and again, that the priests in the Temple profaned | rose from the dead; but he did not appear to the Sabbath, in one sense (that is, they had to work the hardest on that day), and yet they were blameless. And he told them to be candid, and judge fairly-" Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." And then they would see that, as the law of the Sabbath was not meant to stop circumcision or the sacrifices in the Temple, so neither was it meant to stop the showing of mercy, which was more important than all,-as indeed they understood quite well, when some beast of their own had fallen into a pit, or required to be led to watering. All this reasoning took for granted that the Sabbath was to be kept. For our Lord defended himself against the charge of breaking it. How false, then, it would be to bring this for the doing away with the Sabbath by people following their worldly trade on that day. Our Lord showed very plainly that the Sabbath was to be kept; for he calls himself the Lord of the Sabbath. He is not the enemy of the Sabbath, come to put an end to it; but the Sabbath is one of the things that belong to him he is the Lord of it. And he is not the Lord of the dead, but of the living. them again till that day week. No doubt, the disciples met together every day, expecting to see him in the midst of them-coming to give them his blessing; but he came not. Probably, on the day which they then kept as their Sabbath (Sa turday), their expectation was especially roused; yet he did not come. But the next day-the day of his own resurrection-he came, and made it their Sabbath, giving them their true rest, by speaking peace to them. Again, it was so ordered by God, with whom there is no chance, but all is arranged by his foreseeing wisdom, that the day of Pentecost, when the presence of their Lord would in a manner be given back to his Church again through the coming of the Holy Ghost, should also be on the same day, the first day of the week, so that the same cry might ring again in the hearts of the disciples: "This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it." And that these repeated comings of Jesus into their midst upon this day, when gathered together in his name (coming first in his bodily presence, and then by the Holy Ghost), were intended to teach them to adopt this day for their gatherings, and to look upon it as his day, we may see, because in fact they did so adopt it. In the twen Hitherto we have seen that the law of a seventhday rest is a part of the moral law, which Christ came not to destroy, but to carry out to the full. Let us now proceed to establish another point-tieth of Acts, we find that the disciples used to come namely, that by the authority of Christ, who is the Lord of the Sabbath, this seventh-day rest has been shifted from the last day of the week to the first day. First: we find a day spoken of in the Revelation of St. John under the name of "the Lord's-day." St. John, in dating his letter to the seven churches, tells them where it was he saw the vision, and when it was. It was at Patmos, and on the Lord's-day. He took for granted that the disciples at Ephesus and the other places would know which day he meant by the Lord's-day. For the Lord Jesus had taught his disciples to keep the day on which he rose from the dead, instead of the one which had been kept holy before. He taught them this by actions. He may have taught them by words too; but, at all events, he taught them by actions which speak louder than words. For he appeared to his disciples four or five times on the day on which he together on the first day of the week "to break bread," that is, to celebrate the death of Christ by the Lord's Supper (see 1 Cor. x. 16). And on the occasion of Paul's visit to them, mentioned in that chapter, though he was in great haste, desiring by all means to reach Jerusalem in time for the feast of Pentecost, yet they did not hold their meeting on the day of the old Sabbath, but waited for the first day of the week, and then immediately on the morrow Paul took his journey. Thus the first Christians kept their feast in remembrance of Christ on the day on which he rose from the dead, which leaves no doubt that this was the day which was called "the Lord's-day." Now, no expression can be stronger than this. If it is the Lord's day, we are not to use it for our own will and pleasure, but for the Lord. There is as much difference between the Lord's-day and common days as between the Lord's Supper and common suppers. of joy. That the holy day of the week should be | Son, new-born from the dead, to an eternal life called in the Old Testament God's day-"The seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God" (Ex. xx. 10); "My holy day" (Isa. lviii. 13) and in the New Testament the Lord's day (.e., Christ's day), is quite in accordance with the usual way of speaking in Holy Scripture. Thus, in the Old Testament it is said that God will judge the world; in the New Testament, that Christ will judge the world. In the Old Testament, God is the Shepherd of his people; in the New Testament, Christ is the Good Shepherd. For in the New Testament God has revealed himself to us more clearly through his Son. All that God does, he does through Christ; and all that God has belongs to Christ; the Father hath given all things into his hand. God's people is his people; God's world is his world; God's day is his day. Again: the reason given in the fourth commandment for keeping the Sabbath-day is best fulfilled in keeping the memory of Christ's rising from the dead. It is said that God rested from his labour on the seventh day. Which was the greater labour? to say the word of power, "Let there be light"? or to bear a world of guilt, and be accursed for his people? The day on which the Son of God, Christ Jesus, "by whom the worlds