LI E) RARY 
 
 OF THL 
 
 U N I VLRSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 4- 
 
 THE 
 
 SABBATH AND THE DECALOGUE 
 
 A REPLY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 SPEECH OF THE EEV. DE. NOEMAN MACLEOD, 
 
 DELIVEBED AT A MEETING OF THE PRESBYTEEY OF GLASGOW, 
 
 ON THURSDAY, 16th NOV., 1865, AND SINCE 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HIM. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENEY STEVENS, M.A, 
 
 MINISTER OF THE EPISCOPAL CHAPEL, SYDENHAM; AND SECEETAEY OF THE SOCIETY 
 FOB PROMOTING THE DUE OBSERVANCE OF THE LORD'S DAY. 
 
 ^econtf (I5tfiti0n. 
 
 londo:n': 
 
 SEELEY, JACKSON, AND HALLIDAY, 
 
 54, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1866. 
 Vrice One Shilling*
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY C. P. HODGSON & SON, 
 
 eOUGH St^UAKE, FLEET STKEET.
 
 THE SABBATH AND THE DECALOGUE. 
 
 " The vacation of the Lord's Day is the moral part of the Decalogue in 
 the time of grace, as the seventh day was in the time of the law." 
 
 {Anselm.) 
 
 " We are bound to account the sanctification of one day in seven a 
 duty, which God's immutable law doth exact for ever." (Hooher.) 
 
 The law of the Sabbath is one question ; bow we 
 ongbt to observe it, is another. The former question 
 should be decided upon its own merits before we 
 enter upon the consideration of the latter. For the 
 dwelling upon the history of men going to extremes, 
 whether in observing or profaning the Lord's Day, 
 but excites the feelings, and prejudices the judgment, 
 and incapacitates the mind for arriving at a sound 
 conclusion. 
 
 ^ It is therefore to be regretted that the Eev. Dr. 
 Macleod, in his late speech before the Presbytery at 
 Glasgow, should have introduced a question of so 
 much gravity as the consideration of the present 
 position and authority of the Ten Commandments, 
 by narrating anecdotes, many of them grotesque, con- 
 cerning the way in which certain of his countrymen 
 observed the Fourth. 
 
 " It is an easy thing," said Lord Bacon, "to <jall 
 
 A 2
 
 " for the observance of the Sabbath Day ; but what 
 " actions and works may be done on the Sabbath, 
 " and what not ; — to set this down, and clear the 
 " whole matter with good distinctions and decisions, 
 " is a matter of great knowledge and labour, and 
 " asketh much meditation and conversing in the 
 " Scriptures and other helps, which Grod both pro- 
 " vided and preserved for instruction/' * 
 
 In these pages the law of the Sabbath alone is 
 considered. Nor has it been possible, in so limited 
 a space, to go beyond the consideration of the present 
 authority of the Decalogue, and the right of the 
 Fourth Commandment to a permanent place in it. 
 
 The wide-spread consternation caused by the pub- 
 lication of Dr. Macleod's views on the Sabbath and 
 the Decalogue cannot have arisen from the fact of 
 their being altogether new, although they do not 
 seem ever to have been popular, nor to have gained 
 a wide following. It is the fact of Dr. Macleod's 
 teaching, as he confesses, being on these doctrines 
 opposed to the plain declaration of the formularies of 
 the Church to which he belongs, as of other Christian 
 Churches, that has startled men of all grades, and 
 has deeply excited the lower classes of his country- 
 men, less practised in self-government than those 
 above them. Dr. Macleod's teaching shall be given 
 in his own words. They are these : — " Now it is the 
 " Decalogue, viewed in this aspect, as written on ' the 
 " tables of the Covenant,' and including necessarily 
 * Works (1855), vol. ii. p. 230. 
 
 /^\
 
 " its Sabbath law as the sign of the Covenant, which I 
 " presume to think has been abrogated by being nailed 
 " to Christ's cross, with the whole Mosaic economy, and 
 " buried in the grave with Jesus." On this side the 
 Tweed, too, this conclusion is equally opposed to the 
 general belief. For Christians generally, in this country, 
 hold and teach that the Decalogue is our rule of life. 
 Take, for example, the formularies of the Church of 
 England. The position the Decalogue has from the 
 first held in the Church of England is most prominent 
 and distinct. The Ten Commandments appeared in 
 the earlier forms of our Book of Common Prayer, — 
 the " Bishop's Book," and the " King's Book,"— thus 
 showing the views of those who first sought to reform 
 our Church. From generation to generation, the 
 Ten Commandments, upon the walls of our churches, 
 have confronted the congregations which worshipped 
 in them; the Apostles' Creed, or doctrines to be 
 believed, being set forth on the tablet on one side, 
 and, on the other side, the Lord's Prayer, telling us to 
 ask Grod for grace both to believe the Creed and to obey 
 the Commandments. From generation to generation, 
 Sponsors at the Font have been called upon to promise to 
 teach the child, so soon as he shall be able to learn, '' the 
 Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Command- 
 ments." In our Church Catechism we are told to 
 ask our children, concerning the Commandments it 
 was promised they should keep, " How many there 
 be ? " And they are taught to answer — not nine — 
 but '' Ten." We then ask, '' Which be they ?" And
 
 6 
 
 tlie answer is, " The same which God spake in 
 the twentieth chapter of Exodus." 
 
 -Sunday after Sunday, for hundreds of years, the 
 memhers of our Church have knelt while the Ten 
 Commandments have been read ; and after the reading 
 of each one, the Fourth included, they have been 
 taught to pray, "Lord have mercy upon us, and 
 incline our hearts to keep this law." And, finally, 
 '' Write all these Thy laws in our hearts, we beseech 
 Thee/' Thus the Ten Commandments are set forth 
 at length twice in the Book of Common Prayer, once 
 in the Catechism, and again in the Communion 
 Service. 
 
 Finally, we have a very early exposition, in our 
 Church of England formularies, of the nature and 
 authority of the Fourth Commandment. The Thirty- 
 fifth Article of our Church declares that the Homily 
 entitled "Of the Place and Time of Prayer," as also 
 the other Homilies enumerated with it, contain 
 "godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for 
 these times." Now, in the Homily "Of the Time 
 and Place of Prayer," we read — 
 
 " As concerning the time which Almighty God 
 " hath appointed his people to assemble together 
 " solemnly, it doth appear by the Fourth Command- 
 " ment of God ; ' Eemember,* saith God, ' that thou 
 " keep holy the Sabbath day.' .... And therefore, by 
 " this commandment, we ought to have a time, as one 
 " day in the week, wherein we ought to rest, yea, 
 " from our lawful and needful works. For like as it
 
 *' appeareth by this commandment, that no man in 
 '* the six days ought to be slothful or idle, but dili- 
 " gently to labour in that state wherein God hath set 
 " him;^ even so, Grodhath given express charge to all 
 *' men, that upon the Sabbath-day, which is now our 
 " Sunday, they should cease from all weekly and work- 
 ** day labour, to the intent that like as God himself 
 •* wrought six days, and rested the seventh, and 
 " blessed and sanctified it, and consecrated it to quiet- 
 " ness and rest from labour ; even so Grod's obedient 
 '* people should use the Sunday holily, and rest from 
 " their common and daily business, and also give 
 ** themselves wholly to heavenly exercises of God's 
 ** true religion and service.* So that God doth not 
 ** only command the observation of this holy day, 
 " but also by his own example doth stir and provoke 
 '* us to the diligent keeping of the same. Good 
 " natural children will not only become obedient to 
 ** the commandment of their parents, but also have a 
 
 * Who can compare these words with the words of the Catechism, 
 in the exposition of our duty to God, "and to serve Him truly all the 
 days of my life," and not see that they point to the Fourth Command- 
 ment, and that the Puritans were wrong when they said that the duty 
 towards God in the Catechism implied nothing concerning the 
 Sabbath ? And who does not see here, too, that in the exposition of our 
 duty to our neighbour, in the Catechism, the Fourth Commandment 
 also is referred to : " To do my duty in that state of life in which it 
 shall please God to call me," being almost identical with the words 
 quoted in the preceding page, " To labour in that state in which God 
 hath set him;" the Fourth Commandment teaching us to work six 
 days, as well as to keep holy and to rest on the seventh ; teaching us 
 our duty to one another, — master to servants, for example, as well as 
 our duty to God ?
 
 8 
 
 " diligent eye to their doings, and gladly follow the 
 ** same. So, if we will be the children of our Hea- 
 '* venly Father, we must be careful to keep the Chris- 
 " tian Sabbath-day, which is the Sunday, not only 
 ** for that it is God's express commandment, but also 
 " to declare ourselves to be loving children, in foUow- 
 *' ing the example of our gracious Lord and Father." 
 (Homily on the Time and Place of Prayer.) 
 
 And it will be seen that our Eeformers were not, in 
 thus teaching, so widely opposed to the Continental 
 Eeformers as Dr. Macleod supposes. It is granted that 
 the opinions of the latter on this doctrine often appear 
 to be confused and contradictory. Indeed, the same 
 writer seems to overturn in one place what he had said 
 in another. This, however, only shows us that on this 
 question the Eeformers are not an infallible autho- 
 rity. Dr. Macleod has given copious extracts from 
 their writings. But he has omitted to give other 
 equally important extracts from the writings of these 
 same Eeformers, which modify, if they do not set 
 aside, the views Dr. Macleod attributes to them. 
 
 How clearly Calvin, in opposition to Dr. Macleod, 
 believed in a primeval Sabbath, may be seen in his 
 commentary on the opening verses of the second chap- 
 ter of Grenesis. There is room here but for portions 
 of the passage. 
 
 " Wherefore that benediction ('And Grod blessed the 
 " Seventh day ') is nothing else than a solemn conse- 
 '* cration, by which Grod claims for himself the medi- 
 " tations and employments of men on the seventh
 
 9 
 
 " day. This is, indeed, the proper business of the 
 " whole life, in which men should daily exercise them- 
 " selves, to consider the infinite goodness, justice, 
 '* power, and wisdom of Grod, in this magnificent 
 " theatre of heaven and earth. • But, lest men should 
 " prove less sedulously attentive to it than they 
 " ought, every seventh day has been especially selected 
 " for the purpose of supplying what was wanting in 
 '* daily meditation. First, therefore, Grod rested ; 
 " then he blessed this rest, that in all ages it might 
 " be held sacred among men, for he dedicated every 
 " seventh day to rest, that his own example might be 
 
 " a perpetual rule Therefore, the Lord the more 
 
 *' frequently testifies that he had given, in the Sab- 
 " bath, a symbol of sanctification to his ancient 
 *' people. Therefore, when we hear that the Sabbath 
 '* was abrogated by the coming of Christ, we must 
 *' distinguish between what belongs to the perpetual 
 " government of human life, and what properly be- 
 *' longs to ancient figures, the use of which was 
 " abolished when the truth was fulfilled. Spiritual 
 " rest is the mortification of the flesh ; so that the 
 " sons of Grod should no longer live unto themselves, 
 " or indulge their own inclination. So far as the 
 " Sabbath was a figure of this rest, I say, it was but 
 " for a season, but inasmuch as it was commanded to 
 " men from the beginning that they might employ 
 " themselves in the worship of Grod, it is right that it 
 " should continue to the end of the world." 
 
