CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 14:5.—Here the seventh day, Sabbath, is included, but not the Christian Sunday, which was of apostolic authority, and has plainly divine sanction, and is a continuation of the Adamic Sabbath. Let every man be fully persuaded, act with full persuasion, that what he does is right. Let him have conviction founded on examination. Every man is bound to obey his conscience, but let conscience be properly enlightened and prompted by love to the Lord of the Sabbath. In the words κρίνει πᾶσαν ἡμέραν, says Olshausen, is expressed the original apostolic view, which did not distinguish particular festivals, because to it the whole life of Christ had become a festival. As, however, the season of the Church’s prime passed away, the necessity could not but at the same time have again made itself felt of giving prominence to points of festival light in the general current of every-day life.
Romans 14:6.—Each must seek to do what he conscientiously believes to be the Lord’s will.
MAIN HOMILETIC S OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 14:5-6
Variety of opinion, unity of spirit.—There may be no direct allusion to the Christian Sunday in this passage, and there may be no pronouncement either for or against the observance of a fixed day, as there is no declaration against either eating or not eating. Why the apostle did not say it is good to keep the Christian Sunday when he said, “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth,” we cannot tell. But we find that he lays down a principle which should lead every right mind to the religious observance of one day in seven. He allows variety of opinion; he enforces unity of spirit, and that spirit is that all is to be done unto the Lord. If anything be left undone, it is thus left because the omission will work more truly to God’s glory. Can it be truly said and successfully maintained that the abrogation of Sunday observance will tend to the glory of God? Do our Sunday pleasure-takers and our Sunday business men either enter the excursion train, indulge in their pleasures, or pursue their secular avocations “unto the Lord”?
I. The spirit of consecration asks for full persuasion.—
1. Now full persuasion cannot be obtained without serious examination. And that process cannot be called serious examination which comes to the consideration of the divine word with preconceived views. People who work on these lines say they are willing to be enlightened. Their willinghood is doubtful, for they never find any teachers skilful enough to enlighten. Has a man given serious examination to this passage who says, That is all right; St. Paul advocates all days alike. No rigid sabbatarianism for me. Let me have liberty of opinion? Is not this man treated ironically by St. Paul? How can a man discern every day? There is no longer any distinction when all are distinguished. To set apart every day as holy is no longer to sanctify any one specially. To consecrate all our substance unto the Lord, and to refuse to “render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,” is a plain contradiction. Would an income-tax collector allow a man to escape on the plea that all his income is consecrated to the Queen? The tribute of days as well as the tribute of money should be consecrated unto the Lord.
2. Serious examination cannot be conducted without consideration of all the evidence. It would not be admissible in the court of law that evidence should not be adduced, and it must not be admitted in the court of conscience. We must carefully consider the cases of those who distinguish one day in seven and those who distinguish all days, and ask which class shows more emphatically that they are ruled and actuated by the spirit of consecration unto the Lord. The inner spirit is known by the outer life. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The inner spirit of consecrating all our days is shown by the outer life of consecrating unto the Lord one day in seven. The inner spirit of love is shown by the outer deed of love. It breaks the alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious, and pours it on the head of the predestined victim. It might have been sold and given to the poor, says selfishness. Love says, No; it must be consecrated to this highest service. Selfishness says, The true spirit is to consecrate all days to noble endeavours. Let there be no empty sentiment; let there be no waste of time according to priestly ordering. Love says, No; one day in seven must be consecrated to the service of the All-loving, that so all days may be ennobled, that so in the recurring days the loving heart may pour itself out in an unrestrained stream of devotion. The love of some men rises above their creed. They advocate all days alike, and yet they sacredly keep their Sundays.
II. The spirit of consecration is fully persuaded of the wisdom of observing fixed days.—Lest the Sabbatarian may be said to come to the consideration of the divine word and of the divine ordinances with preconceived views, it may be needful to show that such views are not hastily formed. All the evidence which can be adduced goes to prove that Sunday is indispensable to the establishment and propagation of Christianity in the world. Let us then bring forward some of the advantages of a fixed day of rest to both the individual and the community. We doubt not that there have evils arisen from the observance of Sunday as a day of rest. But where are we to find the unmixed good? The tares and the wheat will grow together, farm we never so carefully. Shall we give up growing wheat because we cannot prevent the springing up of tares? Shall we cease the work of trying to join good men in Christian communities because hypocrites will appear? Nay, verily. The abuse of a custom does not nullify its wise use. The perversion of an institution does not abrogate its authority and its necessity. Our Sunday must abide, though it may have attendant evils; and yet the evils are few and fanciful. They are the evils of depraved human nature rather than the evils of the day of rest; while the blessings are real and manifold.
