O PRINCETON, N. J. was substituted in place of the Sabbath, for no MR. Taylor's second reply. 101 MiLTOx. Neander. Whatelt. mention is ever made of sueli a thing, either by Christ, or the Apostles. And when the Apostle Paul says, Christians are not to be condemned on account of Sabbaths, &c. (6W. ii.), he shows that they were entirely free from that law; which liberty would be of no effect, if the law remaining — the day merely were changed. The day of the Lord's resurrection was not observed by Christians, from any precept of God, or of the Apostles, but by voluntary agreement of the liberty which had been given them.'^ {Annotations on the Old Test., Exod. xx.) Milton strongly argues : " The law of the Sabbath being thus repealed, that no particular day of worship has been ap- pointed in its place is evident from the Apostle in Romans xiv. 5." (^Christian Doctrine, Book ii. chap. 7.) Neander remarks: "The festival of Sunday was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intention of the x\postles to establish a divine command in this respect, far from them and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday." (^Hist. of Christian Churchy sec. iii.) In fine, as Whately justly contends, '^ If the precepts rela- tive to the ancient Sabbath are acknowledged to remain in force, then the observance of the first day of the week, instead of 'the seventh,' becomes an unwarrantable presumption.'' {Essay on the Sahhath.) But I have already considerably exceeded my appointed limits; and am compelled to pause. In justice to myself, I must notice an intimation of J. N. B. — that I may have made a use "of the unguarded language of others — they never de- signed," (p. 56.) Painful as such a conviction would be, I should certainly be thankful to my friend for its frank indica- tion. If through prejudice, or inadvertence, I have given an unfair coloring to authority, I would much rather be corrected, and retract a mistaken application, than continue in error, or labor under an intangible imjmtation. W. B. T. 102 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The " interpreter" necessarily a " logician." Antiquity no proof of " morality." PART II. "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven .... Six days ye shall gather it ; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none." — Exodus xvi. 4, 26. " And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life : he that cometh to me shall never hunger ; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." — John vi. 35. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!" — Matthew xi. 28. II. The Ceremonial character of the Sahhath. If this institution be a 7noral one, it certainly is, as J. N. B. maintains — of permanent and universal obligation. It is not surprising, therefore, that he has labored zealously upon this point. If, on the other hand, even sl positive institution (as I hope to prove it), it mai/ be still obligatory ; so that my own work is not accomplished by establishing this " Second Propo- sition. '' A very unnecessary antithesis is made by my friend, be- tween the function of '^ the interpreter'' and that of " the logi- cian.^' (p. 47.) I answer that the relevancy of construction is " the proper work" of "a sober logician," and that he alone can be a just ^interpreter." The first efi'ort of J. N. B., in his Reply, is to strengthen his previous affirmation that the Sabbath was instituted at the Creation ; and here I must remind him that, even if this could be shown, it would prove nothing as to its moral character. This depends by very definition — not on the nature of the Giver, nor on the date when given, — but on our own constitution, and our own reasoning processes. The inference was therefore rather hasty, that a proof of the antiquity of the Sabbath law 'demolished this Second Proposition, and with it all the MR. Taylor's second reply. 103 Purport of the word " sanctify." rest.'' (p. 55.)* A "positive" law teas given to Adam {Gen. ii. 17) ; and that law which was merely " a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things" {Ileb. X. 1), 7ni(/7it also have been given to him as readily as to Mo- ses ; and still have been no less provisional.f He who com- manded, might, if He saw fit, at any time repeal an ordinance — even though it ivere " from the beginning." ^'God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." {Gen. ii. 3.) " The word ' sanctify,' " says J. N. B. {p. 48), " is used in the sense of setting apart to the special service of God by divine authority.^'X He appears to have been misled by our inexact version. On the contrary, I assert — and fear no con- tradiction from the learned — that the word B'np (qadash) here used and rendered " sanctified," never has intrinsically such a meaning. It radically signifies — "to appoint" — "to set apart" — " to devote." Its sanctity can only be inferred from the agent or the object. Things and persons devoted or set apart to the most infamous purposes are correctly described * "These Sabbatarians do not consider that it is not the tme when a command was given, nor even the author who gave it, that discovers the class to which it belongs, but its nature as discoverable by hu- man reason." Bishop Warbueton. (Div. Legat. Book iv. sec. 6, note "KRKE.") f J. N. B. thinks the conclusion irresistible, "■ that if the law of the Sabbath was given to our first parents, it was given to all their pos- terity." {p. 49.) Will he be willing to admit the equally irresistible sequence, "that if the law of sacrifices was given to our first parents it was given to all their posterity?" X "Doubtless he hallowed it as touching himself," says Milton, "for S'm." [Bod. of Divin. vol. 3, B. iii. ch. 8.) In Paley's opinion, "The transaction in the -wilderness was the first actual institution of the Sabbath. For, if the Sabbath had been instituted at the time of the creation, it appears unaccountable that no mention of it — no occasion of even the obscurest allusion to it, should occur." {3for. Phil. B. v. ch. 7.) As Whately excellently argues: "The whole question, indeed, respecting the patriarchal laws and observances, is one which does not directly concern Christians. For we may be sure that any law by which certain persons are to be bound will be made known to those persons (except through some error or negligence, such as one may often find indeed in human legislation, but which it would be absurd and impious to attribute to the Deity), not as a matter of probable conjecture, but with certainty and precision. The very purpose of a law is to lay down accurately, and determine what might have been before dubious or indifferent, so as to leave no room for hesitation as to our conduct in that particular. To speak, therefore, of a probable law (in reference to those for whom that law is designed) seems no other than a contradiction in terms. It is to speak of an indetermi- nate determination ; of an undecisive decision ; of the removal of doubt by something that is itself doubtful." — [Essaijs, ^x., No. v. note A. On the Sabbath.) 108 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The " week" wholly independent of the Sabbath. here confounded two things not only different in their origin, but entirely independent of each other, as a very brief considera- tion will illustrate. Time is necessarily measured by planetary phenomena : as is observed in days — months — years — with their conventional subdivisions; (such as the four seasons of the year — the four watches of the night — or the four quarterings of the lunation, or month.) Indeed the interval from new to full moon (fourteen days) is almost as striking as that from sunrise to sunset. But while the "month" itself is an absolute- ly universal measure of time, nations of different origins have made different suhdivisions of the "new moon.'^* Thus, the Oriental nations generally, adopted the most natural division of it into quarterings (oY weeks of seven days); the ancient G-reeks divided it into thirds (dechemera of ten days), which was some- what modified by the Romans; the Chinese, into sixths (of five days) ; the aborigines of America, into the same. The instruct- ive fact is, that the oriental week (of seven days) is unknoivn and untraced, where the division of the crescent and waning moon (each into two parts) has not formed the basis of com- putation !f Now the week was evidently familiar to the Pa- * "It is plainly to be gathered from many evidences," says the learned Spencer, "that the nations of the earth observed the new- moon as a sacred festival long before the time of Moses." [De Leg. Heb. Lib. iii. Dissert, iv. cap. 1, sect. 1.) It is worthy of remark, that while the Jewish nation have unanimously asserted the Ifosaic introduction of the Sabbath, they have as unanimously assigned to the festival of the new moon a long antecedent, and sometimes even a Noachic origin. In perfect conformity, too, with this belief, we ob- serve that while the Scriptures ordain and enforce the Sabbath with a particularity and a frequency altogether unparalleled — the new-moon is never expressly established, but always alluded to as a well-known festival. [Numb. x. 10 ; xxviii. 11 ; 2 Chron. ii. 4 ; Ezra, iii. 5 ; &c.) And to complete the demonstration, while the most ancient heathen poets are absolutely silent on the subject of a " Sabbath," they fre- quently speak of the "new-moon" celebration. f Hence the frequency with which "New-moons" and " Sabbaths" MR. Taylor's second reply. 109 The Sabbath assodated with the week by arbitrary enactment. triarchs (^Gen. xxix. 27, 28; Joh ii. 13), and the Egyptians ( Gen. 1. 10), as well as the idolatrous Philistines (see Judges xiv. 12) ; but so far from sustaining a " Sabbath," this very evidence sufficiently proves that no day of the ^^ seven'' was more holy than another. A Sabbath no more follows from an established quarter-month, than it does from an established quarter-year. It is dependent for its existence on positive enactment; and may be connected with any period, at the op- tion of the lawgiver. {Levit. xxiii.) ^^ Positive precepts,'^ says Jeremy Taylor, " are those which depend upon the mere will of the lawgiver." {Duct. Bub. B. ii. ch. iii. 18.) In the first announcement of an intended Sabbath-day for the Israelites [Exod. xvi. 5), the preparatory direction is carefully given that "on the sixth day [of an estahlished week are associated together. (See 2 Kings iv. 23 ; 1 Chron. xxiii. 31 ; 2 Chron. ii. 4, viii. 13, xxxi. 3 ; Neh. x. 33 ; Isai. i. 13, Ixvi. 23; Ezek. xlv. 17, xlvi. 1, 3 ; Hosea ii, 11 ; Amos viii. 5 ; Col. ii. 16.) In an essay on the subject of " Septenary Institutions" (published in the Westminster Review, Oct. 1850), characterized by considerable historical and philological research, the writer, after showing that the hebdomadal period had clearly an astronomical, and not (as is gene- rally supposed) a theologic derivation, refers its original institution to India, as " on the whole, better established than any other hypothesis ; " and gives it as the result of the most diligent investigation, that no trace whatever of the "weeA;" is to be found among the Greeks, the Romans, the Chinese, &c., or any of the northern races of Europe and Asia. " Throughout the whole of North and South America, there are no traces of any analogous septenary observances among the aboriginal inhabitants Passing from America to the numerous groups of i-slands in the Pacific, comprised in the term Polynesia, we still search in vain among their aboriginal inhabitants for septenary institutions. Everywhere has been found a calendar of months, commencing with the first visible 'new-moon,' but no:i"Aj, TiTja? TE, Kai iQhfA.r] — Ubcv ny.a^. This is the Stereotyped eSJo|Mn — i£;0> njwaf ("the seventh day — a Ao^y day"), so currently, yet so carelessly quoted by every zealous Sabbatarian, from Aristobulus, the Jew (b. c. 150), to Dr. Timothy Dwight; from Dwight down to the last prize essayist on " Heaven's Antidote to the cui-se of Labor." The number of learned names which, in modern times, have blindly followed their false guides upon this point would form a most imposing catalogue. So ready is the acceptance of wished-for evidence on the one hand, so difficult the detection of a vague quotation on the other. It is fully time that this piratical mpressment of testimony should be '* withstood to the face." It is fully time that those inadvertently re- lying on such perversions should be disabused, and should have the im- posture publicly exposed. 10* 114 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. Hesiod. Homer. Callimachus. fairs.'' (Jlemerai : verses 5 — 9 ; or of " Works and Dai/s," verses 767 — 771.) If, from this, mj friend is able to construct "a trace of the weekly Sabbath/' he is welcome to the con- struction. The nearest resemblance to anything of the kind I can dis- cover in the pages of Homer (nearly 1000 b. c), is where Ulysses, entertaining King Alcinous with his adventures, re- lates how, after *'■ Six days and nights a doubtful course we steer, The next, proud Lamos' stately towers appear:" {Odyssey, x. 81.) or in a subsequent passage, where, after returning from his long wanderings, he beguiles his faithful Eumaeus with the story th it, *'In feast and sacrifice, my chosen train Six days consumed: — the seventh we ploughed the main." [Odyssey, xiv. 252.) If my friend sees, in these passages, an evidence of Grecian Sabbatism, I will not rob him of their benefit. In the remaining poems of Callimachus (260 b. G.f, I cannot even meet with an incidental allusion to a seventh day !* The only thing septenary occurs in his Hymn to the Birth- place of Apollo; which narrates that, at the birth of Latona's son, " the tuneful swans of the god, seven times circled around Delos, singing." {To Delos. verses 24Q — 252.) This contribu- * Clemens Alexandrinus (to whom Dr. Dwight is indebted for his authorities) cites from Callimachus several detached and un- meaning phrases [Stromat. lib. v.), ringing the changes on the number "seren;" such as "the seventh is among the good things;" — "all things in the starry heaven have been constructed, appearing in seven orbits," &c. These passages are not to be found in any of the poems of Callimachus now extant ; and they have just no relation whatever to the Sabbath question. It so happens that another of the Fathers (EusEBius: Evangel. Prceparat. lib. xiii. 12), quoting these very same passages, ascribes them (with perhaps equal propriety) to Lixus ! MR. Taylor's second reply. 115 Heathen testimonies concerning the Sahbath. Ac.atrarchides. tion to my friend's cause, I suppose he will hardly be desirous of accepting. Such, then, is the whole amount of pagan authority J. N. B. is able to present in attestation of '' the sort of sanctity attached to the seventh day among the ancient heathen nations!" (p. 50.) The truth is, ''we discover no trace of a jSahhath" even among those oriental nations which had the hebdomade or week: but to the Greeks, tJie icetk itself was unknown I—thc'iT smallest interval being the decade or period often days.* I will therefore make "the bold and unfortunate assertion," that neither in Hesiod, nor in Homer, nor in Callimaciius, the three classical writers adduced by J. N. B. from Dr. Dwight (^Theohgi/, vol. iii. Serm. 107), and by Dr. Dwight from Clement of Alexandria (Stromat. lib. v.), can the most distant allusion be discovered to sabbatical or septenary in- stitutions. And without having " read all history," I will further venture to affirm that no such allusion can be found throughout the entire range of Grecian literature ! I challenge all the learning that is in the heads of all the Sabbatarians, (and that is not little), to cite one solitary hint of a Sabbath, or even of a week ! Since J. N. B. invites me upon classic ground, I accompany him with pleasure; and I have the satisfaction of affirming (with a confidence which I hope will not be deemed presump- tuous), that no Pagan writer ever alludes to the hebdomadal "Sabbath," otherwise than as a leading Jewish characteristic! Agatharchides, a Greek writer, who flourished B. c. 120, thought this observance one of the most remarkable of the Jewish customs. Though none of his works are now extant, * "The ancient Greeks and Romans had no division properly an- swering to our weeks ; although the former had their decade of days ; and the latter their nundince, or market days, occurring every ninth day. But the Egyptians and oriental nations had a week of seven days." (Eschenbueg's 3Ianual of Class. Lit. edited by Prof. Fiske, Part V. sec. 191; or of the 4th edition, Part i. sec. 191, b.) 116 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. Horace. Ovid. Strabo. Apion. Persius. Seneca. he is cited by Josephus, as writing thus : '* The people called Jews, inhabit an exceedingly strong city, which it appears they call Jerusalem. They are accustomed to rest on every seventh day, on which times they will neither bear arms nor engage in husbandry, nor attend to any worldly affairs." {Contra Apion, lib. i. sect. 22.) If the Roman poet Horace (b. c. 25) makes mention of the word " Salhata," he at once associates it with the '^curtis Judseis." (Sath\ lib. i. sat. ix. 69.) Does Ovid (b. c. 10) allude to this institution, it is as " the seventh day kept holy by the Jews" {Ai-s Amat. lib. i. 76) : or again, it is spoken of as "a festival observed in Palestine" (/&. lib. i, 416) : and in another work, he uses the expressive phrase — '^foreign Sabbaths!" {Remed. Amor. lib. i. 220.) Strabo, the indefatigable voyager and close observer, (a. d. 10), in making an historical reference to the Sabbath, calls it "the day of abstinence — on which the Jews refrain from all work." [Geograph. lib. xvi. Sj/ria.) Apion, the Egyptian grammarian (a. d. 30), in his igno- rance of the early history of the Jews, suggests a most ridicu- lous origin for their Sabbath, saying that "After they had travelled a six days' journey, they were afflicted with buhoes, and for this reason they rested on the seventh day ; and having arrived at the country now called Judea, they named the seventh day ' Sahhaton,' after the Egyptian word ' Sahhatosis' — the name by which the disease bubo is known among the Egyptians !" (cited by Josephus, Contra Apion, lib. ii. sect. 2.) The satirical Persius (a. d. 50) has a sneer at " the Sab- baths kept by the Circumcised" (^Sat. v. 184), — "recutita sabbata ;" — an expression equally remarkable for conciseness and significance. The Roman philosopher Seneca (a. d. 60) severely censures the Jews for their religious infatuation; saying that " by their Sabbaths interposed, they waste the seventh part of their life MR. Taylor's second reply. 117 in idleness.'' (From a lost work quoted by Augustine, " De civitat, Deiy' lib. vi. cap. 11.) The witty ^Jartial (a. d. 90), in an epigram, can find no more distinctive epithet for Jews, than "Sabbath-keepers.'' (^Ep. lib. iv. epigr. iv. 7.) Plutarch, the biographer and essayist (a. d. 100), to ^' point a moral," instances the historical fact that "the Jews- sitting idly down on their Sabbath, while the enemy scaled and occupied their walls — offered no resistance." ( Opera : Tom. ii. Tract. De Superstitione.') In another treatise, he endeavors to show that the Jews derived the name " JSahhath" from the Greek, aaSSaa/xoi (sahbasmos or sahasjnos), a festival of Bac- chus : " SahaziW being one of the names of that deity. {Sj/7n- posiac. lib. iv. prob. 5.) Suetonius (a. d. 105), illustrating the abstemiousness of the Emperor Augustus, quotes him as writing to Tiberius — " No Jew indeed so rigidly keeps fast on his Sabbath, as I have fasted to-day." {De Csesarihus, Lib. ii. cap. 76.) The Ro- mans very naturally inferring that a day so strictly observed as the seventh day rest, must be a "fast-day."* The polished Tacitus (a. d. 110), in his short description of the Jews, records, as one of their peculiarities, that "on the seventh day, it is said they were idle." {Hist. lib. v. sect. 4.) And he offers various vain conjectures to account for so singu- lar a custom If * It is strongly illustrative of the ignorance prevailing among the Roman writers concerning the origin and object of the Sabbath, that they generally describe it as a "fast." Strabo, Suetonius, and Jus- tinus all speak of it as such. Plutarch appears to have come nearer the truth ; for the Jews, so far from making it a fast day, have always accounted it a high festival. It was to be a "feast of the Lord" (Levit. xxiii. 2, 3). Indeed it was a serious offence to fast upon it. It is said of Judith, that "she fasted all the days of her life excqyt the Sabbaths and new-moons, and the feasts of the house of Israel." [Ju- dith viii. 6.) f One of his suggestions is that the observance was designed to 118 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. Juvenal. Justinur. Dion Cassius. Julian. The poet Juvenal (a. d. 115) thought it worthy of a passing notice, as distinctive of these " Barbarians/' that they '^observe their festival Sabbaths." QSatir. lib. ii. sat. vi. 158.) And in a subsequent satire, he speaks of those who "obey the Jewish law, which Moses delivered in a secret volume," as being a bigoted and churlish set, "to whom every seventh day was idle, and not engaged in any aim of life." (lib. v. sat. xiv. 96—106.) JusTiNUS (a. d. 150) informs his readers that "Moses, having reached Mount Syna, after conducting the weary Jews seven days through the deserts of Arabia — fasting, on his arrival there, appointed the seventh day (called in their language ^ sahhatum') to be observed perpetually as a fast-day, in com- memoration of the day which had terminated their hunger and their wandering!" {Ilistor. PhllqypLC. lib. xxxvi. cap. 2.) Another Roman historian, Dion Cassius (a. d. 220), treating of the Jews, tells us that " the day which is called Saturn's they hold sacred; and among the observances peculiar to that da}^, carefully abstain from engaging in any work on it." He supposes that the custom of "naming seven days after the seven stars, which the Romans call 'planets,' was derived from the Egyptians:" and adds that this appears to have been wholly unknown among the ancient Greeks," {Rom. Hist. lib. xxxvii.) The Emperor Julian, nephew of Constantino (a. d. 362), in a work of which -only fragments have been preserved to us, speaks of Unitarianum and Sahhatlsm as the two great distinctions of the Mosaic code. After quoting the Decalogue, he contemptuously asks — "What nation is there — verily, which does not agree that (excepting the precept ' Thou shalt not worship different Gods;' and the one ^Remember the Sab- batJida?/') all the other commandments should be observed? honor Saturn! — by whose name the seventh day was then generally known, as it still is at the present time. MR. Taylor's second reply. 119 CLAUDirs RuTiLics. Jewish, and Christian authorities examined. — and that punishments such as those of the law of Moses, or more — or less severe — should be inflicted on those who violate them?'' {Opera. Cyrlll. advers. Jul. lib. v. 2.) Even so late as the fifth century, a considerable time after Christianity had been established by Constantine as the law of the empire, Claudius Rutilius (a. d. 415), in a poetical account of his travels, indulges in a jeer at "the Jew — that unsocial animal,'^ and "his frigid Sabbaths;" with whom "every seventh day is condemned to a shameful sloth." (Itinerar. lib. i. 383—392.)* Such testimonies supply us with the most irresistible con- firmation of the " Proposition" under discussion. Admirably do they illustrate the lamentation of Jeremiah, in the Scripture Record — " The adversaries saw her, and did mock at her jSab- haths!" (^Lament, i. 7.)t Most triumphantly do they over- throw my friend's cherished " fancy'^ of a Gentile Sabbath. Having thus satisfactorily disposed of our " heathen testi- monies," I might readily be excused from noticing the two Jewish, and the two Christian authorities, to which J. N. B. has appealed in addition, in corroboration of his insubstantial theory. Were I inclined to be captious, I might call on him for " chapter and verse," before admitting his quotations in evidence : or were I inclined to be formal, I might at once dis- miss them with the brief answer — "incompetent," as sum- marily as I would the assertions of any modern Sabbatarian. Before accepting their secondary evidence, I might insist on the production of at least some show of original or Gentile au- * These authors are accessible to almost every one. They may all be found in the Loganian Department of the Philadelphia Library — a noble foundation, whose volumes not only are freely open to the public for consultation (as in the Philadelphia Library), but may be taken home for perusal by any one without charge. f " The Gentile nations all considered the Jewish Sabbath very absurd, and made it a no less fertile theme for jest, than circumcision itself." Spencer. (Z>e Leg. Heb. Kit. lib. i. cap. iv. sect. 9.) 120 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. Testimony of Philo : and of Josephus. tliority. But being neither formal nor captious, I shall aiford a passing glance at these authors also, and endeavor to elicit their true bearing. ^' Philo says : ^ The seventh day is a festival to every na- tion.' '' (J. N. B. p. 50.) To explain this vague declaration (found in his Lib. de Opificio), it is only necessary to turn to pHiLo's remarks upon the Sabbath law. ''The fourth com- mandment," says he, " is concerning the holy seventh day, requiring that it should be sacredly and piously observed. Some states celebrate this once a month, counting from the appearance of the new-moon ; hut the Jewish nation observes it weeMjjy after completing every six days." (^Opera: Lib. de Decalog.)^ The evidence of Philo will scarcely benefit my friend more than that of Hesiod ! I boldly claim him as an indorser of my Proposition, that the Sabbath was a purely Jewish institution. " Josephus says most explicitly : ' No city of Greeks or Barbarians can be found, which does not acknowledge a seventh day's rest from labor.' " (J.N. B. p. 50.) Josephus says nothing so foolishly false, however his translators may some- times have construed him : though, even if he had done so, his assertion would weigh nothing against the combined force of '' all Gentile history. "f In the passage referred to, Josephus is not treating of the antiquity of the Sabbath, but of the in- fluence of Jewish institutions on other nations. The whole * "Nothing can be more obvious," says the learned Selden, citing this passage against the Sabbatarians, "than that Philo here makes the observance of a weekly festival peculiar to his ovv^n people, inas- much as he notices that another kind of seventh day was received among certain other nations. And it is very true that the seventh day of the month was sacred to the birth of Apollo." (Be Jure Hat. et Ge7ii. lib. iii. cap. 14.) f Seldex remarks (De Jure Hat. lib. iii. cap. 19) : "A seventh day Sabbath was observed among no jyeople in the time of Josephus — except among the Jews, and the few Christians who followed their example." MR. Taylor's second reply. 121 , A perverted quotation rectified. passage is as follows : '' Moreover, there has been with multi- tudes, for a long time past, a great desire to emulate our religious customs : nor is there anywhere any city of the Greeks, nor a single Barbarian nation, whither the institution of the Hebdomade (which ice mark hy resiting) has not travelled )^ and by whom our fasts, and lighting of lamps, and many of our prohibitions of food are not observed.^' ( Con- tra Apioriy lib. ii. sect. 40.) Making due allowance for the natural exaggeration of an apologist, the substance of this statement expresses a well- recognized fact in Roman history. "' The institution of the Hebdomade" (introduced about the date of the Christian era) did travel almost throughout the empire. f But Josephus, so far from intending to assert that the Sabbath was ever a Gen- tile ordinance, in the very next section, the conclusion of his elaborate vindication of the Jews, says : " If we have shown that the origincd introduction of these institutions is our oivn, let the Apions, and the M(jlones, and all the rest of those who delight in false reproaches, stand confuted!" {Cont. Ap. lib. ii. sect. 41. )t I claim Josephus as a strong indorser of the Jewish character of the Sabbath ! * Ev9a fA,r\ TO tjij eSS'OjaaS'o; {nv a^youfxBv hfJ.iii) ro i9o( ov ^icL7rB'poiTn>is. Jo- SEPHUS does not say that the Greek and Barbarian rested ; but that ^^we [the Jews] observe it by rest." f Dion Cassius (a century and a half later than Josephus) informs us that, in his time, the custom of designating every recurring seven days by the names of the planets, was practised everywhere ; and he refers its origin — not to the Jews, but to the Egyptians. (^Rom. Hist. lib. xxxvii.) Dr. Adams, in his work on "Roman Antiquities," observes: "The ancient Piomans did not divide their time into weeks as we do, in imi- tation of the Jews .... This custom was introduced \mder the Empe- rors." (Rom. Anliq. chap, on ^^ Roman Year.^^) % JosEPnrs invariably speaks of the Sabbath as peculiar to his own people ; — repeatedly designating it as their ancestral law, [Antiq. B. xiv. ch. iv. 2 ; J. War. B. ii. ch. xvi. 4, &c.) — constantly exhibiting the 11 122 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. Testimony of Clement : and of Eusebius. '' The learned Clement, of Alexandria/' continues J. N. B. {p. 50), " a witness of the highest competencj_, says : ' The Greeks, as well as the Hebrews, observe the seventh day as holy/ " Not quite ; the word " day'' is interpolated. The language of Clement is : '^ Not only the Hebrews, but even the Greeks, recognize the seventh as a sacred [number], ac- cording to which the whole universe revolves. For Hesiod says of it: 'The first, the fourth, and the seventh, are sacred days,' &c. Callimachus also writes: 'The seventh is among the good things,' &c., 'the starry heavens \i2i\e seven revolutions/ &c. So also the elegies of Solon greatly distinguish the VLumhev seven." (^Stromat. Yih. \.^ Clement never inculcated — either in this work or elsewhere — the universality of the Sabbath, or its moral obligation. On the contrary, he evi- dently considered it altogether a Jewish and ceremonial insti- tution ; remarking that " those renewed, observe the Sabbath by abstinence from evil" {Stromat. lib. iii.), and that the spiritual purport of the ordinance is righteousness and con- tinence. {Stromat. lib. iv.) "And, finally," says J. N. B. {p. 50), "the learned Euse- bius affirms that ' almost all the philosophers and poets ac- knowledge the seventh day as holy.' " Eusebius does not say so ; he merely quotes Aristobulus as saying so (^Evangel. Prsepar. lib. xiii. cap. 12) ; the whole of this chapter being directly transferred from that writer, as Eusebius explicitly declares, both at its commencement and at its termination I"'" conti-ast between Jewish and Gentile practice on this subject [Antiq. B. xii. eh. vi. 2 ; B. xiii. ch. i. 3 ; B. xiv. ch. iv. 3 ; B. xviii. ch. ix. 2 ; J. War, B. i. ch. vii. 3; B. iv. ch. ii. 3) ; — and carefully recording that, in the Jewish appeals for religious liberty, or in the edicts of toleration accorded to them, the privilege of this national custom was especially indicated. [Aniiq. B. xiv. ch. x. 20, 21, 23, 25 ; B. xvi. ch. ii. 3, 4 ; ch. vi. 2, 4, 8.) * Aristobulus cannot escape the dilemma of having been either conversant with the Greek writers, or ignorant of them ; he is charge- MR. Taylor's second reply. 