IN THE BEGINNING — THE CREATION.

Time and eternity — The Creator and his work — Events of the first day of time — Of the second — Of the third — Of the fourth — Of the fifth — Of the sixth.

TIME, as distinguished from eternity, may be defined as that part of duration which is measured by the Bible. From the earliest date in the book of Genesis to the resurrection of the unjust at the end of the millennium, a period of about 7000 years is measured off. 1 Before the commencement of this great week of time, duration without beginning fills the past; and at the expiration of this period, unending duration opens before the people of God. Eternity is that word which embraces duration without beginning and without end; and that Being whose existence comprehends eternity is he who only hath immortality, the King eternal, immoral, invisible, the only wise God. (Isaiah. 57:15; 1 Samuel 15:29, margin; Jeremiah 10:10, margin; Micah 5:2, margin; 1 Timothy 6:16; 1:17; Psalm 90:2.)

When it pleased this infinite Being, he gave existence Lo our earth. Out of nothing, God created all things; 2 “so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” This act of creation is that event which marks the commencement of the first week of time. He who could accomplish the whole work with one word chose rather Lo employ six days, and to accomplish the result by successive steps. Let us trace the footsteps of the Creator from the time when he laid the foundation of the earth until the close of the sixth day, when the heavens and the earth were finished, “and God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” (Hebrews 11:3; Genesis 1:31.)

On the first day of time, God created the heaven and the earth. The earth thus called into existence was without form, and void; and total darkness covered the Creator’s work. Then “God said, Let there be light; and there was light.” “And God divided the light from the darkness,” and called the one day and the other night. (Genesis 1:1-5; Hebrews 1:10.)

On the second day of time, “God said, Let there be a firmament [margin, Hebrews, expansion] in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”

The dry land had not yet appeared; consequently the earth was covered with water. As no atmosphere existed, thick vapors rested upon the face of the water; but the atmosphere being now called into existence by the word of the Creator, causing those elements to unite which compose the air we breathe, the fogs and vapors that had rested upon the bosom of the water were borne aloft by it. This atmosphere, or expansion, is. called heaven. (Genesis 1:6-8; Job 37:18.)

On the third day of time, God gathered the waters together, and caused the dry land to appear. The gathering together of the waters God called seas; the dry land, thus rescued from the waters, he called earth. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth; and it was so.” “And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:9-18; Psalm 186:6; 2 Peter 3:5.)

On the fourth day of time, “God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.” “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.”

Light had been created on the first day of the week; and now, on the fourth day, he causes the sun and moon to appear as light-bearers, and places the light under their rule. And they continue unto this day, according to his ordinances; for all are his servants. Such was the work of the fourth day.

And the Great Architect, surveying what he had wrought, pronounced it good. (Genesis 1:14-19; Psalm 119:91; Jeremiah 33:25.)

On the fifth day of time, “God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind; and God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:20-23.)

On the sixth day of time, “God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind; and God saw that it was good.”

Thus the earth, having been fitted for the purpose, was filled with every order of living creature, while the air and waters teemed with animal existence. To complete this noble work of creation, God next provides a ruler, the representative of himself, and places all in subjection under him. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden east. ward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”

Last of all, God created Eve, the mother of all living. The work of the Creator was now complete. “The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold:, it was very good.”

Adam and Eve were in paradise; the tree of life bloomed on earth; sin had not entered our world, and death was not here, for there was no sin. “The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”

Thus ended the sixth day. (Genesis 1:24-31; 2:7-9, 18-22; 3:20; Job 38:7.)

THE INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH

Event of the seventh day — Why the Creator rested — Acts by which the Sabbath was made — Time and order of their occurrence — Meaning of the word sanctified — The fourth commandment refers the origin of the Sabbath to creation — The second mention of the Sabbath confirms this fact — The Savior’s testimony — When did God sanctify the seventh day? — Object of the Author of the Sabbath — Testimony of Josephus and of Philo — Negative argument from the book of Genesis considered — Adam’s knowledge of the Sabbath not difficult to be known by the patriarchs.

ALTHOUGH the work of the Creator was finished, the first week of time was not yet completed. Each of the six days had been distinguished by the Creator’s work upon it; but the seventh was rendered memorable in a very different manner. “And on the seventh 1 day, God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”

In yet stronger language it is written: “On the seventh day he rested, and was REFRESHED.” (Genesis 2:2; Exodus 31:17.)

Thus the seventh day of the week became the rest-day of the Lord. How remarkable is this fact! “The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.” (Isaiah 40:28.)

He needed no rest.; yet it is written, “On the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” Why does not the record simply state the cessation of the Creator’s work? Why did he at the close of that work employ a day in rest? The answer will be learned from the next verse. He was laying the foundation of a divine institution, the memorial of his own great work. “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” The fourth commandment states the same fact: He “rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.” The blessing and sanctification of the seventh day were because that God had rested upon it. His resting upon it, then, was to lay the foundation for blessing and sanctifying the day. His being refreshed with this rest implies that he delighted in the act which laid the foundation for the memorial of his great work.

The second act of the Creator in instituting this memorial was to place his blessing upon the day of his rest. Thenceforward it was the blessed restday of the Lord. A third act completes the sacred institution: the day already blessed of God is now, last of all, sanctified, or hallowed, by him.

To sanctify is “to make sacred or holy; to set apart to a holy or religious use; to consecrate by appropriate rites; to hallow.” To hallow is “to make holy; to set apart for holy or religious use; to consecrate.” The time when these three acts were performed is worthy of special notice. The first act was that of rest. This took place on the seventh day; for the day was employed in rest. The second and third acts took place when the seventh day was past. “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work.” Hence it was on the first day of the second week of time that God blessed the seventh day, and set it apart to a holy use. The blessing and sanctification of the seventh day, therefore, relate, not to the first seventh day of time, but to the seventh day of the week for time to come, in memory of God’s rest on that day from the work of creation.

With the beginning of time, God began to count days, giving to each an ordinal number for its name. Seven different days received as many different names. In memory of that which he (lid on the last of these days, he set that day apart by name to a holy use. This act gave existence to weeks, or periods of seven days; for with the seventh day he ceased to count, and by the divine appointment of that day to a holy use in memory of his rest thereon, he caused man to begin the count of a new week as soon as the first seventh day had ceased. And as God has been pleased to give man in-all but seven different days, and has given to each one of these days a name which indicates its exact place in the week, his act of setting apart one of these by name, which act created weeks and gave man the Sabbath, can never — except by sophistry — be made to relate to an indefinite or uncertain day.

The days of the week are measured off by the revolution of our earth on its axis; and hence our seventh day:, as such, can come only to dwellers on this globe. To Adam and Eve, therefore, as inhabitants of this earth, and not to the inhabitants of some other world, were the days of the week given to use. Hence, when God set apart one of these days to a holy use in memory of his own rest on that day of the week, the very essence of the act consisted in his telling Adam that this day should be used only for sacred purposes. Adam was then in the Garden of God, placed there by the Creator to dress it and to keep it. He was also commissioned of God to subdue the earth. (Genesis 2:15; 1:28.) When, therefore, the rest-day of the Lord should return from week to week, all this secular employment, however proper in itself, must be laid aside, and the day be observed in memory of the Creator’s rest.

Dr. Twisse quotes Martin Luther as follows: — “And Martin Luther professeth as much (tome 6, in Genesis 2:3). ‘It follows from hence,’ saith he, ‘that if Adam had stood in his innocency, yet he should have kept the seventh day holy; that is, on that day he should have taught his children and children’s children what was the will of God, and wherein his worship did consist; he should have praised God, given thanks, and offered. On other days he should have tilled his ground, looked to his cattle.’“ The Hebrew verb qadash, here rendered sanctified, and in the fourth commandment rendered hallowed, is defined by Gesenius, “To pronounce holy, to sanctify; to institute any holy thing, to appoint.” 5 It is repeatedly used in the Old Testament for a public appointment, or proclamation.

Thus, when the cities of refuge were set apart in Israel, it is written: “They appointed [margin, Hebrews, sanctified] Kedesh in Galilee in Mount Naphtali, and Shechem in Mount Ephraim,” etc. This sanctification, or appointment, of the cities of refuge was by a public announcement to Israel that these cities were set apart for that purpose.

This verb is also used for the appointment of a public fast, and for the gathering of a solemn assembly, as in the following instances: “Sanctify [i. e., appoint] ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the ciders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God.” “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify [i.e., appoint] a fast, call a solemn assembly.” “And Jehu said, Proclaim [margin, Hebrews, sanctify] a solemn assembly for Baal.” (Joshua 20:7; Joel 1:14, 2:15; 2 Kings 10:20,21; Zephaniah 1:7, margin.) This appointment for Baal was so public that all the worshipers of Baal in all Israel were gathered together. These fasts and solemn assemblies, were sanctified or set apart by a public appointment or proclamation of the fact. When, therefore, God set apart the seventh day to a holy use, it was necessary that he should state that fact to those who had the days of the week to use. Without such announcement, the day could not be set apart from the others.

But the most striking illustration of the meaning of this word may be found in the record of the sanctification of Mount Sinai. (Exodus 19:12,23.) When God was about to speak the ten commandments in the hearing of all Israel, he sent Moses down from the top of Mount Sinai to restrain the people from touching the mount. “And Moses said unto the Lord, The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai; for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.” Turning back to the verse where God gave this charge to Moses, we read: “And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it.” Hence to sanctify the mount was to command the people not to touch even the border of it; for God was about to descend in majesty upon it. In other words, to sanctify, or set apart to a holy use, Mount Sinai, was to tell the people that God would have them treat the mountain as sacred to himself. And thus also to sanctify the rest-day of the ‘Lord was to tell Adam that he should treat the day as holy to the Lord.

The declaration, “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it,” is not indeed a commandment for the observance of that day; but it is the record that such a precept was given to Adam. 6 For how could the Creator “set apart to a holy use” the day of his rest, when those who were to use the day knew nothing of his will in the case? Let those answer who are able.

This view of the record in Genesis we shall find to be sustained by all the testimony in the Bible relative to the rest — day of the Lord. The facts which we have examined are the basis of the fourth commandment. Thus spoke the great Lawgiver from the summit of the flaming mount: “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy.” “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the-Lord thy God.” “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.” (Exodus 20:8-11.)

The term Sabbath is transferred from the Hebrew language, and signifies rest. 7 The command, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,” is therefore exactly equivalent to saying, “Remember the rest-day, to keep it holy.” The explanation which follows sustains this statement: “The seventh day is the Sabbath [or rest-day] of the Lord thy God.” The origin of this rest-day is given in these words: “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.” That which is enjoined in the fourth commandment is to keep holy the rest-day of the Lord. And this is defined to be the day on which he rested from the work of creation. Moreover, the fourth commandment calls the seventh day the Sabbath-day at the time when God blessed and hallowed that day; therefore the Sabbath is an institution dating from the foundation of the world. The fourth commandment points back to the creation for the origin of its obligation; and when we go back to that point, we find the substance of the fourth commandment given to Adam: “God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it;” i.e., set it apart to a holy use. And in the commandment itself the same fact is stated: “The Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it;” i.e., appointed it to a holy use. The one statement affirms that” God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it;” the other, that “the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.” These two statements refer to the same acts. Because the word Sabbath does not occur in the first statement, it has been contended that the Sabbath did not originate at creation, it being the seventh day merely which was hallowed.

From the second statement it has been contended that God did not bless the seventh day at all, but simply the Sabbath institution. But both statements embody all the truth. God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; and this day thus blessed and hallowed was his holy Sabbath, or rest-day. Thus the fourth commandment establishes the origin of the Sabbath at creation.

The second mention of the Sabbath in the Bible furnishes a decisive confirmation of the testimonies already adduced. On the sixth day of the week, while in the wilderness of Sin, Moses said to Israel,” Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. (Exodus 16:22,23.) What had been done to the seventh day since God blessed and sanctified it as his rest-day in paradise? — Nothing. What did Moses do to the seventh day to make it the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord? — Nothing. On the sixth day, Moses simply states the fact that the morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. The seventh day had been such ever since God blessed and hallowed the day of his rest.

The testimony of our divine Lord relative to the origin and design of the Sabbath is of peculiar importance. He is competent to testify; for he was with the Father in the beginning of the creation. (John 1:1-3; Genesis 1:1,26; Colossians 1:18-16.) “The Sabbath was made for man,” said he, “not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27.) The following grammatical rule is worthy of notice: “A noun without an adjective is invariably taken in its broadest extension; as, Man is accountable.” 8 The following texts will illustrate this rule, and also this statement of our Lord’s: “Man lieth, down and riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.” “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man.” “It is appointed unto men once to die.” (Job 14:12; 1 Corinthians 10:13; Hebrews 9:27.) In these texts, “man” is used without restriction, hence all mankind are necessarily intended,. The Sabbath was therefore made for the whole human family, and consequently originated with mankind. But the Savior’s language is yet more emphatic in the original: “The Sabbath was made forTHE man, notTHE man for the Sabbath.” This language fixes the mind on the man Adam, who Was formed of the dust of the ground just before the Sabbath was made for him, of the seventh day.

This is a striking confirmation of the fact already pointed out, — that the Sabbath was given to Adam, the head of the human family. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” yet he made the Sabbath for man. “God made the Sabbath his by solemn appropriation, that he might convey it back to us under the guarantee of a divine charter, that none might rob us of it with impunity.”

But is it not possible that God’s act of blessing and sanctifying the seventh day did not occur at the close of the creation week? May it not be mentioned then, because God designed that the day of his rest should be afterward observed? Or rather, as Moses wrote the book of Genesis long after the creation, might he not insert this account of the sanctification of the seventh day with the record of the first week, though the day itself was sanctified in his own time?

It is very certain that such an interpretation of the record cannot be admitted, unless the facts in the case demand it; for it is, to say the least, a forced explanation of the language. The record in Genesis, unless this be an exception, is a plain narrative of events. What God did on each day is recorded in its order down to the seventh. It is certainly doing violence to the narrative to affirm that the record respecting the seventh day is of a different character from that respecting the other six. He rested the seventh day; he sanctified the seventh day, because he had rested upon it, The reason why he should sanctify the seventh day existed when his rest was closed. To say, therefore, that God did not sanctify the day at that time, but did it in the days of Moses, is not only to distort the narrative, but to affirm that he neglected for twenty-five hundred years to do that for which the reason existed at creation. But we ask that the facts be brought forward which prove that the Sabbath was sanctified in the wilderness of Sin, and not at creation. And what are the facts that show this? It is confessed that such facts are not upon record. Their existence is assumed in order to sustain the theory that the Sabbath. originated at the fall of the manna, and not in paradise.

Did God sanctify the Sabbath in the wilderness of Sin? — There is no intimation of such a fact. On the contrary, it is mentioned at that time as something already set apart of God. On the sixth day, Moses said, “Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.” (Exodus 16:23.) Surely this is not the act of instituting the Sabbath, but the familiar mention of an existing fact. We pass on to Mount Sinai. Did God sanctify the Sabbath when he spoke the ten commandments? — No one claims that he did. It is admitted by all that Moses spoke of it familiarly the previous month. (Exodus 16.) Does the Lord at Sinai speak of the sanctification of the Sabbath? — He does; but in the very language of Genesis he goes back for the sanctification of the Sabbath, not to the wilderness of Sin, but to the creation of the world. (Exodus 20:8-11.) We ask those who hold the theory under examination, this question: If the Sabbath was not sanctified at creation, but was sanctified in the wilderness of Sin, why does the narrative in each instance(Compare Genesis 2:1-8 and Exodus 20:8-11.) record the sanctification of the Sabbath at creation, and omit all mention of that fact in the wilderness of Sin? Nay, why does the record of events in the wilderness of Sin show that the holy Sabbath was at that time already in existence? In a word, How can a theory which is subversive of all the facts in the record, be maintained as the truth of God?

We have seen the Sabbath ordained of God at the close Of the creation week. The object of its Author is worthy of special attention. Why did the Creator set up this memorial in paradise? Why did he set apart from the other days of the week that day which he had employed in rest? — “Because that in it,” says the record, “he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” A rest necessarily implies a work performed; and hence the Sabbath was ordained of God as a memorial of the work of creation. Therefore that precept of the moral law which relates to this memorial, unlike every other precept of that law, begins with the word, “Remember.” The importance of this memorial will be appreciated when we learn from the Scriptures that it is the work of creation which is claimed by its Author as the great evidence of his eternal power and Godhead, and as that great fact which distinguishes him from all false gods.

Thus it is written: — “He that built all things is God.” “The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.” “But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting King.” “He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.” “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” “For he spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.” Thus “the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”(Hebrews 3:4; Jeremiah 10:10-12; Romans 1:20; Psalm 33:9; Hebrews 11:3.)

Such is the estimate which the Scriptures place upon the work of creation as evincing the eternal power and Godhead of the Creator. The Sabbath stands as the memorial of this great work. Its observance is an act of grateful acknowledgment on the part of his intelligent creatures that he is their Creator, and that they owe all to him; and that for his pleasure they are and were created. How appropriate this observance for Adam! And when man had fallen, how important for his well-being that he should “remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy.” lie would thus have been preserved from atheism and from idolatry; for he could ‘never forget that there was a God from whom all things derived their being; nor could he worship as God any other being than the Creator.

The seventh day, as hallowed by God in Eden, was not Jewish, but divine; it was not the memorial of the flight of Israel from Egypt, but of the Creator’s rest. Nor is it true that the most distinguished Jewish writers deny the primeval origin of the Sabbath, or claim it as a Jewish memorial.

We cite the historian Josephus and his learned contemporary, Philo Judaeus. Josephus whose “Antiquities of the Jews” run parallel with the Bible from the beginning, when treating of the wilderness of Sin, makes no allusion whatever to the Sabbath, — a clear proof that he had no idea that it originated in that wilderness. But when giving the account of creation, he bears the following testimony: — “Moses says that in just six days the world and all that is therein was made. And that the seventh day was a rest and a release from the labor of such operations;WHENCE it is that we celebrate a rest from our labor on that day, and call it the Sabbath, which word denotes rest in the Hebrew tongue.” And Philo bears an emphatic testimony relative to the character of the Sabbath as a memorial. He says: — “But after the whole world had been completed according to the perfect nature of the number six, the Father hallowed the day following, the seventh, praising it, and calling it holy. For that day is the festival, not of one city or one country, but of all the earth; a day which alone it is right to call the day of festival for all people, and the birth-day of the world.” Nor was the rest-day of the Lord a shadow of man’s rest after his recovery from the fall. God will ever be worshiped in an understanding manner by his intelligent creatures. When, therefore, he set apart his restday to a holy use, if it was not as a memorial of his work, but as a shadow of man’s redemption from the fall, the real design of the institution must have been stated; and as a consequence, man in his unfallen state could never observe the Sabbath as a delight, but ever with deep distress, as reminding him that he was soon to apostatize from God. Nor was the holy of the Lord and honorable, one of the “carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation; for there could be no reformation with unfallen beings. (Isaiah 58:13,14; Hebrews 9:10.)

But man did not continue in his uprightness. Paradise was lost, and Adam was excluded from the tree of life. The curse of God fell upon the earth, and death entered by sin, and passed upon all men. (Genesis 3; Romans 5:12) After this sad apostasy, no further mention of the Sabbath occurs until Moses, on the sixth day, said, “Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.”

It is objected that there is no precept in the book of Genesis for the observance of the Sabbath, and consequently no obligation on the part of the patriarchs to observe it. There is a defect in this argument not noticed by those who use it. The book of Genesis was not a rule given to the patriarchs to walk by. On the contrary, it was written by Moses years after creation, and long after the patriarchs were dead. Consequently, the fact that certain precepts were not found in Genesis is no evidence that they were not obligatory upon the patriarchs. Thus the book does not command men to love God with all their hearts, and their neighbors as themselves; nor does it prohibit idolatry, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, adultery, theft, false witness, or covetousness. Who will affirm from this that the patriarchs were under no restraint in these things? As a mere record of events, written long after their occurrence, it was not necessary that the book should contain a moral code. But had the book been given to the patriarchs as a rule of life, it must of necessity have contained such a code. It is a fact worthy of special notice that as soon as Moses reaches his own time in the book of Exodus, the whole moral law is given. The record and the people were then contemporary, and ever afterward the written law is in the hands of God’s people as a rule of life, and a complete code of moral precepts.

The argument under consideration is unsound, 1. Because based upon the supposition that the book of Genesis was the rule of life for the patriarchs; 2. Because if carried out, it would release the patriarchs from every precept of the moral law except the sixth; (Genesis 9:5,6) 3. Because the act of God in setting apart his rest-day to a holy use, as we have seen, necessarily involves the fact that he gave a precept concerning it to Adam, in whose time it was thus set apart. And hence, though the book of Genesis contains no precept concerning the Sabbath, it does contain direct evidence that such a precept was giver to the head and representative of the human family.

After giving the institution of the Sabbath, the book of Genesis, in its brief record of 2370 years, does not again mention it. This has been urged as ample proof that those holy men, who, during this period, were perfect, and walked with God in the observance of his commandments, statutes, and laws, (Genesis 5:24; 6:9; 26:5.) all lived in open profanation of that day which God had blessed and set apart to a holy use. But the book of Genesis also omits any distinct reference to the doctrine of future punishment, the resurrection of the body, the revelation of the Lord in flaming fire, and the judgment of the great day. Does this silence prove that the patriarchs did not, believe these great doctrines? Does it make them any the less sacred?

But the Sabbath is not mentioned from Moses to David, a period of five hundred years, during which it was enforced by the penalty of death. Does this prove that it was not observed during this period? 12 The jubilee occupied a very prominent place in the typical system, yet in the whole Bible a single instance of its observance is not recorded. What is still more remarkable, there is not on record a single instance of the observance of the great day of atonement, notwithstanding the work in the holiest on that day was the most important service connected with the worldly sanctuary. And yet. the observance of the other and less important festivals of the seventh month, which are so intimately connected with the day of atonement, the one preceding it by ten days, the other following it in five, is repeatedly and particularly recorded. (Ezra 3:1-6; Nehemiah 8:2, 9-12, 14-18; 1 Kings 8:2,65; 2 Chronicles 5:3; 7:8,9; John 7:2-14,37.) It would be sophistry to argue from this silence respecting the day of atonement, when there were so many instances in which its mention was almost demanded, that that day was never observed; and yet it is actually a better argument than the similar one urged against the Sabbath from the book of Genesis.