1. A fixed, day of rest and of religious observance fences humanity, at least that part of humanity that does not break through the Sabbath hedge; and such violators place themselves in the dangerous position of being exposed to the bite of the serpents that lurk on the outside of the sacred enclosure. Still the Sunday fence is more extended than we sometimes think. It has warded off much evil even from the heads of those who flout its protective qualities. Those who make merry at the expense of the righteous, and try to show that more evil happens to the Sabbath observer than to the Sabbath breaker, should bear in mind that the latter is moving under the protecting shield of the former. In this world the wicked even are benefited by the sufferings and the virtue of the righteous. Ten righteous would have saved a cityful, but there were not ten to be found. The true Sunday observers form a small proportion of the nation, but they are its protection. The sound stones in the national fabric may be few, but they prevent a national collapse. The Sunday fence encloses and benefits even the perverse; and much more does it benefit the faithful and the obedient. The Sunday observer is forced from the intrusion of business, from the calls of secular life, and from the attacks of so-called pleasure.
2. A day of rest and religious observance helps human weakness. It is a strange feature of our nature that it should be averse to religion and yet cannot get away from it. Even in regenerate men there are adverse forces at work, and when they would do good evil is present. Two opposite forces are at work in the soul, one set drawing to religion and to goodness, and the other drawing in an opposite direction. What a constant strife rages in the town of Man-soul! The world within a man, even of a good man, is not all on the side of good. And the world outside the man is not engaged to help him forward to moral victory. The powers of evil and good are continually striving for the mastery, and we often fear that the good will be worsted in the encounter; yea, we too often find that evil conquers and the man is dethroned. This being so we cannot wisely dispense with any help which may be available to render the contest successful. A fixed day of rest is a valuable help by the way which cannot be ignored. And we may regard it not as a mere secondary but as a primary help. It is the source of much precious assistance. It brings more vividly before the mind the feeling of our personal responsibility and our immortal destiny. In the secular days we are apt to be of the earth earthy; while the manifest tendency of the Sunday is to raise above the earth, and thus we are strengthened for further conflict. Ask any good man to give up his Sunday. The request would be absurd. As well ask the soldier to give up his weapons of defence in the day of battle, the sailor to abandon the life-buoy when battling with the waves. The Sunday provides invisible weapons of defence, and is a sustaining force amid life’s dark billows and howling tempests. It is helpful to the weak, and the strongest require its gracious aids.
3. A day of rest and religious worship furthers noble endeavour. The language of the good man is, “I will endeavour.” He is not either vain-glorious or insanely self-reliant. When despair rests upon the human soul, one little ray of hope piercing the darkness will do a world of good. “I will endeavour” is apostolic language, and is a suitable motto for the man struggling to the upward heights. Sunday refreshes and recruits the weary spirit of the endeavouring man. He has made many endeavours, and has failed; but Sunday teaches that what are called failures in the moral battle are not all failures if we are still found in the pathway of endeavour. It can give higher motives for perseverance, encourages to further action, and assures final victory to the faithful.
4. A fixed day of rest and religious worship provides a blessed outlook. It opens a large prospect which must be invigorating. The pilgrims in their journey went up the Delectable Mountains to behold the gardens and orchards, the vineyards and fountains of water. There they drank and washed themselves, and did freely eat of the vineyards. Then the shepherds had the pilgrims to the top of a high hill called Clear, from which could be seen the gates of the celestial city. Sundays are as the Delectable Mountains, where are gardens and orchards, vineyards and fountains of water. Here weary pilgrims can drink and freely eat and be refreshed. Amongst these mountains is many a hill Clear, from which, if we have the skill and the glass of faith, we may see the gates of the celestial city. Sunday is the high hill Clear towering above all other days. Even when the hands shake as the glass is held by reason of our remembrance of life’s perplexities, we may see farther than on any other day. We cannot do without our hills and mountains; they impress with a sense of the sublime. Much less can we part with our Sundays, the Delectable Mountains of time; they often show us the opened gates of heaven. We look in through those pearly gates, and behold the city shines like the sun; the streets also are paved with gold; and in them walk many men with crowns on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps to sing praises withal.
III. The spirit of consecration is persuaded that the Christian Sunday is the substance which glorifies the shadow.—The shadow often consists of dim and imperfect outlines. The sketch is a rough draft of the perfect picture which is to appear, and much work, skill, and patience will be required before the production is completed. Now the Sabbath of Eden and of Sinai is regarded by some as a rude sketch; though we consider that it is something more than a mere cloudy and disproportioned shadow, we may still consider it as a shadow, and remark that the Sabbath of the Old Testament is glorified by the Christian Sunday.
