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was a certain man before him who had the dropsy, and Jesus said, it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? And they held their peace. And they could not answer him again to these things (Luke xiv. 1, 6).

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5. “After this, there was a feast of the Jews. Jesus saith unto him (an impotent man) 'Rise, take up thy bed and walk.' And immediately the man was made whole and took up his bed and walked And the same day was the Sabbath Day. The Jews therefore said unto him that was cured, 'It is the Sabbath Day; it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed.' He answered them, 'He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up .thy bed and walk.' Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath Day. But Jesus answered them, 'My Father worketh hitherto and I work.' Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God" (Jno. v. 1, 8-11, 16-18).

6. "If a man on the Sabbath Day receive circumcision that the law of Moses should not be broken, are ye angry at me because I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath" (Jno. vii. 23).

7. "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man that was blind from his birth. And he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, 'Go wash in the pool of Siloam' (which is by interpretation, sent). He went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing. And it was the Sabbath Day when Jesus made the

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clay and opened his eyes.
Therefore,' said some of the
Pharisees, this man is not of Gol, because he keepeth not the Sabbath
Day'" (Jno. ix. 1, 5, 14, 16).

There can be no mistaking the attitude on the Sabbath question illustrated by these passages from the life of Christ. There are no others of a contrary tenour. As for the apostles, they not only teach, as we have seen, that the law of Moses is "done away in Christ" (2 Cor. iii. 11-14), but they single out the Sabbath for special indication. Paul says to the Colossians, Christ having blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, "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, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ" (Col. ii. 16, 17). Paul's fear of the Galatians was founded on the fact that they "observed DAYS and months and times and years (Gal. iv. 10). He reminded them that Christ was "made

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under the law that he might redeem them that were under the law" (verses 4, 5), who before time were "under the elements" of that system (verse 3), but had now "received the adoption of sons," which made it an utterly incongruous thing in the eyes of Paul that they should "turn again to the weak and beggerly elements of the law. "Tell me," says he, "ye that desire to be under the law," and proceeded with the allegory of Sarah and Hagar (verses 9, 21). To the Romans he plainly says that the observance of days which was imperative under Moses is a matter of indifference to those who stand in Christ. "One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord. He that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it" (Rom. xiv. 5, 6).

It is evident, therefore, that those make a great mistake who speak of "the Christian Sabbath" in the sense of its being a day to be observed by believers in Christ as the seventh day was observed under Moses. In fact, there is no such thing in scriptural truth as "the Christian Sabbath." It is a misnomer, in so far as it may imply appointment by Christ. Christ appointed no Sabbath, and the Sabbath of Moses was the seventh and not the first day of the week. Christ appointed the assembly of his brethren to break bread in remembrance of him, and by apostolic usage, this assembly was held on the first day of the week, but this is a different thing from keeping the day holy as a day. On this we have no command, and “where there is no law, there is no transgression." The Sabbatarians, whether of the first or seventh day type, are seeking to impose a yoke where God has imposed none. True it is that "the law is good if a man use it lawfully" (1 Tim. i. 5), and that the cessation from secular work once in seven days is a good thing. A man is at liberty to do this if he choose, and to set the day apart for special exercises in a religious direction if he choose; but he has no authority to lay down an imperative law for himself or others where God has imposed none The only law laid upon believers in such a manner is to "forsake not the assembly of themselves together "; and apostolic example leads them to obey this law on the first day of the week, and to make the breaking of bread “in remembrance " of Christ the chief feature of it. The command to keep any particular day "holy" belongs to the law of Moses, which has been corruptly copied by State christianity and a false church. The abuse has been carried to such absurd lengths in the Greek and Latin communions that there is no part of the year's calendar that is not dotted over with so-called "holy" days. The Sabbath will be re-instituted in the "kingdom restored to Israel" along with the passover and other

feasts (Ezek. xlv. 17-21); but that will concern the mortal populations who have the privilege to be ruled by the saints. It does not concern either the one or the other now in this era of downtreading of all things divine. The only divine work that is going on now is the preparation of a people for the Lord's own use as fellow-rulers with him in the glory to be revealed; and their preparation is by the belief and obedience of the gospel and not by any of the institutions of Moses, which for the time being have all been taken out of the way.

