[279] Matt. 24:15-21.
[280] Dan. 9:26, 27.
[281] Luke 21:20.
[282] Jewish Wars, b. ii. chap. xix.
[283] Id. b. ii. chap. xx.
[284] Eccl. Hist. b. iii. chap. v.
[285] Jewish Wars, b. ii. chap. xix.
[286] Deut. 16:16.
[287] Thus remarks Mr. Crozier in the Advent Harbinger for Dec. 6, 1851: “The reference to the Sabbath in Matt. 24:20, only shows that the Jews who rejected Christ would be keeping the Sabbath at the destruction of Jerusalem, and would, in consequence, add to the dangers of the disciples’ flight by punishing them perhaps with death for fleeing on that day.”
And Mr. Marsh, forgetting that Christ forbade his disciples to take anything with them in their flight, uses the following language: “If the disciples should attempt to flee from Jerusalem on that day and carry their things, the Jews would embarrass their flight and perhaps put them to death. The Jews would be keeping the Sabbath, because they rejected Christ and his gospel.”—Advent Harbinger, Jan. 24, 1852. These quotations betray the bitterness of their authors. In honorable distinction from these anti-Sabbatarians, the following is quoted from Mr. William Miller, himself an observer of the first day of the week:—
“‘Neither on the Sabbath day.’ Because it was to be kept as a day of rest, and no servile work was to be done on that day, nor would it be right for them to travel on that day. Christ has in this place sanctioned the Sabbath, and clearly shows us our duty to let no trivial circumstance cause us to break the law of the Sabbath. Yet how many who profess to believe in Christ, at this present day, make it a point to visit, travel, and feast, on this day? What a false-hearted profession must that person make who can thus treat with contempt the moral law of God, and despise the precepts of the Lord Jesus! We may here learn our obligation to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”—Exposition of Matt. 24, p. 18.
[288] Jewish Wars, b. ii. chap. xix.
[289] Id. b. ii. chap. xix.
[290] See chap. xvi.
[291] President Edwards says: “A further argument for the perpetuity of the Sabbath we have in Matt. 24:20: ‘Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.’ Christ is here speaking of the flight of the apostles and other Christians out of Jerusalem and Judea, just before their final destruction, as is manifest by the whole context, and especially by the 16th verse: ‘Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.’ But this final destruction of Jerusalem was after the dissolution of the Jewish constitution, and after the Christian dispensation was fully set up. Yet it is plainly implied in these words of our Lord, that even then Christians were bound to a strict observation of the Sabbath.”—Works of President Edwards, vol. iv. pp. 621, 622, New York, 1849.
[292] Matt. 27; Isa. 53.
[293] Dan. 9:24-27.
[294] Col. 2:14-17.
[295] For an extended view of these Jewish festivals see chapter vii.
[296] Deut. 10:4, 5, compared with 31:24-26. Thus Morer contrasts the phrase “in the ark,” which is used with reference to the two tables, with the expression “in the side of the ark,” as used respecting the book of the law, and says of the latter: “In the side of the ark, or more critically, in the outside of the ark; or in a chest by itself on the right side of the ark, saith the Targum of Jonathan.”—Morer’s Dialogues on the Lord’s Day, p. 211, London, 1701.
[297] See chap. vii.
[299] Mark 2:27.
[300] Lev. 23:37, 38.
[301] Gen. 2:1-3; Ex. 20; Matt. 5:17, 19.
[302] Isa. 66:22, 23. See also the close of chap. xxvii of this work.
[303] Luke 23:54-56.
[304] James 2:8-12; Matt. 5:17-19; Rom. 3:19, 31.
[305] Heb. 9; 10; Luke 23:46-53; John 19:38-42.
[306] Luke 23:54-56.
[307] Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 2, 9; Luke 23:56; 24:1; John 20:1, 19.
[308] Eze. 46:1.
[309] See the origin of the ancient Sabbath in Gen. 2:1-3.
[310] Mark 16:14. That this interview was certainly the same with that in John 20:19, will be seen from a careful examination of Luke 24.
[311] Matt. 19:26; Titus 1:2.
[312] Isa. 65:16; Ps. 119:142, 151.
[313] Rom. 1:25.
[314] It is just as easy to change the crucifixion-day from that day of the week on which Christ was crucified, to one of the six days on which he was not, as to change the rest-day of the Creator from that day of the week on which he rested, to one of the six days on which he wrought in the work of creation.
[315] John 20:26.
[316] John 21.
[317] Acts 1:3. Forty days from the day of the resurrection would expire on Thursday.
