I
c*--
REESE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
Received. \,>7[QjCX^ ,SS l^
Accesstom No.>^.A./<t^.. Shelf A'o
<e¥-
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/argumentforperpeOOphelrich
AN ARGUMENT
PERPETUITY 0FJ:HE SABBATH.
BY REV. A. A. PHELPS.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY D. S. KING,
32 Washington Street.
1841.
Fr
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1841,
By D. S. King,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
^ S/^
STEREOTYPED AT THE
BOSTON TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.
INTRODUCTION.
The following Argument in defence of the
Sabbath was called forth by the discussions of
the late ** Church, Ministry, and Sabbath Conven-
tion,'' so termed, in this city. A wish has been
repeatedly expressed that it should be written out
for publication. This has been done — but amid
a pressure of other duties which has subjected
the author to frequent interruptions, much conse-
quent delay, and some serious disadvantages in
its accomplishment. In writing it out, some
trains of thought have been introduced which
were not presented in the Convention, and some,
which were then merely hinted at, have been
carried out. The Argument differs from the
ordinary discussions of the subject, in that its
strength is mainly expended on two points, which,
in the author's judgment, are usually despatched
4 INTRODUCTION.
too summarily, and therefore not satisfactorily, but
which, after all, are the strong points of the case
on the part of our opponents. Those points are,
first, their argument to prove that the Sabbath
was originally instituted in the wilderness ; and,
second, our argument to prove a divine warrant
for the change of the day. To make the truth
on these points clear, has been a leading design
in the ensuing discussion. The Argument, such
as it iB, is now given to the public, in the hope
that it may help to satisfy the inquiring, to relieve
the doubting, to decide the wavering, to confirm
the weak, and to promote in all a more intelligent
and better observance of the Lord's Day.
THE AUTHOR.
Boston, Feb. 12, 1841.
INDEX.
THE SABBATH AS AN INSTITUTION.
CHAP. I.
Preliminary Remarks, 7
CHAP. II.
Explanation op Terms, 16
CHAP. III.
The Sabbath at Creation, 19
CHAP. IV.
The Sabbath in the Patriarchal Age, 31
CHAP. V.
The Sabbath in Egypt, 41
CHAP. VI.
The Sabbath in the Wilderness, , 57
CHAP. VII.
The Sabbath a Sign, , 73
CHAP. VIII.
The Argument recapitulated and closed, .... ..82
1*
6 INDEX.
CHANGE OF THE DAY.
CHAP. IX.
Statement of the Question, and Preliminary
Remarks, 96
CHAP. X.
Nature op the Argument for a Change op
THE Day, 104
CHAP. XI.
Christ's Sanction of the Sabbath and its
Change, 107
CHAP. XII.
The Sanction of the Apostles and the Prim-
itive Church, 124
CHAP. xm.
The Argument continued,.., 140
CHAP. XIV.
The Proof-Texts of Opponents, 149
CHAP. XV.
The Testimony of Ecclesiastical History, ...,159
THE SABBATH-
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
The Sabbath — This is the topic in discussion.
But what is the question at issue in respect to it?
Till this is ascertained, we can m£ike no progress in
the discussion. I will attempt to state it. And first,
I will state what it is not.*
1. It is not whether men ought to be holy every
day ; to have " Holiness to the Lord " written on all
they have and are ; to carry their religion into their
business, so as to make their business part of their
religion, and do all they do to the glory of God, and
in this sense keep all days holy; for in this, the
friends and the opponents of the Sabbath are agreed.
At all events, no friends of the Sabbath deny it.
True, their opponents sometimes say they do. Nay,
they even insist, at times, that their zeal for the ob-
servance of one day in seven, as holy, is virtually that
they may have the freer license to sin during the re-
mainder of the week. But it is not so. Such repre-
* The eirgximents noticed in this chapter were all urged in the
Convention.
8 THE SABBATH.
sentations are injurious and false. What friend of
the Sabbath, if a minister, does not preach that men
ought to be holy every day and every where, as well
as on the Sabbath and in the sanctuar}'^ ? And when
he urges the observance of one day in seven as a
Sabbath, who is there, be he minister or layman, that
does not do it, in order that, by carrying its hallowing
instructions and influences with them into the or-
dinary avocations of life, men may be led to serve
God in them as well as in their religious duties, and
so be made the more holy, rather than the less so,
during the other six days of the week ? And who,
that knows any thing of a real observance of the Sab-
bath, does not know by experience, that such are its
actual tendency and effect ? Or if, in any case, the
tendency and effect of its observance seem otherwise,
and men do cast its restraints behind them, and take
occasion from it to sin the more the moment they
enter on the week, who are they that do it ? The
men that honestly advocate and keep the Sabbath, or
those only that play the hypocrite in regard to it ? The
men to whom the Sabbath is a delight, and the holy
of the Lord honorable, or those to whom it is a yoke,
and a " burden," and a curse, and who in their hearts
wish there were none ? The latter, plainly. Be this,
however, as it may, the question at issue between the
friends and opponents of the Sabbath is not whether
men ought to serve God always and every where,
and so keep all days holy, — for this the friends of the
Sabbath most fully believe and teach, — but whether
keeping all days holy, forbids the setting apart of
one day in seven as a Sabbath ; i. e. as a day of rest
from the ordinary avocations of life, and of special de-
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 9
votion to the duties of religion. And to pretend this,
is to say that setting apart particular times to particu-
lar duties, so that those duties may be the more or-
derly and profitably dischai^ged, is inconsistent with
keeping all time holy ; whereas, in point of fact, it
may be, and is, only a more effectual, as well as com-
mon sense arrangement for this very end.
2. The question touching the Sabbath is not
whether Christ taught a higher and purer morality
than Moses and the prophets. That he did, I know, is
claimed. It is said in terms, that " the standard of
morality under the gospel dispensation is infinitely
higher than it was under the old ; " and the inference
is, that the Sabbath is therefore now set aside. But
the fact asserted admits of question — much more the
inference. When one (Matt. xxii. 36 — 40) came to
Christ with the inquiry, " Master, which is the great
commandment of the law," his answer was, " Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the
first and great commandment. And the second is like
unto it — Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
And then he added, '-On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets " — a plain declara-
tion, that these two great requirements of supreme
love to God and impartial love to man, covering, as
they do, the whole field of obligation and duty, are
not the revelation of a new and higher standard, un-
knovm to Moses and the prophets, but a summary
only of what they themselves had taught. Indeed,
so true is this, that, on another occasion, (Matt. vii.
12,) when Christ gave his disciples that golden rule,
which in its wide sweep comprehends all obligation
10 THE SABBATH.
and duty, — "Therefore all thiogs whatsoever ye
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them," — so far from telling them that herein he gave
them a higher and purer standard of morality than
that of Moses and the prophets, he adds emphatically,
"jPor this IS the law and the prophets ^^ — nothing older
and nothing newer, nothing more and nothing less,
but the same identical thing itself. If Christ's tes-
timony, then, is to be received, he did not reveal nor
enjoin a higher or a purer morality than did Moses
and the prophets. Of course the Sabbath is not to
be set aside on this ground.
But admit, if you will, that he did reveal a new and
higher morality, still the inference of no Sabbath does
not follow ; for the question is, not whether Christ
taught a higher and purer morality than Moses and
the prophets, but did he teach one so high and so
pure as to set aside the Sabbath? Admit it to be
as elevated and pure as purity itself, does it therefore
follow that to set apart one day in seven as a Sab-
bath, — i. e. as a day of rest from the ordinary avoca-
tions of life, and of special devotion to the duties of
religion, — is no longer obligatory or proper ? To say
so, brings us to the old absurdity again, viz. that to
appropriate particular times to particular duties, for
the sake of their more orderly and profitable dis-
charge, is inconsistent with keeping all time holy,
or, what is the same, with the purity of the gospel ;
or that it is at best a needless and profitless arrange-
ment. And this is an absurdity so glaring that anti-
Sabbath men themselves do not, and cannot, practise
on it, — except in their religion. For they, as well
as others, have their general arrangement of one time
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. tJ
for the duties of the family, another for the duties of
the farm, or the workshop, or the printing-office, and
so on through the whole circle of regularly-returning
duties. And can it be, that it is in religion only, that
the appropriation of a particular time to particular
duties is a needless and profitless arrangement, in-
consistent alike with keeping all time holy, and with
the elevated purity of the gospel — nay, a " burden "
and a " yoke," from which Christ came to deliver us ?
By no means. Elevated and pure as is the morality
Christ taught, it does not follow that it is so pure as
to annihilate or set aside the observance of one day
m seven as a Sabbath, or day of holy rest. That re-
mains to be proved, not taken for granted.
3. The question touching the Sabbath is not
whether the law, or Sinai covenant, is done away
in Christ, or in the gospel, or new covenant ; for in
this the friends and opponents of the Sabbath are
agreed. But it is, in what sense is the one done
away by the other? Is it so done away as to set
aside the Sabbath? That is the question. (1.) Is it
done away as a means of justification? Agreed.
" Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no
flesh be justified in his sight," (Rom. iii. 20.) That,
however, does not touch the question of the ob-
servance of the Sabbath as a duty. The law, though
not binding as a rule of justification, may be as a
rule of duty, so that it may still be as much my duty
to keep the Sabbath as it is to worship God. (2.) Is
it, then, done away in Christ as a rule of duty ? It is so
asserted ; but what saith the apostle ? — "Do we, then,
make void the law" (as a rule of duty) "through
fidth?" (as the rule of justification.) (v. 28.) "God
12 THE SABBATH.
forbid. Yea, we ESTABLISH the law." Such ig:
Paul's opinion. And why, indeed, should he have
any other ? What room is there for pardon or justi-
fication where there is no sin to be pardoned ? And
what sin can there be where there is no law, or ex-
isting obligation to be violated? And what law is
there when the law is done away ?
But admit that the law, as a rule of duty, is done
away ; are we, then, no longer bound to love God or
man, to abstain from idolatry, blasphemy, false wit-
ness, theft, adultery, murder, and the like ? Are we
absolved fi'om obligation in respect to these matters
as well as that of the Sabbath ? This is not pre-
tended. But it is said that obligation, in these cases, is
unchanging, growing out of the very nature, necessi-
ties, and relations of man, and that, therefore, we are,
in respect to them, " under law to Christ." Be it so.
And how does it appear that we are not equally
« under law to Christ " to keep the Sabbath ? This,
at least, is the question j and is a thing to be proved^
not taken for granted.
4. The question at issue is not whether the rites
and ceremonies of the old economy were a shadow
of good things to come, and are all fulfilled in Christ^
For in this we are all agreed. But it is w^hether the
Sabbath, any more than the marriage institution, or
the command to honor parents, or every other com-
mand of the decalogue, was a part of that shadow^
and therefore done away in Christ, the substance.
All agree that the shadow is done away ; but was the
Sabbath a part of it ? That is the question, and is^
a matter to be proved, not assumed.
5. The question at issue is not whether Christ
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
OF THE '^ ^y
came to deliver us from the yoke and burden of old
rites and ceremonies ; for this, too, all admit. But it
is, whether the Sabbath, any more than the marriage
institution, or the command to worship and serve
God, w^as a part of that burden and yoke ? True, it
is so claimed. The Sabbath, so far from being re-
garded as a "delight," is set down by some as a
burden, from whose intolerable pressure it was one
great object of Christ to deliver us. All this, how-
ever, is but begging the question. W^hat proof is
there that the Sabbath was a part of that burden ?
To assume it, and then infer, that because the burden
is done away, the Sabbath is, is assumption, and noth-
ing more. With the same propriety you may assume
that marriage was a part of the burden, and then
gravely infer, that, the burden being done away, mar-
riage is done away too. The logic — if logic it can be
called — is as good in one case as in the other. Indeed,
as a matter of fact, some who have applied it to the
Sabbath first, have afterwards applied it to the mar-
riage institution, and insisted, that " it is only in the
view of the mind, and after the fashion of the world,
that a person has any more right over a woman, after
a certain ceremony is performed, than before " — that
" God is about to put an end to all such mock, sham,
and fictitious rights" — that the parties "ought to be
left free to separate from each other; else what is
the use to talk about people's having rights, seeing
they are not allowed to exercise any in a matter the
most important to their peace and welfare of any
other, but are bond slaves ? " * — that " the righteous-
"^ Battle Axe, p. 19.
2
14 THE SABBATH.
ness of the saints will cause those that possess it for
the first time to love their neighbor as themselves,
and act in accordance with such love in all things,"
and that, so acting, " what one has is to another as
his own. All things are common in the fullest sense
of the words — wives and every thing else. No part
of the price is kept back. None are suffered to want
while another abounds." * — And that " when the will
of God is done on earth, as it is in heaven, there ivill
he no marriage. The marriage supper of the Lamb
is a feast, at which every dish is free to every guest^^ f
Such sentiments shock us. They shock, too, it is
believed, the great body of those who reject the Sab-
bath. Indeed, so manifestly do they " turn the grace
of God into lasciviousness," that we can scarcely
persuade ourselves that they are seriously entertained
by any. And yet it is notorious that they are. These,
and worse than these, are the sentiments of the spir-
itual or no-marriage Perfectionists. It is equally no-
torious that the same processes of assumption and
inference, and the same reasonings about burdens,
and shadows, and entering into rest and the liberty
of Christ, &c. &c., which lead the one to the re-
jection of the Sabbath, the church, and the ministry,
lead the other, and logically too, to the rejection of
Sabbath, ordinances, chm'ch, ministry, marriage, Bible
and all. Starting at the same point, and pursuing the
same processe's of reasoning, the one stop with the
rejection of the Sabbath, the ministry, and the church,
the others rush headlong, yet logically, to results that,
under the garb of Christianity, strip Christianity of
her essential elements, and make Christ little else
* Battle Axe; p. 13. t Ibid. p. 10.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 15
than a minister of sin. I repeat it, then, the question
at issue in respect to the Sabbath, is not, whether the
burden of old rites and ceremonies is done away, but
is the Sabbath a part of it? And this is a thing to
be proved, not assumed.
6. The question is not whether it is our privilege
and duty to have peace and joy in believing ; to enter
into rest; to become freemen in Christ Jesus; to
stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ maketh free,
and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage,
&c. &c. ; for all this the friends of the Sabbath
most fully believe and teach. But the question is,
whether this peace, and joy, and rest, and liberty, are
the peace, and joy, and rest, and liberty, of doing
without a Sabbath. That is the question.
7. And finall}'^, the question is not whether the
letter [2 Cor. iii. 6 — 11) killeth while the spirit giveth
life; nor whether the Jewish dispensation is done
away by the Christian ; nor whether the Christian is
so much more glorious than the other as to eclipse
and throw it into the shade ; for this, too, is clearly
taught in the passage quoted and fully believed by
the friends of the Sabbath. But the question is
whether the Christian dispensation is so glorious as
to dispense with the Sabbath. And this, as in all the
other cases, is a matter to be proved, not assumed.
Let it be well considered, then, that the inferences so
confidently drawn to the non-existence of the Sab-
bath, from the several premises now noticed, are, after
all, mere assuinptions. Of course they are all to be
set aside at the outset, as having nothing to do with
the question really at issue. This done, we may
profitably proceed with the discussion.
CHAPTER II.
EXPLANATION OF TERMS.
In the discussion of every subject, much depends
on a correct explanation or definition of terms. It is
so in the present case. Some really seem to suppose
that the friends of the Sabbath regard one day as
intnnsically more holy than another, and that when
they use the tern>s saa'ed, sanctified, holy, and Sab^
bath, they do it with such an understanding of them.
But is it so ? Learning, as they do, all they know of
the Sabbath from the Bible, it is but fair to suppose
that they use these terms in the same sense that the
Bible does. What, then, is the Bible use of them ?
1. Sanctified. This, in the Mosaic use of it, de-
notes, among other things, " set apart specially to sa-
cred or religious purposes." Thus (Lev. viii. 10 — 12)
we are told that Moses took the anointing oil, and
anointed the tabernacle, and all that was therein, and
*^ sanctified ^^ them; and sprinkled the altar and all his
vessels, to " sanctify " them — not that the materials
of which these things were made were intrinsically
more holy than the same materials wrought into other
vessels ; nor that the vessels themselves were made
intrinsically more holy by this act of consecration ;
but only that they were thus set apart specially and
exclusively to the services of religion, in like man-
ner, also, "he poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron's
EXPLANATION OF TERMS. 17
head, and anointed him, to sanctify him ; " i. e. to set
him apart to the services of rehgion — not that he was
thereby made intrinsically more holy than before.
In the same sense, when they came up out of Egypt,
the Israelites were commanded (Ex. xiii. 2) to " sanc-
tify," or (v. 12) " set apart unto the Lord," all the first-
born of man and beast — the beasts for sacrifice and
the men for the religious services of the altar and
the temple. In Joel also (i. 14 ; ii. 15) the priests are
called upon to " sanctify a fast, call a solemn assem-
bly," &c. ; i. e. obviously, to appoint or set apart a time
for that religious service. And in the same sense,
beyond all question, it is said, (Gen. ii. 3,) "God
blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it ; " i. e. set
it apart specially to religious purposes.
2. Holy. This is used in the same sense with the
term sanctified. Thus the "holy garments" (Ex.
xxviii. 2) of Aaron and his sons are not garments
intrinsically more holy than others, but merely gar-
ments made and set apart specially for the religious
services of the altar and temple. So, when it is said,
(Ex. xvi. 23,) "To-morrow is the rest of the holy
Sabbath," the meaning is, not that the morrow is
intrinsically more holy than any other day, but that
it is the day set apart from the ordinary avocations
of life to the purposes of religious rest, improvement,
and worship. Literally translated, the passage reads,
"To-morrow is the rest, the rest holy (Sabbath-gito-
desh) unto the Lord." And this gives you its true
meaning, viz. To-morrow is the rest, the rest that
is holy ; i. e. consecrated, or set apart to the Lord.
So, m the account of the original institution of the
Sabbath, (Gen. ii. 3,) the term which is translated
2*
fS THE SABBATH.
sanctified is yekaddeshy and means, literally, he caused
it to be holy ; i. e. he hallowed or set it apart to the
pui'poses of religion.
3. Sabbath, This term, in view of what has just
been said, is readily understood. Literally, it means
merely 7'est. Applied to a particular period of time
set apart as holy, as of a day, it means a day set
apart to rest from the ordinary avocations of life, and
specially devoted to the duties of religious instruction,
improvement, and worship. The Sabbath, then, as an
institution, is a season of rest, holy or consecrated
to the Lord. It consists of two parts, the Sabbath or
holy rest, and the time or day set apart for it. This
distinction is clearly recognized in the account of its
original institution. God (Gen. ii. 2) rested (sabba-
tized) on the seventh day ; and then (v. 3) he " sanc-
tified," or set that day apart, as the day for sabbati-
zing, " because that in it he had rested," (sabbatized.)
The sabbatizing or holy resting is therefore one thing;
the particular day set apart for it is another. The
particular day may therefore be changed, as from the
seventh to the first day of the week, and yet the in-
stitution itself, as a season of holy rest consecrated to
the services of religion, remain unchanged.
CHAPTER III.
THE SABBATH AT CREATION.
The question, then, or rather questions, at issue in
this discussion, are these — 1. Is the Sabbath, as an
institution, perpetually binding on men? 2. Has any
particular day been set apart, by divine appointment,
for its observance ? and if so, what day is it?
Is THE Sabbath perpetually binding on men ?
It will be my object to show that it is.
1. Its perpetual obligation is manifest from its
original institution. Like marriage, it was instituted
at creation, and instituted, not for the Jew alone, nor
for the Greek, nor for any particular age or nation,
but for man — the race; to live, therefore, like the
marriage institution, while the race, in its present
state of being, lives ; and to be binding in its obser-
vance, while there is such a race to observe it. This
is manifest from the inspired record. According to
that, the first period of creation (Gen. i. 1 — 5) brought
forth the shapeless mass of chaos, and separated the
darkness from the light, and gave being to Day and
Night. The second (vs. 6 — 8) gave the firmament,
and separated the waters which were beneath from
those which were above it. The third (vs. 9 — 13)
gathered the waters that were under the firmament
into seas, brou^ght forth the earth, clothed it with the
tender grass, and the herb, and tree, and made it in-
30 THE SABBATH
stinct every where with vegetable life and beauty.
The fourth (vs. 14 — 19) studded the firmament with
greater and lesser lights, to divide the day from the
night, and to be for signs and for seasons, and for
days and years. The fifth (vs. 20 — ^23) filled the sea
and air with their appropriate inhabitants, and made
them instuict with animal life in all its myriad forms.
The sixth (vs. 24 — 31) peopled the earth wdth every
living creature, each after his kind; gave man his
being, in the image of Grod, and male and female ;
then blessed, and bade him multiply, and replenish
and subdue the earth, and invested him with do-
minion over bird, and beast, and fish, and herb, and
tree. Thus was creation ended. The great arrange-
ments of day and night, of ^earth and seas, of seasons
and years ; of vegetable and animal life, pervading
earth, and sea, and ah- ; of man in the conjugal rela-
tionship, ("male and female created he them,") mul-
tiplying and replenishing the earth, and swaying the
sceptre of dominion over all, — these arrangements
were all completed. Nor will it be pretended that
these were not, each and all, permanent in their char-
acter, and made originally, as they are now continued,
not for man of any particular age or nation, but for
man — the race.
But there was one arrangement not completed.
True, creation's work was done. Existence, in all
its vai'ied forms of beauty and of life, and up through
all its myriad ranks to man, the image of his God
and head of all, was thrown from its Creator's hand.
And it was all very good. But how should this fair
world, or man the head of it, be kept in fond re-
membrance of its Author .? how made to move in
AT CREATION. 21
sweet attraction and harmony divine around its great
Original? Man, the race, needed one arrangement
more — a something, that, at regular and oft-return-
ing periods, should stop him in the busy whirl of
life, and lift his thoughts to Him that gave, and, with-
out ceasing, was to give to him, and all things else,
their being and their all. What should that arrange-
ment be? And (Gen. ii. 2, 3) "God rested on the
seventh day from all the work which he had made.
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it,
because that in it he had rested froni all his work."
That gave the desired arrangement. God rested on
the seventh day from his creating work, and dwelt
in sweet complacency and holy joy on all that he had
made. It was all " very good;^^ and in holy contem-
plation of it, holy satisfaction filled his mind — God
felt satisfied. " On the seventh day (Ex. xxxi. 17) he
rested and was refreshed.''^ And because He rested then
and was refreshed, he set that day apart for man, that,
at each returning seventh period, he and his might
rest from their six days' work, as God had done from
his, and, resting, lift their thoughts in fond remem-
brance and holy joy to God, their Maker, and be,
(Ex. xxiii. 12,) like him, " refreshed." The one was
manifestly the reason or occasion of the other. God
rested and was refreshed on that day. Therefore he
blessed and " sanctified," or set it apart, not for him-
self, plainly, but for man to rest and be alike re-
fi-eshed. Nor was it for one age or nation merely,
but for man in every age and every where. And
being so, it was the arrangement needed, arid
fitted to hold the world in fond remembrance and
sweet attraction to its Maker's throne. It was the
22 THE SABBATH
arrangement with which the circle of great and per-
manent arrangements for man in the morning of his
being was complete, and without which that circle
was marvellously incomplete. Can there, then, be
doubt that, in accordance with the obvious and literal
import of the divine record, the Sabbath was insti-
tuted, by God, at creation, and as an arrangement
for the race, not for any particular portion of it?
Were not all the other arrangements, made and in-
stituted at creation, made and instituted for the race ?
Was not the arrangement of day and night for man
— the race ? of earth and seas, for man — the race ?
of seasons and years, for man — the race ? Of vege-
table and animal life, pervading earth, air, and sea ;
of man, in the conjugal relationship, or social state,
multiplying, and replenishing and subduing the
earth ; of man, wielding dominion over all the lower
creation, — were not all these arrangements made and
instituted for man — the race ? Why, then, should
the arrangement of the Sabbath be an exception?
Plainly it was not. It was instituted when they were
instituted, and, like them, was designed to be as
universal in its existence, and as perpetual in its ob-
ligation, as the race itself Nay, it was the crowning
arrangement of all. They looked rather to the wel-
fai'e of the natural and the mortal of man ; this to the
spiritual and immortal of him.
Ohjection. But geology, it is said, has proved be-
yond a doubt, that the days spoken of in the histoiy
of creation, were not such periods of twenty-four hours
as we are familiar with, and which we now call days,
but long and indefinite periods of time — periods of a
thousand years or more ; and therefore that it is ab-
AT CREATION.
surd to speak of God's resting the seventh day, in^tfee * -^ i in-
ordinary acceptation of the term, and then setting
apart that day as a period of similar rest to man.
Answer, This objection, to have any force, must
assume, what some geologists do not maintain, —
(1.) that all of the seven days hi question were such
long and indefinite periods, and (2.) that the last three,
whether longer or shorter, were not made up of such
days, weeks, &c., as we are now familiar with. Should
it be admitted that the last three days (which were
the days following the creation Of the sun " to rule
the day ") were days of the ordinary length, the ob-
jection fails. Or, should it be admitted that these
last days, though themselves long and indefinite
periods, were made up, as such periods would be
now, of ordinary days, weeks, &c., then also the ob-
iection equally fails. For in both cases, the day that
God blessed and sanctified, as he did it for man, and
not for himself, would be the ordinary day with
which man was, and was to be, familiar. Meeting
the objection, then, on the ground that it does and
must assume, in order to have any force, I remark,
1. Beasts and men were created on the sixth day.
As man was made male and female, it is but fair to
suppose that his creation occupied at least one half
the time. And has geology proved that God was
some five hundred years or more making man?
2. The seventh day was, of course, man's first
whole day upon the eai*th. And has geology proved
that man's first whole day was a thousand or more
years long? and this, while it freely admits, in
agreement with the inspired record, that each of his
after days consisted of only twenty-four hours ?
^
24 THE SABBATH
3. But be it that geology has proved all it claims
of the first four periods or days ; has it proved the
same of the three remaining periods? Has it proved
that, after God had made the lights " to divide the
day from the night, and to be for signs and for sea-
sons, and for days and years," — the sun "to rule the
day," and the moon " to rule the night," — and " set
them in the firmament," and bade them do their
work, — they did not do it then as they do it now?
Has it proved that the same heavenly bodies that
now rule the days into periods of twenty-four hours
each, and the years into periods of three hundred
sixty-five days each, and regulate the seasons ac-
cordingly, did not rule the days and years, and reg-
ulate the seasons, in the same manner, and in obe-
dience to the same laws, then ? Is it indeed so, that
these same heavenly bodies, with their fixed and un-
changing laws of attraction, were a thousand years or
more in doing then what they now do in twenty-four
hours? Aud geology proved it! and, proving that,
turned astronomer, and proved also that, far backward
in the lapse of time, by some sudden shift or process
gradual, the laws that govern the entire planetary
system have all been changed, and so changed that
results which used to be the product of a millenary
of years are now the product of a few short hours !
Nay, verily, geology may adjust her difficulties with
the Bible about the meaning of a term ; but can she
adjust the controversy between herself and Astron-
omy ? Can she tell Astronomy when, and where,
and how, the laws of the planetary system were so
changed ? At what point of time, by what slow or
sudden shifl; was it, that these mighty worlds (or the
AT CREATION. 25
earth as governed by them) were quickened in their
flight, and made to do the work of a thousand years
or more within the limits of* a few short hours ? Will
geology, or the objector, answer this? — Moreover,
4. Does not the whole argument from geology
rest on mere assumption ? True, the word " day," as
used in the Mosaic account, will bear the construction
put on it by geology ; but on one condition only.
Like every other word, it is always to be understood
in its common and proper acceptation, unless there
be something in the connection in which it is used,
or in the nature of the subject, to forbid it. In that
case, and that only, it must be understood in some
other sense ; and in what sense, the connection, or
nature of the subject, or both together, must de-
termine. Now, it is admitted that the geological
sense of " an age," or " a long, indefinite period of
time," is not the common and proper import of the
term. Professor Silliman says,* " It is agi'eed on ail
hands, that the Hebrew word here used for ' day,' al-
though frequently used for time, usually signified
a period of twenty-four hours." And it is obvious,
and admitted too, that there is nothing in the con-
nection in which the term is used in this case to
demand a different signification. It is the nature of
the subject alone that is supposed to demand it. But
how does this do it? Only in this way — "Here are
certain geological results ; if these were produced
by the same causes operating according to the same
laws as at present, they could not have been pro-
duced in twenty four hours, but must have been the
* Suggestions relative to the Philosophy of Geology; &c.;
p. 107.
26 THE SABBATH
product of a series of years. Hence the nature of
the case compels us to put such construction on the
term in question." True, if they were so produced.
But what right has geology to assume this? That
she does assume it, is plain. Thus Professor S.
says,* "Although the materials (of the earth) were
created by almighty Power, they were evidently left
to the operation of physical laws" in the production
of the various results. Hence, f "by surveying the
causes that are still in full operation, the geological
events that are now in progress, and the effects that
are proceeding without impediment or delay, we
thus discover, that since the creation, as regards geo-
logical causes, all things remain as they were ; no new
code of physical laws has been enacted.^'^ In this way,
and this only, geology gets at her argument from the
nature of the case. Aj-guing from the present to the
past, she first assumes that " no new code of physical
laws has been enacted " for the operation of " geologi-
cal causes," and then infers that geological events or
effects which are the product of an age now were so
at creation, and, therefore, that " day " in the Mosaic
account must mean, not day in the ordinary sense,
but an age, or long series of years. Nay, to meet cer-
tain Scripture difficulties, and sustain herself in this
inference, she modestly suggests that a new code of
physical laws has been enacted to govern the action
of astronomical causes, though not of geological.
Her language is, X " As already suggested, the sun
not being ordained to rule the day until the fourth of
those periods, it is not certain that even after this
* Suggestions, &c. p. 41. t Ibid. p. 86. % Ibid. p. 110.
AT CREATION. 27
epoch, those early revolutions of the earth on its axis
were as rapid as now ; for these might cease altogether,
or be greatly increased in rapidity, without affecting
the planetary relations of the earth with the sun and
with the other members of the system."
But what right has geology to all these assump-
tions? Surely, "by surveying the (astronomical)
causes that are still in full operation, the (astro-
nomical) events that are now in progress, and the (as-
tronomical) effects that are proceeding without im-
pediment or delay, we thus discover, that since the
creation, as regards (astronomical) causes, all things
remain as they were ; no new code of physical laws
has been enacted,^'' And the discovery is surely as
real in this case as in the other; and, being real,
what becomes of the inference about the meaning of
the term " day," after the fourth period of creation ?
And if geology may suggest such a change in the
physical laws that govern the planetary system, and
work out its astronomical results, why may not crit-
icism suggest a similar change in the laws which
regulate the action of geological causes in the pro-
duction of their results ? And if she makes it, how
can geology disprove it ? Here are certain geologi-
cal results or effects that have come down to us from
creation. Can geology prove that they are the prod-
uct of the same causes as produce such results
now ? or, that those causes, if the same, operated
according to the same laws then as now? How
knows she that they may not have been the product
of causes which, acting with creative energy, and
having done their work as such, have now become
extinct, or given place to other causes, the same in
-^O THE S ABB ATE
kind, if you will, but of different energy— causes
that now act only with sustaining^ not creative en-
ergy? Why may not geological causes, having ac-
complished their great end as creative causes, have
lost as much of their original energy and rapidity of
production, as she herself supposes astronomical
causes to have gained? And in that event, why
may not results which would be now the product of
an age, have been then the product of a day ?
Does geology tell us that the nature of the results
is such as to preclude such a supposition ? that « the
crystals and crystallized rocks, the entombed re-
mains of animals and vegetables, from entire trees
to lichens, fuci, and ferns, from the minutest shell-
fish and microscopic animalculae to gigantic rep-
tiles," &c., forbid it? in a word, that these results
all look as if they were the product of long periods,
just as now? Be it so. But suppose that among
some of these ancient remains (pardon the supposi-
tion) Adam and Eve should be found ; would they
not look as if they were made and grew up to ma-
turity just as men and women now do? But was it
so? Were the "materials created by almighty
Power," and then " evidently left to the operation of
physical laws " in the production of them ? And if
not, how will geology prove it so in regard to beasts,
or birds, or fish, or reptiles, or rocks? Why may
not these have been flung from their Creator's hand
full grown, as well as man ? Does geology say God
does not make these things so now ? Nor does he
make man so now. And if the manner of making
them now is decisive of the manner of making them
then, why is not the same true of the manner of
AT CREATION. 29
making man then? Does geology say, that, from
the necessity of the case, man must, in the first in-
stance, be made full grown ? And how does it ap-
pear that, from the same cause, every order of exist-
ence, animate and inanimate, must not also, at the
first, be so made ? And what, then, becomes of the
argument from geological remains ?
