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Las diagrammss suivants illustrant la mathoda. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 1.0 I.I 1.25 ■as tii. m tSi 1^ 1^ AO 12.0 1.4 I 1.8 1.6 MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS STANDARD REFERENCE MATERIAL 1010a (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) Jh^^'^' 38DBOBOHOeOB0B08OM9dKH080BaflflOeOBGBaCB0B083906fl90Bgfl83a SUNDAY OUR SABBATH I'UOXKI) IK(iM SCRIl'TURE AND HISToRV TO HE god's rest day, AM) II. SJIOWINC 'VIIAT IS MEANT HV THE COMMAND, "KKMKMnER THE SA131JATI1 DAY TO KEEI* IT HOLY " A LECTURE I)p:i.iverki) hv REV. WILLIAM McDONAGH, hKHiKI, 1111. 'rHKOI.OOICAI. U.MONOKTHK LoNDON CONFERENCE OK I III, Mk'ukiiust Chihch, •,:■ Sr. Thomas, Ji ne 8, iqoi. /'u!'iis/:i'(i hy nu/uest of ike Conferciui . TORONTO : WILLIAM RRIGGS IQOI " SUNDAY OUR SABBATH PkOVKI) FROM SCRII'TUKP: AM) IIISTOKV TO I5E (;OI)'s KKST DAV, AND II. SIIO\VIN(; WHAT IS MKANT 1!V THK ( o separation fl.>^, we n,ust «„d a perpetual adaptation to ,:" One other word, used in originatin., the Sabbath for nm„. deserves speeial attention and investtati™ VIZ., the word " rrafe;?" p„,i „ . '" '"^estigation, d-iv Tl,; • °" '^''''*^'' on t'le seventli XituUirtn/trri'r-'"- took in Exodus 31 ■ ,7 , ^ . '°"" '' ••>'t«'-warda day .. He retd ! d 1" Zslld '■ '' S """ TJi'^' ^^^r ood that everri:::;, H ;; "rJ: : : n the Gospel by Matthew 12: 3, that the pW stsT^ ^nown. hast thou not he^hat ^.^Z^ :Tn\ ";""""■■ " ""'"y '" (^-••'>' *0: 28 It' rdl:: T' "'"'"' "'""■ *"">- "- -t wa -"t^dr^:;--— --£ Manwa.toi.„itateit. Ood rer:;::;',;:,™::- \vV__ SUNDAY OUR SA15BATH. I it apart for His service ; so are we to rest from labor for the body, and from doing our own pleasure on the Sabbath, employing it in service to God and in His worship. Regarded, then, in the light of God's teaching by example and precept, we are not to spend its hours in indolence or inactivity, for God, the keeper of Israel, neither slumbers nor sleeps, nor is inactive. By a strange perversion there are those who state by an unwarranted assumption that bodily rest merely is that spoken of here, as the Sabbath rest of God. So resting, none can imitate God. God's day of rest en- dures, a perpetual obligation to obey and serve God, and this perpetual obligation to serve Him by the setting apart of one day in seven for His service is expressive of God's perpetual rest. II. — THE PROLEPTICAL THEORY OF THE SABBATH. The only plausible theory of the observation of the Sabbath, evading the Edenic origin of the Sabbath day and its recognition by man for over two thousand five hundred years, is that of Paley. He labored to show that the Genesis account was only proleptical, or anticipatory of the Jewish Sabbath of after times. But to this conjecture it is replied with destructive force : 1st. That it admits our interpretation of the origin of the Sabbath by the appointment of God in Eden. 2nd. It puts a supposition in place of a recorded fact, and by a figure of speech, without any nec< ssity ■I I I 10 SUNDAY OUR SABBATH. for if. contrary to all canons of interpretation. It ii nothin*: but a pure fancy, without any foundation fo: the statement, like much of the Higher Criticism. 3rd. It is rightly urged that it is a supposition em ployed to set aside a direct Divine testimony, just ai if a man, in order to get rid of the Divine law o: marriage, were to say that the words in Genesis 2 : 2^ were only proleptical, though quoted by our Lord ir Mark 10 : 5-9, as the Divine law of marriao-e. 4th. It is against all common sense that a perioc of two thousand years should intervene between th( establishment of the Sabbath by Divine commanc and the practical event itself, and also to crown the absurdity that it should then be restricted to a small fraction of the human race. No amount of sophistry or special pleading can do away with the fact that the Sabbath was given to our first parents in Eden, and through them to the race of man, beyond all rea.son- able doubt. III.— WAS THE SEVENTH PART OF TIME KEPT BY THE NATIONS AS A RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE? In answer to this question the bold assertion is made that for at least two thousand five hundred years there is no account of the Sabbath being kept or observed. This bold and foundationless statement is sufficiently met by the fact, that the division of time into weeks of seven days was known tc -'I na- tions whose history has corn down to us of the pres- ent day as a .subject of investigation. A recent writer V^ SUNDAY OUR SABBATH. 