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the God who promised, and had given them, the Messiah and Savior, whilst that Messiah and Savior was in the tomb, and all the prospects of his kingdom were shrouded with the darkness of death. That last Jewish Sabbath was no Sabbath to them; but a day of sorrow, dejection, anguish, consternation. The spouse could not rejoice whilst the bridegroom lay buried in the grave. But when the Lord arose on the first day of the week, then, and not be fore, were "the disciples, glad." THEN DID THEIR SABBATH BEGIN; the necessity of the case changed the day of peaceful happy rest in the worship and praise of God, from the Jewish Sabbath to the Lord's day. The celebration was retarded not forgotten. The old day was: buried with Christ-the new arose with him. He had in the old creation rested (as being the author, one with the Father, of that six days' work) on the seventh day and sanctified it; but now as the author of the new work of creation, being detained in the prison of the grave on the old seventh day, he takes another day to rest in, the following or first of the week, which thus becomes the Lord's day. Every thing essential in the command goes on as it did; the non-essential point of the precise time is changed, or rather delayed, a single day, to wait for its rising Master, and assume a new dignity, and be a memorial of the manifestations of a new and

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2. to be introduced, is next marked by THE GIFT

The first day thus bater creation.

OF THE GREAT PROMISE OF THE

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DISPENSATION which it was to characterize. This will demand only a moment's notice. The day of pentecost has been abundantly shown by learned men* to have fallen on the Lord's day. The disciples are assembled with one accord in one place-the usual place of prayer "when suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a mighty rushing wind; and they were filled with the Holy Ghost." By this gift the gospel church is first erected, and its heralds endued with power from on high. Thus the great distinguishing benefit of the New Testament being vouchsafed: on the Lord's day, confirms the newly instituted season, which is to be henceforth known as the Christian Sabbath The Holy Ghost descended upon it. The author of the † Acts ii. 2.

* Lightfoot, Dwight, &c.

"new creation" had already arisen upon the same day. We join then these topics of joy to the original praises due for the glories of the first creation; and our Lord's day is dedicated to our triune God and Savior-it is dedicated to God the Father, as the day on which the praises of the most noble creatures for their first production are offeredit is dedicated to God the Son, whose resurrection this day was the new creation of the world-it is dedicated to God the Holy Ghost, who on this day descended visibly upon the apostles, as if he would proclaim aloud that he hallowed it unto himself. The gift of the Holy Ghost on the day of pentecost, honors and marks out the Lord's day. III. THE DOCTRINE AND CONDUCT OF THE APOSTLES will, in the next place, be found to bring in more decidedly, yet still tenderly and gradually, the new day of the Sabbath.

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They were endued with the Holy Spirit granted at this very season, on purpose to found the gospel dispensation, and settle its order and worship. The conduct of these holy men, who were commissioned and delegated, as ambassadors for Ch for Christ has a divine authority. They teach indeed by their writings, they teach by their sermons, and instructions but they teach also by their conduct and example. They had the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit. They delivered nothing to be observed in the worship of God, but what the same force as if delivered by Christ himself-it proceeds indeed from Christ himself. In a matter of subordinate regulation; when the substance of a command has been known from the creation of man, their intimations are abundantly sufficient; just as their devout are indispensable on important

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and detailed instructions doctrine or practice. "If men

and fundamental points of

will presume," says Baxter, "that apostles filled with the Spirit, appointed the Christian Sabbath without the Spirit, "they may question any chapter or verse of the New Testament."

We have their testimony, then, for nearly sixty years recorded in the inspired pages; and this incidentally, and in a manner which supposes the change from the Jewish to the Christian Sabbath to be known and received in the

Archbishop Bramhall.

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churches. Thus, in two references made after an interval of nearly thirty years from the resurrection, the observance of the first day of the week was so far established even in the remotest places, that the sacred writers speak of it as a matter familiar and customary. "We came to Troas," saith St. Luke in the Acts, "where we abode seven days. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow. Here on the first day of the week is a meeting, not of a few friends, but of the whole body of the disciples, in a Christian church at a great distance from Jerusalem. It is spoken of as a practice already established and well known--it is an accustomed meeting, not upon an extraordinary summons. Paul preaches to them being thus assembled together. The zealous apostle doubtless taught privately on other days: but it was on the first day of the week, when the whole church was accustomed to meet, according to their duty, for the celebration of Christian ordinances, that he preached solemnly and publicly to them. It even seems that he waited the arrival of the day-for he was ready to depart, and did depart on the morrow of it--but he would not proceed on his journey till after the first day of the week, and the instruction and ordinances of that sacred season, had taken place. We thus learn that already the same, or nearly the same, mode of celebrating the Sabbath was observed as in modern times public assemblies--the preaching of God's holy word--the administration of the sacramentswith public prayer and praise, and acts of charity to the poor, constituted the Christian worship.

