# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1864_S328
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

328 The Doctrine of the Lutheran Church Concerning Sunday.

set beyond the natural law, is free, void, and abolished, since it has no
natural law behind it, and is given specifically to the Jewish people alone:
no differently than if an emperor or king made particular laws and
ordinances in his own land, as the Sachsenspiegel [Saxon Mirror] does in
Saxony, while nonetheless the common natural laws go through and
remain in every land — such as honoring parents, not murdering, not
committing adultery, serving God, etc. Therefore let Moses be the
Sachsenspiegel of the Jews, and let us Gentiles remain unentangled with
it; just as France pays no heed to the Sachsenspiegel, and yet agrees well
enough with it in the natural law, etc.
Why, then, does one keep and teach the Ten Commandments? Answer:
because the natural laws are nowhere so finely and properly set down as in
Moses. Therefore one rightly takes the example from Moses. And I could
wish that people would also take a few more things from Moses in worldly
matters, such as the law of divorce, of the jubilee year, and of the sabbatical
year, of the tithes, and the like, laws by which the world would be governed
better than it now is with interest, buying and selling, and marrying — just
as when one land takes an example from the laws of another, as the
Romans took the Twelve Tables from the Greeks.
That one also keeps the Sabbath or Sunday, however, is not
necessary, nor for the sake of Moses' commandment, but because nature
too gives and teaches that one must indeed at times rest a day, so that
man and beast may refresh themselves — which natural reason Moses
too builds into his Sabbath, so that he places the Sabbath among human
beings, as Christ likewise does in Matt. 12:1ff. and Mark 3:2ff. For where
it is to be kept only for the sake of rest, it is clear that whoever has no
need of rest may break the Sabbath and rest on another day instead, as
nature allows; it is also to be kept for the sake of preaching, so that one
may hear God's Word." (Luther's Works, Erlangen edition, XXIX,
150–157.)
Further, Luther writes in his exposition of the second Book of Moses,
from the year 1526, concerning the words of the Third Commandment,
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," etc., the following: "Paul
and the whole New Testament have abolished the Sabbath of the Jews, so
that one can indeed grasp that the Sabbath concerns the Jews alone.
Therefore it is not necessary for the Gentiles to keep the Sabbath, although
it was a great and strict commandment among the Jews. The prophets too
have pointed out how this Sabbath was to be abolished. Isaiah, in the last
chapter, says: When the Messiah comes, there will be such a time that
one new moon will follow another, one sabbath will follow another; as if
he would say: Every day will be sabbath, and every day new moon. Thus,
in the New Testament the Sabbath lies fallen, according to the crude,
outward sense. For this commandment, like the other commandments,
has a twofold meaning, an outward one and an inward or spiritual one.
In the New Testament, among Christians, every day is a holy day, and
all days are free. Therefore Christ says: The Son of Man is