11 on this subject, in ar '^xh/iustive exami'uition of this matter, tells us tha- nothing is more irely demon- strated by recent research than that traces of the original Sabbath law, and consequent division of time into weeks, can be found among primitive nations. When the families of Noah's sons had become num- erous, they sought new territory, and thus laid the foundation of states and empires. They would, of course, carry with them the teachings of their father, Noah, and the rites of that religion wliich he so faith- fully had observed. We would expect, then, to find amongst them some vestiges of a sacred day ; and this is precisely what we do find. Unmistakable evidences or a septenary division of time, with ar- rangement and p'^riodical recurrence of sacred daj'^s, and of the dedication of one day to the sun-god wor- ship, are discovered in abundance. In some cases the first day of the week, and in others the seventh day, was held sacred. To Adam it was the first day of the week, but according to the days of creation, the seventh day. The first day of the week was the day gen "ally kept by the nations. Most valuable results on this subject have been obtained from the explorations of the mc nds of Nineveh. From these ruins 80,000 tablets have been found, and the facts revealed have l)een of the most interesting character. They take us back in history, says George Smitli, 2,500 years before Christ. On these tablets Ir. Smith tells us that every seven days of the month were termed sulum, or " rest," on which 12 SUNDAY OUn SABBATH. certain kinds of work were prohibited. (See Rev. J. Johnston in the Catholic Preshytei . m for Jan., 1881, on "Assyrian Discoveries.") Another interesting tablet', found by Mr. Smith, on which the king's duties on the seventh day were prescribed, translated, reads as follows : " The seventh day, the festival of Merodach, a holy day. A Sabbath for the ruler of great nations.' Sodden flesh and cooked meat he may not eat. His clothes he may not change. Sacrifices he may not offer. The king his chariot he may not drive. A place of assembly for judgment he may not establish." These, with many other precepts, are given for the observance of eveiy seven days, and the worship they offered to other gods was on the seventh day also. The fifth tablet of the creation series found says, ' On the seventh day He appointed a holy day, and to cease from all business He commanded." The very name S(d>h(iia is found in this ancient language in the days of Noah. The ancient Egyptians incas^red their tijne by weeks. In the Sanskrit language of India, its ancient literature speaks of the week, or seven days' division of time. Homer spoke in his day of the seventh day being holy. Hesiod, the Greek writer, tells us that the seventh was a sacred day ; and Callimachus calls the seventh day holy. The Chinese ancient literature contains references to the sev.Mith day as sacred, or religious. Max Miiller, in h- sixth lecture on the "Origin and Growth' of Religions," furnishes a most remarkable example of the prevalence of the weekly measurement of time in wm 35=^ SUNDAY OUll SVHHATH. 13 I I the early v edic timeH, page 201. From Tertulliau we learn that Sunday was a religious festival of the ancient Persians. Porphery declares that the Phie- nicians esteemed the seventh day ms holy. The Saxon week and nomenclature influences our system of notation , and Josephus asserts that no nation under heaven existed, bar'.arian or civilized, 1 it what adopted the custom of lesting on the seventh day. Philo asserts the same thin^. The week, chronologic- ally apart, is as old as time. Goguet, the French writer, informs us of the recognition among the Ara'jians, Hindoos, Romans, Gauls, Germans, Britons, and Scandinavians, of the custom of counting by weeks and the seventh part of time as sacred. To this list Townsend adds the names of Peru, Chili, Tartar y and Japan, All this t^^timony is beyond cavil, but whether the Sabbath was kept as such by these nations during this lon^' period as given above is nothing to the point. Th- iact and Divine author- ity of its institution remain the same ; and nothing else can be argued from the words of our Lord, " The Sabbath was made for man." Nehemiah says that "God made known His Sabbath to Israel." Very true ; and this only proves that it was iu existence to be made known. The prophet does not say that it was instituted for Israel, which would be a very different matter and statement. So much for its Divine and Edenic origin. J 14 SUNDAY OUR SABBATH. IV. THE JEWISH SABBATH NOW COMES FOU CONSIDERATION. It is thoiialit that a period of about twenty-fiv( hundred years had elapsed between the cstablishnieni of the Sabbath, as related in Genesis, and the tiiwc ol the notice to the Israelites of a Sabbath, mentioned in the Book of E.Kodus 16: 23, durincr which period we hnd no mention of a Sabbath in Scripture ; althou-h an we have shown above, traces of its establishment had been found amon^ most ancient nations. In the above chapter of Exodus, we read that the Lord said unto Moses, " Behold, I will rain bread from heaven tor you ; and the people shall cro out and gather a certam rate every ,lay, that I may prove them whether they will walk in my law, or no. And it shall conie 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." There are here certain interesting questions to be solved, if ,t be possible to find satisfactory answers 1st. From what day of the week, or point of time did God direct Moses to count the six days ? We submit that if Moses had followed the E^rv tian counting or marking of time, the Israelites wo'uld not have exhibited the ignorance they manifested of the computation of time, which they plainly showed. We are told that on the seventh day after the first tall ot the manna was their Sabbath. This was a surprise to them, as an arbitary appoint- SUNDAY OUR SABBATH, 15 ment by God for them, as then manife.sted by the reply of Moses to their inquiry as to the reason of the arranj^ement ; and he, Moses, said, "This is that which the Lord hath said," evidently referring to a I'evelation which the Lord had ^iven to Moses some time past in reference