MR. brown' S SECOND REPLY. 71 



A statement generally correct. Three prohibitions declared. 



It is doubtless very kind in hiin to " refresh my memory" 

 with the history of that " important judicial deliberation/' 

 Though I studied it with some care about thirty years ago 

 (when, perhaps, my friend was in his cradle), yet I am getting 

 somewhat old and forgetful. But to be serious^ I am really 

 obliged to him for presenting so clear and concise a statement 

 of the circumstances and occasion of that first Church Council. 

 It is in the main so good, that I accept it with pleasure, waiv- 

 ing any verbal criticism on the ambiguous phrase, " to invoke 

 the authority of the Catholic church/' Substantiallyj thoiigJt 

 not in form, this was a "general council;" not because all the 

 churches then in Syria, Cilicia, and Palestine were represented 

 by chosen delegates, but because " the Apostles" were present, 

 together with " the elders" and " the brethren" of Jerusalem. 

 My friend says {jp. 31) : " The great subject presented for 

 the consideration and adjudication of this general council, was 

 evidently the whole ^ Law of Moses,' and the extent of its ob- 

 ligation." (JLc^s xv. 5.) Precisely so. "And the decision 

 arrived at, ^ after there had been much disputing,' excepted 

 from abrogation" says my friend, "but three prohibitions of the 

 law, as ^ necessary things' to be abstained from ; namely idola- 

 tri/y fornication, and the eating of things strangledj and hloodJ' 

 Very true. He adds, " As Paley very correctly states, ^ the 

 observance of the Sabbath was not one of the articles enjoined 

 by the Apostles, in the fifteenth chapter of Acts, upon them 

 which from among the Gentiles were turned unto God.'" Here 

 is a fair statement of the case. And what then? How does 

 it bear upon the Fifth Proposition, " that the Sabbath was 

 then formally abrogated." 



This W. B. T. proposes to show. I had said at first that 

 " this decision does not afi'ect the original law of the Sabbath," 

 and that "the key to the whole fallacy (in this Fifth Proposition) 

 is in the wrong sense given by the writer to the term Law." 

 {p. 18.) But this, W. B. T. does not admit. " The whole con- 

 text above (he says) shows incont rover lihly that the ecclesias- 



