of a passing universe God seems at least to speak to us in wrath. There is no doubt of what God means in the Cross. He means love. The measure of the meaning of man's existence. Measure all by the Cross. Do you want success? The Cross is failure. Do you want a name? The Cross is infamy. Is it to be gay and happy that you live? The Cross is pain and sharpness. Do you live that the will of God may be done-in you and by you, in life and death? Then, and only then, the Spirit of the Cross is in you. When once a man has learned that, the power of the world is gone; and no man need bid him, in denunciation or in invitation, not to love the world. He can not love the world, for he has got an ambition above the world. He has planted his foot upon the Rock, and when all else is gone, he at least abides forever.

XIII.

THE SYDENHAM PALACE, AND THE RELIGIOUS NON-OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH.

"One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks."-Rom. xiv. 5, 6.

THE selection of this text is suggested by one of the current topics of the day. Lately projects have been devised, one of which in importance surpasses all the rest, for provid ing places of public recreation for the people: and it has been announced, with the sanction of government, that such a place will be held open during a part at least of the day of rest. By a large section of sincerely religious persons this announcement has been received with considerable alarm and strenuous opposition. It has seemed to them that such a desecration would be a national crime: for, holding the sabbath to be God's sign between Himself and His people, they can not but view the desecration of the sign as a forfeiture of His covenant, and an act which will assuredly call down national judgments. By the secular press, on the contrary, this proposal has been defended with considerable power. It has been maintained that the sabbath is a Jewish institution; in its strictness, at all events, not binding on a Christian community. It has been urged with much force that

we can not consistently refuse to concede to the poor man publicly, that right of recreation which privately the rich man has long taken without rebuke, and with no protest on the part of the ministers of Christ. And it has been said that such places of recreation will tend to humanize, which if not identical with Christianizing the population, is at least a step towards it.

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Upon such a subject, where truth unquestionably does not upon the surface, it can not be out of place if a minister of Christ endeavors to direct the minds of his congregation towards the formation of an opinion; not dogmatically, but humbly, remembering always that his own temptation is, from his very position as a clergyman, to view such matters, not so much in the broad light of the possibilities of actual life, as with the eyes of a recluse; from a clerical and ecclesiastical, rather than from a large and human point of view. For no minister of Christ has a right to speak oracularly. All that he can pretend to do is to give his judgment, as one that has obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. And on large national subjects there is perhaps no class so ill qualified to form a judgment with breadth as we, the clergy of the Church of England, accustomed as we are to move in the narrow circle of those who listen to us with forbearance and deference, and mixing but little in real life, till in our cloistered and inviolable sanctuaries we are apt to forget that it is one thing to lay down rules for a religious clique, and another to legislate for a great nation.

In the Church of Rome a controversy had arisen in the time of St. Paul, respecting the exact relation in which Christianity stood to Judaism; and, consequently, the obligation of various Jewish institutions came to be discussed: among the rest the sabbath-day. One party maintained its abrogation, another its continued obligation. "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike.” Now it is remarkable that, in his reply, the Apostle Paul, although his own views upon the question were decided and strong, passes no judgment of censure upon the practice of either of these parties, but only blames the uncharitable spirit in which the one "judged their brethren" as irreligious, and the other "set at naught " their stricter brethren as superstitious. He lays down, however, two principles for the decision of the matter: the first being the rights of Christian conviction, or the sacredness of the individual conscience"Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind;" the second, a principle unsatisfactory enough, and surprising, no doubt, to both, that there is such a thing as religious observ

ance, and also such a thing as a religious non-observance of the day-" He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord: and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it." I shall consider,

I. St. Paul's own view upon the question.

II. His modifications of that view, in reference to separate

cases.

I. St. Paul's own view. No one, I believe, who would read St. Paul's own writings with unprejudiced mind could fail to come to the conclusion that he considered the sabbath abrogated by Christianity: not merely as modified in its stringency, but as totally repealed.

For example, see Colossians ii. 16, 17: observe, he counts the sabbath-day among those institutions of Judaism which were shadows, and of which Christ was the realization, the substance or "body ;" and he bids the Colossians remain indifferent to the judgment which would be pronounced upon their non-observance of such days. "Let no man judge you with respect to.... the sabbath-days."