to a Sabbath for the Israelites themselves, " To-morrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord." That the direction for the keeping of the Jewish Sabbath was an arbitary arrangement as far as the appointment of the par- ticular day of the week is concerned, as all other typical ceremonial observances were, must be clear to any careful student of Scripture from the form of the announced appointment of the day. Notwithstanding such announcement, some of the people went out on the seventh day from the first fall of the mna to gather some, and found none. It is plain, then, they were not ac(|ua' ted with that particular day as the Holy Day. At the same time, it was a moral law unto them as the seventh part of time devoted to God's service, as the Decalogue demands. We are informed in Genesis, 2nd chapter, that in six days God created and made all things, man and beast, but that the seventh day was God's rest. But that rest day was the seventh day of God's work, but the first day of man's life, and devoted, by order of God, to the service and worship of his Maker. It was sanctified by God from all worldly employments. That Saturday, first, was by special command appointed by God as a fixed date for the Jewish people as Sabbath, goes without argu- I'M i i ' ! 10 SUNDAY OUK sahiuth. ment, but that Saturday was the day of the firs Sabbath in Eden, as appointed by God for the ract we take it, none but a fanatic would maintain. Thi Sabbath was, for certain ceremonial reasons, fixed fo the Jews on Saturday at first, but not by the Deca lojfue. It was reco^mized and appointed for th«n before the ^'iving of the moral law on Sinai. Th( Saturday-Sabbath for the Jews was evidently fixet by special statute to be changed to every day of th( wfek, an.l pass away when all the rest of the cere monial laws by special statute given by Moses shoulc be met in their great antitype. It belongs distinctively to a dispensation termec] the Jewish Ceremonial Dispensation, being foundec upon the terms of a Decalogue peculiar to itself, ir the letter, though not in the spirit of its precepts The unique thing in the Decalogue of the Jewish Dispensation given, was the reason laid down ivhy they should keep the Sabbath day holy, see Deuteron- omy 5 : 6-21, with a special reference in the sixteenth verse as to the obligation of the fourth counnandment peculiar to that dispensation. There was a Sabbath appointed by God to be kept in each of the three dispensations. Patriarchal, Jew- ish, and Christian. The position we take in this paper is adopted by fully a score of the best com- mentators, dictionaries, cyclopedias, and lexicons, that the Jewish Sabbath was and belonged alone to that Dispensation, and was of a movable character. The conclusion, however, seems to be arrived at by a fvii I •KiWiaT* SUNDAY ol'H SAIJUATII 17 large nuinbor of liiblo readers, tliat for the Jewd the seventh day, Sabbath, and Saturday of the days of the week were e ' ' To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth .. Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths : for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil thr >» score and ten years." Says Gamble, "Dion Cassius tells us that the Jews made Saturday their Sabbath when they left Egypt, and the Bible says their Passover was on the four- teenth day of the month, and they were freed on the 2 ;i I j I ! 18 8UNDAV OUK SAHBATII. fifteenth of the month Abib, or on Saturday, which thuy made tlieir Sabbath, on account of the Exodus. This date became a fixed date with them as our Christmas is a fixed date with us. The fifteenth of the month Abib was their Sabbath, but, as recorded in Leviticus 23: on the fifteenth day of this first month they were to hold the feast of unleavened bread, and then on the morrow after the Sabbath of the fifteenth came the wave ofifering of first fruits, wiiich would be Sunday, or first of the week, and from that day they were to count seven Sabbatlis, and then Pentecost with them came on Sunday on the fifth of the month Sivan. The commandment says, ' Six days shalt thou labor,' so two days are the one Sabbath, made a statute for ever, throujijhcut their generations. From this date, Pentecost, the first day of the week of labor ceases to be Sunday, and becomes Monday, and during the year the seventh day ceases to be Saturday, and falls on Sunday. You will also find that the year will end on Saturday, the sixth day of the week, and the New Year will begin on Sabbath (Sunday), Abib 1st. And Moses again places the shewbread on the tables on that date, the first day of the first month of the second year, as the Lord commanded Moses to put the bread in order on every Sabbath day. Now, the Sabbaths are the first day of Abib, the eighth, the fifteenth, which were Sunday. According to the command, the next day, Monday, is the day of the wave offering on the second year, and you again count from that date seven I- £»i?i^nBBBE!WSKni.-Li IKMiridfiffVtfSISl IrT- SUNDAY OLU 8AUHATII. 