The reckoning of time by weeks is derived from nothing in nature, but owes its existence to the divine appointment of the seventh day to a holy use, in memory of the Lord’s rest from the six days’ work of creation. This period of time is marked only by the recurrence of the sanctified restday of the Creator. That the patriarchs reckoned time by weeks and by seven of days, is evident from several texts. (Genesis 29:27,28; 8:10, 12; 7:4, 10; 50:10; Exodus 7:25; Job 2:13.) That they should retain the week, and forget the Sabbath by which alone the week is marked, is not a probable conclusion. That the reckoning of the week was rightly kept, is evident from the fact that in the wilderness of Sin the people of their own accord gathered a double portion of manna on the sixth day. And Moses said to them, “Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.” (Exodus 16:22,23.)

The brevity of the record in Genesis causes us to overlook many facts of the deepest interest. Adam lived 930 years. How deep and absorbing the interest that must have existed in the human family to see the first man! to converse with one who had himself talked with God! to hear from his lips a description of that paradise in which he had lived! to learn from one created on the sixth day the wondrous events of the creation week! to hear from his lips the very words of the Creator when he set apart his rest-day to a holy use! and to learn, alas! the sad story of the loss of paradise and the tree of life! 14 It was, therefore, not difficult for the facts respecting the six days of creation and the sanctification of the rest-day to be diffused among mankind in the patriarchal age. Nay, it was impossible that it should be otherwise, especially among the godly. From Adam to Abraham, a succession of men — probably inspired of God — preserved the knowledge of God upon the earth; for Adam lived till Lamech, the father Noah, was 56 years of age; Lamech lived till Shem, the son of Noah, was 93; Shem lived till Abraham was 150 years of age. Thus are we brought down to Abraham, the father of the faithful. Of him it is recorded that he obeyed God’s voice, and kept his charge, his commandments, his statutes, and his laws. And of him the Most High bears the following testimony: “I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.” (Genesis 26:5; 18:19.)

The knowledge of God was preserved in the family of Abraham; and we shall next find the Sabbath familiarly mentioned among his posterity as an existing institution.

THE SABBATH COMMITTED TO THE HEBREWS

Object of this chapter — Total apostasy of the human family in the antediluvian age — Destruction of mankind — The family of Noah spared — Second apostasy of mankind in the patriarchal age — The apostate nations left to their own ways — The family of Abraham chosen — Separated from the rest of mankind — Their history — Their relation to God — The Sabbath in existence when they came forth from Egypt — Analysis of Exodus 16 — The Sabbath committed to the Hebrews.

WE are now to trace the history of divine truth for many ages in almost exclusive connection with the family of Abraham. That we may vindicate the truth from the reproach of pertaining only to the Hebrews, — a reproach often urged against the Sabbath, — and justify the dealings of God with mankind in leaving to their own ways the apostate nations, let us carefully examine the Bible for the reasons which directed divine Providence in the choice of Abraham’s family as the depositaries of divine truth.

The antediluvian world had been highly favored of God. The period of life extended to each generation was twelvefold that of the present age of man.

For almost one thousand years, Adam, who had conversed with God in paradise, had been with them. Before the death of Adam, Enoch began his holy walk of three hundred years, and then he was translated that he should not see death. This testimony to the piety of Enoch was a powerful evidence to the antediluvians in behalf of truth and righteousness. Moreover, the Spirit of God strove with mankind; but the perversity of man triumphed over all the gracious restraints of the Holy Spirit. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Even the sons of God joined in the general departure from him. At last, a single family was all that remained of the worshipers of the Most High. (Genesis 2 to 6; Hebrews 11:4-7; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5.)

Then came the deluge, sweeping the world of its guilty inhabitants with the besom of destruction. (Genesis 7; Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:26,27; 2 Peter 3:5,6.) So terrible a display of divine justice might well be thought sufficient to restrain impiety for ages. Surely the family of Noah could not soon forget this awful lesson. But alas! revolt and apostasy speedily followed, and men turned from God to the worship of idols. Against the divine mandate, separating the human family into nations, (Deuteronomy 32:7,8; Acts 17:26.) mankind united in one great act of rebellion in the plain of Shinar. “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” Then God confounded them in their impiety, and scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth. 1 Men did not like to retain God in their knowledge; wherefore God gave them over to a reprobate mind, and suffered them to change the truth of God into a lie, and to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. Such was the origin of idolatry and the consequent heathenism. (Romans 1:18-32; Acts 14:16,17; 17:29, 30.)

In the midst of this wide-spread apostasy, one man was found whose heart was faithful to God. Abraham was chosen from an idolatrous family, as the depositary of divine truth, the father of the faithful, the heir of the world, and the friend of God. (Genesis 12:1-3; Joshua 24:2,3,14; Nehemiah 9:7,8; Romans 4:13-17; 2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8; James 2:23.) When the worshipers of God were found only in the family of Noah, God gave up the rest of mankind to perish in the flood; and now that they were again reduced almost to a single family, God gave up the idolatrous nations to their own ways, and took the family of Abraham as his peculiar heritage. “For I know him,” said God, “that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.” (Genesis 18:19.) That they might preserve in the earth the knowledge of divine truth and the memory and worship of the Most High, they were to be a people walled in from all mankind, and dwelling in a land of their own. That they might thus be separated from the heathen around, God gave to Abraham the rite of circumcision, and afterward to his posterity the whole ceremonial law. (Genesis 17:9-14; 34:14; Acts 10:28; 11:2, 8; Ephesians 2:12-19; Numbers 23:9; Deuteronomy 33:27,28.) But they could not possess the land designed for them until the iniquity of the Amorites, its inhabitants, was full, that they should be thrust out before them. The horror of great darkness, and the smoking furnace seen by Abraham in vision, foreshadowed the iron furnace and the bitter servitude in Egypt. The family of Abraham must go down thither. Brief prosperity and long and terrible oppression follow. (Genesis 15; Exodus 1 to 5; Deuteronomy 4:20.)

At length the power of the oppressor is broken, and the people of God are delivered. The expiration of four hundred and thirty years from the promise to Abraham marks the hour of deliverance to his posterity. (Exodus 12:29-42; Galatians 3:17.) The nation of Israel is brought forth from Egypt as God’s peculiar treasure, that he may give them his Sabbath, and his law, and himself. The psalmist testifies that God “brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness, and gave them the lands of the heathen, and they inherited the labor of the people; that they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws.” And the Most High says, “I am the Lord which hallow you, that brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God.” (Psalm 105:43-45; Leviticus 22:32,33; Numbers 15:41.)

Not that the commandments of God, his Sabbath, and himself had no prior existence, nor that the people were ignorant of the true God and his law; for the Sabbath was appointed to a holy use before the fall of man; and the commandments of God, his statutes, and his laws were kept by Abraham; and the Israelites themselves, when some of them had viola, led the Sabbath, were reproved by the question, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” (Genesis 2:2,3; 26:5; Exodus 16:4,27,28; 18:16.) And as to the Most High, the psalmist exclaims, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” (Psalm 90:2.)

But there must be a formal public espousal of the people by God, and of his law and. Sabbath and himself by the people. (Exodus 19:3-8; 24:3-8; Jeremiah 3:14 compared with last clause of Jeremiah 31:32.) But neither the Sabbath, nor the law, nor the great Lawgiver, by their connection with the Hebrews, became Jewish. The Lawgiver, indeed, became the God of Israel, (Exodus 20:2; 24:10.) (and what Gentile shall refuse him adoration for that reason?) but the Sabbath still remained the Sabbath of the Lord, (Exodus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:14; Nehemiah 9:14.) and the law continued to be the law of the Most High.

In the month following their passage through the Red Sea, the Hebrews came into the wilderness of Sin. It is at this point in his narrative that Moses for the second time mentions the sanctified rest-day of the Creator.

The people murmured for bread: — “Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no. 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…. I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp; and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna; for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for them which are in his tents. And the children of Israel did so, and gathered some more, some less.

And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating. And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding, they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank; and Moses was wroth with them. And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating; and when the sun waxed hot, it melted. And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread,2 two omers for one man; and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, 3 Tomorrow 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 to be kept’ until the morning. And they laid it up until the morning, as Hoses bade; and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. And Hoses said, Eat that today; for today is a Sabbath unto the Lord 4 today ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none.

And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses, how long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day.” (Exodus 16.)

This narrative shows, 1. That God had a law and commandments prior to the giving of the manna. 2. That God, in giving his people bread from heaven, designed to prove them respecting his law. 3. That in this law was the holy Sabbath; for the test relative to walking in the law pertained directly to the Sabbath; and when God said, “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” it was the Sabbath which they had violated. 4. That in proving the people respecting this existing law, Moses gave no new precept respecting the Sabbath, but remained silent relative to the preparation for the Sabbath until after the people of their own accord had gathered a double portion on the sixth day. 5. That by this act the people proved, not only that they were not ignorant of the Sabbath, but that they were disposed to observe it. 5 6. That the reckoning of the week, traces of which appear through the patriarchal age, (Genesis 7:4,10; 8:10, 12; 29:27, 28; 50:10; Exodus 7:25; Job 2:13.) had been rightly kept; for the people knew when the sixth day had arrived. 7. That had there been any doubt existing on that point, the fall of the manna on the six days, the withholding of it on the seventh, and the I, preservation of that needed for the Sabbath over that day, must have settled that point incontrovertibly. 8. That there was no act of instituting the Sabbath in the wilderness of Sin; for God did not then make it his rest-day, nor did he then bless and sanctify the day. On the contrary, the record shows that the seventh day was already the sanctified rest-day of the Lord. 9. That the obligation to observe the Sabbath existed and was known before the fall of the manna; for the language used implies the existence of such an obligation: but does not contain a new enactment until after some of the people had violated the Sabbath. God says to Moses, “On the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in,” but he does not speak of the seventh. And on the sixth day, Moses said, “Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord,” but he does not Command them to observe it. On the seventh day he says that it is the Sabbath, and that they would find no manna in the field. “Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none.” But in all this there is no precept given, yet the existence of such a precept is plainly implied. 10. That when some of the people violated the Sabbath, they were reproved in language which clearly indicated a previous transgression of this precept. “How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?” 11. And that this rebuke of the Lawgiver restrained for the time the transgression of the people. “See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days: 8 abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.” 9 As a special trust, God committed the Sabbath to the Hebrews. It was now given them, not now made for them. It was made for man at the close of the first week of time; but all other nations having turned from the Creator to the worship of idols, it was given to the Hebrew people. Nor does this prove that all the Hebrews had hitherto disregarded it; for Christ uses the same language respecting circumcision. Thus he says, “Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers.” (John 7:22.)

Yet God had enjoined that ordinance upon Abraham and his family four hundred years previous to this gift of it by Moses, and it had been retained by them. The language, “The Lord hath given you the Sabbath,” implies a solemn act of committing a treasure to their trust. How was this done? No act of instituting the Sabbath here took place. No precept enjoining its observance was given until some of the people violated it, when it was given in the form of a reproof; which evinced a previous obligation, and that they were transgressing an existing law. And this view is certainly strengthened by the fact that no explanation of the institution was given to the people, — a fact which indicates that some knowledge of the Sabbath was already in their possession.

But how, then, did God give them the Sabbath? He did this, first, by delivering them from the abject bondage of Egypt, where they were a nation of slaves; and secondly, by providing them with food in such a manner as to impose the strongest obligation to keep the Sabbath. Forty years did he give them bread from heaven, sending it for six days, and withholding it on the seventh, and preserving food for them over the Sabbath. Thus was the Sabbath specially intrusted to them.

As a gift to the Hebrews, the Creator’s great memorial became a sign between God and themselves. “I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” As a sign, its object is stated to be, to make known the true God; and we are told why it was such a sign. “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” (Ezekiel 20:12; Exodus 31:17.)

The institution itself signified that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. Its observance by the people signified that the Creator was their God.

The Sabbath was a sign between God and the children of Israel, because they alone were the worshipers of the Creator. All other nations had turned from him to “the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth.” (Jeremiah 10:10-12.) For this reason the memorial of the great Creator was committed to the Hebrews. Thus was the Sabbath a golden link uniting the Creator and his worshipers.

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT

The Holy One upon Mount Sinai — Three great gifts bestowed upon the Hebrews — The Sabbath proclaimed by the voice of God — Position assigned it in the moral law — Origin of the Sabbath — Definite character of the commandment — Revolution of the earth upon its axis — Name of the Sabbatic institution — Seventh day of the commandment identical with the seventh day of the New-Testament week — Testimony of Nehemiah — Moral obligation of the fourth commandment.

Now we approach the record of that sublime event, the personal descent of the Lord upon Mount Sinai. 1 The sixteenth chapter of Exodus, as we have seen, is remarkable for its record of the fact that God gave to Israel the Sabbath; the nineteenth chapter, that God gave himself to that people in solemnly espousing them as a holy nation unto himself; while the twentieth chapter will be found remarkable for recording the act of the Most High in giving to Israel his law.

It is customary to speak against the Sabbath and the law as being Jewish, because they were given to Israel. As well might the Creator be spoken against, who brought them out of Egypt to be their God, and who styles himself the God of Israel. (Exodus 24:10; Leviticus 22:32,33; Numbers 15:11; Isaiah 41:17.) The Hebrews were honored by being thus intrusted with the Sabbath, and the law, not the Sabbath and the law and the Creator rendered Jewish by this connection. The sacred Writers speak of the high exaltation of Israel in being thus intrusted with the law of God. “He showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any, nation; and as for his judgments, they have not known them Praise ye the Lord!” “What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” “Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory; and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service, of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all,. God blessed forever. Amen.” After the Most High had solemnly espoused the people unto himself as his peculiar treasure in the earth, (Exodus 19; Deuteronomy 7:6; 14:2; Samual 7:23; 1 Kings 8:53; Amos 3:1,2.) they were brought forth out of the camp to meet with God. “And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.”

Out of the midst of this fire did God proclaim the ten words of his law. (Exodus 20:1-17; 34:28, margin; 5:4-23; 10:4, margin.) The fourth of these precepts is the grand law of the Sabbath. Thus spoke the great Lawgiver: — “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. 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 man-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 Sabbathday, and hallowed it.”

The estimate which the Lawgiver placed upon his Sabbath is seen in that he deemed it worthy of a place in his code of ten commandments, thus causing it to stand in the midst of nine immutable moral precepts. Nor is it to be thought a small honor that the Most High, naming one by one the great principles of morality until all are given, and he adds no more, (Deuteronomy 5:22.) should include in their number the observance of his hallowed rest-day. This precept is expressly given to enforce the observance, of the Creator’s great memorial; and unlike all the others, this one traces its obligation back to the creation, where that memorial was ordained.

The Sabbath is to be remembered and kept holy, because God hallowed it, i.e., appointed it to a holy use, at the close of the first week. And this sanctification, or hallowing, of the rest-day, when the first seventh day of time was past, was the solemn act of setting apart the seventh day for time to come, in memory of the Creator’s rest. Thus the fourth commandment reaches buck, and embraces the institution of the Sabbath in paradise; while the sanctification of the Sabbath! in paradise extends forward to all coming time. The narrative respecting the wilderness of Sin admirably cements the union of the two; for there, before the fourth commandment was given, stands the Sabbath, holy, to the Lord, with an existing obligation to observe it, though no commandment in that narrative creates the obligation. This obligation is derived from the same source as the fourth commandment, namely, the sanctification of the Sabbath in paradise, showing that it was an existing duty, and not a new precept. It should never be forgotten that the fourth commandment does not trace its obligation to the wilderness of Sin, but to the creation, — a decisive proof that the Sabbath did not originate in the wilderness of Sin.

The fourth commandment is remarkably definite. It embraces, first, a precept: “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy;” secondly, an explanation of this precept: “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 manservant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; thirdly, the reasons on which the precept is based, embracing the origin of the institution, and the very acts by which it was made, and enforcing all by the example 3 of the Lawgiver himself; “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.”

The rest-day of the Lord is thus distinguished from the six days on which he labored. The blessing and sanctification pertain to the day of the Creator’s rest. There can be, therefore, no indefiniteness in the precept. It is not merely one day in seven, but that day in the seven on which the Creator rested, and upon which he placed his blessing, namely, the seventh day. 4 And this day is definitely pointed out in the name given it by God “The seventh day is the Sabbath [i. e., the rest-day] of the Lord thy God.”

That the seventh day in the fourth commandment is the-seventh day of the New-Testament week may be plainly proved. In the record of our Lord’s burial, Luke writes thus: — “And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. And the women also which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath-day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.” (Luke 23:54-56; 24:1.)

Luke testifies that these women kept “the Sabbath-day according to the commandment.” The commandment says, “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” This day thus observed was the last or seventh day of the week, for the following (See also Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1,2.) day was the first day of the week. Hence the seventh day of the commandment is the seventh day of the New-Testament week.

The testimony of Nehemiah is deeply interesting. “Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments: and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant.” (Nehemiah 9:13,14.)

It is remarkable that God is said to have made known the Sabbath when he thus came down upon the mount; for the children of Israel had the Sabbath in possession when they came to Sinai. This language must therefore refer to that complete unfolding of the Sabbatic institution which is given in the fourth commandment. And mark the expression, “Madest known 5 unto them thy holy Sabbath,” not madest the Sabbath for them, — language which plainly implies its previous existence, and cites the mind back to the Creator’s rest for the origin of the institution. The moral obligation of the fourth commandment, which is so Often denied, may be clearly shown by reference to the origin of all things. God created the world, and gave existence to man upon it. To him he gave life, and breath, and all things. Man therefore owes everything to God. Every faculty of his mind, every power of his being, all his strength, and all his time, belong of right to the Creator; hence it was the benevolence of the Creator that gave to man six days for his own wants. And in setting apart the seventh day to a holy use, in memory of his own rest, the Most High was reserving unto himself one of the seven days, when he could rightly claim all as his. The six days are the gift of God to man, to be rightly employed in secular affairs, not the seventh day the gift of man to God.

The fourth commandment, therefore, does not require man to give something of his own to God; but it floes require that man should not appropriate to himself that which God has reserved for his. own worship.

To observe this day, then, is to render to God of the things that are his; to appropriate it to ourselves is simply to rob God.

THE SABBATH WRITTEN BY THE FINGER OF GOD

Classification of the precepts given through Moses — The Sabbath renewed — Solemn ratification of the covenant between God and Israel — Moses called up to receive the law which God had written upon stone — The ten commandments probably proclaimed upon the Sabbath — Events of the forty days — The Sabbath becomes a sign between God and Israel — The penalty of death — The tables of testimony given to Moses, and broken when he saw the idolatry of the people — The idolaters punished — Moses goes up to renew the tables — The Sabbath again enjoined — The tables given again — The ten commandments were the testimony of God — Who wrote them? — Three distinguished honors which pertain to the Sabbath — The ten commandments a complete code — Relation of the fourth commandment to the atonement — Valid reason why God himself should write that law which was placed beneath the mercy-seat.

WHEN the voice of the Holy One had ceased, “the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.” A brief interview followed, (Exodus 20-24.) when God gave to Moses a series of precepts, which, as a sample of the statutes given through him, may be classified thus: Ceremonial precepts, pointing to the good things to come; judicial precepts, intended for the civil government of the nation; and moral precepts, stating anew in other forms the ten commandments. In this brief interview the Sabbath is not forgotten: — “Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.” (Exodus 23:12.)

This scripture furnishes incidental proof that the Sabbath was made for mankind, and for those creatures that share the labors of man. The stranger and the foreigner must keep it, and it was for their refreshment.(See also Exdodus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:14; Isaiah 56.) But the same persons could not partake of the Passover until they. were made members of the Hebrew church by circumcision.(Exodus 12:43-48.)

When Moses had returned unto the people, he repeated all the words of the Lord. With one voice all the people exclaimed, “All the words which the Lord hath said will we do.” Then Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. “And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people; and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.” Then Moses “sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.” (Exodus 24:3-8; Hebrews 9:18-20.)

The way was thus prepared for God to bestow a second signal honor upon his law. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there; and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written, that thou mayest teach them…. And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount. And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days; and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. 1 And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like, devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount; and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.” (Exodus 24:12-18.)

During this forty days, God gave to Moses a pattern of the ark in which to place the law that he had written upon stone, and of the mercy-seat to place over that law, and of the sanctuary in which to deposit the ark. He also ordained the priesthood, which was to minister in the sanctuary before the ark. (Exodus 25-31.) These things being ordained, and the Lawgiver about to commit his law as written by himself into the hands of Moses, he again enjoins the Sabbath: — “And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath, therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.

And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” (Exodus 31:12-18.)

This should be compared with the testimony of Ezekiel, speaking in the name of God, — “I gave them my statutes, and showed them my judgments, which, if a man do, he shall even live in them. Moreover, also, I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them…. I am the Lord your God: walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.” (Ezekiel 20:11,12,19,20.)

It will be observed that neither of these scriptures teaches that the Sabbath was made for Israel, nor yet do they teach that it was made after the Hebrews came out of Egypt. In neither of these particulars do they even seem to contradict those texts that place the institution of the Sabbath at creation. But we do learn,1. That it was God’s act of giving to the Hebrews his Sabbath that made it a sign between himself and them. “I gave them my Sabbaths, To Be a sign between me and them.” This act of committing to them the Sabbath has been already noticed. 2 2. That it was to be a sign between God and the Hebrews, “that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctity them.” Wherever the word Lord in the Old Testament is in small capitals, as in the texts under consideration, it is Jehovah in the Hebrew. The Sabbath, then, as a sign, signified that it was Jehovah, i.e., the infinite, self-existent God, who had sanctified them. To sanctify is to separate, set apart, or appoint to a holy, sacred, or religious use. 3 That the Hebrew nation had thus been set apart in the most remarkable manner from all mankind, was sufficiently evident. But who was it that had thus separated them from all other people? As a gracious answer to this important question, God gave to the Hebrews his own hallowed restday.

But how could the great memorial of the Creator determine such a question? Listen to the words of the Most High: “Verily my Sabbaths,” i .e ., my rest-days, “ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you…. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” The Sabbath, as a sign between God and Israel was a perpetual testimony that he who had separated them from all mankind as his peculiar treasure in the earth, was that Being who had created the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. It was, therefore, the strongest possible assurance that he who sanctified them was indeed Jehovah.

