Part 1

Transcribed from the 1853 Wertheim and Macintosh edition by David Price.

THE DIVINE AND PERPETUAL OBLIGATION OF THE OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH,

WITH REFERENCE MORE ESPECIALLY TO A PAMPHLET LATELY PUBLISHED BY THE

REV. C. J. VAUGHAN, D.D.,

_Head Master of Harrow School_,

ENTITLED “A FEW WORDS ON THE CRYSTAL PALACE QUESTION.”

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BY THE REV. JOHN PEROWNE, M.A.,

_Rector of St. John’s Maddermarket_, _Norwich_.

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LONDON: WERTHEIM AND MACINTOSH, PATERNOSTER ROW; NORWICH: THOMAS PRIEST, RAMPANT HORSE STREET,

1853.

_Price One Shilling_.

PREFACE.

The following pages are published with considerable reluctance. The Author read Dr. Vaughan’s pamphlet several weeks since, and was much pained that some of the sentiments contained in it should proceed from such a quarter. He hoped and expected that some one with more leisure than he can command, and more capable of doing justice to the important points under discussion, would undertake to refute what he felt to be the very erroneous notions of the learned Doctor. Since, however, no one else has taken up the subject, he ventures to submit his sentiments to the Christian public. He has no love for polemics, and very unwillingly appears in print; but he has reason to know, that the notions to which he alludes have already, in several instances, encouraged a violation of the Sabbath, and that they are likely to produce more extensive mischief, from the circumstance of no attempt having been made to refute them. To prevent this evil, is one object of the present undertaking. Another is, to counteract the erroneous sentiments of Dr. Vaughan’s pamphlet; while the writer’s chief aim is, to set forth what he believes to be the will of God on the important subject of the Sabbath. He is convinced that the principles enunciated in the following pages are in conformity with the teaching of the Bible; and being fully assured that obedience to the will of our Heavenly Father, is in all things the only way of peace and safety, he will rejoice if this pamphlet shall become the means of removing error, or of confirming those who already believe that the Sabbath is of divine and perpetual obligation.

THE DIVINE AND PERPETUAL OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH.

BEFORE entering on the question that we intend more particularly to discuss, there are some remarks that we deem it necessary to make on the tone and general character of Dr. Vaughan’s pamphlet. And in the first place, we were struck with the entire absence of scripture proof in support of the views propounded. Assertions are made of the most sweeping character, and inferences are thence drawn, involving matters of the highest moment; and yet no passage of scripture is adduced in support of these assertions. Thus we are told “that not only the fourth commandment, but the whole decalogue has ceased to be, _as such_, the rule of our life.” But the authority for this declaration is no-where given. If this doctrine be plainly taught in the New Testament, surely we should be informed where it is to be found.

Another thing that we could not help remarking, was the manner in which the authority of the Old Testament is repudiated. “With reference to the observance of the Sabbath, and to every point of moral duty, the appeal now lies primarily to the scriptures of the New Testament, and secondarily to any other records which we may possess of the practice of the apostolical age.” How different is the mind of Dr. Vaughan from that of the Apostle Paul on this important point. The Apostle tells us (alluding more especially to the writings of the Old Testament), that all scripture is “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” Dr. Vaughan tells us in effect, that our rule of practice is the New Testament and tradition!

Again Dr. V. condemns what he designates “a low and slavish spirit,” in those who wish “to have an express _law_ to shew for our Christian Sunday.” But we would ask, whether an express law makes the obedience of love less sincere, less warm, less free and spontaneous? St. John tells us, “this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous.” In a matter of such moment we feel bound to follow the opinion of the inspired Apostle.

Dr. Vaughan is of opinion, that “if we found even a _human_ institution, which testified throughout Christendom, by a speaking sign, by an act at once self-denying and beneficent, our faith in realities unseen and future; even _this_ would bind us to its observance.” And yet when we find in the word of God, a plain command to keep holy the Sabbath-day, we are told that we are not legally bound to observe it, and that a wish to have a law to that effect, bespeaks “a low and slavish spirit.” If, however, the express will of God does not lead men to keep the Sabbath, we cannot conceive of any other motive, by which (on Christian principles) they will be induced to observe it. In man’s present condition, liberty without law soon degenerates into licentiousness; and no law but that of God, can so restrain and regulate men, as to preserve real religious freedom. Repeal the laws by which life and property are protected, and try to persuade men to be good and virtuous, from a love of virtue, or from a sense of gratitude for the kindness and beneficence of their rulers; and we should soon see the necessity and benefit of our laws. And so it will be found, that the religious observance of the Sabbath, will soon give place to a general neglect of God’s house, and to practical atheism, if once the people are persuaded, that there is no divine command to keep holy the Sabbath-day.