19 weeks, or forty-nine days, and the fiftieth is Pente- cost, on the second year, conies round on Monday. No servile work is to bo done on that ind it is Monday is the Sabbath, and the great day again is Tuesday at Pentecost ; so it goes on for the Tewish Dispensation through the weeks until it comes round to Sunday once more. Thus, the Jewis'.i Sabbath, ruled in its movement by the fixed date of their coming out of Egypt, ever reminds them of that deliverance (Deuteronomy 6: 14, 15), as fulfilled in arrangement by God of the ever-changing Sabbath day of the Jewish Dispensation. Therefore, for the Jewish people, the Sabbath day changed every suc- ceeding year through the centuries, as many times as there were years between the date of the children of Israel coming out of Egypt and the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord from the grave, or, according as we are told by the septuigant chronology, 1680 times. V. THE TWO DECALOGUES IN EXODUS. " As we have found the date of the first Passover, and then the date of the first Pentecost, which, according to the Bible statement, was that in the third month, which was Sivan, on the third day of ^'S^B^BT-WS^ITTTV- 20 SUNDAY (^Ull SAHBATII. the month, the same day as is stated in Exodus 19: ' Moses went up unto God. And the Lord said unto Moses, go down unto the people and sanctity tliem to-day and to-morrow, and bo ready atrainst the third day, for the Lord will come down in sight of all the people.' So the Lord came down on the third day, which was the fifth of Sivan, from the fixed date of the Passover, which was Sunday, when the Lord came and spoke all these words of the Patriarchal Deca- logue on Sunday, amid thunders and fiery flame (ibitl chap. 20). And at the end of foity days Moses came down from the mount and the two tables of the law in his hand, written by the finger of God. But when Moses saw the idolatries of the camp, lie threw down the tables of stone and brake them before the -nount. Does the Bible tell us that the words on the second tables of stone, which Moses, in obedience to the command of God, had hewn out like unto the first tables, bear the same words as were on the first tables, which had been broken by Moses ? We answer ' Yes ' for in the first verse of the 34th chapter of Exodus the Lord said unto Moses, ' Hew me out two tables of stone like unto the first, and I will write upon these tables the words that were on the first tables which thou brakest.' And the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy 6-22, says Moses, 'And He (God) added no more, and He wrote them on two tables of stone and delivered them unto me.' " On that Sunday when the Lord came down on the mount, they did not work that day with any Hi III SUNDAY OUR SABBATH. 21 any servile work. Six days work from that day brought them again to Sunday as the Sabbath of the Lord their God, ' Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.' And at once on Sinai we are taken back to the Old Creation Sabbath in commemoration of the creative work of God. The Sabbath given by God to Adam in Eden for Sabbath- keeping, the first day of man's life and the first day of man's time, but the seventh day of God's work, was proclaimed by God as a revelation to man. The people of Israel had been, in Egypt, used to the Egyptian Friday-Sabbath, and how could they know that the Sunday- Sabbath here consecrated on Mount Sinai was the original Sabbath, but by revelation ? Hear the Bible again, ' Tliou earnest down also on Mount Sinai (Sunday, Si van 5th), and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgment, and true laws, good statutes and commandments, and madest known unto tiiem Thy holy Sabbath' (Ne- hcmiah 9 : 13-14). The words written on the two tables of stone, Moses states, were a covenant, not made with our fathers (Abraham or Adain), but was made with them when I took them out of the land of Egypt. And what is the distinctive point of differ- ence between the ten commandments made with Adam, say, for the race, and that given to the chil- dren of Israel ? It lies in the reason given in the fourth commandment. That given to Adam re(][uired a ti.xed Sa1)bath — seventh day Sabbath; but the fourth commandment given to the children of Israel coming 22 SUNDAY OUR SABBATH. up out of Egypt, required a changeable seventh Sab- bath, bringing th: :n back every year to a fixed date, in remembrance of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage. For that reason they were to keep their Sabbath as appointed them on the tables of stone, and unlike the fixed creation Sabbath, or seventh day Sabbath of creation and of Christianity. Thus the eighth day of the Jewish Dispensation, revealed by God on Mount Sinai, became the Sabbath of the Gospel Dispensation." As Christ was the great antitype of Jewish sacri- fices and ceremonies, so the seventh-day Sabbaths of the Christian economy remain the great antitypes of their eighth-day Sabbath.s. No direct command was re(juired to effect the change from the ceremonial Jewish changing Sabbath to that of its antitype, as no direct command was reijuired to do away with the sacrifices of slain beasts when the great Christian Sacrifice was offered on Calvary. The great Lord of the Sabbath, who first arranged that the first day of man's life, and first of his week, should be dedicated to the service of his Maker, restored it again to its original authority, and da}', for the race, its observance being first announced by God in the moral law, as part of our duty to God and His service. VI. CONSEQUENT MORAL OHLKJATION OF SUNDAY SVBBATII OBSERVANCE. It is objected l)y some that if the Jewish changing Sabbath was by statute for them, it cannot be proved M SBU SUNDAY OUR SAliiJATH. 