[318] When the resurrection day was “far spent,” the Saviour and two of the disciples drew near to Emmaus, a village seven and a half miles from Jerusalem. They constrained him to go in with them to tarry for the night. While they were eating supper they discovered that it was Jesus, when he vanished from their sight. Then they arose and returned to Jerusalem; and after their arrival, the first meeting of Jesus with the eleven took place. It could not therefore have lacked but little of sunset, which closed the day, if not actually upon the second day, when Jesus came into their midst. Luke 24. In the latter case, the expression, “the same day at evening being the first day of the week,” would find an exact parallel in meaning, in the expression, “in the ninth day of the month at even,” which actually signifies the evening with which the tenth day of the seventh month commences. Lev. 23:32.
[319] Those who were to come before God from Sabbath to Sabbath to minister in his temple, were said to come “after seven days.” 1 Chron. 9:25; 2 Kings 11:5.
[320] “After six days,” instead of being the sixth day, was about eight days after. Matt. 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28.
[321] That sunset marks the close of the day, see the close of chapter viii.
[322] Acts 2:1, 2.
[323] Luke 24:49-53; Acts 1.
[324] Horatio B. Hacket, D. D., Professor of Biblical Literature, in Newton Theological Institution, thus remarks: “It is generally supposed that this Pentecost, signalized by the outpouring of the Spirit, fell on the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday.”—Commentary on the Original Text of the Acts, pp. 50, 51.
[325] In 1633, William Prynne, a prisoner in the tower of London, composed a work in defense of first-day observance, entitled, “Dissertation on the Lord’s Day Sabbath.” He thus acknowledges the futility of the argument under consideration: “No scripture ... prefers or advanceth the work of redemption ... before the work of creation; both these works being very great and glorious in themselves; wherefore I cannot believe the work of redemption, or Christ’s resurrection alone, to be more excellent and glorious than the work of creation, without sufficient texts and Scripture grounds to prove it; but may deny it as a presumptuous fancy or unsound assertion, till satisfactorily proved, as well as peremptorily averred without proof.”—Page 59. This is the judgment of a candid advocate of the first day as a Christian festival. On Acts 20:7, he will be allowed to testify again.
[326] Luke 21:28; Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:13, 14; 4:30.
[327] Eph. 1:7; Gal. 3:13; Rev. 5:9.
[328] 1 Cor. 11:23-26.
[329] Rom. 6:3-5; Col. 2:12.
[330] Ps. 118:22-24.
[331] Eph. 1:20-23; 2:20, 21; 1 Pet. 2:4-7.
[332] 1 Thess. 5:16.
[333] John 8:56.
[334] See chap. iii.
[335] Matt. 5:17-19.
[336] Eph. 2:13-16; Col. 2:14-17.
[337] Matt. 28:19, 20; Mark 16:15.
[338] Dan. 9:24-27; Acts 9; 10; 11; 26:12-17; Rom. 11:13.
[339] 1 Cor. 11:25; Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12; Dan. 9:27; Eph. 2:11-22.
[340] Matt. 5:17-19; 1 John 3:4, 5; Rom. 4:15.
[341] Heb. 9:1-7; Ex. 25:1-21; Deut. 10:4, 5; 1 Kings 8:9.
[342] Heb., chaps. 7-10; Lev. 16.
[343] Heb. 8:1-5; 9:23, 24.
[344] Rev. 11:19.
[345] Ex. 25:21, 22.
[346] Rom. 3:19-31; 5:8-21; 8:3, 4; 13:8-10; Gal. 3:13, 14; Eph. 6:2, 3; James 2:8-12; 1 John 3:4, 5.
[347] Ex. 19; 20; 24:12; 31:18; Deut. 10.
[348] Lev. 16.
[349] Rom. 3:19-31; 1 John 3:4, 5.
[350] Ps. 40:6-8; Heb. 10.
[351] Heb. 9; 10.
[352] Jer. 31:33; Rom. 8:3, 4; 2 Cor. 3:3.
[353] Ps. 19:7; James 1:25; Ps. 40.
[354] Rom. 5.
[355] Rom. 3:19.
[356] Rom. 3:31.
[357] Rom. 3:20; 1 John 3:4, 5; 2:1, 2.
[358] Jer. 11:16; Rom. 11:17-24.
[359] Rom. 4:16-18; Gal. 3:7-9.
[360] Ex. 19:5, 6; 1 Pet. 2:9, 10.
[361] Gen. 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-11.
[362] Rom. 7:12, 13.
[363] James 2:8-12.
[364] See chapter x.
[365] Acts 13:14.
[366] Verse 27.