 How far, likewise, Dr. Macleod is at issue with
 
 10 
 
 Calvin respecting the present authority of the Deca- 
 logue and of the Fourth Commandment, appears from 
 the following extract from Sermon 34, on Deut. v. : — 
 
 " Most certainly what was commanded concerning 
 " the day of rest, must belong to us as well as to 
 " them [the Jews]. For, let us take Grod's law in 
 " itself, and we shall have an everlasting rule of 
 " righteousness. And doubtless, under the Ten 
 " Commandments, God intended to give a rule that 
 " should endure for ever. Therefore, let us not think 
 " that the things which Moses speaks respecting the 
 " Sabbath-day are needless for us ; not because the 
 '' fio^ure remaineth still in force, but because we have 
 " the trutli thereof." 
 
 Indeed, on this latter point we have evidence clear 
 as the light. For Calvin himself produced a Liturgy 
 of his own, which he published at Geneva, for the use 
 of that Church, in 1545. '' The substance of Calvin's 
 " work was afterwards printed in London by Yaller- 
 " andus Pollanus, his successor at Strasburg, then 
 " a refugee in England, with some additions of his 
 " own." Now, to Calvin's Liturgy " we are in- 
 " debted for the supplement to the Communion 
 " Service of the Ten Commandments, with the 
 " responses, the latter of which, indeed, are very 
 " nearly translations from Pollanus."* So that as 
 the belief of our own Eeformers was shown by their 
 placing the Ten Commandments in our Catechism of 
 
 * Blant (late Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge) on 
 the Eeformatiou, p. 213.
 
 11 
 
 the Church of England, the belief of the Continental 
 Ee formers is equally shown in the fact, that to the 
 Liturgy of their leader Calvin we owe the presence of 
 the Ten Commandments in our Communion Service 
 also, as well as the prayer we repeat after each of 
 them, " Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our 
 hearts to keep this law/' 
 
 Nor can Luther be claimed by Dr. Macleod as a 
 disciple of the belief that the Sabbath was not known 
 to Adam, and that the Decalogue was given to the 
 Jews only. 
 
 Luther wrote his Commentary on Genesis a short 
 time before his death. His maturest and latest views, 
 therefore, may be seen in it. 
 
 Luther, in explaining Genesis ii. 3, says: — "It 
 " therefore follows from this place, that if Adam had 
 " abode in innocence, he should yet have kept holy 
 " the seventh day — that is, he should have instructed 
 '' his descendants concerning the will and worship of 
 " God, and rendered to Him praise, thanksgiving, 
 " and offerings. On other days, he should have cul- 
 '' tivated the soil and tended his flocks. Nay, after 
 " the Fall, he sanctified that seventh day ; in other 
 '' words, he instructed his family on that day, as is 
 " testified by the offerings of his sons, Cain and Abel. 
 " Y/herefore the Sabbath was, from the beginning of 
 " the world, set apart to Divine worship." — (Lutheri 
 Opera (M.D.L.), tom. v. p. 23.) 
 
 " If the law be thrust out of the Church, there will 
 '* no longer be anything recognized as a sin in this
 
 12 
 
 '' world, since the Grospel defines and punishes sin 
 " only by recurring to the law." — (Michelet's Life of 
 Luther, Book iv. chap, ii.) 
 
 And again, " Let us leave Moses to his laws, ex- 
 " cepting only the Moralia, which Grod hath planted 
 " in Nature, as the Ten Commandments." — (Ibid. 
 Book iv. chap, iv.) 
 
 " It is good, and even necessary, that men should 
 " keep a particular day in the week, on which they 
 " are to meditate, hear, and learn ; for all cannot 
 " command every day ; and Nature also requires that 
 " one day in the week should be kept quiet, without 
 " labour either for man or beast." — (Quoted in Fair- 
 bairn s Typology, vol. ii. p. 467.) 
 
 Luther also wrote the following, being a portion of 
 one of his hymns on the Decalogue : — 
 
 " Hallow the day which God hath blest, 
 That thou and all thy house may rest ; 
 Keep hand and heart from labour free, 
 That God may have His work in thee."* 
 
 Peter Martyr says (on Grenesis ii.) : — "Thiscom- 
 " mandment of the Sabbath was no more then first 
 " given when it was pronounced from heaven by the 
 *' Lord, than any other of the moral precepts." 
 
 If from the Eeformers we go to the Fathers, we shall 
 find that the Eev. Dr. Macleod has been equally par- 
 tial and hasty in his exposition of their opinions. 
 
 The Fathers, like the Eeformers, often appear 
 
 * Geistliche Lieder, Lond. (1845), pp. 53, 56 ; and Massie's Trans- 
 lation, &c., pp. 53, 55.
 
 13 
 
 contradictory when they speak of the nature and 
 observance of the Sabbath ; and the same Fa- 
 ther sometimes appears to contradict in one place 
 what he has said in another. Two considerations, 
 however, will make clear much in the writings of 
 the Fathers on this question, which otherwise is in- 
 explicable. First, that, when speaking of Sabbaths, 
 they are witnessing against the error, in their time 
 so widely prevalent in the Christian Church, that both 
 Saturday and Sunday should be observed as holy. 
 So widely did this practice prevail, that Bingham 
 tells us, by the end of the fourth century the observ- 
 ance of Saturday, like Sunday, prevailed generally 
 throughout the East, and the greater part of the 
 Christian world. (Antiq. Book xx. c. 3, sec. 1.) And 
 the Church of Abyssinia, to this day, observes both 
 Saturday and Sunday.* So that often, when the 
 Fathers are speaking of Sabbaths, they mean the 
 Saturday Sabbaths of the Jews, not the Lord's Day, 
 or Christian Sabbath, 
 
 A second reason, which explains much of this appa- 
 rent contradiction in the writings of the Fathers, is, 
 as is stated by Holden, that they often '* assert that 
 " we are to worship God, not by a mere hebdomadal 
 " service, but continually — not on one day in the 
 " week alone, but at all times ; which has been sup- 
 " posed irreconcileable with the notion of a Sabbath." 
 (Holden on the Sabbath, p. 327.) And then, after 
 giving the strongest passages that can be found in the 
 
 * Stanley's History of the Eastern Church, p. 11.
 
 14 
 
 Fathers in proof, Holden says, " Tliese passages, 
 " though by far the strongest that I have met with 
 " in the ancient Fathers, are by no means hostile to 
 " the Christian Sabbath. The context, of which they 
 *' form a part, plainly shows that they are directed 
 " against those who confine their religion to certain 
 " times and seasons." (Holden on the Sabbath, p. 329.) 
 
 The Fathers could never have intended to put forth 
 the childish notion, that before the coming of Christ 
 men were only required to serve God on the Sabbath ; 
 but that since Christ came, men are expected to serve 
 God on all days alike. Both before Christ came and 
 since, that we may serve God on all days, we must 
 have the religious privileges and services of the Sab- 
 bath. 
 
 But it is unaccountable how Dr. Macleod could 
 have ventured upon this unqualified dogmatic asser- 
 tion, — *' While not one of the Fathers, in a single 
 '* instance, connects this sacred day with the Sabbath 
 ** of the Fourth Commandment." 
 
 Why, even his great authority Mr. Cox, notorious 
 Sunday-league advocate as he is, who, even in a pro- 
 fessed literature of the Sabbath, can hardly ever quote 
 a passage that bears against his own anti-Sabbath 
 views but he stops to argue against it like a hired 
 special pleader, — even Mr. Cox, Dr. Macleod's great 
 authority, gives him, at page 326 of his first volume 
 entitled "Literature of the Sabbath Question," the 
 following passage from Irenseus, (a.d. 178,) one of 
 the earliest Fathers : —
 
 15 
 
 ** Preparing man for a life of holiness, tlie Lord 
 " himself, with his own voice, spoke the words of 
 " the Decalogue alike to all ; these Command- 
 " ments, therefore, continue with us, extended and 
 " enlarged, — not abolished by His coming in the flesh. 
 '* But the ordinances of bondage He gave to the 
 " people separately by the voice of Moses, as Moses 
 " himself says, ' And the Lord commanded me at 
 " * that time to teach you statutes and judgments.' 
 " These, then, which were given as a yoke of bond- 
 " age, and as a sign to them, he has blotted out by 
 " the new covenant of liberty. But what are natural, 
 " and "becoming men who are free, and common to 
 " all, — these Commandments he has enlarged and 
 " extended, ungrudgingly, bountifully granting to 
 " men through their adoption to know God as their 
 " Father, and to love Him with all their heart, and 
 " without unwillingness to follow His word, abstain- 
 " ing not from evil deeds alone, but even from the 
 " desire of them." (Adv. Hseres.lib. iv. c. 31, quoted 
 by James, p. 78.) 
 
 Well may Mr. Cox say, "What does Irenseus 
 " mean by the * enlargement and extension ' of the 
 " Decalogue in its application to Christians ?" Well 
 may Mr. Cox also ask, '' Is the Fourth Commandment, 
 " literally understood, one of the precepts which he 
 *' includes among those that are natural, and becoming 
 '' men who are free, and common to all." As if the 
 " Decalogue" could mean either ten or nine Com- 
 mandments ; and as if Irenseus had not said, " The
 
 16 
 
 '* Lord Himself with his own voice spoke the words 
 '* of the Decalogue alike to all ; these Commandments, 
 " therefore, (i.e., the Decalogue) continue with us, 
 *' extended and enlarged, — not abolished by His com- 
 " ing in the flesh." Well may Mr. Cox refer to another 
 passage of Irenseus — which, however, he does not 
 quote — in order to object, that the Father does not 
 mean what he here plainly says. 
 
 Again, Clemens Alexandrinus (a.d. 194), (as quoted 
 by Holden, p. 298,) speaking of that part of the 
 Decalogue which we call the Fourth Commandment, 
 describes it as *' indicating that the world was made 
 " by the Almighty, who gave to us the seventh day 
 " for rest, on account of the afflictions to which life is 
 *' subject. For Grod is never tired, is not subject to 
 *' passions, neither is he in want of anything; but 
 " we, who bear about an earthly body, have need of 
 ** repose ; the seventh day, therefore, is called a rest, 
 *' a cessation from evils, constituting the chief of days, 
 " OUR rest indeed," &c. — (Strom. 6, p. 682, c. d.) 
 
 TertuUian, too (a.d. 150 — 200), (as quoted by 
 Holden, p. 300,) in his refutation of Marcion, has *'an 
 " argument too long to quote, but the scope of which is 
 " to show, that Christ did not design to abrogate the 
 '' sabbatical law, but to explain and amend it, and in 
 '' the course of which he asserts that neither Christ 
 " nor the Creator have destroved the Sabbath " (Ad- 
 vers. Marcionem,lib.IV. § 11, p. 423, c); — "that Jesus 
 " is called the Lord of the Sabbath, because he main- 
 *' tainedit, utrem suam '' (Ibid. p. 424, b.) ; — '' that as
 
 17 
 
 '* the Lord of the Sabbath he did not altogether abo- 
 " lish it" (Ibid.) ; '' and that he did not wholly rescind 
 *' the Sabbath, the law of which he observed, proving 
 ** by his actions that he did not come to destroy the 
 " law, but to fulfil it ;" for even here (says Tertullian) 
 ** he fulfilled the law, whilst he interprets the condi- 
 '' tions of it, whilst he illustrates the difference of 
 *' works, whilst he does those things which the law 
 *' declares to be exceptions on the Sabbath holy-days, 
 " whilst by his own benefaction he rendered still more 
 " holy the Sabbath-day, which was sanctified from the 
 '* beginning by the benediction of the Father." (Ibid. 
 p. 424, c.) 
 
