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النشر الإلكتروني

LECTURE XVI.

THE SABBATH.

"If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Isaiah lviii. 13, 14.

THE main ground on which the obligation of the Sabbath is sought to be denied, is, that it was merely a Jewish ordinance, and therefore, like all the other rites and ceremonies of Judaism, done away with by Christ.

The following illustration may show the force of such an objection, more clearly perhaps than laboured argument. A number of persons form themselves into a society for certain purposes. They have various rules and regulations for their members, with particular penalties attached to the breaking of them. One law is, that any member convicted of drunkenness, shall receive a certain number of lashes, after the manner of

the army or navy. Well; the society lasts for a time, and is then broken up. After its dissolution, one of its former members is summoned before a magistrate for drunkenness. What is his defence? Why, he pleads that there is no law against it now; that the society being dissolved, its rules are no longer binding. Certainly not, says the magistrate; but the law of the land is binding. There was a law against drunkenness long before your society existed, and that law is as much in force as ever; the repealing of your bye-laws cannot do away with the old established law of the land. Then do you mean to have me flogged?-asks the culprit. By no means: is the reply: I'm not going to inflict on you the particular penalty enjoined by the law of your former society, but the general penalty, which is enjoined by the law of the land: you are no longer liable to the one, but as much as ever to the other.

Now this is just the state of the case with regard to the law of the Sabbath. It was originally the universal law of the land. It was given to Adam in Paradise as the father of the whole human race. Adam was no more a Jew than he was an

Englishman; and the command given to him is as much binding upon every nation in every age of the world, as it was upon any Jew that ever lived. When the Jewish national law was given to them by Moses in the wilderness, there were certain particular penalties attached to the breaking of the Sabbath, which are now of course no longer in force; because that ceremonial and judicial law is repealed. But the repealing of those bye-laws, if we may so call them, which were only fitted for the temporary circumstances of the Jewish nation, cannot affect the original universal law of the world: that remains in force as much as ever. Yet persons can be found, who will actually reply to any argument in favour of keeping the Sabbath, Oh! then you would stone a man for gathering sticks on Sunday." Let me ask them whether they consider the fifth commandment repealed, as well as the fourth: whether they think we are "eased" from the obligation to honour our parents. If they say, No; I would answer them in their own coin, Oh, then you would stone a child for disobeying his father or mother: " for this was the penalty under the Mosaic law. Or again, Do you think Christians "relieved" from the prohibition of the seventh commandment against adultery? If not, may we further ask, Would you stone a woman, who was found guilty of it? Surely we need say no more to expose the fallacy of such objections.

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But in order to escape from this, some learned men have been bold enough to deny that the Sabbath was instituted in Paradise, and to contend that it was first given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. "This preposterous notion Dr. Wardlaw refutes with the clearness and force for which his writings are remarkable. The plain language of the passage (Gen.ii. 1--3) disproves it It is the language of history, and relates to the appointment of the day of rest as made at the time, with the same simplicity as that with which all the other associated transactions of creation are related. The nature of things shows that the reference could not be to any future event. If it is admitted that the Sabbath was a commemoration of God's work of creation, then why should not the commemoration commence from the time the work to be commemorated was completed? Was it not thus with the Passover? Was it not thus with the Lord's Supper? And why not with the Sabbath?'

• This quotation, and several that follow, are taken from a review in the "Christian Penny Record" of four admirable tracts, that deserve wide circulation:-"The Divine Authority and Permanent Obligation of the Sabbath," by the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw; "Traces of the Primitive Sabbath in many of the Institutions of the Ancient World," by the Rev. J. Jordan; "The Sabbath not a mere Judaical Appointment," by the Rev. A. Thompson; "The Adaptation of the Sabbath to the Temporal Well-Being of Men, and more especially of the Working Classes," by the Rev. D. King. Partridge, London.

As the Sabbath was made for man, it is natural to infer that it was coeval with the race for whose benefit it was intended.

'It will not surely be questioned,' he says, 'that the words

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,' (Exodus xx. 8) are words which pre-suppose its existence. Now we have seen that the terms of the former passage-To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord,'- —are terms which, on no natural principle, can be explained as the first enactment of the Sabbatic rest; but that they assume its pre-existence as well as those before us. To what previous period of institution, then, can the fourth commandment refer? What other is there, or can there be, but the period of the creation? And the reason annexed' to this commandment, accordingly, carries us back at once to that time and to that event:- "FOR in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the Sabbath day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. This should be enough: but it is not all. It is clear as day, that in the terms of this reason annexed' there is reference to the terms of the history. The one are a quotation of the other. Moses had himself, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, recorded the early fact and while, in the words of the commandmentRemember the Sabbath day to keep it holy '-he assumes its pre existence; by citing the terms in which he had himself recorded its origin, he shows at once its high antiquity, and its primary design. The words in Genesis may be justly called the words of institution.' They are there, and there alone. There are no such words of institution in Exodus xvi. : and in Exodus xx, they are not words of institution; for even the miracle of the manna, when the Sabbath is by our opponents supposed to have commenced, preceded the giving of the law; they are only a quotation of the words of institution. So that, unless the Sabbath was instituted at the time when these words were used, there is no formal institution of it anywhere to be found.'

