statement of the Apostle. In both cases, we apprehend, it was not the observance that was condemned, nor the obligation that was denied; but the reproof was levelled at the motives and the state of mind by which the observance was attended. An antinomian spirit was condemned by the Prophet—a self-righteous spirit by the Apostle. The absence of a formal abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath, and the formal substitution of the Christian Sabbath in its place, is in perfect accordance with the whole plan of divine providence, for the introduction and establishment of Christianity in the world. The religion of Moses was never formally abolished. Our Lord lived and died in it; and his Apostles and the early Jewish disciples occasionally at least observed its rites, and still worshiped at the temple and in the synagogue. Both religions were from God. Both had the same end. The same truths and the same spirit were essential to both. The shadows of the one gave place to the substance of the other. But in all that was vital, moral, saving, the two religions were identical. “He was not a Jew who was one outwardly, and circumcision was that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter.” In like manner we conceive, what was purely and necessarily Jewish in the observance of the Sabbath, passed away with the mere externals of Judaism; but all that was essential to the spirit of the command remained in full force. But it is asked, if the observance of the Sabbath be of divine and perpetual obligation, why have Christians changed the day, and why do they not keep the Sabbath in the manner enjoined in the Old Testament? We reply, that the lawgiver, the “Lord of the Sabbath,” has by his own acts, declarations, and example, and by the example of his inspired Apostles, sanctioned both the change of the day, and the alteration in the manner of its observance. Christianity was not to be confined to one country, nor was it necessarily to be a national religion. It was to overspread the world, and was to be suited to all countries and climes. It was therefore necessary that whatever was merely local and national in the observance of the Sabbath, should be relaxed or removed; and this might be done, and was done, without either touching the moral obligation of the law, or taking from its observance a particle of what is vital and essential. {16} Our Lord did not abrogate the seventh commandment when he declared, that the unchaste look was a breach of it. Neither did he set aside the fourth commandment, when he worked miracles of mercy on the Sabbath day; when he defended his disciples who were blamed for plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath day; when he declared it was “lawful to do good on the Sabbath day.” And if the seventh day had hitherto been kept as a sign between God the Creator and his creature man, and as a memorial of creating goodness; surely there was great propriety in changing the