LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
MR. LECKY AND THE SABBATH.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Mr. Leaky, in his "Democracy and Liberty" (Vol. IL, chap. 7), discussing legal limitations of natural liberty, asserts that a combination of theological and utilitarian considerations has confused legislation on the subject, espe- cially with reference to Sunday observance, in prohibiting labour and amusement. Sunday, he says, is not the Sabbath, and its obligation does not rest on the Fourth Command- ment, but it is a Church holiday instituted in the earliest days of Christianity. According to Scripture, it was at the Creation that a seventh of the week was set apart for hallowed rest. The first inhabitants of the Garden of Eden had "to dress and keep it" as their natural and happy care ; and at intervals of rest they heard, with genial confidence, the voice of God refreshing, by actual intercourse, the spirit of their love to him. When a given test had indicated distraction from that love they shrank away from God and hid themselves. Those intervals of rest were thenceforth rather charged with restoration than full enjoyment of his love. As such the seventh day's consecration continued traceable throughout succeeding history, then marked by sacrifices typical of a redemption to the lost devo- tion of man's life to God. The fourth of the Com- mandments afterwards delivered to the Jews is expressly N7orded as a remembrance of the original institution. Special observances were then connected with it; and the day of the week selected for it by the Jews was Saturday, which com- memorated their national deliverance from Egyptian bondage. In the dawn of Christianity St. Paul described these Sabbaths as "shadows of things to come, the body being Christ," and after his Resurrection the day was made to commemorate that transcendent deliverance of all mankind from universal Satanic bondage. It was therefore called "the Lord's Day," or, more usually, Sunday, from the Roman name of the first day of the week, being the day of that great event. The difference of its position in the week from that of the Sabbath was, of course, insignificant, the gist of the institution being the consecration of one day in seven. The Sunday, therefore, was no "new institution," but an adaptation of the original, showing its permanence without any "abrogation." Mr. Lecky thinks the shadow fading into light revealed another body than that which it had indicated ! He also appeals to the early Fathers as "with one voice declaring the Jewish Sabbath abrogated," and demanding a new loyalty to another consecrated day. But Bingham, his chosen authority, says that "the substance of the service for the Sabbath and the Lord's day was the same, though the rites and ceremonies were different." Mr. Lecky supposes the fact that many of the first Jewish converts observed both days shows the two to be distinct institutions. Bingham's view is that "the Jews, retaining a mighty reverence for the Mosaic Sabbath, ap- pointed by God himself as a memorial of his work of creation, were loth it should be wholly laid aside." The Church only indulged this humour so far as not to let it join the observance of the Sabbath in confusion with that of the Christian Sunday. Daybreak at sunrise is no new light, but a development from twilight. Only Pharisees accused the Lord of the Sabbath of abrogating his institution by shedding his light of loving action on its meaning. The services of the Christian Sunday, and especially "the breaking of bread on the first day of the week," are now the means of kindling that love to God and man, with which it is the unvarying purpose of the hallowed day to animate other days' occupations. "To every man his work," and a seventh of the week for that work's right inspira.
tion is the coeval prescription with man's creation. Thoughts of Sunday observance as "a limitation of natural liberty," seem inappreciative of the permeating spirit of the institution which it has borne from its origin throughout.
It is not an "obligation," but a natural requisite to be used with greatest blessing, or thrown away with heavy loss. It is not a "duty," but delight of love to "men of love." It is those who take the six days' work, not for its sole perma- nent outcome, as a formation of character and account, but for the work's own perishing use, that the seventh day, reserved for higher views, must seem an irksome interrup- tion and restraint ; and they will of course desire, as far as is allowable, its relaxation. Laws should only prevent such men from hindering others. Many various enactments have been made about the observance of Sunday, but the spirit of the original, and perennial, institution has never changed, and is essential to man's destiny.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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