For,

as a madman casteth firebrands, arrows, and death: so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?"

In conclusion, allow me to transcribe a passage from the Report of the London Missionary Society just published, which fully justifies the statements I have made.

"The operations of the Society in Jamaica were commenced in the year 1834. The Christian influence of Britain had then just accomplished the downfall of slavery. The legislature had, with another name, already given it a milder form, and decreed its early and entire abolition. The great body of the negro population in Jamaica, amounting to about 330,000, had, up to that period, remained in the grossest state of mental darkness and moral degradation,-the bitter fruits, the inseparable concomi tants, of slavery. The Christian missionaries already in the field had laboured nobly and successfully to accomplish both the temporal and everlasting freedom of the despised and the oppressed; but, though a gallant band, their numbers were too few and their strength too feeble, to meet the claims and answer the entreaties of emancipated thousands. The entire Christian community of our country felt that to the Negro there was due a debt,- the accumulated debt of many generations,—that the tenderest and most expansive charity was demanded for those who had suffered so long and so cruelly under the sanction of the British name. The Church Mission ary Society, the Presbyterian Missionary Society, and the London Missionary Society, as though moved with a common sympathy in the cause of righteousness and mercy, sent forth their messengers to sooth the lacerated spirits of our former slaves, and teach our fellow-freemen how to value and improve their newly granted liberty, A devoted company of Christian Evangelists from the churches of America, also, familiar with the horrors of slavery in their own country, and yet unable to remove the curse, sought in Jamaica a fair field for the activity of their zeal and affection for the negro race. Since that period, the number of our agents in Jamaica has risen from six to nineteen, including six native assistants; and the Directors are no less gratified in stating, that the missionaries of kindred Societies have, in like manner, increased in numbers and in usefulness. But, still, the labours of all Societies united are too few for the great work of civilizing, instructing, and evangelizing, the thousands on whom the debasing yoke of bondage rested from their youth."-p. 18.

AN EX-DIRECTOR.

THE MORAL OBLIGATION OF THE LORD'S DAY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CONGREGATIONAL MAGAZINE.

DEAR SIR,-Free discussion can never prove injurious to the truth, but must rather tend to promote its interests. For this reason, we should not be affrighted if a Christian brother occasionally advances notions which we are compelled to regard as altogether erroneous; for such notions will immediately excite discussion, and lead to a thorough sifting of the whole question or questions at issue, and thus truth will be elicited, and the minds of, perhaps, many, previously unsettled, or doubting, will be fixed immovably on a true foundation. When, there fore, any such notions, as those referred to, are advanced, instead of crying out heresy, or heterodoxy, or any such words, so well calcu

lated to excite the odium theologicum, we should rather set ourselves to examine, and fairly to expose the error, or candidly to admit the truth.

In the spirit of these observations, I wish to notice an able article, which has appeared in the May number of the Congregational Magazine, relating to the observance of the Sabbath, or Lord's-day, and designed to prove, that no such day has been appointed, or is morally binding, under the Christian dispensation. With the writer of that article, respecting the view he advances, I totally disagree. I confess that the mode of defending the moral obligation of the Lord's-day, too commonly adopted, is erroneous and inconclusive. The point has been frequently argued as if we were under the Mosaic law, and not the Christian dispensation. I agree with W. S., that the Jewish Sabbath has been abolished. "Let no man 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." Such is the injunction of Christianity, which injunction W. S. has fairly explained. The Jewish dispensation, we admit, has been abrogated; but the moral principles involved in that dispensation are indestructible and eternal. Incapable of being annulled, they are now as binding as ever. Whether the consecration of one day in the week to the service of God, call it Sabbath, or call it Lord's-day, or what you please, is one of these moral elements, remains to be inquired.

