16 THE SABBATH. 



body and spirit, and not a day of penal gloom. There 

 is nothing that I should withstand more strenuously 

 than the conversion of the first day of the week into a 

 common working day. Quite as strenuously, however, 

 do I oppose its being employed as a day for the exercise 

 of sacerdotal rigour. 



The early reformers emphatically asserted the free- 

 dom of Christians from Sabbatical bonds ; indeed Puri- 

 tan writers have reproached them with dimness of 

 vision regarding the observance of the Lord's Day. 

 ' The fourth Commandment,' says Luther, ' literally 

 understood, does not apply to us Christians ; for it is 

 entirely outward, like other ordinances of the Old 

 Testament, all of which are now left free by Christ. 

 If a preacher,' he continues, * wishes to force you back 

 to Moses, ask him whether you were brought by Moses 

 out of Egypt. If he says no, then say, How, then, 

 does Moses concern me, since he speaks to the people 

 that have been brought out of Egypt ? In the New 

 Testament Moses comes to an end, and his laws lose 

 their force. He must bow in the presence of Christ.' 

 ' The Scripture,' says Melanchthon, ' allows that we are 

 not bound to keep the Sabbath ; for it teaches that the 

 ceremonies of the law of Moses are not necessary after 

 the revelation of the Gospel. And yet,' he adds, 

 ' because it was requisite to appoint a certain day that 

 the people might know when to assemble together, it 

 appeared that the Church appointed for this purpose 

 tbe Lord's Day.' I am glad to find my grand old 

 namesake on the side of freedom in this matter. ' As 

 for the Sabbath,' says the martyr Tyndale, c we are 

 lords over it, and may yet change it into Monday, or 

 into any other day, as we see need ; or may make every 

 tenth day holy day, only if we see cause why. Neither 

 need we any holy day at all if the people might be 



