FOOTNOTES.
[7] It is the fashion to extol highly the power of man’s mental and moral perception of what is right and wrong. But from whom do we hear most on these subjects? From those who, having lighted their torch at the lamp of God, affect not only to be independent of divine illumination, but even to eclipse the light of heaven itself. If they will fairly test their own principles, let them try them by the condition of that portion of the human family on whom revelation never cast its direct rays. Let them seek in the records of the heathen nations of antiquity, or in the principles and practice of modern heathendom, for proofs of man’s inherent power to think and act aright. They will then find that their wisdom is folly, their religion the most degrading idolatry, and that their moral code allows and even commands actions of the most revolting kind. The moral sense of the New Zealander made him a cannibal. In the Hindu it is seen in the worship of the Linga, in the horrid rites of the Suttee, and in the filthy and unnatural crimes that form a part of what is considered their most acceptable worship. It is hardly necessary to refer the classical reader to such works as the Phædrus and Symposium of the greatest philosopher of the most civilized nation of antiquity.
[12a] Heb. x. 25.
[12b] Vide x. 26, et seq.
[13] After examining all the places in which the word σάββατον and the defective plural σάββατα occur, both in the New Testament and in the Septuagint, we are satisfied that the following extract from Bishop Horsley’s Third Sermon on the Sabbath, gives the proper exposition of the passage. “I must not quit this part of my subject without briefly taking notice of a text in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians, which has been supposed to contradict the whole doctrine which I have asserted, and to prove that the observation of a Sabbath in the Christian church is no point of duty, but a matter of mere compliance with ancient custom . . . From this text no less a man than the venerable Calvin drew the conclusion, in which he has been rashly followed by other considerable men, that the sanctification of the seventh day is no indispensable duty in the Christian church—that it is one of those carnal ordinances of the Jewish religion which our Lord hath blotted out. The truth however is, that in the apostolical age, the first day of the week, though it was observed with great reverence, was not called the Sabbath day, but the Lord’s day . . . and the name of the Sabbath days was appropriated to the Saturdays, and certain days in the Jewish church, which were likewise called Sabbaths in the law. The Sabbath days, therefore, of which St. Paul speaks, were not the Sundays of Christians, but the Saturdays and other Sabbaths of the Jewish calendar.”
[14] Rom. xiv. 5, 6.
[15] Isaiah i. 13, 14.
[16] We are reminded of certain expressions in some of the Fathers, from which it is inferred, that they did not deem it necessary to keep the Lord’s day so strictly as we contend it ought to be kept; and that Constantine passed a decree permitting persons in the rural districts, to get in their crops on Sunday, should the weather be such as to threaten their destruction or serious injury. Without discussing the propriety of the particular edict in question, we deem it a sufficient answer, that the Bible, and not the Fathers or Constantine, is our rule of faith and practice. Many erroneous notions were held by the Fathers; and no one will pretend that either Constantine or the church generally in his days, was so correct in practice, as to present a perfect model for us to follow.
We are also reminded, that there were some in the early church—slaves, for instance—who could not keep the Lord’s day; and these, it is argued, would rather have died than have desecrated it, had they considered it of the same obligation as the command to abstain from idolatry. To this it may be replied, that the question is not what certain individuals thought, or what was the practice of certain communities, but what the word of God teaches. There is, however, a marked distinction between the two cases here supposed, arising from the difference between the two commandments. Many instances may occur, in which it is physically impossible to obey the letter of some of the commandments. Thus, poverty, sickness, or other providential impediment, may incapacitate the most obedient child from ministering to the wants of his parents. In like manner, bodily infirmity, imprisonment, or other providential restraint, may prevent the observance of the fourth commandment in the letter, while the heart longs to honour God’s holy day, and to enjoy its blessings. The Christian slave, therefore, whose body (in the providence of God) was under the power of his master, might be compelled to work on the Lord’s day without incurring guilt. But he could not worship an idol, without an open renunciation of Christianity. Surely there is no need to insist on the difference between the two cases.
[17] Heb. iv. 9. σαββατισμὸς.