But while the authority of the Old Testament is thus repudiated, the Rev. Doctor “_thinks_” _he_ “_sees_” (what other people may be blind to, and about which he himself is _not quite certain_—so poor a guide is man’s intellect in the absence of a plain command from God,) “indications from the very earliest days, of which the Scriptures contain the record, of man’s need of a periodical rest, and of God’s purpose to secure it to him.” He believes “that it is essential to the well-being of his bodily and mental structure.” He believes that it “is yet more essential to the well-being of his immortal spirit, to his education for that state in which earthly life issues.” He believes that this was “foreseen by man’s Creator, and provided for by the disposer of man’s heart.” And yet he does not believe that God has adopted the only means of securing this all-important blessing permanently to his creatures. Once, indeed, for a few hundred years he made it imperative upon a small portion of the human race, to keep an appointment so essential to man’s present and eternal welfare. But when by the mission of his Son, and the publication of the gospel, he manifested his marvellous love to the whole human race, then, by an unaccountable and inexplicable mode of procedure, he set aside this appointment, and left him to the dictates of his own will, or to the selfishness or caprice of those under whose authority he might happen to be! All was thenceforth to be left to man’s mental perception and moral sense! {7} Is this view consistent with God’s goodness? Is it consistent with his general dealing with men under the present dispensation? God has provided a Saviour for all men. He has commanded the gospel to be preached to the whole human race. He has commanded all men every where to receive the gospel. And yet he has abolished the only command by which an opportunity can be permanently secured to all men, to become acquainted with the truths of the gospel, and be made wise unto salvation! Is this worthy of God? A human parent would not withhold from his children, explicit instruction on any point that he deemed essential to their welfare. He would not leave them to conjecture, but would tell them plainly what was for their good. Is God less wise or less good than man?

The Rev. Doctor evidently feels some difficulty in reconciling his views with the teaching of the Church of England. For after speaking of the privilege and blessing of Sabbath observance, as if conscious of the dilemma in which his principles placed him, he proceeds to ask, “And shall those who look back through long years upon their frequent failures to improve the blessing, see no reason for the confession which bewails their past neglect of it, and the prayer which asks help to honour it (_i.e. the blessing_) hereafter?” Now we confess that we cannot help feeling, as we think most must feel, that this attempt to escape from the appearance of inconsistency in using the prayer alluded to, is most unsatisfactory. The prayer to which allusion is here made, is offered by the whole congregation immediately on the reading of the fourth commandment by the Minister. Its language is, “Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” And the meaning and intent of the prayer are thus expressed in the rubric at the head of the commandments in the Communion Service: “The Priest shall rehearse the ten commandments; and the people shall, after every commandment, ask God mercy for their transgression thereof for the time past, and grace to keep the same for the time to come.” This, then, is the meaning of the prayer; and in this there is necessarily implied a recognition of the moral obligation of the commandment, with regret for its violation, as well as a prayer for pardon, and for help to keep it in future. But is this the meaning which Dr. Vaughan attaches to the language of this prayer? No, with his views, it must be something of this sort: “Have mercy upon us for not improving this blessing in time past, and incline our hearts to honour this blessing in future.” Surely if the fourth commandment be no longer in force, to use this prayer is to confess guilt where no law has been transgressed, to ask pardon where no offence has been committed, and to seek aid to amend what is not legally wrong.

Nor is this the only practical difficulty connected with the views in question. We presume it is the duty of the Masters of our public schools, as well as of the Clergy generally, to teach their charge the Church Catechism. But in the Church Catechism are the following questions and answers:—

_Question_. You said that your godfathers and godmothers did promise for you, that you should keep God’s commandments. Tell me how many there be.

_Answer_. Ten.

_Question_. Which be they?

_Answer_. The same which God spake in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, &c.

Here is a plain acknowledgment that the ten commandments are still in force, and that we are bound by our baptismal vows to keep them. Dr. Vaughan affirms that they have “ceased to be our rule of life.” How can these conflicting opinions be reconciled? or how can those persons consistently use the formularies of our church, who so directly contradict her teaching?

