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 THE SABBATH. 
 
LONDON : 
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THE BENEFIT AND NECESSITY OF THE CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS, 
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 PARTICULARLY AS BINDING US TO KEEP 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH, 
 
 CONSIDERED IN 
 
 FOUR SERMONS, 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE THE 
 
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 1830. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In offering to the public the following Ser- 
 mons on Religious Ordinances — most im- 
 portant, as they concern all members of 
 the Church alike — the design of the author 
 has been, to lay plainly before others the 
 grounds of his own conviction, that the 
 Church of England has most faithfully and 
 correctly interpreted the doctrines of Scrip- 
 ture concerning them. 
 
 The doctrine of Regeneration in Baptism, 
 indeed, must needs be acknowledged by all 
 who draw their opinions from the Bible, if 
 only it be distinctly stated what is meant 
 by the expression, and it be shewn, that 
 such is our Saviour's meaning in his dis- 
 course with Nicodemus. To point out, 
 therefore, why the application of John iii. 3, 
 
vi 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 to baptism, by Justin Martyr, confirmed 
 as it is by the concurrent testimony of 
 all the early Fathers, ought to be decisive 
 of the true sense of that passage; how 
 the passage itself, so interpreted, fits the 
 occasion of the discourse ; and further, 
 how in all cases, even in that of infants, the 
 grace of baptism, if the nature of the bless- 
 ing be duly considered, may be seen to be 
 truly described as " a death unto sin and a 
 new birth unto righteousness," according 
 to the Scriptural use of such expressions ; 
 to point out and to clear up these matters, 
 it was hoped might give satisfaction to 
 those, who have not leisure to follow up the 
 enquiry for themselves. As to the other 
 Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, the lament- 
 able neglect of it by so many who profess 
 and call themselves Christians, renders it 
 unnecessary (since different minds may be 
 struck by different modes of stating the 
 truth) to apologize for adding one more to 
 the numerous arguments, by which it has 
 been attempted to persuade men to seek 
 and to find, in this Sacrament, that spiritual 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 vii 
 
 feeding on Christ, which he declared neces- 
 sary to salvation. And it seemed not ill 
 suited to the present times, by calling atten- 
 tion to the words of our catechism on the 
 holy Communion, to set forth, in its true 
 light, the difference between our Church 
 and that of Rome ; that we may not, on the 
 one hand, take an exaggerated view of their 
 errors ; nor, on the other, lose sight of the 
 broad line of demarcation between their 
 doctrines and our own. 
 
 But of all the subjects herein examined, 
 the complexion and character of the times 
 chiefly call for a true statement of the 
 obligation to keep the Christian Sabbath : 
 for if the ordinary public worship of God 
 be neglected, it is useless to invite men to 
 the more solemn and mysterious acts of 
 devotion ; and it is not easy to see how the 
 observance of the Lord's day can be main- 
 tained and secured throughout the land, 
 unless we are to be taught, that this is a 
 duty to which we are bound by the com- 
 mandment — " Remember that thou keep 
 holy the Sabbath day." 
 
viii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In the early part of the seventeenth 
 century, the extravagant notions some Sab- 
 batarian enthusiasts had built on this doc- 
 trine, caused the doctrine itself to be 
 questioned ; and a fear of countenancing 
 their extravagance, seems to have had 
 a sinister influence on the judgments that 
 were then formed concerning it. Of the 
 writers of that day, Dr. Peter Heylyn 
 produced the most full and comprehensive 
 Treatise on the subject ; and as his well- 
 earned literary fame may give an undue 
 importance to his opinions here, it was 
 thought serviceable to the cause of truth 
 to endeavour to shew, how unworthy his 
 History of the Sabbath is to be received 
 with confidence as a guide on so important 
 a question. And surely it is a question 
 of the highest importance, whether the 
 Christian Sabbath is to be kept holy in 
 obedience to that supreme authority, which 
 in such matters of conscience, can alone 
 command universal submission. 
 
 The Sabbath has been truly called the 
 great preservative of religion. To the care- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ix 
 
 less even and negligent, it is a continually- 
 recurring record and memorial of most 
 solemn and sacred truths, " whereby they 
 who cannot be drawn to hearken to that 
 we teach, may, by only looking on that we 
 do, in a manner, read whatsoever we be- 
 lieve but to them that employ it rightly, 
 that remember to keep holy each Lord s 
 day, the Christian Sabbath, as if its " light 
 were sevenfold, as the light of seven days," 
 pours a blessing on the whole week, and 
 quickens and preserves the religious prin- 
 ciples, which can alone give true life to all 
 our conduct in our earthly affairs, and in 
 these, as in their proper soil, spring forth 
 and blossom, and bear their wonted fruit. 
 " I do not write lightly or inconsider- 
 ately," said the Lord Chief Justice Sir 
 Matthew Hale to his children ; " but by 
 long and sound experience I have found, 
 that the due observance of this day and of 
 the duties of it, have been of singular com- 
 fort and advantage to me ; and I doubt not 
 but it will prove so to you. God Almighty 
 is the Lord of our time, and lends it to us ; 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 and as it is but just we should consecrate 
 this part of that time to Him, so I have 
 found, by a strict and dihgent observation, 
 that a due observance of the duty of this 
 day, hath ever had joined to it a blessing 
 upon the rest of my time ; and the week 
 that hath been so begun, hath been blessed 
 and prosperous to me : and, on the other 
 side, when I have been negligent of the 
 duties of this day, the rest of the week hath 
 been unsuccessful and unhappy to my own 
 secular employments ; so that I could easily 
 make an estimate of my successes in my 
 own secular employments the week follow- 
 ing, by the manner of my passing of this 
 day." The author is unwilhng, by adding 
 one word, to weaken the impression that 
 may be made by this deliberate declaration 
 of one of the best of Christians and wisest 
 of men, 
 
 Cobham, Vicarage, 
 Nov. 25, 1830. 
 
PRIITCSTOIT 
 REC. NOV 1880 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 REGENERATION 
 THE SPIRITUAL GRACE OF BAPTISM. 
 
 John iii. 5. 
 
 I'er'ily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man he horn again 
 he cannot see the kingdom of God 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Reason why Justin Martyr's interpretation of the text is 
 decisive of its true meaning — Why it would be so understood 
 by Nicodemus — This meaning shewn to suit the occasion 
 and the context — and to declare to Nicodemus the necessity 
 of a change of heart — This change always accompanies rege- 
 neration in adult converts — yet infants also said to be rege- 
 nerate in the primitive Church — The change, therefore, not 
 essential to regeneration — nor so considered in our Church 
 Catechism — Regeneration defined — The first Epistle of St. 
 John not at variance with this definition — Scriptural mode of 
 reclaiming careless Members of the Church, not by telling 
 them that they are not regenerate, but that they are I 
 
 [St. Mary's, Oxford, Nov. 8, 1829.] 
 
xii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST 
 THE SPIRITUAL GRACE OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 John vi. 53, 54. 
 
 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the 
 Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 
 Whoso eateih my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath 
 eternal life ; and 1 will raise him up at the last day. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The correct interpretation of the text — confirmed by the opinion 
 of Cranmer — The application of it to the Sacrament of the 
 Eucharist — Different opinions of different Churches on this 
 Sacrament — Lutheran and Roman opinions inconsistent with 
 Scripture — The strong expressions of the early Fathers ex- 
 plained — Their doctrine and that of the Church of England 
 essentially the same — Spiritual communion not confined to 
 this Sacrament — Mistaken views of the sect called Quakers — 
 Universal obligation to receive the Eucharist — Benefits of it 
 — State of mind necessary to all communicants 33 
 
 \_St. Mary's, Oxford, Feb. 7, 1830.] 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 IN WHAT RESPECTS 
 THE LAW IS ABOLISHED. 
 Gal. i. 23. 
 
 He which persecuted us in times past, now preacheth the 
 faith he once destroyed. 
 
 The peculiar circumstances of St, Paul's conversion, and, as 
 connected with these, his election to declare in what respects 
 the law is abolished — The prejudices of the Jews, and even of 
 the first Christians on this subject — Hence the peculiar fit - 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ness of St. Paul for the office — His teaching and that of 
 Christ the same — From Epist. Heb. we learn the abolition of 
 ceremonial law — From Rom. and Gal. that of ceremonial and 
 moral law as means of justification — From Eph. that of cere- 
 monial and civil law — The law only s6 far abolished as itself 
 shewed it should be — Error of John Agricola, founder of 
 Antinomians — Moral law of perpetual force — The Decalogue 
 
 considered, except the fourth commandment 57 
 
 Preached on the Festival of St. Paul's Conversion. 
 [St. Mary's, Oxford, Jan. 25, 1829.] 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 THE lord's day 
 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 
 Gen. ii. 2, 3. 
 
 On the seventh day God ended his work, which he had made ; 
 and he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which 
 he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and 
 sanctified it ; because that in it he had rested from all 
 his work which God created and made. 
 
 The seventh day kept holy from the creation — This then no 
 transitory rite of Moses' law — nature of the duty of keeping 
 a Sabbath — This duty equally fulfilled by keeping the first 
 day of the week, the change having been made by sufficient 
 authority — Proof that the Lord's day was so kept, from the 
 Scriptures, from writers in the first ages of Christianity, 
 Pliny, Ignatius, Barnabas, Justin Martyr, and Tertullian — 
 Effi;ct of Constantine's edict — Athanasius — ^Hilary — The doc- 
 trine that a perpetual Sabbath is substituted for the Jewish 
 Sabbath, no reason why the Lord's day is not also — Obliga- 
 tion to keep this day from the fourth commandment — In what 
 degree Christians are released from the strict rest there 
 
 required 87 
 
 [St. Mary's, Oxford, May 3, 1829.] 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Heylyn's Argument on tlie Times before the Law 141 
 
 Heylyn's Argument from the New Testament 148 
 
 The Apostolical Canons 158 
 
 Saturday a Fast in the Western Churches 164 
 
 Saturday a Feast in the Eastern Churches 168 
 
 Heylyn's Argument from Justin and TertuUian 170 
 
 Irenaeus 172 
 
 Clement of Alexandria 174 
 
 Origen 181 
 
 Cyprian 189 
 
 Athanasius 194 
 
 Council of Macon 199 
 
 Council of Laodicea 200 
 
 State of Opinion before the Reformation 202 
 
 The Reformed Churches on the Continent 210 
 
 The Church of England before Queen Mary's reign 220 
 
 The Church of England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth .... 232 
 
 The Church of England in the reigns of James and Charles I. 242 
 
 Difference of opinion among English Divines 246 
 
 The Old and True Doctrine vindicated 260 
 
 This Doctrine held by most of the English Divines 266 
 
 The Church Catechism 268 
 
XV 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 
 
 of Persons and Events mentioned in the following pages, taken 
 chiefiy from Blair and Lardner. 
 
 A. D. 
 
 Fall of Jerusalem 70 
 
 Barnabas's Epistle 71 
 
 Death of St. John (at. 92) 99 
 
 Clement Bishop of Rome 100 
 
 Ignatius 108 
 
 Polycarp (a!t. 100) 16? 
 
 Pliny, jun., his Epistle to Trajan 102 
 
 Justin Martyr's First Apology 140 
 
 Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, flourished 170 
 
 Melito, Bishop of Sardis 178 
 
 Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons ibid. 
 
 Clement of Alexandria 194 
 
 TertuUian 200 
 
 Julius Africanus, Bishop of Emmaus 220 
 
 Origen 230 
 
 Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage 248 
 
 Victorinus, Bishop of Pettaw 290 
 
 Peter, Bishop of Alexandria 300 
 
 Constantine's Edict in favour of the Christians 323 
 
 Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, flourished 326 
 
 Hilary, Bishop of Poictiers 360 
 
 Council of Laodicea 368 
 
 Basil, Bishop of Ca?sarea in Cappadocia 370 
 
 Gregory of Nazianzum ibid. 
 
 Gregory of Nyssa ibid. 
 
 Ambrose, Bishop of Milan 374 
 
 Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius in Africa 395 
 
 John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople 398 
 
 John Cassian 424 
 
SERMON 1. 
 
 REGENERATION 
 THE SPIRITUAL GRACE OF BAPTISM. 
 
 John iii. 3. 
 
 Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except a man be born again, 
 he cannot see the kingdom of God. 
 
 That in these remarkable words Christ spake 
 of the grace to be received in baptism, can 
 scarcely be doubted by any one who considers 
 that such is the plain and literal meaning of 
 Christ's own explanation of them, such the 
 sense in which they were uniformly understood 
 by the primitive Christians. The Fathers of 
 the Church, for three centuries after the death 
 of St. John, continually cite them in their writ- 
 ings ^ in their public councils, and uniformly 
 
 ' Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, Basil, 
 Austin, Cyril, Councils of Carthage. See Wall on Infant 
 Baptism, and Routh's Relic. Sacr. III. 
 
2 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 urge them as a proof of the advantage and 
 necessity of baptism : and I cannot but regard 
 the celebrated passage in Justin the Martyr's 
 first Apology as of itself decisive of the sense 
 in which they were understood by the Church 
 at the time they were written. 
 
 Professing to shew the way in which con- 
 verts to the faith are made anew through 
 Christ, and dedicate themselves to God, he 
 thus proceeds : " Whoever firmly believe that 
 what we teach is true, and undertake to live 
 accordingly, are instructed first to seek of God 
 by prayer and fasting, in which we join with 
 them, the pardon of their past sins ; then we 
 conduct them to some place where there is 
 water, and they are regenerated after the same 
 manner in which we ourselves were regene- 
 rated ; for they are washed in the water in the 
 name of God, the Father and Lord of all, and 
 of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy 
 Spirit. For Christ said, * Except ye be born 
 again, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven ;' and every one knows it is impossible 
 for those who are once born to enter again into 
 their mother's womb." 
 
 ' Apol. prope finem. It is quoted by Bishop Tom- 
 line, and re*"Erred to by Wclchman on the twenty-seventh 
 Article. 
 
SERMON 1. 
 
 3 
 
 This account was written within forty-five 
 years of the time when St. John is said to have 
 written his Gospel, and within forty years after 
 his death ; it declares not only what was then, 
 but what had been the established practice of 
 the Church ; they are regenerated as we zcere ; 
 we, the members of the Church, living in Jus- 
 tin's time, and known to him ; some of whom, 
 he tells us had been made disciples sixty or 
 seventy years ; and among whom certainly St. 
 John himself had lived; as Justin, when he 
 declares him to be the author of the book of 
 Revelations ^ calls him " a man from among 
 us, named John, one of the apostles of Christ." 
 Such then being the practice and the language, 
 such was the vmderstanding of my text, on 
 which that practice and language were founded, 
 with those among whom St. John lived. 
 
 It is often said that the expression used by 
 our Lord to Nicodemus, " to be born again," 
 had been in common use with the Jews, to 
 signify the admission of a proselyte to their 
 Church by baptism. But to say this is to press 
 the argument from the usage of the Jews be- 
 yond what the authorities produced will war- 
 rant. The proselyte indeed, when admitted to 
 
 ' Apol. I"™, prope ab init. 
 
 ^ Dial, cum Tryph. p. 80. .Justin. Opera. Paris, 15j1. 
 IJ 2 
 
4 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 the covenant, was said to be like a child new 
 born ; but to his admission circumcision was 
 necessary as well as baptism, and was un- 
 doubtedly the more important rite of the two, 
 the more expressly commanded, whatever au- 
 thority for baptizing proselytes they might 
 think they had in the purification of all mem- 
 bers of the Mosaic covenant by the ' washing of 
 their forefathers at the time when the law was 
 delivered from Mount Sinai, or in their bap- 
 tism ^ unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 
 Besides, it is questioned whether the Jews, be- 
 fore our Saviour's time, used baptism as an 
 initiatory rite at all : the practice of baptizing 
 proselytes, as described in the Talmud, or ex- 
 planation of the law by the Jewish Rabbis, is 
 supposed by some ^ to have been borrowed 
 from the Christians ; and though the argu- 
 ments I have seen in support of this supposi- 
 tion are not, in my judgment, sufficient to set 
 aside the Talmud's detailed account of a pro- 
 fessedly public practice, it is unwise needlessly 
 to rest the interpretation of my text on a ques- 
 tionable point. 
 
 The expression to be bom again, to be born 
 
 ' Exod. xix. ^ 1 Cor. x. 2. 
 
 ' Bishop Kaye's Tertullian, p. 442 ; and Jennings Jewish 
 Antiq. I. 136. 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 5 
 
 of God, naturally describes the admission into 
 his Church, into which all who are admitted 
 from the earliest days have been called God's 
 children. From the time God has been known 
 by his name, Jehovah, his true worshippers 
 have been called his children. It was the sons 
 of God they who had learnt to call on the 
 name of the Lord, or to call themselves by his 
 name, who by their marriages with the daugh- 
 ters of men, those who knew Him not, became 
 so corrupt in their hearts, that God swept their 
 race away by the great water-flood. And when 
 He afterwards estabhshed his Church for his 
 people Israel, they, even in their disobedi- 
 ence ^ are continually called his children, his 
 sons and his daughters, and the Lord is called 
 the Rock, who begat them. To be admitted, 
 then, into God's Church, his family on earth, 
 is to be made his child, to be born again, to be 
 born of Him. 
 
 And further, we should observe that, what- 
 ever was the practice of the Jews on admitting 
 proselytes into their covenant, there certainly 
 was an expectation among the Pharisees, that 
 the Christ would make men his disciples by 
 
 ' Gen. iv. 26 ; vi. 2. 
 
 ' Deut. xiv. ; xxxii. 18, 19. Isaiah i. 2 
 
(> 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 baptism. " Why baptizest thou said they 
 to John the Baptist, " if thou be not that 
 Christ, nor Ehas, neither that prophet." This 
 expectation they probably had derived from 
 the various passages in the prophets, which 
 speak of the cleansing gifts of the Holy Spirit 
 under the figure of water, from the express 
 declaration of Isaiah % that the Christ should 
 sprinkle many nations, and especially from the 
 words of Ezekiel, which, though they were 
 spoken of the Jews on their return from cap- 
 tivity, yet surely have a further aim, and were 
 realized under the Christian covenant, " Then 
 will I sprinkle * clean water upon you, and ye 
 shall be clean; a new heart also will I give 
 you, and a new spirit will I put in you, and 
 will cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye 
 shall keep my judgments, and do them — and 
 ye shall be my people, and I will be your 
 God." 
 
 Nicodemus then, a Pharisee and a teacher 
 in Israel, had reason to expect men were to 
 be admitted into the Messiah's kingdom by 
 baptism ; he had been accustomed to regard 
 the expression to be bora anew, as signifying 
 admission into covenant with God ; ana be- 
 
 Jolin i. 25. ' Isaiah lii. ^ Ezek. xxxvi. 
 
SERMON 1. 
 
 7 
 
 sides these points, to enable us to understand 
 our Lord's address to him, we ought to con- 
 sider its bearing on the pecuHar feelings and 
 sentiments of his nation. Now, of all the pre- 
 judices of the Jews, none perhaps was a 
 greater bar to their reception of Christ, than 
 their prevalent belief that they themselves 
 were already " children of the kingdom, and 
 had one Father ^, even God ;" hence, in their 
 minds the coming of the Messiah was asso- 
 ciated with expectations of the aggrandisement 
 of their nation. Nicodemus certainly knew 
 not that he had yet to seek to be admitted 
 into God's family on earth ; he knew not that 
 the title he derived from the Jewish covenant 
 to be so regarded, with that covenant had 
 passed away. Whatever we may reasonably 
 hope of him ^ who was joined with Joseph of 
 Arimathea, in the last pious offices to the cru- 
 cified body of our Lord, neither now, nor 
 more than a year afterwards, at the feast of 
 tabernacles, was Nicodemus ^ prepared to con- 
 fess before men, that Jesus is the Christ : 
 though it was a teacher sent from God, whom 
 he desired to hear, he went secretly by night. 
 To him then our Lord declared the necessity 
 
 ' John viii. 41. John xix. 39. ^ John vii. 50. 
 
8 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 of seeking earnestly and openly an admission 
 into his kingdom. Verily, verily, I say unto 
 thee, except a man be born again, be made a 
 child of God, (or as he explains his words, 
 when Nicodemus trifled, or strangely misun- 
 derstood them), except one be bom of water 
 and the Spirit, except one be sanctified for 
 God's service by the Spirit, to be sought in 
 my baptism and in the open sincere profes- 
 sion of my doctrine, he cannot enter into the 
 kingdom of God, — cannot enter into his king- 
 dom of grace here, the appointed road to his 
 kingdom of glory. This new birth, this admis- 
 sion as a proselyte, is as necessary to your 
 nation as to any other. You must not rely on 
 your natural descent, as children of Abraham. 
 I speak not of a birth from your mother's 
 womb ; what is born of the flesh is flesh ; it 
 seeks and is entitled to that alone which the 
 flesh can enjoy ; it is the spiritual birth, that 
 enables a man to enjoy the things of the Spirit. 
 Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye, your 
 nation, though Jews, must be thus born again : 
 as the vdnd blows when it lists, and thou 
 hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
 whence it cometh nor whither it goeth ; so 
 the Holy Spirit regenerates whom He will, 
 Jew or Gentile aUke ; his gracious influences 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 9 
 
 being discernible in their effects, though you 
 cannot distinguish from your other emotions 
 the beginning or the end of his action on your 
 hearts and minds. 
 
 Our Lord addressed Himself to Nicodemus 
 alone ; firj Qavfxaarjq ort tiirov aoi, marvel not that 
 I said unto ihee : He spake of the necessity 
 of the new birth to him and to his nation ; 
 vfiaq y£vvri%vai avoj^ev, ye must be bom again. 
 That by the word ye, here and in the follow- 
 ing verses, Christ meant the countrymen of 
 Nicodemus, the Jewish nation, may appear 
 from this ; it was they, who received not his 
 testimony, who believed not when He told 
 them of the need and the means of repentance 
 and a holy life, things which pass on earth ^ 
 and whom He therefore pronounced unpre- 
 pared to believe, when He should proceed to 
 tell them of things passing in heaven, his own 
 mysterious nature, our redemption through 
 the Son of Man, whose abode is in heaven, 
 and the transcendent love of the eternal Father, 
 who sent his own Son, as man, into the world, 
 that the world through Him might be saved. 
 
 It is commonly said that Christ, in this dis- 
 course with Nicodemus, alluded, by anticipa- 
 
 ' Conf. verse 31. 
 
10 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 tion, to the sacrament of baptism, which He 
 designed to appoint ; and certainly the great 
 commission, by authority of which we baptize, 
 " the commission of regeneration," as Irenaeus' 
 calls it, was not given by Him till after his 
 resurrection ; but we read, immediately after 
 the account of this discourse, that it was 
 Christ's practice ^ at this very time, to make 
 men his disciples by baptizing them. And we 
 should observe that St. John, the only evan- 
 gehst who has recorded the discourse, is the 
 only one who has recorded this practice also ; 
 as if the knowledge of the one were necessary to 
 enable us to understand the other. I am aware 
 that a distinction is often made between these 
 baptisms and those afterwards administered in 
 his Church ; but it is not easy to conceive how 
 baptism, by which men were made Christ's dis- 
 ciples, could be other than Christian baptism ; 
 or how what was administered under his own 
 immediate superintendance, could entitle men 
 in after hfe to a less blessing than what is now 
 administered according to his command. 
 
 But it may be asked, did not our Saviour, 
 by the very expression, " born again," declare 
 that a total change of the heart, " a spiritual 
 
 > Adv. Haeres. 1. III. c. 19. John iii. 22 ; iv. 1, 2. 
 
SERMON 1. 
 
 11 
 
 regeneration of the character," was necessary 
 to Nicodemus, in order that he might enter 
 into the kingdom of God ? Certainly ; as Nico- 
 demus well knew the pains that were taken ' 
 to ascertain the sincerity of the proselyte be- 
 fore he could be admitted into the Jewish 
 covenant, he must have readily understood 
 that none could be admitted into the Christian 
 covenant, but who believed its truths with his 
 heart, and adopted them as the guides of his 
 conduct. Addressed to one of an age capable 
 of so doing, our Lord's words could mean no 
 less. However men, by their misconduct after- 
 wards, may become unworthy of their calling, 
 God makes none his children, allows none to 
 enter his kingdom, but who are as free from 
 opposing principles and opposing practices, 
 as docile, guileless, and innocent, as a little 
 child. 
 
 There are, indeed, many persons, far from 
 running into the wild extravagance of some 
 enthusiasts, who yet think that regeneration, 
 our new birth of God, joro/jer/?/ expresses that 
 change of manner of life, when a man, whether 
 his moral habits previously may have been 
 virtuous or vicious, first begins to act on Christ- 
 
 ' Sec Wall on Baptism, 1. Ixx. 
 
12 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 ian principles, and puts on the character of a 
 Christian. That some such change has taken 
 place in most persons, who, having been bap- 
 tized in their infancy, are living as Christians, 
 must, I think, be admitted. It is, I conceive, 
 common to Christianity with every other sys- 
 tem of moral disciphne, that they, who from 
 childhood have been educated in it, for the 
 most part, as they shall have come to years of 
 discretion, or at some period of their lives, 
 think upon it more soberly, and adopt its rules 
 and restraints more diligently, than they had 
 done before. That all motions to a godly and 
 religious hfe are prompted by the Holy Spirit, 
 every Christian will allow : our adoption, then, 
 of the Christian character, whenever this may 
 take place, as far as it is his work, may seem 
 to be truly described as a second and spiritual 
 birth. But surely our spiritual birth, our rege- 
 neration, more properly expresses that which 
 is the work of Him alone, whose children we 
 are made ; a work in which we have no con- 
 current share : and the change of the heart 
 and character is a work which God will not 
 effect in us, except we endeavour ourselves to 
 profit by his gracious help : because He works 
 in us both to will and to work, we must there- 
 fore work out this which is essential to our sal- 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 13 
 
 vation : to call then this change our regenera- 
 tion is liable to this strong objection, among 
 others, inasmuch as it throws into the back- 
 ground and into the shade the important doc- 
 trine, the necessity of exertion in us. 
 
 Besides, not only do all the writers of the 
 primitive Church agree, that regeneration is 
 the grace of baptism, but in the only place in 
 Scriptures where the word occurs as relating 
 to this life, it is so applied — " the washing ' of 
 regeneration ;" and in this washing, in baptism 
 no such change takes place : in the case of 
 adults, where alone it could be supposed, 
 this change must have taken place before ; 
 it is required of them before they are bap- 
 tized, that they shall have truly repented of 
 and forsaken their sins, believe heartily the 
 Christian doctrine, and sincerely purpose to 
 adorn that doctrine by their manner of life : in 
 their baptism then these good resolutions are, 
 no doubt, confirmed, but they are not there 
 made and begun. 
 
 It may be thought, however, that as in those 
 early days the greater number of persons bap- 
 tized had been converted to Christianity after 
 they had grown to manhood, (and if not the 
 
 Tit. iii. 5. 
 
14 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 more numerous class, these surely would most 
 draw attention), it may be thought, that the 
 primitive Church, in speaking of regeneration 
 as the grace of baptism, did not confine their 
 view to what took place at the time of receiv- 
 ing the sacrament, but looked more largely to 
 the whole change effected in the baptized con- 
 vert. And it is but reasonable to conceive this 
 should have been so, when the writers them- 
 selves had grown up before they became Christ- 
 ians, and had experienced in their own persons 
 the great and salutary change. Such was the 
 case, among others, with Justin and TertuUian, 
 who both owed their conversion, in a great 
 degree, to their observing the powerful and 
 triumphant efficacy of the Christian faith over 
 the minds and lives of men ; whence Justin, 
 who was well acquainted with the different 
 systems of the Grecian schools, pronounced 
 Christianity to be " the only ' sure and pro- 
 fitable philosophy." We cannot be surprised 
 then, that Tertullian ^ with evident reference 
 to our Lord's words to Nicodemus, should de- 
 scribe our entrance on this state as " our se- 
 cond birth, in which the soul is formed, as it 
 were, anew by water and the power from 
 
 ' Dial, cum Trypli. prope ab initio. 
 
 ^ De Anima. c. 11. quoted by Bishop Kaye, p. 327. 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 15 
 
 above ;" or that Justin, at the end of the pas- 
 sage already cited, should tell us that " bap- 
 tism ' is called the enhghtening, because they 
 who learn the Christian faith are enlightened 
 in their minds." But if from these phrases, 
 " enhghtening the mind," and " new forming 
 the soul," it should be inferred that a change 
 of mind and soul, a change of character, was 
 regarded as a part of regeneration, we should 
 observe that term was never employed to ex- 
 press such change, except where it took place 
 on admission to the covenant. And certainly 
 this change of character was not regarded as 
 essential to regeneration ; for not only adults, 
 but children, even infants were said to be re- 
 generate, and in them such change was impossi- 
 ble. " Christ," says Irenasus ^, " came to save all 
 by Himself— all, who by Him are regenerated 
 to God, whether infants or little ones, or chil- 
 dren, or youths, or those of riper age ;'' and 
 Irenaeus, we should remember, was instructed 
 in the Christian religion by Papias and Poly- 
 carp, who had been instructed by St. John 
 himself. 
 
 But, it may be said, that the grace of bap- 
 tism (as our Church expresses it) is a death 
 
 ' Apol. 1™. So also Clem. Alex. Paedagog. 1. I. c. 6. 
 ' Iren. Adv. Hseres. 1. II. c. 39. 
 
16 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 to sin and a new birth to righteousness, and 
 that these expressions must signify a change 
 of heart, a beginning of a holy life, and renun- 
 ciation of sin. It must be allowed, " to be 
 dead to sin," in the strict and primary sense 
 of this phrase, is to become, in our conduct, 
 insensible to its allurements, unmoved by its 
 power — and in this sense our Church uses it, 
 when speaking of the manner of life we ought 
 constantly to endeavour to lead, she says, " we 
 who are baptized should die from sin, and rise 
 again to righteousness, continually mortifying 
 all our evil and corrupt affections, and daily 
 proceeding in all virtue and godliness of hving." 
 But if we turn to the passage in St. Paul '-, 
 whence the phrase is taken, we do not find it 
 used in its strictest sense there : " How shall 
 we who are dead to sin, live any longer there- 
 in ?" and it scarce needs remark, that he is here 
 speaking of those who had been baptized into 
 this death. If he had meant that they whom 
 he addressed had already attained that state, 
 in which sin had lost its influence over them, 
 he would not have exhorted them to live no 
 longer in sin. Hammond's ^ interpretation is, 
 " we who in baptism have vowed to die to 
 
 Rom. vi. 2. 
 
 ' Paraphrase in locum. 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 17 
 
 sin ;" but whether the apostle speaks of the 
 vow made, or the grace given in baptism, it is 
 the grace given, we have to consider ; and the 
 grace corresponding to this vow, is the capa- 
 city to keep it, and to be profited by so doing. 
 And such surely is the grace received in bap- 
 tism. If by baptism we are admitted into the 
 Christian covenant, we are then admitted to 
 the promised mercies of God, as our Redeemer 
 and as our Sanctifier ; our death to sin is our 
 deliverance * from sin, both, as to its irresistible 
 dominion, through the aid of the Holy Spirit, 
 and, as to its earned punishment, through the 
 cross of Christ ; and our birth to righteousness 
 is our entrance on that state, in which it is ^jro- 
 OTW^f/ the Holy Spirit will be continually given to 
 make us capable of acquiring habits of holiness ; 
 and where, imperfect as the holiness we can at- 
 tain must be, we are yet assured, that our sin- 
 cere, honest endeavours will be accepted and 
 rewarded, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. 
 We (says our Catechism in explanation), we 
 who by nature were born in sin and the chil- 
 dren of wrath, are, by baptism, made the chil- 
 dren of grace, children of God's favour. 
 
 Regeneration then, though in the case of 
 
18 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 adult converts to Christianity a change of heart 
 necessarily accompanies it, yet regeneration, as 
 applicable to all persons of all ages who are 
 baptized, is not a change of heart and cha- 
 racter, but a change of condition, of our rela- 
 tion to God and interest in his mercies ; a 
 change irom a state of nature to a state of 
 grace — a deliverance from the power ' of dark- 
 ness, and translation into the kingdom of his 
 dear Son — a revival from the state of death 
 and condemnation, in which, as descendants 
 of the first Adam, we were naturally born, to 
 a state of salvation, in which, through the 
 second Adam, we are made capable of spiri- 
 tual life, and so of life eternal. And no one 
 can regard it as too glowing an expression, to 
 call this change our regeneration, our second 
 birth as God's children, if he considers how 
 great a blessing it is to be received into cove- 
 nant with God, to be delivered from hea- 
 thenish ignorance and the powers of darkness, 
 and translated into the kingdom of his dear 
 Son. Nor can the nature of the blessing hereby 
 conveyed be mistaken by any reasonable man. 
 Like all other God's blessings, it is a blessing 
 to those alone who seek to profit by it. 
 
 Col. i 13. 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 19 
 
 Irenaeus, though he speaks of infants as 
 regenerated to God, most earnestly urges the 
 necessity of hving as Christians, that we may 
 reap the benefits of the Christian covenant ; 
 but he always urges this as being in our own 
 power, as depending on our own diligence, and 
 presses it as St. Paul's exhortation ', " that we 
 should by faith and holy conversation keep in 
 us the Spirit of God, lest, by losing his fellow- 
 ship, we should lose the kingdom of heaven." 
 He reminds us of that apostle's words " as 
 many^ as are led by the Spirit of God, they are 
 the sons of God." Nor was he unacquainted 
 with St. John's Epistle, so often urged against 
 the received interpretation of my text, as com- 
 ing from the pen of the same writer ; in which 
 the expression, "born of God," occurs more 
 frequently than in any other part of the New 
 Testament, always, as is alleged, without any 
 reference to baptism ; always, as is evident, 
 applied to those alone who are sincere Christ- 
 ians. 
 
 That the expression of itself refers to bap- 
 tism as the time, when the power to become a 
 sincere Christian began to be given, is at least 
 probable, from the fact, that this is the very 
 
 ' Adv. Hscres. I;. V. c. 9. ' Rom. viii. 14. 
 C 2 
 
20 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 name, by which the grace of that sacrament is 
 continually described by all the early fathers of 
 the Church ; and that St. John, in this epis- 
 tle, did allude to the initiating sacrament, may 
 further appear from his calling' the grace, 
 which enabled them to comprehend what they 
 had heard from the beginning, the anomting of 
 the Holy One ; and to anoint is to consecrate, 
 and in this sense is expressly apphed to the 
 baptism of Christ. 
 
 But, even if this be not allowed, I cannot 
 see from this Epistle any reason for supposing 
 that another regeneration than that of baptism 
 is necessary, that we may enter into the king- 
 dom of heaven. In it, St. John tells his hearers, 
 not that they must be born of God, in order 
 that they may not sin, but that they must not 
 sin, in order that they may shew themselves to 
 have been truly bom of God. He does not 
 say, ye must be born of God, that his seed, 
 the word, may remain in you ; but, let the 
 word, — that which ye have heard from the 
 beginning, remain in you, and ye shall conti- 
 nue in the Son and in the Father. Acknow- 
 ledging that they are now the children of God, 
 he expressly declares, that he "writes^ to 
 
 ' 1 John ii. 20. 27. cont. 24. lb. ii. 1. 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 21 
 
 them that they sin not." And how does he 
 win obedience to this exhortation ? he reminds 
 them, " what * manner of love the Father hath 
 bestowed upon them, that they should be 
 called the sons of God ;" and then he reminds 
 them, what manner of life a sense of that 
 love ought to prompt them to lead. He that 
 is born of God doth not practise sin; "he^ 
 overcometh the world, he keepeth himself, and 
 the wicked one toucheth him not." If there 
 seems to be any difficulty in reconciling these 
 words of St. John with our interpretation of 
 his words in my text, let it be considered, that 
 to be born of God, to be made his child, is the 
 same thing as to be made a Christian ; and if 
 I say, all who are baptized are made Christ- 
 ians, and again, a Christian cannot allow 
 himself in sin, no one will think these state- 
 ments inconsistent, or be at a loss to luider- 
 stand, that in the one I speak of a Christian 
 in privilege, in the other, of a Christian not in 
 privilege only, but in principle and in practice 
 also ; and this is what St. John here means by 
 " one born of God." 
 
 Of many propositions in this Epistle, the 
 subject must be understood in its fullest sense. 
 
 1 John iii. 1, 2. 
 
 ^ lb. V. 4. 18. 
 
22 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 that we may feel their force and truth : — for 
 instance, " every one that has in him the hope 
 of seeing and being hke to Christ at his ap- 
 pearing, purifieth himself even as Christ is 
 pure." The subject here is, he that has this 
 hope profitably, that has it constantly present 
 to his mind and influencing his conduct ; 
 such an one will endeavour to purify himself 
 after the example of our Lord : and so the ex- 
 pression " born of God" is to be taken for one 
 having that blessing, and having withal a just 
 sense of the importance of profiting by it ; and 
 such an one cannot sin — it is morally impossible 
 such an one should allow himself in the practice 
 of sin. All that is essential to regeneration, 
 for it to be complete, is that God should adopt 
 us as his children, graft us into his Church, and 
 give us a covenant-claim to those continual 
 helps of the Holy Spirit, which may enable us 
 to live according to his word : but it is essen- 
 tial to regeneration, for it to be profitable to 
 us, that we receive not this grace in vain, that 
 we exert ourselves to walk worthy of our call- 
 ing, to become like our heavenly Father, and 
 as his children, strive to follow the example of 
 his first-born, Christ, our Lord. And what 
 stronger, what more encouraging motive can 
 we have for this exertion, than the remem- 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 23 
 
 brance of his love, his parental care and 
 kindness towards us. Being his ' sons and 
 his daughters, we must therefore cleanse our- 
 selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit ; 
 being born again ^ we must therefore lay aside 
 all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and 
 envies, and evil speaking ; being begotten of 
 God ^ we must therefore lay apart all super- 
 fluity of naughtiness, and receive with meek- 
 ness the engrafted word, which is able to save 
 our souls. Such is the language of Scripture, 
 and such is the doctrine of the Church. 
 
 But for those, who having been admitted at 
 their baptism to this glorious privilege, the 
 adoption as children of God, yet live in a total 
 neglect of their high calling, are they to be 
 told that they must now be born again ? 
 Can their case be regarded as no worse than 
 that of the heathen, to whom the Gospel and 
 its privileges have never been given ? These 
 privileges, it is true, cannot be of service to 
 those who have never learnt to value them. 
 To have been born again, to have received 
 life, is nothing, except that life be supported 
 by its proper food. Hence the great commis- 
 
 ' 2 Cor. vi. 18. ; vii. 1. ' 1 Pet. i. 23. ; ii. 1. 
 ^ James i. 18. ^1. 
 
24 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 sion of regeneration was not to baptize only, 
 but to baptize and to teach ; and to say no- 
 thing of what is now the more rare case, that 
 of persons baptized at riper years, our Church 
 baptizes no infants without receiving a pledge 
 that they shall be taught the truths of the 
 Gospel, except when it is to be feared death 
 may hurry the little innocent away, before it 
 can have a knowledge of duty or of sin. How 
 much religion has suffered from a neglect of 
 this pledge in the sponsors, it is not my pur- 
 pose now to enquire. I only say, they solemnly 
 pledge themselves at the font to see that the 
 child be brought up to lead a godly and a 
 Christian life — a life according to that its 
 Christian beginning ; and even where the spon- 
 sors may have altogether neglected their duty, 
 under the most unfavourable circumstances, if 
 they, who have been admitted into the pale of 
 the Christian Church, and live amongst Christ- 
 ians, are wholly ignorant of their Christian 
 calling, their ignorance has not the same ex- 
 cuse with that of the poor heathen, to whom 
 preachers have never been sent. If Christ 
 had not called them, they had not had sin ; 
 but though they had been baptized in all the 
 unconsciousness of infancy, yet as they have 
 grown up, the sight of our Churches through- 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 25 
 
 out the land, the weekly observance of the 
 Lord's day, the outward practice of sincere 
 Christians around them, these visible circum- 
 stances of religion have been a witness to them 
 that there is what they have to learn ; by 
 these Christ has called them, and their neglect 
 of the call has been a wilful sin. They may 
 have been standing all their life's day idle, but 
 they cannot say, no one has hired them. 
 Surely to represent their sad case aright, we 
 must shew them the guilt of their past neglect, 
 not throw a veil over it, by telling them they 
 must now be born again ; we must shew them 
 the guilt of having neglected to learn God's 
 word, and so to seek the aid of his Holy Spiiit 
 in obeying it, not teach them to expect a sanc- 
 tifying influence on their hearts, which it had 
 not been in their power to seek and obtain be- 
 fore ; we must tell them they need not so 
 much to be made, as to make themselves truly 
 God's children, by that same help, which, 
 though they, thoughtless and thankless, have 
 slighted it, has yet been continually offered 
 them. 
 
 To every Christian, indeed, the remembrance 
 of that marvellous manner of love the Father 
 hath bestowed upon us, that we should be 
 called His children, must be a most cogent 
 
26 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 motive, that in all our life and conversation 
 we strive to bear ourselves harmless, blame- 
 less \ the sons of God, walking as becomes the 
 children of our Father in heaven. And to our 
 exertions we must add our prayers for the aid 
 of the Holy Spirit, promised to be given to 
 the prayers of all in the Christian covenant. 
 For if a man cannot enter into that covenant, 
 except by the grace of the Holy Spirit, then 
 given when it is sought in baptism, if we 
 cannot enter into the kingdom of God, except 
 we be born again of water and the Spirit ; that 
 same heavenly aid, which was necessary to 
 our entrance on a Christian life, must be 
 necessary to us at every step and turn, that 
 we may continue to walk therein ; to restore, 
 renew, and revive those who have fallen away ; 
 to confirm the feeble endeavours of those who 
 are struggling against temptations ; to advance 
 all to greater degrees of holiness, that we, who 
 at the font were made babes in Christ and 
 children of God, may grow in grace, and be 
 strengthened in the knowledge and the prac- 
 tice of our duties, till we attain those fixed 
 and settled habits of godliness and virtue, till 
 we come to that measure of piety, which may 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 27 
 
 be regarded as the full growth of a Christian : 
 then, if v/e thus cherish within us the seed of 
 spiritual life given at our first regeneration, we 
 may look forward in the full assurance of 
 hope to receive eternal hfe in that second 
 regeneration ', when the Son of Man shall 
 sit on the throne of his glory. 
 
 The case of adults receiving baptism in 
 insincerity, without true repentance and faith, 
 has been designedly omitted in the foregoing 
 discourse, because the attempt to shew that 
 such persons are regenerated by their baptism 
 seems not to be warranted by Scripture, and 
 to offend many who might otherwise embrace 
 the truly Scriptural doctrine of our Church. 
 If such persons unhappily should continue 
 unto death in their impenitence and unbelief, 
 no one will say, they have been made God's 
 children ; if, on the other hand, they should 
 sincerely repent and believe, and give proof 
 of this by their honest endeavours to live as 
 Christians, no one will deny, they have received 
 the Spirit of adoption : but whether in this 
 case they have been regenerated by means of 
 
 ' Matt. xix. 28. 
 
28 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 the Sacrament they slighted, or by means of 
 their penitence for that presumptuous sin, we 
 surely are not called upon to determine. Dr. 
 Waterland contends that baptism to them is 
 hke an indenture, which at the font is exe- 
 cuted on one side only, and gives them a title 
 to the Christian's inheritance when it becomes 
 executed on their side also : and he argues, that 
 they were put into a Christian state at their 
 baptism, because otherwise they would remain 
 as Pagans, till a new baptism should make 
 them Christians. But this argument, by which 
 he would support his opinion, is very unsatis- 
 factory. That baptism is never to be repeated, 
 all allow, though it may happen to be repeated 
 unknowingly, if there have been a doubt whe- 
 ther in the first instance it was rightly admin- 
 istered, with the matter and the form of words 
 which Christ prescribed ; but if nothing was 
 wanting on the administration of the Sacra- 
 ment but a proper frame of mind in him who 
 received it, assuredly it may not on this account 
 be administered again, for this among other 
 reasons, because none can see the secrets of 
 the heart, and say, that he, who has once been 
 insincere on such an occasion, may not be 
 insincere again : God's sacraments are not to 
 be trifled with : and the natural punishment 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 29 
 
 of the sin above described, is that such an one 
 deprives himself of the comfortable assurance 
 of his adoption, which he might have had, if 
 he had received it at the font. That his sin 
 indeed is pardoned, and all its consequences 
 removed on his faith and repentance, none 
 will doubt : but I do not think all will allow, 
 that his baptism has been the means of pro- 
 curing his pardon, and consequent adoption 
 as a child of God. Baptism is the appointed 
 means of man's " regeneration' unto God :" it is 
 generalhj necessary in order that we may be 
 made God's children, and placed in a state of 
 salvation. Yet there may be those whom 
 God regenerates in other ways : adult con- 
 verts, for instance, who before they have been 
 baptized with water, have suffered martyrdom 
 for the faith, have always been regarded in 
 their deaths as ^ regenerate and incorporated 
 
 1 Iren. Adv. Haer. L. I. c. 18. 
 
 ' This, says Tertullian, speaking of martyrdom, is a 
 "baptism, which stands in the place of the washing by water, 
 if it has not been received, and restores it, if it has been 
 lost." De Baptismo, c. 16. After urging the necessity of 
 baptism, our new birth of water and of the Spirit, the seal 
 and assurance of the grace of God, Jewell adds, that "the 
 outward baptism by water is not necessary to salvation, so 
 
30 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 members of Christ's Church, having been 
 " baptized with the very baptism, that Christ 
 was baptized withal." And besides this. Bp. 
 Jewel allows, there may be a baptism of the 
 Spirit, where that by water cannot be obtained. 
 
 The doctrine of our Church is, that " the 
 Sacraments have a wholesome ' effect and 
 operation in such only as worthily receive 
 the same :" as to little children, whose guile- 
 less innocency we all must imitate, who in 
 this their spiritual regeneration receive (to 
 use Cyprian's ^ expression) " remission not of 
 their own sins, but of those of another," it 
 cannot be said of them, that they do not 
 receive the sacrament of baptism worthily, 
 that there is in them any bar to the promised 
 
 that they that die without it, are for lack thereof damned. 
 The Clmrch hath always received three sorts of baptism ; 
 the baptism of the Spirit, or of blood, or of water. If any 
 were prevented by death, or hindered by cruelty or perse- 
 cution, so that they could not receive the sacrament of 
 baptism at the hands of the ministers, yet having the sanc- 
 tification of the Holy Ghost, or making their faith known 
 by their suffering, they were born anew and baptized." — 
 A Treatise of the Sacraments, gathered out of Sermons 
 which Bp. Jewell preached at Salisbury. P. 26. London. 
 1603. 
 
 ' Art. XXV. 
 
 ' Cypriani Epist. LIX. Routh's Rel. Sacr. iii. p. 77. 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 31 
 
 blessing : but as to adults, the Article above 
 quoted expressly declares that baptism has no 
 wholesome effect in them, if they receive it in 
 insincerity and unbehef. Again, our service 
 for baptizing adults carefully describes the 
 persons to be baptized as "truly repenting 
 and coming to Christ by faith :" if, then, they 
 are not the persons so described, the blessing 
 pronounced is not pronounced of them. And 
 thus in our Liturgy, where blessings are de- 
 clared to have been conferred, they are declared 
 to have been conferred on those alone who are 
 or have been such as the persons receiving 
 them are there described. 
 