[367] Dr. Bloomfield has the following note on this text: “The words, εἰς τὸ μεταξὺ σαββ., are by many commentators supposed to mean ‘on some intermediate week-day.’ But that is refuted by verse 44, and the sense expressed in our common version is, no doubt, the true one. It is adopted by the best recent commentators, and confirmed by the ancient versions.” Greek Testament with English notes, vol. i. p. 521. And Prof. Hacket has a similar note.—Commentary on Acts, p. 233.
[368] Verses 42-44.
[369] Acts 15.
[370] Acts 15:10, 28, 29; James 2:8-12.
[371] Verses 1, 5.
[372] Verse 29; 21:25.
[373] Ex. 34:15, 16; Num. 25:2; Lev. 17:13, 14; Gen. 9:4; Lev. 3:17; Gen. 34; Lev. 19:29.
[374] Acts 15:19-21.
[375] Acts 16:12-14.
[376] Paul’s manner is exemplified by the following texts, in all of which it would appear that the meetings in question were upon the Sabbath. Acts 13:5; 14:1; 17:10, 17; 18:19; 19:8.
[377] Acts 17:1-4.
[378] 1 Thess. 2:14.
[379] 1 Thess. 1:7, 8.
[380] Acts 18:3, 4.
[381] Acts 10:2, 4, 7, 22, 30-35; 13:43; 14:1; 16:13-15; 17:4, 10-12.
[382] 1 Cor. 16:1, 2.
[383] Vindication of the True Sabbath, Battle Creek ed., pp. 51, 52.
[384] Greek Testament with English Notes, vol. ii. p. 173.
[385] Sabbath Manual of the American Tract Society, p. 116.
[386] Family Testament of the American Tract Society, p. 286.
[387] Eze. 46:1.
[388] Prof. Hacket remarks on the length of this voyage: “The passage on the apostle’s first journey to Europe occupied two days only; see chapter 16:11. Adverse winds or calms would be liable, at any season of the year, to occasion this variation.”—Commentary on Acts, p. 329. This shows how little ground there is to claim that Paul broke the Sabbath on this voyage. There was ample time to reach Troas before the Sabbath when he started from Philippi, had not providential causes hindered.
[389] Acts 20:6-13.
[390] Thus Prof. Whiting renders the phrase: “The disciples being assembled.” And Sawyer has it: “We being assembled.”
[391] 1 Cor. 11:23-26.
[392] Matt. 26.
[393] Acts 2:42-46.
[394] This fact has been acknowledged by many first-day commentators. Thus Prof. Hacket comments upon this text: “The Jews reckoned the day from evening to morning, and on that principle the evening of the first day of the week would be our Saturday evening. If Luke reckoned so here, as many commentators suppose, the apostle then waited for the expiration of the Jewish Sabbath, and held his last religious service with the brethren at Troas, at the beginning of the Christian Sabbath, i. e., on Saturday evening, and consequently resumed his journey on Sunday morning.”—Commentary on Acts, pp. 329, 330. But he endeavors to shield the first-day Sabbath from this fatal admission by suggesting that Luke probably reckoned time according to the pagan method, rather than by that which is ordained in the Scriptures!
Kitto, in noting the fact that this was an evening meeting, speaks thus: “It has from this last circumstance been inferred that the assembly commenced after sunset on the Sabbath, at which hour the first day of the week had commenced, according to the Jewish reckoning [Jahn’s Bibl. Antiq., sect. 398], which would hardly agree with the idea of a commemoration of the resurrection.”—Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, article, Lord’s day.
And Prynne, whose testimony relative to redemption as an argument for the change of the Sabbath has been already quoted, thus states this point: “Because the text saith there were many lights in the upper room where they were gathered together, and that Paul preached from the time of their coming together till midnight, ... this meeting of the disciples at Troas, and Paul’s preaching to them, began at evening. The sole doubt will be what evening this was.... For my own part I conceive clearly that it was upon Saturday night, as we falsely call it, and not the coming Sunday night.... Because St. Luke records that it was upon the first day of the week when this meeting was ... therefore it must needs be on the Saturday, not on our Sunday evening, since the Sunday evening in St. Luke’s and the Scripture account was no part of the first, but of the second day; the day ever beginning and ending at evening.”
Prynne notices the objection drawn from the phrase, “ready to depart on the morrow,” as indicating that this departure was not on the same day of the week with his night meeting. The substance of his answer is this: If the fact be kept in mind that the days of the week are reckoned from evening to evening, the following texts, in which in the night, the morning is spoken of as the morrow, will show at once that another day of the week is not necessarily intended by the phrase in question. 1 Sam. 19:11; Esth. 2:14; Zeph. 3:3; Acts 23:31, 32.—Diss. on Lord’s Day Sab., pp. 36-41, 1633.
