Part 2 — CHAPTER II. Second Reason.

My second reason for believing this proposition is, That Adam and all his posterity have solemnly covenanted to keep holy the seventh day.

Genesis 2:15-17—"And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

Romans 5:12, 19—"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous."

Galatians 3:10—"For as many as are of the works of the law, are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them."

On these passages it may be remarked—

1. "God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which he bound him, and all his posterity to personal, exact, entire, and perpetual obedience."

2. "This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in ten commandments, and written in two tables." Therefore, the fourth commandment and the Sabbath law of the covenant of works are one and the same law; and all believers in Christ are now bound by this law, as a rule of life, to remember and keep holy the same Sabbath-day that Adam and all his posterity covenanted to remember and keep holy.

3. You admit that Adam, and all his posterity, pledged themselves to keep holy the seventh day of every week, and no other. Therefore, we are all born under a solemn obligation, our own obligation in Adam, to keep holy that same seventh day of every week as long as we remain on earth: "Neither doth Christ in the gospel any way dissolve but much strengthen this obligation."

4. It is now too late to alter the covenant of works, by substituting some other day of the week for the seventh, for the following reasons:—

First—Because the whole transaction was finished, in the person of our representative, nearly six thousand years ago. The covenant was made, the obligation assumed, the deed of transgression consummated, the curse pronounced, and the bitter death experienced, in kind, though not in degree, and all this before the first revelation of the mercy of God in Christ. We are, therefore, all of us, the very moment we are born, accursed of God, for not having kept holy the seventh day of the week, according to our covenant. And all who are not redeemed therefrom by Christ, remain forever under this curse. From which it is plain, that to substitute some other day for the seventh, since the fall of man, is as impossible as it would be to substitute some other tree for the "tree of knowledge." To all who admit that God made a covenant of works with all mankind in Adam, these truths ought to be self-evident. Brethren, we acknowledge that we are all guilty before God of having eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, while we disclaim any guilt whatever in regard to the fruit of every other tree; so are we guilty of violating the rest of the seventh day of the week, while we are not by nature guilty of polluting any other day.

Second—Because such substitution would destroy an integral part of the moral law. The law written on the heart of man said nothing about keeping holy any other day than the seventh; for all admit that, had Adam not fallen, there never would have been any other holy day. If, then, this law does not now require the sanctification of the seventh day, the fourth commandment must have been annihilated; and if another day is now the Sabbath, a new commandment, requiring for a new reason the sanctification of a different day, must have been substituted in its place. But this new law can be no part of the moral law, because it was not written on man's heart, nor did any human being know of its existence till thousands of God's people had been taken home to glory. God gave to Adam free permission to labor and do work on every day but the seventh, and he, as a free moral agent, accepted the proffered boon. Therefore, to labor on any one of the first six days of the week is, under the covenant of works, as innocent in itself as to pray to the Creator of the Universe. It is as much a natural and inalienable right, as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Now, if there is a law that requires the keeping holy of some other day, it must have its origin in the new-covenant grace of God; and if that other day, and not the seventh, is now the Sabbath, men are now no more under a natural obligation to keep a Sabbath than to be baptized, or to celebrate the Lord's Supper. The obligation to keep it must, on your principle, grow out of their new-covenant relation to God in Christ.

Let us now look for a moment at the consequences flowing from the doctrine, that some other day—the first, for example—has been substituted for the seventh. "Try the spirits." "By their fruits ye shall know them."

1. If this doctrine be true, the doctrine that Adam represented all his posterity, must be false; for, if Adam covenanted, as you admit he did, to keep holy the seventh day of every week, and we are not bound to do so, he certainly did not represent us, neither in that nor in any other part of the covenant; for, if we did not promise in Adam to keep holy the Sabbath-day, we did not promise to keep any thing else.

2. If this doctrine be true, there is now no such thing as original sin. This follows as a matter of course; for, if Adam did not represent us, we are not born sinners. The fact might be proved in another way, but this is enough.

