r 



LIBRARY 

OF THK 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 

GIK"T OK" 

Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 

Received October, 1894. 
Accessions No . 5~lp 7 Class No. 



THE SABBATH. 



THE SABBATH 

VIEWED IN THE LIGHT 
REASON, REVELATION, AND HISTORY, 



WITH 



SKETCHES OF ITS LITERATURE. 



BY THE REY. JAMES GILFILLAN, 

STIRLING, SCOTLAND. 



TE ABE TO ACCOUNT THE SANCTIFICATION OF ONE DAY IN SEVEN A DITTY WHICt 
GOD S IMMUTABLE I^AW DOTH EXACT FOB EVEB. HOOKEB. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YOKE: 

AND THE 

NEW YORK SABBATH COMMITTEE, 

5 BIBLE HOUSE, ASTOR PLACE. 




I71E3II1 



V ( I U 



SlftSl 

THE stereotype plates of /this volume were gener 
ously presented to the New York Sabbath Committee, 
by JOHN HENDERSON, Esq., of Glasgow, Scotland. In 
issuing it without revision, neither that Committee nor 
the Publishing Committee assume the responsibility 
of any sentiment that may have the aspect of denomi 
national controversy. 

"The first creature of God in the works of the days was the light of the 
sense, the last was the light of reason, and his Sabbath work ever since is 
the illumination of his Spirit." LOBD BACOX. 




PREFACE. 



THE author of the following work accounts it his happiness to 
have been connected from his earliest days with a class, of whom 
the sacred observance of the Lord s Day has been a prominent 
distinction. That there have been among them no insincere 
characters, presenting a distorted image of their creed, it would be 
too much to affirm ; but sure he is, that both ministers and 
private individuals, with whom, from his circumstances, he has 
been brought into intercourse, have been, for the most part, up 
right, holy, kind-hearted, cheerful Christians, with whom, he had 
reason to believe, it would be good for him to live and die. Of 
persons in sacred office, there rise to his view, his relative, Mr. 
Barlas, Crieff ; Dr. Pringle and Mr. Black, Perth ; Mr. Jameson, 
Methven ; Mr. Beath, Pitcairn Green ; Dr. Mitchell, Anderston, 
afterwards of Glasgow ; Dr. Terrier, Paisley ; Dr. Jamieson and 
Professor Paxton, Edinburgh ; Mr. Culbertson, Leith. Others, 
who occupied a less public station, he must not name ; but he 
sees them attending to the claims of their fellow- creatures equally 
as to their own affairs visiting the poor and suffering sitting 
by their bed-sides with the impression that a dying immortal is 
near, and with the tear and the tone of sympathy tending the 
steps of the aged and the neglected showing in their countenances 



Yl PEEFACE. 

the serenity and benevolence which they have catched from the 
face of the Saviour their very steps indicating that they 

" Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore 
Of that vast ocean we must sail so soon." 

His education among such persons, with the circumstance that 
his father had published an " Essay " on the subject, gave him 
an early interest in the Sabbath. The work, which is the result, 
has for years employed those moments which he could spare 
from the duties of a laborious profession. His own collection of 
books that treated of the institution, though ultimately of some 
extent, being insufficient for his purpose, he has had to draw upon 
various public libraries. For securing him access to their trea 
sures, or for otherwise aiding his researches, he is under great 
obligations to Professors Pillans, Edinburgh, and Fleming, Glas 
gow ; Messrs. George Offor, and William H. Black, London ; Mr. 
Haig, Dublin ; and the Rev. Alex. B. Grosart, Kinross : and to the 
librarians, the Rev. A. L. Simpson, Messrs. Small, Laing, Halkett 
(Edinburgh), Jones (Glasgow), and Christie (Innerpeffray), he is 
indebted for manifold acts of attention and kindness. 1 .He may 
be allowed to express special gratitude for the encouraging inter 
est shown, and the various assistance rendered, in connexion with 

1 Of public libraries, the writer found those of the British Museum and the Edin-. 
burgh University to be the richest in Sabbatic literature. In the Advocates Library, 
and that of the University of Glasgow, he met with works on the subject which he had 
not discovered anywhere else in Scotland. The library of the United Presbyterian 
Church is peculiarly valuable in the department of Theology, which it owes in no small 
measure to the portion of it that belonged to the learned Robertson of Kilmarnock, 
and has a select number of volumes on the Sabbath. The most extensive and valuable 
ollection of books and pamphlets relative to the institution that he has had the op 
portunity of seeing was that of Mr. W. H. Black, minister of a Sabbatarian Church, 
London, and an accomplished scholar. He regretted that, with the most liberal per 
mission to make use of it on the spot, the rule of the Library, which precluded the 
removal of any book from the premises, and his limited time, put it out of his power 
to derive much benefit from its stores. 



PREFACE. Vli 

his undertaking, by the late Professor More, the Rev. Dr. Somer- 
ville, John Henderson, Esq. of Park, and his friends, the Rev. 
James Young, and Mr. John Taylor, Edinburgh. He would also 
coidially acknowledge the approbation which his labours have met 
with in not a few public journals. 

The alterations which the work has undergone in this second 
edition have, it is believed, improved, without substantially chang 
ing its character. This he can affirm with some confidence as 
far as respects the General Index, prepared by the practised pen 
of the Rev. James Anderson, author of the " Ladies of the Cove 
nant," and of other kindred and approved publications. With 
these remarks, he again commits his volume, such as it is, to the 
candid consideration of his readers, and to Him, who, he trusts, 
will mercifully accept and bless the offering. 



STIRLING, April 17, 186L, 



CONTENTS. 



SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES AND 
LITERATURE. 

PAOB 

PAGANS AGAINST JEWS BOTH AGAINST CHRISTIANS, . . 2 

HOLIDAYS, ....... 13 

ENGLAND, _._. 32 

THE NETHERLANDS, . . 90 

ENGLAND, . ; . . . 118 

UNITED STATES, I-. 1 --" f . ir -WI : .:i7. " . ) . &gt;" . 149 

SCOTLAND, . ^. ., ... 157 



PROOFS, FROM REASON AND EXPERIENCE, OF THE EXCEL 
LENCE AND DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH. 

CHAPTER I. 
PHYSICAL AND INTELLECTUAL ADAPTATIONS OP THE SABBATH, . 173 

CHAPTER II. 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE OF THE SABBATH, . . 194 

CHAPTER ni. 
EOOHOMY OF A WEEKLY HOLY DAY, . . ^ . . 209 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

PADS 

INFLUENCE OF THE SABBATH ON THE RESPECTABILITY AND HAPPI 
NESS OP INDIVIDUALS, . . . . . . 217 

CHAPTER V. 
DOMESTIC BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH, ( .. . . . 228 

CHAPTER VI. 
ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH TO RATIONS, . . . 242 

CHAPTER VII. 
APPLICATION OF PRECEDING PRINCIPLES AND FACTS IK PROOF OF 

THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH, * . . 267 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION TO .A SACRED 
PERPETUAL SABBA . 



CHAPTER I. 
DIVINE INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH AT THE CREATION, AND rrs 

OBSERVANCE BY THE PATRIARCHS, . . . . 274 

CHAPTER II. 
THE SABBATH PROMULGATED FROM SINAI AS ONE OF THE COMMAND 

MENTS OF THE MORAL LAW, . . 285 

CHAPTER III. 
THE SABBATH, UNDER A CHANGE OF DAT, A CHRISTIAN ORDIN 

ANCE AND LAW, ...... 298 

CHAPTER IV. 
DUTIES OP THE SABBATH, . . . . . .317 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER V. 

PAQ 

DDTIES OF THE SABBATH, . . . 327 

CHAPTER VI. 
DIVINE ESTIMATE OP THE IMPORTANCE OP THE SABBATH, . . 337 

CHAPTER VH 

THE SABBATISM OF HEAVEN, . ..., , *,.. ***&gt;* 349 



EVIDENCE FROM HISTORY FOR A WEEKLY DAY OF REST 
AND WORSHIP. 

TRACES OF SEPTENARY INSTITUTIONS AMONG PAGAN NATIONS, 369 
THE SABBATH OR LORD S DAY IN THE FIRST THREE CENTDBIES OF 

CHRISTIANITY, . / v -**$ . . . . 368 

THE SABBATH IN CENTURIES 1V.-XV., . . . 381 

THE SABBATH AT THE REFORMATION, . . . 405 

THE SABBATH AFTER THE REFORMATION, .... 424 



THE SABBATH DEFENDED AGAINST OPPOSING ARGU 
MENTS, THEORIES, AND SCHEMES. 

_ CHAPTER I. 
ALLEGED A NTI- SABBATISM OF THE REFORMERS, * . . 4o6 

CHAPTER II. 
MILTON AND OTHER EMINENT MEN, . . . . 470 

CHAPTER III. 
THEORIES TRIED BY THE PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVINE GOVERKMENT, 479 



Xil CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

PAOB 

THEORIES TRIED BY THEIR TENDENCIES AND RESULTS, . . 491 

CHAPTER V. 
THEORIES AND ARGUMENTS TRIED BY THE DOCTRINE AND LAW OF 

REVELATION, . . . . . . .514 

CHAPTER VI. 
THEORIES AND ARGUMENTS TRIED BY THE DOCTRINE AND LAW OF 

REVELATION, . . . . . ~ . . 527 

CHAPTER m 
THEORIES TRIED BY DIVINE PREDICTIONS, . . . 546 



THE CLAIMS OF THE SABBATH PRACTICALLY ENFORCED. 

DESECRATION OF THE SABBATH, ..... 556 

SABBATH DESECRATION AT HOME, ..... 558 

SABBATH DESECRATION ABROAD, ..... 563 

CAUSES OF SABBATH DESECRATION, . . " . 568 

REMEBIES FOR SABBATH DESECRATION, .... 580 

PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF OUR CAUSE, .... 592 

RELATION OF THE INSTITUTION TO THE PRESENT INTERESTS OF ALL 

CLASSES, ....... 605 

ITS MORE MOMENTOUS CONNEXION WITH A FUTURE STATE, 608 



INDICES. 

GENERAL INDEX, ... ... 611 

INDEX OF TEXTS, . ... 334 



[flSITBE 

&JF0 




SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES 
AND LITERATURE. 



THE Sabbath dates, as we believe, from the creation of the 
world. Traces of it have been found among pagan nations, 
ancient and modern. It has run parallel in Judea with the 
greater part of Jewish history. It has been identified for eigh 
teen centuries with the ecclesiastical and civil affairs of Christen 
dom. The object of ardent regard, and of intense dislike, it has 
been the occasion of earnest controversy and of multiplied writings. 
Although it has not received the attention, still less the full eluci 
dation, which its character, antiquity, and value might prepare us 
to expect, it could not fail long ere this time to furnish materials 
for a chapter in the polemics, and another in the literature of 
religion. And yet these chapters, so far as we know, remain 
unwritten. A comprehensive view, however, of the manner in 
which so important a department of knowledge has been culti 
vated, and some account of the labourers, while fitted as matters 
of general intelligence to gratify and instruct, seem to be necessary 
for guiding further research, and for shedding a direct light on 
the subject of inquiry. 1 As there is little hope that we shall be 
favoured in this, as in various other branches of study, with a 
reproduction of the abler treatises of former days, might not the 
authors of the new works, which new times and circumstances 
demand, supply in some degree the want, and enhance the value, 

1 After these sketches were written, and several sheets printed, the author was happy 
to meet with the excellent De Histoire of Koelman, and, after the whole had passed 
from the press, with the annotated Aphorisms of C. Vitringa, and the Sunday of Dr. 
Hesaey. These works supply in part what he here desiderates. 

A 



SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

their own volumes, by presenting a resume at least of previous 
theories and arguments 1 

If the following sketches should prove that it is easier to point 
out than to supply a desideratum, it will be to the writer a satis 
fying result of considerable labour expended on an attempt made 
in a somewhat untrodden walk and with limited space, if by any 
impulse imparted to more successful exertion, or by the informa 
tion brought together, a service shall be rendered to the cause 
which it is the object of this volume to illustrate and recommend 
the cause, he believes, of Divine law, and of human happiness. 

During the period comprehended in the sacred records of the 
Old Testament, though Sabbatic privileges were in repeated in 
stances despised, no professed friend of the true religion is found 
to dispute the Divine appointment or sacred character of the 
seventh-day s services and rest. A similar unanimity prevailed 
for many centuries among Christians with regard to the claims of 
the Lord s day. But there wanted not differences between the 
Jews and the heathen ; and between the Christians and both. 
And it is necessary to pass these differences under a brief review, 
before we proceed to describe the strifes by which the Church 
itself came to be agitated. 

PAGANS AGAINST JEWS BOTH AGAINST CHKISTTANS. 

While kindred observances are discovered in pagan countries 
from the remotest times, it appears from a few scattered notices 
in history, that the true Sabbath, as observed by the patriarchs 
and the Jews, was the object of bitter and even violent hostility 
to those heathen men who were brought into intercourse with its 
friends. In Cain and Pharaoh, we see types the one, of a class 
who deliberately abandon scenes and seasons of worship uncon 
genial to their hearts, and so leave to their descendants a legacy 
of atheism and moral death ; the other, of persons in power who 
refuse to their subjects or servants the periodical respite from 
labour demanded by the necessities of body and soul. The anti- 
Sabbatic spirit comes out subsequently in the conduct of the Baby 
lonian " adversaries of Jerusalem," who not only " mocked at her 



JEWS AND PAGANS. 3 

Sabbaths," but compelled her people to labour without any rest ; J 
and in the cruel edict of Antiochus Epiphanes, who proclaimed 
the keeping of their Sabbath, and every observance of their law 
by the Jews, to be a capital offence. 2 A similar feeling is betrayed 
in another form by the Greek and Koman writers at various times 
Democritus, Cicero, Strabo, and Ovid, Seneca, Juvenal, Persius, 
Tacitus, Plutarch, and Appian, who ridicule or denounce the Jew 
ish religion some of them singling out for special derision or 
reprehension its weekly and other holy days. Ovid brands these 
as foreign Sabbaths, unsuited for business, and fit to be ranked 
with seasons of noted calamity and gloom : 

" Quaque die redeunt rebus minus apta gerendis 
Culta Falsestino septima festa Syro." 3 

" Nee pluvias vites : nee te peregrina morentur 
Sabbata : nee damnis Allia nota suis." * 

According to Augustine, Seneca, in censuring the rites of Judaism, 
charges its Sabbaths in particular with causing the neglect and 
obstruction of urgent affairs, and dooming to idleness and waste 
the seventh part of life. 5 Juvenal repeats the latter charge, when, 
lampooning Roman perverts to Judaism, he says, 

" By them no cooling spring was ever shown, 
Save to the thirsty circumcised alone ! 
Why ? but each seventh day their bigot sires 
Rescind from all that social life requires." 9 

He is followed by Tacitus, who affirms that the Jews so enjoyed 
the repose from labour which every seventh day afforded, as to be 
led by the blandishments of idleness to give up every seventh year 
also to sluggish inaction. 7 Persius sneers at the voiceless prayers, 
and the Sabbaths of the circumcised : 

" Thou mutterest prayers nor dost refuse 
The fasts and Sabbaths of the curtailed Jews." 8 

1 Lam. i. 7; v. 5. 2 Jahn s Jewish Antiq., p. 108, 

Art. Am. i. 415, 416. * Remed. Am. 219, 220. 

De Civit. Dei, lib. vi. c. 11. " Qusesitum ad f ntem," etc. Juv. Sat. xir. 105. 

" Septimo quoque die otium placuisse," etc. Hist., lib. v. sec. 5. 

" Labra moves tacitus recutitaque Sabbata palles." Pers. Sat. v. 184. 



4 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

Whence, it may be asked, this antipathy to Jewish sacred days ? 
These writers were familiar with seasons of rest and worship as 
observed by their own countrymen in a manner not unlike the 
practice of the Jews. Plato, in a remarkable passage, extols 
festivals as the gift of the gods for the relief of toil-doomed man. 1 
Cicero, though he stigmatizes the religion of the Jews as abhorrent 
from the ancestral ordinances of Rome, commends festival days. 2 
And Seneca, while he sees nothing but damage and loss of time 
in the Sabbaths of Moses, applauds the holidays of heathendom 
as the wise appointments of legislators, for the necessary attemper 
ing of human labour. 3 The reason, therefore, of dislike to the 
former must be sought for in prejudice, not in calm consideration 
and rational conviction. The sanctity and unworldliness which 
are repulsive to human depravity now, were equally obnoxious 
then. It is true that some of the heathen, surmounting this 
obstacle, embraced Judaism, 4 and that many of the Jews had 
spread themselves over the Empire, and had been admitted to 
the privileges of citizenship. To this latter fact the words of 
Horace apply : 

" This is the Jews grand feast ; and, I suspect, 
You d hardly like to spurn that holy sect. 
1 Nay, for such scrupulous whims I feel not any. 
1 Well, but I do ; and, like the vulgar many, 
Am rather tender in such points as these. " * 

But the prevalence of the system and its friends only served to 
exasperate the aversion of others into a bitterness of feeling not 
at all favourable to the discoveries or utterances of truth. Under 
this feeling Seneca represents the hateful Jews as able by their 
numbers and power to rule their masters ; and Juvenal complains : 
" There be, who, bred in Sabbath-fearing lore, 

The vague divinity of clouds adore ; 

Who, like their sires, their skin to priests resign, 

And hate like human flesh the flesh of swine. 

i Geoi 5 olKTflpavresDe Leg. lib. ii. De Leg. lib. il sec. 19. Orat pro. Flac. 
8 De Tranq. Anim. c. 15. 

* Josephus not only mentions Fulvia, a woman of rank in Eome, as having been 
converted to the Jewish religion, but informs us that in the reign of Nero all the 
married women in Damascus were addicted to that religion. 

* " Hodie tricesima Sabbata," etc. Sat . 9 of B. 1. 



JEWS AND PAGANS. 6 

The laws of Rome those hlinded bigots slight, 
In superstitious dread of Jewish rite ; 
To Moses and his mystic volume true, 
They set no traveller right, except a Jew." l 

The translator, Badham, remarking on the ignorance betted 
by Juvenal in these lines, adds : " Had Providence permitted to 
him the use of that volume of their (the Jews ) great lawgiver, 
how much would he have been astonished at the benevolence and 
mercy which it inculcates ! and how little would he have felt dis 
posed to boast of the light which the world had received from 
Athens or from Rome. " But that volume in Greek was 
accessible to Juvenal, and both he and Tacitus had abundant 
means of avoiding their ignorant misrepresentations of the Jewish 
religion. The latter has in one instance done it justice, and let 
his beautiful words be a reply to the poet s fancy of " cloud- 
worship," though, as the translator observes, if he gave them no 
credit for a more pure abstract notion of the Deity, a cloud was 
as good as a stone : " The Jews acknowledge one God only, and 
him they see in the mind s eye, and him they adore in contem 
plation, condemning as impious idolaters all who with perishable 
materials wrought into the human form, attempt to give a repre 
sentation of the Deity. The God of the Jews is the great govern 
ing mind that directs and guides the whole frame of nature, eter 
nal, infinite, and neither capable of change, nor subject to decay." 2 

In defending their religion and its institutions, the Jews had 
recouise to various means according to circumstances. Sometimes, 
as under Ahasuerus, and in the Maccabsean wars, they successfully 
stood for their lives and for their faith. It frequently happened, 
that in consequence of their oppressed condition, they could vin 
dicate their cause only by heroic suffering on its account. Of 
this means of defence we have some noble instances in the Baby 
lonian captivity, (Dan. ii. vi.) We cannot accord the same 
unmixed feeling of admiration to the conduct of those Jews 3 in 
later times, who, to the number of a thousand, allowed themselves 
to be massacred rather than resist their assailants on the day of 
holy rest, or those twelve thousand who perished, and their priesta 

1 "Quidam sortiti metuentem Sabbata patrem," etc. Juv.Sat. xiv. 97. 

Hist. Book v. sec. 5. 3 Joseph. Antiq. xii. vi. 2 ; Wars, i. rti 5. 



6 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

whose blood was mingled with their sacrifices, because, though 
they had come to believe it right to withstand their enemies, they 
still held it unlawful to adopt offensive measures on that day. At 
other times we find them resorting to the arts of diplomacy, and 
the aid of foreign power. They pleaded effectually, for example, 
with Agrippa and Augustus. The latter, in answer to their 
appeal, issued, and inscribed on a pillar in the temple of Csesar, 
an order in their favour, commanding, with other things, that 
they should not be obliged to go before any judge on the Sab 
bath-day, or on the day of preparation for it, after the ninth 
hour. 1 

Nor was the pen wanting. After the cessation of the prophetic 
spirit with Malachi, the books called the Apocrypha were written, 
it is supposed, by individuals of the Jewish people belonging 
mostly to Alexandria. These books, though nowhere pretending, 
and, in some instances, as they well might, even disavowing any 
claim to inspiration, contain, amidst flagrant errors and imperfec 
tions, many wise maxims, with our most authentic information 
respecting the history, doctrines, and practice of the divinely 
selected nation, and of the Church, of God, during the period of 
above four hundred years. 2 Re-echoing Scripture facts relative 
to the Sabbath, they describe the care, amounting to austerity, 
with which in the days of the Maccabees that holy institution was 
observed. To two other writers, who amongst various services to 
Judaism, stood forward in the character of its apologists, we owe 
answers to anti-Sabbatic calumnies, as well as warm eulogiums on 
the septenary rest. One of them was the learned and eloquent 
Philo-Judseus 3 The other was the well-known Josephus, 4 whose 
works, prized alike by the intelligent many, and the learned few, 
have shed much light, including a few rays on our subject, over 

1 Joseph. Antiq. xvi. ii. 3 ; xvi. vi. 1, etc. 

2 Dr. Pye Smith d First Lines of Christ. Theol. p. 472. 

8 Philo represents himself as advanced in life in A.D. 40. His language on certain 
subjects is so strikingly coincident with the phraseology of the Apostles John and 
Paul, as to be regarded by an able writer (Dr. J. Jones) as a proof of his conversion to 
Christ ianity. 

* He was born about A.D. 37, but belongs in the character of historian to the close of 
the first century. Sad it is, that living when the Gospel had begun to pour its efful 
gence on the world, he refused its illumination. For, that Josephus was a Christian, 
as the writer already referred to has laboured to show, is disproved by stubborn facts. 



CHRISTIANS, JEWS, AND PAGANS. 7 

the Sacred Scriptures, and the history and character of his nation. 
Any defence of Judaism, however, at the time when these able 
men wrote, was encumbered with serious disadvantages. The 
friends of the system were far from being happy illustrations of 
its moral tendency, and the system itself had fallen under the 
description : " In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made 
the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready 
to vanish away." (Heb. viii.,13.) 

The Sabbatic controversy now passes into two one between 
Jews and Christians ; the other between Christians and the 
adherents of Paganism. In each of these new conflicts, as 
in the old, one of the parties is subjected for a time to perse 
cution for its opinions. A new power, it is felt, has come into 
the field. Its wider and more rapid ascendency produces a 
more determined resistance than had been offered to the less 
aggressive and energetic system which it has succeeded. Christi 
anity is assailed with a proportionate severity by the heathen. 
The Jews also turn persecutors, and, like Herod and Pilate, they 
and the Pagans, who before were at enmity between themselves, 
are made friends together. From the days of the apostles down 
wards for many years, the followers of Christ had no enemies 
more fierce and unrelenting than that people, who cursed them in 
the synagogue, sent out emissaries into all countries to calumniate 
their Master and them, and were abettors, wherever they could, 
of the martyrdom of men, such as Polycarp, of whom the world 
was not worthy. Among the reasons of this deadly enmity was 
the change of the Sabbatic day. The Romans, though they had 
no objection on this score, punished the Christians for the faith 
ful observance of their day of rest, one of the testing questions 
put to the martyrs being, Dominicum servasti? Have you kept 
the Lord s day I 1 Such, however, was the success of truth, 
and of the example of these good men, that the Lord s day soon 
passed from being an object of opprobrium into a law of a great 
empire. And Julian himself was so impressed with the power of its 
arrangement of rest and instruction as to contemplate the adop 
tion of a similar provision for reviving and propagating heathen 
error. 

i Baron. An. Eccles. A.D. 303. Num. 35, etc. 



8 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

But the opposition of the Jews and Pagans to Christianity was 
conducted in the form also of assault against its principles and 
institutions by argument and ridicule. Celsus and Porphyry 
proved, if not abler, yet more zealous and subtle combatants 
against Jesus, than Seneca and Tacitus had been against Moses. 
Trypho may be considered as expressing the grounds of Jewish 
antagonism to the Christian faith. Its friends had, therefore, in 
addition to the work of propagating truth, to defend it against 
this twofold opposition. The defence was undertaken by the emi 
nent men who are so well known under the name of the Fathers, 
and occupies not the least valuable portion of their works. 

The Sabbatic views of the Fathers will fall to be presented in 
another part of this volume. Let it be sufficient in this place to 
say, that by one or more of them, un contradicted by the others, 
has each of the doctrines been held, which in our days have, 
though improperly, been termed Sabbatarian the primaeval 
appointment and patriarchal observance of a weekly day of rest 
and worship the substitution by Divinb authority of the first 
day of the week as the Christian Sabbath for the Jewish seventh 
day and the consecration by the same authority of the former, 
or Lord s clay, entirely to rest from secular labour, and to the 
immediate service of God, as required and directed in the Fourth 
Commandment, cases of necessity and mercy being, as they were, 
also, under the former economy, excepted. 

The Fathers had on the subject of the Sabbath, as on others, 
to engage in dialectic conflicts with the Jews. Besides frequent 
passages which touch on Judaism, we find some of them devoting 
entire treatises others, large portions of works, to the subject. l 
The Sabbatic institution in particular is treated of by Novatian, 
and in a work ascribed to Athanasius, and is referred to in vari 
ous patristic writings, with special respect to Jewish opinions. In 
Justin Martyr s Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew whether a real 
or fictitious person, is not certain the Christian and Jewish 
arguments on, besides other points, the continued observance of 
the seventh day as a holy clay, are presented. Trypho charges 
Justin and other Christians, as affecting superior excellence, and 

1 As Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian, Euse- 
fcius, Basil, Chrysostom, and Augustine. 



CHRISTIANS, JEWS, AND PAGANS. 9 

yet not at all differing from the Gentiles, inasmuch as they ob 
served neither the feasts nor the Sabbaths. To this Justin replies, 
that as circumcision was not necessary before Abraham, nor 
the celebration of the Sabbath and festivals and oblations before 
Moses, neither now is there any need of these observances after 
Christ has come. 1 Irenseus and Tertullian reason in the same 
way. " Abraham," says the former, " believed God without 
circumcision and the Sabbath." 2 "Let them show me," says 
the latter, "that Adam sabbatized, or that Abel in presenting 
his holy offering to God pleased him by sabbatic observance, or 
that Enoch who was translated, was an observer of the Sabbath, 
or that Noah, the builder of the Ark on account of the great 
deluge, kept the Sabbath, or that Abraham amidst Sabbath-keep 
ing offered his son Isaac, or that Melchisedec in his priesthood re 
ceived the law of the Sabbath." 3 

The word Sabbath, as will afterwards more fully appear, must be 
understood in these passages to signify the Jewish Sabbath. The 
connexion of the word with " festivals and oblations" in the argu 
ment of Justin Martyr, shows that this was the sense in which he 
used the term. That Tertullian employed it in the sam^ accepta 
tion follows from the drift of his reasoning, and from his usual mode 
of writing ; as for example, " We celebrate the day after Satur 
day in distinction from those who call this day their Sabbath, 
and who devote it to ease and eating, departing from the old 
custom, of which they are now very ignorant ;" 4 and " All anxiety 
is to be abstained from, and business postponed on the Lord s 
Day." 5 Neither Justin nor Tertullian can intend to question the 
need or the obligation of a weekly holy day under Christianity, 
for they have both not only detailed the manner in which " Sun 
day" was observed by the Christians in their times, but posi 
tively affirmed the Divine authority of the day. Irenseus, too, 
mentions the Sabbath along with circumcision, thus making it 
manifest that he refers to Mosaic ordinances, and has plainly stated 
his conviction that the Decalogue is of perpetual obligation, as 
well as that the Lord s Day is supreme among the days of the 
week, being the only season on which it was right to celebrate 

i C. 12. a Adv. Hceres, lib. iv. c. 30. 8 Adv. Judceos, sec. 4. 

* Apol. c. 16. De Oral. c. 23. 



10 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

the resurrection of Christ. 1 " The Fathers," observes Bishop 
Patrick on Gen. ii. 3, " in saying that there was no Sabbath 
among the patriarchs, meant Jewish Sabbaths. " How would Justin 
Martyr and Tertullian have indignantly spurned the interpretation 
put on their words by a recent writer, when, to accomplish the un 
godly and unphilanthropic purpose of overthrowing a Divine insti 
tution, he neglects to ascertain the meaning of words employed by 
ancient writers, or of their views elsewhere expressed, and charges 
them with saying what warranted the inference that, " except 
during the time of divine service, the Christians of that period 
lawfully might, and actually did, follow their worldly pursuits on 
the Sunday!" 2 

There is a phase of the controversy which has led to the mis 
taken notion that the Christian Church itself was for a consider 
able time divided on the subject of a weekly holy day. There 
were even in the days of the apostles persons who wished to im 
pose upon converts from heathenism the obligation of observing 
the times of the Jewish calendar, along with the other parts of 
the ancient ritual, an obligation from which the Apostle of the 
un circumcision declared them to be free (Col. ii. 16, 17), and 
which was not to be required on the one hand (Acts xv. 19), or 
to be yielded to on the other (xxi. 25). Yet a party, the Ebi- 
onites, who professed to be Christians, though they denied the 
Divinity of the Saviour, not only held and acted on the necessity of 
keeping the whole law of Moses, but insisted that all others should 
do the same. This party continued to exist for four or five centuries. 
But although, as Eusebius informs us, they celebrated the Sun 
days in remembrance of the resurrection of our Saviour, yet, as 
they observed the Jewish Sabbath, and other ceremonies like the 
Jews, 3 as they made this observance an indispensable part of 
religion, and as they disbelieved the doctrine of Christ s Deity, 
they had no claim to be considered Christians. They were ac 
cordingly ranked among heretics, and some of the Fathers wrote 
against them as such. Epiphanius devotes a part of his Pan- 
arim to the Ebionites, in which, while he holds that the first 

1 Adv. Hceres, iv. 31. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. c. 24. 

2 Examin. of the Six Tex-ts, by a Layman, p. 274 
* Hist. lib. iii. c. 27. 



CHRISTIANS, JEWS, AND PAGANS. 11 

Sabbath has revolved in its septenary cycle from the beginning of 
the world, he also contends that the Jewish day had been dis 
charged. 

Besides the Ebionites, there was a class, who were sometimes 
confounded with them, but who, for a long period at least, re 
mained distinct, the Nazarenes. These believed in the Divinity 
of our Lord, but clung to the Jewish ritual, which, however, they 
sought not to impose upon others. Although to some extent 
sympathized with by the Church, they were not considered as be 
longing to it. Justin Martyr remarks, that it was a question in 
his time whether a Christian who observed the Sabbath, that is 
Saturday, should be admitted or not to the holy mysteries. 1 
Against such Sabbatarianism, not only he, but Clement and 
Dionysius of Alexandria, Tertullian, Victorine, Novatian, and 
others, testified. Notwithstanding these efforts, respect for Satur 
day gained ground. This feeling was especially cherished in the 
Eastern Churches, in which, from deference to the Jews, who 
were numerous in the East, they distinguished the day by two 
of the supposed prerogatives of the Lord s Day, the standing 
posture in prayer, and the exclusion of fasts. Tertullian in 
forms us that a very few persons in his time began to introduce 
the former practice in the West. The historians, Socrates and 
Sozomen, attest the general observance of the Lord s Supper on 
both the seventh and first days of the week, the former except 
ing the Churches of Alexandria and Home a very large excep 
tion who followed an old tradition. 2 And Bingham states, 
that towards the close of the fourth century, the observance of 
Saturday, like Sunday, prevailed generally throughout the East, 
and the greater part of the Christian world. 3 But the former 
day was in no period of the Church s history placed on a level 
with the latter. In earlier times, a religious regard to the 
seventh day was paid by few, and disapproved by Christians in 
general. It was by many never recognised as an appropriate 
season for the celebration of the communion, and, as Bingham 
says, " there were no ecclesiastical laws obliging men to pray 

1 Dial, cum Trypho, p. 266. 

* Socr. Hist. lib. v. c. 22, and lib. v. c. 8. Soz. Hist. lib. vii. c. 18. 

Antiq. Book xx. c. 3, sec. 1. 



12 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

standing on the Sabbath ; nor, secondly, are there any imperial 
laws forbidding lawsuits and pleadings on this day ; nor, thirdly, 
any laws prohibiting the public shows and games, as on the 
Lord s Day ; nor, fourthly, any laws obliging men to abstain 
wholly from bodily labour." 1 The views and practice of 
Christians, as respected the Saturday, therefore, did not amount 
to a want of unanimity in reference to the exclusive claim of 
the Lord s Day to Divine authority, and peculiar sacredness. 
The facts bear out the statement of Archbishop Ussher, that 
" where Saturday was kept holy day, it was not as a Sabbath, 
but as a preparation-day for the Christian Sabbath." 

The literary conflicts of the Christians and Pagans, in reference 
to the Lord s Day, afford few materials of remark. In the first 
instance the persecutions of the Church, and then her ascendency 
in the Roman Empire, went to preclude, in a great measure, the 
strife of words. It appears that so late as the beginning of the 
fifth century, Pagan poetry shot some envenomed shafts at the 
Christians on account of their weekly holy day, though under 
the pretence of aiming them at the so-called and less-dreaded 
Jews. 2 At an earlier period, the heathen assailed the Christian 
ritual as contemptibly mean, and the Christian Sabbath as a sea 
son devoted to concealed impurity and crime. The charges of 
immorality, as practised on the Lord s Day by its friends, were 
triumphantly disproved. Justin Martyr and Tertullian present 
unvarnished accounts of the harmless and holy manner in which 
the Christians passed the day. The latter, and Minucius Felix, 
turn the weapons of their enemies against themselves, for which 
the flagrant and shameless profligacy of paganism furnished ample 
occasion. The groundless allegation of Celsus, that the religion 
of Jesus was without a proper worship, because it had no altars, 
images, or temples, was met and disposed of by overpowering 
arguments in one of the ablest works of Origen, but for whose 

1 Antiq. Book xx. c. 3. sec. 3. 

8 Thus wrote Rutilius Numitianus, 

Radix stultitioe cui frigida Sabbata cord! : 
Bed cor frigid ius religioiie sua est. 
Septima quaeque dies turpi damnata veterno 
Tanquam lassati mollis imago Dei. 



CHRISTIANS, JEWS, AND PAGANS. 13 

immortal pages the allegation itself must have been long ago for 
gotten. 

Although no important discussion between Christians and un 
believers on the subject appears to have arisen in the period from 
the seventh century down to the time of the Reformation, and 
Sabbatic memorials were transferred for the most part to the 
canons of councils and the edicts of princes, to the abridgment of 
the literature of the question, yet the institution still employed 
the pens of the learned, and their testimony was of no little 
consequence to its preservation, as well as to the permanent evi 
dence on its behalf. Many councils and synods directed their 
attention to the institution, and issued injunctions for its ob 
servance. It was the subject of frequent and uniformly fa 
vourable legislation by the civil powers. The dignitaries of the 
Church, particularly in England, exerted their commanding 
authority in their 1 respective dioceses on its behalf. Even 
among the Popes, a few, awed by its sanctity, took its part. 
Such means, mixed up though they were in many instances 
with superstitious, and other impure ingredients, were the tri 
butes of human reason and conscience to the sacred claims of 
the weekly rest, and helped to secure its preservation, with some 
measure of its hallowing and humanizing influence, during fifteen 
centuries. But a peculiar honour and interest attach to the 
men of those times, whether in higher or lower station, who 
breathed and shed around them the benignant spirit of the 
Divine institute, and to whom it owed, as to persons of the same 
character it will ever owe, its most congenial testimony, and best 
defence. 

But, though the harmony of Christians on points directly 
affecting the authority and sacredness of the Lord s Day continued 
unbroken for upwards of fifteen centuries, and the Reformation 
itself, which stirred so many questions, led to no immediate con 
test on this, yet on a practice allied to the weekly day of rest, 
and tending to its wrong and injury, Rome and the Reformers 
were speedily at Issue. 

HOLIDAYS. 

From an early time piety and zeal, by adding to the institu- 
2 



14 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

tions of Heaven, began, unwittingly, to prepare the way for further 
errors and future strife. In these feelings originated the appoint 
ment of stated days for the commemoration of particular event* 
in the history of the Saviour. The same feelings produced an 
other class of sacred seasons. The day of martyrdom was regarded 
as " the day of birth to a happy life for ever," and, therefore, 
worthy of grateful celebration. Such days were called Natalitia. 
To ceremonies without Divine rule there was no limit. The saints 
entitled to the honour of commemoration amounted, in the course 
of some centuries, to a multitude for each day of the year, 1 and the 
annual holidays of man became more numerous than the Sabbath- 
days of God. Self-righteousness soon converted the invention and 
observance of new ceremonies into the price of salvation. Ambi 
tion saw in these things the means of promoting its objects ; and 
the more surely to compass them, gradually withdrew the light of 
knowledge, while it ministered fresh fuel to the flame of supersti 
tion and fanaticism. Rome, holding in words the supremacy of 
the Lord s Day, indirectly impaired its authority and influence by 
ranking it with her own holidays, and by imposing on her votaries 
both classes of institutions under the same temporal penalties, and 
as alike necessary to salvation. The authority of the Church was 
sufficient to turn the scale in favour of those Sabbath-days on 
which the anniversaries of her own appointment fell, and in pro 
cess of time human holidays were practically preferred to the day 
which Christ had consecrated for His worship. So multitudinous 
had sacred days and their assigned engagements become, that not 
only was a large amount of productive labour lost to society, but 
intellectual power was uselessly expended in framing and inter 
preting the rules of a prodigious system of fooleries, and con 
science was perplexed as well as the spirit borne down by the 
endless " commandments of men." "All Christianity," says the 
Confession of Augsburg, " was placed in the observation of cer 
tain festivals, rites, fasts, and forms of apparel." - " Daily, new 
ceremonies, new orders, new holidays, new fasts, were appointed ; 

1 " Except the first day of January, when the Gentiles had been so intent upon their 
own riots as to have no leisure for martyring the Christians." Durand. Ration. Off. 
lib. vii. fol. 242. Durandus, alleging Eusebius as his authority, gives the number of 
martyrs at 5000 a day. The Editor of Cosin s Works (v. 23, notes) alleges another 
authority than Eusebius, and reduces the number to 500 J 



CONTROVERSY ABOUT HOLIDAYS. 15 

and the teachers iii the churches did exact these works at the 
people s hands as a service necessary to deserve justification, and 
they did greatly terrify their consciences if aught were omitted." 
" The doctrine of the gospel," it is further observed, " is hereby 
obscured, which teacheth that sins, are forgiven freely by Christ 
this benefit of Christ is transferred unto the work of man." 1 And 
thus, also, was the law of morality made void as well as the law 
of faith. Oppression tends to madness and anarchy ; the over 
tasked will seek relief in licentious liberty ; holidays were turned 
into seasons for vice and riot \ and, unprofitable for religious ends, 
they became auxiliaries of impiety and demoralization. 

The growing evil met, for many centuries, with little resistance. 
The later Fathers were strangely betrayed into the encouragement 
of the system, notwithstanding its attendant mischiefs which they 
observed and deplored. Not only were particular feast-days made 
by them the subjects of homilies and extravagant encomiums, but 
Basil 2 and Chrysostom 3 congratulated their hearers on having the 
martyrs as the safeguards of their country and cities against all 
enemies. Yet there were individuals who were not entirely car 
ried away by the prevailing delusion. ^Erius, presbyter of Sabacte 
in Armenia, of the fourth century, may be regarded as one of these, 
in so far as he contended strenuously against stated days for fast 
ing, and the perpetuation under Christianity of Jewish feast-days. 
Of this individual, who also advocated the equality of bishops and 
presbyters, an interesting account is given by Neander.* While 
Augustine was engaged in seeking support for the existing holidays 
in the authority of the apostles and councils, and Chrysostom, in 
lauding the pre-eminent virtues of Easter, the historian Socrates 
was preparing to strike a heavy blow at their doctrine in the 
avowal that neither the Saviour nor the apostles enjoined by any 
law the observance of that leading feast, which had crept in and 
was kept not from canon but from custom ; and in censuring 
those who contended for holidays as for life itself, while they 
regarded licentiousness as a matter of indifference, thus despising 
the commands of God, and making canons of their own. 6 About 

1 Hall s Harmony of Confessions (1842), 391, 397. 

2 Orat. on the Forty Martyrs. 8 Horn. 70, to the people of Antioch. 
G*, Hi$t. iii. 461, 462. Hist. Eccl. lib. v. c. 21, 22. 



16 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

the same time Vigilantius, a presbyter of Barcelona, denounced, 
along with other corruptions, the abuses connected with vigils and 
festivals. His treatise on the subject was assailed with much 
asperity by Jerome. 1 After an interval of four centuries, Claudius, 
bishop of Turin (fl. 817), appea/s on the arena as a combatant of 
dominant evils. " In the abolition of all saints days, as in other 
things" opposition to the worship of images, and the veneration 
of relics and crosses " he preceded the Calvinists." 2 He was fol 
lowed by the Waldenses, of whom Reinerus Sacco, an apostate 
from themselves, and a Jacobin inquisitor, thus wrote about A.D. 
1254 "They hold that all customs of the Church, except those 
which are to be found in the gospel, are to be contemned ; for 
example, the feast of light, and of palms, and the feast of Pasch, 
of Christ, and of the saints. They work on feast-days : they 
disregard the fasts of the Church, dedications, and the benedic 
tions." 3 Another writer informs us, that they rejected not only 
holidays in memory of saints, but all others whatsoever, as having 
been introduced without proper warrant, and kept no day holy 
except the Lord s Day. 4 It appears that in his views on this, as 
on other subjects, Wycliffe anticipated the reformers, and that 
there were many in his time who held the same opinions. He 
says, that " many were inclined to be of opinion, that all saints 
days ought to be abolished in order to celebrate none but the 
festival of Jesus Christ, because then the memory of Jesus Christ 
would always be recent, and the devotion of the people would not 
be parcelled out between Jesus Christ and his members." 5 So 
intolerable was the evil of multiplied holidays felt to be by 
thoughtful men in the following century as to produce a loud call 
for redress. The cardinal of Canibray brought the matter before 
the Council of Constance (A.D. 1414). 6 He also pleaded for the 
rectification of this and of some other disorders, in his Treatise on 
Reformation, holding, " that excepting Sundays and the great 
festivals instituted by the Church, people ought to be allowed to 
work on holidays after Divine service, as well on account of the 

Bruce, Annus Sccularis, p. 199. Neander s Gen. Hist., iii. 456. 

* Gretsmis, in Allan Damascenum, p. 490. 8 Blair s Hist, of the Wald. i 408. 

* Leger, Hist. G4n. des Eglis. Vaudois, i. 123. Brace s A t. Sec. p. 20. 
Hcylyn s Hist, of the Sab. part 2, p. 16&. 



CONTROVERSY ABOUT HOLIDAYS. 17 

debaucheries and enormities in which the generality of people in 
dulge themselves on these days, as out of regard to labouring men 
who have need of all the time they breathe in to get their liveli 
hood." 1 The subject called forth the eloquent and impassioned 
expostulations of Nicholas de Clemangis, who describes holidays 
as seasons distinguished alike by the abominable obscenities of 
Bacchus and Venus, and by the bloody rites of Mars and Bellona, 
inquires what noble or great man would not revolt at the cele 
bration of His birthday with such villanies, and whether any 
handiwork on the solemnities of the saints would not be infinitely 
preferable to so horrible practices, and observes, " If a man 
oppressed with penury, be found to have laboured in his field or 
vineyard, he is cited and severely punished, but he who is guilty of 
these worse things shall want both punishment and an accuser." 2 
The council did adopt some measures of reformation. The Popes, 
however, disregarded all complaints, and not only retained the 
days already established, but added others daily as they saw 
occasion. 3 

If the reformers had been able to accomplish it, the evil would 
have been swept away. Luther repeatedly declared his disap 
proval of holidays, and his desire that they were abolished. 4 " I 
would to God," says Bucer, " that every holy day whatsoever, 
beside the Lord s Day, were abolished. That zeal, which brought 
them first in, was without all warrant or example of the Scripture, 
and only followed natural reason, driving out the holy days of the 
Pagans, as one nail is driven out with another. These holy days 
have been defiled with so gross superstition, that I marvel if there 
be any Christian who does not shake at their very names/ 5 
Farel and Viret achieved their removal from Geneva. On coming 
to reside there, Calvin acquiesced in the received custom. His 
refusal, and that of his colleagues, Farel and Couralt, to approve 
of the restoration- of the former practice at the dictation of the 

1 Bruce s An. Sec. p. 162. Gerson, in a sermon before the Council on the Nativity 
of the Virgin, expressed similar sentiments, but in the same breath proposed that a 
new festival should be instituted in honour of Joseph s virginity. 

2 Tractat. de Nov. Celebrit. non instit. 3 Heylyn s Hist, of the Sab. part 2, p. 168. 
* Consultum esse ut omnia festa aboleantur, solo Dominico Die retento. Lib. ad 

Nobil. G p rman. Utinam apud Christianos nullum esset festum, nisi die Dominicus. 
De Bon. Oper. * Bucer on Matt x. 11 



18 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

Bernese, were among the reasons of their banishment from that 
city. On their departure, the holidays, as observed in Berne, with 
certain accompanying rites, were re-established, which, however, 
were again, after years of controversy, abolished by the people. 
Calvin declared that he had no hand in this, though he was not 
ranch displeased that it had so happened ; and that had he been 
consulted, he would not have given his opinion in favour of such a 
measure. 1 " Nor is this," he elsewhere states, " the only church 
which retained no solemnities but those of the seventh day ; the 
same custom had already been introduced into Strasburg." In no 
case was the dismissal of such observances more thorough and 
permanent than in Scotland. The First Book of Discipline de 
clares, that " the holidays invented by men, such as Christmas, 
Circumcision, Epiphany, Purification, and other fond feasts of our 
Lady, with the feasts of the apostles, martyrs, and virgins, witk 
others, we judge utterly to be abolished forth of this realm, be 
cause th^y have no assurance in God s Word." When, in 1566, 
the Helvetic Confession, a copy of which was sent to this country, 
was approved by a number of the superintendents, with some of 
the most learned ministers, and afterwards by the General Assem 
bly, the part that sanctioned holy days, of which the Church of 
Scotland rejected all but the Sabbath-day, was in both cases ex- 
cepted from the favourable verdict. In the General Assembly, 
held August 6, 1575, it was enacted, "That all days which here 
tofore have been kept holy, besides the Sabbath-days, such as Yule 
day, saints days, and such others, may be abolished, and a civil 
penalty (be appointed) against the keepers thereof by ceremonies, 
banquetting, fasting, and such other vanities." 2 Hence the boast 
of King James vi., so much in contrast with his subsequent pro 
ceedings towards his native land when, in addressing the As 
sembly of 1590, he praised God that he was born in such a time 
as in the time of the light of the Gospel, and in such a place as 
to be King in such a Kirk, the sincerest kirk in the world : " The 
Kirk of Geneva," he proceeded, " keepeth Pasch and Yule. 3 What 
have they for them 1 They have no institution. As for our 

1 For these facts, see Calv. Epist. ad nailer et ad Min. Bvr. and Bonnet s Istit-s oj 
Calvin, i. 40, 46, notes. 
a Book of the Univ. Kirk of Scotland (1S39), p. 151. Easter and Christmas. 



CONTROVERSY ABOUT HOLIDAYS. 19 

neighbour Kirk in England, their service is an evil-said mass in 
Eijglish : they want nothing of the mass but the liftings." 1 

In other instances the success of the Reformers in this matter 
did not come up to their wishes. We learn from a letter of 
Bullioger to Calvin, written in 1551, that the Church of Zurich 
had recovered her tranquillity after no small discord produced by 
her having discarded twelve feast-days of Rome. It appears from 
the Acts of Synod held at Dort in 1574, that the Belgic Churches 
had agreed to be content with the observance of the Sabbath. 2 
But the magistrates interfered to maintain some of the old holi 
days, so that the Synod held at the same place in 1578 adopted 
a modified resolution, to the effect that it were to be wished that 
the liberty avowed by God of working six days in the week were 
retained in the churches, and the Lord s Day alone devoted to rest; 
but since by the authority of the magistrates some other holidays 
are observed Christmas, etc., the ministers of the Word shall 
labour by their preaching to turn the useless and hurtful practice 
of holiday-keeping, or idleness, into the occasion of holy and pro 
fitable employment, aud shall do the same in cities where more 
festivals are kept by the authority of the magistrates ; and that 
the churches shall endeavour, as far as possible, to have the stated 
observance of every feast, except Christmas, Easter, Ascension-day, 
and Whitsunday, abolished with all due speed. 3 The French 
Protestants entertained the same views, 4 only being compelled by 
the Edict of Nantes to abstain from working on the holidays of 
the Roman Catholic Church, they agreed to congregate on these 
days either for hearing the word preached, or for prayer, as the 
consistories might find convenient, that the time might not be 
spent in idleness or vice. 5 In England, for upwards of a century- 
after holiday abuses had been canvassed in the Council of Con 
stance, nothing was done by the authorities in the shape of remedy 
beyond a few attempts to secure the better observance of the 
existing days. In 1523, six years after Luther had begun his 
career of reform, Cuthbert, bishop of London, reduced the many 
anniversaries of church dedications in his diocese to one annual 

i Calderwood s Hist. (1678), p. 286. 2 Kerkdyk Hantboekje (1738), Art. 53. 

