"Again, after six chapters more concerning the tabernacle and its various sacrifices, the whole communication of the forty days' abode on the mount is concluded with a re-inculcation of the Sabbath-rest, in a manner the most solemn and affecting. 'And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, verily my Sabbath ye shall keep; for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy unto you; every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord; whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.' Exod. xxxi. 12-17. Can anything give dignity to the sacred day, as founded in the essential relation of man to his Maker and Redeemer, if this sublime language does not? Every idea of sanctification, every sense of importance from a sign of a covenant between God and man, every sanction derived from the awful punishment of death, unite to impress upon us the duty; whilst the proportion noted between the working days and the day of rest, and the reason drawn from the order of creation, extend the obligation to every human being."[1]
This great prominence which the Sabbath had amidst all the ceremonial laws, was equivalent to an intimation that the ritual service must never take the precedence of moral duties; that in the multitude of their offerings and shadowy service, the worshipers must still remember that true holiness does not consist in them, but in something higher; and that all their conformity to the ritual service must proceed upon moral footing, otherwise it is abomination in the sight of God.
But come with me, reader, a little farther, and see how the scriptures magnify the Sabbath at the very time they comparatively underrate the importance of ceremonial observances. Compare carefully Isa. i. 11-14, with chapters lvi. 1-8, and lviii. 13, 14, of the same prophecy. See how in the one case the ritual service is degraded, and in the other the Sabbath is exalted, and the holy keeping of it made the condition on which depends the acceptance of their burnt-offerings and sacrifices. Consider the language of Jeremiah. chap. xvii. 19-27. Read the passage with care, and see how all the prosperity of the nation, all the favor of God, is suspended on this one branch of moral obedience; with which compare his language concerning ceremonial observances. "For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices: But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you," Jer. vii. 22, 23. A comparison of these passages shows that Sabbath-breaking stood upon the same level with the breach of all moral precepts, and characterized them as a disobedient and rebellious people; while the neglect of ceremonial observances is classed in a different category. Ezekiel follows in the same strain, chap. xx. 12, 13, 16. In the book of Psalms too, we have the Sabbath and its holy duties and pleasures extolled, Ps. xcii, while ceremonies are depreciated, Ps. 1. 8, 14, li. 16, 17. And what was the great reformation which the prophets after the captivity sought to accomplish? Was not Sabbath-breaking the crying sin upon which they dwelt? Look at the holy zeal of Nehemiah. His faithful and searching rebukes proceed not upon their omission of ceremonial duties, but upon their neglect of the great and paramount duty of keeping the Sabbath, Neh. xiii. 15, 21, 23. In view of these scripture references, does the Sabbath look like a ceremony—a shadow—a mere element of the world, weak and beggarly!
Again, if the Sabbath was a part of the ceremonial law, why was Christ at such pains to regulate the manner of observing it? Matt. xii. 1, 13. Why so careful to modify the false usages that obtained? Why did he lay down distinctions between what is lawful to be done, and what is unlawful? Was this his manner when any thing ceremonial was the subject of dispute? Do we not find him, in such cases, waiving the subject at issue, in order to inculcate matters of lasting importance? How was it in his interview with the Samaritan woman? John iv. Her question in regard to the proper place of worship was merely of a ceremonial nature, yet it had been hotly disputed between her nation and the Jews. Does Jesus become an umpire in the case? No. The ceremonial institutions were about to vanish away; He himself came to end them. Therefore he occupies himself, not in settling the litigated questions that grew out of them, but in preaching great and everlasting truths. In regard to the Moral Law, however, he is at especial pains to vindicate if from all Pharisaic austerities, to remove all false glosses, and to assert its everlasting equity and glory. Witness his admirable exposition of it in his sermon on the mount. Witness too, his exposure of the hypocritical tradition concerning the fifth commandment. Matt. xv. 1-9. With this, his vindication of the Sabbath, his care to purge it from traditional corruptions, is perfectly parallel. But what sane mind ever thought that he proclaimed the fifth commandment to be of a ceremonial nature? Yet, strange to say, the precisely similar course which he took in regard to the Sabbath, has, by some, been made an argument that he abolished it as nothing but a Jewish ceremony.