 Origen, too (died a.d. 253), observes (see Holden, 
 pp. 302, 303), — " Leaving the Jewish observances 
 " of the Sabbath, let us see how the Sabbath ought 
 " to be observed by a Christian. It is by ab- 
 '* staining from all worldly actions and labours. If, 
 " therefore, you cease from all secular works, and 
 " execute nothing worldly, but give yourself up to 
 *' spiritual exercises, repairing to church, attending to 
 " sacred reading and instruction, thinking of celestial 
 " things, solicitous for the future, placing the judg- 
 *' ment to come before your eyes, not looking to things 
 " present and visible, but to those which are future 
 " and invisible, this is the observance of the Christian 
 '* Sabbath." (Homil. 23 in Numeros, vol. ii. p. 358, d.) 
 
 Chrysostom (a.d; 398) saj^s (Holden, p. 316), 
 — " Grod hath from the beginning taught man to 
 " separate one entire day in the weekly revolu- 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 " tion to spiritual exercises/' He also says, — *'The 
 " first day of the week is called tlie Lord's-day, be- 
 " cause on it our Lord returned from death unto 
 "life." And again, he styles it, "the royal day, 
 " in which our Master and King ascended from the 
 " grave." (Chrysostom, Homil. 10 in Gen. in Psalm 
 118, Hom. 5 de Eesurrect.) 
 
 St. Augustine (died a.d. 430), says the late Eev. 
 
 J. T. Baylee, '' expresses no doubt whatever of the 
 
 '' sanctification of the Sabbath at Creation, and of the 
 
 " transference of the day of its observance from the 
 
 " seventh to the first day, which first day he considers 
 
 " was always designed to be superior to the seventh, as 
 
 *' indicated by the memorable events which had taken 
 
 '* place thereon. Speaking on the subject of the Lord's- 
 
 " day, he (Augustine) says, * Which is for this reason 
 
 " called the Lord's-day : that men, refraining from 
 
 " worldly occupations and earthly pleasures, may 
 
 " wholly devote themselves to the service of God.' It ap- 
 
 ** pears, even in Sacred Scriptures, that it was a solemn 
 
 " day; for on it the elements of the world were made," 
 
 &c. And again he says, " And therefore the inspired 
 
 " teachers of the Church decreed that all the glory of 
 
 " the Jewish Sabbath should be transferred to it ; that 
 
 " what they celebrated in a figure, we should celebrate 
 
 ** in reality." Again, saith Augustine, *'Let us there- 
 
 '' fore observe the Lord's-day, brethren, and set it apart 
 
 " to holy purposes, in the same way as was of old 
 
 " time commanded concerning the Saturday — accord- 
 
 ** ing to the precept of the Lawgiver: * From even-
 
 19 
 
 '* ing even to evening you shall keep yonr Sabbaths.' 
 '* Let ns take care that our freedom from business be 
 " not for indulgence in vain pursuits ; but abstaining 
 " from all rural employment, and all business, from 
 " the evening of the Saturday even until the evening 
 " of the Lord's-day, let us devote our time wholly to 
 " the service of Grod."* 
 
 The same writer (Baylee)t adds, "We here insert the 
 very conclusive and important testimony of Eusebius 
 confirmatory of the various points proposed to be 
 proved, being an extract from his Commentary on 
 the Mnety-first Psalm, the Ninety-second of our 
 Version :" — 
 
 " The Word, through the new covenant, changed 
 " and transferred the feast of the Sabbath to the 
 " rising of the sun, and gave to us the image of the 
 " true rest — the day of salvation — the Lord's-day — 
 *' even the first day of light, in which the Saviour 
 " of the world, after all his exploits among men, 
 " obtained the victory over death, and passed beyond 
 " the gates of heaven • having accomplished a work 
 " excelling the six days' work of creation, he took 
 ** possession of the Divine Sabbath, and the thrice 
 '' happy rest of the Father, who said to him, 'Sit thou 
 " on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy 
 " footstool/ . . . And everything (Eusebius says) which 
 " it was usual to do on the Saturday, these we have 
 
 * August, de Tempore Sermo. dom. XXYI., post. pent. torn. x. p. 
 396 and 397. 
 
 t Word of Warning, p. 22. 
 
 B 2
 
 20 
 
 '' transferred to the Lord's-day, as being more suited 
 " to the Lord than it, and being the chief day, the 
 " first, and more honourable than the Jewish Sabbath ; 
 " for on this dayj at the creation of the world, God 
 " said, ' Let there be light,' and there was light ; and 
 " on it the Sun of righteousness arose upon our souls. 
 '* For this cause it has been delivered to us to 
 " assemble on this day." 
 
 Hilary (died a.d. 367) says, (see Holden, p. 817,) 
 *' Though the name and observance of the Sabbath 
 ** were first appointed on the seventh day, yet we on 
 *' the eighth day, which is also the first, rejoice with 
 " the joy of a true Sabbath." (Prolog, in Psal. p. 637, 
 B. edit. Paris. 1652. fol.) 
 
 Gregory of Nyssa (a.d. 371) says (Gilfillan on the 
 Sabbath, p. 382), — "Behold the Sabbath, blessed for 
 '* thee from the beginning ; mark by that Sabbath, the 
 *' Sabbath of the present day, the day of rest, which 
 " God hath blessed above other days." (Orat. 38.) 
 
 Alexander of Hales says, (see Gilfillan, p. 382,) 
 " Because the Sabbath-day, taken indeterminately, is 
 " called the day of rest, or vacation to God ; after this 
 •' manner the Lord's-day may be called the Sabbath- 
 " day, without any prejudice of the Christian name, or 
 *' scandal of Christians." (Cited in Dr. Young s " Dies 
 Dominica," p. 25.) 
 
 These passages from the Fathers are selected from 
 a much larger number more or less agreeing with 
 them. They all, with more or less distinctness, iden- 
 tify our Lord's-day with the Sabbath of Creation and
 
 21 
 
 the Decalogue. In these passages the Fathers do not 
 teach that the Sabbath is abolished, and that the 
 Lord's -day has been instituted in its place. They do 
 not forbid, but they sanction, the looking back to the 
 Sabbath of the older Scriptures, when speaking of the 
 Sabbath of the Christian Church. They flatly con- 
 tradict Dr. Macleod's words, that ^^ not one of the 
 " Fathers, in a single instance, connects this sacred day 
 " with the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment/' 
 
 But from the Fathers we travel up to the final 
 court of appeal, the Holy Scriptures themselves. 
 For, after all, the law of God is the only foundation 
 of the Sabbath. Neither the law of the Legislature, 
 nor the command of the Church, can make that to be 
 really wrong on Sunday which is lawful on other days. 
 Whenever, therefore, a nation has ceased to believe 
 Grod's law demands the hallowing of the Sabbath, the 
 Legislature and the Church have been impotent to 
 enforce it. In our time there is a denial of the 
 present authority of the Ten Commandments. See- 
 ing that the Fourth Commandment is embedded in 
 the Decalogue, and must stand or fall with it, men 
 seek at once to get rid of the Fourth Command- 
 ment by declaring that the Decalogue is repealed.* 
 
 * I here refer to the fact, that there has been widely circulated in 
 this country a pamphlet, urging the " Discontinuance, by Act of Par- 
 liament, of the Ten Commandments in the Church Service." 
 
 In the preface to the pamphlet, the author informs us that his chief 
 object is to get rid of the Fourth Commandment. The same opinions 
 had been before set forth, with some caution, in later numbers of th© 
 now defunct " National Sunday League Record."
 
 22 
 
 It will, then, be well to see whether the Holy Scrip- 
 tures do not show, First, that the Decalogue is a code 
 of laws intended to remain in force throughout all 
 time ; and then, whether the Fourth Commandment, 
 from its nature, has not rightly a place in the Deca- 
 logue, and likewise remains in force throughout all 
 time. 
 
 I. The Decalogue, as a code of laws, was, then, from 
 the first, kept distinct from all other. This is made 
 plain by the way in which the Ten Commandments 
 were first given. The revelation of God contained 
 in Holy Scripture was mainly made through the inter- 
 vention of man. Grod spoke to one man ; and, for 
 God, man spoke, or wrote, to his fellows. 
 
 A small part of the Old and a larger part of the 
 New Testament Scriptures are, however, exceptions 
 to this rule. The words Christ addressed to the 
 living people of His day, w^ere the words of God the 
 Son speaking to men without any intervention what- 
 ever. And the words of these Ten Commandments 
 are a parallel exception in the Old Testament Scrip- 
 tures. God Himself spake these words to the tribes 
 of Israel, with a voice that at once reached the ears 
 of each man, woman, and child. No one came be- 
 tween. Moses was but a listener with the others. 
 Moses no more gave these Commandments than 
 any man now living did. To make these Command- 
 ments more plainly distinct from all other, Moses 
 was not allowed to write them, any more than to
 
 23 
 
 speak them. But God Himself engraved these ten 
 statutes on two tables of stone. " These words the 
 Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out 
 of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick 
 darkness ; and he added no more. And he wrote 
 them in two tables of stone, and he delivered them unto 
 me." (Deut. v. 22.) And to m^ke this distinction 
 yet more plain, when written, this law was placed 
 by itself. In the holiest of all, alone and separate 
 from all other, in the Ark of the Covenant, over- 
 shadowed by the glory of God, was enshrined this 
 the heart of God's will, this core and marrow of His 
 legislation. It is, then, ignorance and error to speak 
 of these Commandments as the laws of Moses, since 
 Moses neither spoke them nor wrote them, but God 
 did both. 
 
 Thus, then, the design of God was to make these 
 Ten Commandments to remain distinct from, and 
 supreme above, all other, as being the heads and prin- 
 ciples of His moral government ; and this design is 
 plainly revealed in the words, " He added no more." 
 
 And this design of God was fulfilled. The Ten 
 Commandments from the first held a distinct and 
 supreme place in the estimation and literature of the 
 Jews. The Laio, the Commandments, are the terms by 
 which they are distinguished. They "meant the 
 same, with reference to other commands, as the 
 Bible means with regard to other Books."* 
 
 * Bishop Wilson's Sermons on the Lord's Day, p. 56.
 
 24 
 
 Let us examine the teaching of our Lord and His 
 Apostles on the authority and perpetuity of the 
 Decalogue. On the Mount of Beatitudes we hear 
 our Lord expounding certain of the Commandments 
 Jehovah had spoken on the Mount of Horeb. He 
 removes from them the glosses and additions of the 
 Scribes and Pharisees. He says, " Whosoever shall 
 breat one of the least of these Commandments, and 
 teach man so, shall be called the least in the kingdom 
 of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, 
 shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." 
 With the solemnity of the Jewish oath, " Yerily," He 
 declared that He came not to destroy the law and 
 the prophets, but to fulfil; that, *Hill heaven and 
 earth should pass, one jot or tittle of the law should 
 in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled," 
 He accused the Pharisees of making the Command- 
 ment of God (not of Moses) of no effect through their 
 traditions; "for Grod," said our Lord, "commanded," 
 
 When the young lawyer said, " Grood Master, what 
 shall I do that I may inherit eternal life ?" our Lord 
 replied, " Thou knowest the Commandments ; if thou 
 wdlt enter into life, keep the Commandments." What 
 our Lord meant by the term, He at once shows by 
 quoting from the second table of the Decalogue, thus 
 revealing to the lawyer his heart, and convicting him 
 of sin. 
 
 We may see, too, when the Levitical system was 
 declared by the Apostles to be abolished, they still
 
 25 
 
 quoted from this Code, thereby showing that these 
 Commandments were still in force. 
 
 Saith St. Paul, in Eomans xiii., the eighth and 
 following verses, "Owe no man anything, but to 
 love one another: for he that loveth another hath 
 fulfilled the law." What law? The Apostle, to 
 show us, quotes from the Decalogue. He is not 
 now speaking of what we owe to God : the Apostle 
 therefore does not quote from the first table. But 
 he is speaking of what we owe to man : he therefore 
 repeats some of the commandments from the second 
 table. But even from this table he does not quote 
 all, for he leaves out the fifth. 
 
