MR. brown' S SECOND REPLY. 75 



The Sabbath shownto be not " ceremonial." 



But, says my friend, in the fifth place, " The luliole Law 

 of Moses was abrogatecl, as to the Gentiles, except in three 

 points, neither of which includes the Sabbath ; therefore it is 

 impossiUe that the term can be restricted, or that the Law of 

 the Sabbath can be obligatory on Gentile Christians.'' My 

 friend's impossibilities are both purely imaginary. I have 

 shown that the term is restricted, both by Scripture usage, and 

 by the whole context which deseribes the case ; by the position 

 of the parties in this early controversy ; and by the previous 

 positive decision of Christ in his Sermon on the Mount. I 

 have also shown that, if the Decalogue were to be included in 

 the term, as here used, it would follow by necessity from his 

 own statement, that tliere remains no moral ohligation on Gen- 

 tile Christians, except to ahstain from idolatry and fornica- 

 tion : which is as absurd in morals, as it is contrary to the 

 whole tenor of the New Testament. So much for his 

 arguments. 



In vain will W. B. T. seek to sustain his shattered position, 

 by saying that under his " Second Proposition" he has 

 proved the Sabbath to be " strictly ceremonial and Jewish." 

 That Proposition has been (I trust to the conviction of all) 

 completely shattered before. No point, therefore, remains on 

 which he can fall back and rally his shattered forces, unless it 

 be on the subsequent facts. But these will not help him. The 

 churches of the Gentiles "rejoiced for the consolation" of the 

 Apostolic decree, on hetter grounds than that of a freedom 

 from the Decalogue; for (as I proved in part i. of my 

 Reply) they did " keep the Sabbath on the Lord's Bay." My 

 friend seems to have been misled by a recollection of Pliny's 

 Epistle to Trajan, as to their early morning meetings in a 

 time of severe persecution. But neither the Pagan Pliny, nor 

 any Christian writer that I remember, will bear him out in 

 his assertion that they spent the rest of the Lord's day, even 

 then, in their ordinary work. 



Sure I am, as I shall now show clearly, that these early 