'But drowning men catch at straws.' In spite of the overwhelming proof that the Sabbath had its origin before ceremonial observances could, with any reason, have been introduced, it is contended that it must have been merely a Mosaic institution, because no mention is made of its observance from the creation down to the time of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. It is asked, 'whether men during all that time, though otherwise so wicked, sanctified the Sabbath so universally and perfectly, that not one among them ever needed an excitement to duty, or a reproof for the neglect of it.' But to this question, however triumphantly proposed, we are as ready to answer, No, as the objector himself. That the great mass of men, during all this time, were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly, is admitted. But because they were not particularly reproved for Sabbath-breaking, no more proves that it was not a sin cognizable by the moral law, than the fact of God's winking at the times of the Gentiles' ignorance and idolatry, Acts xvii. 30, proves that their conduct was not cognizable as a sin against his law. If God passed over the Sabbath-breaking of those who lived in the first ages of the world without particularly taking notice of it, the same may be said of his carriage towards the Gentile world, in reference to all their wickedness for four thousand years. Besides, is not the drunkeness of Noah passed over without reproof? Is not Lot's incest with his daughters?—and Jacob's cheating Esau of the patrimony?—and the plurality of the patriarchs' wives? Were these things not contrary to the Divine Law, because they were "winked at?" Or, to come to cases still more in point, we observe that the silence of scripture respecting the observance of the Sabbath during the ante-Mosaic age, is no more than what occurs in regard to the period between Moses and the time of David, near four hundred years. Yet who ever doubted that it was observed during all this time? So also the rite of circumcision is not so much as alluded to from a little after the death of Moses, till the days of Jeremiah, a period of eight hundred years or more. Nor is the ordinance of the red heifer once mentioned from the Pentateuch till the close of the Old Testament. But who doubts the constant observance of these ceremonies? The objection, therefore, which is raised from the silence of Scripture, has no force whatever.
But whoever considers the very concise manner in which events are narrated in scripture, and that the history of two thousand years is all compressed within the compass of fifty short chapters, occupying about as many pages, will cease to wonder that no notice is taken of the observance of the Sabbath by the pious patriarchs. This very conciseness is a sufficient solution to a candid mind, without resorting to the supposition that there was no observance of the institution. Moreover, any one that peruses with attention the accounts of pious characters contained in the word of God, will see that no express mention is made of their acts of religion, unless something remarkable attaches to them.[2] Abraham's faith is mentioned, because it was remarkable. So of Abel, of Noah, and of Enoch. But in regard to their observance of the Sabbath in particular, it is not probable that anything remarkable or extraordinary was connected with it, rendering it of sufficient importance to the world at large to be recorded.
The position that we have taken is, that the Sabbath was instituted in Paradise, when man was innocent; that it was binding before Judaism had any existence. We have seen that the silence of scripture as to any reproof given to the transgressor of it, does not shake this position; that its silence as to any commendation bestowed upon the pious for keeping it, does not shake it; and that its entire silence is no more than what obtains with regard to the Sabbath from Moses to David, or with regard to circumcision from Joshua to Jeremiah, or with regard to the red heifer from Moses to the end of the Old Testament. Is there any thing yet remaining to weaken the force of our arguments?
In the opinion of our opponents there is one thing more. It is argued, from Ex. xvi., that the Sabbath was first made known to the Israelites in the wilderness, by the falling of the manna. But we can discover nothing in the whole history of the matter, as given by Moses, which intimates that the Sabbath was then made known for the first. On the contrary, the abruptness of the reference implies very strongly the previous knowledge of it. This idea receives strong confirmation from the fact, that when the people were reminded of the institution, nothing was said to them concerning the reason of its being their duty to keep it; which would hardly have been the case, had the subject been then presented to them for the first time. For it is worthy of note, that God condescends to give the reason of this command; a thing which he does not for moral precepts in general. He gives the reason, because man cannot discover it for himself, it being purely a matter of revelation that God made the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. Whereas, other moral precepts are more readily discoverable from the light of nature. Now, if God condescends in any place, and at any time, to give the reason for a command, we might expect it would be at the time of its first promulgation. In Gen. ii., where we suppose the law to be first given, the reason accompanies it; but in the passage now under consideration it does not.
Again, it is nowhere in the context intimated that the object of giving the manna was to make known the Sabbath. On the contrary, the declared object of supplying their wants in this miraculous manner, was to make the Israelites know that it was the Lord Jehovah who brought them out of Egypt, v. 6, and not Moses and Aaron, as they intimated, v. 3, to make them know that the Lord was their God, v. 12, and to prove them, whether they would manifest their gratitude for his merciful interposition in their favor, by walking in his law, or no, v. 4. This was the express and primary object. To make known the Sabbath is not even hinted as having been the subordinate, much less the principal object.