Note I: The Sabbath
Od, at the very outset of the world’s history, draws the distinction between work and vest. Even in regard to
Himself, this difference is to be noticed. Work is not rest,
and rest is not work, even to Omnipotence.
In both His own work and His own rest He is glorified, though each has its own kind of glory. He expects both kinds from us; and hence He set us the example at the beginning. In working we glorify Him, and in resting we glorify Him; but still the glory which He gets from our work is one thing, and the glory which He gets from our rest is another.
Nor must these two things be confounded. They are distinct in themselves, and distinct-in their bearings upon our deportment and service here in this dispensation.
There are some that confound these two things, and overlook not only their separadbleness in themselves, but their actual and explicit separation by God. These joiners together of what God has sundered do not deny that we ought to glorify God whether working or resting; but they mix up together the working and the resting, and think that what God wants is a sort of mingled glory rising out of both these conjoined, and fused into one, instead of a distinct and separate glory from each; a glory which cannot be thus mingled without being injured and stript of that definite and clear character which He desires that it should possess. His purpose is, that He should get a certain glory from working, and another glory from resting; and who are we that we should, by any theories of our own, seek to thwart the purpose of Jehovah, or rob Him of the twofold glory which He is looking for at our hands?
It was not for nothing that He laid down so expressly, in the beginning of His volume, His own twofold line or method of action, if we may so speak; the active and the passive, the work and the cessation from work. Nor was it without a purpose that, when in the course of ages the distinction might be undergoing a process of obliteration, He took it up and proclaimed it to Israel. For what He did, both in paradise and in the wilderness, was not merely to give forth an arbitrary appointment as to a certain day; but it was to bring out a mighty distinction, on which very much was to depend in after ages, both as to His own glory and man’s proper service.
If this be the case, then it is plain that the distinction between the six days and the seventh day lies much deeper than we generally conceive. It is not a distinction founded upon ¢he seventh day or ze first day of the week. The actual day is of comparatively small importance, and only comes before us in
’
its connection with the past events to which it is linked by way of memorial, or in connection with future events, to which it is linked by way of type or earnest. It is a distinction founded on the difference between working and resting, and upon the peculiar glory which God is to obtain from the one and from the other. Whether we can fully comprehend the reason of this distinction, it matters not. There it is. There are the original facts in the very forefront of the Bible. There are God’s own actings, and there are His declarations and injunctions as to the manner in which He expects us to act; in which He expects every one to act who, with the Bible in his hands, believes that ‘God created the heavens and the earth,’ and that ‘on the seventh day He rested from all His works which He had created and made.’
Among those who look upon the Sabbath as a mere limitation of man’s liberty, an abridgment of his pleasures, we can- not expect to find any sympathy with the above distinction. They deny the Sabbath because it is a weariness, and because the Lord of the Sabbath is not their Lord.
TEE ee ey ee eee
a ee eh ee But there is another class with whom we may expect some sympathy, even though they have rejected the Sabbath as a divine ordinance. There is a class which holds that every day should be a Sabbath, and that, therefore, there ought to be no such diversity as we hold to be obligatory. They differ from the others in this respect. These others get rid of the Sabbath by lowering it to the level of every other day; whereas ¢hey set it aside by raising every day to the level of a Sabbath. Now, even granting that this latter were possible, — which, according to the present construction of God’s world, it is not, — it would not be carrying out God’s original intention. It looks very well; it sounds very lofty; it bears the stamp of superior spirituality; so that when we hear a man say, ‘Oh, I make every day a Sabbath!’ we may be led to think him a very holy man, and his life a very angelic one, and his whole system a very elevated and enlarged one.
But what if this very holy man gets all his holiness from being wiser than God? This is a serious question.
God knows what is best for us. He knew what was best for unfallen man, and He did not tell him that every day should be a Sabbath. If Adam had reasoned as many do in our day, and resolved to make every day a Sabbath, would not God have condemned this piece of will-worship? and would Adam, in devising it, have been less guilty of a disregard to the divine purpose, than if he had rejected the Sabbath altogether? God knew what is best for fallen man, and nowhere, from Genesis to Revelation, does He hint at the desirableness, or propriety, or profit of making every day a Sabbath.
