SfSvOFPRi.^ MAY I 8 l^y. Lsev^ r^A^^ BV 113 .F8 1883 Fuller, Morris J. The Lord's Day, or ~A THE LORD'S DAY OR CHRISTIAN SUNDAY THE LORD'S DAY OR CHRISTIAN SUNDAY ITS UNITY, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, AND PERPETUAL OBLIGATION ^^{ OF PRIf:C£7j SERMONS BY y REV. MORRIS FULLER, M.A. VICAR OF ST. PAUL'S, EAST MOULSEY, BY HAMPTON COURT LATE RECTOR OF LYDFORD-CUM-PRINCETOWN, DEVON AUTHOR OF "our ESTABLISHED CHURCH," "a VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS" "the COURT OF FINAL APPEAL," ETC. u .. L SL^i:^ ¥ i> Thucydides NOTE TO THE READER The paper in this volume is brittle or the inner margins are extremely narrow. We have bound or rebound the volume utilizing the best means possible. PLEASE HANDLE WITH CARE General Bookbinding Co.. Chesterland. Ohio X {Jhe rights of translation and of reproduction are reset ved.) TO THE CONGREGATION AND PARISHIONERS OF ST. PAUL'S, EAST MOULSEY, "THESE SERMONS," MOSTLY PREACHED (iN SUBSTANCE) IN THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. PAUL's, DURING THE YEAR lS8l, "ARE YOURS, AS FIRST INTENDED FOR YOUR INSTRUCTION, DELIVERED TO YOUR ATTENTION, DIGESTED (l HOPE) BY YOUR MEDITATION, AND NOW PUBLISHED FOR YOUR FURTHER EDIFICATION " (in THE WORDS OF QUAINT OLD FULLER, THE WORTHY), AND ARE DEDICATED WITH THE BEST WISHES, AND EARNEST PRAYER, OF THEIR FRIEND AND PASTOR, THE AUTHOR. / PE PREFACE The growing interest in this most important subject, Sunday observance, must be the author's apology for submitting this volume of sermons to the notice of the pubHc. It is most desirable that every information should be offered to those who are seeking to find the true grounds and origin of our great Sabbatic institution ; and it is incumbent upon all to have well-balanced opinions, and to form their own conclu- sions from the arguments adduced on this subject, " and few things," the Bishop of Oxford said at his inaugural address at the Reading Church Congress, just held, "are of more immediate concern." The advantage of this treatment of the subject will be found to be twofold, (i) The sermons can be read in the order of logical sequence laid down in the selection and order of subjects issued to the competitors, which will enable the reader to form a consequential judgment of the results obtained by the investigation. Thus taken in their proper order, a review of the Sermons will exhibit the various steps proved in the series at a glance, and will enable the thoughtful and un- prejudiced reader to pursue his scriptural investigation, in orderly sequence, from point to point. And (2) it is hoped that there will be found that close continuity of thought which is secured by placing all the subjects in the hands of a single writer, which though it may lead to an occasional over- lapping or repetition, yet the great subject will be found treated as a whole by one mind, from a consistent standpoint throughout, the argument being based upon a critical scrip- viii PREFACE. tural exegesis, and reference to well-known authorities of the Anglican Church, and the ante-Nicene period. The origin of these sermons may be briefly stated. When five years ago the author left his country parish in Devon- shire, where the Sunday was duly observed, he found himself, in his new suburban parish at Hampton Court, startled at the amount of Sabbath desecration, which seemed to be localized and focalized at this spot. The level roads of the neighbourhood tempted the cyclists, the charming grounds and picture galleries of Hampton Court invited the loungers, and the silvery stream of " hoary Thames " attracted the pleasure seekers in countless numbers, while the churches were by comparison badly attended. On an average five hundred boats passed the locks of Moulsey and Sunbury on Sundays alone, and hundreds of spectators lined the banks. Such an amount of Sunday desecration he had not seen before except on the continent, and he was led once more to investigate the origin of the day of rest, and the grounds of Sabbatic observance. This assured him more than ever of its true history, and perpetual obligation. Going carefully over the old ground, he felt more than ever convinced that we must look beyond ecclesiastical and even Judaical times for the origin of the Sabbath. It has become abundantly evident that this " Queen of days " was instituted in Paradise, re-affirmed in the wilderness, re-enacted in the moral law of Moses, and substituted or transferred to its present august position as the weekly festival of the resurrection. These views the writer would have gladly enforced at the late Congress if opportunity had been accorded him, but his carefully compiled statistics would only have illustrated the remarkable passage in the inaugural address of the President of the Reading Church Congress (Dr. Mackarness) on the Sunday question, which concludes as follows — "Amongst other subjects connected with education you will have noticed that of Sunday teaching for the children of the upper classes, a matter which seems to have had less attention at Church Congresses and elsewhere than it deserves. Sunday observance in general is on our list ; and few things PREFACE. IX are of more immediate concern. In relaxing those restraints which seemed to belong to a Judaical idea of the Sabbath, Churchmen have sometimes neglected to ascertain the real nature and limits of the obligation to keep the Lord's day. There is some reason to fear a growing tendency not to observe it at all. Look again to the valley where * hoary Thames pursues its silver-winding way,' by the pleasant country towns of this diocese, and you will see, as you come nearer to London, a scene of Sunday desecration, distressing to those who remember how the oars, which we had plied so busily all the week, lay untouched on Sunday, however brightly the summer sun might shine. Now the' skiff and the canoe dart in and out among barges laden with revellers ; and the steam-launch, especially odious at all times to the veteran oarsman, troubles the vexed river with its ceaseless whirl. The idlers cannot omit one day in the week from their quest of pleasure, cannot grant their dependents one day's exemption from work. This is but one local illustration of a general change. I do not forget that like complaints have been heard in former generations. Sunday was ill spent in the days of the Regency, if we may trust Bishop Horsley's eloquent sermon " (the Bishop might have said sermons, for there are three) " for an account of it. But it was badly spent by bad men then. Against the disregard of Sunday now, good Christians seem to be at a loss to know on what grounds, or to what extent, they ought to protest. Such discussions as ours ought to do something to clear their minds, something to give them firmness and consistency in their practice too." — Bishop of Oxford's Inaugural Address, Church Congress, Reading, Oct. 2nd, 1883. As the argument in the following pages often turns on the niceties of the original languages, the texts of the sermons are given in Greek, for the assistance of the general reader. May the Lord of the Sabbath bless their perusal, and deepen in the hearts of our people the inestimable value of their sacred day of rest and worship, to His greater Glory ! LIST OF TEXTS AND SUBJECTS. SERMON PAGE I. P Gen. i. I, 2 ; Heb. i, 2 ; iv. i, 2 ... ... ... ... i " The Beginning and Ordering of theWorld, wliich tvas to be the theatre 0/ Sabbath Law and Observance." II. Gex. ii. I, 2, 3 ... ... ... ... ... ... 25 " The Original Institution of the Sabbath" III. * ExoD. xvi. 22-31 ... ... ... ... ... ... 45 ' ' The Sabbath known to Israel before the Promulgation of the Sinaitic Lata." IV. ExoD. XX. 8, II ; Deut. v. 12-15 ••• •■• ■•• ••• ^7 " The Sabbath Institution as a Law, its character, and the motives to its Promulgation.^'' V. * ExoD. xxiii. 10-13 ; .xxxv. 2, 3 ; Levit. xvi. 12 ... ... 89 " The weekly Sabbath of the Decalogue distinguished from purely Javish Sabbaths." VI. Psalm cxvdii. 19-24 ... ... ... ... ... ... 109 / " The Day wliich the Lord hath made." jo' VII. Isaiah Iviii. 13, 14; Psalm xcii. ... ... ... ... 138 " The strict, spiritual, and joyful Observance of the Sabbath." VIII. Matt. xii. i, 9 ; Mark ii. 27, 28 ; Luke vi. i, 12 ... ..164 " The character of the Sabbath declared by the Lord of the Sabbath." IX. * Matt. xii. 12 ... ... ... ... ... ... 1S9 ^ ' ' Rightful Sabbath activity. " X. * John ix. 16... ... ... ... ... ... ... 212 " Jcxvish Condemnation of Jesus Christ as a Sabbath breaker." XI. * Matt, xxviii. 1-6 ; Mark xvi. 1-6 ; Luke xxiv. 1-6 ; John xx. 1-9 235 1/ " The Resurrectio7t and First Day of the Week." XII. * Mark xvi. 12-14 ; Luke xxiv. 36 ; John xx. 19, 26 ... ... 256 ^ " The First Day of the tveek and the Risen Saviour." XIII. * Gen. ii. 1-3; Exod. xx. 8-11 ; Matt, xxviii. i ... ... 280 " Rest and Labour : Order before the Fall, under the Latv, and after the Resurrection." XIV. * Acts ii. 1-4 ... ... ... ... ... ... 303 ' ' The Holy Ghost given to the Church oit the Lord^s Day. " P Sermons adjudged Prizes by the Lord's Day Observance Society. * Sermons which received Honourable Mention by the E.xainlners. xii LIST OF TEXTS AND SUBJECTS. SERMON * PAGE /^ XV. * Acts ii. i ; Acts xx. 6, 7 ; i Cor. xvi. 2 ; Rev. i. 10... ... 327 " Tlie Apostolic Church and the First Day of the IFeeh." XVI. Rom. xiii. 8-10 ... ... ... ... ... ...355 " Love the ftdjilling of the Law." XVII. P Rom. xiv. 1-9 ... ... ... ... ... ... 370 " Christian Indifference to Days." XVIII. * Gal. iv. 9-11 ; Col. ii. 16, 17 ... ... ... ... 400 ' ' Days, Sabbaths, Months, and Years — Beggarly Elements and Shadozvs." XIX. * Heb. iii. 7 ; iv. 11... ... ... ... ... ... 423 " Rest and Sabbath-keeping, as in the Divine Plan.'" XX. Rev. i. 10 ... ... ... ... ... .. ... 447 '' The Lord's Day." PRIZES FOR SERMONS ON THE SABBATH. REPORT OF THE ADJUDICATORS. The Committee of the Lord's Day Observance Society having been enabled, by the kindness of a friend, to offer a sum of ^^200 in Prizes for Twenty Competitive Sermons on specified Texts of Scripture, and having made known the fact by advertisements and distribution of programmes, received in the month of September, 1881, six hundred and ninety-six Manuscripts for Examination. These Manuscripts were submitted to twenty-one gentle- men, who most kindly undertook the long and difficult task of adjudication. The objects of the scheme had been declared to be the following : — To secure able statements of the many aspects in which the Sabbath is presented in the Word of God. To show the unity of the Weekly Sabbath of Eden, and of the Decalogue, with the Lord's day, or Weekly Memorial of the Resurrection of our Redeemer : To elucidate the character of the Day, and to remove difficulties which lie, or are supposed to lie, against the Sabbatic basis and authority of the Lord's day, from passages in the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles. The Examiners were instructed to keep these ends before them in their examination and adjudication. After ten months of earnest labour, the Examiners have been enabled to make their award. XIV PRIZES FOR SERMON'S ON THE SABBATH. The following Twenty Sermons have been adjudged worthy of the Prize of Ten Pounds each : — I. 2. 3- 4- 5- 6. "The Sabbath known to Israel before the promulgation of the Sinaitic Law." "The First Day of the Week and the Risen Saviour." " Rest and Labour — Order before the Fall, under the Law, and after the Resurrection." " The Apostolic Church and the First Day of the Week." " Days, Sabbaths, Months, and Years, Beggarly Elements." " Rest and Sabbath-keeping, as in the Divine Plan." These six are written by the Rev. F. M. Cameron, Rector of Bonnington, Kent, who gained also Honor- able Mention for two other Sermons. 7. "The Beginning and Ordering of the World, which was to be the Theatre of Sabbath Law and Observance." 8. " Christian Indifference to Days." These two Sermons are written by the Rev. MORRIS Fuller, M.A., St. Paul's Vicarage, East Moulsey, who gained also Honorable Mention for eleven other Sermons. 9. " The character of the Sabbath declared by the Lord of the Sabbath." 10. "Jewish Condemnation of Jesus Christ as a Sabbath-breaker." These two are written by the Rev. James Smith, M.A., Free Church, Tarland, Aberdeenshire, who gained also Honorable Mention for three other Sermons. 11. "The Weekly Sabbath of the Decalogue distinguished from purely Jewish Sabbaths." 12. " The Resurrection and the First Day of the Week." These two are written by the Rev. Matthew Hutchi- son, Afton Free Church, New Cumnock, Ayrshire. 13. "The original Institution of the Sabbath." By the Rev. Dr. Grant, St. John's, Dundee, who gained also Honorable Mention for one other Sermon. 14. " The Sabbath Institution as a Law." By Rev. Samuel Miles, Wesleyan Minister, North Shields. 15. "The Day which the Lord hath made." By Rev. Richard Cooper, M.A., Swayfield Rectory, Grantham. 16. "The Strict, Spiritual, and Joyful Observance of the Sabbath." By Rev. William Allen, Wesleyan Minister, Great Yarmouth. 17. "Rightful Sabbath Activity." By Rev. THOMAS PiTT, Wes- leyan Minister, Alexandria, Dumbarton. 18. "The Holy Ghost given to the Church on the Lord's day." By the Rev. William Ingram, Free Church, Rothiemay, Huntley. 19. " Love the Fulfilling of the Law." By the Rev. William Sandford, B.A., Edlaston Rectory, Derbyshire. 20. " The Lord's Day." By the Rev. George Wallace, M.A., St. John's Free Church, Hamilton, Scotland. PRIZES FOR SERMONS ON THE SABBATH. XV Eighty-three Sermons have received Honorable mention by the Examiners. The Committee of the Lord's Day Observance Society record their gratitude to the Donor of the Prizes, and to the gentlemen who have so kindly acted as Adjudicators. The Committee are thankful that so many persons have been induced to think and to write on the important subjects contained in the programme, and they pray that the Lord of the Sabbath will graciously bless all those who have taken any part in the movement, and that He will use the accepted Sermons for the advancement of His own truth among men. By order of the Committee, JOHN GRITTON, D.D., Convener of the Sermon Committee. 20, Bedford Street, Strand, London, W.C, September, 1882. ADJUDICATORS. Badenoch, Rev. Dr. Baker, Rev. W. Ballantyne, Rev. W. Cadman, Rev. Canon (of Canterbury). Carlyle, Rev. Gavin. Chambers, G. F., Esq, Chase, Rev. C. F. Hankin, Rev. D. B. Harke, Rev. F. Holt, J. Maden, Esq. Jacob, Rev. Dr. Karney, Rev. Gilbert. Langdon, a. W., Esq. Mummery, Rev. J. Vale. Nev^^man, Right Rev. Bishop. Prest, Ven. Archdeacon (of Durham). Raitt, Rev. Dr. Russell, Rev. J. S. Smith, Rev. Canon Saumarez. Tyler, Rev. W. Waller, Rev. C. H. .^^ THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. I. THE BEGINNING AND ORDERING OF THE WORLD, WHICH WAS TO BE THE THEATRE OF SABBATH LAW AND OBSERVANCE.^ Genesis i. i, 2 ; Hebrews i. 2 ; iv. i, 2. " Ev dpx'l) itroiriffev 6 @ehs rov ovpavhv Ka\ ti]v y^v. 'H Se yrj ?iv aSparos Kal UKaTacTKevacTTos, Kal (tkotos eirdvai rf/s afivcraov kol Tryiv/xa @eod i-Kiv Tjixepcoy rovrwv eKaKriffey Tifuv ev vlqi, tv tdriKev KKr)p6vo^ov irai/Tcof, 01 ov Kai eTroirjaev tovs atcovas. " ^oPrjdw/xep ohv /xr] itots KaTaXenrofi-ivris 4irayyf\ias elffeXdtlv els -r^v KaTanavaiv avTov. SoKrj tis vpLuiv ii(rrepr]Kevaf Kal yap ea/xev evriyye\ta/j,4vot Kadaizep KaKitvot. aW' ovK oi/ovsT§ Tricrrei rots aKovaaoTiV. " Primo dierum omnium. Quo mundus extat conditus, Vel quo resurgens conditor Nos morte victa liberat." (I/i Dominicis ad Matutinas, E. Brev. Sav.) The due observance of the Sabbath day concerns the glory of God, and the welfare of man. It is the Lord's day, and we should reverently accept whatever He has said about it. The day which we call by the name of Sunday, or Lord's day, can be traced through Apostolical times to the Sabbaths of the ^ This Sermon was adjudged a Prize by the Lord's Day Observance Society. A, ij^\ B 2 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. law and the prophets, when it was for the time incorporated with the Mosaic economy and other Judaical statutes ; and, emerging therefrom, we follow it through the patriarchal church, far back to the rest of creation, and the Sabbath of the Garden of Eden. Whatever name it may be called, or with whatever sanctions it may be connected, the same blessed fact meets us at every point in the ages — a seventh-day period of rest, the great sabbatical institution. Without the obser- vance of such a Sabbath, the Church, whether Jewish or Christian, must languish ; for the desecration of this day tends to annihilate the blessings of revelation, to deprive the world of any visible token of the power of Christianity, and leave the Church without adequate means of openly testifying its faith and obedience. Without the Sabbath, where would be an opportunity, in the case of the masses, of worshipping Almighty God, instructing children, pious meditation deepen- ing the spiritual life, hearing God's Word read and preached, celebrating the sacraments of the Gospel, and preparing for the rest (the sabbatism, or keeping of a Sabbath) which remaineth to the people of God ? Without a regular day for the worship of God, recurring at fixed periods, there would soon be no worship at all, and men would forget their Maker. For where the solemn services of the sanctuary are duly performed, there Christianity is honoured and respected by the weekly return of the day. As piety declines or revives, there is a marked difference in the appreciation of the means of grace, of which the Sabbath is first in importance and dignity. In fact, the necessity of a stated period for rest and worship is acknowledged even by those who do not trace back the sabbatical institution to the rest of Paradise. If we are ex- pected to give a certain tribute-time to our Maker, then there is an antecedent probability that the proportion will be duly revealed to, and regulated for, us. We can hardly imagine that a point of such paramount importance could be left to chance, or evolved out of our inner consciousness. Now, whatever view may be taken of the original institu- tion of the Sabbath, there is a wonderful unanimity of senti- ment as to the absolute necessity of setting apart some day for special religious worship. If there is to be worship of the Almighty at all, there must be regularly recurring periods for THE BEGINNING AND ORDERING OF THE WORLD. 3 such worship to be ofTered, or it would quickly fall into desue- tude. Thus, Paley (whose views on the origin of this institu- tion are diametrically opposed to our own, and, though supported by most incisive reasoning, fail to carry conviction with them) opens his chapter on the " Use of Sabbatical Institutions," taken from his Moral and Political Philosophy, in the following trenchant words : — " An assembly cannot be collected unless the time of assembling be fixed and known beforehand ; and, if the design of the assembly require that it be holden frequently, it is easiest that it should return at stated intervals. This produces a necessity of appropriating set seasons to the social offices of religion. It is also highly convenient that the same seasons be observed throughout the country, that all may be employed, or all at leisure, together ; for if the recess from worldly occupation be not general, one man's business will perpetually -interfere with another man's devotion : the buyer will be calling at the shop when the seller is gone to church. This part, therefore, of the religious distinction of seasons — namely, a general intermission of labour and business during time previously set apart for the exercise of public worship — is founded in the reasons which made public worship itself a duty." And, again, after giving his own reasons for the necessity of a Sunday, he concludes '• " Our obligation applies to the subsisting establishment, so long as we confess that some such institution is necessary, and are neither able nor attempt to substitute any other in its place." ^ Again, Mr. Robertson, of Brighton, says : " If the Sabbath rests 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 upon, from which you cannot be shaken." "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." And again : "It is perfectly possible that, for human convenience, and even human necessities, just as it became desirable to set apart certain places in which the noise of earthly business should not be heard, for spiritual worship, so it should become desirable to set apart certain days for special worship" (vol. ii. 183). Dr. Hessey, in his Bampton Lectures on " Sunday " (4th), written also from a very deter" * Paley's Moral Philosophy, book v. c. vi. 4 THE LORD'S DA V; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. mined anti-sabbatarian standpoint, says that the two following propositions are discoverable by the light of reason — namely, (i) that our Creator demands our gratitude and worship ; and (2) that these are best exhibited and most surely paid by periodic appropriation of time to Him. We need not multiply authorities. Even the opponents of our views main- tain with us (i) that public worship is essential to Christianity, and (2) that such worship would be impossible without some fixed day being set apart for it. But Sunday is a day of rest as well as worship ; and just as man requires a certain amount of sleep every twenty-four hours, so his physical nature requires rest after many days of work and toil — a rest-day after six days' labour, a division of time apart from revelation, based on experience and the requirements of the case. Now, surely God, who had made man, must have known what was in man — must have known the requirements of the creature whom He had formed, and understood the nature which had just come into existence, minted with His own Divine image and superscription. He knew that man could not always be working and toiling, but that his physical condition required rest at regularly recurring intervals ; and this being so, it would have been very strange, and unlike His Divine love and faithfulness, if God at creation did not provide for man's necessities being fully met ; and, therefore, as God Himself had rested from all His works on the seventh day, this was proposed to Adam as his day for rest and worship. He would not hide from Adam what he knew was essential to his well-being — what, in fact, was indis- pensable to his very nature — that without which his future posterity w^ould never be able to fulfil their highest duties — the cultivation of men, the higher products of their nature, their moral and spiritual welfare, and their advancement in spiritual knowledge and goodness. And if this Sabbath rest was to be (as it has proved to be) for universal humanity, is it likely God would not have revealed it from the first, and not allowed His creatures to wander over the earth for 2500 years — and then only to reveal it to a fraction of the race in the wilderness — to find out for themselves one of the deepest necessities of their being, when He might have re- vealed it to them to start with, knowing all the time it was there, and bound to be evolved as a fundamental law sooner THE BEGINNING AND ORDERING OF THE WORLD. 5 or later, as indispensable, " eternal as the constitution of his soul " ? But if it be (i) objected that Adam might have been left to his own sense of propriety, to his own gathering of the lessons of experience, to settle what set times he should sanctify to God, we must remember that there is a great difference between the independent discovery of truths and laws, and their verification. By experience we often discover the utility of a thing which we should never have evolved for ourselves out of our own inner consciousness. And the fixing of a seventh portion of time was a contrivance of unerring wisdom — the necessary outcome of the Divine plan of the great Architect — not a haphazard or unimportant matter. As Robertson remarks, " The contrivance of one clay in seven was arranged by unerring wisdom." Reflect, also, upon the confusion — for an indefinite length of time, too — which must inevitably have prevailed if the Almighty had not revealed the due proportion, and without such revelation, where would have been the justice of condemning man for not sanctifying the due proportion ? for " where no law is, there is no trans- gression." And if it be (2) further objected that Adam had no need, in a state of innocence, of any Sabbath institution whatever — he had no sense of fatigue, nor required to be bound by stated times, but his whole life was full of communion with God — we reply that, knowing nothing for certain what the federal head of our race was like when he came forth perfect from his Maker's hands, we have no right to dogmatize on such a matter ; and if there w^as no need of a rest-day till after the Fall, how can we believe that God Himself rested, and was refreshed ? Besides, we know nothing of Adam's needs or habitudes in Paradise. After his labours he would need a special time, we might suppose, if not for rest, at least for worship. Are we not told that the sons of God came together, to present themselves before the Lord, into one place ; and is there any improbability of the necessity of holy convocations on the part of the angels themselves for worship .-' And if we are called upon to give reasons why a Sabbath was needful to Adam in Paradise, may it not have served to symbolize his dependence upon his Creator, to secure his permanent spirituality of soul, to facilitate his progress in the higher 6 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. departments of experimental knowledge as to God's character, work, and purposes, and to bind his descendants for ever till the end of time to united acts of social and religious worship, in obedience to the command, " Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth " ? These are, at least, probabilities which point out the neces- sity for some command at creation to hallow one day in seven. They tend to show the great beneficence and probability of such a command, and that we know nothing of Adam's con- dition in Eden to make a Sabbath any more unsuitable for /lijn than it is for us. We are led to conclude that the con- stitution of the world and our own complex nature have been so contrived, in some unchangeable way, that the keeping of a seventh day period — a sabbatism — is physically and morally incumbent upon us. Should it be thought a thing incredible that God — who made man at the first, and redeemed him after his Fall by the precious blood of His dear Son — should start us on our journey through life with some indication of the plan on which He fashioned us, and of the rule of living which is indispensable to our well-being to follow, if we would enjoy His blessing, grace, and favour? But we must now proceed to discuss the beginning and ordering of the world, which was to be the theatre of Sabbath law and observance. I. And, first of all, let us look at the historical foundation of the Sabbath. Now, turning to the Book of Genesis, we observe that two accounts are given of creation. The first account begins with the first chapter and extends to the third verse of the second ; and the second account is contained in this second chapter ; and these accounts are differenced in some particulars. This division is now recognized by the new Lectionary. The language of the opening of the second account runs thus : " These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created " (ii. 4) ; and we therefore conclude one account is supplemental of the other, and both are linked together. In the first the order of man's creation is narrated, and in the second his spiritual history. In the first we are told of God as a Creator, and in the second of God as a Moral Governor of the universe. In the first the name applied to the Deity is simply " God " (Elohim), and in the second that of " Lord God " — i.e. Jehovah Elohim. The THE BEGINNING AND ORDERING OF THE WORLD. 7 first gives us a history of man's creation, and the second his moral history — the creation of male and female, and the in- stitution of marriage. In the first the sabbatical institution is announced as the foundation of worship, and in the second, marriage, which is the foundation of society. In the first we have the gradation of things as they were created, and in the second some things added. If in the first we have the rest, the Sabbath rest of God, given, and in the second not men- tioned, we say there was no need to repeat what had been once instituted, especially as in the case of the Fourth Com- mandment and the two Tables — if it stands at the end of the one, it also stands at the head of the other, linking the two together. Moses was no doubt inspired by God to make this second account supplemental to the first, and that, in point of fact, we have one, or a unified whole. But these two accounts give us two fundamental institu- tions or laws on which all society is based, by marriage and worship, which the Sabbath gives us. "At the beginning," referred to by Christ Himself, marriage and the Sabbath were equally fundamental elements ; therefore, one has been no more abolished than the other. Both are permanent condi- tions or relationships of life : the one belongs to man's social life, as the lasting foundation of human society, and the other to the immutable relation of man to God, as a creature owing obedience and worship to his Creator. But these laws will be abolished when these relationships cease, in the same way as sacrifices and ceremonies ceased when they no longer fore- shadowed the great sacrifice of the Cross "once oftered." Can the same, we ask, ever be said of the law of the Sabbath, which recognizes God as the Creator and Maker, any more than that of marriage as the foundation of human society ? These, we all must know, are bound to last as long as man lives in that world which in six days the Lord made "suit- able for human habitation," and in which He placed man " to subdue " the earth for the good of mankind, in dependence on, and acknowledgment of, the Divine goodness. In Heaven we have our Saviour's express intimation there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage ; but this is, for all that, a part of the constitution under which man lives on this earth, and is as permanent as man's continuance in the world. This is equally true of the Sabbath, for as long as human nature 8 THE LORUS DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. remains what it is, man needs both rest and the opportunity of going out of himself in worship to his Maker. There must ahvays be a " keeping of a Sabbath." " Nothing could be gained," said the Bishop of Oxford in his Charge, 1878, "by the attempt to explain away the Divine command for the sanc- tification of one day in seven coeval with the earliest page of human history. Nor could the observance of a fragment of the day, early or late, be maintained if the truth, that the whole day was in a special sense the Lord's, was withheld." 2. Now the account in Genesis of the beginning and order- ing of the world represents God as a Creator. In those early times there was, we may believe, a good deal of atheism, and the question of questions was how the world had come into being. There were those who held the atomic theory, and believed in the power of atoms to unite in some mysterious manner ; while others said that the world was Divine, but denied the existence of a spirit or a God. There were mate- rialists and pantheists then as there are now. In opposition to these and other views, those guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit came forward and declared the everlasting dis- tinction between creation and the Creator, between the creature and Him who made it. The heavens, the sun, moon, and stars were not God, but came from the hand of God ; in fact, this great truth was at once revealed — the distinct per- sonality of God. " In the beginning God." ^ Before day periods, or <^oiis, or the earliest days recorded on the stone book of creation, God was. Go back as far as you will, you cannot get farther than the beginning. In this beginning — iv apxy — then God existed as a several personality. Now, for personality there are three requisites — self-consciousness, will, and character. But you may have self-consciousness, and not be a person. If the lake on which the sun is reflected were self-conscious, but had no power of moving, it would have no personality. Suppose the case of a living thing, with only self-consciousness and choice, you would have an animal only, but no character. Therefore it is that Moses tells us that ' 'Er apxri, " in the beginning." Not " first in order," but "in the beginning of all things." The same expression is used in John i. i, of the existence of the " Word of God : " " In the beginning was the Word." The one passage illus- trates the other, though it is partly by the contrast of thoughts. The Word ivas when tlie world was created. — Bishop Harold Browne, Speaker's Commentary, vol, i. p. 33. THE BEGINNING AND ORDERING OF THE WORLD. 9 God, in the first place, created the world in His self-conscious- ness : " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth ; " in the second, by His will, for He said, " Let there be light ; and there was light ; " thirdly. He filled creation by His character as He went on creating, for the Lord looked upon the world which He had made, when " the sons of God shouted together" for joy, and "behold, it was very good." In other words, Moses reveals the personality of God. The Almighty Father, then, is declared as the " one God, Maker of heaven and earth," as the Creed says. And in this Godhead we have Three Persons engaged in the world's creation. St. Paul says, speaking of the Son, " By whom also He made the worlds" (Heb. i. 2); and again, St. John, "In the beginning was the Word," and "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made" (i John i. I, 3). Then "the Spirit of God moved upon the waters;" and God said, " Let us make man in our image, after our like- ness " — the blessed Trinity. Now, what is Creation ^ in the biblical sense of the word ? It must mean that the universe originally owed its form and its substance to the creative fiat of God. This is the natural ' '"God created' (Gen. i. i). In the first two chapters of Genesis we meet with four different verbs to express the creative work of God — viz. (i) to create; (2) to make ; (3) to form ; (4) to build. The first is used of tlie creation of the universe (i. i) ; of tlie great sea-monsters, wliose vastness appears to have excited special wonder (i. 21) ; and of the creation of man, the head of animated nature, in the image of God (i. 27). Everywhere else we read of God's making, as from an already created substance, the firmament, the sun, the stars, the brute creation (i. 7, 16, 25), or of Wx's, forming \\\& beasts of the field out of the ground (ii. 19), or, lastly of His building up (ii. 22) into a woman the rib which He had taken from man. In Is'aiah xliii. 7, three of these verbs occur together, ' I have created him for My glory, I have formed him ; yea, I have made him. ' Perhaps no other ancient language, however refined or philosophical, could have so clearly distin- guished the different acts of the Maker of all things, and that because all heathen philosophy esteemed matter to have been eternal and uncreated. It cannot justly be objected that the verb create, in its first signification, may have been sensuous, meaning probably to heiv stone, or fell timber. Almost all abstract or spiritual thoughts are expressed by words which were originally concrete or sensuous, and in nearly all the passages of Scripture in which the verb in question occurs, the idea of a true creation is that which is most naturally implied. Even where the trans- lators have rendered it otherwise, the sense is clearly the same — e.g. in Numbers xvi. 30 : 'If the Lord make a neiv thing (lit. create a creation), and the earth open her mouth;' or again, Psalm Ixxxix. 47: 'Wherefore hast Thou made (Heb. created) all things for nought ? ' The word is evidently the common word for a true and original creation, and there is no other word which can express that thought.'' — Bishop Harold Browne, Speaker's Commentary, vol. i. p. 31. lo THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. sense of this much-disputed passage. The Christian Bible begins with stating, hke the Christian Creed, that all that is not God owes its being to the will of God. " I believe in God the Father, Maker of heaven and earth." " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." It is remarkable that the Bible does not begin by saying that God exists, or that there is one God, but it begins by exhibiting God in action. Why is this ? Because the correctness of our belief about God, or indeed, our having any serious belief about Him at all, depends altogether upon the idea which we form of His relationship to all besides Himself When we look forth from ourselves at the vast system of being in which we are placed, and of which we each one consciously form a part, we cannot, as thinking men, content ourselves with simply registering the surface im- pressions which we gain. We cannot scratch off, with science, a little of the surface, and penetrate to what we call the second cause that lies immediately beneath it, and there stop. No, we ask for an adequate explanation of what we see. The problem of existence is indeed settled for the Christian who believes his Bible, although the believing Christian, as he believes, gazes with more and more of awe and wonder at the beauty, at the mystery of existence arovmd him. But con- ceive the case of a thoughtful man, in the full maturity of his powers, without any previous instruction, without any pre- vious contact with our Christianity and European civilization, suddenly placed in this beautiful system of natural life. His eye rests upon the forms and colours around him with the keen, fresh delight of an unexpected sense. Earth, sky, sun, stars, clouds, mountains, valleys, rivers, seas, trees, animals, flowers, fruits, in groups and separately, pass before him. His thought is still eager and curious. It has not yet been vulgarized and impoverished down to the point at which existence is taken as a matter of course. The beauty, the mysteriousness, the awfulness of the universe elevates and thrills him ; and his first desire is to account to himself for the marvellous spectacle on which he gazes. " What causes it, this procession of beauty } What upholds it in being .-• Why is it here? Whither is it tending.-' Dores it exist of itself? Is it its own ruler and upholder ; or is there a Cause — a Being in existence — who gives it its substance and its shape .-' " From these questions there is no escape. We cannot, as THE BEGINNING AND ORDERING OF THE WORLD. ii thinking beings, behold the vast flood of Hfe sweep before our eyes without asking, whence it takes its rise. We cannot read one page of that marvellous book of nature, and be indifferent to the question whether it has an Author. That stone book of geologists, who wrote it ? Now the Christian says the Bible solution is the only one which seriously respects the rights, the existence of a God. It tells us God created the world out of nothing, for in His original creative act, God did not merely fashion existing materials into new forms ; but He called into being the very material (wXrj) which He subsequently fashioned. Neither created spirit nor matter of any kind had any antecedent existence, save in the infinite possibilities latent in God's almighty will. By the fiat of that will it began to be ; the shapeless, graceless mass of rudimentary matter, " without form and void," to which order and form would be imparted during a long series of subsequent ages, was sum- moned into being. This stupendous act of power is distinctly proper to God. Thus we see God in his personality creating the world, and He created that mysterious thing called " Life," about which and its essence we know so little. He created it, too, in perfect freedom ; why, we cannot say. Self-sustained, and self-sufficing, the Divine love willed to summon a whole creation into being, upon which in its perfectness and beauty that love might lavish its caresses. And then, having finished the heavens and the earth, and " all the host of them," and " behold, it was very good," " 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" — thus creating a sabbatical institution on the seventh day, linking it with the creation work of the other six days, announcing to the newly made creation the Sabbath law of rest (for His creatures) and of worship to the personal Creator, who had made everything very good. And thus the Sabbath comes home to every created intelligence as a very practical question indeed. The belief that God made the universe out of nothing — made the material {Jiyle) out of which each one of us is fashioned — and then appointed a Sabbath of rest for His creation, is a very practical one indeed. It cuts out from the roots the false notion that man exists by his own right ; it 12 ■ THE LORD'S DAY ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. destroys at once man's independence. It proves that not only man is a dependent creature, but that that creature's allegiance to its King and Maker, is illustrated as a test or sign by obedience to the Sabbath law, which He has hallowed for rest and worship. 3. Again, we observe in the account of the beginning and ordering of the world, which was to be the theatre of Sabbath law and observance, the Divine origin of order itself. Before the act of creation, and the very formation of the materials out of which cosmos was shaped, all was chaos ; everything was unformed, shapeless, graceless, and rudimentary ; dark- ness brooded over the face of the waters ; in short, everything was " confusion," which is the meaning of the word chaos, or a chaotic state. But with creation a new order of things began ; out of this chaos God educed a world of beauty ; we call it KocTjuog, or order ; for in the place of confusion came order, out of unsightliness a thing of beauty ; and from the dawn of creation the reign of order was ushered in. " Order is," we are told, " Heaven's first law," and if we look over this world of God's, we shall see that all is order therein. There is order on this earth ; there is order in the heavens above, and " all the host of them ; " there is order around us and about us ; look where we will, there is order and there is law. It may be, when we look at cultivated land, we think order man's pro- duction, disorder God's. When the garden or the field has been once cultivated, and then goes back to a state of nature again, it appears chaotic to us, for we have seen it otherwise ; but in the vast tracts of country untouched by human art, all is order and regularity, obeying certain fixed laws for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Nature is always at rest in its order, and God is in its order. It is so also with regard to the human soul, in which there is nothing more undivine or more ungodly than disorder or confusion. Nothing less resembles the mind of God than the mind of the creature, who kneels down to adore his Creator with troubled and worldly thoughts. Order within the soul is the will of God, and the soul that has it, resembles the Divine creation ; and as in nature, and as it is in the soul of man, there must also be order in man's time ; there must in its division be both regularity and law. To suppose that time, one of the most precious gifts of God to man, and on the use of which hangs man's eternal destiny, is THE BEGINNING AND ORDERING OF THE WORLD. 13 to be an exception to this general rule of order, is absurd. Man's time must be divided between work and rest, split up into periods of action and worship. The Sabbath law and observance gives just that order which our time requires, and the seventh day of rest and worship rescues man's life from an otherwise chaotic state of misery and ruin. The Sabbath further stamps on man's soul the duly regulated order of worship and spiritual reflection. 4. Yet once more we cannot fail to notice the gradation of things which God made in the beginning and ordering of the world. We are told that God proceeded from the less perfect to the more perfect or developed. In the successive creative acts there was first inorganic life, after that came the vege- table, then the animals, and then by degrees man, made in the image of his Creator. For this last great handiwork God seemed to have gathered the forces of His almighty wisdom and power. " Let us make man in our image and after our likeness ; " " male and female created He them." We find the same principle in all that God does now ; in the passage of the caterpillar into the chrysalis, and then into the butterfly, we have the image of God's continual method of work ; it is a method we find in our own life. We find first of all the mere animal existence, then the development of the intellect, the thinking being ; then the bringing out of the conscience, and presently the Spirit of God working out the formation of the spiritual man. There is something in all this which speaks to us of the slow progress of the human mind ; and it is a marvellous thing to look at the human life, to mark the number of years spent in mere animal existence, and then to see that mind and soul-culture developed for a few years in later life. But slow as the progress is, it is progress, and the continual product of progress. We are made conscious of God's law, and the lesson we learn is that the man, who is not advancing all round, is directly reversing the law of the God of order. And so we further notice the gradation of the day-periods to the grand climax on the seventh day — the rest of God ; the refreshment of the Almighty ; the Sabbath of creation, and institution of the Sabbatical law. God's first creative action was His fiat, " Let there be light," on the first day for man's physical nature, and His last, on the seventh day, was, "Let there be a rest or sabbatism " for man's soul or spiritual 14 THE LORD'S DA V; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. nature. Light the first day ; the firmament the second ; on the third the earth, grass, trees, and herbs ; sun, moon, and stars on the fourth ; organic hfe on the fifth ; man on the sixth ; and then, on the seventh day. He made a sabbatism for the whole creation which He had made — a period of rest for organic Hfe ; of worship for the highest product of that life, man, made in His likeness and image. Other days had their evenings, but the seventh none. Thus the day- periods of creation led up by duly subordinated gradations to the institution of sabbatical law, and the last seventh day of rest and worship. It is the morn of morns, the queen of days, and golden of festivals.^ 5. But we notice that, next to the work of creation, the first Divine motion was the creation of light. The fiat of God went forth : " Let there be light : and there was light." God spake the will, and the heavens were made ; He gave the word, and they were created. The simplest and most religious way is to look at this world as the expression of the mind, and externalization of the will, of God. It is sufficient, if the light reveals to us something of the will of the Eternal ; enough if the beauty of nature can speak to us of the mind ; if the blue heaven above and the green earth below tell us of our Father's house ; if day and night, and light and darkness, are symbols of the word God has spoken out of Himself, in the creation of the world. Owing to this Divine origin of light, the ancients worshipped the sun and moon and hosts of heaven. Light stood to them as the symbol of all things Divine, and darkness became the symbol of the contrary ; it was in light God ruled. But this was the statement of half the truth, for God created the darkness as well as the light, and He is the ruler of darkness, as well as the light. Now darkness is given us for repose. Man spends his days in labour, but when the shades of evening close in, and the stars come out to keep their quiet watch over the earth, man looks upwards, and recognizes in the stars, and the peace of night, an emblem of the deep repose of God, and his heart is kindled ' " On this day, the first of clays, God the Father's name we praise ; "Who, creation's Lord and Spring, Did the world from darkness bring." {Rev. Sir IV. Baker, BarL,/ro//i the Latin.) THE BEGINlSriNG AND ORDERING OF THE WORLD. 15 to adoration. The typical patriarch went out at eventide to meditate. With no less truth than beauty has it been said, that the touch of darkness produces worship in the soul of man — that the broad band which goes round our planet in- fluences men, so that when darkness is disappearing before the light, and light before the darkness, men kneel down to worship, as if only in darkness and twilight man could worship God. In the withdrawal of light we have a revelation higher almost than that given us in light ; and as the revolution of day and night brings repose and worship, so in some mys- terious manner, by the septiform division of days into weeks, on the seventh day of the week, after six days of labour and toil, man's nature requires a period of repose, which is also a time of worship. The Sabbath rest of creation is to the week what the night is to the day, or the darkness to light — a time for re-creation and adoration, in which the creature looks up to the Creator, kneels low before Him, and adores. And after this beginning and ordering of the world, we are at once met by the statement of the historical fact, which, if \\. docs not say was observed on that day, at least implies it, and at all events gives the reason of the historical foundation of the Sabbath, in the following inspired words of the Mosaic narrative, which concludes the first account of the creation : " 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 God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made " (Gen. ii. 1-3). But this same chapter, which gives us the Divine sanctification of the Sabbath, also contains the record of the original institu- tion of marriage, referred to by our Lord Himself, and is quoted as given by the Creator at the time of man's origin, and is therefore regarded as obligatory on mankind in general. It was appointed " at the beginning^' and to this original state of things our conduct must be conformed ; and the same argument likewise applies to the Sabbath ; and because both marriage and the Sabbath were appointed of God for man "at the beginning," both institutions are binding on man "from the beginning " to the end. The Home and the Sabbath, are the two institutions brought out of Paradise. II. But we are anticipating. The lessons of creation, i6 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. natural, social, and religious, are acknowledged and perpetuated by a Sabbath institution. By connecting the day of rest with the creation,^ we are, every time the Lord's day comes round, transported in thought to the glories and wonders of the ordering of the world. We reflect upon the power and goodness of the Almighty, and dwell upon the origin of this universe. Over the portals of the temple of the Sabbath of creation is inscribed that gem and germ of the Bible, " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Here is the first word of revelation, and it answers the first question of the intelligent enquirer, ' On the Sabbath day (Its connection with Creation). — "In examining the two distinct grounds for the observance of the Sabbath day which are assigned by Moses, the first step is to trace the connection between the Day and the Creation of the world. What is clearly stated is, that the Day was hallowed by the Divine Law as a memorial of the rest of God, when the creation of the world was com- pleted. Man was to rest because God had rested. But the rest of man can only partially resemble the rest of God. ' The creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary.' His work in the world did not cease at the close of the six days, nor has it ever been remitted since. His hand must be ever hold- ing the corners of the earth and the strength of the hills. His rest cannot, there- fore, be like that inaction which belongs to night and sleep, which man, in common with all animals, requires for the restoration of his wasted powers. But yet a man may have conscious experience, after well performed work, of a restful condition that bears an analogy to the occasion on which ' God saw everything that He had made, and. behold, it was very good.' And this Sabbath feeling is only to be enjoyed by those, whose work, performed in a spirit of trustful dependence, has kept pace with the day during the week ; those who obey not only the command, ' Remember the Sabbath day,' but also the command, ' Six days shalt thou labour.' The true rest of man, then, is so far like the rest of the Creator, that it is remote in its nature from the sleep of insensibility, as it is from the ordinary struggle of the world. The weekly Sabbath, as representing that state, was a 'shadow of things to come,' a foretaste of the life in which there is to be no more toilsome fatigue (n6vos), that life which is the true keeping of the Sabbath (v ^p^aTo 6 @(hs Ttoirjcrat. " Die Dierum principe Lux e tenebris eruta. Christus sepulcri carcere Lux vera mundi prodiit." (/« Doininicis per annum ad niatutinas S. Greg. Masc. E. Brcv. Paris.) '&• The religious observance of one day in the week — a seventh- day period — for purposes of rest and worship, for soul-culture, for deepening the interior or spiritual life, must have such an important bearing on the brightest and best interests of man- kind, that it is in the highest degi"ee desirable that we should consider the history of the day, and discuss the original insti- tution of the ordinance. As Sunday by Sunday comes round, we are brought face to face with an ordinance most ancient as to its date, profoundly based as to its origin and significance, deeply stamped with the mintage and impress of God's own hand, engraven as " with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever " in the day that the Lord God made the heavens and the earth. Let us then critically examine into the nature of 25 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. this high day, and into its claims upon our most reverent and rehgious observance. In order to do this we must examine its history.