Justin Martyr, First Apology: “On the day called Sunday all who live in city or country gather together in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read.... Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God made the world and Jesus our Savior on the same day rose from the dead. For he was crucified on the day before, that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun (Sunday), having appeared to his apostles and disciples he taught them these things which we have submitted to you for your consideration.” This seems to intimate that Jesus between his resurrection and ascension gave command respecting the observance of the first day of the week. He was “received up” only after “he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom he had chosen” (Acts 1:2).
The Christian Sabbath, then, is the day of Christ's resurrection. The Jewish Sabbath commemorated only the beginning of the world; the Christian Sabbath commemorates also the new creation of the world in Christ, in which God's work in humanity first becomes complete. C. H. M. on Gen. 2: “If I celebrate the seventh day it marks me as an earthly man, inasmuch as that day is clearly the rest of earth—creation-rest; if I intelligently celebrate the first day of the week, I am marked as a heavenly man, believing in the new creation in Christ.” (Gal. 4:10, 11—“Ye observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid of you, least by any means I have bestowed labor upon you in vain”; Col. 2:16,17—“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day: which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ's.”) See George S. Gray, Eight Studies on the Lord's Day; Hessey, Bampton Lectures on the Sunday; Gilfillan, The Sabbath; Wood, Sabbath Essays; Bacon, Sabbath Observance; Hadley, Essays Philological and Critical, 325-345; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 3: 321-348; Lotz, Quæstiones de Historia Sabbati; Maurice, Sermons on the Sabbath; Prize Essays on the Sabbath; Crafts, The Sabbath for Man; A. E. Waffle, The Lord's Day; Alvah Hovey, Studies in Ethics and Religion, 271-320; Guirey, The Hallowed Day; Gamble, Sunday and the Sabbath; Driver, art.: Sabbath, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary; Broadus, Am. Com. on Mat. 12:3. For the seventh-day view, see T. B. Brown, The Sabbath; J. N. Andrews, History of the Sabbath. Per contra, see Prof. A. Rauschenbusch, Saturday or Sunday?
Section II.—Preservation.
I. Definition of Preservation.
Preservation is that continuous agency of God by which he maintains in existence the things he has created, together with the properties and powers with which he has endowed them. As the doctrine of creation is [pg 411] our attempt to explain the existence of the universe, so the doctrine of Preservation is our attempt to explain its continuance.
In explanation we remark:
(a) Preservation is not creation, for preservation presupposes creation. That which is preserved must already exist, and must have come into existence by the creative act of God.
(b) Preservation is not a mere negation of action, or a refraining to destroy, on the part of God. It is a positive agency by which, at every moment, he sustains the persons and the forces of the universe.