MR. brown' S SECOND REPLY. 63 



The Apostle misunderstood. Wrong construction of the word " woi-k." 



and clear, and therefore tlie more likely, when itself misled, 

 to "make the worse appear the hetter reason/' 



Let me make PauFs meaning plain hy an illustration. Sup- 

 pose, with my views of the Decalogue and of the Sabhath, I 

 were arguing with a modem Jew, or, if you please, with a 

 Seventh Day Baptist (many of whom are yet excellent men), 

 and they hoth should insist upon the obligation of the seventh 

 day of tite week in opposition to the Jirst. I should resist them 

 both as Paul does, on the very ground that they, wittingly or 

 unwittingly, upheld the authority of the whole abrogated Jew- 

 ish ritual, and denied the authority of Christ as Head over all. 

 And if I saw any of my fellow-Christians, from weakness of 

 faith, and tenderness of conscience, yielding to the plausible 

 reasonings which would confound, in a single point, the Jew- 

 ish ritual with the Decalogue, I would invoke them, by all 

 their obligations of adoring gratitude to a crucified Redeemer, 

 to " stand fast in the liberty with which Christ liad made them 

 free.'' Does W. B. T. now understand me ? Does he not 

 now understand Paul ? 



The conclusion of the whole argument is that W. B. T. is 

 not justified in the confident announcement that the Sabbath 

 was a " strictly Jewish and ceremonial institution.^' On the 

 contrary, it is demonstrated by the highest of all evidence, the 

 testimony of Christ himself, that it is an integral and insepa- 

 rable part of the Moral Law, and, therefore, of universal and 

 perpetual obligation. 



III. The Third Proposition, that " Jesus studiously and 

 repeatedly violated the Sabbath,^' W. B. T. has attempted to 

 defend at length ; but so weakly, that it will require but few 

 remarks in reply, and those chiefly by way of explanation. 



His defence is built upon the construction of the word 

 " work," in the fourth commandment. " The lighting of a 

 fire, the gathering of grain or food, the picking up of sticks, 

 iinnecessary walking, even the carrying the slightest hurden," 