^ To arrive at which we must without doubt go back to the very time of the creation of the world. For although some persons may affect to doubt whether there was any observance of a seventh- day period for rest and worship, before the promulgation of the Sinaitic law, there can be no doubt that a candid appeal to Holy Scripture permits of no question on this point. For just as it is distinctly stated in the first chapter that God "blessed" all the works of His hands, including man himself, and pronounced the order {Koaixoq) He had evolved out of chaos "very good," so in the second chapter, in the words of my text. He " blessed," it is said, the seventh day, and more- over " sanctified " it, i.e. set it apart, consecrated it, fenced it round, or " made it holy." The blessing which God pro- nounced upon His new creation was not suspended, we may be sure, to some future or indefinite period, but took immediate effect. And so, by parity of argument, we may safely conclude that there would be no delay or suspension of the blessing which God pronounced on the seventh day. Whatever the nature of the blessing which God outpoured on His works, would include His great Day of Rest. ^ " Quires, quse fuerit origo sabbati ? Gentiles, ait Diodorus in Catena Grteco- rum, censebant, Hebrteos in honorem Saturni Sabbatum colere Exodi 20 : diem enim septimum vocant ipsi diem Saturni, sicut primum vocant diem Solis, secundum Lunse, tertium Martis. Seneca vero, teste S. August. 6, Civit 1 1 ridet Judceos, quod septimam cetatis et vitse partem otiando perderent. Plutarchus censet Judceos in honorem Bacchi, qui Sabbos dictus est, sabbatum celebrare. Appion narrat Judceos ■^gypt° exeuntes, laborasse ulceribus inguinum, quse ^gyptii sabbo vocabant, eaque septimo die cessasse ; ideoque eum diem ab illis sabbatum vocatum et celebra- tum. Sed liKC gentilium sunt commenta et calumni?e. Lactantius censet Sabbatum dici a septem, quasi dicas, Septimus dies. Verum patet sabbatum non latinam, sed Hebrseam esse vocem, ae significare qiiietem a radice scabat, id est, quievit. " Dico ergo : prima origo et causa instituendi sabbati fuit, ut homines sabbato opus creationis, et beneficium institutse a Deo naturae, conditique universi expen- derent, ut patet Genes. 11 v. 3. Sccunda causa fuit, ut Hebraji in sabbato laboriosce servitutis /Egyptiacce, et ab ea liberationis memoriam celebrarent : hoec causa datur Deuter. v. 15, unde et pridie sabbati egressi sunt ex-^^gypto. Tertia fuit, ut sabbatum dicatum Deo, signum esset electionis Divince, qua Deus Israel em, prge aliis gentibus, sibi in populum adoptavit. Hkc causa significatur Exodi 31, V. 13, unde sabbato Judsei a gentibus secernebantur. Hinc Ovidius : ' Cultaque Judseo septima sacra viro.' Quarta, ut sabbato, a laboribus totius septimanre, daretur requies servis, ancillis et animalibus, ne nimio labore opprimerentur. Haec causa datur Deut. v. 14." Scripturm Sac. Cursiis Complet., tom. vii. p. 188. (Parisiis, 1839.) THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH. 27 The account of the creation concludes with the Sabbath rest of God when all the earth was complete, which is found in the three first verses of the second chapter, where the first lesson for Trinity Sunday now ends, in the new Lectionary. For the second account, not a continuation of the "first, begins with the fourth verse. " These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." We are told, then, that God rested on the seventh day from all the works which He created. But we must be careful not to attribute too strict a literalness to the expression ; for, in a sense, creation is going on every day— even noiv, and it is God's handiwork — so we must not understand that God ceased from creation ever after. For what is Nature but God at work ? " The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead." And speaking humanly, just as the work of Nature seems to be accomplished when winter becomes spring, and old passes into new ; so when chaos took form and order, and beauty and harmony {i.e. kwyuoc) had been evolved and established — by the move- ment of the Spirit Power and externalized vocalization of the Eternal Word — God then, as He had ceased creating for the time, seemed to be at rest. We call it the Sabbath of Creation ; we name it the Rest of God ;' using similar language when we say God repented, or God was angry. But though creation ceased not, new creations ceased from that moment forward. The forms and types then established became the models according to which God has been creating ever since. He has kept to the same creative lines. This is the rest of Jehovah God, the Sabbath of the Everlasting. I. But let us look a little more closely at this Sabbath of Creation. Not only were the " heavens and the earth finished," but all the host of them. This word host denotes the totality of beings that fill the heaven and the earth. It is applied to the host of heaven by Nehemiah, when the Levites blessed the Lord, " Thou, even thou, art Lord alone ; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all ; and the host of heaven wor- shippeth thee " (ix. 6). The word occurs in Moses' arguments, 28 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. - when exhorting the Israelites to obedience, "And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them." Again the word refers to the angels when Micaiah says, " I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right hand and on His left" (i Kings xxix. 19). Isaiah, in announcing general desolation, says, "And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth." In the Psalmist's invitation to all His works (omnia opera) to praise the Lord, " Praise ye Him, all His angels, praise ye Him all His hosts!' Our text then introduces the completion of this Creation work — the heavens, the earth, and the host of them. And this gives greater definiteness to the words that follow, which announce that on the seventh day God ended the work which He had made. He did so by ceasing to create, and blessing the seventh day — the Sabbath of Creation — and making it holy. But what is the completion or finishing of this creation work on the seventJi day, not on the sixth ? It can only be so regarded, as supposing the completion to consist of two parts — one negative, and the other positive. Negatively, there was a cessation of creation, i.e. new creative forms ; and positively, there was the objective blessing and sanctifying the day. The cessation itself formed part of the creation of the work. " As a human artificer " (say Keil and Delitzsch), " completes his work just when he has brought it up to an ideal, and ceases to work upon it, so in an infinitely higher sense God completed the creation of the world with all its inhabitants by ceasing to produce anything new, and entering into the rest of His all- sufficient Eternal Being, from which He had come forth, as it were, at and in the creation of a world distinct from His own essence." Thus ceasing to create is called resting in the fourth commandment, " For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested^ the seventh ' ^^ Rcquievit (He rested). Non a defatigatione, sed ab opere : unde Hebraice est scabat, i.e. cessavit. Aliter Aristobulus apud Eiiseb. lib. 13, de Prsepar, cap. 6, requievit, inquit. id est rebus a se conditis dedit quietem, id est stabilitatem, pennanentiam, perpetuitatem, ordinemque ratum, fixum et immutabilem. Quo- circa irqitievit tacite significat conservationem rerum creaturum, cum iisque ad actus et motus proprios jugem Dei co-operationem. Nam ut ait S. August, in sen- THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH. 29 day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." It is also called being refreshed,^ in the Lord's commands to Moses touching the Sabbath. " It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel for ever, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed!'' The rest into which God entered was complete : or, as Ziegler puts it, This rest had its reality " in the reality of the work of creation, in contrast with which the preservation of the world, when once created, had the appearance of rest, though really a continuous creation." Creation and preser- vation are one continuous act ; they depend upon the will, the power, and the fiat, of the one God, the Father Almighty. Now . the question is : What did the statement mean to the Israelites ? We find that Moses always communicated the grounds, whenever he promulged the Divine commands to the chosen people. If he required them to believe in the unity of God, he gave them an historical revelation that this same God had been believed in by their fathers. If he com- tentiis num 277. Creatoris omnipotentis omnipotentia, est causa subsistendi omni creatune : qute virtus si ab eis qu?e condidit regendis aliquando cessaret, simul omnium rerum species et natura concideret. Proinde quod Dominus ait Pater tnetis usque nunc opcratiir, quamdam conjunctionem operis ejus, qua simul omnia continet, atque administrat, ostendit. In quo eliam opere sapientia ejus perseverat, de qua dicitur ; Pertiui^it a fine usque ad finein fortiter, et disponit omnia suaviter : Idem etiam Apostolus sentit, cum Atheniensibus prasdicans ait : in quo vivintus, j/wvetnur et sumus. Quia si opus suum rebus creatis subtraheret, nee vivere, nee moveri, nee esse possemus. Et ideo sic Deus intelligendus est requievisse ab omnibus operibus suis, ut jam nullam novam conderet creaturam, non ut conditas continere et gubernare cessaret." " Docte idem August, in Sententiis n. 145, docet eodem modo affici Deum, cum vacat, et cum operatur, ' Non ergo, inquit, in Deo aut pigra vacatio, aut laboriosa cogitatur industria, qui novit et quiescens agere, et agens quiescere : et quod in operibus prius quidem est, aut posterius, non ad facientem, sed ad facta refer- endum est. Eterna enim est et incommutabilis voluntas ejus, nee consilio alter- nante variatur, in qua simul est quidquid in rebus creandis, vel ordinandis, aut praecesserit, aut sequitur.' " Hinc Philo lib. Alleg. vertit, non quievit, sed, quiescere fecit quce exorsus est : quia, inquit, Deus nunquam quiescit, sed sicut proprium est ignis were, et nivis re- frigerare, ita Dei operari. Hebrseum tamen iisbot, proprie significat quievit, uti vertit Chald noster et Septuag. " Symbolice, Junilius, Beda et S. Augustinus lib. 4. de Genes, ad lit. cap. 12, docent, quietem banc Dei in sabl^ato, fuisse figuram quietis Christi in sepulcro, die sabbati, postquam opus redemptionis nostrse die sexto, per passionem et mortem consummasset. " Anagogice, fuit hie typus quietis sanctorum in ccelo : ibi enim perenne agent sabbatum." — Script. Sacr. Cursus Conipl., vol. v. p. 202. (Parisiis 1837). ' "Literally, 'He took breath.' The application of the word to the Creator which occurs nowhere else, is remarkable." — Speakcr''s Conunentary, vol. i. p. 405. 30 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN' SUNDA V. manded them to take Canaan, he told them not only that it was the land of promise, but that their fathers had actually- possessed it {de jure et de facto), and that its present possessors were usurpers and interlopers. In the same way, when he gave them the law of the Jewish Sabbath, he gave them along with it its original basis (or raison d'etre), that is, the revelation of God's Sabbath. With a " remember " he referred them to the Sabbath of Creation, the rest or refresh- ment of the Creator. It was no new enactment, but the Sabbath, as such. Moses was commanded to make the seal of a covenant, which marked them off from other nations. And on what basis did that institution rest ? It rested upon something greater than mere human will, or even Divine will, and that something was an eternal necessity in man's nature, derived from a similar necessity in the nature of his Maker. As God rested on the seventh day from all His works, so must man rest from his ; it is a deep need of his physical and intellectual being. And as God was " refreshed " by so resting, so will man be refreshed thus resting. This is a very real ground on which oitr obligation, too, rests, as men, of keeping the Sabbath day. The rest of the Creator was indeed "the consequence of His self-satisfaction in the now united and harmonious, though manifold whole." This, then, is the negative side of the question. On the seventh day the created work^ — creative intelligence, the heavens, the earth, their hosts, things animate and inanimate — became accomplished facts, and the Almighty surceased for the time being in externalizing Himself, withdrew within the subjectivities of His Own Eternal Being, and rested. II. We pass on now to consider what is meant by God "blessing"^ or "sanctifying" a particular day — His Sabbath * "Quod creavit Deus ut faceret "* (Which God created to make, so the Targum of Onkelos and the Syriac version render it, marginal reading), "Id est quod creavit faciendo et creando fecit atque perfecit : hanc enim operis perfectionem si"-nificat hoec ejusdem verbi per synonymum iteratio, qua dicitur ' Creavit ut faceret.'" — Sci-ipt. Sacr. Ciirsiis Coinfl., vol. v. p. 201. "The natural meaning of the words here is, that God first created the material universe, ' the heavens, the earth,' and then made, moulded and fashioned, the new created matter into its various forms and organisms. This is the explanation of R. Nachimanides, ' All His work which He had created out of nothing, in order that He might make out of it all the works which are recorded in the six days.' " — Bishop Harold Browne. * " Ver. 3. — ' Et benedixit diei septimo ' (And He blessed the seventh day). Id est, diem sxptimum laudavit, commendavit, approbavit, ait Philo, Sic benedi- THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH. 31 of Rest ? To answer this we must inquire what meaning we are to attach to the words where it is said God blesses and sanctifies places, persons, and things. How are they blessed, and what makes them sanctified ? They are " blessed " when God's special or peculiar favour rests upon them, and they are enabled to carry out and perform the functions or ends, which belong to them in their nature. And they are " sanctified " when they are set apart or consecrated for God's service, or endued with a peculiar measure of His Presence. It is this which makes all the difference. We say that angels are holier than men, Heaven than earth, men than the beasts of the field, saints than sinners, Scripture than secular literature, our places of worship than halls of recreation. And so with regard to time. If God has "blessed" a certain portion of time, it is because He has secured to that time a peculiar or special favour, which makes it energic for the fulfilment of its high ends, namel)^, the rest and refreshment of men, and the honouring of God. And if He has " sanctified " it, it is because He has covenanted to bestow upon it a peculiar measure of His Presence. But it may be said that we cannot know or understand how a certain portion of time can be more filled with God's Presence than another. To which objection we reply, nor can we understand how it can be when applied to persons and things. And yet it is "so. We therefore afifirm that the secret of the sanctification of the seventh day is that God does vouchsafe His Presence to it in an especial manner and degree. This high and holy day of rest, this hallowed seventh day period — be it the last day of the week as in the old covenant, or the first, as under the new law of grace — comes to us surcharged with the conse- crating favour of God. It is an " enclosed garden," wherein cimus Deum, cum euin laudamus. Secundo et melius, bcncdixit, id est, ut sequitur, sanctificavit, sanctum et festum decievit diem septimum. Sicut enim hominis magna est benedictio, quod sanctificetur, ita est et festi. ' Et sanctificavit ilium' (And sanctified it). After mentioning the theories of (i) anticipatory (2) decreto et destinatione : the commentators say, ' Tertio et planissime Deus a mundi exordio hoc prime Sabbati die, ilium sanctificavit, id est actu festum instituit, colique voluit ab Adamo ejusque posteris otio et cultu Dei, maxime recolendo beneficium creationis su£e, totiusque mundi, illo die complete'. Unde patet, sab- batum fuisse festum institutum et sancitum primitus, non a Mose Exod. xx. 8, sed longe anterius, puta ob origine mundi, hoc ipso primo mundi sabbato. Idem Colligitur Exod. xvi. 23. Fuit ergo hoc praeceptum sabbati divinum, non naturale, sed positiviim, unde a Christo et apostolis festum a Sabbato in Dominicum est translatum." — Script. Sacroe. Ciirsus CoinpL, vol. v. p. 203. (Parisiis, 1837.) 32 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. He walks ; it is a Temple hewn out of the rock of time, separated off from the rest of the days — like a church is cut off or set apart from the world and secular uses — full of the sanctifying influences of a Divine Presence, which sheds a halo over all its uses and actions, issuing in the calm peaceful- ness of rest and joy. Now this rest ^ of God was not only negative, but positive. It was not only consequent upon the self-satisfaction in educing harmony {koct/lio^) out of chaos (confusion), order out of disorder, beauty out of ugliness ; but this pleasure God took in His work — it was all so very good — was also a spiritual power, which streamed forth upon all creation objectively, which it brought into the rest of God, and all * " These considerations fully explain, so far as it can be explained, the mystery of the seventh day and its sanctification. What the days of God's working and God's rest mean in relation to His eternal Being is beyond our knowledge : but in our imitation of God we must regard them as represented by the days of our short life on earth. Man being the Son of God, is to follow God's example alike in His working and His resting. The seventh day is sanctified for resting from those labours that belong to things seen and temporal, in those pursuits that pertain to things unseen and eternal. Both the works of man and the rest of man in his earthly life are intended to prepare him for the rest of God. As a funda- mental principle in the natural constitution of man, this sanctification of the seventh day implies that those powers of body and mind, which he exercises in subduing the earth and having dominion over it, require for their refreshment and perfection not only that cessation from labour which is provided by the succession of evening and morning, of night and day, but periodical rest of another kind. As a religious principle it is also as obvious that, for the invigoration and develop- ment of the spiritual life in man, a definite portion of time should be periodically set apart and consecrated to God as the Lord of our spirits, that belong to a spiritual world. It is hardly necessary to point out that this interpretation of the sanctification of the seventh day is altogether different from the idea that from the Creation, a. /ar/icii/ar day, a certain time of the earth's revolution on its axis, was holier than others : this is to make of an ordinance antecedent to all law what St. Paul calls a "Carnal Commandment." On the other hand, if it be thought that the determining of one day in seven for a day of rest must be, from its very nature an artificial and arbitrary appointment, and therefore inconsistent with a Divine and universal order, it must be remembered not only that the fact of a sevenfold division occurring so frequently in Holy Scripture seems to indicate some corresponding order beyond the range of our understanding, but also that He who created man must know, as we cannot know, what proportions of man's life are required for physical rest and spiritual activity, in order to observe the true equilibrium of that life. Experience has abundantly proved of how great value this primeval ordinance is for the ph3'sical, moral, and religious welfare of man, and how full of profound truth are those words of our Blessed Lord, when in regard to this question, as on another occasion in reference to marriage, he directed those who were zealous for the law to the original ordinance as the true interpre- tation of the law. ' The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. ' " — Introduction to the Pentateuch, p. lo. sect. 13, by the Right Rev. Dr. Cotterill, Bisliop of Edinburgh. THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH 33 its attendant blessedness, and filled it with His peace. This constitutes the positive element with which He completed creation-work. He blessed and sanctified the seventh day, because on it He found rest from the work, which he by making {faciendo, Ewald) had created — in margin, " Created to make." This divine gift of blessing was a real communi- cation of powers of salvation, grace and peace. When God sanctified it, it was not merely declaring holy, but it was "communicating the attribute of holy;" it was "placing in a living relationship to God the Holy One, raising to a par- ticipation in the pure clear light of the holiness of God." This consecrating the seventh day no doubt had regard to that Sabbath, which God presently would command the Israelites to keep. But the institution of that Sabbath was not transferred to the history of creation, nor was the theo- cratic Sabbath of the Jews instituted here. The Sabbath of Creation was the rest of God. But the Judaical Sabbath had a deeper meaning, founded on the nature and develop- ment of the whole human race, not the Jews only, and for the whole of creation. All creation, indeed, is subject to the mutations of time, and the law of temporal motion and change. Thus, all creatures not only stand in need of regular re- curring periods of rest, to re-create their strength and prepare them for the still further development of the possibilities of their being ; but they look forward after this fitful perturba- tion to a time of blessed and permanent restfulness. It is to this rest, the resting {17 (caraVauo-fc) of God points forward. It is to this rest, in the marginal reading, " this keeping of a Sabbath " {ua^^ananoQ^ Heb. iv. 9), the whole world, man the head of the earthly creation, shall eventually come. " There remaineth a rest for the people of God." And for this, God ended His work by blessing and sanctifying the seventh day — His resting day — when the whole creation was complete. Hence, some of the Fathers have drawn attention to the fact that the seventh day does not end like the other six, with this collocation of words, " evening was and morning was." Augustine says, at the close of his Confessions, " The seventh day is without evening, nor has it setting, because Thou hast sanctified it for an eternal remaining." But although it is a fact that the Sabbath of God has no evening, nor has this Divine rest ((Ta/3/3ar«o-/uoc) the ordinary limit of time, but will D 34 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. be everlasting, yet we must not incorporate this idea into the seventh Creation-Day. There were seven days in all spent on creation, and what we believe of the other six we must believe of the seventh ; and if the seventh were a day of endless duration, so must the other six have been such periods. The idea of rest wrapped up in Sabbath must not be pressed beyond proper limits. For as the six day periods or days of creation were of ordinary duration, so also was the seventh. Besides which, the Sabbath of Creation is always referred to as an ordinary day period, when it is introduced as the basis of the theocratic Sabbath in the Decalogue (Exod. xx. 1 1, and Exod. xxxi. 17). We therefore come to this conclusion, that on the seventh day, when God rested, the world and all its inhabitants attained to the sacred rest of God. It was the Sabbath of Creation. Hence the rest {KaTairavaiq) and the keeping of a Sabbath {aa^^aTia^xoq) of God, were made a Sabbatic festival for all His creatures, especially man. And we may reasonably believe that this blessed rest, which the forefathers of our race, in the newly created world, observed in Paradise, when they lived in innocence and in the love and peace of their Maker, is a type and foretaste of that rest, to which Creation after its fall shall attain unto, by the redemp- tion of the Second Adam, the promised restoration at the great consummation — the "rest that remaineth to the people of God." ^ Thus God, on the positive side, " blessed the * " Chap. ii. 3. ' And God blessed the seventh day.' The natural interpreta- tion of these words is that the blessing of the Sabbath was immediately consequent on the first creation of man, for whom the Sabbath was made (Mark ii. 27). It has been argued from the silence concerning its observance by the patriarchs, that no Sabbatic ordinance was really given until the promulgation of the Law, and that this passage in Genesis is not historical but anticipatory. There are several objections which seem fatal to this theory. It is first to be observed that this verse forms an integral part of that history of the creation which, if there be any truth in the distinction, is the oldest portion of the Pentateuch, the work of the Elohist, very possibly handed down from the earliest ages of the world, and taken by Moses as the very groundwork of his inspired narrative. Secondly, the history of the patriarchs, extending over at least 2500 years, is all contained in the book of Genesis, and many things must have been omitted, much more memorable than the fact of their resting on the Sabbath, which in their simple pastoral life would seldom have called for special notice. Thirdly, there are indications even in Genesis of a division of days into weeks or hebdomades. Thus Noah is said twice to have waited seven days, when sending the dove out of the ark (Gen. viii. 10-12). And the division of time into weeks is clearly recognized in the history of Jacob (Gen. xxix. 27, 28). The same hebdomadal division was known to other nations, who are not likely to have borrowed it from the Israelites after the time of the exodus. Moreover, it appears that, before the giving of the command- THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH. 35 seventh day and sanctified it." And this ground we take for our obligation in keeping our Sabbath day of rest. There is an eternal necessity for the recurring Sabbath, in man's nature, as there was in the Divine. It is just on this per- petual necessity of a Sabbath that our observance must be founded, in this requirement of physical rest by oiTr nature, in the fact also that it is only by means of these stated returns of particular seasons that man can, in rest from temporal concerns, fix his attention upon his Maker. In the great whirl and excitement of the world, life and business, the tendency is for the man to forget God, to look down on mundane con- cerns, of the " earth, earthy ; " but when it is hushed to rest in the keeping of a Sabbath, then man has time to remember his God, to look up, to adore, and to worship. III. But the question has been asked by those who would refer the Sabbath not to the creation but to the law of Moses, is it likely, ff God rested the seventh day from His work, that He intended to bless and hallow every reatrrence of that day in time to come and ever after ? Can it be proved from Scripture, or tradition, or common consent of mankind that it was so ? Is there not an antecedent probability that after that day — that original seventh day — all days would be alike ? ments from IMount Sinai, the Israelites were acquainted with the law of the Sabbath. In Exod. xvi. 5, a double portion of manna is promised on the sixth cay, that none need be gatherer! on the Sabbath. This has all the appearance of belonging to an acknowledged, though perhaps neglected, ordinance of Divine service, not as if then, for the first time, the Sabbath were ordained and con- secrated. The simple meaning of the text is therefore by far the most probable, xdz. that God, having divided His own great work into six portions, assigned a special sacredness to the seventh on which that work became complete ; and that, having called man into being, He ordained him for labour, but yet in love and mercy appointed that one-seventh of his time should be given to rest, and to the religious service of his Maker. This truth is repeated in the Fourth Com- mandment (Exod. XX. 11) ; though there was a second and special reason why the Jews should observe the Sabbath day (Deut. v. 15) ; and very probably the special day of the seven, which became the Jewish Sabbath, was the very day on which the Lord brought them from the land of bondage, and gave them rest from the slavery of Egypt. If this reasoning be true, all mankind are interested in the sanctification of the Sabbath, though Jews only are required to keep that Sabbath on the Saturday ; and not only has it been felt by divines that the religious rest of the seventh day is needful for the preservation of the worship of God, but it has been acknowledged even by statesmen and physiologists that the ordinance is invaluable for the physical and moral benefit of mankind. The truly merciful character of the ordinance is fully developed in the Law, where it is extended not only to the manservant and maidservant, but to the ox and the ass, and the cattle, that they also should rest with their masters (Exod. xx. 10; Deut. v. 14)." — Speaker's Comtiietitaiy, vol. i. p. 37. 36 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. Is there any reason why one day should be more sacred than another ; and what cause is to be assigned to the silence of the earlier Scriptures — for we do not read a word about the Sabbath during the captivity of Israel in Egypt — and to the absence of the Sabbath in all Gentile nations ? We reply to these objections by saying there is not the shadow of truth in any of them, and that the Divine and hallowed thing of which we speak is higher than any Jewish ordinance. Now, if we look to the reason of the thing, it was asked of old, as we read in Ecclesiasticus, " Why doth one day excel another, whereas the light of every day of the year is of the sun ? " And this is the answer of the devout man : " By the knowledge of the Lord they were distinguished, and He made seasons and feasts to differ ; some of them He hath made high days and hallowed them : and some of them He hath made ordinary days." Again, it has been asked. What mystery or virtue can there be in the seventh ^ day above the rest ? ' On the number Seven. — " Symbolica causa est quia septenarius numerus est mysticus, quo multum utitur S. Script : significat enim integrum rei complemen- tum ; sicut hebdomas dierum continua et perpetua eorumdem est revolutio : hinc sabbatum erat septima dies : sic septimus annus erat libertatis, et sabbati terras : septem hebdomadae dierum, erant pentecoste : septem hebdomadasannorum, erant jubiljeum ; Hinc septinarius in Scriptura significat plenitudinem et universitatem, inquit S. Augustinus, ut patet I Reg. ii. 5 : in Hebrseo : Jerem. xv. 9 ; Eccles. xi. 2. " Causam hujusce rei arithmeticam dat Philo lib de mundi Opificio ; Septenarius, inquit, solus inter denarium, nee gignit, nee gignitur, sine patre est et matre. Unde Pythagorsei eum vocant virginem ; hinc congruit Deo et rebus divinis : ideoque grsecum ejus nomen eTrras a veteribus dictum est septas ; airb tou cri^aff- fiov, id est a cultu et reverentia. Sic enim grseca aspiratio scepe in litteram a ver- titur, teste Prisciano, ut ex &\s factum est sal, ex f)7rep super, ex vs sus, ex uAtj sylva, ex %fxiffv semis, ex e^ sex, ex eizra septem, ex epTrco serpo. Physicam congruen- tiam dat S. Hieron in Amos v. Galenus, inquit, docet febres ardentissimas septimo die solvi ; si non primo, secundo, id est decimo quarto die : si non secundo, tertio, id est vigesimo primo die, ut omnes labores et molestise septenario numero con- quiescant. " Cicero in somnium Scipionis, ait septenarium esse nodum et plenitudinem rerum omnium, quia scilicet Deus est unitas, a quo fluit senarius creaturarum, videlicet angeli, elementa, mixta inanima, stirpes, bruta et homo, deinde septimo rursus ad primam unitatem, scilicet Deum, revertimur, in eaque desinimus, a quo, per quem, et in quem omnia sunt dirigenda, ut explicat Andraeas Masius in Josue vi. 13. " Hinc Philo lib. I Allegor. ait senario significari mortalia, quia senarius est divisibilis : septenario vero, quia secari nequit, significat felicia et immortalia. Unde Dex sex diebus complevit opus suum, scilicet mortale, septimo vero ab eo quievit, sed alias diviniores formationes incsepit. Errat vero Philo in eo quod subdit : ' Nam rusticanje simplicitatis est putare, sex diebus, certoque tempore quod mundo posterius est, mundum esse conditum ' ubi sex dies creationis mundi non litteraliter sed symbolice accipit, quod et fecit aliquando sanctus Augustinus. " Plura de perfectione septenarii videat qui volet apud Philonem et Macro- THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH. 37 Now, we must not forget that the common experience of mankind and the investigations of science ahke teach us that | there is a mystery and virtue in all nature in the recurrence ' of the seventh thins;: There is the seventJi note in the musical scale ; the seventh colour in the prism or rainbow ; and the recurrence of the seventh day, or thrice seventh in certain diseases of the body. When certain phenomena appear, or a crisis is reached with the utmost punctualit)/, medical men in their diagnosis accept and reckon upon this mysterious law of periodicity^ as it is termed. And it stands side by side with the ancient Sabbath, as a fact and phenomenon confirm- ing and upholding the sabbatical idea. It makes presumable at the least, that there should be one perpetually recurring day in all the seven, on which the blessing originally pro- nounced on the seventh should devolve and be renewed till the end of time. Nor is our contention shaken that the. blessing originally pronounced on the seventh day was intended for all subse- quent seventh-day periods and actually enjoyed by them — either by the later Scriptures or tradition. Upon what other supposition are we to account for this recognition of a cycle or course of seven days which occurs so often afterwards : by Noah when he sent forth the dove ; by Jacob when he ful- filled a week of marriage festival for each of his wives ; and above all by the children of Israel before the institntion of the Laiv ? For it is evident that they knew ivhich ivas the seventh or Sabbath day, when they were told not to gather manna on that day, but to gather a double portion the day before. "And Moses said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said. 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 remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning " (Exod. xvi. 23). How also can we account, on any other hypothesis, for the knowledge of the seven days of the week, preserved alike by Teutonic and classical nations, and derived to ourselves from our heathen forefathers? We find traces of a week of nine days^ amongst bium, lib. I, in somnium Scipionis c. 6 : et A Gellium, lib. 3, etc." — Sacr. Script. Cursus Co7nplet., vol. vii. pp. 188, 189. (Parisiis, 1839.) * Vide article on the Days of the Week, in the Philological Museum, by the late Bishop of St. David's. Origines Kalendarise Italicae. Preliminary Address, p. 19, by Rev. E. Gres- 38 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. the Romans and other nations, but it has been lately proved that this was originally a week of seven days and is a corrup- tion therefrom. The conclusion, therefore, is forced upon us, whether we refer to Nature or Scripture, or the concurrent traditions of nations, that there is, in the highest degree, an antecedent probability that when God originally blessed and sanctified the seventh day, He included in that blessing its recurrence ever after. But further, there is in this septenary law we have been illustrating, a fitting harmony with the nature and being of God Himself As God is one in substance and threefold in His personality, so does He exhibit Himself in operation by a sevenfold or septenary law. The one Spirit is septiform in operation. Isaiah tells us, " the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fe,ar of the Lord " (xi. 2). And it is for these manifold gifts the Bishop prays over the newly confirmed catechumen. The same Spirit is revealed to us in the Apocalypse under the imagery of the " Seven Lamps burning before the Throne, which are the seven spirits of God." Is it not therefore highly probable that God, having in His own nature in some myste- rious manner, somewhat which is sevenfold in character and septiform in operation — and having impressed this character on the light our eyes behold, and on the very sounds which reach our ears — and having Himself rested on the seventh day from all His works ; I say, is it not highly probable that He should have ruled men's time from the very beginning, for purposes of rest and worship, and of conforming them to His own likeness and image by the law of His own being? Most surely it is most fitting that we should endeavour to be con- formed to His image, by placing ourselves under that seven- fold law by a devout use of the Lord's own day — the Day which He has made. For as we have seen already, the selection of this seventh day was no arbitrary command : " God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because that in it He had rested from all the work which He made." His rest in it is the reason of His blessing tipo7i it. But what was this mysterious rest, and well. " The nundinal cycle was virtually the same with the hebdomadal : merely in a different form." THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH. 39 how does it bear on the sabbatical ordinance ? The i^est of God means, according to the original word we have already- discussed, cessation from ivork, without any idea of fatigue or toil involved. It marked just that epoch, when the Almighty brought that work of Creation, begun ages before and con- summated in six days, to a completion and perfection. Not its completion only when nothing more remained to be done, but xis perfection also, because all that God — the Good One — had made was very good, and everything evil had been elimi- nated. It had not been so before. In the earlier stages, Creation had been marred by sin and death, the work of fallen Angelic intelligences. But now there had come forth a pure and holy work, made by the finger of God, with which Satan had had no power to intermeddle. There had at length been accomplished the great work of ages, when " the heavens and the earth had been finished and all the host of them " ; and so God rested from all the work which He had created and made. When the angels sang together, it was the trumpet note of gladness, the psean of victory, and the chorus of harmonious hallelujahs. " The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." It was the accomplished triumph of goodness and beauty over wickedness and disorder, which marked and defined the Rest, Cessation, or " Sabbath " of God. It was this triumph which ministered refreshment to the Divine mind. Not only did God rest and " was refreshed," as we have seen in Exodus (xxxi. 17), but the 104th Psalm speaks of His "rejoicing in His works." With good reason might such a Rest be the occasion of such an ordinance. It was the triumph Day of the Good One, i.e. God ; it was His delight, and honourable in His eyes. Well then might God Himself for ever after, in the recurrence of that mysterious sevenfold cycle, bear in mind, and renew (so to speak) that original Triumph and Rest and Joy. Hence it is written, " The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ; " it is God's resting day in its weekly anniversary. Well then might He revisit at such times the world, which then He made, with peculiar blessing. With good reason might that be a day in which " Heaven's gate " should ever after be open more widely, prayer should go up more acceptably, grace be poured down more abundantly, and the " angels of God ascend and descend " more freely " upon the sons of men." Well might men — the 40 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. creatures of His hand, " His people and the sheep of His pasture " — be enjoined to hold that high day, with the triumph song of victory ringing in the ears of a grateful and unified Creation, in perpetual remembrance, which witnessed "the stilling of the Enemy and the Avenger," and the final comple- tion of this world to be the scene of their own trial and victory. Well might such a " Day be unto them for a niemorial," a day of thankful memories and elevating hopes, and be " kept as a feast to the Lord throughout their generations, a feast by an ordinance for ever" (Exod. xii. 14). Well might the saintly George Herbert, of Bemerton, the " poet of the Church," as he has been truly called, whose well- known verses on the Church of England are often quoted, and of whom it has been truthfully and beautifully said, "his life was one continued Sunday," write thus : — " The Sundaie's of man's life, Thredded together on Time's string, Make bracelets to adorn the wife Of the eternall glorious King. On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope : Blessings are plentiful and rife : More plentiful than hope. " The rest of our Creation Our Great Redeemer did remove With the same shake, which at His passion Did th' earth and all things with it move. As Samson bore the doores away, Christ's hands, though nail'd, wrought our salvation, And did unhinge that Day." George Herbert's ^ Poems, "Sunday." IV. We pass on now to consider, as briefly as possible,^ the mode of observing this sacred day. And from the con- siderations already discussed, two points are evident. It must be a day of rest, and a day of worship. If it is God's resting day, it must be a time of rest for His creatures ; a time to surcease from our daily avocations, " the common round and ' "The Sunday before his (George Herbert) death, he rose suddenly from his bed, or couch, called for one of his instruments, took it into his hand, and said — « My God, my God ! My music shall find Thee, And every thing Shall have His attribute to sing.' And having tuned it, he played and sang ' The Sundays of man's life,' etc." IsAAK Walton. THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH. 41 daily task." And there is a deep necessity in man's nature for thus resting, a deep necessity for his physical and intellectual nature. Man has been all the week going forth to his work and to his labour until the evening {usque ad vcsperum), and he needs repose ; he must be released from his work ; he needs a period of calm and quiet, wherein to re-create his wasted tissue. Irrespective of having a special time for thinking of his soul, and meeting his Maker, he requires this absolute repose and rest, in which he may assume an unrelated attitude with regard to the active duties of life and the daily monotony of toil — sweat of brow and sweat of brain. For it has been proved over and over again, by experience on the part of individuals and model republics, that • work is far better done after the rest of a seventh day. So much so, in cases where the rest of the Sabbath has been given up, in obedience to some superior intelligence (as men have thought)) it has soon been found expedient, after trial made, to return to definite recurring periods, first of nine or ten day periods, then subsequently to return to the hebdomadal or seventh- day recurring periods. But this day has inherited, as we have shown, the old blessing and sanctification of the Sabbath of Creation. It comes, therefore, to us surcharged with the felt Presence of Jehovah. It has the stamp and character of God's peculiar favour, and it comes laden with the grace and favour of God for the proper ends of its creation, which is secured to it. An especial measure of God's Presence is vouchsafed to it, and it is with a capacity and meetness for fulfilling its high ends of refreshing man and honouring God. It is our day of rest, and it is blessed and hallowed of its Maker. " On this day, the first of days, God the Father's name we praise : Who creation's Fount and Spring, Did the world from darkness bring." ' This day is not only a day of rest but of worship. Not only must the observance of the Sabbath be referred to this requirement of physical rest in our nature, but there is the ' Translation of Sir W. Baker, the Latin hymn beginning — " Die parenti temporis Quo numen e.xtra proferens Rex pater fons omnium Verbo fit orbis artifex." 42 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. fact that only by means of these stated returns of particular seasons, man can in rest from temporal concerns, fix his atten- tion on his Maker. And there is a further necessity for a similar outward form in the mode of worship on the Sabbath, which illustrates the primal necessity of having a day set apart. Thoughtful men have often asked why they cannot go out and have their worship in the great temple of the universe. The man who argues so knows not his own nature. There is a temple of God's universe, and those who deny it forget a grand and spiritual truth : but the feeling gained in this temple of God is one thing, that gained in the Church of God is another. We may in like manner worship God all the week, but the emotion of worship on the Sabbath, when we lay aside work, is different from the emotions felt towards God in the midst of work. For this reason we are exhorted not to " forsake the assembling of ourselves together." And that these high thoughts of rest from the world's work (however purified) may not lack media of action and expression, our great Day brings with it special means of communion with God. We have our places of worship, and stated times of worship, in every part of our highly favoured land. There is no parish in England where the parish church is not thrown open wide to all (at least on the Lord's day) to " come and worship in the beauty of holiness." There we can hear God's word read and preached ; there we can pray to, and praise our Maker ; and there we can meet Him in ordinances of His own appointing. Making humble oblations of ourselves, with all that we are, or do, or have done, to God in Christ ; receiving participation through Christ in the things of God provided for us ; we keep at once in Holy Com- munion, and in the other services and prayers, public or private, the day of thankful rest and spiritual refreshment. And with regard to the observance of the other parts of the day not given to acts of public worship, this will of course depend somewhat on the individual himself, the place he lives in, and the age of the world he lives in. What may suit the old might not suit the young by way of relaxation, and there is a difference between the unlearned and the intellectual. There is a difference between the man who has strained his intellect all the week, and the labourer of the soil. And there is also a further difference as to national customs, and ranks, THE ORIGINAL INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH. 43 and occupations. But making allowance for all this, we do say that the genius of the day should never be lost sight of — a day of calm and Jioly restfulness. The sternness of the Jewish Sabbath may not be suitable to us, but on the other hand we must avoid the emptiness and* frivolity of the Continental Sunday. It was this difference from our more easy and lax modern manners, that made the Israelites the spiritual teachers of the world. They were the least accustomed of all nations to abstract thought, and yet it was this stern rule which made such men as Moses, David and Paul. It is by going back to the original institution of the Sabbath, the primal conditions and reasons of God's resting Day, that we catch the spirit and learn the genius of this high Day. The man who throws into the day all the spirit of its original institution, will not go far wrong. For the associations and privileges of the day, rightly understood and taken home to heart, will not fail to be a suflScient guide as to the manner of our spending those parts of the day not taken up with acts of public worship. We shall gladly lay aside everything that takes away from the cessation from our own works and the sense of rest. We shall do away with everything which militates against our close communion with God. The realized Presence of the God of Creation will lend even to those actions which are common to all days alike, a calmer tone. It will give to those refreshments of body or mind which nature craves, and grace forbids not, a more regulated cheerfulness. Even in our common meals, we shall realize somewhat of the feeling of " the nobles of Israel," ^ who being taken up into the Mount, " saw God and did eat and drink," and in common conver- sation, when the smile lights up the leisure of the Lord's Day with touches of natural cheerfulness, we shall not forget who * "Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel : and they saw the God of Israel : and there was under His feet, as it were, a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in its clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He laid not His hand : also they saw God, and did eat and drink " (Exod. xxiv. 9-1 1). "Ita fabulantur ut qui sciant Dominum audiri." Tertullian, quoted in the " Christian Year" for Advent ij. "Yet is He there : beneath our eaves " Christ watches by a Christian hearth. Each sound His wakeful ear receives : Be silent, 'vain deluding mirth,' Hush idle words, and thoughts of ill, Till in thine alter'd voice be known. Your Lord is listening : peace be still. Somewhat of Resignation's tone." Keble. 