THE SCRIPTURE AUTHORITY AND OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH EXAMINED
By Rev. W. M. O'Hanlon
From the Bibliotheca Sacra and American Biblical Repository. THE SCRIPTURE AUTHORITY AND OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH EXAMINED.
By Rev. W. M. O'Hanlon, Burnley, Lancashire. NOTHING can be more obvious than the obligation resting upon all intelligent and accountable creatures to devote some portion of their time to the immediate worship of God, to the devout study of his Will, to the contemplation of the spiritual interests of their own being, and to such other exercises as are fitted to elevate the mind to the perfection of which it is morally and religiously capable. Even in the absence of any distinctive and divine revelation, beyond that which the Most High has supplied in the constitution of our nature, it could hardly fail to have been felt, that a solemn responsibility of this order existed. But how much time ought to be set apart for these specific purposes, whether it should be indeterminate, or fixed and definite in its recurrence and intervals, and in what manner it can be employed, so as best to promote the divine glory and effectually to secure the benefits desired—these are questions which reason might be inadequate to solve, and which it might demand a direct communication from heaven to decide. But this communication being made, and supposing that the whole duty, both as to essential principles and minutest details, were placed under the guardianship and sanctions of a divine edict, still our judgement would readily discriminate between that part of the obligation which is founded upon immutable moral relations, and that part which arises out of such positive precepts of the great Lawgiver as owe their binding authority simply, or chiefly, to his wise but sovereign appointment, as the supreme Ruler of the universe. We can conceive it perfectly possible for God to change the season, or to limit or lengthen it, at his good pleasure; but we cannot conceive it possible even in him, without an entire and unimaginable inversion to all the conditions of our being to annul or remit the duties which give to the prescribed period all its peculiar significance and sacredness. Thus, in the question of Sabbath observance, as usually stated, we readily detect the presence of two elements: the one having reference to what has been styled moral; the other to what has been styled positive law. While, however, this distinction is well founded, and not unimportant, in the general discussion of the theme, it is needless at present to dissociate these elements; still more especially, since there are few institutions of revealed religion, which, if duly analyzed, will not be found to combine both. For even when the obligation is such as to find its fundamental root and reason in the moral relations subsisting between us and the Most High, it is common to discover that he has affixed some increment to the required duty, which brings it largely within the sphere of positive ordinance and law. In appealing to the inspired Volume on the question at issue, two courses lie open for adoption: the one is to begin with the information supplied by the writings of the New Testament, and then to carry our investigations upwards to the ancient Scriptures; the other is, to begin at the beginning, and with the lights derived from the primeval economies, to descend downward to the times of the gospel. Now, if the question to be discussed bore any analogy to the questions of natural science, the former method would seem to recommend itself as partaking more of the analytic character. But since it is one of pure revelation, and since the Scriptures constitute one whole, gradually unfolding itself, and each part in succession presupposing the existence, if not the knowledge, of all that preceded, it is obvious that the true path of inquiry is that which starts with the earliest intimations of the Bible, and thus traces the subject onward to the fuller and brighter disclosures of later times. It may contribute to the object in view to state in general terms at the outset, the opposite sentiments commonly entertained upon this question. By one class of theologians it is contended that from the beginning God required mankind to set apart one day in seven from the ordinary avocations and toils of life, to be consecrated to his immediate worship and service; that under all the successive dispensations of religion this requirement has been binding and authoritative; and that it is still (though with certain changes) in full, unabated force, beneath the christian economy, but clothed now, as might be expected, if not with greater authority, certainly with greater interest and brighter glory. By others it has been maintained that the Sabbath was first instituted among the Jews; that it constituted part of the Jewish economy; that with that economy it expired; and consequently, that any sacred day to be now observed (if such there be) owes its authority to some New Testament source alone, or to some other source, ecclesiastical or civil. It is not necessary now to refer more specifically to the theories of those who adopt the latter view—this general statement being sufficient for our purpose at present. Thus the course of our inquiry leads us to examine the claims of the Primeval, the Jewish, and the Christian institute. THE CLAIMS ON BEHALF OF A PRIMEVAL SABBATH EXAMINED.
