Under the Christian dispensation, the seventh portion of time is still consecrated to God, the change of the day but adding a higher and holier lustre and sanction to the Sabbath than it ever possessed before, because it commemorates the resurrection of Him by whom Paradise is to be restored, and who has declared from His throne, “Behold, I make all things new.” His own example and that of His Apostles, as well as of the churches formed by them, and the honour put on “the Queen of days” (as Justin Martyr calls it), by the primitive Church, reminds us that the Lord’s-day claims _our_ homage, _our_ devout and holy observance, too; and that just in proportion as we hallow it, shall we “sanctify the Lord God in our hearts,” and conform our practice to the pristine model of all that is “pure, and lovely, and of good report,” as well as bring down upon our families and upon our country the blessing of Him who is the Governor of nations. No human government, no earthly ruler, therefore, can set aside, or abrogate, or modify the requirements of this law, so as to limit its sacred hours virtually to the half of the scriptural standard, without pouring contempt on the very statute-book of Heaven! It may be further said that, under the Gospel Dispensation, “the strictness of its observance is relaxed because capital punishment is not to be inflicted on its transgressors, as of old.” We reply that, in the instance cited, capital punishment was inflicted under a theocracy (by God Himself, as the IMMEDIATE GOVERNOR of Israel), and that this was an emblem of that sore and everlasting punishment—that death eternal, which will surely overtake the impenitent transgressors of the Sabbath. Again: the apologist for the relaxation of Sabbath observance may take shelter under the authority of the Apostle to the Gentiles, and plead that we are free to act as we please, because Paul says, “One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” But we reply, that this passage has special reference to the _feast days_, which some Jewish converts to Christianity thought binding, and others did not; and which the Apostle, in a catholic spirit, left to the discretion of each individual, as conscience might dictate. In the same spirit he says to the Colossians, “Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is Christ.” Now, the Sabbath days here mentioned as not imperatively binding were the _seventh-day_ Sabbaths, and not the _first day_ of the week, the Christian Sabbath, commemorative of the _New Creation_, when God the Son finished the work of Redemption, as God the Father on the seventh day ended the works which He had made.