[284] Eccl. Hist. b. iii. chap. v.
[285] Jewish Wars, b. ii. chap. xix.
[286] Deut. 16:16.
[287] Thus remarks Mr. Crozier in the Advent Harbinger for Dec. 6, 1851: “The reference to the Sabbath in Matt. 24:20, only shows that the Jews who rejected Christ would be keeping the Sabbath at the destruction of Jerusalem, and would, in consequence, add to the dangers of the disciples’ flight by punishing them perhaps with death for fleeing on that day.”
And Mr. Marsh, forgetting that Christ forbade his disciples to take anything with them in their flight, uses the following language: “If the disciples should attempt to flee from Jerusalem on that day and carry their things, the Jews would embarrass their flight and perhaps put them to death. The Jews would be keeping the Sabbath, because they rejected Christ and his gospel.”—Advent Harbinger, Jan. 24, 1852. These quotations betray the bitterness of their authors. In honorable distinction from these anti-Sabbatarians, the following is quoted from Mr. William Miller, himself an observer of the first day of the week:—
“‘Neither on the Sabbath day.’ Because it was to be kept as a day of rest, and no servile work was to be done on that day, nor would it be right for them to travel on that day. Christ has in this place sanctioned the Sabbath, and clearly shows us our duty to let no trivial circumstance cause us to break the law of the Sabbath. Yet how many who profess to believe in Christ, at this present day, make it a point to visit, travel, and feast, on this day? What a false-hearted profession must that person make who can thus treat with contempt the moral law of God, and despise the precepts of the Lord Jesus! We may here learn our obligation to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”—Exposition of Matt. 24, p. 18.
[288] Jewish Wars, b. ii. chap. xix.
[289] Id. b. ii. chap. xix.
[290] See [chap. xvi.]
[291] President Edwards says: “A further argument for the perpetuity of the Sabbath we have in Matt. 24:20: ‘Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.’ Christ is here speaking of the flight of the apostles and other Christians out of Jerusalem and Judea, just before their final destruction, as is manifest by the whole context, and especially by the 16th verse: ‘Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.’ But this final destruction of Jerusalem was after the dissolution of the Jewish constitution, and after the Christian dispensation was fully set up. Yet it is plainly implied in these words of our Lord, that even then Christians were bound to a strict observation of the Sabbath.”—Works of President Edwards, vol. iv. pp. 621, 622, New York, 1849.