Abram Herbert Lewis - Spiritual Sabbathism

BIBLICAL SABBATHISM
III
maker, our saviour, our light, the answerer of our
prayers, the forgiver of sins, the giver of strength
and peace.
These are simple words, but they are
weighty. These are not abstractions. There
is here no speculation, no astrology, no magic.
The Sabbath has taught its lesson—that God is a
spirit, and that there is no fathoming his nature
by the intellect and no controlling of it by magic.
Yet spirit can touch spirit, and to great issues. This
is Immanuel, God with us. This is the secret of
rest.
§14. The Pharisees.—In the course of time,
Greece became the overlord of Judea, and Antiochus
Epiphanes endeavored to crush the religion of Jehovah.
He was defeated by the Maccabean uprising.
But there was an "Israel after the flesh"
which favored Greece. There was a Hellenizing
party which bowed to Antiochus, the madman who
called himself a revealed god.
Many of Israel consented
to his worship, and sacrificed to idols, and
profaned the Sabbath ( i Mac. i, 43
) . In opposition
to the Hellenizers arose the Hasidean party, who
were so devoted to the law that they would not defend
themselves on the Sabbath from the Greek
invaders.
In the course of time the Hellenizers and
the Hasideans became the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
At first these were political parties.