In thus trying to be wiser than God, and striking out a more elevated walk than He has pointed out, we are sure to fall into an unhealthy religion; not necessarily a religion of gloom, but certainly, if not one of gloom, at least one of sentiment, and sickliness, and unmanly bearing. No religion can be healthy or vigorous which departs from the divine arrangements, and tries to elevate itself by altering the proportions of time which God has established. What has Romanism gained by its endless saints’ days, or High Churchmen by their ‘ Christian year’? Attempts, whether made by Protestant or Papist, to raise our week-days into Sabbaths can only end, as they have always done, in subverting the Sabbath, and defeating God’s gracious design in giving it.
The original distinction, made by God Himself, and founded both upon His nature and ours, between working and resting, must be kept in mind; and we must not attempt to confound these, or suppose that, provided we try to glorify God in everything, it matters little whether we set the two different things distinctly before us; viz. the glory which we are to give Him
in working, and the glory which we are to give Him in resting. In trying to make every day a Sabbath, we are doing what we can to efface this divine distinction. And can it be effaced without sin, without injury to the soul, without harm both to the Church and to the world, both to Jew and Gentile? It cannot; for thus God does not get the glory which He desires. He does not get the separate glories of which we have been speaking, but a mere human compound of both, — vague, indefinite, diluted, — something that neither glorifies Him nor benefits His saints, nor bears witness to the world.
When God entered on His rest, He erected a memorial of it; a memorial both of His work and of His rest, for est was to be a memorial of work. This memorial, suitable even to unfallen man, was especially needful to fallen man in a fallen
world. God erected this pillar of testimony; nor has He taken -
it down. It was firstset up in paradise, then in the wilderness, then transplanted to Calvary, and there it remaineth to this day.
In one thing only was there a difference. The seventh day having become a blank, by the Son of God lying, during it, under the power of death, its special glory passed on to the next, so that the first day of the week, while retaining all earlier meanings, is presented to us as a more complete memorial of the past, — creation-work and creation-rest, — and at the same time a more perfect prefiguration of resurrectionwork and resurrection-rest.
Thus much we can say as to the general principles on which the Sabbath-Institute is founded. Let us look at the question
Ait
on ee oe en
a little more minutely; for, if these principles are correct, the
subject is one of deep moment.
No cne thinks of denying that the law of the Sabbath is written broadly and legibly enough in the Old Testament; so that up to the coming of Christ it could not be disputed. God laid His hand upon the seventh portion of man’s time, and claimed it as His own. It was provided that, in one day out of seven, the sun should go forth to shine upon a world at rest; memorial of what it was intended to be; relic of what it once had been; type of what it is yet to be hereafter, when all things are made new.
. Now, there has been no repeal of this law. The fourth commandment was carefully inserted in the Decalogue by God’s own finger, and it behoved to be as distinctly taken out and erased by the same finger that placed it there. Has it been so? Have the commandments been reduced from ten to nine? Did Christ come to destroy, not to fulfil the law? Those who deny the authority of the Sabbath now must undertake to prove the following things : —
. That the Decalogue, or law,is no longer binding; or at least that one out of the Ten Commandments is no longer binding. And if one man cancels the fourth, has not another, — viz. the Romanist, — a right to cancel the second? If this man is at liberty to erase this jot or tittle, another man may do the same with another, till the whole has been abrogated, — abrogated by man, not by God, — abrogated simply because its observance was an inconvenience and a weariness.
2. That Christ came to diminish our store of blessings during the present dispensation ; — that He has narrowed instead of enlarging our privileges: as if He had made the announcement, ‘Israel was blessed with a Sabbath, but I cancel that blessing; Israel had Sabbath privileges and Sabbath joys, I
blot them out; Israel was called on to give the seventh of
his time to God, but I set you free from all such restraint, to do with your time just as you please.’ Thus we have, according to these men, fewer privileges, fewer blessings than Israel. And is this what Christ came to do? Was it for this that the Son of God took flesh and died?
