# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1864_S340
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

340 The Teaching of the Lutheran Church concerning Sunday.

thaeum: "On the question of the difference between the Jewish and the Christian Sabbath, I should think that attention must be paid, as to the main point, to whether not only the observance in particular of the seventh day, but also of one out of the seven days, belongs to the ceremonial, as those hold who are great lights of our Church, while others are of a different opinion. The concurring judgments of those who say that this too does not belong to the moral part of the Sabbath commandment — namely, that one of the seven days is to be devoted to divine worship and, along with it, to the remembrance of creation — have been gathered by the highly renowned Rostock theologian Mr. J. Fecht in his sacra schediasmata, supported by the weight of the most important arguments, and he has concurred with them. The matter is probably not so difficult to decide if, in the Mosaic commandment, the words belonging to the moral and to the ceremonial part are correctly distinguished. Incidentally, the moderation of the great Rostock theologian Dr. Dorscheus is to be praised, who cites this opinion and indeed does not reject it, yet notes, as regards the obligation in the New Testament, that it is done most cautiously to say that the people of the New Testament, although not by virtue of moral obligation, yet by analogy with it and in view of the highest equity, observe one day of the week in place of the Sabbath. Which opinion of Dorscheus's the highly esteemed Wittenberg theologian, in his Theol. did.-pol., Part IV, p. 36, seems to adopt with equal moderation."*) (Loc. cit., p. 382.)

Further, Johann Albrecht Bengel (d. 1752) writes as follows in his Gnomon on Colossians 2:16, namely on the words "or of the sabbaths": "The plural for the singular, as at Matthew 12:1, but here used meaningfully, for 'sabbaths' means each and every day of the week, Matthew 28:1; hence Paul gives us to understand that every distinction of days is here abolished; for nowhere has he written more plainly about the Sabbath. Not obscurely did Christ, after he himself, the Lord of the Sabbath, had come, already before his suffering teach freedom from the Sabbath, and more plainly still give assurance concerning it through Paul after his resurrection. It is, however, not expressly determined what is to be devoted to the Sabbath and what to the day of the Lord; this is rather left to each person's measure of faith. The Sabbath is not commended, not commanded; the day of the Lord is mentioned, not commanded. Those who are more deeply entangled in worldly affairs find a fixed day useful and necessary; those who keep Sabbath at all times enjoy a greater freedom. The Sabbath is a type also of eternal things, Hebrews 4:3f.,

*) We call attention here to the fact that we always give only the shorter statements of our theologians from their treatises, which, when compared in extenso, set forth still more clearly the opinion contained in those statements. We therefore take the liberty of referring our esteemed readers to those fuller discussions.