The First Sabbath

The fatal exposure of our race is to be absorbed in the pursuit of the things that are seen and temporal, to the neglect of those that are unseen and eternal. So immersed and engulfed are they in this all-devouring vortex, as to be in danger of being carried down the cataract beyond the hope and possibility of return. The great excuse with the mass of men for not paying that serious attention to the concerns of the soul which their importance demands, is that they have no time for this service; and in order to remove and forever silence this excuse, the God of heaven has set apart one day in seven, and thereby one seventh part of every man’s life to be devoted to the interests of his immortality.

The thought is an interesting one, that this appointment was coeval with man’s creation; and that at no period since, has this world existed without the Sabbath. The Sabbath was literally among the “first things.” The material heavens and earth were scarcely called into being; man himself had only begun to exist, and woman to share his existence and joys; when the institution, so full of heavenly forethought, was made known by the words, “And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all the work which God created and made.” In this original appointment were included the entire Sabbatical institution, and all those elemental observances that were essential to its influence. The benevolent Creator would not send forth into this new world the intelligent and immortal beings he had made, and give them dominion over the inferior creatures, and the commission to replenish the earth and subdue it; without the illuminating, sanctifying, and conservatory influence of the Sabbath. Sinless as they were, they needed the Sabbath; sinful as they and their posterity would be, the Sabbath was indispensable to their hopes.

Man thus began his earthly career. As under the legal economy, the Jirsi was to be chosen for God; the first-horn of man; the first-horn of beasts; the first-fruits of the field; so it was the duty and honor of the first man to devote to God the first dawnings of time. Man was created not until the close of the sixth and last day of the creation. So that, reckoning from evening to evening, the first tire day of man’s life was the Sabbath. He had but begun to be conscious of his existence, and open bis eyes upon the marvellous works of God, and upon himself more wondrous, and upon his still more wondrous Maker, than he and the woman God gave him, were embosomed in the quiet atmosphere of God’s holy day of rest. The shadows of the first evening were the eve of the Sabbath. The light of the first morning they ever beheld was the morning of the Sabbath. The first voices that greeted them were the song of cherubim and seraphim, as they sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. It was a day of rest. There was no upheaving of the dry land, and no rushing of the waters to their appointed beds. The lights of the firmament were established, their laws prescribed, and they were moving quietly in their orbits. The new creation was finished. The day of rest was quietly bidding welcome to the new-created race; and man, the last of all God’s works, began his career in loving, praising, adoring God his Maker. It was not the busy world he first entered, but the temple of God; God’s sanctuary — there to worship, and there to listen to the voice from the excellent glory. The first Sabbath was the great preparative for his life of toil; the greats preparative, and the emphatic emblem of his immortality.

But we must proceed to sober argument. There are not a few who regard the Sabbath as an institution peculiar to the Jewish people, and who, while they consent to its observance as a wise and benevolent arrangement, and one fraught with great benefits to mankind, at the same time teach that it is not the revealed law of Christianity, but only the conventional law of Christians,* We are by no means prepared to adopt this view; yet is it one which has obtained so extensively, more especially in the continental churches of Europe, that it deserves to be considered with respect.

The first question in relation to it is. When luas the Sabbath instituted f This question, it appears to us, is answered by the narrative of Moses, to which reference has already been made. There we are instructed, that immediately after the work of creation was completed, “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” He commanded his blessing to rest upon it; he sanctified, or set it apart from other days, as the natal day of the world, and as a memorial of that great and pei’fected work. He foresaw, that there would be ungodly men, and atheists, and that it was necessary there should be some sensible commemoration of the fact that it was created by himself in the space of six days. With the recurrence of every seventh day

* Among these writers, are the distinguished names of Calvin and Paley. The reformers were divided in opinions on this question, as may be extensively seen by consulting Vitringa, Aphorismi Doct. Christ. It is no marvel they were tenacious of Christian liberty in regard to Jays, just freed ns they had been from the superstitious observances of Rome. of rest from worldly employments, the inquiry would naturally arise in the minds of the young, What means this remarkable observance? Nor would the answer be likely to be forgotten, that God himself set it apart as a memorial of his work of creation. This single fact shows, unless there be some subsequent revelation to set it aside, that the Sabbath, from its nature, was designed to be a permanent observance.

It is no doubt true, that there are religious observances appointed by God, which are of local and temporary obligation, as well as those which are universally and always binding. All moral laws possess this universal and permanent force. And there me positive statutes which have the same permanent obligation, because they are made binding by the command of God. It is a safe principle to adopt in the interpretation of positive statutes, that when once they are enacted, they always remain in full force unless they expire by their own limitations; unless they are formally repealed; or unless the reasons for their original appointment so obviously cease, that they are no longer called for.

