The abiding Sabbath: an argument for the perpetual obligation of the Lord's day

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THE

ABIDING SABBATH

AN ARGUMENT

FOR THE

PERPETUAL OBLIGATION DP THE LEFT'S EAY,

THE FLETCHER PRIZE ESSAY FOR 1884.

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BY REV. DEDRGE ELLIOTT.

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" There remaineth, therefore, a Sabbath-k.ee^li}^' for the people
of God." Heb. 4:0/ \:: »,•*; V! !

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AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,

150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK.

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THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY

786933 A

IASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
R 1935 L

COPYRIGHT, 1884,
BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.

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• • • • •

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• • • • «
•« » ••• •

The Fletcher Prize Essay.

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The late Hon. Richard Fletcher, of Boston,
Mass., by his last will, placed in the hands of the Trus-
tees of Dartmouth College a fund from the income of
which they are to offer, once in two years, a prize of
Five Hundred Dollars for the essay best adapted
to accomplish the purposes indicated by the testator as
follows :

" In view of the numerous and powerful influences
constantly active in drawing professed Christians into
fatal conformity with the world, both in spirit and prac-
tice ; in view also of the lamentable and amazing fact
that Christianity exerts so little practical influence, even
in countries nominally Christian, it has seemed to me
that some good might be done by making permanent
provision for obtaining and publishing once in two
years a Prize Essay, setting forth truth and reasoning
calculated to counteract such worldly influences, and
impressing on the minds of all Christians a solemn
sense of their duty to exhibit in their godly lives and
conversation the beneficent effects of the religion they
profess, and thus increase the efficiency of Christianity
in Christian countries and recommend its acceptance to
the heathen nations of the world."

The above prize was offered, for the fifth time, in
the month of January, 1883. And inasmuch as the
Christian Sabbath or Lord's day is vitally related to
all Christian life, the specific theme designated for the
Essay was,

Tp PERPETUAL OBLIGATE DP TPIE LORD'S DAY.

The following gentlemen constituted the committee
of award: Prof. William Thompson, D. D., Prof. Llew-
ellyn Pratt, D. D., and Rev. George M. Stone, D. D.,
all of Hartford, Conn. After a careful and thorough
examination the prize was awarded to an essay which
proved to have been written by Rev. George Elliott, of
West Union, Iowa, and which is contained in the pres-
ent volume.

SAMUEL C. BARTLETT,

PRESIDENT OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.

Dartmouth College, Sept., 1884.

PREFACE.

This book has been written in the full conviction
that fresh discussion of this great question is a want of
to-day. While little that is new may be stated, yet it
is hoped that the old facts and arguments have been
freshly put and so arranged as to lead to the one defi-
nite conviction of the perpetual obligation of the Chris-
tian Sabbath or Lord's Day.

Many works of much value have been written on
the Sabbath; but most of them have been marred
either by an under-estimate of the obligation of the
day, or by a reckless over-statement of facts in its de-
fence. It is hoped that these defects have been in some
measure avoided in these pages. No fact has been
introduced which has not been traced to its final au-
thority. In Scripture interpretation it has been sought
to present only the results of candid exegesis, and no
argument has been adduced simply for the purpose of
making a point, but only in the full belief of its valid-
ity. Statements of possible value ; facts not fully estab-
lished, but having some probability ; and arguments of
only partial validity, when introduced at all, are, it is
hoped, so fully guarded by cautious statement as to
mislead no one.

6 PREFACE.

The writer acknowledges his special indebtedness
to Hessey's Bampton Lectures on " Sunday " for direc-
tion to those sources of information, historical, patristic,
and scientific, which must settle the question in the last
resort.

May the blessing of the Lord of the Sabbath rest
on this and every honest effort to commend his day to
the reason and conscience of mankind !

West Union, Iowa. G. E.

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re1-

Introduction 7

PART I. SABBATH OF NATURE.
CHAPTER I.

Ordinance of Creation 13

CHAPTER II.

Reason of the Sabbath 29

CHAPTER III.

The Sabbath and the Individual 35

CHAPTER IV.

The Sabbath and Society 57

CHAPTER V.

The Sabbath and Religion 77

CHAPTER VI.

The Primitive Sabbath 95

♦

PART II. SABBATH OF THE LAW.
CHAPTER I.

Its Institution I09

CHAPTER II.

The Fourth Commandment 114

CHAPTER III.

Transient and Permanent Elements in the Sabbath of Israel 130

8 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.

Some Scripture Testimonies to the Value of the Sabbath . 136
CHAPTER V.

History of the Sabbath in Israel 140

PART III. SABBATH OF REDEMPTION.
CHAPTER I.

Testimony of Jesus Christ 157

CHAPTER II.

Apostolic Testimony 173

CHAPTER III.

Origin of the Lord's Day 187

CHAPTER IV.

Change of Day 201

CHAPTER V.

History of the Lord's Day in the Ante-Nicene Period . . 213

CHAPTER VI.

History of the Lord's Day in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries 236

CHAPTER VII.

History of the Lord's Day from the Fifth Century to the

Present 249

CHAPTER VIII.

Sabbath of To-day 261

CHAPTER IX.

Sabbath of Eternity 270

Appendix 277

INTRODUCTION.

The political, commercial, and social life of Chris-
tendom is cast in a seven-fold rhythm. Upon the rest-
lessness of the work-day world and upon its clamoring
voices fall the stillness and repose of the seventh day.
From office, shop, and field the busy tide of life with-
draws to worship at the altars of Christ, or at least by
some form of recreation to relieve the tension of the

week.

. Widely varied, indeed, is the observance of its hours,
from the solemn stillness of a Scotch town to that holi-
day gayety of a German city so vividly pictured by
Goethe in his " Faust." But in the particular of cessa-
tion in some degree from the common business of life,
the custom is the same throughout Christian lands.
There is perhaps no religious institution which is so
patent to all observation as this.

' How shall we account for this institution which has
set its mark so deeply in the life of the conquering na-
tions of the world ? It comes to us an inheritance from
the past ; the hoar-frost of the centuries is upon it, but
it still bears the fresh and vigorous life of youth. Sac-
rificial fires have faded into lifeless ashes ; altars have

crumbled and temples have decayed ; old customs, insti-

IO INTRODUCTION.

tutions, and manners the world has cast off as worn-out
garments ; but this abides, surviving the fateful fortunes
of sixty centuries, unharmed by the touch of time. And
as we regard it more closely, more serious questions
come to light. Is the Sabbath but a well-meant and
valued form for the shaping and discipline of our life ? or
is there within it a spiritual meaning, a moral reason by
which it may give the law to the conscience of man and
demand obedience by the highest sanctions of duty?
Is it only a custom received with our religion from an
Asian people ? or has it those marks of universality and
moral necessity which make it permanently obligatory
upon every age of history and every race of mankind ?
And can we take a still higher ground, and assert that
for this institution we have the continued authority of
the divine will and Word ?

These questions are vital to the very existence of
the Sabbath. Such is the constitution of human nature
that no rule of conduct is able to impose itself upon
mankind. No conviction of its benefits, and no senti-
ment, even of duty, in the matter can have any power
permanently to enforce any course of human conduct
without the higher sanctions of religion. The Sabbath
must stand or fall as men regard it or not as of divine
legislation and authority.

The special difficulty of the subject lies in the exter-
nal character of the Sabbath itself; that is, in the very
fact that it is an institution. To our common thought
the moral law is something inward and spiritual, and
not outward and material ; it must speak to us from a

INTRODUCTION. II

realm transcending time and space, and is ever con-
ceived as something disenthralled of the world of sense.
The Sabbath, on the other hand, has its very being in
time ; time is the material of its existence ; it is set in
the world of appearance and sense. This it is which
most largely makes it difficult to feel the absolute obli-
gation of its observance. The shadow of ceremonialism
which rests over the Lord's day has too often hidden,
even from clearest spiritual vision, the profound ethical
foundations on which it stands. It becomes confounded
with those "times and seasons" and external rites which
are acknowledged to be the formal element in all reli-
gion. It is the purpose of the following pages to dis-
engage the Sabbath from the network of outward cere-
mony in which in thought it has been too closely en-
twined, and to show that it contains permanent elements
of character, an inward significance and a moral neces-
sity which give to it an abiding force and authority
above that which belongs to the passing economy of
even the most instructive ceremonial system. It will be
shown that some such contact between the worlds of
spirit and sense as the Sabbath affords is necessary;
that only through such an institution can the moral
realm fully and closely touch and influence the outward
life of humanity ; and that this form is such as not to
obstruct the life of the spirit, but to give it a larger free-
dom. Above all, it will be shown that the Sabbath is
marked with the divine signature, and has upon it a
seal of authority given by God himself; that he has re-
peatedly enacted it for man's good and his own glory.

12 INTRODUCTION.

The following proposition will be maintained :
The Lord's day, or Christian Sabbath, being an in-
stitution founded in the moral order of the world, being
necessary to the highest well-being of man, and being
enforced by the positive precepts of divine revelation, is
therefore of universal and perpetual obligation.
In support of this proposition it will be shown,
i. That history, observation, and experience unite
in affirming the necessity of the Sabbath. There is a
Sabbath of nature, instituted at the Creation by God
the Creator.

2. That the Sabbath has received the high sanction
of divine revelation in the Sabbath of the Law, ordained
by the God of providence for his people.

3. That the observance of the Christian Lord's day
in the most perfect manner satisfies the obligation thus
proven. This is the Sabbath of redemption, given by
God the Redeemer in his resurrection from the dead.

4. The Sabbaths of creation, providence, and grace
are manifestations of one abiding Sabbath, the earthly
type of the Sabbath of eternity.

PART I.

iABBATH 0P KATURE.

Sabbath of Nature.

CHAPTER I.

ORDINANCE OF CREATION.

" And He, with gracious smile, received our praise,
Lingering enamored o'er his new-made world,
The latest counsel oj. his love, the while
The earth her earliest, holiest Sabbath kept,
Gladdened with new seraphic symphonies
And the first echo of the human voice."

BICKERSTETH.

" The first creation of God in the works of the days was
the light of the sense ; the last was the light of reason ; and
his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his Spirit."

BACON.

The Sabbath is an institution as old as the
completion of the world. It marked the end of
the Creator's work and the beginning of man's
existence. It shares with marriage the glory of
beino: the sole relics saved to the fallen race from
their lost paradise. One is the foundation of the
family, and consequently of the state; the other
is equally necessary to worship and the church.

14 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

These two fair and fragrant roses man bore with
him from the blighted bliss of Eden.

It is not, however, the mere fact of age that
lends sacredness to these institutions, for years
alone cannot give consecration or compel regard
to anything which does not possess in itself some
inherent sanctity and dignity. It is in the cir-
cumstances of its first institution and in its essen-
tial character that we must hope to discover the
necessity and holiness of the Sabbath day.

"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. 2:3.
Such is the sublimely simple statement which
forms the last strain of that magnificent hymn of
creation which is our only glimpse into the be-
ginning of things. It is surely consistent with
sound common sense and sound interpretation to
see in these words much more than a mere an-
ticipation of the theocratic Sabbath of Israel. It
seems absurd to express in words what some have
implied in their reasonings on this passage:
"God rested on the seventh day; therefore 2,500
years afterwards he blessed and sanctified it."
The same form of language is used to describe
what took place on the seventh day as in relating
what took place in the six preceding days.

It is certain that a first reading of this passage

ORDINANCE OE CREATION. 1 5

conveys to the mind the idea that the sanctinca-
tion of the Sabbath as a day of rest took place at
the very close of the creative week. That such
was the case would, probably, never have been
denied if the denial had not been necessary to
support a peculiar view. Doubt in regard to this
proleptic interpretation is sustained by the recent
discovery of mention of a day of rest in the As-
syrian account of creation, which is believed to
antedate Moses by nearly six hundred years, and
the further discovery of the actual observance of
a Sabbath in Babylonia long before the time of
the Mosaic institution.* Is not God saving his
facts in Egyptian tombs, on Assyrian bricks, and
in all historic remains everywhere, that, at every
crisis of his truth, when even the mouths of be-
lievers are silenced by the tumult of doubt, the
very ' ( stones ' ' may ' ' cry out ' ' ?

Our view of this passage is further confirmed
by the word "remember" in the Fourth Com-
mandment as coupled with the reason at the end
of that commandment. So far as Scripture tes-
timony can go, as enforced by archseological evi-
dence— and no other proofs are available — the
Sabbath is an ordinance of creation. When we
further see how necessary it is to the whole na-
ture of man, how indispensable to his highest
* See Chapter 6 on " The Primitive Sabbath."

Abiding Sabbath. 2

l6 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

well-being, we are compelled to believe that it
must have been given to man at the beginning if
he were to be fully equipped for his mission in
the world.

A special authority attaches itself to the prim-
itive revelation. Whatever critical opinions may
assert concerning the early history of the world,
to the Christian the testimony of Jesus Christ
remains in force to the high obligation of the
Bdenic law. In reproving the corruptions of the
marriage relation which had arisen under the
Mosaic code, he reverts to the primitive law;
"From the beginning it was not so." That is
to say, the law of the beginning is supreme.
Whatever institutions were given to man then
were given for all time. There is given thus to
marriage, and to its related institution, the Sab-
bath, a permanent character and authority which
transcend the Hebrew legislation in their uni-
versal and abiding force. Those elements of
truth which were given to the infant race are the
possession of humanity, and not of the Jew alone:
they are the alphabet of all the growing knowledge
of man, not to be forgotten as the world grows
old, but to be borne with him in all his wander-
ings, to last through all changes, and be his guide
up those rugged steeps by which he must climb to
the lofty summits of his nobler destiny.

ORDINANCE OF CPvEATlON. 1 7

1. The Sabbath, being an ordinance of creation^
is a universal and permanent institution.

Not to a single race, but to man; not to man
alone, but to the whole creation; not to the crea-
ted things alone, but to the Creator himself, came
the benediction of the first Sabbath. Its signifi-
cance extends beyond the narrow limits of Juda-
ism to all races, and perhaps to all worlds. It is
a law spoken not simply through the lawgiver
of a chosen people, but declared in the presence
of a finished heaven and earth. The declaration
in Genesis furnishes the best commentary on the
saying of Jesus: "The Sabbath was made for
man." For man, universal humanity, it was
given with its benediction.

2. The Sabbath is a monument of creation, and
tJierefore of universal aiid permanent obligation.

The reason of the institution of the Sabbath
is one which possesses an unchanging interest and
importance to all mankind. The theme of the
Creation is not peculiar to Israel, nor is worship
of the Creator confined to the children of Abra-
ham. The primary article of every religious
creed, and the foundation of all true religion, is
faith in one God as the Maker of all things.
Against atheism, which denies the existence of a
personal God; against materialism, which denies
that this visible universe has its roots in the un-

l8 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

seen ; and against secularism, which denies the
need of worship, the Sabbath is therefore an eter-
nal witness. It symbolically commemorates that
creative power which spoke all things into being,
the wisdom which ordered their adaptations and
harmony, and the love which made, as well as
pronounced, all "very good." It is set as the
perpetual guardian of man against that spiritual
infirmity which has everywhere led him to a de-
nial of the God who made him, or to the degra-
dation of that God into a creature made with his
own hands.

There may have been ages in the history of
the Christian church when this fundamental doc-
trine of creation has seemed of little consequence,
when the belief in a personal Author of the world
has been looked upon as a barren truism too ab-
solutely certain to be worth discussion or proof.
But those days are past. The wonderful progress
of physical science in the last century has led the
thoughts of men anew to those old problems of
the beginnings of things. And too often has
close absorption in "the things that are seen"
blinded the eyes of even honest students to the
c< things that are not seen," and star-eyed science
has become mole-eyed by too long working under-
ground. Life is not revealed to the straining
eyes that peer into the microscope; spirit escapes

ORDINANCE OF CREATION. 19

the sharp point of the scalpel ; and God cannot be
found in the bottom of a crucible. Against this
tendency to doubt the spiritual and supernatu-
ral, against this infidelity to the doctrine of cre-
ation and a personal Creator, the Sabbath is a
perpetual protest. We can hardly doubt that
were its observance more regarded, and its spirit-
ual meaning more largely dwelt upon, no fool
would be found saying either in his heart or on
his lips, "There is no God."

It is very evident that this doctrine of crea-
tion pertains to all time as well as to all men.
Never can scientific thought be indifferent to the
origin of things, and never can religion fail to
remember that every doctrine is meaningless
which does not have as its presupposition a per-
sonal Author of all things, infinite in power, in-
telligence, and beneficence. As fair as to the
gaze of the first man the face of nature shines.

" The world's unwithered countenance
Is bright as on creation's day."

To the widening thought of man, to his en-
larged knowledge of the wonders of the world
about him, and to his large grasp of the laws and
forces that rule it, the marvel of its existence is
not less, but more; and whether with curiosity or
reverence he tread the paths of his search, they
ever lead into a fathomless mystery, a mystery

20 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

which only the high miracle of creation can
solve. While the reason remains, the law re-
mains. The reason of the Sabbath is to be found
in the fact of creation; it is God's one monument
set in human history to that great event; and so
long as the truth of creation and the knowledge
of a Creator have any value to human thought,
any authority over the human conscience, or
make any appeal to human affections, so long
the law and the institution of the Sabbath will
abide with lasting instruction and undiminished
obligation.

3. The example of the Creator establishes the
moral character of this obligation.

God ' ' rested the seventh day from all his work
which he had made." Such is the record, de-
clared in the beginning, embodied in the Deca-
logue, and confirmed by the Epistle to the He-
brews. It is a statement not to be easily under-
stood at the first glance. "Hast thou not known?
hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the
Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth
not, neither is weary ?' ' Isaiah 40 : 28. If he is
never weary, how can we say of him that he rests?
Besides, Jesus has said, and with reference to the
Sabbath, "My Father worketh hitherto." John
5:17. We see no cessation of activity in the
works of God. Night and day the ever-moving

ORDINANCE OF CREATION. 21

wheels of nature revolve, knowing no weariness
and finding no rest. With unflagging pace the
journeying worlds keep up their eternal march
through space. The radiant light speeds onward,
marking its footsteps with beauty; the subtile elec-
tric fire flashes along its secret ways to do its won-
drous work; and life throbs on its deeper diapason
of meaning beneath these upper notes of nature ;
but all these faint not on their unceasing round
of work, and never suspend their unwearied ac-
tivity of untiring, unresting motion. How, then,
can God, who thus upholds his creation with an
energy that never is remitted, be said to rest ?

God is a Spirit, and the only rest which he can
know is that supreme repose which only the Spirit
can know — in the fulfilment of his purpose and the
completeness as well as completion of his work.
Just as, in the solemn pauses between the creative
days, he pronounced his creatures l ' very good, ' '
so did he rejoice over the finishing of his work,
resting in the perfect satisfaction of an accom-
plished plan; not to restore his wasted energy, as
man rests, but to signify that in the coming of man
the creative idea has found its consummation and
crown. Such is the rest possible to a purely spir-
itual nature — the rest of a completed work.

While, therefore, it may be admitted that the
world endures only by the continuous exercise of

22 ?HE ABIDING SABBATH.

the energy by which it was first formed, still the
appearance of man marked the summit of the
ascending thought of creation, considered either
as a material or a mental product. All that came
before him had reference to him, and all prophe-
sied his coming. When he came he was the an-
swer to all the voices of all the geologic ages before
him. The universe was made with reference to
man, because man was made with reference to
the law of righteousness. In him God produced
the full finite expression of himself; man was
made "in the image of God." In man culmi-
nated the eternal counsel of creation, and there-
fore did the Creator cease from his work, and spir-
itually rest in complacent contemplation of a fin-
ished world. His is not the unconscious repose
of Hindoo mythology, which says, "Brahma
sleeps," but the Maker's joy in the perfectness of
his work, shared by the morning stars in their
songs of gladness, and echoed in the joyful shout-
ing of the sons of God.

In the idea of the Sabbath there is, therefore,
contained both a monument to the physical fact
of creation and a testimony to its spiritual mean-
ing achieved in man. In keeping the Sabbath,
man asserts his own spirituality and the spiritual-
ity of God; asserts that he is not related so closely
to restless nature as to God, who, being a Spirit,

ORDINANCE OF CREATION. 23

can rest in his work as well as from his work. Man
can cease to observe the Sabbath only when he has
ceased to respect the divinity of his own nature
and has thoroughly identified himself with the
brutish mechanism of nature, which never knows
or needs repose. The obligation of the Sabbath
has for its measure the dignity of the nature of
man; its law rests upon him as son of God and kin
of angels; and its duration is consequently as last-
ing as the life of spirit, as immortal as himself.

There is a still deeper sense in which the ex-
ample of Deity reveals this obligation. Suppose
the question to be asked, How can we know that
any precept is moral in its meaning and author-
ity, and not simply a positive and arbitrary com-
mand? What better answer could be given to
this inquiry than to say that a moral precept must
have the ground of its existence in the nature of
God? Our highest conception of the moral law
is to regard it as the transcript of his nature.
This will be true whatever position we take in
regard to the vexed questions of the foundation
and character of moral obligation. Whatever
side we take in these disputes, all must agree that
no more perfect vindication of the moral charac-
ter of a law can be given than to show that it is
a rule of the divine conduct; that it has been im-
posed upon his own activity by that infinite Will

24 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

which is the supreme authority both iu the phys-
ical and moral government of the universe. That
law to which the Creator submits his own being
must be of absolute binding force upon every
creature made in his image. Such is the law of
the Sabbath. "God rested the seventh day,"
and by so doing has given to the law of the Sab-
bath the highest and strongest sanction possible
even to Deity. In no conceivable way could the
Almighty so perfectly and with such unchallenge-
able authority declare not simply his wTill in a
positive institution, but the essentially moral
character of the precept, as by revealing his own
self-subjection to the rule which he imposes on
his creatures. This argument is not weakened
but strengthened by the admission already made
that God's keeping of a Sabbath is not in every
respect like that of man ; that he cannot be said
to rest in every sense in which man rests. There
is thus disclosed the fact that the Sabbath has a
spiritual essence, an inward meaning deeper than
the outward fact of physical rest, and that beneath
the material element of its being it has a moral
foundation and life. Its obligation is addressed
not to man's physical nature alone, but to man as
a spiritual being made in the image of God; it is
laid not only on his bodily powers and natural
understanding, but upon his moral reason as right,

ORDINANCE OF CREATION. 25

and upon his conscience as duty. It is therefore
bounded by no limits of time, place, or circum-
stance, but is of universal and perpetual au-
thority.

4. There is a divine Sabbath, which is the abi-
ding ground of the human institution of the Sabbath.

The thought has doubtless already arisen in
the mind of the reader that these days of creation
are not to be taken as literal days of twenty-four
hours each, and that by consequence the seventh
day of the divine rest is not a natural day marked
by the revolution of the earth, and therefore the
duty of observing sacredly one day in a week as a
Sabbath cannot be based on the ordinance of cre-
ation. What if we should find in that very fact
a new confirmation of the abiding character of
the Sabbatic law?

Indeed, our very conception of God forbids us
to bring him under the dominion of a temporal
institute. His Sabbath, as an infinite Being,
must be one of those "ineffable days" of which
St. Augustine speaks. God has done more than
give an example to man in entering upon his
Sabbath rest. He has placed after the ages of
his physical activity of world-making an age of
spiritual manifestation; in the midst of the king-
dom of nature he places a holy and happy king-
dom of souls. This Sabbath of God covers the

26 the: abiding sabbath.

life of man on the earth and extends into the
eternity of his existence with God hereafter. In
Bden man enjoyed with his Maker a perpetual
Sabbath. I^abor had not yet become a curse;
the antagonism between spirit and nature caused
by sin had not yet manifested itself. If the week-
ly Sabbath was kept, it was to commemorate the
work which had ended in this blessed harmony
of man with God. In the fall man lost the divine
Sabbath in its fulness; but to him, thus under
the sentence of labor and death, the weekly Sab-
bath remained, the constant memorial of the for-
mer, and the perpetual prophet of its restoration
through a Redeemer. It remains as the shadow,
gaining with the advancing years more and more
of the substance of true rest, and shall remain
until man enters again into the heavenly rest of a
regained paradise in the restitution of all things.
The Sabbath is not a legal but an evangelical in-
stitution, the central and only abiding outward
sign of all religious belief. It is inseparably con-
nected with the whole history of redemption.
Our human Sabbaths are points at which we
touch our diviner life, points where still we rec-
ognize that eternity of bliss which hovers for ever
over our years of sorrow.

Our weekly Sabbath is therefore the manifes-
tation in time of something which is eternal.

ORDINANCE OF CREATION. 2J

Why this eternal fact should have as its temporal
embodiment just one day in seven is something
which we are no more able to explain than why
the immortal spirit of man should have such and
such a body. It is the form which God has given
it, for he has revealed not indistinctly that the
number seven is the signature of creation. As it
is everywhere in Scripture the number of perfec-
tion and completeness, it is the fit sign of God's
finished work and of that perfect condition in
which alone the meanings of his creation shall be
consummated. The institution of the week is in-
telligible only as a monument to the creative his-
tory in its successive moments; it is the everlast-
ing symbol set in time of the whole process of
eternity. The weekly Sabbath, in the only way
possible to man in his present state, carries out
the divine idea embodied in that rest.

5. The language used indicates a divine and a
human element in the Sabbath.

u God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified
it." God can bless the seventh day only by ma-
king: it a blessing- to man. Insensate time cannot
feel the benedictions of Deity. Man's blessing is
a prayer, but God's blessing is an act. He alone
can give the blessing he pronounces. The Sab-
bath serves man's whole nature, and thus is it to
him a blessing. This side of the institution is

ZS THE ABIDING SABBATH.

wholly directed towards man. It exists for his
sake, for the good of his body, mind, and heart.
It is a human institution.

But the statement that God sanctified it also
implies that the institution has a divine side as
well. A day cannot be sanctified or made holy
in itself. Time has no moral character. It must
be made holy by its uses. Its hours are, there-
fore, to be consecrated to the highest service, de-
voted to the worship of God. In no other way
can the sanctity of the Sabbath be marked. Its
blessing points therefore to man, and its sanctifi-
cation to God. The Sabbath is a divine-human
institution, and this fact confirms the interpreta-
tions already given of this ordinance of creation.

The Sabbath is therefore shown to be given
in the beginning to all men ; to have the lofty
sanction of the example of God; to be rooted in
the eternal world; to be the witness of the most
important truths possible for man to know; to be
a blessing to man's nature; to inclose a duty of
worship to God. By all these revealings which
are given by the institution at its first ordainment
we are justified in believing that it has a moral
meaning within it, and imposes upon all races
and generations of men an unchanging and unre-
laxed obligation of dutiful observance.

REASON OF THE SABBATH. 29

CHAPTER II.

REASON OF THE SABBATH.

" There is nothing arbitrary in the law of God, although
still the whole, and every part thereof, is totally dependent on
his will: so that 'Thy will be done ' is the supreme universal
law in earth and heaven." john wesley.

Reference lias already been made to a dis-
tinction much used in argument on the Sabbath
question between moral and positive precepts. It
is not unfrequently urged that the Sabbath is only
a positive institution; that, consequently, the ob-
ligation of its observance is not necessarily per-
petual; and that its law may be annulled and
abrogated. As this is the very citadel of all anti-
Sabbatarian reasoning, it deserves special atten-
tion.

' ' Moral precepts are precepts the reasons of
which we can see. Positive precepts are precepts
the reasons of which we do not see. Moral duties
arise out of the nature of the case itself, prior to
external command. Positive duties do not arise
out of the nature of the case, but from external
command."* These definitions of the greatest of
English apologists have in them much that is
* Bishop Butler, " Analogy of Religion."

30 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

valuable ; but a very little attention will show
them to be quite unsatisfactory. The distinction
between a positive and a moral precept is by no
means so easy and simple as the above words
would indicate. In the eighteenth century, when
these words were written, men talked freely of
the light of nature and of reason. The present
age is beginning to find out the difficulty of es-
tablishing any moral law on a rational basis
alone. A moral precept must indeed have rea-
sons, but it is neither necessary nor possible for
those reasons to be always seen. Self-evidence
can hardly be attributed to any single item in the
moral law. Take, for example, the case of mar-
riage, with which we have seen the Sabbath to
be so closely united. This is connected with and
rests upon the moral duty of chastity. Polygamy
is universally regarded by Christendom as a vio-
lation of this law, yet no one would claim that
monogamy is right on the grounds of self-evi-
dence. The history of the world and the experi-
ence of mankind would be against such an asser-
tion. Fallen man has adopted monogamic mar-
riage only after painful upward progress through
the centuries, and under the tutelage of divine
revelation. Take another case. The law for the
protection of property, "Thou shalt not steal,"
cannot be defended on the basis of innate neces-

REASON OF THE SABBATH. 31

sity. There have not been wanting those who
sincerely have declared property to be itself a
robbery of the common heritage of all men.
Those " twin pronouns of civilization," "mine"
and u thine," have attained their meaning only
under divine tutorship.

The truth is that moral principles are neither
self-evident nor reasonable to any minds which
are not sufficiently developed to receive them.
The child and the savage fail to recognize obli-
gations which are instantaneously accepted by
the adult and the civilized man. The moral na-
ture of man is as capable of growth as any part of
his beino:. The enlar^inor consciousness of new
and more complex relations to other beings,
which can come to man only with experience,
must cause to expand within him that moral
sense which perceives the reasons of any law.
To orders of beings higher than ourselves, and to
ourselves when we shall stand in a clearer light
than that of the present, and with more perfectly
developed faculties, there may be revealed moral
reasons for many things which we now regard as
merely positive institutions. To such enlarged
intelligence the law of the Sabbath may be as
absolute and necessary as that of truth or chastity.
Thus guarded, the distinction between moral and
positive precepts is a good one and worthy of all

Abiding; Sabbath. -?

33 the abiding sabbath.

regard. Even if it should be proved, which it can-
not, that the Sabbath is only a positive ordinance
of religion, still it would remain of moral obliga-
tion for the reason that a law may be morally
binding without having a moral foundation. In
the absence of any other reason, obedience is the
higher law. Let it only be granted that anything
is the will of God, and his creatures are bound to
obey. The will of the Lawgiver may not be the
final foundation of the law, nor may it afford full
satisfaction to the reason, but it is final to the
subject, and the obligation imposed by it is truly
moral in every sense in which the word can be
used.

It must also be remembered that for a finite
being every moral law must exist in experience
in connection with positive elements. Property,
marriage, and government are human institu-
tions; but they are founded on something perma-
nent in the moral nature of things. Perhaps we
do not see the real moral essence of any precept;
all are realized to us in connection with finite re-
lationships which embody their meaning and ex-
press it for us. In every moral requirement there
is a permanent and a transient element. So it is
with the Sabbath. To keep holy one day in
seven has been revealed to us in such circumstan-
ces and with such sanctions that we must accept

REASON OF THE SABBATH. 3$

it as a moral duty. But the manner of observ-
ance, and the particular day, with many other
features of the institution, belong to the positive
side of the ordinance, and, while morally obliga-
tory for the time of their appointment, are capable
of change, modification, and repeal. It is the
presence of these positive elements which has
blinded many good men to the deeper moral
meanings of the Sabbath.

While it may not be possible to perfectly vin-
dicate the Sabbath to reason, yet it has a very
secure basis in reason, sufficient, with the added
authority of revelation, to establish its place in
the moral code. As already shown, it comes to
us as coeval with the formation of our race; it
testifies to facts of universal import and value —
the creation of the world, and the spirituality
both of the Creator and man, his final work ; it is
enforced by the example of God, who, by incor-
porating its essence in his own being, has given
the loftiest sanction possible to its divine charac-
ter and obligation; it is an abiding memorial of a
lost Sabbatic state and the continuing promise of
the great Sabbath which is to come. 'Having
such a relation to the Creator, to the created
world, and to man the created master of the
world, we should expect to find in the nature of
man, physical and moral, some proofs of the ne-

34 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

cessity of a day of rest. If this should be found
to be the case, we would have as good a right to
claim for these reasons a moral foundation for the
law of the Sabbath as we have to claim such a
foundation for any other article of the moral law.
Not one can be established in any other way.

The given proportion of a seventh may, like-
wise, be founded on some moral necessity. If, as
will be shown, man needs a day of rest from toil,
and for religious culture, there must be some def-
inite proportion of time which is, on the whole,
better than any other to be devoted to that pur-
pose. It may be granted that it is beyond the
power of human reason to fix the exact ratio
which would be the best; but that there is such
a ratio follows directly when the need of some
portion of time for this purpose is considered.
Reason teaches the need, and revelation has dis-
closed the proportion, which has received the
ample vindication of experience.

The moral duties of man may be classified
into those which he owes to himself, to his fel-
low-men, and to God. To the proper perform-
ance of all of these the Sabbath is vitally rela-
ted. It is therefore necessary to man's personal,
religious, and social life, and under these three
heads will it be considered in these pages.

THE SABBATH AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 7>5

CHAPTER III.

THE SABBATH AND THE INDIVIDUAL.

" I feel as if God had, by giving the Sabbath, given fifty-
two springs in the year." coleridge.

" Six days stern labor shuts the poor

From Nature's careless banquet-hall ;
The seventh an angel opes the door

And, smiling, welcomes all.
Six days of toil, poor child of Cain,

Thy strength thy master's slave must be ;
The seventh thy limbs escape the chain ;

A God hath made thee free." lord lytton.

On some points connected with the Sabbath
there is absolute agreement on all hands. That
a day of rest from labor is a most wise and bene-
ficial arrangement for mankind is now an undis-
puted proposition. Those who deny the moral
obligation of the day generally couple their deni-
als with the most energetic protests of their alle-
giance to the Sabbath as a necessity of the secular
life. John Stuart Mill admits that "abstinence
on one day of the week, as far as the exigencies
of life permit, from the usual daily occupation,
though in no respect religiously binding on any
except Jews, is a highly beneficial custom;"* and

* Mill, Essay " On Liberty," 174, American edition.

36 the: abiding sabbath.

he therefore maintains that Sunday laws, within
certain limits, are allowable and right. Prof.
Tyndall, in his Glasgow lecture against the di-
vine authority of the Sabbath, says, "Most of
those who object to the Judaic observance of the
Sabbath recognize not only the wisdom but the
necessity of some such institution, not on the
ground of a divine edict, but of common sense ;"
and he adds, ' ' There is nothing that I should with-
stand more strenuously than the conversion of the
first day of the week into a common working-
day. ' ' In another passage of the same address he
exhorts : " L,et us, then, cherish our Sunday as an
institution inherited from our ancestors ; but let
it be understood that we cherish it because it is
in principle reasonable and in practice salutary.
Let us uphold it because it commends itself to
that 'light of nature' which, despite the catas-
trophe in Eden, the most famous theologians
have mentioned with respect, and not because it
is enjoined by the thunders of Sinai."*

* Prof. J. Tyndall, " The Sabbath," published in the " Nine-
teenth Century," Nov., 1880. It is a little startling to hear
some divines arguing that the Sabbath is only a positive in-
stitution of religion given on Sinai, and not a moral precept
revealed in the nature of things, and then to read this asser-
tion of the great physicist that the best reason of the Sabbath
is just this light of nature which theologians have declared to
give no light whatever on the subject. This newly illustrates
the truth that higher than rational grounds must be given for

THE SABBATH AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 2>7

With this expression of opinion accords the
testimony of physiologists, statesmen, philanthro-
pists, and political economists, all coming to the
same result from their varied standpoints of view
and by their various paths of thought. The Sab-
bath is acknowledged by all to be a necessity of
man's physical and intellectual life. As such it
imposes on every man the obligation of due ob-
servance.

i. The Sabbath is an indispensable sanitary pro-
vision for the physical man.

There is a religion of the body as well as of
the soul. This sanctity of even physical relation-
ships is taught by Christianity as by no other reli-
gion. By the doctrine of the resurrection it has
taught the immortality of man — the whole man,
and not his spirit only. The New Testament
affirms that the body is the "temple of the Holy
Ghost ;" that our bodies are "members of Christ ;"
and commands, "Glorify God in your body;"
' ' Present your bodies a living sacrifice. ' ' Rom.
12 : i; i Cor. 6 : 15, 19, 20. There is not in the
Scriptures any trace of that old Platonic and later
Gnostic contempt of matter which also often ex-
hibits itself in the hyper-spiritualism of to-day,
but they frankly acknowledge the life of sense,

any moral precept. The phrase, "light of nature," is wholly
deceptive.

38 the: abiding sabbath.

insisting upon its consecration to higher ends.
Every bodily function is the sacrament of inner
spiritual realities, and therefore to be held in rev-
erence. The care of the physical well-being is
therefore a moral and religious duty, and imposes
moral obligation. To knowingly violate a phys-
ical law is sin. "If any man defile the temple of
God, him shall God destroy." i Cor. 3 : 17. No
man can draw the line between those grosser ac-
knowledged physico-moral transgressions — licen-
tiousness and drunkenness — and any lesser viola-
tion of any law of the bodily life. If, then, the
Sabbath is shown to be based on any necessity of
our nature for physical rest, its moral obligation
is as fully shown as when it is seen to be closely
connected with the spiritual life, for the very
reason that everything which affects one part of
the being of man affects the whole man.

