MR. TAYLOR' S FIRST REPLY. 23 



The Sabbath not moral, since it has been changed. 



" a glaring falsehood. Every other command in the Decalogue 

 is acknowledged to be of a moral nature. How happens it 

 tliat the fourth should be an exception?'' Let us examine: 

 the particular dai/ reijuired by this command, '^ the seventh day," 

 is also an integral portion of the Decalogue. Is it therefore 

 '' acknowledged to be of a moral nature ?'' If so, why has it 

 been changed ? Why does my friend J. N. B. entirely neglect 

 it for another day not " in the Decalogue I" Can moral laws 

 thus change ? The answer has been already furnished by the 

 previous assertion of my friend, that the particular day belongs 

 to ^'positive law;'^ so that, by his own showing, apart of the 

 Decalogue is not '' of a moral nature,^' since a particular day 

 certainly is contained therein. He even extends his admissiou 

 further, and very correctly states that a '' weekli/ Sabbath, 

 rather than one oftener, or more seldom, is not of itself obvious, 

 and every tenth day, or every fifth, or any other proportion, 

 might have its advocates.'^ Now this vague, problematical 

 interval of time, " not of itself obvious,^' must either be ac- 

 cepted as part of the moral law, or I hand back to my friend 

 the question, ''how happens it that it should be an excep- 

 tion?'' 



Dut the institution was " ' made for man,' established at the 

 beginning of the world, and founded on reasons of universal 

 and perpetual force." Indeed! what are these perpetual 

 reasons? Grod "rested the seventh day,"jwherefore thoushalt 

 keep the Jirst! Do no work on Sunday, " because that m it" 

 God did not rest '^ from all his work I" " Thou wast a servant 

 in the land of Egypt," and " therefore^ must the day be kept ! 

 How comes it that all these " reasons of universal and per- 

 petual force" have been so stultified? That the institution 

 was " established at the beginning of the world," J. JN". B. 

 has neither proved nor attempted to prove. Till he does, I 

 simply " venture" to deny it. " An institution ^ strictly Jew- 

 ish,' instituted by God two thousand years, at least, before a 

 Jew was bom. The idea is preposterous !" Very true. And 



