18 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



The ceremonial Law alone repealed. 



This Proposition is a pure assumption, without a shadow of 

 proof. I meet it witli an unequivocal denial. The key to the 

 whole fallacy is in the wrong sense given by W. B. T. to the 

 term '^Law.'' In this case, as the whole context shows, it is 

 to be restricted to the Jewish ceremonial law. It does not 

 therefore affect the original law of the Sabbath. 



SiXTH. — " Hence the subsequent Epistles, with one voiee, 

 regard the sanetification of the Sabbath as a provisional type, 

 fulfilled and superseded by the gospel dispensation : the ' rest 

 which remaineth to the people of God' being not that of ' the 

 seventh day,' nor that which ^ Joshua had given' in Canaan, 

 but that into which they ' who haA^^e believed do enter,' when 

 they ' have ceased from their own icorks.' — {Heb. iv. 3, 4, 8, 

 9, 10.) ' For by the works of the law, shallno flesh be justi- 

 fied.'— ((?«?. ii. 16; Bo77i. iii. 28; ix. 32, &c.)" 



If the writer had limited himself to saying that " he who 

 ceases from his own works (for justification) does enter 

 into rest,'' by faith in the Redeemer, and looks forward with 

 joyful hope to a purer '^rest, which remaineth to the people 

 of God," I could cordially agree with him. But his Pro- 

 position goes much further, and affirms that the Sabbath 

 was merely " a provisional type, fulfilled and superseded by 

 the Gospel dispensation." This I deny, and challenge him to 

 the proof. It certainly is 7iot found in the Epistle to the He- 

 brews. 



When the Scriptures speak of the Christian as " delivered 

 from the law, the Decalogue included," they refer to it as a 

 conditional covenant of life, not as a rule of moral obligation. 

 This momentous distinction, absolutely fundamental to a right 

 understanding of the New Testament, W. B. T. overlooks in a 

 way which leads to the moet frightful Antinomian conse- 

 quences. I have only time here to indicate this, not to de- 

 scribe them. The passages quoted from Colossians and Gala- 

 tians refer not to the Sabbath of Genesis, and of the Deca- 

 logue, but only to the ceremonial fasts and festivals of the Jews; 

 which in the plural are often styled "Sabbaths," or days of rest. 



