30 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



The Jewish Law resisted by the Gentile conTerts. 



PART IL 



"If the Son tlierefore sliall make you free, ye shall be free in- 

 deed." — John viii. 36. 



"Let no man, therefore, jvidge you in meat, or in drink, or in re- 

 spect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days." — 

 COLOSSIANS ii. 16. 



Upon the two remaining — and tlie two most vital — assump- 

 tions of Anti-sabbatarianism, I find your correspondent J, N. B. 

 and my seif directly at issne. 



y. The Fifth Proposition, that the Sabbath was formally 

 abrogated by the first conncil at Jerusalem, receives from 

 J. N. B. a critieism equally concise and emphatic. *'This 

 Proposition," says he, ^' is a pure assumption, without a' 

 shadow of proof. I meet it with an unequivocal denial.'^ 

 It will be necessary for me, therefore, to refresh my friend's 

 memory concerning some of the circumstances of this import- 

 ant judicial deliberation. 



It will be remembered that, when the church threw open 

 its doors to the Gentile world, a warm contention almost im- 

 mediately arose between the Pharisaic Christians and these 

 new converts, respecting the obligations of the Jewish law j 

 the former — who claimed Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, " He 

 which should have redeemed Israel" — insisting " that it was 

 needful to circumcise them, and to require them to keep the 

 Laio of Moses;" and the latter, as naturally rejecting what- 

 ever they found burdensome in that eode, as forming no ne- 

 cessary part of the evidences, or of the doctrines, which had 

 attracted them to the Christian fold. It will also be remem- 

 bered that, in consequence of this " no small dissension and 

 disputation" in the church at Antioch, it became necessary 

 to invoke the authority of the catholic Church ; and it was 