These questions are not intended to ridicule the
geological argument, nor to say that it is without
foundation, but only to show that it has its difficul-
ties, and that these are such and so many as to forbid
its being used very flippantly to disprove the institu-
tion of the Sabbath at creation.
But, 5. Admit all that geology claims, and still the
objection is not valid. For, were the periods of cre-
ation longer or shorter, geology does not deny that
they were periods of time, and that they wei'e so far
equal and regularly-returning periods, as to be fitly
represented by the regularly-returning days with
which we are familiar. And this admitted, the whole
force of the objection is gone. For, be the period in
which God rested and was refreshed, a longer or a
shorter one, it was the seventh period from the com-
mencement of creation. It answered to, and is fitly
represented by, the shorter yet seventh day, with
which man, the race, is and has been familiar, if not
at the outset, yet through all the subsequent genera-
tions of his being. When God therefore rested on
his or creation's seventh period of time, and then, on
that account, sanctified or set apart the seventh day
for a similar rest to man, he set apart that period
with which man, as a race, was, or was to be, familiar ;
and which was, or was to be, to man, just what his
3#
30 . THE SABBATH AT CREATION.
own seventh period had been to himself. If the two
periods were not then of the same identical length,
the one was at least the fit representative of the
other, and man, in resting on the one, was furnished
with a fit emblem and a sweet memorial of God rest-
ing fi'om his work of creation on the other. Such a
setting apart or sanctification of each returning sev-
enth day, as a day of holy rest for man, from the
creation downward, was therefore alike significant
and proper.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SABBATH IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE.
The Bible, it is said, " contains no example of any
man keeping a Sabbath before the time of Moses ; " *
nor does it in any way make mention of a Sabbath
from the creation to the giving of manna in the wil-
derness — a period of two thousand five hundred
years ; and how could this be, if it were during all
that period an existing institution ? f
This objection is made up of two parts, a fact
asserted, and an inference from it. The fact as-
serted is, that no mention is made of a Sabbath
during the period in question; the inference is,
therefore, at that time, there was no Sabbath.
1. Suppose we admit the fact asserted; does the
inference follow ? By no means. For, (1.) the history
of that whole period is given in a single book and
twelve chapters of another. If, then, there be no
mention of the Sabbath in a history so brief, it is not
surprising, nor is it any proof that it did not exist.
But, (2.) the Sabbath is mentioned only five times in
the Jewish Scriptures, prophetic and historical both,
from the time of Moses to the return of the captivity
* Grew, p. 3.
t The argument; substantially, of Paley and all that class of
writers.
32 THE SABBATH
— a period of one thousand years ; twice in prophe-
cy, and three times in history. And, (3.) in the entire
histories of Joshua, of the Judges, of Samuel, and
of Saul, — a period of about five hundred years, — the
Sabbath is not mentioned once. Had they no Sab-
bath, then ? (4.) From Joshua to Jeremiah, a period
of eight hundred years, not one word is said of cir-
cumcision. Had they no circumcision, then ? In all
these cases, the histoiy is much more minute and full
than in the other. If the silence of the record is
conclusive in the one case, it is more so in the others.
But is it conclusive ? Were the Jews without a Sab-
bath from Joshua to David — a period of five hun-
dred years ? And without circumcision from Joshua
to Jeremiah — a period of eight hundred ? By no
means. Moreover, Noah, we are told, (2 Pet. ii. 5,)
was "a preacher of righteousness." But we have
no record of what he preached. Did he therefore
preach nothing ? But,
2. I deny the fact asserted. It is not true that
there is no mention of the Sabbath during the period
in question. What are the facts ? We find at first a
distinct record of its original institution, with the
reasons for it, — a record as distinct as is that of the
institution of marriage. Nor, from the record merely,
is there any reason, in the one case more than in the
other, to suppose that it is the record of an insti-
tution first established two thousand five hundred
years after creation. So far as the record goes, it is
in both cases the clear record of institutions estab-
lished at creation. At the outset, then, the mention is
distinct and clear. And being so, it is manifest that,
subsequently, in so brief a history, we ought to ex-
IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE. 33
pect only incidental allusions to it, if any, or such
existing facts and occurrences as are in harmony
with the supposition of its existence. And if we
find such facts and occurrences or allusions, it is
plain that we not only have a mention, but all the
mention of its existence which the case requires.
Nay, if these incidental allusions, and these existing
facts and occurrences, are just what we should expect
them to be on the supposition of a Sabbath, so that
the theory or supposition of a Sabbath affords the
only or even the better solution of tlieir existence than
any other, then in this fact we have the mention and
the proof that the Sabbath was. And we have all
the proof that science has that the sun is in the
centre of the solar system. For it is only on the
ground that the theory or supposition of the sun's
being in the centre of the system affords, not the
only, but a better solution merely of existing and oc-
curring facts than any other theory, that science, with
a Newton at its head, declares that to be the true
theory, and summons the assent of the scientific
world to the correctness of its decision. And why
shall not the same proof, if it exist, be equally valid
here ? Does such proof exist ? That is the question
now before us.
(1.) On the supposition of a Sabbath, we should ex-
pect to find the patriarchs meeting together at stated
times for religious worship. Accordingly, the first dis-
tinct record of religious worship is, (Gen. iv. 3,) that
"in process of time," or, literally, "at the end of days,"
Cain and Abel brought their respective offerings to
the Lord. And the fair and obvious import of the
record is, that they did this as a matter of course.
34
THE SABBATH
when the regular or stated time for it came round.
The next record (Gen. iv. 26) is, that at the birth of
Enos, when his father, Seth, was one hundred and
five years old, " began men to call upon the name of
the Lord." What was this but public, social wor-
ship? The writer surely does not mean to inform
us that there was no family worship before. For we
have the record of that in the offerings of Cain and
Abel. Nor can he mean to say that there was no
private worship — that Adam and the pious Seth
never prayed until the birth of Enos; i. e. until Seth
was one hundred and five years old, and Adam two
hundred and thirty-five. Surely Adam and Seth did
not live all that time without private prayer. What
can the passage mean, then, but that when Enos was
born, — i. e. as soon as men began to multiply, — they
then began to call on God in a public, social way ?
But such worship must have had its mutually-agreed
upon, or di\\mG\y-appointed stated times. How else
could it have been conducted ? *
* Since the sitting of the Convention, 1 have solicited the
opinion of Professor Stuart, of Andover, concerning the proper
translation and interpretation of several passages used in the
discussion. The following is his view of the passage above : —
" Gen. iv. 26, ' Then began men to call,' etc., or, ^ Then was
a commencement made of calling,'' etc., is rightly translated.
The phrase, nin"* Dt^l J^lD^ {liqra beshem Yehovah,) means,
T : •• : |: •
invocation upon the name of God, and this in a social and public
manner. (Compare Gen. xii. 8 j xiii. 4 5 xxi. 33 j xxvi. 25. Ps.
cv. 1. Is. xii. 45 xli. 25.) It can mean neither less nor more
here, as I think, than that public social worship then commenced,
i. e. so soon as men began to multiply. The writer does not
mean to intimate that the pious Seth did not praij, before his son
was bom to him ; what can he intimate but social worship ?
When — is not said."
^
IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE.
Further, in the subsequent history, we find that
whenever the patriarchs pitched their tents with a
view to dweUing for any length of time in a place,
they always built an altar there for public ivorship.
When Noah came out of the ark, (Gen. vii. 20,) the
first thing was to " build an altar unto the Lord," and
ofler sacrifice. When Abraham originally entered
Canaan, at his first stopping place, (Gen. xii. 7,) " there
builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto
him." When he removed, (Gen. xii. 8,) and " pitched
his tent" at a second place, "there he builded an
altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the
Lord." On his return from Egypt, whither he had
gone on account of a famine, he sojourned a season
in Abimelech's country, and then came (Gen. xiii. 3, 4)
to Bethel, " unto the place of the altar which he had
made there at the first ; and there he called on the
name of the Lord." When, on his separation from
Lot, (Gen. xiii. 18,) he " removed his tent, and dwelt
in the plain of Mamre, he built there an altar unto the
Lord." Subsequently, (Gen. xxi. 33, and xxii. 19,) when
he " dwelt at Beersheba," he made a similar arrange-
ment for public worship there. The other patriarchs
did the same. When Isaac (Gen. xxvi. 6, 25) " dwelt
in Gerar," he "builded an altar there, and called upon
the name of the Lord." When Jacob (Gen. xx-xiii.
18,20) "pitched his tent" before Shalem, "he erected
there an altai*, and called it God, the God of Israel."
When, in that residence, some of his family (Gren.
XXXV. 1 — 6) had fallen in with the sun'ounding idola-
try, God directed him to go up to Bethel, and " dwell
there, and make there an altar unto God ; " and he
did so. And, finally, when he took up his journey
36 THE SABBATH
with his family for Egypt, he stopped (Gen. xlvi. 1) at
Beei'sheba, that long-established place of worship,
and " offered sacrifices unto the God of his father."
Now, what is all this but stated places for stated as
well as occasional and special seasons of public
worship ? Suppose a company of Christians, wan-
dering, like the patriarchs and their tribes, from place
to place. Wherever they stop for any length of time,
and they are at liberty to do it, they build a church,
and call upon the name of the Lord. Now, admit it
to be a part of their religion to keep a Sabbath, and
these churches are not only just what you would ex-
pect to find, but they are all so many proofs of the
actual existence and observance of that Sabbath.
For what can their design be, except to accommo-
date the public, social, and stated, as well as occa-
sional worship of the whole company or tribe ? And
what less than this could have been the design of the
patriarchal altars? What less can they argue than
social, public worship, at stated times ?
(2.) On the supposition of a Sabbath, as there is
nothing in the nature of time itself to give one por-
tion a preference over another, and the appointment
of one period mther than another must be in this sense
arbitrary, we should expect that, in deciding upon
it, God would first select so large a portion as would
best subserve the design of its consecration as a Sab-
bath ; second, seize upon some fitting and ever-mem-
orable occasion for the designation of the particular
time ; and, third, shape their religious arrangements
and observances so as to make them, as far as possible,
so many mementos of it. And this is just what God,
on the supposition in question, has done. A seventh
IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE. 37
is such a portion of time. The close of creation was
such an occasion. During the period in question, as
well as subsequently, their religious arrangements
and observances bore every where the impress of
sevens, and were thus only so many mementos of a
Sabbath, returning regularly on every seventh day.
Thus, when Noah was about to go into the ark, the
direction (Gen. vii. 2) was, " Of every clean beast,"
which were the beasts for sacrifice, " thou shalt t£ike
to thee by sevens." The mourning for Jacob was a
mourning of seven days. That of Job's friends with
him was seven days. The token or seal of Abra-
ham's covenant with Abimelech was (Gen. xxi. 30)
" seven ewe lambs." The sacrifice that Job offered
for his friends when the days of his trial were ended,
(Job xlii. 8,) was " seven bullocks and seven rams."
And in later periods especially, almost every thing
had the impress of sevens upon it. But,
(3.) On the supposition of a Sabbath existing and
observed during the patriarchal period, we should ex-
pect to find a division of time into weeJcs. Was there
such a division ? Nothing can be plainer. It stands
out boldly on the face of the entire record. When
God threatened the flood, (Gen. vii. 4,) the language is,
"For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain."
When Noah had entered the ark, and all was ready,
(v. 10,) "it came to pass, after seven days, that the
waters," &c. When the flood had abated, and Noah
had sent out the dove, and she returned, (viii. 10,) "he
staid yet other seven days,^^ and sent her out again.
And when she returned, (v. 12,) " he staid yet other
seven days^'' and sent her out again. When Jacob
negotiated for his wife, the stipulation of Laban
4
38 THE SABBATH
(Gen. xxix. 27) was, "Fulfil her week^^ of years ; and
(v. 28) "Jacob did so, and fulfilled her iveeV When
Jacob died, and Joseph, with his brethren, went up
to the burial, (Gen. 1. 10,) "he made a mourning for
his father seven days.^^ When Job's friends came to
sympathize with him in his affliction, (Job ii. 13,)
" they sat dowTi with him upon the ground seven days
and seven nights,^^ When God sent the plague of
blood on Egypt, (Ex. vii. 25,) ^^ seven days were ful-
filled," and then it was removed. Can it be doubted,
then, that during the period in question, there was
the division of time into weeks, or periods of seven
days ? But how came that division ? It was not a
natural one, like that of months or years, but purely
an artificial or conventional one. -How came it then ?
What gave it being? What kept it in existence?
How can you explain it, except on tbe theory of an
existing and regularly-returning Sabbath? Is not
this, then, the true theory?
Since \^riting the above. Professor Stuart has po-
litely furnished me with the following, as the correct
and literal translation of the passages above : —
Gen. vii. 4, "For after days yet seven," etc.
Gen. vii. 10, "And it came to pass after a heptade
(seventh) of days."
Gen. viii. 10, " And he waited yet a heptade of days,"etc.
Gen. viii. 12, "And he waited yet a heptade of days,"
etc. Remark. — How came this heptade of days to be thus
distinguished ? From what else could it spring, but from
the original institution of the Sabbath ?
Thus far the professor. The correctness of his
view, as well as of that already talcen, is rendered in-
IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE. 39
disputable by the following coosiderations : — In Gen.
xxix. 14, we are informed that Jacob abode with
Laban "the space of a month." The original is
D''P'' t£^*in [hodesh yamim,) and means, literally, "anew
moon of days." The verse, literally translated, would
be, " He abode with him a new moon of days." In
Numbers xi. 20, 21, the form of expression in the
original is the same. The Israelites were to eat flesh
" a whole month ; " i. e. " a new moon of days."
Here, then, we have this fact, that the new moon was
to the Hebrew a measure and designation of time, so
that when he wished to designate a month, his form
of expression was, " a new moon of days." In the
very terms, then, by which the Hebrew was wont to
designate the month, we have the proof, (1.) of the
existence, and, (2.) of the regular return, of the new
moon at such intei-vals of time as made it the natural,
and, therefore, the appropriate measure and designa-
tion of the period in question. But the Hebrew had
another form of expression for another period of
time. When he wished to describe the period which
we call a week, he said (Gen. vii. 10 ; viii. 10, 12)
D''D"' nxi^ty {skihath yamim;) literally, a "heptade," or
" seventh of days." What, now, is the fair and ne-
cessary inference ? Why, that, as the new moon, by
its existence and regular return, came to be the nat-
ural measure and designation of its period of time,
so the Sabbath, by its existence and regular return,
came to be the artificial or conventional measure and
designation of its period. Did the Hebrew, when he
said " a new moon of days," mean a month ? Equally
clear is it, that when he said " a heptade," or " seventh
40 THE SABBATH IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGE.
of days," he meant a week. Did the Hebrew, when
he so described the month, give proof, in the very
form of his expression, of the existence and regular
return of the new moon ? So, when he described the
week as " a seventh of days," he gave equal proof of
the existence and regular return of the Sabbath.
CHAPTER V.
THE SABBATH IN EGYPT.
If the Sabbath had an existence, and its observance
were so important, why, it is asked, do we hear no
mention of it during the four hundred and thirty years'
bondage in Egypt? It must have been encroached
upon by the severity of that bondage; why, then,
have we no complaint of such encroachment, nor, in-
deed, any intimation whatever of a Sabbath during
all that period ?
This is the same objection as before, only that its
form is changed, and its application is limited to a
portion, instead of extending to the whole of the
two thousand five hundred years. It is made up, as
before, of a fact asserted and an inference from it.
The fact is, that there was no such complaint or
intimation; the inference is, therefore there was then
no Sabbath.
1. Admit the fact, the inference does not follow.
The whole history of that bondage, and of the deliver-
ance from it, is given in twelve short chapters. Of
these, eight are occupied with the description of the
plagues, and the various measures taken to effect
the deliverance, and three with what passed between
God and Aaron and Moses, preparatory to their un-
4*
42 THE SABBATH
dertaking the work, leaving but 07ie, or less than one,
for the entire history of the four hundred and thirty-
years' bondage. And is it wonderful, tliat in so brief
a history of so long a period, there should be no com-
plaint of the violation, and no intimation of the
observance, of an existing Sabbath ? By no means.
Were the record as silent as alleged, it would prove
nothing. But,
2. It is not true that the record is silent. So far
from it, brief as it is, it is manifest, on the whole face
of it, that the encroachments of Egyptian bondage on
the rehgious opportunities, privileges, and rights of the
Israelites, and so upon their religion, were the head
and front of its offending ; and that the great object
of God in effecting their deliverance, was their resto-
ration to and confirmation in the worshiji and service
of himself as the true God, in opj)osition to the idol
gods of the Egyptians. This was the great end. As
a necessary means to this, the great object was the
restoration to the Hebrews of their religious and con-
sequent civil liberty. They could not serve God with-
out the liberty to do it. This, they had not in Egypt.
And as the question of American freedom was once
wraj)ped up in the simple question of a threepenny
tax on tea, so the question of Hebrew freedom was in
this case wrap]>ed up in the question whether they
should have their Sabbath, with its oi)portunities of
sacrifice and worship, and its connected religious
privileges and rights. Practically, then, as a means to
its appropriate end, the great question at issue be-
tween God and Pharaoh, in respect to tlie deliverance
of the Israelites, was THAT OF THE SABBATH,
IN EGYPT. 43
WITH ITS CONNECTED PRIVILEGES AND
RIGHTS.
No intelligent and careful reader of the Bible can
fail to see, on a moment's reflection, that this is a true
statement of the real questions at issue in that mar-
vellous interposition of Divine Providence. But when
the mandate of Jehovah first came to Pharaoh, (Ex.
V. 1,) " Let my people go, that they may hold a feast
unto me in the vi^ilderness," the prompt and contemp-
tuous reply (v. 2) vras, "Who is Jehovah, that I
should obey his voice, to let Israel go ? I know not
Jehovah, nor will I let Israel go." Jehovah's claims,
as Deity, were proudly questioned, and his authority
contemned. This raised a previous question^ viz. Who
is the true God — the gods of Egypt^ or the God of Is-
rael ? This, of course, must be settled before it could
be settled whether Israel should be allowed to serve
him. To settle this, there must be a trial of strength.
That trial must be of such a nature as to show that the
false gods were perfectly in the power, and subject to
the control, of the true one. Such was the trial. Each
and all of the divine judgnjents in the case were not
only designed, but in their nature fitted, to confound
the gods of Egypt, and establish the claims of Israel's
God. The aptness and the force of the demonstra-
tion, in its various steps, were truly wonderful, Noth-
mg could exceed the clearness and the impressive-
ness with which each successive judgment made it
manifest, that, in the hands of Israel's God, the gods
of Egypt were weak and powerless, and, so far from
affording protection to their deluded followers, could
themselves be turned, by him, at any moment, and to
any extent, into a torment and a curse. Introductory
44
THE SABBATH
to the plagues, (Ex. vii. 10—12,) Aaron's rod became
a serpent ; and, when the magicians cast down their
rods that they might become so, so far from doing it,
Aaron's swallowed them — thereby showing the supe-
riority of his God to theirs.* Then came the plagues.
* The following view of the magicians' miracles is from Pro-
fessor Bush's Notes on Exodus. The Hebrew will bear the
translation which he gives it, and the nature of the case cer-
tainly demeuids it.
" Instead of reciting the various opinions of commentators
upon this subject, on which volumes have been written, we shall
briefly propound the interpretation which, of all others, strikes us
as the most probable. And we regret that, from its depending
so entirely upon the idiomatic structure of the Hebrew, the mere
English reader will not perhaps be able fully to appreciate its
force. We will endeavor to make it, however, if not demon-
strable, at least intelligible. It is a canon of interpretation of
frequent use in the exposition of the sacred writings, that verbs
of action sometimes signify merely the will and endeavor to do
the action in question. Thus, Ezek. xxiv. 13, ' I have purified
thee, and thou wast not purged 5 ' i. e. I have endeavored, used
means, been at pains, to purify thee. John v. 44, ' How can
ye believe which receive honor one of another ? ' i. e. endeavor
to receive. Rom. ii, 4, ' The goodness of God leadeth thee to
repentance 5 ' i. e. endeavors or tends to lead thee. Amos ix. 3,
* Though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea 5 *
i. e. though they aim to be hid. 1 Cor. x. 33, ' I please all men 5 '
i. e. endeavor to please. Gal. v. 4, ' Whosoever of you are
justified by the law 3' i. e. seek and endeavor to be justified.
Ps. Ixix. 4, ' They that destroy me are mighty j ' i. e. that en-
deavor to destroy me 5 Eng. ' that would destroy me.' Acts vii.
26, ' And set them at one again j ' i. e. wished and endeavored 5
Eng. ' would have set them.' The passage before us we con-
sider as exhibiting a usage entirely analogous. ' They also did
in like manner with their enchantments j ' 1. e. they endeavored to
do in like manner j just as in ch. viii. 18, it is said, 'And the
magicians did so with their enchantments, to bring forth lice, but
IN EGYPT. 45
The Nile, with its imaginary river-gods, was an object
of pecuHar sacredness and reverence to the Egyp-
tians. Blood was an object of equal abhorrence.
The first plague turned the holy river into blood —
thus pouring contempt on it and its gods. The frog
they could not;' the words bein^ precisely the same in both
instEinces. Adopting this construction, we suppose that the
former clause of verse 12 should be rendered, ' For they cast
down every man his rod, that they might become serpents 5'
which the Hebrew reader will perceive to be a rendering pre-
cisely parallel to that which occurs ch. vi. 11, ' Speak unto
Pharaoh that he let the children of Israel go 5 ' Heb. ' and he
shall let go.' So, also, ch. vii. 2, ' Shall speak unto Pharaoh,
that he send 5 ' Heb. ' and he shall send.' The magicians cast
down their rods that they might undergo a similar transmutation
with that of Moses, but it is not expressly said that they were so
changed, and we therefore incline to place their discomfiture in
the loss of their rods, those instruments with which they had
Vainly hoped to compete with Moses. If it be contended that
there was some kind of change produced on the magicians' rods,
but that it was effected by feats of jug-gling, or legerdemain, and
amounted in fact merely to an optical illusion, it may be asked
whether it is probable that they were prepared with all the ne-
cessary apparatus to perform their prodigy at one and the same
interview with that here mentioned. Moreover, if they had
practised a deception by imposing upon the senses of the com-
pany, would not Moses have triumphantly delected and exposed
it ? We doubt, therefore, whether there were any change at all
produced upon the rods of the magicians. Should it be said
that precisely the same expression is made use of in respect to
Aaron's rod, and that we have as good evidence of the transfor-
mation of their rods as of his, we answer, that it is expressly assert-
ed (v. 10) of Aaron's' rod, that it became a serpent, while of the
others this is not asserted, at least as we interpret the language."
The same principles of interpretation apply to what is said of
the other plagues. Ex. vii. 22 says, in reference to the plague of
blood; " And the magicians did so with their enchantments 5 " i. e.
46 THE SABBATH
was held sacred by them, as an emblem of preserva-
tion in floods and inundations. The second plague
filled the waters and the land of Egypt with them to
such an extent, that when it ceased, so far from min-
istering preservation, the Egyptians (Ex. viii. 14)
"gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank"
with their rotting and polluted carcasses. To enter
the temple of any of then* deities with lice, or any
vermin of the kind, upon their garments, was to the
Egyptians one of the greatest of profanations; so
much so, that to prevent it, they generally w^ore two
linen garments, one over the other, and laid aside
the outer whenever they approached their gods. By
the third plague, (Ex. viii. 17,) " all the dust of the land
became lice throughout all the land of Egypt," cover-
ing man and beast, so that not one of them could go
into the presence of his idol god without offering in-
sult to him. Among the living objects of their wor-
ship, the bull, the heifer, the ram, the he-goat, were most
sacred. The fifth plague laid these dead at the feet
attempted to do so. It is not said that they succeeded. So,
Ex. viii. 7 should read, " And the magicians did so, (^attempted to
do so,) that they might bring up frogs." And (Ex. viii. 18) we
have it in terms, that " the magicians did so with their enchant-
ments, to bring forth lice, but they could not.'' On this interpre-
tation the magicians made four attempts in behalf of Egypt's
gods to cope with Israel's God, and failed in all. As was natural,
they then acknowledged, " This is the finger of God." Had they,
however, succeeded in the other cases, so far from acknowledging
the finger of God in consequence of their failure in the one last case,
they would but have attributed it to some other cause, and gone
on still testing the strength of Egypt's gods with the God of Israel.
Success in three cases, and failure in one, surely would not have
wrung out the condemnation of themselves and their gods in the
unwelcome acknowledgment that Israel's was the true God.
IN EGYPT. 47
of their worshippers. Of inanimate things, the heav-
enly host — the sun, moon, and stars — were favorite
objects of adoration. The ninth plague put out their
light over all the Egyptians, and showed that neither
sun, nor moon, nor stars, could prevent the super-
natural darkness of the superior power of Israel's
God. So it was with all the plagues. They were
not, nor were they designed to be, marvellous exhibi-
tions merely of divine power, made only for effect,
and irrespective of the great question at issue, but
made with special reference to that question. Each
was not only an exhibition of such power, but, in its
nature and design, a test of strength between Israel's
God and the gods of Egypt. " Yea, (Ex. xii. 12,)
against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judg-
ment ; /am the Lord," was the purpose and the plan
of that whole interposition. By such a judgment it
was that the great question, " Who is tfie true God^ "
was settled, and the claim of Israel's God, "J" (not
the gods of Egypt) " am the Lord,''^ fully established.
This done, the Hebrews were won back to the God
of their fathers ; the question of their deliverance was
settled ; and the way was opened for the restoration
to them of their religious and consequent civil liberty ; i. e.
of those religious opportunities, privileges, and rights,
of which their bondage had deprived them, and
which, as a means to an end, involved the question of
their liberty, and were essential to their continued fidel-
ity to their great Deliverer ; and, as such, were in fact
the question at issue between him and Pharaoh. The
p'cvious question was, Who is the true God ? That
settled, the main question was. Shall Israel be allowed
to serve him ? i. e. Shall Israel have their religious, and,
48 THE SABBATH
80 far, their civil freedom ? To test this, the practiced
question was, Shall Israel have their Sabbath, with its
opportunities of worship and sacrifice, and its connect-
ed privileges and rights ? It was, throughout, a grand
controversy between God and Pharaoh for the religious
freedom of his people, as that freedom was involved
in, and made to turn upon, their liberty to observe the
Sabbath, with its connected opportunities of sacrifice
and worship. That it was so is manifest,
(1.) From the fact, that the one, uniform, and great
demand of Moses and Aaron, in the name of God,
and on behalf of the people, was, that they might go
where they could serve God, by holding a religious
festival to him — a plain declaration, that where they
were, they had neither the time nor the liberty to do
it, but that their privileges and rights in these re-
tipects were taken away. In their first interview
with Pharaoh, (Ex. v. 1, 3,) the demand, in its original
and official form, was, " Thus saith Jehovah, the God
of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a
feast (religious festival) unto me in the wilderness," —
"Let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the
desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God." And
subsequently (compare Ex. vii. 16 ; viii. 1, 20, 25, 27,
28; ix. 1, 13; x. 3, 8,9, 24,25,26; xii. 31, 32) the
one unceasing demand was, " Let my people go, that
they may serve me." — " With our flocks and our
herds will we go ; for we must hold a fea^t (religious
festival) unto the Lord." — "Thou must give us also
sacrifices and burnt-offerings, that we may sacrifice
unto the Lord our God." But why go out of Egypt
for this, except on the ground that they could not do
it in Egypt ?
IN EGYPT. ^J^y^'^*^^ * i
(2.) The same is manifest from Pharaoh's proposii ^-^ N\a^
don for a compromise. When visited with the
plague of flies, (Ex. viii. 25,) lie " called for Moses
and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God
in the land.^^ And this he proffered as a substitute for
going into the wilderness to sacrifice. But how could
it be a substitute, except on the ground that they had
not been allowed to sacrifice "in the land" before?
(3.) Moses' answer confirms the fact, and lets us
into the reason of it. "It is not meet," said he, (Ex.
viii. 26, 27,) "so to do; for we shall sacrifice the
abomination of the Egyptians to the Lord our God :
lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyp-
tians before their eyes, and will they not stone us ? " *
This is as if he had said, " We cannot do so ; for if
we do we must sacrifice the bullock, the ram, &c., —
the very deities of the Egyptians, — to our God. Our
favorite sacrifices will be their favorite gods. What
is worship to us will be sacrilege to them. And will
they look quietly on, and see us, their slaves, offer
their favorite national gods in sacrifice to our God ?
It cannot be. All Egypt will be in arms at such an
outrage. ' We will therefore go three days' journey
into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our
God.' " Such was the reply. Can it be doubted that
previous to this, the Israelites had neither the times,
nor the privileges, nor the rights, of such worship,
"in the land"?
(4.) As a general thing, the Israelites, while in
Egypt, had fallen in with the idolatry of their op-
* The Chaldee version has it, "For the beasts which the
Egyptians worship, shall we oflfer in sacrifice j lo, shall we offer
for sacrifice the beasts which the Egyptians worship ? "
60 THE SABBATH
pressors — thereby showing that they had lost their
disposition, as well as their opportunities and rights,
to worship Jehovah. This fact is plainly asserted in
the inspired record. When Joshua had fairly plant-
ed them in the promised land, in his exhortation to
them just before his death, he said, (Jos. xxiv. 14,)
"Put away the gods which your fathers served on
the other side of the flood, even in Egypt, and serve
ye the Lord." In Ezekiel, also, (xx. 6 — 8,) God says,
that when he brought them out of F,gypt, he said to
them, " Cast ye away every man the abominations of
his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of
Egypt ; I am the Lord your God. But they rebelled
against me, and would not hearken unto me ; they
did not every man cast away the abominations of
their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of
Egypt." Indeed, it is only on the supposition that,
as a general thing, idolatry had been the habit of
Israel, as well as Egypt, that you can explain the
readiness with which they fell away to the worship
of the molten calf at Sinai. After witnessing such
marvellous displays of divine power, such convincing
evidences of the superiority of Jehovah to the gods
of Egypt, how could any, but a people habituated to
worship those gods, and, from the force of that very
habit, still half in doubt whether they were not the
true ones, wdthin three short months, actually deny
their great Deliverer, and bow down in senseless
homage to one of the idol gods of their oppressors ?
On any other supposition, the scene at Sinai were
little less than a miracle.
But whence came it, that idolatry was the habit of
the Hebrews while in Egypt ? Not from the force
IN EGYPT. 51
of example merely ; for the Hebrew, being a herds-
man, was such " an abomination to the Egyptians,"
{Gen. xlvi. 34,) that (Gen. xUii. 32) "the Egyptian
might not eat bread with the Hebrews." This fact,
especially when accompanied with a grinding op-
pression, would beget a similar prejudice in the He-
brew in retuiTi, and so destroy the force of example,
in leading him off to the worship of his oppressor's
gods. Causes more powerful than example, then,
and better adapted to the end, must have existed,
and conspired to work out such a result. As they
could not worship their God without offering insult
and committing sacrilege to the gods of Egypt, sup-
pose them stripped, by the strong arm of oppression,
of all their religious opportunities, privileges, and
rights, and, in all public, social worship, compelled
to worship Egypt's gods or none ; in such a state of
things you have causes adequate to the result. With
no Sabbath, with its stated opportunities for public
and social religious instruction and worship ; with
no occasional opportunities of the kind ; and with no
privileges and rights peculiar to the worship of their
God, — and this continued from generation to genera-
tion through a period of two hundred years or more, —
no wonder that they forsook, if they did not forget,
the God of their fathers, and fell in with the idolatry
of their oppressors. On this supposition, their idol-
atry is explained. On no other can it be.
