BY THE LATE PROFESSOR JAMES MILLER, F.R.S.E., PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, ETC., ETC.*
(Continued from page 386.)
IV.—The Sabbath is a Special Time, and Sabbath Exercise is a Special Means for Refreshment of the Soul.
“This is the day God made; in it we’ll joy triumphantly. Send now prosperity” (Psalms cxviii. 24, 25). The Psalms are full of indications how this day is specially blessed to the invigoration of redeemed souls, and more particularly in the services of the sanctuary. “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary” (Psalms lxiii. 1, 2). This is the exclamation of David, on the Sabbath, beleaguered by Saul in the wilderness, and shut out from the sanctuary and its services. And again, under similar circumstances, a retreat and exile before Absalom, hear him exclaiming in the 84th Psalm, “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh (each) crieth out for the living God. . . . Blessed are they that dwell in thy house. . . . A day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” And yet again, “As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalms xlii. 1, 2). Then he calls to mind his former privileges: “When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day” (Psalms xlii. 4). “O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy; yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God, my God” (Psalms xliii. 3, 4). And when his prayer is answered, in the 116th Psalm he breaks forth into a thanksgiving, ending thus: “I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of Thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord!”
But to cease from David, and to come to David’s Son. There is also the example of our blessed Lord. “He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, as his custom was” (Luke iv. 16). Continually was His soul communing with His Father, though He had no such need as we, through sin. When trial came, His soul was poured forth in wrestling prayer. Witness the sad garden of Gethsemane, and Calvary’s still darker hour, where the spotless soul of the Holy One, brought in contact with the sin of a lost yet elect world, was for a time forsaken and unanswered. Yes. He prayed “without ceasing.” And yet on the Sabbath-day He failed not to go into the synagogue, “as His custom was.”
Again, it was when the disciples were “assembled together” on “the Lord’s day,” that the risen Jesus stood in the midst of them, saying, “Peace be unto you.” It was in similar circumstances that the Pentecostal effusion came down. It was “on the Lord’s day” that John was “in the Spirit,” and that the great Alpha and Omega appeared to him in vision.
“Forsake not,” is the apostolic injunction, “the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is, . . . and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Hebrews x. 25). And once more—in prophecy—”Blessed is the man that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it. . . . Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: . . . for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people” (Isaiah lvi. 2, 6, 7).
Yes. The Sabbath is the peculiar day appointed by God for the refreshing and rest of the souls of His people. As the night with its sleep is to the working day and its labour, as regards the body; so is the Sabbath with its holy rest to the working week, as regards the soul. The Sabbath is the night of the week; or rather it is its sacred morning—for is not the night truly the first part of the day? The Jewish Sabbath, the seventh day, had in it something of the week’s night; but the Christian Sabbath—
“Blest morning, whose first dawning rays
Behold the Son of God
Arise triumphant from the grave,
And leave His dark abode!”
—this begins the week, throwing light and love upon its every hour, and strengthening the soul to run its course rejoicing.
And how is the soul to be occupied on this precious day? In rest; but of a twofold kind—enjoying repose, seeking refreshment. This requires further explanation. In rest from all ordinary week-day work, of body and mind. “In it thou shalt not do any work.” “Not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words.” Excepting the “works of necessity and mercy,” no work is to be done on that day, by body or soul, of a mundane kind. The commandment of the Word is explicit on that head. The body rests from its work, in order that the soul may be in a fit state to enter upon and maintain its spiritual exercise and refreshment. The muscles fatigued by work, or walks—the brain exhausted by mundane reading, or thoughts, or disputings, how can the soul enter upon its active communing with God? Here, again, there emerges the wisdom of limiting, in ancient times, the Sabbath-day’s journey, as well as interdicting all kinds of ordinary labour. There shall be no bodily fatigue on that day. The soul must be left free and fresh. Absence of all labour is the negative Sabbath rest.
Far more valuable, however, and equally plainly enjoined, is the other half—the active, the refreshment. “It shall be unto you a Sabbath of rest; and ye shall afflict your souls” (Lev. xxiii. 32). And again, “Ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you. . . . It shall be a Sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever” (Lev. xvi. 29, 31). These quotations refer to the yearly feast, or Day of Atonement; but the statement is plain that the points wherein “it shall be a Sabbath,” are the “resting” from work, and the “afflicting of the soul;” and the conclusion is inevitable that these—absence of bodily work, and presence of spiritual exercise—are characteristic and essential in THE SABBATH. The “stranger,” and “the statute for ever,” evidently show that something more is involved than merely the duties of what was ceremonial, limited, and temporary. Obviously the force of these passages lies in the meaning of the verb translated “afflict;” and as obviously, more is meant than is conveyed by the ordinary acceptance of the word in our language. The literal meaning of the Hebrew verb is to “answer,” or “cause to answer;” and it has varieties of secondary meaning—as, to “tame,” to “compress,” to “subdue,” to “fast,” to “humble,” to “afflict,” etc. Here it seems to mean that in “the public and private exercises of God’s worship,” the soul shall converse and commune with God; and that in this active and holy communion of our spirit with the Father of spirits, the soul of man shall be in itself repentant, contrite, subdued, broken, afflicted, on account of its much sin and shortcoming; in order that it may in this denudation be clothed, in this weakness be made strong, in this sadness be made glad, in this exercise receive grace upon grace to help in every future time of need; an exercise of honouring God, and of looking (not in vain, if in faith) for such downward tokens of His reconciled love as these—”To be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith; that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Eph. iii. 16, 19).
