Now the law of the Sabbath, supposing it to have been given by the supreme legislator of the Jews, under the circumstances the history records, was at once an expression of his goodness, and de signed to promote their happiness ; had everything about it which, like those laws of nature to which we have just adverted, rendered disobedience with out excuse, and justified severity for its violation. It was enjoined for the purpose of promoting, in the most comprehensive form, the welfare of man ; it was easy of obedience ; it summoned him merely to lay down his burden and forego his toil, and should have been most vvelcome for that very reason. It proclaimed a weekly suspension of that curse' of labour which was pronounced as a part of the penalty of the Fall, and told him that for one day in seven he had nothing to do with that ungrateful glebe which brought forth thorns and thistles,' and which he was to cultivate with the sweat of his brow.' The severity of the penalty of disobedience, therefore, by no means proves that the law was not of a most beneficent character, any more than those natural penalties to which allusion has just been made, would prove the like of the phy sical laws to which we are subjected. The institu tion itself may be viewed quite apart from the penalty. At all events, since it is acknowledged on all hands that it was only of temporary applica tion, and peculiar to a miraculously-authenticated dispensation, which implied the most daring impiety and the most wanton rebellion in those who in curred it, it does not disprove the beneficence of the institution, and has no relation to any contro versy in which we can be engaged respecting it.
But as to the enjoined modes of observing -the day, there is, as We have said, positively nothing that can justify the charge that the Jewish Sabbath was of a rigorous or austere character. No action that was denianded by necessity, duty, or benefi. cence, was forbidden. This is plainly to be seen by our Lord's most reasonable interpretation of the law, when he justifies the disciples for plucking the ears of corn,' for which they had been blamed by the censorious hypocrisy of the Pharisees ; when he justified his own works of healing, and sbowed by an a fortiori argument that his enemies must give judgment against themselves, inasmuch as they would not hesitate to lead ox or ass to water,' or to pull him out of a pit on the Sabbath day ;' and triumphantly closed the appeal by say ing, How much is a man better than a sheep The great principle also which he laid down, when he affirmed that 4 The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,' shows us distinctly what was the design and purpose of the original institution ; and that if man had in fact been sub ordinated to the Sabbath, it was only in virtue of those perverse glosses by which, in this, as in so many other cases, the Pharisees had justified the censure of Christ that they had made the law of God of none effect by their traditions.' It were strange indeed if, having corrupted all the rest of the law by bondage to the letter' and by their casuistical refinements, tbis institution, which was from its very nature so readily liable to such cor ruption, had remained untouched. Therc is, in truth, in all ages, and amongst all nations, a ten dency to subordinate the spiritual to the formal, to tithe the mint, anise, and cummin,' and to forget the weightier matters of the law ;' to reduce to time and weight, measure and number, and outward precision, acts which derive their sole value from the motives which determine them, and the spirit in which they are performed ; and, at last, when this process has proceeded far enough, even to commute the moral for the literal, and to let the formal act usurp the place of the spiritual observance. The Pharisees, certainly, carried their extravagant des potism of the letter' over the spirit' to as great a length in their glosses on the law of the Sab bath, as in relation to any law whatever ; and that casuistry which Pascal so inimitably ridicules in his Provincial .Letters can alone match the refine ments of these spiritual sophists.
It would not at first sight seem very possible for Jewish superstition to degrade the noble institution of the Sabbath more completely than in the in stances which the N. T. records, and our Saviour
rebukes. But this would be a mistake. As Hey lin says, The modern Jews still dote upon their Sabbath, and that more sottishly, and with more superstition far, than ever their fathers did.' When he wrote, this was certainly true, if we may depend on the numerous instances he has given (History of the Sabbath, Part i. ch. viii.) These instances are avowedly taken from Buxtorf (Synasoga 7ildaica). Heylin cites particularly cap. x. xi., though it is in cap, xv. xvi. that Buxtorf more particularly treats of tbe Sabbath. Many of the examples which Heylin cites arc rather of superstitions connected with the synagogue-worship in general than with the Sabbath usages ; still, as the synagogue-ser vices were chiefly Sabbath observances, and as the whole of the superstitions in question were bound up with one another, it was not unnatural to refer to them, though he should have noted the fact that many of the examples only indirectly illustrated the Jewish superstitions respecting the Sabbath. What refined absurdities, equally piti able and ridiculous, and what fantastical subtleties of casuistry, were g,ravely entertained by some of the doting Rabbis, may be seen from the follow ing citations A horse may have a bridle or a halter to lead, but not a saddle to load him ; and he that leadeth him must not let it hang so loose that it may seem he rather carrieth the bridle than leads the horse." The lame may use a staff, but the blind may not." They may not carry a flap or fan to drive away the flies. If a flea bite, they may remove it, but not kill it, but a louse they may ; yet Rabbi Eliezer thinks one may as lawfully kill a camel.' They must not fling more corn to their poultry than will serve that day, lest it may grow by lying, still, and they be said to sow their corn upon the Sabbath." If a Jew go forth on ' the Friday, and on the night falls short of honie more than is lawful to be travelled on the Sabbath da.y, there must he set him down, and thete keep his Sabbath, though in a wood, or in a field, or on the highway-side, without all fear of wind and weather, of thieves or robbers, without all care of meat or drink ;'* . . . with many other infinite absurdities,' adds Heylin, of the like poor nature, wherewith the Rabbins have been pleased to afflict their brethren, and make good sport to all the world. . . . Nay, to despite our Saviour, as Bux torfius tells us, they have determined since, that it was unlawful to lift the ox or ass out of the ditch, which in the strictest time of the Pharisaical rigours was accounted lawful.' If would seem, if the story hc goes on to tell, out of Crantzius, of the Jew of Magdeburgh (or of another, in our own annals, of Tewkesbury) be true, that it was possible for a Jcw to go still further, and not allow even himself to be pulled out of a worse place than a ditch,' on the Sabbath-day ; whereupon it is said the bishop ordered this strange recusant to remain there over the Chrictian Sabbath' too. The latter story, which is told in the rhyming Latin, Heylin translates with more freedom (in all senses) than literality :— `Tencle manus, Solomon, ut te de stercore tollam.' Sabbata nostra colo ; de stercore surgere nolo.' Sabbata nostra quidem, Solomon, celebrabis . ibidem.' But for all these infinite follies of the doting Rab bis (which have often given unfounded notions of the genuine Jewish Sabbath to our modern Protestant Christians), the Bible is no more responsible than is the Sermon on the Mount for the casuistry of the Jesuits. We are rejoiced to see, since this pre sent article was written for the prcss, indications that the Jews themselves are entering a vigorous and most just protest as well against the fond con ceits of their own Rabbis as against the extravagant calumnies of their Protestant adversaries, whose perpetually iterated representations of the morose ness and bondage of the Jewish Sabbath' have no foundation in the O. T. In a spirimd article in the Jewish Chronicle,' the Christians, who are perpetually exclaiming, Not Judaism but Christianity,' are fairly challenged to show, not from Rabbinical glosses, but from the sacred books, triat their charges against the Mosaic Sabbath are founded in truth.