Abram Herbert Lewis - Spiritual Sabbathism

I08
prolegomena to
SPIRITUAL SABBATHISM
any systematic theology must show
a firm grasp of the limits of dogmatic thought.
Intellectual confusion is the result, not of mysticism
in theology, but of literalism. There is a stern rebuke
in store for the thinker or the nation who severs
authority from reason, law from grace, commandment
from spiritual suggestion, reason from love.
To the individual, God sends that rebuke in the
form of intellectual despair. To nations he sends
it in the form of blood and tears. When a nation
takes up the sword of absolute external authority or
of absolute internal liberty, it perishes by the sword.
§13. The Sahhathism of the Psalms.—The Christian
Church has always had to turn to the Hebrew
Psalms for songs that are profoundly spiritual. The
Psalms are, for us, of unequal value, but the best of
them remain the high-water mark of lyrical power.
They are the songs of sorrow and of joy, of work
and rest, of struggle and peace, of sin and salvation.
They were very dear to the heart of our Lord, and
they had entered into his whole habit of speech;
when the darkness of death overcame him, almost
his last words were from the Psalms.
law.
Here is the law of love, and here is love of the
This book shows how deeply the ten words
had rooted themselves in the Hebrew heart, and had
cast out all fear of the law. Ruskin tells us how as