128 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATE. 



The ceretuonial parallel proclaimed by Jesus. 



To the plain intimations I have produced from the teachings 

 of Jesus, that the fourth commandinent was merely ritual (as 

 where he justified the Sabbath-reaping on the ground of hun- 

 ger), J. X. B. replies: *'My friend must be hard driven for 

 evidence when he infers from the case of David eating the 

 shew-bread, a perfect parallel between the two laws." {p. 64.) 

 Hard driven indeed is he who attempts to evade the parallel- 

 ism directly instituted by Jesus himself ! Its very essence 

 was a common character of obligation. To cite the instance 

 of an excusahle breach of an ordinance, to vindicate a case where 

 there was no breach, would truly form a pointless argument. 

 No lesson from the Bible can be clearer than that both these 

 actions were infractions of the literal statute; (see Levit. xxiv. 

 9, xxii. 10; and Exod. xvi. 23 ; Neh. xiii. 15) — that both were 

 occasioned by the same "necessity;" — that both were held 

 excusable on the same plea; — that both restrictions, in short, 

 were violaUe, and not moral ordinances. 



If by astrict construction, this "reaping" profaned the Sab- 

 bath, so did the very duties of '^ the priests in the temple pro- 

 fane the Sabbath ;''* if, in obeying the requirements of the 



says J. N. B. [p. 66), " it will be an easy thing, by tlie same process, 

 to set aside the fifth and seventb, not to say the sixth, eigbtb, uinth, 

 and tenth. Facilis descensus Averni F^ 



Per contra: says Dr. Gill, " Tbe Sabbatb laTV is not of a 'moral' 

 nature," — otherwise "it could not Lave been dispensed with nor abol- 

 ished, as it is in Matt. xii. 1 — 12; and Col. ii. 16, 17." [Body of Divin. 

 vol. iii. B. iii. ch. 8.) " The observance of the Sabbath," says Bishop 

 Warburton, " is no more a natura! duty than circumcision." {^Div. 

 Lega. B. iv. sec. 6, note.) •' The fourth commandment," says Arch- 

 bishop Whately, *' is evidently not a 'moral,' but a * positive' precept." 

 <* The dogma of the 'Assembly of Divines at Westminster,' that the 

 observance of the Sabbath is part of the moral la w, is to me utterly 

 unintelligiblc I" [Essay.'i, v. note A. On the Sabbath.) Difficilis coiucn- 

 sus. 



* One evidence that the priests "profaned the Sabbath," will be 

 seen by comparing Numb. xxviii. 10, wilh Exod. xxxv. 3. As in the 



