one day, was taken for the word of God. Hence, when He cleared away these cobwebs, He was supposed to be, not fulfilling the law in its true import, but destroying it altogether. He made it appear worthy of God, as a step in the economy of grace, but he did not therefore make it an ordinance to survive, or capable of surviving, the other shadows of the law. For, (it cannot be repeated too often), the seventh-day Sabbath was only a part of the Jewish 326 Sabbatical system, and that system, considered as a whole, was by no means an evangelical one. It was a system designed, among other things, to keep the Jews separate from the rest of the world, as depositaries of what amount of truth God had thought fit to reveal to them, and to remind them at every turn of the responsibilities of their condition. Accordingly, with every abatement that can be made for the false elements with which the Pharisees had overlaid it, it was essentially a system of prohibitions and restrictions-"touch not, taste not, handle not "-it. was a system of which fear of transgression was the predominant motive, not clear perception and love of the right; it was a system by which truth was rather shadowed than revealed a system of types and figures, the meaning of which was not fully known to any, and was by very few appreciated at all. And, however understood, it was, as an unsubstantial and typical system, to be, with the law generally, swept away when the reality should come, when the antitype should be manifested. This was not to be till the Resurrection. Till that time our Lord observed the Law. Circumcision, Holy-days, and Sabbaths, were a part of the ordinances to which He submitted Himself for a while, though, as is evident from His practice and teaching, from His spiritualizing of the Law, and from His proclaiming "the acceptable year" and announcing Himself as its introducer, He considered them to be things decaying and waxing old, and ready to vanish away. The Apostles,

after the Resurrection,327 struck a different note, for the time for striking it had come. All things are new, said they-new in Him and because of Him-He is the true rest, the true or Great Sabbath, of which all other Sabbaths were but heralds. They waited to tell their message: having told it, they have passed away. Judaism, whether in theory or in practice, it matters not which, whether it develop itself in the observance of the Law as it was intended, or in that astute and subtle refinement of it introduced by the Pharisees and Rabbins, has vanished away. This was from the beginning implied in their preaching, and it was not at first necessary to be explicit. But, as time went on, Judaism began to intrude itself into the Church. Hence the Council of Jerusalem. Hence the text and its assertion, that no man should condemn his brother for neglecting Sabbaths and other ordinances of the Law. Still, though the Council had spoken and Paul had written, Judaism would thrust forward its pretensions, perhaps with more vexatious accretions than before, and blended with various heresies. Hence the Fathers argued against it without pausing to discriminate between the pure and the impure forms of it. And Romanist, Puritan, and Presbyterian alike, in so far as they adopted Sabbatarianism, exhibited an exaggerated revival, not merely of the Law of Moses, (that had been unmeaning enough, now that the reality had come), but of the Pharisaic glosses, which even in our Lord's time had become grievous to be borne. Taken at its very best, the earthly Sabbath was no true rest, it was a shadow of the true rest, a shadow not fully realized by deliverance from Egypt or by entrance upon Canaan, but only by deliverance from sin. This, the true Joshua, and He alone, was by His death to accomplish, by His Resurrection to prove, by His sending of the Holy Ghost to communicate to His people here, and by receiving them to Himself to impart to them more perfectly hereafter.

Therefore, the Sabbath, the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment, with everything contained under the word. Sabbath, or akin to it, days and times and years, the strongholds and yet the weaknesses of the Law, is abolished. It was a positive ordinance of Judaism, and with Judaism has disappeared. But this is without prejudice to the establishment of the Lord's Day, and without its being at all necessary to seek for the Lord's Day, either identity in substance, or directly antitypical connexion, with the Sabbath. How far the Lord's Day, besides being, as I showed in an earlier Lecture, a positive ordinance of Scriptural and Apostolical Christianity, is one of the forms in which the oaßßarioμòs which remaineth for the people of God would naturally and of course find expression; how far it is analogous to the Sabbath, and whether it may not contain in it the same elements though in a different order, and arranged in the spirit of love which casteth out fear, I shall consider in the next Lecture.

LECTURE V.

HEBREWS IV. 8, 9.

FOR IF JESUS (JOSHUA) HAD GIVEN THEM REST, THEN WOULD HE NOT AFTERWARDS HAVE SPOKEN OF ANOTHER DAY.

THERE REMAINETH THEREFORE A REST (A KEEPING OF SABBATH) FOR

THE PEOPLE OF GOD.

Εἰ γὰρ αὐτοὺς Ἰησοῦς κατέπαυσεν, οὐκ ἂν περὶ ἄλλης ἐλάλει μετὰ ταῦτα ἡμέρας.

Αρα ἀπολείπεται σαββατισμὸς τῷ λαῷ τοῦ Θεοῦ.

I CONCLUDED my Fourth Lecture with three remarks:

First, that the Sabbath properly so called, the Sabbath of the Jews, with everything connected with it as a positive ordinance, was swept away by Christianity.

Secondly, that this is without prejudice to the Lord's Day; and

Thirdly, that it is not necessary to seek for the Lord's Day, either identity in substance, or directly antitypical connexion, with the Sabbath.

Certain passages however have been brought forward, as tending to invalidate these propositions. Three of them are of the nature of prophecies, uttered respectively by Isaiah, by Ezekiel, and by our Lord. From these it is argued that the Sabbath is still of obligation. Three of them occur in the writings of St. Paul. It is said of these, that

if they are understood as destructive of the Sabbath, they render all Christian Holydays, the Lord's Day amongst them, indifferent, not to say unlawful. Another Another passage is that contained in my text. This has been understood in two very different ways, each of them, I believe, containing an element of truth, but each of them blended with some

error.

The course of my present Lecture will be-first to discuss the three prophecies to which I allude: then to inquire into the true meaning of the passages adduced from St. Paul's writings: and lastly, so far as I may be able, to grasp the argument in the Hebrews;

"For if Jesus (Joshua) had given them rest, then would he not afterwards have spoken of another day.

“There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God."

We shall, I think, as we proceed, find the solution of various questions which have hitherto been left open till the time for their discussion should arrive.

And first of the three prophecies.

It is said in one of Isaiah's visions, (lxvi. 23), which is obviously not to be limited to the Jews and their fortunes, that 'from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before God." Now from this it has been urged that the Sabbath cannot be of a transitory nature, or it would not have been mentioned thus. It has, however, escaped the notice of those who hold this argument, that if the continuance of the Sabbath Festival is proved by this passage, so is the continuance of the New-moon Festival.328 This they would hardly be inclined to allow. And yet by their own showing they must allow it. No less is said of the one than of the other, and, we may add, no more. I see not then what can be gathered from it, except an assurance, expressed in the language of the Jews, on God's part, that in the glorious

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