The pat/riarchal Sabbath, or the Sabbath instituted at the creation, differed in some respects from the Jewish Sabbath. It was not instituted, so far as we know, by any expressed command. The authority for it is contained in the narrative already given. We have, in this portion of the sacred writings, no other divine authority for it, than that which is implied in God’s example, and his setting apart and blessing the Sabbath-day. And this, while it has not the language, appears to us to have the force of law. God may enact Ids loill as a rule of action to his creatures, in other ways than by an express command, provided he makes his will intelligibly known. Have we not a right to conclude, from this early notice of a seventh day’s rest, that it was God’s pleasure that it should be observed? For whom was it instituted? Not for God himself. He did not require the repose of the seventh day, either for physical or spiritual refreshment. He did not take that repose; but was employed in upholding and directing the world and the creatures he had just made. “The Sabbath was made for tnan God’s example in instituting it was for man; he thus made known his will to man; his example was man’s law. And if this be thought to be loose reasoning, I can only say, it appears to us to be reasoning which ought to satisfy every fair mind, and which is adopted by the Scriptures themselves. It is the reasoning which is adopted by the Great Lawgiver in the command requiring the observance of the Sabbath in the Decalogue; and it is the reasoning of the apostle in his epistle to the Hebrews, where, the fact that “God did rest the seventh day from all Ms works,” forms the premises to the conclusion, “There remaineth therefore, the keeping of a Sabbath to the people of God.” It was the Sabbath of heaven and the Sabbath of earth; it was the Sabbath which so many failed of enjoying through unbelief; it was the Sabbath which was the prefiguration, the example, and the law, and the early heritage of man.

There is a difference between the binding obligation of those positive statutes which were given during the patriarchal age, and those which were enacted under the Mosaic economy. The Mosaic dispensation includes that entire period which intervened between the giving of the law, and the resurrection of the Son of Man from the dead; the patriarchal age includes the entire period between the Creation and the giving of the law. If the claims of the Sabbath cannot be supported except as a part of the Jewish ceremonial, it must share the same fate with the sacrifices and new moons of that dispensation. All Christians agree in the conclusion, that whatever was purely positive and ceremonial in the Jewish dispensation has passed away, and was superseded by the “simplicity that is in Christ.” They were obligatory upon the Jewish nation alone; and on that nation only until the Christian dispensation. liiiYet are there positive institutions which cover the whole duration of time, because they were of prior origin both to the Christian and Mosaic dispensations. Such, for example, was the patriarchal law concerning the murderer, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” It binds the race; it was given to men, not as Jews, nor as Gentiles, but as men as God’s creatures. It never has been repealed; nor has it expired by its own limitations; men ever, and everywhere are bound by it. And such is the institution of the Sabbath. It is confessedly a positive, and not a moral institution. It is a moral duty that men should worship God; but it is a positive and not a moral duty, except as the enactment renders it moral, to worship him socially one day in seven. But made up as it thus is of a positive statute and moral duty, we affirm that it is, from its origin, of perpetual obligation. Like the law concerning the murderer, it is not of Christian, nor Jewish origin; but was proclaimed in an age that represented the race, and was dictated by the great Creator and Lawgiver to all mankind long before either the Christian or Jewish dispensations were in existence, or the distinction between Jew and Gentile was known. It is human and not national merely; universal and not merely local. It is God’s law to men; his wise and benevolent arrangement for humanity, and for man everywhere. The same reasons which existed for the original institution in Paradise, and before man fell, exist in no diminished force now after lie has fallen. Whatever be the facts it commemorates, the lessons it teaches, the obligations it confers, and the influence it exerts, they are not more necessary for men in one age and one portion of the world, than for men in all ages and all places. In the original appointment of it, there is no intimation that it had reference to one people, or one age of the world more than another. It has never expired by its own limitations, and has never been re- ’ pealed. The peculiar positive institutions that were commanded to the Jews have been formally abolished, or superseded by others that have a relation to the race. The Jewish sacrifices, the Jewish passover, the Jewish hierarchy, as well as all those Mosaic rites and ceremonies which were merely typical of Jesus Christ, and which, from their purely ecclesiastical or political nature, were designed to separate the Jews from other nations, have been abrogated. But there is no abolition of the Sabbath. There is no reenaction of it under the Christian dispensation, for the obvious reason that no reenactment was necessary; it remains an unrepealed, a permanent, and standing institution, and of perpetual obligation.

The objection against this reasoning is somewhat peculiar. It lies in the acknowledged fact that from the time when the SMaih was first instituted there is no mention made of it in the Scri’ptures until a period of ahovt twenty-five hundred years and when the manna fell in the wilderness. But it must not be forgotten that the history of this early period of the world is, beyond parallel, a crowded history, in which a single paragraph often includes the events of centuries. “The silence of history with respect to the continuance of a rite, or custom, well known to have been instituted or adopted, is no argument against its continuance, provided the reason on which the institution was founded remains the same.” There is no mention made of the Sabbath throughout all the wars of Joshua, and the revolutionary period of the Judges, a period of some hundred years; while it is conceded that it was instituted long before in the wilderness. No mention is made of sacrifices, from the birth of Seth till the flood, a period of fifteen hundred years. Nor is there any mention made of the rite of circumcision from about the time the children of Israel took possession of the land of Canaan, under Joshua, until the days of Jeremiah, a period of more than eight centuries; while this does not prove that it was not of earlier appointment. It may be, that the Sabbath was not scrupulously observed during the patriarchal age; there was great forgetfulness of God, great ignorance and great wickedness in that infant age of the world. They were a thoughtless race — men of gigantic iniquity; they were marrying and giving in marriage, and spending their days in folly and sin, until the day that Noah entered into the ark and the flood came and swept them all away. They had few religious teachers; no part of God’s word was then published, and they had very little instruction of a religious kind. It is not wonderful that they lost sight of the Sabbath; for if they had not lost sight of it, they never could have been so vile. Yet amid all this abounding iniquity, there are some notices of what seems to be, by fair inference, a seventh-day observance; for we find a seven-day division of time, well known by Noah and Jacob and Laban. The probability, too, is, that during the severe and protracted bondage of the Hebrews in Egypt, the Sabbath was greatly neglected; during a portion of that period, we know it was neglected altogether. And when that people, after they came out of Egypt, were reminded of its obligations, it was in such a way that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was a forgotten institution, and not one then for the first time instituted. This was in the wilderness, and before the giving of the law, which some contend was the first statute requiring the Sabbath observance. They were about to gather manna on the Sabbath-day, and Moses checked the unhallowed work, and said unto them, “This is that which the Lord hath said To-morrow is the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord. Six days shall ye gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, ye shall not find it in the field.”

