Exod. xx. 11.  Even in the re-enactment of it in the Mosaic rode, its original appointment is acknowledged, ’Remember 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 THE SACRAMENTS.