shadowed

less.

tion to the weariness of weekly toil, but especially LECT. VI. those who needed protection the women, the bond servants, and the dumb animals. Do you It overnot see that in a time when men as men had no the helprights, this law brought a right of rest to the most helpless and defenceless? Do you not see that it imposed a check upon the greed and rapacious selfishness which is natural to those who have their fellow-creatures under their power? Without this law where would the poor slaves have been? How had it been with themselves during the Egyptian bondage Moses asks in Deuteronomy, when he is restating the law. "Remember" he says, "that thou wast a slave in the land of Egypt." God, in claiming this portion of time for Himself, did so amongst other things in the interests of toiling men, to whom He gave it as a heritage. And if it were needed in so comparatively a quiet age, how much more is it needed in this bustling one? Where, then, is Christithe likelihood of its withdrawal under the still cannot more beneficent system of Christianity? The only idea that is reasonable is, that it has been enlarged and transformed.

anity

take it

away.

God's Sabbath must not be con

The Sabbath of the commandment must not be confounded with the Rabbinical Sabbath of the latter days of Jewish bigotry. It did become a founded burden grievous to be borne. Confounding work

K

with the

Sabbath.

LECT. VI. with activity the Pharisaic rabbis o Rabbinical their blind zeal, a multitude of restri simply foolish and tedious, but s because inhuman. But the Div guards only against work, and not enjoyable activities of benevolence

Our Lord's It was from this standpoint our Lo

vindication

of God's Sabbath.

We come

it against the inhuman restrictions
sees, saying,
"The Sabbath was ma
and not man for the Sabbath." I
to be its slave; it was to be man's
Lord exemplified the true use of
of rest and of worship, but also
activity. He loved to heal on the
and to show forth mercy, and thus
day of the Son of man.

The whole drift of his usage wa tion but transformation. He died interests of the true Sabbath, beca views and practices on the Sabbath mined His enemies in the first in Him to death. This fact strangely b words and those of St. Paul. He of the Sabbath, and therefore its "

These considerations, then, are st tions in favour of the Lord's Day a expression of the Jewish Sabbath. But what about St. Paul's

fairly interpreted in the light now thrown round them, they become a help, and cease to be a difficulty.

The point he speaks atians and

to which

in Gal

Colossians does not

Lord's

We must carefully distinguish the point from which he speaks, and the point to which he speaks. He speaks from the point of view already considered, that the believer is above the law as a means of salvation, and that therefore touch there could be no such thing as a meritorious Day. observance of the Sabbath. This is his point, in both the Galatian and Colossian Epistles. To fall back on law as the means of salvation instead of union with Christ, is to fall from truth and grace. But the idea of meritorious observance is no part of the theory of the Christian Lord's Day, and the observance it demands is not therefore that which the Apostle condemns.

Romans.

Again, even in the case of liberty of conscience, Neither his point for which he contends in the Epistle to the Romans, in the he is still annihilating only the same falsehood of meritorious observance. He has not present before his mind the day of rest either as beneficial, or as a physical law. Let us remember that as yet the Lord's Day had not generally established itself as the day of worship in the Church. The tendency of things was in that direction, but still there was no Church rule, or general custom. Those who observed it did so voluntarily, and not the

LECT. VI. shadow of an idea of legality attached to its observance. The only question involving legality was, what now to do with the Sabbath? It is to this point St. Paul is speaking. Concerning the Lord's Day he says nothing directly. But, it may be asked, does not St. Paul's teaching apply to the Lord's Day as a Christian institution; surely it must have something to do with it? Yes, certainly, it applies most powerfully, not for prohibition, however, but to mark the nature of the transformation which the Jewish Sabbath has undergone.

How his point applies

not for prohibi

tion, but to

show the

true spirit

of Lord's

Day.

The Lord's Day has for its basis what the Jewish Sabbath had, viz. the physical law of rest, one day in seven; but as this physical law was taken up into Mosaism, so now it is taken up into the Lordship of Christ to be ruled by His spirit. But as for that very reason there are not, and cannot be, any special methods of observance laid down as in themselves legal and essential, therefore it does not trench on St. Paul's theory of liberty, and that theory does not prohibit it.

All that can be laid down (and it is here where St. Paul's theory powerfully applies) is, that the only thing of essential necessity in its observance is spirit; the spirit which should be at the heart of all other days is to be specially mani

fested on this day. Its essential idea is liberty LECT. VI. of conscience, its only rule "unto the Lord." Whatever forms this spirit takes in practical action are to be defended not on legal grounds, but as the forms which it naturally and wisely assumes in order to realize the purposes of the day as the day of the soul. Thus St. Paul's teaching does apply most powerfully to interpret its formative principle. It insists that it is in no way a legal or a ceremonial day, or that anything but "the spirit of rest in Christ" should rule its observances.

law of

to which

But having stated this without reserve, let me Another point out that in connection with the Lord's Day conscience there remains another law to be considered, Lord's Day which operates from another standpoint than appeals. that of legality upon the Christian conscience, viz. the law of moral fitness and expediency.

conscience.

If it can be shown to be, on the spiritual side at The probleast, a great gain to the Christian life, as it is a lem before great blessing on the physical side, then the Christian conscience must acknowledge that. If it is best observed as a day in which ordinary occupations and pleasures are laid aside, as a day of worship and benevolence, and if this best form for the Christian is also the best form for the nation, then again the Christian conscience is tied to this best in both particulars.