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is right, solely because it is commanded, appears to us most presumptuous, and almost amounts to saying, that the command is itself unreasonable or arbitrary. True, the rites and institutes of the Levitical law were right, because ordained by Divine authority, which was a sufficient reason for observing them; but even those positive, temporary, and emblematic ordinances were related to laws eternal and immutable, and were not commanded without a reason, or without reference to an ulterior purpose. the Divine legislation, what is positive, always rests upon what is moral; and to oppose positive laws to moral obligations, is to oppose particulars to generals, circumstantials to essentials. We grant the distinction, but reject both the terms of the proposition, and its application, as grossly fallacious.

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What the Writer means by one portion of time's being more holy in its nature than another, we must leave him to explain. He is very fond of the phrase, the nature of things'; and if there are any individuals who adopt the foolish imagination he speaks of, it must be philosophers of his own school, or such as, with Philo the Jew, dream that God chose the seventh day out of regard to the power and virtue attaching to the mystic number seven. In attributing so extraordinary a dogma to those who contend for the moral nature of the duty enjoined by the law of the Sabbath, he is chargeable either with an unaccountable misapprehension or a most unworthy artifice. With as much propriety he might deny the moral nature of the second commandment; and adopting Jeremy Bentham's exposition of it, as a law against sculpture, painting, and engraving,-an exposition quite worthy of ranking with the present Writer's interpretation of the fourth, -sneer at those who can acquiesce in the extraordinary dogma, that there is any thing criminal, in the nature of things, in sculpturing graven images. To deny that the Fourth Commandment is one of the laws founded upon the principles of the love of 'God and our neighbour', is to deny to the Decalogue as a whole, the character and interpretation assigned to it by Our Lord himself, and to reject, in wilful perversion of the text, the inspired

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We have elsewhere cited the admission of Heylin, that the Fourth Commandment is moral as to the duty', inasmuch as there must be a time appointed for the service of God'; and as moral, placed among the Ten Commandments, extending to 'all mankind'. Mr. Gurney justly describes it as rendering 'the regular worship of God practicable, by breaking the train ' of our temporal pursuits, and by setting apart one day in seven 'for this express purpose. That with Christian men every day ought to be as a sabbath-day', may be understood in a good sense; but taken literally, the assertion is both false in itself, and a cruel mockery of the hard condition of the children of toil.

VOL. VII.-N.S.

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Yes, the monk in the cloister, the philosopher in his closet, the religious mystic, or the wealthy devotee may, if they please, keep sabbath every day. But go tell the working man,-the poor pallid inmates of the stifling manufactory,-the negro in the plantations, that with them every day ought to be as a sabbath. Go and tell them, that the law of mercy which says, "Six days shalt thou labour, but on the seventh thou shalt rest", is repealed,— repealed by the compassionate Saviour of the world;-that it belonged exclusively to a dispensation of rigour and severity, and was a figure only of their present happy condition of perpetual rest and blessedness under the Christian dispensation. Go and tell them, that to rob the master of a shilling, is forbidden by the eighth commandment: that is still in force. But for the master to rob the slave of the rest God has ordained for him,-of the day which is as much his property as the land is the property of the owner, is no longer a crime, no longer involves any moral wrong, because the commandment which forbids this, is no longer in force. And let the precious reason be added: the law which forbade one description of robbery was a moral law; the law which forbade the other description was a positive law: the law which protects the master was moral; the law which protects the servant is positive, and has nothing to do with moral obligation: the law which guards property is moral; the law which provides a time for the worship of God, and lets in the consolations of religion to the children of toil and oppression, is positive-figurative -purely Levitical, binding only in the apprehension of weak and timid minds; and to enforce this obligation would be an 'odious interference with the rights of private conscience.'

