The Sabbath

ISAIAH LVIII. 13, 14.

“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”

There is no belief so universal as that of a future state of existence.  Men are born into the world, appear for a brief space upon the stage of life, and then sink into the grave.  But the human mind has looked beyond this to a distant and unknown Future.  Those who were destitute of a Divine Revelation had necessarily very vague and imperfect notions respecting it.  Hence the many different theories, the belief in which has prevailed from time to time, in the heathen world; and, in all of these, the certainty of rewards and punishments, and of future happiness or misery, was admitted.  Their heaven, indeed, was peopled with strange divinities, and the enjoyments which they anticipated were generally of an earthly and sensual nature; yet their belief in it seemed naturally to suggest the necessity of some preparation by themselves.  The two things appeared to be inseparable.  The entrance to the heathen Elysium was to be obtained only by piety towards the gods.  Hence the gorgeous temples which rose to their honour in the cities of ancient Greece and Italy; the sacrifices daily made at their altars; the prayers and costly offerings at their shrines.  And not only so, but particular portions of time seem from the earliest periods to have been regarded as sacred, and set apart for holy purposes; and it is remarkable, that the consecration of one day in seven appears to have been almost universal in the heathen world.  This may, perhaps, be attributed to some faint rays of that Divine Revelation, which was given to a part of the human race, and which tradition had handed down: the principle itself was universally acknowledged.  That Revelation, indeed, has cleared away the mystery which enshrouded the eternal world; it has explained the nature of that happiness which is provided for man; it has enjoined the observance of every seventh day as a time of preparation for it; it has distinctly laid down the obligation and duties of that day; and it has unfolded the promises which God has graciously made to those who shall habitually honour it.

Now it is not to be wondered at, that a command embracing so many different duties, and the obligation of which is so universal, should, in all ages, have been regarded in different lights by different nations and individuals.  Even in our own land, many contradictory opinions are held respecting it, by those who yet all unite in a profession of Christianity.

The subject, as you are aware, is now occupying a large share of public attention, from the fact that an attempt is being made to infringe the sanctity of the Sabbath, as it is now by the law of this country protected, and in fact to legalize its desecration.  Hence it becomes the plain and manifest duty of every Christian man to be well informed as to the obligation which God has laid upon him to observe and keep holy this day, as also to know the especial purposes for which it was set apart.  And I have thought that it may not be an unprofitable subject for our meditation this evening, if I briefly lay before you the Scripture grounds for the observance of the Sabbath; and then, as far as I may be able to do so, endeavour to show you in what manner it should be kept holy.

I.  And here I would set out with the remark, that the proof of the obligation of the Sabbath is to be sought for entirely from the Scriptures.  The whole rests upon a Divine Revelation.  And it becomes the more needful to examine what is said upon the subject, in that Revelation, as an attempt has frequently been made to prove that the Christian Sabbath, especially, is not a Divine institution, and that the fact of its sanctity rests only upon the authority of the Church, and not upon that of God Himself.

1.  And, first, with respect to the original institution of the Sabbath.  It was one of the two great ordinances, “instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency;” and it was consequently given at a very early period in the history of the world.  The record of the command, and of the purposes for which it was designed, is found in Gen. ii. 1–3.  Several things are apparent from a consideration of this passage.  We see that the Sabbath was given to the whole race of mankind, because it was given to our first parents; that God “blessed it,” that is, designed it to be the source of especial blessings to Adam and his descendants; and that He sanctified it, that is, “set it apart,” which is the literal meaning of the words, for sacred purposes.  We find no reference made to any particular people, but it was evidently designed as an example from the Divine Creator to the whole human family.  The work of creation had occupied six days, and on the seventh “God rested from all His work which He created and made.”

Among the brief records of the ante-diluvian world, and in the lives of the Patriarchs before Moses, which are given us by the sacred historian, we find traces of a weekly division of time, and intimations that every seventh day was observed as a time of rest and religious worship.  The sons of Adam are described as each making an offering unto God: “And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, an offering unto the Lord; and Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof.”  Now the words, “process of time,” literally mean “at the end of the days,” that is, at the end of a certain number of days,—a very natural expression for the end of a week.  And they seem to convey an intimation of the original command to keep the Sabbath as a day of religious worship.

The account of the gift of the manna, [7] which took place in the second month of the Exodus from Egypt, is a very remarkable proof that the seventh day was kept holy, and regarded as a day of rest before the giving of the Law.  Every seventh day the Israelites were commanded to gather twice as much manna as on ordinary days, as none fell upon the seventh day; and, contrary to what usually took place, the double quantity which they gathered was miraculously preserved in a state fit for food.  Now, in the whole of this account, no precept is given for the observance of the Sabbath day; but it proceeds upon the supposition that the Israelites were well acquainted, both with the institution itself, and with the purposes for which it had been originally given.