* Kerkelyk Hantbodye (1738), Art. 75, Voet. Disput. Select, iii. 1309. 

Fort, ibid. 6 order qf Synod at Vitre, Bruce g An. Sec. p. 30. 



20 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTKOVERSIES. 

celebration, " in order," as he said, " to diminish the number of 
holidays which encouraged the people to indulge in riotous x- 
cesses." 1 But the most effectual assault on the evil was that of 
Henry VIIL, who, having broken with the Pope, and set him 
self to dissolve the monasteries, authorized Cromwell, his vicar- 
general, to declare in the famous convocation of June 1536, " that 
it was his Majesty s pleasure that the rites and ceremonies of the 
Church should be reformed by the rules of Scripture, and that 
nothing should be maintained which did not rest on that autho 
rity ;" following up the intimation of this noble principle with an 
order for the abolition, as demanded by the moral and social in 
terests of the community, of " the feast of the patron of every 
Church, and all those feasts which fall either in harvest-time 
July 1 to Sept. 29 or in term-time at Westminster, except the 
feasts of the Apostles, of our blessed Lady, and of St. George, and 
those holidays on which the judges were not wont to sit in judg 
ment." This order distinguishes "the Sabbath-day " from holi 
days " instituted by man." The fickle monarch, by an ordinance 
in 1541, restored the feasts of St. Luke, St. Mark, and St. Mary 
Magdalene, " their names being often and many times mentioned 
in plain and manifest Scripture," but the feasts of the Inven 
tion, Exaltation of Holy Cross, and St. Lawrence, were abolished. 
" Divers superstitions and childish observances " were also placed 
under ban. And thus was fixed except that the feast of St. 
Mary Magdalene was excluded in 1552 the precise number of 
holidays which is still to be found in the Prayer-book. 

The conflict of the Keformers with the Church of Kome on the 
subject before us was soon ended. That Church was true to her 
motto, " Always the same." After the Reformers had laboured 
for years to correct abuses of every kind, these were all stereotyped 
by the Council of Trent. Rome even Asserted more daringly an 
authority overtimes and seasons ; and so late as 1549, consigned 
to the flames a poor man who ventured to maintain his right to 
work on one of her festival days that he might not starve. 2 On 
the other hand, the Reformed Churches generally settled down in 
the observances which they were able to secure. Although most 
of their leaders failed to attain in this respect all that they desired. 

1 WOk. Condi iii. 701. Fox s Acts and Mon., Table of French Martyrs, K. Hen. vm. 



CONTROVERSY ABOUT HOLIDAYS. . 21 

much nevertheless was gained. Happy had it been, as events 
have shown, for the peace and prosperity of all the Churches, if 
they had adopted the principle, that the Lord s Day is the only 
stated holy day appointed by Christ, who has, however, given to 
his followers the right of appropriating occasional seasons for 
public worship as circumstances may require. But the popular 
prejudice operated so strongly in various parts of Europe, as to 
prevent so desirable a consummation. There were many, however, 
in England who were not satisfied with this state of things, and 
hence a contest, earnest and prolonged, on the subject of rites and 
ceremonies among the Protestants of that country, which resulted 
in the expatriation of many of her best people, and in the disrup 
tion of the Church. - 

In this contest, as in others already noticed, there was on the 
one side power, the power of the oppressor. In the reign of 
Elizabeth, valuable though the services rendered to the Reforma 
tion were, acts were passed and measures employed, in not a few 
instances through the active influence of the Queen, which grieved 
the hearts of good men, and excluded from their churches, reduced 
to poverty, consigned to prison, or forced into banishment, thou 
sands of ministers a third, says Hume, 1 of all the ecclesiastics 
in the kingdom, many of them learned and excellent men because 
they could not conscientiously submit to unnecessary compliances, 
which no earthly power had the right to exact. The consequent 
results to the nation were, that great numbers of churches were 
without ministers, and that three thousand others were supplied 
with mere readers who could not preach at all, to the promotion 
everywhere of Popery, ungodliness, and immorality. 2 

It was expected that on the accession of James to the throne 
of England, a prince who had avowed his attachment to " the 
sincerest kirk in the world," and his abhorrence of every vestige of 
Popery, would do. justice to the persecuted and their cause. A 
deputation of the Puritans, accordingly, presented to his Majesty 
during his progress to London, the celebrated Millenary address, 
entitled " The humble Petition of the Ministers of the Church of 
England, desiring reformation of certain ceremonies and abuses of 
the Church," in which they say, " that being more than a thou- 

Hist. (1805), vol. v. p. 463. 2 Brook s Puritans, i. 60 

, 









42 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC COIsTKOVERSIES. 

sand ministers groaning under the burden of human rites and 
ceremonies, they with one consent threw themselves at his royal 
feet, for a reformation in the Church-service, ministry, livings, 
and discipline," praying 1{ that the Lord s Day be not profaned, 
and the rest upon holidays not so strictly urged." The petitioners 
had their fears as well as hopes, but they were not kept in sus 
pense. The king soon after declared at the Hampton Conference, 
that " he would compel them to conform, or harrie them out 
of the land, or else -do worse ;" and in his first Parliament avowed, 
that while he was content to meet " our Mother-Church," the 
Church of Rome, half way, the Puritans were insufferable in any 
well-regulated state. Accordingly, four hundred of his petitioners 
were in the course of a few years cast into prison, or driven from 
their country. These doings were followed by the introduction 
into Scotland of Prelacy, and four holidays against " the sense of 
the Kirk and nation," and with consequences the most disastrous 
to both. Measures more atrocious were employed against the 
Nonconformists in England and the Presbyterians in Scotland, by 
Charles i., till both parts of the kingdom were roused to arms, 
and Laud, the chief instigator of persecution, and the King 
himself, perished on the scaffold. Under the remarkable rule 
which succeeded, and which, absolute though it was, granted full 
toleration to all professing Christians, the Parliament passed an 
ordinance, setting aside all festivals, commonly called holidays, 
and appointing the second Tuesday in each mouth to be a day of 
recreation " for all scholars, apprentices, and other servants, the 
leave and approbation of their masters being first had and ob 
tained." The restored monarchy and ecclesiastical system brought 
with them the increased oppression of the Puritans, of which the 
crowning instance in the time of Charles n. was the passing in 
1662, of the "Act of Uniformity," requiring every one to con 
form to the Prayer-book, rites and ceremonies of the Church, and 
causing the deprivation of nearly two thousand five hundred 
ministers, the death of three thousand nonconformists, and the 
ruin of sixty thousand families. The undiminished severity of 
the following reign is clearly indicated, when to the mention of 
the name of Jeffreys, it is added, that no dissenting minister could 
appear in public, or travel, except in disguise, and that fourteen 



CONTROVERSY ABOUT HOLIDAYS. 23 

hundred and sixty Quakers were in prison, not for crime, but for 
nonconformity. 

There is no satisfaction in recalling these depraved exhibitions 
of our common nature, except with the view of serving the ends 
of utility and truth. And it is pleasant to turn from them to the 
succession of noble-minded men who sympathized with the victims 
of wrong, 1 and to the salutary effects of measures which, though 
they set at nought the claims of justice and humanity, expatriated 
some thirty thousand citizens, and drained the country of so much 
of its wealth and moral worth, were, under Providence, the 
occasion of establishing our rights at the Revolution, of training a 
race of men who have made America and England what they are, 
and of sounding in the ears of oppressors notes of warning which 
can never die away. 

From the circumstances of the Puritans, it might be presumed 
that there could be little intellectual controversy on questions 
which were summarily disposed of by authority. When, as in 
the days of Elizabeth, a person for saying, "that to keep the 
Queen s birthday as a holy day was to make her an idol," might 
be committed to the Fleet, and another for vindicating him, might 
be sent to the Marshalsea, when, as at the Hampton Court 
Conference, and on many other occasions, the Puritans were sub 
jected to browbeating and abuse, and when, as afterwards, a 
physician, for denying the Divine right of bishops above presby 
ters, a barrister for writing against plays, and two ministers for 
publishing pamphlets against recent innovations and prelacy 
respectively, were degraded, imprisoned, fined, and, in two of the 
cases, barbarously maimed in their persons, it may be conceived, 
that the prosecutors had no need, and the sufferers small encour 
agement, to enter the arena of disputation. Yet the former did 
sometimes descend from their vantage ground, and the latter, 

i The Earls of Bedford and Warwick, Lord Rich, Sir Francis Knollys, Sir William 
Cecil, Beza, the General Assembly, the Parliament at various times, Mr. Attorney 
Morrice, Archbishops Grindal and Abbot (repeatedly), Bishops Rudd and Williams, etc. 
Grindal for his favour to the Puritans was under censure for some years, and Williams for 
saying that " they were the King s best subjects, and he was sure they would carry all 
at last," was fined 11,000, and committed to the Tower, his library and goods being 
gold to pay the fine, to which was added a fine of 8000 on the discovery among hia 
papers of two letters addressed to him, and containing certain dark expressions. 



24 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

under all their disabilities, ventured to encounter them, or even to 
be the assailants. Howe has condensed the history of the conflict 
before his time in his letter to Bishop Barlow : " Few metaphy 
sical questions are disputed with nicer subtlety than the matter of 
the ceremonies has been by Archbishop Whitgift, Cartwright, 
Hooker, Parker, 1 Dr. Burgess, Dr. Ames, Gillespy, Jeanes, 2 
Calderwood, Dr. Owen, Baxter, etc." 3 

The subject had, indeed, been canvassed in the days of Edward 
vi., when Hooper and others, supported by a majority of the 
reforming clergy, contended against the vestments and other relics 
of Popery, and again during the earlier years of Elizabeth s reign, 
particularly in the Convocation of 1562, at which the petition for 
the removal of the rites and ceremonies was rejected by a single 
proxy vote. But Howe has accurately commenced his list with 
the names of Whitgift and Cartwright, since it was not till these 
learned men professors of Divinity in the University of Cam 
bridge wrote, that the points of difference received a full and 
formal discussion. They published each two works, in the course 
of the years 1572-77, which nearly exhausted the question. How 
Cartwright acquitted himself on the occasion may be conceived 
from Beza s recommendation of him to Queen Elizabeth, as a 
person far better qualified to refute " the Rhemish New Testa 
ment " than he himself was ; and from the words upon another 
occasion of the same reformer when writing to a friend in England 
he said, " Here is now with us your countryman, Thomas Cart 
wright, than whom, I think, the sun doth not see a more learned 
man." 4 Whitgift s part in the controversy has been pronounced 
learned, and, in some instances, eloquent. But it lay open to this 
cutting remark of Ballard, a Popish priest, " I would desire no 
better books to prove my doctrine of Popery than Whitgift s 
against Cartwright, and his injunctions set forth in her Majesty s 
name." 5 Within a few years there followed a discussion between 

1 Robert Parker, a rector of the Church, author of De Politico. Ecdesiastica, an able 
treatise. 

2 Henry Jeanes, also a rector, and according to Wood, "a noted and ready disputant, 
* noted metaphysician." He is the author of controversial publications against Good 
win, Milton, Drs. Hammond and Jeremy Taylor, of a subtlety quite according to Sir W 
Hamilton s own heart ; and, also, of several excellent sermons. 

Works (1836), p. 23. * Clark s Lives, pp. 18, 19. Strype s Whitgift, p. 285. 



CONTROVERSY ABOUT HOLIDAYS. 25 

Hooker and Travers, when both were lecturers at the Temple. 
Travers was silenced by authority. Declining an invitation to a 
professorship in the University of St. Andrews, he accepted the 
provostship of Trinity College, Dublin, where he had Ussher as a 
pupil. He had a principal share in the composition of the Book 
of Discipline, afterwards the ecclesiastical directory of the Com 
monwealth. The dispute brought out the remarkable sentence 
from Hooker, * Schisms and disturbances will arise in the Church, 
if all men may be tolerated to think as they please, and publicly 
speak what they think." But its chief result was, that by means 
of it he was induced to prepare his great work, for which purpose 
he withdrew to a more retired situation. The Ecclesiastical Polity 
has received even from those most unfriendly to its views the 
praise of extraordinary erudition, research, eloquence, and modera 
tion ; and of having superseded all other defences of the Church 
of England. But it has been too truly said, that, if written in 
support of the Popish hierarchy and ritual, the greater part of it 
would have required little alteration. 

The name of Dr. Ames, or Amesius, has given importance and 
fame to a contest between him and Bishop Morton, with Dr. Bur 
gess, on whom the bishop devolved the task of defending his work 
on The Innocence of the Three Ceremonies. Dr. Ames had suf 
fered for his nonconformity, having been obliged to retire to Hol 
land, whither he was pursued by the hostile influence even of 
Archbishop Abbot, who procured his removal from the English 
Church at the Hague, of which he had been chosen minister, and 
prevented his appointment to a chair in the University of Leyden. 
He was for twelve years the admired professor of divinity at 
Franeker. His third work in the controversy, A Fresh Suit 
against Human Ceremonies in God s Worship, which was pub 
lished in 1633, after the death of its author, and was the means 
of converting Baxter to nonconformity on several points, is, says 
Orme, " one of the most able works of the period, on the subject 
on which it treats. Its author was a man of profound learning, 
great acuteness, and eminent piety. . . . Though not professedly an 
answer to Hooker s Ecclesiastical Polity, it embraces everything 
of importance in that noted work." 1 

i Life and Times of Richard Baxter, p. 19. 



26 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

The imposition of Prelacy, and Mie Five Articles of Perth, on 
the people of Scotland, extended the controversy to that country, 
where men of na ordinary endowments were found prepared to 
defend their religious polity. Henderson stood forward in the 
Assembly of 1618, to oppose the innovations, and was, along with 
Calderwood and others, author of a book (1619) proving the nullity 
of that Assembly. The Course of Conformitie (1622) seems to have 
been the production of William Scot, minister of Cupar-Fife. 1 Mr, 
John Murray, minister of Leith, and afterwards of Dunfermline, 
was the author of A Dialogue, etc. (1620), on the recent innova 
tions. In a memoir of this individual, Dr. M Crie remarks, " As 
Christian experience and practical godliness have been so often 
pressed to the disparagement of all contendings about the external 
form and discipline of the Church, it may be observed, that in 
this eminent person they were closely united, as they have been 
in * a great cloud of witnesses with which we are compassed 
about. " 2 It may be added, that even were the latter class of 
subjects admitted to be on some accounts less important than the 
other, it is " the least in the kingdom of heaven who breaks or 
teaches men to break one of these least commandments," and "the 
great" in that kingdom who " do and teach these commandments." 
The Nonconformists both in England and in Scotland were reli 
giously and morally, as well as intellectually, the elite of the com 
munity. It was not among them that the profane, the dishonest, 
the dissolute, and the ignorant were to be found. Circumstances 
sometimes required of them, as in the case of Calderwood, to devote 
their energies to the defence of points connected with ecclesiastical 
government and discipline. But it will generally be found that 
their writers were still more prolific on subjects of doctrine and 
personal piety, and that they were the contributors of our best 
works in both these departments. Jeanes, Ames, Owen, and 
Baxter, are a few out of many instances. The spirit of Adam Gib 
has been common among such men : " I have used," he says, " my 
best endeavours all along," for forty-five years, " through { evil 
report and good report, to maintain the cause of the Secession tes 
timony which I profess, on behalf of the Keformation-principles of 
the Church of Scotland, against the manifold errors and corrup- 

i Scot s Narr., Pre.f. p. vi. note(Wod. Soc. Works&gt; a Miscell. Writi-ng8(lM\), p. 151 



CONTROVERSY ABOUT HOLIDAYS. 27 

tions of the present age. But I have very seldom entertained my 
hearers from the pulpit with any peculiarities of that cause. It 
has been always my principal, and almost only business there, to 
explain and enforce those doctrines and duties which are accounted 
of among Christians of all denominations, so far as they take the 
substance of their Christianity from the Bible. And I have a 
particular satisfaction in this providential ordering, that my former 
appearances before the world, in favour of the special testimony 
which I have espoused, are succeeded by the present appearance 
on behalf of the common interests of Christianity." 1 A work of 
Gillespie, under the title, TJie English Popish Ceremonies obtruded 
upon the Church of Scotland (1G37), though the production of 
a mere youth, was deemed worthy of being " discharged by a 
proclamation." Baillie extols it as a marvellous composition, and 
." far above such an age." 2 But the most voluminous writer on 
the subject was Calderwood, author of the True History of the 
Church of Scotland (1678), who, besides replies to Dr. Morton 
maintaining his "innocent" to be "nocent" ceremonies (1623), 
a Re-examination of the Five Articles enacted at Perth, etc. (1636), 
with other books and tracts, published in 1623 the Altar e Da- 
mascenum, " beyond comparison the most learned and elaborate 
work ever written on the subject, embracing the whole contro 
versy between the English and Scottish Churches as to govern 
ment, discipline, and worship. It was never answered, nor is it 
easy to see how it could be answered. It was held in high esti 
mation by foreign divines, having been printed more than once on 
the Continent." 3 

It would be unnecessary to dwell on the writings of the decided 

1 Sacred Contemplations, Preface a work which discovers a profound acquaintance 
with Divine truth, and powers of vigorous thinking and writing, even when its author 
was in his seventy-third year. 

2 Stevenson s History, ii. p. 217. Baillie s Letters, i. pp. 67, 68. 

3 M Crie s Miscell. Writings (1S41), words of the editor, p. 78. In au advertisement 
to the reader, prefixed to the Leyden edition (170S) of the Altare Damascenum, we have 
the now well-known remark of James i., the implacable enemy of Calderwood, that the 
work was unanswerable, as there was nothing in it but Scripture, reason, and the 
Fathers. In his Appendix to his History, Spotswood, another enemy, is constrained to 
acknowledge its consummate erudition. It is mentioned by Orme as one of the means 
by which Baxter was brought to "the full conviction that the English Episcopacy is a 
totally different thing from the primitive, that it had corrupted the churches and th 
ministry, and destroyed all Christian discipline." Life of Baxter, pp. 22, 33 



28 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

Owen, or of the more moderate Baxter, in this controversy, or to 
recall the lucubrations of Bancroft and Durell, with those of their 
respective opponents, Bradshaw and Hickman. And it is suffi 
cient, to do little more than name the remaining principal writers 
on our subject, Nicholls and Pierce, who present the substance 
of the controversy between the Church and the Nonconformists ; 
Calamy and Bishop Hoadly, whose writings have been said to 
give the fullest view of the points of difference between these 
parties to be found in our language ; and, in reference to holidays 
in particular, Wheatly, who has done justice to the arguments 
for such seasons, 1 with Professor Brace of Whitburn, who applied 
his remarkable powers and acquirements to a work in which he 
endeavours to prove that holidays are contrary to Scripture, and 
fraught with injury to the best interests of society. 2 

We may add, that it fitly devolved on the intimate friend of 
Bruce, Dr. M Crie, to appear in defence of the principles of the 
Scottish Reformation, when, in 1817, the Court papers announced 
that the churches throughout the country were to be opened for 
divine service on the day appointed for the funeral of the Princess 
Charlotte. The late Dr. Andrew Thomson positively refused to 
comply with the order. A discussion ensued, which, after several 
pamphlets had appeared on both sides, was terminated by a pub 
lication from the pen of Dr. M Crie 3 under the name of Scoto- 
Britannus, a- brochure not discreditable to the philosophy and 
genius of the distinguished author. 

As to the question of the propriety of those measures which 
were employed to compel compliance with the rites and ceremonies 
of the dominant Church, we believe that the progress of know 
ledge has left, in the minds of all enlightened Protestants, no 
doubt that such measures were inexpedient, incompetent, and un 
just. On the question, however, of the appointment of stated 
days for the commemoration of good men, or of some remarkable 
particulars in the life of Christ, there is still a difference of opinion. 
Wheatly thus defends the practice as regards " the remembrance 

1 In Rational Illustration, etc., ch. v. Of the, Sundays and Holydays. 

Annus Secularis, or the British Jubike, etc. (1788.) 

8 Free Thoughts on the Late Religious Celebration of the Funeral of her Royal Highness 
the Princess Charlotte of Wales ; and on the Discussion to which it has pven rise in Edin 
burgh. See Dr. M Crie s Miscell. Writing*, pp. 356, 357- 



CONTROVERSY ABOUT HOLIDAYS. 29 

of some special acts and passages of our Lord in the redemption 
of mankind." "That the observation of such days is requisite, 
is evident from the practice both of Jews and Gentiles. Nature 
taught the one, and God the other, that the celebration of solemn 
festivals was a part of the public exercise of religion. Besides 
the feasts of the Passover, of Weeks, and of Tabernacles, which 
were all of Divine appointment, the Jews celebrated some of their 
own institution, viz., the feast of Purim, and the Dedication of 
the Temple, the latter of which even our blessed Saviour himself 
honoured with his presence. As to the celebration of Christian 
festivals, the first Christians thought themselves as much obliged 
to observe them as the Jews were to observe theirs. They had 
received greater benefits, and therefore it would have been the 
highest degree of ingratitude to have been less zealous in comme 
morating them. And, accordingly, we find that in the very in 
fancy of Christianity, some certain days were yearly set apart to 
commemorate the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, the coming 
of the Holy Ghost, etc., and to glorify God by a humble arid 
grateful acknowledgment of these mercies granted to them at those 
times. Which laudable and religious custom so soon prevailed 
over the universal Church, that in five hundred years after our 
Saviour, we meet with them distinguished by the same names we 
now call them by ; such as Epiphany, Ascension-day, Whitsunday, 
etc., and appointed to be observed on those days on which the 
Church of England now observes them." 1 In the absence of a 
summary by any eminent writer of the argument on the other 
side, we present two or three brief extracts from the writings of 
Amesitis and Owen. The former, in the preface to his Fresh Suit, 
says : " The state of this war is this ; we, as it becometh Chris 
tians, stand upon the sufficiency of Christ s institutions for all kind 
of worship. The Word, say we, and nothing but the Word, in 
matters of religious worship. The prelates rise up on the other 
side, and will needs have us allow and use certain human cere 
monies in our Christian worship. We desire to be excused as 
holding them unlawful. Christ we know, and all that cometh 
from Him we are ready to embrace ; but these human ceremonies 
we know not, nor can have anything to do with them. Upon 

1 Rational Illustration, ete. Of the Sundays and Holydayt, ch. v. Introd. 



80 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

this they make fierce war upon us ; and yet lay all the fault of 
this war, and the mischiefs of it, on our backs." In his Truth 
and Innocence Vindicated, Dr. Owen shows that all worship under 
the Mosaic dispensation was to be exclusively of Divine appoint 
ment (Exod. xx. 4, 5 ; xl. ; Deut. iv. 2 ; xii. 32 ; 1 Kings xii. 
33 ; Prov. xxx. 6 , MaL iv. 4) ; that every human addition to it 
was. rejected in that word of the blessed Holy One, " In vain do 
they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of 
men ;" that the churches of the New Testament had their foun 
dation laid in the command of our Saviour, " Go ye, and disciple 
all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have 
commanded you ;" that his presence was promised, " Lo, I am 
with you always," to accompany the teaching and observance of 
His own ordinances, not of any human super-additions ; and that 
in no one instance did the apostles impose anything on the prac 
tice of the churches in the worship of God, to be necessarily or 
for a continuance observed among them, but what had the express 
warrant and authority of our Lord Christ. 1 " I shall take leave 
to say," are his words in his treatise on Communion with God, 
" what is on my heart, and what (the Lord assisting) I shall will 
ingly make good against all the world, namely, that that prin 
ciple, that the Church hath power to institute and appoint any 
thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God, either as to 
matter or to manner, beyond the orderly observance of such cir 
cumstances as necessarily attend such ordinances as Christ himself 
hath instituted, lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition 
and idolatry, of all the confusion, blood, persecution, and wars, 
that have for so long a season spread themselves over the Chris 
tian world ; and that it is the design of a great part of the reve 
lation to make a discovery of this truth." 2 

It is more than probable, that, when men of the greatest learn 
ing, wisdom, and piety, engage earnestly in a controversy, perse 
vere in it, and " suffer the loss of all things," rather than abandon 
the principles which they conceive it to involve, the matter in 
dispute is no trifle. What must raise this probability as to the 
case before us into certainty, are the two considerations ; first, 
that such questions had to be settled as. Whether Christ be the 

i Works (1826), xxi. 336, 387, * Hid. x. 184, 186. 



CONTROVERSY ABOUT HOLIDAYS. 31 

sole lawgiver in his Church 1 and Whether the Scriptures be a suf 
ficient rule of worship ? and, second, that history has proved the 
opinions on one side to have been productive of great good, and, 
on the other, of incalculable evil. And if we bear in mind the 
superior intelligence and morals of the Puritans as a body to those 
of their neighbours the impossibility of vindicating the ceremo 
nies without striking at the above-mentioned scriptural principles, 
and at Protestantism generally with the results of the systems, 
written, respectively, in the blessings of knowledge, religion, and 
prosperity, and in the reverse, we seem to have the means of de 
termining, along with the value of the contest, the side on which 
the truth lay ; in other words, that the one class of opinions were 
importantly right, and the other gravely wrong. How happy for 
the Church of England were she warned by her own history, and 
the recent mutinies in her camp, yet to fulfil the desires of her 
early reformers by purging away her remaining Popery ! And 
how sad for the churches in Scotland, should they, instead of 
holding fast and making real progress, come to weary of their 
simple religious forms, and yield to the insidious attempts of 
recreant sons to secularize a system of polity and worship which 
has been the glory and blessing of their country ! On this sub 
ject let us employ the weighty words of a distinguished Scot 
tish writer : " This thorough reform " the " abolishing at the 
Reformation of holidays, and a multitude of other ceremonies " 
says M Crie, " constitutes the high distinction of Scotland among 
the Protestant Churches. Its beneficial influence has extended 
to all departments of society ; it has improved our temporal as 
well as our spiritual welfare ; it has freed us from many galling 
impositions which diminish the comforts and fret the spirits of 
other nations. It may be seen in the superior information of our 
people, in their freedom from childish fears and vulgar prejudices, 
in the purity of their morals, and in that practical regard which, 
unconstrained by forms, and unattracted by show, they voluntarily 
pay to the ordinances of religion. One of the worst symptoms of 
our state, and which may justly occasion foreboding apprehensions, 
is, that we are not duly sensible of our privileges, nor aware of 
the cause to which, under Providence, we are principally to ascribe 
them and that there are many among us whose conduct gives 



32 SKETCHES OP SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

too much ground to suspect that they would be ready to part at 
a very cheap rate with those privileges which their fathers so 
dearly won. 

fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint. 

.... If ever the time come when the attachment of the people 
of Scotland to Presbytery shall be loosened and give way, its 
effects will not be confined to religion. To this attachment to the 
soul-inspiring recollections by which it has been cherished to the 
unfettered genius of our worship to our exemption from the be 
numbing bondage of recurring holidays, political or religious, and 
from forms of prayer dictated on particular occasions by the Court, 
and to the freedom of discussion yet retained in our ecclesiastical 
assemblies, we hesitate not to ascribe, more than to any other cause, 
the preservation of public spirit and independence, which many 
things in our political situation and local circumstances have a 
powerful tendency to weaken and to crush. Those who view every 
expression of these feelings with jealousy, will, of course, encourage 
or connive at whatever is calculated to blunt them. But all who 
wish well to the public spirit of Scotland, as well as to her reli- 
giofls purity, are called upon to deprecate and resist such acts of 
conformity. And this resistance cannot be opposed to the evil at 
too early a stage. 

Principiis obsta ; sero medicina paratur, 
Cum mala per longas invaluere moras. " l 

ENGLAND. 

No country has owed more to the Lord s Day than Scotland, 
and in none was the institution more indebted to the Reformation. 
There it rose at once, from a position almost on a level with Rome s 
crowd of fasts and feasts, to its proper honours as the one perma 
nent holy day of the Christian Church. In other Protestant 
lands its claims were neither so definitely settled nor so fully 
recognised. Among the evils remaining unredressed, not the least 
important were certain days of man s consecration those plants, 
which, as not of divine planting, the Reformers would have 
" rooted up," but which, left to cluster round the sacred tre v e of 

i Miscett. Writings, pp 674, J&gt;85. 



ENGLAND. 33 

liberty, drew to themselves the nourishment necessary to its 
vigour and luxuriance. It is a matter rather of regret than 
marvel, that these great and good men, in exposing the prevalent 
error that the observance, however perfunctory, of rites and holy 
days, atoned for sin and exhausted moral obligation, should have 
let fall expressions in reference to the Lord s Day, hardly reconcil 
able with their decided testimonies on other occasions to its 
authority and excellence, or with their practical regard to its 
claims. Nor is it surprising, though also to be regretted, that 
amidst their manifold engagements they should have failed to 
present in their writings a full exposition of sabbatic doctrine and 
law, instead of those unsatisfactory notices of the subject which 
an able writer has thus described : " There is no regular and sys 
tematic treatise on the Sabbath in the works of the more eminent 
divines of that period ; it is only incidentally alluded to in con 
nexion with other points, such as the power of the Church in 
decreeing ceremonies, or briefly discussed in their commentaries 
on Scripture ; or, finally, made the subject of a few paragraphs 
under the Fourth Commandment, in their elements of Christian 
doctrine. A few minutes might suffice to read what each one "of 
the Reformers has left on record concerning the permanent obliga 
tion of the Sabbath ; indeed, that part of the question is rather 
summarily decided on than calmly and satisfactorily examined." l 
It is a peculiar responsibility of such men that they exert a 
powerful and far-reaching influence. Scotland s Reformers did 
early justice to the Lord s Day, and so, notwithstanding some 
unrighteous and violent attempts from without to wrest it from 
her, she still retains, bedirnmed though it is, her sabbatic crown. 
The countries of the Reformation abroad felt for a time the im 
pulse of the doctrines taught, and of the example set, by Zuing- 
lius, Luther, and Calvin ; but as Christianity and its weekly holy 
day, which are mutually conservative and stimulating, were not 
fully adjusted to each other, nor consequently brought to act with 
concentrated power on the people, the decay of both ensued ; and 
though a war on the Sabbath question (from which Scotland was 
happily free) kindled by a spark from this country, prevailed for 
a century in Holland, and extended to parts of Germany, yet as 

1 Fairbairn s Typology, vol. ii. p. 462. 
C 



34 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

it ended in what Hengstenberg calls "the gradual advance of 
more liberal views," that is, such views as have left these coun 
tries well-nigh without a religion at all, another must yet be waged 
over the entire continent of Europe. The Reformation in Eng 
land was not so thorough as in some countries, but the spirit of 
its people was too ardent to let a great question be compromised 
and slumber, as occurred in so many Protestant States. Hence to 
that country accrued the glory, as respected one party the discredit 
as regarded another, of being the scene of the earliest conflict within 
the Christian Church on subjects affecting the Divine authority, the 
sacred character, and thus the very existence of one of the noblest, 
most indispensable, and most beneficent institutions of Heaven. 

When the claims of the Lord s Day are advocated on the 
ground that the doctrine of its Divine authority was held by the 
Church down to the time of the Reformation, it is not necessary 
to prove that the institution was never misrepresented or mis 
applied. It is enough to the argument that the doctrine was 
received by the universal Church, although she chose to add holi 
days, superstitious rites, and one of six "ecclesiastical precepts 
to the simple ordinance of Heaven. Nor is this argument, 
founded as it is on the harmony of many centuries, destroyed by 
the fact that sabbatic unanimity was disturbed at the Reforma 
tion, unless it can be shown that the ordinance was the cause of 
the disturbance. That peaceful ordinance, however, was guiltless. 
The Reformers were not aggrieved at the celebration of the 
weekly holy day. This formed no reason of their protest against 
Rome, or of their secession from her pale. It was her own inter 
minable contrivances that at last rent the Church ; and it was 
this, her will-worship, imitated naturally enough by one class, but 
rejected by another, which largely contributed to alienate from 
each other the friends of the Reformation. Rome, ever boasting 
of her concord, has least exemplified it in her own community, and 
has been the chief cause of the divisions and distractions in civil 
and ecclesiastical society around her ; and thus new evidence has 
been added to the old, in proof of the Divine power of an insti 
tute which has continued to exist among Protestant sects and con 
troversies, not less than it was, and still is, preserved amidst all the 
corruptions of the Papacy. 



ENGLAND. 35 

Although nothing entitled to the name of a general or pro 
longed contest on our subject, except in so far as it was indirectly 
concerned with that on holidays, was the immediate result of the 
Reformation, yet there wanted not indications, then and afterwards, 
that diversified, and in some instances confused notions of the in 
stitution were entertained, arising from the system with which it 
had been mixed up, and showing that an open collision was, in the 
case of England at least, at hand. Luther, in his zeal against the 
profane and mischievous perversions of Divine commandments and 
ordinances in the Church of Eome, laid himself open, by strong 
expressions respecting the Mosaic Law and the Sabbath, to the 
charge preferred against him by John Agricola, of affirming the 
abrogation of the Decalogue a charge which he vehemently 
denied, and obliged his accuser to retract, though only to be re 
newed. 1 Cardinal Tolet maintained, " that the observance of 
the Lord s Day is not a law of God, but an ecclesiastical pre 
cept, and a custom of the faithful." 2 The position was substan 
tially asserted by Sir Thomas More in his Dialogues, where he 
avowed that the first day came in place of the seventh by virtue 
of tradition, and that the observance of the Sunday rested on the 
commandment of the Church, " The Sundays hear thou mass." 
It is not for us to attempt harmonizing the views of such men 
with the doctrine taught in their Church throughout her history 
even to the present day that the apostles changed the Jewish 
Sabbath into the Lord s Day, and that the duties of the latter are 
prescribed in the Decalogue. In his Answer to Sir Thomas More 
(1530), William Tyndale wrote slightingly of those circumstances 
of time to whichr the Church attached so superstitious and fatal 
an importance ; and, as extremes meet, seemed to claim for the 
Christian people a right to alter the stated day of worship, no 
less unwarranted than that assumed by his opponent for the 
hierarchy in its appointment. " We be lords," he says, " over 
the Sabbath, and may yet change it into the Monday, or any 
other day, as we see need ; or may make every tenth day holy day 
only, if we see a cause why ; we may make two every week if it 
were expedient, and one not enough to teach. the people. Neither 

1 Rutherford s Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist, pp. 68-80. 

2 Toleti Insti. Sactrdot. lib. iv. c. 13. 



36 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

was there any cause to change it from the Saturday, but to put 
difference between us and the Jews, and lest we should become 
servants unto the day after their superstition. Neither needed we 
any holy day at all, if the people might be taught without it." 1 
Tyndale, having finished his education at Oxford and Cambridge, 
conceived the purpose of translating the Scriptures into the Eng 
lish language, but finding it impossible to accomplish this in his 
native country, proceeded to the Continent, where he had com 
pleted a version of the New Testament with portions of the old, 
and had had the satisfaction of seeing many editions of the former 
printed and circulated, when he fell a victim to assassination in 
1536, offering up with his last breath, the prayer, "Lord, open 
the eyes of the king of England !" Although it does not appear 
that he had personal intercourse with Luther, his residence on the 
Continent had led him to adopt, in reference to the Sabbath, the 
same strange phraseology, which appears, however, in both cases, 
to have been compatible with substantially sound views, and re 
verent observance of the institution. When the Sunday came," 
says John Fox, " then went he to some one merchant s chamber 
or other (in Antwerp), whither came many other merchants, and 
unto them would he read some one parcel of Scripture ; the which 
proceeded so fruitfully, sweetly, and gently from him, much like 
to the writing of John the Evangelist, that it was a heavenly com 
fort and joy to the audience to hear him read the Scriptures ; like 
wise after dinner he spent an hour in the same manner." 2 Frith, 
his convert and friend, who suffered martyrdom for the Protestant 
faith in 1533, had in the year of his death written his Treatise 
on JSaptism in which, touching on the Sabbath* he follows Tyn- 
dale s train of thought, and asserts the same liberty for Christians 
to choose a day of worship, but with this difference, that the right 
was in the hands of " the forefathers," or apostles, and that 
" though -they might have kept Saturday with the Jews as a 
thing indifferent, yet they did much better." 

Without dwelling on the statement of the Convocation in 
1536 "That sith the Sabbath-day was ordained for man s 
use, and therefore ought to give way to the necessity and be- 

1 Works (1831) vol. ii. p. 101. 

* Anderson s AnnaU of the English Btt&gt;le t vol. i. p. 52L 



ENGLAND. 57 

hoof of the same," " much rather any other holiday instituted 
by man," 1 we come to a declaration of sabbatic opinion, 
which, like that of the Convocation, has the advantage of coming 
from the collective wisdom of the English Church at the 
time. It is contained in The Godly and Pious Institution of a 
Christian, which appeared in 1537, with the signatures of Arch 
bishop Cranmer and Bishop Latimer, Protestants ; and of Bishops 
Stokesley, Tonstall, Gardiner, Archdeacons Bonner and Heath 
all, except in the matter of the Pope s supremacy, Romanists ; 
and, substantially repeated in the editions of 1540 and of 1543, 
the latter bearing the new title A Necessary Doctrine and Eru 
dition for any Christian Man, states that " the fourth command 
ment is distinguished from the other nine the latter being 
merely moral, the former ceremonial as regards &lt; rest from bodily 
labour the seventh day, which belonged only to the Jews, but 
moral as respects the spiritual rest from sin, which binds Christians 
at all times the command, however, binding also to rest from all 
bodily labour, and to the exclusive service of God at certain times 
not as formerly on the Saturday, instead of which succeedeth 
the Sunday, and many other holy and feastful clays, ordained from 
time to time by the Church and called holy days, not because one 
day is more acceptable to God than another, but because the 
Church hath ordained that on these days we give ourselves wholly 
to holy works without impediment." Directions follow to the 
bishops and clergy to teach the people not to be over-scrupu 
lous in time of necessity in abstaining from labour on the holy 
day, and that idleness, gluttony, or other vain and idle pastimes 
on that day, do not please God, but offend Him. 

There appeared in 1545, The Primer ; or Book of Prayws, 
containing the Lord s Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, 
etc., " where," to borrow the remarkable statement of another, 
" the general confession, enumerating the violation of each of the 
commandments, on the fourth says, I have not sanctified the 
holy days with works which be acceptable unto thee, nor instruct 
ing 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 Re- 

Wilk. Conoil. iil. 827. 

3 



38 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTKOVEBSIES. 

member that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. This lopping off 
all mention of the six days creation, and of the hallowed rest on 
the seventh, in order to make the commandment square with 
the Eomish 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." 1 

Cranmer s Catechism (1548) states, that Christians are freed 
from the Mosaic law as regards differences of times and meats 
that they have the liberty of using other sacred days than the 
Jewish that to maintain this liberty they observe not Saturday 
but Sunday, and certain other days, as the magistrates, whom in 
this thing they ought to obey, judge it convenient that they 
must employ and bestow the Sabbath-day upon godly works and 
business and that to spend the holy days in the neglect of such 
works, or " in idleness, banqueting, dancing," etc., is " a great 
sin," " for which God pumsheth us with divers kinds of plagues, 
but specially with need and poverty." 2 

It appears from the preceding extracts, that, while the Koman- 
ists were disposed to support their practical abuse of the Lord s 
Day by corrupting its doctrine, the Reformers, as religious earnest 
men, would have the institution applied to pious and practical 
use, but knew not how to carry out, or did not clearly apprehend, 
the only theory by which their object could be fully gained the 
theory, we mean, of a Sabbath, moral, perpetual, and admitting 
of no competitor. It was reserved for Bishop Hooper to make 
the nearest approach to this theory that had been made since the 
time of Wycliffe. In his Exposition of the Ten Commandments, 
published in 1550, he not only advocates, with Cranmer, absti 
nence from ordinary labour, and from pastimes, on the Lord s 
Day, but, though admitting the Jewish Sabbath, as regarded its 
specific day of the week, to have been ceremonial, " during for 
the time," holds that the fourth commandment is no more cere 
monial than the second, " all the commandments being of one 
virtue and strength." 

1 James Four Sermons on the Christian Sacraments and SaVbath, p. 228. 

2 The original work, written in German "for the use of the younger sort" in 
Nuremberg, was, in 1539, translated by Justus Jonas, junior, into Latin, from w M*h 
It vrta rendered into English by the archbishop, Jonas being at the time his guest 



ENGLAND. 39 

These views, which were not new but very old, cannot reason 
ably be conceived to kave been then peculiar to Hooper. But 
it is not unlikely that the writings of so learned and good a man 
would, with his preaching, exercise a powerful influence on sab 
batic opinion in his lifetime, and that this would receive fresh 
energy from his heroic death in the cause of the doctrines and 
institutions of Christ. Whatever truth there may be in this sup 
position, certain it is, that so early after the appearance of his 
treatise as 1551, when the Book of Common Prayer was con 
firmed by Parliament, though the Preamble of the Act rang the 
old changes on holidays, the commandments were for the first 
time added to the Liturgy, the fourth, " Remember that thou 
keep holy the Sabbath-day," etc., being, as well as the others, 
succeeded by the prayer, " Lord, have mercy upon us, and in 
cline our hearts to keep this law ;" and that in Cranmer s Forty- 
two Articles, agreed to at a convocation of bishops and learned 
men in 1552, are to be found the following positions of vital 
importance to our subject, and expressed in singularly clear and 
decided terms : First, the exclusive competency of the Scrip 
tures of the Old and New Testaments to the establishment of 
any doctrine ; and, Second, the threefold distinction in the law 
given from God by Moses, which as touching ceremonies does 
not bind Christian men, as respects civil precepts ought not of 
necessity to be received in any commonwealth, and as moral con 
sists of commandments from the obligation of which no Christian 
man whatsoever is free. 

A blank in sabbatic discussion and literature of fully five 
years (1553-58) is accounted for by the reign of Mary and 
Popery, under which Coverdale, Jewell, Becon, Fox, with many 
more, were obliged to quit their country, and Rogers, Hooper, 
Bradford, Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer, and others, were committed 
to the flames. But good resulted. The blood of the martyrs 
was the life of their creed, and the exiles returned, after the death 
of Queen Mary, only the more qualified to take part in the reco 
very and advancement of the Reformation. To the impression of 
those martyrdoms, and to the efforts of the men whose characters 
had been matured by their residence abroad, England in no small 
measure owed her free Bible, her improved Articles and Homilies, 



40 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

her Augustan age of learning, and her Puritans, with the liberty, 
virtue, enterprise, and prosperity, which were the fruits of the 
principles, labours, and sufferings of these oppressed but noble 
men. To the same means was she indebted for not the least of 
her privileges a Sabbath doctrinally recognised as an institution 
of perpetual obligation, having its changed day divinely appointed, 
as well as its Christian observance ruled by the fourth com 
mandment ; and which, but for her own princes and prelates, 
would, through the removal of useless and pernicious devices from 
Divine worship, have reached a closer conformity to the Word of 
God. Queen Elizabeth had not been above four years seated on 
the throne when, at her desire, the Convocation of 1562 was 
assembled for the settlement of doctrine in the Church. The 
publication of thirty-eight Articles, and of the Second Book of 
Homilies, now appended to the First, as all agreed to by that 
body, was one of the chief results. These documents, supple 
mented with a thirty-ninth Article, and otherwise slightly changed, 
were approved by the Convocation of 1571, and in the same 
year confirmed by the Queen and Parliament, as constituting, 
with the Book of Common Prayer, the formularies of Doctrine 
and Worship in the Church of England. As such, with one 
important and several minor alterations subsequently made, they 
have been recognised by her members down to the present 
day. l 

When we examine these documents, we find the following to 
be their doctrine respecting the Sabbath : That while we ought 
always and everywhere gratefully to remember our beneficent 
Creator, it appears to be His good-will and pleasure that there 
should be special times and places for His worship and glory - 
that the appointed solemn time is ascertained from the Fourth 
Commandment, arid is a standing day in tho week that this 
commandment does not require of us, as of the Jews, abstinence 

i The important alteration referred to was thn introduction into the Twentieth 
Article of the words, " The Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies, and 
authority in controversies of faith." As this, or any similar clause, had no place in 
the Forty-two Articles of Edward vi., none in the subscribed MS. Articles of 1562 
and 1571, and none in any such book " an imprinted English book " as was alone 
confirmed by this Act of Parliament, it follows that the Church did not in her Article* 
of either of those year* claim the power which the clause arrogates for her. 



ENGLAND. 41 

from ordinary labour in time of great necessity, or the observance 
of the seventh day that Christians keep the first day of the 
week, and make that their Sabbath, or day of rest, in honour of 
Christ, who upon that day rose from, and conquered, death that 
God hath given express charge by this commandment as a thing 
belonging to the law of nature, and therefore as most godly, just, 
and good, to be retained and kept of all good Christian people, 
that all men shall, upon the Sabbath-day, which is now our Sun 
day, cease from all weekly and work-day labour in which they 
ought to be employed during the six days, and give themselves 
wholly to heavenly exercises of God s true religion and service, 
even as God wrought six days and rested the seventh, and blessed 
and sanctified it, and consecrated it to quietness and rest from 
labour that this example and commandment of God the godly 
Christian people began to follow immediately after the ascension 
of our Lord, and to choose for their standing day of worship in the 
week, the Lord s Day, the day after the seventh, of which men 
tion is made in 1 Cor. xvi. and Apoc. i. that since that time the 
day has been observed without gainsaying in the Church that 
notwithstanding the warning against the breach of it given in the 
stoning to death of the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath- 
day, there are still those that would be counted God s people who 
devote the Sunday to travelling and business without extreme 
need, or to what is worse, gluttony, drunkenness, quarrelling and 
fighting, excess and superfluity, toyish talking, and fleshly filthi- 
ness, so that God is more dishonoured, and the Devil better served 
on that day than upon all the days of the week besides ; and that 
if men will be negligent, and not forbear to labour and travel on 
the Sabbath-day, or Sunday, and do not resort together to mag 
nify His name in quiet holiness arid godly reverence, they have 
reason to fear the displeasure and just plagues of Almighty 
God. 1 To this analysis of what is contained in the Homilies 
on the subject, let us add an extract from the Boole of Common 
Prayer : " Minister. Remember that thou keep holy the Sab 
bath-day. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou 
hast to do, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thv 
God. In it thou shalt do no manner of work, etc. People.. 

1 Homily of the Ptooe and Time of Prayer. Hnmtii s, edit. L&lt; inlon, 1fiS7. 



42 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this 
law." 1 

Such was in 1562 and 1571, and such is at this day the sab 
batic creed of the English Church. As prior to 1562, no seces 
sion from her pale beyond that of an individual or two had taken 
place, the Church may be said to have then comprised nearly the 
entire population of the country ; and as her creed was to exert 
no slight influence on the existing as well as many future genera 
tions, it was certainly of great moment that it should be accordant 
with Scripture. Of the one adopted different opinions have been 
entertained. Many, including persons of her own communion, 
have shown by their writings or practice that they have regarded 
it as rigid and unscriptural. Others, deploring its alliance with 
a hierarchy and ritual viewed by them as foreign from the letter 
and spirit of the gospel, may also take exception to some of its 
statements as incorrect or defective. The holidays of human 
appointment, for example, with which it is bound up, and which 
of course it does not condemn, are justly held to be a grievous 
wrong and bane to the Christian Sabbath. But surely it is a 
matter of well-founded congratulation that the Church of England 
has since 1562 distinctly recognised the Decalogue as a law of 
permanent authority, and as giving in its fourth precept a Divine 
and express charge to all men, that upon the Sabbath-day, which 
is now the first day of the week, and observed in honour of Christ 
and His conquest of death, they should, excepting in cases of 
necessity, rest from the common labour required of them on the 
other days of the week, and apply themselves wholly to heavenly 
exercises, as they would avoid the displeasure and just plagues of 
the Almighty, and " declare themselves to be his loving children 
in following the example of our gracious Lord and Father." And 
it is as gratifying as it is surprising, that a Convocation, almost 
equally divided on the proposal made to it of rejecting most of 
the old ceremonies, and actually debating the question, Whether 
they should conform in outward appearances as closely as possible 

1 Order of fJie A dminwtration of the Lord s Supper. Partly as it was a min or authority, 
and partly as it expresses itself only less fully than the Homilies, on the Fourth Com 
mandment, we have not cited Noell s Catichinr,, which was approved by the Convoca 
tion, as was also Jewell s Apology. 



ENGLAND. 43 

to Popish practice, should harmonize in a verdict respecting the 
weekly clay of worship and rest containing so much precious truth. 
Jewell is supposed to have been engaged with Parker in complet 
ing the Second Book of Homilies. At all events, that learned 
man, so desirous, some years before, that every vestige of Popery, 
" the relics of the Amorites," were removed, but soon to be a 
strict enforcer of subscription ; and the hardly less learned Samp 
son, who would submit to no human impositions ; appear to have 
concurred with the Archbishop and his courtly friends, in approv 
ing the homily on " The place and time of prayer." The Queen, 
" the Governor of the Church," who was said, Argus-like, to have 
an eye on everything, centum luminibus cinctum caput, and who 
conceived that the reading of the Homilies might supersede every 
other means of public religious instruction, may be presumed to 
have read what she sanctioned. And neither those Nonconfor 
mists who separated from the Church in 1566, nor the Roman 
Catholics who followed their example in 1569, seem to have 
offered any protest against her sabbatical doctrine, or to have 
withdrawn on its account. 