The law of rest is as certainly a sanitary law
as the law of exercise. Nature teaches this to our
bodies in the fact of fatigue and the recurring
blessing of sleep. Day and night in constant
alternation witness to the constant necessity of
alternate labor and repose. More than this, in
nearly all disease both the indications of nature
and the teachings of medical science prescribe for
a time rest as a principal means of cure. Expe-
rience shows, however, that the nightly repose of

THE SABBATH AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 39

sleep does not fully restore the physical balance;
this can be done only by the frequent interposi-
tion of a day of rest. To establish this scientific-
ally is a task of some difficulty, for the reason
that all works on Hygiene assume Sunday as a
fact, just as they assume sleep, and therefore do
not argue the question at all. But the conclusion
is, after all, a necessary one that the repose which
is so efficient in the restoration of health would
be of still higher value in its preservation.

The longest-lived classes in society are those
whose occupation is varied between mental and
physical toil, as in the learned professions, or
those whose means give them the opportunity of
leisure. The mortality lists are constantly swelled
from among the laboring classes. For this class
of facts the statistics are abundant and need not
be given. They are the basis on which all the
great movements of the last century for short-
ening the hours of labor have been founded. Dr.
W. B. Carpenter, the eminent physiologist, in a
letter writes: "Ten hours a day is the fullest
amount that ought to be assigned to continued
bodily labor; and where there is much mental
tension I should say that even this is too much."*
It is to working-men, therefore, that the Sabbath
as a rest-day comes most fully freighted with bless-
* "Woolwich Lectures on the Sabbath," 53.

4-0 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

ing. ' ' He who made the Sabbath loves the
poor. ' ' It is one of the guardians of labor against
the encroachments of capital and the oppression
of the taskmaster. It relieves that constant strain
of physical effort which is continually undermi-
ning the strength of the laboring man.

More direct testimony may be given from med-
ical and other authorities. In 1832 the British
House of Commons appointed a select committee
on Sunday observance. This committee took a
large body of evidence bearing on this subject, all
being decisively in favor of the sanitary value of
the day of rest. The frequently-quoted testimony
of Dr. Farre is a fair specimen of the whole:

"Although the night apparently balances the
circulation, yet it does not sufficiently restore its
balance for the attainment of a long life ; hence
one day in seven, by the bounty of Providence, is
thrown in as a day of compensation, to perfect by
its repose the animal system." Again he testi-
fies: " It is the day of compensation for the inad-
equate restorative power of the body under con-
tinued labor and excitement. In the bountiful
provisions of Providence for the preservation of
human life the Sabbatical appointment is not, as
it has sometimes been theologically viewed, sim-
ply a precept partaking of the nature of a polit-
ical institution, but it is to be numbered among

THE SABBATH AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 41

the natural duties, if the preservation of life be
admitted to be a duty, and its destruction a suici-
dal act."* That the animals connected with man
need a Sabbath for physical restoration was con-
firmed before the same committee by proprietors
of coach-stands, testifying that their horses could
do a large percentage more of work by being
allowed a weekly day of rest.f If man were
nothing but an animal, the proof would be com-
plete that it is for his interest to observe the Sab-
bath.

In the letter above mentioned Dr. W. B. Car-
penter writes: "My own experience is very
strong as to the importance of a complete rest
and change of thought once a week."

The celebrated Boerhaave, than whose no more
brilliant record fills the annals of medical history,
testified to the need of a holy day of rest, and
ascribed his own physical vigor to this as well as
his daily religious exercises.

The late Prof. Miller, of Edinburgh, asserts
that the more the physiologist advances in the
exact knowledge of his science, the more he will
be convinced that the physiology of the Sabbath,
as contained by manifest implication in God's
revealed Word, is not only true, but imbedded

* "Report of Commons' Committee," 116.
t Ibid. 125, 127, 130.

42 the: abiding sabbath.

therein, and embodied in corresponding enact-
ments alike in wisdom and mercy. "The night
is the rest and the Sabbath of the day; the Sab-
bath is the rest and Sabbath of the week."

In 1853, 641 physicians, among whom was Dr.
J. B. Farre, whose testimony has been given, pe-
titioned Parliament against the opening of the
Crystal Palace on Sundays, urging, among other
things: "Your petitioners, from their acquaint-
ance with the laws that regulate the human econ-
omy, are convinced that the seventh day of rest,
instituted by God and coeval with the existence
of man, is essential to the bodily health and men-
tal vigor of men in every station of life."* In
this connection it may be noted that the petition-
ers on this occasion, who numbered nearly two
hundred thousand names, mostly of working-men,
opposed the opening of the Crystal Palace on Sun-
day by more than six to one. In our own country
medical opinion has been quite as decidedly in
favor of the sanitary value of the day of rest.

Besides the direct method of rest, there are
indirect ways in which the Sabbath exercises a
beneficial influence on the health of the people.
In that religion of the body which we call Hy-
giene there is no more important article than
cleanliness. It is among the first of physical vir-
* "Association Medical Journal," June, 1853.

THE SABBATH AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 43

tues. John Wesley, indeed, would seem to have
placed it on the very boundary of even spiritual
excellence when he said, " Cleanliness is next to
godliness." Sunday is a day of clean clothing,
and naturally tends, on one day of the week at
least, to inspire the desire for neatness of apparel
and cleanliness of person. It is only the highest
civilization that has achieved in the higher ranks
of society the daily tub. It is to be feared that
the more common weekly bath would be in dan-
ger of disappearing should the day of rest become
an ordinary day. A Sabbath -keeping and a
church-going people are far more apt to be a
cleanly people than those who neglect such ob-
servances. Any one who is familiar with the
personal habits of individuals may easily verify
this statement. That the Sabbath generally
means a weekly ablution and change of apparel
is not the least of its advantages in a sanitary
point of view.

But health depends on moral as well as physi-
cal causes. Happiness means health. The Sab-
bath, truly used, is a day of joy; it is a real festi-
val, and directly tends to create those elevated
frames of mind which are the surest undergirdinof
support of the bodily powers. "The joy of the
Lord is your strength," said Nehemiah, one of
the great Sabbatic reformers of Israel; and our

44 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

experience proves that the cheerful disposition
and the holy joy of the true Christian are among
the best preventives of disease and the most effi-
cient remedies in sickness. Therefore the 641
physicians whose petition is quoted above base
that. petition on the "close connection between
moral and physical disease. ' '

While more exact observation and more def-
inite experiment are still to be desired on this
subject, it cannot be, and, indeed, is not, doubted
by any intelligent person that the weekly day of
rest is a sanitary provision of the highest value,
and that its beneficent effects upon the physical
being of man are beyond all statistical estimate.

2. The Sabbath is needed by the intellectual
life.

"In the world there is nothing great but man;
in man there is nothing great but mind."* Man
is a thinking animal, and it is in thought that his
true earthly greatness is to be found. Valuable
and important to him as is his physical nature, its
worth lies in the fact that it is the instrument of
expression of that disguised royalty of thought
which it incloses. Matter is only the tongue of
spirit; the sound body is but the fitting casket for
the sound mind. It needs but little argument to
show that man's intellectual life requires the
* "Phavorinus," quoted by J. Pico Mirandola.

THE SABBATH AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 45

Sabbath for its fullest development and highest
well-being.

The mind is largely dependent on the body.
As we come to know more of the physical organ-
ism, the more apparent is it that mental opera-
tions are closely connected with physical states;
that they are coincident with the formation and
dissolution of brain cells; that thought and feel-
ing are closely intertwined with the growth, life,
and decay of nervous tissue. In all this there is
no necessary implication of materialism. It is
sufficient to know that this body is the soul's
means of development, through its outer gate-
ways of sense and inner coordinations of forces
and feelings. Every argument which shows the
Sabbath to be a benefit to the body of man shows
it to be also a need of his intellect. Indeed, it is
that part of the organism with which mind is
most closely connected, the nervous system, which
most loudly calls for and most quickly responds
to the blessing of rest. Nutrition and respiration
may, apparently, go on without showing the ef-
fects of incessant toil; but the strain on the ner-
vous system is at once felt. The first result of
Sabbathless toil is the brutalization of man which
reveals the fact that the light of intellect has been
put out. The body is no longer a fitting habita-
tion for the royal guest within it, but becomes a

46 TH£ abiding sabbath.

prison-house instead, in which is confined the de-
throned majesty of mind.

The Sabbath helps, also, the intellectual life
of the hand-laborer as well as the brain-worker.
It furnishes the opportunity of thought to men
whose whole lives would otherwise be spent in
the treadmill of material toil. Without it they
would have neither the motive nor the opportu-
nity for mental improvement. This use is not
hindered but helped by the fact that it is the day
of religious worship. Perhaps there is no method
by which the man who has little time for self-
culture can so well gain widened views of life
and receive intellectual stimulus as by those min-
istrations offered him by the church. Whether
or not he is a believer, the contact with religious
truth is a means of education not to be despised.
One day in a week given to the mere study of
books could not so fully acquaint any man with
the universal aspects of human thought as an
hour or two of attention to that system of truth
which touches human life and culture at every
point. It is hard to see how the laborer could be
anything but a machine without the Sabbath. It
is absolutely essential to the proper mental devel-
opment of mankind.

3. The Sabbath is not inconsistent with personal
liberty.

THE SABBATH AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 47

Is the Christian Sabbath inimical to personal
liberty, and will its observance interfere with the
proper development of individualism? It is not
uncommon to hear this question answered in the
affirmative. If the claim could be made out, it
would press with overwhelming weight against
the obligation of Sabbath observance: for liberty
is among the highest blessings; it is the condition
of the proper development of every power and
faculty of man; without it the highest forms of
character can hardly be said to exist at all. If it
can be shown that the Sabbath places any re-
straint on the full growth of any faculty or power
of man, that it hinders the free blossoming and
fruitage of any germs within his nature, then by
so much must it be condemned, and all further
arguments and labored proofs in its favor are
shown to be futile.

It is an easy task to show that all such oppo-
sition to the Sabbath or to Sabbath legislation is
based on essentially false conceptions of the na-
ture of liberty. When the moral obligation of
the Sabbath is established, all is established; and
every specious claim of a liberty that can tran-
scend its claims falls to the ground. There is no
human freedom except within the boundaries of
the moral law. The highest possibilities of hu-
man achievement, the sublimest heights to which

AbMing Sabbath. A

48 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

the soul can attain, and the most glorious mani-
festations of character and life must be realized
beneath the all-inclosing skies of duty, or not at
all. All true freedom to the soul is within the
claims of moral obligation; outside there is noth-
ing but bondage. Under the law of its being, in
obedience thereto, and there alone, has the spirit
of man its true life, and therefore true liberty.
The Sabbath, being of moral obligation, is for
that very reason not a hindrance but a help to
man, in consummating his true development of
character and in attaining his true destiny. It is
thoroughly consistent with human freedom. The
great Emancipator of human souls, Jesus Christ,
has declared this unmistakably in saying that
"the Sabbath was made for man, and not man
for the Sabbath. ' ' Because his physical and men-
tal powers cannot endure the strain of existence
without its repose; because his moral being, in
which his true greatness lies, will be surely
merged in animalism and enslaved by sin and
sense without its release into the higher atmos-
phere of religious feeling, therefore man is not to
regard the Sabbath as a crushing form to which
he must adjust himself, but as a holy gift with in-
finite adjustments to all the needs of his nature.
Its obligation, therefore, imposes no bondage; but
its observance is the road to the highest and di-

THE SABBATH AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 49

vinest liberty that any soul can know. A further
answer to the objection can be found in the fair
application of the law of reciprocity. Even if
liberty is interpreted into license, no man can
deny the right of observing the day to those who
wish to do so. But that the most may be free to
enjoy its hours it is necessary that all give it some
respect. The freedom of worship to some implies
the duty of rest to all. Advocates of so-called
4 'personal liberty" too often forget that the li-
cense of action they claim would involve the
grossest infringement of the sacred rights of
others. It is this feature of the Sabbath question
which justifies the enforcement of a day of rest
and worship by human government. It is a sim-
ple protection of that larger portion of the com-
munity who worship God and recognize the duty
of obeying his laws in their right so to do. Ex-
perience has shown that there is great danger of
encroachment on the rights of others in this re-
spect. The Sunday laws are in the direction of
true liberty and can never be opposed to it. It is
clearly to be seen that the abolition of such laws
would make every day a day of public business,
and would therefore practically deprive every
conscientious Christian of the power of holding
office. When we place the shameless claims and
sophistical arguments of these would-be defenders

50 the: abiding sabbath.

of the sacred rights of man in the white light of
duty and reason, their native deformity and vi-
ciousness become fully apparent.

Upon the larger class of the community, the
people who work with their hands, the loss of the
Sabbath would come as an act of tyranny. The
truth of this will appear not only from economic
considerations, to be noted in the next chapter,
but from the fact that no increased return would
follow the increase of work. In the ' ' Commons'
Report," quoted above, it is stated, "The work-
men are aware, and the masters in many trades
admit the fact, that were Sunday labor to cease,
it would occasion no diminution of the weekly
wages."* And John Stuart Mill, on the same
point, says: "The operatives are perfectly right
in thinking that if all worked on Sunday, seven
days' work would have to be given for six days'
wages. ' ' f

The abolition of the Sabbath means, there-
fore, the sheer robbery of one day's work in every
week from the laboring men, who lose their rest
and gain nothing instead of it. It follows from
this, although the reasoning cannot be given in
detail, that there could not be any profit at all in
any kind of Sunday labor pursued by all. To

* " Report on the Sabbath," 8.
f Essay "On Liberty," 155.

THE SABBATH AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 51

strike the day of rest from trie week would be an
oppressive measure towards every class of work-
ers, whether with hands or brain. So much for
the claim that personal liberty is infringed by
the Sabbath.

4. One day in seven is the best proportion for rest.

The divine wisdom has been manifested not
only in the proven necessity of a day of rest, but
in the proportion of time required. It may not
be capable of exact demonstration that precisely
one day in seven is the best ratio that could be
chosen. But there must be some proportion that
is better than any other for universal observance,
and neither experience nor philosophy has been
able to suggest anything better than one day in
seven. Consequently, many careful observers
have not hesitated to assert that a weekly Sab-
bath is beyond doubt the best measure to be
applied. What is most surprising is that these
testimonies come most positively from writers who
cannot be accused of any extreme prejudices in
favor of religious institutions. Two such testimo-
nies will be given.

Wilhelm von Humboldt, in his ( ' Briefe an
eine Freundin," says:

"I completely agree with you that the insti-
tution of fixed days of rest, even if it had no
connection with religious observance, is a most

52 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

pleasing and truly refreshing idea to every one
who has a humane mind towards all classes of
society. The selection of the seventh day is cer-
tainly the wisest that could have been made.
Although it may seem, and to some extent may
be, optional to shorten or lengthen labor one day,
I am convinced that six days is the just and true
measure suitable to men in regard to their phys-
ical powers and perseverance in a monotonous
employment. There is likewise something hu-
mane in this, that the beasts that aid man in his
labor share in the rest. To lengthen the time of
returning rest beyond measure would be as inhu-
man as foolish. I have had an example of this in
my own experience. When I spent several years
in Paris in the time of the Revolution, I saw this
institution, despite its divine origin, superseded
by the dry and wooden decimal system. Only
the tenth day was what we call Sunday, and all
customary work continued for nine long days.
This being evidently too long, Sunday was kept
by several as far as the police laws would permit
it, and thus again too much idleness was the re-
sult. Thus we are always between two extremes
so far as we remove from the safe and regulated
middle path."

The other passage is from an argument in
favor of Sunday observance from a purely secular

the sabbath and this individual. 53

standpoint, by Proudhon, the French socialist,
and is as follows:

"What statistician could have found out for
the first time that ordinarily the period of work
ought to bear to the period of rest the exact pro-
portion of six to one ? Therefore Moses, who had
to arrange for a nation the labors and days, rests
and festivals, works of the body and exercises of
the soul, the laws of hygiene and morals, politic
economy and individual subsistence, took refuge
in a science of numbers, in a transcendental har-
mony which took in all space, time, duration,
motion, spirits, bodies, the holy and the profane.
The certainty of the science is proved by the re-
sult. Decrease the week by only one day, and
the labor is insufficient for the repose; increase it
by the same amount, and it is too much. Fix
every three days and a half a half-day of relaxa-
tion, and you increase by dividing the day the
loss of time ; and by breaking the natural unity
of the day the numerical balance of things is
broken. If you grant, on the other hand, forty-
eight hours of rest after twelve consecutive days
of work, you kill the man with inertia after hav-
ing exhausted him with fatigue."*

While the decree of infinite Wisdom has no
need of human confirmation, such testimonies as

* Proudhon, " De la Calibration du Dimanche," 67.

54 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

these have their value. That God's revelation in
his Book is consonant with his revelation in na-
ture, sets upon the former anew the seal of divine
authority. Just the parallelism between the Bible
and nature which we would expect to find is sup-
plied by these testimonies. By themselves these
natural reasons, perhaps, could not establish a
moral duty; but when they are connected with a
positive command of God they help to raise it to
the rank of a moral precept.

If this question were to be decided by authority
merely, who could impeach the testimony of such
reformers as Knox and Wesley, such statesmen as
Burke and Lincoln, such soldiers as Cromwell and
Washington, such jurists as Sir Matthew Hale
and John Marshall, such lawyers as Blackstone
and Webster, such divines as Howe and Edwards,
such philosophers as Bacon and L,ocke, such sa-
vants as Newton and Agassiz, such philanthro-
pists as Howard and Wilberforce, such physicians
as Carpenter and Dr. John Brown, such essayists
as Addison and John Foster, such historians as
Macaulay and Hallam, such poets as Herbert,
Cowper, and even Byron, such political econo-
mists as Adam Smith and Stuart Mill, such lit-
erary men as Walter Scott and Samuel Johnson,
such scholars as Sir Win. Jones and Chevalier
Bunsen? all of whom, from their varied stand-

THE SABBATH AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 55

points, have declared that a day of rest is of the
highest value to mankind, that it is an inestima-
ble boon to be guarded and preserved. Such una-
nimity of opinion from such varying sources can
be accounted for only on the assumption that
human nature everywhere feels the need of a Sab-
bath, that the whole being of man requires its
restoring power both for body and mind.

This chapter may be properly concluded by a
quotation of singular power of language, written
by a journeyman printer of Scotland, a prise essay
on the Sabbath :

" Yoke-fellow ! think how the abstraction of
the Sabbath would hopelessly enslave the work-
ing classes with which we are identified. Think
of labor going on in one monotonous and eternal
cycle, limbs for ever on the rack, muscles for ever
straining, the brow for ever sweating, the feet for
ever plodding, the brain for ever throbbing, the
shoulders for ever drooping, the loins for ever
aching, and restless mind for ever scheming.

"Think of the beauty it would efface, the
merry -heartedness it would extinguish, of the
giant strength it would tame, of the resources of
nature it would crush, of the sickness it would
breed, of the projects it would wreck, of the groans
it would extort, of the lives it would immolate,
and of the cheerless graves it would prematurely

56 the abiding sabbath.

dig. See them toiling and moiling, sweating and
fretting, grinding and hewing, weaving and spin-
ning, strewing and gathering, mowing and reap-
ing, razing and building, digging and planting,
striving and struggling — in the garden and in the
field, in the granary and in the barn, in the fac-
tory and in the mill, in the warehouse and in the
shop, on the mountain and in the ditch, on the
roadside and in the wood, in the city and in the
country, on the sea and on the shore, in the day
of brightness and of gloom. What a picture would
the world present if we had no Sabbath !"*

* John Quinton, " Temporal Advantage of the Sabbath to
the Laboring Classes." This essay took the first of three
prizes. Of the three essays published there have probably
been nearly a million copies circulated.

THE SABBATH AND SOCIETY. 57

CHAPTER IV.

THE SABBATH AND SOCIETY.

" The keeping of one day in seven holy, as a time of
relaxation and refreshment as well as public worship, is of
inestimable benefit to a State considered merely as a civil
institution." blackstone.

As are the motions of the heavenly bodies, so
is the life of man under the control of a centrif-
ugal and a centripetal force. The first is the ten-
dency to individualism, the assertion of his own
personality; the latter is the social force which
tends to merge his unit in the mass of humanity.
One strives to maintain his life in its own proper
orbit; the other holds him in harmony with the
whole universe of moral beings, and conditions
his action by their existence. Between the sweep
of these two mighty forces, the sway of self-will
and the claims of society, man's life, like a pen-
dulum, swings backward and forward. Human
history could be written in conformity with this
formula, and all its phenomena might be shown
to be but the temporary predominance of one or
the other of these tendencies. Authority and
freedom, empire and the individual, such are the

58 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

constant antagonisms to bring about whose har-
mony the world exists.

Since man is a being with social relations,
and since his life is largely modified by those re-
lations, we cannot fully estimate the value of the
Sabbath until we have measured its effect upon
those organized forms of human life, the commu-
nity and the nation. And it needs only the most
superficial observation to come to the same con-
clusion with perhaps the most profound student
of the conditions of social and national pros-
perity who ever lived, who said: "The Sabbath
as a political institution is of inestimable value,
independently of its claims to divine author-
ity."*

The germ of a social organization is the fam-
ily. Such is the testimony of our personal con-
sciousness, as well as of all research into the ori-
gin of municipal institutions. The first knowl-
edge we possess of social relationships and social
order is that which came to us from the home
when we first felt the loving limitations of pater-
nal and fraternal law. The home is the first and
holiest temple of religion; the family is the first
and best form of government ; the father is its
ministering priest and its only king by divine

* Adam Smith, quoted in Chambers' " Life of Sir John
Sinclair."

THE SABBATH AND SOCIETY. 59

right. No higher test can be applied to any civ-
ilization than this: Is its prosperity built upon
and guarded by holy and happy homes ? It has
been well said that "the humble hearth-stone is
the corner-stone of the temple and the founda-
tion-stone of the city. ' ' Happy is the man whose
childhood was shaped by its sacred influences and
lessons, whose manhood knows its mighty inspi-
rations, and whose old age shall be spent in its
precious asylum of tender companionship and af-
fection! Happy the land whose glory and strength
is built upon the closely linked confederacy of pi-
ous domestic institutions !

Without the Sabbath, it is not too much to
say that the home in its highest and best form
cannot exist; for religion is the only guardian of
the sanctity of the family relation, and without
the day of religion that relation will become but
a ruined temple, whose crumbling remains tell
only of a bygone glory. It certainly is a sugges-
tive fact that we know of but two primitive insti-
tutions, marriage and the Sabbath. They were
granted, a twin benediction, to man in the para-
dise of his infancy; they are linked together in-
dissolubly in sacredness and mutual relationship;
they are the ever-present joys rescued from a lost
Hden, and the constant promise of a regained
paradise and an everlasting rest. Marriage is

6o THE ABIDING SABBATH.

the foundation of the home, and the Sabbath is
its surest guardian and strongest security.

It is a fact of the weightiest import that the
Sabbath and the family go up and down together,
as witnessed by the testimony of facts. European
writers have vied with each other in praising the
domestic virtues of Great Britain and the United
States. Madame De Stael writes: "Nowhere can
be seen such faithful protection on one side, and
such tender and pious devotedness on the other,
as in married life in England." De Tocque-
ville, in his "Democracy in America," gives sim-
ilar testimony as to the American family. But
these are the very nations noted above all others
for firmness of moral fibre. Who shall say how
much the Sabbath has had to do in building up
that vertebrate morality which reveals itself in
happy homes and in inspiring the conquering
Anglo-Saxon race of to-day, which has girded the
world with empire, with its intense energy of
character ?

It is not less suggestive that the decline of
Sabbath observance has always been accompa-
nied by a decline in the sacredness in which the
marriage relation is held. The nations of south-
ern Europe furnish a constant example and warn-
ing. The shocking prevalence of infanticide and
illegitimacy among those people furnishes a burn-

THE SABBATH AND SOCIETY. 6l

ing commentary on our text. In France, during
the Revolution, the substitution of the tenth for
the seventh day was accompanied by a divorce
law, under whose provisions within three months
there was recorded one divorce for every three
marriages in Paris alone. Even in England and
America these latter days of growing Sabbath
desecration have been attended with an increase
of crimes against the family. The Sunday open-
ing of concert-halls, public-houses, and theatres
in our cities, the growing popularity of Sun-
day resort to watering-places and picnic gar-
dens, and the systematic violation of the sacred
day by railway and steamship companies, have
been followed in equal pace with crowded dock-
ets in the divorce courts and growth of the social
evil.

Now this coincidence between a holy day and
a holy home cannot be entirely accidental. It is
too uniform and persistent to be so regarded.
One reason, doubtless, is that both alike are
grounded in the moral life of the individual, and
so rise and fall together with the flow and ebb of
that life. But that there is, as well, a rational
connection between the two is evident from two
or three considerations. First, whatever benefits
the individual must benefit the family. If each
member of the home is physically and religiously

6s the; abiding sabbath.

profited by trie Sabbath, the aggregate effect must
be for the welfare of the entire household. Sec-
ondly, a day of religion is necessary to the exist-
ence of religion, and without religion the family
must perish. The love which builds up a Chris-
tian home is something different from the savage
affection of the animal. It is based upon spirit-
ual facts and recognizes religious obligations.
Religion must inspire its devotion as well as
teach its duties; its sacred flame must be lighted
at the altars of God. Consequently there is not a
message which the Sabbath brings, not a thought
to which its proper use gives birth, not a feeling
which it cherishes, but helps in the sanctincatioii
of the home life and in purifying the sources of
domestic virtue. Thirdly, the Sabbath gives di-
rect opportunity for the cultivation of family re-
lationships. Through the work-days of the week
the members of a household are separated from
each other by the necessities of toil. The day of
rest regathers them at the hearth-stone, reknits
the half-severed ties of fellowship, and unseals
the fountains of common sympathy and affection.
It furnishes larger opportunity for the religious
instruction of children. Without it the family
could hardly realize its unity in the fullest extent,
and the roof- tree, ceasing to be love's sanctuary,
would become but the lodging-house of individu-

THE SABBATH AND SOCIETY. 6

o

als ignorant of the highest happiness and desti-
tute of the most salutary influence that personal
or national life can know. With the Sabbath
the home must stand or fall. For the defence of
the fireside its sacred hours of worship and rest
must be kept inviolate.

The influence of the Sabbath on society is
felt, however, not only through its effects on the
family, but directly. So conservative a writer as
Sir William Blackstone has said: "Besides the
notorious indecency and scandal of permitting
any secular business to be publicly transacted
on that day in a country professing Christianity,
and the corruption of morals which usually fol-
lows its profanation, the keeping of one day in
seven holy, as a time of relaxation and refresh-
ment as well as public worship, is of inestimable
benefit to a State, considered merely as a civil in-
stitution. It harmonizes, by the help of conver-
sation and society, the manners of the lower
classes, which would otherwise degenerate into a
sordid poverty and savage selfishness of spirit; it
enables the industrious workman to resume his
occupation in the ensuing week with health and
cheerfulness ; it impresses on the minds of the
people that sense of duty to God so necessary to
make them good citizens, but which yet would
be worn out and effaced by an unremitting con-

AbtdinR Sabbath. ^

64 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

tinuance of labor without any stated time of re-
calling them to the worship of their Maker. ' ' *

The great expositor of the English law has
here stated almost the whole case. The Sabbath
is vital to the material prosperity, the general in-
telligence, and the morals and manners of a 11a-
tion. Under these heads its public benefits can
properly be considered.

1. The economic welfare of the State is closely
connected with the Sabbatic institution and its proper
observance.

Wealth is a result of the action of man on
nature; or, to define more narrowly, is the effect
of such a union of human labor with the natural
resources of the earth as to transform them into
commodities useful to man. It is evident that
the human factor is not the least important.
Whatever therefore affects the health, intelli-
gence, and morals of a people, affects immedi-
ately and directly the production of wealth. The
beneficial influence of the Sabbath in these re-
spects has elsewhere been shown, and the conclu-
sion follows that the financial prosperity of the
State is furthered by the observance of a day of
rest. There can be no doubt that the religious
use of fifty-two days in the year directly enhances

* Blackstone, " Commentaries on the Laws of England."
Book IV. chap. 63.

THE SABBATH AND SOCIETY. 65

the work of the remaining days to a much greater
amount than the market value of the time thus
apparently lost. Productive labor depends on
conditions of health, intelligence, and character
which are directly connected with the institution
of the Sabbath.

Unremitting toil robs labor of the bounding
pulse of physical vitality and the spring of gener-
ous moral impulse, which are among the highest
elements in productive industry; and thus is the
State robbed of one of the foundation-stones of its
prosperity.

Lord Macaulay, on the lowest ground indeed,
but not less positively, has defended this position.
In his speech on the Ten Hours Bill he says:

"The natural difference between Campania
and Spitsbergen is trifling when compared with
the difference between a country inhabited by
men full of mental and bodily vigor and a coun-
try inhabited by men sunk in bodily and mental
decrepitude. Therefore it is that we are not
poorer but richer because we have through many
ages rested from our labor 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 impor-
tant to the wealth of nations as any process which

66 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

is performed on more busy days. Man, the ma-
chine of machines, the machine compared with
which all the contrivances of the Watts and Ark-
wrights are worthless, is repairing and winding
up, so that he returns to his labors on the Mon-
day with clearer intellect, with livelier spirits,
and with renewed corporal vigor. If the Sunday
had not been observed as a day of rest, but the
axe, the spade, the anvil, and the loom had been
at work every day during the past. three centu-
ries, I have no doubt that we should have been
at this moment a poorer people and a less civil-
ized people than we are."

It is not, however, in its effects on man's bod-
ily powers alone that the beneficial influence of
the Sabbath is manifested. There are moral ele-
ments entering into all industrial effort, not easily
measured by statistics, but easily appreciable in
fact. Just as the patriot is a better soldier than
the mercenary, so is the craftsman who has a cul-
tivated emotional and moral nature superior to
the merely mechanical worker whose exertions in
man's behalf are on the same level with those of
the horse or the ox. And this will show itself
not only in the amount of work done, but in its
quality as well. David Hume, who certainly was
not a slave to spiritual abstractions, writes : "We
cannot reasonably expect that a piece of woollen

THE SABBATH AND SOCIETY. 6j

cloth will be brought to perfection in a nation
which is ignorant of astronomy or where ethics are
neglected."* Even the most exact student of po-
litical economy must admit the supreme impor-
tance of these unseen factors in the material pros-
perity of nations.

Work without cessation will affect the charac-
ter of products not only by the imperfect perform-
ance caused by nagging strength, but by destroy-
ing the moral tone of the laborer and crushing the
energy of his spirits. Let the wheels of toil grind
on without rest, and nothing can result but stupe-
faction of the finest qualities in the human factor
of wealth. Besides, it may be affirmed that the
existence of such an active moral and intellectual
life among working men as can be secured only
by a well-guarded Sabbath is a direct stimulus to
inventive genius, and that to this we owe many
of those wonderful applications of the physical
forces and mechanical powers which have cheap-
ened the cost of living to the millions, increased
the comfort of mankind, and added to the wealth
of communities and States.

The remark of Hume, quoted above, suggests

a still deeper and broader range of inferences than

these. All physical civilization rests on moral

causes. Without the stimulus of his mental and

* Hume's Essays, " On Luxury."

68 the abiding sabbath.

spiritual energies man would soon cease to inter-
est himself in either trade or manufacture. The
multiplication of human wants, which alone in-
spires the effort to supply them, keeps even step
with the moral development of man. Those finer
sensibilities which demand and consume the high-
er products of toil are but a manifestation of a
larger feeling of human dignity, a higher sense in
man of the essential worth of his being. Making
and buying and selling are only new assertions of
the spirituality of man. The savage has few
wants ; the civilized man has many, and they
have followed in the train of more largely devel-
oped mental and moral powers. Wealth, one of
the symbols of man's greatness, may indeed be
mistaken for the reality. What is but an acci-
dent of the spiritual progress of humanity may be
largely confounded with the substance. But the
truth remains that the growing demands of man
which directly control all his industrial life have
their origin in his highest nature as a spiritual
and supernatural being. Whatever raises a com-
munity in the moral scale will increase in that
community a demand for the products of human
toil, and will thus directly stimulate production.
A nation or community wThich knows the moral
uplifting of the Sabbath will by so much be a
larger consumer of the results of productive toil,

THE SABBATH AND SOCIETY. 69

and thus aid in bringing about that reciprocal
action of supply and demand which is the swing-
ing pendulum controlling the mechanism of the
economic system. The Sabbath assists in the
creation of wealth by its effect both on the pro-
ducer and on the consumer.

While the above argument, resting on eco-
nomic principles which are undisputed, has all
the force of a demonstration, the case will not be
weakened by bringing the testimony of facts to
the support of theory. In one of the royal manu-
factories of Great Britain it was found "that the
workmen who obtained government consent to
abstain from working on Sunday executed in a
few months even more work than the others."*

Similar experiments have been made in the
public service of other nations, as well as by pri-
vate parties, and with invariably the same result.
That Great Britain and the United States have
made the most rapid increase in material prosper-
ity is coincident with the fact that they are marked
among nations as most strict in their religious ob-
servance of the Sabbath. The fact is placed in
the most striking light when the United States
are contrasted with the Spanish republics of
America. Fairly equal in their start and in the
physical resources of climate and soil, the Sab-
* "Life of Wilberforce," I. 275.

JO THE ABIDING SABBATH.

bath-keeping- republic is the wonder of the world,
while the others are to-day hardly above the grade
of semi-barbarism. Ireland is naturally a richer
country than Scotland. They are inhabited by
branches of the same race. In the matter of land-
tenure there are even fewer peasant proprietors in
Scotland than in Ireland. Nowhere in the world,
however, has the institution of the Sabbath taken
so deep a root as among the Scotch people. What
is the result? In spite of a vicious system of land-
tenure, an inhospitable climate, and a barren soil,
the Scottish people must be ranked among the most
enlightened and happy communities in the world,
while the natives of the fertile Green Isle, know-
ing only the popish holiday of Sunday without its
Sabbath rest, are the objects of the world's pity in
their poverty, wretchedness, and degradation. In
Ireland itself the distinction is deeply marked be-
tween the steady business habits and commercial
activity of Sabbath-keeping Ulster and the reck-
lessness, destitution, and business stagnation of
the south and west of the island. Similar con-
trasts, not less striking, can be drawn between the
condition of the French portions of Canada and
the Protestant settlements, and between the Prot-
estant and Roman-catholic cantons of Switzer-
land. It would be possible to go farther and show
that in any community those classes that observe

THE SABBATH AND SOCIETY. Jl

the Sabbath are most prosperous, that they are
better fed and clothed than others; that Sabbath-
breaking neighborhoods are the abode of pauper-
ism and vice ; and that in every way social and
national wealth everywhere follows that social
and national religious life which demands the
Sabbath for its proper nurture and maintenance.

2. The Sabbath is vitally related to good citizen-
ship.

Wealth, although it is an important element
in human happiness, is not the only nor the chief
element of a nation's greatness. When the young
colonies of America struggled to release them-
selves from British dominion, with hungry, bare-
footed soldiers and an empty treasury, the United
States was not the less a great nation, even then,
because of poverty. The nation was rich and
strong in the manly strength of free men and in
the loyal love of patriotic hearts. Here is the
true grandeur of any people, that its glory is
founded in the exalted personal character of its
citizens; these are its walls of strength, which, like
those of Sparta, are not of brick or stone, but of
the firmer structure of an approved manhood.
Towards the production of such a character no
means can be more essential than those institu-
tions of religion which depend upon the observ-
ance of the Sabbath. Without this witness to

72 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

the spirituality of man and to his moral dignity
it is certain that the highest excellence of person-
al and national life cannot be attained.

A very vigorous American orator has said:
1 ' Safe popular freedom consists of four things,
and cannot be compounded of any three out of
the four: the diffusion of liberty, the diffusion of
intelligence, the diffusion of property, and the dif-
fusion of conscientiousness. In the latter work the
church is the chief agent; and her most potent
instrumentality we call the Sabbath." He goes
on to remark, ' ' I am no fanatic, I hope, as to
Sunday; but I look abroad over the map of pop-
ular freedom in the world, and it does not seem to
me accidental that Scotland, England, and the
United States, the countries which best observe
Sunday, constitute almost the entire map of safe
popular government. " * u Social sanity, ' ' a phrase
used by the same speaker, pretty nearly expresses
the total effect of Sabbath observance upon the
whole community. Where it is neglected we
surely find social insanity, manifesting itself in
constant revolution, outbreaks, and restlessness.
Ordered liberty needs the Sabbath. Without it
the State is the continual prey of either the tyrant
or the demagogue, is for ever falling into one of
the extremes, despotism or anarchy.