In man’s soul there are sins enough, more than enough, in the hour, in the day—far more in the week—to call for this bowing down before God; this “sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart,” which God “will not despise” (Psalms li. 16). And in God’s Word there are promises, at least enough, and “exceeding precious,” to warrant the belief that such affliction of the soul will be answered by words of peace and pardon; that as wine restoreth the fainting natural strength of man, so will the Spirit of God, by taking of the things of Christ, refresh and make glad the soul. Sorrow MAY endure for the night, but joy SHALL come in the morning.
But let us guard ourselves against what this acceptable and enjoined exercise of the soul with God is not. It does not consist in forms or bodily prostration: not in mere words or mere gesture. “Think not that ye shall be heard for much speaking” (Matt. vi. 7). “Bodily exercise profiteth little” (I Tim. iv. 8). Nor does it consist in subtle exercise of the mind in nice, and curious, and refined philosophical disquisitions even as to spiritual things. These are “works,” or rather “labours,” not meet for the day of rest and refreshment from all labour. No. The philosopher and the peasant, the simpleton and the sage, alike come on that day, and in that exercise, denuded of self-sufficiency and worldly wisdom, and, in the simplicity of little children, hungering and thirsting, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that they may grow thereby. The reception is the same in all who receive anything: the spiritual mouth is the mouth of a child. The subsequent use made of what is received must necessarily vary; there is the digestion of a child, of a youth, of a grown man. In receiving, all are “babes and sucklings.” Having received, there is a variety, from “the babe in Christ,” to the “full stature of perfect men.”
Nor does it consist in the absence of all action; in merely lying low in the dust, and abiding there unanswered, unsatisfied, unrefreshed—content so to remain. If the soul receive not, it is because it asks not, or asks not aright. The Sabbath exercise with God is no labour, but it implies a work; no heavy round of weary toil, but a light and gladsome work of love. A work which shall show itself sincere by its fruits—speedily; these fruits being other good works, which shall embrace both tables of the law—honour to God, and love to man. It is the cultivation of the “seed incorruptible,” the working of the “law of life,” as formerly stated. “Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul?” No: my fast enjoins the “afflicting of the soul;” but ye have fasted otherwise. “Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?”—(mere forms—mere bodily exercise, profiting nothing—”vain oblations?”) “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?” These are some of the fruits springing from the true Godward exercise of that day, and testifying of its truth. “Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; Thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.” The reward and return of such Sabbath exercise is speedy and sure. “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then thou shalt delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it” (Isaiah lviii.)
It is on the Sabbath, and in such Sabbath exercises, that the soul is refreshed and restored. Communing with the holy God, it is strengthened to contend with the sinful world. Such communing, though but for a moment, will not be fruitless, and is necessary at all times; every day of the week, every hour of the day, must have its sustaining prayer. “Pray without ceasing!” But it is the sustained and systematic Sabbath work of communion with God—in prayer, reading of His Word, and the use of every means of grace—that is designed and will be blessed for especial refreshing from on high. And will a man lightly forego this inestimable boon? Will he lose it for himself? Will he take it from his fellows? Will he neither enter in himself, nor suffer others to enter in? Will he ignore that precious time and season designed and commanded of God specially for the conversion and comforting of the soul? “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Is it not familiar to all, that in the greater number of cases of conversion, the first perceptible influence of the Spirit of God came upon the sinner’s heart on the Sabbath, and in the sanctuary? And is not every believer ready to acknowledge that his soul’s strengthenings and refreshments are peculiarly there? They know by blessed experience that “strength and beauty are in his sanctuary” (Psalms xcvii. 6); that He will “send help from the sanctuary, and strengthen them out of Zion” (Psalms xx. 1). Let, then, the song of saint and sinner alike be—the one to get some, the other to get more—”Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. . . . Come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord” (Isaiah ii. 3, 5).