At the same, or nearly the same, period, St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthian church, incidentally mentions the observation of the Lord's day as a matter of course, not to give directions about the day itself, but in order to enjoin certain additional duties which were to form an important part of the sanctification of it. "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath pros

* Acts xx, 6, 7.

pered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. It hence appears that the constant day of the church's assembling was fixed and well known-it was the first day. The apostle, therefore, merely directs the discharge of an especial duty upon it, in addition to the ordinary ones of prayer, breaking of bread, and preaching the gospel. He directs them to charitable contributions; and he directs this in a manner which implies that it should be done on the first day of the week and no other, as if no other time would do so well as that, or was so proper a season for such a work. He notices also, that he had given the same order to other churches, especially to the churches in Galatia, though divided by the sea, and lying at a great distance from Corinth. Thus the Lord's day was generally acknowledged. It was celebrated by Christians, we see, before the New Testament was written, and is referred to in the books of it as already established. Indeed the obedience to the gospel, and to its ordinances, began first upon the authority which the apostles received from Christ, and the plenary inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Thus the churches were formed, and the doctrine and sacraments admitted. And thus also the Lord's day was sanctified, as appears from the casual references made in the history and "epistles of their founders.

But we go on. At the close of the first century, and after an interval of thirty or forty years from the time when the above passages were written, the words of our text were uttered by the beloved apostle-the father and sole survivor of the apostolic college, in his extreme old age, and when about to record the revelations made to him by the Spirit. This brings down the direct scriptural evidence to the close of the first century. "I WAS IN THE SPIRIT ON THE LORD'S DAY," is the brief and pregnant expression. He merely denotes in this way the time when the revelations of the Spirit were made to him, by the mention of a day, the appellation of which was well known throughout the Christian churches. It is no new appellation, or he would not thus incidentally have introduced it. A new name would have created surprise, not communicated information. By the Lord's day was undoubtedly meant † About A. D. 96.

* 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2.

the first day of the week, for we find no footsteps of any distinction of days which could entitle any other to that appellation.* Now, if this be so; if sixty or seventy years after the resurrection, and when the destruction of Jerusalem had made way for the full developement of the gospel, the first day of the week is called THE LORD'S DAY, even as St. Paul calls the Eucharist THE LORD'S SUPPER-if the one be the memorial of the Lord's resurrection, as the other is of his death and passion,-then we have the most satisfactory evidence of the apostolic usage, and therefore of the divine authority of the change of the Jewish into the Christian Sabbath.

4. But the EVENTS OF GOD'S WONDERFUL PROVIDENCE, which swept away the Jewish polity and Sabbath, completed the change which had thus gradually been introduced, and had spread so widely. To avoid needlessly exasperating the prejudices of the Jewish converts, and the malice of the great body of that nation, the transfer of the day of the Sabbath was made for a long time silently and gradually. Our Lord lays the foundation of the change in his example, and in the choice of the day for conferring the great gift of the New Testament. The apostles follow his example; and, as we have seen, the practice had become general within thirty years from the crucifixion. But we have no express prohibition of the Jewish, nor injunction of the Christian Sabbath. It was a matter subordinate, and was now to make its way by the force of circumstances and the tacit influence of the apostle's doctrine. On the question of the Jewish ceremonies indeed controversy arose-circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses were made the occasion of supplanting the great doctrine of justification. But where no dispute arose-where all observed one day in seven for religious rest-where no yoke was attempted to be imposed on the Gentiles, the apostles were "gentle as a nurse cherisheth her own children." The Jewish converts were allowed to observe the Mosaic Sabbath. The Gentiles, who had previously celebrated their pagan festivals, renounced these on their conversion, for the holy rest of the Lord's day. They spontaneously kept the Christian Sabbath as a natural duty, a

* Paley.

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