23 to be of general obligation for the race as a moral law to be observed by all men. We assume that it will not be denied that the Sabbath under all dispen- sations is substantially one, with only circumstantial difference suiting each dispensation. In the second chapter of Genesis we are informed that God set apart the seventh day of creation's work, which, as the Scriptures plainly show, was to be dedicated to the worship and service of God. We are informed that God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. It cannot be conceived for a moment that God blessed the day for Himself, and not for man, md set it apart for the worship of God by Divine authority. We cannot understand the word " sanctify," as applied to the seventh day. for man to rest as God rested. But " God is a Spirit." and rests not for the same reason as man. God has completed His work through the day- acres of the past, and man, the crowning completeness of that work in creation, is informed of that complete- ness as finished, and on the first day of man's time and life God rests in the finished goodness of His works. It is the announcement of God the Spirit, who originates and consummates His work, and the same Spirit pronounces it very good, and rests in the completeness of His work done— rests not because He is weary, but because the work is finished, and the express likeness of Himself-is worthy of Him, and needs no repetiton. Oh, there is something sublime in the record, primeval as it is ! " Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them. 24 SUNDAY OUU SABBATH. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His worl. which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it : because - ; it in it He had rested from all His work which (Jod created and made." An^ .t the completion of which it is meet that man, made in the image of God, should remember the Sabbath to keep it holy ; should per- petually hallow and sanctify the day whose establish- ment is Gods witness to Himself as Spiritual and supernatural, and whoso keeping and observing in holiness is man's perpetual witnens to h hnsclf oUtis spiritual and supernatural origin in the likeness of God. It is intended evidently by God, in its perpetual obligation and sanctified employment, to raise man to the true spirituality of his God, enabling him to rejoice in communion with the Father of Spirits. This is the reason of the Sabbath, and foundation of Its law, which remains perpetual in its obligations so long as the reason remains. Instead of the fourth commandment, then, being merely a positive or arbitrary injunction, the true view of its origin and reason shows us the vciy ground on which the appli- cation of the other nine rests. They are not given to material natures, but to spirits. They have no"signifi- canco save to a free-will agent, and it is only in the fourth commandment that the free will is evidence of their universal application, so that neither the old nor new dispensation could change their continued obliga- tion on men. We are told the f(mrth commandment is SUNDAY OUll SAHRATH. 25 only a shadow of good things to come. " But the body is of Christ." We admit at once that the un- limited sway of the fourth commandment should be as clear and unmistakable as any of the other nine precepts. It is also said this is far from being the case. But, remember, those who confound the Sabbath of the fourth commandment with that of the changing Hebrew Sabbath forget that the Hebrew Sabbath was not by itself the Sabbath of the ten words spolrn by God. It is repeated, however, by men, that the fourth commandment is not a universal precept. We en(iuire, then, what is a universal precept ? Surely a precept does not require to be universally acknowledged by men in order to its being a universal precept. It may be true and binding on all men, and yet not be per- ceived as universally binding by some men. The light may shine in the darkness, and the da.:.ness comprehend it not ; not because the light does not shine, but because darkness is darkness. Is it not quite reasonable to believe that there are many in this world who do not perceive the universal and abi obligations of the other nine precepts of the ten d they art ■ uight and trained to see and per- ceive their obligations ? The distinction .sought to bi; established between the fourth commandment and the other nine, as a positive and arbitrary enactment, and different from the others, resting as they do on plain and absolute principles of righteousness, cannot be admitted or maintained in reference to anything God 26 SUNDAY OUR SABBATH. has enjoined in the " ten words," or in any of His precepts. He does nothing arbitrarily. All His acts and precepts are perfect. There must be an eternal and unchanging reason for them all. Could men come to see His laws in the ten commandments as He sees them, they would never dare to make the mistake of asserting a distinction, such as they attempt, be- tween tne fourth and other precepts of the ten, as though God makes His reason plain for the obligation of the nine, while there is, as they say, no such reason given for the fourth. Is it not a matter of surprise tlmt men do not see the reason for its perpetual obligation in the command itself as plainly given, or more so, than in any of the other precepts ? " For in six days the Lord made heaven h-id earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day." Here is the rea.son given for the Divine injunction, " Remember the Sabbatli day, to keop it holy." If we will only observe this reason thus given by God, and when we see its wondrous meaning, we can never doubt the perpetual and universal obligation to keep the Sab- bath day holy. What does it mean, then, when it is stated that God rested from His work, and therefore commanded men to rest from theirs ? Man becomes weary from his labor, and needs rest for the renewal of his strength, and refreshment ; but this cannot be said of the Creator. He has wasted no power in His work for which He needs restoration. Man finds rest a recreation from his own work, and as directed by God employs that time in worship, from which he SUNDAY OUR SAUnATH. 27 ^i rises with strength renewed to perform his worK. am finds such rest and recreation a wise an.l mercitul arrano-enient-wise to Imve his stated times for rest. This i"s only incidental, and does not show at all the hicrh significance of the reason why God requires his worshi- and his service. Moses says. "God spake these words to men out of the midst of the fire, and He added no more." On the other hand, all that was merely typical and merely ceremonial was communi- cuted to the people through Moses, as was the cere- monial changing Sal.bath of the Jews; but what God ciiose Himself to utter personally and directly to the people were the eternal verities of law. "The marked difference, as we iind, in the manner in which the fourth commandment was proclaimed and mere ceremonial observances were announced— the former uttered with awful solemnity and in awful words, in public, by God Himself : the latter written on stone for the Jews ami.lst the obscurity of clouds, on the top of Sinai, and sent through Moses. The concise style of the one and the prolixity o2 the other, tl„. oppressive nature of the ceremonial and the human design of the other. These ten words, then, and not the accompanying statutes written by the hand of God alone on tables of stone and preserved in the Ark of the Covenant, because it bore the record of testimony as to what was the will of God. the announcement of which to the people is God s covenant with them. God's work in His kingdom of •n-ace is thus in analogy with His work m the king- m 28 SUNDAY OUn SABBATH. dom of nature ; the individual rests upon tl.e species -the particuhu- is upheld by the universal : the laws which are of local application, and which are merely tor a tnne and a certain peopL^. are grounded first on a law world-wide and eternal." But the fourth con.niandn.ent gives the Sabbath a position among the moral laws which are in their nature of lasting obligation on all men. And we take the position that if any of the laws in the Decalorme are, ami embody the principles of moral law and order, we maintain, then, the fourth commandment belongs to the same order, standing as it does in the table embracing oui- duty to Ood. SECOND PART. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE COMVfANI) TO "KEEP THE SABRATH DAY HOLY" i " If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doin(r thy .pleasure on My holy day ; and call the Sab- bath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable: and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor find- ing 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." (Isai. 58:13, 14). I.— WHAT, IN THIS C.\SE, IS MEANT HY THE WOHU "holy"? What we understand by the meaning of the world hobj, as employed in other parts of God's Word, we apprehend, may guide us to a right estimate of what is meant by the command to keep the Sabbath day hohi. There is only one word in biblical Greek, in either the translation of the Old Testament by the serenty, or in the New Testament, by which the right concep- 29 30 SUNDAY OUU SAHBATH. tion of the meaning of the word can bo expreHsed, viz., nyio^. The conception enibodied in this word pervades the Bible througliout. It nioulds the whole of Divine revelation, and the conception embodied is purely of Bible growth. The word, from the first mention of it by God to Moses at the burning bush to the end of Revelation, is but expressive of God's wonderful interference in behalf of men, in bestow- uients conferred and deliverances wrought out for them. How aptly was this thought brought out in the song of Moses and Miriam on the banks of the Red Sea ? " Who is like unto thee. O Lord, among the gods ? who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?" Wonders of unselfi.sh de- liverances wrought out for men. Thus the holine.ss of God was first manifested in the working out of a great deliverance for His people, and thus sanctifying or separating them to and for Himself that all nations might through them be helped and blest. They were to be guided in national life to this end and design by the laws of God, teaching them unselfish efforts for the welfare of nations in moral and religious life. " Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." Here, then, we apprehend, we strike at once the meaning of the word holy as applied to the keepin- of the Sabbath, and as Christ Himself employed its hours when He went about doing good among men Here, also, it appears how fully, in keepin;r the Sab- bath day holy, righteousness is the rec.uirement of God and the goal to which tiie law of 'the Sabbath SUNDAY OUR SAliUATH. 