 It has been attempted, indeed, to carry this 
 principle further in the baptismal services, and 
 it has been said, that persons baptized are 
 there declared regenerate only on the suppo- 
 sition that thei/ will thereafter live as Christ- 
 ians : but they who advance this interpreta- 
 tion, must themselves allow it to be untenable, 
 if they will but consider, first, that in the very 
 place where our Church pronounces of all 
 infants, and of all adults who in repentance 
 and faith have received the holy rite, that 
 they are, in their baptism, regenerate and 
 grafted into the body of Christ's Church, she 
 makes it the subject of her prayer, that they 
 
32 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 may continue God's servants, may abolish the 
 whole body of sin, and may lead the rest of 
 their hves according to that of its Christian 
 beginning ; and secondly, that in the office for 
 the private baptism of infants, in which, as it 
 is only to be administered on the apprehension 
 of death, there is no stipulation for the child's 
 future manner of life, the baptism is here also 
 immediately followed by thanksgiving to God, 
 that "it hath pleased Him to regenerate the 
 child with his Holy Spirit." 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST 
 THE SPIRITUAL GRACE OF THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 John vi. 53, 54. 
 
 Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except ye eat thejlesh of the 
 Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 
 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal 
 life ; and I will raise him up at the last day. 
 
 These words, we are told, appeared an hard 
 saying, so that many of his disciples went 
 back and walked with Jesus no more. They 
 knew not the way, in which he would give his 
 flesh and his blood for the life of the world. 
 But to us, to whom that knowledge has been 
 given, as to the twelve, these words of eternal 
 life may appear to have arisen naturally, and 
 after our Saviour's usual manner, from the oc- 
 casion which suggested them. It was his usual 
 manner of instruction to turn passing events to 
 the spiritual improvement of his hearers ; and 
 n 
 
34 
 
 SERMON II, 
 
 the earnestness with which the people had fol- 
 lowed him after the miraculous feeding of the 
 five thousand, furnished an occasion to lead 
 their thoughts, by a natural transition, from 
 the food of the body to the more important 
 food of the soul; from the life which bread 
 sustains, to the life which is sustained by every 
 word that proceeds from the mouth of God. 
 " Labour not," says our Lord, " for the meat 
 that perisheth, but for the meat that endureth 
 to everlasting hfe :" and when they, rightly 
 understanding the precept, ask, " What are 
 the works of God, in which we are to labour ?" 
 he answers them, " This is the work of God, 
 that ye believe on him whom he hath sent ;" 
 and they ask for some sign, some miracle done, 
 as a proof that they should beheve on him, as 
 the gift of manna in the wilderness was a sign 
 and proof to their forefathers that they should 
 believe Moses ; and Jesus said, " I am the true, 
 the living bread, which came down from hea- 
 ven ; he that eateth this bread, he that eateth 
 me, he that believeth on me, shall Hve for 
 ever ; and the bread that I will give, is my 
 flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. 
 Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat 
 the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his 
 blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 35 
 
 my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal 
 life ; and I will raise him up at the last day." 
 To eat, then, the flesh of the Son of man, and 
 drink his blood, to feed on this Uving bread 
 from heaven, is to believe on him crucified, 
 on him giving his flesh and his blood for the 
 life of the world ; it is to gather nourishment 
 and strength for our souls, to gain an interest 
 in all the benefits of his passion, by receiving 
 his words with faith, and by fixing our 
 thoughts, our hopes, and affections, on the 
 mighty sacrifice, which tells us the deep guilt 
 of sin in the price required for its pardon ; 
 which tells us the certainty of pardon to all 
 who seek it with true penitence and lively 
 faith ; and which tells us of the boundless love 
 of God, who spared not to use these marvel- 
 lous means for our salvation. To them that 
 thus spiritually feed on him, his flesh is meat 
 indeed, his blood is drink indeed, — are truly 
 meat and drink, as truly giving health, and 
 strength, and life. Not hke the manna in the 
 wilderness, which gave life to the body only, 
 and that for a season, this true bread from 
 heaven gives both spiritual and eternal life 
 both to body and soul. " I will raise him up," 
 said Christ, " at the last day." Whosoever so 
 eat his flesh and drink his blood, they abide in 
 I) 2 
 
36 
 
 SERMON 11. 
 
 Christ and Christ in them ; they abide in the 
 love of Christ, and his words, which are 
 spirit, which are Ufe, which convey to all that 
 desire it the aid of the Spirit, and thereby 
 convey spiritual and eternal life through him, 
 his words abide in them : and we know, that 
 as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except 
 it abide in the vine, no more can we, except 
 we thus abide in Christ. Christ is the vine, 
 we are the branches. 
 
 It is sometimes supposed, that in the strong 
 and striking expressions of my text, our Lord 
 alluded to the sacrament of his body and blood, 
 which he instituted just a year from this time. 
 But there does not seem to be sufficient reason 
 for this supposition, which gives them a sense, 
 in which they could not have been understood 
 at all by his hearers at the time he uttered 
 them ; and yet, as in the institution of that 
 sacrament, so probably here also, his words 
 had reference to the same thing — the eating 
 the flesh of the paschal lamb in commemora- 
 tion of the blood once sprinkled for the deliver- 
 ance of Israel. As at his last supper, so now 
 also, the thought of this flesh and of this blood 
 was uppermost in the minds of his hearers; 
 for now the feast of the Jews, the Passover, 
 was nigh ; and this reference would have been 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 37 
 
 understood by them all, as far as they had 
 understood the Baptist's exclamation on seeing 
 Jesus, " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh 
 away the sins of the world !" 
 
 But though I hold, in the language of one 
 whose authority must ever be respected in 
 this place, the martyred Cranmer, that, in my 
 text, Christ " spake ' not of sacramental eat- 
 ing, but of spiritual eating by faith, after which 
 sort he was at the same present time eaten of 
 as many as believed on him, although the 
 sacrament was not at that time made and in- 
 stituted ;" yet, from the time of its institution, 
 these his words bind all Christians to live in 
 the habit of often receiving that holy sacrament 
 with a force which none can elude, who seek 
 to draw their rule of life from the book of 
 God's Word. The spiritual feeding on Christ, 
 which is here declared necessary to us under 
 the dreadful alternative of life or of death, is 
 the very grace which that sacrament conveys. 
 In this essential truth the whole Christian 
 Church has always agreed ; the mode in which 
 the blessing is conveyed being the only point 
 on which there has been any difference of 
 opinion. 
 
 ' See the Fathers of the English Church, III. .'S86. 
 London, 1807. 
 
38 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 And here the whole question has been, in 
 what sense our Lord said of the bread, " This 
 is my body," and of the cup, " This is my 
 blood." Some, indeed, have allowed no greater 
 force to these words than if it had been said. 
 This is a sign of my body or blood. But 
 passing by this interpretation as far beneath 
 both the expression and the occasion, the 
 different opinions of Christians on this point 
 may be classed under these two heads — they 
 who understand that the consecrated elements 
 are called the body and blood of Christ, be- 
 cause they are such in power and in effect, 
 and they who understand they are so called, 
 because they are such in their very substance 
 also. 
 
 To this last class both the Roman and the Lu- 
 theran Churches belong. The Roman Church 
 maintains, that though the form, colour, smell, 
 taste, in short, all the accidents of bread and 
 wine remain after their consecration the same 
 as they were before, yet their substance is 
 wholly gone and changed into the substance 
 of the body and blood of Christ, which alone 
 remain under these accidents of bread and wine. 
 The Lutherans, to guard alike against this 
 Roman conceit, and that of the Zuinglians 
 degrading the consecrated elements into mere 
 
 12 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 39 
 
 signs, maintain, that, after consecration, the 
 bread and wine remain indeed unchanged, but 
 that with them the body and blood of Christ 
 are really and substantially present. 
 
 But neither the Lutheran doctrine of con- 
 substantiation, nor the Roman doctrine of 
 transubstantiation, agree with the language of 
 Scripture ; and, on this account, not for their 
 strangeness, we reject them. The Lutherans, 
 without a shadow of such authority, assert 
 the presence of two substances in each of the 
 consecrated elements. The Romanists, with 
 apparently more reason, contend that theirs 
 is the literal interpretation of our Saviour's 
 words. Here, however, the literal interpre- 
 tation cannot stand. Not to dwell on points 
 so often urged, Christ declaring of the bread, 
 " This is my body broken," of the cup, " This 
 is my blood which is shed," at that time his 
 body not having been broken, nor his precious 
 blood been shed ; and again, the consecrated 
 elements being continually spoken of in Scrip- 
 ture as still being what they were, St. Paul 
 still calling them the bread and the cup, 
 and Christ himself still calling this last the 
 fruit of the vine, — it has often appeared to me, 
 that a slight variation of expression in the 
 different accounts of the institution, (as if it 
 
40 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 had been done by design) most conclusively 
 shews that the words are to be understood, 
 not literally, but in a spiritual sense. In 
 St. Matthew and St. Mark we read, Christ 
 said of the cup, " This is my blood of the 
 new testament." In St. Paul, and his com- 
 panion St. Luke, Christ's words are, " This 
 cup is the new testament in my blood." Now 
 these last words will not admit a literal inter- 
 pretation ; but if we understand them in a 
 spiritual and sacramental sense, as giving them 
 the fullest force they will bear ; if we under- 
 stand that Christ said. This is, because it is in 
 effect, because it is, not a mere sign or token, 
 but the very means of conveying the spiritual 
 benefits signified by it, it matters not whether 
 those spiritual benefits be called his blood 
 dedicating the new testament, or the new tes- 
 tament dedicated by his blood : either expres- 
 sion signifies precisely the same thing, namely, 
 the blessings which, under that covenant, the 
 shedding of his blood has purchased for us. 
 It is a most cogent argument for the correct- 
 ness of this interpretation, that it fits, with 
 equal propriety, either of the expressions of 
 the inspired writers, and shews that, in either 
 case, with equal fidelity, they expressed the 
 sense of the very words our Saviour used. 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 41 
 
 In this spiritual and sacramental sense then, 
 we understand those words, remembering that 
 Christ himself taught us, that his words in my 
 text, so closely allied to them, are to be spiri- 
 tually understood ; and that his flesh and 
 blood, on which he bade us feed, should not 
 remain on earth, but should ascend with him 
 to heaven. " Does this offend you ?" said he 
 to his disciples, " What and if ye shall see the 
 Son of man ascend up where he was before ? 
 It is the Spirit that quickenetli ; the flesh pro- 
 fiteth nothing." We believe that Christ is 
 truly and really present in his sacrament ; not 
 substantially, indeed, either in the bread and 
 wine, as the Romanists hold, nor with them, 
 as the Lutherans suppose, but spiritually, in 
 the hearts and souls of all faithful communi- 
 cants. When our Church, in her catechism, 
 declares, that the body and blood of Christ are 
 verily and indeed taken and received by the 
 faithful in the Lord's Supper, she declares that 
 his body and blood are an inward and spiritual 
 grace, and that the faithful alone so receive them. 
 
 That the primitive Church believed, not a 
 corporeal and substantial, but a spiritual pre- 
 sence of Christ in the sacrament, has been 
 amply shewn (among other Protestant writers) 
 by Archbishop Cranmer, and, in later times. 
 
42 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 by Dr. Waterland, in their Treatises on this 
 subject ; and with the hght of their criticisms 
 we can be at no loss to interpret correctly the 
 writings of the early days. The expression, 
 indeed, so frequently used by the Fathers, 
 that in this sacrament our bodies are fed by 
 the body and blood of Christ, may, perhaps, 
 appear to some minds a strong expression : 
 yet our Reformers constantly urged this very 
 expression ' as an argument against the gross 
 notion of a corporeal and substantial presence, 
 and appealed to the principle laid down by 
 St. Austin, that the heinousness and wicked- 
 ness involved in the very idea of literally eating 
 the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, 
 was conclusive against such an interpretation. 
 The expression, no doubt, meant nothing 
 more than that a blessing is assured to our 
 bodies, since they are nourished with food 
 consecrated to so high a purpose ; just as, in 
 the admirable catechism^ of Nowel, (which, 
 sanctioned as it was by the full and deli- 
 berate approval of the assembled clergy, is a 
 standing summary of the doctrines of our 
 
 ' Cranmer on Sacr. B. III. English Fathers, III. p. 431. 
 and Ridley, ibid. IV. p. 195. 
 
 ' Strype's Life of Abp. Parker, III. 17. Synod of 15G2, 
 though not published till 1570. 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 43 
 
 Church,) it is said, that not only our souls 
 are nourished by the sacred body and blood, 
 as their appropriate food, but that, as our 
 bodies also receive the symbols of eternal life, 
 a pledge is given of their resurrection and 
 immortality. Irenseus, indeed, plainly shews, 
 that it is not the substance of Christ's body 
 and blood, by which he declares our bodies to 
 be fed. " How^" says he, "shall they deny the 
 flesh to be capable of eternal life, when it is 
 fed by the body and blood of Christ, and is 
 member of him, just as St. Paul says to the 
 Ephesians, ' We are members of his body, 
 and of his flesh, and his bones.' " And if we 
 consider how much what purifies the soul, the 
 seat and source of thought, purifies the body 
 also, its instrument of action, it is not too 
 much, perhaps, to say, that in this most solemn 
 act of devotion we receive an earnest of that 
 spiritualising power, when our sinful bodies 
 shall be made clean by Christ's body, and His 
 precious body and blood shall preserve us both 
 in body and soul. 
 
 It is not denied that the early Fathers, in 
 speaking of this sacrament, often employed a 
 stronger language than we should now em- 
 
 Iren. Adv. Haercs. V. c. 2. 
 
44 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 ploy; as where Irenaeus not only says, that 
 the consecrated bread is no longer " common 
 bread, but that it consists of two things, an 
 earthly and an heavenly V — an expression 
 which, whatever the Romanists may make of 
 it, the Lutherans certainly may appeal to in 
 support of their doctrine ; — but his comparison, 
 just now cited, between Christ's mystical body, 
 the Church, and His body given in the sacra- 
 ment, makes it clear that this was not the 
 doctrine of Irenaeus ; and his learned editor. 
 Dr. Grabe, has satisfactorily accounted for the 
 strong language of the primitive Fathers, on 
 the Eucharist, by shewing, that it was the 
 general belief, in those early days, that, as the 
 Church is called the body of Christ, because 
 His Spirit dwells amongst her members ; so 
 the bread and wine are called His body and 
 blood, because His Spirit and life-giving power 
 are communicated first to these symbols on 
 their consecration, and, by their means, to the 
 souls of all who receive them worthily. 
 
 We hold then, in common with the primi- 
 tive Church, that the consecrated elements are 
 the body and blood of Christ, because they are 
 so not in substance, but in effect and in power. 
 
 Ibid. IV. c. 34. 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 45 
 
 We hold, in common with them, that these 
 are the means and instruments, whereby He is 
 verily and indeed present in the souls of all 
 faithful communicants. In the interpretation 
 of all the Scripture says on the subject, we 
 altogether agree : the only difference appears 
 in the very nice and subtle question, whether 
 the blessing is first imparted to the instrument 
 which conveys it to us. Many of the early 
 writers of the Church seem to have conceived 
 that this was so \ as if this was necessary, in 
 order that the sacred elements may be the 
 means of conveying grace to us. We only 
 teach that these spiritual blessings are commu- 
 nicated to our souls on receiving the bread 
 and wine as Christ appointed ; and as it un- 
 doubtedly seems more accurate to say that 
 spiritual gifts are communicated to spiritual 
 natures than to the inanimate symbols, it is 
 but reasonable to think, that these holy men 
 of old, when speaking of this sacrament, only 
 
 ' Even of the waters used in baptism, Tertullian says, 
 that, after the prayer of consecration, " The Spirit from 
 heaven moves over the face of the waters, sanctifying them 
 himself, and they thus receiving sanctification, receive at 
 the same time the power of sanctifying." — De Baptism, 
 c. 4 ; Bishop Kaye's Eccles. Hist, illus. from Tertull. 
 p. 433. 
 
46 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 gave vent to their feelings of pious gratitude in 
 a warm and unconstrained language ; whereas 
 they would have expressed themselves with 
 more guard and caution, could they have fore- 
 seen the countenance their language has since 
 given to the notion of a substantial and corpo- 
 ral presence, and thereby to the strange and 
 pernicious errors, of supposing the body and 
 blood of Christ in this sacrament ' received by 
 any who are void of a lively faith, of adminis- 
 tering the sacrament in one kind only as suffi- 
 cient, or of bending down before the elements 
 themselves in idolatrous worship. 
 
 And indeed, if the doctrine of a corporal 
 presence did not lead to such errors in opinion 
 and in practice, it would, perhaps, be of less 
 moment to point out its inconsistency with 
 holy writ. Were it not for these eiTors, it 
 would be a matter of less moment nicely to de- 
 termine, what the consecrated elements are in 
 themselves, so long as it be remembered, what 
 they are to us — so long as that alone be urged 
 as an essential article of belief, which the truth 
 of Scripture plainly requires, and the whole 
 Catholic Church in all her great branches 
 has always acknowledged, — namely, that in 
 
 * Ridley against Transubstant. Enchirid. Theol. I. p. 72, 
 or English Fathers, IV. p. 183. 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 47 
 
 this sacrament, as we receive the bread and 
 wine, the souls of faithful communicants are 
 strengthened and refreshed by the body and 
 blood of our crucified Lord. These are the 
 very appointed means, whereby we may spiri- 
 tually eat the flesh of the Son of man and 
 drink his blood, and therefore are to be thank- 
 fully received by all who believe in him that 
 appointed them, and seek through him eternal 
 life. 
 
 I do not mean to say, that at no other times 
 and by no other means can our souls feast on 
 this heavenly food. They, no doubt, who 
 live in the habit of receiving this sacrament 
 whenever occasion offers, at other times also 
 in their devotional exercises hold spiritual com- 
 munion with our Lord. They, again, who 
 from their tender years and unripe capacities 
 are not able justly to appreciate these myste- 
 rious means of grace, which are to be received 
 in remembrance of Christ, and by none but who 
 consider his body, they are not thereby de- 
 prived of the seed of eternal life through him, 
 but, having been baptized into his mystical 
 body, draw their spiritual sustenance from him, 
 who is the head, according to his effectual 
 working in the measure of every part. And 
 they again, as I hope, who are children, not 
 
48 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 in years, but in Christian knowledge, who have 
 not been instructed how to seek spiritual food 
 for their souls in this heavenly feast ; and they, 
 we may be sure, who heartily desire the com- 
 fort of this holy sacrament, but are debarred 
 from receiving it by some just impediment, and 
 by no default of their own ; these, if with un- 
 feigned repentance and stedfast faith they fix 
 their grateful hearts, their earnest minds on 
 J esus dying for their salvation, eat the flesh of 
 the Son of man and drink his blood profitably 
 to their souls' health, though they do not 
 receive this sacrament with their mouths. But 
 let not these exceptions, which the reason of 
 the case, with more or less force, points out, 
 be pressed beyond what that reason requires. 
 To all who can understand these mysteries, 
 and are invited to receive them, who have 
 learned to look beyond the visible elements set 
 before them, and by faith to lift up their hearts 
 to the Lord, they are the appointed means by 
 which we may spiritually eat the body of 
 Christ and drink his blood, and except we so 
 eat his flesh and drink his blood, we have no 
 life in us. 
 
 There is, indeed, a sect of Christians who 
 think nothing further obligatory than a mere 
 spiritual communion, and their ingenious apo- 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 49 
 
 legist has argued, that there is no more reason 
 for literally following the example of Christ 
 and his Apostles^ in taking bread and wine to 
 commemorate his death, than for literally fol- 
 lowing his example given them on the very 
 same occasion, to wash one another's feet, as 
 he, their Lord and Master, had washed their 
 feet. The argument is plausible ; but on an 
 attentive consideration of St. John's narrative 
 it appears, that by this act of condescending 
 love, which the Gospel history shews to have 
 been then the common practice of the country, 
 Christ did but illustrate the general principle 
 expressed in his new commandment, that we 
 should love one another after the pattern and 
 measure of his love for us ; and the only other 
 place \ where this particular practice is after- 
 wards mentioned in the New Testament, leads 
 to the inference, that it was not even there 
 regarded as an universal duty. With respect 
 to the sacraments, the case is widely different ; 
 and that in these it is our duty literally to do 
 what Christ has directed us to do, is placed 
 beyond the reach of controversy, by the 
 recorded practice of the Church, under the 
 guidance and government of the Apostles them- 
 
 1 Tim. V. 10. 
 
50 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 selves. To press the Quaker, in his rejection 
 of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, with 
 the mere words of its institution, would be as 
 idle as to press the Romanist, in his denial of 
 the cup to laymen, with the mere injunction 
 of Christ to his Apostles, " Drink ye all of 
 this ;" but when it is shewn that St. Paul has 
 taught us, the very words, in which this sacra- 
 ment was instituted, were addressed not to the 
 Apostles alone, but to all members of the 
 Church till the Lord shall come, both the 
 Quaker and the Romanist receive an answer, 
 which neither the one nor the other shall ever 
 be able to gainsay. 
 
 Whether, then, we regard them as our 
 Lord's last command on the night before his 
 suffering, or rather as a gracious iuAntation 
 then given for the welfare of his Church, to us 
 all are the words addressed, " Do this in 
 remembrance of me ;" and the bread we break, 
 and the cup we bless according to his appoint- 
 ment, we are assured, are to us the commu- 
 nion of that, his precious body and blood, 
 without which we have no life in us. And 
 who shall presume to think, that by any other 
 devotional exercises and meditations they feed 
 on the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, if 
 they yet live in a wilful neglect of this holy 
 
SERMON 11. 
 
 51 
 
 sacrament, which He instituted to quicken our 
 faith and love by quickening our remembrance 
 of Him ? 
 
 Christ, who knew what was in the heart of 
 man, — how much this world's affairs and trials 
 tend to draw it aside from heaven, knew that 
 this remembrance of him would be necessary 
 to support and strengthen, in their Christian 
 duties, even those who had been his constant fol- 
 lowers on earth, — the diligent, faithful hearers 
 of the truth from his own lips, — the ap- 
 pointed messengers to communicate that truth 
 to the world, when he returned to heaven. 
 They, one would think, could not but remem- 
 ber him ; yet to them he gave the gracious 
 precept, " Do this in remembrance of me." 
 What man hving, then, is there, who can think 
 he has less need of this continual remembrance 
 of Christ than they, his chosen companions 
 and Apostles, — the eye-witnesses of his suffer- 
 ing and of his glory ? 
 
 Such, then, being appointed by Christ as the 
 means, whereby our souls may be strengthened 
 and refreshed by his body and blood, whereby, 
 being kept in a thankful remembrance of him, 
 and consequently of our duties towards him, 
 we each may have a personal interest in his 
 sacrifice, no man can be said to lead the life of 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 a Christian, who neglects to seek in this sacra- 
 ment grace, and help, and strength for his 
 Christian warfare. These hallowed means of 
 grace, indeed, from their very nature, are not 
 designed for the earlier years of our boyhood ; 
 but we ought to be thankful that, from the 
 time we enter on that period of life when the 
 passions gain their fiill force, and a more free 
 and unconstrained intercourse with the world 
 opens the way to all its various temptations, 
 Christ has provided for us these continual 
 remembrancers of our Christian calling, to 
 draw us more closely to him, and strengthen 
 the bond of our union with his mystical body. 
 
 A consciousness, however, of the temptations 
 to which they are exposed from without and 
 from within, often has had the effect of de- 
 terring persons from receiving this sacrament, 
 which was given as the very means to enable 
 us more effectually to resist the tempter : such 
 persons on making that strict self-examination, 
 without which none should presume to eat 
 this bread and drink this cup, on searching 
 their past conduct and seeing what their fail- 
 ings have been, shrink back and fear to receive 
 the sacrament, lest afterwards, by falling again 
 into the same offences, they should become 
 doubly guilty in the sight of God, and so find 
 
SERMON IL 
 
 53 
 
 but death in the very food of life. If this 
 fear arises from any insincerity of mind, from 
 a cherished fondness for some favorite sin, a 
 secret conviction that they w^ill not endeavour 
 to break off the evil practice, such persons 
 certainly ought not to receive the sacrament 
 in such an unrepenting state of mind ; but let 
 them consider, Christ will never acknowledge 
 as his, those who wilfully persist in sin ; what- 
 ever be the favorite indulgence, though dear 
 as the right hand or the right eye, they must 
 pluck it away and cast it from them, if they 
 would be acknowledged as His : The choice 
 lies before them — if they choose the pleasures 
 of sin, whether they receive the sacrament or 
 not, they draw on their heads their own con- 
 demnation ; — and this is the very ground of 
 " the condemnation, that ' light is come into 
 the world, and men love darkness rather than 
 light, because their deeds are evil." — They, 
 while they continue in such a state, have 
 neither part nor lot in this matter : but if the 
 fear of offending after receiving the sacrament 
 arises only from a consciousness of their own 
 infirmity, which they yet heartily and sincerely 
 desire to overcome, if they have an honest pur- 
 
 Jolin iii. 19. 
 
54 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 pose to do what is right to the best of their 
 power, they may well seek to strengthen that 
 purpose and desire hy this remembrance of 
 their Saviour's passion. These are they that 
 travail and are heavy laden with a sense of 
 their infirmities ; to them Christ utters the 
 gracious words, " Come ' unto me, and I will 
 refresh you." If a man be insincere, when he 
 receives this sacrament, he makes light of the 
 solemn service, and provokes the vengeance of 
 the Almighty ; but if we are sincere, and really 
 seek by these means to strengthen our love of 
 God, He will support us under temptations, or, 
 if from human weakness we fall, will pardon 
 us on our repentance. 
 
 It appears from St. Luke", that Judas was 
 present when our Lord instituted the sacra- 
 ment of his body and blood ; but Judas could 
 not at that time have had any honesty or sin- 
 cerity of mind ; it was the interval between 
 his covenanting with the priests for the price, 
 and his accompHshment of the foulest treason 
 that ever stained the heart of man : that 
 sacrament was to him but an aggravation of 
 his guilt, a pledge of his condemnation. There 
 was also another of the twelve, who fell into sin 
 
 1 Matt. xi. 28. - Luke xxu. 21. 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 55 
 
 after having received the sacrament ; but 
 though Peter sunk under the trial which led 
 him to deny our Lord, there can be no ques- 
 tion of the honesty and sincerity of his heart 
 when he received the symbols of his Master's 
 body and blood : he received the sacrament 
 worthily, and his weakness was pardoned, and 
 his pardon and recovery pronounced before 
 his fall. 
 
 A consciousness of infirmity then, if it be 
 accompanied by a sincere desire to get the 
 better of that infirmity, so far from affording a 
 reason for neglecting this sacrament, should 
 prompt a man more earnestly to seek it, given 
 as it was, to strengthen our feeble purposes, 
 and help us under all temptations by a con- 
 tinual remembrance of Christ. Without sin- 
 cerity there can be no real religion — no benefit 
 from this or from any other religious exercise. 
 Except he be smcere in his desire to live ac- 
 cording to God's commands, no man can 
 imagine his soul in any way, measure, or 
 degi-ee, as drawing that sustenance fi-om the 
 flesh and blood of the Son of Man, without 
 which we have no life in us. Rather, looking 
 both to the necessity and to the blessing of 
 thus spiritually feeding on Christ, set before 
 us by himself, under the tremendous alterna- 
 
56 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 tive of life or of death ; let us all eagerly 
 embrace every opportunity of receiving the 
 sacrament of his body and blood, that by this 
 continual remembrance of his death, we may 
 make it the habitual frame of our minds, to 
 give ourselves wholly to him, and draw from 
 him the hope and means of life; for the 
 benefit of this sacrament is not confined to 
 the time and moment of receiving it ; but as 
 our natural food supports our bodies, so this 
 supernatural and spiritual food also, digested 
 in the heart, keeps up the general strength 
 and health of the soul : the sense of the guilt 
 of receiving it unworthily, will serve to deter 
 from sin all who make it their constant practice 
 to receive it often ; and more, the grateful sense 
 of immortal love there displayed, will lay hold 
 of the best affections of their hearts, leaving no 
 lack of the most powerful motives, as it will 
 leave no lack of spiritual help, to dispose them 
 to act, and think, and feel, in all things as 
 becomes a Christian ; thus reahzing the gra- 
 cious promise, that they who feed on this 
 living bread, shall never hunger and never 
 thirst, and giving an earnest and a foretaste of 
 the yet more gracious promise of our Lord, 
 " I will raise them up to eternal life on the 
 last day." 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 IN WHAT RESPECTS 
 THE LAW IS ABOLISHED. 
 
 Gal. i. 25. 
 
 He which persecuted us in times past, now preacheth the 
 faith he once destroyed. 
 
 In considering the conversion of St. Paul, two 
 points immediately arrest our observation — 
 the extraordinary means by which it was 
 effected, and the previous character of the 
 Apostle. 
 
 He had been sent from his native place to 
 Jerusalem to be educated by Gamaliel a 
 teacher of the law of the highest reputation ; 
 and, under the instruction of such a master, 
 had profited in the Jews' religion^ above his 
 equals in age. Nor was it mere knowledge 
 he had acquired. They who knew his manner 
 
 ' Acts xxii. 
 
 = Gal. i. 
 
58 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 of life from his youth up, knew that he had 
 lived after the straitest sect, a Pharisee \ in 
 his strict obedience to the law, blameless. 
 Nay, that very offence for which, on another 
 occasion, he describes himself as "the chief 
 of sinners his persecution of the Church of 
 Christ, the Apostle himself tells us, was an 
 evidence ^ of his zeal for the Jews' religion : 
 " concerning zeal, persecuting the Church." 
 The whole nation had regarded it a religious 
 duty to stone to death all blasphemers against 
 the law, according to the ordinance by which 
 it had once been necessary to preserve their 
 rehgion pure and undefiled in the midst of 
 an idolatrous world : and as they looked on 
 Christians as blasphemers, as opposers of the 
 law the Lord had given, they wildly thought, 
 as Christ had foretold, that by killing them 
 they were " doing God a service." 
 
 Saul, young and warm in what he deemed 
 the service of religion, was among the foremost 
 in the exercise of this misguided, this strange, 
 this phrenzied zeal. In the midst of his mad 
 career, he was arrested by a voice from heaven, 
 " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ?" De- 
 voted to religion, though in error, Saul must 
 
 ' PhU. iii G ; Acts xxvi. 1, 5. ' I Tim i. 15. ' Phil. iii. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 59 
 
 have been strongly affected, if on his journey 
 towards Damascus he had been assured in 
 any ordinary manner, that they, against whom 
 his fury was bent, were truly the disciples of the 
 long promised Messiah, who regarded them 
 with so dear a love, that to persecute them 
 was to persecute him. With what irresistible 
 force then must the touching expostulation 
 have pierced his inmost soul, issuing from that 
 glorious light above the brightness of the sun, 
 which, as he beheld it, struck him blind? 
 The miracle too was wrought for him alone ; 
 the bystanders, his attendants, saw indeed the 
 light and heard the voice ; but they neither 
 suffered from the one, nor understood the 
 other. But Saul remained three days without 
 sight, fasting, — rapt, no doubt, in deep medi- 
 tation. That heavenly light, which had Winded 
 the outward organ, so much the rather " shone 
 inward, and his mind through all her powers 
 irradiated," that he might see and understand 
 those Scriptures which he had learnt at Gama- 
 hel's feet, and which he now perceived tes- 
 tify of Jesus, that he is the Christ. " God ', 
 who commanded the light to shine out of 
 
 ' 2 Cor. iv. 6. 
 12 
 
GO 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 darkness, shone then in his heart, to give the 
 light of the knowledge of the glory of God in 
 the face of Jesus Christ." After the three days, 
 by another miracle, his blindness was removed ; 
 there fell from his eyes as it had been scales, 
 and he received sight forthwith, and arose and 
 was baptized. 
 
 The conversion of St. Paul then, effected 
 by these miracles, has little or no resemblance 
 to the sudden conversions sometimes said to 
 take place in immoral and dissolute persons. 
 Saul had not to begin the task of controuhng 
 the desires of the flesh, and the humours of 
 the will, from a sense of duty to God ; in this 
 practice he had been trained up from his 
 youth ; here his habits had been formed ; he 
 had only to pursue the same course from a 
 better principle, and with an enlightened 
 mind. His conversion was an enlightening of 
 his understanding, not a change of his moral 
 habits ; from a conscientious, zealous, but 
 mistaken Jew, he became a conscientious, 
 zealous, and right-minded Christian. And yet, 
 provided we do not lose sight of the dis- 
 tinguishing features of his case, the high 
 favor shown to this Apostle is a fit argument 
 of comfort to all who are brought with since- 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 61 
 
 rity of heart to acknowledge the Lord. " For 
 this cause says he, " I obtained mercy, that 
 in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all 
 long-suffering, for a pattern to them which 
 should hereafter believe on Him." 
 
 But the more important end effected by St. 
 Paul's conversion, was that he might bear the 
 name of the Lord before the Gentiles and before 
 the children of Israel. He who had acquired a 
 perfect knowledge of the Jews' rehgion, who 
 had learned the law with all the errors the 
 prejudices of his countrymen had grafted on 
 it, and whose zeal for the traditions of their 
 fathers was known to all by his persecu- 
 tion of the Christian Church, he was the 
 chosen vessel to preach the faith he once 
 destroyed, and to teach mankind, that the law 
 and the covenant given by Moses, had been 
 designed to continue for a time only, and to 
 be displaced in the latter days, or rather to be 
 fulfilled by the everlasting Gospel of Christ. 
 
 Besides their expectation of the Messiah as 
 a temporal prince, the Jews found an obstacle 
 to the reception of the Christian faith, in its 
 supposed opposition to the law and customs 
 of Moses. This respect for their ancient 
 
 1 Tim. i. IG. 
 
62 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 religion, bound up with their very existence 
 as a nation, and, above all, sanctioned by the 
 word of God himself, was deeply seated in 
 their hearts, and grounded on their best affec- 
 tions. And though that rehgion, if rightly 
 understood, would have led them to Christ, 
 the people at large were otherwise taught by 
 the Priests, and Scribes, and Pharisees, to 
 whom as sitting in Moses' seat, it was their 
 duty to look for instruction — " We are Moses' 
 disciples," — they were taught to say — " We 
 know ^ that God spake unto Moses : as for this 
 man, we know not whence he is." The first 
 disciples of Christ, being poor and unlearned 
 men, were represented as misled by their 
 ignorance, while the unbelief of those who were 
 distinguished for their knowledge of the law, 
 was urged as a forcible argument against the 
 faith in Jesus : " Have * any of the Rulers or 
 Pharisees," it was demanded, "beheved on 
 him ? but this people is accursed," have lost 
 the blessing of Israel, because they "know 
 not the law." 
 
 And it was not the unbelievers only among 
 the Jews, who were prejudiced by a misguided 
 
 ' Matt, xxiii. 2. ' John ix. 28, 29. 
 
 .lolm vii. 48, 49. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 63 
 
 reverence for the law. The Jewish converts 
 were too apt to imagine that their observance 
 of its ordinances gave them an advantage over 
 their Gentile brethren ; nay, it was long before 
 even the Apostles themselves were altogether 
 free from these prejudices — prejudices which 
 in them probably derived a strength from their 
 knowledge, how strictly Christ himself had 
 kept the law during his ministry. They did 
 not immediately perceive that the covenant 
 given to Moses was then to be set aside, when 
 the new covenant was dedicated and sealed 
 with the sacred blood. 
 
 Evil, whether in our thoughts or in our 
 feehngs, is never so difficult to contend against, 
 as when it is found entwined with good : the 
 consciousness of adhering to something which 
 is right, blinds the understanding, that it per- 
 ceives not the evil mingled with it : and as 
 the prejudices of Jews concerning the law 
 infected even those among them who beheved, 
 they coiTuptfed the very channel by which a 
 knowledge of Christianity was to be poured 
 out on the world. 
 
 To root out errors, so grounded in religious 
 feelings, so pernicious in their consequences, 
 it seems to have been ordained, that one who 
 had been taught according to the perfect 
 
64 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 manner of the law of their fathers, and who 
 in his zeal for it had outdone the Jewish 
 hierarchy itself, that Paul by a special grace 
 should be converted to the faith, in order that 
 he might declare to the world, the true rela- 
 tion the law bears to the Gospel. " He was ' 
 separated for this work from his mother's 
 womb." 
 
 And the election of St. Paul for this work 
 strikes us the more, as we consider that it was 
 St. Peter, to whom was given, with the keys 
 of the kingdom of heaven, the power (as Bishop 
 Horsley ^ interprets it) of loosing the obligation 
 of the law as to its temporary rites, and bind- 
 ing it as to its moral precepts ; and yet, though 
 St. Peter exercised this power of unlocking 
 the gates of the Church and opening them to 
 all mankind, both in that he declared, from the 
 vision revealed to him, that no man of any 
 nation is to be called unclean, unfit for God's 
 service, and in that he was the first to speak 
 in that apostohcal council, which released the 
 Gentile converts from the yoke of the cere- 
 monial law, save the precept of blood only, 
 
 ' Gal. i. 15. 
 
 ' This argument of Bishop Horsley will be found in 
 TertuUian, De Pudicitia, c. 21. See Bishop Kaye's 
 Eccles. Hist, illustrated from Tertull. 2d edit. p. 237. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 65 
 
 though he thus far fulfilled his office, loosing 
 on earth what shall be counted as loosed in 
 heaven ; yet, in no recorded document of his 
 preaching, neither in his discourses related in 
 the Acts, nor even in his Epistles, does he pur- 
 sue this subject further. He declares, indeed 
 Jesus to be the Christ of whom Moses and the 
 prophets spake; he applies to the Christian 
 Church the titles^ given to the children of Israel, 
 " a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar 
 people ;" but a single comparison of the blood 
 of Christ to that of the Paschal lamb, is all 
 that he declares of the true relation between 
 the Law and the Gospel. Nor is this subject 
 brought forward in the Epistles either of 
 St. John, or St. James, or St. Jude. To him 
 who once persecuted the Christians for their 
 supposed departure from the law, to St. Paul 
 it has been reserved to unfold this subject in 
 all its bearings, to remove the errors and the 
 prejudices of his countrymen, in which he had 
 himself so largely shared ; and by his perfect 
 knowledge of the law, as received by them, to 
 illustrate the faith he once destroyed. And 
 his doctrine forms an admirable commentary 
 on his great Master's words, (words which had 
 
 ' Acts ii. iii. and x. 43 ; 1 Pet. ii. 9, and i. 19. 
 " Exod. xix. 5, 6. 
 
 r 
 
66 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 a further scope than his own personal fulfil- 
 ment of it during his ministry), " I came not 
 to destroy the law, but to fulfil it." 
 
 It is an useful maxim to bear in mind, as 
 we study St. Paul's writings, that of every es- 
 sential doctrine of religion which is found there, 
 some intimation at least is to be found in the 
 records of our Saviour's ministry. The Gospel ' 
 of St. Paul and the preaching of Jesus Christ 
 are the same. Resurrection from the grave, 
 through Him who is the Resurrection and the 
 Life ; salvation, eternal Ufe, through faith in 
 Him, in Him lifted up on the cross ; His ascen- 
 sion to His former glory, and the gifts of the 
 Spirit ; — all these are plainly taught in our 
 Lord's discourses : and though his disciples 
 understood them not at the time, yet when 
 they thought upon them, looking back, as we 
 do, from the scenes of Calvary and of Olivet, 
 they understood them, and remembered that 
 He had uttered them, and caused them to be 
 recorded for the instruction of their fellow- 
 Christians. On this account, it seems to me 
 judicious advice to those who read but little, 
 that they read the Gospels, as they are called, 
 rather than St. Paul's Epistles. Not that any 
 
 ' Rom. xvi. 25. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 67 
 
 Protestant can desire that any part of the 
 Bible, especially of the New Testament, should 
 not be read by all Christians ; but because, if 
 a selection is to be made, these ought to be 
 read first ; for though the apostles wrote as 
 the Spirit gave them utterance, there is, and 
 there must be, a greater weight and efficacy in 
 the very words of the Son of God himself: and 
 because the moral tone of his discourses can- 
 not be mistaken ; whereas, though the same 
 tone, no doubt, pervades St, Paul's Epistles, 
 it will not always be felt by the ordinary reader, 
 who does not perceive that the apostle is often 
 combating errors which prevailed in those 
 times, to a greater extent than they can be ex- 
 pected to prevail now. In its historical books, 
 the foundation of a knowledge of the New 
 Testament must be laid : there will be found 
 the principles of our religion, which it was 
 Christ's prophetic office to teach : to his apos- 
 tles he left the work of explaining his doc- 
 trines, illustrating what he had taught by what 
 he had accomplished, pointing out the subor- 
 dination of the Mosaic to the Christian cove- 
 nant, and declaring the abolition of all those 
 ordinances, the design of which was fulfilled in 
 him. 
 
 The abolition of the law, as declared by 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 St. Paul, it may be convenient to consider, as 
 he was led to speak of it to his countrymen 
 alone, to the Jews in Palestine, and as he was 
 led to speak of it to those Churches, where 
 Jews and Gentiles were united together. In 
 his Epistle to the Hebrews, the native Jews of 
 Palestine, he teaches his countrymen, that to 
 profess the Christian faith, far from being a 
 violation of the law, was to do that which the 
 law itself required ; that the whole economy 
 of the Mosaic dispensation pointed to Christ. 
 He beautifully illustrates the benefits of the 
 Christian sacrifice, comparing and contrasting 
 it with the sacrifices of the Levitical priest- 
 hood, with that especially offered once a year 
 when the high-priest entered the holy of ho- 
 lies, on the great day of expiation ; by the com- 
 parison shewing that a reconciliation was thus 
 made to fit true penitents for the service of 
 God ; by the contrast arguing the soul-cleans- 
 ing power of his blood, who through the eter- 
 nal Spirit, through the will and the power of 
 his own immortal Godhead, offered his human 
 body, himself the priest and the victim, to 
 make atonement for the sins of the world. 
 But while he thus illustrates the Christian 
 scheme, his main argument is to point out to 
 his countrymen, that the sacrifices and ordi- 
 
I 
 
 SERMON III. 69 
 
 nances of the Levitical priesthood were de- 
 signed to be but " figures for the time then 
 present," were designed to be set aside when 
 the Christ should accomphsh the great atone- 
 ment, which these did but faintly shadow. 
 He shews that both before the law, by the se- 
 lection of the tribe, not of Levi, but of Judah, 
 from which the Christ should be born, and 
 under the law, by the declaration that he should 
 be a priest for ever after the order of Mel- 
 chisedec, it had been signified from of old, that 
 in him the priesthood should be changed ; but 
 with the change of the priesthood, argues the 
 apostle, there must of necessity be a change 
 of the law. The change of the law, then, here 
 spoken of, " the disannulling of the command- 
 ment for its weakness and unprofitableness," 
 is the disannulhng of it as it was connected 
 with the Levitical priesthood, as it sent men 
 to them to make atonement by their sacrifices 
 and offerings: for this purpose the law was 
 weak and unprofitable ; this was to be sought 
 by faith only. And indeed, continues he, by 
 faith in God, as he had revealed himself, by 
 this same principle, both the patriarchs before 
 the law, and his faithful servants under the 
 law, have ever pleased him. 
 
70 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 In this Epistle, then, to the Jews of Pales- 
 tine, St. Paul shews them, that if they truly 
 followed the religion of their fathers, they 
 would now become Christians ; that the law, 
 as to all its ceremonies and ordinances, its 
 ritual sacrifices and its priesthood, had been 
 designed to be laid aside, when he should 
 come, whose shadows these were ; that the 
 Gospel, in short, is the Law fulfilled and per- 
 fected in Christ : and thus he declares the 
 ceremonial law to be abohshed. 
 
 But in his Epistles to those Churches, where 
 Gentiles were mingled with the Jews of the dis- 
 persion, the apostle seems to make a stronger 
 contrast, to draw a broader line of distinction 
 between the Jewish covenant and the Christ- 
 ian, between the law of works and the law of 
 faith : and this may strike us the more, be- 
 cause, though in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 it is the ceremonial law of which he speaks, 
 here he unquestionably speaks of the moral 
 law also. That the national prejudices of the 
 Jews in favour of their law should break forth 
 more strongly when they were brought into 
 contact with the Gentiles, and therefore need 
 a stronger correction, is only what we might 
 have expected. These prejudices rested on 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 71 
 
 the Scriptures which denounced a curse 
 against those who kept not the statutes and 
 commandments, and promised righteousness 
 and Ufe by these statutes to those who kept 
 them. And however true it may be, that such 
 Scriptural declarations referred to this life 
 only, we cannot be surprised that the Jewish 
 Christians understood them otherwise, and 
 thought, that it should still be their righteous- 
 ness, if they observed to do all the command- 
 ments. Thus they rested their justification on 
 Christ as one ground, and on the law as 
 another, " Except ye be circumcised^ after 
 the manner of Moses," said they at Antioch, 
 " ye cannot be saved." The earnestness of 
 St, Paul in opposing this doctrine, when it had 
 infected the Church in Galatia, shews that he 
 regarded it as destroying the very essence of 
 our religion. " Behold, I Paul ^ say unto you, 
 if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you 
 nothing :" and again, " Christ is become of no 
 effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified 
 by the law." Both the language of the apostle, 
 and also his own practice on other occasions, 
 shew that it was not the mere compliance with 
 
 ' Levit. xviii. 5 ; Deut. vi. 25, and xxvii. 2G. 
 ^ Acts XV. ^ Gal. V. 'i. 4. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 the Jewish ordinances, but the seeking to be 
 justified by them, which he regarded as a de- 
 parture from the Christian faith. In fact, to 
 imagine that any one, by the most strict ob- 
 servance, either of the ceremonial or the moral 
 law, could deserve to be accounted righteous 
 before God, was to lose sight of Christ, and to 
 reject him as the sole author of salvation. 
 Wherever, then, the apostle found that the 
 Jewish converts had introduced this error into 
 the Church, he opposes it with the most forci- 
 ble and pointed statements. He tells them, 
 that " we ' are justified by faith without the 
 deeds of the law." Not that any one can sup- 
 pose from this, that deeds of virtue, endeavours 
 to acquire religious and moral habits, are less 
 necessary to the Christian than they were to 
 tl?e Jew: but in our endeavours to acquire 
 them, it is our comfort to know, that it is not 
 to our poor, unprofitable services, but to Chiist 
 our Saviour, we are to look for our hopes of 
 heaven. 
 
 Faith in a rewarding God must necessarily 
 influence the conduct of those who are to be 
 the objects of his rewards : and of such a prac- 
 tical faith St. Paul is here speaking. He de- 
 
 ' Rom. iii. 28. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 73 
 
 scribes it as belief with the heart, behef in- 
 fluencing the heart, regulating its feelings and 
 affections, and thereby guiding the conduct. 
 " With the heart," says he, " man believeth 
 unto righteousness \" Whatever of duty to- 
 wards God or man the law enjoins, that and 
 more also a Christian's faith will prompt him 
 to perform ; and yet it is not for the practical 
 holiness necessarily springing from faith, that 
 a man is accounted righteous before God, but 
 rather, because to be guided by faith is to have 
 that very frame of mind, which continually 
 seeks to interpose the merits of Christ between 
 our frailties and their just punishment. Not 
 through any deservings of ours, but through 
 His merits and His intercession, if with sincere 
 faith we honestly endeavour to serve Him, our 
 endeavours are accepted in heaven. 
 
 To this means of justification in mercy 
 given St. Paul chiefly refers, when he de- 
 clares, that we " are not ^ under the law, but 
 under grace ;" that " we are delivered from 
 the law, being dead to that wherein we were 
 held," We are set free from the law in that 
 respect in which the law itself intimated it 
 should be displaced by some more gracious 
 
 ' Rom. X. 10. - Ibid. vi. 14:, and vii. (j. 
 
