MR. TAYLOR' S THIRD REPLY. 259 



A gross equivocation. Human authority insufficient. 



mutahle!" Tliink you hecould prove his ohservance of tlie 

 Sabbath by claiming to be its Master ? or that he could be 

 "Lord'' of his "immutable" ruler? Think you he could ex- 

 hibit his authority ovei^ the law by " obedience" to the law? or 

 that, as " Lord of the Sabbath/' he could be in hondage to the 

 Sabbath t^ It seems bencath the dignity of honest controversy 

 to reply to such equivocation. Nothing less desperate than 

 Sabbatarianism could tolerate absurdities so palpable. Search 

 the Scriptures! '^ Tliey are they which testify of Me!" 

 What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord. 



" Whatever be true in other countries and times," urges my 

 friend, '^ human authoriti/, neither legal nor ecclesiastical, will 

 satisfy free-born Americans. No man's conscience will be 

 bound here by anything short of Divine authority — real or sup- 

 posed." {p. 180.) The consideration suggested in this para- 



•^ "As he is 'Lord of the Sabbath,'-he has a power of dispensing 

 with it, and even of abolishing it." Dk. Gill [Commentary on Matt. 

 xii. 8). 



" This is very much," says J. N. B. {p. 1G9), " as if one should infer 

 from the words of Jehovah to Moses, ' I am the God of Abraham, 

 Isaac, and .Jacob,' merely that as their God, he had the right to anni- 

 hilate them at will." It seems that my friend is satisfied with a false 

 analogy, if a true one will not suit. The circumstances of a declaration 

 (whether as restrictive or extensive) are accordingly considered too 

 unimportant to be tåken into the account. Now had this declaration 

 of Jehovah to Moses, instead of being delivered confirmatorily (as a 

 pledge of continued providence), been mside peremptoril?/, in answer to 

 the qtiestion "Whyhast thoxx utterly destroyed the Patriarchs ?" my 

 friend's analogy would be perfectly just, and his inference unexcep- 

 tionable, "that as their God, he had the right to annihilate them at 

 will !" So when in answer to the question " why do they on the Sab- 

 bath day that ivhich is not laufulT' {Markii. 24), Jesus declared that 

 he was ''Lord also of the Sabbath;" every child would know that this 

 reply could not possibly mean to extend the obligation of the law ! 

 " How forcible are right words!" said honest Job; "but what doth 

 your arguing reprove?" — " If any man speak, let him speak as the 

 Oracles of Godf'' 