Here the language of Moses, [Gen. ii, 1–3,] demands attention as presenting what is alleged to be the great initial record upon the entire theme: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." This, according to many, is the inauguration of the Sabbath, thus appointed and signalized to commemorate the completion of the creative work in this lower world. And there are several circumstances which27in this view invest the record with peculiar value and significance; not only its being, as already stated, the first intimation as to a sacred day; but the fact that this institution takes the precedence of all others among men; and that it was introduced during the period of innocency, before any change had taken place either in the character or condition of the species. Here the believer in divine revelation is called to observe that, since man was formed on the sixth day, and (as the perfection of sentient life and the crown of this fair creation) formed in all probability towards the close of the same day, the first integral, measured period of his conscious, active existence, was the sacred Sabbath. So early, and at once, was he made sensible of the duty and the delight of keeping "holy day," and thus, instead of commencing his career under the regimen of pure, unmixed, moral law, his first lesson of obedience would be one in which the authority of a positive precept, as to time and circumstances, regulated the discharge of a duty to which conscience and the heart would themselves instinctively prompt, as the fitting exponent of the spontaneous, inborn sentiments and principles of the newly-created and divinely-illuminated soul. Such may be regarded as the position taken by the advocates of a primeval Sabbath. But it has been strenuously maintained that the first establishment of the sabbath observance took place under Judaism, and that to all intents and purposes it was a Jewish institute. This tenet has been advocated by two very different classes of persons; both by those who deny the existence of any special sacred day whatever, under the christian economy, and by some who nevertheless admit this. A very different rank in some respects must be assigned to such as hold these dissimilar ultimate views. But in regard to the point now at issue they are agreed. It might indeed be argued that even if it were of Mosaic origin, this would not invalidate the claims of a sacred day as now observed. But meanwhile we have to deal with the opinions of those who, with objects widely apart, assail together the primitive appointment of this ordinance. Going back to the early times of the gospel we find the names of Justin Martyr, Irenæus, and Tertullian, ranged on the side of those who contend for the Jewish origin of the institute. But without prejudging the question before us, it may be safely asserted that few who have paid much attention to the writings of the fathers, will be disposed to ascribe to them an authority which in matters of opinion they in reality never claimed. We have precisely the same inspired documents from which they professed to derive their sentiments; and it is surely not affirming too much on behalf of our modern theological science, to assert that it possesses facilities for arriving at just conclusions upon questions of this order, quite equal to any to which they could lay claim. Nor should it be forgotten that, as there existed not only the speculations of a Gentile philosophy on the one hand, but the cherished preconceptions of a Jewish cultus on the other, to disturb and bias their investigations, it is our duty to pause before we receive any dogma, however recommended, which might possibly have received its character and complexion from either of these sources. "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Were it our object to trace the history of this opinion, we might point to some who have in later centuries expended no ordinary measure of intellectual acumen and erudition in its support. But on the whole we may regard Paley as among the most accomplished, if not the most original, defenders of the theory in question, and certainly the one whose writings have given it the widest currency, at least in recent times. His object being to set aside the authority of the Sabbath in the stricter sense of the term, and to establish a modified view of the duties and obligations pertaining to the first day of the week under the christian dispensation, he in the first place seeks to explode the notion of a primeval Sabbath; and then assuming that it constituted a part of the positive and ceremonial institutions of Judaism, he concludes that it was abolished with the abolition of that peculiar polity. At present we are concerned only with the former part of his design. Adducing the passage already given from Gen. ii, he observes: "After this we hear no more of the Sabbath or of the seventh day, as in any manner distinguished from the other six, until the history brings us down to the succouring of the Jews in the wilderness, when the following remarkable passage occurs." He then quotes the transaction recorded in the xxvii. chapter of Exodus, and in the manner of his quotation (we refer to the original editions) makes the word speak a sense which, as we believe, they were never intended to convey. He then proceeds: "Not long after this, the Sabbath, as is well known, was established with great solemnity in the fourth commandment. Now in my opinion, the transaction in the wilderness above recited, was the first actual institution of the Sabbath. For if the Sabbath had been instituted at the time of the creation, as the words in Genesis may seem at first sight to import; and if it had been observed all along from that time to the departure of the Jews out of Egypt, a period of about two thousand and five hundred years, it appears unaccountable that no mention of it, no occasion of even the slightest allusion to it, should occur, either in the general history of the world before the call of Abraham, which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs of its early ages, and those extremely abridged, or, which is more to be wondered at, in that of the lives of the first three Jewish patriarchs, which, in many parts of the account, is sufficiently circumstantial and domestic. Nor is there, in the passage above quoted from the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, any intimation that the Sabbath then appointed to be observed was only the revival of an ancient institution which had been neglected, forgotten or suspended, nor is any such neglect imputed either to the inhabitants of the old world, or to any part of the family of Noah; nor, lastly, is any permission recorded to dispense with the institution during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, or on any other public emergency. The passage in the second chapter of Genesis, which creates the whole controversy upon the subject, is not inconsistent with this opinion; for as the seventh day was erected into a Sabbath on account of God's resting upon that day from the work of creation, it was natural in the historian, when he had related the history of the creation, and of God's ceasing from it on the seventh day, to add: 'And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that on it he had rested from all his work