It was not until fifty days after they left Egypt that the law was given, in which the Sabbath holds a prominent place. So that it was not the Jewish Sabbath, as such, to which Moses here referred, but the Sabbath of the Patriarchs, and which was binding upon the Jews before the specific enactment in the fourth commandment. It is an error to suppose that the fourth commandment originated the obligation to observe the Sabbath even among the Jews. It did but confirm a prior law. The friends of the Sabbath have lost ground by endeavoring to defend this position. When, after their fifty days’ wandering in the wilderness, God gave the children of Israel the ten commandments, the language was, ^’’Remeiifiber the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.” It is not, “Sanctify the Sabbath;” but “rememh&i’ to sanctify it.” The day was something to be remembered; it was no novel observance first given by Moses, but one long before known and of ancient date. And the reason for it runs back to the creation and entwines itself with the original institution and blessing: ‘■’■liememher the Sabbath-day to keep it holy; for in six days the Lord thy God created the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it.” God himself spake these solemn words amid scenes never to be forgotten, and twice did he write them upon two tables of stone. After six days’ laboe, there was to

BE A SEVENTH DAt’s HOLY REST; THIS WAS THE LAW

OF THE Sabbath. It was the law for the world. It was preserved in the ark of the covenant, was embodied within that Propitiatory which was typical of the Christian atonement, and forms an integral part of that great moral code, “Those TE]sr words” which bind all nations, and which the Saviour affirms he came not to destroy, but to fulfil. There was nothing ceremonial or Jewish about these ten words nor about the particular precept here enforcing the observance of the Sabbath. It was all moral, and all of universal and perpetual obligation.

If the question be asked, Was there then no Jewish Sabhath, and no ceremonial scrwpidoiisness in its observance incumbent on the Jeios which is not binding on other nations and which was abrogated by the coming of Christ? I answer, there were; but they are not contained in the fourth commandment. There was a subsequent law given to the Jews, which bound them and no other people, which consisted of fifty-seven precepts given immediately after God had “talked with them from heaven;” and given, not by God to them.^ but to Moses privately, that “he might set them before the people.” These ceremouial injunctions were, from time to time, increased; some of them respected the Sabbath; and all of them were abolished by Christ. These peculiar Jewish observances formed no part of Sal)bath religion, or Sabbath morality for other nations. Other days were called Sabbaths by them as well as the seventh day. The Pentecost was so called, whatsoever day of the week it was; because no servile work was to be done in it, and on it there was to be “a holy convocation to the Lord.” The first day of the Passover was a Sabbath. On the Passover week in which the Saviour suffered, there were two Sabbaths. There was the con vocational, or festival Sabbath, the first day of the Passover week; and there was the ordinary weekly Sabbath, which was the next day. It is not the ceremonial of the Jews which we advocate; nor any of the peculiarities of their Sabbatical observance which the law of God requires. They were appendages to the day, and not the day itself; the shadow and not the substance.

The Sabbath, /or substance and foeed from the Jewish ceremonial God has bequeathed to the world. It is delightful to know that other portions of the earth have an interest in it beside the Jews. As proof of this, we find it frequently spoken of in the Scriptures as extended beyond the Jewish dispensation. The prophet Isaiah, speaking of the day when God’s house “shall be called an house of prayer for all people;” when Jews that were disqualified by bodily infirmity, and Gentiles who were always disqualified, should bring their sacrifices, and they should come up accepted on God’s holy ‘altar; when the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile should be broken down by the all-levelling and all-elevating influence of Christianity; when the Jewish dispensation should be abolished and superseded by the more comprehensive claims and privileges of the world’s gospel; speaks of the “eunuchs who keep GocVs Sahhatlis’’’ — of the “sons of the stranger that keep the Sabhath from polluting it” — of those who “call the Sahhath a delight, the holy of the Lord,” honorable — and of those who, in the days of the yet coming glory, “from one new moon to another, and from one Sabhath to another, shall come and worship before God.” Nor do we see how the conclusion from these predictions and intimations can be avoided, that there is a divinely authorized and a dildnely honored Sabbath after the Jewish dispensation is passed away, and therefore of more permanent obligation than the ceremonial or civil code of the Jews.