The decision thus harmoniously passed was not without an in 
fluence for good. It proved somewhat of a shield to the friends 
of the Lord s Day in their efforts on its behalf, and doubtless 
contributed materially to the fact, that the Church of England 
has from that time ever numbered amongst its members many 
enlightened defenders and conscientious observers of an entire 
weekly day of sacred rest. But its beneficial operation was 
lamentably counteracted by the intolerant principles and proceed 
ings of many of those who were concerned in its adoption. This 
they accomplished not chiefly by direct attacks on the institution, 
although Whitgift, writing under the direction of Parker, claimed 
for the Church a power by virtue of which she had appointed the 
first day of the week to be the Christian Sabbath, 1 and the Queen 

i " The Scripture hath not appointed what day in the week should be most meet for 
the Sabbath-day, whether Saturday, which is the Jews Sabbath, or the day now ob 
served, which was appointed by the Church. " Cartwright, in replying to Whitgif t s 
work, waives the point, " as not wishing to raise up other questions than those in 
hand," only saying, "There was no great judgment to make the Lord s Day as arbi 
trary and changeable as the hour and place of prayer." Whitgift s Works, vol. i. pp. 
SOO, 201. 



44 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

asserted an arbitrary right sometimes to stifle bills brought by 
the bishops into Parliament in favour of Sabbath observance, and 
anon to banish profane players, and raze theatres and gambling- 
houses to the ground. It was mainly by other means that the 
injury was inflicted. 

There is nothing by which the sabbatic institution, in regard 
to both its theory and its practice, is more favourably or unfavour 
ably affected than the manner in which its relative ordinances are 
treated. In the commencement of Elizabeth s reign, persons of 
the greatest learning and piety were precluded by the compliances 
requisite to the exercise of the ministry, from accepting charges, 
which were in consequence supplied by mechanics, fend other 
equally uneducated and unscrupulous men. Thousands of the 
former class, who had either got over their difficulties to some 
extent, or been tolerated by such prelates as Grindal, were after 
wards suspended, and punished as felons. In 1559, the Bishop 
of Bangor wrote, that " he had only two preachers in all his dio 
cese." 1 There were in 1583 only 2000 preachers to serve 10,000 
parishes. 2 At this latter period the inferior clergy of England 
were very generally not only ignorant and unable to preach, but 
men of profane and profligate characters. In a petition to Par 
liament from the inhabitants of the county of Cornwall in 1579, 
it is said, " We have about one hundred and sixty churches, the 
greatest part of which are supplied by men who are guilty of the 
grossest sins ; some fornicators, some adulterers, some felons, 
bearing the marks in their hands for the said offence, some 
drunkards, gamesters on the Sabbath-day, etc. We have many 
non-residents who preach but once a quarter." 3 " The conform 
able clergy," it has been affirmed, "obtained all the benefices in 
their power, and resided upon none, utterly neglecting their cures ; 
many of them alienated the Church lands, made unreasonable 
leases, wasted the wood upon the lands, and granted reversions and 
advowsons for their own advantage. The churches fell greatly 
into decay, and became unfit for Divine service. Among the 
laity there was little devotion ; and the Lord s Day was generally 
profaned. Many were mere heathens, epicures, or atheists, espe- 

Brook s Puritans, rol. i p. 21. * Ibid. p. 49. s Ibid. p. 4L 



ENGLAND. 45 

daily those about the Court ; and good men feared that some sore 
judgment hung over the nation." 1 

That the general profanation of the Lord s Day should be one 
of many evils attendant on such a scarcity and abuse of the other 
Christian institutions, was a necessary result. For as an author 
of that time observes : " Wheresoever the preaching of the Word 
is not, or where men have it, and come not to it, there can they 
not sanctify the day in that manner that they should ; because 
they want the principal part of God s service, and that which 
should direct them in all the rest, and make these most profitable 
unto them. ... And if this be the state of the poor people, .... 
what can be said or thought sufficiently and answerably unto the 
gin of them who, being called the ministers of God, as they that 
should be chief in his service, and go before others in it, by preach 
ing unto them, are able and willing to do nothing less in the 
world than that 1 For partly they are ignorant and cannot do 
it ; partly, they are given to ease, and will not do it ; and partly, 
they have so many charges to look unto, that they know not where 
to begin to do it. And so do not only unhallow every Sabbath- 
day that they live, and do bestow no day in the week so ill as 
that which they should bestow best of all, because they neglect 
that which God requireth most of all at their hands ; but also are 
the only chief causes everywhere of unhallowing the Sabbath, and 
do compel the people to break it whether they will or no." 2 
Accordingly, in city and country, this species of profaneness 
abounded. In a petition from the city of London to Parliament 
in 1579, it is said : " There are in this city a great number of 
churches, but the one-half of them at the least are utterly unfur 
nished of preaching ministers ; .... (as to) the other half, partly 
by means of non-residents, which are very many, and partly 
through the poverty of many meanly qualified, there is scarcely 
the tenth man that makes conscience to wait upon his charge, 
whereby the Lord s Sabbath is often wholly neglected or miser 
ably mangled, ignorance increaseth, and wickedness comes upon 
us like an armed man. Therefore, we humbly on our knees be 
seech this honourable assembly, in the bowels and blood of Jesus 

1 Brook s Puritans, vol. i. p. 84 ; Strype s Parker, p. 305. 
Bownd s Sab. Vet. et Nov. Test. (1606), pp. 328, 339. 
3* 



46 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

Christ, to become humble suitors to her Majesty, that we may 
have guides, that the bread of life may be brought home to us, 
that the pipes of water may be brought into our assemblies, that 
there may be food and refreshing for us, our poor wives, and for 
lorn children." 1 We have discovered no proof that this heart 
rending appeal met with any success or even attention. The 
Queen could not, indeed, grant the petition consistently with her 
procedure only two years before, and with her cherished principles 
on that occasion expressed. "When in 1577 she sent for Archbishop 
Grindal, and commanded him to put down the exercises or pro- 
phesyings, which he had been careful so to regulate as to preclude 
the possibility of any reasonable objection to them, she told him 
that " it was good for the Church to have but few preachers, 
three or four in a county being sufficient." Curates, though in 
capable of preaching, might, in her view, adequately discharge 
their duty by simply reading the Homilies. In vain did the 
archbishop remonstrate with her in " a long and earnest letter," 
in which he declared that the Homilies, originally intended only 
to supply the lack of preachers, were, by the statute of Edward vi., 
to give place to sermons whensoever they might be had that by 
the Canons every bishop had authority to appoint exercises for 
the improvement of inferior ministers, and that whereas, before 
the exercises were commenced there were not three able preachers, 
thirty were now fit to preach at St. Paul s Cross, and forty or 
fifty besides were qualified to instruct their own cures. The only 
result was, that by an order from the Star-Chamber, and without 
consulting with the bishops or any of the clergy, she confined him 
to his house, and suspended him from his archiepiscopal functions 
for six months. 2 Neal says, " Towards the close of this letter, 
his Grace declares himself willing to resign his bishopric, if it 
should be her Majesty s pleasure, and then makes these two re 
quests : 1. That your Majesty would refer ecclesiastical matters 
to the bishops and divines of the realm, according to the practice 
of the first Christian emperors ; and 2. That when your Majesty 
deals in matters of faith and religion, you would not pronounce 
so peremptorily as you may do in civil matters ; but remember 

i Bownd sSab. Vet. et Nov. Test. (1606;, p. 41. 

Neal s History of the Puritans (1732), vol. i. pp. 352-58. 



ENGLAND. 47 

that in God s cause, his will, and not the will of any earthly 
creature, is to take place. Tis the antichristian voice of the 
Pope, Sic volo sic jubeo, stet pro ratione voluntas? He then 
puts her in mind, that though she was a great and mighty prin 
cess, she was nevertheless a mortal creature, and accountable to 
God ; and concludes with saying, that he could not without 
offence of the majesty of God send out injunctions for suppressing 
the exercises." The truth is, Elizabeth could not have favoured 
a free and general gospel without consciously endangering that 
arbitrary power which would " suffer no one to decline either to 
the left or to the right hand from the drawn line limited by 
authority and her own laws and injunctions," and which punished 
with ruinous fines, suspension, and even death, worthy and learned 
men for declining to observe foolish and uuscriptural practices, 
required in some instances by laws that were unconstitutional, 
and in others by no law at all. But had she with enlarged and 
true wisdom desired to reign on principles of justice alike to her 
self and to her subjects, she might have rejoiced in the most 
extended supply of the preached word, the best of all means for 
securing stability to the throne, and prosperity to the people. Of 
this mind were the citizens of London who thus continue their 
address to the Parliament : " So shall the Lord have his due 
honour, you shall discharge good duty to her Majesty, many lan 
guishing souls shall be comforted, atheism and heresy banished, 
her Majesty have more faithful subjects, and you have more hearty 
prayers for your prosperity in this life, and full happiness in the 
life to come." Could any petition have been more respectful and 
courteous ? And yet the petitioners belonged to a class, who 
because a few of their number were driven by oppression to the 
use of strong and even unbecoming language was it wonderful ? 
have as a body been maligned as rude and troublesome men. 
They were so regarded even by the Queen, and most of the pre 
lates, who, bound, the one to be a nursing-mother to the Church, 
a terror not to good works but to the evil, and the others, to feed 
the flock of God, not as being lords over His heritage, but ensamples 
to the flock, were, in reality, more active and zealous in putting 
down the instrumentalities of good, than in enlightening ignorance, 
or rooting out profaneness and vice. 



48 SKETCHES OF SABBA.TIC CONTROVERSIES. 

Contemporary writers bear melancholy testimony to the preva 
lent violation of the Fourth Commandment in those times. The 
chief transgessor was the leading personage in the country, who 
had nearly as little veneration for the day,s she had for the name 
of God. 1 Instances are indeed given of the Queen s presence at 
public worship. Wood says, that Noell, Dean of St. Paul s, " for 
thirty years together preached before her the first and last sermons 
in the time of Lent, wherein he dealt plainly and faithfully with 
her, without dislike." 2 This was good, and it would be well if, 
instead of thanking one chaplain for his " pains and piety " in 
defending " the real presence," or ordering another Noell himself, 
if we mistake not to desist from " his ungodly digression" against 
" the sign of the Cross," she had sunk the Papist in the Christian, 
and merged the monarch in the subject of a higher Sovereign. 
It was well, too, that sometimes in her numerous "progresses" 
she rested on the Lord s Day, and attended the nearest parish 
church ; but it would have been better not to subject the servile 
functionaries at Cambridge to the repetition of any part of the 
worship by her caprice and lateness, or to conclude the day by coun 
tenancing the representation of a play of Plautus in " the King s 
College Church." " Unfortunately," as Miss Strickland observes, 
" her respect for the Sabbath was confined to the act of joining 
in public worship, for the rest of the day was devoted to sports 
not meet for any Christian lady to witness, much less to provide 
for the amusement of herself and Court ; but Elizabeth shared in 
the boisterous glee with which they were greeted by the ruder 
portion of the spectators. Bear and bull baitings, tilts, tourneys, 
and wrestling, were among the noon-day divertissements of the 
maiden Majesty of England ; dancing, music, cards, and pageants 
brought up the rear of her Sabbath amusements. These follies 
were justly censured by the more rigid reformers." 3 

i We are informed that the practice of profane swearing, so much a national sin 
and disgrace, had in the preceding century grown to be so conspicuous, as to 
secure on the Continent for an Englishman a name taken from one of his own impre 
cations that, by which he desired for himself the most fearful of all calamities 
and that the masculine daughter of the bluff Harry was particularly distinguished in 
her time by the terrible vigour and roundness of her oaths. Eceleston s Antiquitiu, 
pp. 222, 223, 319. 

8 Athen. Oxon. vol. i. p. 271. 

Lives oftJtf Qiuens of England (1848), vol. vi. p. 422. 



ENGLAND. 49 

The sabbatic practice Df the ministers of religion was, for the 
most part, little better thin that of their Sovereign. Men of their 
order had been for centuries the writers and actors of the mys 
teries, miracle-plays, and moralities, or scenic representations, 
which, after the model of the Roman stage, had been introduced 
into the service of the Church. The original design of these repre 
sentations was to impress on the minds of the people the facts of 
Scripture, the deeds of martyrs, and the lessons of virtue, but the 
performers in course of time applied their pens and histrionic 
powers to such exhibitions as the Feast of the Ass, and the Feast 
of Fools, till places of worship were turned into theatres, and the 
clergy became common players. " To what base uses we may 
return, Horatio !" Cardinal Wolsey attempted to put an end to 
this plurality of functions, and Bishop Bonner endeavoured to 
exclude common plays from the churches, but in both cases in 
vain. And when it is considered that of thousands of Popish 
ecclesiastics, only two hundred and forty-three were honest enough 
to quit their livings in 1558, at the accession of Elizabeth, 1 and 
that in 1579, many of the incumbents of churches were "dis 
guised Papists, more fit to sport with the timbrel and pipe than 
to take into their hands the book of God," 2 it does not surprise 
us to learn that in 1572 such things were enacted as an author 
of that year, when describing clerical neglect of duty, thus por 
trays : " He posteth it (the service) over as fast as he can gallop ; 
for either he hath two places to serve, or else there are some 
games to be played in the afternoon, as lying for the whetstone, 
heathenish dauncing for the ring, a beare or a bull to be bayted, 
or else jackanapes to ride on horseback, or an enterlude to be 
played ; and if no place else can be gotten, it must be doone in 
the church. "3 

The progress of society, however, brings a division of labour ; 
and these performers, satisfied with the pleasures of remembered 
exploits, and with the prospect of their posthumous fame as the 
founders of the English drama, must soon bid farewell to the sock 
and buskin, in some such words as Shakspere would shortly put 

i Neal s History of the Puritans (1732), vol. i. pp. 156, 157. 
1 Strype s Aylmer, p. 32. 

* Whitgift s Admonition (Works Parker), vol. i. p. 884. 
t&gt; 



50 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

into the mouth of Othello, " Our favourite occupation s gone." 
Already have rivals made their debut, who, though excluded from 
the consecrated boards, find ampler scope for their versatile talents 
in "large inns," and are not prevented from imitating their spi 
ritual guides in the selection of the sacred day as the most con 
venient time for their exhibitions. In 1574, when a plague was 
decimating the population of Londcn, these persons so outraged 
all religion, decorum, and humanity, in pandering by their "un- 
shamefaced speeches and doings," to seduction and robbery for 
which these inns afforded every facility as to compel the Com 
mon Council to subject the plays to a rigid censorship, a measure 
which the Queen and her Council, appealed to against it by the 
players, followed up with an order restricting the performances 
to certain hours before sunset. 1 These weak and partial remedies 
having failed, and the proposal made in 1579 of the only effectual 
one increased religious instruction being opposed to the royal 
creed and will, jt was deemed necessary to resort to violence, and 
in the following year we find her Majesty yielding to the suit of 
the magistrates for authority to " interdict plays and interludes 
on the Sabbath-day," and to that, moreover, of " many citizens 
and gentlemen," for leave to " expel the players out of the city, 
and to pull down all the play-houses and dice-houses within the 
liberties." 2 A writer of that year, lamenting the "corruption of 
youth, the profanation of the Sabbath," and other evils, which 
" the infamous players" had inflicted on society, says, " The Lord 
is never so ill-served as on the holidays, for then hell breaks loose"* 
The Queen s passionate partiality for the more barbarous and 
equally profane and demoralizing sports, which had for many 
years drawn crowds to the Paris garden in Southwark on Lord s 
Diiys, may have discouraged any petition, as certainly it would 
prevent on her part any spontaneous effort for their suppression. 
They received in 1583 a temporary check, though not from 
" governors, who are sent by Him for the punishment of evil-doers, 
as well as for the praise of them that do well." On January 
13, of that year, being the Sabbath-day, a thousand persons 

London, etc., by Brayley, vol. i pp. 284, 285. 

8 Morcr On, the Lord s Day, pp. 300, 301. 

Bloat of Retreat from Plays, in Bruce s An. Sus. p. 174 



ENGLAND. 51 

having assembled to enjoy a bear-baiting, "one of the scaffolds" 
broke down, when eight men and women were killed and many 
were "hurt and bruised to the shortening of their days." The 
" foul abuse," however, " shamelessly lifted up its head again," 
till it was finally removed by king James. 1 It was in the same 
year that Elizabeth first allowed a public company of players to 
act under her name and authority. " When a regular theatre was 
at length established, plays were acted at first only on Sundays, 
but the actors soon contrived to make four or five Sundays a week. 
The hour at which the play usually commenced was one o clock 
in the day, when a flag was hoisted on the top of the building, 
where it remained till the close of the entertainment, which lasted 
generally about two hours." 2 

There were other flagrant abuses of the Sabbath. Throughout 
that holy day provisions were everywhere bought and sold, and 
pedlars disposed of their wares in the porches of the churches 
often ces, which it appears to have been accounted no small feat of 
legislation to restrain during canonical hours. 3 In the rural dis 
tricts, that day was the chosen time for shooting, hunting, hawk 
ing, tennis, fencing, and similar exercises, and for the performances 
of strolling players and buffoons. These votaries of gain and 
pleasure would visit the churches, some, possibly, to quiet their 
consciences, and some to express their contempt. Falconers were 
to be seen there with their bows and arrows, with their dogs at 
their heels, and their hawks upon their fists. 4 And morrice- 
dancers, -with suchlike characters, would play unseemly parts, with 
scoffs, jests, wanton gestures, and ribald talk, in the place, and 
during the progress, of Divine worship. 5 

To this manner of spending sacred time there were happily 
many exceptions. But the facts presented give evidence of a wide 
spread disregard for the sanctities of the Sabbath, while they not 

1 Bownd s Sabbatum, etc., p. 257 ; Neal, vol i. p 390 

1 Eccleston s Antiquities, p. 309. 

3 This was all that was attempted in Oranmer s Visitation Articles, the Canons of 1571, 
and Grindal s Injunctions. The restrictions upon publicans and pedlars, in following 
their vocations, were limited to the time of common prayer, preaching, reading of the 
homilies or Scriptures, or (as it is in one case provided with all the simplicity of the 
Elizabethan style of religious education), " to the time of sermon, if there be any 
sermon." Wilk. Condi, iv. pp. 24, 266, 269; Neale s Feasts and Fasts, pp. 184, 185. 

* Bownd s Sabbatwn (1606), pp. 263, 264. * Brook s Puritans, vol. i. p. 26. 



52 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

obscurely indicate a corresponding measure of immorality in the 
country and period under review. When it is added, that the 
criminal calendar, much lighter than that of modern Spain, was 
yet three times heavier than that of Ireland in the most disturbed 
of its recent years the annual number of executions in a popula 
tion of scarcely five millions being four hundred we see reason 
to concur in a remark which has been made, that " merry England 
under Elizabeth was rather a terrible country to live in." 1 

For this state of things the responsibility appears to have at 
tached chiefly to the highest authorities in the Church. They 
refused to comply with the demands of many for further reforma 
tion. They set themselves against measures for instructing an 
ignorant clergy. They exercised hardly any discipline on wrong 
doers, however scandalous, whether ecclesiastics or people. Their 
main religious business, indeed, for the greater part of Elizabeth s 
reign, seems to have consisted in persecuting, when they ought to 
have been employed in encouraging, their most learned and useful 
ministers, against whom no occasion could be found except as 
concerned the law of their God. And thus they reaped as they 
had sown. The sanctioned remains of the old oppression, super- 
scition, and ignorance, yielded, according to their amount, the 
natural and wonted produce of profaneness, proiligacy, and crime. 
Nor was their example without its blighting influence on the 
religion and morals of the land. We have already adverted to 
some of the lessons practically inculcated by the Sovereign, whose 
sex, early sufferings, acquirements, energy, self-identification with 
her people, dignified bearing, and successful government, made her 
the object of the nation s honour and love, and thus the more 
powerful for good or evil. Of Archbishop Parker it has been said, 
" His Grace had too little regard for public virtue ; his entertain 
ments and feastings being chiefly on the Lord s Day : nor do we 
read among his episcopal qualities of his diligent preaching, or 
pious example." 2 After his death, Aylmer, bishop of London, 
and Archbishop Whitgift, may be said to have been the leading 
men of the Church for many years. The former, the honoured 
tutor of Lady Jane Grey, tnen an exile for his Protestantism, 

i Wade s Middle and Working Clatses (1842), p. 23. 
Neal s Puritan* vol. 1. p. S41. 



ENGLAND. 53 

afterwards on the accession of Elizabeth an ardent reformer, 
justly though coarsely assailing, in his Harbour for Faithful Sub 
jects, the extravagant emoluments, dignities, and authority of the 
bishops, became in due time a conformist, alleging, on being 
twitted with his former opinions, that " when he was a child he 
spake as a child, and thought as a child." The latter, though he 
shrank from being a confessor in the days of Mary, felt a tran 
sient glow of indignation at the treatment by Parker of the Puri 
tans, but he also, on reaching the years of discretion, devoted him 
self to the support of things as they were. Both were persons of 
talent and learning, but they alike fell into an error fatal to their 
character as ministers of religion, when they surrendered their 
consciences to the will of an earthly sovereign. " The eye was 
not single," and hence the dark procedure of severity to faithful 
" fellow-servants," of indulgence to the unfaithful, of forbidding 
some, and not providing others, to speak to the ignorant that they 
might be saved. While we recognise with pleasure the sympathy 
of Aylmer with the sufferers in the plague of 1578, and the in 
terest taken by Whitgift in public charities, with his ultimate 
relenting towards Cartwright, when this great antagonist, in ap 
pearing before him, " behaved with so much modesty and respect," 
we are bound to say that their standard of Christian principle and 
conduct was far from being high. Love to the Sabbath, rever 
ence for the name of God, regard to truth, mercy, humility, and 
justice, are among the plainest marks of moral excellence. The 
bishop " usually played at bowls on the Sundays in the afternoons, 
and used such language at his game as justly exposed his charac 
ter to reproach ; J1 the archbishop " called in" a book which was 
producing a " more solemn and strict observation of the Lord s 
Day" in the country, 2 and was in the " constant custom" of mak 
ing promises to the great, of kindness towards the nonconformists, 
which he never fulfilled. 3 The spirit of the one was as high as 
that of the greatest lord in the land ; 4 the spirit of the other 

1 Neal s Puritans, vol. i. p. 576. 

2 Fuller s Church History (1655), Book ix. p. 227. Fuller cites Rogers, as in Pretace 
to the Articles, alleging that Bownd s Sallatum, the book referred to, was called in "by 
Whitgift. The same allegation is made by Heylyn, though, as we shall see, discredited 
by Twisse. 

8 Neal s Puritans, vol. i. p. 218. * Btrype s Aylmr, p. 84. 



64: SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

showed itself in affecting a pomp, which in his retinue, of some 
times a thousand horsemen including a hundred servants, many 
of them with gold chains, resembled that of Wolsey, and in his 
cathedral worship emulated the gorgeous ceremonial of the Pope s 
chapel. 1 His lordship of London, instead of carrying out his 
early proposal that the bishops should apply the superfluities of 
their large revenues to the maintenance of the wars which they 
had procured, and to the extension of schools and preaching, 
became an accumulator of money, 2 while his Grace of Canterbury 
" seldom failed to offer" " the perpetual incense of profuse adula 
tion at the shrine of secular power," 3 of which a mournful instance 
was afforded when he ascribed the King s medley of learning and 
folly uttered at the Hampton Court Conference to the special 
assistance of the Spirit of God. Both were choleric men, who 
poured out the language of the most undignified abuse on the Puri 
tan ministers, and indulged in a treatment of them, which, on the 
part of the bishop, amounted sometimes to brutality and outrage 
on common justice, 4 and, on that of the primate, "savoured," 
according to Lord Burghley, " of the Romish Inquisition ;" and. 
in the complication of toils spread for entrapping victims, exceeded 
the Inquisition of Spain the whole being a device to seek for 
rather than to reform offenders, and tending to encourage Papists 
as well as endanger the Queen s safety. 5 Let not ignorance of 
the principles of true liberty be assigned as an apology for any 
doings of the kind, still less for their grosser forms, or for the con 
duct of Puritans, whether in submitting to them then, or in imi 
tating them in any measure afterwards. These principles lay 
clearly before them in the Bible. They were not altogether un 
known to Zuinglius, Luther, or Queen Elizabeth s council. And 
persecution is the error, not of mere times and circumstances, but 
of human nature of the heart rather than of the head. 

That under such an ecclesiastical rule the nation did not reveii 
to Popery, as more than once it was apprehended it would, o~ 
that it did not sink to a lower depth, was owing to the measure 
of reformation which it retained, and to the agencies and means 

i Paule s Life of Whitgift (Lond. 4to, 1612), pp. 78, 79. 

* Nsal, vol. i. pp. 441-443. 3 Toplady s Works (1837), p. 212 

Neal, vol. i. pp. 365, 374, 383, 432, etc * Fuller s Church History, B. tt p 166. 



ENGLAND. 55 

of good, which, though crippled and borne down, were not extin 
guished It was good for England that its civil affairs were under 
the direction of wise counsellors who knew how to influence the 
regal will, particularly Lord Burghley, one of the greatest of 
statesmen 1 that the Queen, who dreaded the liberty of the press, 
of the pulpit, and of Parliament, made her subjects nevertheless 
welcome to the Homilies, to the Prayer-book, to the Catechism, 
to Jewell s Apology and Reply, to Fox s Acts and Monuments 
all containing much precious truth ; and, above all, to an open 
Bible, of which one hundred and thirty distinct publications were 
issued in the course of her reign, 2 and that neither she nor 
others could altogether prevent such men as Grindal, whom 
Bacon called " the greatest and gravest prelate of the land," 
Pilkington, Parkhurst, and Noell, from sowing beside all waters 
the seed of truth, or the Puritans from doing much good under 
the sheltering wings of these good men, and, when deprived of 
the?.r protection, from being received into the houses of the 
nobility, gentry, and wealthy citizens, where they discharged the 
duties of chaplains and tutors with a beneficial effect which was 
experienced in the next generation. It was, under Providence, 
to such means as these, in other words, to the degree in which 
the principles of the ^Reformation exerted their enlightening and 
elevating power, that England was indebted for her superiority 
in commerce, wealth, literature, and military fame, to the other 
nations of Europe. 

Of these means not the least salutary remains to be noticed. 
If any one thing more than another turned the people adrift on 
the sea of ungodliness and vice, and defeated the ends of religion 
and government, it was an unsanctih ed Sabbath. In proportion, 
therefore, as any applied the institution to its purposes of sacred 
rest and service, they kept themselves and those under their care 
from moral ruin, came with their families under the power of 
sanctifying objects and exercises, leavened instead of further cor 
rupting the human mass around them, and brought down on their 

1 "The High Church policy which may be traced in the councils of Elizabeth, from 
the death of Lord Burghley, certainly went far to weaken her popularity during tho 
last years of her reign." British Quarterly Review for February 1848, p. 74. 

Anderson s Aniialt of the English Bible, vol. ii. p. 353. 



56 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTKOVERSIES. 

country, in its arms, trade, and literary studies, the enriching 
blessing of Heaven. The men, too, who urged sabbatic claims 
on their brethren from the press or pulpit, were signal benefactors 
to the religion and every interest of the community. "Wherever 
there is sound and practical Christianity, there must be friends 
and advocates of the Lord s Day. Tyndale in the twilight of a 
transition from the darkness of Popery to the light of Reforma 
tion, though he may utter crudities in the heat of his zeal against 
arrogant assumption, must, as the appropriated time in the weekly 
cycle comes round, obey at once the Divine command, and the 
instinct and necessities of his new nature, by retreating into an 
inner and holier sanctuary. Over England, there doubtless were 
many both before and after the Reformation, who, feeding on such 
portions of the word of God as they possessed, spent His day in 
sacred thoughts and acts, and wept in secret places over the abuse 
and waste of its golden hours. Various instances of reverence 
and zeal for that day have already appeared in the course of this 
sketch. And we must now hastily notice some other illustrations 
of this spirit, as it appears struggling against the opposite error 
and evil in the few years that must yet elapse ere the sabbatic 
institution be for the first" time the occasion of convulsing the 
Church. 

For twenty years after the settlement of the doctrines of the 
Church in 1562, the friends of the Sabbath seemed to have occa 
sion for exerting themselves against practical rather than theore 
tical errors on the subject. Instances of their zeal in this respect 
have already been noticed. Let others be now added. There 
appeared about the year 1577, a treatise by John Northbrooke, 
minister and preacher of the word of God, reprinted, singularly 
enough, by "the Shakespeare Society" in 1843, which was de 
signed to " reprove," by the authority of Scripture and ancient 
writers, a variety of idle pastimes, " commonly used on the Sab- 
both-day." It is the fourth instance in which the institution, so 
far as we have seen, has been mentioned in the title-page of any 
book ; but on examining the work, we find that its sole object is 
to prove, that " dicing, dauncing, vaine plays, or enterludes," 
etc., are at all times improper and hurtful, from which we are 
left to draw the inference, that they are especially so on the 



ENGLAND. 57 

Lord s Day. Northbrooke was followed by Humphrey Robartes, 
in A Complaint for Reformation of similar abuses, published in 
1580. We have not seen this publication, nor one of the year 
1583, which considered the calamity in the Paris garden as a 
Divine judgment, and called for reform in reference to Sabbath 
observance. After mentioning the execution this year of two 
ministers, Messrs. Thacker and Copping, who, though " sound in 
the doctrinal articles of the Church of England, and of un 
blemished lives," were condemned to die for circulating a work 
against the Book of Common Prayer, the author himself, Robert 
Brown, being at the same time pardoned and set at liberty, Neal 
observes, " While the bishops were thus harassing honest and 
conscientious ministers for scrupling the ceremonies of the Church, 
practical religion was at a very low ebb ; the fashionable vices 
of the time were profane swearing, drunkenness, revelling, gaming, 
and profanation of the Lord s Day ; but there was no discipline 
for these offenders, nor do I find any such cited into the spiritual 
courts, or shut up in prisons. If men came to their parish 
churches, and approved of the habits and ceremonies, other 
offences were overlooked, and the court was easy." 1 The Lord 
Mayor of London evinced a concern for the Sabbath-day, which 
honourably distinguished not a few who held the office both be 
fore and after his time. Writing that year to the Lord Trea 
surer, soon after the tragic scene in the Paris garden, he says, 
that " it gives great occasion to acknowledge the hand of God 
for such abuse of his Sabbath-day, and moveth me in conscience 
to give order for redress of such contempt of God s service ;" 
adding, that for this purpose he had treated with some Justices 

1 Neal, vol. i. p. 390. Bishop Aylmer displaced a minister, because he had in 
formed him that " within the compass of sixteen miles there were twenty-two non-resi 
dents, thirty insufficient and scandalous ministers, and nineteen silenced for refusing 
subscription," and because it was alleged, that he was chosen by the people, had 
defaced the Book of Common Prayer, denied that Christ descended into the regions 
of the damned, and kept persons from the Communion, when there was more need 
to allure them to it ; but refused compliance with the petition of the parishioners to 
remove that minister s successor, saying, "that he would not, for all the livings he 
had, put a poor man out of his living for the fact of adultery." And yet this rigid 
disciplinarian in rituals though not in morals in transgressions of human, not of 
Dirine injunctions, made his own porter minister of Paddington ! Strype s Ayliner, 
pp 120, 121, 212, 213; Brook, vol. iL pp 166, ISS.ttofc. 



58 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

of Peace in Surrey, who expressed a very good zeal, but alleged 
want of commission, which he referred to the consideration of his 
Lordship. 1 Neal states that the Court paid no regard to such 
remonstrances. Neither the Queen nor the Bishop of London 
could consistently with their own practice interfere. But what 
has become of Burghley, who had made sacrifices for his religion, 
who had such power in the council, and who uttered the noble 
words, " I will trust no man if he be not of sound religion, for 
he that is false to God can never be true to man " 1 The person 
who had such views, and who " never retired to rest out of 
charity with any man," was not likely to forget his duty on this 
occasion ; but how he acted we are not aware. 

To the year 1583 belongs the first appearance of Gervase 
Babington (born 1551, died 1610) as an author on our subject. 
In his work of that year, An Exposition of the Ten Command 
ments, of which another edition appeared in 1586, and in his 
Commentary on Genesis, which is to be found in his collected 
works of 1596 and 1615, he maintained the primaeval institution 
of the Sabbath, the Divine authority of its transference from the 
seventh to the first day of the week, and the obligation of devot 
ing the Lord s Day, except in cases of absolute necessity, to holy 
rest and service, according to the prescription of the Fourth Com 
mandment. Having been educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, 
of which he became Fellow, and having taken his degrees of A.M. 
and D.D., he was made domestic chaplain to the Earl of Pem 
broke, whose Countess he assisted in her version of the Psalms 
into English metre. After a course of diligent stud} 7 , and show 
ing himself a most impressive preacher, he was appointed prebend 
ary of Wellington in 1588, and in 1591 advanced to the bishopric 
of LlandafF, "thence translated to Exeter, thence to Worcester, 
thence to Heaven," says Fuller, who adds, " He was an excellent 
pulpit man, happy in raising the affections of his auditory, which 
having got up, he would keep up, till the close of his sermon." 
It has been further said of him, that he was remarkably devoid 
of the failings which attach to some even of the best of men, and 
that Ids life was spent in the cultivation of his mind, ani in the 
exercise of every virtue. 

* Nel, vol. i. p. 300. 



ENGLAND. 59 

While a few were thus coping with a wide-spread, and, by the 
chief authorities, practically sanctioned evil, a greater number were 
applying the remedies of a preached gospel, and private religious 
instruction, in various parts of the kingdom. Greenham at Dray- 
ton, Bownd at Norton, and Perkins at Cambridge, had, for a longer 
or briefer space, proclaimed those weighty and impressive truths 
relative to the Sabbath, as to many other subjects, which were after 
wards given to the world in their valuable works. Thomas Rogers 
at Horningsheatli would, before his suspension for nonconformity, 
render good service to the institution, though he saw reason ere 
long to change his opinions, and turn informer against the culprit, 
who was, to his taste, unduly zealous for the just, hoiy, and good 
commandment, " Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day." 
Others there were, in considerable numbers, who, if not so cele 
brated, were like-minded men. When Dr. Bownd was suspended, 
between two and three hundred ministers shared his fate. We 
wonder that the race of Puritans was not extirpated. But as 
hundred after hundred of them were suspended, others were seen 
to spring up as from the ground, like the fabled crop of armed 
warriors of old, or rather like the veritable people, of whom it is 
testified that, " the more they afflicted them, they more they mul 
tiplied and grew ;" so that after thirty and forty years of oppres 
sion, there were in 1592, according to Sir Walter Raleigh s state 
ment in Parliament, twenty thousand nonconformists without, and 
in 1603, according to the words of the Millenary Petition, upwards 
of a thousand ministers who were aggrieved at ceremonial strict 
ness and sabbatic laxity, within, the pale of the Church. It was 
remarkable, moreover, that the pulpit and the press were left so free 
to the advocates of the Lord s Day. The Queen appeared to be 
content with the neglecting of petitions, and the quashing of Par 
liamentary bills, having for their object its better observance. The 
leading prelates, what with looking after unsurpliced incumbents, 
what with enjoying their entertainments or games, seemed to have 
their hands full. At all events, though Greenham, Perkins, and 
Dod suffered on account of the ceremonies, they, with Bishop 
Babington, and others, were all, excepting Smith and Bownd, per 
mitted to plead the claims of the weekly holy day without harass 
ment or hindrance. 



60 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

It might be conceived, from the state of matters in 1584, that 
the efforts employed on behalf of the institution had been unsuc 
cessful. A writer of that year informs us not only that few spent 
the Lord s Day in the public and private exercises of religion, 
" the greatest multitude of men and women of all degrees and 
callings, letting loose the reins and giving out the bridle unto all 
kinds of vanities and licentiousness," but, what has not previously 
appeared, that there were "manifold disputations among the 
learned," and " a great diversity of opinion among the vulgar 
people and simple sort, concerning the Sabboth-day, and the right 
.use of the same" some maintaining the unchanged and unchange 
able obligation of the seventh-day Sabbath ; others utterly deny 
ing that there ought to be a dedication of any day to the Divine 
service ; and a third class, while they granted that the first day 
of the week should be appropriated to the use of the ministry 
and church meetings, holding that every man might lawfully follow 
his usual calling on that as on any other day. And yet, without 
questioning that bad practice in some had led to the adoption and 
avowal of bad principles, we have no doubt that the alleged dis 
putes and diversities gave evidence that the general mind was 
awakened to thought and inquiry, which further information 
would guide to a good result. One effect would be that religious 
men would avail themselves of the spirit abroad in the community 
by imparting sound instruction. It was so in fact. The writer 
referred to was an instance. He translated and published that 
part of the works of Ursinus which treated of the Fourth Com 
mandment, observing, in "The Epistle Dedicatory," from which 
the preceding information has been derived : " I have thought with 
myself that I could not do better than to seek out a remedy for 
the staying of the consciences of the weaker number in this great 
variety and doubtfulness of assertions, tending to the overthrow 
of religion and impeachment of God s service ;" and " finding the 
argument [of Ursinus] fit for the circumstance of the time, I have 
turned the same into our mother tongue, for the further benefit of 
the godly and christianly disposed, that they may have in this 
point wherewith to satisfy both themselves and others." 1 

1 Of this worthy man we have ascertained nothing more than is stated on the title- 
page of his translation, where he designates himself "John Stoclrwood, Schoolmaster 



EtfGLAKD. Cl 

Archbishop Whitgift, on his elevation to the primacy in Sep 
tember 1583, received from the Queen " a strait charge," as he 
afterwards termed it, to restore the discipline and uniformity of 
the Church, which, through some conniving prelates, the obstinate 
Puritans, and a few powerful noblemen, had " run out of square." 
And when we consider that within the year he had published his 
three Articles, procuring for their enforcement an ecclesiastical 
commission, with powers beyond those of any preceding one, and 
that, not satisfied with the domestic misery and spiritual desolation 
spread by these engines of cruelty and terror over many parts nf 
the land, he has sought and obtained in -1585 a decree for a fur 
ther restraint on the press, we are not surprised that under such 
a regime the sacred enclosure of the weekly rest should in that 
year be threatened with invasion, and a worthy man called to 
account for urging obedience to the sabbatic law of his country. 1 
Nothing, indeed, came of the interference, but it showed how mat 
ters, under a growing intolerance, were tending. The case is thus 
stated by Neal ; "The Rev. Mr. Smith, M.A., in his sermon 

of Tunbridge," beyond the fact, that he published a variety of other pieces, chiefly 
^translations of portions of the writings of Bullinger, Beza, etc. , under the character, in 
some instances, of "minister" as well as schoolmaster, and dating the preface to the 
first-mentioned, " Zurich, 1556," from which it might be supposed that he was then an 
exile. The work before us is dedicated to "Lady Pelham," a daughter-in-law of Sir 
N. Pelham, " a learned man and a favourer of the Reformation." We might conjecture 
that Stockwood was one of the men who, in those times of " sore travail," was driven 
from the profession of a minister to that of a teacher. 

1 This decree the third instance in which the liberty of the press was abridged in this 
reign, each successive one worse than the preceding restricted printing-presses to Lon 
don and the two Universities, and ordered that no book should be printed against any 
of the laws in being, or any of the Queen s injunctions that no new presses should be 
set up but by license from the Archbishop, or Bishop of London for the time being, and 
that no person should print any book unless first allowed according to the foresaid in 
junctions, and seen and perused by one of these prelates or their chaplains. Strype s 
Whit-gift, p. 223. The press was thus " in the hands of the Archbishop, who took all 
possible care to stifle the writings of the Puritans, while he gave license to Ascanio, an 
Italian merchant and bookseller in London, to import what Popish books he thought fit, 
upon this very odd pretence, that the adversaries arguments being better known by 
learned men might be more easily confuted. " The Puritans, however, found ways and 
means from abroad to propagate their writings and expose the severity of their ad 
versaries. Some of them purchased a private press in 1589, and carried it from one 
county to another to prevent disco very. Satirical pamphlets, answered with equal buf 
foonery, issued from it, and were dispersed over the kingdom, till the press being dis 
covered and seized, some of its supporters were "deeply fined," and others -were potto 
.1*ath.~- Neal, vol. i. pp. *3, 482, ftos, 507. 



62 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

before the University of Cambridge, the first Sunday in Lent, 
maintained the unlawfulness of these plays" plays on the even 
ings, and sometimes in the afternoons of Lord s Days " for which 
he was summoned before the Vice-Chancellor, and upon examina 
tion offered to prove, that the Christian Sabbath ought to be 
observed by an abstinence from all worldly business, and spent in 
works of piety and charity ; though he did not apprehend we 
were bound to the strictness of the Jewish precepts. The Parlia 
ment had taken this matter into consideration, and passed a bill 
for the better and more reverent observation of the Sabbath, which 
the Speaker recommended to the Queen in an elegant speech ; but 
her Majesty refused to pass it, under the pretence of not suffering 
the Parliament to meddle with matters of religion, which was her 
prerogative. However, the thing appeared so reasonable, that, 
without the assistance of a law, the religious observation of the 
Sabbath grew into esteem with all sober persons, and after a few 
years became the distinguishing mark of a Puritan." 1 

If such a case as that of Smith was rare in this reign, not less 
so the necessity of defending the institution against an attack made 
on it through the press. This necessity arose in 1585, when the 
Rhemes New Testament appeared. Tle individuals who wrote and 
printed this book at Kheims, and the Old Testament at Douay in 
1609, were four exiled Englishmen and Romanists, William Allyn, 
afterwards Cardinal, Gregory Martin, Richard Bristow, authors of 
the translation, and Thomas Worthington, writer of the notes. 
The whole was designed for the Roman Catholics in England, from 
whom it was seen that the Bible could no longer be withheld, and 
yet whom, as was also seen, it would be fatal to a bolstered-up 
system to trust with the Bible in a true and unglossed version. 
A work in which, by false renderings of the text, and a mass of 
sophistical notes, a portion of the Word of God was wrested in 
support of Popery, was conceived to demand a reply. Many, in 
cluding Dr. Fulke, concurred with Beza in pointing to Cartwright 
as the fittest man to write it, and petitioned him to undertake the 
task. He had yielded to their importunities ; hut Whitgift, hold 
ing him to be too much of a Puritan, " forbade him to proceed," 
and recommended for the service Dr. Fulke,. who published a con* 

1 Neal, vol. i. pp. 461, 4435. For a life of Smith (Smyth), see Erook a Puritan*. 



ENGLAND. 63 

filiation in 1589. " A View of the Marginal Notes in the Popish 
Testament," by Dr. George Withers, appeared in 1588. Cart 
wright proceeded with his work, which was published in 1618, 
fifteen years after his death, and though closing with Rev. xvii., 
was, according to Fuller, "so complete a refutation, that the 
Rhemists durst never answer it." Among the errors of the 
Rhemes New Testament were its sabbatic opinions. In the re 
marks on Rev. i. 10, the annotator declares, that the apostles and 
the faithful abrogated the Sabbath of the seventh day, and made 
the eighth day in count from the creation holy day in its place, 
and this without all Scriptures or commandment of Christ ; and 
that if the Church had authority and inspiration to make Sunday 
(being a week-day before) an everlasting holy day, and the Satur 
day, that was before a holy day, now a common work-day, the 
same Church may prescribe and appoint the other holy feasts of 
Easter, Whitsuntide, Christmas, and the rest. No proofs are 
given of these statements and assumptions, and it is, therefore, 
sufficient to meet them with the following counter-assertions of 
Dr. Fulke : " That the Lord s Day was sanctified instead of the 
Jewish Saboth, for the assemblies of the faithful to the public 
exercises of religion, we learn by this place. But that there were. 
any other holy days beside this, we find not in the Scriptures. 
The apostles did not abrogate the Jewish Saboth, but Christ him 
self by His death, as He did all other ceremonies of the law that 
were figures and shadows of things to come, whereof He was the 
body, and they were fulfilled and accomplished in Him and by 
Him. And this the apostles knew, both by the Scriptures, and 
by the word of Christ, and by his Holy Spirit. By the Scripture 
also they knew, that one day of seven was appointed to be observed 
for ever, during the world, as consecrated and hallowed to the 
public exercises of the religion of God, although the ceremonial 
rest and prescript-day, according to the law, were abrogated by the 
death of Christ. Now for the prescription of this day before any 
other of the seven, they had without doubt, either the express 
commandment of Christ before His ascension, when He gave the 
precepts concerning the kingdom of God, and the ordering and 
government of the Church (Acts i. 2), or else the certain direction 
of His Spirit, that it was His will and pleasure it should be so, 



64 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

and that, also, according to the Scriptures. ... To change the 
Lord s Day, and keep it on Monday, Tuesday, or any other day, 
the Church hath no authority. For it is not a matter of indifter- 
ency, but a necessary prescription of Christ himself delivered to us 
by His apostles." l 

It has been observed respecting the learned and voluminous 
writings of this author, that they are " monuments of his industry 
and love of study, and furnish satisfactory evidence, that among 
contemporary scholars none surpassed him in erudition, in a gram 
matical and deep acquaintance with the learned tongues, in acute- 
ness and closeness of reasoning, and vigorous and untiring energy in 
supporting the bulwarks," and it ought to be added, in labouring 
for the reformation " of the Church of England." 2 Dr. William 
Fulke (died 1589) was born in London, educated in St. John s 
College, Cambridge, of which he was chosen Fellow in 1564, 
expelled for his intimacy with Cartwright and suspected puritan- 
ism, presented successively to the rectories of Wesley and Den- 
nington, and after accompanying the Earl of Lincoln *on his 
embassy to the Court of France, appointed to the mastership of 
Pembroke Hall, where he found leisure for his literary labours. 
- The excellent and laborious Perkins had repeatedly appeared as 
an author before the year 1591, but in that year he published 
A Golden Chain ; or the Description of Theology, where, in a 
chapter on the Fourth Commandment, he for the first time treated 
of the sabbatic institution. The views there expressed, and after 
wards repeated with more or less amplification in his Cases of 
Conscience, and in his Commentaries on the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians, and the first three chapters of the Revelation, though 
affirmed with diffidence, are substantially the same as those of 
Hooper, of the Homilies, of Babington, and Fulke. It appears, 
that previously to their publication in print, they had been pro 
pagated by written, as they had been by his oral, words. Zealous 
hearers took them down from his lips, and their notes were 
widely circulated. It is not unlikely that the shackled state of 
the press would promote, if it did not suggest, the practice. In 

1 The Text of the New Testament, etc. (1601), on Rev. 1. 10. 

2 Biographical Account in Defence of English Translation qf the Scriptures, Park. Soa 
edition. 



ENGLAND. 65 

this way the preacher had his sentiments conveyed from Cam 
bridge to Dublin, and contributed to form the character of one of 
the most remarkable men in the following century. About 1590, 
when Ussher was only ten years of age, " his meeting with some 
notes taken from famous Mr. Perkins (his works being not then 
printed), concerning the sanctification of the Lord s Day, proved, 
through God s blessing, so effectual with him that ever after he 
was the more strict in the observing of it." 1 The discourses of 
Greenham seem to have been turned to account after the same 
fashion. For the editor of his collected works (1599) informs us 
in the preface, "that then" the time of the author s death, 
which took place in 1591 "his works were dispersed far and 
near ;" and states, at p. 228 of the volume, that his Treatise of 
the Sabboth " hath been in many hands for many years, and hath 
given light to some." Eichard Greenham (1531-1591), M.A., 
minister for twenty-two years at Dry Drayton, and for two years 
at Christ Church, London, where he died of the plague, and AVilliam 
Perkins (1558-1602), for the most part of his brief life minister 
of St. Andrew s Church, Cambridge, had much in common. 
Alumni arid fellows of colleges in the University of Cambridge, they 
became distinguished as fervent preachers, laborious ministers, ex 
cellent casuists, earnest friends and advocates from pulpit and press 
of the Lord s Day, Puritans who suffered at the hands of Whitgift 
the former suspension, the latter deprivation for their opinions, 
wise, blameless, and pious men, and instruments of largely promot 
ing the interests of evangelical truth and practical religion. Among 
the circumstances which peculiarly marked the course of Perkins 
were his extraordinary conversion, 2 his successful zeal for the 
good of the prisoners in Cambridge jail, the European fame of 
his writings, written in elegant Latin, or translated into five of 
the continental languages, and the credit, not only of a style pro 
nounced the best of his own and the following age, but of being 
the first, according to Mosheim, to give form, accuracy, and pre 
cision to the master- science which has virtue, life, and manners, 

1 Clark s Collection of Lives (1662), p. 191. 

3 While leading a profane and dissolute life at college, he heard a woman say to a 
troublesome child, Hold your peace, or I will give you to drunken Perkins, yonder 1 
The thought that his name was a bye-word for an intemperate man we&t to his liewt, 
nd TTSB th means of rousing him to break the fetters of vica 



66 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

for its object. 1 The end of Perkins, as of- Greenham, was peace. 
The death of the latter was " most comfortable and happy." The 
former expired crying for mercy and forgiveness, and thus again 
blessed that great and good archbishop, who, having often wished 
that he might die the death of holy Mr. Perkins, poured out his 
latest breath in the words, " Lord, especially forgive my sins of 
omission." 

