THE REV DR. MACLEOD OF GLASGOW AND THE SUNDAY QUESTION.

North Otago Times, Volume VI, Issue 107, 8 March 1866, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE REV DR. MACLEOD OF GLASGOW AND THE SUNDAY QUESTION.

On Thursday last, the Rev Dr Maelcod, at the Presbytery of Glasgow, enunciated a new and startling view of the Sahbuth question. The rev gentleman said he had for years preached to his people, not the Church's view of the Lord's Day — one not based on, or having anything to do with the Fourth Commandment. While they are all agi ee>l that there is to be a Lord's day, to be kept as that Lord's day ought to be kept, consistently. " I do not believe," said the rev gentleman, " in the continued obligation of the Fourth Commandment. I have no faith in it." He has faith, however, in what he calls the " Lord's day" — not the Jewish, and what has heretofore been called the Christian Sabbath, as inculcated in the creeds, but such a day as the Apostles and first Christians kept when they assembled themselves together for divine worship, and commemorated the day of Christ's resurrection from the dead. He repudiated the Jewish Sabbath, because he held it was abolished, and of no moral obligation whatever. People might pretend to say that they observed such a Sabbath, but it was sheer hypocrisy to say so — none of them did it. Nobody could dj it. They played fist and loose with conscience in this matter, twisting all deviations from the strict letter of thf command, into cases of necessity and mercy. The rev gentleman goes farther. He says — " My belief then is that the whole of the commandment and the whole of the Decalogue is abrogated — (oh, oh,) — that the whole thing •is stamped with that which is partial and that which is to pass away. I hold that its very introduction stamps it as this. ' I am the Lord thy God that brought thre out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. 1 How is that applicable to roe ? He never brought me out of the land of Empt or out of the house of bondage. (A laugh.) I am in no conceivable way connected with the Jews either in fle«h or spirit. I am, I say, not a Jew either in the flesh or spirit. I am born of God ; and the taking out of the land of Egypt is to me personally of no very great account, at least like the blessed work of the Reformation, or anything that God has done for me. The terms of the Fifth Commandment also stamp it as being temporary, for it tells you that if you do such aud such a thing your da3 r s will be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Are we to suppose that our days will be long in that land if we obey our parents ? It is a distinct and particular land that is mentioned here. It ia not repeated in the Gospel. All that is said about it is, that it was the first commandment with promise. The most important part of it is , that that promise cannot possibly be fulfilled to as. I say that these ten commandments never could be bin ling ou us; that they were never promulgated. How couldthey be- binding -when they weTe never promulgated ? They were never promulgated to the Gentiles, nor did they ever hear of them; they were kept purely and entirely Jewish. More than that, under the Christian dispensation there were men, Christiaus and bishops, who never read and never knew

them. But what have we got? When I say this Fourth Commandment is abrogated, I hnmbly trust that none of you will think I mean that we are not now under law. But I say qua the Decalogue, as the Decalogue, the whole of that was buried with Jesus Christ in his grave. That I hold to be one of the most essential conditions of Protestantism, It is to me utterly impossible to read the Pentateuch, to read the 7th chapter of Romans, to read Colossians and Galatians without being profoundly convinced of this, to tell you the truth, in my own mind. I always thought that that was the first truth — xiz., that the whole was buried — that the first husband was dead, and that we are married to Jesus Christ to bring forth fruit to God — that the law was verified to Jesus Christ ; and that we are now entirely in a new relationship to God in Jesus Christ. And what do we get? "We get something infinitely better and grander than the law of the Decalogue. I am now redeemed by and through Jesus Christ. You are not merely not to take the name of God in vain, but we have now the name of God in Christ — a name dimly seen by the Jews. I have not the Fourth Commandment, but something infinitely better. I have the Lord's day, established by divine authority in and through Jesus Christ, and his apostles — something yery different. I have not now the commandment, * Thou shalt not kill,' but if a man hate his brother he is a murderer. I have not now the commandment, * Man shall not commit adultery,' but shall have that purity of thought which my sister has. My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which, if I defile, God will destroy. In short, I have a great deal more. I have belief in Christ, and am walking in the Spirit, and yet it is in these circumstances that I have positively heard people say — excellent and good Christian people — that you have no security for morality if you give up the Decalogue. These are things that make me tremble — that it should be said, even with the love of Jesus Christ, the power of the living cross, the power of the resurrection, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the walking in the Spirit — that aftor the morality of Christ and the Apostles — that there is no security unless j r ou go back to these commandments — those beggarly elements. The whole of the training, the whole of this teaching, is nothing in comparison to what I have in Jesus Christ. I quote a sentence from Dr Doddridge — very striking for him, considering the man who writes it — which is, that no man is by the Christian dispensation obliged to obey any part of the Mosaic law any more than he would have dono if the law never had been given. Therefore, I say this was done away with. The law was given to Moses, but on the coming of Jesus Christ the law disappeared, and was buried in the grave of Christ when he rose from the dead." To this purpose the rev Dr addressed his brethren of the Presbytery for two hours, refuting every argument which had been employed for the divine institution of the Sabbath as of perpetual moral obligation ; nay more, extinguishing " at one fell swoop," the moral obligation of the entire decalogue ! This is a bold step to take, and whatever may be thought of the argument employed, all must admire the moral courage of the man, who, single-handed, in the face of the church and the world, comes forward to correct the orror, if error it be. of eighteen hundred centuries, and to proclaim in the ears of him that hath ears to hear, that the law of the ten commandments is abolished, and the evils and sins therein prohibited are to be avoided, not because they are denounced by God, but berause conscience whispors they are wrong, or because they are forbidden by Act of Parliament ! We are not saying whether Dr Macleod is right or wrong in his opinion. As an indeppndent man, acting on his own conscientious convictions of duty, he may be right ; as a clergyman of the Church of Scotland, sworn to teach and uphold the opposite doctrine of the Confession of Faith, he must be decidedly wrong. He must either convert the church tc his opinion, or abandon his connection with the church. What the upshot of this startling revelation may be, it would be premature at this stage to fortell. Under new scripture readings and interpretations, hoary creeds unchallenged for ages are on trial on the bar of enlightened public opinion. If the foundations be destroyed how can the upright pillars stand ? The Divine Author of Christianity said •• I come not to destroy the law, but to fulfil." In destroying the law, what does Dr Macleod ? In the wholesale abrogation of the Decalogue, does he establish Christianity on a new and more stable, because a more spiritual basis ? Elgin Gazette.