It is certainly a fair question in. this argument. To what extent has a religious observance of every seventh day been known among the dififerent nations of the earth? We have already adverted to the reasons for believing that the early patriarchs divided their time into iveehs or periods of seven days; nor do we see any reason to believe that during the twenty-five hundred years before the Law given on Sinai, there was no Sabbath. The Hebrews divided their years into seven, and into seven times seven; every week had its Sabbath, every seventh year its Sabbath, and every fiftieth year its Jubilee. To what extent this septenary division of time has obtained among nations who were contemporaneous with the patriarchal age, as well as among those pagan nations which flourished after the giving of the law, we have not the means of ascertaining to such an extent, as to warrant the sweeping assertion which has sometimes been made, that it is a universal observance. If, as we have seen, the Sabbath is an institution of high antiquity, it must have been known to those ancient Eastern nations which sprang from the sons of Noah. And so the fact was. The ancient Assyrians derived their origin from Ashur, the son of Shem; and they divided their time into weeks of seven days. The ancient Egyptians, who sprang from Mizraim, the son of Ham; the ancient Indians, and also the ancient Persians, whose origin is traced to Joktan, the grandson of Shem; and the ancient Arabians, who descended from Ishmael, all observed this division of time; and so far as this observance goes, it indicates, that however the Sabbath may have fallen into disuse, it was once known. The more ancient inhabitants of Greece and Italy had a different dildsion; the Greeks dividing their months into decades or periods of ten days, and the Romans into the three divisions, calends, nones, and ides. But it is to be remarked, that in the early period of their history these nations had very little intercourse with the Eastern nations; and that as soon as they became acquainted with the calendar of the East, they divided their time into weeks of seven days. The origin of this usage cannot be doubtful; nor does it stop short of the ancient Hebrews and the patriarchal age. Learned men inform us that there are few languages that are not found to contain a word synonymous with our English word week, signifying seven days. With the Hebrews, the number seven was the sacred number. We read of the seventh day, the seventh month, the seventh year, the seven altars, the seven lamps, the seven seals, the seven thunders, the seven angels, and the seven crowns. Nor does this fact distinguish the religion of the Hebrews alone. A modern writer, in a late number of the Westminster Review, though he impugns the sacredness of the Sabbath with infidel scurrility and bitterness, is constrained to acknowledge, that “throughout Hindostan and all the dialects of India, the word seven is a mystical number.” This writer has put

US in possession of some facts wliicli are by no means favorable to his own conclusions. The Hindoos observe a seventh day as a religious festival; and they call it Sunday, or the sun’s day. They also observe every seventh lunar day; and they call it Monday, or the moon’s day. In the forms of prayer used in their temples, the word seven occupies a conspicuous place. It is also a fact of interest, that the word Sabbath is adopted by pagan nations, not a few, to denote the day of religious convocation. So far as the light of history shines from different eminences, during the long course of yeai*s prior to the coming of Christ, it discloses to us this extensive observance.

Facts of this nature, which might be collected to a great extent, interest us, because every other method of accounting for them is unnatural, except the original division of time by God himself into periods of seven days, and the consequent institution of the Sabbath. Other divisions of time are marked by the diurnal and annual revolutions of the eai’tli and the moon; while there is nothing in the solar system to mark this division into weeks; nor is there any historical trace of the origin of this usage in any of the memorials of antiquity, unless we find it in the tradition of the creation of the world in six days, and a subsequent day of rest. Here we find it. It was revealed to our first parents, that the one only living and true God created the universe; and this revelation prepared them for the appointment and the delightful service of this first Sabbath. What a day was that which thus first celebrated the mysteries of nature’s birth; and with what radiant robes did this queen of days descend to dwell with men, while creation lay around her “wet with its first dews,” and man, as its high-priest, offered up the incense of his grateful heart! Never did the rising and setting sun utter speech of such truth; nor have they done uttering the instructive lesson. It is solemn and expressive silence, but it speaks to the mind and heart.

“In reason’s ear, they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing, as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine.”

When we come to the Christian era, the question assumes somewhat a different form. There is no express command in the New Testament for the observance of, the Sabbath. Why should there be? The command originated with God’s example at the creation; was solemnly embodied in his law from Sinai; and has not been repealed. The blessed Sabbath is no less God’s witness for him, to the Christian, than to the Jewish and pagan world. It began with time, and with time only will it end; like all other commemorative institutions, it is coeval with the event it commemorates, and will terminate only with the consummation of this material world. Hence we find that the early Christians observed every seventh day as a day of holy rest. They honored it by assembling on that day for social worship, for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and for taking up their charitable collections for their poor brethren. And the Saviour himself honored it. It was on the regular return of the seventh day, that he appeared to his disciples to bless them, and that he poured out upon them, after his ascension, the Pentecostal effusions of his Spirit. And hence we read in the New Testament of “the Lord’s day,” a day separated from all secular time, distinguished as his own, as a holy Sabbath unto the Lord. This example, connected with the primeval institution of the day, and the fourth commandment, is the law of Christianity.

Nor is there any good reason for perplexity in regard to the change of the day from the seventh to the first day of the week, which is the Christian Sabbath. Our own mind is satisfied on this vexed question in something like the following way. God has set apart one seventh portion of time for sacred puri:)oses. A literal simultaneousness in this observance no one contends for, nor were it easily practicable from the elliptical form and rotatory motions of the earth. What is dawn to one portion of the earth is evening to another; and what is noonday to one is midnight to their antipodes. The spirit and substance of the law is for one seventh portion of time; whether it be the last day of the week, or the first, and whether it begins with the rising or the setting sun, is of minor consideration, so long as every seventh day is sacredly observed. Time was when, at the command of Joshua, the sun stood still for a whole day, and when the shadow went ten degrees backward on the dial of Ahaz; and who will undertake to demonstrate that either the first, or the seventh day of the week is the exact and astronomical return of the seventh day fi-om the creation? Different systems of chronology also are so various, and so many ingenious methods have been adopted for improving and establishing the calendar; so various have been the methods of computing time; and the beginning of the year has been so often changed, that no living man can TiON prove that any one day of the week corresponds with its numerical counterpart in the days of the creation. We hold therefore, that so long as there is a uniform and conventional observance of every seventh day as a day of holy rest, after six clays of lahor the law of the Sabbath is complied with.

