The Sabbath as the day of light (Gardiner Spring)

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Reformed Covenanter

Cancelled Commissioner
As the means of mere intellectual advancement, I would not exchange the Sabbath for all other means of instruction. The Sabbath is the great day of light to this benighted world. The earth would scarcely be darker without the sun, than the intellectual hemisphere without the Sabbath.

Gardiner Spring, The Sabbath a Blessing to Mankind in Tracts of the American Tract Society. General Series. Volume 1 (n.d.), no. 37, p. 5.
 
On a similar theme:

No villain regards the Sabbath. No vicious family regards the Sabbath. No worthless and immoral community regards the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a barrier which must be broken down, before men can become giants in iniquity.

Gardiner Spring, The Sabbath a Blessing to Mankind in Tracts of the American Tract Society. General Series. Volume 1 (n.d.), no. 37, p. 6.
 
The Sabbath is the keystone of the Temple of Virtue, which, however it may be defaced, will survive many a rude shock, and retain much of its pristine magnificence, as long as its foundation remains firm.

Gardiner Spring, The Sabbath a Blessing to Mankind in Tracts of the American Tract Society. General Series. Volume 1 (n.d.), no. 37, p. 7.
 
I have never hard of Mr. Spring. Can you give some information? What denomination and state was he associated with?
 
I have never hard of Mr. Spring. Can you give some information? What denomination and state was he associated with?

He was an Old School Presbyterian from New York. He was also behind the Spring Resolutions around the last time a crowd of angry Democrats threw their toys out of the pram in defiance at a constitutionally elected President. ;) :stirpot:
 
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He was an Old School Presbyterian. He was also behind the Spring Resolutions around the last time a crowd of angry Democrats threw their toys out of the pram in defiance at a constitutionally elected President. ;) :stirpot:

Well, the tract on the Sabbath so far seems beneficial so I will have to leave out his indiscretion from my mind while I read!
 
No villain regards the Sabbath. No vicious family regards the Sabbath. No worthless and immoral community regards the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a barrier which must be broken down, before men can become giants in iniquity.

That seems like something of a stretch, unless he has particular definitions in mind for villainy and viciousness. Those who conspired to have Christ put to death were quite careful (albeit wrongheaded) in observing the Sabbath, and it didn't keep them from the gigantic iniquity of conspiracy to obtain judicial murder.
 
That seems like something of a stretch, unless he has particular definitions in mind for villainy and viciousness. Those who conspired to have Christ put to death were quite careful (albeit wrongheaded) in observing the Sabbath, and it didn't keep them from the gigantic iniquity of conspiracy to obtain judicial murder.

I was thinking something similar myself, but he probably meant it as a generalisation rather than an absolute.
 
After the Adopting Act of 1729, the deliverance known as the Gardiner Spring Resolutions of 1861 is arguably one of the most significant actions ever taken in the history of the Presbyterian Church. In essence, the resolutions required pastors and members of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. to swear political allegiance to the Federal Government of the United States. By themselves the resolutions would have been controversial enough, but their proposal and enactment came just at the start of the Civil War. The effect of the resolutions was to split the Church north and south. Moreover, it cast the Northern Church in the direction of increasing political and social involvement while at the same time initiating in the Southern Church a doctrinally based aversion to social and political involvement that reigned for almost 100 years. https://www.pcahistory.org/documents/gardinerspring.html
 
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