We have now come to the commencement of the earliest sab 
batic contest, entitled to the name, in the Christian Church. The 
occasion of this intestine war was the publication, in 1595, of 
The Doctrine of the /Sabbath, plainely layde forth and soundly 
proved, etc. : by Nicholas Bownd, D.D., a treatise in which the 
institution, for the first time probably, received a full and satis 
factory consideration. Of the author little has been recorded. 
Educated at Cambridge, where he took his degrees, he became 
minister of Norton in Suffolk, and was one of sixty, who, in 
1583, were suspended from the exercise of sacred functions for 
refusing to subscribe Whitgift s three Articles, which declared : 
1. That the Queen was supreme head of the Church ; 2. That 
the Ordinal arid the Book of Common Prayer contained nothing 
contrary to the Word of God ; and, 3. That the Thirty-nine Ar 
ticles of the Church of England were to be admitted as agreeable 
to the Holy Scriptures. 2 Besides The Doctrine of the Sabbath, 
which, after being " perused" and enlarged, was reprinted in 1606. 
he published three works, according to Wood, who adds, " with 
other things which I have not seen." 3 His literary labours ap 
pear to have been all carried on at Norton, and to warrant the 

1 History (1825), vol. iv. pp. 412, 413. Orton, who was descended from an elder brother 
of Perkins, says, in 1772 (Practical Works, vol. ii. p. 434) : " His works arc little known 
in England, but they are still in estimation in Germany." The three volumes folio might 
be seen in the libraries of some Scottish ministers half a century ago, and the writer once 
found them in the hands of a plain though somewhat bein Scotsman, who read and re 
lished them not the less that they presented the truths of the Bible in a manner some 
what different from that of the more familiar works of Owen and Boston. 

2 By the 13th Elizabeth, the subscription of the clergy was limited to those Articles 
of the Church which related to the doctrines of faith and the administiation of the sa 
craments, whereas Whitgift s Articles enjoined subscription to the whole thirty-nine, 
ana were otherwise illegal and oppressive. 

3 The three works are The Holy Exercise of Fasting, etc., in certain Homilies or 
Sermons (1604). A Storehouse of Comfort for the afflicted in Spirit, set open in Twenty- 
on* Sermons (1C04) ; and, The Unbelief of Thomas the Apostle, laid open for Believers, 
etc. (1608). 



ENGLAND. 67 

presumption that he had been permitted to resume the exercise 
of his ministry there. 

Dr. Bownd s treatise on the Sabbath was regarded with so 
much favour and dislike by different classes, and produced so great 
a change in the sabbatic practice of Englishmen in his time, as 
to entitle its doctrines and history to more notice than they have 
of late received. 

The positions which the writer copiously and learnedly main 
tains from Scripture, the Fathers, and Reformers, are the follow 
ing : The observation of the Sabbath is not a bare ordinance of 
man, or a merely civil or ecclesiastical constitution, appointed 
only for polity, but an immortal commandment of Almighty God, 
and therefore bindeth men s consciences. The Sabbath was given 
to our first parents, and so after carefully observed both by them 
and by their posterity. 

It was revived on Mount Sinai by God s own voice to the 
Israelites, with a special note of remembrance, fortified with more 
reasons than the other precepts, and particularly applied to all 
sorts of men by name, showing how careful the Lord was, that 
every one should straitly keep it. 

While the ceremonies of the law, which made a difference be 
tween Jew and Gentile, are taken away by the gospel, this com 
mandment of the Sabbath abideth still in full force as moral and 
perpetual, and bindeth for ever all nations and sorts of men as 
before. 

The apostles, by the direction of God s Spirit, changed the day 
from the seventh to the eighth, which we now keep in honour of 
Redemption, and which ought still to be kept of all nations to 
the world s end, because we can never have the like cause or 
direction to change it. 

On this day we are bound straitly to rest from all the ordinary 
works of our calling; because six days in the week are appointed 
for them, and the seventh is sanctified and separated by God him 
self from the others to another end the public service of God 

Much more ought we on that day to avoid every kind of law 
ful recreations and pastimes, which are less necessary than the 
works of our callings, and whatever withdraws the heart from 
God s service, because this law is spiritual, and binds the whola 



68 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

man as well as any other ; most of all ought we to renounce all 
such things as are not lawful at any time. l 

Works of necessity and mercy, however, are excepted from this 
prohibition, and the governors of the church and commonwealth 
have a liberty above others to perform such works for the good 
of both, in which, as in other things, their reasons are not to be 
busily scanned. 2 

The day of rest ought to be spent altogether in God s service, 
partly in frequenting the public assemblies, where the Word of 
God is plainly read and purely preached, the sacraments rightly 
administered, and prayer made in a known tongue to the edifying 
of the people, and in attending upon these things from the begin 
ning to the ending ; and partly in those private exercises which 
prepare for or promote the benefit of public worship, as private 
prayer, reading the Scriptures, singing of psalms, meditating or 
conferring about the word and works of God, and this either 
personally in the family or with neighbours, either in houses or 
abroad in the fields. 

Masters, magistrates, and princes, ought especially to provide 
in their respective spheres for the observation of this command 
ment, and to compel those under their charge to at least an out 
ward rest and its sanctification, as well as to the keeping of auy 
other commandment, such as those against murder, adultery, 
theft, and such like. 

We must aim at perfection here, not measuring our duty by 
our inability, but by the perfect reed of the temple, and, repent 
ing of our failures, crave pardon for Christ s sake. 

1 " In determining that we must give over then our ordinary recreations, we do not 
conclude that they should altogether be left, but advise men rather to take them at 
some other time ; and we do exhort them that be in government, to give some time 
to their children and servants for their honest recreation on other days, that they be 
not driven to take it upon this, seeing they can no more want it altogether than their 
ordinary food. And as we have seen that they are bound to give them some time to 
work for themselves, unless they will by their overmuch straitness compel them to it 
upon the day of rest ; so must they spare also some few hours for their refreshing UOAT 
and then, seeing they can no more want the one than the other." Pp. 271, 272. 

a " Necessitas non habet ferias." This " is to be considered of us the rather, lest 
any through a gross superstition should fall into the extremity of the Jews of whom 
it is written, and namely, of certain heretics called Essaei, that they are over pre 
cise iu this rest, so that they dress all their jncat the lay before, and kindle no fire,"" 
ta.~- P. 228. 



ENGLAND. 69 

The treatise on its first appearance, produced an extraordinary 
sensation, which Fuller thus describes : " About this time 
(1595), throughout England began the more solemn and strict 
observation of the Lord s Day (hereafter, both in writing and 
preaching, commonly called the Sabbath), occasioned by a book 
this year set forth by one P. (sic) Bound, Doctor of Divinity, 
(and enlarged with additions, anno 1G06)." 1 After giving an 
abstract of its doctrines, the historian proceeds to say : " It is 
almost incredible how taking this doctrine was, partly because of 
its own purity, and partly for the eminent piety of such persons 
as maintained it, so that the Lord s Day, especially in corpora 
tions, began to be precisely kept, people becoming a law to 
themselves, forbearing such sports as yet by statute permitted ; 
yea, many rejoicing at their own restraint herein. On this day 
the stoutest fencer laid down the buckler, the most skilful 
archer unbent his bow, counting all shooting besides the mark ; 
May-games, and Morish-dances grew out of request, and good 
reason that bells should be silenced from gingling about men s 
legs, if their very ringing in steeples were adjudged unlawful ; 2 
some of them were ashamed of their former pleasures, like chil 
dren which, grown bigger, blushing themselves out of their 
rattles and whistles. Others forbear them for fear of their 
superiors, and many left them off out of a politic compliance, 
lest otherwise they should be accounted licentious. 

" Yet learned men were much divided in their judgments about 
these Sabbatarian doctrines. Some embraced them as ancient 
truths consonant to Scripture, long disused and neglected, now 
seasonably revived for the increase of piety. Others conceived 
them grounded on a wrong bottom, but because they tended to 
the manifest advance of religion, it was pity to oppose them, 
seeing none have just reason to complain being deceived into 
their own good. But a third sort flatly fell out with these posi 
tions, as galling men s necks with a Jewish yoke, against the 

1 " Sabathum Veteris et Novi Testamenti, or the True Doctrine of the Sabbath before and 
under the Law, and in the time of the. Gospel, &c." 

2 Fuller exaggerates the claims of Bownd to originality. The word " Sabbath " had 
been used by the Fathers, in the Homilies, by Becon, Babington, Perkins, and other*. 
Among the injunctions of Edward vi. was the following : " All ringing of bells, MV 
one, shall *-e utterly forborn." 

4* 



70 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

liberty of Christians : that Christ, as Lord of the Sabbath, had 
removed the rigour thereof, and allowed men lawful recreations : 
that the doctrine put an unequal lustre on the Sunday, on set 
purpose to eclipse all other holy days to the derogation of the 
Church : that the strict observance was set up out of faction to 
be a character of difference, to brand all for libertines who did 
not entertain it." 

For a time no attempt was made to put down this stirring 
publication, whether by argument or by authority. " For some 
years together," continues Fuller, " Dr. Bound atone carried the 
garland away, none offering openly to oppose, and not so much as 
a feather of a quill in print did wag against him. Yet, as he in 
his second edition observeth, many, both in their preachings, writ 
ings, and disputations, did concur with him in that argument." 
Among the " many " were Babington, Perkins, and Dod. An 
edition of the works of Babington appeared in 1596. Perkins 
reprinted his Golden Chain in 1597. Both writers continued 
to maintain the sabbatic views which, before the publication of 
Bownd s treatise, they had given to the world, and which were in 
substance the same as his. An Exposition of the Ten Command 
ments by John Dod, minister at Hanwell, Oxfordshire, aided, as he 
was in other works, by Robert Cleaver, minister at Drayton in the 
same county, belonged to the year 1604, and treated copiously 
and practically of the Sabbath. The exposition is simple, lively, 
pithy, and worthy of both, Cleaver having been " a most pious, 
excellent, and useful preacher," and Dod, not only " a distinguished 
scholar," but " a most worthy man," of whom Ussher said, " What 
ever some say of Mr. Dod s strictness, and scrupling some ceremo 
nies, I desire, that when I die, my soul may rest with his." In 
the second edition of his work, Bownd refers to a writer who had 
published a digest of the first edition. This, or An Abstract of 
the Doctrine of the Sabbath, by William Burton, had preceded the 
volume in which it is referred to, only by some months, as they 
both came out in 1606. It appears that "disputations" had 
taken place, in which the doctrine of Bownd was successfully ad 
vocated. One of these is repeatedly mentioned by writers of the 
time. Heylyn evidently felt sore when he thus recorded it : 
"In the year 1603, at the commencement held in Cambridge, 



ENGLAND. 71 

this thesis or proposition, Dies Dominicus nititur Verbo Dei, was 
publicly maintained by a doctor there, and by the then Vice-Chan 
cellor so determined ; neither the following doctors there, or any in 
the other University, that I can hear of, did ever put up any anti 
thesis in opposition thereunto." 1 

Three supporters of Dr. Bownd s doctrine are particularly alluded 
to by him in the preface to the second edition of his work. After 
informing us that many concurred with him in his argument, he 
says, " And three several profitable treatises were within a few 
years successively written by three godly learned ministers." One 
of these treatises, according to Fuller, was "made by Greenham." 
Another was probably the plain and practical Doctrine of the Sab 
bath, handled in Four Severall Bookes or Treatises, by George 
Widley, A.M., Minister of the Word of God in Portsmouth," 
which maintains the perpetuity of the Sabbath, as well as the sanc 
tity of the entire day, and was published in 1604. We find no 
third publication that fully answers Bownd s description. 

The treatise of Greenham was extensively read, and productive 
of much good. It had, as already stated, been in many hands 
for many years before it appeared among his collected works, and 
these passed through five editions in the course of 1599-1612, 
two of them in the first of those years. " No book," says Fuller, 
&lt;{ made a greater impression upon the minds of the people than 
his Treatise on the Sabbath, which greatly promoted the observ 
ance of it through the nation." Partaking of the qualities that 
distinguish all the writings of its author, the comprehensive brevity 
with which each topic is treated, great simplicity of language 
clothing not unfrequently original and striking thoughts, and a 
spirit of unaffected piety and benevolence, it presents, within some 
ninety small pages, the very pith of the subject as regards its doc 
trine, polemics, and duties. It has almost nothing of the patristic 
learning which appears in the volume of Dr. Bownd, as, except 
in one or two instances, it derives the support of its positions ex 
clusively from the Scriptures. Nor does it exhibit the same power 
of reasoning as that writer has wielded. But it surpasses the 
volume now mentioned, as appears to us, in its more faultless ex 
position of the sabbatic institution. 

i History of tin Sabbath, part ii. p. 261. 



72 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

There is scope for persons of all varieties of attainment to put 
forth their efforts in defence or recommendation of that institution. 
But if any class be more entitled and qualified than another to 
handle the subject, it must be the men who, to superior mental 
talents and acquirements, add a spirit imbued with the heavenly 
tastes and desires of the Christian. Such a man was Greenham. 
"He was," says Fuller, "a strict observer of the Lord s Day." 
It is also recorded of him, that " he loved the habitation of God s 
house," repairing to it however inferior might be the abilities of 
the preacher, and happy, like Chalmers, to hear those " intrinsic 
ally glorious and imperishable truths of the Christian system, 
which," as has been beautifully said, "language cannot embellish, 
nor the little arts of composition improve." It is such men alone 
who can fully perceive the excellence and value of the Sabbath. 
And the words of such come with power. In some measure, like 
their Master, they might say, " We speak that we do know, and 
testify that we have seen." Their united experience is an argu 
ment for the institution which admits of no answer. Their mani 
fest character an epistle which may be seen and read of all men 
is another. Let the life of Greenham show that a strictly ob 
served Lord s Day, though repulsive to the selfish and the self- 
indulgent, tends to encourage, not sourness, gloom, or unhappiness, 
but decision with meekness, labour with its dignity, beneficence 
with its pure pleasures, and faith in Christ with its safety and 
hope the whole making a man good, useful, and blessed. Bear 
ing in mind the particulars of that life already mentioned, let us 
consider some others. Every morning found that ardent man in 
Ids study at four o clock. The preaching of six sermons, with two 
catechetical exercises, formed his ministerial labour in public each 
week, the services of the work-days being, for the convenience of 
his people, in the mornings. Much of his time and strength was 
expended in giving religious instruction and counsel in private to 
the multitudes who resorted to him with their difficulties and 
doubts, and in unwearied applications for stipends and exhibitions 
for the assistance of poor scholars at the University. 1 Rejecting 
every lucrative preferment offered to him, he yet abounded in acts 
of liberality to the needy and distressed, showing a pity for the 

Ruasell s Memorial* &lt;f Th^ma-s Fuller, D.D., p. 14. 



ENGLAND. 73 

suffering, which, bringing by its resistless impulses himself and 
his family into frequent straits, it is far easier to condemn for im 
prudent excess, than to admire for its rare intensity. Nothing 
could make him subscribe to the rites and ceremonies which the 
prelates in his day so unjustly enforced, as they were in his view 
unsauctioned by Scripture, productive of much superstition, and 
hindrances to the success of the gospel ; but while he " loved the 
truth," he loved also " the peace," and combined the suaviter with 
thefortiter the meekness of wisdom with inflexibility of prin 
ciple and purpose. When called before the bishop, Dr. Cox, upon 
a complaint of his nonconformity, and asked, Whether the blame 
of the schism in the Church was attachable to the conformists or 
nonconformists 1 he replied, " that it might be attached to either 
or to ndtlier. For if both parties loved each other as they ought, 
and did acts of kindness for each other, thereby maintaining love 
and concord, the blame would be on neither side ; but which 
party soever made the rent, the charge of schism belonged to them." 
The bishop is said to have been so well satisfied with this answer, 
that he dismissed him in peace. 1 Greenhara was much esteemed 
and reverenced in his lifetime by the wise and good of various 
ranks. He died lamented. Bishops Hall and Wilkins, and others, 
have expressed high estimates of his works. From a number of 
tributes to his worth as a man and a writer, which appear in his 
collected works, we may be permitted, if not for their poetical 
merit, yet on account of their subject and their author, to present 
the following lines : 

Whiles Greenham writeth of the Sabboth s rest, 
His soul enjoys that which his pen exprest : 
His work enjoys not what itsel f doth say, 
For it shall never find one resting day ; 
A thousand hands shall toss each page and line, 
Which shaU be scanned by a thousand eyne. 
That Sabboth s rest, or this Sabboth s unrest, 
Hard is to say whether is the happiest. I. HALL.* 

i Brook s Puritans, vol. i. pp. 416, 417. To this work, with Fuller s Ch. Hist., and 
Greenham s Works (1599), we are indebted for most of the particulars relative to Green- 
ham, in this and preceding pages. 

9 Fuller, in citing the lines, says, " as one (then a great wit in the University, now a 
grave wisdom in our Church) hath ingeniously expressed." The I. Hall must hnv 



74 SKKTt HKS &gt;K 9ABBA.TK! ( ONTKoY KKSTKS. 

Thus far, and even down to the year 1005, the argument is 
all en one .side, and not, till 1,V.)9 was any opposition publicly 
made to the views of Dr. Bowml. In that, year, however, his 
treatise, according to Thomas Rogers of Horningcr, or Horning- 
nheath, \vas called in. Rogers himself, not long before a cashiered 
Puritan, confesses, and glories in the fact, that he turned Queen s 
evidence against his former friend. "It is a comfort unto my 
Noul," he says, in addressing Archbishop Bancroft, "and will be 
(ill my dying hour, (hat. 1 have been the man and the means that 
i he. Sabbatarian errors and impieties are brought into light and 
knowledge of the State, whereby whatsoever else, sure I am, this 
good hath ensued, namely, that the said books of the Sabbath .... 
hath been both called in, and forbidden any more to be printed 
and made common. Your Grace s predecessor, Archbishop White- 
gift, by his letters, and ollicers at synods, and visitations, Ann. 99, 
did the one ; and Sir, John Tojihani, Lord Chief-Justice of England, 
at Burie S Kdmonds, in Suffolk, Ann. 1600, did the other." 1 
Dr. Twisse. questions these allegations, ; s there was no evidence 
of their truth but the word of Rogers, and as, in the year after 
they were published, Willet s Commentary on Genesis appeared, 
dedicated to King James and to Kaneroff. under whose auspices 
it was undertaken, and highly commending as well as fully adopt 
ing the sentiments of I5ownd.~ There is, indeed, nothing in 
the second edition of the book to imply the alleged treatment 
of the first, and the manner in which the author writes of the 
Chief-Justice appears to be inconsistent with the representation 
of Rogers. He mentions " the very rare and honourable example" 
of that individual, in "resting for the most part on the Sabbath 
in his cireuit journeys," which he does not utter in flattery, "see 
ing that it is like that these shall never come into his hands and 
eyes;" ami adds, that he " travaileth so much the more early 
and late, and takcth up part of the night, that by extraordinary 
labouring upon other daies, hee might redeem the time to rest 
upon the Sabbath." 3 And yet both Heylyn and Fuller credit the 

txvu .loscnh Hall, ufi.-nvnnls llu&lt; &lt;vl&lt;&gt;l&gt;raf&lt;&gt;il Bishop of Norwich, and author of the 
"Contemplations." - r/i. Hist. vol. i\. j. -J-JO. 

* Preface, sort, -j;i (written "the 11 of March H&gt;07 "), k CuMoZi c Doctrine of (he Church 
tf England, lt&gt;"\ - Mamlity of the Foit.-ih i. "in^ndment, pp. 164-106. 

Bound s Kribatitm (2ii edit. if.Ot O. i&gt;. 9SL 



75 

statement of lingers, the former acknowledging that, the irv:isures 
of Whttgift and 1 opham were " good remedies, had they been 
soone inough applied," but lamenting " that they were not so good 
as those which formerly were applied to Thacker and his fellow, 
in the aforesaid townc of JJuric, for publishing the bookes of 
Urowne against the service of the Church." 1 Nor do we find 
that Neal, or any other writer, vindicates, or even notices, the 
doubts of Twisse. Certain it is, that in confessing to his 
having called the attention of tho authorities to what he desig 
nates " Sabbath speculations," Rogers asserted for himself the 
unenviable distinction of being both the first of professed Chris- 
tians to employ measures of violence against the friends of the 
Lord s Day, and the originator, Bownd being only the occasion, of 
the earliest sabbatic controversy within the pale of the Christian 
Church. 

We have referred the commencement of the dialectic controversy 
to A.D. 1605, because, though it was not till 1607 that a blow 
of this kind was struck with any effect against the institution, the 
former year was the date of the first anti-sabbatical publication. 
This was a treatise, 2 dedicated to King James, which maintained 
that the Sabbath is partly ceremonial and partly moral that it 
was not of primaeval origin that the Church was led by certain 
causes and reasons to substitute the first day of the week in place 
of the seventh as a Sabbath that all days in Christian times are 
not Sabbath days, and that the Sabbath should be sacredly ob 
served in rest of body arid mind, and in doing good, the whole 
suffused with joy and the pleasures of music and sports. Although 
he turns his weapons against the Puritans under the general de 
signation of Reformer.-!, the author condescends to mention tho 
name of no previous writer of his time, and he himself has been 
very seldom referred to by his successors. Rivet bestows two or 
three remarks on his views, and Heylyn, commending " one M. 
Loe of the Church of Exeter," as alone " declaring himself to be 
of different judgment from" the Sabbatarians, and as laying 
iowiie, indeed, the truest and most justifiable doctrine of the Sab- 

1 History of the Sabbath, part ii. p. 1 A. 

2 Efflgiatio Vcri Sabbathitimi. Authore Roberto Loeo, Exoniensis Kcolesia? Theuo 
:*rio. 4to, Lovl. 1005. 



76 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

bath of any \vriter in that time, * complains that the treatise, 
" being written in the Latine tongue, came not to the people s 
hands, many of those which understood it never meaning to let 
the people know the contents thereof." * A failure as to popular 
effect, the work was not lost upon the learned King and Laud, 
and was a fitting precursor of the Book of Sports. 

Fuller, " ignoring" Mr. Loe, observes, " The first that gave a 
check to the full speed of this" (Bownd s) " doctrine, was Thomas 
Rogers of Horninger, in Suffolk, in his preface to the Book of 
Articles." Rogers had published several editions of his Exposi 
tion of the Thirty-nine Articles, from 1579 downwards. In 1607, 
as we have seen, he wrote the Preface to which Fuller refers, and 
it appears in additions of the Exposition printed subsequently to 
that year. In this Preface he made his first attempt, as a disput 
ant, to controvert the doctrine which, in the capacity of informer, 
he had already fruitlessly sought to extirpate. In the Effigiatio 
there is argument, in " the Preface" there is none. We wonder 
what there was in the latter to " check the speed" of the opposite 
doctrine, till we recollect that strong assertion stands frequently 
with certain minds. for proof. A few words may suffice to tell 
the amount of what Rogers has to advance against the Puritans, 
or brethren, as he terms them, on the subject of their " Sabbata 
rian errors and impieties." Discomfited in the matter of the cere 
monies, they adopted the stratagem of holding up the Sabbath at 
the expense of the holidays, whence sprang irreligion and every 
evil. They set up a new idol, their St. Sabbath (erst in the days 
of Popish blindness, St. Sunday) in the midst and minds of God s 
people, thereby introducing a worse than either Jewish or Popish 
superstition into the land. Their insisting on a rigid observance 
of the Lord s Day by all classes, if they would not incur the 
penalties of damnation, led to such heretical and horrible state 
ments, as that to throw a bowl on the Sabbath-day is as great a 
sin as to kill a man, or commit adultery ; and that to make a 
feast or wedding- dinner on the Lord s Day is as great a sin as for 
a father to take a knife and cut his child s throat ; and that 
in the Sabbatum " are very many things to this effect." The 
reply of Dr. Twisse to these accusations, advanced by Rogers, and 

i Hist, of the Sabbath, part ii. p 261. 



ENGLAND. 7 7 

endorsee! by Heylyn, was the following : First, the sabbatic doc 
trine of Dr. Bownd was that of Perkins, Bishop Babington, Bishop 
Andrewes, Bishop Lake, Dr. Willet, as is shown by their own 
words. Dr. Willet is quoted as taking up the sentiments of 
Bownd, establishing them one by one from Scripture, and adding, 
" But these allegations are here superfluous, seeing there is a 
learned treatise of the Sabbath already published of this argument, 
which containeth a most sound doctrine of the Sabbath, as it is 
said in the former positions, which shall be able to abide the triall 
of the Word of God, and stand warranted thereby, when other 
humane fantasies shall vanish ; howsoever, some in their heat and 
intemperance are not afraid to call them sabbatariorum errores, 
yea, hereticall assertions, a new Jubilee, St. Sabbath, more than 
either Jewish or Popish institution ; God grant it be not layd to 
their charge that so speake or write, and God give them a better 
minde." 1 " Now I have made it manifest," says Twisse, " that 
the doctrines which he picks out of Dr. Bownd, and stiles Sabba 
tarian doctrines, are the doctrines of Dr. Andrewes, afterwards 
bishop of Winchester ; I could show them to be the doctrines of 
many other worthy prelates that have been of this kingdome ; and 
it may be, that if the votes of the bishops of this kingdom were 
taken, the major part would concurre with us, as touching the 
doctrine of the Sabbath, rather than against us." 2 This answer 
was important, not because names can prove a doctrine to be true, 
but because in the present instance they set aside the silly though 
plausible argument, founded on the puritanic character of the men 
who had stood up for the Sabbath, and on the alleged singularity 
of their opinions. Second, the allegation as to the " heretical 
and horrible" assertions uttered by the supporters of Bownd s 
doctrine, referring as it does only to a few cases, could prove no 
thing even if true, and was itself without proof. Dr. Twisse says, 
generally, of such charges, which it became the fashion of anti- 
sabbatists to take up without inquiry, and to trumpet on all occa 
sions, " As long as the world lasts, we shall be exercised with wild 
wits, and so no doubt we shall with tale-tellers too ;" and, ex 
amining those charges more particularly, he shows that the alleged 

I Comment, on Gen. ii. 3, in Twisse s Morality of the Fourth Comma-idir^nt, p. 166. 
Twigse, p. 164. 



78 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

expressions are, in two instances, accompanied by no particulars 
of person or place, the imputations having no better authority 
than the accuser s own word ; and that in cases where the parti 
culars were specified, either the evidence was wanting, or the false 
hood of the accusation was exposed. While it is possible, without 
at all affecting the doctrine of the Puritans, that an individual or 
two might use improper expressions in its illustration, it is certain 
that no such impropriety was proved, and it is more than probable 
that all the charges were, like the following one preferred against 
the Doctor himself, wretched fabrications in a kindred cause : 
" Lately, it hath beene brought unto mee, that one hath beene 
heard to lay to my charge behind my backe, that I should say, 
David sinned more in dancing about the Arke, than either in 
deflo wring Bathshebath, or killing Uriah ; though it is such a 
comparison that never entered into my thoughts, how much lesse 
to passe so prodigious a judgment upon the comparison." 1 Third, 
the averment, that " many things to this effect he had read before 
in the Sabbath doctrine, printed at London for I. Porter, and T. 
Man (An. 95)," was, like the other charges, unsubstantiated. 
Twisse says, " What this booke was I could not devise, but lately 
have gotten Dr. Bownde s book of the Sabbath. I finde by com 
paring it well, that this is the booke he girds at. Now I finde 
nothing in him to this effect, though I have gone over most of the 
first booke, and in the Index doe not finde anything that can give 
me probability in the second booke, tending to any such effect : 
and I wonder he spared to quote the place where such doctrines 
are to be found, nothing being more convenient to justifie his 
criminations (than to quote for it something that is to be scene in 
print) and thereby to cleare himself from the suspicion of a malig 
nant." 2 The truth is, that " the many things to this effect, which 
he (Ptogers) had read" in the Sabbatum were not there. 3 

Dr. Twisse having extracted the sting of the only effective part 
of the Preface, its tale-telling, conceived it superfluous, we pre 
sume, to answer any more charges against the friends of the Sab- 

1 Morality of the Fourth Commandment, pp. 162-164. 2 Ibid. p. 163. 

3 If they had, we should have heard of it from Heylyn, who repeats from Rogen 
" the horrible" expressions con amore, but neither affirms nor denies the occurrence of. 
"many things to this effect" in Bownd, We have read the Sabbatum, 2d edit., more 
than once, without observing in t any such expressions 



ENGLAND. 7 9 

bath, founded as these charges were on mere authority, and on 
Buch an authority. So slight, indeed, appears to have been the 
impression produced by the assertions of Rogers, that it was not 
till thirty-four years after they were published, and when Bishop 
White and Dr. Heylyn had, by their writings, given them cur 
rency and importance, that Twisse took notice of them. Let 
Fuller illustrate "the check to the full speed of Bound s doctrine" 
which lie ascribes to the Preface, and show that the author in 
evoking the magistrate s sword from its sheath, as well as " wag 
ging the feather of a quill," had increased the momentum. " But 
though minister and magistrate jointly endeavoured to suppress 
Bound s book, with the doctrine therein contained, yet all their 
care did but for the present make the Sunday set in a cloud, to 
arise soon after in more brightness. As for the archbishop, his 
known opposition to the proceedings of the brethren rendered his 
actions more odious, as if out of envy he had caused such a pearl 
to be concealed. As for Judge Popham, though some conceived 
it most proper for his place to punish felonious doctrines (which 
robbed the Queen s subjects of their lawful liberty), and to behold 
them branded with a mark of infamy, yet others accounted him 
no competent judge in this controversy ; and though he had a 
dead hand against offenders, yet these Sabbatarian doctrines, 
though condemned by hinvtook the privilege to pardon them 
selves, and were published more generally than before. The price 
of the doctor s book began to be doubled, as commonly books are 
then most called on, when called in, and many who hear not of them 
when printed, inquire after them when prohibited; and though the 
book s wings were clipped from flying abroad in print, it ran the 
faster from friend to friend in transcribed copies ; and the Lord s 
day, in most places, was most strictly observed. The more liberty 
people were offered the less they used it, refusing to take the free 
dom authority tendered them ; for the vulgar sort have the actions 
of their superiors in constant jealousy, suspecting each gate of their 
opening to be a trap, every hole of their digging to be a mine, 
wherein some secret train is covertly conveyed, to the blowing up 
of the subject s liberty, which made them almost afraid of the 
recreations of the Lord s day allowed them ; and seeing it is the 
greatest pleasure to the mind of man to do what he pleaseth, it 



80 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

was sport for them to refrain from sports, whilst the forbearance 
was in themselves voluntary, arbitrary, and elective not imposed 
upon them. Yea, six years after, Bound s book came forth with 
enlargements, publicly sold ; and scarce any comment, catechism, 
or controversy was set forth by the stricter divines, wherein this 
doctrine (the diamond in this ring) was not largely pressed and 
proved ; so that, as one saith, f the Sabbath itself had no rest ; 
for now all strange and unknown writers, without further exami 
nation, passed for friends and favourites of the Presbyterian party, 
who could give the word, and had anything in their treatise tend 
ing to the strict observation of the Lord s day." l 

Thus, " minister and magistrate" became the patrons of Dr. 
Bownd, and the best publishers of his volume, persecuting both 
into a notice and influence which they might never otherwise have 
obtained. And the remarkable success of that volume, which 
received not merely in several instances the laudari a laudato 
the plaudits of the celebrated, but the approbation of many wise 
and good men unknown to fame, whicli stimulated and enlightened 
the zeal of writers and preachers on its great subject, and which 
effected an extensive improvement in the religious character of the 
nation, was a gratifying recompense to its author for the reproach 
and opposition of a few, and for the labour and time expended on 
its composition. 2 

Nor has the injury done to his posthumous reputation by such 
authors as Heylyn, and Collier, who attempted with too much 
effect to identify his name with all that is stern and repulsive 
in sabbatic doctrine and practice, been without reparation. That 
the only consistent, practical, and scriptural theory of the in 
stitution still prevails among the most moral and enterprising 
classes of England, owing in a great measure to the impulse ori 
ginally communicated by his writings, is a noble tribute to his 
memory. And other tributes have been paid in occasional vindi 
cations of his treatise against unfounded objections, and more 
frequently in the advocacy of similar views, by able men. We 

1 Fuller s Church History (1845), vol. v. pp. 217-219. 

2 The respect which, according to Livingstone (Missionary Travels, Preface), the toil 
of authorship ought to inspire, was peculiarly merited by Bownd, as, in consequence 
of the unaccountable disappearance of his completed manuscript, the preparation for 
the second edition had to be repeated. 



ENGLAND. 81 

have seen that Dr. Twisse " the very learned Twisse" " this 
veteran leader, so \vell trained to the scholastic field," as Owen 
describes him, did his part. " Some say/ observes the erudite 
Leigh, " that Dr. Bound was the first who set on foot the Sabba 
tarian doctrines in the Church of England if so, it was a great 
honour to him to be the first in so good a work." 1 Thomas Fuller, 
a conformist, though not of the Heylyn school, or " fierce for 
moderation," has rendered good and honest service, by recording 
the tnumphs of the treatise, and testifying to the eminent piety 
of the men who held its doctrines. Another conformist has lately 
corrected one or two injurious misinterpretations of Bo\vnd in 
Fuller s History, and affirmed that the charges of Rogers, which 
that history recorded, without cither confirmation or censure, have 
no just application to the Sabbatum, which he commends as 
" written in a truly Christian spirit." 2 Its author has been fol 
lowed in his opinions by Twisse, Owen, and a host of others. And 
we may trust that as the subject is more studied and understood, 
a larger measure of respect and gratitude will be accorded to one 
of the boldest and most successful advocates of the sabbatic insti 
tution. 

A work by Mr. John Sprint, A.M., which appeared in 1607, 
calls for a brief notice. It consists "of two parts Propositions 
tending to prove the necessary use and Divine authority of the 
Lord s day, and the Practice of the sacred day framed after the 
rules of Scripture. The views of the author are coincident with 
those of Bownd, clear, decided, and learnedly maintained. The 
practical part supplies a defect found in some treatises on the 
subject, though it perhaps exceeds, like others, in the minuteness 
of its details. The son of Dr. John Sprint, dean of Bristol, Mr. 

1 System of Divinity, p. 1100. 

a Fuller s Ch. Hist. (1845). edited by Brewer, vol. v. pp. 211-214, 217, notes. Fuller, 
for example, had represented Bownd as holding, that " no solemn feasts nor wedding- 
dinners were to be made on the Lord s day, with permission, notwithstanding, of the 
same to lords, knights, and gentlemen of quality ;" whereas he only says that " the 
culinary diet of these classes, which, in comparison, may be called feasts," is not to ba 
condemned, but exhorts them so to divide the duties of servants as to admit of their 
attending churches. The nobility of those times kept open table, and required for 
their large households corresponding provisions. Bownd would have agreed with Dr. 
Paul Mieklethwaite thus far, "that persons of quality, who rest from hard labour all 
the week long, are concerned in conscience to observe the Lord s day with the greatoi 
abstinence from recreations. "Fuller. Ch, JKist., voL vi. pp. 93, 9L 



82 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

Sprint was educated in Christ s Church, Oxford, became minister 
at Thornbury in Gloucestershire, and was subsequently a popular 
preacher in London. While in creed a Puritan, regarding im 
posed ceremonies as " inconvenicncies, and the Church s burdens," 
he was of opinion that a minister ought to conform to them under 
protest, rather than suffer deprivation. Wood says, he was a 
grave and pious divine, and cut off in the prime of his years when 
great things were expected from him. 1 

We have referred to the hopes entertained by the Puritans 
from the accession of King James vi. to the throne of England. 
Among these hopes was that of a more generally and strictly ob 
served Sabbath. It was reasonable to suppose that a native and 
the Sovereign of a country where so much zeal had been evinced 
in favour of the institution, the man who had spoken out so 
strongly against the Popish days of Geneva and the English mass, 
and the author of the BacnAiKov Aw^ov, which allowed unsupersti- 
tious and lawful amusements, and cheer, " alwaies provided that 
the Sabbaths be kept holy, and no imlawfull pastimes then be 
used" (p. 52), would be right glad to comply with such a request 
as that presented in the Millenary petition, which craved, " That 
the Lord s day be not profaned, and the rest upon holidays not 
so strictly urged." And though it was not long before his Ma 
jesty disclosed enough to confirm the fears that were blended 
with the expectations of his best subjects, yet the very earliest 
measures of his reign held out prospects of permanent favour to 
the sabbatic cause. We refer to his proclamation at Theobald s, 
May 7, 1603, the day of his entry into London, against bear and 
bull baitings, with other disorderly pastimes, being " frequented, 
kept, or used any time hereafter upon any Sabbath-day ;" to the 
procedure of the Hampton Court Conference, January 1604-, where 
Dr. Rainolds, the most learned man of his time, the originator of 
the present authorized version of the Scriptures, and afterwards 
one of the translators, having said " Great is the profanation of 
the Sabbath-day, and contempt of your Majesty s proclamation, 
which I earnestly desire may be reformed," the " motion found 
an unanimous consent;" 2 and to the enactment passed by the 

1 Brook s Puritans, vol. ii. pp. 305, 306; Calamy s Account, vol. ii. p. 343; Fuller * 
Worthies, vol. i. p. 564 ; Wood s Afhen. Qxon. vol. i. p. 40. 2 Fuller, vol v. -p. 2*4 



ENGLAND. 83 

first English Parliament after the Union of the Crowns, held in 
March of the same year, prohibiting shoemakers from selling- the 
articles of their craft upon Sunday. But the Millenary perition 
was destined to receive a negative on the subject of the Sanbath 
as decided, if not so prompt, as on that of rites and ceremonies ; 
and when, in the seventh year of this reign a second attempt to 
legislate for the stricter observance of the Lord s day proved un 
successful, the petitioners might, notwithstanding the royal ratifi 
cation of the Irish Church Articles in 1615, 1 have been prepared 
for the next act of the drama. 

This was the publication in 1618 of The Declaration f 07 Iports 
on the Lord s day. As Morton, bishop of Durham, had x con 
siderable share in the preparation of this celebrated docun^at, it 
is of importance to hear his almost entirely neglected account of 
its origin. It is given by Dr. Barwick, Ins biographer, who says 
he had often heard it from the bishop s own mouth, and is tr the 
following effect : In Lancashire, where " the Popish recusants" 
abounded (then, as since) more than in any other county of Eng 
land, it was the policy of their leaders to " keep the people fr^in 
church by dancing, and other recreations, even in the time of 
Divine service, especially on holy days, and the Lord s day in the 
afternoon." This gross abuse the bishop endeavoured to redress 
in his primary visitation. " But it was represented to King James 
as a very great grievance, at his return out of Scotland through 
Lancashire in 1617, by some in Court who were too favourable 
to that party. And his readiness to hear any complaint against 
a thing that carried but the name of a public grievance, encouraged 
some to so much boldness the next Lord s day after, as even to 
disturb the public worship and service of God by their piping and 
dancing within the hearing of all those that were at church, whereof 
the King being fully informed by this bishop, utterly disavowed 
any thoughts or intention of encouraging such profaneness ; and 
therefore left them that were guilty of it to the bishop s censure, 
which he inflicted only upon one that was the head and causejr 

1 One of these Articles was as follows : " The first day of the week, which is the 
Lord s day, is wholly to be dedicated to the service of God ; and, therefore, we are 
bound therein to rest from our common and daily business, and to bestow that leisure 
upon holv exercises, both private and public." 



84 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

of it. There wanted not some still to complain to the King of 
the bishop s proceedings herein as rigorous and tyrannical, con 
sidering that the chief thing they desired was only some innocent 
recreation for servants and other inferior people on the Lord s day, 
and holy days, whose laborious callings deprived them of it at all 
other times ; and thereupon to solicit his Majesty for some power 
therein, and the rather because it was the general desire of most 
of that country. Which the King finding to be true upon inquiry, 
and willing to give them satisfaction therein, consulted with this 
reverend person, being the bishop of that diocese, how he might 
satisfy their desires without endangering this liberty to be turned 
into licentiousness. The bishop hereupon, retiring from the court 
at Haughton Tower to his own lodging at Preston, considered of 
six limitations or restrictions, by way of conditions, to be imposed 
upon every man that should enjoy the benefit of that liberty, 
which he presented to the King in waiting the next day, and which 
the King did very well approve of, and added a seventh ; saying 
only, he would alter them from the words of a bishop to the words 
of a King." 1 Dr. Barwick adds, though he cannot positively 
affirm it, as he does the preceding details, that Bishop Andrewes, 
who then attended the King, " was therefore in all probability 
consulted in the same business." If consulted, of which, however, 
no evidence appears, it does not follow, but is, on the other hand, 
most improbable, that he approved of a measure so contrary to his 
principles, for he held that, " to indulge in dancing, vacare chords, 
on the Lord s day is the Sabbath of the golden calf." 2 Barwick 
would have hazarded a happier conjecture by supposing that, in 
stead of Andrewes, Laud was consulted, as this individual, who 
was also then in attendance upon the King, was, according to his 
own confession on his trial, favourable to the re-issue of the Book 
of Sports in the following reign. 

On May 24, 1618, the Court being then at Greenwich, the 
King published the Declaration, of which it may suffice to present 
an abstract. 

1. The document professes to be an explanation, rendered ne 
cessary by the calumnious misrepresentations of Papists and Puri 
tans in Lancashire, of his Majesty s directions given there in the 

i lAft. ofBialtop Morton, p. 80. a Pattern* of Oatech. on thr, Fovrtt CowwMicftiwnt 



ENGLAND. 85 

preceding year concerning Sunday sports, and to be also a publi 
cation of these directions to all his subjects, with a few additional 
words specially applicable to the people of that county. 

2. It states that the report of a recently growing amendment 
amongst the inhabitants of Lancashire, a part of the country 
abounding more than any other in Popish recusants, made him 
the more sorry when with his own ears he heard the general 
complaint of his people, that they were barred from all lawful 
recreation and exercise upon the Sunday afternoon after the end 
ing of all Divine service, which prohibition could not but produce 
two evils ; first, preventing the conversion of many whom their 
priests would take occasion hereby to vex, persuading them that 
no honest mirth or recreation was lawful on those days ; second, 
precluding the common people, occupied wholly in winning their 
bread on other days, from the exercises necessary to " make their 
bodies more able for war," and, in place thereof, setting up filthy 
tipplings and drunkenness, and breeding " idle discontented 
speeches in their ale-houses." 

3. It directs that the clergy shall employ instruction and per 
suasion for the conversion of Papists, and shall " present them 
that will not conform themselves but obstinately stand out," to 
the civil authorities, who are required to put the laws in execu 
tion against them ; and that the bishop of the diocese shall con 
strain " the Puritans and Precisians " to conform, or quit the 
country. 

4. It provides that the people " be not disturbed, letted, or 
discouraged from any lawful recreation, such as dancing, either 
men or women, archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other 
such harmless recreation, nor from having of May-games, Whit- 
sun-ales, and Morris-dances, and the setting up of May-poles, and 
other sports therewith used, so as the same be had in due and 
convenient time, without impediment or let of Divine service ; 
and that women shall have leave to carry rushes to church for 
th decoriug of it, according to their old custom." This order is 
accompanied with the following explanations and restrictions 
First. We do here account still as prohibited, all unlawful games 
to be used on Sundays only, as bear and bull baitings, interludes, 
and. at all times in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, 



86 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

bowling." Second, That all known recusants abstaining from 
coming to Church and Divine service, and any that, though 
" conform in religion," are not present in the church at the ser 
vice of God before their going to the said recreations, are barred 
from this benefit and liberty. Third, That the authorities shall 
sharply punish all who abuse this liberty before the end of all 
Divine services for the day. Fourth, That no offensive weapon 
be carried or used in the said times of recreations. 

5. It " straightly commands, that every person shall resort to 
his own parish church to hear Divine service, and each parish by 
itself to use the said recreations after Divine service." 

6. It concludes with the words, " And our pleasure is, That 
this our Declaration shall be published by order from the bishop 
of the diocese, through all the parish churches, and that both our 
Judges of our Circuits, and our Justices of our Peace, be informed 
thereof." 

It would not affect the principle involved in this extraordinary 
proclamation, even were it true, as Fuller and others relying on 
his authority have affirmed, that it was merely " local for Lanca 
shire ;" but the assertion is not true, for the document calls itself 
a publication to all his subjects of his Majesty s directions given 
in that county ; and Charles I., when renewing the edict, states 
that his dear father of blessed memory did, in his princely wisdom, 
publish a declaration to all his loving subjects concerning lawful 
sports, from the want of which his people in all other parts of the 
kingdom suffered in the same kind, though perhaps not in the 
same degree, as the men and women of Lancashire. Nor is it a 
justification of the proceeding to say, that the Declaration con 
tained no command to any to practise sports on the Lord s day, 
being simply a prohibition of interference with persons who chose 
so to recreate themselves. To concede the absence of positive 
injunction in the matter would still leave enough to constitute the 
measure an atrocity against the Sabbatic institution unparalleled 
at the time in history. Bidding defiance to the practice of good 
men in every age to all that had been done by fathers, councils, 
ancl princes, for securing the weekly rest from the pollution of 
worldly pleasure, as for the most part also from the intrusion of 
secular work to the doctrine of the Homilies and other formu&lt; 



ENGLAND. 87 

laries of the English Church, above all, to the Law and Decla 
ration of the King of kings, which respectively said, " Remember 
the Sabbath-day to keep it holy ;" " If thou shalt honour me" by 
the abnegation of thine own ways, pleasure, and words, " I will 
make thee to ride on the high places of the earth ;" and disre 
garding the claims of his people to a stated time for rest, for read 
ing, for reflection, for domestic worship and instruction, and for 
expressing sympathy in the sorrows of fellow-creatures around, 
the King of England proclaims it to be right, patriotic, and bene 
ficial for his subjects to abandon themselves to thought-dispelling, 
exhausting, and dissipating sports in the afternoon of the Lord s 
day, and wrong for any man to do his duty to his God, his con 
science, his Church, and his country, by attempting to hinder this 
wholesale desecration of sacred time. 

It was not surprising that the Book of Sports should produce 
the greatest alarm and sorrow among the best of the clergy and 
people. 1 Several of the bishops declared their opinion against it. 2 
Archbishop Abbot being at Croydon, forbade it to be read in the 
church there on the day appointed. 3 Dr. Twisse not only refused 
to read, but condemned, the Declaration from his pulpit. 4 His 
Majesty was prudent enough to wink at these offences " against 
his spiritual supremacy." 5 And, though when the Lord Mayor 
of London commanded the royal carriages to be stopped as they 
were driving through the city on a Sunday during Divine service, 
James vowed that " he thought there had been no more kings in 
England but himself," and directed a warrant to his lordship, 
ordering him to let the carriages pass, yet when the civic officer 
yielded, with the answer, " While it was in my power I did my 
duty, but that being taken away by a higher power, it is my duty 
to obey ;" the King, it is said, was pleased, and returned him his 
thanks. 6 It is generally agreed by writers that the Declaration 
proved a failure that the matter, as Collier says, was dropt. 
Fuller states, that the King of his goodness removed the cause of 

1 Fuller (1845), vol. v. pp. 452, 453 ; Collier s Eccl. Hist, of Britain (1714), voL ii. p. 
712. 

2 Bishop Rennet s Complete History of England, vol. ii. p. 709 ; Neale s Feasts and 
Fasts, p. 228. 3 Life of Abbot, p. 27. 

Brook s Puritans, vol. iii. p. 14. * Ibid. ; Neale s Feasts and Fasts, p. 2S8 

1 Rennet s Complete History of England, vol. ii. p. 709. 



88 SKETCHES OP SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

alarm, and that no minister was obliged to read the document 
from the pulpit. But according to another account, the book 
came forth with a command, enjoining all ministers to read it to 
their parishioners ; and those that did not were brought into the 
High Commission, imprisoned, and suspended. 1 Whatever might 
induce royalty to " drop" The Dancing JSook, it certainly was not 
loving-kindness or tender mercy. 

Before passing from England, and its Sabbath of 1618, we 
ought to mention another phase of the controversy which appeared 
there, in that unprecedented year of trespass against Sabbatic rights 
and sanctities. The opinion, that the seventh-day Sabbath is of 
unchanged and unchangeable obligation, was mooted, as we have 
seen, p. 60, so early as 1584, but it attracted little attention till 
1618, when John Traske, a schoolmaster in his native county of 
Somerset, having obtained " orders," which had been at first re 
fused him on the alleged ground of his un fitness, forthwith avowed 
himself a Sabbatarian, and began to " preach up the Levitical 
rites." 2 For these errors, or, according to another account, for 
" making of conventicles and factions, by that means which may 
tend to sedition and commotion, and for scandalizing the king, the 
bishops, and the clergy," 3 " he was censured in the Star-Chamber 
to be set upon the pillory at Westminster, and from thence to be 
whipt to the Fleet, there to remain prisoner." 4 Mrs. Traske was, 
for maintaining the same opinions, also sent to prison, where she 
spent the remaining fifteen years of her life, resolutely holding 
by her creed to the last. Traske s views were opposed by Bishop 
Andrewes in a Star-Chamber speech which has frequently been 
referred to in the controversy. Lord Bacon, writing to Bucking 
ham on December 1, 1619, says, "This day also, Traske in open 
Court made a retractation of his wicked opinions in writing. The 
form was as good as may be. I declared to him that this Court 
was the judgment-seat ; the mercy-seat was his Majesty : but the 
Court would commend him to his Majesty ; and humbly pray his 
Majesty to signify his pleasure speedily, because of the misery of 
the man ; and it is a rare thing for a sectary that hath once 

1 Kennet s Complete Hist, of England, vol. ii. p. 709 ; Rapin, vol. ix. p. 386. 

* Collenge s (Dr. Collinges) Modest Plea for the Lord s Day, p. 74. 

Hobart s Reports quoted in Bishop Andrewes Minor Works (1854), p&gt;, 83. 

* Pagitt s Herfsiog. (1C62), p. 161. 



ENGLAND. 89 

suffered smart and shame, to turn so tmfeignedly as he seemed to 
do." 1 In 1621, Mr. Traske published his recantation, under the 
title, Liberty from Judaism, of \vhich it has been said, " It is 
certainly not the production of a weak or an ignorant person, but 
is on the contrary remarkable for the excellence of its style and 
spirit." 2 According to the editor of Pagitt, he afterwards fell 
to Antinomian opinions. Fuller says, " he relapsed not into the 
same but other opinions, rather humourous than hurtful, and died 
obscurely at Lambeth." 

