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 THE LORD'S DAY: 
 
 SUBSTANCE OF A SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED AT A MEETING OF THE PRESBYTERY OF 
 QLASGO W, OX THURSDA Y, 16th NO V EMBER, 1S65. 
 
 NORMAN MACLEOD, D.D., 
 
 MIXISTER OF THE BAKOSY, GLASGOW; 
 ASD 0>nE OF HER MAJESTY'S CHAPLAINS FOR SCOTLAND. 
 
 " I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.' 
 
 ELEVENTH THOUSAND. 
 
 GLASGOW: 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE. 61 ST. VINCENT STREET. 
 
 LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO. ; ALEX. STRAHAN. 
 
 EDINBURGH: EDMONSTON & DOUGLAS. 
 
 186 5.
 
 ^uiuc
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The speecli of which t now publish the substance, was not written, 
 but was delivered extempore from a few brief notes indicating my line of 
 argument. Though spoken very rapidly, it occupied three hours in its 
 delivery. I was placed in a difficult position, having to reply to long 
 and carefully written speeches' by my learned and excellent friends on 
 the other side. I was thus obliged to take up the whole question, and to 
 discuss it with regard to the state of feeling in Glasgow and in Scotland, 
 as well as in the Presbytery, both with reference to the Sabbath, and 
 to a tendency manifesting itself, in some quarters, to lose all faith in 
 the Lord's-day, because losing faith in the only ground, on which it had 
 generally been put in Scotland. My sincere desire was not to destroy, 
 but to build up; and my belief is, that what I have said will have this 
 effect on the minds of very many who will give my words their candid 
 consideration. 
 
 I call this pamphlet, treatise, sermon, — for it partakes of the character 
 of all, — the substance of my speech, because I have had to write it; and 
 while embodying every principle, every doctrine, every fact, every argu- 
 ment contained in the original speech, with every anecdote even which 
 may, at the moment, have escaped from my tongue, I have expanded 
 many portions of it, re-adjusted others, lengthened here, or added there, 
 to explain more fully what I meant and mean. A great part of the latter 
 portion was not reported in the newspapers. I am very sensible of the 
 unartistic form in which it appears — I cannot help it now. I leave it to 
 be fairly judged of as a whole. 
 
 Unless I had, to a large extent, anticipated the results of this discus- 
 sion, — so far, at least, as they have been personal to myself, — I should 
 not have engaged in it with such a feeling of pain, and such a solemn 
 sense of my responsibility to God as I did. 
 
 But having been enabled to accept the duty, which I believed, and 
 now believe more than ever, God, in His providence, had imposed on me, 
 I accept, in perfect peace, all the consequences, however deej^ly painful 
 to me, which the performance of that duty has involved. 
 
 Some of these results I much lament for the sake of others, more even 
 than for my own. I lament the spirit in which I have been everywhere 
 in Scotland criticized, and spoken of, and written of, by some who are 
 opposed to me, from the pulpit, the platform, and the press. A meaning
 
 4 Preface. 
 
 has been given — studiedly, I fear, in some cases — to the expressions 
 regarding the Decalogus, which ray rvords might possibly be made to 
 bear to a mind not willing to understand them; but which, even had it 
 been true and unmistakeable, miglit, in charity, have been jiardoned or 
 left unnoticed, as simply bearing evidence of my insanity! Strange to 
 say, the same words were quite understood in England, and by all who 
 sympathized with me in Scotland. I beg those who wish to do me 
 j ustice, to read the extracts from Baxter, quoted in my speech, and to 
 remember that these were read by me, as a part of that speech, at the 
 first meeting of Presbytery, and as expressing what I meant by the 
 abrogation of the Decalogue; and that, though not published then, they 
 were again read at the second meeting of the Presbytery, and thereafter 
 published in all the Glasgow newspapers, — and then let them say, 
 whether, with these passages as an exponent of my meaning, I have been 
 dealt with in the spirit of fair play, or of Christian charity, by very 
 many of my critics ? 
 
 I refrain from further alluding to all that has been uttered against me. 
 There is One who fully understands the sorrow which must be endured 
 by those who, seeking to do His will, are yet the occasion of creating 
 doubt in the hearts of those they love, regarding their own character, or 
 of adding, in any case, to the most intolerable buiden that can weigh 
 down the spirit of man — that of dislike or of hate to a brother. 
 
 But I should be very ungrateful unless I acknowledged diflerent results 
 from these — such as the Christian treatment I received from my brethren 
 opposed to me in the Presbytery, and from many Christian gentlemen 
 who, whether with me or against me, have spoken from the jjlatform, or 
 written in the press, with justice and fairness on this subject, as well as 
 the letters of kind sympathy and of cordial agreement in my views which 
 have come to me, every day, from both clergy and laity of every deno- 
 mination; — most of all, as might be expected, from those of my own 
 Church. As it has been impossible for me otherwise to reply to these, 
 I take this opportunity of thankfully acknowledging them. But I hope 
 for results of moi-e importance, and less personal to myself, from this 
 discussion. One of these I pray may be, and I believe will be, a Lord's- 
 day, in the slow, perhaps,, but sure progress of Christian opinion, kept 
 on sounder grounds, with less of the spirit of bondage, and more ot 
 the spirit of that true liberty of faith and love with which Christ lias 
 set us free — a liberty which, the more it is understood and believed, can 
 never be used as a cloak for licentiousness. 
 
 I must, before concluding this long Preface, allude to some objections 
 to my speech, or rather to my speaking at all on such a question, or my 
 venturing to open it up in Scotland. 
 
 (1.) It has been urged against me that, after all, my oj^ponents and 
 T, though starting from different points, come at last, practically, to the 
 same point — that of a holy keeping of the Lord's daj-; — why, then, it is 
 asked, moot the speculative difference, and not be satisfied with the prac-
 
 Piefcue. 5 
 
 tical agreement? I roply, that if I and those who think with me— a 
 vast number in tbe Protestant Churches in this and other countries — 
 cordially give our brethren liberty to keep the Lord's-day in their way, 
 and to spend it iu such a spirit, and for such reasons, as they believe 
 to be according to God's will; why should not the same liberty be 
 extended to us? Is this a point of difference in which there is to 
 be no mutual forbearance? Must we alone be silent, or be reviled, and 
 our names associated with infidels, and put down as opposed to the 
 keeping a holy day to the Lord; nay, in some extreme cases, be spoken 
 against with as fierce a spirit as the Master was, when accused of 
 "having a devil," because He broke the Sabbath? It is full time, I 
 think, for such liberty being demanded, on our part, as our right. 
 
 (2.) "But it will give a handle to the ungodly, who will abuse and 
 pervert the Christian liberty you speak of, and which Christians only can 
 use aright. For the sake of the ungodly there must be a fixed law of the 
 Fourth Commandment." I am not aware of any gift of God, or of any 
 truth of God, which ungodly men have not abused and perverted since the 
 days of the Apostle Paul, and none more than the doctrine of Christian 
 liberty. But I am really not hopeful of the success of any efi'ort to make 
 the Fourth Commandment respected by ungodly men, who, in spirit 
 or deed, break one or more of the other nine. Many, alas! who profess 
 to reverence the Fourth, seem to have little regard for the Ninth. 
 
 (3.) "But it will give offence to many of the godly, and weaken your 
 influence; and we know how St. Paul, while teaching Christian tolera- 
 tion, warns us to beware bow we offend even a weak brother." As to my 
 influence, I leave that in God's hands. All I have to do with is His 
 truth. As to offending weak brethren, there are, I think, few things 
 more grievously misunderstood than the principles and conduct of St. Paul 
 with reference to weak brethren, — while in his practice he yielded to 
 prejudice, he never by silence strengthened that prejudice, but ever in 
 his speech protested against it. If he did not condemn the weak brother, 
 who, esteeming certain things to be unclean, acted according to his belief, 
 but commended him for so doing ; yet, at the same time, he testified 
 against that weak belief, and said, "/ know, and am persuaded of the 
 Lord, that there is nothing unclean of itself." He became, indeed, as a Jew 
 to the Jew, complying in love with many of his old religious customs and 
 prejudices. But why? — to lift the Jew out of the bondage of that very 
 Judaism, and to wean him from those very customs; for in the same 
 spirit of love he never failed, by unmistakeable, frank, and open speech, 
 to protest against the Judaism, teaching that those customs were, in 
 Christ, done away, and that the Jewish " principles" of his brother were 
 prejudices. And so should it be with every Christian. Let us, in 
 action, and from love, come down as far as possible to meet our weak 
 brethren, and not cause them to oft'end by what we do in things in- 
 difi'erent; but from the same love, and in order to lift them up into a 
 truer spirit, let us speak out the truth regarding the very points in which
 
 6 Preface. 
 
 we think them weak, and to which, on that account, they may cling with 
 great tenacity and passion. Otherwise the fear of giving offence by our 
 speech will degenerate into all that is mean, cowardly, and dishonest. 
 False impressions as to our real convictions will be given by our silence. 
 Every species of prejudice will be strengthened by those who should 
 remove them, and a better state of things made impossible, unless it 
 comes from without the Church, instead of from within. The weak 
 will not only be tolerated, but govern; and the strong w^ill not be tolerated, 
 but, if possible, be crushed in the name of truth and of piety. 
 I have done ; — 
 
 "That which I have done 
 May He -within himself make piu'e." 
 
 As far as in me lies, I will not be dragged into any further contro- 
 versy on this subject. I leave the battle to younger men. I have spoken 
 in my place in the Church Court to which I have the honour to belong, 
 and I have spoken on a single point only of religious practice. I will 
 henceforth, as heretofore, give myself, not to this or to that point, 
 however true, within the whole range of Christian truth or practice; 
 but will pi-each Jesus Christ and Him crucified; and seek, with God's 
 blessing, to make those whom I teach true believers in Him ; and in 
 this way only, secure obedience to all His commandments, — which verily 
 are not grievous. 
 
 An apology is due to the reader for the lengtb of this Preface and for its 
 egotistical character. But, in the whole circumstances of the case, I could 
 hardly help myself. The delay in the publication of the Speech has been 
 occasioned partly by my unavoidable absence from home, and partly by 
 the preparation of the Api)endix. I beg to acknowledge my manifold 
 obligations to Dr. Hessey's Bampton Lectures, for both argument and 
 authorities; and also to the ample collection of the latter by Mr. Cox, 
 in his lately published volumes on The Literature of the Sabbath 
 Question,
 
 SUBSTANCE OF SPEECH, 
 
 MoDERATOE, — I cravG the kind indulgence of my brethren — their 
 charitable interpretation of my words, and of the spirit in which I 
 now address them. I rely, and I am sure not in vain, on your 
 brotherly sympathy while I address you upon this most important 
 topic. 
 
 Believe me. Moderator, that nothing but an overwhelming sense 
 of duty could induce me to bring this subject before any Court of 
 our Chm-ch. It is always a great pain to me — far greater, perhaps, 
 than those who do not know me will give me credit for — to differ from 
 my brethren of this Church or Presbytery, and from none more than 
 from the friends who have now addi'essed you. It is a very great 
 pain, indeed, to differ from Christian men anj^here. To suppose 
 that I am indifferent to the opinion of m}' brethren — that I do not 
 care what thej' think of me, or what they say of me — would be 
 extremely false to the deepest, truest feelings of my heart. The 
 more I love my brethren, the more I desire them to love me; the 
 more I respect their judgment, and confide in the truth and 
 sincerity with which they utter their opinions, the more I crave with 
 my whole heart that they should give me the same credit. And 
 believe me. Moderator and friends, not the fear, but the certainty of 
 being misunderstood, — in some cases, perhaps, of being misrepre- 
 sented, — of hard words being spoken against me, of hard thoughts 
 being entertained of me by those whom I love and respect, — fills me at 
 this moment with great pain, and I might say nervous anxiety. At 
 the same time, sir, there are other things which I fear still more. 
 There is an awful danger to a man from being entangled by any 
 circumstances on earth to speak that which is false to himself, or 
 to be silent about that which he holds true before God. There 
 is danger, in this respect, not only from the irreligious world, but also 
 from what is called the religious world; and danger to every Christian 
 minister, more especially to young brethren in the ministry, from 
 their characters or beliefs being suspected by those whom they 
 respect and love within the Church. There are dangers from true 
 disciples, and dangers from false disciples ; dangers from Pharisees, 
 Sadducees, and Scribes ; dangers besetting us as Christian men and 
 Christian ministers from every side, and from ourselves most of all.
 
 8 How the Question was brought before the Presbytery. 
 
 None of us are free from them; and our duty, therefore, is to carry 
 one another's burdens; to sympathize with one another; and, as we 
 shall answer to Grod, to do all we can to lay no stumbling-block in the 
 way of a brother's searching for and speaking out the truth, — nay, to 
 help him to do so before God. We should all fear lest our eye be 
 turned aside from the truth by influences of any kind, " orthodox " 
 or "heterodox;" remembering our Master's solemn warning, "How 
 can ye believe who seek honour one of another, and seek not the 
 honour that cometh from God only ? " There are two things to which 
 we must ever be true — conscience within and Christ above. When 
 these are lost, all is lost ! 
 
 I regret very much, indeed, a word that escaped my respected 
 brother, in his introdixctory speech — he, I daresay, from his goodness, 
 not attaching so much weight to it as I do — when he spoke of my 
 dragging this subject before the Court. He did not know me, or did 
 not think, perhaps, at the moment, or he would not have spoken thus. 
 During the eight-and-twenty 3'ears I have had the honour and privi- 
 lege — an honour and privilege for which I am every day more thank- 
 ful to God, and never more thankful than at this moment, when I feel 
 the freedom with which I can address my brethren, though in a 
 minority — I say dm-ing the eight-and-twenty years I have had the 
 honour of being a minister of the Church of Scotland, I do not think 
 I ever brought forward before a Church Court anything contro- 
 versial, or that could possibly divide them. I have brought forward 
 many practical questions, — not speculative ones, or questions 
 of no practical value. You know this is true. But when others 
 have introduced questions of a different kind, I may have had the 
 unhappiness of opposing them. I would have you remember the 
 peculiar circumstances in which the present distracting question has 
 been " dragged " by me before you. I have made it a rule never to 
 discuss questions of doctrine in public meetings. I do not blame 
 brethren for doing so in the City Hall, or an^-where else, if 
 such be their judgment. There are two places only where I have 
 done so, — from the pulpit and in Church Courts. I have always 
 preached to my own people that which I solemnly believed at the 
 time, willing rather, in six weeks afterwards, if necessary, to confess 
 from the pulpit that I was wi'ong, and mistaken in what I had said, 
 than to be untnie at the time; and ever resolved that I should 
 never be in that pulpit, for any consideration under heaven, 
 as a mere telegraphic wire, to communicate that in which I did not 
 myself believe, and with which I did not sympathize. The other place 
 in which I have spoken, when called upon to do so, in questions of 
 doctrine, has been in the Church Courts; and there, with whatever 
 pain I have differed from brethren, I have always stated the opinions 
 which I honestly held. Well, in what circumstances am I placed here ? 
 For years I have preached to my people, not your view of the Lord's- 
 day, but another — one not based on the Sabbath law of the Decalogue, 
 as to the origin ; but based on the necessities of Christian worship, 
 and the authority of Christ and His apostles. I came here to hear 
 this Pastoral. Had there been nothing in it contradictory to my own
 
 How th£ Question tvas brought before the Presbyter}/. 9 
 
 convictions, or to the teaching I have given from the pulpit, I shouki 
 never have said a vrord on the subject. But I was placed in this posi- 
 tion : either not to read your Pastoral, — which would, in my opinion, 
 have been highly disrespectful to the Presbytery, — or to read that Pas- 
 toral ministerially, and say, "I read these things, but I do not beheve 
 in some of them;" — or, as my only other alternative, to come and state 
 to the Presbytery frankly why I did not assent to these points, or 
 acquiesce in them; and then, with that explanation, to request the 
 Presbytery to let me be free to express my dissent fr-om these points. 
 These were the circumstances, sir, in which I brought foi-ward this 
 question the last day that we met here. Nay, further, I beg you to 
 remember — and I do think you vnll give me credit for it — that though 
 quite ready then to have addi-essed you, I moved an adjournment, as 
 most of our members had gone to hear Mr. Gladstone, and I thought 
 the question too important to be discussed at a thin meeting, and when 
 those best acquainted with it were either not present, or not prepared 
 to oppose me with all the might of thefr knowledge and convictions. 
 The elaborate and eloquent orations we have been privileged to hsten 
 to to-day, prove how much you have gained by delay, though they 
 add to my personal difficulties while arguing against them. Such 
 conduct on my part, I submit, was not "dragging" the question before 
 the Court, as if I were actuated by vanity, inconsiderate rashness, or 
 selfish ambition. 
 
 Now, while there are points on which I differ from you, still I am 
 thankful to say that there are many more points in your Address, 
 and in all that has been said, in which I most heartily agree. 
 We are all agreed in this Coui-t, I am sure, in wishing, with simple 
 and sincere hearts, to know the will of Jesus Christ. I should hope 
 there is not one man here who would not, as far as he knows, die, 
 rather than do anything he felt to be against the will of his Master. 
 "We are agreed also on another point, — that there is, and ever will be 
 in the Church, a Lord's-day. Nor do I think there has been any- 
 thing said, so far as I could catch, either in the Address, or in what- 
 has been spoken, regarding the mode of keeping the Lord's-day, ia 
 its right observance, in which I do not agree with you; nay, I may, 
 in some respects, possibly go further in my estimate of om* duties 
 and privileges on that day. The points on which we disagree are 
 the historical origin of the Lord's-day, and the gi-ounds on which 
 its observance is binding upon the Christian Church. I think that 
 your position is an inconsistent one. I think you are basing a 
 number of duties upon the Sabbath law of the Fourth Commandment, 
 and taking Uberties with it, as contained in the Decalogue, which you 
 have no right to do. I at once state, therefore, that I cannot, as a 
 Christian, accept of the continued obhgation of the Sabbath law of 
 the Fourth Commandment; while, at the same time, I have perfect 
 faith in the Lord's-day. 
 
 But let us suppose, brethren, that we could not, in the end, agi-ee 
 in our views regarding the Bible " law " as to this day, while we 
 might agree as to Christian practice on it; — that you, on the one hand, 
 should maintain, — what, I am quite sure, you do most firmly and 
 
 B
 
 10 Mutual Toleration of Differences. 
 
 earnestly believe, — tliat your present position is the only sure and 
 right one ; nay, even that you were persuaded that the Sabbath 
 should fall upon the seventh day of the week; while I, on the 
 other hand, maintained with equal sincerity and good conscience my 
 belief that the Sabbath of the Old dispensation was abrogated, or had 
 been lost or absorbed into something far better, because belonging 
 to the New, — and that too upon apostolic authority; — then, even 
 with such a diiBference of opinion as this, I would confidently ask if 
 there is a single case that could conceivably occur in the Christian 
 Church in which we might be more clearly guided in our relative duties 
 by what the Apostle said in reference to the keeping of days in the 
 Epistle to the Romans ? If his principles, evolved from the very nature 
 of the New dispensation, cannot apply to our case, they cannot, as 
 far as I see, apply to any. Hear what he said, and hear it, believing, 
 as you truly say you do, that the Fourth Commandment was then bind- 
 ing on Christians : — "One man esteemeth one day above another; 
 another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully per- 
 suaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it 
 unto the Lord ; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he 
 doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth 
 God thanks ; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and 
 giveth God thanks." And if any of us imagines, that because he 
 is right in his views of this or of that day, therefore his brother, 
 •who diflfers from him on such outside details, is necessarily wrong, 
 what said the inspired Apostle — who was " persuaded of the 
 Lord " that there was nothing unclean of itself? Did he say, If 
 I am right, 3'ou must be wrong, and therefore you must act as I com- 
 mand you ? No; but in the charity of Christ he said, " To him who 
 thinketh it is unclean, to him it is unclean." Oh ! blessed liberty of 
 the spirit of truth, which we must strive to see and learn ! I remind 
 you of this now, dear brethren, that you may bear with my difference 
 of opinion, as I seek to bear with yours ; and that you may hear me 
 at least with kindly feelings, though what I am about to say may 
 probably pain you. For in thus freely speaking my mind, I am speak- 
 ing in defence of at least fair Christian liberty, and demand, therefore, 
 in Christ's name, and under the Magna Charta of our common 
 liberties, bestowed by Him on His Church, that you do not, in this 
 miatter, either despise or judge me, were even the day I "regard unto 
 the Lord " different, in its origin, character, and objects, from yours. 
 Let me, then, proceed with my argument. Now, I admit that 
 upon this Sabbath question nothing original can be said. I do not 
 profess to say anything original. If I did, it would be a strong 
 presumption that I was wrong. Our sober duty, however, is to 
 weigh the already complete and exhaustive evidence, to judge fairly 
 of what can be said and has been said on both sides, and to endea- 
 vour wisely to apply whatever principles we thus arrive at to the 
 solution of the complex practical problems to which our every-day life 
 and the present condition of the Chui'ch and of society give rise. We 
 are bound to be persuaded in our own minds, and not because 
 others are persuaded.
 
 The Fourth Commandment : its Nature and Objects. 11 
 
 Let us, then, briefly inquire as to the nature of the Fourth Com- 
 mandment. What is it ? Under what obHgations does it really 
 place us, for the discharge of which we are responsible to God ? 
 As to its letter, it is clear, for example, that it authoritatively 
 binds us to keep the seventh day holy.-''- It is not a seventh — that 
 is, in my opinion, not fair criticism. Indeed, I am not aware that 
 this has ever been seriously questioned, except perhaps by those who, 
 judging from their line of argument, fear that the elasticity of " a day " 
 is required to make the commandment applicable to the whole world, 
 while "the day" would seem to favour the conclusion to which they 
 object, that it was for a limited portion of the globe only. Further, 
 the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment was fi-om evening to even- 
 ing. f It began upon — what we should call — the Friday evening, and 
 ended upon the Saturday evening. This fact is of some importance as 
 telling on social habits. You remember, doubtless, what Michaelis 
 makes of this, shewing the much more favourable position in which 
 the Jew was placed in the fine climate of Palestine, as compared 
 with the Christian, especially the poor Christian, in the cold, damp 
 climate of Northern Europe. The Jew, he reminds us, might, for 
 example, have his hot dinner on the Friday afternoon before the 
 Sabbath began. In the delicious climate of Palestine he might have 
 on the Sabbath his milk, his grapes, — all, in fact, that he could desire 
 in hot weather ; and then, when the evening of Saturday closed, he 
 might have his hot dinner again. This, as a fact, bears very 
 materially upon the question of breaking the Fourth Commandment, 
 as it has been hitherto explained in Scotland, where men seriously 
 talk of the sin of cooking a hot dinner on Sunday! 
 
 Then, consider further, the objects of the Fourth Commandment. 
 The Sabbath was, no doubt, a gi-and witness for Jehovah as the 
 Creator of the world, but especially for that Creator as being the very 
 same God who had brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. 
 It was also a blessed day of rest, and I doubt not, to the spiritually 
 seeing Jew, was a shadow of better things to come. It is a fair ques- 
 tion, indeed, how far the blessed rest secured by the Jewish Sabbath 
 was at all connected with public worship.]; I certainly am very much 
 inclined to think that it was more of an end in itself than a means 
 of attaining anything higher, beyond that of individual worship and 
 social instruction — not necessarily by Levites — on Divine things. 
 For let us recollect the circumstances of the countr3\ How, for 
 example, could there have been anj' united worship upon that day? 
 You may force the word " sanctify" to mean that, though it may 
 also mean simply " separate," or " set apart." But if you mean 
 jniblic worship — where could that worship have been performed, 
 according to the Mosaic law ? Synagogues did not exist for a long 
 time after the giving of the law. The question of their origin is a 
 difficult one. They were not Mosaic, but began probably about 
 the time of Ezra. The convocations that are spoken of up to 
 that time were connected with the sacrifice at the Tabernacle or 
 Temple ; for social worship was then connected so much -ft-ith a place, 
 * See Appendix A. f See Appendix B. :}: See Appendix C.
 
 12 The Fourth Comynandment not Obeyed: 
 
 either at Gilgal, or Gibeon, or Shiloli, or in the Temple, or wher- 
 ever the Ark was, that to enjoy it in Palestine every " Sabbath," as 
 we do now in Scotland, was for ages physicall}^ and " ecclesiastically" 
 impossible. There was of course on that, as on every other day, 
 individual worship ; but when you are running a parallel between 
 the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment as observed by the Jews 
 in Palestine, and the Lord's-day as enjoyed by Christians, you can- 
 not prove that there was anything among the former corresponding 
 to om' worship in our churches. 
 
 But I beg to call your attention to the Sabbath as it has commonly 
 been described and enforced in this country. Not content with the 
 character of its employments as described in the commandment itself, 
 we have habitually explained the day, by the light of all the comments 
 in the Pentateuch and Prophets on it, as the Jewish Sabbath ; and then 
 we have said to our people, this is the Christian Sabbath, which is 
 of perpetual obhgation. Now, we must keep in mind that there 
 are not two Sabbaths described in the Old dispensation ; — one that 
 was comparatively easy ; and another which could not be relaxed, but 
 was binding in jot and tittle like a moral law, and to the breaking of 
 which many pains and penalties were annexed. We have one law 
 in the Decalogue, and out of it ; one law, which, if it laid men under 
 a moral obligation to keep it at all, obliged them to keep every jot 
 and tittle of it. There can be no trifling with it either as a moral 
 law, or as a positive command given by God. 
 
 If this account is coiTcct, then I dare to affirm, without fear of 
 contradiction, that we do not practically acknowledge ourselves bound 
 by this commandment. It is not to the point to say that we keep it in 
 spirit. We have no right, I repotat, thus to tamper with it, or to 
 let " one jot or tittle" of this law pass away, if it be of " perpetual 
 obligation," until it is all, and in every point fulfilled by us. The 
 day of the week; the hom's and measm'e of the day; what may, and 
 what may not be done on that day; each and every point as defined 
 in the commandment itself, or as explained by what we assume to 
 be its authoritative comments, must be kept. We dare not alter a 
 letter of what has been written by God's finger on tables of stone, if 
 what He has written is /or «s. Now, in this sense the command- 
 ment is, I allege, not kept by any of us. One Christian man only 
 that I know of in this city — I mean Mr. Begg* — seems to me to carry 
 out logically the premises which have been here assumed as true, for 
 he has kept the seventh day from evening to evening for thirty years. 
 
 We do not keep the day; and in a hundi-ed things we do on Sun- 
 day what it would have been unlawful for the pious Jew to have 
 done on his Sabbath. f Our servants do servile work, — light fires, 
 make beds, clean out our rooms, cook our dinners, &c,, and probably 
 diive those to church who have carriages. This is too notorious to 
 be insisted upon ; and so, many men feel themselves to be in an 
 inconsistent position, and try to get out of it, just like my excellent 
 friend Dr. Macduff, who, while he holds so firmly to this Fom-th Com- 
 mandment, would allow to be done upon his Sabbath what would 
 * See Appendix D. t See Appendix E.
 
 Some Bad Results from Attempting to do so. 13 
 
 have homfied any pious Israelite of any age or time. Dr. Macduff 
 does it because lae cannot see any ill in it. He uses his own good 
 Christian common sense, ■svalks in the spirit^but yet, unfortunatel}', 
 as I think, for my friend's consistency. I maintain that, whatever 
 we clergy may say to the contrary, unprejudiced laymen see in our 
 conduct a manifest inconsistency. I was very often inconsistent on 
 this point, I admit, when I believed as you did. But should any 
 man try to be consistent, and to keep the commandment as it has 
 been described from the pulpit and in tracts by those who lay burdens 
 on men's shoulders which they, perhaps, do not carry themselves — 
 then what follows ? Asceticism does. Not, however, that I am one 
 who would despise an ascetic for conscience-sake. It is often a grand 
 visible triumph of spii'it over sense, from conviction, however 
 erroneous. And this asceticism, or Judaism, I cannot help seeing 
 in the old Covenanters — noble men, who, if they did not fight for 
 the liberty of others, fought at least for their own, and have preserved 
 the independence of our country. These men had a strength and 
 backbone in them which was grand. They would have been chief 
 among the tribes of Israel. I read, for instance, of James Howie 
 of Lochgoin, who, when passing along the moor bogs, and just 
 as he was treading on the moss, saw a broken jar fall of coins, 
 (still preserved in his family) ; and when some of his boys — as I 
 suppose we should have done ourselves, even under the Fourth 
 Commandment — rushed to possess themselves of them, the old man 
 said, "No, don't touch them; it is the Sabbath of the Lord; 
 pass on." I say he was a gi-and Christian Jew, that. I admire 
 him. I am not prepared to say that I should not have been tempted 
 to secure the gold on Sunday, had it come my way ; but I am sm-e 
 I should have given it to the old man on Monday morning — every 
 farthing of it — from sheer admiration of his grand self-denial. 
 