44 THE LORD'S DA V; 02?, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. was present at a like scene at Cana of Galilee, but shall " so talk as knowing that the Lord hears us." Yes, there must be a well-sustained self-recollection. Holy solemnity becomes the day of rest. Anything of frivolity, dissipation of mind, or unbridled working of the imagination, will rob us of much of the blessedness of the day. Careless thoughts and light words, profiting neither ourselves or others, may spoil the day, and leave the heart and mind in no fit state to take the attitude of humble listening faith. We ought so to live, and talk, and think, and sing, that every moment the heart may say readily and cheerfully, "Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth." For as John Wicklifife says, "Each man should be busy to purchase rest for soul and body, and to avoid all things for the time which hinder this. For resting on the Sunday betokens the resting in bliss after this life : and they that will not keep rest of soul this day, and avoid sin, it is to be dreaded that unless they amend, they will lose the rest of bliss to come." There can be no fitter preparation for the Sabbath-keeping (the Sabbatism) which remaineth to the people of God, than the due, solemn, and recollected observance of the Sabbath which now is. III. * "THE SABBATH KNOWN TO ISRAEL BEFORE THE PROMULGATION OF. THE SINAITIC LAW." 1 Exodus xvi, 22-31. " 'E-yeVero oe rfj rifxepa rp l/crrj" ffvveKe^au ra Seovra Siir\a, Svo yofihp rcf kvV flcrrj\6o(Tav Se travTes ol a/>xovT€S ttjs crvuaywyijs. Kal av'fiyyet\av Maivarj. Eiire Se M&juiTTJy irphs avrovs, ov tovto rh prjfid iariv, o iKaKrjae Kvpios : 'Za^^ara avairavffis dyia Tw Kupio) avpwf ocra iav TreVcrTjTe, wecraeTe, Kal ocra iav e;|/rjT6, exf/ere' kul irav rh wXeovd^oi' KaTaAeiiren aiirb (7$ aiTo0r]Kriy els rb irpuH. Kal KanXiiroffav airo avrov €Cos Trpuii, Kadus crui'STa^ev avTols Moii/crjjs* Kal oxjk fTrci^effff, ou5e aKw\r]^ iyevero eV avrai. E'nre Si Mtvucrrjs. ^dyere aij/x^pov eari yal ad^^ara arju^pov tw Kvpici)' ovx evpfQricreTai iv t<^ TreSii^. "'El 7i/xfpas avWe^ere' r^ Se vfJ-epa rfj e/35(j/xj) ad^^ara, 'on ovK effrai ev aiiTrj. " 'EyeVero Se ev r-^r,nepa rfj e^Bo/xri e^-{]\6o(rdv riues eK rov Xaov ffvWl^at, Kal ovk evpov. EfTre Se Kvpios irp6s Moovariv, ecus rivos ov 0ov\effdf elffaKouetv rds euro\ds jj.ou, Kal rhv v6fiov fj.ov ; "iSere, 6 yap Kuptos fScoKev vfuv adfi^ara tV Vl^^pav ravryjv' Sla rovro avrhs eSooKev vfAv rfj 7])xipa, rfj %Krr] dprovs Svo 7]fxepu>v KadiaeaOe kKaffros els rohs OLKOvs dfjLwf' fj.riSels eKiropeueffOw e'/c rov tJttoi; auToO rfj rifiepa ry ejSSJ^j;. Kai icrafi^dricrev 6 Xahs rfj Vf^^Pf '''fi efiSofirj." " On this day, the first of days, God the Father's name we praise ; Who, creation's Lord and spring, Did the world from darkness bring." {Hymns Ancient and Modern, 34.) There can be no doubt that it is most important to ascertain upon what basis the observance of a day of rest and worship, a weekly recurring period of cessation from the world's distraction, rests. For it is doubtless owing to the erroneous opinions or hazy views of so many of the present day that we see on every side a steadily increasing desecration of the " Lord's day." About its observation we may say more than almost in any other case, every one hath " a doctrine, a reve- * All those sermons marked with an asterisk (*) have received Honourable Mention by the Examiners. * This sermon was preached, in substance, at St. Paul's church, on Sunday morning (Mid-lent or Refreshment Sunday), March 27th, 1881. 46 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. lation, an interpretation," and so all things are not done unto edifying. One man supposes its origin is Judaical, and there- fore the Jewish law, as such, being abrogated, he supposes the Sabbath has been abolished too. Another would rest it on the basis of ecclesiasticism, and as he sits very loosely to Church authority, he cares little for a day which comes only to him with the imprimatur and custom of the Church Catholic. A third brings it up to his own touchstone of private judgment, and rationalizes on it in his own fashion. Another regards it simply as a day of rest, or recreation, and so on. There are, in fact, as many opinions as men. It is to this want of knowledge on this most important subject, we attribute a very great proportion of Sabbath desecration. Such have to be reminded, that their own opinions on the matter will not change the facts of the case one iota. They must be told that the Lord's day observance depends not on the mere requirements of man's physical nature, not on the authority (only) of the Church, or the fact that it is found in the Jewish decalogue, but that it goes back to the very Creation of the World. It is the Sabbath of Creation, the rest of Almighty God. It is a primal law of the dawn of the world's history. This gift of the Sabbath day was the one positive ordinance for the use of man in that Golden Age. It was the gift of the Creator, and carries with it His perpetual benediction. And if the restriction connected with the Tree of Knowledge indi- cated that man's wi// must be subordinated to that of his Maker, this Sabbatic ordinance taught that man's time — the substance of his life — was not absolutely his own, but belonged in its true ownership to God who gives. If this can be proved, and we believe it can, then people's so-called views must be swept away as a refuge of lies, and they must stand face to face with one of the great facts of Creation, and the solemn " fiat " of their Maker. " To the Word," then, " and to "the testimony," for it is to their own Master in this, as in all other matters in the spiritual sphere, they must stand or fall. We will not now descant upon the fact that the glory of God is bound up in the due observance of the Sabbath ; that it is the day which He is pleased to call His own, with which He has connected most of the practical blessings of Salvation. We have no time here to point out that the profanation of this day tends to annihilate the blessings of revelation, to leave THE SABBATH KNOWN BEFORE THE SINAITIC LAW. 47 the world without any visible token of the authority of Christianity, and to strip the Church of the means of openly testifying its faith and obedience. For if the Sabbath were taken away, as far as the mass of mankind are concerned, where would be time left for religious duties, for the public worship of Almighty God, for the instruction of children, for the reading and hearing the Word of God, for visiting the sick and needy, and for preparing for that rest of which this Sabbatism (or " keeping of a Sabbath " in margin) is an assured pledge and blessed foretaste ? Nor would other classes of society fare much better ; for where there is no special time set apart for special duties, there is a strong presumption that the duties will be set on one side, or fall into desuetude. It is obvious that w^here its most solemn services are per- formed, Christianity is indeed represented and set forth in the weekly return of the day. As real piety declines, in any age or country, the symbol of it is quickly forgotten ; and when Christianity revives, men awake again to the value of those means of grace, of which the Sabbath stands second to none, but is first in importance and dignity. For this divine insti- tution of a weekly day of rest has been one of those primary duties, in which the holy Church throughout the world has agreed. Its institution in Paradise, and its incorporation in the moral law given with the finger of God Hirrtself, has given it a hold on the conscience of men which nothing can shake. And for this reason. Christian states have recognized its im- portance in more ways than one, and have protected their subjects in the peaceable enjoyment of its calm repose. Now, as very many persons suppose that the basis of the Lord's day observance is Judaical, and Judaism, as such, being abrogated, the day has no claim upon their observation, as a matter of privilege or obligation, leading up to a careless and indifferent view of the same, if not open desecration or even profanity, we shall endeavour to rebut the position of such, by endeavouring to prove that the Sabbath was known to Israel before the promulgation of the Sinaitic law. Referring to the episode contained in the text under con- sideration, we shall endeavour to show from a critical ex- position of the same (i) that there is nothing at all in the narrative resembling a first institution of the Sabbath ; (ii) that the narrative clearly points back to a primeval Sabbath ; 48 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. and (iii) that the silence of the Patriarchal age is no disproof of its existence, looking at this contention first on the negative and then on the positive side of the question. (i) And first we shall see that there is nothing at all in the narrative, contained in the text, resembling a first insti- tution of the Sabbath. Now observe, we are met here with a statement, a miracle, and a fact ; a statement, where Moses ^ says " this is that which the Lord hath said, to-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord ; " and a fact, where it is stated that " there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather and they found none ; " and a miracle, where we read that when the people left some of the manna until the morning, " it bred worms and stank " {i^kZ,iai cr/cwXrjicac Km eTrat^to-f), but that which they gathered on the sixth day — the double portion the next day (the seventh) it bred no worm nor stank. Col- lating the two cases, there is surely something very miraculous in all this. ' "Exodus xvi. 23. 'To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabfeath unto the Lord,' or, 'To-morrow is a rest, a Sabbath holy to Jehovah,' i.e. 'to-morrow must be a day of rest, observed strictly as a Sabbath, or festal rest, holy to Jeho- vah.' It is at once a statement and an injunction. The people knew it as the Sabbath, they were to observe it as a great Festival." " V. 22. ' Twice as much bread.' From this passage, and from verse 5, it is inferred that the seventh day was previously known to the people as a day separate from all others, and if so, it must have been observed as an ancient and primeval institution. No other account of the command (given without any special ex- planation) or of the conduct of the people who collected the manna is satisfac- tory ; thus Rosenmiiller and others. It is at the same time evident that Moses took this opportunity of enforcing a strict and more solemn observance of the day. "v. 25. ' Eat that to-day.' The practical observance of the Sabbath was thus formally instituted before the giving of the Law. The people were to abstain from the ordinary work of every-day life ; they were not to collect food, nor, as it would seem, even to prepare it as on other days." — Speaker'' s Commentary, vol. i. p. 310. After this act of wilful disobedience, the rest and peace of the "Holy Sabbath " was not disturbed by a manifestation of wrath. " V. 23. Cras est Sabbatum sacrum, et dicatum cultui Domini : unde tunc ab omni opere quiescendum, Deoque vacandum est, ideoque jussi die sexta vos col- ligere et parare manna in sabbatum. Hie primo videtur sabbati cognitio et religio renovata et restituta ; unde et Philo asserit Hebrseos, ignoratum a suis majoribus mundi natalem, quo hoc universum absolutum est, didicisse hoc miraculo, quo scilicet pridie sabbati depluebat duplum manna, durabatque in biduum, contra ac fiebat cseteris diebus. Renovata dico : nam Sabbatum ab initio mundi institu- tum et cultum fuisse ostendi Genes, xi. 2. Ab origine ergo mundi institutum fuit festum et cultus sabbati : sed illud in TEgyptia servitute et idolatria Hebrseorum plane fuit obliteratum unde hie a Deo revocatur et restituitur." — Script, Sacr. Curstis CompL, vol. vi. p. 132. (Parisiis, 1839.) THE SABBATH KNOWN BEFORE THE SINAITIC LAW. 49 We have then to do with facts, not inferences or opinions. Such reasoning is surely decisive and incontrovertible. The statement as to keeping the seventh day is anti-Sinaitic ; and previous to the promulging of the Decalogue. The Israelites were therefore directed to observe the Sabbath, before they received any of their peculiar or distinguishing laws out of the thunderings of Sinai. The restoration of the Sabbath before the Mosaical law, seems designed to link the Patriarchal with the Jewish day of rest. It proves that the first had not been wholly obliterated, and it shows that the second was founded on a law of primeval and universal obligation ; while the miracle of the manna on each Sabbath clearly points out the importance attached by Almighty God to the institution. They were now in the Wilderness of Sin, at a distance of at least a fortnight's march from the holy Mount, when this direction was given them, and statement made. And how could the people be more impressively taught, that the seventh day after six was to be consecrated, or kept holy, as a day of rest, than by laying to heart the remarkable fact, that the manna would not keep from one day to another, except that which fell on the sixth — a double quantity — for the expressed purpose and use of the Sabbath, while the supply altogether failed on that seventh, and ever recurring seventh, day. The absejice of the manna proved the presence of the Sabbath ; and the preserva- tion of manna through the Sabbath day, and not through any other day of the week, was a periodical proof from Heaven itself, of the sanctity of the Sabbath} ' " On the Sabbath day (Its connection with the deliverance from Egypt). — It was at a later period that the inspired Legislator set forth a second ground on which obedience to the commandment was required. It was said to the Israelite that he should observe the day in order that his man-servant and maid-servant might rest as well as he ; and the words were added : ' 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 a stretched out arm ; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.' By the command that the man-servants and the maid-servants were to rest on the day as well as their masters, witness was borne to the equal position which every Israelite might claim in the presence of Jehovah. The Sabbath was thus made a distinguishing badge, a sacramental bond for the whole people, according to the words, 'it is a sign between me and you throughout all generations ; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.' The wealthy Israelite, in remembrance of what he himself, or his forefathers, had suffered in Egypt, was to realize the fact on this day that the poorest of his brethren had enjoyed the same deliverances, and had the same share in the covenant as himself. The whole nation, as one man, was to enjoy rest. He who outraged the Sabbath, either by working himself, or by E 50 THE LORD'S DA V; OH, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. The observance of the Sabbath of Creation had no doubt fallen in a state of desuetude and temporary obscuration — during their sojourn in Egypt and their slavery in the house of their bondage, when another king arose who knew not Joseph — partly from the fact, that by the daily contact with their idolatrous taskmakers they would frbm such evil communica- tions be likely to " start aside like a broken bow " from the faith and worship of the Lord God of their fathers ; and partly, being in a state of serfdom, they, i.e. the oppressed of Jacob, would not possibly have been permitted to rest every seventh day period, even had they been so disposed. The Primitive Sabbath day of the Patriarchs had been modified, to suit the circumstances of the sojourn in, and egress from, the land of Egypt.^ And when Moses, at the direction of God, commands the observance of the Sabbath, he does it rather as an observance that had lapsed, and had been for a time forgotten, not as a thing entirely new or unheard of before. Having been brought out with a mighty hand, from the house of Egyptian bondage and land of idolatry, to be a separate and consecrated people, who acknowledged and wor- shipped the true God, this ancient Sabbatical inheritance was restored and re-established among them, without waiting till their arrival in Sinai. And the transactions connected with the holy Mount, the Sabbath day of Rest was pro- claimed to them, as it had been done before, in the form of a gift from God. " The Lord hath given you the Sabbath," ^ a privilege as well as a duty, and a blessing as well as an obligation. The language is so significant and pointed that it fully bears out this asseveration, " this is that which the Lord Jiath said (not is saying, or will say) to-morrow {is in italics) the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord " — an suffering his servants to work, broke the covenant with Jehovah, and at the same time cut himself off from his people, so as to incur the sentence of death. This latter ground for tlie observance of the Sabbath day furnishes a not less strict analogy with the Sunday than that which has been noticed. What the Sabbath was to ' the kingdom of priests, the holy nation,' on the score that they had been redeemed from the bondage of Egypt and made free men, such the Sunday is to the 'chosen generation, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the peculiar people, as those whom Christ has redeemed from the bondage of corruption, and brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God. ' " — Speaker's Commentary, vol. i. P- 342. ' See Dr. Samuel Lee's Sermon on Sabbath observance. Regius Professor of Hebrew, Cambridge (1834). ^ Exod. xvi. 29. THE SABBATH KNOWN BEFORE THE SINAITIC LAW. 51 historical fact. " Six days ye shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath (a categorical statement of a fact), in it there shall be none." And again in a few verses after, "And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws ? See, for that the Lord hath given',' not will give, but hath given (the aorist tense denoting an act complete, or viewed in reference to its completion), "you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you the bread of two days on the sixth." How can this transac- tion be twisted, as some argue, to mean the first institution of the Sabbath. The inference is clear, which is this. A Sab- bath had been already appointed. The Lord had already given it, and in accommodation to that institution already understood, He had doubled the manna on the sixth day. But even supposing the institution of the Sabbath to be here {oxxmWy proclaimed, or supposing (as others would have it, and as the Jews themselves pretend) that it was not now pro- mulgated, strictly speaking, but was actually one of the two precepts given a little earlier at Marah,^ still it is not un- common in the writings of Moses, nor indeed in other parts of Scripture, for an event to be mentioned as occurring for the first time, which had in fact occurred, and which had been reported to have occurred, long before. Thus Isaac and Abimelech meet and swear to do each other no injury. " And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water. And he called it Shebah : therefore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day."^ Who then would not say that the name was then given, and for the first time, by Isaac ? Yet it had been given by Abraham long before, in commemoration of a like covenant which he had made with the Abimelech of his day. " These seven ewe lambs," he said to that king, " shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto thee, that I have digged this well : wJierefore he called the place Beersheba ; because they sware both of them."^ Again, "So Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, i.e. Bethel, he and all his people that were with him. And he built there an altar, and called the place El-Beth-el, because there God appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother." ' Exod. XV. 25 ; Deut. v. 12. ' Gen. xxvi. 32. ^ Gen. xxi. 31. 52 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. Who would not now conclude that the new name was given to Luz now for the first time ? Yet Jacob had changed the name, in point of fact, a great many years before, when on his first journey to Haran. "And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone which he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of the city was called Luz at the first." ^ Or, take another instance: "And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padan-aram, and blessed him. And God said unto him. Thy name is Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name : and he called his name Israel'' ^ Would it not be supposed that the name of Israel was now given to Jacob for the first time? Yet in some subsequent chapters where Jacob is recorded as wrestling with the angel (not at Bethel, but at Peniel), we read that " The angel said, what is thy name ? and he said, Jacob. And he said thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel : for as a prince hast thou power with God, and hast prevailed." ^ One more example will suffice. It is from the book of Judges. We read that a certain J air, a Gileadite, a successor of Abimelech in the government of Israel, " had thirty sons, that rode on thirty ass-colts, and they had thirty cities, which are called Havoth Jair unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead." Who would not suppose that the name was given to these cities for the first time, and that this Jair was the person from whom it was derived. Yet we read in Numbers that another Jair, who lived nearly three hundred years earlier, went and took the small towns of Gilead (apparently these very same) " and called them Havoth Jair." So then the name had been given nearly three centuries before. Why then should it be thought strange that the institution of the Sabbath should have been mentioned in Exod. xvi. for the first time, and yet that it should have been founded in point of fact at the creation of the world as given in the first three verses of Genesis ii., where the language obviously implies it ; and as St. Paul's argument in the fourth chapter of the Hebrews requires it to have been ? But this case has its parallel. " Moses gave unto you circumcision," says our Lord, yet there is added, "not because it is of Moses, but ' Gen. xxviii. i8, 19. ^ Gen, xxxv. 9, 10. ' Gen. xxxii. 28. THE SABBATH KNOWN BEFORE THE SINAITIC LAW. 53 of the Fathers"^ And the Hke may be said of the Sabbath : that Moses gave it, and yet that it was of the FATHERS, and surely such observance of the Sabbath, i.e. a seventh day period of rest, from the BEGINNING is in accordance with many other hints which are conveyed to us of some distinc- tion or other belonging to that day from the beginning — as when Noah sends forth the dove three times successively at intervals of seven days : as when Jacob is invited by Laban to "fulfil her week"^ after Leah's marriage, the nuptial festivities being probably terminated by the arrival of the Sabbath : as when Joseph makes a mourning for his father of seven days ;^ the lamentation most likely ceasing with the return of that festival : these and other hints of the same kind being pregnant with meaning, and intended to be so, in the epitomized history of the rapid and desultory nature of that of Moses. Neither is there much difficulty in that passage of Ezekiel, upon which those, who maintain that the Sabbath was for the first time enjoined in the wilderness, rely a good deal, " Wherefore," says that prophet, " I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them out into the wilderness. And I gave them my STATUTES, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths!' ^ Here then Ezekiel would affirm, or seem to affirm, that the Sabbaths were given to the Israelites when God was leading them out of Egypt, and that He had not given them till then. Yet the statutes and judgments are also spoken of as given at that time, whereas very many of them had surely been given before that time. It would be most untrue to assert that no statutes or judgrne7its of the same kind had been ever given until the Israelites had been led forth out of Egypt. It was in the wilderness that the law concerning clean and unclean beasts was promulgated ; ^ yet that law had certainly been published long before : and the same may be said of many others. This, then, is the argument : that as Ezekiel speaks of statutes and judgments given to the Israelites in the wilderness, some of which were certainly old judgments and statutes repeated and enforced ; so, when he says that the ' John vii. 22. ^ Gen. xxix. 27. ' Gen. 1. 10. * Ez. XX. 10-12. ^ Gen. vii. 8. 54 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. SabbatJis were given to the Israelites in the wilderness, he cannot be fairly accounted to assert that the Sabbaths had never been given till then. The fact indeed probably was, as we have stated above, that they had been neglected and half- forgotten during the long bondage in Egypt (slavery being unfavourable to morals), and that the observance of them was reasserted and renewed at the time of the promulgation (or a little before) of the Law in the Desert. In this sense, then, the prophet might well declare that on that occasion God had given to Israel His Sabbaths. It is true that in addition to the motive for the observance of the Sabbath (hinted in Genesis ii., and more fully expressed in Exodus xx.), which is of universal obligation, other motives were urged upon the Israelites specially applicable to them, to wit, " the day should be a sign between God and them," a remembrance of their having been made to rest from the yoke of the Egyptians.^ Yet such supplementary sanctions to a performance of a duty (however well adapted to secure the obedience of the Israelites) are quite consistent with a previous command addressed to all, and upon a principle binding upon all. Justin Martyr,^ be it remembered, when he speaks of the Patriarchs keeping no Sabbaths, means observances according to the peculiar rites of the Jewish laiu. And the same argument is applicable to that passage in Nehemiah, where it is stated, " Thou madest known Thy holy Sabbath " ^ by Moses on Sinai. It does not mean that God gave the Sabbath for the first time, and that before that time it had no previous existence. For in the same chapter it is said, " Thou gavest them Thy Holy Spirit," but surely the Holy Spirit had been given before. Or, " 77^ ^^^^^ them His only begotten Son," does not imply that all previous genera- tions had not believed on Him as "The Desire of all nations," but that He was first instituted in the days of Augustus Caesar. We cannot, indeed, for a moment accept the dictum of Paley's that " I gave " and " Thou madest known," carry the slightest reference to a " first institution." ' Dent. V. 15. ^ Justin Martyr, it is true, frequently speaks of the Patriarchs as observing no Sabbaths (see e.g. Dial. § 23), but it is certain that his meaning was, that the Patriarchs did not observe the Sabbaths according to the peculiar rites of the yeivish laii<, his use of the word (Ta^fiaTiCnv has always a reference to that law, and by no means that they kept no Sabbath at all. ^ Neh. ix. 14. THE SABBATH KNOWN BEFORE THE SINAITIC LAW. 55 We cannot doubt, therefore, from the passage before us, that we have the actual restoration of the Sabbath ^ of Crea- tion,— the rest of God, — " To-morrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord," to the Israehtes before the Mosaic law was given. For, as Dr. Jacob well remarks, " If the Sabbath originated in the fourth Commandment, and was a part of the ceremonial imposed upon the Israelites during the preparatory dispensation under which they were placed, then it is perfectly inexplicable why it should have been thus anticipated — why this particular ordinance should have been thus selected, while all the rest, however essential to their local religious system, were left unnoticed at the time. But if this day were an original gift to man, and a primeval institution for all ages, independently of all subsequent dis- pensations and laws, then there is a special significance and appropriateness in its being thus restored to Jehovah's rescued people before the peculiar enactments, which were to separate them from other nations, had been as yet made known." To recapitulate. We must conclude that in the passage before us we have the second direct mention made in the Scriptures of the Sabbath, except the clear statement of Gen. ii. 3 is dismissed as a mere parenthetical anticipation. Is it likely that the conduding part of the first account of Creation which ends Gen. ii. 3 — for the second account be- ginning verse 4 is clearly supplemental (whoever may be its author), and contains no account of the Sabbath at all — should be anticipatory, when the seventh day commemorated the great work of God, its completion, and God's consequent Rest ' " Moreover, God bestowed His gift in such a manner, that the Sabbath was sanctified by it, and the way thereby opened for its sanctification by the law." — Keil and Delitzsch ii. 68. " Hence we regard the Sabbatic festival as an ante-legal — in other words as an institution of Paradise. The institution of the Sabbath received its legal character for the first time in connection with the giving the law at Sinai : but the institu- tion of the Sabbath continued to exist after the law was fulfilled, as it had already existed, before the law was given — and it is destined to continue until it has attained its fulfilment and completion in the eternal Sabbath of the creature. The occurrence under review formed the historical announcement of the law of the Sabbath, as an inviolable command, carefully defined, and requiring literal observance — a law which became the sign of the covenant, and the breach of which involved the breach of the covenant also. But as God never requires with- out first giving, so do we find it here. Israel received a positive assurance and pledge, that the blessing of God would richly compensate him for the cessation from work, which the law of the Sabbath required." — Kurtz, Old Covenant, iii. 43. S6 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. in it ? Surely no grander theme could be found for commemo- ration, and no worthier basis for a new (Sabbatical) institution. Nor has the chapter any resemblance to a ^rst institittion of the Sabbath. There is no statement why it had been selected or sanctified. It is introduced in the most casual way, and apparently only on the side of its connection with the falling and storing of the manna. Assume that the Sabbath was known (if only by tradition, and not even by practice) to the Israelites, its mode of introduction is perfectly natural. But if it is the first promulgation of a new enactment, then we can only wonder at the light (apparently) and haphazard mode of its introduction. On the one hypothesis, the narrative is logical, natural, easy, and consequential ; but on the other, the source and orig-in of the institution becomes clouded over with every kind of obscuration, and its raisoii d'etre seems to be anything but clear. Again, if the Sabbath was Jewish, and if it is now first originated, why was it not made to commemorate the manna ? Here was a direct interposition on the part of Heaven, made on behalf of the Jews ; the great Creator had wrought a miracle, to spare their lives, whereby "food convenient" had been provided them, and even a double or bifurcated miracle, when the supply of the sixth day remained in purity through the seventh, and all this for them and their nation. If then this institution of the Sabbath had been a novel one, might it not have been correlated with this stupendous miracle of the manna ? And yet if it had been so, the weekly Sabbath of rest would have been purely Jewish, simply a commemora- tion of a marvellous episode in the history of their race ; very interesting no doubt, to the Jew, but it could not have been binding upon, or connected with, "aliens to the common- wealth of Israel," not of the seed of Abraham. A weekly commemoration of a Jewish miracle would have been only local and national ; but that of the Sabbath of Creation, God's resting day, is universal and catholic, for all times and people. It would simply have had a Jewish impress. But if we look a little ahead, and find the Sabbath law recapitulated and incorporated in the other moral and previously existing pre- cepts of the Decalogue, there is no narrow Judaism to be found in it. The falling and gathering of the manna is not even alluded to, in the reasons why; but far away beyond Moses THE SABBATH KNOWN BEFORE THE SINAITIC LAW. 57 and beyond Abraham, and the age of the patriarchs, the roots of the primeval institution are mentioned as fixed, " for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and rested on the seventh day." But the most remarkable fact is that after interposing on behalf of the chosen people by a series of creative and amazing miracles, when God announced the recurrence of the weekly sacred rest, and gives the reason for its observance, instead of connecting it with the miracle, which was being daily set " before their eyes," so as to burn its memory into their very inner consciousness, and character it on the " mindful tablets of the heart," God takes away their thoughts right across the ages and points the finger to the great creation, 2500 years ago, the six days' work, and the seventh day of rest ; a fact interesting and memorable to all mankind alike, Gentile and Jew. But Moses in his writings alludes to other _^ri-/ institutions to which this statement of the Sabbath bears no resemblance. Take the case of God's covenant with Noah, and its exter- nalized symbol, the rainbow. Did not the covenant and sign go together, tied up with the promise of God, and begin from that day forward ? Here was nothing anticipatory, nor was there a suspension of the Divine fiat. Or the case of cir- cumcision, with its sign in the flesh itself of the Jews, was it not practised as soon as given, upon Abraham and all his seed ; the symbol of God's covenant with the father of the faithful. Here was no suspension of the ordinance, nothing parenthetical about it; was it not "in the selfsame day"? And in the institution of the Passover, only two chapters preceding our text, was not the first institution started the very night when its significance emerged, to commemorate the mighty deliverance out of the house of bondage .'' Do we find it dissociated? Is not its connection with Israel's emancipation expressly stated .■* Now how very different this all is from the " alleged " first institution of the Sabbath in the passage before us. The Sabbath is in no way connected with the object, except that on that day occurred, w^hat we may term, a bifurcated miracle. Nor is there told us, whether the Sabbath was to be a peculiarly Jewish ordinance, or universally binding in its obligation ; nor whether other occupations might be indulged in, if the gathering of manna was prohibited ; nor is it men- 58 THE LORD'S DA V; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. tioned whether the observance would cease with the descent of the Heaven-rained manna, or survive their desert hfe, and accompany them to the promised land. If we have to do with two ^7'st institutions, that of the Passover in the fourteenth chapter, and the Sabbath in the sixteenth, we must allow that the style and views of the writer have been greatly modified in the interval. And if we are to regard the Sabbath as the more important ordinance of the two, as the former was observed once a week, and the latter once a year, and the former was certainly to be observed during the forty years' wandering in the desert, the other might be suspended : how could such relative importance be proved from their respective first institutions ? The Passover is most carefully established with critical inimiteness, at the proper time, and in the clearest tej'ms, but the Sabbath is only alluded to casually by chance, in connection with the history of the manna, about which all that is said is that none should be gathered on the seventh day, but a double portion the day before. And besides all this, not only does the Sabbath (if this is its first institution) receive less consideration, as to its relative importance, than the Passover, but even less than the manna itself, which had just been rained down from Heaven. The manna would cease as soon as the promised land was reached, and then it would be no longer required ; its only memorial being the golden pot of manna laid up in the Ark of the Covenant, with Aaron's rod, and the Tables of the Covenant.^ Yet there is a most explicit minuteness about all the details of its regulation ; whereas by comparison the Sabbath, which was to be so stringently kept and jealously guarded, is introduced as a kind of " rider " (speaking mathematically), or chance appendage, shadowy, imperfect, in marked contrast to the other. It is in point of fact, the manna which is the new thing, the Sabbath is the old. And the Sabbath is not so much as mentioned by God till the whole falling and gather- ing of the manna is over. The only point He mentions by anticipation is that on the sixth day He would shower down a double supply. God does not intrust Moses with any new revelation about the Sabbath ; the very most we can concede is, that He may have fixed the seventh day, declaring which * Heb, ix. 4. THE SABBATH KNOWN BEFORE THE SINAITIC LAW. 59 was the day of rest, if it had been forgotten by desuetude in their house of bondage. But the whole narrative takes for granted a previous knowledge on the part of Moses, and of the people too, of a seventh day period of repose, and a Sabbath law. II. We now pass on to observe that the narrative clearly points back to a primeval Sabbath. If we regard the Sabbath as having been first instituted at creation, then all the strange- ness and inconsistency with which Exodus xvi. would be encumbered, disappear as in a moment. Not only so, but the sanctification, which we find appended to the first in- stitution in Gen. ii., does not even appear in the second direct notice of it in Exod. xvi., nor is the end of its appointment even hinted at. But assuming the primeval institution of the Sabbath of Creation, taking for granted the plain meaning of the words in Gen. ii., not allowing that they are anticipa- tory, and discarding the proleptical theory, as it is called, then all is plain, and the key naturally turns in the wards of the lock which it fits. To begin with. If the " Sabbath was made for man," as we have the highest authority to be the case, then we can understand why the Sabbath of Creation was given to Adam. It was given to him on account of the general and repre- sentative character in which Adam stood to the whole creation. Being given to him as our federal head, it was given, we may be sure, to the whole human race, to the totality of mankind. Had it been given to Moses either at the time of the manna, or as a Jewish Sabbath, it would have been binding only on the Jewish people. We Gentiles do not keep circumcision, for that was a sign of covenant between God and the elect people' The distinctive rites of Judaism were for Canaan, and not for the world. We may have our national days of commemora- tion, with which the rest of the world will take no heed. But if we believe that there is an eternal necessity in man's nature for rest and repose on recurring seventh day periods, then we understand how the Sabbath was given to man through Adam. It was the rest of God, for we read, " He was re- freshed ; " but the seventh day was not made for God, but for His creatures, especially man. Nor was it made for angels, nor even for the Jews alone, the seed of Abraham ; but for man, for Adam, for the antediluvians, for those who lived 6o THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. for the 1600 years before the flood, for the great fathers of the patriarchal age, and for all nations (including the Jews) who lived during the 2500 years which elapsed between the first and second direct mention of the Sabbath. Is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not of the Gentiles too? Yes, of the Gentiles also. The declaration about the seventh day occurs thrice in the first three verses of the second chapter of Genesis, which has been well described as the Magna Charta of the Sabbath. God could have created everything in a moment had He so chosen, by the word of His Power ; but He spread creation works over six successive day-periods, and rested on the seventh, as if to give this newly formed creature, man, a most conspicuous and arresting illustration, as to how his time should be mapped out between labour and rest. He rested on the seventh day ; and in the third verse it is shown that that seventh day, in its recurring periods, was not ephemeral or transitory, but that it was the inauguration of an ordinance which was to be binding on all times. He sanctified it, i.e. set it apart, or consecrated it, and fenced it off from profane uses. He blessed it, that is, endued it with that potentiality for ful- filling the special purpose for which it had been set apart. It was hallowed for the rest of man's complex nature. Now such is the obvious meaning of the gift and the com- mandment, and if language means any thing at all, we must come to the conclusion, that the record of Genesis tells us that the weekly Sabbath was thus instituted at the completion of, or rather included in, the Mosaic creation. Can we for a moment imagine it possible, that God instituted the Sabbath in the time of Adam, but delayed its action, or suspended its function, for 2500 years, till the miracle of the manna in the desert ? It is most improbable, that two such very different events should be placed together. Would Moses have inserted the sanctification of the Sabbath in the primeval records of Creation, if the law had not taken place then, but was put off almost sine die? Moses' style of writing is too simple and didactic to admit of such an artificial arrangement, and the second account (if by his hand), which begins with the fourth verse, is supplementary, and begins where the account of the Sabbath ends ; nor does that second account contain any notice of the institution, probably for this very reason, because it THE SABBATH KNOWN BEFORE THE SINAITIC LAW. 6i had been so fully given at the end of the first. Besides which the verse is inseparable from the context, and it forms an integral and inseparable portion of the Creation narrative. This verse is no anticipatory reference (especially if he had any documents to guide him) derived from what happened in Moses' time, but is an original assertion of a contemporary fact. Again, how can we account for the number seven, for the days of the week,^ this mysterious use so frequent every- where of this, which has been called the perfect number ? We have this confirmed by the Assyrian monuments. Here is a Chaldean account of the Creation, independent of, but corro- borative of, that contained in the Bible. On the fifth tablet, which contains the Chaldean Creation series, the following lines occur, which distinctly affirm the institution of the Sabbath to have been coeval with Creation : — " On the seventh day He appointed a holy day ; And to cease from all business He commanded." The Babylonians, it would appear, observed the Sabbath day with considerable strictness, and it is evident, from the above, that they traced it back to Creation. That the iveekly Sabbath was instituted directly after the creation may be gathered from the use of the " week " as a customary division of time in the earliest history of the world. Men very early began to make use of the week as a notation of time, that we must assign some cause for this fact. It became woven, even in remote antiquity, into the very roots and earliest growths of human society, even where the worship of Jehovah and the sacredness of the seventh day were unknown. There must have been some external controlling cause determining this, but not one suggested by the movements of the heavenly bodies, which influence the day, month, or year. Such a cause must have been the weekly recurring Sabbath, for we cannot find any other satisfactory alternative. We find it in the Bible. Noah sends out the dove thrice at intervals of seven days : Abraham's servant requests to stay "days or ten," which probably means " a week or ten days " : Jacob fulfils his week of seven years : Joseph mourns seventy days or ten weeks for * Professor Eadie says, in Biblical Cyclopadia, " In all the countries of the East, among ancient nations, before they had any knowledge of sacred history, and even in the uncultivated tribes of Africa, this division is recognized, and the days of the week named." 62 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. Jacob, and another week is spent in the land of Canaan, when his body was taken to the cave of Macpelah. This division of time is found all over the East, even in the uncultivated tribes of Africa ; but especially do we find it among the Egyptians, who named the days of the week after the then known seven heavenly bodies of the solar system. The festival of their god Apis (the original of the golden calf) lasted for seven days. Then there is the seventh-day periodicity^ found in nature, and in certain diseases, as if the Creator had stamped on His creatures an abiding memorial of His work and rest, a memorial which no neglect or apostacy on man's part should ever be able to obliterate. The sacredness of the number seven we need do no more than allude to, as it is so well known. In the case of Balaam, thrice did he build seven altars and offer seven rams, a number evidently denoting fulness, completion, sanctity, or perfection. Surely we have in all this a cumulative proof that the seventh day of rest at the Creation came in force soon after the gift, and that the primeval institution was for mankind as a whole. HI. We observe, lastly, that the silence of the Patriarchal age is no disproof of its existence. For it will be found that there are other facts omitted for which no reason is given, and we have traces or glimpses of the Sabbath even in the Church of the Patriarchs, or Abrahamic economy, (i) Now, to begin with, we have nothing which at all implies a denial of the Sabbath ; there is not one single passage, which contains a positive fact, that the Sabbatic institution was not observed for the 2500 years after the positive assertion had been made at the beginning of Genesis, and end of the Mosaic creation. We might say the original law of marriage was lost for a much longer period, till our Saviour rescued it, and reasserted the primary and binding appointment of the Almighty. No mention is made of sacrifices from the time of Abel till the Deluge, a period of 1500 years ; nor from the arrival of Jacob ' "A septiform periodicity is stamped upon the Bible as conspicuously and even more so, than on Nature. The whole of its chronology — beginning with the order of Creation unfolded in its earliest chapters, including the entire order of Providence revealed in its succeeding portion, and the typical and actual chrono- logy of redemption itself — is regulated by the law of weeks. The times prior to the existence of man ; the times recorded by the histories of the Pentateuch ; the times enacted by the Mosaic ritual ; the times traceable in Jewish history ; and the times unfolded by the prophets ; all are, without exception, characterized by this feature."— 77/f Approaching End of the Age, by H. Grattan Guinness. THE SABBATH KNOWN BEFORE THE SINAITIC LAW. 63 at Beersheba till the deliverance from Egypt, a space of nearly three hundred years : but does this prove that there were no sacrifices offered ? We read nothing about circumcision from the death of Moses to the days of Jeremiah, an interval of eight centuries ; but does that silence rnean that the rite was not performed ? But omission is not, as we have been often reminded of late, proJiibitio7i. No mention of the Sabbath occurs in the Books of Joshua, Ruth, Samuel I. and II., and I Kings, which are histories so much more detailed than that •of Genesis ; and yet this was under the Mosaic law, when the institution was confessedly in its fullest vigour. The ordinance of the red heifer is never once noticed from the time of the Pentateuch till the close of the Old Testament canon ; but St. Paul refers to it, and argues from it in the New, as a rite well known and in constant use. Even in the Book of Psalms and in the prophets, the Sabbath is seldom expressly mentioned, except when the neglect of it provoked the Almighty. So little force is there in the objection, even allowing it all it demands ; nor is there a single passage in Genesis where the absence of Sabbath re- ferences seems strange or anomalous. We might have ex- pected, as so much is insisted on from the argument of silence, that there would be frequent instances, " thick as autumnal leaves," where Sabbath-mention is imperiously called for, but where it is conspicuous by its absence ; we might expect to find many passages where the Sabbath is totally ignored, and so patently disregarded, that we should wonder what had become of the original institution. Instead of which it will be easy to show that such is the limited space in which vast periods are disposed of, and such is the character of the particular events, that not a single instance can be pointed to, in ivJiicJi the absence of a Sabbath alhision is in the least remarkable. But could we have expected any other to be the case, when we consider the conciseness of the first book of Moses ? The vast stretch of time from the creation to the flood is summed up in three or four pages. And the book of Genesis, which embraces a period of 2500 years, might almost be read through at a sitting. From the twelfth chapter the book is mainly taken up with the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Joseph, i.e. the Patriarchs. Each life is epitomized, so to speak, as 64 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN' SUNDA Y. briefly as possible ; the life of Isaac, the typical Patriarch, the concrete embodiment of the Semitic or Eastern character, being dismissed in one single chapter. Was it likely to find Sabbath observation in such a chapter as this, or in those detailing the making of the ark, Hagar's flight, the destruction of Sodom, the purchase of a burial place at Ephron, or the fraud of Jacob, or the history of his wives and cattle, the dreams of Pharaoh, or the pilgrimage of Jacob into Egypt? No. It is impossible to point the finger to a single passage where we can say the absence here of all Sabbath allusion is most strange and un- accountable. (2) But although there is no positive mention of the Sabbath in Genesis, we yet find traces of it in the Patriarchal age. We gather this from the history of the Patriarchal Church. For if there were patriarchal places of worship, if there were Priests to conduct the worship, if there were tithes paid to them, if there were decent robes (goodly raiment) where- in those priests ministered at the worship, if there were forms connected with that worship, so must there have been stated seasons set apart for it. Although there may be only hi7its to be found for our guidance, glimpses there are of the divine institution of the Sabbath as a day of religious duties, even from the beginning, for there could be no worship if there were no stated times as well as places. The Patriarchs erected altars wherever they went, and called upon God. Abraham " stood yet " before the Lord, i.e. in prayer and sacrifice ; Rebecca "went to enquire of the Lord," i.e. to some place where there was an altar, or tent for worship. And places of worship imply times, stated and regularly recurring, which would be followed by those " who walked with God," and were " the preachers of righteousness." The Land of Canaan was dotted all over with these memorials of their piety and righteousness, who lived the life of faith on God. But we are not told how often and when they were used. Yet God Himself gives this testimony of Abraham's fidelity, " Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my commandments, my statutes and my laws." ^ But what are these, and where is the revelation of them ? We are only told of two — " Walk before Me, and be thou perfect," and " Every man child shall be circumcised." There must have been other statutes and laws not mentioned ' Gen. xxvi. 5. THE SABBATH KNOWN BEFORE THE SINAITIC LAW. 65 " given " to him who came out of Ur of the Chaldees, the land of idolaters ; and may we not safely conclude the Sabbath would not be omitted ? But Genesis is not so destitute of indirect corroborations of the existence of the Sabbath as some might imagine. Cain and Abel brought their sacrifices " in process of time," or, as it is in the margin, at the end of days. And as up to this time we have only had one division of days, the six days' creation and the seventh day of rest, may we not reasonably suppose that holy season was here referred to ? To come to Noah's time. The Lord said unto him, "Yet seven days and I will cause it to rain on the earth." And again, " It came to pass after seven days the waters of the flood were on the earth." And when the flood was decreasing, Noah sent forth the dove three times at intervals of seven days. Can it be doubtful that days were reckoned by portions of seven, and that that method of calculation was familiar to the Patriarchs ? The return of the seven days brought something peculiar with it, and that peculiarity must have been the rest of the holy Sabbath. Accordingly, after the flood, the tradition of that division of time spread over the whole Eastern world — Assyrians, Egyptians, Indians, Arabians, and Persians, all unite with the Israelites in retaining vestiges of it. In the earliest heathen writers — Hesiod, Homer, and Callimachus — the sanctity of the seventh day is referred to as a matter of notoriety. Philo the Jew declared there was no nation under heaven where the opinion had not reached. Heathen festivals even fell into the hebdomadal cycle, and the number of the days of the week followed this notation, which denotes fulness and sufficiency. We might allude to Abraham's history, when the rite of circumcision was performed after a lapse of seven days from the birth ; to Jacob, who fulfilled his week for his two wives ;^ to holy Job, who speaks of " a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord," ^ but enough has been said as to stated days and seven-day periods. The genera- tions between Adam and Moses had like needs to ourselves, and if " the Sabbath was made for man," we must conclude that, not only was the institution known to those who lived during the 2500 years after the creation, but was observed more or less perfectly by those who lived during that long period. ' Gen. xxix. 27. "" Job i. 10. 