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It is objected, however, that there is little or no notice of the Sabbath in the inspired account of the antediluvian and patriarchial ages. Dr. Wardlaw disposes of this objection in the following conclusive manner :

First, Throughout the entire preceding history, we find weeks a recognised division of time, corresponding, of course, to the creation week, from which the division had its origin, and which consisted of six days of work and one of rest, so that every mention of weeks includes the mention of the Sabbath; and Secondly, from the fact of there being no mention of the Sabbath in the subsequent historical books of Scripture (those of Joshua and Judges), for a period of at least four hundred years after its admitted institution in the wilderness; and of

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the extremely rare and incidental notice of it for even a greater number of centuries posterior to the close of the Book of Judges; and from the further parallel facts of their being no mention, for a period of 1500 years-from the birth of Seth to the flood-of sacrifice; and for a similar period of 1500 years -from the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan till the birth of Christ-of circumcision as an existing rite, unless in an occasional and figurative use of the word by the historians and prophets. In none of the cases is such silence conclusive; and in the case of the Sabbath, the objection from the silence before is completely neutralised by the silence after. 'But is not God said to have made known to Israel his holy Sabbath? Nehemiah ix. 14. Yes, we reply; but does it follow from this that the Sabbath was unknown and unobserved before? Without insisting on the phrase 'making known' rather implying the existence already of the thing made known, than expressing its commencement, we may reply, So is God said to have made known his ways to Moses, and his acts unto the children of Israel!' from which, surely, it does not follow that none of them had ever been made known' before; far less, that they did not exist before! The Sabbath, too, it is alleged, is said to have been given' to Israel. Ezek. xx. 10-12. 'What else,' it has been said, can this mean than its being first instituted in the wilderness? The answer is, First, that the same word is, in the same passage, as well as in Nehem. ix., applied to God's statutes, and judgments, and precepts, and laws generally, as well as to his Sabbaths. Is it to be inferred from this, that there were no divine laws 'given to men prior to the time of the Exodus? Not so thought and taught the Apostle Paul. He argues with the Jews, that there was a law anterior to theirs, binding on mankind, Jews and Gentiles alike, from the simple fact that 'death,' the penalty of sin,' reigned' over all men 'from Adam to Moses;' the penalty of sin implying the existence of sin, and the existence of sin the existence of a law; seeing 'sin is not imputed where there is no law.' Rom. v. 13, 14. And Secondly, that by our Lord himself the word 'given' is expressly used respecting another rite, when it does not mean, and by himself is explained as not meaning, original institution. John vii. 27. Moses, therefore, gave unto you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers); its having been given by Moses, then, does not signify its having been". instituted" by Moses. Previously existing institutes and laws might, with all truth, be represented as 'made known,' and as given,' to a particular people, when, in a systematic and embodied form, with special solemnity, and with peculiar sanctions, they were delivered from heaven to that people; and when the possession of them in that form became the distinction

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of that people from others. And on this ground, too, we find a satisfactory answer to another objection, namely, that the Sabbath, in different passages, is spoken of as given to be a sign between Jehovah and the people of Israel; which, it is alleged, implies its having been, and having been designed to be, peculiar to that people. Now, the same thing is true of the whole law, not the ceremonial code merely.'

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"When an important institution is for the first time introduced, we expect it to be done formally. We expect the reasons of its appointment to be specified, the themes which it was to commemorate detailed, and the modes of its observance minutely prescribed. This is done in the institution of the Passover, as described in the twentieth chapter of the same book. But the whole history of the transaction in the wilderness of Sin, suggests the idea of an institution already known, and the liberty of observing which is now perfectly restored. The passage, Exodus xvi. 22-30, is too long for quotation; but supposing the candid enquirer to turn to it in his Bible, we ask him to notice and duly consider the following remarks. In the first place, the people gather, of their own accord, twice as much bread, two omers for one man, on the sixth day—a fact which it is difficult to account for on any other supposition than that they anticipated and prepared for the rest of the seventh day. In the second place, Moses mentions the Sabbath only incidentally, in answer to a question put to him by the rulers. They approach him, and inquire whether the people had done right in gathering a double quantity of manna on the sixth day; and it is this question which leads him to notice the Sabbath. 'And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said' What had the Lord said, and to whom had he said it? The fourth and fifth verses of the chapter inform us,' Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.' The meaning of his words to the rulers then is, "The people have done quite right; their conduct is in accordance with what the Lord said to me, that they are to gather a double quantity on the sixth day, and that they are also to prepare what they bring in.' And then he adds, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord; bake that which ye will bake today, and seethe that ye will seethe, and that which remaineth over, lay up for you to be kept until the morning.' In the third place, Moses does not speak in the style of one promulgating a new law; nor do we find him giving any instructions whatever as to the manner in which it is to be kept. Indeed, it does not appear that he would, but for the question of the rulers, have adverted to the Sabbath at all on this occasion ¿

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