 But there have been other results than mere asceticism from the 
 views I am comparing and combating. I think that the tone of 
 teaching, in general, throughout Scotland, which has logically sprung 
 from this view regarding the Sabbath lav/ of the Fourth Com- 
 mandment, has produced in our country a Judaical spirit, which 
 I think is to be deplored, and ought to be kindly, but firmly 
 exposed, in order to be changed into the true freedom of the 
 Christian hfe of faith and love through God's Spirit. Look, for 
 example, at the state of most districts in the North of Scotland 
 where this teaching has had full and uncontrolled sway. I might, 
 without any unkindly feeHng, challenge any Free Church Minister, 
 — and perhaps I might extend the challenge to those who, in my 
 opinion, are still freer — to some of the Established clergy also in 
 those districts, — whether he would dare to shave on Sunday morning, 
 and let his people know it ? "Would not his influence be weakened, 
 and his piety suspected? Take another illustration of what I 
 mean. A friend of mme, a deacon of my chui-ch, went with a 
 party to fish, the other summer, in one of the outer Hebrides. 
 He was li^ing with a good man, but an out-and-out Jew. My friend 
 had a nice ham, a few slices of which he wished to cook for breakfast
 
 14 The Fourth Commandment not Obeyed: 
 
 on Sunday morning. His host did not refuse to cook tlie ham, for a 
 Highland Jew, as well as a Palestine one, likes his food. So John 
 began to slice the ham until he came to the bone, when he put down the 
 knife and said, " I would rather not !" "Why, John ?" " Because it is 
 the Sabbath." So my deacon had to saw the bone, when John con- 
 tinued the cutting of the ham. I don't "despise" John at all for his 
 scruples. He acted according to his light. I state the fact only as it 
 illustrates the feelings and practices of thousands in the North 
 regarding the Lord's-day;* and only by such facts, however trifling 
 they appear to some, can the state of feeling in a country be 
 understood. I could give innumerable illustrations of the same 
 sort, to shew how hide-hound people are by the letter. And, alas ! 
 many of the clergy themselves have become slaves, and have conscien- 
 tiously forged the very chains from which they cannot now escape, 
 even while feeling their bondage. To the best of their knowledge, I 
 believe, and with perfect honesty, but not seeing a more excellent way, 
 they have been so drilling their people into the Jewish Sabbath 
 and all its Jewish details, that they are now in a position from 
 which they can hardly emancipate themselves, without such an 
 apparent inconsistency on their own part, and such a shaking 
 of the faith or prejudices of their people, as they fear to encounter, 
 — a very painful position, in which I heartily s^'mpathize with 
 many a brother. 
 
 But is this Judaism confined to one part of the country only ? 
 I grant that our freedom has been immensely increased. Senti- 
 ments to-day even have been uttered that no minister would have 
 dared to have spoken a few years ago. I think we owe much of 
 this liberty, not to the clergy, but to Christian laymen, who have 
 not been so much bound by their position as we have been, and 
 also to the leaders of opinion beyond our countrj- who have uncon- 
 sciously fought for us. But there is even now in Glasgow a vast deal 
 of Judaism; while things have been done, within our memories, by 
 clergy, magistrates, and police, in the way of interfering with others, 
 which, thanks to public opinion, would not be tolerated now.f Yet 
 even now, for example, some will worship with an instrument in 
 Church, and yet will not do so in their own houses. They will train 
 up little children to keep the Lord's-day as if they were old apostles. 
 And in regard to walking on Sunday by those who need it for health, 
 or for recreation, — about which I rejoice to hear the sentiments 
 of my friend, Dr. Macduff, — I ask you, sir, whether Christian men — 
 whether from the effects of long teaching or mere prejudice, I do 
 not know — would not have been, a few years or even months ago, 
 very much shocked at his sentiments ? I mj'self having incidentally 
 mentioned, in a speech about a North-End Park, that I thought on the 
 Sunday evening working-men might enjoy God's fair world with their 
 families, was pubhcly spoken against, and of course impeached 
 as exhorting men to spend the evening in that way only, when I had 
 an extra service in Church for them! There was a howl got up 
 immediately for my daring to say this. But, with the exception of 
 * See Appendix F. + See Appendix G.
 
 Some Bad Results from Attempting/ to do so. 15 
 
 my friend Mr. M'Gregor, wlio was present at that meeting, I never, 
 until now, heard another clergyman speak out in my support. 
 I can assure you I was horrified at such gross Judaism. It made 
 me, I might say, almost tremble for the condition we were in 
 in Scotland, and feel that we were standing on the edge of a 
 sHppeiT precipice, over which many might suddenly fall into utter 
 disregard of the Lord's-day. It revealed a state of matters that 
 might induce a terrific reaction as a protest against such ignorance 
 and such cruelty; and aU in the name of our Father in heaven ! 
 Only think of it ! We get parks for those working-men — men 
 ■who rise at five o'clock in the morning, and drudge through life dur- 
 ing the day, and come home weary at night — and we have, hitherto, 
 practically said to these men, in the name of the Sabbath of the 
 Lord, " Kennel up into yom- wretched abodes ! " Who dares deny 
 it ? For what else was I blamed, I should like to know ? Against 
 •what else was the cry raised ? And let Dr. Macduff" beware, or he will 
 have the cry against him too. And to put our Judaism beyond a doubt 
 in this respect, let me remind -nriters of kind and sensible Pastorals, 
 that our own General Assembly, as late as 1834 — I quote second-hand 
 — in a Pastoral addressed to our churches, declared walking on Sunday 
 to be "an impious encroachment on one of the inalienable prerogatives 
 of the Lord's-day."* That is what I call clerical Judaism. The 
 same thing comes constantly into play. It comes in contact with 
 the merest trifles as "an everlasting No." Wet or diy, can we take 
 a cab ? — No. Why ? — The Fourth Commandment. Dare we have 
 a hot joint for dinner on Sunday ? — No. Why ? — The Fourth 
 Commandment. Can we walk out with our children on Sunday ? 
 — No. Why ? — The Fourth Commandment. Can we let young 
 children amuse themselves in any way on Sunday '? — No. Why ? 
 — The Fourth Commandment ! f And so on in innumerable trifles, 
 in a way, the reasonableness of which no man can see or feel. In 
 this spirit have I heard a person lamenting the passing away of 
 religion, "In my day," he said, " we walked to the kirk on the 
 top of the causeway, and never boo'd an e'e; and sat in the kirk 
 and durstna tak' our e'en aff" the minister; and then cam' hame; 
 and then we were chasteesed" — he meant catechized — " chasteesed 
 a' nicht on the carritch." And can we, until such a state of things 
 as this is boldly and fii-mly exposed and denounced by us clergy, as 
 ignorance of the will of our gracious Father, go to the people and 
 say, " You are to be cheerful; very cheerful on this day?" I grant 
 you that our Pastoral expresses on the -whole a different spiiit; but it is 
 difficult to discover it as a legitimate consequence of a belief in the Sab- 
 bath of the Old dispensation as of perpetual obligation. What more 
 remarkable proof could I give of the presence and influence of this spirit 
 ■with which our habits of mind are imbued, than what was said at the 
 recent public meeting in our City Hall about Sabbath trains ? A clerg}-- 
 man from England, of our own city, — for whose Christian character I 
 have the highest respect, — stood up, without one single person to 
 dissent from him, not even my friend Dr. Jamieson, who was present, 
 ■* See Appendix H. + See Appendix I.
 
 16 The Fourth Commandment not Obeyed: 
 
 and said, as a proof of how strictly he had been accustomed to keep 
 the Sabbath, that he had never seen a hot joint of meat on Sunday 
 till he came to Scotland; and never had been in a carriage on Sunday; 
 and then, speaking of Sunday travelling, pronounced the judgment, 
 that any man who travelled on a railway on the Lord's-day could not 
 have in him the love of Christ ! What Sabbath-breaking could be 
 so bad as the utterance of such a sentiment ? And this is just one 
 of the dangers of enslaving people to the letter, instead of leading 
 them up to a spirit and life in Christ ; that we get a st^de of religion 
 which strains at gnats, and swallows camels; which tithes mint, anise, 
 and cummin, and omits the weightier matters of the law — judgment, 
 mercy, and faith ; and which has a constant tendency to substitute 
 outward forms, shibboleths, phrases, even tones of voice and 
 peculiarities of manner, for the genuine life which is in and by Jesus 
 Christ, — yea, alas ! in many cases, the hate of the old Pharisees 
 at the alleged breaking of an outward rule, for that Christian love 
 which is the fulfilling of the law. With unfeigned sorrow, God knov.'s, 
 I utter this; and greater sorrow must I, or any man, endure, who will 
 dare expose it, though with no other wish than to lead brethren 
 to a truer and nobler position. 
 
 It strikes me, again, that this same " Scottish Sabbath" of ours is, 
 in some respects, more rigid than even the Sabbath of the Phari- 
 sees in our Lord's time. Let me illustrate what I mean. When 
 the late Lord Palmerston was here, I had the honour of being asked, 
 with others, by the Lord Provost of the day, to meet him at dinner on 
 Sunday. A most excellent lady, whom I very much love and respect, 
 came to me in great anxiety afterwards, saying, " I have to ask jon 
 one question: Did you dine with Lord Palmerston on Sunday?" I 
 said, " No, my friend, I did not." " I am so thankful to hear it," she 
 rephed; "I was sure, however, you would not have done so." I said, 
 " Pray do not mistake my principles. That evening happened to be 
 one for my preaching to the working-classes, and I thought it would 
 be, to say the least of it, in wretchedly bad taste if I gave up my 
 lecture even to meet so agreeable and distinguished a person as Lord 
 Palmerston; but otherwise I would have gone with pleasure and a 
 good conscience. Remember," I added, " that our Lord dined with 
 .a Pharisee on Sabbath." 
 
 Dk. jAJvnESON — Was it on Sabbath ? 
 
 De. Macleod — I have never heard it doubted. 
 
 Dr. JAivnESON — I rather think not. It was after sunset on the 
 Sabbath. 
 
 De. Macleod — Well, it was after sunset I was asked to dine ^vith 
 Lord Palmerston! My friend exclaimed, "Oh, surely not!" 
 " Saint Luke mentions it," I said; "yet do not infer from this 
 that we are all to have dinner-parties on Sunday. We must 
 ,obey the spirit, not the letter." 
 
 Without illustrating my position further, it does humbly appear to 
 me, that our attempting to combine the perpetual obligation of the 
 Sabbath law with the Christian liberty of the Lord's-day, — to im- 
 press men, on the one hand, with the strictness of the letter, instead
 
 Some Bad Results from Attempting to do so. 17 
 
 ■ of lifting them up into the spirit of obedient love, and then, ever 
 and anon, to relax that letter when convenient — produces confusion 
 and doubt. Men are wavering between a rule and a spirit, — some- 
 times following the one, sometimes the other ; hardly knowing, or 
 guessing in darkness, what God's will is. I am quite sure, also, 
 that very many are induced to do many things which, although quite 
 innocent, they have yet been taught to believe are wrong, and 
 that morality is thus weakened. Things which God hath cleansed 
 are called unclean. Heavy burdens are laid on weak and uninformed 
 consciences which God has removed; and all this tends to weaken 
 the authority of conscience, and the reverence due to it in regard to 
 what is moral law, or eternal right and wrong. An excellent elder of 
 another church in Glasgow once asked me, "Did you preach in 
 your church that a man might, if he pleased, w^alk on Sunday?" 
 I said, "Yes, I did; and I confess it to the whole world." " Well," 
 he said, " I am thankful for it. I always walked, — but I went out at 
 the back-door." As another example, I was told by an English 
 barrister, that on one of the English circuits, when a very stringent 
 assize discourse had been preached on the breach of the Sabbath as a 
 great source of crime, the presiding judge remarked to the preacher, 
 that he quite agreed with him, but on very different gi-ounds from 
 those adduced in his discourse, inasmuch as, in his own ex- 
 perience, he traced the beginning of much ciime to the fact of the 
 young being trained up in the habit of doing many things 
 on Sunday which they believed to be sins, though in themselves quite 
 allowable, in forgetfulness of what the Apostle says, "When I was 
 a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as 
 a child," These illustrations may be sneered at as unbecoming 
 le\dty and mere trifles; but they shew how the wind has been 
 steadily blowing ; and every man can add to them evidences of the 
 same breeze — sometimes a gale — fi'om his own observation. 
 
 Another result of our teaching is not without danger, espe- 
 cially to our people when abroad, who have not learned the real 
 spirit in which the Lord's-day should be kept ; and that is, the idea 
 of a Scottish Sabbath being, as it were, an institution peculiar to Scot- 
 land, and sacred only within her borders, and to be kept on grounds 
 that are not suited to every countiy under heaven. For myself, 
 I have never seen any reason for keeping the Lord's-day when 
 abroad, differently fi'om what I do w^hen at home. But, I regret 
 to say, this has not been my experience of many Scotchmen 
 who have, in Scotland, held rigidly to the Sabbath law, — a fact 
 which, if it were necessary, I might illustrate by notable examples. 
 I have never yet met abroad that minister or man who did not, 
 even after preaching a sennon, take a walk — a sober, pleasant walk ; 
 in Switzerland, for instance, to enjoy its sceneiy; or on ship-board, 
 for houi's on the deck, enjoying society and the sea. I never met a 
 countryman in Jerusalem, or Moscow, or anywhere else, who did not 
 do so ; and yet, in an Edinburgh Presbytery — recollect, in the nine- 
 teenth century — a most respected and intelligent clergj'man, a few 
 j'ears ago, expressed his amazement at the state of religion in Stras-
 
 18 In ivhat respects the Decalogue is Abrogated, 
 
 burg, because, when be called with a letter of introduction on a 
 clergyman, be found bim — doing wbat ? Dancing, or di'unk ? — No ; 
 but walking on tbe ramparts on Sunday ! Once more, suppose I were 
 to open scbools in Glasgow on tbe Sunday morning, for wretcbed 
 outcasts, — boj's wbo work to support tbeir widowed motbers from 
 seven in tbe morning till eigbt at nigbt ; wbo cannot get education 
 unless tbe pale-faced creatures sit balf-asleep at a desk after tbeir 
 beavy work is done, to learn to read and write until nine or ten, 
 — a torment wbicb you and I would never tbink of inflicting 
 upon our own boys and girls, — were I to take tbese creatures, 
 plajdng in tbe kennel; going about tbe streets, and perbaps tempted 
 to steal; growing up in ignorance of all religious trutb, and tbe means 
 of attaining or communicating it by reading or writing; and if, along 
 with religion, I were to teacb tbem tbese brancbes, adding tbe comforts 
 of a warm fire, and possibly some food, — are tbere not bundreds wbo, 
 believing ihej did God a service, would protest equally against tbe cbil- 
 di'en learning to read or write as against tbeir " plaj'ing " on Sunday, 
 and denounce me as a dangerous revolutionist, wbo wisbed to destroy 
 tbe day of boly rest and worsbip ? If not, a marvellous revolution 
 bas come over us ! Well, Dr. Tbomson, Dr. Cbalmers, Dr. Gutbrie, 
 preacbed for sucb scbools, and I bave bad tbe bonour of doing 
 tbe same, at Stockport, — and we did rigbt in tbis. But bow 
 many would be disposed to tbink, " Ob ! tbat was only tbe Sabbath 
 on tbe otber side of tbe Tweed!"' Is tbere no temptation, tberefore, 
 I ask, from tbis constant talk about a Scottish Sabbatb, to make men 
 tbink tbat wbat migbt be very wrong in Glasgow, is quite innocent, 
 or even rigbt, in London or Paris ? Is tbere no danger bere ? 
 
 Tbe conclusion to wbicb I bave been forced to come is, tbat tbe 
 Sabbatb of tbe Fourth Commandment is not binding upon tbe 
 Christian Church. The answer to this is, — tbat it must be so, be- 
 cause it is contained in tbe Decalogue, and that the Decalogue is 
 the moral law, and as sucb is necessarily of perpetual obligation. 
 Tbis might be conclusive if no distinction could be made between tbe 
 Decalogue and the moral law, and both were identical. But this 
 assumption, if carefully considered, migbt involve serious difficulties 
 when endeavouring to reconcile the change of any portion whatever, 
 and on any authority whatever, of a tnoral law, and one, conse- 
 quently, of perpetual obligation. The more you describe the circum- 
 stances in which the Decalogue was given and received, in order to 
 impress its binding character upon men, the more solemn awe you 
 cast around the " Ten Words," — the more puzzling must it appear 
 how any one of tbese words could, in any degi'ee, or to any extent, be 
 modified by cbanging tbe day or anything else, unless by an au- 
 thority as undoubted as tbat by which it was at first promulgated. 
 But on the supposition tbat tbere is a real distinction between the 
 moral law as contained in tbe Decalogue, and tbe Decalogue itself 
 as a covenant between God and Israel, no sucb difficulty will be 
 felt; but harmony only perceived between tbe authority of the Old 
 and New, and in our duty in relation to every portion of God's 
 revealed will. We can easily understand sucb a distinction as
 
 In ichat respects the Decalogue is Abrogated. 19 
 
 this in the case of a marriage contract, which might impose, under 
 heavy penalties, certain duties on a husband, such as, to pro- 
 tect, shelter, and support his wife, — never to strike her, never to 
 starve her, never to desert her, &c. These very same duties, 
 while binding on the husband because in the contract, would 
 be felt to be binding on him also because he was a man, not 
 a brute — a Christian, not a heathen ; and would remain in full force 
 were the contract abrogated which contained them. Non", it does 
 seem to me that such a distinction as I have alluded to is re- 
 cognized in Scripture. The Decalogue, or the Ten AVords, was the 
 sum and substance — the essence, so to speak — of the " covenant" 
 which God made with Israel. Hence it is said, " And the Lord 
 said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these 
 words / have made a covenant uith tliee and with Israel. And he 
 was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights ; he did neither 
 eat bread, nor drink water: and He u-rote ujjon the tables the 
 words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments^ Hence, also, 
 these tables are called, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "the 
 tables of the covenant;''' and the chest which contained them, 
 is named "the ark of f/ie covenant.'' This supposition sufficiently 
 accounts for the fact, that there are in the Decalogue, ■sdewed as the 
 "words of the covenant," allusions peculiar to the past history and 
 future prospects of the people with whom that covenant was made: 
 such, for example, as, "I am the Lord th}- God, which have brought 
 thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," — a 
 blessed dehverance indeed, but which does not apply to us as Gen- 
 tiles.* I was never brought out of Egypt, nor out of bondage, for 
 I am not of the Jews according to the flesh ; nor am I, like the 
 member of a " caste," virtually descended from them, for I am born 
 of God. In hke manner, the promise annexed to the Fifth Com- 
 mandment is local and temporal.! 
 
 Dr. J.\5iiesox — It is repeated -in the Gospel. 
 
 Dk. ]\Iacleod — Yes, it is, indeed, quoted in the Epistles as the fii'st 
 commandment with promise ; and this shews its importance for all 
 time. But the promise itself is one which, fi-om its veiy nature, can- 
 not be literally fulfilled to us, but is evidently local and temporaL 
 There are also many Christian duties which might, without due 
 consideration, seem to be based on Old Testament commands, when 
 there is yet no connection between them, except that of some inner 
 abiding truth, — as, for example, when the duty of supporting the 
 ministry is, by the Apostle, enforced by " the law," " For," he says, 
 "it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the 
 mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn." But is this the 
 " law," therefore, of the Christian Church for the support of the 
 clergy? 
 
 Now it is the Decalogue, viewed in this aspect, as written on 
 "the tables of the covenant," and including necessarily its Sab- 
 bath law as the sign of the covenant, which I presume to think 
 has been abrogated by being nailed to Christ's cross, J with the. 
 * See Appendix K. + See Appendix L, + See Appendix M.
 
 20 In what respects the Decalogue is Abrogated. 
 
 wliole Mosaic economy, and buried in the grave with Jesus. 
 Hence, as the Apostle says, with reference to this whole " covenant," 
 including, consequently, the law of the Sabbath, " Blotting out 
 the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, which was con- 
 trary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross ; and, 
 having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them 
 openl}^ triumphing over them in it. Let no man, therefore, judge you 
 in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holiday, or of the new moon, 
 or of the Sabbath-days : which are a shadow of things to come ; but 
 the body is of Christ." But the moral law, on the other hand, 
 obviously rests on a totally ditferent basis from the *' ten words " of 
 the "covenant." Its precepts, as moral duties, are binding on 
 us, because they are true and right in themselves; and they are 
 not true and right because they are in the Decalogue, but they 
 are in the Decalogue because they are true and right. All moral 
 law is, moreover, discoverable by the moral nature of man, so that 
 Gentiles who have not " the law," as written on tables of stone 
 by the finger of God for the Jews, have, nevertheless, the same law, 
 in so far as it is moral, written on their spirits by the finger of the 
 same God. Surely on this ground we may affirm, without doubt or 
 offence, that the law of the Fourth Commandment, from its very nature, 
 is not moral. To worship God, and to set apart a fixed time for that 
 worship, may indeed, with some truth, be called moral; but, to 
 say the least of it, it is doubtful whether even the duty of worship 
 can be found in the Fourth Commandment, though possibly it may 
 be inferred from it ; for it must be admitted that there is not one 
 hint in it about worship, but only of sanctifying the day, or of setting 
 it apart for rest. And in I'egard to what really is contained in it — 
 even though rest were a moral duty, because a physical and social 
 necessity, yet a command to rest on the seventh day, with children, 
 cattle, strangers, &c., is obviously not a moral law, but a positive 
 enactment, binding only on those to whom it is given. To abrogate 
 a positive command by competent authority, is possible; but to abro- 
 gate a moral law, is impossible by any authority whatever. The Sab- 
 bath may be abrogated, and the covenant of which it was a sign; but 
 who can abrogate a moral duty, or make right and wrong exchange 
 places? The Decalogue, as a marriage contract, may pass away; 
 but Decalogue or no Decalogue, every commandment in it, in so far 
 as it is moral, must be of as perpetual obligation as the law of duty 
 to God and man. 
 
 I therefore do not believe in the continued obligation of the 
 Fourth Commandment. 
 
 But should we come to the conclusion, that the Decalogue, as 
 God's covenant with Israel, has been abrogated, while we, as 
 Christians, have still to do with it as an expression of moral law in 
 the true sense of the term, the practical question remains. What 
 use are ive to make of it ? and how do we stand related to it ? For 
 example, — is this, we ask, " the law" by which all of us must now 
 reach, or by which any of us have ever reached, a knowledge of sin ? 
 If any man who has never known or realized the evil in his own
 
 The Moral Law and the Gospel. 21 
 
 heart ; its fearful corruption, and the results and evidence of this in 
 thought, word, and deed ; his want of love to God and man; his dire 
 opposition to God's holj will; his base selfishness, pride, and unbe- 
 lief; his hatred, malice, and uncharitableness ; his unprofitableness 
 as a servant ; his abuse of his talents ; and most of all, that which 
 is very sin itself, and of which the Spirit speciall}' convinces us, — the 
 not believing in Jesus, and the consequent unlikeness to Him ; — if 
 such a man, I say, is to be taught to know what he is, and to feel 
 his evil condition by seeing his guilt in a broken law, whither, for 
 this end, are we to send him ? To Exodus, or to the Gospels and 
 Epistles ? To Sinai and the Decalogue, or to Calvary and Christ ? 
 Which will most enlighten and convince the conscience ? Let the 
 experiment be made by any earnest man. For myself, I should 
 be ashamed not to declare before the world, that one intelligent 
 look, by faith, of the holy and loving Christ, would crush me to 
 the dust with a sense of sin, which the Decalogue, heard even from 
 Sinai, could never produce. Never by the Ten Commandments could 
 I be so convinced and humbled, even when perceiving their spiritu- 
 ality, as I should be in seeing law, or God's holy will, expressed 
 in what Christ was and was 7iof. 
 
 Must I go to the Decalogue for justification ? No Christian 
 asserts this. Jesus is my justifier. I am justified by faith. He 
 is the end of the law for righteousness to all who believe. 
 
 Must I go, then, to the Decalogue for a rule of life ? Am I 
 obliged, by any moral necessity, to pass by the teaching of the 
 Apostles on every duty, with all that is described by them as life 
 in the flesh and in the spirit ? — and must I go to the Decalogue, 
 saying, There is no rule full enough and spiritual enough for me 
 in Apostolic teaching, so I must find it here ? Must I pass also 
 Jesus Christ and His life as a revelation of duty, and His laws 
 as its expression, and say, there is no rule sufficiently explicit, seai-ch- 
 ing, and directing, revealed for me even in Him ? — and must I travel 
 upward until I search the Decalogue to find rules of life clearer, 
 fuller, and more able to guide me than all I have left behind ? If 
 any man means to assert this, or anything like this, or anything ap- 
 proaching to this, then I can only say, that I cannot understand him ! 
 Christ's life is itself a sufficient rule; — in Him all God's moral law, as a 
 rule of life, is summarily comprehended. If men must have it evolved 
 into principles of conduct expressed in words, they will find it in such 
 as these : — "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto 
 you, do ye even unto them ; for this is the Law and the Prophets." 
 "Love is the fulfilling of the law." "All the law is fulfilled in 
 one point, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" If we wish 
 a fuller exposition of the law of duty to God and man, we shall find 
 it in the Sermon on the Mount, and in all the Gospels and Epistles. 
 If this will not suffice, I fear the Ten Commandments will prove still 
 more insufficient; and that conscience, as the last resort, and tho 
 reflection of the moral law, will not be more clear or full. To go 
 from Christ, then, to the "law" for a rule of life, would be to 
 me like going from the sun at noon-day to the moon at night, for
 
 22 The Moral Law and the Gospel. 
 
 light to guide me on my journey. It does not seem to me to be 
 true Gospel teaching, to send me first from Moses to Christ for par- 
 don and grace, and then to send me back again to Moses for a rule 
 of life. Moses was the servant, Christ alone is the Master. In the 
 presence of Moses and Elias, God said, " This is my beloved Son; 
 hear Him !" 
 
 But after all, what is "the rule of life" to a believer? Is it a 
 series of rules? No, it is life itself; it is that wliich is the true life 
 of the soul ; the right condition of the spirit toward God and man, out 
 of which all right thought, right feeling, right action, must come; 
 that life which is derived from, and sustained b\'- Christ. And what 
 is that? What but love to God and man. All rules are but channels 
 cut out by our wise and gracious ]\Iaster, along which the water of 
 this divine life in the spirit ought to flow, and loill flow. 
 
 To the believer Christ is all in all. Through Christ he finds 
 peace with God, being reconciled to Him by His atoning death, and, 
 receiving the adoption of sons through His Spirit, he cries with the 
 spirit of freedom and of love shed abroad in his heart, " Father!" 
 He abides through faith in Christ, and as a disciple, is disciplined 
 to "learn Christ;" — and to put off the old man, with his affections 
 and lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of his mind; and to put on 
 the new man, which, after God, is renewed in righteousness and true 
 holiness. In one sense the Christian is above law as mere rule; 
 inasmuch as he walks according to " the spirit of life which is in 
 Christ Jesus;" and as he has received the Lord Jesus, " so he walks 
 in Him, ^^ "rooted and built up in Sim.^' He can say, "I am 
 crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; j'et, not I, but Christ 
 liveth in me ; and the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith 
 in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." 
 To such a man, as living in the Spirit and following Jesus, it 
 would make no possible practical difference if he never saw the 
 Ten Commandments. Leb us beware, then, of giving them a 
 place which the Lord alone and His Spirit should occupy. 
 But "do we then make void the law? God forbid! "Yea, 
 we establish the law." " The law was given by Moses, but grace 
 and truth came by Jesus Christ." 
 
 If you ask me, then, to keep the Sabbath law, you must prove to 
 me, as being under law to Christ, that I am to keep it as con- 
 tained in the law of life which is in Christ, or as sanctioned or 
 enacted by the iNIaster. What precept, what duty imposed on me 
 as a Christian, do I fail to find in Christ, that I must go back to an 
 earlier stage of His kingdom and government in order to find it ? 
 Where, then, is His authority for keeping the Sabbath law of the 
 Fourth Commandment after His resurrection ? In vain I ask ! 
 It has died out with the old economy. The Passover has gone, 
 without even formal abrogation, and we have the Lord's Supper ; 
 circumcision has died out, and we have baptism ; the Sabbath has 
 died out, and we have the Lord's-day. So, too, Jerusalem has died 
 out, and we have the worship everywhere in spirit and in truth. 
 Palestine has vanished as the Holy Land, and we have the world
 
 The Moral Law and the Gospel. 23 
 
 as our field, and the hope that the kingdoms of this world will be- 
 come the kingdoms of the Loi'd. A religion of mere rules, forms, and 
 ■outward restraints has been lost iu a religion of holy principles, 
 working in freedom to the sure result of holy practice, perfect peace, 
 and exceeding joy. The Sabbath has sunk gradually beneath the 
 horizon, as His worship and the first day of the week have risen with 
 himself from the grave; while high above all times and seasons, all 
 days, weeks, months, and years, rises Jesus Christ himself as my 
 life, — its source, its expression, its end, its all and in all ! 
 