Having thus noticed more generally what we consider the unscriptural opinions set forth in the pamphlet under review, we shall now proceed to consider more particularly the Sabbath question. This is confessedly one of the great questions of the day. So momentous, indeed, are its bearings on the temporal and spiritual well-being of men, and so intimately is it connected with the worship and honour of God, that its importance can scarcely be overrated. If God is to be publicly acknowledged and worshiped in his own world—if men are to be instructed in the principles of revealed religion, and trained to habits of virtue and christian love—if personal, domestic, social, and national happiness is to be promoted—if time is to be so improved, as to make it the passage to a blessed immortality—the obligation to keep the Sabbath must be recognised, and its observance must be enforced and regulated according to the injunctions of God’s holy word.

It is indeed asserted by some that, under the Christian dispensation, the observance of a day of rest is a mere matter of expediency—that we are under no divine obligation to abstain from labour or other worldly pursuits—that the Sabbath was purely a Jewish institution, and has passed away with the other “weak and beggarly elements” of Judaism. But on what grounds are such assertions made? because, as it is alleged, there is no positive command in the New Testament to keep the Sabbath, “no direction for its observance, nor any reproof for the neglect of it,” and because certain expressions are employed by St. Paul, which seem to bespeak “indifference to its retention, or even rebuke for its revival.”

With regard to the first objection, viz. the want of a direct command, this could scarcely be necessary, inasmuch as our Lord not only himself kept the Sabbath, but in all his remarks in reference to it, spoke in a manner that necessarily implied his recognition of its divine origin and perpetual obligation. Besides, as he expressly declared that he came not to destroy the law or the prophets, (both of which are full of exhortations to keep the Sabbath), what right have we to deny the obligation of the fourth commandment, because it is not expressly repeated in the New Testament? The safer and more just way of reasoning would surely be this: Under the former dispensation God in the most solemn manner promulgated a law, connecting with its observance great temporal and especially great spiritual blessings, and visiting its violation with the most severe judgments. This law has not been formally and explicitly abrogated, nor its sanctions withdrawn. The law, therefore, still remains in force. Shew us that the fourth commandment has been abrogated in as plain terms as those that were employed in its promulgation; and then, and not till then, we may with a safe conscience regard the observance of the Sabbath merely as a matter of Christian expediency.

Where, again, was the necessity of “direction” for the observance of the Sabbath, when the first Christians, (many of whom, as well as the Apostles, were Jews) had the services of the Jewish synagogue as a model, and the plain instructions of the law and prophets to guide them, both as to the proper manner of keeping the Sabbath, and the spirit in which it should be kept? We might as well deny the Christian obligation to maintain the public worship of God, because in the New Testament no directions are given for conducting it.

Nor would the absence of “reproof for the neglect” of the Sabbath be any valid argument against the continued obligation of its observance. If “in the primitive age” there were “churches in which _both_ (the Jewish and the Christian Sabbaths) were observed,” it is scarcely probable that any number of Christians would be found who neglected the Sabbath altogether; and if there was little or no neglect of the observance of the Sabbath, there would be little or no room for reproof on account of its neglect. But is there no reproof to be found in the New Testament? What does St. Paul mean by exhorting the Hebrews not to neglect the assembling of themselves together, as the manner of some was? {12a} Few will deny that this passage refers to the public worship of the Christian church, which we know was held on the Lord’s day. Here, then, we have at least indirect reproof; and its connection with what follows will perhaps suggest an additional reason for the absence of more frequent and more direct reproof. So essential a part of practical Christianity was the observance of the Sabbath deemed, that scarcely any ventured to neglect it, and they who did so, were considered in danger of apostasy. {12b} If the reasons stated be valid arguments against the divine obligation to keep the Sabbath, what can be urged to prove the duty of females to partake of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper? Here, although the institution was entirely new, and peculiar to the new dispensation, yet we find neither direct command, nor reproof for neglect, nor even mention made of any females having partaken of that Sacrament. And yet who would venture to pronounce these sufficient reasons for denying the obligation of women to receive the memorials of their dying Saviour’s love?

