The Assembly of God. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. IIIMackintosh, Charles Henry
Religion
The Assembly of God. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. III
Mackintosh, Charles Henry
Theology
If it were merely a question of the observance or non-observance of a
day, it might be easily disposed of, inasmuch as the apostle teaches us
in Rom. xiv. 5, 6, and also in Col. ii. 16, that such things are not to
be made a ground of judgment. But seeing there is a great principle
involved in the Sabbath question, we deem it to be of the very last
importance to place it upon a clear and Scriptural basis. We shall quote
the Fourth Commandment at full length: "Remember the sabbath day, to
keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the
seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do
any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy
maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
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" (Ex. xx. 8-11). This same law is repeated
in Exodus xxxi. 12-17. And in pursuance thereof we find in Numbers xv. a
man stoned for gathering sticks on the sabbath day. All this is plain
and absolute enough. Man has no right to alter God's law in reference to
the sabbath; no more than he has to alter it in reference to murder,
adultery, or theft. This, we presume, will not be called in question.
The entire body of old Testament Scripture fixes the seventh day as the
sabbath; and the Fourth Commandment lays down the mode in which that
sabbath was to be observed. Now where, we ask, is this precedent
followed? Where is this command obeyed? Is it not plain that the
professing Church neither keeps the right day as the sabbath, nor does
she keep it after the Scripture mode? The commandments of God are made
of none effect by human traditions, and the glorious truths which hang
around "the Lord's day" are lost sight of. The Jew is robbed of his
distinctive day and all the privileges therewith connected, which are
only suspended for the present, while judicial blindness hangs over that
loved and interesting, though now judged and scattered, people. And
furthermore, the Church is robbed of her distinctive day and all the
glories therewith connected, which if really understood would have the
effect of lifting her above earthly things into the sphere which
properly belongs to her, as linked by faith to her glorified Head in
heaven. In result, we have neither pure Judaism nor pure Christianity,
but an anomalous system arising out of an utterly unscriptural
combination of the two.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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