222 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



An unproved construction. The time referred to, very uncertain. 



Testament, was to gratify and confirm a previouslj absent 

 apostle. It was because " Thomas was with them'' after eight 

 days, tbat the presence of Jesus was thought worthy of a 

 special notice; not because it happened to be on one day rather 

 than another. And after the general salutation, it was to 

 Thomas that the conversation of Jesus was addressed. 



But " why wait a full week to do this, unless to honor the 

 weekly Sabbath, [!] and to establish the change of the day to 

 commemorate his resurrection ?" (p. 185.) Such questionings 

 are too trivial for answer : they are self-destructive. A more 

 pertinent inquiry would be, why, after ^' waiting a full week to 

 do this,'' did he not do it ? Why give no hint of a design 

 ^^ to honor the weekly Sahbath," had such a design existed? 



It has been assumed, all along, that ^' a/ter eight days" from 

 the previous appearance, denoted exactly the interval of a 

 week. However unanimous Sunday Sabbatarians may have 

 been in taking this for granted, it is a point which never has 

 heen proved. It is at least quite as probable that the latter 

 appearance occurred ^^ a/ter" a week and a day from the former 

 one, as upon that day week.* There is no necessity whatever 

 (excepting that of contributing an imagmary straw to a drown- 

 ing cause) for the stereotype construction. Even were it 

 highly probable that the construction is correct, is my friend 

 satisfied to rest so important a question as the Divine obliga- 

 tion of a day on a " highly probable'^ conjecture ? Where is 

 his protestantism ? The very uncertainty of the expression 

 should be sufficient evidence to every unbiassed mind, that a 

 specification of time was not here the writer's object, and 

 could not have been a vital part of this account. Had it been, 

 it would have been written in letters of light, the first day of 

 the weeh is " His own chosen day" of rest. 



But J. N. B, is not alone in this conjecture ! He notices 

 that ^' TowNSEND, the learned Harmonist, says on this passage : 



* Sec Note A, at tlie eud of this Reply. 



