In Book II, Chapter 8 Calvin exposits the Ten Commandments. I've noticed, particularly on the 4th Commandment, that the Puritans differ from Calvin on the nature of the Commandment. He states that the Commandment is fulfilled and abrogated in both its ceremonial and moral elements and that the reason for meeting one day in seven is more for the good ordering of the Church than anything else. It's also interesting that he allows for more frequent meetings of worship as men would allow (even daily if circumstances would permit).
I'm curious what historic tension this has brought between English Puritans and Continental Reformed because, even though there is general agreement, the specifics seem to be very contentious and one might argue that Calvin would think that some are wound too tight in insistence on certain Sabbath continuance.
I know this opens up a
but I hope we can discuss this theologically and historically rather than contentiously.
I'm curious what historic tension this has brought between English Puritans and Continental Reformed because, even though there is general agreement, the specifics seem to be very contentious and one might argue that Calvin would think that some are wound too tight in insistence on certain Sabbath continuance.
I know this opens up a
but I hope we can discuss this theologically and historically rather than contentiously.Fourth Commandment.
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. IN IT THOU SHALT NOT DO ANY WORK, &C.
28. The purport of the commandment is, that being dead to our own
affections and works, we meditate on the kingdom of God, and in order
to such meditation, have recourse to the means which he has appointed.
But as this commandment stands in peculiar circumstances apart from the
others, the mode of exposition must be somewhat different. Early
Christian writers are wont to call it typical, as containing the
external observance of a day which was abolished with the other types
on the advent of Christ. This is indeed true; but it leaves the half of
the matter untouched. Wherefore, we must look deeper for our
exposition, and attend to three cases in which it appears to me that
the observance of this commandment consists. First, under the rest of
the seventh days the divine Lawgiver meant to furnish the people of
Israel with a type of the spiritual rest by which believers were to
cease from their own works, and allow God to work in them. Secondly he
meant that there should be a stated day on which they should assemble
to hear the Law, and perform religious rites, or which, at least, they
should specially employ in meditating on his works, and be thereby
trained to piety. Thirdly, he meant that servants, and those who lived
under the authority of others, should be indulged with a day of rest,
and thus have some intermission from labour.
29. We are taught in many passages [208] that this adumbration of
spiritual rest held a primary place in the Sabbath. Indeed, there is no
commandment the observance of which the Almighty more strictly
enforces. When he would intimate by the Prophets that religion was
entirely subverted, he complains that his sabbaths were polluted,
violated, not kept, not hallowed; as if, after it was neglected, there
remained nothing in which he could be honoured. The observance of it he
eulogises in the highest terms, and hence, among other divine
privileges, the faithful set an extraordinary value on the revelation
of the Sabbath. In Nehemiah, the Levites, in the public assembly, thus
speak: "Thou madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst
them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant."
You see the singular honour which it holds among all the precepts of
the Law. All this tends to celebrate the dignity of the mystery, which
is most admirably expressed by Moses and Ezekiel. Thus in Exodus:
"Verily my sabbaths shall ye keep: for it is a sign between me and you
throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that
does sanctify you. Ye shall keep my sabbath therefore; for it is holy
unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for
whosoever does any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among
his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the
sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever does any work in the
sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Wherefore the children of
Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their
generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the
children of Israel for ever," (Exodus 31:13-17). Ezekiel is still more
full, but the sum of what he says amounts to this: that the sabbath is
a sign by which Israel might know that God is their sanctifier. If our
sanctification consists in the mortification of our own will, the
analogy between the external sign and the thing signified is most
appropriate. We must rest entirely, in order that God may work in us;
we must resign our own will, yield up our heart, and abandon all the
lusts of the flesh. In short, we must desist from all the acts of our
own mind, that God working in us, we may rest in him, as the Apostle
also teaches (Heb. 3:13; 4:3, 9).