1. The substance glorifies the shadow by intensifying its beneficent aspect. The careful reading of the fourth commandment shows what a beneficent precept it is. It enjoins benevolent considerateness for all within the range of our influence. It treats for the physical and moral welfare of the human creature, and touches the brute creature with kind and gentle hand. And the divine Founder of Christianity intensifies this beneficent aspect. Those watchwords of the sabbatic controversy, “The Sabbath was made for man,” unfold the Saviour’s idea. Some of the most remarkable of His miracles were performed on this day. Wherever the Christian Sunday has been properly worked it has been a beneficent force. The physical evils of modern society are still many, but the amelioration of those evils has been due to the advance of Christian principles stimulating the movements of a true science. Sunday is one of the great means of keeping those principles before the world. It is a beneficent institution which has either directly or indirectly promoted and nurtured most of our modern benevolent enterprises.
2. The substance glorifies the shadow by giving to it a rich spiritual tone. Some read the fourth commandment as if it were a mere regimen of physical rest for those who felt no need of and had no desire for spiritual rest. This, however, is to read the commandment superficially. The seventh day is to be kept holy, and this cannot be done by mere idleness. The true refreshing repose for body and soul is to be found in spiritual employments. The highest repose is enjoyed by the angels, and yet they rest not day nor night. Jesus Christ, by reproving the unauthorised sabbatic restrictions of the Jews, declares the spiritual nature of the Sabbath. It is a day to be observed spiritually, and was thus observed by the apostles and first founders of the Christian Church. St. John gives emphasis to this idea when he says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” This may mean a special spiritual influence, a pneumatic condition, when great disclosures were made. Nevertheless every Christian seeking to keep the Lord’s day aright will in his measure come under spiritual influence and have his divine manifestations to the soul. Here it may be noted that the expiassions “the Lord’s day” and “the first day of the week” indicate that this first day was one of public social worship amongst Christians in the apostolic age. The appellation “Lord’s day” occurs nowhere in the New Testament except in this passage. But it occurs twice in the Epistle of Ignatius, who calls it “the Lord’s day—the queen and prince of days.” Chrysostom says, “It was called the Lord’s day because the Lord arose from the dead on that day.” Eusebius in his commentary on the Psalms says: “The Word (Christ) by the new covenant translated and transferred the feast of the Sabbath to the morning light, and gave us the symbol of true rest—viz., the saving Lord’s day, the first day of the light in which the Saviour obtained the victory over death. On this day, which is the first day of the light and the true sun, we assemble after an interval of six days, and celebrate holy and spiritual Sabbath; even all nations assemble redeemed by Him throughout the world, and do those things according to the spiritual laws which were decided by the priests to do on the Sabbath. All things whatever it was the duty to do on the Jewish Sabbath we have transferred to the Lord’s day, as more appropriately belonging to it, because it has a precedence and is first in rank and more honourable than the Jewish Sabbath. It is delivered to us that we should meet together on this day, and it is ordered that we should do those things announced in Psalms 92.” Dr. Whewell in his Elements of Morality says: “In points on which the evidence of apostolic and catholic usage is complete, a Christian or a body of Christians has no liberty to alter the mode of observance. As an example of this, it appears to be inconsistent with Christian duty for any community to alter the day of religious observance from the first to any other day of the week, as Calvin is said to have suggested to the city of Geneva to do, in order that they might show their Christian liberty in regard to ordinances. If to do this were within the limits of Christian liberty, it would likewise be so to alter the period of the recurrence of the day and to observe every fifth day or every tenth, as was appointed in France when Christianity was rejected.”
3. The substance glorifies the shadow by showing that ceremonies do not avail without spiritual life. Here substance and shadow coincide, for Isaiah says: “The new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.” And why? Because the oblations were vain, the hands spread out in prayer were full of blood. We must cease to do evil and learn to do well before we can keep acceptable feasts. We must, in fact, seek to be more spiritual. However, let us not cry, Away with forms and ceremonies! “Of what use are forms, seeing that at times they are empty? Of the same use as barrels, which at times are empty too.” They must be permeated with the spirit of Christ. Now Christianity does not permeate evil with good, for it cannot turn wickedness into righteousness and transform sin into holiness. It can permeate our evil nature by driving out sin and introducing holiness. Its motive power stimulates to action; its aim is to overcome evil by good through the destruction or banishment of evil and by the supremacy of good. It desires to transfuse the peaceful and refreshing spirit of the day of rest into all other days; but this cannot be done by its practical destruction. It does not call other days evil because it makes Sunday a special day. Christianity does not attribute moral qualities to days. In this sense every day may be alike. However, moral qualities may be brought to the observance of days, and in this manner certain days may be rendered sacred. It is observable that in the book of Exodus it is said, “And God blessed the Sabbath day,” not, as in our Prayer Book, the seventh day; and thus God dedicates a day of rest. Let us bless our Sabbath day by bringing to its observance our highest powers, our best spiritual endeavours, our earnest prayerful preparation, and thus it will be to us a blessing. In blessing Sunday we bless ourselves and bless our kind. In praising Sunday we praise and exalt Sunday’s Lord, and angels join to swell our chorus of praise.
