CHAPTER VI.

DIVINE ESTIMATE OF THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SABBATH.

"And call the Sabbath a delight; the holy of the Lord, honourable.”

THE importance of the Sabbath has been very fully considered as it appears in the light of Reason and Experience, but we have still to view the subject in the clearer light of Revelation.

First, A precedency of rank has been accorded to the Sabbatic institution under all the economies of religion. It appears to have been the earliest provision of a sacred kind made for the benefit of our first progenitors, preceding, even, the establishment of the covenant of life. It was, as Jeremy Taylor observes, the first point of religion that was settled after Israel came out of Egypt. It had a place assigned it, not only in the Decalogue, and thus above all political and ceremonial regulations, but in the first table of the law, which summed up in love to God, "the first and great commandment"-lies at the foundation of all morality, and trapsgressions of which are more aggravated as subversive of all justice, order, and good in the universe; and as involving a more immediate aggression on the authority and person of the Lawgiver1-a ground on which idolatry and the desecration of sacred time are alike forbidden. Elevated thus highly by its place in the first table, the fourth commandment is honourable even as compared with the preceding three, not merely as connecting them with those of the second table, but as "the only commandment," to use the words of Dr. Winter Hamilton, "that affirmatively and directly requires duty to God." And as the original institution was contemporaneous with the completion of creation, so when the

11 Sam. ii. 25.
Y

Saviour rose from the grave He by this act at once proved the perfection of the atonement, and reared its monument in a day consecrated to His service.

Second, No institution has been more frequently promulgated than the Sabbath. It is announced at the Creation. It is again stamped with the Divine authority in the sight of assembled Israel in the wilderness of Sin. In a few weeks thereafter-and that was certainly of no small moment which must so soon be repeated-we hear it proclaimed in thunder from Sinai. And once more does it come forth from the excellent glory with altered day and name, and with superadded purpose and honour, but in all its substantial import, when Christ rests after a consummated redemption. This frequency of formal intimation has never been accorded to any other statute of ancient or modern times. Was it thus cared for and protected as being a chief bulwark of religion, and yet a law the importance of which was not so obvious to the human mind, or the sacredness of which was peculiarly repugnant to the human heart ? Whatever may be the reason, certain it is that its Author has taken special care to provide the means of securing to Himself the glory of His own day, and to man its blessings.

Third, The terms of legislation in reference to the institution have been unusually copious and explicit. All the commandments are expressed with a Divine comprehensiveness and perspicuity. But the fourth has some remarkable peculiarities. It is the largest and fullest of them all. It alone is prefaced by a solemn memento. Unlike the rest, it is presented in two forms, first positively, stating what we are to do, and then negatively, stating what we are not to do. Unlike all but the tenth, it is minute in the specification of the persons whom it concerns. The other precepts are not so enforced-most of them containing no arguments, and none of them so many as the fourth. No law could be stated more unequivocally, as none has been more frequently set forth. For all this particularity there was occasion. There is nothing that man feels to be a greater restraint on his sinful inclinations than a day devoted to God. There is nothing which he is more ready to abuse to the purposes of a lawless liberty under the pretence of its grant of a right to rest. There is nothing

which has been more assailed and mutilated than the law of the Sabbath. And there is nothing so surely detrimental to a true religion as the success of its enemies in secularizing throughout a country, and wresting from men the day which has been provided as a principal means of guarding Divine truth, and advancing human piety.

Fourth, The Sabbath has been honoured by its relation to peculiarly important facts. The Creation was a great event-great in itself as the work of Divine wisdom, goodness, and power— and great as the theatre of other works no less wondrous. In honour of the Deity as the Author of this mighty work was the day of sacred rest appointed. Had man not sinned, Creation would have been, it is probable, the chief means of declaring the glory of the Divinity. In his fallen state, it does teach him those doctrines of the Divine existence and attributes which lie at the foundation of all religion. How important the institution which was designed and fitted to be to innocent man a perpetual remembrancer of his Maker, especially as a regularly recurring season for the more immediate contemplation of His perfections, and which is equally suited, as, from the want of all evidence of the revoking of the destination, it is obviously intended to answer the same purpose to man guilty and depraved! In the present condition of human beings, who dislike to "retain God in their knowledge," a weekly festival with religious instruction, is, still more than it was in their first estate, needed by them, that the Creator may not be forgotten in these His own dominions, and by us His own offspring.

