56 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



Moral and ceremonial distinctions confounded. Ceremonial association. 



en tire New Testament, and gi ve a vital unity and glorious 

 harmony to all the various facts and representations of the 

 Bible. If the patience of my readers will hold out, I will, as 

 far as time and space permit, undertake this, using all the 

 hrevity consistent with justice to the argument. 



Let us then scrutinize more closely this Second Proposi- 

 TIQN, with the reasonings of W. B. T. upon it. The question 

 Tbetween us here is precisely this : he affirms the strictly 

 ceremonial and national character of the Sabbath, and I its 

 moral and universal authority. 



Now, I take it for granted that two men of average 

 intelligence and candor, with the same sources of evidence 

 open before them, could not come to such opposite conclusions 

 on a question like this, unless the question were complicated 

 with circumstances that tend to confound moral and ceremo- 

 nial distinctions, and thus to lead one of them unwittingly to a 

 false issue. Here, in all candor, I think lies the root of my 

 friend's difficulties ; and not of his alone, but of many others 

 whose opinions he has subsequently quoted, though not always 

 to the point. And here I may as well say, once for all, that, 

 of the writers he has cited, I think only Warburton and 

 Paley, perhaps Dr. Whately also (eminent, but often mis- 

 taken men), fuUy agree with him in his Anti-sabbatarian 

 views. Of the unguarded language of others, he has made a 

 use, I think, they never designed ; but " what is written is 

 written,'^ and published too ; and being fairly quoted by my 

 friend, must go for what it is worth. 



His first argument for the ceremonial nature of the Sabba th 

 is drawn from the fact of its incorporation with the ceremonial 

 law of the Jews. — Lev. xxiii. (p. 10.) The fact is clear. I 

 admit it. His in/er ence is — therefore the Sabbath was " strictly 

 ceremonial and Jewish.'^ This conclusion, I submit, is in 

 logic a non scquiiur. The inference dose not b?/ any necessity 

 follow from the fact. Let us try it in another strictly parallel 

 case. The Law of Marriage was incorporated with the cere- 



