280 ABROQATION OF THE SAEBATH. 



Personal considerationa. " Grave chargés" against Sabbatarianism. 



could not help adverting to the remarkable fact that Christians 

 of the denominations most strenuously professing to reject all 

 human institutions in religion — the Protestants of Protestants — 

 were the loudest and least tolerant assertors of that unscriptu- 

 ral dogma, a " Christian Sabbath V and that while vaunting 

 their peculiar advocacy of " the Bible, the whole Bible, and 

 nothing hut the Bible/' upon this great question they actuallj 

 "made the word of God of none effect through their traditions/' 

 "teachingfor doctrinesthe commandments of men." (p. 158.) 

 J. N. B., in a passing allusion to this paragraph, remarks, 

 "He has indeed (in closing his part iv.) become an 'accuser 

 of the brethren.'* He has brought against me, and my 

 brethren also, chargés of the gravest kind.'' {p. 181.) 



I regret my friend's susceptibility on this point, but cannot 

 think his inference exactly just. "Am I therefore become 

 your ^enemy/ because I tell you the truthf My "gravest 

 charge" has been that Christian Sahbatarianism is imscriptu- 

 ral. And to establish this charge, has been my sole business 

 from the beginning: as my friend's task has been to prove (if 

 he could) the opposing doctrine unscriptural, and justify his 

 assertion that my "stand-point is not that of Paul." (jo. 62.) 



But while I would " rebuke sharply" those who presume to 

 hold in their bondage " another Master' s servant," and arro- 

 gantly "judge one man'sliberty by another man's conscience," 

 and while I would " give no place by subjection," but would 



notice. My friend complains (p. 181, — note) that I styled an argu- 

 ment of his — ^' etymological, when it is ezegeticaV Real and important 

 as the distinction undoubtedly is, I see not how it affects onr present 

 discussion. If an argument be inconclusive, it matters but little to 

 which class it belongs. But I think it will generally be admitted, that 

 in popular acceptation, at least, the " exegetical" is but a deparlment 

 of the " etymological." Nor is it perhaps always easy to discriminate 

 accurately between their respective boundaries. At all events, the 

 issue appeavs to me to be entirely a verbal one. 

 ■■^ See John v. 4-5. 



