THE NEW AND SUPERIOR CODE.
We who believe in the perpetuity of the ten commandments, are accused of endeavoring to place upon the necks of the disciples "a yoke which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear." We are accused of sustaining a law which is a curse to man. We are accused of falling from grace, and bringing people into a bondage not consistent with that "liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." And if we ask what has become of the ten commandments, and where we now find our rule of moral obligation, we are told that the gospel furnishes us a better and a higher code. Let us then inquire, since there is such a vast distinction between the ten commandments and the gospel code that while one is a law of liberty the other is a yoke of bondage, what this distinction really is. Those who believe that the ten commandments are abolished, being superseded by the gospel, claim nevertheless that all these commandments, excepting the fourth, (notwithstanding the second is nowhere by itself enjoined in the gospel,) are binding upon christians in the present dispensation. There is no new principle of morality brought to light in the gospel; and the only difference between the ten commandments and gospel requirements is that the Sabbath is left out of the latter. The Sabbath then is the only distinctive feature of the ten commandments as compared with the gospel; and hence it is this commandment alone that renders that code obnoxious to all the epithets that are bestowed upon it. Mark well this point. Everything turns upon the Sabbath. It is the Sabbath which is the galling yoke of bondage; the Sabbath! which the good of old were taught to call a delight, the holy of the Lord and honorable, which is a curse to man! the Sabbath which leads us to fall from grace! And the liberty wherewith Christ hath set us free, is freedom from the Sabbath! Even so, according to the preaching of our opponents. But there is one point more we wish to look at. We should not suppose that, such being the nature of the Sabbath, these people would tolerate the semblance of such an institution in their creed or practice. But stop! Physiology has demonstrated that the human constitution needs a Sabbath, or at least one day in every seven, as a day of rest. So then, it seems, the gospel in bestowing its superabundant liberty upon the christian, really robbed him of an institution that was necessary to his physical well-being; and men have had to remedy this defect, this improvement upon David's perfect law! [Ps. xix, 7.] by setting up again the institution, (in all its external features,) which the gospel removed as a grievous yoke of bondage! A glance at existing facts also shows that the Sabbath institution is as necessary to the moral, as to the physical interests of man. The whole matter then resolves itself into the following shape: That which the holy prophets could esteem "a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable," was what rendered the old law a yoke of bondage and a curse to man. This institution Christ removed as not in accordance with gospel "liberty." But lo! it is found that the physical well-being of the human race, as well as their religious interests, cannot dispense with it; and so men have had to come to the rescue, and remedy the defect by bringing back, through church councils and national laws, that institution which divine wisdom blotted out as a burdensome ritual! A pretty picture of consistency on the part of the divine government, is it not! Let our no-law friends look it in the face.