“And we approve, all human ordinances which are good and useful, especially those which promote good external discipline among youth and the people generally.  But the inquiry is not, shall human ordinances be observed on account of external discipline and tranquillity? [sic] The question is altogether different; it is, is the observance of such human ordinances a divine service by which God is reconciled; and that without such ordinances, no one can be righteous before God?  This is the chief inquiry, and when this shall have been finally answered, it will be easy to judge whether the unity of the church requires uniformity in such ordinances.” [Note 7]

Here again the Lord’s day (a) is classed in the category of human ordinances, the observance of which is free, and may differ in different places.

(b) Yet uniformity in general ceremonies is pleasing, such as “the mass, the Lord’s day, and other great festivals.”

(c) It is classed again with human ordinances which promote good external discipline among the people.

And now having proved that the lax views of the Christian Sabbath, charged by the Platform on the Augsburg Confession, are attributed to it by the learned in Germany generally, that Luther and Melancthon teach them in their other writings:  in view of all these evidences, we ask every impartial, conscientious reader, whether it is possible to doubt the accuracy of the positions maintained by the Platform on this subject—­namely, that the Augsburg Confession treats the Sabbath, or religious observance of the seventh day of the week, as a mere Jewish institution, an institution appointed of God for the Jews alone; whilst the propriety of retaining the Lord’s day or Christian Sabbath, as a day of religious observation and worship, in their judgment, rests on the appointment of the church, and the necessity of having some one day for the convenience of the people in assembling for public worship.  The act of keeping any one day entirely for religious observance, they regard as ceremonial and temporary, and the moral or common part of the precept, as stated in our extract from Melancthon, they resolve into the general duty of preaching and hearing the gospel, and of sustaining public assemblies for this purpose; that is, of bearing the expenses incident to the support of the ministry and the ordinances of God’s house.

“Our American churches, on the contrary, as well as some few in Germany, believe in the divine institution and obligation of the Christian Sabbath, or Lord’s day, convinced that the Old Testament Sabbath was not a mere Jewish institution; but that it was appointed by God at the close of the creative week, when he rested on the seventh day, and blessed it, and sanctified it, (Gen. ii. 2, 3,) that is, set it (namely, one whole day in seven,) apart for holy purposes, for reasons of universal and perpetual nature,