Here is the answer, too, for those who may be inclined to say—”True, all very well. This is your refreshment for the believing soul. But all men are not ‘of the same faith,’ and we wish to know how soul-refreshment comes to those who are devoid of that renewing and quickening power of which you speak.” The answer is short and simple. There is no other refreshment of the soul but this. Let those who have it not seek the power to get. God has promised to give it to those who ask. He will meet them, if they will but come to Him. But they must seek in His way; they must walk in His paths. So and there He is to be found—in His Word; in His Ordinances; in His Sabbaths; in His Sanctuary.
And let no one object that this would be at variance with the wisdom and mercy of God; to leave the carnal heart with power of repose, yet with no power of refreshment—as if there were a void and imperfection here in the work of creation.
Is not the creature constructed for eternity as well as for time? —aye, and with special reference to the former. Now, had it been that the unrenewed soul were gifted with power of refreshment and invigoration, without direct communion with God, and irrespective of all intromission with the better wisdom—how many more there would have been, than there are even as it is, who would have settled down content with time, ignoring the hereafter! And is it not but another proof of the perfection alike of wisdom and of mercy in the Creator, that the natural heart of man, through the very feeling of its unsatisfied want and unrefreshed weariness, may be drawn or driven towards Himself, where, and where alone, its want and weariness will be done away? The almighty Creator has implanted in the material frame of man a power of self-refreshment by repose; a power ab intra. But to the immortal part He has given no such virtue, and that in deepest mercy. He holds the refreshing influences of the soul in His own hand; that so the being whom He made originally in His own likeness, but who through sin has fallen away, may return to Himself and be renewed; that the soul in seeking strength may find the source of strength—in seeking food, may find the Father.
And if we be met with the cry, “Rest! work! Why, your Sabbath is all work and no rest! Why will you thus lay heavy burdens upon men—especially working-men—already overburdened? Why will you make the Sabbath a wearing out and a weariness?” Again a short answer will suffice—an argumentum ad hominem. “Do you expect or wish to enter heaven? If so, how do you intend to be occupied there? Doubtless, in the occupation of the redeemed and blessed spirits already there. And what are they doing now? There is no room to doubt; the revelation is explicit. ‘They are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple’ (Rev. vii. 15). That is what they are doing now; and that is what they will do throughout eternity. ‘His servants shall serve him'” (Rev. xxii. 3).
Yes; the Sabbath exercise is a ceasing to serve man, and a ceasing not to serve God. “They serve him day and night.”* “From even unto even, shall ye celebrate your Sabbath” * (Lev. xxiii. 32). (No word of “canonical hours” here.) And the Sabbath on earth is to the saints of God but a type and sample, a foretaste and beginning of that eternal Sabbath hereafter, which is called “The rest of the people of God;” and the essence of which rest is the service of God continually.
V.—While the Soul is Called Upon to Work, and Work Diligently, All the Days of the Week, There is Danger in Working the Soul on Sabbath by Mundane Labour of Any Kind—Not Included in the Exceptional Works of “Necessity and Mercy,” Which Constitute Part of the “Service of God;” and There is Danger in Not Exercising and so Refreshing the Soul on the Sabbath in God’s Service and Communion.
We saw that danger and disadvantage accrued to the body from not working at the stated and suitable times, failing to fulfil the injunction, “Six days shalt thou labour;” and that danger and disadvantage alike accrued from not resting the body at the stated and suitable times, especially on the Sabbath-day. An analogous law operates upon the soul. This is called to diligent labouring on all the six days, in such mundane works as the circumstances of God’s providence—personal and peculiar to each man—may require; “not slothful in business;” yet even in this week-day work having always regard to God’s glory, “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work,” affects and includes body and soul alike—the whole man. There is no pietism, no morbid, slothful, indolent sentimentalism, in true religion.
But while busy on all the six, there is the more need for rest on the seventh day. The soul worked mundanely on the Sabbath can experience no refreshment; it will not receive what it does not ask for; it cannot taste what it will not take. Nay, not only does it fail to be refreshed; it suffers direct injury and loss. Its “life” ebbs away in a sure but silent stream; and the end of persistence in such neglect of duty and privilege is spiritual decay; aye, if God’s mercy help not, the second death, which shall know no resurrection. “Blessed is the man that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.” He “shall be made joyful in the house of prayer” (Isaiah lvi. 2, 7). But on the Sabbath-day, while God’s service restores, man’s work destroys. “Whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people” (Lev. xxiii. 30).†
And the abstaining from spiritual exercise, from communing with God, from the serving of Him on that day, is alike disastrous. The seeking soul will not be “suffered to famish;” it will be “made fat;” it shall be “satisfied,” “as with marrow and fatness;” it shall be “abundantly satisfied with the fatness of God’s house.” But the slothful soul shall have “leanness sent unto it.” “Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger” (Proverbs xix. 15). Nay more—far more. “Whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people” (Lev. xxiii. 29).*
Ah, let each man take heed that he be not of those “to whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear” (Isaiah xxviii. 12). Let us beware of “despising the sanctuary, and profaning the Sabbath,” lest we cause God’s righteous hand to be raised in judgment and anger, “smiting” until we “know that He is the Lord.”
