GURNEY ON THE SABBATH

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 7, 1859

GURNEY ON THE SABBATH.

FROM a small work on the Sabbath, by J. Gurney, an English author, the American edition being edited by Prof. Stuart of Andover (Mass.) Theol. Seminary we make the following extract. Although Mr. Gurney observed Sunday and taught men so, he says some good things relative to the Sabbath, previous to the time when he finds it necessary to make a change. In all such cases, we believe in gathering the good into vessels and casting the bad away. On the distinction between moral and ceremonial laws, Mr. Gurney says:

"Nothing can be more palpable than the distinction maintained in the Scriptures between the ten commandments (those delivered from mount Sinai) and the civil and ceremonial institutions of the Mosaic code. The former were laws as old as the world itself, applicable to all men, and essential to the maintenance of a true theology and of a righteous life. The latter, though mixed up with much that was moral (or derived from these laws,) were intended for the national welfare and adapted exclusively to the peculiar religious circumstances of the Hebrews. Accordingly the former were pronounced by Jehovah himself during a visible and awful display of his glory; whereas the latter were communicated to the people only through the intervention of a human law-giver. On the same ground, while the civil part of the law of Moses, was committed to the magistrate, and the ceremonial part to the priest; each was steadfastly maintained as important for its particular purposes. It was the moral part of that law—it was the ten commandments both in their principles and in their details, on which the preachers of righteousness ever delighted to dwell. These were the constant theme of the rebukes, the entreaties and the exhortations of the prophets.

"In taking this view of the subject, it seems impossible to separate the fourth commandment from those which precede and follow it. It was delivered with the same solemnity as its fellows, and was written on the table of the covenant by the same finger. It is, moreover, important to observe that it fitly concludes the first table of the covenant, and as fitly introduces the second. The first table relates to the worship of the true God. It proclaims his unity and the sanctity of his name, and forbids all idolatry. How could it be better concluded than by the law of the Sabbath, which renders the worship of God practicable, by breaking the train of our temporal pursuits, and by setting apart one day in seven for this express purpose.

"So also the strength of the second table which unfolds the moral obligations of man to man, will ever be found to lie in the remembrance of the Creator of the universe; because on his will alone are these obligations founded. Now the Sabbath was the appointed means of perpetually reminding man that he is himself a creature, and that God is his Creator, and Sovereign.

"It was a current saying among the talmudists that, 'he that denies the Sabbath, is like to him who denies the whole law.' Rabbi Levi of Barcelona says, that 'the object of the Sabbath to the Israelites, was that, having no other business, they might fasten on their minds that the world had a beginning, which is the authority that draws after it all the foundations of the law.'

"Accordingly we find that while most of the ceremonial law was instituted by Moses, perspectively, that is, with a view to its being put into practice after the Israelites had settled in the land of Canaan, the Sabbath was strictly observed even during their journey in the wilderness." pp. 33-35.