we shall discover, as we proceed, that a good deal of what is called Sabbatarianism has been founded, not on the institution itself as Moses bequeathed it to his people, but on corrupt forms of it, existing in our Lord's time, and persisted in by the later Jews.

LECTURE IV.

COLOSSIANS II. 16, 17.

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,

WHICH ARE A SHADOW OF THINGS TO COME: BUT THE BODY IS OF CHRIST.

Μὴ οὖν τις ὑμᾶς κρινέτω ἐν βρώσει ἢ ἐν πόσει ἢ ἐν μέρει ἑορτῆς ἢ νουμηνίας ἢ σαββάτων,

"Α ἐστιν σκιὰ τῶν μελλόντων, τὸ δὲ σῶμα Χριστοῦ.

THAT the Lord's Day is a positive ordinance of Scriptural and Apostolic Christianity, standing on grounds, and supported by considerations, peculiarly its own, and not borrowed or continued from the older Dispensation-that the Sabbath was not held to be of obligation upon Christians, so far as the Apostles and the early Church may be cited as authorities-and that attempts to regulate the Lord's Day by the exactness of the precedent of the Sabbath, or to found it primarily 275 on the command given to the Jews for the establishment of the Sabbath, seem therefore to be a rebuilding of things which have been destroyed, and to make those who do so transgressors has been the argument of the previous

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Lectures. There are, however, two points in respect of which it is as yet by no means complete. We have to show how Sabbatarianism developed itself in the post-Reformation, as well as in the ante-Reformation Church. This is one point, but it may stand over for the present. The other point is, a full elucidation of the nature of the Sabbath. Its history subsequent to our Lord's Resurrection has been treated, though incidentally, with sufficient minuteness. We have seen, that,

as a matter of fact, it was not considered of obligation upon Christians in the days of the Apostles. We have not found any practice or statement which contradicts this state of things in the Church of the second and third centuries, or which materially breaks in upon it, even of the fourth and fifth centuries. And we might perhaps be contented with this clear evidence from antiquity that Sabbatarianism at any period would be an intruder into the Church. But, in England especially, the controversies subsequent to the Reformation bring the Sabbath very prominently forward, and raise questions concerning it which were never mooted in primitive times. It seems, therefore, desirable, and, indeed, necessary, before we enter upon those questions, to settle these: What was the Sabbath? On what ground was it observed, until the time when, as we suppose, it ceased to be obligatory? How was it intended to be observed, and how was it observed, while in force? And, why

did it cease, (if indeed it did cease), to be in force when our Lord rose from the dead?

The first questions to be determined may be stated thus: Was the observance of the Sabbath a matter of Natural or Moral Law, or did it arise solely from external command? If not the former, why not? If the latter, to whom was the external command, which originated the observance, given ?

It was scarcely, I think, a matter of Natural or Moral Law,276 in the sense of being an obligation discoverable without express revelation. Nothing that man finds within him could possibly direct him to the seventh day, in preference to any other day, as a day of rest and worship of God. The utmost that can be said in this respect is what I am going to state. In so far as the commandment to observe the Sabbath implies positions discoverable by the light of reason, (namely, that our Creator demands our gratitude and worship, and that these are best exhibited and most surely paid by periodic appropriation of time to Him), there is a Natural or Moral element on which the commandment is founded. Of course, when an external command has been given, obedience to it may and does become moral in a secondary sense-we may see the reasonableness of it, and our duty to conform our conduct to its requirements, considering the relations in which we stand to the promulgator. But this is not

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the question at present. In the strict acceptation of the term, the duty of observing the Sabbath is not natural or moral. Perhaps, if we were to ascend to the very earliest conceivable point in the history of the human heart, we should find the moral element of which we are speaking reducible yet further, to general gratitude to the Creator. It was developed as day unto day uttered speech, and night unto night showed knowledge." (Ps. xix. 2, B. Vers.). Indeed it would be absurd to suppose that all the laws called Natural or Moral manifested themselves in man's heart at once. They would, at least the greater part of them would, have been unmeaning to him, antecedently to experience, and could only have dawned upon him as society expanded. There was nothing to provoke their violation. The ideas could not at first have suggested themselves of honoring parents, or abstaining from adultery, covetousness, theft, or false testimony, or even depriving of life, (for death had not entered into the world). On the same principle, I submit, Adam could not have understood a positive command to rest on the seventh day, before the cycle of days had begun, or labour had become laborious enough to necessitate repose. Instincts implanted by the Creator expanded as circumstances called them forth, into the recognition of what we call moral commandments; but no instinct whatever could, without express revelation, expand into the