IV. The spirit of consecration says that Christ is the master.—“For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord.” What, then, is the force of these words? “It means,” saith St. Chrysostom, “that we are not free; we have a Master who would have us live, and willeth not that we die, and to whom both of these are of more interest than to us. For by what is here said He shows that He hath a greater concern for us than we have for ourselves, and considereth more than we do, as well our life to be wealth as our death to be a loss. For we do not die to ourselves alone, but to our Master also, if we do die.” Christ, the kind master, has watched over the Church, and has preserved to us the day of rest. We are not free to destroy the sacred treasure. His concern for our spiritual welfare is so great that He has made the institution of Sunday the one institution that should be strikingly prominent and should exert a miraculous influence. We are Christ’s property, redeemed by His precious blood. We are under all circumstances, living or dying, eating or abstaining, observing days or not observing them, Christ’s—His redeemed people. Let us joyfully keep Sunday, and seek to make it a bright and happy day, and thus cause it to be regarded with favour by all the true-hearted.
Romans 14:6. A bright and happy day.—The Sabbatarian regards the Sunday as a day unto the Lord as well as from the Lord. To make of the Lord’s day a merely ecclesiastical institution is to deprive it of its highest sanction and divest it of universal and binding authority amongst a free people. The presence of the fourth commandment in the Decalogue, the recognition of the obligation to keep the Sabbath by our Lord, as well as a true conception of the relation of the law to the Christian dispensation, is against the sweeping view that the institution is only binding upon us from considerations of humanity and religious expediency, and by the rules of that branch of the Church in which Providence has placed us. We regard Sunday as from the Lord, and keep it as unto the Lord, and believe that He intended it to be a day of true peace, joy, and refreshment. Sunday, then, should be a bright and happy day; for—
I. Gladness is contemplated in divine arrangements.—The Almighty is the God of love, and cannot therefore be the cause of sorrow. Doubtless sadness is a blessing, not in itself, but in its effects under divine guidance. The arrangements of the material world indicate that originally this earth was intended to be a pleasant dwelling-place. It is sin which has brought about the sad change. The final arrangement of the moral world is the dispensation of the gospel; and one of its designs was to give “the oil of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” Neither science, nor philosophy, nor cold morality has ever healed the broken in heart; while this has been done by the gospel. And Sunday is the glad day on which many of these good results have been effected. Only the Sabbath of eternity will unfold the blessedness to God’s redeemed which has sprung from the Sabbaths of time.
II. It interrupts the monotony of life.—Life is dull to many, and Sundays come as bright and welcome interruptions. The numbers who practically do without a Sunday, and do not appreciate its high joys and solemnities, rob existence of a great boon. Sunday changes the very quality of the life stream. We drink at secular streams and thirst again, while those who drink at the sacred stream are for ever refreshed.
III. It provides a quiet resting-place.—What the country home does for the city business man each night, that and more may the Sunday do each seventh day—that is, each recurring seventh day. It should shut out business cares and toils, and secure a quiet resting-place amid wearing activities. Sunday rest may confer a benefit which is not at all times properly appreciated, because all the circumstances of the case are not duly considered. Our thoughts are turned into new channels and our energies in fresh directions. Sunday should be a recruiting period from the battle, a quiet resting-place from the struggles, of modern existence.
IV. It promotes enlargement of nature.—Humboldt has well observed that an introduction to new and grand objects of nature enlarges the human mind. Now Sunday should introduce to new and grand objects of nature and supernature. It opens out all worlds. We may study both the natural and the spiritual. Sunday is a high peak on the level landscape of time from which we may view eternal vastnesses. It enables us to rise out of our narrow sphere and look beyond our narrow surroundings. It may teach how little are the thoughts and pursuits of men, and how infinitely vast are the thoughts of God. Without its help we are dwarfed, while by its kindly processes we are enlarged. Its visions of glory and its sounds of sweetness make glad.
V. It furthers the greater compactness of society.—In these days we hear from some quarters a good deal about the solidarity of the race, by which is understood a union of interests, of sympathies, and of pursuits. Now the only lasting unions for human societies are the outcome of the working of divine institutions. Sunday is the appointment of divine benevolence, and one of its gracious purposes is the reconstruction of the human race, so as to bind it together in one family bond under the guidance and protection of one all-loving and beneficent Father. Sunday’s legitimate working is not towards the destruction of distinctions in society, but towards the blending of such distinctions, so that society may move along harmoniously. As this day gives completeness to the week, so it gives compactness to society.