 For this saith he : " Thou shalt not kill. Thou 
 shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. 
 Thou shalt not covet. And if there be any other com- 
 mandment," — then these are still commandments, — 
 "it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely. 
 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." 
 
 To "comprehend" does not mean to set aside, but to 
 include. The Ten Commandments were as truly 
 comprehended in the twofold injunction to love the 
 Lord with all the heart, and our neighbour as our- 
 self, in the time of Moses as in the time of Christ. 
 You will find the former enjoined by God, speaking 
 through Moses in Deut. vi. 5 ; and the latter in Lev. 
 xix. 18. Some persons have fallen into the error of 
 supposing that the twofold injunction of love to 
 God and man has set aside the Ten Commandments. 
 If this were so, the Ten Commandments would have
 
 ( 26 
 
 been set aside as soon as given ; wonld have been 
 set aside for Israel, as for us ; would, indeed, only 
 have been given to be set aside. 
 
 But let us turn to another place in the writings of 
 the same Apostle— the sixth chapter of Ephesians. 
 Here the Apostle says, " Children, obey your parents 
 in the Lord, for this is right." Now surely here, if 
 ever, there is an opportunity for the Apostle to put 
 us right. If the Decalogue, as a code of laws, is set 
 aside, St. Paul has here put the Fifth Commandment 
 on a new, a New Testament, basis. Not another 
 word need be added. The precept is given in words 
 of simplicity by the inspired Apostle of God. And if 
 anything more is needed to impress this Command- 
 ment upon this church of Gentiles and Jews, will the 
 Apostle, to use the words of Dr. Macleod, " lead us to 
 Exodus, or to the Gospels and Epistles? — to Sinai 
 and the Decalogue, or to Calvary and to Christ? 
 Which will most enlighten the conscience ? Let the 
 experiment be made by any earnest man." Let us, 
 however, return to the Apostle Paul ; and he, as we 
 shall see, will lead us to the Decalogue. " Children, 
 obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." 
 Then, to repeat with authority his monition, he thus 
 quotes the Fifth Commandment, " Honour thy father 
 and mother;^ — -which is,'' — not wYachwas, — "which is 
 ih-Qjirsty' — then the numerical series and order remain 
 still, — "which is the first Commandment with promise:" 
 "that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest 
 LIVE LONG IN THE EARTH." Now tlicsc last woi'ds are
 
 ^7 
 
 most remarkable. The only commandment of the 
 Decalogue that seemed, from its phraseology, to apply 
 only to the Jew, is this one. And modern writers 
 have unwittingly quoted this same to show that 
 these Commandments were intended for Jews only. 
 But here we see this Fifth Commandment is men- 
 tioned as if on purpose to show that the whole series 
 is still binding. For instead of the original words, 
 " That thy days may be long in the land which the 
 Lord thy God giveth thee \' the Apostle says, " That 
 it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live 
 long on the earth." 
 
 And the Holy Grhost, by the Apostle, in effect thus 
 says to us, Whatever special reasons Grod may have 
 given to the Jews for obedience to these Command- 
 ments, these Commandments none the less refer to all 
 mankind. In this Fifth Commandment the injunction 
 seems only given, for the promise seems only given, to 
 the people living in the land which the Lord God 
 gave them — that is, in Canaan. But this Command- 
 ment all the while was intended for all mankind ; and 
 the promise extends to all that shall ever live on 
 the earth. 
 
 And so of all the other Commandments. They open 
 with the special reason, " I am the Lord thy God, which 
 brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and out of 
 the house of bondage." But yet no man may say, 
 *' Lord, thou hast not brought me up out of the land of 
 Egypt, and out of the house of bondage;" and therefore 
 these Commandments do not apply to me ; I am not
 
 28 
 
 bound to have no other Gods but one; nor to re- 
 frain from making and worshipping idols ; nor from 
 taking Thy name in vain ; nor from profaning Thy 
 Sabbaths. 
 
 Again, besides the reason given in the Fourth 
 Commandment for obedience to it, Moses elsewhere 
 gives another reason for obeying this same Command- 
 ment, namely, that God brought up Israel out of the 
 land of Egypt. But though this second reason had 
 never been given, Israel would have been bound by 
 the reason given in the Fourth Commandment itself 
 And Israel would not have held the second reason to 
 have set aside the first, but to have been added to it. 
 The first reason is in substance. We worship Thee 
 as our Creator. And the second reason is in sub- 
 stance. We worship Thee also as our Preserver. The 
 two reasons are not antagonistic, but harmonious. 
 Though, then, this reason would seem to limit the 
 Fourth Commandment to the Jew, since he alone 
 was brought up out of Egypt, the reason given in 
 the Fourth Commandment itself for obedience to it 
 equally refers to all men; since God made the world 
 for us, as well as for the Jews, and a debt of grati- 
 tude and worship is equally due to Him from us 
 as from the Jew, God being for all alike the Author 
 and Giver of all good things. We bless God on the 
 Sabbath Day for our Creation, as did Adam ; for our 
 Creation and Preservation, as did Israel ; and now 
 for our Eedemption also, through our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ.
 
 29 
 
 Again, God had by Jeremiah given this promise : 
 " I will put my law in their inward parts, and write 
 it in their hearts." (Jeremiah xxxi. 33.)* Or, in the 
 words of Ezekiel, that He would put His Spirit within 
 us, and cause us to walk in His judgments, and do 
 them. (Ezekiel xxxvi. 27.) Compare these promises 
 with what St. Paul says to the Corinthians, in the 3rd 
 chapter of his 2nd Epistle, and who can doubt but the 
 fulfilment of these promises is there recorded, and that, 
 so far from (rod's moral law being abolished, it is now 
 written by God again, not upon the enduring stone, but 
 upon that which is even more abiding, upon the death- 
 less, yea, the imperishable nature of the believer's soul. 
 
 '* In verse 6, St. Paul gives us a good key for dis- 
 " covering the true meaning of this chapter, which 
 " was to show the difference between the letter and 
 " the spirit of the law, and their tendencies. * Who 
 " also hath made us able ministers of the New Tes- 
 " tament ; not of the letter, but of tlie spirit; for the 
 " letter killeth, but the spirit givetli life' It is mani- 
 " fest, however, that he is speaking here of one and 
 
 " the same law At first view it may appear 
 
 " from this quotation (verse 7) as if the laio or com- 
 " mandments^ written and engraven in stones, were to 
 " be done away. But, on a little closer inspection, we 
 " find that not to be the case. What, then, is to be done 
 " away ? The glorg which accompanied the former 
 
 * "And write all these Thy laws in our hearts, we beseech Thee." 
 — (Prayer after the reading of the Ten Commandments, in our Com- 
 munion Service.)
 
 80 
 
 " ministration. The delivery of the Ten Command- 
 " ments on Sinai was accompanied with supereminent 
 " glory. And even after the transgression and for- 
 " feiture of the blessings of the Covenant by the 
 " Israelites, when Moses a second time brought down 
 ** the tables of the Commandments, they were at- 
 " tended by glory ; because, as St. Paul tells us, the 
 " law itself was * holy, just, and good,' and therefore 
 " in itself glorious ; yet it required perfect obedience, 
 " which the fallen and corrupt nature of man could 
 " not pay, and therefore it tended to condemnation 
 ** and death. Let us now consider how that glory 
 " was to be done away. And this was by the revela- 
 " tion of a more resplendent glory, by which the 
 " former was eclipsed. The Commandments were 
 " lit up with a new light ; they still continued holy, 
 '* just, and good as before; but they no longer con- 
 ** tinned as inexorable judges to condemn, they held 
 '* out the sceptre of mercy ; — they no longer required 
 " perfect obedience, they were changed from a minis- 
 " tration of condemnation into a ministration of right- 
 " eousness." — (Archdeacon Stopford on the Sabbath, 
 pp. 178, 179.) 
 
 Surely, too, St. John is speaking of commandments 
 distinct from the law of love, commandments by which 
 love to God and man is guided, and shown, and tested, 
 when he says (1 John iii.), — '' By this we know that 
 we love the children of God, when we love God, a?id 
 keep His commandments. For this is the love of 
 God, when we keep His commandments ; and His
 
 31 
 
 commandments are not grievous." St. John is evi- 
 dently quoting in substance the Sixth Command- 
 ment in the 1 5th verse of this same chapter, just as 
 St. Paul in substance gives the Eighth in Ephesians 
 iv. 28, and the Tenth in Eomans vii. 
 
 St. Paul tells us he had not known sin, " except the 
 Law had said, Thou shalt not covet." He declares 
 we are still "under the Law to Christ." St. John 
 defines sin to be "the transgression of the Law." 
 St. James tells us, "Whosoever shall keep the whole 
 Law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all." 
 And what " Law " he means, and what " all " he 
 refers to, the Apostle tells us, by taking us to the 
 Decalogue, and thus quoting from it, — *' For He that 
 " said. Do not commit adultery, said also. Do not kill. 
 " Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, 
 " thou art become a transgressor of the Law." 
 
 How, then, does Dr. Macleod reconcile this teach- 
 ing of the Apostles with the assumed fact that the 
 Decalogue "has been abrogated by being nailed to 
 Christ's cross," and that it "is buried in the grave 
 with Christ"? 
 
 '' Must I" — one of the converts to whom the Apostle 
 wrote might say — " must I " (to use the words of Dr. 
 Macleod) *'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, search- 
 " ing, and directing revealed for me even in Him? 
 " And must I search the Decalogue to find rules of 
 " life clearer, fuller, and more able to guide me than
 
 32 
 
 *' all I have left behind ? If any man means to assert 
 " this, or anything like this, or anything approaching 
 " to this, then I can only say, that I cannot under- 
 *' stand him» Christ's life is itself a sufficient rule ; 
 " in Him all God's moral law, as a rule of life, is 
 ** summarily comprehended." 
 
 Now, it might be sufficient, in reply, to refer Dr. 
 'Macleod to the fact, as above stated, that our 
 Lord and His apostles did not merely refer to 
 Christ's life, " as in itself a sufficient rule," but 
 that they also referred to the Decalogue, and to 
 examples and precepts in the writings of Moses and 
 the prophets. In His spirit, in His influence, in 
 His tempers and dispositions, in all that He was, and 
 all that He said, and all that He did, Christ was the 
 light of the world, in which blended all the perfec- 
 tions of Him who was perfect Grod and perfect man ; 
 the only sinless life and spotless example for the 
 study of all men always. 
 
 But if the life of our Lord had been intended to 
 supersede the Decalogue, and to be " a revelation of 
 duty, and His laws as its expression," so as to show 
 plain and simple men, women, and children, how to 
 act in the relationships and duties of life, is it likely 
 that our Saviour's behaviour, as a child, as a youth, 
 as a young man, in the house, with father and mother, 
 friends and neighbours, through thirty years, would 
 be hidden from us ; and that all we know of that life 
 should be contained in one incident — the going up to 
 Jerusalem, and in one sentence— -that he was subject 
 to Joseph and Mary at Nazareth ?
 
