positive ap- pointment, which does not enter into the essence of the sabbath at all. The institution may remain intact, though the day be varied. Hence the command is, “ Remember” — not the seventh — but “ the sabbath-day, to keep it holy.” Now, let us imagine that in the history of revolving ages, new manifestations of the Divine character are made to the sons of men, manifestations that exceed in glory that which the sabbath was first appointed to commemorate ; there would be no invasion of its essence, but an enhancing of its grandeur, and of its moral suggestiveness, were it to be constituted the memorial of these sublimer manifesta- tions. It would still be the sabbath, the day set apart for the meditation of the Divine character, as it has been more fully unveiled in successive revelations. 2. And this is what we affirm has actually been done. In that work of redemption, which was completed when our Lord arose from the dead, the character of God was dis- played with a lustre which threw the glories of creation into NO. 596. — THE SABBATH. 17 the shade. It was the grand manifestation of God’s moral attributes ; “ the creation of a new heaven and a new earth.” The sabbath was henceforth to be the memorial of both, and now most prominently, of the last and greatest. The first day of the week that witnessed the completed re- demption, thus became more appropriate than the seventh, and it was meet also that, in accordance with this, the sacred institute should receive a new name, and be called, the “ Lord’s day.” But while these changes took place in what might be called the externals and accidents of the day of holy rest, it was still, in its essence, the sabbath that had existed for 4000 years. It was like the ark of God chang- ing its place from the tabernacle of David, to the temple of Solomon, the chosen symbol, as from the beginning, of God’s presence and blessing. The ark was still the ark, although it changed its place ; and the sabbath is still the sabbath, although it has changed its day. 3. Is it now asked, what evidence have we of the trans- ference of the sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week ; we answer, What is the nature of the evidence required? Is it an express command? There is none such. But there is what is equivalent. There is the fact that our Lord left authority with his apostles, to organize the institutions of his church ; for “ whatsoever they bound on earth would be bound in heaven, and whatsoever they loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven.” There is the fact that, by their example, they sanctioned the change of the day, and the permanence of the institute. There is the fact that ere the last survivor of the apostles died, the change had become universal ; in other words, there is the evidence of apostolic arrangement, which will be as authoritative with a Christian disciple as apostolic command. 66 The mind and will of God, concerning any duty to be performed by us,” says Jonathan Edwards, “ may be sufficiently revealed in his word, without a parti- cular 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 com- paring them together, plainly perceive it. If the mind of 18 NO. 596. THE SABBATH. God be but revealed, if there be but sufficient meajis for the communication of his mind to our minds, that is suffi- cient ; whether we hear so many express words with our ears, or see them in writing with our eyes ; or whether we see th%thing that he would signify to us, by the eye of rea- son and understanding.” Indeed, to prescribe to God in what terms he shall make known his will, is to share in the presumptuous unbelief of those Pharisees, who would pre- scribe to Christ by what sort of signs he would attest his authority. 4. As for the two passages from the apostolic epistles, Rom. xiv. 5 ; Col. ii. 16, 17, which have been paraded with so much confidence, it is quite evident that they refer to the attempt of Judaizers to make the observance of the seventh day, as well as of the first, binding upon the Christian churches. The apostle interferes, to protect their Christian liberty. They might observe the seventh day if they chose, but no man was to compel them to do so, or to condemn them if they did not. To suppose that these verses were intended by the apostle, to declare that all days under the Christian dispensation were alike, is to sup- pose him to write one thing, and to practise another. The chain of evidence, then, for the perpetuity of the sabbath is unbroken ; no link fails ; we trace it in the earliest records of patriarchal life, and in the latest inspired memorials of apostolic times. Those foot-prints which we first beheld in Eden, we trace in Patmos, where the be- loved apostle was “ in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. And to have the scriptural authority for any observance certified, is with a Christian to have the matter set at rest. Cavil and question then become impiety. The first ques- tion with a Christian is, u What is written in the law ? how readest thou ?” and it is his last question too. And so should it be with every man. Efforts are often made, however, by indirect means, to prevent the legitimate force of the scripture evidence. A prejudice is attempted to be raised against the sabbath, by representing it to be oppres- sive, or it is insinuated to be unnecessary, or the opinions of a few great men, placed in circumstances very much fitted to mislead, are triumphantly paraded against the almost unanimous voice of the evangelical churches. We shall close our tract by glancing at a few of these. NO. 596. THE SABBATH. 9 IV. Examination of miscellaneous objections AND POPULAR FALLACIES. 