The people of Scotland were treated to what was no less abhor 
rent to their views than a Book of Sports, in the famous Five 
Articles which the Court and bishops contrived to force upon them, 
through a Convention held at Perth, August 25, 1618. These 
articles prescribed (along with kneeling at the Lord s Supper, the 
administration of the same Ordinance to the sick in their houses, 
private baptism, and confirmation), the observance henceforth in 
the Kirk of Scotland of the following festivals Christmas, Easter, 
Whitsunday, and the Ascension of the Saviour. The King ordered 
these articles to be published at the Market Cross in each borough, 
and to be read by the ministers in their pulpits, the greater num 
ber of whom disobeyed the order. They were ratified by the 
Parliament in 1621. 

An incident of the latter year exhibits the practice of the mon 
arch as conoistent with his principles, if not with either religion 
or decorum. TecUnogamia or the Marriage of Arts, a Comedy, 
was, after some alterations by the author, Barton Holyday, acted 
before the King at Woodstock, on a Sunday night, August 26, 
1621. But it being too grave for the King, and too scholastic 
for the auditory (or as some have said, the actors having taken 
too much wine before they began), his Majesty, after two acts, 
offered several times to withdraw, but was induced to remain, 
which gave occasion to these lines by a certain scholar : 

" At Christ Church Marriage done before the King, 
Lest that those mates should want an offering, 
The King himself did offer, What? I pray ? 
He offered twice or thrice to go away." 3 

1 Works (1830), vol. xii. p. 379. 

Fuller s Church History (1845), vol. v. pp. 460, 461. Xote by the editor. 

Wood s AtJien. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 170. 



90 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

The suspension of hostilities consequent on the proceedings of 
1618, although of brief duration, affords an opportunity of turn 
ing for a little to the controversy which .-ad already commenced 
in Holland. 



THE NETHERLANDS. 

No Sabbatic strife appeared in the Belgic Churches for a cen 
tury after the doctrines of the Reformation had been embraced 
by a majority of the inhabitants of the Low Countries. The 
Churches, though engaged at an early period of their history in a 
fruitless struggle with the magistrates for the exclusion of Popish 
holidays, and in occasional conflicts with certain fanatics who ab 
jured all distinction of days, were agr&lt;ftd among themselves on the 
subject of the weekly rest, their views on that point being sub 
stantially the views which have been held by the great body of 
Christians in all countries and times. John Robinson (1 575-1 625), 
so well known as the pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, said in the 
year 1619, that in regard to the sanctifi cation of the Lord s day, 
in which he and his friends then resident in Holland seemed 
"even superstitiously rigid," the Belgic Churches did not "differ 
from them in judgment, but in practice," and referred, in proof 
of his remark, to the lately published Harmony of the Belgic 
Synods" 1 

The unfailing result, however, of the addition of human to 
Divine ordinances soon discovered itself in a diminished practical 
regard for the Lord s day. " It seemeth not without all leaven 
of superstition," as the same writer remarks, " that the Dutch 
Reformed Churches do observe certain days consecrated as holy 
to the nativity, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the 
same also (as it commonly comes to pass where human devices 
are reared up by the side of Divine institutions), much more holy 
[holily] than the Lord s day by him himself appointed." 2 Robin 
son and his flock, " neither allowed to remain peacefully in Eng 
land, nor suffered quietly to depart," had, in 1608, escaped to 
Holland, and, after a year s residence in Amsterdam, had settled 

), vol. iii. p. 46. : Works (1861), vol. iii. p. 43. 



THE NETHERLANDS. 9 I 

in Leyden. Of various reasons for the resolution to quit their 
adopted country for America, one was, " that they could not bring 
the Dutch to observe the Lord s day as a Sabbath, or to reform 
anything amiss amongst them." 1 

A correspondingly low state of religion and morals was the fruit 
of a like neglect of the institution in Zealand. Happily, however, 
the remedial means employed were in this instance more success 
ful. An ardent Zealander, thoroughly acquainted with the feelings 
and language of the people, was the instrument of reviving a respect 
for the Sabbath, and of advancing the cause of religion, not only 
in his own province, but throughout the Netherlands. " Where 
the Sabbath is at an undervalue in any country," said Hugh 
Peters, when under sentence of death, " say it be in France, 
Holland, Germany, etc., there you shall find religion wasting 
itself into disputes. I was a witness that Middleburgh, in Zea 
land, or Walcheren, grew famous for religion by Teeling, their 
preacher, fetching the keeping of the Sabbath from England." 2 
Amesius, writing in 1630, the year after Teellinck s death, and 
referring to the distinguished piety of pastors and people in Zea 
land, as noted in all places around, singles out for special enco 
mium "that remarkable servant of God, Yv 7 illiam Teellinck, who 
exerted himself so ardently in public and private, by his voice 
and by his writings, in promoting the cause of religion, as that 
the zeal of God s house may be said to have eaten him up, and 
who, having overcome the envy attendant on such excellence, has 
gained the crown which God has prepared for those that have 
turned many to righteousness." 3 

This " most popular preacher, and voluminous writer among 
the Dutch divines of his day," was born at Zierikzee, and having 
studied for some time at the University of St. Andrews, 4 took 
his degree at Poictiers in 1603, with a view to the legal profes 
sion. But in the course of a visit to England and Scotland, he 
was so deeply impressed at a prayer-meeting held in London by 
John Dod, Arthur Hildersham, and other pious ministers of the 

1 Morton s N. England s Memorial (1826), p. 19. 

2 Dying Father s Legacy, as quoted in Hanbury s Memorials, vol. iii. p. 581. 

3 De Conscientid (1670), Dedication, p. 2. 

* Gulielmus Teelingius " occurs in the list of foreign students at St. Andrews, A. a, 
1600, when Andrew Melville was Principal. M Crie s MeMlU, vol. ii. p. 49. 



92 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

gospel, as to form the resolution of devoting himself to the 
ministry, a purpose which the unanimous concurrence of his 
English friends, after a day set apart by them and himself for 
invoking the Divine direction, contributed to strengthen. He 
became one of the ministers of the Dutch Eeformed Church in 
Middleburg. Dr. Steven, to whom we are indebted for some of 
these particulars, mentions that Teellinck was a zealous friend of 
the British settlers in Walcheren, having been principally instru 
mental in the erection of their place of worship, and frequently 
employed in officiating to the congregation. 1 It is stated by 
Foppens, that he wrote or edited no fewer than 127 publications 
in the Dutch language. 2 

In regard to the Sabbath, as to other things, practical evil 
prepares the way for the adoption of such opinions as serve the 
offender for a justification of his conduct. If new views of the 
institution had previously to 1618 been partially entertained in 
the Belgic Churches, it was not till that year, according to a 
laborious and able writer, that they led to open strife. 3 A con 
troversy, or " twist," as it is called in the language of the country, 
then commenced, which, extending beyond the scene of its origin, 
continued with occasional pauses for upwards of a century. It 
took its rise among the ministers of Zealand, though not as repre 
sented by Dr. Hengstenberg in these words : " From England 
the doctrine of the obligation of the Mosaic law of the Sabbath 
spread to Holland. Some English Puritans, who sought an asylum 
in Zealand, introduced it. It was first published in two works 
on Ethics, by Udemaun in 1612, and Teelling in 1617. Several 
ministers embraced the new opinions ; others retained the old." 4 
The Puritans referred to by the writer must have been Thomas 
Cartwright, Robert Browne, Henry Jacob, and Hugh Broughton 
(or some of their number), who, with John Forbes, a Scotsman, 
had resided in Middleburg before the year 1617. But if the 
testimony of Robinson already adduced be true and its truth 
admits of full confirmation there was no call for the interfer 
ence of foreigners in attempting to change the opinions of the 
Zealanders in reference to the institution, since both foreigners 

1 Hint, of Scot. Church, Rotterdam, p. 317. Bibliathec. Belgic (ITte), vol. i. p. 424 
* Koelmnn, T&gt;t, Histoir* ran den Sab. j&gt;. 250. * lord s Day, p. 69. 



THE NETHERLANDS. 93 

and Zealanders were substantially of the same mind on the sub 
ject, nor, though such men as Cartwright and his friends would, 
as occasion offered, declare their Sabbatic views, have we evidence 
that they felt it necessary to combat opinions opposite to their 
own. It was improved practice that was needed ; and what 
English Puritans failed to effect in Holland, was by a native, 
profiting, indeed, by what he had witnessed of a well-observed 
Sabbath in England and Scotland, achieved in Zealand. And 
when Godfrey Udemann, minister at Zierikzee, and not the least 
able or energetic member of the Synod of Dort, maintained in his 
Practice of the Christian Virtues, as* in other writings, the doc 
trines of a primitive perpetual moral, not " Mosaic " Sabbath 
transferred under Christianity to a new day, he and Teellinck, who 
also held these doctrines, instead of introducing novelties, or re 
quiring to borrow their opinions from abroad, found their tenets 
already in the creed of their Church, and enunciated by Junius, 
Trelcatius, Acronius, and other expounders of her formularies 
not to plead here that their views were as old, some of them as 
Christianity, others as the completed creation. 

The earliest agitation of the Sabbath question in the Nether 
lands, though keen, was not lasting. The combatants agreed to 
submit the points at issue to the judgment of the celebrated Synod 
of Dort, which assembled November 13, 1618, for composing the 
more serious differences between the Calvinists and Arrninians. 
Apart indeed from the case to be referred to it for decision, the 
Synod in reality declared its Sabbatic views at its fourteenth 
session, when it re-inforced the exposition of the Catechism by 
ministers in the afternoon of the Lord s day, and agreed to call on 
the magistrates for the prohibition by severer enactments of all 
servile or customary work, and especially games, compotations, and 
other profane practices so common, particularly in villages, on that 
part of the day, that the people might be induced to attend on 
religious instruction, and thus learn to sanctify the entire Sabbath. 1 
The foreign deputies having taken their departure, May 9, 1619, 
the deputies of the Low Countries proceeded to deliberate on 
matters of local concern. According to the statement of Walseus, 
who was well qualified to speak on the subject, the remanent 

i Acta. Synod. (Lug. Bat. 1620), p. 28. 
5* 



94 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

members judged it to be beyond their province suiforinin esse 
to decide on questions of so general importance as had been 
raised respecting the Sabbath, and only recommended to the con 
tending parties, laying aside other points of debate, to adhere to 
certain rules, in which, before arbiters, they had agreed to acquiesce. 1 
The arbiters were Professors Gomaxus, Walaeus, Thysius, and Festus 
Hommius, who had also prepared the rules or articles of peace, as 
follows : 

First, In the fourth precept of the Divine law, there is some, 
thing ceremonial and something moral. 

Second, The ceremonial consists in the rest of the seventh day 
from the creation, and in the rigid observance of that rest enjoined 
specially on the Jews. 

Third, The moral is the assignation of a certain and stated day 
to Divine worship, and so much rest as is requisite for Divine 
worship and holy meditation on that day. 

Fourth, The Sabbath of the Jews having been abrogated, the 
Lord s day ought to be solemnly sanctified by Christians. 

Fifth, This day was ever from the times of the Apostles observed 
by the ancient Catholic Church. 

Sixth, This day ought to be so consecrated to Divine worship 
as that there may be a cessation thereon from all servile works, 
excepting works of charity and urgent necessity, and from such 
recreations as hinder the worship of God. 2 

These rules were, according to Walaeus, commended by the 
Synod to the Churches of the Netherlands, and followed up by a 
petition to the States- General, adopted session 177, which, with 
other requests, craved that the strictest measures might be em 
ployed to suppress certain specified forms of prevailing Sabbat! i 
profanation. 

For some years the spirit of controversy slumbered, or rather 
smouldered, under an agreement which it seems strange should 
have been assented to by either of the contending parties. Teel- 
linck, intent on practical objects, published in 1621, The JRtst-time, 
or a Treatise on the Obswvance of the Christian Sabbath, which 

i Walasi Opera (1647), torn. i. p. 276. 

8 " In quarto legis divinse prsecepto," etc. Walsei Op. torn i. p. 276 We have trans. 
lated the copy of the rules, which Walseus says he had transcribed from the authentic 
A.cts of the Synod, 



THE NETHERLANDS. 95 

was approved by a Synod held at Rotterdam, and elicited from 
Gomar a friendly epistle, lauding the pious endeavours of that 
" eminently practical man," its author. 1 

The States-General, warned by recent events, resolved to select 
for the chairs of the University of Leyden, men not only of learn 
ing and worth, but also of sound doctrinal views. Walaeus and 
Thysius in 1619, and Rivetus in 1620, were accordingly appointed 
colleagues to Polyander in the teaching of Theology. Desirous of 
bearing testimony to the great principles which had lately been in 
peril, but had triumphed, and of showing their agreement in 
religious sentiment fidei ac sententia? nostrce Travapjuoi/iav, the 
four Professors published in 1625 the Synoiisis Purioris Theolo- 
gice. The chapter containing a Disputation on the Sabbath and the 
Lord s Day, was contributed by Thysius, who expresses opinions in 
harmony with the Dortrechtan Articles, only adding to them two 
important statements the one affirming that "the certain and 
stated day" demanded by the morality of the Fourth Command 
ment, is a perpetual seventh portion of time ; the other explicitly 
declaring that the Lord s day is of " Apostolic ordination, and con 
sequently of Divine authority," its very name, moreover, intimat 
ing that it was "consecrated by the Lord, and wholly to the 
Lord. 1 Antonius Thysius (1565-1640) was born at Antwerp. 
Having studied under Bonaventura Vulcanius, whom he followed 
to Leyden, under Isaac Casaubon, Beza, and Faius, at Geneva, 
under Whitaker at Cambridge and Rainolds at Oxford, he be 
came minister of a church at Haarlem, then pastor at Amster 
dam, and Professor of Theology successively at Harderwick and 
Leyden. 

The first book published in the Netherlands against the Sabbath, 
according to a Dutch authority, was Een Weeklag der Kerke, etc., 
A Lamentation of the Church over the Doctrine of the Sabbath." 
It made its appearance in 1626 under the name of James Burs, 
minister at a village near Middleburg, and son of Mr. Giles Burs, 
colleague in the ministry to Teellinck and Wala3us, though the 
author was understood to have been aided in the work by Gomar, 
his father s friend. " About this time," says the biographer of 

1 Koelman, De Histoire, etc. p. 255. Voct. Select. Disput. TJieol. (1559), P. Hi. p. 1242. 

2 Koelman, De Histoirt, etc., p. 267. 



96 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

Walseus, "the Churches of Zealand were agitated by the con 
tentions of Teellinck and Burs. The former, studious to promote 
the interests of piety, while aiming at the correction of evil, went 
to the extreme of rigour in the opposite direction, as they are wont 
to do who try to straighten crooked timber. In this manner, he 
sought, in a published treatise, to remedy the profanation of the 
Sabbath. The son of Burs seized the occasion, and gave to the 
world the Threnody of the Weeping Church over the fancied vio 
lation of her liberty, attempting to refute Teellinck with regard to 
the observance of a seventh day, and the institution of the Lord s 
day, for which Gomar, sufficiently devoted to the Bursii, had sup 
plied arguments. The friends of Teellinck were aggrieved, and 
there was a danger that they might break out into rejoinders, and 
that the Church might be split into parties. Voet had opposed 
the juvenile production, by which he appeared more to pro 
voke the crocodile tears of the adversaries, less to edify the 
Church." 1 

The blame imputed by this writer to Teellinck amounted to 
his holding views which obtained for him, as they have for many 
others, the name of Sabbatarian, and which a great part of the 
Christian world have regarded as forming the only consistent and 
tenable theory of the weekly rest. The work of Voetius was 
published in 1627. The title, Lachrymce Crocodili abstersce 
The Tears of the Crocodile wiped away, however happily terse 
and " telling," according to the modern demand, in such cases, or 
however much provoked by the enormity of the occasion, does 
seem unbecoming the subject and the author, as well as some 
what misapplied, since there was no reason to doubt the sincerity 
of the tears which were shed by the chief mourner, and which 
he would naturally conceive would be shed by others, over the 
threatened calamity of a generally-observed Sabbath. 2 How far 
the performance itself was liable to exception for provoking the 
complaints of his opponents rather than edifying the Church, we 
have not the means of judging, not having seen the Lachrymce. 
But we can speak with some confidence of a chapter from the 

1 Walaei Opera, Vita, p. 40. 

2 If in this instance of the series mixta jocis, which the discussions of the time* 
occasionally elicited, there was more of the serioos than was pleasant to the one party 



THE NETHERLANDS. 97 

same pen, De Sabbato et Festis, 1 which, if betraying " the deficiency 
in philosophical precision " ascribed to Voet by Mosheim, assuredly 
affords abundant indications of what the same authority accords 
to him, " uncommon application and immense learning." Gis- 
bertus Voetius (1589-1676) was born at Heusden in Holland 
was a pupil of Arminius and Gomarus at Leyden became mini 
ster of a church in his native town was a member of the Synod 
of Dort, the longest-lived of that distinguished assembly and, 
latterly, Professor of the Oriental Languages, and for a time of 
Theology also, at Utrecht. It is interesting to mark how this 
ardent combatant of the Cartesian, Cocceian, and other errors of 
his time, evinced no less ardour in his ministerial duties, preach 
ing at one period eight sermons every week, and resigning one of 
his professorships, that he might resume his earliest and favourite 
work. Of his various writings, that by which he is now best 
known is his /Select Theological Disputations, where the curious 
in Sabbatic and other religious opinions may find ample stores. 

Amesius (1576-1633), Professor of Theology at Franeker, pub 
lished the first part of his Medulla Tlieologica, or Marrow of 
Theology j in 1623. The second part, which appeared along with 
the other in 1627, contained a chapter on "The Time of Wor 
ship," in which the whole doctrine of the Sabbath was briefly 
and lucidly presented, and the primaeval appointment of the in 
stitution, the Divine authority of its transference from the seventh 
to the first day of the week, and the entire morality of the 
Fourth Commandment, were ably maintained. The contents of 
this work, and of that on Conscience, which latter supplied a 
practical supplement to the chapter on the " Time of Worship" in 
the Medulla, perfectly harmonize with their avowed object of 
recalling the attention of the Churches, too much engrossed with 

or proper for the other, the remark applies still more to a pasquinade directed by an 

ill-natured wit against Voet himself during a controversy between him and Maresius 

"Voetius odit alit fallit defendit adoptat 

Pacem, dissidium, Patres, absurda, malignos." 
To which Paul, son of the lampooned divine, happily retorted thus 
"Voetius odit aiit defendit prodit adoptat 

Dissidium, pacem, Patres, malefacta, benignos." 

Foppen s Biblwthec. Belgic, tub voce Voet 
i Sd#st. Disput. P. iii. pp. 1227-1053. 





98 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

doctrinal disputes, to the moral influence and practice of the 
truth, for which, along with Perkins and Teellinck, his alleged 
models in the attempt, he has received the praise of Mosheim. 1 
This good and learned man, the circumstances of whose retire 
ment to Holland have been mentioned (p. 25), was a native of 
Norfolk, and educated at Cambridge under Perkins, to whom he 
appeared to have owed, by the Divine blessing, his earliest 
thorough impressions of religion. After being excluded through 
prelatic influence from his ministry at the Hague, he distinguished 
himself by a controversy with Grevinchovius, one of the leading 
remonstrants. We find him attending as a hearer the Synod of 
Dort, and regularly communicating intelligence of its proceedings 
to King James s Ambassador at the Hague. Apprehensive that 
the climate of Franeker would prove fatal to his constitution, 
and having a strong desire to preach the gospel to his country 
men, he accepted, in 1632, an invitation to the charge of the 
English Church at Rotterdam, where he died after a year s 
ministry. His works in Latin, of which a complete edition was 
published at Amsterdam in 1658, are said to have been " famous 
over Europe." 

Previously to the appearance of the Wee/dag and the Lachrymce, 
Teellinck had been engaged in preparing his Nootwendig Vertoogh, 
etc. A Necessary Demonstration concerning the Present Afflicted 
State of God s People. The author, on sending a copy of it to 
Walseus, says, " I only wish that it may be read with such a 
heart as is seemly, and then I trust it will produce an effect 
towards edification You have doubtless seen the Complaint of 
J. Bursius. I suppose you will not forbear any longer to publish 
your Treatise on the Sabbath at the first possible opportunity, 
though such writings, being published rather inconsiderately, 
would make a bad impression upon the people, and increase the 
power of sinning. I hope that you, by-the-bye, will declare me 
to be free from the suspicion which that man insinuates against me, 
in order to make my service fruitless. You know how D. D. G. 
has dealt with me. I do not know what the use of cordial 
friendship and zeal for the innocent is, if it keeps entirely quiet 
in such cases. But I leave this to your discretion, and will no* 

i In Eccles. Hist. vol. iv. pp. 412-414. 



THE NETHERLANDS. 99 

by this, my writing, press you to do anything which you yourself 
may not deem advisable." 1 In this spirited, and yet not intem 
perate style does Teellinck refer to writers who were combined 
against him in a work which we leave it to Udemani], m a letter 
shortly to be cited, to describe, and of one of whom, his eulogist 
out six short years before, he might have said, " And thou, too, 
Brutus !" After alluding to a circumstance bearing on the in 
terests of the Church, he concludes with the characteristic prayer, 
" May the good God grant that we may act purely in these holy 
matters !" The Nootwendig Vertoogh, after being twice written, 
and submitted to the examination of the Faculties of Ley den and 
Franeker, came out in 1627, recommended by the theological 
professors of both these Universities, those of Leyden intimating 
that they differed from the author on certain points ; and was 
dedicated to all holding office in the Churches, Universities, 
Guilds, and schools, and to all heads of families in the United 
Provinces. This, which has been called " a noble" work, has a 
relation to our subject, which must not be estimated by the num 
ber of pages devoted to its consideration. The chief part, in 
cluding two brief chapters on " The observance of the Christian 
Sabbath, and its Rule in the Decalogue," must have been printed, 
though not issued, before the production of Bursius appeared. 
Teellinck felt that some counteractive to the mischievous tendency 
of such a book was necessary. He accordingly replied to it, not 
by argument, for which he referred to the fiust-tijdt, or by abuse, 
but by a Declaration, enunciating in distinct propositions his own 
Sabbatic creed. This was the fitting answer of a Christian to the 
scurrility of the Weeklag ; and being published when the writer 
had only two more years to live, may be regarded as his dying 
testimony to opinions, by the advocacy of which he had eminently 
promoted the religion and morals of his country. 

Many eyes were now turned to "Walseus as the individual who 
ought to enter the lists with Bursius, or rather with the redoubtable 
Gomarus. The deep interest felt on the occasion appears from the 
language of Teellinck, already quoted, and from that of Udemaim, 
both of them distinguished by their zeal in the Sabbatic cause. 
" G. V. Z.," that is, we have no doubt, "Godfrey Udemann, Zierik- 

1 Ick wenschste macr alleeue, etc. ; Wai. Oper. torn. ii. p. 446. 



100 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 



^ in a letter to the Professor, having expressed his conviction that 
he must have seen the truly mournful dirge of Mr. James Burs, 
which was blazoned in all the book-shops, having obtested him by 
many sacred considerations to publish his anxiously looked for 
Treatise, and having assured him that the ministers could not 
interfere without injury, proceeds thus " The remedy, under God, 
is expected from your Theological Faculty, which can, with greater 
authority and better success, confute so impudent calumnies, and 
still the rising tempest. This man boasts that his doctrine is the 
doctrine of the Church, and that others, who teach that one of 
seven days is to be sanctified, that the Sabbath is from the begin 
ning, that the Lord s day took its origin from the Apostles them 
selves, that this day is unchangeable, etc., deliver opinions, new, 
erroneous, dangerous, Brownistic, and unheard-of by the ancient 
Church and first Reformers and what not. You should say 
that some Nestor spoke, or rather that Apollo from his tripod 
poured forth his oracles, so haughtily does he assert his own 
views, and reject the views of other men. I pass over his sar 
casms and numberless calumnies, which, as many opine, merit for 
his production the title of a Menippean Satire rather than the 
name of a Lament." 1 

The parents of Antonius Walseus (1573-1639) were, at the 
capitulation in 1584 of his native city Ghent, to the Spaniards, 
compelled to quit it for Middleburg. At the age of fifteen, when 
attending his father, who had collected a small force to resist the 
descent of the Spanish fleet on Walcheren, and lying beside him 
in his tent at night on a bed of straw, he " perceived, by some 
sacred instinct, that he was called to be a minister of the Church 
of God " a scene which nothing in his future life had power to 
exclude from his thoughts. After a course of training under the 
ablest masters and professors of the time, 2 and visiting the most 
celebrated places on the Continent, he settled, in 1602, as minister 
of a village church in Zealand, whence he was translated to a 



1 Epist. Sept. 1627, Wai. Oper. torn. ii. p. 446. 

2 At Micldleburg, Gruterus, and Murdisonius, a Scotsman, who shortly after this 
was promoted to a professorship in Leyden ; at Leydcn, J-mius, Scaliger, and Go- 
marus ; at Geneva, the octogenarian Beza and Faius ; and at Basle, Grynseus, Polanus, 
and Buxtorf. 



THE NETHERLANDS. 101 

similar charge in the neighbouring city of Middleburg. There, 
having for his colleagues Giles Bursius, Faukelius, Teellinck, and 
others of less note, he laboured for fifteen years, distinguished as 
a popular preacher, as a laborious minister, as a zealous promoter 
of education and learning, and, latterly, as a leading man in the 
councils of the Calvinists, and at the Synod of Dort, where he 
was employed in all matters requiring superior acuteness, judg 
ment, address, and powers of debate, and to take part in drawing 
up its acts and canons. An individual so educated and experi 
enced who had been selected to defend Calvinism when it was 
in peril, and to fill a theological chair at a critical juncture 
whom Grotius, his intimate friend, admired, and Uitenbogart 
declined to encounter in discussion, and who was the publicly- 
appointed counsellor of Barneveldt in prison, the president of a 
missionary seminary, and one of the translators of the Scriptures 
from the original languages into the Belgic could be no common 
man ; and it was not surprising, particularly as he was known to 
have directed his attention to the question, that his interference 
should be sought in the present emergency, and that he should be 
desired and expected to apply his gifted mind to the settlement 
of Sabbatic differences. 

"Yielding," says his biographer, "to the importunities of his 
admirers, Walseus reviewed what he had previously presented in 
his lectures, and extending it into a treatise, gave it to the world, 
to the great joy of the Churches, who, as they prized the learn 
ing of Walseus, so also in the present instance admired his wis 
dom." 1 Udemann himself was almost satisfied. "I rejoice," are 
his words in a letter of March 29, 1628, "that your Treatise 
on the Sabbath has at last been wrung from you, so as to see the 
light among your other learned lucubrations. The brethren in 
Zealand, in general, as far as I have been able to hear, applaud 
and thank you from the heart at least, I have as yet met with 
none who has ventured to censure. Your preface appears to some 
sufficiently mild, and too guarded ; but I have defended you as I 
could, because, doubtless, you acted not without a reason, although, 
to confess the truth, I should have wished a little more boldness 
against those sciolists who set up their own dreams for articles of 

1 Wal. Oper. torn. i. ; Vita, p. 40. 



102 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

faith. But it was impossible for you, in a matter so delicate, to 
please all in everything. You have laid the foundations soundly 
and solidly ; let others take heed how they build thereon. A 
translation into the vernacular language is necessary." 1 

The Treatise 2 made its first appearance early in 1628, in Latin, 
" whence it was translated into Dutch by Silvius, pastor at Am 
sterdam." The accomplished writer maintains the positions, that 
the Sabbath was of primaeval appointment that the Fourth 
Commandment is partly moral and partly ceremonial that the 
ceremonial part, which passed away with the Mosaic ritual, is the 
obligation to the observance of the seventh day of the week, and 
to a more rigid rest that the moral part is that which has ever 
demanded, and still demands, the consecration of a seventh por 
tion of our time to sacred rest and service and that the Lord s 
day is partly of Divine authority, in so far as the Fourth Com 
mandment is moral, and partly of ecclesiastical, yet apostolic in 
stitution, inasmuch as the Apostles, by virtue of the extraordinary 
commission given to them for settling the doctrine and laws of 
the Church, and by their example, altered the season of rest and 
worship from the last to the first day of the week. He would, 
it appears to us, have consulted a nobler and scriptural simplicity 
of doctrine, if he had regarded "the ceremonial as merely an 
appendage or circumstance which does not enter into the substance 
of the law," and if he had affirmed that the Lord s day is of 
Divine authority, inasmuch as the Lord of the Sabbath has by 
his own example, and by the inspired testimony of the Apostles, 
appointed it as the specific season in which, under the Christian 
dispensation, we are to appropriate sacred time for the purposes 
and in the proportion required in the Fourth Commandment. 
But there is no question, that he has rendered very important 
service to the institution by his unanswerable arguments for its 
antiquity, and for the enduring Divine claim on the seventh part 
of man s time to be consecrated and employed as prescribed in the 
Decalogue. 

The writer of the author s life, after mentioning the pleasure 
with which the Dissertation was hailed, says, " Thus those billows 

1 Wal. Oper. torn. ii. p. 472 

8 Dfasertatio de Sabbato seu vero sensu aique u-su IV. -PrcDsepti. 



THE NETHERLANDS, 103 

of the Church were assuaged, and as it" were broken in pieces on 
the objected rock, and would have entirely subsided, if Gornar 
had not believed that his interest was concerned in not allowing 
the things, which were known to have come from him, to be soon 
disregarded ; wherefore he put forth a small book on the Investi 
gation of the Sabbath. To which Rivet replied. Gomar de 
fended himself ; and although he found very few or no followers, 
Walseus, lest some ensnaring things should fasten, treated in pub 
lic lectures whatever novelty might seem to have been advanced, 
and noted some things in aid of his memory, with the view of 
printing an enlarged edition of his Treatise a purpose, however, 
the execution of which was hindered by the labour of the New 
Testament version, and then for ever arrested by the hand of 
death. These have been added in a second edition of his Dis 
sertation concerning the Sabbath, posthumously published. Thus 
the differences in obscurer things are never better settled than by 
the prudence and authority of a great man." 1 

In September of the same year, Franciscus Gomarus (1563- 
1641), formerly Professor of Theology at Leyden, along with 
Arminius, whose views he then, and afterwards in the Synod of 
Dort, -so ably opposed, and now Professor of Hebrew and Divinity 
at Groningen, gave to the world his Investigation, intended, he 
said, to bring men back to the middle course, which had been 
pointed out by pious .and learned men, and which avoided equally 
the Charybdis of superstition and the Scylla of profaneness. The 
task, he further said, was not unwillingly undertaken, out of 
deference at once to the just expectation of his hearers, and to 
the honourable desire of many brethren in the ministry. The 
Investigation is an attempt to show that the Fourth Command 
ment prescribed a Sabbath only for the Jews, the statute applying 
to other men only as in a general manner it required, at certain 
and sufficient times, a holy vacation from mundane business and 
cares, in subserviency to the ministry of the Divine word, the 
public profession and exercises of religion, and the recruiting of 
man s strength ; that the general command of a Sabbath, recur 
ring not less seldom than that of the Jews, is obligatory on man 
kind, before and after Christ, by the eternal law of love ; that 

1 WaL O er. torn. i. ; Vita, p. 40. 



104 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

the institution, taking its origin in the wilderness of Sin, and re 
newed at Sinai, was abrogated by the crucifixion of Christ, 
though, in tenderness to the Jews, its use, with some ceremonies, 
was retained for a time by the Apostles ; and that, while it is 
not clearly evident that the Lord s day, or first day of the week, 
was appointed by the Apostles for the worship of God, it yet 
appears, from the general meaning of the Fourth Commandment, 
that it ought to be observed in the public worship of God, nor 
can be violated without the injury and unworthy scandal of reli 
gion. One cannot easily reconcile the author with himself in 
some of his proceedings on this question, or the opinions in th& 
Investigation and Defence with the creed of his Church, and with 
the common sense views of Scripture, which, there is reason to 
rejoice, will ever overpower the crotchets of a few good men, and 
the perplexing distinctions of the learned, who occasionally darken 
counsel by words without knowledge. It has been remarked of 
Gomar, that, in the great doctrinal controversy of the time, he 
directed his mind mainly to the study, and brought extraordinary 
ability to the defence, of the one article of Justification by Faith 
that criterion of a standing or falling Church. But certainly 
his Sabbatic efforts, though exhibiting not a few indications of 
the learning in which he excelled, have not added much to his 
reputation, either by their wisdom or by their power. It is but 
justice to him, however, to recollect that, unlike many opponents 
of the institution, who have claimed the patronage of his name 
and the use of his arguments, he pleaded for more, not less, than 
the sacred time of a seventh day, and that as in general morals, 
so in Sabbatic practice, to employ the words of an admiring 
though on the question before us dissenting pupil, he "bolted 
the door against all profaneness, and was as remote as possible 
from worldly indulgence. 1 1 

The celebrated Rivet (Andreas Rivetus, 1572-1661) replied to 
Gomar in " four or five pages of his preelections on Exodus xx.," 
which were published in March 1632, and which touched only 
on the question respecting the origin of the Sabbath. Of this 
point he had treated in a previous work on Genesis, but as Walseus 
and Gomarus had taken opposite sides on the question, he ern- 

i Voet in Select Disput. P iii. p. 1242. 



THE NETHERLANDS. 105 

braced the opportunity of his forthcoming commentary again to 
show his opinion, in which the Dissertation of his colleague had 
confirmed him. He vindicates the plain narrative of Genesis from 
the gratuitous gloss which makes it a proleptical account, or in 
timated destination, of an institution which was to be actually 
appointed 2500 years after the creation, and to be thenceforward 
during the Levitical economy sanctified and blessed ; and shows 
from Hebrews iv. that men had entered into the Sabbatic rest 
when the world was made. To his astonishment, these remarks 
called forth from Gomar an answer, under the formidable title of 
a Defence of the Investigation, which challenged the modest writer 
of a few pages to single combat, and having the name of the cul 
prit inscribed on the title-page majusculis literis, was industriously 
disseminated in Amsterdam, Leyden, and in Zealand itself. In the 
Defence the author specifies two questions, on the right solution 
of which depend correct views of the Sabbath : First, Whether 
the institution was of primaeval origin ; and, Second, Whether 
one day in seven is to be observed, by authority of the Fourth 
Commandment, in the worship of God. " Between us," he says, 
" there is on the second question a manifest agreement, but on the 
first, the bond of confidence and friendship remaining nevertheless 
unimpaired, there is some difference." Such Christian courtesy, 
which in the Sabbatic strife is not rare, it is pleasant to notice. 
Rivet resolved to be silent, " to sabbatize, as it were, on the ques 
tion," and no further to contend with a man whose age he reve 
renced, and whose learning he admired ; or if he did. publish any 
thing, to annex it at his leisure by way of appendix to his exercises 
on Genesis on which he was then employed. He was confirmed 
in this resolution by the affliction in which the loss of a son, and 
of a step-son, had plunged him and his family, and by the opinion 
of prudent friends, who conceived that the matter had been more 
than sufficiently canvassed. On paying a visit to Leyden, how 
ever, he was urged by so many and by such arguments to take 
the field again, as to be induced to abandon his purpose, and to 
prepare a rejoinder, which appeared in the same year, 1633, 1 as 
the Defence, and was afterwards inserted in the second edition of 
his work on the Decalogue published in 1637. The rejoinder is 

1 Dissert, de Orig. Sab. Cont. , Fr. Gomfirum. 8vo. 



106 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

chiefly devoted to a learned and able vindication of the Sabbath as 
a primaeval institution a doctrine, all opposition to which ought, 
after the triumphant refutations of Walseus and Rivet, to have 
expired with Gomar. On the Fourth Commandment, and the 
celebration of the Lord s day, our author takes low ground, hold 
ing that the commandment requires under the present economy 
only the consecration of some day a sufficient time to sacred 
rest and service, and that the observance of the first day of the 
week is an arrangement not necessarily binding on Christians, but 
entitled to respect, as having been agreed to by the early Church 
an arrangement that may be changed provided some necessity 
should call for it ; which necessity, however, he considers as pre 
eluded by the already exercised moral right of the Church to 
choose her day of worship, and by the public authorization of the 
Lord s day. Here, as we saw in Gomar, and shall see in Dr. 
John Prideaux, is a case in which some peculiar bias leads a man 
of the greatest learning and of acknowledged piety, into views 
which respect for these qualities restrains us from characterizing. 
On these points he tries to defend himself against the objections, 
and to combat the opinions of John Robinson, who had in his 
Just and Necessary Apology maintained the cause of the Sabbath 
on the ground of a strictly Divine and immutable right. Rivet, 
conscious that his doctrine needed it, cautions his readers against 
using for a cloak of licentiousness the liberty which he has asserted 
for them, and recommends that the Lord s day be spent in holi 
ness, rest, joy fulness, and beneficence. Dr. Twisse, who has occu 
pied some sections of his volume on The Morality of the Fourth 
Commandment, with a review of Rivet s Sabbatic doctrine, refers 
to his practical application of it in these pungent terms : " As 
for Dr. Rivet s honest and pious instructions as concerning the 
duties and our demeanours to bee performed on this day, we may 
easily perceive how little worth they are, and how easily they 
vanish into smoake, after that he hath in the doctrinall part of 
the Sabbath layd so unhappy a foundation, and that by so poore 
reasons and meane carriage of himselfe, that as I verily thinke, 
throughout all his writings there is not to be found the like." 1 
The controversy, so far as it had proceeded before the appear- 

i Pfge 144. 



THE NETHERLANDS. 107 

anee of the last-mentioned work, was ably reviewed in the Inqui- 
sitio de Sabbato et Die Dominico, which was published in 1633 
at Fraueker, where the author, Nathanael Eaton, a native of Eng 
land, was at that time a student in the University. Referring in 
the Preface to the Sabbatic treatises of Walseus, Gomar, and Rivet, 
he says, "Pondering each of these works of learned theologians 
with an impartial and humble mind, as in all I perceived erudite 
and instructive writing, in some I acknowledged and embraced 
truth ; so when I thought that the other was wanting in some 
things, I could not but indicate the defect to his eager admirei 
with a gentle and modest pen ; lest carried away by the emptiest 
shadows, and by names in the very search of truth, he should fall 
into error, and embrace a cloud instead of Juno." The Inqui- 
sitio, or, as it was afterwards named, Gulielmi Amesi Sententice 
de Origine Sabbati, et Die Dominico, comprehends, like the Me 
dulla of that writer, the whole existing controversy in small space, 
and passed in course of time through several editions. The second, 
published in 1653, is introduced with some remarks by Christian 
Schotanus (1603-1671), one of the ministers of Franeker, and 
Professor of Greek and Church History in its University, who says, 
" Again appears the judgment of our preceptor, Dr. Arnes, con 
cerning our controversies on the Sabbath and Lord s day, which 
an excellent young man set down in writing from the mind of that 
individual, and exhibited for public discussion many years since." 
Disclaiming the part of a Palaemon in the strife, he adds, " I 
am unwilling that this little book should a second time be seen 
by you, without a friendly word from me. The observance of 
the Lord s day ought to be commended to all, and held in such 
honour as is due to a law of the first table." In his remaining 
remarks, the learned and excellent professor sets the institution 
on its true foundation of Divine authority, and, distinguishing 
between the extremes of superstition and profaneuess in the 
treatment of it, deplores especially the prevalence of the latter 
amongst those who, " called the reformed, were yet in truth the 
most deformed." 

Before we turn our attention again to England, the chief arena 
of the strife, it may be well to trace, however rapidly, the re 
maining controversies in the Netherlands. What has been mini- 



108 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

bered the third of these, began in 1656, and was conducted by 
four Professors of Theology Hoornbeek of Leyden, and Essen of 
Utrecht, on the one hand, who held that the Fourth Command 
ment is moral, and that the Lord s day is of Divine authority ; 
Heidan and Cocceius of Leyden, on the other, who maintained 
that the Fourth Commandment was, like circumcision, merely 
ceremonial and Jewish ; that it never required worship, public or 
private, or anything but rest, and has been repealed ; and that 
the Lord s day is nothing more than an old custom and institu 
tion of the Church. The following is in substance the account of 
the origin and circumstances of the discussion, as given by Koel- 
man, who was a person of great worth, thoroughly versant in 
Sabbatic history, and at the time a student at Leyden. The 
University and Church of Utrecht were in a very flourishing state 
about the middle of the seventeenth century. The sanctification 
of the Sabbath, strongly enforced by the ministers, was more 
exact and conscientious than was aimed at in other parts of the 
Netherlands. The students of theology, imbued with sound Sab 
batic principles, were zealous in their efforts to make them known, 
being at the same time well indoctrinated in the Catechism, and 
accustomed to the repetition of sermons on the Lord s day. But 
those who had studied at Leyden were, for the most part, not so 
well-informed [in regard to the doctrine of the Sabbath], and 
their practice was not so uniform. The Utrecht graduates and 
students, before admission to the University of Leyden, were sub 
jected, as Koelman himself witnessed and experienced, to vexa 
tious examinations on the subject of the institution. Hoornbeek, 
who had in 1653 been appointed to a chair in Leyden, sympa 
thized with the young men in their views and wrongs. In 1656, 
he published a work in which he sought at once to allay existing 
differences, and to promote the substantial doctrine and sacred 
observance of the Lord s day. This, however, had not the desired 
effect. Heidan wrote his Disputatio de Sablato et Die Dominico, 
which, after being canvassed in public discussions, was translated 
and printed in 1658. It produced no small disturbance in the 
Church. The scandal thereby given and taken was unspeak 
ably great." As an antidote to the poison of a book which was 
in every one s hands, Essen published his Dissertation on the 



THE NETHERLANDS. 109 

Perpetual Morality of tJie Decalogue, first iu Latin, and then in 
Dutch. There followed a variety of works by Heidan, Cocceius, 
Hoornbeek, with one by John Paschasius, under the nom-de-guem 
of Nathanael Johnston, and republications of treatises by Pri- 
deaux, Broad, and Primerose, the last having been translated into 
Dutch. The States interfered in 1659 to suppress the discus 
sion, but a second and enlarged edition of the Dissertation, in 
cluding replies to Cocceius and his colleagues, made its appearance 
nevertheless in 1660. 1 

Abraham Heidanus (1597-1678) forms the subject of a eulo 
gistic article in Bayle s Dictionary. He wrote, besides other 
works, a book on The Origin of Error, and a Body of Divinity, 
the latter published after his death. He was dismissed from the 
Theological Chair for disobeying and publicly animadverting on a 
decree of the curators of the University forbidding the professors 
to treat in any way of certain disputed propositions in theology 
and philosophy, and of Descartes s Metaphysics. John Coch, 
or Cocceius, by his uncommon acquirements in oriental and rab 
binical lore, was enabled to throw light on the sacred page. But 
it may be questioned whether he did not contribute still more to 
darken it by his views of the Bible, which he regarded as through 
out a book of types and of words that ought to be understood 
in every possible sense. 2 Agreeably to the former theory, though 
inconsistently with the latter, he held that the Ten Command 
ments were promulgated from Sinai, not as a law which was to 
be obeyed, but as one form of the covenant of grace. John 
Hoornbeek (1617-1666) was born at Haarlem. Having studied 
at Leyden, and for five years discharged the duties of the mini 
stry at Mulheiin, near Cologne, he became a professor of theology, 
and afterwards preacher also, at Utrecht. Much against his own 
inclination, and the wishes of the magistrates and people there, 
he removed in 1653 to fill the same officee at Leyden. To elo 
quence, consummate ability in theological controversy, and high 
integrity, he added extensive acquaintance with languages and 
science, which, with his numerous publications, attested the re- 

1 De Histoirc, pp. 284-295. 

a This canon verba valent, quod valere possuntvras, in presence of Cocceius, applied 
by a Jesuit to prove transubstantiation from the words, "This is my body." Melch. 
~eyd*ok, Xynop. Tlitol (1689), p. 37. 

Pi 



110 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

markable energy of one, who, though of singularly noble form 
prceter dicta, insiani corporis formd conspicuus laboured under 
frequent attacks of disease, and died when he had not completed 
the age of forty-nine. 1 His ally in the controversy, Andrew 
Essen (1618-1677), a native of Bommel, in Guelderland, after 
receiving part of his education there, and completing it at the 
Gymnasium and University of Utrecht, presided for ten years 
over the Church in Nederlangbroek. He was transferred in 1651 
to the Church of Utrecht, and in 1653 appointed also one of the 
Professors of Theology in the University. He published some 
systematic works in Theology, and treatises on particular doctrines 
and controversies. One of his latest efforts was an eloquent and 
affectionate tribute to the memory of his preceptor, ^Voetius. 2 
Witsius, in his Dissertations on the Creed, says, " Whoever wishes 
to see the whole doctrine of Episcopius completely overthrown 
may consult the accurate and solid Dissertation on the /Subjection 
of Christ, by Andrew Essenius, a man whom I venerate as my 
preceptor and father in the Lord." 3 

That a contest in which such men were engaged should call 
forth displays of erudition and talent was to be expected. The 
least meritorious of the publications which it elicited were per 
haps those of Heidan. He appears to have performed his part 
with as much regard to his own ease as possible, the Disputation 
that made so much noise, containing in its fifty small pages nearly 
ten in succession of borrowed matter, without a single expression 
of acknowledgment, much less of thanks to the author, soon, 
indeed, to be, if not already, removed beyond the reach of this 
world s censure or praise. 4 The share of Cocceius was consider 
able, but its worth was not a little lessened by his fanciful views 
of Scripture. Hoornbeek and Essen, on the other hand, treated 
the Bible as a book of definite meanings, and as forming in its 

1 Traj. Erudit. p. 150, etc. Hoffman s Diet., where, on the authority of The Life of 
Hoornbeek, it is mentioned that he knew ten languages, and a little of two others. 
Eraser s Witsius on the Creed, vol. ii. p 612. 

2 Traj. Erudit. p. 95, &c. 

8 Dissert, vii. sect. 23, in Fraser. 

4 The work so unceremoniously pillaged was the Disput. de Die Dcminico of Louis 
Chapelle. See Brown s Causa Dei, etc., vol. ii. p. 896 ; Koelman s De Histoire, pp 
289-293 



THE NETHERLANDS. Ill 

two great divisions of the Old and New Testaments a Divine re 
velation to mankind. Of the works produced on the occasion 
that have come under our notice, the most comprehensive and 
complete appears to be the Dissertation of Essen, which without 
prolixity exhausts the subject as then agitated ; and by its rational 
scriptural views of the Fourth Commandment, as well as of the 
Decalogue at large, reminds us of the best Sabbatic writers of our 
own country. Nor were Hoornbeek and Essen less distinguished 
by the spirit than by the ability which they showed in the dis 
cussion. They deported themselves entirely as became ministers 
of the gospel and professors of theology. Heidan was bitter ; his 
" sharpest" passages, indeed, were said to be those which he had 
plagiarized ; but this fault he made, and there was little else in 
the property that he could make, really his own. Cocceius is 
querulous, and, in his reply to Paschasius, who charged him with 
following and favouring the Socinians in his Sabbatic views, 
wrathful. Although he was the decided opponent of Socinian, 
as he was of Arminian and Popish errors, yet the undue heat of 
the Indignatio, and the feeling of uneasiness betrayed by him in 
other parts of the discussion, bespeak misgivings as to the good 
ness of his arguments and cause. We wonder, indeed, that such 
a cause and its obvious fruits in the increasing profaneness of the 
people did not induce a person, who, according to Mosheim, was 
possessed of " piety in an eminent degree," to pause, and thence 
forth eschew the folly of conceiving that men can have religion 
on other days, who do not devote one day in seven to its exclu 
sive study, and that there is any guarantee for a weekly holy 
day but in the fact and belief that it is an express ordination of 
Heaven. 1 

Four years had hardly elapsed when there arose a fourth con 
troversy, attributable to Francis Burmann, Professor of Theology 
and Pastor at Utrecht. For a time after his appointment to 

1 The spirit of partisanship descended from Cocceius to his son, who, in the preface 
to the collected works of the former, imputes the blame of the controversy to Hoorn 
beek and Essen, proving it by arguments amounting to this " My father and his col 
IflMrue very innocently introduced the subject for discussion among the students, and, 
wlien found fault with by their opponents, who recklessly disregarded the peace of the 
Church in so doing, must reply to them, because neither was truth to be abandoned, 
Bor reputation to be thrown away. " 



112 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

these offices in 1662 and 1664 respectively, he acted warily in 
regard to the Sabbath question, particularly in the pulpit. It 
was not long, however, till he proceeded openly to proclaim 
his views, which he did in June 1665, when, in course of 
lecturing on the second part of the Catechism, he spent a great 
part of his hour in attempting to prove that in the matter of 
sanctifying the Lord s day, we are bound not by the force of the 
Fourth Commandment, but by a custom and ordinance of the 
Church. Many were astonished and offended at his doctrine. To 
others it was acceptable as it " promised them liberty." The pro 
fessors and ministers of Utrecht were aggrieved at so flagrant a 
departure from the principles which they had so cordially held. 
Essen was not slack to encounter the challenger. They engaged 
in a series of public disputations. Thus far we have followed 
Koelman. 1 From the publications issued on both sides, we find 
that the war was carried to the press, and learn the following 
particulars respecting it. Burmann published his Disquisitio. 
Essen answered in his AtaAvon?. In the Vindidce Disquisitionis, 
which next appeared, Burmaun apprehending, as he said, that the 
debate would rival the fabled river of the Jews which flowed with 
untiring rapidity on all days but the Sabbath, declared that ho 
laid down his pen, not to take it up again nisi digniores vindice 
nodi occurrant, as he envied no one, neither coveted the fancied 
victory of having the last word. Essen issued the Vindidoe Quarti 
Prcecepti, so thorough and elaborate a discussion of the whole 
question as fully to warrant him in declining any further ex pro- 
fesso reply. He did so, and kept his promise. The other, rather 
readily overcoming his dislike to the last word, came out again 
in Apologia pro Vindiciis Disquisitionis. When we consider that 
the whole controversy was comprised in the period of about a 
year, and prosecuted amidst many professorial and ministerial 
engagements, we are constrained to admire the activity and vig 
our of the two disputants, especially of Essen, now past his prime, 
one of whose replies forms a considerable volume, and who was 
contemporaneously employed in settling the arrears of his debate 
with Heidan. In addition to energy, the praise of superior a- 
quirements must be conceded to both writers. But here the 

De Histoire, p. 300 



THE NETHERLANDS. 113 

resemblance ends. While Essen brings independent thinking and 
sound judgment in aid of his cause, Burmami does little more 
than present in attractive form and maintain with dialectic skill 
the dogmas of the more original and learned though crotchety 
Cocceius. He, in other words, supports with elaborate but 
tresses, and graces with ornaments, a building which has no 
proper foundation, thus deceiving some on-lookers, and devolving 
on men like Essen and Owen, the labour of pulling down useless 
and dangerous fabrics, and of clearing away the rubbish, when 
they are about to erect what is solid and profitable. The cele 
brated English writer just named, referring to the discussion five 
years after it had taken place, says, that though the objections 
made to the doctrine of a moral sacred rest had been " solidly 
answered and removed," yet as " they had lately been renewed 
and pressed by a person of good learning and reputation," he 
would " give them a new examination and remove them out of 
his way." Many will agree with Owen that Essen effectually 
disposes of the arguments of Burmann, particularly in the Vindi- 
cice Quarti Prcecepti, the value of which is enhanced by the evi 
dence adduced in the latter half of the volume to establish the 
substantial harmony of the reformers and reformed churches, 
on the great question of a weekly holy day. In nothing has he 
the advantage over his opponent more than the meekness and 
calmness, of which, it has been said, he was a rare example. That 
his manifestly reverent regard to the eye of the Great Taskmaster 
should once and again express itself in the language of prayer was 
in perfect keeping with the other parts of his consistent character, 
and this, as well as other considerations, ought to have repressed 
the sneer uttered towards the close of the Apologia, " A prolix 
writing is concluded with prolix prayers." Of the sentences which 
follow that remark, and which insinuate, without positively mak 
ing an application to Essen of the case in Ezek. xiv. 4, we will 
only say, that all readers of right feeling must be ashamed and 
indignant, that such language should be employed in reference to 
a minister of religion and a professor of theology, whose general 
character was irreproachable, and whose only apparent offence in 
the present instance was that he held too firmly and defended too 
ably the doctrine of a Christian Sabbath. 



