280 Obituary. Died, on the 18th of January, 1850, Mrs. Elizabeth Ann Tansley, the wife of Mr. James Tansley, of Brightlingsea, aged 36; beloved and respected by a large circle of relations and friends. She was a sincere receiver of the truths of the New Church, having been brought up in the church from infancy; its first anniversary in this place was held when she was about three months old. She was of a cheerful disposition, and was seldom heard to complain, though she had many trials. She would say, "I cannot make a trouble of any thing." Her last trial was a very severe one. Her husband was taken ill of fever, which confined him to his bed; she nursed him with unwearied attention till her own frame gave way to the same disease, yet she was not heard to murmur. Her greatest concern, when she felt she must depart, was about her children. "To leave seven motherless children," she said, "would be a hard trial to her husband, but she trusted the Lord would raise him up kind friends." Sometimes she would say, "If it was not for my dear babes I should be loath to be called to this world again." Her patience under suffering was a great consolation to her sorrowing husband and children; and we hope she is now enjoying those blessed realities which are promised to all who love the Lord above all things, and their neighbour as themselves. S. R. Died, on Friday, April 26th, at his residence in Broughton, Manchester, Mr. Thomas Atkinson, aged 42 years. He was an amiable and estimable man, and a sincere lover of the New Church. He had the advantage of being born of New Church parents, and being brought up in connection with the Peter-street Society, under the pastoral care of the venerated Rev. Richard Jones. He was one of a company of young men who formed a reading meeting, which continued for many years, and was of eminent service to them all. They met on Tuesday evenings at eight o'clock throughout the year, and on Sunday evenings, during the winter, but in the summer only once a month. On the Tuesday evenings they devoted themselves to the study of grammar, one evening, and of reading the next, alternately. On the occasions of the readings the members sat round a large table, each one with slate and pencil, and one of them chosen as president for the evening, who called upon the members to read in their turns, at a desk placed for the purpose at a convenient distance, some select piece chosen before. After each one had read, every member was called upon to comment on the reading, and to state what faults he had noted upon his slate, the reader not returning to his place until the remarks were finished. On Sunday evenings there was an alternation of reading a chapter or psalm, with like circumstances, once a fortnight; a discussion on some theological subject, once a month; and once a month a lecture from Mr. Jones to the young men, seated round a table in front of him, and the friends of the church filling the remainder of the room. Two or three of the young men recapitulated, at each succeeding lecture, what had been delivered at the lecture previous, and many friends can still recollect that these were most interesting and delightful meetings. They are referred to on this occasion, partly to give a hint to our young men of the present day, and partly because our departed brother, who belonged to this meeting almost from its commencement to its close, adds another to the large number of its members who have already gone to their everlasting homes, to realize the scenes and blessings they largely learned to prize at that reading meeting. Our brother was devout and orderly in all his conduct; most careful over his inward thoughts and motives, and a diligent reader of Swedenborg. To converse upon the doctrines of the church was his greatest delight, and to do the truth was his constant aim. The writer has had close intercourse since his youth with our departed brother, and feels constrained to say that he has never known one who had, so far as we can judge, a stronger interior regard for justice. The desire to do justice, and to see justice done, was constantly referred to in our brother's transactions, and it mingled with his dying prayers. Besides his bereaved widow and family, for whom he most tenderly cared, he has left a wide circle of friends whom he loved, and by whom his memory will be cherished as one whom they trust to meet again in the realms of unfailing peace. J. B. Cave and Sever, Printers, 18, St. Ann's-street, Manchester. THE SABBATH OF THE JEW, AND THE LORD'S DAY OF THE CHRISTIAN. Or late there has been much said as to the proper observance of the Sabbath, and much excitement has been caused throughout the community by certain zealous minds whose religion appears to concentrate itself in the punctuality, solemnity, and sacred exclusiveness with which the duties of that holy day should be fulfilled. Our object in writing this paper is not to throw any damper over an enlightened Christian zeal for the due observance of the Lord's day. We are well aware that the cause of every thing holy, religious, and spiritual is, to a great extent, maintained by a truly Christian observance of that day, and of the duties of public worship and of Christian fellowship which should then be performed. If it were not for that day there is every reason to believe that the masses and millions of our population would have no means whatever of elevating themselves from the merely sensual and natural into some conscious idea and regard for the spiritual and the heavenly. Notwithstanding the wide-spread diffusion of Bibles and of religious books, and notwithstanding the extended ability to read them which now, thanks be to Sunday schools!-so generally prevails, the Lord's day is nevertheless to the multitude the only day on which instruction in spiritual and heavenly things can be given and received, and the only opportunity by which the spark of piety which feebly trembles on the smoking flax can be kindled into a celestial flame of love to God and to man. Whatever keeps awake in the human breast a sense of religious duty and devotion,-whatever serves to break down its strong holds of selfishness, and to awaken its aspirations after the N. S. No. 128.