The argument that finds warrant in Eden for an obligatory Sabbath (seventh day or first) has its full answer in the fact that the practice of Eden before sin had entered is no guide for these expatriated times. Any contention based on pre-Mosaic practice must apply also to the sacrifice of animals, for that is also an element in the antediluvian service. If the answer be made that sacrifice was superseded by the death of Christ, it has to be rejoined that the same is also true of the Sabbath; "the body (or substance) of which is of Christ," as Paul says in the words already quoted. We have the true Sabbath in Christ, who said "I will give you rest," or Sabbath. Under the law, a man laboured in his own works to establish his own righteousness with a sense of burden that was grievous to be borne, feeling it a yoke, as Peter says, which they were not able to bear (Acts xv. 10). The "strength of sin," as a destroyer, lay "in the law," as Paul testifies (1 Cor. xv. 56). It condemned sinners to death, and all were sinners, who "through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. ii. 14). But in Christ, their righteousness was by faith of him (Rou.. iii. 21-22) not their own righteousness, which was by the law, but the righteousness which was of God by faith (Phil iii. 9). Therefore all who entered Christ entered the true Sabbath keeping, in ceasing from their own works, as the ground of their hope towards God. The offered favour of God with forgiveness became the ground of their hope, and imparted peace and joy. This was the "rest" into which, in a preliminary form, Paul taught that believers entered. "He that is entered into his rest hath ceased from his own works as God did from His (on the seventh day) (Heb. iv. 10). It all has reference to the final Sabbath of the kingdom, the rest that remaineth for the people of God in the seventh period of a thousand years, when all the toil-w orn human race will cease from their vain efforts to work out their own blessedness, and accept in grateful humility the long-covenanted blessedness of Abraham and his seed which will come on all who yield to needful faith and submission.

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CHAPTER VII.-THE REST OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

E have lingered on the Fourth Commandment, because of its complexity in some respects, and the important bearing of its several elements. The remaining commandments are simpler, though not less important. With the exception of the fifth, they are all negatives, interdicts, forbiddings -- telling men what not to do. We discover on reflection how large a part of tolerable human conduct is determined by this. Man is capable of doing many things inconsistent with the well being of his fellow-man. He has more in his power in this respect than any of the animals. His very talents fit him to be more offensive than they; and the desire for his own advantage renders him liable to employ those talents in the hurt and destruction of all who stand in the way of the gratification of his desires. Hence, the very great importance of these interdicts, the observance of which constitute the difference between civilization and barbarism.

The excellent result of their observance is manifest to all, but the obligation to observe them is only feebly recognised, as the result of wrong views as to the nature of their obligation. Men imagine that because they are good rules of conduct, the obligation to submit to them arises from their intrinsic excellence, and not from the exterior authority prescribing them, whereas it will be found that the obligation to obey them rests on their authority, and not on their nature at all. Their authority arises from the fact that God has enacted them, and not from the character of the things enacted. The things enacted are good, but this is only a secondary phase.

Clear views are very essential here. Uncertain or fallacious views. are at the bottom of all the moral laxities undermining society everywhere. If a man imagine that he is only bound to obey laws that are agreeable to him, or that commend themselves to him, he will insensibly ignore the disagreeable laws and tolerate the agreeable ones if convenient. Obedience as the law of righteousness will be set aside, and the power of the commandments destroyed. Man in that case will be his own law-giver, with the sorry result that there will be no law. Human inclination will be the rule of action, which will draw all into a bog at last. "Thou shalt not " has no power, unless the speaker has authority to forbid.

And who has authority to prescribe limitations to the exer

cise of created power but the Creator Himself! When this authority is recognised, and God's authorship of the Commandments is admitted, the Commandments have great power.

We live in an age when it is considered a sign of intellectual weakness to accord this recognition, and when it is looked upon as the fitting part of old ladies and Sunday-school children only, to stand in fear of the Commandments of God. Let this be searched to the foundation, and it will be found that the intellectual weakness is on the other side.

The world is clever, but not half clever enough. If it were as knowing as it thinks it is, it would break through the glamours of sophistical philosophy, which its scribes and babblers have so industriously woven around its faculties for the last two hundred years, and stand forth in the clear-sighted perceptions of common-sense with the imperative resolution to walk wise and sensible ways on the common road, instead of lying in the ditch like a maudlin inebriate, apostrophising his superior qualities and sinking deeper in the mire.

The Fifth Commandment (" Honour thy father and thy mother") is the first commandment of the ten having to do with human affairs; and it is an injunction of the positive sort. It is not a prohibition. It is mentioned by Paul as "the first commandment with promise." Its position in these respects seems to mark it with a peculiar emphasis, -as if God set this commandment high among the indications of His will; as if it were said, "to not do the things condemned in the remaining commandments is good, but to do this which is commanded is better." And surely there is no more beautiful sight under the sun than to see intellectual children, young or old, doing honour to father and mother; and nothing uglier in the wickedness that now covers the earth than the habit of making light of parental authority, and of treating father and mother with disrespect. It was one of God's complaints against Israel that there were among them those that “made light of father and mother." It must be no less odious to Him to hear the universal flippancies in which father and mother are referred to among "Christianised " Gentiles, in terms the opposite of reverential or even decent.

Carlyle well said that the lack of reverence was one of the fatalest maladies of the present age. Public and private well-being withers for want of it. Instead of reverence, there is conceit and scorn and frivolity. The fountain of all reverences is reverence for God. What is to be done in an age that accounts reverence for God a superstition ? It cannot be cured by argument. It can only be fitly dealt with by those strokes of judgment which belong to the Second Coming of

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