THE SABBATH

Part IV

If any one hesitates to admit, that the observance of the first day of the week, is commanded in the New Testament, because not enjoined by direct precept, he has not attended to the manner in which the various parts of our duty are there taught; and he should ask himself on what ground he observes the first day of the week. Is it because all Christians agree in doing so? In this there is nothing valid. The consent or practice of all the Christians and of all the churches on earth, cannot add to, or take from, or change one iota of the law of God. What that law is, must be learned from the Scriptures, either by direct precept, or from the approved practice recorded in them of Christians or churched under the guidance of the apostles, and thus stamped with their authority. To the apostles alone were the keys of the kingdom of heaven delivered by their devine Master, first to Peter, Matt, xvi 19, and afterwards to all the rest, xviii. 18; who, in order that they might be His witnesses, had all seen him after His resurrection; who all had “the signs of a apostle;” who have no successors in office, and whose doctrine, being infallible, binds in heaven and on earth. Christians have nothing to do but to repeat and to obey the laws, in whatever manner enjoined by our Lord and His apostles. Why are churches formed? Why do they assemble on the first day of the week? Why are they to consist of persons only of a certain character? For none of these, and certain other things that are practised by Christians, is there any direct precept. But all of them, of which we have approved examples in the word of God, are, notwithstanding, equally binding, as if in direct terms they had been commanded. To the practice of the first churches under his direction, and to his own practice, the apostle Paul appeals, as of equal authority with his express injunctions. “If any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.” 1 Cor. xi 16. The approved customs of the first churches were fixed by the apostles, and are therefore equally binding as their commands; and their commands, as speaking by the Holy Ghost, are equally obligatory as those of the Lord. “He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me; and he that despiseth Me, despiseth Him that sent Me,” Luke x. 16. By the words which He hath spoken, and those of His apostles, whose words bind and loose in heaven and on earth, all shall be judged at the last day. If any man shall add to these words or take from them, God shall take away his part out of the book of life.

Although the first day of the week was appointed to be observed as the Sabbath under the Christian dispensation, yet the observance of the last day, that had been sanctified from the beginning, was likewise permitted during the continuance of the Jewish state. This was analogous to allowing the temple service and the sacrifices, although rendered inefficacious by the offering of the one great Sacrifice, to continue till the whole of them was put an end to by the destruction of Jerusalem. Giving unnecessary offence to the Jews was thus avoided, while an opportunity was furnished, during all that period, of preaching the gospel in the synagogues where they assembled every Sabbath-day, of which the apostles regularly availed themselves. But in the book of Revelation, as we have now seen, written after the Jewish state and polity were finally overthrown, the first day of the week, as that which the Son of God had appropriated for His peculiar service, of which from the first sufficient intimation had been given, so that His disciples had observed it all along after His resurrection, was, in a manner still more marked, exclusively designated in His word as the Lord’s day—the name by which it has been known and recognised by all Christians ever since.

The day of rest enjoined to be observed by Christians, although now transferred from the last to the first day of the week, or the eighth day from the creation, is still the seventh day, “after the six working days,” as was the Sabbath of the first institution, and of the fourth commandment. Thus, all the change is only a change of the beginning and the ending of the days of labour, the number of which continue as before. The words, therefore, of the fourth commandment, “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: by the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” form no objection to the Christian Sabbath, as if it changed or discontinued the duty enjoined in the commandment, since these words retain the same force as before. Neither can any objection be drawn from the words that follow: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, an rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” These words have not become insignificant by the establishment of the first-day Sabbath; they remain, as to their principal object, in full force. Their object was to present a motive to rest on the seventh day after labouring six days sucessively; because, of this God had given the example. And on this account, as well as from the examples of the sanctification of the first day of the week, Christians are to rest, not on every eighth, or ninth, or tenth day, but on every seventh day. God wrought six days and rested on the seventh day, and called it the Sabbath, or rest of the Lord. Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, in like manner rested from the work of the new Creation on the first day of the week, and has now appropriated it as His day. And not only was it appointed to commemorate the great event of His resurrection, but as it is to be observed on one day in seven, it is so instituted as likewise to commemorate that first Creation, when after the work of six days, God rested on the seventh. Without reference to this no reason can be given why the resurrection should be celebrated once in seven days, and not at any other fixed period. The fourth commandment, then, in everything essential, remains unchanged. In substance it continues precisely as before, commanding us to sanctify the seventh day; and the reason of enjoining this continues the same, with the difference only of God’s having rested from the work of the new, as he formerly did from that of the old, creation; on which account man is still to rest on the seventh day, after six days of labour. It is a part of that law which cannot be broken. Strict obedience to it continues to be the duty of every Christian; and in order to understand its proper and spiritual import, the inspired commentary of the prophet, Isaiah 1 viii. 13, on the obligation and observance of the Sabbath, referring to the times of the gospel, should be attentively considered. Some have scrupled to denominate the first day of the week the Sabbath day. But it should be remembered, that this is the name by which it is so often designated in the New Testament.

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