 33 
 
 In the duty of child to parent, servant to master, 
 husband to wife, what is there in our Saviour's life 
 to supersede the teaching of the Decalogue, and the 
 precepts and examples of the older Scriptures? 
 Take these instances in point, as they would be 
 looked at by any simple and untaught man, — 
 "How is it that ye sought me?" "Wist ye not 
 that I must be about my father's business ? " And 
 the overturning the seats of the money-changers, and 
 the seats of them that sold doves ; or, '* Woman, what 
 have I to do with thee ? " Or the fact, that when 
 questioned by the legal magistrates, before whom 
 He stood arraigned, He answered nothing. These 
 instances show how impossible it is that our Saviour's 
 life could have been intended to supersede the plain 
 and simple Commandments of the Decalogue, because, 
 as Dr. Macleod infers, our Lord's life contains rules 
 to take the place of them, rules clearer, fuller, and 
 more able to guide us in the moral duties of life. 
 
 " But after all," says Dr. Macleod, " what is the rule 
 " of life to a believer ? Is it a series of rules ? No, it 
 " is life itself. It is that which is the true life of the 
 " soul ; the right condition of the spirit toward Grod 
 " and man, out of which all right thought, right feeling, 
 " right action, must come ; that life which is derived 
 "from and sustained by Christ." Now, these words 
 mean nothing ; or else they mean this, that the life the 
 believer lives forms the rules of his life. That is, 
 what he thinks must prove to him that he thinks 
 what is right ; what he speaks must be his authority
 
 34 
 
 that he speaks what is right; what he does, his 
 authority that he does what is right; in fact, that 
 he is to be his own authority ; in fact, that what- 
 ever he does, or thinks, or says, must be right, 
 because he is convinced that he is a believer, and 
 that he derives his life from Christ, and therefore 
 that the products of that life are right ? Does Dr. 
 Macleod think any man on earth so perfect that 
 he does nothing wrong? How, then, can a par- 
 tially sinful man be an impartial judge of his own 
 mixed life ? And how can an imperfect life be life's 
 rule, so as to set aside other rules, as those given us 
 in the Decalogue ? Nor must we forget that God's 
 law is intended, and is needed, for the ungodly, as well 
 as for the godly ; to restrain evil-doers, as well as to 
 be a rule of life to them who do well; to show the 
 sinner his sin, as well as to quicken the believer to 
 show his faith by his works. 
 
 Mark the twofold cause of the error, then, of 
 supposing that the Decalogue is abolished. 
 
 One cause of the error arises from confounding this 
 code of moral laws, which is for all time, with the 
 Jewish code of ceremonies, which was preparatory to 
 the coming of Christ, and with the Jewish municipal 
 laws, which were given to the Jewish nation. 
 
 The second cause of this error arises from theologi- 
 cal confusion.* Men imagined that these Ten Com- 
 
 * The confusion of mind in many Christians, in respect of the nature 
 and use of God's law, is almost beyond belief. I remember once, in a 
 clerical meeting, a vicar of position and experience and attainments, 
 quoting the words, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine
 
 35 
 
 mandments were the old covenant for the Jew, and 
 that faith in Christ is the covenant for Jew and 
 G-entile now. They overlooked the fact, though 
 clear as the day, that no man in any age could ever 
 have been saved by a perfect obedience to this law ; 
 that this law was never intended, for Jew or for Grentile, 
 to be the ground of acceptance with God ; but that 
 this law was to be to Jew and to Grentile a rule of 
 life, a test of our faith in God, and a proof of our love 
 to Him, as to our neighbour. A rule, like a school- 
 master, to bring to Christ ; to show man what 
 was right and what was wrong; "for by the law 
 is the knowledge of sin ;'* to convince Jew and 
 Gentile alike that they had transgressed and must 
 
 enemy," to show the difference between the Old and New Testament 
 dispensations. He was reminded that the words, " and hate thine 
 enemy," formed no part of the original text of Moses, but were added 
 by the Jewish rabbis, and that there were no such words in the Old 
 Testament Scriptures, He then quoted the text, " An eye for an eye, 
 and a tooth for a tooth," to show the difference between the old dis- 
 pensation and the new. He was now reminded that the error our 
 Saviour here pointed out and corrected was, that the rabbis had 
 made this — one of the judicial laws given for the guidance of the 
 Jewish magistrate, Deut. xix. 16 — 21 — the rule of private Ufe between 
 man and man, so as to gratify private revenge. And that, as the 
 Jewish magistrate was ordered simply to make a man to recompense 
 his neighbour for the injury he had done him — the value of an eye 
 for an eye, and of a tooth for a tooth — this was good law still ; and 
 that injustice, not justice, would have been the consequence, had 
 our Lord not allowed this principle to remain for the guidance of the 
 magistrate, for which alone it was ever intended. Nor did the vicar 
 seem quite convinced, till he was reminded that perhaps the hardest 
 precept for a Christian, even now, was that which had formed part of 
 the Hebrew Bible from the time of their third king, namely, " If thine 
 enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink ; for in so doing 
 thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." (Proverbs xxv. 21 and 22.) 
 
 c 2
 
 36 
 
 sue for pardon. So that Moses himself pro- 
 claimed God as " forgiving iniquity and transgres- 
 sion," as the ministers of Christ do now. And 
 the Church of David's time sang, "Blessed is he 
 whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin i$ 
 covered," even as the Church does now; and, "As far 
 as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed 
 our transgressions from us." And six hundred years 
 before the time of Christ, members of the Jewish 
 Church had heard, " Though your sins be as scarlet, 
 they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red 
 like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Isaiah i. 18.) 
 "What, then, is meant by the words, " The Ten Com- 
 mandments were the covenant for the Jew" ? Is it 
 meant, that before the time of Christ, God only ad- 
 mitted from the visible Church into Paradise those 
 who kept the Ten Commandments ? Then, whether 
 we look at the lives of the Old Testament saints, or 
 consider that fallen human nature was the same of 
 old as it is now, we should thus see that no one in 
 those days could have been saved. For " whosoever 
 keepeth the whole Law, and yet offendeth in one 
 point, is guilty of all." The term covenant, then, 
 cannot be taken in such a sense as this. 
 
 II. But, secondly, is the Fourth Commandment 
 of the same nature with the other Commandments with 
 which it stands ; and is it, like them, binding through- 
 out time ? 
 
 First, then, it belongs to an unabolished code.
 
 37 
 
 If all its other laws remain in force, show us any 
 evidence that this Commandment does not equally 
 remain in force. All the other Commandments are 
 moral in their nature. Why not this ? By moral 
 I mean laws which manifestly have their roots in 
 the nature of things — laws that seem as if they must 
 be ; and this because of what God is, and what man 
 is in relation to God, and in relation to his fellow- 
 men. This may be put plainly thus. God at the 
 same time was laying down three codes of laws — a 
 code moral, a code ceremonial, and a code municipal. 
 The Fourth Commandment must belong to one of 
 these three. Are we then to suppose — is not even 
 the thought blasphemy? — that God put this Fourth 
 Commandment into the code moral through error, 
 because it is not of the same nature with all the other 
 Commandments with which it stands ; but that it 
 ought to have been put either into the code ceremonial 
 or into the code municipal ? 
 
 Not but that it is a dangerous and unwarrant- 
 able distinction to say that the breach of any Com- 
 mandment God has given is not immoral. For 
 example : — A father, because of disturbance, tells his 
 child to sit in a particular part of the room. There 
 may not, in the nature of things, be any reason why 
 the child, save for the father's order, might not sit 
 elsewhere. But now, should the child disobey, you 
 will say the child has broken the Fifth Commandment, 
 and his act is in its nature immoral. And shall less 
 be said of disobedience to any given commandment of 
 our Father in heaven ?
 
 88 
 
 But we can see, in the nature of things, that the 
 Fourth Commandment is moral, and rightly belongs to 
 this code of laws therefore, which is in its essence im- 
 mutable. God, as truly as man, has rights that are 
 in their nature inviolate. God Himself therefore 
 speaks of the possibility of man's invading His rights 
 so as even to rob Him. And perhaps the oldest and 
 most eternal right of God, is the right of being 
 publicly and collectively worshipped by created in- 
 telligences in common adoration, glorification, bless- 
 ing, praising. Survey the works of this universe, 
 which has no limits. God's is the mind which con- 
 ceived all ; His the power which created all ; His the 
 energy which unceasing travails to uphold all ; His 
 the love which grants to us the presence and the en- 
 joyment of all. And in return He claims obedience 
 and adoration. We must hold high service to Him. 
 Not always ; for the works and cares of life prevent this; 
 yet not capriciously and impulsively. God has the 
 knowledge and the right required to fix the proportion. 
 He has fixed it : " Six days shalt thou labour, and do all 
 that thou hast to do ; but the seventh day is the Sab- 
 bath of the Lord thy God," — it is set apart from thee 
 to me ; from thy afiairs to mine ; from thoughts of thee 
 to thoughts of myself. If, for example, we were to 
 hear of a world of intelligent beings who refused to 
 worship God in the times and seasons He had ap- 
 pointed, we should think of their conduct, not as 
 the mere breach of a ceremony, but as immoral, 
 a wilful and deliberate rebellion against their su-
 
 39 
 
 preme Father and King. I was once asked whether 
 there was morality in the number seven. I replied, 
 Is there morality in the number two ? If there is 
 no morality in the number two, — one wife for one hus- 
 band, — the Seventh Commandment is gone. And if 
 there be no morality in the proportion of six and one, 
 the Sabbath is gone. 
 
 But the Sabbath is also moral, if we look at it from 
 man s point of view. Here, too, the Commandment 
 is seen to have its origin in the nature of things, 
 to be necessary to man always and everywhere, while 
 the present state and order remains ; to be made in- 
 deed for man, as our Lord tells us the Sabbath was. 
 It is necessary for man s bodily nature. For physio- 
 logists with one voice tell us that the sleep of night 
 does not fully repair the wear and tear of life, but 
 that man needs the supplementary rest of one day in 
 seven. 
 
 Dr. Farre says, — " Although the night apparently 
 *' equalizes the circulation, yet it does not sufficiently 
 ** restore its balance for the attainment of a long life ; 
 "hence, one day in seven by the bounty of Providence 
 "is thrown in as a day of compensation, to perfect, by 
 "its repose, the animal system.'' (Evidence before a 
 Committee of the House of Commons, 1 832, p. 116.) 
 
 " Physiologically considered, power saved is power 
 " gained, and the waste of power from every kind of 
 " excitement defeats the purpose of the day. So that 
 " on the Sabbath, the labouring man is expending the 
 '* powers of his body, instead of husbanding them for
 
 40 
 
 ** the following week, and chiefly if he be engaged in 
 «* drinking." (Ibid.) 
 
 Lord Macaulay says, — " Of course I do not mean 
 "that a man will not produce more in a week by 
 " working seven days than by working six days. But 
 ** I very much doubt whether, at the end of a year, he 
 " will generally have produced more by working seven 
 '* days a- week than by working six days a- week ; and I 
 ** firmly believe that at the end of twenty years he will 
 *'have produced less by working seven days a-week 
 " than by working six days a-week." 
 
 And again, — " Therefore it is that we are not 
 " poorer, but richer, because we have, through many 
 " ages, rested from our labour one day in seven. 
 " That day is not lost. While industry is suspended, 
 " while the plough lies in the furrow, while the ex- 
 " change is silent, while no smoke ascends from the 
 " factory, a process is going on quite as important 
 ** to the wealth of the nation as any process which is 
 " performed on more busy days. Man, the machine 
 " of machines, the machine compared with which 
 " all the contrivances of the Watts and Arkwrights 
 " are worthless, is repairing and winding up, so that 
 **he returns to his labours on the Monday with 
 " clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed 
 "corporal vigour." (Speeches, 1854, pp. 450, 451.) 
 