He is more decisive still in the text. For it has been contended that in the former passage, "sabbath-days" refers simply to the Jewish sabbaths, which were superseded by the Lord's day, and that the apostle does not allude at all to the new institution, which it is supposed had superseded it. Here, however, there can be no such ambiguity. "One man esteemeth every day alike;" and he only says, "let him be fully persuaded in his own mind." "Every" day must include first days as well as last days of the week: Sundays as well as Saturdays. And again, he even speaks of scrupulous adherence to particular days, as if it were giving up the very principle of Christianity: "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain." So that his objection was not to Jewish days, but to the very principle of attaching intrinsic sacredness to any days. All forms and modes of particularizing the Christian life he reckoned as bondage under the elements or alphabet of the law. And this is plain from the nature of the case. He struck not at a day, but at a principle. Else, if with all this vehemence and earnestness, he only meant to establish a new set of days in the place of the old, there is no intelligible principle for which he is contending, and that earnest apostle is only a champion for one day instead of another-an asserter of the eternal sanctities of Sunday, instead of the eternal sanctities of Saturday. Incredi ble indeed.

Let us then understand the principle on which he declared the repeal of the sabbath. He taught that the blood of Christ cleansed all things; therefore there was nothing specially clean. Christ had vindicated all for God; therefore there was no one thing more God's than another. For to assert one thing as God's more than another, is by implication to admit that other to be less God's.

The blood of Christ had vindicated God's parental right to all humanity; therefore there could be no peculiar people. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free: but Christ is all, and in all." It had proclaimed God's property in all places; therefore there could be no one place intrinsically holier than another. No human dedication, no human consecration could localize God in space. Hence the first martyr quoted from the prophet: "Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, heaven ist my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build for me? saith the Lord."

Lastly, the Gospel of Christ had sanctified all time: hence no time could be specially God's. For to assert that Sunday is more God's day than Monday, is to maintain by implication Monday is His less rightfully.

Here, however, let it be observed, it is perfectly possible, and not at all inconsistent with this, that for human convenience, and even human necessities, just as it became desirable to set apart certain places in which the noise of earthly business should not be heard for spiritual worship, so it should become desirable to set apart certain days for special worship. But then all such were defensible on the ground of wise and Christian expediency alone. They could not be placed on the ground of a Divine statute or command. They rested on the authority of the Church of Christ; and the power which had made could unmake them again.

Accordingly in early, we can not say exactly how early times, the Church of Christ felt the necessity of substituting something in place of the ordinances which had been repealed. And the Lord's day arose: not a day of compulsory rest; not such a day at all as modern sabbatarians suppose; not a Jewish sabbath; rather a day in many respects absolutely contrasted with the Jewish sabbath.

For the Lord's day sprung, not out of a transference of the Jewish sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, but rather out of the idea of making the week an imitation of the life of Christ. With the early Christians, the great conception was that of following their crucified and risen Lord: they set, as it were,

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the clock of Time to the epochs of his history. Friday represented the Death in which all Christians daily die, and Sunday the Resurrection in which all Christians daily rise to higher life. What Friday and Sunday were to the week, that Good Friday and Easter Sunday were to the year. And thus, in larger or smaller cycles, all time represented to the early Christians the mysteries of the Cross and the Risen Life hidden in humanity. And as the sunflower turns from morning till evening to the sun, so did the early Church turn forever to her Lord, transforming week and year into a symbolical representation of His spiritual life.

Carefully distinguish this, the true historical view of the origin of the Lord's day, from a mere transference of a Jewish sabbath from one day to another. For St. Paul's teaching is distinct and clear, that the sabbath is annulled, and to urge the observance of the day as indispensable to salvation was, according to him, to Judaize: "to turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto they desired to be in bondage."

II. The modifications of this view.

1. The first modification has reference to those who conscientiously observed the day. He that observeth the day, observeth it to the Lord. Let him act, then, on that conviction: "Let him be fully persuaded in his own mind." There is therefore a religious observance of the sabbath-day possible.

We are bound by the spirit of the fourth commandment, so far as we are in the same spiritual state as they to whom it was given. The spiritual intent of Christianity is to wor ship God every day in the spirit. But had this law been given in all its purity to the Jews, instead of turning every week-day into a sabbath, they would have transformed every sabbath into a week-day with no special day fixed for worship, they would have spent every day without worship. Their hearts were too dull for a devotion so spiritual and pure. Therefore a law was given, specializing a day, in or der to lead them to the broader truth that every day is God's.

Now, so far as we are in the Jewish state, the fourth commandment, even in its rigor and strictness, is wisely used by us; nay, we might say, indispensable. For who is he who needs not the day? He is the man so rich in love, so conformed to the mind of Christ, so elevated into the sublime repose of heaven, that he needs no carnal ordinances at all, nor the assistance of one day in seven to kindle spiritual