 But let us turn once more to the Decalogue, whether as a 
 covenant with Israel, or as an epitome of moral duties, and see how 
 it looks to us in the light of Christ. We Christians not only know 
 that the Lord our God is the Creator of the heavens and of the 
 earth, but we know also — what no man of God living under the Old 
 dispensation ever dreamt of — that the eternal Son of God was that 
 Creator; "For all things were made by Him and for Him, and 
 without Him was not anything made that was made." Though we 
 have never been brought out of the land of Egypt, nor out of 
 the house of bondage, we have yet beeii redeemed by the precious 
 blood of Jesus, and delivered from the bondage of guilt and of sin, 
 and have become the servants of Him, our Redeemer. We not onl}'- 
 know the folly of worshipping dumb idols, but we know the glory 
 and blessedness of worshipping Jesus Christ as our Lord and God. 
 We do not, verily, take the name of the Lord our God in vain ; but 
 we know His name as it was never known before, and rejoice in it as 
 that of our Father in Heaven, the God and Father of our Lord and 
 Saviour, whose nameis Love. If we are free from any obligation to keep 
 the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment, we nevertheless enjoy the 
 substance of which that was the shadow; — we enjoy Christ; and by 
 ceasing from our own works and believing in Him, we enter into 
 His rest in God; and we enjoy the spiritual rest of commemorating 
 Him, and of worshipping, with the whole Catholic Church, on the 
 das- of His resurrection; and thus link the law of the Old with 
 the life and privileges of the New covenant. We honour our 
 father and our mother; but these holy words have, to us, a mean- 
 ing higher than the . pious Jew could understand, when we see 
 them in the light of a Divine Father and a Divine Son, and of that 
 Son as born of woman, and as having been subject to His parents. 
 ■"Thou shalt not kill," is in Christ lifted up to the loving of my 
 brother; as Christ, the Brother of us all, has loved me, and has taught 
 me so to love my brother as to give my life for him, if needs 
 be. In Jesus Christ I see my body as the temple of the Holy 
 Ghost, which if any man defile, him will God destroy; and I see 
 Jesus as the Lord of the body; and I see His sister as my sister, 
 whom I am bound to respect and honour; and I see marriasre 
 elevated in Christ on the ground that we are members of Sis 
 body, of His flesh, and of His bones. As a believer in the Lord, 
 it is not enough that I do not steal, but that I labour with my 
 own hands in the thing that is good, so that I may give to him 
 that needeth; and that my brother's goods be as secure with me
 
 24 Tlie Moral Laiv and the Gospel. 
 
 as with him, because I love him as mj'self. It is not enough that 
 I do not bear false witness against my neighbour, but that I love 
 and cherish his character and name as I do my own, because we are 
 members one of another. In Christ, covetousness is an idolatry which 
 shuts men out of the kingdom of God — while all the children of the 
 kingdom rejoice to give themselves and all they have to the Lord. 
 I do not deny that there are harmonies between the letter even 
 of the Old, and the spirit of the New covenant, more varied and 
 deep than we can discover, until we sing that song of Moses and 
 the Lamb, in which they will ultimatelj'' blend. But here we 
 can see a glory in the New that never was in the Old. "If 
 the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was 
 glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold 
 the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance ; which glory was 
 to be done awa}'; how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be 
 rather glorious ? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, 
 much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed i)i glory. 
 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, 
 by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which was done 
 away was glorious, much more that which reraaineth is glorious!" 
 
 [At this stage of the debate the Presbytery, having to preside 
 at an ordination, unavoidably adjourned. On their meeting again 
 De. Macleod resumed his speech.] 
 
 In resuming this debate, Moderator, I need not occupy your time 
 by going over the ground already traversed. But let me read to 
 you one or two passages from this volume of Richard Baxter's, 
 which contains a treatise with which I have long been familiar, on 
 the divine appointment of the Lord's-day,* not as proving, but as 
 expressing the views on the Decalogue which I have endeavoured to 
 state, and with an authority which none of us, I suppose, profess 
 to have, 
 
 "Moses's law never bound any to it but tlie Jews, and those proselytes 
 that made themselves inhabitants of their land, or voluntarily subjected 
 themselves to their policy. For Moses was ruler of none but the Jews, 
 nor a legislator or deputed officer from God to any other nation. The 
 Decalogue was but pai-t of the Jewish law, if you consider it not as it is 
 written in nature, hut in tables of stone ; and the Jewish laio was given as 
 a law to no other people hut to them. It was a national law, as tbey were 
 a pecidiar people and holy nation. So that even in Moses's days it bound 
 no other nations of the world. Therefore it needed not any abrogation to 
 the Gentiles, but a declaration that it did not bind them. The whole law 
 
 of Moses, formally as such, is ceased or abrogated by Christ 
 
 Object. ' This is the doctrine of the Antiuomians, that the law is abrogated, 
 even the moral law.' — Answ. It is the doctrine of the true Antinomians that 
 we are under no Divine law, neither of nature nor of Christ ; but it is the 
 doctrine of Paid and all Christians, that the Jewish Mosaical law, as such, 
 
 * The Divine Ajipointment of the Lord's-day Proved. Baxter's Practical Works, 
 vol. xiii., pp. 417-420. Lend. 1830.
 
 The Primeval Sabbath. 25 
 
 is abolished. Object. ' But do not all divines say tliat the moral law is of 
 perpetual obligation?' — Answ. Yes; because it is God's law of natm-e, and 
 also the law of Christ. Object. ' But do not most say that the Decalogue 
 wi'itten in stone, is the moral law, and of perpetual obligation?' — Answ. Yes; 
 for by the word moral they mean natural, and so take moral, not in the 
 large sense as it signifieth a law ^ de moribus,' as all laws are whatsoever, 
 but in a narrower sense, as signifying, that which by nature is of universal 
 and perpetual obligation. So that they mean not that it is pei-petual as it is 
 Moses's law, and written in stone formally, but as it is moral, that is natural; 
 and they mean that materially the Decalogue containeth the same law which 
 is the law of nature, and therefore is materially stUl in force : but they stUl 
 except certain points and circumstances in it, as the prefatory reason, ' I am 
 the Lord that brought thee out of the land of Egypt,' &c. And especially 
 
 this of the seventh-day Sabbath The law of Christ biadeth us 
 
 not to the observation of the seventh-day Sabbath, Proved. Because it is 
 proved that Christ abrogated Moseses law, as such; and it is nowhere proved 
 that He re-assumed this as a part of His own law. For it is no part of the 
 law of nature (as is proved), which we confess now to be part of His law." 
 
 Before leaving the negative side of my argument, and passing to 
 the consideration of the institution of the Lord's-day, I must advert 
 to several arguments which have been adduced in support of the 
 perpetual obligation of the Sabbath law of the Tourth Command- 
 ment. One of these is founded on the alleged fact, that the 
 Sabbath was a primeval institution, appointed by God for Adam 
 in Paradise. Now, if my learned friends attempt to prove, that 
 for several reasons — amongst others, the necessities of man's spi- 
 ritual nature, and the goodness of God in ever revealing what man 
 required to know for his present and eternal well-being — it is 
 highly probable that the human race, in the earliest ages, may have 
 had holy times, seasons — probably even every seventh day — conse- 
 crated to Divine worship, I should not be disposed to challenge 
 their opinion. But when, not contented with such an admission, 
 my friends are determined to build upon the theory of a primeval 
 Sabbath the immense superstructure of the perpetual obligation 
 of the same Sabbath on all men, because represented in Adam, I 
 am compelled, however briefly, to examine this argument. Many 
 of our greatest thinkers and best commentators have been unable to 
 find any evidence for this primeval Sabbath.* The argument for 
 it is founded almost exclusively upon the reasons assigned for 
 keeping the Sabbath contained in the commandment itself: " For 
 in six days," &c., " wherefore" &c. It is admitted that God 
 revealed to Moses the facts connected with the creation of the world 
 2700 years after its creation ; and amongst these facts, this one, of 
 His working six days, and resting on the seventh. But is it as cer- 
 tain that this fact was revealed to Adam ? I can see no proof of 
 this. Then, again, it is by no means so very certain, as it is as- 
 sumed by many to be, that the purpose of sanctifying the seventh 
 day, grounded on the rest after creation, was actually carried into 
 * See Appendix N. 
 C
 
 26 The Primeval Sabbath and other 
 
 effect from the beginning of time — any more than, as Bishop Bram- 
 hall has remarked, that the purpose of God regarding the Apostle 
 Paul was carried into effect until many long years after, though he 
 was consecrated to God from his mother's womb. You have there- 
 fore to suppose Moses, as the inspired historian, revealing, yor the 
 -first time, the fact of the six days' work of God, and of the seventh 
 day rest, and adding — " loherefore God blessed the seventh day and 
 sanctified it." But blessed it when ? In Paradise, 2700 years 
 before, or now in the wilderness, at this moment in the history of 
 His Church ? I agree with Paley in his argument: I do not think 
 it an unfair one. But if it is not conclusive, far less are those on 
 the opposite side : and any argument would require to be very firm 
 indeed, in order to bear all that is laid upon this one. 
 
 The support which my friends attempt to give to the primeval 
 Sabbath from the septennial division of time, is not convincing. 
 No person knows better than Dr. Jamieson how the septenniiil divi- 
 sion of time — one, too, by no means universal — has been otherwise 
 accounted for. He knows very well how some writers on this 
 subject have asserted that it arose from the natural divisions of the 
 lunar month, and others, from the seven planets, observed from 
 the earliest times. 
 
 Nor is it easy to account for the marked silence of 2700 years 
 as to this primeval institution ; nor or its neglect, necessarily, by 
 the slaves of Israel in Egypt for centuries, without a word said as 
 to its suspension. 
 
 But with all this doubt regarding a primeval Sabbath, as insti- 
 tuted by God himself, what would my learned friends make of the 
 fact if proved ? They insist on establishing nothing less than 
 this : — that a law, supposed to be given to Adam while in his un- 
 fallen state, and under the covenant of works, without sin or sorrow, 
 without bodily or mental weakness, or fatigue of any kind, without 
 sickness or death, not even while earning his bread in the sweat of 
 his brow; that a law given to such an one, in such circumstances, 
 being given to Adam as man's representative, was of perpetual obli- 
 gation upon the whole human race, Jew and Gentile, Barbarian and 
 Scythian, bond and free ; upon men degraded, sinful, and subject 
 to every infirmity ; on men, who, if heathen, never heard of it ; 
 and who, if Christian, were under the covenant of grace ! I will 
 not trust myself to say what I think of such arguments and con- 
 clusions, should they be a hundred times stronger than they are. 
 It seems to me, if I may dare to say so, that the only analogy 
 in this respect between Adam and his descendants is the only 
 one practically ignored — that whereas Adam, without labour or 
 fatigue, could walk in an earthly Paradise on the Sabbath, his 
 wearied children have been hitherto forbidden to walk even in a 
 City Park. 
 
 What has been said by my reverend friend regarding the falling 
 of the manna as a proof of an earlier Sabbath, was very ingenious, 
 though he wisely did not pin his own faith to it. It has, as he well 
 knows, received a different, and, in my opinion, a more probable inter-
 
 Arguments for the Sahhatli Law considered. 27 
 
 pretation.* It has been asked, whether, when the manna fell on the 
 sixth day in a very large quantity, and the people could not make 
 out the reason, but were all astonished and perplexed, they would 
 have been so if the Sabbath had been familiar to them ? But Moses 
 tells them the reason for this gift from heaven: "To-morrow," 
 he says, "is the Sabbath," — as though he had said, "To-morrow 
 is the day God hath set apart as a holy festival, and therefore 
 learn, for the first time, that this provision has been made for it." 
 I am astonished that so much has been made of the word "remem- 
 ber,"t as if it necessarily applied to past time, rather than to 
 present attention. The very fact of the Sabbath law being a posi- 
 tive command, and not a moral law wiitten on the conscience, made 
 it the more necessary to have attention called to it. Besides, it is 
 notorious, that the same emphatic word "remember," is, in the 
 original, used in regard to the Passover, wdiich was admittedly a 
 new institution ; and in several portions of Scripture, where attention 
 is directed, not to the past at all, but onl}^ to the future. 
 
 As to the arguments from the prophetical writings about the con- 
 tinuance of a Sabbath, Dr. Jamieson passed them over, feeling 
 their weakness ; and Dr. MacduflP, I think, alluded to them but 
 slightly. These passages prove too much. Reference was made to 
 the 66th of Isaiah, and the 17th and 23rd chapters of Jeremiah. I 
 think it is not possible to read these without seeing that they would 
 prove new moons as well as Sabbaths to continue till Gospel times. 
 They are clearly declarations made to the Jews, and to the Jews 
 only. I believe in their spirit — namely, that as long as the Church 
 exists on earth, there must be public worship. But they teach me 
 no more. Then, again, I think you introduced into your Pastoral 
 the passage supposed to refer to the Sabbath rest in Hebrews, 
 
 Dr. M'Taggaet — It was merely an allusion to the reading in the 
 margin, " the keeping of a Sabbath." 
 
 Dr. Ma-CLEod — Well, I believe you will not diflPer from me when 
 I say that that interpretation is given up. Dr. Lindsay Alexander, 
 in his Life of Wardlaw, — who, in his Sabbath treatise, adopted 
 Owen's criticism, — has given it up. It refers obviously not to the 
 rest of creation, nor to the rest of Canaan, but to a higher rest in 
 God, which they who believe in Jesus enter into. 
 
 Another argument in proof of the same position has been adduced 
 from the fact that the Sabbath, according to Christ's prediction, 
 should continue after His death, when He said, " Pray that your 
 flight be not in winter, neither on the Sabbath-day. "J But His 
 warning only assumed the fact, that the Jewish Christians would 
 keep their Sabbath until the destruction of the Temple. "We 
 know that the Christians fled to Pella from Jerusalem when the 
 Temple was about to be destroyed. In His compassion and 
 mercy. He therefore says, " Pray that it be not in the winter." 
 How thoughtful that was! Pray that it be in a good season. 
 Pray that it be not on the Sabbath, for He knew that that 
 Jewish institution would then exist ; and that this being so, 
 * Sec Appendix 0. t See Appendix P. + See Appendix Q.
 
 28 The Primeval Sabbath and other 
 
 the contingency was a matter of immense importance to them. 
 We know that the Jews, while they resisted, always refused to 
 attack the enemy on the Sabbath. What was the consequence ? — 
 the Romans took advantage of that day to arrange all their troops 
 and battering-rams quietly and peaceably under their very walls, for 
 the attack next day. No Jewish Christian, seeking to flee from 
 Jerusalem at that time, could have carried a burden ; nor have been 
 permitted to leave the town with it. It was tantamount to his losing 
 his life, therefore, to have attempted to fly from Jerusalem on the 
 Sabbath. Then, again, it has been strongly urged that the phrase, 
 "The Sabbath was made for man," proves it to have been for man 
 as man, or for humanity.* I think it is a gift of God to man, but 
 that this text does not prove it to be so. It is remarkable that such 
 accurate divines as my friends should misquote Scripture, for there 
 is no such verse in the Bible. It is but half a verse. It is like the 
 quotation, "Judas went out and hanged himself: go thou and 
 do likewise." These may be loords of Scripture, but you are not 
 to put them together; as little should you separate those which 
 are united. Had a drowning man a bag of gold about him, and 
 did the pi'actical question arise, whether he should save his gold or 
 his life? it might be said, in such a case, either "the gold was made 
 for man," so you must keep it and lose your life; or, " the gold was 
 made for man, not man for the gold," and so lose the gold, but save 
 your life. The text is, " The Sabbath was made for man, not man 
 for the Sabbath ;" and it proves, it strikes me, the very reverse of 
 what our respected friends and others allege it does. It proves, 
 that when the claims of the Sabbath in any respect come into 
 conflict with the claims of man as man, the Sabbafch must yield. 
 The institution was made for man — for man's good, and not 
 man for the institution. This is not what would be said 
 of any part of the moral law, which cannot mould itself to man, 
 but demands that man should mould his chai'acter and ways to its 
 obligations. Lastly, the fact that our Lord himself always kept 
 the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment, proves only what no one 
 calls in question, that, "being born under the law," He fulfilled all 
 righteousness. The New dispensation did not commence until after 
 His death and resurrection. 
 
 I am, therefore, not convinced that the Sabbath law, as revealed 
 in the Fourth Commandment, is binding on Christians, yet I 
 cordially admit that it was a gift from God ; — that it was a witness 
 for great facts in the history of the world and of the Church ; that 
 it consecrated labour and rest to God ; and that we might expect 
 that, in some ivay or other, its blessings would be rescued from the 
 ruins of the Mosaical economy, and be reproduced in a still more 
 free and beautiful form, in harmony with the spirit of the new 
 .economy. We shall not, therefore, be surprised to find that the 
 Lord's-day is in harmony with the old Sabbath, and has, under God, 
 grown up within the bosom of the Christian Church. 
 
 But I must approach the positive part of my argument. 
 * See Appendix R.
 
 Arguments for the Sabbath Laic considered. 29 
 
 Now, suppose we assume that the Sabbath law, as an ordinance 
 which belonged entirely to another economy, has passed away, 
 having done its noble work on the earth, and been an immense 
 blessing to the Church of God in its infancy. "What then? 
 I can well understand how many Christians should at first, and for 
 a moment, feel alarmed at the conclusion, and exclaim, " Do not 
 take it from us ; explain it in any way you please, to adapt it 
 to the times ; but do not take it from us." Why ? " Because if 
 we let it go, we have no Sunday." "Were it removed, they are dis- 
 posed to say, as Mary said at the empty sepulchre of Christ, " They 
 have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid 
 Him." Yet, as she got something better than the old human 
 form, when she found her risen Lord, so I hope we shall also 
 get, in Chx-ist, a day better than the Sabbath. How well I 
 remember this feeling myself, when, a long time ago, I preached 
 a course of sermons on the Sabbath, following most sincerely 
 the very line of argument you have been pleased to follow to-day, 
 and most heartily believing in it, as you most heartily believe 
 in it now. I do aot mean to allege whether I have advanced or 
 gone back — I pass no judgment in this respect on myself or upon 
 you ; but while I preached according to my belief, I felt myself 
 constantly met by difficulties which I could not answer. I felt 
 in this way : " I believe as far as I see ; I cannot disbelieve 
 it; but I am not satisfied, and perhaps never can be." Pro- 
 foundly I felt, that if the old Sabbath law was given up, I did 
 not know what to lay hold of. The very passionate manner in 
 which men cling to it, often springs from nothing else than their 
 passionate love to a holy day consecrated to the Lord. There is in 
 the bosom of the Church a deep and undying conviction as to the 
 blessedness of such a day, as being essential for the existence of the 
 Church, and part and parcel of its history; and so long as 
 Christians remain on earth, they will and shall have a holy day in 
 seven. And most acutely do I feel the pain which I fear my argu- 
 ment must give to many humble and holy souls, at whose feet I 
 am not worthy to sit, when it seems to them to lead necessarily to 
 the conclusion, that it must end in my giving up, or inducing others 
 to give up, that day which is to us so unspeakably precious. 
 
 The argument must be wrong which necessarily leads to such a 
 conclusion. Let them believe, at least, that I would mourn such a 
 result as much as any man on earth, and let them in charity assume 
 that my sincere belief before God is, that the arguments by which 
 some men would, with most perfect honesty, and with more ability 
 than I pretend to, establish this day on the perpetual obligation of 
 the Fourth Commandment, are insufficient, and therefore destructive 
 in the end of what we all love. If I, therefore, seem to destroy, it is 
 only in order to build up. I may, of course, be mistaken. If so, I 
 Lave faith in God that He will in mercy destroy my work. But if it is 
 good, He will protect it, whatever men may do or say to the contrary. 
 Let me, then, endeavour to shew you the grounds on which I think 
 the Lord's-day may be established as an ordinance, which cannot
 
 30 The Existence of the Christmn Church 
 
 but command the approval of every Christian man, or of any man, 
 indeed, who has any respect for God, or any sense of his own re- 
 sponsibihty. 
 
 In doing so, let me, in the first place, remind you, that there is a 
 fact essential to Christianity, and that is, the existence of a Church. 
 There is an absolute necessity, as a part of our Christianity, for 
 Christians to meet together for worship, and to remember Christ 
 at the Lord's Supper, — an ordinance given us as a symbol of our 
 fellowship, not only with Christ, but with one another, expressed and 
 strengthened by our eating the one bread and drinking the one cup. 
 Christ has established such a Church on earth, and His will is not 
 fulfilled by one who only professes, "I believe in Christ; I stand 
 related to Christ;" but refuses to unite himself, as a member of the 
 Church, with those who profess, and, as far as he can judge, actually 
 possess, the same living faith. " Him that is weak in the faith 
 receive ye," says the Apostle ; thus intimating that faith, which 
 alone unites us to Christ, should unite us to one another. Thus 
 believers should, as a society, meet in their corporate capacity for 
 instruction, for worship, and for partaking of the communion ; nay, 
 did the present circumstances of society admit of it in every 
 case, not only to assemble themselves together, but also to consider 
 07ie another^ and to provoke to love and good works. This is as 
 much a part of practical Christianity as anything revealed by 
 Christ, The whole social system of the Gospel is a pro- 
 test against the individual man shrinking up within himself, 
 or remaining alone, saying, "I believe in Christ, that is enough." 
 The Christian, by his very faith and obedience to Christ, dare 
 not do this if he would ; and 1 am sure he would not if he had 
 that love to his bi'ethren which necessarily springs out of love 
 to the Father and Elder Brother. The brotherhood of the Church 
 is rooted in its relationship to the Eternal Son. I maintain, 
 therefore, that if a Christian went to a distant part of the world, 
 — to India, or anywhere else, — he ought to find out other believers, 
 if no Church already existed in the place, and to worship along 
 with them on Sunday, remembering the promise, " Where two or 
 three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of 
 them." Nay, more, they would meet together to remember Christ 
 at the Lord's Supper, even where there was no ordained minister 
 of the Gospel to dispense it. For am I to be told that Chris- 
 tians, thus meeting in the distant wilderness, are never to re- 
 member Jesus Christ till some clergyman comes amongst them ; 
 that they have no liberty to constitute themselves into a church 
 for a time; and that if, in such peculiar circumstances^ they said, in 
 the presence of God, " We recognize this bread and wine no longer 
 as ordinary food, but partake of it in remembrance of Christ," — 
 this would not be recognized as a holy sacrament? I cannot deny 
 this without going into the Popish idea of the Eucharist, as neces- 
 sarily requiring the consecration of the priest. But for the sake 
 of order, — believing, as I heartily do, in a Christian ministry as the 
 rule, and in government of some kind as necessary for every
 
 Involves a Day for Worship. 31 
 
 society as distinct from a mob, — such cases are exceptional. But 
 I allude to them as bearing out the great idea of what I might call 
 — if you will pardon the expression — the socialism of Christianity. 
 And I have illustrated, by an extreme case, the importance which I 
 humbly think is attached to the social Christian fellowship of the 
 Church. But if what I have alleged regarding our duty on the 
 Lord's-day, would hold true, even where there was no organized 
 branch of Christ's Catholic Church, how much more binding is the 
 duty in a Christian country ! 
 
 But supposing that this first duty is granted, — which, remember, 
 I base on the revealed will of Christy and the very existence and 
 necessity of a Christian Church, — I further affirm, that the duty and 
 privilege of such Christian fellowship in holy worship, necessarily 
 involves the appointment of some fixed day for the performance of 
 such Christian duties, and for the enjoyment of such Christian privi- 
 leges. This does not require any proof. 
 
 Now I find such a day, as a matter of fact, in existence. I am born 
 into it. I never m.ade it ; but I awake and find myself, as a baptized 
 man and a Christian, in the light and glory of a day of rest and wor- 
 ship. I do not at present speak of this or that day of the week, or of 
 the day, whether it be the seventh or the first, but of a day in each 
 week, which, as a fact, is set apart, in the providence of Grod, for the 
 social worship of the Christian Church. Now, the fact is a most 
 marvellous one, and one the importance of which can hardly be 
 exaggerated, that a day is consecrated wherever the name of 
 Christ is known and Christianity professed, for the worship of 
 God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Once a-week the sun, dur- 
 ing twenty-four hours, sheds its light on Christian congregations in 
 prayer throughout the whole earth. And let me here ask, in passing, 
 whether any Christian objects to such a holy day as this ? Can he, 
 dare he, do so ? Is it possible for him to allege that the Christian 
 Church either need not, or ought not thus to consecrate any day of 
 the week? And if one professing Christian were found capable of 
 saying this, is it conceivable that the Christian Church will ever 
 agree with him, and alter the usage of eighteen centuries ? 
 
 But that we may more fully appreciate the singular blessings of 
 a day such as that which, whatever be its origin, vve now, as a fact, 
 possess ; let me, for the sake of others — because I speak to and for 
 others without, more than to or for those within this house — 
 glance at some of the benefits of this day. 
 
 It is, first of all, adapted to our whole wants as men and as 
 Christians, — adapted to our wants physically.* The great mass of 
 men require rest from labour. I do not allege that any physical 
 law makes one day in seven necessary, but I am quite sure that 
 this proportion of rest to hard-wrought men is a felt blessing, 
 and is adapted to their wants. I will give an illustration of 
 this. Some years ago, for certain reasons, I went upon a private 
 expedition to Paris, furnished with letters not easily got, to investi- 
 gate into the state of the working-classes, and some of those co- 
 • See Appendix S.
 
 32 The Adaptations of a Day of Best 
 
 operative societies which had hegun in the time of the Republic. 
 In the course of my inquiry it was necessary to come in contact 
 with many of the Sociahsts in Paris. I met them in their work- 
 shops, and I found a body of men the most intellectual and most 
 intelligent I almost ever met in my life, — men who had utterly 
 broken away from Komanism, but who were more religious in their 
 feelings than most in that city. They believed in a God, in a right 
 and wrong, and in a future state, and led comparatively moral 
 lives. To these men I said, " Well, what is your rule in regard, 
 to Sunday work ?" The reply was, "We once worked upon it as 
 on other days." "How did. you find that succeed?" I asked. 
 " Not at all ; very badly : we found at the end of the month that 
 we had not turned out more work ; and that it was best to rest on 
 Sunday." I said to my friend, a Protestant clergyman, who was 
 with me, " I had rather have that testimony from these men, than 
 whole tons of pamphlets by Sabbath Alliances; those might be 
 written with an unconscious bias, but with these men it is not so." 
 And you all know that infidel France, after having banished the day 
 of rest, restored it as a necessity. 
 
 Consider, further, this day in its social aspect. What a fearful 
 breaking up this busy commercial life is of social ties ! Think of 
 the separation among members of the same family : the merchant 
 going off" in the morning, working all day, and returning in the 
 evening to dinner, hardly meeting with his family at all. No 
 person blames him for this : it is a necessity — a duty ; yet it 
 is socially a loss. He is hardly able to meet his friends in a 
 quiet way, or — so busy is he — to visit that old lonely gentleman 
 or gentlewoman, or even sick relation; or to cultivate much in- 
 timacy with his dear children, far less to visit the poor and needy. 
 But this day enables him to do this. He can cultivate all those 
 sweet, tender, afiections round the fireside, with wife, children, and 
 friend, and keep up a delightful intercourse with Christian acquaint- 
 ances. The importance of such a day in this respect to the working- 
 classes it is hardly possible to exaggerate. Here is the father of 
 a family, who, in the morning, in pitch darkness, leaves his house 
 at five or six o'clock, — leaves all his little children in bed, takes a 
 hurried meal, has hardly time to speak to any one at home, and 
 trudges, amidst the clanging of bells, or long before they begin to 
 sound, to a distant part of the town. There you see him in the 
 afternoon, sitting, perhaps on a cold stone, taking his meal that is 
 carried to him in a tin can by some Httle child. He does not see 
 his family at his meals. He may, indeed, be supplied at one of 
 those noble refreshment rooms of Mr. Corbet's, — and what a 
 bleSsing they are to the town ! — but there is no family life there ! 
 At night he returns home, but the children he left in bed he finds in 
 bed. He sits at his fireside; but there is no sweet and pleasant 
 intercourse between the wearied man and wife or child. He hardly 
 knows them. The children, even if not in bed, have probably 
 been out working, and have come back wearied and sleepy. The 
 wife has been toihng all day, and is now busy getting a little
 
 and Worship to our Wants. 33 
 
 supper for her husband. And then the night and oblivion come, 
 and in the morning they rise to pursue again the same routine of 
 labour. Unless these men meet their families on the Lord's-day, 
 and cultivate family affection, I know not what will become of our 
 population. This is the chief reason why you find, with noble 
 exceptions, indeed, so many parents who prosecute their children 
 for aliment ; — and find instances of children taking their food at 
 one end of the room, and their mother taking hers at the other. 
 There is a want of that intercourse by which the children shall 
 know and love their parents, and the parents their children. Now, 
 this one day in the week is admirably suited to meet those wants; 
 while there is also time given upon it to visit this sick neighbour, 
 or that old acquaintance; and to cultivate friendly intercourse 
 between man and man. 
 
