MR. TAYLOR' S THIRD REPLY. 243 



Appeal to history. Theological authority incompetent. 



dislikeof '^summary" executions furnishes, to myself at least, 

 a partial excuse for my uunecessary and self-imposed labors. 

 And if but a single Sunday-led, ordinance-subjected reader may 

 have been thereby inducted into a more rational and Scriptural 

 appreciation of this great question, the time I have employed 

 will not have been misspent. I have endeavored to unfold the 

 subject, "not with enticing words/' but with "sound speech 

 that cannot be condemned ;" hoping, " by a manifeatation of 

 the truth^ to commend the doctrine to every man's conscience.'^ 



lY. Suj)plementary Intimationsfrom Theological History. 



A very feeble attempt has been made by J. N. B. to fortify 

 his position by an appeal to theologic authority ; but in the 

 entire absence of Scriptural foundation, such an appeal cannot 

 for one moment be entertained, or such authority for one mo- 

 ment received in evidence. There is nothing on which it can 

 act, or to which it can give direction. It can have no original 

 jurisdiction. Premising that I have thus no occasion whatever 

 to even notice his citations, I am still impelled by the control- 

 ling claims of Truth to follow my friend even here.* 



^ In an excellent, though anonymous work on " The Sabbath" 

 (published in London, 1849), it is stated that "no ecclesiastical writer 

 of the first three centuries of the Cliristian era has attributed the ori- 

 gin of Sunday observance either to an injunction or the ezample of the 

 Apostles, or to any precept from Christ himself: a fact which is exceed- 

 ingly strong evidence, that at no time during that period did there exist 

 in the Christian Church any belief or tradition that the religions ob- 

 servance of the Sunday originated in a divine appointment." (^Chap. 

 viii. p. 307.) The full ti tie of this volume (which is distinguished by 

 aceurate scholarship and judicious criticism) is "The Sabbath ; or an 

 Examination of the Six Texts commonly adduced from the New Testa- 

 ment in proof of a Christian Sabbath. By a Layman. London, 1849." 

 I have had occasion to refer to this work once before {p. 230, — note) ; 

 and have once or twice availed myself of the author's labors without 

 particular notice. 



Jeremy Taylor shrewdly argues from the computation of Easter 



