134 ABROGATION OP THE SABBATE. 



The " moral and ceremonlal confounded." Authority — conclusiye. 



conclusions on a question like this, unless the question was 

 complicated with circumstances that tend to confound moral 

 and ceremonial distinctions/' I think this is clear; and I 

 think it equally clear that the "negative" is entitled to "the 

 benefit of the doubt." It is conceivable that persons of the 

 highest intelligence and candor should, through the resistless 

 influence of early and continuous training, come to consider 

 ritual observances as of inviolable obligation (^for this we some- 

 times seé) ; — but it is not conceivable that the wise and good 

 should ever be led by " some mistaken view of Christian lib- 

 erty," to deny a moral obligation ; — for this would be to over- 

 throw its fundamental definition. Accordingly " if a thousand 

 Christian divines of the highest distinction, with Luther and 

 Calvin at their head, were to ' break it and to teach men so,' '' I 

 claim that this would be decisive as to its "moral" character ; — 

 that no amount of counteracting evidence could weigh a feather 

 in the balance; however clearly it might establish the perpet- 

 ual ohligatioii of the law. Here is an issue, where " authority" 

 is final. If therefore I can produce the concurrent sentiment 

 of the most venerated and profound of the Christian Fathers* 

 — of the most devoted and illustrious of the early reformers 

 — of the most popular and brilliant of modem Ecclesiastical 

 writers — then have I more than established my "Second 

 Proposition," apart from the conclusive testimony I have 

 adduced from both the Jewish and the Christian Scriptures. 



W. B. T. 



•* Irenæus [adv. Hær. lib. iv. c. 30, 31) ; Tertullian [de Idolat. 

 Ub. iii.); Cyprian {ad Quirin. c. 59, and c. 1 deexhort. Martyr.); Origen 

 [Hom. viii. in Ex. lib. 15) ; ArousTixE {contr. Faust. c. 4, 7); &c., ex- 

 pressly af&rm that the Sabbath law was purely ceremonial and no 

 part of the moral law. And such indeed was the pervading opinion 

 of all antiquity. "The Fathers," says Calvin, "frequently call it a 

 gJiadowy commandraent, because it contains the external observance of 

 the day, which was abolished with the rest of the figures at the advent 

 of Christ." (Instit. lib. ii. c. 7.) 



