_armies_, יהוה צבאות, _Jehovah Sabaoth, The Lord of Hosts_. By this
phrase we may understand the host of heaven, or the angels and ministers
of the Lord; or the stars and planets, which, as an army ranged in
battle array, perform the will of God; or, lastly, the people of the
Lord, both of the old and new covenant, which is truly a great army, of
which God is the Lord and commander.
SABBATH. The obligation of a sabbatical institution upon Christians, as
well as the extent of it, have been the subjects of much controversy.
Christian churches themselves have differed; and the theologians of the
same church. Much has been written upon the subject on each side, and
much research and learning employed, sometimes to darken a very plain
subject. The question respects the will of God as to this particular
point,--Whether one day in seven is to be wholly devoted to religion,
exclusive of worldly business and worldly pleasures. Now, there are but
two ways in which the will of God can be collected from his word; either
by some explicit injunction upon all, or by incidental circumstances.
Let us then allow, for a moment, that we have no such explicit
injunction; yet we have certainly none to the contrary: let us allow
that we have only for our guidance, in inferring the will of God in this
particular, certain circumstances declarative of his will; yet this
important conclusion is inevitable, that all such indicative
circumstances are in favour of a sabbatical institution, and that there
is not one which exhibits any thing contrary to it. The seventh day was
hallowed at the close of the creation; its sanctity was afterward marked
by the withholding of the manna on that day, and the provision of a
double supply on the sixth, and that previous to the giving of the law
from Sinai: it was then made a part of that great epitome of religious
and moral duty, which God wrote with his own finger on tables of stone;
it was a part of the public political law of the only people to whom
almighty God ever made himself a political Head and Ruler; its
observance is connected throughout the prophetic age with the highest
promises, its violations with the severest maledictions; it was among
the Jews in our Lord’s time a day of solemn religious assembling, and
was so observed by him; when changed to the first day of the week, it
was the day on which the first Christians assembled; it was called, by
way of eminence, “the Lord’s day;” and we have inspired authority to
say, that both under the Old and New Testament dispensations, it is used
as an expressive type of the heavenly and eternal rest. Now, against all
these circumstances so strongly declarative of the will of God, as to
the observance of a sabbatical institution, what circumstance or passage
of Scripture can be opposed, as bearing upon it a contrary indication?
Certainly, not one; for those passages in St. Paul, in which he speaks
of Jewish Sabbaths, with their Levitical rites, and of a distinction of
days, the observance of which marked a weak or a criminal adherence to
the abolished ceremonial dispensation; touch not the Sabbath as a branch
of the moral law, or as it was changed, by the authority of the
Apostles, to the first day of the week. If, then, we were left to
determine the point by inference, the conclusion must be irresistibly in
favour of the institution.
It may also be observed, that those who will so strenuously insist upon
the absence of an express command as to the Sabbath in the writings of
the evangelists and Apostles, as explicit as that of the decalogue,
assume, that the will of God is only obligatory when manifested in some
one mode, which they judge to be most fit. But this is a dangerous
hypothesis; for, however the will of God may be manifested, if it is
with such clearness as to exclude all reasonable doubt, it is equally
obligatory as when it assumes the formality of legal promulgation. Thus
the Bible is not all in the form of express and authoritative command;
it teaches by examples, by proverbs, by songs, by incidental allusions
and occurrences; and yet is, throughout, a manifestation of the will of
God as to morals and religion in their various branches, and, if
disregarded, it will be so at every man’s peril. But strong as this
ground is, we quit it for a still stronger. It is wholly a mistake, that
the Sabbath, because not reënacted with the formality of the decalogue,
is not explicitly enjoined upon Christians, and that the testimony of
Scripture to such an injunction is not unequivocal and irrefragible. The
Sabbath was appointed at the creation of the world, and sanctified, or
set apart for holy purposes, “for man,” for all men, and therefore for
Christians; since there was never any repeal of the original
institution. To this we add, that if the moral law be the law of
Christians, then is the Sabbath as explicitly enjoined upon them as upon
the Jews. But that the moral law is our law, as well as the law of the
Jews, all but Antinomians must acknowledge; and few, we suppose, will be
inclined to run into the fearful mazes of that error, in order to
support lax notions as to the obligation of the Sabbath; into which,
however, they must be plunged, if they deny the law of the decalogue to
be binding. That it is so bound upon us, a few passages of Scripture
will prove as well as many. Our Lord declares, that he “came not to
destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil.” Take it, that by “the