3. Uf they shrink from this, then they must maintain that the Sabbath 7s not a blessing; — that it is an unwholesome, unnatural, intolerable restraint; — a weariness, a bondage, a curse. And, indeed, this is the basis and drift of their reasonings, if they have any meaning at all. These men evidently have the secret feeling, that the Sabbath is nota blessing, that it is a restraint, — a restraint upon their worldliness, their follies, their gains, their business. Hence their eagerness to prove its non-existence, its abolition. The wish is father to the thought, the desire is father to the conclusion. They wish no Sabbath, and, with daring blasphemy, they ascribe its abolition to Him who came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. So that one of the chief benefits, according to them, which Christianity has conferred on our race is, that it has effaced the Sabbath. It did virtually eighteen hundred. years ago exactly what the French Revolution did eighty years ago, — it effaced the Sabbath. Thus the chief thing for which the world has to praise the Saviour is, that He first struck off its Sabbath chains, and bid it go free from Sabbath obligations; — nay, perhaps the only thing for which some of these men think they have to thank the Lord of the Sabbath is, that He abolished it! Will they maintain this? Yet this they must, if they will honestly and consistently carry out their argument. To what extremity will not the hatred of the Sabbath drive a man?
4. That the Sabbath was a Fewish institution exclusively, ana therefore fell when Fudaism fell. Now, that there were several Jewish observances. connected with the Sabbath in Israel, we do not doubt. But when these fell, did the Sabbath fall with them? Did their passing away bring the Sabbath to the ground? No. When the veil was rent, and Judaism crumbled to pieces, the Sabbath stood erect and untouched amid these ruins. It had not risen with Judaism, and it did not fall with Judaism. It was made for mam, not for the Yew. It was an ordinance as old as creation, and therefore, strictly speaking, had nothing to do with Judaism. It was an ordinance evidently known to Israel before proclaimed from Sinai;
for as Soon as they had entered the wilderness, and long ere
they reached Sinai, the manna fell, and thus the Lord spake ee aS to them: ‘ To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none’ (Ex. xvi. 23, 26). From which it is plain that Israel knew the Sabbath well before its proclamation from Sinai, and that when called on to ‘remember’ it, they were called to remember something which they and their fathers knew; something older than Moses, older than Abraham, older than Noah, as old as Adam and paradise.
5. That every day should be a Sabbath, and that, therefore, there ts no need of a Sabbath. When this argument comes from the lips of a worldly man ; — a man who never spent an hour upon his knees, and who knows nothing of communion with the Father and the Son, it is profanity ; — it is hypocrisy. But even when it comes from the lips of one who seems to be living above the world, and to prize fellowship with God, we confess it appears strange and suspicious. Should not every day have been a Sabbath to Adam? Yet he was commanded even in paradise to keep a Sabbath to the Lord. Was not every day a Sabbath to the Lord Jesus when on earth? Yet He kept the Sabbath, and always made known His reverence for it by vindicating Himself from the charge of Sabbath-breaking, and showing that works of mercy might be done upon that day. But, apart from this, we dislike and suspect this sentiment even from the lips of religious men. They profess to bring up every day to the level of a Sabbath; but it is invariably found that, in reality, they bring down the Sabbath to the level of every day. We have heard of individuals, some years ago devout and spiritual. They were placed in the midst of worldliness, exposed to Sabbath gaiety, Sabbath parties, Sabbath dinners, Sabbath pleasure, from week to week. Their souls were burdened, and each Sabbath evening they retired to rest with a wounded conscience and a heavy heart. After a while they ceased to be thus vexed in spirit, and were quite at ease. Had they got quit of their worldly company? No. Had they boldly testified for Christ and for His Sabbath in the midst of them? No. They had been led to see that ‘toa Christian every day should be a Sabbath.’ Therefore their conscience no longer smote them, even when mixing all day long in the society of the world. Alas! they were deluding themselves with the dogma that every day should be a Sabbath. Yet they had not brought up each day to the elevation of a Sabbath. Nay, they had evidently brought down the Sabbath to the level of the day of commonest worldliness and folly.