74 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 covenant ; " through ' the law we are dead to 
 the law." Now there is nothing in the law 
 to intimate, but that its moral precepts shall 
 be binding for ever : yet, though it is wTitten 
 there, that " he that doeth all these statutes 
 shall live by them," though it is written, "it 
 shall be our righteousness, if we keep all these 
 commandments," there is much in the law to 
 shew, that men must look to some better and 
 more efficacious means of justification, than 
 could possibly spring from their own obedience 
 to God's commands. The law intimated this, 
 as, by shewing men the extent of their duty, 
 it shewed them their inability to be perfect in 
 all obedience ; it intimated this by the evident 
 inefficacy of its ritual sacrifices and purifica- 
 tions as a means to take away sin ; but espe- 
 cially it intimated it by its types and prophe- 
 cies pointing to the blessing through Abraham's 
 promised seed. " The law ^ was a school- 
 master to bring men to Christ :" " Christ is 
 the end of the law for righteousness." 
 
 As a means of justification then, the law, 
 both moral and ceremonial, was to be laid 
 aside : the Christians were to be taught not 
 to seek to establish their own righteousness, 
 
 ' Gal. ii. 19. ' Ibid. iii. 24 ; Rom. x. k 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 75 
 
 by obeying the ceremonial ordinances, nor 
 even the moral precepts of the law, but regu- 
 lating their lives by faith, which worketh by 
 love, to look through Jesus Christ for that 
 righteousness, which God of his free grace 
 imputes to his true servants, in pardoning all 
 their sin, and not imputing it to them for 
 punishment in the world to come. And here 
 let me observe, that he, who declared the law 
 thus laid aside as powerless to give life and 
 righteousness, St. Paul, had been a Pharisee, 
 one of that sect who were most apt from their 
 strict observance of the law to trust in them- 
 selves that they were righteous, and to despise 
 others. He, who knew the evil in its fullest 
 extent, was the chosen instrument to root it 
 out. 
 
 As to the civil law, which was given to the 
 Israelites to govern them as a people separate 
 from the rest of the world, it naturally ceased 
 with the cessation of their existence as a pe- 
 culiar and chosen nation, when the Church 
 of God on earth was made Catholic in Christ, 
 and all of every land were invited to become 
 his Israel. But to separate the Jew from the 
 Gentile world, was the office not so much of 
 the civil as of the ceremonial law ; and of this 
 
76 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 latter, or perhaps of both, St. Paul speaks, 
 where he says to the Ephesians, " Christ has 
 made both Jew and Gentile one', and has 
 broken down the middle wall of partition be- 
 tween them, having abolished in his flesh the 
 enmity, the law of commandments contained 
 in ordinances." He here distinctly points out 
 the separating nature of the law ; it is the 
 wall of partition, the enmity : and he calls it 
 the law of commandments in positive ordi- 
 nances, £v ^oyixaai, in things right, because 
 they are decreed. These positive ordinances 
 then, whether the ceremonial or the civil law, 
 these are entirely abrogated in Christ, and are 
 no longer of any force at all. 
 
 And this is the sum of St. Paul's doctrine 
 on the abohtion of the law. The ceremonial 
 and moral law are no longer proposed as the 
 instrument of justification : the ceremonial 
 and civil law are no longer binding on man. 
 
 It has, indeed, been supposed that his words 
 have a further meaning, and that he has de- 
 clared the whole Mosaic law, even its moral 
 precepts, annulled by the Christian covenant. 
 In the beginning of the Reformation a man of 
 
 ' Eph. ii. 14, 15. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 77- 
 
 eminence in the Lutheran Church, John Agri- 
 cola', maintained that Christians ought to be 
 exhorted to hohness of hfe on the subhme 
 principles of the Gospel alone, that the moral 
 law of Moses was abrogated as a rule of duty, 
 and that even the ten commandments, having 
 been enacted for the people of Israel, and not 
 for Christians, were now no longer binding. 
 Such was the doctrine of the founder of the 
 sect of Antinomians, though Agricola himself 
 did not fall into the extravagance of his infat- 
 uated followers : it is almost unnecessary to 
 add, that Luther strenuously opposed the 
 unsound and unwarranted doctrine. 
 
 Nothing was abolished by the Christian 
 covenant but what had been designed from 
 the beginning to last for a season only — the 
 civil law of the Jews ceasing with their national 
 existence — their ceremonies and sacrifices, and 
 their means of justification, all designed to be 
 laid aside at the coming of the true propitia- 
 tion for sin, — Christ who justifieth. But it is 
 not so with the moral law ; the great duties 
 towards God and our neighbour which it en- 
 joins, were our duties before they were com- 
 manded from Sinai, and must continue such, 
 
 ' Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. cent. xvi. s. 3. p. 2. c. 1. 
 
78 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 though they had never been commanded there : 
 they are right in their own nature, and there- 
 fore are of perpetual obligation — but they 
 have a further claim on us, in that God has 
 commanded us to do them : nothing can 
 strip them of what they have once received, 
 the sanction of God's command. Whatever 
 was designed to be temporary, he sanc- 
 tioned for a season only : whatever was of 
 perpetual obligation, he sanctioned for ever.' 
 
 ' So Irenseus, Adv. Haereses. L. IV. c. 31. "Prepar- 
 ing man for a life of holiness, the Lord himself with his 
 own voice spake the words of the Decalogue alike to all : 
 these commandments, therefore, continue with us, extended 
 and enlarged, not abolished by his coming in the flesh. 
 But the ordinances of bondage he gave to the people 
 separately by the voice of Moses, as Moses himself says, 
 ' And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you 
 statutes and judgments.' These, then, which were given as 
 a yoke of bondage, and as a sign to them, he has blotted 
 out by the new covenant of liberty. But what are natural, 
 and becoming men who are free, and common to all, these 
 commandments he has enlarged and extended, ungrudg- 
 ingly, bountifully granting to men through their adoption 
 to know God as their Father, and to love liim with all 
 their heart, and without unwillingness to follow his word, 
 abstaining not from evil deeds alone, but even from the 
 desire of them." 
 
 This extract has been taken from Irenaeus, merely to 
 shew generally what he thought of our obligation to keep 
 the ten commandments : any conjectures, what he may 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 19 
 
 Hence our Church, adopting the ten com- 
 mandments into her Liturgy, continually 
 reminds us, that "God spake these words." I 
 am aware that a question may be made how 
 far what I have said is applicable to the fourth 
 commandment: this question for the present 
 I will pass by, and make it the subject of a 
 separate discourse. But as to the rest — to 
 worship God alone, to worship him as he has 
 declared himself, not degrading his Majesty to 
 the likeness of any thing our hands have 
 framed, or our minds have conceived, never 
 to mention his name but with reverence ; and 
 as to our fellow-creatures, to honour our 
 parents and all who stand in place of parents 
 to us, to check the resentful and the lustful 
 passions, to harm no one in his person, or in 
 his family, or in his property, or in his reputa- 
 tion, nor even to covet any thing which in any 
 of these ways would be another's harm, — all 
 these every one must perceive to be our duty 
 as soon as they are stated, however necessary 
 the law may have been to point them out at 
 first, and to give mankind a knowledge of sin. 
 It may be said, indeed, that the principles and 
 
 have thought of the duty required by the fourth command- 
 ment, it seems better to reserve till that subject is before 
 us. 
 
 12 
 
80 
 
 SERMON III, 
 
 dispositions implanted in a sincere Christian 
 will lead him to perform all these duties with- 
 out reference to the Decalogue ; and so it 
 might be said, that every true Israehte, who 
 had learned to love God with all his heart, 
 mind, soxil, and strength, and to love his 
 neighbour as himself, from these principles 
 and dispositions would have performed all 
 that the two great commandments, inculcating 
 them, briefly comprehend ; the only difference 
 is, that these same principles and dispositions 
 (prompting both Jew and Christian alike to 
 keep the Decalogue, because they are God's 
 commands) in a Christian are, or ought to be, 
 more strongly excited and called into action, 
 in proportion to our clearer knowledge of 
 God, and ampler revelation of his wondrous 
 mercies. 
 
 I am not contending that it is to the Deca- 
 logue the perfect Christian is to look for the 
 rule of his duty, when he has learned from 
 the higher principles of faith and love to keep 
 these commandments, as our Lord has taught 
 us, not in the letter but in the spirit; when he 
 bears them thus written on the fleshy tables 
 of his heart, he need no longer look to them 
 as they were written for the Israelites of old 
 on tables of stone. I only contend that it 
 
SERMON HI. 
 
 81 
 
 cannot be argued from this, that the moral law 
 is no longer binding on Christians. Laws, 
 we know, are made to restrain the bad ; the 
 good are good from principle : yet, though the 
 good are kept in their duty, not by the curb 
 of the law, but by the sway of principle, no 
 one surely will argue, that with them the laws 
 are of no force, and are not binding on them. 
 
 St. Paul teaches us another language on 
 the obligation of the Decalogue : he exhorts 
 the Church at Rome ' to the love of our neigh- 
 bours as oneself, for the express reason, that 
 this is a summary of the whole of the second 
 table of the Ten Commandments ; he declares, 
 that the commandment is holy, and just, and 
 good ^ that by it alone he had learned that the 
 mere thought of lust, though not allowed to 
 shew itself in deed or even in word, is of itself 
 a sin. " I had not known lust (to be sin) ex- 
 cept the law had said. Thou shalt not covet." 
 This is not the language of one who thought 
 that law no longer binding. But it may be 
 said, it is one thing to acknowledge the force 
 of the law, another to urge it as a motive for 
 a Christian's conduct. If it be doubted whe- 
 ther St. Paul has done this in the instances 
 already given, I will bring forward another, 
 
 ' Rom. xiii. 9. " Ibid. vii. 7. 12 
 
82 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 which cannot be questioned, and which is the 
 more striking, because, from the reference the 
 commandment makes to Canaan, some might 
 suppose it addressed to Jews only. " Children \" 
 says he, "obey your parents, for this is right," 
 St'/caiov, according to the law. He then quotes 
 the fifth commandment ; and whether, by call- 
 ing it the first commandment with promise, 
 he means that it is the first of the second 
 table, or the first to which a promise is an- 
 nexed, in either case, especially in the latter, 
 he distinctly acknowledges the rest of the 
 Decalogue. That St. Paul brings forward this 
 commandment to teach children only their 
 duty, is no argument against its obligation on 
 all ages alike, but seems to tell us, that though 
 they, who have made some progress in putting 
 on the Christian character, are to be exhorted 
 to continue in their duty towards God, and 
 for his sake, towards man, from a sense of his 
 wondrous love revealed in the Gospel ; still 
 God's own words in the Decalogue, binding as 
 they are, and must be, on all, are a wholesome 
 remembrance to those who are children in 
 Christian knowledge and in Christian practice, 
 as well as to those who are children in age. 
 And let it not be thought that the argument 
 
 ' Ephes. ii. 1, 2. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 83 
 
 for the obligation of the commandments of the 
 first table is less complete, because they are not 
 explicitly detailed in the New Testament. It 
 was not the law of our duty to God, but that 
 of our duty to our neighbour, which they 
 whom our Saviour addressed were most apt to 
 evade. They were zealous for sacrifice, but 
 neglected mercy — they were zealous for the 
 services of religion, but neglected to consider, 
 that rehgion, to be pure and undefiled, must in- 
 fluence a man in all his dealings with the world. 
 The commandments, then, which guide us 
 here, were enforced and explained. But the 
 New Testament fully recognizes those of the 
 first table also, as they are briefly compre- 
 hended in that first and great commandment 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
 thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
 thy mind." The Ten Commandments, then, 
 are acknowledged in the Gospel ; and there we 
 are taught to keep them, not in the letter, but 
 in the spirit ; nor can any Christian man be 
 free from obedience to them, since they are 
 God's own words. 
 
 I cannot close this review of St. Paul's doc- 
 trine concerning the law, how far it is abo- 
 
 ' Matt. xxii. 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 lished, and how far it is still binding on Christ- 
 ians, without again calling attention to some 
 points in his previous character, as connected 
 with the office he was chosen to perform. He 
 who was marked above his countrymen, both 
 for his knowledge of the Mosaic law and for 
 his zealous attachment to it, — he had to declare 
 their ceremonial and civil law altogether abo- 
 lished and repealed. He who, as a Pharisee, 
 had been taught to look for righteousness by a 
 blameless observance of the law, — he had to de- 
 clare, that no observance of the law, either cere- 
 monial or moral, can give life or righteousness 
 to man. His preaching must have been with a 
 pecuhar weight and power — one so learned in 
 Moses' law, shewing from that law itself, that 
 it was designed to be laid aside — one so blame- 
 less in the righteousness which was by its or- 
 dinances, declaring his desire not to be found 
 in that righteousness, but in the righteousness 
 which is of God by faith. The zeal with which 
 he had once embraced the errors of his coun- 
 trymen on these subjects, was a proof of the 
 sincerity of the conviction which moved him to 
 reject and to refute them : and none, surely, 
 could be more fit to inculcate the obUgation 
 of all the moral precepts of Moses' law, than 
 he who, at the time of his own conversion. 
 
SERMON nr. 
 
 85 
 
 both in his meditation during his bhndness at 
 Damascus, and in his contemplative retirement 
 into Arabia, must often have felt how great a 
 blessing it was, that from that law he had ever 
 accustomed himself to regulate his conduct, 
 his thoughts, and desires, by a sense of duty 
 to God ; that he had not then to form anew 
 habits of holiness, but in this respect had only 
 to go onwards, and advance in his course of 
 moral duty, with a better light to shew his 
 path, and a more glorious haven to cheer its 
 close. Whoever ' shall do the will of God, 
 shall know of the Christian doctrine that it is 
 from him : we read in the Gospel, of the rich 
 young man * who had kept all the command- 
 ments from his youth up, that Jesus loved 
 him ; and the prayers and the alms of Corne- 
 Hus went up before God, to bring down a rich 
 reward in the blessing of his conversion : and 
 who shall say, but that, in the case of St. Paul 
 also, his diligent obedience to God's command- 
 ments when a Jew, may have had a share in 
 drawing upon him those signal marks of Hea- 
 ven's favour — the special miracles for his con- 
 version, the glorious visions and revelations of 
 the Lord for his instruction in the Gospel, by 
 
 ' John vii. 17. 
 
 2 Mark X. 
 
86 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 which, when a Christian, he came " not ' a 
 whit behind the very chiefest apostles ?" Let 
 us, then, as we seek to please God, dih- 
 gently strive to follow St. Paul in that steady 
 and severe obedience to the moral command- 
 ments in which he uniformly walked : but yet 
 more, let us be followers of him, as he was a 
 true follower of the preaching of Jesus Christ. 
 
 ' 2 Cor- xi. 5. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 THE lord's day 
 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 
 
 Gen. ii. 2, 3. 
 
 On the seventh day God ended his work, which he had made ; 
 and he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which 
 he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and 
 sanctified it : because that in it he had rested from all his 
 work which God created and made. 
 
 The institution of the Sabbath, each seventh 
 day sanctified to God's service, according to 
 the plain and obvious meaning of this Scrip- 
 ture, is coeval with the creation of the world. 
 It has, indeed, been asserted, that this is not 
 so, that the Sabbath was not instituted till the 
 times of Moses, and that he was led here by 
 the connection of the subject alone, to mention 
 its sanctification as a day of rest for the chil- 
 
 Paley's Moral Philos. B. V. c. 7 
 
88 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 dren of Israel : and, however forced and un- 
 natural this construction may appear, yet as 
 the opinion, in support of which it is brought 
 forward, is said to have prevailed very gene- 
 rally among the early writers of the Christian 
 Church, it may be well to examine the grounds 
 on which the opinion stands. 
 
 Now it is urged, that in the book of Genesis 
 there is no further mention of any Sabbath ; 
 and though it is allowed, that there is reason 
 for this omission in the brief history of the 
 world before the call of Abraham, a history 
 of a period of more than two thousand years, 
 condensed into the space of ten short chap- 
 ters, yet it is argued, that the total silence re- 
 specting it, if it had been then kept as a reli- 
 gious day, is quite unaccountable in the cir- 
 cumstantial and domestic memoirs of Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob with his family. No 
 argument is more fallacious, than to infer that 
 a practice did not exist, because we do not 
 find it mentioned where we think we might 
 have expected it. In the history of those 
 times, when all acknowledge the law of the 
 Sabbath to have been observed, we still find 
 the same silence. It is not mentioned in 
 Joshua, in Judges, in Ruth, in either of the 
 books of Samuel, or in the first book of Kings : 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 89 
 
 and it will be allowed here, that the history of 
 Saul and of David, at least, is sufficiently cir- 
 cumstantial and domestic to have introduced 
 some occasion to notice it ; and on the seven 
 days' siege of Jericho, surely, or the seven days 
 in which Saul waited for Samuel in Gilgal, or 
 the twice seven days' feast on the dedication of 
 Solomon's temple, we might have expected 
 some mention of the Sabbath : but even on 
 the restoration of the public worship after the 
 Babylonish captivity, we find no mention of it 
 in Ezra, except as it is included in the general 
 expression, " all their set feasts ;" nor yet in 
 Nehemiah, except in the Levites' grateful com- 
 memoration of God's early mercies towards 
 their nation, till it is introduced by the appre- 
 hension and the fact of a temptation to break 
 its holy rest by the people, who, in their ab- 
 sence, had settled in the land. Since, then, we 
 read, in the beginning of Genesis, that God 
 blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, the 
 correct inference, from the subsequent silence 
 respecting the Sabbath in that book, is, that 
 the day was constantly observed, its holy ser- 
 vices regularly performed by all God's true 
 worshippers, that nothing occurred in the lives 
 of those recorded for our imitation to interrupt 
 
90 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 or disturb their uniform discharge of the sacred 
 duty. 
 
 Nor does the book of Exodus at all confirm 
 the opinion of the Mosaic institution of the 
 Sabbath. The fourth commandment, indeed, 
 gives a most solemn sanction to the observance 
 of the day, and enjoins on it a total cessation 
 from labour ; a rest, probably, of greater strict- 
 ness than had been observed before ; but far 
 from establishing it as a new thing, it speaks of 
 it as already established and known. " Re- 
 member the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy." — 
 " For in six days the Lord made heaven and 
 earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and 
 rested the seventh day : wherefore the Lord 
 blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it." The 
 natural inference, surely, from these words is, 
 that the time of the creation and the time of 
 the blessing were the same. 
 
 In fact, we are distinctly told, that the Sab- 
 bath was kept by the children of Israel before 
 the dehvery of the commandments from Si- 
 nai \ when manna first was given : and since, 
 to prove the Sabbath instituted by Moses, this 
 has been supposed the occasion of its institu- 
 
 ' Exod. xvi. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 01 
 
 tion, it is necessary to enquire, what reason 
 there is for the supposition. 
 
 When the Lord declared to Moses, in the 
 wilderness of Sin, that he would give his peo- 
 ple their daily bread from heaven, he com- 
 manded them to prepare that which they 
 should bring in on the sixth day, and promised 
 that it should be twice as much as they should 
 gather on any other. Without any mention 
 of the Sabbath, here was a command to pre- 
 pare for it, as if it, the reason of the com- 
 manded preparation, had been well known. 
 And accordingly, when the people, on the 
 sixth day, told Moses of their double portions, 
 he said to them, " This is that which the Lord 
 hath said. To-morrow is the rest of the holy 
 Sabbath unto the Lord ," and again, " Six days 
 shall ye gather it ; but on the seventh day, the 
 Sabbath, ye shall find none." And when some 
 yet went out on the Sabbath-day, and found 
 none, " the Lord said unto Moses, How long 
 refuse ye to keep my commandments and my 
 laws ? See, for that the Lord hath given you 
 the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the 
 sixth day the bread of two days : — let no man 
 go out of his place on the seventh day." Ob- 
 serve here, while it is said, " He giveth you the 
 bread," though this was given the day before. 
 
92 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 it is said, " He hath given you the Sabbath," 
 as if speaking of what had been done in times 
 long past. And though it be admitted, that 
 the distinction in the original between the past 
 tense and the participle, which here expresses 
 the present, rests only on the traditionary, but 
 universally-received, interpretation of the Jews, 
 yet it must be allowed, that there is in Exodus 
 a marked difference between the first mention 
 of the Sabbath, and that of any of the Jewish 
 feasts then confessedly first instituted. 
 
 To me, indeed, there appears a strong pre- 
 sumption that the division of time into ^ weeks 
 (and we should remember it was after an in- 
 terval of a week on each occasion, that the 
 dove was thrice sent from the ark) and conse- 
 quently its cause, the hallowed observance of 
 each seventh day, had been maintained, so far 
 as circumstances allowed, by God's faithful 
 servants from the very beginning of time : 
 for on no other supposition is it easy to collect 
 from the Scriptures, that the Jewish Sabbath 
 (supposing the day not to have been changed 
 on account of their dehverance from Egypt, 
 of which change I see no evidence whatever) 
 was truly the weekly return of the seventh 
 
 ' Gen. viii. and Gen. xxix. 27. comp. Judges xiv. 12. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 93 
 
 day of that first and glorious week, on which 
 the great Creator rested from " His six-days' 
 work, a world." It was, I conceive, on the 
 beginning of this day of holy rest, that the 
 children of Israel murmured against Moses 
 and Aaron in the wilderness of Sin ; and that 
 evening when God promised them bread from 
 heaven, and that morning when the glory of 
 the Lord appeared in the cloud, followed, as 
 the day closed, by a supply of food ^ at the 
 very doors of their tents, the quails that 
 covered the camp, that evening and morning 
 were the Sabbath-day, after which they were 
 to go out of the camp to gather manna on the 
 face of the wilderness, their six-days' work, 
 continually, till they should enter the land 
 of Canaan. 
 
 And that the Sabbath was kept from the 
 beginning, we know on the authority of St. 
 Paul. From the closing words of that Psalm, 
 so familiar to us all as constantly used in our 
 daily service, declaring that the disobedient 
 should not enter into God's rest, St. Paul in 
 
 ^ The quails, indeed, are said to have come up at even : 
 but, though the Sabbath was kept from even to even, we 
 know from Nehem. xiii. 19, it was dark before the Sab- 
 bath began, and therefore was dark before it closed. The 
 manna was not to fall till the following morning. 
 
94. 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 his ' Epistle to the Hebrews argues, that be- 
 cause the rest there mentioned could not 
 have been either that of the Sabbath, or 
 that of the land of Canaan, there remaineth, 
 therefore, another and a better rest for the 
 people of God in the life to come. His argu- 
 ment, that it could not have been the rest of 
 the Sabbath-day, is this ; the Holy Ghost 
 saith, " They shall not enter into my rest ;" 
 although, continues the Apostle, the works 
 were finished from the foundation of the world; 
 for the Holy Ghost has spoken of the seventh 
 day thus, " And God did rest the seventh day 
 from all his works." The argument then is, 
 that his faithful and obedient servants had 
 entered into and enjoyed the holy rest of 
 his sabbaths from the beginning of the world. 
 And this, we should observe, he does not 
 think it necessary to state formally to the 
 Jews, but he appeals to it in the course of 
 his argument, as a fact already known and 
 universally acknowledged amongst them. 
 
 It is clear then, on the authority of St. Paul, 
 that the Sabbath was kept, the holy rest of 
 the seventh day was given by God to his peo- 
 ple, from the foundation of the world : a truth 
 
 Heb. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 95 
 
 which I have sought to establish, because it 
 must have great influence in determining a 
 question of more importance to us, namely, 
 how far the fourth commandment is binding 
 on Christians at the present day. For if the 
 Sabbath were merely appointed as a part of 
 those ordinances, which were to pave the way 
 for the Christian covenant, it must be admitted, 
 that it has been abohshed with other such 
 parts of the law, and, with the old things, has 
 passed away ; — but if it had been instituted 
 long before, and arose from an event in which 
 all mankind at all times are equally concerned, 
 if it be found bottomed in some degree on the 
 very nature of the event, which occasioned its 
 institution, so far from having passed away 
 with the designedly transitory covenant given 
 to Moses, the obligation to keep it, in such 
 degree at least, as it is so grounded, must 
 remain unchangeable, as is the past event on 
 which it rests. 
 
 Now that the Decalogue is binding on Christ- 
 ians, unless some valid reason can be brought 
 for excepting any part of it, I shewed in my 
 last discourse. But it is said, that the other 
 duties there commanded are moral duties, 
 such as would arise from the nature of the 
 case, though there had been no command : 
 
 12 
 
96 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 whereas to keep holy each seventh day, it is 
 alleged, is a positive duty, a duty arising 
 from the command only, there being nothing 
 in the nature of the case to call for that par- 
 ticular act. This point seems to deserve, and 
 to demand, further consideration. 
 
 Bishop Horsley, in his admirable sermons 
 on this subject, admits, what must be admitted 
 by all, that to assemble ourselves together for 
 public worship at stated seasons, is a moral 
 duty ; but when he adds, that no natural 
 sanctity of the seventh day moves us to as- 
 semble on it rather than on the sixth or eighth, 
 he does not fairly state the question ; and the 
 implied inference, that there is nothing of a 
 moral nature in the duty of hallowing each 
 seventh day, is not consistent with his own 
 forcible remarks in the last of those sermons ; 
 viz. "that by keeping one day in seven we 
 protest against idolatry and acknowledge that 
 God who in the beginning made the heavens 
 and the earth ;" and again, "that the propriety 
 of this protestation against heathenism binds 
 the worshippers of the true God in all ages to 
 a weekly Sabbath." 
 
 I regard this duty, indeed, as a positive 
 duty, because I understand the words of my 
 text as a blessing and sanctification of each 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 97 
 
 seventh day thenceforward for ever, and re- 
 gard them, therefore, (and so I believe they are 
 usually regarded) as a command to Adam, and 
 in him to all his descendants, to keep holy 
 each seventh day ; for God no otherwise sanc- 
 tifies a day than by making his reasonable 
 creatures keep it holy ; still on this view, the 
 institution of a Sabbath is marked above all 
 other positive institutions, as the first command 
 of God to man. But it may be said, that the 
 seventh day, which God then blessed and sanc- 
 tified, was only the last day of the glorious 
 week of creation ; and, if this be so, its sanc- 
 tification was a command, not so much to our 
 first parents, formed but the day before, as to 
 the angels, to celebrate first in heaven that 
 great seventh day, when the foundations ' of 
 the earth having been laid, and its finishing 
 corner-stone fastened, the hosts of Cherubim 
 and Seraphim, bright as morning stars, sang 
 together, and all the sons of God shouted for 
 joy. If this interpretation (which certainly is 
 the most literal, and is the only admissible 
 one, if that of a command to our first parents 
 be rejected ; for that mankind enjoyed the 
 holy rest of the seventh day from the found- 
 
 ' Job xxxviii. G, 7. 
 H 
 
98 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 ation of the world, is clear on the authority of 
 St. Paul ;) if this be the correct interpretation, 
 I argue, that to keep the Sabbath seems to 
 have the nature of a moral duty. The precise 
 meaning of Scriptural expressions, which speak 
 of particular occasions of holy rejoicing in 
 heaven, where all is holy joy, I pretend not to 
 explain ; but the design of employing such 
 expressions is sufficiently obvious, viz. that 
 such may be occasions of holy joy on earth. 
 And the heavenly rejoicing on that seventh 
 day, when the creation was finished, seems to 
 have been made known for this end alone, 
 that we also, on the return of each seventh 
 day, may rejoice before the Lord, and praise 
 the great Creator. Our knowledge that the 
 world was created in six days, teaches us to 
 think aright of the stupendous power of him 
 who made it : but our knowledge of the hal- 
 lowed close of the glorious work gives us but 
 httle instruction concerning the Almighty : it 
 was communicated then for another end, to 
 instruct us in our duty towards him. And 
 surely every good and reasonable man, on 
 receiving this knowledge, would naturally be 
 moved to imitate the holy rejoicing of the 
 angelic host, and on the return of each seventh 
 day consecrate it to acts of devotion, in order 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 99 
 
 to preserve in his heart a continual sense of 
 the wondrous work, — this vast, firm, and seem- 
 ingly imperishable earth, with all thereon, cre- 
 ated in six days by the word of Him whom we 
 worship. Moral obhgation may arise as natu- 
 rally from knowledge communicated by reve- 
 lation, as from that we acquire in any other 
 way. It is observed by Bishop Butler', that 
 to worship the Son and the Holy Ghost, the 
 relation in which They stand to us having 
 been once made known in the Scriptures, is 
 as clearly a moral duty as to worship God the 
 Father, though the relation He stands in to 
 us is made known by our reason. And thus 
 also a moral obligation to hallow each seventh 
 day arises from the revealed account of the 
 creation. In the language of Bishop Horsley, 
 there is a propriety in the practice which binds 
 all worshippers of the true God in all ages to 
 keep it. 
 
 It will not, I trust, for a moment be sup- 
 posed that I adopt the extravagant doctrine 
 of those fanatics who, towards the close of 
 Queen Elizabeth's reign, taught that the viola- 
 tion of the Sabbath is as great ^ a sin as adul- 
 
 ' Analogy of Relig. Nat. and Rev., Part II. c. I. 
 ■ Strype's Life of Archbishop Whitgift, B. IV. c. 2,'i. 
 
 n 2 
 
100 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 tery or murder : of our moral duties, some are 
 more evident than others ; to commit an act 
 of theft, for instance, or of adultery, is more 
 evidently sinful than merely to covet or desire ; 
 and the guilt of violating any moral duty must 
 be greater or less, in proportion to the clear- 
 ness of this evidence. But I am persuaded 
 that, had there not been a fear of countenanc- 
 ing these Sabbatarian notions, men in general 
 would have been ready to acknowledge the 
 morahty of keeping holy each seventh day, to 
 acknowledge a propriety in the duty, which, 
 independent of any express command, natu- 
 rally arises from knowledge apparently revealed 
 for this very end. 
 
 Such being the real nature of the duty of 
 hallowing each seventh day, it follows that the 
 command from Sinai, which sanctions it, must 
 be as unchangeable as the other precepts of the 
 Decalogue with which it is numbered, — must 
 be as lasting as man's interest in the glorious 
 event, to commemorate which it was given. 
 
 " The moral law," says Hooker, " requiring 
 a seventh part, throughout the age of the 
 world, to be that way employed, although with 
 us the day be changed in regard of a new 
 revelation begun by our Saviour Christ : yet 
 the same proportion of time continueth which 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 101 
 
 was before, because, in reference to the benefit 
 of Creation, and now much more of renovation 
 thereunto added by Him, which was Prince 
 of the world to come, we are bound to account 
 the sanctification of one day in seven a duty 
 which God's immutable law doth exact for 
 ever'." 
 
 ' Eccles. Polity, V. s. 70. In the above argument, the 
 necessity of appointing some particular day for the public 
 services of religion has been assumed. A daily public 
 worship, however, is, I believe, sometimes supposed to be 
 pointed out * as a Christian's duty at the close of Isaiah's 
 prophecy. The expression indeed, " the new heavens and 
 the new earth," may be truly interpreted of Christ's kingdom 
 in its commencement on earth, though it is applied both by 
 St. Peter and St. John, (2 Pet. iii. 13. and Rev. xxi. 1.) to 
 His kingdom of glory ; and yet the blessing of his Church 
 " that from one Sabbath to another all flesh shall come to 
 worship before me," seems rather to refer to its future 
 state ; as we know, on the highest authority, the sentence 
 against transgressors, in the following verse, refers to the 
 future state of the impenitent. Private (and in this word 
 I would include domestic) prayer every day has, in all ages, 
 been the constant practice of all faithful members of the 
 Church of God : but the Prophet seems to speak of assem- 
 bling every day in the Lord's especial presence for public 
 worship; and, though we must needs believe this duty 
 truly performed in the eternal Sabbath in heaven, it is a 
 duty, which here on earth, to men in general, the calls of 
 their several stations render impracticable ; and unless 
 
 * Grot, de Ver. Rel. Christ. L. V. c. 10. 
 
102 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 But admitting that the fourth command- 
 ment is binding on Christians, it is asked on 
 what authority the day is changed, and the 
 first, instead of the seventh, day of the week 
 kept as the Christian Sabbath, in a professed 
 obedience to this command. The authority is 
 no other than that of Christ himself. On the 
 evening of the day of his resurrection, as the 
 disciples were assembled together for holy 
 meditation, he came and stood in the midst of 
 them : and though afterwards, for a month, he 
 went continually in and out amongst them, 
 yet now, not shewing himself the six' folloviing 
 
 some stated days be set apart for the purpose, the sacred 
 service could never be fitly performed. The institution of 
 a Sabbath was an accommodation to the wants and weak- 
 ness of man — the Sabbath was made for man. 
 
 ' This point, which appears to have escaped the notice 
 of former commentators, as far as may be judged by Poole's 
 Synopsis of their remarks, I find first noticed by Bishop 
 Horsley, who says, " It was, perhaps, to set a mark of dis- 
 tinction upon this day in particular, that the intervening 
 week passed off, as it should seem, without any repetition 
 of this first visit to the eleven Apostles." Why he speaks 
 doubtfully, I do not understand, as St. John, proceeding to 
 relate the appearance of Jesus to his disciples on the sea of 
 Tiberias, distinctly tells us, that this was the third time he 
 shewed himself to his disciples ; regarding, evidently, as 
 one, the several times of his appearing on the day of his 
 resurrection, (and, in fact, he appeared but once on this 
 day to his assembled disciples), and his appearing on the 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 103 
 
 days, as if to mark the case, after eight days, 
 that is, on the eighth day, the first day of the 
 week, when the disciples had again met to- 
 gether, the Lord of the Sabbath again was 
 there, and sanctioned the religious observance 
 of the day by his blessed presence. And on 
 the first day of the week also, the day of Pen- 
 tecost, he shed forth on the assembled Christ- 
 ians the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, 
 the great promise to the Christian Church, and 
 the earnest of her continual enjoyment of his 
 gracious help and guidance. Now, bound as 
 we are to praise God in his greatness for the 
 
 eighth day, as the second. The point is tlie more striking, 
 vvlien we consider that the whole interval between the re- 
 surrection and ascension was but forty days. It was in 
 Galilee, indeed, that, according to his promise, he went con- 
 tinually in and out amongst them ; and it may be said (for 
 it seems probable from the account) that on the eighth day 
 from the resurrection, the Apostles were still at Jerusalem : 
 they were again within, and the door was shut, as before, 
 for fear of the Jews ; but unless it was designed, by their 
 again assembling there on the weekly return of the resur- 
 rection-day, to mark the interval between Christ's first and 
 second appearing, it is difficult to allege a reason why they 
 should so long have tarried at Jerusalem, when both the 
 angels at the tomb, and Christ himself, had distinctly 
 charged the holy women, to whom he first appeared, to tell 
 his disciples, that they should go into Galilee, and there 
 should see him. 
 
104 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 creation of all around us, yet more are we 
 Christians bound to praise him in his goodness 
 for the assurance given on the first day of the 
 week, of our redemption and of our sanctifica- 
 tion, the pledge of that new heavens and new 
 earth, which the Lord creates for his people. 
 
 It cannot be supposed but that the disciples 
 assembled together for public worship both on 
 the Sabbath next after the resurrection, and 
 on that before the day of Pentecost : it had 
 been their Master's constant custom to go into 
 the places of pubhc worship on the Sabbath 
 days ; yet not to their religious assembly on 
 the Sabbath, but to that on the first day of the 
 week, in both instances, the assurance of the 
 great blessings of the Christian covenant was 
 given ; and by this remarkable preference of 
 the first day of the week, Christ, the Lord of 
 the Sabbath, raised it in honour above the 
 seventh, and blessed it as the one day in seven 
 hereafter to be set apart more especially for the 
 public worship of the Almighty. I do not mean 
 that from this time forward Christians regarded 
 the duty enjoined in the fourth commandment 
 fulfilled by their devotional exercises on the 
 Lord's day ; such could not have been the 
 case while the ancient Sabbath was yet ob- 
 served ; and that was not altogether abohshed. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 105 
 
 at least, with the Christians who dwelt at Je- 
 rusalem, till the whole national polity of the 
 Jews was overthrown in the destruction of 
 their city and their Temple : " Pray," says our 
 Lord to his disciples, in reference to that event, 
 " pray ' that your flight be not on the Sab- 
 bath-day." 
 
 The practice of St. Paul, in going continu- 
 ally into the synagogues on the Sabbath days, 
 does not throw much light on this part of our 
 enquiry : for if, on the one hand, his declara- 
 tions ^ that we are not bound to a Jewish ob- 
 
 ' Matt. xxiv. 20. 
 
 ^ In the Epistle to the Galatians, written A.D. 52, the 
 observance of days, that is, of Jewish Sabbaths, is censured ; 
 — in that to the Romans, written the following year, accord- 
 ing to Dr. Burton, it is treated as a matter indifferent in 
 itself, and in which a man was to be guided by his con- 
 science. But the Galatian Church appears to have been 
 infected with the error, which had before spread among the 
 Churches of Syria and Cilicia, that to keep the law of Moses 
 was necessary to salvation ; and, therefore, St. Paul is earn- 
 est to oppose a doctrine which led them to rest their hopes 
 of heaven on other foundation than what is laid in the great 
 atonement. Where, however, the observance of the law 
 was unconnected with this error, the prejudices of the Jews 
 were allowed gradually to wear away ; and, upon these con- 
 siderations, we find no difficulty in reconciling St. Paul's 
 declarations to the Galatians (iv. 10, 11. and v. 2.) with his 
 declarations to the Romans, (xiv. 5, G. and ii. 25.) and with 
 
106 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 servance of days, and that we are not to be 
 judged in respect of the Sabbaths, shew clearly, 
 that his only object was to lay hold of the op- 
 portunity thus afforded him, to attempt the 
 conversion of the Jews, and of the devout 
 Greeks, who had adopted their custom ; on the 
 
 his own compliance with the law, (Acts xvi. 3. and xxi. 26). 
 The Epistle to the Colossians was written about four years 
 after that to the Romans ; but we should observe, what is 
 there said of the Sabbaths seems to be addressed to Gen- 
 tile converts. A passage, however, from the Epistle to the 
 Romans, to which we have referred (xiv. 5, 6.), is some- 
 times brought forward to shew that Christians are under no 
 obligation to keep any Sabbath-day at all. That the words, 
 if they apply to Jewish festivals as well as fasts, apply to 
 Christian festivals also, I allow, but would observe, that 
 the distinction there made is not between keeping one day 
 in the week or none, but between keeping one or every day 
 thus consecrated. It was shortly after writing this very 
 Epistle, that St. Paul abode seven days at Philippi to preach 
 to the disciples there, as they assembled on the first day of 
 the week for the holy communion : and the fact, that this 
 day was distinguished above others as the Lord's day, must 
 be borne in mind when we read any thing that seems to 
 bear against such distinction of days. The doctrine in Ro- 
 mans xiv. may be thus applied : One man thinks Sunday 
 holy (v. 14.) in itself; another thinks all days ahke holy in 
 themselves, and that Sunday is called holy only as being 
 especially appointed for holy acts : each is guided by what 
 he believes to be the will of God, to whom alone in this 
 matter we are answerable. 
 
 12 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 107 
 
 other hand, it must be confessed, that his prac- 
 tice gave a sanction to the continued observ- 
 ance of the day with them. In many places, 
 then, it appears, that the ancient Sabbath con- 
 tinued to be observed during much of the Hfe 
 of St. Paul ; yet it cannot be inferred from this, 
 that Christ himself did not substitute the day 
 of his resurrection in its room, as the day to 
 be especially kept holy for God's service. We 
 learn, from the Acts of the Apostles that 
 many thousands of Jews who beheved were for 
 a long time zealous of the law, and (as may be 
 gathered from the context) circumcised their 
 children ; and that they did so without preju- 
 dice to their faith as Christians, may be con- 
 cluded from the fact, that St. Paul, on hearing 
 of the practice, instead of checking it, himself 
 complied with the law : yet no one will deny 
 that Christ abolished circumcision, and sub- 
 stituted baptism in its room, as the rite of ad- 
 mission into the Church of God. In both these 
 cases it beautifully illustrates the wise and for- 
 bearing spirit of our religion, that time was 
 allowed for the Jews gradually to divest them- 
 selves of the sentiments which had sprung up 
 from a reverence for the inspired records. 
 
 ' Acts xxi. 20, 21. 
 
108 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 When the ancient Sabbath was laid aside in 
 the several parts of the Christian Church, can- 
 not easily be determined with precision : but 
 whenever and wherever the observance of it 
 was discontinued, the primitive Christians must 
 have remembered how the first day of the 
 week had been preferred in honour above 
 the seventh by Christ himself, and on this 
 authority have regarded the fourth command- 
 ment really obeyed by continuing to assem- 
 ble together for pubhc worship on the Lord's 
 day. 
 
 Such is the impression which all naturally 
 receive, who have been taught to keep holy 
 the Lord's day, and to venerate the command- 
 ments. And it seems to me no confusion of 
 thought, but the correct and the common view 
 of the case, to regard Sunday as the first day 
 of the week, when we regard it as a remem- 
 brancer of the blessings of the Christian cove- 
 nant ; as the seventh, when we regard it as a 
 remembrancer of the world's creation. As 
 long as we set apart each seventh day for this 
 pui-pose, it matters not to us, whether the 
 time has been exactly computed from Adam : 
 the received day, indeed, was not to be lightly 
 changed ; but to the Christian there has been 
 ample reason for the change, and ample sane- 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 109 
 
 tion ; and we commemorate each Lord's day 
 the original purpose of the Sabbath : no reason 
 can be assigned for the weekly return of the 
 festival but what is founded on this ; from 
 this arose the very division of time into weeks ; 
 that division was not the usage of ancient 
 Greece with her tripartite months ; it was 
 not the usage of ancient Rome, with her nones 
 and ides and calends, till from the numerical 
 coincidence, the seven days were named from 
 the seven planets, according to the system' 
 confirmed by Ptolemy, and this connection 
 \^^th astronomy made the use of weeks general 
 throughout the Roman empire about the reign 
 of the elder Antonine. The weekly celebration, 
 then, of the Lord's day is, in spirit and in 
 truth, a celebration of the Sabbath. 
 
 And scanty as the evidence is, which the 
 Scriptures afford on this subject, yet confirmed 
 as it is by the subsequent practice of the 
 Church, it is enough to estabhsh a reasonable 
 ground for beheving, that on the Lord's day 
 Christians used to meet together for pubUc 
 
 ' The Latin names for the days of the week are evidently 
 adopted from the Ptolemaic system, placing the sun first, 
 and then taking his inferior planets alternately with his 
 superior ones in their order, beginning with those nearest 
 the supposed centre, the earth. 
 
110 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 worship from the beginning. On the evening 
 of the day itself, we know, the disciples were 
 gathered together, and were discoursing of his 
 resurrection, before he appeared amongst them ; 
 and can it be supposed, that they thought of 
 his promise to appear again, without a prayer 
 that it might be realized, or that they heard of 
 its realization in his appearing to Simon, with- 
 out thanksgiving to God that this was so ? Can 
 it be supposed that these things, followed as 
 they were by his own blessed presence, were 
 forgotten by them as they again assembled on 
 the weekly return of the day, or that they were 
 remembered without an offering of prayer and 
 of praise ? And if, on the day of Pentecost, 
 they had not come together for Christian de- 
 votion, this would be the only instance in the 
 New Testament, in which the gifts of the Holy 
 Spirit were poured on man not so engaged. 
 Afterwards it is mentioned, as if it were the 
 custom of the Christians at Troas to meet 
 together on the first day * of the week, for the 
 purpose of celebrating the holy Communion. 
 " On the first day of the week, when the dis- 
 ciples came together to break bread, Paul 
 preached to them." On all other occasions 
 
 ' Acts XX 7. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 Ill 
 
 where St. Paul is mentioned as instructing 
 members of the Christian Church, it appears, 
 that he gathered them' together, and they 
 came by his appointment : but here they seem 
 to have assembled of their own accord, as if 
 it had been their custom to receive the Com- 
 munion on that day : and since we are dis- 
 tinctly told, that St. Paul abode at Troas 
 seven days, and was to depart on the morrow, 
 it is but reasonable to infer, that he had waited 
 there for the purpose of preaching to this 
 rehgious assembly. Again, charitable collec- 
 tions for the poor, which we learn in the suc- 
 ceeding age formed part of the Sunday's duty, 
 were appointed to be made on the first day ^ 
 of the week, by the Churches of Galatia and 
 Corinth. At a later period, after the Jewish 
 Sabbath had been wholly abrogated in the 
 destruction of Jerusalem, the day, on which 
 St. John being in the Spirit received the 
 Apocalyptic vision, is distinguished by the 
 name ^ of the Lord's day. Except the day 
 had been religiously observed, it would not 
 have been thus marked by its appropriate 
 name — a name, which seems to imply that 
 
 ' Acts xiv. 27 ; xv. 30 ; xix. 9 ; xx. 17. 
 ^ I Cor. xvi. 1, 2, ^ Rev. i. 10. 
 
112 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 the ancient Sabbath was no longer the pecu- 
 liarly holy day of the Lord our God. 
 
 As we turn from the Sacred Canon to 
 cotemporary writers, or to those of the next 
 succeeding ages, we find that in the Primitive 
 Church the Lord's day was regarded as sub- 
 stituted in the room of the Jewish Sabbath ; 
 that this day alone was weekly observed as a 
 festival by the Church in general, whatever 
 might have been the practice of some very few 
 in early times, or of the Eastern Church in a 
 later age ; and that it was observed, so far as 
 circumstances allowed, as a holy day, appro- 
 priated to the public worship of the Almighty. 
 But in entering on this part of my subject, we 
 must bear in mind, that, as in the New Testa- 
 ment, so in the early Christian winters also, 
 the seventh day alone is called the Sabbath, 
 our Sabbath being called the Lord's day, or 
 the first day in the week, or the eighth day, 
 from that eighth day on which Christ again 
 appeared to grace the first weekly commemo- 
 ration of his resurrection day. 
 
 We learn from the celebrated letter of Pliny 
 to the Emperor Trajan that the Christians 
 
 ' Some say they received the Sacrament at this early 
 meeting, as was done in Tertullian's time, and that they 
 met afterwards for the Agape or feast of Charity. — Soliti 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 113 
 
 of Bithynia were wont, on a certain fixed day, 
 to meet as it began to dawn, and to sing in 
 concert together an hymn to Christ, as God. 
 If it had been their custom to meet on two 
 consecutive days, the narrator would not have 
 spoken of a certain day as fixed for the pur- 
 pose ; the declared object of their meeting, to 
 worship Christ at the very hour of his resur- 
 rection, marks the day, on which they met, as 
 the Lord's day ; and it further appears from 
 Pliny's account, that after this early morning 
 service they again assembled to receive the 
 holy Communion. From the apostolical Fa- 
 ther Ignatius, we derive no information indeed 
 on the manner in which this day was passed ; 
 but there is a passage in his Epistle ' to the 
 
 stato die (not, statis diebus) ante lucem convenire, car* 
 menque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere secum invicem, seque 
 Sacramento obstringere — quibus peractis, morem sibi dis- 
 cedendi fuisse, rursiisque coeundi ad capiendum cibum. 
 
