172 OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



An open avowal demanded. The Decalogue — universal and perpetual law. 



slept/^ (1 Cor. XV. 17 — 20.) Having briefly presented this 

 part of the evidence already, I shall here continue and confirm 

 it, and then proceed to that which arises from miracle, pro- 

 phecy, the personal sanction of Christ, and the example of His 

 inspired Apostles. 



At the very threshold of the Argument, in the name of 

 Truth and Honesty, I have a demand to make on W. B. T. 

 and on all of his opinions. Come out clearly, and show your 

 colors. What do you mean to do with the Decalogue ? Not 

 a trace of anything local, temporary, ceremonial, or shadowy, 

 is in it. Everything is absolute, universal, perpetual Law — 

 the Legislation of the Infinite Creator for men His creatures. 

 As such, it is distinctly recognized by Christ and His Apostles. 

 It is bound up inseparably as part and parcel of Christianity 

 —as the original moral standard. Sin is defined as a trans- 

 gression of it. It is the Law of Conscience rewritten by the 

 finger of Grod — more fully and clearly. {Matt. v. 17 — 32 ; xix. 

 16—19; Rom. vii. 7—14; viii. 4; xiii. 8—10; 2 Cor. iv. 

 5—18; 1 Tim. v. 5—11; 1 John. iii. 4—10; Lxilce xvi. 17, 

 18.) 



Look calmly now at the case before us. Here is the Law 

 of the Weekly Sabbath in the Decalogue — moral, positive, 

 clear, benign — necessary for man as man, in all regions and 

 in all ages. Here it stands before our eyes, the weekly me- 

 morial of creation — the natural safeguard against idolatry — 

 the grand means of practically uniting the Created with the 

 Creator — the perpetual sign of a spiritual covenant between 

 them — in a word, the chief moral, social, and religions educator 

 of the race. And yet you demand positive proof of its re- 

 enactment by Christ in explicit terms — or of an equally explicit 

 account of its transfer to the first day, from the seventh of the 

 Jewish calendar week. Demands, at once preposterous and 

 presumptuous ! By what right do you thus dictate to God 

 the mode of His revelation ? Besides, the burden of proof, in 

 the first instance, is not on me, but on you. You have first 