30. This complete cessation was represented to the Jews by the
observance of one day in seven, which, that it might be more
religiously attended to, the Lord recommended by his own example. For
it is no small incitement to the zeal of man to know that he is engaged
in imitating his Creator. Should any one expect some secret meaning in
the number seven, this being in Scripture the number for perfection, it
may have been selected, not without cause, to denote perpetuity. In
accordance with this, Moses concludes his description of the succession
of day and night on the same day on which he relates that the Lord
rested from his works. Another probable reason for the number may be,
that the Lord intended that the Sabbath never should be completed
before the arrival of the last day. We here begin our blessed rest in
him, and daily make new progress in it; but because we must still wage
an incessant warfare with the flesh, it shall not be consummated until
the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah: "From one new moon to
another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to
worship before me, saith the Lord," (Isaiah 66:23); in other words,
when God shall be "all in all," (I Cor. 15:28). It may seem, therefore,
that by the seventh day the Lord delineated to his people the future
perfection of his sabbath on the last day, that by continual meditation
on the sabbath, they might throughout their whole lives aspire to this
perfection.
31. Should these remarks on the number seem to any somewhat
far-fetched, I have no objection to their taking it more simply: that
the Lord appointed a certain day on which his people might be trained,
under the tutelage of the Law, to meditate constantly on the spiritual
rest, and fixed upon the seventh, either because he foresaw it would be
sufficient, or in order that his own example might operate as a
stronger stimulus; or, at least to remind men that the Sabbath was
appointed for no other purpose than to render them conformable to their
Creator. It is of little consequence which of these be adopted,
provided we lose not sight of the principal thing delineated--viz. the
mystery of perpetual resting from our works. To the contemplation of
this, the Jews were every now and then called by the prophets, lest
they should think a carnal cessation from labour sufficient. Beside the
passages already quoted, there is the following: "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 shalt thou delight thyself in the
Lord," (Isaiah 58:13, 14). Still there can be no doubt, that, on the
advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, the ceremonial part of the commandment
was abolished. He is the truth, at whose presence all the emblems
vanish; the body, at the sight of which the shadows disappear. He, I
say, is the true completion of the sabbath: "We are buried with him by
baptism unto death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by
the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life,"
(Rom. 6:4). Hence, as the Apostle elsewhere says, "Let no man therefore
judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holiday, or of the
new moon, or of the sabbath days; which are a shadow of things to come;
but the body is of Christ," (Col. 2:16, 17); meaning by body the whole
essence of the truth, as is well explained in that passage. This is not
contented with one day, but requires the whole course of our lives,
until being completely dead to ourselves, we are filled with the life
of God. Christians, therefore, should have nothing to do with a
superstitious observance of days.
32. The two other cases ought not to be classed with ancient shadows,
but are adapted to every age. The sabbath being abrogated, there is
still room among us, first, to assemble on stated days for the hearing
of the Word, the breaking of the mystical bread, and public prayer;
and, secondly, to give our servants and labourers relaxation from
labour. It cannot be doubted that the Lord provided for both in the
commandment of the Sabbath. The former is abundantly evinced by the
mere practice of the Jews. The latter Moses has expressed in
Deuteronomy in the following terms: "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, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant;--that thy
man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou," (Deut.
5:14). Likewise in Exodus, "That thine ox and thine ass may rest, and
the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed," (Exod.
23:12). Who can deny that both are equally applicable to us as to the
Jews? Religious meetings are enjoined us by the word of God; their
necessity, experience itself sufficiently demonstrates. But unless
these meetings are stated, and have fixed days allotted to them, how
can they be held? We must, as the apostle expresses it, do all things
decently and in orders (1 Cor. 14:40). So impossible, however, would it
be to preserve decency and order without this politic arrangements that
the dissolution of it would instantly lead to the disturbance and ruin
of the Church. But if the reason for which the Lord appointed a sabbath
to the Jews is equally applicable to us, no man can assert that it is a
matter with which we have nothing to do. Our most provident and
indulgent Parent has been pleased to provide for our wants not less
than for the wants of the Jews. Why, it may be asked, do we not hold
daily meetings, and thus avoid the distinction of days? Would that we
were privileged to do so! Spiritual wisdom undoubtedly deserves to have
some portion of every day devoted to it. But if, owing to the weakness
of many, daily meetings cannot be held, and charity will not allow us
to exact more of them, why should we not adopt the rule which the will
of God has obviously imposed upon us?