 ' For our knowledge of Ignatius's Epistles, we are 
 chiefly indebted to Archbishop Usher and Isaac Vossius ; 
 the former of whom, in 1642, edited an ancient Latin ver- 
 sion of them from two manuscripts, then discovered in 
 this country, and by it, in an edition two years afterwards, 
 detected many of the interpolations in the formerly received 
 Greek copy ; the latter, in 164G, first brought to light the 
 correct Greek text from MSS., in the Library of the 
 Medicis at Florence. The passage I have referred to, 
 1 
 
114 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 Magnesians, which, according to the ancient 
 and received translation, describes even the 
 
 according to the Florentine copy, runs thss : 01 iv 
 iraXauHQ ■Kpliyfiaaiv a.vaaTpa(^f.vTtg tic Kotvorjjra kXiriZo^ 
 riKvBov, firiKtTt ffafi(iaTl^ovTes, aWa Kara icvpiaKfiv i^bitjv 
 l^S>VT£Q, kv y Koi >/ (ut) ijfiwv dvirtiKiv IC avTOv teal tov 
 Oavarov avTov ; and the words, bearing on the question 
 before us, are thus rendered in the ancient Latin version, 
 " Non amplius sabbatizantes, sed secundum Dominicam 
 viventes, in qua et vita nostra orta est per ipsum et mortem 
 ipsius ;" and in a version adapted to the Florentine copy by 
 Archbishop Usher, " non amplius sabbatum colentes, sed 
 juxta Dominicam vitam agentes." The Greek text too, of 
 the interpolated copy in use before Vossius's edition, is, — 
 kopTai^tru) irae <l>i\6-)(pi(TToc Tr)v KvpiaKijv, iv y koi j; foo) 
 ilixdv dviruXe. Archbishop Wake, also, here translates 
 KvpiaKTiv the Lord's day. Yet, notwithstanding all this 
 weight of authority, and any objection which may be 
 raised from the clause, the simple and obvious sense of 
 which probably led to this interpretation of the word 
 KvpiaK))v, I believe Ignatius is speaking not of Jews con- 
 verted to Christianity, but of prophets of old foreseeing, 
 in the spirit, the day of Christ, and thereby not supersti- 
 tiously keeping the Sabbaths, but conforming their lives to 
 His. 
 
 If, however, this be the true interpretation of the pas- 
 sage, it will throw considerable light on the language of 
 the Fathers concerning the Patriarchal age. It is proba- 
 ble that they intended only to declare that there was no 
 sabbatism with the Patriarchs, as Ignatius here declares 
 there was no sabbatism with the enlightened Prophets, who 
 yet, as they are said to have lived after the pattern of 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 115 
 
 converted Jews as " no longer keeping the 
 Sabbaths, but living in the observance of the 
 Lord's day, in which our life also arose through 
 him and his death :" whether Ignatius in this 
 passage intended to speak of the Lord's day, 
 may however be questioned ; I therefore only 
 call attention to his doctrine, that the Jewish 
 Sabbath was not to be kept by the Christian 
 Church, and proceed to a surer witness that 
 the Lord's day was in these times substituted 
 in its room. In the Catholic Epistle ascribed 
 to St. Barnabas, and quoted as his by Clement 
 of Alexandria, and by Origen, a work unquest- 
 ionably of high antiquity, and read in some 
 Churches of old together with the sacred 
 Canon itself; in this Epistle of the Apostle 
 Barnabas, after declaring, that the account of 
 the six days' creation, and the seventh day of 
 rest, is an intimation, that after six thousand 
 years the Lord will bring all things to an end, 
 and enter on his glorious rest, (a declaration 
 which I only bring forward to shew that I do 
 not strain what follows from its true meaning,) 
 the author proceeds in the words of the Lord 
 from Isaiah's prophecy, "Your new moons and 
 
 Christ's life, must be understood to have regularly attended 
 the holy convocation, as His custom was, every Sabbatli 
 day. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 your Sabbaths I cannot away with : consider," 
 adds he, " what the Lord means by this ; the 
 Sabbaths, says He, which ye now keep are 
 not acceptable to Me, but those which I have 
 made, when resting from all things, I shall 
 begin the eighth day, that is, the beginning of 
 the other world for which cause also, we 
 keep as a festival the eighth day, in which 
 Jesus rose from the dead." The primitive 
 Church, then, kept holy the eighth day, the 
 Lord's day, because he would not have the 
 former Sabbaths, but those which he had made. 
 The nation of the Jews having at this time 
 been dispersed abroad, (for the Epistle was 
 written after the fall of Jerusalem) the aboli- 
 tion of their Sabbath, and the Christian cele- 
 bration of the Lord's day as a holy festival in 
 its stead, are here expressly declared; and 
 this day is spoken of, like the Jewish Sabbaths 
 of old, as a type of the eternal Sabbath in 
 heaven. 
 
 The earliest account we have of the form of 
 
 ' The important words of the passage above cited, are — 
 "PX^'' 'V^'P<'C oySotfe iroo/(T(i), o £oti aX\ov Koafiov dp-)(i]V 
 Kal ayofJLEV rr/v tifiipav tt\v oyionv tie Evfpoavvriv, ty jj 
 6 'Ijjcovc dviaTTi Ik vi.KpS)v. — Barnab. Ep. Cath. s. XI. For 
 the genuineness of this Epistle, see note (A) at the end of 
 this Sermon. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 117 
 
 public worship on the Lord's day, is in Justin 
 Martyr's first Apology, addressed to the Anto- 
 nines. He tells them, that all Christians, whe- 
 ther dwelling in cities or in the country, used 
 to assemble together every Sunday ; that in 
 these congregations the Scriptures of the New 
 or of the Old Testament were read, after which 
 practical sermons were preached ; that they 
 then stood up to join in prayer and thanks- 
 giving, and all received the holy Communion, 
 the minister praying aloud, according to his 
 power, and the people assenting by an Amen 
 to his prayers ; and that a collection of alms 
 for the needy was made by the communicants, 
 and given to the minister to distribute at his 
 discretion Justin adds, that Sunday was thus 
 
 ' The passage, above referred to, from Justin's first 
 Apology for the Christians, is near the end of that work ; 
 a translation of it, however, is given by Bishop Kaye, in 
 his account of Justin's writings ; it is also quoted in the 
 Homily of Common Prayer and Sacrament. The extract 
 from Dionysius's Epistle may be seen in Dr. Routh's 
 Reliquiae Sacrse, Vol. I. p. 168, or in Whitby's Commentary 
 on 1 Cor. xvi. 2. It is much to be regretted, that a 
 Treatise on the Lord's day, by Melito, Bishop of Sardis, 
 cotemporary with Dionysius, has been lost. We may 
 observe, Justin, writing to heathen emperors, calls the days 
 of the week by their heathen names, and so does Tertui- 
 lian, when addressing heathens. That these names were 
 
118 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 observed, not only as the day of our Lord's re- 
 surrection, but also as the first day of the crea- 
 tion of the world : a plain acknowledgment, 
 that he regarded it as a commemoration of 
 that, which all must allow to be the chief thing 
 commemorated by the ancient Sabbath. It 
 may be further remarked on this passage, that 
 though he mentions Saturday, he mentions it 
 as no peculiar day : and, indeed, in his Dia- 
 logue with Trypho, the Jew, he argues that, as 
 there had been holy and righteous men before 
 Moses' time, without his Sabbaths, so there 
 might be now ; an argument used also by 
 Irenseus and Tertullian, the latter assuming 
 that the alleged fact could not be disproved, 
 though he confesses, it was not allowed by the 
 Jews. And here, though I cannot admit the 
 account of the Patriarchal times given by these 
 Christian Fathers, I must admit the account of 
 their own, imphed by their argument, namely, 
 that it was not the practice of Christians in 
 their time to keep, besides the Lord's day, the 
 Jewish Sabbath also : nay, TertuUian distinctly 
 tells us, that the Christian Church in his age 
 had nothing to do with the Jewish Sabbaths. 
 
 new at Rome, in Justin's time, may appear from his expres- 
 sions, " the day called Sunday," and " the day after Satur- 
 day, vviiich is Sunday." 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 119 
 
 In an Epistle to the Romans from Dionysius, 
 who was Bishop of Corinth in the reign of the 
 younger Antonine, he says, " This day being 
 the Lord's day, we kept it holy," Tertullian 
 too informs us, that the Christian Church kept 
 Sunday as a festival ; that on that day alone, 
 and not on Saturday also, as was the practice 
 of some very few, they used to pray, not on 
 their knees, but standing, and to lay aside 
 every appearance of an anxious and troubled 
 mind, putting off even business, lest by any 
 means they should give place to the devil ; this 
 practice being according to the doctrine they 
 had received : and in another place he exhorts 
 his fellow Christians not to keep the heathen 
 festivals, but the Lord's day and Christian fes- 
 tivals alone, as these would be enough, if they 
 needed bodily relaxation '. 
 
 ' See Tertullian Apol. adv. Gentes, c. 16. "Diem Soils 
 laetitiae indulgemus." — De Oratione, c. 1 7. " De genu quo- 
 que ponendo varietatem observationis patitur oratio per 
 pauculos quosdam qui Sabbato abstinent genibus. Nos vero, 
 sicut accepimus, solo die Dominico resurrectionis, non ab 
 isto tantum, sed omni anxietatis habitu et officia (officio) 
 cavere debemus, differentes etiam negotia, ne quem diabolo 
 locum demus." He adds, indeed, " Tantundem et spatio 
 Pentecostes, quae eadem exultationis solemnitate dispun- 
 gitur." This, however, I think, refers only to the standing 
 posture at prayer, the subject of which Tertullian is speak- 
 
120 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 These extracts from the early Fathers seem 
 sufficient to refute the notion, that Sunday- 
 was not set apart from the business of the 
 world for the service of religion before the 
 edict of Constantine. It cannot, indeed, be 
 supposed that the emperor, especially if he 
 had not then been converted to Christianity, 
 would have enjoined his subjects to keep holy 
 the Lord's day, had not such been the general 
 desire and doctrine at least, if not the general 
 practice, as far as was permitted, of the Christ- 
 ian Church in his empire. And in this ques- 
 tion the desire and doctrine of the Church are 
 
 ing, and to the rule of never fasting during these fifty days. 
 Compare De Corona Militis, c. 3. De Idololatria, c. 14. 
 " Nobis, quibus Sabbata extranea sunt, &c." " We who have 
 nothing to do with the Sabbaths, and new moons, and feasts 
 once acceptable to God," yet join in heathen festivals. 
 After some severe remarks on this practice, he thus pro- 
 ceeds : " If you need bodily relaxation, you have, I will 
 not only say, holidays, which are your own as a Christian, 
 but even more, than you gain by compliance with heathens. 
 For heathen festivals are yearly, yours weekly, each eighth 
 day. Si quid et carni indulgendum est, habes non dicam 
 tuos dies tantum, sed et plures. Nam Ethnicis semel 
 annuus dies quisque festus est ; tibi octavus quisque dies." 
 His argument against keeping the Sabbath, from what he 
 supposes the usage of the Patriarchs, is in his treatise Adv. 
 Judaeos, c. 2 and 4. On the practice of standing up to 
 pray, see note (B) at the end of this Sermon. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 121 
 
 of more importance to consider than her prac- 
 tice, when her practice was under constraint. 
 The edict too itself, Constantine having mis- 
 understood the Church's desire, commanded 
 that Friday, the day of our Lord's passion, 
 should be observed with the same honour as 
 Sunday, the day of his resurrection. There 
 must, therefore, have been something inde- 
 pendent of this edict, which caused the Lord's 
 day, and it alone, to be observed as a weekly 
 festival in the Christian Church. As to the 
 practice before the reign of Constantine, since 
 the chief end of rest from labour on the Lord's 
 day is the due performance of its religious ser- 
 vices, it must be acknowledged, that rest was 
 less necessary to keep up the spirit of religion 
 in the days of the Church's persecution, when 
 none were her members but who sincerely be- 
 lieved, and earnestly desired to meet for pubhc 
 worship ; and, perhaps, by being less strict on 
 this point, they may have enjoyed a more un- 
 disturbed exercise of their devotions, than they 
 would have done, if they had attempted, each 
 Lord's day, to abstain altogether from their 
 ordinary business, and so have provoked their 
 persecutors : but in happier times, when the 
 government, under which Christians are placed, 
 permits or jequires the due celebration of it. 
 
122 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 it is not the law of the land alone, but the para- 
 mount law of the Almighty God, which bids us 
 remember to keep holy each seventh day. 
 
 And this was precisely the advantage derived 
 from the edict of Constantine — it enabled 
 Christians to do that, which, according to the 
 doctrine of the Church, had before been their 
 duty, as far as it was in their power. " As in 
 the old time God gave command to keep holy 
 the Sabbath-day, in memory of the first crea- 
 tion of the world," says Athanasius, who lived 
 in this age, " we accordingly observe the Lord's 
 day, in memoiy of the second and new crea- 
 tion." And again he says \ " The Sabbath 
 indeed was held in honour by them of old ; 
 but the Lord has transferred the day of the 
 Sabbath to the Lord's day." About forty years 
 afterwards, when the practice of keeping Sa- 
 turday Sabbaths, which had become so general 
 at the close of this century, was evidently gain- 
 ing ground in the eastern Church, a decree 
 was passed, in the council held at Laodicea ^, 
 
 ' Atlianas. de Sabbato et Circumcisione, and De 
 Semente. The passages will be found in the Appendix. 
 
 * Ou SeI XpiirriavovQ 'lovSaiieiy, Kai iv rJ aaftj^aru 
 ayp\a.^tLV,d\\d ipydHitaQai avTove iv rtj avrfj »//i«p^' Ti/y 
 KvpiaKiiv TTpoTifJiiiJVTic, I'lye tvi'aivTO, (ryoXdl^iiv, wc Xpia- 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 123 
 
 "that members of the Church should not rest 
 from work on the Sabbath, hke Jews, but 
 should labour on that day, and preferring in 
 honour the Lord's day, then, if it be in their 
 power, should rest from work, as Christians :" 
 and Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, of the same age 
 in the western Church, declares, that on the 
 eighth day, that is, the first of the week. Christ- 
 ians enjoyed the festival of a perfect Sabbath 
 
 It is true the early Fathers continually speak 
 of an eternal Sabbath, a perpetual rest from 
 the works of sin, commencing, in some degree 
 at least, to a sincere Christian, in this life, and 
 declare it to be substituted for the Jewish Sab- 
 bath in the Christian scheme : but there is 
 nothing in these expressions inconsistent with 
 their regarding the Lord's day substituted for 
 it also, being, like it, a type ^ of that same eter- 
 
 Tiavoi. Concil. Laodicense, Can. 29. See Lardner's Cred. 
 Gosp. Hist. Part II. chap. 85, 
 
 ' Cum in septimo die Sabbati sit norma et observantia 
 constituta, — tamen nos in octava die, quae et ipsa prima est, 
 perfecti sabbati festivitate lietamur. Hilar. Prol. in Psalm. 
 See note (C) at the end of this Sermon. 
 
 ^ So Barnabas ; and also Basil de Spiritu Sancto, c. 27, 
 speaking of the Lord's day, says, — " This day, which is at 
 once both the first day of the week and the eighth, fore- 
 shews that really first and true eiglith day, which the 
 Psalmist mentions in the titles of some of the Psalms (sec 
 
124 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 nal Sabbath in heaven. Nor does it present 
 any reasonable ground of objection to the view 
 here taken, that in their writings both these 
 days retain each its appropriate name, by which 
 they are called in the Holy Scriptures. There 
 is, indeed, in Justin's Dialogue with Tr}^ho 
 the Jew, a passage, which seems to shew a 
 reason, why the Fathers, in the early times, 
 could not with advantage have called the Lord's 
 day by the name of the Christian's Sabbath. 
 " The new law ^" says he, " would have you 
 keep a continual Sabbath : but you think your- 
 ■ selves rehgious because you rest from labour a 
 single day, not considering the end for which 
 that rest was appointed." Now, if the Jews in 
 that age laid greater stress on the obhgation to 
 rest from work on the seventh day, than on its 
 religious services ; if they regarded it as kept 
 holy, so long as it was not made common or 
 profane by their ordinary labour ; and if the 
 Christians, on the other hand, though nothing 
 kept them from the public serAdces of religion 
 on the Lord's day, yet were prevented by the 
 
 Septuag. Ps. vi. and xi.), the state that is to be after these 
 times, — the ceaseless day, that has neither evening nor 
 morrow, — the life that knows neither end nor decay." — 
 Routh's Reliq. Sacr. Vol. III. p. 250. 
 ' Dial, cum Tryph. c. 12. — Paris, 1742. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 125 
 
 heathen powers from making it a day of rest ; 
 does not this state of things sufficiently ac- 
 count for the language of the Fathers on this 
 subject ? If they could not themselves enjoy 
 a perfect rest on the first day of the week, 
 could they urge the observance of it, as a new 
 and Christian Sabbath, upon those who re- 
 garded strict rest as the chief end of the Sab- 
 bath-day, and which alone that word expresses? 
 Certainly, after the edict of Constantine, we 
 find the name of Sabbath ' apphed, by Hilary 
 of Poitiers, to the festivity of the Lord's day ; 
 and perhaps this sense may be given also to 
 the above-cited words of Athanasius. 
 
 Absolute rest from labour, however, as ap- 
 pears from the fourth commandment, is not 
 the chief end and design of the institution of a 
 Sabbath, but that the day may be kept holy : 
 rest is principally important, not as an end, 
 but as a means to promote this, the first and 
 chief design : and the absolute rest that com- 
 mandment enjoins, seems to have been in- 
 tended to continue for a time only, as far as it 
 had reference to the then peculiar state of the 
 Jews, by their bondsmen's rest reminding them 
 
 ' See in the Appendix a remarkable passage from Clem. 
 Alex. Strom. VI. 
 
126 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 of their own rest from bondage in Egypt, by 
 the common national enjoyment of that rest 
 making their Sabbaths a sign ; a sign given by 
 God to them, not as distinguished from the 
 Patriarchs, who were dead, (as some ' seem to 
 suppose) but as distinguished from the heathen, 
 who were hving around them. 
 
 Perhaps, however, it will be said, it does not 
 appear, that either the Apostles or the early 
 Christian Fathers ever enforced the duty of 
 observing the Lord's day by reference to the 
 fourth commandment : yet to me this seems 
 only what we might have expected, even if 
 the occasions of mentioning the duty had been 
 more frequent, and the members of the primi- 
 tive Church less ready and zealous to perform 
 it. For at that time, for fifteen hundred years 
 and more, the last day of the week had been 
 kept in obedience to this commandment by the 
 nation, to which many of those who heard them 
 belonged. The reference, then, to give it force, 
 must always have been accompanied with a 
 double explanation, that they were no longer 
 bound to keep the last day of the week, and 
 that the first was substituted in its room : 
 whereas, the very ground of this substitution 
 
 ' Paley's Mor. Pliil. B. V. c. 7. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 127 
 
 furnished at once an ample motive for setting 
 apart the Lord's day for public prayer and 
 praise ; a motive which even its name sug- 
 gests — grateful love of him, who, on the day 
 he thus hallowed as his own, rose again for our 
 justification. But this affords no reason, why 
 stress should not be laid on the obligation of 
 the fourth commandment in the present times, 
 when now, for a far longer period, the duty it 
 enjoins, of keeping holy each seventh day, has 
 been fulfilled in the Christian Church, by keep- 
 ing the Lord's day especially consecrated to 
 the public worship of the Almighty. 
 
 In his Epistle to the Colossians, St. Paul 
 presses the duty of filial obedience on the very 
 ground, on which we may conceive the ob- 
 servance of the Lord's day to have been 
 pressed in the primitive Church. " Children," 
 says he, " obey your parents : for this is well- 
 pleasing to the Lord." And certainly we 
 should be told, that Christians are to be ex- 
 horted to filial obedience on this ground alone, 
 and not by reference to the Decalogue, if the 
 same Apostle had not, in his Epistle to the 
 Ephesians, rested this same duty on the obli- 
 gation of the fifth commandment. 
 
 The peculiar doctrines of Christianity furnish 
 us, no doubt, with the best and most inspiriting 
 
 12 
 
128 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 motives to guide us in all our conduct; yet 
 the words, which God himself spake on Sinai, 
 are often found to be useful and powerful 
 remembrancers of the several duties they com- 
 mand. That the fourth commandment was 
 there given is certain, and it is incumbent on 
 those, who would tell us, it is abolished and 
 wholly repealed, to shew us where. All that 
 can be certainly inferred on this subject from 
 the Scriptures is, that we are not bound to keep 
 holy ' the last day of the week, as the Jews 
 were, and that we are not bound to keep a 
 Sabbath in that strictness which, under the 
 severest penalties, was imposed on them. To 
 regulate our practice by these certain infer- 
 ences is our safest and wisest course, and not, 
 without express authority from him who gave 
 it, rashly to declare his commandment re- 
 pealed, lest haply we be found to fight even 
 against God. 
 
 It remains only to consider, how far that 
 strictness of rest, to which the Jews were 
 bound on their Sabbaths, has been loosed for 
 us on ours ; and, in considering this question, 
 we have Christ himself for our guide. Christ 
 has taught us that works of necessity, which 
 
 ' Col. ii. 16. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 129 
 
 cannot be deferred, even though they should 
 be laborious works, are no breach of the Sab- 
 bath. It was no breach of the Sabbath to loose 
 cattle from the stall, and lead them away to 
 water : nay, more, if a sheep', or an ass, or an 
 ox, should have fallen into a pit, the labour of 
 laying hold on it, and pulling it out, was no 
 breach of the Sabbath : much less is the holy 
 rest violated by attending our fellow-creatures 
 in their distress, and by ministering to the 
 wants of the sick and infirm. But these works, 
 it may be thought, are excepted on another 
 ground, as deeds of mercy ; and deeds of 
 mercy, as our poet Dry den ^ says, 
 
 " Deeds of mercy are a part of rest :" 
 
 to do them, is to lay aside the works of the 
 world, and engage oneself in the works of God : 
 they are our acceptable offering to Him, who 
 will have mercy rather than sacrifice. Other 
 works, however, which are not works of mercy, 
 nor yet can be said to be of absolute necessity, 
 but which are required by decency and our 
 reasonable convenience, may be done without 
 violation of the sacredness of the day. When 
 he, who had been healed at the Pool, Beth- 
 
 ' Luke xiii. 15, and xiv. 5. ^ Dryden's Eleonora. 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 esda', took up his bed on the Sabbath, and 
 carried it away, this was no breach of the sa- 
 cred rest, though the Jews so regarded it — for 
 he did that only which Christ had told him he 
 might do ; and it cannot be pretended that the 
 ancient Sabbath was at this time set aside. 
 Even in the Mosaic law, to prepare what we 
 must eat, was permitted on the days of holy 
 convocation in the Passover week, on which it 
 was commanded that no manner of work was 
 to be done : and though the Pharisees did not 
 allow that this permission extended also to the 
 Sabbath day, but censured the disciples, be- 
 cause on that day ^ as they passed a corn-field, 
 they plucked the ears of corn, (an act on other 
 days, at least, expressly ^ allowed in the law), 
 and because they rubbed them in their hands, 
 that they might eat them, our Lord's reproof 
 of the misplaced censure teaches us, that such 
 acts are not forbidden by the spirit of the fourth 
 commandment. Works of mercy then, works 
 of necessity, which cannot be deferred, and all 
 those ordinary services which the daily con- 
 venience of domestic life requires, are no breach 
 of this day's hallowed rest, provided, in this 
 last case at least, they do not prevent any one 
 
 • John V. Luke vi. ^ Deut. xxiii, 25. 
 
SERMON IV. 131 
 
 from bearing a part in its sacred duties. And 
 by its sacred duties I would understand, not 
 public worship alone, though this is the chief; 
 but it is a practice, to which the devotion of 
 public worship inclines us, and which is ob- 
 viously proper in itself, to keep holy this day, by 
 devoting some portion of it, more especially, to 
 private meditation and the study of God's holy 
 word. What portion of the day each individual 
 ought so to employ, it is not my part to de- 
 termine. The Gospel does not give us precise 
 rules, but rather principles, which we are to 
 apply honestly and conscientiously to all oc- 
 casions, as they arise. It is not good, that the 
 mind should be forced to the study of religion, 
 nor ought Sunday to be made a day of intense 
 application even on religious subjects. As it 
 is a festival, the innocent enjoyment of society 
 well befits the day ; but as it is a holy festival, 
 surely the enjoyment of religious exercises 
 ought to be amongst its enjoyments ; and we 
 may justly regard the relish and delight we 
 have in these, as a mark and a gage, by which 
 we may measure the progress we make in pre- 
 paring ourselves for that eternal Sabbath, which 
 remains for the people of God. It seems, in- 
 deed, absurd to suppose we can have any real 
 desire for heaven, if we have no delight now on 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 NOTES TO 
 
 earth in those sacred employments, which we 
 must needs beheve will form our business and 
 our pleasure there. — May He, whose goodness 
 every Sunday, more especially, we commemo- 
 rate as our Creator, our Redeemer, and our 
 Sanctifier — may He make each Lord's day, 
 each Christian Sabbath, to us, the means of 
 preparing us, more and more, for the eternal 
 Sabbath in his own blessed presence, and 
 fixing our affections there, may He incline our 
 hearts to keep His law, by remembering to 
 keep holy each seventh day. 
 
 Note A. 
 
 ON THE EPISTLE OF ST. BARNABAS. 
 
 Modern divines have been much divided in their opinions 
 on the genuineness of tliis catholic Epistle of Barnabas. 
 That Barnabas is the author, is maintained or allowed by 
 Isaac Vossius, in a note on his edition of it, by Dr. Bernard, 
 who furnished what were saved of Archbishop Usher's 
 notes from the Oxford fire, by Bishop Fell, who used these 
 notes in his edition, by Dodwell, Du Pin, Dr. Cave, 
 Dr. Mill, Archbishop Wake, Dr. S. Clarke, Eachard, 
 Whiston, Dr. Jenkin, Bishop Pearson, and Dr. Lardner ; 
 denied or doubted by Menardus, Archbishop Laud on re- 
 ceiving Menardus' edition, Cotelerius, Fr. Spanheim, To- 
 land, Basnage, and Jeremiah Jones. The chief ground of 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 133 
 
 their objection to its genuineness, the fanciful interpreta- 
 tions of Scripture it contains, is ably met by Vossius, who 
 observed, that the same objection may be raised against 
 the Epistle of another " fellow-labourer of St. Paul," Cle- 
 ment of Rome, which yet is universally acknowledged ; 
 that it is unreasonable, then, on such ground, to deny that 
 to be the work of Barnabas, which is expressly ascribed to 
 him by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and other ancient 
 Fathers : for though Eusebius calls it apocryphal and 
 spurious, he does not thereby mean to express a doubt 
 who is the author, (for he calls it Barnabas' Epistle) but to 
 express his conviction, that it is not a part of the sacred 
 canon. The declaration, that Christ and his cross were 
 revealed to Abraham by the Greek letters expressing 318, 
 the number of persons, whom, it is alleged, he circumcised, 
 is undoubtedly sufficient to exclude the Epistle from the 
 sacred canon : but there is no more reason to suppose the 
 date of the origin of the Greek alphabet would have been 
 known to Barnabas, than to Clement of Alexandria or 
 Ambrose, who both adopted from him this very notion. 
 Mr. Jones has an ingenious argument to shew that Bar- 
 nabas could not have been the author, who must (as he 
 contends) have been, not a Jew, but a Gentile, continually 
 in the Epistle distinguishing himself from the Jews, and 
 making himself one with those he addresses, whom Jones 
 considers as Gentiles : Archbishop Wake, on the other hand, 
 thinks the Epistle addressed to Jews who believed ; Lard- 
 ner, with more reason, says it is addressed to all Christians. 
 It is a Catholic Epistle : and whoever consults it, may see 
 that the distinction is made, not as Jones supposed, between 
 Jew and Gentile, but between Jew and Christian, a more 
 natural distinction after the destruction of Jerusalem. Bar- 
 nabas says, " I write not as a teacher, but as one of you ;" 
 
134 
 
 NOTES TO 
 
 " 1 beseech you, as one of your own brethren, loving you 
 all beyond my own life :" and, indeed, in the following 
 passage where he makes himself one with them as Christ- 
 ians, he seems to distinguish himself from them as Gen- 
 tiles. After declaring that the Jews were not worthy of 
 the covenant which had been given them by Moses, a ser- 
 vant, he thus proceeds : " The Lord was made manifest, 
 that they should fill up the measure of their sins, and that 
 me should receive tiie covenant of the Lord Jesus by him 
 who is the heir. And again, the prophet says, ' I have 
 given thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be 
 for salvation to the ends of the earth, saith the Lord,' the 
 God who hath redeemed thee : who for that very end was 
 prepared, that by his own appearing he might redeem from 
 darkness our hearts, already devoured by death and de- 
 livered over to the lawlessness of error, and might establish 
 a covenant with us by the word." These considerations, 
 (to which may be added the way in which he more than 
 once speaks of the Jewish covenant as having been " pro- 
 mised to the fathers," and other expressions, affording a 
 presumption, that the author was by birth a Jew,) seem 
 quite to set aside Mr. Jones's argument. Mr. Jones, in- 
 deed, himself allows, that if the Epistle had spoken of the 
 Jewish covenant as promised to " our fatliers," as Arch- 
 bishop Wake has translated it, the words would be " a proof 
 that the author was a Jew." This, however, is not exactly 
 so : Clement of Rome, in his first Epistle to the Corinth- 
 ians, applies the words " our fathers" both to Jacob and to 
 Abraham : yet, though he is said to have been a Gentile 
 by birth. Dr. Cave tells us he was Bishop of the Jewish 
 
 ' Sect. X. Voss. Edit.; or xiv. Archbishop Wake's 
 translation. 
 
 12 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 135 
 
 converts at Rome during the time of Linus and Cletus. 
 Whether the expression be " our fathers" or "the fathers," 
 (both are so used by St. Paul), is of no great importance : 
 the sense must be the same : neither proves that the writer 
 was a Jew ; either affords a presumption that he was, by 
 proving that he had a common feehng with that people. 
 The Epistle was certainly written after the destruction of 
 Jerusalem ; very soon after it, argues Lardner, with much 
 force, chiefly from this passage : " Although you have seen 
 so great signs and wonders done among the people of the 
 Jews, yet, this notwithstanding, the Lord forsakes them." 
 Both Dodwell and Mill consider it to have been written 
 before the Epistle of St. Jude, or the Epistles and Revela- 
 tion of St. John. It may then be accepted as the Epistle 
 of St. Barnabas, according to the evidence of the ancient 
 Fathers of the Church. 
 
 See Vossius' edit, of Barnab. and Ignat. Epistles. Lon- 
 don, 1680, p. 308.— Pearson on the Creed. Oxford, 1797, 
 Vol. II. p. 242. — Jones on the Canon of the New Test. 
 Vol. II. ch. 37 to ch. 43. — and Lardner's Works, Vol. I. 
 Pt. 2. ch. 1. 
 
 Note B. 
 
 on the standing posture in prayer, and the 
 observance of pentecost. 
 
 The following passage, from the " Questions and Answers 
 for the Orthodox," (a work absurdly ascribed to Justin, 
 who suffered martyrdom several years before Irenaeus), 
 throws some light both on the custom of using the standing 
 posture in prayer, and on the estimation in which the fifty 
 days after Easter were held, in comparison with the Lord's 
 day. — " Quest. If to bend the knee in prayer more com- 
 
136 
 
 NOTES TO 
 
 mends the supplicant, and more draws on the Divine com- 
 passion, than to stand praying, why, on the Lord's day, and 
 from Easter to the day of Pentecost, do not men kneel as 
 they pray ? and whence has this custom been introduced 
 in the Churches ? — Ans. Since it is our duty always to 
 remember both our fall in sins, and the grace of our Lord 
 Christ, by which we have been raised up from our fallen 
 state ; therefore, our bending the knee on the six days is a 
 symbol of our fall in sins, but our not kneeling on the Lord's 
 day, is a symbol of our resurrection, by which, through the 
 grace of Christ, we have been delivered from our sins, and 
 from death, slain in him. And this custom had its origin 
 in the apostolical times, as the blessed martyr, Irenaeus, 
 Bishop of Lyons, declares, in his Treatise on Easter, where 
 he makes mention of the fifty days of Pentecost also, on 
 which we do not bend the knee, because they are equiva- 
 lent to the Lord's day, in respect of the reason which has 
 been assigned for this custom." — Quest, and Answ. 115. 
 
 The fact, that Ascension-day was distinguished above the 
 rest, when it was ranked with the high festivals, shows 
 plainly, that the fifty days of Pentecost were not all ob- 
 served with the same solemnity as the Lord's day. The 
 same thing also appears by the following note. 
 
 Note C. 
 
 Nos in octavd die, quce et ipsa prima^ — The use of dies 
 as feminine, though in the immediately-preceding clause it 
 is masculine, is singular ; but it seems to have arisen only 
 from the eighth day having been mentioned just above, 
 in conjunction with the word ogdoas. 
 
 That it may not be thought Hilary is speaking of the 
 eighth day (as they called the glorified state) in the world 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 137 
 
 to come, of which the Lord's day here is a type, and to 
 which the word ogdoas is equally applicable, I give the 
 following account of the argument, in which the passage is 
 introduced. Having noticed that the fiftieth Psalm (ac- 
 cording to the Septuagint) comes before that on Doeg the 
 Edomite, though, in the order of history, it ought to come 
 after it, he observes a propriety in this, a prayer for remis- 
 sion of sins being placed as the fiftieth, the number of the 
 Jubilee year, the Sabbath of Sabbaths. He then remarks 
 that the Book of Psalms consists of three sets of fifty, and 
 that whoever considers the last Psalm ' of each set, (accord- 
 ing to the Septuagint), will perceive that this arrangement 
 agrees with the economy of our salvation ; for the first step 
 of our salvation is the regeneration and becoming a new 
 man, after the remission of sins ; then comes the kingdom 
 of the Lord, reserved for the times of the holy city and the 
 heavenly Jerusalem ; and, last of all, heavenly glory being 
 consummated in us, we advance through the kingdom of 
 the Son into the kingdom of God the Father, in which all 
 spirits shall praise the Lord. And so the subject is in- 
 troduced, in a preface on the Psalms ; for he immediately 
 proceeds, speaking, however, no longer of the Jubilee 
 year, but of the day of Pentecost; " that these, (i. e. the 
 fiftieths), are the Sabbaths of Sabbaths, appears from the 
 number seven multiplied by itself, which number, the 
 eighth, (ogdoas), being both the first day and the eighth, 
 added after the seventh week, completes, according to the 
 fulness of the Gospel. And, indeed, these Sabbaths of 
 Sabbaths were so religiously observed by the Apostles, 
 that, on these fifty days, no one, either in his prayers pros- 
 trated himself to the ground, or by fasting broke the fes- 
 
 ' Psalms li., ci., and cl., in our translation. 
 
138 
 
 NOTES TO SERMON IV. 
 
 tivity of this spiritual blessedness : which very same prac- 
 tice is appointed even independently of this festival for the 
 Lord's days, which are added beyond the number of the 
 Sabbath-day, (seven), by the fulness of the Gospel. For 
 though the name and the observance of the Sabbath were 
 appointed for the seventh day, yet we, every eighth day, 
 which same also is the first day, enjoy the festival of a 
 perfect Sabbath."— Prolog, in Psalm. § 10, 11, 12. 
 
 We may observe here, that though the prohibition to 
 kneel or to fast was common to all the days of Pentecost 
 as well as to the Lord's day, yet it was on this day alone 
 they enjoyed a perfect Sabbath. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The history of the Sabbath, by Dr. Heylyn, having 
 been strongly commended as throwing much light on 
 the subject, I felt it necessary to consult that work, 
 before I ventured to publish my own view. It is a 
 work, which undeniably makes a show of great learn- 
 ing, but I cannot think it entitled to praise as a candid 
 enquiry into the truth. Provoked by the extravagance 
 of the Puritans in his day. Dr. Heylyn seems to have 
 run into the opposite extreme, and to be continually 
 labouring to warp the authorities, he brings forward, 
 into an agi-eement with the position he has undertaken 
 to defend. His biographer, Vernon informs us, the 
 history was written, printed, and presented to the king 
 (by whose special command he undertook it) in a less 
 space of time than four months : and certainly it bears 
 marks of the haste in which it was written. 
 
 It consists of two parts, and professes to give a com- 
 plete history of the Sabbath ; in the first part, from the 
 creation of the world to the destruction of the Temple ; 
 in the second, from the first preaching of the Gospel to 
 Dr. Heylyn's own times. 
 
 ' Life of Heylyn by G. Vernon. London, 1682. 
 
142 
 
 heylyn's argument on 
 
 In the first part he denies, that the Sabbath was in- 
 stituted at the creation, or that it was observed before 
 the days of Moses. As my argument, however, on 
 this branch of the subject rests not merely on the pro- 
 babihties which may be drawn from the expressions in 
 Genesis and Exodus, but chiefly on the authority of 
 St. Paul, I should leave Heylyn's remarks on it un- 
 noticed, were I not aware, that if any strong probability 
 were established against the primeval institution, the 
 interpretation I have given of Heb. iv. would be called 
 in question. It has, indeed, been objected, that St, 
 Paul does not distinctly assert, that the Sabbath was 
 appointed from the foundation of the world : but surely 
 it is enough, if the fact be clearly implied in his argu- 
 ment ; and it is not intelligible for what purpose the 
 creation is there mentioned at all, except from that time 
 the people of God had enjoyed this his holy rest. Now 
 the strength of Heylyn's argument lies in this, that the 
 early Christian Fathers, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, 
 all argue against the necessity of a Sabbath under the 
 Christian covenant, from the non-existence of a Sab- 
 bath before the days of Moses : and if their argument 
 had been universally admitted by the Jews, to whom it 
 is addressed, there would confessedly be much weight 
 in what is urged by Heylyn ; but, not to speak of St. 
 Paul and the Jews of Palestine, to whom he was writ- 
 ing, Tertullian expressly says', that the Jews in his 
 day did not admit, that the Sabbath was first instituted 
 in Moses' time, but contended for its primeval institu- 
 
 ' Adv. Jud. c. iv. 
 
THE TIMES BEFORE THE LAW. 
 
 143 
 
 tion. And it appears from Selden that they were 
 much divided in their opinions on the subject ; some 
 interpreting Gen. ii. 3, as an anticipation of the Mo- 
 saic institution, (benedixit in Mannah et sanctificavit 
 in Mannah), yet thinking Abraham kept a Sabbath 
 through a foreknowledge of the law ; others under- 
 standing it as a sanctification of that very seventh day 
 only ; others as an institution of a Sabbath to be thence- 
 forth observed. No argument, then, on one side or 
 the other, can be drawn from the Rabbinical writings, 
 among which we may class ^ the reputed " seven pre- 
 cepts of Noah ;" nor can any weight be attached to the 
 opinions of the early Christian Fathers, who could 
 only derive their information on this head fi'om the 
 Jews. When Heylyn argues, that Adam received no 
 command to keep a Sabbath, because some early Christ- 
 ians have thought the command of the forbidden fruit 
 the only one given in Eden, he does but beg the ques- 
 tion as to the meaning of Gen. ii. 3 : that the command, 
 the violation of which was the fall of man, should 
 stand prominent in the Sacred History, is natural ; 
 and it would be somewhat extravagant thence to infer, 
 that our first parents in Eden had no other duty than 
 to obey this command only. 
 
 But his attempt to get rid of the natural inference 
 from Noah keeping weeks in the ark, deserves to be 
 given in his own words. He quotes from Tostat, 
 Bishop of Avila, who died about the middle of the 
 
 ' De Jure Naturali, c. xi. xiii. xiv. 
 
 ^ Jenning's Jewish Antiquities, B. I. c. 3. 
 
144 
 
 heylyn's argument on 
 
 fifteenth century. " Noah desired to know whether 
 the waters were decreased. Now, since the waters 
 are regulated by the moon, Noah was most especially 
 to regard her motions : for, as she is either in oppo- 
 sition or conjunction with the sun, in her increase or 
 in her wane, there is proportionably an increase or 
 falling of the waters; Noah then, considering the 
 moon in her several quarters, which commonly, we 
 know, are at seven days' distance, sent forth his birds 
 to bring him tidings : for the text tells us that, he 
 sent out the raven and the dove four times. And 
 the fourth time, the moon being then in the last 
 quarter, when both by the ordinary course of nature, 
 the waters usually are, and by the will of God were 
 then much decreased, the dove, which was sent out 
 had found good footing on the Earth, and returned no 
 more." On this Heylyn exclaims, " So far the learned 
 Abulensis ; which makes clear the case." Very clear, 
 indeed ! but it is difficult to say, how these learned 
 persons ascertained the phases of the moon at each 
 of these four several periods, and scarce less difficult, 
 sufficiently to admire their ingenious theory of the 
 tides, their fancy, that the whole bulk of the mighty 
 waters is really less in the neap, than in the spring : 
 did neither of them ever hear, that the higher the tide 
 flows, the further it ebbs? Noah waited seven days 
 for the ordinary influence of the moon in her last 
 quarter decreasing the waters ! Such an argument 
 cannot be allowed, though commended by all the 
 literary ,fame of Peter Heylyn, and " the learned 
 Abulensis." 
 
THE TIMES BEFORE THE LAW. 
 
 145 
 
 On considering the dispersion from Babel, Heylyn 
 displays a better knowledge ' of Natural Philosophy, 
 but not more force in his conclusion. To be sure, 
 when the descendants of Noah became dispersed over 
 all the earth, the Sabbath, supposing it to have been 
 kept by all, must have been kept by different settlers 
 at different hours, varying with the difference of the 
 longitude of the places where they severally dwelt: 
 but this does not warrant him in arguing, that to keep 
 a Sabbath cannot be a moral duty, on the ground that 
 the moral law, in the case supposed, would have been 
 subject to change. Whatever other grounds there 
 may be for questioning the morality of the duty, there 
 are none here. Whilst these settlers kept each the day 
 which was the seventh to them, the duty, performed by 
 
 • Why Heylyn was so mucli better informed on the subject 
 of longitude, than on the tides, may appear from the following 
 anecdote. Soon after he had obtained his stall at Westminster, 
 his attention was directed to this subject by Lord Falkland, 
 who desired him to confer with a naval officer. Captain Nelson, 
 (whether of the same family, as well as profession, with his late 
 illustrious namesake, I know not,) who thought he had disco- 
 vered a method of finding the longitude at sea, and whom the 
 Mathematicians, who pronounced his method erroneous, had 
 failed to convince. Heylyn would have declined the office, as 
 being unacquainted with the question; but being pressed by 
 Lord Falkland in the name of the King, he consulted with 
 Oughtred, who some years afterwards made the Captain under- 
 stand, what must necessarily remain unknown terms in his 
 problem. To this incident we are probably indebted for Hey- 
 lyn's speculations on longitude here : and, whatever may be 
 thought of them, certainly it is to his credit, to have been 
 selected for such an office by Lucius Cary. 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 heylyn's argument on 
 
 them all, would have been the same : there would have 
 been no change either in it, or in the law commanding 
 it. He puts a case, however, of a party sailing west- 
 ward round the world, and on reaching their home 
 again, finding, that the day, which was Saturday by 
 their calculation, was Sunday to those, who remained 
 at home ; and then he pretends to doubt, which day 
 these voyager's would be bound to keep, though in 
 telling the story, he himself tells us, they had lost a 
 day. Quite of a piece with this trifling, is his decla- 
 ration afterwards, that from the time that the day was 
 supernaturally lengthened at the prayer of Joshua, no 
 Sabbath was kept by the Jews on the precise day the 
 law had appointed. And here he amuses himself with 
 speculating on the impossibility of keeping each seventh 
 day as a Sabbath within the Polar Circles ! This, 
 certainly, is not much to the purpose : and indeed, as 
 it appears to me, his only argument for the non-exist- 
 ence of a Sabbath before Moses' time, which might 
 reasonably cause a doubt, is the condition of the Israel- 
 ites before their deliverance from Egypt. It seems 
 probable, that they could not ' have kept a Sabbath 
 during their bondage in that country: still as their 
 very residence there must as certainly have prevented 
 them from offering any sacrifices (Exod viii. 26), we 
 can no more infer, that the worshippers of the Lord 
 did not keep a Sabbath before their pondage, than that 
 they did not offer sacrifices before their residence in 
 
 ' See extract from Maimon. : Bishop Patrick's Comment. 
 Exod. XX. 11. 
 
THE TIMES BEFORE THE LAW. 147 
 
 Egypt. But sacrifice was unquestionably a part of 
 worship in the patriarchal times. And to say that, if 
 a command to keep the Sabbath had been given at the 
 creation, the Israelites would have persisted in keep- 
 ing it, notwithstanding Pharaoh's tyranny, just as, at 
 a far later period of their history, they did, notwith- 
 standing the cruelty of Antiochus Epiphanes, is wholly 
 to lose sight of the circumstances which mark these 
 different periods. Even in the days of devoted hero- 
 ism, to which Heylyn thus refers us, many of the 
 Israelites obeyed' the tyrant, consented to his religion, 
 and profaned the Sabbath : yet they had been taught 
 to regard its profanation with peculiar abhorrence : the 
 Sabbath had been declared to be a sign between the 
 Lord and their nation ; and its observance had been 
 enforced by the law under the penalty of death. That 
 penalty, however, is evidently a pau-t of their civil law, 
 and has no necessary connexion with the great weekly 
 duty, known of old, and re-asserted in the fourth com- 
 mandment; nor is there any reason to suppose, that 
 the absolute rest that commandment enjoins, was re- 
 quired by the primeval institution, when God blessed 
 the seventh day, and made it holy. 
 
 Having gone through the part of Dr. Heylyn 's 
 book, in which he attempts to shew that no Sabbath 
 was known before the law, I do not feel myself called 
 upon to examine the statements and the reasoning by 
 which he would establish the paradox, that even under 
 the law, the Sabbath was not generally kept according 
 
 • iMaccab. i. 43. 
 
 1. 2 
 
148 
 
 heylyn's argument from 
 
 to God's appointment: but I briefly observe, that 
 when, to shew that it was not so kept in the wilder- 
 ness, he asserts that the people of Israel had ' no 
 sacrifices there, his assertion is not supported by the 
 prophet Amos^ to whom he refers, and is in direct 
 opposition to the * account given in the Pentateuch. 
 
 It is the second part of his book, which is most 
 important to be considered, because here the question 
 is not, what has been the practice of others, but, what 
 ought to be the practice of ourselves. And no one 
 can be surprised, that he who positively denies that a 
 Sabbath was kept in the patriarchal ages, and is un- 
 willing to allow that it was kept, as God commanded, 
 during the time of the Jewish covenant, should en- 
 deavour to maintain, that no weekly Sabbath is to be 
 kept by Christians. But the way in which he attempts 
 to lessen the force of the Scriptural proofs of honour 
 paid to the Lord's day, is a lamentable instance of the 
 length to which a man may be carried, when he is 
 bent on vindicating an opinion, rather than on seeking 
 the truth. To begin with the day of the Resurrection, 
 he says, " we find not on the news, that the Apostles 
 came together for the performance of divine and re- 
 ligious exercises, — or that our Saviour came amongst 
 them until late at night:" and hence he concludes 
 Christ sanctioned no such religious exercises on the 
 day, as a Sabbath requires : nay, to lose nothing that 
 may be twisted into a support of his opinion, he says, 
 
 ' Numb, xxvii. 9. ' Amos v. 25. 
 
 ' Exod. xxiv. 4 ; Levit. ix ; and Numb. vii. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 149 
 
 the two disciples, who walked to Emmaus, seven miles 
 and a half, and back again, would have been rebuked by 
 Christ for their violation of the new Christian Sabbath, 
 had any such been intended ; as if it could not have 
 been intended, the day should be kept instead of the 
 Jewish Sabbath, unless the same strictness of rest, the 
 same limit of a Sabbath-day's journey had been im- 
 posed ; as if too, the very first sanction of a religious 
 assembly on this day, was not Christ's appearing in 
 the midst of them, after these disciples had returned to 
 Jerusalem. To be sure, Heylyn tells us, that was not 
 till late at night: but St. John says, it was "the same 
 day at evening, being the first day of the week." I 
 suspect Heylyn was led into this blunder by the ex- 
 pression of these disciples to Christ at Emmaus, " it 
 is toward evening, and the day is far spent ;" kekAjkev 
 i) v/xspa, sol incUnavit ; the sun has begun 
 
 "Toward Heaven's descent to slope his westering wheel:" 
 
 suppose they had said, it is toward three ' o'clock ; that, 
 we know, was the hour of evening sacrifice. Again 
 he says, " it is no where to be found, that Christ ap- 
 peared oftener on the first day, than any other of the 
 week; it being said in holy Scriptures that he was 
 seen of them forty-days, as much on one as on another. 
 His first appearing after the night following his resur- 
 rection, which is particularly specified in the book of 
 God, was after eight days, when he shewed himself to 
 Thomas ;" but this appearing after eight days " should 
 be rather understood of the ninth or tenth, than the 
 ' The hour probably was four o'clock. 
 
