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Transcribed from the 1853 Wertheim and Macintosh edition by David Price.

THE DIVINE AND PERPETUAL OBLIGATION OF THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH,

WITH REFERENCE MORE ESPECIALLY TO A PAMPHLET LATELY PUBLISHED BY THE

ENTITLED "A FEW WORDS ON THE CRYSTAL PALACE QUESTION."

LONDON: WERTHEIM AND MACINTOSH, PATERNOSTER ROW; NORWICH: THOMAS PRIEST, RAMPANT HORSE STREET,

PREFACE

The following pages are published with considerable reluctance. The Author read Dr. Vaughan's pamphlet several weeks since, and was much pained that some of the sentiments contained in it should proceed from such a quarter. He hoped and expected that some one with more leisure than he can command, and more capable of doing justice to the important points under discussion, would undertake to refute what he felt to be the very erroneous notions of the learned Doctor. Since, however, no one else has taken up the subject, he ventures to submit his sentiments to the Christian public. He has no love for polemics, and very unwillingly appears in print; but he has reason to know, that the notions to which he alludes have already, in several instances, encouraged a violation of the Sabbath, and that they are likely to produce more extensive mischief, from the circumstance of no attempt having been made to refute them. To prevent this evil, is one object of the present undertaking. Another is, to counteract the erroneous sentiments of Dr. Vaughan's pamphlet; while the writer's chief aim is, to set forth what he believes to be the will of God on the important subject of the Sabbath. He is convinced that the principles enunciated in the following pages are in conformity with the teaching of the Bible; and being fully assured that obedience to the will of our Heavenly Father, is in all things the only way of peace and safety, he will rejoice if this pamphlet shall become the means of removing error, or of confirming those who already believe that the Sabbath is of divine and perpetual obligation.

THE DIVINE AND PERPETUAL OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH.

Another thing that we could not help remarking, was the manner in which the authority of the Old Testament is repudiated. "With reference to the observance of the Sabbath, and to every point of moral duty, the appeal now lies primarily to the scriptures of the New Testament, and secondarily to any other records which we may possess of the practice of the apostolical age." How different is the mind of Dr. Vaughan from that of the Apostle Paul on this important point. The Apostle tells us , that all scripture is "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Dr. Vaughan tells us in effect, that our rule of practice is the New Testament and tradition!

The Rev. Doctor evidently feels some difficulty in reconciling his views with the teaching of the Church of England. For after speaking of the privilege and blessing of Sabbath observance, as if conscious of the dilemma in which his principles placed him, he proceeds to ask, "And shall those who look back through long years upon their frequent failures to improve the blessing, see no reason for the confession which bewails their past neglect of it, and the prayer which asks help to honour it hereafter?" Now we confess that we cannot help feeling, as we think most must feel, that this attempt to escape from the appearance of inconsistency in using the prayer alluded to, is most unsatisfactory. The prayer to which allusion is here made, is offered by the whole congregation immediately on the reading of the fourth commandment by the Minister. Its language is, "Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law." And the meaning and intent of the prayer are thus expressed in the rubric at the head of the commandments in the Communion Service: "The Priest shall rehearse the ten commandments; and the people shall, after every commandment, ask God mercy for their transgression thereof for the time past, and grace to keep the same for the time to come." This, then, is the meaning of the prayer; and in this there is necessarily implied a recognition of the moral obligation of the commandment, with regret for its violation, as well as a prayer for pardon, and for help to keep it in future. But is this the meaning which Dr. Vaughan attaches to the language of this prayer? No, with his views, it must be something of this sort: "Have mercy upon us for not improving this blessing in time past, and incline our hearts to honour this blessing in future." Surely if the fourth commandment be no longer in force, to use this prayer is to confess guilt where no law has been transgressed, to ask pardon where no offence has been committed, and to seek aid to amend what is not legally wrong.

