242 ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 



No Sabbath in any of the twelre texts. The selection uufortunate. 



icrong trach! And now that we have arrived at the last pos- 

 sible hiding-place of this imaginary nondescript, this thing 

 " without a name/^* no vestige of it is apparent : '^ the thing'' 

 is not here! Our labor has been wasted; our patience abused. 

 And yet we are told, with a gravity as ludicrous as it is arro- 

 gant, that the invisibility is owing to the dazzling excess of 

 perspicuity! And my friend can afFord to extend a conde- 

 scending '^ pi ty" to those who do not choose to accept the ge- 

 nerous offer of his tenebrious eyesight ! 



On casting a retrospective glance at the ^^ twelve texts'^ 

 which J. N. B. has thought proper to parade in support of his 

 side of the point at issue (" the Day required hy the Sahhath 

 Jaio"), two siibjects of surprise are irresistibly suggested. The 

 first is that he should have hit upon this particular collectiou 

 of texts rather than upon some other dozen (considering that 

 several of them are really among the most destructive ones to 

 his own dogma he could possibly have selected) ; and the other 

 is, that he should have been so moderate as to limit their num- 

 ber, at any rate, to a single åozen^ when he could so easily have 

 adduced a gross of texts far more pertinent to the point in con- 

 troversy than the very best he has chosen. It is a fact, uu- 

 mistakable and uuescapable, that he has failed — wholly, irre- 

 trievably failed — to make out even a pretext of a case ! He 

 has been able to find no solitary passage (I will m)t say im- 

 peaching) tending to impeach my " First Proposition.'^ It 

 stands uncontroverted — incontrovertible, Not one of his texts 

 has a surmise of relation to the /o2irth command mejit ! f In a 

 logical point of view, it is a matter for dissatisfaction, that I 

 have wasted so much time in superfluous battle : but my friend's 



* "If we find the thingr — is it not the merest verbal trifling to dis- 

 pute about the namef [p. 190.) 



f Perhaps — excepting text the second [Isai. Ixv.) : and this is so 

 clearly Anti-sabbatarian in purport, that Gbotius actually quotes this 

 prophecy to show that all days are equally holy under the new crea- 

 tion ! LowTH makes a similar application. 