66 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. At all events, the mere silence of Scripture can never be fairly alleged against the previous institution of the Sabbath in Paradise, when even the admission that the patriarchs had actually lost the traces, or neglected the celebration, of it, would have had no such consequence. It is clear, therefore, that the Sabbath was known to the Israelites before the promulgation of the Sinaitic law, and that this Sabbatical institution can only be referred to, in the " rest " of the Creation Sabbath. Let us, therefore, thank the good God for such an insti- tution, and use reverently His rest-day for the rest of our complex nature, and as an opportunity for the holy worship of the God who is a Spirit, in spirit and in truth, for such God delights to worship Him. Let us, on the Lord's day — "the day of Bread " (as the early Christians called it) — in our pil- grimage through this world's wilderness to the heavenly Canaan, feed on our spiritual manna, even the Bread which came down from heaven, for the life and sustenance of our souls. IV. "THE SABBATH INSTITUTION AS A LAW, ITS CHARACTER, AND THE MOTIVES TO ITS PROMULGATION." ^ Exodus xx. 8-ii. Deut. v. 12-18. "MfTjtrOrjTt rr/v yjixipav rSiv cralS^aTciii' aytdffeiv avTrjv. "E| r]/j.epas epya, Koi iroLrjcreis irivTa TO, epya ffov. Tfj 5e V/JL^pa. rrj e/35o'/iJ) (rdl3l3aTa Kuplcfi r<^ Qeai (Tou- oh Troiricreis iv avTTJ irav epyov (tv, koI h vlos (Tov, Kal r) duydrrjp ffov, 6 irais ffov, Kal f) iraiBlffKr] ffov, 6 /SoCs ffov, Ka\ Th viro^vyiov ffov, Kal irav ktyjuSs ffov, Kal 6 irpofffiXvTos 6 wapot- Kuv eV ffoL 'Evyap e| r^ikpais iirolriffe Kvpios rhv oupavhv Kal ti)v yTJi/ Kal Trjv OdXaffffav, Kal irdvTa to eV oiiTots, Kal Kareiravffe Tjj 7)fispc^ rp i0S6fjLrj- Sia tovto ev\6yr]ffe Kvpios Trjv riixipav t^v efiSo/xriv, Kal fjyiaffev a\jrr]v." "^vKa^ai Tr)v f]fj,epav rwv ffafifidrwv ay id^nv avr^v, '6v Tpdirov eyere/AarJ ffot Kvpios 6 Qehs ffov. "E| r^ixepas epya, Kal rroi^ffeis irdvra to, epya ffov, r-p Sh Tj/xepcf tjJ" effd6fji.r] ffd^l3aTa Kvpltji Tq3 @e(S ffov ov iroiriffus tv avry irav epyov oh Kal 6 vios ffov Kal f] dvydri]p ffov, b Trais ffov koL t) iraiSlffKr) ffov 6 ^ovs Kal rh vno^vyiov ffOv, Kal irav KTTJvos ffov, Kal irpoffTiKvTO'i 6 TrapotKcev iv ffoi, 'iva avairaiiffriTai 6 iroTs ffov, /cat ri iraiSiffKri ffov, Kal tJ> vwo^vyiSv ffov, Siffwep koI ffv. Kal fivTiffBriffrj '6ti oIk4tt]s fjffQa iv yfj AlyvTTTCfi, Kal i^riyayt ff€ Kvpios 6 QeSs ffov iKeldev ev x^'P' Kparai^ Kal iv fipax'iovi vi\ii)\(ti- Sia TOVTO ffvviTa^e aoi Kvpios h @e6s ffov aSffre (pvXdffffeffdai t))v yj/xepav tqiv ffa$^dTCi)v Kal aytd^etv avTi)v. " At quique sacratissino Hujus diei tempore Horis quietis psallimus Donis beatis muneret." (In Dominicis ad matutinas. E. Brev. Sar.) That the Sabbath was pre-Mosaic, observed during the Patriarchal ages, and dates back to Creation and the garden of Eden, must be evident to the critical student of that con- cise, and, if you will, fragmentary record of the book of Genesis. The seventh day, as a day of rest and joy would have been * This sermon was preached in substance at St, Paul's church, on Sunday morning (Palm Sunday), April loth, iSSi. 68 THE LORD'S DA V; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. perpetuated, from Creation itself, to the end of time, had not sin entered into the world. But by that event the goodly gift of Paradise was marred, although it was not utterly destroyed. With the fall of man, the Sabbath, like man himself, entered into a new and humbling stage of its history. It could no longer enjoy the fulness of the original Presence and Bless- ing, for sin shut out that Presence. Yet the wreck of its former self might, and Scripture and Gentile tradition testify that it did, remain to comfort man in his fallen estate. ■ It was, there is reason to believe, even in the Patriarchal Church, still observed by the devout with sacrifices and services. If there were altars, and priests, and services, when men " stood before the Lord," and " went to enquire of the Lord," there must have been stated times and regular seasons, rest days and Sabbatisms, in which such worship was performed. The second lamb, ofifered on the Sabbath day by the Law of Moses was probably the remains of the patriarchal custom, handed down through Abraham, the father of the faithful, in whose person began the corporate life of the Church. But such sacrificial modes of approach, and the abeyance of God's visible Presence, even on that favoured day, mournfully proved how far it had fallen from its original height of privilege, and of efficiency for its purpose. The "blessing," and "sanctification/' were but a shadow of what had been once, and was destined to be yet again. The Sabbath, fallen from its high estate, was still the Sabbath of the Lord, and if for the time was inadequate for its ancient purpose, was certain to rise up again. The Law of Moses, while it restored some of the ancient privileges of the Sabbath, and brought men nearer to God's Presence, yet added likewise to its burdens, in annexing the penalty of death to a breach of its requirements. Like the Mount, the Sabbath brought God nearer to man, and was a temple in which He might be approached. But it brought Him nearer also in terrors, so it needed to be fenced round with threatenings, like the Mount, lest they should die. Man could not yet endure the Presence of God without special precautions. The ancient Rest of God, instead of shedding a cheering light and warmth upon the day, as formerly, now cast a sort of lurid glow. Under one aspect indeed, it was (as it could not help being) " a delight," because " holy unto THE SABBATH INSTITUTION AS A LAW. 69 the Lord and honourable ; " but from another point of view, it was a burden, spent partly in joy, in remembrance of creation, and of the deliverance ^ out of Egypt (as it should seem) on that day : " 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," spent partly in terror under a sense of the terrific threats of the Law ; it still needed to be remade altogether, ere it could bear any close resemblance to the Sabbath days of Paradise. But we are anticipating. It is clear that the Sabbath was known to Moses before the law was given from Sinai, else he could not have said to the Israelites in connection with the giving of manna, " to- morrow (is) the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord, ye shall not find manna in the field." The absence of manna proved the presence of the Sabbath, and the preservation of manna through the Sabbath day (and this for forty years in the wilderness), and not through any other day of the week, was a periodical proof from Heaven itself, of the sanctity of the Sabbath. But although the Lord had given the Sabbath, " see, for that the Lord hath given (t^wicfv, aorist, denoting a completed act) you the Sabbath," ^ it had not yet been comprehended as a law, and promulged as such. And this brings us to a new stage in the history of the Sabbatical rest. Up to this time the Sabbath had been a fact, a blessed gift and privilege of Almighty God, a day of rest and worship, observed more or less by the Patriarchs, fallen into desuetude more or less during Israel's captivity in Egypt, and now restored to some- what of its former position and glory during their wanderings. But it had not become a direct enactment, a positive law, a controlling statute, bound up in a code of jurisprudence. We come now to consider the Sabbath institution as a laiv, its character^ and the motives to its promulgation from Mount Sinai.^ I. And first we notice that the Sabbath was included in the * Deut. V. 15. ^ Exod. xvi. 29. ' "The first table directs the eye of man upwards, to God— to the Person of the one, holy spiritual God ; the second downwards, to the relations of earth, which God has instituted andvvhich he is required to maintain."— Kurtz, History of the Old Covenant, vol. iii. p. 135. 70 THE LORD'S DA Vj OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. Decalogue, or the " Ten Words " of Jehovah, i.e. the ten Com- mandments, of the moral law of God. As such then it is a part of the moral law of God, just as binding as any of the other nine, and we must remember that there is a broad line of demarcation between these commandments and the cere- monial usages under the law. For what is the character of the Decalogue, or code of ten Commandments, in which the sanc- tification of one day in seven is prescribed ? Was it a new code ? Did the Decalogue make it {i.e. as something new) criminal to commit murder or adultery ? Was theft no sin before the law of Moses said " Thou shalt not steal " ? No. Vv^hat then is the Decalogue .? The Decalogue is the summary of the im- mutable law, the unchanging moral law of God Himself, written upon the heart of Adam before the fall. These com- mands were kept, in substance, by the Patriarchs, before they were reduced to a code. They are the concreted attributes of Deity itself They are the eternal rules of right and wrong, resting on the authoritative will of God, and arising from the essential relations in which man stands to his Creator and his fellow-creatures. They form the standard of human obedience, and the rescript of Divine holiness. The universality and un- changing authority of these precepts is the foundation of all society, religious and civil ; it is the rule of domestic life, and bond of government. The Decalogue was not a neiv code, but a declaration of original law ; a republication of the divine edicts given at the beginning. It was a restoration of primi- tive jurisprudence.^ And if this be the case — and what else ' " Deut. V. 12. Observa diem sabbati ut sanctifices cum. " Hie uti et Exodi xx. perfectum de sabbato colendo datur prseceptum cujus prseludium et inchoatio in manna praecessit, Exod. xvi. 23, imo in genesi mundi : exinde enim coli coepisse sabbatum, ostendi Gen. ii. 3. " Nota. Praeceptum hoc, quatenus diem et tempus aliquod Dei cultui publico et externo dandum prsecipit, morale est et naturale : hoc enim faciendum esse, dictat lex naturce : quatenus vero diem septimum, sive sabbatum ad hoc deter- minat, eoque quiescere jubet, ceeremoniale est, ideoque jam in lege nova abolitum. Ita D. Thom. 2. 2. 9, 122, art 4 ad i. " Nota secundo. Sabbatum, id est, quies Dei, quo scilicet Deus ab opere crea- tionis cessavit die septimo mundi, sacramentum fuit, et causa legalis et caeremoni- alis hujus festi sabbati. Hoc festum rursum, allegoiice typus erat sabbati, id est quietis, qua Christus quievit in sepulchre eodem die. Tropolog, vero typus erat sabbati nostri, quo a peccatis cessare debemus, de quo vide Athanas. horn in illud : Omnia mihi tradita sunt et S. Hieron in c. 59 Isaite, et S. Gregorium, lib. ii. Reg. Ep. 3. Anagogice vero sabbatum typus erat et causa sabbati et quietis asternse in coelis, uti docet S. Paulus Heb. iv. 3, nam ut ait S. Johannes Apoc. xiv. 13. Amodo jam dicit spiritus, et reqtdescant a laboribus stns ; opera enim illortmi seqtmn- THE SABBATH INSTITUTION AS A LAW. 71 can it be ? — are we to imagine that the first three command- ments have a moral meaning and universal application, and the laws of the second table have a moral meaning and uni- versal application, and yet that the fourth commandment, which is enshrined among, and embedded between, them by the hand of God Himself, has no such moral significance which prescribes the sanctification of one day in seven ; that virtually and in substance it has no such perpetual obligation ? Can we suppose, that a code written and graven with the finger of God was so incorrectly framed ? Nay, rather it is like the vesture of Christ, the seamless robe of Christ, woven from the top throughout ; ^ we must and dare not take the two Tables of the Covenant into our hands and erase the last of the first Table, leaving only nine. If this were permissible, what does the Church of England mean by putting the whole of the Decalogue into the hands of her children, neither more nor less, as a summary of Christian duty, and rule of holy obedience ? Why does she recite the fourth commandment froni her altars on the Lord's day, and all the year round, and tur illos. Unde Rupertus hoc prseceptum anagogice sic exponit, 9. 8. Memento ut diem sabbati sandifices, id est, in omnibus operibus tuis Dei retributionem, et requiem seternam paratam attende." — Script. Sacr. Cursus Compl., vol. vii. p. 187. " Ut sandifices cum. Observa et celebra sabbatum, quasi sanctum et a reli- quis diebus separatum, quietique et recolendo creationis operi, aliisque Dei bene- ficiis dicatum, cujus finis ut te moneam, addidi vocem memento, Exod. xx. 8. Hasc ergo sanctificatio sabbati, qute hie directe prsecipitur, non erat alia, quam vacatio ab omni opere, ut patet v. II, et Exodi xx. 10, nan colendo hoc modo sabbatum, ut jusserat Deus, tacite profitebantur Hebrsei, Deum creatorem esse, et largitorem bonorum omnium. Finis vero prascepti erat, ut otium haberent vacandi Deo rebus- que divinis, et Dei beneficiis recolendis unde Exodi xx. 11, dicitur quod Deus benedixerit et sanctificaverit sabbatum, videlicet hoc ipso quo sabbatum ab aliis diebus ad sui cultum jam dictum segregavit. Scribit Josephus lib. 7. Belli 14 et Plinius lib. xxi. 2, in Judsea fluvium esse qui per sex dies fluat, septimo fluere desinat, relinquatque alveum siccum, ideoque eum sabbaticiim vocari. Nota, Sabbati summa erat solemnitas praa ceteris festis omnibus : inde nee cibum in eo parare licebat, uti de manna vidimus Exodi xvi. 29, me ignem accendere, ut patet Exod xxxv. 3, quffi tamen in aliis festis facere licebat. Hinc factum est, ut nomen sabbati omnibus aliis festis communicaretur, omniaque vocarentur sabbata, ut patet Lev'it. xxiii. 24, 33, imo et tota hebdomada a potior! sui parte et die, vocaretur sabbatum (hinc ait Pharisteus ; Jejiuio bis in sabbato id est in hebdo- mada) atque a Sabbato reliqui dies denominarentur, ut prima sabbati, sive post sabbatum, erat dies Dominica : secunda sabbati erat dies luna;, et ita consequenter. Vidi S. Hieron epist 150 ad Hedibiam. Usurpatur autem subinde pluralis pro singulari, idemque est Sabbata et Sabbatum ut una sabbatorum est prima sabbati. Script. Sacr. Cursus Compl., tom. vii. p. 190. (Parisiis, 1S39.) ' John xix. 23. 72 THE LORD'S DA V; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. put into the mouths of her people a solemn supplication, asking pardon for the violation of this as of the other com- mandments, and prayer for grace to keep it ? " Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep t/iis law," and again at the end, " write a// these Thy laws in our hearts, we beseech Thee." Now the sanctification of one day in seven is a matter of positive institution,-^ for though we may see the moral fitness of having some portion of time set apart for sacred purposes, we may not see the reason of a seventh day period of rest and worship. But Almighty God does everything in number and * "In the preceding commandments all the fmidamental principles of the service of God are indicated and asserted that this service, as rendered by man on earth, nmst want definiteness and form unless Divine Law should determine some order and proportion in respect of time. The fourth commandment expresses in the form of law the principles in regard to man's use of time which are involved in God's creation of man. It must be noticed that in this law the duty of fulfilling during six days the original precept to replenish the earth and subdue it, which involves a very large and important class of practical duties and responsibilities, which we owe to God and not man only, is as distinctly asserted as the duty of resting from such labour after the example of our Creator on the seventh day. The interpretation and application of this law, which was suited for the Mosaic dispensation, we need not consider, here at least, except to observe that the secondary laws on this subject, by increasing the proportion of days which should be criven to religious worship, and observed as " Sabbaths," themselves prove that this commandment, as well as all others, though given' for the instruction and direction of the conscience, is to be observed by man in the spirit and not in the letter. "Regarding it in this light, we must consider the fourth commandment, in its positive aspect, as indicating the duty of man to devote a sufficient portion of his time to the worship of God and to those pursuits which belong to the spiritual world. What the proportion should be, must be determined by the enlightened spirit of the Christian directed by law itself, but not interpreting it in the literal and servile spirit of Scribes and Pharisees, which by drawing a hard and fast line between day and day would contradict the law itself. On the other hand, in its negative aspect this law includes duties to our fellow-man, and even to the beasts of the field which labour in the service of man ; and the mention of these last proves that the physical value of a periodical day of rest is a principle of this law. It is in this aspect of the Sabbath, as a day of rest for our fellow-men who serve us, that Moses in reminding the Israelites of this commandment in his last addresses to them, connects it with those deliverances from the land of their bondage, when their Egyptian taskmasters allowed them no rest ; and, in reference to this, the particular day fixed for the Sabbath under the Mosaic law, was the day which began with the evening when they came out of Egypt." — hitroduction to Penta- teuch, Sect. 39, p. xxviii., by the Right Rev. H. Cotterill, D.D. , Bishop of Edinburgh. " I am informed by a learned Chinese friend, that although amongst them the hebdomadal division is not retained, yet according to one of their sacred books, the I -King or ' Book of Changes,' ' the revolution of the order of the universe is com- pleted in seven days.' " — Quoted by the Lord Bishop of Edinburgh, Introd. p. xi. THE SABBATH IXSTITVTIOX AS A LAW. 73 in weight.^ We do not as yet understand the secret har- monies of the Divine arithmetic. When, however, we hear the music of Heaven, they may be more fully revealed to us. That there are such harmonies in numbers is clear from Holy Scripture, and also tradition. The marvellous way in which the number seven is ever recurring in the sacred writings, as if it were invested with a sacred dignity, and endued with a holy significance, makes us think that there is far more than we "dream of in our philosophy," in the setting apart of one seventh of the world's time to holy uses and consecrating it to God. We may not see, I say, the moral fitness of setting apart one day in seven, though we may some stated period of our lives, to holy purposes. And so the fourth commandment is not seen by us to rest on the same ground of natural morality as the other nine. But perhaps for this very reason it maybe all the better a test of our faith and obedience to God than the other nine of which the reason is self-evident. We must obey God in all His commands. But if we do things of which we see the reason, we may not be obeying God, but ourselves. Therefore Almighty God tests our faith by commanding things of which we do not see the reason. If we take the first commandment God ever gave, and on which the happiness of man depended, " of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat ; in the day thou eatest therefrom, thou shalt surely die." ^ Adam did not see the moral reasons why he might eat of every other tree in that beautiful garden and yet not eat of that. He might have argued thus : " if the tree is not good, why did God plant it in Paradise ; and if it is good, what can possibly be the harm of my tasting it ? " Again, Abraham did not see the reason why he was commanded to offer up his only son. On the contrary, the command seemed to be contrary to reason. Thus we see the faith and obedience in these two instances were tested by two commandments, the one seemingly without reason, and the other against reason. So with regard to the fourth commandment, of which we do not see the reason, it may have been given for this very purpose, as the best trial of our moral qualities, that is, of our faith and obedience. The practical question then for us is. Does the fourth com- mandment come from God, and is it addressed to us, who arc ' Wisdom xi. 20. ^ Gen. ii. 17. 74 THE LORD'S DAY ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. not Jews ? Now it never Jias been denied that it came from God, hallowed by the most solemn surroundings, spoken by His voice, and written by His finger (a second time too) on stone, the Tables of which were deposited in the Ark. That it concerns us is clear from the fact that it dates back to Creation, and is based upon it ; that is, it is grounded upon what concerns all created beings, and every thing that is made. \ For the commandment is thus introduced, " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," and the reason assigned is ''^ for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is," and on the seventh was refreshed.^ And then the thought arises, " Did not God make the heaven and the earth for ns as well as the Jews ? Is he not our Maker and Father as well as theirs ? Does not creation and the handi- work of our God concern us as much as them .-' Surely it does, and very much more. For we know what the Jews did not know, that by " Christ all things were made." By Him, the Eternal Word, " all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made." ^ And therefore a religious duty, grounded on Creation, concerns us as men, " for we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture," and especially as Christians, for by the power of Christ all things consist. Since, then, God commanded the Jews under solemn sanction to hallow one day in seven ; and since He punished its violation with severe chastisement, and promised rich bless- ings to those who observed it ; and since it is an elementary principle of natural reason that God should be worshipped — and by consequence a special day of periodic recurrence is to be set apart for its honour and service ; and since it is a matter of experience, that our nature, which is God's work, needs rest and spiritual refreshment ; then surely it will follow by logical inference, that we Christians, who are so much more highly favoured by God than were the Jews, and who in the work of Creation and Preservation of the Universe see the operation of Christ, and who in addition to the blessings of Creation, ought to celebrate those of the Redemption and Sanctification (the facts of Easter-day and Whit-Sunday) are * " We are bound," says Hooker, " to account the sanctification of one day in seven a duty which God's immutable law doth exact for ever : the moral law requiring a seventh part throughout the age of the whole world to be so employed." Book V. Ixx. "- John i. 3. . THE SABBATH INSTITUTION AS A LAW. 75 bound to set apart no less portion of time than the Jews were obhged to do, for God's glory and our own spiritual profit, arid that of others, and for the concerns of Eternity. We owe more, and shall we pay less ? And may it not, therefore, be concluded, that if we neglect to hallow one day in seven, we may expect severer judgments than those with which the Jews were visited by God for profaning their Sabbaths, and that we may look for more gracious rewards to obedience in this respect than were vouchsafed to the ancient people of God, His chosen Israel ? The Sabbath is a sign or test of creaturely allegiance, as such, to the Creator. But to return to the Decalogue. The Sabbath institution established at Creation was embodied in the fourth command- ment. It therefore became a law, and being a part of the moral law of God, as such, is as unchangeable as God Himself. It was the original and primal ordinance, only put in the form of a command. The Sabbath was still a gift, and the fourth commandment made no alteration in the nature and intent of the original institution, except the imperative form now given to it. It recognized the primeval appointment of the day as connected with creation, and the primeval character of the day as one of holiness to God the Creator, and of rest to His creatures who need such repose. At the same time it enforced this double observation of it as a duty in obedience to an explicit command. The Sabbath became a law, and as such was incorporated in the Sinaitic Code, which God gave to Moses. But it was not only a gift but a protection, for whereas the fourth commandment stamps God's mark on the seventh day as specially belonging to Him, " The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ; " by laying certain restrictions on man's work, though prohibitory in character, it does secure to man his day of rest. For the work forbidden is servile work or toil, which men impose upon others rather than themselves, for gain or some personal advantage. And this beneficent protective design of the Sabbath Law, was for the Israelites made still more prominent by the subsequent declarations made by Moses, after the Law had been given. And this leads me to remark, that we must be very care- ful to distinguish the twofold character of this Sabbath Law. There was first the old primeval ordinance, and then there were certain added peculiarities for the Israelites. It was 76 THE LORD'S DAY ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. given to them as men first and Jews afterwards. They were shown that they owed allegiance to Jehovah as their Divine King, and that He was the real owner of all that belonged to them — their time, their goods, and even their lands. And so, having received the Sabbatical law, based on the primal con- ditions of creation-memorial as men, the Mosaic Sabbatical system was developed beyond the original ordinance of the simple week, and ramified through the whole of their system as Jezvs. Thus, besides the seventh day, their system included a seventh month, a seventh year, a seven times seven year, or jjibilce, all based on the same principle of notation. Besides which there were certain specified restrictions connected with their economy as Jews, such as the prohibition to light fires (except for necessary purposes), and to take a journey on the Sabbath. And in addition to these there were superadded certain sacerdotal acts in connection with the priesthood and the sacrifice, none of which — according to the highest authority, that of the Saviour Himself — profaned the day. But this was essential to the Jewish development or application of this Sabbath Law, and it is most important to make this distinc- tion. It is because this distinction has been lost sight of, men have shut their eyes to the fact, that the Sabbath is a memorial of the rest of Creation. And assuming the fourth commandment to be wholly and solely in its origin and application essentially Jewish, they contend it is no longer binding. But the fourth commandment is not Jewish, but universal ; it is for man as man. There it stands embedded in the rest of the commandments, and one of the longest too, beginning with a " remember " and ending with a " reason," and it must stand or fall with the rest of the code. Could anything be more solemn than the way in which it was promulged ? In itself and its surroundings it bears the strongest proofs of its designed breadth of application. Like the other nine it was spoken by the Divine voice. The voice of Almighty God Himself proclaimed it from the summit of the mountain in tones of thunder and vocalized sublimity, with accompani- ments of terrific grandeur, in the hearing of the awestruck multitude assembled below. The people heard the voice of God deliver this and the other nine commandments as the Ten Words of the immutable moral law, which mark their THE SABBATH INSTITUTION AS A LAW. 77 position and importance, and draw a distinction between these and all other judicial and ceremonial laws. It was ivritten with the other nine, by the finger of God Himself, upon the first of two tables of the Decalogue ; and it was written a second time by the same finger of God on renewed tablets (the first having been broken in anger by Moses at sight of the people's idolatry), the very same words (ipsissima verba), and with the same expressions (totidem verbis). This repeti- tion of manual acts gives the whole transaction increased impressiveness. This divine handiwork, this writing of God's finger, was laid up in the Ark of the Covenant, where the two tables were deposited, with other memorials, for the inspection of subsequent generations. As God's voice had been heard on the Mount, His zuritiug could be seen in the Ark. This commandment, I say, was deeply stamped with the mintage and impress of God's own Hand, as " with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever." And observe, I pray you, that it was placed in the midst of the Decalogue, among other moral and universal laws. It concludes the first table, it is at the head of, or rather prepares the way for, the second. From its position it has a sort of pivot character, round which the Ten Words move in perfect equipoise. It marks the transition from the one table to the other. It is the last command comprehended in the first table as the duty towards " God." It tells us not only that God demands the love of our hearts, and the worship of our com- plex being, but that our time, too, is at His disposal, " to serve Him truly all the days of our life." As the first command fixes the object of worship, and the second the means, and the third the reverential manner, so the fourth determines the time, and all these four contain our duty toivards God, i.e. they refer to God, and not to our neighbour or ourselves. It is the keeper and guardian of the preceding commands, and the preparation for the following. It makes the three first pre- cepts practicable. For after faith in one God, worship to Him, and reverence for His name, it prescribes the time in which this pure worship of the one only true God is to be celebrated, the persons who are to unite in it, and the inter- ruption of all ordinary labour without which it cannot be performed. In short, the fourth commandment accomplishes the first table by assigning the time and season when its 78 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. injunctions may be fulfilled, and its regulations carried into effect. This Sabbath commandment stands, to use the words of Dr. Chalmers, "enshrined among the moralities of a rectitude that is immutable and everlasting." It is no intruder, but seems, if only from its length and position, to lay its hands upon the other nine commands. It is their very centre and heart. There it is placed as a " brilliant diamond firmly set in a golden framework, receiving stability of place from the setting in which it is embedded, and returning richness of lustre, attractive beauty, and priceless value, to the framework in which it is preserved, and which it so truly adorns." Before leaving this part of the subject let us advert to the tenor of this fourth commandment. It is longer than, and unlike, the other nine ; it is more detailed and more explicit ; it is sustained by more reasons, and extends to more classes of persons. It is also introduced in different terms. Instead of beginning with a prohibition, or a mere injunction, it refers to some preceding enactment. " Remember " (now this word must recall something which had gone before and had been known) " Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," as if on purpose to connect the Sabbath of Paradise with its solemn republication at the establishment of the Mosaical dis- pensation— a design which is made far more apparent at the close of the commandment, by the citation of the reason given, and of the blessing and sanctification attached to the institu- tion of the Almighty, when He first granted a day of rest and holy worship to man at his creation. Nor must we omit to notice the awful solemnities which attended the promulgation of the moral law, of which the fourth commandment forms such a conspicuous part, its terrific surroundings, and awe-inspiring accompaniments. What a contrast to Eden was Sinai. There the first institution of the Sabbath was registered in the legible characters of creation, and the written record was brief and general. Now it is surrounded with traits of visible glory, the awful voice of words, a detailed record, and reference to a previous enact- ment. The other parts of the Jewish economy were conveyed by calm impressions, this by thunderings and lightnings, attendant angels, the trembling mount, the sounding trumpet, the thick darkness, the cloud-compelling Deity, and all the THE SABBATH INSTITUTION AS A LAW. 79 terrors, at which Moses " exceedingly feared and quaked." Picture the solemn scene, which surrounds the giving of the moral law, the Sabbatical precept being amongst them. Listen : the trumpet is sounding long, and waxing louder and louder, rocks are rending, the mountain is smoking and quaking greatly, fire is devouring, and the assembled people, in terror, are fenced ofif from the holy mount, out of which the voice of words is uttered. See : no one but the great law-giver must approach the sacred precincts, where God abides as a devouring fire, and even he must be hidden in a cleft of the rock — " if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it is stoned or thrust through with a dart." Behold : two tables of stone are prepared by the Almighty Himself, and on these the finger of God inscribes the immutable and unchangeable moral law, the ten commandments, and addeth no more! These first tables are broken, and then replaced by two other tables on which the same Divine Hand writes the same ten Words over again, which are finally deposited in the Ark of the Covenant, not with the rest of the Mosaic archives and statutes. Is it possible to find anything more solemn and majestic than all this ? Does not the transaction stand abso- lutely alone ? Is not the moral law of perpetual obligation elevated far beyond the ceremonial and transitory regulations ? Where is the man who would dare to reduce the number to nine precepts ? Who is the man who would eliminate the very precept, which so respects the honour of God, and the glory offered to His name ? which, standing in the very heart of the code, binds its injunctions together, and gives strength and consistence to the whole. II. We pass on now to consider the character of this law, and the first thing we notice is its antiquity. When the fourth commandment was incorporated into the moral law, it was no new law, but its very opening with the word " Remember " takes us back to some previous time on which both Jew and Gentile must concrete their gaze. Beyond Sinai, or Marah, or the giving of the manna, before Moses or Abraham or Noah, right back through the ages for upwards of 2500 years, the eye rests upon the horizon of this world's creation. It came down as a primeval ordinance, it took the mind back to Eden, it recalled the gift made to the first man, it transported the thought to the glories of creation, it bore witness to the love 8o THE LORD'S DA V; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. of the Creator in the ages long ago, and it came down sur- charged with the faith and obedience of the patriarchs, who had gone before. The other portions of the Sinaitic code were as immutable as this fourth precept, but they are not ushered in by a reference to a bygone age, nor are reasons given for them, nor are they correlated with primitive times or a nascent creation. The words that came thundering forth out of the smoking mount and devouring fire had the ring of antiquity about them, and the Israelites felt that the ordinance now endued with the force of law was not a first institution. They would reflect upon, and do these statutes and judgments. And if the Jew felt all this, what must not the Christian feel, when on bended knees he listens to those words which tell him for now 6000 years, for the time before and the time since Moses, all mankind have been reminded to keep holy the Sabbath. Will he not, admitting its claim of antiquity, pray, " Lord have mercy, and incline our hearts to keep //lis law," " write al/ these Thy laws in our hearts." And the next characteristic we observe is its universality. The whole wording of the commandment is broad and general, nor is there anything exclusively Jewish in it. It is made for man first, and for the Jew afterwards ; nor is it un- suitable for universal acceptance and use. There is nothing which confines it to any particular kind of government or race, nor does it refer to any one time, state, or country, or specific form of religious and moral truths. It is not given only to the Hebrew race. It has nothing more Mosaic or Sinaitic about it than any of the other nine precepts with which it is embodied. Without making the slightest verbal alteration, it is as suitable for us in the nineteenth century as it was to the Jews when it was first promulged to them. Like all the other commandments, it is as broad as the breadth of the Divine requirements as to morals and piety, and as general as the wants of human nature which need fundamental laws and religious sentiments to guide them. Now it is because they are laws of universal morality and obligation, these laws of the two tables are accorded the precedence over, and invested with far weightier honour than, the judicial or ceremonial laws, which were subsequently delivered. These moral laws had been in existence before, but had not been set out in details, though referred to and THE SABBATH INSTITUTION AS A LAW. 8 1 illustrated in life and practice. But when Moses, in Exodus, comes to his grand theme — the solemn proclamation of God's will to the Jew, and through him to all mankind — then he gathers up, as it were, the scattered emanations of light into a fo'^'s, and gives us in clear and unalterable detail that moral law, by which our all-wise and all-holy Creator has conditioned the well-being of the creature of His hand — man. Nor, if we look the whole Decalogue through, is there any- thing to make us infer that they were not to be permanent and universal. They received notable and special honour from God, in being spoken by His voice, and traced twice over in stone with His own finger. They were treated with special reverence in the Holy of Holies. And after the Mosaic economy had passed or was passing away, and the Gospel was being ushered in, they are referred to by Christ and His Apostles as having binding force even then. During our Lord's ministry, and after His ascension, the universality and comprehensiveness of the Decalogue appear" to be acknowledged on all hands. Our Lord refers again and again to the commandments, and summarises the two Tables by enforcing " love to God and love to neighbour," on these two commandments " hang all the law and the prophets." ^ If we would enter into life, we must keep the commandments, and these are at once exemplified as being those of the Decalogue.^ When St. Paul would enforce filial love among Gentiles he quotes the fifth commandment of the Decalogue, as still em- bodying the revealed will of God, and of general or universal application.^ Speaking of the " law " as still binding and good, St. Paul also by reference to its restriction,^ intimates that he regards it as distinctly summarised in the Decalogue. Again, when he says, " I had not known lust, except the law had said, thou shalt not covet " ^ — to what law can he possibly allude but that of the Decalogue? And therefore we must apply the Apostle's subsequent remarks to it also. " Where- fore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good."^ When, further, he speaks of that "fulfilling of the law," which Christian love produces, he does not explain that Christian love as something independent of the Decalogue. The successive requirements of the second table are indeed * Matt. xxii. 40. ^ Mark x. 19. ^ Eph. vi. i, 3. * I Tim. i. 8, 10. * Rom. vii. 7. ' Rom. vii. 12. G 82 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. enunciated as being the practical developments, which are implied and summed «/ in that general principle " love thy neighbour." ^ These passages are sufficient to prove that our Lord and His Apostles always made a marked difference between the moral law and all Jewish laws (as such), pointing to the moral law as the road to eternal life, binding upon man universally (semper, ubique et ab omnibus). The Sabbath law, therefore, is a moral law like the other nine, and it has a like force and perpetuity : in other words, it is of universal obligation. The Decalogue, as a moral compendium, binds not only the Jew but the Gentile also, and this central com- mandment is shown to be the very key-stone of the arch of truth, whose stones are all equally elect and precious in sight of the great Architect. The third characteristic we have to notice is its intense humanity. "The Sabbath was made for man," says our Divine Master Himself There can be no doubt that it has a very direct bearing upon human life, and in a very marked way affects man's condition, both religious, moral, and physical. Is it nothing that men, who are so engrossed with the cares and troubles of this life — who are of the earth earthy — should have a day allotted for them, and this by authority ; not being left to each individual whim and caprice, in which they can think of the things that belong unto their peace, set their spiritual house in order, and rise to a higher and nobler life ; seeking those things that are above, looking to the author and finisher of their faith, even Jesus, and onwards to " the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God " ? Is not the moral influence of the Sabbath good, when it draws men away from the " money-getting " life, their worldly cares and selfish occupations, their thoughts about their self- aggrandizement, and brings them in contact with the family circle, the congregational gathering, and the parochial assem- blies ? Must not this sudden change every seventh day tend in numberless ways to humanise society by promoting kindly feelings, natural sympathy, a sense of common interests in life ? Does not this commandment exactly meet the require- ments of man's physical nature? And the more his constitution has been studied, the clearer has beamed forth the beneficence of this arrangement, whereby six days' toil is to be closely ' Rom. xiii. 9. THE SABBATH INSTITUTION AS A LAW. 83 followed by a seventh day rest. Even from a sanitary point of view it has been proved again and again that it is the highest wisdom that man who is born to labour, should also have stated recurring periods for repose. It makes nations richer and better. " Therefore it is," to quote the words of Macaulay, " that we are not poorer but richer, because we have through many ages rested from our labour one day in seven. That day is not lost, while industry is suspended, while the plough lies in the furrow, while the exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of the nation as any process which is performed on more busy days. Man, the machine of machines, is repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labour on the Monday with clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, and with renewed corporeal vigour." Did time permit, we could bring forward other character- istics of this most precious day. But enough has been said, we trust, to show its venerable antiquity, the marvellous manner in which it towers high and distinct above all Jewish or Mosaic laws and enactments, even when at their highest pitch of perfection, and demonstrates itself as universally applicable. Whereas its moral, sanitary, and political aspects are so indubitable, that we can well understand the sceptical Frenchman saying that " if there had been no Sabbath, man must have invented it," ^ as another atheist had said, " if even there had been no God, man must have invented one." ^ III. We pass on now to consider briefly the motives to its promulgation, some of which have been already alluded to in the course of the argument, (i) And the first remark which we have to make is by once more referring to the first word of the fourth commandment, " Remember." I have already alluded to this word as denoting antiquity, and this seems clear to my own mind. But whether it does or not, it pre- supposes an acquaintance with something which had gone before, and we shall discover that this is the case both objectively and subjectively. This word "Remember" has a solemn emphasis about it. In the parable of Dives and Lazarus, how awfully solemn the words of Father Abraham sound, which begin, " Son, remember^ So here Jehovah is saying in this fourth " word," " Remember the Sabbath day." * Proudhon. ''' Voltaire. 84 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN' SUNDA Y. But what Sabbath day are we bid to remember ? Surely it must be God's "rest day," which followed the six days of Creation. There is no memorable " rest day " at Sinai, nor is there any memorable " rest day " in the wilderness, when the manna fell. The only revealed " rest day " around which the devotion and adoration of God's people could be asked to centre was the period at the completion of which God " rested from all the works He had made, and blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." That this was the day in the lawgiver's mind is evident from the reason given for its promulgation, " Remember . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day and hallowed it." Now, this reason here assigned embraces the whole world, or rather all the human race. It does not belong to any one nation in particular. God might have arranged a different kind of world altogether, with no night, or fatigue, or rest. But as it is. He has made rest succeed labour as a condition of man's physical and moral well-being, and has revealed His will concerning the division of time. And He has further secured the glory and per- petuity of this division of time by adopting it as His own model, when creation was being finished. The first motive, therefore, of promulging the word was to proclaim the gift to man as man : for all have to adore the Creator in Creation, all are benefited by it, and from this we get a sanction for a seventh day rest. This rest, indeed, is a privilege co-extensive with the blessing of the creation, from which it took its rise. (2) And subjectively, there was another motive for pro- mulging this precept which appealed to the Jew, as a Jew, as well as a man. It adduced the idea of rest and refreshment,^ which they had experienced in being delivered out of the house of bondage by the strong hand of Jehovah, then adding, " therefore (that thou mightest remember this deliverance from bondage) Jehovah commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." " This is not at variance," as Keil and Delitzsch say, "with the reason given in Exodus, but simply gives prominence to a subjective aspect, which was peculiarly adapted to warm the hearts of the people towards the observance of the Sabbath, and to render the Sabbath rest dear to the people, since it served to keep the Israelites constantly in mind of the ' Deul. V. 14, 15. THE SABBATH IXSTITUTION AS A LA IV. 85 rest which Jehovah had procured for them from the slave- labour of Egypt." And again, " The observance of the Sabbath, by being adopted into the Decalogue, was made the founda- tion of all the festal times and observances of the Israelites, as they all culminated in the Sabbath rest." But this reference to Israel's emancipation out of Egypt appealed to him as a Jew^ and is in no way inconsistent with the Sabbath being as old as creation, and with its being then founded on a reason which pertains to all mankind. Paley's objection on this head is most illogical. For not the Sabbath merely, but almost every comniandnient which Moses delivered, is enforced by a reference to God's great mercy in delivering Israel from Egypt. This is the reason why the command is so often given to love the stranger, because he had been a stranger once. And so with regard to other duties, they are again and again enforced on the Jew, by reference to the great political deliverance. And this appeal to Israel (to look back to their Egyptian slavery for a motive to Sabbath obedience) is by far more effective and intelligible on tJie supposition that the Sabbath was an ancient institution, which in their circumstances in Egypt they could not get permission to observe. No doubt this fourth commandment was the principal, if not the very one, which the Egyptian bondage prevented their observing. As Pharaoh's slaves, how could they possibly observe one day in seven .-* Their release enabled them to do so. So then Moses says in effect, " You were once slaves yourselves. And you know how impossible it was for you then to keep the Sabbath day. Pharaoh was a hard taskmaster and demanded all your time. But now after his yoke is broken, your power of sanc- tifying the Sabbath is restored to you. As you would Pharaoh had done to you, so do to others. Do not deprive your man- servant or your maid-servant of their day of rest ; be merciful to them, and let them enjoy this rest, which is the universal heritage of the race." The words, therefore, contained in Deut. v. 15, so far from implying that the Sabbath was first insti- tuted in the wilderness, are far more cogent and applicable on the supposition, that it had dated from the creation itself The promulgation of the fourth " Word " in the Decalogue recalled the Jew as a man to" the fact of creation, and as a Jew, to Israel's coming out of Egypt, and the political creation of their nation out of Abraham's family. 86 THE LORD'S DA V; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. Bishop Horsley thus gives the reason for the institution of the Sabbath, and inclusion in the Decalogue. " The religious observation (observance) of the seventh day hath a place in the Decalogue among the very first duties of natural religion. The reason assigned for the injunction is gejieral, and hath no relation or regard to the particular circumstances of the Israelites, or to the particular relation in which they stood to God as His chosen people. The creation of the world was an event equally interesting to the whole human race ; and the acknowledgment of God as our Creator is a duty in all ages and in all countries, equally incumbent on every in- dividnal of mankind." And again, " The reason of the Sabbath continues invariably the same, or, if it changes at all, it hatli been gaining rather than losing its importance from the first institution. The reason of the prohibition of blood was founded on the state of mankind before the coming of Christ, and was peculiar to those early ages. The use of the Sabbath, as it began, will end with the world itself" The observance of a Sabbath was not only a general duty at the time of the institution, but in the nature of the thing of per- petual importance ; since in every stage of the world's exist- ence, it is man's interest to remember, and his duty to acknow- ledge, his dependence upon God as the Creator of all things, and of man among the rest. The observation of the Sabbath was accordingly enforced, not by any apostolic decree, but by the example of the apostles, after the solemn abrogation of the Mosaic Law. The Decalogue, in which the Sabbath is embedded, stands out distinct from all ceremonial law ; it is called " The Ten Words," translated in our version " The Ten Commandments." ^ Lastly, the promulgation of this law is not commemorative of the past only, but prophetic of the future. It reaches for- ward to the end of all created things, and so concerns all. It looks back to the work of earth, and it looks forward to the rest of Heaven. It records God's rest in time, and symbolizes man's rest in eternity. And therefore (as some of the ancient Fathers ^ observed), there may be something significant in the ' Exod. xxxiv. 