6. That the reasons for the observance of a Sabbath no longer exist. These reasons are: (1) Man’s need of vest. Is this reason gone? Does man need rest no longer? Is the world now so calm a scene, and earth so serene a region, that no seventh day’s rest is needed? If not, if the reason still exist, must not the day still remain? Can the institution be erased when the reason for it still remains, not only as strong as ever, but stronger than ever, in these days of earnest worldliness, and excitement, and hurrying to and fro? (2) Time for unhindered fellowship with God. Is there no longer need for this? Is there not more than ever, in this age of business and enterprise? Adam in paradise, Israel in the wilderness, when there was no bustle, no tempting. world around, needed a Sabbath for fellowship and worship. And do we not in these busy days? And if the reason remains, the ordinance must. (3) A memorial of creation. For four thousand years God kept up this memorial of creation as a thing that was needed; and where is His declaration that creation needs no memorial now? Ah! do we not feel how needful it is to uphold the Sabbath in these days, when men are undertaking to prove from science that the world created itself? Ought we not to prize the Sabbath as God’s standing testimony against atheism, — God’s own loving voice proclaiming, ‘I created all this out of nothing, — God’s appointed witness to a universe created by Himself, against the atheistic theory ofa self-creating universe? (4) A memorial of resurrection. The Sabbath has now become a double memorial, viz. of creation and resurrection. If, then, it was sacred before, it is doubly sacred now. And to say that the Sabbath has ceased because Christianity has ‘Yisen, is just saying this, that so long as we had but one reason for this memorial, we kept it up; but now that we have two, we must level and efface it. (5) A type of the rest or Sabbath which remaineth for the people of God. Now a type must stand till it be succeeded by the antitype. That antitype, that rest, has not yet come. And till it arrive, the Sabbath must be maintained. So that, whether you look backward to the old creation or forward to the new, — backward to resurrection, or forward to the restitution of all things, — you see how entirely untouched, nay, how thoroughly immoveable, are the reasons for its sacredness and perpetuity. Till these reasons be swept away, the Sabbath must stand. Unless you can say that man has no need for rest, no need for communion with God, — unless you can sweep away creation, resurrection, and the hope of the coming rest, you cannot cancel the Sabbath, nor dispose of its obligation and authority.
The character of a cause is generally known by the character of its friends and its enemies. No one will deny that the great mass of the religious-minded men is in favour of the Sabbath, and the great mass of the ungodly against it. Popery is an enemy to the Sabbath; and wherever Popery flourishes, there the Sabbath goes down. Infidelity is an enemy to the Sabbath; and wherever infidelity flourishes, there the Sabbath goes down. -Popish Spain has no Sabbaths, infidel France has no Sabbaths; Protestant Fngland, Protestant America, and Protestant Scotland, have their Sabbaths still. And may we not conclude favourably of that cause against which Popery and infidelity are confederated as one man? May we not conclude well of that ordinance which takes root deepest, and spreads its branches widest, in the most religious and God-fearing nations of the earth?
They who oppose the Sabbath are standing in the position of men who are enemies to one of the brightest blessings and best birthrights that a nation can possess. They need not wonder that we should feel strongly the robbery which they
-are seeking to perpetrate. They are robbing us and our
children of that which is worth more than a kingdom’s riches, and which we will not part with without a struggle. And they themselves, were they men in earnest, should feel the seriousness of the position they assume. If they are in earnest, it must have cost them much pain before they could bring themselves to the conclusion that there is no Sabbath. In arguing with the atheist, who denies a God, we can appeal to him and say, If you are in earnest, it must have been with the profoundest grief that you have come to the conclusion that there is no God, no infinite good, no being of infinite love. In reasoning with the infidel, who sets aside the Scriptures, we can say, If you be in earnest, it must have cost you unutterable pain to come to the conclusion, there is no Bible, no book of divine wisdom and truth. And you, of all others, ought to be serious, solemn men, weighed down with the conviction of such an infinite blank. And so, in reasoning with the opposers of the Sabbath, we appeal to them, and say, If you are men in earnest, it must have been with bitterest grief that you have brought yourself to the conclusion that there is no Sabbath, — no day of holy rest, no day of fellowship with God, no memorial of creation, no pledge of coming glory. You must have weighed the evidence well before coming to so sad a conclusion, and you must be most willing to hear evidence in favour of that which, if we can prove it, should be good and grateful news. Would you but listen in such a spirit to our reasonings, would you but believe us when we tell you how much your own temporal comforts, your own immortal interests, are bound up in the observance of this day, — a day that of itself preaches to you the glad tidings of Him who died, and rose, and ascended, and lives, and intercedes, and will come again in glory, — you would hesitate before you tried to obliterate the most ancient of all distinctions between day and day; you would try rather to preserve and perpetuate its testimony to creation, to redemption, to resurrection, to the glory of the Kingdom, and the security of the rest which remaineth for the people of God.!
2 An old critic thinks that the number seven was called irrés, or
more anciently cerrdés, from g¢Pertai, to worship, — the worshipping day.