But if it be said that since the institution of the Sabbath was of such immense moment, and of such essential value both to the physical and moral well being of man, and since its sulject-matter is chiefly moral, it would be strange if Christianity had no thing analogous to it ; and that therefore we might naturally look for traces of some similar institution in the N. T.—in that we fully agree. And, in our judgment, such traces may be found in the Lord's day ; though we do not see any evidence that it is merely the Jewish Sabbath with the day and name changed, nor that it is designed to bear the same precise character, nor to occupy the same place. On the contrary, it is pretty plain that, though its object and purpose be analogous, it is discriminated from the Jewish Sabbath by many marked charac teristics, which, in the absence of distinct declara tions that these are to be considered merely acci dental to the institution, make it a different insti tution. As already said, the day is different, and yet no mention of a transfer ; the occasion is dif ferent, and no hint of the substitution of one set of commemorated events for another ; the penalties and sanctions of the law appear no longer, and are replaced by no others ; the observance of the day is not prescribed by express statute at all, but the obligation is left to be gathered, by way of inference, from oblique references, and the early practices of the apostles ; it is not made compulsory as the Jewish Sabbath so expressly was ; instead of appealing to a rigid demand of law, it presents itself as a privilege of grateful love and spontaneous reverence. It is enforced not so much by the precept of those who legislated for the early church, as by their known example, which could not but recommend their practice to those who held them in perpetual veneration.
So much for the light in which the Lord's day appears to be represented in the N. T. If it be thought that thereby- its authority is weakened, we answer, Far from it to those (and the N. T. ad dresses only such) who are willing to render the obedience of the heart, and to make loyal love take the place of what is set down in the bond ;' the obligation is only the more perfect from the spiritual nature of the institution. Considered in this light, we have no hesitation in saying that the reasoning which represents the Lord's day as Lind/Its on the Christian, though not precisely after a Jewish fashion, is, in spite of being founded only on primitive practice and inferential reasoning, quite irrefutable. Let us look at that reasoning.
And, first, it is evident that the Christians during the lifetime of the apostles did hold stated assem blies for religious worship and instruction—assem blies which it was considered a duty to attend, and culpable to neglect This appears plainly from Heb. x. 25, where they are exhorted ' not to for sake the assembling of themselves together, as the manner of some is.' This of course implies fixed tunes for such public acts. Now, secondly, we do in fact find repeated references to such assemblies taking place on the first day of the week ; and most of the memorable events in the history of the N. T. church are expressly connected with that
day. An induction from all the passages in which the first day of the week is menttoned cannot fail to convey, to any candid mind, an indelible im pression that the founders of Christianity designed to put a signal honour upon it. As matter of fact, it was the day on which Christians met, under the sanction, and in accordance with the example and practice, of the apostles, for instruction and devotion, for the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and the appropriation, to purposes of charity and benevolence, of their substance, according as God had prospered them.' It is undeniable that stated periodic assembling of Christians for these pur poses—and we have seen from the passage in Heb. x: that there were suth assemblies—took place on this day, and, so far as we are told, on no other.
Our Lord having risen on the first day of the week (r3 crappdrcev), and having manifested himself on several different occasions on that day —for example, to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to Peter alone, to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus in the evening, and afterwards to the assembled apostles in the upper room—did not appear again till after eight days WO' iluipas OtcrW), that is, according to the usual reckoning, on thefirst day of the following week. The day of Pentecost in that year fell, as it seems, on the first day of the week ; and it was signalised by the impartation of those miraculous gifts which equipped the apostles for their gmnd commission. In Acts xx. 7, when Christianity had already made considerable progress, we meet with the incidental notice that the first day of the week, already so signalised, had become the regular day when the disciples met for mutual edification and the cele bration of the Lord's Supper. We are there told that when St. Paul came to Troas he abode there seven days, and upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them.' In r Cor. xvi. I, 2, when Ile gives the Christians in that church instruc tions concerning the collection for the saints,' he associates the public performance of that duty with the first day of the week, and intimates that his instructions were not addressed to them in special, but that he had issued them also to the churches in general : 'As I have given orders to the churches in Galatia, even so do ye. . . . On the first day of the week, let every one lay by in store, as God hath prospered him.' In the book of Revelation, John says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day' iv Kuptaufi liulpit); and though there has been some dispute among commentators as to whether the phmse refers to the first day of the weelc, there can hardly be any rational doubt, considering that the very phrase is that by which the day conse crated to the commemoration of Christ's resurrec• tion has become designated.