MR. TAYLOR' S SECOND REPLY. 147 



EcsEBirs. SocRATES. The Protef^tant Reformers. 



triarchs ''did not regard circumcision, nor observe tlie Sabbath, 

 neither do v:e. . . . Such things as these do not belong to 

 Christians." {Hist. Ecdes. lib. i. cap. 4.) 



The Church historian Socrates Scholasticus, in treating of 

 this Jerusalem Council, observcs : " Notwithstanding there are 

 some who, disregarding this, . . . contend about holy days, as 

 if it were for their lives ; they invert the commands of Grod, 

 and make laws for themselves, not valuing the decree of the 

 Apostles ; nor do they consider that they practise the contrary 

 to those things which ^seemed good' to God," {^Illst. Eccl. lib. 

 v. cap. 22.) 



Our most eminent Reformers, Luther, Melancthon, 

 Cranmer, Tyndale, Calvin, &c., all agree that the fourth 

 commandment is not obligatory upon Christians. In the 

 celebrated ''Augsburg Confession of Faith," drawn up by 

 Luther, Melancthon, and other distinguished " Protestants," 

 it is explicitly held: "The Scripture has ahrogatcd the Sab- 

 bath, teaching that all Mosaic ccremonies may be omitted since 

 the gospel has been preached." Calvin, in his " Institutes/' 

 equally explicitly announces that the fourth commandment 

 " u-as abolished with the rest of the figures at the advent of 

 Christ." It would, indeed, be " burdensome to quote all their 

 various expressions of devout irjectioii of the Sabbath." It 

 is clear (as strong-minded Bunyan maintains in his Essay on 

 the Sabbath), that, " when the service or shadow and cere- 

 monies of the seventh-day Sabbath fell, the seventh-day Sab- 

 bath fell like wise." (quest. v.)"^ 



^ J. N. B. is evidently reluctant to part company with the illustrious 

 aiithor of " The Pilgrim's Progress," and says, with admirable gra vi ty, 

 "he really is on my ground, as any one may see who reads him with 

 proper attention." (p. 76.) Since Bunyan founds his able argument 

 for a Christian worship-day on the iinconditional abolltion of the fourth 

 commandment, if " he really is on my friend's grornid," I tender J. N. B. 

 my most hearty congratulation on his adoption of the true " Scriptural 

 view." I expect him accordingly to indorse the following : " As for 