123 ]Mi.]V, )iai t« TST6Xfa-T0 awaVT*. " It was now the fourth day, and on it all things -were completed." Aristobulus has quoted this line verbatim, with the simple substitution of 'eC^o^ov for TST^aTov, in order to show that Homer copied his ac- count — from the second chapter of Genesis! " It was now the seventh day, and on it all things were completed." Uufortimately, the very next line of the poem relates that Calypso dismissed Ulysses {'nzfx'iT'rta) on the fifth day ! It is scarcely necessary to add that the Mosaic quo- tation is not to be found in Homer. Let us hope that the two learned and distinguished Christian Fathers who copied this were satisfied to quote ignorantly, and did not attempt to verify their quotations. 124 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. All the Jewish Sabbaths — " moral," — or none of them so. history we discover no trace of a Sabbath among the nations of antiquity." J. N. B. very kindly constructs for me an ^^ argument for the ceremonial nature of the Sabbath, drawn from the fact of its incorporation with the ceremonial law of the Jews ','" and as the sophism is entirely Ms own, I am not surprised that it should be a '' non sequitur." (p. 56.) The important fact communicated by Lcvit. xxiii. and Nmnh. xxviii., xxix , is not that of association or "incorporation/' but that of affiliation; the fact that '' the Sabbath of the Decalogue" is distinguished by no single characteristic from a variety of similar festivals , which also commemorated important events ; which also were celebrated with peculiar sacrifices ; which also prohibited ser- vile work ; which also were " convocations ;" which also were entitled '' feasts of the Lord ;" which also were '^holy;" which also were " Sahhaths." My friend must, therefore, either admit that these also were " moral" institutions, or he must admit my '^Second Proposition." I transfer to him the onus proband l.^ The next point he adverts to, is " the incorporation of a motive from Jewish history into the reasons for its observance." (Deuf. V. 15.) To which he replies : " No such motive is found in the Decalogue itself, as originally delivered by God." (p. 57.) Now the reason assigned in the "original" Decalogue (Exod. XX.) is actually as " Jewish"^ — (having been revealed only to the Jews) — as that given in the second Decalogue. f (^Dent. v.) And it is just as utterly inapplicable as that, to * "The distinction of the Sabbath is in its nature as much R: posi- tive, ceremonial institution, as that of many other seasons which were appointed by the Levitical law to be kept holy, and to be observed by a strict rest." Paley. (3Ior. Phil. B. v. eh. 7.) I " Thus, also, the great reason of the Sabbath, I mean God's rest from the works of creation, is a temporary, transient reason ; because there is now a new creation, * old things are passed away, and all things are become new.' " Bishop Taylor. {Duct. Dubitant. B. ii. eh. 2, rule 6, sec. 44.) MR. Taylor's second reply. 125 The two Decalogues equallj' national. The first one destroyed. the Sabbath advocated by J. N. 13. ; for it is in fact the very reason, and the onJy reason given for the Saturdai/ Sabbath : *' The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God/' be- cause that '^ He rested the seventh day!" (^Compare Exod. xxxi. 17, with Isdi Ixv. 17.) The first day is not the Lord's Sabbath, because that " in it" he did not rest (^Gen. i. 5) : and Sunday therefore cannot possibly commemorate the Lord's rest. As Justin Martyr well remarks, it commemorates exactly the opposite circumstance, — the first crea7<*ye labor ! {ApoL part i.) But passing all this, where did my friend find his warrant for thus magisterially repudiating the one Decalogue, and ca- nonizing the other ? By what prophet was it revealed to him that the revised edition was "perw?/«>7y applicable to the Jews," and the other peculiarly applicable to the rest of mankind? If he is disposed thus pointedly to contrast the two Decalogues, I will remind him that the one " originalJy delivered by God" was destroyed. {Exod. xxxii. 19.) If he insists then on dis- criminating between them, I shall hold him to the Deuterono- my, — to that second edition of the "tables," which was not destroyed. {Deut. v.) We there find that the Sabbath was expressly given to the Israelite as a memorial of national eman- cipation. Thou wast redeemed from an oppressive bondage; and "therefore, the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day!" — for this especial reason was it instituted.* * " It is an argument that the Jewish Sabbath was not to be per- petual," says Jonathan Edwards, "that the Jews were commanded to keep it in remembrance of their deliverance out of Egypt .... Now can any person think that God would have all nations under the Gos- pel, and to the end of the world, keep a day every week, which was instituted in remembrance of the deliverance of the Jews out of Egypt?" (Sermons, ser. xxvi. On the Sabbath.) This argument is the more satis- factory as coming fi-om an ardent Sabbatarian ! And he might have add- ed, with no less cogency, — Can any Sunday Sabbatarian think that God would have all nations under the Gospel keep that day every week which commemorated his rest from creation ? {Exod. xx. 10, 11 ; Isai. Ixv. 17.) 11* 126 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The Sabbath a Jewish memorial ; and a distinctive institution. The obvious explanation wby this reason is not formally as- signed in Exod. xx., is that the institution was then too re- cent to require it. Another point was in more immediate need of illustration, — namely, why this memorial of national repose should be observed weekly, rather than monthly, or yearly ; and why on Saturday, rather than on Sunday.* But the Israelites were distinctly informed that it was for them a peculiar institution {Exod. xxxi. 13), whereby they might know them- selves ''set apart," — DDK^ipD (jn'cjadish-kem) — by Jehovah. "' It is a sign between Me and you throughout your genera- tions:" — "a perpetual covenant f (y. 16:) — declarations ut- terly devoid of meaning, if the Sabbath was then of moral and ''universal obligation !"f It was not any particular ohservance — but the " Sabbath" itself— that was the " sign" or token of their " separation." {Ezek. xx. 12.) But it is urged by J. N.B. {p. 57) that Jesus "came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it;" and that not one jot or tit- tle was to pass from the law " till all sJioidd be fulfilled ;" not one of the least commandments was to be broken. I an- swer that this was true — not only of the Sabbath law, but of the sacrificial — and every other Jewish law. Not one tittle of any part of the Law could "fail:" (Luke xvi. 16, 17 :) not one letter of it could be either "broken" or "destroyed :" but " all things must be accomplished." (John xix. 28, 80.) And when the Sabbath had been thus accomplished (Col. ii. 14, * " Maimonides and other Hebrews" (says Grotius) " well dis- tinguish the causes why the rest was ordered, and why this particular duT/ : the former cause is assigned in Deuteronomy — because they were delivered from a hard servitude, &c., and the latter cause in this place [Fxod. XX.] — ^because this day was chosen by God in which to rest," &c. (Amiotatio?is on Old Test. Exod. xx.) f " If this law had been given to all nations, it could not have been a distinguishing ' sign^ of them from others ; nor would it be known thereby that God had 'separated' them to himself above all i)eople." Gill, [Comment, on Exod. xxxi. 13.) MR. Taylor's second reply. 127 The Sabbath not " moral" because incorporated in the Decalogue. 17; ITeh. iv.), then did it pass away forever {lleb. yiii. 13 ; ix. 11; John Tiii. 36) — "EstaWislied" and completed, — not "made void," Its purpose " all fulfilled," but not " destroyed." It is still contended that the Sabbath law is moral, because incorporated in the Decalogue, {p. 68.) In this J. N. B. re- vives the non sequitur he but lately so satisfactorily exposed- If no '"incorporation" can make a ceremonzaHaw, equally true is it that no ''incorporation" can make a moral law. "The seventh day" is incorporated in the Decalogue, and yet my friend has labored vigorously to explain it away. " The se- venth day of the Decalogue I hold to be a part of the moral law of the Sabbath, but not the mere circumstance of its order or mode of designation." (p. 59.)* Be it so; at least a u-ee7t-/y Sab- bath is by this admitted as an integral part of the law; indeed a ^'weekly period" is very shortly afterward expressly asserted by J. N. B. to be "re^wrrecZby the Decalogue." (p. 60.) And he has before informed us that a "weekly Sabbath, rather than one oftener or more seldom, is not of itself obvious F' (p. 15.) A happy description of his "moral law !" " 3Ioral precepts," says Bishop Butler, " are precepts, the reason of which we see. Moral duties arise out of the nature of the case itself, prior to external command." {Anal. P. ii. ch. 1.) If, as J. N. B. con- tends, the Sabbath is obligatory because commanded by the Decalogue, then can it by no possibility be a moral law If ■5^ " I suppose it to be unreasonable to say that although the seventh day is not moral, yet that one day is — or at least that some time be separate is moral ; for, that one day in seven should be separate can have no natural, essential, and congenite reason, any more than one in ten or one in six : for as it does not naturally follow that, because God ceased from the creation on the seventh day, therefore ice must keep that holy day, so neither could we have known it without revelation ; and there- fore what follows from hence must be by positive constitution." Bish- op Taylor. [Duct. Duhitant. B. ii. ch. 2, rule vi. 51.) •j- If I " can set aside the moral nature of the fourth commandment," 128 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The ceremonial parallel proclaimed by Jesus. To the plain intimations I have produced from the teachings of Jesus, that the fourth commandment was merely ritual (as •where he justified the Sabbath-reaping on the ground of hun- ger), J. N. B. replies: "My friend must be hard driven for evidence when he infers from the case of David eating the shew-bread, a perfect parallel between the two laws." {p. 64.) Hard driven indeed is he who attempts to evade the parallel- ism directly instituted by Jesus himself ! Its very essence was a common character of obligation. To cite the instance of an excusable breach of an ordinance, to vindicate a case where there was no breach, would truly form a pointless argument. No lesson from the Bible can be clearer than that both these actions were infractions of the literal statute; (see Levit. xxiv. 9, xxii. 10; and Fxod. xvi. 23 ; Nch. xiii. 15) — that both were occasioned by the same "necessity;" — that both were held excusable on the same plea; — that both restrictions, in short, were vlolahle, and not moral ordinances. If by a strict construction, this "reaping" profaned the Sab- bath, so did the very duties of " the priests in the temple pro- fane the Sabbath ;"''' if, in obeying the requirements of the says J. N> B. [p. 66), " it will be an easy thing, by the same process, to set aside the fifth and seventh, not to say the sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth. Facilis descensus Averni .'" Fer contra: says Dr. Gill, "The Sabbath law is not of a 'moral' nature," — otherwise "it could not have been dispensed with nor abol- ished, as it is in ]\Iat(. xii. 1—12 ; and Col. ii. 16, 17." [Body of Divin. vol. iii. B. iii. ch. 8.) " The observance of the Sabbath," says Bishop Warbubton, "is no more a natural duty than circumcision." [Div. Lega. B. iv. sec. 6, note.) " The fourth commandment," says Arch- bishop Whately, " is evidently not a 'moral,' but a < positive' precept." "The dogma of the 'Assembly of Divines at Westminster,' that the observance of the Sabbath is part of the moral law, is to me utterly unintelligible !" [E^ssays, v. note A. On the Suhballi.) Dijjicilis co7iscn- sus. "^ One evidence that the priests "profaned the Sabbath," will be seen by comparing Numb, xxviii. 10, with Fxod. xxxv. 3. As in the MR. Taylor's second reply. 129 The Salibiith sidwrdinate to man : and therefore not " moral." temple-service, these priests were yet held "blameless/' Jesus was "greater than the temple/' and therefore better justified the "profanation/' if "mercy" be more acceptable to God than "sacrifice/' then is he "guiltless" who places human comfort above ritual observance. {Matt. xii. 3 — -7.)* But beyond all this, the Sabbath hsuhservientio man,yield- inoj to his emergencies : man is not subservient to the Sabbath, enchained by its exactions. This constitutes the very distinc- tion between moral and positive laws. Man ^s made "for the observance of the moral law. On the contrary, all ^positive' institutions were madeybr man." J. N. B. entitles the argument of Bishop Warburton a "specious fallacy" Q;. 65), but he does not venture to assail its positions. t He endeavors to obscure the distinction by a Cease of Sabbath circumcision, and of every other collision of laws, one regulation is necessarily set aside by another. * '< He that did ordain the Sabbath day, may also take away the Sabbath. And he that ordained the Sabbath, did ordain it for man's sake, and not contrariwise — man because of the Sabbath day. It is meet therefore that the keeping of the Sabbath day give place to the profit and commodity of man." Erasmus. [Paraphrase in loco.) f It is a matter for some gratulation to find such logicians as a Bax- ter, a Warburton, a Horsley, and a Whately, exactly coinciding in this " specious fallacy." Says Baxter : " It seemeth plainly to mean that, being but a positive latv, he had power to change it, and dispense with it, as well as with other positive and Mosaical laws." (Practical Works, vol. iii. On Lord's day. Appendix, ch. i.) Warburton re- marks — ^^ X\\ 2)ositive institutions were ' made for man,' for the better direction of his conduct in certain situations of life ; the observance of which is therefore to be regulated on the end for which they were in- stituted: for (contrary to the nature of TMom^ duties) the observance of them may, in some cii'cumstances, become hurtful to man for whose benefit they were instituted; and whenever this is the case, God and nature grant a dispensation." [Div. Leg. B. iv. sec. 6, note " rrrr.") Horsley argues upon the text, that " What is aflarraed of the Sabbath in these remarkable words, is equally true of all the ordinances of external worship .... We have our Lord's authority to say that tho 130 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. A " fallacy." The man ; and the law. A lame construction. paralogism, — by an application to the remote analogy of " the law of Marriage."* The answer is obvious : just so much of this kw as is really "moral" was not "made for man;" but man was made for it ; " the end of his creation being for the observance of the moral law." Just so much of "the law of Marriage" as is " positive" (as the legal form or ceremony, &c.) " teas made for man," and, like the Sabbath law, must be regulated entirely by circumstances. I have adverted to the "sad nonsense" made of this striking argument of Jesus, by my friend's previous construction. He has attempted to amend it, but with slight success ; and as he Bays " I submit to W. B. T. himself, whether there is any want of logical connection" in the construction {p. 66), I must in all candor say, I think it still a " most lame and impotent conclusion." The force of the declaration was not and could not be in the universaUtij of its first branch : it lay entirely in the antithesis, — in the contrasted subordination of the law and the man.f With my friend, I submit our respective exposi- observance of them is not itself the end for which man was created : man was not made for these. Of natui-al duties we affirm the contrary : the acquisition of that virtue which consists in the habitual love and practice of them is the very final cause of man's existence. These, therefore, are the things for which man was made : they were not made for him." [Sermons, serm. xxii. On the Sabbath.) And Whately, com- menting on the same sadly perverted. declaration of Jesus, says: " He evidently means, that though He made no pretensions to ^ dispensing power in respect of moral duties (man being made for them), positive ordinances, on the contrary, being 'made for man,' might be dispensed with, or abrogated by the same authority which established them ; viz. : by the divine authority which he claimed." [Essays, &c. v. A.) * '' Marriage,'" says Bishop Warburton, " is of a mixed nature ; in part a sacred ordinance, in part a human institution .... This dis- tinction is marked out to us by the nature of things ; and confirmed by laws divine and human .... It is a contract so virtually circumstanced as the laws of Religion ordain ; and &q formally executed as the laws of each particular society prescribe." [Sermons, serm. xvii.) f An exact translation of the sentence will pei'haps render this even L MR. Taylor's second reply. 131 Sabbatarian Pharisees rebuked. The Sabbath's " Lord." Paul's declaration. tions to ''every unprejudiced mind.'' " This much perverted quotation/' says J. N. B. (modifying my remark), was not against " Sabbatarians/' but against "bigoted Pharisees !" — Still, as these bigoted Pharisees certainly were not Anti-sah- hatarians, its legitimate force was against almost "the straitest sect" of Sabbatarians, by my friend's admission ! and "hon- esty requires that it should not be employed for an opposite purpose." But Jesus was "Lord of the Sabbath." These words im- port something vastly more significant than that " his authority was paramount in settling the construction T' {p. 64.) Thus understood, " every trace of their glory vanishes." Jesus claimed to be " Lord" — not of the construction, but of the in- stituiion! and being its Sovereign, could acknowledge no al- legiance to it ! Lord "of a ' strictly ceremonial and Jewish institute !' " exclaims J. N. B. incredulously, (p. 67.) Yes, my friend, it was of all these ceremonial institutions that Jesus was pre-eminently '"'' LordV^ {Epli. ii. 15; Heb. ix. 9 — 11; Col. ii. 14.) I have quoted the express assertion of Paul, that "the Sab- bath days are a shadow;" reminding J. N. B. that he who affirms a limitation of its application must clearly prove it. He replies: "And I hope clearly to prove it thus. Paul is the more apparent ; — if such a thing indeed be possible. To a-ct.QQa.tov Iia Toy avQ^otfTTov gj/gveroj ovx^ o ayQ^uTrot 5'tct to a-aCQanv : " The Sabbath for the man was made, not the man for the Sabbath." How uttei-l}^ inexcusa- ble the version — the Sabbath was "designed, like all other moral laws, for the benefit of the whole race!" (p. 66.) To complete my friend's paraphrase, he should add — " and not the whole race — for the Sab- bath!" For the term "man" must certainly be as comprehensive on' the one side of the antithesis as on the other. He must be delighted with the following parallel: " Spectacles were made for man; not man for spectacles :" whence it is obvious that spectacles " were designed for the benefit of — the whoteracer As Gill well observes, "by ' man' is 7iot meant all mankind ; for the Sabbath was never appointed for all mankind, nor bindinj upon all." [Comment, on Mark ii, 27.) 132 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. A begging of the question. An appropriate self-reflection. servant of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ taught the perpetuity of the Decalogue, in even the least of its commandments, of which the Sabbath is one. This, therefore, was the doctrine of Paul!'' (p. 61.) No; — my friend, ?/o?i cannot prove it — "thus!" Paul's language directly contradicts your inference ! (see also 2 Cor. iii. 7 ; Heb. viii. 13.) Jesus did not teach " the perpetuity of the Decalogue ;" he taught exactly the op- posite ! {Matt. vii. 29; V. 21, 27; Mark ii. 28; xii. 29, 31; John V. 8, 17; 18 ; viii. 5, 7.) The assumption is a petitio principii Apparently dizzied and excited by the completeness of the circle he has traversed, J. N. B. exclaims: ''With what as- tonishment would Paul, if he were now among us hodiJy, behold an attempt to torture his language into a direct opposition to a fundamental doctrine of his Master ! What conceivable form of ' wresting the Scriptures' could be more painful to his generous spirit ?" {p. 61.) Did I delight in declamation, I might per- haps make an appropriate application ; but I prefer confining myself to the argument. I feel it more agreeable to establish such an accusation than to assert it. Whenever Jesus, in the course of his teachings, had occasion to sum up the great leading principles of the natural or moral law {Matt. xix. 18—21 ; Mark x. 19 ; Luke x. 27, 28), that institution so venerated by the ritual Pharisees — " ' the pearl of da3'S,' the blessing of this world, and the beacon light of that which is to come," was always strangely or significantly passed by, without a single approving notice; while his very method of quotation seemed carefully designed to discredit any idea of the Decalogue being the compendium of morality.* * "The old custom," says Professor Stuart, "of deducing every duty either toward God or toward man, from these ten commandments, is unsatisfactory and inexpedient; unsatisfactory, because one must strain them beyond measure in order to malce them comprise every duty (and must therefore do violence to the laws of exegesis) ; — inexpedknt^ because if these ten commandments embrace all duty, then MR. Taylor's second reply. 133 The Sabbath discarded from the moral teachings of Jesus aud the Apostles. In that mountain sermon, so remarkable for the comprehen- siveness of its moral application, we hear no intimation of the necessity of keeping six days less holy than the seventh ! In the corresponding summaries we occasionally find in the Epistles, there is the same impressive silence concerning that *' safeguard of virtue, that glory of religion, that pillar and prop of society,' ' — the holy Sabbath ! (^Rom. xiii. 7 — 9 ; James i. 27 ; ii. 10, 11); while, on the other hand, in all the catalogues of crime and unholiness, we meet with no allusion to that dark profanity ^^ Sahhatli-hrealchuj T' (1 Cor. v. 11; vi. 9, 10; Gal V. 19—21; 1 Tim. i. 9, 10.) What moral law has been or could be so neglected throughout the Christian Scriptures ? AVhat moral delinquency has been, or could be so wholly unrebuked ? (2 Tim. iii. 17.) '' Methinks,'' says BuNYAN, " that Christ Jesus and his apostles do plainly enough declare this very thing : that when they repeat unto the people or expound before them the moral law, they quite exclude the seventh-day Sabbath : yea, Paul makes that law complete without it !" (^Dis. on tlie Seventli-day Sabbath: ques. ii.) " I take it for granted,^' says my friend (p. 56), "that two men of average intelligence and candor, with the same sources of evidence open before them, could not come to such opposite is the rest of the Pentateuch which comprises statutes that are a rule of duty, either more or less superfluous, and might well be spared. The argument that these commands are j^c^pc^ual because they were 'engraven in stone,' will not weigh much with any one who knows that all important laws of ancient times were engraven on stone or metal, in order that they might be both a public and a lasting monu- ment of what the legislative power required- . . . It is plain from a bare inspection of these ten commandments that they comprised, and were designed to comprise, only the leading and most important maxims of piety and morality. To deduce more from them than thisy is to force on them a construction which they will not fairly bear." (Hebrew Chresiomalhy, part ii. no. 27, Notes, p. 146,) 12 134 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The " moral and ceremonial confounded." Authority — conclusire. conclusions on a question like this, unless the question was complicated with circumstances that tend to confound moral and ceremonial distinctions/^ I think this is clear; and I think it equally clear that the ^'negative'' is entitled to "the benefit of the doubt/' It is conceivable that persons of the highest intelligence and candor should, through the resistless influence of early and continuous training, come to consider ritual observances as of inviolable obligation (/or this toe some- times see) ; — but it is not conceivable that the wise and good should ever be led by " some mistaken view of Christian lib- erty," to deny a moral obligation ; — for this would be to over- throw its fundamental definition. Accordingly " if a thousand Christian divines of the highest distinction, with Luther and Calvin at their head, were to 'break it and to teach men so,' " I claim that this would be decisive as to its "moral" character; — that no amount of counteracting evidence could weigh a feather in the balance; however clearly it might establish the perpet- ual ohligation of the law. Here is an issue, where " authority" is final. If therefore I can produce the concurrent sentiment of the most venerated and profound of the Christian Fathers* — of the most devoted and illustrious of the early reformers — of the most popular and brilliant of modern Ecclesiastical writers — then have I more than established my " Second Proposition," apart from the conclusive testimony I have adduced from both the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures. W. B. T. * iKENiEUS [adv. //a?r. lib, iv. c. 30, 31); Tebtullian [de Idolat. lib. iii.); Cyprian {ad Quirin. c. 59, and c. 1 de exhort. Martyr.); Origen i^Hom. viii. in Ex. lib. 15) ; Augustine {contr. Faust, c. 4, 7); &c., ex- pressly afi&rm that the Sabbath law was purely ceremonial and no part of the moral law. And such indeed was the pervading opinion of all antiquity. "The Fathers," says Calvin, "frequently call it a s%adowy commandment, because it contains the external observance of the day, which was abolished with the rest of the figures at the advent of Christ." {Instit. lib. ii. c. 7.) MR. Taylor's second reply. 135 A PharLsaic construction" — inadmissible. Contemporary exposition. PART III. " The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but vriih us — even us, who are all of us here alive this day." — Deuteroxomt v. 2 — 15. " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah." — Jeremiah xxxi. 31. <'In that he saith, aneio covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old, is ready to vanish away." — Hebrews viii. 13. \ III. The exemplari/ violation of the Sahhath. I MOST fully concur with mj friend in the gravity of the "Third Proposition." Most thoroughly do I recognize the truth, that its statement, " if not sustained, demands profound regret and public retraction !" (p. 68.) Let him rest assured, he shall have it ! The Proposition (as correctly announced by J. N. B.) " is built upon the construction of the word ^ work' in the fourth commandment." But when he attempts to modify the legal restriction by the word " unnecessary," I promptly check him. This "is to adopt a Pharisaic construc- tion." Our civil judges, " learned in the law," have not yet agreed upon the exact meaning of this term. No such standard of interpretation as may be adjusted by the uncertain and ever varying judgment of individual expediency, is admis- sible here. "We have a more sure word of prophecy;" and to the letter and the spirit of the Mosaic law shall I strictly confine my friend. Of all means of determining the " intent of the lawgiver," and consequently the application of the law, contemporary exposition has ever been justly held the most decisive. When, therefore, we discover the import of the prohibition " in it thou • shalt not do any work," — by adjudged cases or illustrative ~' exhortations (as in Exod. xvi. 23; xxxv. 3; xvi. 29 ; Numb. 136 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The violation of an explicit command — not to be evaded. XV, 32 ', Amos viii. 5 ; IsaL Iviii. 13 ; Jerem. xvii. 21, 22 ; JSfeh. X. 31 ; xiii. 19), then have we — so far as these cases ap- ply — an authoritative and final decision as to the requirements of the fourth commandment. No sophistry can evade it. I have shown, by a comparison of John v. 8 with Jer. xvii. 21, that Jesus ostentatiously violated the fourth commandment. The fact stands unshaken and inevitable.* The only evasion aUemj^tcdhj J. N. B. is that " the poor man's bed was evidently nothing but (Jxrahhatoii) a small portable couch or mattress, such as travellers carried about with them !" {p. 64.) When my friend discovers " the chapter and verse" by which '' krah- hato^ are excepted from the command : '' Thus saith the Lord, take heed to yourselves and bear no burden on the Sabbath-day," his suggestion will deserve a reply. So studiously did Jesus endeavor to wean the Jewish vene- ration for the Sabbath, so studiousli/ did he seek occasion practically to deny its sanctity, that it would appear most of his miraculous cures were performed on that day;f insomuch that the synagogue ruler " said unto the people, there are six days in which men ought to ' work ;' in them, therefore, come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath-day." (LuJce xiii. 14. )J; Publicly and studiousif/ did Jesus call attention to the fact of his doing " work" on that day : he did not " speak the word," * "He requires hun to do that on the Sabbath which was contrary to the letter of the Law, to show" that he was a prophet, who by their own rules had power to require ivhat was contrary/ to the ceremonial rest of the Sabbath." Whitby. [Annotations, in loco.} f "Though he frequently judged proper to conceal his miracles," says Athanasius, "yet when the miracle was done on the Sabbath, then he ' worked' most openly. So that his most wonderful miracles seem to have been wrought on the Sabbath-day." % Indeed the people themselves appear generally to have been so far regardful of the sanctity of the day, as to delay presenting their diseased friends to Jesus till the setting sun announced the Sabbath fully over. (See Mark i. 32 ; Luke iv. 40.) MR. Taylor's second reply. 137 The proclamation — " I tvork." Testimony of John — decisive. but he " made clay," he '* anointed the eyes," he ordered " washing" for the blind. By word and by deed he solemnly proclaimed, "I work !" His very claim of being "Lord of the Sabbath" fully establishes the fact of its violation. How- could he exercise " lordship" over the institution except by resisting its control? If his authority were his vindication, it certainly could not have been a vindication of his obedience to the law ! The " surprise" formerly expressed at this " charge" of vio- lation has been modified by my friend, to the exclusion of those " Pharisaic Jews" — " who had murder in their hearts." (p. 67.) He will have to modify it still further. '' That disciple whom Jesus loved'^ has expressly asserted that his Master "broke the Sabbath !"