were made," rose triumphant from death, was the true resting of God from his labours. He rested from those labours by virtue of which a new world is created. Christ's own glory is the first result of those labours; and his resurrection is also the resurrection of his people. Then, in due time, follows that of the material world itself (" for the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God"). And a new revelation of God's glory—namely, a revelation of his infinite mercy (in combination with perfect justice and abhorrence of evil)-is hereby given, that will for ever increase the happiness of all intelligent and holy beings. But the labour and toil by which all this is brought forth was the mysterious death of the Son of God in our nature. And from this labour he rested when God "loosed the pains" (i.e., literally, the travailing pangs) of death," and raised up his But there is another reason for keeping the Sabbath-day given in the fourth commandment, as repeated by Moses in the fifth of Deuteronomy; and this also, when understood in its highest sense, leads to the keeping of the day on which Christ rose from the dead. The fourth commandment, as given in Deuteronomy, is as follows: "Keep the Sabbath-day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbathday." Now, it is hardly necessary to prove that the redemption of Israel from the bondage of Egypt was a type of the redemption of God's people from this sinful world and from the devil's tyranny. Christians are separated from it, pass through it as strangers, as Israel through the wilderness, supported by faith in Christ, who is their Bread from heaven and their smitten Rock the fountain of their spiritual life and they are on their way to Canaan, their rest, where God will dwell in the midst of them. Every Christian knows that that earthly and temporal deliverance of Israel through Moses was a foreshadowing of our redemption by Christ. Now, if they were joyfully to keep a day of rest, and to give rest to their servants with them, because God had given them rest from the bondage of Egypt, how much more should we do so, because God has given us rest from the bondage of sin! And the natural day for this observance is the day on which our rest was given. For it is the resurrection of Christ that frees us from sin. He was raised again for our justification." When he rose, we rose with him, as Israel came up out of the sea with the angel of God in the cloud, and with Moses their mediator. When Jesus rose to his new life of joy, he rose as the sun to his people, showing himself to them, and turning their bitter weeping into joy with his "Peace be unto you." Therefore the day of his resurrection, when he gave his people rest, is naturally the one to be kept as a token and remembrance of that rest. So, then, the first day of the week, though not the one suggested by the letter of the fourth commandment, is, from the time of Christ, the one most congenial to its spirit. It may be said that this whole time of mercy -the joyful state introduced by our Lord's resurrection is "the Lord's-day," the day which the Lord hath made, in which we are to rejoice and be glad "Now is the day of salvation"and that this great day is the real antitype of the old Sabbath. This may be true; and yet, if it is, it is no argument against the continuance of a weekly day of rest as required by the fourth commandment. The whole time of Israel's freedom and enjoyment of Canaan may likewise be said to have been included in their redemption and rest from the bondage of Egypt; yet that was quite consistent with a special celebration of that redemption on a particular day. In like manner, our feeding on the Lamb of the Passover, which has been slain for us, is perpetual; yet that is no argument against a special ordinance of feeding upon Christ in the Lord's Supper. On the contrary, if we profit by that ordinance so as really to feed upon Christ in it, we shall the more feed upon him, and rejoice in him, during the whole night-time of our waiting for the destruction of the world's first-born (ie., of its pride and power), and for the Church of the first-born's deliverance. Even so a weekly day of rest, if we use it spiritually, will make this whole day of our salvation more joyful, and a time of more thorough resting in Christ. We have seen then, first, that the command to hallow the Sabbath-day, as being one of the ten commandments, is a part of the moral law; and that our Lord Christ, so far from giving us any idea that he would do away with it, called himself the Lord of the Sabbath. We have also seen that there was a day known among the first Christians as the Lord's-day; and that that is shown to be the first day of the week, by their habit of meeting together upon that day to partake of the Lord's Supper. Also, that Christ had in a practical manner taught his disciples to gather together in his name upon that day, that he might be in the midst of them. Putting these two facts together-first, that the law of a weekly Sabbath is perpetual; and secondly, that the first day of the week was kept by the first Christians as the Lord's-day by Christ's own authority-is it not clear that the binding force of the fourth commandment is now turned from the last day of the week to the first day? Those who would do away with the keeping of a Sabbath, tell us that we cannot appeal to the fourth commandment for the keeping of the first day of the week, because that commandment requires the keeping of the seventh day. Undoubtedly its language is specially conformed to that order of things in connection with which it was then being proclaimed, when the last day of the week was to be observed, yet it is not repugnant to the new order brought in by Christ. The expression, "the seventh day," in the first part of the commandment, is not used