114 SKETCHES 0V SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

Essen s lack of service in taking no notice of the Apology of 
Burmann was supplied with remarkable ability. Matthew Craw 
ford, who afterwards took an able and earnest part in the affairs of 
his native Scotland, having finished his course of the liberal arts 
at a Scottish university, applied his mind to theological studies, 
and having been captivated with the writings of the Belgic divines, 
on account of their signal erudition, and complete agreement in 
doctrine with his own Church and the Westminster Assembly, had 
a strong desire to place himself under the tuition of some of those 
distinguished men. He accordingly repaired to Belgium. 1 " When," 
he says, after visiting its cities, " I observed the Lord s day profaned 
by labour, markets, merchandize, and in other forms, I was struck 
with astonishment, for never had I seen the like in Britain. Nay, 
when I understood that some learned men in published writings 
very strenuously contended that the Lord s day was only of human 
and ecclesiastical obligation, and condemned its stricter and pious 
sanctification, opinions which I conceived to be the profane and 
licentious doctrine of Socinians, Anabaptists, and Enthusiasts, and 
altogether unknown to the doctors of the Keformed Church, I 
thought it nothing wonderful that the people profaned the Sab 
bath, and that the magistrates did not punish them, such things 
being instilled by pastors and teachers." Under the influence of 
these feelings, and differing from those who regarded the contro 
versy as of small moment, Crawford wrote several "disputations" 
in defence of chap. 21, sect. 7, of the Westminster Confession, 
which he resolved to maintain under the presidency of Voet or 
Essen. In June 1669 he submitted to examination, in a discus 
sion presided over by the latter, the proleptical theory of Genesis 
ii. 2, 3, which Professor Burmann not long before had publicly 
advocated. That individual, however, whose views were assailed, 
though without any mention of his name, employed his powerful 
influence successfully, to quash the discussion. 2 If Crawford spoke 
as he afterwards wrote, it was certainly not for the credit of the 
professor, or of his opinions, that it should proceed. That the 
interests of truth might not suffer, the silenced student wrote out 
his thoughts on the subject more fully, and published them. The 

Preface to bis Exeroitatio. 3 Ibid. 



THE NETHERLANDS. 115 

volume 1 was dedicated, with much respect and affection, to Voetius, 
then in his eighty -first year, and to Essenius, Nethenus, and 
Leusden. Koelman said in 1685, that it had never, whether by 
Burmann, or any other, been answered. 2 

Another Scotsman, who had been resident in Holland since the 
spring of 1663, might already be engaged in preparing his volu 
minous work on the Sabbatic institution, which appeared four years 
after the Exercitatio. We refer to the celebrated Mr. John Brown 
of Wamphray. Having for his opposition to the restoration of 
Charles n. been ejected from his parish and imprisoned, he was, 
in consequence of his own representation, that his life was in 
danger from confinement in a damp cell, liberated on condition 
that he " obliged himself to remove and depart off the King s 
dominions, and not to return without license from his Majesty and 
Council under pain of death." This good and learned man passed 
his remaining days in Holland, residing partly at Utrecht and 
partly at Rotterdam, enjoying the intimate friendship of Ley decker, 
Spanheim, Borstius, and k Brakel, by all of whom he was highly 
esteemed for his theological attainments, and engaged in occasional 
preaching, corresponding with his friends in Scotland, and in 
writing and publishing useful works, which the above-mentioned 
and other friends did everything in their power to circulate. The 
resentment of Charles followed him, and obliged him in 1677 to 
leave Rotterdam, where, however, after a brief sojourn in Utrecht 
or its neighbourhood, he again resided till his death in 1679. 3 
His principal, though least popular work, and, we should suppose, 
the largest ever published on the subject, is the De Causd Dei 
contra Anti-Sabbatarios Tractatus, or, Treatise on the Cause of God 
against the Anti-Sabbatarians, which appeared at Rotterdam in 
two volumes, the first in 1674, the second in 1676. Prefixed 

1 Exercitatio Apologetica, etc., Sumptibus Autoris 1670. 

2 De Histoire, p. 315. Crawford was the editor of a reprint of Welch s Reply to Gil 
bert Brown, under the title Popery Anatomized, and author of A Discovery of the bloody, 
rebellious, and treasonable principles and practices of Papists, both of which, with an in 
teresting life of Welch, also by Crawford, appeared in 1672. Wodrow refers to him as 
preaching at a Communion administered at Kippen in 1676 in the night season, and as 
in 1679 taken on trials for ordination as minister of the parish of Eastwood (Hist. vol. 
ii. p. 318 ; iii. p. 24. Ed.- by Burns), where he laboured for a considerable time, ;uiu 
was succeeded by Woodrow himself. 

Steven s Scot. Church, Rotterdam, pp. 38, 09. 



116 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

are approving notices by Professors Arnold of Franeker, Voet and 
Essen of Utrecht, and Spanheim of Leyden. In an epistle dedi 
catory to the Rotterdam authorities, Brown expresses similar views 
and feelings to those of Crawford, in reference to the prevalent 
profanation of the Sabbath in Holland, and the encouragement 
given to it by the inculcation in writings, catechisings, and ser 
mons, of opinions such as he had never before heard " even from 
the mouths of the most profligate." He sets forth, in their own 
words, the sentiments of the ablest writers for and against the 
Sabbath as a moral, catholic, perennial, Divine institution. Hence 
the formidable extent of the treatise, and yet its inestimable value 
to those particularly who have not the means of consulting the 
original authors. Nor is it a mere compilation. Not the least 
important portions are the clear, able, and conclusive statements 
of Brown himself. Koelman says, that no part of it was answered 
by Burmann. Neither he, indeed, nor any other, could be ex 
pected to attempt a full reply to a work of such dimensions. But 
why has it been so little noticed by the supporters of adverse 
views ! Have not some of them felt that it would injure their 
cause to remit inquirers to the convincing arguments of such a 
man, of whom in his lifetime it was said by one well acquainted 
with him, and well able to estimate his character : " I know no 
minister alive (though the residue of the Spirit be with Him) that 
would fill his room if he were removed ;" and further, " If our 
captivity were this day returned, Mr. Brown, now removed from 
the Scottish congregation of Rotterdam, would by a General 
Assembly be pitched upon to fill the mont famous place in the 
Church of Scotland." 1 

Among the Dutch friends of Brown was the Rev. James Koel 
man, who, as Dr. Steven informs us, had been ejected from his 
charge at Sluis in Flanders for refusing to observe the festival 
days and formularies of the Church, and sub^uently devoted 
himself to the publication of religious books, most of which he 
dedicated to his former flock. 2 What entitles him to notice here 
is the important contribution which he made to the Sabbath con 
troversy in three works or parts of works, one of them printed in 
1683, the other two in 1685, and the whole collected in a 

i Ibid. Letter of M Ward, pp. 54, 55. 2 Ibid. pp. 72, 73, note. 



THE NETHERLANDS. 117 

under the common title, The Argument, History, and Practice of 
the Sabbath and the Lord s Day. 1 The work is second in mag 
nitude only to that of Brown, and, like it, is a complete thesaurus 
on its subject. The arrangement of topics, which is indicated "by 
the title, is happy, and each of them receives its distinct and pro 
portionate attention. It has a novel feature of peculiar interest 
in the historical account which it supplies of opinions on the Sab 
bath, and of Sabbatic controversies in England and the Nether 
lands. Mr. Koelman died at Utrecht in 1695. Dr. Steven says, 
that he appears to have been a very conscientious, worthy man, 
and that, besides being the author of many original and useful 
publications, including one that had for its subject the festival 
days of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands, he is advanta 
geously known as the able translator of Rutherford s Letters, and 
many other works, all of which have gone through several editions. 
By his means some of Brown s more popular writings were trans 
lated into Dutch, and circulated in Holland, previously to being 
printed in the English language. 2 

" The controversy," says Hengstenberg, " was kept up in Hol 
land till the eighteenth century, but with greater calmness. How 
ever, the more liberal views gradually advanced, and became more 
and more prevalent throughout the reformed churches, with the 
exception of Great Britain." 3 But has not this advancing libe 
ralism on the Continent been moral and political retrogression, 
while British conservatism in respect of the weekly rest has been 
national progress ? Were not Holland s two centuries of greatest 
temporal glory " the most glorious centuries of her Protestantism," 
and of her Sabbath 1 And is not Holland, where there is more 
respect for Divine institutions than in neighbouring countries, the 
dwelling-place of a more virtuous and happy community than Bel 
gium, France, or Germany ? 

1 Het Dispuit, en de H istoire, etc. 

2 Scot. Ch., Rotterdam, pp. 72, 73. It is remarkable that in this instructive work, Dr 
Steven makes no mention of the Sabbatic writings and efforts of Brown and Koelman. 

Lord s Day, p. 70. 



118 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 



ENGLAND. 

We now approach, a new era in the Sabbatic literature of Eng 
land. The doctrine of the Church, which was declared in 1562, 
and conclusively settled in 1571, recognised the Lord s day as 
the divinely appointed Sabbath of Christianity, and as having for 
its rule the fourth precept of the abiding Decalogue. This doc 
trine continued to be held in good faith, and publicly maintained, 
by a succession of learned, excellent ministers for upwards of half 
a century, only a few professedly religious men, and these of little 
comparative weight, daring formally to assail it. Such views 
were not peculiar to the Puritans, but were entertained by Babing- 
ton, Hooker, Andrewes, Lord Bacon, Hall, and Bayly, as they 
were by Fulke, Cartwright, Travers, Greenham, Perkins, Bownd, 
and Willet. 1 Hooker, in 1597, enunciated the noble and oft- 
cited sentence, " We are to account the sanctification of one day 
in seven a duty which God s immutable law doth exact for ever." 2 
About the same time, in his lectures at Cambridge, Andrewes was 
employed in bearing that testimony to the primaeval origin, the 
morality, the permanence, and the entire sacredness of the weekly 
day of rest, which is to be found in his posthumous writings. 3 
" God demands and segregates for himself," says Bacon, " a tenth 
of our substance, but a seventh of our time." 4 Hall, who in 
1599 eulogized the Treatise of Greenham, was heard preaching in 
1611 the doctrine of which these memorable words may be re 
garded as the sum : " The Sun of righteousness arose upon the 
first day of the week, and drew the strength of God s moral pre 
cept into it." 5 And Lewis Bayly, Bishop of Bangor, taught, 
when minister at Evesham, and subsequently published in his 
Practice of Piety, views of the Sabbath as Puritanic as those of 

1 An interpretation of the articles and homilies, in which all those writers concurred, 
is much more likely to be true than that of Dr. Heylyn and Bishop White, who wrote 
after the Second Declaration of Sports had appeared, and by the command of its author. 

2 Works (1662), p. 280. 

3 Particularly his Pattern of Catechistical Doctrine. See Oxford edit. O 8 * 6 ). PP- 1&4 
etc. 

* Adv. of Learning, lib. 8, c. 2, ad fin. 

6 Letter to Lord Denny Works (1837), vol. vi. p, 270. 



ENGLAND. 119 

Bownd. 1 But in a Church so trammelled by civil and hierarchi 
cal authority, there was little security for the purity of religious 
ordinances. We have seen how the Sabbatic institution had 
sometimes fared under Elizabeth and her ecclesiastical minions. 
A. worse fate, however, awaited it under her successors, James i. 
and Charles I. Their reigns, indeed, began with strong enact 
ments against certain profanations of the institution ; but, besides 
that these measures were favourable, virtually in the one instance, 
and avowedly in the other, to the desecration of holy time, by 
so-called lawful amusements, each reign was signalized by a Book 
of Sports, by growing severity against the friends of a sacredly 
observed Sabbath, and by the complacent regard with which the 
Court smiled on men of more flexible consciences, and of more 
congenial opinions. But the spirit of Puritanism was not extinct. 
It lived even under a crushing tyranny, which it soon acquired 
strength to shake off. And nothing perhaps contributed more to 
overturn "the throne of iniquity" than its framing of mischief 
against the holy Sabbath by a law. 

In his Church History of Britain, Fuller assigns to 1632 the 
begun revival of " the Sabbatarian controversy," and represents 
Theophiius Bradborn [Brabourne], a minister of Suffolk [Norfolk], 
as having in 1628 "sounded the first trumpet to the fight." 
Brabourne, indeed, uttered in 1628 a few unheeded notes ; but 
various trumpets had previously sounded. 

The first attempt to excite the overborne yet peace-loving Sab- 
batists to further controversy was made by Thomas Broad, rector 
of Ketcomb, who in 1621 published his Three Questions on the 
Fourth Commandment ; but his instrument gave so tremulous and 
uncertain a sound as to evoke from Heylyn the taunt : " One 
Thorn. Broad, of Gloucestershire, had published something in this 
kind ; wherein to speak my minde thereof, he rather shewed that 
he disliked those Sabbath doctrines than durst disprove them." 2 

1 This popular work had reached its eleventh edition by 1619, and its sixty-second 
in 1757. The dedication to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles i., is followed by 
the faithful and almost prophetic distich : 

Ad Carolum Principem. 
Tolle Malos, extolle Pios, cognosce Teipsum : 
Sacra tene ; Paci consule ; disce pati, 
Gist, of the Sab. pt. ii. 263. 



120 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

Mi*. Broad was followed by Dr. John Prideaux, rectoi and 
theological professor of Exeter College, Oxford, and afterwards 
Bishop of Worcester. By a Latin oration delivered in 1622, 
given to the world along with other discourses in 1625, and pub 
lished by Dr. Heylyn in an English translation, with a preface, in 
1634, he contributed to hasten, and subsequently to exasperate 
the renewed strife. His " Italian trills" tickled the ears of the 
young men who were attracted from all quarters to the prelections 
of the very learned and fascinating professor, in whom they 
found the rare union of the zealous Protestant and Calvinist with 
the anti- Sabbatic Conformist ; but the trumpet had a compara 
tively limited range, till the translator awoke it to intelligible 
English strains. The discourse itself is unworthy of its author. 
It is employed in setting aside, by dogmatic assertion rather than 
on assigned grounds, " the things most surely believed among y 
Christians generally respecting the Sabbatic institution, and in 
affirming, without a word as to where he got them, the proposi 
tions, that all recreations which serve to refresh our spirits and 
nourish mutual neighbourhood, are permitted on the Lord s day, 
and that to such recreations it is the exclusive right of the reli 
gious magistrate to prescribe bounds and limits. 1 Sad it was for 
an eminent teacher of theology to authorize liberties with the 
Lord s day, which the monarch himself declined to take, 2 and to 
publish his license for sports at a time when the Government, 
alarmed at " the quarrels, bloodsheds, and other great inconveni 
ences," which such amusements had spread over the land, ordained 
that " no man should use unlawful pastimes in his own parish, or 
go out of it for any pastime whatsoever, on the day, "the holy 
keeping of which," as was well said, " is a principal part of the 
true service of God." 3 It was not inconsequence of its own merit, 
but that he might compromise with the Puritans, and attach to 
the measures of the court, a man of note, as well as, it has been 
said, to indulge a personal grudge, that Heylyn was at the pains 

i Orat. Inaug. (1648), p. 68. 

8 "His Majesty (Charles i.) is much delighted in hunting; it is a recreation mixt 
with manly exercise well becoming a king ; but I heare he never useth to hunt on tha 
Lord s day." Twisse on the Morality of the Fourth Commandment, Preface, p. 4. 
Nealn s Feasts and Fasts, pp. 230, 231. 



ENGLAND. 121 

to translate and epitomize the performance ; and it was to neutra 
lize the influence of such a name that Twisse, after construing some 
parts of the work favourably, as far as possible, to the Sabbath, 
overpowered with calm argumentation the remainder. 1 

A posthumous treatise, by Robert Cleaver, already mentioned as 
associated with John Dod in various publications, appeared in 1625, 
and again in 1630, under the title, " A Declaration of the Christian 
Sabbath : wherein the Sanctifying of the Lord s Day is proved to 
be agreeable to the Commandment of God, and to the Gospell of 
Jesus Christ. Whereunto is added a briefe Appendix touching the 
limits of the C. S., the Lord s Day : that it beginneth and endeth 
after Midnight, not after the Sunne Setting in the Evening." 2 

The example of the Rector of Exeter College was not without 
its re-inspiring influence on the Rector of Retcomb, who, after a 
lapse of six years, had acquired sufficient breath and nerve to 
emit, though in outlandish tones which he had not practised for 
years, 3 a bold defiance to the whole race of Sabbatarians. In a 
Latin treatise on the Sabbath, which appeared in 1627, Broad 
attempted, in opposition to clear Scripture, the creed of his 
Church, and the facts of history, to establish the propositions, that 
it is one thing for God to sanctify a day, and another to command 
its sanctification by men, that weeks, a division of time bounded 
and constituted by the Sabbath, are not mentioned prior to the 
Exodus, that as the Fourth Commandment, which was cere 
monial, has been abrogated, it cannot bind us to the sanctifica 
tion of the Lord s day, and could not so bind us even if it were in 
force ; and though all pious and learned men, as far as he knew, 
were of the mind that the first day of the week should be sancti 
fied, there is no command of Christ or of his apostles to that 
effect, no fault is found by them with those who neglect it, and 
no religion must be placed in the observance of times. It was a 
fitting result of the writings of Broad and Prideaux, that Dr. 
Robinson, afterwards Archdeacon of Gloucester, publicly main- 

1 See Morality of the Fourth Commandment, p. 187, etc. 

2 We have not read this volume, which, we suppose, is now rare. The title is given 
from the second edition, which we have seen in the Marsh Library, Dublin. Both edi 
tions are marked in the Catalogue of the Bodleian. 

8 Ignoscat Lector stilo minus eleganti : annus enim jam agitur viceslmus quartus ex 
quo lingua Latina vel decem tantum lineas exaravi. Tract dt Sab. Preefatiunc. 



122 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

tained at Oxford in 1628 the thesis, that recreations on the Lord s 
day are not at all prohibited by the Word of God. 1 

Nor, as extremes meet, was it an unconnected sequence of 
writings, which explained away the Fourth Commandment, that 
Brabourne was excited to such zeal on its behalf as, in A Dis 
course upon the Sabbath-day, published in 1628, to urge the 
claims of the last day of the week to be accounted the Sabbath of 
Christians. This work seems to have come into any notice only 
in consequence of the celebrity which circumstances gave to a sub 
sequent production of the same author. Brabourne, who followed 
Traske in his Sabbatarianism as he did in his retractations, if his 
equal in ability was his inferior in the qualities of the heart. 

An attempt by Edward Brerewood, the first-appointed Profes 
sor of Astronomy in Gresham College, and a learned writer, 2 to 
engage the no less learned Nicholas Byfield, minister of St. Peter s 
Church, Chester, in a conflict on the subject, has not yet been 
mentioned, because, though the challenge and the assault belonged 
to the year 1611, they had not, as Fuller might say, become 
trumpet-tongued till 1630, when the parties had for sometime 
been silent in the dust. In the latter year, an oflicious publisher 
issued A Learned Treatise of the Sabaoth, consisting of an angry 
epistle from Mr. Brerewood to Mr. Byfield, with a brief reply by 
the latter and a rejoinder by the former. The circumstances of 
this correspondence were singular. The Professor, deceived by a 
worthless nephew, who pretended that having been converted by 
Mr. Byfield to strict views of Sabbath-keeping, he could not con 
scientiously remain in a situation where he was required to per 
form certain unnecessary works on the Lord s day, wrote to the 
minister of St. Peter s a formidable letter extending in print to 
fifty quarto pages, in which he poured out bitter reproaches, main 
tained extraordinary opinions, and insisted that the man who had 
wronged him should give him the satisfaction of a rencounter, not 
certainly with rapiers, but, according to Fuller s expression, by 
" brandishing pens." Byfield, in his brief reply, repudiated the 
charges, disclaimed the obligation to " answere every stranger s 

1 Heylyn s Hist, of the Sab. Pt. ii. p. 263. 

2 He wrote Enquiries touching the Diversity of Languages and Religions, 1622 ; De Pan* 
tieribus et Pretiit vet Nunmorum, 1614, with other "-vorks. 



ENGLAND. 123 

vaine challenge," and having declared his Sabbatic creed, declined 
the controversy. It appears, ho-wever, that the reiterated accu 
sations, demands, and strange doctrines of the Professor, in his 
Rejoinder, had compelled the aggrieved minister to forego his 
purpose of silence, and that, according to the belief of his brother, 
an answer was in the hands of the publisher, who suppressed it. 1 
When in these writings of Mr. Brerewood we find him indulging 
" proud wrath," and stoutly asserting, that the moral part of the 
Sabbath became on Sinai one of the perpetual words, not before ; 
that it is incompatible with the goodness of God to give to a man 
a command which, through the wickedness of other men, he can 
not keep without being punished for his obedience ; and that as 
the Fourth Commandment is given to the master, not to the ser 
vant, the performance of secular work by the latter on the Lord s 
day in obedience to the order of the former is the sin not of the 
servant but of the master, we may say, that however versant in 
astral matters, or in the old coins, languages, and even religions, 
of this lower world, he was not much at home on the subject of 
moral obligation, or eminently fitted by his studies or temper for 
religious controversy. It is but justice, however, to note that he 
felt relentings towards the good man, whom he had unworthily 
treated, and under whose ministry, with the excellent John Bruen 
as his fellow-worshipper, he occasionally sat ; and that his second 
Treatise on the Sabbath, which appeared in 1632, though not 
improved in its sentiments, is free from the faults of heat and 
abuse which disfigured the first. As for Nicholas Byfield, he has 
the honour to belong to " a cloud of witnesses," who by their 
character have attested the truth of their Sabbatic opinions, which, 
like other opinions, are " known by their fruits." As a minister 
in Chester, and afterwards as vicar of Isleworth in Middlesex, 
where he died, " he was a constant, powerful, and useful preacher, 
a thorough Calvinist, a nonconformist to the ceremonies, and a 
strict observer of the Sabbath. By his zeal for the sanctification 
of the Lord s day, his labours in the ministry, and his exemplary 
life, religion flourished, many were converted, and Puritanism 
gained ground." 2 He was the author of Expository Sermons on 

1 R. Byfield s Doctrine of the Sabbath Vindicated, p. 191. 
Brook s Puritans, vol. ii. p. 297. 



124 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

the Epistle to the Colossians and other parts of Scripture, which 
obtained for him a place in the Ecclesiastes of Bishop Wilkins, 
among the most eminent of our English commentators and writers 
on " Practical Divinity." 1 

An ample and able reply to Brerewood made its appearance in 
1631, under the title of " The Doctrine of the Sabbath Vindicated, 
by Kichard Byfield, pastor in Long Ditton in Surrey." The author 
was half-brother of Nicholas, and one of the 2000 ministers who 
were ejected in 1662. Referring to "The Learned Treatise," he 
says, " When I first received this booke, a little before November 
last, though I was utterly ignorant of any such controversie to 
have passed between my brother and Master Edward Breerwood, 
and had not yet cast mine eye on the base language of the reply 
in the end of the Treatise, yet the very noveltie, and dangerous 
vilnesse of the doctrine, without any reference to things personall, 
strucke me. My spirit was stirred in ine, when I saw the whole 
right of the Law for the time of God s worship alleviated, the 
consequence whereof must needs be this, the whole kingdome 
wholy given to Atheisme and profanenesse." He proceeds to show, 
that the Fourth Commandment is given to the servant and not to 
the master only ; that the commandment is moral ; that our own 
light works, as well as gainful and toilsome, are forbidden on the 
Sabbath ; that the Lord s day is of Divine institution ; and that 
the Sabbath was instituted from the beginning ; doctrines to be 
found in the Homilies, and in the almost universal creed of 
Christendom. 

The intrepid, if not always discreet Henry Burton, rector of St. 
Matthew s, Friday Street, London, had published several works 
against Popery, for which he was subjected in every instance to 
trouble by the ruling prelates, and in one of the cases, to suspen 
sion from his benefice. But the man who, referring to his various 
citations before Laud, could say, " I was not at any time before 
him, but methought I stood over him as a schoolmaster over his 
schoolboy, so great was the goodness of God upon me," 2 was not 
to be deterred by any danger from contending for the sanctity and 
Divine authority of the Sabbath, which he did in The Law and 

1 Eccles. [1693], pp. 97, 101, 10S. 

8 A Narration of the Life of Mr. Henry Burton, p. T. 



ENGLAND. 125 

the Gospel Reconciled (1631), and in Sermons for God and the 
King (1636). Among the charges brought against him in the 
High Commission were these : that he had spoken against the 
putting down of afternoon sermons on the Lord s day, and against 
the setting up of crucifixes. It was on account of such acts as 
these, by which he sought to stem the tide of corruption in the 
Church and State, and not on account of disaffection to the Go 
vernment, for he loved his King and the Constitution, that he was 
condemned to a series of grievous wrongs, and, along with Prynne 
and Bastwick, to savage indignities, which it is impossible even to 
read of without horror. 

It was not in 1628, as Fuller states, but in 1632, that Theo- 
philus Brabourne "set forth a book, dedicated to his Majesty, 
entitled, A Defence of that most Ancient and Sacred Ordinance of 
God s, tJie Sabbath-day." This was a larger work than his Dis 
course of 1628 on the same subject ; and if the author on neither 
occasion " sounded the first trumpet to the fight," he yet, by his 
second publication, blew a blast in the ear of royalty itself, which 
compelled attention, and provoked immediate as well as lasting 
hostilities. In the Defence, after laying down the position, that 
the Fourth Commandment is simply and entirely moral, contain 
ing nothing legally ceremonial in whole or in part, and ought 
therefore, in its full force and virtue, to be obeyed to the world s 
end, he proceeds to affirm that the Saturday, or seventh day of 
the week, ought to be an everlasting holy day in the Christian 
Church, the religious observation of which day obligeth Christians 
under the Gospel, as it did the Jews before the coming of Christ, 
and that the Sunday, or Lord s day, is an ordinary working day, 
which it is superstition and will-worship to make the Sabbath of 
the Fourth Commandment. " I am tied in conscience," were his 
words, " rather to depart with my life than with this truth ; so 
captivated is my conscience and enthralled to the law of my God." 1 
The " pride," however, which was thus confident, " went before a 
fall." He was called before the Court of High Commission, 
where, according to Bishop White, " there was yeelded unto him 
a deliberate, patient, and full hearing, together with a satisfactory 
answer to all his maine objections." 2 The result of this, and of 

i Defence, Dedication, p. 1. 2 Treatise of the Sabbath Day, Dedication, p. 24 



L^Q SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

a private conference, was a confession made in " a publike and 
honourable audience," that " his position touching the Saturday 
Sabbath was a rash and presumptuous error," and " the Sunday, 
or Lord s day, is an holy day of the Church, yea, and a most 
ancient holy day, and very honourable," with a humble submission 
unto his holy Mother, the Church of England, and the promise, 
" I will ever hereafter carry myselfe as an obedient sonne, in all 
peaceable and dutifull behaviour to my Mother the Church, and 
to the godly fathers and governors thereof." 1 It was a confirma 
tion of the proverbial ardour of new converts, that the penitent 
had scarcely left the Commission, when he handed to one of its 
members a breviate, charging the Puritans with having led him 
astray, a charge which the bishop was not slack to re-echo, both 
he and Brabourne himself being willing that the latter, though a 
man of no mean parts, should pass for a simpleton, in order to 
excite against a harmless but hated class the already overheated 
zeal of the authorities. 2 There was something suspicious in such 
a conversion. A partial writer says all that could be said in its 
justification, and it is little : " For some reason, it is not possible 
to ascertain distinctly what, though probably he was overawed by 
the character of the assembly, he signed a recantation, and went 
back to the bosom of the Church. Nevertheless, he continued to 
assert, that if the Sabbatic institution be indeed moral and per 
petually binding, the seventh day ought to be sacredly kept." 3 
We are informed by Dr. Collinges of what appear to have been 
the latest opinions of Brabourne, who, he says, " came to assert 
three Gods, and grew to keep no Sabbath, making bargains, etc., 
on his Sabbath." 4 

We may here adopt the words of Fuller : " Pass we now from 
the pen to the practical part of the Sabbatarian difference. Somer 
setshire was the stage whereon the first and fiercest scene thereof 
was acted. Here wakes (much different, I daresay, from the 
watching prescribed by our Saviour) were kept on the Lord s day, 
with church-ales, bid-ales, and clerk s-ales." The wakes had their 
origin in the festivals instituted in memory of the dedication of 
churches, and were kept on the Lord s day before or after the 

i Treatise of the Sabbath Day, pp. 305-7. 2 Ibid, pp. 307, 808. 

Davy s ffist of the Sabbatar. Churclws, p. 127. * Modest Plea, p. 74. 



ENGLAND. 127 

memorial-day of the saint to whom the churches were dedicated, 
because the people had not leisure to observe them on the week 
days. The object of church-ales was to raise money for repairing 
churches, and for the poor by means of benevolences collected after 
divine service at pastimes in the churchyard, or at drinkings and 
merry-makings in the public-house. Clerk-ales were for behoof of 
the parish-clerk, to whose house the parishioners sent provisions, 
and then came on Sundays to feast with him, " whereby he sold 
more aie." A bid-ale was a Sunday s feast, at which contribu 
tions were made by his friends for the setting-up again of some 
decayed brother. 1 

In 1631, while going the Western Spring Circuit, the Lord 
Chief-Justice (Sir Thomas Richardson) and Baron Denham, were 
importuned by the gentry in Somersetshire " to make a severe 
order for the suppressing of all ales and revels on the Lord s day." 
They accordingly issued such an order, requiring the minister of 
each parish to publish it on three several Sundays every year. 
On " the return of the circuit," Judge Richardson punished cer 
tain persons who had violated the order, and gave a second strict 
charge against the revels. Laud complained to the King of the 
judge s proceedings as an invasion of the episcopal jurisdiction, 
whereupon Richardson was summoned before the Council. Al 
though he pleaded that the order was issued at the request of the 
justices of the peace, with the consent of the whole Bench, and 
adduced precedents in the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles 
himself, in vindication of his conduct, he received a reprimand, 
and was peremptorily enjoined to revoke his order at the next 
assizes, which he complied with, he said, "as much as in him lay." 
In a letter to Pierce, Bishop of Bath and Wells, requiring further 
information respecting the manner in which the church-feasts were 
"ordered," Laud observed, "While his majesty conceives, and 
that very rightly, that all outrages or disorders at those feasts may 
and ought to be prevented by the care of the justices of the peace, 
the feasts themselves ought to be kept for the neighbourly meeting 
and recreation of the people, of which he would not have them 
debarred under any frivolous pretences." The bishop, in his reply, 
stated, that the suppression of the feasts was very unacceptable, 

1 Bishop Pierce, in Neal s Puritans (1837), vol. i. pp 559, 580. 



128 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

and that the restitution of them would be very grateful to the 
gentry, clergy, and common people ; mentioned that he had " pro 
cured the hands of seventy-two of his clergy " in their favour, and 
might have had a hundred more, but was satisfied with the num 
ber, being that of the translators of the Old Testament into Greek, 
and recommended the Sunday recreations ; because, besides other 
reasons, they brought the people more willingly to church, tended 
to civilize them, and compose differences, and served to increase 
love and beneficence. On the other hand, the justices of the peace 
addressed a petition to the King for the suppression of the revels, 
which, they said, had introduced not only a great profanation of 
the Lord s day, but riotous tippling, contempt of authority, quar 
rels, murders, with other evils, and were very prejudicial to the 
peace, plenty, and good government of the country. 1 " Here," 
according to Neal, " we observe the laity petitioning for the reli 
gious observation of the Lord s day, and the bishop, with his 
clergy, pleading for the profanation of it." 2 Laud was raised to 
the primacy, August 16, 1633. His letter to Bishop Pierce was 
dated October 4th of the same year. And a fortnight had not 
elapsed ere the Second Declaration of Sports appeared. 

This document, after narrating the grounds and proceedings of 
James in issuing his Declaration of 1618, and repeating the De 
claration itself word for word, says, " Now out of a like pious care 
for the service of God, and for suppressing of any humors that 
oppose truth, and for the ease, comfort, and recreation of our well- 
deserving people, we do ratify and publish this our blessed father s 
Declaration ; the rather because of late in some counties of our 
kingdom, we find that under pretence of taking away abuses, there 
hath been a general forbidding, not only of ordinary meetings, 
but of the feasts of the dedication of the churches, commonly called 
wakes. Now, our express will and pleasure is, that these feasts, 
with others, shall be observed, and that our justices of the peace, 
in their several divisions, shall look to it, both that all disorders 
there may be prevented or punished, and that all neighbourhood 
and freedom, with manlike and lawful exercises, be used. And 
we farther command our justices of assize in their several circuits, 
to see that no man dare trouble or molest any of our loyal and 

1 Fuller and Neal, under A.D. 1633. 3 Neal (1837), vol. . p. 560. 



ENGLAND. 1 29 

dutiful people, in or for their lawful recreations, having first done 
their duty to God, and continuing in obedience to us and our laws. 
And of this we command all our judges, justices of the peace, as 
well within liberties as without, mayors, bailiffs, constables, and 
other officers, to take notice of and to see observed, as they tender 
our displeasure. And we farther will, that publication of this our 
command be made, by order from the bishops, through all the 
parish churches of their general dioceses respectively. Given at 
our Palace of Westminster the eighteenth day of October, in the 
ninth year of our reign. God save the King." 1 

The Declaration " struck the sober part of the nation with a 
kind of horror ; and the severe pressing of it made sad havoc 
among the Puritans for seven years." While some of the clergy 
devolved the publishing of the document on their curates, and 
others, after reading it, pronounced the words of the Fourth Com 
mandment, or preached against the profanation of the Lord s day, 
a large class, estimated at 800, positively refused to pollute their 
lips with the utterance of the order, and were in consequence sus 
pended, driven from their livings, excommunicated, prosecuted in 
the Court of High Commission, or forced to leave the kingdom. 2 
Let one case show the manner in which that foolish and wicked 
edict, having an archbishop for its most zealous abettor and most 
effective executioner, if not its instigator, was employed as an 
engine of oppression and mischief against innocent men, and many 
of the best of England s ministers. It is the case of Thomas 
Wilson, A.M., minister of Otham, in Kent, so admirable a speci 
men of his class as might have drawn from any bishop possessed 
of a spark of religion or common sense, the aspiration as to his 
clergy, si sic omnes I On declining to read the Declaration, 
Mr. Wilson was sent for to Lambeth, when he was examined on 
this among various charges : " You refused to read the King s 
Declaration for Sports on Sundays, and spoke disdainfully to the 
apparitor and officer of the Court." His reply was, " I said to 
the apparitor, Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy ; and 
I said no more. I refused to read the book, not out of contempt 
of any authority, being commanded by no law. The King s Ma 
jesty doth not in the book command or appoint the minister to 

1 Wflk. Concil. vol. iv. pp. 483, 484. 2 Neal (183?), vol. L pp. 561-664. 

I 



130 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

read it, nor it to be read, but published. And seeing there is no 
penalty threatened, nor authority given to any one to question 
those who refuse to read it, my refusal to read it was upon suffi 
cient grounds of law and conscience ; which, for the satisfaction 
of this high Court, and to clear myself from contempt, I shall 
briefly express thus : His Majesty s express pleasure is, that the 
laws of the realm, and the canons of the Church, be observed in 
all places of the kingdom, and therefore at Otham, in Kent ; but 
this book, as I. conceive, is contrary to both. It is contrary to 
the statute laws ; it is contrary to the ecclesiastical laws ; it is 
contrary to the Scriptures ; it is contrary to the Councils ; it is 
contrary to divines, ancient and modern ; it is contrary to reason." 
No sooner was this part of the defence concluded, than the Arch 
bishop said, " I suspend you for ever from your office and benefice 
till you read it ;" and Mr. Wilson continued suspended for the 
space of four years. 1 It has been said of this excellent man : 
" What he preached on the Lord s day he practised all the week. 
He was a strict observer of the Sabbath, and eminently successful 
in promoting the same practice among his people at Maidstone, as 
well as at other places, one of the judges having publicly declared, 
that in all his circuit there was no town where the Lord s day was 
so well observed." 2 

The wrongs and sufferings of hundreds of Puritan ministers 
were not the only or greatest mischief of a Declaration, which, 
setting at nought the Sabbatic doctrine and law of the Church, 
and being, in fact, as it has been termed, a royal invitation to the 
people to give themselves up to dissipating, riotous, and intem 
perate diversions on a day sacred to sobriety, did incalculable 
damage to the religion and morals of the land. In the year of 
its publication, Kichard Baxter, then a youth, resided at White 
hall with Sir Henry Newport, Master of the Eevels, having been 
persuaded to try his fortune at Court ; but being entertained there 
with a play instead of a sermon on the Lord s-day afternoons, 
and hearing little preaching except what was against the Puritans, 
he found a month s experience of Court life sufficient, and retired 
with disgust. 3 His account is confirmed by the Strafford Letters, 

1 Brook s Lives of the Puritans, vol. iii pp. 174, 175. 

&gt; Ibid. 3 tome s Life of Baxter, p. 14. 



ENGLAND. 131 

where we have the following picture : " The French and Spanish 
Ambassadors were both at the King s mask, but not received as 
ambassadors. The French sat among the ladies, the Spanish in 
a box. It was performed on a Sunday night. My Lord Treasurer 
Juxon was there by command." l 

When the Court and the clergy thus took the lead in breaking 
down the barriers of religion, what was to be expected but a 
general flood of impiety 1 "I cannot forget," says Baxter, " that 
in my youth, in those late times, when we lost the labours of 
some of our conformable, godly teachers for not reading the Book 
of /Sports and dancing on the Lord s day, one of my father s own 
tenants was the town-piper, hired by the year (for many years 
together), and the place of the dancing assembly was not an hun 
dred yards from our door. We could not, on the Lord s day, 
either read a chapter, or pray, or sing a psalm, or catechize, or 
instruct a servant, but with the noise of the pipe and tabor, and 
the shoutings in the street continually in our ears. Even among 
a tractable people we were the common scorn of all the rabble in 
the streets ; and called Puritans, precisians, and hypocrites, because 
we rather chose to read the Scriptures, than to do as they did, 
though there was no savour of nonconformity in our family. And 
when the people, by the book, were allowed to play and dance 
out of public service time, they could so hardly break off their 
sports, that many a time the reader was fain to stay till the piper 
and players would give over. Sometimes the morris-dancers would 
come into the church in all their linen, and scarfs, and antic- 
dresses, with morris- bells jingling at their legs ; and, as soon as 
common-prayer was read, did haste out presently to their play 
again." 2 

Such was the baneful influence of a book, which, though re 
plete with neither argument nor eloquence, yet, as the word of a 
king, had power. Scarcely, however, had " this practical part of 
the Sabbatarian difference" commenced, when the Government 
saw that authority must, if possible, be sustained by means of 
the press. Learned ecclesiastics were accordingly employed to 
write in vindication of the measures of the Court. And they 
were not slow to do the bid ling of their superiors ; hence there 

i Vol. tt. p. 14S 2 Practical Works (ISSS), vol. lii. p. 90k 



132 SKETCHES OP SABBATIC CONTKOYERSIES. 

rose up together, or in rapid succession, a class of authors whose 
writings perverted the doctrine, and gave a new tone to the 
literature of the Sabbath. 

Among the foremost was the noted Dr. Peter Heylyn, who 
issued, in 1634, his already-mentioned translation of Prideaux s 
Oration, and, in 1635, his History of the Sabbath, which, though 
extending to 450 quarto pages, " was written, printed, and pre 
sented to the King in less than four months." l In this work the 
author traces the alleged Notices of the Institution from the 2d 
chapter of Genesis down to the Declaration of Charles L, gather 
ing in his course proofs, as he presumes, that the Sabbath was 
unknown in the world till it was given to the Jews, who neither 
observed nor regarded it as a moral precept that, at the destruc 
tion of their temple by the Romans, it was abrogated with other 
ceremonies ; and was, by the few Gentiles who took notice of it, 
known only to be derided ; while the Lord s day had no other 
authority than the voluntary consecration of it to religious uses 
by the Church, rose gradually, by means of edicts, canons, and 
decretals, to the esteem it enjoys, and may, when not employed 
in public worship, be spent in all such business and pleasures as 
are lawful in themselves, and not forbidden by the existing civil 
power. 

In his Life of Archbishop Laud, Heylyn informs us that, while 
" the practical and historical part " was assigned to " Heylyn of 
Westminster, who had gained some reputation for his studies in 
the ancient writers," " the argumentative and scholastical was 
referred to the right learned Dr. White, then Bishop of Ely, who 
had given good proof of his ability in polemical matters in several 
books and disputations against the Papists." 2 Dr. White him 
self, who published his Treatise of the Sabbath in 1635, states in 
the Dedication to Laud, that he had, by his Grace s direction, 
obediently performed in the publication what was commanded by 
his sacred Majesty, whose will it was that a treatise should be 
set forth in counteraction of those principles, commonly preached, 
printed, and believed throughout the kingdom, on which Bra- 
bourne had grounded his arguments. It showed " method in 
their madness " that the authors and defenders of the Book of 

i Yemen s Life of Heylyn, p. 88. a Page 29(5. 



ENGLAND. 133 

Sports sought to cover their opposition to those generally received 
" principles," in other words, to the doctrine of Bownd and of the 
Homilies, under the pretext that such doctrine led, by necessary 
consequence, to opinions so extreme and unpopular as those of the 
Sabbatarian just named. While White has much in common with 
Heylyii, it is only just to him to say that he admits an obligation 
of " equity " on Christians in the Fourth Commandment, " argues 
the apostolical institution of the Lord s day from its immediate 
universal adoption," and states, that to devote it wholly to reli 
gion is " a work of grace and godliness pleasing and acceptable to 
God." 1 His Treatise has been called the most learned produc 
tion of the time on its subject, yet, both in the work itself, and 
in a defence of it against an able anonymous reply, he deals so 
largely in undignified abuse as not only to evince very slender 
attainments in self-government, but to betray the fact and the 
consciousness that his cause was as weak in the moral, as it was 
strong in the physical force, by which it was supported. " I 
turned over the leaves both of the Bishop s and D. Heylyn s 
book," says "the pious and profoundly learned" Joseph Mede, 
writing to Dr. Twisse in April 1636, "when they came newly 
out, that I might see their principles and the way they went : 
further I am not acquainted with them ; because I took no 
pleasure neither in their conclusions nor in their grounds, which, 
if they be urged, would overthrow a great deal more than they 
are aware of." 2 

Drs. Heylyn and Francis White were followed by Dr. Pock- 
lington, whose Sunday no Sabbath : a Sermon, after passing, what 
was to him, the easy ordeal of the licenser, in the earlier part of 
1635, was preached by the author in August of the same year, 
and, "according to the copy before us, had reached its second 
edition from the press by 1636. In 1640, the Long Parliament 
committed a blunder, to say the least, when it condemned the 
Sermon, with the Altar e Christianum, another product of the 
doctor s pen, to be publicly burnt in the city of London and the 
two Universities, by the hands of the common hangman a fate 
inappropriate to performances which otherwise would have found 
their way to their native obscurity. 

pp. 2--.:,, 256. a Works (1672), p. 889, 



134 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

It does not appear whether A Sovereign Antidote against Sab- 
batharian Errors, " by a reverend, religious, and judicious divine," 
printed in 1636, came out under the sanction of its author, Dr. 
Sanderson, who had written and sent it in a manuscript letter to 
a Mr. Th. Sa. of Nottinghamshire, in the year 1634. It has 
been published at different times with the name of the writer in 
his Cases of Conscience. From a comparison of this tract with 
previous and subsequent works of Dr. Sanderson, it should seem 
that his views of the subject fluctuated ; and it has been sup 
posed that, in his case as in that of Hammond, the influence of 
the primate prevailed over the judgment of the individual. 1 The 
following words of the tract in question give countenance to the 
latter view, and, at all events, show a truckling to the powers 
that were, unworthy of the man who wrote them : "In this 
matter, touching Recreations to be used on the Lord s day, much 
need not be said, there being little difficulty in it, and his 
Majesty s last Declaration in that behalf having put it past Dis 
putation. Those Recreations are the meetest to be used, which 
give the best refreshing to the body, and leave the least impres 
sion in the mind ; in which respect, shooting, leaping, pitching 
the bar, stool-ball, etc., are rather to be chosen than dicing, card 
ing, etc." 2 

Two other works of similar views belong to the same year. 
One of them is A Treatise of the Sabbath and the Lord s Day, by 
David Primerose, minister of the Protestant Church at Rouen. 
It was " Englished out of his French MS." by his father, Dr. 
Gilbert Primerose, a Scotsman who had been for some time a 
Minister at Bordeaux, but now presided over a French congrega 
tion in London. If among works of the class and time the Trea 
tise of Bishop White excelled in learning, and Dr. Heylyn a 
History was a prodigy of energetic application, the publication of 
Mr. Primerose must be regarded as bearing away the palm for a 
thorough-going heartless determination to explain away every 
thing that makes for a holy and beneficent Sabbath. The other 
work is A Discourse of the Sabbath and the Lord s Day, by Chris 
topher Dow, B.D., who was willing, he says, it should see the 

1 James s Four Sermons on the Sacraments and Sabbath, p. 259. 

2 Eight Cases of Conscience (1674), pp. 16, 17. 



ENGLAND. i 55 

light, " considering that the brevity of it might make it passe and 
find favour with some, and that being of a mean straine, it might 
better meete with common capacities than larger and more elabo 
rate tractates." The writer, we trust, did not know, though he 
ought to have known, that this was the language of self-gratula- 
tion on the honour of contributing in any measure to the over 
throw of one of the best bulwarks of Christianity and his country. 
When we add the Seven Questions of tJie Sabbath, by Gilbert 
Ironside, B.D., and Dr. Heylyn s Brief and Moderate Answer to 
Mr. Henry Burton, both printed in 1637, we nearly complete, so 
far as we know, the list of original publications in defence of the 
Declaration of Sports, that appeared from 1632 to 1638, or, we 
might say, to 1650, twelve years of that period being a blank in 
anti- Sabbatic literature. 

It takes not a little from the credit of these champions of 
Sabbath amusements, that men of other views, many of whom 
were both able and willing, had no liberty, either from pulpit or 
press, to expound their opinions. For recommending from the 
pulpit, in opposition to the Treatise of Bishop White, the sacred 
observance of the Lord s day, Mr. George Walker, a London rec 
tor, was convened before the Primate, and received canonical ad 
monition. 1 And his having spoken against the putting down of 
afternoon sermons on the Lord s day was one of a few, not more 
heinous, acts for which Mr. Henry Burton was condemned to im 
prisonment and horrible mutilation of his person. Apart from its 
danger, the publication of writings favourable to the Sabbath was 
impeded by difficulties almost insurmountable. Some two or three 
tracts by Prynne, one by Burton, and a new edition of Sprint s 
Propositions formed, accordingly, the amount of force which v/as 
brought to bear against the attacks of the numerous publications, 
great and small, on the other side. The authors of these pub 
lications were, in some instances, ungenerous enough to twit 
an unlicensed opponent, who some way or other was enabled to 
give his sentiments to the world through the press, with the 
contraband character of his literary wares ; an argument feeble 
for every other purpose than to quicken the vigilance of the autho 
rities. 