 I might dwell also upon its intellectual advantages, as affording 
 opportunity of culture to the mind; and I have nohesitation in saying 
 that, while much has been rightly attributed to the power of our 
 schools, in giving an educational training to our working-classes, 
 far too little has been said about the training of our pulpits. I 
 hold that this has been, perhaps, the most powerful training of all. 
 Some critics, who do not know us, affect to ridicule the argumen- 
 tative and logical sermons that are preached to the people of Scotland 
 by the Presbyterian clergy; but our people, in former days, at least, 
 understood these sermons, and grappled with their arguments. 
 This was at once a religious and an intellectual training. It may 
 be so now, and often is, as much as in au}' former age. And, besides, 
 this is almost the only day which men working hard during six days 
 can command for reading. And when we remember the stores of 
 rich intellectual thought and varied information which are placed 
 within the reach of the working-classes, and which even the most 
 scrupulous on the point of "Sunday reading" would not forbid 
 them upon this day, we are more and more impressed with its 
 adaptation to the intellectual wants of man. 
 
 But there is another end attained by this day, and that is, 
 the scope which it affords for our active powers in a moral direc- 
 tion. There are an immense number of duties which Christian 
 people ought to discharge to the poor, the needy, and ignorant, 
 that we have no time for during the week. And this activity in 
 the "doing good unto all men as we have opportunity, espe- 
 cially unto them who are of the household of faith," is a true 
 rest for the affections. Eest is thus often but a change of labour ; 
 and the Sunday affords a noble opportunity for such activity. Yet, 
 how selfishly is it neglected ! How poorly is the noble privilege 
 enjoyed ! 
 
 But I have hardly alluded to the Highest of all ends of this day — • 
 its spiritual advantages. Nothing has been said by any of my 
 respected brethren on this point with which I do not sympathize 
 most deeply. I pray God for the time when I shall see our wishes 
 more realized. What would become of us if we had not its worship 
 and teaching ? All men have to be reminded, that " Man doth
 
 84 The Lord's Day and not the Sabbath. 
 
 not live by bread alone;" but needs the Bread of Life; and must be 
 dealt with as an immortal being; and be led into the peace and 
 blessedness of his Father's home. How is it possible to estimate 
 the moral value, to man, of such a day as we now possess in each 
 week! — a day when all that can quicken the conscience, purify the 
 affections, and elevate the spirit of immortal man, is brought before 
 him in the word read and preached; — when he is taught all that can 
 guide, strengthen, and comfort him in duty, in temptation, and in 
 sorrow; — when true light is cast on this life, and on that which is 
 to come; — when, in one word, Jesus Christ as the light, revealing 
 God and man and all things, as the very eternal life of the soul, the 
 all in all, is preached to sinful men, and is remembered by all who 
 know and love Him, while united worship from glad hearts ascends 
 by Him to the throne of God, The very silence of the day is a 
 sermon of rest, in Jesus, for all who are weary and heavy laden. 
 
 " Oh sweeter than the marriage feast, 
 'Tis sweeter far to me, 
 To walk together to the kirk 
 With a goodly comiiany : 
 
 To walk together to the kirk, 
 
 And there together pray, 
 While each to his great Father bends — 
 Old men, and babes, and loving friends, 
 
 And youths and maidens gay." 
 
 We have thus, you see, to deal with actual facts. The Christian 
 Church demands, from its very nature and the conditions of its 
 existence, a day for social worship, and for the social feast of the 
 Lord's Supper. Such a day now exists, whatever be its origin. 
 This day, moreover, is also marvellously adapted to meet all our 
 wants as men and immortal beings. This beinor admitted, I miorht 
 here again pause in my argument, and ask those who demand a 
 reason for retaining this day, on what grounds they would abrogate 
 it if they could ? They are not responsible in any degree for 
 having established such a remarkable day as this in the world's 
 history, — one so rich in blessings ; but they are responsible for 
 attempting to destroy it, and must be ready to give a reason for this 
 faith which is in them, — that no such day should be kept on earth. 
 To those, therefore, who ask. Why keep it up ? — I ask, with confi- 
 dence, in reply. Who would dare to put it down ? 
 
 But not only have we such a day as I have described, but we have 
 emphatically the first day of the week, being the day of our Lord's 
 r(!surrection, consecrated as the day for all those noble ends. Let 
 us glance at the evidence for this. It is a fact, that the first day of 
 the week has been set apart by the whole Christian Church, up to 
 the days of the Apostles, as a day of worship, — a holy day unto the 
 Lord. Moreover, for three or four centuries before we reach apos- 
 tolic times, a constant and uniform testimony is borne by all the 
 Fathers, and corroborated by heathen testimony, that Christians met 
 for worship, and for partaking of the sacraments, on the first day of 
 the week, because on that day Jesus rose from the dead ; while not 
 one of the Fathers, in a single instance, connects this sacred day
 
 The Lord's Day and not the Sabboth. 35 
 
 witli the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment ; and others protest 
 against the Sabbath, while vindicating " the Lord's-day." But 
 when we examine the teaching of tlie Apostles themselves, and 
 read the history of the early Church, its institutions and prac- 
 tices, what do we find ? We find the first day of the week greatly 
 honoured by Jesus Christ after He rose from the dead, but never 
 the Sabbath in which He lay in the grave. We find the early 
 Christians everywhere meeting for worship, mutual instruction, and 
 Christian intercourse, on the first day of the week, but never, if 
 Gentile Christians, on the Sabbath. We find St. Paul assuming, 
 everywhere, the existence of social worship on the Lord's-day, 
 but never mentioning the Sabbath, except to protest against its 
 being imposed on Gentiles. And when all this is taken in connec- 
 tion with the glorious objects which are gained by a day, I 
 can come to no other conclusion than that this day is sanctioned 
 by the Apostles, inspired by the Spirit of God, and under the 
 authority of Jesus Christ. It is not that the day itself \s holy, but 
 the great ends and objects which are secured by the day are so. 
 These sanctif}' the day. And what other day could be selected by 
 our Lord with more will and wisdom for the good of His Church 
 than the day of His resurrection? The Sabbath witnessed for 
 creation, but the Lord's-day alone witnesses for Jesus Christ, for His 
 death. His resurrection, and for himself alive for evermore, — our 
 resurrection and our life. The Sabbath on which Christ lay in the 
 tomb ended the Mosaic economy. The first day of the week began 
 the New. The one ended a week of six days work with a dead 
 Christ; the other, with a living Christ, began a week, — a week in 
 which I am every day to labour in Christ's Spirit and for His glory. 
 And thus I thankfully acknowledge the day to be divine, and of per- 
 petual obligation. I bless God also for the old Sabbath, which, 
 though it has passed away as a command of perpetual obligation, 
 has yet left such undying traces of its existence in the history of 
 the Christian Church.* 
 
 So much, however, has been said already by my friends on the other 
 side as to the proofs, from apostolic history, of the first day of the 
 week having been kept as a day of worship, that I need not re- 
 capitulate them. For I can adopt every argument, and accept of 
 every fact, adduced in favour of this part of their case. The only 
 diSerence between us here being, that whereas they adduce all those 
 facts, in apostolic history, to prove that the seventh day has been 
 changed, by Divine authority, into the first of the week, while the 
 Sabbath law or Institution remains the same as in the Old economy ; 
 I, on the other hand, adduce the very same facts to prove that Jesus 
 and His apostles have sanctioned a different day, to be kept from 
 higher motives, and in a higher spirit than the Sabbath of the 
 Fourth Commandment, To quote the language of Calvin : " In this 
 way we get quit of the trifling of the false prophets, who, in later 
 times, instilled Jewish ideas into the people, alleging that nothing 
 ■was abrogated but what was ceremonial in the Commandment, (this 
 * See Appendix T.
 
 86 On the Alleged Change of the Day only 
 
 they term, in their language, the taxation of the seventh day,) 
 while the moral part remains, — viz., the observance of one clay in 
 seven. But this is nothing else than to insult the Jews, by 
 changing the day, and yet mentally attributing to it the same 
 sanctity; thus retaining the same typical distinction of days 
 as had place among the Jews. And, of a truth, we see what profit 
 they have made by such a doctrine. Those who cling to their con- 
 stitutions go thrice as far as the Jews, in the gross and carnal 
 superstition of Sabbatism; so that the rebukes which we read in 
 Isaiah, (Isaiah i. 13; viii. 13,) apply as much to those of the present 
 day, as to those to whom the prophet addressed them. We must 
 be careful, however, to observe the general doctrine — viz., in order 
 that religion may neither be lost nor languish among us, we must 
 diligently attend on our religious assemblies, and duly avail our- 
 selves of those external ^ds which tend to promote the worship of 
 God." * 
 
 But this leads me to consider a little further what has been said 
 by preceding speakers regarding the Lord's-day being the old Sab- 
 bath revived.f Believing, as I do, that it is an original institution, 
 connected as much, but not more, with the Mosaic Sabbath as the 
 Lord's Supper is connected with the Passover, or Baptism with 
 Circumcision, but each standing on its own independent basis — I 
 confess that I see no authority whatever, not a vestige, for 
 what is described as being a " change of the day, but not of the 
 law." I find, indeed, that Jews worshipped on the seventh, and 
 Jewish and Gentile Christians on the first, — the one on the grounds 
 mentioned in the Decalogue, the other to commemorate the Resur- 
 rection. I find, along with this, such language as that already 
 alluded to, used by the Apostle in the Epistles to Galatians and 
 Romans — language which, in my opinion, it would have been utterly 
 impossible for him to have used had the Sabbath been obligatory on 
 Christians. I do not find, moreover, that the Jerusalem Church, iu 
 its first great Pastoral, imposed any such day upon the Gentiles, nor 
 ever even mentioned the Ten Commandments; nor can I discover one 
 syllable in all the Epistles and all the Pastorals of the apostles against 
 the sin of Sabbath-breaking, or about the special duties to be per- 
 formed on the Sabbath, or anything whatever to indicate that they 
 held the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment, — a most unac- 
 countable fact for those who not only believe that the Fourth 
 Commandment is contained in the Moral Law, but seem to believe 
 that all the Moral Law is contained in the Fourth Commandment, 
 such a prominent place do they give it in the circle of duty ! Nay, 
 more, such an alleged change cannot be reconciled with the very 
 nature of the case, or the circumstances of the early Church, 
 Theoretically, no doubt, the Sabbath was abrogated, or ceased to 
 exist as a law to Christians, on the morning when Christ rose 
 from the dead. But God, in His infinite mercy, not putting new 
 wine into old bottles, allowed the institution gradually to die 
 out, or pass into something much better, when the Church was 
 * Calvin's Institutes, TI., chap. viii. § 34. + See Appendix U.
 
 from the Seventh to the First of the Week. 37 
 
 in the transition state betwixt His death and the destruction of 
 the Temple, During these forty years, both the Jewish and 
 the Gentile Christians met on the first day of the week, — the 
 Gentiles never having had the Sabbath of the seventh day im- 
 posed upon them. But the Jewish Christians kept their old 
 worship upon the Saturday, and kept it for forty years after our 
 Lord's death; during which period, indeed, it remained still a part 
 of the civil law of Palestine. We find St. Paul, accordingly, com- 
 plying, as a Jewish citizen, with many Jewish customs, and meeting 
 the Jews in every way possible for him, without compromising his 
 own freedom as a Christian. But whenever the Jews dared to 
 tyrannize over the Gentiles, and to impose upon the many one duty 
 or ceremony which they did not receive from Christ and His Spirit, 
 he instantly defended the Gentile against the Jew; so that the great 
 battle fought by him for the Gentile Church against all ceremonies, 
 all laws of Moses, as distinct from Jesus Christ as all in all, was 
 to gain the fi'eedom of the Church for ever, and to make it Catholic, 
 and not Mosaic, for Jew and Gentile as one, — not in Moses, but 
 in Christ. He could, therefore, as it were, say to the Jews, " You 
 and I may keep our Sabbath if we please, for we are Jews by birth ; 
 but let these Gentiles alone, and force not them to worship on our 
 day, in our forms, and with our ceremonies. They worship with us 
 to remember Jesus on the first day; it is enough. Let no one judge 
 them in respect to the Sabbath." Thus, for nearly half a century, 
 Jews and Gentile Christians met together, on the first day of the 
 week, to commemorate the one grand event on which their salvation 
 depended — Christ's Resurrection; and some Christian Jews wor- 
 shipped on the seventh, as of old. Now, can you or any man believe 
 it possible, if this liberty on the part of the Gentiles continued 
 during the existence of the Temple, that so soon as it was destroyed, 
 the Jew could say to his brother Gentile, " Brother, for years you 
 have had liberty to keep the first day of the week, simply as a 
 commemoration of Christ's death and for the Lord's Suppei', but 
 were never forced to keep our Jewish Sabbath; now, however, that 
 Jerusalem is in ruins, you must worship as we do, and keep the 
 Lord's-day on the authority of the Fourth Commandment, and for 
 the reasons stated in our law ! The thing is inconceivable — much 
 more so when the Gentile knew that, as a Gentile, "the law" had 
 never been promulgated to him, and that by so much less did he 
 require to be bound by it ; that he had now found Christ, who did 
 not send him back to Moses for anything necessary for salvation, 
 but was Himself all sufficient for principle and precept. 
 
 Now, Moderator, you may perhaps say, " What would be the 
 application of these principles?" I might reply, that I have 
 nothing to do with their application or consequences. If the prin- 
 ciples are good, they will produce good consequences. My belief is, 
 however, that I shall find it much easier to apply my principles 
 honestly to the actual state of society, than you will, when attempt- 
 ing honestly to apply your rule of the Sabbath law. You open 
 wider the back-door of "necessity and mercy" than I think the
 
 38 Some Application of Principles. 
 
 Sabbath, as the "moral law," will admit of. "Necessity," of 
 com'se, is easy, for it has no law; if it must be, it must be. 
 And " mercy " may be interpreted to mean anything by a man 
 who has a rule only, not di principle to guide him. But I rely on 
 a principle, not on a mere rule. 
 
 Let me illustrate the application of my principle. If Christians, 
 for example, believe it to be their duty and privilege to woi'ship 
 God in spirit and in truth on the Lord's-day, and either to partake 
 of the communion, or at least to profess that spirit of fellowship 
 with Jesus which is expressed in communion, — then they will, 
 for this reason, as well as every other springing out of their 
 wants as human beings and as Christians, rest on that day, and 
 specially in order to worship. They cannot^ because they will not, 
 as a rule, spend the day in labour, far less in idle, foolish, dissipating 
 recreation. It must, from the nature of the case, be spent in 
 Jiarmony with the tone and spirit of this or any other day set apart 
 for holy social worship by those who love their Father and 
 Brother; while, also, on the broad principle of Christian love, they 
 will, though strong themselves in faith towards God, yet forego 
 much they might otherwise do for the good and well-being of 
 others who may be weak, and even superstitious. We have thus, 
 in addition to all that is pleasing and edifying in public worship, 
 the Christian conscience as a security for the right keeping of the 
 Lord's-day. We have a further security in the loving, wise, and 
 tender discipline of the Church, — equally removed, on the one 
 hand, from the meddling of the detective, or the tyranny of clerical 
 power; and on the other, from the disorder which would make a 
 congregation a mere mob, and leave a society without any law 
 to save it from confusion. Beyond this, and among very many 
 who might not worship with us, we have the security of that 
 justice, and respect for the opinion and prejudices of others, much 
 more for their religious convictions, which characterizes the intel- 
 ligent members of a Christian society. We have, moreover, that 
 protection which a Christian Government and its laws gives 
 to its subjects, by which, as much as possible, they are set free 
 from labour on the Lord's-day, and thus enabled to worship accord- 
 ing to their conscience, but 3'et with liberty to act as they please, 
 sJiort of interfering with the rights of their fellow-subjects. There- 
 fore, if we can, by God's help, and with all our grand moral and 
 Gospel appliances, imbu« society with a right spirit, we have every 
 security that reasonable men can seek for the preservation of the 
 Lord's-day as holy and blessed. As for those who are Christians, 
 we know that even if the State were against us, and tried to put 
 down the Lord's-day, we would suffer persecution rather than give it 
 up, knowing that we would thereby be practically giving up the 
 visible Church of Christ. Christians and the Lord's-daj' must, there- 
 fore, exist as long as the world lasts, or perish together. If these 
 principles fail you, where will you find better security for our retaining^ 
 a holy day ? If neither the holy Christian exercises of the Lord's-day, 
 nor the example of tlie Christian Church, nor the wants of man as an
 
 So7ne ApjAimtion of Principles. • 39 
 
 immortal being, nor the autiioritj of Jesus and His apostles, can bind 
 men, does any man, in his sober senses, believe that the Sabbath 
 law of the Fourth Commandment will succeed, were it even as 
 binding as are those moral and religious considerations which I have 
 mentioned ? If the flood of selfishness, ignorance, worldliness, vanity, 
 and self-indulgence, can sweep away the Lord's-day, as explained, 
 even by me, do you believe that the Sabbath, as explained by you 
 •will stem it? "Will anything in the mere authority of the Old 
 covenant be a safeguard against what has destroyed the authority 
 and the moral influences of the New? This, verily, is not my 
 opinion of the Christian people, nor of the power of the pulpit, in 
 Scotland or anywhere else. To believe it would make me despair of 
 Christianity! And all this alarm, too, in a country in which, in 
 every parish, fast-days are kept as strictly as the Lord's-day, or 
 even a Jewish Sabbath, and on no higher authority than the kirk- 
 session ! 
 
 Do you ask me to apply my principle more in detail, and to such 
 practical questions as those of cabs and trains ? In all such cases 
 I should be guided by this consideration — Have the men who are 
 employed, time on the Lord's-day to meet for worship ? If not, can 
 such time be obtained for them in the present exigencies of society ? 
 And the rule certainly should be to obtain, in every case, a day of 
 rest ; because all men who labour require rest for the body, and in this 
 Christian coimtry they all ought, as a rule, to have an opportunity 
 for worship first, and along with it all the blessings which can be 
 enjoyed on the Lord's-day. But when we 2isk peddling questions as 
 to whether it is lawful in itself to ride on horseback, to walk five or 
 ten miles, to take a cab, to laugh or talk about this or that, to read 
 this book or that, we get into the confusion of minute Talmudical 
 rules, and must fall back on the common sense, right spirit, 
 and manly principle of Christians. Thus, because it is said in the 
 Fourth Commandment that animals should rest on the Sabbath, is 
 that any reason why well-fed horses, sufiering from plethora in 
 the stable, and a coachman with little to do any day in the week, 
 should not drive out on a Sunday, provided it does not interfere with 
 the other duties or privileges of the day ? Then, as to using cabs : 
 every man must feel, that as far as these poor hard-wrought men 
 and horses are concerned, they should be treated with the greatest 
 tenderness and consideration. We must endeavour to get tliem such 
 a day of rest as will enable them to enjoy a day of worship in spirit 
 and truth. With them, as with our domestic servants, " day about " 
 might at least be the rule. But if employers refuse some such liberty 
 to their servants, they act unlovingly, and therefore unchristianly. 
 With cabmen, as with all we employ, we should take heed how we 
 deny them the privileges which we ourselves enjoy as Christians. 
 But both cabmen, and all men, are liable to have their Sunday rest 
 sacrificed for a more general good, Mercy to the many, must often 
 involve suffering of some sort to the few. Hence, when a cabman 
 once came home with me after preaching, he said, " Eeally we are 
 very ill used." I said, " Who — you, your horse, or I ? because we
 
 40 Some Application of Principles. 
 
 have been all three working to-day. I have had, the whole of this 
 winter, three sermons every Sunday, — one being for working-men, — 
 besides having to meet a class for the young, with hardly one day of 
 rest which I can command during the week ; and as I am thus 
 obliged to sacrifice my ease, and my comfort, and my rest, and my 
 family, for a public good, you must, perhaps, have this to sacrifice 
 also." On this ground I would seek to act, not from an abstract horror 
 of riding in a cab on Sunday, — which is simple nonsense, — but on 
 the ground that the Sunday is a day set apart for rest and worship; 
 and that, therefore, men ought to be enabled, when possible, to have 
 rest from labour, to enjoy worship, if they please to do so. 
 
 On the same Christian intelligible principle I would act in re- 
 gard to railway travelling on Sunday, — a subject of the very gravest 
 importance. As to excursion trains, my principle would exclude 
 them ; but considering that the Jews had not only fifty-two Sab- 
 baths in their fine climate, but thirty joyous festivals throughout 
 the year, our working-classes are sorely tempted, when deprived of 
 holidays, to make the Lord's-day one, — and would be still more so 
 if they were tyrannically hindered from enjoying our parks and gar- 
 dens by any extreme and selfish, and so-called " religious" faction, 
 lay or clerical. But a day of social worship, and for the cultivation 
 chiefly of men's highest and spiritual good, must preclude the idea 
 of thoughtful and considerate Christians spending it in mere re- 
 creation like this — to the country by steamers and excursion trains — ■ 
 more especially when, by so doing, they must unnecessarily compel 
 others to sacrifice their best blessings to their selfish enjoyment. 
 But as to a train, morning and evening, along our great lines of 
 thoroughfare, — which does not needlessly deprive the employed 
 of their fair measure of rest, and of their Lord's-day worship, — not 
 only do I not object to it, but I cannot see how railway directors can 
 rightly avoid having one. I do not speak of goods trains, unless 
 they are proved to be necessary, which I cannot think possible ; but 
 I speak of passenger trains. Suppose, for example, that a limited 
 liability company became possessed, by Act of Parliament, of all the 
 roads in Scotland. We will suppose their dividends to be derived 
 from the tolls, and that Dr. Gibson — and let me say that I 
 admire him for his bold, honest advocacy of his opinions — was chair- 
 man, or any other man firmly and conscientiously opposed, as 
 he is, to travelling on Sunday; and that the directors and the 
 company were to resolve, that on the ground of travellers using 
 vehicles on that day being contrary to the Fourth Command- 
 ment as a moral law of perpetual and universal obligation, they 
 would lock all the toll-bars ; — then I, for one, would join in having 
 them — the gates — knocked down, as pi'eventing what was lawful, 
 and being a tyranny worse than Sabbath-breaking. And so in 
 regard to a railway. To me it is not an arrangement which ought 
 possibly to be permitted, but one which seems, in the present state 
 of society, to be almost a necessity for matters of police and of govern- 
 ment, and for matters of good, as well as for the sake of mercy, 
 and of good in very many ways ; and that you ought not to compare 
 
 I
 
 The English and Continental Sunday. 41 
 
 the necessities of the little land of Palestine, — hardly more exten- 
 sive than between this and Perth, — with its simple peasantry, its 
 little intercourse and petty commerce; with those of a country and 
 state of society like om's, and far less go back to the beginning of 
 the world to determine our Sunday duties in Glasgow from any 
 Sabbath institution given to unfallen man in Eden ! I take the 
 liberty of saying, however, that I think the chairman of the North 
 British Railway committed a great mistake, and put the running of 
 a train on the wrong ground, when he made it a mere matter of 
 pounds, shillings, and pence. Out of respect to the general religious 
 feelings of the most sober-minded in our country, not to speak of the 
 fair and righteous claims of the men employed, far less of higher con- 
 siderations, the arrangement should have been made an exceptional 
 one, and upon the broad ground of justice to the community and the 
 merciful necessity of keeping open a communication between great 
 centres of population, which can be done by public convej'^ances only. 
 I could, therefore, on my principles, go to the directors and respect- 
 fully say, "I do not object to a morning and evening train; but I 
 do seriously object, that for the sake of mere pay, and without 
 a strong necessity, you should prevent large bodies of men from 
 worshipping God." I would appeal to them on the ground of 
 sympathy with their feUow-men, whether they should not, by an 
 outlay of money, or by additional servants, secure to those men 
 what we secure to our servants in our own houses ? Let them 
 charge more, if necessary, to the public if this arrangement costs 
 more ; but their duty is, and so is ours, to do all in our power to 
 give those employed by us rest for worship ; and let me add, to give 
 horses rest for the sake of the mercy due to the wearied brute 
 creation. But when we have thus secured, as far as possible, a 
 Lord's-day rest for worship and communion on the Lord's-day, 
 then each man must follow his own conscience as to how he spends 
 the day. I agree with all that has been said so well in the 
 Pastoral on this point. I detest that little petty meddling of 
 one man with another, and gossipping inquiries whether he does 
 this or that, with everything like ecclesiastical espionage, which 
 every intelligent Christian man in these days will rise and 
 protest against. I would give every man his full liberty, as an- 
 swerable to God, until his liberty infringed upon the liberty of 
 others, and if a church member, until it was contrary to the re- 
 cognized morals of the Christian Church. These are my principles 
 applied regarding this question. Once more : you will say, perhaps, 
 that we will thus come to the English Sabbath, or the Continental 
 Sabbath. The fact is, that the Lord's-day in England is, as a whole, 
 marvellously well kept, but neither better nor worse than in our own 
 city. As to the Continent, I am tolerably well acquainted with most 
 parts of it ; and I lament the manner in which Sunday is gene- 
 rally kept in it. But why fear a Continental Sabbath in our country, 
 unless as a reaction from extreme teaching; more especially when 
 its habits have never taken possession of England since the days 
 of the Book of Sports, though the country is so much nearer the 
 
 D
 
 42 Hotv to Secure a Lord's Day. 
 
 Continent than ours, and the home of tens of thousands of Jews and 
 foreigners ? Wh}'' compare the state of feehng in Roman Catholic 
 countries, and in other countries that should know better, where no 
 Gospel is either preached or believed, with a country like ours, where, 
 in all its truth, Christ's Gospel is preached bj ministers of every 
 Church, and believed and read by tens of thousands of our people ? 
 It is surely, I repeat it, a fearful confession to make, and almost a 
 libel on our ministers and people, to express alarm lest, if the claims of 
 the first day of the week are urged for it as being the Lord's-day, 
 apart from the authority of the old Sabbath law, all public worship 
 would cease and our communion tables become empt}'-, and, instead 
 of this, theatres and dancing saloons be filled, and our rest destroyed 
 by excursionists ? I, for one, will never give the impression that 
 we have no solid ground, no sufficient reasons for keeping the Lord's- 
 day holy, except on the ground of the perpetual obligation of the 
 law of the Fourth Commandment. I have more faith than this in 
 the Lord Jesus, and in the power of His resurrection, and in the 
 blessedness of His day, as recognized by every one who believes in 
 His name. 
 
