[The following is an extract from the Sabbath Manual by Justin Edwards. Although the author advocates a change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, based only however on those inferences which are commonly adduced in favor of that view, he nevertheless admits the seventh day as the true Sabbath from the creation to the cross. The following on the two laws is to the point, and will be read with interest by all those who are established on the true position in regard to the Lord's Sabbath. And we would especially recommend the perusal to those who are disposed to abolish one of the most obvious distinctions found in the Word of God, and blend the royal law, written in the tables of stone, with the ceremonial laws given by the hand of Moses.]
UNDER the Jewish dispensation were incorporated two kinds of laws. One was founded on obligations growing out of the nature of men, and their relations to God and one another; obligations binding before they were written, and which will continue to be binding upon all who shall know them, to the end of time. Such are the laws which were written by the finger of God on the tables of stone, and are called moral laws.
The other kind, called ceremonial laws, related to various outward observances, which were not obligatory till they were commanded, and then were binding only on the Jews till the death of Christ.
There were also two kinds of Sabbaths, or days of rest. One was a day of weekly rest; and the command to keep it holy was placed, by the Law-giver, in the midst of the moral laws. It was called, by way of eminence, "The Sabbath." The command to keep the other sabbaths was placed by the Law-giver among the ceremonial laws, because it was like them, as the command to keep the weekly Sabbath was like the laws with which it was associated. One class were fundamental, permanent, universal moral laws; the other class were local, temporary ceremonial laws. One had their origin in the nature and relations of man; the other in the peculiar circumstances in which, for a time, a peculiar people were placed. One would be binding in all ages, upon all who should know them; and the other would be binding only upon the Jews till the death of the Messiah.
The Jews, at the coming of Christ, being in a state of great spiritual darkness and grievous apostasy from God, did not well understand the nature and object of their laws. Often they overlooked the spirit, and were superstitiously devoted to the forms. Some, after they embraced the gospel, thought that the ceremonial as well as the moral laws were binding. Others, more enlightened, thought that they were not. This led to contention among them. Paul, in the fourteenth chapter of Romans, presented such considerations as were adapted to lead them, in this matter, to a right decision.
"One man," he says, "esteemeth one day above another. Another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord;125and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it." Both mean to honor God, and he will accept them. But what day does he speak of? "The Sabbath" of the fourth commandment, associated by God inseparably with the moral laws? Read the connection. What is it? Is it, one man believeth he must worship Jehovah; another, who is weak, worshipeth idols? One believeth that he must not commit murder, adultery or theft, and another thinks he may? Were those the laws about which they were contending, and with which were connected the days that he speaks of? No; about those laws there was no dispute.
But "One believeth that he may eat all things," (which are nourishing, whether allowed in the ceremonial law, which regulated such things, or not;) "another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth, for God hath received him." Those were the laws about which they were contending, and with regard to which the Apostle was giving them instruction. It was not the moral, but the ceremonial laws; and the days spoken of were those which were connected, not with the former but with the latter.
So, in the second chapter of Colossians, "Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbaths." The sabbaths spoken of are not "the Sabbath" associated with, Thou shalt not commit murder, or adultery, or theft; but the sabbaths associated with meats and drinks, and new moons, which were, indeed shadows of things to come. But to take what he said about those sabbaths which were associated by God with ceremonial laws, and which the Apostle himself, in this very discourse, associates with them, and apply it, as some have done, to "the Sabbath" which God associated with moral laws, is wrong.
"Blotting out" he says, "the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, nailing it to his cross." But the day of weekly rest from the business and cares of this world, for the purpose of worshiping God and promoting the salvation of souls, is never spoken of in the Bible as being against men, or contrary to them. No; it always was, and always will be, for them. That Sabbath was made for man, not against him.
To take what the Apostle has said about those sabbaths associated by God—and by Paul himself also, in the very discourse in question—with ceremonial laws, and apply it to "the Sabbath" about which he was not speaking, and which God has associated with moral laws, is utterly wrong. No honest lawyer, that understands his business, will ever interpret laws in that way. Concerning those "carnal ordinances" which the apostle speaks of, which were against men, and which stood in meats and drinks, and new moons, and divers washings, sabbaths and other things, which were not designed to be permanent, we say, with Paul, "Touch not, taste not, handle not."
While with regard to spiritual ordinances, "the Sabbath" and the moral law of which it forms an inseparable part, we say, and we feel with the Lord of Paul, "It was made for man." The Saviour came not to destroy that law, but to fulfill it; and in preaching the Gospel, neither he, nor Paul, nor any minister, who preaches like them, ever makes void that law, but always establishes it. And till heaven and earth pass away, it will not pass away.
God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, not that the moral law should be abolished, but that the righteousness of the law should be fulfilled in them that walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And thus only will the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus make them free from the law of sin and death. Thus it has been, and thus it will be. Those men, wherever found, will delight in the law of God after the inward man. God, according to his promise, will write it upon their hearts, and they will have respect to all his commandments. The Sabbath will be to them a delight. The holy of the Lord will be honorable, and they will honor him by devoting the day, not to purposes of worldly business, traveling or amusement, but to his worship, and to the spiritual good of men.