Nor is this the only practical difficulty connected with the views in question. We presume it is the duty of the Masters of our public schools, as well as of the Clergy generally, to teach their charge the Church Catechism. But in the Church Catechism are the following questions and answers:--

Here is a plain acknowledgment that the ten commandments are still in force, and that we are bound by our baptismal vows to keep them. Dr. Vaughan affirms that they have "ceased to be our rule of life." How can these conflicting opinions be reconciled? or how can those persons consistently use the formularies of our church, who so directly contradict her teaching?

Having thus noticed more generally what we consider the unscriptural opinions set forth in the pamphlet under review, we shall now proceed to consider more particularly the Sabbath question. This is confessedly one of the great questions of the day. So momentous, indeed, are its bearings on the temporal and spiritual well-being of men, and so intimately is it connected with the worship and honour of God, that its importance can scarcely be overrated. If God is to be publicly acknowledged and worshiped in his own world--if men are to be instructed in the principles of revealed religion, and trained to habits of virtue and christian love--if personal, domestic, social, and national happiness is to be promoted--if time is to be so improved, as to make it the passage to a blessed immortality--the obligation to keep the Sabbath must be recognised, and its observance must be enforced and regulated according to the injunctions of God's holy word.

It is indeed asserted by some that, under the Christian dispensation, the observance of a day of rest is a mere iatter of expediency--that we are under no divine obligation to abstain from labour or other worldly pursuits--that the Sabbath was purely a Jewish institution, and has passed away with the other "weak and beggarly elements" of Judaism. But on what grounds are such assertions made? because, as it is alleged, there is no positive command in the New Testament to keep the Sabbath, "no direction for its observance, nor any reproof for the neglect of it," and because certain expressions are employed by St. Paul, which seem to bespeak "indifference to its retention, or even rebuke for its revival."

With regard to the first objection, viz. the want of a direct command, this could scarcely be necessary, inasmuch as our Lord not only himself kept the Sabbath, but in all his remarks in reference to it, spoke in a manner that necessarily implied his recognition of its divine origin and perpetual obligation. Besides, as he expressly declared that he came not to destroy the law or the prophets, , what right have we to deny the obligation of the fourth commandment, because it is not expressly repeated in the New Testament? The safer and more just way of reasoning would surely be this: Under the former dispensation God in the most solemn manner promulgated a law, connecting with its observance great temporal and especially great spiritual blessings, and visiting its violation with the most severe judgments. This law has not been formally and explicitly abrogated, nor its sanctions withdrawn. The law, therefore, still remains in force. Shew us that the fourth commandment has been abrogated in as plain terms as those that were employed in its promulgation; and then, and not till then, we may with a safe conscience regard the observance of the Sabbath merely as a matter of Christian expediency.

Where, again, was the necessity of "direction" for the observance of the Sabbath, when the first Christians, had the services of the Jewish synagogue as a model, and the plain instructions of the law and prophets to guide them, both as to the proper manner of keeping the Sabbath, and the spirit in which it should be kept? We might as well deny the Christian obligation to maintain the public worship of God, because in the New Testament no directions are given for conducting it.

The absence of a formal abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, and the formal substitution of the Christian Sabbath in its place, is in perfect accordance with the whole plan of divine providence, for the introduction and establishment of Christianity in the world. The religion of Moses was never formally abolished. Our Lord lived and died in it; and his Apostles and the early Jewish disciples occasionally at least observed its rites, and still worshiped at the temple and in the synagogue. Both religions were from God. Both had the same end. The same truths and the same spirit were essential to both. The shadows of the one gave place to the substance of the other. But in all that was vital, moral, saving, the two religions were identical. "He was not a Jew who was one outwardly, and circumcision was that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter." In like manner we conceive, what was purely and necessarily Jewish in the observance of the Sabbath, passed away with the mere externals of Judaism; but all that was essential to the spirit of the command remained in full force.