in opposition to any other particular day in the week, but in opposition to all six taken together. Thus, suppose a person, in giving to God a tithe, or tenth, of his flock, were to give the first sheep of every ten, instead of the last, might he not equally well say that he gave every tenth sheep that is, one out of every ten? He might say that nine he had for his own use, but the tenth was the offering to the Lord his God. Even so, the first day of the week is the seventh in the sense of being one out of seven-six days being for our own use, and the seventh being given to God. The principle of consecrating to God a seventh part of our time is maintained equally, whichever particular day of the week we observe; and the practical effect on ourselves is the same. Our present rest-day comes after six days of work, just as much as if we kept Saturday; and it strengthens and invigorates us for six days more work. In the latter part of the commandment, the reason assigned for the keeping of the Sabbath does no doubt suggest the last day of the week, when it says that God worked six days, and rested the seventh day. But in the fifth chapter | keeping of Saturday, and yet allow of the day of Deuteronomy this reason is omitted, and another substituted, as though this reason were not of the very essence of the commandment. And again, both this reason, and the one given in the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, are, as we have seen, in their last and highest sense connected with the observance of the first day of the week. Does not this teach us to interpret the language of the fourth commandment as simply commanding a seventh day of rest in opposition to six days of labour, and not at all as limiting the discretion of Him who gave the law as to which day should be observed for that purpose? We would only say this to an objector: Grant, for a moment, that Christ did change the day to be observed, and that there had to be framed a commandment for giving every seventh day to God, which should, in the first instance, suit the being changed to Sunday at the rising of Christ from the dead,-could it have been better worded for that purpose than it is now? Therefore the question is, Is it so perfectly clear that the fourth commandment cannot admit of the change from the last to the first day of the week, as to make those reasons of no effect which prove that this commandment contains a principle of perpetual obligation? If the fourth commandment, from the manner in which it was given, and the nature of those other commandments with which it is bound up, is clearly one of perpetual obligation ; and if, at the same time, Christ has caused the observance of the last day of the week to give place to that of the first day,-do not these two facts, taken together, show that the Christian observance of the first day of the week is the keeping of the fourth commandment? J. F. B. M DR. DUNCAN.* ATERIALS for forming an estimate of this great and good man are increasing. We had first the Colloquia Peripatetica, by Mr. Knight of Dundee ; next, the full and accurate Memoir by Dr. Brown of Aberdeen, noticed in a former volume of this journal; and now we have these Recollections by Mr. Moody Stuart. Each book is excellent of its kind; and not one could be well wanted. In John Duncan's life there was material for three volumes, and more. As he did not gather and preserve any of his treasures by writings of his own, all the more necessary was it that they should be gathered after his departure by competent hands. Even after the issue of the Colloquies and the Memoir, Mr. M. Stuart has done well to gather up the fragments, that none of them should be lost. The volume contains many precious thoughts of a great and good man. There is nothing commonplace: the things are original, unique, and weighty. We subjoin a few brief extracts : THE GOSPEL. For myself, I cannot always come to Christ direct, but I can always come by sin. Sin is the handle by which I get Christ. I take a verse in which God has put Christ and sin together. I cannot always put my finger upon Christ and say, "Christ belongs to me;" but I can put my finger upon sin and say, "Sin belongs to me." I take that word, for instance, "The Son of * "Recollections of the late John Duncan, LL.D., Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages, New College, Edinburgh. By the Rev. A. Moody Stuart, of Free St. Luke's, Edinburgh." man is come to save that which was lost." Yes, lost, lost,-I'm lost; I put my finger upon that word and say, "I'm the lost one; I'm lost." Well, I find that "the Son of man is come to save the lost;" and I cry out, "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." THE LORD'S SUPPER. "Many of the Old Testament saints,” he said, “lived above their dispensation: most Christians live below theirs. We make far too little of the means of grace: they are not grace, but they are the media, the middle things of grace, and that is much to us." He greatly prized the Sabbath; and few men ever made so much of the preaching of the Word and all the means of grace, but especially of the Lord's Supper: "the great connecting link," he called it, "between the first and second coming of the Lord." Its dispensation was always to him a grand and high occasion, occupying his mind for many days before, and often for many days or for weeks after. The magnitude and preciousness of the ordinance grew upon him year by year, and in his latter years he was usually bathed in tears at the table. It was deeply affecting to look on the holy man of God weeping much because forgiven much. On one occasion, while his own tears were flowing freely in a mingled flood of joy and sorrow, he heard a loud sob behind him, from a communicant who had come last to the table, and finding no room, had been seated by the