16 THE SABBATH. 



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 under- 

 stood, does not apply to us Christians; for it is en- 

 tirely outward, like other ordinances of the Old Testa- 

 ment, 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 Testa- 

 ment 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, " be- 

 cause it was requisite to appoint a certain day that the 

 people might know when to assemble together, it ap- 

 peared that the Church appointed for this purpose the 

 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, " 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 taught with- 