-" But Jesus answered them, * My Father worketh hitherto, and / work !' Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with Grod." (John v. 17, 18.) " A Pharisaic construction" will not here avail my friend. His last refuge is taken away. It was not the false accusation of " making himself equal with God -," it was not the false accusation of having " broken the Sabbath 3" it was the avowed and unquestioned truth, in both cases, that stirred up " murder in the hearts" of these Sabbath-keeping Pharisees. I trust that this solemn declaration will be received as a satisfac- tory answer to the former query : " Can any man in his sober senses believe such a proposition ?" (p. 16.) A far more startling question presents itself: Where would J. N. B. have been found in that day, with his present views of Sabbath obligation ? Holding that this law " was certainly binding on the Jews, of whom our Lord was one according to the flesh,"* and that " every Jew, including Jesus himself, was then bound by it," * " Simply as man, Christ himself was ' made under the law.' [Gal. iv. 4.) But as the Messiah, who is also son of God, he has power over 12* 138 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. A solemn consideration. Archbishop Whately's " indorsement." I see not how be could possibly escape the conclusion: "This man is not of God because he keepeth not the Sabbath-day V {John ix. 16.)* In vain would " the Son of man" claim to be ^' Lord of the Sabbath.'^ By my friend's account, he could only be Lord of the construction ! (p. 64.) If so, how sub-' versive that construction ! I still expect, however, from the candor of my friend, an admission that the Proposition under proof is not " calumnious," and that it is not *' false !" J. N. B. " acquits" Paley of having indorsed this " Third Proposition." (^p. 67.) Considering that this writer does not even advert to the subject, this acquittal is very liberal, and very — -just ! If, however, my friend attaches any importance to the indorsement of so irrefragable a fact, by a "professedly Christian writer," I am happy to present him with that of " one of the first scholars and soundest thinkers in Great Britain" — Archbishop Whately : " It will be plainly seen," says he, " on a careful examination of the accounts given by the evangelists, that Jesus did decidedly and avowedly violate the Sahbatli ; on purpose, as it should seem, to assert in this way his divine authority." — {^Essays, No. v. note A. On the Sahhath.^ IV. Tlte silence of the New Testament Scrij^tures. The solitary passage previously quoted by my friend (1 Tim. i. 9 — 11), to impeach the " Fourth Proposition," is still re- tained, (p. 68.) At his request, I have given the chapter a careful and repeated examination, and with the assistance of all these outicard ordinances. . . He may say when the 'shadow' shall give place to the substance." Trench. {Notes on the 31iracles: chap. 19.) ■^ The syllogism is simple, and invulnerable ! Minor premise : — Jesus " not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father." (A Bible asserted fact !) 3Iajor premise : — "If he did thus violate it, he was guilty of sin P^ (J. N. B.jP. 16.) Conclusion: — Therefore "this man is not of God T MR. Taylor's second reply. 139 Opposite conclusions from 1 Tim. i. The ivhole Law under cli!-~cussion. the best expositors within my reach. Still I can see nothing in the passage of what appears to J. N. B. so obvious, — a re- ference to the Decalogue ; nor anything to warrant his conclu- sions : "1. That the Decalogue is recognized as the moral standard ;" and " 2. That Sahhath-hreaTcers are certainly in- cluded among * the ungodly and profane.' " It is perhaps a singular fact } but the more I have considered the text, the more directly oppo^te have been my convictions on both these points. Still, as I have no wish to deprive my friend of its just force, I submit it to the candid and intelligent, without argument. I doubt not he has, in this quotation, done the best possible ; but I see no reason for modifying my first re- ception of it. V. Tlie formal Abrogation of the Sahhatli at Jerusalem. The original objection to my '' Fifth" conclusion was that tlie controversy before the Jerusalem Council was " restricted to the Jewish ceremonial law." {p. 18.) The fourth com- mandment, being clearly proved to be a '^ Jewish ceremonial law," falls necessarily within the admitted consideration of the Apostolic convention, and consequently (as before re- marked) within the class of observances rejected as unneces- sary for the Grentile Christian. To meet, however, the entire question involved, and to place the investigation on its broadest grounds, I showed, by the very proceedings of the council, that the great subject presented for adjudication ''was evidently the wliole 'Law of Moses,' and the extent of its obligation." My friend, after assenting to this by the emphatic "Precisely so" (p. 71), seems desirous of excepting " the Decalogue !" {p. 73.) To which I simply reply, that the Mosaic law is never once alluded to in the New Testament, as excluding the Decalogue.* * The application of Bistop Middleton's learned canons of criti- cism respecting the use of the Greek article settles this qnestion deci- sively. My friend J. N. B. tinds it convenient to his argument some- times to wholly exclude the Decalocjue from the " Law of Moses" 140 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The Decalogue — " distinctive of Judaism." The texts he has cited (Acts. xxi. 20 — 25; Beh. x. 28) are most certainly not exceptions to this statement. In the present instance, it may be observed that the prac- tical controversy being admitted by J. N. B. to "include what was distinctive of Judaism'^ (p. 73), the Decalogue — as a code — was actually as ''distinctive" as any other portion of the Jewish law.* " Throughout all history, we discover no trace of ' the Decalogue,' among the nations of antiquity.^' Nay, two of its provisions (the second and fourth command- ments) were unknown to the moral law of the Romans. f Of these two '' distinctive" precepts, the former was expressly enjoined upon the Gentile Church by the Council, while the latter was as expressly rejected by its decisive silence. Two other prohibitions of the Mosaic law (Exod. xxii. 16; and Levit. xvii. 12) were conjoined with this one selected from the Decalogue. The " seventh commandment" I do not conceive to have been involved in this re-enactment any more than the sixth commandment, or the eighth. Of these three require- ments, gleaned from the '' wIloIc ' Law of Moses,' " two are in modern ethics ''moral" precepts, the other a "positive" one. I am " compelled to admit," says J. N. B., " that the obvious reason why these two points of the moral law were at all re- ferred to, was that they were the only ones likely to be trans- (see pp. 18, 73), and at other times to exclude all but the Decalogue! (seep. 58.) ^ " The Decalogue was but part of the Jeivish law, if you consider it not as written in Nature, but in tables of stone ; and the Jewish law was given as a law to no other people but to them. So that even in Moses's days it bound no other nations of the world. Therefore it needed not any abrogation to the Gentiles, but a declaration that it did not bind them." — (Baxter's Works, vol. iii. On the Lord's Day, chap, vii.) f Thus, the Roman Emperor .Julian (as has already been noticed) expressly mentions these two precepts as peculiar to the Jewish law ; and quotes the remaining precepts of the Decalogue as recognized and enforced by all nations. (See ante, p. 118.) MR. Taylor's second reply. 141 No Gentile Sabbath: and no Sabbath imposed by tlio Jerusalem Council. gressed by those just emancipated from the Roman Paganism/' — " not perceiving that it ruins my argument." (^. 73.) I con- fess that this is strictly true. So far from it, I perceive that the "admission" is the very hulwark of my argument. It was precisely because these "two points" were not enjoined by the Fay an moral law that their special enactment was neces- sary. Though not probably individually controverted before the Jerusalem Council, they were as really an integral ^^ part of the Jaw in dispute" (that is, as really " distinctive of Judaism" for the persons addressed) as circumcision itself !* My friend, as a classical scholar, must be fully aware of this. "What then is the relation of the fourth commandment to the Gentile Christian ? The perspicuous answer is contained in two irrefutable propositions: 1st. The "Sabbath" most cer- tainly was not obligatory by any Gentile law (my friend's " mistake in fact," notwithstanding), and 2dly, the " Sabbath" as certainly was not made obligatory by the Jerusalem edict. The Roman converts, after learning that but three things of "the law of Mpses" had been enjoined upon them as "neces- sary things," would at once have rejected as an absurdity any imposition of the 3Iosaic Sabbath upon their consciences. As well might the obligation of Circumcision have been asserted. A PersiuSj a Martial, or a Seneca would have asked in astonishment : " How could the Council possibly omit an observance that we regard so peculiarly ' distinctive of Juda- ism,' and that was therefore one of the most prominent of those in controversy, if it was intended still to be a 'necessary thing V " My friend would find it difficult to give a satis- factory reply. He has not yet "done with the Fifth Proposi- * Grotius {Comment, in Act. xv. 20), CuRCELLiEus [Diatrih. siqyr. laud. c. 10), and Salmasius [De trapezit. fcenor.), all agree that the reason why these three restrictions and no others, were imposed by the apostles, -was that they were the only ones judged necessary for observance, which admitted of dispute between the Jews and the Gentiles, from the diversity of their systems. 142 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. An Antinomian objection. Paul's decisive reply. tion." (p. 76.) He must either frankly admit its truth, — or, as the only alternative, he must point out the " chapter and verse" which re-enacts the fourth commandment for Gen- tiles ! One of these courses I have a right to demand from a candid disputant. But it is here advanced by my friend, as a comprehensive and conclusive objection, that if the Sabbath law be assumed to be abolished, because not included among the " necessary things,'' by the same argument, ''all the ten commandments, except the first and seventh, are abrogated. That is to say, profaneness towards God, disobedience to parents, lying, rob- bery, and murder, are no longer sins under the Christian dis- pensation ! And this, then, is the ' liberty wherewith Christ has made us free !' " {p. 74.) I am bound to suppose the objection a candid one, and not a mere rhetorical flourish ; though I must confess it is one well calculated to surprise. If this appears to J. N. B. a fair inference from the premises, I can only lament that, in his application of principles which are incontrovertible gospel truths^ he should fraternize so marvellously with those Anti- nomians, whose doctrines he formerly pronounced " most frightful." {p. 18.) To such reasoners, I know of no more pertinent nor decisive reply than that of Paul : "What then? Shall we sin, because ' loe are not under the Laiv,' but under grace ? God forbid ! Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are, to whom ye obey? .... Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the Law — hy the hody of Christ ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised/rom the dead." " Ye are not under the Law, but under Grace." I might remind J. N. B. that the Gentiles already had a law more binding than the Decalogue, prohibiting these crimes (Eom. ii. 14); and that to re-enact it on an occasion like this, when it was not even disputed, would have been a simple ab- surdity. I might convict him by his own language, that the MR. TAYLOR* S SECOND REPLY. 143 The repeal of " all the ten commandments" — indififerent. burden complained of by the Gentiles " can only include what was distinctive of Judaism. It cannot include that law of God which He has promised to 'put into the hearts' of his people.'' (p. 73.) And suppose it were conceded that "all the ten command- ments, not excepting the first and seventh, are abrogated !" What then ? Can this repeal a law, thousands of years older ? Can the absolute destruction of the Mosaic tables disturb "one jot or one tittle" of that code inscribed by "the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart ?" Alas ! " to what absurd results will wrong theories lead intelligent men !" Is my friend so hopelessly "entangled in the yoke of bondage" to Sinai, that he can see no other "stand-point" in the universe excepting "frightful" Anti- nomianism ? Has he never read that his vaunted Decalogue was a "ministration of death" — "added because of transgres- sions, till the Seed should come" — " the mediator of a better covenant?" That this covenant of Horeb, so far from being "faultless," " made nothing perfect," and, therefore, " decayed" and "vanished away" before a grander code, and "the bringing in of a better hope ?" Is it necessary to remind one who has studied the Bible for " thirty years," that the moral precepts of the New Testament include everything valuable in the old, and much more? That, there being "made of necessity a change of the Law," there is " a disannulling of the command- ment going before," and those "no longer under that law," are consequently ^' not icithout law to God, but under the law to Christ?" That they "are his disciples indeed" — not " who desire to be under the law" of Sinai — but who "con- tinue in his word," and "keep his commandments?" Alas ! how difierent are the conclusions of the apostle, from the Antinomian reasonings of J. N. B. ! How irreconcilably oj^posite their " stand-points !" My friend appears not yet to have learned that. his whole Christian duty is to "fulfil the law of Christ;" and that, if the Decalogue "was given by Moses, 144 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The Decalogue dead as a " rule of obligation." grace and truth came by Jesiis/^ This is " the liberty where- with Christ hath made us free;" even a '^perfect law of liberty V If that ^^ministration of death, written and engraven in stones/' however glorious once, is now completely ^^ done awaif^ (2 Cor. iii. 7); if "now we are delivered from the law, that being rZeac?/" — (even that code which said "Thou shalt not covet," Rom. vii. 6, 7) — then has its authority utterly and forever ceased. It is not as a " covenant of life" (p. 18), it is not as a "ground of justification," that it has become incom- petent; for this, Paul tells us, it ever was. {Rom. iii. 20; Gal. iii. 11, 21.) It is as a "ride of moral obligation" that the Decalogue has become henceforth irrevocably "dead!"* * " Now let us adopt the obvious interpretation of the Apostle's •words," says Whatbly, "and admit the entire abrogation, according to him, of the Mosaic law ; concluding that it was originally designed for the Israelites alone, and that its dominion over them ceased when the Gospel system commenced ; and we shall find that this concession does not go a step towards establishing the Antinomian conclusion, that moral conduct is not required of Christians. For it is evident that the natural distinctions of right and wrong which conscience points out, must remain where they were. These distinctions, not having been introduced by the Mosaic law, cannot, it is evident, be overthrown by its removal. . . . Before the comiuandments to do no murder, and to honor one's parents, had been delivered from Mount Sinai, Cain was cursed for killing his brother, and Ham for dishonor- ing his father ; which crimes, therefore, could not cease to be such, at least as any consequence of the abolition of that law. Nor need it be feared that to proclaim an exemption from the Mosaic law should leave men without any moral guide, and at a loss to distinguish right and wrong ; since, after all, the light of reason is that to which every man must be left, in the interpretation of that very law. So far, con- sequently, from the moral precepts of the Law being to the Christian necessary as a guide to his judgment in determining what is right and wrong, on the contrary, this moral judgment is necessary to determine what are the moral precepts of Moses. ... It is not because they are commandments of the Mosaic law that he is bound to obey them, MR. Taylor's second reply. 145 The Chri.-tian t^tandard. A false issue attempted. " Wc are not under the Law." ''Now we know that what tbiniis soever the Law saith, it saith to them who are under the Law." He, therefore, who, to sustain a Christian duty, is driven to some Exod. xx., or Levit. xix., or Deut. v., may well suspect himself of being wnse above that which is written. J, N. B. has attempted a kind of diversion (p. 76), by cit- ing a few Patristic writers (including the apocryphal "Bar- nabas"*), to prove that Sunday was commemorated by the early Christians. f A single word is sufficient reply : — Wholly irrelevant! This point has never been disputed. The ques- tion under discussion has no reference whatever to a icorship- but because they are moral. Indeed, there are numerous precepts — in the laws, for instance, of Solon and Mahomet — from a conformity to which no Christian can pretend to exemption ; yet no one would say that a part of the Koran is binding on Christians." [Essays on Paul. Essay v.) ■^ Although this Epistle most probably belongs to the second century rather than to the first, whatever historical interest or doctrinal authority attaches to it, must be claimed decidedly by the Anti-sabba- tarian. While there is nothing in it which favors Sabbatarianism (even by implication), it contains the following very explicit passage : " 'Your new-moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn meetings ; your new-moons and appointed feasts my soul hateth.' These things, therefore, hath God abolished, that the new law of our Lord .Jesus Christ, which is without the yoke of any such necessity, might have the spiritual offering of men themselves." Barxab. ii. 8. {Wake's Translation.) f " The first Christians assembled for the purposes of divine wor- ship, in private houses, in caves, and in vaults. Their meetings were on the first day of the week ; and in some places they assembled also upon the seventh, which was celebrated by the Jews. Many also observed the fourth day of the week, on which Christ was betrayed ; and the sixth, which was the day of his crucifixion. The hour of the day appointed for holding these religious assemblies varied according to different times and circumstances of the church ; but it was ge7ie- rally in the evening after sunset, or in the morning before the dawn." MosHEiM. [Church History, cent, ii, part ii. chap. iv. sec. 8.) 13 146 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. An improper coloring of evidence. Church History— anti-sabhatarian. day ; it is the Scriptural authority for a " Sabbath-day/^ — a dsLj Dlvineli/ appointed, m which "thou shalt not do any workP^^ Why then has my friend ventured upon this false issue ? When, however, suddenly reverting from this, he drops the point really attested, and assuming the true question as there- by confirmed, complacently sums up : " The only thing ' burden- some' would be to quote all their various expressions of devout recognition of the Christian Sabbath" (p. 76), he is chargeable with coloring his evidence ! Not one of his witnesses says a word in "recognition of the Sabbath;" and almost all of them do testify clearly and strongly against the obligation of the Sabbath! Let him assume the slight "burden" of quoting one of the early " Fathers," recognizing the obligation of the fourth commandment, or expressly designating Sunday " the Sabbath," and he will have contributed something in support of his assumption. Such an appeal he has very prudently avoided. Such an authority (in " devout recognition of the Sabbath") he will find it a truly " burdensome" task to discover. The true " Scriptural view is confirmed in the clearest man- ner by Ecclesiastical History." The leading Fathers all speak of the fourth commandment as abrogated. As the Bishop of Lincoln remarks {Account of Justin Martyr, p, 96, 97): "The admission of Gentiles into the Church was quickly followed by the controversy respecting the necessity of observing the Mosaic ritual. . . . One consequence of which was that the converts, whether Jew or Gentile, who believed that the injunctions of the ceremonial law were no longer ob- ligatory, soon ceased to observe the Sabbath." EusEBius — the father of Church History — affirms the early Christian practice, most decisively : he says that, as the pa- ■^' "It is evident that, in the lirovisions of the fourth commandment, God did not enjoin the exercise of any religious devotion, but merely a corporeal rest.'" Spencer. (De Leg. Ilcb. lib. i. cap. iv. sect. 9.) MR. Taylor's second RErLY. 147 EusEBius. Socrates. The Protestant Reformers. triarchs "did not regard circumcision, nor observe the Sabbath, neither do ice. . . . Such things as these do not belong to Christians," (^Ilist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. 4.) The Church historian Socrates Scholasticus, in treating of this Jerusalem Council, observes : " Notwithstanding there are some who, disregarding this, . . . contend about holy days, as if it were for their lives; they invert the commands of God, and make laws for themselves, not valuing the decree of the Apostles ; nor do they consider that they practise the contrary to those things which ^seemed good' to God." (^Ilist. Ecd. lib. V. cap. 22.) Our most eminent Reformers, Luther, Melancthon, Cranmer, Tyndale, Calvin, &c., all agree that the fourth commandment is not obligatory upon Christians. In the celebrated "Augsburg Confession of Faith," drawn up by Luther, Melancthon, and other distinguished " Protestants," it is explicitly held: "The Scripture has abrogated the Sah- hath, teaching that all Mosaic ceremonies may be omitted since the gospel has been preached." Calvin, in his " Institutes," equally explicitly announces that the fourth commandment " i^rts aholished with the rest of the figures at the advent of Christ." It would, indeed, be "burdensome to quote all their various expressions of devout rejection of the Sabbath." It is clear (as strong-minded Bunyan maintains in his Essay on the Sahhath), that, " when the service or shadow and cere- monies of the seventh-day Sabbath fell, the seventh-day Sah- ia^/t/eZnikewise." (quest, v.)* * J. N. B. is evidently reluctant to part company with the illustrious author of " The Pilgrim's Progress," and says, with admirable gravity, "he really is on my ground, as any one may see who reads him with proper attention." [p. 70.) Since Bunyan founds his able argument for a Christian worship-day on the unco7iditional abolition of the fourth cuinmandmcnt, if " he really is on my friend's ground," I tender .J. N. B. my most hearty congratulation on his adoption of the true " Scriptural view." I expect him accordingly to indorse the following : " As for 148 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. Spencer. The Epistolary allusions uniformly Anti sahljatarian. '^ From all these things/' says Spencer, " it is most clearly apparent that the fourth commandment was adapted solely to the circumstances of the Mosaic economy, and bound the Jews alone, held under the tutorship of the law ; and that they are egregiously (I will not say ridiculously) mistaken, who maintain that we are bound to a Clivhtlan Sahhath (as it is called), wholly devoted to rest and the duties of religion, by the authority of the fourth commandment !" (Z^e Leg. Ileh. Rit. lib. i. cap. iv. sect. 13.) W. B. T. PART IV. " Tell me, ye that desire to be under ' the Law,' do ye not hear the Law ? For it is written that Abraham had two sons ; the one by a bond-maid, the other by a free woman." — Galatiaxs iv. 21, 22. " Israel, which followed after the Law of righteousness, hath not attained to the Law of righteousness." — Romans ix. 31. "We which have believed do enter into resty — (Hebrews iv. 3.) "For Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that belicveth." — Romans x. 4. VI. The 'provuioRol nature iiniformli/ ascrihed to the Sah- hath in the sichsequent Epistles. Closely connected with the preceding " Proposition," and the seventh-day Sabbath, that, as we see, is gone to its grave with the signs and shadows of the Old Testament The first day of the week is the Christian's market-day ; that which they so solemnly trade in for soul provision for all the week following. This is the day that they gather manna in. To be sure, the seventh-day Sabbath is not that ; for of old the people of God could never find manna on that day I conclude that those Gentile professors that adhei-e thereto are Jewified, legalized, and so far gone back from the authority of God, who /rom such bondages has set his churches free." — [Essay on the Sabbath, ques. v.) MR. Taylor's second reply. 149 No possible evasion of the Epistle to the Colnssicnis. •irresistibly confirming it, is the view taken of the Sabbath in the Epistles written after the decision of the Jerusalem Council. It is a striking and instructive fact that, while these Scriptures repeatedly refer to the Sabbath, they do not once refer to it in commendation of its observance or in recognition of its authori- ty ; and they do distinctly and uniformly refer to it as a ful- filled and evanescent symbol. " It may seem a waste of time and strength," says J. N. B., ^'to examine this last Proposition minutely, after what has been said already." (p. 77.) I agree with him in thinking that every efibrt to dislodge this last and keystone wedge in my fabric of ''Propositions" will indeed prove '' a ivaste of time and strength I" From such a conviction, no doubt, he has permitted it to stand almost without an attempt to con- trovert it. His Reply betrays throughout its conscious weak- ness. One of the most perspicuous and decisive of these scriptural references is that adduced from the Epistle to the Colossians : ^* Sabbath days are a shadow of things to come ; but the hodi/ is of Christ." The " rest" of the fourth commandment (com- memorating a release from bondage) was but a " provisional type" of the succeedmg dispensation, whose founder embodied the true Sabbatism into which believers enter. The resources, of evasion are here utterly at fault. No effort " more sub- stantial than assertion" has yet been made to show that the word " Sabbath" does not here "refer to the Sabbath !" And none can he ! The only glance afforded at this stubborn text, in my friend's Pteply, is, " We have searched for it [the 'pro- visional' character of the Sabbath] in the Epistle to the Colos- sians, and it is not there!" {p. 79.) Strange, that the very same sight which could so clearly discern " Sabbath" in 1 Tim. i. 9, can discover no trace of it in Col. ii. 16 ! Plow inex- plicable is the phenomenon of vision ! The Christian Fathers saw "Sabbath-symbolism" in this passage; but my friend can- not. Luther and Calvin both saw it clearly there ; but to 13* 150 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The literal application, enforced by Milton: Baxter: I>ARRO^Y: Buntan. him it is invisible. Paley and Whately saw it there : but to him, alas ! " it is not there I" Says Milton : "' Whoever denies that under the words of the Apostle, ' in respect of an holy day, or of the new-moon, or of the Sahhath days,' the Sabbath of the fourth command- ment is comprehended, may as well deny that it is spoken of in 2 Cliron. ii. 4; or viii. 13; or xxxi. 3; from which pas- sages the words of Paul seem to be taken.'' (^Clirist. Doctrine^ Book ii. chap. 7.) Says Baxter unhesitatingly, this passage ^' meant the weekly Jewish Sabbath." {LonVs Daij, chap, v.) And he justly reproves those who would presume to except it from the apostle's rejection. ''This is to limit it without any proof from the word of God. When Grod speaks of 'Sabbaths' in general without exception, what is man that he should put ex- ceptions without any proof of authority from God ? By such boldness we may pervert all his laws. Yea, when it was the weekly Sabbath which was then principally known by the name of the Sabbath, it is yet greater boldness, without proof to exclude the principal part from whence the rest did receive the name !" {On the Lord's -Dcij/, chap, vii.) " What violence men's own wits must use in denying the 'evidence of so plain •a text ! Their reason that he saith not ' Sabbath,' but ' Sab- baths,' is against themselves ; the plural number being most comprehensive, and other Sabbaths receiving their name from this." {Ibid. Ajypendixj ch. i.) Says Barrow : " St. Paul himself is express in discharging Christians from the observation thereof, and in conjoining it with other ceremonial observances, whose nature was merely symbolical, and whose design was to continue no longer than till the real substance of that which they represented came into full force and practice. — Col. ii. 16, 17." {Works, vol. i. Exposition of Decalogue.^ Says BuNYAN, Paul " distinctly singleth out this Seventh day as that which was a noble shadow, a most exact shadow." MR. Taylor's second reply. 151 Macknight. The Fourth Commandment exclusively referred to. " As he serveth other holy days, he serveth the Sabbath : he gives a liberty to believers to refuse the observation of it, and commands that no man should judge against them for their so doing. And, as you read, the reason of his so doing is be- cause the ' body,' the substance, is come. Christ, saith he, is the lodtj. Nor hath the apostle, one would think, left any hole out at which men's inventions could get : but man has sought out many; and so, many will he use I'"^ (^Essaij on the Sahbath, ques. iv.) Says Macknigiit, commenting on this text : " The ichoh Law of Moses being abrogated by Christ, Christians are under no obligation to observe any of the Jewish holidays — not even the seventh-day Sabbath." {Com. on Epi&tles, Col. ii. IG.) If my friend desires a broader issue than that already pre- sented, it may be confidently asserted that the term '' Sabbath days" in Col. ii. 16, not only inchules "the Sabbath of the Decalogue" (which is all that is necessary to the argument), but that it excludes all other Sabbaths if — that it refers to " the seventh day" of the fourth commandment, and to nothing else ! 1. The word has no other meaning in the New Testa- ment. J 2. This is always its meaning when associated with * " The passage quoted from Colossians refers not to the Sabbath of the Decalogue, but only to the ceremonial fasts and festivals of the Jews."