law,” he meant both the moral and the ceremonial; ceremonial law could
only be fulfilled in him, by realizing its types; and moral law, by
upholding its authority. For “the prophets,” they admit of a similar
distinction; they either enjoin morality, or utter prophecies of Christ;
the latter of which were fulfilled in the sense of accomplishment, the
former by being sanctioned and enforced. That the observance of the
Sabbath is a part of the moral law, is clear from its being found in the
decalogue, the doctrine of which our Lord sums up in the moral duties of
loving God and our neighbour; and for this reason the injunctions of the
prophets, on the subject of the Sabbath, are to be regarded as a part of
their moral teaching. Some divines have, it is true, called the
observance of the Sabbath a positive, and not a moral precept. If it
were so, its obligation is precisely the same, in all cases where God
himself has not relaxed it; and if a positive precept only, it has
surely a special eminence given to it, by being placed in the list of
the ten commandments, and being capable, with them, of an epitome which
resolves them into the love of God and our neighbour. The truth seems to
be, that it is a mixed precept, and not wholly positive, but intimately,
perhaps essentially connected with several moral principles of homage to
God, and mercy to men; with the obligation of religious _worship_, of
_public_ religious worship, and of _undistracted_ public worship: and
this will account for its collocation in the decalogue with the highest
duties of religion, and the leading rules of personal and social
morality. The passage from our Lord’s sermon on the mount, with its
context, is a sufficiently explicit enforcement of the moral law,
generally, upon his followers; but when he says, “The Sabbath was made
for man,” he clearly refers to its original institution, as a universal
law, and not to its obligation upon the Jews only, in consequence of the
enactments of the law of Moses. It “was made for man,” not as he may be
a Jew, or a Christian; but as man, a creature bound to love, worship,
and obey his God and Maker, and on his trial for eternity.
Another explicit proof that the law of the ten commandments, and,
consequently, the law of the Sabbath, is obligatory upon Christians, is
found in the answer of the Apostle to an objection to the doctrine of
justification by faith: “Do we then make void the law through faith?”
Rom. iii, 31; which is equivalent to asking, Does Christianity teach
that the law is no longer obligatory on Christians, because it teaches
that no man can be justified by it? To this he answers, in the most
solemn form of expression, “God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” Now,
the sense in which the Apostle uses the term, “the law,” in this
argument, is indubitably marked in Rom. vii, 7: “I had not known sin but
by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou
shalt not covet:” which, being a plain reference to the tenth command of
the decalogue, as plainly shows that the decalogue is “the law” of which
he speaks. This, then, is the law which is established by the Gospel;
and this can mean nothing else but the establishment and confirmation of
its authority, as the rule of all inward and outward holiness. Whoever,
therefore, denies the obligation of the Sabbath on Christians, denies
the obligation of the whole decalogue; and there is no real medium
between the acknowledgment of the divine authority of this sacred
institution, as a universal law, and that gross corruption of
Christianity, generally designated Antinomianism.
Nor is there any force in the dilemma into which the anti-sabbatarians
would push us, when they argue, that, if the case be so, then are we
bound to the same circumstantial exactitude of obedience with regard to
this command, as to the other precepts of the decalogue; and, therefore,
that we are bound to observe the seventh day, reckoning from Saturday,
as the Sabbath day. But, as the command is partly positive, and partly
moral, it may have circumstances which are capable of being altered in
perfect accordance with the moral principles on which it rests, and the
moral ends which it proposes. Such circumstances are not indeed to be
judged of on our own authority. We must either have such general
principles for our guidance as have been revealed by God, and cannot
therefore be questioned, or some special authority from which there can
be no just appeal. Now, though there is not on record any divine command
issued to the Apostles, to change the Sabbath from the day on which it
was held by the Jews, to the first day of the week; yet, when we see
that this was done in the apostolic age, and that St. Paul speaks of the
Jewish Sabbaths as not being obligatory upon Christians, while he yet
contends that the whole moral law is obligatory upon them; the fair
inference is, that this change of the day was made by divine direction.
It is indeed more than inference that the change was made under the
sanction of inspired men; and those men, the appointed rulers in the
church of Christ; whose business it was to “set all things in order,”
which pertained to its worship and moral government. We may therefore
rest well enough satisfied with this,--that as a Sabbath is obligatory
upon us, we act under apostolic authority for observing it on the first
day of the week, and thus commemorate at once the creation and the
redemption of the world.