From the days of Abraham, God had set the Hebrews apart. He who had previously borne no local, national, or family name, did front that time until the end of his covenant-relation with the Hebrew race, take to himself such titles as seemed to show him to be their God alone. From his choice of Abraham and his family forward, he designates himself as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; the God of the Hebrews and the God of Israel.(Genesis 17:7,8; 26:24; 28:13; Exodus 3:6, 13-16, 18; 5:3; Isaiah 45:3.) He brought Israel out of Egypt to be their God, (Leviticus 11:45.) and at Sinai he joined himself to them in solemn espousal. In this way did he set apart or sanctify unto himself the Hebrews, because all other nations had given themselves to idolatry. Thus the God of heaven and earth condescended to give himself to a single race, and to set them apart, front all mankind. It should be observed that; it was not the Sabbath which had set Israel apart from all other nations, but it was the idolatry of all other nations that had caused God to set the Hebrews apart for himself; and that God gave to Israel the Sabbath which he had hallowed for mankind at creation as the most expressive sign that he who thus sanctified them was indeed the living God.

It was the act of God in giving his Sabbath to the Israelites that rendered it; a sign between himself and them. But the, Sabbath did not derive its existence from being given to the Hebrews as it was; for it was the ancient Sabbath of the Lord when given to them, and we have seen 4 that it was not given by a new commandment. On the contrary, it; rested at that; time upon existing obligation. But it was the providence of God in behalf of the Hebrews, first, in rescuing them from abject servitude, and second, in sending them bread from heaven for six days, and preserving food for the Sabbath, this constituted the Sabbath, a gift to that people. And mark the significance of the manner in which this gift was bestowed, as showing who it was that sanctified them: It became a gift to the Hebrews by the wonderful providence of the manna, — a miracle that ceased not openly to declare the Sabbath every week for the space of forty years, thus showing incontrovertibly that lie who led them was the author of the Sabbath, and therefore the Creator of heaven and earth. That the Sabbath, which was made for man, should be given to the Hebrews in such a manner, is certainly not more remarkable than that the God of the whole earth should give his oracles and himself to that people. The Most High and his law and Sabbath did not become Jewish; but the Hebrews were made the honored depositaries of divine truth, and the knowledge of God and of his commandments was preserved in the earth.

The reason on which this sign is based, points unmistakably, to the true origin of the Sabbath. It did not originate from the fall of the manna for six days, and its cessation on the seventh; for the manna was given in this way because the Sabbath was in existence; but because that “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” Thus the Sabbath is shown to have originated with the rest. and refreshment of the Creator, and not at the fall of the manna. As anINSTITUTION, the Sabbath declared its author to be the Creator of heaven and earth; as a sign 5 between God and Israel, it is declared that he who had set them apart was indeed Jehovah.

The last act of the Lawgiver in this memorable interview was to place in the hands of Moses the “two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” Then he revealed to Moses the sad apostasy of Israel, and urged him to hasten down to them. “And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand; the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables…. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.”

Then Moses inflicted retribution upon the idolaters, “and there fell of the people theft day about three thousand men.” Moses returned unto God, and interceded in behalf of the people; and God promised that his angel should go with them, but that he himself would not go up in their midst, lest he should consume them. 6 Then Moses presented an earnest supplication to the Most High that lie might see his glory. This petition was granted, saving that the face of God should not be seen.(Exodus 22,33.)

But before Moses ascended, that he might behold the majesty of the infinite Lawgiver, the Lord said unto him, — ‘Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest…. And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

And the Lord passed by before him.”(Exodus 34; Deuteronomy 9; 10:1, 2.)

Then Moses beheld the glory of the Lord, and he “made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.” This interview lasted forty days and forty nights, as did the first, and seems to have been spent by Moses in interceding with God that he would not destroy the people for their sin. The record of this period is very brief, but in this record the Sabbath is mentioned. “Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest,”(Exodus 34:21.) thus admonishing them not to forget in their busiest season the Sabbath of the Lord.

This second period of forty days ends, like the first, with the act of God in placing the tables of stone in the hands of Moses. “And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread nor drink water. And he 7 wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” From this it appears that the tables of testimony were two tables of stone with the tell commandments written upon them by the finger of God, which proves that the testimony of God is, in truth, the ten commandments. The writing on the second tables was an exact copy of that on the first. “Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first and I will write,” said God, “upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest.” And of the first tables, Moses says: “He declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.”(Exodus 34:1,28; Deuteronomy 4:12,13; 5:22.)

Thus did God commit to his people the ten commandments. Without human or angelic agency, he proclaimed them himself; and not trusting his most honored servant, Moses, nor even an angel of his presence, himself wrote them with his own finger. “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy,” is one of the ten words thus honored by the Most High. Nor are these two high honors the only ones conferred upon this precept. While it shares them in common with the other nine commandments, it stands in advance of them in that it is established by theEXAMPLE of the Lawgiver himself. These precepts were given upon two tables with evident reference to the twofold division of the law of God; supreme love to God, and the love of our neighbor as ourselves. The Sabbath commandment, placed at the close of the first table, forms the golden clasp that binds together both divisions of the moral law. It guards and enforces that day which God claims as his; it follows man through the six days which God has given him to be properly spent in the various relations of life, extending over the whole of human lifts, and embracing in its loan of six days to man all the duties of the second table, while itself belonging to the first.

That these ten commandments form a complete code of moral law, is proved by the language of the Lawgiver, when he called Moses up to receive them. “Come up to me into the mount, and be there; and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written.” (Exodus 24:12.)

This law and commandments was the testimony of God engraved upon stone. The same great fact is presented by Moses in his blessing pronounced upon Israel: “And he said, the Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints; from his right hand went a fiery law for then.” 8 There can be no dispute that in this language the Most High is represented as personally present with ten thousands of his holy ones, or angels. And that which he wrote with his own right hand is called by Moses “a fiery law,” or as the margin has it, “a fire of law.” And now the man of God completes his sacred trust., lie rehearses what God did in committing his law to him, and what he himself did in its final disposition: “And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the Lord spoke unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and’ the Lord gave them unto me. And I turned myself, and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me.” Thus was the law of God deposited in the ark beneath the mercy-seat.(Deuteronomy 10:4,5; Exodus 25:10-22.)

The top of the ark was called the mercy-seat, because all those who had broken the law contained in the ark beneath the mercy-seat could find pardon by the sprinkling of the blood of atonement upon it.

The law within the ark was that which demanded an atonement; the ceremonial law, which ordained the Levitical priesthood and the sacrifices for sin, was that which taught men how the atonement could-be made. The broken law was beneath the mercy-seat, the blood of sin-offering was sprinkled upon its top, and pardon was extended to the penitent sinner.

There was actual sin, and hence a real law which man had broken; but there was not a real atonement, and hence the need of the great Antitype to the Levitical sacrifices. The real atonement, when it is made, must relate to that law respecting which an atonement had been shadowed forth. In other words, the shadowy atonement related to that law which was shut up in the ark, indicating that a real atonement was demanded by that law. It is necessary that the law which demands atonement in order that its transgressor may be spared, should itself be perfect, else the fault would, in part at least, rest with the Lawgiver, and not wholly with the sinner.

Hence, the atonement, when made, does not take away the broken law, for that is perfect, but is expressly designed to take away the guilt of the transgressor.(1 John 3:4,5.) Let it be remembered, then, that the fourth commandment is one of the ten precepts of God’s broken law, one of the immutable, holy principles that made the death of God’s only Son necessary before pardon could be extended to guilty man. These facts being borne in mind, it will not be thought strange that the Lawgiver should reserve the proclamation of such a law to himself; and that he should intrust to no created being the writing of that law which should demand as its atonement the death of the Son of God.

THE SABBATH DURING THE DAY OF TEMPTATION

General history of the Sabbath in the wilderness — Its violation one cause of excluding that generation from the promised land — Its violation by their children in the wilderness one of the causes of their final dispersion from their own land — The statute respecting fires upon the Sabbath — Various precepts relative to the Sabbaths — The Sabbath not a Jewish feasts — The man who gathered sticks upon the Sabbath — Appeal of Moses in behalf of the decalogue — The Sabbath not derived from the covenant at Horeb — Final appeal of Moses in behalf of the Sabbaths. The original fourth commandment — The Sabbath not a memorial of the flight from Egypt — What words were engraved upon stone? — General summary from the books of Moses.

THE history of the Sabbath during the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when God was grieved for forty years with his people, may be stated in few words. Even under the eye of Moses, and with the most stupendous miracles in their memory and before their eyes, they were idolaters(Exodus 32; Joshua 24:2,14,23; Ezekiel 20:7,8,16,18,24.) neglecters of sacrifices, neglecters of circumcision,(Amos 5:25-27; Acts 7:41-43; Joshua 6:2-8.) murmurers against God, despisers of his law,(Numbers 14; Psalm 95; Ezekiel 20:13.) and violators of his Sabbath.

Of their treatment of the Sabbath while in the wilderness, Ezekiel gives us the following graphic description:— “But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live. in them; and my Sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them. But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, in whose sight I brought them out.”(Ezekiel 20:13,14.)

This language shows a general violation of the Sub-bath and evidently refers to the apostasy of Israel during the first forty days that Moses was absent from them. God did then purpose their destruction; but at the intercession of Moses he spared them for the very reason assigned by the prophet.(Exodus 32.) A further probation being granted them, they signally failed a second time, so that God lifted up his hand to them, that they should not enter the promised land. The prophet continues, — “Yet also I lifted up my hand unto them in the wilderness, that I should not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands; BECAUSE they despised my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, but polluted my Sabbaths; for their heart went after their idols. Nevertheless, mine eye spared them from destroying them, neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness.”(Ezekiel 20:15-17.)

The above has undoubted reference to the act of God in excluding all that were over twenty years of age from entering the promised land.(Numbers 14.) It is to be noticed that the violation of the Sabbath is distinctly stated as one of the reasons for which that generation was excluded front the land of promise. God spared the people so that the nation was not utterly cut off; for he extended to the younger part a further probation. Continuing in verses 18-24, he says: — “But I said unto their children in the wilderness, walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols: I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God. Notwithstanding, the children rebelled against me; they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my Sabbaths: then I said I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness. Nevertheless, I withdrew my hand, and wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted in the sight of the heathen, in whose sight I brought them forth. I lifted up mine hand unto them also in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries; because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols.”

Thus it appears that the younger generation, which God spared when he excluded their fathers from the land of promise, did, like their fathers, transgress God’s law, pollute his Sabbath, and cleave to idolatry. God did not see fit to exclude them from the land of Canaan, but he did lift; up his hand to them in the wilderness, that he would give them up to dispersion among their enemies after they had cutered the land of promise. By this it is seen that the Hebrews, while in the wilderness, laid the foundation for their subsequent dispersion from their own land; and that: one of the acts which led to their final ruin as a nation was the violation of the Sabbath before they had entered the promised land. Well might Moses say to them in the last month of his life: “Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.”(Deuteronomy 9:24.) In Caleb and Joshua was another spirit, for they followed the Lord fully.(Numbers 14; Hebrews 3:16.)

Such is the general history of Sabbatic observance in the wilderness. Even the miracle of the manna, which every week for forty years bore public testimony to the Sabbath,(Exodus 16; Joshua 5:12.) became to the body of the Hebrews merely an ordinary event, so that they dared to murmur against the bread thus sent from heaven;(Numbers 11,21.) and we may well believe that those who were thus hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, had little regard for the testimony of the manna in behalf of the Sabbath. 1 In the Mosaic record we next read of the Sabbath as follows: — “And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, These are the words which the Lord hath commanded, that ye should do them. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the Lord; whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death. 2 Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath-day.”(Exodus 35:1-3.)

The chief feature of interest in this text relates to the prohibition of fires on the Sabbath. As this is the only prohibition of the kind in the Bible, and as it is often urged as a reason why the Sabbath should not be kept, a brief examination of the difficulty will not be out of place. It should be observed, 1. That this language does not form a part of the fourth commandment, the grand law of the Sabbath; 2. That as there were laws pertaining to the Sabbath which were no part of the Sabbatic institution, but grew out of its being intrusted to the Hebrews, — such as the law respecting the presentation of the shew-bread on the Sabbath, and that respecting the burnt-offering for the Sabbath, — (Leviticus 24:5-9; Numbers 28:9,10.) so it is at least possible that this is a precept pertaining only to that nation, and not a part of the original institution; 3. That as there were laws peculiar only to the Hebrews, so there were many that pertained to them only while they were in the wilderness (such were all those precepts that related to the manna, the building and setting up of the tabernacle, the manner of encamping about it, etc.); 4. That of this class were all the statutes given from the time that Moses brought down the second tables of stone until the events narrated in the close of the book of Exodus, unless the words under consideration form an exception; 5. That the prohibition of fires was a law of this class, i. e., a law designed only for the wilderness; and this is evident from several decisive facts: — 1. That the land of Palestine, during a part of the year, is so cold that fires are necessary to prevent suffering. 2. That the Sabbath was not designed to be a cause of distress and suffering, but of refreshment, of delight, and of blessing. 3. That in the wilderness of Sinai, where this precept respecting fires on the Sabbath was given, it, was not a cause of suffering, as they were two hundred miles south of Jerusalem, in the warm climate of Arabia. 4. That this precept was of a temporary character is further implied in that while other laws are said to be perpetual statutes and precepts to be kept after they should enter the land,5 no hint of this kind appears here. On the contrary, this seems to be similar in character to the precept respecting the manna,(Exodus 16:23.) and to be co-existent with, and adapted to it. 5. If the prohibition respecting fires did indeed pertain to the promised land, and not merely to the wilderness, it would every few years conflict directly with the law of the Passover; for the Passover was to be roasted by each family of the children of Israel on the evening following the fourteenth day of the first month,(Exodus 12; Deuteronomy 16.) which would fall occasionally upon the Sabbath.

The prohibition of fires upon the Sabbath would not conflict with the Passover while the Hebrews were in the wilderness; for the Passover was not to be observed until they reached that land. 6 But if that prohibition did extend forward to the promised land, where the Passover was to be regularly observed, these two statutes would often come in direct conflict. This is certainly a strong confirmation of the view that the prohibition of fires upon the Sabbath was a temporary statute, relating only to the wilderness. From these facts it follows that the favorite argument drawn from the prohibition of fires, that the Sabbath was a local institution, and adapted only to the land of Canaan, must be abandoned; for it is evident that that prohibition was a temporary statute, not even adapted to the land of promise, and not designed for that land. We next read of the Sabbath as follows: — “And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy. Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my Sabbaths; I am the Lord your God.” “Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary; I am the Lord.”(Leviticus 19:1-3,30.)

These constant references to the Sabbath contrast strikingly with the general disobedience of the people. Again God says: — “Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.” 8 Thus did God solemnly designate his rest. day as a season of holy worship, and as the day of weekly religious assemblies. Again the great Lawgiver sets forth his Sabbath: — “Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it; for I am the Lord your God. Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary; I am the Lord.”(Leviticus 26:1,2.)

Happy would it have been for the people of God had they thus refrained from idolatry, and sacredly regarded the rest-day of the Creator. Yet idolatry and Sabbath-breaking were so general in the wilderness that the generation which came forth from Egypt were excluded from the promised land.(Ezekiel 20:15,16.) After God had thus cut off from inheriting the land the men who had rebelled against him,(Numbers 13,14.) we next read of the Sabbath as follows: — “And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath-day. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron,and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be, lone to him. And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death; all. the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.

And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses.” (Numbers 15:32-36.)

The following facts should be considered in explaining this text: 1. That this was a case of peculiar guilt; for the whole congregation before whom this man stood in judgment, and by Whom he was put to death, were themselves guilty of violating the Sabbath, and had just been excluded from the promised land for this and other sins.(Ezekiel 20:15,16 compare with Numbers 14:35.) 2. That this was not a case which came under the existing penalty of death for work upon the Sabbath; for the man was put in confinement that the mind of the Lord respecting his guilt might be obtained. The peculiarity’ of his transgression may be learned from the context. The verses which next precede the case in question read thus: — “But the soul that doeth aught presumptuously, whether he be born in the land, or a stranger, the same reproacheth the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.”(Numbers 15:30.)

These words, being followed by this remarkable case, were evidently designed to be illustrated by it. It is manifest, therefore, that this was an instance of presumptuous sin, in which the transgressor intended despite to the Spirit of grace and to the statutes of the Most High; hence: this case cannot be quoted as evidence of extraordinary strictness on the part of the Hebrews in observing the Sabbath; for we have direct evidence that they did greatly pollute it during the whole forty years of their sojourn in the Wilderness.(Ezekiel 20.) It stands as an instance of transgression in which the sinner intended to show his contempt for the Lawgiver, and in this consisted his peculiar guilt. In the last month of his long and eventful life, Moses rehearsed all the great acts of God in behalf of his people, with the statutes and precepts that he had given them. This rehearsal is contained in the book of Deuteronomy, a name which signifies second law , and is applied to that book, because it is a second writing of the law. It is the farewell of Moses to a disobedient and rebellious people; and he endeavors to fasten upon them the strongest possible sense of personal obligation to obey. When he is about; to rehearse the ten commandments, he uses language evidently designed to impress upon the minds of the Hebrews a sense of their individual obligation to do what God had commanded. He says: — “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your cars this day, that ye may learn them, and keep and do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.”(Deuteronomy 5:1-3.)

It was not the act of your fathers that placed this responsibility upon you, but your own individual acts that brought you into the bond of this covenant. You have personally pledged yourselves to the Most High to keep these precepts,10 Such is the obvious import of this language; yet it has been gravely adduced as proof that the Sabbath of the Lord was made for the Hebrews, and was not obligatory upon the patriarchs. The singularity of this deduction appears in that it is brought to bear against the fourth commandment alone; whereas, if it were a just and logical argument, it would show theft the ancient patriarchs were under no obligation in respect to any precept of the moral law. But it is certain that the covenant at Horeb was simply an embodiment of the precepts of the moral law, with mutual pledges respecting them between God and the people, and that that covenant did not give existence to any of the ten commandments. At all events, we find the Sabbath ordained of God at the close of creation,11 and obligatory upon the Hebrews in the wilderness before God had given them a new precept on the subject. 12 As this was before the covenant at Horeb, it is conclusive proof that the Sabbath did no more originate from that covenant than did the prohibition of idolatry, theft, or murder.

The man of God then repeated the ten commandments, giving the fourth as follows: — “Keep the Sabbath-day, to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt 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, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou.

And 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; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day.” (Deuteronomy 5:12-15.)

It is a singular fact that this scripture is uniformly quoted as the original fourth commandment by those who write against the Sabbath, while the original precept itself is carefully left out. Yet there is the strongest evidence that this is not the original precept; for Moses rehearsed these words at the end of the forty years’ sojourn, whereas the original commandment was given in the third month after the departure from Egypt.(Compare Exodus 19; 20 and Deuteronomy 1.) The commandment itself, as here given, contains direct proof on the point. It reads: “Keep the Sabbath-day, to sanctify it, As the Lord thy GodHATH COMMANDED thee,” citing elsewhere for the original statute. Moreover, the precept as here given is evidently incomplete. It contains no clue to the origin of the Sabbath of the Lord, nor does it show the acts by which the Sabbath came into existence. This is why those who represent the Sabbath as made in the wilderness and not at creation quote this as the fourth commandment, and omit the original precept which God himself proclaimed, where all these facts are distinctly stated.(Exodus 20:8-11.)

But while Moses in this rehearsal omitted a large part of the fourth commandment, he referred to the original precept for the whole matter, and then appended to this rehearsal, a powerful plea of obligation on the part of the Hebrews to keep the Sabbath. It should be remembered that many of the people had steadily persisted in the violation of the Sabbath, and that this was the last time that Moses spoke in its behalf. He said: — “And 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; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day.”

These words are often cited as proof that the Sabbath originated at the departure of Israel from Egypt, and that it was ordained at that time as a memorial of their deliverance from thence. But it will be observed, 1. That this text says not one word respecting the origin of the Sabbath, or rest-tin), of the Lord; 2. That the facts on this point are all given in the original fourth commandment, and are there referred to creation; 3. That there is no reason to believe that God rested upon the seventh day at the time of this flight from Egypt, nor that he then blessed and hallowed the day; 4. That the Sabbath has nothing in it that would fitly commemorate the deliverance from Egypt, as that was a flight and this is a rest; and that flight was upon the fifteenth of the first month, and this rest is upon the seventh day of each week, one occurring annually, the other, weekly; 5. But that God did ordain a fitting memorial of that deliverance, to be observed by the Hebrews, — the Passover, on the fourteenth any of the first month, in memory of God’s passing over them when he smote the Egyptians; and the feast of unleavened bread, in memory of their eating this bread when they fled out of Egypt.(Exodus 12,13.)

But what, then, do these words imply? Perhaps their meaning may be more readily perceived by comparing them with an exact parallel found in the same book, and from the pen of the same writer: — “Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless, nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge; but thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence; therefore I command thee to do this tiling.”(Deuteronomy 24:17,18.)

It will be seen at a glance that this precept was not given to commemorate the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage; nor could that deliverance give existence to the moral obligation expressed in it. If the language in the one case proves that men were not under obligation to keep the Sabbath before the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, it proves with equal conclusiveness in the other that before that deliverance they were not under obligation to treat with justice and mercy the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. And if the Sabbath is shown in the one case to be Jewish, in the other, the statute of the great Lawgiver in behalf of the needy and the helpless must share the same fate. It is manifest that this language is in each case an appeal to their sense of gratitude. You were slaves in Egypt, and God rescued you; therefore remember others who are in distress, and oppress them not. You were bondmen in Egypt, and God redeemed you; therefore sanctify unto the Lord the day which he has reserved unto himself, a most powerful appeal to those who had hitherto persisted in polluting it. Deliverance from abject servitude was indeed necessary in each case, in order that the things enjoined might be fully observed; but that deliverance did not give existence to either of these duties. Truly, it was one of the acts by which the Sabbath of the Lord was given to that nation, but it was not one of the acts by which God made the Sabbath, nor did it render the rest-day of the Lord a Jewish institution.

That the words engraved, upon stone were simply the ten commandments, is evident. 1. It is said of the first tables, — “And the Lord spoke unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and ‘he wrote them upon two tables of stone.”(Deuteronomy 4:12,13.) 2. The above shows that the first tables of stone contained the ten commandments alone. That the second tables Were an exact copy of what was written upon the first, is plainly stated in the following verses: — “And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest.” “And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou breakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.”(Exodus 34:1; Deuteronomy 10:2.) 3. This is confirmed by the decisive testimony found in these verses: — “And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments” [margin, Hebrews, words ]. “And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments [margin, words ], which the Lord spoke unto you in the mount, out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them unto me.”(Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 10:4.)