31 ■ would load us, as the roiiuirement of the Decalogue leads in every case, separating, as it evidently floes, the Sabbath from all selHsh usage in adoring and worshipping God, aiding and blessing men as we may bo able to bestow blessing unselfishly on them. In thus enforcing the claims of the Sabbath law of Go? «'-;Pti,'jrie ^k or eouve«inK on taking a walk wuli their tuu. i^teresteU. busine.. in vvluch «->" ^^^'^^ ° , Ily the Sab- How can such rretem thav « «y ^^^P ' ^ j„,t ,„d batl>.lay-^ Tl>o»e ->'° P™^ '^;/:*Juy contract those who receive such "^'to-^^ g«™;\ ^ ^^^ •-bits ot "ving;vhich .U co,»P-t ^:^^ „„ of hoUness which God demana , j^j^ „£ the Sabbath generally anses f'-y-™-^^ ^ 7„,„,,, Uto, producing a l-y."7°toUl „ tt e ''O"'^' "' Such having no des,re tor ^^^o'» "P '" ' ^,,,1, God, they seek for so^e chan ^ ^y v>svt_ „^^.^,^^ Wends or -K^']«- ,.„ "^le set before *e„, have an evil and ■»«1>='°" ' ;, ;„ ^fter days, which will bear truit of moral evu wnicnw. subversive ot pure perpetuating a family i ^.^ g^^a^y social lite in a --r-^f-^ito^ drives on God's visiting is taking bundaj wai •sfwewp !|-*li"-J ' > J- 44 SUNDAY Oiru SABBATH. holy day. These promote conversations on objects seen or about people they meet. If those walks or drives they indulge in, are not taken from necessity tl <^. Sabbath law of Gos rosul tn reverence in the child's nundlor the Lord day Will it not rather heeome a lesson to ch.l. ren ot tl e f , mality an,l hypocrisy of religion. Thm P"vate !;;::; "rviolatiou'c^- 0.rsday.prevalentas .t .an,on« professed Christians, is u.ost oftens.ve to Go,l. Ve Zl it that it can only l>e cheeked by awakenu,, the conscience to the enormity of the sm. 'This teaching, we snppose, will he t-med ',y tb. loose and wordly crowd of so-called Lhr.st.ans, i , - «a,>i., that cannot be carried out or -."l^-l- J laid, we answer, that Christians are to """»'« ""», and there cannot be two „«estions or opm.ons asto tt^c sort of a lite which Ho led, as f "- « >ovc. Hoc ae not to destroy or traverse the law, but to hll it full .n His conduct as it demands. It «- ■!°\ * f ' » , nreac'.ed an unpopular austerity. Ih.s had been rr before by'a'orecian philosopher, and was^ as little relished as the preaching of Christ. Ihe pomt at which Christ began tc preach, because Ho was tn taven, was in the attack He made, not on v,ce but on virtue, and they hated Hiu. for .t, because He 'o only lived the law of His Father ^^^^ but hated Him because of His teaehmgs. He m to fered with the standards of virtue, of ru-tue they l.»d up and with which they were V^^^^^'fT:, : L'd lawful and good. It seemed to be tl^ oftce and work of Christ to take His Father s law-and tms dltin-ruished Him as Christ-and use it (tl>e law, so 4« SUNI)AV OUR S.imiATH. n l,f« „„,1 teachmj; „. to convict the respectable u,„l up nght gentlen.en and l,.,lie, of Hi, day, of i.lulatrv a„,l stubbornness of beart, because i„stea,I of „i„,i„i to conforn, to 0,„l's win ,„.| ,„„_ j,„ „,^.,.„ ^„,_^ » aun.n« to conforn, to what the worM would accept.anj hndm.- n,etbc«Is of their own in keeping wba hey were pleased to tern, the law of (Jod, and accor,li„! to the.r own views of what it should denmnd. This -s what human society is now doin- Hold what theory you please about Christ's intercou,-se in bun.an »oc.ety on Sabbath or week days-tbat He nonH «,thany o them, not because He liked their c°on,- pany or rehshed their ^rood cheer, for His life was one of mceasant opposition to the clever n,en of the world and U,e conunon sense of the public opinion of H, day. H,s We was the li.ht of „,en, and should te he pattern oi the Chnstian's life in obedience to God, do,„^ good to the souls and bo,lKs „f n,en. The p am truth .s that the den.ands of God to keep holy the babbath day seen, to us too big to be obeyed and :: : of"t^ """°, r"?* ■""•^- '^ ^^^^^^ "- '-' rbUV:;,-:;"'''^"'^-"''^^^-^--^-^^" fou*^nTin' T "'°"' '"""; °' ^"'''"'"' *^»™ti„n is babbatl , ,olat,on wo are encountered at once by rich c™-porat,ons. whose connections and co,npetitio„s wi 1 othei railroad systems increase the .lifPcultv of if s«,.pression. I„ England the Hastings and\ord-: SUNDAY «)UR SAHHATH. 47 Day Association of Britain in one of its late reports says • " To the Christian patriot the thought is liunuli- ating, that whereas it is found that on six of their great lines of railroua. there are 1,403 passenger trains and 342 freight trains running on the Sabbath, iu the United States, out of 124 railroad compan..'8 who last year made returns to the New York Sabbath comnuttee, sixty-five companies ran no trams at all on the Lord's day, and the remaining companies ran 177 passenger and 42 freight trains on Sunday." Since this report was publishe1 .