1. Sometimes an aspect of harshness is attempted to be thrown around the sabbath, and it is spoken of as a thing of mere arbitrary restraints. It is said, for example, Why forbid the ingenious mechanic, who has been sweating over the anvil, or bending over the loom, or cooped up in the crowded factory, to give himself up on this day to amuse- ment and recreation ? Let him angle in the stream, or sail on the river, or explore the forest, or ascend the moun- tain, and inhale its breeze and expatiate in its sublime prospects ; and let the rustic labourer, on the other hand, visit our cities, and enter our museums, and libraries, and picture-galleries. Must not that be a burdensome institute which interdicts such recreations, and must not those be wanting in all benevolence and sensibility, who would vin- dicate it from popular encroachment? Such is the covert of assumed philanthropy, from which the sabbath is not unfrequently assailed. But on what pretence is the sabbath to be charged with trenching on the enjoyments of the artisan ? What is it but the sabbath that has secured for him a seventh day of rest, and, fencing it round with a Divine barrier, has said to tyranny. This is the poor man’s day, you may not wrest it from him ;■ — to seeularity, you shall not buy it from him ; — to the poor man himself, you may not yield it up or sell it. Doubtless, it is most intensely to be wished that far more time were allowed to the hard-wrought masses of our population for bodily recreation and amusement ; and in a state of society which the principles of the Bible tho- roughly leavened and regulated, this would most certainly be secured. But are not the intelligence and morality of a people of infinitely more importance, both to their indi- vidual happiness and to national strength ? We wish to see secured for the artisan time for recreation, but we wish to see secured for him time for religion too, and shall we be asked to sacrifice the more important for the less important? Would not recreation itself, without intelli- gence and morality, rapidly degenerate into brutal licen- tiousness ? And how are these to be secured by those sons of toil, without a weekly recurring day given to converse with Divine truths and eternal realities ? Let the real state 20 NO. 596. — THE SABBATH. of the case be clearly seen. The hours for recreation on common days have gradually passed from the hands of the working man ; commercial enterprise has bought them up and changed them into hours of toil ; and now when the question is asked, What time shall he have for recreation, the answer given is, his sabbath-day. Well, let us suppose the presumptuous and impious demand yielded, what secu- rity has he that his sabbath once given to recreation would not soon be demanded for toil also, and the poor deluded artisan discover, when it was too late, that that blessed in- stitute which had enshrined his dignity, his liberty, and his immortal interests, was lost ; and that, in an evil hour, he had sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. The man of toil is insulted by that sentimentalism which never looks above his physical condition, and shuts out the idea that he is an immortal being, travelling to an eternal world. And surely it is a far truer philanthropy which delights to be- hold him exchanging not mere animal toil for animal recreation, but moving with a virtuous household to that hallowed place where rich and poor meet together, raising his thoughts above all that is sordid and secular, holding converse with themes that at once dignify and purify, re- ceiving motives to virtuous action, solace to grief, and with 66 looks commercing with the skies,” meditating on those things into which even angels desire to look. These are the men that make an empire great, by keeping it virtuous ; the salt of the earth, the lights of the world. 2. Would we then interdict the study of the w^orks of God, it is sometimes asked, and denounce every man as a sabbath-breaker, who, on the first day of the week, was found meditating in the fields, or musing by the river side or the ocean shore, or turning his gaze upward to the starry firmament. It is worthy of remark that the objector has here shifted his ground. Formerly he demanded the sab- bath for amusement, now he asks that a portion of its precious hours may be given to the devout contemplation of its Divine handiworks. This is a favourite position with some, but two simple statements will be sufficient to dispose of it. (1.) It is never to be overlooked that the most im- portant revelation which God has given of himself to man, is that contained in his written word, and that it is to the study of this, especially, that the return of the sabbath NO. 596. — THE SABBATH. 21 invites him. He stands to God in the relation not of an innocent creature, but of a guilty sinner, and it is in the knowledge of God as he is revealed in his word, that is, not simply as his Creator, but as his Redeemer, that he finds the means of his deliverance. Now, it is to God in this combined relation, as the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that we are to offer worship ; and one of the most prominent and gracious ends intended by the gift of the sabbath, was to secure opportunity to his. people for performing this service, and for performing it socially : 66 nor forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.” Any service rendered to God merely viewed as his Creator, by a human being in the assumed position and character of innocence, should be rejected, like Cain’s proud and impious offering of the fruits of the earth. A mere intellectual homage to the power, wisdom, and bene- ficence of God as seen in creation, made a substitute for the evangelical and contrite worship of a scripturally en- lightened and renewed heart approaching God in his own appointed ordinances, and through his own blood-conse- crated medium of access, is an utter perversion of the very spirit and purpose of the sabbath, and a kindling of strange fire upon the altar of God. (2.) At the same time, there is no enlightened friend of the sabbath who would hesitate to admit, that in con- nexion with the more peculiar and prominent services of the sabbath, and in subserviency to them, no exercise can be more appropriate or congenial