on the morrow,) and continued his speech until midnight." Is it not clear to demonstration that Paul, wishing to meet the Church at Troas, waited there for seven days, until they met; that they did not meet until the first day of the week; and that, having fulfilled his purpose, Paul left them immediately after the Lord's day had closed?

Once more when Paul is writing to the Corinthian Church, he says: "Now concerning the collection for the saints upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." But why the first day of the week, if this were not specially the time when the Church assembled for its acts of religious service? Still later in the Scriptural record, and almost at the close of the first century, the Apostle John is in Patmos; and again, as on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit is poured forth on this favored disciple. "I was in the Spirit," he says, on the Lord's day." We hardly wonder that "a layman," who is opposed to the observance of the Christian Sabbath, has deemed it needful to occupy an entire volume of three hundred pages in the vain attempt of explaining away these conclusive texts.

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And on the authority of Origen, sanctioned as it is by the concurrence of Owen, of Dwight, and of Wardlaw, we may not unfairly assume that the argument in the fourth chapter of the Hebrews is not only confirmatory of these views, but decisive on the point. The apostle says, "for he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works." Ver. 4. "There remaineth, therefore, a rest [a Sabbatism] to the people of God. For he [that is, Jesus] that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his." Ver. 9, 10. This passage virtually declares that if God, resting from his work, appointed a day of commemorative rest, Christ, having accomplished a far nobler work, and entered into his rest, has also appointed for his people a Sabbatism as glorious and complete.

But it is said that the apostles observed the Jewish Sabbath. All that the Scriptures intimate is, that they availed themselves of that day to come in contact with the people, just as the Apostle Paul is

found constantly in the Jewish synagogue; for there is no trace whatever in Scripture of Christians, as such, convening for purposes of worship on the Jewish Sabbath. Convenience, as well as prepos

session, would have been in favor of such meetings for Christian as well as Jewish worship on the seventh day, and not on the first, had there not been the intervention of authority in favor of the change sufficient to insure that the difficulty in the way of adopting it should be surmounted. It is further said that the apostle, in his Epistle to the Colossians, declares—“ Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath." But certainly this is not inconsistent with the view we have adopted, for our argument admits that the Jewish Sabbath, which, with other ordinances of that economy, the Jewish converts were desirous of enforcing on the Gentiles as Jewish institutions, had been superseded. But independently of this, many commentators, on grounds which deserve serious consideration, have agreed in the opinion that the "Sabbaths" referred to in this text were Jewish feasts, and not the day of holy rest.

It is further alleged, and with a show of triumphant assurance, that when the Gentile converts at Antioch appealed to the apostles, who were assembled at Jerusalem, as to whether the Jewish ordinances were still binding, they were informed, under divine direction, that it was sufficient if they abstained" from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood." Acts xv, 20. And it is contended that, as the Sabbath is not included in this enumeration, the text includes its virtual abrogation. But it must not be forgotten that the whole argument in favor of a subsisting Sabbath rests upon the fact of its being an institution independent of Judaism, and anterior to that economy, though for a time incorporated with it.

We are not desirous of laying undue stress on the testimony of the Christian Church, though undoubtedly it possesses much value; nor is it unimportant for the candid inquirer to satisfy himself whether tradition has any value in the determination of religious truth. The Roman Catholic assumes that our knowledge of Christianity is chiefly dependent on revelation, but is also derived from oral tra

dition and the authoritative decrees of the Church. Amidst conflicting claims and doubtful evidence, it stands apart as God's appointed arbiter, not only a witness for divine truth, but the judge whose decision is dogmatic and irreversible. The AngloCatholic, on the other hand, feeling that the Church, as it is at present constituted, cannot be regarded as an infallible judge, looks back with vague unsatisfied longing to the Patristic Church for guidance and direction. But to all these claims, whether of Rome for its living power, or of Oxford for the irrefragable verity of the early Church, we boldly reply with Milton, "Let others chant while they will of prerogatives, we shall tell them of Scripture, of acts and statutes, still of Scripture, till the quick and piercing word enter to the dividing of their souls, and the mighty weakness of the gospel throw down the weak mightiness of man's reasoning."