— J. N. B. {ly. 18.) *« With what astonishment would Paul, if he were now among U3 bodily, behold an attempt to torture his language into a direct opposi- tion to a fiuidamental doctrine of his Master? What conceivable form of ' tcrestinff the Scriptures' could be more painful to his generous spii'it?" J. N. B. {p. 61.) f " Thft Apostle here by 'Sabbaths' does not mean the first and last days of the great Jewish feasts, which were by them observed as Sabbaths, or the Sabbath of the seventh year, or of the year of jubilee ; but only or chiefly the tt-/?c% Sabbaths of the Jews." (Whitby, Comment, in loco.) J Even in those occasional instances where the word c-a^^aiov is used m a secondary sense as including the intervening space between 152 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. No rebutting text to be found. The Epistle to the Galatians, unassailed. *Hhe new-moon/' 3. The weekly Sabbath was the pre-emi- nent distinction of the Jew, and therefore necessarily the one primarily condemned in Judaizing Christians. "Let no man therefore judge you . . . .in respect of an hoJj/ dai/, or of the new-moon, or of the Sabbath days." Volumes might be written in illustration and enforcement of this great "test quotation.'' Volumes could not abate one jot of its signifi- cance. The very liberal offer has been made to surrender "the whole argument icUhout reserve' on the " trifling discovery" of one text " half so explicit or unmistakable" on the Sabba- tarian side of the controversy. Though J. N. B. very frankly admits that he does not "anticipate^ such an unconditional surrender" (j9. 80), the confident tone he assumes might al- most lead one to hope that he had made the " discovery." If so, let him not hesitate to announce it. Let him remember that a single text is all that is asked : more than one might prove too overwhelming \ " Ye observe dai/s and months .'" said Paul, reprovingly, to the foolish G-alatians. Ye still regard with superstitious rever- ence the Sabbaths and the new-moons ; turning back to these " weak and beggarly elements," after being redeemed from bondage to the Mosaic law. " I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain." In evasion of this, J. N. B. has nothing to say. His inventive genius seems para- lyzed. '^^ Sabbath and Sabbath, and properly translated "week" {Matt, xxviii. 1 ; Luke xviii. 12, &c.), it is still the hebdomadal period that alone is referred to. * "The Jews," says Luther, commenting on this passage, "were commanded to keep holy the Sabbath day, the new-moons, &c. These ceremonies the Galatians were constrained hj false teachers to keep as necessary to righteousness." (Co7n. on Gal. in loco.) "That these words," observes Barrow, "relate generally to the Jewish festivals, the context doth plainly enough show, and there is MR. Taylor's second reply. 153 Presumptive evidence from the H'brcivs. A future life— irrelevant. The fourth chapter of Hebrews has been referred to, as an- tecedently affording " a strong presumption" in favor of the figurative intent and transitory nature of the Sabbath. J. N. B., while accepting and approving my general construction, denies its main assumption, that the apostle here refers solely to an eartlily rest reserved for believers, as shown by the whole tenor of the dissertation. " On the contrary,^^ says he, "it is with perpetual reference to a future life.'' {p. 78.) He ap- pears to have formed " an inadequate conception of the con- text." It has been noticed that the great theme of this treatise is " the Levitical symbolism of the gospel." The natural inquiry of even the candid Jewish mind was, " How, if the Mosaic in- stitutes were of Divine original — the enactment of an immu- table God — could they ever be supplanted ?" And it was to meet this constantly recurring perplexity that this elaborate exposition was written for the Hebrew Christians. The topics of its remark would naturally be those which most required elucidation as to their spiritual import. The doctrine of a future life and a heavenly Canaan was as confidently received among the Essenes and the Pharisees as among the disciples of Jesus, and therefore a priori would not be likely to be specially illustrated here. It was the eartlihj ritual that formed the text; almost necessarily, it was the eartlihj ^-^va.- bolism that furnished the comment. Hence the apostle very properly declines considering "the resurrection of the dead" and the fu+ure award, as foreign to his purpose, {chap, vi.) Accordingly we find (just as we should expect to find) the oc- good reason to think that they chiefly respect the Sabbath we treat on, for which probably these men had the greatest respect and zeal." — [Expos, of Decalogue.) Indeed, as Gill has well remarked, there is nothing but the weekly Sabbath, to which the term "days" can here be with propriety re- ferred. {Comment, in loco.) The best expositors are unanimous in this application. 154 ABROGATION OP THE SABBATH. A temporal "rest" alone consistent with the writer's design. casional allusions to the life hereafter wholly incidental, and with no bearing whatever on the train of argument involved. Thus the very allusion in cJiap. iv. 14 forms really no part of the "context" of the Sabbatism previously discussed. A careful analysis of the writer's train of thought will clearly show that this verse is a resumption of the disquisition from chap. iii. 6: the intermediate digression (iii. 7 — iv. 13) form- ing an independent episode in this great argumentative epic. This digression, on the supposition of its treating solel?/ of an earthly rest reserved for true believers (a cessation from legal observance), becomes itself an interesting collateral allegation, admirably corroborating the main scope of the discourse — the temporary authority of the law. On this construction it is peculiarly adapted to its purpose of relieving the doubt or sus- taining the faith. On this construction it is strikingly illus- trated by the corresponding scriptural representations. {Isat. xi. 10; 3Iatt. xi. 28; Col ii. 17; Gal. iv. &c.) On this construction alone, the grammatical exegesis is fully satisfied. *'We do enter,''* "he that is entered," "he hath ceased," "let us labor to enter," "lest you should seem to come short.'' But this, says my friend, "lays unwarrantable stress upon the tense of the verb. 'For we which believe, do enter into rest.' Whereas, the meaning evidently is, heUevers {and tlioy only) shall inherit it; not here, but hereafter," (p. 79.) Surely J. N. B. docs not call this biblical criticism ! There is no one circumstance to support his hypothesis; there is every circum- stance to contradict it. Not only do the literal construction, the correspondency of Scripture, the Televancy and efficiency of the immediate argu- ment, and the whole tenor of the dissertation, all concur in es- tablishing a jjresent application of the believer's repose, but '^ Not they which believe ^^ shall enter," nor , yet, they which did believe ^^ have entered;" but they "which have believed do [by that very act] enter into rest.'" MR. Taylor's second reply. 155 A spiritual " Sabbatism"' contrasted with the seventh-clay Sabbath. the very form of phraseology powerfully strengthens this in- terpretation. The apologist, after exalting the authority of Jesus above that of Moses, and strongly urging the necessity of faith in him as a pre-requisite to the promised " rest/' sud- denly drops this word (xatartavai?) in his great conclusion, and says emphatically: "There remaineth therefore laa66afioinof\ a JSahhafmn -/' or, as our marginal reading has it, " a keeping of a Sahhatli.'''^ As he had just before (^verses 4 — 6) ex- pressly excluded the Sabbath of the Decalogue from the con- templation of the quoted psalm, this very word " Sabbatism'^ would to the minds of those addressed, almost inevitably con- vey the impression that the Sabbath itself was but the symbol ; and that, under the Christian dispensation, it was to be ob- served spiritually, in fulfilment of the very point which formed to them the difficulty. Such, under the circumstances and objects of the treatise, would obviously have been the under- standing of its readers; such doubtless was the intent of its writer. As Bunyan well says of the " rests" discarded : " It is enough that they before, did fail, as always shadows do. ' There remains, therefore, a rest to the people of God ;' — a rest to come, of which the seventh day, in which God rested, and the land of Canaan, was a type; which rest begins in Christ now, and shall be consummated in glory. And in that he saith 'There remains a rest/ referring to that of David, what is it, if it signifies not that the other rests remain not? There remains, therefore, a rest prefigured by the seventh day and by the rest of Canaan, though they are fled and gone." {Essay on the Sahhath, ques. iv.) "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully per- suaded in his own mind." — {Rom. xiv. 5.) " But candidly * WiCKLiF translates the passage: " Tlierfore the Sabot h is left to tlie people of God ; for lie that is entrid into liise reste, restide of Lis werkis as also God of hise ; therefore, haaste we to entre into that reste, that no man falle into the same ensample of unbileeue." 156 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The Epistle to the Romans, destructive to Sabbatai'ianism. now/' says J. N. B., "what is Paul urging there?'' {p. 80.) A " candid" answer to this ingenuous question will leave the Sabbatarian no inch of Bible ground to stand upon !* At present, space will not permit the critical examination of this text which its importance deserves. I only remark, that the ^'momentous distinction" of my friend is a simple "fancy." Holy days and unholy meats are put, by Paul, in exactly the same predicament — of observances absolutely indifferent to the gospel Christian. f If J. N. B. can reconcile a "Divine authority/' enjoining the estimation of the Sabbath above other days, with the Divine authority indisputably given in * Paul's unqualified language "strikes equally against the Christ- ian's 'Lord's day,' as against the Sabbath of the Decalogue. And where, then, let me ask, is there any law, or institution for public worship in the New Testament?" J, N. B. [p. 19.) " The law of the Sabbath being thus repealed, that no particular day of worship has been appointed in its place, is evident from the same apostle. — Rom. xiv." Milton. (Christ. Doctrine, Book ii, chap. 7.) " In the fom-teenth to the Romans, the great patron and champion of Christian liberty not obscurely declareth his mind, that Christians of strength in judgment did regard no day above another, but es- teemed all days (he excepteth none) alike, as to any special obligation grounded upon Divine law and right. In subordination to which doc- trine, we may add, that this appears, with great evidence, to have been the common opinion of the wisest and most orthodox Christians in the primitive church — the most constant and stinct adherents to Catholic tradition (who, from the Apostle's instruction, best understood the purport and limits of the liberty purchased by Christ) — that this law, as it was not known or practised before Moses, so it ceased to oblige after Christ ; being one of the ' shadows' which the evangelical light dispelled — one of the ' burdens' which this law of liberty did take off us." Barrow. {Works, vol. i. Exposit. of Decalogue.) •j- "He that regardeth [margin — observe th] the day, regardeth it unto the Lord ; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks ; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks." Paul. "Now mark one momentous distinction!" J. N. B. [p. 81.) MR. Taylor's second reply. 157 The New Testament entirely Anti-sahbatarian. this passage to neglect its observance, and " esteem every day alike," he has powers of "accommodation'^ utterly beyond what I give him credit for, and utterly beyond my own con- ceptions. (^Gal. i. 8.) Such, then, is the scriptural presentation of the great "Sab- bath Question." Every allusion to the Sabbath (direct or indi- rect) contained in the New Testament, clearly establishes Anti- sabbatarianism. Not one allusion (direct or indirect) supports the Sabbatarian I On the one side of the discussion, we have constant dependence on "chapter and verse" — enforced by literal interpretation, and the consenting judgment of the most learned expositors : on the other side, we have extenua- tion and assertion ; a vague appeal to irrelevant authorities. Yet weak and unsubstantial as the Sabbatarian doctrine is thus shown to be, when tested by the decisive standard of " the law and the testimony," there is, perhaps, no single tenet of modern sectarianism which has been asserted with a more dogmatic assurance, or enforced with a more intolerant aus- terity. No terms of adulation are too extravagant in aggran- dizement of the popular idol (^Acts xix. 35) ; no epithets of opprobrium too severe in reprehension of the presumptuous iconoclast, or of the ungodly and profane " Sabbath-hreaker." (Ads xix. 26—28.) It is remarkable, too, that the very class of Christians who most affect to receive the Bible as their " sole rule of faith and practice," are they who most strikingly disregard its unmis- takable teachings on this subject.* They blindly, but zeal- ously, walk "according to the tradition of the elders;" main- taining, with bigoted declamation, the obligation of the fourth commandment, in the very face of its incontestable abrogation : * "All things necessary for man's salvation, faith, and life, are either expressly set down in Scripture, or, by necessary consequence, may be deduced from Scripture ; unto which nothing at any time is to be added — by traditions of men." {Presbyterian Confession of Faith.) u 158 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. Scripture nullified by tradition. ^' making the word of God of none eifect through their tradi- tions :" and '' teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."* I regret that I am not allowed to prosecute my examination of this deeply interesting subject so thoroughly as I could have desired ; though I must return you my sincere and thankful acknowledgments, Messrs. Editors, for the very libe- ral allowance of space you have already accorded me. To the kindly wishes expressed by my friend J. N. B., I most cordially respond. Very respectfully, W. B. T. Note. — At the close of my friend's Argument, he has appended an Apologije — "illustrative of his views" of the sanctity of the Decalogue. Not to seem unfurnished, I also will " take up my parable ;" which, as supplying an important particular entirely omitted by him, I shall entitle, in contradistinction to his, A Gospel Apologue. King Theion had iivo davighters "whom he tenderly loved" (Gal. iv, 24 — 31) : and from their both bearing the family name " Eusebia," my friend appears either to have confounded the sisters together, or. to have wholly forgotten the existence of the younger one. (" The key" to this oversight will probably be found in 2 Cor. iii. 15.) It was to Paidiska, the "first-born" [Exod. iv. 22), that the pearl necklace was presented — long before the birth of the favorite daughter Eleuthera ; and the King, in bestowing it, with his own hand en- graved legibly on its leading pearl [Exod. xxxi. 18) not only the name "Paidiska," but also the date and circumstances of her bu'th. {Exod. XX. 2.) ^ "Those, therefore," says Milton, "who keep holy a Sabbath- day, for the consecration of which no divine command can he alleged, ought to consider the dangerous tendency of such an example, and the consequences with which it is likely to be followed, in the interpre- tation of Scripture .... I perceive, also, that several of the best divines, as Bucer, Peter Martyr, Musculus, Ursinus, Gomarus, and others, concur in the opinions above expressed." [Christian Doc- trine, B. ii. ch. 7.) MR. Taylor's second reply. 159 A contrasted " Apologue." Apeithos seems to have been essentially a mischief-maker ; for, ■while the blooming Eleutheba was still quite young, he so ■^^rrought on her sensitive nature that he half convinced her that the antique necklace (together with other jewelry presented with it), was, in right, as much hers as her sister's, and that it should at least be held in common. In this harassing uncertainty, she, by the advice of her friends, appealed to Prince Christos, to whom she was, indeed, be- trothed. (2 Cor. xi. 2.) The Prince, though absent, sent her a co'm- munication, deciding that the disputed jewelry was solely her sister^s (Acts xxi. 25) ; and reminding her that he himself had already given her a necklace of far greater value and more perfect beauty (2 Cor. iii. 7—11 ; ffeb. vii. 19 ; viii. 6, 7 ; xii. 18—24; 1 John. iii. 22 — 24) ; and he further dispatched a shrewd and trusty messenger [Rom. i, 1 ; xi. 13) to explain the matter fully, and to thwart the counsels of Apeithos. This had the desired eflfect of restoring, for a while, a degree of harmony. Eleuthera, in submissive confidence, no longer even coveted the necklace ; although it contained one "pearl" that hers did not! (Matt. v. vi. vii.) For a very long time after the recall of the Prince's skilful ambassa- dor, the representations of Apeithos were unheeded by Eleuthera ; but, expert in all the arts of rhetoric, the zealous adviser would exer- cise his ingenuity — at one time, in showing that the original epistle meant differently from its apparent meaning — at another, in extenuat- ing or "limiting" the recorded instructions left by the faithful ambas- sador — until he well-nigh counteracted the Prince's teachings, even while making the unhappy bride's love for her betrothed the main element of his injurious influence ! He would so obscure her vision by his sophistry, that she often thought her own name was engraven on the contested necklace ; — nay, so "lawyer-like was his subtlety," that he sometimes made her doubt her own identity ! — almost per- suading her that she was indeed the veritable — literal Paidiska ! Her most learned and venerable counsellors have, in all ages, labored to give her more enlarged views : but still is Eleuthera troubled with uneasy doubts (Luke x. 41) ; still does she sometimes claim her sister's necklace, while her oivn lies neglected — in its un- opened casket ! Esto sapientior ! Apeithos, we may not judge ; his motives we may not question. His benevolence doubtless far exceeded his judgment. (Rom. x. 2 ; Gal. iv. 17—22.) THE OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. REPLY TO ^'W. B. T." PART I. " And the servant of the Lord must not striye, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient ; in meekness instructing those that op- pose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." — 2 Timothy ii. 24, 25. Messrs. Editors : — I HAVE patiently waited until my friend W. B. T. has finished his examination of my argument, before attempting to reply. I did this that I might be put in full possession of his views, hoping, thereby, to avoid misunderstandings, and to abridge as much as possible the Discussion, of whose length some of your readers complain. I am sorry any are weary of a Discussion so practical in its bearings — so vital, indeed, to a good conscience in regard to the Sabbath. If any agree with me in my general views of this subject, I entreat them patiently to hear what "VV. B. T. has to say to the contrary. He offers his reasons for doubting or rejecting our conclusions. How shall we know what those reasons are, that is, what cir- cumstances hinder his conviction of the force and consequent obligation of the Sabbath Argument on his conscience — unless we calmly and kindly hear him through ? I shall pass over the texts he has chosen for mottoes, as they will come in better hereafter. But I must beg my friend to believe that what I have said of his talents, attainments, MR. brown's third REPLY. 161 Moral tendencies, part of the evidence. A good profession. research, and earnestness, is simple truth to me. Without a single thought of flattery (which I abhor no less than he does), I wrote what I felt, what I still feel, what I have uniformly said to my friends, and what I still regard as but an honest acknowledgment of the gifts which God has conferred on him, for good and noble purposes, yet to be revealed. I cordially agree with him in wishing that our readers may overlook all personal comparisons, and weigh only the merits of the cause, that they may see on which side the evidence preponderates. In w^eighing that evidence, however, I submit that this is one of those practical cases where consequences enter into the vitality of the question. They form a part of the subject-mat- ter; they make, therefore, a part of the internal evidence, and supply an experimental test of the truth of opinions. They may indeed be '^postponed," but cannot be overlooked. Ye shall know them hy their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? " The point before us" (says my friend justly) is the " Scriptural Authority" of the Sabbath. '^ If the view I defend," he continues, "be unsustained by the Bible, it will doubtless be made manifest, and I shall cheerfully acknowledge a new, and consequently firmer belief. If the reverse be the case, I sincerely hope — in denying that one man's liberty should be ^judged of another man's conscience' — that I shall not ' put a stumbling-block in any believer's way,' however ' weak in the faith' he may be considered. Certainly I shall neither presume to ^ judge him,' nor to ' set him at naught.' " (p. 87.) This is well said. How well it is fulfilled, will appear in the sequel. I had said that the good of old were taught of God to "call the Sabbath a delight." This is not disputed. But when my friend affirms that " the good of the neio dispensation were also taught of God to call the Sabbath ' a shadow' — a cancelled bond — a blotted handwriting — 'nailed to the Cross,' " (p. 87;) he assumes the very point in dispute between us. Is this 14* 162 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. The two Dispensations not contrasted. An acquittal of disingenuoupness. consistent with fair reasoning? Does he hope to convince me by reaffirming an interpretation which I, at least, believe has been set aside, by fair and full examination, in part ii. of my Second Reply ? I shall have occasion to recur to this point hereafter. I only add here that the same assumption appears in his affirming that it is ''a sign of weakness to * esteem one day above another.' " Paul nowhere affirms this. It is my friend's construction only; and that a wrong one, as was shown, I think, clearly, in PART iv. of my Reply. But, as Truth, and not mere tilt, is my object in this Discussion, as nothing else would tempt me one moment to turn aside from other pressing engagements, or to redeem time, as I am com- pelled to do, from needful rest, to continue it, — so I shall, in its place, give this point a fresh investigation. Only I must aim at a wise brevity. May the Holy Spirit of Truth, so in- dispensable to lis all, and so often promised to those who seek his influence, condescend to guide us into all truth ! I. The Day required hij the Sahhath Laiu. On his explanation of the object in dropping the last clause of his original complex Proposition, I here gladly acquit my friend W. B. T. of any artful disingenuousuess. He will for- give me, I trust, for saying it was done ingeniously. I was struck so strongly with its effect on the argument that I too hastily inferred cleshjn. But as I, above all things, deprecate in discussion whatever destroys mutual confidence, or a full repose in each other's sincerity" and integrity, I here say, once for all, that if in any other instance I have been betrayed into a like fault, I willingly bear my own solemn and earnest witness against it. I only ask of my friend that he judge me, and those of my persuasion, in the same spirit with which he would himself be judged. I have long believed that no soundness of Logic can atone for a breach of Charity. One thing alone under this head will require attention. As W. B. T. chooses to waive the vital question on the Origin of the Sabbath, until the discussion of Proposition II., I shall MR. brown's third REPLY. 163 Saturday enjoined only on the Jeivs, An undue assumption. waive my right to discuss it here, and give him all the advan- tage of his hypothesis, that the Sabbath was first instituted by Moses. On this supposition, then, I will meet him, and try the issue without fear. ^^That Saturday zs 4he Sabbath enjoined in the Decalogue,^ " says my friend, ''is as certain as human knowledge can be, even concerning the Bible itself (p. 21.) In this I entirely differ from him. Had he said " that Saturday is the Sabbath enjoined on the Jews, is as certain as human knowledge can be," I would have at once agreed with him. But the two pro- positions are essentially distinct, and I, at least, can never confound them, without shutting the eyes of my understand- ing. How is it that my friend is blind to this distinction ? His own reasoning against it is like that of some sceptics against the reality of " first truths," or self-evident principles, on which all reasoning must proceed, — everyichere assuming the very point in terms denied. He first asks, " How shall we ever ascertain what is the seventh day of the Decalogue?" {p. 88.) And then answers, " Clearly not by itself. All legal interpretation must ultimately be based on some assump- tion without the statute." Suppose I admit this, what follows- ? " J. N. B. admits ' that, for the Jews, it was fixed to the last day of our iveek. But then it was not fixed hy the Decalogue.^ " This, answers my friend W. B. T., " would be a simple impossibility." Be it so. But how, then, is it fixed? "By adopting," says my friend, "the universal designation of a well recognized distinction. The term ' Sun- day' is not more precisive in our law than is the term ^ ha- shibingi' [translated 'the seventh day'] in that of the He- brews. It is applicable to no ' seventh day' but Saturday." This last remark is the purest assumption. As it is by no means self-evident, I must demand ample proof before I can admit its truth. Is the proof found in the " universal designa- tion of a well recognized distinction ?" If so, then the infer- ence irresistibly follows that the seventh day Sabbath was 164 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. " The serenth day" determined by the manna. Proportion, and succession. universally recognized before the giving of the Decalogue at Sinai. But this is coming on to my ground, and abandoning his own. To avoid this, will my friend say, the seventh day was determined by the giving of the manna? This I under- stand him to do, in these words : " ' Saturday is the seventh day,' says God, by the manna.'' (p. 89.) But this, again, is abandoning his original position, and coming over to mine. On this very ground I had said (^9. 59), " the connection [of the seventh day of the Decalogue with Saturday'] was fixed by statute, only for that people" — meaning by " statute," what God said to Moses at the giving of the manna. (^Exodus xvi. 5, 15, 16, 22 — 31.) See, particularly, verse 26th, where the statute of designation is clear as the sun ; and that, too, long hefore the giving of the Decalogue. "Then, most certainly, the statute itself was ' only for that people.' " So says W. B. T. {p. 89), and I am most happy to agree with him. Why should I not be, when he^comes over completely to my ground ? Would that in all points we could meet as perfectly as in this ! It follows, from this concession, that the designation of the particular day of the week, from a given point of reckoning, is no part of the Fourth Commandment. The projyortion of our days to be kept holy to the Lord is alone specified. Six days being allotted to our ordinary labor (beginning at any point it pleases God at any time to designate by proper evidence) every seventh in succession is required, by the Fourth Com- mandment, to bo set apart to Him as the sole Creator of the heavens and the earth. All the terms and reasons of this Law are universal; as much so as in any other commandment of the Decalogue. " The seventh day" of the Decalogue — as far as it is defined by the Decalogue itself — is the seventh in succession — no other — no less — no more. "Every word of God is pure. Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou .be found a liar," is a warning that should pierce every conscience to the quick. MR. brown's third REPLY. 165 A general designation. The Sabbath — primary : the seventh day — secondary. My friend W. B. T. greatly mistakes, if he thinks me in any dilemma, by supposing '*that because a miracle has deter- mined what the particular thing referred to by the law really is, a new miracle may establish a different intent in the very same law/' (p. 89.) He knows, quite as well as I do, that if the law be of a general description, it is equally applicable to two or more specific cases. He may well say, therefore, as he does, " Show us, however, the miracle (fixing another ' seventh day'), and it sufficeth us." In spite of this sharp irony, that mira- cle may in due time appear. On my words, " the whole authority of the Sabbath enjoined in the Decalogue may, for sufficient reasons, by ' the Lord of the Sabbath,' be transferred to the Jirst day of our week," he remarks: "This seems to be a new phase in theology. Surely ihis, first day cannot still be 'the Sabbath enjoined in the De- calogue,' for that is expressly limited to the seventh day of the week." {p. 89.) But here he falls into the old mistake, by confounding things that differ. The Decalogue says : " Re- member the Sabbath day to keep it holy;" not '^ Remember the seventh day to keep it holy." What the Sabbath day is, i. e. how often it occurs, and what is its order of succession, is intimated in what follows. The "seventh day" is not, strictly speaking, in the law itself, but in the explanation of the law. It is not the text, but the commentary on the text, by the Divine Lawgiver; and although of equal authority with it, merely settles the general principle, that the Sabbath day is of weekly recurrence, as the memorial of the six days' work of creation — nothing more. He who would make more of it must do so solely by the force of an association of ideas, peculiar and proper to a Jew under that dispensation, butper- verted and irrational in any other. The time may come, when my friend W. B. T. will see this as clearly as I do now ; and will wonder at the absurdity of talking about a "contra- diction" in the idea of such a transfer of the authority of the Sabbath Law from one li^y of the week to another. 166 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. Views of Athanasius ; and Eusebius. Redemption higher than Creation. Be that as it may, however, such an idea is not a ^^new phase in theology. ''* According to Coleman (^Christian Antiquities, p. 430), " Athanasius, in the beginning of the third [properly /oi*r^/i] century (a. d. 325), expressly declared that ' the Lord changed the Sabbath into the Lord's day.