Observer, May 1, '71,

Christ." Dr. MacKnight says "The Greek commentators, by kovWVIA ELS TO EVAYYEXION (fellowship in the gospel') understood the presents of money sent by the Philippians to the Apostle, whereby he was enabled to preach the gospel to the Thessalonians without expense. This sense of the phrase Pierce hath adopted, and it must be acknowledged that good works of this sort are called by Paul κowwvia-2 Cor. viii. 4." Dean Alford reads the verse-" For your fellowship in regard to the gospel from the first day until now." We, of course, reject," contribution," as given by A. Campbell, in favour of "fellowship ;" and all must admit that es To evayyedtov is well represented by "for the gospel," while "in regard to the gospel," preferred by Alford, expresses the same idea, though not so directly. We conclude, with Pierce, Campbell, and the Greek commentators, that "fellowship for the gospel" refers to money expended in aiding Paul in his work of proclaiming that gospel. But still this does not settle the question whether the fellowship covers the support of preachers or leaves them to be provided for by other contributions; nor is there anything to determine whether the entire expenditure of the church should be met from the one fund. Taking it as granted that Phil. i. 5. certainly refers to money contributions for the spread of the gospel, still it does not appear whether the term fellowship in that instance is applied to the fellowship, as in Acts ii. 42, or to a particular fellowship, or participation in the special work indicated, as when we read of the fellowship of the mystery, the fellowship of the Spirit, the fellowship of his suffering, etc. So far as we are able to discern, Scripture is silent on these points. All that we know in relation thereto is, that the fellowship denotes a co-partnery in temporal things; that distribution was made, not according to the share of every man, but as any one had need; and that money was contributed for the support of those who preached the gospel. But whether it was taken from the fellowship fund or raised by separate contributions we know not. have we information as to whether the various other expenses, such as cost of meeting place, publication, etc., were met from the one fund or provided for otherwise. Where the Scriptures are silent we should be silent. Where there is no law there is no transgression. Where God has not given a law we should not impose one, but leave each church to do as it deems expedient. Our conclusion, then, is; that there should be in every church a common fund from which its needing members receive aid, and over which other churches have no control; that whether those who devote all their time to preaching, and need support, be sustained from this fellowship or by contributions for that special purpose, is left for each church to determine; and, also, that whether other incidental expenses come from the one fund or not, is equally undecided, and, therefore, belongs to the region of expediency. On these questions each Christian has the right of voice and vote, and each church decides for itself.

Nor

The

Then as to PROPORTION. Now and then we meet a brother who has a sort of tithe-fever every Christian should contribute at least a tenth of his entire income, excepting only those who need support from the church, and some would not be satisfied unless they too give back a tenth. Jews gave a tenth, say they, and if that were given under an inferior dispensation we ought to give at least in like proportion. Now this is completely fanciful. 1.-We are not under the law, have nothing to do with tithes, and the New Testament gives no hint as to a rule of proportion other than that each give as God has prospered him. 2.-We might just as well say that the Jew gave an eighth, a seventh, a sixth, or perhaps a

Observer, May 1, '71

fifth, as to fix upon a tenth, for the tenth was only one payment out of many. 3.-The dispensations differ; then obedience secured temporal blessing, while now the reverse is often the case. Then the men who insist upon the tenth cannot tell us whether that proportion is to be given wholly into the hands of the church or relates to the entire proportion we put aside for works of love and benevolence. Nor are they able to say whether it is to be given to one fund in the church or disposed of in various contributions as needed for various church work. The only reasonable and sound plea appertaining to the tenth argument is, that a Christian, in circumstances equally favourable to giving, should certainly, in view of the higher blessings and promises of this dispensation, give more than the Jew. This is undeniable, but it does not affect, in the slightest degree, the question of proportion. We go further, and confidently declare that a fixed rule of proportion is unscriptural, undesirable and unjust. Unjust because two men may earn the same wages, the one having a sickly family and the other a family perfectly healthy; in which case the proportion of income contributed should not be the same. Again, the same person may double his income without increase of family or enlargement of necessary outlay. Say he gave a tenth when his income was only half what it is now: if he now give only a tenth, his former proportion, in view of his real need, will be far, far, above his present payment. To this it is said, "O yes! But he should now give more than a tenth, but everyone should give at least a tenth." We deny that any such should exists-there is no such law-the church has no right to impose it; and he who would bind it upon his brethren plays the part of a Pharaoh. The Lord has not set any one member of His Church, nor has He empowered the whole Church, to assess the members of his body so as to determine how much in the pound they shall pay into His treasury.