For the sake of order, I will adduce certain arguments in defence of the moral obligation of the Lord's-day, and, as I proceed, notice the objections and arguments of the respectable writer, to whom I have already referred-And,

First-The original institution of the Sabbath. It is thus recorded: God having finished all his work, "rested on the seventh day.... and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.”—Gen. ii. 2, 3. The Sabbath, then, was instituted from the beginning, and given to man-to man prior to his fall, as a day of sacred observation. It was given to our first parents, and, therefore, to none of their posterity exclusively, but to them all in common. Hence it is not Jewish; it is as much Gentile as Jewish; and therefore equally binding on all nations. The reason of its institution extends to all-God's resting from all his work. The purpose for which it was appointed, too, shows that it was to be observed by all. This purpose was, that it might be devoted to holy services. "God sanctified it." All nations need, and ought, to devote part of their time to the public worship of God; as, then, a seventh day was instituted by God for this purpose, its observance is binding upon all. The remark of W. S., that "the remoteness of its origin does not imply perpetuity," may be admitted as correct. But the time and circumstances, under which the Sabbath was instituted, are

such as to furnish a strong proof, that it is the duty of man to set apart a seventh portion of his time to the service of God. The illustration which W. S. employs, to confirm the above remark, is far from being conclusive. Sacrifice, although Divinely appointed immediately after the fall, was subsequently abolished," "for the satisfactory reason that the shadow gives place to the substance, and the type to the antitype." But let me ask W. S., of what was the Sabbath a type? He himself admits that it was a "type of that heavenly rest, or eternal felicity, which the Gospel insures." If so, then, as the antitype is still future, the type remains. As to sacrifice, it is of course abolished-Cesante ratione, cessat lex. The reason of sacrifice has ceased, and hence the law of sacrifice is no more. Is this true of the observance of a seventh portion of time to the Lord? If not, the law of this observance remains. Now, none can deny that the reason of a Sabbath, or Lord's-day, remains; and, therefore, the moral obligation of such a day must be admitted.

True, we admit the "impossibility of one and the same day being observed by all the inhabitants of the globe;" but this only serves to establish the point, that the religious observance of a seventh portion of time, irrespective of the particular day, is what the Lord requires. True, the Jews were bound to observe "one and the same" day, and this being incompatible with a dispensation designed to be universal, is what Christianity abolishes, and not the duty of the observance of some seventh portion of time to the Lord.

We do not agree with W. S., that the "Lord's-day" is a ceremonial institution, depending solely on the will of the legislator. It is not so. The sabbatic law is as truly moral as the fifth, sixth, or seventh command of the Decalogue. If a moral law be one which is binding antecedently to all command, then, I maintain the morality of the fourth commandment; because it must always be the duty of men to set apart a portion of their time to the social worship of God. The particular proportion thus to be set apart, they might not know; but this being intimated by God, as it has been, their duty is clear.

Secondly-I come now to the consideration of the fact of the observance of the Sabbath being enjoined in the fourth commandment of the Decalogue. If the Decalogue, or moral law, be universally binding, then must the Sabbath be of perpetual obligation; for it forms part of that law. It is united with the other nine precepts, of which the law consists. This is the position assigned it by God. If the other precepts are binding, so is this; if this may be transgressed, so may the rest. They stand or fall together.

Several circumstances combine to distinguish the precepts of the Decalogue from the ceremonial institutes of the Mosaic law. They were audibly uttered by God himself, amid the thunderings and lightnings of Mount Sinai-under circumstances of peculiar solemnity and

grandeur, "God spake all these words ;" and, to indicate their supreme importance and vast superiority above other laws, given about the same time-"added no more." This circumstance carries great weight with me, as to the perpetual obligation of the Decalogue, as distinguished from the other laws recorded in the book of Exodus. Other circumstances, also, are not without their significance, as bearing on this point.

ger

The "ten words" were written on tables of stone by the finger of God, and on the tables being broken, were written again by the finof the same Divine Being; and this "testimony" was afterwards, alone, of all the laws of Israel, deposited in the ark of the covenant. "The argument that these commands are perpetual, because they were engraven in stone," says Professor Stuart, "will not weigh much with any one, who knows that all important laws of ancient times were engraven on stone or metal, in order that they might be both a public and a lasting monument of what the legislative power required." But the learned professor overlooks the point of the argument deduced from the circumstance in question. The argument is not based simply on the fact of the Decalogue's having been engraven on stone; but on the fact that it was so engraven while none of the rest of the Jewish laws were; which fact, to our mind, conveys the idea of a permanency and perpetuity attaching to its precepts, which belonged to none others of the Jewish code.