'Moral precepts,' according to Bishop Butler, are those the reasons of which we see: positive precepts are those the reasons of which we do not see. Moral duties arise out of the nature of the case itself; positive duties from external commands.' Will any one pretend to say, that the reasons of the Fourth Commandment are not to be seen, when the expediency of such an institution, as conducive to the well-being of society, is admitted even by those who deny the moral nature of the law? Is not the nature of the case plain enough, that, but for the Sabbath, there would be for the greater portion of mankind no opportunity for religion? Dr. Burder, after citing Bishop Butler's definition, justly remarks, that the claim of the Fourth Commandment to the character of a moral precept cannot be invalidated by the circumstance, that there is superadded to its moral requirements a positive direction, simply because that positive direction was necessary to guide the act of obedience to the morality of the precept.' The positive regulation is simply intended to enable us to secure the right proportion of time for the purpose required, and to facilitate the arrangements necessary for public

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'as well as private worship, so that we may render simultaneous obedience to the holy precept.' (Four Lectures, &c. pp. 48, 49.) Dr. Wardlaw has some very judicious observations bearing upon the same point. He commences them by remarking, that even on the supposition of its being entirely positive, the conclusion against the permanence of the law would be too hasty.'

If, indeed, it could be proved, that it belonged to the positive institutions peculiar to the Mosaic economy, it might not be so easy to evade the inference. But from the mere admission of its positive nature, the inference is not legitimate. That it may be abrogated, is a fair deduction: that it must, is more than the admission warrants. The question comes to be one of fact. Has it been divinely instituted? and if it has, has it been divinely repealed? Persons are apt to fancy, that, in order to prove an ancient Institution not to be binding, they have nothing to do but to shew it to be of what they call a positive nature. But this is obviously a mistake. An observance which can plead the positive enactments of divine authority, is as really of moral obligation, so long as it continues unrepealed, as if it were one of the eternal and universal principles of right and wrong. Who will presume to interpose his authority, to set aside what the will of Deity has enacted? No will but his own can abrogate his own institutions. In the case of the institutions of the Mosaic ceremonial, we have his revealed will for their abrogation as well as for their observance. We know from himself, that their use was partial and transient. But we distinctly deny, and have endeavoured formerly to assign good reason for the denial, that the Sabbath was at all one of the peculiarities of that dispensation. And if we have succeeded in making good our point, that it had its origin at creation,- we have, on Dr. Paley's own admission, equally succeeded in settling the question of its universal and permanent obligation. Let its nature be what you will-moral, or positive, or mixed, it is a divine institution; a divine institution, not for the Jews alone, but for mankind; and for mankind, not during a limited period only, but to all generations. The question, therefore, of its moral or positive nature, is not a question of which the settlement is indispensable to our argument respecting its permanence: -for, although the establishment of its moral character might, on the one hand, infer its perpetuity, the proof of its being entirely positive, would not, on the other, infer its cessation.

But it will not, surely, be disputed, that the worship of God, and the cultivation of the principles of piety, are duties of a moral nature. What duties can be more so? They belong to the first and highest of all our moral relations,-that in which we stand to our Creator. There is no denying this. The prescribed exercises and avowed ends of the institution are, in the very highest sense of the term, moral. But if the worship of God, or the expression of those sentiments and affections towards him which constitute inward devotion, be an incumbent moral duty, it is a duty, for the efficient fulfilment of which some stated seasons are of obvious utility. If, indeed, there is to be such a thing at all as social worship, in which men jointly recognise their common origin and dependence, and their obli

gations to their one Maker and Benefactor, and thus cherish, on the highest ground, their mutual feelings of unity and love,-utility becomes too feeble a term; such stated seasons being evidently of imperious necessity. And the universal practice of mankind, even under the corruptest forms of false religion, seems to ascertain such social worship to be a dictate, either of the law of nature, or of original and traditionary revelation. If devoting a portion of our time to such purposes as the Sabbath is designed to promote, be a moral duty; then does it not, naturally and properly, belong to God to determine and fix the proportion? Wardlaw, pp. 76-79.