Thus, even if it were conceded, that the change of the day was made by
the agreement of the Apostles, without express directions from Christ,
which is not probable, it is certain that it was not done without that
general authority which was confided to them by Christ; but it would not
follow even from this change, that they did in reality make any
alteration in the law of the Sabbath, either as it stood at the time of
its original institution at the close of the creation, or in the
decalogue of Moses. The same portion of time which constituted the
seventh day from the creation could not be observed in all parts of the
earth; and it is not probable, therefore, that the original law
expresses more, than that a seventh day, or one day in seven, the
seventh day after six days of labour, should be thus appropriated, from
whatever point the enumeration might set out, or the hebdomadal cycle
begin. For if more had been intended, then it would have been necessary
to establish a rule for the reckoning of days themselves, which has been
different in different nations; some reckoning from evening to evening,
as the Jews now do, others from midnight to midnight, &c. So that those
persons in this country and in America, who hold their Sabbath on
Saturday, under the notion of exactly conforming to the Old Testament,
and yet calculate the days from midnight to midnight, have no assurance
at all that they do not desecrate a part of the original Sabbath, which
might begin, as the Jewish Sabbath now, on Friday evening, and, on the
contrary, hallow a portion of a common day, by extending the Sabbath
beyond Saturday evening. Even if this were ascertained, the differences
of latitude and longitude would throw the whole into disorder; and it is
not probable that a universal law should have been fettered with that
circumstantial exactness, which would have rendered difficult, and
sometimes doubtful, astronomical calculations necessary in order to its
being obeyed according to the intention of the lawgiver. Accordingly we
find, says Mr. Holden, that in the original institution it is stated in
general terms, that God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, which
must undoubtedly imply the sanctity of every seventh day; but not that
it is to be subsequently reckoned from the first demiurgic day. Had this
been included in the command of the Almighty, something, it is probable,
would have been added declaratory of the intention; whereas expressions
the most undefined are employed; not a syllable is uttered concerning
the order and number of the days; and it cannot reasonably be disputed
that the command is truly obeyed by the separation of every seventh day,
from common to sacred purposes, at whatever given time the cycle may
commence. The difference in the mode of expression here, from that which
the sacred historian has used in the first chapter, is very remarkable.
At the conclusion of each division of the work of creation, he says,
“The evening and the morning were the first day,” and so on; but at the
termination of the whole, he merely calls it the seventh day; a
diversity of phrase, which, as it would be inconsistent with every idea
of inspiration to suppose it undesigned, must have been intended to
denote a day, leaving it to each people as to what manner it is to be
reckoned. The term obviously imports the period of the earth’s rotation
round its axis, while it is left undetermined, whether it shall be
counted from evening or morning, from noon or midnight. The terms of the
law are, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou
labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord
blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” With respect to time, it is
here mentioned in the same indefinite manner as at its primeval
institution, nothing more being expressly required than to observe a day
of sacred rest after every six days of labour. The seventh day is to be
kept holy; but not a word is said as to what epoch the commencement of
the series is to be referred; nor could the Hebrews have determined from
the decalogue what day of the week was to be kept as their Sabbath. The
precept is not, Remember the seventh day of the week, to keep _it_ holy,
but, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy;” and in the following
explication of these expressions, it is not said that the seventh day of
the week is the Sabbath, but without restriction, “The seventh day is
the Sabbath of the Lord thy God;” not the seventh according to any
particular method of computing the septenary cycle, but, in reference to
the six before mentioned, every seventh day in rotation after six of
labour.
Thus that part of the Jewish law, the decalogue, which, on the authority
of the New Testament, we have shown to be obligatory upon Christians,
leaves the computation of the hebdomadal cycle undetermined; and, after
six days of labour, enjoins the seventh as the Sabbath, to which the
Christian practice as exactly conforms as the Jewish. It is not,
however, left to every individual to determine which day should be his
Sabbath, though he should fulfil the law so far as to abstract the
seventh part of his time from labour. It was ordained for worship, for
_public_ worship; and it is therefore necessary that the Sabbath should
be uniformly observed by a whole community at the same time. The divine
Legislator of the Jews interposed for this end, by special direction, as
to his people. The first Sabbath kept in the wilderness was calculated
from the first day in which the manna fell; and with no apparent
reference to the creation of the world. By apostolic authority, it is
now fixed to be held on the first day of the week; and thus one of the
great ends for which it was established, that it should be a day of
“holy convocation,” is secured.