which God created and made,' although the blessing and sanctification, i. e., the religious distinction and appropriation of that day were not actually made till many ages afterwards. The words do not assert that God then blessed and sanctified the seventh day, but that he blessed and sanctified it for that reason; and if any ask why the Sabbath or sanctification of the seventh day was first mentioned, if it was not then appointed, the answer is at hand: the order of connection, and set of time, introduced the mention of the Sabbath, in the history of the subject which it was ordained to commemorate. This interpretation is strongly supported by a passage in the prophet Ezekiel, where the Sabbath is plainly spoken of as given (and what else can that mean but as first instituted?) in the wilderness. Ez. xx, 10–12. Nehemiah also recounts the promulgation of the sabbatical law among the transactions in the wilderness; which supplies another considerable argument in aid of our opinion." (Neh. ix, 13–14. — See 'Paley's Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy,' book v, chap. 7.) We have thus exhibited this argument at length, that its strength or weakness may be the more readily discovered. The first thing which strikes us in the survey of this entire passage, is the at least apparent violence done to the narrative in the book of Genesis. Paley may well lay great stress upon this narrative as creating, if not, as he asserts, "the whole controversy upon the subject," at least an important part of it. But certainly it seems to demand the existence and exigencies of some preconceived theory, to account for the gloss which he has put upon it. Who that had no such theory to defend, would imagine the sacred writer here to describe a transaction which according to the supposition had not occurred for two thousand five hundred years afterwards? It would not be asserted by Paley as any of those who occupy the same side in this controversy, that the interpretation thus given to this passage is the one which would naturally present itself to any one of ordinary intelligence upon the first perusal of it. We will not allege indeed that the obvious, or seemingly obvious, import of the passage is always the true one. But if there be no dispute respecting the terms employed, (and there is none here) and if the subject matter be of easy comprehension, (as in the present instance,) then the onus probandi rests upon those who would reject the obvious for the more recondite construction. Here is a historical statement; and the only question is, Does Moses, after describing the work of six days, suddenly, and without any intimation, after his style when he comes to describe the procedure of the seventh day? and, using a highly rhetorical figure, does he set down in connection with the record of this procedure an event which did not take place until twenty-five centuries had elapsed? We have said without intimation, but it should be added also in the face of the fact, that the whole being a plain narrative, would inevitably be differently understood by all who might read it apart from the light of such a hypothesis as the one now under examination. This assuredly is not what we might have expected to discover in any book written beneath the guidance of the divine Spirit, and intended for the instruction of the unsophisticated in all ages. We utterly deny then that "it was natural in the historian, when he had related the history of the creation and of God's ceasing from it on the seventh day, to add" the words in question, unless they are expressive of an event which actually occurred at the creation. And to state in the way of argument, that Moses does "not assert that God then blessed and sanctified the seventh day," but simply that he did so for a certain reason, is to be guilty of a species of sophistry very unworthy the gravity which becomes the discussion of such a theme. How could he have conveyed more lucidly the idea that this was done then, than by recording it, as he does other things, in the past tense, and also in immediate connection with that very cessation from work on the part of God which it was designed to commemorate? True, he assigns the reason of this consecration; but he does this in such a manner as to imply that as the reason existed from the beginning, so also did the consecration. And it is but natural to ask, What ground could exist for the appointment of such a memorial after ages, which did not operate "from the foundation of the world?" On the whole it does appear to us that until all the principles of sound criticism are abandoned and we are at liberty by a dexterous and convenient application of the figure prolepsis to convert history into prophecy at our pleasure we cannot adopt the interpretation which this writer has so strenuously advocated. We can understand what is meant by the total rejection of this inspired record, or by the reduction of it to the rank of a mere myth; but we are at an utter loss to understand the position which accepts its divine authority, and acknowledges this opening portion of Genesis to be the narrative of real transactions, and yet, to serve the purposes of a theory, would mutilate and distort its obvious meaning, and that in gross violation of all the laws which guide the historian and chronologist's pen. It has been alleged, though it forms no part of Paley's argument, that in the early records of the Bible, localities are designated by names which they had not received for ages subsequently to the period adverted to in the narrative. But the answer to this is manifest. What possible analogy can there be between the employment of the existing names of mountains, rivers, cities, in a relation which speaks of these same mountains, rivers, cities in former periods, and the representing an event as having taken place in the annals of the world, long before it actually occurred? In one case the narrative is rendered more clear by the very identification which results from this method, and no misconception can arise. In the other case confusion is inevitable. Deception is practiced, and practiced upon system; and that in reference not to so unimportant a thing as the chronology of a name, but in reference to the chronology and the existence of a fact, whose date and origin vitally affect the views we entertain of the economy of religion. Suppose it were the business of a writer to portray the former condition of some city of our land, whose name has been altered in modern times, or whose ancient name has sunk into oblivion; would it be felt that any of the proprieties of topography were violated by the use of the modern designation? But should the same writer, transferring some conception of the present age back to past eras, so set forth the substantial verities which he records as to invest them with a meaning and aspect which did not belong to them in the past, but which they have borrowed from the present, and do all this without a note of warning, or any break in the continuity of the narrative, would it not be at once felt that the writer had ceased to deserve our confidence, because he has violated, wholly violated,28the integrity of history! And yet this is precisely what has been done by Moses, according to the showing of Paley in the passage that has now passed under view.