* Joseph Cook, " Biology." Prelude to Lecture VIII.

THE SABBATH AND SOCIETY. 73

Real civil liberty depends upon the moral con-
dition of the citizens.

" He is the free man whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves besides."

A people who are in the bondage of vices, pas-
sions, or errors cannot be disenthralled by a sim-
ple decree of State. Moral serfdom will every-
where produce civil vassalage. The weekly day
of rest, which releases man from the material
bonds of toil and gives him the freedom of a lar-
ger life, is therefore one of the very best adapted
means to fit the citizen for prizing, enjoying, and
maintaining political freedom. When the work-
man knows no weekly deliverance from his tasks
he has already become a slave; to realize his free-
dom he needs an occasional day in which he is
delivered from the undue exactions of labor and
from the sense of dependence upon his employer.
And this deliverance is best provided in a day of
religion, with its lofty inspirations and its enlar-
ging sense of the dignity and possibilities of the
soul. Such a day is, as well, a memorial to the
rich and strong of their duty to the poor and
wreak. Thus both ruler and ruled, employers
and employed, are blessed by its presence.

It is not surprising that despotic rulers have
attempted to turn the Sabbath from a day of wor-
ship into a day of amusement, in order to divert

74 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

the people from that serious thought which would
wake within them the might of manhood. Hal-
lam is not the only historian who has noticed this
tendency of tyrants. "A holiday Sabbath is the
ally of despotism. n Such rulers as Charles II. of
England have practised with some success this
device. Yet the policy is a short-sighted one for
the reason that a Sabbathless people, while inca-
pable of freedom, are equally unfit for govern-
ment of any kind. In the political earthquakes
of the latter half of the eighteenth century and the
former half of the nineteenth the Roman-catho-
lic countries of Europe suffered most and the
Protestant nations least, and almost in proportion
to the respect shown to the Sabbatic institutions
among them. But Great Britain, first in its reli-
gious regard of the Lord's day, was quite unsha-
ken amid the convulsions which made the Conti-
nent tremble. The close connection of the Sab-
bath with social order and national tranquillity is
further exemplified by the fact that, at this very
time, nearly every European power is burdened
by expensive military establishments and large
standing armies, while England and the United
States, most prosperous of all, have the smallest
standing armies, and those almost wholly quar-
tered in the distant colonies and on the frontiers
of civilization. The peace that Sunday brings is

THE SABBATH AND SOCIETY. 75

the best bulwark of national peace. These facts
have forcibly impressed acute Continental observ-
ers and such authorities as Chevalier Bunsen,*
the German historian, and Montalembert,t the
French statesman, that the secret of England's
prosperity is to be found in the Sabbath rest and
its influence and teachings.

Military as well as civic virtues thrive under
the fostering care of the day of rest. On the
coming of the hard occasion when the nation
needs defence against her foes, the influence of
religious culture on the people may be clearly
felt and seen. Ever since the days of the Macca-
bees, when a heroic people fought for a Sabbath,
waging, perhaps, the first war for conscience' sake
the world has known, down to the American civil
war, armies have depended for victory not merely
on numbers, but on that prowess which comes
from faith in the Lord of Hosts and is nurtured
by his institutions of worship and rest. Perhaps
never before or since did so invincible a band of
soldiers go forth to war as Cromwell's God-fearing
and Sabbath -keeping "Ironclads." And the
glory of such soldiers appears not only in their
courage on the field of battle, but in the ease

* Bunsen, "Hippolytus and his Age," II. 16-18.
f " Report on Sunday Observance to the French Parlia-
ment," 1850.

76 the abiding sabbath.

with, which they go back to the common labor of
life. Macaulay says of Cromwell's troops: "In
a few months there remained no trace indicating
that the most formidable army in the world had
just been absorbed into the community."* On a
larger scale, after the American Rebellion, more
than a million citizen-soldiers of North and South
quietly disbanded, and, without social disturb-
ance or marked increase of crime, went back to
their homes and the vocations of peace. Such
self-restraint and moral balance as this is one of
the marked effects of an honored Sabbath. Such
examples are unknown in nations destitute of its
full observance.

Intelligence, morality, religion, these are some
of the requisites of good citizenship. These, as
is elsewhere proved, are directly connected with
a holy Sabbath. Upon it, then, directly rests
the perpetuity of nations. To attempt the con-
duct of national life without it would be to try
the most fearful experiment ever made in human
history. God dishonored, his Book rejected, his
Sabbaths desecrated — these things would be the
sure prelude to the same terrible fate that has
befallen the godless civilizations of the past.
Judaea, Greece, and Rome warn us to-day.

* "History of England." Vol. I.

THE SABBATH AND RELIGION. JJ

CHAPTER V.

THE SABBATH AND RELIGION.

" There can be no religion without worship, and no wor-
ship without Sunday." montalembert.

" It is not too much to say that without the Sunday the
church of Christ could not as a visible society exist on the
earth." macleod.

The life of man is threefold — the life of sense,
of thought, and of faith. By his body man is re-
lated to nature, by his soul to created intelligen-
ces, and by his spirit to God and spiritual things.
And these three things together make up man.
Just so far as he lacks either of these forms of con-
sciousness his being is incomplete. But that life
of the spiritual nature which we call religion is the
crown and glory of all life. For its sake the body
and mind of man exist, and to it all things are
ministrant. It is in the nurture of this life in man
that the Sabbath reveals its highest uses and dis-
closes its inner meaning.

The two preceding chapters have given what
may be called the secular argument for a day of
rest. If man's whole existence were to be spent
on the plains of mortality; if there never came to
his being the stir and sweep of those strong pin-

78 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

ions of spiritual aspiration which bear him to-
wards the everlasting hills, even then the Sab-
bath would come with a weekly blessing and
refreshment to weary body and mind. Yet it
may be doubted whether an institution based on
so weak a foundation as this could continue to
exist. Indeed, nothing high or noble can have
any permanent life save as it is derived from spir-
itual inspirations. The physical and the intellect-
ual life can vindicate themselves only by showing
themselves the matrix in which the divine life is
developed. It is not too much to say that the
whole value of life in any worthy human sense is
derived from religion. It is therefore the strong-
est claim that can be made in behalf of the Sab-
bath when it is shown that it is supremely not
the day of rest alone, but the day of religion, and
that to any worthy development of the religious
life it is absolutely indispensable.

In the statement of the secular argument
which has been given, reference has been con-
stantly made to this higher point of view, and it
is only from this mount of vision that those lower
considerations can thoroughly vindicate them-
selves to reason. Sanitary and economic consid-
erations can impose no moral obligation, unless
we look upon man and human society as having
eternal relations to God and an unchanging law

THE SABBATH AND RELIGION. 79

of righteousness. There is a difference between
utility and duty. The ideas involved in them
are as different as the words themselves. The
desire for health, wealth, and knowledge does not
become a moral motive until these things are re-
garded not as temporal blessings alone, but as the
ministers of spiritual good. The full force of the
secular argument depends therefore on this, that
we inseparably connect the Sabbath with reli-
gion. Figures, statistics, scientific experiment,
and observation are well enough in their way,
but they become luminous in their highest beauty
only when there shines in them that "light that
never was on land or sea." Yet the secular
ground of the Sabbath must not be slighted. If
the argument is on a low plane, yet for that very
reason it has its force for the unspiritual mind
incapable of a higher standpoint ; and even the
religious thinker cannot be displeased to have the
structure of his faith rest on the ground, although
its pinnacles may pierce the clouds. L,et us re-
joice that on these very grounds, inadequate as
they are, many have advocated a day of rest who
are utterly regardless of its religious claims. This
belief is at least one round by which they may
mount to a more adequate conception. Man cannot
give one day of rest to his body without its bring-
ing some higher lessons to his immortal nature.

Ablcilnjr Sabbath. 6

80 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

While the entire being of man was intended
by God to be in perfect harmony with itself, it is
not so in fact. Sin has placed a dividing chasm
between his physical and spiritual natures. ( ' The
flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit
against the flesh.' * Gal. 5 : 17. It is this antag-
onism, so deeply felt by man, which has induced
many to think that matter is essentially evil, and
that the body is the source of sin. But the real
fact is that neither in matter nor in the flesh is
there anything innately corrupt. It is sin which
has introduced war into the being of man and
placed his higher and lower natures in opposition
one to the other. Therefore it is that the promise
of redemption includes the promise of a spiritual
body, that is, one which shall perfectly respond
to and express the life of the spirit. But this we
have not yet attained. While "at home in the
body" we are still "absent from the Lord," and
in this mortal tenement "we groan, being bur-
dened." 2 Cor. 5:2-8. The cares of life, its
labors and its pains, all come to distract the gaze
of the spirit that we would fain fix upon the
mountain -tops, which, above the clouds of our
earthly trouble, for ever glow beneath the touch
of the everlasting light.

How is man to reconcile his earthly condition,
the imperative demands of his body, and the out-

THE SABBATH AND RELIGION. 8l

ward limitations which nature imposes upon him,
with the higher necessity of communion with
God ? It is for the solution of this problem, in
part, that the Sabbath exists. It comes to still
with its touch the din of secular life, to lift the
yoke of toil from weary shoulders, and to unseal
the spiritual senses that can behold the larger life
and hear the music of the "choir invisible." It
is the summit of the week, raised above all com-
mon thoughts and works, above the sense-bound
world; an Ararat where the ark of the soul may
rest after being tossed on its weekly deluge of
cares; a Sinai where still the Eternal speaks his
awful but needed lessons of human duty; a Her-
mon where again Jesus in transfigured glory stands
before us ; an Olivet where our straining eyes
catch not indistinct glimpses of the ascended
Lord. And on this mount of blessing we taber-
nacle not now for ever, but ever leave its radiant
heights to carry something of its glory through
the work-days of the week. Its gifts of grace are
to be the inspiration of daily toil ; after the trans-
figuration splendor comes the casting out of devils
on the plain. In this way does the Sabbath help
to close up the deep rent which sin has made in
the life of man, and bring again spirit and nature
into harmony. Not only is it a reminiscence of
that Edenic rest, when God, man, and nature were

82 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

in perfect unison; not only does it point forward
to the ereat renewal when the whole creation shall
shine in her robes of coronal glory, but it gives to
man even now some taste of the substance of that
eternal life, forfeited by the fall, regained in Christ,
and to be perfected at his second coming.

It is frequently contended by opponents of the
Sabbath that "relegating religious duties to cer-
tain periods and days is most grateful to human
nature, but radically hostile to Christian princi-
ples."* There is a certain deceptive plausibility
about this theory that every day should be a Sab-
bath which might lead men astray, were it not so
easy to discern that this very view is precisely the
one most grateful to that human nature which it
so loudly affects to despise. An every-day Sab-
bath means ultimately no Sabbath at all. The
keen and caustic thrust of Irving is not unde-
served :

"Shrewd men, indeed, these new reformers are!
Each week-day is a Sabbath, they declare :
A Christian theory ! The unchristian fact is
Each Sabbath is a week-day in their practice."

Let it be freely granted that religion should
permeate the whole life and not be confined to
certain days and acts; that, in some sense, every

* Baden Powell, " Christianity against Judaism," 187. See
also Stanley's "Life of Arnold."

THE SABBATH AND RELIGION. 83

meal should be a sacrament, every act of labor a
prayer, and every word a benediction. Eating
and drinking and all things should shine with the
"glory of God." To the consecrated spirit the
veriest drudgery of life is ennobled, and the sur-
rounding walls of material environment become
almost crystal - clear to let through the divine
glory. But this does not supersede the need of
special seasons of communion with God. The
command, "Pray without ceasing," does not
make stated worship less valuable or even less
necessary. Quite the contrary; it is the hour of
prayer alone that gives that spirit of prayer which
abides with us during the whole day. So it is
only a hallowed Sabbath that can lend a Sab-
bath's blessing to the entire week. It is just such
a condescension to human nature as are the sac-
raments, easily bridging for us the gulf between
the seen and the unseen. That all things are
alike holy is not true. Both Scripture and con-
science refuse to place all things and acts on the
same level. The very meaning of the word
"holy" is against such a supposition. The very
conditions of our present life imply a distinction
between the things that are worldly and the things
that are heavenly. Worldly things, indeed, should
be transfused with the light of the heavenly things;
but the difference exists, for all that. To utterly

84 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

confuse the two would be to endanger all the in-
terests of man. It never is done, however, except
in words. Those who pretend to make all things
equally sacred really make nothing so. There
is a cant of supercilious spiritualism as much to
be avoided, and quite as offensive, as that of a
rigid formalism. It is impossible to introduce on
earth a state of things which only the conditions
of the heavenly state can realize. The Sabbath
has typical meanings not yet fulfilled. In heaven,
and there alone, will man celebrate an eternal
Sabbath. And until its meaning is consummated
in that more glorious life, the Sabbath must abide
as the prophet of its coming blessedness and the
school which shall prepare man for its holier em-
ployments.

Religion requires stated seasons for its observ-
ances. Bishop Andrews said, long ago, "The
heathen men by the light of nature have seen
that everything is then best ordered when it hath
but one office; that is, whatsoever is done, it must
be thoroughly done, it must be alonely done. The
reason is, we are finite creatures, and if two things
be done at once, one part of our thoughts will be
taken from the other; we cannot wholly intend two
things at once."* If to other duties we properly
give, for their better performance, their particu-
* Bishop Andrews, " The Moral Law Expounded," 328.

THE SABBATH AND RELIGION. 85

lar seasons and appointed times, how much more
necessary and proper it is to have determinate
times for those duties which undergird and in-
spire all others — the offices of worship and spirit-
ual exercise. And more than this, these seasons
must be periodic, must return with regularity.
The law of habit, so powerful to fix and ingrain
evil on the soul, must be enlisted on the side of
goodness. To give the Sabbath its full value in
the discipline of life, the waves of its cleansing
must beat with regular rhythm upon the life of
man. It must come one day in seven. That
proportion which is found to be best to mark
the rest required for the body and mind, which
has been indorsed by sanitary and economic law,
and which, above all, has been disclosed by reve-
lation, is without doubt the best for the culture of
the religious nature.

Public, even more than personal, religion de-
pends on the existence of a day of worship. It is
possible that Sunday as a day of rest might for a
short time survive the destruction of the Chris-
tian church, but Christianity could not endure
without its Sabbath. This society which we call
the church has in it many features analogous to
the Sabbath. It has an inward, unseen life of its
own, a spiritual existence as the kingdom of God;
it has likewise outward forms of varying manifes-

S6 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

tation in organizations and rites, which are tran-
sient and changing. But it is necessary for its
work in the world that in some form it should be
visible. It must have a definite setting in time
and space before it can touch us time-and-space-
imprisoned spirits. Its only temporal institution
is the Sabbath. Without that institution it could
not exist. Every sanction of the church is also a
sanction of the Sabbath. The "gates of hell
shall not prevail" against the Lord's day any
more than against his church, for they are both
founded upon the rock of his Divinity.

To give up the day of public worship would
be in time to give up public worship altogether.
It could not long persist without its appointed
seasons. Give up the Sabbath, and soon no in-
viting bells would sweep down the busy streets,
into the palaces of the rich or the cottages of the
poor, with their sweet call to praise and prayer;
soon no united voice of singing would raise its
holy hymns to mingle with the harmony of
heaven; and soon the preaching of the declared
will of God and the glad offer of his salvation
would be stilled for ever, and the last prophetic
voice that still cries in the wilderness of this
world would be hushed into enduring silence.
"Where there is no vision the people perish, "
Prov. 29: 1 8, and when, through the loss of the

THE SABEATH AND RELIGION.

one day of outlook, all spiritual vision is lost,
when church, spires no longer point heavenward
nor cast their reproving shadows across the mar-
ket-place, then indeed shall the earth be cursed
of God, and the "abomination of desolation' ' be
set up. Thus along another line of thought we
find the Sabbath to be our guardian against a
reign of universal brutishness.

These considerations, which arise from the
moral necessity of the case, are abundantly con-
firmed by experience. Of the value of the Sab-
bath to personal religion the whole story can
never be told, for the reason that the hidden life
is never garrulous; it ever shrinks from revealing
its inmost feelings to the gaze of the world.

u God only and good angels look
Behind the blissful screen. ■

Yet it may be safely averred that the holiest
character everywhere has been nurtured by the
Sabbath. The gentle spirit of Rutherford, the
compassionate love of Howard, the untiring zeal
of Wesley, the self-denying saintiiness of Fletcher
of Madeley, the intelligent devotion of Jonathan
Edwards, the blood-earnestness of Chalmers, all
these, and the list misrht be extended to take in
almost every name on the bead-roll of Protestant
saintship, have, as witnessed by personal testimo-

88 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

nies, found the Sabbath indispensable to the
growth of that inner life of communion with God
and that outer life of benevolent activity for
which they were so preeminent. Chalmers says,
"We never, in the whole course of our recollec-
tions, met with a Christian friend who bore upon
his character every other evidence of the Spirit's
operation who did not 'remember the Sabbath
day to keep it holy.' " It is recorded of Eliot,
the missionary: " His observance of the Sabbath
was remarkable. Every day was a sort of Sabbath
to him; but the Sabbath was with him a type
and foretaste of heaven ; nor would you hear any-
thing drop from his lips on that day but the milk
and honey of that country in which there yet
' remaineth a rest for the people of God. ' ' ' With
this testimony accord, so far as we can know, the
teaching and practice of all those holy souls who
have loved God supremely and their neighbor
with equal reciprocal affection.

Where Christianity is purest the Sabbath is
best observed. While it is not within the proper
bounds of this work to claim any special superi-
ority for any communion of Christians, that Prot-
estantism is to be preferred to Romanism may
be safely claimed, not only on the grounds of
Scriptural authority, but by the logic of history.
And it would seem perfectly fair to assert that

THE SABBATH AND RELIGION. 89

among the Protestant churches those deserve pre-
eminence which are most largely engaged in
philanthropic work, which have the greatest
evangelistic seal, which are most earnestly work-
ing for the conversion of the world, and which
most emphatically regard religion as the great
business of life. He who has read these words
knows already without controversy what reli-
gious societies are meant. The great evangelical
churches of Europe and America, the churches
whose religion is the Bible, whose head is Jesus
Christ, and whose faith is in his atonement, these
are the bodies which most sacredly regard the
Sabbath day and most earnestly press its observ-
ance upon all men. Whether their keeping of
the Sabbath is the cause or effect of their active
religious life and purity of doctrine is not materi-
al; probably it is partly both. All truth is related
to all truth, and acts and reacts on all truth. So
the Sabbath is not less the security of orthodoxy
than is orthodoxy the security of the Sabbath. If
the authority of the Sabbath is, therefore, to be
tested by its relationship to other religious truths,
the argument for its high obligation is the strong-
est possible, for it has always been vitally related
to the highest standards of Christian doctrine and
life.

This is also exemplified by the fact that spe-

90 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

cial religious revival lias always stood related to
a freshened earnestness of Sabbath observance.
The great Puritan movement, which, in spite of
all its extravagance and fanaticism, was inspired
by the breath of God, with doubtless too great ri-
gidity, yet with unflinching devotion to the Word
of God, gave honor to his Sabbaths. Some day,
perhaps, history will learn to fairly judge these
Puritans, and when that day comes we shall find
ourselves accepting, almost without reserve, not
in full detail but in outline, their ideals of truth
and life, and with these not a gloomy but a holy
Sabbath. Those writers who criticise severely
the Puritans, and have no words of reproach for
that shameful period which they choose to call
" reaction," in the days of Charles II., are guilty
of the most contemptible moral obliquity. Hu-
man nature is too prone to ' ' react ' ' against good-
ness; but that fact casts no shadow of blame on
piety, and does not make it decent to abuse it.
Puritanism, as a great moral and spiritual refor-
mation, testifies to the high religious need of a
Sabbath. With the Puritans' mode of observ-
ance we have nothing to do; to the need of ob-
servance their intense religious consciousness em-
phatically testifies.

The great Methodist revival teaches the same
lesson. The Earl of Stanhope indeed complains,

THE SABBATH AND RELIGION. 91

as have others, of Puritanism, that "it is one of
the ill effects of Methodism that it has tended to
narrow the circle of innocent enjoyments." It is
possible that neither Puritans nor Methodists
were fully aware of how much they were to be
pitied in this regard ! William Jay, speaking ot
his personal acquaintance with some persons who
were converted under the preaching of Wesley
and Whitefield, and who were still living, says,
"The Sabbath was their delight, and they num-
bered the days till its arrival. ' ' A day so longed
for could hardly have been a day of mortifica-
tion and of gloom. No one can adequately meas-
ure the results of this eighteenth century revival.
It lives to-day in a quickened Christendom, in
great missionary societies, in the Sunday-school ;
it has touched all the springs of modern philan-
thropic effort. In its beginning, and through all
its history, not only in the religious societies
which it originated, but in its influence on the
whole Christian church, it has testified to the
Sabbath.

The proof is complete that the religious con-
sciousness at its best feels the need of the day of
rest and worship, both for the individual and the
organized religious life.

The religious use of the Sabbath, as has been
intimated, is the only security for its secular ob-

92 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

servance. We may go farther and contend that
its secular value largely, if not wholly, depends
on its hours being employed religiously. This is
the reason, and it deserves a record in letters of
gold : the life of tJie spirit is the great vitalizer and
restorer of mind and body ! The truest rest is not
always inaction, is not always to be found in pas-
sive repose. Idleness is not restorative, but de-
bilitating both to mind and body. The real idea
of the Sabbath is not repose, but power. In
physics there is a difference between rest and in-
ertia: the former is the cessation of motion; the
latter is the absence of force. Rest comes by
equilibrium of forces. The highest rest, there-
fore, is to be found in something positive, and
not by mere negation of activity. It means re-
covery, restoration of power. Man rests his mind
by changing the character of its effort. Such
must be the life of heaven; not one of vain en-
deavor or of unmeaning indolence, but that of
fully balanced action and untiring energy.

" Rest is not quitting

This busy career,
Rest is the fitting

Of self to one's sphere.
'T is the brook's motion,

Clear without strife,
Seeking the ocean

After its life.

THE SABBATH AND REUGION. 93

'T is loving and serving

The highest and best;
'T is onward, unswerving,

And this is true rest."*

The only road away from the treadmill of
earthly toil is that which leads outward into spir-
itual activity. On this road the Sabbath is the
open gateway; or, rather, it brings down heaven
to man's inmost being, and gives him weekly
contact with its very essence. Out of this world
of power alone can come power to our human na-
ture. Spirit alone never tires, and only from the
spirit can new energy be derived for the flagging
strength of man. The words of the prophet abide
still in unchanged force of meaning: "They that
wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they
shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and
not faint." Isaiah 11:31.

The Sabbath is, therefore, necessary to man's
highest nature; it leads him to his true life in the
spirit; it draws him away from the temporal to
the eternal, and is the abiding type of the life of
heaven.

This chapter cannot be better concluded than
by quoting the quaint old lines of Henry Vaughan,
entitled, "Son-dayes:"

* Goethe.

94 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

" Bright shadows of true rest ! some shoots of bliss ;
Heaven once a week;
The next world's gladness prepossessed in this;

A day to seek
Eternity in time; the steps by which

We climb above all ages ; lamps that light
Man through his heap of dark days ; and the rich
And full redemption of the whole week's flight ;

" The milky way chalked out with suns ; a clew

That guides through erring hours ; and in full story
A taste of heaven on earth ; the pledge and cue
Of a full feast; and the out-courts of glory."

THE PRIMITIVE SABBATH. 95

CHAPTER VI.

THE PRIMITIVE SABBATH.

" Inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thy-
self to the search of their fathers (for we are but of yester-
day, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a
shadow) : shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter
words out of their heart ?" job 8 : 8-10.

IF the Sabbath, as has been claimed thus far
in this argument, was instituted for spiritual rea-
sons at the creation of man, and if, furthermore,
it was ordained because it was vitally related to
the whole life of man, physical, social, and reli-
gious, we should expect to find some trace of it in
the early history of the world. The earliest world,
indeed, is shut off from our search by that great
deluge which swept away at once its monuments
and inhabitants. The ages immediately follow-
ing have left but the scantiest remains of their
customs and history. The science of prehistoric
archaeology is in its infancy. Very numerous or
very definite proofs are impossible in the very na-
ture of the case, but such as we have are thereby
given the greater weight. If of our limited knowl-
edge of those years the Sabbath forms a not unim-
portant part, can we not claim that the institution

Abiding Sabbath. 7

96 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

must have been of some importance to so set its
mark even on these meagre records ? and may we
not expect that further light will only increase
the evidence of its early existence and acknowl-
edged obligation ?

There is indeed no Scriptural reference to Sab-
bath observance among the antediluvians. Yet
it may fairly be argued that the existence of reli-
gious worship among them implies stated seasons
for its observance, and that the longevity of the
patriarchs can hardly be accounted for if they vio-
lated the important sanitary law of rest. We
ought not to be surprised at this lack of mention
of the Sabbath from Adam to the giving of the
manna. The story of that period fills but a few
pages in the Bible. Nearly half of those are
given to the account of the bondage in Egypt,
during which, almost certainly, the observance
of the day must have ceased. The books of the
Bible from Joshua to the First Book of Kings in-
clusive fill nearly twice as much space, and they
contain no record of a Sabbath, although coming
after the time of Moses. There are histories of
Christian doctrine filling volumes and thousands
of pages which do not so much as mention the
Lord's day among the means of grace ; yet the
conclusion that it, consequently, had not existed
would be evidently false. The first pages of the

THE PRIMITIVE SABBATH. 97

Bible furnish only a broad historic outline of the
main features in that preparation for redemption
which God was making among the nations of
men. No argument whatever can be drawn from
their silence on the subject of the Sabbath.

Yet we can find in the Bible circumstantial
evidence for the early existence of the Sabbath.
The cycle of the week seems to have been in use
from the earliest ages. Three times in the ac-
count of the Flood is the period of seven days
mentioned. The continuance of mourning for
seven days is mentioned in the case of Joseph at
the death of Jacob his father, Gen. 50 : 10, and in
the instance where the friends of Job express their
sympathy with him. Job 2 113. The "week"
is also named as the length of the season of nup-
tial rejoicing in the marriage of Jacob to the
daughters of Laban. Gen. 29:27. There is every
warrant for the assertion of La Place that "the
week is perhaps the most ancient and incontesta-
ble monument of human knowledee."*

Whether or not we regard the week as an
abiding symbol of the creative process, or whether
we attempt to trace in it a reference to the month,
and look upon it as an attempt to roughly mark
out the lunar phases we now call quarters, we
still must connect in thought the seven days of
* La Place, " CEuvres," VI. 1, 3. Paris, 1846.

98 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

the first chapter of Genesis with the other similar
periods in the Pentateuch. L,et the existence of
the week and of religious worship be granted, and
the conclusion is almost irresistible that a stated
day of the one would furnish the natural time for
the celebration of the other, especially when that
had been revealed in the beginning as the right
portion of time to be so employed. This argument
from inference is perhaps as strong as anything
could be short of direct evidence and positive
statement.

But the weight of the case need not be suf-
fered to rest on circumstantial evidence alone.
Ancient documents have come to light which
strongly indicate the existence of Sabbatic insti-
tutions before the time of Moses. Recent discov-
eries point to conclusions totally opposed to the
critical theories and ingenious exegesis of that
host of writers who have denied the patriarchal
Sabbath. Not least in importance of the confir-
mations of Scripture afforded by modern explora-
tion is the support which has been given to the
institution of the Sabbath.

The Assyrian tablets now in the British Mu-
seum which relate to the Creation and the Flood
are copies of much older Chaldsean records, and
these must have been the embodiment of tradi-
tions still more ancient. The original manu-

THE PRIMITIVE SABBATH. 99

scripts may, perhaps, be dated at least two hun-
dred years before the time when Abraham left
Chaldsea, and six centuries before the giving of
the law to Moses, and they were based on legends
and traditions older still than even the remote pe-
riod named. Assyriologists pretty well agree in
this approximation of dates. *

George Smith claimed that he discovered in
the fifth tablet of the series, which he calls [ ' The
Creation and the Fall," after the narrative of the
appointment of the luminaries of heaven to mark
times and seasons, a declaration that the seventh
day was appointed as a holy day, and that com-
mand was given to cease from all work on that
day.f If his translation is correct, some resem-
blance to the Biblical account of the distinction
of the seventh day may be traced here, and with
probability referred to a tradition based on a prim-
itive revelation. Other eminent Assyriologists, it
is true, do not accept Smith's translation in all its
particulars; and it must be admitted that in any
case this claimed distinction of the seventh day
appears in the account of occurrences which the
inspired Scriptures assign to the fourt/t day, while

* Discussion of the age of these records can be found in
G. Smith's " Chaldaean Account of Creation."

f "Assyrian Discoveries," 12. See the translation of this
tablet by W. Fox Talbot in Appendix A.

786933A

IOO THE ABIDING SABBATH.

its connection with the description of the moon's
phases would give probability to the opinion that
the seventh day of the month was intended.

In 1869, however, Mr. Smith discovered in
Nineveh a religious calendar. In this every
month is divided into four weeks of seven
days each, and every seventh day is marked by
prohibitions of work. Rev. A. H. Sayce,
who has translated a part of this calendar, says
of it,

"The chief interest attaching to it is due to
the fact that it bears evidence of a seventh-day
Sabbath, on which certain works were forbidden
to be done among the Babylonians and Assyrians.
It will be observed that many of the regulations
are closely analogous to the Sabbatical injunc-
tions of the Iyevitical law and the practice of the
Rabbinical Jews. What I render ' Sabbath ' is
expressed by the Accadian words which literally
signify * dies nefastusf and a bilingual syllabary
makes them equivalent to the Assyrian ''yum sa-
liimij or 'day of completion' (of labors). The
word 'Sabbath' was not unknown to the Assyri-
ans, and occurs under the form ( Sabbatu. ' . . . .
The original text must be ascribed to some period
anterior to the seventeenth century B. C. "

In this calendar almost identical language is
used in giving instructions for the seventh, four-

THE PRIMITIVE SABBATH. 101

teenth, twenty-first, and each succeeding seventh
day. The flesh of birds or cooked fruits could
not be eaten, nor garments be changed, nor white
robes be worn on that day. The king could not
ride in his chariot, law could not be made, no
military commands could be issued, and no med-
icine could be taken.* L,e Normant, indeed,
thinks that these days were days of ill-omen and
not true Sabbaths. Yet he asserts that the As-
syrians "recognized the Sabbath. This fact," he
says, "may be positively inferred from the pas-
sage of a fragment of a lexicon of Assyrian syno-
nyms, wherein lyum nuh libbi, ' ' day of repose of
the heart, day of joy,' is translated l Sabbatuv?
1 Sabbath.' "f The testimony of this great Ori-
entalist fully confirms the translations of Mr.
Sayce.

The traces of a septenary division of time are
widely spread throughout the nations of the Bast.
Its existence in Assyria and Babylonia is fully es-
tablished. It was known to Saracens from time
immemorial, and the Mohammedan observance
of Friday seems to have been but the consecra-
tion by the founder of Islam of an older usage.
Its early existence in India is proved by linguistic

* "Records of the Past," VII. 157.

t See Le Normant, " Beginnings of History," 249, Ameri-
can edition. See also " Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western
Asia," II. PI. 32.

102 "THE ABIDING SABBATH.

testimony from the names of the days. There is
supposed reference to the week in Chinese rec-
ords which, it is claimed, date back to the great
emperor Fah He, 3000 B. C. The Romans in-
troduced it from Egypt not far from the time of
the Christian era.* It seems in later times to
have borne an intimate relation to the pseudo-
science of astrology, whose antiquity is well
known, the names of the week-days being for the
most part in later classic and modern usage de-
rived from that one of the planets which presided
over the first hour of each day. f Even at so great
a distance from its first institution as Guinea, in
Africa, there was observed the week and a week-
ly day of rest. By the account of Porphyry, the
Phoenicians "set apart the seventh day as holy."
Thus throughout the Orient, whence have radia-
ted the races of mankind, we find existing this
oldest symbol of the creative period and most an-
cient division of time. It strongly supports the
theory of a primitive Sabbath.

* Dion Cassius, " History of Rome," XXXVII. 18.

f As this consecration of the hour began with Saturn, the
farthest removed planet from the earth on the Ptolemaic
theory, Saturday is the first day of the astrological week. If
the Babylonian week was astrological, which, however, is im-
probable, Moses set the whole week, and consequently the
Sabbath, one day forward. At any rate this proves that there
is no definite day on which the week can be said to com-
mence.

THE PRIMITIVE SABBATH. 103

This widespread diffusion of the week seems
to account for the sacred character everywhere
assigned to the number seven. Let it once be
remembered that the first note in the history of
this number in any significant relation is in con-
nection with the creative week, and its use as a
number with peculiar meanings is at once ac-
counted for. That Greece had seven wise men,
and that we know of seven wonders of the world,
that the perfect number of offerings in Moab,
Greece, and Rome was seven, that more than one
religion has dreamed of seven heavens, that from
Pythagoras to Schlegel* men have earnestly tried
to make out exactly seven planets — all these
facts, and countless more that might be men-
tioned, reveal a condition of human thinking
hard to be explained unless we believe that from
the beginning seven has possessed a peculiar sa-
credness from marking the recurrence of a sacred
day of worship. No number is naturally so little
likely to be used. The digital method of compu-
ting by fives and tens is that which is most likely
to suggest itself to the primitive mind, and has in
fact become the basis of nearly all systems of cal-
culation. The use of seven is thus seen to be
wholly arbitrary, and must first have arisen from
causes wholly outside of any natural reflection on
* Schlegel, " Philosophy of Life." Lecture IV.

104 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

the properties of numbers. It is easily understood
when we consider its sanctity to be derived from
the sanctity of the seventh day. *

It is, indeed, contended by some that the num-
ber seven derived its importance from that being
the number of the planets known. The fact is
precisely the reverse. Because of the symboli-
cal and sacred character ascribed to the number
seven the ancients attempted to make out exactly
seven planets. This they were able to do only
by adding the sun and moon to the five planets
then known, and thus they gave artificially a ba-
sis to the hebdomadal conception of the heavenly
bodies. ' ' The sacred character of the number
seven . . . dates back to the remotest antiquity
among the Chaldseo-Babylonians and is greatly
anterior to" the planetary week.f Lepsius has
also disproved the ancient existence of the plane-

* Bahr, in his " Symbolism of the Mosaic Worship," ad-
vances the theory that seven is made up of the four, the sig-
nature of the world, and three, the number which signifies
God, and therefore expresses everywhere the relation of God
to the world ; it is the covenant number. This can hardly be
made out. It seems more probable that seven is the exact
number of the time-worlds or " aeons," of which the last is
the life of man and the Sabbath of God. From this fact it
comes to be the number of completion. On its general sig-
nification see Herzog, " Realencyclopadie." The theory which
connects seven with the creation is the only one which has
any show of plausibility.

f Le Normant, " Beginnings of History," 249.

THE PRIMITIVE SABBATH. IO5

tary week in Egypt,* and Tischendorf affirms
that there is complete absence, not only in the
Old or New Testament, but also in the Talmud,
of any traces of the names of week-days being ta-
ken from the planets, f

It is probable that the week is to be traced in
an altered form in the decades of ancient Egypt
and of Greece, and in the nundines of Rome.
The attempt to substitute a decade for the week
in the French calendar during the Revolution
proves the possibility of such corruptions. In
their Oriental home the future Europeans must
have observed the week, if the testimony from
Hindoo sources can be trusted. The modifica-
tions which come to language, customs, and wor-
ship are well known and need no proof. When
untaught by revelation and undirected by a di-
vine code, the human heart is but too prone to
substitute its plans and theories for the enact-
ments of Deity. The periods of ten days used by
Egyptians and Greeks, of eight days by the Ro-
mans, of five days by the Aztecs, and of nine days
as found among the Peruvians, bear enough re-
semblance to the institution of the week to justify
the claim of a common origin. Furthermore, is
it too much to suggest that all heathen holidays

* Lepsius, " Chronologie der Aeg.," I. 131.
f Quoted in Humboldt's " Cosmos."

106 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

are but transformations of the primitive Sabbatic
institution? As those heavenly images of the
Creator's brightness, the sun, moon, and stars,
began to receive the homage due to him alone,
his day of holy worship was superseded by those
monthly, quarterly, and annual festivals which
celebrated the seasons of the year and the phases
of the heavenly bodies. Whether this be so or
not, the existence of these festivals is sufficient
proof of the need everywhere recognized by man
of stated seasons for religious exercise, a need in
no way so well satisfied as by the weekly recur-
rence of the Sabbath.