VI. It furnishes stated times for public religious worship.—Man is a creature made to worship, and must have a God. “Religion,” says Emerson, “is as inexpugnable as the use of lamps, or of wells, or of chimneys. We must have days, and temples, and teachers.” Infidelity may reign for a time; still it cannot long hold against the instincts and cravings for worship found in human nature. So far infidelity has not gained a widespread dominion. There is a demand for religion, and the heart of man cries out for the living God. There is a demand for worship which can only be stifled by sensuality and wickedness. Where these are not allowed to gain the mastery, where there is any spiritual development, there is both a desire for and a great pleasure in public religious worship. It must be so, for man is also a social being, and this arrangement helps to satisfy the social instincts of his nature. We miss the glad design and blessing of the Sunday if we do not engage in religious worship. They that thus honour the Lord’s day will be amply rewarded.
VII. Many have found Sunday a happy day for Christian work.—The Christian’s secular work should be done in a spiritual fashion and to the glory of God; but the Christian welcomes Sunday because it furnishes opportunities of more directly promoting the moral welfare of mankind. He is benevolent, and Sunday must be a bright and happy day because it provides channels through which the waters of benevolence can freely flow. How happy the home where the Christian Sunday cheers and where the Christian father seeks to gladden! When sorrow darkens the home, Sunday brightness gilds the sorrow-cloud with beautiful colours formed by ray-lights from heaven.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 14:5-6
Discrimination of days means setting apart one day.—It has been concluded from these sayings of Paul that the obligation to observe Sunday as a day divinely instituted was not compatible with Christian spirituality, as this was understood by St. Paul. The context does not allow us to draw such a conclusion. The believer who observes Sunday does not in the least do so under the thought of ascribing to this day a superior holiness to that of other days. To him all days are, as the apostle thinks, equal in holy consecration. As rest is not holier than work, no more is Sunday holier than other days. It is another form of consecration, the periodical return of which, like the alternations of sleep and waking, arises from the conditions of our physico-psychical existence. The Christian does not cease to be a man by becoming a spiritual man. And as one day of rest in seven was divinely instituted at the creation on behalf of natural humanity, one does not see why the believer should not require this periodical rest as well as the unregenerate man. “The Sabbath was made for man.” So long as the Christian preserves his earthly nature, this saying applies to him, and should turn not to the detriment but to the profit of his spiritual life. The keeping of Sunday thus understood has nothing in common with the sabbatical observance which divides life into two parts, the one holy, the other profane. It is this legal distinction which Paul excludes in our Romans 14:5 and Colossians 2.—Godet.
Economists laud the Sunday.—Whatever may be men’s theories about the Sunday, it is a remarkable fact, and to us conclusive, that those who are the purest and noblest cling tenaciously to the Sunday. The Christian’s decalogue would not be complete if the fourth commandment were erased. The Christian’s sky would be darkened if Sunday were eclipsed. His days would be gloomy, his passage through lifo as if one were going through an underground tunnel where darkness and malodours prevailed, if the sacred light of the day of rest were extinguished. The Christian has a loving interest in the preservation of Christ’s great day, the Church’s great day. His loving interest is not selfish, for he knows that national prosperity and greatness are identified with the English Sunday. He is not surprised to find that foreigners can see the priceless value of our Sundays. Dr. D’Aubigné says, “Order and obedience, morality and power, are all in Britain connected with the observance of the Sabbath.” La Presse says, “England owes much of her energy and character to the religious keeping of Sunday.” Why cannot France follow her, as the Sabbath was made for all men, and we need its blessing? He is not surprised to hear the great political economist declare that the Sabbath as a political institution is of inestimable value, independently of its claim to divine authority. Sunday is a royal day and makes its adherents kingly. We must both know and do. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” Knowledge is good, but doing is better. Doing right is the bright pathway to truest prosperity and divine kingship.
