102 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



The " interpreter" necessarily a " logician." Antiquity no proof of " morality. 



PART II. 



'< Behold, I will rain bread from heaven .... Six days ye shall 

 gather it ; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there 

 shall be none." — Exodus xvi. 4, 26. 



" And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life : he that cometh 

 to me shall never hnnger ; and he that believeth on me shall never 

 thirst." — John vi. 35. 



"Come unto me, aU ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 

 give you rest !" — Matthew xi. 28. 



II. The Ceremonial character of the Sahhath. 

 If this institution be a moral one, it certainly iS; as J. N. B. 

 maintains — of permanent and universal obligation. It is not 

 surprising, therefore, that he has labored zealously upon this 

 point. If, on the other hand, even 2i positive institution (as I 

 hope to prove it), it may be still obligatory ; so that my own 

 work is not accomplished by establishing this ^^ Second Propo- 

 sition." 



A very unnecessary antithesis is made by my friend, be- 

 tween the function of '' the interpreter^' and that of '^ the logi- 

 cian.^' (p. 47.) I answer that the relevancy of construction 

 is " the proper work" of " a sober logician/' and that he alone 

 can be a just "interpreter." 



The first effort of J. N. B., in his Reply, is to strengthen his 

 previous affirmation that the Sabbath was instituted at the 

 Creation ; and here I must remind him that, even if this could 

 be shown, it would prove nothing as to its moral character. 

 This depends by very definition — not on the nature of the 

 Giver, nor on the date when given, — but on our own constitution, 

 and our own reasoning processes. The inference was therefore 

 rather hasty, that a proof of the antiquity of the Sabbath law 

 "demolished this Second Proposition, and with it all the 