28; Deut. iv. 13. ^ e.g. St. Augustine, Sermon iv. " In septimo die non dicitur ' facta est vespera ' septimo die, qui non habet vesperum, significatur nobis requies Eeterna ubi nullus est occasus. " KoX ey^vfTO icriTfpa, Kcd iyeviTO Trpw't, rj/jiipa /xia . . . eKTrj." THE SABBATH INSTTTUTION AS A LA IV. 87 fcict that whereas it is said in the first chapter of Genesis, that "the evening and the morning were the first day," and "the ev-ening and the morning were the second day," and so on for each of the six work-days of the week of Creation, no such expression is there used of the seventh day or Sabbath. In Genesis it has no evening, and why ? because it prefigures that heavenly Day whose sun never sets ; it typifies that glorious Day which will never have a night : and it is a shadow of the Sabbath of Eternity. Not without reason therefore does the Holy Spirit, speak- ing of the Rest, that future eternal heavenly Rest, zvJiich remaineth to the people of God} not use the word Kara-wavaiq or cessation (a word he uses no less than eight times in this and the preceding chapter), but changes his style and says oTToXaTTtrat ojoa o-aj3/3art(T/xoc tw Aaw tqv 9toi;. "There remaineth therefore a rest, literally a sabbatisni, to the people of God."^ Are ive, then, the people of God ? Do we look for the eternal Sabbath ? Do ive hope to enter into that Rest ? Does it remain to ns ? Then let us be sure, the Law ^ concerning ' Heb. iii. 11-18; iv. 1-3 (twice); iv. 10, 11. 2 Heb. iv. 9. ' On THE Sabbath Day (according to the Law). — "Tliat theyirwa/ observance of the Sahbatli day originated in the Law of Moses appears to have been the opinion of Philo, and of most of the Fathers and Rabbinists, and is lield by many modern critics. In what way was the Sabbath day to be kept holy in accordance with the fourtli commandment ? It is expressly said that the ordinary work of life should be intermitted by the whole community, not only by the masters, servants, and foreign residents, but also the cattle ; and the period of this inter- mission was from the evening of the sixth day of the week to the evening of the seventh. The following occupations are expressly mentioned as unlawful in difterent parts of the Old Testament ; sowing and reaping (Exod. xxxiv. ), pressing grapes, and bearing burdens of all kinds (Neh. xiii.), holding of markets, and all kind of trades (Neh. xiii., Amos viii.), gathering wood, and kindling a fire for cooking (Exod. xxxv., Num. xv.). The .Sabbath was to be a day of enjoyment like other festivals (Isa. Iviii., Hos. ii.), and such restrictions as were imposed could have been unacceptable to none but the disobedient and the avaricious, such as are spoken of in Amos viii. 5, 6. " In the service of the sanctuary, the morning and evening sacrifices were doubled, the shewbread was changed, and after the courses of the Priests and Levites had been instituted by David, each course in its turn commenced its duties on the Sabbath day. When the Temple was built, there is reason to believe that there was a special musical service for the day. The term Holy Con- vocation, which belongs to the Sabbath day in common with certain other festival days, would seem to imply that there was a meeting together of the people for a religious purpose. From the mode in which the commands to keep the Sabbath day, and to reverence the Sanctuary are associated, it may be inferred with probability that there was such a meeting in the Court of the Sanctuary. At later periods, in places remote from the Temple, we know that it 88 THE LORD'S DAY; OK, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. the Sabbath, which prefigures it, does concern ns. And if we do not hallow God's Sabbaths in Time on earth, can we hope to enjoy His eternal Sabbath in heaven ? " Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." ^ was a custom to resort on this day to public teachers, and to hear the reading of the Old Testament, with addresses of exposition and exhortation in the Syna- gogues. It is not unreasonable to suppose that some usage of this kind may have been observed at the Sanctuary itself from the first institution of the Sabbath. Such are the particulars that can be gathered out of the Scriptures as to the mode of observing the Sabbath day. In the time of the Legislator, an entire rest from the works of daily life was to reign throughout the camp ; and it may be con- jectured that the people assembled before the altar at the hours of morning and evening sacrifices for prayer and contemplation, and to hsten to the reading of portions of the Divine Law, perhaps from the lips of Moses himself. The notices of the Sabbath day in the Prophets are most frequently accompanied by complaint or warning respecting its neglect and desecration. But in the time of Isaiah a parade of observing it had become a cloak for hypocrisy, probably under a kindred influence to that which turned the public fasts into occasions for strife and debate. The diverse abuses may have co-existed as belonging to two opposite parties in the community, both being in the wrong." — Sj>eake7''s Commentary, vol. i. 339. > Gal. vi. 7. V. * " THE WEEKLY SABBATH OF THE DECALOGUE DISTINGUISHED FROM PURELY JEWISH SABBATHS." Exodus xxiii. 10-13 ! xxxv. 2, 3 ; Leviticus xvi. 30. "*E| eTT] anepeis •tt}v yrjv (Tov, Kol ffwd^^LS ra yevi/T^/xaTa aurrjs. Tw Se e^Zo/no} &(pe|/co^teT ere r^v KXripovofiiav 'la/coj/B tov irarpSs crov rh yap (rrSfia Kvpiov iXdXrjae Tavra. The heading of Psahn xci. (Septuagint) or Psahn xcii. E.V. is "VaXfihs c^SfjS el? rrii/ rjfxepav tov cra^lSdTov. The heading of Psalm xcii. (Septuagint) or Psalm xciii. E.V. is Eis riju Tifiepav TOV irpoaafijidTov, 8t€ /coT^/cicrTat tj yri alvos (fSj}s t^ AaviS. " Ne foeda sit vel lubrica Campago nostri corporis Per quam Averni ignibus, Ipsi crememur acrius." {In Dominicis ad Matutinas. E. Brev. Sar.') " When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn ? and the Sabbath that we may set forth wheat ? " This is the language which Amos, the prophet, put into the mouth of profane men in his time ; this is the way he reproaches the degenerate people with an impatience of the holy services of the Sabbath and other festivals. It is more expressive of the latent wickedness which festered in their hearts, than of their presumptive speeches. Among the Jews, religion and politics were closely united, and the laws inflicted the severest penalties upon those who violated even the externals of religion. These men of whom the prophet speaks could not absent themselves from the solemn festivals with impunity ; but they worshipped * This sermon was preached in sttbstar2ce at St. Paul's church, Sunday morning (4th Sunday after Trinity), July loth, 1881. THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. s 139 with constraint, they regretted the loss of their time ; they reproached God with every moment wasted in His house ; they ardently wished the feasts to be gone, that they might return not only to their avocations but to their sins — making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit ; they said in their hearts, " When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn ? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat ? " ^ Against this worldly attitude of mind God has denounced, by the ministry of this same prophet, those very awful judg- ments, which He has painted in the deepest shades. The Lord hath sworn, " I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation . . . Behold the day cometh, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land : not a famine of bread, not a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east : they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." The prophets no less" than Moses, the Psalms no less than the Pentateuch, insist upon the strict, spiritual, and joyful observance of the Sabbath. Now these prophets, be it remem- bered, were the reformers of a degenerate people, the preachers of the Divine will, the assertors of the moral and eternal rule of duty, the bold proclaimers of the law of conscience and the bonds of a covenant relation with God, the seers and pre- dictors of the gospel age. They urge the strict and spiritual observance of the day of rest, as designed to form a part of the gospel dispensation, and they do this at the very time they cast contempt on the mere outward ceremonies of the Jewish ritual. They denounce the Divine indignation on no transgression, except idolatry, with so much vehemence, and they appear anxious to reform the manners of the people in this capital point more than in any other. Thus the period between the promulgation of the law touching the Sabbath in the heart and core of the moral code, and the transfer of the seventh day to the resurrection day of Christ, is bridged over in those " holy writings," and the Divine institution stands therein at the margin of the Christian economy, ready to enter it in common with the other branches of essential religion touching the welfare of the whole human race. ' Amos viii. 5. I40 THE LORD'S DAY ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. The " holy writings " of the Jews included the Psalms and the prophets, from both of which sources our text is taken. Considering, then, the language of the first of these, we cannot fail to notice what a great stress is laid on the perma- nent and spiritual duties and joyful observance of the sacred day of rest. The Jewish Sabbath was indeed now in force. But it is upon the praises of God generally — His glory, His majesty, His compassion, His providence, and His redemp- tion—that the Psalmist dwells. " One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple." " How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts ! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord ; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God." " I was glad when they said unto me, we will go into the house of the Lord." i In the 92nd Psalm (being one of the passages under con- sideration) we have an express hymn or psalm for the Sabbath day, the topics of which are strict, spiritual, and joyful, " "^oXjjloq (ijS^C £'C T17V -nfiepav Tov <7a/3/3arou." First the praises of God are enjoined, which are the proper business of the Sabbath ; then the wonders of God in creation, the very reason for the institution ; next, the dealings of the Divine Providence in the overthrow of the wicked ; and lastly, the operations of grace in the fruitfulness even to old age of those who "are planted in the house of the Lord." ^ Again, the heading of the 92nd Psalm (Septuagint), or the 93rd, E.V., is as follows : " Etc Trjv rijuLspav rov TTjooan/S/Sarou, ore KazMKicTTat ri jrj, alvog voorig Tw AautS " (for the day before the Sabbath, when the earth was formed, a psalm of praise by David). And the heading of the next. Psalm 93rd (Septuagint), still harps on the Sabbath day, " '^aXiiioQ tlZ Aavid Terpd^i aafijiaTOv. " 3 ' Psa. xxvii. ; Ixxxiv. ; cxxii. ^ Psa. xcii. I, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11. ^ "Title. A Psalm or Song for the Sabbath day. Chaldee Targum : *A Praise and Song which the first man spake for the Sabbath day. Ven. Bede. ' A Psalm denotes spiritual works, which tend upwards to the Lord ; in these all ought always to sing, that is, give thanks to the Lord our Helper. The Sabbath day is interpreted Rest, whereby we are warned to cease from every evil deed, and likewise to hope with most sure devotion for the rest to come.' Arnobius saith thus : ' On the Sabbath day (last day of the week) the Lord's enemies perish, that on the Sunday (the first day of the week) the Lord's friends may be glad ; for on the Sabbath day (Holy Saturday, or Easter Even) THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. 141 Turning from the Psalms to the prophets — especially the evangelical prophet — with what earnestness is the due celebra- tion of the Sabbath extolled. It is placed on a level with the plainest moral precepts — the not polluting of it is made the principal thing that pleases God. And the largest promises of the evangelical economy are connected with the spiritual consecration of the holy day ! " Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold of this : that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil." Here the observation of the day of rest is spoken of as a great part of holiness of life, and is placed among moral duties (as distinct from ceremonial usages). The prophet continues : " Neither let the son of the stranger that hath joined himself to the Lord speak, saying, the Lord hath utterly separated me from the people ; neither let the eunuch say. Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep My Sabbaths, and do the things that please Me, and take hold of my cove- nant. Even unto them will I give in My house and within My walls a name better than of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." The prophet is here speaking of the Gospel age, when the ceremonial law should be abolished which prohibited the the Lord lieth dead in the grave, and on the Sunday (Easter Day) is worshipped living among the angels. In this matter, His thoughts are very deep, which an unwise man doth not well consider. At the first outset, the Church speaks, declaring that it is a good thing to utter praises to the Lord ; which it asserts to be a thing whereof the unwise and ungodly are ignorant. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. In the second part she asserts that sinners will perish like the grass. When the ungodly are green, etc. Thirdly, she saith that the righteous flourish like a palm-tree, and spread abroad like a cedar in Libanus ; to the end, that fear may correct the obstinate, and the blessed promise sustain the devout. The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree.' Syriac Psalter, anonymous : ' Concerning the ministry of the priests, and their morning sacrifices. It also fore- tells rest in the Lord.' Eusebius of Csesarea : Concerning that rest which is according unto God.' (Psalm xciii.) "Title. LXX. and Vulgate: A Praise of Song for David himself, on the day before the Sabbath, when the earth was inhabited (LXX.) or stablished (Vulgate). Syriac Psalter: of David, 'who spake it for a praise on the Sabbath day, when the earth rested.' (Psali)i xciv.) " Title. LXX. and Vulgate : A Psalm of David for the fourth of the Sabbath. Ven. Bede : ' The fourth of the Sabbath is the fourth day of the week counting from the Sabbath, that day on which the Lord created the lights of heaven. This is to be applied to holy men, shining with heavenly conversation on earth, concerning whom the Psalm is about to speak.'" — Dr. Neale's Co/U' nientary on the Psalms, vol. iii., pp. 185, 195, 201. 142 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. eunuchs from coming into the congregation of the Lord ; yet the eunuchs, when set free from the ceremonial law, are described as being still under an obligation to keep the Sabbath. Nay, they are enjoined to do this, as one means of sharing in the blessings of Messiah's kingdom. And so with regard to the Gentiles, under the appellation of strangers, " Also the sons of the strangers that join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant," where once more we see that the sanctification of the Sabbath is put on the same footing with the laying hold of the covenant of God, the serving, and loving the name of, the Lord, and is, indeed, described as the main proof of all those parts of essential piety. This evangelical promise is then made by the prophet, which, by our Lord's own citation, is anticipatory of the Gospel state : " Even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer : their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon My altar : for Mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people." This, then, is quite evident, that the Gentiles, who should be called in Gospel times, would be under the same duty of keeping the Sabbath, and should thus, and thus only, be made joyful in that house of prayer which is destined " for all people." And this prophecy exactly tallies with another prediction of the same writer, the language being couched in the phraseology of the then prevailing economy. " It shall come to pass from one new month to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord," words which have all along found their fulfilment in the Christian Church ; since " all flesh " have worshipped before the Lord on that weekly day of rest and religious worship into which the Jewish new moons and Sabbaths have subsided, or for which, to use the language of Archbishop Bramhall, they have been "substituted." Add to this the description given of the duties of the Sabbath by the same " evangelical " prophet. They have so clearly a moral obligation and universal force, and involve a tone so elevated, that if the Sabbath be only a piece of Jewish ceremonial, we have lost under the Gospel one of the brightest gems of revelation, contained in the words of the text, " If THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. 143 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 own words : then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord ; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heri- tage of Jacob thy father : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." ^ Pass we on from this class of passages to notice those denunciations against the sin of violating the Sabbath, which are only surpassed by the anger of the Almighty against idolatry itself, with which, indeed, it seems ever to bear a correspondent and close affinity. We all know that sentence executed early in the history of the sacred people on the pre- sumptuous Sabbath-breaker. But let us hear the prophet Jeremiah. " Thus saith the Lord : Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem ; neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers. But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear nor receive instruction. . . . But if ye will not hearken unto me, . . . then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched."^ Here the entire national prosperity, and God's favour, are suspended on this one branch of moral obedience. To judge of the force of this, compare this with the same prophet's declaration in the matter of ceremonies. " For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices : but this one thing commanded I them, saying. Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people."^ The prophet Ezekiel follows after the times of Jeremiah and Amos. The Babylonish captivity had now begun, and the peculiar aggravation of the people's sins is pictured forth as being their profanation of the Sabbath. " Moreover, I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that ' Isaiah Iviii. 13, 14. ^ Jer. xvii. 21-27. ' Jer. vii. 22, 23. 144 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them. But the house of Israel rebelled against Me : . . . . My Sabbaths they greatly polluted ; then I said, I would pour out My fury upon them in the wilderness to consume them." ^ The charge is repeated again and again in the course of expostulation, and is connected with the sin of idolatry and of direct con- .tempt of God's majesty. " They despised My judgments and walked not in My statutes, but polluted My Sabbaths, for their heart went after their idols." ^ Similar charges in sub- sequent chapters of this book and other prophets are reiterated, and there are denounced like threatenings. Passing over the godly reformation of Ezra and Nehemiah, which had special reference to the worship of God, and the honour and sanctity of the Sabbath, " profaning the Sabbath, bringing wrath upon Israel," ^ recurring to it again and again (a very important passage, showing the position of the Sabbath at the closing of the old canon), we come to the prophet Malachi, containing last predictions and giving last warnings before the coming of the Messiah. Upon what then does he so much insist, as on the contempt into which the ordinances of God (including of course the Sabbath) were sunk, and the indignation of God about to follow .'' They offered " polluted bread." No one would " shut the temple doors for nought." They said " the table of the Lord is contemptible." They repeated, " behold what a weariness it is." " And ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts." " Ye have said, it is vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinances." " Therefore," adds the prophet, " the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble." 4 We have made these quotations from the Prophets to show the high position the Sabbath was held in their days, when it was being handed on to the Christian dispensation — as it entered the Mosaic ritual, so it would come out from under it — its essential and perpetual obligation being incul- cated in the holy writings, and destined to form a part of the Gospel age. If, therefore, a Sabbatical institution be not binding upon Christians, we must reverse the supposition. ' Ezek. XX. 12, 13. ^ Ezek. xx. 16. ^ Neh. xiii. 15, 19, 23. * Mai, i. 6, 7, 13; iii. 14; iv. i. THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. 145 We must forget the devotion of the patriarchs, the spiritual fervour of the Psalmist, the zeal for the Sabbath, which animated Nehemiah and Ezra, the delight in its duties fore- told by Isaiah as marking the Gospel age, and the Christian must take his station below the Jew in spirituality and love. But this can never be the case. We may conclude, therefore, that if^ on^ejdayjn_seven was^ the measure junder more imper- fect dispensations^ a less term cannot suffice under the perfect dispensation of the Gospel, when so many motives and in- ducements to a higher degree of love in the worship of God, influence the believer in Revelation. ^ Referring, then, to our text, the words of Isaiah in reference to the Sabbath, we will consider the words (i) with regard to the Jewish Church, and (2) with regard to the Christian Church, representing the two different worlds, the world of nature and the world of grace, both being the heritage of the faithful. I. We shall regard the words of the text with respect to the Jews. With this view we shall state, (i) the reasons of the institution of the Sabbath ; (2) the manner in which the prophet required it to be celebrated ; and (3) the promises made to those who worthily hallow the Sabbath day. (i) Four considerations gave occasion for the original institution of the Sabbath day. God was desirous of per- petuating two original truths, on which devolves the whole evidence of religion ; the first is that the world or universe had a beginning, and secondly that the author thereof was God. The force of both these points is seen at once, without further illustration, because if the universe be eternal, then there would be some being coeval with Godhead ; and if there be some being which is coeval with Godhead, then that being must be independent of it, and it is not indebted to God for its existence. Now if there be any being which is not dependent on God, then we do not see in Him all those perfections which constitute His essence ; and as a con- sequence our devotion would be irregular, for it would have to be divided between all the beings which participate of His perfections. But if God be not the author of this world, then we are driven to the conclusion either that it possesses a superintending intelligence, or that it is the outcome of a for- tuitous concourse of atoms, made, that is, by chance. If, then, ' Archdeacon Pott. L 146 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. the world possesses a superintending intelligence inherent in itself, then you associate with God a being that, participating of His perfections, must participate also in His worship. Or, if the supposition is maintained that the universe was the outcome of chance, then we not only renounce the light of reason — one of those lights which lighteth every man coming into this world — but sap the very foundations of our faith. For, if chance have derived us from nothing, it may reduce us to nothingness again, and if our very existence depends merely on the caprice of fortune, then what becomes of the dogma of the immortality of the soul ? Scepticism would triumph, reli- gion would become a pun, and the hopes of a life to come a chimera. It was therefore requisite that this monument of the creation of the universe should remain in the Church for ever. The Sabbath, therefore, is a Memorial of Creation. (2) The second reason of its institution was to prevent idolatry, a sin for which the Jews showed themselves only too prone. We must never lose sight of the peculiar position in which the Jews were placed, and this remark must be borne in mind. The people were separated, on leaving Egypt, from a nation worshipping the host of heaven — sun, moon, and stars. This is what Diodorus Siculus says on the subject : " The ancient Egyptian, struck with the beauty of the universe, thought it owed its origin to two eternal divinities that pre- sided over all the others : the one was the sun, to whom they gave the name of Osiris, the other was the moon, to whom they gave the name of Isis." To preserve His chosen people from these errors, God instituted, or rather re-enacted, a former primeval institution with all the solemnities of law, a festival which sapped the whole system, and which avowedly con- templated every single creature of the universe, as the pro- duction of the Supreme Being. This, then, may be the reason why Moses remarked to the Jews (perhaps in one of the precepts at Marah), certainly on the occasion of the giving of the manna, and v/ith greater solemnity at Sinai, that God renewed the institution of the Sabbath. At all events, this is given as one of the reasons, " Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God brought thee out, therefore He commanded thee to keep His Sabbath." ^ The Sabbath day must therefore be regarded as a persistent ' Dtnit. V. 15. THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. 147 avowal on the part of the Jews of their detestation of idolatry, and of their ascribing to God alone the origin of the universe. The prophet Ezekiel, as we have seen, speaks of the Sabbath as a sign between God and His people, " 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." ^ It is for this very reason that all the prophets — and they are full of it — declaim in such unmeasured terms against the violation of the Sabbath : that God commanded it to be observed with so high a sanction : that the Sabbath-breakers were so rigorously punished. The law expressly enjoins that the profaners of the festival should be anathematised " root and branch ; " repeated by Ezekiel, " Ye shall therefore keep the Sabbath day, for it is holy unto you, every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death : for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from amongst His people." Thus the prophets repeat the anathemas of the law, which were followed by death. Whence, then, come so many cautions, rigours, threatenings and promises ? You cannot account for them if the Sabbath be relegated to the ceremonial code of the Jews, and does not rear its head in the centre of the moral " ten Words " binding on all mankind. The Sabbath, then, was a protest and safeguard against idolatry. (3) Thirdly, God was anxious to promote Jiumanity^ in all its gradations. With that view He prescribed repose to all, including domestics and slaves. The situation of slaves might be regarded as oppressive as that of the beasts. Before their eyes there was no termination to their servitude till after a term of seven years. And it might so turn out that their masters might make their servitude more rigorous, when they saw the expiration of that bondage imminent. They were therefore reminded that God interests Himself for those whose condition was so abject and oppressive. Plato has a fine passage to this effect,^ " that the Gods, moved by the unhappy situation of slaves, have instituted the sacred festivals to procure them relaxations from labour." And Cicero says, "that the festivals are destined to suspend the disputes between freemen, and the labours of slaves." The motive of humanity is subjoined in the precept, " Thou shalt do no manner of work, neither thou, nor thine ox, nor thine ass." ' Ezek. XX. 12. * De legibus, lib. 2. \ 148 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. Doth, then, God care for oxen ? as St. Paul said to the Corinthians. No, but there is a constitutional sympathy, with- out which the heart is destitute of compassion. Now, those who are habitually cruel to animals, are in most cases, less tender, and they little by little lose that constitutional sympathy, which produces the affections of the heart and mind. This constitutional sympathy excites in us that painful impression which we experience on seeing a wounded man, by which we are spontaneously moved to succour the afflicted. And not only by the sight of man, but also by that of a beast when treated with cruelty is this sympathy excited. The result is, that if we habituate ourselves to be cruel to animals, we do violence to our finer feeling, harden the heart, and extinguish the sympathy of nature. And this remark may illustrate several of the Mosaic laws, which appear at first destitute of propriety, but which are founded on what has been propounded. Such is the law which prohibits eating of things strangled ; such is the law on finding a bird's nest, which forbids our taking the dam with the young ; such also is that in which God forbids seething a kid in his mother's milk, etc. The principle alluded to lies behind all these enactments. Be- sides, it excites humanity by enjoining compassion to animals, a duty even inculcated by the heathen. The Phrygians were prohibited, we are told, from killing an ox which trod out the corn. The judges of the Areopagus exiled a boy who had plucked out the eyes of a living owl ; and they severely punished a man who had roasted a bull alive. The third motive of the institution of the Sabbath law is, consequently, the duty of humanity. God by this means recalled to the recollection of the Jews the situation in which they had been placed in the land of Egypt, " The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, that thy manservant 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 thence through a mighty hand and out- stretched arm : therefore the Lord thy God commandeth thee to keep the Sabbath." ^ Thus God spake to the Jews qua Jews. (4) Among other things, no doubt, a chief design of God in instituting the Sabbath law was to recall the recollection ' Deut. V. 14, 15. THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. 149 of their original equality to the minds of men. He, by this commandment, requires master and servant alike to cease from labour, and abstain from servile work, so as in some sort to confound the diversity of their condition, and to abate that pride which superior rank so often generates. As an illustration of this point, even among the heathen, there was one festival very singular, which was called the Saturnalia. It was one of the most celebrated and ancient festivals of Paganism. Macrobius is an authority that it was celebrated in Greece, long before the foundation of Rome. The masters gave the servants a treat, and by them were placed at their own table, and clothed in their own raiment. According to the heathen, this festival was instituted by King Janus, to commemorate the age of Saturn, when mankind was on an equality, and not acquainted with the distinctions of rank and fortune. This institution was very proper, and was founded on fact, and it cannot fail to point the obvious moral. By recalling to mankind the original equality of their condition, God apprised them in what consisted the true ex- cellence of man. It is not in the difference of rank, or what is called fortune. It consists in being men, made after the image and similitude of the triune Jehovah, and consequently, the very humblest of men made after God's likeness are en- titled to respect. Whatever our station, we all belong to the great brotherhood of mankind. The order of society cannot, of course, be disturbed ; in fact. Scripture itself supposes the diversity of condition by prescribing the relative duties of masters and servants. But it does not follow that a haughty or disdainful carriage is to be adopted by those, who have been placed by Providence higher in the social scale, nor must we in any way be " lords over God's heritage." To encourage, then, a well-balanced view in our relationships between class and class, grade and grade in the body politic, may be another reason for this Sabbath law. II. Let us now say a word on the manner in which the Sabbath is to be celebrated. Upon this subject some of the Rabbins have exercised their ingenuity more than on any other. Beginning by distorting the original idea of the day, they went on to ascribe to the Sabbath the power of conferring dignity even on inanimate creatures ; and they trace this as a ISO THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. reason why God would not permit them to offer Him any victim not a week old : circumcising their children on the eighth day, because no creature could be worthily offered till first consecrated by a Sabbath.^ The obligation imposed upon them of ceasing from labour has also been distorted by these same Rabbins. They have reduced to thirty-nine heads whatever they presume to be forbidden on that day. Under these heads were included the minutiae, and not only these, and things opposed to the happiness of society, but also to the spirit of the precept. There are cases where people scrupled even to defend their own lives on that day. Ptolemy Lagus, and Pompey after him, at the siege of Jerusalem, took advantage of this super- stition. Antiochus Epiphanes perpetrated a very cruel and vile action. He pursued the Jews into the very caves whither they had fled away from his vengeance. In these, on the Sabbath day, they suffered themselves to be slaughtered like beasts, without either defending themselves, or even securing the entrance of their retreat. " I may mention," says Dr. Hessey, " in illustration of this assertion, the striking fact which appears both in Josephus and in the Apocrypha, that at the commencement of the Maccabean struggle, a thousand Jews suffered themselves to be slain without resistance, rather than violate the Sabbath by attempting a defence. A disaster ' On the Sabbath Day (according to tradition). — In another age, after the Captivity, the Pharisees multipHed the restraints of the Sabbath day to a most burdensome extent. It was forbidden to pluck an ear of corn and rub out the grains to satisfy hunger in passing through a cornfield (Matt. xii. 2), or to relieve the sick (Matt. xii. lo ; Luke xiii. 14). It was, however, permitted to lead an ox or an ass to water, or to lift out an animal that had fallen into a pit (Matt, xii. II ; Luke xiv. 5), to administer circumcision, if the eighth day after the birth of a child fell on the Sabbath day (John vii. 22), and to invite guests to a social meal (Luke xiv. i). According to rabbinical authorities, it was forbidden to travel more than two thousand cubits on the Sabbath, to kill the most offensive kinds of vermin, to write two letters of the alphabet, to use a wooden leg or a crutch, to carry a purse, or, for a woman, to carry a seal-ring, or a smelling bottle, to wear a high head-dress or a false tooth. Amongst other restraints laid upon animals, the fat-tailed sheep was not allowed to use the little truck on which the tail was borne to save the animal from suffering. These are a portion of thirty-nine prohibitions of the same kind. Connected with this trifling of the Pharisees and the Rabbinists, is the notion that the intention of the law was, that the Sabbath should be, as nearly as possible, a day of mere inaction. This has been told not only by Jewish writers, but by some Christians in the time of St. Chrysostom, and by critics of more modern date (Spencer, Vitringa, Le Clerc). Our Lord decides this very point by declaring that there is a kind of work which is proper for the Sabbath day. — Speaker's Commentary, vol. i. 340. THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. 151 SO signal and so monstrous opened the eyes of the nation to the unreasonableness of the principle, which had subjected them to it. They modified it, therefore, to a certain extent, and it was declared to be lawful to defend themselves, if attacked on the Sabbath day, but not to make an attack. Even this modified form of scrupulousness became an injury to them. Pompey, while besieging Jerusalem, discovered the nature of their feelings on the subject. He argued, and very naturally, that if he employed his army on the Sabbath not in direct assaults, but in such warlike preparations as should . better enable him to attack on the morrow, he should do so / without molestation. This method he accordingly adopted, and by the advantage thus obtained, eventually took the city."i The Doritheans, a branch of the Samaritans, imposed a law which compelled them to abide in whatever place they found themselves on the Sabbath. There is a story of a Jew, who, having fallen into an unclean place, refused to be taken out on the Sabbath day ; and also the decision of the Bishop of Saxony on that point, who, when he heard of his scruple, condemned the man to remain the whole of Sunday also, it being just that the Christian Sabbath should be observed with the same sanctity as he had observed the Jewish.^ Some of the Jews have also cast a gloom on the joy which the faithful should cherish on this holy day, and it is a fact that some of them fasted to the close of the day. The Em- peror Augustus alludes to this custom, when, having remained a whole day without food, writing to Tiberius, he said that no Jew could better observe the fast of the Sabbath than he had observed it that day. By far the greater number, however, took the opposite view, and taking the prophet's words, " making the Sabbath their delight," to mean set forth the divine approbation, they took every precaution to avoid sad- ness. They imposed a law to make three meals on that day. Lest it should diminish their joy, they prohibited fasting the day before and after. They allowed more time for sleep that day ; they had handsome dresses for the Sabbath ; indulged in the best food and the most recherche wines in honour of * Dr. Ht^sey^s Bamptim Lectures, " Sunday," p. 119. * A pilot, of whom Synesius speaks, preferred to abandon his vessel to the mercy of the waves and the tempest, than to steer it on the Sabbath day. 152 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. the festival : this is what they called " making the Sabbath a delight." Hence it was that Plutarch hazarded the opinion that the Jews celebrated their festival in honour of Bacchus, and that the word Sabbath was derived from the Greek word (Ta/3o^ftv, a term appropriate to the licentious practices in- dulged in the festivals of this false god. If they do not attain the sublime of devotion, they attribute the cause to a want of rejoicing. They go so far as to say that this joy reaches even to hell, and that the souls of Jews condemned to those torments are allowed a respite on the Sabbath day. But all these licentious customs and strange notions, it is evident, are " fond things, vainly invented, and grounded on no warranty of Holy Scripture." Now, looking to the words of the text, God required a conduct consonant to the injunctions of the law. They were not to follow their own ideas and opinions. The meaning of the phrase " doing thy own ways on My holy day," " finding thy own ways," " speaking thy own words," is evidently this : /' we are not to follow our own caprice, nor be swayed by our own views, nor elaborate our own notions of religion, but do what God Himself hath prescribed. God required them to reverence the Sabbath, because it was a memorial_of_His Creation-rest, and o£jheir_political emancipation, and also a sign of the covenant with them, instead of their imaginary excellence about it : it was because they became more holy in approaching Him on that day : it was because they on that day renewed their vows to the covenant-God of Israel, and became more and more de- tached from idolatry; and also because they became more devoted to His worship in a peculiar degree on that "high day." This is the meaning of the expression, " it is holy to the Lord." It is, in fine, distinguished, it is separated from the other days of the week, for purposes of religion. In the place of the rigorous Sabbath, God required a cessation from all kinds of labour likely to disturb their meditations upon all the marvels He had wrought for them and their nation. He especially required that they should refrain from taking long journeys on the Sabbath. This is the gloss which some have put upon the words, " If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath ; " and perhaps with- drawing the foot from the Sabbath may be a metaphorical THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. 153 expression for " ceasing to profane it." But they were also allowed to do works of mercy, whether divine or for the preservation of life. It was the maxim of their wiser men "that the dangers of life superseded the Sabbath." With regard to the lawfulness of the Jews besieging and defending cities on the Sabbath day, the celebrated Maimonides declared that they might do so. From the history of the Maccabees, we find that Matthias and his son resolutely defended them- selves on that day. Besides, they were allowed to travel " a Sabbath day's journey," i.e. two thousand cubits, the distance between the camp and the tabernacle, while they were in the wilderness ; this walk ^ being allowed because it was " of obligation " that every Jew should attend Divine service. It was this Divine worship which must engross their heart, and especially the reading of the Word of God. This, perhaps, may be the meaning of the phrase " not speaking thine own words," that thou mayest give heed to the word of the Lord thy God. III. We must now consider the promises connected with the due observance of the Sabbath. " Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father." A double promise this, one being literal, the other spiritual. Temporal prosperity is pictured on the literal side, and it is couched in figures not only oriental, but prophetic. By the high places of the earth is meant Palestine, so called, because it is a mountainous country. Or it may mean, as Dr. Lowth says, " I will exalt thee above thy neighbouring nations and give thee possession of their mountains, whither they use to betake themselves as to an impregnable fortress."^ The prophet's idea, indeed, coincides with what Moses said, " He has made him to ride upon the high places of the earth, or to ride upon horseback," ^ as in the text, which imports the surmounting of the greatest difficulties. Hence God's promise that they who observe His Sabbaths, should ride on the high * From the centre, the place of the tabernacle, to the extremities of a camp of nearly three million people, could not be less than four miles. Hence the pro- hibition of journeys of pleasure and unholy diversions seems to have been the object of the precept. ^ Compare Deut. xxxii. 13; xxxiii. 29; Ezek. xxxvi. 2. ' Deut, xxxii. 13. 1 54 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. places of the earth, means that they should find a Sabbatism, Sabbath rest, in the land of Canaan. In the words which follow, plenty is joined to peace. " I will feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father." Dr. Lowth thus comments on these words : " thou shalt enjoy the land I gave to him, and all those blessings I promised to him and his posterity." ^ In these words is a prophecy of the abundance which the descendants of the patriarch Jacob should enjoy in the promised land. There are some who afifirm that the name of Jacob is here substituted for Abraham, because Jacob had a peculiar reverence for the Sabbath day. These say that Isaiah is making reference to an episode in the patriarch's life. Thus we read that Jacob, coming from Padan-aram, encamped before the city of Shechem,^ and the Rabbins con- tend that it was to hallow the Sabbath, which intervened during his march. But this is a mere Rabbinical gloss. The promises made to Abraham and Isaac, respecting the promised land, were renewed to Jacob ; hence it might as well be called the heritage of Jacob as the heritage of Abraham. This, then, is the literal sense of the text — a promise of peace and plenty. It has also a spiritual sense. First there is the promise, " then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord," i.e. thou shalt be such a proficient in godliness, that God's service shall become delightful unto thee,^ not burdensome as it was to those Jews whom the prophet Amos reproves.* Secondly, there is that spiritual sense which some interpreters put upon the words " the high places of the earth." They say it means the abode of the blessed. We shall find it in the nature of the object, if not latent in the phrase itself Was it only Palestine, or was Canaan typical of another rest, which another Joshua would lead His people into. This St. Paul discusses in the Hebrews. Speaking of the faith of the patriarchs, he clearly predicates that the promised land was not its principal object. The " heritage of Jacob," according to the writer to the Hebrews, is a country better than that which the patriarchs had left, " that is, a heavenly country." ^ ' Patrick, Lowth and Whitby's Commentary, vol. iii. p. 356. " Gen. xxxiii. ■• Amos viii. 5. ^ Ps. xxxiv. 8. ^ Heb. xi. 16. THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. 155 This is the heritage of which the patriarch, on the eve of his departure, hoped to acquire the possession ; and of which he said in his last moments, " O Lord, I have waited for Thy salvation." ^ This Jerusalem the apostle calls a high place ; it is " Jerusalem which is above," not because it is built on the mountains, but because it is, in point of fact, above the region of terrestrial things. This is Jerusalem which is the mother of us all, "Jerusalem the golden," and to which the claims of Christians are not less powerful than the Jews. We now proceed to discuss the text with regard to the Christian Church. Some time has been consumed in looking at it from a Jewish point of view, our object being to point out the exact position of the Sabbath during the prophetical era, as distinct from the Mosaic or patriarchal, and as it was being handed down the ages from the time of Moses to that of Christ, i.e. for nearly 1500 years. II. In discussing the Sabbath from the standpoint of the Christian Church, we shall make two inquiries : first, are Chris.tians_,obliged_to observe a day;^f rest ? and, secondly, in what way the day should be kept amongst us. I. Now, there can be no doubt that the first question must be answered in the affirmative. For not only is the subject debated in our own age, but it was looked at from every point of view in the primitive and best ages of the Catholic Church. There are those, both in ancient and modern times, who have maintained that not only is the Christian_5.a,bbadi a day of obligation, bu^ that^Jhe fourth commandment _ou^htJoj3e observed in its most rigorous enactments. Hence in the sub- apostoTic age some have had the same respect for the Saturday (the old Jewish Sabbath) as for Sunday (the Christian Sabbath). This was especially the case in the Oriental Churches. Gregory Nazianzen, for example, calls these two days companions, for which we should cherish an equal respect. The Constitutions of Clement enjoin both these festivals to be observed in the Church : e.g. the Sabbath day, in honour of the creation of the world, and the Lord's day, as being the resurrection day of the Saviour of the world. Now, putting the question of the Jewish Sabbath, or Saturday, on one side, it will be sufficient to prove that Christians are obliged to observe one day in the week, and 1 Gen. xlix. 18. iS6 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. that the first. This is apparent from the following four con- siderations : (i) Let us look at the nature of the institution itself This has been laid down as a theological axiom : that whatever of morality there may have been in the Jewish ritual ; whatever was likely to strengthen the bonds of communion between the Creator and the creature, to reconcile us to our neighbour, to enkindle lofty and holy thoughts and lead up to God, is obli- gatory on the Christian ; and even more so than the Jews, inasmuch as the new law (of Christ) surpasses the old law (of Moses) in excellence. The question of the Sabbath enters into this category. It has, it is true, a ceremonial side, being correlated with the very peculiar circumstances of the ancient Church. The selection of the seventh day, the rigours of its enactments, and its design to efface the idolatrous memories of Egypt, were peculiar to the Jewish, and merely ceremonial ;J in that case they are not binding upon Christians. But the necessity of having one day in seven for contemplating the wonders of creation (both the olH and new), as a day of rest and worship ; to study the grand truths of religion and glories of Redemption ; to make a public profession of our faith ; to give relaxation to our servants ; to confound all distinctions of rank in the congregation : to acknowledge that we are all members of the same brotherhood, and equal in the sight of God before whom we bend ; all these considerations have nothing to do with ceremonial, but are moral, and therefore binding upon all mankind. (2) We have proofs in the Neiv Testament that the first day of the week was chosen of God to succeed the seventh. It was the day of the Lord's resurrection, on which He rose from the grave, making all things new. On that first Easter day He appeared five times to His disciples. On the Octave, or Low Sunday, He appeared again, there being no recorded appearance during the week. On Pentecost, which fell on the first day of the week, the Holy Ghost was given to the new- creation, the Church. We read in the Acts that the apostles " came together on the first day of the week to break bread." ^ And St. Paul, writing to the Corinthian Church to lay by on the first day of the week as the Lord had prospered, what each one was disposed to do for charitable purposes, sanctions ' Acts XX. 7. THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. 157 the substitution of the Sunday for Saturday, because the Jews, according to the testimony of Philo and Josephus,^ were accustomed to make their collections on the Sabbath day, and to receive the tenths in the synagogue to carry them to Jerusalem. St. John also calls this day the Lord's day,^ in the Revelations, by way of excellence. But the reasons of the transfer, or substitution, from the last to the first day of the Sabbath (weeks) may be briefly summed up as follows. The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, and Supreme Governor, or Lawgiver, of His Church. He has not only changed the old covenant for the new, but under His hand the shadows of the old economy have become realities, — Baptism taking the place of Circumci- sion, and the Eucharist of the Passover. The Sabbath was, in the first instance, instituted to commemorate the old or, .-- original creation, and the redemption is regarded as a new \\\ \ creation.