But it is asked, if the observance of the Sabbath be of divine and perpetual obligation, why have Christians changed the day, and why do they not keep the Sabbath in the manner enjoined in the Old Testament? We reply, that the lawgiver, the "Lord of the Sabbath," has by his own acts, declarations, and example, and by the example of his inspired Apostles, sanctioned both the change of the day, and the alteration in the manner of its observance. Christianity was not to be confined to one country, nor was it necessarily to be a national religion. It was to overspread the world, and was to be suited to all countries and climes. It was therefore necessary that whatever was merely local and national in the observance of the Sabbath, should be relaxed or removed; and this might be done, and was done, without either touching the moral obligation of the law, or taking from its observance a particle of what is vital and essential. Our Lord did not abrogate the seventh commandment when he declared, that the unchaste look was a breach of it. Neither did he set aside the fourth commandment, when he worked miracles of mercy on the Sabbath day; when he defended his disciples who were blamed for plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath day; when he declared it was "lawful to do good on the Sabbath day." And if the seventh day had hitherto been kept as a sign between God the Creator and his creature man, and as a memorial of creating goodness; surely there was great propriety in changing the day, so as to make the Sabbath observance a sign between God the Redeemer and his redeemed creature man, and a memorial of redeeming love, as well as an emblem of the eternal Sabbath, which is the hope of the christian. Nor can we imagine that the most explicit command for the change of the day, could have come with greater force to the followers of Christ, than the recorded facts, that the Saviour rose on the first day of the week, that after his resurrection, he selected that day to meet his disciples, that his people ever after regularly kept the first day, and that this day bears in Scripture the honoured appellation of "the Lord's day." In this change, however, nothing is given up that is essential in the command to keep holy the Sabbath day. One day in seven is to be set apart to the service of God; in it no unnecessary work is to be done; but works of necessity and of charity on that day are sanctioned by our Lord himself. And this is so far from being opposed to what was required under the former dispensation, that it agrees entirely with the teaching of the prophet Isaiah, who instructed the Jews, that the proper and acceptable way of keeping the Sabbath, was, "not to do their own ways," nor to "speak their own words," nor to "find their own pleasure;" but to "call the Sabbath a delight, holy of the Lord, honourable."

But was the Jew the only person that was brought under the sanctions of this law? Were not all proselytes from the Gentiles bound by the same obligations, as they were also partakers of the same blessings with the Jews? And does the obligation stop even here? What is the meaning of this passage from the prophet Isaiah? "Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer . . . for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people." Surely this language must have reference to the times of the gospel, when the gentile nations would be admitted into the church of God, and become partakers of the blessings of the new covenant. In support of this view it may be mentioned, that St. Paul states expressly that gentile believers have no separate and independent standing in the economy of redemption, but are as scions cut out of a wild olive tree and grafted into the Jewish stock, and so with the natural branches, partake of its root and fatness. Or, using another figure, he reminds the Ephesians, that before their conversion they had been "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel," but that now they were "fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." If this view be correct, and we see not how its correctness can be disproved, the Sabbath with its responsibilities and its blessings, is not confined to Jews, or to proselytes to the Jewish religion. Its observance is binding upon all who profess to believe the scriptures and to worship the God of the Bible.

We acknowledge the greater consistency of those who affirm, that the whole moral law is swept away by the gospel; though we much regret that any true Christians, and those too, persons who are friendly to a proper observance of the Lord's day, should hold notions which appear to us opposed to Scripture, and calculated to produce among the unthinking multitude, the most serious consequences. If indeed it were true, that the whole decalogue is abrogated by Christianity, no supposed immoral results would deter us from boldly proclaiming the fact. In that case, we should not shrink from telling men that our church is under a serious mistake, when she teaches her members to confess their guilt in breaking each of the ten commandments, to ask for pardon, and to implore grace to keep them in time to come. But it is because we believe in our heart that the decalogue is still in force, and that God's honour and man's happiness alike demand its observance, that we are not "bold enough" to proclaim as "liberty" what we are sure would lead to the greatest licentiousness. A theory of the kind may not seriously injure men of real piety and great spirituality of mind; but to others it would be productive of the most lamentable consequences.