^ " Coleman adds : " The account which Eusebius gives of this subject is that Hhe Logos, the Word, in the New Testament transferred the Sabbath of the Lord Grod unto this day.' The day, he also says, was universally observed as strictly as the Jewish Sabbath, whilst all feasting, drunkenness, and recrea- tion was rebuked as a profanation of the sacred day. — Com- ment, in Ps. 92.'' I had spoken of a change of the day as demanded by the necessity of the case, because the work of redemption is " of fiir higher and sweeter import in the esteem of all Christians," than the work of creation. On which my friend makes the following important concession : '' This consideration may be a very sufficient reason for its commemoration," I thank my friend most sincerely for this concession. It is too important ever to be forgotten by me, or by him. ^^But," he adds, "it is no reason whatever, either for superseding the former Divinelj- appointed memorial, or for inferring a change in the applica- tion of the original command" (p. 90) ; both which positions I grant, if he refers merely to human authority. His illustra- tion, however, is most unfortunate, for the plain reason that * Whether from a misprint in my copy or from a mistake in my reading, it seems the word " theology" is here an error. It should have been (as in page 89) "a new phase in the alogy ;"" or, as my friend regarded it, the illogical conclusion. As to the justice of applying this term to my statement, I must leave the reader to judge. As, how- ever, the facts suggested by the word "theology" are pertinent to the argument, I let them stand. They show that my view was not consid- ered absurd or unsound by such distinguished men as Eusebius and Athanasius — the greatest men of their age. But I appeal to Common MR. brown's third REPLY. 167 The Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations. Justin Marttr. there is no parallelism in the cases. A weekly Sabbath origi- nally commemorated the creation of the whole world. {Gen. ii. 3 ; Exod. xx. 11.) When the whole world had forsaken the worship of the Creator, and a single nation, the Jews, was set apart to restore that original worship, the weekly Sabbath received a new and additional import peculiar to that nation. (^Deut. V. 15.) Afterwards, when the Messiah came out of that nation to complete the great work of human redemption by his own death and resurrection, a still higher dignity was con- ferred upon the weekly Sabbath by connecting it with the memory of that grand event — the centre of the Divine works, the cynosure of all eyes, the dawn of a new and more glorious creation out of the ruins of the first, the prism where every attribute of the Infinite Perfection, centering in the soft emerald hue of love, is reflected in distinct, yet blended and harmonious beauty forever and ever. (1 Tim. i. 11 ; 2 Cor. iv. 6 ; Ephes. iii. 10; 1 Pet. i. 12 ; 1 John iv. 10.) And an asso- ciation of such transcendent import, if made at all, must be made by attaching the weekly Sabbath to the very day of the Resurrection, and thus giving it a pre-eminent sacredness over all the rest. This merely circumstantial change not afi'ecting the Law itself, but only giving it a new and appropriate appli- cation, at once combining in its weekly rotation the three grandest displays of the Divine glory, and establishing the real harmony of the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the Christ- ian dispensations, is neither improbable in conception, nor contradicted by fact. And although the deliverance from Egypt is less prominent in our thoughts as Gentiles, yet so early as the days of Justin Martyr we find the other two ideas actually in the minds of Christians. For he assigns as the reasons for observing the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, as the day of Christian worship, that on this day God, having changed the darkness and the elements, created the world, and that Jesus our Lord on this day arose from the dead. (Col. Chris. Antiq. p. 429.) And if, at the 168 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. Death, and Resurrection of the Sabbath. voice of Joshua, "the sun stood still in the midst of heaven/' and "a whole day" was thus dropped in the Jewish calendar without affecting the ohligation of the Law of the Sabbath (Josh. x. 13), how can its obligation be affected by passing over in solemn silence that whole day in which the " Lord of the Sabbath'' lay in his lowest humiliation under the power of death? Can that "seventh day" ever be the peculiar festival of Christians ? Never, never, never ! Its aspect is changed by that dread event. In this sense I fully agree with Bunyan, "As for the seventh day, that is gone to its grave, with the signs and shadows of the Old Testament." Yes, it went to its grave in the tomb of Jesus Christ. But as the body of our Lord rose from the grave the same sub- stance, changed and glorified, yet identical, so was it with the Sabbath. With Christ, its Lord and oursj it rose from the grave on the first day of the week changed and glorified, yet substantially the same, still beaming on us with that Divine benignity which shows that " the Sabbath was made for man," and, like its Lord, is now living to die no more. J. N. B. PART II. The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." — Mark ii. 28. The Sabbath then remains under the Christian Dispen- sation, and Christ is its "Lord." This implies that He has full power to determine, by His own authority, how it shall be observed, and on what day. And we may be sure He has determined both points for His own glory, that is, in the way which most clearly marks His authority. His wis- dom, and His love. True faith will rejoice to confess Him before unbelieving Jews and Gentiles, as "Lord of all." {Acts X. 36.) MR. brown's third REPLY. 169 - Faith weak in comprehension ; and in consistency. Scepticism general. But true Faith may be " weak" — weak in logical compre- hension, or in practical consistency, or in both. Faith is weak in logical comprehension when it admits a general proposition, yet Aowhis particular propositions necessarily included in it. Thus the Apostles fully believed that Jesus was the Messiah, yet were wholly opposed for a time to the doctrine of His death and resur- rection. Thus my seventh-day Baptist friends of the " Sabbath Recorder,""^ fully believe in the Perpetuity of the Sabbath, and that Christ is its Lord, but deny the change of the day by our Lord ; and thus, on the other hand, my friend W. B. T. fully believes that Christ, as the "Lord of the Sabbath day,'' has full authority over it; but he can see no other meaning in that glorious truth than that of a right to annihilate it altogether. This is very much as if one should infer, from the words of Jehovah to Moses, " I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," merely that, as their God, he had the right to annihilate them at will. How different was the inference de- rived from these words by our Saviour, in his dispute with the Sadducees, we all know. From this want of full logical comprehension, spring a great part of the differences among true Christians. And hence too it is often difficult for us (not for Christ) to distinguish " weak faith," especially in strong minds, from stubborn unbelief. It is very striking to observe how much alike is the spirit of unbelief in all ages. We find in fact that every revelation of tlig.'l)ivine Will, every Dispensation, every Prophet, every Doctrine, Precept, and Institution of the Bible, has at some time or other been questioned or denied. And sometimes this has been done by very good men. The deep root of opposi- tion is by nature in us all. It lurks beneath the surface of our own consciousness, till some unexpected occasion brings it out. Nothing but the love of Christ can cure it. Even Peter, the first to profess his assured faith, was the first to yq- * A Sabbatarian newspaper published weekly in New York. 15 170 OBLIGATION OP THE SABBATH. The strongest CTidence expected : but not always accorded. ceive his Lord's rebuke for this '^evil heart of unbelief/' {Matt xvi. 16—23.) The pretext for unbelief and opposition is always the same — want of evidence. " Yea, hath God said T' is the first ar- ticulate breath of the Tempter. (Gen. iii. 1.) So when Christ, at the beginning of His ministry, had purged the Temple of God of its poUutors, the multitude eagerly thronged around him, and demanded some sign of His Divine Mission. They required some stupendous miracle, like the parting of the Red Sea, or the consuming blaze of Mount Sinai, or the national support by the morning showers of Manna. How were they disappointed! "To their demand," says Milman, "Jesus calmly answered by an obscure and somewhat oracular allusion to the remote event of His own resurrection, the one great ' Sign' of Christianity, to which it is remarkable that Christ constantly refers, when required to ratify His mission by some public miracle." (Ris. Christ, p. 80.) The lesson we learn from this is of the deepest import. We may be demanding on some points a kind, or degree, of evi- dence, which Infinite Wisdom does not see fit to give. If the Divine Will is revealed in any way, or by any means, in a degree sufficient to guide the sincere inquirer after Truth and Duty, while it leaves the caviller unsatisfied, all the purposes of our moral probation are fulfilled. " If any man desire to do His IV ill," says the Great Teacher, " he shall know of the doc- trine, whether it be of God." In every practical question, an obedient heart is the first and most indispensable thing. With- out this, with all the Prudence, Learning, and Logic of Ga- maliel, we shall " stumble at the word, being disobedient." (1 Pet. ii. 8.) Our opposition may injure ourselves and others. But it cannot alter, in one iota, the Will of God. Even " unto them which be disobedient, the Stone which the build- ers disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner." (1 Pet. ii. 7.) Whoever then may disallow it, Christ our Lord " is Lord even of the Sabbath day." MR. brown's third REPLY. 171 Points established. Evidence that Christ changed the day. In regard to the day of the Sabbath, I believe my last arti- cle vindicated clearly, beyond all contradiction, the following points : — 1. The Sabbath was in existence before the Decalogue was given. 2. The Fourth Commandment, like all the rest, is expressed in terms of universal application; having in them nothing national, local, or temporary. 3. The ''seventh day," as defined in the Fourth Command- ment, is simply relative to what is said before of the " six days" iceehhj devoted to labor, and will equally apply to any day in the week on which it may please God to fix the observance of the Sabbath. 4. It pleased God to fix that day/br the Jeics to Saturday, by the miracle of the Manna — a miracle entirely 'peculiar to the nation — thus making the Saturday Sabbath a &\gji pecu- liarly commemorative of their redemption from Egypt. Here I agree with my friend W. B. T. 5. The Saturday Sabbath, being thus a sign of the Mosaic national Covenant, expires with that Covenant ; — leaving the universal weeMy Sabbath required by the Decalogue in full force — like the rest of the Ten Commandments. What I propose now to show is that there is ample evidence in the Scriptures that Christ, as the sole "Lord of the Sabbath day," changed the day of its observance in honor of His own Resurrection : — so that now the first day of the week, common- ly called Sunday, is " the Lord's day," or Christian Sabbath. One fundamental part of that evidence is seen (as I showed in my last article) in the nature and necessity of the case — that is to say, in the new relations established by the work of Christ, and confirmed by His resurrection from the dead on that day. For "if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain," Christians, " ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that 172 OBLIGATION OP THE SABBATH. An open avowal demanded. The Decalogue — universal and perpetual law. slept.^' (1 Cor. XV. 17 — 20.) Having briefly presented this part of the evidence already, I shall here continue and confirm it, and then proceed to that which arises from miracle, pro- phecy, the personal sanction of Christ, and the example of His inspired Apostles. At the very threshold of the Argument, in the name of Truth and Honesty, I have a demand to make on W. B. T. and on all of his opinions. Come out clearly, and show your colors. What do you mean to do with the Decalogue ? Not a trace of anything local, temporary, ceremonial, or shadowy, is in it. Everything is absolute, universal, perpetual Law — the Legislation of the Infinite Creator for men His creatures. As such, it is distinctly recognized by Christ and His Apostles. It is bound up inseparably as part and parcel of Christianity —as the original moral standard. Sin is defined as a trans- gression of it. It is the Law of Conscience rewritten by the finger of God — more fully and clearly. {3Iatt. v. 17 — 32 ; xix. 16—19; Eom. vii. 7—14; viii. 4; xiii. 8—10; 2 Cor. iv. 5—18; 1 Tim. v. 5—11; 1 John. iii. 4—10; Lulce xvi. 17, 18.) Look calmly now at the case before us. Here is the Law of the Weekly Sabbath in the Decalogue — moral, positive, clear, benign — necessary for man as man, in all regions and in all ages. Here it stands before our eyes, the weekly me- morial of creation — the natural safeguard against idolatry — the grand means of practically uniting the Created with the Creator — the perpetual sign of a spiritual covenant between them — in a word, the chief moral, social, and religious educator of the race. And yet you demand positive proof of its re- enactment by Christ in explicit terms — or of an equally explicit account of its transfer to the first day, from the seventh of the Jewish calendar week. Demands, at once preposterous and presumptuous ! By what right do you thus dictate to God the mode of His revelation ? Besides, the burden of proof, in the first instance, is not on me, but on you. You have first MR. brown's third REPLY. 173 Christ's design, to honoi- the Sabbath, — not to abrogate, it. to prove that the Law of the Decalogue is abrogated^ before you demand proof of its re-enactment. Till this is done fully and fairly, till tlie argument from Matt. v. for example is fairly met and set aside (which W. B. T. has not eTen at- tempted in his Reply), you have no right to demand proof of any kind as to its present obligation. Here is the Sab- bath. Look at it. The seal of the world's Creator — of your Creator, and of mine — is upon it. Efface it if you can ! At- tempt it, if you dare I But I love not the lansruap-e of defiance, even in so strong a case as this. I prefer the language of earnest deprecation. Tell me not that Jesus Christ has come from Heaven to abro- gate this Law — in the face of his own express declarations to the contrary. That Law was in His heart ! Tell me not that He fidfiUed, and by so doing superseded it. He did indeed /m/^? it, in His faithful exposition, in his noble vindication, in His constant application — in His whole obedient life, and in His sin-atoning death, by which He redeemed us from the curse, and secured the promise of the holy spirit to write it forever in our heart of hearts I But all this was to honor it as imniu- tahle — not to abrogate it. In vain will you plead Paul's words to the Bomans: *' But now we are delivered from the law — that being dead wherein ice were held.^' Paul does not say that the Law is " dead," but its curse only, " in which we were held" by our guilt. {^Gal. iii. 13.) This curse is now '* dead" as to believers — that is, deprived of all power to hurt us. And our deliverance, he expressly adds, is, "that we might serve in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the let- ter." The authority of the Law then remains, vital and intact. Indeed Paul had explicitly guarded his meaning before. {Rom. iii. 31.) "Do we make void [i. e. abrogate'] the Law through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish the Law.'' This is Paul's true doctrine, here and everywhere. It is identical with that of Christ. Perish the sophistry that would attempt to set them at variance ! 15=^ 174 OBLIGATION OP THE SABBATH. Change of day — no change of the law. The transfer attested by miracle. The way then is clear to look at the real question, the change OF THE DAY. This question has nothing to do with any change of the Decalogue. This I have proved beyond dispute. It concerns merely the Jewish mode of rechonmg the loeeh, fixed by the miracle of the Manna, as explained by Moses. {Exodus xvi. 22 — 30.) This mode of recJconing was a S2:>ecial statute for Israel. It never hound any other people. It is alter able at the Divine pleasure. All we want in the case is, evidence that God has been pleased to alter it, and thus fix the Sabbath to another day. " Show us the miracle," says my friend W. B. T., "and it sufficeth us.'^ (p. 89.) I propose now to show not only the miracle, but the Divine explanation of the mira- cle. I bespeak an earnest attention. Let it be remembered, then, that the first explicit declaration of faith in Jesus as the Messiah was made at Cassarea Philippi, about six months before our Saviour's death. {Matt. xvi. 13 — 20. — See Townsend's Arrangement.) From that day Jesus explicitly announced his approaching Death and Resurrection. " After six days," says Matthew (xvii. 1), " about eight days," says Luke (ix. 18, 28), was the Transfiguration. Why this specification of time, if no special importance was attached to it? Both forms of expression indicate a week. The "eighth day" of Luke is particularly remarkable, since this very term" was used to designate the day after a Jewish Sabbath, the first day of the iceek (see Lev. xxv. 22), particularly among the early Christians. {John xx. 26.) It is then highly probable, to say the least, that the glorious miracle of the Transfigura- tion was on that day. But that miracle was connected by some secret tie with the miracle of the Resurrection ; for the disciples were " strictly charged" not to mention it till after Jesus should rise from the dead. The Resurrection we know was on the first day of the week. The connection of the two miracles is thus fully unfolded by Townsend in a note to his Chronological Arrangement of the New Testament. (Seepart iv. Mote 22, p. 116.) "The other great purpose of the action MR. brown's third REPLY. 175 Towxsend's Arrangement. Explanation of the Miracle. on the mount [of TransJSguration] was to give a figurative sig- nification of the abrogation of the Mosaic Law, and the com- mencement of the Christian Dispensation, upon ivhich it was to he established. Moses and Elias, as the representatives of the Law and the Prophets, who had successively testified of the promised Messiah, it appears to me, were now in their glorified state permitted to behold on earth the magnificent completion of all their predictions; and by their farewell testi- mony to the truth of his Divinity afi'ord to man the most powerful evidence that human reason could either receive or require. By their testimony thei/ achioicledged the accom- plishment of all their prophecies, and that the commencement of the Messiah's kingdom was established on the Law and the Prophets ; and when the disciples, in an ecstasy of happiness, desired to erect three tabernacles, God himself proclaimed, * This is my beloved Son ; hear ye him !' Moses and Elias instantly disappear, overshadowed by the bright cloud, and Christ alone remains the undivided object of all their worship. To Him alone are they to build their altars ; to Him alone are they to look for happiness and glory ] and He shall come again with His holy angels, and ten thousand times ten thousand shall stand before Him.'' So much for the Miracle. Now for the Divine explanation of the Miracle, which fixes the first day of the week, or the day of Christ's Resurrection as the Sabbath of the Christian Dispensation. 1. It is the Resurrection of ^Uhe Lord of the Sabbath.'* He had then all authority to change the day, so as to distin- guish the new dispensation from the old. And to honor this day as His own chosen day. He met His assembled disciples on it, and said, Peace be unto you. Not till a full week afterwards was accomplished, did he meet with them again. {John XX. 26.) Was there no significance in this ? Why did He not meet them sooner ? Why not on the Jewish Sab- bath ? 176 OBLIGATION OP THE SABBATH. The day of the Resurrection— the Christian Sabbath. 2. It is the Resurrection of tlie Son of God to immortal life in Heaven. It is for this reason the day is beautifully called His Birthday. (^Ps. ii. 7.) "I will declare the decree; the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son ; this day have I begotten tliee.^' Shall the kings of the earth command their birthdays to be observed by their subjects, and not the King of Zion ? Well might John Bunyan say : " Shall God as with his finger point, and that in the face of the world, at this day, saying. Thou art my Son, this day, &c., and shall not Christians fear, and awake from their employments, to worship the Lord on this day ? If God remembers it, well may I ! If God says, and that with all gladness of heart, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee ! may not, ought not, I also to set this day apart to sing the songs of my redemption in ? This day my redemption was finished. This day my dear Jesus revived. This day He was declared to be the Son of God with power. ^ This day' — after this day was come, God never, that we read of, made mention with delight of the old seventh-day Sabbath more.'^ 3. It is the Resurrection of the Lord of Angels. Hence the day was honored by their adoration. ^' Again, when He bringeth in the first begotten into the world \_i. e. by raising Him from the dead], He saith, and let all the angels of God worship him." (//c6. i. 6.) And shall not men, as well as angels, worship him too ? '' Kiss [i. e. adore] the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." (/^s. ii. 12.) 4. It is the Resurrection of tlie Head of the Church. And hence the day consecrated by this glorious event is given us for our weekly Christian Festival. (A\ cxviii. 24.) W. B. T. indeed objects to my interpretation of this passage on two grounds: 1. That a day of Christian worship is not equivalent to a Sahbath. 2. That the text proves only the establishment of a new era of joy, not of a new iceel'ly festival founded on MR. brown's third REPLY. 177 " The day which the Lord hath made." The appointed Christian festival. the Messiah's exaltation, (p. 91.) As to the first, I will con- cede to him that a day of devotional rest, divinely appointed, and of weekly recurrence, is essential to the idea of a Sahhath. And as to the second, I will now try to convince him that such a "day'^ is really intended in Ps. cxviii. 22 — 24, by a closer examination of that interesting prophecy. The passage reads thus : " The Stone which the builder refused, is become the head-stone of the corner. — This is THE DAY which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." I remark, 1. The sense of Scripture is no more arbitrary than in other books, and therefore the word " day" must here have a determinate meaning. 2. This must be its literal meaning, unless sufficient reasons can be given to show the contrary. 3. The literal meaning of the word in question is a period of twenty-four hours ( Gen. i. 5, 8) ; and W. B. T. has shown no reasons for giving it here the tropical meaning of era. 4. This Psalm was actually sung on the occasion of our Lord's triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, which was on the first clay of the iceek (the week in which He died) ; and the prophecy was thus applied to that day, with His own most explicit and emphatic sanction. For when some of the Pha- risees said unto Him : Master, rebuke thy disciples, He an- swered and said unto them : " I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." The passage is quoted six times in the New Testament in reference to Christ. No prophecy then has a more determinate meaning, or fixed application. By the authority of the Lord the day is " made." How " made ?" This word can have no distinct meaning, unless it signifies here " made sacred ;'^ and to agree with the foregoing verse, it must mean " made sacred to Christ," in honor of His exaltation as " the head of the corner." And that this sacredness is to be recognized by the Church, is clear from the following words: '' AVe will exult and be glad in it." It is then made sacred by Divine authority as the distiiujuishing festival of the Christian Church. 178 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. Baptism, the Supper, and the Sabbath. Decisive authority. But if this new day be established, it follows that the day formerly fixed for the Jews is by the same authority now made void. For so the Apostle Paul reasons in a like case, as to the force of Ps. ex. 4 ; a passage by the way whose bear- ing was before as little understood, even by Christians, as the one now under discussion. It remains, therefore, I think, a sound conclusion from the premises, that the first day of the week is appointed the Sab- bath of the Christian Dispensation. For, if the passage was originally applied to the day of our Lord's public manifestation as the King of Zion, how much more to the same day of the week (Just one week after this), when His high claim was forever demonstrated by his triumphant resurrection from the dead ? It is worthy of remark that both Baptism and the Lord's Supper were appointed by our Lord before His death, and confirmed after His resurrection as perpetual ordinances in His Church. Why not also the distinguishing " stated day'^ of Christian Worship ? Analogy would lead us to ex- pect this. All the facts of the case confirm it. It is the true key to all the subsequent history — as I shall hereafter show. ''This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Such, with slight exceptions (according to this prophecy), has been the consenting language of the whole Christian Church, from that day to this. And such, I cannot doubt, it will continue to be, in despite of all " mur- murers and complainers" like the Pharisees of that age, so long as the love of a crucified and risen Saviour shall continue to warm the bosoms of redeemed and regenerated men. Not ahsolutely, indeed (as W. B. T. perversely understands me, — p. 92), but comparatively, will the wonders of the original creation " cease to be remembered and come into mind." (^Isaiah Ixv. 17, 18.) My friend asks for '^ decisive authority." What more decisive authority could be desired ? Here is the greatest of miracles, and a Divine explanation of its meaning in fixing MR. brown's third REPLY. 179 The " Lord's day" a legacy of the Church. The inheritance questioned. the "Lord's day." The Resurrection of Christ is the centre- point of Christianity. Everything dear to a Christian's soul is attached to it, and revolves around it. It is the grand unmistakable " sign" of the Divine authority of our Lord. And as sure as He is our Lord, He " is Lord also of the Sabbath day." As you, Messrs. Editors, see fit to limit me to one more short article, I will endeavor to comprise in it what I think most essential, in order to bring this protracted Discussion to a close. May a blessing attend it, even to my friend W. B. T. ! J. N. B. PART III. " This is the day which the Lord hath made ; we will rejoice and be glad in it." — Ps.\lms cxviii. 24. " I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." — Revelation i. 10. The "Lord's day," or the Christian Sabbath, has been for eighteen hundred years in the peaceful possession of the Christian Church. She claims it as a legacy from her risen and ascended Lord. She attaches to it for His sake a pecu- liar value, independent of all its inherent advantages, phy- sical, moral, social, intellectual, and religious. Yet at this day, it seems there are men who from some cause, worthy or unworthy, dispute her title to this rich inheritance. My friend W. B. T., in so doing, evidently thinks that he is "doing God service," and ridding Christianity of "a burden." But let him look well to his work; lest a voice unmistakable arrest him with the startling interrogation that once smote Saul of Tarsus to the soul ! I would warn, not threaten. Men belonging to Religious Establishments, and believing in the power of the Civil Government over religious affairs, may easily satisfy them- 180 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. Religious Establishments. Divine Authority — necessary. .selves with a Sabbath '^as by law established/' and think little of the need of Scriptural Authority. This was the case with Luther and Calvin, Warburton and Paley, Whately and Neander. And possibly even in this He- public, where a Religious Establishment is wisely forbidden by the Constitution, my friend may think "law and wont'' of sufficient force to maintain the weekly Sabbath in all its beneficent operations, without the belief in its divine au- thority. He is not very explicit, it is true, on this point; but this is the most charitable view of the matter. To suppose he wishes to see the Sabbath practically abolished, is to sepa- rate him at once from the company of the great men whom he loves to quote. If he has read them thoroughly, he is aware that their aim was not to subvert the JSabbath, but to rescue the principle and manner of its observance from Pharisaic sophistry, bigotry, and superstition. But the position of antagonism is not usually favorable to the full discovery of truth, or to its exact expression in language. Reformers are sometimes innovators. Earnest minds often, like pendulums, obey unconsciously the law of oscillation. Reaction is equal to action. And hence the injurious extremes and perplex- ing inconsistencies of the distinguished men just named — some of which I may have occasion to expose. But in this point, they are not models for American Christians. Whatever be true in other countries and times, HUMAN authority, neither legal nor ecclesiastical, will satisfy freeborn Americans. No man's conscience will be bound here by anything short of divine authority — real or supposed. Let the opinions of W. B. T. (as put forth with such rash confidence, and defended so zealously) generally prevail in this country, and no man could thereafter observe the Sabbath, but as a matter of "will-worship," or at best of political morality. But this in motive, in tendency, and in ultimate effect, is to abolish the Sabbath. What man of in- tellectual independence would consent for one moment to the MR. brown's third REPLY. 