If it be said that these general observations are not applicable to that period of the world when Christianity was promulgated, because its chronology was then well understood, and the days of the week well known; and that there was confessedly a change then from the seventh to the first day of the week; we answer they are applicable so far as it regards the difficulty of identifying any given day of the week with its corresponding day of the creation. There loas a change then, and there were good reasons for it. The change in the Sabbath falls in with the changes that were introduced in the external organization of the church of God at the introduction of Christianity. Everything was changed by the example and authority of the divine Author of the Christian dispensation. What was Jewish was done away, because the Gentiles were now called into the kingdom of Christ, and all monopoly of religious privileges was abolished. The rites and ceremonies of the Levitical law were repealed; the preiigurations of that whole shadowy system were superseded by the reality; while all that could be permanently valuable was modified. The Jewish priesthood was superseded by the Christian ’ ministry; the Jewish Passover by the Lord’s Supper; the rite of circumcision by baptism, and the Jewish Sabbath by the Lord’s day. And is there not quite as much evidence that the first day of the week, now that it combines in its commemoration the greater work of redemption, is as distinctive a memorial of the great work of creation as was the original seventh day? The Lord’s day is in honor of Him, “by whom are all things, and for whom are all things;” who is “head over all things to the church;” who is “Lord also of the Sabbath-day,” the Author of a new and regenerated world, the Maker and Builder of the “new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,” and in comparison with which “the first heavens and the first earth shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” The Psalmist, in anticipating the deliverance of Jesus Christ from the grave, well exclaims, “This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord hath made; we will rejoice in it and be glad.” Jesus Christ is greater than the Temple. He has power over all ordinances; he is not a servant, but a Son over his own house. The first creation had its Sabbath, and so has the new. It was the old Sabbath still, but in new and brighter vestments, the witness of new and brighter things, the servant of the redeeming God and King. We hail this distinctive honor of the Son of man and this distinctive badge of Christianity. It is meet that the Christian church be thus distinguished from the Jewish, and the Christian from the Jew.

What are the facts in relation to Sabbatical observances as they now exist? With very few exceptions,* the whole Christian world observes the

* The Mohammedans’ Friday. Aside from these, and the Jews, who still profess to observe the seventh day, I am not informed that this latter fii’st day of the week. We observe this day; so did our fathers; and so did generations that preceded our fathers. How is this fact to be accounted for? We trace back this usage until we find it sanctioned by the churches in the early centuries of the Christian era,* by the apostles, and by our infallible Lord himself We go back until we reach the period when a new and most gracious Dispensation first marked the moral history of man, and find that the introduction of it was commemorated by the observance of this same day. We go back farther still, and find the Jewish prophets anticipating this same observance; and are satisfied, that so far from detracting from the importance of the original institution, this Christian memorial gives magnitude and emphasis to the primeval Sabbath. It is scarcely credible that the King of Zion would have suffered his church, the very church which the Scriptures teach us is to exist in her greatest beauty under the Christian dispensation, and which is to extend her light and glory to the Gentiles, to have reobservance extends beyond a few congregations in England proper, and these are chiefly confined to two in London. In our own country, it is limited to secessions from the Anabaptist churches, called “Seventh-day Baptists,” or Sabbatarians.

* Ignatius, who was a companion of the Apostles, Justin Martyr, who flourished at the close of the first, and the beginning of the second century, IrencEus, a disciple of Polycarp, Dionysius, who lived in the time of Irenseus, and TcrtuUian and Petavius of the second century, all bear testimony to this observance of the first day of the week. mained in darkness for eighteen centuries, in relation to the day on which she is to celebrate her religious festivals. It was of no small moment that her external institutions and ordinances should be rightly maintained; nor would the all- wise and all-gracious Founder of Christianity have left the weekly Sabbath, its great guardian and bulwark, without its proper place in the earth.

There is a single remark more in relation to the change of the day. It is not at all improbable that the seventh day Sabbath was confined to the Jeios alone. Learned men have maintained that the Patriarchal Sabbath was the first day of the tveek. It was the seventh day, reckoning from the first of the creation; but it was the first day of time, as reckoned by man — the seventh day after God’s six days’ work; but it was the first day of the week from man’s creation. Man, as before remarked, was not created until the close of the sixth day, so that the seventh from the creation, as reckoned by him would be the first day of the week. We would not hastily endorse this representation; nor would we hastily reject it.* We can only say that if there be good reasons for it, the Christian Sabbath, according to the received chronology, occurs on the same day with the Patriarchal. There

* See Bedford’s Chronology — Smith’s Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Lord’s Day — Dr. Kennicott on the Offering of Abel and Cain — Jennings’ Jewish Antiquities, and Belfrage on the Shorter Catechism in loc.

has been no change of the day, except that which began and ended with the Jewish dispensation. The Patriarchal Sabbath degenerated into idolatry; men became worshiipers of the sun and moon and stars of heaven, and gave the name of their idols to the days of the week. The same divine wisdom that separated the race of Abraham from these idolatrous nations, also changed their Sabbath from the first day — the Sun’s day, or Sunday, to the seventh day, that this peculiar people might have no sympathy with idolatrous nations. Nor is the thought an unpleasant one, that if the weekly Sabbaths which were observed before the time of the Mosaic law, were observed on the first and not on the seventh day of the week, the Christian Sabbath professedly occurs the same day of the week with the first Sabbath in Paradise.