-' own Grand Trunk road and the Pacific are closely follow- in^ suit The above-mentioned Sabbath committee declares that the peril is great from this source, and the violation of Sabbath law is increasing and last becoming more and more serious. Tens of thousands of men observe no Sabbath at all, and this is growing in these countries to the great and abiding danger ot law and moral order. The deprivation of worship and the violation of domestic relations are producing and working the greatest evils in family life, "ot only to the men themselves, but to their children, and by consequence to the community at large. In 1876 the State Legislature of New Mexico passed a very good Sabbath law, suppressing all Sab- bath games and public amusements on the Sabbath day, and for a length of time we had a change says an authority of that State., which was wondertul in the crreat difference wrought. No open shops. Stores 48 SUNDAY OUR SABBATH. all closed on Sabbath. But in 1881 came the rail roads, and with them all their filth of Sabbath break ing which they generally bring, and they wiped out our SabLath law, and now all sorts of Sabbath-break ing ,s carried on, both public and private, and murders and drunkenness are in full blast. In the Briti«=h Isles the same results have followed railroad Sabbath violation. What do railroad employees think oi this Sabbath- ess business ? A few years ago some four hundred locomotive engineers petitioned Mr. William Vander- bilt for the cessation of Sabbath labor. After pointino- out how Sunday running of trains had become a great hardship, they continued, " We have borne this griev- ance patiently, hoping every succeeding year that it would decrease. We are willing to submit to any reasonab e deprivation, mental or physical, to assist the officers of the company to achieve financial triumph ■ but after a long and weary service we do not see any sign of relief. Our objections to Sabbath labor are i^irst-lhis never-ending labor ruins our health, and prematurely we feel worn out and old men, and we feel inability to perform our duty. Secondly-That the customs of all civilized countries, as well as laws human and Divine, recognize Sunday as the day of rest and recuperation of physical nature. Notwith- standing that other periods of rest might be arranged for us on other days, they would exclude us from xll church and family privileges that other citizens enjoy Thirdly-Nearly all of us have children, and we ^v V SUNDAY OCR SABBATH. 19 desire for our children tl>at they become good men and women ■ but we cannot help seeing that our t"ampleu ignoring the Sabbath day has a very rnroSizing'effect\.pon them^ *f ;'- r^ft, from what we know that the best interests of the crpanies would be served if such an arrangement ~;Krefo»hese four hundred men was at once retus d a Id the civil and religious rights enjoyed bj the members of these companies were denied to their tmXees The railroad men, it can be abundantly Town' eel bitterly the curse of such tyrann,ca sUver; Says one of them, ■' Sunday is our saddes da'-'^He./isa lesson tor Canada from the United I Ls. Let us hear what railr<»d .--ger^b- to siv in regard to Sunday railroad work Ihe tollow If, Is a fetter from the President of the Louisville, New Albany and Chicago Railway. Louisville, April 19, 1883. '"t:ers:^.o^L,^^A..a..K.,Ken..ky ,^ 'so L as poLible no work be done o^ rains, or . • a tn hP run on the Sabbath aay. \ou will, on dst s^^P 1 trainson the Sabbath except the !veninl passenger train, some questions •" -gard i« n having arisen; and if this train i.s not required^ I shall issue a further order concerning it. In case 50 SUNDAY OUR SABBATH. of perishable goods or live stock it may be necessarv to do some work, but you will avoid this even, where It can be safely and properly done. You vvill in future, run no excursion trains on Sunday of any kmd. This order applies to camp-meeting trains If Christian people cannot find other places for worship this company will nr c violate Sabbath law. Divine and civil, and deny its employees the essential rest of the Sabbat.1 to carry them to camp-meeting crrounds I am also informed that a number of the company's employees have conscientious scruples against any work on the Sabbath day. There are others who are or do not feel so strongly on the subject. Under no ordinary circumstances must any employee who objects on the the ground of religious convictions be ordered or required to do any service on the Sabbath If any difficulties arise in the execution of this re^u lation, you will please report them to me for consid'er- ation, and you will also notify the employees of this right, on conscientious grounds, to be fully protected in the observance of the day of rest. I remain " Yours truly, "Bennett H. Yousg, President:' Mr. Young also wrote to the Baihvay Age news- paper that the laws of God and man are conclusive on this point, forbidding labor on the Sabbith day and every railroad manager operating a ro.d on that day violates human and Divine law, and by forc::,iir his employees to do the same, sets before them a SUNDAY OUR SABBATH. 51 eon«„u,l e.a»ple and p.ae«ee oij^^^^^^ the highest obligations. It is saia ^^ f railroad men observant of the railway Sa^^*_^l-|^ eration and its influence, that it has effected the d sTres" Its in producing the worst forms °f.m- moraiities in cities and towns where before the vilest To m of vice were at least hidden or -kno- ^^^/^ ^o not the Christian churches arise in our Christian Hal might and put down thl open violation o Divine commfnd and of human rights Divine Let us arise and agitato this question in earnest, and a. 1 f Kofnrp God and we shall prevail. "^;t norbrinVthis paper - a clc.e by sa^ng : rt tie M hodl CZ* from her pulpits will hope that the Metho. ^^^ Dominion S^bth'torrDay Alliance, in agitation for the Sabbath Lords uy ^^.^^^^ ^^p,„y. rrnrJariSing, or violation of God. day of rest and worship, as demanded by His appointment.