130 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



A " fallacy." The man ; and the law. A lame construction. 



paralogism, — by an application to the remote analogy of '^ the 

 law of Marriage."* The answer is obvious : just so much of 

 this law as is reallj "moral" was not "made for man;" but 

 man was made for it; " the end of his creation being for the 

 ohservance of the moral law." Just so much of " the law of 

 Marriage" as is " positive" (as the legal form or ceremonj, 

 &c.) " icas made for man/' and, like the Sabbath law, must be 

 regulated entirely by circumstances. 



I have adverted to the "sad nonsense" made of this striking 

 argument of Jesus, by my friend's previous construction. He 

 bas attempted to amend it, but with slight success ; and as he 

 Bays " I submit to W. B. T. himself, whether there is any want 

 of logical connection" in the construction {p. 66), I must in 

 all candor say, I think it still a " most lame and impotent 

 conclusion." The force of the declaration was not and could 

 not be in the univer&ality of its first branch : it lay entirely in 

 the antithesJs, — in the contrasfed suhordinatlon of the law and 

 the man. f With my friend, I submit our respective exposi- 



observance of them is not itself the end for wMch man was created : 

 man was not made for these. Of natural duties we affirm the contrary ; 

 the acquisition of that virtue which consists in the habitual love and 

 practice of them is the very final cause of man's existence. These, 

 therefore, are the things for which man was made : they were not made 

 for him." (Sermons, serm. xxii. On the Sabbath.) And AVhatelt, com- 

 menting on the same sadly perverted declaration of Jesus, says : " He 

 evidentlj raeans, that though He made no pretensions to ^ dispensing 

 power in respect of moral duties (man being made for them), positive 

 ordinances, on the contrary, being ' made forman,' might be dispensed 

 with, or abrogated by the same authority which established them ; viz. : 

 by the divine authority which he claimed." (essays, &c. v. A.) 



* " Marriaffe,^^ says Bishop Wabburton, " is of a mixed nature ; in 

 part a sacred ordinance, in part a human institution .... This dis- 

 tinction is marked out to us by the nature of things ; and confirmed by 

 laws divine and human .... It is a contract so virtuaUy circumstanced 

 as the laws of Religion ordain ; and so formally executed as the laws of 

 each particular society prescribe." [Sermons, serm. xvii.) 



f An exact translation of the sentence will perhaps render this even 