than the devout contem- plation of the works of God. The sabbath intermingles in itself the memorials of creation and of redemption ; and so should he that would rightly hallow the sabbath, intermin- gle them in his thoughts. But then, let us clearly under- stand what is meant by the devout contemplation of the works of God. Not surely what so often passes for this in practice, the mere sabbath walk or holiday stroll, the enjoy- ment of which principally depends on keeping God out of the thoughts, and which so often beginning with undevout frivolity, ends in crime. Not even the solitary musings of the man who has an eye for the mere beauties of scenery. The truth is, that everything in a case like this depends on motive and spirit. So that we can easily conceive two sons of a pious father going forth on a sabbath evening, from beneath the parental roof, into the neighbouring garden or 22 NO. 595. THE SABBATH. field, and while their external conduct is very much alike, the one shall in the sight of God be a sabbath-breaker, and the other not. For the first has merely gone forth to escape from pious exercises and holy conversation which he does not relish, to while away the vacant hours that make him exclaim, in heart, of the sabbath, “ What a weariness is it !” to indulge unmolested the waking-dreams of avarice or ambition, perhaps even to invite temptation in its grosser forms. The other has walked forth like Isaac, with a heart attuned to devotion, intent to “ meditate at even- tide,” and every object in nature is, like Jacob’s ladder, the pathway of his thoughts to heaven ; each flower suggests an emblem or a lesson ; the azure firmament is itself a sublime revelation ; ocean is to him the mirror of the Almighty, and the emblem of eternity ; “ His are the mountains, and the valleys his, And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy With a propriety that none can feel. But who, with filial confidence inspired, Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say, My Father made them all.” This would undoubtedly be sabbath-keeping, though even from the solitary walk in the field or by the ocean-shore, we can conceive a Christian disciple, in the present state of society, to abstain, aware how liable his example is, in such a case, to be abused, and well knowing that many things which are lawful are not expedient. 3. Occasionally, however, the objector strangely alters his tone, and from complaining of the harshness of the in- stitute which sets apart one day in seven entirely to religious services, declares the appointment to be unnecessary, because a true Christian will make a sabbath of every day. tc I am an every-day Christian,” you will sometimes hear it said, “ why talk of one day in seven for religion ; my idea is that every day of the seven should be a sabbath.” It has been justly noticed, that those who speak thus, are not always the most religious of persons, and that if they believe that every day should be a sabbath, their notions are very low indeed of what a sabbath should be. But apart from this, there are two things which we deem it sufficient to urge in reply to this objection. First, it utterly misrepresents our views. Who ever taught, who ever thought, that in arguing that one day in NO. 596. — THE SABBATH. 23 seven was to be kept holy to the Lord, all the other six days might in this case be given to a uniform and undis- turbed secularity ? Can a more thorough perversion of our meaning be imagined than this ; “ Be religious on the first day of the week, and you may be as worldly as you like on other days?” No; the true spirit of the sabbath-appoint- ment is, not that we should condense the religion of the week into the sabbath, but that we should carry forth from the sabbath its hallowed impulses and feelings into the other days of the week, to elevate and sustain us amid its wearisome secularises and depressing cares. Our souls are to be attuned and attempered then. c; The Lord has given us the sabbath,” not to relieve us of our religion, but so to revive our religion on that day, as to impel its healthy tide into the remotest nook and corner of every-day duty. And general experience abundantly proves, that consti- tuted as human nature is, and circumstanced as the vast majority of our race are, and ever must be, some such ap- pointment as the sabbath is indispensable to the keeping alive of religion in the hearts and habitations of our people. For the question is not how a man of retired habits and abundant means could keep his godliness in vigour without a sabbath-day, but, how the erasure of this day from the list of moral appointments — in other words, the degrading of it to common uses— would affect those whose waking hours on other days are almost wholly engrossed by traffic or toil. Extinguish the sabbath, and religion has only the little intervals between the hours of labour in which to pro- claim her lessons and to assert her claims. And if, even with the sabbath on her side, which commands all to be si- lent that she may be heard, she finds it difficult to maintain her supremacy, what would be the case were her voice only to be raised amid the thousand discordant sounds of secular pursuits? You bid her fashion the iron, and you will not give her time to heat it; you bid her paint her image, but it is upon moving canvass. With one hand you propose to draw water from the cistern, while, with the other, you have cut off the communication of that cistern with the lake that feeds it. That man may be kept religious, he must give to the subjects of religion more than the mere snatches of time or half thoughts ; hours upon hours must be set apart, in which its hallowed associations and holy employments shall have opportunity to exert their full 24 NO. 59G. — THE SABBATH. influence. Deprive him of this, and your every-day sabbath 'will soon turn out to mean no sabbath at all. 4. Another attempt is sometimes made to loosen the sense of obligation in respect to sabbath