150 
 
 heylyn's argument from 
 
 eighth day after, and therefore could not be upon the 
 first day of the week, as is imagined." This from the 
 learned Dr. Heylyn ! Could he have been ignorant, 
 that in the language of the Bible, the expressions " after 
 eight days," and " on the eighth day," signify the same 
 thing ? Could he have been ignorant that Christ, speak- 
 ing of his own resurrection, used both > expressions, 
 that after three days he should rise again, and that he 
 should rise again on the third day ? And though it 
 was forty days from the day he was first seen of his 
 disciples to his ascension, Heylyn ought to have known, 
 that it was not till they went into Galilee, that he was 
 daily with them, one day as much as jmother : and 
 when St. John gives the account of his appearing to 
 them at the sea of Galilee, he expressly adds, " ^ this 
 is now the third time Jesus shewed himself to his dis- 
 ciples, after that he was risen from the dead." Dr. 
 Heylyn does not seem to have profited much on this 
 subject by reading St. John. 
 
 His next attempt, as might be expected, is to prove 
 that no preference for the first day of the week was 
 manifested by the descent of the Holy Spirit on the 
 day of Pentecost: and his mode of doing this is 
 strange. Perhaps we are apt commonly to regai-d the 
 day of Pentecost as the first day of the week, from 
 beaiing in our memories the words in Leviticus that 
 it was from the morrow after the Sabbath the seven 
 weeks were to be counted, and that the morrow after 
 
 ' Mark viii. 31; and x. 34. - Jolin xxi. 14. 
 
 ^ Lev. xxiii. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 151 
 
 the seventh Sabbath made up the fifty days. It should 
 rather be said, the morrow after the seventh week made 
 up the fifty days : for Heylyn justly observes, that the 
 Sabbath, from the morrow of which these seven weeks 
 began, was not the weekly Sabbath, but the first day 
 of unleavened bread, the day of the holy convocation, 
 on which no servile work was to be done. This, in- 
 deed, cannot easily be shewn from our English Bible ; 
 but the Septuagint says the seven weeks were to be 
 counted from " the morrow of the first day ;" and Jo- 
 sephus more distinctly, says, this morrow was " the 
 second day of unleavened bread, the sixteenth of the 
 month." Their authority, then, being accepted, the 
 day of Pentecost, on which the Holy Spirit fell on the 
 assembled disciples, was the first day of the week, 
 because in that year the weekly Sabbath coincided with 
 the day of holy convocation. And this coincidence 
 Heylyn is pleased to call casual — he might, without 
 blame, have called it disputable, as it depends on a 
 point which has been much disputed, viz. on what day 
 our Lord was crucified. 
 
 I am persuaded, indeed, the day of the crucifixion 
 was that of the Passover, the fourteenth of the month 
 Abib, or Nisan : and the objections commonly urged 
 against this view from the narrative of the three first 
 Evangelists, will appear of less weight, if the following 
 points be borne in mind. The Paschal lamb was to 
 be kept till the fourteenth day of the month, and then 
 be killed in the evening ; but it was not to be eaten 
 till night, till that night so much to be observed, on 
 1 Antiq. Jud. L. III. c. 10. s. 5, 6. 
 
152 
 
 heylyn's argument from 
 
 which the first-born of Egypt were slain, and the 
 IsraeHtes delivered from bondage; that night, how- 
 ever, if they invariably reckoned the night first, pro- 
 perly belonged to the fifteenth day : yet they were also 
 to eat unleavened bread on the fourteenth at even. 
 Now, we learn from these Evangelists, that it was the 
 day of unleavened bread on which the Passover must 
 be killed, when Jesus bade his disciples prepare the 
 Passover : but this day, the fourteenth of the month 
 by the description, was truly come on the evening 
 on which it began. To be sure, we read, in St. 
 Matthew and St. Mark, that, after the disciples had 
 made preparations, as they were desired, Jesus sat 
 down with the twelve, when the evening was come : 
 but the expression so rendered signifies rather when 
 it was late and late it ought to have been, accord- 
 ing to the hour at which the passover was to be 
 eaten ; and late it was ; for when, after the supper was 
 ended, the traitor J udas went out ^ it was night. St. 
 Luke's expression is, " When the hour was come, 
 Jesus sat down with the twelve, and ate that passover 
 which he so earnestly desired to eat with them, before 
 he suffered." There is nothing, then, in the three first 
 Evangelists to shew but that Christ so far anticipated 
 the time of eating the J ewish Passover ; and that He, 
 the true Passovei', was sacrificed on the appointed day ; 
 and before the unbelieving Jews received their once- 
 holy feast, all its holiness was gone. The fifteenth 
 day, we know, was a Sabbath day ; and that Christ 
 should have been crucified by the Jews on a Sabbath 
 ' Comp. IMatt. xxviii. 1. - John xiii. 30. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 153 
 
 day, is inconsistent with their earnestness, that the 
 bodies should be removed from the cross when the 
 Sabbath drew on: besides, St. John tells us, " they 
 went not into the judgment-hall lest they should be 
 defiled ; but that they might eat the passover." The 
 day of the crucifixion, then, was the day ' of the coena 
 pura, the Paschal supper, to eat which at night, they 
 carefully, throughout the day, kept themselves unde- 
 filed ; and it should be observed, that the defilement 
 which, according to their notion, would be contracted 
 by removing the bodies from the cross, by a special 
 enactment ^, would not unfit them for the feast. The 
 day of the crucifixion was the Parasceue, or day of 
 preparation for the Sabbath ; and that Sabbath was 
 a high day by the coincidence of the weekly festival 
 with that of the Passover. But this coincidence being 
 granted, (and to me it seems clear from the account), 
 it follows, that the day of Pentecost would be on the 
 same day of the week with our Lord's resurrection. 
 And this is the coincidence Heylyn would represent 
 as casual, as having arisen, forsooth, solely from 
 chance. It is often said, it is absurd to reckon chance 
 among the causes of things : the events we ascribe to 
 chance, are those only of which we cannot discern 
 either the final cause for which, or the proximate cause 
 by which they ai-e brought on ; yet these are not less 
 the designed effects of an all-ruling Power, than those 
 in which we clearly trace the agency of his hand. But 
 
 > Parasceue, quae dicitur coena pura, id est, sexta feria, quam 
 et Dominus ostendit passus in ea. Irenaeus, Adv. Heer. V. 23. 
 - Numb. i.v. 10. 
 
154- heylyn's akgument from 
 
 it is strange indeed that any one, who had at all con- 
 sidered the important consequences of the fact, that the 
 Sabbath immediately followed the day of our Lord's 
 crucifixion, should see nothing of design in the year 
 in which this coincidence would take place, being 
 chosen as the year of his death, and should regard it 
 all as an affair of chance. 
 
 His criticisms on Acts xx. 7, are more deserving 
 consideration. He tells us first, that the breaking of 
 bread there mentioned is not the sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper, but only a common meal ; that it is so 
 represented by Chrysostom, who says, they made bold 
 with St. Paul's table as if it were their own ; and so 
 understood by our Church, who refers us to Acts ii. 46: 
 secondly, that Erasmus, Calvin, and others, have un- 
 derstood the day to be, not the first of the week, but 
 one of the Sabbaths : thirdly, that Austin makes it a 
 question, whether it was (as we should say) the even- 
 ing before the Lord's day, or the evening of that day 
 on which they met for the Sacrament ; on either reso- 
 lution of this question, says Heylyn, the passage gives 
 no proof that the Lord's day was sanctified by St. Paul 
 at Troas. 
 
 Now the authority of Chrysostom's opinion, that 
 the disciples met not for a sacrament, but for an 
 ordinary meal, is completely neuti-alized by that of his 
 contemporary Austin : and as they lived at the close of 
 the fourth century, they could neither of them have 
 other knowledge on the subject, than the passage itself 
 affords us : and though Heylyn says Acts ii. 46. must 
 be meant of ordinary and common meats ; yet, by any 
 12 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 155 
 
 one who reads attentively the four preceding verses, it 
 will rather be understood of sacramental bread ; and it 
 may be thus paraphrased : " The disciples every day 
 continuing stedfast in being of one mind as Christians, 
 when they attended the Jewish public place of worship, 
 and in celebrating their own peculiar rite, the Christian 
 sacrament, at their own homes, were provided with 
 food from the common stock, which they received with 
 gladness and singleness of heart." In the Genevan 
 Bible, certainly, the marginal note on Acts xx. 7, 
 referring to this very verse, distinctly adds, " To cele- 
 brate the Lord's Supper." Again : whatever may be 
 the judgment of Erasmus, Calvin, and others, the very 
 same words St. Luke has used here, he has used also 
 in his Gospel to signify the first day of the week, the 
 day on which our Lord arose. And whoever care- 
 fully reads the passage, I think, will allow that the 
 disciples on this occasion, as the Apostles on the very 
 day of the resurrection, came together on the first day 
 of the week at evening. The practice of keeping the 
 Lord's day, like the Jewish Sabbath, from even to 
 even, which prevailed in Austin's time, appears to have 
 suggested his question, in which he leaned perhaps 
 to a persuasion, that it was Saturday night on which 
 they met, from the resemblance • this meeting bears to 
 the vigils before Sunday, the watchings all night 
 through to day-break then observed in the Church. 
 But when the practice of keeping the Lord's day from 
 even to even obtained, is uncertain : the " Questions 
 
 Bingham's Ant. B. XIII. c. 9- 
 
156 heylyn's argument from 
 
 to Antiochus," in which it is asserted and which are 
 ascribed to Athanasius, are not, Cave tells us, the work 
 of that Father : and Tertullian, shewing how the fes- 
 tival of the Lord's day may be kept during flight, in 
 times of persecution, says ^ " If you cannot assemble 
 by day, you have the night for the purpose, brightly 
 shining by the light of Christ." The duty, then, which 
 they had been compelled to omit by day, they might 
 yet perform at night. And it is but probable, that 
 where the Roman names of days were adopted, their 
 division of time would be adopted also. The Lord's 
 day could not with propriety have been called Sun- 
 day, if it had begun and ended at a difierent hour fi.-om 
 the day so named. Even in the Apostles' times it does 
 not seem that the night was invariably considered as 
 belonging to the following day : we are led to the con- 
 trary inference from the first words of the last chapter 
 of St. Matthew's Gospel. But however this may be, 
 all I have to contend for is, that the disciples at Troas 
 met together unsummoned on the Lord's day for the 
 purpose of receiving the Sacrament. Whether they 
 took at the same time the supper of Christian charity, 
 the Agape, as was done in the Corinthian Church is 
 neither easy nor important to determine : that they met 
 to receive the Sacrament, gives the religious character 
 
 ' Quest. 53. 
 
 ' De Fuga in Persec. ad fin. " Habes noctem, luce Christi 
 luminosa adversus earn. You have the night, the Ught of Christ 
 shining against its darkness." If the reasoning on this passage 
 seem at all inconsistent with that in p. 152, let it be remem- 
 bered, the subject there is a Jewish festival, here a Christian one. 
 
 ^ 1 Cor. xi. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 157 
 
 to the meeting. The preaching of St. Paul through 
 the night, and, if the bread broken, after the young 
 man was restored to hfe again, was the Eucharist, for 
 which they had met, the deferring the holy Sacrament 
 to this late hour, when Sunday was past ; these cir- 
 cumstances were evidently accidental, and do not at all 
 affect the argument drawn from what is here intimated 
 of the practice of the primitive Christians. 
 
 But the passages of Scripture, which shew that the 
 Lord's day was observed from the beginning, to give 
 them their due weight, ought to be considered not 
 separately, but as a connected chain of proofs, mu- 
 tually sustaining each other, and deriving support from 
 the writings of the immediately succeeding ages. All 
 these proofs in themselves, or, however, most of them, 
 are but accidental records of what, being the public 
 practice of the Church, seemed scarcely to require any 
 record at all : yet taken jointly, they present a strength 
 of evidence, which must satisfy the mind of any one 
 who candidly considers them. Such being the nature 
 of the argument, no respect can be felt for the opinions 
 of any one who, like Dr. Heylyn, has slighted that 
 part of it, which is taken from the Holy Scriptures : 
 we will proceed, however, to examine, whether his 
 opinions are countenanced by the writings of the early 
 Fathers. 
 
 And here the rock on which he split, was a persua- 
 sion, that Saturday was observed as well as Sunday, 
 in the Primitive Church ; and this he seems to have 
 grounded chiefly on two Epistles, as he conceived, of 
 Ignatius, the one an Epistle to the Philippians, the 
 other his Epistle to the Magnesians, in which Ignatius 
 
158 THE APOSTOLICAL CANONS. 
 
 is made to say, " Let us not keep the Sabbath in the 
 Jewish manner, but spiritually, not in bodily ease, but 
 in the study of the law. And after having so kept the 
 Sabbath, let every one who loves Christ, keep the 
 Lord's day festival, the Resun-ection day, the Queen 
 and Supreme of days," &c. Now Heylyn's History 
 of the Sabbath was published in 1635, full seven years 
 and more, before light was thrown on the Epistles of 
 Ignatius and the correct text restored, by the learned 
 labours of Archbishop Usher and Isaac Vossius, by 
 whom we are informed that the above-mentioned Epis- 
 tle to the Philippians is spurious, and the supposed 
 extract from that to the Magnesians an interpolation, 
 both forgeries being probably the work of the fifth 
 century, or perhaps of some later age. If Heylyn 
 had known that there is nothing in Ignatius to lead us 
 to suppose Saturday was then kept as a holy day, he 
 might have felt that no reliance is to be placed on any 
 declarations to this effect in the Apostolical Constitu- 
 tions, as they are called another forgery probably of 
 the same age, nor yet in the Apostolical Canons. 
 
 These celebrated Canons, eighty-five in number, 
 are considei-ed by Bishop Beveridge to be a Collection 
 of the Canons of the Ante-Nicene Councils, and to have 
 been called Apostolical, as written by men of the apos- 
 tolical age, or as containing apostolical docti'ine. That 
 they could not all, at least, have been written either 
 by the Apostles, or by Clement of Rome, to whom 
 they have been ascribed, is demonstrable. The twenty- 
 first and three following Canons bear directly on the 
 peculiar case of Origen ; and certainly neither would 
 
 ' Lardner's Cred. Gosp. Hist. Part II. ch. 85. 
 
THE APOSTOLICAL CANONS. 
 
 159 
 
 he have committed his phrenzied act, nor would the 
 bishops of C^sarea and J erusalem, in direct violation 
 of the twenty-second, have afterwards ordained him a 
 Priest, if such Canons had been then acknowledged in 
 the Church as of apostolical authority. We find too, 
 that when, at a later period of his life, he wrote his 
 Commentary on St. Matthew, in his sober-minded 
 remarks on chap. xix. 12, he makes no reference to any 
 such Canons. These, then, were probably passed at one 
 of those Councils which were convened against him, 
 two of which are mentioned by Dufresnoy ; one at 
 Alexandria, A.D. 223, at which Origen, being then a 
 Catechist, was deposed ; another, fourteen years after- 
 wards, at Rome. Besides, the substance of some of 
 the apostolical Canons, as that against usury, or that 
 against vice in a clergyman, may be found in those 
 of the Councils ' held at Eliberis, and at Aries, in the 
 years A.D. 313 and 314 : and sometimes the apos- 
 tolical Canon appears even to be of later date; as 
 where it excommunicates those who, divorcing their 
 wives, marry another, the corresponding one of the 
 Council of Aries advises merely, that in such a case 
 they do not marry again in the life-time of their adul- 
 terous wives — where the apostolical Canon requires 
 the presence of three bishops at a bishop's consecra- 
 tion, that of Aries requires seven bishops to be present 
 for this purpose, allowing, however, three to be suffi- 
 cient, if seven cannot be obtained. 
 
 That fifty of these Canons were first collected 
 together, and other thirty-five afterwards added, is 
 
 ' See Routh's Reliq. Sacrse, Vol. IV. 
 
160 THE APOSTOLICAL CANONS. 
 
 shewn by Archbishop Usher, in a Dissertation pre- 
 fixed to his edition of the Epistles of Polycarp and 
 Ignatius, where he tells us, that the first fifty alone 
 appear in the Latin translation made by Dionysius 
 the Little, about the beginning of the sixth century; 
 and these the Archbishop therefore regards as the 
 most ancient. But Bishop Beveridge informs us, 
 that at this very period the whole eighty-five were 
 known and set forth, as the work of the Apostles and 
 Clement, by J ohn of Antioch, who arranged them with 
 those of several ancient Councils of the eastern Church, 
 under fifty heads, the Canons relating to the same 
 subject being classed together, and the apostolical ones 
 uniformly placed first. Though, then, there is no 
 evidence that the collection of the eighty-five apos- 
 tolical Canons was known before the middle of the 
 fifth century, Archbishop Usher's reason for regard- 
 ing the first fifty as the most ancient, is thus completely 
 disproved : and there is reason to believe that, whereas 
 the forty-seventh of these Canons, which denies the 
 validity of baptism by heretics, was made at the Council 
 held under Agrippinus at Carthage', A.D, 215; the 
 sixty-eighth, which denies the validity of ordination 
 also, as well as of baptism, by heretics, is that resolved 
 upon at the Council of Iconium, A.D. 235, which is 
 mentioned in an Epistle by Firmilian^ an eastern 
 Bishop, and is referred to by Novatus, the fourth 
 speaker^ in the seventh Council under Cyprian at 
 
 ■ Cyprian Epist. LXXIII. Cypr. ad Jubaian. 
 
 Ibid. LXXV. Firm, ad Cypr. 
 ' Routh's Rel. Sacra>, Vol. III. 293. 
 
THE APOSTOLICAL CANONS. 
 
 161 
 
 Carthage. The sixty-eighth Canon, then, is not of 
 a much later date, if it be not even earlier, than those 
 passed on the case of Origen ; and yet it will not be 
 thought strange, that this was not included in the 
 number of the first fifty, if it be considered how strong 
 a probability there is, that the Canons of Western 
 Councils should have been first collected, as the whole 
 collection was received under the name of Clement of 
 Rome. 
 
 But supposing generally that all the eighty-five 
 Canons were collected from the Ante-Nicene Councils, 
 it is evident that some of them at least have been cor- 
 rupted by interpolations. For instance, the last Canon 
 gives a catalogue of the books of Holy Scripture ; and 
 after reciting those of the New Testament as far as the 
 Epistle of St. Jude, excepting only the Acts of the 
 Apostles, it thus concludes: " Two Epistles of Cle- 
 ment, and the Constitutions addressed to you Bishops, 
 by me, Clement, in eight books, which are not to be 
 divulged before all, on account of the mystical things 
 they contain ; and the Acts of us the Apostles." That 
 some fraud has here been practised, is manifest at the 
 first glance. The interpolator, in his eagenness to pass 
 off the Constitutions as the work of Clement of Rome, 
 overlooked the absurdity of making him speak of him- 
 self in the first person as the author of them, imme- 
 diately after calling his own Epistles, the Epistles of 
 Clement : and the attempt to gain a sanction for what 
 precedes, by placing the Acts of the Apostles last, and 
 to make all appear the production of the Apostles and 
 of Clement, by inserting the word "us," is truly con- 
 
 M 
 
162 THE APOSTOLICAL CANONS. 
 
 temptible. Since, then, fraud has been so evidently 
 employed in these Canons, none of them, if its matter 
 be questionable, can be entitled to be received, merely 
 because it is found amongst the rest, but each must be 
 tried on its own grounds. 
 
 Now the Canon which alone concerns the subject of 
 our enquiry, is the sixty-sixth : it declares, that " if 
 any clergyman be detected fasting on the Lord's day 
 or on the Sabbath, save one only, he shall be deposed ; 
 if any layman, he shall be excommunicated ;" and it 
 may be seen, either that this is altogether spurious, or 
 at least, that the words, " or on the Sabbath, save one 
 only," are an interpolation. For, though we should 
 not be justified in rejecting it at once as not included 
 in the original fifty, Archbishop Usher has shewn, that 
 about the period when this Canon is first known to 
 have existed in its present form, there appeared the 
 forged writings under the name of Ignatius ; the in- 
 terpolated copy of his Epistle to the Magnesians, from 
 which an exti-act has already been given, and the 
 Epistle to the Philippians falsely ascribed to him, 
 which declares, almost in the words of the Canon, that 
 " if any man fast on the Lord's day or on the Sabbath, 
 save the one Sabbath of the Passover, he is guilty of 
 the death of Christ;" and there appeared also the 
 falsely-called Apostolical Constitutions, enjoining men, 
 again and again, not to fast, but to keep festival on the 
 Lord's day and on the Sabbath, save one only. On 
 comparing together these documents, all appearing 
 about the same time in the Eastern Church, who can 
 doubt but that they are the coinage of the same age 
 
THE APOSTOLICAL CANONS. 
 
 163 
 
 and party, a shameless attempt to palm upon the world 
 the practice of the day as that of the apostolical age, 
 and to maintain the Saturday festival of the cast 
 against the Saturday fast of the west. It is absurd to 
 suppose the practice of keeping fast on Saturdays 
 would have been introduced in the Western Church, 
 and at Rome too, if the Canon we are considering had 
 then been acknowledged as authorized by the Apostles 
 or by Clement of Rome. 
 
 Bishop Beveridge \ indeed, attempts to defend this 
 very Canon, and, as to the Lord's day, observes, with 
 much force, that where TertuUian ' tells us it was re- 
 garded as impiety to fast on that day, he distinctly 
 classes this sentiment among the things which were 
 received by tradition from the Apostles themselves; 
 but when he attempts to shew, from the same writer, 
 that the Church never fasted on a Saturday, except in 
 the week of the Passover, he has mistaken the mean- 
 ing of the passage ' to which he refers. TertuUian 
 there tells us, that the Church did sometimes fast on a 
 Saturday ; and, being himself then a Montanist, up- 
 braids them for it, alleging that they never ought to 
 fast on that day, except at the Passover ; and it cannot 
 be contended, that the rule thus laid down is a refer- 
 ence to the Canon in question; for he immediately 
 adds the reason of the rule. This passage of Tertul- 
 lian, however, shall be more fully considered in pur- 
 suing an enquiry closely connected with our present 
 
 ' Dissert, on Apost. Can. B. II. c. 7- s. 6. 
 2 De Cor. Mil. c. 3. and 4. 
 ' Adv. Psych, c. 14. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 SATURDAY A FAST 
 
 subject, viz. the rise of the practice of fasting on Satur- 
 days in the Western Church. 
 
 Only let me first ask, what authority there is for 
 saying that Saturday was kept a festival as well as 
 Sunday by the primitive Christians, if we cast aside 
 these spurious documents, — this sixty-sixth Canon, and 
 the Constitutions, and the forgeries which pass under 
 the name of Ignatius ? All that I gather on this sub- 
 ject, from the Epistles of Ignatius and Barnabas, from 
 Pliny's Letter, from Justin and Irenaeus, from Clement 
 of Alexandria and Origen, from Tertullian and Cyprian, 
 leads me to the opposite conclusion. The earliest 
 writer, to whom Bingham refers in support of the 
 notion, is Athanasius, after whose time the practice 
 appears to have prevailed in the Eastern Church. If 
 the practice had then been established, Saturday, sui'ely, 
 as well as Friday, would have been noticed, together 
 with the Lord's day, in the edict of Constantine. 
 
 But, to turn to the consideration of the opposite 
 practice in the Western Church : Tertullian, in his 
 Treatise on Prayer, informs us, that a difference of 
 usage had been introduced by some very few, who did 
 not kneel in prayer on Saturdays ; whereas it was on 
 Sundays, and during the interval between Easter and 
 Whitsuntide only, that the Church used the standing 
 posture when they prayed ; and he adds a hope that 
 this question ' might be examined and settled before 
 
 ' Quae dissentio quum maxime apud Ecclesias causam dicat, 
 Dominus dabit gratiam suam, ut aut cedant, aut sine aliorum 
 scandalo sententia sua utantwr. De Orat. c. 23. The rest of 
 the passage has already been given. 
 
IN THE WESTERN CHURCHES. 165 
 
 the Churches, and so, by the grace of God, these per- 
 sons might be brought to comply with the general 
 practice, or be left to follow their own course, without 
 giving offence to others. Afterwards, when, having 
 separated from the Church as a Montanist, he wrote 
 his Treatise on Fasts against the orthodox, Psychicos, 
 as he calls them, natural men, guided by natural reason 
 only, assuming to himself and his party the character 
 of spiritual, he makes it a charge against them, that 
 they devoted Saturday to fasting, if at any time they 
 so prolonged the Friday's fast. In the first of these 
 passages, then, we find a hope that the Church would 
 settle the question, whether Saturday might be kept as 
 a. festival, so far as this was done by using the posture 
 in prayer which belonged to high festivals alone : in 
 the second, we find Saturday sometimes kept as a 
 fast by the orthodox; this not yet being the constant 
 practice. This second passage ', as it seems to have 
 
 ' Cur stationibus quartam et sextain sabbati dicamus, et 
 jejuniis parasceuen ? quanquam vos etiam sabbatum, si quando 
 continuatis, nunquam nisi in Pascha jejunandum, secundum 
 rationem alibi redditam ; nobis certe omnis dies etiam vulgata 
 consecratione celebratur. Adv. Psych, c. 14. 
 
 ITiere appear to have been three kinds of fasts ; statio, when 
 no food was taken till three in the afternoon ; jejunium, when 
 none was taken till the day closed at sun-set ; xerophagia, when 
 they abstained from all but dry meats, taking bread only and 
 water, (Ibid. c. 11 and 13.) To these we may add the super- 
 positiones, or continuance of the day's fast throughout the suc- 
 ceeding day : and, as these sometimes lasted for five days toge- 
 ther, the people kept them as xerophai/ue, living only on bread 
 and water. This carrying the day's fast over to the morrow, is 
 
166 
 
 SATURDAY A FAST 
 
 been much mistaken, I will give at large. " If," says 
 he, " the Apostle had altogether condemned the ob- 
 servance of times, and days, and months, and years, 
 why do we, in the first month of every year, keep 
 Easter ? why the high festival for the fifty days follow- 
 ing ? Why do we devote Wednesdays and Fridays to 
 a fast till three in the afternoon, and Good Friday to a 
 fast till sun-set ? Though you, indeed, if ever you 
 continue the Friday's fast, so devote the Sabbath also, 
 a day on which we ought never to fast, except on that 
 before Easter-day, for a reason elsewhere assigned, 
 (viz. that Christians ought to fast only on the days 
 when the bridegroom was taken away) ; we certainly 
 keep every day also holy, as far as this can daily be 
 done." 
 
 Thus we see the Western Church began to fast on 
 Saturdays at the beginning of the third century. That 
 the practice from this time forward gained ground even 
 at Carthage, whence Tertullian wrote, I do not pretend 
 to say : I find no mention of it in Cyprian : his exhor- 
 tations to fasting are general, without notice of par- 
 ticular days : possibly his difference with the Church 
 of Rome after the death of his friends, Cornelius and 
 Lucius, and the elevation of Stephen to the popedom, 
 and his connection with the synod of the Eastern 
 Church at Iconium, with whom he was joined in a 
 
 called by Tertullian, jejunia conjungere, (de Patiently, c. 13,) 
 or as above, continuare ; by Victorinus, superponere, that is 
 virtpTidtaBai, the only difference from the ordinary sense of this 
 word being, that the fast, which is put over to the morrow, is 
 not omitted on the day. 
 
 13 
 
I\ THE WESTERN CHURCHES. 167 
 
 common cause by the violent opposition of Pope Ste- 
 phen, these circumstances may have disinchned him 
 from following the Western practice in this respect: 
 certainly in a letter addressed to' him ^ by Fii-milian, 
 Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, one of the members 
 of that synod, with whom he appears to have perfectly 
 agreed in opinion, it is said, " that many things are 
 done at Rome which are not sanctioned by apostolical 
 authority, and are different from the practice at Jeru- 
 salem :" and it is not improbable that the Saturday 
 fasts, which never were adopted by the Eastern Church, 
 may have been among the things here alluded to. At 
 a much later period, we learn from ^ Austin, that the 
 practice was greatly varied in Africa, so that even of 
 members of the same Church, some used to dine, 
 others to fast, on a Saturday. 
 
 However this may have been, in Cyprian's time, (and 
 many reasons may be assigned for his silence on a matter 
 which, though new, was not, in Africa at least, thought 
 important) towards the close of this century, Victorinus, 
 Bishop of Pettaw in Styria, speaks of fasting on Satur- 
 days as the established practice. " The sixth day of the 
 week, the preparation day," says he, " on account of the 
 passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, we dedicate to God as 
 a fast till three, or till sun-set. The seventh day he 
 rested from all his works and blessed it, and sanctified 
 it. On this day our practice is to continue the fast 
 of the day preceding, to the intent that on the Lord's 
 
 ' Cypriani, Epist. 7j- 
 
 - Bingham's Antiq. B. XX. c. 3. s. 6. 
 
168 
 
 SATURDAY A FAST 
 
 day we may go forth to break bread with thanksgiving'. 
 And let Friday's fast be so continued, lest we should 
 appear to keep the Sabbath with the Jews And a 
 few years afterward's, at the Council of Eliberis in the 
 south of Spain, it was resolved to correct their erro- 
 
 ' Dies sextus, parasceue appellatur — Hoc die ob passionem 
 Domini Jesu Christi aut stationem Deo aut jejunium facimus. 
 Die septimo requievit ab omnibus operibus suis, benedixit eum 
 et sanctlficavit. Hoc die solemus superponere ; idcirco, ut 
 die Dominico cum gratiarum actione ad panem exeamus. Et 
 parasceue superpositio fiat, ne quid cum Judaeis sabbatum obser- 
 vare videamur. And above — usque ad horam nonam jejune- 
 mus, aut usque ad vesperam, aut superpositio usque in alterum 
 diem fiat. Victorini Fragmentum. Routb's Reliquiae Sacra. 
 HI. p. 237, 236. Errorem placuit corrigi, ut omni sabbati die 
 superpositiones celebremus. Concil. Elib. Ibid. IV. p. 50. At 
 this Council it was determined that jejuniorum superpositiones, 
 that is xerophagicB, should be kept through every month, ex- 
 cept July and August. In the above passages from Tertullian 
 and Victorinus, we find continuare and superponere used tech- 
 nically, it being necessary in each case to supply the words they 
 govern, jejunium pridianum. 
 
 In his treatise Adv. Psych, c. 2. Tertullian, speaking of the 
 Church, says, "As to fasts, they object that certain days are 
 appointed by God. — They think that in the Gospel those days 
 are set apart for fasting, on which the bridegroom was taken 
 away, and that these are now the only lawful days of Christian 
 fasts, the oldness of the law and the prophets being abolished. 
 For when they choose, they understand what means the text, 
 " the law and the prophets until John." 
 
 For continuare, or continere, or conjungere, used in the above 
 sense by the Latin Fathers, the Greek use trwaTTTuv for 
 superponere, virtpTiQtvai, or iiinpTiSito^ai. — Routb's Rel. Sacr. I. 
 p 397—400. 
 
IN THE EASTERN CHURCHES. 
 
 169 
 
 neous practice, and on every Sabbath to continue the 
 Friday's fast throughout the day. Victorinus, we see, 
 ascribes this usage to a desire to have nothing in com- 
 mon with the Jews ; but since the fasts on Friday and 
 Saturday in Passion week, were considered as marked 
 out by the words of Christ himself, as the days in 
 which the bridegroom was taken away, and therefore 
 were universally observed as the appointed Christian 
 fasts, it seems to have been but natural, when the 
 question was stirred in the Church, to resolve to keep 
 the weekly return of these fasts, as they had been 
 accustomed to keep the weekly return of the festival of 
 the Resun-ection. 
 
 But whatever may have been the cause, the practice 
 of fasting on a Saturday appears to have grown up in 
 the Western Church from the beginning of the third 
 century : whereas the opposite practice of keeping that 
 day a festival like Sunday, appears to have spread in 
 the Eastern Church in the century following, towards 
 the close of which, according to an extract from Austin, 
 quoted by Bingham it prevailed generally throughout 
 the East, and the greater part of the Christian world. 
 The only traces of it in TertuUian are in those very 
 few ^, whose departure from the established usage in 
 standing up at their prayers on that day, was to be 
 settled by the Churches. He tells us, indeed^, that the 
 Montanists, the seceders from the Church whom he 
 had joined, excepted Saturdays as well as Sundays in 
 
 ' Antiq B. XX. c. 3. s. 1. De Oral. c. 17. 
 
 Adv. Psych, c. 15, 14, and 2. 
 
170 heylyn's argument from 
 
 their two weeks of xerophagice ; but, as he has just 
 before given the reason for the rule of fasting on no 
 Saturday but that in Passion week, his party must 
 be thought to have adopted this practice rather to 
 mark the days on which the bridegroom was taken 
 away, as the only stated Christian fasts, than to make 
 other Saturdays festivals, which he does not say they 
 did : though, to judge by another work ' written also 
 after his secession, in which he insists both that the 
 provision of manna for the Sabbath at its institution (as 
 he thought) shewed that it was not to be kept as a fast, 
 and that Christ's permission to his disciples to pluck 
 the corn, shewed that it was of more consequence to 
 honour it by not making it sad, than by strict rest, 
 (remarks which seem levelled against the rising prac- 
 tice of the orthodox,) it is likely the Montanists may 
 even have feasted on the day from opposition to the 
 judgment of the Church. 
 
 Such is the account I gather of the way in which 
 Satui'day was regarded by the ancient Christians ; and 
 I trust it will be seen that the account is confirmed, 
 as I pursue the more immediate object of my enquiry, 
 — the way in which they regarded Sunday. If Dr. 
 Heylyn had known how little support for the opinion, 
 that Saturday was observed as Sunday, could be de- 
 rived from any genuine writings of the apostolic age, 
 it might have made him more cautious, as he proceeded 
 in the enquiry. As to the service of the Church on 
 Sundays, he gives, indeed, the account of their con- 
 
 ' Adv. aiarcioa. L. IV. c. 12. 
 
JUSTIN AND TERTULLIAN. 
 
 171 
 
 gregations from the Apologies ' of Justin and of Ter- 
 tullian : but then he adds the following remarks ; 
 " We cannot learn from either of therj how long these 
 meetings lasted, or whether they assembled more than 
 once a day, or what they did after the meetings were 
 dissolved. But sure it is, that their assemblies held 
 no longer than our morning service ; that they met 
 only before noon : for Justin saith, that when they 
 met they used to receive the Sacrament ; and that the 
 service being done, every man went again to his daily 
 labours." Does then Justin say, that the service being 
 done, every man went again to his daily labours? 
 Certainly not ; — nor does Heylyn say he does. It is a 
 curiously constructed sentence, which conveys this im- 
 pression to the reader without committing the writer, 
 who is safe in the declarations of the preceding sen- 
 tence. How then was Heylyn sure that they met only 
 before noon ? His argument from their receiving the 
 Sacrament may seem good now-a-days, but he would 
 have found cause to mistrust it, if he had consulted 
 Tertullian, who tells us that they used to receive the 
 Sacrament ^ of the Eucharist both at the time of their 
 meal and at all their meetings, even those before day- 
 
 > Just. Mart. Apol. 1"", (vulgo 1^), ad fin. and TertuU. 
 Apologeticus Adv. Gentes. c. 39. 
 
 ''■ Eucharistiae sacramentum, et in tempore victus et omnibus 
 mandatum a Domino, etiam antelucanis, coetibus, nec de alio- 
 rum manu, quam praesidentium sumimus. De Coron. Mil. c. 3. 
 That it was the custom to receive the sacrament in the evening 
 and after supper, as well as in the morning, appeal s from Cyprian. 
 Epist. 63. 
 
172 
 
 IRENiEUS. 
 
 break, being what was commanded by the Lord ; and 
 he would have been less sure, that after service every 
 man went again to his daily labour, if he had only 
 attended to a passage from that writer, to which he 
 has himself referred just before : " If you need bodily 
 indulgence, every eighth day is your holiday." The 
 passage (De Idololatria, c. 14,) has already been given. 
 We may here, however, observe upon it, that it dis- 
 tinctly speaks of Sunday only as the weekly holiday 
 for Christians, and also declares that they had nothing 
 to do with the Saturday Sabbath of the Jews. Another 
 passage (De Orat. c. 17,) which also has been quoted, 
 declaring, that on the Lord's day they used to put off 
 all business, plainly disproves the point of which Dr. 
 Heylyn was so sure. 
 
 Though little can be gathered of the opinions of 
 Irenaeus on this subject, yet, as I have before referred 
 to him as asserting the perpetual obligation of the 
 Decalogue, that little shall be stated, lest his authority 
 on the one hand should seem unfairly claimed to sup- 
 port, or on the other should be unreasonably supposed 
 adverse to, the doctrine here maintained. And the 
 question is, What are the duties to which he thought 
 Christians bound by the fourth commandment ? Now 
 in the chapter immediately preceding that on the dif- 
 ference "between the Decalogue and other precepts of 
 the law, speaking of the abolition of the Sabbaths, he 
 says they were designed to teach us to persevere in 
 serving God the whole day, all the time of our life, and 
 
 ' Iren. adv. Haeres. IV. 30. 
 
IREN/EUS. 
 
 173 
 
 to foreshow that rest of God, his kingdom, in which, 
 whoever has so persevered, i-esting from his labours, 
 will be made a partaker of God's table : and in other 
 places also he speaks of " the times of the kingdom 
 as the hallowed seventh day, the true Sabbath of the 
 righteous," which he thought, as Barnabas and others 
 did, was to begin when the world had lasted six days, 
 that is, six thousand years. But there is nothing here 
 to lead us to imagine, that he did not regard it a part of 
 that duty of daily service, to worship God more es- 
 pecially on his weekly hallowed festival. The prac- 
 tice of standing up to pray on the Lord's day, we have 
 seen, he declared derived from the apostolic age ; and 
 when Victor, Bishop of Rome, had convened a council 
 to determine the day on which the yearly festival of 
 Easter should be celebrated, Irenaeus % in the name of 
 the Churches over which he presided, sent him an 
 Epistle, to maintain that the mystery of the Lord's re- 
 surrection ought to be celebrated on the Lord's day 
 alone. The day then was held in much veneration by 
 him. 
 
 That the primitive Christians regarded the Lord's 
 day substituted for, and preferred above the ancient 
 Sabbath, appears from their very language respecting 
 it, as a type of the heavenly rest ; sometimes, by a little 
 confusion of thought, making it, instead of the Sabbath, 
 a type of that rest in the Millennium ; (as ' Africanus 
 
 ' Iren. adv. Haeres. V. 30, 33, and 28. 
 
 2 Euseb. Hist. V. 23. See Routh's Rel. Sacr. I. p. 394. 
 
 = Routh's Rel. Sacr. II. p. 126. 
 
174 
 
 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 of Emmaus, says, the length of life of Methuselah, the 
 eighth from Adam, perhaps foreshows the Lord's day, 
 as it is the heavenly eighth day, what his life wanted to 
 make up a thousand years, being supplied by Christ) ; 
 sometimes with more accuracy, according to their 
 notion of the world lasting six thousand years, making 
 the Sabbath a sign of the Millenium, the first resur- 
 rection, after which comes the real and never-ending 
 eighth day, the true Lord's day, (of which what we 
 weekly observe is a type), commencing in the general 
 resurrection, and entrance of the just into the glorious 
 kingdom of God the Father. 
 
 But to return to Dr. Heylyn's book. From the writ- 
 ings of Clement of Alexandria he produces two extracts, 
 which he conceives entirely support his opinion. What 
 is the correct inference to be drawn from them, will be 
 best seen from the extracts themselves. They are 
 taken from the seventh book of his Stromateis ^, or 
 Patch-works of Miscellaneous Discourses. In this 
 book Clement is speaking of the perfect Christian, one 
 who is perfect in the true knowledge ; the Gnostic, as 
 he calls him, though that name is usually employed to 
 designate, not the orthodox, but an heretical sect, who 
 piqued themselves on their acquisition of knowledge, 
 
 ' Routh's Rel. Sacr. III. p. 251. and HUarii Praef. in Psalm, 
 s. XI. xii. and xvi. 
 
 2 These books, I know not why, are commonly called Stro- 
 mata ; the name given them by Clement is as I have written it : 
 each book is aTpwuards, or a patch-work of discourses, stitched 
 together as they came into his mind, without studied order 
 or arrangement. 
 
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 175 
 
 falsely so called. The Gnostic of Clement, however, 
 is the orthodox and perfect Christian. He describes 
 him ' as a man of prayer : " If some have set apart for 
 prayer certain definite hours, as, for instance, the third, 
 the sixth, the ninth ; yet the Gnostic passes his whole 
 life in prayer, seeking by prayer to be ever with God." 
 And again ^, "He prays with angels, as being already 
 equal to the angels; nor is he ever unattended by 
 these holy guardians ; and though he prays alone, has 
 a chorus of angels standing by his side." But though I 
 have thus dwelt on the duty of prayer, as particularly be- 
 longing to the subject before me, it must be understood 
 also that the gnostic gives proof of the religious prin- 
 ciple within him in all his conduct ; and Clement's de- 
 sign is, by setting forth the loveliness of this character, 
 to win all men to the true worshipping of the eternal 
 God, with whose excellent Majesty he contrasts the 
 vain and false objects of heathen superstition. He 
 exposes the unsuitableness of fancying, as the heathens 
 did, that the Almighty can be represented by the like- 
 ness of any earthly form, or that he, who is every where 
 present, can be enclosed within the limits of a temple 
 made with hands. " Since says he, " the Holy One, 
 in its two senses, signifies or God himself, or what is 
 built for His honour, why do we not call the Church, 
 which through knowledge is made holy for his honour, 
 — why do we not call the Church, as by its appropriate 
 name, the holy of God, being, as it is, of great price, 
 and not built by any mechanic's skill, nor decked by 
 
 ' L. VII. c. 7. 
 
 ■ Ibid. c. 12. 
 
 ' Ibid. c. 5. 
 
176 
 
 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 any juggler's hand, but made for a temple by the will 
 of God. By the Church I now mean, not the place, 
 but the congregation of saints." He exposes the un- 
 suitableness of imagining that the Almighty can be 
 pleased with the sacrifice of animals, alleging that the 
 sacrifices which were made under the law were but 
 typical of the spiritual offerings of the Christian Church. 
 " For the sacrifice of the Church is prayer, the incense 
 of holy spirits, when, together with the sacrifice, the 
 whole mind is laid open before God '." " Our offer- 
 ings to God should be not costly, but godly." After 
 such remarks as these, he breaks forth in the first of the 
 passages ^ selected by Dr. Heylyn. [" It is our duty, 
 as we are commanded, to worship and honour him, 
 whom we are persuaded to be the Word, our Saviour 
 and our Captain, and through him the Father ; doing 
 this, not at selected times, as some others do, but con- 
 tinually, during our whole lives, and in every way. 
 Certainly the chosen race, which was justified accord- 
 ing to the commandment, says, ' Seven times a day 
 have I praised thee.' Wherefore, the Gnostic honours 
 God, not in definite places or chosen temples, nor yet 
 on certain feasts and appointed days, but all his life, in 
 every place, both when he may be by himself alone,] 
 and wherever he may meet any who have embraced the 
 same faith, he does this, giving thanks for the know- 
 ledge of the rule of life. If the presence of a good 
 man, by his reverential and decorous behaviour, con- 
 tinually improves those who associate with him, how 
 
 L. VII. c. 6. 
 
 = Ibid. c. 7. 
 
CLEM KM T OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 177 
 
 much rather, in all reason, shall not he, who, by know- 
 ledge, and manner of life, and eucharist, is ever present 
 with God, be continually improving in every particu- 
 lar, in his actions, and his words, and his disposition. 
 Such is he, who is persuaded that God is everywhere 
 present, and fancies not that He is shut up in certain 
 definite places, so that, supposing himself ever out of 
 His presence, he may give way to licentiousness by 
 night or by day. [We then, making our whole lives 
 a festival, persuaded that God is everywhere present, 
 praise Him as we toil in the fields, praise Him as we 
 sail on the sea, in any other mode of life have our con- 
 versation according to rule."] The other passage ' to 
 which Dr. Heylyn refers, is in a later part of the book. 
 " The Gnostic," says Clement, " understands the 
 mystical meaning of the fasts on the fourth and sixth 
 days of the week. The one is called the day of Mer- 
 cury, the other of Venus. Hence he continually fasts 
 from avarice and from lust, the sources of all vice." 
 And then, after dwelling a little on these topics, he 
 thus proceeds : " Such a [one, having fulfilled the 
 command according to the Gospel, makes that day the 
 Lord's day, on which he casts off evil thoughts, and 
 takes those which are according to knowledge, glorify- 
 ing the Lord's resurrection as wrought in himself"] 
 
 The portions of the above passages which are quoted 
 by Dr. Heylyn, 1 have included within brackets ; but 
 it seemed necessary to give them more fully than he 
 has done, with some account of the argument in which 
 
 ' L. VII. c. 12. 
 N 
 
178 
 
 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 they are introduced, in order that a judgment may be 
 formed of the real meaning of the writer. If Dr. Heylyn 
 had done so in the several extracts he has made, he 
 would probably have come nearer to the truth ; and 
 here certainly would not have thought the Gnostic 
 was " one who understands himself" (an expression, 
 which shews the translator did not understand Clement, 
 and had taken no pains to understand him, though he 
 considered him as one of the writers " which give us 
 any thing of the Lord's day") and perhaps would have 
 avoided some other mistranslations. But I chiefly 
 blame him for omitting, in the first of the two pas- 
 sages, what would have served to guide his readers to 
 the general sense of the whole, though that of the 
 word Gnostic had remained in obscurity. Looking to 
 the fine vein of piety here displayed, it seems an in- 
 justice to the writer to suppose that he designed to 
 slight the ordinances of the Church. I believe, rather, 
 Clement was only contending against a superstitious 
 and erroneous adherence to appointed places and 
 times ; that he was guarding against the notion, that 
 public prayers supersede the necessity of private de- 
 votions, or that, because the worship of God is to be 
 performed at Church, and on Sundays or other holy 
 days, it is, therefore, to be confined to that place or 
 those times. Doubtless, the Royal Psalmist, when he 
 praised God seven times a day, did not neglect the 
 hours appointed in the Jewish Church, but prayed in 
 the evening, and morning, and at noon-day, and that 
 instantly; and so would Clement have the true Christ- 
 ian a man of continual prayer. But if any think they 
 
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 179 
 
 perceive with Heylyn, from the above extracts, that 
 Clement " was well enough contented that the Lord's 
 day should not be observed at all ;" they must at least 
 allow, that he was writing to those who knew the 
 place of public worship by the name of the Church, 
 and who regarded Wednesdays and Fridays as the 
 weekly fasts, and the Lord's day as the weekly holy 
 festival. 
 