There is another event of extensive and abiding importancean event greater than the Creation, as it reveals more of the character of the Supreme Being, and secures a higher and more enduring, even an eternal happiness to man. Compared with Redemption, all other works are unworthy to "come into mind." To this completed work the Lord's day has been indissolubly linked.

Creation and Redemption are facts wherein Jehovah is seen in His full glory, and which it is most of all things for man's good to know and remember. What a sacred and benign lustre is thrown over the Sabbath by its association with such facts! how

important the institution which has their memory intrusted to its keeping! With what reverence and interest should that day be regarded which brings us so immediately into the presence of. the Almighty and the All-merciful!

Fifth, The manner in which the institution has been appointed and at different times proclaimed, is no less significant of its peculiar importance. The solemnities of Sinai did not signalize the law of the Sabbath more than the other nine commandments, but it says not a little on its behalf that it partook equally with the others of the awful and impressive testimonies which that occasion supplied to the glory of the moral law. But there were demonstrations of the sacred excellence of the institution which belonged exclusively to itself. What an august occasion for the expression of the Divine will when man had just come into being, and when his ears were saluted with the voice of his Maker calling him to remember his Creator on the first day of his youth, while the morning stars were singing together, and all the sons of God were shouting for joy! How stupendous the work which had just been finished ! How noble the argument-Jehovah is resting from His work, and invites thee by His example to enter into His Divine rest! Then, looking forward over a space of two thousand and five hundred years, we see the Author of the Sabbath not only overcoming the evil of mistrustful men by giving them food from heaven, but glorifying His own day by miraculous works. Nor was this the wonder of a day. For forty years the uncorrupted manna gathered on the sixth day for the following day's use, and the preservation of the portion laid up beside the ark, gave special attestation and honour to the Sabbatic institution. Let us only add, that the manner in which the Lord's day was introduced, though more in accordance with a kingdom that "cometh not with observation," had a moral sublimity more truly august and impressive than had been the thunders and lightnings of Sinai. The Lord of glory, after condescending to suffer and die for men (what infinite love was this!) stepped from the tomb, and sanctified the day of His resurrection to be the Sabbath of Christianity, and a monument of His finished redemption. He too, as God did, rested from His work-appropriated the day as His own-and taught us by His example, and by His appearances in

the midst of His disciples, that there still remained a rest to the people of God.

Sixth, The means which the Author of the Sabbath still more directly employs to maintain its authority and to enforce its observance, demonstrate its eminent sanctity and value.

The frequency and solemnity of His commands on the subject show how momentous the keeping of the day of holy rest was in the view of God. He had scarcely uttered His charge by Moses to Israel, that "no man was to go out of his place on the seventh day," when He pronounces in tones of thunder the law, "Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy," which is soon followed up by large and repeated commands to the same effect: "Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep-ye shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy unto you-ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary-keep the Sabbath-day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee."

He remonstrates and complains, as well as enjoins. "How long refuse ye," were his words to Moses at the descent of the manna, "to keep my commandments and my laws?" "Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them," were the words of Nehemiah from God, "What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath-day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath." "Notwithstanding, the children rebelled against me-they polluted my Sabbaths."

He appeals to the dignity, reasonableness, and value of the institution. It is the holy Sabbath-a Sabbath to the Lord-a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable-the Sabbath of the Lord thy God-the Lord's day. It is one day in seven. "See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath." "Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them-but my Sabbaths they greatly polluted." The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

He condescends to vindicate and interpret His law. He does so by the prophets. He does so especially by Jesus Christ. What clearer evidence could have been given of the Divine regard for