emember_ the Sabbath day--because in six days God made
heaven and earth--and rested on the _seventh; wherefore_ he, (_then_, in
the beginning,) _blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it_.' Now this
reason has no more reference to the Jews than to any other nation, and
if it was sufficient to make the observance of the Sabbath obligatory
on them, it must be equally so for all other nations before and after
them.

'Since therefore the observance and sanctification of a portion of his
time, is based on universal reasons in the nature of man, especially as
a religious being, and the proportion of time was fixed at a _seventh_,
by the example and precepts of the Creator in the beginning; the
Sabbath or religious observance of one day in seven, must be
universally obligatory, and the abrogation of the Mosaic ritual, can at
most only repeal those ceremonial additions which that ritual made, and
must leave the original Sabbath as it found it. Now whilst the apostles,
and first Christians under the inspired guidance, for a season also
attended worship on the Jewish Sabbath, they observed the day of the
Lord's resurrection, the first day of the week, as their day of special
religious convocations; and this _inspired example_ is obligatory on
Christians in all ages. Still the essence of the institution consists,
not in the particular day of the week, though that is now fixed, but in
the religious observance of one entire day in seven." [Note 8]

We do not, indeed, maintain that the conduct of the apostles was
inspired on all occasions; but it seems just and necessary to maintain,
that when engaged in the specific and appropriate duties of that
office, for which they were inspired, they were as much under the
guidance of the Spirit in their _actions_, as their words.

On the divine institution and obligation of the Christian Sabbath, we
refer the reader to an extended argument in its favor, in the author's
Lutheran Manual, pp. 310-24.

Note 1. Luther's Works, Leipsic edit., Vol. iii., pp. 642, 643.

Note 2. Luther's Works, Vol. iii., p. 643.

Note 3. Symbolical Books, pp. 449, 450, corrected by the original.

Note 4. Niemeyer's Briefe Melanchthons, [sic] p. 50.

Note 5. Vol. iv., p. 113, of Koethe's edit.

Note 6. See Schmucker's Lutheran Manual, pp. 306, 307.

Note 7. See Symb. B. Newmarket, ed. 2d., corrected by the German,
p. 223.

Note 8. See Definite Synodical Platform, p. 27.

CHAPTER VIII.
GENERAL NATURE OF