It has been the usual fault of divines, in expounding the Fourth Commandment, to dwell almost exclusively on the personal duty of observing the day religiously, and to say little or nothing of the relative duty of letting those dependent upon us rest as well as ourselves; by which means the Institution has been invested with a character of repulsive severity utterly foreign from its primary character. Nay, so completely has its true spirit been sometimes overlooked, that theologians have talked of the duty incumbent upon masters to command their servants to cease from labour, to compel them to rest on the Sabbath *; as if the blessed boon of the Creator required to be forced upon the labourer's acceptance! It is true, that the poor have been too ready to sell the Sabbath for a trifling gain; and that many seem to prefer any drudgery to the worship of their Creator. But with regard to the millions who toil at the pleasure of others, do they require to be forbidden to work when the respite is allowed them? Just as much as the ox needs be forbidden to drag the plough, and the ass to take up his burden on the Sabbath. The very reason given on the repetition of the law,-" Remember thou wast a slave in the land of Egypt" (Deut. v. 15.), ought to have precluded this most unhappy misapprehension of the character of the law, which so preposterously converts a prohibition to exact work and labour from others, into a mere personal restriction, or a command intended to bind all persons to certain observances! To whom is the law addressed, Thou shalt do thereon no manner of work? To the servant or the labourer? No, but to his master, -to him who works by other hands than his own,-to the farmer, the land-holder, the capitalist, the manufacturer, and the man of wealth, the interdict is addressed, which says, Thou shalt do no

Thus, even the admirable Leighton mis-expounds the commandment. As each one is obliged personally, so, they who have com'mand of others, are bound to bind them to observance of the precept, and the cattle to rest! Nothing is said of not exacting labour from others! The law of mercy is exhibited as only a law of severity, not loosing the servant and the labourer from toil, but binding him with undefined restrictions.

work or business. Can there be any meaning in this, if it does not imply that they shall not command or require any servile labour on the sabbath; that they shall not let their work proceed; that they shall allow a respite to their meanest dependents, and even the very cattle?

It is only in this point of view, on the one hand, that the law of the Sabbath can be enforced by political authority; but on the other hand, viewed in this light, the duty of enforcing it becomes imperative. We are very happy to find Dr. Wardlaw announcing the following sentiments on the political obligation of the Sabbath, as those which he has long held.

It does not seem enough to say, that it is merely competent to human legislatures, to enact the cessation from labour on the seventh day;-the law of God, we apprehend, makes it incumbent upon them to do so. The law of the Sabbath, we have seen, was an original law of the Creator,-a law for mankind,-known from the beginning, and indicated by universal, though, in most cases, very obscure tradition. In conformity with such tradition, it comes out afresh in divine revelation, by which the primary institute was re-enacted. By this institute, there are allotted to men, six days of labour, and one of rest, in regular alternation. This day of rest, then, belongs to every man, by the law of God. It is property, -property to which there is a divinely guarantied title. No one man has a right to demand it of another. To exact labour on the day of rest, is as felonious a trespass against the law of God, as the abstraction, whether furtive or violent, of another man's worldly substance. The fourth commandment secures property in time, as really as the eighth commandment secures property in money or lands. The rest of the seventh day is the birthright possession of every human being. God has given it; and man may not take it away. When masters of servants, and owners of slaves, speak of allowing their servants and their slaves the Sunday to themselves, they speak the language of presumption. They cannot allow what they have no title to withhold. That time is not theirs. It belongs, by divine, and therefore inalienable prescription, to their dependents. It is very true, that the time thus appropriated to man, each individual is, by the same law that appropriates it, bound to keep holy to God; using it, in accordance with the divine intention, for the purposes of devout commemoration of His doings, and the ascription of homage to His name. But this is the individual's own concern. He sins against God, and wrongs his own soul, when he fails so to employ it, or alienates it to other occupations; but for this he is responsible, not to fellow-creatures, but to his Creator. His not using the day aright, no more entitles another to exact his labour on it, than a man's not " honouring the Lord with his substance and with the first-fruits of all his increase," warrants another to rob him of his property. We must answer to God for the use of our substance; but still it is our own:-we must answer to God for the use of our sabbatical time; but it is equally our own. Every man who knows that the Most High God has given such a law, has a right to claim this time; and no other man can exact it of him without felony against the statutes

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