Yet we conceive that there is an opposite extreme which implies that the Bible being in itself a sufficient guide, the opin- | ions of the primitive Church are of no value whatever to the student of Holy Scripture. On the contrary, we believe that history, whether of facts or of opinions, may afford great assistance to the sincere inquirer, if he do not with slavish submission absolutely yield to its dictation. The New Testament, for instance, leaves some questions of ritual observance in comparative obscurity; and how they were expounded by the practice of the early Church cannot be a matter of indifference. Christ washes the disciples' feet, and couples it with an ambiguous command, and we abide by the evidence which Church history affords us, that this institution was not intended to be one of permanent obligation. It commands the communion of faithful men at the Lord's Supper, and equally from reason and the example of the universal Church, we conclude that female communicants are entitled to the same privilege. We read of the agape, or feasts of love, in the Epistle to the Corinthians; but we are satisfied from almost uniform testimony that this ordinance was not intended to be binding on the whole body of the faithful. We appeal therefore to such facts, not as concluding inquiry, but as a portion of that proof which the mind must diligently weigh, test by Scripture, and either accept or reject, as the balance of evidence requires. And

in this spirit only let us refer to the testimony of the early Christians, with reference to the observance of the Lord's day. It must not be forgotten that one of the most constant difficulties to which the early Church was subjected arose from a tendency in the Jewish converts not only to retain, but to enforce some of the rites and observances of their own law, unmindful of the dispensation of liberty into which they had entered. And this practice was met by the uncompromising resistance of Gentile believers. And hence, in the writings of the early fathers, the Jewish Sabbath, as one of these enforced observances, is continually discountenanced, while the maintenance of the Lord's day is strenuously encouraged. Barnabas, in the first century, says, in the name of Christ, "The Sabbaths which you 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 we observe the eighth day with gladness, on which Jesus rose from the dead.”

In the same century, the heathen Pliny writes to the Emperor Trajan, "That the Christians were wont to meet on a certain day, and sing hymns to Christ as God, and bind themselves with a sacrament to do not evil, and afterward partake of a common feast."

Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, in the same age, exhorts the Magnesians "no longer to sabbatize, but to keep the Lord's day;" and elsewhere he says, "That all who loved the Lord kept the Lord's day as the queen of days, a reviving, lifegiving day, the best of all days." Justin Martyr, (the apologist for Christianity,) who lived during the first half of the second century, says, in his celebrated Apology," We all meet together on Sunday, because it is the first day on which God, having changed darkness and the elements, created the world, and on this day Jesus Christ, our Saviour, arose from the dead;" and elsewhere, in the same Apology, he writes, "On the day called Sunday, all that live in the city or country meet together, and the writings of the apostles and prophets are read to them, after which the bishop or president of the assembly makes a discourse to the people, exhorting them to follow the good things we have heard; then we all rise and make common

prayer; after which distribution of the elements is made to all that are present, and they are sent to the absent by the hands of the deacons." While his cotemporary, Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, writes in his Epistles, "To-day we observed the Lord's day."

Tertullian, who died in the year 220, the most eloquent of all the early apologists for Christianity, says, in answer to the objections of the heathen, that the Christians worshiped the sun, "Indeed, they make Sunday a day of joy, but for other reasons than to worship the sun:" and in his discourse against Marcion he adds, "The law of the Sabbath forbids all human works, but not divine; consequently it forbids all those works which are enjoined in the six days, namely, their own works, that is, human works, or works of their daily vocations."

Eusebius, who lived at the end of the third and the commencement of the fourth century, declares, "That the Logos, the Word in the New Testament, transferred the Sabbath of the Lord into this day, as the true image of divine rest, and the first day of light, when the Saviour, bursting the bars of death, completed a work more excellent than that of the six days of the creation. This day Christians throughout the world celebrate, in strict obedience to the spiritual law. The day is universally observed as strictly as the Jewish Sabbath, while all feasting, drunkenness, and recreation was rebuked as a profanation of the sacred day." In this age, the Emperor Constantine professed Christianity, and though his religious views were never very clear or decided, he did not overlook the Lord's day as the subject of legislation. And it is recorded by Eusebius, that he passed a law to except this day from juridical processes, and also promulgated an edict as to the army resting on that day.

In the year 348 the Council of Carthage decreed, "That if any forsook the solemn assembly of the Church on the Lord's day to go to the public shows, he should be excommunicated." In the year 364 the Council of Laodicea enjoined Christians to rest on the Lord's day; while the Council of Auxerre (A. D. 578) declared "that it was not lawful on the Lord's day to yoke oxen, or do any work of the like nature." And Augustine, in his sermons De Tempore, probably written at the close VOL. VII.-4

of the fourth century, for the celebrated Bishop of Hippo died in the year 430, (though attributed by some to Cæsarius Arelatensis,) says, "The apostles transferred the observance of the Sabbath to the Lord's day; and therefore, from the evening of the Sabbath to the evening of the Lord's day, men ought to abstain from all country work and secular business, and only attend divine service." As distinctly Athanasius declared, in the middle of the fourth century, "That the Lord changed the Sabbath into the Lord's day because of the resurrection;" and Chrysostom commended the people of Antioch for their zeal in attending the evening as well as the morning services on the Lord's day, and for their attendance on public prayer on the same day, and severely admonishes any who went to the theater or public games on the Sabbath. Not unfrequently, when the early martyrs were brought before their persecutors, they were asked one question-"Dost thou keep the Lord's day?" and upon their answer depended acquittal or condemnation. Surely if the Lord's day had been an idle and unmeaning institution, resting on no definite sanction, these Christian writers would not, in unbroken succession, have pleaded for it so earnestly; nor would the early confessors of the Church have adhered to it to the last, though it led them from the judgment-seat to prison or to death. Such is our argument on behalf of the Christian Sabbath; and we rejoice to feel that for all practical purposes it places us upon a firm and safe foundation.