The redeemed and righteous soul, in its Sabbath exercise, alike ceases from the service of man and abounds in that of God; not of its own strength, but in His. Its language is, “He maketh to lie down (rest) in green pastures;” “he leadeth (active following) me beside still waters;” and so “he restoreth my soul” (Psalms xxiii. 2, 3).
It has been asked, “Why this puritanical, pharisaical observance of the Sabbath? Why not walk in the fields, and take innocent pleasure and recreation at least to that extent; so obtaining rest or at least refreshment? Did not Jesus Himself set an example in this?” True, “He went through the corn-fields on the Sabbath-day.” The Pharisees did not blame Him for that; and if it had been blamable in their sight, if it had been inconsistent with their pharisaical observance, most assuredly their captious spirit would have led them to affix the blame. But they blamed only the disciples for plucking and eating of the corn—working. “Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath-day.” Jesus, they knew, was not walking idly for His pleasure. The Lord of all had not a house or home on earth, though it was all His own. At night, “while every man went unto his own house, Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives.” His home was in the hill at night, in the field by day; and so “he went through the corn-fields on the Sabbath,” doubtless to reach the synagogue, “as his custom was.” Paul, too, “on the Sabbath, went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made” (Acts xvi. 13). But who that met the holy man on his way to the spacious sanctuary, would have thought of taxing him with seeking his pleasure on the Sabbath-day?
It has been said, “Why not go forth, and send specially the working people forth, to meet the Deity (where He may more surely be found) face to face in the thousand natural objects of beauty with which He has surrounded us?” and the hackneyed phrase still passes from mouth to mouth, “Let us look from nature up to nature’s God.” They forget that man’s heart by nature turns not to, but from, the Creator; and that it is not by or from nature, but by and from a wholly different source, that the knowledge and love of Him can ever come. They fail to observe that the nature-worshipping they speak of—the Sunday strolling, and sauntering, and sight-seeing—is the worshipping of the god of this world, the prince and the power of it, instead of the worshipping of the God of heaven.
“Where He may more surely be found”—more surely roaming a field, than in the sanctuary and its ordinances!* Such is their assertion, but will it stand against the Word of God? He says He is to be found by all who diligently seek Him; and He commands all to seek Him. Not in the tea-gardens and palaces of pleasure. “I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way not good, after their own thoughts; a people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick” (Isaiah lxv. 2, 3).
No: “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return” (not to continue in his own way, but to return) “unto the Lord” (Isaiah lv. 7). Let him seek the Lord in His way, in prayer and soul-service. “Ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jer. xxix. 12, 13). That is the how of seeking. And where? “His way is in the sanctuary.” “They shall go, and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward” (Jer. i. 4, 5). “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name: worship the Lord in his glorious sanctuary” (Psalms xxix. 2, marginal rendering).
It is the fool’s treatment of his soul to seek his own pleasure on that day, saying, “Soul, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry;” forgetting that in so doing, an unsought “communion” with God may be on this wise, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee” (Luke xii. 19, 20). Let the soul hear God’s word in prophecy where there is yet time. “Ho, . . . wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness . . . hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David” (Isaiah lxv. 2, 3). And hear the Saviour’s own words, when He stood upon the earth, and cried unto men, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew xi. 28, 30).
(To be continued.)
* Professor Miller was in his day Surgeon in Ordinary to Queen Victoria, and to H.R.H. Prince Albert, for Scotland. We are also informed that he was a brother of the late Rev. Samuel Miller, D.D., of Free St. Matthew’s, Glasgow.—Ed.
* This is metaphorical. For we are told—twice are we told—”There shall be no night there” (Rev. xxi. 25; xxii. 5). That is, there shall be no weariness or fatigue, and no labour to cause this; no alternating periods of labour and repose; all one bright day, occupied in the ever-refreshing work of serving God.
† It is a solemn thought, that failing in the negative or passive Sabbath rest—not reposing from, but persisting in mundane labour—will be followed by destruction!
* It is an equally solemn thought, that failing in the positive or active refreshment of the Sabbath—the “afflicting” of the soul—will cause the soul so offending to be cut off!
* David’s experience was very contrary to this, as we have already seen. How he longed to return to the sanctuary, where he might specially “appear before God!”