^ The primeval institution was renewed with fresh sanctions to commemorate the political deliverance from Egypt ; how much more, then, should it be enforced to commemorate the s£iritual__redemption of_the world. If, therefore, we dis- regard it, we might be implicated in a disbelief of this redemp- tion. Moses, who at God's command renewed the institution at the giving of the manna, was faithful as a servant, but Christ, who changed it, is the Son, and Lord of all. The Christian Sabbath was the birthday of the Lord of Glory from the Tomb, " Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." * It was also the birthday of all our hopes : " God hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ; " ^ and this was the day whereon He began His glorious reign. Before His Ascension He came to His disciples and said, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth." ^ And how could the Church rejoice on that Sabbath when the Lord lay in the grave of Joseph of Ari- mathea .-* But on that first Easter day it was said by the Father to the Son, " Thy dead men shall live," and the Son replied, " Together with My dead body shall they arise ; awake and sing ye that dwell in dust." '^ " This is the day," ' Gathered from the second volume of Dr. Lightfoot's works, and those of Mr. Mede. * Rev. i. 10. « Ps. ii. « Matt, xxviii. 18. ^ Isa. Ixv. = I Pet. i. 3. ' Isa. xxvi. 19. 158 THE LORUS DAY ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. saith the Psalmist, " the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it." (3) We have also authentic documents of antiquity on this subject. In that celebrated letter to Trajan, the emperor, about the Christians, the younger Pliny says, that they set apart one day for devotion, and no doubt he means the Sunday. Justin Martyr bears the same testimony, both in his apology and in his letter to Denis, pastor of Corinth. Con- stantine, emperor, made rigorous laws against those who did not sanctify the Sabbath. These same laws were renewed by Theodosius, by Valentinian, and by Arcadius, for these emperors did not believe that the duties of sovereigns were confined to the extension of commerce, in expelling the enemy, and in making politics the supreme law. No, they thought they were obliged to maintain the laws of God and make religion venerable ; and they reckoned that the best barriers of the state were the fear of God and zeal for His service. They published severe edicts to enforce attendance on devotion, and to put a stop to profane games on that day. The second Council of Macon, held in the year 585, and the second of Aix-la-Chapelle, held in 836, followed by their canons and constitutions the same line of duty. (4) But that which especially renders the consecration of one day in seven necessary, arises from ourselves ; it comes from those infinite distractions which consume the ordinary course of our life. Reckon with your conscience the time which you spend over your devotions, whilst you are alone. Do we not know, do we not see, do we not learn on all sides how your days are spent ? Do we not know how those great men live, who, under the pretext that they are raised to a superior rank in the social scale, believe that they are dis- pensed from the duty of examining their consciences, and attending to the particulars of religion ? Do we not know how that part of mankind employ their time, who seem to have abandoned the culture of the soul foi* that of the body, to dress and undress, to visit and receive visits, to play by night and play by day, and thus to render diversions, which would be innocent if taken in moderation, I say to render them criminal by the loss of time entailed } Is it solitude, is it reading God's word which excites those reveries which con- stantly float in men's brains, and those extravagances of THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. 59 pleasures, whereby they seem to have undertaken the task of astonishing, by the amusement they afford to some, and the offence they give to others ? It was, therefore, requisite that there should be one day destined to stop the torrent, to recall our wandering thoughts, and to present to our view those grand truths, which so seldom occur in the ordinary, course of life. 2. These remarks may suffice for the illustration of the first question, whether Christians are obliged to observe one day in seven ; and our second inquiry is in what way, and with what spirit ought we to observe this sacred day of rest, consecrated both by Jew and Christian, extolled both by Psalmist and Prophet ? Our answer is, that this ob- servance on the part of Christians must be strict, spiritual, and joyful. (i) It must be striU- In the words of the text, "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing My pleasure on My holy day ; not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words." Thoughts, words, and deeds, must all be brought under the gentle yoke of this Sabbatical obligation. Has not God predicted the continuance, and described the blessedness of the Sabbath in the times of Messiah, both in the Psalms and the prophets, especially the evangelical prophet, from which the text is taken; These predictions are in very peculiar terms, describ- ing not a mere legal or ceremonial observance, not merely a local or national observance, but true spiritual delight ^ in a hearty obedience to law. " Thus saith the Lord, keep ye judgment and do justice, for My salvation is near to come, and My righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it ; that keepeth My Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. . . . Also the sons of the strangers, * " What says the Prophet? Let that day be blest With holiness and consecrated rest. Pastime and business both it should exclude, And bar the door the moment they intrude. Nobly distinguished above all the six, By deeds in which the world must never mix. Hear him again. He calls it a delight, A day of luxury, observed aright, When the glad soul is made heaven's welcome guest, Sits banqueting, and God prepares the feast." — Cowper. i6o THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. that join themselves to the Lord, to sei've Him, and love the name of the Lord, to be His servant, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant : even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer." -^ " Do not let it be said," says the secretary of the Lord's Day Observance Society, " that these predictions and promises affect the Jew only, or those who become Jews by submitting to the law. They speak of a time when there shall be neither Jew nor Gentile, as well as of a time when restored Israel shall live once more a happy national life. In interpreting such blessed predictions, we must bear in mind the statement of Paul, " My knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the Gospel."^ We must not, therefore, murmur at the Sabbath, saying with the agriculturists in Amos' time, " what a weariness it is ; " ^ kicking at the Sabbath law, " When will it be gone, that we may buy and sell and get gain ? " Did God justify their way- wardness ? Verily not, He visited them for their sin. They had polluted His Sabbaths, and He sent them into exile, to a Sabbathless land. They would not have the rest which God offered and commanded, and He sent them forth into Babylonian bondage, where they fainted without Sabbaths, under the tyranny of cruel and hard taskmasters. (2) The observance must be s^iri^al. We must call the Sabbath a Delight, the Holy of the Lord, and Honourable.^ Even in the lonely sea-girt isle of Patmos, without either Church or sacrament, far away from the assembly of saints, the Divine was "in the Spirit on the Lord's day." We should endeavour so to dwell on the marvels of the new ^ Isa. Ivi. 2-8. 2 Y.-ph. iii. 1-6. ' Gritton's Day of Joy, p. 56. * " The Lord's day being the remembrance of a great blessing, must be a day of joy, festivity, spiritual rejoicing and thanksgiving ; and therefore it is a proper work of the day to let your devotions spend themselves in singing or reading psalms, in recounting the great works of God, in remembering His mercies, in worshipping His excellencies, in celebrating His attributes, in admiring His person, in sending portions of pleasant meat to them for whom nothing is pro- vided, and in all the arts and instruments of advancing God's glory and the reputation of religion." — Bishop Jeremy Taylor. THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. i6i creation, on the work of redemption, if not like St. John to be wafted up in a spiritual trance or ecstasy, at least to arrive at such a spiritual frame of mind that the duties of the Lord's day may not be regarded as a weariness but a delight, and our attitude towards spiritual things highly sublimated and related, " Not speaking our own words," it may be, of empty chattering and frivolity, but listening to the multiform voices of the eternal Word. " Not finding our pleasure" in museums, picture galleries, or halls of recreation, but in the courts of the Lord's house, in psalm and canticle, in works of charity and mercy, in almsgiving, and teaching the ignorant and those out of the way ; " not doing our own ways," in excursions by road, rail, or river, but contemplating the wonders of grace and nature of redeeming love. The only persons who find Sunday " an unrelated day," and its services long and dull, are those who are unspiritual. " The natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God, because they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." Yes, the day is a holy day. It is a d3.y separated unto Jehovah, and therefore we must observe it spiritually. God is a spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. " To be in the Spirit," must be the end and aim of every Lord's day. (3) The observance must be joyful. " This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it." Such is the prominent characteristic of the Lord's day, the resurrection day of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the evan- gelical blessedness now added to the old Sabbath institution. All which it was to Patriarch and Psalmist, it is to us. All its rest and holiness are ours also ; but it is to us more than it was to them, for it comes laden to us with glad tidings of a redemption from more than Egyptian bondage, and glad hopes of a land better than that which awaited the Israelite beyond the Red Sea, and across the Jordan — the land of cove- nanted promise. In order to make " the Sabbath a Delight," it is requisite that we should employ the day in contemplating the works of nature ; but especially the works of grace ; and like the cherubim inclined towards the ark, that each should make unavailing efforts to see the bottom and trace the dimensions, *' the length and breadth, the depth and height, of the love of M 1 62 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. God, which passeth knowledge." ^ "I was glad when they said unto me, we will go into the house of the Lord." It is requisite that our churches should be crowded with assiduous, attentive, and well-disposed hearers ; that our services should be bright and hearty, the worshippers cheerful and joyous, the whole attitude potentially Eucharistic ; that God should there hear the vows, that we are His people. His redeemed, and that we wish the Sabbath to be a " sign between us and Him," as it was to the Israelites. And it is requisite, on entering the courts of the Lord, that we should be recollected, make an act of the presence of God, and banish from our minds all worldly thoughts — business, trade, speculation, pleasure, and grandeur. Let us apostrophize them thus — " You employ me sufficiently during the week, allow me to give the Sabbath to God. Pursue me not to His temple, and let not the flight of incommoding birds, or dissi- pating element, disturb my sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving." It is highly necessary that on one day in the week we should rise superior to sensible things ; we should remember our own origin, and turn our minds to things worthy of their excellence ; that we should think of God, of Heaven, and of Eternity ; that we should repose, if I may so speak, from the violence which must be done to ourselves to be detained on earth for six whole days. O blessed God! when shall "the times of refreshing come," in which Thou wilt supersede labour and make Thy children fully free?^ When shall we enter " the Sabbatism which remaineth for Thy people,"^ in which we shall be wholly absorbed in the contemplation of Thy beauty, we shall resemble Thee in holiness and happi- ness, because " we shall see Thee as Thou art," and Thou Thyself shall " be all in all." " Happy birds that sing and fly Round Thy Ahars, O most High ; Happier souls that find a rest In a heavenly Father's breast." Hymns Ancient and Modern. Anticipate we that happy time by adopting David's " Psalm or Song for the Sabbath day." ^ " It is a good thing j ' Eph. iii. 19. ^ Acts. iii. 19. ' Heb. iv. 9. * "This Psalm is entitled a Psalm to be sung on the Sabbath day. Lo, this day is the Sabbath, which the Jews at this period observe by a kind of bodily i THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. 163 to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Thy name, O most Highest ; to tell of Thy loving kindness early in the morning, and of Thy truth in the night season, upon an instrument of ten strings and upon the lute, upon a loud instrument, and upon the harp." ..." The righteous shall flourish like a palm-tree, and shall spread abroad like a cedar in Libanus ; such as are planted in the house of the Lord, shall flourish in the courts of the house of our God." ^ rest, languid and luxurious. They abstain from labours, and give themselves up to trifles ; and though God ordered the Sabbath, they spend it in actions which God forbids. Our rest is from evil works, theirs from good ; for it is better to plough than to dance. They abstain from good, but not from trifling, works. God ordains to us a Sabbath. What sort of Sabbath ? First consider where it is. It is in the heart within us; for many are idle with their limbs, while they are disturbed in conscience. Every bad man cannot have a Sabbath : for his con- science is never at rest, he must needs live in turmoil ; but he who has a good conscience is tranquil ; and that very tranquillity is the Sabbath of the hearts P"or it listeneth to the promises of the Lord ; and if it toils in the present time, it expands in the hope of the future, and every cloud of sorrow is calmed ; as the Apostle saith. Rejoicing in hope. That every joy in the tranquillity of our hope, is our Sabbath. This is the subject of praise and of song in this Psalm, how a Christian man is in the Sabbath of his own heart, that is, in the quiet tranquillity and serenity of his conscience, undisturbed ; hence he tells us here where men are wont to be disturbed, and he teaches thee to keep the Sabbath in thine own heart." — St. Augustine on the Psalms, vol. iv. p. 215. (Library of the Fathers.) ' Ps. xcii. I, 2; II, 12. i64 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. VIII. "THE CHARACTER OF THE SABBATH DE- CLARED BY THE LORD OF THE SABBATH." Matt. xii. i, 8. " 'Ec eK€ivcjj Tw Kaipif eiropevOri 6 'IrjcoCs toIs crd^^affi Sia tuv ffiroplfiuV ol Se fiadrjTol avTov einiuaaav, Kal fjp^avro riWttv ardxiJas Kal eodifty," " Kvpios yap iCTTi rod aafi^drov 6 vihs toC avOpunov." Mark ii. 27, 28. "Kal e\fyev avrols, rh ffd^^aTOv Sia rhv avdpwTzov iyeviTO, oiiK 6 avOpcoTvos Sta rh (xd^PaTov. wcrre Kvpios iffriv b vihs tov dvOpuwov Kal rov aa^^drov." Luke vi. i, 6. " 'Eyevero 5e iv aafi^dTw (^evrepoirpliiTw) SianSpeveffOat avrhv Stcfc ruv airopiixwv, Kal iriWov ol fiaO-fiTai aiirov rovs crrdx^as Kal ^(tOiov \l/cixovTes rals x^P""'-" " 'HyefSTo 5e Kal 4v erfpai (ra^pdrw elffeXQilu avrov els rT)P avvaywy^v Kal StSaCKeiVf Kal fiv iKel dvdponros Kal rj X^'P avTov rj 8e|ia rjy ^rjpd, k.t.\" " Et mors et horrendum chaos Vocem jubentis audiunt, Nos surdiores, O pudor ! Deo pigebit obsequi ? " {In Dominicis per annum, ad matntinas, E. Brev. Paris. ) Of all the interesting and stimulating points of investiga- tion which cluster around this many-sided subject of the Sabbath, there is none greater than that of the position which this ordinance was designed to hold under the Gospel dispensation, the interest on the subject intensifies as it develops itself, which gathers round it fresh and varied sanc- tions. There is no history which is so precise, systematic, definite and concrete. For its beginning we go back to the very cradle of the world's history, and lose ourselves in the mirage of a hoar antiquity. The glories of the six days' work are succeeded by a seventh day repose as inscribed in the order SABBATH CHARACTERISTICS OFFICIALLY STATED. 165 of creation. It is handed down through the patriarchal Church. The law ^ of the Sabbath is inserted in the ten commandments of the moral code ; it rears its lofty crest distinctly far above the ceremonies of Moses in the very midst of that economy ; it is inculcated by psalmist and prophets as of essential moral force, and as about to form a part of the Messiah's kingdom. Does not all this point to the fact, that Christ's religion would not be deprived of its day of rest ; that the most perfect dispensation would not be inferior to the less perfect in privi- lege ; and where all was grace and light and universality, man would not be allowed a less portion of time for the honour and glory of God, and for our communion with Him, than in a more restricted economy, where bondage and fear prevailed ? The Sabbath of the old dispensation was called the " Sabbath of the Lord thy God," the day of Jehovah ; and now that the " Lord of the Sabbath " appears, we may expect to find, both by precept and example, by deed and word, the institution put in its clearest light, and in all its bearings. It is a legal maxim, that if you can discover the mind of the lawgiver — the lex imponentis — then you may gauge the force of the original statute law, and if you can read between the lines of a rubric, you may discover the intention of the original framers thereof Here, then, we may expect from the Lord Himself to have a flood of light thrown round this important * On the Sabbath Day (its compass of meaning). — In order rightl)' to appre- hend the compass of the Fourth Commandment in reference to the pubhc worship of the Israelites, it should be kept in view that the Sabbath did not stand by itself, as an insulated observance. Not only did the original ground of the weekly Sabbath connect it with all true worship, but it formed the centre of an organized system, including the .Sabbatical year and the Jubilee year. Besides this, the recurrence of the Sabbatical number in the cycle of yearly festivals is so frequent and distinct, as plainly to indicate a set purpose. Without laying stress on the mystical meaning of the number seven, as Philo, Bahr and others have done, it is evident that the number was the Divinely appointed symbol repeated again and again in the public services suggesting the connection between the entire range of the ceremonial law and the consecrated seventh day. And this may" be com- pared with the important remark of Bahr, that the ritual of the Sabbath day, in spite of the superlative sanctity of the day, was not like that of other festivals, distinguished by offerings or rites of a peculiar kind, but only by a doubling of the common daily sacrifices. It was thus not so much cut off from the week as marked out as the day of days, and so symbolized the sanctification of the daily life of the people. In whichever way we regard it, (he Fourth Commandment appears to have stood to the Israelite as an injunction, in the broadest sense, to maintain the national worship of Jehovah. — Speakej-^s Com- mentary, vol. i. p. 342. 1 66 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. institution. What then do we find to be the case ? We see the Ten Commandments, and the Sabbath amongst the number, recognized by our Lord and His apostles ; we observe our Saviour honouring it on all occasions by His practice, and only vindicating it from unauthorized traditions injurious to its real design. Nothing is abrogated under the Gospel with respect to it, but those temporary ceremonies and statutes, which constituted the peculiarities of the Jewish age. Indeed, the special promise of the New Testament has for its object to render its duties more practicable and delightful, and thus increase tenfold its obligation. Now we say that God, by His Son, whom He sent into this world to make known His will, and reveal the good news (Gospel) of the kingdom, reasserted the Sabbath law, and purged it from the dross of human additions, and Rabbinical interpretations. Our blessed Lord submitted to the Sabbath law of Rest, as to every other law of God. Had He not done so. He would not have been the Lamb of God without blemish and without spot". He entered into the human family among a people who had made void this law of Sabbath rest, as they had made void the law generally, by their traditions. That the Jews should observe the Sabbath no admonition from Him was needed, and Christ uttered no such admonition ; but they sorely needed to be brought back to a right judgment as to the meaning of the Sabbath law, and to a right course of action on the Sabbath day. This necessity has been over- looked, and so our Lord's action herein has been mistaken by many persons. He only protested against abuse, whereas they have fancied that He poured contempt on the use of the day. Thus Jesus Himself has been often quoted as a Sabbath- breaker, and as teaching men so, which is the opposite to the truth. He, indeed (and actions speak louder than words), on all occasions, and openly, honoured the law, and He taught men to honour it. But He could not away with the glosses and minutiae, with which a microscopic Rabbinism had overlaid this primal institution of the creation -rest, or as legally re- enacted in the wilderness ; and it was on this point more than on any other that He found Himself in conflict with the Scribes and Pharisees. His righteous indignation, on His part, waxed strongly, when He beheld the hollow hypocrisy of these SABBATH CHARACTERISTICS OFFICIALLY STATED. 167 national teachers of religion, sitting in Moses' seat ; and they, on their part, " were filled with madness " in consequence, and "communed one with another what they might do to Jesus."! The passages under consideration ^ contain the first great ofifence, and commencement of the prolonged and chronic an- tagonism, on this subject. The history is as follows : "At that season Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the cornfields, and His disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck ears of corn, and to eat. But the Pharisees, when they saw it, said unto Him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath. But He said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him, how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which it was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them that were with him, but only for the priests ? Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless } But I say unto you that one greater than the temple is here. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." St. Mark's account finishes thus: "And He said unto them, the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath : " so that the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. (Revised Version.) Here, then, we have our Lord saying distinctly that the Sabbatical institution was originally bestowed on man as a boon ; was granted unto him for his necessary repose from daily care and worldly trouble ; was made for man's complex nature, body and soul, the one requiring rest and refreshment, and the other religious instruction ; created for his Maker's glory and with great possibilities of happiness : the Sabbath was appointed, in short, and made not for the Jews only, but _/iv, quite indefinite, a living being) or to destroy it f Even yet the question represents the case in a generalized form : it, however, does represent it in as far as healing is aCjaai, a saving and restoring of the life-power or health, while on the contrary, not healing when one has the power is an ctTToXeaai (destroying), as every omission of zvell-doing on any occasion presented to us is evil-doing. Thus does our Lord, with simple decision, reduce all the complication be- longing to the disputed questions, as to what is, or is not, to be done on the Sabbath, to the highest clear law : — Thou shalt not do evil : thou shalt not hurt thy neighbour even by the refusal of helping love. Not without irony He thus shuts up the disputers to the conviction, that doing good must be lawful also on the Sabbath, but that doing evil, i.e. precisely their Pharisaical keeping of the Sabbath, is by no means so." And now again with reproachful severity comes the benevolent conclusion from the Saviour-heart of the Son of Man. " How much better is a man than a sheep." Thus speaks the love of God, which compassionates all men, and will assist their dis- tress in body and in soul. Consequently, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day. "Works of soul-healing, soul- saving alone reach the man properly so called — for how much better is the j^?// of man than the body? Hence all the pre- sent operations of home-missions which aim at drawing men out of the pit of perdition are, in the truest sense, a Sabbath work. " Stretch forth thine hand," says the Lord of the Sabbath. The miraculous cure, which we might expect to be performed after the hand was stretched out, was already done SABBATH CHARACTERISTICS OFFICIALLY STATED. 175 in " the speediest and most spiritual manner," ^ as Lange expresses it. This incident establishes, against the absurd and wicked glosses of the Rabbins, that care for the sick on the Sabbath day is lawful : that the lower animals, and therefore much more man — his body and his soul, but chiefly the latter — may be aided and helped on that day without sin ; and that, as a principle of conduct, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day. Unhappily, this is too often quoted as warranting courses of conduct, which can only be called " doing well " by calling darkness light — such as Sunday excursions, Sunday shopping, and Sunday amusements, museums, picture galleries, and picnics, the whole tendency of which is, if not to keep men from, at all events does not lead them towards, the Gospel and salvation. The same principle, enforced by the same illustration, is asserted in the case of the woman who had a spirit of infirmity. " The Lord answered him. Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day ? " Such is the character of the Sabbath declared by the Lord of the Sabbath. His teaching, gathered from these two epi- sodes connected with the Sabbath day, works of necessity, piety, charity, mercy (even to the lower creation), may be done ; in short, it is briefly comprehended in this one large broad saying, " It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day." " Indeed, all our Lord's reasonings" as Bishop Wilson says, " suppose the cotitinuance of the day of rest in its essential moral obligation up07t man. The idea of a worshipper of God without a Sabbath never entered the mind of a Jew or Christian in any age, much less that of our Saviour. Why regulate, why amend, why modify the false usages if all was about to be abrogated? Why contend so warmly against the traditionary master ? Why lay down distinctions between what is lawful and what is unlawful to be done t Why determine that works of mercy and charity are allowable, thus implicitly forbidding all other works ? Why not silence the Pharisees by declaring that the Sabbath was merely a ' Commentary on St. Luke's Gospel, vol. i. 176 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. temporary observance, about to vanish before the permanent law of the Gospel ? When our Lord, therefore, instead of all this, defends Himself and His disciples by a mode of argu- ment in which the permanence of the Sabbath is assumed, we conclude that He meant to teach that the moral obliga- tion of it remained, and would remain under the Gospel age." It was to be world-wide, universal, and for "all the days." (2) But actions speak louder than words. Christ honoured the Sabbath on all occasions, and never violated its sanctity, even from a Mosaic standpoint of legal enactment, but merely brought it back to its original spirit and design from the unauthorized traditions of the Jewish doctors. On eleven occasions is our Lord's doctrine and spirit with regard to the Sabbath illustrated during His ministry. Between the first and second passover we have three : the sermon at Nazareth ; His teaching at Capernaum ; and His healing Peter's wife's mother. We have four between the second and third passover : the miracle at the pool of Bethesda ; the pluck- ing the ears of corn ; His restoring the withered hand ; and His second teaching at Nazareth. During the last year of His ministry, between the third and fourth passover, the remaining occasions occur : His defence of the miracle at the pool of Bethesda ; His healing of the man who was born blind ; of the woman who was infirm for eighteen years ; and the man who had been for so long affiicted with the dropsy. Now, if these narratives are collated and calmly examined, it will be found (i) that the Sabbath was always honoured and kept by our Lord ; (2) that miracles of healing were performed on it only under emergent cir- cumstances, and with a view to confirm His doctrine, and ensure faith in His Messiahship ; (3) that such actions were entirely in accordance with the Mosaic ritual, not in viola- tion of it ; (4) that they were performed with the avowed object of relieving the institution from the oppressive tra- ditions of the Scribes and Pharisees ; (5) that at first no exceptions were taken to the miracles, but subsequently, as a covert to their hatred to His divine mission, cavils were freely indulged in ; (6) that in the line of defence (after the Socratic method) set up by Christ, the Sabbath was tacitly assumed to be of perpetual obligation, agreeably to the real import of the fourth commandment ; (7) that these views are SABBATH CHARACTERISTICS OFFICIALLY STATED. 177 further confirmed by our Lord's cautions anent the flight of His disciples at the destruction of Jerusalem. Now, if this be the case, and taking into consideration the conduct and teaching of His inspired apostles at the first promulgation of Christianity, we can only come to one conclusion, that our Saviour, so far from relaxing the fourth commandment, or abrogating the essential law of the Sabbath, vindicated it, established it, and left it in more than its original authority and pristine glory. Thus, both by His oral teaching, His doctrine, and His actions, in reference to this very Sabbatical institution, " the character of the Sabbath was declared by the Lord of the Sabbath." n. But our Lord Himself puts forth claims with regard to the Sabbatic institution of a personal character, which are too important to pass over without a more careful in- vestigation. Our blessed Lord, after asserting the grand moral end of the Sabbath, and cautioning us against the perverse traditions which would render a man a slave to the external forms of its institution, finally draws this pregnant and oracular conclusion, "Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath," or as it is in the revised version, " so that the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath," ^ exalted as that appointment confessedly is, most ancient in time, first in dignity, most universal as to extent, most durable and permanent in point of continuance. He is Lord even of the Sabbath, to claim it as His own, to transfer the day of its celebration, to fix on it His own name, to sweep away human traditions, and re-establish it in all its original simplicity and compassionate aspect upon man. Yes, Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, the heir of all things, "the second Adam," "the first-born from the dead," " the head over all things to the Church," " the prince of life," " the only begotten of the Father," and " Lord of all." He is not a servant like Moses, but as " a son " He has power " in His own house " to dispose of the affairs of that house as He pleases. Headship over a household, royalty over a kingdom, lordship over an institu- tion, what do all these terms mean and include ? The groundwork on which this claim of lordship is based will be found in the second passage (of the text) under con- sideration, is the didactic and categorical statement that the » Mark ii. 28. N lyS THE LORD'S DAY ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. " Son of Man " is " Lord even of the Sabbath." This claim has a twofold force, because first it shows the universality and beneficent character of the Sabbath as " made for man," for the use and benefit of mankind at large, and, secondly, on this account it comes under the Saviour's jurisdiction, " there- fore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." But in another passage, our Lord claims another kind of relationship to the Sabbath from another standpoint, viz. as being pre- eminently and exclusively the " Son of God." It was on this account the Jews sought " the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God." ^ By the one title, " Son of Man refers to His Incarnation, but the other points back to His original condition," and the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. These two relationships of Christ — the one, as the ideal or representative man, and the other as " Son of God " — become respectively the basis of two positions towards the Sabbatical institution ; (i) His LordsJiip over the Sabbath, to do what He liked with it, to regulate and reform, purging it of all Rabbinical glosses and Pharisaical accretions (to whom had been delegated no authority in the matter) ; and (2) His own independence of it, so that His right was Divine to do acts of beneficence on it. " My Father worketh hitherto and I work," not creating afresh, or on new lines, from which He surceased on the seventh day, but by carrying on the pro- vidential order of the universe. These considerations then based (i) on the Incarnation and (2) Divine Sonship, add to the claims of the Sabbatical institution, founded " at the beginning," alongside that of marriage, and reinforced by the "Ten words," that practical compendium of duty for man- kind— the crowning claim of its absorption into Christianity itself, or the new Law of Jesus Christ, by the Saviour Him- self, in His capacity as our Incarnate King, and Redeemer.' I. It is evident, according to Old Testament prophecy, that there was to be a spiritual kingdom set up on this earth, associated with one " like the Son of Man." We need not stop to inquire the nature of that kingdom, but we may re- mark that the " Kingdom of Heaven," or " Kingdom of God," with which Christ so often prefaced His parables, were ' John V. 18. SABBATH CHARACTERISriCS OFFICIALLY STATED. i-jc) synonymous or convertible terms, and that the word "Gospel" means "good news," i.e. good news of the kingdom. It is evident from the words of Isaiah that the Christian Church was to be an imperial power : " And it sh all come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountain, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall flow unto it." When Christ came and took possession of His own house, it could not be but some great change would take place in its economy and condition. And such there were ; it was exalted and established above all earthly power, and became a refuge and home of all nations. It remained what it had been before, a Church, in its inward and characteristic structure the same, but it became what it had never been before, or only in a partial measure in the time of David and some other princes, and that in type of what was to come, it became an imperial Church. It was the head of an empire, and hence so much stress is laid upon its being a kingdom, and Christ a King. It was a prophecy even among the heathen at the time of His coming, that they who were to rule the world should issue from Judsea. Much more had Micah, with the voice of inspiration, said of Bethlehem, " Though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth to Me, that is to be ruler in Israel." ^ And Daniel saw " one like the Son of Man brought near before the Ancient of Days, and there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations and languages, should serve Him." ^ And the patriarch Jacob long before them had said, " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come, and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be." ^ Well, then, might His own brethren rejoice and shout for joy and sing Hosanna when their king came unto them "just and having salvation, lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass." * And for Him, His first and last words were about His kingdom, or empire, as we now speak. For He began His ministry with the words, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."^ And before He ascended He com- mitted the work to His disciples, " being seen of them forty ■ Micah V. 2. 2 j)^^. vii. 13, 14. ' Gen. xlix. 10. * Zech. ix. 9. ^ Matt. iv. 17. i8o THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN' SUNDAY. days," says St. Luke, " and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." This point, then, will be freely admitted by all Christians, that the kingdom of heaven is that religions institution which obtains under the Messiah, and in accordance with the above prophecies, a kingdom or reign is set up, whose constitution is the Gospel, as stating the laws and privileges of that kingdom. 2. Now the Saviour is the Head of this kingdom. " The Christ " is the anointed sovereign over this empire. Thus we read " all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion behold thy King cometh unto thee." Here the title is " King," but the frequent appellation is " the Christ," or " the Anointed;" as St. Paul said, " This same Jesus whom I preach unto you is the Christ." It is with regard to this promised reign or kingdom, Jesus is " the Christ," the Anointed King, as the sovereign authority in the Gospel institution, or visible Church. 3. But this Christ, "the Son of Man," the sovereign of this kingdom, claims to be " the Lord of the Sabbath," be- cause it is an institution set up for the good of mankind, whom He both represents (as ideal man) and rules (as governor). We must investigate this claim very particularly, as it is of the utmost importance, for in point of fact it is the top stone, it is the crowning of the edifice of the argument, in proof that Jesus Christ, the King of the Gospel reign, appro- priates to Himself, as under His abiding jurisdiction the primeval Sabbath, not that of Moses only, but the original rest of Creation or Paradise. (i) The first point we have to notice is that the name or title " The Son of Man," belongs only to our Saviour. This title corresponds to what was foretold in prophecy respecting the King and His kingdom, " that He was to be like the Son of Man," and to Him there was to be given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom. Our contention then is, that He who was " like the Son of Man," coming " with the clouds of heaven," is our Lord Jesus Christ ; and as King He took into His indestructible kingdom, the Sabbatical institution and Sabbath law, which, like the other portions of that king- dom, " shall not be destroyed." The head of the household and monarch of the kingdom was to be " like the or a Son of SABBATH CHARACTERISTICS OFFICIALLY STATED. iSi Man," i.e. He was to be human, not angelical. " For verily not of angels doth He take hold," i.e. comes not to tJieir rescue in their likeness, " but He taketh hold of the seed of Abraham." ^ "Wherefore it behoved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren." Again, in the Philippians, " Who, being in the form, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man .-* He humbleth Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the Cross." ^ Now, of whom does the apostle speak but of the " Son of Man " of prophecy, this is the Incarnate Word or Saviour ? And this is His official title which He invariably assumed in His con- ference with the Jews, "the Son of Man," and the import of which they fully comprehended, but which was given to no one else. It was under this appellation St. Stephen saw Him. " Behold I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man stand- ing on the right hand of God." It was doubtless the use of this well known formula which made the Jews cry out with a loud voice and stop their ears. It could only apply to the Messiah. This is the title, therefore, which our Lord applies to Him- self as our Incarnate Saviour and ruler. A few instances will suffice : " The Son of Man hath not where to lay His head," ^ and " that ye may know that the Son of Maji hath power on earth to forgive sins." Again, "the Son of Man" was to be betrayed, killed, and the third day be raised again. He was to be (the Son of Man) " three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Yet once more, " the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him : then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory." And our Lord directly applies the title to Him, "Whom do men say that I, tJie Son of Mail, am ? " ^ Even the Jews themselves com- bined the two ideas and titles, for when our Lord spoke of being " lifted up," signifying what death He should die, the people answered Him, " We have heard out of the Law that the Christ abideth for ever ; and how sayest thou, the Son of Man must be lifted up." " Who is this Son of Man >. " Here the two titles are identified as belonging to one Person. ' Revised Version. ^ Phil. ii. 6, 7. ^ Matt. viii. 20. ■* Matt. xvi. 13. i82 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. It is needful to dwell on this fact, and lay stress upon it, because in this capacity our Lord claims to be " Lord of the Sabbath," which proves the permanent obligation of that institution from a Scriptural standpoint ; and also because there are some who affirm that the title " Son of Man " belongs to mankind in general in one of three cases, where this Lord- ship is being claimed ; whereas in no other case in the New Testament, does the title " Son of Man " belong to, or mean, any one but the Lord Jesus Christ, which bars out all such reasoning. (2) We next proceed to examine the force of that direct claim which Christ makes with regard to the Sabbath, as an institution over which He asserted His sovereignty, and which He therefore perpetuated as one of the laws of that kingdom, which He came to set up on this earth. Both in St. Matthew and St. Luke's gospel, and in the same connection, our Lord makes this assertion, " For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath Day." In the former account, the statement is preceded by our Lord's invitation " to all that labour and are heavy laden " to come and take His "yoke," which is "easy," and then comes the Sabbath question, which Pharisaical tradition had made a heavy burden, by their endless minutiae. As an illustration that His yoke was an easy one. He defends His disciples, who being hungry were plucking the ears of corn, which was a sort of reaping, against the Pharisees' charge of violating the Sabbath, by reference to David's case, in which case man's necessity (as we have before seen) — and it is for the good of man all good laws are made — cancelled the ritual rigour without breaking the statute. And as a further illustration, our Lord adduces the case of the Jewish priests themselves who perform official duties, e.g. circumcision, on the Sabbath, and are blameless. Then He asserts His own authority. " But I say unto you, in this place is one greater than the Temple ; " and then, after a side glance to the preference of mercy to sacrifice, He confirms His assertion that one was present who was greater than the Temple, in these words : " For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." Our Lord claims to be " Lord of the Sabbath," not to set aside any proper obedience to it, but to correct wrongful, i.e. traditional, ideas regarding its due observance, and to incorporate the Sabbath law into SABBATH CHARACTERISTICS OFFICIALLY STATED. 1S3 His kingdom by His authority. Now, is it likely that the Saviour would claim to be Lord of a vanishing institution ? " God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Nor is Christ the heir of that which is growing obsolete, and will speedily be set aside. But if the institution was only s.part of the ceremonial law, and the reference was to that which it, and not the Pharisees, required, then He as " Son of Man " could not set it aside. For He was also as a son of the law, made under the law, and He came \.o fulfil that law, as it behoved Him to fulfil all righteousness. No, it was the moral law, of which He was Lord, and He came as Son of man to enforce it, spiritualize it, and enable us to perform it. And when He both called Himself " Son of Man " and asserted His " Lordship over the Sabbath," this fact is an incontestable proof of His authority over that day. Nor was it a part of the ceremonial law which He came to fulfil ; but it was a permanent institittion, which He adopted as " from the beginning," and over which He claimed to preside till the end of the age — the consummation of all things in the present economy and in the eternal Sab- batism above. As King then, by His own supreme authority, as Master of His own house. He asserted His rule over the Sabbath day, and proclaimed it a permanent institution. (3) Lastly, we notice that the Son of Man, in virtue of His character as Head of a spiritual kingdom, claims this Lordship over the Sabbath, on the ground of the very nature and purpose and original design of the institution itself. Bengel, commenting on this passage, well puts it : the Sab- bath was made, propter (on account) of man ; the origin and end of things must be regarded. The benediction of the Sabbath ^ has regard to man. " Sensus eximii aenigmatis promptior est: Quod juris in sabbatum habet homo quivis, id habeo etiam ego. Sensus angustior sed pro ratione illius temporis reconditus ; Finis Sabbati facti est sahis hominis secundum animam et corpus ; hanc salutem praestare debet Filius hominis : et ad hunc finem obtinendum habet idem pos- testatem omnium rerum, et nominatim sabbati, quippe propter hominem facti : et pro hoc fine obtinendo recte moderatur omnem sabbati usum " ^ (the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath). * Gen. ii. 3. * Bengelii Gnomon, p. 172. 1 84 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. The Sabbath was made for the good or well-being (salus) of man, both as regards his body and soul : it was intended for mankind at large. Its character is a most beneficent one — Jiumane, made for humanity. Naturally and of necessity it falls under the jurisdiction and guardianship of the Ruler and Friend of mankind, the Conservator of the universe whose direct office it is — the Son of Man being our King and our Representative — to guard, regulate, and preserve all man's rights, privileges, prerogatives, and immunities. Hence the obvious conclusion, " the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath: wort (itaque), ''so that the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath " (R.V.) ; " tlterefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath " (E. V.). The Sabbath having been made for man's good, could not from the necessity of the case be so perverted, or misapplied, as to do man any harm. Our Lord might have established all this by His mere word, but He has condescended to reason it out, and gives us both argument and illustrations. This affords us both a plea for the Sabbath, and another proof of His care for man. Our Saviour's reasoning appears to be based upon two qualities of the Sabbath, which indicate that it properly belongs to His jurisdiction, and it was one of those things committed to His imperial sway, " All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." This ordinance was (iytyfro, factum est) " for man," to be so modulated and articulated as to confer the benefits intended (to answer the end of its appointment, i.e. " blessed "), and without being twisted into an engine of harm or disadvantage to man, the reverse of its original idea. Into this terse saying and epigram (or, as Bengel calls it, enigma) two reasons are condensed for taking the control of the Sabbath into His own management, and out of the hands of those who, though they sat " in Moses' seat," by their glosses and microscopic traditions had turned an ordinance of God for good into a perversion of man for evil — imposing a " yoke " and " burden." The first part then is, the Sabbath was made for (propter) man, for man's good, for his welfare (salus) both of mind and body, and was therefore never intended to pre- vent him doing good, as e.g. works of charity and benevolence,, in helping a fellow creature : nor to prevent his obtaining good in cases of necessity — thus David and his companions, being hungry, might obtain food ; and a sufferer (like the man SABBATH CHARACTERISTICS OFFICIALLY STATED. 185 with withered arm) might receive relief and healing by one doing good to him. Such being the nature of the institution — so humane, so useful, and so beneficent — the conclusion is obvious, " therefore " it belonged to the ideal Man — the Repre- sentative of mankind — to take the Sabbatical institution into His own hands, and under His immediate control, as one of " the first principles " of Christ's kingdom,^ to regulate the law of its beneficial use and enjoyment, in opposition to those who, intruding into His kingdom, and legislating on a point belonging to His own sovereignty, were turning a humane ordinance into a rigorous servitude, in the face of the spirit of that law which preferred mercy to sacrifice. As they had corrupted the ordinance by " misusing " and " abusing " it — turning a means of grace and good into an engine of evil — their condemnation by the Son of Man, who came " for our advantage," was just, and He took possession of this institu- tion as well as other things which tended to our welfare. " Therefore the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath," even of that institution which was in the world before His in- carnation— even that primal rest of Creation at which, however, He assisted as the Eternal Word — but which belonged of right to Him having now taken our flesh, to rule over this world for ever. There can be no doubt that this Sabbath question was the great "battle field" between our Lord and His adver- saries, and hence their chagrin, when worsted in the contest. " But they were filled with madness " (avoia, rage, of a sense- less character), and communed, i.e. Pharisees and Herodians, " how they might destroy Jesus." ^ It would be a mere waste of time to combat the objection that " man " in one part of the sentence, and " Son of Man " in the other both refer to mankind in general. The contrast is too marked from our previous reasoning to admit of any such possible confusion of thought. He who represents man and rules for man is " Lord of the Sabbath day." The universal character of the Sabbath, and'its beneficent inten- tion, clearly indicate its inclusion in the jurisdiction of the " Son of Man," the Incarnate Word, the anointed King in this spiritual kingdom on earth, to whom is given " authority to execute judgment," to whom all power has been given (TTacra l^ovma lu ovpavi^) Koi tm yrjg) in heaven and upon earth, ' Heb. vi. I. " Luke vi. 11. i86 THE LORD'S DA V; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. " because He is the Son of Man." This true idea is brought out by several commentators. " He therefore who is Christ the Son of Man, and who, as such, cannot but know what is for man's good, is Lord even of the Sabbath ; " ^ and again, " Christ, the Son of Man, is Head and ruler over His spiritual kingdom, no less with respect to the Sabbath than to all other ordinances." ^ These words convey the idea that the Sabbath is an institution over which Christ still rules ; in short, that He adopted it and incorporated it into the per- manent and universal system of Christianity. Another old commentator writes thus : " The summe of it is, they do wickedly which turn the Sabbath to man's destruction, which God instituted for his (man's) sake." ^ Again, the same writer adds, " The Sabbath was made for man " — for man, i.e. was instituted for the use and profit of man : " but two wayes it was instituted for man : (i) for his body ;^ (2) for the spiritual edification of his soul.