33. I am obliged to dwell a little longer on this because some restless
spirits are now making an outcry about the observance of the Lord's
day. They complain that Christian people are trained in Judaism,
because some observance of days is retained. My reply is, That those
days are observed by us without Judaism, because in this matter we
differ widely from the Jews. We do not celebrate it with most minute
formality, as a ceremony by which we imagine that a spiritual mystery
is typified, but we adopt it as a necessary remedy for preserving order
in the Church. Paul informs us that Christians are not to be judged in
respect of its observance, because it is a shadow of something to come
(Col. 2:16); and, accordingly, he expresses a fear lest his labour
among the Galatians should prove in vain, because they still observed
days (Gal. 4:10, 11). And he tells the Romans that it is superstitious
to make one day differ from another (Rom. 14:5). But who, except those
restless men, does not see what the observance is to which the Apostle
refers? Those persons had no regard to that politic and ecclesiastical
arrangement, [209] but by retaining the days as types of spiritual
things, they in so far obscured the glory of Christ, and the light of
the Gospel. They did not desist from manual labour on the ground of its
interfering with sacred study and meditation, but as a kind of
religious observance; because they dreamed that by their cessation from
labour, they were cultivating the mysteries which had of old been
committed to them. It was, I say, against this preposterous observance
of days that the Apostle inveighs, and not against that legitimate
selection which is subservient to the peace of Christian society. For
in the churches established by him, this was the use for which the
Sabbath was retained. He tells the Corinthians to set the first day
apart for collecting contributions for the relief of their brethren at
Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:2). If superstition is dreaded, there was more
danger in keeping the Jewish sabbath than the Lord's day as Christians
now do. It being expedient to overthrow superstition, the Jewish holy
day was abolished; and as a thing necessary to retain decency, orders
and peace, in the Church, another day was appointed for that purpose.
34. It was not, however, without a reason that the early Christians
substituted what we call the Lord's day for the Sabbath. The
resurrection of our Lord being the end and accomplishment of that true
rest which the ancient sabbath typified, this day, by which types were
abolished serves to warn Christians against adhering to a shadowy
ceremony. I do not cling so to the number seven as to bring the Church
under bondage to it, nor do I condemn churches for holding their
meetings on other solemn days, provided they guard against
superstition. This they will do if they employ those days merely for
the observance of discipline and regular order. The whole may be thus
summed up: As the truth was delivered typically to the Jews, so it is
imparted to us without figure; first, that during our whole lives we
may aim at a constant rest from our own works, in order that the Lord
may work in us by his Spirit; secondly that every individual, as he has
opportunity, may diligently exercise himself in private, in pious
meditation on the works of God, and, at the same time, that all may
observe the legitimate order appointed by the Church, for the hearing
of the word, the administration of the sacraments, and public prayer:
And, thirdly, that we may avoid oppressing those who are subject to us.
In this way, we get quit of the trifling of the false prophets, who in
later times instilled Jewish ideas into the people, alleging that
nothing was abrogated but what was ceremonial in the commandment, [210]
(this they term in their language the taxation of the seventh day),
while the moral part remains--viz. the observance of one day in seven.
[211] But this is nothing else than to insult the Jews, by changing the
day, and yet mentally attributing to it the same sanctity; thus
retaining the same typical distinction of days as had place among the
Jews. And of a truth, we see what profit they have made by such a
doctrine. Those who cling to their constitutions go thrice as far as
the Jews in the gross and carnal superstition of sabbatism; so that the
rebukes which we read in Isaiah (Isa. 1:13; 58:13) apply as much to
those of the present day, [212] as to those to whom the Prophet
addressed them. We must be careful, however, to observe the general
doctrine--viz. in order that religion may neither be lost nor languish
among us, we must diligently attend on our religious assemblies, and
duly avail ourselves of those external aids which tend to promote the
worship of God.