 But, before any decision is formed, what were the 
 real sentiments of Clement on this subject, let one 
 other extract be taken from his works. Towards the 
 latter part of the sixth book of his Stromateis in 
 a brief commentary on the Decalogue, he says, 
 *' The fourth commandment tells us, that the world 
 was made by God, and that he gave us the seventh day 
 as a rest, because of the sufferings and afflictions of our 
 lives. For God has no fatigue, no suffering, no need ; 
 but we, as bearing the flesh, have need of rest. There- 
 fore, the seventh day is declared to be the rest, the 
 cessation of evil, to prepare for that day ^ that brought 
 a new beginning ; that is our real rest ; which is also 
 the first origin of the real Light, by whom all things 
 are seen, and all things received as our inheritance : 
 from this day the primest wisdom and knowledge 
 
 ' L. VI. c. 16. 
 
 ' T))v apxiyoro)' iififpav. I have rendered tliis word as if it 
 were so accented. The Latin translator has given two senses, 
 as if it also occurred accented thus, aoxtyoiwi', "born of old, 
 ordained of old to be born." The sense 1 have adopted I prefer, 
 as perfectly agreeing with the language of Athanasius. The 
 word I presume should be written apx^yo""^- 
 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 
 
 enlighten us ; for the Light of Truth, the true, un- 
 shadowed Light, the Spirit of the Lord, divided with- 
 out division to those who are sanctified through faith, 
 is Hke a lamp for the knowledge of the things that are : 
 following this, then, through the whole of our lives, 
 
 we are set free fi-om affliction ; and this is, to rest 
 
 Since ' we have arrived at this point, to be speaking 
 of the seventh and eighth day, we must briefly call to 
 mind this also — for the eighth day seems properly to 
 be called the seventh, and the seventh, as it appears 
 manifest, the sixth ; and the former to be properly the 
 Sabbath, but the seventh a working day." These re- 
 marks, in a commentary too on the fourth command- 
 ment, may surprise those, who think the Lord's day 
 was not substituted for the Jew-ish Sabbath in the age 
 of Clement of Alexandria, and that the old Sabbath 
 was still observed. The passage, indeed, is so clear 
 and express, that unless its genuineness be questioned, 
 it must put an end to all further controversy on the 
 subject. It is true this commandment is here called 
 the fourth, though only two are numbered before it, 
 but in the brief commentary on those two, the sub- 
 stance of the three first is evidently given ; the com- 
 mandment, too, next following, is called the fifth ; and 
 though the ninth is omitted, or rather, its subject fore- 
 stalled in the fanciful remarks on the eighth, the last 
 
 ' 'EvTOvBa ytvo/iivovQ iv Traptpyy Kai Tavra {nro/ivtiiTTiov, iTTti 
 wipi fj35o/ia5oc Kai 6ySoaco£ o \6yoQ wapiiajjXBe- KivCvvivii yap tf 
 fiiv oySoag ipSofias tivat Kvpiuig- iKa£ Si t) ijiSonai;, Ka-d yc to 
 tfiipavke- Kai if fiiv Kvpiuig ftvai aafi^arov, ipyane Si r/ i/3^o/xa£. — 
 Strom. L. VI. c. 16. 
 
ORIGEN. 
 
 181 
 
 is distinctly called the tenth. The inaccuracy, then, 
 as to the number (calling it the fourth) is of no mo- 
 ment ; nor may it be thought, that the commandment 
 was not called the fourth in Clement's days ; for in a 
 homily ' on the beginning of the Decalogue, his pupil, 
 Origen, tells us, some persons reckoned the first and 
 second commandments as one only, but he himself 
 divides them into two, as we divide them, in order, as 
 he says, to make up the number of the ten command- 
 ments. It may seem strange, perhaps, that the name 
 of the Sabbath should be applied to the Lord's day by 
 Clement of Alexandria, more distinctly than the 
 bishop of that city, Athanasius, has thought fit to do, 
 when writing on the very subject above a century after- 
 wards : but if the passage has been received on the 
 authority of ancient manuscripts, it is not to be re- 
 jected, because it contains what we should not have 
 expected ; and it stands unquestioned in the edition of 
 Archbishop Potter. Certainly, though we might not 
 liave expected the expression, the idea, that the Lord's 
 day was to be kept as the only weekly festival, is no 
 more than is said, in one form or another, by all the 
 writers of the three first centuries, who have touched 
 on the subject. 
 
 But it is time to pass on to the works of Origen, 
 from which Heylyn gives us two extracts. The first 
 is from his tenth Homily on Genesis. Origen, hav- 
 ing observed, that Rebekah coming to draw water 
 from the well, according to her daily custom, so ob- 
 
 Orig. in Exoil., Horn. VIII. c. 2, 
 
182 
 
 ORIGEN. 
 
 tained her marriage with the Patriarch Isaac, hence 
 takes occasion to impress on his audience the duty of 
 coming daily to draw the water of life from the sacred 
 well, that they may be married to Christ. [" Tell 
 me '," says he, " ye who come together at Church on 
 festivals only, are not the other days festivals ? are not 
 they also the Lord's days ? To observe particular days, 
 and a few yearly festivals, is the practice of Jews.] 
 And, therefore, God says to them, ' Your new-moons, 
 and Sabbaths, and the great day, I cannot away with : 
 the fast, and the holydays, and your appointed feasts, 
 my soul hateth.' God. then, hateth those who think, 
 that one day is the Lord's festival day. [Christians 
 every day eat the flesh of the Lamb ; that is, daily feed 
 on the Word of God.] For Christ has been slain our 
 Passover." It is scarcely necessary to observe, that 
 this address is made to persons who were in the habit 
 of going to Church regularly on the Lord's day, and 
 no other ; whereas Origen wished to bring them to 
 the habit of attending the service every day. 
 
 The second extract is from his celebrated vindication 
 of the Christian religion against Celsus, an Epicurean, 
 who wrote in the age of Adrian or the Antonines: 
 among his serious charges against the Christians, the 
 heathen philosopher had said, that theirs was a dark, 
 mysterious society, marked neither by altars, nor by 
 images, nor by temples. To this Origen, in the style 
 and spirit of his master Clement, replies ^ that Christ- 
 
 ' In (ienesim, Horn. X. s. 3. 
 
 = Contra Celsuin, L. VIII. c. 17, 18. 
 
ORIGEN. 
 
 183 
 
 ians had their altars, and images, and temples — that 
 the minds of believers are their altars, from which the 
 incense of righteous prayers may go up before God ; 
 that the images suitable to the Almighty are not those 
 which are fashioned by mechanic artists, but those 
 which are formed within our own bosoms by imitation 
 of the divine excellence, and which lead us to adore 
 the Holy One, after whose image we are formed ; and 
 that the Christian's temple must be suitable to such 
 images and altars ' ; " that no mass of dead and sense- 
 less matter can be a fit building for the Author of life ; 
 but, as the body of Christ was most truly the Temple 
 of God, so the company of all faithful Christians are 
 His precious Temple, the several individuals as lively 
 stones, being builded together for an habitation of God 
 thi-ough the Spirit." Churches, indeed, called too by 
 this name, as we have already seen, both from Origen 
 and Clement, they had in these days : but the una- 
 dorned, unpretending places of their public worship 
 in these days of the Church's poverty, could not be 
 compared with the magnificent structures of heathen 
 superstition : against these temples then, these stately 
 and splendid buildings, the Christians set the spiritual 
 building, as far more important, and more worthy of 
 the Most High. From this subject Origen passes on 
 to the reasons, why Christians cannot be present at 
 the sacrifices offered by heathens to their idols. For 
 Celsus had said, that since God is the common Lord 
 of all, they who are most devoted to his service, ought 
 
 Contra C'elsum, L. VIII. c 19, 20. 
 
184 
 
 ORIGEN. 
 
 to be present at public festivals ; and Origen admits 
 that, we ought to be present at these, if it be proved 
 that they have nothing of error in them, but have been 
 appointed from a knowledge of God, as agreeable to 
 his worship and true piety, but not, if this be otherwise 
 and they be but the fancies of men. " A festival," 
 adds he " as some Greek philosopher has said, is 
 nothing else than this, to do one's duty : and [he truly 
 keeps festivals, who does his duty, continually praying, 
 and ever offering up the bloodless sacrifice in his pray- 
 ers to God.] Wherefore, it seems to me to have been 
 most nobly said by St. Paul, ' Ye observe days and 
 months and times and years ; I am afraid of you, lest 
 I have bestowed labours upon you in vain.' " 
 
 But^ if any one should object against this what takes 
 place amongst ourselves on the Lord's days, or on 
 Preparation days, or on the days of the Passover, or 
 of Pentecost, the answer is, that the perfect Christian, 
 [who continually lives in the words and works, and 
 thoughts of the Word of God, his natural Lord, con- 
 tinually lives in His days, daily keeps a Lord's day.] 
 He, moreover, who continually prepares himself to 
 live according to truth, and abstains from the plea- 
 sures of life, that deceive the many, and does not 
 feed the desire of the flesh, but keeps under his body 
 and brings it into subjection, this man daily keeps a 
 
 ' Contra Celsum, L. VIII. c. 21. 
 
 2 'Etii/ ^6 rt£ Trpoi; ravTa ai^fliiTrofilpy rii Trtpi rcDc -nap yi/iiv 
 (ci'()(0(.u)i', i) TrapaoKtviov, j; rof) rratrxa, >] '"'K' Tf vri/icorrrije ft' 
 I'lfitowv yii'iifiO'u- XnCTtov Kai Trpof tovto, uTi o jtiv riXuni; k. T. \. 
 Ibid. c. 22. 
 
ORIGEN. 
 
 185 
 
 Preparation clay. He, too, who has considered, that 
 Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, and 
 that it is our duty to keep the feast by eating the flesh 
 of the Word, — there is not a day when he does not 
 keep the Passover, continually in his thoughts and 
 every word and every action passing over from this 
 life's affairs towards God, and hastening towards His 
 city. And further, he who is able with truth to say, 
 *' We have risen with Christ," and moreover, " He 
 hath raised us up together, and made us sit together 
 in heavenly places in Christ," such a one day by day 
 is in the feast of Pentecost ; then especially, when 
 going up into an upper room, like the Apostles of 
 Jesus, he has no business to interrupt his supplication 
 and prayer, that he may become worthy of the rushing 
 mighty wind from heaven, which compels the vice of 
 man and its consequences to vanish away ; worthy 
 also of some portion of the fiery tongue from God." 
 
 He then goes on to say that ' the generality of those 
 who pass for believers, will not, or cannot, thus 
 keep holy every day, but need some sensible signs to 
 bring these things to their remembrance : and this, 
 which he calls keeping the feast in part only, he thinks 
 St. Paul alluded to by the expi-ession " in part of an 
 holy day." Col. ii. 16. But what follows, is not con- 
 nected with the subject of our enquiry. 
 
 Of the above passages from Origen I have, as before, 
 included between brackets all that is given by Dr. 
 Heylyn. As to the first of them, no great fault is to 
 
 ' Contra Celsum, L. VIII. c. 23. 
 
186 
 
 ORIGEN. 
 
 be found with him on account of what he has omitted. 
 The declaration, indeed, that God hates those who 
 regard one day alone in the week as the Lord's day, 
 falls in with his notions well enough : I suspect, how- 
 ever, he could not so easily reconcile with them the 
 comparison of the Jewish festivals, and of their Sab- 
 baths too, with the Lord's day, as observed by the 
 Christians at Alexandria. But for the omission in the 
 second passage, where it is not even acknowledged 
 that any thing has been omitted at all, — I have no 
 wish to say what impression the discovery of it made ; 
 I have no wish to bring a railing accusation against 
 one long ago departed, and who always, I believe, 
 stood high in the esteem of those who knew him : but 
 I have a strong wish, that a book, professing to teach 
 us, how the Lord's day ought to be obsei-ved, by 
 teaching us, how it has been observed from the begin- 
 ning, and yet so grossly misrepresenting the very 
 authorities to which it appeals, should no longer be 
 suffered to pass unexposed, and to spread its noxious 
 influence in the English Church. The passage itself 
 scarcely requires any comment : it plainly tells us that 
 in the judgment of Origen, Christians ought to keep 
 such festivals, as promote the worship of God and true 
 piety, though they ought not to consider the observance 
 of these alone as the whole business of rehgion, but 
 daily to worship the Lord : it plainly tells us, that the 
 Christians at Alexandria used to keep two gi-eat yearly 
 festivals, Easter and Whitsuntide ; and two principal 
 days in the week, Sunday, the Lord's day, as a holy 
 festival ; Friday, the Preparation day, as a fast. Fri- 
 
OllIGEN. 
 
 187 
 
 day, the day on which our Lord was crucified, was, it 
 seems, more regarded every week in this age, than 
 Wednesday, the day on which Judas covenanted to 
 betray him : and so it was afterwards, as is evident 
 from the edict of Constantine. I do not mean that 
 Wednesday's fast was altogether neglected. It is 
 mentioned, as we have seen, by Clement : it is men- 
 tioned also by Peter', who was Bishop of Alexandria, 
 A.D. 300. " No one shall blame us," says he, " for 
 keeping Wednesday and Friday, on which, according 
 to tradition, it has, with good reason, been appointed 
 to us to fast ; on Wednesday, because of the counsel 
 taken by the Jews for betraying our Lord ; on a Friday, 
 because of his suffering for us. But the Lord's day 
 we keep as a festival, because of his resurrection on it, 
 on which day we have learnt not to bend the knee." 
 Not a word is here said of Saturday. But Dr. Heylyn 
 having made his quotation from Origen, is pleased to 
 say of the Alexandrian Christians, " Of Sunday there 
 is little doubt, but that it was observed amongst them ; 
 and so was Saturday also." Why then did neither 
 Clement, nor Origen, nor Bishop Peter mention Satur- 
 day ? But Dr. Heylyn refers us to Athanasius, who 
 lived about a hundred years after Origen's time. The 
 passage we will consider in its place. 
 
 But, before we lay Origen aside, it may be well to 
 make a third extract from his writings. In his seventh 
 Homily on Exodus, he speaks of the gathering of manna, 
 and the double portion on the sixth day, and thus pro- 
 
 Routh's Rel Sacr. III. 343. 
 
188 
 
 ORIGEN. 
 
 ceeds "It is clear that the day before the Sabbath is 
 called the sixth day, which we call the Preparation 
 day, but the Sabbath is the seventh day ; I ask then, 
 on what day manna was first given from heaven, and 
 wish to compare our Lord's day with the Jewish Sab- 
 bath. For it is plain from Holy Writ, that manna 
 was first given on earth on the Lord's day. For if, 
 as the Scripture says, it was gathered six successive 
 days, and there was none on the seventh day, without 
 doubt it began to be given on the first day of the week, 
 which is the Lord's day. But if it be clear from the 
 holy Scriptures, that God rained manna from heaven 
 on the Lord's day, and rained none on the Sabbath 
 day, let the Jews understand, that from that time our 
 Lord's day was set above the Jewish Sabbath; from 
 that time the fact was shewn, that on their Sabbath 
 days no grace of God has fallen on them from heaven, 
 no heavenly bread, which is the word of God, has come 
 to them. For the prophet says elsewhere. The chil- 
 dren of Israel shall abide many days without a king, 
 without a prince, without a prophet, without an offer- 
 ing, without a sacrifice, without a priest. For on our 
 Lord's day, God always rains down manna from hea- 
 ven — but at this very day, I say, God rains down 
 manna from heaven— for the discourses, which are 
 delivered to us, are from heaven ; and the words, which 
 are preached to us, have come down from God ; and 
 hence we are blessed in receiving such manna." 
 
 This being the language of the early Fathers, I 
 
 ' In lixodunn. Horn. VII. s. 5. 
 
CYPRIAN. 
 
 189 
 
 would ask, what colour of reason there is for saying 
 that the Sabbath was held in equal honour with the 
 Lord's day in the Primitive Church ? All that we 
 learn from Cyprian on this subject, perfectly agrees 
 with what has gone before. The first passage Dr. 
 Heylyn has given from this writer, I presume he has 
 taken from an incorrect edition : I will therefore trans- 
 late it, having first stated the circumstances from which 
 it arose. In the seventh persecution of the Christians, 
 which took place under the Emperor Decius, Cyprian, 
 being proscribed by name as Bishop of the Christians, 
 withdrew from the fury of the storm, retired from 
 Carthage, and lived in concealment. This conduct, 
 which was censured by some of the ' Roman Clergy, 
 he adopted not from regard for his personal safety 
 alone, but because he thought that if he remained 
 concealed ^ the Church would the sooner regain her 
 peace, since his presence seemed chiefly to have 
 provoked the violation of it. In his retirement, how- 
 ever, he did not neglect the duties of his diocese, but 
 communicated by letter both with the clergy and with 
 the whole body of his Church. Such was his letter 
 on the case of Aurelius, a young man of high merit, 
 who had proved the sincerity of his faith by his forti- 
 tude in confessing it under the torture of the rack. 
 Cyprian, with his colleagues, who were with him, hav- 
 ing ordained this young man to the office of Reader, 
 writes to inform his Church of what, he is sure, would 
 be acceptable to them, and to request them to strive 
 
 Epist. II. 
 
 ^ Ibid. XIV. and XXXVI. 
 
190 
 
 CYPRIAN. 
 
 together with him in their prayers, that through the 
 favour of God he himself might shortly be restored to 
 them in safety, and bring with him the martyr Reader, 
 who, he says *, " since joy is always eager, and delight 
 ill brooks delay, reads meanwhile on a Lord's day to 
 us ; that is, while he consecrates his powers as a 
 Reader, he has already entered on the duties which 
 belong to times of peace." It must have been uncer- 
 tain how long this arrangement was to last, yet no 
 mention is made of Saturday ; it is only said, Aurelius 
 was to read to Cyprian, and those who were with him, 
 on the Lord's day. 
 
 There is nothing in the second passage, quoted by 
 Heylyn, which bears upon our purpose. Cyprian', 
 rebuking the wealthy matrons, who had neglected the 
 duty of almsgiving, breaks forth in the following 
 words : — " You are rich and wealthy ; and do you 
 imagine you keep the Lord's day, while you altogether 
 neglect to bring a gift, — while you come to the Lord's 
 house without a sacrifice, and partake of the offering, 
 that the poor man has made ?" The passage shews, 
 that the place of public worship was called the Lord's 
 house ; but the words here translated " keep the 
 Lord's day," Dominicum celebrare, in his sixty-third 
 Epistle, signify to celebrate the Lord's supper, or the 
 Lord's sacrifice, and this, no doubt, is their meaning 
 here also, 
 
 • Et quoniam semper gaudium properat, nec potest moras 
 ferre Isetitia, Dominico legit interim nobis ; id est, auspicatus 
 est pacem, dum dedicat lectionera. Epist. XXXIII. 
 
 - De opere et eleemosynis. Cypr. Opera, p. 259. Paris. 164S. 
 
 13 
 
CyPRIAN. 
 
 191 
 
 Dr. Heylyn finding that, in a third passage, Cyprian 
 represents " the Lord's day as prefigured in the eighth 
 day, destinate to circumcision," says he " shall rather 
 refer the reader to the place than repeat the words." 
 We will follow his direction. Fidus, one of the clergy 
 of the Church of Carthage, having maintained that 
 infants ought not to be baptized before the eighth day, 
 according to the law of circumcision, Cyprian con- 
 vened a council, in which this opinion was unanimously 
 condemned ; and writing to inform Fidus of theii' de- 
 cision ', he added, that " the observance of the eighth 
 day, in the Jewish circumcision of the flesh, is a sacred 
 mystery, sent beforehand in a shadow and a figure, but 
 realized in the truth by the coming of Christ. For the 
 eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, 
 which was to be the day on which the Lord should 
 rise again, and bring us to life, and give us the cir- 
 cumcision of the Spirit ; this eighth day, that is, the 
 first after the Sabbath, and the Lord's day, came before 
 in a figure ; which figure ceased when the Truth was 
 afterwards come, and the circumcision of the Spirit 
 given us." To obviate the force of what Cyprian has 
 thus expressly declared. Dr. Heylyn says, It is but 
 a private opinion of his own." An opinion, expressed 
 in a synodical Epistle, does not look much like a pri- 
 vate opinion. But further : Justin Martyr, in his 
 Dialogue with Trypho, speaking of circumcising on 
 
 ' Epist. LIX In tlie above passeige I have rendered sacra- 
 mentum as equivalent to juioTTjpioi/, the word used by Justin; as 
 in the Vulgate, Eph. v. 32. — Routh's Rel. Sacr. III. p. 76. 
 
192 
 
 CYPRIAN. 
 
 the eighth day, says, " We ' may shew that the eighth 
 day had a mystic sacredness above the seventh, thus 
 proclaimed by God." Athanasius, too, in his Homily 
 on the Sabbath and Circumcision, says, " Abraham, 
 having believed, received the circumcision, a sign of 
 the regeneration wrought in baptism. Wherefore, when 
 that which was signified was come, the sign was done 
 away. Now circumcision was the sign ; the washing 
 of regeneration the thing signified. For when the old 
 man was wholly put off, the sign of putting this off in 
 part was no longer needed. And as the Lord's day, the 
 beginning of the new creation, put an end to the Sab- 
 bath, so the same day by the regeneration of man put 
 an end to circumcision. For both were accomplished 
 on the eighth day, the beginning of the creation and 
 the regeneration of man. Wherefore the eighth day 
 set aside the Sabbath, and not the Sabbath the eighth 
 day : for the Sabbath was interrupted by circumcision, 
 but circumcision was not interrupted by the Sabbath : 
 for the eighth day, being the beginning of the new 
 creation, put an end to what was before." Again, 
 even in the age when the practice of making Saturday 
 a holy festival was spreading in the Church, Austin* 
 says, *' Christ, by rising again on the third day, which 
 we call the Lord's day, which, coming after the Sab- 
 bath, is numbered as the eighth day, declared that 
 circumcision also on the eighth day was appointed to 
 
 ' Dial, cum Tryph. p. 47- & p. 59- Justini M. Opera. Paris. 
 Steph. 1551. The last of these two passages is quoted by Bishop 
 Pearson on the Creed, Vol. II. p. 341. (>.xf. 1797- 
 Routh's Relliq. Sacr. III., p. 120. 
 
CYPRIAN. 
 
 193 
 
 prophecy of Himself." Thus we see this notion held 
 by different writers, through two centuries and a half. 
 Athanasius, indeed, and Austin, might have borrowed 
 it from their predecessors ; but Heylyn has omitted to 
 tell us how Justin got hold of this private opinion of 
 Cyprian's own. Perhaps he thought a private opinion 
 is like private property, passing by descent or other- 
 wise continually onwards, the possession of one man in 
 one age, of another in another, according to the old 
 Epigram : 
 
 KX^poc 'lovarivov yevoiiriv irori, vvv KvTrpidvov, 
 Kai waXiv irepou firiaofiai ilg iripov. 
 
 " I, Justin's once, but Cyprian's to-day, 
 From other hence to other pass away." 
 
 Yet there is not the slightest reason to suppose, but 
 that an opinion, maintained in different ages and in 
 different countries, was a general opinion in the early 
 Christian Church, even if it had not been expressed in 
 a synodical Epistle. In itself, indeed, it seems too 
 fanciful to be thought of much importance ; but con- 
 sidered together with the remark of Origen on the first 
 fall of manna, it seems to shew, that, in the judgment 
 of these Fathers, we " through the law are dead" to 
 whatever obligation the law imposed of keeping a Sab- 
 bath on the seventh day, since the law itself intimated, 
 that the ancient Sabbath was to be displaced under the 
 Christian covenant, by the eighth, the more blessed 
 day. 
 
 To Athanasius, however, appeal is made to shew 
 that Saturday was kept as a weekly festival ; and this, 
 o 
 
194 
 
 ATHANASIUS. 
 
 not only by Dr. Heylyn, but also by Bingham who, it 
 should be observed, brings him forward as the earliest 
 writer in support of this opinion, the sixty-sixth apos- 
 tolical Canon, and the Constitutions, being set aside. 
 The place referred to is the exordium of his Homily 
 " On the Seed :" and the inference they draw from it, 
 is best refuted by the passage itself, when fully and 
 fairly given. 
 
 " On the Sabbath day we had assembled together; 
 not that we are infected with Judaism — for we have 
 nothing to do with false Sabbaths ^ ; but we had met 
 on the Sabbath to worship Jesus, the Lord of the Sab- 
 bath. For, in ages past, the Sabbath was held in honour 
 by them of old ; but the Lord has transferred the day 
 of the Sabbath to the Lord's day ^. And it is not of 
 ourselves that we think slightingly of the Sabbath ; but 
 it is the Prophet who rejects it, saying, * Your new 
 moons and your Sabbaths my soul hateth.' " 
 
 Has not this all the air of a casual meeting ? Had 
 it been the constant practice at Alexandria to meet on 
 that day, would the Bishop have said, that they thought 
 slightingly of the day ? or, though it served to intro- 
 duce the subject of the disciples passing through the 
 field of corn on the Sabbath day, would he have so 
 dwelt on the fact, that this was the day on which they 
 had met ? We have seen Saturday was not one of the 
 days of their weekly meetings in the time of Origen : 
 
 ' Bingham's Antiq. B. XX. c. 3, s. 1, and B. XIII. c. 9, s. 3. 
 ' Amos vi. 3. Septuag. Version. 
 
 ' IlaXat fiiv ydp r/v Iv toIq dp^aioie to rijiiov ^dj3^aTov' fieriOiiKt 
 H 0 Kupioc T>)v Toii 2a/3/3aVou ijnipav tig KvpiaKr/v. — De Semente. 
 
ATHANASIUS. 
 
 195 
 
 Sunday and Friday are the only days mentioned by 
 him: nor is Saturday noticed by Bishop Peter, who 
 preceded Athanasius but a few years in the See. 
 
 Dr. Heylyn, indeed, correctly says, it was not a 
 command of Christ, but his resurrection on the day, 
 which transferred the Sabbath to the Lord's day ; and 
 he might have given a better reason than he has, for 
 so interpreting Athanasius's words, by another extract 
 from this same Homily. " We then hold in honour 
 the Lord's day, on account of the Resurrection ; but 
 the Jews, to this hour, cling to the Sabbath, even after 
 Isaiah has said, 'Your Sabbaths my soul hateth.' I 
 hold nothing so unhallowed' as the Sabbath, which 
 God has hated. / mean not weeMy returns of days, 
 but that which is reputed Judaism. For God hates 
 not days, but those who do ill in them." Let it here 
 be noted, Athanasius rejects the Sabbaths which God 
 had rejected — the false Sabbaths — rest, without refer- 
 ence to public worship ; but not the weekly returns of 
 days, not the transferred observance of the Lord's 
 day. 
 
 One other extract from this writer shall be taken 
 from his Homily, before referred to, " On the Sabbath 
 and Circumcision." In this Homily, after observing, 
 that it had been ordained that the Sabbaths, which 
 
 ' ovi'tv fioi KOtvov rrpbc to Sa|3f3aroi/ o 6 Gtoc iiihrjaiv ov Xeyui 
 TOVQ kvkXovq twv ijfispCjv, iWd Tov vojii^ofitvov '\ovfdi(Tfi6v. — 
 
 The first of these clauses Is rendered, by the Latin translator, 
 " Nil mihi commune cum Sabbato." I conceive the correct 
 translation to be, as I have given it : "I hold nothing common 
 or unhallowed in comparison with the Sabbath." 
 
 O 2 
 
196 
 
 ATHANASIUS. 
 
 were to be kept by the children of Israel ' throughout 
 their generations, were to be kept as long as the former 
 creation was in force at Jerusalem, but when that other 
 generation, mentioned in the Psalms ^, should come, 
 they should no longer keep these Sabbaths of a day, 
 but should look for the Sabbath of Sabbaths, in which 
 the new creature should have no end, but should be 
 manifested, and should enjoy an eternal festival ; and 
 that God ^ commanded not his new people to keep the 
 Sabbath, the end or last day of the former creation, but 
 clearly pointed out the Lord's day, the commence- 
 ment of the new creation, by the resurrection of 
 Christ, that the end of that, which has passed away, 
 might be known, as is intimated by the Scriptural ex- 
 pressions, " the last days," and " the fulness or con- 
 summation of time ;" — and after arguing both from 
 the Sabbath not being violated by its appointed sacri- 
 fices or by circumcision, because these works were 
 done in a knowledge of the will of God, and also from 
 the day of atonement, the tenth day of the seventh 
 month being called the Sabbath of Sabbaths ; arguing, 
 I say, from these facts, that the end and design of a 
 Sabbath, was not so much rest, as confession and hu- 
 miliation of the soul, and knowledge of God, he thus 
 concludes : " He then gave them not the Sabbath for 
 
 ' Exod. xxxi. 16. 5 Ps. cii. 18. 
 
 ^ ty ck Katvy KTiaii ovk ivtrtlXaTO ^vXamtv Sdj3j3aTOV 'Iva r^j/ 
 filv apx^v tv T7J KV(iiaKy ytvuiUKy, driKivTriTOV li tiriaraTai Trjv 
 TavTtiv x«P"'' TOVTO Ik Ttjv apx'/v, tovtisti Ttjv -ijfikpav, (SriXui- 
 <Jtv, 'iva TO TiKog rqc jrapiXOovo-jje yivudKyQ. — ^De Sabbat, et Cir- 
 cumcis. 
 
ATHANASIUS, 
 
 197 
 
 idleness' sake, but that they might know his rest from 
 the creation. For God ' commanded, saying, ' that 
 ye may know, that on this day the Lord your God 
 rested from the works which he had begun to do :' 
 but he designed that they, knowing the end of this 
 creation, should seek the beginning of another. For 
 the Sabbath was the end of the first creation ; but the 
 Lord's day the beginning of the second, in which he 
 created anew and regenerated the old man. [As then 
 he commanded before, to keep the Sabbath day, in 
 memory of the end of the former, we accordingly hold 
 in honour the Lord's day, in memory of the beginning 
 of the second creation.] For he did not add another 
 creation, but made anew the old, and finished that 
 which he had begun to do. Wherefore, on the sixth 
 day, the things that came into being were finished ; 
 yet he rested on the seventh day from all ; and in the 
 Gospel, the Word, at his coming, says, ' I am come 
 to finish the work.' For he that rested from all, 
 signifies that something needs to be finished, which he 
 finished when he came: for he says, in St. John's 
 Gospel, ' The works which the Father hath given me 
 to finish, the same works, that I do, bear witness of 
 
 • 'EvtTci\aTO yap 6 Oebe 'iva yivisiOKrjTi, on tv ravry tij 
 
 I'mepg. KaTBTTavat Kvptog, o Oebg vfiHv, cltto twv ipywv uv »/p?aro 
 notijaai, rjdiKi Si avrove, yivuxTKOvrae t6 riXo^ rairrig, apxvv !^t)tuv 
 iripas- TtXog fxiv oiv Ttjg wpoTtpae KriathiQ j}v 76 2a/3/3aroj/, apx»i 
 ^f Trig StVTtpag, r) KvpiuKt), iv y Ti)v iraXaiav avivthiaaro Kai avt- 
 Ka'iviatv. "QsTTtp ovv LvtrtiXaro (jivXarrtiv irpoTtpov tov Tajifiarov 
 Tt)v y'luipav, /ivrniriv ovaav tov r'tKovg tC>v wpoTtpuiv, ovtoiq riiv 
 K.vpiaKr)v TinSifitv, nvrfvt\v ovaav apxijg SevTtpag avaxTiatiog. — 
 De Sabbato et Circumcis. 
 
198 
 
 ATHANASIUS. 
 
 me.' For the work was unfinished, if by Adam's sin 
 man had died, but became finished when he was made 
 alive. Wherefore, having ^ created anew what had 
 been created in six days, he consecrates to the new 
 creation the day, of which the Spirit before spake in 
 the Psalm, saying, ' This is the day which the Lord 
 hath made.' For, instead of the sun, it is God that 
 rises to give light to the souls of all. And hence, in 
 his life-giving passion, the sun appeared not, as if to 
 tell the end of the former creation, and the beginning 
 of that other, which had its dawn in the Saviour's 
 rising ; which, when the Prophet^ saw, he exclaimed, 
 • Behold the man ! the Rising is his name :' and 
 again ^, ' To you that fear him, shall the Sun of Right- 
 eousness arise.' For this day belongs not to all, but 
 to them that are dead unto sin, and alive unto the 
 Lord.' After this he proceeds to say, that hence cir- 
 cumcision was appointed on the eighth day, as in the 
 passage already adverted to. In this Homily, then, 
 Athanasius speaks distinctly of the eternal Sabbath 
 hereafter, and of the rest from sin here, which alone 
 some suppose to be substituted for the Jewish Sabbath 
 in the Christian covenant ; and yet, if words can be ex- 
 press, he tells us, that God designed the Jewish Sab- 
 bath, the last day of the world's creation, to be kept only 
 till the fall of the old Jerusalem ; and that he clearly 
 
 ' Ai« rovTO Tt)v if i5 {ifitpaiQ ktioiv avaxaiviaas, rj/itpav ri6>j<rt 
 ry avaKatviaii, iijv ha tov 'IraX/iov TTpoava^iovd \iyov t6 Uvtviia- 
 avTt] vpi'tpa i'lv twoiriatv 6 Kipiog- avB' yjXiov yap Otoe omreXXti, 
 Karavyai^iov ry tKaarov 4"^XV- — De Sabbato et Circumcis. 
 ^ Zech. vi. 12, Septuag. Vers. ^ Mai. iv. 2. 
 
COUNCIL OF MACON. 
 
 199 
 
 pointed out and consecrated the Lord's day, the first 
 day of the new creation, which was begun by Christ's 
 resurrection, or, to use his own expression, in his 
 Homily on the Seed, that God has transferred the 
 Sabbath day to the Lord's day. Now, what is Dr. 
 Heylyn's remark on the portion of this passage he has 
 thought fit to select, which has been placed, as before, 
 between brackets? Why, that Athanasius has con- 
 trasted the commanded honour to the Sabbath with a 
 voluntary honour to the Lord's day ! Yet reverence 
 for the Lord's day is here expressed by another form 
 only of the very same word, which, in the Homily on 
 the Seed, is used to express, in tlie times of the old 
 covenant, reverence for the Jewish Sabbath. 
 
 Dr. Heylyn seems to have borrowed this idea of 
 voluntary honour from the decree of a Council at 
 Macon in Burgundy, which he has set before us with 
 great care. As this Council of Macon was held about 
 the close of the sixth century, it is not very important 
 to consider what opinions were maintained there, 
 except they can be shewn to be agreeable to those 
 of the Primitive Church. The Canon, however, 
 alluded to, exhorts us to keep the Lord's day, the day 
 of our new-birth, whereon we were delivered from the 
 snares of sin ; — the everlasting day of rest, typified in 
 the Old Testament, by the seventh day, or Sabbath, 
 and to be celebrated as the day, on which we were 
 made, what at first we were not. It then proceeds in 
 these words, Let us, therefore, oflfer unto God our 
 free and voluntary service, by whose great goodness 
 we are freed from the gaol of error ; not that the Lord 
 
200 
 
 COUNCIL OF LAODICEA. 
 
 exacts it of us, that we should celebrate the day in 
 corporal abstinence and rest from labour, who only 
 looks that we should yield obedience to his holy will. 
 However, if any man set at nought this our exhorta- 
 tion, be he assured, that God will punish him, as he 
 hath deserved." Now, it looks very much as if some 
 members of this synod had their scruples about the 
 declaration ; that the Lord does not exact from his 
 people the observance of his day ; scruples, which 
 were lulled by the assurance, that God would punish 
 those, who did not observe it according to the Canon. 
 This conjecture, however, I pursue no further, having 
 quoted the words merely because we shall find the 
 notion of voluntanj honour to the Lord's day, which 
 they express, employed by Dr. Heylyn to warp a 
 Homily of our Church from its plain and simple 
 meaning, with as little colour of reason as he has here 
 employed it to misinterpret a Homily of Athanasius. 
 
 On the Canon of the Laodicean Council (which I 
 have already given in the Notes on my Sermon) Dr. 
 Heylyn is pleased to observe that it commanded peo- 
 ple " to rest from labour on the Lord's day, if at least 
 they could, but as Christians still." The words " but" 
 and " still," which give an entirely new turn to the 
 sentence, he has inserted without any authority what- 
 ever ; and the insertion is the more unjustifiable, as 
 he has not chosen to produce the original, and so was 
 to escape detection. 
 
 Bingham ' supposes that the command given in this 
 
 ' Antiq. of Christian Ciiurch, B. XIII, c. 9. s. 1. 3. 
 
COUNCIL OF LAODICEA. 201 
 
 Canon to work on a Saturday, is to be understood with 
 an exception for the time of Divine service, because it 
 appears by some other Canons of the same Council, 
 which he quotes, that the Scriptures, especially the 
 Gospels, were to be read, the Eucharist administered, 
 and during Lent, commemorations of Martyrs, whose 
 festivals happening in the fast could not be kept, were 
 to be made on that day in the same manner as on 
 Sundays ; and he finds from the Institutions of Cas- 
 sian, that in the Egyptian Churches also the service 
 on the Saturday was always the same as on the Lord's 
 day, and that in the monasteries of Egypt and Thebais, 
 though on other days they had only their evening and 
 nightly congregations, on both of these days they used 
 to meet at the third hour (nine in the morning) to 
 celebrate the holy Communion : hence, he concludes, 
 the same hour was kept also in the Church at Laodicea. 
 But it should be observed, first, that Cassian, who 
 wrote these institutions for his monasteries founded at 
 Marseilles, A.D. 410, must have been travelling in 
 Egypt towards thirty years, at least, after the Laodi- 
 cean Council, which was held about the time of his 
 birth, a difference in date of much importance in its 
 bearing on the present point, considering that this was 
 the very age, in which the practice of keeping Satur- 
 day a festival, was growing up in the East; and 
 secondly, it is in the monasteries of Egypt, this service 
 was attended on Saturdays, at nine in the morning. 
 Whatever they who had leisui-e might have done, it is 
 unreasonable to suppose that the working classes, that 
 is, the great bulk of the members of the Church, were 
 
202 
 
 STATE OF OPINION 
 
 exhorted to make Saturday a working day, and yet 
 expected on it to attend Divine service, just as they 
 would on Sundays. 
 
 We have now traced the opinions of the Church on 
 the substitution of the Lord's day for the ancient Sab- 
 bath, from the earhest age to the time when the practice 
 of keeping Saturday also as a religious festival began to 
 prevail : as this practice must necessarily throw some 
 obscurity on the subject of enquiry, and the opinions 
 maintained gradually become less important in propor- 
 tion to their distance from the apostolic age, I proceed 
 no further in the investigation of the usage of these 
 times, but only remark, that among the proofs Heylyn 
 brings forward, that both days were alike observed, 
 Gregory of Nyssa's remonstrance with his congrega- 
 tion, " With what face canst thou look on the Lord's 
 day, who hast dishonoured the Sabbath ? knowest 
 thou not, that these days are sisters, and that whoever 
 doth despise the one, doth affi-ont the other?" this 
 very remonstrance plainly shews that, even then, the 
 Lord's day and not the other was generally observed : 
 and, notwithstanding these strong expressions of Gre- 
 gory, I am inclined to believe it a judicious remark of 
 Archbishop ' Usher, that, where the practice obtained, 
 Saturday was kept festival, not as a Sabbath day, 
 but as a sort of Preparation day for the Christian 
 Sabbath. 
 
 Here then I would omit altogether the intermediate 
 
 ' Ch. XI. of the Dissertation prefixed to his edition of Polycarp 
 and Ignatius' Epistles, 1644. 
 
BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 203 
 
 ages, and proceed at once to the era of the Reforma- 
 tion ; but, since in the account of the first proceedings 
 at least, on that occasion, we continually find other 
 holy days mentioned together with the Lord's day, as 
 if held in equal honour, it may be well to enquire 
 briefly, into the origin of a practice, of which, except 
 whatever degree of festival was kept during the fifty 
 days of Pentecost, we have seen no trace in the Primi- 
 tive Church. 
 
 That the festivals of Christmas and Ascension day, 
 were observed in the fourth century, and then regarded 
 as of great antiquity, is satisfactorily established by 
 Bingham : but that Christmas day was not instituted 
 by the Apostles, is probable, from the fact, that while 
 in the West it was kept on the eighth of the Calends 
 of January, (or the 25th of December,) in the East it 
 was kept on the eighth of the Ides, (or the 6th of 
 January) Epiphany day, till in Chrysostom's time they 
 received the correct tradition of our Lord's nativity 
 from the Western Church ; a discrepancy of practice, 
 which could not have arisen, if the day had been kept 
 from the times of the Apostles, as it is not, like Easter, 
 a moveable feast and depending on any nice observation 
 of circumstances : besides, that it was unknown to 
 Tertullian seems clear, because', where he upbraids 
 the Christians for attending heathen festivals, specify- 
 ing the Saturnalia and others which occurred at this 
 very time of the year, the only Christian festivals he 
 proposes to them instead, are their annual feasts of 
 
 ' De Idololatria, c 14. 
 
204- 
 
 STATE OF OPINION 
 
 Easter, with the fifty days following, and their weekly 
 holy day. At what time Ascension day began to be 
 singled out above the other days of Pentecost, it is 
 difficult to determine ; but Bingham shews us, that 
 Austin regarded it as appointed either by the Apostles 
 themselves, or by some plenary council of the Church. 
 Anniversaries of the martyrdom of those who suffered 
 for Christianity — their birth-days, as they were called 
 — were observed from the earliest times, as we may 
 gather from the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna on 
 the martyrdom of Polycarp : and none can doubt but 
 that, with other martyrs, the Apostles were most re- 
 ligiously remembered. This Epistle, indeed assigns 
 as a reason for the honour to the memory of Polycarp, 
 that " he now, with the Apostles, in great triumph, 
 glorifies God, even the Father, and gives praise to our 
 Lord." The Holy Innocents' day is distinctly men- 
 tioned both by Origen and Cyprian. Of minor yearly 
 festivals, Bingham tells us, those on the Dedication of 
 Churches, began in the reign of Constantine : others 
 are mentioned by writers towards the close of that 
 centui-y, to commemorate the Consecration of Bishops, 
 which also were called their " birth-days," (and so we 
 celebrate St. Paul's conversion, not his martyrdom): 
 others, again, to return thanks for signal public bless- 
 ings : but the days of the Annunciation and Purifica- 
 tion of the Virgin, did not come into use, till about the 
 sixth or seventh century. 
 
 Not to speak, however, of these minor festivals, even 
 
 ■ Smyrn. Eccles. Epist. ad fin. 
 
BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 
 
 205 
 
 the Saints' days were far from being on the same foot- 
 ing with Sundays. Though we may not confidently 
 make the assertion of those dedicated to Apostles, the 
 rest certainly were not general, but local. Sozomen 
 says, different Churches had distinct festivals for their 
 own peculiar martyrs. In his time, indeed, the greater 
 festivals alone, with the fast of Passion-Week, were 
 made Sabbath days. It was provided, in what are 
 called the Apostolical Constitutions, that " servants 
 were to rest from their labours on Christmas day, 
 Epiphany, Passion and Easter weeks. Ascension day, 
 Whitsun day, and every Lord's day, with (as we might 
 expect in these Constitutions) the Sabbath : and, dur- 
 ing > the fifty days of Pentecost, though public games 
 were suspended, and theatres closed by command of 
 
 1 In the fifth century we see, though the days of Pentecost 
 were observed, business was not interrupted ; nor could all 
 these days have been kept, as Sundays were, from the time As- 
 cension day was distinguished from the rest as one of the high 
 festivals. Indeed, to put a stop to all labour and business for 
 seven continuous weeks, seems so impracticable, that I cannot 
 but think Tertullian's account of Pentecost, in his Treatise on 
 Prayer, is to be understood only, or chiefly, of the prohibition 
 at that time to kneel or to fast ; and that, in his Treatise on 
 Idolatry, he rather recommends the holy season as a fit season 
 for bodily recreation, than gives an historical account of the 
 general practice of the labouring classes, at least, in his age. 
 Certainly, what is continually dwelt upon, both by him and other 
 early writers, is, that they never saddened this season by fasting 
 and humiliation, but kept it, by their very posture in prayer, as a 
 joyous commemoration of the resurrection. 
 
206 
 
 STATE OF OPINION 
 
 the Emperor Theodosius the younger, law proceed- 
 ings and other business were not interrupted 
 
 In the ninth century, however, more of these other 
 holy days are classed with the Lord's day. The 
 Council at Mentz in 813, determine, that in the in- 
 firmity or absence of the Bishop, some one should be 
 provided on the Lord's day, and other holy days, to 
 preach the Word of God, so that the people might 
 understand it : and, forty-five years afterwards, Pho- 
 tius. Patriarch of Constantinople, after reckoning up, 
 as the greater festivals, the week before Easter, the 
 week after Christmas, the feasts of the Apostles and 
 the Lord's day, adds, that on these neither public 
 shows are exhibited, nor are the courts of justice open. 
 After three centuries more, a considerable alteration 
 appears to have taken place, not only in the number of 
 days consecrated as Sabbaths, but in the character of 
 the occasions thought sufficient for consecrating them. 
 In 1174, Manuel Comnenus, the emperor, issued his 
 decree, that the following days be exempt from labour, 
 viz. the nativity of the Virgin Mary, Holy Cross day, 
 (the other days then kept being enumerated), with 
 every Sunday in the year ; and that on them there be 
 no access to the seats of judgment. But while the 
 number of Sabbath days was thus increasing in the 
 Church, we find Bernard, the celebrated abbot of 
 Clairval, grounds the observance of them all on the 
 fourth commandment. And truly, if the institution of 
 
 ' See Bingham's Antiq. of the Christian Church, B. XX. 
 12 
 
BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 207 
 
 the Lord's clay rest only on human authority, as that of 
 other holy days, it may soon be made to appear, that 
 all alike are to be observed, as all alike standing in the 
 place of the weekly and other Sabbaths of the Jews, 
 by the appointment of the Church. Now the great 
 argument with the Roman Catholics, for the power of 
 the Church, was, that she had substituted the Lord's 
 day for the Sabbath day, and had transferred to it all 
 the honour of the other, so setting aside the letter of 
 God's own command : and thus it came to pass, that 
 with them, both the Lord's day and other festivals 
 also, were at length accounted holy, not merely in 
 relation to the holy services performed on them, but 
 " in themselves truly and properly invested with a 
 greater sanctity than other days :" and it was laid down 
 in the Canon, that to travel, or be engaged in any 
 worldly business on any of these holy days, was a 
 mortal sin ; with exceptions, however, if the business 
 were necessary, as that of butchers or bakers may be, 
 or were slight, so as " not to interrupt the Sabbath's 
 rest ;" or, if it were done for a devout and pious pur- 
 pose ; as, for instance, a man might travel to a shrine 
 on a holy day, but it was a mortal sin, if on that same 
 day he presumed to return 
 
 The evil of the great number of these holy days 
 had been felt by Roman Catholics themselves. In 
 1362 % Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 charged his clergy to teach their parishioners *' not 
 
 ' See Heylyn's Hist, of Sabbath, Part II. ch. 5, 6. 
 ' Fox's Acts and Monuments, K. Edw. III. 
 
208 
 
 STATE OF OPINION 
 
 to abstain from bodily labour on certain Saints' days, 
 which before were wont to be consecrated to unthrifty 
 idleness." Yet the Popes, unconscious or unmindful 
 of the evil, seem to have continued to canonize whom 
 they would, without much regard to their characters, 
 if they had been benefactors to the Romish establish- 
 ment ; so that Fox, the Martyrologist was provoked 
 to complain, in rather unceremonious language, that 
 they had " cumbered the year with so many idle holy 
 days, and the calendar with so many rascal saints, 
 some of them as good as ever were they that put 
 Christ to death." 
 