^ The sense therefore is the external observation of it not to be required neither with the hurt nor destruction of man." The meaning of this is that the Sabbath is an institution of God, intended for man's advantage, nor must traditional methods of its observance be allowed to pervert it to man's detriment. The writer of the article on "Sabbath" in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible,"^ though having doubts as to the origin of the institution, still allows that its insertion in the Decalogue is on the ground of God's six days' work, and is more binding and permanent than any Levitical ceremonies and enactments, recognizes its Jiumane and wii- "versal character. " We have already seen the kind of prohi- bitions against which both His teaching and practice were directed ; and His two pregnant declarations, ' The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,' and ' My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,' surely exhibit to us the law of the Sabbath as humane and univei^sal. The former sets it forth as a privilege and a blessing ; and were we, therefore, to suppose it absent from the provisions of the covenant of grace, we must suppose that covenant to have stinted man of ^ The Four Gospels, with annotations by Rev. J. Lonsdale, Bishop, of Lich- field, and Ven. W. Hale, Archdeacon of London, on Mark ii. 27, 28. 2 Ibid., on Matt. xii. 8. ' Annotations on Nexo Testament, by Edward Leigh, M.A., 1650. * Deut. V. 14. ' Exod. xxxi. 13 ; xx. 12. " Smith's Dictionary, p. 1071. SABBATH CHARACTERISTICS OFFICIALLY STATED. 1S7 something which was made for him — something that conduces to his well-being. The latter wonderfully exalts the Sabbath by referring it, even as do the record of creation and the fourth commandment, to God as its Archetype, and in showing us that the repose of God does not exclude work — inasmuch as God opens His hands daily and fiUeth all things living with plenteousness — shows us that the rest of the Sabbath does not exclude action — which would be but death — but only that week-day action which requires to be wound up in a rest, that shall be after the pattern of His, Who, though He has rested from all the work that He hath made, yet ' worketh hitherto.' " Commenting on this quotation of the sub-dean of her Majesty's chapel at Whitehall, Mr. Brewin Grant thus sums up the argument : " So we have in the Sabbath an institution intended for, and beneficial to, mankind, as declared by our Saviour Himself: and the spirit in ivJiich it is to be kept, viz. as a cessation from our week-day work, but not as an obstruc- tion of any necessary act of charity, being regulated after the Divine 'Archetype,' who while ceasing to make worlds, or frame new creatures, carries on all worlds, and sustains all creatures, on the Sabbath : thus uniting the historical and natural obligation, on which the keeping of that day was originally founded, with the authority of Jesus, who came to reveal the Father : not to repeal the Father's laws ' for man,' but to recognize them as rules for His own kingdom. Accord- ingly, He repeats and builds on the lessons of creation, and combines the natural, moral, and spiritual laws of God the Father, in His reign over the Gospel constitution." For it is the same God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, that hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed Heir of all things : and He who as " Son of Man " and " Heir of all things " wrought miracles of mercy on the Sabbath, to unite religion indissolubly with beneficence, did also, as the " Son of Man," coming into His kingdom over mankind, pronounce the Sabbath to be an institution never to be used for man's injury, being intended solely for man's good, and that therefore, as the guardian of the welfare of mankind, " the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath day," thereby numbering it among the King's trea- 1 88 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. sures ^ as a precious immunity, which He would ever preserve and preside over, for the welfare of His subjects, whose neglect or profanation of it would be doing injury to themselves, and dishonouring their gracious King, who became the " Son of Man " to espouse their cause and claimed Lordship over the Sabbath, no less as the champion of their rights, as the enforcer of their duties. Thus the Sabbath is a boon to mankind, bestowed at man's origin, reinforced in the Decalogue, the permanent foundation of morals and practical religion, and I'e-proclaimed, as the world's weekly jubilee, an (hebdomadal) recurring sanctuary from worldly toil and care, by the world's great Benefactor, "the Son of Man," the Guardian of all that is good for our common humanity. Therefore, as creatures and as Christians, we are bound to " keep holy the Sabbath day," founded for the good of man, and glory of God, who as " Lord of the Sabbath " has declared to us the character of the Sabbath. * Eccles. ii. 8. IX. * " RIGHTFUL SABBATH ACTIVITY." Matt. xii. 12. np€ 5l aa^^drcov, Trj iitKpciiffKouari ets fxiav ffaff^drav, -^ASe Mapia r) MaySa\r]VTj, Koi t) ctAArj Mapia deu>pr](rai rhv racpou," etc. " Kal Siayefo/iievov rov (Ta^^drov, Mapi'a t] MaySaAr/v^ Koi MapiuT] tov 'Iukw^ou Ka\ SaAct'/iT] riySpairav apiajxara, 'Iva eKQovaaL aXii^wcriv avrhv. Kal \iav irpoit tijs jxias aa^^aTcav ipxovrai i-wl rh ixvrijxelov, ayaTei\avTos tov rjAiov," etc. "Trj Se fjLid ruv ffa^^drtav opOpov ^a6eos rjXdov iirl rh fivrifia, cpepovcrat & i^toI- fxaaav dpuifxaTa, Koi rivis ffvv aiiTois," etc. " Trj Se fjna twv (rafifiaTcov Mapia tj M.aySa\7ivr] epxerai Trpw'i, (TKorias en ou(rrjs, els rd fj,v7ifx,e7ov," etc. " On Thee at the Creation The light first had its birth ; On Thee for our salvation, Christ rose from depths of earth." (Bishop of Lincoln, Christopher Wordsworth, D.D.) In the first day of Creation, the Divine fiat went forth, " Let there be Hght : and there was light." And on this day, the first day of the week, the first day of the new creation, arose that " tn^e Light, which hghteth every man that cometh into the world." ^ It is " the morn of morns, the day of days," the queen of seasons, and the golden of Festivals. It is the day of the Resurrection, it is Easter Day. It commemorates the triumphs of Redemption of the Eternal Word, bringing with it the new creation and all its attendant blessings. It is the first Christian Sabbath, the Lord's own day, which we call Sunday. * This sermon was preached in sicbstancc at St. Paul's church, on Sunday morning (Low Sunday), April 24th, 1S81, * I John i. 9. 236 THE LORD'S DA V; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. Most of US are familiar with this change, by which the rest of the old-world Sabbath was transferred in Apostolical times from the seventh day of the week to the first. It is usual to account for it as having been done in honour of the Resurrection of Christ. Sunday is the weekly festival, or anniversary of the resurrection, and no doubt the explanation is so far correct. It is, however, worth observing that the Sabbatical rest of the seventh day, prolonged through so many ages, has now, con- sidered as a type, done its work. It has found, in the repose of Christ in death during the time we call Easter Even, its highest fulfilment, and having been so accomplished, another commemoration took its place. God rested on the seventh day from the great work of creation after six days' work, and Christ rested on the seventh day also after the glorious work of redemption, and completing the new creation, during the six days of the Holy Week, when we commemorate His cross and passion. His death and burial. The Sabbatical rest, the cessation of labour, the retirement of the Israelite from all but necessary work, the sudden hush of the stir of busy existence, and stoppage of the wheels of a nation's active life, was but a faint shadow of that withdrawal of the Lord from the outer world, that rest of His soul, when all was accomplished, and He said " It is finished," after its conflict with evil, which began on the evening of Good Friday and continued through the ensuing day. Little penetrating the infinite depths of His own words, the sacred evangelist wrote, " that Sabbath was an high day." It was the Sabbath or rest not of man, but of the God-man, the deep unbroken rest of the Eternal Word, after the labours of redemption, during which the body of flesh, worn and torn, buffeted and scourged, lay almost for the first time without suffering in Joseph's tomb, and the human soul drank in the light and refreshment of Paradise. And this Sabbath, or rest, when Jesus lay in the garden- tomb was a high day in more ways than one. It was the accomplishment of all the seventh-day Sabbaths of rest ; and all previous rest days, whether patriarchal or Mosaic, had their fulfilment in the rest of Easter Even. It was the last of the Jewish Sabbaths, it was the morrow of the Christian Sabbath, which it ushered in, when the Lord came forth triumphant over hell and the grave. On the precise day of Jewish rest, the Lord of the Sabbath was lying in the grave. It was im- THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 237 possible for the disciples, mourning the loss of the great ^ Master, to have celebrated the praises of the great Creator, of the Redeemer from Egyptian bondage, of the God who had promised them a Messiah and Saviour, when that Messiah and Saviour had been buried and was lying in the tomb, and all the prospects of His kingdom were shrouded with the darkness of death. That last Jewish Sabbath was no Sabbath to them, but a day of sorrow, dejection, anguish and conster- nation. The spouse could not rejoice when the Bridegroom was hidden away in the grave, " dead and buried." But when the Lord arose on the first day of the week, then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. It was to them a day of rest and refreshment, rest after trouble, and refreshment after dejection. Then did their true Sabbath begin, and not before. The necessity and circumstances of the case changed the day of peaceful, happy rest and worship of God, from the old patriarchal and Jewish Sabbath to the Lord's day. The celebration of the Sabbath rest was neither forgotten nor retarded. The old Sabbath seventh day was buried with Him, and the new Sabbath rose with Him on the first day of the week. He had in the old creation of the world rested (as being one with the Father in its formation " without Him nothing was made that was made ") on the seventh day, and sanctified it. Now as the author of the new world and new work of creation, being detained in the prison of the grave on the old seventh day as resting after His sufferings, He rises on the first day of the week, which thus becomes His day, the day of the Lord. And so we say in one of the special psalms for this day, " This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it."^ Everything essential to the day goes on as it did ; the non-essential point of the precise time is changed, or rather delayed, a single day, to wait for its rising Master, and assume a new dignity, and be the memorial of the manifestation of a new and greater creation. This brings us to the last stage in the history of the great day of weekly observance, the Sabbath of rest and worship. The Sabbath of the old creation becomes merged into the Sabbath of the new. By the death of Christ, and by His rest in the grave, and by His rising again the third day, the whole condition of things — the state of ruin and corruption, and unfit- ' Psa. cxviii. 24. 238 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. ness for the Presence of God — which had existed from the fall to the giving of the law, and from Moses to Christ, underwent a complete abolition and re-formation ; creation was re-made and re-fashioned. Everything pertaining to the old system, the Jewish economy, went down with Christ into His grave, and came up again with Him, on His rising again, cleansed and renewed. The old world's uncleanness and unfitness to enjoy the Divine Presence was done away once for all, by the one oblation and spotless Sacrifice. There was no longer Jew or Gentile, Scythian, bond or free, far or near, clean or unclean ; all had died, and all rose again in the body of Christ. And' the ancient Sabbath day was among the things that died and) rose again, not destroyed but transfigured. As the plant from the seed which dies in the ground springs up with new life, so from the old Sabbath of creation, fulfilled and buried in the grave of Christ, sprang up the glorious efflorescence of the Lord's day, or the Christian Sabbath which we call Sunday. With the personal body of Christ, the day of Christ too arose revivified and recreated, remade and glorified. And whatever view may have been taken of the old-world Sabbath, whether Patriarchal or Jewish, whatever opinion may be held as to its origin, it is unquestioned by all that the trans- formation of the old Sabbath into the Lord's day really took place. There is no doubt that He did honour one day, viz. the first of the week, by His resurrection upon it from the grave. Nor is it possible, from the circumstances of the case, in commemorating the victory of "the Lion of the tribe of Judah " to over-estimate the glory and honour put on that day. Since the first dawn of creation, when all the morning stars sang together in jubilation ; since the first commence- ment of the creation of the universe, when God said " Let there be light : and there was light " — the beginning of the six days' work ; since the consummation of that work on the seventh day, the Day of Rest, there had been no such event, no such wondrous day as this. Easter Day — the day of Christ's Resurrection — was at once the dawn, and the completion of the New Testament. God's seventh day of rest at Creation was Adam's first day. So this day was the beginning and the end : and it corresponded not only to the first day, but to the seventh day of the old creation. And since by the Incarnation, and the Resurrection of Christ, THE FIRST DA Y OF THE WEEK. 239 God is far more intimately connected with mankind than He ever was before — for He is Immanuel, i.e. God with us ; and especially with His Church, which is His spouse, and His body — we cannot deny to the wonderful day of Christ's rising a Presence of God, and therefore a sanctification, far superior to that which he vouchsafed to the old sabbatical institution. And to remove all doubt that this day was intended to succeed to all the honours and prerogatives of the old day of observance, now dead and buried in the grave of Christ, our blessed Lord made this point clear in two different ways. He did this by first of all appearing to His disciples in the octave, i.e. eight days after the first Easter day, on its hebdomadal recurrence ^ on Low Sunday, and thus re-enacted the old septenary law, and re-affirmed the original septiform division of time. And secondly, He did so by telling them to hold for the future their solemn weekly or sabbatical feasts of remembrance, no longer in remembrance of the first creation only (as men), and the coming out of Egypt (as Jews), but in memory both of the old, but especially the new, creation, and of His redemption (from the house of spiritual bondage). Henceforth, said our Lord at the institution of the Eucharist, " as oft as ye eat or drink this, do it in remembrance of Me." And as the (Jewish) Sabbath had been for the priest hitherto, the day of offering and eating the shewbread,^ that is, their communion day, and a day of joyful and religious feasting for all the people, so it was made clear to them that this first day of the week was to be their feast day, and high day of service, now and for the future. And this very soon, if not at once, became the apostolical practice (whether or not included in one of those topics, which our Lord spoke of to the apostles " pertaining to the kingdom of God," during those great forty days between Easter and Ascension). For we read continually of their meeting on the first day of the week for " breaking of bread," or of celebrating the Lord's Supper or Holy Commu- nion, and it is called by the solemn title of " the Lord's day." ^ * John xix. 19-26. ^ " And thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof. . . . And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the Lord. . . . Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. And it shall be Aaron's and his sons'; and they shall eat it in the holy place " (Levit. xxiv. 5-9). ^ Acts XX. 7. 240 THE LORD'S DA Y; OJ?, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. It will be seen at once how marvellously the new observ- ance grew out of the old, if we notice that the close of the Sabbath formed the eve and commencement of the Sunday. For this reason, in all Churches throughout the world (in our own it is the Collect), some portion of the Sunday service is used the evening before : in token that the root of the Lord's day still lies deep in the ancient Sabbatical institution ; it is, so to speak, built into it : which indeed on that account and for the sake of the old associations, still enjoys high consideration as a festival among the Oriental and Eastern communions. Thus then came to its comple4:ion the marvellous history of the Church's great high day of the week, or Sabbath (for Sabbath means week). It was enacted in Paradise in token of God's creation of the world, and it descended (after the fall), though shorn of its pristine glory, to the patriarchs of the old world. Two thousand five hundred years after its first institution, it was revived in part with new gifts, but also new terrors, under the Sinaitic law. Then buried together with the rest of the old state of things in the grave of Christ, it rose again, glorified with Him. And filled with His redeeming Presence at His resurrection, it has come down to us after a lapse of nearly six thousand years " with an exceeding weight of glory." It is at once God's resting day, " the Sabbath of the Lord our God," and Christ's resurrection day, or " the Day of the Lord " Jesus. But let us look more closely at the transference of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. Upon what authority does it rest? for it is evident without some external controlling authority the day could not have been altered. We have already alluded to the fact that our Lord honoured the first day of the week, His resurrection day, by reappearing on the octave, i.e. on Low Sunday, as the first Sunday after Easter is called. And there is the practice of meeting on the first day for the breaking of bread alluded to. But where is the command of Christ, where is the passage of Scripture, or what words of the Apostles them- selves clearly promulge the enactment of the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath ? Apostolical practice, the custom of the primitive Church, the testimony of the con- temporaries we have ; but where are the enacting words of Christ, or Scripture ? We have no place of Scripture, no words THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 241 of Christ, to which we can directly refer, except that passage of the Acts which tells us that during the great forty days our Lord speaks of "the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." Now the kingdom of God, or kingdom of Heaven, are convertible terms, and are supposed to refer to the Church. It was with this formula so many of our Lord's parables were introduced. If, therefore, our Lord spake of matters with reference to the spiritual kingdom He came to set up on earth, and of which He was the visible Head, and explained to His apostles the organization, the ecclesiastical regimen and polity of that kingdom, its sacraments, services, ordinances, et hoc genus omne, may we not at least say as much as this, that there is an antecedent probability that He would speak about that high day of rest and worship, the memorial of the old and new creation, on which the services of the sanctuary were to be performed ? We do not predicate that He did, certainly, but there is good reason why He should. We are met, however, with the rejoinder that we have no account of His having done so. This we grant, and there is only the apostolical practice to guide us. As an historical fact, the early believers did meet on the first day of the week, whoever may have told them to do so. But then the ordinance of the Lord's day observance is no worse off than other apostolic practices, or sacramental ordinances. Take, for instance, con- firmation, which we call an apostolical ordinance, and claim for it a Divine origin. It does not belong to the two only sacraments ordained by Christ Himself (the gemina sacra- menta of the Gospel), but it is undoubtedly a sacramental ordinance, and apostolical. It was the complement, or filling up, of Baptism, even in the apostolic age. Peter and John ministered it in Samaria to the catechumens, who had been baptized by Philip in Samaria. Paul ministered it in the upper Ephesine coasts, and includes it in the category of the principles, the alphabet, of the Christian economy, placing it side by side with the doctrine of baptism, resurrection, and eternal judgment. Now where, we ask, are the words of Christ, enacting this ordinance ? Where is the passage of Scripture which tells us to practice this rite? There is an absolute silence in the Scriptures on the subject, yet we have the very words (ipsissima verba) in which Christ ordained Baptism and the Eucharist, consequent upon all power being R 242 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. given Him in heaven and earth. Was confirmation enjoined during the great forty days, when our Lord spake of the " things pertaining to the kingdom " ? We say it must have been, as it was too important to be omitted among "the things ; " and the natural and immediate action of the Apostles themselves all point this way ; but there is not a word left for our guidance. We therefore call the ordinance an ecclesias- tical or rather an apostolic one, for it was " a custom intro- duced by the apostles and esteemed by them an element of the religion which they were divinely commissioned to declare to man, and as far as it required immediate organization, to organize." It would appear, then, that if confirmation has this origin (which is generally admitted) and yet is of ecclesiastical institution, that the word ecclesiastical has, in reference to this and other contemporaneous ordinances, and observed on the same grounds, a high and peculiar sense. In the Ecclesia, and its authorities at that time were included inspired men, who, in reference to what they practised and what they organized, were unable to err. They could say with all fulness and certitude, at all events, those solemn Conciliar words, *' It seemeth good to the Holy Ghost and to us." But there have been councils, since the shutting up of the canon of Scripture, whose members, though excellent in other respects, were uninspired ; and therefore, although they may have passed ecclesiastical ordinances, drawn out from Scripture, or enjoined methods of procedure — these ecclesi- astical ordinances could not have ranked in the same category as the others, which we might call apostolical. We obtain, therefore, two distinct meanings of the word ecclesiastical : the one, co-extensive in the matters to which it applies with the term apostolic, being, in fact, convertible terms ; the other, that in which it has been applied since the apostles' times to the canons and constitution of the Church — the ecclesia docens. In the latter sense we talk of the Conciliar definition, the rubrics and regulations of particular national Churches ; in the former we place confirmation, holy orders, infant baptism, and we must also add the ordinance of the Lord's day, its transference from the seventh to the first day of the week, and all the consequent details as to its observance and obligation. There are, in fact, three distinct characters in the authority, THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 243 from which emanate Christian ordinances, (i) Those appointed by Christ Himself directly, such as ^baptism and the Lord's Supper, for which we have the very words (ipsissima verba) of Christ Himself, and this is the fundamental difference between the twin sacraments (Augustine's gemina sacramenta) of the Gospel, and all other ordinances whatsoever " ordained by Christ Himself (words in the Church Catechism) ; these are Divine in the strictest sense of the word. (2) Those appointed by Christ mediately through the apostles, of which specimens have just been given. These are Divine in the secondary sense of the term, or ecclesiastical in the primary, or better still apostolical^ and this would cover all those things ordained by the apostles, not merely in so many words, but by the pre- cedents which they supply in their actions. These are, there- fore, not only ecclesiastical, but Scriptural, apostolical, and Divine. (3) Those enacted by the Church after the close of the canon of Scripture, and the death of the apostles, whether sub-apostolical or post-Nicene, it matters not which, and these refer to Church practices which may vary in particular, or national Churches, or the definition of councils, oecumenical or otherwise ; all these are ecclesiastical. Now it will be seen by this that the transference or obliga- tion of the Lord's day will come under the second of the above divisions. Our contention is this, the transference of the day took place by the action of Christ Himself; the old creation-Sabbath came out of His grave on that first Easter morning, and rose again " in newness of life," as the Christian Sabbath, or Lord's day, when Christ made five separate appearances to His disciples. It was especially honoured ; and the fact was clinched by Christ honouring the first day by His reappearance at the end of the octave on the following (Low) Sunday. This is our authority for the change, and it is sufficient. But to " make assurance doubly sure " we may refer to apostolical precedent and practice. The first authority for the change of days is the very highest ; it is Divine, in the primary and palmary sense of the word. The actions of Christ carry us over this point, and " actions speak louder than words " sometimes. And our second authority being relegated to the second of the above divisions, is Divine, Scriptural, apostolical, and ecclesiastical. If, therefore, we are asked by what authority we Christians keep the first day of the week, 244 THE LORD'S DA Vj OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. as our Sabbath, we reply, our authority is, (i) Divine (im- mediately) ; (2) Divine (mediately) ; (3) Scriptural ; (4) apostolical ; and (5) ecclesiastical (in the higher sense of the term) ; a sufficient catena, we should think, to satisfy the most sceptical, and even "a threefold cord is not quickly broken." 1 We have drawn these distinctions to prevent any confusion of thought, and to show the full amount of cumulative evidence we can produce for our authority in changing the Sabbath from the seventh day of observance to the first. The fifth (ecclesiastical) may be the least important link in the evidence, but we have adduced it to show that the Church (the Ecclesia docens) has had something to do with the matter in some sense or other, for she has altered the day of the observance of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week ; but we have differenced the two meanings of the word ecclesiastical, so as not to mix up the inspiration and infallibity of the Church in the apostles' days, when inspired and infallible (as to dogma) men ruled and graced the Church by their presence, and the authority of the Church, after they had gone, even in the sub-apostolic age and ante-Nicene days. We therefore say to the Dominicals, observe the Lord's day on the ground of Church authority ; but remember that ecclesiastical ordering is not the practice of the Church since the days of the apostles, but during their lifetime ; and there- fore your ecclesiastical authority is a bifurcated one, in the lower or secondary and in the higher or primary sense. But this primary sense is correlated with what is apostolical, Scriptural, and Divine (mediately), and this again with what is Divine (immediately), so the whole argument leads right up to the person and action of Christ Himself, and in this Christian Sabbatical institution. He " is the chief corner stone" as in other things. You are, therefore, fighting a phantom, and splitting hairs of difference, where none need really exist. Now there are seven texts usually adduced from Scripture for the purpose of proving that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh day to the first day of the week. But before bringing them forward we must say a few words about the Sabbatic week or institution. The Sabbatic week, as an entire period, is the rule of time followed in the Gospel history, * Eccles. iv. 12. THE FIRST DA Y OF THE WEEK. 245 as It was in the previous dispensation, whether Mosaical or patriarchal. And this institution, in its spirit and meaning, was conformed to in the earHcst and latest developments of Christianity, as recorded in the New Testament. As to which should be the specific worshipping day in the Sabbath period of worship and of work, was determined by other circum- stances. But the weekly division of time for the purposes and on the ground of the original Sabbath was adopted by Christ and His apostles, and interwoven into Christianity from the very first It is worthy of remark, and it is a very important point, which has escaped the notice of many, that the word which is translated week in our authorised version is the same in the original as Sabbath. It is the Greek word aa/3/3a~ov, of which two meanings are given, (i) Sabbath, rest ; and (2) a week. The word therefore used in the New Testament stands for the whole Sabbatical zueek, or period, of six working days and one worshipping day, corresponding to the general system of previous dispensations. By keeping this twofold meaning in view we see (i) that the Sabbath institution is inwoven into the New Testament system and teaching and the Christian religion, and (2) that our " iveek " corresponds to it, so far as the general meaning and primary object is concerned, viz. an hebdomadal division of time, following the old septenary law, and allotting a seventh part of the division or Sabbath (week) to worship as the Sabbath day : and the other six parts to our temporal duties, in imitation of the Divine work at creation. If it had been determined to cut out the Sabbath from Christianity, as circumcision and other parts of the Levitical law had been, such as peculiarly Jewish sacrifices, then surely we should not find certain solemn services and stated periodical Christian assemblies named after, and held on parts of, the Sabbatic week. For irrespective of this old Jewish Sabbath (the seventh day) being used by even the Jewish Christians (which gave the apostles such ample oppor- tunity of entering their synagogues on that day, and reasoning out of their Scriptures concerning Christ) and continuing so to be used till after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the new Christian Sabbath (the Lord's day) had it all its own way once for all, another day, but named as a part of, and connected with, " the Sabbath " or divinely originated weekly 246 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. period, was selected, and set apart for the weekly, i.e. Sabbatic " assembling of themselves together " for divine worship, as a separated Christian Church, meeting for purposes of devotion on a distinctive and regulated day. The relation of that day to the Sabbath is clear, for it was numbered and named as a part of the Sabbath time, which in its wider meaning included the whole zveek. And it received its name from the institution on which this division of time into weeks for sacred purposes was founded, and for which it was continued. The Lord's day is therefore the Christian Sabbath. In this way the word " Sabbath " came to be the name for the week, and as such it included the double celebration of the divine work and rest. And this is a very instructive circumstance, which occurs in such a way as to link the Christian weekly worship on to the Sabbatic system, which was " from the beginning " just as marriage was, whose recorded institution is a part of the same history, and belongs to the same chapter. As an illustration of our contention that the Sabbath and week are convertible terms, we may refer to the Pharisee's prayer, if prayer it can be called, where he boasts, standing in the Temple with uplifted hands, " I fast twice in the week," ^ the original is, " I fast twice in the Sabbath " (aal^^^arov) , meaning that entire period of seven days, which is included in the very idea of a zveekly institution. And the same term is likewise used for dating meetings for Christian worship, which would not have been the case, if the Sabbath institution had been eliminated from Christianity, as circumcision was. But not only has it not been extruded, but the Sabbath is actually taken up and absorbed into the Christian scheme, and historically correlated with it, as will be seen in the passages to be adduced. Our contention then is this, the word " Sabbath " ((Ta/3/3arov) stands both for the day, or the whole week of seven days — the sacred week of work and rest in commemoration of the seven creation days ; nor is there any difference in the week, whether computed from the Adamic, Noachic, Mosaic, and Christian standpoints, but only as to the part of the Sabbath, which should be the specially re- ligious day, whether it should begin or end the week, i.e. the Sabbath. We are now prepared to consider the Scripture passages ' Luke xviii. 12. THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 247 upon which the alteration of the Sabbath, from the seventh to the first day depends : (i) On the first day of the week, i.e. the first Easter, our blessed Lord rose from the grave, and made five different appearances to His disciples, to Mary Magdalene, the other women, and the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, to St. Peter alone, and to the Apostolic college collectively. Our text says, " In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magda- lene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre." It should be rendered literally thus, " In the end of the Sabbaths {i.e. at the close of one of the zveeks or Sabbaths), as it began to dawn towards the first (day) of the Sabbaths {i.e. at the beginning of another of the weeks or Sabbaths), came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre." The distinction is seen even more clearly in St. Mark, " And when the Sabbath (day) ^ was passed, Mary Magdalene. . . . And very early in the morning, the first day of the week (literally the first day of the Sabbaths, i.e. the week), they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun." ^ St. Luke is to the same effect, " On the first day of the week {i.e. the Sabbaths), very early in the morning." ^ And St. John uses the very same words, " The first day of the week {aa^^iiarwv, i.e. the Sab- baths) cometh Mary Magdalene early." So we have all four Evangelists using precisely the very same terms which link on the day of the Lord's rising to the Sabbatical week, or institution, then in vogue, and coming down to them from the older dispensation. And if all four have hit upon the one word which refers to the Sabbath, can we, dare we say, that it was not done advisedly on their part ? especially remembering they were under the direct and immediate inspiration of that Holy Spirit " who spake by the Prophets." Besides which, St. Mark's distinction between the Sabbath (day, singular) and the Sabbath (week, plural) is surely conclusive, that we ' So also in Luke xiii. 4, " And He was teaching in one of the syna- gogues on the Sabbath." Here the special day is intended, which is not only obvious in itself, but is expressly mentioned in the subsequent verses, where, after the objection against people coming to be healed on the Sabbath, it is said, " there are six days in which men ought to work, in them, therefore, come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day. It is literally on the day of the Sabbath — the special day of the week. 2 Mark xvi. i. s Luke xxiv. i, 2. 248 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN' SUNDA Y. have lost a good deal, and writers, otherwise trustworthy, have made many mistakes, owing to this inaccuracy of our translators. But to refer to St. Matthew's account, where we have the plural in both cases (Sabbaths). Here we have the two ends of the Sabbaths, i.e. the close of one and the beginning of another set of seven days, about which sets of seven days or Sabbaths, as a whole, there is no difference between the Sabbaths of the various dispensations, from Adam to Christ. The difference, be it remembered, is not respecting the Sabbath, or Sabbatical week, as a whole, but which end of it, the first or the last day in it, shall be the specially religious day, i.e. the day of rest and worship ; in short, whether the Sabbath or week shall have its sacred day of repose, at the beginning of it, before man's six days of work, as was the case with Adam, or whether the six days' work by man shall precede the day of rest and worship, as was the case according to the reckoning of the Jews and Moses. Now in this verse in Matthew,^ the two ends of the Sabbaths (or weeks) are mentioned, and in this verse, which tells of that first Easter day, began the difference between the Jewish and Christian methods of keeping the same Sabbath — in fine, between the Law and the Gospel. In the passages still further to be cited, we must bear in'> mind the leading fact that the words translated " the first day of the week," as the special times for Christian worship, is literally " the first (day) of the Sabbaths," which means that the Sabbath is retained, and that no alteration was made as to the original institution, but only the Jewish mode or computa-/ tion was changed. Christianity is historically built upon the whole Sabbatic period or week. ♦ (2) Our Lord's next appearance was at the end of the octave. After eight days — that is, according to the ordinary way of reckoning, on the first day of the next week (or Sabbath)— He appeared to the Eleven. We have no record of His having appeared during the interval, it may be (as Dean Owen and Bishop Horsley conjecture) to render that day especially noticeable, or it may be because they had determined to meet on that day. Paley comments on this fact in the following way : " It was upon the first day of the ' Matt, xxviii. i. / THE FIRST DA Y OF THE WEEK. 249 Sabbath (week) that the disciples were assembled when Christ appeared to them for the first time after His resurrection. ' Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the Sabbath, when the doors were shut where the discii^les were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst of them.'^ This, for anything that appears in the account, might as to the day have been accidental : but in the twenty-sixth verse of the same chapter we read that 'after eight days,' that is the first day of the Sabbath following, ' again the disciples were within,' which second meeting on the same day of the week looks like an appoint- ment and design to meet on that particular day," and from this he argues : " The practice of holding religious assemblies upon the first day of the week was so early and universal in the Christian Church, that it carries with it considerable proof of having originated from some precept of Christ, or of His apostles, though none such be now extant." ^ The re-appear- ance, however, of the risen Jesus after the interval of a week, on the first day of the Sabbath, is too marked to escape notice, although we are not told the reason why, by Himself or by His apostles. We can only come to one conclusion, that by this measured action on His part He " unhinged " the Sabbath day from the last to the first day of the Sabbath (week), and made it a memorial of the new creation, and wonders of Redemption. " The rest of our Creation Our great Redeemer did remove With the same shake, which at His Passion Did the earth and all things with it move. As Samson bore the doors away, Christ's hands, though nailed, wrought our salvation, And did unhinge that day." (George Herbert's Poetns.) (3) But however it may have been, whether the meeting on that first Sunday after Easter was accidental or not, on the day of Pentecost, i.e. fifty days after Easter, which in that year occurred on the first day of the week (Sabbath), " they were all with one accord {ojioOvfia^ov) in one place." ^ Thus the day already associated with the fulfilment of one of our Lord's promises, His resurrection, received a most signal and ad- ' John XX. 19. * Mor. Phil. vi. 7. * Acts ii. i. 2SO THE LORD'S DA V; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. ditional mark of His favour by the fulfilment of another most important promise, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. Looking, then, at these facts, it is quite clear that, whether by accident or intention, the body of Christian believers did meet and hold their religious assemblies on the first day of the week, on two of which consecutive recurring periods they received religious communication, or religious impressions were made upon them, and on another (Pentecost) they not only received but gave out the benefits of that same religious instruction. It is also further evident that the apostles did to mark that religion, whether from precept received from the Divine Master, or of their own free will (^proprio motu), as- semble on the first day of the Sabbath week, the cycle of seven days naturally suggesting itself as their former custom, and falling in with the old Sabbatical institution. And this first day of the week was the anniversary — the weekly festival of the Resurrection. Christianity was in especial " the Gospel of the Resurrection." Not only so ; if the Sabbath institution was a memorial of the old-world creation (by the Father), and the Lord's day was a memorial of the new creation and wonders of redemption (by the Son), the same day, by the coming down of the Holy Spirit on the assembled college of apostles, became a memorial of the wonders of sanctification, and the corporate life of Christ's spouse, the Church. Thus, the day of rest and worship is associated with the great Tri-unity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in this three-fold aspect — Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification — the great Three in One, who said, " Let us make man in our likeness." (4) But to proceed. Many years after the occurrence of Pentecost, at Troas, " in a Christian Church at a great distance from Jerusalem," as Paley says, "when Christianity had begun to assume a more settled form, something of this sort occurred. St. Paul and his companions arrived there, ' and abode seven days,' and upon the first day of the Sabbaths (week, E.V.), when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them." ^ Commenting on these words, Paley says, " The manner in which the historian mentions the disciples coming ^ together to break bread on the first day of the week, shows, ' Acts; x.\. I . THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 251 I think, that the practice {i.e. of assembling on the first day of the Sabbaths) by this time was famihar and estab- Hshed." Now one would have thought that unless the first day of pf'the week (Sabbaths) had been already the stated day of the Christian assemblies (as Paley puts it) the narrative would have run thus, " On the last day of Paul's sojourn he called the disciples to break bread and preached unto them." But his language is very different, " the first day of the Sab- baths " (week), evidently their usual day of meeting for the religious purposes of " breaking bread," and of receiving in- struction, if there was any one present capable of imparting it. The matter-of-course way in which these circumstances are introduced seems to indicate that these were points already established. The Lord's day was frequently called the day of bread, as the Church was called Bethlehem, i.e. the house of bread, which " breaking of bread " in those apostolic times included both the celebration of Holy Communion, and the feasts ®f charity, ayoTrat, at that time connected, but the latter fell into desuetude from the abuse which often accom- panied them, which made them spots o-7rtXaSfc in their feasts of charity, as St. Jude has it. But whatever the cause, they were disused as the Church developed, as was also the holy kiss (ay/(jj (pi\{]/xaTi) and having all things in common. Dr. Hessey says on this episode at Troas, " I am perfectly aware that some have contended that ' the first day of the week ' cannot mean the first day, but must be either the end of the Sabbath, or the commencement of the second day. I am con- tent to take the Scripture as it stands. Those who are curious on the subject may see what Augustine says in his i6th Epistle (ad Casulanum) and also Chrysostom on Acts xx. and I Cor. xvi. 2." ^ (5) An additional feature connected with the " first day of the Sabbaths," is introduced in the same unstudied manner in I Cor. xvi. i, 2. " Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given orders to the Churches in Galatia, this do ye : upon the first day of the Sabbaths (week) let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gathering when I come." Paley, commenting on this passage, says, " which direction affords a probable proof that the first day of the week was already among the ' Dr. liQmiy'h Bampfon LeLlurcs, "Sunday," p. 32. 252 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. Christians, both at Corinth and Galatia, distinguished from the rest by some rehgious application or other." St. Paul here seems to allude to the fact that the first day of the week was already known for the celebration of religious duties, and which therefore it was not necessary for him to recommend for the first time, " On that day, when you do meet together, add to your religious duties that of almsgiving." And although he does not expressly state that the collection of alms, Aoym, is to be made in the public assembly, it is only fair to assume that he means that should be the custom. Every man was to determine with himself (ttojo' kavxM) and give each as he had determined in his heart IV-aoroc KuOihg 7rpo/]pr]Tai ry Kapdia} The words, let each lay by in store, f/caaroc riOiroj Qriaavpt^dov, would apply to his assigning, or devoting, in his own mind, not in his own house, as to the place where the offering should be made. For if the collection were made anywhere, but not in the assembly, then the wish of the apostle would be frustrated, and the Aoyv @vpoiv KeKXeiafxtViav, Koi ecrrr] els rd fxeffov icoj elirev Elprjvrj vfilv " " To-day on weary nations, The heavenly manna falls : To holy convocations The silver-trumpet calls." (Bishop OF Lincoln, Christopher Wordsworth, D.D.) Easter Day has been set apart for many centuries for one particular topic, and that the Resurrection. More than a hundred thousand congregations of different denominations of "Christians on this day are Hstening to voices in every part of the world— not only in Christian countries, but even in the mission field, among heathen nations — proclaiming that * This sermon was preached i/i substance at St. Paul's church, on Sunday morning (Rogation Sunday), May 22nd, 188 1. THE FIRST DA Y OF THE WEEK. 257 man is not like the beasts that perish, but that he has a hfe beyond the grave. The festival of the Resurrection reaches back in unbroken continuity even to the very times of the apostles themselves, beyond primitive antiquity and the sub-apostolic age. It is the most ancient, and, as we might have expected, the most generally observed of all our Church festivals. Year after year it sounds the paean of victory. It is the trumpet note sounded from the world of shadows, and hidden away from our ken. It explains to us the awful mysteries of the grave, and opens to us the portals of Hades. Angel voices swell the chorus, which comes pealing forth in exultant strains from all ranks of the Church militant. The festival does not merely explain or promulge a dogma : it announces a fact, and that fact is, "Jesus and the Resurrec- tion." Among all the divisions into which Christendom has unhappily been split up, there is no section which does not observe Sunday, i.e. the Lord's day, or the Christian Sabbath ; and what is this but an Easter day in every week? The weekly festival of the Resurrection has come down to us fresh from the burst of Christianity itself It has changed the Sabbath of rest and worship from the last to the first day of the Sabbaths (or weeks). It has, as George Herbert says, " unhinged the day." It shows the intense satisfaction of the early Christians that by the Resurrection their hopes were not disappointed. Hence on this, the first day of the week, they met to pray, and celebrate the Eucharist (to break bread). It was their feast day, and therefore they met to break bread. Easter day is the Christian paschal feast — the day of days, the morn of morns, and the golden of festivals. It is the Church's " triumphant holy day." And as the words are passed from mouth to mouth, " The Lord is risen to-day," the refrain of endless Alleluias bursts forth from the Church militant and triumphant, mingling even with the choirs su- pernal themselves, " with angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven." It is Christ's Sabbath after the work of the new creation. It is the rest day of the Eternal Word after the completion of His redemption work. Having made " on the Cross a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole \j'Orld " He was refreshed. Having wrought a spiritual deliverance for His people, He entered into His sabbatism by seeing the travail S 258 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. of His soul and being satisfied, It is the day of the Lord. It is the day of His triumph over hell and the grave. It is the Lord's Day. (KvpiaKri tfiuspa.) But the change or transfer of the day of Sabbatical rest was gradually introduced by the authority of the risen Saviour and His apostles. Indeed, there had been many premonitory indications that such a transfer of the day of rest from the end of the Sabbaths (or week) to the first day of the week, or the beginning of the Sabbaths^ was both possible and probable. Among these pre- paratory circumstances which led up to the probability of the day being changed, we may notice (i) the prominence given to the proportion of time — the septennial or septiform division of days — both at the first institution of the Sabbath in Paradise, and in the wording of the fourth commandment. The distribu- tion of the work of creation over six days, marks the reason why the seventh was given to repose, and shows that the essence of the institution would be preserved, if six days of labour should be succeeded by one of rest. Not one word is said of the first or last day at the revival of the Sabbath at the fall of the manna. And the wording of the fourth com- mandment is so arranged as to admit the change of the day without at all violating the institution. The proportion of the / days is, in fact, the essential part. Consequently, the Christian^| Sabbath, in the sense of the fourth commandment, is as much S the seventh day as the Jewish Sabbath was the seventh day. ( As that was, it is kept after six days' labour. It is the seventh day, reckoning from the beginning of our first working day, as well as their Sabbath was the seventh day, reckoning from the beginning of their first working day. Our Lord's day, the day of the risen Saviour, may be called the seventh day in the relation to the six days' work, as it is called the first in rela- I tion to the Jewish Sabbath which preceded it. And if we assume the probability that the computation of time was lost in the bondage of Egypt, and the day was revived to com- memorate that great temporal deliverance ; then, when the Son of God became incarnated, and wrought out an eternal Redemption for His people, was it not natural, nay almost necessary, that the day should be changed from the com- memoration of the type to that of the anti-type ? The Sabbath thus follows the mightiest benefit in each dispensa- J THE FIRST DA V OF THE WEEK. 259 tion: Creation in the patriarchal ; the temporal deliverance from Egypt in the Mosaic ; and in the Christian, the spiritual re- dct)iption from death and sin, by the death and resurrection of the risen Saviour. The proportion of time, which is the essential point, is untouched throughout. Among other preparatory circumstances leading up to the transfer of the particular day from the seventh to the first day of the Sabbaths (week), we may mention (2) the freedom and universality of the Christian dispensation. The Jewish economy was local and national, but the Christian is universal and Catholic. It is not confined to one country, but embraces many ; it is not bounded by a narrow zone of longitude and latitude, but is found in all ; it is not localized and focalized in one hemisphere, but is reproduced all over the world — semper, ubique, ab omnibus, — and on the Christian Church the sun never sets. " For from the rising of the sun," says the prophet Malachi, " unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles."^ Under the gospel, then, we might expect that our duty with regard to the Sabbath day of rest and worship would be fixed upon a plain and easy computa- tion, that after six days of labour there should be one of rest, without obliging men in all parts of the world, and under all circumstances, with reckoning up the course of weeks, or the order of days from the beginning, which it would be utterly impossible for them to settle, if it were material. Then there (3) are the intimations of prophecy. The prophets speak of a new heaven and new earth, i.e. a new creation and order of things. " And it shall come to pass (i.e. in the new order of things), that from one new moon to the other and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord." ^ And there is a very striking prediction in the ii8th Psalm, "The stone which the builders refused, the same is become the head stone of the corner: this is the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes." Now this stone refers to Christ, and is so referred to Him six times. When Christ was put to death, and when the risen Saviour burst the bars of the tomb and rose triumphant from the grave on Easter day, then He became the head of the corner. And this is to be the Church's day of exultation. " This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice ' Mai. i. II. 2 jj^j^_ ixv. 13, 26o- THE LORD'S DA V; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. and be glad in it." What day was this ? The Lord's day, the festival of the resurrection, t/ie day, kut l^oxnv, of the risen Saviour. It was the first day of the Sabbaths (week), very early on that first Easter morning, our Lord rose again triumphant. Therefore, it is the day of the risen Saviour, and we will " be glad and rejoice in it." Now see its co-relation with public worship. " Open up to us the gates of righteous- ness and we will go into them, and will praise the Lord : this gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter." Is not this an intimation that the Christian day of joy shall fall on the day of the resurrection of the Saviour — which the Lord's day has ever done from the first promulgation of the Gospel, even to our own days ? If, further, (4) we think of the complete revolution which took place in the whole state of the Church, we shall not be surprised if we find the Sabbatical day of rest and worship following the new order of things. The Sabbath was con- tinually receiving new manifestations of the redemptive work of God, which connected it with new ends in the progress .of ages. And as these new ends culminate in the death and resurrection of Christ, there is an antecedent probability that under the gospel there would be a corres- pondent alteration in a subordinate point of the Sabbatical institution. The weekly festival of the Resurrection illustrates the glory and triumph of the Mediator of the new covenant. And then, in the new dispensation as in the old, rest comes after labour : after the first creation God rested from all His works, and so after the great Redemptive work consummated on the Cross, and in the grave, Christ, the Eternal Word, " rested and was refreshed." Then He ceased from all His own works as God did from His : then He entered by His resurrection into rest ; then after the great restoration " He rested and was refreshed," and saw of the travail of His soul and was satisfied. Then He left, in the new Sabbath, a new pledge of heavenly felicity to His Church and people. The day of the risen Saviour becomes the sign and pledge of the heavenly rest (the Sabbatising, keeping of a Sabbath) ^ which remains to His people. And as the day of repose followed the precise order of working and of rest in the first economy, so in the last and most perfect economy, it is again changed as to the THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 261 precise time of its celebration, to dignify the day of spiritual redemption ; and thus the patriarchal and Jewish Sabbath became the Lord's day. One additional (5) premonitory indication we will notice, which, in point of fact, welds all the preceding ones together ; I mean, the claim which our Saviour advanced during His ministry, of legislating for the Sabbath, as its Sovereign and its Lord. Even if it does not intimate a probable or imminent change, it at least points to a remote possibility. In discoursing about the Sabbath on one occasion, our Lord asserts the moral ends of the Sabbath — "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" — then cautions us against the perverse traditions of the Jewi'sh Rabbis and their glosses on the subject, drawing at length this pregnant con- clusion : "Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." That appointment, so ancient and time-honoured, so exalted in dignity, most universal as to extent, most per- manent, in point of continuance, even over that — the primeval Sabbath — He is Lord, to call it His own, to change even the day (though preserving the proportion of time), fixing on it His own name (the Lord's day), sweeping away all human traditions, and re-establishing it on the firm basis of its original simplicity. Yes, Jesus is " the heir of all things," " the first born from the dead," " the head over all things to His Church," " the prince of life," the Lord of all, and last but not least. He, the Risen Saviour, is Lord also of the Sabbath. He is not like Moses, a servant ; but He, as a son, hath power to dispose of the things of His own household, and among other things, the Sabbatical institution. And if He could say of Himself, " I say unto you, in this place is One greater than the Temple," with all its glories, so He was authorized to regulate both the services of the temple, and fix the day of religious worship and assembly. And again He said, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," speaking probably before the Sanhedrim on this very Sabbath question, which words imply that as Almighty God had worked the six days of creation and rested on the seventh, so the Eternal Word, after finishing the work of Redemption, after vindicating the Sabbath day from unauthorized imposition, claiming the day. as His proper institution, and fixing the day after His own place, would rest from all His works as God did from His 262 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. Here, then, are laid the grounds of the alteration of the day, for the Lord's day marks the authority of the " Lord of the Sabbath." He has power over this as of all things in His Church ; for when He commissioned the apostles, giving them both mission and jurisdiction, He said, " All power is given Me (the Risen Saviour) in heaven and earth ; go ye therefore," i.e. because, all power is given to Me. The worship of the New Testament Temple follows the Resurrection. n. But to pass from preparatory circumstances and pre- luding indications to the actual historical facts themselves. The change of day, be it remembered, is only subordinate, and it does not touch the substance of the command. If, therefore, we are asked for a precise and formal injunction as to the change, we own we have it not, it is only derived from the practice of Christ and His apostles. The main point is the authority of keeping one day in seven for religious rest and worship, and for this we refer the inquirer to the Sabbatical institution in Paradise, and the words of the fourth commandment. But the change of the particular day is quite subordinate, and does not desiderate the like formal and ex- press injunction for the same. We all confess to the moral obligation of giving one day in seven to God, and in every dispensation we cannot help noticing the way in which it has kept its footing. And it was honoured and left in force by Christ and His apostles. The duty being known, there was no room for a new precept. And for this transfer of the day we have the weekly memorial of the resurrection, the tacit example and conduct of the risen Lord Himself — the time of the fulfilment of the chief promise of the New Testament — the doctrine and practice of the apostles, the universal practice ■ of all sections of the Church in the sub-apostolic, and all the subsequent ages, and the continuous blessing of God down to our own times, resting on the transferred day. Such is sufficient evidence. We claim Divine authority for the change of day from the last to the first day of the week, as we do for its primal institution in Paradise, and for the formal injunction of the moral law of Sinai. I. Our Saviour, then, after His passion, began ^ to introduce * " As to the prevalence of the Lord's day being only gradual, it is obvious to remark that it was only gradually that the apostles developed other doctrines. They were as cautious in their constructive operations, as they were tender and con- THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 263 the actual transfer of the day of rest and worship, by His own divine conduct or action in rising on the first day of the Sabbaths (week). Hence, the first day of the week, i.e. the Christian Sabbath, is the weekly festival of the resurrection. This day had long been fixed in the eternal counsels of Jehovah. It was all along foreshadowed by the arrangement of the Passover, and it led up to His great fulfilment of this typical sacrifice. The four evangelists all tell us, in very pre- cise language, that it was on the first day of the Sabbaths (week) our Lord rose triumphant out of His grave. He said Himself, " Destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days." The Jews, therefore, expected something would happen, and took precautions accordingly. His appearance on that day, and His reappearance in the octave, marked off the day which was to become emphatically His day. Having arisen on that first Easter morn. He manifested Himself five times in that one day to His disciples before its close, and thus by His own immediate presence " adorned and beautified " the first Christian Sabbath. All the evangelists have something to say of the appearances of that Divine Master on the first day of the week. " The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon," that was the whisper, the exclamation which passed from mouth to mouth among the astonished disciples, on the morning of the first Easter day, — that He who had been crucified and laid in the grave had actually burst the bonds of death and was again abroad, visibly moving in the world of living men. What was the joy, the astonish- ment, and triumph of those first followers ? First one and then another, and then groups of friends, and then large bodies of men, were admitted to see this conqueror of the grave, to listen to Him, to speak with Him, to satisfy them- selves by hearing and sight and touch that the day of Calvary had not for them really closed in a night of unrelieved dark- ness, that a brighter morning, a new Sabbath, had begun to dawn upon the earth. The risen Saviour appeared first of all to Mary Magdalene. He has the first words, as His last utterance had been, siderate in those which were destructive." (Hessey's Bampton Lectures, ii. p. 35.) " In another sense it (i.e. Jewish Sabbath) lingered on for a while, though decreasing in honour and gradually less esteemed, as the Lord's day increased in honour, and became gradually more esteemed." — p. 36, "Sunday." 264 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. for penitents. " Mary Magdalene," says Bishop Andrewes, " because she loved much and gave divers good proofs of it, had this morning divers favours vouchsafed her : to see a vision of angels, to see Christ Himself; to see Him before any other, first of all. He spake to her, ' Mary ; ' she spake to Him, ' Rabboni.' " She would fain have touched His sacred person. But she is repulsed by a Noli me tangere. " Touch Me not," is the restraint ; the thing forbidden being " the touch " of the risen Saviour ; and she was the party affected. Yet she had come so early, had arrived at the sepulchre first, stayed last, been at such cost, taken so much pains, and had wept so many tears. Whether we take St. Chrysostom's view, that it was " to correct her want of due reverence," or St. Gregory's, to hasten the message, " Go to My brethren and say unto them I ascend," or St. Augustine's, to "wean her from sensual touching," a repulse it was, and make the best of it, a cold salutation — like a sharp spring morning — for that Easter day. Yet before this manifestation she had run and told the disciples, " They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him." Accordingly, Peter and John set out for the empty tomb. Zeal and love had a race, and love came first to the sepulchre and only looked in, but zeal came up and ^^ went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie," or if you will, " Reason and faith at once set out, To search the Saviour's tomb : Faith faster runs, but waits without As fearing to presume : Till reason enter in and trace Christ's relics round the holy place." This was the case of the apostles of Christ when the power of the resurrection in all its evidential force dawned upon them on the first Christian Sabbath. Another appearance on that first " Lord's day " was made to the holy women^to Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, and other women that were with them, on their way back from the sepulchre, "which told these things unto the apostles." Perhaps one of the most remarkable appearances of the first Easter is to be found in the Lord's manifestation of Him- self (as contained in the text) to the two sorrowful travellers THE FIRST DA Y OF THE WEEK. 265 on their way to Emmaus.^ The pneumatic (resurrection) body of the risen Saviour seems to have had the power of either being recognised, or unknown. In our Lord's first appearance, Mary Magdalene supposing Him to be gardener, said, " Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him." It was not till He spake, and she heard His voice say "Mary," that she recognised Him. And so the disciples of Emmaus' " eyes were holden, that they should not know Him," says St. Luke. " He appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked and went into the country," says our text in St. Mark. All these appearances are different, yet it is the same pneumatic (spiritual) body. It had the power of appearing in a room with closed doors, or vanishing out of their sight. Yet it was not an apparition or spirit. The conditions of the body of the risen Saviour were altered — flesh and bones it had, but no blood, i.e. animal life. Our Lord then drew near these sorrowful disciples so full of anxious thoughts, and joined in their conversation. They speak of His death, and the void caused thereby, the blank despair and disappointment, for they had trusted that it was He who should have redeemed Israel. And the third day too had come, and they had only one small ray of comfort, for certain women of their company, i.e. believers, had been very early on the first day of the Sabbaths, to the sepulchre, which they had found empty, and where they had seen a vision of angels, who said that He was alive. But of this they had no certain proof And then comes the rebuke, and relief is afforded. He refers them to the written word, and conveys instruction through passages very familiar but not understood, " beginning at Moses and all the prophets. He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" Thus conversing " they drew nigh to the village whither they went, and He made as if He would have gone further." But they con- strained Him to remain with an " Abide with us." And now at length we come to the time and manner of our Lord's actual manifestation. It was in perfect harmony with all that had preceded it. Their faith had been strengthened by, and their minds prepared for, the reception * 'Eyuyuaous was, as is mentioned by Josephus, B. J., vii. 66, a little village distant from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey, that is, sixty stadia. — Olshausen, in loc, iv. 165. 266 THE LORD'S DA Y; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA Y. of Christ, by meditation on His passion, by the study of the Scriptures in an humble spirit, and by the quiet discharge of ordinary duties ; but it was, as it were, through the ordinance which He had Himself appointed — the Lord's Supper, on this first Lord's day — that they finally became conscious of His presence. " For it came to pass, as He sat at meat with them. He took bread and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened and they knew Him, and He vanished out of their sight. -^ And they rose up the same hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, saying, " The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way, and how He was known of them in breaking of bread." And this episode on the first Lord's day, this manifestation of the risen Saviour to the disciples in the Lord's supper, seem to indicate that the first day of the Sabbaths, this Lord's day, was to be the day of the breaking of bread in the new dispensation, which, as a matter of fact, it soon became by the teaching and practice of the apostles — " On the first day of the week, when the disciples were met to break bread." If the Church, then, is called our Bethlehem, i.e. the house of bread, so this first day has been called the " day of bread," in which we celebrate the Supper of the Lord. The Christian Sabbath, i.e. " the Lord's day," therefore comes down to us from the very first transfer of the day, from the last to the first, as the day of the breaking of bread, in essence a day of joy and thanksgiving — Eucharistic.^ The first Christian Sabbath, then, is connected with the Christian Passover, which commemorates something higher and better than mere temporal deliverance — even our redemption from sin and evil ; and the Lord's day is to the whole Christian Church the day of bread, which thought animates and illus- trates it. It is the day of the Lord's Passover ! Again, if we compare the first and last appearances of the risen Saviour on that first Lord's day ; if His appearance to * avTos ticpavTos iyevero air' avrwv. " Although the identity of Christ was un- affected by the resurrection and glorification of His body, yet were His being and nature more exalted, more consecrated than formerly. His appearance, though it was corporeal, was yet similar to that of celestial natures." — Olshausen, in loc, iv. 169. ^ Eux«P''<^'''ia= thanks, gratitude. A giving of thanks — hence " the Holy Eucharist," Eccl. — Liddell and Scott's Lexicon. THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 267 Mary Magdalene tells us of the touch of faith as being superior to mere physical tractation, especially after the ascension ; if, that is, on the day of His resurrection to Mary was explained the wondrous power of the hand of faith to draw down streams of grace and virtue from the ascended Lord, and we may, therefore, connect the weekly festival of the resurrection, i.e. the Christian Sabbath, with the exercise of faith, or spiritual touching of the ascended Lord, in our public and private devotions on the day of rest and worship — ■ so His last appearance tells us of peace. Faith, spiritual or sacramental communion, and peace ; these would seem to be the chief characteristics and notes of the Lord's day, or Christian Sabbath. But let us look at this last appearance of the risen Saviour a little more closely, which ushered in the transfer of the Sabbatical rest and institution. The eleven, as after the death of Judas they came to be called (strictly speaking, in St, Thomas's absence, ten of the number were present), the eleven were assembled in a secret chamber for fear of the Jews. They were discussing the report of Jesus having appeared to St. Peter, when they were joined by the tv/o disciples who had met our Lord (Cleopas and another) — St. Mark says, in a different form or guise {hipa fxop(())j) — on the Emmaus road during the afternoon, and who at length had known who He was in the breaking of bread. Not to mention what must have reached them from Mary Magdalene and the other women (who had come and held Him by the feet and worshipped Him),^ these two reports from the two disciples and St. Peter, thus combined, may well have made the hearts of those present beat more quickly than they did before. Where was He ? Would He show Himself? Would they too see Him ? What would He be like — the Jesus of the trans- figuration, or the Jesus of Calvary ? Would He be what He was before He suffered, or would His visage still be so marred that only a few would know Him ? Or would He, on the other hand, be so changed into an unimagined form of glory and beauty, that the old features would be hardly traceable, except to intimate friends like Peter and John ? Or was this all purely idle speculation ? Might not Peter — some few might have reasoned thus at that time — might not Peter have ' Matt, xxviii. 9. 268 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. been deceived ? Might not the two disciples have mistaken Him for some one else ? Might they not have read His well- known features into the countenance of some other Rabbi ? It was almost in such a turmoil of hopes and fears, of specula- tions and doubts, of bold anticipations and despairing conjec- tures, that Jesus Himself appeared. He gave no sign of His approach. The angels were guarding His empty tomb, but no angel visibly announced Him. There was no sound that rent the air ; no blaze of brilliant light, as that on Tabor illumined the chamber ; no wall fell down, as before the conqueror of Jericho ; no door was opened.^ All had been fastened up for safety's sake against the Jewish enemy with- out ; all remained as it had been. But they looked, and behold He was there — there in the very midst of them. How they knew not, but so it was. The thin air had suddenly yielded to their sight that form, that countenance, which they could not but recognize. And then a second sense was summoned to support the evidence of the first. The form which they beheld spoke, spoke in a voice with whose every intonation they had been familiar. Jesus said unto them, " Peace be unto you." The evangelist describes the imme- diate effect. They were terrified and affrighted. They had seen, as they thought, an inhabitant of another world : not an appearance without an essence, as some have conjectured ; not an angel, since an angel is a specifically different being from a man ; still less, as it has been imagined, still less, an evil spirit self-changed into a form of light ; but the disem- bodied spirit of their dead Master making itself visible. This was that the disciples supposed they saw. The language of the evangelist leaves no question on this head. They thought that the body of Jesus was still resting in the grave in the rich man's garden. Their incredulity, which was proof against the remembered prediction of their Master, was proof also as yet against the report of Peter and the two disciples ; but as they could not mistake either the form before them, or the * Some with Hieronymus have thought that the doors were opened in a miraculous way. So thought Theophylact, that the stone had not been removed from the sepulchre. Well does Olshausen observe, " Meanwhile, determinedly as we should avoid the needless miraculous in our interpretation, just as decidedly shall we feel ourselves compelled to combat that interpretation, which designates the appearing of Christ, on this occasion, as a common and usual entrance." It was a at\ix.dov, John xx. iii. — Olshausen, in loc, iv. 170. THE FIRST DA Y OF THE WEEK. 269 voice to which they Hstened, they supposed that Jesus, being dead, had appeared to them without a body.^ His spirit it was, they believed — His ghost, that they saw. My brethren, however we may account for it, man has a secret terror at the thought of contact with pure spirit, unclothed by a bodily form. This dread, I say, is part of our humanity, however we may account for it. Perhaps it is due to an apprehension that a disembodied spirit, with its superior freedom and subtlety of movement, may easily take beings such as we are, weighted with a body of sense, at a fearful disadvantage. Perhaps it is more truly to be referred to a dim sense of the truth that our nature is really mutilated, when, during the in- terval between our death and the resurrection, the spirit exists for a time apart from the body. It is difficult, alas, to account for the dread of such appearances among those who look forward to a future life, and who expect one day to be spirits themselves. Even St. Paul betrays something of the feeling in question, when he writes to the Corinthians of the spirit after death as being unclothed, just as though death inflicted an outrage upon our poor humanity, and the state of the dead until the resurrection had inevitably about it a touch of the unnatural. At any rate the feeling expressed by Eliphaz the Temanite holds good for all nations and all times. " In the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof An image was before my eyes. There was silence." ^ This profound instinct of our nature, which shrinks from contact with the spirits of the dead, is by no means confined to, or chiefly exhibited in, fervent believers in Divine reve- ^ " Ignatius (ad Smym), Jesus uses the words ovk eljUt Sai/j-dpiov aa-^narov. Some, from the mention of aapKa koI offrea (Luke xxiv. 39), without aTfia (which was a sign of the ^vxh, or ' animal life '), have perhaps too rashly and literally inferred that the resurrection-body was bloodless. In a very curious translated fr^ment of Clemens Alexandrinus on John i. i, a tradition is mentioned that St. John, touching the body, found no substance there ; his hands passed through it (quoted by Keim iii. II, 568)." — Note to Farrar's Zz/e of Christ, ii. 440. " But His body had not been merely the human body, nor liable to merely human laws, nor had He lived during their (forty) days the life of men." — Farrar, ii. 446. * Job iv. 13-16. 270 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. lation. On the contrary, doubts as to the reahty of revealed truth, form the natural soil for every species of unreasoning fear. Man feels that any horror from beneath is possible, when he has ceased to know that blessings from above are certain. Saul naturally trembles before the witch of Endor, and the so-called spiritualism of our day, weird and often grotesque as it is, gains its most distinguished adherents from among the first advocates of pure materialism. Had the disciples looked forward to the fulfilment of their Master's word as a simple matter of course, they would have welcomed Him as He was, with reverent love — a love which would at once have cast out the torment fear. As it was, they fell back upon the surmise that He was a ghost. They shivered ^ at perceiving how near this unearthly being was to each one of them. They said nothing, but He, as always, knew what they felt, knew what they thought. He did not conjecture their thoughts and their feelings : He read them with that pene- trating glance, which makes Him in time and eternity the Master and the Judge of souls. He is ready with His con- solations : " Why are ye troubled ? Why do reasonings arise in your hearts ? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I myself: handle Me, and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have." ^ And what was the Easter salutation on that first Lord's day, which gave the key-note to, and filled beyond expression, every subsequent Christian Sabbath. It was that of peace (Eljo/;v»] v\iiv). The three last evangelists all give the same word. It was a word common in greeting with the Jews,^ as with all Semitic nations, and was used with great deliberation ' " The unwonted aspect of that glorified body, the awful significance of the fact that He had risen from the dead, scared and frightened them. The presence of their Lord was indeed corporeal, but it was changed ; they thought it was a spirit which was standing before them." — Farrar's Life of Christ, vol. ii. 439. ^ Luke xxiv. 38, 39. ' "Which saying He afterwards (v. 21) repeated impressively. This was quite a usual form of salutation amongst the Jews. But in the lips of the glorified Redeemer, it contained not only a superior signification — as wishing them temporal and eternal peace, but it contained also an essential power. When the Lord entered, they were immediately penetrated by a feeling of sacred peace. They felt they were in immediate proximity with the Holy One." — Olshausen, in loc, iv. 171. " Opportunissima salutatio, qua timor culpee per fugam contractae pellebatur, et scandalum sanabatur. Usitata formula, singulari virtute." — Bengel's Gnomon, 407. THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 271 by the old kings and prophets ; even by heathen kings of the earth. Is it peace, is it well ? All is peace ; there is nothing beyond it or above it. To the woman with the issue of blood our Lord said, " Go in peace." And to Mary Magdalene, He said, " Thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace " (vade in pace). It was Christ's great legacy, " Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." It is the Church's plenary benediction, " The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds." Yet it was not with Christ a mere conven- tional word, or of respect, as the Rabbis used it ; but it was real, true, sincere and conscientious. Christ restored this language to its original power. The risen Saviour invigorates the thought with a new force, " Peace be with you." It was the resurrection of Christ that brought reality into words and thoughts and actions, " Peace I leave with you." The Hebrew word peace, means not only rest, and the absence of disturb- ance, but a quality whole and entire. It represents a person or thing as it should be. It is not merely tranquillity, but xvcll- being (the incidental or derived meaning having displaced the original one). The risen Saviour on that first Lord's day, gave, as the climax of all His gifts in that last of His five appearances, He gave the disciples " Peace," ^ i.e. safety, peace from the perturbations of the moment, security from danger. They had before known His love, now they knew His power. The Jews might rage, but they were safe ; nor were they any longer apprehensive of a tragedy every moment. The magic spell of that word from the lips of Him, who spake as never man spake in the days of His ministry (and how much more then), detached their thoughts from the outward and concreted them on the risen Saviour. And in like manner to all His people to the end of time, every subsequent Chris- tian Sabbath, especially as that first day of the Lord, comes laden and surcharged with, full and redolent of, that Divine peace, which the world can neither give nor take away : the fourfold peace — peace in the intellect, peace in the will, peace in the heart, and peace in the conscience — so that the Christian believer is no more disturbed than the depths of the ocean are * " AVhen Jesus appeared to the apostles He gave them His/mc^ for a benedic- tion, and when He departed He left them peace for a legacy, and gave them the power, according to two former promises, of making peace, and reconciling souls to God by a ministerial act."— Jeremy Taylor, Life of Christ (Accidents after His death), 807. 272 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. stirred with the storms on the surface, and like St. Augustine after his conversion enjoys the fullness of that peace "which passeth all understanding." Thus the peace of the risen Saviour is the key-note of the Christian Sabbath. But St Mark, in the words of the text,^ refers to the very scene which we are considering, by saying that Jesus appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them that had seen Him after He rose from the dead. And yet, when we look to St. Luke's report of what actually took place, what tender censure it is ! There is no expression which betrays grief or anger. He meets their excitement with the mildest rebuke, if it be a rebuke. " Why are ye disquieted ? Why do critical reasons arise in your hearts ? " He traces their trouble of heart to its true source, the illusion which was in possession of their understandings about His being only a spirit. In His tenderness He terms their dread, their unworthy dread, a mere heart disquietude. They are on a false track, He says, and He will lead them right. They doubt whether what seems to be the body which hung upon the cross is really before them. Let them then look hard at His hands and His feet, which had been pierced by the nails. They doubt whether they can trust their sense of sight. Very well, let them handle Him ; they will find that it is not an ethereal form which melts away before the experi- ment of actual contact. He does not peremptorily condemn the notion that a spirit — a bodiless spirit — had appeared to them, as if it were a mere superstition. He even seems to sanction it, when He observes that such spirits have not flesh and bones, which answer to the sense of touch. He appeals, let us observe, to the lower senses, as well as to the higher ; not merely to hearing and to sight, but to touch. " Handle Me," He said, "and discern." There was no restraint (noli me tangere) now, as in Mary Magdalene's case. They might, for the confirmation of their faith, not only totich (utttov) but handle and feel (xpriXaipyta-aTi.), which especially with the sub- sequent manducation, proved and convinced them of His real corporeity. And St. John's language at the beginning of his first epistle, " That which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands ' Mark xvi. 14. THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 273 have handled, of the Word of Life," seems to show that they took their risen Saviour at His word, on that first Lord's day. 2. Their joy in the resurrection of their Master now began the Christian Sabbath. " This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and he glad in it." And to mark out and separate the Lord's day more distinctly, the intervening week is allowed to pass without the repetition ^ of His visits. Five He made on the First Lord's day, but none on any sub- sequent day of the week, as far as we know. We do not positively say. He did not appear all that week, but there is none recorded, and we dare not be wise beyond what is written. To the word and to testimony. We cannot bring any passage, any yeypcnrrai (it is written) to prove that the risen Saviour was seen all those six days. We cannot agree with Dean Alford, " in all probability they had been thus assembled every day during the interval." What proof of this is there ? No doubt it would have been a source of deep joy so to have met, but our Lord's appearances during the great forty days, were like angels' visits are said to be, " few and far between." In all, they amounted to nine recorded appearances. Nor can we agree with Olshausen that this appearance ^ was in Galilee. The whole narrative points to the same place and day, the upper room and Lord's day. It was the octave, and here is the crucial testimony of the recurring day of the resurrection being commemorated by the apostles. Lo ! after six days' work, the day of rest returns, and the second Lord's day is honoured likewise with the presence and reappearance of Christ. St. John especially notes the time of this manifestation, which is not done as to any other by any of the evangelists. He says, " And after eight days again," i.e. at the octave, on the first day of the Sabbaths (week) (the Jews including the portion of the days from which and to which they reckon) " His disciples were within, and Thomas with them : then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood * " During the whole intermediate week He appeared not : this follows from the enumeration, ch. xxi. 14, ' This is now the third time that Jesus shewed Himself after His resurrection from the dead.'" — Stier, On the words cf the Lord jfesus, vol. viii. p. 183. ^ " The Lord enters altogether as on the previous occasion, eight days before : this of itself was a most decisive confirmation of the testimony which they had given, and which they would probably utter again, in loving remembrance of the same hour a ivcek previous. Thus did He then come ! Thus did we see Him," — Stier, On the icwds 0/ the Lord fesiis, bk. viii. p. 184. T 274 THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you." It is the third repetition of the Easter salutation on this Low Sunday (the octave of Easter day), on this first weekly recurrence of the Lord's day, and there is " peace " even for the sceptical doubting disciple. This first reappearance on the octave, this speaking the same words to Thomas, which struck the key-note of the first Christian Sabbath, is one of those unde- signed coincidences which refuse to be explained away. This reappearance^ on the very next Sunday welds the Sabbaths (week) together, and clinches the fact shadowed forth by those frequent appearances on the first Easter-day. It drives home the lesson, it tells its own tale, and it points the moral. By its repetition it " unhinged " the Sabbath from the last to the first day of the week, which henceforth takes the name of the risen Saviour. " This second meeting on the same day of the week," says Paley, " has all the appearance of an appointment, a design to meet on that particular day." These six appearances of Christ on two successive first days of the week are sufficient for our purpose. Whether the sub- sequent appearances — three only recorded — took place on the Lord's day or not we are not informed. Nor is it at all material to the point, for the Lord would cause the transfer of the days to be made quietly and gradually. Enough had been done to start the day of Christ's rest, the new Christian Sabbath, well on its course. It will insinuate itself, as it were, by the very force of the circumstances. On the precise day of the Jewish Sabbath, the Lord of that Sabbath was lying in His grave. Whilst the Messiah and Saviour was in the tomb, and all the prospects of His kingdom were obscurated, it would not have been possible for the mourning disciples to have celebrated the praises of the great Creator, of the Redeemer from Egyp- tian bondage, of their Messiah and Saviour. That last Sab- bath was no Sabbath to them, but it was a day of gloom, of dejection and sorrow, anguish and consternation. While the bridegroom lay in the grave, the spouse could not rejoice. But when the " Lord of the Sabbath arose on the first day of the week, then were the disciples glad when they saw the ' " Hence it appears to me most probable that no other appearances took place than those of which we have intelligence in the Scriptures. Jesus showed Himself to His disciples only as He had promised, and even to them but in unfrequent visions. On this account, His association with the disciples after His resurrection, acquires a certain peculiarity of character. " — Olshausen, iti loc, vol. iv. 164. THE FIRST DA V OF THE WEEK. 275 Lord." To quote the words of Bishop Wilson, " TJien did their Sabbath begin ; the necessity of the case changed the day of peaceful happy rest in the worship and praise of God from the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord's day. The celebration was not retarded, not forgotten. The old day was buried with Christ, the new arose with Him. He had in the old creation rested (as being the author, one with the Father of that six days' work) on the seventh day and sanctified it ; but now, as the author of the new work of creation, being detained in the prison of the grave on the old seventh day. He takes another day to rest in, the following or first day of the week, which thus becomes the Lord's day. Everything essential in the command goes on as it did ; the non-essential point of the precise time is changed, or rather delayed a single day, to wait for its rising Master, and assume a new dignity, and be a memorial of the manifestations of a new and greater creation."^ 3. But there is an argument (by inference) from the say- ings and doings of the risen Saviour which has been strangely overlooked in the chain of evidence, the Lord speaking *' the things pertaining to the kingdom." ^ We allude to the great forty days after the resurrection, the sayings of Christ written and unwritten. Before He actually ascended, our Lord spent forty days upon the earth, seen occasionally, yet not con- stantly accompanied by His apostles ; His glorified body no longer subject to the same conditions as those of common men ; performing miracles, and holding discourses, until, the objects of this tarrying upon earth being accomplished, " He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, ' Lo7-(fs Day, p. 94. " " KeycDf ra. irepl rfjs ^aaiXeias rov 0eou," Acts. i. 3. "The presence of the Saviour for forty days, he (St. Luke) mentions first of all as a perfectly authenti- cated fact, and then he brings into view what was the great subject of our Lord's conversation with His disciples, viz. the whole compass of the inteiests of the kingdom of God. For we must distinguish between x4ywv irepl rrjs $aai\e(as and Kiywv TCI Trept rris fiain\fias, the latter of which phrases expresses the thought just indicated. The circumstances also lead to the conclusion that Christ would con- fide to His disciples, during these last moments of His personal presence, a// that He had yet to say respecting the kingdom." — Olshausen, in loc, iv. 229. " The kingdom of God is one of the pervading fundamental truths of the Word of God, especially of the New Testament. From the time that God created the world, and so long as He governs it, there exists a kingdom of God. But this kingdom has its seasons, its developments, its various forms." — Lange's Commentary on the Acts of Apostles, vol. i. 34. " De regno. Hsec summa erat, etiam ante passionem, sermonum Christi." — Bengel's Gtiomon, N. T. 417. 276 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven."^ One great object doubtless was to establish, the fact of His resurrection. But besides this great object, it cannot be doubted also that the sayings of our Lord, uttered during these great forty days, are themselves also of signal and peculiar importance. They were spoken in His glorified body, spoken as it were more immediately from heaven. He seems, if we may say so with reverence, to have delayed His Ascension in order to speak them. They are the first and great sayings of His new power given unto Him both in heaven and earth. They are, as St. Luke sums them up in the opening of the Acts of the Apostles, " the things of the kingdom " {ra irepi Tt]Q [iaaiXilac). They are in general sub- ject, manner and circumstances, strikingly unlike to any sayings which He had ever uttered before. The teaching of the great forty days is present, immediate and conveying powers, and it contains the written charter of the Church. These sayings,^ include and assert the royalty, delegation, and presence of Christ, the pastoral and other commissions, and the privileges of the baptized, and the sacred name ? These sayings referred to were all written for the perpetual edification of the Church. But there were probably many others, as well as deeds and signs, communicated to the apostles during the same sacred period. St. John tell us, " And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book."^ And again, the same evangelist says at the end of his gospel, " And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written, every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." * Now is it too much to expect that when our Lord was during those great forty days " speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God," ^ i.e. the Church,^ He explained in words, ' Luke xxiv. 50. ^ "ret in the widest sense, not p-{]fj.ara merely, 'the matters.' The article im- plies that during this period they received from our Lord the whole substance of the doctrine of ' the kingdom of God.' — Alford's Gret'k Test., vol. ii. p. 2. 3 John XX. 30. ^ John xxi. 25. ^ Matt. xiii. 24, 31, 33, 47. * " On the idea of the /Sao-iAeia see Olshausen's commentary upon Matt. iii. 2, vol. i. pp. 147, 151. ^^ First, the sphere of life in which the Christian element prevails — that is, the Church — is conceived in its visible form as an external communion. In this THE FIRST DA V OF THE WEEK. 277 what He had begun to do already in deeds, that the keeping of the Sabbath, on which the fortunes of the kingdom and the piety and faith of His followers so much depended, had been transferred from the last to the first day of the week, the anni- versary of His resurrection ? What, shall not the Monarch settle once for all, in teaching and practice, what shall be the day, the great day of His kingdom? Shall He assert His own royalty, and empower the apostles to say nothing about His own day ? Shall He give a charter to the Christian Church and not tell us what is to be the Christian Sabbath ? Shall He make His solemn asseveration about the sacred name of the most Holy Trinity, and yet not say which day out of the seven shall be devoted to His worship ? When he has made all things new, a new creation including a new Sabbath day (by transfer), shall He not clear up that point ? Is He not the monarch of a kingdom, and shall He not make His own regu- lations about the matter (including the days) of that kingdom ? Is He not a Son, and, as such, capable of arranging the affairs of His own household, and amongst other things His Sab- batical institution ? Is there the Lord's supper, the Lord's prayer, the Lord's house, then why not the Lord's day? (/cujOta/cj) riiuipa.) The observance of one day in seven is too important a matter to be left to chance ; and it is impossible to come to any other conclusion, but that our Lord's wishes touching His own day were made known during that time. We cannot for a moment believe that such an important point could have been neglected or omitted, else why were the apostles told to wait at Jerusalem " till they were endued with power from on high," but that the Holy Ghost might come down at Pentecost, the fiftieth day after Easter, on the Chris- tian Sabbath, the weekly festival of the resurrection, to com- plete the work of redemption ? Why did the apostles and other Christians meet on the first day of the week, in every part of the young Christian Church, a custom which passing respect, the kingdom of God is progressive — expanding gradually in this sinful world, still mixed to a certain extent with sinful elements. For it was only in the person of the Saviour that the .BaaiXeia was exhibited as complete at once, ex- ternally and internally. But/uri/ier, its external condition also is conceived as having been made homogeneous with the internal, and as having been likewise thoroughly subjected to the sole authority of the will of God ; and in this view the PactAela appears absolutely complete, but future. That which had first to exercise its influence in the souls of men, presents itself in the end as ruling in the ktictis also," etc. — vol. i. 149. 278 THE LORD'S DAY; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDAY. on through the sub-apostoHc age has come down to our own days ? Whence this concurrent teaching and practice, this universal custom of the Church CathoHc?^ There is only one answer — it took its origin from the practice of Christ on the two first Sundays after His resurrection, and there is an ante- cedent probability, nay a moral certitude, that in the sayings of the great forty days, when the risen Saviour spake of the things of, or matters pertaining to, the kingdom, as e.g. con- firmation and other first principles, He arranged once for all the great day of His people's assembly for worship, i.e. the Lord's day. Space forbids our completing the argument by reference to the practice of the apostles and the primitive Church. But enough has been said to prove the connection between the first day of the week and the risen Saviour. Independently of the preparatory circumstances which led up to the transfer of the day, we have seen how quietly but surely the change of day was made, both by His practice — in making so many appearances on the first Sunday or Lord's day, and reappear- ing to the college of apostles at the end of the octave, and by His teaching during the great forty days — practice and teach- ing exemplified by the custom of the apostles themselves and their immediate successors. And there is no doubt that the blessing of the Triune Jehovah has rested upon the day, and still continues to attend the day, when duly and solemnly observed. Let us, then, adore the wisdom and goodness of God, first of all in providing for man's religious repose in his first crea- tion ; let us recall the various benefits which from time to time have necessitated certain changes in the law of the Sab- bath ; and as the benefits of the gospel are more highly ' " viz. of the teaching the doctrine of this kingdom to all nations, and the receiving them into it by baptism who believed and professed to own it (Matt. xxviii. 19) ; of the benefits which were promised to them who cordially believed their doctrine and the condemnation to them who would not believe it (Mark xv. 15, 16) ; of the encouragements and assistances He would give them in the propa- gation of it by His continual presence with them (Matt, xxviii. 20) ; and the assist- ance of His Spirit, and the miracles by which their doctrine should be confirmed by them, and others who believed it" (Mark xvi. 17, 18). — Patrick, Lowth and Whitby's Commentary, vol. iv, p. 422. " So now He saw it time to bring comfort to His holy mother, to verify His promise, to make demonstration of His Divinity, to lay some superstructures of His Church upon the foundation of His former sermons, to instruct them in the mysteries oj His kingdom.'''' — ^Jeremy Taylor's Life of Christ, p. 800. THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 279 exalted than any other, so should our hearts receive the inti- mation of God's will with greater alacrity, and fulfil them with warmer delight. The due observance of the Lord's day will bring the paschal blessing of " peace " to our souls, the peace of the risen Saviour who is the " Prince of Peace," peace in believing, even that benediction of peace,^ which passeth all understanding. " The day of resurrection, From death to life eternal, Earth, tell it out abroad ; From earth unto the sky, The passover of gladness. Our Christ hath brought us over, The passover of God. With hymns of victory." Rev. J. M. Neale, D.D.,/r^w the Greek. ' " Thus the holy resurrection blessing, ' Peace be unto you,' itself anticipated in our Lord's prospective direction to His apostles in former days, and adopted in all the Church as her sacred inheritance of Christian salutation and intercommunion of love — what is it but one of the first outpourings of mercy from the Prince of Peace upon His people to be afterwards diffused and dispersed by the apostolic blessing of ' grace and peace from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Clirist,' to the separate Churches." — Bishop Moberley's (of Salisbury) Sayings of the Forty Days, p. 24. 28o THE LORD'S DA Y ; OR, CHRISTIAN SUNDA V. XIII. * "REST AND LABOUR: ORDER BEFORE THE FALL, UNDER THE LAW, AND AFTER THE RESURRECTION." Genesis ii. 1-3. " Kal (rvvfreKeffdrjcrav 6 ovpavos /cot r] yrj, Koi iras 6 k6