Christian Sabbath by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

How grossly misunderstood the genuine character of the Christian sabbath, or Lord's day, seems to be even by the church! To confound it with the Jewish sabbath, or to rest its observance upon the fourth commandment, is, in my judgment, heretical, and would so have been considered in the primitive church. That cessation from labour on the Lord's day could not have been absolutely incumbent on Christians for two centuries after Christ, is apparent; because during that period the greater part of the Christians were either slaves or in official situations under Pagan masters or superiors, and had duties to perform for those who did not recognize the day. And we know that St. Paul sent back Onesimus to his master, and told every Christian slave, that, being a Christian, he was free in his mind indeed, but still must serve his earthly master, although he might laudably seek for his personal freedom also. If the early Christians had refused to work on the Lord's day, rebellion and civil war must have been the immediate consequences. But there is no notice of any such cessation.

The Jewish sabbath was commemorative of the termination of the great act of creation; it was to record that the world had not been from eternity, nor had arisen as a dream by itself, but that God had created it by distinct acts of power, and that he had hallowed the day or season in which he rested or desisted from his work. When our Lord arose from the dead, the old creation was, as it were, superseded, and the new creation then began; and therefore the first day and not the last day, the commencement and not the end, of the work of God was solemnized.