SABBATH
196
SABBATH
our common luimanity, and that it is to be so employed as to conduct' to man's liighest or siiiritual good. But he also said that he was '-Lord of the Sabbath: which shows," we are told, " that lie had power to abrogate it partially or wholly." It seems as if some cannot think of power in connection with the Sabbath unless as exer- cised in abrogation. If it be placed in Christ's charge, they take for granted that more or less extinction must be the consequence. Thej' speak as if Christ's sceptre were an axe, and the only question were how much it would hew down and devastate! We maintain, on the contrary, that Christ would not be the Lord of tlie Sab- bath to be its destroyer. In the language of the New Testament, this title points to assured prosperity. But though he will not superintend in order to annihilate either worship or worshippers, the designation "Lord" does suppose a manifested supremacy, and leads us to expect ameliorating modification with essential yireser- vation — in other words, a Christian Sabbath or Lord's da}',
(4.) In the epistles, much stress has been laid by oppo- nents of the Sabbath on some expressions of Paul. " One man esteemeth one day above another : another esteem- eth every day alike. Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind" (Rom. xiv, 5). To us this language is vague and seems general ; but it had relation to spe- cific disputes, and we do not know, because we have not been told, what days are more particularly intended. They may have been festival days of human appoint- ment, or cherished relics of Judaism unconnected with its Sabbath — perfectly known, without danger of mis- take, to the parties addressed. It is admitted that the apostles had stated religious services Avith assigned sea- sons for them; and if in the passage commented on we give his words the absolute and exceptionless sense claimed for them, it will follow that he courted contempt for his own ordering of worship. Assuredly he sanction- ed no such sweeping indifference to days as would in- validate the injunction, '• Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is."
It is said (Col. ii, 16), "Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ," This passage perfecth' accords with a superseding of the Sabbath day as distinguished from the Lord's day, em- bodying substantially all that prior sabbatical observ- ance had shadow^ed. In the same relation we would use the same language still. Independently of this answ^er to the objection, many have held, with bishop Horsley, that the word Sabbath is not here used in its strict acceptation, but with reference to other days observed by the Jewish Church with Sabbath- like solemnity. Even if these passages had more difficulty than they present, two or three doubtful expressions, in relation to local circumstances and usages about which we have little information, are not to be balanced against the weighty and cumulative evidence? which has been ad- duced for the morality of the Sabbath, and its conse- quent claims on the respect of all countries and ages.
It may- appear to some an objection to these views that if the Sal)bath were moral, and therefore immuta- ble, it would remain in heaven : whereas first and sev- enth daj's equally lose in the heavenly state their dis- tinctive characters. There all duration is Sabbath — all space sanctuary — all engagement worship. It is suffi- cient to reply that morality supposes facts in demanding conformity to them. Filial duty implies the existing relation of parent and child, and is ever binding while that relation subsists, but is otherwise non-existent. So the Sabbath supposes a sensible world, and in such a world it must ever be a duty to have time expressly for temporal and time expressly for spiritual occujiations. But in the world of spirits, where even the natural body becomes a spiritual body, and which tlesh and blood cannot inlierit, this discrimination disappears. It is the glory of the Sabbath that it prepares us for this con-
summation— for inheriting blessings transcending its own privileges, and even induces approximations to ce- lestial perfection under present adverse circumstaiKes. — Fairbairn, s. v.
III. Under the Christian dispensation, the Sabbath is altered from the seventh to the first day of the week (see Stone, in the Theol. Eclectic, iv, 542 sq.). The ar- guments for the change are these: 1. As the seventh day was observed by the Jewish Church in memory of the rest of God after the works of the creation, and their deliverance from Pharaoh's tyranny, so the first day of the \veek has always been observed by the Christian Church in memory of Christ's resurrection. 2. Christ conferred particular honor upon it by not only rising from the dead, but also by repeated visits to his disci- ples on that day. 3. It is called tlie Lord's day, Kvpia- Kt], a term otherwise onlj- used in the New Test, in ref- erence to the sacred supper (1 Cor. xi, 20), and as in the latter passage it denotes that which specially com- memorates the death of our Lord, it seems indisputable that it is applied in the former to that which special- ly commemorates his resurrection (Kev. i, 10). 4. On this day the apostles were assembled, when the Holy Ghost came down so visibly upon them, to qualify them f(jr the conversion of the world. 5. On this daj' we find Paul preaching in Troas, when the disciples came to break bread. G. The directions which the apostles give to the Christians plainl}' allude to their religious assem- blies on the first day. 7. Pliny refers to a certain day of the week being kept as a festival in honor of the resurrection of Christ ; and the primitive Christians kept it in the most solemn manner. See Lord's Day.