2.  We now come to what is said upon the Sabbath in the law of the Ten Commandments, which were given by God to Moses, and which are referred to in Scripture as the sum of the moral precepts of God to man.  The obligation to keep holy the Sabbath day is repeated in the fourth Commandment.  We shall find, from the writings of the New Testament, that our Saviour and His Apostles never allude to the Ten Commandments but as of permanent and universal obligation.  “Think not,” says Christ, “that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” [8a]  And not only is the perpetual obligation of the Sabbath to be inferred from such general expressions of our Lord but we have His own direct authority for it, when He says, “The Sabbath was made for man,” [8b]—for the race, and so is binding upon all to the end of time.

We might, if it were needful, refer you to the numerous threatenings which are denounced against those who shall violate the Sabbath, and to the blessings which are promised to those who shall keep it holy, which are scattered through the prophetic parts of Scripture, and to the latter of which the words of my text belong; but enough has been said to show that the perpetual obligation to observe a seventh day rests upon no less an authority than that of a Divine command.

3.  The Christian Sabbath is the first day of the week.  Intimations of the reason of the change from the seventh to the first day of the week are to be found in the fact that the glories of Judaism had passed away with the advent of the Messiah, and were succeeded by a new and better dispensation; and it may have been deemed a fitting honour to mark the commencement of this new dispensation, by the consecration in the Church of Christ of that day on which the mystery of human redemption was accomplished.  It was on the first day of the week that the Saviour rose again, and so was “declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead.” [9a]  It was at the same time, a week afterwards, that He appeared to the disciples when they were assembled together, and confirmed by His presence the doubting faith of St. Thomas.  This day, too, was marked by the descent of the Holy Ghost at the feast of Pentecost, when Christ was first preached by the Apostles to the Gentile world.

We find from the New Testament and the earliest ecclesiastical records, that the primitive Christians always observed this day during the lifetime of the Apostles.  They seem to have assembled on the first day of the week to break bread, that is, to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and to receive religious instruction; and the custom had doubtless become universal, as it was observed in Asia Minor. [9b]  St. John [9c] appears to have kept this day with peculiar solemnity, and from him we learn that it had obtained a particular designation in the Church—“the Lord’s day,” a name which it has ever since retained.

In addition to this evidence, we may remark that some of the early Fathers refer to this day as the period set apart for religious worship, and allude to the difference between keeping the first day of the week and the seventh, especially on the ground of its being the day of our Saviour’s resurrection.

Such, very briefly, are the general arguments for the observance of the Sabbath, derived from the words of the original institution; from the practice of the patriarchs before the giving of the Law; from the express injunction contained in the Ten Commandments, which, by the authority of our Lord and His Apostles, are binding upon Christians; and from the practice of the primitive Church during the lifetime of the Apostles, and in the ages which immediately succeeded.

It is not needful that I should dwell upon them at greater length; and we proceed now to examine in what manner the Sabbath should be kept holy.

II.  The words of the Prophet, to which I have called your attention, are primarily addressed to the Jews, but it involves no accommodation of Scripture to consider them as applying to ourselves, since the obligation to keep holy the Sabbath day rests equally upon us, as it did upon them.  They embrace many particulars of duty, and contain a promise, on God’s part, to bless with honour and temporal prosperity those who shall reverence His day.

Now the observance of the Sabbath may be regarded both as a National and as an Individual duty.

And first, to regard it as a National duty.  The Bible lays it down as a general principle, that every nation and kingdom owes its existence and continuance as a nation, to the special power and protection of the Most High.  “For the kingdom is the Lord’s; and He is the Governor among the nations.” [11a]  “By Me kings reign, and princes decree justice.  By Me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth.” [11b]  In nothing, indeed, is the hand of God more strikingly to be seen than in the history of nations; and it will be found to be a truth to which the annals of the past bear ample record, that national prosperity has invariably followed that people who have honoured Him.

We might take the case of God’s ancient people, and find abundant proof of this in the prosperity which everywhere attended them.  We might recall the scenes of “the land of bondage,” the signs and wonders which were shown in Egypt, the overthrow of Pharaoh and his mighty host beneath the waves of the Red Sea.  We might recount the victories of Israel over the powerful and warlike nations of Canaan, nations “greater and mightier than” themselves, whom God drove out from before their face.  We might speak of the fast-increasing glories of that people in the earlier years of their political existence, and of the fearful and rapid decline which followed their idolatrous practices and forsaking of God.

