4. There is no fitness in keeping a day of weekly repose to commemorate the agonies of the crucifixion of Christ, or the activities of the morning of his resurrection.
5. But if a day of the week should be kept, to celebrate man’s redemption, which should it be? the day on which he shed his blood for our sins? the day on which he rose for our justification? or the day on which he ascended to the Father, to intercede for sinners? The day of the crucifixion, when the greatest event for man’s redemption occurred, has the first claim. The apostle does not say that we have redemption through the resurrection; but he does say, “We have redemption through his blood.” Eph. i, 7. Now if a day should be kept to celebrate redemption, should it not be the day on which he shed his blood? Redemption is not completed; but in the Lord’s supper and baptism are two memorials of the greatest events that have occurred in connection with this work for man. Neither of these are weekly memorials. Baptism may be received by the believer on any day of the week; and it is said of the emblems of the broken body and shed blood of the Son of God, without reference to any particular day, “As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come.” 1 Cor. xi, 26. These memorials point back to the death, burial, and resurrection, of Jesus Christ. God’s great memorial points back to the day of his rest. And why not let all these remain, answering the purpose for which they were instituted? Why should the work of creation be lost sight of in the work of redemption? Why not celebrate both here? Both are equally remembered hereafter. It is said of the redeemed:
“And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.” Rev. v, 9. The same also “cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” Rev. iv, 10, 11. Here the redeemed are represented as ascribing praise to both the Creator and the Redeemer. And again, every created intelligence in the universe, in joyful sympathy with man in view of his redemption, is represented in chap. v, 13, as ascribing “blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, unto Him that sitteth upon the throne [the Creator], and unto the Lamb [the Redeemer], forever and ever.”
We here see that the redeemed, with all the enrapturing facts of redemption completed before them, do not lose sight of the creation. The Creator shares their adoration equally with the Redeemer. How, then, must Adam have felt, when, in the garden of Eden, he first awoke to all the glories of this creation which the redeemed so joyfully remember! Fresh from the hand of his Creator, he springs to life in all the vigor of perfect manhood. With an intellect capable of appreciating the glories of Eden, and comprehending the grandeur and dignity of his position, and with a heart unsullied by sin, how must he have turned in gratitude and adoration toward the mighty Maker of himself and all these glories! If the redeemed could cast their crowns before Jehovah in reverent worship, in view of a creation accomplished over six thousand years before their song of praise was uttered, how must every fiber of Adam’s being have thrilled with emotions of thanksgiving and adoration to the beneficent Author of his creation, as he stood there in Eden, enraptured with the strange delight of a new existence! And how could he best express the emotions of his heart? Would it not be by celebrating, amid all the surrounding glories of his Eden home, a day of rest in honor of his God? Say not that Adam had no occasion for the Sabbath in Eden. It was the very means by which he would rise into communion with his Maker, and offer the service of a grateful heart to him from whom he had just received the gift of life and all its blessings.
And if the Sabbath was thus appropriate, thus necessary, in Eden, what shall we say of it since the fall? With sin came man’s estrangement from God, and his proneness to forget his Maker, and wander away from him. How much more needful the Sabbath, then, that he might not entirely break away from the moorings which held him to the heavenly world. The flood of sin and crime has rolled broader and deeper with each succeeding year; and the further we come from Paradise, the weaker and more prone to sin do we find the race, and hence more in need of God’s great memorial.
Did Adam, while yet unfallen in Eden, surrounded with all its heavenly influences, and in free and open converse with his Maker, need the Sabbath? How much more, when, with the gates of Paradise forever closed against him, he could no longer speak face to face with his Creator, but must henceforth grapple with the sinful promptings of his own heart, and grope his way amid the moral darkness that began to settle upon the world when the glorious light of Eden was obscured by sin! And if needed then by Adam, how much more still by Abel, whose eyes had never looked upon the beautiful garden, and who had never personally experienced the nearness to Heaven which Adam there enjoyed! And it was still more essential to the spiritual wants of the race in the days of Enoch and the more degenerate age of Noah, when the influence of Eden, like the last rays of twilight from the setting sun, were fading from the hearts of men. Abraham needed it still more to save him from the idolatry of his father’s house; and Moses and the Jewish nation, yet more, to keep them from the open apostasy of the heathen nations around them. But more than to Abraham, to Moses, or to the Jews, was the holy Sabbath a necessity to the church in the gospel dispensation, when the Man of Sin was to arise, and oppose, and exalt himself above all that is called God; when there should be a tendency to multiply feasts and festivals, uncalled for by the Scriptures, in honor of Christ, and to rank the Sabbath of Jehovah with Jewish ceremonies, and sweep it away with them.
And now we have come down nearly six thousand years from the gates of Paradise. Through all this time, has sin reigned, and iniquity abounded, and the hearts of men grown less and less susceptible of divine impressions, and in the same proportion more prone to forget the Creator. And can we dispense with the Sabbath now? True, the dawn of Eden restored, is visibly approaching; but the world is farther from God than ever before. Infidelity and atheism run riot, and seemingly the race would fain banish all thoughts and love of God from mind and heart. More than ever, then, is the Sabbath now needed, to save men from utter apostasy. With all the original reasons for the institution, the accumulated necessities of six thousand years of sin, now call upon us to throw all possible safeguards around this sacred institution. If ever a memorial of the great God and a golden link to bind man to Heaven, was needed, it is needed now. And the necessity of this institution will even yet increase through the few remaining days of peril. Can we dispense with it? Never. More and more sacredly should we cherish it, while with earnest hearts we breathe the prayer,
“Let earth, O Lord, again be thine,
As ere with vengeance cursed;
And let the holy Sabbath shine