ten commandments; of which the injunction to keep the Sabbathday holy, is one. This distinction is seen in the origin of the ten commandments, and in the manner in which they are recognised in the New Testament, as well as in their intrinsic value. The greater part of the Mosaic law consists of ceremonial observances, transitory in their nature, and manifestly designed to pass away; the ten commandments make a part of fixed and unchangeable truth, destined to survive to the end of time, and to perish only when all things else shall perish. It is in vain to attempt to separate, as has sometimes been done, the commandment respecting the Sabbath from the other nine, promulgated, as it was, under like circumstances with them, and recognised by the same authority. * The origin of the commandments is worthy of their importance, in the code of eternal truth. The circumstances were of the most imposing kind. The Hebrews, just rescued by the arm of Omnipotence from an oppressive servitude, were encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai; they had been led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and their subsistence in the midst of a dreary desert had been miraculous. Three days' notice was given by Moses, that "the Lord would come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai "; and in the mean time, they were required specially to sanctify themselves. On the morning of the third day, there was a thick cloud upon the mountain, with thunders and lightnings; and the Lord descended upon Mount Sinai in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. The majestic scene was heightened, too, by the declaration, that, if either man or beast presumed to touch the mount, thus sanctified by the presence of the Almighty, he should surely be put to death. Then, amid thunders and lightnings and smoke, the ten commandments were proclaimed by the voice of the Almighty. The material, moreover, on which the ten commandments were written, the immediate author (God himself) of the writing, and the means used to preserve them, were worthy of the sacred Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, p. 262. and sublime scene in which they originated, and serve further to distinguish them from the ordinary laws of the Mosaic code, which were communicated without any remarkable circumstances attending them. Moses ascended the mountain, and the ten commandments were delivered to him, written upon two tables of stone, by the finger of the Almighty. When these tables had been broken, the writing was renewed upon new tables by the same Almighty hand. For their preservation, an ark was made by divine direction, of immense value,* covered inside and outside with gold. The lid, denominated the mercy-seat, was of gold, upon which were placed two golden cherubims, overshadowing it with their wings. By divine command, an apartment, lined with gold, was set apart in the tabernacle to receive the ark, and was named the Holy of Holies. A similar apartment was appropriated to the same purpose in the temple, and of unexampled magnificence. Five hundred years after the ark was made, it was removed into the temple, and it then contained, as we are informed, nothing but the two original tables of stone; and these tables probably remained four hundred years more, when the temple was destroyed. † Besides these circumstances, so manifestly distinguishing the ten commandments from the body of the Mosaic laws, others still may be noticed. Most of the Jewish laws were suited exclusively to the people to whom they were given, and are wholly unsuited to other nations and countries; but every one of the ten commandments may be observed by every nation upon the face of the earth. Most of the precepts of the Mosaic code, too, are of a ceremonial, and not of a moral kind, — they do not pertain at all to morals; but the commands of the Decalogue are directly conducive to the peace, purity, and happiness of all who respect them; and a general obedience to several of them is indispensable to the very existence of civil society. The tendency and effect, also, of the Mosaic law, was to keep the Hebrews distinct from all other nations, and these ten commandments were of course binding on them as a part of their law; yet not one of *Prideaux says, at the expense of £4,320,000 sterling. them belonged to that system of positive precepts, which were designed to draw a line between them and the rest of mankind, nor to that system of types and shadows, which anticipated the coming of the Messiah. Moreover, into the chamber which contained the ark made to preserve the two tables of stone, no one but the high priest was permitted to enter, and he only once a year, for the purpose of sprinkling blood upon the mercy-seat. On the supposition, that the ten commandments were only an ordinary part of the Mosaic law, it is not easy to understand the significancy of this rite, since sacrifices were offered morning and evening for the sins of the Jewish people. But when we consider the ten commandments as constituting the moral law of Jehovah, binding upon all the descendants of Adam during all time, and broken by them all, we at once perceive, in the blood sprinkled upon the mercyseat, an emphatic type of that blood, which was afterwards shed for the sins of the whole world. When, therefore, we consider that the commandments, after having been proclaimed by the voice of God himself, under circumstances of unparalleled awe and grandeur, were twice engraven by his finger upon tables of stone, that these tables were, by divine command, placed in a costly ark, and that deposited in a magnificent chamber constructed for the express purpose of receiving it, that these tables were perpetually overshadowed by a miraculous emblem of the divine that the commandments are suited presence, equally to all ages, nations, and conditions, and are preeminently conducive to the universal welfare of mankind; the conclusion cannot well be resisted, that they are all, (of which the command respecting the Sabbath is one,) of perpetual obligation, and that "the Sabbath was thus made for MAN UNIVERSALLY.