That the Sabbath existed in patriarchal days
appears to be sufficiently proved. Some shadow
of the presence of this primitive institution seems
to have remained with all the nations. Its ( ' line
is gone out through all the earth." Only in the
line of a written revelation, however, has it re-
tained any measure of purity and asserted its full
power. The abiding Sabbath which is the wit-
ness of eternity in time has fully manifested itself
only along that line of contact of God and the
world which is the history of redemption. In
this more perfect light of revelation let us trace it
through the Sabbath of the law to its more glori-
ous embodiment in the Sabbath of redemption,
and onward to the Sabbath of eternity.

PART II.

'A^BATH 0P THE hsAW.

THE

SABBATH OF THE LAW.

CHAPTER I.

ITS INSTITUTION.
11 He bare them, and carried them all the days of old."

ISAIAH 63:9.

Israel left Egypt in search of a Sabbath.
There can be little doubt that the captive people
knew no day of rest in the house of bondage.
That unreasoning selfishness which demanded
"bricks without straw'' could not have tolerated
anything so merciful. Under the cruel lash of
the taskmaster their lives went on in ceaseless
toil, unrelieved by the Sabbath with its grateful
repose for the weary frame and its release of holy
thoughts for the imprisoned soul. Israel went
out into the wilderness to seek a Sabbath, for
they sought rest from their burdens and the op-
portunity of worship; and these two things, rest
and worship, make up the idea of the Sabbath.
So Pharaoh, when he reproved Moses and Aaron,

IIO THE ABIDING SABBATH.

said, ' ' Ye make the people rest (Sabbatize) from
their burdens, " Bxod. 5 : 5, evidently implying
that he considered the whole movement an at-
tempt to gain holidays ; and the request of Moses
was that the people might hold a sacred feast in
the wilderness.

It is therefore no surprise to find that the first
institution of religion given to the emancipated
nation was the very same with the first given to
man — a day for the renewal of physical energies
and the unfolding of spiritual powers. God him-
self provided the feast in the wilderness which
marked for them the weekly recurrence of the
holy day. The gift of manna, without doubt,
furnished the occasion for the institution of the
Hebrew Sabbath. The words which announce
it are really more forcible than those of our Eng-
lish version: "Let to-morrow be rest, a holy Sab-
bath to the Lord."* Bxod. 16:23. The con-
nection of the miraculous supply of food with the
seventh day was certainly calculated to strongly
impress the Sabbath upon the thoughts and ima-
ginations of the people, and thus was laid a sure
foundation for the Sinaitic legislation.

The Sabbath thus instituted is by no means
in every respect like the primal rest-day given to
man in Paradise. Although it holds in itself the

* See Keil, " Commentary on the Pentateuch," in loco.

ITS INSTITUTION. Ill

full spiritual content of that ordinance and rests
upon that as its reason, yet it has come to embody
a new significance special to the Hebrew people
as the elect nation of Jehovah. Consequently, in
that review of the law in the "people's book,"
Deuteronomy, the command is given in a form
which appeals to Israel as the nation peculiarly
under the guidance of Providence : 4 ' 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." Deut. 5 : 15. If the primal Sabbath
commemorates the Creation and honors the Cre-
ator, the Israelitish Sabbath testifies, in addition
to this, to the providential guidance of God's peo-
ple, and glorifies 'him as the Ruler and Master of
human history. God has not made the world just
to sit by and see it go, but himself goes forth
every morning to his spiritual tasks of control
and government in its affairs. He is not simply
watching as it goes sailing on, with its vast cargo
of souls, before the currents and breezes of fixed
law, but bends down now and then to trim a spar
and adjust a sail. No, he rather wears this world of
ours as a flower on his bosom, through which every
moment the warm flood of his loving care is felt
in every petal, thrilling its whole life. He "who
is over all, God blessed for ever," sometimes

Abiding Sauoatu. Q

112 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

stoops from the starry skies, and lie, the great
Artist, retouches the picture of human events
until they glow anew with a harmonious union
of liberty, love, and light reflected from the Deity.
It is to God as providence that the new institution
of the Sabbath by the hand of Moses witnesses,
while it embodies as well all that was implied in
the original ordinance.

The Sabbath is henceforth enriched with add-
ed meanings. It not only points back to the be-
ginning of things and speaks of the Power that
formed heaven and earth, but it testifies to some-
thing present and abiding, to the guiding Hand
of strength which bore and carried his people all
the days of old, and that Presence which he has
pledged to all who trust him : " I will never leave
you nor forsake you." Josh. 1:5; Heb. 13:5.
When in the house of bondage his people toiled
and groaned under the burdens of Egypt, the cry
of the slave pierced his listening ear; and by
mighty miracles he delivered them and through
wondrous ways he led them into rest. When his
fainting people famished in the wilderness, he
who "hears the wailing seabird on the hungry
shore" showered bread from heaven upon them
and fed them with angels7 food. The seventh
day is newly sacred as a monument to the superin-
tendence and constant care of a loving Heavenly

ITS INSTITUTION. 113

Father, and as it still returns the trusting heart
is assured with weekly iteration of the promise,
" All things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to
his purpose." Rom. 8 : 28. Through the world's
midnight of trouble and sin, in the darkest hour
of the world's despair, the Sabbath still keeps its
weekly watch and beat, and cries out to our un-
resting hearts, uGod reigns, and all is well!''

114 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

CHAPTER II.

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.

" The Decalogue, that solitary autograph of the Eternal,
is not a mistake." wendling.

" For the permanency of the Sabbath we argue its place
in the Decalogue, where it stands enshrined among the mo-
ralities of a rectitude that is immutable and everlasting."

CHALMERS.

The Sabbath tinder its three forms has been
connected with the most notable event of each
divine dispensation. In the primitive age it re-
ferred to the work of creation; the Christian Sab-
bath commemorates a finished redemption ; and
so the Mosaic dispensation embodied it in that
code of laws which, although given to Israel, has
a moral significance to all mankind. The giving
of the law at Sinai is the loftiest landmark in the
history of Israel. It is the beginning of their civil
and religious polity. From that moment Israel
became the nation of Jehovah, the nation of the
law, the leader among the nations of the earth
in the search after a positive righteousness. That
the Sabbath is a part of that code has therefore a
meaning not for the Hebrew alone, but for the
whole race of mankind.

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 115

Everywhere in the sacred writings of the He-
brews they are reminded that they are the people
peculiarly guided by Providence. Historian,
Psalmist, and prophet never tire in recounting
the marvellous interpositions of Jehovah in be-
half of his chosen people. And this thought is
the keynote to the Decalogue. ' ' I am the Lord
thy God, which have brought thee out of the land
of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," Exod.
20 : 2, is the introduction to the law. When there-
fore the Sabbath is introduced into the Decalogue,
while its old significance as a testimony of crea-
tion is not lost, but especially recalled, it becomes,
besides, a monument of the divine providence
whose particular manifestations Israel, among the
the nations, has most largely experienced. The
Sabbath of the law is the Sabbath of Providence.

The declaration on Sinai is perhaps the strong-
est attestation which the Sabbatic ordinance has
received. It is henceforth based upon an express
command of God himself, is given in circumstan-
ces of the most impressive solemnity, and has
received the awful sanction of embodiment in
the moral law, against which " the soul that sin-
neth, it shall die." Eezek. 18 : 4. God has spo-
ken, and his creatures must obey or perish.

1. The obligation of the Sabbath i: enforced by
the obligation of the entire Decalogue.

Il6 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

We commonly speak of the Decalogue as the
"Ten Commandments." A more precise ren-
dering of the Hebrew terms would be the i ' Ten
Words," Bxod. 34:28, margin; Deut. 4:13; 10:2,
4, margin, an exact equivalent of which we have,
taken from the Greek, in the word u Decalogue. ' *
These statutes are therefore not simply commands
or precepts of God, for God may give command-
ments which have only a transient and local ef-
fect; they are in a distinctive sense the word of
God, an essential part of that word which "abi-
deth." In the Decalogue we get a glimpse of
that inner movement of the divine will which is
the permanent foundation for all temporary ordi-
nances. It is not contended that this use of lan-
guage is rigidly uniform, but only that by the
phrase, "The Ten Words," as well as in the
general scope of Hebrew legislation, the moral
law is fully distinguished from the civil and cere-
monial law. The first is an abiding statement of
the divine will; the last consists of transient ordi-
nances having but a temporary and local meaning
and force. The Decalogue is also called the ' ' Tes-
timony," Bxod. 25 : 16 and in many other places,
that is, the witness of the divine will; also "the
words of the covenant," Exod. 34 : 28, and "his
(i. e., Jehovah's) covenant," Deut. 4:13, upon
obedience to which his favor was in a special

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 117

manner conditioned. The names given to this
code declare its unchanging moral authority.

The manner in which this law was given at-
tests its special sanctity and high authority. Be-
fore its announcement the people of Israel by
solemn rites sanctified themselves, while the holy
mountain was girded with the death-line which
no mortal could pass and live. When the ap-
pointed day came, to the sublime accompaniment
of pealing thunders and flashing lightnings, the
loud shrilling of angel-blown trumpets, the smo-
king mountain, and the quaking earth, from the
lips of Jehovah himself sounded forth "with a
great voice" the awful sentences of this divine
law to which in the same way uhe added no
more." Deut. 5 : 22. Not by the mouth of an-
gel or prophet came this sublimest code of morals,
but the words were formed in air by the power of
the Eternal himself. And when it was to be re-
corded, no human scribe took down the sacred
utterances; they were engraved by no angel hand,
but with his own finger he inscribed on tables of
stone, whose preparation, in the first instance,
was "the work of God," the words of his will.
Kxod. 31 : 18; 32 : 16; 34 : 1, 4, 28. The law de-
clared by his own mouth and indited by his own
hand was finally placed in the ark of the cove-
nant, underneath the mercy-seat, where sprinkled

Il8 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

blood might atone for its violation; between the
cherubim, symbols perhaps of the divine watch
and guard, and beneath the flaming manifesta-
tion of the very presence of the Almighty, the
glory of the Shekinah; circumstances signifying
for ever the divine source of this law and the di-
vine solicitude that it should be obeyed. This
superior solemnity and majesty of announcement
and conservation distinguish the Decalogue above
all other laws given to man, and separate it
widely from the civil polity and ritual afterwards
given by the hand of Moses. These latter are
written by no almighty finger and spoken to the
people by no divine voice. For these it is suffi-
cient that Moses hear and record them.

Of the law thus impressively given the Fourth
Commandment forms a part. Amid the same
cloud of glory, the same thunders and lightnings,
uttered by the same dread voice of the Infinite
One, and graven by his finger, came forth these
words as well: "Remember the Sabbath day, to
keep it holy." It is impossible, in view of these
facts, to class the Sabbath with the ceremonial
institutions of Israel. By the sacred seal of the
divine lip and finger it has been raised far above
those perishing rites. In other words, it belongs
to that moral law which Paul calls "holy and
just and good," Rom. 7 :i2, and not that ritual

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 1 19

law of which Peter declares "neither our fathers
nor we were able to bear" it. Acts 15 : 10.

2. The Sabbat Ji cannot be excepted from the moral
obligation of the whole Decalogue.

Nothing can be found in the form of words in
which the Fourth Commandment is expressed
which indicates that it is less universal in its ob-
ligation or less absolute in its authority than the
other nine with which it is associated. By uni-
versal admission all the rest are perpetual and
universal in their obligation. But it is sometimes
claimed that this is simply a Mosaic institute, and
therefore of transient force; that this has not, like
the others, an inward reason which appeals to the
conscience; that it is, in short, not a moral but a
positive precept.

It is evident that the burden of proof on this
point rests upon those who oppose the Sabbath.
The proof which would exclude this command-
ment from the throne of moral authoritv on which
the others are seated should amount to demonstra-
tion. The illusory character of the distinction
between positive and moral precepts has already
been shown. It is hardly possible to prove that
the natural conscience of man will sustain any
one of the nine others with greater force than the
one in dispute. Even Sparta, with her generally
high moral ideal, consecrated theft and falsehood

120 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

as a necessary step in the creation of heroic char-
acter. The race has come gradually to recognize
the necessary grounds on which most of the moral
virtues rest. Some day, doubtless, the grounds of
the Sabbath will be seen to be quite as necessary
and universal as those of honesty and chastity.
The distinction cannot be maintained between
this commandment and the remainder of the Dec-
alogue. The prohibition of image- worship is not
deemed essential by either Roman or Greek Chris-
tianity, but the more spiritual mind of Protestant-
ism can see that this law is absolutely necessary
to guard a truly spiritual conception of Deity.
So, many excellent Christians have failed to dis-
cern the moral necessity of the Sabbath. Clearer
insight will reveal that all the laws of the first
table are guarded by this institution, as all in the
second table are enforced by the tenth, "Thou
shalt not covet. "

It may be freely admitted that the Decalogue,
in the form in which it is stated, contains tran-
sient elements. These, however, are easily sepa-
rable. For example, the promise attached to the
requirement of filial reverence, "that thy days
may be long upon the land which the L,ord thy
God giveth thee," has a very evident reference to
Israel alone, and is a promise of national perpe-
tuity in possession of the promised land. Even

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 121

this element is not entirely of limited application,
however, for Paul quotes the commandment, in
his letter to the Christians of Ephesus, Eph. 6 : 2,
as "the first . . . with promise," evidently under-
standing the covenant of long life to have a wider
scope than simply the Hebrew nationality. And
it is clear that nothing can be imagined which
could give more enduring stability to civil insti-
tutions than that law-abiding character which is
based on respect for superiors and obedience to
their commands. This serves to illustrate how
we may regard the temporal element in the law
of the Sabbath. It does not bind us to the pre-
cise day, but to the seventh of our time. And
this accidental and transient element of the law,
which can be traced in the other commandments
as well, and which grows out of the fact that, al-
though a law for all mankind, it was given to a
particular people, does not affect that element, in
this as in all the other commandments, which is
universal and abiding: in its meaning.

There is nothing in the essence of the Sab-
bath law which marks it as more adapted to Is-
rael than to the remainder of mankind. On one
day in seven it requires abstinence from the ser-
vile work (" labor"), the ordinary worldly busi-
ness and occupation ("work"), of the other six
days. It prescribes periodic rest from periodic

122 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

labor. To every race and generation of men has
come the sentence pronounced on the first man,
" In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. "
Gen. 3:19. The requirement of rest is not a He-
brew but a human necessity. The Sabbath gift
of repose comes not with more grateful benedic-
tion to the toiling children of Abraham and their
cattle than to all the sons and daughters of Adam
and the weary beasts that serve them. If the
wandering tribes in the wilderness, gathering
with every morning their unfailing harvests of
the bread of heaven, need a seventh day for rest,
much more do the striving multitudes of all times
and climes, who after long months of toil wrest
their needful food from half- reluctant nature, re-
quire its refreshment and restoring power.

Nor is there anything local or temporary in
the positive factor of the Sabbatic idea — wor-
ship. All men, as well as Israelites, are made
in the image of God; all have spiritual natures
requiring opportunities for spiritual activity; all
need this open gate in time which leads out into
eternity. Not in Jerusalem alone is the sole altar
of human worship. Religion is a universal in-
stitution, and the day of religious worship is a
universal need. Its soul-refreshing power is de-
manded by the nature of Gentile as well as Jew;
it has a value to the last ages as well as to the in-

the; fourth commandment. 123

fancy of the world. The reasons of the Fourth
Commandment, not less than those of the other
nine, are such as apply with equal force to all races
of the earth and all ages of the world's history.

3. The perpetuity of the Decalogue involves the
perpetuity of the Sabbath.

The moral authority of the Decalogue did not
begin with its announcement on Sinai. Its pre-
cepts had been known and practised through all
the patriarchal ages. Murder was condemned
in Cain, and dishonor of parents in Ham. To
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had come the knowl-
edge of one God, and the last had exhorted his
children against image -worship. Gen. 35:2.
Theft, falsehood, and adultery are all denounced
by the record of pre-Mosaic times. As a decla-
ration of the eternal and unchanging moral
law its binding force did not begin with its an-
nouncement at Horeb, but dated from the be-
ginning of things, and for the same reason will
endure until the consummation of all things.
Nor was it given to Israel alone. The Gentiles
"show the work of the law written in their
hearts." Rom. 2:14, 15.

Jesus Christ has confirmed its obligation: "If
thou wilt enter into life, keep the command-
ments." Matt. 19:17. His great generalisation
of the whole law into the double duty of love to

124 TH£ ABIDING SABBATH.

God and man is a further confirmation of the
persistence of its ethical force. James writes:
" Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet
offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he
that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do
not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if
thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the
law." James 2:10, 11. It is impossible to sup-
pose that the apostle has not in mind the whole
Decalogue, and that he does not equally affirm
the profaner of the Sabbath to be a violator of
the whole law. In a statement of such gravity
he must have specified the exception if any exist-
ed. It is worthy of our notice that he bases the
sanctity of each command on the fact that each
was spoken by one God. But the law of the
Sabbath was as surely uttered by the voice of Je-
hovah as any other precept of the ten. If the
"Ten Words" of Sinai live to-day, imposing an
unrelaxed obligation upon all mankind, as is tes-
tified both by the nature of the legislation and by
the authority of Jesus and his apostles, * the Sab-
bath shares their perpetuity, both of existence
and obligation.

4. The phraseology of the Fourth Commandment
is such as to imply tmiversality and perpetuity.

" Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
* This point will be more fully discussed in Part Third.

the: fourth commandment. 125

Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work:
but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord
thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou,
nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy rnan-servant,
nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy
stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days
the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and
all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:
wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and
hallowed it." Exod. 20:8-11.

The injunction to "remember" may natural-
ly be interpreted as indicating the existence of a
pre-Mosaic Sabbath. The opinion that it has
such a reference is supported by the reason cited
at the end of the commandment, the creative rest
of the Almighty at the beginning. Much inge-
nuity has been expended to break down the force
of this word ' ' remember, ' ' but the recent discov-
ery of monumental indications of the actual ex-
istence of Sabbatic institutions before Moses tends
to confirm its force. The word takes in, in its
sweep, all time, past and to come; for while the
act of remembrance carries the thought backward
to the dawn of history, the command to remem-
ber reaches forward to the coming sunset of the
world, when Time's brief day shall fade into the
dazzling radiance of eternity. It indicates a
primitive and abiding Sabbath.

126 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

The reason of the command recalls the ordi-
nance of creation. It is very significant that in
the rehearsal of the law in Deuteronomy, a recital
especially addressed to Israel, the law of the Sab-
bath is based on the rest given to the people from
the bondage of Egypt. Deut. 5:15. But in the
law spoken by the mouth of God himself and
written by his own finger, the transcript of his
will, the reasons assigned for the institution of
the Sabbath are such as appeal not to Israel
alone, but to man as man. The Sabbath recalls
a fact of universal interest, the creation of the
world, and is based on a process in the nature of
God, who in some ineffable way ' ' rested on the
seventh day." The ideas connected with the
Sabbath in the Fourth Commandment are thus
of the most permanent and universal meaning.
The institution in the light of the reasons as-
signed is as wide as the creation and as eternal as
the Creator.

Instituted at the creation by the example of
the Creator, its obligation extends to every crea-
ture. It is inconceivable, on any theory of in-
spiration, that any narrower interpretation is to
be given to this command. If language is to
have any meaning at all, the Sabbath of the
Fourth Commandment is not simply an Israeli-
tish, but a human institution. As it answers a

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 1 27

universal need, so is it enforced by a universal
reason, being supported by the only state of facts
that could create a perpetual institute the law of
the beginning.

It should be noted in this connection that the
creative Sabbath is recalled also in the two ele-
ments which entered into its being; it is blessed
to man by rest and is sanctified to God by wor-
ship. "Keep it holy," and, "Do no work,"
correspond to the ' ' sanctified ' ' and l ' blessed ' ,
which we meet in the second chapter of Genesis.
The Sabbath of the law incloses thus the full
spiritual intent of the Sabbath of creation. Like
that, it is a divine-human institution.

5. The Fourth Commandment contains elements
of abiding force which bclojig to no oilier.

The reference to the creative rest of God is
more than a reason; that alone would be trivial;
it is a teaching. It reminds Israel of an Edenic
Sabbath lost by the fall; it promises an eternal
rest in the consummation of the world's history.
It is thus the most directly evangelical element
in the Decalogue, and as such is most appropriate-
ly placed between those commands which state
our duty to God and those which state our duty
to man. To the Hebrew nation it remained an
unfulfilled type; they entered not into rest be-
cause of their unbelief. Heb. 4:6. Joshua did

Abi.Iins Sabbath. Q

128 the; abiding sabbath.

not give them rest, for God has ' ' spoken of an-
other day." "There is an abiding Sabbath for
the people of God," which the Sabbath of Israel
prefigured. Just as man failed to retain the di-
vine rest in Paradise, but lost it through the fall,
so did Israel fail to obtain it; one generation per-
ished in the wilderness, and neither those who
entered into the promised land nor their descend-
ants enjoyed a lasting rest. With us still the
type lingers, inclosing, indeed, more of the sub-
stance in that soul-rest which comes by faith
in Him who said, "Come unto me," but its full
realization awaits that manifestation of the sons
of God when travailing creation shall again shine
in Eden's glory.

These considerations cannot be treated with
too much gravity. Long should pause the erring
hand of man before it dares to chip away with
the chisel of human reasonings one single word
graven on the enduring tables by the hand of the
infinite God. What is proposed? To make an
erasure in a heaven-born code; to expunge one
article from the recorded will of the Eternal ! Is
the eternal tablet of his law to be defaced by a
creature's hand? He who proposes such an act
should fortify himself by reasons as holy as God
and as mighty as his power. None but conse-
crated hands could touch the ark of God; thrice

the fourth commandment. 129

holy should be the hands which would dare alter
the testimony which lay within the ark.

By the lasting authority of the whole Deca-
logue with which the Fourth Commandment is
inseparably connected, which is the embodiment
of immutable moral law, and by the very words
used in framing the command, the Sabbath is
shown to be an institution of absolute, universal,
and unchanging obligation.

Here may properly be inserted that prayer
which the Anglican Church prescribes as a re-
sponse to the recitation of each of the Ten Com-
mandments : " Lord, have mercy upon us, and
incline our hearts to keep this law. ' '

130 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

CHAPTER III.

TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT ELEMENTS IN
THE SABBATH OF ISRAEL.

" There is, then, in the Sabbath that which is shadowy and
that which is substantial, that which is transient and that
which is permanent, that which is temporal and typical and
that which is eternal." f. w. Robertson.

The Sabbath of Israel is something more than
the institution ordained in the Fourth Command-
ment. That was something universal and per-
petual; but there was also a local and temporary
Sabbath, having its ground, indeed, in the com-
mandment, but having also particular features ot
its own which God ordained for Israel alone.
Those who have contended for the present non-
obligation of the Sabbath on account of its being
a positive institution of Judaism, have entirely
overlooked this distinction. In the civil law
given by Moses are many injunctions for Sabbath
observance, and severe penalties attached to its
profanation. None of these are incorporated in
the Decalogue ; they are entirely independent of
that germinal legislation. These injunctions and
penalties are no part of the abiding law of the
Sabbath. They doubtless fulfilled a wise purpose

ELEMENTS IN THE SABBATH OE ISRAEL. 131

in the training of the chosen people; but, having
accomplished that end, they passed away and
their validity is at an end. They are but the
transient in that building of the Sabbath which
was erected in Eden and shall stand unshaken in
the regained Paradise of man. They were not
intended for all men nor for all time. The Mo-
saic Sabbath, which is distinguished from the
abiding Sabbath by these accidents alone, has
with these passed away. But the substance re-
mains with unchanged validity and obligation.

The case is exactly similar with the other com-
mandments of the law. Take the case of homi-
cide. In modern times public justice takes the
place of that private vengeance which rightfully
executed the law in Israel, and merciful presump-
tions of law have superseded cities of refuge. Yet,
independent of all changes in the mode of proce-
dure or punishment, the moral law, uThou shalt
not kill," lives on, the unchanged foundation of
widely differing methods of jurisprudence. While
men no longer force their wives to drink the water
of jealousy, the Seventh Commandment is as bind-
ing as ever. That witchcraft, necromancy, and
idolatry are no longer punished by death does not
terminate the authority of the command to wor-
ship one God and serve him alone, knowing that
he is a jealous God who will not share his sove-

132 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

reignty with another. So it is with the Sabbath.
The ritual details of its observance, the penalties
for violation, the particular day of its ordination —
all are transient elements whose decadence does
not and cannot cause to cease the eternal law
which existed before them and still exists after
they have passed away. The Decalogue, being
an essential portion of the "Word of God that
abideth for ever," is the enduring fountain of all
law. Upon this universal code all particular
legislation, not of Israel alone, but of all time,
must rest. The local and temporal statutes must
not be confounded, therefore, with the universal
and permanent law. The Fourth Commandment
does not differ from the others in this regard.
They are all alike abiding in their moral author-
ity and all alike transient in their special mani-
festations in human statutes and ceremonies.

Although the methods of observing and enfor-
cing a moral law change thus with each changing
dispensation, yet these temporary features are still
testimonies of the highest value to the sanctity
and obligation of the law. And this testimony is
the more weighty when these statutes, temporary
though they may be, have been prescribed by di-
vine authority, as was the case with the Mosaic
civil polity and ceremonial system. In this man-
ner the Israelitish Sabbath, although no longer

ELEMENTS IN THE SABBATH OF ISRAEL. 1 33

binding upon mankind, is of the highest interest
as a witness to the sacred character of the abiding
Sabbath. Every injunction, ceremony, and pen-
alty connected with it adds to the conception of
its holiness and authority.

Upon the Sabbath the people were to gather
in holy convocations, Lev. 23 : 3, when doubtless
they received religious instruction, including,
later at least, the reading of the law. Acts 15:21.
Special acts of worship were reserved to this day;
double sacrifices were enjoined to be offered in the
tabernacle and temple, Num. 28 :g) 10; the show-
bread was renewed on the table of the sanctuary,
Lev. 24 : 8 ; and songs of praise were sung, the
ninety -second Psalm being specially entitled,
" For the Sabbath day." The prophets seem to
have made a particular use of this day for address-
ing the people, as is evidenced by the question,
"Wherefore wilt thou go to the man of God to-
day? it is neither new moon nor Sabbath."
2 Kings 4 : 23. Nor is the day less impressively
marked by prohibitions. Upon it no work was
to be done by man or beast; the preparation of
food was forbidden, Exod. 16 15, 23 ; no fire was
to be kindled in any habitation, Exod. 35 : 3 ; a
man was even put to death for gathering sticks,
Num. 15 : 32; by implication all buying and sell-
ing were deemed unlawful, Neh. 10 : 31 ; and

134 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

travelling was afterwards held to be forbidden by
Bxod. 1 6 : 29.

As if it were desired to make the motives for
obedience more urgent still, the death -penalty
was affixed to profanation of the Sabbath. "Six
days shall work be done, but on the seventh day
there shall be to you a holy day, a Sabbath of rest
to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall
be put to death." Bxod. 35 : 2. There is but one
recorded case of the execution of the sentence.
Num. 15 : 32-36. Whether or not it was ever
enforced again in Israel, its existence on the stat-
ute-books of the nation is a testimony of the
strongest kind to the divine estimate of the worth
of the Sabbath.

While the Sabbath of Israel had features which
enforce and illustrate the abiding Sabbath, it must
not be forgotten that it had a wholly distinct ex-
istence of its own. It must not be regarded as
merely one form which the real Sabbath has ta-
ken in history, a form ordained for a particular
period and people. Moses really instituted some-
thing new, something different from the old patri-
archal seventh day. Not improbably a different
day was chosen, particular observances were en-
joined, and new meanings were commemorated
by this recurring festival. In keeping it Israel
truly kept a " Sabbath to the Lord," but its spe-

ELEMENTS IN THE SABBATH OF ISRAEL. 135

cial obligations rested only on Israelites and those
dwelling on Israelitish soil. The Mosaic Sab-
bath was the Sabbath of a limited and tempo-
rary dispensation ; it never had the universal
sweep of the primitive Sabbath or of the Chris-
tian Lord's day which has superseded it. It is
the only institution which is directly called Sab-
bath in the Bible, which circumstance has led
many excellent men too hastily to conclude that,
because it was abolished, therefore no similar in-
stitution is now in existence as of divine obliga-
tion. But from the Hebrew ordinance the name
Sabbath has come to be applied to that perpetual
ordinance of rest and worship which existed from
the beginning and shall endure with undimin-
ished obligation until the end of human genera-
tions. In the Mosaic Sabbath, for the time of its
endurance and no longer, was embodied, for a
particular people and no others, this permanent
institution which was ordained at creation and
which lives now with more excellent glory in the
Lord's day. The generations of the flowers come
and go with the spring-time and frosts of each re-
curring season, but in the seed their life is carried
forward from year to year with undying beauty.
So has it been with the Sabbath. Its outward form
has changed, but its inner life has still the fresh-
ness and vigor given it in the morning of the world.

136 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

CHAPTER IV.

SOME SCRIPTURE TESTIMONIES TO THE VALUE
OF THE SABBATH.

" This is the day that the Lord hath made ; we will rejoice
and be glad in it." PSA- Il8:24-

ELSEWHERE in this essay are given many
facts connected with the Sabbath in Holy Scrip-
ture which exemplify its value and enforce its
obligations. It was first proclaimed amid that
angelic symphony which celebrated a finished
creation; it was again announced by the awful
voice of Jehovah amid the flaming terrors of
Sinai; it took on its final most glorious meaning
when the conquering Son of God came forth lead-
ing in chains the vanquished "king of terrors."
The abiding Sabbath shines with the reflected
radiance of these three great events.

When God entered upon the ethical teaching
of the race through his chosen people, he gave
special prominence to the Sabbath. In the moral
law which he delivered to them this command-
ment is perhaps the most full and explicit of all,
being the only one which expressly charges their
memory, the only one which is presented in both

SCRIPTURE TESTIMONIES TO ITS VALUE. 137

a positive and a negative aspect, and one of the
four which embody an argument and rest on a
rendered reason. For forty years he set upon the
Sabbath the sacred seal of miracle by the six days'
gift of manna and the uncorrupted portion of the
seventh. Based upon its analogy, he gave their
national life the seven-fold rhythm of Sabbatic
and Jubilee years, and interwove the number
seven ^into their entire religious symbolism. In
such ways has God signalized and attested the
honor due to the Sabbath day.

Under the theocracy, profanation of the Sab-
bath was punishable with death, and one of the
few recorded instances other than divine judg-
ments in which during the wandering in the wil-
derness the death-penalty was inflicted on a dis-
obedient Israelite is a case of Sabbath-breaking.
No sin calls forth more awful threatenings from
Jehovah through the mouth of the prophets than
this. For the sin of "polluting the Sabbath"
multitudes of Israel perished in the wilderness;
for the same sin the people were scattered among
the heathen. Ezek. 20: 12-24. Upon its observ-
ance depended the very existence of Hebrew
nationality. "If ye will not hearken unto me
to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a
burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusa-
lem on the Sabbath day, then will I kindle a fire

138 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the pala-
ces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched. "
Jer. 17: 27. In a terrible catalogue of the sins of
the city of Jerusalem it is charged, "Thou hast
despised mine holy things and hast profaned my
Sabbaths." Ezek. 22:8. In the time of Amos
those who wearied of the Sabbath (Amos 8:5) are
menaced by many calamities. In these penal-
ties and fearful threatenings of judgment has God
testified to the sacredness of the day he hallowed
at the beginning and has ever honored in history.
Not only by penalties, but by blessings; not
only by threats, but by promises, has he distin-
guished the Sabbath. God blessed the seventh
day; and not on insensate time did the benedic-
tion fail, but on that being for whom the Sabbath
was made. Its blessing comes to those who
sacredly observe it. Isaiah under divine inspira-
tion proclaims, u Blessed is the man . . . that
keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it. . . Thus
saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my
Sabbaths and choose the things that please me
and take hold of my covenant; even unto them
will I give in mine house and within my walls
a place and a name better than of sons and of
daughters: I will give them an everlasting name,
that shall not be cut off. Also . . . every one that
keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, . . . even

SCRIPTURE TESTIMONIES TO ITS VALUE. 139

them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make
them joyful in my house of prayer. ' ' Isa. 56 : 2-7.
And in another place, by the same inspired pen,
the Sabbath and its proper glory are described
in glowing language: "If thou turn away thy
foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure
on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight,
the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor
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 heritage of Ja-
cob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it." Isa. 58:13, 14. Through Jeremiah
it is promised that if the Sabbath is honored by
Jerusalem, "this city shall remain for ever."
Jer. 17:24, 25.

What reason has taught us as to the advan-
tages of the Sabbath to individuals and to na-
tions, is confirmed abundantly by the declarations
of the Word of God.

140 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

CHAPTER V.

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH IN ISRAEL.

" Hallow my Sabbaths ; and they shall be a sign between
me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your
God." EZEK 20:20.

The Sinaitic Sabbath was a covenant sign be-
tween God and his people. It commemorated
their national deliverance from Egyptian slavery,
and was a type of the rest which remains for the
people of God. " I gave them my Sabbath to be
a sign between me and them, that they might
know that I am the Lord that sanctify them."
E^ek. 20 : 12. It was the germ of much of the
external polity of the nation. The seventh month,
Eev. 23 : 23-36, and year, ch. 25 : 1-7, came to
share in some degree its sacredness ; the second
great annual feast and the year of jubilee suc-
ceeded respectively ( ' seven Sabbaths ' ' from a
designated day, ch. 23 : 15, 16, and "seven Sab-
baths of years," ch. 25:8-12. The chief days
of the great yearly festivals, Passover, Pentecost
and Tabernacles, were described as Sabbaths.
So also was the great annual fast, or day of
Atonement :* much in the laws, customs, and en-
* Exod. 12 : 16 ; Lev. 23 : 7, 8, 21, 24, 32, 39.

HISTORY OF THF, SABBATH IN ISRAEL. 141

tire civil and religious life of Israel thus kept
time to the septuple movement of recurring Sab-
baths.

Those are greatly mistaken who regard the
Israelitish Sabbath as a day of mere inactivity.
It was truly a sacred festival. The sanctification
of the Sabbath was to be accomplished not by
mere cessation from secular toil, but by holy rites
and religious exercises. The assemblies which
were appointed to meet on this day were not mere
crowds, but holy convocations. The double sac-
rifices, the changed show-bread, the special
Psalms — all indicate that the religious view of
the day was not disregarded by the Hebrew
people. It was also a day of religious instruc-
tion. Josephus remarks : ' ' Moses permitted the
people to leave off their other employments, and
to assemble together for the hearing of the law
and learning it exactly, and this not once or
twice, or oftener, but every week."* Philo Ju-
daeus says that this custom always continued
among the Jews of gathering on the seventh
days to learn and discuss their religious philos-
ophy, f

Nor was the requirement of rest so rigid and
inflexible as may be imagined. Even in the

* Josephus, "Against Apion," II. 18.

f Philo Judceus, " Works," 685. Paris, 1640.

142 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

days of strictest observance Jesus could, without
rebuke or offence, accept an invitation to a Sab-
bath dinner at the house of a principal mem-
ber of the rigid Pharisaic sect. Luke 14 : 1. It
seems probable that the law of necessity was rec-
ognised from the beginning, and that the prohi-
bition of preparing food or kindling fire did not
interdict the absolutely necessary labor of the
Sabbath. The general rule, quite probably, was
that given in connection with the Passover : "In
the first day . . . and in the seventh day there
shall be a holy convocation to you ; no manner
of work shall be done in them save that which
every man must eat, that only may be done of
you," Bxod. 12 : 16.

It was not a day of gloom, but of gladness : it tes-
tified to joyful events in the national history, and
so far from being a penance, it was to be a u de-
light" and "honorable." Isa. 58:13. A Psalm-
ist, perhaps David in his flight from Absalom, la-
ments that he is deprived of joining on that day,
or on one of the festival days, which, as we have
seen, partook of the Sabbatic character, with
those who in the house of God raise the voice of
joy and praise. Psa. 42 : 4. On one of the Sab-
batic holy days, shortly before the Sabbath was
reinstated with new strictness after the return
from captivity, Nehemiah and Ezra commanded

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH IN ISRAEL. 143

rejoicing, saying, "The joy of the L,ord is your
strength." The Mosaic Sabbath, positive and
ceremonial ordinance as it was, still embodied
the true Sabbath. It was not a burden but a
blessing.

