day longer, rather than attempt a cure on that sacred rest : but they allowed circumcision to be performed on the same day, in order to uphold their exclusive boast as the favoured people of God. Do we wonder, then, that our blessed Lord healed on the Sabbath-day-do we wonder that he selected chronical complaints as the object of his compassion-do we wonder that he bid the impotent man to take home his humble bed-do we wonder that he made clay and anointed the eyes of the blind? These actions were designed to sweep away the very traditions which perverted the true design, and encumbered the real duties of the Sabbath.

In all this our Lord made NO ALTERATION IN THE MOSAIC LAW, he relaxed no part of the divine commandment, he repealed no particle of the ceremonial usages, (this belonged to the apostolic day,) it was not the Christian but the Jewish Sabbath which he vindicated, and brought back to its original design, by showing that works of necessity and charity were entirely consistent with the letter as well as spirit of the fourth commandment, as well as with the ceremonial and judicial statutes of Moses.

Indeed all our Lord's REASONINGS SUPPOSE THE CONTINUANCE OF THE DAY OF REST IN ITS ESSENTIAL

MORAL OBLIGATION UPON MAN. The idea of a worshipper of God without a Sabbath, never entered the mind of Jew or Christian in any age-much less that of our Saviour. Why regulate, why amend, why modify the false usages, if all was about to be abrogated? Why contend so warmly against the inventions of the traditionary masters? Why lay down distinctions between what is lawful and what is unlawful to be done? Why determine that works of mercy and charity are allowable, thus implicitly prohibiting all other works? Why not silence the Pharisees by declaring that the Sabbath was a merely temporary observance, about to vanish before

I Mark the expression, “Wherefore it is LAWFUL to do well (to heal the sick and similar acts) on the Sabbath-day."--Matt. xii. 12.

the permanent law of the gospel? When our Lord, therefore, instead of all this, defends himself and his disciples by a mode of argument in which the permanence of the Sabbath is assumed, we conclude that he meant to teach that the moral obligation of it remained, and would remain under the gospel age.

It is thus he EXPLAINED AND VINDICATED OTHER COMMANDS, taking for granted the validity of the commands themselves, and adding his authoritative expositions. Who ever thought that his extension and new application of several precepts of the moral law, in the sermon on the Mount, was intended to weaken the force of the original commands? Who ever imagined that when the traditions concerning the fifth precept were exposed, and the pretence of " Corban" swept sway, that one iota of the law itself was removed?

And all this receives confirmation from our Lord's SUPPOSING THE CONTINUANCE OF THE SABBATH, at a period when all real obligation to a Jewish institution would long have ceased. In foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem, and directing the flight of his disciples (not the Jews generally-but his disciples-Christians -and this in a private and confidential conference, and applying to a calamity nearly forty years distant, when the ceremonial and civil law of the Jews would long have been publicly abrogated by the mission of his apostles) he bids them to pray, "That their flight be not in the winter, NOR ON THE SABBATH-DAY;" as these two impediments, the one from the nature of the season, the other from the obligation of the fourth commandment, would obstruct their escape. The observation cannot be expounded of any superstitious fears of violating a ceremonial or Mosaical precept, or even the tradition of the elders; because flight under eininent peril was allowed by the Pharisaic traditions. The argument, therefore, is unanswerable.

But how did THE INSPIRED APOSTLES UNDERSTAND their Master's doctrine? What was their conduct immediately upon the descent of the Spirit, and in the interval between the abrogation of the ceremonial law and

the change of the day of rest, from the seventh to the first of the week? Did they, or did they not, honour the Sabbath? A very few words will suffice on this point because no one ventures to deny that their devout observation of the Jewish rest extended even beyond the time when the Christian Sabbath (as we shall prove in our next discourse) superseded it. They were so far from neglecting the Sabbath, that they kept for a period, in order to conciliate the Jews, both the Mosaical and Christian. I speak not of the holy women, who, embued with their Lord's doctrine, and guided by his conduct, hesitated not a moment to "rest the Sabbath-day ACCORDING TO THE COMMANDMENT;" eager as they were to provide spices and ointments for his body. I dwell not upon the notice of the sacred day, which occurs naturally and without effort, in the Acts of the Apostles, even where the Jews are not concerned: “And the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached unto them the next Sabbath. And the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God."2 Nor will I do more than refer to the apostle's habit, copied from that of his divine Lord, of sanctifying this most ancient of institutions: "and Paul, AS HIS MANNER WAS, went in unto them, and three Sabbathdays reasoned with them out of the Scriptures." "And he reasoned in the synagogue EVERY SABBATH."