There is one objection to this whole course of remark, and it is the same which perplexed the minds of Calvin and some of the reformers.* We

* We regret to find the name of John Calvin in favor of this error; yet it is quite obvious that the fact is so. In his commentary on Col. ii. 16 and 17, speaking of the discrimination of days, he says, “Talis partitio conveniabit Judaeis, ut dies praeceptos sancte colerent, ab ahis scgregando. Inter Christianos talis divisio cessavit.” To make his meaning perfectly explicit, he states and answers the folloldng objection. “Atque dicet quispiam, nos adhuc retinemus aliquam dierum observationem. Respondeo, Nos dies niquaquam servare, quasi inferiis aliqua sit religio, aut quasi /as non sit tunc laborare; sed respectum haberi politiae et ordinis, non dieriuu.”

will not now quote at length the passages in the New Testament to which it refers. The aiostle Paul, both in his epistles to the Romans and the Colossians, appears to relax the obligations to this observance, and to leave it to the option of every man’s conscience to observe it, or not, without being condemned by others, either in regard to the feasts of” the new moon, or of the Sahhath-dayr In regard to this objection we say as follows. The phrase, the Sabhath day in the language of the New Testament, uniformly denotes the Jewish, and not the Christian Sabbath. In the discussions

Calvin was imbued with the notion which I have heard half a century ago defended by a few New England divines — that all time is holy, and that what it is lawful to do on other days, is equally lawful on the Sabbath. In his Institutes, Lib. ii. ch. viii. p. 132 and 133, Editio Hackii, in his exposition of the fourth commandment, he says, “Cfflterum non dubium, quin Domini Christi adventu, quod ceremoniale hie erat abolitum fuerif ‘It had been well had he stopped here. But he proceeds, “Ipse enam Veritas est, cujus presentiae figurae evanescunt; corpus cujus aspectu, umbraerelinquuntur. Ipse, inquam, varum Sabbathi complementum. — Sabbathumumbram fuisse reifuturse ahbi scribit Apostolus; corpus extare in Christo, hoc est sohdam veritatis substantiam quam illo loco bene explicavit. Ea non uno die contenta est, sed toto vitce nostrce curKu, donee penitus nobismet ipsis mortui, Dei vita impleantur. A Christianis ergo abesse debet superstitiosa dierum observatio.” In a subsequent section he says, summing up his views, “Summa sit; ut sub figura Judseis tradebatur Veritas, ita nobis sine umbris commendatur; primum, ut perpetuum tota vita Sabbathismum raeditemur a nostris operibus, quo Dominus in nobis per suum Spiritum operetur; deinde, ut piu operum Dei recognitione privatim se quisque, quobis vacat, diligenter exerceat; turn etiam, ut omnes simul legitimum Ecclesiae ordinem, ad verbum audiendum, ad sacramentorum administrationem, a publicas orationes constitutum observemus; tertio, ne nobis subditos inhumaniter premamus.” We take this last concession thankfully, while we differ from Calvin as to the conventional and orderly obbetween the Jewish and Gentile converts, the great points of difference referred to by the apostles, related to meats and days that were peculiar to the ceremonial law. In addition to their weekly Sabbath, the Jews observed thirty-five days in the year, as sacred days, and some of these occurred on their weekly Sabbath. If the apostle here has reference to these numerous sacred days, he does ‘not refer to the Christian Sabbath; or if he refers to their weekly Sabbath, it is not the Christian Sabbath of which he speaks. There were Jews converted to the gospel who kept the Jewish Sabbath; they did not neglect the Lord’s day, but

servance of the Sabbath merely, and number ourselves with those who “diei eanctitatem aiiinio retinere.”

The same views are substantially expressed in the catechism of the Genevan church. See Opera Calv. torn. viii. p. 18 and 19.

M. Jubetne sex diebus laborare, ut septimo quiescamus?

P. Non simpliciter: verum sex dies hominum laboribus permittensseptimum excipit, ut quieti destinetur.

M. An quemvis laborem nobis interdicit?

P. Hoc prjEceptum soparatani et peculiarem rationem habet. Siquidem quibis observatio, pars est veterum ceremoniarum: itaquc Christi adventu abrogata fuit.

M. Dicesne prajceptum hoc ad Judaos proprie spectare, ideoque temporarium duntaxat fuisse?

P. Nenipe: quatenus ceremoniale est.

M. Quid ergo? Subestne aliquid prceter ceremoniatn f

P. Tribus ex causis datum fuit.

M. Cedo niihi eas.

P. Ad spiritualem quielam figurandam; ad conservationem politisB ecclesiasticas; ad servorum sublerationcm.

This whole subject has been discussed by Dr. John Owen, at great length, and by our distinguished countryman. Dr. Dwight, in his syatem of theology. they kept the Jewish Sabbath also. All that Paul says in these passages is, Let them keep it, if they will. Let them not be disturbed in their prejudices. He allowed them this observance; but in so doing, relaxes not the permanent obligation of the Christian Sabbath.