Sunday a spiritual blessing.—Now though it be true that man was not made for the Sabbath, yet let it never be forgotten that the Sabbath was made for man. Man was not made to move in a precise orbit of times and seasons; yet times and seasons may be arranged so as to subserve his use, and be the ministers of good both to his natural and moral ceremony. Were the keeping of the Sabbath a mere servitude of the body which left the heart no better than before, it would be a frivolous ceremonial, and ought to be exploded. But if it be true that he who sanctifies the Sabbath sanctifies his own soul, then does the Sabbath assume a spiritual importance, because an expedient of spiritual cultivation. The suspension on this day of the labour or business of the world, its scrupulous retirement from the converse or the festivities of common intercourse, its solemn congregations and its evening solitudes—these singly and in themselves may not be esteemed as moralites, and yet be entitled to a high pre-eminence among them from the impulse they give to that living fountain of piety out of which the various moralities of life ever comeforth in purest and most plenteous emanation. It is not that the virtue of man consists in these things, but that these things are devices of best and surest efficacy for upholding the virtue of man. Were it not for this subserviency, the Sabbath might well be swept away; but because of this subserviency, it not only takes its place among the other obligations of Christianity, but is entitled to that reverence which is due, if not to the parent, at least to the foster-mother of them all. If the Sabbath of any one of the primitive Churches obtained not this homage from the apostle, it must have been because it was a Sabbath of ceremonial drudgery and not of spiritual exercise. And you have only to compute the worth and the celestial character of all those graces which have been sheltered and fed and reared to maturity in the bosom of this institution that you may own the high bearing and dignity which belong to it. And the maxim that what may be done at any time is never done applies with peculiar emphasis to every work against which there is a strong constitutional bias, where there is a reluctance to begin it, and the pitching of a strenuous effort to overcome that reluctance, and the pleasant deception all the while that it will just do as well after a little more postponement—a deception which, as it overspreads the whole life, will lead us to put off indefinitely, and this in the vast majority of instances is tantamount to the habit of putting off irrecoverably and for ever. Now this would just be the work of religion when shorn of its Sabbath—a work to embark upon which nature has to arrest her strongest currents, and to shake her out of her lethargies, and to suspend those pursuits to which by all the desires of her existence she is led most tenaciously to cleave, and to struggle for the ascendency of faith over sight, and of a love to the unseen God whom the mind with all the aids of solitude and prayer so dimly apprehendeth, over the love of those things that are in the world, and whose power and whose presence are so constantly and so importunately bearing upon us And will any say that in these circumstances the cause of religion is not bettered by the Sabbath, that weekly visitor coming to our door, and sounding the retreat of every seventh day from the heat and the hurry and the onset of such manifold temptations?—Dr. Chalmers.
A cuneiform inscription.—The Lord’s day, though for us, is not ours, but the Lord’s. We have no right to give it away, or to look on unmoved while it is being taken away. The Sabbath is not simply a Mosaic institution; the very word is found in the oldest cuneiform inscriptions, taking us back to a time before Moses was born. Tablets are in existence which show that thus early, in Ur of the Chaldees, the rest-day of the heart, as it was termed, was kept sacred. Sabbath observance is not a duty so much as a privilege. The Epistle of Barnabas states, “We keep the eighth day for rejoicing, because it is the day on which the Lord rose from the dead.” And that ancient manual The Teaching of the. Twelve Apostles says, “On the Lord’s own day we gather to break bread and give thanks, first confessing our sins, that the sacrifice may be pure.” There is a difference between the rest-day, the preservation of which is the business of the State, and the Lord’s day, which it is the duty of the Church of Christ to protect and to secure.—Canon Girdlestone.
Son of man Lord of the Sabbath day.—Jesus Christ exercised His lordship over the Sabbath day in order that love’s outflow might be unchecked. Those who watched the Saviour’s miracles of healing on the Sabbath day might have learnt how He took them far back to love’s primeval purpose when it created a Sabbath for man. It teaches and enforces the lesson that there is liberty to do right and restraint in the direction of wrong-doing. Jesus Christ moved through this world as love incarnate, and the Sabbath was the blessed shrine in which He made love’s richest display.
I. The Sabbath was created for man, created at the very commencement of human history, and for universal man’s moral and spiritual well-being.—The world was created by the Saviour for humanity’s dwelling-place; and the Sabbath for humanity’s temple. The Sabbath was created for man as the sun was made for man that he might enjoy light, heat, and productiveness; as the sweet interchange of day and night and the revolving seasons were ordained for man to find this earth a pleasant dwelling-place; as the Bible was given for man’s improvement and enrichment; and as heaven is provided for the redeemed as a joyful eternal home after life’s cares, storms, and turmoils. The Sabbath was made for man’s benefit, and it is at his peril that he either trifles with the boon, or presumes to lord it over the beneficent institution. The Son of man, then, is Lord of the Sabbath day, because He is the Son of God and the Creator. Our patriotism and our philanthropy as well as our zeal for the glory of God should impel us to put forth effort for the preservation of our English Sunday.
II. The Sabbath should be honoured in the sweet sacredness of the home.—English domestic life is one of the secrets of England’s greatness, and Sunday is its great upholder and promoter. The scattered members of the family are drawn and bound together by the weekly recurrence of God’s day. If the austere Sabbath keeping of the home has rendered some perverted natures averse to religion, it has had a far different effect on large numbers. Occasionally we are presented with thrilling pictures of clergymen’s sons driven to courses of wickedness by the austerities of Sabbath-keeping houses, but these are the painful exceptions, and the rule is that clergymen’s families thank God for the hallowed sweetness of the parsonage home. And it is to us a cause of deep regret and of grave concern that in our cities the home is only a misnomer as applied to many of the abodes where human beings herd. God’s day rightly regarded and honoured in our homes would produce a most salutary change in the community. The sabbatic haven leavening the whole man would produce an aspect of spiritual beauty which would transform earth and even gladden heaven.