 But I cannot conclude this long speech without saying that there 
 is a more excellent way, by which we may come at a right keep- 
 ing of the Lord's-day, than that of mere speeches or pastorals about 
 it. It seems to me we are beginning at the wrong end with this 
 Sabbath controversy. We are going forth to the people, saying, "Do 
 not do this or that ; but keep the Sabbath with cheerfulness and 
 reverence." But how, in their present condition, can you expect a 
 response to this from the mass of the population of whom so many 
 complain, and whose indifference to the Sunday they fear? for the 
 clergy are not complaining of the ladies and gentlemen — although, I 
 daresay, if we knew all about them, these would need a little stirring 
 up too as to Sunday duties. Attention is directed chiefly, if not 
 solely, to the working-classes. Now, we clergymen know what 
 hundreds and thousands of most admirable Christian men there ai'e 
 amongst the working- classes. But as to the multitudes who crowd 
 our lanes and courts, or group in idleness on our streets, and never 
 think of ever entering a church door, I ask you, in the name of 
 Him who made them, on what grounds can they, in their present 
 state of ignorance, be expected to keep the Lord's-day ? Thousands 
 of them do not know what you mean by the Lord's-day, or by the 
 resurrection of Christ: they have not been instructed in the most 
 simple facts of Christianity. Now, I wish to know what is doing 
 by us — the Established Church — at this moment in order so to 
 imbue them with the knowledge of Christ that we shall need laws 
 beyond their own con'sdctions to make them rejoice on the Lord's- 
 day ? Without the knowledge of Christ as their own Saviour, as 
 their resurrection and life, how can they keep the Lord's-day or 
 rejoice in it ? When, some years ago, we spoke here against the 
 Sunday steamers, with the patronage of which, even for the sake 
 of the working-classes themselves, I had no sympathy, while j'et, 
 wishing to deal reasonably and tenderly with their supporters, I
 
 Hoiv to Secure a Lord's Day. 43 
 
 threw out, as now, the same idea, that we should hegin at the root 
 of the evil hy a more vigorous Home !N[ission. Some of those men, 
 who took it into their heads I was defending Sabhath steamers 
 versus churches, waited on me. I said, " Men, you are utterly 
 wrong; but come next Sunday to my church, and I will preach to 
 you what I know and believe on the duties and privileges of the 
 Lord's-day." They did come. What was the result ? Did my 
 views make them more indifferent to the Lord's-day ? I shall 
 give one illustration of the practical effect of my teaching : — 
 A man's wife afterwards came to me, and said, " I hope my husband 
 will not lose his seat, because he came to hear you with very loose 
 views of religion," — I think she said he was a Deist, — "but when 
 you preached he said there was no reasonable man could object to 
 that. He began famil}'- worship ; and instead of spending his 
 Sundays, as he used to do, in a steamer, he was never absent from 
 the church one day after that." 
 
 What we need, is to inform old and young, in this city of Glas- 
 gow, as to the duties and privileges of Christians; to instruct the 
 masses, not with right views of the Lord's-day only, but first of 
 all, and most of all, with right views of the Lord himself, and His 
 relationship to them. 
 
 To accomplish this, I think we require for large cities and popu- 
 lous districts in Scotland, not what are called, in the ecclesiastical 
 sense of the word, CJncrcJies; but mission-houses, built, however, like 
 churches, commodious and comely; not having necessarily an or- 
 dained minister and kirk-session, but with a preacher of the Gospel, 
 tinder the government of the parish minister and his session, and 
 having the sacraments regulai-ly dispensed in them by the parish 
 minister. These churches I would call Sessional Churches, as we 
 call our congregational schools Sessional Schools.* But what, as 
 a Church, have we done, during the last thirty yeai's, for the poor in 
 the East of Glasgow ? Let me not misrepresent my dear Church 
 of Scotland. We have opened many Chapels, closed in 1843, and 
 which are now well attended. We have built several churches in 
 the South and West, where they were much needed; and our liberal 
 Christian merchants have both built and endowed the Park and 
 Sandyford churches, — one good result of which has been, that we 
 have, as members of Presbytery, our much-respected and valued 
 friends, Dr. Macduff and Mr. Charteris. In the East, too, we 
 have a Memorial Church, now in the course of erection by the 
 Messrs. Baird, which will be endowed also by them. I rejoice 
 to acknowledge such marks of love by the members of the Esta- 
 blished Church. But most heartily and thankfully recognizing 
 this, I have yet very humbly and respectfully to remind 3^ou, 
 that we have yet done little, almost nothing, in comparison with 
 what we could and should have done, and, with God's help, may 
 yet do, for a city whose population is increasing at the rate 
 
 * I mnst refer to the Appendix for what I said in my speech, and for much more 
 than I could say, on what I think is of some interest to fellow-labourers in this 
 Home Mission field. (See Appendix V. )
 
 44 How to Secure a Lord's Day. 
 
 of one tliousand — a large congregationJ. — every month. Since the 
 church-building era, we have built in the whole city, east of the 
 Crescents, but two churches — the Havannah and m.}'^ Mission Church; 
 and sold two, St. Thomas's and Duke Street chapels. And I therefore 
 repeat it, that if we are warranted in hoping that our masses will 
 sanctify the Lord's-day, we can only do so when we provide for 
 them the means of instruction, by which they shall know what it 
 means; who the Lord is; and why every man on whom it dawns 
 should rejoice in the Lord as his resurrection and life — who gives to 
 all who believe His own rest in God. We have failed, brethren, in 
 doing this. Think not I presume to arrogate any praise to myself 
 as having done more than my brethren in this respect. I dare not, 
 and could not say so at any time, least of all in the presence of even 
 the framer of this Pastoral, — not to speak of others here present, — one 
 of the most faithful and laborious ministers in Glasgow; whom, as a 
 worker, I would be proud to imitate and follow. But Home Missions 
 in Glasgow admit of no delay. Other churches are doing a part in 
 this blessed work ; we must do ours, or all we talk about will pass, as 
 it ought to do, for mere talk, as an easy orthodox way of advocating 
 the Sabbath as a doctrine, but not the difficult way of getting it kept 
 as a holy duty and blessed privilege. With this discussion we 
 should incorporate a new era in Home Mission work. Any one of 
 us, I am sui-e, would undertake, for every £4000 we get, to se- 
 cure a Church free from debt, holding 900 people, and also a small 
 endowment for a Missionary, and such an organization as would 
 secure the Christian instruction of one soul, every year while it lasted, 
 for every pound subscribed. Liverpool, I hear, has given £20,000 
 for such an object. If a few towns in America gave, the other 
 day, nearly £100,000 for a mission to the South, why should not our 
 thousands of members and our wealthy merchants help us, as they " 
 have never yet done, but I believe may yet be induced to do, without 
 our begging it from door to door, but offering to us money for Ses- 
 sional Churches for the working-classes ? 
 
 I do not here speak of the great Sunday School organization of 
 Glasgow, which, along with the City Mission, is unquestionably one 
 of the most important and blessed that exists. Our army of teachers 
 is the most powerful Home Mission we possess, and requires only to 
 be constantly recruited, carefully organized, and wisely governed, so 
 as to work with increasing vigour. 
 
 Again, as another susfsrestion for brinscino' about a truer observance 
 of the Lord's-day, it seems to me that all our clergy have too much 
 to do, not onh' with secular business on week-days, which other 
 persons could do as well, or better, but in the preaching on Sundays, 
 in which the}' might be aided. It seems to be assumed by many in 
 large cities, that a clergyman is needed for every meeting, for every 
 object that can possibly occupy the public mind, even those which 
 are called "secular!" Meetings of all sorts, — soirees, lectures, 
 charities, until one fancies the most commonplace good cannot be 
 done without a " meeting," which must be addressed by a clergy- 
 man. On Sunday he must preach, of course, twice, and often
 
 Hoxc to Secure a Lord's Day. 45 
 
 thrice. The people who attend his ministry would not accept less. 
 They must have several Sunday meetings and sermons by their 
 own pastor ; and if tliey are edified and comforted, what signifies 
 though thousands, who never spoke to a clergyman, are left in 
 ignorance ! The clergy should have more time given to them on 
 week days, and specially on Sundays, personally to evangelize the 
 masses, and become acquainted with those who are outside of all 
 churches, and of Christianity itself. The more experienced — the 
 more cultivated — the higher the social position of a clergyman 
 is, the more is he suited to obtain a patient aud respectful hearing, 
 and to do good among the masses, if he has good sense, good feeling, 
 and soimd views of the Gospel of good-will to man, in his heart as 
 well as on his hps. The actual Home Mission work — that of bring- 
 ing the lost prodigals into Christ's fold — is too much left to a few 
 city missionaries : good, sincere, young men, let it be admitted, but 
 wanting experience, and necessarily under no ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment. Such missionaries as these, working always in connection 
 with ku'k-sessions, would form noble aids to the clergy. I 
 know not what we should do without them ; but they never 
 can be adequate substitutes for the educated and experienced clergy, 
 or verily we are unworthy of our position and calling in this 
 city. Now, the Lord's-day is the one grand day for mission work 
 among the people, when the men of the working-classes can 
 be met with in their own houses, or have time to receive in 
 peace the visit of a Christian clergyman, and to converse with him ; 
 but as things are now, it is the only day we clergy can do nothing 
 for them when alone they can be found, and the day on which, as 
 far as visiting them is concerned, even the excellent city missionaries 
 must do least. We must have more time and freedom, I repeat, on 
 the Sunday, and many more eflBcient labourers, to work systematically 
 under us on the Sunday, if we would help men to love the Sunday 
 who at present know nothing about its nature, and who, if they 
 have any feeling about it as a sacred day, associate it with ennui, 
 dissipation, or dislike. These suggestions could be more easily 
 carried out in Glasgow than in most cities ; for while, in such a large 
 community, there must, of course, be found some exceptions, yet 
 there are a vast majority of clergy, of all denominations, who, with 
 firm and intelligent convictions on points on which difierences are 
 allowable, have as firm, strong convictions, far more real, on those 
 vital points of eternal truth in which we all agree, and who have 
 much influence, and could combine for a wider, more united, and 
 better Home Mission. 
 
 Time does not permit of my entering on another most important 
 point: — the development of the gifts of our office-bearers in con- 
 nection with the evangelization of the masses. Many an elder, aye, 
 and many a member, is nobly fitted to give most efficient aid, not 
 only in visiting, but in addressing the masses. We have but very 
 partially availed ourselves of the gifts bestowed by the Spirit on our 
 churches for spreading abroad the Gospel, and that, too, under the 
 orderly government of the Church.
 
 46 Hoiv to Secure a Lord's Day. 
 
 Once more, much has yet to be done for the better keeping of the 
 Lord's-day, both by rich and poor, in their own families. The 
 members of our congregations should do more on Sunday for the 
 instruction of their children. The custom is, among even intelligent 
 working-men, to hand them over — their children — to a Sunday 
 School, which, possibly, they never themselves entered, and with 
 whose teaching and discipline they are utterly unacquainted, 
 while they themselves teach them nothing. There are thus, 
 I am convinced, thousands of children of professing Christians 
 who never heard religious truth confessed or taught by the lips 
 of father or mother. Why cannot the parents teach them ? 
 They are perhaps not "learned;" but if not, they should learn. 
 Yet, are they not hearers of the Gospel ? Do they not sit at the 
 Lord's table, and remember Jesus ? And is it possible that they 
 cannot teach their children anything about the Name in which they 
 have been baptized, — Father, Son, and Spirit ? It is not " learning " 
 that is needed, far less hard, dry lessons ; but loving, true words, — 
 few, perhaps, but simple and hearty, so as to help a child to rise 
 from the knowledge and love of the father on earth to the Father in 
 heaven. Now, this, as a supplement to any instruction given by 
 pastor or teacher, would be a good work for the Lord's-day, 
 whether walking with the children, or talking with them amidst the 
 pleasant, frank, free, and natural, social intercourse of the fireside ; 
 so that the Lord's-day would be in the children's memory, — not the 
 sullen day, but literally the Sun-day of the week. 
 
 Rich men, I am disposed to think, need to be stirred up to the 
 performance of the same duties. Some, I fear, who profess to be 
 Christians, hand over to mothers, tutors, or governesses, the blessed 
 privilege of instructing their children. They thus give the impres- 
 sion, unconsciously, that they are ashamed to make any such con- 
 fession of interest in Christ and His truth. On any other sub- 
 ject, however vain, trifling, or worldly, they may find words to speak, 
 fully, confidentially, and earnestly. But of religion ! That seems a 
 solemn secret. The Lord's-day is the one above all others when, 
 from its very design, a blessed opportunity is given for associating 
 the name of father and mother in the minds of the boys and girls — 
 those young, but sinful and immortal beings ! — with what alone can 
 enable them to fulfil the end of their being, and unite them for ever 
 to each other in God. It is the one day, moreover, which affords 
 time and opportunity for our bridging over the fearful gulph which 
 separates the rich from the poor. This fact is one of the saddest, and 
 one of the most momentous in the condition of our great cities — the 
 separation of classes. They do not know each other, any more than 
 if the Atlantic flowed between them ; and therefore there is no 
 mutual love, no mutual respect, none whatever, except what arises 
 from the accidental connection between employers and employed. 
 *' Oh ! day thrice holy,' ' which enables the rich and poor to meet 
 together. On other days both are "too busy." On this day both, 
 in God's providence, have time given them for works of good. Can 
 we conceive of the glorious results to our city if even one thousand
 
 Hoir to Secure a Lord's Day. 47 
 
 members, gathered from all our cliurclies of every denomination, — 
 and I believe tbey could easily afford many more of thoughtful, 
 loving, and intelligent Christians, of good social position, — who would 
 take each, say, ten persons, among the more ignorant and careless, 
 or the sick, the aged, the lonely, from our poor ; whose acquaintance 
 they would respectfully and friendly — not patronizingly — endeavour 
 to make ; and whom, with good sense, good feeling, and the humility 
 of true love, they would try and help in any way, — and if in no other 
 way, at least by brotherly sympathy, and, if needed, brotherly or 
 sisterly instruction, and temporal aid : — would not such labour as this 
 of the upper one thousand (equal to about one congregation !) among 
 the lower ten thousand, do more to make Christianity a reality to 
 them, its life beautiful, its laws glorious, His day and worship appre- 
 ciated, than all the tracts ever printed, and meetings ever held, 
 and resolutions ever passed, on this subject? This is one way; 
 most tiying and difficult I admit, but most effectual for teach- 
 ing our people to keep the Lord's-day holy, and to change a mere 
 doctrine, associated with apparent gloom, as if under the law, into a 
 practical duty, discharged with a joyous and free spirit, as becomes 
 the Gospel. If the veil of Moses was withdra'mi, it would only be 
 to let the light of the glory of God shine as seen in the face of Jesus 
 Christ ! 
 
 Finally, it appears to me that, before we can attract the masses to 
 our churches, we must labour to make our services more attractive, 
 — not by mere forms addressed to the flesh, but by realities to which 
 the spirits of men may respond. We want shorter, more frequent, and 
 more simple prayers ; with praise that shall, according to God's will, 
 be real music, which is so pleasing, and not discord, which is so 
 painful. We require more intelligible discourses, dealing with the 
 felt wants of men, and which men can feel to be helpful to them in 
 real life. No mere laws, of course, can drive men to church ; but 
 truth and goodness, and love and mercy will, under God, if anything 
 ^vill, attract, retain, and bless. I never expect, verily, to make 
 the Lord's-day, or any spiritual duty, agreeable to ungodly men ; but 
 it may be made, according to God's will, more pleasing and edifying 
 to Christian men, and to those sincerely seeking to become such. 
 And believing as we do in the Holy Spirit, and in His abiding with, 
 and in the Church of Christ; and that it is His work — His joy — to 
 glorify the Son, that the Son may glorify the Father, by His giving 
 eternal life to men. Oh, let us never despair ! but work with Him ; 
 and work, therefore, with the strength and joy that spring from 
 faith. Ah ! brethren, the Sabbath question, if we will only grasp 
 it, goes deeper down than we choose, perhaps, to think. It implies 
 many weighty and practical questions and duties, which it is difficult 
 calmly to weigh and meet. It cannot be solved by words, unless it 
 ends there, but by works only. 
 
 My prayer to Almighty God is, that He may guide us into all truth, 
 and the performance of all duty! If the results of this great dis- 
 cussion may appear to some to threaten the introduction of more of 
 the week-day into the Lord's-day, I pray God that this may not
 
 48 How to Secure a Lord's Bay. 
 
 happen, unless from more of the spirit of the Lord's-day having been 
 first introduced into week-days by every day being made holy — the 
 first day most of all — unto the Lord. For he who sanctifies every 
 day of the week, regarding each day as holy unto the Lord, in its 
 ordinary labours and recreations, in its joys, and sorrows, will not 
 be less, but the more, disposed to keep holy " the Lord's-day," and 
 to rejoice in all its spiritual privileges ! I conclude by thanking 
 you cordially, my very dear brethren, for your extreme patience and 
 goodness in having listened to me so long on a question on which 
 — in some of its aspects — I have the misfortune to differ from 
 many of you.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A.— Page 11. 
 
 "It authoritatively hinds us to keep the seventh clay holy." 
 So Milton — Treatise on Christian Doctrine, Book II. chap. 7: — 
 "If, on the plea of a divine command, they impose upon us the observance 
 of a particular day, how do they presume, without the authority of a divine 
 command, to substitute another day in its place? or, in other words, to pro- 
 nounce, that not merely the seventh day, which was appointed for the 
 observation of the Israelites alone, but any one of the seven, may, even on 
 the authority of the Fourth Commandment itself, be kept holy; and that 
 this is to be accounted an article of moral duty among all nations. 
 
 "In the first place, I do not see how this assertion can be established, for 
 it is impossible to extort such a sense from the words of the commandment; 
 seeing that the reason for which the command itself was originally given — • 
 namely, as a memorial of God's having rested from the creation of the world 
 — cannot be transferred from the seventh day to the first ; nor can any new 
 motive be substituted in its place, whether the resurrection of our Lord or 
 any other, without the sanction of a divine commandment. Since, then, it is 
 evident from more than one passage of Scriptiire, that the original Sabbath 
 is abrogated, and since we are nowhere told that it has been transferred 
 from one day to another, nor is any reason given why it should be so trans- 
 ferred, the Church, when she sanctioned a change in this matter, evinced, 
 not her obedience to God's conunand, (inasmuch as the command existed no 
 longer, ) but her own rightful liberty; for in any other view it can only be 
 termed foUy. To make any change whatever in a commandment of God, 
 whether we believe that commandment to be still in force or not, is equally 
 dangerous, and equally reprehensible; inasmuch as in so doing we are either 
 anniilling what is not yet repealed, or re-enacting what is obsolete." 
 
 Bishop Hopkins — An Exposition of the Commandments, p. 134, (Ed. of 
 1710:)— 
 
 "We do not celebrate the Lord's-day itself upon any obligation laid upon 
 us by the letter of this Fourth Commandment, (for that expressly enjoins 
 the seventh day from the creation, whereas ours is the eighth;) but only 
 from the analogy and perfection of moral reason, which requires that a due 
 and convenient portion of our time should be separated to the service and 
 worship of God." 
 
 Dr. Arnold — Sermons, vol. iii., Sermon 22: — 
 
 " Are we right in keeping the Simday, or are we not right ? The Fourth 
 Commandment does not answer this qiiestion by itself; no, not though it be 
 used every Sunday in our own service. For we do not keep the Fourth 
 Commandment, seeing that we do not keep holy the seventh day, but the 
 first ; not the day on which God rested from all His works, but the day on 
 which He raised up Jesus Christ from the dead. And as to altering a com- 
 mand of the Law, he must know little of the obedience which the Law 
 requires who could think that men might alter it at their discretion."
 
 50 Appendix. 
 
 Arclibisliop — 'UTiatelj'', On some of the Difficulties in the W7-itl}igs of St. 
 Paul, Essay V. : — 
 
 "In saying tliat tliere is no mention of the Lord's-day in the Mosaic law, 
 ■we mean, that there is not only no mention of that specific festival which 
 Christians observe on the first day of the week, in memory of our Lord's 
 resurrection on the morning following the Jewish Sabbath, but that there is 
 not any injunction to sanctify one day in seven. Throughout the whole of 
 the Old Testament, we never hear of keeping holy soine one day in every 
 seven, but the seventh day, as the day in which God ' rested from all His 
 works.' " 
 
 Dean AJford — Second Letter to Mr. Sperling, pp. 12, 1.3: — 
 "If I were disposed to turn the tables — which I am not, for I as little 
 believe my Sabbatarian friends guilty of disingenuousness as they me — 
 might I not fairly say, to which of the two does the charge more properly 
 apply — to myself, who, regarding the commandment as not binding in its 
 literal sense, read it as interpreted by the Gospel and the Church, — or to 
 them who, regarding it as strictlj'^ and literally obligatory on them, obey its 
 command to observe one 2>rescribed day for a definite assigned reason, and in 
 a strictly specified manner, by observing another day for a totally different 
 reason, and in a maimer entirely their oivn; — first praying that they may 
 keep the law, then abrogating every word of it, substituting a new law of 
 their o-\vn, and investing it with the authority of the other." 
 
 B.— Page 11. 
 " The Sdbhath of the Fourth Commandment ivasfrom evening to evening." 
 This is of course admitted by all parties, and the Jews to this day keep 
 their Sabbath ' ' from even to even." In our own city, this seems at one time 
 to have been the rule. Thus Woodrow, extracting from the records of the 
 kii-k-session of Glasgow, in 1590, writes, that "the bretheren interpret the 
 Sabbath to be from sun to sun ; and afterwards the session explain it, that 
 no work is to be done from light to light in winter, and betwixt sun to 
 sun in summer." — Memorahilia, vol. ii.. Part II., p. 35. 
 
 In 1594, "The Presbiterie of Glasgw statutis and ordenis that gif Mungo 
 Craig sail playe on his pj^ies on the Sondaye/ra the sunne rysing quhill the sunn 
 goinge to in ony place within the boundis of this Presbiterie, that he incontinent 
 thairefter sal be summarlie excommunicat. Lykwise statutis that wpone the 
 Sondaye in the said tyme, nane gif thameselfis to pastymes and profane gaymes 
 within the said boundis, wnder the pane of the censures of the kirk ; and this 
 to be intimat furth of pulpet the nixt Sondaye be everie minister -ndthiu this 
 Presbiterie, and specialie be the minister of Euglen." — Miscellany of the 
 Maitland Club, i., p. 67. In 1608, the kirk-session of Glasgow made an order, 
 ' ' That ther be no buying of timber on Sunday at the watter of Clyde, from 
 sun-rising to sun-setting." In 1613, they ordain the " litsters (dyers) not to 
 big on their fires beneath their fats till after 4 on Sunday's night." In 1619, 
 they ordain "that no fleshers slay flesh between light and light ;" and this 
 ordinance is repeated in 1622 and 1630. But in 1640, they "make a very 
 strict act agaiast profaning the Sunday ; and declare it to be from 12 on Satur- 
 dayes night to 12 on Sunday's night." — Woodrow, ut supra. The same rule 
 seems to have prevailed in Edinburgh prior to 1650. Thus, during the plague 
 in 1574, or 7th September, the ministers, elders, and deacons thought "giiid 
 and necessar to institute ane PubHct Fast and HuniiLiation, vnth ane eruist 
 prayar adjunit thairto, within this bvirgh for the space of aucht dayis nixt 
 to cum, quhilk salbegyne vpone setterday the ferd day of this instant^ at aucht 
 houris at ewin, and sua to continew quhill sonday come aucht dayis at sex 
 houris at nycht, accoedixg to the okdour of all public Fastis obsekitit 
 IN TYMES bypast. Requiring the haUl faythfuU of this burgh to observe the 
 samyn in aU pojmtis as thai tender the mercies of Grod." — Miscellany, ut
 
 Appendix. 51 
 
 supra, p. 105. And again, on 7tli December of the same year, tliey 
 ordered another " pnblict fast and humiliatioun for the space of aucht dayis, 
 togidder -with ane emist inuocationn and prayar for the assistance of Godis 
 holy spreit that our synnis may be pardonit, quhairby the said appeirand 
 scurge may be removit, and Godis vrayth pasitiit ; the said publict Fast to 
 begj'nne vponn setterday nixt to cum, at aucht houris at ewin, and sua to 
 continew quhiU sonday at sex hoiiris at ewin, thair foud only to be 
 breid and drink with all kind of sobrietie." — Miscellany, ut supra, page 
 111. In 1646 the same parties recommended "that the ports (gates) 
 of Edinr. sail stand closed from Saturday, at night, till Sunday, at 
 six o'clock at night; and none of them to be opened all the while, save 
 only one of the south ports, to give way for watering of horse, at 
 morning and evening; at which time they must be attended by some 
 faithful, honest man, for restraining the people's faith-breaking, and there- 
 after to be closed." — Appendix to Report of Sir Andrev} Agneivs Committee, 
 1832, p. 304. In 1650, however, the magistrates of Edinburgh ordered 
 the gates to be closed from Satiirday night at JO o'clock, to Monday 
 morning at 4 o'clock. — Coltness Collections, Mait. Club, p. 308. 
 
 The passage referred to from Michaelis will be found in Ai-ticle 195 of his 
 Commentaries on the Laivs of Moses. 
 
 C— Page 11. 
 *' It is a fair question, indeed, how far the blessed rest secured hy the Jewish 
 Sabbath ivas at all connected with public worship?^^ 
 See as to this, Vitringa, De Synagoga vetere libri tres, — Lib. I., p. 2, cap. 
 2, and Michaelis, ut sup., Art. 52. 
 
 D.— Page 12. 
 " / mean Mr. Begg." 
 See "An Examination of the Authority for a Clutnge of the Weekly Sab- 
 bath at the Resurrection of Christ, proving that the practice of the Church, 
 in Substituting the First Day of the Week for the appointed Seventh Day, is 
 unsanctioned by the New Testament Scriptures." — By James A. Begg. Glas- 
 gow, 1850. Pp. 156. 
 
 E.— Page 12. 
 
 " In a hundred things we do on Sunday what it would have been unlawful 
 for the pious Jew to Juive done on his Sabbath." 
 
 This needs no proof;, but I cannot resist publishing the following very 
 striking letter, which I have received, since my speech was delivered, from 
 one who was for some time a missionary in India, and which will illustrate 
 some of the effects of our practice in this respect: — 
 
 "Rev. Sir, — I have been listening, with some interest, to the discussions 
 in which you have been engaged in this much-talked-of Sabbath-question ; 
 and as I have had a pretty good opportunity of seeing round me for many 
 years, in foreign lands, I think it right to say to you what I think as to the 
 effect of binding down the heathen and others to the Decalogue, as such. 
 
 ' ' Take, for instance, the natives of India, where the Church of our fathers 
 has been labouring for many years. I have been myself, and I know many 
 others have been, likewise, much puzzled with, the strange inconsistency 
 between the precept and practice of our ministers and missionaries ; and so 
 have the natives, though they possess enough of their oriental cunning, 
 to keep even their own masters in the dark as to what they think. 
 
 "TVTien they are told, 'Thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt do no work,' &c.,
 
 52 Appendix. 
 
 'thou, nor tliy man-servant,' &c., — what so common as to see or hear a 
 gronp of the domestics sit down on a Sabbath evening, with their Hookah 
 or Chilhim, and discuss the pros and cons of precept and example of 
 the padre sahib. They begin with the bishop with his £3000 yearly, 
 the minister with £600 to £1200, the missionary with £200 to £400, 
 and the city missionary with £60 to £150; and what do they say? Just 
 this : that every one of the padre sahibs makes out the list of his own 
 necessities according to his pay (tiiUup); and that while their masters tell 
 them to do no work on Sabbath, (Etwar, ) they compel them to work all 
 night and day. Sabbath and Saturday, in the face of God's command. 
 (Kodah ka hookum.) Now, sir, here is a list of the servants that our good 
 ministers keep in India, just because they are able to keep them. They 
 have their khansamah, kitmutgar, babengee, bearer, coachman, two syees, 
 matther, dhobie, bheestie ; and their wives have their ayah. These servants 
 say, 'We have to do the sahib's work (kam) in the house ; we have to clean 
 the horses and carriage on Sabbath; and we have to pull the punkah over 
 them in the church for hours, morning and evening; and when they come 
 home, we have to puU the punkah over them all night. The matther must 
 do his work in the bath-room twice a-day, and yet they tell us we must do 
 no work ; do they think that this is no work, or does God give one order 
 (hookum) for us, and another for them? We see the Jews, (Yahudee log,) 
 they will not work themselves on their Saturday (Suneechar), nor make 
 their establishment of servants (Nowkar chacker) work ; it is all humbug, 
 (Sub tamash Bhatt hie,) God's Word is one, but the padre sahib gives other 
 orders. Who can teU which we are to hear ? We (Mussiilmans) go to our o-mi 
 musjeed on our own Friday (Joommah), and the Jews have their own caste, 
 but we see this. Christians have more caste than we have, and they cannot 
 agree over them.' Now, sir, I am well aware of the necessities of a hot 
 climate, and the many luxuries that Europeans reqiiire there, that never 
 woidd be thought of here ; but, sir, is it necessary to break one command to 
 keep another ? I say that there is no luxury that people can afford that 
 should be dispensed with, such as the use of ice in the water, and the pimkah 
 night and day. Sabbath and Saturday; but what do these long-headed, 
 clear-sighted Hindoos, Mussulmans, and Gentiles, say on the subject ? Is 
 it not, that you are making them do what you tell them it is wrong to do on 
 the Sabbath-day? 
 