3. If this doctrine be true, and the law of the new Sabbath bind "all men," as you say it does, it must bind the heathen, who are a part of "all men." But if there is a new Sabbath instituted, it can only be made known through the written word of God, of which the heathen can know nothing. This new Sabbath has never been made known to them, nor to any of their ancestors. Nevertheless, you say that they are bound to observe it, according to the written word, and that they shall be punished to all eternity for breaking it; which is contrary to the teaching of the Apostle, (Rom. 2:12,) that the heathen shall be judged and condemned, not by the written word, but by the law of nature, which you know can reveal no Sabbath but that of the seventh day; for Adam, who understood the law of nature better than any other mere man, never thought of keeping holy any other day. And, moreover, the heathen have, on your principle, only nine commandments to obey or disobey; for they are under the law of nature, which says, "Keep holy the seventh day:" but you say that God does not now require this: therefore they are released from the obligation. And, what is stranger still, the heathen have no means of knowing that to keep the seventh day is a work of supererogation. These are a few of the consequences of your doctrine of a change of Sabbath. What must be the character of that tree which yields such fruits!

Let us now attend for a moment to your objections.

Do you say, Those who believe in Christ are redeemed, not only from the curse of the Sabbath law, but also from the obligation to obey it in future? If so, who can tell but we are redeemed from every other moral obligation?

Or, do you alledge, that Christ makes a new contract with the sinner, saying, If you keep holy the first day, I will release you from the obligation to sanctify the seventh? "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law," Rom. 3:31. But perhaps you say, To change the Sabbath from one day to another is not to make void the law; it is only to vary its application. I reply, It is to make void, to annul, to annihilate, one tenth part of that law that God wrote on Adam's heart; for, as has been shown already, that law required him to keep no day holy but the seventh.

Or, do you plead that, as God has substituted the Lord Jesus Christ for the sinner, without violating the moral law, so he may have substituted some other day for the seventh? I reply, The cases are not parallel; for—

1. The substitution of Christ does not render a change of any part of the law necessary; but the other does. Christ "came not to destroy" the law, but to fulfill it; and in fulfilling it, he honored the seventh day: but the substitution of some other day for the seventh, had it taken place before Christ came, would have released him, as well as us, from the obligation to obey a part of the law of the covenant of works.

2. A change of Sabbath is not, like the substitution of Christ, necessary to the salvation of sinners; for God had saved thousands before this change is alledged to have taken place.

3. The substitution of Christ changes the moral condition of the church only; but the change of Sabbath would affect the moral relations of all men; for the Sabbath was made, not for the church, but "for man."

4. The evangelical doctrine of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, of itself, proves the impossibility of a change of Sabbath. All evangelical Christians hold, that believers are delivered, through Christ, from the curse of the law—the law of the covenant of works—but not from the obligation to obey it. If, therefore, that law required Adam and his posterity to keep holy the seventh day of the week, Christ has never redeemed them from the obligation to render "exact obedience," in this particular, as in every other.

Do you plead, as a last resort, that, as the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge has passed away, so it may be with the law of the seventh-day Sabbath? I reply, The cases are not parallel; for that command never was a part of the moral law. It was never written, either on man's heart, or on tables of stone; but this was. Besides, the tree of knowledge has been destroyed from the face of the earth, so that to eat of its fruit is now impossible; but the seventh day will continue to return "while the earth remaineth."

Brethren, you bewilder yourselves and others, by adopting, as a moral axiom, the false principle, that whatever is in its nature positive, is for that reason, changeable. There is no principle more deadly than this. Do you not know, that all our hopes, as Christians, for time and for eternity, are suspended on the immutability of that positive arrangement between the Father and the Son, which we call the covenant of grace? Are not the decrees of God all positive, yet, at the same time, immutable? So, also, the Sabbath law, though in its nature positive, has been made unchangeable, by a solemn covenant arrangement, "in which it was impossible for God to lie." If God had not made the law, requiring the sanctification of the seventh day, an essential part of the covenant of works, your doctrine of a change of Sabbath would not be so preposterous. As it is, how can serious, thinking men, help viewing it as a monstrous and impious absurdity!