In connection with this question comes that other: open or secret giving. "You must have a box or bag, so that no one knows what the other gives,' says one. "You should have envelopes numbered, so that the exact contribution of each member may be duly entered," says another. Now there is again no should in the case; because there is not one word enjoining secret giving to church funds, and no word against it. One thing we know if the contribution is so arranged that the amounts given are known, the sum total will be very much higher than upon the other plan. On the other hand, your peace and harmony will suffer; comparisons, more or less odious, will (and always do) crop up, and you may be surprised if serious convulsions are not, now and then, experienced. If a church prefer to have the more money and the less peace, we do not see that it violates any law by allowing those members to have envelopes who please to use them, nor by recommending them to do so, provided that those who prefer to give in secret be at liberty to act according to their preference, which, in some cases, is also a matter of conscience.

Here we leave the subject for another month. In the meantime we shall be glad to hear from readers who take exception to anything as yet advanced. It would be better for them to be heard as we go on, while the points are fresh in view, than after the close of the entire subject. D. K.

ANSWERS TO QUERIES.*

1. WHY did the Apostle Peter need a miracle to convince him that the Gentiles were, equally with the Jews, entitled to receive and obey the Gospel, seeing the Apostles * Other answers are to hand, but they go over the same ground.-ED.

Observer, May 1, '71.

had been commanded to preach it to every creature, and had received the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth?

Because the miracle was part of the process by which the Holy Spirit was guiding him into all truth. Inspiration did not make the apostles infallible all at once. As devout Jews they were extremely averse to any violation of the sacred customs of their nation. The means employed by God to overcome this aversion were, doubtless, wisely chosen. See Acts x. 28.

2. If the Disciples at Troas and Corinth met at night to break the bread are we justified in doing so at any other time?

Yes. There is no law, and where no law is there can be no transgression. 3. How is it that our translators have rendered oaßßarwv "the first day of the week," in Acts xx. 7 and 1. Cor. xvi. 2, whilst in Matthew xxviii. 1, they make it the last day of the week as well as the first?

The querist mis-states the fact. It is not strictly true that our translators have anywhere rendered oaßßarov "the first day of the week." An σαββατων additional word (a) is required to complete the phrase so rendered. Mia σaßßarov means literally One of the Sabbath and is analogous to our English phrase One o'clock. As One o'clock means the first hour of the day so One of the Sabbath means the first day of the week, a week being that portion of time which is marked off by a Sabbath. It must be borne in mind that the Jews had no special names for the days of the week answering to our Sunday, Monday, &c., they merely numbered them one In Matthew xxviii. 1, therefore, the first occurrence of oaßßаTwv, refers to the sabbath itself, while the second occurrence having the numeral pia prefixed refers to day one, not to day seven. But why, it may be asked, is oaßßarwv, which is plural, translated by the singular sabbath. It is a Hebraism. Sabbath means rest. We say the day of rest, but they said the day of rests. See the Greek of Acts xvi. 13.

to seven.

4. In the first letter to the Corinthians, xi. 20, is the term "Lord's Supper" correctly translated ?

Yes, but dinner would be equally correct. Meal would do, were it not ambiguous.

5. Did this Church celebrate the Lord's death at night?

Perhaps they did,-perhaps not. Nobody knows for certain.

6. Did the Apostle condemn this Church for coming together at any particular time or for their manner of coming together?

For neither, but for their conduct while together. Each had a private supply of victuals and used it independently-sometimes to excess.

ASPIRATE.

In reply to questions two and four in last Observer, perhaps it will help the enquirers, and others, to quote from the writings of two brethren, whom, presume, have the confidence of the churches.

I

T. H. Milner, in "The Messiah's Ministry," page 229, says: "The ordinance of the feast, commonly called the Lord's Supper,' requires a variety of remarks. The terms used regarding it are not the most accurate. The word dipnon, rendered feast and supper, is more properly the former than the latter, because it denoted the chief meal alike of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, and might as well be called breakfast, or dinner, as supper, as, indeed, it is found so used in Greek writers."

Alexander Campbell in the "Christian Baptist," page 223, writes: "As to the time of the day or night when it should be observed we have no commandment. But we have authority to attend upon this institution at whatever time of the day or night we meet. The Lord having instituted

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it at night, will not oblige us to observe it at night, more than his having first eaten the passover should oblige us first to eat the paschal lamb, or to observe it in all the same circumstances. We are always to distinguish what is merely circumstantial, in any institution, from the institution itself. The disciples at Troas came together upon the first day of the week to break bread; and the apostle Paul commanded the disciples at Corinth to tarry one for another'-to wait till all the expected guests had arrived, which shews that it occupied an early as well as an essential part of their worship. Any objection made to the hour of the day or night in which any Christian institution should be observed, is founded upon the doctrine of holy times, or sacred hours, which are Jewish and not Christian.

Besides it is bad logic to draw a general conclusion from any particular occurrence. We might as well argue that, because Paul immersed the jailor at the dead hour of night, every person should be immersed at the same hour, as that because the Lord instituted the supper the night in which he was betrayed, it should be always observed at night. Nay, the same sort of logic would oblige us to observe it only the last night in our lives, if we could ascertain it, and to have no more than a dozen fellow participants. We should, on the same principle, be constrained like the Sabbatarians, to reform our almanacs, and to decide whether it was instituted at nine or twelve o'clock at night, etc. But apostolic precedent decides this point, and not inferential reasoning."