But we are more concerned about the due sano tifi<iation of this day, than about the particular day of the week which ought to be thus sanctified. At its original institution, God “blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” Time has no holiness, except for the purposes for which it is consecrated, and in which it is employed. God has given it all the holiness of which it is capable; which is to be consecrated to his service. It is a rest from worldly labors for man and for beast, for the master and the servant, the mistress and the maid. It is a rest for kings and beggars, for men in power and meaner men; nor is it less a rest for the stranger than the home-born. They are quiet watei-s which flow from the sanctuary; tranquil scenes and verdant banks through which they flow, where there is no galley with oars, neither gallant ship shall pass thereby. Vitringa has a beautiful description of the manner in which this day is to be observed; it is contained in three words, and though in a foreign tongue, I may be allowed to repeat them. It is to be observed, says he,” cum Imtitia ahstinentia ah opere aut penitentia-P — -joy, rest, and piety. They are not days of idleness and listless repose, but days of thought, days of self-inspection, of devout and spiritual study of God’s word, of meditation and prayer, and of the sacred observance of those domestic, social, and public institutions which are so indispensable to true religion. Nor are they days of gloom and sadness; nor yet of sport and pleasure; they are cheerful days, and days when the heart is lighted up with smiles. The objects and pursuits of the Sabbath are delightfully congenial with man’s wants as a sinner and a sufferer; they bring peace to the troubled and balm to the bleeding bosom; they tune the harp that would otherwise be hung upon the willows; and because they tell of him who is the resurrection and the life, and the first-fruits of them that slept, they pass silently over the earth strewing flowers upon the grave.

It is greatly to be regretted that the teachings and the example of some of the best of men have left so deep an impression that a cheerful spirit is not in keeping with the design of this sacred day. There was a rigor required of the Jews in their observance of this day, that was altogether ceremonial and peculiar to themselves, and as we have already seen enjoined, not in the fourth commandment, but in subsequent requisitions. The fourth commandment requires simply that it be regarded not as one of the working days of men, and as a day insepar-THE FIRST SABBATtt 229

able from religious reminiscences, and sanctified and blessed of God. The later Jews had put an erroneous construction upon the exaction it made upon them, and these errors were more than once rectified by the Saviour. It was an error in the Puritans of New England, not that they observed the Sabbath too religiously, but that they threw over it the unnatural and factitious gloom of blue habits and blue laws. It was more natural for them to do so than for any other men in the world; because, in the land from which they were exiled, they had been scourged and driven by cruel and sacrilegious laws to unseemly mirth and public sports on this God’s holy day. Human nature is prone to extremes; if we ourselves were bound by royal proclamation, like the “Book of Sports,” in the reigns of James I. and the first Charles, requiring us, on pains and penalties, to profane the Sabbath, we should verge to the opposite extreme, and do just as the Puritans did. But it is an error. Why a sombre cloud should be superinduced over the hours of this gladsome day, I cannot tell, unless it be a trick of the devil to render it a weariness and make it unwelcome to the young. If we cannot make God’s claims palatable to the unrenewed heart, we need not clothe them with uncomeliness. If the voluptuary smiles in the indulgence of his sensual pleasures; the avaricious in the accumulation of his wealth; the men of ambition in their honor and elevation; why may not the Christian indulge in smiles of complacency, and delight in this day of joy and triumph? There are trains of thought awakened in the Christian mind on the return of this delightful day, which are sometimes so full of love, gratitude, peace, hope, and joyous expectation, that if he were told he might not smile he would feel that he must stop his ears against the gladdest tidings that ever greeted fallen humanity; close his eyes on one of the bright spots in the wilderness; and turn from the sacred and cheering fragrance that had been shed upon his weary spirit, and made him long for heaven. While the Sabbath is the most sacred retreat from the noise, and bustle, and folly of the world, it is the most glad retreat. The feet that tread it, and the hands that open the doors to its altars might well drop with myrrh and their fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh. God has been liberal to men of secular time. Six days out of seven he allows them to employ in the pursuit of things seen and temporal. There is no earthly want, or sympathy, or secular relation and anxiety, which may not then be regarded and cared for with interest and diligence. It is but one out of seven that he asks for himself, as separated from the pursuits of earth. Time is his, and men are his creatures; nor may his right be questioned to prescribe the portion which they shall employ in his service. He claims the Sabbath as his own; lie calls it “The Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Men may not encroach upon it for their own purposes without robbing him. The whole of it belongs to him from beginning to end, claimed by his law, consecrated by his example, devoted to his glory, and distinguished by his blessing. No man, and no body of men, no human policy or power, either by their laws or their usages, may ever countervail the appointment or the° objects of this day of holy rest. God has marked it in the history of the world, as a blessing to our race. Whatever is instructive in his truth, and urgent in the motives to holiness which that truth presents; whatever is winning in his love, and constraining in his authority, is thrown into the influence of this sacred day. All that is effective in the means of grace and salvation which he has revealed; all that is beautiful in the simplicity, the symmetry, the harmony of this divine

arrangement for the salvation of men; all that magnifies and honors this redemption, is inseparable from the Sabbath. Where the Sabbath is not found, these things do not exist; where the Sabbath is perverted, they are the savor of death unto death. The pivot on which this moral machinery turns, the shaft that impels it is the Sabbath. Everything secular is put at rest by it; everything that is spiritual is set in motion. The church militant and the church triumphant — parents and teachers and ministers — men and angels, are then awake and in earnest in urging the claims of holiness on this lost world; while God the Spirit, who breathed on the first chaos, and put his seal on the first Sabbath, bows his heavens to dwell with men.

We plead for a sacred observance of this day, and these are the grounds on which we rest our plea. Permanent reform cannot be secured except by religious principles and motives. There are temporal advantages arising from this observance; but they hold a secondary place. If God’s authority and love do not influence men and communities to keep the Sabbath holy, nothing will influence them.