 And he has recorded the following instance of the 
 rigour with which the Papists insisted on the observ- 
 ance of their holy days ^ In the year 154:9, a tailor 
 of Paris, living in the street St. Antoine, near the 
 Place Royale, was unfortunately detected following his 
 occupation on one of these festivals. The officer, who 
 arrested him, demanding why he was at work instead 
 of observing the holy day, he answered, with honest 
 simplicity, that he was a poor man, living only on his 
 labour ; and, as to the da)^ that he knew no other than 
 Sunday alone, on which he might not lawfully work 
 for the necessity of his living. For this heresy the 
 poor tailor was clapped into prison ; whence, as might 
 be expected, he found no deliverance but to the flames. 
 
 Such was the Popish doctrine concerning their holy 
 
 ' Fox's Acts and Mon. Defence of Lord Cobbam against 
 Alan Cope, K. Hen. V. 
 
 ' Ibid., Table of French Martyrs, K. Hen. VHI. 
 
BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 
 
 209 
 
 days, when the Reformation began on the Continent : 
 and it ought not to excite our surprise, if, in the first 
 stir and heat of that great convulsion in the affairs of 
 rehgion, some things should have been said otherwise 
 than would be afterwards approved, and that, in root- 
 ing up the tares, some momentary harm might have 
 been done to the wheat also. 
 
 None, perhaps, of the ancient Confessions of these 
 Churches has a higher claim on our respect, than that 
 drawn iip by Melancthon, at the Diet of Augsburg. 
 In this confession, to the question, what we ought to 
 think of the Lord's day, it is answered, that the Lord's 
 day, Easter, Whitsuntide, and other such holy days, 
 ought to be kept because they are appointed by the 
 Church, that all things may be done in order ; but that 
 the observance of them is not to be thought necessary 
 to salvation, nor the violation of them, if it be done 
 without offence to others, to be regarded as a sin '. 
 *' For they who think the observance of the Lord's day 
 has been appointed by the authority of the Church 
 instead of the Sabbath, as a thing necessary, greatly 
 err. The Scripture allows that we are not bound to 
 keep the Sabbath ; for it teaches, that the ceremonies 
 of the law of Moses are not necessary after the reve- 
 lation of the Gospel. And yet, because it was requi- 
 site to appoint a certain day, that the people might 
 know when to assemble together, it appears that the 
 Church appointed, for this purpose, the Lord's day, 
 
 ' Confess. August. De Potest. Eccles. Sylloge Confess. 
 0.\ford, 1S04, p. 193. 
 
 P 
 
210 
 
 THE REFORMED CHURCHES 
 
 which, for this reason also, seems to have pleased the 
 more, that men might have an example of Christian 
 liberty, and might know that the observance neither of 
 the Sabbath, nor of any other day, is necessary." With 
 all the respect we feel for Melancthon, there is some- 
 thing here which cannot be altogether approved. His 
 immediate design, indeed, was to refute the Romanists, 
 who had maintained, (as has been before observed), 
 that the unlimited power of the Church was proved, 
 by her changing the Sabbath into the Lord's day, and 
 so setting aside the fourth commandment. The ob- 
 vious way to answer this, is to shew, how the first day 
 of the week had been preferred in honour above the 
 seventh, by God himself, and thence had been adopted 
 as the holy day of the Lord by the Church, under the 
 direction of the inspired Apostles. But, though such 
 an answer, distinguishing between the power of the 
 Apostles and that of their successors, would have 
 thrown down the argument, on which the notion of 
 the unlimited power of the Church had been made to 
 rest, it would not have met the question in all its 
 bearings. Melancthon was contending against this 
 power chiefly on account of the mischievous doctrines 
 grounded upon it — the pretence, that to keep the holy 
 days appointed by the Church, is as necessary to the 
 Christian as to keep the Sabbaths had been to the 
 Israelites of old. To them to keep the Sabbaths was 
 among those things of the law, to do which should be 
 their righteousness : and so the Romanists attempted 
 to represent the observance of fasts and festivals, and 
 canonical hours, as among the means whereby we are 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 211 
 
 to be justified. This attempt Melancthon felt bound 
 to resist, as it subverts the very foundation itself, jus- 
 tification, freely given, through the merits of Christ. 
 He denies, then, that the observance of the Lord's 
 day is necessary to justification or salvation, as the 
 means whereby this blessing is to be obtained : but he 
 does not deny that it is generally necessary to sustain 
 the sentiments and habits of devotional piety, without 
 which we have but the name of Christians. He has 
 asserted, indeed, only the necessity of appointing a 
 day, on which people may assemble together. It 
 would have been better, if he had asserted also the 
 general necessity of assembling together on the ap- 
 pointed day. He seems not to have allowed its due 
 importance to a regular observance of the Lord's day, 
 from a fear lest he should, in any degree, foster those 
 Jewish notions of it, which the Church of Rome, from 
 the age of Thomas Aquinas, had adopted. Sunday is 
 not substituted for the Jewish Sabbath, so that who- 
 ever keeps it not, that soul shall be cut off from his 
 people ; but it is substituted, as the day set apart for 
 the more especial worship of the Almighty. 
 
 The Confession of Augsburg, however, it should be 
 remembered, was written at a very early period of the 
 Reformation, in the year 1530 : and, certainly, the 
 Confession of Saxony, drawn up at the instance of 
 Maurice, by the same writer, to be laid before the 
 Council of Trent, in 1551, holds a somewhat different 
 language on this subject. After a similar protest 
 against the doctrine, that fasts and other ritual wor- 
 ship appointed by the Church can merit the remission 
 
212 THE KEFORMED CHURCHES 
 
 of sins, it acknowledges, with thanksgiving ', that God, 
 *' from the beginning of the human race, has preserved 
 the public ministry of his Word, and the decent and 
 orderly assemblings of his people, and has himself 
 marked out certain times." Now these words, it must 
 be allowed, convey the true doctrine of the Christian 
 Sabbath, provided only (to borrow an expression^ of 
 the deputies who subscribed for the Margrave of Bran- 
 denburg) they be " dexterously understood." This Con- 
 fession, then, may be regarded as a commentary on 
 that of Augsburg, which, however, must not be sup- 
 posed to have been laid aside by the Churches of 
 Saxony, since we know it was afterwards presented by 
 them to Ferdinand, when he received the imperial 
 crown on Charles's resignation. 
 
 The other great branch of the Reformed Churches 
 on the Continent, had not to record its sentiments on 
 this subject at so early a period. The very brief Con- 
 fession of Basle, in 1532, only disapproves generally 
 all distinction of days, and the dedication of holy days 
 to saints ; and the scarcely enlarged one, drawn up 
 four years afterwards, contains nothing bearing on this 
 question, but a direction that the people should daily 
 assemble in the public and consecrated places, to hear 
 the Word of God. The more elaborate work, properly 
 called the Helvetic Confession, was not written till the 
 year 1 566 : and it is to this we must turn, to find the 
 opinions of these Churches on the observance of the 
 Lord's day. 
 
 • Confess. Saxon. De Traditione. Sylloge Confess, p. 268. 
 2 Ibid. p. 284. 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 213 
 
 After censuring the Popish notions of canonical 
 hours, it thus proceeds ' : " Since rehgion, though it 
 is not restricted to any time, yet cannot be either 
 estabhshed or practised, unless certain times be set 
 apart and appointed, every Church chooses for itself a 
 certain time for public prayers, for preaching the Gos- 
 pel, and for celebrating the sacraments. Nor is it 
 lawful for any individual, of his own fancy, to disturb 
 this ordinance of the Church. And unless a reason- 
 able cessation from business be granted, for the prac- 
 tice of external religion, certainly people will be with- 
 drawn from it by their employments. Whence we see, 
 that, in the ancient Churches, not only certain hours 
 were appointed in every week for religious assemblies, 
 but that even the day, called the Lord's day, was con- 
 secrated to these assemblies, and to a holy rest, from 
 the very age of the Apostles : a rule which is properly 
 observed by our Churches to the present time, for the 
 purpose of worship and charity. We allow here no 
 room for a Judaical observance and superstition: for 
 we do not believe that one day is more holy than 
 another, nor do we think that rest from labour is of 
 itself acceptable to God ; but we celebrate the Lord's 
 day, not the Sabbath, observing it as men set free from 
 the law. Moreover, if any Churches, according to 
 their Christian liberty, religiously keep the commemo- 
 ration of the nativity, the circumcision, the passion, 
 the resurrection, and the ascension of our Lord, and 
 also of the descent of the Holy Spirit on his disciples, 
 
 ' Confess. Helvet. c. 24, De Feriis, &c. Sylloge Confess, p. 92. 
 
214 THE REFORMED CHURCHES. 
 
 — this we altogether approve ; but we disapprove fes- 
 tivals in honour of men or saints. For festivals truly 
 belong to the first table of the law, and are in honour 
 of God alone." 
 
 The censure on the canonical hours, which imme- 
 diately precedes this extract, seems to throw some 
 light upon it, to shew in what sense it is declared, that 
 each Church chooses a certain time for public worship, 
 and to reconcile that declaration with the acknowledg- 
 ment of the Apostolical appointment of the Lord's day. 
 The Belgic Confession, written five years earlier, states 
 nothing distinctly on this matter ; but the Catechism of 
 Heidelberg, which became ' generally adopted by the 
 Calvinist Churches, teaches us^, that, in the fourth 
 commandment, God commands two things — first, that 
 we attend divine service every day, especially on holy 
 days — secondly, that all the days of our life we cease 
 from works of sin, that the Holy Spirit may work his 
 work in us, and so, even here, we may begin an eternal 
 Sabbath. Similar to this is the language of Calvin's 
 own Catechism. It should be observed, however, that 
 the holy days here mentioned, as appears from the 
 Helvetic Confession, are, besides the Sundays, those 
 only in honour of Christ and of the Holy Spirit: 
 " they all belong to the first table of the Law, and are 
 in honour of God alone." 
 
 To these extracts from public documents of the 
 Calvinist Churches, it may be well to add the following, 
 
 ' IMosheiin, Eccles. Hist. London, ISll. Vol. IV. p. 3G7. 
 2 Sylloge Confess p. 354. 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 215 
 
 from the writings of Calvin himself, of Beza, of Peter 
 Martyr, and of Bernardine Ochin. " It is to be de- 
 sired," says Calvin, in one ' of his Epistles, " that but 
 few holy days, besides the Lord's day, should be re- 
 tained ;" and, in his Institutions, speaking of the fourth 
 commandment, he observes ^ that the ancient Fathers 
 commonly call it a shadow, as it enjoins the outward 
 observance of a day, which, with all other figures, was 
 abolished by the coming of Christ ; and he adds, that 
 this indeed is true, but that they had touched only 
 half of the question ; and he gives his three reasons for 
 keeping a Christian Sabbath ; which will be seen in 
 our examination of his Catechism, together with that 
 of Dr. Nowell. Many, it seems, had complained of 
 the Lord's day, as if it were J udaism to observe days. 
 " We obsei-ve them not," proceeds Ca:lvin, " with 
 superstition, as a ceremony, which we believe to be 
 a figure of spiritual mysteries ; but we adopt them as 
 the necessary means of preserving order in the Church. 
 The Jews abstained from manual labour, not because 
 it was an hindrance to their sacred service and medi- 
 tations, but superstitiously, because they imagined 
 that by rest they kept a remembrance of mysteries, 
 which in the old time were esteemed." — " The ancient 
 Fathers substituted the Lord's day in the room of the 
 Sabbath, with good reason ; for it was the day of 
 Christ's resurrection, and put an end to all the shadows 
 of the Law ; and Christians were admonished by this 
 
 ' Calv. Epist. p. 450. Geneva-, IG17 
 Instit. L. II. c. 8. 
 
216 
 
 THE REFORAIED CHURCHES 
 
 change of the day, not to cling to ceremonial shadows. 
 Nevertheless, I do not so insist on the number seven, 
 as to bring the Church into bondage to that number ; 
 neither will I condemn Churches which appoint other 
 festivals for their religious assemblies, provided only 
 there be no superstition." On the fourth command- 
 ment, Beza says *' Every Christian ought to know, 
 that so far as it was ceremonial, it hath an end ; not 
 that, in lieu of the seventh day, called the Sabbath, we 
 should Judaize the Sunday, (for this were not to im- 
 pose an end unto the figures by the real coming of the 
 truth. Col. ii. 16, but only to change the day), but to 
 the end that, according unto the ordinance of the 
 Apostles, (which may be gathered evidently from 1 Cor. 
 xvi. 2, and Rev. i.) as the memory of the creation of 
 the world in six days was celebrated in the sanctifi- 
 cation of the seventh day, (and that notwithstanding, 
 in the deliverance from Egypt, the order of the months 
 and the beginning of the year were changed), so, by 
 the new creation of the second world, (which the Pro- 
 phets call a new heaven and a new earth, Isa. Ixi. 17 ; 
 Ixvi. 22), appearing in the resurrection of the Lord, 
 the true Light of this world, ought to be renewed and 
 celebrated the day which we call Sunday, that is to 
 say, the Lord's day, after a special fashion, and such a 
 one as distinguisheth this day from other in respect of 
 the principal use : as in the time of the Apostles them- 
 selves this day was celebrated by a more special as- 
 sembly of the faithful. But that the Christians should 
 
 ' Beza on the Song of Solomon, eighth Sermon on ch. 3. 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 217 
 
 otherwise abstain from tiieir work, without it were for 
 that time which was requisite for their assembly, this 
 was never commanded nor observed, until that Christ- 
 ian Emperors made an ordinance for it ; indeed, most 
 commendable, to the end we should not be otherwise 
 distracted, to give ourselves over the more to all holy 
 things. But what? All this is now become with them 
 [the Roman Catholics] a very Judaism, in such sort 
 that, to open a shop-window, or to give one blow with 
 the hammer, is such a sin, as should raise a whole city 
 in a commotion : but not, to game, to go to the tavern, 
 to play the whoremaster. For this is now grown into 
 a custom. And as if the exercise of a Christian were, 
 under a colour of devotion, to do nothing, they could 
 not content themselves with two and fifty Sundays, but 
 they must have so many holydays added, that almost 
 the third part of the year is passed away in such idle 
 festivals." Peter Martyr, on the second chapter of 
 Genesis, observes, " that people rest from labour one 
 day of the week to serve God, is not a mere device of 
 man's brain, neither did it only appertain to man's law, 
 but it had beginning from hence. Now if you demand 
 why this seventh day is not still retained in the Church, 
 our answer is, that we are to have all days such that 
 we may rest in them from our own works : but that 
 one day be chosen rather than another, for God's ex- 
 ternal worship, the Church had liberty from Christ to 
 establish that which it judged most convenient." To 
 these remarks of Peter Martyr, I would add the fol- 
 lowing from the Sermons of his friend, Bernardine 
 
218 THE REFORMED CHURCHES 
 
 Ochin " If thou wouldest ask, at what time God 
 ought to be loved, they [the Roman Cathohcs] will 
 
 answer, on the Sabbath and festival days." " It is 
 
 sufficient, therefore, to a Christian, according to their 
 divinity, that, for to observe the chiefest commandment 
 of the law and of the love of God, only the Sundays 
 and holydays have towards God an act of love, with 
 exalting him above all other things, albeit it were but 
 for a small moment of time. Thus, they say, that their 
 most holy Church hath decreed." To which Ochin 
 answers, that *' we are bound to love God always and 
 continually with all our heart. We ought also to 
 sanctify him with making him shine in honour of his 
 Majesty, not only on the Sundays and holydays, but all 
 the time of our hfe, and every moment thereof; for- 
 asmuch as to this end only it is granted us from God." 
 And again, *' The Papists, being desirous to hold 
 against the truth, that men may be justified and saved 
 through their own works, and, by observing the com- 
 mandments of God, and seeing that there is none that 
 loveth God continually and with all his heart, they 
 have no other course, than depraving and expressly 
 gainsaying the holy Scriptures, to persuade men, that 
 for observing the first and chiefest commandment of 
 the Law, it is sufficient that, at the least the twinkling 
 of an eye, upon the Sabbath day, we have in us some 
 act of love towards God, with exalting him above all 
 
 ' Ochin's Sermons, translated from the Italian by W. Phiston. 
 London, 1580, p. 85, 86, fifth Serm. of Charity. 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 219 
 
 things; and that this, through our most and mighty free- 
 will, is always in our power." 
 
 On reading the above extracts from the works of 
 these distinguished Reformers, we see that they were 
 contending, not against keeping a Christian Sabbath, 
 but against Sabbatism, against the Judaism on this 
 subject which had infected the Church of Rome : and 
 it is no more than might be expected, if, in the heat of 
 the contention, they should be found both themselves 
 to have erred in some degree in the opposite direction, 
 and have coloured perhaps too highly the Romish 
 errors. Certainly, Beza's censure of the prohibition to 
 open shop-windows on an holyday, leaves out of sight 
 the breach of the day's duty to which that opened shop- 
 window would in all probability lead ; and his assertion 
 that Christians never abstained from their work on the 
 Lord's day, except so far as was requisite for their 
 religious assembly, before it was commanded by Christ- 
 ian Emperors, does not well consist with the constant 
 language of the Fathers, that the day was a festival, 
 even if Tertullian had not expressly declai-ed, that on 
 it they put off business. And though, when I look to 
 his Catechism, I cannot but regard Calvin's declaration 
 against the necessity of keeping a seventh day, as a 
 concession to the declared opinions of his Lutheran 
 brethren, I feel a pleasure in recognizing a more correct 
 statement of the truth in the writings of Peter Martyr. 
 
 And the statement of this distinguished foreigner, 
 who from the Calvinist Church filled the divinity 
 chair at Oxford, it is acceptable to confirm by that of 
 the not less distinguished foreigner from the Lutheran 
 
220 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 Church, who was called at tha same time to the same 
 chair in the sister University. " Although," says 
 Bucer^ "we are no longer under Moses as our school- 
 master, nor are so held by religion to the Sabbaths and 
 other feasts he appointed for the people of old, as to 
 be bound to keep them on the same day, month, and 
 time, yet it is our duty to sanctify one day in each 
 week for the public service of religion : that there be 
 one day in the week on which the people may have 
 nothing else to do than to go to Church, there to hear 
 God's Word, to pour out their prayers, to confess their 
 faith, to give thanks, to make oblations, and to receive 
 the holy communion. These are the works of holy 
 festivals : hence the Lord's day was consecrated to 
 these by the very Apostles." 
 
 After this survey of the progress of opinion on the 
 Lord's day among the members of the Reformed 
 Churches on the Continent, it will not excite surprise, 
 that in our own country also, in the very same year 
 in which the Confession of Augsburg was written, 
 Tyndal, who had resided much in Germany, should 
 have maintained that " as for the Sabbath, we be 
 lords over the Sabbath, and may yet change it into 
 Monday, or into any other day, as we see need, or 
 may make every tenth day holyday only, if we see 
 cause why. Neither was there any cause to change it 
 from the Saturday, but to put a difference between us 
 and the J ews ; neither need we any holyday at all, if 
 
 ' Bucer de Regno Christi. L. I. c. II. See also L. II. c. 10. 
 Tyndal's Answer to Sir Thomas Alore. 
 
BEFORE QUEEN MARY's REIGN. 221 
 
 the people might be taught without it :" or that, three 
 years afterwards, in the year of his death, Frith should 
 have declared that " our forefathers, which were in 
 the beginning of the Church, did abrogate the Sab- 
 bath, to the intent that men might have an ensample of 
 Christian liberty. Howbeit, because it was necessary 
 that a day should be reserved, in which the people 
 should come together to hear the Word of God, they 
 ordained, instead of the Sabbath, which was Saturday, 
 the next day following, which is Sunday. And al- 
 though they might have kept Saturday with the Jews 
 as a thing indifferent, yet they did much better." 
 These excellent men, (cut off before the Reformation 
 had made much progress in England, Frith in 1533, 
 Tyndal three years afterwards), wrote at the time 
 when the evil of the number of the Romish holydays, 
 and the superstitious observance of them by the peo- 
 ple, was so strongly felt, as to call for a check even 
 from those, who had not then embraced the opinions of 
 the Reformers : in 1,536, Henry the Eighth issued his 
 injunctions to the Bishops to lessen the number of holy- 
 days. Yet we should notice, that they both speak of 
 Sunday, as made the day of public religious instruc- 
 tion, instead of the ancient Sabbath : and though 
 Tyndal somewhat extravagantly considers the change 
 of any other day for it still in the power of the Church, 
 his friend Frith represents the change as having been 
 made by the Apostles; for St. Paul certainly was 
 among those forefathers in the beginning, who abro- 
 
 ' Frith's Treatise on Baptism. 
 
222 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 gated the Jewish Sabbath. To the above extracts 
 from their writings, Dr. Heylyn is pleased to add one 
 from Bishop Hooper's work on the Decalogue; and 
 on the joint authority of these tliree to conclude, that 
 the Lord's day has no institution from divine authority, 
 that the Church has still the power to change the day 
 from Sunday to any other she will, and that one day in 
 seven is not the moral part of the fourth commandment. 
 Now as this work of Hooper was written in the year 
 1550, when the subject had been more considered by 
 the Reformers, in the year too when he was made 
 Bishop of Gloucester ; and therefore his opinion may 
 be supposed truly to represent that of the Church ; it 
 is important to see how far his authority supports Dr. 
 Heylyn's conclusions, which evidently rest on that of 
 Tyndal alone. The following is Heylyn's extract from 
 Hooper's Commentary on the fourth Commandment : 
 " Ye may not think that God gave any more holiness 
 to the Sabbath than to the other days ; for if ye con- 
 sider Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, inasmuch as they 
 be days, and the work of God, the one is no more holy 
 than the other ; but that the day is always most holy, 
 in the which we most apply and give ourselves unto 
 holy works. To that end he sanctifieth the Sabbath 
 day ; not that we should give ourselves to evil, or such 
 ethnical pastime, as is now used amongst Christian 
 people ; but, being free on that day from the travails 
 of this world, that we might consider the works and 
 benefits of God with thanksgiving, hear the Word 
 and law of God, honour him and fear him, and then 
 learn, who and where be the poor of Christ, our 
 
 12 
 
BEFORE QUEEN MARY's REIGN. 223 
 
 brethren in necessity, that want our help." It is clear, 
 that what is here said of one day not being more holy 
 than another, is equally applied to the Jewish as to the 
 Christian Sabbath : but we will take another extract 
 from this same Commentary, which it is strange indeed 
 should have been omitted by any one, who honestly 
 desired to give Bishop Hooper's opinion on the sub- 
 ject'. "Although the ceremony of the Sabbath be 
 taken away, which appertained only unto the people 
 and commonwealth of the Hebrews ; yet one day of 
 the week, to preserve and use the Word of God, is not 
 abrogated. Therefore, in this commandment are two 
 things to be observed — the one ceremonial, during for 
 the time ; the other moral, and never to be abolished, 
 as long as the Church of Christ shall continue upon 
 the earth. The Patriarchs before the Law, the Pro- 
 phets in the time of the Law, and we, being delivered 
 from the damnation of the Law, have one day to rest 
 from labour, and to apj)ly ourselves to the tvork of the 
 Spirit ; which secretly in ourselves should be done 
 every day together with handy labour, but upon the 
 Sunday openly, without the labour of our hands. This 
 Sunday, that we observe, is not the commandment of 
 man." I will only add, that Bishop Hooper says % 
 " the Sabbath hitherto, from the beginning of the 
 world, was and is a type of the eternal and everlasting 
 rest that is to come." 
 
 ' Fathers of the Englisli Church. London, 1810. Vol. V. 
 p. 339. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 336. 
 
224- 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 Perhaps, however, it may be thought that the doc- 
 trines of our Church ought to be sought in those main- 
 tained by Archbishop Cranmer. " The Institution of 
 a Christian man," though signed by him and Bishop 
 Latimer, yet signed also, among others, by Bishops 
 Stokesly, Tonstall and Gardiner, and by Bonner and 
 Heath, then Arclideacons, and drawn up in 1587, the 
 very year before poor Lambert's martyrdom, cannot 
 be regarded as altogether expressing the opinions of 
 Protestants : yet, as it was one of the first advances 
 towards the Reformation in this country, and on the 
 particular subject before us strikes at the root of some 
 of the errors, which in the last four centuries had 
 sprung up in the Roman Church, the following ex- 
 tracts will be read with interest. " There is this 
 special and notable difference between the fourth com- 
 mandment, and the other nine. For ', as Austin saith, 
 
 1 " Of all the ten commandments, that of the Sabbath alone is 
 given to be kept as a figure ; which figure we are to embrace 
 with our understanding, not also to set forth by bodily rest. 
 For, whereas, by the Sabbath is signified the spiritual rest, to 
 which mankind are called by our Lord himself, saying. Come 
 unto me, and I will give you rest ; yet the other command- 
 ments we keep without any figurative signification, in their 
 primary and proper sense, as they were delivered." — " But we 
 are not commanded literally to observe the Sabbath day, by 
 rest from bodily labour, as the Jews observe it ; and this 
 very observance of theirs, according to the commandment, is 
 thought ridiculous, except it signifies another and a spiritual 
 rest." — " The Lord's day, however, has been declared, not to 
 the Jews, but to Christians, by the resurrection of our Lord, 
 and from Him (or from that time, ex illo) began to be a fes- 
 
BEFORE QUEEN MARY's REIGN. 
 
 225 
 
 • All the other nine be merely moral commandments, 
 and belonged not only to the Jews, and all other peo- 
 ple of the world in the time of the Old Testament, 
 but also belong now to all Christian people in the New 
 Testament. But this precept of the Sabbath, as concern- 
 ing rest from bodily labour the seventh day, is cere- 
 monial, and pertained only unto the Jews in the Old 
 Testament, before the coming of Christ, and pertaineth 
 not unto us Christian people in the New Testament. 
 Nevertheless, as concerning the spiritual rest which 
 is figured and signified by this corporal rest, that is to 
 say, rest from the carnal works of the flesh, and all 
 manner of sin, this precept is moral, and reraaineth still, 
 and bindeth them that belong unto Christ ; and not 
 for every seventh day only, but for all days, hours and 
 times.' We must rest from our carnal wills, that God 
 may work in us his will and pleasure." 
 
 Again, " we are bound by this precejH at certain 
 times, to cease from all bodily labour, and to give our 
 minds entirely and wholly to God, to hear and learn 
 his word, to acknowledge our own sinfulness unto 
 God, and his great mercy and goodness to us, to give 
 
 tival." — Augustin. ad Inquis. Jan. L. II. Ep. 55. In the 
 above passages, Austin has considered rest on the seventh day 
 either as a figure, or as an end: it should rather be consi- 
 dered as a means for the due performance of public worship ; 
 that, being free from this world's affairs, we may devote our- 
 selves wholly to religion. That the day be kept holy, is first 
 and last in God's commandment ; rest is subordinate : a point 
 always to be borne in mind, that we may think aright on this 
 subject. Austin, however, distinctly acknowledges the true 
 origin of the Lord's day. 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 thanks for all his benefits, to make public and common 
 prayer for all things needful, to receive the Sacraments, 
 to visit the sick, to instruct every man his children and 
 family in virtue and godliness, and such other like 
 works ; which things, although Christians be bound 
 unto by this commandment, yet the Sabbath day, which 
 is called Saturday, is not now prescribed and appointed 
 thereto, as it was to the Jews ; but instead of the Sab- 
 bath day succeedeth the Suiiday, and many other holy 
 and feastful days, which the Church hath ordained 
 from time to time ; which are called holy days, not 
 because one day is more acceptable to God than 
 another, but because the Church hath ordained, that 
 on those days we give ourselves wholly to holy works 
 without impediment ; whereas, on other days, we work, 
 and are thereby much letted from holy works." Then 
 follows an instruction how we ought to behave both at 
 Church and through the day ; after which it is said, 
 " If men would occupy themselves on the holy days 
 and spend the same ' wholly after this form and manner, 
 not only in the house of God, but also in their own 
 houses, they would eschew much vice, and obtain 
 much grace." The bishops and clergy are then di- 
 rected to teach the people not to be over-scrupulous 
 and superstitious in abstaining from labour on the holy 
 day ; for that, in time of necessity, we rather offend, if 
 from scrupulosity we save not what God has sent. 
 And as to spending the day in idleness, gluttony, or 
 other vain and idle pastime, it is declared, that " such 
 
 Holily. Necess. Doct. et Erud. 
 
BEFORE QUEEN MARY's REIGN. 227 
 
 keeping of the holy day is not the intent and meaning 
 of this commandment, but after the usage and custom 
 of the Jews, and doth not please God, but offend him. 
 For, as Austin saith it is better to work than to be 
 idle ;" and it is better for " women to bestow their time 
 in spinning of wool, than on the Sabbath day to lose 
 their time in leaping, dancing, and other idle, wanton, 
 lose-time^" This work, with some alterations, was 
 republished in 1 540 ; and again, with the King's Pre- 
 face, in 1543, under the title of " A Necessary Doc- 
 ti'ine and Erudition for any Christian Man." But, 
 with respect to the above extract, I see no important 
 alterations, except that Sunday seems more distinctly 
 marked as the successor of the ancient Sabbath : " in- 
 stead of the Sabbath day succeedeth Sunday, in the 
 
 ' August. Enarrat. in Ps. xci. 
 
 ' If the accuracy of the representation before made, of the 
 Popish doctrines concerning the Sabbatarian observance of 
 their holy days, be called in question, because Roman Catholics 
 signed this document ; let it be remembered, that these Roman 
 Cathohcs had acknowledged, as head of the Enghsh Church, 
 the king, Henry VIII. who, the very year before, had issued 
 his injunctions to lessen the number and the superstitious ob- 
 servance of these festivals, declaring, that if the Sabbath was 
 ordained only for man's use, and was to give way to his neces- 
 sity, much more should any holy day instituted by man. And 
 that the Romish clergy afterwards used to speak of the abro- 
 gated holy days, so as to excite discontent among the people, or 
 induce them to continue their accustomed idleness, is evident 
 from the letter the king sent to Bonner but a few months before 
 the close of his reign. — Fox's Acts and Mon. Hen. VIII. The 
 King's Art. and Injunct. for Refor. of Church, p. 1067, and 
 Abrog. of Holy Days, p. 1229. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 THE CnUaCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 memory of Christ's resurrection. And also many other 
 holy and festival days, which the Church hath ordained 
 from time to time," &c. : and that, on holy days in 
 general, it is not required that the day be wholly spent 
 in religious employments. And after the clause en- 
 joining work on them in times of necessity, it is added, 
 that " yet in such times (if their business be not very 
 great and urgent) men ought to have regard to the 
 holy day, that they do bestow some convenient time in 
 hearing divine service." 
 
 Both these documents, then, speak of all holy days 
 alike with Sunday as the Sabbath days, to be kept, 
 according to the directions for keeping them, in obe- 
 dience to the fourth commandment. And so in the 
 Primer, or Book of Prayers, set forth in the last year 
 of Henry VIII. 's reign, where the general confession, 
 enumerating the violation of each of the command- 
 ments, on the fourth says, " I have not sanctified the 
 holy days with works which be acceptable unto Thee, 
 nor instructing my neighbour in virtue accordingly 
 when we turn to the Decalogue, we find, in strict 
 conformity with this notion, nothing more of the fourth 
 commandment than these words only — " Remember 
 that thou keep holy the Sabbath day." This lopping 
 ofl' all mention of the six days' creation, and of the 
 hallowed rest on the seventh, in order to make the 
 commandment square with the Romish doctrine, might 
 have been a hint to Cranmer, that his opinions on this 
 head were not yet those we are taught in the Ten 
 Commandments of Almighty God. 
 
 That such, at this time, were Archbishop Cranmer's 
 
BEFORE QUEEN MARY's REIGN. 
 
 229 
 
 own opinions, is evident, because, even two years after- 
 wards, he published the Catechism, which commonly 
 passes under his name, but which had been originally 
 written in Germany, and translated into Latin by Justus 
 Jonas, Principal of the University of Wittenberg, in 
 1639. This work, then, though as we look to the 
 time when it appeared, it serves to illustrate the pro- 
 gress of opinion on this subject in the Lutheran 
 Churches, cannot be expected so truly to state the 
 doctrine of our own Church on the fourth command- 
 ment, as any oi-iginal composition ' of the same date by 
 the Archbishop, or as the somewhat later commentary 
 of Bishop Hooplsr. Still, as Cranmer adopted it, and 
 published it in his own name, it must not be left out in 
 an account of the proceedings in this country. In the 
 explanation of the fourth commandment, we have the 
 following passage : " We must sanctify the Sabbath 
 day, that is to say, employ and bestow it upon godly 
 and holy works and business. And here note, good 
 children, that the Jews, in the Old Testament, were 
 commanded to keep the Sabbath day, and they observed 
 it every seventh day, called the Sabbath, or Saturday. 
 But we. Christian men, in the New Testament, are not 
 
 ' If, for instance, Cranmer had written this Catechism himself, 
 he would not have chosen such an expression as this — " With 
 our bodily mouth we receive the body and blood of Christ," — 
 though, when he saw it in this Catechism of Germany, he under- 
 stood it in a figurative sense, as that of Tertullian, (De Resurr. 
 Cam. c. 8.), " the flesh feeds on the body and blood of Christ, 
 that the soul also may be fattened of God :" nor would he have 
 made absolution a third sacrament. 
 
230 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 bound to such commandments of Moses' law concern- 
 ing differences of times, days, and meats, but have 
 Hberty and freedom to use other days for our Sabbath 
 days, therein to hear the Word of God and keep an 
 holy rest. And, therefore, that this Christian liberty 
 may be kept and maintained, we now keep no more the 
 Sabbath, or Saturday, as the Jews do, but we observe 
 the Sunday, and certain other days, as ' the magistrates 
 do judge it convenient, whom in this thing we ought 
 to obey." Though here the number of holy days be- 
 sides the Sundays, or else the manner of observing 
 them, is made to depend on the magistrates, as the 
 supremacy in the Church is given to (he supreme civil 
 rulers in all Lutheran states as well as in our own, it 
 must be understood, that these points being once 
 settled, the Catechism represents the observance of the 
 Sabbaths, as a duty, not to any earthly magistrate, but 
 to the Lord Almighty, who bids us " bestow all such 
 days about holy, heavenly, and godly things." — 
 " Though every man hath need to labour daily for 
 his daily food, yet God hath given us Sabbath days, 
 or resting times ; and yet, on those days he feedeth us 
 as well as on the working days." By Sabbath days 
 here are evidently meant, as in the preceding docu- 
 ments, not Sundays only, but all other holy days also ; 
 and the number of these, we know, is different in dif- 
 ferent Protestant Churches. 
 
 In close conformity with ihe first of the above ex- 
 
 ' Secundum quod magistralui, pastoribus Ecclesiarum, ho- 
 nestum et utile videtur. — Jonas's Latin Translation. 
 
BEFORE QUEIiN MARY S REIGN. 
 
 231 
 
 tracts from this " Catechism of Germany," as Cranmer 
 himself called it, in his " Answer to a crafty Cavillation" 
 of Gardiner, yet seeming to claim something more of 
 power for the magistrates, is a document, which 
 Heylyn considers of vast importance in ascertaining 
 the sentiments of the Church of England on the Lord's 
 day; and this document is the preamble to the Act 
 of Parliament, by which the Book of Common Prayer 
 was confirmed in 1551. From this he gives the fol- 
 lowing extracts : " Forasmuch as men be not at all 
 times so mindful to laud and praise God, so ready to 
 resort to hear God's holy Word, and to come to the 
 holy Communion, &c. as their bounden duty doth 
 require : therefore, to call men to remembrance of their 
 duty, and to help their infirmity, it hath been whole- 
 somely provided, that there should be some certain 
 times and days appointed, wherein the Christians 
 should cease from all kind of labour, and apply them- 
 selves only and wholly unto the aforesaid holy works, 
 properly pertaining unto true religion, &c. which 
 works, as they may well be called God's service, so 
 the times especially appointed for the same, are called 
 holy days : not for the matter or the nature, either of 
 the time or day, &c. for so all days and times are of 
 like holiness ; but for the nature and condition of such 
 holy works, &c. whereunto such times and days are 
 sanctified and hallowed : that is to say, separated from 
 all prophane uses, and dedicated, not unto any saint 
 or creature, but only unto God and his true worship. 
 Neither is it to be thought, that there is any certain 
 time, or definite number of days, prescribed in holy 
 
232 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 Scripture ; but the appointment, both of the time and 
 also of the number of days, is left, by the authority of 
 God's Word, unto the liberty of Christ's Church, to 
 be determined and assigned orderly in every country, 
 by the discretion of the rulers and ministers thereof, as 
 they shall judge most expedient, to the true setting 
 forth of God's glory, and the edification of their peo- 
 ple." It is then enacted, that " all Sundays in the 
 year," and the feasts now kept in our Church, which 
 are distinctly enumerated, " be kept, and commanded 
 to be kept, holy days, and that none other day shall be 
 kept, and commanded to be kept, holy day ; and to 
 abstain from all lawful bodily labour :" and there is a 
 further clause providing, that it shall be lawful, " upon 
 the holy days aforesaid, in harvest, or at any other 
 times in the year, when necessity shall so require, to 
 work any kind of work, any thing in this act unto the 
 contrary notwithstanding." 
 
 A provision, similar to this last clause, appears also 
 in the injunction issued by Queen Elizabeth, in the 
 first year of her reign. After declaring her will and 
 pleasure that " all her subjects shall celebrate and 
 keep their holy day, according to God's holy will and 
 pleasure; that is, in hearing the Word of God read 
 and taught, in private and public prayers ; in acknow- 
 ledging their oifences unto God, and amendment of 
 the same ; in reconciling themselves charitably to their 
 neighbours where displeasure hath been ; in often- 
 times receiving the communion of the body and blood 
 of Christ; in visiting the poor and sick, using all 
 soberness and godly conversation," her Majesty en- 
 
IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 233 
 
 joins that, " yet, notwithstanding, all parsons, vicars, 
 and curates, shall teach and declare to their parishion- 
 ers, that they may, with a safe and quiet conscience, 
 after their Common Prayer, in the time of harvest, 
 labour upon the holy and festival days, and save that 
 thing which God hath sent." We should, however, 
 notice here, that the Act of Parliament only declares, 
 that the law of the land does not interfere to prevent 
 labour on holy days in times of necessity, and that, 
 though the Queen in such cases enjoins labour on the 
 holy and festival days, it is only after the public ser- 
 vice of the day is done : and as men's scruples on the 
 subject might be expected to lie chiefly against work- 
 ing on a Sunday, it is not a little remarkable, that 
 neither the act nor the injunctions specify these days, 
 although the common description, as it appears in our 
 Prayer-Book, was '* Sundays and other holy days." 
 And we must not suppose, from the language of this 
 Act, that the Church thought herself at liberty not to 
 include Sunday among her holy days. The Lord's 
 day, so named in Scripture, has always been ac- 
 counted an holy day in all Christian Churches. It is 
 the number of other holy days, which, in the Scrip- 
 tures, is left undefined. 
 
 But the use Dr. Heylyn makes of this Act of Par- 
 liament, is most extraordinary. The commandments 
 were now first added to the liturgy ; and the command- 
 ment, " Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath 
 day," immediately followed by the prayer, " Lord, have 
 mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this 
 law," would have staggered most persons, who had 
 
234 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 been disposed to deny, that Sunday, at least, is to be 
 kept holy as the Christian Sabbath. But not Dr. 
 Heylyn. According to him, the Liturgy, the most de- 
 liberate judgment of the ablest divines ' Protestantism 
 could produce, is to be interpreted by an Act of Parlia- 
 ment, passed in the fifth year of the Reformation of 
 the English Church, in a mixed assembly! The liturgy, 
 designed for constant use, and in the hands of all, is 
 to be interpreted by an Act of Parliament, I had almost 
 said, in the hands of none ! To allow this notion, 
 would be to justify the Papistical taunt, that ours is a 
 Parliament ' religion. The true meaning of this part 
 of our Liturgy it is better to seek in the Catechism, 
 commonly called King Edward's, written by Poynet, 
 Bishop of Winchester, the year preceding the passing 
 of this Act, and sanctioned by the King's injunction 
 the year following. The abstract of the first table of 
 the commandments closes in these words, "Last of all, 
 this ought we to hold steadfastly and with devout 
 conscience, that we keep holily and religiously 
 t/ie Sabbath day, which was appointed out from the 
 other for the rest and service of God :" and afterwards 
 to the question, " What hast thou to say of the Sab- 
 bath or the holy day, which even now thou madest 
 mention of among the laws of the first table ?" the 
 answer is, " Sabbath is as much to say as rest. It 
 
 ■ The opinions of Peter Martyr and Bucer, who were em- 
 ployed in this revision of the Liturgy, have already been given. 
 
 ^ Harding's Confut. of Apology, Part VI. c. 2. See Oxford 
 Reasons against the Covenant. Walton's Lives, Vol. IL p. 299- 
 Oxford. 1805. 
 
 12 
 
IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 235 
 
 was appointed for only honour and service of God ; 
 and it is a figure of that rest and quietness, which they 
 have that beheve in Christ." — " And meet it is, that 
 faithful Christians, on such days as are appointed out 
 for holy things, should lay aside unholy works, and 
 give themselves earnestly to religion and serving of 
 God." To keep Sunday holy is unquestionably here 
 represented as required by the fourth commandment : 
 perhaps to keep other holy days also. 
 
 But if there be yet any doubt concerning the opi- 
 nion of our Church on the Lord's day, it must be 
 removed by the extract from the Homily on " The place 
 and time of Prayer," which is brought forward indeed 
 by Dr. Heylyn, though strong prejudice blinded him 
 to its clear statements. " As concerning the time which 
 Almighty God hath appointed his people to assemble 
 together solemnly, it doth appear by the fourth com- 
 mandment; " Remember," saith God, "that thou keep 
 holy the Sabbath day." Upon the which day, as is 
 plain in the Acts of the Apostles, the people accustom- 
 ably resorted together, and heard diligently the Law 
 and the Prophets read among them. And albeit, this 
 commandment of God doth not bind Christian people 
 so straitly to observe and keep the utter ceremonies of 
 the Sabbath day, as it was given unto the Jews, as 
 touching the forbearing of work and labour in time of 
 great necessity, and as touching the precise keeping of 
 the seventh day, after the manner of the J evvs : for we 
 keep now the first day, which is our Sunday, and make 
 that our Sabbath, that is, our day of rest, in the honour 
 of our Saviour Christ, who, as upon that day, rose 
 
236 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 from death, conquering the same most triumphantly ; 
 yet, notwithstanding, whatsoever is found in the com- 
 mandment apjiertaining to the law of nature, as a 
 thing most godly, most just, and needful, for the set- 
 ting forth of God's glory, it ought to be retained and 
 kept of all good Christian people. And therefore, by 
 this commandment we ought to have a time, as one 
 day in the week, wherein we ought to rest, yea from 
 our lawful and needful works. For like as it appear- 
 eth by this commandment, that no man in the six days 
 ought to be slothful and idle, but diligently to labour 
 in that state wherein God hath set him ; even so God 
 hath given express charge to all men, that upon the 
 Sabbath day, which is now our Sunday, they should 
 cease from all weekly and work-day labour, to the 
 intent that like as God himself wrought six days, and 
 rested the seventh, and blessed and sanctified it, and 
 consecrated it to quietness and rest from labour ; even 
 so, God's obedient people should use the Sunday 
 holily, and rest from their common and daily business, 
 and also give themselves wholly to heavenly exercises 
 of God's true religion and service. So that God doth 
 not only command the observation of this holy day, 
 but also, by his own example, doth stir and provoke 
 us to the diligent keeping of the same. Good natural 
 children, will not only become obedient to the com- 
 mandment of their parents, but also have a diligent 
 eye to their doings, and gladly follow the same. So 
 if we will be the children of our heavenly Father, we 
 must be careful to keep the Christian Sabbath day, 
 ivhich is the Sunday, not only for that it is God's 
 
IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 237 
 
 express commandment, but also to declare ourselves 
 to be loving children, in following the example of our 
 gracious Lord and Father. 
 
 " Thus it may plainly appear, that God's will and 
 commandment was to have a solemn time and standing 
 day in the week, wherein the people should come 
 together, and have in remembrance his wonderful 
 benefits, and to render him thanks, as appertaineth 
 to loving, kind, and obedient people. This example 
 and commandment of God, the godly Christian people 
 began to follow immediately after the ascension of our 
 Lord Christ, and began to choose them a standing 
 day of the week to come together in ; yet not the 
 seventh day, which the Jews kept; but the Lord's 
 day, the day of the Lord's resurrection, the day after 
 the seventh day, which is the first day of the week. 
 Of the which day, mention is made by St. Paul on this 
 wise; ' In the first day of the Sabbath, let every man 
 lay up what he thinketh good ;' meaning for the poor : 
 by the first of the Sabbath is meant our Sunday, which 
 is the first day after the Jews' seventh day. And in 
 the Apocalypse it is more plain, whereas St. John 
 saith, ' I was in the Spirit upon the Lord's day.' 
 Sithence which time, God's people hath always, in all 
 ages, without any gainsaying, used to come together 
 upon the Sunday, to celebrate and honour the Lord's 
 blessed name, and carefully to keep that day in holy 
 rest and quietness, both man, woman, child, servant, 
 and stranger." 
 
 Such is the authoritative declaration of our Church 
 on the duty of observing the Lord's day, and on the 
 
238 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 grounds on which that duty rests : language so clear 
 and plain, it might be thought, no sophistry could elude. 
 We will consider what weight is due to Dr. Heylyn's 
 remarks upon it. First, he says, it is declared we 
 are bound to keep no more of the fourth commandment 
 than belongs to the law of nature, and therefore, as he 
 thinks all writers allow, that to keep one day in seven 
 is ceremonial only, he thinks we are only bound by 
 that commandment to keep a time, as one day in 
 seven ; a rule, as he alleges, not peremptory, but 
 arbitrary. Now, not to repeat here my argument on 
 this subject, I only observe, that it is not true that all 
 writers allow his assertion, luiless such writers as 
 Hooper and Hooker, are to be set aside ; and that the 
 Homily itself distinctly says, God's will and command- 
 ment was, to have a standing day in the week : and if 
 any think the word " was" here refers only to the times 
 before the Gospel, I must request them to read the 
 whole extract again. Secondly, he says, since the 
 godly Christian people, immediately after the Ascen- 
 sion, chose the Lord's day, its observance was not 
 enjoined by the Apostles : this needs no comment, it 
 being quite clear forsooth, that the Apostles could not 
 have been among the number of these godly Christian 
 people, nor their guides in the choice ; nor, the choice 
 being made and the reason of it declared, could they 
 have enjoined the weekly observance of the day ! 
 Here, however, we may note that the expression of 
 the Homily, " immediately after the ascension," seems 
 quite correct ; for it is not to be supposed that, 
 after the day when Thomas was present at Christ's 
 
IN THE REIGX OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 239 
 
 appearing, they would continue to commemorate his 
 resurrection, while he yet was with them. Thirdly, 
 Heylyn has recourse, (as I before intimated) to the 
 notion of supererogation, which he seems to have 
 picked up from the Council of Macon. The Christ- 
 ians, he says, chose themselves a standing day in the 
 week, therefore " they did not this by any obligation 
 laid upon them by the fourth commandment, but only 
 by a voluntary following of God's example, and the 
 analogy or equity of God's commandment, which was 
 (they do not say, which is,) that he would have 
 (amongst the Jews) a solemn time and standing day 
 in the week." The only answer to this shall be in 
 the words of the Homily itself " God hath given 
 express charge to all men, that upon the Sabbath day, 
 which is now our Sunday, they should cease from all 
 weekly and work-day labour ;" and again, " we must 
 be careful to keep the Christian Sabbath day, which 
 is the Sunday, for it is God's express commandment." 
 Fourthly, he says, the Church could not have con- 
 sidered the keeping of one day in seven to be the 
 moral part of the fourth commandment, because they 
 did not think that on our seventh day, we are obliged 
 to forbear woi'k and labour in time of great necessity, 
 which the letter of that commandment seems to re- 
 quire. To say this, is as much as to say, we do not 
 think ourselves bound by this commandment at all, 
 because we accept that relaxation of it, which has been 
 pointed out to us by God's own Son. 
 
