A TRACT bearing the above title has been placed in our hands for review. We cannot tell what denomination of professed Christians it may be, under whose patronage and sanction it is issued, as it simply bears at the close, the indefinite signature, 'Tract Society, 200 Mulberry-st., New York.' But unlike those works which teach that the Sabbath is abolished and done away, it has the advantage of having the Scripture upon its side in that it contends for the existence of a Sabbath from creation to the present time, and for its importance, and sanctity. In any work taking this position there is much with which all who esteem the 'Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord,' and 'honorable,' are happy to agree.
But there are points upon which we think the author errs from the Scriptures; reasoning wherein he turns his back upon revelation, the only reliable lamp for our feet, and encompasses himself with sparks of his own kindling; reasoning by which he endeavors to relax and modify the claims of the Sabbath law, and the definiteness of the institution, so as to accommodate it to a colossal tradition which now sits brooding over christendom. Here only have we any strictures to offer; and as we present the reasons for the view we entertain, every reader will of course resolve himself into a committee of one, to deliberate and decide for himself upon their validity.
So far as we have occasion to extract, we shall give the tract entire, and in such portions that no chain of argument will be broken, so that the force of the reasoning, should any be perceptible, may not be destroyed.
We have said that there was much with which every Sabbath-keeper would agree. Under this head is mainly the following, which may be entitled
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SABBATH.
"The law of God cannot be despised or violated by any nation without exposing it to the righteous judgments of heaven. The kingdoms of the earth are placed under the eye and control of Him who is 'Governor among the nations.' Ps. xxii, 28. The nation and kingdom that will not serve God 'shall be utterly wasted.' Isa. lx, 12.
"Thus it was that God dealt with the heathen nations of Canaan, when the cup of their 'iniquity' was 'full.' It was so with idolatrous Egypt, which has become 'the basest of kingdoms,' and with Nineveh also, of which God said, 'I will make thy grave; for thou art vile.' Nahum i, 14. If Tyre, once the mart of the world's commerce, has become a rock on which the fisherman dries his nets; if Edom has become a 'desolate wilderness;' if 'the pride of Moab' has been 'trodden down;' and if, later still, France, Spain, Austria and Italy, have been the scenes of frightful convulsions and bloody wars, surely these impressive facts have been recorded on the page of history to teach us that God punishes guilty nations as such for the violation of his laws, and that 'verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.' Ps. lviii, 11.
"Again, the violation of the law of the Sabbath in an especial manner provokes the divine judgments. It was one of the crowning proofs of the wickedness of Judah and Israel, that they had ceased to honor the day of God; and one of the causes of the Babylonish captivity was indicated in the declaration, 'They polluted my Sabbaths; then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them.' Eze. xx, 21. How awful was the warning addressed to rebellious Judah: 'But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath-day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.' Jer. xvii, 27. And when Judah was carried away into captivity, it was 'to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths.' 2 Chron. xxxvi, 21. Is all this an inexplicable mystery? Has it no instruction for us? no application to the times in which we live? no voice of warning for our guidance? On the contrary, is it not clear that if the Sabbath be deliberately violated by a nation in direct defiance of divine law, then, unless mercy interpose, heavy chastisement must be poured out upon it?
"Again, we find that where the truth of God is abandoned, his ordinances will be dishonored. Thus was it with the people of Judah, of whom God said, 'I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the Lord, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err.' Amos ii, 4.
"It is thus that Popery has made void the law of the Sabbath by her traditions, and that in two ways: first, she has dragged down this blessed day of God from the place of peculiar honor, and has degraded it to a level with the feasts and fasts of the Romish calendar, making her numerous holydays of equal authority with the holyday of God. The consequence is that, in all Popish countries, the holydays are better observed than the Sabbath, just because superstition and will-worship are dear to the carnal heart. Second, she has robbed the law of God of its full authority. She has contracted the Scriptural limits of the Sabbath, and made it a half instead of a whole Sabbath. Hence we find, when the mass is over at noon, the rest of the day is regarded as a holyday. We refer not here to countries like our own, where she accommodates herself to the religious feelings and habits of the community, but to other lands where she holds paramount sway. There one-half of the Sabbath is devoted to amusement and sensuous enjoyment. Before famine and pestilence swept Ireland as with the besom of destruction, crowds of the population might be found, after mass, playing at the game of foot-ball, wrestling in the meadow, or drinking and dancing in the public-house, while many of the priests themselves are wont to spend the evening of the Sabbath in gay society. And when we look to France—the military review, the horse-race, the opening of railways, take place on the Sabbath, while the population of Paris is divided between the attractions of Versailles, the Luxembourg, and the Louvre, and the numerous theatres which are thrown open by authority for those who are 'lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.'