These texts will explain the following language: “And the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone, written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words which the Lord spoke with you in the mount, out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.”(Deuteronomy 9:10.)

God is said to have written upon the tables according to all the words which he spoke in the day of the assembly; and these words which he thus wrote are said to have beenTEN WORDS. But the preface to the decalogue was not one of these ten words, arid hence was not written by the finger of God upon stone. That this distinction must not be overlooked, will be seen by examining the following text and its connection: — “THESE words the Lord spoke unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.”(Deuteronomy 5:22.)

THESE WORDS here brought to view, as written by the finger of God after having been uttered by him in the hearing of all the people, must be understood as one of two things’ They are simply the ten words of the law of God, or they are all the words used by Moses in this rehearsal of the decalogue. But they cannot refer to the words used in this rehearsal; for, 1. Moses omits an important part of the fourth: precept as given by God in its proclamation from the mount; 2. In this rehearsal of that precept he cites back to the original for that which is omitted;(Deuteronomy 5:12-15 compared with Exodus 20:8-11.) 3. He appends to this precept an appeal in its behalf to their gratitude, which was not made by God in giving it; 4. This language only purports to be a rehearsal, and not the original itself; and this is further evinced by many verbal deviations from the original decalogue.(Deuteronomy 5 compared with Exodus 20.) These facts are decisive as to what was placed upon the tables of stone. That was not an incomplete copy, citing elsewhere for the original, but the original code itself. And hence, when Moses speaks ofTHESE WORDS as engraved upon the tables, he refers not to the words used by himself in this rehearsal, but to theTEN WORDS of the law of God, and excludes all else.

Thus have we traced the Sabbath through the books of Moses. We have found its origin in paradise, when man was in his uprightness; we have seen the Hebrews set apart from all mankind as the depositaries of divine truth; we have seen the Sabbath and the whole moral law committed as a sacred trust to them; we have seen the Sabbath proclaimed by God as one of the ten commandments; we have seen it written by the finger of God upon stone in the bosom of the moral law; we have seen that law, possessing no Jewish, but simply moral and divine features, placed beneath the mercy-seat in the ark of God’s testament; we have seen that various precepts pertaining to the Sabbath were given to the Hebrews, and designed only for them; we have seen that the Hebrews did greatly pollute the Sabbath during their sojourn in the wilderness; and we have heard the final appeal made in its behalf by Moses to that rebellious people.

We rest, the foundation of the Sabbatic institution upon its sanctification before the fall of man; the fourth commandment is its. great citadel of defense; and its place in the midst of the moral law beneath the mercy-seat shows its immutable obligation and its relation to the atonement.

THE FEASTS, NEW MOONS, AND SABBATHS OF THE HEBREWS

Enumeration of the Hebrew festivals — The Passover — The Pentecost — The Feast of Tabernacles — The new moons — The first and second annual sabbaths — The third — The fourth — The fifth — The sixth and seventh — The sabbath of the land — The Jubilee — None of these festivals in force until the Hebrews entered their own land — The contrast between the Sabbath of the Lord and the sabbaths of the Hebrews — Testimony of Isaiah — Of Hosea — Of Jeremiah — Final cessation of these festivals.

UP to this point we have followed the Sabbath of the Lord through the books of Moses. A brief survey of the Jewish festivals is necessary to the complete view or the subject before us. Of these there were three feasts: the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles; there was each new moon, that is, the first day of each month throughout the year; then there were seven annual sabbaths, namely, the first day of unleavened bread, the seventh day of that feast, the day of Pentecost, the first day of the seventh month, the tenth day of that month, the fifteenth day of that month, and the twenty-second day of the same. In addition to all these, every seventh year was to be the Sabbath of the land, and every fiftieth year the year of jubilee.

The Passover takes its name from the fact that the angel of the Lord “passed over” the houses of the Hebrews on that eventful night when the first-born in every Egyptian family was slain. This feast was ordained in commemoration of the deliverance of that people from Egyptian bondage.

It began with the slaying of the Paschal lamb on the fourteenth day of the first month, and extended through a period of seven days, in which nothing but unleavened bread was to be eaten. Its great antitype was reached when Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.(Exodus 12; 1 Corinthians 5:7,8.)

The Pentecost was the second of the Jewish feasts, and occupied but a single day. It was celebrated on the fiftieth day after the first-fruits of barley harvest had been waved before the Lord. At the time of this feast, the first-fruits of wheat harvest were offered unto God. The antitype of this festival was reached on the fiftieth day after the resurrection of Christ, when the groat outpouring of the Holy Ghost took place.(Leviticus 23:10-21; Numbers 28:26-31; Deuteronomy 16:9-12; Acts 2:1-18.)

The Feast of Tabernacles was the last of the Jewish feasts. It was celebrated in the seventh month, when they had gathered in the fruit of the land, and extended from the fifteenth to the twenty-first clay of that month. It was ordained as a festival of rejoicing before the Lord; and during this period the children of Israel dwelt in booths in commemoration of their dwelling thus during their sojourn in the wilderness. It probably typifies the great rejoicing after the final gathering of all the people of God into his kingdom.(Leviticus 23:34-43; Deuteronomy 16:13-15; Nehemiah 8; Revelation 7:9-14.)

In connection with these feasts, it was ordained that each new moon, that is, the first day of every month, should be observed with certain specified offerings, and with tokens of rejoicing. (Numbers 10:10; 28:11-15; Samuel 20:5, 24, 27; Psalm 81:3.) The annual sabbaths of the Hebrews have been already enumerated. The first two of these sabbaths were the first and seventh days of the feast of unleavened bread, that is, the fifteenth ‘red twenty-first days of the first month. They were thus ordained by God: — “Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses…. And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an 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.” (Exodus 12:15,16; Leviticus 23:7,8; Numbers 28:17,18,25.)

The third in order of the annual sabbaths was the day of Pentecost. This festival was ordained as a rest-day: in the following language: — “And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein; it shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.” (Leviticus 23:21; Numbers 28:26.)

The first day of the seventh month was the fourth annual sabbath of the Hebrews. Moses was commanded to — “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. Ye shall do no servile work therein; but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord.” (Leviticus 23:24,25; Numbers 29:1-6.)

The great day of atonement was the fifth of these sabbaths. The Lord said unto Moses, — “Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement; it shall be an holy convocation unto you.…Ye shall do no manner of work; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls; in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.” (Leviticus 23:27-32; 16:29-31; Numbers 29:7.)

The sixth and seventh of these annual sabbaths were the fifteenth and twenty-second days of the seventh month, that is, the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles; and the day after its conclusion. They were enjoined by God in the following manner: — “Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days; on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.” (Leviticus 23:39.)

Besides all these, every seventh year was a sabbath of rest unto the land.

The people might labor as usual in other business, but; they were forbidden to fill the land, that the land itself might rest. (Exodus 23:10,11; Leviticus 25:2-7.) After seven of these sabbaths, the following or fiftieth year was to be the year of jubilee, in which every man was to be restored to his inheritance, (Leviticus 25:8-54.) There is no evidence that the jubilee was ever observed, and it is certain that the sabbatical year was almost entirely disregarded. (Leviticus 26:34,35,43; 2 Chronicles 36:21.)

Such were the feasts, new moons, and sabbaths of the Hebrews. A few words will suffice to point out the broad distinction between them and the Sabbath of the Lord. The first of the three feasts was ordained in memory of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and was to be observed when they should enter their own land. (Exodus 12:25.) The second feast, as we have seen, could not be’ observed until after the settlement of the Hebrews in Canaan; for it was to be celebrated when the first, fruits of wheat harvest should be offered before the Lord The third feast Was ordained in memory of their sojourn in the wilderness, and was to be celebrated by them each year after the ingathering of the entire harvest. Of course, this feast, like the others, could not be observed until the people were settled in their own land. The new moons, as has been already seen, were not ordained until after these feasts had been instituted. The annual sabbaths were part of these feasts, and could have no existence until after the feasts to which they belonged had been instituted. Thus the first and second of these sabbaths were the first and seventh days of the Paschal feast; the third was identical with the feast of Pentecost; the fourth was the same as the new moon in the seventh month; the fifth was the great day of atonement; and the sixth and seventh were the fifteenth and twentysecond clays of the seventh month, that is, the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, and the next day after the close of that feast. As these feasts were not to be observed until the Hebrews should possess their own land, the annual sabbaths could have no existence until that time. And so of the sabbaths of the land. These could have no existence until after the Hebrews should possess and cultivate their own land; after six years of cultivation, the land should rest the seventh year, and remain untilled.

After seven of these sabbaths of the land, came the year of jubilee.

The contrast between the Sabbath of the Lord and these sabbaths of the Hebrews 1 is strongly marked. 1. The Sabbath of the Lord was instituted at the close of the first week of time; while these were ordained in connection with the Jewish feasts. 2. The one was blessed and hallowed by God, because he had rested upon it from the work of creation; the others have no such claim to our regard. 3. When the children of Israel came into the wilderness, the Sabbath of the Lord was an existing institution, obligatory upon them; but the annual sabbaths came into existence only at that time. It is easy to point to the very act of God, while leading that people, that gave existence to these sabbaths; while every reference to the Sabbath of the Lord shows that it had been ordained before God chose that people. 4. The children of Israel were excluded from the promised land for violating the Sabbath of the Lord in the wilderness; but the annual sabbaths were not to be observed until they entered that land. This contrast would be strange indeed were it true that the Sabbath of the Lord was not instituted until the children of Israel came into the wilderness of Sin; for it is certain that two of the annual sabbaths were instituted before they left the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:16.) 5. The Sabbath of the Lord was made for man; but the annual sabbaths were designed only for residents in the land of Palestine. 6. The one was weekly, a memorial of the Creator’s rest; the others were annual, connected with the memorials of the deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt. 7. The one is termed “the Sabbath of the Lord,” “my Sabbaths,” “my holy day,” and the like; while the others are designated as “your sabbaths,” “her sabbaths,” and similar expressions. (Exodus 20:10; 31:13; Isaiah 58:13 compared with Leviticus 23:24,32,39; Lamentations 1:7; Hosea 2:11.) 8. The one was proclaimed by God as one of the ten commandments, was written with his finger in the midst of the moral law upon the tables of stone, and deposited in the ark beneath the mercy-seat; the others did not pertain to the moral law, but were embodied in that hand-writing of ordinances which was a shadow of good things to come. 9. The distinction between these festivals and the Sabbaths of the Lord was carefully marked by God when he ordained the festivals and their associated sabbaths; for thus he said.: “These are the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations,…BESIDE the Sabbaths of the Lord.” (Leviticus 23:37,38.)

The annual sabbaths are presented by Isaiah in a very different light from that in which he presents the Sabbath of the Lord. Of the one he says: — “Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.” (Isaiah 1:13,14.)

In striking contrast with this, the same prophet speaks of the Lord’s Sabbath: — “Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice; for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.

Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the Lord speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me-from his people; neither let the eunuch say, Behold I am a dry tree. For 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 the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.” (Isaiah 56:1-7; 58:13, 14.)

Hosea carefully designates the annual sabbaths in the following prediction: — “I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast-days, her new moons, and HER sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.” (Hosea 2:11.)

This prediction was uttered about B.C. 785. It was fulfilled in part about two hundred years afterward, when Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Of this event, Jeremiah, about B.C. 588, speaks as follows: — “Her people fell into the hands of the enemy, and none did help her; the adversaries saw her, and did mock at HER sabbaths…the Lord was an enemy; he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation. And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he hath destroyed his places of the assembly; the Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest. The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of the Lord, as in the day of a solemn feast.” (Lamentations 1:7; 2:5-7.)

The feasts of the ‘Lord were to be held in the place which the Lord should choose, namely, Jerusalem; (Deuteronomy 16:16; 2 Chronicles 7:12; Psalm 122.) and when that city, the place of the solemn assemblies, was destroyed, and the people themselves carried into captivity, the complete cessation of their feasts, and, as a consequence, of the annual sabbaths, which were specified days in those feasts, must occur. The adversaries mocked at her sabbaths by making a “noise in the house of the Lord as in the day of a solemn feast.” But the observance of the Lord’s Sabbath did not cease with the dispersion of the Hebrews from their own land; for it was not a local institution, like the annual sabbaths. Its violation was one chief cause of the Babylonish captivity; (Jeremiah 17:19-27; Nehemiah 13:15-18.) and their final restoration to their own land was made conditional upon their observing it during their dispersion. 2 The feasts, new moons, and annual sabbaths were restored when the Hebrews returned from captivity, and with some interruptions, were kept up until the final destruction of their city arid nation by the Romans. But ere the providence of God thus struck out of existence these Jewish festivals, the whole typical system was abolished, having reached the commencement of its antitype, when our Lord Jesus Christ expired upon the cross. ‘the handwriting of ordinances being thus abolished, no one is to be judged respecting its meats, or drinks, or holy days, or new moons, or sabbaths, “which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” But the Sabbath of the Lord did not form a part of this handwriting of ordinances; for it was instituted before sin had entered the world, and consequently before there was any shadow of redemption; it was written by the finger of God, not in the midst of types and shadows, but in the bosom of the moral law; and the day following that on which the typical sabbaths were nailed to the cross, the Sabbath commandment of the moral law is expressly recognized. Moreover, when the Jewish festivals were utterly extinguished with the final destruction of Jerusalem, even then was the Sabbath of the Lord brought to the minds of his people. 3 We have now traced the annual sabbaths until their final cessation, as predicted by Hosea; it remains for us to trace the Sabbath of the Lord until we reach the endless ages of the new earth, when we shall find the whole multitude of the redeemed assembling before God for worship on each successive Sabbath.

THE SABBATH FROM DAVID TO NEHEMIAH

Silence of six successive books of the Bible relative to the Sabbath — This silence compared with that of the book of Genesis — Tim siege of Jericho — The standing still of the sun — David’s act of eating the shew-bread — The Sabbath of. the Lord, how connected with, and how distinguished from, the annual sabbaths — Earliest reference to the Sabbath after the days of Moses — Incidental allusions to the Sabbath — Testimony of Amos — Of Isaiah — The Sabbath a blessing to MAN-KIND — The condition of being gathered to the Holy Land — The Sabbath not a local institution — Commentary on the fourth commandment — Testimony of Jeremiah — Jerusalem to be saved if she would keep the Sabbath — This gracious offer despised — The Sabbath distinguished from the other days of the week — The Sabbath after the Babylonish captivity — Time for commencing the Sabbath — The violation of the Sabbath caused the destruction of Jerusalem.

LEAVING the books of Moses, there is a long-continued break in the history of the Sabbath. No mention of it is found in the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First Samuel, Second Samuel, nor First Kings. It is not until we reach the second book of Kings(2 Kings 4:23.) that the Sabbath is even mentioned. In the book of First Chronicles, however which, as a narrative, is parallel to the two books of Samuel, the Sabbath is mentioned 1 with reference to the events of David’s life. Yet this leaves a period of five hundred years which the Bible passes in silence respecting the Sabbath.

During this period we have a circumstantial history of the Hebrew people from their entrance into the promised land forward to the establishment of David as their king, embracing many particulars in the life of Joshua,. of the elders and judges of Israel, of Gideon, of Barak, of Jephthah, of Samson, of Eli, of Naomi and Ruth, of Hannah and Samuel, of Saul, of Jonathan, and of David. Yet in all this minute record we-have no direct mention of the Sabbath.

A favorite argument with anti-Sabbatarians in proof of the total neglect of the Sabbath in the patriarchal age, is that the book of Genesis, which gives a distinct view of the origin of the Sabbath in paradise at the close of the first week of time, does not, in recording the lives of the patriarchs, say anything relative to its observance. Yet in that one book are crowded the events of two thousand three hundred and seventy years. What, then, should they say of the fact that six successive books of the Bible, relating with comparative minuteness the events of five hundred years, and involving many circumstances that would call out a mention of the Sabbath, do not mention it at all? Does the silence of one book, which nevertheless gives the institution of the Sabbath at its very commencement, and which brings into its record almost twenty-four hundred years, prove that there were no Sabbath-keepers prior to Moses?

What, then, is proved by the fact that six successive books of the Bible, confining themselves to the events of five hundred years, an average of less than one hundred years apiece, the whole period covered by them being about one-fifth that embraced in the book of Genesis, do nevertheless preserve total silence respecting the Sabbath?

No one will adduce this silence as evidence of utter neglect of the Sabbath during this period; yet why should they not? Is it because that, when the narrative, after this long silence, brings in the Sabbath again, it is clone incidentally, and not as a new institution? Precisely such is the case with the second mention of the Sabbath in the Mosaic record, that is, with its mention after the silence in Genesis. (Compare Exodus 16:23 and Chronicles 9:32.) Is it because the fourth commandment had been given to the Hebrews, whereas no such precept had previously been given to mankind? This answer cannot be admitted, for we have seen that the substance of the fourth commandment was given to the head of the human family; and it is certain that when the Hebrews came out of Egypt, they were under obligation to keep the Sabbath in consequence of existing law. The argument, therefore, is certainly more conclusive that there were no Sabbath-keepers from Moses to David, than that there were none from Adam to Moses; yet no one will attempt; to maintain the first position, however many there may be to affirm the latter.

Several facts are narrated in the history of this period of five centuries that have a claim to our notice. The first of these is found in the record of the siege of Jericho. (Joshua 6.) By the command of God, the city was encompassed by the Hebrews each day for seven days; on the last day of the seven, they encompassed, it seven times, when by divine interposition the wails were thrown down before them, and the city was taken by assault. One day of this seven must have been the Sabbath of the Lord.

Did not the people of God, therefore, violate the Sabbath in this instance?

Let the following facts-answer: 1. That which they did in this case was by direct command of God. 2. That which is forbidden in the fourth commandment is our ownWORK: “Six days shalt thou labor, and doALL THY WORK; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” lie who reserved the seventh day unto himself had the right to require its appropriation to his service as he saw fit. 3. The act of encompassing the city was strictly as a religious procession.

The ark of the covenant of the Lord was borne before the people; and before the ark went seven priests, blowing with trampers of rams’ horns. 4. Nor could the city have been very extensive, else going around it seven times on the last day, and then-having time left for its complete destruction, would have been impossible. 5. Nor can we believe that the Hebrews, by God’s command carrying the ark before them, which contained simply the ten words of the Most High, were violating the fourth of those words, “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy.” It is certain that one of those seven days on which they encompassed Jericho was the Sabbath; but there is no necessity for supposing it to have been the day in which the city was taken. Nor is this a reasonable conjecture, when all the facts in the case are considered. On this incident, Dr. Clarke remarks as follows: — “It does not appear that there could be any breach in the Sabbath by the people’s simply going around the city, the ark in company, and the priests sounding the sacred trumpets. This was a mere religious procession, performed at the command of God, in which no servile work was done.” 3 At the word of Joshua, it pleased God to arrest the earth in its revolution, and thus cause the sun to remain stationary for a season, that the Canaanites might be overthrown before Israel. (Joshua 10:12-14.) Did not this great miracle derange the Sabbath? — Not at all; for the lengthening of one of the six days by God’s intervention could not prevent the actual arrival of the seventh day, though it would delay it; nor could it destroy its identity. The case involves a difficulty for those who hold the theory that God sanctified the seventh part of time, and not the seventh day; for in this case the seventh part of time was not allotted to the Sabbath. But there is no difficulty involved for those who believe that God set apart the seventh day to be kept as it arrives, in memory of his own rest. One of the six days was allotted a greater length than ever before or since; yet this did not in the slightest degree conflict with the seventh day, which nevertheless did come. Moreover, all this was while inspired men were upon the stage of action; and it was by the direct providence of God; and what is also to be particularly remembered, it was at a time when no one will deny that the fourth commandment was in full force.

David’s eating the shew-bread is a case worthy of notice, as it probably took. place upon the Sabbath, and because it is cited by our Lord in a memorable conversation with the Pharisees. (1 Samuel 21:1-6; Matthew 12:3,4; Mark 2:25,20; Luke 6:3,4.) The law of the shew-bread enjoined the setting forth of twelve loaves in the sanctuary upon the pure table before the LordEVERY Sabbath; (Leviticus 24:5-9; 1 Chronicles 9:32.) and when new bread was thus placed before the Lord each Sabbath, the old was taken away to be eaten by the priests. (1 Samuel 21:5,6; Matthew 12.) It appears that the shew-bread which was given to David had that day been taken from before the Lord, to put hot bread in its place, and consequently that day was the Sabbath; because when David asked for bread, the priest said, “there is no common bread under mine hand, but there is hallowed bread.” And David said, “The bread is in a manner common, especially [as the margin has it] when THIS DAY there is other sanctified in the vessel.” And so the’ sacred writer adds: “The priest gave him hallowed bread; for there was no bread there but the shew-bread, that was taken from before the Lord, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away.” The circumstances of this case, as here enumerated, all favor the view that this was upon the Sabbath: 1. There wasNO COMMON bread with the priest, which is not strange when it is remembered that the shew-bread was to be taken from before the Lord each Sabbath, and eaten by the priests; 2. That the priest did not offer to prepare other bread is not singular if it be understood that this was the Sabbath; 3. The surprise of the priest in meeting David may have been in park owing to the fact that it was the Sabbath; 4. This may also account for the detention of Doeg that day before the Lord; 5. When our Lord was called upon to pronounce upon the conduct of his disciples who had plucked and eaten the ears of corn upon the Sabbath to satisfy their hunger, he cited this ease of David’s, and that of the priests’ offering sacrifices in the temple upon the Sabbath, as justifying the disciples. There is a wonderful propriety and fitness in this citation, if it be understood that this act of David’s took place upon the Sabbath. It will be found to present the matter in a very different light from that in which anti-Sabbatarians present it. A distinction may be here pointed out, which should never be lost sight of.

The presentation of the shew-bread and the offering of burnt sacrifices upon the Sabbath, as ordained in the ceremonial law, formed no part of the original Sabbatic institution; for the Sabbath was made before the fall of man; while burnt-offerings and ceremonial rites in the sanctuary were introduced in consequence of the fall. While these rites were in force, they necessarily, to some extent, connected the Sabbath with the festivals of the Jews in which the like offerings were made. This is seen only in those scriptures which record the provision made for these offerings. (1 Chronicles 23:31; 2 Chronicles 2:4; 8:13; 31:3; Nehemiah 10:31,33; Ezekiel 45:17) When the ceremonial law was nailed to the cross, all the Jewish festivals ceased to exist; for they were ordained by it; 5 but the abrogation of that law could only take away those rites which it had appended to the Sabbath, leaving the original institution precisely as it came at first from its Author.