(5.) That this is the true solution, is further manifest
from the manner in which Pharaoh first received the
command to let the people go. The first part of that
mandate (Ex. v. 1 — 8) was, " Thus saith Jehovah, the
€rod of Israel, Let my people go." To this Pharaoh
53
THE SABBATH
replied, «Who is Jehovah, that I should obey his
voice to let Israel go?" The second part of the
mandate was, " that they may hold a feast (a festival
of sacrifice and vrorship) to me in the wilderness."
To this he answered, " Wherefore do ye, Moses and
Aaron, let the people from their works ? Behold, the
people are many, yet ye make them " (all) ^'rest from
their bm'dens!" — literally, (/ws/i6a^^e?n,) "ye cause
them to sabbatize, or keep Sabbath from their bur-
dens ! " — Strange infatuation, that you should expect
me to allow this ! Indeed, worshippers as they gen-
erally are of Egypt's gods, what real care have they
for the God of which you speak, or the season of
religious rest and sacrifice for which you clamor?
Nay, nay, it is a mere pretence — a cover to their in-
dolence. "They be idle" — "They be idle; there-
fore they cry, saying. Let us go and sacrifice to our
God." Such was plainly the drift and meaning of
the reply. And being so, what is it but a clear inti-
mation, that the demand of Moses and Aaron was a
demand for the restoration of the Sabbath, with its
connected . opportunities and privileges of religious
instruction, sacrifice, and worship?
Moreover, (6.) the term "feast" in the demand is
indicative of as much as this. That the Sabbath was
called a " feast " is proved by Lev. xxiii. 2, 3, where it is
named as one of "the feasts of the Lord." That the
feast which Moses demanded was some religious fes-
tival, or season for sacrifice and worship, is proved
by the terms of the demand as quoted above, p. 48.
That it was that festival or season, which was af-
terwards the distinguishing badge of the people as
the worshippers of Jehovah, and which was most
IN EGYPT. 53
sacredly and scrupulously observed by them, is cer-
tainly most probable. That festival, or season, was
the Sabbath. After their departure from Egypt, the
first " feast," or season of w^orship, of which we have
any account, was that of the Sabbath. In the sub-
sequent enumeration of "the feasts of the Lord,"
(Lev. xxiii.) the Sabbath is named first — "These are
my feasts. Six days shall work be done ; but the
seventh day is the Sabbath of rest," &c. Then the
several yearly feasts are named. And finally, the
Sabbath, above all, was made their distinguishing
" sign," or badge, as the worshippers of Jehovah, and
not of idols. Can it be doubted, then, that this was
the feast so sternly demanded by Moses, and so res-
olutely refused by Pharaoh ? and, therefore, that the
grand object of God's interposition in the case, was,
to restore the Sabbath to his people, and with that
their religious freedom ? and this done to leave
them no excuse for not serving him with fidelity?
Indeed, (7.) all this is distinctly declared by Moses
in the subsequent history. In Deut. v. 12 — 15, we find
the following: —
" Keep the Sabbath-day to sanctify it, as Jehovah thy
God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shall labor,
and do all thy work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath
of Jehovah 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 Jehovah thy God brought
thee out thence, through a mighty hand and by a stretched-
5*
64 THE SABBATH
out arm : therefore Jehovah thy God commanded thee to
keep the Sabbath-day."
What is the true import of this passage ? It occurs
in the midst of a recapitulation of the ten command-
ments. It contains, first, an injunction to keep the
Sabbath ; then a declaration that the seventh day of
the week is the day for keeping it ; then an injunc-
tion to the Hebrew^ to abstain from all ordinary labor
on that day, and to let his children, and sei'vants, and
beasts, do the same ; then the reason of this provision
for the servants — " that they may rest as well as thou ; "
and then a reference to his bondage in Egypt, and
deliverance from it. TVhy this reference ? Not, surely,
to give the reason for the original institution of the
Sabbath; for that is given (Ex. xx. It) thus — "For
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day;
wherefore " (because he did this, not because he brought
the Hebrew^s out of Egypt) "the Lord blessed the
Sabbath-day,* and hallowed it." To make the pas-
sage before us give another and a different reason, is
to involve the Bible in contradiction. The obvious
design of the reference, then, was to give force to the
reason of the provision for the servants. How it
would give force to that reason, may be seen in the
following paraphrase : —
" Keep the Sabbath, &c., and let your servants
keep it, that they may rest as well as thou ; and, that
* The Septuagint, and several other versions; have this : — " The
Lord blessed the seventh day," &c. This is plainly the true
reading ; for it agrees with the facts in the case, and also with
the original record in Gen. ii. 3.
IN EGYPT. 55
thou mayest let them rest as well as thou, remember
that thou wast a servant once in the land of Egypt,
where thou wouldst have been glad of such a day of
rest, butcouldstnot have it ; and remember, also, that
the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, &c., be-
cause fhat * the Lord thy God had commanded thee to
keep the Sabbath, and thou couldst not do it there."
This view is demanded by the context, and makes
the reference to the bondage in Egypt apt and for-
cible. Well might the Hebrew let his servants rest
on the Sabbath, when he remembered how he was
deprived of it in Egypt, and what God had wrought
to give it back to him, and with it all his religious
privileges and rights. Can it be doubted, then, that
this is the true import and design of the reference ?
And being so, what is the whole passage but a dis-
tinct declaration, that, as involving the question of
their religious freedom, the Sabbath, with its oppor-
tunities of worship and its connected religious priv-
ileges and rights, was the great question at issue
between God and Pharaoh in the deliverance of the
* The term al-ken, rendered here '• therefore," is often used
in the Bible in the sense of '' because that/' or *^ on account of/-'
as may be seen by consulting any Hebrew Lexicon : Or, without
any change in the translation, the paraphrase may run thus: —
^^ Remember that thou wast a servant once in the land of Egypt,
where thou wouldst have been glad of such a day of rest, but
couldst not have it 5 and that then the Lord thy God brought thee
out thence, that thou mightest have it. Therefore, because ho
has done all this to give it back to you, he has commanded you
anew to keep it." In either view, the passage teaches that the
Sabbath, as a preexisting institution, was the reason for the de-
liverance, and not that the deliverance was a reason for the
institution of the Sabbath.
56 THE SABBATH IN EGYPT.
Hebrews from their house of bondage ? Put, then,
these items together — the demand to go out where
they could keep a festival of sacrifice and worship to
the Lord ; the permission, as a compromise, to sacri-
fice in the land ; the fact that they could not do this
without committing, as the Egyptians would regard
it, sacrilege ; that, as a general thing, the Hebrews
had fallen in with the idolatry of their oppressors, —
which, considering their strong mutual repellances,
could not have been, had they not been deprived,
by the strong arm of power, of their religious oppor-
tunities and rights; that the Sabbath was preem-
inently the "^^ feast" of the Jews ; that Pharaoh actually
complains that Moses and Aaron cause the people to
keep Sabbath from their burdens ; and, finally, that
Moses informs us in terms that God brought them
up out of Egypt, because be had commanded them
to keep Sabbath, implying, beyond question, that they
could not keep it there ; — put all these items together,
and then add the fact that the first religious obser-
vance, of which we have any account after their
deliverance, is that of the Sabbath, and can it be
believed that we have no mention of a Sabbath, and
no complaint of encroachments upon it, during the
period of Egyptian bondage? What, indeed, in the
light of these facts, is that whole history but one un-
broken complaint? And what was the "feast" or
season of sacrifice and worship, so loudly demanded,
but that very season whose religious observance is so
early mentioned in the subsequent history? And
that season was the Sabbath. The evidence on this
point will accumulate as we proceed.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SABBATH IN THE WILDERNESS.
The Sabbath, it is said, was originally given in the
second month after the deliverance from Egypt, in
the wilderness of Sin, and as a memorial of that de-
liverance.
1. The only proof attempted of its being such a
memorial, is drawn from the passage (Deut. v. 15)
we have just examined. The form of phraseology,
" Therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to
keep the Sabbath-day," it is said, proves that it was
instituted, and was to be kept, as a memorial of the
deliverance referred to. But, as we have seen, the
Hebrew admits ofj and the connection of the passage
requires, the rendering, ^^ because that the Lord thy
God had commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day."
This rendering makes the Sabbath, as previously
existing, a reason for the deliverance, and not the
deliverance a reason for its institution. That this is
the true sense of the passage, and that the Sabbath
was not instituted as a memorial of the event in
question, is further manifest,
(1.) From the fact, that, as such a memorial, it has
no significancy. Nothing is more obvious than that
in all the memorials, symbols, types, &c., of the old
economy, care was taken to have the sign a fit em-
58 THE SABBATH
blem of the thing signified. There was always a fit-
ness in the nature of the one to that of the other.
Thus, in the Sabbath as a memorial of creation, there
is a fitness in the memorial to the thing memorial-
ized. But as a memorial of deliverance from Egypt,
what is there in the sign to represent the thing sig-
nified? They were not delivered on the seventh
day of the week ; at least there is no evidence of
it Nor w^ere they brought out by virtue of seven
plagues; for there were ten of them. Nor was
there any thing in the event itself to make the reli-
gious observance of each seventh day an appropriate
and fit memorial of it. As such memorial, why, then,
should it recur every seventh day? Why not have
it every tenth, according to the number of plagues?
Or every seventieth ? Or every month ? Or, as it
was the day of their national freedom, why not have
it, like our own anniversary of American independ-
ence, once a year, and on the day and month of their
deliverance ? That would have made it as a memo-
rial, significant of the event. But as it is, it has no
significancy of it whatever.
(2.) To suppose it such a memorial involves the
Bible in irrecondlahle cordradictioru The reason given
for its institution, in Ex. xx. 11, is, " For in six days
the Lord made heaven and earth, &c., and rested the
seventh day." That given in Ex. xxxi. 17, is the same.
And both are the same with that given in the first
mention of it, in Gen. ii. 3. Every w±ere the reason
is the same. It is only in the passage under con-
sideration, that a different reason even seems to be
given. What, then, is the inference ? That the Bible
contradicts itself — assigning two diflTerent reasons for
IN THE WILDERNESS. 59
the same thing, the one utterly unlike, and twenty-five
hundred years apart from, the other ? Or, that the
passage in question is to be understood in some other
sense ; and in that especially, which, while it makes
the Bible consistent, is allowed by the original, and
adds force and beauty to the connection ? But,
(3.) The passover, and the sanctiflcation, or setting
apart of the first-horn of man and beast to the service
of the altar and the temple, were specially instituted
as memorials of the deliverance in question. While
yet in Egypt, (Ex. xii. 1 — ^27,) God, by Moses and
Aai'on, gave to the Israelites specific direction in re-
gard to the intent of the passover, the manner of
keeping it, and its perpetual observance in the land to
which he was about to bring them. Of its observance
there he says, (v. 14,) " This day shall be unto you
for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the
Lord throughout your generations ; ye shall keep it a
feast by an ordinance forever. And (vs. 2G, 27) when
your children shall say unto you. What mean ye by
this service ? ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the
Lord's passover, who passed over the houses of the
children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyp-
tians, and delivered our houses." After their de-
parture, the command was, (Ex. xiii. 3, 8 — 10,) "Re-
member this day in which ye came out of Egypt, out
of the house of bondage. And (after repeating the
directions about keeping it) thou shalt show thy son
in that day, saying. This is done because of that which
the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of
Egypt And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon
thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes ;
that the Lord's law may be in thy mouth ; for with a
60 THE SABBATH
Strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt.
Thou shalt therefore keep this ordmance m his season
from year to yearP This was their national anniver-
sary, commemorative, hke the anniversaiy of Ameri-
can independence, of their national deliverance.
In the same connection, also, God said, (Ex. xiii. 2, 12,)
" Sanctify unto me all the first-born, whatsoever open-
eth the womb among the children of Israel, both of
man and of beast : it is mine;" or, (v. 12,) "Set them
apart to the Lord, &c. ; the males shall be the Lord's "
— the beasts (v. 13) to be offered in sacrifice, and the
men to be redeemed. " And (vs. 14 — 16) it shall be,
when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying.
What is this ? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength
of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from
the house of bondage; for it came to pass, .when
Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew
all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both the first-
born of man, and the first-born of beast : therefore I
sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix, being
males, (of beasts;) but all the first-born of my children
I redeem. And it shall be for a tolijen upon thine
hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes, that by
strength of hand the Lord brought us forth out of
Egypt."
Here, then, we have two distinct and appropriate in-
stitutions — the one to be observed from year to year
as a great national religious anniversary, the other
entering as a permanent organic arrangement into
their religious and civil polity, and both standing me-
morials of their deliverance from Egypt. In these
memorials, moreover, there was a fitness in the sign to
the thing signified. Why, then, have a third memorial
IN THE WILDERNESS. 61
of the same event, and especially one destitute of all
fitness as a representative of the thing memorialized?
Or, if a third vt^ere to be had, vrhy not institute it like
the others, at the time ? Why vv^ait for a two
months' journey into the wilderness ? Manifestly, the
Sabbath was not instituted as a memorial of deliver-
ance from Egypt
2. Nor was the Sabbath originally instituted in the
second month after the deliverance, and while the
Hebrews were in the wilderness of Sin. That it was,
is argued from the general tenor of the mention
made of it (Ex, xvi. 23 — 30) at the giving of manna;
and especially from the fact, that it is said to have
been " given," or " made Jcnoivn,^^ then. " See, (Ex.
xvi. 29,) for that the Lord hath given you the Sab-
bath ; " and, (Ezek. xx. 11, 12,) " I gave them my stat-
utes, and showed them my judgments. Moreover,
also, I gave them my Sabbaths ; " and, (Neh. ix. 13,
14,) "Thou gavest them commandments, and madest
known unto them thy holy Sabbath." And how, it is
asked, could the Sabbath have existed before, if it
were "give/i," or ^'made known^'^ then?
(1.) This argument assumes that laws and institu-
tions are never said to be " given," or " made known^'*
when they are renewed, but only when they are first
promulgated or established. But this is not true. For,
among the statutes, &c., which God, in Ezekiel, says
he gave in the wilderness, circumcision was obviously
one. Yet that existed and was observed before. In-
deed, Christ (John vii. 22) says in terms that it was
given then, and yet did exist before — " Moses gave
unto you circumcision, not that it is of Moses, (ori-
ginally,) but of the fathers," This settles the point,
6
62
THE SABBATH
that laws and institutions are sometimes said to be
given, when they are merely reestabhshed, or incor-
porated into some new economy. The same is true
of the phrase " madest known," in Nehemiah. The
term in the original is the same with that translated
"showed" in Ezekiel. But as we have just seen,
circumcision was one of the things "showed," or
"made known," by Moses at that time. Yet the law
of circumcision was not then first promulgated. So
with the law of murder. That was as old as the
flood. "Whoso (Gen. ix. 6) sheddeth man's blood,
by man shall his blood be shed." And the institu-
tion of marriage, too, was as old as creation. Yet
both these were among the statutes and the judg-
ments of the Mosaic economy. This is conclusive,
that laws and institutions are said to be " givei^," or
"made kno%vn," when they are only reestablished, or
incorporated into some new economy, as well as
when originally promulgated. And this, even if we
could not explain the reason or propriety of the
usage, shows conclusively that the argument from
it is without the least force. But we can explain it.
Nothing is easier or more obvious. There are two
explanations, either of which is satisfactory. The
Mosaic economy was made up of two kinds of in-
stitutions and laws. The one were those which had
existed before ; the other, those which were given by
Moses for the first time. Yet, taken together as a
whole, they made a code, or an economy, which, as a
whole, was new. It was a new code — it was a new
economy, although made up in part of elements that
had existed before. Speaking of them, then, as a
whole, or as a part even of this whole, it was per-
IN THE WILDERNESS. 63
fectly proper and natural to speak of them as ^^given,^
or '''made known,^'' at the time when the new code or
economy, as such, was promulgated or established.
But we have a better solution. The Sabbath, with
its connected observances, was subsequently, we find,
the distinguishing badge, or " sign," by which the wor-
shippers of Jehovah were to be known from the
worshippers of idols. If it existed before the bon-
dage in Egypt, it must have been an equally distinctive
badge; and therefore the institution which pagan
oppressors would be most likely to invade, or take
from their vassals. Suppose, then, that the Hebrews
were robbed of their Sabbath in Egypt, and with it
of their other religious privileges and rights ; that, as
a result, they had generally fallen in with the cuiTent
idolatry ; that, by such degeneracy, continued through
a period of one or two hundred years, they had for-
gotten and lost the regular day for the Sabbath, or, if
not this, had forgotten the proper modes of sacrifice
and worship upon it — and Moses (Ex. x. 26) says,
"For we know not with what we must serve the
Lord until we come thither " (into the wilderness) —
suppose all this; and now God, by the hand of Moses,
brings them out, and, with such new institutions and
laws as their circumstances demand, gives them back
the old ones too, and makes known to them the things
they had forgotten ; and then how natural and impres-
sive the language, "I gave them my Sabbaths" —
"Thou gavest them commandments, and madest
known unto them thy holy Sabbath"! Could any
thing be more so ? But,
(2.) If the Sabbath were originally given at the giv-
ing of manna, (Ex. xvi. 23 — ^29,) how marvellous the
64 THE SABBATH
difference in the first account of its original institu-
tion and that of the passover and the sanctification
of the fii'st-born ! In the first mention of the original
institution of the two latter, (Ex. xii. 1 — ^27, and xiii.
1 — 16,) we have a minute and specific detail of the
time, occasion, and reason or design of their institu-
tion. We should expect a similar record of the origi-
nal institution of the Sabbath. On the supposition
of its institution at creation, we have such record in
Gen. ii. 2, 3. On the supposition of its institution in
the wilderness, we ought to have a similar record.
But we have not Though, on this supposition, in-
stituted nearly at the same time, and for precisely the
same reasons, with the passover and the sanctification
of the first-bom, the first record of it says not one
word of the time, or the occasion, or the reasons of
it, nor indeed of the proper modes of its observance.
The record is full and minute, on these points, in re-
gard to the other institutions. Why is it not equally
so in reference to this ? Nay, in reference to them,
the entire structure of the language is that of appoint-
ment and command. It is throughout "thou shalt,"
" ye shall," " they shall," do this or that, and it " shall be
a memorial " of this or that. But there is not a word
of this in the supposed first record (Ex. xvi. 23 — ^29)
of the Sabbath. The structure here is, " To-moiTow
ij " — not shall be — "the rest of the holy Sabbath unto
the Lord." Why the difference, except on the sup-
position, that the mention of the Sabbath in this case,
so far from being that of its original institution, was a
mere incidental mention of it, as of an institution
already existing and observed, and now particularly
spoken of in consequence of the manna's not falling
IN THE WILDERNESS.
I^i'
upon that day, and as the reason of its not falling*^
then? — as if the historian would say, (Ex. xvi. 26,)
« On six days of the week the manna shall fall, and ye
shall gather it ; but on the seventh day of the week,
which, as an existing and previous fact, is the Sab-
bath, there shall be none." Such a view accounts
for the difference in these records of the Sabbath, the
passover, and the sanctification of the first-born. In
the light of it, we can readily see why it is, that in
the one case, there is great minuteness of specifica-
tion and detail, and the language of appointment and
command, while in the other there is nothing of the
kind. The one is the record of the original estab-
lishment of new institutions ; the other, an incidental
mention of an old one.
(3.) The circumstances of the case, and the general
connection and obvious import of the passage in ques-
tion, are decisive of the correctness of this view.
This will be obvious from a familiar paraphrase or
running comment. The people (v. 2) murmur for
bread. To supply them, God says, (v. 4,) "Behold, I
will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people
shall go out and gather a certain rate every day " of
the week, the Sabbath excepted, " that I may prove
them, whether they will walk in my law or no. For
(v. 5) it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day " of
the week "they shall prepare that which they bring
in ; and it shall be twice as much as they gather
daily," or "on other days," so that they shall have
nothing to prevent their resting and worshipping me
on the Sabbath, and I may thus be able to prove
them, to see whether they will walk in my law or no.
The manna fell, and the people gathered it as di-
6*
66 THE SABBATH
rected. Some, in their anxiety for the future, kept
some of it (v. 20) "until the" next " morning, and it
bred worms and stank ; and Moses was wroth " at
their want of confidence in God. Nevertheless, the
manna continued to fall, "and (v. 21) they gathered
it every morning" of the week, "every man accord-
ing to his eating ; and when the sun waxed hot it
melted," so that there was none to be gathered after
that, until the next morning. "And (v. 22) it came to
pass, that on the sixtii day" of the week, as God
had said, "they gathered twice as much bread, two
omers for one man; and," as God, by Moses, had
told them (v. 5) " to prepare " this, so that it would
keep for the next day, "all the rulers of the congre-
gation came and told Moses," that he might tell them,
and they the people, how to prepare it. And there
was the more need of this, inasmuch as some had
tried to keep it over to the next morning during the
previous week, and, instead of keeping, it had only
" bred worms and stank." And Moses (v. 23) " said
unto them, This is what the Lord hath said," viz.
that (v. 5) on the sixth day of the week they shall pre-
pare what they bring in; and it shall be twice as
much as they gather on other days. " To-morrow,"
as you are aware, " is the rest of the holy Sabbath
unto the Lord." That you may be able to keep
it, you may prepare your food by baking or seething,
just as you choose. Prepai'ed either way, it will
keep. Therefore, "bake that which ye will bake,
and seethe that ye will seethe," and eat what you
wish of it to-day, " and that which remaineth over lay
up for you, to be kept until the morning." And they
did so, (v. 24,) "and it did not stink, neither was there
IN THE WILDERNESS. 67
any worm therein," as there was before. "And,"
(v. 25,) when the Sabbath had come, " Moses said, Eat
that to-day, for to-day is" — not shall be — "a Sab-
bath " or holy rest " unto the Lord : to-day ye shall not
find it in the field. Six days " of the week (v. 26) "ye
shall gather it, but on the seventh day " of the week,
"the Sabbath, in it," because it is the Sabbath, and
that you may have nothing to hinder you from keep-
ing it, "there shall be none. And," (v. 27,) yet after
all this, " there went out some of the people on the
seventh day for to gather, but they found none.
And the Lord " (v. 28) was grieved at their disobe-
dience, and " said unto Moses, How long refuse ye
to keep my commandments and my laws ? " Just
think what I have done that you might have the Sab-
bath back agam, and have nothing to prevent your
keeping it. When you could not keep it in Egypt
because of your oppressors, I brought you out thence ;
and now, that you may have nothing to prevent your
keeping it here, I give you, on the sixth day of the
week, the food of two days. " See, (v. 29,) for that the
Lord hath given you " back " the Sabbath, therefore,"
because he has done it, and that you may keep it, " he
giveth you on the sixth day " of the week " the bread
of two days." Why, then, should ye not keep it? Why
not spend it in the worship and sei-vice of the Lord
your God ? " Abide ye every man in his place : let
no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So
(v. 30) the people rested on the seventh day." Can
it be doubted that this is an incidental mention of an
institution already existing, and not the record of its
original establishment? Can it be doubted, either,
that the restoration of this to an oppressed people,
DO THE SABBATH
with its accompanying privileges and rights, as an
ancient institution of their ancient faith, was one
grand object of their dehverance ?
Finally, if the Sabbath were originally instituted in
the wilderness, and as a memorial of deliverance from
Egypt, why should it be incorporated into the decalogue,
rather than the law of the passover, or that of the
sanctification of the first-born ? The decalogue, with
the exception of the law of the Sabbath, is confess-
edly made up of those laws whose obligation is
founded in the very nature of things, is unchanging
and perpetual in its character, and common to man
in every age and every nation. It is, in one word,
a summanj of the COMMON LAW OF THE WORLD
— of that common law, which exists prior to, is inde-
pendent of, and yet enters naturally and necessarily
as FUNDAMENTAL LAW, into every well-ordered
ecclesiastical and civil polity. This, confessedly, is true
of the decalogue, with the single exception of the law
of the Sabbath. Here, then, according to the supposi-
tion before us, are three institutions, established about
the same time, commemorative of the same event, and
equally limited in their existence, obligation, and de-
sign, to the Jewish economy. Why should the law of
one of them go in as part and parcel of the common
law of mankind, rather than that of either of the others ?
Or, if a selection must be made, why should it fall upon
the Sabbath ? The passover, as a sign or memorial,
was most impressively significant of the thing signified.
The Sabbath, as we have seen, has no such signifi-
cancy whatever. Why, then, should it take prece-
dence of the passover? The sanctification of the first-
born was also equally significant, and in addition to
IN THE WILDERNESS. 69
this, entered, if not as fundamental, yet as permanent,
organic law, into the entke Jewitsh polity. As such
law it was to live as long as the polity itself. Why,
then, should the Sabbath take precedence of it ? There
is but one answer. The Sabbath was not originally
instituted in the wilderness, nor as a memorial of de-
liverance from Egypt, nor as limited to the Jewish
economy. Like the marriage institution, it had its
being at creation. It was made for man — the race.
It grew naturally and necessarily out of his nature,
necessities, and relations. It existed prior to and in-
dependent of the Jewish and every other individual and
limited economy. As an institution, it began, like that
of marriage, with the race ; was made for the race,
and was designed to live while the race should, and
to go down through economy after economy, until the
last economy should crumble to pieces, and time give
place to eternity. Of course the law of its observance,
"Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy," was to
it just what the lav/ of the marriage institution,
« Thou shalt not commit adultery," was to it. As the
latter, whether written by the finger of God on tables
of stone, or in the deep foundations of the nature,
necessities, and relations of man, was a part of uni-
versal common law, and therefore included in God's
summary of that law, so it was with the former. That
was as truly a part of the common law of the race as
was the law of marriage, and, being so in fact, was of
course incorporated inform into God's summaiy of it.
No other supposition can explain the precedence of
the law of the Sabbath, in respect to its insertion in
the decalogue, over that of the passover, or the sanc-
tification of the first-born. The one was a part of
70 THE SABBATH
universal common law — going, therefore, as funda-
mental law, into all well-ordered economies. The
others were but a part of the statute law of that par-
ticular economy. The one, therefore, because it was
a part of it, went into God's summary of the common
law of man. The others, because they were not a
part of it, did not go into it. What other solution
can be given of the fact in question ? And this being
given, how clear is it that the law of the Sabbath, like
the laws of marriage, property, and life, is universally
and perpetually binding !
Objection. But it is said, that " where Moses rehears-
es the commandments, (the fourth among the rest,) he
says, (Deut. v. 3,) ' The Lord made not this covenant
with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of
us here alive this day,' " * And the inference is, that
the Sabbath was not instituted at the creation, nor for
all men, but in the wilderness, and for the Jew only,
and of course is not obligatory on the Christian.
Answer. The covenant here spoken of included the
whole decalogue. This is admitted. Whatever, then,
the declaration, that it was not made with the fathers,
proves in respect to one part of it, as, for instance, the
law of the Sabbath, it equally proves in respect to
every part. If it prove that the patriarchs had no
Sabbath, and that the law of its observance was not
binding on them, it proves equally that they had no
God, and that the law of his worship was not binding ;
that they had no marriage institution, with its filial
and conjugal relations, and that the laws of their
observance, "Honor thy father and thy mother,"
* Grew, on the Sabbath, p. 5.
IN THE WILDERNESS. 71
"Thou shaltnot commit adultery," were not binding;
and so of the whole decalogue, the law of property,
" Thou shalt not steal," and that of life, " Thou shalt
not kill," not excepted. In the same manner, if the
declaration in question prove that there is no Sabbath
under the Christian dispensation, and that the law of
its observance is not binding on those that live under
it, with equal certainty does it prove that Christianity
is a universal exemption from every obligation of tlie
decalogue, and an entire extinction of every institution
and every right guarded by it — -the institution of
marriage and the rights of conscience, property, and
life, not excepted. And is it so ? Were the patriarchs
at liberty to worship God or not, to honor their pa-
rents or not, to commit adultery, lie, steal, and kill, or
not, as they might choose, and with perfect impunity ?
And is this the glorious liberty wherewith Christ
maketh free ? No one pretends it.
But it is said, the institutions and rights guarded iu
the decalogue, with the laws of their observance, are,
in their nature, of universal and unchanging obliga-
tion, and of course are binding on all men, in every
age, and under every dispensation. Admit it; and
how does it appear that the Sabbath, with the law of
its observance, is not equally so ? At all events, the
declaration that " God made not this covenant with
the fathers " does not prove it otherwise. It proves
no more of the law of the Sabbath than of every other
law in the decalogue. If, therefore, the law of the
marriage institution, "Thou shalt not commit adul-
tery," is, in its nature, of universal and unchanging ob-
ligation, equally so, for aught that this passage proves,
is the law of the Sabbath. And the same is true of
72 THE SABBATH IN THE WILDERNESS.
every command of the decalogue. All are equally
pai'ts of the covenant in question. If all the others,
then, be of universal and unchanging obligation, and,
as such, binding on all men, in all ages, and under
every dispensation, notwithstanding the fact that the
covenant, of which they are a part, was not made with
the fathers, why is not the law of the Sabbath equally
so ? Tiieir association together in the same covenant
surely argues them alike rather than unlike. At all
events, if the one be purely Jewish, and the others not
so, the proof lies elsewhere, not in this passage. This
proves nothing either way ; or, if any thing, it proves
only that the law of the Sabbath, like every other
commandment of the decalogue, is of universal and
ceaseless obligation^
CHAPTER VII.
THE SABBATH A SIGN.
It is said, " God gave the Sabbath as a distinctive
sign to the Israelites — a sign, that, for purposes of
infinite wisdom, he had chosen them as a peculiar
people, and separated them from the nations of the
earth. How could the Sabbath have been such a dis-
tinctive sign, if it had been given to all nations ? " *
The fact here asserted, and in the sense asserted, is
supposed to be taught in Ex. xxxi. 13 — 17, and Ezek.
XX. 12, 20.
Admitting, for the moment, the correctness of this
interpretation, I ask,
1. When were the Israelites, as a nation, so chosen
and separated ? Not at the time of their deliverance
from Egypt, obviously ; nor at any subsequent period.
They were delivered because they were God's chosen
people already, not that they miglit afterwards become
so. The truth is, they were originally chosen as God's
peculiar people in the person of Abraham, their great
progenitor. The Lord (Gen. xii. 1 — 3) said to
Abram, " Get thee out of thy country, and from thy
kindred, and from thy father's house," (that was the
commencement of the separation from the other na-
tions,) "unto a land that I will show thee ; and I will
* GreW; on the Sabbath, p. 5.
7
74
THE SABBATH
make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and
make thy name great." And afterwards, when he en-
tered more formally into special covenant with him,
he said, (Gen. xv. 13—16,) "Know of a surety that thy
seed shall be a stranger m a land that is not theirs,
and shall serve them ; and they shall afflict them four
hundred years : and also that nation whom they shall
sei*ve will I judge ; and afterward shall they come out
with great substance." Nor were this selection and
covenant ever lost sight of through the whole line of
the patriarclis and their posterity, from Abraham to
Moses. They were repeatedly renewed to Isaac and
to Jacob, as the heads and representatives of their
posterity. And Joseph, the last of the patriarchal line
of whom we have any account previous to Moses,
when he was about to die, said (Gen. 1. 24) to his
brethren, "I die ; but God will surely visit you, and
bring you out of this land unto the land which he
sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." Accord-
ingly when, after his death, (Ex. i. 8, 13, 14,) " there
arose a new king in Egypt, which knew not Joseph,"
and " the Egyptians made the children of Israel to
serve with rigor, and made their lives bitter with hard
bondage," so that (Ex. ii. 23,) " the children of Israel
sighed by reason of the bondage," then, we ai'e in-
formed, (Ex. ii. 24, 25,) " God heard their groaning,
and God remembered his COVENANT with Mraham,
with Isaac, and with Jacob, And God looked upon the
children of Israel, and God had respect unto them."
And when he first summoned Moses to the work of
their deliverance, (Ex. iii. 6, 10,) the language was,
" I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob : I have seen the
A SIGN, 75
afliiction of my people, and I am come down to de-
liver them. Come now, therefore, and I will send thee
unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my peo-
ple, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." And when
Moses first approached Pharaoh, (Ex. iv. 22, 23,) he
was directed to say, " Thus saith the Lord, Israel is "
(not is to be) "m?/ son, even my first-born; and I
say unto thee. Let my son go, that he may sei've me."
