INTERESTING EXTRACTS CONCERNING THE SABBATH
By M. E. Cornell
Testimony of Eminent Authors.—No. 4.
INTERESTING EXTRACTS CONCERNING THE SABBATH.
The weekly Sabbath of the fourth commandment being placed in the very bosom of the decalogue, was honored above all the merely ceremonial Sabbaths of the Jewish economy. Its origin was at the beginning of the world and career of the human race. Traces of Sabbath knowledge and of observing the hebdomadal division of time are found among the Phoenicians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Slavonians, Natives of Pegu, Chinese, inhabitants of Guinea, and Mexicans. It is not at all probable that these nations derived it from the Jews, for they were unknown to many of them, and hated by those to whom they were known. How, then, we inquire, came they by it? Either it commended itself to their reason, or it came down by tradition. If we accept the former hypothesis, it proves the Sabbath a natural institution; but if we admit the latter, it is in harmony with all we claim in regard to its Paradisaic origin. Archbishop Usher says: “The very Gentiles, both civil and barbarous, both ancient and of later days, as it were by a universal kind of tradition retained the distinction of the seven days of the week.”—Works, part i, chap. 4. “The seventh day is sacred.”—Hesiod (B. C. 870). “Then came the seventh day that is sacred.”—Homer (B. C. 907). “It was the seventh day wherein all things were finished.”—Homer. “The seventh day wherein all things were finished.”—Linus. “The seventh day among the best things.”—Homer out of Linus. “Bad omens detained me on the sacred day of Saturn.”—Tibulus. “The sacredness of one of the seven days was generally admitted by all.”—Aristobulus and Clemens. Josephus against Apion says: “There is neither city of the Greeks nor barbarians, nor any nation whatever, to whom our custom of resting on the seventh day is not come;” or, as some translate, “does not prevail.” Theophilus, of Antioch, declares that “all mankind make peculiar mention of the seventh day.” Cox remarks: “The hebdomadal revolution of time generally admitted in the world is also a great testimony to the original institution of the Sabbath. Of old, it was catholic, and is at present received among those nations whose converse was not begun until of late with any of those parts of the world where there is a light gone forth in these things from the Scripture. All nations, I say, in all ages, have, from time immemorial, made the revolution of seven days to be the first stated period of time. And this observance is still continued throughout the world, unless amongst them who in other things are openly degenerated from the law of nature; as those barbarous Indians, who have no computation of times, but by sleeps, moons, and winters. The measure of time by a day and night, is pointed out to the sense by the diurnal course of the sun; lunar months, and solar years, are of an unavoidable observation unto all rational creatures. Whence, therefore, all men have reckoned time by days, months, and years, is obvious unto all. But whence the hebdomadal revolution, or weekly period of time should make its entrance, and obtain a catholic admittance, no man can give an account but with respect to some impressions on the minds of men from the constitution and law of our natures, with the tradition of a Sabbatical rest instituted from the foundation of the world.”—Works, p. 278. President Goguet says: “We find from time immemorial the use of this period among all nations, without variation in the form of it. The Israelites, Assyrians, Egyptians, Indians, Arabians, and in a word, all the nations of the earth, have in all ages made use of a week of seven days.” Mr. Buckingham and Mrs. Somerville tell us the same custom existed among the ancient Romans, Britons, Germans, Gauls, and others. The learned Grotius informs us that the memory of creation’s being performed in seven days was preserved among the Greeks, Italians, Celts, and Indians, all of whom divided their time into weeks. Calmet says: “Manasseh Ben Israel assures us that according to the tradition of the ancients, Abraham and his posterity, having preserved the memory of creation, observed the Sabbath also in consequence of natural law to that purpose. It is also believed that the religion of the seventh day is preserved among the pagans; and that the observation of this day is as old as the world itself.” “Almost all the philosophers and poets acknowledge the seventh day holy.” A document recently published in the Asiatic Journal says: “The prime minister of the Empire affirms that the Sabbath was anciently observed by the Chinese in conformity to the directions of the king.” The Sabbath necessity being founded in the very constitution of man, shows that its institution must have been at the first, and is co-eval with the human race. Being of universal and permanent benefit, its origin must be among man’s first necessities. So we find that God “sanctified” the Sabbath day in the beginning. Charles Elliot, Prof. Bib. Lit. in Pres. Theological Seminary, Chicago Ill. says: “The Hebrew word, in the Piel species (the species used in Gen. 2: 3.), signifies ‘To regard and treat as holy, to consecrate.’” The duties enjoined in the Sabbath law are such as are necessary to our well-being as physical, intellectual, and moral creatures, and hence they are not limited to any particular age or nation, but enduring as the human race. There is nothing in the fourth commandment pointing to any particular individual interest or history; nothing national, but every one of the reasons for the Sabbath apply alike to all. Its object, therefore, is to supply the demands of nature. Dr. Fairbairn, in his Typology, Vol. ii, p. 116, remarks: “Where the true religion has been unknown, it has always been found necessary to appoint, by some constituted authority, a certain number of holidays, which have often, even in heathen countries, exceeded, rarely anywhere have fallen short of, the number of God’s instituted Sabbaths. The animal and mental, the bodily and spiritual natures of man alike demand them. Even Plato deemed the appointment of such days of so benign and