elders close behind us. Turning round, and without knowing "who or what manner of woman she was" that so wept at the Lord's feet, he saw her hand trembling to take the cup, and in a loud and earnest whisper said to her, "It's for a sinner." He spoke to a penitent Magdalene; himself in that hour among the chief of penitents, loving much. ADDRESS AT THE COMMUNION. "Methought the Lord showed me a heart into which he had put a new song; the soul was making melody, attempting to make melody to the Lord. Where it was I do not know, but I heard it singing about the middle of its song. It had been singing, 'What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit?' It had been singing the Fifty-first Psalm; and Jehovah had put a new song into its mouth. He had done it, and it was trying to sing; and I heard it in the middle of its song. It had been reading the fifth chapter of Revelation, and trying to sing some of its numbers; and now it was at these words, 'For thou wast slain;' and oh, how it was sobbing and breaking! how it was melting and breaking with a joyous grief and a grievous joy! Oh, how it faltered when it tried to sing, 'And hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.' "It was the song of one to whom much had been forgiven, and who therefore loved much; but it was the song of the chief of sinners, of one to whom most had been forgiven, and who therefore loved most. Yet it faltered and made wrong music; it jarred, and there was discord; and it grated on its own ear, and pained it; and God was listening to it, God who knoweth all | things. But the song was presented through and by the Mediator of the new covenant; and if there was discord, it was removed by grace in atoning blood, by the sweet accents of intercession; for it came up as music in Jehovah's ear, melody to the Lord. It was not discord in heaven. I would know, O God, what soul that is; O God, let that soul be mine!" TRANSPARENCY. He was by far the most transparent man I have ever known. The openness of weakness in another, that wants both the desire and the power of self-concealment, and keeps nothing hidden because it has nothing to hide, was in him the transparency of a casket of precious jewels. He had intense pleasure in thinking; no other man seemed to have an equal delight in the mere exercise of the intellect: to have ceased from thought, or to have paused in thinking, would have been to him an excruciating pain. As every man influences others more by what he says to himself than by what he says to them, his visible thinking awoke thoughts in his students and his friends as no other man could; and his unconcealed moral and spiritual affections and emotions moved, as none other did, kindred emotions in the hearts of those around him. You were not, indeed, admitted to the first formation of his thoughts, or to see them unripe ; and if you started a point that he had not considered, which was rare, he would probably make no reply at the moment, and answer you at another time. But when he knew his ground, he thought audibly before you; and much, both of his speech and of his preaching, was thinking aloud. Intellectually, morally, and spiritually he was the openest of men. You saw him fearing, sorrowing, believing, rejoicing; you saw him reverencing God; you saw him under the chidings of conscience; you saw him struggling with sin; you saw him exulting in unseen glory and beauty. HIS LOVE TO JESUS CHRIST. Jesus Christ, in his person, his character, his life, his death, was the central subject of his thoughts, and increasingly year by year till the end. It was not theology but Christ that filled both his mind and his heart; the whole stream of his theology sprang from him as its source, and flowed to him as its ocean. The holy Lord God of his earlier years was his fear and his delight to the last, and it was ever true of him that "he feared God above many ;" but in the latter portion of his life, Jesus Christ was peculiarly the one object of his desires and the constant subject of his meditation. "What would we do without Christ ?" he said to me a year before his death. "About the miracles I am not a right believer. I believe the miracles; but I believe in the miracles on account of Christ, instead of believing in Christ on account of the miracles. Christ is a wonderful Being; we could never do without Christ." I replied, "Your believing is of the very best kind, for Christ himself says, 'Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.'" Again he said, "We make far too little of the incarnation; the Fathers knew much more of the incarnate God. Some of them were oftener at Bethlehem than at Calvary; they had too little of Calvary, but they knew Bethlehem well. They took up the Holy Babe in their arms; they loved Immanuel, God with us. We are not too often at the cross, but we are too seldom at the cradle; and we know too little of the Word made flesh, of the Holy Child Jesus." It was the same absorbing devotion to Jesus Christ that made the angel whom he loved best, and most longed to see out of all the heavenly host, to be the one who was honoured with the ministration of "strengthening his Lord in the garden;" that Lord himself so supremely beloved, and most of all in his dying love, that for his sake he loved the messenger who ministered to him in the hour of his weakness and sorrow. This interest in Christ rose above every passing interest of earth. In the questions of the day he took a lively concern; not in party politics, on which I never heard him utter a word in the midst of all his talk, but in all subjects of national welfare. A friend met him on the street at a time of some public interest, and not in mere form asked him, "Is there any news to-day?" "Oh yes," he replied; "this is always news--The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." |