 "What, sir, I ask, in the name of reason and common-sense, do they know 
 of our interpretation of those two elastic door-posts, necessity and mercy? 
 Do they not see every ecclesiastic, from the highest to the lowest, just stretch 
 them out to answer themselves. Everything is necessary, in India, to coun- 
 teract the effects of the climate ; it is necessary to live in an upper-roomed 
 house, so as to be out of the malaria that rises for 10 or 12 feet above the 
 ground, and all who can, do keep upper-roomed houses; yet how many 
 thousands are there who cannot, and must live on the lower floor; and just 
 so with the pimkah-bearer, two or three men are kept, night and day, Sab- 
 bath and Saturday, at work, just because it is conducive to comfort in a hot 
 climate. 
 
 "But, sir, what has all this got to do with the Fourth Commandment? 
 It gives no license for all this ; and the piizzle to the natives is, that they are 
 told that they are to keep it, while they see their teachers break it every 
 week. 
 
 "I am aware, sir, that some people have represented the natives of India 
 as a dull, stupid race, and in some respects, this is true ; but just ask a 
 lawyer, a merchant, or broker in any of the large towns in India, and they 
 will tell you that they, the natives, can split a hair with any of them. And 
 again, sir, those of them who are taught at the missionary school, are not so 
 dull or blind as not to see the palpable contradiction between your Confession 
 of Faith, which says, as Dr. M'Taggart explains it, ' a seventh day,' and as 
 the Catechism has it, 'the seventh day.' 
 
 "And agam, sir, what do these dull, stupid, yet long-headed natives say 
 about the Fourth Commandment as to sea voyages? Just this, that 'God
 
 sends strong winds,' and makes the Christian break His own commands. 
 They are acute enough to see, that those who press home on them the Fourth 
 Commandment, are puzzled va. this dilemma ; and while the Jewish law 
 is pressed on any man outside the bounds of the Jewish land, the same 
 consequence must follow. There is no permission for sea voyages in that 
 command, and I myself have pressed the subject home on strict Sabbatarians 
 at sea, but had to leave a loop-hole for them to get out of. And I was 
 forced to the conclusion, that it is the preceiii that is at fault, and not the 
 practice. I have seen some good, but strict men, of the old school, spend 
 days and weeks of misery, on account of having to touch a rope on Sabbath, 
 and covering a guilty and condemned conscience, from which they might 
 have been relieved, had they left the Decalogue to the Jews, or given up 
 their work and profession at sea. 
 
 "Now, sir, I am aware it will be at once stated that so many good men 
 have been in India, and that none of them ever put this forward before. 
 This, I say, is not true, for it was brought forward twenty years ago in the 
 southern parts of India, and much was said on both sides. But I must 
 confess, it was very painful to see the miserable shifts to which some were 
 driven, when their own inconsistencies were hurled in their face; who 
 came down with an anathema maranatha on all who scouted the idea of 
 being bound by a law, which the muiisters and missionaries themselves 
 break every Sabbath. 
 
 ' ' Any man ia India may, if he wishes, hear the opinion of the natives on 
 this, if he can speak to them, and if they are not afraid of him. Of coiirse it 
 requires some tact and skill to ingratiate yourself into their feelings ; but 
 once that is effected, you may get any information you want. But for want 
 of that tact, you may live fifty years among them and remain ignorant. 
 
 ' ' Again, sir, they can see, in some town in India, the representatives of as 
 many, if not more, nations than were collected on the day of Pentecost ; and 
 they see that every caste has its own Sabbath ; and in none of these do they 
 see such flat contradictions as with our strict Sabbatarians, who keep the 
 first day of the week, while the Greeks keep the second, the Persians the 
 third, the Assyrians the fourth, the Egyptians the fifth, the Miissulmen the 
 sixth, and the Jews the seventh day of the week. — Trusting you will excuse 
 my taking up so much of your time, I remain, yours truly." 
 
 F.— Page 14. 
 
 "/ state, the fact only as it illustrates the feelings and practices of thousands in 
 the North regarding the Lord's-day." 
 
 The following letter from the Scotsman of November 25, 1865, confirms 
 the truth of the story referred to, while at the same time it gives a better 
 version of it : — 
 
 " Edinburgh, 83rd November, 1865. 
 
 "Sir, — Dr. Macleod, in his great speech before the Glasgow Presbytery 
 lately, referred, in illustration of his subject, to an incident regarding a 
 iam, which, from his seeming not to know the circimistances connected with 
 it particularly, was ineffectively told, and conseqiiently has since been the 
 occasion of a great deal of jeering remark. The story, however, is a good 
 one, and it is simply this : — Several gentlemen had taken for a few weeks 
 certain salmon and trout fishings in the LeM'S, and before proceeding 
 thither, they were given to understand that, as the inn at Colarnish — the 
 only place of up-putting at their command — was miserably provided with 
 all sorts of things in the shape of edibles, they woiUd require to take with 
 them a supply of bread, potatoes, beef, &c. Amongst other such matters 
 was a large Yorkshire ham. On the Sunday, when the party had done 
 breakfast, the innkeeper came to them and put the question as to ' What 
 they would like for dinner that day ?' when one of them replied, ' You had 
 better cut the ham in two, and boil one-half for dinner ; the other half may 
 be kept for boiling for breakfast.' 'Ay,' replied mine host; 'but how
 
 54 Appendix. 
 
 would you like it cuttit?' 'Oli,' replied the speaker for the party, 'cut 
 the flesh to the bone with a knife, and then take a saw and saw the 
 bone.' 'Well, gentlemen,' rejoined the innkeeper, 'I have no objection to- 
 use a knife on the Sabbath-day, but I could not use a saw.' 'Have you' 
 got a saw in the house?' 'Yes,' 'Bring it if you j)lease.' And so the 
 saw was brought, and the worthy innkeeper — for a worthy man he is — 
 cut the flesh with a knife ; and though he could not conscientiously saw 
 the bone himself, he held the two ends of the same, while the individual 
 who mentioned the circumstance to me did so to the satisfaction of all 
 parties.— I am, &c., Drawing the Line." 
 
 It would be a most imgracious task to select from the records of northera 
 presbyteries, or of southern ones either, the inmimerable examples of that 
 spirit of Judaism which, so long as the Church had the power of civil coer- 
 cion, made the Scottish Sabbath truly a day of pains and penalties. But I 
 cannot refrain from referring to a confirmation of my remarks, furnished by 
 the evidence of a witness, — a solicitor in Inverness, on an investigation before 
 the Presbytery of Inverness of a charge, to which I will not further refer 
 ]xei-e, — not, be it remembered, in the seventeenth, nor yet in the eighteenth 
 century, but in the week following that in which this speech was delivered. 
 I quote from the Glasgow Herald of 24th November: — 
 
 " I meant," said the witness, referring to a remark he had previously 
 made, " that from my long residence in Inverness, and being a native of 
 it, and consequently pretty well acquainted with the views of the people, 
 that many have peculiar notions about what the conduct of a minister ought 
 to be." 
 
 "Do you mean on a Saturday night, as this was ? " — "Not particularly so ; 
 lut I know of some people here who have conscientious objections arjainst a 
 minister going to the Post Office, or even being outside his oivn door, on a 
 Saturday." 
 
 Since my speech was delivered, I have received the following letter on 
 one of the points as to which I have been accused of exaggeration: — 
 
 " Melfort, 9th December, 1S65. 
 
 " My DEAR Dr. MACLEOD, 
 
 " Shortly after your speech on the Sabbath question at the meeting 
 of the Glasgow Presbytery, I was in company with three West Highland 
 ministers of the Established Church, to whom I expressed my doubts as to 
 the correctness of your assertion, that a considerable number of ministers 
 abstained from shaving on Sundays, from conscientious motives. To my 
 great surprise, I found that two out of the three themselves performed the 
 operation overnight, for fear of breaking the Sabbath ; and the third men- 
 tioned, that when he was a student, he was found fault with for not having a 
 close-shaven dim on Monday, — the inference being, that as he had not shaved 
 on that day, he probably had done so on the one immediately preceding. — 
 Yours sincerely, A. M. Casipbell." 
 
 G.— Page 14. 
 
 " Things have been done, within our memories, by clergy, magistrates, and 
 
 police, in the way of interfering with others, which, thanks to public 
 
 opinion, woidd not be tolerated now." 
 
 In the west of Scotland, the custom of perambulating the streets in quest 
 
 of Sabbath-breakers, seems to have continued to a later date than elsewhere 
 
 in Scotland. (See passages cited in Cox's Sabbath Lavjs and Sabbath Duties, 
 
 p. 312, note.) The late Eev. Dr. M'Farlane, of Eenfrew, gave the following 
 
 evidence as to this before Sir Andrew Agnew's Committee, (Question 3693):
 
 Appendix. 55 
 
 — "Tt is an old Scottish practice," says he, "which I have heard often spoken 
 of hy those who lived a generation before me, and of which I have also heard 
 much from the members of my own Church, when I was a minister in one 
 of the suburbs of Glasgow. Elders of our churches were, at the period to 
 which I refer, accustomed to walk the streets in towns, two and two in turns, 
 during the hours of divine service, to take notice of children or disorderly 
 persons strolling about, and to attempt, by moral suasion, to induce them 
 to go to their houses, or to go to church ; and if those means were inefficient, 
 they toere handed over to the civil magistrate. This practice continiied till, 
 from an increase of population, an increase of vice, and a growing want of 
 support on the part of the magistrates, it was gradually given up ; and I am 
 not aware at this moment whether any society of the description now given 
 exists in Scotland; but I believe, from the accounts I have had, that they 
 did continue to exist till within a dozen years ago. I ought to have added, 
 that this was not confined to the elders of the church, but that well-disposed, 
 individuals associated with them, took turn with them, and carried into 
 effect those objects." 
 
 H.— Page 15. 
 
 "Our oicn General Assembly, as late as 1S34 — / quote second-hand — in a 
 Pastoral addressed to our churches, declared ivalhinrj on Sunday to be 
 'an impious encroachment on one of the inalienable p>i'6rogatives of the 
 Lord's-day.^" 
 
 Dr. Hill writes to the Glasgow Herald of 29th November, that I am in error 
 here, thoixgh the quotation he himself gives from the Pastoral is, I submit, 
 proof that I am right. Here is the passage to which I referred, — Acts of the 
 General Assembly, p. 1164 : — 
 
 " With deep concern we have learned, that in various parts of the country 
 there has been, for a number of years past, a great increase of unnecessary 
 travelling on the Lord's-day, both for purposes of business and amusement ; 
 that shops have been kept open on that day for the sale of provisions and 
 other articles of traffic ; that multitudes, forgetful of their most sacred duties 
 and their immortal interests, have become accustomed to wander in the 
 fields, to frequent scenes of recreation, or to spend their time in riot 
 and drimkenness, and other immoralities. . . . As the Lord God has appro- 
 priated the Sabbath to himself, it is an impious encroachment on His inalien- 
 able prerogative to attempt to convert it either into a day of business or a day 
 of idleness and pastime. . . . Knowing the terrors of the Lord, we would 
 persuade and adjure the hardened, by all that is bitter in remorse, by all 
 that is intolerable in an awakened and ixnpurified conscience, by all that is 
 fearful on the deathbed of impenitence, by all that is scorchmg in the frov/n 
 of an unreconciled Judge; by all that is repulsive in the fellowship of accursed 
 spirits, by all that is wofidly agonizing in the gnawing of the worm that 
 dieth not, and in the fire that is not quenched, to awaken from the dream of 
 guilty insensibility, and to flee from the wi'ath to come to the hope set be- 
 fore them in the Gospel." 
 
 The above, it must be admitted, gives a sad picture of the state of Scot- 
 land, — a state of things, be it remembered, which (if it v.ias actually as bad 
 as here described) was prodiiced in this coiuitry, notwithstanding the preva- 
 lent teaching as to Sabbath observance. But may it not be questioned 
 whether any but bad results can follow from classing together "wandering 
 in the fields" with " spending time in riot and drimkenness, and other im- 
 moralities?" 
 
 The speakers who took part against me in the Presbytery, spoke out so 
 generally against this iJrohibition of breathing God's air on God's own 
 day, that nothing need be said here on that subject now. I add the
 
 56 Appendix. 
 
 words of one whose name is dear to all God's people in England and in 
 Scotland, — Charles Simeon, — because tliey are weighty, not only on this 
 head, but on others touched upon in my speech : — 
 
 *' In my own personal habit I am as strict as most ; but in my judgment, 
 as before God, I think that many religious characters — Ministers as well as 
 others — are in error. I think that many Judaize too much, and that they 
 would have joined the Pharisees in condemning our Lord on many occasions. 
 But I would have you remark this : I do not think that they err in acting up 
 to their own principles, (there they are right ;) but that they err in making 
 their own standard a standard for all others. This is a prevailing evil among 
 religious persons. They will in effect argue thus : — ' / do not walk out on a 
 Sabbath-day, therefore an artisan may not walk out into the fields for 
 an hour on that day.' They forget that the poor man is confined all the rest 
 of the week, which they are not : and that they themselves wiU walk in 
 their own garden when the poor have no garden to walk in. Now in this I 
 do not think that they act towards others, as they, in a change of circiun- 
 stances, would think it right for others to act towards them : and if your 
 brother will limit his refreshment to such a relaxation as is necessary for 
 health, or materially conducive to it, I shall agree with him, and shall rank 
 this amongst works of necessity or of charity. Again, I am not prepared 
 to utter either anathemas or lamentations if Ministers of State occasionally, 
 in a time of great pressure of public busmess, and in a quiet way, avail them- 
 selves of an hour or two for conference with each other on that day. I do 
 not commend it ; but I do not condemn it. They cannot command their own 
 times. Public affaii'S may be full as pressing, and may call for immediate 
 conference, as much as an ox or an ass for deliverance from a pit into which 
 it has fallen ; and I think that love to one's country may justify a deviation 
 from a ritual observance of the Sabbath, as miich as love or pity for a beast. 
 In fact, if the most scrupulous will examine the frame of their own minds, 
 and the real spirituality of their ovra conversation for two or three hours 
 on some part of the Sabbath, they will find but little right, whatever 
 their disposition be, to cast a stone at a poor man with his family, or 
 at a Minister of State with his compeers. Again, I say, they may be right; 
 but the others who think and act differently are not therefore lorong. Those 
 who ate, and those who refused to eat, meat offered to idols, were both right 
 if they acted to the Lord, as were those also who observed, and those who 
 did not observe, certain days, which, under the Jewish dispensation, were 
 actually prescribed. I will tell you what I consider the perfect rule : let 
 all jiidge for themselves in relation to the ritual observance of such matters; 
 the strong not despising the weak, and the weak forbearing to sit in judg- 
 ment on the strong. This will be the siirest and best discharge of the duty 
 of all parties whether to God or man : to God, who has said, ' I wUl have 
 mercy and not sacrifice ;' and to man, who should be left to stand or fall to 
 his own Master."— i^i/e, p. 292-4. 
 
 I.— Page 15. 
 
 " Ca7i ive let young children amuse themselves iji any way on Sunday ? — iW). 
 Why P — The Fourth Commandment.^^ 
 
 The following passage is from a sermon by Dr. Chalmers, preached in the 
 church where my speech was delivered: — 
 
 "Certain it is that the Sabbath-day may be made to wear an aspect of 
 great gloom and great vmgainliness, vrith each hour having its own irksome 
 punctuality attached to it ; and when the weary formalist, labouring to acquit 
 himself in full tale and measure of all his manifold observations, is either 
 sorely fatigued in the work of fiUing up the unvaried routine, or is sorely 
 oppressed in conscience, should there be the slightest encroachment either on 
 its regularity or on its entireness. We may follow him through his Sabbath 
 history, and mark how, in the spirit of bondage, this drivelling slave plies
 
 Appendix. 57 
 
 at an unceasing task, to whicli, all the while, there is a secret dissatisfaction 
 in his own Tjosom, and with which he lays an intolerable penance on his 
 whole famiiJ^ He is clothed in the habiliments of seriousness, and holds 
 out the aspect of it ; but never was aspect more unpromising or more im- 
 lovely. And, in this very character of severity, is it possible for him to 
 move through all the stages of Sabbath observancy — hrst, to eke out his 
 morning hour of solitary devotion ; and then to assemble his household to 
 the psalms, and the readings, and the prayers, which are all set forth in due 
 and regular celebration; and then, Avith stem parental authority, to muster, 
 in full attendance for church, all the children and domestics who belong to 
 him ; and then, in his compressed and crowded pew, to hold out, in complete 
 array, the demureness of spii'it that sits iipon his o^^^l coimtenance, and the 
 demureness of constraint that sits on the general face of his f a'mil3' ; and 
 then, to follow up the public services of the day by an evening, the reigning 
 expression of which shall be that of strict, unbending austerity, when the 
 exercises of patience, and the exercises of memory, and a confinemeut that 
 must not be broken from even for the tempting air and beauty of a garden, 
 and the manifold other interdicts that are laid on the vivacitj- of childhood, 
 may truly turn every Sabbath as it comes round into a periodical season of 
 sufferance and dejection. And thus, instead of being a preparation of love 
 and joy for a heaven of its o'mi likeness, may all these proprieties be dis- 
 ojiarged for no other piirpose than that of pacifying the jealousies of a God 
 of vengeance, and working out a burdensome acquittal from the exactions of 
 this hard and unrelenting task-master." — Congregational Sermons. Sermon 
 XIII., volii., pp. 274-275. 
 
 K.— Page 19. 
 " ' 7 am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out (^ the land of Egypt, 
 out of the hoiise of bondage,^ — a blessed deliverance indeed, but which does 
 not apply to us as Gentiles.'" 
 
 I spoke almost in the words of Luther, though not so strongly — 
 
 "The Ten Commandments," "RTites the Reformer, "do not apply to us 
 Gentiles and Christians, but only to the Jews. K a preacher wishes to 
 force you back to Moses, ask him whether yoii were broiight by Moses out 
 of Egypt ? If he says, Xo ; then say. How, then, does Moses concern me, 
 since he speaks to the people that have been broiight out of Egypt ? In the 
 Xew Testament Moses comes to an end, and his laws lose their force. He 
 must bow in the presence of Christ." — Luther on the Ten Commandments,, 
 quoted by Hengstenberg On the Lord's-dau, p. 62. 
 
 Again, ' ' We must stop the mouths of the factious spirits who say, ' Thus 
 says Moses.' Then do you reply, Moses does not concern us. If I accept- 
 Moses in one commandment, I must accept the whole Moses. In that case 
 I should be obliged to be circumcised, and to wash my clothes in a Jewish 
 manner, and to eat and drink, and dress, and do everything of this kind in 
 the manner in which the Jews are commanded to do these in the law. 
 Therefore we will not obey Moses, nor accept him. Moses died, and his 
 covenant terminated when Christ came. " 
 
 And again, " The words of Scripture prove clearly to us that the Ten 
 Commandments do not affect us ; for God has not brought us out of Eeypt 
 
 but only the Jews." — Instructions to Christians hoio to make use of Moses. 
 
 Lutheri Opera, III., 63. Jena, 1603. 
 
 So Archbishop Whately, in his Fifth Essay on some of the Difficulties in the 
 Writings of St. Paul: — 
 
 ' ' The very law itself indicates, on the face of it, that the whole of its 
 precepts were intended for the Israelites exclusively, (on which supposition 
 they cannot of course be, by their own authority, binding on Christians, } 
 not only from the intermixture of civil and ceremonial precepts with moral, 
 hut from the very terms in which even these last are delivered. For 
 instance, there cannot be any duties more clearly of miiversal obligation than 
 
 E
 
 58 Appendix. 
 
 that of the worship of the one true God alone, and that of honouring parents ; 
 yet the precepts for both of these are so delivered as to address them to the 
 children of Israel exclusively: 'I am the Lord thy God, who broufjht thee 
 out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; thou shalt have none 
 other gods but Me.' And again, 'Honour thy father and thy mother, that 
 thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.'' " 
 
 L.— Page 19. 
 
 *' The promise annexed to the Fifth Commandment is local and temjmral." 
 So John Selden — Table-tall; p. 195. Irving' s Edit., Edin. 1854. 
 "Why shoiild I think all the Fourth Commandment belongs to me, when 
 all the Fifth does not ? What land will the Lord give me for honouring my 
 father ? It was spoken to the Jews with reference to the land of Canaan ; 
 but the meaning is, if I honour my parents, God will also bless me. We 
 read the Commandments in the Church-service, as we do David's Psalms, 
 not that all there concerns us, but a great deal of them does." 
 
 Dr. P. Doddridge — Pneumatology, v. ii., p. 361, Lect. 198. Scholiiun 3. 
 Lond. 1794:— 
 
 ' ' Nevertheless we allow, that the observation of the Sabbath is not to be 
 urged as of imiversal obligation, merely because it is to be found in the 
 Jewish Decalogue, and that its place there only obliged the Jews ; since, in 
 the preface to those Ten Commandments, their deliverance from Egypt is 
 urged as a reason for observing them, and the Fifth Commandment is en- 
 forced by promises peculiar to the Jews : not to insist on the addition (Deut. 
 v. 15) which is probably to be considered as the words of Moses, not of God, 
 and a comment on the Fourth Commandment, rather than a part of it." 
 
 Dr. Whewell — Elements of Morality, B. III., ch. xvi. : — 
 "The Ten Commandments are not binding upon Christians because they 
 are parts of the law of Moses, but because they are part of the moral law. 
 Thou shall not steal; thou shalt not hill; thou shalt not commit adultery; 
 are precepts which do not derive their authority from any special command, 
 but from the moral nature God has given to man. There are parts of the 
 Ten Commandments which are merely arbitrary, or local, or temporary, and 
 apply only to the ancient Jews. Such is the reason given in the fifth com- 
 mand, that thy days, <fec. ; such is the command of absolute abstinence from 
 labour on the Sabbath ; such is the selection of the seventh day of the week 
 for the day of rest, if that selection is really included in the command." 
 
 M.— Page 20. 
 * ' It is the Decalogue, viewed in this aspect, .... which I presume to 
 think has been abrogated by being nailed to Chrisfs C7-oss." 
 
 Much has been said of my use of this expression. It is simply amazing 
 to me that my meaning could have for a moment been misunderstood by 
 any one. I have already quoted Baxter (who uses the same word, and in the 
 very same sense) in the text, and can add nothing to his defence against the 
 same Antinomianism with which I have been so unsparingly charged, and 
 with which Luther, for exactly the same offence, (see Appendix K,) was 
 charged before him. I may, however, quote the following from Archbishop 
 Whately, who, though I differ from him on other parts of the question, ably 
 argues out this point, on which we are at one : — 
 
 " It caimot be denied that he, Paul, does speak, frequently and strongly, 
 of the termination of the Mosaic law, and of the exemption of Christiana 
 from its obligations, -without ever limiting and qualifying the assertion, — 
 Avithout even hinting at a distinction between one part which is abrogated, 
 and another which remains in full force. It cannot be said that he had in
 
 Appendix. 59 
 
 his mind the' Ceremonial law alone, and was alluding merely to the abolition 
 of that ; for in the very passages in question, he makes such allusions to 
 sbi, as evidently shew that he had the moral law in his miud; as, for 
 instance, where he says, ' The law was added because of transgressions : '— 
 'bj' the law was the knowledge of sin ;' with many other such expressions. 
 And it is remarkable, that even when he seems to feel himself pressed with 
 the mischievous practical consequences which either had been, or he is 
 sensible might be, drawn from his doctrines, he never attempts to guard 
 against these by limiting his original assertion ; — by declaring that tliough 
 part of the law was at an end, stdl, part continued to be binding ; but he 
 always incidcates the necessity of moral conduct on some different groimd : 
 For instance, ' TVTiat shall we say, then? Shall we continue m siii that 
 grace may abound ? God forbid ! ' He does not then add, that a part of the 
 Mosaic law remains in force ; but urges this consideration, ' How shall we, 
 who are dead to sin, live any longer therein ? Know ye not, that so many 
 of us as were baptized into Jesiis Christ, were baptized into His deatli ? 
 Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death ; that like as 
 Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we 
 
 also should walk in newness of life. ' ' Knowing this, that our old 
 
 man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that 
 henceforth we should not serve sin.' And again, ' Shall we sin because we 
 are not under the law, but imder grace ? God forbid ! Know ye not that 
 to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom 
 ye obey ? whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousuess.' 
 
 'Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of 
 
 righteousness. ' And such also is his tone in every passage relating to the 
 same subject. 
 
 "Now, let us but adopt the obvious interpretation of the Apostle's words, 
 and admit the entire abrogation, according to him, of the Mosaic law ; con- 
 cluding that it was originally designed for the Israelites alone, and that its 
 dominion over them ceased when the Gospel-system was established: and 
 we shall find that this concession does not go a step towards introducing the 
 Antinomian conclusion, that moral conduct is not required of Christians. 
 For it is evident that the natural distinctions of right and -wrong, which 
 conscience points out, must remain where they were. These distinctions, 
 not having been introduced by the Mosaic law, cannot, it is ev-ident, be over- 
 thrown by its removal; any more than the destruction of the Temple at 
 Jerusalem impHed the destruction of the Mount Zion whereon it was built. 
 The Apostle does indeed speak, in some passages, of the law as having been 
 a guide and instructor in matters of morality; as where he says, 'I had not 
 known sin but by the law;' but that this must not be understood, in the 
 fullest extent, as implying that no moral obligation could exist, or could be 
 understood, independent of the Mosaic revelation, is evident, not only from 
 the nature of the case, but from his own remarks in the same epistle, relative 
 to 'the Gentiles, which have not the law,' being capable of ^ doing by nature 
 the things contained in the law .... their conscience also bearing witness, 
 and their thoughts accusing or else excusing one another;' and of their 
 'knowing' (in cases where they committed sin) 'that they who do such 
 things are worthy of death.' To say, therefore, that no part of the .Jewish 
 law is binding on Christians, is very far from leaving them at liberty to 
 disregard all moral duties. For, in fact, the very definition of a moral duty, 
 implies its universal obligation independent of all enactment. The precepts 
 respecting sacrifices, for instance, and other ceremonial observances, we call 
 positive ordinances ; meaning, that the things in qiiestion become duties 
 because they ivere commanded : — the commandment to love one's neighboiir 
 as oneself, on the contrary, we call a moral precept, on the very ground that 
 this was a thing commanded because it was right. And it is evident, that 
 what was right or wrong in itself before the law existed, must remain such 
 after it is abrogated. Before the commandments to do no murder, and to 
 honour one's parents, had been delivered from Mount Sinai, Cain was cursed 
 for killing his brother, and Ham for dishonoiiring his father ; which crimes,
 
 60 Appendicc. 
 
 therefore, could not cease to be such, at least, as any consequence of the 
 abolition of that law. 
 
 "Nor need it be feared, that to proclaim an exemption from the Mosiac law 
 should leave men without any moral guide, and at a loss to distinguish right 
 and \^T0ug : since, after all, the light of reason is that to which every man 
 must be left, in the interpretation of that very law. For Moses, it should 
 be remembered, did not wi'ite three distinct books, one of the Ceremonial 
 law, one of the Civil, and a thiixl of the Moral ; nor does he hint at any 
 siich distinction, ^^^len, therefore, any one is told that a part of the 
 Mosaic precepts are binding on us, viz., the moral ones, and if he ask tvJiich 
 are the Moral precepts, and how to distinguish them from the Ceremonial 
 and the Civil, with which they miugled, the answer must be, that his 
 conscience, if he consult it honest!}", will determine that point. So far, 
 conseqiiently, from the moral precepts of the law being, to the Christian, 
 necessary as a guide to his judgment in determining what w right and wi'ong, 
 on the contrary this moral judgment is necessarj- to determine what are the 
 moral precepts of Closes. 
 
 ' ' The study, indeed, of the moral law of Moses is profitable for instruc- 
 tion, and may serve to aid our judgment in some doubtfid cases that may 
 occur ; provided we are careful to bear in mind all the circumstances imder 
 which each precept was delivered. For there is a presumption that what 
 was commanded or prohibited by Moses, is right or -wrong in itself, unless 
 some reason can be assigned, which makes our case at present diflerent from, 
 that of the Israehtes; — some circumstance of distinction, which either leaves 
 us more at large than they, or (as is oftener the case) calls for a higher and 
 purer moral practice from us. But to consxUt a code of moral precepts for 
 instruction, is very different from referring to that as a standard, and rule of 
 conduct. 
 
 "If the notion, then, that such as are not under the ^Mosaic law, are, on 
 that accoimt, exempt from all moral obligations, be rejected as utterlj' 
 groimdless, and if, consequently, no practical danger or absurdity be involved 
 in the supposition of that law being fully abrogated, the conclusion that it 
 is so abrogated will hardly be any longer open to doubt ; being evidently 
 the most agreeable to the Apostle's expressions in their obvious, natural, and 
 imrestrained sense." — Essay V., ut supra. 
 
