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Sabbath was the best day in the week to plan successful voyages; showing that his mind had no Sabbath. He has been in the Insane Hospital for years, and will probably die there." Many men are there, or in the maniac's grave, because they had no Sabbath. They broke a law of nature, and of nature's God, and found "the way of the transgressor to be hard." cases are so numerous, that a writer on the subject remarks, "We never knew a man work seven days in a week who did not kill himself, or kill his mind."

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Thomas Sewall, M.D., professor of pathology and the practice of medicine in the Columbian College, Washington, writes thus: "While I consider it the more important design of the institution of the Sabbath to assist in religious devotion, and advance men's spiritual welfare, I have long held the opinion that one of its chief benefits has reference to its physical and intellectual constitution; affording him, as it does, one day in seven for the renovation of his exhausted energies of body and mind,—a proportion of time small enough, according to the results of my observation, for the accomplishment of this object. I have remarked, as a general fact, that those to whom the Sabbath brings the most entire rest from their habitual labours, perform the secular duties of the week more vigorously and better than those who continue them without intermission."

It would be easy greatly to extend the evidence in proof of these points. The moral to be deduced from them cannot be mistaken. The man who, in contempt of the Divine law, employs himself or his servants in secular labour on the Lord's day, sets the laws of nature, as well as the direct command of God, at defiance, and reaps both a present and a future loss. It was not as a harsh or ceremonial imposition, but as a pure law of love, adapted to the frailty of the human frame, that God said of the Sabbath, "On it thou shalt do no manner of work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates." How elevated and delightful a view does it give us of the great God and Father of all, thus to find that, while crime and suffering, and even insanity, all flow from our sins, and are increased by our ignorance and our want of resemblance to the Divine image, that all may be modified, ameliorated, and even to some extent restored to the happy state in which it came from God's hand, by a simple reliance on the apostolic precept, "Love never fails."

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HE whole argument by which we seek to enforce the universal influence of the law of

love, springs from motives of a lofty character, and such as ought to influence the Christian mind. We are told to love our neighbour, our brother, and our enemy, entirely from the same generous principles. Yet lesser motives may also be urged; for even by the selfishness of our nature we might learn that love is the best motive-power. The principle of nonresistance, so much urged in our own day, is based on the truest grounds of political economy as well as on the lofty basis of the Divine will.

Whence originated the term Christian non-resistance? Non-resistance comes from the injunction, "Resist not

evil" (Matt. v. 39). The words "resist not," being changed from the form of a verb to that of a substantive, gives us non-resistance. This term is considered more strikingly significant than any other of the principle involved and the duty enjoined in our Saviour's precept. Hence its adoption and established use. It is denominated Christian non-resistance, to distinguish it, as the genuine primitive doctrine, from mere philosophical, sentimental, and necessitous non-resistance. Literally, then, Christian non-resistance is the original non-resistance taught and exemplified by Jesus Christ; the bearings, limitations, and applications of which are to be learned from the Scriptures of the New Testament, the only rule of conduct to which we can safely apply for guidance in every question of duty, whether it be to God or to our neighbour. And what are those bearings, limitations, and applications? What is aimed at is, to carry the obligations of non-resistance just as far, and no farther, than Jesus Christ has. It is easy to go beyond or to fall short of his limits. Even those of all classes who profess to abide implicitly by his teachings, construe and interpret his language so as to favour their respective errors. Some seize on the strong, figurative language of Scripture, and make it seem to mean much more than we can believe to have

been conveyed in its precepts. Others ingeniously fritter away and nullify the very essence of Christ's teaching, in such a manner as to make him seem to

mean much less than he must have intended.

There

is, however, a general rule for such cases, which can scarcely fail to expose the errors of both classes. It is this "Consider the context; consider parallel texts; consider examples; consider the known spirit of Christianity." Any construction or interpretation of the recorded language of Christ, or of his apostles, in which all these concur, is sound. Any other is most probably

erroneous.

"I say unto you, resist not evil," &c. This single text, from which, we believe, the term non-resistance took its rise, if justly construed, furnishes a complete key to the true bearings, limitations, and applications of the doctrine under discussion. This is precisely one of those precepts which may be easily made to mean much more, or much less, than its author intended. It is in the intensive, condensed form of expression, and can be understood only by a due regard to its context. What did the divine Teacher mean by the word "evil," and what by the word "resist?"

There are various kinds of resistance which may be offered to personal injury, when threatened or actually inflicted. There is passive resistance-a dead silence, a sullen inertia, a complete muscular helplessness— an utter refusal to speak or move. Does the context show that Jesus contemplated any such resistance in his prohibition? No. There is an active, righteous, moral resistance-a meek, firm remonstrance-rebuke, (149)

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