observe it, and that its due observance is of essential importance, there is no difference of opinion among the churches of Christen- dom. But if so essential to the interests of religion, is it con- ceivable that God has not enjoined it ? He has given the world the Church, the Bible, the ministry, the sacraments ; these are not human devices. And can it be supposed that the Sabbath, without which all these divine institutions would be measurably inefficient, should be left to the will or wisdom of men ? This is not to be supposed. That these divinely appointed means for the illumination and sanctification of men, are in a great measure without effect, where the Sabbath is neglected or profaned, is a matter of experience. It is undeniable that the mass of the people are indebted to the services of the sanctuary on the Lord's Day, for their religious knowledge. Any community or class of men who ignore the Sabbath and absent themselves from the sanctuary, as a general thing, become heathen. They have little more true religious knowledge than pagans. But without such knowledge morality is impossible. Religion is not only the life- blood of morality, so that without the former the latter cannot be ; but God has revealed his purpose that it shall not be. If men refuse to retain Him in their knowledge, He declares that He will give them up to a reprobate mind. (Rom. i. 28.) Men do not know what they are doing, when by their teaching or example they encourage the neglect or profanation of the Lord's Day. We have in the French Communists an illustration and a warning of what a community without a Sabbath, i. e., without religion, must ultimately and inevitably become. Irreligious men of course sneer at religion and deny its importance, but the Bible and experience are against them.
Objections.
The general objections against the doctrine that the law of the Sabbath is of universal and perpetual obligation, have already been incidentally considered. Those derived from the New Tes- tament are principally the following : —
1. An objection is drawn from the absence of any express com- mand. No such command was needed. The New Testament has no decalogue. That code having been once announced, and never repealed, remains in force. Its injunctions are not so much categorically repeated, as assumed as still obligatory. We find no such words as, " Thou shalt have no other gods before me," or " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." Paul says,
832 PART m. Ch. XIX. — THE LAW.
" I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." (Rom. vii. 7.) The law which said " Thou shalt not covet," is in the decalogue. Paul does not reenact the command, he simply takes for granted that the decalogue is now as ever the law of God.
2. It is urged not only that there is no positive command on the subject, but also that there is a total silence in the New Tes- tament respecting any obligation to keep holy one day in seven. Our Lord in his Sermon on the Mount, it is said, while correcting the false interpretations of the Mosaic law given by the Pharisees, and expounding its precepts in their true sense, says nothing of the fourth commandment. The same is true of the council in Je- rusalem. That council says nothing about the necessity of the heathen converts observing a Sabbath. But all this may be said of other precepts the obligation of which no man questions. Neither our Lord nor the council say anything about the wor- shipping of graven images. Besides, our Lord elsewhere does do, with regard to the fourth commandment, precisely what He did in the Sermon on the Mount with regard to other precepts of the decalogue. He reproved the Pharisees for their false inter- pretation of that commandment, without the slightest intimation that the law itself was not to remain in force.
3. Appeal is made to such passages as Colossians ii. 16, " Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days ; " and Romans xiv. 5, " One man esteemeth one day above another ; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully per- suaded in his own mind." Every one knows, however, that the apostolic churches were greatly troubled by Judaizers, who in- sisted that the Mosaic law continued in force, and that Christians were bound to conform to its prescriptions with regard to the dis- tinction between clean and unclean meats, and its numerous feast days, on which all labour was to be intermitted. These were the false teachers and this was the false doctrine against which so much of St. Paul's epistles was directed. It is in obvious refer- ence to these men and their doctrines that such passages as those cited above were written. They have no reference to the weekly Sabbath, which had been observed from the creation, and which the Apostles themselves introduced and perpetuated in the Chris- tian Church.
4. It also frequently said that a weekly Sabbath is out of keep- ing with the spirit of the Gospel, which requires the consecration