Let the observance of the day be a matter of expediency, and it will shift and change like the shadow of a cloud. The rule of yesterday is not the rule of to-day, and the experience of one age is counteracted by the advancing knowledge of succeeding generations. We can gather no certain rule of conduct from expediency alone, until our generalizations are as wide as His who laid down the immutable principles of right. We feel that we do not know all which constitutes true expediency, and failing in one element, our error may be unlimited. Then can we rely on the authority of the Church; but of what Church? Does it speak by popes or councils? from Lambeth or the Vatican? or shall we look for any certain expositions of its dogmas in the Articles of the English Church, or in the Confession of the As

tiously observe the Sabbath from being wronged and burdened by a minority who are inclined to benefit themselves at the expense of the more religious members of the community.

In one other way we invoke the aid of the civil power, namely, when we require it to avoid most carefully any act of its own which interferes with the rest of the Sabbath; and we have a right to ask it. A government, as we believe, has no title to interfere in religious matters, for it exists for civil purposes only; but none of us imagine that any man in becoming a part of the government lays down his individual responsibility, and, in conjunction with other official persons, is entitled to do in the concrete what separately it would have been unlawful to attempt.

But we have not yet touched on the grand argument in favor of opening places of amusement on the Lord's day. "Look," it is said, "at the state of mere animalism and filth into which multitudes of our laboring classes are sunk. Go into their lanes, and courts, and alleys on a Sunday, and say if it would not be a happy thing for these people, if they could be tempted to go out with cleanliness and sobriety into the fresh air of the country, instead of lounging at home to feast, to be in dirt, and to be drunken." Now no one, we suppose, will pretend for a moment that it would not be a good thing for such people to be sober abroad instead of being drunken at home, and clean in the fields instead of being filthy in their lanes and alleys. There is no dispute about that matter. But have the gentlemen who appeal to us in these terms much reason to believe that their prepared sight-seeings for Sundays would really come with a regenerating power of this sort on these low and sensuous classes of the community? Can it need to be shown to them, that for one family which they would raise from filth to cleanliness, and from drunkenness to sobriety, by such means, there are scores-hundreds-which they would help to seduce by such expedients into habits of Sabbath-breaking, thereby into a life of godlessness, and thus by degrees into the class of the unprincipled, the idle, the drunken, and the filthy? The portions of the community in any degree elevated by such customs would be as nothing compared with those who would be in all respects deteriorated by them. Such at

tractions might be potent in disposing the decent among the middle and lower classes to neglect public worship-they would be powerless as means of raising the classes below them to something better.

It is our grave conviction that whatever shall tend to impair the religious element, as nurtured in the mind of our people by our Christian and Protestant teaching, must act as a blow struck at the root of our national manhood. The choice here lies between Sabbath observance substantially in the form familiar to us, or the sort of holidays which a pagan or popish superstition would thrust into its place. Atheism, secularism, natural religion, all these would be powerless in the event of any great religious change among us. The next stage would be a creature-worship, either after the manner of Rome, or after the manner of old heathenism. In either case our zealous liberals, Christian or not Christian, who account zeal about the sanctity of the Sabbath as a mistake and a cant, would find little in the fruit of their labor upon which to congratulate each other. Bigotry and intolerance are the natural allies of superstition, as the enemies of our earnest Protestantism would soon be made to feel, could the change toward which their labors tend be once realized.

The origin of preaching, as a religious institute, cannot be said to be older than the time of the return of the Jews from Babylon. No direct or definite instruction had been given to the Hebrew priesthood concerning religious teaching. Their services were almost wholly ritual, rarely embracing instruction of any kind. Indeed, it must have been in vain to have exacted an aptness to teach from men who came to their office for the most part simply as being born of a particular tribe or family. Even the prophets were teachers only upon occasions. They spoke as events and their special mission required, and not otherwise. If the teaching of the synagogue existed at all before the Captivity, it was not until after that event that the institute so named became na tional. Even then, it does not appear to have come into existence as the effect of law from the magistrate, or of exhortation from the priest. Every synagogue congregation was a voluntary district gathering of people for the purposes of religious worship and instruction. The time had