This land, though exemplary in this observance compared with other lands, is not guiltless. There are individual, domestic, and social violations of this day, for which there is no excuse; and they are the more aggravated by the great goodness of God toward us as a people, as well as by the fact that inviolate and blessed Sabbaths were the heritage we received from oui’ fathers. We regret to say there are violations of this day sanctioned by law, which are “reproach to any people.” They are of long standing, and deliberately persevered in, in opposition to the respectful and urgent remonstrances by the friends of the Sabbath throughout the land. The legalized transportation of the mail on the Sabbath, the opening of post-offices, the consequent disregard of public worship, and the attendant and increasing flood of immorality which rolls over the land, are national sins which still stand registered against us * And it is a sin for which there is no excuse. There never was any excuse; but since the introduction of telegraphic communications, fitted to meet special emergencies, one would think there is no apology left for this national desecration. Whether this sacred day is destined to contempt by the great mass of the inhabitants of this land, is yet a doubtful problem. It is by no means improbable that the voice of God and the voice of

* In the year 1829, four hundred and sixty-seven petitions were presented to the Congress of the United States, from every part of the Union, signed by individuals of different religious denominations, and containing the names of the most active, enterprising, and intelligent of our citizens, praying for a repeal of the law which sanctions the transportation of the mail on the Lord’s-day. There never was a more delightful union of sentiment and feeling than was expressed in these petitions; nor is it easy to find in any of the more elaborate dissertations upon the s&credness and importance of the Sabbath, stronger reasons, or reasons expressed with greater sincerity and earnestness in favor of the proposed reform. The prayer of the memorialists was not granted; God’s day is not yet rescued from this national desecration. Extracts from these memorials may be seen in “An account of Memorials presented to Congress by numerous friends of their country and its institutions; praying that the mails may not be transported, nor post-offices kept open on the Sabbath,” printed in New York, 1829, This valuable pamphlet lays before the public a list of places from which memorials were received, extracts from the petitions, selected names of petitioners, and a few concluding remarks. It is an anonymous pamphlet; but came from the pen of the late Jeremiah Evarts. of Boston. experience may be disregarded. There are some bright signs of the times in this particular, and there are some dark ones. The successful efforts to induce the proprietors of steamboats and railroads to honor this day of God, are full of encouragement, and demand our thanks; while there are encroachments upon its sacredness, especially in our cities, which fill us with concern.

The danger to which we are exposed, is to convert the day, after the morning service of the sanctuary is concluded, into a day of pleasure and amusement. We are told from the press that it is a Jioliday, that it has no more solemnity than other days; and that its only peculiarity is rest from toil, a festival, and a day of pleasure.* We have been publicly appealed to, to fall in with the usages of Continental Europe, and after the hour of prayer to resume the business of the week, and more than its secular pleasures. We have been told that the rigid opinions concerning the Sabbath are not entertained by Christians, “if we except English Protestants, Scotch Presbyterians, and their American descendants;” that “Sunday fairs and markets are customary on the other side of the channel, and were so in Britain before the time of Cromwell;” that” the Sunday abroad is usually divided between the services of religion, the duties of labor, and the objects of

* See Westminster Review for Oct. 1850. recreation;” and that, “even in the city of Calvin, Geneva, the theatre is open on a Sunday evening.” This able writer must have received a large bonus from some Sabbath-breaking establishment in order to have embodied so much sophistry and weakness on the wrong side of the question. We can only now reply to these ensnaring temptations to evil, that they indicate no small alarm at the efforts that are making on the other side of the water to restore the influence of the Lord’s day; and that if a cheerful and religious observance of it is one of the peculiarities of this land, we glory in the peculiarity, and humbly pray that it may be perpetuated. We wish it were so uniformly, and everywhere. But we have our fears for the rising generation, lest they should become a generation of Sabbath-breake;j”s. And should this exposure increase, this one thing is left us; and it may be the only thing that is left us — it is foe the

CHUECH of THE LIVIiN^G God TO REMAIN FIEM, CON-SISTENT AND EXEMPLAEY FEIENDS OF THE SaBBATH.

Whoever else may profane it, and for whatever purposes, let the professed disciples of Jesus Christ with their families show the world that they have a strong sense of the obligation to obey the command, “Kemember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy!” I say these things as one whose sun is going down, and I would respectfully ask that they receive solemn consideration. Disobedience to this command will incur God’s displeasure; obedience to it will receive his marked approbation. Augmented wickedness, desolating calamity, and gloomy foreboding on the one hand, and public virtue, prosperity and happiness on the other, will mark our future history, as we obey or disobey this precept.

Good principles and good morals can no more exist without religion, than religion can exist without the Sabbath. Blot out this sacred day, and in a quarter of a century we become pagans. An infidel literature and a cultivated taste may preserve us from abjectness and degradation; but our iniquity will be full. Such apprehensions are to the last degree painful. As any man values his immortality, let him not profane the Sabbath. There is no one external observance that exerts so powerful an influence on moral character and immortal hoyes as a sacred regard to the Sabbath. It is the salt of the earth, and the light of the world. Its price is far above rubies.

Little do we know how to value this day of God, with all its quiet and heaven-like serenity, and its attractive summons to the assemblies of his saints. Sweet type of that rest which shall never pass away till it is superseded by its glorious ante-type, where the nations of the saved walk in the light of his countenance! Delightful thought! that the dawning of ther”^ Sabbath was a light that shall never go down. From generation to generation it has transmitted, and will yet transmit its joys, until the joyous praise of men on the earth unite with the sweeter harps of men in heaven, ascribing everlasting honor to the God of the spirits of all flesh, and the Lord of the Sabbath-day.