Traces of the original appointment of the Sabbath, and of its observance
prior to the giving forth of the law of Moses, have been found by the
learned in the tradition which universally prevailed of the sacredness
of the number seven, and the fixing of the first period of time to the
revolution of seven days. The measuring of time by a day and night is
pointed out to the common sense of mankind by the diurnal course of the
sun. Lunar months and solar years are equally obvious to all rational
creatures; so that the reason why time has been computed by days,
months, and years, is readily given; but how the division of time into
weeks of seven days, and this from the beginning, came to obtain
universally among mankind, no man can account for, without having
respect to some impressions on the minds of men from the constitution
and law of nature, with the tradition of a sabbatical rest from the
foundation of the world. Yet plain intimations of this weekly revolution
of time are to be found in the earliest Greek poets: Hesiod, Homer,
Linus, as well as among the nations of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks,
and Romans. It deserves consideration, too, on this subject, that Noah,
in sending forth the dove out of the ark, observed the septenary
revolution of days, Gen. viii, 10, 12; and at a subsequent period, in
the days of the Patriarch Jacob, a week is spoken of as a well known
period of time, Gen. xxix, 27; Judges xiv, 12, 15, 17. These
considerations are surely sufficient to evince the futility of the
arguments which are sometimes plausibly urged for the first institution
of the Sabbath under the law; and the design of which, in most cases is,
to set aside the moral obligation of appropriating one day in seven to
the purposes of the public worship of God, and the observation of divine
ordinances. But the truth is, that the seventh day was set apart from
the beginning as a day of rest; and it was also strictly enjoined upon
the Israelites in their law, both on the ground of its original
institution, Exod. xx, 8–11, and also to commemorate their deliverance
from the bondage of Egypt, Deut. v, 15.
“A Sabbath day’s journey” was reckoned to be two thousand cubits, or one
mile, Acts i, 12. The sabbatical year was celebrated among the Jews
every seventh year when the land was left without culture, Exod. xxii,
10. God appointed the observation of the sabbatical year, to preserve
the remembrance of the creation of the world, to enforce the
acknowledgment of his sovereign authority over all things, and in
particular over the land of Canaan, which he had given to the
Israelites, by delivering up the fruits to the poor and the stranger. It
was a sort of tribute, or small rent, by which they held the possession.
Beside, he intended to inculcate humanity upon his people, by commanding
that they should resign to the slaves, the poor, and the strangers, and
to the brutes, the produce of their fields, of their vineyards, and of
their gardens. In the sabbatical year all debts were remitted, and the
slaves were liberated, Exodus xxi, 2; Deut. xv, 2.
SABEANS, or “men of stature,” Isa. xlv, 14. These men were probably the
Sabeans of Arabia Felix, or of Asia. They submitted to Cyrus. The
Sabeans of Arabia were descended from Saba; but as there are several of
this name, who were all heads of peoples, or of tribes, we must
distinguish several kinds of Sabeans. 1. Those Sabeans who seized the
flocks of Job, i, 15, were, probably, a people of Arabia Deserta, about
Bozra; or, perhaps, a flying troop of Sabeans which infested that
country. 2. Sabeans, descendants from Sheba, son of Cush, Gen. x, 7, are
probably of Arabia Felix: they were famous for spices; the poets gave
them the epithet of soft and effeminate, and say they were governed by
women:
_Medis, levibusque Sabæis
Imperat hic sexus._
[This sex governs the Medes, and the gentle Sabeans.]
Several are of opinion, that from them came the queen of Sheba, 1 Kings
x, 1, 2; and that of these Sabeans the psalmist speaks, Psalm lxxii, 10,
“The kings of Arabia and Sheba shall give gifts;” and Jeremiah, vi, 20:
“What are the perfumes of Sheba to me?” and Isaiah, lx, 6: “All who come
from Sheba shall offer gold and perfumes.” 3. Sabeans, sons of Shebah,
son of Reumah, Gen. x, 7, probably dwelt in Arabia Felix. Probably it is
of these Ezekiel speaks, xxvii, 22, who came with their merchandise to
the fairs of Tyre: and Joel, iii, 8: “I will deliver up your children to
the tribe of Judah, who shall sell them to the Sabeans, a very distant
nation.” 4. Sabeans, descendants from Joktan, may very well be those
mentioned by Ezekiel, xxvii, 23: “Saba, Assur, and Chelmad, thy
dealers.” They are thought to have inhabited beyond the Euphrates;
whence they are connected with Asshur and Chilmad, Gen. x, 28; 1 Chron.
i, 22. 5. Sabeans are also placed in Africa, in the isle of Meroë.
Josephus brings the queen of Sheba from thence, and pretends that it had
the name of Shebah, or Saba, before that of Meroë.