gracious a tendency, that he ascribed them to that pity which the gods have for mankind born to painful labor, that they might have an ease and cessation from their toils. And what is this but an experimental testimony to the truth of God’s having ordered his work of creation with a view to the appointment of such an institution in providence? and to his wisdom and goodness in having done so?” In Wickliffe’s Bible, Gen 2: 2 reads as follows: “And God fulfilled in the seventh day his work that he made; and he rested the seventh day from all work that he had fulfilled; and he blessed the seventh day, and he hallowed it; for in it he had ceased from all his work.” On this, Lange comments as follows: “Therefore the expression, ‘He hallowed it,’ must be for men, for all men who were to be on the earth, or it is a mere blank.” Calvin on the same says: “First, therefore, God rested; then he blessed this rest, that in all ages it might be held sacred among men; or he dedicated every seventh day to rest, that his own example might be a perpetual rule.” An unknown author comments as follows: “And God rested from his work, and blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, as a Sabbath to the man and to his posterity.” Isaac Abendana, a learned Jew who resided many years at Oxford and elsewhere in England before 1706, writes as follows: “In the fourth commandment we are commanded to ‘remember the Sabbath day,’ which therefore must have been enjoined before, and consequently could be no other than the seventh in a regular circulation from the Sabbath of the creation, for we know of no other.” We may observe that the Almighty plainly declared (by the sending of the manna) which was the Sabbath whereon he rested from all his works, and which he commanded to be thenceforward observed by all those to whom he vouchsafed to give the manna; and, therefore, hereby we certainly know the precise Sabbath, and accordingly celebrate it. Now, to say that any seventh day after six days of usual labor, will answer the design of the institution of the Sabbath, is not only improbable, and so fit to be rejected by us, but overthrows the very ground of the fourth commandment; which is, that therefore we are to keep holy the Sabbath day, because that on it God rested from all his work. And to say he rested from his works any seventh day seems a very harsh interpretation: and therefore must we understand it precisely of the Sabbath immediately ensuing the work of the creation; and consequently that is the precise day we are obliged to celebrate, called the Sabbath by way of eminence, and as such distinguished from all others. Hence Jonathan in his Chaldee Paraphrase ascribes a peculiar excellency to this Sabbath, saying, ‘God blessed and sanctified it before all other days in the week.’ John Milton, of the time of public worship, says: “Under the law it was the Sabbath, that is, the seventh day, which was consecrated to God from the beginning of the world.” John Smith, London, A. D. 1694, says: “If that day which God, by his example and precept, first sanctified for the weekly Sabbath be Saturday, that day cannot be unsanctified, and another day adopted in its room, but by an equal, if not a superior, authority to that which consecrated Saturday. Now, a superior authority to the example and precept of God cannot be imagined, and that which is alleged by either party for the unsanctifying of Saturday falls far short of equality to it.”—Smith’s Works, p. 291. Dr. Benj. Kennicott, of Christ Church, Oxford, comments on strangers’ keeping the Sabbath, as follows: “This mention of the strangers’ being required to observe the Sabbath is a proof that the command of a Sabbath is not merely Jewish, as has frequently been asserted. No stranger could join in eating the passover without being first circumcised, and thereby initiated into Judaism (Ex. 12: 43, 44); but a stranger might, nay, was obliged to keep the Sabbath, though he had not been circumcised. The reason of which remarkable distinction is, that circumcision was a national, and the Sabbath a universal, institution; the former given in command to Abraham, and obligatory only on his descendants; while the latter was given in command to Adam, the father of all mankind.” Sir John David Michaelis, Professor of Theology and Oriental Literature in the University of Göttingen, was born 1717, and died 1791. In his Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, translated from the German by Alexander Smith, D. D., London, A. D. 1814, he thus remarks: “Moses found a custom among the people, established from the very earliest period, by which they solemnized the Sabbath day, and it is probable that even the Egyptians had left this day to them as a day of rest; at least he describes this solemnity as instituted by God immediately after the creation (Gen. 2: 2, 3), and he nowhere mentions its having been abolished, or become obsolete.”—Vol. iii, p. 150. Of William Sellers, A. D. 1671, Dr. Cox thus speaks: “In opposition to the opinion that some one day in seven is all that the fourth commandment requires to be set apart, the writer maintains the obligation of the Saturday Sabbath on the ground that God himself directly in the letter of the text calls the seventh day the Sabbath-day, giving both the names to one and the self-same day, as all men know that ever read the commandments.”—Cox, Vol. ii, p. 35. Walker observes: “God’s blessing a seventh day and sanctifying it, by his commandment given to our first parents is as easily to be learned, and known, and kept in memory, as many other things of less moment, which heathen infidels do learn, and know, and keep in memory for worldly respects. If they would travel, and send abroad into far countries to learn heavenly knowledge and holy behavior, as diligently as they do to learn human knowledge and worldly wisdom, art, and skill, they could not be ignorant of God’s law concerning the weekly Sabbath.”—B. pp. 107, 108. Dr. Barnes on Isa. 56: 2: “That layeth hold on it,” thus comments: “Heb. binds himself fast to it, or seizes upon it with strength. That is, he adheres firmly to the purpose as a man seizes upon a thing with an intention not to let it go.”