So contrary to the truth of the case is it, to suppose that our Lord and his apostles abrogated the law of the Sabbath-THEY DID NOT EVEN RELAX IT. It wanted no relaxation. Like every other, the fourth commandment was "holy, just, and good." It contained in itself all that principle of suspension in cases of real necessity, which the mercy of the Almighty from the first intended, and which the tenor of the precept was meant to include. Not even the ceremonial and temporary appendages of the Mosaical economy were violated by our Lord. All his conduct exalted and honoured the day of his heavenly Father, and vindicated it from the false glosses of the

1 Luke xxiii. 9.

2 Acts xiii. 42-45.

masters, which, injurious as they were to the Jewish religion, would have " eaten as doth a cancer" into the Christian-and, in fact, would have been a fatal obstruction to its universal propagation.

To relax, indeed, any one of the moral and essential rules of human duty, would have been the very thing which OUR LORD MOST POINTEDLY CONDEMNED in his sermon on the Mount-it would have been a curse, not a blessing, to man. The moral law is in all its parts a transcript of the divine goodness, and the materials of human happiness. What man wants is, not an alteration of the moral law of his Maker, but pardon, grace, salvation-motive and strength to love God and to keep his commandments, and more particularly that which is rather a boon and gift than a precept-which was MADE FOR MAN; and which, when cleared by the Lord of the Sabbath from the austerities which perverted all its designs, is set forth in his kingdom in more than its original dignity and glory.

III. We proceed, then, to our next point, which is indeed implied in what we have already proved-That nothing is abrogated under the Christian dispensation with respect to the Sabbath, but THOSE TEMPORARY AND

FIGURATIVE ENACTMENTS WHICH CONSTITUTED THE PECULIARITIES OF THE JEWISH AGE.

For that these are abrogated it is important for us to remember. We maintain not now the Jewish Sabbath, nor the Mosaic Sabbath, nor the ceremonial Sabbath. Here we request a particular attention. It is a misconception almost constantly made. The moment we defend the original institution of the Sabbath as enacted in paradise, or its perpetuity and authority as a part of the moral law, we are suspected of leaning towards the Jewish Sabbath. And when we go on to show that our Lord never violated the Mosaic enactments, but honoured them in his whole ministry, and left the Sabbath in its full force, we are condemned at once as bringing in again the abrogated ceremonies. We assert, then, just as strongly, that the Jewish Sabbath is abolished, as we maintain that the

primitive and patriarchal is restored and reanimated with the peculiar grace and motives of the Christian dispensation. The moral, essential law of the day of rest remains, nay is increased in obligation, like every other precept of the decalogue; the ceremonial and judicial superadditions have passed away with the temporary dispensation which gave them birth.

Our argument from the example and doctrine of our Lord went, indeed, to prove, not only that he recognized the moral law of the fourth commandment, but that he also honoured its Mosaical ceremonies, because he was 66 a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God." What we now assert is, that after the resurrection of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, the gospel-dayburst upon the world, and dissipated" the shadows" of the Jewish law-that the Mosaic covenant" decayed and waxed old, and vanished away," and that the evangelical covenant took its place—and that all that part of the sabbatical observances, which was temporary and figurative, and dependent on the Jewish theocracy, was carried away; and nothing left but the primary essential law of one day's religious rest, after six days' labour, as first promulgated in paradise, as re-established and reduced to a written precept in the moral law, and as explained and vindicated from Pharisaical impositions by our gracious Redeemer. We have now a better covenant, a nobler mediator, a more glorious high-priest, a more free and unembarrassed way of access, a richer sacrifice; other altar, temple, worship, and sacraments; and a new and simpler sanctification of the Sabbath, as the season allotted for all these duties. The introductory dispensation is taken out of the way, the scaffolding removed, the emblems abrogated; and the last dispensation, the spiritual building, and perfect atonement, are come.

The Jewish Sabbath is no more in force SINCE, than it was BEFORE, the Mosaical economy. The double sacrifices, and indeed all sacrifices, of animals; the shewbread; the holy vestments; the Levitical priesthood itself; the civil and judicial statutes; the signs and badges of a national covenant; the ceremonial ablutions; the