191 



Other objections unimportant. A Tanishing dream. 



least a manlj/ foe. I hope he will yet be a cordial; Christian 

 friend. 



2. If the first disciples did also meet on other days, what 

 boots it to this argument ? So now do ice. 



3. If the Apostles and Jewish Christians continued to observe 

 the Jewish Sabbath also, among their own countrymen, what 

 does it prove but their kindness, their devout spirit, and their 

 readiness to seize every occasion of doing good ? So would 

 any Christian Missionary among the Jews do now. So have I 

 done with pleasure among conscientious Seventh-day Baptists 

 — some of whom I regard as among " the excellent of the 

 earth/' 



4. If the early Christian writers " exhort Gentile Christ- 

 ians not to observe the Jewish Sabbath, but the Lord's day/' 

 it is but to check this condescension from degenerating into 

 conformity and superstition. If they represent that Sabbath 

 as part of a sliadowy and superseded Dispensation, what is that 

 to the Argument ? Do ice not say the same ? 



5. This statement of my friend requires no answer. It is 

 a mere hegging of the question. 



6. The argument from Human Authority I have answered 

 already. 



And now is this all my friend has to urge in the shape of 

 objection to the Scriptural, comprehensive, all-harmonizing 

 view which I have advocated ? Yes, this is all — absolutely all. 

 And each of these objections, when approached and examined 

 calmly, in succession, comes to nothing ! It vanishes '^ like a 

 dream when one awaketh/' and leaves " the Lord's day'' in 

 full force, from the day of His resurrection to the end of the 

 world, as the true Christian Sabbath. The Church still sings, 

 as in the days of her youth, " This is the day which the Lord 

 has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." May we, with 

 all her true members, always be "in the spirit on the Lord's 

 day." 



The only exception to this are painful ones. Our Lord 