Says the celebrated Dr. Chalmers, "We never in the whole course of our recollections, met with a Christian who bore upon his character every other evidence of the Spirit's operation, who did not remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. We appeal to the memory of all the worthies who are lying in their graves, that, eminent as they were in every other grace and accomplishment of the new creature, the religiousness of their Sabbath day shone with equal lustre amid the fine assemblage of virtues which adorned them. In every Christian household, it will be found that the discipline of a well-ordered Sabbath is never forgotten among the old lessons of a Christian education; and we appeal to every individual who now hears us, and who carries the remembrance in his bosom of a father's worth and a father's piety, if, on the coming round of the seventh day, an air of a peculiar sacredness did not spread itself over that mansion where he drew his first breath, and was taught to repeat his infant hymn, and lisp his infant prayer. Rest assured that the Christian, having the love of God written in his heart, and denying the Sabbath a place in his affections, is an anomaly that is nowhere to be found. Every Sabbath image, with every Sabbath circumstance, is dear to him. He loves the quietness of that hallowed morn. He loves the retirement of this day from the din of worldly business and the inroads of worldly men. He loves the leisure it brings along with it; and sweet to his soul is the exercise of that hallowed hour, when there is no eye to witness him but the eye of Heaven, and when, in solemn audience with the Father who seeth him in secret, he can, on the wings of celestial contemplation, leave all the cares and all the secularities of an alienated world behind him."
And sweet especially is the hour when his communion and fellowship are truly with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. Then in joyful anticipation of the time when, with the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven, he shall see him as he is, and be like Him, his joy may emphatically be said to be full. And in the keeping of his Sabbaths, with their attendant means of grace, and in the discharge of the various and appropriate duties of life, God will guide him by his counsel, and afterwards receive him to glory; and then will he raise him from glory to glory, to endless ages.
"The Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth Life."
SOME say, "The letter killeth: let us not mind that much lest we be killed: let us seek after the inward light, the Spirit that giveth life. Much study of the written Word is dangerous," &c. Such I think understand not whereof they affirm. "The letter killeth." The letter of what? Of the New Testament, the context answers; and the sequel of the chapter, shows, that the letter of the New Testament is what was written and engraven in tables of stone, that is, the Decalogue, or ten commandments. This is according to what is written in Jer. xxxi, 33. After those days saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, &c. and what law can that be, but that which Jesus Christ sums up in two commands: to love our God and to love our neighbour. The above prophecy, Paul applies to the New Testament dispensation. Heb. viii, 10; x, 16. "The law then kills, condemns, curses, knows no mercy." Not too fast. The law is properly an impress of the character of its great author, our Creator and our God. Is he good, long-suffering, gracious, merciful? So must his law be. He must demand the like characteristics of us, and there is an implied obligation on his part, to be the perfect pattern of all he requires of us. The second commandment closes thus: "Showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments." Is there here no mercy? Nay, to my mind, the law is replete with mercy. Ay, but what say you to those previous words of the second commandment. "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me:"—Ans. Mark the last words: of them that hate me; and learn a principle, just and equal in the divine government. Sinner, hater of God, dost thou approve of the crimes of thy father, or of any of thy ancestors; dost thou inherit the wages of their iniquity, and shalt thou escape the just judgment of God? Saint, lover of God, dost thou approve of the righteousness of thy father, or of any of thy ancestors, and dost thou willingly inherit from them, the poverty, the shame, or the reproach which a wicked world heaped upon them for their piety; and shalt thou not with them be blessed? God's ways are equal. Are we sinners? all the sins that we approve of, become in a sense, our own: for the commandment is exceeding broad, and reaches to the thoughts and intents of the heart. Are we saints? We are partakers of all the righteous acts of which we approve, and which we would perform if we could. Does the law kill, or condemn the sinner? and is it not a mercy that it does? It cuts up by the roots his self-righteous hopes, and makes him despair of being saved otherwise than by the grace, and mercy of God. Being thus killed by the letter, he is now, for the first time prepared to be made alive by the Spirit of the New Testament, that is, by the mercy grace, and love of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The sinner repents, looks up, prays to God, confesses his sins, and believes in Jesus Christ. His heart is broken. His heart is changed. It receives the impress of God's law, so that he loves it; loves God, loves saints, and pities sinners. Condemnation, to him, ceases; for he is freely justified by faith in Jesus Christ. The ministration of the Spirit, whose fruits are faith, hope, and love, remains. He has passed from death unto life; old things are passed away, and behold all things become new. Not, that God, or his law, or his people, or the earth has passed away, but he sees with new eyes, and in new light, a God whom he adores, a law which he loves, and a people whom he fellowships.