 No fewer than 041 medical men of London, in- 
 cluding Dr. Farre, subscribed a petition to Parlia- 
 ment, against the opening of the Crystal Palace 
 for profit on Sundays, containing the following sen-
 
 41 
 
 tence; — "Your petitioners, from their acquaintance 
 " witli the labouring classes, and with the laws which 
 " regulate the human economy, are convinced that a 
 " seventh day of rest, instituted by God, and coeval 
 " with the existence of man, is essential to the bodily 
 " health and mental vigour of men in every situation 
 " of life." (Eeport on the Observance of the Sabbath, 
 from Select Committee of the House of Commons, &c. 
 1832. p. 119.) 
 
 Here, then, you have the necessity in our very 
 nature, in our bones and sinews. Here is the insti- 
 tution, like the institution of sleep, in our being, 
 common to us as men, live where we will or when 
 we may. A man, then, deprived of his proportion 
 of sleep, unless for a need of his fellow man justi- 
 fying such sacrifice, is deprived of an inalienable 
 .right, and he who for his own gain or pleasure thus 
 deprives him, breaks God's moral law. Exactly thus, 
 too, is it with the rest of the Sabbath. 
 
 So, too, man's spiritual nature demands the rest 
 and opportunities of the Sabbath. Without it, man 
 cannot publicly worship God. He cannot renew his 
 spiritual strength. He cannot carry on his education 
 for the life to come, for which this world is the school, 
 and Sabbaths the great school days. Said Montalem- 
 bert, " There can be no religion without public 
 " worship ; there can be no public worship without a 
 " Sabbath." (Eapport, &c., 1850, pp. 37, 38.) There- 
 fore he who steals the man's money steals trash com- 
 pared with him who filches from his Sabbath ; for to
 
 42 
 
 lose these, may be for man to lose his eternal Sabbath, 
 and to go, a fugitive and a vagabond, out into eternity, 
 crying, " My punishment is greater than I can bear : 
 give me back my Sabbaths." 
 
 Of the fact that we find this institution in our very 
 nature — the necessity for the Sabbath being found in 
 man, live when he will or where he will — Dr. Macleod 
 himself bears ample testimony. He expatiates upon 
 the truth, that the Sabbath " is adapted to our whole 
 wants as men ph^'sically"^ upon the " social '* claims 
 for a Sabbath; upon *'its intellectual advantages;" 
 upon '' its spiritual advantages." And yet Dr. Mac- 
 leod, at the same time, would have us believe, though 
 we read in Genesis of the blessing and sanctifying 
 the seventh day, that Grod never legislated for this 
 necessity of men till two thousand five hundred years 
 had passed away ; that during these ages, for the 
 dwellers in cities, as elsewhere, there was no Sabbath ! 
 In other words, that for four thousand years this legis- 
 lation merely embraced a speck of the globe's surface 
 about the size of the five largest English counties, 
 leaving the whole earth besides without the Sabbath, 
 which mankind in common needed. Further, that 
 Christ and His apostles took especial pains to expunge 
 the only words in revelation by which servants might 
 now claim the Sabbath — the only words in which 
 secular work, and buying and selling, are forbidden. 
 
 Dr. Macleod says he is very much inclined to think 
 that the Sabbath was very much more an end in 
 itself than a means of attaining anything higher
 
 43 
 
 than individual worship and social instruction — not 
 necessarily by Levites — on Divine things. But if it 
 was but a means of allowing each head of a house- 
 hold to be priest to his own family, and to teach 
 his children God's will and word, as the father was 
 commanded, to the intent that when their children 
 come up they might teach their children the same, who 
 can estimate the value of the " means" as affording 
 an opportunity, whether for public or private worship 
 and teaching ? And Dr. Macleod also ignores the 
 repeated exhortations given to the priests to teach 
 Israel God's law, and the fact that this was impos- 
 sible unless there had been stated times available for 
 the purpose. The Sabbath even now can be nothing 
 more than this means to an end. But that God, and 
 the thought of God — not man and his rest — was the 
 higher consideration in the institution of the Sabbath, 
 is seen in the fact that in the beginning nothing 
 whatever was said about rest, but simply that God 
 blessed the seventh day and sanctified it ; rest from 
 labour and secular employments following, but as a 
 consequence. And the Fourth Commandment is, 
 " Eemember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." This 
 is the head and crown of the Commandment. Then, 
 as a means to that end, follows the command to rest ; 
 the consideration of God and His glory closing the Com* 
 mandment ; therefore the Lord- — because of what He 
 did — blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. 
 
 The Fourth Commandment, then, is in its 
 nature moral, as it respects man and his rights.
 
 44 
 
 If, then, this code of laws is in its essence 
 moral, it must be immutable. And there never has 
 been a moment in which it has not been immoral to 
 break one of its laws. To repeal them were idle, for 
 they must be re-enacted the next moment, since in 
 every moment they must be law. God Himself would 
 have His own morality impeached, did He for one mo- 
 ment grant a reprieve from laws moral. And no words 
 can convey the meaning more simply and perfectly 
 than " Thou shalt not," which give the law in eight 
 of the Commandments, and "Eem ember to keep holy," 
 and " to do no work," and " honour," which give the 
 law in the others. If the Sabbath be then a part of 
 this code, it stands or falls with it. And yet a man 
 in the same breath will tell you that the Sabbath, or 
 keeping holy one day in seven, was abolished, and 
 one day in seven at once by the Church again set 
 apart. But why ? Why should the Institution be 
 repealed by God, if it must be re-imposed by the 
 Church because still necessary ? The assumption is, 
 God removed the institution from the basis of Law, 
 on which He had placed it ; and then the Church, 
 finding the institution still necessary, did its best to 
 repair this misfortune, by reimposing the institution 
 on the basis of expediency. This, however, is rather 
 the view of Dean Alford and Professor Plumptre than 
 that of Dr. Macleod, who implies that our Lord and His 
 apostles both abolished and reimposed the institution ; 
 though no reason, from the nature and wording of the 
 Fourth Commandment, can be shown for so doing.
 
 45 
 
 There is no hardship in the Fourth Commandment. 
 That all cease work, is all it asks. Because of what 
 God has done for all, is the only reason it gives. The 
 Fifth Commandment may be modified without being 
 superseded. The Fourth Commandment may keep to 
 the six days and one, while the Saviour's resurrection- 
 day takes the place of God's completion-of-creation 
 day. The breach of the Fourth Commandment might 
 have been visited for a while upon the Jew with 
 heavy penalties ; but so likewise was the breach of 
 almost every other Commandment of the Decalogue. 
 But the penalty may no longer be inflicted, though 
 the law still remains in force. 
 
 That all these Commandments are moral, and 
 therefore perpetual, is seen in the fact that they are 
 all comprehended in the twofold Commandment of 
 love to God and love to man. That is, you cannot 
 break one of these Ten Commandments without 
 violating the law of love to God, or of love to man, 
 or of both. You cannot have more Gods than one ; 
 you cannot degrade God to the form of idols ; you 
 cannot take His name in vain ; you cannot refuse, 
 because of what God is, and what God has for us 
 done, to remember to sanctify the day He has set 
 apart, without violating the law of love to God. 
 And you cannot steal, or kill, or commit adultery, 
 or bear false witness, or covet, without violating 
 the law of love to your neighbour ; while a breach 
 of the Fourth Commandment, which joins the two 
 tables, as we have seen, violates at once the law of 
 love to God and of love to man.
 
 46 
 
 Therefore may we test ourselves by this law 
 weekly — yea, daily; "By this we know that we 
 love Grod, because we keep His commandments. 
 And His commandments are not grievous." God's 
 service of obedience to these commandments is perfect 
 freedom. His law is the law of liberty. Like David, 
 the believer now cries, " Oh, how I love Thy law. It 
 is my meat and drink to do Thy will, O God. Thy 
 law have I hid in that shrine of shrines, that ark of 
 the covenant, my heart ; in that holy of holies, in 
 which dwells the glory of the presence of God." " For 
 know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy 
 Ghost, which dwelleth in you." 
 
 But it may be well to review more at length 
 Dr. Macleod's objections to the Fourth Command- 
 ment. First, in respect of the time. Dr. Macleod 
 insists "that as to its letter, it is clear that it autho- 
 " ritatively binds us to keep the seventh day holy." 
 Now this assertion, as may be seen below, takes 
 for granted what has to be proved.* But even if 
 
 * The Commandment, it is replied, enjoins the observance of the 
 seventh day of the week, not of the first. How can the day be 
 changed, if the Fourth Commandment is still binding? 
 
 It is here that a misapprehension often occurs. The Command- 
 ment does not enjoin the ohservance of the seventh day of the week. 
 Wliat it enjoins is this, six days for work, and then a Sabbath, a day 
 of rest for God. The assertion may appear strange at first sight to 
 many, and must therefore be supported by adequate proof. 
 
 By a rule of the Hebrew language — a rule, I believe, invariably 
 observed, and which it has in common with our own, with the Greek, 
 and with many, if not with all, other tongues which have a definite 
 article — an ordinal number, following the mention of a cardinal 
 number, takes the article ; much on the same principle, no doubt, as 
 fractional parts in Greek, viz., implied previous mention.
 
 47 
 
 this point were proved, still it does not touch the 
 substance nor the end of the Commandment. For 
 the substance of the command is a rest of one day 
 in seven ; and the end of the Commandment is the 
 worship of God and the welfare of man's body and 
 soul, l^ow these are equally secured, whether we 
 rest on the first day of the week or on the seventh. 
 And if, as Dr. Macleod insists, our Saviour and 
 His Apostles had the power to abolish the Sab- 
 bath, and to institute the Lord's-day in its stead, they 
 
 Thus, in the following examples, the Hebrew has the article where 
 the English has. 
 
 Exod. xxii. 30. "Likewise shalt thou do with thine oxen and 
 thj sheep. Seven days it shall be with its dam, and on the eighth 
 day thou shalt give it me." Here the eighth day is not the first day 
 of the week, but the eighth, reckoning from the birth. 
 
 Lev. xiii. 5, &c. " AVhen a man has a rising, a scab, &c., he shall 
 be brought to Aaron, the priest, or to one of his sons," &c. " The 
 priest shall shut him up seven days, and the priest shall look on him 
 THE seventh day," &c. And when the leper was to be cleansed (xiv. 
 8), " he shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven days ; on the seventh 
 day he shall shave his hair, &c., and on the eighth day he shall take 
 two he-lambs without blemish." 
 
 Num. xix. 11, &c. "He that toucheth the dead body of any man 
 shall be unclean seven days. ... He shall purify himself with it 
 [i. e. the water of purification] the third day, and on the seventh day 
 he shall be clean." 
 
 In these examples the third day, the seventh day, and the eighth 
 day, have no reference whatever to the days of the weeh, but only to 
 the seven days previously specified in the case of the leper, and in 
 the case of defilement, to the day on which the defilement began, 
 
 Now wherever the Sahhath, i. e. the day of rest (for we all know 
 that such is the meaning of the word in its Hebrew derivation) is 
 spoken of as the seventh day, it is almost always, I believe, if not 
 always, with reference to the six previous days of labour. 
 
 Exod. xxiii. 12. " Six days shalt thou do thy work, and on the 
 seventh day thou shalt rest, that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and 
 the son of thine handmaid, and the stranger may be refreshed."
 
 48 
 
 surely had the power to transfer the authority of the 
 Fourth Commandment from the observance of the 
 seventh day to the first day, as we maintain. 
 