1 Athm. Oxrnn. vol. i. p. 4&C 



136 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

It was another material deduction from the glory of the anti- 
Sabbatic writers in question, and from the weight of their opinions, 
that they were bound together and to a common cause by the spell 
of one gifted, unscrupulous, and resolute spirit. The dedications, 
the courtly eulogies, and in some instances the avowal of royal 
command or of archiepiscopal authority, as their reason for writing, 
pointed to Laud as the ruling star. But this subject more fitly 
falls to be treated by a clergyman of the Church of England. 
" It will readily be believed, that the opinion which was adopted 
by the energetic mind of Laud, soon 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 
seemed to follow his course : Bishops White and Bramhall, and 
Jeremy Taylor, and Sanderson, with Dr. Hammond, and, though 
last, perhaps not least, Dr. Barrow." The objection, he observes, 
is not to the statement of duty as made by these great theologians, 
but to their rejection of the ground on which it truly rests, all of 
them regarding the Fourth Commandment as a Jewish and tem 
porary ordinance, and all, except White, denying the apostolical 
institution of the Lord s day. After attributing " this agreement 
iii deviation from the generally-received opinion " in some measure 
to " the extravagance of the Sabbatarians," he thus proceeds : 
" 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 Ireland with his 
patron, Lord Strafford ; White was the friend, Taylor the chap 
lain of Archbishop Laud, by whom also Sanderson was recom 
mended to the royal favour ; Hammond was the friend of Sander 
son ; and though Barrow was of a somewhat later day, in his 
early life distress occasioned by the civil war made him indebted 
for his education to the generosity of Dr. Hammond." 1 This 
line of remark may be extended to other less distinguished mem 
bers of the fraternity. Dr. Heylyn, it is well known, was the 
protege of the Primate. Drs. Pocklington and G. Primerose were 
king s chaplains. Christopher Dow, says even Wood, " was much 
favoured by Dr. Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury (whoso creature 
and champion he was), and by him promoted to several ecclesi- 

1 James s Pmr Sermons, pp. 2!"&gt;2 -257. 



ENGLAND. 137 

astical benefices." 1 Primerose, the son, had been the admiring and 
admired pupil of Prideaux. Ironside, indeed, Wood informs us, 
was " never chaplain to any spiritual or temporal lord, or to any 
king or prince." His views, he himself says, were formed and 
declared many years before the King s declaration was published 
and his preferments to a prebend and bishopric, we may add, came 
after services rendered by him to the Government. But he, too, was 
a humble, if not a " hungry expectant of office," when, in dedicating 
the " Seven Questions " to Laud, he besought his Grace " to receive 
both the work and the author into his patronage and protection," 
and added a prayer for " our Aaron, as if the Jewish " high 
priest " and " saint " were a type in anything, except in the worship 
of the golden calf, of a person who, so far from being " a lover of 
good men," was the leader of a class whose deeds Sir B. Rudyerd 
thus described and denounced in Parliament : " We have seene 
Ministers, their Wives, Children, and Families undone, against 
law, against conscience, against all bowels of compassion, about 
not dancing upon Sundayes. What doe these sort of men think 
will become of themselves, when the Master of the house shall 
come, and frnde them thus beating their fellow-servants ?" 2 

The Primate and his friends had now, as far as they could, re 
duced the Sabbatic institution to a nullity. And this was only 
one of many wrongs, which drove thousands of families to foreign 
shores, till, by an Act of the King and Council, even this relief 
from oppression was precluded to its victims. But the year 1640 
came, and along with it the exhaustion of the country s patience 
under protracted misrule. The Parliament assembled in Novem 
ber, and declaring its sittings permanent, proceeded vigorously to 
its Herculean task of reformation. To the Sabbath it rendered 
some important services ; bringing to light the melancholy extent 
to which clerical ungodliness and profligacy, Trentine errors, and 
the want of religious teaching, prevailed in the Church, whereby 
were demonstrated the folly and wickedness of Laud s Anti-Sab 
batic policy ; passing several Acts for enforcing existing Statutes 
relative to the observance of the Lord s day, the members con 
sistently exemplifying the law in their own practice ; securing for 

1 Athen. Oxon. vol. i. p. 840. 

8 Speeches and Passages of this Great and Happy Parliament, pp. 103, 104. 



138 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

the friends of the day freedom to proclaim their views regarding it 
from pulpit and press without fear of the Star Chamber, the High 
Commission, imprisonment, confiscation of goods, or bodily mutila 
tion ; and calling together the Westminster Assembly, thus elicit 
ing one of the clearest and most important testimonies ever borne 
to the Divine authority, perpetual obligation, and sacred character 
of the Weekly Rest. 

Of their new-born liberty several learned and excellent men 
speedily availed themselves to pour out through the press their 
Sabbatic stores. No less than eleven treatises, for the most part 
of considerable extent, and of no ordinary ability, appeared on be 
half of the institution in the course of 1641. Two of them 
a reprint of the Pattern of Catechistical Doctrine, by Bishop 
Andrewes, and the Theses De Sabbato, by Bishop Lake were 
posthumous. The authors of the other works were Hamon, son 
of Sir Hamon L Estrange ; Dr. George Hakewill, Rector of Exeter 
College, Oxford ; Richard Bernard, the laborious Rector of Bat- 
combe ; Dr. William Gouge, the pious and accomplished minister 
of Blackfriars, London ; John Ley, rector successively of various 
parishes, who, in Sunday a Sabbath, one of two treatises published 
by him, was assisted by the MSS. and advice of Archbishop Ussher ; 
George Abbot, a member of the Long Parliament, as well as a 
minister of the gospel ; George Walker, Rector of St. John the 
Evangelist, already referred to ; and Dr. William Twisse, minister 
of Newbury, a native of its neighbourhood, and Prolocutor of the 
Westminster Assembly. The Morality of the Fourth Command 
ment is perhaps the ablest treatise of the year 1641, and one 
which deserves ever to rank high amongst works of its class. A 
profound thinker, and an accomplished debater, Dr. Twisse was 
no less distinguished as a Christian, who, there is good reason to 
trust, now enjoys the begun realization of his hope as thus ex 
pressed when he was about to die : " Now I shall have leisure to 
pursue my studies to all eternity." The value of his work, in 
trinsically great, is enhanced by the already-mentioned sententious 
and pithy performance of Bishop Lake, which is appended to it. 
This learned prelate concludes the Times by saying, that while 
cherishing charity for those who differed from him, and desiring 
for all the sobriety of judgment commended in Rom. xiv., yet 



ENGLAND. 139 

" seeing to fetch the authority of the Lord s day from God, and to 
keepe it with all reasonable strictnesse, maketh most for piety 
in a doubtfull case I incline thither." 

While the admirable testimony of the Westminster Assembly 
on the subject of the Sabbath, to be presented in another part of 
this volume, had not yet appeared, certain writers conceived that 
in the works which had been recently published, numerous and 
excellent though these were, justice had not been done to an in 
stitution so outrageously wronged by the measures of Charles I. 
and Laud. 1 In addition to the ingenious treatise of Irenseus 
Philalethes in 1643, and a work by John Lawson in the follow 
ing year, there appeared one of the largest, ablest, and most satis 
factory discussions which the subject ever received, belonging, the 
first volume to 1645, the second to 1652. The authors, Daniel 
Cawdrey and Herbert Palmer, were distinguished members of the 
Westminster Assembly, by whose order, it has been said, the 
Sabbatum .Redivivum was written. Palmer having in 1 647, "gone 
to celebrate the Sabbatism above," it was left to the other to "put 
the last hand and file" to the work. It is stated in the Preface 
that they had prepared their MS. when " nothing had appeared 
for, but all against, the Sabbath," and that they were dissatisfied 
with former writers for either regarding the Saturday Sabbath as 
literally enjoined in the Fourth Commandment, thereby "losing 
their cause and the commandment too," or not sufficiently confut 
ing the opinion. Palmer and Cawdrey were followed by John 
White, " the Patriarch of Dorchester," in a valuable dissertation 
of 1647 ; by Hezekiah Woodward in 1648 ; and by Thomas 
Shepard (1649), whose excellent volume will fall to be again 
noticed. 

The opponents of the Sabbatic doctrine of the Puritans and of 
the Homilies had now for thirteen years been mute on the subject, 

1 From the following views expressed by Charles, it may be inferred that the Anti- 
Sabbatic measures of Laud formed no exception to the matters in which, according to 
Echard and Clarendon, the prelate had the hearty concurrence of the king : " I con 
ceive the celebration of this feast [Easter] was instituted by the same authority which 
changed the Jewish Sabbath into the Lord s day or Sunday. For it wiU not be found in 
Scripture where Saturday is discharged to be kept, or turned into Sunday ; wherefore 
it must be the Church s authority that changed the one and instituted the other." 
Morer s Dialogues, p. 58. 



140 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

constrained to silence for the greater part of that time, probably, 
by a fear of the treatment which befel Pocklington and Bray. 1 
But at length encouraged by the state of feeling and of parties 
that followed the death of Charles I., an anonymous writer, who 
afterwards gave his name as Edward Fisher, Esq., craved to be 
heard, affirming and proving that Christmas day and the Lord s 
day are institutions of equal weight and authority, and that it is 
no less sinful, to work on the former than on the latter day. The 
performance gave rise to a full and learned vindication of the Sab 
bath by Giles Collier, Vicar of Blockley, against the attempt to 
degrade it to the level of a human appointment ; and to a publi 
cation by John, afterwards Dr. Collinges of Norwich, exposing the 
error of raising Christmas to the dignity of a divine institution. 
After a remarkable tract by Thomas Chafie, Vicar of Nutshelling, 
reprinted in 1692 with a recommendation by Bates and Howe ; 
an interesting practical work by Philip Goodwin, " Pastour of the 
publike congregation, Watford ;" a learned Latin dissertation by 
Dr. Henry Wilkinson, and publications by Prynne and Pynchon, 
all in favour of the Sabbath, there appeared in 1657, Tlie Judg 
ment of Ussher on that and other points, in which we are favoured 
with a long and erudite letter of the Archbishop to Dr. Twisse, 
upholding the doctrine of the Irish Articles. To this work, edited 
by Dr. Nicholas Bernard, Dr. Heylyn replied in his Petrus JKe- 
spondet, displaying in the renewed effort to destroy the institution 
all his old zeal, and more than his former subtlety. Regardless 
of the Doctor s sophisms, Pearson, afterwards Bishop of Chester, 
proclaimed, in his Exposition of the Creed (1659), the common- 
sense view of the Sabbath, which, when the dust raised by what 
was really a faction in the Church had been well-nigh blown away, 
was seen to be the general creed of Churchmen, as it was of Non 
conformists, and as it has continued to be the faith of both classes 
to this day. 

The prolonged discussion of the subject by the friends of the 
institution has been, in part, owing to the necessity for checking 

1 In 1641 "the Lower House ordained the Mayor to see them both [Pocklington s 
Altare Christianum and Sunday no Sablath] burst at Cheapside, and Bray, the licenser, 
to read out of a paper his condemnation of a number of errors which ha had licensed 
He did so with a great deal of feigned repentance, for the Lower House ttua year make* 
many hypocrites. " --Baillie s Letters (1775), vol. i. p. 290. 



ENGLAND. 141 

desecrations of the Sabbath which have more or less prevailed. 
The evils of the Book of Sports, and of the writings by which it 
was defended, were not to be remedied in a day. There mixed, 
moreover, in the ranks of the truly good and earnest men of the 
Commonwealth not a few who were mere followers of the multi 
tude, and whose overdone profession of religion excited only dis 
gust and contempt in one class and pity in another. When such 
persons returned at the Restoration to their natural element of 
licentiousness, they swelled the tide of profligacy, which, setting in 
from the Court, overflowed the land. The immorality and pro- 
faneness of that period are notorious, and we are let into the know 
ledge of their leading cause by Evelyn s sketch of a Sunday scene, 
which he witnessed at Whitehall, and where figured the king, his 
concubines, twenty great courtiers, with other dissolute pessons, at 
cards round a large table, and " a French boy singing love songs 
in that glorious gallery." 1 Dr. Heylyn had said that danger to 
England was to be apprehended from the superstitious observance, 
not from the profane neglect of the Lord s d&y. We know not what 
his feelings were in the two years that he survived the Restoration, 
when he had it in his power, by a comparison of the state of the 
country with what it had lately been, to estimate his gifts as a seer, 
and the moral value of his views and labours as an anti-Sabbatist. 
Referring, in 1 7 60, to Heylyn s prophecy, Jephson says : "We hava 
lived to see the contrary, and that the Lord s day is overrun by pro- 
faneness infinitely more than ever it was overflown by superstition." 2 
Bishop Horsley preached his eloquent sermons on the subject to 
wards the close of the last century, and mentions " the roads 
crowded on the Sunday, as on any other day, with travellers of 
every sort," and " the mingled racket of worldly business and plea 
sure going on with little abatement" in London, as " scandals 
calling loudly for redress." The Sunday press, Sunday excursions 
by steamers, and Sunday trading, especially in intoxicating liquors, 
were the metropolitan enormities which disgraced the earlier part 
of the present century. And in our own day, when the institu 
tion has more than at any former time been assailed by the press, 
when railway proprietors have multiplied travelling, and its atten- 

i Memoirs (1827), vol. iii. p. 137. 

&gt; Discourse on the Religious Observation of the Lorffs Day, Preface, p. viii. 



142 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

dant dissipation, on the Sabbath, a thousand fold, and when a 
National League strains every nerve to have a continental Sunday 
legalized in England, the tendencies of such measures receive 
mournful illustration in the fact that five millions of our country 
men habitually forsake the assembling of themselves together on 
the day and in the house of God. 

But controversy has been rendered necessary by the prevalence 
of wrong opinions of the Sabbath, as well as by the practical 
abuses, in which they have both their origin and their result. 
The notion that every day is alike, entertained with various mean 
ing and object by Saltmarsh (after Hetherington and others), 
Porter, Belsham, and a party who claim to themselves the dis 
tinctive title of " The Followers of Jesus," though it has had too 
few and inconsiderable supporters to call forth any special refuta 
tion, has not altogether passed unnoticed by defenders of a periodi 
cal holy day. More fruitful of discussion have been the views of a 
class of men who, spread over a space of more than two centuries, 
have contended for the perpetuity of the seventh-day Sabbatli 
against the Christian world. Traske and Brabourne have been 
followed by Ockford, Sailer and Spittlehouse, Tillam, Chamberlain, 
Coppinger, the Stennets, the Bampfields, Philanthropes, Philotheos, 
Carlow, Elwall, Cornthwaite, Wyncup, Dawson, Burnside, Shen- 
ston, and W. H. Black. But by far the greater part of the Sab 
batic controversy and literature of England during the last two 
centuries has been owing to the necessity for combating opinions 
adverse to a weekly rest considered as in all ages a divinely ap 
pointed and essentially identical ordinance. Among the principal 
writers who have concurred in rejecting the generally received doc 
trine of a Sabbath expressly given and prescribed by God to man 
kind " from Adam to his latest son" have been Jeremy Taylor, 
Hammond, Bramhall, Barrow, and Spencer, in the latter half of the 
seventeenth century ; Grascome, Morer, Paley, and Ogden, in the 
eighteenth ; Higgins, Whately, Bannerman (author of the Modern 
Sabbath Examined], Fearon, Powell, Arnold, Domville, and Reichel, 
in the nineteenth. Persons so different from each other in impor 
tant respects, and even in their views of the institution, must be 
understood as now classified together simply on the ground of their 
common hostility to a primseval holy day, arid to the obligation on 



ENGLAND. 143 

Christians of the Fourth Commandment. We would not confound 
the noble Arnold with the ignoble Higgins, of whom a reviewer 
favourable to his doctrine says, " he is destitute of every quality 
that gives respect to a writer ; 51 Bramhall, who pleads so excel 
lently for the express appointment of the Lord s day by Christ, 
and Grascome, who holds the same views, with Whately, who 
grounds the institution on the authority of the Church ; or Taylor 
and Barrow, who affirm, the former, that " the observation of the 
Lord s day differs nothing from the observation of the Sabbath in the 
matter of religion, but in the manner," the latter, that " Christians 
ought to consecrate as much or more time to religion and mercy 
than the Jews," with Powell, who deems it an unhappy and super 
stitious misconception to suppose that it is sinful to do on a Sun 
day anything which it is not sinful to do on another day, and who, 
by hailing " the inevitable rejection of the historical character of 
the Mosaic narrative as a marked feature in the theological and 
spiritual advance of the present age," announces a principle which 
gqps to " destroy the foundations" alike of the Sabbath and of 
revelation. Nor would we identify the views of Paley and Ogden, 
who acknowledge the Lord s day to be of divine authority, and 
even repudiate certain practices thereon as unbecoming the public 
worship allotted to the day, with those of Morer, who places his 
church and himself in opposition to the doctrine that the institu 
tion is of divine right ; of Spencer, who considers the whole 
Hebrew ritual, in which he includes the Sabbath, as of heathen 
origin ; of Fearon, who accounts for the Christian rest in the same 
way ; of Bannerman, who believes that Scripture requires an 
every-day Sabbath, while he wouM by no means set aside the poli 
tical enactment of a weekly holy day ; of Domville, who main 
tains that there is no warrant to be found in the Bible for believing 
that we are enjoined by divine authority to observe the Sunday 
either as a Sabbath or as a stated day of assembling for public 
worship and religious instruction ; or, we may add, of Milton, 
who, already known on the authority of Dr. Johnson as having in 
his latter days discontinued the observance of public and domestic 
worship, was by his posthumous work of 1825 fully disclosed as 
an Anti-Sabbatist to the extent even of surrendering every autho- 

i Crilim Biblica, vol. iv. p. 200. 



144 SKETCHES OP SABBATIC CONTROVEKSIES. 

ritative claim of the Lord s day, except what it derives from eccle 
siastical appointment. 

The result of the persevering opposition to the true theory and 
due observance of the institution, has been, that from 1658 to the 
present time there have appeared no fewer than four hundred pub 
lications of every description, pleading for the divine authority, 
holy character, and devout observance of the Lord s day. In re 
futation of Sabbatarianism, works have been published by Hanson, 
Aspinwall, Warren, Ives, Baxter, Benn, Bunyan, Trosse, Dr. Wallis, 
Marlow, Keach, Fleming, Dobel, Herbert Jones, Edmonds, with 
others not expressly devoted to the subject. It was a compensa 
tion for the disturbances and separations which the propagation 
of the views opposed by such writers produced in churches and 
society, that the subject was in consequence more thoroughly 
studied, and noble defences of the first-day Sabbath were written. 
A work of Tillam, who had collected some followers in Colchester, 
gave occasion to a treatise in 1659 by Edmund Warren, minister 
of St. Peter s in that town a treatise under the title, The, Jewish 
Sabbath Antiquated which, notwithstanding its advocacy of the 
dogma of George Walker and James Alting respecting the primi 
tive Sabbath as posterior to the fall of Adam, and as grounded on 
the purposed redemption of Christ, contains a clear statement, a 
powerful defence, and a heart-thrilling application of the generally 
received truth. To the stimulus of Sabbatarianism we owe the 
Modest Plea for the Lord s Day (1669), by Dr. CoUinges of Nor 
wich ; and to a statement of the argument for the seventh day 
rest by the benevolent Francis Bampfield, we are indebted for the 
excellent vindication of the Christian Sabbath (1672), by the 
eminently devout and philanthropic Mr. Benn of Dorchester. 
Baxter (1671) and Bunyan (1685) wrote their interesting defences 
of the Lord s day for relieving the perplexities with which some 
good people in their times were distressed in consequence of the 
proselyting zeal of Saturday Sabbatists. The work of Keach 
(1700), published for the same purpose, issued in the restoration 
of his distracted church to order and peace. And but for the 
lucubrations of Thomas Bampfield, counsellor-at-law, we should 
never have been favoured with the earnest treatise by George 
Trosse of Exeter (1692), who, like John Bunyan and John Newton, 



ENGLAND. 145 

from being a profligate became a zealous minister, or with two 
tracts by the celebrated Wallis (1692, 1693), in which he has 
added to the evidence of the versatility of his genius, and of the 
important service that a mind cultivated by science can render to 
religion. 

Much more numerous, however, have been the works which 
have been directed against more dangerous errors and against 
practical evils. The first instalment was of the latter class&gt; con 
sisting of publications by Nicholas Billingsley, Thomas Gouge, so 
distinguished by his munificent charities, William Thomas, "William 
Bagshaw, and John Wells, all ministers of the gospel. The Prac 
tical Sabbatarian, by Wells (1668), is a voluminous, though far 
from dry detail of duties, accompanied by a learned statement of 
the argument. The acute and excellent George Hughes of Ply 
mouth published his Aphorisms, " because fresh enemies had with 
old weapons new furbished assaulted the truth," and for the pur 
pose of showing " whether we are beholding to God or to the bare 
courtesy of the Church for a Sabbath." Of the well-known treatise 
on the subject by John Owen (1671), we will only say that, un 
dertaken at the request of some learned men in the United Pro 
vinces, for vindicating the doctrine of the Sabbath against the 
attacks of " sundry divines" in that country, who maligned it as 
the Figmentum Anglicanum, and designed also for the revival of 
the same "much despised" doctrine in England, 1 it is perhaps as 
masterly an exposition and defence of the institution as the world 
has seen. In the Divine Appointment of tlie Lord s Day, which, 
though aimed particularly against Sabbatarianism, controverts also 
other errors, Baxter discovers a mind and attainments of an equally 
high order, perhaps, as those of Owen, both when he so originally 
establishes his thesis from the New Testament, and copes so suc 
cessfully in the field of history with Heylyn. If in the few pages, 
where he argues against the formal obligation on Christians of the 
law of Eden and Sinai, he becomes weak as other men, and ex 
poses himself to defeat, as well as impairs the authority and prac 
tical rule of the institution, it is to be remembered how cordially, 
and, we may add, how misgivingly as to the correctness of that 
opinion, he commends the labours of Abbot and others who dif- 

i Letter from Owen to John Eliot (Mather s Magnolia, 1702), pp. 178, 17ft, 



146 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

fered from him on the point. Dr. Nathaniel Homes, in 1673, 
held that the Lord s day is a return from the Jewish seventh day 
to the Patriarchal first day of the week, and was confident enough 
to entitle his essay, The Sabbath-day s Rest from Gontroversie. 
In the same sanguine spirit Thomas Cleandon intended by his 
Serious and Brief Discourse of nine quarto pages (1674) to 
" decide and determine all controversies respecting the Sabbath- 
day." With the humbler view of inducing his own children to 
sanctify the day, Sir Matthew Hale uttered a few words which 
have done more to promote its observance than some elaborate 
volumes. Not to mention a number of writers, whose compen 
dious testimonies on the -subject belong to another part of this 
volume, we add, as supporters of the institution in the seventeenth 
century, Nicholas Smith, Waite, John Gregory, John Smith, Dr. 
Townson, Bishop Hopkins, and William AlleiiL 

The eighteenth century opens with the defective doctrine of 
Keach and Grascome, 1 and the errors of Morer, but the remedy is 
at hand in the sound views of Archbishop Sharp, Ollyffe, New- 
come, and Bingham. Practical evil is encountered by the season 
able efforts of Hammersley, Howell, Humphries, Nelson, Matthew 
Henry, and Bishop Beveridge. If the learned Wotton, in his 
Miscellaneous Discourses of 1718, and the scholarly Hallet, try to 
deprive us of the Fourth Commandment as a rule for our observ 
ance of the first day of the week, they yet maintain the divine 
appointment of the Sabbath for all the economies of religion, and 
their deficiencies as well as mistakes are compensated by the ac 
complished Dr. Samuel Wright, in his able volume of 1724 and 
1726; 2 by Robert Hill, Rector of Stanhow, in his Reply to Drs. 
Heylyn and Wallis ; by the celebrated Dr. Samuel Clarke, in a 
sermon ; and by Alexander Jephson, Rector of Craike, who pro 
duced in 1738, and republished in 1760, an excellent treatise, 
enriched, like Wright s, with quotations from eminent authors. 
Dr. Watts, feeling that the abounding desecration of the Sabbath 
of which Jephson complains, and other evils, were preying on the 
vitals of Nonconformist churches, had asked them in an earnest 

1 These writers, and Dr. Wallis, rejected tlie doctrines of a primaeval and patriarchal 
Sabbath. 
* Battely s Original Institution oftJie Sabbath (1726) we have not seen. 



ENGLAND. 147 

appeal of 1731, What do ye more than others? and afterwards 
published on the subject of the Sabbatic institution, in his Sermons 
and Holiness of Times. His admirer, Dr. Doddridge, handles the 
same topic in his lectures. The learned Dr. Kennicott declares 
decidedly for a perpetual Sabbath, and in his dissertations of 1 7 4 7 
establishes the article on which that doctrine ultimately depends 
the divine institution of the weekly rest at the creation. Dr. 
Gibbons, known by his many writings, the zealous Walker of 
Truro, and the excellent Bishop Gibson, write on the subject 
wholly in a practical strain. Bolton assails a particular form of 
Sabbath desecration, while Moses Browne, without the genius of 
Herbert, makes good verse tributary to the cause. Dr. "Webster 
sketches the history of the institution with more of the Puritan 
spirit than Grascome, while Catcott and Parry defend its anti 
quity all of them in sermons. Steffe in 1757 was the first to 
enlarge on the wisdom and policy of a weekly day of rest and 
worship, though the Occasional Paper of 1740 may have sug 
gested the idea. The controversial blends with the practical in the 
writings of Drs. Ridgley, Chandler and John Taylor, Richard 
Amner, Job Orton, Archbishop Seeker, Coetlogon, Bishop Pearce, 
Jeylinger Symons, Lewelyn, Bishop Porteus, Archdeacon Pott, and 
Samuel Palmer. The pamphlets of Lowe and Dr. Thomas Home 
are practical. Dr. Priestley, in controversy with his brother So- 
cinian, Evanson, supports the orthodox opinion, and even Chubb 
upholds the first against the seventh day of rest. We, of course, 
omit many authors in this century whose views, though favour 
able to a divinely appointed and permanent Sabbath, are only 
briefly expressed in works on other subjects. 

In the nineteenth century, efforts on behalf of the Lord s day 
have been called forth to an unparalleled extent. One of the most 
effective assaults on the abounding desecration of the day pro 
ceeded from a meeting of the. friends of the London Christian 
Instruction Society, held in 1829. To this was owing the publi 
cation of several useful works by Sherman, Clayton, and Burder, 
with a reprint of the Essays by Dr. Heman Humphrey of America. 
Bishop Blomfield printed in 1830 his Letter to the inhabitants of 
London, which led to important results. The matter was taken 
up in the pulpit ; the press was employed ; the Lord s-day Society 



148 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

was formed ; the country was everywhere roused. Parliament 
became an arena of the controversy, and its discussions operated 
beneficially among the upper ranks and in foreign lands, while the 
evidence collected by its means, and through the exertions of Sir 
Andrew Agnew, has been and will remain an inexhaustible arsenal 
for supplying the means of defence and attack in the cause of a 
holy Sabbath. 

The amount of authorship which has been elicited on behalf of 
the institution in this century is immense. When we have ad 
vanced in it some years we find the path covered with writings, 
" thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallambrosa." 
Many of them, though ephemeral, may have done much good in 
their respective circles. A few that appear to us the more impor 
tant may be named. Bishop Horsley, as the late Dr. Wilson said, 
has " three noble sermons on the subject, in which he powerfully 
maintains the generally received doctrine," though, as the Doctor 
justly added, " he errs in considering the Sabbath more of a posi 
tive than moral character." Dean Milner presents both argument 
and practice with energetic brevity. The Christian Sabbath of 
Holden, notwithstanding some prolix digressions, is one of the 
best modern discussions of the subject. Dr. Daniel Wilson s 
volume is scarcely inferior to that of Holden. Of the treatise 
of Thorn, it is enough to say that it is recommended by men 
of note, including John Foster and Eobert Hall, and that it 
had in 1830 reached its seventh edition. More or less complete 
publications some of them bearing the impress of the well- 
known genius and scholarship of their authors have been fur 
nished by Gurney, Conder, Treffry, Charlotte Elizabeth, Drs. 
Croly and Richard W. Hamilton, the Woolwich Lecturers, John- 
stone, Ball, and Hill, author of the prize essay, The Sabbath 
made for Man. Some have appeared to advantage in conflict 
with opponents of the common doctrine, as Hey of Leeds, in 
replying to Dr. Paley ; Atcheson, to Mons. Beausobre ; James of 
Cobham, to Dr. Heylyn ; Cameron, Foster (Collon), Barter, and 
particularly Professor Samuel Lee and Archdeacon Stopford, to 
Archbishop Whately ; Brooke, to Burnside and Bannerman ; 
Bouchier, to H. Mayhew ; a writer in the London Quarterly 
Review, to Powell ; M Guire, to Langley ; and O Neil, with others. 



UNITED STATES. 140 

to Reichel. Some have happily illustrated particular departments 
of the question, as Jordan, who has thrown light on septenary 
institutions in heathendom, and Baylee, who has usefully laboured 
in the fields of history and statistics. Others have effectually 
exposed certain errors and abuses, as a Layman, who ably assails 
the Sunday newspaper ; Kingsmill, who impressively warns his 
countrymen against the attempts of Anti-Sabbatic writers, Leagues, 
and shareholders in railways and the Crystal Palace, to bring 
them under his charge as chaplain of a prison ; Arthur, who 
exhibits with graphic power the evils of a French Sunday ; Napier, 
who in Parliament eloquently deprecated the opening of the 
British Museum on the Lord s day ; Baptist Noel, who applied 
his earnest spirit to the dispersing of Sunday music bands ; and 
Henry Rogers, who exerted his great talents, that might have 
found still more fitting exercise on the whole question, to crush 
the fancy that access to places of public amusement on the Sabbath 
would be in any one shape a boon to our people. 

The enemies of the divine and salutary law of a weekly holy 
rest, have, doubtless, by their principles and measures, done much 
injury, and to none more than themselves ; but they have hitherto 
found it, as all who make the attempt will ever find it, impossible 
to effect its overthrow. Opposition has not only awakened pro- 
founder inquiry among many concerning its claims, but served to 
animate the zeal of Christian men on its behalf, and to bind them 
together in a phalanx, which, going forth under the leadership of 
the Lord of the Sabbath, may be expected to place the institution, 
in due time, above " the strife of tongues," and the rude foot of 
practical violation, thereby closing the history of Sabbatic contro 
versies, if not also of Sabbatic literature, in England. 



UNITED STATES. 

It has been the happiness of North America that her founda 
tions were to such an extent laid in religion, and that, destined to 
be the resort of persons of all characters and fortunes from the 
old world, she has at various times received into her territory 
many of the best of men, bringing with them, for the counterao- 



150 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

tion of her evils and the advancement of her prosperity, Christian 
principles, institutions, and manners. The earnest prayers and 
hallowed Sabbaths of her founders and settlers have entailed on 
her a rich and long-continued blessing, which it is to be hoped 
will prevail to the overthrow of whatever tends to cut it off. 

One of the chief cares of the Pilgrim Fathers, as of those who 
preceded them from Holland, and followed them from England, 
was the due observance of the sacred rest. In the earliest 
records of the Dutch colonists in New York, there are decrees of 
the most stringent character^ intended to guard the infant com 
munity against the demoralizing tendencies of Sabbath profana 
tions. 1 There are still earlier records of attention on the part of 
the English setttlers to this subject. "Whether they established 
themselves in New Plymouth, Salem, or Cambridge, they alike 
felt the sanctification of the Lord s day to be an all- important 
matter. Few will justify all the measures employed by them for 
enforcing the duty, but their reverence and regard for the institu 
tion were indubitable. It was not long, however, before roots of 
bitterness springing up troubled them. The most serious of their 
early trials is thus described by Samuel Rutherford : " They 
were not well established in New England, when Antinomians 
sprang up among them, for the Church cannot be long without 
enemies. These were libertines, Familists, Antinomians, and enthu 
siasts, who had brought these wicked opinions out of Old England 
with them, where they grew under prelacy. I heard at London, 
that godly preachers were in danger of being persecuted by Laud 
for striving to reclaim some Antinomians. Divers of them be 
came unclean, they had no prayer in their family, no Sabbath, in 
sufferable pride, hideous lying." 2 But union is strength. A Synod 
was called. The errors were unanswerably refuted, and unani 
mously condemned. "And so the Lord," says Shepard, who was 
mainly instrumental in closing the career of Ann Hutchinson and 
her party, " within one year wrought a great change among us, 
having delivered the country from war with the Indians and 
Familists, who rose and fell together. 3 

1 Decrees of Peter Stuyvesant, 1647, 1648. The Sabbath in New York, p. 6. 

2 Spiritual Antichrist, pp. 171, 180. 

Albro s Life of Thomas Shepard, pp. cxxv. cxxvi 



UNITED STATES. 151 

But it was not so easy, especially by fines and the stocks, to 
rid the country of some other errors and evils in relation to the 
Lord s day. We find several ministers Cotton, Hooker, and 
Gobbet corresponding with Shepard, and stating arguments for 
the common doctrine, 1 as if the matter engaged their serious con 
sideration, and had been or were about to be canvassed in the pul 
pit or through the press. The points on one or other of which 
certain persons had difficulties and doubts, were the morality and 
the day of the Sabbath. 2 Mr. Shepard, we know, did preach a 
course of sermons on the whole subject of the institution, which 
were " thrown into the form of theses or short propositions at the 
earnest request, and for the particular use of the students of 
Harvard College," and afterwards, in substance, published in 
1649. 3 Dr. Albro, his American biographer, justly eulogizes the 
Theses Sabbaticce, as " a masterly discussion of the morality, the 
change, the beginning, and the sanctification of the Sabbath." 
Thomas Shepard, who was obnoxious to Laud, retired to America 
in 1 635, was first pastor of the first church, Cambridge, Mass., 
and is well known as the author of several practical works, parti 
cularly sermons on the Parable of the Ten Virgins, which, when 
preached, accomplished their object of contributing to put down 
the Antinomian heresy in New England. It was said of him, 
that he " scarce ever preached a sermon, but some one or other of 
his congregation was struck with great distress, and cried out in 
agony, What shall I do to be saved!" 4 And he himself, ad 
dressing some young ministers, said on his deathbed, " First, that 
the studying of every sermon cost him tears ; he wept in the 
studying of every sermon. Secondly, before he preached any 
sermon, he got good by it himself. Thirdly, he always went up 
into the pulpit, as if he were to give up his accounts unto his 
Master."s 

The Churches in New England, having, at a Synod in 1648, 
adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith as their doctrinal 

1 Felt s Eccl&nastical History of New England, pp. 569, 604, 614. 

2 Ibid. pp. 587, 614. 

s Besides the edition in his Collected Works (1853), there is one before us of the year 
1650, and we have seen another which appeared in 1655. 
* Life, p. clxxx. * Mather s Magnolia (1702), p. 238. 



152 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

creed, continued to maintain its Sabbatic as well as other prin 
ciples. The accounts we have of their ministers, in the Magnalia 
and other records, show how holy they were, and how observant 
of the sacred rest. What they practised they inculcated. Thus 
John Eliot, the Apostle of the Indians, himself a man of distin 
guished piety and benevolence, brought his converts to engage that 
" they would remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy as long 
as they lived." At a Synod held in 1662, the churches again pro 
fessed their adherence to the doctrines of the Westminster Confes 
sion, with those of the Savoy Confession. And they were zealous 
to uphold the practice equally as the theory of the institution. In 
1679, when various calamities had befallen the country, a Synod 
was convened to consider the reasons and remedies, when it was 
agreed that one of the causes of Providential frowns was the profa 
nation by many of the Lord s day. Some years thereafter we find 
the churches solemnly renewing their covenant to " walk circum 
spectly," and declaring, as they did in like manner of various 
other practices, " It would be a great evil in us, if we should not 
keep a strict guard both on our own thoughts as well as words 
and works on the Lord s day; and also on all that are under our 
influence, to restrain them from the violations of that sacred rest." 
The scene somewhat resembles the remarkable one in Scotland at 
the meeting of the General Assembly of 1596. And it was 
more to promote objects of this practical nature than to combat 
error, that Increase Mather, and his son Dr. Cotton Mather 
both valuable and voluminous writers published, the latter, A 
Discourse on the Observation of the Lord s Day, in 1703, the 
former, Meditations on the Sanctification of the Lords Day, in 
1712 ; and that Samuel Willard, a minister in Boston, and 
vice-president of Harvard College, wrote so largely on the fourth 
commandment, in his Body of Divinity, which was printed 
in 1726. 

The illustrious Jonathan Edwards follows. In his three ser 
mons on the perpetuity and change of the Sabbath, he fully 
achieves his object, which is the establishment of two propositions. 
" First, It is sufficiently clear, that it is the mind of God, that 
one day of the week should be devoted to rest and religious exer 
cises, throughout all ages and nations. Second, It is sufficiently 



UNITED STATES. 153 

clear, that, under the gospel dispensation, this day is the first 
day of the week." If he has not brought so much learning to 
bear on the question as did Owen, he has applied to it a mind 
even more acute and perspicacious ; and we must hold that pro 
positions "sufficiently clear" to Edwards, Lord Bacon, Locke, 
and Burke, in common with the great body of Christian men, are 
not evident to others simply because they will not see. The 
sermons appear to have been written and preached within a few 
years after his ordination to the ministry, and the publication 
of them, with that of his Journal, and Life of JBrainerd, must 
have contributed greatly to the sanctification of the Sabbath in 
America, as well as wherever these works have been read. It 
is worthy of remark, that a discourse preached by him in condem 
nation of the prevailing practice of devoting the evening of the 
Sabbath, and the evening after the stated public lecture, to visit 
ing and diversion, was the means of originating the first remark 
able revival of religion (1734), under his ministry at Northamp 
ton. A pupil of Edwards, and editor of his works, Dr. Samuel 
Hopkins, entertained views in common with him on this as on 
various other subjects, and has expounded the doctrine of the 
Sabbath at considerable length in his System of Doctrine. 

Dr. Nathan Strong and Dr. Timothy Dwight had been class- 
fellows of equal merit, and were life-long friends. The former 
was "the learned and very useful" minister of a Presbyterian 
congregation in Hartford, Connecticut, and "distinguished for 
his discernment and knowledge of men." His two volumes of 
sermons, printed in 1798, include one on the Sanctification, and 
another on the benefits of the Sabbath, both exceedingly good, 
and worthy of the friend of Dwight. While Strong was en 
gaged in the publication of his work, Timothy Dwight, the grand 
son of Edwards, had begun to deliver the course of sermons, the 
publication of which has given so much celebrity to his name. 
His contribution to the cause of the Sabbath amounts to five 
sermons on the Fourth Precept of the Decalogue, which form a 
considerable treatise, and must, during his more than twenty years 
presidency of Yale College, have been pronounced once in the hear 
ing of most of the young men under his care in numbers that 
soon increased from one hundred and ten to three hundred and 



154 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

thirteen producing convictions and impressions, of " the perpe 
tuity, sacred ness, and importance" of the institution, to be carried 
with them through life, and through them reproduced in thousands 
of other minds. And from the time of their publication, some 
where between 1817 and 1819, the eloquent prelections must 
have served in America and in this country to awaken similar con 
victions in multitudes of readers. The late Bishop of Calcutta, 
referring to the author, said, " This last name deserves especial 
notice. Dr. D wight, as well as his illustrious countryman, 
Edwards, has honoured the American school of theology rapidly 
increasing in importance with a most convincing and able discus 
sion of the question in all its branches, both theoretical and 
practical : they perhaps form the best of our modern treatises, 
though it would be unjust to Dr. Humphrey, of Ainherst College, 
to withhold a tribute of applause from his excellent Essays." l 

If America had produced no other works on the Sabbath than 
have been named, it would, her disadvantages and comparative 
youth considered, have been no small honour ; but we have to 
add her more recent contributions to the argument and literature 
of the subject, which surpass previous exertions in number, if not 
in worth. There are the excellent Manual of Professor Agnew, 
with its able Introductory Essay by Professor Samuel Miller, and 
the very interesting Reports and Permanent Documents of " the 
American and Foreign Sabbath Union." Four of these Docu 
ments, reprinted by the American Tract Society, with the name 
of Dr. Justin Edwards, Secretary to the Sabbath Union, as author, 
form The Sabbath Manual. There are also works by Phelps, 
Drs. Stone and Barnes, which we have not seen. Drs. Emmons, 
Woods, and Wayland, the last avowedly borrowing from Gurney, 
devote portions of their able writings to the institution. The, 
Rev. L. Coleman has brought his historical lore to the enforce 
ment of Sabbatic claims and duties in his Christian Antiquities, 
and Historical Sketch of the Christian Sabbath in the Bibliotheca 
Sacra (1844). Dr. Stevens has eloquently pleaded the obliga 
tions and blessings of the Lord s day in a Sermon, and Professor 
Dabney has ably discussed "the Sabbath Controversy" in the 
Southern Presbyterian Review. The Tract Society has printed a 

1 Dr. Daniel Wilson s Sevan SeriMns. Preface. 



UNITED STATES. 15$ 

number of useful publications on the observance of the institution, 
including valuable tracts by Drs. Plumer, Spring, Nevins, and 
Schmucker ; and the Sabbath Committee of New York, amidst 
various zealous and successful exertions for checking Sabbath 
desecration, has issued, with the same view, some important do 
cuments. But among American publications of recent times, we 
have seen no abler defences of the weekly holy day than two 
articles which have appeared in the Princeton Review, under the 
titles, "Sunday Mails" (1831) and "Sunday Laws" (1859), the 
latter said to be from the pen of Dr. Charles Hodge. 

We have little to state as to what has been written in America 
on the other side of the question. The Sabbatarians, whose 
Church membership is said to be 7000, have, by a magazine, a 
newspaper, and a Tract Society, endeavoured to raise bulwarks for 
the defence of the seventh-day Sabbath. We have before us a 
series of books and tracts, old and new, issued by the Society. 
There are two histories of the body one by Clarke in 1811, re 
cording its rise and progress in the States, the other by Mrs. Davis 
in 1851, embracing its annals in all ages and lands. But there 
have been and are more formidable opponents of the Christian 
Sabbath than the Sabbatarians. An American Review, now ex 
tinct, propounded some years ago the doctrine that the Sabbath 
was not originally a day devoted to the exercises of religion, and 
that it is now most appropriately kept by festivity and amusement. 
The article was headed Sunday Mails, and drew forth the able 
reply under the same title already mentioned. There appeared in 
1853 a volume in which the question is discussed, Whether there 
is any authority for the Christian Sabbath 1 the Rev. J. N. Brown 
supporting the affirmative, and W. B. Taylor contending for the 
negative. And we observe from the paper Sunday Laws that in 
stances of the most daring opposition to the Sabbath have lately 
occurred in the country, in which a William Logan Fisher, and 
some imported Germans, have been conspicuous. At a meeting 
of the latter, it was resolved that " any attempt, direct or indirect, 
to exact the keeping of some holy day, enjoined, or supposed to be 
enjoined, by the Jewish or Christian Scriptures, as the first or 
seventh day of the week, is alike defiant of natural right 
and constitutional law." Fisher, in his History of the Institution 



156 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

of the Sabbath-day, contends against Sunday laws, his reviewer 
informs us, on the threefold ground, that the Bible is not the 
Word of God ; that the Bible itself does not require such an ob 
servance of the Sabbath as our Sunday laws assume ; and that, 
admitting the Divine origin of the Old Testament, and conceding 
that the observance of one day in seven as a holy Sabbath to God 
is therein enjoined, it was a purely Jewish institution, and is not 
binding upon Christians. " It is well for people to understand 
each other," says the reviewer, who concludes a very thorough 
exposure of the lawless liberty claimed by Fisher and the Germans, 
in these words of plainness and power : " This country was settled 
by Protestant Christians. They possessed the land ; they estab 
lished its institutions ; they formed themselves into towns, states, 
and nation. From the nature of the case, regarding the Bible as 
the Word of God binding the conscience of every man with Divine 
authority, they were governed by it in all their organizations, 
whether for business or civil polity. Others have since come into* 
the country by thousands ; some Papists, some Jews, some Infi 
dels, some Atheists. All were welcomed ; all are admitted to 
equal rights and privileges. All are allowed to acquire property, 
to vote in all elections, made eligible to all offices, and invested 
with an equal influence in all public concerns. All are allowed to 
worship as they please, or not at all, if they please. No man is 
molested for his religion, or for his want of religion. No man is 
required to profess any particular form of faith, or to join any 
religious association. Is not this liberty enough 1 It seems not. 
Our Free Germans and other Anti-Sabbatarians insist upon it 
that we must turn infidels, give up our God, our Saviour, and our 
Bible, so far as all public or governmental action is concerned. 
They require that the joint stock into which they have been re 
ceived as partners, and in which they constitute even numerically 
a very small minority, should be conducted according to their prin 
ciples, and not according to ours. They demand, not merely that 
they may be allowed to disregard the Sabbath, but that the public 
business must go on on that day ; that all public servants must be 
employed ; all public property, highways, and railroads should be 
used. They say we must not pray in our legislative bodies, or have 
chaplains in our hospitals, prisons, navy, or army ; that we must 



SCOTLAND. 157 

not introduce the Bible into our public schools, or do anything in 
a public capacity which implies that we are Protestant Christians. 
Those men do not know what Protestant Christians are. It is 
their characteristic, as they humbly hope and believe, to respect 
the rights of other men, and stand up for their own. And, there 
fore, they say to all Infidels and Atheists to all who demand 
that the Bible shall not be the rule of action for us as individuals, 
and as a Government, you ask what it is impossible can be granted. 
We must obey God. We must carry our religion into our families, 
our workshops, our banking-houses, our municipal and other 
governments ; and if you cannot live with Christians, you must 
go elsewhere." 1 

That the sanguine hope of another American writer, as ex 
pressed in the following words, may be fulfilled, is devoutly to be 
wished : " If the wise, and good, and patriotic in our land per 
severe, and especially if ministers of the gospel generally bring the 
influence of the gospel to bear on this subject, the day, there is 
every reason to believe, is not far distant when, by the blessing of 
the God of the Sabbath, the greater part of our nation will be, at 
least externally, a Sabbath-keeping people." 2 



SCOTLAND. 

It may to some appear out of place to introduce, under the 
head of controversies on the Sabbath, a country where we ought 
to look for the fruits of peace and sanctity rather than for the 
turmoils aiid desolations of war. And it is true that, from the 
Reformation to the present time, the Scottish Church has had but 
one doctrine on the subject ; and that for a long period general 
acclaim accorded to the nation a distinction above all others for a 
sacred regard to the Lord s day. But besides the aversion to holy 
restraints and duties common to human nature everywhere, the 
peculiar exposure of the Scots to foreign aggression against their 
worship and liberties, and the perfervidum ingenium, which led 
them to carry the war for truth and right into other lands, have 

1 British and Foreign Evangelical Review for January 1860. 

8 Dr Schiuuckcr s Appeal in behalf of the Christian Svblath, p. 15. 

8 



158 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

engaged them in Sabbatic contests not a few, and originated a 
Sabbatic literature equal in value, if not in amount, to that of 
any country. 

For the greater part of three centuries has the institution en 
countered strong opposition from without. A Scotsman, James vi., 
from being a boastful admirer of Presbytery, became its avowed 
and bitter foe, and after his accession to the throne of England, 
speedily availed himself of his increased power to attempt the 
subversion of the religious polity and rights, including the Sabbath, 
of his native land. Charles i. was equally disposed, though leas 
able, to carry on the nefarious work. The measures with the 
same view adopted in the reigns of Charles n. and James n. 
measures dooming within a period of twenty-eight years no fewer 
than 18,000 persons to death, or to sufferings worse than death 
have certainly, for folly and wickedness, been rarely paralleled in 
the history of any country. During such a time it was to be pre 
sumed that the Lord s day would be trampled under foot by one 
class, who, indeed, selected it as the season for their bloodiest deeds, 
and that it could not be observed by the other as they would. 
But the doctrine of its sanctity formed a part of the testimony, 
which they earnestly maintained, and for which they were willing 
to die. It has been well said, that the sacrifices of missionaries 
and of their supporters for the propagation of Christianity, so 
honourable to our times, are not for a moment to be compared 
with the expenditure of suffering and substance which its conser 
vation cost our fathers. And more effectual than even persecution 
has been the influence of imported people and customs from Eng 
land and Ireland for impairing the religion and Sabbath observ 
ances of Scotland. But evil has been to some extent the occasion 
of good, and it is a pleasing reflection that, despite the follies and 
cruelties of the Stuart kings, the deadening influence of prelacy 
and moderation, and, in our own day, the corrupting power of 
English wealth and Irish poverty, the popular belief and feeling of 
the country have, from the period of the Reformation down to the 
present time, been eminently Sabbatical. 

