BISHOP MORRIS ON THE SABBATH.
By Editor
A FRIEND sends us a copy of the Florida Christian Advocate of December 13, 1893, with a marked article on "The Holy Sabbath," by Bishop T. A. Morris. The bishop says that the Sabbath is still obligatory, because "it is a part of the moral law, which is of perpetual obligation." Good! So the Scriptures teach. He continues: "Hence Christ says, 'I am not come to destroy [the law], but to fulfill.' . . . He magnified it and made it honorable by a holy life and sacrificial death. . . . Of course the obligation to keep the Sabbath is in full force." Good again, for the Bible so teaches. He gives other reasons for the perpetuity of the Sabbath, such as that it existed before Sinai, "was often mentioned by Christ and his apostles as existing in their day," that Christ was Lord of the Sabbath, that many miracles were wrought on that day, and that, even though the Sabbath was a type, it should exist till the final consummation of earthly things. All this is good, for it is in accordance with God's word. Then the good bishop turns around, contrary to all the word of God, and says, "It is, however, changed from the seventh to the first day of the week." For proof of this he cites the worn-out and oft-exploded arguments of meeting on the first day, etc. Two things strike us as strange: (1) When "the moral principle of the Sabbath" "consists not so much in keeping the seventh, first, or middle day of the week as in employing a certain portion of our time in the service of God," as the bishop says, why does he hold to the first day, which God never calls a Sabbath, and reject the very day God does call the Sabbath? (2) Why, if "the law of God is of perpetual obligation," and, therefore, the Sabbath law also, is not that part which requires a particular day as obligatory as that part which requires by implication a proportion of time? God has not said he requires a seventh part of time, but he has said that the seventh day is the day of the Sabbath. Why cannot the bishop see this? And why cannot the editor see it?