MR. brown' S THIRD REPLY. 189 



Objections urged against a substitution of the Lord's day. 



existence of an Ordinance of universal and perpetual ohliga- 

 tion under the Christian Dispensation, how idle is such a doubt 

 in reference to " the Lord's day/' Honest men should 

 blush to own such a doubt. The truth is^ my friend is in a 

 dilemma like that of the Jews, when Jesus demanded of them 

 the origin of the Baptism of John. And they said : '' We can- 

 not tell." So my perplexed friend says : "This text proves — 

 nothing !" From my heart I pity him. " Whosoever shall 

 fall on this Stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall 

 fall, it will grind him to powder." {Matt. xxi. 44.) 



My friend does indeed apparently concede, with Dr. Whate- 

 LY, *^that there are sufficiently plain marks of the early 

 Christians having observed ^the Lord's day' as a religions 

 festival." But that it was substituted as '' the Sabbath" of 

 the Christian dispensation, he denies, on the following grounds : 

 1. The " vital word" Salhath is wanting. (p. 93.) 2. The first 

 disciples met on other daysalso for Christian worship. {p. 94.) 

 3. "All of them who were Jews actually continued themselves 

 to observe the Mosaic Sabbath." (p. 95.) 4. The early Christian 

 writers among the Gentiles exhort Christians not to keep the 

 Sabbath, but the Lord's day, on which Christ our Life arose 

 from the dead. 5. "It was not till erroneous views of the day 

 of Christian worship began to be entertained, that it was ever 

 supposed to ^ absorb into itself the authority of the original 

 law' — the fourth commandment." (p. 99, — note.) And 6. 

 These views are sustained by several distinguished modems, — 

 as Luther, Melancthon, Cranmer, Calvin, Whately, 

 and Neander. 



I give my friend credit for great acuteness and exten- 

 sive research — on one side of this question. For the sake of 

 his own investigations, as well as of his great authorities, I acquit 

 him of any wil/ul rejection of the Lord's day, as the Christian 

 Sabbath. I sympathize with him, indeed, as a man once like 

 tempted. I feel the force of the old saying : " He that never 

 doubted, never helieved." 



