82 OBLIGATTON OF THE SABBATH. 



Cliiist and the Apostles to be followed rather than great men, 



he will again cliarge me, in any had sense, with " an original 

 mode of argument." It is sometimes the highest merit of a 

 mode of argument tliat it is original, i. e. that it ascends to a 

 higher point of view ; from which seeming contradictions dis- 

 appear in one grand and triumphant harmony of truth and 

 reason. Whether mine has that merit, I submit to the impar- 

 tial. — Since I am '' fully persuaded. in my own mind" that 

 Christ, followed by Peter, and James, and Paul, and John, are 

 on my side, I can look very calmly upon an occasional slight 

 disagreement with such illustrious men as Luther, and Tyn- 

 DALE, and Gill, and Yalpy, and Coleridge, and Clarke. 

 Indeed if the question simply were whether the Sabbath is 

 now to be observed on Jeioish principles, with the rigidity of 

 Pharisaic constructions, or the severity of monkish super- 

 stitions, then I myself would adopt almost everything these 

 great men have spoken as my own. I plead for the obligation 

 of the Sabbath, only as expounded, settled, and glorified by 

 Jesus Christ. 



On reviewing what I have written, I am pained at perceiv- 

 ing a certain air of egotism, which does not become a minister 

 of Jesus. I know that something of this appearance is 

 unavoidable in discussions which demand a free use of the 

 personal pronoun. So far as it goes bey ond this point of real 

 necessity, I ask forgiveness of God and man. 



I am happy that my friend W. B. T. is to have room 

 allowed him to speak of the '^two points" he desires to notice 

 (p. 43), and indeed of any other points involved. 



On my friend's " serious question" in his closing paragraph, 

 I remark but this : He put it, be/ore he knew the real 

 strength of my position, and the utter weakness of his own 

 at every point. The two positions are contradictory. They 

 cannot both be true. W. B. T. has made a gallant stand 

 against my Jirst brief attack ; but let him noiv look along the 

 whole line of his defence, and see if one stone is left upon 

 another. 



