The Christian Sabbath: Its Nature, Design, and Proper Observance

In the very law of the Decalogue God commands its observance equally by Jews and Gentiles: "In it thou shall not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates." This stranger was the foreigner residing in the land of Israel. To see the convincing force of this fact the reader must contrast the jealous care with which the "stranger," the pagan foreigner sojourning in Jewry, was excluded from all share in the Levitical worship. No foreigner could partake of the passover; it was sacrilege. It was at the peril of his life that he presumed to enter the inner courtyard of the temple, where the bloody sacrifice was offered. Now, when this foreigner is required to keep the Sabbath along with the families of Israel, does not this prove that rest to be no ceremonial, no type like the Passover and the altar, but a universal moral institution designed for all nations and times?