FOOTNOTES.

We are also reminded, that there were some in the early church—slaves, for instance—who could not keep the Lord’s day; and these, it is argued, would rather have died than have desecrated it, had they considered it of the same obligation as the command to abstain from idolatry. To this it may be replied, that the question is not what certain individuals thought, or what was the practice of certain communities, but what the word of God teaches. There is, however, a marked distinction between the two cases here supposed, arising from the difference between the two commandments. Many instances may occur, in which it is physically impossible to obey the letter of some of the commandments. Thus, poverty, sickness, or other providential impediment, may incapacitate the most obedient child from ministering to the wants of his parents. In like manner, bodily infirmity, imprisonment, or other providential restraint, may prevent the observance of the fourth commandment in the letter, while the heart longs to honour God’s holy day, and to enjoy its blessings. The Christian slave, therefore, whose body (in the providence of God) was under the power of his master, might be compelled to work on the Lord’s day without incurring guilt. But he could not worship an idol, without an open renunciation of Christianity. Surely there is no need to insist on the difference between the two cases.

Professor Blunt has elaborately demonstrated, that the Sabbath was observed in the Patriarchal age. See Scriptural Coincidences, pp. 18–24. The hebdomadal division of time by the Pagan nations of the West, and by the Hindus and other people in the East, seems to indicate a traditional recognition of the Sabbath, though the observance of the day, as a day of rest, passed away with the worship of Him, in whose honour it was originally instituted.