181 Consequences, entirely overlooked. Grave charges — unbecomingly made. degradation of upholding a mere human invention of this kind ? What man of enlightened conscience but would recoil from so presumptuous a claim of sanctity? What man of real piety could any longer observe the day " as unto the Lord ?" — ''The Lord's day" would in fact be no more ! IMy friend, indeed, as if this were not a practical question, where every man, woman, and child must necessarily take a side, would waive all regard to consequences. He does not seem to think that " the tree is known by its fruits." He can give up the Sabbath as coolly as the false mother of old consented to the division of the living child. To him Truth is Truth, alike whether she carries the balm of life, or the weapon of death. He never seems to suspect that Truth is modest, and Error brazen. If Truth veils her countenance, and shrinks from the careless eye, he pronounces her to be Deceit, or an Apparition from the land of " shadows." And yet my friend is an earnest man. And much as I differ with him, I would fain by the force of evidence convince him, and embrace him as a brother still. He has, indeed (in closing his part iv. — p. 157) become an ''accuser of the brethren." He has brought against me, and my brethren also, charges of the gravest kind. From him, certainly, they come with an ill grace, even were they true. But they are not. The full refutation of them will be found, I trust, in my Reply. If he hear me, I have gained my brother. If my friend felt himself crippled for want of space to de- velop his Argument fully, I more. His minutest as well as main objections plight be fairly removed seriatim were space allowed me.* But, shut up to a single concluding article, I * For example, W. B. T. calls my argument on Gen. ii. 3, in proof of the Origin of the Sabbath at the Creation, ^^ etymological [p. 104), when it is exegetical: being founded, not on etymology, but on establish- ed usage. It is therefore perfectly impregnable. His attempted reply, on 16 182 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. The root of all the errors. The day temporary, — not the Sdbhath. can only treat of the most vital points. And I find these fair- ly involved in the very first " Proposition," on the Day op THE Sabbath. On this, therefore, I have chosen to concen- trate my strength. All difficulties arise from radical mistakes here. All the other five Propositions of W. B. T. are but branching errors which logically grow out of this single root, and live or die with it. If the Fourth Commandment, like the rest of the Decalogue, is a universal and perpetual Law, and the actual designation of the day op the week to be observed as the Sabbath is fixed by a separate temporary statute (as I have fully shown and confirmed by the unwilling con- cession of W. B. T. himself), then it follows irresistibly that the Sabbath is not what W. B. T. supposes, " a merely ceremo- nial and Jewish institution" — that it was not '^ repeatedly and studiously violated" by our Lord, and that it was not set aside by the "decree" of the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem. Again, if the temporary Jewish statute, by which the Sabbath was fixed to Saturday under that preparatory dis- pensation, was abrogated with that dispensation, and the FIRST DAY OP THE WEEK was established thenceforward as the Sabbath (or, which is the same thing, "the Lord's day"), then all the real force of what W. B. T. has advanced, under the other Propositions, is seen to strike merely against the observance of the Jewish Saturday Salhath by Gentile the other hand, is purely ''etymological." So that he has actually charged on me a fault which is exclusively his own ! This misrepre- sentation, if designed, is dishonest; if (as I think), not designed, is distressing. Again. He charges me with making an unreal distinction between the offices of the logician and the interpreter, [p. 102.) If the distinction is unreal, or if it is more nice than wise, he must impute it, not to me, but to his favorite author. Dr. Whatkly. (See Whately's Logic, passim.) It depends entirely upon his restricted view of the province of Logic. W. B. T. cannot deny the distinction without in the same proportion derogating from Dr. Whately's general soundness of judgment. Either way, it is immaterial to my argument. MR. brown's third REPLY. 183 A " .summary" treatment. Saturday observed till the Resurrection. Christians under the new economy ; and to have no possible force against the Christian Sabbath, or ''the Lord's day." On this broad Scriptural view, the conflicting opinions of all Christendom may be, and, I have no doubt, ultimately will be, happily harmonized, and their practice also, to the end of the world. That the Scriptural basis of this future harmony was laid at the same time that " the Stone disallowed of men was made the head of the corner," I think I have fully demonstrated in my last, — from the necessity of the case, the new relations created by redeeming love, the grand miracle of Christ's nesurrection, and the concurrent voice of prophecy, explained and sanctioned by our Lord as '' Lord of the Sabbath day." I have said, further, that this is the true key to the subse- quent history of the Apostolic Church. And this I now proceed to prove, by applying it successively to every word of that history. My friend W. B. T. makes very light of this branch of the evidence. The texts referred to by me are disposed of ''summarily" indeed! (j9. 98.) He concludes that "there is no shadow of evidence that Jesus or his apostles changed the Sabbath day." (p. 95.) I am not surprised at this. It is clear that he has not studied the facts closely, so as to perceive their force as connected links in a chain of circumstantial evidence — practically and irresistibly confirming the fact of such a change, as I have proved by other evidence already. For, mark the connection. When the body of our Lord was laid in the tomb on Friday afternoon, the disciples who, in their blind love, had prepared to embalm it, were unable to do so because the Jewish "Sabbath drew on." {Luke xxiii. 54.) They therefore left it with the spices {John xix. 40), "and rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment." (^Luke xxiii. 56.) Here is proof that, up to that time, the Saturday Sabbath was held sacred by Christ's disciples — notwithstanding W. B. T., like the malicious Jews, tries so 184 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. Assembly of the disciples on the frst day of the -n-eek. hard to prove that our Lord " broke the Sabbath/' and "taught men so." Early on Sunday morning, "while it was yet dark/' they hastened to complete their intended task, and were overwhelmed with astonishment to learn from attend- ing angels the glorious fact of His Resurrection — a fact which, though foretold in Prophecy, and often by Christ himself, they had never (such is the blinding power of prejudice) till that moment understood. (John xx. 9.) No wonder then that they did not yet understand the change of the Sabbath day. Hence two of them, "that same day," walked out to Emmaus (about eight miles west of Jerusalem), and were joined by Jesus. (Luke xxiv. 13 — 32.) Their testimony on their return was scarcely credited by the Eleven. (Mark xvi. 13.) Then '' the same day, at evening," says John (xx. 19 — 23), "being the first day of the week (notice the em- phasis), when the doors were shut where the disciples luere as- sembled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, — Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he showed them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." Up to this moment " they believed not for joy and wonder." {Luke xxiv. 41.) Now every doubt and fear was dispelled ; their Apostolic commission was renewed, and the Holy Ghost breathed on them, in anticipation of the mightier miracle of Pentecost. Now therefore for the first time did they under- stand the full import of the words in Ps. cxviii. 14 — 26, espe- cially of verse 24, which I have so fully explained in my last. Now, of this FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK they could sing with understanding, " This is the day which the Lord hath MADE ; WE WILL REJOICE AND BE GLAD IN IT." That they did then understand that the first day of the WEEK was henceforth to be the " Lord's day," and to be ob- served by Christians as such, is evident from the fact next recorded. {John xx. 26 — 29.) " And after eight days, again his disci];>les were ivitJiin, and Thomas [who was before absent] MR. brown's third REPLY. 185 The " day of rejoicing" understood. The " eighth" day. Townsend's comment. witli them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, peace be unto you." The phrase " after eight days," is supposed by W. B. T. to designate one more day than a week. (p. 93.) But this is contrary to Jewish usage, as well as Christian. As well might he object to Christ's resurrection on the third day, from the phrase " after three days I will rise again." [Matt, xxvii. 63, 64.) Yet the Jews themselves understood by this phrase ^' the third day," and not the fourth, as we would be apt to do. The truth isj in such phrases, a part of the day preceding the point of reckoning is included. The "eighth day" is a well-known proverbial expression for the day following the Jewish Sabbath, that is, for the first day of the week. So this text has been understood from the beginning, unless I am deceived. So Hammond, G-ill, Doddridge, and others un- derstood it. Townsend, the learned Harmonist, says on this passage ; " The first appearances of our Lord to his Apostles appear to have taken place uniformly on the first day of the week ; and from their consequent observance of that day, ori- ginated the Christian Sabbath." Such, also, is the opinion of John Bunyan. But the context greatly strengthens this opinion. It clearly indicates that Jesus did not appear after the day of His resurrection until this da}^, and then chiefly to remove the doubts of Thomas. But ichy wa.it a fidl week to do this, unless to honor the weekly Sabbath, and to establish the change of the day to commemorate His resurrection ? This supposition, and this alone, harmonizes with all the previous evidence to the same point. On this First day, He rode as King into Jerusalem ; on the First day. He rose from the dead ; on the First day, He removed the last doubt from the mind of His most incredulous Apostle. Thus was the day made sacred. But a higher honor still was in store for this day. The day of Pentecost, it is well known, was always on the First day of the week. {Lev. xxiii. 15 — 21.) To this day, the ascended 10* 186 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. The day of Pentecost— the first day. Jewish feelings respected. Saviour reserved the final, public, decisive proof of His being in possession of His throne of Glory. (John vii. 39, xvi. 7 — 15.) On this day, therefore, and not till it was " fully come,^^ the disciples at Jerusalem ^^ assembled with one accord in one place.'' Why not on the Jewish Sabbath, which was always the day before the Pentecost ? Should any choose to say they met daily, both before and after, that only heightens the dis- tinguishing glory put on this FIRST day of the week by the Saviour; for this, and no other. He certainly selected, on which to bestow the richest baptism of His spirit, and the richest harvest of regenerated souls that was ever gathered in one day into His Church. When God established the Jeioish Sabbath {Exod. xvi. 27), no manna fell on the seventh day, because it was the day of Holy Rest ; but, on the First day, from the Pentecost onward, what showers of spiritual manna have fallen on the Church of Christ ! The blessing of God originally rested on the seventh day. Beyond all dispute, the day has been charigedj and the Divine blessing has since rested 071 the First Day, in every age, onward to our oion. It is worthy of remark, too, that the day of Pentecost was always a second Sabbath to the Jews, a day of holy convocation, and rest from servile work. How fit a day of public transition to the Christian Sabbath ! How inoffensive, how smooth, how beau- tiful a transition ! How worthy of the condescending love and admirable wisdom of our ascended Lord, that the Christian *' Lord's day" should thus begin, amid the most glorious and unmistakable tokens of His power ! For forty years after, as long as Jerusalem stood, no wanton wound was ever inflicted on Jewish feeling by refusing to observe the old abrogated day ; but everywhere advantage was taken of it by the Apos- tles to introduce in the Jewish Synagogues the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was only when Gentile Christians weakly conformed to it as a part of the Jewish ritual necessary to sal- vation, thus sacrificing the substance of the Gospel to the shadow, that Paul lifted up the voice of warning and remon- MR. brown's third REPLY. 187 The first day, in the Corinthian Church. Paul at Troas, on Sunday. strance. This last fact fully explains the meaning of those texts so often quoted, and so sadly perverted by W. B. T., and on which he bases his unwarranted attack upon the Christian Sabbath. {Gal iv. 9—11; i?om. xiv. 5—9; Col ii. 10—16.) It is worthy of attention that, a few months before writing his Epistle to the Komans, Paul wrote his first to the Corinth- ians, in which (xvi. 1 — 4) he gives order for the observance of the FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK, as the day sacred to Christian Charity. According to the views of W. B. T. on Rom. xiv. 5 — 9, Paul at the same time, as it were in the same breath, designates this day, and destroys it — abrogates and honors it. According to my view, Paul recognizes it as the " Lord's day,^' by saying that "he that observes it, observes it unto the Lorcl.^' For, since it is clear from the context that the day in question is observed unto Christ, as " Lord both of the dead and of the living,'' how could such a thing be possible, but on the supposition that Christ has set apart the day as His own? Hence it follows that he who doubts this, like my friend W. B. T., is the one who is "weak in faith." This will appear still more evident from Acts xx. 6, 7. " And o?i the First Day of the loeek, when the discij)Jes came together to break Ircad, Paul preached unto them." This pas- sage is so decisive of the custom of the Gentile churches, under the eye and sanction of the inspired Apostles, as to startle even W. B. T. himself. But he attempts to evade it by sup- posing, contrary to the express words of the text, that this meeting was held on Saturday evening, and that Paul had so little regard to the First day of the week as to purpose re- commencing his journey on that day ! (p. 94, — note.) A more gratuitous and glaring perversion of a plain text I never met with. As the glory of this new discovery is all his own, he may safely be left " alone in his glory." Few, I think, will covet to share it with him. I will only observe that the pre- ceding verse shows that Paid had waited a whole iceek at Troasj to enjoy the opportunity of meeting his assembled 188 OBLIGATION OP THE SABBATH. Positive proof. Paul, and John. " The Lord's day" — a Divine ordinance. | brethren on their "stated day'^ of worship, and this day is ex- pressly designated as "the FIRST day op the week." Why was this day so observed by the church, if not appointed by her Head ? All " will-worship," all subjection to "ordinances after the commandments and doctrines of men," was sternly denounced by Paul. {Col. ii. 20 — 22.) His practice, then, at Troas, is positive proof that he regarded the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath. But if Paul thus practically turns against W. B, T., our friend's whole foundation sinks under him, for on Paul he has (in fancy) been building his entire argument. But if Paul is against W. B. T., still more explicitly is " the disciple whom Jesus loved." For in the very last book of the New Testament, John assures us, " I was in the Spirit 071 the Lord's drnj^ This text, says W. B. T., per- fectly confounded, " proves — nothing at all !" (p. 94.) Just so, once at Damascus, dazzled by a glory too bright for his weak vision, an enemy of Christ, for a season, was struck blind. What can be meant by "the Lord's day," here, but a day dedicated to the Lord, and that too hy His own author- ity? What is meant by "the Lord's supper" (1 Cor. xi. 20) but the Supper observed in the Christian church, by His own authority, in memory of Him ? No mortal ever doubted the meaning of the latter phrase of designation. Equally clear and certain is the former. The " Lord's day" cannot here mean the day of judgment. Neither can it mean the Jewish Sabbath ] for that, as W. B. T. himself contends, was abrogated, and of course could be "the Lord's day" no long- er. But here is "the Lord's day" in the Christian church, at the close of the Apostolic age, as such, too well known to need explanation, sanctioned by the last of the Apostles of Christ, and by Christ himself, indeed, with the last vision of His glory accorded to man on earth. If no one (the " Friends" excepted) pretends to doubt that the " Lord's table," " the Lord's cup," and " the Lord's Supper" (1 Cor. xi.) prove the MR. brown's third REPLY. 189 Objections urged against a substitution of the Lord's day. existence of an Ordinance of universal and perpetual obliga- tion under the Christian Dispensation, how idle is such a doubt in reference to " the Lord's day." Honest men should blush to own such a doubt. The truth is, my friend is in a dilemma like that of the Jews, when Jesus demanded of them the origin of the Baptism of John. And they said : "We can- not tell." So my perplexed friend says : "This text proves — nothing !" From my heart I pity him. " Whosoever shall fall on this Stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." {3IaU. xxi. 44.) My friend does indeed apparently concede, with Dr. Whate- LY, "that there are sufficiently plain marks of the early Christians having observed ^the Lord's day' as a religious festival." But that it was substituted as " the Sabbath" of the Christian dispensation, he denies, on the following grounds : 1. The " vital word" Sahhath is wanting, (p. 93.) 2. The first disciples met on other days also for Christian worship, {p. 94.) 3. "All of them who were Jews actually continued themselves to observe the Mosaic Sabbath." (p. 95.) 4. The early Christian writers among the Gentiles exhort Christians not to keep the Sabbath, but the Lord's day, on which Christ our Life arose from the dead. 5. "It was not till erroneous views of the day of Christian worship began to be entertained, that it was ever supposed to ^ absorb into itself the authority of the original law' — the fourth commandment." (p. 99, — note.') And 6. These views are sustained by several distinguished moderns, — as Luther, Melancthon, Cranmer, Calvin, Wiiately, and Neander. I give my friend credit for great acuteness and exten- sive research — on one side of this question. For the sake of his own investigations, as well as of his great authorities, I acquit him of any wilful rejection of the Lord's day, as the Christian Sabbath. I sympathize with him, indeed, as a man once like tempted. I feel the force of the old saying : " He that never doubted, never believed." 190 OBLIGATION OP THE SABBATH. Human opinions, of no account. Wai-ds not "vital," — but things. But I live now for Truth and Right. I would not be deceived even by illustrious names. All the great men he quotes have erred, as my friend will concede, on such points as Infant Baptism, and the Union of Church and State. They may then have erred as to this point. If is a practical question. Vast consequences, individual and social, hang on the decision. For our personal judgment and its practical influ- ence, on this very subject, I am admonished, both by Christ and his Apostle, that " every one of us shall give account of himself to God.'' (3Iatt. v. 19 ; Eom. xiv. 12.) Human opinions really decide nothing here. Names equally illustrious, if not more numerous, are found arrayed on the other side — that is, in favor of the moral and perpetual obligation of the Sabbath. EusEBius and Athanasius among the ancients : among the moderns, Knox, Beza, even Calvin himself, the Westmin- ster divines, Owen, Bunyan, Watts, Doddridge, Edwards, Pearson, Horsley, Wilson, Chalmers, Wardlaw, Wood, DwiGHT, Alexander, Beecher, Kitto, Wayland. Leaving then human authorities, let us look all the real evidence calmly in the face. I ask, then. What is the real force of the objections urged by my friend ? 1. Is there anything ^Wital" in the word " Sabbath,' * that its absence should decide the question? True vitality belongs to things, not words. If we find the thing — the weekly day of religious rest and convocation, established by Divine Authority in the Christian Church on "the first day of the week" — is it not the merest verbal trifling to dispute about the name ? If my friend prefers, with the Apostle, to call it " the Lord's day," and as such admits its obligation, I will be the last man to quarrel with him. If he refuses to do this, I must class him with the Jesuit, who, in a debate with me, de- nied the sufficiency of the Scriptures, because the word was wanting in 2 Tim. iii. 15 — 17. But I am persuaded better things of my friend than this Jesuitic quibbling. • He is at MR. brown's third REPLY. 191 Other objections unimportant. A Tanishing dx-eam. least a manly foe. I hope he will yet be a cordial^ Christian friend. 2. If the first disciples did also meet on other days, what boots it to this argument ? So now do ice. 3. If the Apostles and Jewish Christians continued to observe the Jewish Sabbath also, among their own countrymen, what does it prove but their kindness, their devout spirit, and their readiness to seize every occasion of doing good ? So would any Christian Missionary among the Jews do now. So have I done with pleasure among conscientious Seventh-day Baptists — some of whom I regard as among " the excellent of the earth." 4. If the early Christian writers " exhort Gentile Christ- ians not to observe the Jewish Sabbath, but the Lord's day," it is but to check this condescension from degenerating into conformity and superstition. If they represent that Sabbath as part of a sliadowy and superseded Dispensation, what is that to the Argument ? Do ice not say the same ? 5. This statement of my friend requires no answer. It is a mere hegging of the question. 6. The argument from Human Authority I have answered already. And now is this all my friend has to urge in the shape of objection to the Scriptural, comprehensive, all-harmonizing view which I have advocated ? Yes, this is all — absolutely all. And each of these objections, when approached and examined calmly, in succession, comes to nothing ! It vanishes " like a dream when one awaketh," and leaves '^ the Lord's day" in full force, from the day of His resurrection to the end of the world, as the true Christian Sabbath. The Church still sings, as in the days of her youth, '' This is the day which the Lord has made ; we will rejoice and be glad in it." May we, vrith all her true members, always be "in the spirit on the Lord's day." The only exception to this are painful ones. Our Lord 192 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. Lax views of Luther and Melancthon. " Fruits." Doctrine of Calvin. intimates, in Matt. v. 19, that lax views of the Ten Command- ments, or some of them at least, might be embraced and pro- pagated by some Ministers of the Gospel. My friend has chosen on this point the ungracious task of Ham to Noah. Lax views of the Fourth Commandment by Luther and Melancthon have borne tlieir natural fruit in Germany. What that fruit is may be learned from Dr. Robinson, in the Biblical Repository, vol. i. pp. 440 — 446. I will quote a single sentence from this impartial witness, written after long residence in the land of Luther. " To an American it is a striking and painful sight to enter the house of God, and find it almost uniformhj destitute of worshippers. The preacher is there ; the services are there ; the voice of song rises from the Choir and Organ ; but a worshipping assemhly can hardly be said to be there !" Can any one doubt, after this, whose opinions of the Sabbath are right ? '^ Ye shall know them hy their fruits.^' My friend has quoted a lax opinion from Calvin. Yet Calvin's general doctrine and that of his school was sound. The incontrovertible evidence of this is now before me, in the ^' Propositions and Principles of Divinity, propounded and disputed [discussed] in the University of Geneva, under M. Theodore Beza, and M. Anthonie Faius, Professors of Divinity. Translated out of Latin into English. Edin- burgh, 1591." I will quote from this rare book their well- weighed conclusion {pp. 80, 81): "We may, therefore, justly affirm that the Apostles, by the direction of the Holy Ghost, instead of that seventh day observed under the Law, did appoint that day which was the first in the creation of the former world ) yet not therefore because it was the first in that work of the creation, but because that Christ by His resurrection upon that day did bring forth that new and eternal light of another world ; and therefore this day hath been named the Lord's day, ever since the time of the Apos- tles." — '' The observance of the Lord's day doth not forbid 193 Principles held by Beza, and Faius. Tartial quotations. sermons or prayers to be on other days ; but rather commandeth a certain peculiar and a solemn profession of the external wor- ship of God upon that day in the public congregation. The Lord herein dealing most mercifully with us, in that He granteth us six days to bestow ourselves in a holy sort in our worldly business, and requireth no more to Himself but one of seven. The recollection of which seven days, being fetched from the creation of the world, doth remain the length of all ages and times." Whatever then were the private opinions of Calvin (who died in 1564), these were the principles publicly taught, (and defended against all disputants), after his death, in his favorite University, under Beza his bosom friend, biographer, and successor. If Calvin really meant to stigmatize them as " the dreams of false prophets,'^ this fact of their subse- quent vindication and triumph is one of the most instructive facts in the History of Christian Doctrine or Morals. How fine an illustration of an American Poet's prophetic song ! — *' Truth crushed to earth, -will rise again! The eternal years of God are hers ; But error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies amid her worshippers." I have done. The Sabbath of my God is vindicated. One word in vindication of myself, and I shall gladly lay down my pen. The last paragraph of my friend W. B. T. (in part i. of his Reply, — j?. 101) requires notice before I close. It touches my honor and my heart. Let me then say distinctly that I do not impute to him any intention of making unfair quotations, or of giving them a wrong coloring. I believe him as incapable of this injustice as myself. Yet such an ajjpearance is often inseparable from partial extracts, like those he has made from Calvin and Bunyan. With regard to Calvin, the fact may be verified in a few moments by reading, in Vol. 1. of his In- 17 194 OBLIGATION OP THE SABBATH. An extract from Buntan. Conclusion. stitutes, the single section on the Fourth Commandment. And as to BuNYAN, the ^^ Epistle to the Reader," prefixed to his Treatise on the Sabbath, will make the matter clear. I quote a sentence or two : " Some may think it strange, since God's church has always been well furnished with sound grounds and reasons by so many wise and godly men, for proof that the First day of the weeh is eur true Christian Sabbath that I should now offer this small treatise upon the same account.'' Again, Bunyan says explicitly : " A Sabbath for holy worship is moral ; but this or that day appointed for that service is sanctified by precept, or approved example. The timing then of a Sabbath for us lies in God, not man : — Grod always reserving to Himself a power to alter, and change both time and modes of worship according to his own will." Now, in whatever details I differ from Bunyan or Calvin, it is clear that our fundamental j^ositions are the same. I commend this fact to my friend W. B. T. But whether we agree or differ with these eminent men on this subject, God grant that we may emulate their practical virtues, their devoted piety, their unwearied labors for the salvation and welfare of their fellow-men. May crowns as bright be ours in the day of the Lord's coming ! J. N. B. THE ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. REPLY TO ^'J. N. B; PART I. CONSIDERATION OF THE SABBATH LAW. *'"What thing soever I command you, observe to do it; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it!" . . . . "But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." — Deuteroxomy xii. 32 ; and v. 14. "Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven." — (Matthew v. 19.) " For whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." — James ii. 10. " Thou that makest thy boast of the Law, through breaking the Law dishonorest thou God ?" — Romans ii. 23. " How do ye say, We are wise, and the Law of the Lord i^ tcith us?" — Jeremiah viii. 8. " Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." — Mark vii. 9. Without intending to prejudge tlie resources of Sabbata- rianism, or to depreciate the arguments my friend has advanced in its support, I am constrained to think that the effort he has expended in his last Reply ver}^ much exceeds the execution he has effected. I regret that he has seen proper to waive the consideration of the five main "Propositions," and restrict himself to the introductory one ; since my earnest desire has been to elicit all the important points vriiich could readily be suggested on either side, satisfied that such a presentation 196 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. A specific " day" enjoined : and that day — Saturday. would in itself be sufficient to establish (in tlie minds * of the reflecting) the cause of Scripture and of Right, of Reason and of Truth. J. N. B. remarks, in part hi. of his Reply : ^' All the other five Propositions of W. B. T, are but branching errors, which logically grow out of this single root, and live or die with it.^' (p. 182.) So be it ! I am content to accept the issue. In his former Reply, however (p. 55), he considered that "the main strength and sole hope of my friend, W. B. T., lies in the Second of the ' Six Propositions' he defends." It is encouramno; to find that J. N. B. now feels his weakest point to be at the very outset of his task. " Shut up to a single concluding article," says he, " I can only treat of the most vital points. And I find these fairly involved in the very first Proposition, on the Day of the Sabbath. On this, there- fore, I have chosen to concentrate my strength." (p. 182.) The Discussion then is narrowed down by my friend to the single point — The Day required hy the Sahhath laic. What is the intent and requirement of the fourth commandment ? Does it indicate any exclusive portion of time as its especial object? And if so, have we the means of determining what that exclusive portion of time is ? Both these queries have already been answered affirmatively. The commandment not only explicitly designates a particular "day" for sanctification, but "that Saturday is the Sabbath enjoined in the Decalogue, is as certain as human knowledge can be, even concerning the Bible itself." In reply to this statement, J. N. B. says : "In this I entirely differ from him. Had he said : ^ that Saturday is the Sabbath enjoined on the Jews, is as certain as human know- ledge can be,' I would have at once agreed with him." {p. 163.) The futility of this distinction will be apparent presently. Meanwhile, I am gratified with the frank admission of my friend that " Saturday is the Sabbath enjoined on the Jews," and as there is no record, within or without the Scriptures, of MR. Taylor's third reply. 