They were therefore his people — his son, even his
first-born, before their deliverance from Egypt, They
had then, as truly as afterwards, their distinctive na-
tional existence, as his chosen people ; and it was be-
cause they had, and because he remembered his cove-
nant with them as such, that he came down to deliver.
And that whole interposition in their behalf was, not
their original selection as his peculiar people, but only
their re-selection, accomplished by the fulfilment of
qovenant engagements growing out of their original se-
lection more than six hundred years before. For hun-
dreds of years, then, they had been God's chosen people.
As such, they had had a distinctive tribual or national
existence. And can it be, that during all this period they
were without the great distinctive sign of that exist-
ence ? If they had no Sabbath, and the Sabbath were
that sign, as alleged, they were without it. So that,
on this supposition, they had their distinctive existence
as God's chosen people, but had no distinctive sign or
badge of it until some centuries after that existence
began 1 And can that be ? By no means. Either they
had the Sabbath before, or it was not a distinctive sign
of their distinctive existence as God's chosen people.
But it was such sign. They had the Sabbath, then,
irom the begmning. This conclusion is unavoidable.
76 THE SABBATH
To talk of a sign instituted five hundred years or more
after the commencement of the thing signified, is ab-
surd. Besides,
2. What were those ^purposes of infinite loisdom,^^
on account of which the selection and separation in
question were made ? The great purpose, as every
one knows, — that which overshadowed and included
every other, — was to preserve and perpetuate among
men the knowledge and worship of Jehovah as the
true God, in distinction from all idol gods ; and thus
to prepare the way for the coming and kingdom of
Messiah. It was, that, amid the wide-spread and uni-
versal prevalence of idolatry among the nations, there
might be one nation of worshippers of the true God,
out of which, in the fulness of time, he should come,
who was to ransom man, and be the Desire of all na-
tions. If, then, the Sabbath were given to the Hebi-ews
as a distinctive sign of their selection and separation by
God from other nations, it could be such a sign, only,
as it served to mark them as the behevers in and wor-
shippers of Jehovah as the true God, in distinction
from the worshippers of idol gods. It must have been
such a thing, in its origin, nature, or design, that the
Hebrews, in observing it, would, by that act, profess
themselves believers in and worshippers of him, as the
only true God ; so that its observance, in the very act
of it, should be the great distinctive badge of tlieir re-
ligious profession, and a constant and impressive me-
mento that Jehovah, not any idol, was the God who
sanctified or set them apart to his service. There must
also have been something about it so unique in its
character, and so unlike every other institution and
ordinance, that its observance would say, Jehovah is
A SIGN. 77
the only true God, and we believe in and worship him
accordingly, more significantly and impressively than
it could be said by the observance of any other. How
else could it be the great distinctive sign of their great
distinctive national peculiarity ? How else become the
distinctive badge of their distinctive religious profes-
sion as the worshippers of Jehovah ^
Now, as a memorial of deliverance from Egypt,
what was there in the Sabbath to make it, rather than
any other ordinance or institution, such a distinguish-
ing badge ? The passover and the sanctification of the
first-born were memorials of the same event, and, as
signs, far more significant of the thing signified. To
observe the Sabbath, then, as a memorial of this event,
would not say, Jehovah is the only true God, and we
believe in and serve him as such, any more significantly
than to have observed either of these other institutions.
Their observance would have been just as distinctive
a badge of their belief in and worship of Jehovah, as
the only true God, as was that of the Sabbath. Why,
then, should the Sabbath have the precedence ? On
this supposition, it should not have. But change the
supposition — admit that the Sabbath was instituted at
creation as a standing memorial of the fact, that in six
days Jehovah created the heavens and the earth, and
rested on the seventh day, and then the regular ob-
servance of it by the Hebrews was a weekly national
testimony, that the world was not made by the gods
and according to the theories of paganism, but by Je-
hovah, and in six days, and that he, therefore, is the
only living and true God. Such an institution, hold-
ing forth in its regular observance such a testimony,
was, therefore, the institution best fitted, of all others,
78 THE SABBATH
to be the great distinctive sign or badge of their great
distinctive peculiarity as the chosen people of God. Its
observance, in this view of it, would most significantly
mark them as the worshippers of Jehovah, and dis-
tinguish and keep them separate from the idolatrous
nations around them, and thus be a sign forever of the
covenant between them and their God. And,
3. This, indeed, is the true import of the passage (Ex.
xxxi. 13 — 17) under consideration. The connection
of the passage is this : God had given certain direc-
tions in regard to building the tabernacle. Then, lest
they should encroach on the Sabbath in doing it, he
adds, "Verily" (Hebrew, JVeverthdess) "my Sabbaths
shall ye keep;" and the reason assigned for it is, in
the Hebrew, literally this : " For it is a sign between
me and you throughout your generations, for to make
it known" (nj;'l'7, ladaat), " that I, Jehovah, am he that
sanctifies you." As a whole, then, the passage is as
if God had said, "You are about to be employed in
an important and sacred work, one requiring close
attention and great despatch ; nevertheless, be care-
ful not to encroach on holy time. Let the business,
urgent as it is, cease during the hallowed hours of the
Sabbath ; for the Sabbath is a sign between me and
you throughout your generations, by the keeping of
which it is to be known that I, Jehovah, am the God
that sanctifies or sets you apart as mine." Such is
the obvious and true import of the passage. And this
import gives us the Sabbath as that sign, whose ob-
servance was to tell the world who and what their God
was. Its observance was, therefore, the public profes-
sion of their religious faith — a public avowal that they
were not idolaters, but the worshippers of Jehovah. Of
A SIGN. i9
course, apostasy from the sign was, practically, and in
effect, apostasy from the thing signified. It was prac-
tically a renunciation of their religious faith, and apos-
tasy from their God. Of course, it was substantial
idolatry, and, as such, a treasonable offence, punish-
able with death.
Moreover, on examining the passage further, we
find, (v. 16,) that the children of Israel were "to ob-
serve the Sabbath throughout their generations as a
perpetual covenant," or standing ordinance ; that so
observed, (v. 17,) it was a sign between Jehovah and
them forever ; and finally, we learn what that was in
the Sabbath, which made it such a sign, rather than
any other ordinance. It was not, that God, without
any fitness in the thing itself, had arbitrarily fixed it
BO ; nor that God had brought them out of Egypt.
Not a word do we hear of any such reason. But "It
is a sign between me and the children of Israel for-
ever." Why ? What makes it so ? " For in six days
the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh
day he rested, and was refreshed." Here, then, we
have it in distinct terms that it was the connection of
the Sabbath with the creation, that made it, rather than
the passover, or any other ordinance, the sign in ques-
tion. What that connection was we have already seen.
Jehovah made the world in six days, and rested on the
seventh, and set apart the seventh to be observed as a
perpetual memorial of what he had done. As such
memorial, every individual who kept it, thereby de-
clared his belief, that the world was not made by the
gods, and according to the theories of paganism, but
by Jehovah ; and that he, therefore, not they, was the
real Creator, and of course the only living and true
80 THE SABBATH
God. A memorial, holding forth such a testimony in
its observance, was, in its very nature, a distinctive
sign or badge of the worshippers of Jehovah. They
could not keep it without thereby marking themselves
as worshippers of him, and not of idols. They could
not neglect or refuse to keep it without losing their
distinctive badge, and becoming so far identified with
idolaters. It was preeminently the badge of their
religious faith. To observe it, was to profess faith in
Jehovah as the only true God. Not to observe it, was
to say, Jehovah is not the only true God, and was tan-
tamount to apostasy or idolatry ; and as that govern-
ment was a theocracy, such apostasy or idolatry was
virtual high-treason. No wonder, then, that God se-
lected this as the sign, rather than some other ordi-
nance, and then placed such an estimate upon it, and
dealt out such a penalty upon its violation. The' Sab-
bath was fitted, in its nature, to be such a. sign or badge.
As such, the obligation to observe it was only another
form of the obligation to have no other gods before
Jehovah, and was therefore equally sacred, and its vio-
lation equally criminal.
In this view of the case, all is plain. Every thing
is just what we should expect. Foi' every thing there
is a reason, good and sufiicient ; while, on the suppo-
sition that the Sabbath was originally given as a me-
morial of deliverance from Egypt, and yet selected as
the sign in question, all is arbitrary, without reason,
significancy, or aim. Moreover, in this view, too, we
see at once why the Sabbath, with its connected priv-
ileges and rights, was to the idolatrous Egyptians the
most obnoxious of all the Hebrew peculiarities, and
therefore among the first of those peculiarities to be
A SIGN. 81
taken away, and the last to be restored. It, with its
privileges and rights, was their great distinctive badge
as the worshippers of Jehovah. Its observance was
therefore their weekly, national testimony against the
gods of Egypt. No wonder their oppressors took
it away. And when God came down to deliver, no
wonder that, as a means to its end, or as involving
the question of their religious and civil freedom, this
became the great question at issue.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ARGUMENT RECAPITULATED AND CLOSED.
Suppose we now briefly review the ground over
which we have passed. We have shown that in the
first mention of the Sabbath, (Gen. ii. 2, 3,) there is
every thing to prove that it was instituted at creation,
the time specified, and was as truly one of the great
permanent arrangements established for the race, as
was the marriage institution, or any of the other ar-
rangements then first brought into being. We have
shown that the argument from geology is without
force ; that fi*om Adam to Moses, there is every allu-
sion to, and mention of, its existence and observance,
which, in such and so short a history, ought to be ex-
pected ; that in the deliverance from Egypt, consid-
ered as a means to its appropriate end, it, with its
connected privileges and rights, was the great ques-
tion at issue, and the very reason of the deliverance ;
that it was not originally given as a memorial of that
deliverance, nor in the wilderness ; that the fact of
God's not having made the same covenant with the
fathers, as with those he brought out of Egypt, no
more proves that the fathers had not the Sabbath,
with the law of its observance, than that they were
without every other command of the decalogue ; and,
finally, that the observance of the Sabbath, as a stand-
ing ordinance, became a sign between Jehovah and
THE SABBATH IN THE DECALOGUE. 83
the Hebrews only by virtue of its connection with
creation, as a memorial of that event ; and, therefore,
that the fact of its being such a sign only proves it to
have existed from the first, and to have come down,
from age to age, as, every where and at all times, the
same great distinctive badge of the worshippers of
Jehovah. In prosecuting the argument, I remark,
2. The Sabbath is spoken of in the decalogue as
an institution previously existing, and is there, as well
as in the prophets, incorporated with other laws ad-
mitted to be of original and ceaseless obligation.
Without expanding the argument, I observe, (1.) It
is the only law of the ten, that is claimed to be
merely Jewish. (2.) It is a part of that code which
the Savior declared (Matt. v. 17, 18) should never
pass away. (3.) It is coupled often (e. g. Is. Iviii.)
with the doing of justice and judgment, and letting
the oppressed go free — duties which all admit to be
of unchanging and ceaseless obligation. (4.) The
term " Remember " is indicative of its preexistence.
But without laying stress upon the mere phraseology,
if the law, " Thou shalt not steal," was evidence of
preexisting rights of property, and not of the original
institution of those rights ; if the law, " Thou shalt
not commit adultery," argued with equal clearness a
preexisting marriage institution, with its conjugal and
filial relations, and not their original establishment ;
and so of the other laws of the decalogue, if their
grand object was, as is admitted, not to institute their
respective rights and institutions as new, but only to
guard them as old and permanent ones, why must
not the same be true of the law of the Sabbath ?
3. Ancient testimony confirms the doctrine of the
84 THE SABBATH
institution of the Sabbath at creation. Writers, some
of whom lived more than a thousand years before
the Christian era, speak of the division of time into
weeks, and of the special observance of the seventh
day of the week, as a season for diversions or the
offering of sacrifices to their gods, as facts existing
among various heathen nations. The following is a
specimen of their testimony : —
Homer says, "Afterwards came the seventh, the sacred
day."
Hesiod says, "The seventh day is holy."
Callimaclius speaks of the seventh day as holy.
Lucian says, " The seventh day is given to school-boya
as a holiday."
Porphyry says, *• The Phenicians consecrated one day in
seven as holy."
Josephus says, " There is no city, either of Greeks or
barbarians, or any other nation, where the religion of the
Sabbath is not known."
Grotius says, " That the memory of the creation being
performed in seven days, was preserved not only among
the Greeks and Italians, but among the Celts and Indians,
all of whom divided their time into weeks."
Eusehius says, " Almost all the philosophers and poets
acknowledge the seventh day as holy."
Similar testimonies might be added, showing that a
division of time into weeks obtained also among the As-
syrians, Egyptians, Romans, Gauls, Britons, and Ger-
mans. Now, situated as many of these nations were in
respect to the Jews, and prevailing as the customs in
question did at so early a period among them, it is
manifest that they could not have been derived from
^4r
>i>^;n^
PN ITS ORIGINAL DESIGN.
'&. #'i?.
the Jews after the time of Moses. They must have
had an earlier origin. Besides, is it supposable that all
these nations, if they had the opportunity, would have
copied the custom from the hated Jews ? Never. •
The only rational solution is this — that the Sabbath
was instituted at creation ; that with it began the
division of time into weeks ; that as men multiplied,
and fell off to the worship of idols, they still carried
with them, from age to age, this septenary division of
time, and, to a greater or less extent, a perverted ob-
sei-vance of the seventh day itself. When, therefore,
we find this division of time among the nations, and
the seventh day itself in some cases a special holi-
day for the children, and in others a season for offer-
ings and feasts to idols, we have in these facts the
relics and the perverted observances of an institution
established at creation, observed by the patriarchs,
transmitted by them to the nations, and, in its wnper-
verted observance, designed to be a badge in all time
of the worshippers of Jehovah as the only true God.
4. The original design of the Sabbath makes it
equally manifest that it was instituted at creation,
and is perpetually binding. This design is three-
fold : — (1.) to commemorate the fact of creation by Je-
hovah ; (2.) to afford a period of needful rest to man
and beast from the ordinary labors of life ; and, (3.) to
afford an opportunity for spiritual instruction, im-
provement, and worship. That these three elements
entered originally into the very nature and design of
the Sabbath, is obvious from what has already been
said. It was (Gen. ii. 2, 3, and Ex. xx. 11) because
the Lord made the world in six days, and rested on
the seventh, that he blessed and hallowed, or set it
8
86 THE SABBATH
apart as a season of religious rest and worship. It
was that their children, strangers, servants, and
beasts, (Deut. v. 14,) "might rest as well as they,"
and (Ex. xxiii. 12) " be refreshed," that the Hebrews
were strictly enjoined to keep the Sabbath, and (Ex.
XX. 10) "not do any work" thereon. And the whole
arrangement together was, that parent, child, servant,
and stranger, might alike enjoy a season of religious
rest, improvement, and worship. As a memorial of
creation by Jehovah, its standing obsei*vance was a
standing testimony that the world was made by him,
and not by idols ; that he, therefore, was the only true
God, and that those who observed the day were his
worshippers. It thus chronicled the true origin of
the world, and was, in its very nature, a distinctive
badge of the worshippers of Jehovah. As affording
a period of rest from the ordinary labors of life, the
standing observance of the Sabbath was a standing
provision to meet those physical necessities of man
and beast, which are not met by the return of day
and night. As affording a period, set apart, sacredly,
to spiritiml instruction, improvement, and worship, it was
just such a standing provision as the case required
to meet the demands of man's spiritual being. In
either aspect of its design, then, that design proves
conclusively that the Sabbath was instituted at crea-
tion, and that, in all its sacredness of obligation, it is
to live and be binding on man while man lives on
earth. If, as a chronicler of creation, and a badge of
faith to distinguish the worshippers of Jehovah from
those of idols, there was a reason for the Sabbath in
the time of Moses, that reason is equally valid for
its establishment at creation, and its continuance,
IN ITS ORIGINAL DESIGN. 87
as an institution, to the end of time. If, as a season
of rest and worship, to meet the demands of man's
physical and spiritual being, there was a reason for
it then, that reason had equal force from the begin-
ning, and will have to the end of time — as long as
man remains man. Take which aspect of its design
you will, and in each and all of them you can find
no period of man's existence, from the creation on-
ward, in which the reason for the Sabbath, growing
out of its design, has not existed, and will not con-
tinue to exist, in full and unabated force. What, then,
is the inference ? Just what it is in respect to the
marriage institution and the laws of its observance.
Just what it is in respect to the rights of property,
person, and life, and the laws of their observance —
manente ratione, manet ipsa lex — the reason of the law
remaining, the law itself remains. Or, to suit the
maxim to the case, the reason for the law existing
always, the law itself exists always, and, beginning
therefore with the race, exists for the race, and is to
end only with the race, in its present state of being.
Such is the conclusion of sound philosophy and
common sense.
5. I obsei*ve, then, finally, that there is a permanent
demand for the Sabbath, in the nature, relations, and ne-
cessities of man ; and, therefore, a demand for its in-
stitution at creation, and its continuance to the end
of time. The argument might be expanded at great
length. My design, however, requires brevity. I
remark, then,
(1.) Experience shows that the Sabbath is de-
manded by the physical necessities of man. It proves
that men, and all laboring animals, whether their
88 THE SABBATH DEMANDED
labor be mental or bodily, or both, need at least one
day in seven for rest from their ordinary labors —
that they will live longer and do more, in the same
period, with it than without it. Two testimonies, as
specimens of a thousand similar ones, must suffice.
On the 22d of June, 1839, A Committee on Vice and
Immorality, of the Pennsylvania Legislature, made a
report relative to the suspension of labor on the pub-
lic improvements in that state, on the Sabbath. The
committee refer to certain petitions that had been re-
ceived on the subject, and say, —
"They (the petitioners) assert, as the result of their
own experience, that both man and beast can do more
work by resting one day in seven, than by working the
whole seven; and your committee feel free to confess
that their experience as farmers, business men, or legisla-
tors, corresponds with the assertion."
In the year 1838, Dr. Parre, an eminent physician
in London, of forty years' practice, gave the following
testimony before a committee of the British par-
liament : —
" The use of the Sabbath, medically speaking, is that of
a day of rest. It is a day of compensation for the inade-
quate restorative power of the body under continual labor
and excitement. A physician always has respect to the
restorative power, because, if once this be lost, his healing
office is at an end. The ordinary exertions of man run
down the circulation every day of his life ; and the first
general law of nature, by which God prevents man from
destroying himself, is the alternating of day with night,
that repose may succeed action. But though night ap-
BY MAN'S PHYSICAL NECESSITIES. 09
parently equalizes the circulation well, yet it does not
sufficiently restore its balance for the attainment of a long
life. Hence one day in seven, by the bounty of Provi-
dence, is thrown in as a day of compensation, to perfect,
by its repose, the animal system. The Sabbatical institu-
tion is not simply a precept partaking of the nature of a
political institution, but it is to be numbered among the
natural duties, if the preservation of life be admitted to be
a duty, and the premature destruction of it a suicidal act.
This is said simply as a physician, without any respect
at all to the theological question. I have found it essen-
tial to my own well-being, as a medieval man, to abridge
my labors on the Sabbath to what is actually necessary.
I have frequently observed the premature death of physi-
cians from continued exertion. In warm climates, and in
active service, this is painfully apparent. I have advised
the clergyman, in lieu of his Sabbath, to rest one day in
the week; it forms a continual prescription of mine. I
have seen many destroyed by their duties on that day. T
would say, further, that, quitting the grosser evils of mere
animal living from over-stimulation, and undue exercise
of body, the working of the mind in one continual train
of thought, is the destruction of life in the most distin-
guished classes of society, and that senators themselves
need reform in that respect. I have seen many of them
destroyed by neglecting this economy of life."
(2.) Experience shows that the Sabbath is demand-
ed, in like manner, by the moral necessities of man.
Man is naturally a religious being, and, as such, ever
has had, and ever will have, some object of religious
respect and reverence. If he do not worship and
adore the true God, the very elements of his being
drive him to some false god. Skeptics may deny
this ; but in the very homage they themselves occa-
8*
90
THE SABBATH DEMANDED
sionally or annually pay to the bones or the birthday
of some sainted unbeliever, they are a proof to them-
selves, that man w^as unade to reverence and worship
some superior; that such homage and vrorship are
among the native elements of his being ; and that adore
and worship some God, true or false, he always must
and will. Of course religious instruction, improve-
ment, and worship, of some kind, are among the per-
manent and ceaseless demands of his being. These
he must have, and these, true or false, he will have.
But he cannot have them without occasional or stated
times for it.
Moreover, man is also naturally a social being. The
social in his nature is indeed one of its most powerful
elements. You can never instruct, elevate, and fire,
the man more effectually than when you take advan-
tage of the social within him. Religious instruction,
improvement, and worship, then, to address themselves
to the whole man, and be most effective, must be of a
pubhc and social character, as well as private. Of
course there must be public assemblies — "not for-
saking the assembling of yourselves together, as the
manner of some is." And these, that people may
know when to come together, must be held at stated
and regular times. In the social and the religious of
man, then, we have a permanent and ceaseless demand
for the regular social opportunities and privileges of
the Sabbath. Wherever this demand is met by the
existence and due observance of the Sabbath, we
ought to expect, as its legitimate result, the highest
condition of spiritual improvement and welfare. And,
on the other hand, without any such anticipation, if
we find, as the result of actual experience, that where
BY man's moral necessities. 91
the Sabbath does exist, and is truly observed, man's
spiritual welfare is most effectually promoted, we have
in that fact the proof that there is such a demand in
the very nature and necessities of his being. For if
the demand do not exist, — if it do not lie imbedded in
the very nature of man, and the laws oT his being, —
then the Sabbath, with its opportunities and obser-
vances, must conflict with that nature, and do violence
to those laws, and, doing so, must injure rather than
benefit man, and make him worse instead of better.
What, then, are the facts? Is the moral and spirit-
ual condition of those communities where there is no
Sabbath, or only a perverted one, in advance of those
where there is one, and one observed according to its
true spirit and intent ? Let universal experience an-
swer. Are those individuals who truly keep the Sab-
bath in a worse spiritual condition than those who do
not ? Are they less ready to do good to the bodies
and souls of then* fellow-men ? When Great Britain
gave freedom to eight hundred thousand slaves, was
it the Sabbath or the anti-Sabbath men that roused
her to that deed of mercy, and compelled her to carry
it through ? Was it the Sabbath or the anti-Sabbath
men that originated and that now sustain the great
work of missions among the heathen, and indeed
among the destitute at home ? The mission at the
Sandwich Islands has converted a heathen to a Chris-
tian people. It is, moreover, so far as the missionaries
are concerned, an anti-slaveiy mission. What no-
Sabbath man, since he became such, ever has, or ever
intends to lift a finger for its support ? Or, if the plea
be, that such support cannot be rendered without
lending a sanction to the coiTupt channels through
9Sf THE SABBATH DEMANDED
which that mission now receives support, then where
are the missions, at home or abroad, originated and sus-
tained by no-Sabbath men themselves ? Nay, among
all the religious visits ever made, and all the great re-
forms ever attempted, by no-Sabbath men or women,
when or where has one of them ever made a religious
visit to a heathen community, or attempted a reform on
heathen ground ? And where are the regenerated and
disinthralled communities that have sprung into being
as the result of such labors of love ? The command of
the Savior, " Go ye into all the world, and preach the
gospel to every creature," has been as distinctly before,
and as imperiously, binding on them as on others.
Yet when and where have they even begun or at-
tempted to obey it, in respect to the entire heathen
world ? The History of Missions, I believe, has yet
to chronicle the event.
Or to vary the test, man, according to the Scriptures,
is " dead in trespasses and sins." To be saved he "must
be born again." Now, whatever may be the views
of different individuals in regard to the nature of this
new birth, all agree that it is such a spiritual renova-
tion as inspires the man with habitual respect, rever-
ence, and affection for God; such as reclaims the
vicious, reforms the intemperate, and makes the indo-
lent industrious, and the dishonest honest. To effect
it is therefore the best thing that can be done for the
spiritual well-being of man, either here or hereafter.
Now, there are not a few of the believers in the Sab-
bath who can point to their own labors and instruc-
tions on that day as the means of thus renovating and
reclaiming their fellow-men. They can point you to
individuals, in instances not a few, who will stand up
BY man's moral necessities. 93
as " brands plucked from the burning," and as " living
epistles known and read of all men," and testify be-
fore all to the healthful and reclaiming influence of
the Sabbath. Yes, there are thousands on thousands
in this land who owe to the Sabbath, with its precious
privileges and instructions, all that they are of charac-
ter and of destiny, both for this world and for that
to come, and who, if called upon, would so testify.
Where, now, are the individuals that have been so
renovated and reclaimed by men of the other views ?
Where are the debauchees, and the profligates, and the
swearers, and the gamblers, and the thieves, and the
liars, and the drmikards, once " dead in trespasses and
sins," but now "born again" and reclaimed, and
ready to stand up and testify that they have been
plucked from ruin by the no-Sabbath men and the
no-Sabbath views ? Are the men — is the man so
renovated and reclaimed to be found? I, at least,
have yet to see him.
Or, passing from their disposition to do good to
others, suppose we examine the spiritual condition
of the men themselves. Are they who believe in
and keep the Sabbath, more disposed than others to
evil, more bent upon their own indulgence, more
reckless of their neighbors' rights, reputation, and
property, — in a word, more bold and frequent in the
commission of crimes, that war upon society, and set
human and divine law alike at defiance? Let us
hear the witnesses.
Sir Matthew Hale said, " That of the persons who
were convicted of capital crimes while he was on the
bench, he found only a few who would not confess
that they began their career of wickedness by a neg-
94 THE SABBATH DEMANDED
lect of the duties of the Sabbath, and by vicious con-
duct on that day."
In 1838, before the committee of the British parlia-
ment, the Rev. David Ruel, who had been twenty-eight
years chaplain of prisons in London, and who had
had, on a low calculation, one hundred thousand
prisoners under his care, testified as follows : — " I do
not recollect a single case of capital offence where
the party has not been a Sabbath-breaker ; and in
many cases, they have assured me that Sabbath-
breaking was the first step in the course of crime.
Indeed, I may say, in reference to prisoners of all
classes, that in nineteen cases out of twenty, they are
persons who not only neglected the Sabbath, but all
the other ordinances of religion."
Such testimony might be multiplied to any extent.
What does it prove ? Obviously, that there is that
in the Sabbath and its right observance which just
meets the physical and spiritual necessities of man,
and which, because it meets these demands of Ms being,
makes it a most effectual promoter of his physical
and spiritual welfare. And what is this but saying,
in other terms, that there is, in the very nature, re-
lations, and necessities of man, a permanent and
ceaseless demand for the Sabbath ? And now, with
this demand distinctly before him, and with a heart
always intent on man's best good, is it to be believed,
that God did not provide for meeting it by the insti-
tution of the Sabbath at the outset, or that he does
not mean to provide for it in future by its continu-
ance to the end of time ? By no means. The truth
is, the Sabbath, as an institution, — not the particular
day of its observance, — is as really founded in the
BY man's moral necessities. 95
nature and relations of man, and grows as naturally
out of his physical and moral necessities, as does that
of marriage. Both must have had their origin with
the race, and must be equally designed to continue,
while the race does in its present state of being.
Indeed, the laws of their observance, as we have
seen, no less than those which guard the rights of
conscience, property, person, and life, are equally a
part of the common law of man, and, as such, bind-
ing on all, m all time. Can it be doubted, then, that
the Sabbath, as an institution, is perpetually binding ?
CHANGE OF THE DAY.
CHAPTER IX.
STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION, AND PRELIMI-
NARY REMARKS.
We are now prepared to prosecute the second ques-
tion at issue in this discussion — viz. Has any particular
day been set apart, by divine appointment, for the obser-
vance of the Sabbath, and if so, what day ?
All agree that, originally, the seventh day of the
week was so set apart. But from some cause the
Cliristian world has generally fallen away from the
observance of the seventh to that of the first. The
question, therefore, practically assumes this form —
viz. Has the first day of the week been set apart, by divine
appointment, to be observed, in place of the seventh, as tlie
Sabbath f Has God authoiized the change") That he
has, I shall attempt to prove. Before doing so, how-
ever, I wish to make a few preliminary remarks.
And,
1. The change of the day is a question entirely
distinct from that of the perpetual obligation of the
Sabbath as an institution. The day selected for its
observance may remain the same or be changed. And
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 97
SO may the mode of its observance — provided only that
its true intent and great end be preserved. But wheth-
er changed or not, is one question. Whether there is
such an institution perpetually existing and perpetually
binding on all, is another. And the two questions are
entirely distinct, the one from the other. Therefore,
2, If God has not authorized a change of the day
from the seventh to the first, then the seventh is the
Sabbath, and is to be kept as such. Should we fail in
our proof of a divine warrant for the change, it will
not follow that there is no Sabbath. It will only fol-
low that the seventh day of the week is to be kept as
Sabbath instead of the first. You must admit the
change, and keep the first day of the week as Sabbath,
with all the sacredness of original obligation, or go
back to the seventh, and keep that. Change or no
change, the Sabbath, as an institution, remains the
same, the law of its observance as sacredly binding as
ever, and the man who breaks it as palpable a violator
of the divine command. Decide the question of the
day, then, as you will, the institution and the obligation
to keep it remain. If you reject the first, you are shut
up to the seventh as your Sabbath. In either event,
you are cut off from no-Sabbathism, and are bound to
observe one day or the other, or rank yourself a vio-
lator of divine command.
3. If God has authorized a change of day, that does
not change or obliterate the obligation to keep it holy
to the Lord. Be " Sabbath-day " the seventh or the
first, the obligation, " Remember the Sabbath-day to
keep it holy," is the same — applying equally to the one
as to the other. In other terms, there is a plain dis-
tinction between the Sabbath, as an institution, and the
9
9® CHANGE OF THE DAY.
particular day selected for its obsei-vance. This is ob-
vious from what has been said. Besides, but for such
distinction, the command must run, " Remember the
seventh day," &c. — thus making the institution and
the day identical ; or, at least, laying as much stress on
the one as on the other. But the form of phraseology
now is, "Remember the Sabhath-day to keep it holy."
Here we have the sum total of the command, but not
a word yet in respect to the particular day of the week,
which is " Sabbath-day." And it is only as God pro-
ceeds to direct how it is to be kept, that we learn what
the particular day is ; and then the specification comes
in only incidentally, or as a matter of course. No
stress is laid upon the particular day of the week, as
if that were vital to the institution. The great burden
of the injunction is, to keep ^' Sabbath-day^^ holy? be it
what day of the week it may; and the great object of
the specification is, to show what is meant by so keep-
ing it, not to point out or lay stress upon the par-
ticular day, as if that, rather than some other, were
essential to the existence of the institution itself Of
course, a change of the day can make no change in
the institution itself, or in the obligation to keep it.
These, in all essentials, remain the same — perpetually
existing and perpetually binding, whatever the changes
which God may authorize in respect to the time or
mode of their observance. Indeed,
4. The Sabbath, as an institution, cannot be abro-
gated. Founded as it is, like the marriage institution,
in the nature, relations, and necessities of man, God
can no more abrogate it, and the law of its obsei*vance,
than he can that of marriage, with its conjugal and
filial relations, and the laws of their observance. Both
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 99
Stand upon the same footing. Both grow aUke out of
man's nature, relations, and necessities. Both are
equally the ceaseless demand of his being. The laws
of their observance, as we have seen, ai'e equally a part
of universal common law. They are alike, in precept
and in penalty, the intrenchments of the Almighty,
thrown around their respective institutions for their
sacred observance and ceaseless perpetuity. In these,
therefore, there can, in the nature of things, be no
change. The institutions, and the obligation to ob-
serve them, m their general scope and spirit, must
stand to the end of time. But,
5. While no change can take place in the Sabbath,
as an institution, or in the obligation to observe it, God
may, and we shoidd naturally expect that he would,
regulate the time and manner of its observance ; that
he would select such a day, and direct it to be kept in
such manner as to make it best answer its great de-
sign as a season of religious rest, improvement, and
worship. Such selection of the day is of course of the
nature of a positive institution, and is subject, like every
thing else of that nature, to change or abrogation,
whenever there are good and sufficient reasons for it.
