Читать книгу The Constitutional Amendment: or, The Sunday, the Sabbath, the Change, and Restitution онлайн

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Furthermore, passing over the instructions in regard to sons, daughters, servants, the stranger, etc., what has the pen of the divine remodeler done with the reason of the commandment as found in the words, “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it?” Has that been stricken out altogether? Or, is there a glaring inconsistency in the remodeled statute, by which it is made to state that the first day of the week, instead of the seventh, is now the Sabbath of the Lord our God, because of the fact that, in the creation of the world, God rested upon, blessed, and hallowed, the latter? These are weighty questions. Upon them, virtually, turns the issue of an amended law. For, to amend, is so to change or alter as to vary the duty of a subject; and if no one is capable of informing definitely and particularly in regard to the precise variations of the phraseology, then, of course, no one is able to decide just how far our course of action should deviate from what it has been hitherto, in order to meet the demands of the divine will as now expressed, in a rule which has never been seen, and which no hand would venture to trace with any claim to exactitude. Who, then, we inquire again, is sufficient for this task? Not one among the millions of Protestants who are so earnestly clamoring for the sanctity of the day in question will seriously lay claim to the ability to perform that which would at once elevate him to a position—in view of the relief which it would bring to thousands of troubled minds—more exalted than that of any saint or martyr who has ever lived.