 And in a note he adds: — 
 
 ' ' I am inclined to believe that one reason which makes some persons 
 reluctant to acknowledge the total abolition of the Mosaic law, is the notion 
 that the sanctity of the ' Christian Sabbath ' depends on the Fourth Com- 
 mandment, and that, consequently, the reverence due to the Lord's-day 
 would be destroyed, or impaired, by our admitting the Ten Commandments 
 to be no longer binding. But a little reflection will satisfy any candid mind 
 that there is no ground for any such suspicion, and that all the various 
 opinions respecting the Lord's-day, however irreconcileable with each other, 
 are all perfectly reconcileable with the belief of the abrogation of the 
 Mosaic Law." 
 
 Dr. Arnold— i(/e, i., p. 355 (Ed. 1844):— 
 
 "It is not that we may pick and choose what commandments we like to 
 obey, biit, as all the commandments have no force upon us as such, — that is, 
 as positive and literal commands addressed to ourselves, — it is onlj' a question 
 how far each commandment is applicable to us, — that is, how far we are in 
 the same circumstances ^-ith those to whom it was given." And again, 
 (L. 366,) — " Although I think that the whole law is done away with, so far 
 as it is the law given on Mount Sinai ; yet, so far as it is the law of the 
 Spirit, I hold it to be all binding ; and believing that our need of a Lord's- 
 day is as great as ever it was, and that, therefore, its observance is God's 
 win, and is likely, so far as we see, to be so to the end of time, I should 
 think it most mischievous to weaken the respect paid to it." 
 
 Dr. George Cook — General and Historical View of Christianity, vol. ii., 
 ch. 10, pp. 286-287. 
 
 "The Sabbath, as thus defined in the Decalogue, continued so long as the
 
 Appendix. 61 
 
 Mosaical dispensation was obligatory ; bnt it cannot have escaped any atten- 
 tive reader of the Gospel, that whilst our Saviour, on the seventh-day, 
 attended the Synagogue, and thus shewed His veneration for the authority 
 by which it was hallowed, He on many occasions placed the spirit of the 
 institution more prominently in view than the letter of it, doing without 
 hesitation what the Pharisees, and those who affected peculiar etrictnesa 
 and holiness, considered as profaning the Sabbath. It inculcated the in- 
 finite value of mercy above sacrifice, explicitly declaring that the Sabbath 
 was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. When by His death, 
 — which was the fulfilment of aU that had been shadowed forth imder the 
 Jewish dispensation, — that dispensation was done away, the appointment 
 of the Sabbath, that is, of a specific day for the service of God, and of a 
 specific mode in which it was to be observed, ceased ; these were compre- 
 hended under that hand^vriting of ordinances which was blotted oiit ; the 
 Apostle upon one occasion saying, ' Let no man, therefore, judge you in 
 meat or in drmk, or in respect of a holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the 
 Sabbath-day, which are a shadow of things to come ; but the body is 
 Christ.'" 
 
 Dr. Reichel, in his notes to a very able sermon preached in Dublin in 1856, 
 defends himself from an accusation similar in many respects to that brought 
 against myself: — 
 
 "The evils," he writes, "tliat have arisen from the exaggerated view 
 generally taken of the Decalogue (as a supposed siimmary of the moral law), 
 and which have been sanctioned by unreilecting reverence and unquestioned 
 custom, may teach us how dangerous it is to yield to the temptation of giv- 
 ing a reason which is not true, but which the person to whom it is addressed 
 will fancy to be true. Appeals to the Sabbath-command of the Decalogue 
 in favoiu' of the observance of the Lord's-day, and of all church festivals, 
 were originally made in the middle ages by Komish divines, who knew that 
 those whom they wished to influence were too ignorant to draw tlie distinc- 
 tion between the moral and the ceremonial parts of the Decalogue, and could 
 not therefore detect the fallacy of these appeals. This habit of appealing to 
 the Decalogiie in its turn countenanced the idea that it was a summary of 
 the moral law ; and this being once assumed as an unquestionable fact, 
 ' Sabbath observance,' in spite of its evidently ceremonial nature, was boldly 
 asserted to be a part of the moral law ! Thus arose a perfect confusion of 
 mind on the subject of the natui-e of a moral as distinguished from a cere- 
 monial precept; an evil so great that it may be seriously questioned wliether 
 it do not more than counterbalance the advantage of reciting the Decalogue 
 in the Communion Service ; and whether it would not have been wiser to 
 introduce into the sei-vice instead of the Decalogue 'the two great command- 
 ments' from which the Decalogue itself is derived, as was actually proposed 
 at the Eevolution of 1688." — The LorcPs-day not the Sabbath. By Charles 
 Parsons Reichel, D.D., lateDonellan Lecturer to the University of Dublin. 
 Dub. 1859. 
 
 N.— Page 25. 
 
 " Many of our greatest thinkers and best commentators have been unable to find 
 any evidence for this primeval Sabbath," 
 
 I subjoin a few illustrations : — 
 
 Justyn Martyr. — "All these men before-named, (Adam, Enoch, Noah, 
 Melchizedek, and Lot,) pleased God without observing the Sabbath; and 
 after them, Abraham and all his posterity to the time of Moses." — Dialogue 
 with Typho. Therlby's edit. 1722, p. 147. " If before Abraham there was 
 no custom of circumcision, nor before Moses of celebrating the Sabbath — 
 is there any need of these things?" — 76., 183. "As, therefore, circumcision 
 took its rise from Abraham, and the Sabbath and sacrifices, and offerings and 
 festivals, (which, it hath been proved, were ordained on account of your
 
 62 Appendix. 
 
 people's hardness of heart,) took their rise from Moses ; so was it proper that 
 these things should, according to the counsel of the Father, come to au end 
 in Him, the Son of God, Jesus Christ." — lb., p. 222. 
 
 Irenceus. — -"Abraham, without circumcision, and without observance of 
 Sabbath, believed in God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness, 
 and he was called the friend of God." — Contra Hceres, IV. 16. 
 
 Tertullian. — "Since God ordained that Adam sliould be neither circum- 
 cised nor an observer of the Sabbath, so he commanded Adam's son, Abel, 
 when offering sacrifices to Him, though Abel wasimcircumcised, and not an 
 observer of the Sabbath ;" and then he goes on to shew that neither Noah, 
 Enoch, Melchizedek, Lot, nor Abraham, kept the Sabbath, and yet were 
 approved of by God. — Contra Judoios, Kigaidt's edit., Paris, 1675, p. 185. 
 
 Eiiseb'ms. — "As the name Christian is intended to indicate this very idea, 
 that a man, by the knowledge and doctrine of Christ, is distinguished by 
 modesty and justice, by patience and a virtuous fortitude, and by a profession 
 of piety towards the one and only true and supreme God, all this was no less 
 studiously cultivated by them (the patriarchs, from Adam to Abraham) than 
 by us. They did not, therefore, regard circumcision, nor observe the Sab- 
 bath ; nor do we ; neither do we abstain from certain foods, nor regard other 
 injunctions which Moses subsequently delivered to be observed in types and 
 symbols, because such things as these do not belong to Christians." — Eccles. 
 Hist, Cruse's transl., p. 46. 
 
 Archbishop Branhall. — "We find (from Adam to Moses) oblations, and 
 priests, and sacrifices, and choirs, and oratories, and prayers, and thanks- 
 givings, and vows, and whatsoever natural religion doth dictate about the 
 service of God ; but we find not an instance of the execution of this supposed 
 law of the seventh-day Sabbath." — On the Sabbath and Lord' s-day, p. 20. 
 
 John Banyan. — "Question II. — Whether the seventh-day Sabbath, as to 
 man's keeping of it holy, was ever made known to, or imposed by a positive 
 precept upon him until the time of Moses ? . . . As to the imposmg of 
 a seventh-day Sabbath upon men from Adam to Moses, of that we find 
 nothing in Holy Writ, either from precept or example. . . . The seventh 
 day, therefore, was not from Paradise, nor from nature, nor from the Fathers, 
 but from the wilderness and from Sinai." — Questions about the Nature and 
 Perpetuity of the seventh-day Sabbath, and proof that the first day of the week 
 is the true Ch7-istian Sabbath. — Works, edited by OflFer, vol. ii., pp. 363-5. 
 Glasgow, 1853. 
 
 Jo/ai Mil ton. — "With regard to the Sabbath, it is clear that God hallowed 
 it to himself, and dedicated it to rest, in remembrance of the consummation 
 of His work, (Gen ii. 2, 3; Exod. xxxi. 17.) Whether its institution was ever 
 made known to Adam, or whether any commandment relative to its obser- 
 vance was given previous to the delivery of the law on Mount Sinai, much 
 less whether any such was given before the fall of man, caimot be ascertained, 
 Scripture being silent on the subject. The most probable supposition is, that 
 Moses, who seems to have written the book of Genesis much later than the 
 promulgation of the law, inserted this sentence from the Fourth Command- 
 ment, into what appeared a suitable place for it ; where an opportunity was 
 afi"orded for reminding the Israelites, by a natviral and easy transition, of the 
 reason assigned by God, many ages after the event itself, for His command 
 with regard to the observance of the Sabbath by the covenanted people." — 
 Treatise on Christian Doctrine, Book I., ch. 10. 
 
 Archdeacon Paley. — "In my opinion the transaction in the wilderness, 
 above recited, (Exod. xvi.), was the first actual institution of the Sabbath. 
 For if the Sabbath had been instituted at the time of the creation, as the 
 words in Genesis may seem at first sight to import; and if it had been 
 observed all along from that time to the departure of the Jews out of Egypt, 
 a period of about two thousand five hundred years, it appears unaccountable 
 that no mention of it, no occasion of even the obscurest allusion to it, shoidd 
 occur, either in the general history of the world before the call of Abraham, 
 which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs of its eaidy ages, and those 
 extremely abridged ; or, which is more to be wondered at, in that of the lives
 
 Appendix. 63 
 
 of tlie first three Jewish patriarchs, which in many parts of the account is 
 sufficiently circumstantial and domestic. Nor is there, in the passage above 
 quoted, (he has mentioned Exod. c. xvi.,) any intimation that the Sabbath, 
 when appointed to be observed, was only the revival of an ancient institu- 
 tion, which had been neglected, forgotten, or suspended ; nor is any such 
 neglect imputed either to the inhabitants of the Old World, or to any part 
 of the family of Noah ; nor, lastlj', is any permission recorded to dispense 
 with the institiition during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, or on any 
 other public emergency." And then he proceeds, "The passage m the 
 second chapter of Genesis, which creates the whole controversy on the sub- 
 ject, is not inconsistent with this opinion: for, as the seventh day was 
 erected into a Sabbath, on accoimt of God's resting upon that day from the 
 work of creation, it was natural enough in the historian, when he had related 
 the history of the creation, and of God's ceasing from it on the seventh day, 
 to add, ' And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because that 
 on it He had rested from all His work which God had created and made ;' 
 although the blessing and sanctiflcation, i. e., the religious distinction and 
 appropriation of that day, were not actually made tUl many ages afterwards. 
 The words do not assert, that God theti ' blessed and sanctified ' the seventh 
 day, but that He blessed and sanctified it /or that reason ; and if any ask, 
 why the Sabbath, or the sanctifi cation of the seventh day, was then men- 
 tioned, if it was not then appointed? the answer is at hand : the order of 
 connection and not of time introduced the mention of the Sabbath in the 
 history of the subject which it was ordained to commemorate." — The 
 Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, chap. 7. 
 
 It woidd be easy to multiply the above, as any one wall see who takes the 
 trouble to consult the index to Mr. Cox's Literature of the Sabbath Question. 
 The whole subject is fully discussed in the 4th of Dr. Hessey's Bampton 
 LectureSy to which I refer. 
 
 0.— Page 27. 
 
 " What has heen said regarding the falling of the jnanna as a proof of an earlier 
 Sabbath, . . . has received a different, and, in my opinion, a more probable 
 interpretation." 
 
 Thus John Milton. — "The injunction respecting the celebration of the 
 Sabbath in the wilderness, (Exod. x\'i.,) a short time previous to the delivery 
 of the law, namely, that no one should go out to gather manna on the seventh 
 morning, because God had said that he would not rain it from heaven on that 
 day, seems rather to have been intended as a preparatory notice, the gi'ound- 
 work, as it were, of a law for the Israelites, to be delivered shortly after- 
 wards in a clearer manner; they having been pre%aously ignorant of the 
 mode of observing the Sabbath. Compare ver. 5 with ver. 22-30. For the 
 riders of the congregation, who ought to have been better acquainted than 
 the rest with the commandment of the Sabbath, if any such institution then 
 existed, wondered why the people gathered twice as much on the sixth day, 
 and appealed to Moses ; who, then, as if amioimcing something new, pro- 
 claimed to them that the morrow woidd be the Sabbath. After which, as if 
 he had already related in what manner the Sabbath was for the first time 
 observed, he proceeds, ver. 30, ' so the people rested on the seventh day.' 
 That the Israelites had not so much as heard of the Sabbath before this 
 time, seems to be confirmed by several passages of the prophets. (Ezek. xx. 
 10-12;) 'I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egj-pt, and brought 
 them into the wilderness ; and I gave them my statutes, and shewed them 
 my judgments. . . . Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign 
 between me and them, that they might know that I am Jehovah that sanc- 
 tify them.' (Neh. ix. 13, 14:) ' thou earnest down also upon Moimt Sinai . . . 
 and gavest them right judgments . . . and madest known unto them thy 
 holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the 
 hand of Moses thy servant.'" — Treatise on Christian Doctrine, i., chap. 10.
 
 64 Api^endix. 
 
 And Hengstenhtrg. — " Wlieii a douljle portion fell on the sixth day, (for 
 which God had prepared Moses, though the latter had certainlj^ not men- 
 tioned it to the people), the rulers came and told Moses. They are aston- 
 ished at the providence of God, that they had found a double quantity of 
 mamia, and ask what they are to do with it. The reply which Moses makes 
 them, shews us the reason of their bringing him the information. This to 
 them inexplicable occurrence is first explained in his reply. Then follov) 
 du-ections how to dispose of the surplus. Now, neither of these, the aston- 
 ishment or the perplexity, could have arisen, if the Sabbath had been already 
 known and observed. We are led to the same conclusion, when we find 
 that, notwithstanding the instructions of Moses, some of the people went 
 out on the Sabbath to gather, shewing how new a thing it was to the people, 
 and how difficult it w«,s at first to conform. And we infer it also from the 
 total absence in the words of Moses of a reference to an already existing 
 Sabbath ordinance. Liebetrut indeed thinks that the words of Moses, 'This 
 is that which the Lord said,' shew that the Sabbath was already known, 
 smce no such declaration is made in verses 4 and 5. But Moses is not re- 
 ferring here to an earlier declaration of the Lord, but to something actually 
 said l)y the Lord when poiiring out the double portion of manna on the sixth 
 day : ' This is that which the Lord hath said (by this occurrence), To-mor- 
 row is the rest of a holy Sabbath to the Lord.' No doubt remains then," 
 says the same ■WTiter, "that the Sabbath was first instituted in connection 
 with the whole of the Mosaic economy. ' The Lord hath given you the 
 Sabbath.'" — Hengstenberg On the LonVs-day, p. 7. 
 
 P.— Page 27. 
 " I am astonished that so much has been made of the word ' remember.' " 
 
 The compilers of our Larger Catechism did not find any difficulty in 
 interpreting this phrase with me: — 
 
 "The word remember is set in the beginning of the Fourth Command- 
 ment, partly, because of the great benefit of remembering it, we being 
 thereby helped in our preparation to keep it, and, in keeping it, better to 
 keep all the rest of the commandments, and to continue a thankful remem- 
 brance of the two great benefits of creation and redemption, which contain 
 a short abridgment of religion ; and partly, because we are verj'^ ready to 
 forget it, for that there is less light of natiu-e for it, and yet it restraineth 
 our natural liberty in things at other times lawfid; that it cometh but once 
 in seven days, and many worldly businesses come between, and too often 
 take off oitr minds from thinking of it, either to prepare for it, or to sanctify 
 it; and that Satan "wdth his instruments much laboui* to blot (Tut the glory, 
 and even the memory of it, to bring in all irreligion and impiety. " — Question 
 121. Notlimg here, at least, about a primeval Sabbath. 
 
 Whately, in his Thoughts on the Sabbath, p. 13, (3d Ed.,) expresses my 
 view with his usual clearness :■ — "Nor does the expression, ' remember the 
 Sabbath-day,' necessarily imply its having been before observed; but rather 
 that the precept was one liable to be violated through negligence axiA. for get- 
 fulness. We often say, in like manner, ' remember to call at such a place, 
 at such an hour;' or 'remember to deliver this letter,' &c. ; meaning, 'take 
 care not to forget it.' It is not said, accordingly, ' remember not to steal,' 
 ' remember to honour your parents,' &c., though, certainly, these precejjts 
 must have been always in force ; but they are such as no one is likely to 
 violate through forgetfulness." 
 
 Q.— Page 27. 
 
 ''' Another argument in proof of the same position has been adduced from the 
 fact, that the Sabbath, according to Christ's prediction, should continue after 
 His death, luhen He said, ' Pray that your flight be not in 2cinier.'" 
 
 Dr. Hessey writes, (Lect. 5,) — "In a nation like that of the Jews, in 
 which the fiction of the ' Sabbath-day's journey ' prevailed extensively, it
 
 Appendix. 65 
 
 was no doubt considered T^Tong to assist the traveller, however urgent his 
 errand, in his movements on the Sabbath-day. All possible impediments, 
 therefore, would be thro-wn in the way of the fugitives, by those who were 
 still zealous for the supposed requirements of the law. They would render 
 them no aid, they woidd assail with obloc[uy, if with nothing worse, the 
 violators of the sanctity of the Sabbath. A Roman Satirist asserted of the 
 Jews, that they considered it to be their duty 
 
 ' Nou monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti, 
 Quaesitura ad fontem solos deducere verpos.' 
 
 If this were so, they would certainly be yet more uncharitable to those who 
 were in their eyes not merely aliens, but apostates ; not merely ignorant of 
 their law, but despisers of it and contribiitors to its overthrow. What 
 wonder, then, that our blessed Lord, foreseeing that the Sabbath would still 
 exist as a fact, though no longer obligatory as an institution, and would still 
 be cherished by the Jews, should have bid His disciples pray, that their 
 flight be not cast, not merely in the time of winter, but on a day which 
 woidd expose them to the yet keener blasts of those who would resent a 
 violation of their ancient day of rest. It may be that our Lord foresaw a 
 lingering regard on the part of His disciples for this remnant of the Jewish 
 law, such as we know the Nazarenes long entertained, and that He hinted 
 at Avhat their personal feelings woixld be. Of this, however, we have no 
 evidence. Perhaps, then, it is safer to conclude that He spoke merely of a 
 certain external circumstance, the averting of which, as its presence would 
 increase their trials, should be made the subject of prayer." 
 
 The same view I find in an old Baptist aiithor of some celebrity in the 
 seventeenth century, Benjamin Keach. — "Therefore this," says he, "I take 
 to be the direct meaning of our blessed Lord, viz., because on the Jewish 
 Sabbath-day the imbelieving Jews, among whom you wUl remain (or many 
 of you), when the destruction of the city comes, may be so strict and super- 
 stitious as to keep watch and ward at every gate and way, that you will not 
 be able to escape, at least not above one of their Sabbath-day's journey; 
 therefore pray your flight be not on that day. Tills is aU I can see in this 
 text." — The Jewish Sahhath Abrogated, p. 148. 
 
 Well may Hengstenberg write, that if this text were to be taken as in 
 favour of Sabbatical observance, "the SaNaom* is but helping to build up, 
 what He always aimed to overthrow, — the scruples of the Pharisees with 
 regard to the outward observance of the Sabbath." — On the hordes-day, 
 p. 106. 
 
 K.— Page 28. 
 
 " Tlien, again, it has heen strongly urged that the phrase, ' The Sahhath was made 
 for man,' proves it to have heen for man as man, or for humanity." 
 
 My illustration of the drowning man and the gold was suggested by the 
 recollection of a passage -in Dr. Hessey's 4th Lecture: — 
 
 "The real question was. Which is the more important, — the Sabbath or 
 man? WTiich is the more precious in God's sight, the ordinance or the moral 
 being? which is the end? which is made for the other? Our Lord replies, 
 ' The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. ' Just as 
 if a person M^ere about to sacrifice his life for the preservation of his gold, — 
 one woiild say to him, ' Gold was made for man, not man for gold.' This 
 would not of course imply that gold and no other sort of money must neces- 
 sarily be for ever the medium of commerce. Siich might or might not be 
 the case, but it could not be gathered legitimately from the mere terms of 
 the expostulation." 
 
 S.— Page 31. 
 
 "It is, first of all, adapted to our whole wants as men and as Christians, — 
 
 adapted to our wants physically." 
 I may refer to M. Proudhon's Pamphlet, De la CeUhration dii DimancJie 
 consideree sous les rapports de V Hygiene publique, de la Morale, des relations
 
 66 Appendix. 
 
 de Famille et de Cite, Paris, 1850, where the advantages of the precise pro- 
 portion of six days of work to one of rest are pointed out. I have not seen 
 this work, which was referred to by Mr. Charteris, but the vahie of such 
 a testimony is great. 
 
 T.— Page 35. 
 
 The following quotations are intended to shew the views held by the 
 early Reformers and other Protestant divines. It will be observed that some 
 of these writers go far beyond my views : — 
 
 Luther. — " God set apart the seventh day, and appointed it to be observed, 
 and commanded that it should be considered holy above all others ; and 
 this command, as far as the outward observance is concerned, was given to> 
 the Jews alone, that they should abstain from hard labour, and rest, in order 
 that both man and beast might be refreshed, and not be worn out by constant 
 work. Therefore this commandment, literally understood, does not apply to 
 us Christians ; for it is entirely outward, like other ordinances of the Old 
 Testament, bound to modes, and persons, and times and customs, all of 
 which are now left free by Christ. But in order that the simple may obtain 
 a Christian view of that which God requires of us in this commandment, 
 observe that we keep a festival, not for the sake of intelligent and advanced 
 Christians, for these have no need of it ; but first for the sake of the body, 
 because Nature teaclies that the working-classes, servants and maids, who 
 have spent the whole week in tlieir work and occupation, absolutely require 
 a day in which they can leave off work, and rest and refresh themselves ; 
 and, chiefly, in order that men may, on such a day of rest, have time and 
 opportunity, such as they could not otherwise have, to attend to the worship 
 of God, that so they may come in crowds, to hear the word of God and 
 practise it, to praise God, and sing, and pray. But this is not bo\md to any 
 particular time, as with the Jews, so that it must be this day or that ; for 
 no day is in itself beter than any other, but it ought to be performed daily ; 
 only, because this woidd be impossible to the mass of the people, we must 
 at least devote one day to this purjjose. And becaiise Simday has been 
 appointed from the earliest times, we ought to keep to this arrangement, 
 that all things may be done in harmony and order, and no confusion be caused 
 by mmecessary novelties." — Luther's Larger Catechism. — Martin's trans- 
 lation of Hengstenberg On the Lord' s-day, p. G2. 
 
 And again^ ' ' As for the Sabbath or Sunday, there is no necessity for its 
 observance ; and if we do so, the reason ought to be, not because Moses com- 
 manded it, but because Nature likewise teaches us to give ourselves, from time 
 to time, a day's rest, in order that man and beast may recruit their strength, 
 and that we may go and hear the Word of God preached." — Werke, 11, 16 : 
 quoted in Hazlitt's translation of Michelet's Life of Luther, p. 271. Loud., 
 1846. 
 
 Calvin. — Commenting on Galatians iv. 10, "Ye observe days, and months, 
 and years," he remarks. "When certain days are represented as holy in. 
 themselves, when one day is distinguished from another on religious grounds, 
 when holy days are reckoned a part of divine worship, then days are im- 
 properly observed. The Jewish Sabbath, new moons, and other festivals, 
 were earnestly pressed by the false apostles, because they had been appointed 
 by the law. WTien we, in the present age, make a distinction of daj'S, we 
 do not represent them as necessary, and thus lay a snare for the conscience ; 
 we do not reckon one day to be more holy than another ; we do not make 
 days to be the same thing with religion and the worship of God ; but merely 
 attend to the preservation of order and harmony. The obsei-vance of days 
 among us is a free service, and void of all superstition." And again — " It 
 was not, however, without a reason that the early Christians substituted 
 what we call the Lord's-day for the Sabbath. The resurrection of our Lord 
 being the end and accomplishment of that true rest which the ancient 
 Sabbath typified, this day, by which types were abolished, serves to warn 
 Christians against adhering to a shadowy ceremony. I do not cling so to the
 
 Appendix, 67 
 
 nuniBer seven as to Bring the Cliurch under bondage to it, nor do I condemn 
 Churches for holding their meetings on other solemn days, provided they 
 guard against superstition. This they will do if they employ those days 
 merely for the observance of discipline and regtdar order." 
 
 Confession of A tigshurg, 1530. — ' ' What then is to be thought of the Lord's- 
 day, and the like formalities of public worship? To this it is replied, that bishops 
 or ministers have liberty to appoint forms of proceeding, that everything 
 may go on regularly in the Church ; not that by means of them we may merit 
 the remission of our sins, or give satisfaction therefor, or that our consciences, 
 may be bound to regard them as necessary acts of worship, and the neglect 
 of them as sinful, when others are not thereby made to stumble. Thus Paul 
 ordains that in the congregation women shall cover their heads, that inter- 
 preters be heard in succession in church, and so on. Such regidations it ia 
 expedient, for the sake of love and peace, that churches observe so far, that 
 no man may be a stumbling-block to another, and to the end that all things, 
 may be done in order and without disturbance iu churches ; yet so that men's 
 consciences may not be burdened with the notion that these are things 
 necessary to salvation, and that the neglect of them without offence to otliers. 
 is sinful — as nobody will say that a woman sins if, without offence to any, 
 she goes about publicly with her head xuicovered. Of this nature is the 
 observation of the Lord's-day, of Easter, Whitsuntide, and the like holidays 
 and ceremonies. For those who think that the observance of the Lord's-day 
 has been appointed by the authority of the Church instead of the Sabbath, 
 as a thing necessary, greatly err. The Scripture allows that we are not 
 bound to keep the Sabbath ; for it teaches, that the ceremonies of the law 
 of Moses are not necessary after the revelation of the Gospel. And yet, 
 because it was requisite to appomt a certain day, that the people might 
 know when to assemble together, it appears that the Church appointed for 
 this purpose the Lord's-day, which for this reason also seemed to have 
 pleased the more, that men might have an example of Christian liberty, and 
 might know that the observance, neither of the Sabbath, nor of any other 
 day, is necessary." — Art. De Potestate Ecclesiastica, p. 156, Oxford Ed., 1827. 
 
 Beza. — " We declare it superstitious," says he, " to believe that one day 
 is more holy than anothei*, and that resting from daily labours is in itself 
 pleasing to God. ^Nevertheless we keep holy one day in seven, as the Lord 
 has commanded ; that is, we devote it entirely to the holding of assemblies 
 and hearing the word of God, but without any Jewish ceremony or foolish 
 superstition ; on which account also we follow the custom of the ancient- 
 Chiu'ch, in choosing for that purpose, not the Sabbath, but the Lord's-day." 
 — Confessio Christiance Fidei, cap. v., § 41. And again — "Therefore, the 
 religious assemblies of the Lord's-day are of apostolical and truly divine 
 tradition, yet so that a Judaical rest from all work is by no means to be 
 observed ; since this were plainly not to abolish Judaism, but only to 
 change what respected the day. Afterwards, however, cessation from 
 laboiir was introduced by the Emperor Constantine, as appears from Euse- 
 bius and the laws of the emperor in the Code, and was more and more 
 strictly enforced by the succeeding emperors ; until at last, what was at 
 first instituted for a good purpose, and is stiU deservedly retained — namely, 
 that the mind, freed from daily labours, shoidd give itself wholly up to the 
 hearing of the Word of God — came to degenerate into mere Judaism, or 
 rather, the vainest wiU-worship, innumerable other holy-days having been 
 added to it." — Note on Rev. i. 10. 
 
 Archbishop Cranmer. — "And here note, good children, that the Jews in 
 the Old Testament were commanded to keep the Sabbath-day ; and they 
 observed it every seventh-day, called the Sabbath or Saturday. But we 
 Christian men in the New Testament are not bound to such commandments 
 of Moses' law concerning differences of times, days, and meats, but have 
 liberty and freedom to use other days for our sabbath-days, therein to hear 
 the Word of God, and to keep a holy rest." — A short Instruction into ChHs- 
 tian Religion, being a Catechism set forth by Archbishop Cranmer, in 156S, 
 p. 40. Oxford, 1829.
 