But do we not find, even in the midst of ourselves, an evidence more powerful and convincing still?  To what is it that England owes her supremacy?  Why is it that success has attended her arms almost without a single exception? that the Queen of these small and insignificant islands is the Sovereign Lady of nearly a sixth part of the human race? that the sway of Great Britain is undisputed upon the sea, and her arms respected by every foreign nation?  How is it that while revolution after revolution has disturbed the tranquillity of neighbouring nations, while kings have been hurried into exile or to death, and scenes of carnage and bloodshed been of terrible frequency, we have been suffered to remain in peace and quietness, our friendly relations with Foreign Powers been maintained unimpaired, and our commercial prosperity never, perhaps, known to be greater?  I think the true answer will be found in the fact, that as a nation we have “acknowledged God in all our ways,” and that so “He has directed our paths.”  Nothing is more striking to any person who has visited the neighbouring countries of Europe than the difference with which the Lord’s day is observed in them, and amongst ourselves.  And after all, it is mainly in this respect that a national acknowledgment of God can be made.  Take, for example, the metropolis of the neighbouring empire of France, the city of Paris.  It is a well ascertained fact that, in that city, there is a far greater amount of dissipation and wickedness on the Sunday, than on any other day in the week.  It would seem that God’s day is especially selected to be dishonoured.  Every place of public amusement is open,—galleries of painting—public gardens—theatres.  Reviews of troops, displays, and pageants of every kind commonly take place upon this day.  It is quite true that the people attend the services of the Romish Church, and that religion is treated with some degree of decorum and respect.  But what is the result of such a system?  Simply, that the service of God comes to be looked upon as something which may be satisfactorily performed by a mere attendance at Mass, and by obedience to such outward duties as the Church may enjoin, and that then every kind of sinful pleasure and amusement may be indulged in with impunity.  Can we wonder at the consequences which follow from such a state of things?  Can we be surprised at a corruption of manners which prevails to an alarming extent amongst all classes of society?  Can we marvel that, time after time, the foundations of that kingdom are shaken—that, in its many changes and revolutions, the handwriting of God is seen, which says with fearful significance, “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting?” [13]

Now England has hitherto been remarkable for her outward observance of the Lord’s day.  The entire cessation from business—the quiet streets—the orderly inhabitants—the well-filled churches, in our large towns—the village bells breaking the stillness of the Sabbath morning, and in every place calling the rich and poor alike to the House of their common Lord—have marked us out, pre-eminently, as a nation fearing God.  And it must be a source of deep regret and alarm to every Christian man, and, indeed, to every man who values aright the national peace and prosperity which the blessing of God has secured to this kingdom, that an attempt is being made, and that too of a most determined character, to infringe the sanctity of the Sabbath, and to obtain the repeal of the law which enforces its strict observance.

Far be it from me to wish that the Sabbath should be made a day of painful and irksome restraint; that the hardworked artisan should be denied the enjoyment of such innocent recreation as the day will allow; that the times should be revived in this country, when every man should be compelled to attend his Parish Church on pain of fine or imprisonment; but I would use every means in my power to maintain those wise and righteous regulations which a Christian government has made respecting its observance.  I believe it to be the duty of the clergy of the Church of England to speak openly and plainly upon the subject, and to use all the influence of their station and office to prevent the commission of this great national sin.  And I trust I may be excused in entering into details, which will not, I hope, be deemed inappropriate to the time and occasion on which we are met together.  I will state them very briefly.

You are aware that the building of the Great Exhibition, which was held in London, in the summer of 1851, has been removed to a distance from the city, and converted into a kind of winter garden and museum.  Many of you have seen the building, which is capable of containing nearly a hundred thousand persons; and it is proposed to admit the public to it on Sundays by the payment of money.  This is at present illegal by Act of Parliament, no places of public amusement, the admission to which is by money, being allowed to remain open on that day.  A petition will shortly be presented to Parliament, praying for the repeal of that Act.  A gentleman of considerable eminence and ability, who is officially connected with this movement, is about to visit the large towns of England, for the purpose of advocating the subject, and obtaining signatures in favour of it—chiefly from the working classes; and he will very probably visit this town.

Now I would say to you all, as you fear the curse of God upon this nation, as you would secure the continuance of His favour and blessing, and of that peace which England has so long enjoyed, abstain from signing that petition; abstain from attending public meetings upon the subject; use all your influence to prevent others from doing so.