But if Christianity has freed us from the moral law, an announcement to that effect must be recorded in the New Testament, and recorded in no obscure or doubtful terms, such as can by any possibility be misunderstood, but in language as plain, as perspicuous, and as authoritative, as that employed in the original promulgation of the law. For here we are not called upon to give up merely some external observance, or to change the mode or the time of performing some appointed duty ; but we are told to renounce what in its very nature is essential to all acceptable obedience, and what above every other part of revelation bears marks of the divine impress. If the moral law is to be renounced as part of "the weak and beggarly elements" of the Mosaic religion, we must have the voice of God as distinctly abrogating the ten commandments as it was heard in their original promulgation. Nothing less will satisfy us, and nothing else, we venture to say, ought to satisfy any man who believes, that at the bar of God he must answer for the use he has made of the divine revelation contained in the Bible.

Here we are content to stop; though we feel that the argument might be carried much further. For we believe that had there been no command in the law of Moses, enjoining the observance of the Sabbath; still both Jews and Gentiles would have been bound by the original institution, coeval with man's being, and forming the only positive appointment of God, imposed on our first parents in a state of innocency. He "blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it." This thought will probably have little weight with those who are not convinced by our previous arguments; but it will doubtless lead some to reflect, that if the Sabbath was needed for man's welfare even in the garden of Eden, much more is it required for the good of both body and soul in his present condition of sin and toil and sorrow; and that if the Father of Goodness gave his sinless creatures a day of rest from worldly employment, and a weekly Sabbath for more continued and intimate communion with himself; the compassion of the same gracious Being would not only lead him to continue the appointment, now so much more needed in man's fallen state, but also to command such an observance of the day, as man's altered circumstances rendered necessary. Now, this can only be effected by making it imperative on all to "keep holy" the sacred day themselves, and to afford to others facilities to keep it. If it were to be regarded merely as a privilege, to be enjoyed or neglected at pleasure, it would not answer the end intended. In man's present condition, he cannot by nature appreciate the boon, nor desire the spiritual blessings that the appointment is especially intended to convey. The observance of the Sabbath must therefore be laid upon his conscience as a duty, that in seeking to fulfil that duty, he may be continually brought under the means of grace, and the influence of Christian principles, until by God's grace he is led to feel the blessedness of a well spent Sabbath, and keeps from a motive of love, what he at first observed from a sense of duty.

SOME persons require a proof that the decalogue is binding on Christians. They acknowledge that it is still in force towards the Jews. But assuming that the whole Jewish economy is abrogated with regard to Christians, they demand evidence from the New Testament that the ten commandments are a rule of duty to us. Now this is a demand they have no right to make. It proceeds on an assumption, the correctness of which we deny. It is therefore, the part of those who maintain that view, to prove that the moral law has ceased to be in force; not of us, to shew the contrary.

While, however, we maintain our vantage ground, and contend that nothing less than a plain declaration in the New Testament to that effect, can or ought to satisfy us, that the decalogue is annulled, we do not despair of being able to satisfy any candid mind, by an appeal to the New Testament, that we are as much bound by the ten commandments as are the Jews, to whom they were originally given.

No one can say, that there is an express declaration in the New Testament, to the effect, that the decalogue is set aside under the present dispensation. Those who arrive at the conclusion, must confess, that it is merely inferential. In this respect, then, both parties stand on equal ground. Neither our opponents nor ourselves can adduce an undoubted and positive declaration. But we ask which have the greatest need of such a declaration--they who assert that the moral law, written and pronounced by God himself, has been abrogated, or they who affirm that it is still in force? On which side lies the greater probability, and with whom rests the greater responsibility? No very serious harm can result from the error of maintaining the perpetual authority of the moral law, but the most disastrous consequences may flow from the rejection of its claims. And surely it is more likely that God would continue his own law in force without a direct renewal of it, than that he would abrogate it without a plain announcement to that effect. In the absence then of positive evidence, the probability lies on the side of its retention.

Now, this probability advances a step towards certainty, when it is remembered, that Judaism is not formally abrogated in the New Testament--that in fact Christianity is not a new religion, but the extension and expansion of the moral and spiritual part of the Mosaic dispensation--believing Jews still remaining on their own stock, and believing Gentiles being scions grafted into the Jewish olive tree. The religion of Jesus is in reality the perfection of the religion of Moses. But where would be its superiority in a moral point of view, if the authority of the very standard of morality were taken from it? At any rate, if such were the case, some express intimation to that effect is to be expected.

