I think any thing would have been objected to such a statement if the Jewish seventh-day-Sabbath had not been assumed to be the same with the seventh-day-Sabbath in paradise. This confuses the subject. It seems to make the seventh day a fundamental matter; whilst the real substance of the institution, the measure of working and resting days, is forgotten. Doubtless, also, those who had first feigned an anticipated history, and then banished the Sabbath from the moral law, and lastly, accused our Savior of repealing that command, have been ready enough-to seize on the merely non-essential circumstance of the change of the day of celebration, to prop up their falling cause. And thus it has happened that this subordinate, has, in truth become a primary, question, from the accidental importance attached to it. But we proceed. 4. THE WORD OF PROPHECY does not, indeed, expressly announce a change of the day of the Sabbath, but it affords such intimations as are quite consistent with such a transfer. The "old creation"-the state of things under the law-shall not be remembered, but the "new creation" -the state of things under the gospel-shall.* The Christian church shall have her ministers, solemnities, Sabbaths, and holy ordinances, all referring directly to the Messiah. A new dispensation shall be introduced, in which the alteration shall be so great and extensive as to be fitly compared to "new heavens and a new earth,' which shall efface the memory of the old. Read the glowing language itself: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered nor come to mind." "As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall ALL FLESH come to worship before me, saith the Lord." But a more explicit prediction, embracing the change of the day of celebrating the Sabbath, or, at the least, giving an intimation of it, is found in the 118th Psalm. "The stone which the builders refused is become the head-stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvel * Called in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "the world to come," ii. 5. Isa. lxv. 17; lxvi. 22, 23; and J. Edwards on them. lous in our eyes. 29* Here the stone spoken of is Christ; the passage being six times applied to him in the New Testament. He was rejected of the builders when he was put to death; he was made the head of the corner when he rose triumphant from the tomb. While Christ lay in the grave, he lay as a stone cast away by the builders; but when raised from the dead, he became the head of the corner. This was a great and marvellous act. Now the day when this was, done, as we are next taught, is appointed to be the day of the rejoicing of the church. "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." To what day does the prophet here refer? On what day did Christ rise from the dead? Was it not on the first day of the week? Was not this the very day of triumph, the glorious day of Messiah's being made the head of the corner? Does the psalmist refer, then, to any other day? Or does he not rather refer to this most distinguished and peculiar one? To this, no doubt. And what does he say shall be the employment of it under the New Testament? "THIS, is the day which the Lord hath made; we will REJOICE AND BE GLAD in it." The pre diction is more decisive, because the celebration of public worship is the topic which introduces it, "open to us the gates of righteousness; I will go into them, and will praise the Lord: this gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter." Here then is an intimation, to say the least, that the Christian day of joy shall fall on the day of the resurrection of Messiah-which the Lord's day hath done ever since the promulgation of the gospel. We dwell not, however, on this topic. A further one has greater weight. 5. In the next and most perfect dispensation of the divine grace-the gospel-such a COMPLETE REVOLUTION ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE IN THE WHOLE STATE OF THE CHURCH, that it seems natural that so important a branch of religious observances as the Sabbath, should follow the new order of things. This remark strengthens the intimations of the prophetic word which we have just noted, and falls in entirely with our previous topics--the preparatory * Ps. cxviii. 22, 23. + Dr. Lightfoot and J. Edwards. circumstances in the terms and arrangements of the law, the probable change of reckoning in the wilderness, and the demands of an universal religion. The Sabbath, in the progress of ages, was continually acquiring new ends by new manifestations of the covenant of redemption; and those new ends coming to their height in the gospel, justify a correspondent alteration in a subordinate point of the sabbatical institution. "The priesthood being changed," says the apostle, "there is made of necessity a change also in the law." We have a new Mediator, a new covenant, new promises, a new way of access, a new spirit of holy confidence, a new high priest; and therefore a new object in the computation of the weekly Sabbath-the glory and triumph of the Mediator in his resurrection. These are termed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "the world to come."† This constitutes what the prophets call as we have just seen, "the new heavens and the new earth; and which St. Peter denominates by the same strong and figurative expression. These form that "dispensation of the fulness of times when God gathers together all things in Christ, both things in heaven and things in earth." Not one thing only is changed, but all. Accordingly, "the former shall not be remembered nor come to mind." The Sabbath, then, probably follows the new course. And this appears the more likely, from the circumstance of the new creation being described as leading to the rest of the Mediator after he had completed it, even as the old creation led to the rest of the Almighty after he had finished his work—a rest granted in each case as a boon to man, and pledging that eternal rest with God in heaven, in which it terminates, and which is the ultimate felicity proposed in all the dispensations of grace. We cannot enter into the details of the apostle's noble argument on this subject. We observe *Heb. vii. 12. + Heb. ii. 5. 