MR. TAYLOR' S SECOND REPLY. 135 



A Pharisaic construction" — inadmissible. Contemporary exposition. 



PART III. 



" The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord 

 made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us — even us, who 

 are all of us here alive this day." — Deuteronomy v. 2 — 15. 



" Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new 

 covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah." — 

 Jeremiah xxxi. 31. 



"In that he saith, aneio covenant, he hath made the first old. New 

 that which decayeth and waxeth old, is ready to vanish away." — 

 Hebrews viii. 13. 



III. The exemplary violation of the Sahhath. 

 I MOST fully concur with my friend in the gravity of the 

 "Third Proposition." Most thoroughly do I recognize the 

 truth, that its statement, '^ ifnot sustained, demands profound 

 regret and public retraction !" (p. 68.) Let him rest assured, 

 he shall have it ! The Proposition (as correctly announced 

 by J. N. B.) ^' is built upon the construction of the word 

 ' work' in the fourth commandment.'' But when he attempta 

 to modify the legal restriction by the word " unnecessary/' I 

 promptly check him. This *^is to adopt a Pharisaic construc- 

 tion.^' Our civil judges, " learned in the law/' have not yet 

 agreed upon the exact meaning of this term. No such 

 standard of interpretation as may be adjusted by the uncertain 

 and ever varying judgment of individual expediencyj is admis- 

 sible here. " We have a more sure word of prophecy;'^ and 

 to the letter and the spirit of the Mosaic law shall I strictly 

 confine my friend. 



Of all means of determining the '' intent of the lawgiver," 

 and consequently the application of the law, contemporary 

 exposition has ever been justly held the most dccisive. When, 

 therefore, we discover the import of the prohibition " in itthou 

 shalt not do any work," — by adjudged cases or illustrative 

 exhortations (as in Exod. xvi. 23; xxxv. 3; xvi. 29 ; Numb. 



