CHAPTER XVI. ON THE SABBATH.

One of the greatest difficulties to modern readers in the history of the primitive Church is the state of feeling and opinion on the subject of the Sabbath. We have been in the habit of arguing from the primitive institution of a holy day (which we have called a sabbath), and of viewing the Lord’s day as answering to it; and if we may judge by the language of the earliest writers, they did not consider the Lord’s day as intended to be a sabbath in itself, although some of them regarded it as being appointed instead of the Sabbath(462). Irenæus certainly viewed the institution of the Sabbath as entirely Mosaical, and thought that Abraham and the patriarchs before the Law did not keep it(463).

It must not, however, be thence hastily concluded that he believed that Abraham and the patriarchs knew nothing of the seventh day as a day of divine worship. The primary and leading idea of a _sabbath_, properly so called, is (not _holiness_ but) _rest_; that is, abstinence from any employment that can be construed into labour. Now Irenæus might very well deny that the Patriarchs kept a day of rest from all employment, without in any degree intending to deny that they devoted the seventh day especially to religious worship.

An illustration of my meaning will be found in the admission of Justin Martyr, that Christians did not keep the Sabbath(464), coupled with the well‐ascertained fact(465), that a very large proportion of them indeed were in the habit of attending divine service on the seventh day. Perhaps a still closer illustration is seen in the Canons of the Council of Laodicea, which expressly forbid Christians to keep the Sabbath like Jews(466), and at the same time direct the Eucharistic offering to be made on that day as well as on the Lord’s day(467). If then many of the early Christians devoted a portion of the Saturday statedly to public religious exercises, and yet did not consider themselves as keeping a sabbath, it would be very unsafe to infer from the assertion that the Patriarchs did not keep the Sabbath, that therefore they had no day of religious worship. In fact it seems scarcely possible that the division and numbering of the days by sevens could have been kept up, as we know it was(468), before the giving of the Law, without some religious observance connected with it.

Although, then, Irenæus did not regard the Mosaical Sabbath as being observed before the giving of the Law, and consequently regarded it as abolished with the Law, yet as he has asserted that the moral law or decalogue was observed before Moses, and implies that _we_ are not at liberty to reject it(469), it is very certain that he must have conceived the fourth commandment to be in some sense or other a directory to Christians: and it may therefore be inquired what he conceived ought to be learnt from it. This may in some degree be gathered from his saying that the Sabbath, like the whole Jewish Law, was symbolical, and that it was intended to teach men to serve God every day, and to typify the kingdom of God, when whosoever has persevered in godliness shall partake of his table(470). For he believed that the world was destined to endure in its present state as many thousands of years as the days of creation, and that then God’s kingdom would be set up on earth(471), which will be the true sabbath of the just(472). But he regarded our Lord’s apparent relaxation of the stringency of the sabbath, not as a _direct_ instruction to Christians, but as an explanation of the proper meaning of the fourth commandment as addressed to the Jews(473).

I think it would appear from these passages that Irenæus was not in the habit of regarding the Christian practice of hallowing the Lord’s day as the explicit fulfilment of the fourth commandment. He lived so near the apostolical times that he no doubt observed it in obedience to Christ’s institution, without considering whether it was contemplated by the original institution of a holy day or not. But in common with other Christian writers, he did not think that the fulfilment of the fourth commandment lay in devoting any particular portion of time to the service of God; but in serving him continually as much as possible; and therefore, as a matter of course, in observing those times of sacred repose and divine worship which either the institution of Christ, or the common custom of Christians, or the rules of the Church, might have appointed(474). According to such a feeling, therefore, whilst _no_ particular portion of time would be kept with Jewish superstition, as though it were an end of itself, whatever time was kept would be _so_ kept as to ensure the ends proposed by its observance.

And, if we revert to what has been before observed as to Irenæus’s view of the law of liberty, we shall see that he would be so far from supposing that this Christian freedom authorized us to dispense with devoting one day in seven to God’s service, that he would feel that it ought to lead those who had it in their power to devote even a larger portion. And such in fact was the practice of the Christians of those times. They assembled together not only on the morning and evening of the Sunday, but also throughout the east on the morning and evening of Saturday, and on the morning of Wednesday and Friday. When, therefore, there was so much zeal for the service of God, and the commandment was kept so amply in its spirit without thinking of the letter of it,—the warm feeling of Christians making them a law to themselves,—there was nothing to lead them to inquire critically how much the commandment actually required of them; and to have instituted such an inquiry would have appeared like putting a restriction upon the ardour of Christian love, and returning to the spirit of the Law of Moses.

The true question, then, to ask is, _not_ why the first Christians did not put the Lord’s day upon the footing of the paradisiacal sabbath, _but_ why we are _called upon_ to do so in these latter days? And the true answer will be found in the fact that the great body of us have abused the law of liberty, as the Israelites of old had done, and therefore, like them, have need, in the providential dealings of God, to be put back under rules and restrictions again, until we are become fitted to act as _children_ of God: and when we are so, we have no wish to shake off such restrictions, but of our own accord go beyond them.

In connection with this subject it is very remarkable that the Church of England in her catechism has not thought proper to connect the Lord’s day in particular with the fourth commandment; although most of our writers for the last three hundred years have found it necessary so to do. It is true that we have done no more than our duty by pointing out to our people that God from the beginning has hallowed one day in seven, in order to prevent them from relapsing into absolute heathenism;—the error has been that we have too much omitted to show that this was the least he would be satisfied with. We have too much written as though those who fully observed one day in seven had done their duty, instead of leading them to feel that they cannot be possessed of the spirit of true Christian obedience so long as they confine themselves to the _letter_ of the law, and do not of their own accord embrace _every_ means of grace and spiritual improvement.