Such rare hints as we possess of the history of
the Sabbath in Israel are sufficient to convince us
that its due and full observance was, as in the
case of all the religious institutions of the people,
a matter of growth. Even in the wilderness their
carelessness in this regard was one of the reasons
for the long national hermitage of forty years. In
the unsettled days of the Judges the Sabbath is
not once mentioned. What we know of the prev-
alence of idolatry among the people, and their
frequent bondage to Canaanitish kings, is enough
to indicate how little the day was regarded. With
the closer organization and more settled polity of
the kingdom the Sabbath seems to have revived.
Under David its prevalence is indicated in the
order of alternation of the gate-keepers of the tab-
ernacle. 1 Chr. 9:22-25. The same fact regu-
lated the succession of the priestly courses. 1 Chr.
24:19; 2 Chr. 8:14; Luke 1:8. In the days of
Joash we find the same arrangement employed to
save the life of the young king from the vicious
Athaliah. 2 Kin. 11:5-9; 2 Chr. 23:4-8. The
Mosaic directions for special sacrifices on the Sab-

Abiding Sabbath. IO

144 TH3 abiding sabbath.

bath, were repeated by David and Solomon and by
Hezekiah. i Chr. 23:31; 2 Chr. 2:4; 8:13; 31:3.
But during these long years of alternate apos-
tasy and repentance the Sabbath did not receive
its full due honor from Israel. It was for the
most part either disused or misused throughout
this whole period. Some of the most earnest ex-
hortations of the greater prophets are towards the
better sanctification of the seventh day. They
used the day as a special time of religious teach-
ing. 2 Kin. 4:23. They denounced its profana-
tion in terrible declarations of the divine judg-
ments against its violators, and uttered the most
persuasive prophecies of the national glory that
would follow its observance. The lyric splendor
of Isaiah, the pathetic entreaty of Jeremiah, and
the elaborate imagery of Ezekiel, all lent their
aid to press upon a backslidden people the claims
of the covenant sign between them and the Al-
mighty. The bitter punishment of dispersion
and captivity which the two kingdoms under-
went is declared to have been in retribution for
pollution of the Sabbath. The moral intensity
of this great prophetic period is the prelude to
that strict legalism which followed the return of
Judah from captivity, in which the remnant of
Israel became more really, perhaps, than ever be-
fore the nation of the law.

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH IN ISRAEL. 145

The Jews who returned from Babylon were of
the choicest blood of the nation. All others, to
great extent, had been merged with the idolatrous
peoples with whom they had mingled. The na-
tional enthusiasm for righteousness, so long con-
fined and corrupted by contact with the outer
world, now burst forth and bore its most bril-
liant blossoms and fairest fruitage. It was one
of the first cares of Nehemiah to establish a holy
Sabbath. On that day he strictly interdicted
all buying and selling, closed the gates of Jeru-
salem, and forbade all agricultural or other la-
bor. He also revived the institution of the Sab-
batic year. He reminds the people, as he gives
these orders, of the evil brought upon Israel by
profaning the Sabbath. Neh. 10:31; 13:15-22.
And this, which was in some degree a new insti-
tution of the Sabbath, was based on the creation,
the deliverance from Egypt, and the Decalogue.
Neh. 9:6, 14, 38; 10:31.

The circumstance which doubtless had great-
est influence in securing the respect which was
certainly accorded to the institution before the
Christian era, was the establishment of the syna-
gogue worship and instruction, probably by Ezra
the scribe. This, by securing public religious
services in every locality, served to deeply im-
press this duty upon the Jewish people, as well as

I46 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

to create the spirit of Sabbath observance among
them. It was the deepening intensity of the legal
feeling thus induced which at last produced the
Rabbinical system and Sabbath, with which Je-
sus placed himself in such direct antagonism.

An institution thus entwined with all the cus-
toms and polity of the nation could not be easily
given up. No act of tyranny of Antiochus Epiph-
anes was more bitterly resented by Judaea than
that he turned "her Sabbaths into reproach, "
and gave orders "that they should profane the
Sabbaths and festival days." 1 Mace. 1:39-45.
The Maccabean insurrection was, as has been el-
oquently said by a Jewish orator, "the first in-
stance of a whole people rising up, in the majesty
of their righteous scorn, to vindicate their rights
of conscience and of faith." The Sabbath has
the high honor of being a principal point of con-
science contended for in that great death-grapple
of a higher faith with a decaying paganism. A
singular instance of the even superstitious rever-
ence for the day which existed at this time is the
refusal of some of the refugees from the Anti-
ochian persecution to even resist an attack made
upon them on the Sabbath, and their consequent
slaughter. The Maccabees, possibly remembering
that one of the seven days of the besieging of
Jericho must have been a Sabbath, "decreed,

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH IN ISRAEL. 147

saying, Whoever will come to make battle with
us on the Sabbath day, we will fight against him ;
neither will we die all, as our brethren who were
murdered in the secret places." 1 Mace. 2:31-41.
Yet they did not sufficiently relax the stringency
with which the day was observed to undertake
offensive military operations on that day. On
one occasion they suspended the pursuit of a flee-
ing enemy because of the on-coming Sabbath,
and, having gathered together their spoils, "they
occupied themselves about the Sabbath, yielding
exceeding praise and tlranks to the L,ord2 who
had preserved them unto that day, which was
the beginning of mercy distilling upon them."
2 Mace. 8:24-27. This excessive scrupulousness
was taken advantage of by Pompey when he be-
sieged Jerusalem. He occupied the Sabbath in
undisturbed preparations for assault on the fol-
lowing day. It was largely through the advan-
tage thus gained that he was able at length to
capture the city. *

The strictness with which the Jews kept the
day is attested by heathen writers also, generally
in the way of ridicule and censure. Tacitus says
that "the Hebrews find leisure agreeable on the
seventh day because it put an end to work, and
they also, by the allurement of indolence, give
* Josephus, " Antiquities of the Jews," XIV. 43.

148 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

the seventh year to laziness."* Juvenal satiri-
cally says,

" Each seventh day their bigot sires
Rescind from all that social life requires. "f

Seneca censures the Jews for wasting in idleness
the seventh part of life. J In similar terms of
ridicule or denunciation Ovid, Martial, Petronius,
and others, give evidence to the vitality of the
institution in the later period of Jewish history.
Indeed, the Jews were so far able to guard its
sanctity, even under Roman rule, as to obtain a
decree from Augustus that Jews should be exempt
from all judicial proceedings on the Sabbath day.§
There is not wanting evidence that many of the
Romans themselves, as well as Greeks, had al-
ready begun to keep the day in some manner.
Horace observes concerning the Sabbath,

" This is the Jews' high feast, and I suspect
You 'd hardly like to spurn that holy sect."]]

Juvenal declares, in the Satire quoted above, that
many who had become Jews began by observing
the Sabbath. Tf

This brief outline of the history of the Jewish

* " History," V. 5. f " Satires," XIV. 105.

t Augustine, " City of God," IV. 11.
\ Josephus, " Antiquities," XVI. 2, 3.
11 " Satire " 9.

\ See also Josephus, " Against Apion," the " Roman His-
tory of Dion Cassius," and " Renan's Lectures on Judaism."

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH IN ISRAEL. 149

institution shows how it had gradually increased
in influence and finally culminated in the exces-
sively formal Sabbath of Rabbinism.

After the Captivity that class of Jewish teach-
ers known as the scribes came into prominence.
Their first task was the critical one of transcri-
bing and preserving the sacred text of the Scrip-
tures. They became naturally the teachers of the
law of which they had been constituted guardians.
For what they regarded as the better observance
of the old precepts, they added new injunctions
by way of building what they called u fences "
about the law. And thus grew up that body of
oral legislation known as the Mishna, which after-
wards was the core of that wilderness of philoso-
phy, fancy, and folly, the Jewish Talmud. Not
uncommonly this oral tradition was set above the
written law in its authority. It was fabled that
it had been delivered with the text of the Deca-
logue to Moses on Mount Sinai. Such sayings as
these abound: "The text of Scripture is like wa-
ter, and the Mishna like wine." u The words of
the scribes are lovely above the words of the
law." Not undeserved was the condemnation
uttered by Jesus when he accused the scribes of
4 ' making the Word of God of none effect through
your traditions. ' '

The Mishnic teachings devote, in the Soder

150 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

Moyedy or order of festivals, no less than thirty-
four chapters exclusively to the subject of the
Sabbath, besides numerous precepts on the same
topic scattered broadcast through the Talmud.
Nothing is left of it but a punctilious outward
observance. Its duties are discussed with the
utmost minuteness of detail and the subtlest re-
finements of casuistry. Rules as to what kind of
knots could be tied on the Sabbath, what kind of
sandals and other garments might be worn, what
food should be eaten, and what burdens borne,
fill these curious pages. Hillel and Shammai
gravely discuss whether an egg which a hen has
laid on the Sabbath may be used, and finally de-
cide that it may be if the hen is kept only for the
express purpose of laying eggs ! Two letters could
not be written; even a needle could not be carried
in the pocket, for the reason that it is a working-
tool ; an emetic must not be administered, or a
bone be set on that day. The Talmud teaches
that the Sabbath extends throughout the uni-
verse, and, consequently, the lost in hell have on
that day respite from their torments.

As was perfectly natural, such rigidity led to
hypocritical evasions. The Sabbath-day's jour-
ney, which is not prescribed in the law of Moses
at all, but is a Rabbinical precept, was two thou-
sand cubits, about three-quarters of a mile. But

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH IN ISRAEL. 151

this means, say the scribes, that distance from
one's dwelling. Now a man's dwelling is where
his food is; consequently, he has only to place a
piece of meat two thousand cubits from his house
on the day before, and that, by legal fiction extend-
ing his dwelling to such a point, will give the
right to double the length of the Sabbath-day's
journey. Put chains across the two ends of a
street, and you make it a single dwelling. By
such sophistries as these the scribes were able, on
occasion, to nullify the whole law.

There are not wanting more liberal views of
the Sabbath in the Talmud. It says, "The Sab-
bath is for you, and you are not for the Sabbath,"
an aphorism which bears a striking resemblance
to the saying of Jesus recorded by Mark (2 : 27).
For the sake of an infant it might be broken, "for
the babe will keep many a Sabbath yet for the
one that was broken for it. ' ' Nor was the Rab-
binical Sabbath a day of gloom. Such maxims
as these abound: " Meet the Sabbath with a lively
hunger;" "Put on all thy cheerfulness, and say
nothing but what is provocative of gladness and
good feeling." One rule is still obeved to a large
extent in these later days: "Walk leisurely, for
the law requires it, as it also does longer sleep in
the morning. ' ' A very high Jewish authority in-
dignantly says, "We cannot refrain from enter-

152 the: abiding sabbath.

ing a protest against the vulgar notion of tlie
4 Jewish. Sabbath' being a thing of grim austerity.
It was precisely the contrary, a ' day of joy and
delight, ' a ' feast ' day, honored by fine garments,
by the best cheer, by wTine, lights, spice, and other
joys of preeminently bodily import; and the high-
est expression of the feeling of self-reliance and
independence is contained in the adage, ' Rather
live on your Sabbath as you would on a week-day
than be dependent on others."*

Nevertheless, in spite of this broader and more
indulgent view, the multiplication of rules could
not fail to create a real slavery of will. Only the
acute priests and Rabbins knew how to avail
themselves of these indulgences, while to the less
subtle multitude the Sabbath became a burden
rather than a delight. Indeed, the mission of
Israel as the nation of the law had been fully ac-
complished. The importence of the moral law
to secure the obedience it commanded had been
fully demonstrated, while its teaching power was
quite exhausted. Amid the general failure to feel
its inward life and to realize its spiritual essence,
its letter was enthroned above its spirit, and for-
mal observances were substituted for real right-
eousness. This was true not only of the Sabbath,

* Emanuel Deutsch, Lectures on "The Talmud," in "Lit-
erary Remains," p. 30.

HISTORY OF THE SABBATH IN ISRAEL. 153

but of all the commands of the law. Its loftier
sense was hidden and lost beneath the thick in-
crustation of petty mechanical requirements with
which it was overlaid.

The time was fully come for a change. That
change could take place only by the sweeping
away of Rabbinical tradition, by bringing forth
aeain the inner reason and significance of the
abiding Sabbath, and by such a breaking of con-
nection with the letter of the Sabbath law as
would for ever hedge up the way to any return to
Pharisaic ritualism. The time was come for the
establishment of that noblest and truest earthly
form of the Sabbatic institution, the Lord's day,
or the Christian Sabbath, which fully answers all
the demands of the moral law, and, by breaking
loose from the particular day observed as the Jew-
ish Sabbath, avoids many of the dangers of le-
galism.

Israel had not attained true rest. Not Moses
nor Joshua nor David nor Nehemiah was able to
secure it for them. (Hebrews, third and fourth
chapters.) The true Sabbatism of faith awaited
u another day ' ' as its present expression and prom-
ise of future perfection. That day is the Lord's
day, the day of the accomplished redemption of
man and promised redemption of the world.

PART II I.

iABBATH 0P REDEMPTI0N.

THE

SABBATH OF REDEMPTION.

CHAPTER I.

TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST.

" These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true Wit-
ness, the beginning of the creation of God." rev. 3 : 17.

" The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they
are life." john 6:63.

The Incarnation is the central fact of the
world's history. All the roads of the centuries
lead to and from it. It is the key to every event
in history and all right thinking in philosophy.
Jesus being thus the culmination of the moral
order of the world, his appearance becomes the
turning-point in the course of history. Jesus
Christ came to put an end to the old order of
things. The forms, ceremonies, and customs of
the past, as they pass into the testing crucible of
his method and teaching, are either destroyed or
come forth changed and set in a new light and

158 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

clothed with, new meanings. How does the Sab-
bath endure the ordeal to which his mission sub-
mits every system and ordinance of the ancient
world ?

Jesus, like every true reformer, was no mere
iconoclast. It was not his purpose simply to tear
down the building of the ages ; his mission was
constructive rather. He came to interpret the
past, to bring forth the true meanings of its sys-
tems of worship, government, and culture. He
says, in most explicit terms, " Think not that I
am come to destroy the law or the prophets ; I am
not come to destroy, but to fulfil." Matt. 5:17.
His relation to the whole providential history of
the past was not one of destruction, but of con-
summation. " Christ is the end of the law," not
negatively, that its provisions may be ignored,
but positively, "for righteousness to every one
that believeth." Rom. 10 : 4. He fulfils the cer-
emonial law by realizing its typical significations
in his own redemptive work, and by disclosing its
substance freed from the obligation of the shadow;
he fulfils the moral law by his perfect conformity
to it, and by giving it new sanction, in revealing its
inward meaning, and thus investing it with a ho-
lier strictness, and by imparting the vital motive
of obedience by which alone its spiritual essence
can be regarded. The shadowy forms of ceremo-

TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST. 159

nialism vanish for ever in the blaze of light given
by the divine reality they typified; but in that ra-
diance the moral law they hid as well as guarded
stands out more clearly in all its heaven -born
beauty. Such is the true relation of Jesus Christ
to the Hebrew code as revealed by his own testi-
mony.

It ought not to be difficult to apply these prin-
ciples to the Sabbath. As already shown, the
Sabbath contained moral elements ; it belonged
not solely to Israel, but was sanctioned by the
primitive revelation to the race, being the first
article in the law of the beginning ; it was a part
of that sublime code which by the mouth of the
Eternal himself was spoken to his chosen people
from the mountain of God; its violation had been
surrounded in the Mosaic legislation and in the
prophetic instructions with penalties and its ob-
servance with blessings such as could hardly be
attached to a simple institution of ritual. The
abiding Sabbath, belonging to the moral law, is
therefore not repealed or cancelled by Jesus, but
rather confirmed with new uses, loftier meanings,
and holier objects. The ceremonial Sabbath is
indeed done away, but the moral Sabbath abides
by the authority of the Sabbath's Lord.

Besides this statement of his relation to the
law in general, Christ has given special intima-

Abldiug Sabbath. I I

l6o THE ABIDING SABBATH.

tions of his will concerning the Sabbath. And
here we must expect nothing explicit. It is not
the method of Jesus to give minute directions or
go into detail on any subject. His teachings are
in large outline ; they are the announcement of
principles which are capable of wide application
not only to the subject in hand, but also to all
similar questions that may be proposed. He has
given, not the grown harvest of doctrine, but the
living germs with which all gardens and fields of
thought may be sown, and which will unfold into
flowers of moral beauty and waving forests of spir-
itual truth. Such is the method of Jesus in gen-
eral, and such is his treatment of the question of
the Sabbath day.

The teachings of Jesus Christ concerning the
Sabbath naturally divide themselves into two
parts : first, his condemnation of the Rabbinical
perversions of its true end, and consequently of
the ceremonial Sabbath in general ; and, second-
ly, his declaration of a higher ground for the Sab-
bath than Judaism furnished, and his consequent
confirmation of the eternal moral essence of the
Sabbatic law.

I. Jesus denounces tJie false strictness of the Jew-
ish Sabbath.

After the Captivity, as has been seen, the Jew-
ish people entered upon a new national life. The

TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST. l6l

discipline of national sorrows was not lost on them,
and henceforth they devoted themselves with a
new-found zeal to the law and ritual of their reli-
gion. The Mosaic institutions took on a sharper
definition and a stricter interpretation. But this
new fervent loyalty to the law ended, as all exces-
sive legalism always will, in the enthronement of
the letter above the spirit and in a highly devel-
oped ceremonial system at the expense of a real
righteousness.

Such absurd questions as whether it would
not be a kind of hunting to kill a flea on the Sab-
bath were gravely argued with a micrologic zeal
for the very letter of the law. A whole body of
traditional lore in the shape of a developed com-
ment on the law had grown up, giving the most
minute directions for the observance of its every
article. To this system Jesus placed himself in
direct antagonism. " Ye make the word of God
of none effect through your tradition." Mark
7:13. His most terrible denunciations were re-
served for this hypocritical blindness which would
not see the large outline of spiritual duty and
vital morality involved in the commandments of
God, but magnified every petty formal observance
which could obscure or seemingly excuse actual
disobedience.

The occasion could not long be delayed in

i62 the abiding sabbath.

which he would come into collision with the
perverted conception of the Sabbath. The Rab-
bins had said, ' ' Grass must not be walked upon
on the Sabbath day, for that would be a sort of
threshing." But the disciples of Christ, walking
through the fields on the Sabbath, satisfied their
hunger by rubbing out the grain between their
hands and eating it. Matt. 12:1. Jesus meets
the charge of Sabbath-breaking by citing the
example of David in eating the show-bread, in
proof that human necessity is a higher law than
physical rest, which is only the negative side of
the Sabbath law, and that the Sabbath, to exist,
must maintain its harmony with the other laws
of that God who ' ' will have mercy, and not sac-
rifice." The Sabbath is not to be man's burden,
but delight; it is made for man and for his good.
It is not to become a rigid mould to which he
must fit himself, but must be adapted to his needs,
both physical and spiritual. The Jewish tradition
had declared that the art of healing was not to
be exercised on the Sabbath day unless absolutely
necessary for the preservation of life. Jesus on
the Sabbath restores the man with the withered
hand, declaring that it is lawful to do good on
the Sabbath; and thereby he has taught that
nothing can be holier than mercy," and that the
holy day is not violated, but sanctified, by holy

TESTIMONY OE JESUS CHRIST. 163

deeds. To the same end are all the other cases
of healing on the Sabbath used by the Saviour.*
There is not in all this any hint of the aboli-
tion of the Sabbath, or release from its obliga-
tions. The words of Jesus become meaningless
when they are applied to anything but the abuses
and perversions of its purposes by the Rabbini-
cal schools. Had he desired to abolish it alto-
gether, nothing would have been easier than to
do so in terms. His words are everywhere framed
with the utmost care, and strictly guarded against
any construction which would involve a denial
of the real sacredness of the day blessed by the

* That Jesus did not disregard Jewish feeling in regard to
the Jewish Sabbath, when the sentiment was not opposed to
the true law of God, is shown by his injunction to his disciples
with regard to their conduct in respect to the impending
doom of Judaea. " Pray ye," he says, " that your flight be not
in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day." Matt. 24 : 20. In
that coming desolation there was certainty of sufficient gloom
without the added difficulties of a winter journey such as
storm and swollen water-courses, or the loss of Sabbath rest
and consolation. There is probably a reference to the fact that
scruple in regard to exceeding the " Sabbath day's journey,"
limited by the scribes to 2,000 cubits, might act as a check on
Jewish Christians' escape ; beside which, closed city gates
might materially impede their progress. It is possible, also,
that we should regard the Sabbath of Israel as binding on
Jews to some extent until the complete breaking up of their
national polity by the destruction of Jerusalem with its tem-
ple, and the consequent cessation of the whole sacrificial and
ceremonial system.

164 THK ABIDING SABBATH.

Creator and sanctioned by the moral law. The
whole force of the language which he uses lies in
the fact that he is opposing the transient human
element in the institution, and opposing it in the
interests of the deeper significance which belongs
to that in it which is permanent and divine. He
does not ' ' make void the law, ' ' but establishes it
rather, by liberating the holy ordinance from the
material bondage imposed upon it by men; he
does not destroy it, but gives it new life by
tearing away the beggarly elements of a passing
human economy with which it had become en-
twined, and which could only bring decay and
death to the precious reality which they inclosed.
It is to be noticed that Jesus nowhere takes the
trouble to purify any merely ceremonial insti-
tution from Rabbinical glosses. That he does so
with regard to the Sabbath is a positive proof
that there was in it something which he intended
should endure us a part of the order in human
society which he established.

The ' ' fence ' ' that the Jewish masters built to
guard the law became too soon a wall to hide it.
Jesus tore away the surrounding walls of cere-
mony and form only that the living truth might
appear to man. Nothing but antinomian blind-
ness can otherwise interpret his words. A fran-
tic hyper-spiritualism and an undisciplined mys-

TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST. 165

ticism may join hands with a supercilious ration-
alism in misjudgment of his spirit and method.
A sane interpretation of his words, in the light of
the facts and in their historic setting, reveals that
his opposition to the Jewish Sabbath was inspired
by his allegiance to that abiding Sabbath which
existed before Judaism and should survive its
downfall. This leads the way to the second prop-
osition.

2. yes 21s confirms the Sabbath on its spiritual
basis.

"The Sabbath was made for man, and not
man for the Sabbath ; therefore the Son of man
is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2 : 27, 28.
Such is the remarkable declaration of our Sa-
viour, and in so declaring, he not only dated
back the origin of the day before the giving of
the law to Israel, but asserted his power and im-
plied his purpose to enlarge its significance and
bequeath it in a worthier form to the whole
world. Thus he at once rid it of all the false
restrictions of Judaism, and, establishing it upon
its primitive foundations, he brought forth its
higher reason in the assertion of its relation to
the well-being of man.

"The Sabbath was made for man :" not for
the Jew only, but for the whole race of mankind ;
not for one age alone, but for man universally,

1 66 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

under every circumstance of time and place. By
this declaration Christ has freed the Sabbath
from all local and temporal reference, and re-
vealed its existence and authority as coextensive
with the entire race of man. Because man
everywhere and always needs a Sabbath, there-
fore everywhere and always will he know the
blessing and be under the obligation of that Sab-
bath which was given at the beginning with ref-
erence to the higher necessities of his nature.

"The Sabbath was made for man :" it is cer-
tainly fair to infer from this language that it was
contemporaneous with man, made for him when
he was made. When the temple of nature had
been completed, with its doming skies and but-
tressing mountains, with its organ music of
whispering winds and roaring billows, then was
placed at its sacred altar man, the priest as well
as king of nature ; and then God ' ' blessed and
sanctified ' ' a day on wThich he should, in special
manner, offer the incense of praise and thanks-
giving. A day of worship was the first gift of-
fered to a being capable of worship. Not to the
physical realm of things does the rest-day come
writh its highest meanings, although even those
animals which are associated with man shall
know the blessedness of its rest ; it is for man the
spiritual being, made in the image of his Maker,

r „

TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST. 167

made to trust, to adore, and to love, that the
Sabbath is made. He alone can realize that
diviner rest of the spirit which has as its pattern
the spiritual repose of God after his work of crea-
tion. As the witness and teacher of his super-
natural relations and being, the Sabbath was
made for man : made, that by its aid and influ-
ence he might transcend his earthly life and as-
sert his loftier nature and destiny.

The Sabbath being "made for man," it is not
so much by the restraint of the body as by the
freedom of the spirit that its obligation is ful-
filled; it is not a chain to bind him, but a libera-
ting angel that opens the door of his prison-
house, and gives him the freedom of those spirit-
ual palaces of light whose stately, shining walls
arise unseen beside our huts of clay. "Man was
not made for the Sabbath," to work the tread-
mill of the burdensome requirements with which
human traditions had surrounded it ; but because
man's whole nature needed the Sabbath, there-
fore it was given to be a perennial spring of glad-
ness, the uplifter of his life, and the enfranchise-
ment of his soul.

The phrase "made for man" has suggestive
reaches beyond even these high meanings. Not
only the bending heavens with their burning
lights, the fair earth with its mountains, valleys,

1 68 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

and plains, the waving forests and the fruitful
fields, the subtile forces of the air and the hidden
treasures of the mines — not only were these made
for that being in whom nature consummated its
meaning by coming to self-consciousness ; but
time brought its gift of days as well : six robed
in russet garb of service, but one in queenly rai-
ment clad, with shining fingers pointing the way
upward and onward to that eternity of bliss of
which it is the God-blessed symbol set in time.
It is a part of the provision made for man at the
creation, as needful for him as the buoyant air,
the sparkling water, or the bountiful soil.

"The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sab-
bath." This is an assertion by our Lord of his
right to make such modifications in the law of
the Sabbath, and give it such new adjustments
as should to him seem best for the religious cul-
ture of the race. As Lord of the Sabbath, he
doubtless had the power to set it entirely aside —
a power which certainly he has nowhere exer-
cised, either by himself or through his apostles.
He had the right to change its day and alter or
add to its meanings — a right which he has exer-
cised in giving us the Lord's day, the Christian
Sabbath, and in making it a monument of re-
demption as well as of creation and providence.
Because he is "Lord of the Sabbath," we can

TESTIMONY OP JESUS CHRIST. 169

rightly call the Sabbath the Lord's day, and the
Lord's day our Sabbath. That which he has
asserted that he had the power to do, we have
the right to assume he has done, and we have,
moreover, the right to infer that the change
which came over the Sabbatic institutions in the
early Christian centuries was not without his
will, but by his authority and in fulfilment of
his purpose.

In another remarkable instance Jesus spake
words which bring out fully the positive side of
the Sabbatic ordinance. He had just healed the
sick man at Bethesda, and being charged with
desecration of the Sabbath, he replied, "My Fa-
ther worketh hitherto, and I work." John 5:17.
The day is not rendered sacred by inactivity ; it
is made holy by being consecrated to holy pur-
poses. There is not in this any denial of the
seventh-day rest of God after his work of crea-
tion; rather does our Lord point out that rest
with God, and indeed all true spiritual rest, is
not merely a cessation of effort, but chiefly a
change of activities. The Father, indeed, rested
from the physical work of creation, but it was
only to enter upon his Sabbath employment of
providence, in governing and upholding his crea-
tures, and later of redemption, " the work of sal-
vation and of the moral education of the human

170 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

race. That divine labor had for its very basis
the cessation from creative labor in nature.' ' * For
this interpretation of the Father's work as refer-
ring to his unresting activity for human salva-
tion, as well as to the sustaining and governing
of the world, there is the very highest exegetical
authority, t Without entering upon the question
of the method of observance of the Sabbath, it
follows clearly, in the light of this passage, that
it chiefly consists in a change from ordinary
worldly labor and business to spiritual activity.
It is a day of rest by being a day of worship.
When it is not used for worship, it soon ceases to
afford any real repose. By the Sabbath man is
linked to his Father in heaven; and to him, as
to the Creator, true rest is found in the change
from creative toil to redemptive and merciful
tasks. By observance of the Sabbath he asserts
his spiritual origin, nature, and destiny. As in
six days of labor he follows the Creator on his
path of material effort, so in the seventh day he
holds communion with the Father of his spirit
in the sacred tasks of holy aspiration and in
benevolent duties. The law of worship is higher
than the law of rest, and is its guardian and
security; while the law of love is higher than

* Godet, " Commentaire Sur V Evangile de Saint Jean."
f See Meyer's " Commentary " in loco.

TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST. 171

either, being based in the essential moral nature
of Deity. The Sabbath is, therefore, never so
much or so truly the Sabbath as when it is a day
of love. In this passage, again, Jesus has con-
nected the Sabbath with the beginning of the
world; and in opposing the narrow conception of
his Jewish adversaries, he strips it of the veil of
ceremony and reveals its inward spirit and life
as existing in the nature of God and as a pattern
for the imitation of man.

In other ways Jesus enforces the idea that the
Sabbath is not a day of mere inactivity, but is
rightfully used for religious employments. He
reminds his accusers that by order of the law
itself the priests in the temple violate the strict
law of rest on the Sabbath by preparation of the
double sacrifices and the fresh show-bread re-
quired on that day, Matt. 12:5, and that the
sacred rite of circumcision was everywhere per-
formed on the Sabbath rather than deferred be-
yond the eighth day of legal requirement. John
7:22, 23. With regard to circumcision, indeed,
he reminds them that it antedated Moses,* and
therefore is of higher authority than any other
requirement of their religious ritual, and conse-
quently it takes precedence of the ceremonial
Sabbath, and is not in discord with that older

* See Meyer on this passage.

172 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

law of the Sabbath which is not violated, but
obeyed, by religious acts.

In all these teachings, Jesus, by striking at
Rabbinical literalism and exaggerated ritualism
in Sabbath observance, and by referring the Sab-
bath to its original foundation and setting forth
its spiritual essence, was preparing the way for
that religious revelation which, in the process of
years, has produced the Christian Sabbath. More
subtly than Moses, yet as really as the law-giver
in the wilderness, he was instituting a new Sab-
bath. Such is the real effect of the living words
of our great Teacher. He has confirmed for ever
on the basis of its primitive enactment, with
changed position in time and new richness of
meanings, the law of the abiding Sabbath.

APOSTOUC TESTIMONY. 173

CHAPTER II.

APOSTOUC TESTIMONY.

" Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto
the end of the world." matt. 28:20.

" And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine
and fellowship." ACTS 2 . 42.

" Christ said not to his first conventicle,
1 Go forth and preach impostures to the world,'
But gave them truth to build on ; and the sound
Was mighty on their lips ; nor needed they,
Beside the gospel, other spear or shield
To aid them in their warfare for the faith."

DANTE.

JESUS Christ did not personally carry out
his own purposes into organized forms. His
public ministry lasted but a little more than
three years. In that brief time he occupied him-
self, not in founding institutions, nor in writing
a code of morals and doctrine, but in instructing
the twelve men who were to be the authorized
interpreters of his will and mission to the world.
To them he gave full authority for that work,
including absolute power both of teaching and
administration. He promised for their guidance
the presence and assistance of the Spirit of God.

174 ™ ABIDING SABBATH.

Every word they have spoken to the church, and
every institution they have founded, are there-
fore backed by his sovereignty, and come to us
with the same binding force of obligation as if
delivered directly by himself. So much at least
is implied in the many promises and injunctions
given to them before his ascension. On this di-
vine commission of the apostles is based the doc-
trine of their inspiration. This fact clothes the
teachings of the New Testament outside of the
words of Jesus with an authority like that with
which those are invested.

And we find full harmony between the words
of our Lord and apostolic teaching and usage.
There is, however, this difference : the apostle
Paul is more positive and sweeping in his con-
demnation of the ceremonial Sabbath, going to
the length of declaring the Jewish institution not
binding upon Christians. The reason of this is,
undoubtedly, to be found in the fact that the ex-
tension of the gospel to the Gentiles had intensi-
fied the struggle with Jewish ritualism. The bat-
tle for soul-liberty had to be fought out, and in
the course of it hard blows were struck at the
Sabbath so far as it was connected with the u beg-
garly elements " of a carnal and temporal econo-
my. And this was the less likely to be miscon-
strued as applying to the eternal law of the Sab-

APOSTOLIC TESTIMONY. 1/5

bath itself, because already, as will be shown
hereafter, the "first day of the week," marked
by Christ's resurrection " the Lord's day," had
become of common observance and was gradually
succeeding to its proper inheritance of the inward
meaning of the abiding Sabbath delivered by the
Creator and confirmed by the Redeemer.

I. The ye wish Sabbath is definitely abolished by
apostolic authority.

There seems to "have been a strenuous effort
made to impose on Gentile converts to Christian-
ity certain Jewish observances — preeminently cir-
cumcision, the distinction of meats as clean and
unclean, and the keeping of festivals. This at-
tempt was earnestly and successfully resisted by
the apostles. The whole temple ritual and all
the external ordinances of Judaism were but types
of Christ and his offices. In him they were ful-
filled, and with that realization of their substance
these shadows were to pass away. Sacrificial
fires, holy rites, and religious festivals, all found
their consummation in the life and death of Christ.
His body is the true temple, he is the eternal
priest, and his death the one perpetual sacrifice.
The Christian's circumcision is a "circumcision
made without hands," Col. 2:11; to him "re-
mains a Sabbath-keeping," Heb. 4 : 9, which is a
rest from sin and in faith, ceasing from the works

Abiding Sabbath. I 2

1/6 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

of the law as a ground of justification. No wonder
that the apostles could so little tolerate the proposed
continuance of the bondage from which Christ
had set them free. Gal. 5:1. Had he not taken
away ' ' the handwriting of ordinances ' ' against
them and " nailed it to his cross"? Col. 2 : 14.
All the splendid but burdensome forms of Hebrew
worship had meaning only as they centred in him,
and with him they died, not to be raised with him,
for he rose " in the spirit." 1 Pet. 3 : 18 ; Rom.
1 : 4. To continue these ordinances would be
more than, in Canon Farrar's phrase, "to hold
up superfluous candles to the sun;" it would be,
in very fact, to deny the Lord and his work.*
"Christ is become of none effect to you, whoso-
ever of you would be justified by the law." Gal.
5 : 4. The wall of partition between Jew and
Gentile has been broken down and abolished in
the flesh of Christ. Kph. 2 : 14, 15. The Chris-
tian believer is so identified with his Saviour that
he has died with him, and so has been released
from those "rudiments of the world," Col. 2 : 20,
embodied in the Mosaic ritual. It is impossible
to overstate the sense of freedom which must have

* It would be well for those Christians who are endeavor-
ing to reinstate the Jewish Sabbath to take this reflection to
heart. Let us beware lest, by preserving the type, we cancel
in thought the work of redemption. He who prefers to be
under the law in any measure has, in so far, rejected grace.

APOSTOLIC TESTIMONY. 1 77

come to the early church with regard to the ordi-
nances of the ceremonial law, and which espe-
cially glows in the fearless words of the great
apostle to the Gentiles. Salvation in Christ im-
plied the breaking of legal shackles which had
endured for ages. These things had served their
purpose, but now they must vanish in the blaze
of that supreme reality which they had only pre-
figured.

With the ceremonial system vanished the Jew-
ish Sabbath. It had only a local and temporal
meaning. It commemorated the deliverance of
Israel from Egyptian bondage and foreshadowed a
greater deliverance. About it had gathered ob-
servances, penalties, rules, and traditions which
were only the accidents of its existence. The
promised Deliverer at last had come, bringing to
the weary and heavy-laden the soul-rest which
the Sabbath of Israel had prophesied, and now it
must be cast off as a worn-out garment. l ' L,et no
man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in
respect of a holy [feast] day, or a new moon, or a
Sabbath day: which are a shadow of the things
to come; but the body is of Christ." Col. 2 : 16,
17. This passage with one stroke sweeps away
the whole list of Jewish festivals and declares
them to be no longer obligatory upon the Chris-
tian conscience. The whole passage with its con-

178 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

text forbids trie explanation that Paul was only
attacking a particular manner of observing the
day; and that he is not referring to other sacred
days is evident from the fact that they are men-
tioned in the same passage under other heads.
The moral requirement of a day of worship is not
in question here; but it is the special institution
of the particular day, with its particular mean-
ings as related to Hebrew history, and its pecu-
liar observances, which is done away in Christ.
Indeed, the letter of the law must be abolished if
the true spirit of it, older than Hebrew history
and not ending with the Mosaic ritual, is to live
at all. Some dawn of the lord's day is in the
sky as we read these words in the light of the
whole revelation of God.

There are two other passages in the writings
of Paul which bear directly on this point. The
first is Gal. 4 : 10: " Ye observe days and months,
and times [seasons] and years. ' ' The apostle here
condemns the keeping of the stated holy days of
the Jews, and strikes at all that externalism which
is enslaved to any portion of space or any moment
of time. There are no little pieces of glorified
duration which have in themselves any peculiar
sanctity. The believer should be delivered from
the bondage of any such superstition. Surely the
advocates of a seventh-day Sabbath in these later

APOSTOLIC TESTIMONY. 1 79

years have not felt the full force of that evangel-
ical freedom which Paul enjoyed and preached.
It must not be supposed, however, that the apos-
tle was opposing the right and liberty of the
church to appoint special periods of time for spe-
cial and separate duties; for to these very churches
of Galatia he first gave the command which he
reaffirms to the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 16 : 1, 2, to
appropriate the first day of the week to the benevo-
lent contributions of the church. The whole force
of his denunciation of the observance of "times
and seasons" is directed against not the special
moral and religious use of particular portions of
time, but the legalistic spirit which would cling
to the Jewish festivals and fasts as a means of sal-
vation, and which was a hindrance to faith in
Christ. Gal. 5 : 1-14.