197 The universal and exclusive designation of the day. the Sabbath having ever been "enjoined" on any people, ex- cepting "on the Jews" (and those sojourning "within their gates"), the obligation of Saturday, under the law, is clearly commensurate with the obligation of the institution. But how is Saturdai/ "enjoined on the Jews?" Simply, as I before remarked, " by adopting the universal designation of a well-recognized distinction." If the word " seven," having been in familiar use long before the Sabbath law, required no legal definition, so " the seventh day" of the week, having been long antecedently established, as little stood in need of explanation. Hence, in the very outset of the Sab- batic regulation, we find no hint of any date of computation. {Exod. xvi. 5.) It would have been superfluous. As ration- ally might the word " day" have been defined. It requires, then, no very profound research, or legal acumen, to discover with precision, in this case, the meaning of the lawgiver and the application of the law. Both in the Decalogue and in the preparatory enactment just preceding (^Exod. xx. 10; and "Xvi. 26), the language is most explicit: X^^^ Q^' {yom lia- shihingi) "day 'the seventh' is the Sabbath." To all who understood the language, misconception and equivocation were alike impossible. The law appointed a specific " day" in the most perspicuous manner possible ] it described the day in- tended by using the appropriate name of that day, and the onlij name that day had ! As I expressed myself in my former Reply (p. 88) : " The term ' Sunday' is not more precisive in our law than is the term ^ ha-shibinrji^ in that of the Hebrews. It is applicable to no ' seventh day' but SaturdayJ^ But, says my friend, in reply : " This last remark is the purest assumption. As it is by no means self-evident, I must demand ample proof before I can admit its truth. Is the proof found in ' the universal designation of a well-recognized dis- tinction V If so, then the inference irresistibly follows that the seventh-day Sabbath [!] was universally recognized he fore 17* 198 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The designation, long antecedent to the Sabbath law. the giving of the Decalogue at Sinai. But this is coming on to my ground^ and abandoning his own. To avoid this, will my friend say the seventh day was determined by the giving of the manna ? This I understand him to do in these words : ^ Saturday is the seventh day says God by the manna.' But this again is abandoning his original position, and coming over to mine." (p. 163.) Not quite so fast. It by no means so " irresistibly follows that the seventh-day Sahhath was uni- versally recognized" previously, because " the seventh clai/^' was so recognized ; any more than it follows that the seventh day Sabbath is now universally recognized because " the seventh day" is. The Egyptians long previously had the week and "the seventh day," but they certainly had not the " Sabbath." As little does it follow that " the seventh day was determined by the manna," because God said by the manna, "Saturday is the 'seventh day'" of the law. The seventh day was not "determined by the manna." It had been "determined" centuries before. It was determined when i\\Q loeek was instituted; and without this " determination," there never could have been the " week." As to the "ample proof" demanded for my previous assertion (p. 88), it is found in the fact that only one day of the week either was or could be, yom ha-shihingi, " day the seventh." Day Ha-Shihingi was indisputably much older than the Jewish Sabbath law, and, therefore, this law, in using the term, was necessarily re- stricted to the well-established meaning of that term; just as our own law in using the term " Sunday" necessarily desig- nates the first day of the week; or just as an appointment of ^' seventh day" for any purpose b}^ the society of " Friends" could not possibly intend any day but Saturday. J. N. B. is perfectly right, therefore, when he agrees with me that, as certainly as man can know, " Saturday is the Sabbath enjoined on the Jews." He is as clearly wrong when he denies that it is "enjoined in the Decalogue." lie attempts to uphold the distinction, by contending that MR. Taylor's tuird reply. 199 The day, no more temporary than the law. Saturday was " fixed by a temporary statute/^ Then clearly the whole law was '' a teniporary statute," the very point for which I am battling. If " the seventh day'^ observance was intended only for the Jews, it follows, as I maintained before {p. 89), that '^ the statute itself was only for that people.'^ J. N". B. explains that, in formerly saying the statute was onli/ for the Jews {p. 59), he meant " by ' statute,' what God said to Moses at the giving of the manna. {Exod. xvi. 5, 15, 16, 22 — 31.) See particularly verse 26th, where the statute of designation is clear as the sun } and that, too, long he/ore^ the giving of the Decalogue." (p. 164.) This 26th verse is as follows : " Six days ye shall gather it : but on the seventh da?/, which is the Sahhath, in it there shall be none." Now it so happens that the fourth commandment repeats this " designa- tion" almost verbatim. "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work : but the seventh day is the Sahhath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work." {^Exod. xx. 10.) If the former of these texts constitutes a " statute of desig- nation" enjoining Saturday upon the Jews, then it " is clear as the sun" that the fourth commandment is equally "a sta- tute of designation" enjoining Saturday upon them. Was the designation limited to them? "'Then most certainly, the statute itself was only for that people.' So says W. B. T., and I am most happy to agree with him," adds J. N. B. (p. * My friend's epithets are not always strictly appropriate. The circumstance above referred to as having been " long before the giving of the Decalogue," took place not quite three weeks before ! Two Sabbaths only intervened between the first imperfect enactment of a Sabbath law, and the formal establishment of it in the fourth com- mandment ; so that the two occasions may very properly be considered but the same transaction. The Israelites arrived at the wilderness of Sin on the middle of one month [Exod. xvi. 1), and at Sinai on the next month [ib. xix. 1) ; three days after which (xix. 11, 16), the Decalogue was orally proclaimed from the Mount (xx. 1, 18). Forty days afterward, the Decalogue had been written on the tables of stone. {Dent. ix. 9—11.) 200 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. A " concession" refuted. The same day uniformly required. 164.) " Wlij should I not be, when he comes over completely to my ground ? Would that in all points we could meet as perfectly as in this V If our agreement is real, our cause for congratulation is mutual. I am afraid, however, that my friend's sophisms have carried him somewhat into a fog : for I notice that, in afterwards recurring to this point (p. 182), he says : " The actual designation of the day of the week to be observed as the Sabbath is fixed by a separate temporary statute, (as I have fully shown, and confirmed hy the unwilling concession of W. B. T. himself ly^ J. N. B. is mistaken : douhly mistaken. First, he unjustly mistakes in using the epithet "unwilling,'' for my admissions never shall be so. I assure him I love the truth too well to pay it a reluctant homage ; and if I make a " concession," it shall be with the exultation due to the discovery of a new and unfamiliar truth. But my friend again mistakes, in claiming as a *' concession'^ what I have decisively refuted! The designation of the day of the week to be observed is not "fixed by a separate statute." In my very first Reply {p. 21), I showed that " in every variety, and on every occasion of its enunciation, the law per- tinaciously requires a particular day." We find that " the actual designation of the day of the week to be observed as the Sabbath" is as explicit in the Decalogue as it is in Exod. xvi. 26. It " is fixed by a separate temporary statute," no otherwise than as the imperfect Sabbath law at Sin was, pre- paratory to its more precise and impressive re-enactment at Sinai. " I am most happy to agree with my friend" that the seventh day Sabbath was established " by a temforary statute." " Why should I not be, when he comes over com- pletely to my ground ?" "It follows," proceeds J. N. B., "that the designation of the particular day of the week from a given point of reckoning is no part of the Fourth Commandment. The proportion of our days to be kept holy to the Lord is alone specified ^ The seventh day' of the Decalogue, as fur as it is defined by MR. Taylor's third reply. 201 No •' proportion of days" specified by the fourth commandment. the Decalogue itself [?], is the seventh in succession — no other — no less — no more. ' Every word of God is pure. Add thou not unto His words, lest lie reprove thee, cand thou be found a liar/ is a warning that should pierce every con- science to the quick. '^ (j;. 164.) My friend is still in the fog. "The proportion of our days to be kept holy" is not specified at all in the fourth command- ment ! There is not one syllable of the kind in it.* This is an " addition unto His words I" The command is not to keep a seventh '^proportion" of time; but to ''remember the Sabbath day, which is \j/om ha-shihingi'] 'day the seventh/ ^^ the day in which God rested; the onli/ day that can be "the Sabbath o/the Lord thy God/' as the Bible tells not that He ever kept any other "Sabbath." (^Gen. ii. 3; JohnY. 17.) " ' The seventh day' of the Decalogue, as far as it is defined hy the Decalogue itself," is NOT " the seventh in succession," nor anything else. The idea is a chimera, utterly unworthy " a sober logician." " As far as it is defined by the Decalogue itself," the expression yom ha-shihingi might be " day of the new moon," or " all-fools day." The Biblical interpreter should know that "definitions" are derived from the traditions of language, and the comparisons of application. J. N. B. tells us that "the Decalogue says : 'Bemember the Sahhath day to keep it holy,' not 'Remember the seventh * " The proportion of days to be kept holy to the Lord" is a much larger one than J. N. B. has been pleased to assume. If he will turn to Levit. xxiii. he will find in this one chapter no less than eight diflereut "Sabbaths" enjoined. 1. The weekly Sabbath {verse 3); 2. The first of unleavened bread [v. 7) ; 3. The seventh of imleavened bread {v. 8) ; 4. The Pentecost {y. 21) ; 5. The Sabbath of trumpets {v. 24) ; 6. The day of atonement {v. 32) ; 7. The first of tabernacles {v. 35) ; 8. The seventh of tabernacles (y. 36). In no single instance, however, is any "proportion" of time "specified." This can only be discovered by computation. The requirement of the law is, in every case, a well- determined " day," — no other — no less — no more. 202 ABROGATION OP THE SABBATH. A useless distinction. " The seventh day," required by the Law. day to keep it holy.' What the Sabbath day is, i. e., how often it occurs, and what is its order of succession, is intimated in what follows. The ' seventh day' is not, strictly speaking, in the law itself, but in the explanation of the law." (jo. 165.) Were it not for my friend's previous declaration, '^ Truth, and not mere tilt, is my object in this Discussion'' {p. 162), I should have thought this quibbling. Will J. N. B. in candor say that his latter form : ^' Remember the seventh day to keep it holy," would be one jot more explicit, unequivocal, or authoritative, — one jot more removed beyond the reach of subterfuge, than the existing form : " Remember the Sab- bath day ... but the seventh day is the Sabbath ?" If he will not say so, his distinction is disingenuous, and the " day" is admitted to have all the obligation the laiu can give it ; if he will say so (as consistency with his comment requires), I can only wonder at the consorted weakness and boldness of expedient to which ^^ wrong theories lead intelligent men.'^ With far more plausibility may it be said that what Pro- testants call the ^' second" commandment is not properly a ^'law itself," but only an ^^explanation of the law f' for in point of fact, it is indeed obviously included in the ^' first" commandment. Is it, therefore, in any respect snhordinate ? The notion is most untenable. The extended specifications of a statute are as really an integral part "of the law itself" as its first general provision. They demand the same implicit obedience, or require the same decisive repeal. J. N. B. appears to be fully aware of this, for even while contending that the seventh day " is not the text, but the commentary on the text, by the Divine Lawgiver," he admits that it is of "equal antliority with it." The distinction is therefore wholly irrelevant to the point under discussion — the reqidrement of the fourth commandment. "The law itself" expressly enacts that " day the seventh is the Sabbath" {Exod. xx. 10) ; and the intent of the lawgiver is unmistakable and undisputed. The subsequent administration of the law, no less than the ante- MR. Taylor's third reply. 203 No commutution permitted. The Sabbath law, specific. cedent suspension of the manna, places it beyond question that " day the seventh" indicated Saturday, and no other day ; and so rigidly was this provision insisted on that even in the case of its most trivial infraction, no commutation of '^ day'' was allowable, no, not to save the offender's life. (Mimb, xv. 32 — 36.) "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy!" It was the "day" that was likely to be forgotten, not "the Sab- bath." In my friend's former Reply (p. 47), it was contended that if a miracle had originally determined the application of the law in regard to the day, a subsequent miracle might change its application. To which I objected (p. 89) that this would be to allow one miraculous interpretation to be set aside by another one. In rejoinder to this, J. N. B. says : " He knows, quite as well as I do, that if the law be of a general descrip- tion, it is equally applicable to two or more specific cases." (p. 165.) "Your if," says Shakspeare, "is the only peacemaker: much virtue in if." The fourth commandment is not " gene- ral" in description : it is as specific as language can make it. It designates a particular day by its proper name, and hy the only name it had! ^'Day Ha-Shihingi is the Sabbath!" Frequently as the Sabbath law is repeated, in no single in- stance does it describe a seventh portion of time, or even a "seventh day" as its object: "day the seventh" is its inexo- rable demand. (See Exod. xvi. 26, 29, xx. 10, xxiii. 12, xxxi. 15, xxxiv. 21, XXXV. 2 ; Lcvit. xxiii. 3 ; Deut. v. 14.) And if a miracle has confirmed the letter of the precept, by mark- ing Saturday the last day of the week as that " day the se- venth" of the law — that day of the series corresponding to the one on which God rested from all his work — no other miracle is competent to prove a different day to be that "day the seventh." A miracle may repeal a law; it cannot be allowed to contradict another miracle ! "Willing to give my friend the benefit of the utmost latitude 204 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. A Miracle; and tlie " explanation." No change in the computation. of concession, and curious to see to wtat his assumptions would conduct him, I said, " Show us however the miracle (fixing another ^seventh day'), and it sufiiceth us." {p. 89.) Says J. N. B., ^' In spite of this sharp irony, that miracle may, in due time, appear." {p. 165.) And he afterwards resumes {p. 174), " I propose now to show not only the miracle, but the Divine explanation of the miracle. I bespeak an earnest at- tention. Let it be remembered, then, that the first explicit de- claration of faith in Jesus as the Messiah was made at Csesa- rea Philippi, about six months before our Saviour's death. (Matt. xvi. 13 — 20.) . . . ' After six days,' says Matthew (xvii. 1), ' about eight days,' says Luke (ix. 18, 28), was the Transfiguration. . . . But that miracle was connected by some secret tie with the miracle of the Resurrection So much for the Miracle. [!] Now for the Divine explanation of the Miracle, which fixes the first day of the week, or the day of Christ's Resurrection, as the Sabbath of the Christian Dispensation." (p. 175.) This " Divine explanation" is so ab- struse as to require the remainder of this PART of his Reply (pp. 175 — 179) for its development. And what have we in all this inexplicable '' explanation," bearing on the computation of the week? Not the first sylla- ble ! " The Resurrection," says J. N. B., ^' we know was, on the first day of the week ;" and he thinks it '' highly probable, to say the least, that the glorious miracle of the Transfigura- tion was on that day.'^ (p. 174.) Therefore — Sunday is " day Ua-Sldhingif" Is it so ? Have we any intimation, either in the New Testament, or in the whole range of history, that Sunday ever became the seventh day — that it was ever any- thing else but ^^ the first day ?" Not a hint ! How then does the miracle " fix another ' seventh day V " My friend has completely lost his reckoning. But he says the Divine explanation of the miracle " fixes the first day of the week as the Sabbath of the Christian Dis- pensation." Here is a s^2'^'*'^"^' -^ '^ Remember the Sabbath MR. Taylor's third reply. 205 The " seventh day" not peculiar to the Jews ; but universally recognized. day . . . but the seventh day is not the Sabbath I" J. N. B. undertook to show that "the seventh day" had been miraculously changed, and, instead of doing so, endeavors to make it appear that the application of the law has been modi- fied. " A new phase in the alogy," truly. Conscious of the insecurity of his footing, he says, with some anxiety : " This question has nothing to do with any change of the Decalogue. This I have proved beyond dispute. It concerns merely the Jeioish mode of reckoning the iceek, fixed by the miracle of the Manna, as explained by Moses. {Exod. xvi. 22 — 30.) This mode of reckoning was a special statute for Israel." (p. 174.) The hurry of my friend's forced march has here driven him into a " serious blunder." In the first place, the Jewish mode of reckoning the week was not "fixed by the miracle of the Manna" (see Gen. 1. 10; Job ii. 13 ; Exod. xvi. 5); and secondly, if it had been, still it is "beyond dispute," that "this mode of reckoning" was not peculiar to Israel ; for it is identical with ours. It never has been changed! Saturday is still " the seventh day," as cer- tainly as it was in the Wilderness, three thousand years ago. The very miracle of the Resurrection, which J. N. B. adduced to show a change of reckoning, completely overthrows him : for by the Record, the miracle occurred on " the first day of the week," and on that same "Jirst day" is it still commemo- rated ! And that no change took place before the miracle, he honestly concedes from the account in Luke xxiii. 56. " Here is proof," says he, " that iq? to that time, the Saturday Sabbath was held sacred." (p. 183.) My friend has the misfortune to be impaled on a dilemma of his own contrivance; and, I fear, will have to ride both horns, for the moment he is fairly upon one, he finds it neces- sary to grasp at the other for support. Whether it is the day of the week, or the day of the law, that has been changed, he is not right clear. There is obviously considerable delicacy reqiiired in the statement of the question^ since his theory com- 18 206 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. No change made in the week : and none in the law. pels him to be extremely sensitive with regard to any modifica- tion of the Decalogue. But, however tenderly he may shift his uneasy seat, the ultimate practical point to be proved by him is that the observance of the ^rs^ day of the week is required by the fourth commandment. He admits that it is as certain as human knowledge can be, ^' that Saturday/ is the Sabbath enjoined on the Jews." How then did Sunday ever become obligatory ?* The question can have nothing to do with any change of the weeh, since, *^ non est,^' there has been none ; and J. N. B. thinks he has ^' proved beyond dispute" that it '^ has nothing to do with any change of the Decalogue.'* So, upon the whole, it appears not to have much to do loith anything ! Still, somehow or other, and somewhere or other, J. N. B. is pretty sure that there has been " a change." " Beyond all dispute," says he, " the day has been changed, and the Divine blessing has since rested on the First Day, in every age, onward to our own." (p. 186.) The Scriptural authority for this change is the important question before us. " What I now propose to show," says J. N. B., " is that there is ample evidence in the Scriptures that Christ, as the sole ^ Lord of the Sabbath day,'f changed the day of its ob- servance in honor of His own Resurrection." (p. 171.) Ex- cellent ! — " Highly important — if true I" — " Yea, hath God * It may perhaps be encouraging to reflect that "the 'seventh day' is not, strictly speaking, in the law itself, but in the explanation of the law." So that, by adhering strictly to "the law itself," and merely anatomizing exuberances (such as the words "seventh" — "Egypt," &c.), we shall still be enabled to retain a very respectable skeleton of the immortal " Decalogue." f What Jesus did as " Lord of the Sabbath day," is recorded in Matt. xii. 1 8 ; 3Iark ii. 23 — 28 ; and John v. 17. It will be found to be something very diflferent from ''changing the day of its observance !'* Strangely enough, there is not a hint there afforded my friend of any such "change!" Whence could he have dreamed so "pure a fancy?" Ilis appUcatic» of the title is unmeaning and ridiculous. MR. Taylor's third reply. 207 No Scriptural authority for a transfer. No Sabbatarian text to be found. said?'' — At last then we may hope for some little scrap of this '* ample evidence" — so patiently awaited, so anxiously desired. " One fundamental part of that evidence is seen (as I showed in my last article) in the nature and necessity of the case — that is to say, in the new relations established by the work of Christ, and confirmed by His resurrection from the dead on that day." [p. 171.) Alas ! We are promised '^bread :" behold " a stone." The only ^'fundamental" part of the evidence is " chapter and verse," my friend ! Has your laborious search proved un- availing ? — Why not candidly avow it ? Has the " ample evi- dence in the Scriptures" been adduced ? Where is it to be found ? The thirsting eye trudges through barren paragraphs, but the promised well-spring is not there. Assumptions — "explanations" — rhetorical episodes — these instead must we accept, and not " too curiously consider." I have challenged the production of one single text from the New Testament to countenance Sabbatarianism ; one single text, but half as ex- plicit as Col. ii. 16, on the J./iln. 181, — note) that I styled an argu- ment of his — " etymological, when it is exegetical.^'' Real and important as the distinction undoubtedly is, I see not how it affects our present discussion. If an argument be inconclusive, it matters but little to which class it belongs. But I think it will generally be admitted, that in popular acceptation, at least, the " exegetical" is but a department of the "■ etymological." Nor is it perhaps always easy to discriminate accurately between their respective boundaries. At all events, the issue appears to me to be entirely a verbal one. "" See John v. 45. MR. Taylor's third reply. 281 The fairness of " partial extracts." " withstand them to the face because they are to he blamed," still, would I " count them not as ' enemies,^ but admonish them as brothers." Least of all, would I reproach them for their belie/. I would unswervingly uphold the inviolable sanc- tity of opinion ; believing that a sincere faith is amenable to no human " accusation/' but is accountable to Grod alone, — be that faith what it may. As I stated in my last Reply (p. 87) : " Certainly I shall neither presume to 'judge,' nor to ' set at naught' a believer, however ' weak in the faith' " I might esteem him. " This is well said," observes J. N. B. (p. 161.) '' How well it is fulfilled, will appear in the se- quel." I join with my friend in the reference. How far I have been consistent, our mutual readers for themselves must judge. The other remaining point to be noticed, is one of graver moment. In an early part of the Discussion (p. 56), J. N. B., in referring to the writers I had cited, remarked : " Of the unynarded language of others he has made a use, I think, they never designed." In part i. of my Beply, I assured him that " painful as such a conviction would be, I should certainly be thankful to him for its frank indication :" and that ''if, through prejudice or inadvertence, I had given an unfair coloring to authority, I would much rather be corrected, and retract a mistaken application, than continue in error, or labor under an intangible imputation." {p. 101.) This "frank indication" of an instance of " undesigned" use of " unguarded language," has not been made : but instead, J. N. B. replies : " I do not impute to him any intention of making unfair quotations, or of giving them a wrong coloring. I believe him as incapable of this injustice as myself. Yet such an appearance [!] is often inseparable from partial extracts, like those he has made from Calvin and Bunyan. With regard to Calvin, the fact may be verified [?] in a few moments by reading in Vol. I. of his In- stitutes, the single section on the Fourth Commandment. 24* 282 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. The demand for " correction" — unsatisfactorily answered. And as to Bunyan, the * Epistle to the Reader' prefixed to his Treatise on the Sabbath, will make the matter clear/' (p. 193.) My friend's answer is not as explicit as my appeal was per- spicuous. I did not assume the charge of '^ intentional un- fairness, therefore the disclaimer was unnecessary : but ^' if, through prejudice or inadvertence," my quotations were unfairly colored, I asked for '^ correction. '^ Although this has not been offered, the imputation is no longer " intangible ;" and self- respect imperatively requires from me a thorough examination and a decisive replication. " Such an appearance !" — What " appearance ?" An ap- pearance " of giving quotations a wro7ig coloring?" And what *'fact may be verified" by reading Calvin? The ^^fact" of such apparent wrong coloring ? Where is the example ? My friend has not adduced it.* I hesitate not to say he cannot adduce it ! On a careful review of the authorities to whom I have referred, I state it as my confident belief, that, without a shade of " apparent coloring," they bear out, to the utmost, the particular doctrines they have been summoned to elucidate. " With regard to Calvin, the fact may be veri- fied" by the statement that he will fully indorse the whole of my *'Six Propositions. "t The prhyiary design of the * A more critical discernment would probably have prevented my fi'iend's imputation ; and would certainly have obviated his sagacious surmise that my authorities did not all ^^ fully agree with me !!" [p. 56.) A " sober logician" should know that evidence, presented upon one point, has nothing to do with any other point. If my witnesses fairly confirm the facts or constructions for which they have been re- spectively adduced, it is simply idle to inquire .whether they "fully agree with me in my Anti- Sabbatarian views!" My friend is, of course, at full liberty to make the most he can out of their cross-ex- amination. f I do not of course mean by this, that Calvin, in explicit terms, affirms each of the "six propositions," but that, from the tenor of his writings, he evidently would not hesitate to do so. And I throw upon J. N. B. the proof that he has ever, in any of his writings, directly or indirectly, impeached one of them. MR. Taylor's third reply. 283 A '• partial extract" from Calvut. fourth commandment was, in his opinion, " to give the people of Israel a figure of the spiritual rest by which the faithful ought to refrain from their own works, in order to leave God to work with them :" and he maintains that " Christ is the end and consummation of that true rest foreshadowed by the an- cient Sabbath/' In relation to ''the Lord's day," he observes that it was used ^^ only as a remedy necessary to the preserva- tion of order in the Church/' '' Neither,'' says he, " do I so regard the septenary number tliat I would hind the church to its observance ! . . The amount is, that as the truth was deli- vered to the Jews under a figure, so it is given to us without shadows — first that we may consecrate our entire life, as a per- petual Sabbatism from our own works," &c. . . " Thus vanish all the dreams of false jrrophets, who in past ages have imbued the people with a Judaic opinion, affirming that nothing was abrogated in this command, except what was 'ceremonial,' (which by their account is the appointment of ' the seventh day') but that what was ' moral' remained in force, — namely, the observance of one day in seven. But this is nothing else but to change the day in contempt of the Jews, and to i-etain the same belief in the ' holiness' of the day; for, by this, the same mysterious significance would still be attributed to par- ticular days, which formerly obtained among the Jews. And truly we see what such a doctrine has profited : for those who adopt it far exceed the Jews in a gross, carnal, and supersti- tious observance of the Sabbath: so that the reproofs which we read in Isaiah are no less applicable to them at the present day, than to those whom the prophet rebuked in his time." (Institutes, lib. ii. cap. 8, sect. 34.) So closes Calvin's admirable exposition of the Sabbath Law. I earnestly hope that neither J. N. B. nor his readers will be misled by any false " appearance" in these partial extracts, to " give them a wrong coloring !" " As to BuNYAN," says he, " the ' Fpistle to the Reader' &c. will make the matter clear 1" ?Iake what matter "clear?" 284 ABROGATION Or THE SABBATH. Buntan's Tiews. A fallacious use of " words." The '^ appearance" of ^''unfair coloring?''^ J. N. B. ^' quotes a sentence or two" (^. 194) going to show Bunyan's belief " that the first day of the week is the true Christian Sabbath !" A single remark is sufficient to dissipate my friend's delusion, and to entirely paralyze his last convulsive effort to retain the name and authority of Bunyan. They are using the term " Sabbath" in totally different senses! In the vocabulary of J. N. B. (as in mine), it designates the day of rest commanded by the Decalogue. In that of Bunyan, it designates simply a day of festive worship, without any more reference to the De- calogue, than if that code had never existed !