III. The Sabbath should be honoured in the devotional sacredness of the temple.—It is one of the blessings of our land that houses for prayer are erected in our cities, towns, villages, hamlets, and in remote mountain districts where the inhabitants and the excitements are few, and where life would otherwise move along in a dull round and on a low level. Thus our people have nowhere any excuse for dishonouring Sunday by neglecting public worship. The temple of nature is grand and imposing in many parts, but nowhere can it be found to be a substitute for the religious temple. The advocates of worship in the temple of nature have too often much talk and no worship of nature’s Creator. And we miss the great design and blessing of the Sunday if we do not engage in religious worship. They that thus honour the Lord’s day are amply rewarded. They may be raised above the worries of life, and forget for a season their earthly anxieties. And on the Sunday we must go to the temple if we are truly to honour the day and realise its richest experiences and taste its highest blessedness.
IV. The Sabbath is to be honoured in the wholesome sacredness of Christian activities.—It is not our purpose to define the work and to summon the workers to the Lord’s vineyard. Suffice to say that there is plenty of moral work to be done; that the command is issued to every Christian, “Son, go work to-day in My vineyard.” The fields are white unto the harvest, and the cry still is for more labourers. There would not be so much moral dyspepsia, no need to utter vain jeremiads about Sunday’s wasted opportunities, if there were more moral energy. Christians should give out as well as seek to take in on Sunday, and they would receive more if they would seek to impart more. There is that giveth and yet increaseth. The law of spiritual increase is that we do as well as hear. Happy are ye if ye do these things. Thus by a pleasing variety will the Christian Sunday be spent and the Christian be improved.
Sabbath springe from the necessity of religion.—“The Jews gave a reason why man was created in the evening of the Sabbath, because he should begin his being in the worship of His Maker. As soon as ever he found himself to be a creature, his first solemn act should be a particular respect to his Creator. To fear God and keep His commandment is the whole of man, or, as it is in the Hebrew, whole man; he is not a man, but a beast, without observance of God. Religion is as requisite as reason to complete a man. He were not reasonable if he were not religious, because by neglecting religion he neglects the chief dictates of reason. Either God framed the world with so much order, elegance, and variety to no purpose, or this was His end at least, that reasonable creatures should admire Him in it and honour Him for it. The notion of God was not stamped upon man. The shadows of God did not appear in the creatures to be the subject of an idle contemplation, but the motive of a due homage to God. He created the world for His glory, a people for Himself, that He might have the honour of His works. It was the condemnation of the heathen world that, when they knew there was a God, they did not give Him the glory due to Him.” Let us give glory to Him to whom all glory belongs. Let us join the beasts who were full of eyes within, so great their intelligence, who “rest not day nor night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come; and the four-and-twenty elders who fell down before Him that sat on the throne, and worshipped Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.”
Christians unanimously observed the Lord’s day.—Those that thought themselves under some kind of obligation by the ceremonial law, esteemed one day above another, kept up a respect of the times of the Passover, Pentecost, New Moons, and Feast of Tabernacles, thought those days better than other days, and solemnised them accordingly with particular observances, binding themselves to some religious rest and exercise on those days; those who knew all these things were abolished and done away by Christ’s coming, every day alike. We must understand it with an exception of the Lord’s day, which all Christians unanimously observed; but they made no account, took no notice, of these antiquated festivals of the Jews.—Hewes.