 And it is according to analogy that they should 
 thus do. The Apostle Paul thus did with another of 
 these Commandments, the Fifth. That Command- 
 ment has its whole structure changed, instead of be- 
 ing abolished, that a new Commandment might be 
 founded upon it. So we contend in respect of the 
 
 Exod. xxxiv. 21 : " 8ix days shalt thou work, but on the seventh 
 day thou shalt rest ; in earing-time and in harvest-time thou shalt 
 rest." So Exod. xxxi. 15. Again, Lev. xxiii. 3 : " Six days shall work 
 be done : but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a holy convoca- 
 tion ; ye shall do no work therein : it is the Sabbath of the Lord in 
 all your dwellings." Exod. xxxi. 13 : " Verily my Sahhaths [observe, 
 it is not said, " the seventh day,"] ye shall keep, for it is a sign 
 between me and you." And again, " Ye shall keep the Sabbath day, 
 for it is holy to you. . . . Six days may work be done, but on the 
 seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord : ... for in six 
 days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh 
 day he rested, and was refreshed." 
 
 It is obvious that the principle involved is the observance of a day 
 of rest unto God, following six days allotted to labour ; that the stress 
 is laid on that, not on the seventh day of the week ; and that, accord- 
 ing to the strictest letter of the Commandment, by the usage of the 
 Hebrew, which therein resembles other languages which have a 
 definite article, no more is really commanded than that. 
 
 It is true that the day of rest under the law, and indeed before the 
 law, and even before the fall, was, for obvious reasons, the seventh 
 day of the week ; but if it had been intended to perpetuate the observ- 
 ance of that day in particular, this could have been expressed, I 
 believe, as easily and distinctly in Hebrew, as it could be in English, 
 thus : — "Remember the seventh day of the week, to sanctify it: on 
 the first six days of the week thou shalt labour, but on the seventh 
 day of the week is the Sabbath," &c. — (" The Perpetual Obligation of 
 a Sabbath." By Eev. Edward Biley, late Fellow of Clare College, 
 Cambridge, pp. 6, 7, 8. Seeleys, 1861.)
 
 49 
 
 Fourth Commandment. For, in the nature of things, 
 whether in the observance of the Sabbath on the 
 seventh or on the first day of the week, God could 
 never have intended that the same weekly period of 
 time should be set apart. 
 
 To go back to the Jewish Church. 
 
 Heylyn, in his work against the Christian Sabbath, 
 quotes Joshua x. 13, when '* The sun stood still, 
 " and the moon stayed .... so that the sun stood 
 " still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go 
 " down about a whole day." He also quotes the case 
 of Hezekiah, Isaiah xxxviii. 8, and 2 Kings xx. 9 — 11* 
 when the sun went backward ten degrees. On which 
 he remarks : — " In each of these cases there was a 
 ** signal alteration in the course of nature and the suc- 
 ** cession of time, so notable, that it were very difii- 
 " cult to find out the seventh day precisely from the 
 ** world's creation, as to proceed in that account since 
 " the late giving of the law ; so that, in this respect, 
 " the Jews must needs be at a loss in the calculation ; 
 " and, although they might hereafter set apart one 
 " day in seven for rest and meditation, yet that this 
 " day, so set apart, could be precisely the seventh 
 ** from the first creation, is not so easy to be proved." 
 
 Or, to take the observance of the Lord's-day, 
 Bramhall says that it is " impossible to keep it at the 
 " same time in different longitudes ; for that some 
 " people will be keeping it in the day, and others in 
 *' the night. Let us follow this argument a little 
 " further. Let us take New Zealand, as being nearly 
 
 D
 
 50 
 
 " our antipodes. The inhabitants keep the Sabbath 
 
 ** from midnight to midnight of their own time ; but 
 
 '* of our time from mid- day on Saturday to mid-day 
 
 " on Sunday. But, supposing that the persons who 
 
 " carried the Sabbath thither, instead of going by the 
 
 " East, had gone by the West, they would, as to our 
 
 " time, be keeping it from mid-day on Sunday to 
 
 " mid-day on Monday — entirely a different day ; and, 
 
 " in either case, would have conformed to the spirit of 
 
 " the law. But let us take a still stronger instance . 
 
 " I fix on the Island of St. Helena, as being nearly in 
 
 " the same longitude as us, but with greater facility 
 
 " of travelling round the world — its being in a dif- 
 
 " ferent hemisphere and a different latitude not affect- 
 
 " ing the question. Suppose one ship to sail from 
 
 " thence round the world to the East, by the Cape of 
 
 " Good Hope, and to return ; and another, in like 
 
 ** manner, to the West, by Cape Horn, and return. 
 
 " The eastern navigators would anticipate, and the 
 
 " western lose a day. The former would be keeping 
 
 " Saturday as to St. Helena's time, and the latter 
 
 " Monday, and the inhabitants Sunday. Does not 
 
 " this show the absurdity of supposing the strict 
 
 " adherence to a particular day as necessary ; or of 
 
 " supposing any particular day to be endued with a 
 
 ** peculiar sanctity." (Archdeacon Stopford on the 
 
 Sabbath; pp. 207, 208.) 
 
 The reason, however, for observing a particular 
 day of the week, and not any day, is well put, with 
 simplicity and force, by Anselm, thus (cited in Young's
 
 51 
 
 " Dies Dominica/' p. 46) : — " The vacation of the 
 " Lord's-day is the moral part of the Decalogue in 
 " the time of grace, as the seventh day was in the 
 " time of the law." And again, " The observance of 
 " a day indeterminately, that at some time we should 
 " attend on Grod, is moral in nature and immutable ; 
 " but the observance of a determinate time is moral 
 ** by discipline — by the adding of Divine Institution. 
 " When that time ought to be, is not for man to 
 " determine, but Grod." 
 
 But again, Dr. Macleod objects that we cannot 
 keep the Commandment unless we are bound by every 
 jot and tittle of it. But what does he mean by 
 every jot and tittle of it ? The Commandment itself 
 simply says, " Thou shalt do no manner of work." We 
 are not saying that the expositions of this Command- 
 ment, given in the Jewish ceremonial and municipal 
 laws, are likewise in force. We do not take up that line 
 of argument with respect to the other Commandments. 
 We do not, because we insist upon the Seventh Com- 
 mandment, add to it the Jewish ceremonial and 
 municipal laws, in respect of divorce and the water 
 of jealousy, and so forth. Why, then, should we here ? 
 We do not insist upon Jewish penalties for breach of 
 the Commandments of the Decalogue. We are insist- 
 ing upon the present authority of the Decalogue. It 
 has often been advanced, though not by Dr. Macleod, 
 that if we insist upon the Fourth Commandment, we 
 must stone to death the Sabbath-breaker. Then, we 
 might equally argue, if you insist upon the First, and 
 
 D 2
 
 52 
 
 Second, and Third, and Fifth, as well as the Sixth, 
 Seventh, and Eighth Commandments, you must stone 
 to death those who violate them, because the laws 
 given by Moses to the Jewish magistrate made death 
 the penalty of their violation. The answer, of course, 
 would be, We are insisting only upon the present 
 authority of the Ten Commandments, which say 
 nothing about such penalties. 
 
 And if, as Dr. Macleod says, we are under "Divine 
 obligation" to observe the Lord's-day, the question, 
 in what that observance consists, still remains ; so 
 that we have not got rid of this question by getting 
 rid of the Fourth Commandment. 
 
 I have thought it well here to meet these objec- 
 tions, to free the mind from much of that thought of 
 austerity which darkens the Decalogue when this 
 distinction is not seen. 
 
 The Fourth Commandment simply insists upon 
 rest. But "the Sabbath was made for man;" and, 
 from the beginning, works of necessity and mercy 
 were not forbidden on the Sabbath. Indeed, those 
 who argue against the authority of the Fourth Com- 
 mandment will often unwittingly argue, when con- 
 tending for a lax observance, that the Jews feasted, 
 and enjoyed themselves, on the Sabbath Day. But 
 we see, for instance, that the wife of the Shunamite 
 would not hesitate on the Sabbath Day to ride on the 
 ass to the prophet. The Sabbath Day's journey 
 showed that a walk on the Sabbath Day was not 
 unknown. The pulling the ass out of the pit, and
 
 53 
 
 the leading the animals to the watering, showed the 
 same conviction, that works of necessity and mercy 
 were allowed on the Sabbath. 
 
 True, the Pharisees had straitened the letter of the 
 Sabbath law; but so had they the letter of every 
 other. 
 
 True, our Saviour took pains to vindicate, as many 
 other Commandments of the Decalogue, so also the 
 Fourth, against those traditions of men, by which 
 they had made it of none ejQTect. But would He have 
 taken all these pains to expound, and to set forth, the 
 right teaching of a law, which was waxing old, and 
 ready to vanish away ? Would He have declared 
 Himself the Lord of the Sabbath, if it had been part of 
 those '^ beggarly elements" which He came to bury ? 
 And would the accounts of these expositions by 
 precept and by example have been written, as they 
 are most fully in the Grospels originally penned 
 for the Grentile world, if the same had pertained, 
 merely as antiquarian and abolished law, to the Jews 
 and their old Sabbath ? Would He have left us in 
 any doubt, if He had intended His followers to set 
 aside the observance of the Sabbath ? Would he not, 
 for example, instead of saying, " Pray that your flight 
 be not on the Sabbath Day," have said, now, at the 
 least, that " the destruction of Jerusalem has ar- 
 rived, be not trammelled by the old Sabbath Com- 
 mandment, which will be buried with me in my 
 graver 
 
 The following is a collection of the teaching of our
 
 54 
 
 Lord, both by precept as by deed, in the Grospels, in 
 relation to the Sabbath. 
 
 " 1. The disciples plucking the ears of corn. Matt. 
 *' xii. 1 ; Mark ii. 23 ; Luke vi. 1. 
 
 '* 2. The cure of the man with the withered hand 
 "in the synagogue. Matt. xii. 10; Mark iii. 1; 
 " Luke vi. 6. 
 
 "3. Cure of a demoniac in the synagogue. Mark 
 « i. 23 ; Luke iv. 33. 
 
 " 4. Simon's wife's mother raised from a fever. 
 " Mark i. 30 ; Luke iv. 38. 
 
 "5. On the same evening, the cure of all who were 
 " diseased, or possessed with devils, and also of his 
 " approval thereby of their being brought or carried 
 " to him. Mark i. 32 ; Luke iv. 40. 
 
 " 6. On another Sabbath he laid his hand on a few 
 " sick folk, and healed them. Mark vi. 2 — 6. 
 
 " 7. The woman with the spirit of infirmity for 
 '* eighteen years, cured in the synagogue. Luke 
 " xiii. 11. 
 
 " 8. Cure of the dropsy in the house of the chief 
 ** pharisee. Luke xiv. 1. 
 
 " 9. Impotent man cured at the Pool of Bethesda. 
 " John V. 2—16. 
 
 "10. Feast of Tabernacles, and renewed contro- 
 " versy relating to the performance of the preceding 
 ** miracle on the Sabbath. John vii. 14 — 29. 
 
 *' 11. Cure of the blind man. John ix., the whole 
 '* chapter. 
 
 *' Now, it is very remarkable, that of the eleven
 
 55 
 
 *' above enumerated occasions and transactions, two 
 '* only are recorded by St. Matthew, who wrote for 
 " the Jews, six of them are recorded by St. Mark, and 
 " seven by St. Luke, who wrote for the Gentiles. St. 
 *' John wrote his as a supplemental Grospel, to supply 
 '' what had been omitted by the others. He records 
 " three of the above occasions, which are not noticed 
 " by the others. Thus, then, of the eleven occasions, 
 *' two only are recorded for the use of the Jewish 
 " converts ; whereas all the eleven are recorded by the 
 " other three evangelists for the use of the Gentiles 
 " or Christian converts from heathenism. 
 