[395] See the conclusion of chap. viii.
[396] Luke 23:56; 24:1.
[397] Rom. 14:1-6.
[398] James 2:8-12.
[399] Rom. 7:12, 13; 1 John 3:4, 5.
[400] Rom. 3.
[401] Ex. 20.
[402] Lev. 23. These are particularly enumerated in Col. 2, as we have already noticed in chapter vii, and in the concluding part of chapter x.
[403] Acts 2:1-11; Rom 2:17; 4:1; 7:1.
[404] Ex. 16:4, 21, 27, 28.
[405] Cor. 15:27; Ps. 8.
[406] Rev. 1:10.
[407] To show that Paul regarded Sabbatic observance as dangerous, Gal. 4:10, is often quoted; notwithstanding the same individuals claim that Rom. 14 proves that it is a matter of perfect indifference; they not seeing that this is to make Paul contradict himself. But if the connection be read from verse 8 to verse 11, it will be seen that the Galatians before their conversion were not Jews, but heathen: and that these days, months, times, and years, were not those of the Levitical law, but those which they had regarded with superstitious reverence while heathen. Observe the stress which Paul lays upon the word “again,” in verse 9. And how many that profess the religion of Christ at the present day superstitiously regard certain days as “lucky” or “unlucky days;” though such notions are derived only from heathen distinctions.
[408] See chapter x.
[409] Rev. 1:9-11.
[410] Dr. Bloomfield, though himself of a different opinion, speaks thus of the views of others concerning the date of John’s gospel: “It has been the general sentiment, both of ancient and modern inquirers, that it was published about the close of the first century.”—Greek Testament with English Notes, vol. i. p. 328.
Morer says that John “penned his gospel two years later than the Apocalypse, and after his return from Patmos, as St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and Eusebius, affirm.”—Dialogues on the Lord’s Day, pp. 53, 54.
The Paragraph Bible of the London Religious Tract Society, in its preface to the book of John, speaks thus: “According to the general testimony of ancient writers, John wrote his gospel at Ephesus, about the year 97.”
In support of the same view, see also Religious Encyclopedia, Barnes’ Notes (gospels), Bible Dictionary, Cottage Bible, Domestic Bible, Mine Explored, Union Bible Dictionary, Comprehensive Bible, Dr. Hales, Horne, Nevins, Olshausen, &c.
[411] The Encyclopedia Britannica, in its article concerning the Sabbath, undertakes to prove that the “religious observation of the first day of the week is of apostolical appointment.” After citing and commenting upon all the passages that could be urged in proof of the point, it makes the following candid acknowledgment: “Still, however, it must be owned that these passages are not sufficient to prove the apostolical institution of the Lord’s day, or even the actual observation of it.”
The absence of all scriptural testimony relative to the change of the Sabbath, is accounted for by certain advocates of that theory, not by the frank admission that it never was changed by the Lord, but by quoting John 21:25, assuming the change of the Sabbath as an undoubted truth, but that it was left out of the Bible lest it should make that book too large! They think, therefore, that we should go to Ecclesiastical history to learn this part of our duty; not seeing that, as the fourth commandment still stands in the Bible unrepealed and unchanged, to acknowledge that that change must be sustained wholly outside of the Bible, is to acknowledge that first-day observance is a tradition which makes void the commandment of God. The following chapters will, however, patiently examine the argument for first-day observance drawn from ecclesiastical history.
[412] Gen. 2:3.
[413] Ex. 16:23.
[414] Ex. 20:8-11.
[415] Isa. 58:13, 14.
[416] Mark 2:27, 28.
[417] An able opponent of Sabbatic observance thus speaks relative to the term Lord’s day of Rev. 1:10: “If a current day was intended, the only day bearing this definition, in either the Old or New Testament, is Saturday, the seventh day of the week.”—W. B. Taylor, in the Obligation of the Sabbath, p. 296.
[418] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xv.
[419] Acts 20:29, 30.
[420] 2 Thess. 2:3, 4, 7, 8.
[421] 2 Tim. 4:2-4; 2 Pet. 2; Jude 4; 1 John 2:18.
[422] Book ii. chap. i. sect. 1.
[423] Eccl. Researches, chap. vi. p. 51, ed. 1792.
[424] The Modern Sabbath Examined, pp. 123, 124.
[425] Rose’s Neander, p. 184.
[426] Hist. of the Popes, vol. i. p. 1, Phila. ed., 1817.
[427] History of Romanism, book ii. chap. i. sects. 3, 4.