This argument is still further strengthened by the fact, that the spirit and essential requirements of Judaism and Christianity are identical. It has indeed been asserted that the morality of the Old Testament was one of legal enactment; whereas that of the New Testament is one of motives and principles. But our Lord teaches a very different doctrine. He tells us that love was the essence and sum of all the requirements of the Old Testament, even as love is the fulfilling of the law under the present dispensation. Christianity presents a new and powerful motive for obedience--namely gratitude for the incarnation and death of the Son of God; but this neither changes the nature of man's moral obligation, nor removes the necessity of a positive enactment to guide him in his obedience, and enforce conformity to God's will. If then in spirit and essence the moral requirements of the law and of the gospel were the same, what reason should there be for setting aside the decalogue, and what authority have we to ignore it without an express command from God?

The probability that the moral law remains in force under the present dispensation, is still further strengthened by the use which is made of it by the inspired writers of the New Testament. St. Paul indeed speaks of the law as the "ministry of condemnation," in opposition to the gospel, which is the "ministry of righteousness," or justification--the one dispensation bearing on its front the justice of God, the other, his mercy.

He tells us plainly that the law can only condemn, while the gospel alone has power to justify. He assures us that in this respect--in its condemning power--it is "done away" to the believer, while the free grace of the gospel alone "remains." But when he speaks of the moral requirements of Christianity, while he tells us that love is the essence and sum of all, he nevertheless sends us to the commandments of the second table, to learn how love is to be exhibited, or rather perhaps to shew us, that the moral requirements of the two dispensations were essentially the same. What an extraordinary use to make of the law, if the decalogue be part of "the weak and beggarly elements" abolished by Christianity. St. John tells us that to love God is to keep his commandments. But we know not which of his commandments we are bound to keep, if we reject those which he wrote with his own finger, and pronounced with his own voice. St. James refers to the moral law as if recognising its obligation. "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law." It may be objected, that this reference to the law is merely for the purpose of illustration. But surely if the violation of one precept involves the guilt of breaking the whole law, the whole law must still be in force. For if the enactment has been repealed, there is no law; and if there is no law, there can be no transgression; and if there is no transgression, there can be no guilt. How strange, too, is this appeal to the law by the Apostle Paul, if the law has been annulled: "Children obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Honour thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth." We thus approach very near the establishment of our position, that there is evidence in the New Testament, that the moral law is still binding on men.

But there is one passage of the New Testament, which, in the absence of a positive enunciation to the contrary, to our mind, of itself establishes the permanent authority of the decalogue, and which, when added to what has already been said, more than completes the proof that has been demanded of us. We allude to our Lord's declaration: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." There can scarcely be a doubt to what the Redeemer refers when he speaks of "the law and the prophets." He could not intend the ceremonial law, because the breaking of its least commands would not make a man "least in the kingdom of heaven." Neither was it true that he did not come to put an end to its observance. It is the moral law, and those instructions of the prophets which flow from it--it is "the law and the prophets" as embraced in the precept, "thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself," which our Lord evidently meant. The entire discourse to which this declaration forms the introduction, is of a moral character; and whatever meanings may have been put upon our Lord's language, we think any unbiased mind, on reading the whole discourse, will come to the conclusion, that the moral law was chiefly and prominently in the Saviour's mind, when he employed the language above quoted. But if one jot or tittle cannot pass away from the law, how should the entire law be abrogated? We conclude, therefore, that there is satisfactory evidence in the New Testament, that the decalogue is still in force in the Christian church--not so indeed that obedience to it forms the ground of the believer's justification, or that want of perfect conformity to its requirements brings him under condemnation , but as the standard of right and wrong, as the infallible regulator of conscience, as that perfect rule of moral obligation, by seeking conformity to which we honour our Creator and Redeemer, perform the duties of this present life, and become fitted for the presence of God and the inheritance of the saints in light. To the believer the moral law has always been "the law of liberty," because, it being "written in his heart," he has "delighted in it after the inner man," and kept its precepts from a principle of love.

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