p. 178 | THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH by J. P. Jasperson

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 8, 1876

THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH.

By J. P. Jasperson

[I THINK the following from the Chicago Times is worth reading. Would that Mr. Kittredge could comprehend these truths himself. J. P. JASPERSON.]

The Rev. A. E. Kittredge preached the following discourse to a very large congregation at the Third Presbyterian church on the evening, from the words: “Thus saith the Lord, Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the Sabbath, as I commanded your fathers.” Jer. 17:21, 22.

The divine institution of the Sabbath was antecedent to Christianity, to Judaism, and even to the fact of human sin. When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, then the great Architect, Jehovah, not only ended his work which he had made, and not only rested from all that work, but he came forth from the secrecy of his pavilion, and in the majesty of his power, the glory of his goodness, the beauty of his love, and in the presence of his universe, he blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, as a holy commemorative festival, because that in it he had rested from all the work which God created and made. Surely there was nothing of Judaism in this consecration. Twenty-five hundred years pass away, and the mighty host of the chosen people is encamped before Sinai, which is so girt about with terrors that even Moses said, “I exceedingly fear and quake.” And there amid thunderings and lightnings, the sound of the trumpet, and the voice of words, God wrote his holy law upon tables of stone, and these tables became thereby so sacred and precious that, by divine command, they were deposited in the ark of the testimony, in the holy of holies, under the wings of the golden cherubim. They were thus honored as no ceremonial or repeal-able law was ever honored, honored even above the specific rules and penalties which were prescribed by Jehovah, rules and penalties adapted to the customs and the government of the Jewish nation, and whose narration form a large portion of the books of Exodus and Leviticus.

But in the ten commandments there is nothing national or provincial, nothing which limits their authority to any one people or race or age. They are the laws which Jehovah proclaimed to man by the voice and pen of the Almighty, and preserved from age to age with scrupulous and constant care, laws which are as familiar to every child in our Christian homes to-day as they were to the aged Moses when he bore the tables of stone from the presence of the Almighty to the waiting multitude on the plain before Sinai. It has remained for the Chicago board of education to forbid their reading in the public schools of this city, to whose support Christian people contribute the larger share of the taxes. Now, in this code of laws, proclaimed by the divine Creator to the creature man, the observance of the Sabbath finds a place side by side with the commands against idolatry and profanity, adultery and murder. But it was not a new command; its opening words are, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” that is, remember the Sabbath of creation’s dawn, and continue to keep it holy forever. Of this law, with the other nine, the Saviour said, “I came not to destroy, but to fulfill.”

If, then, it is sinful to bow down and worship any other god than Jehovah, why is it sinful not to keep holy the Sabbath day. If it is sinful to take the name of God in vain, to dishonor parents, to commit murder, to bear false witness, to covet, why is it sinful not to keep holy the Sabbath day. You cannot single out this one and call it Jewish, and hence not binding to-day; for the reason given for its observance is not a Jewish one, viz., “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is.” All who acknowledge God as their Creator and King are under this binding obligation to keep holy the Sabbath day.

If its sacredness was so important in God’s sight that it had a place in that wonderful interview on Sinai, and was one of those few and solemn commands of Jehovah to man, then its observance is binding to-day on every man, woman, and child all over the world, on Jew and Gentile; for one God rules over all. It was to the people of God down to the latest time, that Isaiah wrote by divine inspiration, “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, honorable, and shalt honor 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 richer gift from God to man, next to his Son, than this day of sacred rest, God’s festival with his children, and he meant that it should be for our happiness as well as for our spiritual growth.