I am quite sure that this proceeding will meet with no countenance or sanction from the Civic Authorities of this town.  We are blessed with rulers, who, as I believe, have made “the fear of the Lord” the great principle which actuates them in their public conduct, and which will lead them to use the authority and influence which, in His providence, He has committed to them, for the maintenance of His honour and glory.

I need not remind you what will surely follow this step, unless, by God’s gracious interposition, it be averted.  The opening of the theatres and of all places of public amusement on the Sunday will take place, and everything which now distinguishes God’s day from the days of our worldly business be at an end.  This must be the inevitable consequence of once opening the door to the desecration of the Sabbath.  How then shall the Church of Christ be able effectually to stem the torrent of vice which will sweep over this land?  How check the march of infidelity, which is sure to advance with giant strides amongst us?  We know that even now, in spite of all our efforts, God’s Sabbaths are fearfully profaned.  Though our churches are multiplied on every hand, and those schools in which our children are trained for the Church on earth, and, as we trust, for the Church eternally, in Heaven, are increased, yet much remains to be accomplished ere the “way” of the “Lord be known upon earth, His saving health among all nations.” [16]  The mountains of unbelief have yet to be laid low, the valleys of ignorance and vice to be exalted, before Messiah, in His onward and triumphant march, can receive the homage of those hearts which He has purchased with His own most precious blood, ere He can enter upon the glories of that universal kingdom in which “all shall know Him from the least to the greatest.” [17a]

Let it then be ours to use every effort to “prepare the way of the Lord,” that so we may be the blessed instruments of advancing the Redeemer’s kingdom upon earth.  Amongst us, let His name and His Sabbaths be honoured and reverenced; and, above all, let us unite in earnest prayer to Him who can “destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent,” [17b] that He may frustrate the designs of those who would array themselves against Him, that they may be put to shame and confusion, and so His promise be fulfilled, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” [17c]

But while the observance of the Sabbath may be regarded as a national duty, yet it is, at the same time, an individual duty.  While we are required, as a nation, to honour God in this respect, we have, besides, an individual responsibility which is independent of it.

The subject opens to us a very wide field, and it would be impossible, within the brief limits to which we are confined, to enter upon all that might be said.  The words of Isaiah contain, perhaps, the fullest explanation of the manner in which the Sabbath should be observed that is to be found in the records of inspiration.  They enjoin an entire cessation from our worldly business and pleasures, and from all such conversation as shall unfit us for the duties of religion; and, at the same time, they teach us that our thoughts and attention should be directed to the great business for which the day was instituted.

Now our duty upon the Sabbath naturally divides itself into three parts: the public worship of God; the cultivation of family religion; and the maintenance of personal piety.

It is not needful that I should seek, by anything which I might say, to impress upon you the importance of a constant and devout attendance upon the services of the Church.  I need not remind you of the blessings which shall surely be the portion of those who shall “dwell in the courts of the Lord’s house,” and whose feet are to be found in “the sanctuary of God,”—who are ever mindful of the Saviour’s promise, “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” [18a]  In many a heart does the language of the sweet singer of Israel find an echo, when he gives utterance to those exulting words, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the House of the Lord.  Our feet shall stand within thy gates, Oh Jerusalem.” [18b]  I speak to those who love and reverence the Church of England—the Church of our country and our fathers—the Church beneath whose hallowed walls are strewn the graves of Martyrs and Confessors—the Church which has been watered by the blood of the Saints, and which is surely “built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone.” [19a]  Oh that that Church, whose “walls are Salvation, and her gates Praise,” [19b] may increase a hundredfold, and flourish in the midst of us!  Oh that she may be enshrined in the hearts of the people of this land; that her divisions may be healed, her time-honoured system be developed, and above all, her “priests be clothed with righteousness,” [19c] that so her mission upon earth may be accomplished in the subjugation of the hearts and affections of men to the sway of Jesus, and in the building up, “on their most holy faith,” of “a people prepared for the Lord!”  “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.  Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces!” [19d]

