208 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



" A kind of evidence which Infinite Wisdom does not see fit to give." 



By what right do you thus dictate to Grod [!] the mode of his 

 revelation ?^' {p. 172.) 



However closely pressed my friend may feel himself, by the 

 demand, he should still '^ look calmJy at the case/^ and by all 

 means avoid dogmatism. By exercising a cool discrimination, 

 he will discover that the ''dictation" reaches at present no 

 higher than himself; and, "by the right'^ of controversial 

 honesty, I dictate thus : Dåre not to tell us, if you value truth, 

 that a Scriptural ''mode of revelation" has transferred the 

 Sabbath, unless you are prepared to furnish the evidence of 

 that " mode V However " presumptuous" the demand, I shall 

 not easily be frowned from it. It is no doubt highly "prepos- 

 terous" to drive J. N. B. into so narrow a corner, but a frank 

 acknowledgment of error affords an honorable escape, and pity 

 would be weakness. 



In a preceding passage (p. 170), he remarks, with equal justice 

 and moderation, that " a lesson of deep import," learned from 

 the calm answers and demeanor of Jesus, is, that '' we may be 

 demanding on some points a kind or degree of evidence which 

 Infinite Wisdom does not see fit to give." I thank him for so 

 fair a statement. My sole business, under the " First Propo- 

 sition," is to show that Scriptural authority for a modification 

 of the Sabbath law is '' a hind or degree of evidence which In- 

 finite Wisdom has not seen fit to give." And the satisfactory 

 reason why no modification of the law has been thus revealed 

 is, because the Scriptural authority for its total ahrogation is 

 " ample," unqualified, decisive.* Though we search the New 



* " The Jewish Sabbath being abrogated, the Christian liberty, like 

 the suu after the dispersion of the clouds, appeared in its full splendor, 

 and then the division of days ceased, and one day was not more holy 

 than another, as St. Paul disputes in his Epistle to the Galatians (and 

 from hira St. Jerome, in loco.) ; and when St. Paul reproved the Corin- 

 thians for going to law before unbelievers who kept their court-days 

 upon the first day of the week, he would not have omitted to reprove 

 them by so great and weighty a circumstance as the profaning * the 



