Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

May 19. 1834.

CHRISTIAN SABBATH.

How grossly misunderstood the genuine character of the Christian sabbath, or Lord's day, seems to be even by the church! To confound it with the Jewish sabbath, or to rest its observance upon the fourth commandment, is, in my judgment, heretical, and would so have been considered in the primitive church. That cessation from labour on the Lord's day could not have been absolutely incumbent on Christians for two centuries after Christ, is apparent; because during that period the greater part of the Christians were either slaves or in official situations under Pagan masters or superiors, and had duties to perform for those who did not recognize the day. And we know that St. Paul sent back Onesimus to his master, and told every Christian slave, that, being a Christian, he was free in his mind indeed, but still must serve his earthly master, although he might laudably seek for his personal freedom also. If the early Christians had refused to work on the Lord's day, rebellion and civil war must have been the immediate consequences. But there is no notice of any such cessation.

The Jewish sabbath was commemorative of the termination of the great act of creation; it was to record that the world had not been from eternity, nor had arisen as a dream by itself, but that God had created it by distinct acts of power, and that he had hallowed the day or season in which he rested or desisted from his work. When our Lord arose from the dead, the old creation was, as it were, superseded, and the new creation then began; and therefore the first day and not the last day, the commencement and not the end, of the work of God was solemnized.

Luther, in speaking of the good by itself, and the good for its expediency alone, instances the observance of the Christian day of rest,— a day of repose from manual labour, and of activity in spiritual labour,—a day of joy and co-operation in the work of Christ's creation. "Keep it holy"—says he—"for its use' sake,—both to body and soul! But if any where the day is made holy for the mere day's sake,—if any where any one sets up its observance upon a Jewish foundation, then I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it—to do any thing that shall reprove this encroachment on the Christian spirit and liberty."

The early church distinguished the day of Christian rest so strongly from a fast, that it was unlawful for a man to bewail even his own sins, as such only, on that day. He was to bewail the sins of all, and to pray as one of the whole of Christ's body.

And the English Reformers evidently took the same view of the day as Luther and the early church. But, unhappily, our church, in the reigns of James and Charles the First, was so identified with the undue advancement of the royal prerogative, that the puritanical Judaizing of the Presbyterians was but too well seconded by the patriots of the nation, in resisting the wise efforts of the church to prevent the incipient alteration in the character of the day of rest. After the Restoration, the bishops and clergy in general adopted the view taken and enforced by their enemies.

By the by, it is curious to observe, in this semi-infidel and Malthusian Parliament, how the Sabbatarian spirit unites itself with a rancorous hostility to that one institution, which alone, according to reason and experience, can insure the continuance of any general religion at all in the nation at large. Some of these gentlemen, who are for not letting a poor labouring man have a dish of baked potatoes on a Sunday, religionis gratia—(God forgive that audacious blasphemy!)—are foremost among those who seem to live but in vilifying, weakening, and impoverishing the national church. I own my indignation boils over against such contemptible fellows.

I sincerely wish to preserve a decent quiet on Sunday. I would prohibit compulsory labour, and put down operas, theatres, &c., for this plain reason—that if the rich be allowed to play, the poor will be forced, or, what comes to the same thing, will be induced, to work. I am not for a Paris Sunday. But to stop coaches, and let the gentleman's carriage run, is monstrous.

May 25. 1834.