"If we go to Rome, the center and source of that gigantic superstition which flings its dark shadows over the continent of Europe, we find public 'lotteries' in active operation on the Sabbath, over which cardinals themselves preside. And in Spain, after mass is over, the queen and her court, surrounded by multitudes of her people, are present at the bloody and revolting bull-fight. If it be said this laxity prevails also in Protestant countries on the continent, for this a two-fold reason may be assigned: first because the foreign reformers, not excepting Luther himself, gave an uncertain sound on the obligations of the Sabbath, and retained so much of the system they had abandoned as to leave to their countrymen a low and imperfect standard of Sabbath observance; and, above all, because the Spirit of the Reformation is well nigh dead in Germany, rationalism and infidelity have taken the place of evangelism, and 'the salt has lost its savor.' It is encouraging to know that, wherever evangelical truth has been revived on the continent, there also is awakening a corresponding zeal for the sanctification of the Lord's day.
"Again, the Scriptures teach that the Sabbath law admits of no compromise either with the claims of covetousness on the one hand, or of sinful pleasure on the other. Not with covetousness, for it is written, 'Ye cannot serve God and mammon.' Luke xvi, 13. Neither, again, will this law of the Sabbath 'strike hands' with those who 'are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: 'from such' an inspired Apostle commands us to 'turn away.' 2 Tim. iii, 4, 5.
"But we are told again that 'the Sabbath is a Jewish institution.' The law of the Sabbath occupied a place on those tables of stone on which the great Lawgiver inscribed with his own finger a law which the Author of the New Testament dispensation declared that he came 'not to destroy, but to fulfill.' Matt. v, 17. The Sabbath was no merely ceremonial or transitory law. Born, as the institution itself was, so to speak, in Paradise; recognized by patriarchs from Noah onward, as indicated by the division of time into weeks; lost and trampled down under the hoof of slavery in Egypt, (as it has ever been where slavery has prevailed,) but experiencing a resurrection in the wilderness, where Israel was free to serve and sacrifice, to worship and give praise to their fathers' God—the covenant of Sinai gave awful sanction and permanent establishment to a 'law,' which, from the beginning, had its moral claims over the race, and was emphatically 'MADE FOR MAN.'"
With most of the above testimony every advocate of the fourth commandment will be well pleased. The testimony concerning the Papacy, might have been enlarged. We shall have occasion to notice this again when we come to show what the Papacy has done, and that the manner in which it observes the Sunday, is not inconsistent with the institution itself; since, like all other of its feasts, it is a child of the church, or, according to the testimony of Catholics themselves, "not of divine but ecclesiastical appointment."
Such authority as this for Sunday-keeping Protestants will not admit. But as the fourth commandment requires that the seventh day be set apart to a religious use, and the Protestant world are found generally observing another day; or at any rate as a different day is now generally kept from that observed by the Jews to whom the law was given, and who would be as likely as any people to understand what is required by the fourth commandment, an explanation of the change must be made, and that too in accordance with the teachings of Scripture, which only Protestants will allow as authority in matters of religion.
Now if the fourth commandment does require the observance of a particular and definite day, that people to whom were committed the "lively oracles," who lived in its acceptable observance, as far as the day is concerned, for two thousand years, among whom Christ lived, joining with them in the observance of their day of rest, as we learn from the record of his life—that people, we say, could not be mistaken in the day to be kept. But they kept the seventh day of each week; and professed Christians of the present day generally keep the first. From these facts but two conclusions can be drawn: either that the fourth commandment does not sanction the practice of Sunday-keeping; or, that it is indefinite, and enjoins no day in particular, but becoming exceeding broad, embraces the whole week, and spreads its wings of protection equally over the observer of the seventh, the first, the second day, or any other that may be chosen. One of these conclusions must be taken without possibility of evasion.