THE SABBATH.
Exod. xx. 8.
“Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy.”
This command, to remember the Sabbath-day, in order to keep it holy, was given by Almighty God himself to the Jews. I say, it was given by himself. He did not order any prophet, or other holy man, to give it in his name; He gave it himself in his own person; He spoke it aloud, in the ears of all the people, with his own voice. And this voice, as we are told, was so terrible, that the hearers of it were smitten with intolerable fear and trembling, and began to entreat, with the most humble and urgent supplications, that God would vouchsafe, in future, to make known his will to them by the voice of Moses rather than by his own.
No doubt, we also, who are assembled here, should think it a very awful thing, and should tremble in our whole frame, if we were to hear the voice of the great God of heaven and earth speaking to us from a cloud, or from a mountain-top; and we should naturally desire to hear the gentler, the more familiar voice of a man, like one of ourselves; to whom also we might listen, and with whom we might talk and reason, without any dismay, or even alarm. However, in this case, we may presume, the mighty terror of God’s voice was increased tenfold to those who heard it, by the accompanying hoarse blast of the brazen trumpet, waxing louder and louder; by the continual crash of tremendous thunderings; and by the red, fiery flashes of direful lightnings, which burst around them, whilst God was speaking, out of the thick, dark smoke that covered the top of the mountain “where God was;” the whole mountain itself, too, shook from its very foundations, and seemed to be all in a flame, burning with fire.
Now, what was the reason of this unusual manifestation of the Divine Majesty, but that God wished to give the command in the most striking, impressive manner, so that it should never be forgotten by that generation of men; and to show them a terrific instance of his power also, that they might tremble at the very thought of disobeying him, and of profaning, or neglecting, the Sabbath-day, which he thus commanded them to remember, to keep it holy.
But this was not all. God was not satisfied that He had done enough, even when He had uttered this command with his own voice, and with all that show of his terrible power and majesty; He wrote it also on a tablet of stone with his own finger; and He ordered the sacred tablet to be preserved with the utmost care, in the most sacred place—in the very ark where his whole covenant with his chosen people was preserved also. One generation alone could have heard that voice, and have seen those miraculous signs; but many succeeding generations, to remote times, might see the tablet of stone, and read the writing of God’s finger, and learn the Divine will for themselves with a more reverential awe; whilst every other supernatural circumstance of the history was taught by one generation to another, and was handed down from father to son through all generations.
You may readily now understand, then, of what vast importance this command must be in the eye of God, and how necessary the observance of it is for the welfare and happiness of man. For, if this were not so—if it made no difference, either to God’s own glory, or to our welfare and happiness, whether the Sabbath-day were remembered to keep it holy or not; it is difficult to conceive that God should have taken so much pains, as it were, to establish a Sabbath-day at all; by descending, as He did, from heaven upon the Mount, in the midst of lightnings, and thunderings, and an earthquake; by proclaiming it to the astonished, trembling multitude with his own voice; by writing it, besides, with his own finger; and by ordering it to be laid up in the ark as a divine ordinance for ever.
But how does all this apply to other nations, and to us, of this nation, and of this age? God gave the command in this miraculous manner to the Jews only; how do we know that He intended that we, and all mankind, should observe it to the end of time?
This is a very reasonable question, and it may have a very satisfactory answer; namely, that the same causes for a Sabbath-day, and for remembering it, to keep it holy for ever, concern alike all the rest of mankind as well as the Jews; and that we Christians, above others, have especial cause for hallowing our own Sabbath-day; such as neither the Jews, nor the rest of mankind, until they become Christians, can have for hallowing their’s. If it were their bounden duty to hallow Saturday, or any other day, much more is it ours to hallow Sunday.
In truth, the ordinance of a Sabbath, to be kept holy to the Lord, is of the same age and antiquity with the creation of the world itself. It was not first established amongst the Jews; it was only renewed and re-established amongst them, when they themselves, like the heathens, had forgotten, or neglected it. It was established as early as with Adam, the first man, even in Paradise; and, therefore, all the sons of Adam—that is, the whole race of mankind, and not the Jews only, are equally bound to keep it. By proclaiming it to the Jews, as He did, God shows to us how awfully we ought to think of it; but all the nations of the world, which existed before, were bound by it before; and all which have existed since, and exist now, have been, and are, bound by it, in consequence of their common descent from Adam, to whom it was declared in the beginning, and made a law to his whole posterity for ever.