Question 60

The sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting—The question of what constituted and what invaded and broke up this holy rest was a frequent cause of dispute between our Lord and the scribes and doctors of His day. The unlearned reader of the New Testament would easily see that there was something very far wrong in the habits and practices as well as the teaching about the Sabbath in the time of our Lord, but without some historical reading he could form no conception of the mass of arbitrary regulations, and fantastic and impossible prohibitions that were withering the hearts and exasperating the consciences of men when our Lord began to teach. And it made matters worse and more irreconcilable between Him and the leaders in Israel, that He did not aim merely to restore the Mosaic law to its primitive purity. He had come, among other things, to make Moses’ law not less a law, but more a life. He had come to exhibit in His own walk and conversation the original and essential freshness and spirituality, the perennial richness and flexibility of the law of God. It was an advance on Moses rather than a return to him that our Lord was carrying on by word and example. And hence we possess not only the record of His example, but also such penetrating and fruitful utterances as these: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,” and, “The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath,”—utterances fitted and intended to teach His hearers and all men that the Sabbath law is not the heavy and galling yoke they were making it, but is rather an ancient and divine badge and seal of liberty, an inalienable franchise and a permanent privilege granted to man by his Maker and Redeemer.

“Therefore I go not to assign to you any course of employment for the Sabbath; I plead simply for the fulfilment of the ordinances, that you work not and think not of your vocations, and allow your minds to come into repose from this world’s agitations. Then nature and the Spirit of God will direct you to proper occupations. You will go to the house of prayer out of choice; you will go to your closet out of choice; you will read the holy page out of choice; you will shun intrusive company out of choice; and out of choice you will turn your thoughts to holy and spiritual subjects. All I ask is, keep the intrusion of the world out, shut your door upon worldly men, shut your ear upon worldly talk, shut your eye upon all ephemeral and worldly reading. Fulfil the statute, and see that those in your household do, and it will come to pass that ere long you will derive the benefit of the statute, both as to bodily and spiritual refreshment. Your soul will make progress toward heaven; you will learn to live above the world; and from all the weariness of the week you will run like a tossed and tempest-driven vessel to the haven of your Sabbath rest” (Edward Irving).

the whole time—“Q. Is it the whole day, or only some hours of the day that are set apart for God?—A. Not a part, but the whole day is the Lord’s, and it is as dangerous to halve it with God in point of time, as it was for Ananias and Sapphira to halve their dedicated goods and bring in but a part. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day is the command” (Flavel). “He who keeps the day most strictly, most religiously, he keeps it best, and most consonant to the designs of the Church, and the ends of religion, and the opportunity of the present leisure, and the interests of his own soul” (Jeremy Taylor).

in the public and private exercises of God’s worship—The student will observe that the Confession embraces “Religious worship and the Sabbath day” in one chapter, the twenty-first.

“Attendance on a Sunday may, through God’s mercy, avail even in the case of those who have not given themselves up to Him—not to their salvation (for no one can be saved by one or two observances merely, or without a life of faith), but so far as to break in upon their life of sin, and give them thoughts and notions that may be the germs of future good. Even to those, I say, who live to the world, the mere Sunday attendance at church is a continual memento on their conscience, giving them a glimpse of things unseen, and rescuing them in a measure from the servitude of mammon or of Belial. And therefore it is that Satan’s first attempt, when he would ruin a soul, is to prevail on him to desecrate the Lord’s day” (Newman).

“What a man is in his private duties, that he is in the sight of God, that and no more” (Owen).

“Non est religio, ubi omnia patent. Religion doth not lie open to the eyes of all men. Observed duties maintain our credit, but secret duties maintain our life” (Flavel).

except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy. The Confession does not make works of necessity and mercy an exception to, or an intrusion on the exercises of God’s worship; it rather co-ordinates them, and ranks them together:—“The whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.” And the Directory specifies as Sabbath-day duties “visiting the sick, relieving the poor, and such-like duties of piety, charity, and mercy, accounting the Sabbath a delight.” Even the Talmud taught that danger to life always supersedes the Sabbath law. Even for the sake of the tiniest babe it may be broken, “for the babe will keep many a Sabbath yet for that one that was broken for it.”

Uses

“Every rightly constituted man has his time of retreat, so that in the face of the onset of tasks and impressions brought on him by the outer world, he may be, and may continue to be, himself; and may maintain by dint of rest and recollection his proper personality as the fixed point round which his world must range itself” (Keim). This was not written to enforce the keeping of the Lord’s day, but the student will at once see its excellent application to that duty and privilege.
“Besides his particular calling for the support of this life, every one has a concern in a future life, which he is bound to look after. This engages his thoughts in religion; and here it mightily lies upon him to understand and reason right. Men therefore cannot be excused from understanding the words, and framing the general notions relating to religion aright. This one day of seven, besides other days of rest, allows in the Christian world time enough for this, if they would but make use of these vacancies from their daily labour, and apply themselves to improvement of knowledge. . . . There are instances of very mean people who have thus raised their minds to a great sense and understanding of religion” (John Locke).
“I am always well pleased with a country Sunday; and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would be the best method that could be thought of for the polishing and civilizing of mankind” (Addison’s Sir Roger at Church).
“We are on this day specially to meditate upon and celebrate the work of redemption. We are with special joy to remember the resurrection of Christ, because that was the finishing of that work. This was the day of gladness of Christ’s heart; it was the day of His deliverance from the chains of death, and also of our deliverance; for we are delivered in Him who is our head.”
“Works of mercy and charity are very proper and acceptable to Christ on this day. They especially become the Christian Sabbath, because it is a day kept in commemoration of the greatest work of mercy and love towards us that ever was wrought” (Jonathan Edwards).

Questions

According to Luke vi. 5, as it stands in a manuscript of the sixth century, Jesus once met a man who was working on the Sabbath, and said to him: Man, if thou knowest what thou art doing, thou art blessed; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed, and a transgressor of the law. Suppose this saying authentic, what does it mean and teach?
Show the bearing of the legal maxim mens legis est lex (the mind of the law is the law) on the above case.
Bengel calls attention to the great part the Sabbath occupies in the Evangelic history. Out of thirty-three miracles of which we have a detailed account in the Gospels, seven were performed on the Sabbath day. Enumerate those seven, and deduce such lessons as you discover in these facts.
Commit the following lines to memory:—

Oh Perfect Pattern from above,
So strengthen us that ne’er
Prayer keep us back from works of love,
Or works of love from prayer.