The earliest reference to the Sabbath after the days of Moses is found in what David and Samuel ordained respecting the offices of the priests and Levites at the house of God. It is as follows: — “And other of their brethren, of the sons of the Kohathites, were over the shew-bread, to prepare it every Sabbath.” (1 Chronicles 9:32.)

It will be observed that this is only an incidental mention of the Sabbath.

Such an allusion, occurring after so long a silence, is decisive proof that the Sabbath had not been forgotten or lost during the five centuries in which it had not been mentioned by the sacred historians. After this, no direct mention of the Sabbath is found from the days of David to those of Elisha the prophet, a period of about one hundred and fifty years. Perhaps the ninety-second psalm is an exception to this statement, as its title, both in Hebrew and English, declares that it was written for the Sabbath-day; 6 and it is not improbable that it was composed by David, the sweet singer of Israel.

The son of the Shunammite woman was dead, and she sought, the prophet Elisha. Her husband, not knowing that the child was dead, said to her: — “Wherefore wilt thou go to him today? It is neither new moon nor Sabbath. And she said, It shall be well.” (2 Kings 4:23.)

It is probable that the Sabbath of the Lord is here intended, as it is thrice used in a like connection. (Isaiah 66:23; Ezekiel 46:1; Amos 8:5.) If this be correct, it shows that the Hebrews were accustomed to visit the prophets of God upon that day for divine instruction, — a very good commentary upon the words used in relation to the gathering of the manna: “Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.” (Exodus 16:29.) Incidental allusion is made to the Sabbath at the accession of Jehoash to the throne of Judah, (2 Kings 11:5-9; 2 Chronicles 23:4-8.) about B.C. 778. In the reign of Uzziah, the grandson of Jehoash, the prophet Amos, B.C. 787, uses the following language: — “Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?” (Amos 8:4-6.)

These words were spoken more directly concerning the ten tribes, and indicate the sad state of apostasy which soon after resulted in their overthrow as a people. About fifty years after this, at the close of the reign of Ahaz, another allusion to the Sabbath is found. (2 Kings 16:18.) In the days of Hezekiah, about B.C. 712, the prophet. Isaiah, in enforcing the Sabbath, says: — “Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment and do justice; for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.

B1essed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people; neither let the ‘eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For 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 the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. The Lord God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.” (Isaiah 56:1-8.)

This prophecy presents several features of peculiar interest: 1. It pertains to a time when the salvation of God is near at hand; 2. It most distinctly shows that the Sabbath is not a Jewish institution; for it pronounces a blessing upon that man, without respect to nationality, who shall keep the Sabbath; and it then particularizes the son of the stranger, that is, the Gentile, (Exodus 12:48,49; Isaiah 14:1; Ephesians 2:12.) and makes a peculiar promise to him if he will keep the Sabbath; 3. This prophecy relates to Israel when they are outcasts, that is, when they are in their dispersion, promising to gather them, and others, that is, the Gentiles, with them; but of course, the condition of being gathered to God’s holy mountain must be complied with, namely, to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, and to keep the Sabbath from polluting it; 4. And hence it follows that the Sabbath is not a local institution, susceptible of being observed in the promised land alone, like the annual sabbaths, 8 but one made for mankind, and capable of being observed by the outcasts of Israel when scattered in every land underheaven.( Deuteronomy 28:64; Luke 21:24.)

Isaiah again presents the Sabbath; and this he does in language most emphatically distinguishing it from all ceremonial institutions. “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 Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” (Isaiah 58:13,14.)

This language is an evangelical commentary on the fourth commandment.

It appends to it an exceeding great and precious promise, that takes hold upon the land promised to Jacob, even the new earth. (Matthew 8:11; Hebrews 11:8-16; Revelation 21.)

In the year B.C. 601, thirteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, God made to the Jewish people through Jeremiah the gracious offer, that if’ they would keep his Sabbath, their city should stand forever. At the same time he testified unto them that if they would not do this, their city should be utterly destroyed. Said the prophet: — “Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates.

Thus saith the Lord: Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath-day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbathday, 10 neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the Sabbath-day, as I commanded your fathers. But they obeyed not, neither inclined their cars, but made their necks stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction. 11 And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath-day, but hallow the Sabbath-day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shallREMAIN FOREVER. And they shall come from. the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt-offerings, and sacrifices, and meat-offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise unto the house of the Lord. But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbathday, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on. the Sabbath-day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.” (Jeremiah 17:20-27.)

This gracious offer of the Most High to his rebellious people was, not regarded by them; for eight years after this, Ezekiel testifies of them: — “In thee have they set light by father and mother; in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger; in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow. Thou hast despised my holy things, and hast profaned my Sabbaths…Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things; they have put no difference between. the holy. and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them Moreover, this they have done unto me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my Sabbaths. For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house.” (Ezekiel 22:7,8,26; 23:38, 39.)

Idolatry and Sabbath-breaking, which were besetting sins with the Hebrews in the wilderness, and which there laid the foundation for their dispersion from their own land, (Ezekiel 20:23,24; Deuteronomy 32:16-35.) had ever cleaved unto them. And now, when their destruction was impending from the overwhelming power of the king of Babylon, they were so deeply attached to these and kindred sins that they would not regard the voice of warning. Before entering the Sanctuary of God upon his Sabbath, they first slew their own children in sacrifice to their idols! (Ezekiel 23:38,39.) Thus iniquity came to its height, and wrath came upon them to the uttermost. “They mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees,. who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon, and they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the king of Persia.” (2 Chronicles 36:16-20.)

While the Hebrews were in captivity at Babylon, God made them an offer to restore them to their own land, and give them again a city and a temple under circumstances of wonderful glory. (Ezekiel 40 to 48.) The condition of that offer being disregarded, (Ezekiel 43:7-11.) the proffered glory was never inherited by them. In this offer were several allusions to the Sabbath of the Lord, and also to the festivals of the Hebrews. (Ezekiel 44:24; 45:17; 46:1, 3, 4, 12.) One of these allusions is worthy of particular notice, for the distinctness with which it discriminates between the Sabbath and the other days of the week: — “Thus saith the Lord God: The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut The Six Working Days; but on the Sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened.” (Ezekiel 46:1.)

Six days of the week are by divine inspiration called “the six working days;” the seventh is called the Sabbath of the Lord. Who shall dare confound this marked distinction?

After the Jews had returned from their captivity in Babylon, and had restored their temple and city, in a solemn assembly of the whole people they recount, in an address to the Most High, all the great events of God’s providence in their past history; testifying respecting the Sabbath as follows: — “Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest With them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments; and madest known unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws by the hand of Moses, thy servant.” (Nehemiah 9:13,14.)

Thus were all the people reminded of the great events of Mount Sinai, — the giving of the ten words of the law of God, and the making known of his holy Sabbath. So deeply impressed was the whole congregation with the effect of their former disobedience, that they entered into a solemn covenant to obey God. (Nehemiah 9:38; 10:1-31.) They pledged themselves to each other in these words: — “And if the people of the land bring ware or any victuals on the Sabbath-day to sell, that we would not buy it of them on the Sabbath, or on the holy day; and that we would leave the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt.” (Nehemiah 10:31.)

In the absence of Nehemiah at the Persian court, this covenant was in part, at least, forgotten. Eleven years having elapsed, Nehemiah testifies concerning things when he returned, about B.C. 434: — “In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day; and I testified against them in the day wherein they sold victuals. There dwelt men of Tyre also therein, which brought fish, and all manner of ware, and sold on the Sabbath unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath-day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath. And it came to pass, that, when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the Sabbath,12 I commanded that the gates should be shut, and charged that they should not be opened till after the Sabbath: and some of my servants set I at the gates, that there should no burden be brought in on the Sabbath-day. So the merchants and sellers of all kind of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or twice. Then I testified against them, and said unto them, Why lodge ye about the wall? if ye do so again, I will lay hands on you. From that time forth came they no more on the Sabbath. And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to sanctify the Sabbathday.

Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of thy mercy.” (Nehemiah 13:15-22.)

This scripture is an explicit testimony that the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the Jews at Babylon were in consequence of their profanation of the Sabbath. It is a striking confirmation of the language of Jeremiah, already noticed, in which he testified to the Jews that if they would hallow the Sabbath, their city should stand forever; but that it should be utterly destroyed if they persisted in its profanation. Nehemiah bears testimony to the accomplishment of Jeremiah’s prediction concerning the violation of the Sabbath; and with his solemn appeal in its behalf ends the history of the Sabbath in the Old Testament.

THE SABBATH FROM NEHEMIAH TO CHRIST

Great change in the Jewish people respecting idolatry and Sabbathbreaking after their return from Babylon — Decree of Antiochus Epiphanes against the Sabbath — Massacre of a thousand Sabbathkeepers in the wilderness — Similar massacre at Jerusalem — Decree of the Jewish ciders relative to resisting attacks upon the Sabbath — Other martyrdoms — Victories of Judas Maccabeus — How Pompey captured Jerusalem — Teaching of the Jewish doctors respecting the Sabbath — State of the Sabbatic institution at the first advent of the Savior.

A PERIOD of almost five centuries intervenes between the time of Nehemiah and the commencement of the ministry of the Redeemer. During this time an extraordinary change came over the Jewish people.

Previously, they had been to an alarming extent idolaters, and out-breaking violators of the Sabbath. But after their return from Babylon they were never guilty of idolatry to any extent, the chastisement of that captivity effecting a cure of this evil. 1 In like manner did they change their conduct relative to the Sabbath; and during this period they loaded the Sabbatic institution with the most burdensome and rigorous ordinances. A brief survey of this period must suffice. Under the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the king of Syria, B.C. 170, the Jews were greatly oppressed. “King Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, and every one should leave his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king. Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the Sabbath.” The greater part of the Hebrews remained faithful to God, and as a consequence, were obliged to flee for their lives. The historian continues: — “Then many that sought after justice and judgment went down into the wilderness, to dwell there, both they, and their children, and their wives, and their cattle; because afflictions increased sore upon then,. Now when it was told the king’s servants, and the host that was at Jerusalem, in the city of David, that certain men, who had broken the king’s commandment, were gone down into the secret places in the wilderness, they pursued after them a great number, and having overtaken them, they camped against them, and made war against them on the Sabbath-day. And they said unto them, Let that which ye have done hitherto suffice; come forth, and do according to the commandment of the king, and ye shall live. But they said, We will not come forth, neither will we do the king’s commandment, to profane the Sabbath-day. So then they gave them the battle with all speed. Howbeit, they answered them not, neither cast they a stone at them, nor stopped the places where they lay hid; but said, Let us die all in our innocency: heaven and earth shall testify for us, that ye put us to death wrongfully. So they rose up against them in battle on the Sabbath, and they slew them, with their wives and children, and their cattle, to the number of a thousand people.” In Jerusalem itself a like massacre took place. King Antiochus sent Appollonius with an army of twenty-two thousand, — “Who, coming to Jerusalem, and pretending peace, did forbear till the holy day of the Sabbath, when, taking the Jews keeping holy day, he commanded his men to arm themselves. And so he slew all them that were gone to the celebrating of the Sabbath, and running through the city with weapons, slew great multitudes.” In view of these dreadful acts of slaughter, Mattathias, “an honorable and great man,” the father of Judas Maccabeus, with his friends decreed thus: — “Whosoever shall come to make battle with us on the Sabbath-day, we will fight against him; neither will we die all, as our brethren that were murdered in the secret places.” Yet some were martyred after this for observing the Sabbath, as the quotation shows: — “And others that had run together into caves near by, to keep the Sabbath-day secretly, being discovered to Philip, were all burnt together, because they made a conscience to help themselves for the honor of the most sacred day.” After this, Judas Maccabeus did great exploits in defense of the Hebrews, and in resisting the dreadful oppression of the Syrian government. Of one of these battles the record says: — “When he had given them this watchword, The Help of God, himself leading the first band, he joined battle with Nicanor. And by the help of the Almighty they slew above nine thousand of their enemies, and wounded and maimed the most part of Nicanor’s host, and so put all to flight; and took their money that came to buy them, and pursued them far; but lacking time. they returned: for it was the day before the Sabbath, and therefore they would no longer pursue them. So when they had gathered their armor together, and spoiled their enemies, they occupied themselves about the Sabbath, yielding exceeding praise and thanks to the Lord, who had preserved them unto that day, which was the beginning of mercy distilling upon them. And after the Sabbath, when they had given part of the spoils to the maimed, and the widows, and orphans, the residue they divided among themselves and their servants.” After this the Hebrews, being attacked upon the Sabbath by their enemies,. defeated them with much slaughter. About B.C. 63 Jerusalem was besieged and taken by Pompey, the general of the Romans. To do this it was necessary to fill an immense ditch, and to raise against the city a bank on which to place the engines of assault.

Josephus relates the event as follows: — “And had it not been our practice, from the days of our forefathers, to rest on the seventh day, this bank could never have been perfected, by reason of the opposition the Jews would have made; for though our law gives us leave then to defend ourselves against those that begin to fight with us, and assault us, yet does it not permit us to meddle with our enemies while they do anything else. Which thing-when the Romans understood, on those days which we call Sabbaths, they threw nothing at the Jews, nor came to any pitched battle with them, but raised up their earthen banks, and brought their engines into such forwardness, that they might do execution the next days.” From this it is seen that Pompey carefully refrained from any attack upon the Jews on each Sabbath during the siege, but spent that day in filling the ditch and raising the bank, that he might attack them on the day following each Sabbath, that is, upon Sunday. Josephus further relates that the priests were not at all hindered from their sacred ministrations by the stones thrown among them from the engines of Pompey, even “if any melancholy accident happened;” and that when the city was taken, and the enemy fell upon them, and cut the throats of those that were in the temples, yet the priests did not run away, or desist from offering the accustomed sacrifices.

These quotations front Jewish history are sufficient to indicate the extraordinary change that came Over that people concerning the Sabbath after the Babylonish captivity. A brief view of the teaching of the Jewish doctors respecting the Sabbath at the time when our Lord began his ministry, will conclude this chapter. “They enumerated about forty primary works, which they said were forbidden to be done on the Sabbath. Under each of these were numerous secondary works, which they said were also forbidden…. Among the primary works which were forbidden, were ploughing, sowing, reaping, winnowing, cleaning, grinding, etc. Under the head of grinding was included the breaking or dividing of things which were before united. Another of their traditions was, that, as threshing on the Sabbath was forbidden, the bruising of things, which was a species of threshing, was also forbidden. Of course, it was a violation of the Sabbath to walk on green grass, for that would bruise or thresh it. So, as a man might not hunt on the Sabbath, he might not catch a flea; for that was a species of bunting. As a man might not carry a burden on the Sabbath, he might not carry water to a thirsty animal, for that was a species of burden; but he might pour water into a trough, and lead the animal to it…. Yet should a sheep fall into a pit, they would readily lift him out, and bear him to a place of safety…. They said a man might minister to the sick for the purpose of relieving their distress, but not for the purpose of healing their diseases. He might put a covering on a diseased eye, or anoint it with eye-salve for the purpose of easing the pain, but not to cure the eye.” Such was the remarkable change in the conduct of the Jewish people toward the Sabbath; and such was the teaching of their doctors respecting it. The most merciful institution of God for mankind had become a source of distress; that which God ordained as a delight and a source of refreshment had become a yoke of bondage; the Sabbath, made for man in paradise, was now a most oppressive and burdensome institution. It was time that God should interfere. Next upon the scene of action appears the Lord of the Sabbath.

THE SABBATH IN THE TIME OF CHRIST

Mission of the Savior —His qualifications as a judge of Sabbatic observance-State of the institution at his advent — The Savior at Nazareth — At Capernaum — His discourse in the corn-field — Case of the man with a withered arm — The Savior among his relatives — Case of the impotent man — Of the man born blind — Of the woman bound by Satan — Of the man who had the dropsy — Object of our Lord’s teaching and miracles relative to the Sabbath — Unfairness of many anti- Sabbatarians — Examination of Matthew 24:20 — The Sabbath not abrogated at the crucifixion — Fourth commandment after that event — Sabbath not changed at the resurrection of Christ — Examination of John 20:26 — Of Acts 2:1,2 — Redemption furnishes no argument for the change of the Sabbath — Examination of Psalm 118:22-24 — The Sabbath neither abolished nor changed as late as the close of the seventy weeks.

IN the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son to be the Savior of the world. He who fulfilled this mission of infinite benevolence was both the Son of God and the Son of man. He was with the Father before the world was, and by him God created all things. (Galatians 4:4,5; John 1:1-10; 17:5, 24; Hebrews 1.) The Sabbath being ordained, at the close of that great work, as a memorial to keep it in lasting remembrance, the Son of God, by whom all things were created, could not be otherwise than a perfect judge of its true design and of its proper observance. The sixtynine weeks of Daniel’s prophecy being accomplished, the Redeemer began to preach, saying, “The time is fulfilled.” (Daniel 9:25; Mark 1:14,15.)

The ministry of the Savior was at a time when the Sabbath of the Lord had become utterly perverted from its gracious design by the teaching of the Jewish doctors. As we have seen in the previous chapter, it was to the people no longer a source of refreshment and delight, but a cause of suffering and distress. It had been loaded down with traditions by the doctors of the law, until its merciful and beneficent purpose was utterly hidden beneath the rubbish of men’s inventions. It being impracticable for Satan, after the Babylonish captivity, to cause the Jewish people, even by bloody edicts, to relinquish the Sabbath and openly profane it, as they had done before that time, he caused their doctors to so pervert it that its real character should be utterly changed, and its observance entirely unlike that which would please God. We shall find that the Savior never missed an opportunity to correct their false notions respecting the Sabbath; and that he purposely selected the Sabbath as the day on which to perform many of his merciful works. It will be found that no small share of his teaching through his whole ministry was devoted to a determination of what was lawful on the Sabbath, — a singular fact for those to explain who think that he designed its abrogation. At the opening of our Lord’s ministry, we read, — “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee; and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.

And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified Of all. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, and stood up for to read.” (Luke 4:14-16.)

Such was the manner of the Savior relative to the Sabbath. It is evident that in this he intended to show his regard for that day; for it was not necessary to do so in order to gain a congregation, as vast multitudes were ever ready to throng his steps. His testimony being rejected, our Lord left Nazareth for Capernaum. The sacred historian says of this visit: — “But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way, and came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath-days. And they were astonished at his doctrine; for his word was with power. And in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil; and he cried out with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not.

And they were all amazed, and spoke among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out. And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about. And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s mother was taken with a, great fever; and they besought him for her. And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever; and it left her; and immediately she arose and ministered unto them.” (Luke 4:30-39; Mark 1:21-31; Matthew 8:5-15.)

According to the record, these are the first miracles performed by the Savior on the Sabbath. But the strictness of Jewish views relative to the Sabbath is seen in that they waited till sunset, that is, till the Sabbath was passed, 1 before they. brought the sick to be healed, as the following account shows: — “And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils. And all the city was gathered together at the door And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him.” (Mark 1:32-34; Luke 4:40.)

The next mention of the Sabbath is of peculiar interest: — “At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath-day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath-day. But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungered, and they that were with him; how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shew-bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath-day the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? But I say unto you that in this place is one greater than the temple. But if ye had known What this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day.” (Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-5.)

The parallel text in Mark has an important addition to the conclusion as stated by Matthew: — “And he said unto them, 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.)

The following points should be noted in examining this text: — 1. That the question at issue did not relate to the act of passing through the corn on the Sabbath; for the Pharisees themselves were in the company; and hence it may be concluded that the Savior and those with him were either going to, or returning from, the synagogue. 2. That the question raised by the Pharisees was this: Whether the disciples, in satisfying their hunger with the corn through which they passed, were not vie-bring the law of the Sabbath. 3. That he to whom this question was proposed was in the highest degree competent to answer it; for he was with the Father when the Sabbath was made. (Comp. John 1:1-3 and Genesis 1:1,26; 2:1-3.) 4. That the Savior was pleased to appeal to scriptural precedents for the decision of this question, rather than to assert his own independent judgment. 5. That the first case cited by the Savior was peculiarly appropriate.

David, fleeing for his life, entered the house of God upon the Sabbath,2 and ate the shew-bread to satisfy his hunger. The disciples, to relieve their hunger, simply ate of the corn through which they were passing upon the Sabbath. If David did right, though eating in his necessity of that which belonged only to the priests, how little blame could be attached to the disciples, who had not even violated a precept of the ceremonial law! 6. Our Lord’s next example is designed to show what labor upon the Sabbath is not a violation of its sacredness; and hence the case of the priests is referred to. The same God who had said in the fourth commandment, “Six days shalt thou labor, and do allTHY work,” had commanded that the priests should offer certain sacrifices in his temple on the Sabbath. (Numbers 28:9,10.) Herein was no contradiction; for the labor performed by the priests upon the Sabbath was simply that necessary for the maintenance of the appointed worship of God in his temple, and was not doing what the commandment calls “THY WORK.”

Labor of this kind, therefore, the Savior being judge, was not, and never had been, a violation of the Sabbath. 7. It is highly probable that the Savior, in this reference to the priests, had his mind not merely upon the sacrifices which they offered upon the Sabbath, but upon the fact that they were required to prepare new shewbread every Sabbath, when the old was to be removed from the table before the Lord, and eaten by them. (Leviticus 24:5-9; 1 Chronicles 9:32.)

This view of the matter would connect the case of the priests with that of David, and both would bear with wonderful distinctness upon the act of the disciples. Then our Lord’s argument could be appreciated, when he adds: “But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple;” so that if’ the shew-bread was to be prepared each Sabbath for the use of those who ministered in the temple, and those who did this were guiltless, how free from guilt, also, must be the disciples, who, in following HIM who was greater than the temple, but who had not where to lay his head, had eaten of the standing corn upon the Sabbath to relieve their hunger. 8. Our Lord next lays down a principle worthy of the most serious attention, when he adds: “But if ye hall known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.”