Let each act from conviction.—“Let him be fully persuaded in his own mind.” The Jewish convert might keep his Jewish Sabbath and the Gentile Christian might keep his own Christian Sabbath, the one might keep the seventh day and the other might keep the first day of the week, and both be blameless. St. Paul still keeps to the same subject, and what he means is about this: the thing is not concerned about fundamentals, for the thing requisite is, if this person and the other are acting for God’s sake, the thing requisite is, if both terminate in thanksgiving; for, indeed, both this man and that give thanks to God. If, then, both do give thanks to God, the difference is no great one. But let me draw your notice to the way in which here also he aims a blow at the Judaizers; for if the thing required be this, the giving of thanks, it is plain enough that he which eateth it is that giveth thanks, and not he which eateth not; for how should he while he still holds to the law? As, then, he told the Galatians, “As many of you as are justified by the law, are fallen from grace,” so here he hints it only, but does not uphold it so much, for as yet it was not time to do so. But for the present he bears with it; but by what follows he gives it a further opening.—St. Chrysostom.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 14
Romans 14:5-6. Vessel anchored in a bay.—We have seen a vessel lying at anchor in a well-sheltered harbour while the storm raged furiously in the open sea. The vessel was fenced and protected. What portion of the storm entered the little bay only served to give a gentle motion to the ship, and make mournful music as the wind swept through the cordage. Sunday should be as the fenced-in and protected harbour for the vessel of a good man’s soul. There may be storms without; there should be comparative peace within. The man is anchored within the Sunday bay, and nothing will tempt him to withdraw the anchor and try the ocean of secular life until he is further strengthened and refitted for the tempest by the recruiting influences of a full Sunday. Well is it if he can feel that both himself and his Sunday are fenced by the protecting arms of Him whose love is everlasting. Secular life is full of cares. All life has its deep sorrows. But Sunday should shut out our worldly cares, and fence us in with the love of God. What a consoling message the Sunday carries! It proclaims the gracious truth, He careth for you. The Infinite cares for the finite. We who dwell in houses made of clay are cared for by Him who inhabits the praises of eternity. We who are but insignificant atoms amid the vast systems of worlds have a place in the mindful regards of Him who rolls the stars along and speaks all the promises. Sunday has its sweet voices and its rich music, and within its sacred enclosure we hear the sweet voice of infinite love’s mouth and the rich music of heaven. Welcome, sweet day of rest that enfolds us in its loving arms, that gives rest when we are weary, drink when we are thirsty, and healing balm for aching heads and hearts!
Romans 14:5-6. Lord Salisbury and the Shah.—The Westminster Review would destroy the sacredness of our English Sunday, but the Westminster statesman seeks to maintain that sacredness. “The Shah was grievously disappointed because Lord Salisbury would not allow a dance on Sunday night, and he entirely failed to appreciate the Anglican prejudice against Sunday diversions.” All honour to Lord Salisbury; but what shall we say of him who speaks of an Anglican prejudice? Is he infected with the false notions propounded by the writer of an article named “A rational use of Sunday”? Surely the writer of this article will not commend himself or herself to an enlightened reason. For “A rational use of Sunday” ought to have no statements which might shock a rational nature. And what shall be said to this; “There is indeed a pretty general consensus of opinion among theologians that, to use their own expression, ‘The Sabbath began with Moses and ended with Christ’ ”? We are not aware of such “a general consensus.” A few names on that side might be counted on the fingers. There are many treatises written on the opposite side, while the literature on the side of the “general consens us of opinion” is scanty. If, indeed, there be such a general consensus, it is remarkable that the English Sunday maintains its divine pre-eminence.
Romans 14:6. Wait till reckoning time.—A good old man was much annoyed by the conduct of some of his neighbours who persisted in working on Sundays. On one occasion, as he was going to church, his Sabbath-breaking neighbours called out to him sneeringly from the hayfield, “Well, father, we have cheated the Lord out of two Sundays, any way.” “I don’t know that,” replied the old gentleman,—“I don’t know. The account is not settled yet.”
Romans 14:6. Good hands at an excuse.—I have often wondered at the cleverness with which people make excuses for neglecting heavenly things. A poor woman was explaining to me why her husband did not attend church. “You see poor working folks nowadays are so holden down and wearied out that they are glad to rest a day in the house when Sabbath comes.” An unopened letter was lying on the table, which she asked me to read, believing that it was from her sick mother. It was a notice to her husband that the football team, of which he was captain, was to meet on Saturday at 3 p.m., and that, like a good fellow, he must be forward in good time. And that was the man for whom my pity was asked, as being so worn out with his work that he could hardly creep up to the church! Another woman admitted to me that she never read her Bible, but pleaded that she was too busy and had too many cares. My eye caught a great bundle of journals above the clock. She confessed that these were novels, on which she spent twopence-halfpenny every Saturday, and that she read them on the Sabbath. If you wish an excuse, the smallest thing will give you stuff enough for the weaving of it.—J. Wells.
Romans 14:6. Six parasangs.—Krummacher tells of an Israelite named Boin, a resident of Mesopotamia, whom the Lord called to make a pilgrimage to the land of his fathers. Taking his family, he started westward, through the wilderness. When he was weary with a journey of six parasangs, he came upon a tent by the way, and a man said to him, “Rest here.” When rested the man guided him forth. At the end of six parasangs more he found another tent with refreshments; and so on to the end of his journey in the promised land. The life of man is a pilgrimage. Six parasangs are six days; the seventh is the day of rest, the tent of refreshment by the way. The fool passes by the tent, and perishes in the wilderness; but the wise man rests there, and reaches the land of promise. For a number of years a flour-mill was worked seven days in the week. In making a change of superintendents, it was ordered that the works should be stopped at eleven o’clock on Saturday night, and to start none of them till one o’clock on Monday morning. The same men, during the year, ground many thousands of bushels more than had ever been ground in a single year in that establishment; and the men, having time for rest and Sabbath duties, were more healthy, punctual, and diligent.