observance, by in- sinuating that the evidence is of so dubious a nature, that much may be said on both sides. It is at the most a ba- lancing of probabilities. No one will be blamed for not discovering a law but dimly written ; so dimly, that if it is binding at all, it must be admitted that there are persons of undoubted piety in our age, especially on the continent, who do not feel or acknowledge it to be so. We have said enough in previous portions of this tract, to show that we do not admit the truth of the statement on which this apology proceeds. We hold with Jonathan Edwards, that “ the command is so plainly spoken that the ear may hear it, and this is enough.” At the same time, we are prepared to admit, in reference to this and many other duties, that it is quite a possible thing for a mind that is desirous of evading the evidence regarding it, to succeed in doing so. It is a profound observation of Pascal’s, that many princi- ples and precepts are presented in the word of God, in such a manner as to operate as moral tests. That is, they are presented with just so much of distinctness that an indi- vidual free from prejudices, and seriously intent to discover the mind of God, will find them there ; while on the other hand, they do not stand forth upon the sacred page with such a prominence and amid such a blaze of demonstration, but that the mind which dislikes the doctrine or the duty, may evade its evidence. Suppose this to be in some degree the case with the law of the sabbath, would it excuse the man who did not see it in the Bible ; or would not his re- jection of the sabbath in such circumstances, afford a cul- pable instance of that moral perversity which makes the eye dim that it will not see, and the ear heavy that it will not hear ? The reference to some of the Protestant churches on the continent, will not serve the purposes of the objector. We know that long familiarity with a sinful practice diminishes the sense of its sinfulness. It is thus that we account for the feeble tone of condemnation, in which some of the American churches speak of the heaven-defying slave system. But the assertion itself of a prevailing doubt is much too unqualified, for it is a fact, that just as the slum- NO. 596. THE SABBATH. 25 bering churches on the continent are awakening to life, they are acknowledging the necessity of a sabbath, and that their most enlightened and pious pastors are at this moment sighing for its restoration, reminding one of Nehemiah going forth by moonlight, and marking the ruined walls of Jerusalem and the gates thereof consumed with lire, and calling on the people to rise up and build the wall. Lastly. The enemies of the sabbath have been fain to take refuge under the authority of a few great names. Luther and Calvin, it is said, did not hold such rigid views. Suppose they did not. It is forgotten that their position was peculiarly unfavourable for the examination of the sub- ject. They looked at the Lord’s day among many days of mere human appointment ; it was hidden like Saul among the stuff. Is the wonder great that they were tempted to reject all sacred days whatever ? The impetuous nature of the great German reformer led him to reject other things that were Divine, such as the Epistle of James. What wonder that in removing some of the rubbish of the temple, these great men should unconsciously have swept away with it some of its purest gold ? Their circumstances called more for energetic action, than for discrimination. But we who live in these later and calmer days, have had time to discriminate, and we can now discover in the lax views which some of the leading reformers entertained on the subject of the sabbath, and in the laxer practices which, those views introduced into the churches, one reason why the tide of the reformation ebbed so soon. They planted a vineyard, but they forgot to place around it God’s wall of defence ; and thus it is that “ the boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.” But has it indeed come to this, that a duty may be held as uncertain until there is perfect unanimity among Christians regarding it, and that so long as some great name can be quoted as speaking doubtfully on the subject, the obligation is suspended ? Admit this principle, and then tell us what error or folly is there, that may not bor- row the sanction of some great name. Luther might then be quoted as advocating views of the Lord’s supper that savour of mysticism, if they do not border on absurdity ; the name of Calvin might be used to consecrate intolerance ; Milton might be brought in as the patron of lax and 26 NO. 596. — THE SABBATH. dangerous notions on the subject of divorce ; Baxter might be appealed to as a believer in ghosts and apparitions ; one illustrious name of our own times, might be cited in favour of the use of the crucifix in our secret devotions ; and another, in opposition to the formation of Christians into distinct and visible societies. But what would this be but falling back upon one of the worst maxims of the Jesuits, that any practice is allowable to a disciple in favour of which he can quote one of the fathers, and which drew upon that society the polished and scorching sarcasm of the 66 Provincial Letters.” Has it yet to be proclaimed that true Protestantism involves in it not only the right but the duty of private judgment, and that rising above all reformers and fathers, the Christian disciple has ever to remember that “ One is his master, even Christ.” Were it not that a far abler pen has already referred to another fallacy, we should have been tempted to notice it at some length. “ Every thing ceremonial,” it has been said, u was done away when Christ arose from the dead. Not one lingering shred of carnal ordinances remains, under this mature and spiritual economy.” Admitted : but what then ? Is the sabbath-law therefore repealed ? Oh, most preposterous conclusion ! The law which provides for the children of toil and the sons of commerce,