The Most High had ordained certain labor to be performed upon the Sabbath, in order that sacrifices might be offered to himself. But Christ affirms, upon the authority of the Scriptures, (Hosea 6:6.) that there is something far more acceptable to God than sacrifices, and that is acts of mercy. If God held those guiltless who offered sacrifices upon the Sabbath, how much less would he condemn those who extend mercy and relief to the distressed and suffering upon that day. 9. Nor does the Savior leave the subject even here; for he adds: “ The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath; therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” If the Sabbath was made, certain acts were necessary in order to give existence to it. What were those acts? — (1.) God rested upon the seventh day, and thus made it the rest-day, or Sabbath, of the Lord; (2.) He blessed the day, by which it became his holy day; (3.) He sanctified it, or set it apart to a holy use, making its observance a part of man’s duty toward God.

There must have been a time when these acts were performed; and on this point there is really no room for controversy. They were not performed at Sinai, nor in the wilderness of Sin, but in paradise. And this is strikingly confirmed by the language here used by the Savior: “The Sabbath was made forTHE man, notTHE man for the Sabbath;” 3 thus citing our minds to the man Adam who was made of the dust of the ground, and affirming that the Sabbath was made for him, — a conclusive testimony that the Sabbath originated in paradise. This fact is happily illustrated by a statement of the apostle Paul: “Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” (1 Corinthians 11:9.) It will not be denied that this language has direct reference to the creation of Adam and Eve. If, then, we turn back to the beginning, we shall find Adam made of the dust of the ground, Eye taken from his side, and the Sabbath made of the seventh day. (Genesis 2:1-3,7, 21-23.)

In this way the Savior, to complete the solution of the question raised by the Pharisees, traces the Sabbath back to the beginning, as he does the institution of marriage when the same class proposed for his decision the lawfulness of divorce.(Matthew 19:3-9.) His careful statement of the design of the Sabbath and of marriage, tracing each to the beginning, in one case striking down their perversion of the Sabbath, in the other, that of marriage, is the most powerful testimony in behalf of the sacredness of each institution. The argument in the case of marriage stands thus: In the beginning, God creaked one man and one woman, designing that they Two should be one flesh. The marriage relation, therefore, was designed to unite simply two persons, and this union should be sacred and indissoluble.

Such was the bearing of his argument upon the question of divorce. In relation to the Sabbath, his argument is this: God made the Sabbath for the man that he made of the dust of the ground; and being thus made for an unfallen race, it can only be a merciful and beneficent institution. He who made the Sabbath for man before the fall, saw what man needed, and knew how to supply that want. It was given to him for rest, refreshment, and delight, — a character that it sustained after the fall, (Exodus 16:23; 23:12; Isaiah 58:13,14.) but which the Jews had already lost sight of. 4 Our Lord here lays open his whole heart concerning the Sabbath. He carefully determines what works are not a violation of the Sabbath; and this he does by Old-Testament examples, that it may be evident that he is introducing no change in the institution; he sets aside their rigorous and burdensome traditions concerning the Sabbath, by tracing it back to its merciful origin in paradise; and having thus disencumbered the Sabbath of Pharisaic rigor, he leaves it upon its paradisiacal foundation, enforced by all the authority and sacredness of that law which he came not to destroy, but to magnify and make honorable. (Matthew 5:17-19; Isaiah 42:21.) 10. Having divested the Sabbath of all Pharisaic additions, our Lord concludes with this remarkable declaration: “Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” (1.) It was not a disparagement to the Sabbath, but an honor, that God’s only Son should claim to be its Lord. (2.) Nor was it derogatory to the character of the Redeemer to be the Lord of the Sabbath; with all the high honors pertaining to his messiahship, he is ALSO Lord of the Sabbath. Or, if we take the expression in Matthew, he is “Lord EVEN of the Sabbath-day,” it shows that it is not a small honor to possess such a title. (3.) This title implies that the Messiah should be the protector, and not the destroyer, of the Sabbath; and hence that he was the rightful one to decide the proper nature of Sabbatic observance. With such memorable words ends our Lord’s first discourse concerning the Sabbath.

From this time the Pharisees watched the Savior to find an accusation against him for violating the Sabbath. The next example will show the malignity of their hearts, their utter perversion of the Sabbath, the urgent need of an authoritative correction of their false teachings respecting it, and the Savior’s unanswerable defense: — “And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue; and, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath-days? that they might accuse him. And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath-day, will he not lay’ hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore, it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath-days. Then saith he to the man, stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other. Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him how they might destroy him.” (Matthew 12:9-14; Mark 3:1-6; Luke 6:6-11.)

What was the act that caused this madness of the Pharisees? — On the part of the Savior, it was a word; on the part of the man, it was the act of stretching out his arm. Did the law of the Sabbath forbid either of these things? — No one can affirm such a thing. But the Savior had publicly transgressed that tradition of the Pharisees that forbade the doing of anything whatever toward the healing of the sick upon the Sabbath. And how necessary that such a wicked tradition should be swept away, if the Sabbath itself was to be preserved for man! But the Pharisees were filled with such madness that they went out of the synagogue, and consulted how they might destroy Jesus; yet he only acted in behalf of the Sabbath in setting aside those traditions by which they had perverted it.

After this, our Lord returned into his own country, and thus we read of him: — “And when the Sabbath-day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue; and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?” (Mark 6:1-6.)

Not far from this time, we find the Savior at Jerusalem, and the following miracle was performed upon the Sabbath: — “And a certain man was there which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been there now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked; and on the same day was the Sabbath. The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, It is the Sabbath-day: it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed. he answered them, He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk. Then asked they him, What man is that which said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk?… The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus, which had made him whole. And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath-day.

But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also-that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.” (John 5:1-18.)

Our Lord here stands charged with two crimes: First, He had broken the Sabbath; and secondly, He had made himself equal with God. The first accusation is based on these particulars: 1. By his word he had healed the impotent man. But this violated no law of God; it only set at naught that tradition which forbade anything to be done for curing diseases upon the Sabbath. 2. He had directed the man to carry, his bed. But this, as a burden, was a mere trifle, 5 like a cloak or mat, and was designed to show the reality of his cure, and thus to honor the Lord of the Sabbath, who had healed him.

Moreover, it was not such a burden as the Scriptures forbid upon the Sabbath. (Compare Jeremiah 17:21-27 with Nehemiah 13:15-20.) 3. Jesus justified what he had done by comparing his present act of healing to that work which his Father had done HITHERTO, i.e., from the beginning of creation. Ever since the Sabbath was sanctified in paradise, the Father, by his providence, had continued to mankind, even upon the Sabbath, all the merciful acts by which the human race has been preserved.

This work of the Father’s was of precisely the same nature as that which Jesus had now done. These acts did not argue that the Father had hitherto lightly esteemed the Sabbath, for he had most solemnly enjoined its observance in the law and in the prophets; (Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; Isaiah 56; 58:13, 14; Ezekiel 20.) and as our Lord had most expressly recognized their authority, (Galatians 4:4; Matthew 5:17-19; 7:12; 19:17; Luke 16:17.) there was no ground to accuse him of disregarding the Sabbath, when he had only followed the example of the Father from the beginning. The Savior’s answer to these two charges will remove all difficulty: — “Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but. what he seeth the Father do; for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” (John 5:19.)

This answer involves two points: 1. That he was following his Father’s perfect example, who had ever laid open to him all his works, and hence, as he was doing only that which had ever been the pleasure of the Father to do, he was not engaged in the overthrow of the Sabbath; 2. That by the meek humility of his answer, — “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do,” — he showed the groundlessness of their charge of self-exaltation, and left them no chance to answer him again.

Several months after this, the same case of healing was again under discussion. “Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all marvel. Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and ye on the Sabbathday circumcise a man. If a man on the Sabbath-day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken, are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath-day?” (John 7:21-23.)

This Scripture contains our Lord’s second answer relative to healing the impotent man upon the Sabbath. In his first answer he rested his defense upon the fact that what he had done was precisely the same as that which his Father had done hitherto, that is, from the beginning of the world, which implies that the Sabbath had existed from the same point, else the example of the Father during this time would not be relevant. In this, his second answer, a similar point is involved relative to the origin of. the Sabbath. His defense this time rests upon the fact that his act of healing no more violated the Sabbath than did the act of circumcising upon the Sabbath. But if circumcision, which was ordained in the time of Abraham, was older than the Sabbath, as it certainly was if the Sabbath originated in the wilderness of Sin, there would be an impropriety in the allusion; for circumcision would be entitled to the priority as the more ancient institution. It would be strictly proper to speak of a more recent institution as involving no violation of an older one; but it would not be proper to speak of an ancient institution as involving no violation of one more recent. The language therefore implies that the Sabbath was older than circumcision; in other words, more ancient than the days of Abraham.

These two answers of the Savior are certainly in harmony with the unanimous testimony of the sacred writers, that the Sabbath originated with the sanctification of the rest-day of the Lord in Eden.

What had the Savior done to justify the hatred of the Jewish people toward him? — Upon the Sabbath he had healed with one word a man who had been helpless thirty-eight years. Was not this act. in strict accordance with the Sabbatic institution? Our Lord has set. tied this point in the affirmative by weighty and unanswerable arguments; 6 not in this case alone, but in others already noticed, and also in those which remain to be noticed. Had he left the man in his wretched- ness because it was the Sabbath, when a word would have healed him, he would have dishonored the Sabbath, and thrown reproach upon its Author. We shall find the Lord of the Sabbath. still further at work in its behalf in rescuing it from the hands of those who had so utterly perverted its design, — a work quite unnecessary, had he designed to nail the institution to his cross. The next incident to be noticed is the case of the man that was born blind. Jesus, seeing him, said: — “I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing And it was the Sabbath-day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.” (John 9:1-16.)

Here is the record of another of our Lord’s merciful acts upon the Sabbathday.

He saw a man blind from his birth; moved with compassion toward him, he moistened clay, and anointed his eyes, and sent him to the pool to wash; and when he had washed, he received sight. The act was alike worthy of the Sabbath and of its Lord; and it pertains only to the opponents of the Sabbath now, as it pertained only to the enemies of its — Lord then, to see in this even the slightest violation of the Sabbath.

After this we read as follows: — “And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.

And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her; and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus healed on the Sabbath-day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work; in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath-day.

The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath-day? And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.” (Luke 13:10-17.)

This time a daughter of Abraham, that is, a pious woman, (1 Peter 3:6.) who had been bound by Satan eighteen years, was loosed from that bond upon the Sabbath-day. Jesus silenced the clamor of his enemies by an appeal to their own course of action in loosing the ox and leading him to water upon the Sabbath. With this answer our Lord made all his adversaries ashamed, and all the people rejoiced for the glorious things that were done by him. The last of these glorious acts by which Jesus honored the Sabbath is thus narrated: — “And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath-day, that they watched him.

And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy. And Jesus answering spoke unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath-day? And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go; and answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath-day? And they could not answer him again to these things.” (Luke 14:1-6.)

It is evident that the Pharisees and lawyers durst not answer the question, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath-day? If they said, “Yes,” they condemned their own tradition; If they said, “No,” they were unable to sustain their answer by fair argument; hence they remained silent. And when Jesus had healed the man, he asked a second question equally embarrassing: Which of you shall have an ox fall into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath? Anal again they could not answer him. It is apparent that our Lord’s argument with the Pharisees from time to time, in relation to the Sabbath, had satisfied them at last that silence relative to their traditions was wiser than speech.

In his public teaching, the Savior declared that the weightier matters of the law were judgment, MERCY, and faith; (Matthew 23:23.) and his longcontinued and powerful effort in behalf of the Sabbath was to vindicate it as a MERCIFUL institution, and to rid it of Pharisaic traditions, by which it was perverted from its original purpose. Those who oppose the Sabbath are here guilty of unfairness in two particulars: 1. They represent these Pharisaic rigors as actually belonging to the Sabbatic institution, and by this means turn the minds of men against the Sabbath; 2. Having done this, they represent the effort of the Savior to set aside those traditions as an effort directed to the overthrow of the Sabbath itself.

And now we come to Christ’s memorable discourse upon the mount of Olives, on the very eve of his crucifixion, in which for the last time he mentions the Sabbath: — “When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains; let him which is on the house-top not come down to take anything out of his house; neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath-day; for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” (Matthew 24:15-21.)

In this language our Lord brings to view the dreadful calamities of the Jewish people, and the destruction of their city and temple, as predicted by Daniel the prophet; (Daniel 9:26,27.) and his watchful care over his people as their Lord leads him to point out the means of escape. 1. He gives them a token by which they should know when this terrible overthrow was immediately impending. It was “the abomination of desolation” standing “in the holy place;” or, as expressed by Luke, the token was “Jerusalem compassed with armies.” (Luke 21:20.) The fulfillment of this sign is recorded by the historian Josephus. After stating that Cestius, the Roman commander, at the commencement of the contest between the Jews and the Romans, encompassed the city of Jerusalem with an army, he adds: — “Who, had he but continued the siege a little longer, had certainly taken the city; but it was, I suppose, owing to the aversion God had already at the city and the sanctuary, that he was hindered from putting an end to the war that very day. It then happened that Cestius was not conscious either how the besieged despaired of success, or how courageous the people were for him; and so he recalled his soldiers from the place, and by despairing of any expectation of taking it, without having received any disgrace, he retired from the city, without any reason in the world.” 7 2. This sign being seen, the disciples were ‘to know that the desolation of Jerusalem was nigh. “Then,” says Christ, “let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.” Josephus records the fulfillment of this injunction: — “After this calamity had befallen Cestius, many of the most eminent of the Jews swam away from the city, as from a ship when it was going to sink.” Eusebius also relates its fulfillment: — “The whole body, however, of the church at Jerusalem, having been commanded by a divine revelation, given to men of approved piety there before the war, removed from the city, and dwelt at a certain town beyond the Jordan, called Pella. Here, those that believed in Christ, having removed from Jerusalem, as if holy men had entirely abandoned the royal city itself, and the whole land of Judea, the divine justice, for their crimes against Christ and his apostles, finally overtook them, totally destroying the whole generation of these evil-doers from the earth.” 3. So imminent was the danger when this sign should be seen, that not a moment was to be lost. He that was upon the housetop could not even comb down to take a single article from his house. The man that was in the field was forbidden to return to the house for his clothes. Not a moment was to be lost; they must flee as they were, and flee for life. And pitiable indeed was the case of those who could not flee. 4. In view of the fact that the disciples must flee the moment the promised token should appear, our Lord directed them to pray for two things; namely, that their flight should not be in the winter, and that it should not be upon the Sabbath-day. Their pitiable situation, should they be compelled to flee to the mountains in the depth of winter, without time to take even their clothes, sufficiently attests the importance of the first of these petitions, and the tender care of Jesus as the Lord of his people. The second of these petitions will be found equally expressive of his care as Lord of the Sabbath. 5. But it is replied that this last petition has refer,-once only to the fact that the Jews would then be keeping the Sabbath strictly, and as a consequence, the city gates would be closed that day, and those be punished with death who should attempt to flee; and hence his petition indicates nothing in proof of Christ’s regard for the Sabbath. An assertion so often and so confidently uttered should be well founded in truth; yet a brief examination will show that such is not the case. (1.) The Savior’s language, “Let them which built in Judea flee into the mountains,” has reference to the whole land of Judea, and not to Jerusalem only. The closing of the city gates could therefore affect the flight of only a part of the disciples. (2.) Josephus states the remarkable hot, that, when Cestius was marching upon. Jerusalem, in fulfillment of the Savior’s token, and had reached Lydda, not many miles from Jerusalem, “he found the city empty of its men; for the whole multitude were gone up to Jerusalem to the Feast of Tabernacles.” 10 The law of Moses required the presence of every male in Israel at this feast in Jerusalem; (Deuteronomy 16:16.) and thus, in the providence of God, the disciples had no Jewish enemies left in the country to hinder their flight. (3.) The Jewish nation, being thus assembled at Jerusalem, did most openly violate the Sabbath a few days prior to the flight of the disciples, — a singular commentary on their supposed strictness in keeping it at that time. Josephus says of the march of Cestius upon Jerusalem: — “He pitched his camp at a certain place called Gabao, fifty furlongs distant from Jerusalem. But as for the Jews, when they saw the war approaching to their metropolis, they left the feast, and betook themselves to their arms; and taking courage greatly from their multitude, went in a sudden and disorderly manner to the fight, with a great noise, and without any consideration had of the rest of the seventh day, although the Sabbath was the day to which they had the greatest regard; but that rage which made them forget the religious observation [of the Sabbath], made them too hard for their enemies in the fight; with such violence therefore did they fall upon the Romans, as to break into their ranks, and to march through the midst of them, making a great slaughter as they went.” 12 etc.

Thus it is seen that on the eve of the disciples’ flight, the rage of the Jews toward their enemies made them utterly disregard the Sabbath! (4.) But after Cestius encompassed the city with his army, thus giving the Savior’s signal, he suddenly withdrew if, as Josephus says, “without any reason in the world.”

This was the moment of flight for the disciples, and mark how the providence of God opened the way for those in Jerusalem: — “But when the robbers perceived this unexpected retreat of his, they resumed their courage, and ran after the hinder parts of his army, and destroyed a considerable number of both their horsemen and footmen; and now Cestius lay all night at the camp which was at Scopus, and as he went off farther next day, he thereby invited the enemy to follow him, who still fell upon the hindmost, and destroyed them.” This sally of the excited multitude in pursuit of the Romans was at the ‘very moment when the disciples were commanded to flee, and could no[ but afford them the needed facility of escape. Had the flight of Cestius happened upon the Sabbath, undoubtedly the Jews would have pursued him upon that day, as under less exciting circumstances they had, a few days before, gone out several miles lo attack hint upon the Sabbath. It is seen, therefore, that whether in city or country, the disciples were not in danger of being attacked by their enemies, even had their flight been upon the Sabbath-day. 6. There is, therefore, lint one view that can be taken relative to the meaning of these words of our Lord, and that is that he thus spoke out of sacred regard for the Sabbath. In his tender care for his people, he had given them a precept that would require them to violate the Sabbath, should the moment for flight; happen upon that day; for the command to flee was imperative the instant the promised signal should be seen, and the distance to Pella, where they found a place of refuge, was at least, sixty miles. This prayer which the Savior left with the disciples would cause them to remember the Sabbath whenever they should come before God. It was therefore impossible that the apostolic church should forget the day of sacred rest. Such a prayer, that they might not at a future time be compelled to violate the Sabbath, was a sure and certain means of perpetuating its sacred observance for the coming forty years, until the final destruction of Jerusalem, and was never forgotten by that early church, as we shall hereafter see. 14 The Savior, who had taken unwearied pains during his whole ministry to show that the Sabbath was a merciful institution, and to set aside those traditions by which it had been perverted from its true design, did, in this his last discourse, most tenderly commend the Sabbath to his people, uniting in the same petition their own safety and the sacredness of the rest-day of the Lord. A few days after this discourse, the Lord of the Sabbath was nailed to the cross as the great sacrifice for the sins of men. (Matthew 27; Isaiah 53.)

The Messiah was thus cut off in the midst of the seventieth week; and by his death lie caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease. (Daniel 9:24-27.)

Paul describes the abrogation of the typical system at the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus in the following words: — “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross…. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbathdays; which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” (Colossians 2:14-17.)

The object of this action is declared to be the handwriting of ordinances.

The manner of its abrogation is thus stated: 1. Blotted out; 2. Nailed to the cross; 3. Taken out of the way.

Its nature is shown in the words “against us” and “contrary to us.” ‘The things contained in it were. meats, drinks, holy days [Greek, eJorth , a feast day], new moons, and sabbaths. 16 The whole is declared a shadow of good things to come; and the body which casts this shadow is of Christ. That law which was proclaimed by the voice of God, and written by his own finger upon the tables of stone, and deposited beneath the mercy-scat, was altogether unlike that system of carnal ordinances that was written by Moses in a book, and placed in the side of the ark. 17 It would be absurd to speak of the tables of STONE as NAILED to the cross; or to speak of BLOTTING out what was ENGRAVED in STONE. It would be blasphemous to represent the Son of God as pouring out his blood to blot out what the finger of his Father had written. It would be to confound all the immutable principles of morality, to represent the ten commandments as “contrary” to man’s moral nature. It would be to make Christ the minister of sin, to represent him as dying to utterly destroy the moral law. Nor does that man keep truth on his side who represents the ten commandments as among the things contained in Paul’s enumeration of what was abolished.

Nor is there any excuse for those who would destroy the ten commandments with this statement, of Paul’s; for he shows, last of all, that what was thus abrogated was a shadow of good things, to come, — an absurdity, if applied to the moral law. The feasts, new moon, and sabbaths of the ceremonial law, which Paul declared to be abolished in consequence of the abrogation of that code, have been particularly noticed already. That the Sabbath of the Lord is not included in their number, the following facts evince: — 1. The Sabbath of the Lord was made before sin entered our world. It is not, therefore, one of those things that foreshadow redemption from sin. 2. Being made FOR man before the fall, it is not one of those things that are AGAINST him and CONTRARY to him. (Mark 2:27.) 3. When the ceremonial sabbaths were ordained, they were carefully distinguished from the Sabbath of the Lord. (Leviticus 23:37,38.) 4. The Sabbath of the Lord does not owe its existence to the handwriting of ordinances, but is found in the very bosom of that law which Jesus came not to destroy. The abrogation of the ceremonial law could not, therefore, abolish the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. (Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20; Matthew 5:17,19.) 5. The effort of our Lord through his whole ministry to redeem the Sabbath from the thralldom of the Jewish doctors, and to vindicate it as a merciful institution, is utterly inconsistent with the idea that he nailed it to his cross, as one of those things against man and contrary to him. 6. Our Lord’s petition respecting the flight of the disciples from Judea, recognizes the sacredness of the Sabbath many years after the crucifixion of the Savior. 7. The perpetuity of the Sabbath in the new earth is not easily reconciled with the idea that it was blotted out and nailed to our Lord’s cross as one of those things that were contrary to man. 8. Because the authority of the fourth commandment is expressly recognized after the Savior’s crucifixion. (Luke 23:54-56.) 9. And finally, because the royal law, which is unabolished, embodies the ten commandments, and consequently embraces and enforces the Sabbath of the Lord. (James 2:8-12; Matthew 5:17-19; Romans 3:19,31.)