Therefore,
6. Whenever such reasons exist, we should expect
the change as a matter of course. Certain reasons
determined the selection, at the outset, of the seventh
as " Sabbath-day." If, now, in the course of events,
other and superior reasons come into existence, in fa- ^
vor of the selection of the first in place of the seventh,
a change of day is of course to be expected. Indeed,
the reasons for such change existing, we have in that
fact not only a warrant for expecting it, but presump-
tive evidence that it has actually been made.
100 CHANGE OF THE DAY.
7. If any change in the day has been made, it was
made, as all admit, by Jesus Christ, or by his au-
thority.
8. Christ had the right to change it, if he saw fit.
(1.) He claimed such right. On a certain occasion,
(Mark ii. 23 — 28,) the Pharisees complained of the dis-
ciples as Sabbath- breakers, because, in going through
the cornfields on the Sabbath, they had plucked and
eaten some of the ears. Christ justified them, not by
asserting that there was, or was to be, no Sabbath,
but by showing that what they did was not a violation
of it, according to its original and true intent His
argument was. First, they have only done a work of
necessity and mercy, and such a work, like David's
eating the show-bread, is perfectly lawful on the Sab-
bath. For, Second, the Sabbath was never meant to
exclude such works. "The Sabbath was made for
{dia ton, for the sake of) man, and not man for (dia to,
for the sake of) the Sabbath." Man was made first, and
then the Sabbath made to fit him, and subserve his
welfare, and not the Sabbath first, and he made to fit
and subserve it. Its grand design, then, is to meet
man's necessities, not to set them aside, or to meet one
class of them at the expense of another. It assumes
that the lower and ordinary demands of his being for
necessai-y food and raiment are met ; and it then comes
in, not to set these aside, but to meet other demands,
and especially the higher and holier ones of his spiritual
existence. In a word, it was meant to bless the whole
man, and man eveiy where. Moreover, (Matt. xii. 6 — 8,)
"I say unto you, that in this place is one greater than
the temple. And if ye had known what this meaneth,
J will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have
condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man," the
niELIMINARY REMARKS. 101
Master of these whom you so unjustly accuse, "is
Lord even of the Sabbath-day," and, as such, can au-
thorize them to pluck the corn to satisfy their hunger,
even if, as it is not, it were unlawful to do so without
it. As Lord of the Sabbath, I have and claim the right
to regulate its obsei*vance. So that, in either case, my
disciples are not violators of the Sabbath. Such, plain-
ly, was the drift of his argument. But a right, as Lord
of the Sabbath, to regulate its observance, is plainly a
right, for good and sufficient reasons, to change the
day, or make any other change in respect to it, not in-
compatible with its continued existence and obliga-
tion.
Besides, (2.) It was Chist, wJw, as Creator of the
world, originally instituted the Sabbath, and selected
the seventh as the day for its observance. This is ob-
vious from several passages of Scripture. In Heb. i.
10, God is represented as saying to the Son, " Thou,
Lord, in the beginning, hast laid the foundation of the
earth ; and the heavens are the works of thine hands."
See also v. 2 — " by whom also he made the worlds."
The apostle John declares, (John i. 3,) " All things
were made by him; and without him was not any
thing made that was made." Here we have it, in as
distinct terms as possible, that Jesus Christ was the
Creator of the world. Whether he did this with de-
rived or underived power, as the inferior or the equal
of the Father, alters not the fact that he did it. It was
therefore he, who, as Creator, rested from the work of
creation on the seventh day, and because he so rested,
afterwards set it apart as a day of religious rest and
worship for man. As Creator, then, he was original
Lord of the Sabbath. He selected the day for its ob-
9 *
102 CHANGE OF THE DAY.
servance in the beginning. Of course his right is per-
fect, for good and sufficient reasons, to select another
day. And if he has done it, or authorized it to be
done, it has been done by divine authority — by the
same authority, in fact, which originally selected the
seventh day.
9. The change which has actually taken place,
(whether authorized or not remains to be seen,) is just
such a one as the case allows, and as we should expect
in the event of any change. It leaves the nature, de-
sign, and obligation of the Sabbath as a day of religious
rest, improvement, and worship, the same as they were
before. It makes no change in the office of the Sab-
bath as a " 52^71 " between God and his people, except
to enhance its significancy. In its true and hearty
obseiTance, the Sabbath is as distinctive a badge of
God's people now as it ever was. The change in the
day of its observance, then, is only a change of its char-
acter as a memorial — it being now a memorial of
Christ's work of redemption, instead of his work of
creation. This is just such a change as the case al-
lows, and as we should expect in the event of any. It
can take place without affecting at all the existence
and perpetuity of the Sabbath as an institution. That
remains the same.
10. The nature of the case demands just such a
change as has actually taken place, and is so far pre-
sumptive evidence of its having taken place by divine
authority. For, the reason for such change existing,
why should not God authorize it ? The Sabbath was
originally a memorial of creation. But the work of
redemption is one of a vastly higher chai-acter and
greater importance, inasmuch as it looks more directly
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 103
to the well-being of the soul, and is fitted to add higher
glory to the Godhead. So the Bible regards it. Hence,
in comparing the one with the other, it predicts a time
when creation shall be comparatively forgotten in the
superior glories of redemption. "Behold," (Isa. Ixv.
17,) "1 create new heavens and a new earth ; and the
former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind."
Here, then, in this fact we have a reason demanding
the change in question. As a memorial of creation
completed, the seventh was the appropriate day. But
in redemption completed we have a work of superior
greatness and glory. Why should it not be chronicled
by its appropriate day ? Plainly the demand for it is
of greater force than was that for the original selection
of the seventh. Is it to be supposed that God has met
the demand in the one case, and not in the other?
By no means.
CHAPTER X.
NATURE OF THE ARGUMENT FOR A CHANGE OF
THE DAY.
We are now prepared to prosecute the inquiry
whether Christ made or authorized a change of the
Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week.
Great stress is usually laid here upon the produc-
tion of some express precept, declaring in so many
terms that Christ made or authorized the change.
"Give us your text" — "give us your text" — "To
the law and to the testimony," is the confident and
supposed unanswerable demand.
True, the question is purely one of fact, and, as
such, is to be authoritatively settled only by an ap-
peal " to the law and to the testimony." But the ab-
sence of a text of the kind demanded, does by no
means prove, that the evidence of the law or the tes-
timony is wanting. Moreover, if the evidence of the
law were wanting, that of the testimony, if clear,
would be conclusive. In conducting the appeal, then,
"to the law and to the testimony," there are three
forms of the argument, either of which is conclusive
of the fact of the change, and of a divine warrant
for it.
(1.) If we find an express precept declaring the
change made or authorized, we have " the law." If
NATURE OF THE ARGUMENT. 1Q5
we then find, in the history of Christ and his early
disciples, distinct traces of a corresponding practice,
we have " the testimony ; " and in the two united, we
have the evidence of" law and testimony." (2.) If we
find an express precept affirming the right to change
the day, we have "the law." If, then, we find actual
traces of such a change in the conduct of those who
had this right, we have " the testimony ; " and in the
two united we have the evidence again of " law and
testimony" both. And, (3.) if we can find no express
precept of either kind, yet if we can trace the fact of
the actual change, through witness after witness, from
the present time up to the primitive Christians and
the apostles themselves, we have, then, the evidence
of" the testimony ; " and in the character of the apos-
tles and early disciples, we have the proof indispu-
table that such a change was never made by them
without the authority of their Master for it. And in
this way, too, we get, in the end, the evidence of" law
and testimony " both. " To the law and to the testi-
mony," then, be our appeal.
That we have a precept or a passage saying, in so
many terms, that Christ or the apostles made the
change in question, is not pretended. No more have
we a passage saying, in so many terms, that men are
moral agents, or that they have equal rights, or that
slave-holding, slave-trading, spirit-dealing, and the like,
are wicked. Are these things therefore not wicked ?
Are men machines, and not endowed with equal
rights? By no means. The mere want of a passage
of the kind proves nothing. There may be other
proof as conclusive as that of such a passage. The
106 CHANGE OP THE DAY.
first form of the appeal " to the law and to the testi-
mony " is not, therefore, vital to the argument.
The third form of it, though satisfactory, has less
force than the second, and is so obvious that it does
not need expansion. It is simply this — the first day
of the w^eek has been observed as Sabbath from the
apostolic age. This is proved by authentic history.
There is no evidence any where that its observance
in the ages immediately succeeding the apostolic, was
an innovation on apostoHc and primitive custom.
The necessary conclusion is, that it was so observed
by the apostles and first disciples themselves. But
they were so scrupulous of the commands of their
Lord, that they would never have set up such obser-
vance of the day, except on his permission or by his
authority. Dismissing the first and third forms of the
appeal, then, here, we rest the argument on the second.
CHAPTER XI.
CHRIST'S SANCTION OF THE SABBATH AND ITS
CHANGE.
Under the second form of the appeal " to the law
and to the testimony," the first witness that we pro-
pose to examine is the Lord Jesus Christ. What ia
the evidence of the law and the testimony in his
case?
1. Christ had and claimed the right to regulate
generally the observance of the Sabbath. This we
have already seen. " The Son of man is Lord even
of the Sabbath-day." But this right of regulation
generally was of course a right to change the day, if
he saw fit. Here, then, we have " the law." Christ's
example, or actual conduct, will give us his "testi-
mony." I remark, then,
2. Christ's example, as Lord of the Sabbath, is
proof that it was no part of his design to abolish the
Sabbath, but to restore it to its original and true in-
tent, and to change the day of its observance, so as to
make it commemorative of his work of redemption.
AVhat was that example ? Answer — Before his death
and resurrection, i. e. up to the period of the full intro-
duction of the gospel dispensation, he carefully ob-
served the seventh day as the Sabbath. After that
period, beginning with the resurrection itself, he
108 THE SABBATH.
specially honored the first day of the week, as the
religious day for his disciples.
(1.) That he so honored the seventh day is most
manifest. Before the gospel dispensation was fully
introduced, it became him (Matt. iii. 15) " to fulfil all
righteousness" according to the law of Moses. Hence
he was circumcised, and submitted to other ceremo-
nial observances which were then in force. Of course
he would not fail to keep the seventh day as Sabbath.
Hence various occasions are mentioned in the evan-
gelists upon which he attended the regular worship
of God in the synagogues on the Sabbath — thus dis-
charging the chief duty of the day. Indeed, we learn,
(Luke iv. 16 ; comp. also v. 31,) that " he came to Naza-
reth, where he had been brought up, and, as his custom
waSf he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day,
and stood up for to read." This is decisive of his
observance of the Sabbath ; and also of the fact, that
it was not an occasional matter merely, but his regu-
lar habit. And tliis continued, for aught that appears,
to the day of his death.
Moreover, when accused, as he frequently was, of
violating the Sabbath, he never plead in vindication,
that, as Lord of the Sabbath, he was about to set it
aside, and make all days aUke, and that therefore he
might do the things alleged with impunity. Not a
word of this. On the contrary, his plea always was,
that, according to its original and true intent, the
things done were not a violation of tlie day. He al-
ways plead to his innocence of the charge, but never
based that plea on the ground that, as Lord of the
Sabbath, he was about to abrogate it. Nor, indeed, did
he ever, in any connection, give a hint of such abro-
Christ's sanction. 109
gation. But how could this be, if abrogation were
his design ? With the question fairly brought to the
issue, as it repeatedly was by the charges of Sabbath-
breaking preferred against him, how, if abrogation
were his design, could he fail to meet it by saying so ?
Was he wont to cover up designs and dodge ques-
tions thus ?
Objection. But, if the Savior, it is urged, was thus
observant of the Sabbath, and meant to perpetuate it
under the gospel dispensation, how happens it that
he was so constantly in trouble with the Jews for
breaking it, and that he never enjoined its observance
upon them ?
The Answer is obvious ; and will make it still more
apparent, that the abrogation of the Sabbath was no
part of Christ's design. W^ell (Matt. xv. 6—9) did
Isaiah prophesy of the Jews at this period, "This
people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and
honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far
from me. And in vain do they worship me, teaching
for doctrines the commandments of men." Their
whole religion had become one of mere external ob-
servances. Hence they had lost sight of the real
scope and spirit of almost every command of God,
and, in multiplied instances, (v. 6,) had " made the com-
mandment of God of none effect " by their " traditions "
touching the manner of its observance. This was
preeminently true in respect to the Sabbath. Thus,
in respect to the prohibition of work on the Sabbath,
the rabbinical doctors divided works into principal
and secondary. Each principal work had its long
list of secondary ones under it, the doing of any of
which was a violation of the Sabbath. Thus, to
10
110 THE SABBATH.
grind was a principal work. All dividing of things
before united in their nature came under this head.
The rubbing of the ears of corn was, of course, ac-
cording to this tradition, a violation of the Sabbath.
In this way the doctors enumerated some thirty-nine
principal works, with their subordinates.* The first
eight of them were sowing, ploughing, reaping,
binding, threshing, winnowing, cleaning, grinding.*
Among the jDarticular things which might or might
not be done, were the following: A man might not
thresh — therefore he might not walk on the grass,
which was a kind of threshing. A man might not
hunt on the Sabbath — therefore he might not catch
a flea while it hops about, as that would be a kind of
hunting. Again, he might not carry burdens on the
Sabbath. Accordingly, though he might fill a trough
with water that his beasts might come and drink, he
might not carry it to the place where they were. Of
course, the poor man that carried his bed, after he
was healed, was a Sabbath-breaker. Equally unlaw-
ful was it, according to some of the rabbins, to heal
or minister to the sick on the Sabbath. A man with
a diseased eye, might plaster it on the Sabbath, for
the sake of ease and pleasure, but not for the purpose
of healing.f And the decision of the school of
Shammai was, " Let no one console the sick or visit
the mourning on the Sabbath-day." | Of course, the
Jews watched Jesus to see whether he would heal
on the Sabbath, and charged him with breaking it,
when he did so. It is most obvious, then, that the
* Townsend's Notes, vol. ii. p. 86.
t Gurney, on the Sabbath, pp. 59, 60.
\ TowjQsend's Notes, vol. ii. p. 87.
Christ's sanction. Ill
Jews, at that time, had lost sight of the true spiritual
and original intent of the Sahbath. It is equally
clear, that just in proportion as they had done so,
they had become strict, scrupulous, and superstitious,
in respect to its external observance. Indeed, to
such lengths did they go in this strictness, that,
(1 Mace, ii, 34 — 38,) when Antiochus Epiphanes op-
pressed Jerusalem, B. C. 168, a thousand Jews, who
had fled to the wilderness, allowed themselves to be
cut to pieces; solely because their enemy attacked
them on the Sabbath. And afterwards, though self-
defence in case of actual assault was allowed, it was
not deemed lawful to do any thing on that day to
impede an enemy's works. Hence, when Pompey, the
Roman general, at a later period, besieged Jerusalem,
he occupied the Sabbath in erecting his works for
assault, and, when they were completed, very readily
took the city.* Indeed, even the devout women, that
followed Christ to the cross, and thence to the sep-
ulchre, (Luke xxiii. 56,) "returned, and prepared
spices and ointments, and rested the Sabbath-da}'',
according to the commandment" Nor was it until
(Luke xxiv. 1 — 3) the first day of the week had
dawned, that they presumed to revisit "the sepul-
* Josephus (Antiq. b. 14, c. 4, sec. 2, 3) says, " Though our
laws give us leave, then, (on the Sabbath,) to defend ourselves
against those that begin to fight with us, and assault us, yet they
do not permit us to meddle with our enemies while they do any
thing 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 batde with them, but raised up their
earthen banks, and brought their engines into such forwardness
that they might do execution the following days.*'
112 THE SiiBBATEf.
chre, bringing the spices which they had prepared "
for embalming their Lord. Nay, the very Jews who
were ready to imbrue their hands in the blood of in-
nocence, and had actually done it in effecting the
crucifixion of Christ, were yet so scrupulous in their
observance of the Sabbath, that they would not on
any account take the dead bodies of himself and the
thieves down from the cross on that day. Hence
they besought Pilate (John xix. 31) to hasten and
insure their death by breaking their legs, so that they
might be taken away before it.
These facts furnish a complete and satisfactory
answer to the objection before us. Christ did not
reenjoin it upon the Jew to keep the Sabbath.
Why ? Because no such injunction was needed.
The time had not come to enjoin the keeping of the
first day as Sabbath, on any one. And as to keeping
the seventh, a people who would not kill a flea, or
walk on the grass, or minister to the sick, or who
would stand still and be hewed to pieces, sooner than
violate the day, surely did not need to be told anew
that they ought to keep it. Nor did they need any
injunctions to keep it with special strictness. On
these points they were already over-scrupulous, and
needed no new instructions. Of course Christ gave
them none.
But they did need to be recalled to the true nature
and original intent of the Sabbath. The Sabbath
was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. But
by their traditions concerning the mode of its ob-
servance they had reversed the whole order and de-
sign of it. They had lost sight of its true nature and
original design, and had practically buried up the
Christ's sanction. 113
real Sabbath beneath a Sabbath of mere external ob-
servances. In many ways, they had actually made
the command of God — the real Sabbath — of none
effect through their traditions. What, then, should
be done ? If the Sabbath was to be abrogated, the
thing to be done was to assail it and its corruptions
in the lump, as a thing of nought, and soon to be
done away — the sooner the better. Did Christ do
that ? No. But if it were not to be abrogated, but
perpetuated, then the thing to be done was, to sep-
arate it from its perversions, that, being so separated,
the institution might live while its perversions were
dead. But this could be done only by flying in the
face of those traditions that gave birth to the peiTer-
sions. And this is just what the Savior did. Had
they, by their traditions, so perverted the law of the
Sabbath as to make works of real necessity and
mercy a violation of the day? Like himself, he
boldly denies the authority of such traditions, and
tramples on every custom growing out of them.
Must no burdens be carried, even in a case of neces-
sity or mercy, as in ministering to the sick, or bring-
ing them to be healed ? He heals the poor man, at
the pool of Bethesda, (John v. 5 — 17,) and bids him
take his bed and walk. And when they complain,
and charge him with a violation of the Sabbath in
doing so, his short, impressive, and authoritative
answer is, "'My Father vvorketh' such works 'hith-
erto, and I work' the same. If he does works of
such a character, why should not I?" — Again, must
no cures be wrought or attempted on the Sabbath ?
In repeated instances, he tramples the tradition under
foot. He heals the man (Matt. xii. 10—13) with the
10*
114
THE SABBATH.
withered hand, and forestalls their clamor, by show-
ing his enemies, that on their own premises, " it is
lawful to do well oq the Sabbath-days." He heals
the woman (Luke xiii. 10 — 17) " which had a spirit
of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together,
and could in no wise lift up herself" And when the
ruler of the synagogue complains, and says to 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," Christ's bold and indignant
reply, is, " Thou hypocrite ! doth not each one of you
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 again, must
pressing hunger go unsupplied, rather than meet
its demands by the simple process of rubbing out a
few ears of grain, as the disciples pass along? He
justifies them in the deed, and tells their accusers,
(Matt, xii. 7,) that if they had known what this mean-
eth, "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice," they would
never have been so ignorant of the true intent of the
Sabbath, and such sticklers for the outward forms of
its observance as to have condemned the guiltless —
that " the Sabbath (Mark ii. 27) was made for man,
and not," as their traditions would make it, " man for
the Sabbath."
By this process the Savior efiectually separated the
Sabbath fromits perversions. True, it brought him — and
no wonder that it did — into continual trouble with the
scribes and Pharisees as a Sabbath-breaker. This is
just what we should expect. But amid all their col-
Christ's sanction.
lisions with him on the subject, they ??ever ondt pre* 'r'. ^^^ ^
tended that he held all days alike, nor that he designed
or wished to do the Sabbath away. But would they
not have done it, had such been the fact ? Yet they
did not The whole controversy was, not whether
the Sabbath was, or was to be, but, assuming this,
what constitutes a violation of it — how is it to be
kept ? The truth is, the whole effort of the Savior
was to separate the Sabbath, as such, from its perver-
sions, not to abolish it, or to make all days alike. But
why such separation, except that the institution might
live while its perversions were dead ? It was to rescue
the Sabbath from the perversions of prevalent tradi-
tions, and give it back to the people in its true nature
and original design. Why ? Plainly that it might
live and go down, like marriage, as a permanent in-
stitution, to the end of time. Indeed, the work which
the Savior did for the Sabbath was precisely that
which he did (Matt. v. and elsewhere) for the mar-
riage institution, with its conjugal and fihal relations,
and the laws of their observance, and for other laws
of acknowledged authority and perpetuity under the
gospel. It was a work, too, which he n£ver did for cir-
cumcision or for any other institution or ordinance,
purely Jewish, and not designed to co7itinue under the
gospel dispensation. When he rescued the marriage
institution, and the law of life, from the perversions of
Jewish tradition, did he mefin to hand them, so res-
cued, down to us, as of permanent existence and per-
petual obligation ? — as part and parcel of the gospel
itself? What less than this could he mean, when, at
the risk of life as a Sabbath-breaker, he so rescued
the Sabbath ? Indeed, what was such a rescue of it
116 THE CHANGE.
but an emphatic injunction to observe it, as rescued ?
While this view, then, solves the objection, how obvi-
ous does it make it, that it was no part of Christ's de-
sign to abrogate the Sabbath, but rather his design to
perpetuate it!
But, {2.) having thus rescued the Sabbath, as an
institution, from its perversions, and having honored
the seventh as Sabbath-day up to the time of his death,
is there any evidence that, after his resurrection,
and the consequent full introduction of the new dis-
pensation, Christ put similar honor on the first day of
the week ? Luke informs us, (Acts i. 3,) that after
his passion he appeared to his disciples, at different
times, for the space of forty days, and spake to them
^Hhe things pertaining to the kingdom^ At some of
these interviews, among the things pertaining to the
kingdom, Christ either authorized a change of the
Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week,
or he did not. If he did not, the reason was, (John
xvi. 12, 13,) " I have yet many things to say unto you,
but ye cannot bear them now ; howbeit when he the
Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all
truth." The business of prescribing the arrange-
ments for the future order and worship of the church,
he had already devolved, as we shall see, upon his
apostles, as a matter to be specially attended to by
them, when, after his departure, the Comforter should
come, who was to guide them into all truth, and en-
due them with power from on high. If, therefore,
Christ did not himself make the change in question,
during this period of forty days, it was because this
was one of the things which belonged, by his express
authority, to the apostles to do. And in this case we
Christ's sanction. 117
are to look, for the first decisive indications of the
change, to them and their histoiy, rather than to the
conduct and history of Christ himself.
The same is true, if, in the interviews in question,
Christ did personally authorize the change. For the
great object of those interviews plainly was, to make
his disciples more fully acquainted with his real
character and dignity, to establish beyond all question
the fact of his actual resurrection, and to commission
and invest them with authority for their future work.
Hence, on his way to Emmaus, (Luke xxiv. 27,) " be-
ginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded
unto them, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning
himself" Hence, in the record of the several inter-
views, we hear almost nothing in detail of what " the
things," of which he spake, " pertaining to the king-
dom," were. We have the simple commission to go
into all the world and preach the gospel to every
creature, with its accompanying authority. We have,
then, a full and minute account of those occun^ences
and remarks which put the fact of his resurrection and
personal identity beyond dispute. And further than
this, we have almost no account of what passed at
the mterviews in question. The great object of the
record^ whatever may have been that of the inter-
views, was to make clear the fact of the resurrection.
This was the great question, — that, indeed, on which
hinged every other. To settle this was of course the
great object. If, then, in these interviews, Christ did
personally authorize the change in question, we are
not to expect, in a record so brief, and made for such
a purpose, a formal and full-length mention of it, but
118 THE CHANGE.
only a mention of such occurrences and facts as are
in keeping with and not contradictory of it. Such a
mention we have.
Previous to his death, as we have seen, Christ was
in the regular and habitual observance of the seventh,
as Sabbath-day. Afterward, when, by his death and
resurrection, the old dispensation was fully at an end,
and the new one fully introduced, we never find him
in the synagogue or meeting with his disciples for
religious purposes on that day. But he did meet
with them for such purposes on the first day of the
week, and in other ways he specially honored that
day. He rose fi-om the dead on that day. Four
times, on the same day, he manifested himself to his
disciples ; first (Matt, xxviii. 9) to the women who
held him by the feet and worshipped ; then (Luke
xxiv. 34) to Peter; then (Luke xxiv. 18 — 33) to the
two disciples on their way to Emrnaus, when he ex-
pounded to them "the things concerning himself,"
and was made known to them in the breaking of
bread ; and, lastly, (John xx. 19 — ^23,) to the ten apostles,
when, after showing them his hands and side, and so
verifying his resurrection, he said, "As my Father
hath sent me, even so send I you," and, breathing on
them, added, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose
soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ;
and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."
In these two interviews, Christ gave the disciples,
first, an exposition of the Scriptures concerning him-
self; next the evidence of his resurrection ; then the
commission, "as my Father hath sent me, even so
Bend 1 you ; " and then the investment of them with
Christ's sanction. 119
authority to instruct, and to regulate the order, insti-
tutions, and worship of the church under the new dis-
pensation. Now, on the supposition that this was
the first of Christian Sabbaths, and that subse-
quently this day of the week was to be the Sabbath-
day of the church, what could be more appropriate
to the occasion than such instruction, such a com-
mission, and such an investment of authority fj'om
him who was at the same time Head of the church
and Lord of the Sabbath? Considered as one whole,
what were all these various items but the full and
formal introduction of the gospel kingdom ? Before,
by John the Baptist and others, it had been an-
nounced as being " at hand.^'* Now, in the resurrection
of its Lord, in his manifestation of himself to his dis-
ciples, in his commission of them to act for him, and
in his investment of them with the authority named,
it had fully come, and was officially introduced. It
was done, too, on the first day of the week. How
fitting to have it done then, if that day was thereafter
to be the Sabbath of the church !
Again, if this were the first of Christian Sabbaths,
the second would occur on the next first day of the
week ; and on that day, therefore, we should naturally
expect to find Christ and the disciples together again.
Such seems to have been the fact. When one event
happened a week after another, the Jews sometimes
called the whole period "a?i eig-M c?a?/5" — including
in their reckoning both the days on which the events
in question occurred. Accordingly, when we read,
(John XX. 26,) "And after eight days, again his disci-
ples were within,'- &c., there can be little doubt that
130 THE CHANGE.
it was on the next first day.* Mr. Gurney thinks that
the ascension was on the first day of the week.f And
it is quite certain that the descent of the Comforter
was upon that day.
The disciples were commanded by their Lord to
tarry at Jerusalem until they were "endued with
power from on high," being assured, at the same time,
that this should be " not many days hence." Then
followed the ascension ; then, in the exercise of the
authority conferred upon them, the appointment of
Matthias to the apostleship in the place of Judas ; and
then the waiting for the promised Comforter. This
Comforter was to be to them in the place of Christ.
He was to guide them into all truth. He was to
* Hammond, Gill, GrotiuS; &c., in loc. 5 and compare Luke
ix. 28 with Matt. xvii. 1; and Mark ix. 2.
t Mr. Gurney says, pp. 78, 79; " The period which elapsed be-
tween our Lord^s resurrection and ascension, is described d^s forty
days. Acts i. 3. This is a period of which frequent mention is made
m the sacred history. The flood was forty days upon the earth 5
Moses was forty days in the mount 3 Elijah went forty days in
the strength of the meat which the angel provided for him j Christ
fasted forty days in the wilderness. Now, as the Hebrews were
accustomed to reckon their time by weeks, — from Sabbath to
Sabbath, — it seems very probable that the term forty days de-
notes a round number, and is in fact a mere synonyme for six
Sabbaths or weeks. If so, the ascension took place six weeks
after the resurrection, and therefore on the first day of the week.
This conclusion is in some measure confirmed by the very fact
that the disciples were then assembled 3 for not only do we find
them meeting together on the first day of the week, twice before
this event, but we shall presently see that they maintained the
same practice on the very week following."
Christ's sanction. 141
qualify them for the work to which Christ had com-
missioned them. He was to direct them in the ex-
ercise of their authority, to instruct and to regulate
the order, institutions, and worship of the church.
He was to be, in all these respects, the same to them
as a present Christ. So that under his guidance their
instructions would be as correct, and the order, in-
stitutions, and worship, they should prescribe for the
church, as wise and authoritative as if they were
under the immediate personal guidance of Christ
himself " And when the day of Pentecost was fully
come, they were all with one accord in one place.
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like
as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they
were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to
speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them
utterance." This descent of the Holy Ghost on
them, like his descent on Christ at his baptism, was
their public anointing to the work which Christ be-
gan, and which he had now devolved on them to
carry out and complete. It was, like his, their offi-
cial recognition and introduction to it. It was also
the formal and public commitment of the work to
them, and the pledge that they would do their part
of it, as Christ had his, according to the mind and will
of God. And all this transpired on the first day of
the week — " the Lord's day." Christ's last paschal
supper was on the evening of the fifth day of the
week. That fifth day was the 14th of the month
Nisan, on which the passover was slain. Christ was
crucified on the sixth day. The seventh day was of
course the second of the feast, and was the day on
11
122
THE CHANGE.
which the wave-sheaf was offered to the Lord.
Pentecost (Lev. xxiii. 15, 16) was fifty days after
this. And as this was on the seventh day, the forty-
ninth day from that was the seventh Sabbath, and
the next, or fiftieth day, was of course the first day
of the week. The immediate result of this anointing
was, that the apostles, especially Peter, preached with
such power, that about three thousand souls were
added to the church on that single day. It was em-
phatically the begmning of days to the infant church.
And thus was the first day of the week again hon-
ored and blessed of him who was at once Head of
the church, and Lord of the Sabbath.
Here, then, to say nothing of the intermediate in-
terviews, we have, in the first instance, the resurrec-
tion, the exposition of the Scriptures concerning
himself, the evidence of the identity of his resurrec-
tion body, the commission of the disciples, and their
investment with apostolic authority; and, in the
second instance, that of Pentecost, the mission of
the Comforter, with all of official recognition and
endowment that it involved. And what are all these
occurrences, but just what we should expect them to
be, on the supposition that Christ meant to honor the
first day of the week, as, by way of eminence, the
day of religious worship under the new order of
things ? The events in question had more imme-
diate and direct concern with the establishment and
progress of the new religion, than any other. They
were, in fact, its official, formal, and full introduction,
in the first instance to the disciples, and in the second
to the world. Why should they, in both cases, trans-
Christ's sanction. 123
pire on the first day of the week, except it were that
he, who, as Head of the church, was, in these events,
officially and fully instituting a new dispensation, was
also, as Lord of the Sabbath, instituting a new day as
Sabbath-day for his people — a day to be thencefor-
ward observed by them, in distinction from other
days, as "Lord's Day"?
CHAPTER XII.
THE SANCTION OF THE APOSTLES AND THE
PRIMITIVE CHURCH.
What is the evidence of the " law and the testi-
mony" in the case of the apostles and primitive
disciples? First, what was "THE LAW"?
Answer. Christ gave his apostles express authority^
to regulate the faith, institutions, order, and worship of
the church, and declared that whatever they might teach or
yrescrihe in the case should he authoritative and binding.
On a certain occasion, (Matt. xvi. 13 — 19,) Christ in-
quired of his disciples, " Whom do men say that I, the
Son of man, am ? " And when Peter said, in reply^
" Thou art the Christy the Son of the living God>" he
eommended him, and declared, " Upon this rock I will
build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not pre-
vail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys
of the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and what-
soever thou shalt loose on eai'th shall be loosed in
heaven." On another occasion, (Matt, xviii. 18,) when
the discipline of the church was the topic of dis-
course, Christ said to all the apostles, as he had be-
fore said to Peter, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on
eai-th shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye
shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Both
THE CHANGE. 125
these occasions were previous to his death. After-
ward, (John XX. 21, 22,) on the evening of the day of
his resurrection, he commissioned them to the apos-
toHc w^ork, saying, " As my Father hath sent me, even
so send I you." Then, investing them with apostolic
authority, "he breathed on them, and said. Receive
ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they
are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye
retain, they are retained."
What do these passages of Scripture teach ? That
they do not teach the Romish doctrine of the suprem-
acy of St. Peter, is obvious ; because the same power
or authority conferred on him in the first passage, is,
in the others, conferred on all the apostles. Equally
obvious is it that they did not confer the power of
pardoning sin, in the proper sense of that phrase,
because that is the prerogative of God only. How,
then, are they to be understood ? A ready and satis-
factoiy answer is found in the usage of the times and
the circumstances of the case.