 " In St. Matthew we have only to the extent of 
 '* fourteen verses on the whole subject. In St. Mark, 
 *^ thirty ; and in St. Luke, thirty-four. St. John oc- 
 '* cupies forty-one verses with the single miracle of 
 " the cure of the blind man, and the controversy 
 " arising from his performing it on the Sabbath-day 
 '* (ch. ix.), and eighty-seven with the circumstances of 
 '' the miracle of the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath- 
 " day, and the controversy thereupon, v. 1 — 47, and 
 " vii. 14 — 53 ; or a hundred and twenty-eight verses 
 " altogether ; and yet St. John wrote after the destruc- 
 *' tion of Jerusalem. Do not these facts strongly 
 *' prove that these corrections of our Lord's were in- 
 '* tended for the general body of Christians, and there- 
 *' fore that the Sabbath was to continue to be ob- 
 '' served under the new dispensation ? " (Archdeacon 
 Stopford on the Sabbath, pp. 133—135.) 
 
 Again, who, it may be asked, forbids the doing of
 
 50 
 
 parallel deeds to those our Lord did on the Sabbath 
 Day ? And yet these same deeds of our Lord are 
 quoted as a license for deeds on the Sabbath Day of a 
 totally different nature. 
 
 Dr. Macleod quotes before the Presbytery, as if 
 in triumph, what St. Paul says in his Epistle to the 
 Eomans : — ^* One man esteemeth one day above ano- 
 ** ther ; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every 
 *' man be fully persuaded in his own mind." (Eomans 
 xiv. 5.) And he also alludes to the parallel passage 
 in the Epistle to the Gralatians, *'Ye observe days, 
 " and months, and times, and years/' (Gral. iv. 10.) 
 And he also refers to the parallel passage in the Epistle 
 to the Colossians : "Let no man, therefore, judge you 
 " in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, 
 " or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days." 
 (Colossians ii. 16.) 
 
 But why does Dr. Macleod quote these passages ? 
 What have these passages to do with the point in dis- 
 pute between him and the formularies of his Church ? 
 Dr. Macleod himself says he believes that " this day " 
 (the first) " is sanctioned by the Apostles, inspired by 
 *' the Spirit of God, and under the authority of Jesus 
 " Christ." And again he says : '* And thus I thank- 
 " fully acknowledge the day to be divine, and of per- 
 " petual obligation." Dr. Macleod* s Church believes 
 that the first day of the week should be kept holy, be- 
 cause Christ and His apostles transferred the authority 
 of the Fourth Commandment from the seventh day to 
 the first. And Dr. Macleod himself believes that the
 
 57 
 
 first day of the week should be kept holy, because Christ 
 and His apostles founded theLord's-day as a distinct in- 
 stitution. But if the Apostle Paul, in the above passages, 
 includes the first day, which the Christians were now 
 keeping holy, these passages equally deny the obliga- 
 tion to keep holy the first day. The passages equally 
 overthrow the observance of the Lord's-day which Dr. 
 Macleod would found upon the authority of Christ 
 and His apostles, as the Lord's-day made to rest upon 
 the authority of the Fourth Commandment. In 
 either case, the words would equally overthrow all 
 right to insist upon any difference between days. He 
 that regardeth the Lord's-day, whether in respect to 
 Christ and His apostles, or in respect of them and the 
 authority of the Fourth Commandment, regards it 
 unto the Lord ; and he that regardeth not the day, to 
 the Lord he doth not regard it. '* One man esteemeth 
 one day above another ;" as Dr. Macleod the Lord's- 
 day. " Another esteemeth every day alike ;" as the 
 members of the National Sunday League. " Let 
 every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." And 
 the same reasoning will apply to the passage in the 
 Epistle to the Galatians, " Ye observe days;" and 
 to that in the Epistle to the Colossians, since it men- 
 tions "an holy day" as well as Sabbaths. These 
 passages equally overthrow the Lord's-day, which Dr. 
 Macleod would set up, and the Sabbath, which he would 
 cast down. 
 
 Now, Dr. Macleod must hold that these passages 
 include the first day of the week, or that they do
 
 58 
 
 not. If they do include the Lord's Day, they make 
 null and void all his efforts to prove that our Lord 
 and His apostles, while they overthrew the Old Tes- 
 tament Sabbath, founded a new institution, the 
 Lord's Day, in its place. If these passages do refer 
 to the Lord's Day which the Christians now set apart, 
 then it is impossible to maintain that the Apostle, 
 who declared that a man might esteem every 
 day alike, could at the same time have held and 
 taught that the observance of the first day of the week 
 was, to use Dr. Macleod's words, of divine obligation. 
 Dr. Macleod must therefore agree with his Church 
 that these passages do not refer to the Lord's Day; or 
 else his own argument, that Christ and His Apostles 
 put the Church under " Divine obligation" to set 
 apart the first part of the week, is worthless. 
 
 But, it may be asked, why, if Dr. Macleod's view of 
 the sanctity of the Lord's Day and ours agree in the fact 
 that it rests on Divine obligation, why this alarm at 
 his denial of the connexion between it and the Fourth 
 Commandment ? 
 
 His own favourite authority, Mr. Cox, in his Litera- 
 ture of the Sabbath, might show Dr. Macleod the 
 danger we fear. Mr. Cox's great authority is the work 
 of the late Sir William Domville, which, it may be 
 seen, is dedicated to Eobert Cox, Esq., we suppose 
 the author of the above work. Now, Sir W. Dom- 
 ville has occupied nearly the whole of his first volume 
 in examining the only six texts in the New 
 Testament which, he affirms, say anything about
 
 59 
 
 the observance of the Lord's-day.* And, agree- 
 ing with Dr. Macleod that the Fourth Com- 
 mandment is not binding upon Christians, he 
 comes to the conclusion that there is not a tittle of 
 evidence in the New Testament Scriptures to show 
 that the setting apart the first day of the week was 
 enjoined by the Apostles. This will show the magni- 
 tude of the evil Dr. Macleod's speech and pamphlet 
 may create. For Sir W. Domville is so far right, that, 
 if there is an utter severance between the Fourth 
 Commandment and the Lord's Day, between the 
 Sabbath of the Old and the Sabbath of the New Tes- 
 tament, thea there is not a sentence in God's Word 
 that commands me not to work, not to buy, not to 
 sell, on any and every day of the week alike. Then, 
 no man-servant nor maid-servant can put their finger 
 upon command or precept which forbids their master 
 calling them to labour on the first day of the week as 
 well as on other days. Then it remains that, though 
 the passages which mention the Church assembling 
 
 * " I consider, therefore, that I have, by the examination of the Six 
 Texts, fully established the following propositions : — 
 
 " First — That the Christian Scriptures record no instance of the 
 observance of the Sunday in the time of the Apostles, either as a 
 Sabbath day or as a prayer day. 
 
 " Secondly — That they afford no evidence of a custom in the time 
 of the Apostles so to observe it. 
 
 " And that, consequently, they contain no evidence that, by some 
 precept from Christ or his Apostles (not now extant). Christians 
 were enjoined to observe the Sunday as a Sabbath day, or, if not as 
 a Sabbath day, as a prayer day." — (Domville on the Sabbath, Vol. I., 
 p. 145.)
 
 60 
 
 on the first day of the week may be sufficient to show 
 the transference of the Sabbath from the seventh to 
 the first day of the week, there is nothing to show 
 that if the early Christians, hke Dr. Macleod, held 
 the Fourth Commandment was not binding, they did 
 not go on the first day from their worship to their 
 labour. As to the necessity of their meeting to 
 celebrate the Lord's Supper, that for Dr. Macleod's 
 countrymen would prove too little ; because they, for 
 the most part, I believe, communicate but once or 
 twice a year ; while for the early Christians it would 
 prove too much, as they were wont to partake of the 
 Lord's Supper every day. As to leaving the rights 
 of our fellow-men to the rest of the Sabbath to the 
 "Christian conscience" of their employers, that, in 
 this fallen world, would avail little, when the Scripture 
 tells us of an "evil conscience," of a "defiled" con- 
 science, and of a conscience *' seared as with a hot iron." 
 What would be thought of leaving any civil right 
 of man to the arbitration and the protection of the 
 Christian conscience ? As to the Ten Commandments 
 not being mentioned in the Pastoral of the Council of 
 Jerusalem, and the breach of the Fourth Command- 
 ment not being spoken of by the Apostles in their 
 writings, why the mystery becomes tenfold greater, 
 if you simply insert " Lord's Day" in the place of 
 these. Why, it may be with as much reason 
 asked, if the Apostles were teaching that the 
 Sabbath of the Old Testament had passed away,
 
 61 
 
 and that they were founding a new institution to 
 take its place, are they wholly silent on the subject? 
 Why, if they taught that the observance of the Lord's 
 Day was of Divine obligation, do they never enforce 
 this fact either upon Jews or Gentiles ? 
 
 " Nor is the neglect of the Sabbath more to be 
 " justified by the silence of the Apostolical Council 
 " concerning the observation, than idolatry or blas- 
 " phemy is to be justified by their silence about the 
 " Second or Third Commandment." — (Bishop Hors- 
 ley's Sermons, vol. ii. p. 443.) 
 
 As to appealing to the custom and authority of the 
 Church, where is the country that has preserved the 
 Sabbath from trade and labour, unless it has rested 
 the observance of the Sabbath on the Fourth Com- 
 mandment ? 
 
 As to the leaving the rights of men to the enjoy- 
 ment of their Sabbaths to the fairness and right feel- 
 ing of their neighbours, look at the Lutheran countries, 
 yea to Geneva itself, where even now watchmakers 
 and carpenters are trying, by associations, to recover 
 from labour their Sabbaths. Should the day arrive 
 when the working men of Scotland sigh and mourn, as 
 from a life of unbroken labour they look back upon their 
 forefathers enjoying without loss of income a rest of 
 one day in seven, equivalent to one year in seven, or 
 seven years in forty-nine, they will, I fear, see that 
 they owed this harm and loss in no small degree to 
 the Minister and Eoyal Chaplain who first sought to 
 deprive them of their Magna Charta, that Fourth
 
 62 
 
 Commandment, in which God steps in between the 
 master and the servant, and claims, in His own name 
 and authority, " that thy man-servant and maid- 
 servant may rest as well as thou." But that Grod's 
 rights and man's need throughout time have been met 
 by a legislation as wide, and that God has ever claimed 
 one day in seven for His worship and our rest, let 
 the one note that speaks in these parallel texts 
 show : — 
 
 ** And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified 
 it/' (Genesis ii. 3.) 
 
 " But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord 
 thy God." (Exodus xx. 10.) 
 
 " This is the day which the Lord hath made ; we 
 will rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm cxviii. 25.) 
 
 "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, 
 from doing thy pleasure on my holy day." (Isaiah 
 Iviii. 13.) 
 
 " Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the 
 Sabbath." (Mark ii. 28.) 
 
 " I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day." (Eeve. 
 lations i. 10.) 
 
 Throughout, the idea is one, and the same, and con- 
 tinuous. 
 
 Like the granite, this legislation for the Sabbath 
 runs throughout time, as from Genesis to Eevelation. 
 Other Scriptures, like strata, may often, and through 
 long intervals, hide the Sabbath from our view ; but, 
 like the granite in the peaks of the mountains, it rises 
 again in such texts as these in all its majesty and all
 
 63 
 
 its power, and tells ns that the Sabbath is like the 
 mountains, firm and immovable, save by Him before 
 whom the mountains shall depart and the hills be 
 removed. And then, when that consummation has 
 arrived, but not till then, shall the Sabbaths of earth 
 be swallowed up in the Sabbath of heaven. 
 
 London ; Printed by C. F. Hodgson & Son^ Gough Square, Fleet Street, EiC.