-VOL. XI. Y spiritual and eternal;-whatever impresses us with a sense of the immortal, and whatever arouses us to consider the things which concern our everlasting peace, must needs be of infinite advantage to man. But the Lord's day and the duties of that day have all these and innumerable other tendencies to promote man's real good;-not only the eternal good of his soul, but also the good of his natural state and the health of his body. All this unspeakable good, it might be demonstrated, follows a truly Christian observance of the Sabbath. But there is a great difference between a Jewish celebration of the Sabbath and a Christian observance of the Lord's day; and it appears to us that much confusion and strife have arisen, especially at various periods in the history of the church, from the mistaken endeavour of introducing into the practice of Christian duties the strict ceremonial of the Jewish Sabbath. That ceremonial was, together with nearly all the rituals of the Jewish Church, entirely abolished and removed by the Lord when He came to establish the Christian dispensation as the grand result of His redeeming love. We have, therefore, now no more to do with the ceremonial of the church of the Jew in respect to the Sabbath, than we have with the ceremonial of sacrificing the lamb every morning and evening as the only condition of keeping up a sense of religion amongst us. If it be maintained that the strict ceremonial of the Sabbath in the Jewish church should be imitated by Christians, we then insist that the entire ritual shall be observed, and "that no fire shall be kindled in any of our habitations," and that "the man who only gathers wood" for that purpose shall be subject to the strict penalties of the law. But thanks be to God, this law of bondage having served its purpose, that of representing the great facts and realities of the spiritual life, and the mode of attaining it,—having served as a shadow of the good things to come," is now abolished. Instead of being subject to this ceremonial in any of its stringent and inflexible features, we are now "to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and not to be entangled again with this yoke of bondage.” (Gal. v. 1.) 66 The Puritans, in their efforts to counteract the loose notions of the Romanists in respect to the observance of the Lord's day, and in order to check the licentious sports allowed by the Romish church to be practised on that day, went to the opposite extreme, and introduced, as far as possible, the Jewish observance of the Sabbath into the Christian church. They took up the Bible and brought every thing to the divine standard of the "Law and the Testimony;" and in opposition to the Romanist, who cried out "Hear the church!"-the Puritan exclaimed, "What saith the Word of the Lord ?" And the Puritan was right; but in so doing he should have discriminated between the ceremonial of the Jewish church and the divine requirements of Christianity. But this discrimination he did not make, and herein the Puritan was wrong. Among the Jews the Sabbath with the laws regulating its observance, was the most holy institution in their dispensation. All its holiness, like that of every other ceremonial, was derived from its spiritual signification. For the Jewish church consisted of a system of types, which shadowed forth, or represented the good things which were to come in the Christian church, after the Lord had accomplished the work of redemption and glorification. This external sanctity was guarded by the severest penalties, so that the man who was only gathering some wood on the Sabbath with the intention to kindle a fire, was put to death. (Numb. xv. 32.) Those, and only those who are acquainted with the laws of representatives and correspondences as they existed in the representative church of the Jews, can see the reasons why those relating to the Sabbath, the holy fire, and other rituals were so stringent and severe. The man who was gathering wood with the intention of kindling a fire was not, on that account, subject to eternal death; but the penalty he suffered, signified the eternal death of the man who is intent upon kindling the fire of self-love as the actuating principle of his life,-who, as the Lord says through the prophet, “kindle a fire and compass themselves about with sparks; who walk in the light of their fire, and in the sparks that they have kindled ; this ye shall have at mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow." (Isa. 1. 11.) There was one thing which especially characterized this day above the rest among the Jews. There was to be no labour and no work whatever performed on this day, neither by man nor by animal of any kind, nor was even a fire to be kindled for domestic purposes. There was consequently to be universal exemption from labour, so that a universal rest and repose were the primary characteristics by which the Sabbath was kept. There was no marked difference as to the worship in the temple between that day and every other, except that on the Sabbath they should offer, besides the morning and the evening sacrifice, one in addition. (Numb. xxviii. 10.) This solemn stillness must have been very imposing, affecting the mind of the devout Jew with peculiar tranquillity and peace. What, then, was the ground of the extreme holiness of the Sabbath among the Jews? The term Sabbath, which signifies rest and peace, involves its own spiritual signification. It denotes the work of religion, the work of holiness, of love, of faith, of peace finished and estab lished in the soul of man; and as there can be nothing so holy as this, when God has fully finished his work of salvation upon man, so the Sabbath, as representative of this work, was the most holy institution in the Jewish church. And as the regeneration of man is an image of the Lord's glorification, so in the supreme sense the Sabbath represented the Lord's work of redemption and glorification completed,-when the Divine and Human natures in Him were united and made one. The labours and temptations by which this work is effected both in the Lord and in man, are denoted by the six days of labour which precede the Sabbath. And as the Lord Himself, in His Divine Humanity, is the only Source whence all the power is derived by which the blessings involved in the Sabbath can be procured and enjoyed, hence He is called "the Lord of the Sabbath." (Mark ii. 28.) By comparing Exodus xx. 11, with Deut. v. 15, it is evident that the ceremonial respecting the Sabbath has a spiritual signification. For in Exodus the divine reason given why the Sabbath should be kept holy is, because "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, &c. and rested on the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it;" but in Deuteronomy, the divine reason given for hallowing the Sabbath day, was "because the Lord had brought the people of Israel out of Egypt," &c.; wherefore it is said, "the Lord commanded thee to keep holy the Sabbath day." Now, the two reasons here stated differ greatly in the literal meaning, but in the spiritual sense they beautifully harmonize, shewing us that the divine record of the creation in Genesis, and the deliverance of the people from Egypt, both signify the work of redemption and regeneration. 66 We now discover the reason why no manner of work should be done on the Sabbath. For to do any kind of work on that day would be to destroy its spiritual signification, and would indicate that a man acted from his own selfish nature, doing," as the Prophet says, "his own ways, finding his own pleasure, and speaking his own words"-(Isa. lviii. 13.)-thus acting entirely from his own proprium-which conduct must needs terminate in spiritual death. Hence we may also see, that although the ceremonial of the Jewish Sabbath was abrogated by the Lord when in the world, yet in its spiritual sense it involves divine Truths which ought ever to recur to our minds, when this divine command is read, since unless we have a practical regard to these Truths, we cannot enter into that eternal rest in heaven, of which the Sabbath in the Jewish church was the striking emblem. But what is the Lord's day of the Christian, and what is the manner |