The phrase "to bind and to loose" was used by the
Jews in the sense of to prohibit and to permit, or to
teach what is prohibited and what permitted. Thus
they said of gathering wood on the Sabbath, " The
school of Shammai binds it " — i. e. prohibits it, or
teaches that it is prohibited; and "the school of
Hillel looses it " — i. e. permits it, or teaches that it is
permitted. Lightfoot, in his Exercitations on Mat-
thew, produces many instances of this use of the
phrase. Schoetgen, in his Hor. Heb. vol. i. p. 145, 6,
adds many more — all showing that, according to
Jewish usage at the time, to loose and to bind sig-
nified to pronounce authoritatively what was lawlul
11*
126 THE change;
and unlawful, clean and unclean, condemned and
allowed, according to Mosaic law. The phrase was
manifestly a professional phrase — a kind of theologi-
cal technic, applied to the rabbis, or teachers whose
business it was to expound the law, and well under-
stood as meaning, not only that they taught what was
prohibited and what allowed by the law, but that
their teaching was authoritative, and therefore bind-
ing on the people. Hence the declaration of the Sa-
vior, (Matt, xxiii. 2 — 4,) " The scribes and the Pharisees
sit in Moses' seat;" — officially they teach by au-
thority ; — " all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you
observe and do, that observe and do ; but do not
after their works ; for they say, and do not. For,"
so rigid are they in their exposition and enforcement
of the law on others, that " they bind heavy burdens,
and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's
shoulders," while, at the same time, they themselv^es
are so lax in its observance, that " they will not move
them with one of their fingers." Here, then, we have
this very power of binding, recognized by the Savior
as residing, in the sense explained, in the scribes
and Pharisees ; and residing there, not because they
exercised it properly, but because they were the oc-
cupiers of Moses' seat, and, therefore, officially, the
authorized and authoritative expounders of the law.
Of course, while Moses remained in force, it was
their official duty and prerogative, under him, to bind
and to loose — i. e. {for such is the meaning) to teach
authoritatively what loas prohibited and ivhxd allowed by
Mosaic law.
But the time was at hand, and in the last case had
actually ai-rived, when Moses was to give place to
APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY. 127
Christ, and those whose official business it was to
bind and loose under the old dispensation were to be
succeeded by those whose official business it should
be to bind and to loose under the new. The first
passage, then, under consideration, which, with the
second, was uttered in anticipation of this change, is
as if the Savior had said, " I am the Christ, the Son
of the living God," as you, Peter, have confessed.
"Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and
blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father
which is in heaven." And now, as my Father hath
thus honored you in giving you a full apprehension
of my character and kingdom before your fellow-
disciples, I also will honor you in the same manner.
"Thou art rock; and upon this rock will I build my
church. And I will give unto thee the keys of it."
It shall be your high honor to be first in laying its
foundations, and in opening the doors of it to the
world. As you have been the first to apprehend and
confess to me the great truth just announced, you
shall be the first to proclaim it, in all its fulness, to
the Jews, (as he did on Pentecost,) and to the Gen-
tiles, (as he did at Cornelius' house ;) and so the first
to make known the gospel and lay the foundations of
my church on earth. And when this is done, in
common with your fellow-disciples, you shall have
the same official power of binding and loosing under
the new dispensation which those who sit in Moses'
seat have had under the old. It shall be yours, under
my guidance and that of the Comforter, to teach what
is lawful and what unlawful in my church. And
whatsoever you so " bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven ; and whatsoever you " (so) " loose on earth
133 THE CHANGE.
shall be loosed in heaven." Your teaching shall
be authoritative and binding.
The second passage gives the same authority to all
the apostles, in respect to the subject of discipline in
the church. And the last passage is as if the Sa-
vior had said — Now my work is done. I have
tasted death for all. Redemption is complete, and
the way open for the visible and official introduction
of my church to the world. The " corner stone " is
laid. It only remains more fully to instruct my fol-
lowers and the world in respect to the nature and
design of my kingdom, and the conditions of salva-
tion, and more specifically to prescribe the order,
institutions, discipline, and worship of my church.
This work I now commit to you. " As my Father
hath sent me, even so send I you." This is your
commission. And as the evidence of your authority,
and the pledge of your being under the infallible
guidance of God in what you teach and prescribe,
"Receive ye the Holy Ghost." When he is come,
(John xvi. 14,) " He shall receive of mine, and shall
show it unto you." He will also (John xiv. 26)
"teach you all things, and bring all things to your
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."
He will even (John xvi. 13) "show you things to
come." Under his infallible guidance, then, go for-
w^ard to the work I have assigned you. Order all the
affairs of the church. Prescribe her order, institu-
tions, worship. Declare to all on what terms, to
what characters and temper of mind, God will extend
the forgiveness of sin. Establish thus, in all the
churches, the conditions on which men may be par-
doned. In extraordinaiy cases, pronounce the judg-
APOSTOLIC AUTHORITY. 12^
ment of God on presumptuous and gross offenders.
And " whose soever sins ye " so " remit, they are re-
mitted unto them ; and whose soever sins ye" so "re-
tain, they are retained." What you do shall be in
my name and by my authority.
And that this was the kind of power or authority
conferred by Christ, in these passages, on the apos-
tles, is proved by the fact that it is the very power or
authority which they actually exercised. (1.) They
gave full and explicit instruction in respect to the
nature and design of the gospel kingdom, the truths
of Christianity, and the terms of salvation; and
claimed to do it by authority. Hence the fearful
malediction of Paul, (Gal. i. 8, 12,) " Though we, or
an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto
you than that which we have preached unto you, let
him be accursed." And the reason assigned for it
was, " For I neither received it of man, neither was
I taught it of man, but by the revelation of Jesus
Christ;" i. e. I taught it by authoi'ity. (2.) With
equal authority they pronounced the judgments of
God, in extraordinary cases, on bold and presumptu-
ous transgressors. Ananias and Sapphira were smit-
ten dead. Hymeneus and Alexander, for their heresy,
(2 Tim. ii. 18,) were "delivered" (1 Tim. i. 20) "unto
Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme." See
also the rebuke of Simon Magus, (Acts viii. 18 — ^24,)
and the judgment of the incestuous person. (1 Cor. v.
3 — 5.) Finally, (3.) they ordered all the affairs of the
church in the same manner. In respect to its officerSy
they directed the choice (Acts vi. 3) of deacons, and
appointed them to their office. Wherever they went,
(Acts xiv. 23,) they " ordained them elders in every
130 THE CHANGE.
church." See also Titus i. 5, and ii. 15. They di-
rected also the discipline of the church, as in the case
of the incestuous person, (1 Cor. v. 13,) " Put away
from among yourselves that wicked person." They
gave order in respect to her charities, (1 Cor. xvi. 1,)
" Now, concerning the collection for the saints, as 1
have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so
do ye." They corrected abuses, and prescribed the
proper mode (1 Cor. xi. 20 — 30) of observing the
Lord's supper, and (1 Cor. xi. 1 — 20, and xiv. 23 — 40)
of conducting the meetings of the church ; and said
Paul, in reference to these regulations, (v. 37,) "If any
man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let
him acknowledge that the things that I write unto
you are the commandments of the LordJ'^ They pre-
scribed in like manner the rites and ceremonies, or
observances, of the church. In council assembled,
they (Acts xv. 24, 29) assured the Gentile converts
that they need not be circumcised, and keep the
ritual law, but only that they abstain from meats
offered to idols, and from blood, &c. In a word, they
regulated, throughout, the faith, the institutions, the
order, the worship of the church. And their uniform
language, in all of their instructions and regulations,
was that of command and authority. " So ordain 1,"
says Paul, (1 Cor. vii. 17,) " in all the churches." And,
(2 Thess. ii. 15, and iii. 6,) " Therefore, brethren, stand
fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been
taught, whether by word or our epistle," and "we
command you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that
walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which
ye received of us." And says Peter, (2 Pet iii 1, 2,),
PRIMITIVE WORSHIP, 131
"I write unto you that ye may be mindful of the
commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Sa-
vior." It is settled, then, beyond dispute, that the
power to bind and to loose, conferred on the apostles
by Christ, was the power to teach and to order au-
thoritatively in all the affairs of the church. Here we
have "/Ae Zatr."
The question now is. What is « the TESTIMONY " ?
Did the apostles, in the exercise of this power,authorize
a change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day
of the week? If they did, the change is as authorita-
tive and binding as if made by Christ himself Whether
they did or not is a question of fact, which must be
determined by an appeal to "the testimony." The
testimony is of course of two kinds — that of the
Scripture record, and that of authentic ecclesiastical
history. Our first inquiry is, What is the testimony,
according to the Scripture record ?
1. The apostles and early disciples were in the
habit of meeting together, at stated TiMBS,fo7' public
religious worship. This none will deny — " Not forsak-
ing the assembling of yourselves together, as the man-
ner of some is." See also 1 Cor. xiv. 23, where Paul
speaks of " the 2vhole church as coming together into
one place,^'' It is equally obvious, that the exercises of
these meetings were prayer and the various kinds of
religious instruction, (see 1 Cor. xi. 1 — 16, and xiv.
23 — 40 ;) exhortation, (see Rom. xii. 8 ; 1 Thess. v. 11 ;
Titus ii. 15 ;) singing, (see Col. iii. 16 ; Ephes. v. 19 ;)
the observance of the Lord's supper, (1 Cor. xi.
20 — 34,) and such other things as were appropriately
a part of public religious worship. Some of these
meetings were occupied chiefly with prayer, praise,
132
THE CHANGE.
exhortation, and instruction. At others the special
object of the meeting was the observance of the
Lord's supper — "the breaking of bread," as it was
sometimes termed. And when the object was the ob-
servance of the supper, the meetings were as truly the
pubHc religious meetings of the church as were any
others. The breaking of bread on the occasion was
not the usual expression of Christian hospitality and
kindness. Nor was it done at their private houses,
but in the usual place of public worship — "What,
{1 Cor. xi. 22, 34,) have ye not" (private) "houses
to eat and to drink " (your ordinary meals) " in ? If any
man hunger, let him eat at home," (and not turn the
Lord's supper into a common meal or a season of
riot,) "that ye come not together" (in your place of
public worship, to eat the Lord's supper) " unto con-
demnation." The observance of the ordinance was
moreover accompanied with thanksgiving, prayer, re-
ligious insti-uction, and singing. Thus, at its first in-
stitution, when Christ sat down to the passover with
his disciples, (Luke xxii. 16 — 18,) he declared that he
would not eat of that again until it was fulfilled in the
kingdom of God. He then took the passover cup, and
" gave thanks," &c., adding that he would not drink of
that again until the kingdom of God had come. He then
gave tliem instruction on various topics — especially
his death, and the full introduction of his kingdom.
He informed them, (John xiii. 31, 32,) that the hour
was at hand when the "Son of man" should be
" glorified," and, in anticipation of that hour, he said,
(Luke xxii. 29, 30,) "1 appoint unto you a kingdom,
as my Father hath appointed unto me, that ye may
PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 133
eat and drink at my table in my kingdom." And
then, instituting his table, as that which was to super-
sede the passover, he (Mark xiv. 22, 23) " took bread
and blessed it," and afterwards "took the cup and
gave thanks." Then followed other instructions,
(John xiv. 1—30,) after which (Matt. xxvi. 30) " they
sung a hymn," and then " went out into the mount of
Olives."* In like manner, the first disciples (Acts
ii. 42) continued steadfastly in communion together,
" and in breaking of bread, and in prayers J^ And sub-
sequently, (Acts XX. 7,) " when they ^ame together to
break bread, Paul preached unto them." From all*
which it is obvious that the meetings for the obser-
vance of the supper were as truly meetings of the
church for public worship as were any other. And
that tJiese meetings were held regularly every first day
of the week, is proved by the whole current of eccle-
siastical history.f The observance of Lord's sup-
per was as regular as the return of Lord's day, and
was so far a regular observance of the day itselfj as a
day for public religious worship.
But these, as well as the other religious meetings
of the church, it is said, were also held on other days
of the week, as occasion might offer or convenience
allow. Be it so ; and what then ? The same is true
now. But such occasional or stated meetings now are
no evidence that the first day of the week is not also ob-
* For this order of events, see Townsend's Arrangement, part
6, sects. 30 — 36. Consult, also, any other Harmony of the
Gospels.
t See the testimony of Pliny^ Justin Martyr, and Eusebius,
pp. 140, 141, 159, 161.
12
134
THE CHANGE.
served, in distinction from other days, as the Sabbaths
The stated Tuesday and Friday evening meetings,
and the various other occasional meetings, of the
churches in this city, during the week, do not prove
that there is no day specially obseiTed as Sabbath
here. No more does the record of such meetings of
the primitive churches prove the non-obsei*vance of
the same Sabbath by them, in Eastern cities and
in apostolic times. Admit, then, that the primitive
churches had their stated and their occasional meet-
ings during the week, just as the churches now do;
it may yet appear that they also had the fn-st day of
the week set apart, as Sabbath, for their more gen-
eral and regular meetings ; and that this, in distinc-
tion from other days, and by divine authority, was
their special and distinctive religious day — as truly
special as was the Sabbath of old, and as really dis-
tinctive, in its observance, of the followers of Christ,
as was that of the worshippers of Jehovah.
2. That it was so, is evident fi'om the title then given
to it, viz. " The Lord's day." John (Rev. i. 10) says,
«I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day^'' That this
was the first day of the week, or the day of Christ's
resurrection, is proved by authentic history. Ig-
natius, in his Epistle to the Magnesians, about A. D.
101, calls the first day of the week, the Lord's day,
the day consecrated to the resurrection, the queen
and prince of all days ; and says, " Let every friend
of Christ celebrate the Lords dayP Clement of
Alexandria, about A. D. 192, says, (Strom. VII. p.
744,) " A Christian, according to the command of the
gospel, observes the Lords day, thereby glorifying
lord's day. 135
the resurrection of the Lord." And again, (Strom.
V. p. 600,) « The Lord's day is the eighth day." Tlhe-
odoret, (Hseret. Fab. 11. 1,) speaking of the Ebionites, a
party of Judaizing Christians, says, " They keep the
Sabbath " (seventh day) " according to the Jewish law,
and sanctify the Lord^s day " (first day) " in Hke manner
as we do." Barnabas, who, if not a companion of
the apostles, lived in the apostolic age, in his Cath-
olic Epistle, says, " We " (Christians) " keep the eighth
day " (i. e. the first day of the week) " as a joyful holy
day, on which also Jesus rose from the dead." Cyp-
rian, A. D. 253, in a letter to Fidus, says, that the
Lord^s day is the next day after the Sabbath, Chrys-
ostom (Com. on Ps. cxix.) says, "It was called the
Lord's day, because the Lord ai*ose from the dead
on this day." Other passages of a similar character
will be quoted, in another connection, hereafter.
These are sufficient to show, now, that when John
said he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, he spoke
of the first day of the week, and that this day was
at that time known, observed, and distinguished, in
the church, from other days, by the name of " the
Lord's dayP
But why this designation ? and what is its import ?
The occasion of it was, obviously, the resurrection of
the Lord upon that day. And so far, its import was a
memorial of that event But if that were all, as the
day of his ascension was afterwards known in the
church as " Ascension day," why should not that of
his resurrection be also known as "Resurrection
day"? Why should one of them be called "Lord's
day " rather than the other ? Or, if the whole import
of the title was to designate a day commemorative
136 THE CHANGE.
merely of the event, why should either of them be so
called? Surely "Ascension day" and "Resurrection
day " were a more appropriate designation. So called,
the title alone would indicate the event commem-
orated by the respective day. But call either of them
"Lord's day," and the titkf merely, gives you no clew
to the event. In this case, the title points you only to
the person, not to the event. And whether the event
commemorated be his birth, temptation, crucifixion,
resurrection, or ascension, or neither, you have to
learn from other sources, not from the title. There
must have been some further import, then, in this
designation of the day. What was it ?
To call this, rather than the other days of the week,
"Lord's day," was saying, of course, that it was, in
some peculiar sense, so distinguished from them, as to
make it his day, by way of eminence, and in distinc-
tion from all other days. But why this distinction
in name, indicative of a corresponding distinction in
fact ? What was the ground of it ? Are not all days
the Lord's ? Do we not receive them all from him ?
Are we not bound to serve and honor him in them
all ? and, in this sense, to keep all days holy ? Why,
then, this distinction? Whence its origin? What
its nature ? The day was, in some sense above all
other days, peculiarly the Lord's. How could it be
so any more than Ascension day, or any other day of
the week, except as it, in distinction from them,
was set apart, hy the Lord, or by his authority, to he ob-
served in honor of him, in some peculiar and distinctive
way'? And, as they had some religious meetings on
other days, in what distinctive way could they ob-
serve this, except they observed it as their fecial and
lord's day. ISf
distinctive religious day — a day devoted, like the Sahbath
of old, to the business of religious instruction, improve-
ment, and ivorship, and, in its observance, designed to be
a distinctive badge of disclpleship ? Obviously, it was
as a day thus specially and distinctively set apart to
the worship and service of the Lord, that it was
called " Lord's day." Such, at least, is the import ot
its title, as demanded by the nature of the case.
That such is the true import, is further obvious from
Scripture usage in similar cases. " The sanctuary of
the Lord," (IChron. xxii. 19,) and "the Lord's house,"
(Ps. cxvi. 19,) denote plainly a sanctuary, and a house
specially set apart, in distinction from ordinary houses,
to his service and honor. "Apostles of the Lord," or
Lord's apostles, (2 Pet. iii. 2,) means, of course, men
set apart, by the Lord, to his service and honor, as
apostles. " Apostles of Christ," or Christ's apostles,
(1 Thess. ii. 6,) means the same. " The Sabbath of
the Lord," or the Lord's Sabbath, applied (Lev. xxiii.
3) to the original seventh day Sabbath, plainly signi-
fies a day appointed or set apart, by the Lord, for his
service and honor. " Feasts of the Lord," and " Sab-
baths of the Lord," (Lev. xxiii. 4, 38,) imply the same.
So in the New Testament — " The cup of the Lord,"
or the Lord's cup, and " the Lord's table," (1 Cor. x. 21,)
imply that these, in distinction from ordinary cups
and tables, and from those dedicated to devils, are set
apart or consecrated to the service and honor of the
Lord.
But a still more decisive instance of this usage is
furnished in the phrase 'Hht hordes supper,^"* (1 Cor.
xi. 20.) Here we find a particular supper singled out
and distinguished from all other suppers, as the Lord's.
12*
ii
138
THE CHANGE.
Why? Not that one supper, any more than one
cup or table, is intrinsically more holy than another ;
not that one belongs to the Lord any more than an-
other ; not that we are not bound to serve and glorify
God in one, as truly as another; for "Whether ye
eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory
of God," is the command ; nor was it that in these
senses all suppers are not equally the Lord's ; for
they are, and the apostle understood it so. Why,
then, the application of the name to one, rather than
another, and the consequent distinction of the one
as, in some sense, peculiarly his ? The only answer
is, what from other sources we know to be true, that
this, in distinction from all others, was the supper set
apart, or instituted, by the Lord, to be observed in re-
membrance and honor of him, and therefore as a
badge or sign of discipleship itself. Its appointrnent
as a special religious ordinance was by him. Its ob-
servance as such was, and was to be, in remembrance
and honor of him, and was thus, of necessity, a dis-
tinctive badge or sign of those that were his. Of
course it was, above all others, peculiarly the Lord's,
and, being so, received its designation accordingly.
How, then, can we resist the conclusion, that the same
was true of " the Lord's day " ? ^ We cannot. As the
phrase "The Lord's supper" signified a supper set
apart, in distinction from all others, by the Lord, to be
observed as a special and distinctive religious ordi-
nance, in remembrance and honor of him, so " the
Lord's day" signified a day set apart in the same
way, as the special and distinctive religious day of his
people. Each, in its observance, was alike honorary
of him as their Lord, and distmctive of them as his
lord's day. 139
people. Such, beyond all question, is the legitimate
and true import of the phrase. In the very title of
the day, then, we have the proof that the change
of the Sabbath from the seventh to the fii'st day of
the week, was made by Christ himself or by his
authority.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ARGUMENT CONTINUED.
3. Further evidence of this change is found in the
fact that the obsei-vance of the first day of the week,
as their regular and distinctive religious day, was the
general custom of the primitive churches, and that in this
custom they had apostolic sanction. The evidence on
thispoint is twofold — that of the Bible and that of
ecclesiastical history. As the latter casts light on the
former, it may be appropriately introduced first.
The passages already quoted show the prevalence of
the custom, and that it was peculiar to the ChristianSo
Besides these, Irenceus, bishop of Lyons, A. D. 167,
says, " On the Lord's day every one of us Christians
keeps Sabbath, meditating on the law, and rejoicing
in the works of God." Dionysius, bishop of Corinth,
A D. 170, (see Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. 4, c. 23,) wri-
ting to the Romans, informs them that the Epistle of
Clement, their late bishop, was read in the church at
Corinth, while they were keeping the Lord's holy
day. TeHullian, A. D. 192, (De Idolat. ch. 14,) says,
"We have nothing to do with the Sabbath," (the
Jewish seventh day ;) "the Lord's day is the Cliristian^s
solemnity." Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia,
A. D. 107, in his letter to the emperor Trajan, re-
pecting the Christian martyi's, says that some who
THE CHANGE. HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 141
had been induced, by the sufferings to which they
were subjected, to renounce their faith in Christ, gave
this account of their former rehgion — " That they
were accustomed, on a stated day, to meet before day-
light, and to repeat among themselves a hymn to
Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by an oath
not to commit any wickedness, but, on the contrary,
to abstain from thefts, robberies, and adulteries ; also
not to violate their promise, or deny a pledge ; after
which it was their custom to separate and meet again
at a promiscuous and harmless meal." That the
" stated day" spoken of was the first day of the week,
is proved by the question which the Roman perse-
cutors were wont to put to their victims, and by the
answer which was, in substance, usually given to it.
The question was, "Dominicum servasti?" i. e.
"Hast thou kept the Lord's day?" The answer
was, "Christianus sum; intermittere non possum;"
i. e. " I am a Christian ; I cannot omit it." * Justin
Martyr, in his Apology, (Apol. I. chap. 67,) addressed
to the emperor Antoninus, A. D. 147, gives a still
more minute account of the Christian day of worship.
He says, "On the d ay called" (by you Romans) "Sunday,
there is a meeting in one place of all the Christians
who live either in the towns or in the country, and
the Memoirs of the Apostles," (supposed to be the four
Gospels,) " or the writings of the prophets, are read to
them as long as is suitable. When the reader stops,
the president pronounces an admonition, and exhorts
to the imitation of these noble examples ; after which
we all arise and begin to pray." He then gives an
* Acts of MartyrS; in Bishop Andrews on the Ten Command-
ments; p. 264.
143 THE CHANGE.
account of the observance of the Lord's supper, and
says also that at these meetings money was always
collected for the benefit of the poor.
These testimonies prepare us the better to ap-
preciate the force of the Scripture testimony. That
testimony is as follows : (1.) From Acts xx. 3 — 7
we learn, that Paul and his companions, on leaving
Greece to go up to Jerusalem, came to Troas, and
"abode there seven days. And upon the Jirst day oftJie
weekj when the disciples came together to break
bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on
the morrow."
The phrase translated here, "And upon the first
day of the week," is, in the original, '£*/' d^ ttj fiiq, twv
aaSSdTMv ; i. e. literally, "And upon the one of the
Sabbaths." Some have argued from this, that the
time here spoken of was not the first day of the
week, but only one of the Jewish Sabbaths. To this
it is sufficient to say, that in other passages, where
the first day of the week is unquestionably designated,^
the language of the original is the same. Thus in
Luke xxiv. 1 — " Now upon the first day of the
week, very early in the morning, they came unto the
sepulchre," &c. This, being the day of Christ's resur-
rection, was clearly the first day of the week. Yet
the language of the original is, Tf^ dk /uia jxbv aa66d-
tcov ; literally, " Upon the one of the Sabbaths." In
John xx. 1, it is the same. So also in Matt, xxvui. 1,
and Mai'k xvi. 2. This settles the point that the time
in the present case was the first day of the week.
It is equally obvious, that the meeting spoken of in
this passage, as occurring at Troas, on this day, was
according to established custom, and not a special or
PAUL AT TROAS. 143
occasional meeting called because of Paul's departure
on the morrow. A strictly-literal rendering of the
passage makes this quite clear ; thus — " Upon the
first day of the week, the disciples having assembled
to break bread, Paul preached to them, being about
to depart on the morrow ; and continued his speech
until midnight." Now, had this meeting been a spe-
cial or occasional one, called because of Paul's de-
parture on the morrow, that which, as a leading ob-
ject, called them together, must have been to hear
Paul preach, and the breaking of bread must have
come in, if at all, only as incidental to that, and not
that as incidental to their assembling to break bread.
And is it to be supposed that Paul and his compan-
ions remained there during the previous " seven
days," with no meetings of the disciples, and no op-
portunities to address them until just as they were
going away ? Rather, is it not obvious that they had
Buch meetings and such opportunities during the
week ? Could it have been otherwise ? And must
they not therefore have delayed their departure, until
after the first day of the week, not for the sake of an
opportunity to preach to the disciples, but just as
they would now do it in Boston in similar circum-
stances, that th£.y might have the privilege of spending
the Sabbath and commemorating the Lord's supper with
them, at their regular season of public ivorship on that
day ? *
Moreover, had the meeting in question been an oc-
casional one, and the leading object of it therefore to
* Acts xxi. 4 records a similar tarry of Paul and his com-
panions at Tyre, for "seven days," — doubtless for the same
reason.
144 THE CHANGE.
hear Paul preach, its record must have run thus —
" Upon the first day of the week, the disciples having
assembled to hear Paul preach, because he was about
to depart on the morrow, (hey took that opportunity to
break bread, or celebrate the Lord's supper." This
would have made the latter truly incidental to the
former, and have given a true account of the matter,
on this supposition. Such, however, is not the record.
It is just the reverse. It is, that " Upon the first day
of the week, the disciples having assembled to break
bread, or celebrate the Lord's supper, Pavl took that
opportunity to preacli.^^ This makes the preaching
incidental to their assembling for the observance of
the supper, and it presents their assembling as the
usual custom of the church. It is as if the writer
had said, "Upon the first day of the week, the dis-
ciples having assembled, according to custom, to
celebrate the Lord's supper, Paul took that opportu-
nity to preach to them, as he was about to leave on
the morrow ; and, on the same account also, he con-
tinued his speech until midnight, when the accident
occurred, which is afterwards narrated." How plain,
then, that this was the regular weekly meeting of the
church for public religious worship, and that it was
held as a matter of established custom on each re-
turning first or Lord's day !
(2.) Paul says, (1 Cor. xvi. I, 2,) "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." The laying up in store
spoken of, was not, of course, laying up in store at
CHURCH AT CORINTH.
koine; for that would in no respect do
necessity of "gatherings" when Paul came. This
could be prevented only by their putting their contri-
butions into some public common store, where they
would be ready for the apostle on his arrival — in
other words, into the public common treasury of th£
church. The contribution was for the poor of the
church. It would be made most fittingly, only when
the members of the church were generally assembled
to commemorate, by the observance of the supper,
the love of that common Lord, wha, though rich, for
their sakes became poor. It could be made most con-
veniently, only at those times and on those occasions
when they were most generally together ; i. e. at their
seasons of public worship. It could be made regu-
larly, only at the regular and established seRsons of such
worship. It was to be made, as the passage shows,
on the first day of every week. How, then, can we
avoid the conclusion, that this, above all other days,
was the regular and established day for public reli-
gious worship ? Why the injunction — an injunction
extending to all the churches — to make the collec-
tion on this rather than some other day of the week,
except that this, in distinction from all others, was the
regular religious day of the churches, and therefore
the day when they would be most generally and reg-
ularly assembled, and be able most conveniently to
make it ?
Place, now, these testimonies together; and do they
not prove, beyond dispute, (1.) that the early Christians
were in the habit of meeting for religious instruction
and worship, the celebration of the Lord's supper, and
the collection of charity on the first day of the week ?
13
146 THE CHANGE.
and, (2.) that this was not an occasional occurrence, but
the regular, universal, and distinctive custom of the
churches ? Examine the witnesses. So far as the
Scripture testimony is concerned, it is plain that the
custom obtained, as a regular and established one, in
Jerusalem, in Troas, among all the churches of Gala-
tia, and in Corinth. As to the other testimony, the
writers lived in various and remote countries — Barna-
bas and Justin, in Palestine; Pliny, (while proconsul,)
inBithynia; Tertullian and Cyprian, in Libya; Dio-
nysius, in Greece ; those to whom he wrote, in Italy ;
Irenseus, in Gaul ; Ignatius, in Syria, &c. They lived,
too, at different periods during the second and third
centuries. They all agree in respect to the preva-
lence of the custom in their country and time. This
settles the fact of its universality. They agree also
that it was peculiar to and distinctive of Christians —
that it was a new custom, begun and identified with
Christianity, and unknown before. Indeed, to such an
extent was it the distinctive peculiarity or badge of
discipleship, that their persecutors, instead of asking
whether they were Christians, determined that point
by asking whether they kept the Lord's day ! And
the answer they received was, " We are Christians,
and therefore we cannot but keep it" — as if they had
said, " The observance of the day, in honor of our
Lord, and our religion are identical ; the one is but
the badge or public profession of the other, and we
can therefore no more omit the one than we can give
up the other." The existence, universality, and dis-
tinctiveness of the custom in question, during the
first three centuries, is, then, beyond dispute. The re-
ligious observance of the first day of the week, as
APOSTOLIC SANCTION. 147
Lord's day, in lienor of Jesus Christ, was as universal
as the church itself. It was also as distinctive a
badge of Christians, as the followers and worshippers
of Jehovah-Savior, as the observance of the former
Sabbath had been of the Jews, as the servants and
worshippers of Jehovah-Creator.
But whence came this new and distinctive custom ?
By what authority gained it such general and univer-
sal prevalence ? Not of accident, plainly ; nor yet of as-
sumption. For had it been from either of these, there
must have been diversity in the custom, not wide-
spread and universal uniformity. The accident or
the assumption, whichever it might be, would not
have been the same, the world over. The custom
began, as we have seen, with Christianity, and spread
wherever that did. Whence could it have originated,
and by what authority could it have so spread, except
from the origin and by the authority which gave
being and prevalence to Christianity herself?
Besides, it was always the custom of the apostles,
particularly of Paul, to expose and correct whatever
was wrong in the churches. If he found the Gala-
tians or the Hebrews falling off to Judaism, he at
once wrote them an epistle to correct their error. If
he found the Corinthians glorying in men, — in Paul,
or Apollos, or Cephas, — or tolerating an incestuous
person in the church, or perverting the Lord's supper,
or conducting disorderly in their religious meetings,
he at once corrected their errors and rebuked their
sins. Now, had the regular religious observance of
the first day of the week been a relic of Judaism, or
a priestly assumption, or even an accidental custom
inconsistent at all with the genius and spirit of Chris-
148 THE CHANGE.
tianity, is it to be believed that he would not as read-
ily have corrected this error, or denounced this sin ?
But did he do it ? So far from it, we find him at
Troas actually participating in its observance himself
— nay, to all appearance, delaying his journey for
several days, that he may have the privilege of doing
it ! Nor have we a solitary hint from him, here or
elsewhere, that there was any thing wrong, Judaistic,
or anti-Christian in it. And what is this but apostolic
sanction ? Moreover, when he writes to the Corinth-
ians, in the very Epistle in which he corrects so many
other errors and reproves so many other faults, so far
from blaming them for their regular observance of
the first day of the week as a day of public religious
worship, he directs them, as he had before directed
all the churches of Galatia, to do that, in time to come,
which they could not do except as they kept up the
custom. The whole direction about the regular
weekly collection went on the assumption that the
custom of the regular weekly meeting was to be per-
manent. In giving the direction, then, to make a regu-
lar weekly collection on the first day of the week,
Paul virtually directed them to keep up their regular
weekly meeting for public worship, at which the col-
lection was to be made. The ordering of the one
was virtually an ordenng to persist in the other. And
what is this but apostolic appointment ? It is clear,
then, that the observance of the first day of the week,
as their regular and distinctive religious day, was
the general and established custom of the primitive
churches, and that in this custom they had apostolic
sanction and authority, and in these, the sanction and
authority of Jesus Christ.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PROOF-TEXTS OF OPPONENTS.
