J. P. THOMPSON, D. D., LL. D., ON THE SABBATH
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J. P. THOMPSON, D. D., LL. D., ON THE SABBATH.
This writer, in his work entitled “Man in Genesis and in Geology,” uses the following language:— “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” Obviously this could not have been for himself, but for man in relation to his Maker. To bless a day was to set it apart to be a blessing; but there was no sense in which God could make any one portion of duration more of a blessing to himself than another, he being always self-contained, and infinite in his blessings. To “hallow” the day was to dedicate it to some sacred, moral, and beneficial use; but of course God could not have made one period of time more holy than another to himself. The sanctifying must have had reference to its use by and for others. This sacred day is God’s day, which man should devote to him in some special or uncommon way, turning aside from the common occupations to a separate and peculiar observance of this portion of time. Hence this grand day of the Almighty, this on-going day, which, dating from the creation of man as an intellectual creature, shall continue till the world and the present course of time shall close, is the type of the Sabbath, the rest-day for the creatures of God. The blessing and the hallowing was the solemn establishing of the institution, since such a formality would hardly have been entered upon for a mere passing occasion. It was with reference to an institution to be continued through after-times; and the proof of this appears all along in the early history of the race. For instance, we trace the division of time into weeks in the account of the flood, where Noah is said to have sent forth the dove at intervals of seven days. Again, in the life of Jacob, we find mention of a week as a recognized division of time, and so in other portions of the early history of the world. Some have supposed that this division was suggested by the phases of the moon, the lunar month being subdivided into four equal periods. But the phases of the moon, at the point of transition from one to another, are too obscure to have suggested this as a division of time so early in the history of the race. This would imply a knowledge of astronomy which we can hardly suppose to have been then attained. The year and the month are marked off on the great dial of the firmament, as is the shortest division of the day and night. The lights in heaven are for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years; but there is nothing in the phenomena of nature which corresponds to the seventh-day division in a manner so striking as to have impressed upon an unscientific observer such a measurement of time. This would require much nicety of astronomical observation; and hence we must regard the week as an arbitrary division, and look for its explanation in some other quarter. The week was a wide-spread usage among the nations of antiquity. The Egyptians and the Hebrews had it, and so had the early people of the East. It was well known, also, far back in Hindoo and Chinese history. This general consent of antiquity to a division of time which is not strongly marked as a division of nature, can best be accounted for upon the supposition of some common tradition as its source; and what more reasonable than the statement of the text, the designation by Jehovah of a sacred day to be observed by man from the beginning of the world? The exceptions to this seven-days period in the history of nations are just enough to prove the rule; for the usage prevailed among those nations that were connected most nearly by language and emigration with that part of Asia which was the cradle of the human family. Again: the fourth commandment treats of the Sabbath as an institution already known: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” This is not merely an emphasis for the future. It does not mean simply: Keep in mind hereafter this day with a view to its sacred observance; the word remember recalls the past. An institution entirely new would have required a different phraseology. For instance, it would have been enjoined in some such language as this: Thou shalt keep a holy rest every seventh day. But the Sabbath day was recalled as an institution known to their fathers and formerly to themselves, to be “remembered,” as something that ought to be known, but had been allowed to slip out of mind. We find mention of this day in the history of the Israelites in the wilderness before the giving of the law at Sinai. When the manna appeared, it is recorded that “on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man; and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, This is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.” On the following morning Moses said, “To-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord; to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none.” Ex. 16: 22, 23, 25, 26. From this it is evident that the institution of the Sabbath had long been known, although its observance may have pretty much died out among the children of Israel during their sojourn in Egypt. Now it was revived with the memory of the patriarchal times and the history of creation, and reinforced by specific command, as an institution to be remembered. Furthermore: the primary reason for keeping holy the Sabbath does not at all pertain to the Jewish commonwealth, but belongs to the history of humanity. It existed from the day of the first man, and is perpetual in its nature and obligation. “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” This was the primitive reason, and it is still a prominent reason. Other reasons supplementary to this have, from time to time, been given for the observance of this day; for instance, the deliverance of the children of Israel from their bondage in Egypt; and since the Christian era, the resurrection of Christ; for the resurrection of Christ includes within itself, as an antitype, both of the preceding grounds for the observance of this day; that resurrection symbolizes our deliverance from bondage, and our new creation into a higher spiritual life; and so grandly expressive is this symbol, that the day of the week has been changed to correspond with it. But the period of time to be observed as a Sabbath is altogether secondary; whether it be the seventh day or the first day is of minor importance. The essential point is the setting apart for sacred observance of a seventh portion of time; and the prime