When the Savior died upon the cross, the whole typical system, which had pointed forward to that event as the commencement of its antitype, expired with him. The Savior being dead, Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus, and with the assistance of Nicodemus, buried it in his own new tomb. (Hebrews 9 and 10; Luke 23:46-5:3; John 19:38-42.) “And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on. And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath-day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came mite the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.” (Luke 23:54-56; 24:1.)

This text is worthy of special attention 1. Because it is an express recognition of the fourth commandment after the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus; 2. Because it is the most remarkable case of Sabbatic observance in the whole Bible, — the Lord of the Sabbath was dead, and preparation was being made for embalming him; but when the Sabbath drew on, it was suspended, and they rested, says the sacred historian, according to the commandment; 3. Because it shows that the Sabbath-day, according to the commandment, is the day before the first day of the week, thus identifying the seventh day in the commandment with the seventh day of the, New- Testament week; 4. Because it is a direct testimony that the knowledge of the true seventh day was preserved as late as the crucifixion; for they observed the day enjoined in the commandment, and that was the day on which the Most High had rested from the work of creation.

In the course of the day following this Sabbath, that is, upon the first day of the week, it was ascertained that Jesus was risen from the dead. It appears that this event must have taken place upon that day, though it is not thus stated in express terms. At this point of time it is supposed by many that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week; and that the sacredness of the seventh day was then transferred to the first day of the week, which thenceforth was the Christian Sabbath, enforced by all the authority of the fourth commandment. To judge of the truthfulness of these positions, let us read with care each mention of the first day found in the four evangelists. Matthew writes: — “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.”

Mark says: — “And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun. .. Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene.”

Luke uses the following language: — “And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments, and rested the Sabbath-day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.”

John bears this testimony: — “The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulcher…. Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.” (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1,2,9; Luke 23:56; 24:1; John 20:1,19.)

In these texts the foundation of the “Christian Sabbath” must be sought, if, indeed, such an institution actually exists; for there are no other records of the first, day which relate to the time when it; is supposed to have become sacred. These texts are claimed to prove that at the resurrection of the Savior, the first day absorbed the sacredness of the seventh, elevating itself from the rank of a secular to that era sacred day, and abasing the Sabbath of the Lord to the rank of “the six working days.” (Ezekiel 46:1) Yet the following facts must be regarded as very extraordinary indeed if this supposed change of the Sabbath here took place: — 1. That these texts should contain no mention of this change of the Sabbath; 2. That they should carefully discriminate between the Sabbath of the fourth commandment and the first day of the week; 3. That they should apply no sacred title to that day, particularly that they should omit the title of Christian Sabbath; 4. That they should not mention the filet that Christ rested upon that day, an act essential to its becoming his “Sabbath;” 5. That they do not relate the act of taking the blessing of God from the seventh day, and placing it upon the first; and, indeed, that they do not mention any act whatever of blessing and hallowing the day; 6. That they omit to mention anything that Christ did To the first day; and that they even neglect to inform us that Christ so much as took the first day of the week upon his lips! 7. That they give no precept in support of first-day observance, nor do they contain a hint of the manner in which the first day of the week can be enforced by the authority of the fourth commandment.

Should it be asserted, however, from the words of John:, that the disciples were on this occasion convened for the purpose of honoring the day of the resurrection, and that Jesus sanctioned this act by meeting with them:, thus accomplishing the change of the Sabbath, it is sufficient to cite in reply the words, of Mark, in which he narrates the interview: — “Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.” This testimony from Mark shows that the inferences often drawn from the words of John is utterly unfounded. The disciples were assembled for the purpose of eating supper. Jesus came into their midst, and upbraided them with their unbelief-respecting his resurrection.

The Scriptures declare that “with God all things are possible;” yet this statement is limited by the declaration that God cannot lie. (Matthew 19; 26; Titus 1:2.) Does the change of the Sabbath pertain to those things that are possible with God, or is it excluded by that important limitation, God cannot lie? The Lawgiver is the God of truth, and his law is the truth. (Isaiah 65:16; Psalm 119:142, 151.) Wheter it would still remain the truth if changed to something else, a and whether the Lawgiver would still continue to be the God of truth after he had thus changed it, remains to be seen. The fourth commandment, which is affirmed to have been changed, is thus expressed: — “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God 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.”

Now if we insert “first day” in place of “seventh day,” we shall bring the matter to a test: — “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy The first day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God…. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the first day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.”

This changes the truth of God into a lie; (Romans 1:25.) for it is false that God rested upon the first day of the week, and blessed and hallowed it.

Nor is it possible to change the rest-day of the Creator from that day on which he did rest to one of the six days on which he did not rest. 23 To change a part of the commandment, and leave the rest unchanged, will not, therefore, answer, as the truth which is left is still sufficient to expose the falsehood which is inserted. A more radical change is needed, like the following: — “Remember the Christian Sabbath, to keep it holy. The first day is the Sabbath of the Lord Jesus Christ. For on that day he arose from the dead; wherefore he blessed the first day of the week, and hallowed it.”

After such a change, no part of the original Sabbatic institution remains.

Not only is the rest-day of the Lord left out, but even the reasons on which the fourth commandment is based are of necessity omitted also. But does such an edition of the fourth commandment exist? — Not in the Bible, certainly. Is it true that such titles as these are applied to the first day? — Never, in the Holy Scriptures. Did the Lawgiver bless and hallow that day? — Most assuredly not. He did not even take the name of it into his lips. Such a change of the fourth commandment on the part of the God of truth is impossible for it does not merely affirm that which is false, and deny that which is true, but it turns the truth of God itself into a lie. It is simply the act of setting up a rival to the Sabbath of the Lord, which, having neither sacredness nor authority of its own, has contrived to absorb that of the Bible Sabbath itself. Such is the FOUNDATION of the first-day Sabbath. The texts which are employed in rearing’ the institution, upon this foundation will be noticed in their proper order and place. Several of these texts properly pertain to this chapter: — “And after eight days, again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them; then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.” (John 20:26.)

It is not asserted that on this occasion our Lord hallowed the first day of the week; for that act is affirmed to date from the resurrection itself, on the authority of the texts already quoted. But the sacredness of the first; day being assumed as the foundation, this text furnishes the first stone for the superstructure — the first pillar in the first-day temple. The argument drawn from it may be stated thus- Jesus selected this day as the one in which to manifest himself to his disciples, and by this act strongly attested his regard for the day. But it is no small defect in this argument ‘that his next meeting with them was on a fishing occasion; (John 21.) and his last and most important manifestation, when he ascended into heaven, was upon Thursday. 24 The act of the Savior in meeting with his disciples, it must therefore be conceded, was insufficient of itself to show that any day is sacred; for it would otherwise prove the sacredness of several of the working days.

But a still more serious defect in this argument is found in the fact that this meeting of Jesus with his disciples does not appear to have been upon the first day of the week. It was “after eight days” front the previous meeting of Jesus and the disciples, which, coming n t the very close of the resurrection day, must have extended into the second day of the week. “After eight days” from this meeting, if made to signify only one week, necessarily carries us to the second day of the week. But a different expression is used by the Spirit of inspiration when simply one week is intended. “After seven days” is the chosen term of the Holy Spirit when designating just one week. 26 “After eight days” most naturally implies the ninth or tenth day; 27 but allowing it to mean the eighth day, it fails to prove that this appearance of the Savior was upon the first day of the week. To sum up the argument: The first meeting of Jesus with his disciples in the evening at the close of first day of the week was mainly if not wholly upon the second day of the week; 28 the second meeting could not have been earlier in the week than the second or third day, and the day seems to have been selected simply because Thomas was present; the third meeting was upon a fishing occasion; and the fourth was upon Thursday, when he ascended into heaven. The argument for first-day sacredness drawn from this text is eminently fitted to the foundation of that sacredness already examined; and the institution of the first-day Sabbath itself, unless formed of more substantial framework than enters into its foundation, is at best only a castle in the air.

The text which next enters into the fabric of first-day sacredness is the following:— “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” (Acts 2:1,2.)

This text is supposed to contribute an important pillar for the first-day temple, which is furnished as follows: The disciples were convened on this occasion to. celebrate the first-day Sabbath, and the Holy Spirit; was poured out at that time in honor of that day. To this deduction there are, however, the most serious objections: 1. There is no evidence that a first-day Sabbath was then in existence; 2. There is no intimation that the disciples came together on this occasion for its celebration; 3. Nor that the Holy Spirit was then poured out in honor of the firstday of the week; 4. From the ascension of Jesus until the day of the Spirit’s outpouring, the disciples hall continued in prayer and supplication, so that their being convened on this day was nothing materially different from what had been the case for the past ten days or more; (Luke 24:49-53; Acts 1.) 5. Had the sacred writer designed to show that a certain day of the week was honored by the events narrated, he would doubtless have stated that fact, and named the day; 6. Luke was so far from naming the day of the week that it is even now a disputed point, some eminent first-day authors 29 asserting that the day of Pentecost that year came upon the seventh day; 7. The one great; event which the Holy Spirit designed to mark was the antitype of the feast of Pentecost, the day of the week on which that should occur being wholly immaterial.

How widely, therefore, do those err who reverse this order, making the day of the week, which the Holy Spirit has not even named, but which they assume to be the first day, the thing of importance, and passing over in silence that fact which the Holy Spirit has so carefully noted, that this event took place upon the day of Pentecost.

The conclusion to which these facts lead is inevitable; viz., that the pillar furnished from this text for the first-day temple is, like the foundation of that edifice, simply a thing of the imagination, and quite worthy of a place beside the pillar furnished from the record of our Lord’s second appearance to his disciples.

A third pillar for the first-day edifice is the following: Redemption is greater than creation; therefore the day of Christ’s resurrection should be observed instead of the day of the Creator’s rest. But this proposition is open to the fatal objection that the Bible says nothing of the kind. 30 Who, then, knows that it is true? When the Creator gave existence to our world, did he not foresee the fall of man? and, foreseeing that fall, did he not entertain the purpose of redeeming him? Does it not follow from this that the purpose of redemption was entertained in that of creation? Who, then, can affirm that redemption is greater than creation?

But as the Scriptures do not decide this point, let it be assumed that redemption is the greater. Who knows that a day should be set apart for its commemoration? The Bible says nothing on the point. But granting that a day should be set apart for this purpose, what day should have the preference? It is said, That day on which redemption was finished? It is not true that redemption is finished; the resurrection of the saints and the redemption of our earth from the curse are included in that work. (Luke 21:28; Romans 8:23; Ephesians 1:13,14; 4:30.) But granting that, redemption should be commemorated before it is finished, by setting apart a day in its honor, the question again arises, What day shall it be? The Bible is silent in reply. If the most memorable day in the history of redemption should be selected, undoubtedly the day of the crucifixion, on which the price of human redemption was paid, must have the preference.

Which is the more memorable day, that on which the infinite Lawgiver gave up his only and well-beloved Son to die an ignominious death for a race of rebels who had broken his law, or that day on which he restored that beloved Son to life? The latter event, though of thrilling interest, is the most natural thing in the world; the crucifixion of the Son of God for sinful men may be safely pronounced the most wonderful event in the annals of eternity. The crucifixion day is, therefore, beyond all comparison, the more memorable day. And that redemption itself is asserted of the crucifixion, rather than of the resurrection, is an undoubted fact. Thus it is written: — “In whom we have redemption through his blood.” “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.” (Ephesians 1:7; Galatians 3:13; Revelation 5:9.)

If, therefore, any day should be observed in memory of redemption, unquestionably the day of the crucifixion should have the preference. But it is needless to pursue this point further. Whether the day of the crucifixion or the day of the resurrection should be preferred, is quite immaterial. The Holy Spirit has said nothing in behalf of either of these days, but it has taken care that the event in each case should have its own appropriate memorial. Would you commemorate the crucifixion of the Redeemer? You need not change the Sabbath to the crucifixion day. It would be a presumptuous sin in you to do this. Here is the divinely appointed memorial of the crucifixion: — “The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken’ for you; this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26.)

It is the death of the Redeemer, therefore, and not. the day of his death, that the Holy. Spirit has thought worthy of commemoration. Would you also commemorate the resurrection of the Redeemer? You need not change the Sabbath of the Bible for that purpose. The great Lawgiver hits never authorized such an act. But an appropriate memorial of that event has been ordained. “Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the. Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” (Romans 6:3-5; Colossians 2:12.)

To be buried in the watery grave as our Lord was buried in the tomb, and to be raised from the water to walk in newness of life, as our Lord was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, is the divinely authorized memorial of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And let it be observed, it is not the day of the resurrection, but the resurrection itself, that was thought worthy of commemoration. The events which lie at the foundation of redemption are the death, burial, and resurrection of the Redeemer. Each of these has its appropriate memorial; while the days on which they severally occurred have no importance-attached to them. It was the death of the Redeemer, and not the day of his death, that was worthy of commemoration; and hence the Lord’s supper was appointed for that purpose. It was the resurrection of the Savior, and not the day of the resurrection, that was worthy of commemoration; and trance burial in baptism was ordained as its memorial. It is the change of this memorial to sprinkling that. has furnished so plausible a plea for first-day observance in memory of the resurrection.

To celebrate the work of redemption by resting from labor on the first day of the week after six days of toil, it should be true that our Lord accomplished the work of human redemption in the six days prior to that of his resurrection, and that he rested on that day from the work, blessing it, and setting it apart for that reason. Yet not one of these particulars is’, true. Our Lord’s whole life was devoted to this work. He rested temporarily from it, indeed, over the Sabbath following his crucifixion, but resumed the work on the morning of the first day of the week, which he has never since relinquished, and never will, until its perfect accomplishment! in the resurrection of the saints and the redemption of the purchased possession. Redemption, therefore, furnishes no plea for a change of the Sabbath, its own memorials being quite sufficient, without destroying the memorial of the great Creator. And thus the third pillar in the temple of first-day sacredness, like the other parts of that structure which have been already examined, is found to be a thing of the imagination only.

A fourth pillar in this temple is taken from an ancient prophecy, in which it is claimed that the Christian Sabbath was foretold: — “The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoiced be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:22-24.)

This text is considered one of the strongest testimonies in support of the Christian Sabbath; yet it is necessary to assume the very points, it is supposed to prove, which are, 1. That the Savior became the head of the corner by his resurrection; 2. That the day of his resurrection was made the Christian Sabbath in commemoration of that event; and 3. That this day, thus ordained, should be celebrated by abstinence from labor, and attendance upon divine worship.

To these extraordinary assumptions it is proper to reply that there is no proof that Jesus became the head of the corner on the day of his resurrection. The Scriptures do not mark the day when this event took place. His being made head of the corner has reference to his becoming the chief corner-stone of that spiritual temple composed of his people; in other words, it has reference to his becoming the head of that living body, the saints of the Most High. It does not appear that he assumed this position until his ascension on high, where he became the chief cornerstone in Zion above; elect and precious. (Ephesians 1:20-23; 2:20, 21; 1 Peter 2:4-7.) Hence there is no evidence that the first day of the week is even referred to in this text; nor is there the slightest evidence that that day or any other day was set apart as the Christian Sabbath in memory of Christ’s resurrection; nor can there well be found a more extraordinary assumption than that this text enjoins the Sabbatic observance of the first day of the week!

This scripture has manifest reference to the Savior’s act of becoming the head of the New-Testament church; and consequently it pertains to the opening of the gospel dispensation. The day in which the people of God rejoice, in view of this relation to the Redeemer, can therefore be understood of no one day of the week; for they are commanded to “rejoice EVERMORE;” (1 Thessalonians 5:16.) but of the whole period of the gospel dispensation. Our Lord uses the word day in the same manner when he says: — “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad.” (John 8:56.)

To assert the existence of what is termed the Christian Sabbath on the ground that this text is the prediction of such an institution, is to furnish a fourth pillar for the first-day temple quite as unsubstantial as those already tested.

The seventieth week of Daniel’s prophecy extends three and a half years beyond the, death of the Redeemer, to the commencement of the great work for the Gentiles. This period of seven years through which we have been passing is the most eventful period in the history of the Sabbath. It embraces the whole history of the Lord of the Sabbath as connected with that institution his miracles and teaching, by which it is affirmed that he weakened its authority; his death, at which many affirm that he abrogated it; and his resurrection. at which a still larger number declare that he changed it to the first day of the week. We have had the most ample evidence, however, that each of these positions is false, and that the opening of the great work for the Gentiles witnessed the Sabbath of the fourth commandment neither weakened, abrogated, nor changed.

THE SABBATH DURING THE MINISTRY OF THE APOSTLES

The knowledge of God preserved in the family of Abraham — The call of the Gentiles — The new covenant puts the law of God into the heart of each Christian — The new covenant has a temple in heaven; and an ark containing the great original of that law which was in the ark upon earth; and before that ark, a priest, whose offering can take away sin — The Old and New Testaments compared — The human family in all ages amenable to the law of God — The good olive-tree shows the intimate relation between the church of the New Testament and the Hebrew church — The apostolic church observed the Sabbath — Examination Of Acts 13 — The assembly of the apostles at Jerusalem — Sabbatarian origin of the church at Philippi — Of the church of the Thessalonians — Of the church of Corinth — The churches in Judea and in many cases among the Gentiles began with Sabbath-keepers — Examination of Corinthians 16:1, 2 — Self-contradiction of Dr. Edwards — Paul at Troas — Examination of Romans 14:1-6 — Flight of the disciples from Judea — The Sabbath of the Bible at the close of the first century.

WE have now traced the Sabbath through the period of its special connection with the family of Abraham. The termination of the seventy weeks brings us to the call of the Gentiles, and to their admission to equal privileges with the Hebrew race. We have seen that with God there was no injustice in conferring special blessings upon the Hebrews, and at the same time leaving the Gentiles to their own chosen ways. 1 Twice had he given the human family, as a whole, the most ample means of grace that their age Of the world admitted, and each time did it result in the almost total apostasy of mankind. Then God selected as his heritage the family of Abraham, his friend, and by means of that family preserved in the earth the knowledge of his law, his Sabbath, and himself, until the coming of the great Messiah. During his ministry the Messiah solemnly affirmed the perpetuity of his Father’s law, enjoining obedience even to its least commandment; (Matthew 5:17-19.) at his death he broke down that middle wall of partition(Ephesians 2:13-16; Colossians 2:14-17.) by which the Hebrews had been so long preserved as a separate people in the earth; and when about to ascend into heaven, he commanded his disciples to go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature, teaching them to observe all things which he had commanded them. (Matthew 28:19,20; Mark 16:15.) With the expiration of the seventieth week, the apostles entered upon the execution of this great commission to the Gentiles. (Daniel 9:24-27; Acts 9; 10; 11; 26:12-17; Romans 11:13.) Several facts of deep interest should be here noticed: — 1. The new covenant, or testament, dates from the death of the Redeemer.

In accordance with the prediction of Jeremiah, it began with the Hebrews alone, and was confined exclusively to them until the expiration of the seventieth week. Then the Gentiles were admitted to a full participation with the Hebrews in its blessings, being no longer aliens and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints. (1Corinthians 11:25; Jeremiah 31:31-3,1; Hebrews 8:8-12; Daniel 9:27; Ephesians 2:11-22.) God entered into covenant this time with his people as individuals and not as a nation. The promises of this covenant embrace two points of great interest: That God will put his law into the hearts of his people; and that he will forgive their gins. These promises being made six hundred years before the birth of Christ, there can be no question relative to what was meant by the law of God. It was the law of God then in existence that should be put into the heart of each new-covenant saint. The new covenant, then, is based upon the perpetuity of the law of God; it does not abrogate that law, but takes away sin, the transgression of the law from the heart, and puts the law of God in its place. (Matthew 5:17-19; 1 John 3:4,5; Romans 4:15.) The perpetuity of each precept of the moral law lies, therefore, at the very foundation of the new covenant. 2. As the first covenant had a sanctuary, and within that sanctuary an ark containing the law of God in ten commandments, (Hebrews 9:1-7; Exodus 25:1-21; Deuteronomy 10:4,5; 1 Kings 8:9.) and had also a priesthood to minister before that ark, to make atonement for the sins of men, (Hebrews 7 to 10; Leviticus 16.) even thus it is with the new covenant. Instead of the tabernacle erected by Moses as the pattern of the true, the new covenant has the greater and more perfect tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man — the temple of God in heaven. (Hebrews 8:1-5; 9:23, 24.) As the great central point in the earthly sanctuary was the ark containing that law which man had broken, even thus it is with the heavenly sanctuary. “The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” (Revelation 11:19.)

Our Lord Jesus Christ, as a great high priest, presents his own blood before the ark of God’s testament in the temple in heaven. Respecting this object before which he ministers, let the following points be noted: — 1. The ark in the heavenly temple is not empty; it contains the testament of God; and hence it is the great center of the sanctuary above, as the ark of God’s testament was the center of the sanctuary on earth. (Exodus 25:21,22.) 2. The death of the Redeemer for the sins of men, and his work as high priest before the ark in heaven, have direct reference to the fact that within that ark is the law which mankind has broken. 3. As the atonement and priesthood of Christ have reference to the law within that ark before which he ministers, it follows that this law existed and was transgressed before the Savior came down lo die for men. 4. And hence, the law contained in the ark above is not a law which originated in the New Testament; for it necessarily existed long anterior to it. 5 . If, therefore, God has revealed this law to mankind, that revelation must be sought in the Old Testament; for while the New Testament makes many references to that law which caused the Savior to lay down his life for sinful men, and even quotes from it, it; never publishes a second edition, but cites us lo the Did Testament for the original code. (Romans 3:19-31; 5:8-21; 8:3, 4; 13:8-10; Galatians 3:13,14; Ephesians 6:2,3; James 2:8-12; 1 John 3:4,5.) 6. It follows, therefore, that this law in revealed, and that this revelation is to be found in the Old Testament. 7. In that volume will be found an account of (1.) The descent of the Holy One upon Mount Sinai; (2.) The proclamation of his law in ten commandments; (3.) The ten commandments written by the finger of God upon the two tables of stone; (4.) These tables placed beneath the mercy-seat in the ark of the earthly sanctuary. (Exodus 19; 20; 24:12; 31:18; Deuteronomy 10.) 8. That this remarkable Old-Testament law which was shut up in the ark of the earthly sanctuary was identical with that in the ark in heaven, may be thus shown: (1.) The mercy-seat which was placed over the ten commandments was the place from which pardon was expected, the great central point in the work of atonement; (Leviticus 16.) (2.) The law beneath the mercy-seat was that which made the work of atonement necessary; (3.) There was no atonement that could take away sins, this being only a shadowy, or typical, atonement; (4.) But there was actual sin, and hence a real law which man had broken; (5.) There must, therefore, be an atonement that can take away sins; and that real atonement must pertain to that law which was broken, and respecting which an atonement had been shadowed forth; (Romans 3:10-31; 1 John 3:4,5.) (6.) The ten commandments are thus set forth in the Old Testament as that law which demanded an atonement; while the fact is ever kept in view that those sacrifices there provided could not avail to take away sins; (Psalm 40:6-8; Hebrews 10.) (7.) But the death of Jesus, as the antitype of those sacrifices, was designed to accomplish precisely what they shadowed forth, but which they could not effect, viz., to make atonement for the transgression of that law which was placed in the ark beneath the mercy-seat. (Hebrews 9 and 10.)