The favorite proof-texts of the opponents of the
Sabbath only confirm the view we have taken.
These texts are, Col. ii. 16, 17, " Let no man, therefore,
judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a
holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath-
days ; which are a shadow of things to come, but
the body is of Christ;" and Rom. xiv. 5, " One man
esteemeth one day above another ; another esteemeth
every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded
in his own mind."
These passages are quoted as if they had reference
primarily and especially to the question of the Sab-
bath as now agitated. It is assumed that the meaning
of the apostle is this — "Let no man judge or cen-
sure you in regard to the observance of the old
Jewish or seventh day Sabbath, or any of the other
Jewish feasts or ceremonials ; for they are all only a
shadow which is fulfilled in Christ, and are therefore
now no longer obligatory. And, in respect to the
observance of the first, or indeed of any particular
day, as Sabbath, one man esteemeth one day, as, for
instance, the first, above another ; another esteemeth
every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded
in his own mind, and observe one day, or another, or
13 ^
150 THE CHANGE.
none, as he chooses." Such, 1 say, is assumed to be
their meaning ; for no argument is ever attempted to
prove it. But such is not their meaning. So far from
it, they eitlier have 7io reference to the seventh or the
first day Sabbath, but only to the other Jewish fes-
tivals or Sabbaths, or they declare simply, that the
seventh day Sabbath is no longer obligatory, and do
it in circumstances vsrhich make it a virtual declara-
tion that the Lord's day, or first day Sabbath, is ob-
ligatory. This will be apparent as we proceed.
In the apostolic age, the first and the seventh day
of the week had each its appropHaie and distinctive
namej which name was never applied to the other. The
former was called -^iti^ga nvgiaicr], i. e. '^Lord's day^^
and never Sabbath. The latter was called ad()6a-
lop, i. e. Sahbath, and never Lord's day. This
is obvious from the passages, from various ecclesias-
tical writers, quoted on pp. 134, 135. Moreover, this
distinction of name was kept up for a long period.
Professor Stuart, of Andover, (Gurney on the Sab-
bath, p. 114,) says, "It was not until the party in the
Christian church had become extinct, or nearly so,
who pleaded for the observance of the seventh day, or
Jewish Sabbath, as well as of the Lord's day, that
the name Sabbath began to be given to the first day
of the week." As late as the fourth century, the
names were as distinct from each other as the days.
That there was a party in the primitive church,
who urged the observance of both days, is a simple
historic fact. The Ebionites were of this class.
« They," says Theodoret, " keep the Sabbath^^ (seventh
day) " according to the Jewish law, and sanctify the
Lord^s day " (first day) " in like manner as we do." In-
TEXTS OP OPPONENTS. 151
deed, so prevalent was this party at one time, and so
superstitious, withal, in their observance of the seventh
day, that to counteract it, the Council of Laodicea,
about A. D. 350, passed a decree, saying, " It is not
proper for Christians to Judaize, and to cease from
labor on the Sabbath," (seventh day ;) " but they ought
to work on this day, and to put especial honor " (tiqo
TifiibvTeg) " upon the Lord's day,''^ (first day) " by refrain-
ing from labor, as Christians. If any one be found
Judaizing, let him be anathematized."
That such a party should arise, especially among
the converts from Judaism, was most natural. Chris-
tianity itself was but the substance, of which Judaism
was the shadow or type. It was indeed the same re-
ligion, only under a new dispensation — that of Mes-
siah come, instead of that of Messiah typified and ex-
pected. Moreover, the attachment of the Jew to the
religion of his fathers was intense and proverbial. How
natural, then, that he should cling to old rites and
ceremonies, even after his reception of Messiah ! How
prone such converts were to fall back upon these
observances, and even to place reliance on them as
grounds of salvation, is obvious from the Epistles to
the Galatians and the Hebrews. Even Peter, (Gal. ii.
11 — 14,) with all his visions on the subject, was too
feeble to stem the current.
In these circumstances, the question of the obser-
vance of Jewish rites and. ceremonies would be nat-
urally and continually coming up ; at one time, in
regard to circumcision; at another, in respect to
meats and drinks ; at another, in respect to religious
feasts and holy days ; and among the rest, in respect
to the seventh day Sabbath. But whenever the ques-
152 THE CHANGE.
tion came up, whether in reference to one or all of
tliese, the only answer that could be given was sub-
st£uitially this : — As sjrmbols or types, these things
are all fulfilled in Ciirist. Their observance is there-
fore no longer obligatory. As such they are at an
end — the shadow having given place to the sub-
stance ; Messiah typified, to Messiah come. At the
same time, as, in tlie case of circumcision, for in-
stance, or that of the religious observance of partic-
ular days, or abstinence from particular meats, there
is nothing wicked in the things themselves, if one
thinks he must do them, therefore, to satisfy any
scruples of mind you may have, you can observe
them if you wish — provided always, that you do it
as Christians, and not as Jews, and therefore never
place any reliance on their observance for your sal-
vation, and never attempt to bind the conscience of
others in respect to them. Observed with this con-
dition, they are, in themselves, harmless, and may be
observed or not, as you severally choose. But the
moment you go to placing reliance on their obser-
vance for salvation, "Ye are fallen from grace," (Gal.
V. 4 ;) you have rejected Christ come in your reliance
on Christ typified; and, (Gal. iv. 21, and v. 2, 4,) "Tell
me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not
hear the law ? Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if
ye be circumcised," and go to relying on that for sal-
vation, "Christ shall profit you nothing. Christ is
become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you
are justified by the law. Ye are fallen from grace."
No more may you bind the conscience of your broth-
er in the case. " Who art thou that judgest another
man's servant," and presumest to condemn him in
TEXTS OF OPPONENTS. 153
mattei's which his master does not make obligatory,
but in respect to which each is allowed to " be fully
persuaded in his own mind " ? In these things no
man may "judge " another. See, then, that ye neither
"judge" others, nor allow them to "judge " you in
respect to them.
This, indeed, was just the question that came up,
and just the answer that Paul gave to it in the pas-
sages now in question, and so often mis-quoted as
proof-texts against the divine authority of the Lord's
DAY, or Christian Sabbath. It would seem, (Col. ii.
14 — ^23,) that certain persons wished to make the
Colossians "subject to" (Jewish) "ordinances" about
" meat, and drink, and a holy day," &c., and that they
even went so far as to insist that their observance
was obligatory, and to condemn and censure those who
did not observe them. To this the apostle replied.
These were but " a shadow of things to come, but
the body is of Christ." He therefore has "blotted
out the hand- writing o^ ordinances that was against us,
nailing it to his cross," so that it is now no longer
obligatory. "Let no man therefore judge you" in
respect to any of its requirements — "in meat, or in
drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new
moon, or of the Sabbath days."
The same leaven was at work among the Romans.
The apostle met it in the same way — "Who art
thou that judgest another man's servant ? To his own
master he standeth or falleth. Yea," in the present
case, and in respect to the matters now in question,
"/i«," the Christian, shall not fall at all; "he shall be
holden up ; for God is able to make him stand." For
instance, "One man esteemeth one day above an-
154 THE CHANGE.
Other," and is therefore disposed to keep particular
days holy, or to observe them as religious festivals :
" another esteemeth every day," and does not feel un-
der any obligation to keep particular days. Now, the
true Christian doctrine, in respect to these matters,
is, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his ow^n
mmd." If he thinks he ought to observe particular
days, let iiim ; if he thinks their observance is not
obligatory, and wishes to act accordingly, let him.
There is no harm in either case, provided he act in
each as a Christian. For the Christian, "that regard-
eth the day," if he does it as a Christian, and not as
a Jew, " regai'deth it unto " the honor of " the Lord "
Jesus Christ ; and, on the other hand, the Christian,
" that regardeth not the day," does it with a view to the
same end, the honor of the Lord Jesus — " to the Lord
he doth not regard it." Just so with regard to eating
or not eating particular meats. Let every Christian do
as he pleases in the case. At the same time, (v. 13,) let
no one, in these indifferent matters, " put a stumbling-
block, or an occasion to fall, in his brother's way."
True, (v. 14,) "there is nothing unclean of itselfj" and
so far you may eat what meats you please ; neverthe-
less, (v. 15,) "if thy brother," the Jewish convert, "be
grieved with " your eating all kinds of " meat," and
you thereby put a stumbling-block, or an occasion of
offence, in his way, "thou walkest not charitably"
towards him, and your eating, however innocent in
itself, is therefore (v. 20) " evil." For, according to
the charity of the gospel, (v. 21,) " It is good neither
to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby
thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made
weak."
TEXTS OF OPPONENTS. 155
Such, obviously, are the drift and import of the
passages. I remark, then, (1.) it is plain that the
apostle is here contending with those who were
clamorous for the continued and obligatory obser-
vance of the Mosaic ritual. It was purely a question
about Jewish " ordinances." In Colossians, indeed, it
is so stated. Hence, too, the reference, in the text
and context, to meats, and drinks, and new moons, and
holy days, as well as Sabbaths. The apostle's decision
was, that such observance was not obligatory, though
on certain conditions to be allowed to the Jewish con-
vert, and tolerated by the Gentile. It is therefore
altogether probable, that the " Sabbaths " spoken of
in the first passage (Colossians) were not the seventh
day Sabbath, but only the other and ceremonial Sab-
baths. At all events, the first day or Christian Sab-
bath was not referi'ed to at all, for that was then
known only as " the first day of the week," or " Lord's
day," and was never called Sabbath until centuries
afterward. Be those "Sabbaths," then, what they
might, deciding that they were not obligatory, was not
deciding that the Lord's day was not.
The same is true of the passage in Romans. The
entire context shows that the question at issue, and
the apostle's decision of it, were the same as in the
other case. Moreover, what proof is there that the
" day " spoken of was a Sabbath of any kind ? The
term " Sabbath " does not occur at all in the text or
context. For aught that appears in them, the " day " in
question may have been some holy or feast day, not a
Sabbath. It is but probability to suppose that it was
any Sabbath day whatever, ceremonial, seventh day,
or first. It is sheer assumption to suppose that it was
156 THE CHANGE.
the first or seventh day Sabbath, rather than the cere-
monial Sabbaths. If the day or days were some
Sabbath, the whole drift and import of the passage
point to the ceremonial Sabbaths, not to the seventh
day Sabbath, nor to the first, as the Sabbaths in ques-
tion. All that can be fairly argued from the passage
is, that Christians were at liberty to be fully persuaded
in their own minds in respect to the observance of
ceremonial feast days or Sabbaths, and to observe
them or not, as they chose. There is not a particle
of evidence, that the apostle had his eye on any other
day whatever. To suppose that he had, and that that
day was the seventh or the first day Sabbath, is not
only a groundless assumption, but foreign entirely to
the scope of the apostle's argument. And to suppose
that the seventh day Sabbath, or the first, were in-
cluded among the others as ceremonials, and so set
aside, is to beg the whole question about their being
ceremonials. Nay, were it even admitted that the
seventh day Sabbath was so, and was therefore set
aside with the rest, it by no means follows that the
"Lord's day," or first day Sabbath, was. The cere-
monial Sabbaths, including the seventh day, if you
will, may all have ceased to be obligatory, and yet the
obligation to observe the Lord's day remained in full
force. In deciding, then, that they had ceased to be
obligatory, the apostle by no means decided that the
Lord's day had. As well may you say, that the de-
cision that eating certain meats, and abstaining from
others, is no longer obligatory, was a decision that the
observance of the Lord's supper was not obligatory.
The truth is, the question of the observance or non-
observance of the Lord's supper, or the Lord's day,
TEXTS OF OPPONENTS. 157
was not the question at issue in either of these cases,
and therefore not the question decided in either.
The argument from these passages for the non-ob-
servance of the first day of the week as Sabbath is
therefore groundless. Neither passage has any refer-
ence whatever to that question. The most that can
be made of them, on the most liberal interpretation,
is a decision that the seventh day Sabbath, in com-
mon with the ceremonial Sabbaths, was no longer
obligatory.
But such a decision, in the circumstances, was a
virtual decision that the Lord's day was obligatory.
What were the circumstances ? First, that the first
day of the week, as we have seen, was universally and
religiously observed in the primitive church, and that
it was observed and known as " Lord's day." Second,
that its observance was every where regarded as obli-
gatory — how else could there have been such a gen-
eral uniformity in regard to its actual observance?
Such uniformity did not obtain touching circumcision
or the observance of the seventh day Sabbath, which
some of the early disciples advocated, but which were
to others of doubtful authority and obligation. The
universal observance of the Lord's day in the primi-
tive church, like their observance of baptism and the
Lord's supper, is proof of a universal conviction that
such observance was obligatory. Indeed, among all
the questions and controversies that arose in the first
ages of the church about the continued observance
of the seventh day Sabbath, — and they were many, —
it is not known that the propriety of observing Lord's
day was ever questioned. Professor Stuart (Gurney,
p. 115) says, "There appears," on this point, "never
U
158 THE CHANGE.
to have been any question among any class of the early
Christians, so far as I have been able to discover. Even
the Ebionites, who kept the Sabbath (seventh day)
according to the Jewish law, kept also the Lord's
day. All were agreed, then, in the obligation to keep
the Lord's day. Now, to raise the question, in these
circumstances, whether the seventh day Sabbath
should be kept or not, was to ask, not whether the
first day was to be kept, — for that was settled, — nor
whether the seventh was to be observed in preference
to or in place of the first, — for this too was settled, —
but must the seventh be also observed. And to decide,
as, on the supposition before us, the apostle did, that it
need not also be observed, — i. e. was not also obligatory,
— was to decide that the other, viz. the Lord's day, was
obligatory. The conclusion, then, is certain, either that
the passages in question refer ouly to the Jewish cere-
monial Sabbaths, not including the seventh day Sab-
bath, and therefore have no bearing whatever on the
question of the Sabbath as now agitated ; or that, in de-
clai'ing the seventh as well as the ceremonial Sabbaths
no longer obligatory, they virtually declare that the
first day Sabbath, or Lord's day, is obligatory. In either
case, the argument from them to the non-observance
of Lord's day is vain."
CHAPTER XV.
TESTIMONY OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.
Early and authentic ecclesiastical history confirms
the view now presented. It states, indeed, in terms,
that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to
the first day of the week, by authority of Christ him-
self; and also that the mode of keeping the one was
transferred, so far as the genius of Christianity and
the nature of the case would allow, to the other.
Thus Clement of Alexandria (A. D. 192) says, "A
Christian, according to the command of the gospel,
observes the Lord's day^ So that its observance, in-
stead of being an accident, or a relic of Judaism, or
in any way anti-Christian, was " according to the com-
mand of the gospelP Athanasius also, (A. D. 326,) re-
nouncing the authority of the seventh day Sabbath,
says, (De Semente, Ed, Colon. Tom. I. p. 1060,)
"The Lord himself hath changed the day of the
Sabbath to Lord's day." The testimony of Eusehius
is still more to the purpose. He was born about
A. D. 270, and died about 340. Mosheim says, he
was "a man of vast reading and erudition." Till
about forty years of age, he lived in great intimacy
with the mai-tyr Pamphilus, a learned and devout
man of Cesarea, and founder of an extensive library
160 THE CHANGE
there, to which Eusebius had free access. Eusebiu^
as all admit, was an impartial as well as learned his-
torian. He searched more thoroughly into the cus-
toms and antiquities of the church, than any other
man in the early ages, and at Cesarea and elsewhere
had access to the best helps for acquiring correct in-
formation. He is, by way of eminence, the ancient
historian of the church. His testimony on the sub-
ject before us is contained in his commentary on the
Psalms, printed in Montfaucon's Collectio Nova Pa-
trum, and is as follows : — *
In commenting on Ps. xxii. 29, he says, " On each
day of our Savior's resurrection," (i. e. each first day
of the week,) " which is called Lord's day, we may see
those who partake of the consecrated food and that
body" (of Christ) "which has a saving efficacy, after
the eating of it, bowing down to him." pp. 85, 86.
Again, on Ps. xlvi. 5, he says, " I think that he " (the
Psalmist) " describes the morning assembhes, in which
we are accustomed to convene throughout the worldJ*
p. 195.
On Ps. lix. 16, he says, "By this is prophetically-
signified the service which is performed very early
and every morning of the resurrection-day," (i. e. the
first day of the week,) 'throughout the whole world.^^
p. 272.
Again, Ps. xcii., which is entitled " A Psalm or Song
for the Sahbath-day,''^ he refers to the Lord's day, and
says, " It exhorts to those things which are to be done
* This testimony is given by Professor Stuart^ Andover, in
Gumey on the Sabbath, App. B.
MADE BY CHRIST. 161
on resurrection-day." Then, observing that the pre-
cept for the Sabbath was originally addressed to the
Jews, and that they had often violated it, he adds,
"Wherefore, as they rejected it," (the sabbatical com-
mand,) "THE WORD," (Christ,) ''bytkeJVew Cove-
nant, TRANSLATED and TRANSFERRED THE
FEAST OF THE SABBATH TO THE MORN-
ING LIGHT, and gave us the symbol of true rest, viz.
THE SAVING LORD'S DAY, tJwJirst'' (day) "0/ the
light, in which the Savior of the world, after all his
labors among men, obtained the victory over death,
and passed the portals of heaven, having achieved a
work superior to the six days' creation."
This establishes the fact that the transfer of the
Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week
was made by Christ himself, and that, so transferred,
under the name of "Lord's day," it was observed
throughout the Christian world. The commentary pro-
ceeds — " On this day, which is the first " (day) " of
light and of the true Sun, we assemble, after an in-
terval of six days, and celebrate holy and spiritual Sab-
baths, even all nations redeemed by him throughout the
world, and cfo those things according to the spiritual law,
which were decreed for the priests to do on the Sab-
bath ; for we make spiritual oflferings and sacrifices,
which are called sacrifices of praise and rejoicing;
we make incense of a good odor to ascend, as it is
said, *Let my prayer come up before thee as in-
cense.' Yea, we also present the show-bread, reviv-
ing " (by the observance of the Lord's supper) " the re-
membrance of our salvation, the blood of sprinkling,
which is the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins
14*
162 THE CHANGE.
of the world, and which purifies our souls More-
over, we are diligent to do zealously, on that day,
the things enjoined in this psahn ; by word and work
making confession to the Lord, and singing in the
name of the Most High. In the morning, also, with
the first rising of our light, we proclaim the mercy
of God toward us ; also his truth by night, exhibiting
a sober and cJiaste demeanor ; and all things whatsoever
that it was duty to do on the Sabbath,^^ (seventh day,)
"THESE WE HAVE TRANSFERRED TO THE
LORD'S DAY, as more appropriately belonging to it,
because it has a precedence, and is first in rank, and more
honorable than the Jeivish Sabbath, For on that " (the
first) " day, in making the world, God said. Let there
be light, and there was light ; and on the same " (first)
" day, the Sun of righteousness arose upon our souls.
Wherefore it is delivered to us " (handed down by tradi-
tion) " tJmt we should meet together on this day ; and it is
ordered that we should do those things announced in
this psalm." Subsequently he adds, " This Scripture
teaches " (that we are to spend the Lord's day) " in
leisure for religious exercises,^* [xibv S-eUov dcrxiasiov,)
^^and in cessation and vacation from all bodily and
mortal works — which the Scriptures call ^ Sabbath^
and ^rest,-^^
This touches, with equal explicitness, the mode of
keeping the day, and shows that, so far as the genius
of Christianity and the nature of the case would al-
low, the mode of its observance, as well as the insti-
tution itself, was transferred from the one day to the
other. Lord's day was, and was " ordered " to be, a
day for the cessation of ordinary labors, and for pri-
MADE BY CHRIST. 16S
vate and public religious instruction and worship,
just as truly as was the old seventh day Sabbath.
It was, in a word, the original institution, in its spir-
itual and essential elements, transferred by Christ
himself to another day, and observed throughout the
Christian world. The institution was the same.
The mode of its observance, saving what of its former
mode had been typical, was also the same. The day
only was changed — changed by him who was at
once "Head of the Church," "Lord of the Sabbath,"
and " God over all, blessed forever."
Such, then, is the argument for the change of the
Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week.
The change is just what we should expect in the
event of there being any ; it is just what the circum-
stances of the case demand ; Christ, as Lord of the
Sabbath and Head of the Church, had the right to
make the change ; his example shows that he did not
intend its abrogation, as an institution, but its per
petuity, with a change in the day of its observance :
the same right he had to regulate the institutions and
order of his church he gave to the apostles ; they, in
their turn, gave their sanction and authority to the
observance of the first day of the week as Sabbath,
as is proved by the whole tenor of Scripture and
ecclesiastical history; and ecclesiastical history tes-
tifies, in so many words, that Christ himself " trans-
ferred " the Sabbath to the first day of the week, and
that, so transferred, under the name of " Lord's day,"
it was observed throughout the then Christian world.
It cannot be doubted, then, that under the Christian
dispensation, the first day of the week has been set
164 THE CHANGE MADE BY CHRIST.
apart, by divine appointment, to be observed, in place
of the seventh, as the Christian Sabbath. As such,
it is an institution of Christianity. It is part and par-
cel of Christianity. Like the Lord's supper, or the
institution of marriage, it will live while Christianity
does. Obligatory now, it will be obligatory always,
and, in its regular observance, will be every where, as
with the early Christians, a badge of discipleship
itself:
A SKETCH
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVENTION
DISCUSSION OF THE SABBATH:
ACCOMPANYING REMARKS.
BY REV. A. A. PHELPS.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY D. S. KING,
32 Washington Street.
1841.
A SKETCH, &c-
ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF THE CONVENTION.
On the 24th of September, 1840, at the close of
one of the sessions of the New England Non-resist-
ance Society, certain " friends of universal reform,"
as they styled themselves, held a meeting in the
Chardon Street Chapel, Boston, " for the purpose of
considering the expediency of calling a Convention
to examine the validity of the views which generally
prevail in this country as to the divine appointment
of the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath,
and to inquire into the origin, nature, and authority
of the ministry, and the chtirch, as now existing."
Of this meeting, Edmund Quincy was chairman,
and Maria W. Chapman secretary. It was agreed,
that such a Convention should be held ; and Edmund
Quincy, Maria W. Chapman, A. Bronson Alcott,
Thankful Southwick, and John A. Collins, were ap-
pointed a committee to issue the call, specifying the
time, place, and purposes of the meeting. The call
was issued ; and in accordance with it, the Conven-
4 ORGANIZATION OP THE CONVENTION.
tion assembled, in the Chardon Street Chapel, on the
18th of November last.
It is understood that the Report, which was ex-
pected, of the proceedings of this Convention, is not
to be published. On many accounts, it seems de-
sirable that some permanent record of those pro-
ceedings should be made. The record made in this
Sketch is not designed as a record of all the proceed-
ings, much less as a connected report of the course
of discussion on the main question, — that of the Sab-
bath, — but only of such portions of them as directly
concern the argument, or as are impoitant as an il-
lustration of the real belief and spirit of those who
were chiefly instrumental in originating and directing
the Convention. The record is made from notes
taken at the time ; and while it does not give, except
in cases so marked, the exact language of the speaker,
it does give, with strict fidelity, the substance and true
import of it.
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION.
When the writer entered the chapel, about an
hour after the opening of the Convention, a chair-
man and secretary, pro tern.,, had been chosen, a com-
mittee appointed to nominate officers for the Con-
vention, and a motion was pending to appoint a
committee on business. Upon this motion, a desul-
tory and irregular discussion was going forward upon
the propriety of having any officers for the Conven-
tion.
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION. 5
Dr. Brown* said, I am opposed to officers. 1
don't want them. I came here hoping to have a Holy-
Ghost meeting. Let us meet together as Christians,
and wait upon the Lord, and speak as the Spirit gives
utterance. And if any thing is revealed to one that
sitteth by, let him get up and speak, and not be
called to order by a chairman. 1 want a free meet-
ing. I came here expecting to have one. But if you
go to having your chairmen and your committees, it
won't be a free meeting. I shall feel bound. I fre-
quently go to meetings, and they call them free meet-
ings, but they are not free. They are tied up to
forms. They are tied up at one end to the minister,
then to reading a chapter in the Bible, then to prayer
by the priest, and so on, and at the last end they are
tied to the doxology ; and they call them free meet-
ings, but they are not. The children of God are
shut up in them. I didn't come here expecting
this meeting to be opened by man, or shut by man.
I expected it would be opened and shut by God, who
openeth and no man shutteth, and who shutteth and
no man openeth. I want the meeting to be free ; then
we shall all feel free, and there will be no high seats
and no low seats, but there'll be a highway of the
Lord here. I do hope that the spirit of God will
prevail.
Thomas Davis f said, I want to speak on this sub-
ject We have met together on very important
* Mr. Brown was formerly a Freewill Baptist, or Christ-ian,
(which I am not certain,) has practised some as a physician, and
is now an Antinomian Perfectionist.
t One of the Cape Cod Come-outers. v^
1*
b ORGANIZATION OP THE CONVENTION.
questions, quite as important as that which called
the primitive Christians together, when they met to
consult about circumcision and some other things;
and it seems to me very important that we meet
together in a right way. Well, we read that they
came together and waited on God by prayer and
fasting. But we don't read any thing about their
having any chairman, ("Amen ! " by Dr. Brown,) nor
about their having any president, (" Glory to God ! " by
Dr. Brown ;) and then- result, we have every reason
to believe, was according to the mind of the Spirit.
Let us wait on God in the same way, and we shan't
need any chairman ; and we shall know, by our own
experience, what the true ministry is, and what the
true church is, and what the true Sabbath of spiritual
rest is.
Others expressed similar views.
W. L. Garrison. I fully agree with these brethren
about the importance of our meeting in the spirit of
God ; but I have frequently met them in anti-slavery
meetings, and I never heard them complain before,
that their liberty was infringed by the appointment,
of a chairman and secretary. I certainly mai*vel at
this, and call on them to be consistent.
Dr. Brown. I didn't come here to address man as
an officer. I expected to meet with no officers here
but such as are officers in the church of the living
Grod — the new Jerusalem, which is from above, and
which is the mother of us all. I don't feel called on
to address any man as president, or chairman, or to
give flattering titles to any one. I feel bound the
moment I do it ; and I perceive, by the grace of God
given unto me, that all meetings are bound, as soon
I
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION. 7
as they appoint a man to preside over them. The
brother, over there, that spoke about the meeting at
Jerusalem, spoke my mind, as the Lord has revealed
it to me. Those only are Christ's freemen who are
out from under the yoke of committees, and chair-
men, and ministers, and every such thing. The bon-
dage in which men are to priests is a terrible one ;
but tliey may thank themselves for it. They put the
priest up, and then he puts on the yoke, and they
have to wear it. And it will be just so with this
meeting. If you put a chairman or a committee up
at one end of it, they'll put on the yoke, and you'll
have to wear it. But I won't. I can't be ridden by a
committee or a chairman any more than I can by a
priest. I hope the tide will rise here, — the Holy
Ghost tide I want, — and I hope it will rise so high as
to wash out all the wood, and hay, and stubble, there
is here. Glory to God ! I want God to preside over
this meeting. He that's joined to God is one spirit
to God. And so it is with every thing else. He
that's joined to any thing is one spirit with it. He
that's joined to Van Buren is one spirit to Van Buren,
and he that's joined to Harrison is one spirit to Har-
rison, and he that's joined to Congregationalists is
one spirit to Congregationalists ; and so it is with
every thing. He that's joined to a chairman is
one spirit to a chairman, and he that's joined to a
committee is one spirit to a committee. I want to
be joined to God, and I want to have this meeting
joined to God, and then we shall be one spirit to
him. The Lord keep the meeting pure. If it would
do any good, I would cry for thunder and lightning,
if nothing else would do it. O for a Holy Ghost
8 ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION.
wind, to keep the meeting clear — such as they had
on the day of Pentecost.
A. Bronson Alcott.* When this meeting was
called, I expected that each one would have an oppor-
tunity to speak his own mind on the subjects named
in the call. And as these subjects are related to al-
most every thing else, I supposed that anything would
be in place. I had hoped that our method of meeting
would be a reformed method. We need reform in
our methods of meetings, as well as in other things ;
and I would, therefore, propose to this meeting, that
we simply meet and converse together, and have no
chairman, &c. I wish to meet here as a man, and
speak to the man in man — to universal man. Othera
wish to do the same. And I think, if the sense of the
meeting were taken, a majority would be in favor of
making it a conversational meeting.
S. B. Bailet. I should prefer to have the meeting
organized.
Dr. Brown. I am opposed to organization. All
organizations in nature revolve around some nucleus.
If there is any one here, who wants to be the nu-
cleus of this meeting, let him stand forth. God is my
nucleus. 1 didn't come here to put a stopper in any
man's mouth, nor to have any man i)ut one into my
mouth ; and I protest against one's being put into any
brother's mouth, or any sister's mouth. I can't feel
free in this meeting if any man is put over it ; and if
one is put over it, I shall want to get out of it. Glory
* This Mr. Alcott is not Dr. Alcott, the author of the Young
Man's Guide, The Young Husband, &c.; but the School Teach-
er Alcott, the author of Orphic Sayings, and other Transcendental
writings.
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION. 9
to God ! I feel as if I was out from under every thing
that is coming dovirn, and as if I could cry out to every
body, Stand from under ! stand from under ! O my
God, confound the yoke-makers.
Rev. S. Osgood, D. D., of Springfield. I didn't
come here to hear this rant ; and if we are to be here
without order, and like the town meeting at Ephesus,
the better part not knowing wherefore we are come
together, I think we had better go home, and not stay
here on expense, and to no purpose.
Dr. Brown. I'm here on the king's expense. —
Glory to God !
After considerable confusion, Dr. Brown put it to
vote, whether the meeting would have a chakman or
not. It was decided against him. The Committee
on Officers then made report, which was accepted, and
the chairman was about to proceed to the nomination
of a Business Committee, when, with reference to
what had been said before,
Mr. Joseph A. Whitmarsh said, Mr. Garrison says
that the Sabbath question will set us to searching the
Scriptures. I do not know about this. I do not see
any thing about searching the Scriptures in the call.*
* Mr. Whitmarsh was one of Mr. Garrison's early disciples.
He has since gone off to the no-money and other vagaries. On
the 18th of May, 1839, he wrote the following in a letter to Mr.
John E. Fuller, of Boston. " For one, I will only say, that I
acknowledge no printed record, no Scriptures, nothing that ever
was or is now printed, no man as my teacher or ruler. « * *
I am a Man. From this time, henceforth and forever, I renounce
all professions. I have no fellowship or sympathy with any re-
ligious professedly ^ benevolent ' party or sectarian establish-
ment or concern, with which I was ever connected, or with any
10 ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION.
N. H. Whiting, of M arshfield.* I didn't come here
to search the Scriptures, as they are called. I came
here for truth. And I mean to go over the world for
it, and find it wherever I can. 1 don't mean to be con-
fined to any particular book, written by any body, or
at any time, past or present.
W. L. Garrison. I came here to hear what the
Scriptures say. I plant my feet on them. I know
nothing of the Sabbath, the church, or the ministry,
except as I learn it from them. I hold no argument
on these subjects with those who deny the Bible. My
remarks, so far as 1 make any, will be predicated on
the Scriptures. There I stand, f
The Business Committee was then appointed. Sev-
eral members declined serving on it, some because
they were opposed to a committee, and some for other
reasons; and at length, on the suggestion of Mr. May,
the committee was dispensed with.
THE BIBLE REJECTED.
Rev. J. V. HiMES, of Boston. It seems to me im-
portant, that we fix on some rule of authority in de-
which ever have existed or do now exist. I mean churches, so-
cieties, ismSf ists, ites"
* Mr. Whiting- was not long since an agent of the old Massa-
chusetts A. S. Society. He took a prominent part in the pro-
ceedings of the Convention.
t Yet, when Mr. Himes's resolution came up to make the Bible
the only authoritative standard of appeal on the questions to come
before the Convention, — a resolution which would require him to
say in what sense he stood upon the Bible, — he at once opposed
and voted agamst it !