 68 Appendix. 
 
 John Knox. — " We confess and acknowledge, that God has given to man his holy- 
 law, iu which not only are forbidden all such works which offend and displease his 
 Godly Majesty, but also are commanded all such as please him, and as he hath 
 promised to reward. And these works be of two sorts : the one are done to the 
 honour of God, the other to the profit of our neighbours, and both have the re- 
 vealed will of God for their assurance. To have one God ; to worsliip and honour 
 Mm ; to call upon him in all our troubles ; to reverence his holy name ; to hear 
 his Word ; to believe the same ; to communicate with his holy sacraments ; — are 
 the works of the First Table. To honour father, mother, princes, rulers, and 
 superior powers ; to love them ; to support them, yea, to obey their charges (not 
 repugning to the commandment of God) ; to save the lives of innocents ; to repress 
 tyranny ; to defend the oppressed ; to keep our bodies clean and holy ; to live in 
 sobriety and temperance ; to deal justly with aU men, both in word and in deed ; 
 and finally, to repress all appetite of our neighbour's hurt ; — are the good works of 
 the Second Table, which are most pleasing and acceptable unto God, as those 
 works that are commanded by himself." — First Confession of Faith of the Church 
 of Scotland, a.D. 1560, chap. 16.— Knox's Works, ii., p. 107. (Ediii., 18i3.) I 
 quote this for the remarkable omission of anything bearing on the Fourth Com- 
 mandment, except the duty of hearing the word and communicating. 
 
 Grotius, 1645. — "Referring to Eusebius for proof, that Constantine, besides sus- 
 pending labour on Sunday, enacted that the people should not be brought before 
 the tribunals on Saturday, which was long observed by tlie primitive Christians for 
 religious meetings." He adds, that this "refutes those who think that the Lord's- 
 day was substituted for the Sabbath — a thing nowhere mentioned either by Christ 
 or his apostles. And the Apostle, when he says that Christians are not to bo 
 judged in respect of Sabbaths or New Moons (Col. ii. 16,) shews them to be free 
 from the law of resting from labour ; which freedom would be none at all if the law 
 remained in force, with merely a change of the day." — Opera omnia, 1679, vol i. 
 p. 45. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor. — "The primitive Church kept both tiie Sabbath and the Lord's- 
 day till the time of the Laodicean Council, about three hundred years after 
 Christ's nativity, and almost iu every thing made them equal ; and, tlierefore, did 
 not esteem the Lord's-day to be substituted in the place of the obliterated Sab- 
 bath, but a feast celebrated by great reason and perpetual consent, without pre- 
 cept or necessary Divine injunction. But the liberty of the Church was gi-eat : 
 they found themselves disobliged from that strict and necessary rest which was one 
 gi'cat part of the Sabbatic rites ; only they were glad of tlie occasion to meet often 
 for offices of religion, and the day served well for the gaining and facilitating the 
 conversion of the Jews, and for the honourable sepulture of the synagogue, it 
 being kept so long, like the forty days' mourning of Israel for the death of their 
 father Jacob."— ii/e of Jesus, ii. 12, Disc. 10. And again— "The Jewish Sabbath 
 being abrogated, the Christian liberty, like the sun after the dispersion of the 
 clouds, appeared in its full si:)lendour : and then the division of days ceased, and 
 one day was not more holy than another, as St. Paul disputes in his Epistle to the 
 Galatians (Gal. iv. 10), and from him St. Jerome (in hunc locum;) and when St. 
 Paul reproved the Corinthians for going to law before the unbelievers, who kept 
 their court-days upon the first day of the week, he would not have omitted to re- 
 prove them by so great and weighty a circumstance as the profaning the Lord's- 
 day, in case it had been then a holy day, either of Divine or apostolical institu- 
 tion ; for when, afterwards, it grew into an ecclesiastical law, and either by law or 
 custom was observed together with the Jewish Sabbath, Constantine {apud Euseb. ) 
 made a favourable edict, that the Christian should not be impleaded on those two 
 festivals. Of which I only make use to this purpose, that among the Gentiles 
 these were law-days ; and therefore the Corinthians must needs have been pro- 
 faners of that day" by their law suits, and therefore have been, upon that account, 
 obnoxious to the apostolical rod, if the day had then, in any sense of authority, 
 heen esteemed holy." — Buctor DuUtantium, ii., ch. 2, Rule 6, § 54. 
 
 John Bunyan. — " From all this, therefore, I conclude that there is a difference 
 to be put between the morality of the law, and the ministration of it upon Sinai. The 
 law, as to its morality, was before ; but as to this ministration, it was not till the 
 Church was with Moses, and he with the angels on Mount Sinai in the wilderness. 
 Now in the law, as moral, we conclude a time propounded, but no seventh-day 
 Sabbath enjoined. But in that law, as thus ministered,— which ministration is 
 already out of doors, — we find a seventh day; that seventh day on which God rested, 
 on which God rested from all His works, enjoined. What is it then? Why the 
 whole ministration as written and engraven in stones being removed, the seventh-
 
 Appendix. 69 
 
 day Sabbath must also be removed ; for that the time, uor yet the day, was as to 
 our holy Sabbatli, or rest, moral ; but imposed with that whole ministration, as such, 
 upon the Churcli, until the time of reformation : which time being come, this mini- 
 stration, as I said, as sucli, ccaseth ; and the whole law, as to the morality of it, ia 
 delivered into the hand of Christ, who imposes it now also ; but not as a law of works, 
 nor as that ministration written and engraven in stones, but as a rule of life to those 
 that have believed in Him. (1 Co. ix. 21. ) So then, that law is still moral, and still 
 supposes, since it teaches that there is a God, that time must be set apart for Hi.s 
 Church to worship Him in, according to that will of His that He had revealed in His 
 word. But though by that law tivie is required, yet by that, as moral, the time never 
 was prefixed. The time, then, of old was appointed by such a ministration of that 
 law as we have been now discoursing of ; and when that ministration ceaseth, that 
 time did also vanish with it. And now by our new lawgiver, the Son of God, He 
 being 'Lord also of the Sabbath-day,' we have a time prefixed, as the law of nature 
 requireth, a neio day, by him who is the Lord of it ; I say, appointed, wherein we 
 may worship, not in the oldness of that letter An'itten and engraven in stones, but 
 according to, and most agreeing with. His New and Holy Testament." — (Questions 
 on the Seventh-day Sabbath, ut supra, pp. 367-8. 
 
 Br. Isaac Barrow. — "Seeing, therefore, the observation of the Sabbath is ex- 
 pressed to have a peculiar respect to the children of Israel, as a sign of the covenant 
 made with them when He led them out of Egypt ; seeing, in its own nature, it dif- 
 fereth from the rest of the 'Ten Laws,' the obligation thereto being not, discern- 
 ibly to natural light, grounded in the reason of the thing, we can nowise be 
 assured that an universal and perpetual obligation thereto was intended, or that 
 its obligation did extend further thau to the Jews, to whom it was as a formal law 
 delivered, and upon special considerations severely inculcated ; to whose humour, 
 condition, and circumstances, it might also perhaj^s be particularly suited : Justin 
 Martyr was of opinion that this law, as many others, was given to the Jews ' for 
 their iniquity and hardness of heart,' by way of concession and indidgence. . . . 
 However, that this law (as to its circumstantial parts) was not intended to oblige 
 generally and perpetually, we have a most forcible gi-ound to suppose ; St. Paul 
 himself, his express discharging Christians from the observation thereof ; yea, his 
 earnest reprehension of some persons for rigorously insisting thereon, deeming it 
 themselves, and urging it upon others, as a necessary duty to observe it ; his con- 
 joining it with other ceremonial observances, whose nature was merely symbolical, 
 and whose design was to continue no longer than till the real substance of that 
 which they represented came into full force and practice." — A Brief Exposition 
 of the Lord's Prayer and the Decalogue. — Works, vol. iii. Edin. 1847. And after 
 commenting on the passages in Col. ii. 16-17, and Galat. iv. 10, he goes on : — 
 "Again, in the 14th to the Romans, the same great patron and champion of 
 Christian liberty not obscurely declareth his mind, that Christians of strength in 
 judgment did regard no day above another, but esteemed all days (he excepteth 
 none) alike, as to any special obligation, grounded upon divine law and right ; in 
 subordination to which doctrine we may add, that this appears with great evidence 
 to have been the common opinion of the wisest and most orthodox Christians in 
 the Primitive Church, the most constant and strict adherents to Catholic tradition 
 (who from the Apostles' instruction best understood the purport and limits of the 
 liberty purchased by Christ), that this law, as it was not knowm or practised before 
 Moses, so it ceased to oblige after Christ ; being one of the shadows which the evan- 
 gelical light dispelled, one of the bui-deus which this law of liberty did take off us. 
 Now, although upon these accounts we cannot press the strict observation of this 
 law in all its parts, according to its literal and direct intention, yet we may learn 
 much of our duty, much of God's will from it." — Ii. 
 
 Archdeacon Jortin. — "It appears from some passages in the New Testament, 
 and from other ancient writings, that the disciples and their converts agreed to set 
 apart for public worship the first day of the week, the day of Christ's resurrection, 
 which was also the day on which He sent down the Holy Ghost upon His Apostles. 
 By setting aside the Lord's-day for the solemn worship of God, they observed all 
 that was moral in the Fourth Commandment — namely, a stated time for religious 
 exercises ; and they thought it proper to retain the same portion of time, one day 
 in seven."— ^erwions. London, 1772 : vol. v., p. 93. 
 
 Archdeacon Paley. — "We admit that none of these reasons shew why Sunday 
 shoidd be preferred to any other day in the week, or one day in seven to one day 
 in six or eight ; but these points, which in their nature are of arbitrary determi- 
 nation, being established to our hands, our obligation applies to the subsisting 
 establishment, so long as we confess that some such institution is necessary, and are
 
 70 Appendix. 
 
 neither able, nor attempt to substitute any other in its place." — Moral Philosophy, 
 chap. 6. And again — "The conclusion from the whole inquiry (for it is our 
 business to follow the arguments to whatever probability they conduct us), is this : 
 The assembling upon the first day of the week for the purpose of public worship 
 and religious instruction, is a law of Christianity, of Divine appointment ; the 
 resting on that day from our employments longer than we are detained from them 
 by attendance upon these assemblies, is, to Christians, an ordinance of human 
 institution — binding, nevertheless, upon the conscience of every individual of 
 a country in which a weekly Sabbath is established, for the sake of the beneficial 
 purposes which the public and regular observance of it promotes, and recommended 
 perhaps, in some degree, to the Divine aijprobation, by the resemblance it bears 
 to what God was pleased to make a solemn part of the law which He delivered to 
 the people of Israel, and by its subserviency to many of the same uses." — lb., 
 chap. vii. 
 
 Dr. George Cook, Professor of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrews, speaking of 
 the author of the Homily De Tempore, attributed by some to St. Augustine, 
 says: — "It is evident that the object of this distinguished theologian was to 
 rest the Lord's-day upon a positive Divine appointment ; he endeavours to shew 
 that this may be deduced from the events which Scripture records as having taken 
 place upon it ; but not trusting altogether to such an inference, he introduces the 
 doctors of the Church as having decided that the only change made by the Chris- 
 tian dispensation upon the Fourth Commandment was to transfer the rest which it 
 enjoins from the seventh day of the week to the first. Assuming this, he imme- 
 diately holds it forth, or considers it as a matter of Divine appointment, that the 
 Lord's-day was to be observed in all respects as the Jewish Sabbath had been. 
 This is certainly proceeding much further than the New Testament seems to war- 
 rant, or even, if we may judge from their works, than is warranted by the earliest 
 writers of the Church : and it is difiicult to conceive, that when the apostles rank 
 the Sabbath as amongst the Jewish rites abolished by Christianity, they should not 
 have given even the most distant intimation, that all which they meant by this 
 assertion was, that, on account of the resurrection of Christ, God was to be wor- 
 sliipped on the first day of the week instead of the seventh." — General and His- 
 torical View of Christianity, ii., 301. And again — " The amount of this whole 
 disquisition is, that the observance of the first day of the week, as a day of wor- 
 ship, is founded upon the law of nature, conjoined with the fact, that it is plain, 
 from Scripture, that this particular day was set apart for that purpose by the 
 apostles, and that in so far it may be considered of Divine appointment ; but that 
 it is not enforced, as was the Jewish Sabbath, to which, in primitive times, it 
 •was uniformly set in opposition ; and that it is left very much to the discretion of 
 particular Churches, or to the consciences of individuals, to determine how large 
 a portion of the day should be devoted to religious services, and in what manner 
 the remainder of it is to be occupied." — lb., p. 319. 
 
 Dr. Arnold. — "I believe that it is generally agreed amongst Christians, that the 
 Jewish Law, so far as it was Jewish and not moral, is at an end ; and it is assum- 
 ing the whole point at issue to assume that the Ten Commandments are all moral. 
 If that were so, it seems to me quite certain that the Sabbath would have been 
 kept on its own proper day; for if the Commandments were still binding, I do 
 not see where would be the power to make any alteration in its enactments. But 
 it is also true, no doubt, that the Lord's-day was kept from time immemorial in the 
 Church as a day of festival; and, connected ^vith the notion of festival, the absti- 
 nence from worldly business naturally followed. A weekly religious festival, in 
 which worldly business was suspended, bore such a resemblance to the Sabbath, 
 that the analogy of the Jewish Law was often urged as a reason for its observance ; 
 but as it was not considered to be the Sabbath, but only a day in some respects 
 like it, so the manner of its observance varied from time to time, and was made 
 more or less strict on grounds of religious expediency, without reference, in either 
 case, to the authority of the Fourth Commandment. . . . And the clear lan- 
 guage of this Statute, (5 and 6 Edward VI., cap. 3,) together with the total 
 omission of the duty of keeping the Sabbath in the Catechism, although it pro- 
 fesses to collect our duty towai'ds God from the four first commandments, 
 proves to my mind, that in using the Fourth Commandment in the Church service, 
 the Reformers meant it to be understood as an enforcing to us simply the duty of 
 worshipping God, and devoting some portion of time to His honour; the particular 
 portion so devoted, and the manner of observing it, being points to be fixed by the 
 Church. It is on these grounds that I should prefer greatly diminishing public 
 travelling on the Sunday to stopping it altogether ; as this seems to me to corres-
 
 Appendix. 71 
 
 pond better with the Christian observance of the Lord's-day, which, while most 
 properly making rest from ordinary occupation the general rule, yet docs not 
 regard it as a thing of absolute necessity, but to be waived on weighty grounds. 
 And surely many very weighty reasons for occasionally moving from place to place 
 on a Sunday are occurring constantly. But if the only alternative be between 
 stopping the trains on our railways altogether, or having them go frequently, as 
 on other days, I cannot hesitate for an instant which side to take, and I will send 
 you my proxy without a moment's hesitation." — Life, vol. ii., p. 207-9. 
 
 Dr. Alford, Dean of Canterbury, and author of the Greek Testament, vnth a 
 Critical and Exegetical Commentary, who adopts the same view with Dr. Hook, 
 in commenting on Romans xiv. 5, writes thus:— "It is an interesting question, 
 what indication is here found of the observance or non-observance of a day of obli- 
 gation in the apostolic times. The Apostle decides nothing ; leaving every man's own 
 mind to guide liim in the point. He classes the observance or non-observance of 
 particular days with the eating or abstaining from particular meats. In both cases 
 he is concerned with things which he evidently treats as of absolute indifference in 
 themselves. Now the question is, supposing the Divine obligation of one day in 
 seven to have been recognized by him in any form, could he have thus spoken? 
 The obvious inference from his strain of arguing is, that he^new; of no such obliga- 
 tion, but believed all times and days to be, to the Christian strong in faith, alike. 
 I do not see how the passage can be otherwise understood. If any one day in the 
 <week were invested with the sacred character of the Sabbath, it would have been 
 wholly impossible ior ih.t A.T^o%t\e to commend or uphold the man who judged all 
 .■days worthy of equal honour, who, as in verse 6, paid no regard to the (any) day. 
 He must have visited him with his strongest disapprobation, as violating a com- 
 mand of God. I therefore infer, that Sabbatical obligation to keep any day, 
 whether seventh or first, ^oas not recognized in apostolic times. It must be carefully 
 remembered, that this inference does not concern the question of the observance of 
 the Lord's-day as an institution of the Christian Church, analogous to the ancient 
 Sabbath, binding on us from considerations of humanity and religious expediency , 
 and by the rules of that branch of the Church in which Providence has x>laced its, 
 but not in any way inheriting the divinely-appointed obligation of the other, or 
 the strict prohibitions by which its sanctity was defended. The reply commonly 
 furnished to these considerations, viz., that the Apostle was speaking here only of 
 Jewish festivals, and therefore cannot refer to Christian ones, is a quibble of the 
 poorest kind ; its assertors themselves distinctly maintaining the obligation of one 
 such Jewish festival on Christians. What I maintain is, that had the Apostle 
 believed as they do, he could not by any possibility have written thus. Besides, 
 in the face of Trasou rifxtpav ['every day'] the assertion is altogether unfounded." 
 And again, commenting on Colossians ii. 16, 17, he writes: — "We may observe, 
 that if the ordinance of the Sabbath had been, in any form, of lasting obligation 
 on the Christian Church, it would have been quite impossible for the Apostle to 
 have spoken thus. The fact of an obligatory rest of one day, whether the seventh 
 or the first, would have been directly in the teeth of his assertion here : the hold- 
 ing of such would have been still to retain the shadow, while we possess the 
 substance. And no answer can be given to this by the transparent special 
 pleading, that he was speaking only of that which was Jewish in such observance : 
 the whole argument being general, and the axiom of verse 17 universally appli- 
 cable." 
 
 Dr. John Eadie, Professor of Biblical Literature, United Presbyterian Church, 
 Glasgow. — In his Commentary on the Colossiaiis, he remarks on chapter ii., verse 
 16 : — " ' Let no man therefore judge you ... in the particular of Sabbath 
 days.' Some, indeed, such as Neumann, suppose the allusion to be to the grand 
 Sabbatic periods of the seventh day, the seventh year, and the fiftieth year. But 
 there is no warrant or necessity for such a reference here, though the Apostle says, 
 to the Galatians, 'Ye observe days and months, and times and years,' (Rom. xiv. 
 5. 6.) The term adfiParov often occurs in a plural form in the New Testament, as 
 if, as Winer supposes, the Syro-Chaldaic form had been transferred into the Greek 
 tongue. Matt. xii. 1; Luke iv. 16; Acts xiii. 14; xvi. 13. Allusions to these 
 feasts, collectively, will be found in 1 Chron. xxiii. 31 ; 2 Chron. ii. 4 ; xxxi. 3. 
 The observances of the Jewish rubric, whether in its original form or with the 
 multiplied and ascetic additions which it presented in those days, laid believers no 
 longer imder obligation.' They belonged to an obsolete system, which had 'de- 
 cayed and waxed old.' Christianity inculcated no such periodical holidays. For 
 it did not bid men meet thrice a-year to feast themselves, but each day to ' eat 
 their bread with gladness and singleness of heart.' It did not summon them to
 
 72 Appendix. 
 
 any tumultuous demonstration with ' trumpets at new moon,' since every division 
 of tlie month was a testimony of Divine goodness, and tlie whole kalendar was 
 marked by Divine Lenefactions — every day alike a season of prayer and joy. Nor 
 were they to hallow the ' sabbaths,' for these had served their purpose, and the 
 Lord's-day was now to be a seasonof loftier joy, as it commemorates a more august 
 event tlian either the creation of the universe or the exodus from Egypt. Every 
 period is sanctified — 'day unto day uttcreth speech, and night imto night teacheth 
 knowledge.' Sensations of spiritual joy are not to be restricted to holy days, for 
 they thrill the spirit every moment, and need not wait for expression till there be 
 a solemn gathering, for every instant awakes to the claims and the raptures of reli- 
 gion. The new religion is too free and exuberant to be trained down to ' times 
 and seasons,' like its tame and rudimental predecessor. Its feast is daily, for 
 every day is holy ; its moon never wanes, and its serene tranquillity is an unbroken 
 Sabbath. The Jewish Sabbath was kept, however, by the early Christians along 
 with their o^vn Lord's-day for a considerable period; till, at lengthy in 364, A.D., 
 the Council of Laodicea condemned the practice as Judaizing." 
 
 Looking back on the various opinions expressed in the passages cited above and 
 in the previous articles of this Appendix, may not one's thoughts find a fitting ex- 
 pression in the words of Dr. Watts, who, while he himself adhered to what it is 
 now the fashion to call the orthodox opinion on this much debated question, yet thus 
 wrote (The Holiness of Times, Places, and People under the Jewish and Christian 
 Dispensations considered and compared — iror^5, ii., 501, Lond., 1810): — "Since all 
 Jewish festivals. New Moons, and Sabbaths, are abolished by St. Paul's authority, 
 in such express and unlimited language as may lead many sincere Christians to be- 
 lieve that all manner of distinction of days whatsoever, whether Jewish or Patri- 
 archal, is finished ; since the religious observation of days, in the 14th chapter to 
 the Romans, in general, is represented as a matter of doubtful disputation ; since 
 the observation of the Lord's-day is not built upon any express and plain institu- 
 tion by Christ or His Apostles in the New Testament, but rather on examples 
 and probable inferences, and on the reasons and relations of things, I can never 
 pronounce anything hard or severe upon any fellow-Christian who maintains real 
 jjiety in heart and life, though his opinion may be very difl'erent from mine on this 
 subject. Nor does any man, who is humbly and sincerely studious of truth and 
 duty, and desirous to find it, deserve any reproacli or censure upon the account of 
 different opinions about meats and days ; unless he assume sucli haughty airs of 
 assurance as arise far beyond all his evidence and proof, or indulge a persecuting 
 spirit, and reproach his brethren who differ from him." — Pp. 69, 70. 
 
 U.-Page 36. 
 
 "But this leads me to eonsider a little further ivhat lias heen said ly preceding 
 speakers regarding the Lord's-day heing the old Sabbath revived." 
 
 This point has been already illustrated in this Appendix. The following letter 
 furnishes a striking illustration of the view that I have maintained : — 
 "Dear Dr. Macleod, " 86 Bath Street, 22d Nov., 1S65. 
 
 "I agree with you that it is hardly possible to bring forward anything new 
 on the Sabbath question ; but there is one argument of great force, which, though 
 not new, is much less known than it deserves to be. In all the Romance lan- 
 guages the word for Sunday means the Lord's-day — thus: Italian, Domenica; 
 Spanish, Domingo; Provengal, Dimenge ; French, Dimanche. On the other 
 hand, the words for Saturday, in the same languages, are all derived from Sab- 
 bath — as: Italian, Sahato ; Spanish, Sabado ; Provengal, Dissapte. Even the 
 French Samedi, though more corrupted, is from the same root, being derived from 
 Sabbati dies, as the Provengal form from dies Sabbaii. (See Diez, Etymolog- 
 isches Worierbuch, sub voce Samedi.) The same phenomenon meets ns in mo- 
 dern Greek still more decisively, as the ancient words KvptaK^ (Rev. i. 10) and 
 :S,d$$aTov are still retained. When we consider the extraordinary persistence of 
 words of this class — our own forms are of pre-Christian origin — this almost 
 amounts to a proof that, in the opinion of the early Latin and Greek speaking 
 Christians, the Lord's-day was not the Sabbath ; and that the modern theory of 
 a transference of the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first, for which no 
 tittle of evidence has ever been produced, is a mere baseless fiction. — I am, yours 
 truly, JoHK D. Campbell."
 
 Ajypendix. 73 
 
 v.— Page 43. 
 
 Sessional Churches. 
 
 The only reason why I speak at all of the Sessional Church recently opened by 
 nie, is, that from some experience it appears calculated to meet the wants of the 
 working-classes in large cities. A few brief statements regarding some of its more 
 leading objects' may afford hints and save trouble to other labourers in the same 
 field, and who long with me to make the Lord's-day a delight to those who have 
 not known the Lord. The church is seated for 900 ; its cost, with site, has been 
 aboxit £3,000. Upwards of two thousand of the working-classes subscribed for 
 the church. A free site was given by Mr. Stirling Crawfurd. Friends subscribed 
 for " ornament," as distinct from their subscriptions for building, to enable me 
 to add to its beauty by stained-glass windows, &c. One friend (Mrs. Black) 
 has herself added a memorial window, executed at Dresden, — the object of all 
 such ornament being to treat the working-classes with rested, by making the 
 useful beautiful also, in their House of Prayer. 
 
 Among our rules for working the church are the follo^^'ing : — 
 
 1. It is superintended by a Licentiate of the Church, but who is not ordained. 
 His minimum salary is £100. He is appointed or removed by the kirk-session. 
 
 2. There is a Committee of Management, consisting of elders and deacons, who 
 manage the ordinary affairs of the church, and report to the monthly meeting of 
 kirk-session. 
 
 3. There are two services on the Lord's-day — one in the evening at seven 
 o'clock, to which those only are admitted who come in their ordinary working 
 clothes. No seats are allocated at those "evangelistic services." The day 
 meeting is at 2.30, so that working-men can attend, in their ordinary clothes, 
 if they have no better, without being noticed by the well-dressed going to 
 worship at the usual church hour (two o'clock); but no distinction is made as to 
 dress at the usual day service. Seats are allocated for this service to those in 
 communion with the church, or to any others wishing to attend. JVo seat rents, 
 though allocated, are charged. 
 
 4. The Sacraments are dispensed in the church, as in the Parish Church, by the 
 parish minister. The Lord's Supper is dispensed three times a-year, in the 
 evening. 
 
 6. The attendance of persons at the meetings held on the Lord's-day in any part 
 of the parish by the Missionaries duly appointed by the session, is recognized as 
 attending "church." Those found qualified for communion by the Missionaries 
 receive it in the Mission Church ; and they also receive Baptism for their 
 children. To prevent sectarian proselj-tism, no one in communion with any other 
 church is admitted to church membership. 
 
 6. The forenoons of the Lord's-day are occupied by giving catechetical instruc- 
 tion to adults at one hour, and the children of the church members at another 
 hour. 
 
 7. Elders or laymen, approved of by the parish minister, are permitted to 
 address the evening meeting. 
 
 The church has hitherto succeeded. It is always full at night ; well attended 
 during the day; and 150 persons in their working clothes sat down at the first 
 communion. The collections average about £1 10s. each Lord's-day. 
 
 Missionaries, both male and female, are in connection with the church. 
 
 The Licentiate visits the communicants, and also a fixed district near the 
 church. 
 
 F
 
 74 Appendisc. 
 
 A Penny Savings Bank, Clothing Society, Lecture Hall, &c., are connected with 
 it. 
 
 The parish minister preaches as frequently as possible in the evenings. 
 
 An organ is used to lead the singing, in which all heartily join. 
 
 Week-day evening classes are held in a Sessional School, situated in the district, 
 for adults above sixteen, and for juniors below this age (meeting in a different 
 room), superintended by six certificated Government teachers, aflord education tii 
 men and women at the rate of 3s. a-quarter. These schools are attended by about 
 180, and have been most successful — the pupils varying from ten to fifty years 
 of age. 
 
 Such Sessional Churches, with the Mission and educational organization con- 
 nected witli them, are more economical, and far more easily adapted to meet thf^ 
 watits of poor localities, than ill paid chapels, allowed to sink or swim a.s they bc^t 
 can. I strongly advocate the extension of Sessional Chiuches in conmrti'^in v.itli. 
 and as i)arts of, the Parish Cliurcli. 
 
 M'Laren of Erskine, PRiNTEns, Glasgow.
 
 THE SABBATH QUESTION. 
 
 I. 
 THE BIBLICAL CBITICISM 
 
 ov 
 
 THE GLASGOW PKESBYTERY CRITICIZED. 
 
 BY A CHAPEL MINISTEK. 
 WITH A PREFAronr NOTE BY Dli. MACLEOD. 
 
 [Nou- Ready — Price 6(1. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE LORD'S DAY: 
 
 A ."iJUlMOX I'REACHEJJ TA ST. MATTHEWS PARISH CHURCH, 
 GLASGOW, OX SUNDAY, £6th NOV., 1S65. 
 
 BY THE REV. ALEXANDER M'QUISTEN, M.A. 
 
 [Ready— 31 Edition, C,d. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE NEW LAAV OB THE OLD? 
 
 ,1 SERMON PREACHED IN ROSEN EATU CHURCH, S6th NOV., 1S65. 
 
 BY' ROBERT HERBERT STORY', 
 
 MINISTER OF ROSENEATII. 
 
 [Ready — Price 6d.