Another passage to the same effect is Romans
14:5, 6: u One man esteemeth one day above an-
other; another esteemeth every day alike. Let
every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the
Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the
Lord he doth not regard it."* This does not

* The latter clause of this text, " and he that regardeth
not the day," etc., is undoubtedly an interpolation. The re-
vision of 1881 has very properly omitted it. This does not
change in any way the use made of it above, although it
spoils many a zealous anti-Sabbatarian argument. An in-

l8o THE ABIDING SABBATH.

preclude the proper consecration of one day in
seven to holy uses; but it does declare the free-
dom of the Christian from the requirements of
the Mosaic dispensation. It is a declaration of
evangelical independence, and not a Nihilistic
abolition of all law. In declaring the liberty of
the church in the matter of meats and drinks, he
does not thereby abolish eating and drinking,
but rather establishes those cheerful duties on a
broader and more spiritual basis; so in asserting
Christian freedom from the "day," he has not
nullified the abiding law of the Sabbath, but
rather given it a new life in the spirit.

Such is the relation of apostolic teaching to
the Jewish Sabbath. The yoke of the fathers,
with its crushing weight of sacerdotal require-
ment, was cast off. The galling fetters of tradi-
tion were broken, and for ever was the infant
church delivered from u statutes that were not
good, and judgments whereby they should not
live." Ezek. 20:25. But the inspired caution
with which this was done must be marked as
well. So fully has the language been guarded
by the Holy Spirit that the strictest interpretation
cannot thereby justify Sabbath violation; nor, on

stance may be found in the dangerous sermon of F. W. Rob-
ertson on this text which is wholly built up on the spurious
passage in question.

APOSTOLIC TESTIMONY. l8l

the other hand, can the stoutest conservatism
rescue the Jewish Sabbath from its destructive
effects. Paul's words, while more radical than
those of Jesus, as was required by the different
characters of their contest, only carry out the
Lord's idea. By striking down the form they
have exalted the spirit. They have cleared the
way for a true Sabbath after the creative pattern,
but enriched by redemptive ideas.

2. The apostles, by confirming the moral law,
have enfojxed the obligation of the abiding Sabbath.

It is sometimes urged that the gospel dispen-
sation has done away with the obligation of the
whole law; that we are not under the law, but
under grace. It has already been shown that
Christ fulfils the moral law in a very different
manner from that of his fulfilment of the ceremo-
nial law: the latter he embodies in his own offi-
ces, and so annuls it; but the former he makes
honorable through his perfect obedience. And
this is the substance of the apostolic teaching.
1 ' Do we then make void the law through faith ?
God forbid: yea, we establish the law." Rom.
3:31. The very object of redemption in Christ
was that the "righteousness of the law should be
fulfilled in us." Rom. 8:4. By positive declara-
tions such as these, by minute moral injunctions
to the churches under their care, the apostles of

l82 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

Jesus Christ, as he had done in the Sermon on the
Mount, reenacted for the church the whole Dec-
alogue in its universal meanings. And in this
reenactment it does not mean less, but more.
The law of chastity means inner purity as well
as freedom from bodily defilement ; the law
against murder implies loving relations with all
mankind, as well as guiltlessness of the bloody
deed; so the law of the Sabbath demands, under
the gospel, not simple physical inaction, but to
be " in the Spirit on the Lord's day."

So far, therefore, from the moral law being
ignored or cancelled by apostolic teaching, it is
endowed with a larger significance. By the
great generalization of Jesus, the moral law was
summed up in love to God and man, and thus it
becomes more than an outward rule; it is an
inner inspiration. " Love is the fulfilling of the
law," exclaims Paul, Rom. 13:10; and so far
from this making the law less obligatory, love
is to be regarded as an always-binding, never-
paid debt. * ' Owe no man anything but to love
one another." Rom. 13:8. The law does not
lose, but gain, in sanctity and authority when it
is thus translated into the forms of life. The
Father's rule does not lose its authority because
the motive of obedience is changed from fear to
love; rather, with increasing love and knowl-

APOSTOLIC TESTIMONY. 1 83

edge, does the child feel all the stronger the
sweet constraint of the paternal will. Obedience
is not less obligatory because it brings no bond-
age. "Ought" coexists with "love to," as sure-
ly as with "must." The law which is "holy
and just and good" cannot be set aside. The
difference between legalism and evangelical free-
dom consists chiefly in this: that obedience, im-
possible before, is made possible through the in-
ward power of a new motive. The loyal devo-
tion of a child takes the place of the coerced
conformity of a servant. That the terror of the
commandment has been transformed into a bene-
diction does not relax the obligation, but inten-
sifies it The moral law is glorified, and not
repealed, by the new dispensation.

It has already been shown that the Sabbath
is a part of the moral law; it has the mark of
universality as coexistent with man; it embod-
ies a spiritual significance; it has a reasonable
basis in the physical, mental, and moral needs of
man; it was incorporated in the Decalogue, the
outline of moral law given to Israel; it was en-
forced by such threatened penalties for violation
and promised blessings for observance as could not
have been attached to a merely ceremonial ordi-
nance; and Jesus confirmed these historical and
rational proofs by his own example and teachings.

184 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

Being, therefore, a part of trie moral law, it
is established as an apostolic institution by every
word and phrase in which the apostles assert that
law to be still binding on men. The proof is as
complete as the nature of the case admits.

It is not difficult to account for the complete
silence of the New Testament so far as any ex-
plicit command for the Sabbath or definite rules
for its observance are concerned. No argument
against the Sabbath can be based on the absence
of such positive regulations. The conditions un-
der which the early Christian church existed
were not favorable for their announcement. Al-
though the choicest blessings of the day come to
the individual life, yet its perfect observance is
a social matter and depends on social arrange-
ments. The early church, a struggling minority
composed of the poorest people, could not have
instituted the Christian Sabbath in its full force
of meaning. The ruling influences of govern-
ment and society were against them. The Chris-
tian slave could not refuse to work for his heathen
master even on the Lord's day. There were still
the conservative tendencies of Jewish Christian-
ity to be overcome. Nothing more, however,
was needed than the authority of the creative
ordinance as announced by inspiration, the sanc-
tion of the Decalogue, and the confirmation of

APOSTOLIC TESTIMONY. 1 85

the moral content of the law by Jesus Christ, to
so place the Sabbath in the doctrines and faith
of Christianity that, under the administration of
the Holy Spirit, as the church gained in numbers
and influence, so did the Lord's day gain in sanc-
tity and due observance. As we shall see here-
after, legislation on the question did come at the
very moment when it was possible to make it
effective. For a considerable time the Jewish
Sabbath and the Lord's day coexisted, side by
side, in the church; but in its growing life the
former naturally faded away with the other effete
relics of Judaism which for a time lingered in
the church; and the latter more and more super-
seded the former in embodying the real meanings
of the abiding Sabbath of the primal and moral
law. This will appear more fully in the history
of the Lord's day.

No trace of any authoritative observance of
the Jewish Sabbath by Christians, however, can
be found in the apostolic writings. If in many
cases the apostles preached on that day, it was
because their mission was first to Israel, and on
that day they found the people assembled in the
synagogues. So far as is revealed, the apostolic
declaration of its non-requirement was indorsed
by apostolic practice. As certainly as historical
proof can be adduced for any fact, so certainly is

l86 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

it demonstrated that the Sabbath of the law was
abolished by apostolic authority, in accordance
with the developed teachings of Jesus Christ.
But although the Sabbath of the law ceased, the
law of the Sabbath is abiding; and it is in the
highest degree probable that the Lord's day
which embodied its spirit was instituted by the
immediate authority of the apostles, and there-
fore by the supreme authority of their Master
Jesus Christ.

ORIGIN OF THE LORD'S DAY. 1 87

CHAPTER III.

ORIGIN OF THE LORD'S DAY.

11 Enthroned in thy sovereign sphere,
Thou shedd'st thy light on all the year;
Sundays by thee more glorious break,
An Easter-day in every week." keble.

" Welcome, happy morning ! age to age shall say ;
Hell to-day is vanquished; heaven is won to-day!
Lo, the Dead is living, God for ever more!
Him, their true Creator, all his works adore."

VENANTIUS FORTUNATUS.

In the emphasis which Christ placed on the
positive spiritual side of Sabbath observance as
distinct from its temporal elements, and in his
claim of Lordship over the Sabbath, the founda-
tion was fully laid for its new institution as the
Lord's day.

But the ceremonial law could not fully termi-
nate except by its awful fulfilment on Calvary.
All the rites and types ordained through Moses
had full title of endurance until Christ consum-
mated their meaning and thus ended them for
ever. In the death of Christ perished, essential-
ly, the Jewish ritual: the veil of the temple was
rent in twain, for temple, sacrifices, and ordinan-
ces have no more meaning:: all is embodied in

1 88 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

him, and atonement means no more a ritual act
performed before the mercy-seat, but has become
a mighty fact realized in the Holy of Holies of
the highest heavens. With every other symboli-
cal ordinance of Israel, the Sabbath of the law
went into the sepulchre with Jesus Christ; but
its moral spirit and meaning rose with him, as
the Lord's day, on which, after his Sabbath rest
in the grave, he rose again, the author of a new
spiritual creation.

It is easy to comprehend how the Jewish Sab-
bath must almost at once have lost its hold on
the affections of the disciples. That day of dread
and gloom on which their Master lay in the tomb
could not be any more to them a "delight." In
the most powerful manner possible those feelings
of festal gladness and holy joy inseparable from
the true idea of the Sabbath were for ever discon-
nected from the seventh day. It is not surprising
that such observance of the seventh day as lin-
gered in the church took the form largely of a fast
rather than of a joyous festival.* It henceforth
referred more to the death of the Lord than to the
Hebrew institution. And by the most natural
revulsion of feeling all that was lost from the sev-
enth day was transferred to the first day of the
week, increased by the new thought of redemp-
* See chapters on " History of the Lord's Day."

ORIGIN OF THE LORD'S DAY. 189

tion through a risen Lord. Not only is there
nothing wonderful in this transfer, but it would
have been truly marvellous had it not taken
place. Henceforth not the day of seeming defeat
and of the sealed sepulchre, but the day of the
manifestation of the Saviour's glorious triumph,
is the holy day of the church, its chief day of re-
ligious convocation and social worship.

" Love's redeeming work is done;
Fought the fight, the battle won;"

and because he has finished his work, he has, as
did his Father after the first creation, entered into
his rest, as the Epistle to the Hebrews testifies.
Heb. 4:10. The idea of completion, symbolized
by the number seven and embodied in the Sab-
bath as the memorial of a finished creation, is
transferred to the Lord's day, the monument of a
finished redemption and the prophecy of the gen-
eral resurrection which is the consummation of
all time's history and the dawn of eternity.

The Lord^s day is the only day which carries in it
the meaning and the prophecy of the Sabbath of eter-
nity. It is the abiding Sabbath.

It was on the "first day of the week" that
the Saviour rose. It is remarkable that this
phrase, "first day of the week," marks the only
case in which any day of the week is distin-
guished from the rest in Scripture by its number

I90 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

excepting the seventh day or Jewish Sabbath.
Bight times the term is used in the New Testa-
ment, five of the instances occurring in connec-
tion with the account of the Lord's resurrection.
Other days have no distinctive title, save only the
sixth day, which is the " Sabbath eve " or u day
of preparation." The first day is, therefore,
placed in such significant relations with the sev-
enth day as to impress upon it a meaning which
cannot be disregarded. There is placed upon it
such a distinctive mark that it cannot henceforth
be merged with common days. Has not the res-
urrection of the Sabbath1 s Lord given a Sab-
bath's consecration to the Lord's day? Upon it
is set the seal of his crowning miracle. No day
of the week can claim an equal glory.

After the several appearances of the Saviour
on the day of his resurrection there is no recorded
appearance until a week later, when the first day
is again honored by the Master. John 20:26.
The exact mention of the time, which is not
usual even with John's exactness, very evidently
implies that there already attached a special sig-
nificance to the ' ' first day of the week ' ' at the
time when this Gospel was written. These re-
peated appearances of Jesus upon the first day
doubtless furnished the first suggestion of the
practice which very quickly sprang up in the

ORIGIN OF THE LORD'S DAY. 191

church of employing that day for religious assem-
bly and worship. On what day could they so
certainly expect to meet the L,ord in spirit as on
that day which again and again he signalized
by his visible appearance to them after his resur-
rection ?

This impression must have been strongly in-
tensified by the miraculous occurrences of Pente-
cost, if that festival fell, as we think probable,
on the first day of the week — a view maintained
by the early tradition of the church and by many
eminent scholars. * On that day, which has fitly

* Some difference of opinion has existed as to the proper
computation of the day of Pentecost — some reckoning it from
the 15th Nisan, or Passover, and others from the Sabbath
of the Passover week. In the latter case, Pentecost would
invariably fall on the first day of the week. The former
method of computation is, however, to be accepted as the
correct one. In that case, the determination of the day on
which Pentecost fell in the year of the crucifixion is depend-
ent on the view taken in regard to the day of the crucifix-
ion. This is regarded by many scholars, and those of the
very highest authority, as the 14th Nisan. As this was there-
fore the sixth day of the week, the succeeding first day of
the week coincides, according to this view, with the day on
which the omer was offered, from which seven weeks were
reckoned until Pentecost (Lev. 23:15), which would thus
fall on the first day of the week. That the day of offering
the omer was the day of Christ's resurrection gains some
support from the passage which this fact seems to have sug-
gested, " Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the
first-fruits of them that slept." 1 Cor. 15: 20. If, however, the
opposite, but much less strongly supported, view is taken,

Abiding flrttath. 13

192 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

been called the birthday of the church, began
those spiritual endowments which prove that
the ascended Lord is indeed enthroned at the
right hand of the Father and from that place of
power is conferring gifts on men. The day marked
by the resurrection of the Lord and by repeated
appearances of the Risen One in bodily form,
and also crowned, as we believe, by his spiritual
manifestation through the Holy Ghost, needed
no other indorsement of its character and re-
quired no other warrant for its observance.

Not the seventh day of a rejected, executed,
and entombed Jesus, but the first day of a risen,
triumphant, and glorified Christ, is henceforth the
festal day of joyful praise and thankful worship.
Although the disciples had the promise of the
Master, u Lo, I am with you alway," and although
his pledge was to meet at any time and place with
the two or three then and there gathered together,
it is not surprising that they soon came to special-
ly seek his presence on that day which specially
he had distinguished. Such was doubtless the
origin of the custom, which already prevailed in
apostolic times, of gathering for worship and eel-
placing the crucifixion on the 15th Nisan, the fiftieth succeed-
ing day, or Pentecost, must of course have fallen on a Sabbath.
As to the day of the crucifixion, see Meyer on John 18:28,
and the learned excursus of Godet, in his " Commentary on
John." See also Meyer on Acts 2 : 1.

ORIGIN OF THE LORD'S DAY. 1 93

ebrating the Lord's Supper together on the first
day of the week.

And are we not authorized to conclude that
the apostles were under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit in this distinction of this day? We read in
the Gospel of John, ch. 16:13-15, the promise of
the Lord to his apostles that, after his departure,
the Holy Ghost should "guide" them "into all
truth," should "glorify" him, "taking of" his
things and "showing them" to his disciples.
May we not include in the particulars of this
truth, and among these things of Christ, an in-
stitution of whose existence we can find traces in
the apostolic records and writings, which specially
glorifies the Lord as the memorial of his resurrec-
tion, and to which the same John, by the most
obvious and general interpretation of his words,
elsewhere gives the name of u the Lord's day"?
Rev. 1:10.

The infrequent occurrence of any mention of
the Lord's day and its observance in the New
Testament is fairly parallel with the rare traces
of the Sabbath in the historical books of the Old
Testament. Perhaps nothing is so unlikely to
get into history as a frequently recurring custom
such as this. The existence of such customs is
quietly assumed by the chronicler, and his refer-
ences to them will generally be incidental and

194 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

undesigned. Indeed, it may safely be asserted
that several of the notices of the Sabbath of Israel
found in the Old Testament history are due
entirely to irregularities in its observance, such
as called forth the exhortations and denuncia-
tions of the prophets.

The most distinct reference to the Christian
use of the first day of the week is that found in
Acts 20:7: u And upon the first day of the week,
when the disciples came together to break bread,
Paul preached unto them." There is unques-
tionably assumed here a practice of coming to-
gether for the purpose of ( ' breaking bread. " It is
uncertain whether this ( ' breaking bread ' ' refers
primarily to the Lord's Supper, or to the agapa
or love-feasts which were common in the early
church; nor does it much matter, for it is most
probable that the Lord's Supper was usually cel-
ebrated in connection with the love-feast, and in
either case the practice of ecclesiastical assem-
blage is established. There is no hint that the
church at Troas was called together by Paul for
purposes of instruction, but the language clearly
implies that the apostle availed himself of the
occasion brought about by the custom of assem-
blage on the first day of the week to preach to
the people. It is worthy of notice that he abode
seven days at Troas, and that this first day of the

ORIGIN OF THE LORD'S DAY. 195

week was the last day of his stay, as if it had
been his design to tarry long enough at Troas to
join with the disciples at that place on the day
of public fellowship and worship. A similar stay
of exactly seven days is noted in the next chapter
as occurring at Tyre, possibly with the same in-
tent. Acts 21:4, 5. Here, then, is a plain record
of the custom of assemblage on the first day of the
week, less than thirty years after the resurrection.
The language is just what would be used in such
a case, and would not be appropriate to another
state of facts.

Another incidental allusion to the religious
use of the day — an allusion none the less valuable
because incidental — is the direction of Paul in 1
Cor. 16:1, 2: "Now concerning the collection for
the saints, as I have given order to the churches
of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of
the week let every one of you lay by him in store
as God hath prospered him, that there be no gath-
erings when I come." Among the religious du-
ties to which the day was consecrated was that of
almsgiving. Such was a most appropriate use of
the day, and had its precedent in the free-will of-
ferings made on Jewish holy days. That this lay-
ing in store did not mean a simple hoarding of
gifts by each one in his own house, is emphatic-
ally shown by the reason alleged for the injunc-

I96 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

tion, "that there be no gatherings" (i. e., "col-
lections," the same word nsed in the first verse)
"when I come." The Corinthians were on that
day to deposit their alms in a common treasury.
If the gifts had had to be collected from house to
house, the very object of the apostle's direction
would have failed to be secured. We must con-
clude, then, that these collections were made
statedly, at the meetings for public worship
which occurred on the first day of the week.

It is, perhaps, not going too far to suggest
that the shrewdness of the apostle appears in this
plan for systematic benevolence. He well knew
that the giving which is connected with religious
worship is by the very act of worship stimulated
to a larger liberality ; therefore to the worship of
praise and prayer on the Lord's day was appro-
priately added the worship by gifts. It is further
to be noted that the apostle declares this custom
to be already established among the churches of
Galatia.

There are not a few passages which can be
quoted in proof of the habit of stated assemblage
in the apostolic church. A well-known and fre-
quently-cited instance is Heb. 10 : 25 : u Not for-
saking the assembling of ourselves together, as
the manner of some is ; but exhorting one an-
other. ' ' No reproof for neglect would lie against

ORIGIN OX THE LORD'S DAY. 197

the persons addressed in this text unless there ex-
isted a custom of regular, stated assemblage, in-
volving a well-recognized and clearly-defined
duty. While the first day of the week is not
mentioned in this place, yet the passage fits in
perfectly with what we know of the early uses of
that day. To the same effect are the references
of Paul in one of his letters to the Corinthians :
"When ye come together in the church I hear
that there be divisions among you," 1 Cor. 11 : 18;
u If therefore the whole church be come together
into one place, etc. . . . How is it then, breth-
ren? when ye come together, every one of you
hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue,
hath a revelation, hath an* interpretation. Let
all things be done unto edifying." 1 Cor. 14 : 23,
26. These quotations establish the fact of stated
religious gatherings, and indicate their purpose —
instruction, exhortation, and the exercise of spir-
itual gifts. There is every likelihood that these
meetings took place on the day elsewhere indi-
cated as having been employed in that manner,
the first day of the week, or the Lord's day.

When it is remembered that the central theme
of the apostles' preaching was the resurrection of
Christ, that upon that fact they declared that the
church must stand or fall ; when it is reflected
that this greatest of miracles is the beginning and

198 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

promise of all redemption and of the new crea-
tion, that it is the very pivot on which the world's
history turns, the selection of the Lord's day by
the apostles as the one festival day of the new soci-
ety seems so obviously natural, and even necessary,
that when we join to these considerations the fact
that it was so employed, we can no longer deny
to the religious use of Sunday the high sanction
of apostolic authority. Preachers of the gospel of
the resurrection and founders of the church of the
resurrection, they gave a new, sacred character to
the day of the resurrection by their own example
and by their explicit injunctions.

In the apostolic age the first day of the week
had already received the title of "the Lord's
day," as appears from the remarkable text in the
Apocalypse where John states, "I was in the
Spirit on the Lord's day." Rev. 1 : 10. It is
impossible to give any suitable meaning to this
except as a reference to the first day of the week.
That interpretation which paraphrases it "day of
the Lord," meaning thereby the judgment-day, is
not warranted by the construction or by the con-
text. * The prominence given to the resurrection
in the connection (verses 5 and 18) fully warrants

* See Cremer's " Biblico-Theological Lexicon," sub voce
Kvpianog. Also " Commentaries" of Diisterdieck, Alford, Lange,
etc.

ORIGIN OF THE LORD'S DAY. 199

the conclusion — when we remember also the most
ancient ecclesiastical use of the phrase — that the
day of the weekly celebration of the resurrection
was the day in question. The beloved disciple on
the lonely island of his exile joins with his dis-
tant brethren in Ephesus and the other churches
of Asia Minor in their worship of the risen and
exalted Saviour. To him thus worshipping again
the miracle of Pentecost is repeated, and he is
seized and enwrapped with spiritual influences;
again the Risen One, who had repeatedly ap-
peared on the first day of the week, manifests
himself to his beloved disciple, not in the form
that came forth from Joseph's tomb, but in the
glorified body of his session at the right hand ot
the Father. Again is the Christian Sabbath sig-
nalized as the day of special spiritual communion
with our blessed Lord. It is therefore peculiarly
his own — the Lord's day.

As has already been observed, there is no trace
of any authorized religious use of the Jewish Sab-
bath by the Christian church in the whole New
Testament. On the contrary, the obligation to
keep it is denied, both by precept and practice.
But we have also discovered that the first day of the
week was kept as a day of religious worship by the
apostles and the New Testament church. We are
warranted therefore in asserting divine authority

200 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

for the institution of the Lord's day; and although
it is not called Sabbath for centuries afterwards,
for the reason that to call it so would confuse it
with the Hebrew institution,* yet the essential
ideas of the Sabbath were embodied in it, and it
became truly the Christian Sabbath and the truest
Sabbath that the world has yet known. Not by
a formal change of day, but by a real succession
to the spiritual meaning of the primitive institu-
tion, it has superseded every previously designated
day of rest, and has become the final earthly form
of the abiding Sabbath.

* The word Sabbath had become in fact and was freely
used as a name for the seventh day of the week. This use
still survives in the Italian Sabato, the Spanish Sabado, the
French Samedi, and the German Samstag. Those who base
any argument for seventh-day observance on these names
should remember that the same languages, excepting Ger-
man, give to the first day of the week a name derived from
the Latin Dominica— Lord's day. The first and seventh days
of the week are by the southern nations of Europe, among
whom the gospel first spread, distinguished from the other
days of the week by not bearing heathen names. There has
thus been placed in the calendar a distinct monument of the
coexistence of both institutions, side by side, in the early
Christian ages. The Lord's day has survived the decay of its
effete and abolished predecessor. Warning cannot be given
too often of the danger of confounding Sabbath as the name
of a day of the week and Sabbath as a modern name of an
institution older by many centuries than the Hebrew institu-
tion which has given it its name.

change; of DAY. 201

CHAPTER IV.

CHANGE OF DAY.

"The old order changeth, giving place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."

TENNYSON.

The phrase "change of day" is misleading.
What really has taken place is more than a mere
alteration of the day; it is a newly created form
of the institution which has superseded all past
forms. The Lord's day rests on reasons of its
own, and has a life of its own, independent of
anything that has been bequeathed to it from the
Jewish Sabbath ; but there have also been incor-
porated into it the ideas of the abiding Sabbath
which it worthily expresses.

Again let it be urged that the Sabbath as an
institution and the Sabbath as the name of a day
are entirely distinct.* In the Scriptures the name
is applied only to the Sabbath of Israel. It is
only by universal modern consent that we use the
word "Sabbath" as the name of an institution of
rest and worship, ordained at the Creation and

* See definition of " Sabbath " in Webster's " Unabridged
Dictionary."

202 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

confirmed in every divine dispensation. This fact
held firmly in mind will rescue us from the delu-
sions and illusions produced in too many minds
by names and words. To clear the mental atmos-
phere of any mistiness let the case be thus stated :
God at the Creation ordained that a seventh
day after six days of work should be hallowed by
rest from ordinary toil and by special religious
activity ; to his chosen people he gave the same
ordinance, placing it besides in the moral code
transmitted through them to the world, and by
them it was observed and called the Sabbath ; in
the Christian dispensation it was again confirmed
and newly established under the name of the
Lord's day ; in the later days of the Christian
church, seeing that but one institution lives un-
der this triple manifestation, we have commonly
applied the name most commonly used in the
Bible, the name "Sabbath," which specially be-
longs to the Jewish day, to the whole institution ;
and this is not inappropriate when we remember
that the word "Sabbath" is the one used in the
Fourth Commandment, that it means ' l rest, ' ' and
that it is the substantive form of the verb em-
ployed in Gen. 2 : 2, 3, also Exod. 31 : 17, to de-
scribe the divine resting after creation. Keeping
this statement in mind, it can be clearly seen that
while the obligation of the institution is moral

CHANGE OF DAY. 203

and abiding, the day chosen, being of the formal
element, is only temporary in its character. As
a human monument the particular day has value,
but it has no bearing on that divine ordinance of
rest and worship which comes to us out of eternity
and blends again with it at the end of time.

1. The particular day is no essential part of the
institution.

The moral institution of the Sabbath is based
upon the divine rest after creation. This cannot
be construed as confined to a literal day of twen-
ty-five hours; for the rest of God is his spiritual
activity in providence, and afterwards in redemp-
tion, which followed the mere physical task of
creation. God is still keeping his Sabbath.
Time is an adjustment to our human weakness,
a mode of our finite thinking; and while the law
of the Sabbath is such that, when manifested, it
must make a special portion of time the material
of which the Sabbath consists, yet its moral obli-
gation is inherent in its moral meaning, and not
in its temporal garb of times and seasons. Yet,
without doubt, the spiritual intent of the Sab-
bath will fail of full realization except all men
unite upon one day. This one day we arrive at,
not by a study of ancient calendars and chronol-
0£v, but bv a religious consensus of the Christian
church, which has not been without divine gui-

204 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

dance, and which has for the highest and holiest
reasons fixed upon the Lord's day as the day
which for Christendom embodies within itself
the perpetual obligation of the Sabbatic law.

Another difficulty is connected with our pure-
ly arbitrary use of the word ' ' day. ' ' When does
the day commence and end ? Shall we define, as
in the first chapter of Genesis, that the "evening
and morning ' ' make a day, and therefore reckon
from sunset to sunset, as did the Puritans? or
shall we keep the civil day from midnight to
midnight ? And by either method of calculation
what would become of the Sabbath at the poles,
where either from sunset to sunset or from mid-
night to midnight would give a Sabbath a whole
year long ? Again, if we travel around the world
to the westward, we shall gain a day on the sun.
Hence Dr. Wallis,* of Oxford, recommended
seventh-day Sabbatarians to make a voyage
around the world, "going out of the Atlantic
ocean westward by the straits of Magellan to the
East Indies, and then from the east returning by
the cape of Good Hope homeward, and let them
keep their Saturday-Sabbath all the way. When
they come home to England they will find their

* John Wallis, F. R. S., Savilian professor of Geometry
in the University of Oxford, published in 1692 a witty and
ingenious " Defence of the Christian Sabbath."

CHANGE OF DAY 205

Saturday to fall on our Sunday, and they may
thenceforth continue to observe their Saturday-
Sabbath on the same day with us." Differences
of longitude make it impossible to observe the
Sabbath everywhere at the same time. Indeed,
there is no end to the complications and petty
problems that may be raised when we once begin
to exalt the form over the substance. Reason
and common sense refuse to be put in bondage to
such a thought-form as time. It is a return to
the slavery of the letter which Christian freedom
cannot tolerate.

But as a concession to that human weakness
which still is troubled, after eighteen centuries'
drill in spiritual religion, about the particular
day of the week to be honored, the question will
be fairly met.

2. There is no possible means of fixing the day
of the original Sabbath.

Who can tell on what day of the week the
first man was created ? The week is not the
aliquot part of any other division of time, either
lunar or solar. It does not, therefore, fit itself
regularly to any calendar. That it should have
been preserved unchanged, while the more regu-
lar calendar of months and years has undergone
alteration more than once, is not for one moment
to be believed. For the sake, however, of any

206 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

literalists who still believe that the work, of crea-
tion began on Sunday eve and ended Friday at
sunset, it may be suggested that the seventh day
of creation was the first day of man's existence.
If he began the calculation of the week from that
time, and kept the same Sabbath with his Maker,
then the first day of the week, and not the
seventh, was the primitive and patriarchal Sab-
bath. If a crude, bald literalism is to be the
rule of interpretation, let us follow it boldly, no
matter where it takes us. This suggestion is
made, not for any value which it possesses in
itself, but as a fair illustration of the difficulties
attending any attempt to fix the day.

But next to positive evidence can be given
that the primitive Sabbath was not and could
not have been directly and regularly transmitted
to the time of Moses. The Hebrew monotheistic
development begins with Abram of Chaldsea. It
cannot well be doubted that he brought from
Mesopotamia the division of the week and the
tradition of the Sabbath. That our earliest reli-
gious traditions come to us through the Assyrian
rather than the Egyptian line, is one of the facts
most certainly established by modern research
and exploration. Now we have recently learned
the exact character of the Chaldoean and Assyrian
week. Each month contained thirty days, and

CHANGE OF DAY. 207

was divided into four weeks of seven days each,
the last two days being regarded as intercalated.
The first day of the week was therefore regularly
the first day of the month. * The fact that two
extra days in every month were excluded from
the computation of the week and regularly
skipped, makes it impossible that, by this system
of computation, the exact recurring seventh day
from the creation of man could have been handed
down to Abrain.

There is also a break between Abram and
Moses. For several generations Israel was in
bondage in Egypt, and, we must infer, without
a Sabbath. The Egyptians had not at that time
the seven-day week, but observed instead a
period of ten days. It is not at all likely that
a servile tribe, probably without letters or cul-
ture, could have preserved unchanged for over
four hundred years a week whose very existence
was connected with a dav of rest of which thev
had been deprived. Consequently, in the wil-
derness, the Sabbath is introduced as something
new; and while its law refers back to the begin-
ning, the Mosaic Sabbath is always spoken of as
established in memory of the deliverance from

* Consult the hemerologies published in " Cuneiform In-
scriptions of Western Asia," IV. pi. 32 and 33, by Sayce.
Also "Records of the Past," VII. 159-168. See F. LeNor-
mant, " Beginnings of History," 248.

Abiding Sabbath. I -J-

208 THE ABIDING SABEATH.

Egypt. * Here again the succession of days was
probably lost.

Neither is there any absolute certainty that
the Jews at the time of Christ kept the exact day
of Mosaic institution. There is even a possibility
that the Babylonian captivity effaced temporarily
the institution. When again reinstated by Nehe-
miah, it cannot certainly be affirmed to have
fallen on the same day. A doubt, not wholly
captious, arises when we consider the confusion
which contact with the irregular Babylonian
week may have occasioned. These facts are
quite sufficient to dispose of any pretence of ob-
serving the original dav of the Sabbath.

* It can be shown with some certainty that the Sabbath
instituted by Moses was entirely a new institution to Israel.
Careful examination of the sixteenth chapter of Exodus
which relates its establishment will show that, apparently,
exactly a week previous to the day marked by the absence
of manna Israel pitched tent in the wilderness of Sin. That
day could not, therefore, have been a Sabbath at that time.
Yet it seems probable that some day had been celebrated by
them before, for it is not likely that God would leave his
people in their wanderings for an entire month without days
of rest, especially when it is remembered that one purpose
of the escape from Egypt was to gain the opportunity of
worship. But if the day exactly a week before the first Israel-
itish Sabbath was a common work-day, it follows that the
institution of the Sabbath by Moses may have involved an.
actual change of day. This argument is at least sufficiently
fair against the literalists who insist that the Saturday-Sab-
bath is the precise day on which the Creator rested.

CHANGF, OK DAY. 209

3. There are presumptions in favor of a change.

There are good reasons for expecting a change
with the establishment of the Christian church.
Besides the inward meaning of spiritual release
from secular toil, the day of rest and worship
always has possessed under every divine economy
a monumental significance. In the patriarchal
age, the creation of the world and of man was
the great event to be commemorated; in Israel,
the deliverance from Egypt; and in the Christian
dispensation, the perfected redemption through
the resurrection of our Lord. The last, indeed,
is a new creation, which bears in it the promise
of "a new heaven and a new earth;" it is a
deliverance from a bondage more bitter than that
of Egypt. By just so much as the spiritual crea-
tion is more noble than that of the material uni-
verse, and by so much as the moral and eternal
redemption of the race excels in glory the na-
tional redemption of Israel, is the Lord's day
more worthy of perpetuity, and more divinely
honored, than any form which the Sabbath had
previously taken.

Let the following considerations be noticed.
Such was the strong prejudice of the first Chris-
tians in favor of Jewish observances that the
change could not have taken place without di-
vine authority. The apostles had received full

2IO THE ABIDING SABBATH.

power from the Saviour to legislate for his
church, presumably on this as on all questions,
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and we
cannot doubt that they exercised their right.
What then did they do ? They either recognized
the claim of the Sabbath as unchanged, or abol-
ished it altogether, or transferred its obligation
to the Lord's day. But while the apostles, con-
vened at the council in Jerusalem to decide which
among the practices distinguishing a Jew from a
heathen were necessary to be observed by Gentile
Christians, omitted observance of the Sabbath
from their commands (Acts 15:1-29); and while
the apostle Paul explicitly set aside the Jewish
Sabbath; yet in affirming (as did Jesus also) the
continued obligation of the Decalogue, the apos-
tles confirmed the abiding Sabbath. The conclu-
sion is irresistible that they established the Lord's
day as the rightful inheritor of the Sabbatic idea,
and that to it they transferred the Sabbath obli-
gation of the moral law.

Again, in the prophecy of Isaiah (chs. 56 and
58), the continued existence of the Sabbatic in-
stitution in the dispensation marked by the reve-
lation of God's salvation in Christ and by the
spread of the knowledge and acceptance of the
true God in the Gentile world, i. e. , under Chris-
tianity, seems to be foretold. Unless the Lord's

CHANGE OF DAY. 211

day be truly the Sabbath of the Lord, this proph-
ecy has so far failed of any worthy fulfilment.

There is great force in the universal adoption
of the Lord's day as Sabbath, as will be more
fully shown in the following chapters. It is
inconceivable that divine authority can now be
attached to a day which the church of God has
not observed for eighteen centuries; and it is
equally impossible to think that the Lord's day
is without this authority. It is easy to under-
value this argument from consent, but such long-
continued and universal consent cannot be ex-
plained except on the supposition of some suffi-
cient authority beneath it. The absence of any
controversy on this question of day in the early
church is by itself almost absolutely conclusive
as to the divine superintendence in that historic
process by which the Christian Lord's day took
in time the place, name, and authority of the
Jewish Sabbath, and became the abiding Sab-
bath, the true inheritor of all the Sabbath mean-
ings of all the ages. The Lord's day, as the day
of the Redeemer's resurrection, and therefore the
representative of the real coining completion of
God's counsel of creation, is the only true type of
the Sabbath of eternity, which has hovered over
our sin-cursed planet through all its history, but
will on the final day of resurrection come down

212 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

to bless the redeemed earth with its unending
gladness. Only on the Lord's day can the Sab-
bath be kept in all its meaning. If worship and
rest were all of the Sabbatic idea, they could
indeed be observed on other days; but the abi-
ding Sabbath has deeper thoughts. These the
Lord's day alone expresses.

IN THE ANTE-NICENE PERIOD. 213

CHAPTER V.

HISTORY OF THE LORD'S DAY IN THE ANTE-
NICENE PERIOD.

" To abstain from secular toil and do no mundane task ;
to be free to attend to spiritual works ; to assemble at the
church and give ear to the Scriptures and the instructions ;
to think concerning heavenly things ; to have solicitude about
your future hope; to keep the coming judgment before your
eyes ; to regard not present and seen, but unseen and future
things— this it is to observe the Christian Sabbath."

