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| Of the Observance of the Sabbath.
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Chapter
IV.—Of the Observance of the Sabbath.
It follows, accordingly, that, in so far as the
abolition of carnal circumcision and of the old law is demonstrated as
having been consummated at its specific times, so also the observance
of the Sabbath is demonstrated to have been temporary.
For the Jews say, that from the beginning God
sanctified the seventh day, by resting on it from all His works which
He made; and that thence it was, likewise, that Moses said to the
People: “Remember the day of the
sabbaths, to sanctify it: every servile work ye shall not do
therein, except what pertaineth unto life.”1187
Whence we (Christians) understand that
we still more ought to observe a sabbath from all “servile
work”1188
always, and not
only every seventh day, but through all time. And through this arises
the question for us, what sabbath God willed us to keep? For the
Scriptures point to a sabbath eternal and a sabbath temporal. For
Isaiah the prophet says, “Your sabbaths my soul
hateth;”1189
and in another
place he says, “My sabbaths ye have
profaned.”1190
| 1190 This is not said by
Isaiah; it is found in substance in Ezek. xxii. 8. | Whence we discern
that the temporal sabbath is human, and the eternal sabbath is
accounted divine; concerning which He predicts through Isaiah:
“And there shall be,” He says, “month after month,
and day after day, and sabbath after sabbath; and all flesh shall come
to adore in Jerusalem, saith the Lord;”1191
which we understand to have been fulfilled in the times of Christ, when
“all flesh”—that is, every nation—“came
to adore in Jerusalem” God the Father, through Jesus Christ His
Son, as was predicted through the prophet: “Behold, proselytes
through me shall go unto Thee.”1192
| 1192 I am not acquainted
with any such passage. Oehler refers to Isa. xlix. in his margin, but gives no verse, and
omits to notice this passage of the present treatise in his index. |
Thus, therefore, before this temporal sabbath, there was withal an
eternal sabbath foreshown and foretold; just as before the carnal
circumcision there was withal a spiritual circumcision foreshown. In
short, let them teach us, as we have already premised, that Adam
observed the sabbath; or that Abel, when offering to God a holy victim,
pleased Him by a religious reverence for the sabbath; or that Enoch,
when translated, had been a keeper of the sabbath; or that Noah the
ark-builder observed, on account of the deluge, an immense sabbath; or
that Abraham, in observance of the sabbath, offered Isaac his son; or
that Melchizedek in his priesthood received the law of the
sabbath.
But the Jews are sure to say, that ever since this
precept was given through Moses, the observance has been binding.
Manifest accordingly it is, that the precept was not eternal nor
spiritual, but temporary,1193
which would one day
cease. In short, so true is it that it is not in the exemption from
work of the sabbath—that is, of the seventh day—that the
celebration of this solemnity is to consist, that Joshua the son of
Nun, at the time that he was reducing the city Jericho by war, stated
that he had received from God a precept to order the People that
priests should carry the ark of the testament of God seven days, making
the circuit of the city; and thus, when the seventh day’s circuit
had been performed, the walls of the city would spontaneously
fall.1194
Which was so done; and when the space of the
seventh day was finished, just as was predicted, down fell the walls of
the city. Whence it is manifestly shown, that in the number of the
seven days there intervened a sabbath-day. For seven days, whencesoever
they may have commenced, must necessarily include within them a
sabbath-day; on which day not only must the priests have worked, but
the city must have been made a prey by the edge of the sword by all the
people of Israel. Nor is it doubtful that they “wrought servile
work,” when, in
obedience to God’s precept, they drave the preys of war. For in
the times of the Maccabees, too, they did bravely in fighting on the
sabbaths, and routed their foreign foes, and recalled the law of their
fathers to the primitive style of life by fighting on the
sabbaths.1195
Nor should I think
it was any other law which they thus vindicated, than the one in which
they remembered the existence of the prescript touching “the day
of the sabbaths.”1196
| 1196 See Ex. xx. 8; Deut. v. 12, 15: in LXX. |
Whence it is manifest that the force of such precepts
was temporary, and respected the necessity of present circumstances;
and that it was not with a view to its observance in perpetuity that
God formerly gave them such a law. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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