But the respectable writer, W. S., says, "it is no inconsiderable error, to confound, as is too often done, the Decalogue with the moral law." I wish he had proved this, if proveable it be. To say that it is "limited," ""of an arbitrary character," and of " recent origin," is only to make gratuitous assertions. That it was the "basis" of the covenant made with the Jews at Sinai, and was then delivered formally to the assembled people, proves nothing as to its recent origin; or if urged to their full extent, in the direction W. S. urges them, these arguments will do more execution than he could wish. I assert that the Decalogue, however recent be the form in which it appears in the twentieth of Exodus, is not itself of recent origin. Is the first command recent ? had it no existence prior to the covenant made at Sinai? And so we may ask of the rest. But the Decalogue "exhibits throughout a special relation to their (the Jews') peculiar circumstances." To be sure it does. But its adaptation to their circumstances, while giving it a peculiar aspect, did not withdraw it from the respect and careful observCan we not distinguish between the command and the

ance of others.

costume it wears?

holds true of the fourth. What Professor Stuart says of the fifth command "While the obligation of the command is perpetual, because the reasons on which it rests are always the same, the form of the command itself is of a local, and, therefore, of a temporary, nature. When we are able to discern well the difference between

costume and person; between scaffolding and the building round which it stands; then, may we construe all passages of this nature, in the Old Testament, in a manner at once consistent and satisfactory.” Respecting the Sabbath, the eminent professor expresses his conviction, that it has existed from the creation, and that "religion cannot exist in the world without such a day." Further, he states, “I do not hold the Sabbath to be binding on Christians, merely because it is enjoined in one of the Ten Commandments; but because the necessity of it is found in the very nature of man, and of the relations which he sustains, and of the worship which he owes, to his Creator. And as these are the same in every age of the world, so the obligations resulting from them must be the same, and the law of the Sabbath, under every form of religion, must substantially remain." Again, respecting the whole Decalogue, he avers, "these commands are founded in the immutable relations and affections of human nature;" and on this he rests "the perpetuity of their obligation."

But W. S. would have it that Christ, in "his sermon on the mount, amended several of the Decalogue precepts, and inculcated higher principles of action." What is the meaning of this latter clause! Christ inculcated higher principles of action. I had conceived that a law is one thing, and a principle of action altogether a different. However, let that pass. W. S. says that our Lord “amended several of the Decalogue precepts." But, we ask, did he repeal any? If so, which? Not one word of repeal does he utter. If he explained and carried out to their full extent some of the "Decalogue precepts," this only serves to confirm us in our views of the perpetuity of the obligation of the Decalogue precepts. The sermon on the mount is, I believe, very much misunderstood. It does, indeed, set aside several perverse Jewish glosses, but however it may explain Decalogue laws, it abrogates none.

But Paul, it appears, "substitutes for the Mosaic prohibitions the Christian law of love." So W. So W. S. says. We deny it. There is no substitution attempted by Paul in the passage of his writings to which reference is made. It is quite the reverse. The apostle enforces his exhortation to "love one another" by an appeal to the law. "Love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." For this, "thou shalt not," &c. all "is briefly comprehended in this saying, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Thus, the Decalogue, instead of being set aside by Paul, is referred to as possessed of authority, and binding the consciences of Christians.

While on this point, I shall briefly refer to several other Scriptures, all of which conspire to show, that the Decalogue, instead of being "made void," is established by the Gospel scheme. I shall merely quote the passages, and leave them to speak for themselves. "Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honour thy