46 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



The real question at issne. Proof necessary on either side. 



the space actually filled bj his defence, suggests to me the 

 idea of an unlimited affluence of time. Limited as my own 

 time is, I have felt obliged to enter thus fully into the preli- 

 minary explanations required by the motto he has chosen, lest 

 any should misjudge my stand-point. The question is not 

 whether we shall " stand fast in the liberty'^ of the Gospel ; 

 this I mean to do as well as he. The question between us 

 really is, Has Christ, who has made us free from the obligation 

 of the Jewish ritual, made us free from any commandment of 

 the Decalogue ? In other words. Has Christ annulled the 

 Sabbath ? This W. B. T. affirms, and I deny. 



I. I now come to the First Proposition ; that " There is 

 but one Bible Sabbath, and that, the Saturday Sabbath. ^^ W. 

 B. T., in his defence, has ingeniously dropped the last clause of 

 this complex proposition, though it is the only one I have 

 ever denied. I willingly concede that the Sabbath under all 

 dispensations is suhstantially one, with only circumstantial 

 differences sulting each dispensation. But this is not the 

 meaning of W. B. T. He contends that there is but one 

 Bible Sabbath, and that one, the Jewish Sabbath, in all its cir- 

 cumstances and details ] in a word, that the Law of the Sabbath 

 begins and ends with that nation only. This is the real 

 meaning of the original proposition. Here it is that I take 

 issue with it, and with him. 



W. B. T. says, very truly, that no one can assail it by ^'ven- 

 turing to affirm.'' I give him all credit for this logical dis- 

 covery. But I beg leave to remind him that neither can it be 

 sustained by 'Wenturing to affirm" the original proposition. 

 I admit the justice of his demand on my part for "chapter 

 and verse" touching what I propose to prove ; and shall there- 

 fore hold him to the same. 



When T said that the Decalogue knows nothing of Saturday, 

 and that from the Decalogue alone no one could determine the 

 day of the week, I did not mean to deny (as my reference to 

 Exodus xvi. shows) that it could be otherwise ascertained ; and 