THE LORD'S SUPPER AND THE LORD'S DAY.

A.

PERHAPS the following, if not exhaustive of the subjects, may be sufficiently complete to satisfy your correspondents Enquirer and A.

I shall not adhere to the strict order of their queries, but, beginning with the word σaßßarwv take the other items as they naturally grow out of it. First, then, our translators do not make the difference given by A. They never make σaßßarwv to mean the first day of the week. The true meaning is the day of rest, which was from of old the last day of the weekSaturday and in this sense it is used in its first occurrence, in Matt. xxviii. But there is a figure of speech by which it is common to use the name of a part for the whole of anything. Thus we speak of a fleet of twenty sail when we mean twenty ships, and we say fifty head of cattle when we mean fifty cattle. In the same way oaßßarwv, being the most important day of the week, is used in several places in the New Testament for the whole week. Thus it was right to say "At the end of the sabbath, towards the dawn of the first of the sabbath," the two meanings being obvious to those who used the words. The Pharisee, recounting his good deeds, says "I fast twice in the oaßßarov," which would indeed be unmeaning if the word meant but a single day. Our translators in all these cases-and Dean Alford, Samuel Sharpe, and others, follow their example-translate σαββατων by the word week. It is the other words of the context that decide in some of the passages that it is the first day of the week. Sabbath -i.e., its Greek equivalents-does not mean either the first day of the week or the last. A day or time of rest is its first meaning; it was other circumstances that caused it to be applied to the last day of the seven. Its importance among the seven led to its use as covering all the seven days. The reader will notice in Matt. xxviii. 1, and elsewhere, that day is in italic letter, indicating that it is not in the original. struction of the clause is such that all translators say first day of the week, most of them not indicating the ellipsis of the original.

But the con

Observer, May 1, '71

There seems to be no doubt that the phrase Lord's supper is correct as a translation, and there can be no doubt that the institution we call by this name had its origin at night. It was on that night on which He was betrayed that the Master blessed and brake the bread and passed round that cup which to us is the simplest yet grandest memorial of His death. But though the Passover was undoubtedly a supper, yet the cup, if not the bread, which we take was blessed after supper. (Luke xxii. 19, 20'; 1 Cor. xi. 25.)

We come now to see a part of the reason of the Apostle's rebuke to the Corinthians. They imitated the Master too closely. As on that annual Passover He had supped with His disciples, and had used that occasion to begin the new institution, they thought they would like a weekly supper, and so made the ordinance of the new covenant of small importance, as each took his own supper before the other. The force of the rebuke from Paul evidently lies here. They were told to eat ordinary meals at home, but in the ecclesia they must eat and drink that only which told them of the body and blood of the Lord. They were not told to assemble at some other time. The disciples at Troas (Acts xx. 7) met at night. They were not open to rebuke; they met for the right purpose: to break the memorial loaf. As these two constitute all our examples as to the time of the feast―i.e., the portion of the twenty-four hours-it is not unreasonable to ask, are we right in attending to this ceremony at any hour that is not night? But a comparatively short investigation will give us a correct answer to the query. The word day in all the Scriptures and in common colloquial use has two meanings, a wider and a narrower one, besides still wider metaphorical significations. These are (A) twenty-four hours, from morning to morning or from evening to evening; and (B) twelve hours, or thereabouts, of light, used contrastively with night, which represents the hours of darkness-day-night! The Greek word for day we have said is not in the passages where we have the phrase "first of the week," but it is very clearly understood. Which of the above significations has it to be taken in? Clearly the wider one. The first of the σaßßarwv must mean the first of the seven which constitute the aaßßatov (week). That is, it means the first period of twenty-four hours, for the sabbath (in its first use) is twenty-four hours. Besides, day never means night, and the word night is never used to cover the whole twenty-four hours.

Thus, then, we conclude that in 1 Cor. xvi. 2 there is nothing in the text or context to suggest night, and the spirit of the command would not be broken if any time in the first twenty-four hours of the week we obey it. But at Corinth and Troas they came together at night and were approved. Why should we alter? We will see. The first churches were composed entirely of Jews. A little later Gentiles also were turned to the Lord. But in Gentile cities the first converts were usually Jews, and Jews must have formed a large proportion of most of the churches mentioned in the Acts of Apostles. It would follow, then, that the Jewish method of reckoning time would be largely adopted. The Apostles would certainly use it. They did not lightly set aside God-given arrangements, and they had no reason whatever to alter the command" From evening until evening ye shall celebrate your sabbaths." Paul used the sabbath. He preached on that day in the synagogues, and he well knew that the day terminated at sundown. The beginning of the first of the week was the beginning of the hours of darkness.

There was much persecution in those days. Paul cared not for that when he was preaching to unbelievers. They were the persecutors, and