ORIGEN.

For the perfect establish merit of the Christian
Sabbath, as has already been observed, there was
needed a social revolution in the Roman Empire.
The infant church, in its struggles through per-
secution and martyrdom, had not the power even
to keep the Lord's day perfectly itself, much less
could the sanctity of the day be guarded from
desecration by unbelievers. We should expect
therefore to find the institution making a deepen-
ing groove on society and in history, and becom-
ing a well-defined ordinance the very moment
that Christianity became a dominant power.
That such was the case the facts fully confirm.
From the records of the early church and the
works of the Christian Fathers we can clearly see

214 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

the growth of the institution culminating in the
famous edict of Constantine, when Christianity
became the established religion of the empire.

The references to the Lord's day in the wri-
tings of the first century are confessedly scanty ;
yet this is not surprising when we remember that
only half the century really belongs to the history
of the church, and how few authentic writings
are in existence which can be ascribed to that
period. But when we add the New Testament
references which properly belong here to the rest,
the testimonies of the latter half of the first cen-
tury become very respectable both in numbers
and weight.

The earliest writer who can be cited is Clem-
ent of Rome, who died about A. D. ioo. His
Epistle to the Corinthians is of all the ecclesiasti-
cal writings of the primitive church the most de-
vout and apostolic in spirit. He says, "We ought
to do in order all things which the Master hath
commanded us to perforin at fixed times. He
hath commanded the due observance of offerings
and rites, to take place neither irregularly nor
negligently, but at appointed times and hours."*
This passage does not indeed refer by name to the
Lord's day, but it proves most conclusively the

• Clement of Rome, " First Epistle to the Corinthians,"
§40.

in the; ante-nicene period. 215

existence at that time of prescribed seasons of wor-
ship, and asserts their appointment by the Saviour
himself. Here is a witness to this important link
in the argument who was contemporaneous with
the apostle John. In the reference to "offerings"
we recall the direction of Paul to make benevo-
lent collections on the first day of the week. The
passage is a testimony to well-known existing in-
stitutions, fully in harmony with all we have dis-
covered of the uses of that day.

Ignatius, a disciple of John, who wrote about
A. D. 100, is the next author to be quoted. In a
contrast between Judaism and Christianity, after
making the claim that the holy prophets were
Christian in spirit, he goes on to say: "If those
who were concerned with old things have come
to newness of hope, no longer keeping Sabbaths,
but living according to the Lord's day, on which
our life has risen again through him and his
death, .... how can we live without him whom
the prophets waited for as their Teacher, being in
spirit his disciples ? And therefore did he, when
he came whom they justly waited for, raise them
from the dead. ' ' * There may be here a suggestion

* " Ignatius, " Ad Magnesios," \ 9. The reading of the
edition of Cotelerius is followed in the above translation. See
also the notes in Jacobson's edition. The passage is obscure
and the text doubtless corrupt, but the trend of meaning is
not indistinct. The argument can do without it, if necessary.

2l6 THE ABIDING SAEBATH.

that amonsf the dead who arose at the crucifixion
of Jesus were the holy prophets, and that, having
thus risen again, they kept Lord's day with him,
and that consequently even the Old Testament
saints are uno longer keeping Sabbaths." But
we have nothing to do with the Scripture inter-
pretations of our author. It is sufficient to note
that he refers to the Jewish Sabbath as something
annulled and abolished, that he indicates the first
day of the week as its successor, and follows the
example of his teacher, John, in calling it the
" Lord's day." It is a striking fact that in the
forgery known to scholars as the c ' larger epistle ' '
of Ignatius, which is simply an expansion of this
genuine writing, this passage is understood as re-
ferring to the Lord's day, but it is so modified as
to enjoin continued observance also of the Jewish
Sabbath; a witness to the fact that will hereafter
be referred to, that a later period of the primitive
church disclosed a tendency to react towards Ju-
daism, and that old documents were falsified and
others forged to fortify the growing ritualistic
movement.

Here may be introduced a quotation from the
so-called Epistle of Barnabas, which must be dated
in the beginning of the second century at least, if
indeed it be not a genuine writing of the compan-
ion of Paul. It is as follows: " Lastly, He says

IN THE AXTE-NICENE PERIOD. 217

to them, Your new moons and Sabbaths I cannot
bear with. Consider what He says: Your present
Sabbaths are not acceptable to me; but those
which I have made when, resting from all things,
I shall make the eighth day a beginning, which
is the beginning of another world. Therefore we
keep the eighth day with joy, on which Jesus also
arose from the dead, and having appeared, he as-
cended into heaven. ' ' * The cessation of the Jew-
ish Sabbath, the substitution of the Lord's day,
and the reason of the change, are all confirmed by
this passage.

A further testimony, this time from a pagan
source, is found in the well-known letter of Pliny
to Trajan, A. D. 100, in which he is representing
the case of the new "superstition," as he calls
Christianity, to the emperor. He says: "They
(the Christians) constantly declare the whole of
their crime or error to be this, that they are accus-
tomed to meet together on a stated day before it
is lieht and sing a hymn to Christ as God."|

CD O J

* "Epistle of Barnabas," \ 15. The external evidence of
the authorship of this writing would be convincing but for the
discredit which its internal character casts upon it, its seem-
ing ignorance of some facts in Jewish life and history making
it doubtful if it be the writing of a Hebrew by birth. There
is a very close relationship between this writing and the
" Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." No critical basis has
yet been laid on which the priority of either can be estab-
lished, f Pliny, " Epistles," X. 97.

2l8 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

As we enter the second century there is no
lack of proofs of the existence of the Lord's day
as an established institution, as well as of the dis-
use into which the Jewish Sabbath had fallen.

Justin Martyr, the great apologist of the prim-
itive church, A. D. 138, makes abundant refer-
ences to the custom. He writes thus: "On the
day called Sunday there is a gathering in one
place of all who reside either in the cities or in
country-places, and the memoirs of the apostles
and the writings of the prophets are read."* He
goes on to give a detailed account of the services
of the day. A discourse was delivered based on
the passages of Scripture read, prayers were of-
fered, the ^Lord's Supper was administered, and a
collection was taken up. The likeness of this
account to the New Testament suggestions of the
uses of the ' ' first day of the week ' ' is unmistaka-
ble. The " breaking of bread" and the "laying
by in store" of the "collections for the saints"
are clearly confirmed. He goes on to state the
reason for observing this day: "On Sunday we
all assemble in common because it is the 'first
day,' on which God, having dispelled darkness
and disorder, made the world, and because on the
same day Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the
dead."f In another place he uses circumcision

* Justin Martyr, " Apology," I. 67. t Ibid.

IN THE ANTE-XICENE PERIOD. 219

as a type of the Lord's day: "The command to
circumcise children on the eighth day was a type
of the real circumcision by which we are circum-
cised from error and sin through our Lord Jesus
Christ, who rose from the dead on the first day of
the week ; therefore it remains the chief and first
of all the days."* It should be remarked that
Justin is writing for the conviction of heathen,
and therefore does not speak of the u Lord's day,"
but calls it by its heathen name " Sunday." His
evidence is conclusive as to the distinction given
to the first day of the week and to its universal
pious observance by the Christians of his time.

About A. D. 170, Melito, bishop of Sardis,
wrote a work on the "Lord's Day;"t and about
the same date Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, in a
letter written to the church at Rome and ad-
dressed to Soter, its bishop, uses this language :
"To-day we have spent the Lord's holy day, and
in it we have read your epistle. "J

The recently discovered "Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles," if genuine, as is maintained
by many eminent and careful scholars, must be
given a place early in this century. This church
hand-book enjoins: "And on the Lord's day being

* " Dialogue with Trypho," \ 41.

f Eusebius, " Ecclesiastical History," IV. 26.

\ Ibid., IV. 23.

220 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

gathered together, break bread and give thanks,
having also confessed your sins, that your sacri-
fice may be pure."* The peculiarly intensive
phrase rendered "Lord's day" here is, literally,
"The Lord's day of the Lord," as if to empha-
sise its sacredness and obligation. There is not
in the whole document any reference whatever to
the seventh-day Sabbath, and when it is remem-
bered that this is a manual of directions as to re-
ligious observance, the omission is significant, f
The Jewish Sabbath is not even mentioned as a
fast, though it was certainly observed as such at
a later time. The direction with regard to fast-
ing is: "And let not your fasting be with the
hypocrites, for they fast on the second of the week
and the fifth; but do ye fast on the fourth and on
the Preparation. "J The Preparation day referred
to is the sixth of the week, Friday. Now that the
fast days were each set forward in the week from
the days customarily observed by the Jews is cer-
tainly suggestive — when taken in connection with
the injunction respecting the Lord's day and the

* "Teaching," c. 14.

f The silence of the " Teaching " on the seventh-day Sab-
bath is in marked contrast with the forged " Apostolical Con-
stitutions," which bear traces of having been built up by a later
ritualistic age partly on the basis of this apparently much
more ancient document.

t " Teaching," c. 18.

IN THE ANTE-NICENE PERIOD. 221

silence on the subject of the Jewish Sabbath — of
the fact that the former was already regarded as
superseding the latter, and that the change in
fast days followed in consequence. *

Irenseus, the famous bishop of Lyons, A. D.
178, is another witness. For a full understand-
ing of one fragment preserved of this Father, it
must be stated that the Lord's day was so fully
regarded as a day of joy by the first Christians
that many of them went to the extent of asserting
that prayer on that day should always be offered
in a standing position, as kneeling was the pos-
ture of humiliation. In the fragment referred to,
he says concerning Pentecost that "on it we do
not bend the knees, since it is equal in authority
with the Lord's day, according to the word spo-
ken as to its reason, "f Observe that the strong-
est thing he can say for Pentecost is to claim for
it equal authority with the Lord's day, which

* This view of the case is confirmed by the further fact
that when Saturday came a little later to be observed as a
fast it was regarded simply as a continuation of the Friday
fast in preparation for the Lord's day, " in order," says Victo-
rinus, " that we may come to our food on the Lord's day with
giving of thanks." And he continues, " Let the preparation
be superimposed (upon the seventh day), that we may not
seem to observe the Sabbath with the Jews." Routh, " Rel.
Sac," III. 457. As to this superposition, so also the Council
of Eliberis, "Canon XXVI."

f " Fragm. lib. de Pascha," etc.

222 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

seems, therefore, to be unquestioned. Also, in the
famous Kaster controversy which disturbed the
church during this century, the Gallic churches,
under the leadership of Irenaeus, sent a memorial
to Victor, bishop of Rome, in which it is remarked
that "on the Lord's day only should the mystery
of the resurrection of the Lord be observed."*
The point in question was this: Shall Kaster be
celebrated at the time of the Jewish Passover, on
whatever day of the week that may fall, or on
the Christian Lord's day? Let it be noticed that
although there was much dispute as to the proper
time of annual celebration of the resurrection,
there was never any difference of opinion as to
the proper weekly observance. Irenaeus, in an-
other place, argues that the Decalogue is still
binding upon all men, for the reason that God
spoke its commandments by his own voice; while
the other ordinances of the law are not thus ob-
ligatory, because they were given separately by
the mouth of Moses; the latter, he declares, are
"cancelled by the new covenant of liberty. "f It
may be remarked here, once for all, that nothing
in the whole range of early Christian testimony
can be found to sustain the opinion that the Fa-
thers thought themselves free from the obliga-

* Eusebius, " Ecclesiastical History," V. 24.
f Irenaeus, " Adv. Haereses, IV. 31.

IN THE ANTE-NICENE PERIOD. 223

tions of the Decalogue, any more than from the
moral spirit of the Old Testament generally.
The whole weight of their authority is exactly
the other way. Bvery one of the Ten Command-
ments was held as morally obligatory by the
primitive Christian church.

Clement of Alexandria, A. D. 194, in a mys-
tical exposition of the Fourth Commandment, in
the midst of fanciful speculations on the religious
signification of numbers, comes down long enough
from the loftier flights of his spiritual arithmetic
to tell us that the seventh day of the law has
given place to the eighth day of the gospel,
which has thus become a true seventh, or Sab-
bath. The old seventh has become nothing
more than a common working day.* Nobody,
of course, can tell what far-fetched and unheard-
of meanings may lie underneath the words of the
good semi-Gnostic Father; but as far as his testi-
mony goes, it helps to establish the fact that the
first day of the week filled the same place in the
minds of the church of that time that the seventh
day had occupied in the Jewish system. Clement
also gives directions for the observance of the
Lord's day, which he mentions by name.f

This century will be concluded with the
mention of that most brilliant and erratic of all
* Clemens Alex., "Stromata," VI. 16. f Ibid., VII. 12.

Abi iin„- Sall>ath. » -

224 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

the ante-Nicene Christian writers, Tertullian of
Carthage. Here are some extracts from his wri-
tings: " Sundays we give to joy." "We think
it wrong to fast, or pray kneeling, on the Lord's
day."* Speaking of this custom of standing in
prayer on Sunday, he remarks: "We, as we have
received it, ought not so much by this custom
alone to observe the day of the Lord's resurrec-
tion, but ought also to be free from every hin-
drance of anxiety and duty, laying aside our
worldly business, lest we give place to the dev-
il, "f So prominent a feature of the Christianity
of that age was Sunday observance that Tertul-
lian thought it necessary to defend the Christians
from the charge of sun-worship: "Likewise, if
we spend Sunday in rejoicing, it is from a differ-
ent reason than sun-worship; we are also distinct
from those who spend Saturday in idleness and
feasting, leaving the ancient Jewish custom of
which they are ignorant."!

This vehement writer fitly closes this list of
evidences of the honored place filled by the
Lord's day in the first two centuries of the Chris-
tian church. Let us review the testimony thus
far given. In order to appreciate its proper
value, it should be observed that the post-apos-

* Tertullian, " De Cor. Mil.," c. 3. t " De Orat.," c. 23.
t " Apologia," c. 16.

IN THE ANTE-NICENE PERIOD. 225

tolic writers give no hint of the origin of the
lord's day in their times, but speak of it as some-
thing already in existence, indeed as an apostolic
institution. To them it came with all the sanc-
tion of primitive Christian usage, with the full
consecration of the Master himself. Although,
for reasons given already, they nowhere call it a
Sabbath, yet they speak of it in such connections
with the Jewish Sabbath and with the Fourth
Commandment as to fully invest it with Sabbatic
obligation. They give also such an account of
its reasons and its uses as to set it upon the foun-
dations of the ancient Sabbatic institution. With
many of their opinions we, in this age, are forced
to disagree ; some of their doctrines must be
looked upon, in our present light, as in the high-
est degree fanciful and absurd ; but as witnesses
to facts, their credibility is unshaken and their
authority is sufficient. The undivided support of
that authority is on the side of the Lord's day.

Origen, the great Alexandrian theologian and
commentator, who lived in the beginning of the
third century, writes that the Lord's day is placed
above the Jewish Sabbath.* uTo keep the
Lord's day" is, in his opinion, "one of the
marks of the perfect Christian, "f He is the first

* Origen, " Commentary on Exodus."
f " Against Celsus," VIII. 22.

226 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

to apply the term " Jewish Sabbath" to the sev-
enth day. He also speaks of the "Christian Sab-
bath," although it cannot be positively ascer-
tained from the connection whether he refers to
the Lord's day, or only to the gospel dispensation
generally. He states in the most absolute man-
ner, in this connection, that the obligation of the
Judaic institution had totally passed away.*

In the year 254, sixty-six bishops, composing
the Third Council of Carthage issued a synodical
letter, in which, after the manner of their time,
they spiritualise the rite of circumcision and
make it a type of the Lord's day. " For because
the eighth day was celebrated by Jewish carnal
circumcision, it is a pledge given beforehand in
shadow and figure, but which, Christ having
come, is fulfilled in reality. For because the
eighth day, that is the first after the Sabbath, was
to be the day on which the Lord would rise, this
eighth day, being the first after the Sabbath, and
the Lord's day, was foreshadowed by the figure,
which figure has ceased since the reality has ap-
peared and the spiritual circumcision has been
given us."f

Next may be cited Commodian, A. D. 270,
who speaks of the Lord's day. Victorinus, the

* " Homily " 23, on Numbers,
f Cyprian, " Epist." LIX. .

IN THE ANTE-NICENE PERIOD. 227

martyr, A. D. 290, whom we have already quo-
ted (p. 221, note), sees a reference to the Lord's
day in the heading of the sixth and twelfth
Psalms. * To the same time belongs Peter, bish-
op of Alexandria, who writes: "We cannot be
charged with neglecting the fourth day and the
Preparation, which have been fitly appointed for
us as fasts by tradition: the fourth, because of the
plot formed by the Jews for the betrayal of the
Lord, and the Preparation, on account of his suf-
fering for us. But we keep with joy the Lord's
day, because of him who rose thereon, and on it
we ought not to bend the knee."f If the seventh
day had been at all observed at this time, it would
certainly have received some mention in such a
catalogue of sacred seasons as the above. But
the fact that the fourth and sixth days, in com-
memoration of events in gospel history, were sub-
stituted as fasts for the second and fifth of Juda-
ism, which were supposed to commemorate Mo-
ses' ascent and descent of the mount, seems to be
placed in direct relation to the greater fact, and
to follow from it, that a like change had already
come to the Sabbatic institution.

This brings us to the end of the third century.
Our witnesses form an unbroken chain of support

* Routh, " Rel. Sac," III. 457-
t " Bibl. Patr." (Galland), IV. 107.

228 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

to the practice of Lord's-day observance. With
the beginning of the next century a great revolu-
tion took place, which marks a new era in the
life of this institution. The Emperor Constantine
was converted, and Christianity became, practi-
cally, the religion of the empire. It was now
possible to enforce the Christian Sabbath and
make its observance universal. In the year 321,
consequently, was issued the famous edict of Con-
stantine commanding abstinence from servile la-
bor on Sunday. The following is the full text:

THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE TO HELPIDIUS.

On the venerable day of the sun, let the mag-
istrates and people living in towns rest, and let
all workshops be closed. Nevertheless, in the
country, those engaged in the cultivation of land
may freely and lawfully work, because it often
happens that another day is not so well fitted for
sowing grain and planting vines; lest by neglect
of the best time, the bounty provided by heaven
should be lost. Given the seventh day of March,
Crispus and Constantine being consuls, both for
the second time. *

To fully understand the provisions of this
legislation, the peculiar position of Constantine
must be taken into consideration. He was not
* " Cod. Justin.," III. 12,3.

IN THE ANTE-NICENE PERIOD. 229

himself free from all remains of heathen supersti-
tion.* It seems certain that before his conver-
sion he had been particularly devoted to the
worship of Apollo, the sun-god. f He ruled over
an empire composed of Christians and pagansj
in perhaps nearly equal numbers, the former
dwelling in the cities, and the latter occupying
the rural districts. The problem before him was
to legislate for the new faith in such a manner as
not to seem entirely inconsistent with his old
practices, and not to come in conflict with the
prejudices of his pagan subjects. These facts
serve to explain the peculiarities of this decree.
He names the holy day not the Lord's day, but the
"day of the sun," the heathen designation, and
thus at once seems to identify it with his former
Apollo- worship; he excepts the country from the
operation of the law, and thus avoids collision
with his heathen subjects. The emperor may
have supposed that he was furnishing an easy
transition from heathenism to Christianity, espe-
cially to the Platonists of his time, by substi-
tuting Christ for Apollo, the revealer, under
their system, of the supreme God. The identity

* Gibbon's " Decline and Fall," chap. 20.

f See Gieseler's " Ecclesiastical History." Upon his coins
Constantine had impressed both the figure of Apollo and the
name of Christ !

X The word pagan means " rural."

23O THE ABIDING SABBATH.

of the day of the sun and the Lord's day favored
such a plan.* It would be easy to criticise the
motives of Constantine, but before too severe
judgment is pronounced upon him, he deserves
that a fair representation should be made both of
his own prepossessions and of the special difficul-
ties he had to encounter. That this edict shows
the traces of a temporising policy does not dimin-
ish its value as a proof of the position occupied
by the Lord's day at the close of this period, and
its practical succession to the venerable character
of the Sabbath of the law.

In this period flourished Eusebius, the bishop
of Caesarea, well known as the first historian of
the church. He states that Constantine ap-
pointed for prayer "the first and chief of days,
which is truly the Lord's day and the day of sal-
vation, "f This sheds light on the way in which
Christians regarded the decree of the emperor.
In an elaborate eulogy of Constantine, he praises

* The attempt of some advocates of the Saturday-Sab-
bath to derive the sacred use of Sunday from a weekly hea-
then festival in honor of the sun is utterly unfair, for the very
sufficient reason that no such weekly festivals were ever in
existence. It would be quite as fair to connect the Jewish
Sabbath with Apollo for the reason that the number " seven "
was sacred to that deity, his feasts coming on the seventh of
each month ; or to identify the observance of Saturday with
the Roman Saturnalia.

f Eusebius, " Life of Constantine," IV. 18.

in the: ante-nicene period. 231

him for commanding that all dwellers, whether
on land or sea, should meet every week and keep
the Lord's day as a festival, for the rest of the
body and the nurture of the soul."* Kusebius
was also a strong defender of the Lord's day as
against the claims of the Jewish Sabbath, which
about this time were urged by the Ebionites. He
thus writes: "By the new covenant, the word
carried forward and transferred the festival of the
Sabbath to the morning light, and gave, as a
symbol of true rest, the Saviour and Lord's day
and first day of light on which the Saviour of the
world, after all his deeds among men, obtained
victory over death, "f After much of the same
sort, he goes on to remark, with regard to the old
Sabbath worship, that "these things we have
transferred to the Lord's day, as being more lord-
ly and chief in itself, and first, and worthier than
the Jewish Sabbath: for on this day at the crea-
tion God said, ' Let there be light,' and there was
light; and on this day on our souls the Sun of
Righteousness has arisen." He also says that in
keeping the Lord's day holy, "we keep the festi-
val of the Sabbath holily and spiritually, "t He
accords with the general view of the early church
that the Lord's day has superseded the Jewish Sab-

* " Eulogy of Constantine," c. 17.

f " Comment on Psalm 91." t Ibid.

232 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

bath, but that it must not be confounded with that
institution, being in every way a higher and no-
bler Sabbath. When we remember that Busebius
was doubtless the most faithful student in his time
of the Christian ages before him, his testimony
becomes of the highest value in settling the posi-
tion of the Lord's day among primitive Christians.
To this time belongs the great theologian and
defender of orthodoxy, Athanasius, the eloquent
bishop of Alexandria, the splendor of whose genius
has compelled the admiration alike of friend and
foe. To him is usually ascribed a writing entitled
- ( Concerning Sabbath and Circumcision. ' ' In this
work he supports the doctrine that the primal
Sabbath, the end of the creation of the world, has
passed away, and the Lord's day, which begins a
new spiritual creation, has taken its place. He
brings out also the spiritual meaning of the first
Sabbath. Quoting John 5:17, " My Father work-
eth hitherto," he argues that the divine rest is
not mere passive repose, for "God is continually
carrying on the work of renewal." "The Sab-
bath," he says, "was made to give knowledge
of the Creator."* He thus interprets Psa. 118:24:
"'This is the day wThich the Lord hath made.'
And what can this day be but that of the Lord's
resurrection? What can it be but the day of
* Athanasius, " De Sabbatis," passim.

IN THE ANTE-NICENE PERIOD. 233

salvation to all nations, on which the stone which
the builders rejected is become the head of the
corner? The text signifies the resurrection day
of our Saviour, which from him has been named
the Lord's day. " * In another writing he bitterly
denounces his Arian opponents for their violation
of the Lord's day, and the cruelties they practised
thereon, t A still more remarkable expression is
found in a work! very doubtfully ascribed to
Athanasius, but which probably dates from this
period : ' ' The Lord has transferred the day of the
Sabbath to the Lord's day."

In no better way can the testimonies of this
primitive period of the Christian church be closed
than by reference to the great Council of Nicsea,
A. D. 325, which gave the final expression to
the early Catholic faith in that wonderful creed
which, the last spoken confession of the universal
church before her unhappy sectarian divisions,
is still our sublimest theological symbol of faith.
This council does not enact the Lord's day; for
that there was no necessity, as it already existed.
Neither did the council command its observance,
for the good reason that all Christians were agreed
on that point, and the decree of the emperor was
sufficient for all legal purposes. What the coun-

* "Comment on Psalm 118."

t " Encyclical Letter." % " De Semente."

234 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

cil did do was to secure uniformity of worship
on the Lord's day. The following canon was
enacted: " Since some are in the habit of kneel-
ing on the Lord's day and Pentecost, in order to
better observance of all things in every commu-
nity, it is fitting that, standing in the sacred
assembly, thanks be given to God."* That the
sole mention of the Lord's day by this council is
a simple matter of detail such as this, furnishes
the most powerful proof of the universality of
Lord's-day observance in the church of that
period. The argument from silence is in this case
conclusive.

Nor does this consideration exhaust the force
of the argument from silence. The striking fact
that no enactment of the Lord's day can be found
among the decrees of any council of the church,
oecumenical or provincial, forces us to look to a
higher source for its authority. We must assign
it to the apostolic age and invest it with apostolic
authority. If such is its origin, the state of facts
disclosed by the history can easily be compre-
hended; in any other case the absence of authori-
zation by ecclesiastical legislation is inexplicable.
This argument may be thus stated: the Lord's day
was established either by apostolic, or by eclesias-
tical authority. For the former supposition, we

* Nicene Council, " Canon XX."

IN THE ANTE-NICENE PERIOD. 235

have the statements in the epistles abrogating the
Jewish Sabbath, yet affirming the Decalogue, the
use made of the first day of the week, and pa-
tristic testimony referring the custom back to
apostolic times. For the latter supposition there
is not a shred of evidence, but deep, unbroken
silence. The weight of this dilemma is crushing
against both the anti-Sabbatarians and the advo-
cates of the seventh-day Sabbath. If they deny
the apostolic authority of the Lord's-day Sab-
bath, let them account for its origin. Until they
can do this, they must be denied a hearing in the
tribunal of church history. By the absence of
any hint of its later institution by ecclesiastical
decree, the Lord's day is shown to be of equal
antiquity with the church itself.

To the candid mind, the above citations of
authority can lead to no other conclusion than
that the Lord's day was religiously observed by
the church of the first three centuries, that it was
held by them to be of divine authority, and that
it had fully superseded the Jewish Sabbath.
Those ages of apostolic purity of doctrine and
practice have given no uncertain sound in defence
of the abiding Sabbath which is embodied in the
Lord's day.

236 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

CHAPTER VI.

HISTORY OF THE LORD'S DAY IN THE FOURTH
AND FIFTH CENTURIES.

" The Lord's day is the figure of the day never to be fin-
ished, which has no evening and no to-morrow, the life which
shall never cease and never grow old." basil the great.

The centuries following the Nicene Council
by no means preserved the purity of doctrine and
practice of the infant church. Christianity be-
coming a State religion, the contact with worldly
power corrupted the spiritual fountains of the re-
ligious consciousness and life. The polity which
made the church, an arm of the temporal power
was not truly Christian, but Jewish. It was an
attempt to realize the false Messianic dream of
Israel in an external dominion. The corruptions
which crept into the church, culminating in the
spiritual empire of the Papacy, which is at once
the most remarkable fact and the deepest shadow
of the world's history, all took the shape of a
rank growth of legalism and ritualism in luxuri-
ant variety of forms. The multiplication of fasts
and festivals was among the very first results of
the new polity. To justify these new holidays,
Scripture must be resorted to for arguments, and

IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES. 237

the Jewish feast-days furnished a ready store of
precedents. It is not surprising that the Sabbath
of the law, in some quarters, came in for a share
of reverence, and we can note, in some places, a
transient revival of its observance in the fourth
and fifth centuries.*

Notwithstanding this, the sum of testimonies
of the great writers of this period is for the sanc-
tity of the Lord's day, to which they ascribe the
moral authority of the legal Sabbath, which they
declare annulled. To give all references to the
Sabbath and Lord's day which these years afford
would consume too much space. Only the most

* The attempt is sometimes made to state the case pre-
cisely opposite, claiming that disregard of the seventh day
grew up in the fourth century. This complete perversion of
the fact is accomplished by placing the forged so-called "Apos-
tolical Constitutions " about two hundred years earlier than
they were written. Indeed, it is a fair rule of criticism to
place any Christian writing which recognizes any obligation
to observe the Saturday-Sabbath at least as late as the third
century for that very reason. Thus the " Apostolical Con-
stitutions " appear to be a later expansion of germs found in
the " Teaching of the Twelve Apostles " and elsewhere. And
the larger Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians is in like
manner an enlargement, by some Oriental ritualist, of the gen-
uine document. Reference is here made to these facts and
principles for the reason that lately there has been consider-
able literary activity among the advocates of the Saturday-
Sabbath on this very point. The attempt to model American
Christianity after the pattern of the Abyssinian Church will
hardly be successful.

238 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

important, therefore, will be cited. The evi-
dence of this period consists of three kinds : im-
perial edicts, the decrees of provincial councils,
and passages from ecclesiastical writers.

The Emperor Constantine enacted additional
laws for Sunday observance, prohibiting military
exercises and all judicial proceedings, excepting
the manumission of slaves. *

Theodosius the Great, A. D. 386, extended
the prohibitions of labor to the rural districts, for-
bidding all transaction of business and public
amusements, f

Leo, A. D. 469, added a decree, which com-
manded with great detail :

" The Lord's day we decree to be always hon-
ored and revered. On it let there be exemption
from executions; no summons shall be served on
any one; let no exaction of security for debts be
required; let court attendants be silent; let the
advocate rest from his pleadings; let that day be
a stranger to lawsuits; let the court-criers' voices
be stilled; let litigants have repose from con-
troversy and time of truce; let adversaries have
a chance to meet each other without fear. Nor,
in any way, on this religious day can we relax
the law of rest, or permit any one to engage in

* Eusebius, " De Vita Constantini," IV. 18, 20.
f Coda Theodos., XI. 7, 13 ; XV. 5, 2.

IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES. 239

indecent pleasures. Nothing can excuse on the
same day theatrical representations, the circus, or
the pitiful spectacle of wild beasts; and the cele-
bration of our birthday, if it should happen to fall
on that day, must be deferred. If any one shall
be present at any such spectacle on this feast-day,
or dares to despise the requirements of this law,
on pretence of public or private business, his pat-
rimony shall be confiscated."*

Besides these, the Theodosian and Justinian
Codes abound in enactments regulating the ob-
servance of the Lord's day and other holidays, f
This testimony of public records is the highest
type of evidence.

Several provincial councils of the church dur-
ing this period mention the Lord's day. That of
Sardica, A. D. 350, enforces the duty of worship
on the Lord's day, and threatens excommunica-
tion to any resident of a town who shall be absent
for three Lord's days together from the church. J
The Council of Gangra, A. D. 365, says, u If any
one fast on the Lord's day, let him be anathe-
ma. "§ At Laodicsea, A. D. 363, it was decreed :
" Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on the

* "Cod. Justin.," HI. 12, 11.

t " Cod. Theodos," II. 8, 1 ; VIII. 8, 1 ; XV. 5, 5.

X Cone. Sardica, " Canon XI."

\ Cone. Gangra, " Canon XVIII."

Abiding Sabbath. l6

240 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

Sabbath, but shall work on that day; but the
Iyord's day they shall especially honor, and shall,
as being Christians, so far as may be, do no work
on that day. If they be found Judaizing, let
them be anathema from Christ. ' ' * Here is a dis-
tinct condemnation of the Judauing tendencies
which were growing up at this time, largely
manifested in giving an honor to the seventh day
which it surely had not received in the earlier
years of the church. The Council of Antioch, A.
D. 340, the Frst Council of Toledo, and the Fourth
Council of Carthage, all passed canons bearing on
the religious observance of the day.

To this period probably belongs the remarka-
ble forgery which assumes the name of "Apostol-
ical Constitutions.'" Although falsely attributed
to Clement of Rome, and pretending to derive its
rules from the mouth of the holy apostles them-
selves, no trace of its existence can be found ear-
lier than the latter part of the fourth century,
when Epiphanius refers to a work by that title
which he acknowledges is held by many to be of
doubtful authority. It is even uncertain whether
he is referring to this writing at all. Such is the
scanty authority of this much-quoted composition,

* Cone. Laodic, " Canon XXIX." In this Canon the
phrase, " so far as possible," is probably to be explained by
the fact that many Christians were not masters of their own
time. It is, besides, a permission of " works of necessity."

IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES. 241

the citadel of those who to-day advocate the Sat-
urday-Sabbath. (For further discussion of its
authenticity, see Appendix C.)

Yet this work testifies to the growing rever-
ence for the Lord's day, everywhere joining it
with the Jewish Sabbath as obligatory on Chris-
tians. Here are some of the regulations which it
prescribes for the church: " He is guilty of sin
who fasts on the Lord's day or Pentecost."*
"Keep as festivals the Sabbath and the Lord's
day."f "Every Sabbath, except the first, and
every Lord's day, gather in your assemblies and
rejoice. "J The first Sabbath excepted by this
rule was the Saturday following Good Friday in
Passion week. ( ' I Peter and I Paul give com-
mand : Let your servants work five days, but on
Sabbath and Lord's day let them be at rest and
at church for instruction in religion. "§ "Espe-
cially on the day of the Sabbath and on the Lord's
day, on which the Lord arose, most zealously as-
semble. "||

These passages indicate both the respect given
to the first day and the extent to which the sev-
enth day, observed in the Western church as a fast
of preparation for the Lord's day, had gradually,

* "Apostolical Constitutions," V. 20.

f Ibid., VII. 23. t Ibid., V. 20. I Ibid., VIII. 33.

II Ibid, II. 59.

242 THK ABIDING SABBATH.

under the growing ritualistic feeling in the East-
ern church, where Jews abounded, begun to as-
sume its old position. The observance of both
days thus imposed on some of the Eastern church-
es has survived to this time in various localities,
especially in the Ethiopian church. This modern
seventh-day church is a witness to the essentially
Judaic character of this fifth century movement.
Circumcision and other Jewish rites are still ob-
served among nominal Christians in the high-
lands of Ethiopia. * There are traces of the same
tendency among the Nestorians of Asia Minor.
Yet these churches are sometimes quoted as hav-
ing longest preserved the pure apostolic tradition
with regard to the Sabbath. From such purity
of doctrine and practice may the church be gra-
ciously preserved ! It should be remarked that
the essentially unapostolic character of the " Apos-
tolical Constitutions" is fully established by the
fact that they fill well nigh half the year with
feast days. The evidence shows that the one
Christian festival was gradually being obscured
by multiplied holidays. That these " Constitu-
tions" had most influence in the East, and were
never received by the Western church, was not
because of any lack of ritualistic tendency in the

* Harris* "Highlands of Ethiopia," Vol. III. pp. 150, 151.
See also Dr. A. Grant's " Nestorians."

IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES. 243

latter. It seems very possible that two rest-days
in a week, so grateful to the Oriental character,
could not be imposed on the more energetic na-
tions of the West.

While we see some traces of a Judaic revival
at this time, yet the general weight of the eccle-
siastical writers of this period is on the side of the
superior claims of the Lord's day and its superses-
sion to the Sabbath of the law.

Hilary, bishop of Poictiers, who lived about
A. D. 350, says in an exposition of the ninety-
second Psalm : ( ' While the name and observance
of the Sabbath may have been placed on the sev-
enth day, nevertheless we on the eighth day,
wThich is indeed the first, enjoy the blessedness of
a perfect Sabbath."* The truly Sabbatic char-
acter of the Lord's day could hardly be more
strongly expressed.

Ambrose of Milan, A. D. 370, testifies: "For
as soon as the Lord's day began to excel, the Sab-
bath, which had been first, began to be considered
second from the first, for the first rest failed, but
the second succeeded. ' ' f He also says, c ' On the
seventh day we go to the sepulchre, which is a
symbol of the rest on the coming day."! In the

* Hilary, " On Psalm 92."

f Ambrose of Milan, " On Psalm 47."

% " De Fid. Res.," II. 2.

244 TH£ ABIDING SABBATH.

latter passage there is probable reference to trie
not uncommon Saturday fast in preparation for
Sunday.

Augustine, tlie learned and eloquent bishop of
Hippo, is undoubtedly the greatest figure of this
age. His life covers the last years of the fourth
and the earlier years of the fifth, century. Speak-
ing of fasting on the Jewish Sabbath, he says :
* ' The reason of this is easy to find, for the Roman
Church fasts on the Sabbath day, as also a few oth-
ers here and there; but to fast on the lord's day is
a great scandal. ' ' * In another place he claims that
" the Lord's day was declared not to Jews, but to
Christians, by the resurrection of the Lord, and
from that time its festivities began to be held."f
He thus dates the institution of the Lord's day
back to apostolic times and to the very date of
the resurrection of the Lord. There is a sermonj
usually published in the works of St. Augustine
and ascribed to him, but with considerable doubt,
in which occurs this passage: "And so far have
the holy doctors of the church decreed that all the
glory of the Jewish Sabbath should be transferred
to the Lord's day, that what they observed in fig-
ure we celebrate in reality. Resting from all
agricultural labor and all business, we engage in

* Augustine, " Epistle 36, Ad Casulanum."

f " Epistle 55." % " De Tempore."

IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES. 245

divine worship alone. " Even if this sermon is
not properly ascribed to the great Latin Father,
it is still a testimony of considerable antiquity to
the fact that the Lord's day was regarded as a
Christian Sabbath.

Next may be quoted Jerome, A. D. 390, the
first Hebrew scholar of the church of his age and
the leader in all subsequent Christian scholar-
ship. In an account of the monastic institutions
of Egypt he gives this account of their employ-
ment of the Lord's day: "On the Lord's day they
occupy themselves in prayer and reading only.'*
"On the Lord's day only they went to church,
from which they dwelt at a distance. ' ' * Positive
proof is thus furnished that whatever observance
of the seventh day may have existed at this time,
the Lord's day was considered in every way most
worthy of respect, and when widely-scattered wor-
shippers could not meet more frequently, was the
sole day appointed for public worship. Jerome,
in a comment on the one hundred and eighteenth
Psalm, writes : " * This is the day that the Lord
hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. ' The
Lord, indeed, hath made all days, but other days
may be for Jews or heretics or heathen. The
Lord's day, the day of resurrection, the Chris-
tians' day, is our day, because on it the Lord, a
* Jerome, " Epistles 22 and 108." ..

246 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

victor, ascended to the Father. If heathen call
it the day of the sun, we most willingly confess
it, for on this day light dawned on the world, and
on this day the Sun of Righteousness arose."*

Chrysostom, the ' ' Golden-mouthed, ' ' so called
from his brilliant rhetorical gifts, lived about A. D.
398. In a comment oh the appointment of the
first Sabbath, he says: u Hence in these first things
God has enigmatically offered us a lesson, teach-
ing that the first day in the cycle of the week is
placed above all the rest and set apart for the work
of the Spirit, "f It is especially to be noted that
this author thus connects the Lord's day not with
the Jewish Sabbath, but with the primal Sabbath
of creation. Chrysostom also discoursed on the
passage in the First Epistle to the Corinthians
where Paul appoints the first day of the week for
collections, 1 Cor. 16 : 1, 2, and upon the sermon
of Paul at Troas on that day, Acts 20 : 7, using
these instances to enforce the obligation of the
Lord's day.J

Some of the above writers and others of the
same century, especially Gregory of Nyssa, men-
tion the observance of Saturday, but always in
connection with the Lord's day. Gregory, in-

* "Exposition of Psalm 118."

t Chrysostom, " Homily 10 on Genesis."

X See his homilies on the texts referred to.

IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES. 247

deed, calls them u twin-days," but Augustine,
Jerome, and indeed the greater number of the
post-Nicene Fathers, perfectly agree with all
ante-Nicene authority in rejecting the Jewish
Sabbath. The same remark will apply to the
authorities of the fifth century, which will not be
given in detail, as they would only be wearisome
repetitions of the words already quoted. Among
the witnesses that might be cited in this century
are Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus of Turin, and
Leo of Rome. With these agree Socrates, Sozo-
monen, and Theodoret, the ecclesiastical histori-
ans of the same age.

One passage only must suffice. It is an ex-
tract from a poem written by Ccelius Sedulius, a
presbyter who lived near the end of the fifth cen-
tury. He writes:

(< At last, after the sorrowful Sabbath, a happy
day began to shine, which has received from the
Lord, its Master, the crown of his high name, and
first deserved to see the new-born world and the
risen Christ. For while Genesis calls the seventh
day Sabbath, it is clear that this is the chief day
of the world to which the glory of the King has
now also given preeminence by the splendor of his
victory. ' ' *

As certainly as any historical fact can be es-

* C. Sedulius, " Hymn of the Resurrection," Book V.

248 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

tablished, it is proved that trie Christian church
before the sixth century honored the Lord's day
above the Jewish Sabbath, that they declared the
latter to be annulled and no longer binding, and
that its meaning had been fully transferred to the
former. A Christian Sabbath has come into ex-
istence, and to it henceforth attaches all the au-
thority and obligation of the eternal Sabbatic
law.

THE FIFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT. 249

CHAPTER VII.

HISTORY OF THE LORD'S DAY FROM THE FIFTH
CENTURY TO THE PRESENT.

« God therefore first rested, then blessed this rest, that in
all a-es it might be sacred among men; in other words, he
consecrated every seventh day to rest, that his own example
might be a perpetual rule." melanchthon.

HERE are a thousand years, the strangest and
most momentous years, perhaps, of all human
history, our midnight ignorance of which we
have embodied in an epithet— the " Dark Ages."
Upon the seething deluge of those forceful centu-
ries in which modern Europe was making, still
floated the ark of the Lord's day.

It is hardly necessary to give detailed testi-
monies from the writers of the. Middle Ages as to
the regard shown to the Lord's day. Rulers,
such as Leo the philosopher, Charlemagne, Al-
fred the Great, and many others, enacted laws
forbidding secular work on that day. Numerous
councils of the church confirmed and enforced. its
authority. Such writers as the venerable Bede,
Bernard, Alexander of Hales, Anselm, and Thom-
as Aquinas stated the opinion of their time in

250 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

favor of its observance, and declared it a custom
derived from the earliest days of the church.

So far from there being any relaxation of its
requirements, the danger seems to have been in
the direction of a Pharisaic strictness which was
foreign to its true spirit. Thus Tostatus, bishop
of Avila, who lived in the fourteenth century, de-
clares that food may be prepared on the L,ord's
day, but the dishes must not be washed until the
next day; nor may a cook who is only hired by
the day even prepare food ; to be permitted to do
so he must be hired by the month or year. It is
easy to see how fully accordant with the growing
spirit of Roman Christianity was the old Jewish
ceremonialism. This spirit manifested itself most
fully in the multiplication of festivals in burden-
some numbers. This went so far, indeed, that
even since the Reformation the catechism taught
for the last three hundred years in Italy, written
by order of Pope Clement VIII., by the celebra-
ted Bellarmine, gives as its version of the Fourth
Commandment, ' ' Remember to keep holy the
festivals." (" Ricordati di sanctificare le feste.")
It is evident that this must necessarily end in
levelling the L,ord's day to the grade of the other
inferior holidays, and, by insisting on the sanctity
of all, really destroying the sacredness of any.
That such has been the result is confirmed by the

THE FIFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT. 251

existing status of the Christian Sabbath all over
the continent of Europe.

Yet the real state of theological opinion dur-
ing these centuries is pretty fairly expressed by
the words of Alcuin, A. D. 796, who says that
"Christian custom has fitly transferred the ob-
servation of the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord's
day;"* and Petrus Alphonsus (12th century), who
writes that "the Lord's day, that is, the day of
resurrection, is the Sabbath of Christians ;"f and
Anselm, A. D. 1100, who says, "The vacation of
the Lord's day is the moral part of the Decalogue
in the time of grace, as the seventh day was in
the time of the law;" and "the observance of a
day indeterminately, that at some time we should
attend on God, is moral in nature and immutable,
but the observance of a determinate time is moral
by discipline, by the adding of divine institution.
When that time ought to be is not for man to
determine, but God."{ These three examples
fairly represent the position of the church of the
Middle Ages.

Upon this night of history, with its strange
and sometimes wildly beautiful dreams, the morn-
ing dawned at last. Heralded by spasmodic at-

* Quoted in Heylin, "History of the Sabbath."

f See Heylin, ibid.

% Quoted in Young's, "Dies Dominica," 46.

252 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

tempts at reformation of the church, at last the
son of a German miner, with words which were
"half battles," struck away the foundation of
divine right on which the claims of pontiff and
king were builded, and asserted a right of private
judgment, growing out of the personal relations
of every man to "God who justineth."

It is a matter for the deepest regret that the
reformers failed to perceive the true doctrine of
the Sabbath ; that they, for the most part, ignored
its moral obligation, and sustained its existence
largely on the grounds of expediency. Yet their
position is not entirely inexcusable. Primarily,
the Reformation was a reaction against the cere-
monialism of Rome, and by the very logic of
their situation they placed themselves in much
the same attitude towards the L,ord's day that the
apostles and the early church occupied towards
the Jewish Sabbath. It had become degraded to
a common level with multitudinous feast-days, and
it was hard for them to feel any more respect for
it than for the superstitious observances with
which it was accompanied. In clearing away
the rubbish, that they might build anew on its
primitive foundations the church of Christ, there
was great danger that valuable and even precious
stones should be cast aside. This is the apology
which Baxter makes for them :

THE FIFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT. 253

"For Calvin and Be^a, and the great divines
of the foreign churches, you must remember that
they came newly out of popery, and had seen the
Lord's day and a superabundance of other human
holidays imposed on the churches to be ceremoni-
ously observed, and they did not all of them so
clearly as they ought discern the difference be-
tween the Lord's day and those holidays, or
church festivals, and so did too promiscuously
conjoin them in their reproofs of the burdens im-
posed on the church . . . The devil hath been a
great undoer by overdoing. When he knew not
how else to cast out the holy observation of the
Lord's day with zealous people, he found out the
trick of devising so many days, called holy days,
to set up by it, that the people might perceive
that the observation of them all as holy was
never to be expected. ' ' *

The reformers are not always consistent with
themselves or with each other in their views on
the Lord's day. The fact is, they could not help
feeling something of the force of an institution of
so great antiquity and such strong divine sanc-
tions, and they could not do away with the abso-
lute necessity of a day for worship. Hence their
practical teachings are far better than their theo-
ries on the subject. Yet the Continental Sunday
* Baxter, " Divine Appointment of the Lord's Day," 127, 150.

254 TH£ ABIDING SABBATH.

of to-day is sufficient proof that reasons of expe-
diency and utility alone are not a sufficient basis
on which to found a Sabbath. The theories of
the reformers have left an evil legacy in practices
from which they themselves would have revolted.
Luther, in the often -quoted passage in the
" Table Talk," says almost savagely, " If any-
where the day is made holy for the mere day's
sake, if anywhere any one sets up its observance
on a Jewish foundation, then I order you to work
on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it,
to do anything that shall remove this encroach-
ment on Christian liberty. ' ' Perhaps this is none
too strong as directed against superstitious bond-
age to " times and seasons," but it is certainly so
stated as to lead away from any reverence for the
Sabbatic institution. Yet he expressly excepts
the Lord's day from the feasts which he wishes
abolished. "Let all feasts be abolished, and the
Lord's day only retained."* " Would that there
were no feast among Christians except the Lord's
Day!"t And this same Luther in his later days
explains his whole position with regard to the law
thus: "If at the outset I inveighed against the
law both from the pulpit and in my writings, the
reason was that the Christian church at the time

* " Address to the German Nobility."
f " De Bona Opera."

THE FIFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT. 255

was overladen with superstitions, under which
Christ was altogether buried and hidden, and that
I groaned to save and liberate pious and God-fear-
ing souls from this tyranny over the conscience.
But I have never rejected the law."* This pas-
sage is a perfect explanation of the seeming anti-
nomianism of the reformers.

The same remark will apply to Calvin. His
whole soul revolted against the superstitious holi-
days of Rome which had so multiplied that Beza
says "the third part of the year passed away in
idle festivals." Calvin says in his "Institutes:"
"Nor do I so value the septenary number as to
bind the church to its servitude, nor shall I con-
demn the churches which observe other days for
their meetings. ' ' He declares that there is noth-
ing moral in the Fourth Commandment. Never-
theless he could say at another time, "He who
setteth at naught the Sabbath day has cast under
foot all God's service as much as is in him ; and
if the Sabbath day be not observed, all the rest
shall be worth nothing. ' ' f The very comments in
the "Institutes" on the Fourth Commandment,
so often quoted to show his opposition to the Sab-
bath, affirm in many forms of speech the necessity
of such an institution and assert its apostolic ori-
gin. It is to be regretted, however, that the great
* Michelet, " Life of Luther." t " Sermon," Deut. 5.

Abiding Sabbath. I /

256 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

Swiss reformer should not by his fidelity have left
as deep a mark in favor of a holy Lord's day on
the Continent as did Knox in Scotland.

It is needless to quote from the Lutheran and
Reformed Confessions. They agree in their main <
ground: the Sabbath is abrogated, but for moral
discipline, for stated worship, and for the sake of
rest, the Lord's day, received from the earliest
days of the church, should be observed. The
language of the Helvetic Confession is in sub-
stance the language of all : " We do not believe
either that one day is sacred above another, or
that mere rest is in itself pleasing to God. We
keep a Lord's day, not a Sabbath day, by an un-
constrained observance."

That we believe the Reformation to have been
a great spiritual movement and a great advance
towards gospel truth, and that we believe the
leaders in that movement to have been good and
great men, does not and cannot give to their
words any authority on such a question as this
save such as they may derive from the Word of
God. We must remember that this was not the
only Commandment of the Ten in regard to which
they wTere careless, not to say erroneous, in their
views.* The evils of the antinomian teaching

* Without subscribing to Romish slanders, there is too
much truth in the charge of certain lawless tendencies among

THE FIFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT. 257

into which they were too frequently led in their
antagonism to salvation by works and their asser-
tion of the "right of private judgment" have not
wholly left Protestantism even at this late day.
It is easy to note in their language on this subject
a very different tone from that used by the Fathers
of the early church. It cannot fail to be seen that
they did not fully restore primitive purity of doc-
trine and practice. Not having the insight to
discover the true abiding Sabbath and bring it
forth to the world, together with the gospel truth
which they rescued from the past, they only en-
deavored to destroy the corrupted institution that
they found. Yet we cannot be too grateful that
they left us the institution itself. As long as that
abides its meanings will ever come out of the
realm of spiritual thought and embody themselves
under its forms with constant instruction to the
children of men.

some of the reformers. The freedom of divorce, largely sanc-
tioned by their teaching, is the reproach of Protestant States.
It is not necessary to quote in proof the remarks of Luther,
Bucer, and Melanchthon on the marriage relation. The origin
of the English Church itself is not without the stain of the too
facile connivance of Cranmer with Henry VIII. in his mar-
riage with Anne Boleyn. The case of Milton is also in point.
He is well known to have opposed the Sabbath. He ended
by denouncing marriage and by entire neglect of worship.
No question is more difficult or more important to Protes-
tantism than the reconciliation of freedom and authority,
grace and works.

258 the: abiding sabbath.

And the Reformed churches did another ser-
vice to the cause of Sabbath observance. In their
catechisms the Decalogue was taught and ex-
pounded. It was placed in the service for the
Holy Eucharist of the English Church in 1552,
and the homilies of the church say: "Albeit this
commandment of God doth not bind Christians so
straitly to observe the utter ceremonies of the Sab-
bath day as it was given to the Jews, as touching
the forbearing of work and labor in time of neces-
sity and as keeping the precise seventh day after
the manner of the Jews; for we now keep the first
day, which is the Sunday, and we make that our
Sabbath, that is, our day of rest, in honor of our
Saviour Christ, who as upon that day rose from
death, conquering the same most triumphantly ;
yet notwithstanding, whatever is found in the
commandment appertaining to the law of nature
as a thing most godly, most just, and most need-
ful for the setting forth of God's glory, it ought
to be retained and kept of all good Christian peo-
ple."*

So also the Synod of Dort, A. D. 161 8-1 9, in
one of the supplementary sessions fixed six points
as to the Sabbath, viz. : 1. That the Fourth Com-
mandment contains both ceremonial and moral
elements. 2. The former consists in the rigid
* Homily " On the Time and Place of Prayer."

thk fifth century to the present. 259

employment of the exact seventh day. 3. The
moral is the assignment of a stated day for wor-
ship. 4. The Jewish Sabbath is abolished, and
Christians are under solemn obligation to keep
the Lord's day. 5. This day has been observed
by the church from apostolic times. 6. All work,
save of charity and necessity, is condemned.

With still greater precision the Assembly of
divines at Westminster, A. D. 1 643-1 648, in that
confession which was adopted as the creed of the
Reformed Church in Scotland, and of the Presby-
terian Church in America, determined:

" As it is of the law of nature that in general
a due proportion of time be set apart for the wor-
ship of God, so in his Word, by a positive, moral,
and perpetual commandment, binding all men in
all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day
in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him,
which from the beginning- of the world to the res-
urrection of Christ was the last day of the week,
and from the resurrection of Christ was changed
into the first day of the week, which in Scripture
is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to
the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath."*

This "Confession" also gives extended and
precise directions as to the manner of observance,
and the "Shorter Catechism" with great fulness
* " Confession," XXI. 7.

26o THE ABIDING SABBATH.

enforces the same teachings. Perhaps no other
utterance of the church has had so great an influ-
ence in securing the real sanctification of the Sab-
bath. With this agree almost the entire bulk of
evangelical confessions and the great majority of
Protestant divines. It is difficult to see how the
argument from theological opinion could be made
more strong than it is.

It may be fearlessly asserted that the real
teachings of the Reformation on this question are
not to be found in the writings of its leaders or in
its earliest confessions. They are to be sought in
its fair fruitage, the great Puritan epoch, whose
later testimony we have just cited, and especially
in the evangelical revival of the eighteenth cen-
tury, and the nineteenth century church -life
which is its result. The principles of the Refor-
mation in their final outcome, by leading to the
study of God's Word, have given the world a re-
vived lord's day, a true Sabbath, which is one
of the most striking features of the religious life
of to-day.

THE SABBATH OF TO-DAY. 26l

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SABBATH OE TO-DAY.

« Where now the beauty of the Sabbath kept
With conscientious reverence, as a day
By the Almighty Lawgiver pronounced
Holy and blest ?" wordsworth.

The history of the Lord's day through the
past Christian centuries has necessarily been
brief. The limits of this discussion do not per-
mit any detailed account of the great Puritan and
Bvano-elical movements of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. It is sufficient to say that
these have given a deeper, and in some cases per-
haps a superstitious, reverence to the institution.
There are, however, in the status of the Sabbath
to-day some important questions involved which
touch its perpetuity of obligation.

The present age has been prolific in attacks
upon the sanctity of the Lord's day. The more
dangerous of these are those which are inflicted
in the house of its pretended friends. The prin-
ciple of the Reformation, the "right of private
judgment," has been treated as if it furnished an
absolute and complete rule of human thinking.

262 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

This illegitimate development of the great idea
of the reformers has led to the denial of all exter-
nal authority in religion. Such freedom from
authority cannot exist. It would be as absurd to
build up a system of physical science without
observation of nature and its phenomena, as to
build up a science of human duty without that
record of supernatural phenomena and that reve-
lation of eternal moral truths which are given in
the Word of God. True, no man or church has
the right to interpret for me the facts either of
nature or of grace, but by the facts in both spheres
my thinking is, nevertheless, to be formed. The
Bible is still "the rule, and the only sufficient
rule, of our faith and practice. ' '

The tendency of extreme Protestantism is too
often to negative the value of every outward in-
stitution of the church. This spirit of denial has
taken all inward significance from the sacraments,
and reduced the Lord's day to a mere valuable
instrument of religious discipline, rather than
what it is, the teacher of lessons of its own.
Let the advocates of this view remember that
they cannot and will not retain the Sabbath as a
day of rest and worship for a single generation
after the conception of its moral obligation has
departed. Expediency is but a rule of occasional
action ; it cannot be made the basis of a perma-

THE SABBATH OF TO-DAY. 263

nent and universal institution. If there has been
any relaxation of the public conscience on this
question, it has most largely come from the fact
that the Sabbath does not in the common mind of
to-day rest down on its divine authority. If that
conviction should be wholly lost, the full end of
the Sabbath would be near.

Alike dangerous is the substitution of the dic-
tum of the church for the warrant of Holy Scrip-
ture. This opposite tendency is less in the peril
it threatens to the sacred day only from the fact
that it is less consonant to the spirit of the times
than the extreme un-churchly position. To
make the Lord's day only an ecclesiastical con-
trivance is to give no assurance to the moral
reason and to lay no obligation upon a free con-
science. The church cannot maintain this insti-
tution by its own edict. Council, assembly, con-
vocation, and synod can impose a law on the
conscience only when they are able to back their
decree with "Thus saith the Lord."

It is obvious, moreover, that churches can
only reach communicants with their decrees.
That a day of rest may exist, it must be univer-
sal. It can be so only by being clothed with the
majesty and power of divine legislation.

Another factor in the conflict of to-day is the
so-called advanced criticism. It is still too early

264 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

to announce the outcome of current hypotheses in
regard to the development of the Hebrew religion
and religious writings. Whether they shall end,
as did much the same treatment of the New Tes-
tament a generation ago, in bringing us nearer to
the living facts of the record, and in the discovery
of deeper grounds of verity for Holy Scripture, or
whether they shall compel reconstruction of our
method of regarding the ancient books of the Bi-
ble, is still a matter for future demonstration. It
is never too early, however, to suggest that we
have the warrant of Jesus Christ and his apostles
for a free use of the Old Testament in the estab-
lishment of doctrine. This testimony covers the
moral precepts of the law and the spiritual reve-
lations of the prophets; that is, it covers the whole
ground necessary to establish from Scripture the
divine authority of the Sabbatic law.* Even
many of the advocates of the higher criticism
contend that their views are not inconsistent
with a high theory of inspiration and strict meth-

* It is proper to suggest that the speculations of this school
usually ascribe to the priestly codex containing the Elohist
account of creation and the first Sabbath a greater age than
to the Decalogue. This would do away with the denial of a
pre-Mosaic Sabbath, and would establish the tradition of crea-
tion as its foundation. This is perfectly fair as an ad hominem
argument against any attack on the Sabbath made on the
basis of modern criticism.

THE SABBATH OF TO-DAY. 265

ods of interpretation. Yet, without doubt, many
of the opinions promulgated have a tendency to
weaken, in the common mind, the conception of
the authority of Scripture, and consequently to
destroy the sacredness of the Sabbath day. Over
against this movement it is gratifying to place
the larger interest in the study of God's Word,
and the growth of elaborate organizations and the
multiplication of appliances to that end. What
Christian heart can doubt that, out of all this fer-
ment and activity of thought, that Word of God
which is ' ( tried ' ' will come forth more glorious
in its brightness and more transcendent in its
authority.

The fact remains, nevertheless, that these
driftings of human thought have largely weak-
ened the sense of moral duty in the observance of
the Lord's day. It is not worth while, perhaps,
to speak of the growth of pseudo-scientific skep-
ticism in all its forms, which strikes not alone at
the Sabbath, but at any eternal ground whatever
for any moral law. From its very nature as a de-
nial of universal human instincts, it cannot have
any long reign; yet it has lived long enough to
aid in weakening the hold of the moral law on
the conscience of the age, and extracting the
sacredness of meaning from the admitted bene-
ficial institution of a day of rest.

266 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

Other forces than these are at work. There
is, in this as in every age, the undertone of the
sinful heart against the law of God. This does
not hesitate to declare its open hostility to the
Lord's day. L,et not the issue be mistaken. The
attack on the Sabbath is part of the larger con-
flict waged against God, the Bible, and the
church. This is the outcome of the insidious
assaults of the public press, the blasphemous dec-
larations of socialists and infidels, and the plausi-
ble theories of pretended philanthropists. While
it is not for one moment to be admitted that
Christianity is weaker to-day than in the former
years — for these are the very crowning days of
Christian history — yet it is compelled to meet the
spirit of the times, disguised in more subtle forms,
and more dangerously allied with the mundane
culture of to-day, the revived pagan culture of
this nineteenth century.

At no point does the time-spirit come more
closely in conflict with the spirit of eternity than
in the Sabbath, which is the embodiment of an
eternal thought in a temporal ordinance. It is a
continual protest against a mere worldly culture,
and against any aim of life that ends in the pres-
ent. Never were the allurements of the spirit of
this world more mighty than to-day. Business,
culture, pleasure, all fill the daily thoughts of

THE SABBATH OF TO-DAY. 26/

man with an absorbing interest such as past ages
have not known.

The weekly witness of eternity has, therefore,
a supreme value never known before. It is not
the least of those instruments by which God
would safely guide these forceful years in wThich
we live into a surer faith and a larger life.

With the question of the Lord's day are
wrapped up, to-day, other issues of vast import.
The social problems connected with labor, in its
relations to large accumulations of capital, by
which capital becomes the master of labor rather
than its instrument; the growing evil of divorce,
which is the shame of Protestant nations ; the
world-old evil of intemperance, which has in
these days become, through its organization into
a controlling financial and political power, a
standing threat to free institutions — all these
have relationships to the Sabbath readily seen
by the opponents of religion and morality, but
not sufficiently regarded by the friends of divine
law and social order. It is, perhaps, the strong-
est existing barrier between the encroachments of
covetousness and the laboring man. It is allied as
an institution wTith marriage, and is the guardian
and fostering teacher of domestic virtue. Be-
tween the holy day and the unholy power of the
liquor-traffic there is a deadly antagonism. We

268 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

are to cherish the Lord's day as one chief agent
in the eternal warfare against the deadly foes
that imperil the perpetuity of civilisation. De-
fence of a holy Sabbath is at the same time an at-
tack on the most pernicious evils of our time. It
is, in the loftiest sense, self-defence.

If the Lord's day meets more subtle and deter-
mined opposition to-day than ever before, it has,
on the other hand, a more full embodiment in the
practical life of man than it has ever enjoyed in
past ages. It is, in some form, as universal as
Christian civilisation. Other and alien nations
are adopting it. As a day of religion it is, per-
haps, more largely used for preaching and teach-
ing now than at any other time in the world's
history. How shall it be preserved ?

While it is certain that the Lord's day as a di-
vine institution is under the care of Providence
and never can wholly perish from the earth, to
make men feel and practically acknowledge its
obligation the highest religious sanctions are ne-

o o o

cessary. ' ' To the law and the testimony ' ' is the
rallying cry for this and every age when divine
truth is in peril or moral duty questioned. Let
us light the candle of human duty again and
again at the sun — from that Will and Word of
God which alone can adequately teach men in
morals and "make us wise unto salvation."

THE SABBATH OF TO-DAY. 269

And what does that Word reveal to us ? Here
is an institution, ordained at the beginning of
history, invested with meanings which take hold
on the past and point forward towards the future,
which has been declared by the spoken utterance
of the eternal God and placed in his moral law,
which has had the seal of the victory of Christ
placed upon it, and bears in it the promise of a
new creation. Although it is of the highest value
to the whole nature of man, it constantly antago-
nizes his selfish blindness, and has ever been in
conflict with the covetous and profane spirit of
the world. In spite of all this opposition, the
avarice of man, the love of novelty, the impa-
tience of restraint, and the hatred of worship, the
Sabbath has lived on with constantly renewed
vigor. Its permanence is no mean proof of the
divinity of its origin. Such is the Lord's day,
the Sabbath of to-day. That institution which
has met and survived all the shocks of time has
the spring of its life in the eternal world, and
shall last until it gives place to the full reality it
incloses, and the abiding Sabbath of time blends
with the Sabbath of eternity.

270 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

CHAPTER IX.

SABBATH OF ETERNITY.
" That greatest Sabbath has no evening." augustine.

" The Sundays of man's life,

Threaded together on one string,

Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternal, glorious King.

On Sunday heaven's gates stand ope ;
Blessings are plentiful and rife —

More plentiful than hope."

GEORGE HERBERT.

An eternal Sabbath is the end and aim of all
the works of God. As the memorial of its Bdenic
bliss when it touched the world in Paradise, as
its representative in time, and as the prophet of
its true consummation in heaven, the abiding
Sabbath has been given to man.

One blessing there is, promised again and
again, which has brooded over our earth from the
beginning, and which has nowhere been perfectly
realized. This is the blessing of rest. And the
failure to realize its fulness has not been through
any infidelity of God to his promise, but because
of the disobedience and unbelief of those to
whom it came. God rested at the beginning
from all his works, and this rest seems to have

SABBATH OK ETERNITY. 27 1

been in part shared by man in Eden. But from
this Sabbatic state of perfect harmony of spirit
and nature man was expelled because of disobe-
dience. The Sabbath meantime remained as the
type of true rest. Again, rest was offered to Is-
rael, but they did not attain to it, for because of
their unbelief they perished in the wilderness.
Still the Sabbath remained as the promise of a
rest still to be achieved. In the time of David
the promise is repeated, "To-day, if ye will hear
his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provo-
cation, and as in the day of temptation in the wil-
derness." Psa. 95:7, 8. That rest which Joshua
did not give to Israel has been secured by our
Joshua for the people of God; for he has also
completed his work of redemption and rests from
his task as, in the beginning, from the work of
creation. Into that heavenly rest "within the
veil," our Forerunner, Jesus, the Son of God, has
passed. True rest is henceforth secure, through
him who has promised to those coming to him,
"Ye shall find rest unto your souls." Matt.
11:29. This is the rest from the guilt and ser-
vice of sin, the rest of faith. "We which have
believed do enter into rest." Heb. 4:3.

This soul-rest however, is not the whole of
"my rest" wThich God says the believer shall
share. Sin is not yet wholly destroyed in us.

Abiding Sabbath. I 8

272 THE ABIDING SABBATH.

The resurrection of Christ has in it a promise
for the bodies as well as for the souls of men.
The physical nature of man is not yet free from
the bondage of corruption. Labor, pain, weari-
ness, and disease still weigh it down. Beyond
the enjoyment of spiritual rest here, there awaits
the believing soul a higher blessedness hereaf-
ter. It is the testimony of the Spirit, ''Blessed
are the dead that die in the Lord from hence-
forth, . . . that they may rest from their labors. ' '
For the reason, therefore, that its fulfilment has
not fully come, the Sabbath must abide as an ex-
ternal institution of the church, the standing type
of the final victory of the believer and his eternal
blessedness. ' ' There remaineth therefore a Sab-
bath-keeping for the people of God. ' ' Heb. 4:9.*
But this Sabbath which abides is not the Jew-
ish Sabbath. Its ceremonial rites and sacrificial
types have been consummated in Christ. The
rest for the whole nature of man, spirit and body,
which is foreshadowed by the resurrection of
Christ, is not yet consummated. Consequently
we keep the day of finished redemption, the day
of his resurrection, the Lord's day, as the only

* Should this chapter be regarded as too mystical by any,
let it be remembered that it is not offered as argument, but
rather as a fitting complement to the trend of argument in
the whole work. None the less does the author believe the
exposition sound.

SABBATH OF ETERNITY. 2J3

abiding type of that unattained glory of the sons
of God. uL,et us labor therefore to enter into
that rest," in type here and in substance here-
after, lest we too should fail through unbelief as
did Adam in Eden and the Israelites in the wil-
derness.

All earthly Sabbatisrns have their origin, their
reason, and their fulfilment in that heavenly Sab-
batism that began when God rejoiced over his
finished work, which has touched the earth with
weekly bound all along the centuries, and still
abides for the people of God.

The Sabbath, being a memorial of the lost
Eden, is also a prophecy that paradise shall be
regained. In the last chapters of the Bible we
see pictured some of the glories of the Eden to
come. Again appears the tree of life, and again
the river that makes glad the garden and city
of God. Time began with the first creation of
the heavens and the earth, and shall end with the
creation of a new heaven and a new earth. Be-
tween this eternity past and eternity to come
stands the Sabbath testifying in time to that eter-
nal world of spirit for which all things exist.
And that recovered Eden has meanings for the
whole creation. Man's sin has cursed the earth,
and in his redemption the earth shall share. For
this, its glorification, nature waits with out-

274 ME ABIDING SABBATH.

stretched hand of earnest expectation, for even
the physical universe shall be crowned and glori-
fied in the coming manifestation of the sons of
God. Death, pain, and sorrow shall vanish in
that new spiritualized heaven and earth. Then
God shall be at peace with man, man's body with
his spirit, and humanity with nature. All crea-
tion shall put on the robes of festal gladness. To
herald this last splendid triumph of the Redeemer
in the restoration of the Sabbath state, lost by
the fall, there still remains the day of resurrec-
tion, the Lord's day, an abiding Sabbath for the
people of God.

If the Sabbath had fulfilled all its meanings
in Christ, then it would have ceased with him,
as did the rites of the Mosaic law. But because
it has in it spiritual ideas not yet fulfilled, and
whose fulfilment shall be the end of time, there-
fore the Lord's day as an institution shall stand
until the last hour when time shall blend with
eternity. Being a permanent institution, its obli-
gation is enduring, and comes to all men with
the still spoken words of the Eternal, " Remem-
ber the Sabbath day to keep it holy."

It was noticed in the first chapter of this book
that marriage comes to us hand in hand with the
Sabbath from the birthday of the world, given to
man at the beginning amid the shoutings of the

SABBATH OF ETERNITY. 275

strong sons of God and the jubilant chant of the
morning stars ; they both come to us from the
bowers of Eden ; they have journeyed with us
through all the thorny paths of the centuries,
constantly opening new gateways through which
souls have escaped from the prison-house of earth-
ly sorrows and cares into the boundless freedom of
the Spirit's love and light; they point not indis-
tinctly to the future; they lead us by the hand of
our hopes towards their higher revelations be-
yond the bounds of time, when marriage shall be
crowned and ennobled in the perpetual bridal of
the I^amb and the church, when the Sabbath
shall receive its full interpretation and be glori-
fied for ever in the eternal Sabbath, abiding still
when the ' ' former things have passed away. ' '

APPENDIX.

A.

The following is an extract from a translation
by Mr. Fox Talbot of the fifth tablet in the As-
syrian account of the creation.

" He made the year. Into four quarters he divi-
ded it.

Twelve months he established, with their con-
stellations, three by three,

And for the days of the' year he appointed festi-
vals.

In the centre he placed luminaries.

The moon he appointed to rule the night,

And to wander through the night until the
dawn of dav.

Every month without fail he made holy assem-
bly days.

In the beginning of the month, at the rising of
the night,

It shot forth its horns to illuminate the heavens.

On the seventh day he appointed a holy day,

And to cease from all work he commanded."

278 APPENDIX.

B.

The following is a translation, by Rev. A. H.
Sayce, of the rubric for the seventh day in the
Assyrian calendar discovered by Smith.

"The seventh day. A feast of Merodach and

Zir-Panitu — a festival.
A Sabbath. The prince of many nations
The flesh of birds and cooked fruits eats not.
The garments of his body he changes not.

White robes he puts not on.
Sacrifices he offers not. The king in his chariot

rides not.
In royal fashion he legislates not. A place of

garrison he appoints not.
General (by word of) mouth appoints not.
Medicine for sickness of body he applies not.
To make a sacred spot it is suitable.
In the night in the presence of Merodach and

Istar
The king his offering makes. Sacrifices he

offers.
Raising his hand the high place of the god he

worships. ' '

APPENDIX. 279

c.

Among the reasons for doubting the early ex-
istence of the work known as the "Apostolical
Constitutions ' ' are the following :

1. The very fact that it commands the observ-
ance of the Jewish Sabbath, against the teaching
of the New Testament and the universal expres-
sion of opinion of the ante-Nicene Fathers. It
is to be remarked that another fabrication of the
same kind, the. Pseudo-Ignatius, likewise favors the
keeping of the Jewish Sabbath.

2. The fact, commented upon by Daille, that
almost every day in the year is made by this doc-
ument either a feast or a fast. This is thoroughly
opposed to all our knowledge of the ante-Nicene
Church.

3. In its preceptive manner it is opposed to
the whole tone of the earliest Christian literature.
It everywhere denotes a ritualistic church-life very
different from the simplicity of faith and practice
which characterized the primitive church.

4. The recently discovered "Teaching of the
Twelve Apostles," if genuine, would fully con-
firm the critical doubt which has existed as to the
applicability of the external evidence supposed to
sustain the antiquity of the * i Constitutions. ' ' The
"Teaching" would seem to be the earlier, sim-

19

28o APPENDIX.

pier, and more Scriptural work upon which the
" Constitutions " have been conjectured to be
based. The references in Irenseus (Pfaff's u 2d
Fragment"), Eusebius ("Evang. Hist," III. 25),
and Athanasius ("39th Festal Letter"), may all
be applied to the "Teaching." There would
thus be left only the testimony of Epiphanius,
A. D. 370, which probably does not refer to the
" Constitutions," at least in their present shape.
There is no other reference to them in the wri-
tings of the fourth century, and only one in the
fifth (in what is known as the ' ' Incomplete Work
on Matthew"). There is therefore no certain
ante-Nicene reference to the u Constitutions,"
and only two (possibly but one) before the end of
the fifth century. This, taken in connection with
the internal evidence, seems to justify the conclu-
sion that they cannot be assigned a much earlier
date than the latter part of the fourth century.

5. The spurious character of the ' ' Constitu-
tions" is shown by the fact that at least three
documents, of different ages, are discernible in
them, one of which (the seventh book) appears
to be in great measure a redaction and enlarge-
ment of the " Teaching."