 After more trifling to this effect. Dr. Heylyn has the 
 effrontery to state, that " upon due search made, and 
 
•240 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 full examination of all parties, we find no Lord's 
 day Sabbath in the book of Homilies ; no, nor in any 
 writings of particular men, in more than thirty-three 
 years after the Homilies were published ;" the second 
 book of which, as is well known, appeared in 1560. 
 After the close of the above-mentioned period, in the 
 year 1595, he tells us. Dr. Bound first published his 
 Sabbath doctrines ; and certainly the extravagant 
 height to which he and his followers carried their 
 Sabbatarian notions deserved and required the check 
 they received : but only two years afterwards appeared 
 another work of a very different mind, the fifth book 
 of the Venerable Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity; a 
 book, which, if Dr. Heylyn had consulted it, might 
 have enabled him to form a better judgment on the 
 whole subject of his enquiry, and particularly have 
 taught him the difference of ground on which the duty 
 of keeping the Lord's day stands from that of keeping 
 other holy days, and the importance of the alteration, 
 when, in the Convocation of 1603, part of Queen 
 Elizabeth's Injunctions was adopted as the thirteenth 
 of the Ecclesiastical Canons, it was enjoined that all 
 persons " shall celebrate and keep (not their holy day, 
 as the queen had expressed it, but) the Lord's day, 
 commonly called Sunday, and other holy days." But 
 within his fixed period of thirty-three years, nay, just 
 ten years from the publication of the second book of 
 the Homilies, Dr. Nowell published his celebrated 
 Catechism, which, as it was dedicated to the arch- 
 bishops and bishops of the realm, and approved by a 
 synod of the clergy, ought to have attracted the notice 
 
IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 241 
 
 of Dr. Heylyn. The basis of this Catechism is that 
 of Calvin, which was in general use with the English 
 clergy, when they fled to Geneva from the persecution 
 of Mary : and though, on the subjects of faith, prayer, 
 and the sacraments, there are very considerable and 
 important alterations and additions in Nowell's work, 
 on the other of the four branches of necessary Christ- 
 ian instruction, obedience — the difference, as might be 
 expected, is less, Nowell continually presenting us with 
 the same sentiments, though not always in the same 
 order, and often with the very same words, as Calvin ; 
 so that, in considering what is said on the fourth com- 
 mandment, we consider not only the doctrine of our 
 own Church, but that of the Calvinist Churches also. 
 Both these Catechisms then state, that besides the 
 mere outward bodily rest, which, being ceremonial, 
 belongs to the Jews only, there are three things in- 
 tended in the fourth commandment, which belong to 
 us also : to maintain a certain order in the Church, to 
 provide for the refreshing of servants, and to repre- 
 sent, by a figure, our spiritual rest. The spiritual rest 
 is, that we rest from worldly business and our own 
 works, bridle our sinful desires, and, having a certain 
 holy vacation, yield ourselves wholly to God's govern- 
 ance, that he may do his works in us. And though 
 this is our daily, continual duty, it is represented to us 
 by a figure every seventh day. The reason assigned 
 for appointing every seventh day, (besides the fanciful 
 one, that the number seven in the Scripture signifies 
 perfection, and so reminds us of our perfect duty), is, 
 that after the example of God, who rested on the 
 K 
 
242 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 seventh day, we also, every seventh day, must lay aside 
 our worldly business, that we may more diligently 
 meditate on his works, and attend to religion and 
 godliness. And this is the order in the Church — that 
 we assemble together to hear the doctrine of Christ, 
 to yield confession of our faith, to make, openly, public 
 prayers to God ; to celebrate and retain the memory 
 of God's works and benefits ; and to use the mysteries 
 that he hath left us. Then comes the question, " Shall 
 it be enough to have done these things every seventh 
 day?" and the answer is, " These things, indeed, 
 every man privately ought to record and think upon 
 every day : but, for our negligence and weakness' sake, 
 one stated day is appointed to the public for the 
 especial discharge of this duty." The joining of ser- 
 vants in this our service to the common Master of us 
 all, is their refreshing and relief; which, it is observed, 
 by making them more diligent to work on the other 
 six days, is beneficial to those who employ them, and 
 so to the commonwealth. So far both these Cate- 
 chisms : Calvin's adds, that besides the benefit of the 
 figure, as above described, " it leads us to the truth of 
 this thing, whereof the Sabbath day is a figure: 
 Nowell's, immediately after reciting the commandment, 
 to the question, "What meaneth this word Sabbath?" 
 gives answer, " Sabbath, by interpretation, signifies 
 rest. That day, since it is appointed only for the wor- 
 shipping of God, the godly must lay aside all worldly 
 business :" — and, in the introductory pai't, says, that 
 the custom of assembling together to hear the Word of 
 God openly read and expounded every Sabbath day. 
 
IN THE REIGNS OF JAMES AND CHARLES I. 243 
 
 is " received in our Churches by the ordinance of the 
 Apostles, and so of God himself" 
 
 It may be said, however, that such a Sabbath as is 
 here described, is not precisely that of which Heylyn 
 was speaking ; and it may be so : he seems to think 
 Sunday cannot be called a Sabbath, except it be kept 
 in all the strictness of Judaical superstition ; nay, the 
 very name of Sabbath, as applied to Sunday, seems 
 never to enter his mind, but Dr. Bound, and all the 
 fanatic company of Sabbatarian preachers, rise up 
 before him, and scare away his judgment. And by 
 all accounts it appears, that their puritanical followers 
 in Heylyn's time were much injuring the cause of 
 sound religion, and spreading a sad and dismal gloom 
 throughout the land. But whether the attempt to 
 stop the growing mischief by a republication of King 
 James's Book of Sports, was the most judicious course 
 to adopt, is another question. It has already been 
 observed, that the Injunctions to labour after service 
 on holy days, in time of necessity, perhaps were meant 
 to apply, not to Sundays, but to other festivals only: 
 and if this were so, since these holy days are con- 
 fessedly of human institution, human authority, no 
 doubt, might dispense with the restraints which itself 
 had imposed : but Sundays we keep in obedience to 
 God's command: and though Christ has taught us, 
 that the absolute rest, which the letter of that com- 
 mand seems to require, may be dispensed with in case 
 of necessity, it is better to leave men to act as their 
 conscience guides them, in applying this dispensation, 
 than to tempt them to construe, as a case of necessity, 
 
244 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 what they otherwise would not, by making it a general 
 rule, that, in gathering in the harvest of the year, men 
 should labour, though it be but after the service, on 
 " the holy restful day." Such we may infer to have 
 been the more deliberate judgment of our Church as 
 to labour on this day, from the fact, that this part of 
 Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions has never been re- 
 peated. And the same nearly must be the case with 
 respect to amusements, however innocent in them- 
 selves, and even if there were no danger that these 
 would be abused. 
 
 In the reign of Charles I. when the Lord Chief 
 Justice Richardson, on the Western Circuit, had given 
 a charge against wakes and revels, on account of the 
 evils that had arisen from them ; and when, this charge 
 having been censured, and the order made upon it 
 countermanded by a higher power, a petition to the 
 king on the subject had been prepared by the nobility 
 and best gentry of the county of Somerset, it could not 
 but be injurious to the Church, in the estimation of 
 the people at large, that this petition also should have 
 been prevented by the republication of the Book of 
 Sports in the king's name : and the large share Arch- 
 bishop Laud, then just elevated to the Primacy, bore 
 in this transaction, must be set down to the account of 
 the indiscreet acts of that truly great man. Scarce two 
 years afterwards appeared, sanctioned by the influence 
 of the Court, Heylyn's History of the Sabbath; the 
 historical part of this subject, as his biographer tells 
 us, having been referred to him, and the argumentative 
 part to Dr. White, Bishop of Ely. The greater part 
 
IN THE REIGNS OF JAMES AND CHARLES I. 245 
 
 of Bishop White's book, indeed, though pubHshed this 
 year, and dedicated to the Archbishop, is on a some- 
 what different subject, an answer to one Theoph. Bra- 
 burne, who maintained that we are bound to keep the 
 Sabbath on Saturdays : but certainly it is much to be 
 regretted that, at such a time too, no greater pains to 
 seek historical knowledge concerning the Lord's day 
 should have been taken, than were bestowed on this 
 hasty, ill-considered production of Dr. Heylyn. These 
 are not the materials wherewith to help men form 
 their opinions on a subject, which so comes home to 
 the bosoms of all, as religion : and it is strange that 
 they, under whose auspices the book came forth, 
 should have fancied such obstructions, as they were 
 raising, could stay the tide of popular opinion, which 
 had already set strongly against them, and, chafed 
 rather than checked by their resistance, soon over- 
 whelmed them in its impetuous fury. 
 
 To teach that to play at bowls, or to make a feast 
 on the Lord's day, is as great a sin as murder, was 
 certainly most extravagant : yet they who maintained 
 this untenable position, doubtless did so in a sincere 
 desire that people should meditate on, and profit by, 
 the solemn service of the day; which they, on the 
 other hand, who asserted that people ought not to be 
 discouraged in their harmless i-ecreations, " as leaping, 
 dancing, &c." after the close of divine service, would, 
 to the Puritans at least, appear to care little whether 
 that service produced a good impression or no. I 
 remember, when I first went to the University, it was 
 said a most distinguished individual, now no more. 
 
216 
 
 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 
 
 used to be very unwilling to allow any of the junior 
 members of his College to go to private balls, though 
 in the very best families in the neighbourhood. Not 
 that he thought dancing a sin : he was no Puritan : 
 but he well knew how much such things are wont to 
 occupy the minds of young men, both before and after- 
 wards, and to unsettle and unfit them for their acade- 
 mical studies. Surely here was a deeper insight into 
 human nature, than they possessed, who fancied people 
 would attend with a suitable devotion to the sacred 
 service of the Church, and thence rise up to join in 
 idle merriment. 
 
 To those, indeed, who cannot read, and to those 
 also who can, but find much reading to be foreign to 
 their usual habits, Sunday evening, after the public 
 service of the day is finished, may, perhaps, sometimes 
 be found to hang heavily on their hfinds, as hours of 
 sadness and not of joy. Is it to be said, then, that for 
 them to seek relief in innocent amusements is a sin ? 
 While they do so with a consciousness that the day 
 might be better employed, whatever evil there is in the 
 practice will correct itself ; but if they be taught that 
 amusements, because harmless in their own nature, are 
 therefore harmless to them, if entered into after the 
 service is closed, the little benefit they will derive from 
 religious impressions j-eceived in that service, only to 
 be thus trifled away, will soon make them slight the 
 Church service altogether, and regard amusement as 
 the chief business of their holy day. 
 
 But Heylyn thinks, he has the authority of the 
 ancient Church for Sunday amusements, and that in 
 
AMONG ENGLISH DIVINKS. 
 
 247 
 
 Tcrtullian's time they did " devote the Sunday partly 
 to mirth and recreation, not to devotion only." What- 
 ever their rejoicing was, TertuUian does not describe 
 it ' as occupying a part only, but as forming the general 
 character of the day. " Sunday we devote to glad- 
 ness," diem Solis laetitiiB indulgemus ; — " on that day 
 our every thought is joy," die Solis laetitiam curamus. 
 But, I suspect, the joy and gladness Tertullian spake 
 of, were very dilferent from what was in Heylyn's 
 mind. It is not to be supposed, that they who on 
 Sunday " put off even business, lest they should give 
 place to the devil," would on that day expose them- 
 selves to his assaults by idle amusements. Theirs, no 
 doubt, was a holy rejoicing, their joy was "joy before 
 the Lord." To give up the day to feasting and to 
 idleness, he intimates in one of the above passages, 
 is the heathen's misapprehension of the nature of the 
 Jewish Sabbaths, which, they thought, they had 
 adopted. I do not, however, mean to say, either that 
 it was the practice of Christians then, or that it is their 
 duty now, to pass the whole day in prayer and devo- 
 tional exercises alone : family parties, any decent meet- 
 ings which have the character of family parties, and 
 promote good-will amongst neighbours, seem well 
 suited to the day, provided only there be nothing to 
 destroy or disturb the good impression of its more 
 serious duties. 
 
 As to other parties, which have not this character, 
 and other profanations of the day, of which Bishop 
 
 ' Apologct. Adv. Gentes, c. 16. Ad nationes L I. c. 13. 
 
248 
 
 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 
 
 Horsley complains as growing up in his time, and 
 which certainly have not diminished in ours ; which 
 having, if not their origin, their sanction, at least, in 
 the careless practice of the higher orders, spread their 
 demoralizing influence downwards, and threaten to 
 banish from a large portion of the people all care for 
 religion, if this tremendous evil receives no check from 
 his eloquence, or the powerful remonstrances of others, 
 his equals in station, it were vain for me to hope to 
 oppose its progress : but I will say, that, whoever for 
 one moment seriously considers the subject, must ac- 
 knowledge, that those unnecessary, uncalled for enter- 
 tainments, or amusements, or employments, which 
 prevent masters of families, or any part of their house- 
 hold, from bearing a share in the sacred services of the 
 Lord's day, cannot by any construction be reconciled 
 with the duty of keeping that day holy ; and no one 
 can consider it a light matter to violate that duty, who 
 considers it an obedience, not to a mere human law, 
 but to the command of Him, who said, " Remember 
 that thou keep holy the Sabbath day." 
 
 But it may be said, this is a point on which our 
 greatest divines, the master minds of our Church, have 
 not themselves agreed. That their dissent may not 
 have an undue influence in unsettling the sentiments 
 of any one on so important a subject, it may be well 
 to consider the course, which opinion has taken in this 
 country ; and in this consideration we may perhaps 
 discover the cause of the dissent. 
 
 We have already seen, that at the era of the Re- 
 formation, the Roman Church had grounded the ob- 
 
AMONG ENGLISH DIVINES. 
 
 249 
 
 servance, not of Sundays alone, but of all holy days, 
 on the fourth commandment, as being all alike ap- 
 pointed for Sabbath days by the authority of the 
 Church ; and that, of the Reformed Churches on the 
 Continent, it was the followers of Calvin, who made 
 the nearest approach to restore Sunday to its proper 
 place in the Christian covenant. The first acknow- 
 ledgement by our Church of Sunday, as properly the 
 Sabbath of Christians, I conceive to be the Catechism 
 of Edward VI., and the introduction of the Command- 
 ments into the Liturgy ; but if it be denied, that the 
 doctrine is there, and the first authoritative acknow- 
 ledgement of it be said to be the Homily of the Place 
 and Time of Prayer, written after the return of our 
 divines from Geneva, be it so : the doctrine has no 
 connexion with the peculiar tenets of Calvin which we 
 reject, nor is the truth less acceptable, because it may 
 have been pointed out by him or his followers. From 
 this time, that Sunday is the day which God's immutable 
 law binds us to keep holy, appears to have been gene- 
 rally received by those, who had formed their opinions 
 before the Sabbatarians had attracted much notice: 
 this doctrine is maintained by the judicious Hooker, 
 by Bishops Andrews and Hall ', and by one, who, as 
 
 ' I know no work of Bishop Hall on this subject : but, in the 
 first of his Sermons on the Impress of God, preached 1611, he 
 says, " There is one day of the week, God's, KvpiaKi), Rev. i. ; 
 and yet, I would it were his ; God's day by creation, by ordi- 
 nation, I would it were his by observation too." So again in 
 his Epistles, Dec. VI. Ep. 1, to Lord Denny, speaking of God's 
 day, he says, " The Sun of Righteousness arose upon it, and 
 
250 
 
 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 
 
 he framed the Irish Articles of 1615, spake the sense 
 of the Irish Church, Archbishop Usher, Dr. Bernard, 
 his biographer, and the editor, if I mistake not, of his 
 " J udgment on the Lord's day," writing forty years 
 afterwards, tells us these Irish Articles, which expressly 
 declare the morality of the Sabbath, were highly ap- 
 proved by the most orthodox divines : and he denies, 
 what Heylyn asserts, that they were set aside in 1634; 
 the second year, be it noted, of Laud's Primacy. 
 
 Archbishop Laud, indeed, was somewhat older than 
 the two last of these distinguished Prelates: and I cannot 
 but think his judgment, on this question, received a 
 bias from his having early engaged in controversy, if 
 not with Puritans, yet with those who leaned to that 
 party : at least his protege, Heylyn, regarded all 
 consideration of the Lord's day as a Sabbath to be the 
 badge of Puritanism. 
 
 That the Puritans, indeed, were anxious, that the 
 Lord's day, and ' not other days, should be kept holy, 
 we know from the millenary petition; but as to the 
 Lord's day, that " the Sabbath should not be pro- 
 faned," was not their desire alone, but the unanimous 
 desire of all at the Hampton Court Conference. Hey- 
 lyn says, it was Dr. Reynolds, who on this occasion, 
 spake of the "profanation of the Sabbath :" the ex- 
 pression^ seems rather to be Bishop Barlow's, who 
 drew up the account, and probably was used without 
 
 drew the strength of God's moral precept to it." — Hall's 
 Works, Vol. I. London, 1634. 
 • Strype's Whitgift, B. IV. c. 31. 
 
 ^ Churchman's Remembrancer. Vol. 1. p. 34. London 1807. 
 
AMONG ENGLISH DIVINES. 
 
 251 
 
 scruple by all in that assembly. Certainly the king's 
 Proclamation, to which they referred, complains that 
 " there had been great neglect in keeping the Sabbath 
 day." Though the Lord's day is made the appro- 
 priate name, that of Sabbath also is used by the above 
 mentioned divines. It seems to have been the lan- 
 guage of the times. " It is an easy thing," says Lord 
 Bacon ', ** to call for the observance of the Sabbath 
 day ; but what actions and works may be done on the 
 Sabbath, and what not ; to set this down, and clear 
 the whole matter with good distinctions and decisions, 
 is a matter of great knowledge and labour, and asketh 
 much meditation and conversing in the Scriptures, and 
 other helps, which God hath provided and preserved 
 for instruction." To call the Lord's day the Sabbath, 
 and to observe it as such, according to Christ's expla- 
 nation of the duty, is no badge of Puritanism : the 
 distinctive mark of that party, is the Judaical observ- 
 ance of the day, the insisting on a strict and absolute 
 rest upon it, beyond what Christ taught us was really 
 required even on the Sabbath days of the Jews. 
 
 Of the divines, who wrote before the Sabbatarian 
 controversy made a noise in the world. Bishop An- 
 drews most fully entered into the subject, commenting 
 on the fourth commandment, in his " Pattern of Cate- 
 chistical Doctrine," a work he himself never published : 
 some few years, however, after his death, when Hey- 
 lyn's book appeared, these treasures were brought 
 
 • Of Church Controversies, Bacon's Works, IV. p. 429- — 
 London, 1730. 
 
252 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 
 
 forward as an antidote to the poison. But Heylyn 
 was neither the only, nor the ablest and most noted 
 supporter of the side he espoused. Who were the 
 advisers of the first publication of the Book of Sports, 
 on the king's return from Scotland in 1618, is not 
 known ; but we know. Dr. Laud, then one of his 
 Majesty's chaplains, had the honour of attending his 
 Royal Master on that journey, and was three years 
 afterwards made Bishop of St. David's. Heylyn 
 says, there was no Court Doctrine, no new Divinity 
 in this book of Sports, nothing more than James, 
 when king of Scotland, had before expressed in his 
 Basilicon Doron, published 1.598. In that book, after 
 saying, that for the promotion of friendship and heart- 
 liness, certain days in the year should be appointed 
 for delighting the people with public spectacles of all 
 honest games, and exercise of arms, and for honest 
 feasting and merriness, King James adds, " I cannot 
 see, what greater superstition can be in making plays 
 and lawful games in May, and good cheer at Christ- 
 mas, than in eating fish in Lent and on Fridays, the 
 Papists as well using the one as the other : so that 
 always the Sabbaths be Icept holy, and no unlawful 
 pastime used." Dr. Heylyn, somehow or other, seems 
 to have thought this was a declaration, that lawful 
 pastimes were to be used on the Sabbaths : what he 
 thought of this word, in this place, does not appear : 
 but we must remember, his biographer tells us he 
 was only four months employed about his book. 
 
 It will readily be believed, that the opinion, which 
 was adopted by the energetic mind of Laud, soon 
 
AMONG ENGLISH DIVINES. 
 
 253 
 
 found other kindred spirits to support it : accordingly 
 at this time there rose up an host of men, who will 
 ever be ranked among our ablest divines, and who all 
 seem to have followed his course : Bishops ' White, 
 and ^ Bramhall, and Jeremy ' Taylor, and * Sanderson, 
 with Dr. ^ Hammond, and, though last, perhaps not 
 least. Dr." Barrow. 
 
 Let it not, however, be supposed that these great 
 theologians encouraged a neglect of the Lord's day: 
 not to pledge myself to every expression used in their 
 writings on this subject (and that of Sanderson was 
 but a private letter, never published by him, written 
 to a person in Nottinghamshire, the very year after 
 the second publication of the king's book of sports, 
 to satisfy a case of conscience,) the practical rules they 
 lay down, may be approved by all : the objection is 
 not to their statement of the duty, but to their rejection 
 of the ground, on which it truly rests. The Liturgy, 
 indeed, constrained them to rest it in some sense on 
 the fourth commandment : they say, therefore, the 
 
 ' Treatise of the Sabbath day. London, 1636. 
 2 The Controversies about the Sabbath and the Lord's day. 
 Dublin, 1676. 
 
 ^ Ductor Dubitantium, B. IL c. 2, of the Jewish Sabbath, 
 and the Lord's day p. 271. London, 1671. Or Life of Christ, 
 Sect. Xn. p. 25, p. 243. London, 1703. 
 
 * Eight Cases of Conscience. London, 1674. Case of the 
 Sabbath. 
 
 * Practical Catechism, L. IL s. 12. Of fourth commandment. 
 Hammond's Works, Vol. L p. 61. London, 1684. 
 
 ^ Exposition of the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Deca- 
 logue. London, 1740. 
 
254 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 
 
 day is to be kept, as required by the analogy, or the 
 equity, or the reasonableness of that commandment ; 
 phrases, which in fact represent the commandment as 
 being to us no commandment at all. Nay, Barrow, 
 Sanderson, and Bramhall go so far as to say, that the 
 Decalogue, being a covenant with the Jews, is not 
 binding on Christians : and Bramhall thinks, he ga- 
 thers this from our Lord's last words on the cross, " It 
 is finished." The fourth commandment they all regard, 
 not as giving a sanction to what had been appointed 
 for the Patriarchs of old, but as a temporary ordinance, 
 which ceased with the Jewish dispensation. Bramhall 
 dwells at some length on the fact, that the Christian 
 Fathers thought, no Sabbath was kept before the time 
 of Moses ; and, though Taylor admits a probability 
 that the Patriarchs kept a Sabbath, yet he regards the 
 creation but a temporary and transient reason for 
 hallowing each seventh day, and maintains, as the 
 others do, that to set apart some stated times for 
 public worship, is the only perpetual and moral duty, 
 under this head ; and that the selection of each 
 seventh day for this pui-pose, is to be referred only 
 to the will of the Lawgiver. Sanderson holds, that 
 the Lord's day was set apart as an holy day, not by 
 the command of Christ or of his Apostles, but by the 
 succeeding Church, in imitation of some of the Apos- 
 tles, and in a desire to distinguish themselves from the 
 Jews : Taylor, that the Apostles recommended this 
 day by their own practice, but made no law about it, 
 leaving the Church to her Christian liberty : White, 
 with much force, argues the apostolical institution of 
 12 
 
AMONG ENGLISH DIVINES. 
 
 255 
 
 it from its immediate universal adoption ; yet he main- 
 tains, with Bramhall and Hammond, that, though the 
 Apostles instituted it as a weekly festival, they did not 
 substitute it for the Jewish Sabbath. It is contended, 
 indeed, by White, and Hammond, and Taylor, that 
 there could have been no such substitution, because, 
 forsooth, for many ages, Saturday was kept as well as 
 Sunday in the Primitive Christian Church : and this 
 they ground on the interpolated passage in Ignatius, 
 on the Apostolical Constitutions, and on Asterius and 
 Gregory of Nyssa, writers in the latter part of the 
 fourth century. 
 
 If, indeed, the interpolated passage in Ignatius had 
 been genuine, and the sixty-sixth Apostolical Canon, 
 or the Apostolical Constitutions, had been really the 
 work of Clement of Rome, their argument would have 
 been unanswerable : but (honoured for ever be the 
 name of Archbishop Usher !) the grounds on which it 
 rests have been satisfactorily disproved. Such, at least, 
 is my conviction. If any one knows any authority for 
 the practice of keeping Saturday Sabbaths in the 
 Christian Church, of an earlier date than the fourth 
 century, (the very few, mentioned by Tertullian, who 
 on Saturdays used the standing posture in prayer, and 
 Montanist seceders from the Church evidently do not 
 affect the question), to produce this authority will pro- 
 mote the cause of truth. 
 
 As we observe this agreement in deviation from the 
 generally-received opinion, pervading the writings of 
 such able divines, it is impossible not to think, that 
 the extravagance of the Sabbatarians had some influ- 
 
256 
 
 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 
 
 ence on their judgments ; that they were unwilling to 
 admit, that the Lord's day is to be kept in obedience 
 to the fourth commandment, lest the admission should 
 involve the necessity of keeping it according to the 
 letter of that commandment. What else than preju- 
 dice on this subject can have been the cause, that one to 
 whom Taylor ' attributes the judiciousness of Hooker, 
 the learning of Jewel, and the acuteness of Andrews, 
 Archbishop Bramhall, pronouncing the arguments in 
 favour of a Patriarchal Sabbath weak, should think he 
 confirms his own view by alleging, that the sanctifi- 
 cation of the seventh day, in Gen. ii. is, what God 
 did himself, not what he commanded men to do ? or, 
 that the vigorous intellect of Jeremy Taylor should 
 argue, that the Lord's day was not kept as a Sabbath, 
 because, when St. Paul reproves the Corinthians for 
 going to law before unbelievers, he does not reprove 
 them for the profanation of this day ; as if on it alone 
 the Gentile courts of justice were open ; and should 
 regard the dispute, on what day the great anniversary 
 of our Lord's resurrection should be kept, as a demon- 
 stration, that the weekly commemoration of it was not 
 of divine or apostolical institution ? 
 
 Something too must be ascribed to the influence of 
 friendship, and the mutual interchange of thought, if 
 we consider how they were all connected together. 
 Bramhall went into Leland with his patron. Lord 
 Strafford ; White was the friend, Taylor the chaplain, 
 
 ' Sermon at the Funeral of John, Archbishop of Armagh, by 
 Jeremy, Bishop of Down and Connor. London, 1672. 
 
AMONG ENGLISH DIVINES. 
 
 257 
 
 of Archbishop Laud, by whom also Sanderson was 
 recommended to the royal favour; Hammond was the 
 friend of Sanderson ; and though Barrow was of a 
 somewhat later day, in his early life distress, occa- 
 sioned by the civil war, made him indebted for his 
 education to the generosity of Dr. Hammond. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable, that though, in 1634, 
 Sanderson so expressed himself as to convey the idea 
 that no part of the Law, as delivered by Moses, not 
 even the Ten Commandments, is binding on Christians, 
 he ' strongly urged the opposite doctrine, both in a 
 Sermon, but two years before, and in his Lectures at 
 
 ' In a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, in 1632, Sanderson * says, 
 " One distinction, well heeded and rightly applied, will clear 
 the whole point concerning the abrogation and abolition of the 
 Moral Law under the New Testament, and cut off many need- 
 less curiosities, which lead men into error. The Law, then, 
 may be considered either as a rule or as a covenant. Christ hath 
 freed all beUevers from the rigour and citrse of the Law, con- 
 sidered as a covenant .• but he hath not freed them from obe- 
 dience to the Law, considered as a rule. And all those Scrip- 
 tures that speak of the Law as if it were abrogated or annulled, 
 take it considered as a covenant ; those again that speak of the 
 Law as if it were still in force, take it considered as a rule. The 
 Law, as a covenant, is rigorous; — as a rule, is equal. — The 
 Law, considered as a rule, can no more be abolished and 
 changed than can the nature of good and evil be abolished or 
 changed." Not to lengthen the extract, what can be spoken 
 more admirably than all this ? In 1634, however, he observes, 
 " Every sober-minded Christian ought, %vithout over-curious 
 enquiry into those things that are more disputable, to believe 
 
 * Sanderson's Thirty-five Sermons. London, 1681, p. 298. 
 S 
 
258 
 
 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 
 
 Oxford, in 1647. Can it be doubted what he thought 
 most important to be maintained on the subject ? Can 
 
 these few points following, viz. 1st. That no part of the Law de- 
 livered by Moses to the Jews doth bind Christians under the 
 Gospel, as by virtue of that delivery ; no, not the Ten Command- 
 ments themselves ; but least of all the fourth, which all confess 
 to be, at least in some part, ceremonial." In 1647, in the Di- 
 vinity schools at Oxford *, he aflSrmed, " that the iMoral Law, 
 delivered by Moses, that is to say, the precepts of the Deca- 
 logue or the Ten Commandments, do oblige all Christians, as 
 well as Jews, to the obser^'ation of them. All Protestants that 
 I do know of, do with one mouth acknowledge this truth." He 
 adds, however, a little of the leaven of 1634 : " It will not be 
 worth our labour to enquire, from whence it doth obtain that 
 power to oblige : in my judgment, they speak to the purpose, 
 who say, that this Law of Moses doth not obUge Christians 
 formally, and as it is delivered by Moses, but only by reason of 
 the matter, and as it is declarative of the law of Nature." Now, 
 since all regard the Decalogue as a solemn sanction of our pri- 
 mary duties, because God with his own voice spake these words 
 to his people, (Deut. v.), where is the use of commending or 
 repeating the needless curiosity, the quibble, that they do not 
 oblige us, because they were deUvered by Moses to the Jews ? 
 Eight years afterwards, he censures the innovating Puritans f for 
 demanding, " Where are to be found in Scriptxu-e your national 
 Church? your infant sprinklings? Nay, where your metre 
 Psalms ? your two sacraments ? your observing a weekly Sab- 
 bath ? (for so far I find they are gone already). Shew us, say 
 they, a command or example for them in Scripture." Different 
 judgments may be formed from what Bishop Sanderson has 
 here said ; but to me it seems probable, that both he and Dr. 
 
 • Lectures on the Obligation of Conscience. London, 1660, 
 p. 141. 
 
 t Sanderson's Twenty- one Sermons, preface. London, 1681. 
 
AMONG ENGLISH DIVINES. 
 
 259 
 
 it be doubted that this mode of representing our fi-ee- 
 dom from the law of Moses, was the doctrine of the 
 new Primate ? If the character of Sanderson be not 
 sufficient to raise him above the suspicion of expressing 
 any thing he did not truly believe, let it be remem- 
 bered that he expressed this notion, that the Deca- 
 logue, as such, is not binding, only in a private, un- 
 published letter to an obscure individual, a Mr. Th. 
 Sa. in Nottinghamshire : but the subject, no doubt, 
 was much discussed among the friends of the Primate, 
 before it was resolved to republish the Book of Sports, 
 as a check to the growing evil of Sabbatism. Dr. 
 Hammond's Practical Catechism was published about 
 the year 1644. In his Commentary on the New Tes- 
 tament, written a few years afterwards, on John xx. 26, 
 he observes, " The phrase, ' after eight days,' signifies 
 after another week ; that is, as it seems, on the first 
 day of the week, as before, ver. 19." Is it too much 
 to infer, from the doubtful expression, " as it seems," 
 that a new light was then breaking forth on the mind 
 of one who had before followed the interpretation of 
 Dr. Heylyn ? Both these instances seem to indicate, 
 that the influence I have alluded to, had prevailed over 
 the private judgment of the individual : to enter, how- 
 Hammond, as they advanced in life, altered their views on the 
 grounds of the duty of keeping a Christian Sabbath : and though 
 I am not warranted in making the same inference in the case of 
 Dr. Barrow, (and he has well drawn up the rule of our duty for 
 the day), I maybe allowed to observe, that his opinions were 
 not adopted by his distinguished friend and editor. Archbishop 
 Tillotson. 
 
 S 2 
 
260 
 
 THE OLD AND TRUE DOCTRINE 
 
 ever, into minute criticism on their writings, would be 
 foreign to my purpose. 
 
 Not, then, to urge again, that the judgment of these 
 divines on the substitution of the Lord's day for the 
 ancient Sabbath, was blinded by a reliance on docu- 
 ments now known to be spurious, — the chief point, to 
 which all opponents of the doctrine of " the Homily, 
 on the Place and Time of Prayer," ought to be held, 
 is this ; to call upon them to shew what authority there 
 is for pronouncing the fourth commandment repealed. 
 It might be expected, that a repeal of any of God's 
 commands, would be as distinctly expressed as their 
 first promulgation. Some of these divines, however, 
 have thought they had discovered, that the whole De- 
 calogue is laid aside. That this is not so, at least with 
 respect to the second table of the commandments, is 
 demonstrable from the Epistles of St. Paul ; and there 
 is no more reason to believe the repeal of the first 
 table than of the second. Bishop Taylor, indeed, 
 has maintained, that nothing moi-e of the first table is 
 obligatory on Christians, than is expressed in the great 
 commandment, to love God; but let it be remem- 
 bered, that when (to borrow his expression) " Christ ' 
 made this commandment to be Christian by adoption," 
 it expressed the whole of the first table ; for the whole 
 was then indisputably binding. If this had not been 
 so understood, would the Jewish scribe at once and 
 readily have admitted the truth, that this is the first of 
 all the commandments, and, on any other grounds. 
 
 Life of Christ, Sect. xii. p. 6, 7 
 
VINDICATED. 
 
 261 
 
 unhesitatingly have placed this above the very words, 
 which God's own voice had uttered on Sinai ? 
 
 But, to come home to the question. — What proof 
 can be brought that the fourth commandment, in par- 
 ticular, is laid aside ? That we are not bound to the 
 letter of the commandment, so as literally to do no 
 manner of work, we are taught by the same authority 
 that gave it. Christ has taught us, that works of 
 mercy, works of necessity, nay, even in themselves, 
 works of reasonable convenience, are no profanation of 
 the Sabbath day. That we are not bound to rest at all 
 on the last day of the week, nor to absolute rest on any 
 day, as in itself a religious act, we are taught by his 
 Apostle, St. Paul. But nothing more than this can 
 be justly inferred from his declaration, that we are not 
 to be judged in respect of Sabbath days. In the first 
 ages of Christianity, the Sabbath day always signified 
 the last day of the week, or strict rest upon it. The 
 J ews made the rest to be the religion of the day : and 
 that rest, not to look to the end for which it was 
 ordained, was to them a shadow of the perfect rest 
 from sin and sorrow in the world to come, of which 
 faith in Christ is to us the very body, the very sub- 
 stance of the things hoped for : but if we look to the 
 end for which this rest was ordained, to rest each 
 seventh day from worldly business, in order that we 
 may wholly devote ourselves to the business of re- 
 ligion, — this cannot in any sense be said to have been 
 to the Jew a shadow of any thing, of which Christ- 
 ians have the substance. Under either covenant, this 
 has been, and is the duty of all, as before either cove- 
 
262 
 
 THE OLD AND TRUE DOCTRINE 
 
 nant it was, from the very time God intimated it, in 
 the hallowed close of the world's creation. It is true 
 the Apostle censures the Galatians for observing days ; 
 but what he censures is, a Judaical observance of 
 them, a regarding strict rest on them as a means of 
 commending oneself to God : otherwise, the censure 
 would be inconsistent with his doctrine, that to esteem 
 one day holy rather than another, is a matter of in- 
 difference, in which every one is to be guided by his 
 conscience : and what he thus represents in Rom. xiv. 
 as a matter of indifference, is (as ver. 14. of the chapter 
 intimates) regarding a day holy in itself, not in re- 
 spect of its being kept holy by religious exercises: 
 otherwise his doctrine would be inconsistent with the 
 practice of the Church, to assemble together for the 
 holy Communion on the Lord's day. 
 
 There is not, then, in the New Testament, any 
 repeal of the fourth commandment, as it is our solemn 
 remembrancer of the primeval sanctification of a seventh 
 day. Nay, rather, as clearly as these lively Oracles 
 tell us, that the last day of the week is no longer to be 
 thus observed, so clearly they tell us also of another 
 day, the first of the week, on which Christians came 
 together for the public service of religion ; a day to be 
 marked above other days, as the Lord's day; a day, 
 which we see from the sacred account, has been to us 
 the birth-day of the new creation, the creation of the 
 new spiritual order of things begun and finished in 
 Christ ; just as the former Sabbath was the birth-day 
 of the old creation, the creation of the material world. 
 The change of the once-appointed day having been 
 
VINDICATED. 
 
 263 
 
 made or sanctioned by Christ himself, his day alone we, 
 his people, are bound to keep ; and there is nothing 
 else in the command which is peculiar to the Jews, 
 save only, that rest seems to have been enjoined to 
 them as in itself a religious act : this, in the New 
 Testament, is distinctly repealed : there is to be no 
 Sabbatism now, as (and, I beheve. Bishop Patrick 
 truly ' says, thus much alone the Christian Fathers did 
 mean to declare) there was no Sabbatism in the 
 pati-iarchal times : there is to be no fancying, as the 
 Jews fancied, that the day is kept by strict rest 
 alone, if unemployed in the services of religion. But 
 still, the words of God speak to us, that we remem- 
 ber to keep holy our Sabbath day ; that we remember, 
 on its weekly return, to set ourselves free from the 
 business of the world he has made, in order that, 
 with one common consent of heart and mind, we all 
 may devote ourselves wholly to the worship of him 
 that made it. 
 
 To say there is no precept in the New Testament 
 binding us thus to keep holy the Lord's day, is to 
 raise an objection, which would come ill from any 
 one, who desired to know, not to evade, the line of 
 his duty to God. Whoever draws his opinions from 
 an attentive study of the Scriptures, cannot fail to per- 
 ceive, that in the Christian Church, as established by 
 the Apostles, there is a regularly ordained ministry of 
 bishops, priests, and of deacons, though the first of 
 these orders be not there described by its present 
 name : yet there is no precept, that none but those so 
 ' Commentary on Gen. ii. 3. 
 
264 
 
 THE OLD AND TRUE DOCTRINE 
 
 ordained are to minister in the Church of Christ: in 
 each of these cases, the reason for the omission of the 
 precept seems to be the same, viz. that for the pubHc 
 matters of religion, no written rule is necessary : in 
 these the practice of the Church is itself the record of 
 the rule : and as in the case of the Christian priest- 
 hood, so in that of the Christian Sabbath also, the prac- 
 tice of the Church is satisfactorily proved. Whether 
 we gather from ' Austin, that the distinctive mark of 
 the two covenants is, that in the Jewish the Sabbath 
 was observed, which signifies our rest, in the Christian 
 the Lord's day, which signifies our resurrection ; whe- 
 ther we read in Athanasius, that Christ has transfen-ed 
 the Sabbath into the Lord's day, or in Origen, that 
 even in the very mode of blessing the seventh day on 
 the gift of manna, we may perceive a higher blessing 
 intimated for the first day of the week, the day of 
 Christ's resurrection ; or in Tertullian, that the Jewish 
 Sabbaths are alien to us, who have each eighth day 
 for our weekly festival ; whether we find Clement of 
 Alexandria, commenting on the fourth commandment 
 and declaring, that the Lord's day is properly the 
 seventh and the Sabbath, but that the seventh day has 
 become the sixth and a working day ; or Justin Mar- 
 tyr, after describing the Christian sacraments, and the 
 Christian service on a Sunday, adding, that on that 
 day Christ rising again and shewing himself to his 
 
 1 Quindenarius numerus concordiam significat duum Testa- 
 mentorum ; in illo enim observatur sabbatum, quod significat 
 requietem ; in isto dies Dominicus qui significat resurrectionem. 
 August. Enarr. in Psalm cl. 
 
VINDICATED. 
 
 265 
 
 Apostles and disciples, taught them these things ; or 
 we learn from the Epistle of Barnabas, that, because 
 the Lord would not have his former Sabbaths, but 
 those which he had made, we therefore keep festival 
 the eighth day, the day on which Jesus rose again 
 from the dead; or lastly, we see in the Scriptural 
 denomination of the Lord's day, a distinct acknowledg- 
 ment of it as the peculiarly holy day of the Lord our 
 God ; all antiquity, the earliest Fathers of the Church, 
 and the sacred Canon itself bear witness as with one 
 mouth, that the day on which Christ arose from the 
 grave, has from the very times of the Apostles, ever 
 been honoured above the seventh, and has ever been 
 regarded as occupying, under the limitations above 
 expressed, the same place in the Christian covenant, 
 as the ancient Sabbath did in that of the Jews, being 
 substituted for it as the Christian's weekly holyday : a 
 day, therefore, to be kept holy by all Christians, in 
 obedience to the fourth commandment. 
 
 On this foundation then, let us take our stand, nor 
 listen to the sophistry, that would call us from the 
 sacred ground. It seems strange, indeed, that they 
 who would rest the duty of keeping the Lord's day, 
 on the authority of the Church alone (meaning by this, 
 not the authority of the inspired Apostles, which is no 
 other than that of Christ himself,) do not themselves 
 perceive, that if the general good sense of the com- 
 munity, did not supply what their doctrine omits, 
 Sunday would soon come to be no better observed 
 than other holydays, which are confessedly of human 
 institution. That Sunday is to be kept holy according 
 
266 
 
 THIS DOCTRINE HELD BY MOST 
 
 to God's commandment, was the doctrine of our Church 
 before it became obscured by the extravagance the Sab- 
 batarians attempted to fasten on it : and this true doc- 
 trine again shone forth, when that dismal cloud had 
 passed away. We find it asserted by Bishops ' Pearson 
 and ^Hopkins, Archbishops ^ Tillotson and * Sharpe, 
 Bishops * Burnet, and ^ Beveridge, and ^ Gastrell ; to 
 whom may be added the learned and pious author of 
 ^ the Whole Duty of Man. The same doctrine we find 
 too in the writings of laymen : besides that it is implied 
 in the above quoted language of Lord Bacon, it is dis- 
 tinctly maintained by ^ Sir Henry Spelman ; if not by 
 Selden, yet by his friend and admirer, the Lord Chief 
 Justice Sir Matthew Hale ; and by Robert Nelson, 
 Esq. in his " Companion for the Festivals of the Church. 
 At a later day this truth has been set forth in the 
 ^' Lectures of one whose admirable judgment has 
 
 ' Pearson on the Creed, Art. V. p. 397. Oxford, 1797- 
 
 2 Exposition on the Commandments. 1669- 
 
 3 Sermon XCIV. Vol. VI. p. 155. London, 1757. 
 
 ' Sermons, Vol. IV. Serm. XII., XIII., XIV. London, 1754. 
 5 On XXXIX Articles, Art. VII. p. 139. Oxford, 1805. 
 ^ Thesaurus Tlieol. on John xx. 26, Vol. II. p. 339. London, 
 1711. 
 
 ' Christian Institutes, c. vi. p. 194, 195. London, 1707- 
 
 * Sunday II. Sect. 17. p. 18. London, 1703. 
 
 ® Larger Work of Tythes, c. xxviii. 5. 2. Spelman's Works, 
 I. p. 135. London, 1727. 
 
 1° Directions for the Lord's Day, Hale's Contemplations, 
 Vol. I. p. 427. Glasgow, 1763. 
 
 " Chap. i. on the Lord's Day, 
 
 " Lecture XXI. on the Fourth Commandment. 
 
 12 
 
OF THE ENGLISH DIVINES. 
 
 267 
 
 earned the veneration of posterity, Archbishop Seeker; 
 and it has, I believe, been generally received in our 
 Church to the present times. Dr. Paley, however, in 
 his Moral Philosophy' thought fit to raise his voice 
 against the general consent : he allows, indeed, the 
 Lord's day to be of divine appointment for public 
 worship and religious instruction, but says, that to 
 rest from work longer than we are attending on those 
 assemblies, is a human regulation only. Such rest 
 from labour that the public worship may be of profit 
 to us, this at least must surely be required by the same 
 authority, which requires the public worship. But 
 that Paley took no pains to inform himself what had 
 been said by the early writers of the Church, is evident 
 from the proof that the primitive Christians reserved 
 Sunday for religious meditation, which he thinks 
 he brings from Irenaeus ! Irensus, or Ignatius, or 
 neither of them, it was all the same to him: he never 
 could have seen the passage, which really is taken 
 from the Latin version^ of the very interpolation of 
 Ignatius' Epistle to the Magnesians, so often cited in 
 proof of what it distinctly enjoins, viz. that the prim- 
 itive Christians were so to keep Saturday. But what- 
 ever strength Dr. Paley might have thought there was 
 in his reasonings, must, I should think, in the judg- 
 ment of others, have sunk beneath the powerful argu- 
 
 ' B. V. ch. 7. - Ibid. ch. 8. 
 
 ' Sed unusquisque nostrum Sabbatizet spiritualiter, medita- 
 tioni legis congaudens, non corporis dimissione, fabricationein 
 Dei admirans. Polycarpi et Ignatii Epist. Jae. Usserii. Oxen. 
 1644. — Ignat. Epist. ad Magnes. Lat. Vers. p. 57. 
 
268 
 
 THE CHURCH CATECHISM. 
 
 mentative eloquence of Bishop Horsley ' ; who ground- 
 ing the duty of keeping the Christian Sabbath, on the 
 primeval command to Adam, guards the doctrine against 
 any objection which might be raised of similar obli- 
 gation from the precept of blood given to Noah, by 
 shewing the typical connexion of this last with the 
 sacred blood of the Atonement. (Levit. xvii. 11.) 
 
 There remains, however, one other, and that a most 
 important document to be considered ; a document to 
 which Dr. Hammond appeals in support of the view 
 he has espoused in his Practical Catechism : I mean 
 the Catechism of our Church . Though the fourth com- 
 mandment is there recited, together with the rest of the 
 Decalogue, yet it may be said, that in the summary of 
 the first table no mention is made of special worship on 
 any stated day, as a part of our duty to God. Now 
 this omission (if such for a moment it may be called,) 
 seems to set clearly before us the real truth of the case. 
 It is our unquestionable duty, not as individuals only, 
 but as the congregation of his people, to join together 
 in worshipping God all the days of our life : hence, 
 our Church has provided daily prayers, which she 
 invites her members daily to use : but as the affairs 
 of this world demand much time, and care, and labour, 
 God was pleased in the old covenant to allow six days 
 for this world's business and employments, and to 
 require that each seventh day only should be kept 
 holy for his especial service : the law of the Sabbath 
 in this respect, was no burden imposed on the Jews, 
 
 Horsley's Sermons, Serm. XXI,, XXII., XXIII. 
 
THE CHURCH CATECHISM. 
 
 269 
 
 from which Christians are to be reheved ; but was a 
 gracious boon given to them, which Christians also 
 are permitted to enjoy : the same portion of time only, 
 as exclusively belonging to him, God now exacts from 
 us ; and if we hope for his blessing and guidance in 
 the business and employments of the week, however 
 regularly we may meet for prayers, as members of 
 families every day, this same portion of time we must 
 especially devote to his public service ; and ever on its 
 weekly return, enter his house with thanksgiving, and 
 praise him in the great congregation. For, though in 
 order that the holy fire may never go out, but be kept 
 always burning on the altar of our hearts, we must 
 cherish it every day, and continually offer up the sacri- 
 fice of our prayers to God, yet besides this continual 
 offering, if we would truly walk after God's holy will 
 and commandments, there must also be a special and a 
 larger offering every seventh day. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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