* Indeed, al- though he entitles Sunday a ''Sabbath" (perhaps in adaptation to ordinary usage), the application is by no means accurate, since his whole argument is designed — not to establish a ''Best- day," and the sinfulness of labor upon it, but to uphold the ^' J. N. B. has altogether overlooked this important circumstance, although in my last Reply (p. 147, — note) I called his attention to it by remarking that " since Bunyan founds his able argument for a Christian worship-day on the unconditional abolition of the fourth commandment, if ' he really is on my friend's ground,' I tender J. N. B. my most hearty congratulation on his adoption of the true Scrip- tural view." A synopsis of Bunyan's Treatise "will make the matter clear." The Essay is divided into five chapters, entitled " questions :" in the first of which, the author maintains that the seventh-day Sabbath is not discoverable by the light of nature : in the second, that it was con- sequently unknown till instituted by Moses : in the third, that when given in the wilderness, it could not bind the Gentiles: in the fourth, that it fell with the rest of the Jewish rites and ceremonies, and was never imposed by the apostles upon the Gentile churches. These are all the positions having any bearing on the fourth commandment, or of course on our present Discussion. The fifth and last "question" ex- amined by Bunyan (and one which comprises more than half his Es- say), is, "Since it is denied that the seventh-day Sabbath is mora and found that it is not to abide as a Sabbath forever in the churcli, what time is to be fixed on for New Testament saints to perform to- gether divine worship to God by Christ in !" MR. Taylor's third reply. 285 A '• partial extract" from Bcxyax. duty of a thanksgiving day, in grateful commemoration of the Messiah's triumph in becoming " the first fruits of them that slept." Now BuNYAN will readily assent to all my "Pro- positions" excepting the First: and in reference to this first one, he takes just opposite ground from J. N. B. So that my friend is absolutely and hopelessly excluded from using his testimony 07i any one ]^jolntl For while J. N. B. very correct- ly admits that " there is but one Bible Sabbath" {f. 46), BuN- YAN will prove to him that Saturday is the only Sabbath re- cognized by the fourth commandment ! With my friend's kind assistance, therefore, our author will indorse aZ^the "Pro- positions !" An extract "will make the matter clear." " This caution in conclusion I would give, to put a stop to this Jewish ceremony, to wit, that a seventh-day Sabbath pursued according to its imposition hy law (and I know not that it is imposed by the apostles), leads to blood and stoning to death, those that do but gather sticks thereon ', a thing which no way be- comes the Grospel." And in a previous paragraph, it is held that as " when temple worship and altar worship, and the sa- crifices of the Levitical Priesthood fell, down also came the things themselves : so, when the service or shadow and cere- monies of the seventh-day Sabbath fell, the seventh-day Sab- hath fell liheicise !" (ques. v.) I trust these extracts do not happen to be " unguarded language," and that they do not " give a wrong coloring" to the author's real opinion. In my friend's concluding paragraph, he sums up with an air of self-satisfaction. "Now, in whatever details I difi"er from BuNYAN or Calvin, it is clear that oiu^ fundamental positions are the same. I commend this fact to my friend W. B. T." (p. 194.) I commend to J. N. B. the fact that he is most sadly mistaken I Their "fundamental positions" are as opposite to 7as, as are the antipodes. They teach, "in demon- stration of the spirit and of power," that the fourth command- ment is gone to its grave, with the "signs" and "shadows" of the Old Testament. J. N. B. tells us that " the Fourth Com- 286 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. Concluding sentiments. mandment, like the rest of the Decalogue, is a universal and perpetual Law :" and that Jesus "honored it as immutable!" He challenges their "fundamental position" with the defiant " Efface it if you can ! Attempt it if you dare !''* May the time speedily arrive, when my friend J. N. B. can say with propriety: " Our fundamental positions are now the same V when, " rooted and built up, and stablished in the faith as he is taught" in the Scriptures, instead of following " after the tradition of men," he shall discard "vain strivings and unprofitable contentions about ' the Lawf " and when no longer "carried about with strange doctrines," he shall "be ready to give AN ANSWER, to every man that asketh a reason of the hope that is in him." I have more than accomplished my task; as I have more than exceeded my proper limits. With sentiments of respect, and unaffected regard for my friend J. N. B., I take leave of him, by a recapitulation and reaffirmation of my " Six Pro- positions,^' as incontrovertibly established. I. The only weekly Sabbath enjoined or alluded to (directly or indirectly), in either the Old or New Testament, is that of Saturday — "the seventh day," indicative of "the sabbath of the Lord" after his six days' labor. II. This institution was a " strictly Jewish and ceremonial" one : — Jewish, in being " first made known to the Israelites by the hand of Moses," in being commemorative of their de- liverance from servitude, and in being a peculiar " sign of their separation" from other nations; and ceremonial, in being subservient to expediency, in being exactly parallel in its claims to any other ritual observance, and in being intended * When my friend penned his concluding and doubtless earnest aspiration (jo. 194), "May crowns as bright [as those of Calvin and Bunyan] be ours in the clay of the Lord's coming!" — he must have forgotten or abandoned his former dogma [p. 59), that whosoever should break the fourth commandment, " and teach men so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven!" MR. Taylor's third reply. 287 The " Six Propositions." but as a typ3 or " shadow" of a succeeding spiritual Sabbat- ism. <■ III. In full illustration of all which, Jesus openly, repeat- edly, and studiously violated the Sabbath ; and in assertion of his pre-eminent authority to neglect it, or set it aside (as being himself its very "body" and true fulfilment), claimed to be absolute "Lord" of the Institution. IV. Wherefore, its observance never received the slightest token of encouragement in the New Testament, nor its dese- cration the slightest intimation of disapproval : — an afl&rmation which cannot be made of any known Christian duty. V. Moreover, by a formal canon of the apostolic Council at Jerusalem, the Gentile Churches were declared entirely free from Sabbath observance ; being explicitly exempted from obligation to auy part of "the Law of Moses," excepting three "necessary things" which did not include this ordinance. VI. And accordingly, throughout the Apostolic Epistles, the Sabbath is invariahly referred to as a provisional symbol, entirely superseded by the advent of "the true image of the thing" it did but shadow ; the enjoyment of the spiritual Rest of the Gospel, rendering the continued observance of the carnal Rest of the Law, inappropriate and unchristian. W. B. T. NOTES NOTE A.— (From page 222.) "After Eight Days." — Johi xx. 26. In noticing the objection to the popular assumption — de- rived from the literal reading of the text ^^ after eight days'' — J. N. B. replies {p. 185) : "But this is contrary to Jewish usage, as well as Christian. As well might he object to Christ's resurrection on ' the third day/ from the phrase ' after three days I will rise again.' — Matt, xxvii. 63, 64." My friend mistakes the point. The day of the resurrection is not proved hy the expression " after three days" — but by inde- pendent and explicit testimony. His quotation merely goes to show that the phrase in question may have the meaning he assigns to it (which I never denied) ; it in no wise proves that it must have that meaning. I contend that the primary import of "«/);er three days," or '^ after eight days," is its literal meaning : modified in the one case by direct counter evidence, and in the other case wholly unmodified. J. N. B. will not doubt that Jonah was literally '4hree days and three nights" in the fish that swallowed him. (Jonah i. 17.) Can I prove to him that the prophet was there only one day and two nights, by citing the instance of one who was buried from Friday evening until Sunday morning, and yet was said to be " three days and three nights in the heart of the earth?" {Matt. xii. 40.) I may succeed in showing that the half period is a possible construction : he will hardly be satisfied that it is a necessary one, or even a prohahh one. 25 290 NOTES. Yet here an interment of 36 hours is measured by the same terms as one of 72 hours. In like manner, ^^ after eight- days'^ may mean just a week; but I shall require decisive proof, before believing that it here does mean it. My friend's '' Jewish usuage, as well as Christian/^ he cannot establish. I hesitate not to say, that there is no Hebrew or Jewish idiom to countenance it.* The capabilities of language, under my friend's horticultural treatment, are, by the way, somewhat surprising. In part II. of his Reply (^. 174), we have the following: ^''^ After six days,' says Matthew (xvii. 1) — ^ about eight days,' says Luke (ix. 28) — was the Transfiguration. Why this specifica- tion of time?" he naively asks. And explaining the indefinite ^''after'^ by the still more indefinite ^^ about,'' and dividing the difierence, he thinks ^^it is \i\^\j probable, to say the least,'* that exactly ^' one week" had elapsed. So, whether an occur- rence be "after six days," or after seven days, or ''after eight days," or anywhere ^^ aboui' either of these periods, it is precisely the same in my friend's dialectics; — else why so exact a specification ! He seems to forget, too, that even an exact ''specification of time" is nothing to his argument, unless it be shown that the specification was relative — that this precise time determined the occurrence. f Ever neglecting the essential, he builds wholly on the accidental. * Hetlin, an English Divine of the seventeenth centuiy , observes upon the passage in dispute, "But where the Greek text reads it ^g9' hfA.^eti oJtTfltf (post octo dies in the Vulgar Latin — 'after eight days' according to our English Bibles), that should be rather understood of the ninth or tenth, than the eighth day after." (History of the Sabbath.') I " We sailed away . . . and came to Troas in five days." (Acts XX. G.) "We sailed thence, and came the iiext day over against Chios ; and the next day we arrived at Samos ; and the next day we came to Miletus." (ib. xx. 15.) "And after /ye days," &c. (ib. xxiv. 1.) "This day is the fourtee7ith day," &c. (ib. xxvii. 33.) "We tarried there three days" (ib. xxviii. 12), &c. &c. — "Why this specification of time, if no special importance was attached to it?" — J. N. B. NOTES. 291 NOTE B.— (From page 228.) "The Day of Pentecost." — Acts ii. 1. While I consider it altogether unimportant to the present discussion to inquire into the day of the week upon which the celebrated Pentecost happened to occur, I think that as a collateral question of Biblical illustration, it has sufficient in- terest to justify a very brief examination. "The day of Pentecost," says J. N. B. (p. 185), "it is well known, was cdicays on the first day of the week ! — Levit. xxiii. 15 — 21.'' So palpable an inaccuracy in one who has studied the Bible for ^^ thirty years'^ {p. 71), is really surprising.* The " sabbath" mentioned in Levit. xxiii. 15 has no relation whatever to the seventh-day rest, as my friend has erroneously understood the text. By comparing this verse with the 7th and 11th of the same chapter, he will see that it designates "the first of unleavened bread," whatever day of the week that might be. The day of Pentecost, "it is well known," was always ih.^ fiftieth day after the first of unleavened bread ; which was determined by the day of the month (the 15th), and never by the day of the iGeek. It was not — (like its offspring '' Easter'')— 2, "movable festival." I will now attempt to compute for my friend the probable day of Acts ii. 1. It is related by Matthew (xxvi. 17 — 21; see, also, Mark xiv. 12 — 17) that, on the day preceding the Crucifixion, or Thursday, the discij^les prepared the "passover" or paschal offering, and that on the evening (by Jewish com- putation, the eve of Friday) the passover was eaten. {Matt. xxvi. 20; Mark xiv. 17.) This Thursday was therefore "the fourteenth day of the first month," Ahih or Nisan {Levit. xxiii. * Even Bible read Buxyan makes the same blunder ; and I siispect has been the one to lead my friend "into the ditch." — "Great men are not always wise." 292 NOTES. 5), on the oflernoon of which the paschal lamb was always sacrificed, to be eaten at evening, on "the first of unleavened bread." {Deut. xvi. 6, 7', Exod. xii. 8.) Friday was the 15th, "the first day of unleavened bread." {Matt. xxvi. 17 ; Levit. xxiii. 6.) This festival continued one week (extending from the 15th of Abib to the 21st, inclusive — Exod. xii. 18), of which week the first and last days (the 15th and 21st) were both accounted "sabbaths." {Levit. xxiii. 7, 8; Exod. xii. 16.) Saturday was the 16th (the day after the first "sabbath"), on which was the wave-offering. {Levit. xxiii. 11.) Seven com- plete weeks (a " week of weeks," as Josephus calls it) were counted from this 16th day, inclusive (xxiii. 15), which termi- nated with Friday, and on the next day, or Saturday, ivas ^'the day of Pentecost V (xxiii. 16, 21.) It is absolutely incontrovertible that, if Matthew's account be correct, tlie Pentecost could not possibly have been on Sun- day ! This "fact" may be digested by "learned" Sunday Sabbatarians, at the ruminations of their studious leisure. On the other hand, if Sunday teas the Pentecost, then the passover could not have been eaten on Thursday evening, and Friday could not have been " the first of unleavened bread." If we understand Matthew (xxvi. 17) as saying that Thursday was " the first day of the feast of unleavened bread," this only makes the matter worse; for then the day of Pentecost was infallibly Friday ! By the unvarying system of the Jewish ritual, the Pentecost must occur just one day later in the week than the first of unleavened bread. After rummaging a host of Sunday Sabbatarian Treatises (which generally display a harmony and facility of assumption as remarkable as it is edifying), I find, in Ligiitfoote's " Com- mentary on the Actsj" an attempt at sustaining the common dogma. He reckons (according to Matthew) that Thursday was the " preparation" (14th of the month), Friday the first of unleavened bread (15th), and Saturday, or the Sabbath, the day of the wave-sheaf offering (16th) ; after which he counts the fifty days, as excluding the 16th, and added to it. ( Com. in Acts ii.) Such a mistake is inexcusable in a Biblical ex- NOTES. 293 pounder.* The count Seyms on '^ the morrow after the sab- bath/' that is, on the second of unleavened bread. ^' From the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering, seven sabbaths shall be complete. '^ {Levit. xxiii. 15.) The day of the wave-offering (the 16th) was always the first of the fifty daysf (see Dent. xvi. 9), consequently the Pentecost always came on the same day of the week. I am informed, by a learned Jewish Teacher, j that there can be no evasion here; that ''the computation is absolute and indisputable; the Pen- tecost always occurs on the same day of the week as the wave- offering.'^ And to make Sunday a Pentecost, the passover and unleavened bread must commence on Friday evening !§ The last evangelist, indeed, clearly favors this alternative, for he tells us {John xix. 14) that the day of the crucifixion was "the preparation of the passover,"]] necessarily the 14th of Ahib. {Exod. xii. 6 ; 2 Ghron. xxxv. 1, 16.) And since the crucifixion is known to have taken place on Friday (" the * In a Sabbatarian Essay, entitled, " Brief Remarks on the History, Authority, and Use of the Sabbath," by J. J. Gukney, the same cal- culation is very carefully gone through. Following his predecessor, i\Ir. Guruey has in this committed a blunder, or perpetrated an artifice. f "The day of Pentecost was the fiftieth day from the day of the wave-offering ; but, in the number of the fifty days, was both the day of the wave-offering and of Pentecost included ; as now, among the Chris- tians, still it is." Bishop Pearson. (Ex^yosidon of the Creed, art. v. — "the third day.") J The Rev. I. Leeser, of Philadelphia, editor of " The Occident.'" I This hypothesis is adopted by Baxter, who says: "The Passover that year fell on the Sabbath day, and Pentecost was fifty days after the Passover, which falleth out on the Lord's day." (Pract. Works, vol. iii. "Lord's day," ch. 5.) This arrives at the conclusion desired by Lightfoote and Mr. Guruey, without recourse to their fallacious premises. II He further confirms this by alluding to the care of the Jews during the trial, not to defile themselves before eating the passover {.lohti xviii. 28 ; see Numb. ix. 6 ; Ezra vi. 20) ; and he also speaks of the follow- ing Sabbath day (Saturday) being a "high day" {John xix. 31), as it would be if the first of unleavened bread. 25* 294 NOTES. preparation of the Sabbath" — Mark xv. 42 ', Luke xxiii. 54 ; John xix. 31), Sunday would of course be the day of the *' wave-sheaf.'' But while this construction would gratify my friend, and while, moreover, it would present the happy cir- cumstance of making the great Christian Offering strictly coincident in point of time with its archetype, the paschal sacri- fice, it is attended with the insurmountable difficulty (besides being explicitly contradicted by all the other evangelists) that Jesus could not have partaken of the passover ! And it was impossible for him, as a Jew, to have kept the passover on any other day than that appointed by the law.* On the other hand, clear and conclusive as is the concurrent testimony of Matthew (xxvi. 17), Mark (xiv. 12), and Luke (xxii. 7), against the Sunday interpreters, candor requires me to notice that these texts, in the judgment of the learned, likewise labor under two remarkable difficulties. In the first place, by a peculiarity of the Hebrew calendar, the 1st, and consequently the 15th of Ahih, never falls on Friday; the object of which arrangement is to prevent the annual ''day of atonement" {Levit. xxiii. 27) falling contiguous to the weekly Sabbath, since it would be impossible (in reference to food, &c.) to observe two successive days of ahsolute "rest" with the strictness required by the law. (^Ejcod. xvi. 23; xxxv. 3.) All the other Jewish holy days were simple " sabbaths," ex- acting no rigid observance, and yielding to lighter emergencies. But "the tenth day of the seventh month," like "the seventh * HoRXE, in Lis '■'■ Infroduciion to the IIoIt/ Scriptures,^' ihinks it "not improbable that some difference or mistake miffht arise in determining the new-moon!" and that "such a discordance miffht easily arise be- tween the rival and hostile sects of Pharisees and Sadducees ; and such a difference, it has been conjectured, did exist at the time Jesus Christ celebrated the passover with his disciples, one whole day before the Pharisees offered their paschal sacrifice!" {Introduc. vol. iii. part iii. ch. 4.) We have the unfortunate dilemma that Jesus either kept the right day or the wrong one. " He that is able to receive it, let him receive it!" NOTES. 295 day'^ of the week, was emphatically \yD2^ r\2\l^ (shabhath shab- lathon), ' ' a rest day for rest/' * a Sabbath of sabbaths, — enj oined with peculiar solemnity, and enforced by the sternest sanctions. f There is every probability that the calendar was in this respect the same in apostolic times as at present, since the same neces- sity for the arrangement had existence then. The second difficulty in these texts arises from the well-known occurrence of the crucifixion on Friday. It was almost as impossible for the Jews to have tolerated an execution upon ^' the first day of unleavened bread" (see Exod. xii. 16; Levit. xxiii. 7 J also, Mark xiv. 2) as upon the weekly " Sabbath." This forms a very serious additional obstacle, therefore, to that festival having commenced on Friday. Looking merely at the letter of these texts, they all seem to say that Thursday was the first of unleavened bread : but -while this construction avoids the foregoing objections, it in- volves the new one, that the passover could not have been killed upon it (as intimated in Mark xiv. 12) ; since this must always be prepared on the preceding afternoon (2 Chron. XXXV. 1; Levit. xxiii. 5, 6); whence the passover must have been eaten, and the Eucharist instituted on Wednesday even- ing, and not on Thursday evening, as is generally supposed. Whatever solution of these difficulties may be suggested, it is almost certain that the Pentecost did not occur on Sunday. * In our version not very forcibly rendered, "a Sabbath of rest." Agreeably to the well-known Hebrew idiom, intensity was always ex- pressed either by a repetition, or by the use of some tantologous phrase. The double expression peculiar to these ttvo, of all the Jewish sabbaths, was undoubtedly employed with the intention of impressing the pre- eminent sanctity of these two holy days, and the necessity of their strictest observance. The slightest infraction of either was punishable with death! An attention to these circumstances will serve to elucidate much in the New Testament which Sabbatarians find it convenient to gloss over as "Pharisaic construction I" f Compare Levit. xxiii. 24 — 32, with Exod. xxxi. 14 — 17. 296 NOTES. NOTE C— (From page 240.) "The Lord's Day.''— Rev. i. 10. Not only is there nothing whatever to give plausibility to the "guess" that the apocalyptic "Lord's clay" signified Sun- day, but there are many considerations powerfully calculated to discountenance it. 1. The writer could not design to mark out a day of re- ligious observance, since the subject of Christian ceremonies was wholly foreign to the objects of his discourse. The book professes to be a "Revelation" of the hereafter: it has no- thing to do with designating or upholding the observance of temporal "holy days." 2. If a current day was intended, the only day bearing this definition, in either the Old or New Testament, is Saturday, "the seventh day" of the week. {Exod. xx. 10.) 3. But it is altogether improbable that a literal day could have been intended, in a work which is characterized through- out by the most remarkable flights of figurative rhapsody. The inspirations of the prophetic spirit were not confined to particular days. It was neither the Jirst nor the last day of the week that could be signalized as the occasion of the influ- ence; and it seems almost puerile to suppose that it should be specified. 4. There is extant no trace of evidence that the term "Lord's day" was ever applied to Sunday till near the close of the second century ! Throughout the first 150 years of the Christian era, no writer, apostolic or patristic, ever happens once to use the expression. The first instance I can discover of its application to Sunday occurs in an epistle of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, whose earliest assignable date is A. D. 170. Not only is it unknown in the canonical epistles (which cover a space of thirty or forty years of ecclesiastical history), but NOTES. 297 neither in the apocryphal epistle ascribed to Barnabas, nor in the writings of Clement of Rome (a. d. 90), of Ignatius* (a. d. 100), of PoLYCARP (a. d. 108), of JusTiN (a. d. 145), or of Iren^us (a. d. 167), is the appellation to be met with J although these Fathers all refer to religious observances, and one or two of them to the commemoration of the first day of the week. Such extended and persistent silence is more than negative evidence ; it is wholly inexplicable on the Sab- batarian conjecture ; it is convicting demonstration that the conjecture is false. The phrase "Lord's day'' could not have had, at the time Eev. i. 10 was written, the meaning so gratui- tously ascribed to it, without being in universal and familiar use. Its first employment (possibly as early as the middle of the second century, or a quarter of a century before the allu- sion of DiONYSius), was most likely an adaptation from this text. 5. The probable meaning of the expression is disclosed by the book itself {Rev. vi. 17 ; xvi. 14) ; an application of frequent occurrence both in the New Testament (1 Cor. i. 8, v. 5; 2 Coi\ i. 14; 1 Thess. v. 2 ; 2 Pet. iii. 10, &c.) ; and in the Old (^Isai. xiii. 6, 9; Joel i. 15 ; ii. 1, 11, 31 ; ZejyJi. i. 14, &c.). If Kvpiaxov fiftrtfov (1 Cor. xi. 20), and Secrtvov or tparts^a Kvfnov (1 Cor. X. 21), are convertible phrases designating the same thing, what can be more obvious than that Kvpiax*? '^fjispa {Rev. i. 10), and rjufpa Krpioi; (2 Pet. iii. 10), are (in the absence of any conjiicting applicatioii) equally convertible designa- tions of the same thing? The true Protestant will always interpret Scripture by Scripture rather than by tradition. f * The expression "Lord's day" occui's in an interpolated epistle of Ignatius : (" Let each one of you observe the Sabbath spiritually, and not by bodily rest But let every lover of Christ commemorate the Lord's day after the Sabbath") ; and will also be found in Arch- bishop \Vake's translation of his genuine epistle, commented on before [p. 96, note), neither of which deserves attention. f "The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture, is the Scrip- ture itself." — Presbyterian and Baptist Cojifess. of Faith, chap. i. sec. 9. 298 NOTES. Nor is it any valid objection that the subjects immediately succeeding this contested passage (i. 10) were obviously con- temporary with the occasion. Surely no one expects, in a production like this, the same rigid order and consecutive dependence of occurrence, which is demanded in a literal narrative. The " high argument" of this apocalyptic vision is summed up by the prophet, in the concise declaration of the proem, that he was present in spirit " in the Lord's day" (sv jtvsvfiati £v T^ri Kvf;)iaxri riixs^a) ; or, as the particle iv may be trans- lated, ^' at the Lord's DAY." And hence, after the preliminary exhortations to the seven churches (occupying the first three chapters, and which are merely parenthetical), he commences immediately with the epoch to which (ev rtvivixati) he was carried. Nothing can be clearer than that the expression in Rev. iv. 2 is at once the resumption and exemplification of that in chap. i. 10. "I was 'in spirit' — at the Lord's Day, and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumj)et, saying I am 'a' and 'n,' the first and the last: and what thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches After this, I looked, and behold a door was opened in Heaven : and the first voice which I heard, was as of a trumpet talking with me ; which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was ' in spirit :' and behold a Throne was set in Heaven, and One sat on the Throne." And then follows the great drama of "The Lord's Day," — at which "in spirit" the transported writer found himself. In view of all this, what must be thought of the prevalent dogma — announced again, and again, — from pulpit, and from pulpit, — with all the assurance of infallible inspiration, and all the authority of clerical dictation, — that the prophet de- signed to instruct us that he was in spirit — on Sunday ! and that, therefore, it is a heinous sin to work upon that day ! NOTES. 299 NOTE D.— (From page 263.) The Dominical Sabbath. A FULL and truthful history of the origin of the Sunday Sabbath would form an interesting chapter in the Volume of Ecclesiastical Fabrications. This "Divine legacy" of the church owes its establishment to the inspired Emperor CoN- STANTINE* (a. d. 321) ; although, as a learned historian has observed, even so early as "the end of the second century, a false application of this kind had heguii to take place.'^f The voluntary commemoration of the resurrection, by a celebration of the Eucharist early on Sunday morning, may indeed be traced back somewhat further, though with an obscurity in- creasing as we ascend. The earliest explicit account we have of any ecclesiastical observance of this day is found in the Apology of Justin Martyr, about the middle of the second century. This writer, while affirming that the Christians of his time observed no Sabbath (see ante, pp. 97, 248), gives an interesting ac- count of the celebration of "the day of the Sun," and "the ■^ The edict of his Catholic Majesty Coxstantine, ordaining the ''Christian Sabbath," is as follows : " Let all judges, and people of the town, rest, and all the yarious trades be suspended, on the venerable day of the Sun [' venerabili die Solis'l- Those who live in the country, however, may freely and without fault attend to the cultivation of their fields (since it often happens that no other day may be so suitable for sowing grain and planting the vine) ; lest, with the loss of favorable opportunity, the commodities offered by Divine Providence should be destroyed." (Cod. Justin, lib. iii. tit. 12, sect. 2, 3.) Coxstantine also ordained that Friday (called generally "the day of Venus") should be specially observed, and that the various days consecrated to the Saints and Martj-rs should be celebrated in the churches. (See Eusebifs, Vit. Constant, lib. iv. cap. 18 — 20 ; also, Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 8.) f Neander. See ante, p. 262. 300 NOTES. first of light/' by assemblies, public readings, exhortations, and prayers. The Roman Pliny, in his celebrated letter to the Emperor Trajan (in the beginning of the second century), relates that the Christians of his Province '^were accustomed to meet to- gether on a stated day, before it was light [f stato die^ ante lucew!\ and sing a hymn,'' &c., and then separate; after which they reassembled at a common meal. As the Sabbath day appears to have been quite as commonly observed at this date as the Sun's day (if not even more so), it is just as pro- bable that this "stated day" referred to by Pliny was the seventh day, as that it was the first day; though the latter is generally taken for granted. We have no contemporary record, unfortunately, to determine positively which of these days (or whether either of them) was the day denoted. The custom of assembling "before daylight" was obviously adopted that it might not interrupt the labors or occupations of the day, a large portion of these early disciples belonging to the servile and laboring classes. Ignatius, who wrote at the close of the first century, depre- cates the observance of the Sabbath, and makes no allusion to any custom of observing the Sunday. Indeed, no such custom is to be traced in any writer of the first century! And when we refer to the New Testament writers, the only passage which might seem, at first sight, to indicate a public distinction of " the first day" (1 Cor. xvi. 2), proves, on a careful examina- tioUj to be decidedly repugnant to the existence of Sunday assemblies. Date Due