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION. 11
ciding the questions that are to come before us. This
will, of course, be the Bible, or the opinions, feelings,
&c., of the individual minds here. I would therefore
offer the following for the adoption of the Conven-
tion : —
*• Resolved, That the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testaments are an authentic record of our faith, and the
only rule of faith and duty."
A. Bronson Alcott. I foresaw that there would
be a previous question about the rule. I do not agree
that the Scriptures, as they are called, — the Christian
Scriptures, — are our only, or our highest rule. There
are three Scriptures in the world — tradition, or un-
written Scripture ; the Bible, or Christian Scriptures,
and the Scriptures of other nations ; and our own con-
victions. We should include in our rule not only our
Scripture, but the Scriptures of all nations. Other-
wise our standard is not broad enough. It is not
broad enough, because it is not as broad as the soul
of man. I do not think our Scriptures, then, are the
higher and the only standard. I think the standard
should be this — a man's own convictions.
Thomas Davis, of Brewster. I feel a great degree
of seriousness on my mind, I trust, from the spirit of
the Great and Holy One, respecting the cause of
Christ. The topics of the call of this meeting have
been long on my mind. I think great consequences
are to result from this meeting. I have reason to fear
we don't pray enough. We have not prayer enough
in this meeting. I don't insist on vocal prayer. That
isn't what I mean, unless brethren feel to do it. But
I do feel that we need to have more prayer.
12 ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION.
W. L. Garrison. There is a spirit of judgment
in tliis meeting, which I feel bound to enter my pro-
test against. J protest against the remarks just made
by brother Davis. How does he know how much
prayer there is here ? In regard to the rule, if we
undertake to adopt the resolution of brother Himes,
we shall be driven into an endless discussion in re-
spect to the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures,
and shall not be agreed in the end. I would, there-
fore, propose the following as a substitute: —
^^ Resolved, That, according to the Scriptures, the first
day of the week is the true Christian Sabbath."
Dr. Osgood, I am in favor of the resolution of-
fered by Mr. Himes. We must have some authoritative
book of appeal ; and settling this settles the question
whether we are to meet as a body of infidels or
Christians.
Dr. Brown. I am opposed to that resolution, and
any thing like it. Are we to be bound down by rev-
elations that others have had ? Why, this looks like
each one's bringing a little god in here under his
cloak, and then calling on all the rest to bow down to
it. I shan't do any such thing.
A. Bronson Alcott. I did not understand by the
call for this Convention, that we were to discuss these
questions as Christians. I supposed we were to dis-
cuss them as men, and should, therefore, be at liberty
to seek the truth in respect to them any where.
W. L. Garrison. I am opposed to the resolution
of brother Himes, and shall vote against it, because I
foresee, if that passes, that it will defeat the object of
the Convention.
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION. 13
Rev. Silas Hawley, of Groton. I think we must
agree on some standard, by vi^hich to settle the valid-
ity of the common opinions on these topics. Other-
wise we can make no progress in the discussion.
Rev. John Pierpont, of Boston. I object to the
idea that the Scriptures are the only rule of faith and
practice. There are a great many subjects — scientific,
for instance — on which the Bible does not pretend
to be a rule at all. I would therefore offer, in the
place of both the resolutions before the meeting, the
following : —
" Proposition. — The first day of the week is ordained,
by divine authority, as the Christian Sabbath."
Rev. J. V. HlMEs. I am not disposed to be nice
about terms. All I want is the thing. Some, I appre-
hend, under brother Pierpont's proposition, will refer
to "the divinity that stirs within them." What I wish
is, an appeal "to the law and to the testimony." They
are our only authoritative standard, and if they speak
not according to them, it is not that they have got
more light, but because they have got none — " there
is no light in them." I wish a resolution, therefore,
that shall make the Bible our standard of appeal.
W. Lu Garrison. I second the proposition of Mr.
Pierpont. I like it better than my own. Brother
Himes's resolution will not only shut out avowed infi-
dels, but some who profess to be Christians.*
Rev. Nathaniel Colver, of Boston. I am in fa-
vor of brother Himes's resolution, for three reasons —
* That is, such professing Christians as Brown, Whiting, and
Alcott — Christians that scout the Bible as among the " musty
records " of other days, and inferior in authority to our " own
convictions."
2
14 ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION.
(1.) The questions before us have their origin in the
Bible. (2.) The Bible, if a rule at all, is an entire rule.
Paul told Timothy, that "all Scripture was given by
inspiration," &c. (3.) If we are to discuss the authen-
ticity and authority of the Bible, let us do so at once,
and not whip the Bible over the back of the Sabbath
and the other questions before us.
Mr. Dyer, of Vermont.* I object to the reso-
lution of brother Himes ; and I will give my reasons.
(1.) To say that the Bible is the only rule, &c., is to
say that one half the human family have no rule.
Whence, then, is their condemnation? (2.) It is to
deny that Jesus Christ is our rule. And, sir, Jesus
Christ is my rule. Sir, you pin me down to the Scrip-
tures, and you bind me down to forms and ceremo-
nies. And I can't be bound down to them. The letter
killeth. It is the spirit, sir, that giveth life. I do
hope, therefore, that that resolution will not pass. It
looks too much like yokes, and bars, and gags, and I
don't like it. I like Mr. Pierpont's, and I hope we
shall adopt that.
Rev. N. CoLVER. If there are any here, who feel that
the Bible is yokes and fetters, it is pretty clear that
they have nothing to do with the question before us.
Dr. Brown. When it is said, "Ail Scripture is
given by inspiration," I take it, it don't mean that only
which is between the lids (referring to the Bible) of
that book.
Rev. Mr. Parker, of Roxbury.f The Old and New
Testaments are in many respects a contradiction.
** One of the Antinomian Perfectionists of that state.
t A Unitarian clerg-yman; of the Transcendental school.
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION. 15
How, then, can they be made the only rule, as the
resolution affirms ?
N. H. Whiting. Whether the resolution (Mr.
Himes's) passes or not, I shan't be trammelled by it.
I came here for truth, and I won't be tied down to the
Scriptures, or any thing else, for it. 1 mean to seek
truth wherever I can find it. I don't care where it
comes from. If it comes from a child, or from the
devil, if it is truth, I'll receive it, and wherever I find
it, I'll call it God's truth. Besides, it is a disputed
question, what the real Scripture is. If I am correctly
informed, a large portion of the Scriptures, as they
are called, was not written when Paul said, " All Scrip-
ture is given by inspiration," &c. The Bible, as we
have it now, was not made up till some time after ; and
it is not clear how much of it is real Scripture, and
how much of it is not.
After some further discussion, Mr. Himes's resolu-
tion was voted down, and Mr. Pierpont's adopted,*
and the Convention adjourned to the afternoon.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE DISCUSSION.
At the opening of the session in the afternoon, Mr.
Pierpont's resolution was in order. As this presented
the question in the affirmative form, the advocates of
the Sabbath were called upon to step forward in its
* "Those only voted who were actual members of the Conven-
tion. Messrs. Colver, Lee, Osgood, myself, and others, though
participating, by permission, in the discussions of the Conven-
tion, did not enroll ourselves or act as members.
16 THE DISCUSSION.
defence. They replied, that they themselves were
satisfied with the current views on the subject ; that
they had no doubt of their correctness ; that if others
had, and had actually summoned a Convention for the
purpose of raising the question in regard to it, it be-
came them to open the discussion ; and that it would
be in season for the friends of the Sabbath to defend
it after it had been assailed ; that as their opponents
were the real plaintiffs in the case, it became them to
act as such, and not, by the shape of their resolution,
shift the case so as to make the friends of the Sabbath
the plaintiffs, and themselves the defendants. They,
therefore, as the real plaintiffs, were called on to step
forth with their reasons against the proposition, that
the first day of the week is ordained, by divine author-
ity, as the Christian Sabbath.
In the course of this discussion, Mr. Garrison par-
ticularly challenged tlie ministry to step forward in
defence of their cherished institution. He said, " 1
see here several clergymen, who do not hesitate to
fulminate damnation from their pulpits on those who
do not keep the first day of the week as Sabbath ; but
now they are here with the common people, they are
silent Why don't they come forward and meet the
question here ? Are they conscious of the weakness
of their cause ? I am glad to see this indication of a
want of faith in their opinions. — Mr. Garrison was
reminded, that it might be as well to reserve his boast-
ing until we were through with the discussion, and
that, in the mean time, the friends of the Sabbath would
defend it, when, in their judgment, it was necessary.
The discussion proceeded. Several individuals spoke
against the current views of the Sabbath. Dr. Os
THE DISCUSSION. 17
GOOD, at the openJDg of the evening session, spoke in
their defence. The discussion continued through the
two succeeding days. Just at its close, on the even-
ing of the third day, Mr. Garrison said, I wish to
call the attention of the meeting to a remarkahle fact.
It is, that among all those who have addressed the
Convention in defence of the Sabbath, there has not
been one layman — they have all been clergymen !
There is the fact I do not offer it as argument ; I
only call attention to it It strikes me as quite signifi-
cant The meeting will make what inference they
please from it
Mr. CoLVER replied. According to brother Garri-
son's theory,* we are all priests. Of course, we have
had nothing but priests on that side. But the minis-
ters — ay, there's the rub. It's in the man, and it
will come out The Clergy — the Clergy — the
CLERGY — there it is. Brother Garrison can't let it
go, without a ding at the clergy. Well, let it out —
let it out But really, such a fling does not come with
very good grace from one, who, at the opening of the
Convention, so boldly dai'ed us to the discussion.
Then, to be sure, he dared us to it ; and now, when
we have met the challenge, he blames us for it, and
very magnanimously flings it at us, as a significant
fact. The fling, I think, will be duly understood.
* Referring to a remark of Mr. G., in another connection,
that " There is a royal priesthood, and it is all those who be-
lieve."
2 *
18 SENTIMENTS OFFERED.
SENTIMENTS OFFERED IN THE PROGRESS OF
THE DISCUSSION.
At different stages of the discussion, the following
sentiments were uttered by the individuals to whom
they are respectively attributed.
Rev. Mr. Parker, of Roxbury. The first mention
of a Sabbath was in the time of Moses. There was
so much of the religious spirit among the old patri-
archs, that they had no need of a Sabbath. Moses
instituted the Sabbath because the Jews of his day
were disposed to overwork themselves and their
slaves. And when he accompanied this and his
other institutions with a " Thus saith the Lord," it
was only as their political head, and for the sake of
giving them more effect. The meaning was nothing
more than this, — " Be it enacted." It was not that
God spoke it in so many words to him. Moses pro-
fessed to receive directly from God, what he really
received, like other wise men, indirectly.
Gentlemen seem to be in favor of lumping all the
books of Scripture together, as if they all taught the
same thing. But it is not so. The single book of
Isaiah, for instance, which purports to have been
written by one person, was unquestionably composed
by several writers. In the first chapter of it some
things are said of the Sabbath, as if it were not alto-
gether very agreeable to the Lord. But from the
fortieth chapter onward, it was obviously written by
some one who honored the Sabbath.
Mr. P. made a variety of statements, which showed,
SENTIMENTS OFFERED. 19
as he said, that in fixing upon and observing the first
day of the week as Sunday, the early Christians did it
arbitrarily, and as a civil institution merely — an in-
stitution called for by the general wants of society,
and therefore, on the ground of a sound expediency,
entitled to general observance. In this view of it, he
said, I would still cling to the Christian Sunday, if
it were only for the oxen and the horses. I would
be the last to give it up. At the same time, I would
have it observed according to liberal and enlightened
views. There are some here who would have no
book but a religious one read on the Sabbath — who
would allow of no conversation but religious, &c. ;
but such an observance is alien to the spirit of Chris-
tianity. It savors, I will not say of Judaism, but it
does savor of Pharisaic superstition. I would have it
a day for religious instruction and worship, to be sure,
and also a day for social visits, and for the leisure and
refreshing walk in the fields.*
* This same Mr. Parker uttered the following sentiments in
tlie Union Convention, at Groton, on the 12th of August last.
The extracts are taken from a report of his speech, made by
Mrs. M. W. Chapman, and published in the Church Reformer,
No. 3. The subject before the Convention w^as sectarianism.
Mr. Parker said, Peter, " misunderstanding the Old Testament,
with right Jewish narrowness, (!) declares, ^ there is no other name '
(meaning Christ's,) ' given under heaven, whereby men can be
saved.' * * * There was sectarianism in the New Testament;
sectarianism among the ver-g apostles whom my friends appeal to
as infallible. * * * It yet remains for us to apply good sense to
religion ; when this is done, it will be of very little importance,
what a man thinks of the Old Testament or the New Testament,
so long as he loves man as himself, and God above all. Then
the difference between the creeds of Hopkins and Edwards, the
30 SENTIMENTS OFFERED.
W. L. Garrison. But we are pointed to France,
Yes, look at France* This is capital stock for the
priesthood ! But what made the infidelity of France ?
The false and spurious Christianity they had. * * *
And what is France now ? The Sabbath is as much
unknown there now as ever. It is a day of universal
indulgence and profanation. They have no more of
a Sabbath really now than in the days of the revolu-
tion. But do we hear any lamentations about the
horrible state of France now? And what is the
reason ? They've got the priesthood again, and the
ehui'ch again, and they will have their Jacobinism
again. That Jacobinism was the legitimate fruit of
their false Christianity ; and as long as we have the
priesthood and the church imposed on us here, it
will, in the end, be just so here. We shall be obliged
to have a Sabbath once a week, " to make us feel
so peculiarly pious." The community will "keep
going on six days of the week, cheating their neigh-
bors, (honestly, in trade, to be sure,) and then have
their Sabbath to get them right again." But our
doctrine is, that men are to be holy every where, and
at all times ; that Holiness to the Lord is to be writ-
ten on every thing; and that men need not always
be in bondage to sin, and to days and seasons, and
forms and ceremonies. No, thank the Lord, it is not
death, but Christ who is the Savior of men, &c. — And,
dogmas about the miracles, the ascension, the resurrection even,
and the inspiration of the apostles, will be subjects of speculation
for the curious, but which have as little to do with our religion, as
a farthing candle has with the shining of the noon-day sun." —
Now, what is all this but deism, under the name and in the
phraseology of Christiaoity 1
SENTIMENTS OFFERED. 21
(in another connection,) — " Whoever has Christ within
him won't need a particular day to get religion in."
Again — Christ came to deliver us from the bur-
den of rites, and forms, and holy days ; but if he has
only changed the day of the Sabbath from the seventh
to the first, he has not relieved us at all. The bur-
den remains just as before.
Again — The standard of morality under the gos-
pel dispensation is infinitely higher than it was under
the old.
Again, — commenting on Gen. ii, 2, 3, — It is as-
sumed here that God was just six days in making
the world, which is not quite so obvious. Geology,
I believe, has pretty thoroughly proved that it could
not be so. Besides, according to the Bible itself,, it
does not appear that the sun was made until the
fourth day. Of course, there could not have been
regular days before that. And moreover, in Gen. ii. 4,
the term "day" includes the whole six previously
named. There cannot be a doubt, then, that it de-
notes here, as it does in other parts of the Bible, a
long and indefinite period.
Again, commenting on Lev. xix. 30, "Ye shall
keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary,"
he said. Where is the sanctuary they were com-
manded to reverence? It was destroyed with
Jerusalem. And since then, God is to be wor-
shipped in Spirit For myself, I have no rev-
erence for wood and mortar. The only sanctuary 1
need is Christ. Christ was in constant trouble
with the scribes and the Pharisees because he was
a Sabbath-breaker. And it is just so in these days
with us. The Jewish priests are continually crying
22 SENTIMENTS OFFERED.
out against us as Sabbath-breakers, &c. — The Sab-
bath is not necessary for man or beast. Who
says it is, but the over worker of himself and beast ?
But men have no right or any need now^ to overwork
themselves or their beasts. In the Christian dispen-
sation, we are to be redeemed from the curse, "in the
sweat of thy brow," &c. Christ gives us all our time ;
and if we make proper use of it, we shan't need one
day in seven to rest. We can live without so much
labor. Machinery is to do it for us. The spiritual is
to have command of the material world, and man is
to be fully redeemed. — 1 did not say that the clergy
preach directly, that if men will keep the Sabbath,
they may do as they please on other days. No,
they, for the most pait, preach truth in the ab-
stract, but practically they fellowship unrighteous-
ness. Whatever they may preach, they are, in fact,
the deadliest enemies of holiness, as a body, in the land,
A. Bronson Alcott. I do not feel called upon to
worship as other people do. I go into our churches,
but I don't find there what I want — must I continue
to go ? If I incline to worship one day or two days
of the week, or all days, what is that to others, so
long as I am sincere ? If I dance when I worship, as
one religious sect does, if I do it sincerely, it is true
worship. If I labor, but not for lucre, that is worship.
Labor is a ritual. Labor is divine.
I have an objection to the Sabbath as now con-
ducted. What are the facts ? We leave our homes,
those sacred institutions, and go with our families to
the church. And this takes up nearly all the time,
so that our families are left without instruction at
home. But I believe that the family is the church,
SENTIMENTS OFFERED. 23
that the parent is the priest, and that the children
are the audience. And until the church and state
are organized around the family, there can be no per-
manent improvement of society. Instead of going
to the churches on the Sabbath, I would have our
families remain at home, and have the parents spend
their time in teaching their own children. And I
would have the parent a prophet — teaching by in-
spiration. Wheresoever there is a pure and holy
soul, there is, or may be, inspiration. It is the con-
science that is a "Thus saith the Lord." And when
a man disobeys this ever-present Deity within him,
he is rebuked. If pure and holy, we are lawgivers.
A pure life recorded is sacred scripture. An impure
life recorded is profane scripture. If a person should
rise here and say, I am as much inspired as Jesus
was, almost all would say. What arrogance ! what pro-
fane and blasphemous words he utters ! He claims
to be equal to Jesus Christ. But for a man to be a
Christian, is to be in degree and kind what Jesus was.
It is to believe that he is inspired as Jesus was, and
holy as Jesus was, and divine as Jesus was. It is
not in printed documents, (referring to the Bible,)
old, ghastly, cadaverous, that put us all to sleep, that
inspiration dwells. Do you say that that is preach-
ing, because the preacher opens a certain book and
takes a text ? No, we should all be priests as Jesus
was. We should be inspired as he was. The the-
ological school is not there, or there. The medical
school is not there, or there. But the instructor is
here. It is within our own breast. Let us, then,
revere our own conscience, and not commit the un-
pardonable sin of not revering the Deity within us.
24
SENTIMENTS OFFERED.
N. H. Whiting. As I said before, I shall go for
argument, on this question, wherever I please. If
others are disposed to dig up the musty records of
former times, (referring to the arguments drawn by
myself and others from the Bible,) they can do so ;
I shall not Or if any one is disposed to waste his
life in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics in rela-
tion to it, he can ; I shall not. I go against the Sab-
bath as false in philosophy, as false in physiology
and false in morals and religion. We are told, that
God rested on the seventh day, and therefore we are
to rest. I don't find any such command. It seems to
be supposed by some that a truth between the lids
of the Bible has more authority than if it were found
any where else. But if a child gives me truth, I re-
ceive it as of equal authority. It makes no difference
with me where I find it. I regard every truth as a
revelation from God, come from what source it may.
If the devil should say to me that two and two are
four, I should receive it as truth. And so with any
other truth. I care not where I find it. I don't see
the command for a Sabbath any where. It isn't pal-
pable to my mind in nature. Men need rest, it is
true, but they need it when they are tired, not one
day in seven. The fact that man is overworked in
the present state of society, is no argument, because
society is now all wrong. What is the Christianity
of the present day ? It is a speculating Christianity.
It is a trading Christianity — a cheating Christianity.
It compels the laborer to toil on to support the idler,
who feeds like a vampire on him. Such a Chris-
tianity, I admit, needs a Sabbath. Suppose you
should convert the world to the Christianity of the
SENTIMENTS OFFERED 25
present day, — what good would it do ? You would
have the same bloated wealth, and the same starving,
wretched poverty, by its side, that you have now.
(Some one, " True ! ") The first step you have got to
take, if you mean to effect any real and permanent
reform, is to strike at the foundations of society as at
present existing. Society, as now existing, is but one
grand system of slavery, of which that at the south is
only a more palpable form. (Mr. Garrison, "True!
true I ") It has been said that the opposers of the
Sabbath are generally among the most dishonest,
vicious, and wicked of the community. I venture the
asvsertion, that when this great question of the Sab-
bath, which is the centre and cement of society, as it
is, comes to be fairly agitated, you will find that the
robber and the slaveholder, &c., will hold on to it to
the last, (Mr. Garrison, " Hear ! hear ! hear I ") and be
the loudest in its defence. The Sabbath, in a cor-
rect state of society, is not needed by man, either
morally, religiously, as a day of rest from overtoil,
or for any good purpose whatever, though it is ne-
cessary, I admit, for the system of society under
which men are crushed, killed, and murdered. The
morality of the heathen world is in many cases
above that of the Christian world. I should say that
Christian society, as at present constituted, is one
great system of fraud, corruption, and murder ; and
the Sabbath is one part of this system, and absolutely
necessary to its continuance and support.
3
26 REMARKS.
REMARKS.
In the foregoing sketch the reader has a fan- illus-
tration of the belief and spirit of those who were
chiefly instrumental in calling and directing the Con-
vention, and who were among the foremost in assail-
ing the Sabbath, and its kindred institutions, the
church and the ministry. Several of the public prints
have spoken of the Convention as designed to over-
throw those institutions, and leave us no Sabbath, no
church, and no ministry. Mr. Garrison (Liberator, Dec.
18, 1840) complains of this, and says of the articles
generally, "They ai*e replete with defamation, with
ridicule, with consternation, with falsehood, with rib-
aldry. The object of the late Convention was not to
oppose the church, the ministry, or the Sabbath, as
based upon the gospel of Christ ; but EXACTLY THE
REVERSE." And does Mr. G. suppose that an in-
telligent community are to be deceived by such pre-
tences ? The object of the Convention was to advo-
cate these institutions, "as based upon the gospel of
Christ." Indeed ! And what was the Sabbath so
advocated ? Why, that all days were alike, and that
"whoever (see p. 21) has Christ within him, won't
need a particular day to get religion in;" i. e. it was
a Sabbath which left no Sabbath, as distinct from or-
dinary days. And what was the ministry, so devoutly
advocated ? Why, that " there is a royal priesthood,
and it is all those who believe." In other terms, there
is no ministry, as such. Christians are all priests;
and besides this, there is no priesthood — no ministry
at all. And yet the object of the Convention was to
REMARKS. 27
advocate the ministry, &c., "as based upon the gos-
pel of Christ" ! Was ever pretence more disingenu-
ous or dishonest ? Abner Kneeland's disclaimer of
atheism alone can match it. Mr. Kneeland is an
atheist, said the people. Not at all, said Mr. Knee-
land — nothing can be farther from the truth. I be-
lieve in the being of God, as devoutly as the devoutest
of you — only, you will understand, my God is all na-
ture ! And so, in the pretended belief of a pantheistic
god, he covered up his belief in no god, and sought to
do aw^ay belief in the true one. The trick was worthy
of the occasion and the man, and is equalled only by
that, which, under the pretence of advocating the
Sabbath, the ministry, and the church, really seeks
(vain work !) to abolish them.
Again — some of the public prints have spoken of
the Convention as infidel in its character and tenden-
cies, if not in its designs. Mr. Colver, indeed, in
writing to some friend in England, has termed it " an
infidel Convention." Others have spoken of it in the
same way. All such representations Mr. Garrison
pronounces unqualifiedly false. Of the statement of
Mr. Colver, he says, (Lib., Jan. 29, 1841,) "Every
word, every syllable, in this sentence, is untrue. No
such Convention has been held ; " and subsequently,
" JVot an infidel spoke in the meeting.''^ More than this,
he says, (Lib., Dec. 18, 1840,) " that all who spoke in
opposition to the popujar views of the first day of the
week, insisted upon the duty of all men to perfect
themselves in righteousness, to consecrate their time,
talents, and means, to the service of the living God,
and to be holy and without blemish. And yet they are
denounced as infidels."
28 REMARKS.
These are importaDt statements. In connection
with the proceedings of the Convention, they enable
us to learn, what Mr. Garrison and those who agree
with him, have never yet dared to teh the pubhc, viz.
what they mean by infidelity ; and, therefore, what they
mean when they disclaim it, and cry, Persecution ! if
charged with it. Among all the disclaimers on this
subject, when or where have they told the public what
they mean by infidelity? The Convention was not
infidel, they say. Yet it deliberately rejected the Bible
as its only authoritative rule of faith and duty. It thus
declared in terms, that it did not meet as an assembly
of Christians, with the Bible for their rule, but as an
assembly of mer?, untrammelled by such rule, ^nd
for this William Lloyd Garrison DotecL True, he said
he took his stand upon the Bible, and that he held no
argument touching the Sabbath, &c., with those who
denied the Bible. Yet, when called upon, by Mr.
Himes's resolution, to say in what sense he stood upon
it, and what he meant by those who denied it, he voted
the Bible down, as the only authoritative rule of faith
and duty, and so declared, that such as Whiting, Al-
cott, Parker, &c., were not, in his view, deniers of it.
And is it so, that a man, or body of men, may reject
the Bible, as above, and yet not be infidel ? Then is
not deism infidelity ; then is there no such thing as
an infidel Convention, short of a convention of blank
atheists. The truth is, reject ihe Bible as above, and,
aware of it or not, you have passed the dividing line
between the Christian and the infidel ; as to any final
and authoritative rule of faith, you are an infidel.
How can it be otherwise ? Where else can you draw
the dividing line ? The deist, the pantheist, Abner
REMARKS. 29
Kneeland even, consult the Bible, and, where its teach-
ings concur with their " own convictions," receive
them as true, just as do Whiting and Alcott, and others
of that class. How is it, that the one are infidel, and
the other not ? Yet the Convention, we are told, was
not infidel, nor did an infidel address it ! What !
did not men speak there, who sneered at the Scrip-
tures, as " musty records ; " who placed them on a level
with the scriptures of the pagans ; who held them in-
ferior in authority to our " own convictions ; " who
esteemed them " a contradiction ; " and who even
gloried in receiving truth from the lips of a child, or
the devil, with as great deference as from them ?
Yet, Mr. Garrison being judge, "?iof an infidel spoke
in the meeting. ^^ The Christian public will, hereafter,
know how to estimate these disclaimers of infidelity.
And so of the plea, that those who spoke against
the popular views, urged the duty of being "holy and
without blemish." True, they did, and yet in the same
breath, set the Bible unceremoniously aside, and ex-
alted each man's " own convictions " above it, as the
standard of holiness ! But what is such holiness ?
And what is such religion ? It may assume the name
of Christianity. It may clothe itself with some of itg
features. Its disciples may think they are doing God
service in its promulgation. But all this does not
change its nature. Call it what you will, and be its
form and the motives of its disciples what they may,
the nature of the thing remains the same. What is
that nature ? What is that thing, which discards the
Bible as our rule of duty and the standard of holiness;
which substitutes obedience to our " own convictions"
in the place of Christ, as the ground of acceptance
3 *
dU RllMARKS.
with God; and which, having thus eaten out the'
vitals of Christianity, sweeps away, at a blow, those
institutions and ordinances that give it visibility and
permanency ? That things which swept j^way the vi-
tals and the visibility of Christianity in other days, was
infideliiy. What is that thing, which now seeks, in
other forms, if you will, to do the same ? It calls
itself Christianity — a higher and purer form of it.
Such, in the belief of some of its advocates, it doubt-
less is. But is it so in fact ? Or is it the old thing,
under a new name? Name it what you will, yet
wherein does the thing itself, in its best form, differ
from pure deisni? In what one fundamental ele-
ment are they unlike ? If the one set? aside the Biblcy
and robs Christianity of her distinguishing doctrines,
and so saps her foundations, so does the other. If the-
one sweeps away all that is peculiar in her institutions
and ordinances, and so sweeps away her visibility, so
does the other. Both equally rob Christianity of her
distinctive doctrines and her distinctive institutions.
Both leave her nothing of doctrine or of institution, ta
distinguish her from pure deism, or, indeed, from Pan-
theistic and Transcendental Atheism, itself. Both, in
fundamental elements, ARE THE SAME; AND
LET HIM THAT DENIES IT DRAW THE
LINE OF DISTINCTION, IF HE CAN.
Indeed, while Mr. Garrison, (Lib., Jan. 29, 1841,)
says, " The result of the Convention led me to give
thanks to God, and greatly to rejoice in spirit, because
I believed that the truth as it is in Jesus was signally
promoted by it," Abner Kneeland's infidel Investiga-
tor, of this city, (Dec. 2, 1840,) also exclaims, in refer-
ence to the same, « The cry is up — the race is well
REMARK?. 31
begun — men begin to see the fallacy of priestcraft,
the absurdity of doctrinal preaching, temple worship,
and the reign of good sense is at hand. A Convention,
&c., has just closed its sessions in this city. And the
result is most encouraging to the friends of human rights.
It is a monument of the vincibility of prejudice, and
the triumph of plain truthP Thus, from some cause,
the self-styled "friends of universal reform," and
avowed infidels, are animated by kindred emotions in
view of the result. Both exult in it, as the triumph
of truth ! Whence this oneness of sympathy and feel-
ing? Has Infidelity mistaken herself, that she and
" the truth as it is in Jesus " go thus lovingly together ?
Or does she see, and truly, too, in such truth, her
real self — the old thing, under a new name ?
And will it now be said that this is judging the re-
formers too harshly ; that they indeed resent the idea
of being infidel in their principles ; that they place an
exalted estimate on the character and teachings of
Christ, and are in fact zealous for Christianity itself ?
So were many of the deists and infidels of other days.
Rousseau said, "If the life and death of Socrates are
those of a philosopher, the life and death of Jesus
Christ are those of a God." Gibbon does not " deny
the truth of Christianity." Nay, he speaks of it as
" the divine revelation," and avers that its early suc-
cess was " owing to the convincing evidence of the
doctrine itself, and to the ruling providence of its great
author." * Shaftesbury used to declare himself " a
very orthodox believer," insisting " that he faithfully
embraced the holy mysteries of our religion, notwith-
* Priestley^s Church History; vol. vi. p. 366, and Gibbon's
History, vol. i. p. 536.
32 REMARKS.
Standing their amazing depth ;" and he actually finds
fault with those who " represent not only the institu-
tion of preaching, but the gospel itself, and our holy
religion, to be a. fraud." * Collins (Letter to Dr.
Rogers, p. 112) represents the cause in which he is
engaged as "the cause of vktue, learning, truth, God,
religion, and Christianity,^^ Bolingbroke says, " Gen-
uine Christianity is contained in the gospel. It is the
word of God. It requires, therefore, our veneration
and strict conformity to it." He speaks even of his
"zcaZ for Christianity,^''] Woolston declai'es "that
he writes, not for the semce of infidelity, which has
no place in his heart, but for the honor of the holy
Jesus, and in defence of Christianity,^'* He concludes
several of his discourses by declaring, that his " de-
sign is, the advancement of the truth, and of the Mes-
siahship of the holy Jesus, to whom be glory forever,
Amen."| And Chubb, one of the most prominent of
the deistical writers of his time, actually entitles one
of his tracts, " The true Gospel of Christ asserted,^^
It is no new thing, then, for deism to imagine itself,
or to pretend to be, Christianity ; and so doing, to re-
sent the charge of infidelity, and claim for itself the
character and the honor of being but a purer and
better form of Christianity, or, rather, original Chris-
tianity herself Time will show whether such be the
fact with certain " friends of universal reform," in
these days. Thus far, it would seem to be so.
Further developments will, doubtless, decide the
question.
* Leland's Deistical Writers, vol. i. pp. 54- — 62,
t Works, vol. iv. p. 631, and vol. i. p, 182.
t Leland, vol. i. pp. 114, 115.
RETURN TO the circulation desk of any
University of California Library
or to the
NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
Bldg.400, Richmond Field Station
University of California
Richmond, CA 94804-4698
ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS
• 2-month loans may be renewed by calling
(510)642-6753
• 1 -year loans may be recharged by bringing
books to NRLF
• Renewals and recharges may be made 4
days prior to due date.
DUE AS STAMPED BELOW
SEP 5 2000
12,000(11/95)
I