convey no teaching? Could the Son of God lie in the grave on the seventh day, if that day were to be spent in rest and peace; and in the full sense that nothing remained to be done? Impossible! We want no further proof of the impossibility of celebrating a sabbath than that which is afforded at the grave of Jesus. We may stand beside that grave amazed to find it occupied by such an one on the seventh day; but, oh! the reason is obvious. Man is a fallen, ruined, guilty creature. His long career of guilt has ended in crucifying the Lord of glory; and not only crucifying him, but placing a great stone at the mouth of the tomb, to prevent, if possible, his leaving it.

And what was man doing while the Son of God was in the grave? He was observing the Sabbath-day! What a thought! Christ in his grave to repair a broken sabbath, and yet man attempting to keep the sabbath as though it were not broken at all! It was man's sabbath, and not God's. It was a sabbath without Christ,—an empty, powerless, worthless, because Christless and Godless, form.

But some will say, "the day has been changed, while all the principles belonging to it remain the same." I do not believe that scripture furnishes any foundation for such an idea. Where is the divine warrant for such a statement? Surely if there is scripture authority, nothing can be easier than to produce it. But the fact is, there is none; on the contrary, the distinction is most fully maintained in the New Testament. Take one remarkable passage, in proof: "In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week." (Matt. xxviii. 1.) There is, evidently, no mention here of the seventh day being changed to the first day; nor yet of any transfer of the Sabbath from the one to the other. The first day of the week is not the Sabbath changed, but altogether a new day. It is the first day of a new period, and not the last day of an old. The seventh day stands connected with earth and earthly rest: the first day of the week, on the contrary, introduces us to heaven and heavenly rest.

This makes a vast difference in the principle; and when we look at the matter in a practical point of view, the difference is most material. If I celebrate the seventh day, it marks me as an earthly man, inasmuch as that day is, clearly, the rest of earth—creation-rest; but if I am taught by the Word and Spirit of God to understand the meaning of the first day of the week, I shall at once apprehend its immediate connection with that new and heavenly order of things, of which the death and resurrection of Christ form the everlasting foundation. The seventh day appertained to Israel and to earth. The first day of the week appertains to the Church and to heaven. Further, Israel was commanded to observe the sabbath day; the Church is privileged to enjoy the first day of the week. The former was the test of Israel's moral condition; the latter is the significant proof of the Church's eternal acceptance. That made manifest what Israel could do for God; this perfectly declares what God has done for us.

It is quite impossible to over-estimate the value and importance of the Lord's day, (ἡ κυριακη ἡμερα,) as the first day of the week is termed, in the first chapter of the Apocalypse. Being the day on which Christ rose from the dead, it sets forth not the completion of creation, but the full and glorious triumph of redemption. Nor should we regard the celebration of the first day of the week as a matter of bondage, or as a yoke put on the neck of a Christian. It is his delight to celebrate that happy day. Hence we find that the first day of the week was pre-eminently the day on which the early Christians came together to break bread; and at that period of the Church's history, the distinction between the sabbath and the first day of the week was fully maintained. The Jews celebrated the former, by assembling in their synagogues to read "the law and the prophets;" the Christians celebrated the latter, by assembling to break bread. There is not so much as a single passage of scripture in which the first day of the week is called the sabbath day; whereas there is the most abundant proof of their entire distinctness.

Why, therefore, contend for that which has no foundation in the Word? Love, honor, and celebrate the Lord's day as much as possible; seek, like the apostle, to be "in the Spirit" thereon; let your retirement from secular matters be as profound as ever you can make it; but while you do all this, call it by its proper name; give it its proper place; understand its proper principles; attach to it its proper characteristics; and, above all, do not bind down the Christian, as with an iron rule, to observe the seventh day, when it is his high and holy privilege to observe the first. Do not bring him down from heaven, where he can rest, to a cursed and bloodstained earth, where he cannot. Do not ask him to keep a day which his Master spent in the tomb, instead of that blessed day on which he left it. (See, carefully, Matt. xxviii. 1-6; Mark xvi. 1-2; Luke xxiv. 1; John xx. 1, 19, 26; Acts xx. 7; 1 Cor. xvi. 2; Rev. i. 10; Acts xiii. 14; xvii. 2; Col. ii. 16.)

But let it not be supposed that we lose sight of the important fact that the sabbath will again be celebrated, in the land of Israel, and over the whole creation. It assuredly will. "There remaineth a rest (σαββατισμος) for the people of God." (Heb. iv. 9.) When the Son of Abraham, Son of David, and Son of Man, shall assume his position of government over the whole earth, there will be a glorious sabbath,—a rest which sin shall never interrupt. But now, he is rejected, and all who know and love him are called to take their place with him in his rejection; they are called to "go forth to him without the camp bearing his reproach." (Heb. xiii. 13.) If earth could keep a sabbath, there would be no reproach; but the very fact of the professing church's seeking to make the first day of the week the sabbath, reveals a deep principle. It is but the effort to get back to an earthly standing, and to an earthly code of morals.

Many may not see this. Many true Christians may, most conscientiously, observe the sabbath day, as such; and we are bound to honor their consciences, though we are perfectly warranted in asking them to furnish a scriptural basis for their conscientious convictions. We would not stumble or wound their conscience, but we would seek to instruct it. However, we are not now occupied with conscience or its convictions, but only with the principle which lies at the root of what may be termed the sabbath question; and I would only put the question to the Christian reader, which is more consonant with the entire scope and spirit of the New Testament, the celebration of the seventh day or sabbath, or the celebration of the first day of the week or the Lord's day?[3]

We shall now consider the connection between the sabbath, and the river flowing out of Eden. There is much interest in this. It is the first notice we get of "the river of God," which is, here, introduced in connection with God's rest. When God was resting in his works, the whole world felt the blessing and refreshment thereof. It was impossible for God to keep a sabbath, and earth not to feel its sacred influence. But, alas! the streams which flowed forth from Eden—the scene of earthly rest—were speedily interrupted, because the rest of creation was marred by sin.

Yet, blessed be God, sin did not put a stop to