We are thus brought to the conclusion that the law of God contained in the ark in heaven is identical with that law which was contained in the ark upon earth, and that both are identical with that law which the new covenant puts in the heart of each believer. (Jeremiah 31:33; Romans 8:3,4; 2 Corinthians 3:3.) The Old Testament, therefore, gives us the law of God, and pronounces it perfect; it also provides a typical atonement, but says it is inadequate to take away sins. (Psalm 19:7; James 1:25; Psalm 40.) Hence what was needed was not a new edition of the law of God; for that which was given already was perfect; but a real atonement, to take away the guilt of the transgressor. So the New Testament responds precisely to this want, providing a real atonement in the death and intercession of the Redeemer, but giving no new edition of the law of God, (Romans 5.) though it fails not to cite us to the perfect code given long before. But although the New Testament does not give a new edition of the law of God, it does show that the Christian dispensation has the great original of that law in the sanctuary in heaven. 9. We have seen that the new covenant places the law of God in the heart of each believer, and that the original of that law is preserved in the temple in heaven. That all mankind are amenable to the law of God, and that they ever have been, is clearly shown by Paul’s epistle to the Romans. In the first chapter he traces the origin of idolatry to the willful apostasy of the Gentiles, which took place soon after the flood. In the second chapter he shows that although God gave them up to their own ways, and as a consequence left them without his written law, yet they were not left in utter darkness; for they had by nature the work of the law written in their hearts; and dim as was this light, their salvation would be secured by living up to it, or their ruin accomplished by sinning against it. In the third chapter he shows what advantage the family of Abraham had in being taken as the heritage of God, while all other nations were left to their own ways. It was that the oracles of God, the written law, was given them in addition to that work of the law written in the heart, which they had by nature in common with the Gentiles. He then shows that they were no better than the Gentiles, because both classes were transgressors of the law. This he proves by quotations from the Old Testament. Then lie shows that the law of God has jurisdiction over all mankind: — “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” (Romans 3:19.)

He then shows that the law cannot save the guilty, but must condemn them, and that justly. Next, he reveals the great fact that redemption through the death of Jesus is the only means by which God can justify those who seek pardon, and at the same time remain just himself. And finally he exclaims, — “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” (Romans 3:31.)

It follows, therefore, that the law of God is unabolished; that the sentence of condemnation which it pronounces upon the guilty is as extensive as is the offer of pardon through the gospel; that its work exists in the hearts of men by nature, from which we may conclude that man in his uprightness possessed it in perfection, as is further proved by the fact that the new covenant, after delivering men from the condemnation of the law of God, puts that law perfectly into their hearts. From all this it follows that the law of God is the great standard by which sin is shewn, (Romans 3:20; John 3:4,5; 2:1, 2.) and hence the rule of lift, by which all mankind, both Jews and Gentiles, should walk.

That the church in the present dispensation is really a continuation of the ancient Hebrew church, is shown by the illustration of the good olive-tree.

That ancient church was God’s olive-tree, and it has never been destroyed. (Jeremiah 11:16; Romans 11:17-24). Because of unbelief, some of its branches were broken off; but the proclamation of the gospel to the Gentiles does not create a new olive-tree; it only grafts into the good tree such of the Gentiles as believe, giving them a place among the original branches, that with them they may partake of its root and fatness. This olive-tree must date from the call of Abraham after the apostasy of the Gentiles, its trunk representing the patriarchs, beginning with the father of the faithful; (Romans 4:16-18; Galatians 3:7-9.) its branches, the Hebrew people. The engrafting of the wild olive branches into the place of those branches which were broken off, represents the admission of the Gentiles to equal privileges with the Hebrews after the expiration of the seventy weeks. The Old-Testament church, the original olive-tree, was a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation; the New-Testament church, the olive-tree after the engrafting of the Gentiles, is described in the same terms. (Exodus 19:5,9; 1 Peter 2:9,10.)

When God gave up the Gentiles to apostasy, before the call of Abraham, he confounded their language, that they should not understand one another, and thus scattered them abroad upon the face of the earth.

Standing over against this is the gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost, preparatory to the call of the Gentiles, and their ingrafting into the good olive-tree. (Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-11.)

We have followed the Sabbath to the call. of the Gentiles, and the opening events of the gospel dispensation. We find the law of God, of which the Sabbath is a part, to be that which made our Lord’s death as an atoning sacrifice necessary; and the great original of that law to be in the ark above, before which our Lord ministers as high priest; while a copy of that law is by the new covenant written within the heart of each believer. It is seen, therefore, that the law of God is more intimately connected with the ]people of God since the death of the Redeemer than before that event.

That the apostolic church did sacredly regard the Sabbath, as well as all the other precepts of the moral law, admits of no doubt. The fact is proved by several considerations: 1. The early Christians were not accused of its violation by their most inveterate enemies; 2. They held sin to be the transgression of the law, and that the law was the great standard by which sin is shown, and that by which sin becomes exceeding sinful, (Romans 7:12,13.) — points which are certainly very decisive evidence that the apostolic church did keep the fourth commandment; 3. The testimony of James relative to the ten commandments, that he who violates one of them becomes guilty of all, is another strong evidence that the primitive church did sacredly regard the whole law of God; (James 2:8-12.) but 4. Besides these facts, we have a peculiar guaranty that the Sabbath of the Lord was not forgotten by the apostolic church. The prayer which our Lord taught his disciples, that their flight from Judea should not be upon the Sabbath, was, as we have seen, designed to impress its sacredness deeply upon their minds, and must have secured that result. 2 In the history of the primitive church we have several important references to the Sabbath. The first of these is as follows: — “But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, and sat down.” (Acts 13:14.)

By invitation of the rulers of the synagogue, Paul delivered an extended address, proving that Jesus was the Christ. In the course of these remarks he used the following language: — “For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath-day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.” When Paul’s discourse was concluded, we read, — “And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. 4 Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas; who, speaking to them, persuaded thorn to continue in the grace of God.

And the next Sabbath-day came-almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.” (Acts 13:42-44.)

These texts show, 1. That by the term Sabbath in the book of Acts is meant that day on which the Jewish people assembled in the synagogue to listen to the voices of the prophets; 2. That as this discourse was fourteen years after the resurrection of Christ, and the record of it by Luke was some thirty years after that event, hence it follows that the alleged change of the Sabbath at the resurrection of Christ; had not, even after many years, come to the knowledge of either Luke or Paul; 3. That here was a remarkable opportunity to mention the change of the Sabbath, were it true that the Sabbath had been changed in honor of Christ’s resurrection; for when Paul was asked to preach the same words the next Sabbath, he might have answered that the following day was now the proper day for divine worship; and Luke, in placing this incident upon record, could not well avoid the mention of this new day, had it been true that another day had become the Sabbath of the Lord; 4. That as this second meeting pertained almost wholly to Gentiles; it cannot be said in this case that Paul preached upon the Sabbath out of regard to the Jews; on the contrary, the narrative strongly indicates Paul’s regard for the Sabbath as the proper day for divine worship; 5. Nor can it be denied that the Sabbath was well understood by the Gentiles in this city, and that they had some degree of regard for it, a fact which will be corroborated by other texts.

Several years after these things, the apostles assembled at Jerusalem to consider the question of circumcision. (Acts 15.) “Certain men which came down from Judea,” finding the Gentiles uncircumcised, had “taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved.” Had they found the Gentiles neglecting the Sabbath, unquestionably this would have first called out their rebuke. It is indeed worthy of notice that no dispute at this lime existed in the church relative to the observance of the Sabbath; for none was brought before this apostolic assembly. Yet had it been true that the change of the Sabbath was then advocated, or that Paul had taught the Gentiles to neglect the Sabbath, without doubt those who brought up the question of circumcision would have urged that of the Sabbath with even greater earnestness. That the law of Moses, the observance of which was under discussion in this assembly, is not the ten commandments, is evident from several decisive facts: 1. Because Peter calls the code under consideration a yoke which neither their fathers nor themselves were able to bear; whereas James expressly calls the royal law, which, on his own showing, embodies the ten commandments, a law of liberty; 2. Because this assembly did decide against the authority of the law of Moses; and yet James, who was a member of this body, some years afterward solemnly enjoined obedience to the commandments, affirming that he who violated one was guilty of all; (Acts 15:10,28,29; James 2:8-12.) 3. Because the chief feature in the law of Moses, as here presented, was circumcision; (Acts 15:1,5.) as but circumcision was not in the ten commandments; and were it true that the law of Moses included these commandments, circumcision would not in that case have been a chief feature of that law; 4. Finally, because the precepts still declared obligatory are not properly included in the ten commandments. These were, first, the prohibition of meats offered to idols; secondly, of blood; thirdly, of things strangled; and fourthly, of fornication. (Acts 15:29; 21:21, 25.) All of these precepts may be often found in the books of Moses, (Exodus 34:15,16; Numbers 25:2 Leviticus 17:18,14; Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 8:17; Genesis 34; Leviticus 19:29.) and the first and last ones come under the second and seventh commandments respectively; but neither of these covers only a part of that which is forbidden in any commandment. It is evident, therefore, that the authority of the ten commandments was not under consideration in this as-scrub]!y, and that their decision had no relation to those precepts; for if that were not the case, the apostles released the Gentiles from all obligation to eight of the ten commandments, and from the greater prohibitions contained in the other two.

It is evident that those greatly err who represent the Gentiles as released from the obligation of the Sabbath by this assembly. The question did not come before the apostles on this occasion, — a strong proof that the Gentiles had not been taught to neglect the Sabbath, as they had to omit circumcision, which was the occasion of its being brought before the apostles at Jerusalem. Yet the Sabbath was referred to in this very assembly as an existing institution, and that, too, in connection with the Gentile Christians. When James pronounced sentence upon the question, he used the following language: — “Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God’; but that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day.” (Acts 15:19-21.)

This last fact is given by James as a reason for the course proposed toward the brethren among the Gentiles, “For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day.” From this it is apparent that the ancient custom of divine worship upon the Sabbath was not only preserved by the Jewish people, and carried with them into every city of the Gentiles, but that the Gentile Christians attended these meetings; for if they did not, the reason assigned by James would lose all its force, as having no application to this case.

That they did attend them proves that the Sabbath was the day of divine worship with the Gentile churches.

That the ancient Sabbath of the Lord had neither been abrogated nor changed prior to this meeting of the apostles, is strongly attested by the nature of the dispute here adjusted. And the close of their assembly beheld the Bible Sabbath still sacredly enthroned within the citadel of the fourth commandment. After this, in a vision of the nights. Paul was called to visit Macedonia. In obedience to this call, he came to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia. Thus Luke records the visit: — “And we were in that city abiding certain days. And on the Sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spoke unto the women which resorted thither. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which-worshiped God, heard us; whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.” (Acts 16:12-14.)

This does not appear to have been a gathering of Jews, but of Gentiles, who, like Cornelius, were worshipers of the true God. Thus it is seen that the church of the Philippians originated with a pious assembly of the Sabbath-keeping Gentiles. And it is likely that Lydia and those employed by her in business, who were evidently observers of the Sabbath, were the means of introducing the gospel into their own city of Thyatira. “Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews.

And Paul, as his manner was, 5 went in unto them, and three Sabbath-days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures…. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief-women not a few.” (Acts 17:1-4.)

Such was the origin of the Thessalonian church. That it was an assembly of Sabbath-keepers at its beginning admits of no doubt; for besides the few Jews who received the gospel through the labors of Paul, there was a great multitude of devout Greeks; that is, Of Gentiles, who had united themselves with the Jews in the worship of God upon the Sabbath. In the following words of Paul, addressed to them as a church of Christ, we have a strong proof of the fact that they continued to observe the Sabbath after, their reception of the gospel: — “For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 2:14.)

The churches in Judea, as we have seen, were observers of the Sabbath of the Lord. The first Thessalonian converts, before they received the gospel, were Sabbath-keepers; and when they became a Christian church, they took the churches in Judea as their proper examples. And this church was taken as a pattern by the churches of Macedonia and Achaia. In this number were included the churches of Philippi and Corinth. Paul writes to them: — “And ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost; so that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to Godward is spread abroad.” (1 Thessalonians 1:6-8.)

After these things, Paul came to Corinth. Here he first found Aquila and Priscilla. “And because he was of the same craft, he abode with them and wrought; for by their occupation they were tent-makers. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.” (Acts 18:3,4.)

At this place, also, Paul found Gentiles as well as Jews in attendance upon the worship of God on the Sabbath. The first members of the church at Corinth were therefore observers of the Sabbath at the time they received the gospel; and, as we have seen, they followed the example of the Sabbath-keeping church of Thessalonica, who in turn patterned after the churches in Judea.

The first churches were founded in the-land of Judea. All their members had from childhood been familiar with the law of God, and well understood the precept, “Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy.”

Besides this precept all these churches had a peculiar memento of the Sabbath. They knew from our Lord himself that the. time was Coming when they must all suddenly flee from that land; and in view of this fact they were to pray that the moment of their sudden flight might not be on the Sabbath, — a prayer which was designed, as we have seen, to preserve the sacredness of the Sabbath. That the churches in Judea were composed of Sabbath-keeping members, therefore, admits of no doubt.

Of the churches founded outside the land of Judea, whose origin is given in the book of Acts, nearly all began with Jewish converts, who were Sabbath-keepers when they received the gospel. Among these the Gentile converts were engraffed. And it is worthy of notice that in a large number of cases, those Gentiles are termed “devout Greeks,” “religious proselytes,” persons that “worshiped God,” that “feared God,” and that “prayed to God alway.” (Acts 10:2,4,7,8, 30-35; 13:43;. 14:1; 16:13-15; 17:4, 10-12.) These Gentiles, at the time of their conversion to the gospel, were, as we have seen, worshipers of God upon the Sabbath with the Jewish people. When Jambs had proposed the kind of letter that should be addressed by the apostles to the Gentile converts, he assigned a reason for its adoption, the force of which can now be appreciated: “For Moses,” said he, “of old time hath in EVERY CITY them that preach him, being read in the Synagogue every Sabbath-day.” the Sabbatarian character of the apostolic churches is thus clearly shown.

In a letter addressed to the Corinthians, about five years after they had received the gospel, Paul is supposed to contribute a fifth pillar to the first-day temple, as follows: — “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 gatherings when I come.” (1 Corinthians 16:1,2.)

From this text it is argued in behalf of the first-day Sabbath,1. That this was a public collection; 2 . That hence the first day of the week was the day of public worship in the churches of Corinth and Galatia; 3. And that therefore the Sabbath had been changed to that day.

Thus the change of the Sabbath is inferred from the public assemblies for divine worship on the first day at Corinth and Galatia; and the existence of these assemblies on that day is inferred from the words of Paul, “Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store.”

But what do these words ordain? Only one answer can be returned: They ordain precisely the reverse of a public collection. Each one should lay by himself on each first day of the week, according as God had prospered him, that when Paul should arrive, they might have their bounty ready.

Mr. J. W. Morton, late Presbyterian missionary to Hayti, bears the following testimony: — “The whole question turns upon the meaning of the expression, ‘by him;’ and I marvel greatly how. you can imagine that it means ‘in the collection box of the congregation.’ Greenfield, in his Lexicon, translates the Greek term, ‘ With one’s self, i.e., at home.’ Two Latin versions, the Vulgate and that of Castellio, render it ‘apud se,’ with one’s self; at home. Three French translations, those of Martin, Osterwald, and De Sacy, ‘chez sol,’ at his own house; at home. The German of Luther, ‘bei sich selbst,’ by himself; at home. The Dutch, ‘by hemselven,’ same as the German.

The Italian of Diodati, ‘appresso di se,’ in his own presence; at home. The Spanish of Felippe Scio, ‘en su casa,’ in his own house.

The Portugese of Ferreira, ‘para isso,’ with himself. The Swedish, ‘naer sig self,’ near himself.” Dr. Bloomfield thus comments on the original: “parj eJautw~, ‘by him.’

French, chez lui, ‘ at home.’” The Douay Bible reads: “Let every one of you put apart with himself.”

Mr. Sawyer translates it. “Let each one of you lay aside by himself.”

Theodore Beza’s Latin version gives it. “Apud se,” i.e., at home. The Syriac reads: “Let every one of you lay aside and preserve at home.”

It is true that an eminent first-day writer, Justin Edwards, D. D., in a labored effort to prove the change of the Sabbath, brings forward this text to show that Sunday was the day of religious worship with the early church. He says: — “This laying by in store was NOT laying by AT HOME; for that Would not prevent gatherings when he should come.” Such is his language as a theologian upon whom has fallen the difficult task of proving the change of the Sabbath by the authority of the Scriptures.

But in his Notes on the New Testament, in which he feels at liberty to speak the truth, he squarely contradicts his own language already quoted, Hear him: — “Lay by him in store; AT HOME. That there be no gatherings; that their gifts might be ready when the apostle should come.” Thus even Dr. Edwards confesses that the idea of a public collection is not found in this scripture. On the contrary, it appears that each individual, in obedience to this precept, would, at the opening of each new week, be found AT HOME laying aside something for the cause of God, according as his worldly affairs would warrant. The change of the Sabbath, as proved by this text, rests wholly upon an idea which Dr. Edwards confesses is not found in it. We have seen that the church at Corinth was a Sabbathkeeping church. It is evident that the change of, the Sabbath could never have been suggested to them by this text.

This is the only scripture in which Paul even mentions the first day of the week. It was written nearly thirty years after the alleged change of the Sabbath. Yet Paul omits all title of sacredness, simply designating it as the first day of the week, — a name to which it was entitled as one of “the six working days.” (Ezekiel 46:1.) It is also worthy of notice that this is the only precept in the Bible in which the first day is even named; and that this precept says nothing relative to the sacredness of the day to which it, pertains, even the duty which it, enjoins being more appropriate to a secular than to a sacred day.

Soon after writing his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul visited Troas.

In the record of this visit occurs the last instance in which the first day of the week is mentioned in the New Testament: — “And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; 10 where we abode seven days. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in the Upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep; and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third left, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. And they brought the young man alive, and were not a, little comforted.’ And we went before to ship, and sailed unto Asses, there intending to take in Paul; for so had he appointed, minding himself to go afoot.” (Acts 20:6-13.)

This scripture is supposed to furnish a sixth pillar for the first-day temple. The argument may be concisely stated thus: This testimony shows that the first day of the week was appropriated by the apostolic church to meetings for the breaking of bread in honor of Christ’s resurrection upon that day; from which it is reasonable to conclude that this day had become the Christian Sabbath.

If this proposition could be established as an undoubted truth, the change of the Sabbath would not follow as a necessary conclusion; it would even then amount only to a plausible conjecture. The following facts will aid us in judging of the truthfulness of this argument for the change of the Sabbath: 1. This is the only instance of a religious meeting upon the first day of the week recorded in the New Testament; 2. No stress can be laid upon the expression, “when the disciples came together,” as proving that meetings for the purpose of breaking bread were held on each first day of the we, ok; for there is nothing in the original answering to the word “when,” the whole phrase being translated from three words, the perfect passive participle sunhme>nwn “being assembled,” and tw~n maqhtw~n , “the disciples,” the sacred writers simply stating the gathering of the disciples on this occasion; 3. The ordinance of breaking bread was not appointed, to commemorate the resurrection of Christ, but to keep in memory his death upon the cross; (1 Corinthians 11:23-26.) therefore the act of breaking bread ripen the first day of the week is not a commemoration of Christ’s resurrection; 4. As the breaking of bread commemorates our Lord’s crucifixion, and was instituted on the evening with which the crucifixion day began, when Jesus himself and all the apostles were present, (Matthew 26.) it is evident that the day of the crucifixion presents greater claims to the celebration of this ordinance than does the day of the resurrection; 5. As our Lord designated no day for this ordinance, and as the apostolic church at Jerusalem is recorded lo have celebrated it daily, (Acts 2:42-46.) it is evidently presumption to argue the change of the Sabbath front a single instance of its celebration upon the first day of the week; 6. This instance of breaking bread upon the first day was with evident reference to the immediate and final departure of Paul; for 7. It is a remarkable fact that this, the only instance of a religious meeting on the first day recorded in the New Testament, was a night meeting, which is proved by the fact that many lights were burning in the assembly, and that Paul preached till midnight; 8. From this follows the important consequence that this first-day meeting was upon Saturday night; 12 been use the days of the week being reckoned from evening to evening, and evening being at sunset, 13 it is seen that the first day of the week begins Saturday night at sunset, and ends at sunset on Sunday; a night meeting, therefore, upon the first day of the week could be only upon Saturday night; 9. Paul, therefore preached until midnight on Saturday night; for the disciples held a night meeting at the close of the Sabbath, because he was to have in the morning; then, being interrupted by the fall of the young man, he went down and healed him, then went up and attended to the breaking of bread; and at break of day, on Sunday morning, he departed; 10. Thus are we furnished with conclusive evidence that Paul and his companions resumed their journey toward Jerusalem on the morning of the first day of the week; they taking ship to Assos, and he going on foot (This fact is an incidental proof of Paul’s regard for the Sabbath, in that he waited till it was past before resuming his journey; and it is a, positive proof that he knew nothing of what in modern times is called the Christian Sabbath); 11. This narrative was written by Luke at least thirty years after the alleged change of the Sabbath. It is worthy of note that Luke omits all titles of sacredness, simply designating the day in question as the first day of the week. This is in admirable keeping with the fact that in his Gospel, when recording the very event which is said to have changed the Sabbath, he not only omits the slightest hint of that title, but designates the day itself by its secular title of “first day of the week,” and at the same time calls the previous day the Sabbath according to the commandment. (Luke 23:56; 24:1.)