12 Peter iii. 13. §Eph. i. 10. ¶ "So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter my rest. So we see they could not enter in, because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us," (by the gospel,) "of entering into his rest," (that of the Lord Christ,) "any of you should seem to come short of it. For we which have believed, do enter into rest," (the Christian Sabbath and rest, as a pledge and preparation of the heavenly.) "For he spake in a certain place" (Gen. ii. 2,) "of the seventh day in this wise, and God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again," (Psalm xcv. 11.) "If they shall enter into my rest. There remaineth only, that as at the first creation, the Almighty was pleased to work six days, and then rest on the seventh, in order to exhibit an instructive lesson for man's imitation; and as his resting on the seventh day was a sufficient intimation of the precise day of Sabbath appointed for man; so in the second creation Christ wrought his work of restoration and redemption during his ministry, and then rested, and was refreshed from that kind of work by which he laid the foundations of ""the new heavens and the new earth;" and thus he marked out precisely the new day of sabbatising under the gospel, the first of the week. Then "he ceased from his own works, as God did from his;" then he entered by his resurrection into his rest; then he rested and was refreshed, and saw of "the travail of his soul and was satisfied;" then he left, in the new day of Sabbath, a new pledge of heavenly felicity to his church. Thus to each dispensation of the divine covenant a peculiar rest was attached to the patriarchal, to the Mosaical, to the evangelical. The patriarchal was founded in the first creation, after which God ceased from his works, proposed to man a rest with himself in heaven, and appointed a Sabbath as a remembrance of the one and the pledge of the other. The Mosaical dispensation was founded in the redemption from Egypt, when God again ceased from his mighty works of forming and creating a people;* proposed a rest with himself to man, and gave him the pledge of it in the Jewish Sabbath. The gospel dispensation is founded in the new creation wrought by the Lord Christ, who therefore a rest," (a day of sabbatical rest in earth and heaven, and the one the pledge of the other,) "for the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest," (even Jesus our Lord, the author of all this new creation,) "he also hath ceased from his own works" (of redemption and new creation) "as God did from his," (of the old creation.) "Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest," (of heaven, of which our Christian weekly Sabbath is a pledge and foretaste.) "lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." I have inserted a few words of parenthesis from Dr. J Owen, J. Edwards, Dwight, Scott, Arch. Pott, &c. who concur in the interpretation; which is, in fact, the only one that can stand. And so "This people I have formed for myself."-Isaiah xliii. 2. in many other passages, the Mosaical covenant is termed a creation, the work of God's hands, &c. It is striking also to observe that the last glorious state of the church terminating in the rest of heaven, or perhaps the heavenly state itself, is described in the apocalypse under the same image; "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth."-Rev. xxi 1,Owen, Edwards. redeems, renews, and writes his law upon the heart of man by his Spirit, and introduces a new and more spiritual state of religion. From this creating work Christ ceased, at his resurrection; he was then refreshed in the view of his works, and proposed his own rest to be called after his name, as the sign of the new covenant and the pledge of the heavenly rest (the keeping of a Sabbath, the sabbatising) which remains to his people. And as the day of repose followed certainly the precise order of working and of rest in the first dispensation, and was altered, as we prob ably conclude, in the Mosaical, to follow the day of redemption; so in the last and most perfect dispensation, it is again changed as to the precise time of its celebration, to dignify the day of spiritual redemption; and thus the patriarchal and Jewish Sabbath become the Lord's day. ual We can suppose nothing more fitting, more necessary, so to speak, than so slight and yet significant a change! What! have we a new church, the gospel; new ordinances in that church, ceremonial worship taken down and spirital set up; new sacraments, baptism and the Lord's supper, for circumcision and the passover; a new Mediator, Christ instead of Moses; a new covenant, founded on the > better promises of the gospel; a new command of that covenant, to love one another; a new object of divine worship and confidence, the Lord Jesus;-in a word, have we all things new; and have we not a new Sabbath fitted for all this new creation?* Yes, the Jewish rest is, under the gospel, THE LORD'S DAY. 6. One more indication must be noticed, which binds together all the preceding. THE CLAIMS WHICH CHRIST ADVANCED DURING HIS MINISTRY OF LEGISLATING FOR THE SABBATH, AS ITS SOVEREIGN AND LORD, lays a probable ground for the alteration of the day of its observance, and even intimates that some such change would take place. One of the most striking of these claims is in the passage which we formerly considered.† Jesus there asserts first the grand moral end of the Sabbath-then cautions us against the perverse traditions which would render man a slave to the external forms of that institution-and lastly, draws this emphatic and oracular conclusion, "THEREFORE * Lightfoot. † Mark ii. 27, 28, Sermon III. |