With regard to those passages in which “the language employed is” said to be “that either of indifference to its retention, or even of rebuke for its revival,” we apprehend that the intention of the apostle was neither to condemn the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, nor to intimate that Christians were under no moral obligation to keep any Sabbath whatever. If he was speaking exclusively of the Jewish weekly Sabbath (of which there is no sufficient proof), his object was, either to vindicate Gentile Christians from the obligation of its observance, or to condemn the self-righteous spirit in which it was kept. “Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbaths” (or sabbatical appointments.) {13} All these were _Jewish_ ordinances, from which the council at Jerusalem, guided by the Holy Ghost, had declared _Gentile_ believers to be free. They were local and national, and the various sacrifices and offerings connected with them could be presented only at Jerusalem, and by Jews or proselytes. They were therefore declared to be of no obligation to the Gentile believer. On the contrary, these observances became injurious both to Jewish and Gentile Christians, if they were kept in a self-righteous spirit. “I am afraid of you (says St. Paul to the Galatians), lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.” “Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.” Was the apostle rebuking his brethren for the revival of what had “died out?” Was he not rather blaming them for observing in an antichristian spirit, what they were not _bound_ to observe at all? In his epistle to the Romans, he declares that the observance of these days is in itself a matter of indifference. “One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it to the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.” {14} How then could he be rebuking the Galatians for simply doing what he himself declares might be done with a good conscience, and acceptably to Christ? Besides if the language of the Apostle must necessarily be understood as conveying rebuke for observing the Sabbath, and consequently be a valid proof, that the obligation to observe it is done away, much more might the same argument be deduced from the still stronger language employed by God in the book of the Prophet Isaiah: “Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.” {15} What would have been thought of a Jewish teacher who should have affirmed from this passage, that the rites here enumerated were for ever abolished? And yet such a view would have had more to support it, than the doctrine attempted to be established by the statement of the Apostle. In both cases, we apprehend, it was not the observance that was condemned, nor the obligation that was denied; but the reproof was levelled at the motives and the state of mind by which the observance was attended. An antinomian spirit was condemned by the Prophet—a self-righteous spirit by the Apostle.

The absence of a formal abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, and the formal substitution of the Christian Sabbath in its place, is in perfect accordance with the whole plan of divine providence, for the introduction and establishment of Christianity in the world. The religion of Moses was never formally abolished. Our Lord lived and died in it; and his Apostles and the early Jewish disciples occasionally at least observed its rites, and still worshiped at the temple and in the synagogue. Both religions were from God. Both had the same end. The same truths and the same spirit were essential to both. The shadows of the one gave place to the substance of the other. But in all that was vital, moral, saving, the two religions were identical. “He was not a Jew who was one outwardly, and circumcision was that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter.” In like manner we conceive, what was purely and necessarily Jewish in the observance of the Sabbath, passed away with the mere externals of Judaism; but all that was essential to the spirit of the command remained in full force.

But it is asked, if the observance of the Sabbath be of divine and perpetual obligation, why have Christians changed the day, and why do they not keep the Sabbath in the manner enjoined in the Old Testament? We reply, that the lawgiver, the “Lord of the Sabbath,” has by his own acts, declarations, and example, and by the example of his inspired Apostles, sanctioned both the change of the day, and the alteration in the manner of its observance. Christianity was not to be confined to one country, nor was it necessarily to be a national religion. It was to overspread the world, and was to be suited to all countries and climes. It was therefore necessary that whatever was merely local and national in the observance of the Sabbath, should be relaxed or removed; and this might be done, and was done, without either touching the moral obligation of the law, or taking from its observance a particle of what is vital and essential. {16} Our Lord did not abrogate the seventh commandment when he declared, that the unchaste look was a breach of it. Neither did he set aside the fourth commandment, when he worked miracles of mercy on the Sabbath day; when he defended his disciples who were blamed for plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath day; when he declared it was “lawful to do good on the Sabbath day.” And if the seventh day had hitherto been kept as a sign between God the Creator and his creature man, and as a memorial of creating goodness; surely there was great propriety in changing the day, so as to make the Sabbath observance a sign between God the Redeemer and his redeemed creature man, and a memorial of redeeming love, as well as an emblem of the eternal Sabbath, {17} which is the hope of the christian. Nor can we imagine that the most explicit command for the change of the day, could have come with greater force to the followers of Christ, than the recorded facts, that the Saviour rose on the first day of the week, that after his resurrection, he selected that day to meet his disciples, that his people ever after regularly kept the first day, and that this day bears in Scripture the honoured appellation of “the Lord’s day.” In this change, however, nothing is given up that is essential in the command to keep holy the Sabbath day. One day in seven is to be set apart to the service of God; in it no unnecessary work is to be done; but works of necessity and of charity on that day are sanctioned by our Lord himself. And this is so far from being opposed to what was required under the former dispensation, that it agrees entirely with the teaching of the prophet Isaiah, who instructed the Jews, that the proper and acceptable way of keeping the Sabbath, was, “not to do their own ways,” nor to “speak their own words,” nor to “find their own pleasure;” but to “call the Sabbath a delight, holy of the Lord, honourable.” {18}