But the worship of God is only one of the duties of the Sabbath.  The cultivation of family religion is a work which should occupy at least some portion of time on this day.  The Sabbath was designed to be a day of rest and holy joy.  And surely these ends will be answered if, in every little household, parents and children shall meet together in happy and unrestrained intercourse; if it be a time when children shall listen, from a mother’s lips, to the histories of God’s Saints, and hear from her of the love of Jesus; when parents shall use all their efforts, that those who have gathered beneath the same earthly roof, and sat around the same fireside, may not be separated in the Eternal Home above.  Are we to be interested in each others’ worldly pleasures and pursuits, to share each others’ earthly joys and sorrows, and yet to have sealed hearts and sealed lips, where “those things which belong to our everlasting peace” are concerned?  I believe that, under God’s blessing, there is no more powerful instrument for good, than the early religious instruction of home.  The instruction of Sunday Schools is good, and is a mighty instrument in the hands of the Church, for advancing the cause of the Redeemer, but to be really effectual it must be combined with the education of home.  Who shall calculate its influence?  Who shall say how many a wayward one a mother’s affectionate counsels and admonitions, conveyed in the lesson of the Sunday evening, have been the means of recalling from the paths of sin?  Who can tell how long those golden memories lingered in the heart, ere their voice was stilled by long-continued disobedience to God?  Nothing, perhaps, is so deeply to be lamented in after life, as the want of the early religious instruction of home.  It entwines the things of Heaven with the best and purest of earthly affections.  It associates them with the innocence of childhood, and the happiness of home.  It stamps upon the heart an impression, which no subsequent career of sin can ever efface, that religion is a happy thing.  It makes the Sabbath to be, what it was ever designed to be, “a delight.”

But the maintenance of personal piety is another of the ends for which the Sabbath was instituted.  We are placed upon earth that we may prepare for eternity, and these pauses in our lives, these intervals of rest, are intended by God as a means of bringing eternal things from time to time more forcibly before us.  Hence a more than ordinary portion of our time should then be devoted to private prayer, to meditation, to the reading of God’s Word.  We should be striving so to employ these blessed opportunities that they may not at last become swift witnesses against us.  We should seek to place ourselves before “the great white throne,” and to dwell in thought on “Him who sitteth on it.”  So will the tumults of passion be stilled in our inmost hearts, and a more than earthly peace be breathed upon our spirits.  We shall learn more clearly the great truth, which outward objects are ever hiding from our view, that “the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but that he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” [21a]

The Sabbath is an emblem of Heaven, and a type of its joys, and so it is in it that we must acquire a taste for those enjoyments.  The unregenerate man is unfit for Heaven.  It would be no Paradise to him.  It is only “the pure in heart” who “shall see God.” [21b]  Hence the Christian is here meetening for its happiness.  From time to time the veil is lifted, and he is permitted to behold faint glimpses of its glories.  In the service of an earthly sanctuary, he hears an echo of the music of Heaven.  In his seasons of prayer and Communion with God, and in his freedom from earthly care and toil, he learns something of that “rest” which “remaineth for the people of God.” [22a]  The earthly Sabbath is but an earnest and foretaste of the heavenly one.  Here it is succeeded by the struggles and anxieties of life.  Here thoughts of worldly care often interrupt its happiness.  Here there is but the offering of an earthly service, and the devotion of an earthly heart.  But there all shall be changed.  For His Saints “shall serve Him day and night in His temple: they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.” [22b]  No “tears” shall dim the eye.  No “death” shall enter the home, and take away from us those whom we love.  No “sorrow nor crying,” no “pain” shall be there, “for the former things will have passed away.” [22c]

Be it then your part and mine, brethren, to seek, through “the blood of Jesus,” a meetness for this heavenly rest; so to employ the days of preparation for it which God has given us, that we may indeed “call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable:” to maintain by seasons of worship and earnest service, by Communion with Him at His Table, and in the retirement of the closet, a living union with Christ our Head, that so when our earthly Sabbaths shall have come to a close, and the opportunities of usefulness upon earth be past, we may enter upon that perfect worship and service, which shall develop every power and satisfy every desire of an immortal nature, and share in the rest of that Sabbath which shall never have an end!

LONDON:
STEVENS AND CO., PRINTERS, BELL YARD,
LINCOLN’S-INN-FIELDS.

[7]  Exodus xvi. 22–31.

[8a]  Matt. v. 17.

[8b]  Mark ii. 27.

[9a]  Rom. i. 4.

[9b]  See 1 Cor. xi. 20; xiv. 23–40; Acts xx. 7–12.

[9c]  Rev. i. 10.

[11a]  Ps. xxii. 28.

[11b]  Prov. viii. 15, 16.

[13]  Dan. v. 27.

[16]  Ps. lxvii. 2.

[17a]  Heb. viii. 11.

[17b]  1 Cor. i. 19.

[17c]  Is. lix. 19.

[18a]  Matt. xviii. 20.

[18b]  Ps. cxxii. 1, 2.

[19a]  Eph. ii. 20.

[19b]  Is. lx. 18.

[19c]  Ps. cxxxii. 9.

[19d]  Ps. cxxii. 6, 7.

[21a]  1 John ii. 17.

[21b]  Matt. v. 8.

[22a]  Heb. iv. 9.

[22b]  Rev. vii. 15, 16.

[22c]  Rev. xxi. 4.