A Few Words on the Crystal Palace Question

by C. J. Vaughan

How shall we account for the total omission, amidst precepts so multiplied upon every point of Christian duty, of all reference to the obligation of the Sabbatical rest? From whom, if not from the Apostles, could the Gentile Christians derive their knowledge of its existence? Yet no direction is anywhere to be found for its observance, nor yet any reproof for the neglect of it. In the only passages in which a clear reference to it occurs in the Epistles, the language employed is that either of indifference to its retention, or even of rebuke for its revival.

We do indeed find traces in the New Testament of the existence of another day of weekly observance; a day on which the disciples came together to break bread; on which it was natural to collect their offerings; to which (before the last of the Apostles was called to his rest) was already appropriated the title of the Lord’s Day.

But that this day was neither identical with the Jewish Sabbath, nor substituted for it by any formal act of transfer, is sufficiently proved by the remarkable circumstance, that there were in the primitive age Churches in which both were observed—Saturday in remembrance of the Mosaic Sabbath, Sunday in commemoration of the Redeemer’s resurrection. By what right shall we assume that, when the former observance died out, the latter was invested with its distinctive attributes? or that, in congregations where the former had never been practised, the latter had been, all along, synonymous with an institution with which (to judge from existing records) they had never been made acquainted?

Then, if this be so; if the Sabbath is an ordinance of the past; one of those “elements or rudiments of the world,” those “shadows of things to come,” of which “the substance and the reality is Christ;” in what sense do we still read in our Churches the fourth Commandment, and pray for grace to incline our hearts to keep it?

How low and slavish a spirit is betrayed in this anxiety to have an express law to show for our Christian Sunday. How opposite to that which is the distinctive feature of the Christian character—an earnest desire to catch every intimation, every indication, of our Master’s will, that we may do it not as His slaves but as His children. Enough if we found even a human institution, which testified throughout Christendom, by a speaking sign, by an act at once self-denying and beneficent, our faith in realities unseen and future. Even this would bind us to its observance. It would be an ordinance of God’s Providence for us. It would be our duty to submit to it, if it were but an ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake. And surely it would bear upon its very front the impress of a will more than human: it would bespeak itself the creation of a Divine philanthropy. He who should presume to trifle with it—still more, he who should seek to abrogate or to nullify it for his neighbours or his countrymen—would be seen, even if this were all, to be fighting against God.

But this is not all. We think that we see indications, from the very earliest days of which the Scriptures contain the record, of man’s need of a periodical rest, and of God’s purpose to secure it to him.

We believe that it is essential to the wellbeing of his bodily and mental structure. That it is adapted to the preservation of his health, to the prolongation of his life, to the comfort and efficiency of his work, whether manual or intellectual. That the man who regards every day as equal, who refuses to observe the day of relaxation, will work the worse while he does work, and decay and die the sooner. That the man who rigidly abstains from labour and from excitement during every seventh day, will be a healthier and a happier man for this intermission, more serviceable and longer lived. And all this we believe to have been foreseen by man’s Creator, and provided for by the Disposer of man’s heart.

Thus far, however, we have stopped short of the highest considerations. If no other purpose were answered by the institution of the Christian Sunday, it is undeniable that the nature of the periodical rest might be left wholly to the individual taste and judgment. It would be a matter of indifference—a matter with which conscience would have no right to intermeddle—whether it were to be spent in seclusion or in society, in worship, in novel-reading, or in travelling.

But we believe, further, that the periodical rest which is essential to the health of man’s body and to the vigour of man’s intellect, is yet more so to the wellbeing of his immortal spirit, to his education for that state in which earthly life issues. Surrounded by ten thousand influences drawing his heart downwards and enchaining his interests upon earth, he needs the opportunity which God’s Providence has thus afforded him, of cultivating the thoughts and practising the habits which alone can survive death and occupy his everlasting energies. Without the recurrence, at brief and regular intervals, of his day of spiritual improvement, his soul would be as incompetent to withstand the fascinations of earth, as his body to endure perpetual exercise, or his mind incessant application.

And when we thus transfer the basis of Sunday observance from the region of law to that of privilege and blessing; when we accept as God’s gift to us, for certain high and beneficent purposes, what once perhaps we regarded as a badge of subjection and servitude; how simple, comparatively, becomes every question which can affect its observance—how easy the statement, in words at least, of the principle which should guide our use of it.