THOUGHTS FOR THE THOUGHTLESS.
WE often see articles and pamphlets headed, "Thoughts for Thinkers;" but it has occurred to us that those who do not think stand most in need of help in this direction. For the benefit of such we offer the following considerations : 1. Is it not strange that the Sabbath was instituted at creation [see Gen. ii, 2, 3,] if it was not designed to come into use till the days of Moses, twenty-five hundred years afterwards? 2. If the Sabbath is a type—type of the saints' future rest, the redeemed state—is it not strange that it was instituted in the garden of Eden, before man by his fall stood in need of redemption; thus to become to him a dismal token of the melancholy experience that awaited him? 3. If the Sabbath was instituted in the wilderness, after the Israelites came out of Egypt, as is claimed on Ex. xvi, how is it that we find there no reasons on which the institution is based, nothing by which we know how the day became the Sabbath, no enactment for its observance, and none of its general requirements and characteristics pointed out? 4. If the Sabbath was first made known at Sinai, as some claim on Neh. ix, 14, how is it that we find it enforced upon the Israelites at least fifteen days previous to that time? See Ex. xvi. 5. If the Sabbath was designed as a memorial of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, is it not strange that they were not informed of that fact till forty years after that deliverance? See Deut. v. And why do people go to this rehearsal of the law by Moses, to learn the design of the institution of the Sabbath, to the neglect of the original promulgation of the law by the voice of God from the summit of Sinai, forty years previous? See marginal chronology of Ex. xx, and Deut. v. 6. If the Sabbath was a memorial of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, where was the need of the Passover and Feast of unleavened bread? 7. If we may conclude from Deut. v, 15, that men might break the Sabbath previous to the exode, may we not on the same ground conclude from chap. xxiv, 17, 18, that previous to that time, men might pervert the judgment of the stranger and the fatherless, and take a widow's raiment to pledge, &c? 8. Are not the ways of God equal? and will he not have a uniform standard of right, by which to judge the world from the commencement to the close of its probationary state? 9. Can we find this standard anywhere embodied except in the ten commandments as spoken by the voice of God, and written with his own finger upon the tables of stone—an honor and distinction accorded to this law alone above all others? 10. As God is not a changeable being, can this standard be varied, so that what was required in one age of the world for the development of moral character, is not in another? 11. If the ten commandments were to be abolished at the death of Christ, three and a half years after the commencement of his public ministry, is it not strange that in his very first discourse he should enforce these commandments upon all people for all coming time? See Matt. v. 12. If the moral law is not exclusively referred to in Matt. v, 17, is it not strange that our Lord in his whole discourse, touches upon no commandment which is not of a moral nature, making no reference to laws which were simply of a ceremonial or local character. 13. If the Saviour broke the Sabbath during his public ministry, as some contend, and taught men so, did he not become a sinner by transgressing the law, which by universal consent remained in full force till the crucifixion. See 1 John iii, 4. 14. If the Sabbath was abolished at the cross, how could Luke, writing twenty-eight years after the resurrection of Christ, say that the disciples rested a day after his crucifixion, according to the command-ment? See Luke xxiii, 56. 15. If there is no Sabbath in this dispensation, how is it that we find the writers of the New Testament speaking of it as a permanent institution, many years this side of the cross, where, in this case, it must have ceased to exist? See Acts of the Apostles throughout. 16. If the first day of the week is the Sabbath of this dispensation, how happens it that we have the seventh day of the week mentioned as the Sabbath 59 times in the New Testament, and the first day of the week only eight times, not as the Sabbath, but always in distinction as the first day of the week; and how can it be explained that we never find it spoken of as a holy or sacred day, and that we have no recorded instance of the disciples' meeting together for worship in the day-time of that day, but on the other hand evidence that it was used for secular pur-poses? See Acts xx, 7, 11; 1 Cor. xvi, 1. It may be of profit to some who seem not to have thought much upon these points, or who, if they have thought, do not appear to have reasoned correctly, to ponder these queries, and give to the Lord of the Sabbath an answer, guided by the promptings of a good conscience and the light of revelation.