* Let us -- see, if they are not, in like manner, recognised as of perpetual obligation in the New Testament. In his sermon on the Mount, our Saviour used this decisive language;- "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For, verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one * Mark ii. 27. tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he 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." Now it can scarcely admit of doubt, that the law here referred to, which was to stand fast for ever, is the law of the ten commandments; and, if so, the perpetual obligation of the Sabbath is fully established. It is incredible, that the strong language of our Saviour was intended to refer to the ceremonial law, called by St. Paul "the yoke of bondage," and in regard to the passing away of which, he exhorts Christians to "stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made them free." Besides, as if to show, that the law and commandments of which he was speaking, were distinct from the ceremonial law, he proceeded to assure his audience, that, unless their righteousness exceeded that of the Scribes and Pharisees, who were extremely exact in their observance of the Jewish ritual, (the ceremonial law,) they should in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven; and it merits notice, that, throughout the whole sermon, our Saviour dwells on the importance of the moral virtues, and comments upon several precepts of the Decalogue, but in no instance touches upon the obligation of the ceremonial law. If we understand him, therefore, as referring to the moral law, every difficulty and apparent contradiction immediately vanishes. Far from abolishing this law, he fulfilled it by his own perfect obedience; and his assertions respecting its continued obligation are in entire consistency with the doctrines of his own inspired apostles. The law, therefore, which was to be perpetual, and of which not one of the least commandments might be violated by any man with impunity, was no other than the Decalogue, that law which was uttered by the voice, and written by the finger of God, over which the symbol of the divine presence had rested for ages in the Holy of Holies. If this argument is supposed to need confirmation, it may be found by consulting those passages of the New Testament, in which the ten commandments are referred to as being still in force.* In all these various recognitions of the continued obligation of the ten commandments under the Christian dispensation, no intimation is given that the fourth, pertaining to the Sabbath, is less binding than either of the other nine. Finally, Christ himself vindicated the Sabbath from the traditional superstition of the Pharisees, explained its nature, and showed, that, as it was designed for the benefit of mankind, it did not prohibit works of necessity and mercy. The divine origin and perpetual obligation of the Sabbath, then, do not seem to admit of further question. And this conclusion, moreover, gives us to understand why no positive command to keep the Sabbath holy, is found in the New Testament. Such a command would have been superfluous.‡ The institution of the Sabbath consists of two parts; - the rest which it enjoins on one day out of every seven, - and the particular day of the seven which shall be appropriated to this sacred rest. The former is the essential part of the institution; the latter, if not incidental, is manifestly less important, certainly not essential. The former has never been changed; the latter, from commemorating the finishing of the creation, has been changed to the day commemorative of the resurrection of the Saviour, the closing scene in the work of man's redemption, and the pledge and earnest of our own resurrection.§ The Sabbath was made for man universally ;-Christ declared himself to be "Lord of the Sabbath"; that is, he claimed authority over the day. A change in the day is no more than a change in the order of the successive days; the original day of the Sabbath was commemorative of the finishing of creation; the Christian Sabbath (Sunday)|| is commemorative of a still * Mark x. 19; Luke xviii. 20; Rom. xiii. 9; Eph. vi. 2; James ii. 10, 11. See Mark ii. 23-28; Luke xiii. 15; xiv. 5. The argumentative part of this chapter is very much indebted to a Prize Essay, written by William Jay, Esq., and printed at Albany, in 1827. § 1 Cor. xv. 12-17. The day specially devoted throughout Christendom to rest, devotion, and moral and religious improvement, is known by several names among Christians, -as the Lord's day (dies Dominica), the first day of the week, the Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath, and Sunday. I have determined to make use of the last of these names, in this treatise, to designate the day, for the following reasons. |