ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



JusTiN Marttb. Erasmus. Caltin's comment. Whatelt's summary. 



Israel' s repose from the bondage of Egypt (^Deut. v. 15), so 

 spiritually it foreshadowed IsraeFs repose from the bondage 

 of Sinai {Gal. v. 1). How far this presumption is weakened, 

 or illustrated, by coUateral Scripture testimonies will presently 

 appear. 



Says JusTiN the Martyr, in his reply to the charge of the 

 Jew Trypho, that the Christians had abolished the Sabbath — 

 " Instead of wasting a day in idleness and calling it religion, 

 this new law will have you keep aperpetual Sahhath." (Dia- 

 log. F. i.) 



The learned Erasmus in the same spirit remarks that " they 

 that stick unto the Son of man (who is Lord of the whole law, 

 and teacheth how all things which were figured by the cor- 

 poral ' shadows' ought to be observed after a spiritual sense 

 and meaning), are free, and clean discharged in conscience 

 from any longer observing of such Jewish ceremonies/' 

 (^Pa7'aplira8e on Mark ii.) 



Calvin, in his celebrated " Institutes," commenting on the 

 fourth commandment, holds the following language : " He 



[Christ] is the true /^T/j^mew^ of the Sabbath 



This is kept, not hy one day, but by the whole course of our 

 life, till, being wholly dead to ourselves, we be filled with the 

 life of God. Far away from Christians, therefore, should be 

 the superstitious observance of days. . . . Let us sum 

 up the whole in the following manner : as the truth was deli- 

 vered to the Jews under afigure, so it is given to us without 

 any shadow ] first, in order that during our whole life we 

 should meditate on a perpetual rest from our own works," &c. 

 {Instit. B. II. chap. viii. sees. 31, 32.) 



"Numerous early Christian Fathers" (says Archbishop 

 Whately), ^'in their commentaries on the Decalogue, de- 

 scribe the Jewish Sabbath as corresponding, in the analogous 

 scheme of Christianity, not so much to the Lord's day as to 

 the whole life of the Christian, to his abstinence from all 

 works that nmy draw ofi" his afi'ections from God, and to his 



