It is disputed whether the weekly Sabbath is an essential part of what is generally called the Moral Law, which the Holy Ghost declares to be "spiritual--holy, and just, and good;" or whether it is to be classed among the ceremonial institutions, which were "a shadow of things to come." If the latter position can be established, it can be of no use whatever to perpetuate the Institution under the New Dispensation. It can neither be promotive of the spirituality and growth of the body of Christ, nor even conservative of the morals of the community. To suppose that the church cannot enjoy all necessary prosperity, and attain its millennial glory by the use of New Covenant ordinances alone, but must borrow a little help from the abrogated rites of the Old Economy, is most anti-evangelical. Gal. iii. 3. The church needs nothing for the nourishment of its piety, except such means as have the entire sanction of the "better covenant." Moses is dead, and the Lord has buried him. He cannot load us into the promised inheritance. We have only to follow our Joshua, even Jesus, "the Son who is consecrated forevermore." Nor can "the weak and beggarly elements" be of service to promote the morals of the community. Where do we find the most elevated and pure morality, that which is refined from all selfishness? We find it only in real Christians. The source, and life, and power of it is the Atonement of their Great High-Priest, and the grace which is by Him. Their obedience to all moral precepts is the obedience of _faith_, even faith in his sacrifice. In proportion as their faith is strong, and their dependence on Him entire, to the exclusion of all reliance upon their own merit, so is their moral conduct irreproachable. It is not by any resort to the "weak and unprofitable commandment," that their morality acquires such excellence. As for that inferior kind of morality, which obtains among unbelievers, however profitable it may be to human society, it is but the mimic representation of that which is practiced by the godly. For its very existence it is dependent on Christianity, from whose influence if it recede, it becomes withered and perishes. Transplanted to a heathen soil, it cannot live. As, therefore, the general morals of the community are traceable to the gospel as their first cause, and are kept in credit only by its nurturing influence, it would be at war with sound reason to suppose, that they could be promoted by such things as are destructive of the purity of the gospel itself. They will be much safer, if left wholly to the nurturing influence of that system, which is declared to be 'complete and faultless,--the power and the wisdom of God.' Wherefore, if the weekly Sabbath was a ceremonial Institution, we have no use for it, either as it respects the church, or the world. It is an injury rather than a benefit.