EXTRACTS FROM D. BOSWORTH ON THE SABBATH.
"God set apart the seventh creation day, blessed, and made it holy. And what God has sanctified, man—without a special permit—may not call common. The reason assigned by Moses why God set apart a rest-day, was 'because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.' And a greater than Moses has told us that 'The Sabbath was made for man'—for all men. And if Omnipotence was refreshed in resting from his labors, and because of it he blessed the Sabbath day; and if man needed such an arrangement in a state of paradisaical holiness and simplicity, surely a thousand reasons remain to show the necessity of such a day in a state of weariness, toil, and sin. Here, then, we have the example of the great I AM, in sanctifying a day and resting upon it. * We also have the teaching of Him who came to bring in a better covenant than that of Moses, that it was appointed for man, and of course only limited with man's existence. Then, while the name and race of man remain before God, the obligation to observe the day of rest will also remain. See Isa. lxv, 23. So that if it could be shown that the decalogue had been abrogated, and had passed away with the 'ceremonial law,' still the example of Jehovah before the Sinaitic law was written, and the teaching of Christ, when he came to nail the ceremonial law to the cross, would thunder in our ears 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.' But unfortunately for those that argue that the Sabbath law was annulled with the ceremonial, the Saviour assures us that he 'came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill.' And he adds, 'For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.' Matt. v, 17, 18. "The argument that the Sabbath law was abrogated, because it has not been repeated in so many words in the new covenant, would lie with equal weight against the command, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' But what Christian claims a license in this particular? Is it to be supposed that our Lord, when asked by the young man, (see Mark x, 17), 'what he must do to inherit eternal life,' would allow him to suppose that the law concerning his duty to his God was not binding on him, because he referred him only to the six that pointed his duty to his neighbor? Certainly not; the other was implied in the context. Then while a Sabbath remains to be kept, we may infer that the law of God will remain, binding us to its observance. "Again, man's physical necessities require a Sabbath, and the poet well says, 'How welcome . . . when pressed
With six days' noise, and care, and toil,
Is the returning day of rest.' "After six days' labor and toil, man needs a day of rest, to restore his relaxed energies, and fit him to continue the pursuits of life. Therefore, God in mercy enacted, that, 'In it thou shalt do no work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.' It is not to be supposed that after having doomed man to toil and labor for six thousand years, and having made provision for a rest-day one in seven, to mitigate the sufferings consequent upon the curse, that God should suffer this arrangement to fail, upon the introduction of a new dispensation, simply for the want of a repetition of the Sabbath commandment in so many words. Nay, every command of the decalogue is founded in the nature and fitness of things (none more so than the Sabbath commandment). And accordingly109we find they were written, not upon the parchment, like the ceremonial law, but upon tables of stone, with the finger of God himself. They were intended not to pass away with a transient dispensation, but to be as enduring as the monumental marble. They may be summed up thus: 'Do thyself no harm;' and 'Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you.' Therefore the apostle, after quoting five of the commandments, adds, 'And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' See Rom. xiii, 8, 9. Every command of the moral law is here recognized as binding, unless it be shown that they have been specifically repealed, which cannot be done in regard to the Sabbath law. "But further, man's spiritual wants require a regularly recurring sacred day. The pen of inspiration has recorded the requirement of God thus: 'Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, but exhort one another,' &c. In order that God may be glorified in this imperfect state, and that his purposes may be carried out in reference to man's salvation—mutual consultation, encouragement, sympathy, and prayer are necessary. Therefore the above injunction of the apostle. For this the sweet singer of Israel said, 'I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.' Yet who does not know that the foregoing requirement cannot be carried out, that man's spiritual necessities will not be supplied, without a day authoritatively appointed for attending to the same? Accordingly we have it, and are instructed in its duties thus (Isa. lviii, 13): . . . 'turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, holy of the Lord, honorable; and honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words.' "Indeed the spiritual graces are so nurtured by a due observance of God's holy day, that in several passages of scripture it seems to be made the condition of receiving the final reward of the faithful. Isa. lvi, 2, 7; and lviii, 13, 14. "Thus whether we look at man's relation to Deity as marked by the moral law, at his physical wants, or his spiritual necessities, all proclaim, in language not to be misunderstood, his obligation to 'Remember the rest-day, and observe it as a holy day.'" Perhaps the writer of the above extracts might feel that he had cause of complaint, should I leave them without a word of explanation. Because the readers might think, as every one not versed in the sophistry of these times must, that he is an advocate of the seventh day—the only weekly Sabbath of the whole Bible. It is just therefore to exonerate him from this, as he might deem it, slanderous imputation, and let the reader know that he is an advocate of the first day, as the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. He arrives at his position by a series of guesses, and inferences based upon those guesses. He guesses that the first day was the original seventh day Sabbath, instituted at the creation. He then guesses that when God led Israel out of Egypt, he changed the Sabbath to the sixth day and called it the seventh. He guesses that the reason why he did so, was to put a difference between his people and the surrounding heathen nations, who, though they had departed from the knowledge of the true God, still retained a knowledge, as he guesses, of the true primeval Sabbath, and worshiped their principal deity on that day. He guesses that David and John meant the first day of the week where they said nothing about it (Ps. cxviii, 24; Rev. i, 10); and then infers that that day was again constituted the Sabbath, at the resurrection of Christ. One class of Sunday-keepers tell us that God has put away his holy day, and that consequently there is no Sabbath at the present time. Another class hold that he has utterly divorced the seventh day and chosen the first in its stead. But the view under consideration represents that the Maker of the heavens and the earth divorced his holy Sabbath day, giving her over to the heathens and their father the Devil for some fifteen hundred years; that he chose another in its stead for the same length of time; and then rejected the second and took again the first, without any signs of repentance on her part; for the heathens still hold as good a claim to her as ever. But neither Mr. Bosworth nor Jennings whose opinions he endorses, can show the bill by which the holy Rest-day of the Creator was put away. Not one point in this theory of changes is susceptible of any Bible proof whatever. What folly for men that have failed to prove one change of the Sabbath, to undertake, with their small stock of evidences, to prove two changes! And with what folly do they charge Him who says, "I change not!" Should they charge their fellow men with such fickleness and inconsistency, with no more proof of their assertions, they might well expect an action would be sustained against them for libel. Yet they can charge the great Jehovah with such silly work, in the face of reason and revelation, without the least particle of proof whatever, and still claim to be servants of the true and living God! Behold the confusion existing among the advocates of the observance of the first day! all striving to plaster up the same crumbling, tottering tower, but with how many different kinds of untempered mortar! "And more confusion is their proper label,
Than over reigned around the tower of Babel." The ancient Babel builders were wise enough to leave off to build, when their language was confounded. But it is to be feared that these modern builders will continue their fruitless labors, till the tower shall fall and bury them beneath its ruins.
R. F. C.