Apart from the press, much has been done to secure for Scot 
land her hallowed day of rest. The Parliament from time to 
time passed Acts, for the most part suggested by the Church 



SCOTLAND. 159 

Courts, which, according to the best authorities, amounted ulti 
mately to a very complete legal provision for the protection of the 
Lord s day against open desecration. Still more numerous are 
the Acts of her supreme ecclesiastical court, which not only in 
1566 and 1575 abjured all human holidays, but by its decrees, 
and the direct exercise of discipline, did much subsequently to 
maintain sound doctrine and right practice in reference to the 
weekly holy day throughout the nation. Three instances are 
worthy of particular notice. One of these occurred in 1596, 
when the members of the General Assembly were stirred to " great 
searching of heart " as to their treatment of the Fourth and other 
Commandments of the Divine Law, melted to genuine sorrow for 
sin, and warmed with a love which faithfully and boldly extended 
its care to his Majesty s household, the whole resulting in the 
spread of similar exercises and feelings, and in a general reforma 
tion over the land. Another belongs to the year 1638, when 
the Assembly, so celebrated for its connexion with the Second 
Reformation, excommunicated the greater part of the prelates for, 
with other grave offences, their shameless profanations of the 
Lord s day. The ratification of the Westminster Confession of 
Faith, with the full arrangement of the form of worship and 
discipline, by the General Assembly of 1647, which completed 
the Reformation, is the third instance. 

The inferior courts were no less watchful over the interests of 
practical religion. The Synod of Lothian, for example, censured 
Spotswood, minister at Calder, afterwards the noted Archbishop, 
and Law, minister at Kirkliston, for playing at foot-ball on the 
Lord s day. 1 The Session records of the latter part of the 
sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth, teem with 
proofs of the diligence with which ministers and elders sought to 
promote the piety and morals of the people, and especially their 

1 Mr. John Davidson, minister at Prestonpans, by whose powerful appeals the Assembly 
of 1596 was so deeply impressed, was Moderator of the Synod at the time, and urged 
that the offenders should be deposed, " but the Synod agreed not thereto ; and when 
they were called in, he said, Come in, ye pretty foot-ball men the Synod hath or 
dained you only to be rebuked ; and turning to the Synod, he said, And now, bre 
thren, let me tell you what reward you shall get for your lenity ; these two men shall 
trample on your necks, and the necks of the ministrie of Scotland. " Livingstone ^ 
Memorable Characteristics. Wod. Soc. Sel. Biograph. vol. ii. p. 296. 



160 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

obedience to the Fourth Commandment. Burnet, when referring to 
the time immediately prior to the Restoration, says : " They kept 
scandalous persons under a severe discipline : for breach of Sab 
bath, for an oath, or the least disorder in drunkenness, persons 
were cited before the church-session, that consisted of ten or 
twelve of the chief of the parish, who, with the minister, had this 
care upon them ; and were solemnly reproved for it." 1 Among 
the evils inherited from Rome, was the custom of performing 
comedies on the Lord s day, which continued for some years after 
the death of Knox, but was increasingly discountenanced, and ere 
long, through the influence of the sessions and magistrates, discon 
tinued. In 1754, the sessions commenced the practice of em 
ploying individuals of their number to traverse the towns on 
Sabbaths and other seasons of public worship for the purpose of 
causing notice to be taken of such as should be found " vaging 
abroad upon the streets, and of having them cited before the 
session." 2 

But probably the faithful public ministrations, and the assidu 
ous labours in private, of the excellent ministers, with whom Scot 
land has been more or less favoured in all periods of her reformed 
history, have contributed more than anything else to the forma 
tion and maintenance of her character as a Sabbath-keeping 
country. When we think of such a rnan presiding successively 
over the students of Glasgow and St. Andrews as Andrew Melville, 
who could in the Privy-Council pronounce Archbishop Bancroft a 
Sabbath-breaker ; of John Welch, on one occasion weaning an 
easy-minded minister from his " bow-butts and archery" on the 
Sabbath afternoon, by engaging him to spend that time with him 
self and his friends, John Stuart and Hugh Kennedy, in prayer, 
and, on another, declaring to a gentleman, with whom he had in 
vain remonstrated against the patronizing of foot-ball and other 
pastimes on the Lord s day, that he should be cast out from house 
and hold, words which the unhappy man had soon to confess were 



1 Hist, of his Own Time (1850), p. 102. 

2 The persons so employed were called Searchers. Principal Lee, in his evidence 
given before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1832, says, that the practice 
continued for a century and a half. But similar measures have been resorted to occa 
sionally in later times. 



SCOTLAND, 161 

verified ; of Henderson, who, when Charles i. had attended the 
High Church in the forenoon of the Sabbath after his arrival in 
Edinburgh in 1641, but spent the afternoon in playing at golf, 
conversed on the enormity with his Majesty, who afterwards gave 
constant attendance, as he did also at family worship performed 
morning and evening in the palace by that faithful minister ; and 
of William Guthrie, who, by giving an equivalent for the profits of 
each day s shooting, could prevail on a parishioner to exchange on 
the Sabbath the fowling-piece and the field, for the Bible and the 
Church, till he learned that godliness was its own sufficient re 
ward, and became, as an elder, an auxiliary to his minister in 
winning men from evil ; when we think of such individuals 
specimens of the ministry of their time we see how adapted the 
means were to make the Church of Scotland the " Philadelphia" 
portrayed by Kirkton and Burnet. And when we remember 
Halyburton s dying counsels to his boy David, " not to come near 
anybody that would swear, lie, speak what was bad, or break the 
Sabbath ;" Boston s lasting penitence for a youthful violation of 
the Fourth Commandment ; Ebenezer Erskine s searching words 
from the pulpit, " I am ready to judge that folk s acquaintance 
with God himself is known by the regard they show to his holy 
day ;" Alexander MoncriefFs pungent answer to the man who 
demanded to know his right to advise him against a Sabbath ex 
cursion, " You will learn that at the day of judgment ;" and 
Brown of Haddington s saying, by which he endeavoured to regu 
late himself and his family, that " conversation on the common 
affairs of life, or even on the more external and trivial matters of 
the Church, on the Lord s day, was unsuitable to the spiritual 
exercises of the day, and offensive to God ;" when we remember 
such men, we recognise the worthy successors of the Scottish 
Reformers and Covenanters, and the fitting means of perpetuating 
among their countrymen the honours and blessings of the day of 
rest. 

Nor has Scotland, amidst difficulties of no* ordinary kind, merely 
maintained the Sabbath at home. She has furthered its interests 
abroad. She helped to equip Teellinck for his successful contest 
in Zealand. Her Welch, Boyd, Forbes, Dury, Andrew Melville^ 
Brown, and Crawford, with others, exemplified, and in some in- 

L 



162 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

stances publicly defended, their principles in reference to tho 
weekly holy day, in various parts of the Continent. Livingstone, 
Blair, and their compeers, spread those principles in Ireland. 
The stand made by Scotland for her Church and freedom had no 
slight influence on the summoning of the Long Parliament, and 
on the assertion by Englishmen of their down-trodden Sabbatic 
and other rights a struggle which she materially helped also to 
maintain. And though she failed to secure permanently for 
England an ecclesiastical constitution like her own, her efforts 
were not fruitless, as, to mention nothing else, they were emi 
nently tributary to the production of that noble Confession of 
Faith, and kindred documents, which have been the means of 
lasting good, though chiefly to her own people, yet largely also to 
the inhabitants of other regions of the globe. 1 Eutherford en 
tered the lists with Saltmarsh. But this brings us to the Sab 
batic literature of Scotland, a goodly portion of which we owe to 
the efforts of her sons to vindicate their views of the Lord s day 
in foreign lands. 

We have met with no very early specimen of Scottish author 
ship on the subject. Writers may be found like Cowper in his 
Holy Alphabet; Malcolm, in his Exposition of the Acts ; David 
Calderwood, in his Altare Damascenum ; and John Weemse of 
Lathocker, in his Christian Synagogue who briefly express the 
views of their country. The Exposition of the Laws of Moses, by 
the last-mentioned author, which appeared in 1632, is the first 
Scottish work, so far as we know, that treats with considerable 
fulness of the institution. The works of Weemse generally give 
evidence of " very considerable learning and information." In 
the Re-examination of the Five Articles of Perth, belonging to 
the year 1636, Calderwood has what may be called a Treatise on 
the Sabbath, in which he defends the commonly-received doctrine 
with learning and power. Dr. Guild, of Aberdeen, wrote in 1637 
an earnest remonstrance against a particular form of Sabbath pro 
fanation in his neighbourhood. But the next writer, who; though 
he resided and published in England, was born and educated in 

* I am informed that Mr. Henderson had a chief hand in drawing up the Confession 
of Faith and Catechisms, and particularly the Dirtctory for Worship and Ordination, 
Wod-rcvr Correspondence, vol. iii. pp. 33, 33. 



SCOTLAND. 163 

Scotland, calls for more particular notice, both as the work is one 
oi special merit, and the author little known. In 1639, when 
the reign of terror in England was approaching its climax, Dr. 
Thomas Young, then vicar of Stowmarket, in Suffolk, issued an 
anonymous treatise in defence of the Lord s day. To do so at all 
in such circumstances proved his zeal and courage ; and yet that 
the Dies Dominica appeared without the name of writer, pub 
lisher, printer, or the place where it was prepared or printed, was 
a sign of the times, and, along with the fact that no prosecution 
followed, showed that the author knew how to temper his ardour 
with the discretion which has been called the better part of valour. 
The volume having, thirty-two years after its publication, been 
commended by Baxter as " the moderatest, soundest, and strongest 
treatise on the subject that he had seen," many were led to in 
quire after it, and a translation of it, which a worthy knight had 
by him, was published in 1672. In a Preface to the translation, 
Baxter extols the author as a man " eminent in his time for great 
learning, judgment, piety, and humility ; but especially for his 
acquaintance with the writings of the ancient teachers of the 
churches, and the doctrine and practice of former ages." Dr. 
Young was born at Loncarty, Perthshire, in 1587 or 1588, 
studied at St. Andrews, settled in London, or its neighbourhood, 
as a teacher, 1 was preceptor of John Milton, and, in succession, 
minister to the congregation of English merchants at Hamburg, 
vicar for thirty years of Stowmarket, minister of Duke s Place, 
London, and a member of the Westminster Assembly, and master 
of Jesus College, Cambridge. From this last-mentioned situation, 
which he rilled with great ability, he was ejected for refusing the 
engagement, or promise of fidelity to the Commonwealth as esta 
blished without a King or House of Lords. He was one of the 
authors of Smectymnuus, having, according to Baillie, contributed 
" the most part" of it. The man who filled so many important 
offices with the highest reputation, and who impressed alike the 
experienced Baxter and the youthful Milton, with feelings of re 
gard and admiration, the latter representing him as the half of 
his life, and as having inspired him with the love of poetry, must 

1 For these facts we are indebted to the researches of Masson. See his Life of Milton, 
pp. 53, 54, 



164 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

have been distinguished by intellectual gifts and moral excellence 
of no common order. 1 * 

Among the many other Scottish writers who did honour to their 
country and to the seventeenth century, and who asserted the 
Divine claims of the Sabbath, we are not aware of any one who 
wrote a separate treatise or tract on the institution except Brown 
of Wamphray, and Crawford, whose able works have been men 
tioned in connexion with the controversies in Holland. Some of 
them, however, handled the subject in their expositions of the 
Decalogue. William Colville, Principal of the University of Edin 
burgh, has devoted to the Fourth Commandment some seven 
teen pages of his Philosophia Moralis Christiana, which appeared 
in 1670. The views of the celebrated Leighton, successively 
Presbyterian minister of Newbottle, Principal of the University of 
Edinburgh, Bishop of Dunblane, and Archbishop of Glasgow, are 
more briefly, though not less decidedly, expressed. And the Law 
Unsealed of the eminent James Durham, published in 1675 by 
his widow, contains a very full and able discussion of Sabbatic 
doctrine and duty, and discovers the learning and deep piety which 
are evident in his other writings. It received the warm commen 
dation of Dr. Owen, and its numerous editions attest the large 
measure of popular favour which it has won. Robert Barclay, 
the Quaker, dissented from the popular doctrine of the Sabbath, 
" knowing no moral obligation by THE FOURTH COMMAND, or 
elsewhere, to keep the FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK more than any 
other," but keeping it, nevertheless, for reasons of necessity, equity, 
mercy, and apostolic example. In the following century, while 
notices of the institution may be found, only a few contributions, 
in a separate form, or to any extent, were made to its argument 
and literature. Bishop Burnet devotes one of his Fourteen Ser 
mons, and J. Sfmall], " a Presbyter of the Episcopal Church of 

1 See Milton s Elegia Quarto, ad Thomam Junium, and his Familiar Epistles, of which 
tvo are addressed to Dr. Young. In the Elegy the poet says : 

" Hie quidem est animae plusquam pars alt era nostrao, 
Dimidio Vitae vivere cogor ego. 

Primus ego Aonios illc praeunte recessus 

Lustrabam, et bifidi sacra vireta jugi ; 
Pieriosque hausi latices, Clioque favente, 

Castalio sparsi laeta ter ora mero " 



SCOTLAND. 165 

Scotland," a tract, to the subject in 1713, the latter being a de 
fence of the morality of the Sabbath, in answer, particularly, to 
the arguments of Philip Limborch. There came out in the same 
or preceding year the well-known Treatise of Willison, his earliest 
work, which must, in its various editions, have been a blessing to 
his country. The Sabbatism of the People of God, by John Glas, 
appeared in 1747, and is to be found, with his Three Divine 
Rests, in his collected works. But nowhere is there to be found 
an account of the doctrines and duties of the Sabbath clearer, 
more satisfactory, or more adapted for general usefulness than is 
given in the second part of the Synod s or Fisher s Catechism, 
which appeared in 1760. The biographer of Mr. Fisher, referring 
to this exposition of the Shorter Catechism, says " At the veiy 
first meeting of the Associate (Burgher) Synod, Mr. Fisher, along 
with Messrs. Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine, was appointed to carry 
forward a wise and important plan, which had been under the 
consideration of the Associate body in its undivided state." x Fisher 
was followed by Brown of Haddington in his Christian Journal, 
System of Theology, and other works. John Barclay, the Berean, 
having in 1776 published an Essay on the First Day of the 
Week, upholding its sacred claims, a reply by "a Christian 
Church," and affirming, with Edmund Porter, that Christ is the 
Christian s only Sabbath, came out in the same year. In 1778 
we for the first time meet with a Scottish working man " a 
tradesman of Montrose" taking part in the controversy-. 2 

But the present century has in Scotland, as in England, been 
peculiarly affluent in publications having for their object the illus- 
tration and defence of the weekly sacred rest. After an excel 
lent anonymous pamphlet of 1800, there appeared Essays by 
James Mitchell (1802), Samuel GilfillanS (1804), and Patrick 
M Farlane (1805). The celebrated Poem of Grahame was given 
to the world in 1804, reaching its third edition in the following 

i Narrative of the Life of Rev. James Fisher, by John Brown, D. D. 

a The writer published a third edition of his Treatise in 1786, disclosing himself as 
" Alexander Jackson, silversmith," and in that year a resident in Alloa. 

8 The fact that this Essay, which in substance had appeared in the Christian Maga 
zine towards the close of the preceding century, passed in the course of twenty years 
through fourteen editions, one of them in the Gaelic language, may perhaps justify ua 
for offering no apology of filial partiality and gratitude for this special notice. 



166 SKETCHES OP SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

year, and its fourth in 1806. John Struthers, a shoemaker, and 
no ordinary man in head or heart, printed a small edition of his 
Poor Man s Sabbath in 1804, which was " received with such a 
degree of indulgent partiality as to induce him to offer a new edi 
tion thereof" in 1805. In 1809, Mr. (afterwards Professor) 
Duncan of Midcalder, contributed to the Christian Magazine two 
papers, illustrating with much ability a variety of positions on 
the subject, and after some time there followed at intervals publi 
cations by Wemyss, M Beth (two editions), Glen, and Parker. 
Of a sermon by Dr. Chalmers, the late Bishop of Calcutta said, 
"It is in the most powerful and awakening manner of its author, 
and of itself settles the question." 1 Two very able and erudite 
papers, the one on "The Origin of New Year s Day Rites" 
(Christian Instructor, Feb. 1829), the other on "The Weekly 
Division of Time" (Edinburgh Theol. Magazine, Dec. 1829 and 
Jan. 1830), did great honour to the writer, the Eev. Alex. Nisbet, 
of the Secession Church, Portsburgh, Edinburgh, then a student of 
divinity. 2 Next in order were published Letters, etc., to Dr. 
Robert Hamilton, combating his doctrines of an abrogated Sabbath 
and Decalogue, and works by Forbes, Gavin Struthers, M Farlane, 
and Burns (Kilsyth). In 1832, Dr. Wardlaw gave to the world 
Discourses, than which no work has more logically and lucidly 
treated the theory, or more impressively enforced the duties of the 
institution. This volume was succeeded in the same year by an 
excellent tract, " The Christian Sabbath Vindicated, by William 
[afterwards Dr.] Innes, minister of the gospel." Thoughts, by 
Douglas of Cavers, only too few ; and Dobie s Law of Scotland 
relative to the observance of the day, belong to 1833. Sermons 
by White, and Tracts by James Haldane and a clergyman of the 
Church of Scotland, bring us to 1840, when there was issued 
what is said in the title-page to be the seventh edition of " Mis 
taken Views regarding the Observance of the Sabbath, by Alexander 
Marjoribanks of that Ilk," who seems to have gained for himself 

1 Dr. D. Wilson s Seven Sermons, Preface. The Sermon referred to, On the Christian 
Sabbath, appeared in 1823. Striking and valuable though it is, two others, not less so, 
followed in subsequent editions of Dr. Chalmers s Sermons the one, on The Christianity 
of the Sabbath, the other on The Advantages of a Fixed Sabbath. 

Reprinted in the author s Remains (1835), edited by the Rev. Dr. Taylor, then of 
Auehtermuchty. 



SCOTLAND. 167 

the unenviable distinction of being one of the earliest Scottish 
writers who scoffingly assailed the institution. On the same side, 
though not identical in spirit or views, succeeded the lucubrations 
of Anti-Sabbatos, Taylor, H. C. Wright, Aytoun, Russell, two or 
three anonymous pamphlets, J. N. Paton, and Allan Clark, an 
elder of the Church ; and, on the other side, publications by Murray 
(Morton), D. T. K. Drummond, M Farlane, Robert Haldane (two 
tracts), Bruce, Fairbairn, and Davidson, in 1842 ; Carson, in 
1844; Lorimer, Bridges, Thomson (Leith), Nixon, Somerville, 
Thomson (Dr. A.), and James M Beth in 1847. 

We have now to mention two efforts on a large scale for pro 
moting right views and practice in relation to the Lord s day 
efforts suggested by the ingenious benevolence, and sustained by 
the munificent liberality of one individual. To John Henderson of 
Park, " the religious world is indebted for the origin and wide cir 
culation" of " the tracts on the Sabbath," which were published 
in the course of the years 1847 and 1848, and of which in a col 
lected form, two editions have appeared under the title, The Chris 
tian Sabbath. This work, which is the joint production of seventeen 
ministers, belonging to eight denominations of Christians, forms a 
remarkably complete and interesting treatise on its subject. To 
the same person we owe the conception and accomplishment of a 
measure which is without parallel in any department of literature. 
As the multiplication of railway and other travelling facilities on 
the Lord s day, was defended on the ground of its benefit to work 
ing men, he determined, towards the close of 1847, to appeal 
to them on the question, and offered three prizes for the three 
best essays upon The Temporal Advantages of the Sabbath to the 
Labouring Classes. In the short space of about three months, 
1045 essays were received. The adjudicators awarded the first 
prize to John A. Quinton, journeyman printer, Ipswich ; the 
second, to John Younger, shoemaker, St. Boswell s Green ; and 
the third, to David Farquhar, machinist, Dundee. The measure 
obtained the patronage of the Queen and Prince Albert. His 
Royal Highness contributed five additional prizes. The British 
public made up the number to more than 100. The publication 
of the first three, and of many more essays, including The Pearl 
of Days, by a female, which was not admitted into the competi 



168 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTKO VERSIES. 

tion, has furnished a body of evidence, fit to form a supplement 
to the mass of facts collected by the House of Commons Com 
mittee in 1832. The work of composition may have been the 
means of intellectual and moral improvement to one thousand and 
forty-five minds. And the dispersion of their writings in great 
profusion over the land, 1 was calculated to excite inquiry, reflec 
tion, and right feeling in many more. But with regret we add, 
that even a few of Scotland s working men proved false to the 
religion which had elevated their country and their class false 
too, at a time, when their brethren were flooding the land with 
testimonies to the necessity and value of a weekly day consecrated 
entirely to sacred rest. In 1849, one of this stamp had so little 
of the spirit of a Scotsman, not to say a Christian, as to put forth 
his Sabbath versus Sunday, and another uttered in 1852 a sym 
pathizing Voice from the Workshop. Happily, however, two or 
even ten of such writers bear a small proportion to the number of 
friendly essayists, among 700 of whom there were 225 resident, 
and many non-resident, natives of Scotland. 2 

The singular list of Scottish Anti-Sabbatic writers is closed with 
a copious defence of the Saturday Sabbath, by James A. Begg ; 
a voluminous publication by Robert Cox ; the novel impiety of a 
Sunday Steamer vindicated by its abettors ; Dr. R Hamilton s 
Reply to Professor Miller ; a lecture by John Gordon ; and The 
Whole Doctrine of Calvin about the Sabbath and the Lord s Day, 
a compilation by the already named Mr. Cox. We have to men 
tion, on the other hand, as upholding the doctrine of their 
country, Laing, in 1848 ; the author of The Sabbath at Home 
and Abroad, Pyott and Crease, who both write in poetic strains, 
with Rennison, in 1849 ; Lewis, Hunter, Dr. Greville, and the 
author of An Address on the Evils of Sabbath Labour, in 1850 ; 
D. C. A. Agnew and Oliver, in 1851 ; the writer of The Chris 
tians Sabbath, and D. Gorrie, author of The Sabbath, a Prize 
Poem, in 1853 ; Professor Miller, Stewart, and Catherine Sin 
clair, in 1854 ; Pirret, and the authors of The Claims of the 
Sabbath, in 1855 ; M Fie and Dr. Candlish, in 1856 ; Colvin, 
in 1857 ; J. M. Pollock, the writer of The Love of God in ike 

* To the number of 609,750 copies. Jordan in Religious Condition of Christendom. 
(1832), p. 132 2 Ibid. p. 131. 



SCOTLAND. 169 

Sabbath, and Court against Langley, in 1858 ; and M Naughtan, 
in 1859. 

The marked contrast between the two classes of writers who 
have been enumerated, is significant. Those of them who have 
opposed the prevailing views of the institution number about 
twenty. They have flourished within the last quarter of a cen 
tury. They include no name of note. And, except Begg and 
Cox, they have dogmatized on a matter which they been at 
no great pains to understand. It is otherwise with the authors 
who have maintained the doctrine of a Sabbath substantially the 
same from the beginning to the end of the world. They are up 
wards of a hundred. They extend over a period of about three 
centuries. They are for the most part known to have been quali 
fied by education, character, and experience to write on the sacred 
theme. And not a few of them have been distinguished by their 
learning, talents, piety and beneficence, as Weemse, Calderwood, 
Young, Durham, Leighton, Brown, Burnet, Willison, the Haldanes, 
Duncan, Chalmers, Wardlaw, not to name others, who still live 
among us, honoured for their acquirements, usefulness, and worth. 1 

Similar discussions to those that have been sketched have taken 
place in other countries, particularly in Germany and France. 
But we must pass them over. Dr. Hengstenberg has traced the 
German controversies on the subject, though we must say with a 
partial pen. 

If we reflected on the moral condition of mankind, the dis 
cordant views which have been held in every department of 
knowledge, and the difficulty of arriving at certainty in many 
even of the simplest matters of fact, it would not surprise us that 
on the subject of the Sabbath there should have existed at any 
time a variety of sentiment. Nor will any mind that is sincere 
in the search after truth, allow a circumstance, common to so 
many things, to prejudice the particular one now under con- 

1 Of Scottish publications that have appeared since the preceding list was prepared 
for our first edition, we add for 1860, " A Few Observations on the Sanctiflcation of the 
Sabbath," by James Young, an elder of the U.P. Church ; for 1861, an article on Dr. 
Hessey s Bampton Lecture in the " North British Review," No. 67, and " The Sabbath 
Viewed in the Light of Reason," etc., by the writer of this note ; and for 1862, " Our 
Scottish Sabbath," by Dr. A. Thomson. 



170 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTEOVERSIES. 

sideration. Let it be remembered that the magnitude of the in 
terests involved in the disposal of so large a portion of our 
limited and precious time, would warrant every exertion to reach 
a right decision, although the matter were much more difficult 
than it is that the truth, after all, may be easily discovered by 
the honest inquirer and that while the theories on the Sabbath, 
after they have been reduced to their proper categories, and esti 
mated at their real worth, may be found neither so numerous nor 
so formidable as at first sight appeared, there has perhaps never 
been a topic on which a greater number of the wise and good 
have been agreed than the divine authority, the sanctity, and the 
value of a weekly day of rest and prayer. 

These theories have to some extent been set forth in preceding 
pages. But it is desirable that the most important of them 
should be presented in a compendious form, so far as this can be 
done in a case in which so many writers, more or less agreed in 
certain views, have each some notion of his own. The general 
points in dispute concerning the institution have been its import 
ance its authority its date and duration the proportion and 
distribution of its time the rule of its observance and the 
manner in which it should be enforced. A weekly holy day is re 
pudiated by some because they hold all days to be alike common 
by others, because they hold all days to be alike sacred. The 
Sabbatarian affirms, that the seventh day of the week is the 
Divinely authorized, immutable Sabbath of all time, while the 
great majority of Christians maintain that "the obligation of that 
day ceased, together with the abrogation of [ceased together with] 
the other Jewish rites and ceremonies, at the death of Christ." 1 
The claims of a weekly rest are admitted by various classes as a 
salutary arrangement of the State, or as a necessary ordinance of 
the Church, or as recommended by Jewish institution and apostolic 
practice or aa an express appointment of Heaven. Of those 
who believe in the Divine authority of the Lord s day, there are 
several classes. One class consider it as having no connexion 
with a Sabbath in Eden, which they deny to have had any exist 
ence, or with the Sabbath of Sinai, which, they assert, has been 
abrogated. A second class, conceding the primitive institution 

i "fl/Wtentuie Catechism on the Third [Fourth] Commandment. 



SUMMARY OF OPINIONS. 171 

of a Sabbath, view neither that nor the Jewish Sabbath both, 
they say, having passed away with their respective economies 
as constituting any formal reason for hallowing the Lord s day, 
the authority and sanctity of which, however, they strenuously 
maintain. And a third class plead, that the first day of the week 
has, by the ordination of Jesus Christ, succeeded to the seventh 
day Sabbath, not as the latter was applied according to the judi 
cial and ceremonial laws of the Jews, but as it was appointed for 
man in Paradise, embodied in the Decalogue, and regulated by the 
fourth of its precepts. A variety of tenets, too, have been held 
with respect to the nature of the Sabbath law in the Fourth 
Commandment, some regarding it as a ceremony which has dis 
appeared ; others, as partly ceremonial and temporary, partly 
moral and enduring ; a third class as simply positive ; a fourth, 
as not positive at all, but throughout natural, moral, and un 
changeable even as concerns the seventh day of the week ; and a 
fifth, as natural, moral, and positive, or moral-positive. Some 
conceive that the Lord s day ought to be sacredly observed 
throughout all its hours, admitting, however, exceptional cases of 
necessity and mercy ; others, that its demands of sacred service 
are satisfied by a few hours spent in public worship, the remain 
ing time being available, in the opinion of one class, for such em 
ployments and recreations as do no violence to outward decency 
and decorum, but, in the view of others, for everything that may be 
lawfully done on any other day. A difference of sentiment on 
the manner in which the institution ought to be dealt with by the 
State has existed, but has excited little discussion some believ 
ing that the Sabbath is a matter which lies beyond the sphere of 
civil enactments ; others deeming it right that it should be pro 
tected, and certain outward violations of its requirements should 
be restrained and punished by the magistrate, either, according 
to one opinion, for political reasons, or, according to another, be 
cause Sabbath-breaking is, like murder, a transgression of the 
Divine law. To this enumeration of theories may be added that 
which interprets the days of God s working and rest at the crea 
tion as denoting, not common days, but periods of long duration, 
the dogma being employed by some to annihilate, by others, to 
favour, a primal and perennial day of rest. 



172 SKETCHES OF SABBATIC CONTROVERSIES. 

That a weekly day of entire consecration to repose from secular 
labour, and to the immediate service of God, cases of necessity and 
mercy excepted, was at the creation of the world divinely ap 
pointed for man, was promulgated from Sinai in the Decalogue, and, 
being transferred by Jesus Christ from the end to the beginning 
of the week, was by Him recognised as an ordinance of the Chris 
tian dispensation, and as still under the rule of the Fourth Com 
mandment, is a doctrine which it is the object of this volume to 
uphold, illustrate, and recommend. And in endeavouring to ac 
complish this object, it is our purpose, First, to adduce proofs 
from reason and experience of the excellence, value, and Divine 
origin of such a holy day. Second, to present the testimony of 
revelation to its Divine authority, its divinely-prescribed duties, 
and its divinely-estimated importance. Third, to exhibit from 
history evidence corroborative both of the proofs from reason and of 
the testimony of revelation on the subject. Fourth, to vindicate 
the institution against opposing theories, schemes, and arguments ; 
and Fifth, to enforce its claims against practical perversions and 
neglect. 



PEOOFS FEOM EEASON AND EXPERIENCE OF 

THE EXCELLENCE AND DIVINE OEIGIN 

OF THE SABBATH 



CHAPTEE I. 

PHYSICAL AND INTELLECTUAL ADAPTATIONS 
OF THE SABBATH. 

" I feel as if God had, by giving the Sabbath, given fifty-two springs in the year." 

COLERIDGE. 

" I am prepared to affirm that, to the studious especially, and whether younger or 
older, a Sabbath well spent spent in happy exercises of the heart, devotional and 
domestic a Sunday given to the soul is the best of all means of refreshment to the 
aaere intellect." ISAAC TAYLOR. 

THE requisites to man s physical wellbeing may be compre 
hended under food, air, exercise, rest, sleep, cleanliness, and a 
cheerful state of mind. 

Exercise is necessary, not only in many cases to the removal of 
disease, but in general to its prevention, and to the continued 
soundness and vigour of the entire animal system. To be bene 
ficial, however, it must be moderate. Excess here is as fatal as 
defect. And it must be regular. There must be alternations of 
exertion and repose, the latter, particularly in the form of sleep, 
being needed for recruiting the nervous energy which labour has 
exhausted, and for abating the activity of the circulation which 
would else acquire a rapidity incompatible with life. Man ought 
to go forth to his work and to his labour until the evening, per 
forming with regularity and without oppression his daily task under 
the eye of day. Those who work must work while it is day. 
Ttiey that sleep, sleep in the night. It is then that deep sleep 



174 IDVANTAfiKS OF TIIK HAIillATII. 

falleth on men. N:il.iirc il::elf, in it,; \ id. .:.il inks of day ;nul night, 
in: hurl.; u;; when to labour and when to indulge repo.,e. 

lint in addition to UK; .sleep and refreshment of night, there is 
need, from time to time, of a day of rest. "Although the night 
apparently equali/es the circulation, yet it does not miiliciently 
restore its balance for the Httuinmeut of a long life hence one 
day in seven, by the, bounty of Providence, is thrown in as a day 
of compen, alion to perfect by its repose tin; animal system." liy 
tin; periodical interpolation of a day s respite from labour, a check 
i.s given to a course of toil, which would speedily destroy the work 
man, or, in other words, an opportunity in afforded for the n ..(. 
\vhich physiologist.-; and physicians judge necessary fora season in 
many cases of &lt;lisea.se, and recommend to be nought, at stated in 
tervals, l&gt;y all who would livo long and see happy days. They 
tell us that the animal frame, whether in mail or liea.st, can HIW- 
taiu only a certain amount of continuous exertion, and that th 
transgression of this limit, if pei;,i,,ted in, inn .1, at no distant 
period, impair the conr.t itution. "i believe," says Dr. Carpenter, 
" that it is the opinion of those who work many horses in coach- 
in"., etc., that it is better to work a horso (say ten miles a day) 
for four days, and to give him an entire rest on the lifih, than (&lt;&gt; 
work him eight miles a day for the whole five." 2 In tho case of 
human bein- , the earlier decay, the moiu prevalent diseases, and 
the briefer averages life of working men than of the upper and 
middle cla,;ses of society, together with the uniform proportion 
which lhe.se e\ ils bear to (he amount of unremitting toil, confirm 
the conclusions of science. Taking the whole of the IVench 
population, human lite, according to the estimate of M. Villerne, 
i.s protracted twelve and one half years among tho wealthy be 
yond its duration among tin: poor. In England, too, the difference 
is greatly in favour of the former claws, as appears from the 
Keport of tho Toor Law Commissioners for 1 84 U, where thirteen 
are adduced, showing the average liu- of three classes to bu 
as follows : 

(liMiUi-innii. Tniil.Min.-.u. Working 1 upulution. 

Town -PJ ! M 21 

Country, ... 50 -I -I 155 

Dr. Farm in ICvhlon.-r l^l,...- i t ..immUro &lt;&gt;f II, us of ;.Vmmoin (1833), JX. Ill, 
letter to Mr. Ur&lt;iin;.vr, " " / . -/u. M tt (fir. ^Mxit\, \&gt; !.3. 



I llYM- Al. ItKI.ATlDNH. 

Tlinl :i proportion of IIK.I l:ili! y 10 r. id fur I In- \\.-iKniv. 
! ..-.-. M lo a variety of nmmi, in not In In- denied. I .ivi-il.y, 
iliipliTO nil , Want of e.loanlilH MM, :ind vir.iotlH mduI M iirc, eoiil i ilmln 
r.ieh it;; ;,lciic of injury. l ; nl. when uc eoni.ider licit, unduly 

protrarfed IllllOliT Opr|,il&gt; ; ailll !1. I, Wofold fold-, I.....I, MM" |.he;.c 

V&lt;iry evil, i :i:i well :i. !1 . diivrlly d i l.i| &gt;n lul ui". I In- , .! i di" i li of ||.| 
\i-liiini, wo limy \\rll ri f/unl il. MM &lt;i priiu-ipiil riuiwi if l.ln-ir 
|,|i\. ir-;i| &lt;lclciioi.-il.ioii. " My own opinion," WI iU M l&gt;r. ( .-irpciilrr, 
" li.i l"ii" lici -ii \iry olcc.iilcd, lii.il. ten liottrn a dny i.. NIC lull.-. I 
nnioiinl. licit, oiiidil. lo lie .1, i MI. .i l.o conl inncd hoilily Inlioiir, find 
U llOFO tln-ic i.i inn. h Micnl.d l.riwion, | r.lioiilil !,:iy I led. even I In:: 

r; loo nm.-li " Mr. drainer, who pnl&gt;li..ln-. tin opn i, :md 

. illiini:. il. lo lie conciii ic&lt;l in hy I lie ln dic.:!, inrdicn.1 and HcirtitiDn 

nuMinril.icH in MUM country, atul c(nlinned l.y Imt own olllrial 

in&lt;|iiiiie,l ill Hie iii;iiiiii.irl ill in d nil i id ., :id&lt;l::, " If Iliiil. liniil. I c 
i i i -" dcd, NIC jirnalfy llllll .l. Im ji. nil in null &lt;&lt;. .11 \ n!.m in 

pi&lt;-in;d,uro dcicay of tlio MyMlcin, or, HM roiiHianMy lni|&gt;|&gt;&lt; n .-., m 

piein.-il.lirr denlll." l,e|, I |i&lt;- lilnilie of lln.c n.ull : | ..- &lt; 1 1 n 1 1 .1 1 ,1 y 

&lt;h 1 1 ilml.cil .-unonjif thoM who, to ^iiin tlinir own cuidn, unwl l\j 

MllC.rilicr, l.lir, inl.eic; ,llt of Ilieir inleiioiii, n.lld 1, 1 1 OHO who, \vil.li :.lill 

inoni KluriiiK folly, allow lln-ni; . l\ , \&gt;\ VJIMI ;md Ihc n&lt;-;de&lt;-|. of 
Huljlilltir. ri^lll-M, lo !&gt; redn.-ed lo I .lnvny. 

Tliei.- i -: nnolhei kind "I l.d.&lt;,ui licit, of II..- tnind ulmli 
inoie lipeedily Jt.lld pOWri l ltlly llcin Middy :iniin:d exertion iilfc-i l.M 
the pliy,(ir:d r&lt;in&lt;lifloii, in:i..nnn-li prolilllily HH itralln in I o :i.-| ion 
Hi - cnl. in- .,.!&lt; 111 by MM .ui,. of Hie l.i.-iin, :nid il . nhn|iiil oil: 1 . 
IUTVOUH (!JUM ^y. J lic modi -i:ile :md IC&lt;MI|;H &lt; xcici.ieol Mm Mirntul 
f;ienl| Jen mid Irclill^H JM CVen condl tion;d lo the po;;; .e;(..|o|| of Hie, 
hijdieal, liodily henlth, whde filfid and ;iindei:., einployinenf of l.lm 
mind, or inee. i;;inl, nnxioiiM I lion;-!)!, on any ono r.uljec,|, induceit 
idioey, or in/iaiiify, and (loath : 

" I .lll, lif! ||., I. |||.,II|||. (for Hill III", linlll l! &lt;-MI|,|i. ,.!), 

"Tin |iii.infiil l.liinl.Mi". licit. - r.rnxhiM 0111 I &lt; 

No (rl;i!-:i-; of inen r.njoy liefler lirnll.li, or nllnin MIOIC ye.-n:;, l.li;ni 
tllOHO of &lt;-.dni f.fndion:; h.i.l.il.; I II.OM.., on the other Inilld, who 
overt;.;, I Mu:i iM -nli.l powui ., me pi. -inal.inely ;.;.. i ilir.eil to Uii-ir 

&lt; |,iillri I., Mi OiUlliK i, " ""/" / / " (// . I 



176 ADVANTAGES OP THE SABBATH. 

ardour or ambition. Few students are ignorant of the relief 
which some change, say a walk, the call of a friend, or a fresh 
topic of investigation, yields to the heated brain. Weber was 
aware of the effect and danger of intense uninterrupted thought, 
when he explained, " Would that I were a tailor, for then I 
should have a Sunday holiday ! " By spending his evenings in 
soothing conversation with a friend after his daily labours on his 
great work, the Synopsis, Poole showed that he knew both his 
danger and the remedy. 1 Nor was the eminent Dr. Hope, of 
London, less considerate in dismissing every evening at eight 
o clock all interest about his patients, a practice to which he was 
wont to attribute his long-continued life and health. " I do not 
think," says Dr. Carpenter, " that more than eight hours a day 
can be given to purely mental labour." 2 

Cleanliness has so close an affinity to morals as to have been 
classed among the virtues. It has, also, an intimate connexion 
with health, both as contributing to the purity of the atmosphere 
which we inhale, and as promoting the circulation of the blood, 
particularly over that membrane, the skin, which performs so 
important a part in the complex and delicate economy of life. It 
was no arbitrary law which required of the Jews frequent ablu 
tions. It was one founded in the necessities of men, particularly in 
eastern countries, and calculated to have, morally and physically, a 
salutary influence on its subjects. It were easy to prove that a 
weekly holiday tends to foster habits of cleanliness. Let it be 
sufficient to refer to the appearance of church-going people in 
Scotland or England, as contrasted with the following state of 
things in France after its first Revolution : "The moroseness 
occasioned by the want of a Sabbath in France, has an effect on 
the cleanliness of young men engaged in manual labour ; they 
pursue their daily drudgery in their dirty working dresses, and 
habit renders them at length averse to a change of linen and 
clothes." 3 

A cheerful mind is held by physiologists and medical men to 
be one of the causes of health. For want of this all means fail ; 

1 Rose s Ittngraph. Diet. Article "Poole." 2 Woolwich Lectures, p. 53. 

* Jorgenson in his Travels through France, quottxl Edinlntrgh Revieio, voL xxvllL 
p. 382. 



PHYSICAL RELATIONS. 177 

but by its aid the full benefit of exercise, air, food, and medicine 
is secured. One of the most striking illustrations of the influ 
ence exerted by the state of the mind on the bodily health is 
afforded by the fact, that the proportion of sick in an army is 
least after a victory, greater when it is quartered in a garrison 
during peace, increased in a campaign, and highest in the event 
of a defeat, although the circumstances otherwise be not unfavour 
able. 1 Rest itself, while not the only boon of a Sabbath, is one 
of its salutary provisions. Many who are utterly regardless of 
any Divine claim to a portion of their time are yet willing enough 
to have a day of leisure. The call for variety and repose is the 
voice of their nature. To that call the recurring day of rest is a 
gratifying response. They feel that the prospect of a period of 
vacation lightens and animates work, and that a change braces 
them for fresh efforts. Thus they go on hopefully and happily 
with their weekly task. Now, as labour to be favourable to health 
must be prosecuted voluntarily and with pleasure, it is impossible 
to calculate the sanitary advantage of a Sabbath-day to the many 
children of toil. 

But there are other modes in which, by means of the pleasure 
it brings, the institution produces salutary effects. Its required 
subjects of thought are great, pure, and of surpassing interest ; 
and its services combine, in a manner and degree peculiar to them 
selves, the means of mental elevation and social good, with those 
of rational and unalloyed delight. It is mainly thus that the 
Sabbath is promotive of a healthful cheerfulness of mind. Its 
engagements have a power of their own to turn back the current 
of anxious thought and distracting care, and to beguile the toils 
of the succeeding week. 

Here, then, in the noblest sense, are " the intellectual, moral, 
and sympathetic enjoyments," which physiologists assure us are 
conducive to health, and which warrant the application to the 
conscientious Sabbath-keeper of these words, from the pen of Dr. 
South wood Smith . u Enjoyment is the only condition of life 
which is compatible with a protracted term of existence. The 
happier a human being is, the longer he lives ; the more he suf 
fers, the sooner he dies ; to add to enjoyment is to lengthen life ; 

1 Chamhers s Information for tlie People, vol. i. p. 670. 

H 



178 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

to inflict pain is to shorten the duration of existence." 1 It is 
allowed that to receive and give instruction relative to the Crea 
tor, Preserver, and Saviour of mankind ; to disburden the mind 
of its cares by supplication to the Father of Mercies ; to utter 
and hear " the songs and cheerful sounds" of praise ; to read, 
think, and converse about the glories of nature, redemption, and 
immortality, and to do good to the bodies and souls of their 
fellow-creatures, are to some professed friends of the Sabbath 
unpleasant occupations, and are conceived by its adversaries to 
induce in all who engage in them a gloominess such as they them 
selves, if so employed, would feel j but the duties enumerated 
have in their own nature no such tendency, as, if we believe the 
testimony of the most truthful of men, confirmed by all the out 
ward tokens of happiness, they most certainly in their own experi 
ence have no such result. Wilberforce was not a less joyous man 
than any of those contemporary statesmen who kept no Sabbath, 
nor would an actuary have regarded theirs as "better lives." 
And are our labouring men, who spend the seventh day in their 
ordinary work, or in idleness and amusement, really happier 
beings than their fellows who devote it to sacred use 1 We may 
with perfect confidence reply, the very reverse. 

It thus appears that an occasional season of rest beyond that of 
night is of advantage to our physical nature, adjusting the mea 
sure of labour to the labourer s strength, and lightening its pressure 
by inspiring cheerfulness and hope, and that to this extent the 
Sabbath, while it makes provision for the inferior animals accord 
ing to their more limited wants, is adapted to the necessities and 
to the wellbeing of man. 

But why a whole day 1 and why a seventh day 1 To these 
important questions we proceed to offer some reply. The crav 
ings of nature for periods of rest may, as regards the proportion 
of time that would be satisfying and beneficial, be considerably 
vague. Experience, however, soon convinces the individual that 
such seasons must be frequent and regular. Those who are 
habitually occupied in hard work would in general prefer for re 
laxation a whole day, though more rarely recurring, to portions of 
days at short intervals. It is well known to be a practice for 

i Philosophy of Health, voL i. p. 101. 



PHYSICAL RELATIONS. 179 

artisans to labour some additional time each day that they may 
enjoy more leisure at the close of the week. Such persons, if in 
any degree observant, discover that a periodical day of rest tends 
to promote their comfort and health, provided they avoid those 
excesses of indulgence, and even of idleness, which frustrate the 
best provisions for human happiness. From whatever causes 
arising, certain it is that the seventh day was among ancient 
nations, and is in many countries still, observed as a season of 
abstinence from the ordinary business of life. Recent observa 
tions and experiments, moreover, have fully demonstrated that 
such is the allowance of time which man and even his beast of 
burden require for rest in order to the ease and safety of customary 
labour. Let us adduce evidence for the truth of this position. 

We are not aware that much attention has been given to this 
subject by our eminent writers on Physiology and Health. Dr. 
Carpenter, indeed and he is himself a host writing to a friend 
in 1852, said, "My own experience is very strong as to the im 
portance of the complete rest and change of thought once in the 
week." 1 But the matter has come under the consideration of not 
a few scientific as well as practical men, whose testimony with 
respect to it is entitled to credit, and appears to be decisive. 

The evidence of J. R. Farre, M.D., on the point, has obtained 
considerable currency and fame. " All men, of whatever class," 
he says, " who must necessarily be occupied six days in the week, 
should abstain on the seventh, and in the course of life would 
assuredly gain by giving to their bodies the repose, and to their 
minds the change of ideas, suited to the day, for which it was 
appointed by unerring wisdom. I have frequently observed the 
premature death of medical men from continued exertion. I have 
advised the clergyman, in lieu of his Sabbath, to rest one day in 
the week : it forms a continual prescription of mine. I have 
seen many destroyed by their duties on that day, and to preserve 
others, I have frequently suspended them for a season from the 
discharge of those duties. The working of the mind in one con 
tinued train of thought is destructive of life in the most .distin 
guished class of society, and senators themselves stand in need of 
reform in that particular. I have observed many of them de- 

1 Woolwich Lectures on the Sabbath, p. 53. 



ISO ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

stroyed by neglecting this economy of life." 1 This testimony, 
important as that of an able and experienced physician, derives 
additional weight from the medical authorities in this country and 
in America, who have expressed their emphatic concurrence in its 
terms, or given forth a corresponding opinion. No fewer than 
six hundred and forty-one medical men of London, including Dr. 
Farre, subscribed a petition to Parliament against the opening of 
the Crystal Palace for profit on Sundays, containing the following 
sentence "Your petitioners, from their acquaintance with the 
labouring classes, and with the laws which regulate the human 
economy, are convinced that a seventh day of rest, instituted by 
God, and coeval with the existence of man, is essential to the 
bodily health and mental vigour of men in every station of life." 2 
Many medical men on the other side of the Atlantic of whom 
we name only Drs. Warren of Boston, Smith of New York, Har 
rison and Mussey of the Ohio Medical College, and Alden of Mas 
sachusetts are equally decided in entertaining the same views. 
We must content ourselves with the striking words of Dr. Mussey, 
Professor of Surgery in the above-mentioned institution, who af 
firms that " under the due observance of the Sabbath, life would, 
on the average, be prolonged more than one seventh of its whole 
period ; that is, more than seven years in fifty." 3 

From medical authority let us turn to the views held by persons 
who, as masters and employers of workmen, or as otherwise having 
excellent opportunities of observing the condition of the laborious 
members of society, are competent witnesses in the cause. Dr. 
Humphrey mentions a case which has often been cited. " A con 
tractor went on to the west, with his hired men and teams, to 
make a turnpike road. At first he paid no regard to the Sabbath, 
but continued his work as on other days. He soon found, how 
ever, that the ordinances of nature, no less than the moral law, 
were against him. His labourers became sickly ; his teams grew 
poor and feeble ; and he was fully convinced that more was lost 
than gained by working on the Lord s day. So true it is, that 

* Report on the Observance of the Sabbath-day from Select Committee of He use of 
Commons, etc. (1832), p. 119. 
2 Association Medical Journal, June 1853, p. 554. 
Permanent Sabbath Documents (Boston, U.S., J844), No. 1, p. 80. 



PHYSICAL EELATION3. 181 

the Sabbath-day labourer, like the glutton aud the drunkard, under 
mines his health, and prematurely hastens the infirmities of age 
and his exit from this world." 1 Let another out of many simi 
lar instances suffice. Two thousand men "were employed for 
years, seven days in a week. To render them contented in giving 
up their right to the Sabbatn as a day of rest, that birthright of 
the human family, they paid them double wages on that day, eight 
days wages for seven days work. But they could not keep them 
healthy, nor make them moral. Things went badly, and they 
changed their course employed the workmen only six days in a 
week, and allowed them to rest on the Sabbath. The consequence 
was, that they did more work than ever before. This, the super 
intendent said, was owing to two causes the demoralization of 
the people under the first system, and their exhaustion of bodily 
strength, which was visible to the most casual observer." 2 When 
we advert to exertions of another description, we find that tht; 
result of everyday work is the same. It was remarked by the 
celebrated painter, Sir David Wilkie, that "those artists who 
wrought on Sunday were soon disqualified from working at all."- 1 
The editor of the Standard some years ago recorded the result of 
many years observation in these words " We never knew a maj&gt; 
work seven days a week, who did not kill himself or kill hit 
mind." And Wilberforce said that he could name several of his 
contemporaries in the vortex of political cares whose minds had 
actually given way under the stress of intellectual labour, so as to 
bring on a premature death. 4 

There is a third class who, from their experience of hard labour, 
either of mind or of body, are entitled to be listened to on this 
question. Manual labourers will be found nearly unanimous in 
the conviction that continuous toil is destructive to health ; and 
we have seen upwards of one thousand of them publishing to the 
world their persuasion that a weekly day of exemption from toil, 
and yet spent not in total inaction or amusement, but in the duties 
of piety and benevolence, is indispensable to their physical welfare, 

1 Essay on the Sabbath (Lond. 1830), p. 60. 

2 Permanent Sabbath Documents, No. 1, p. 33. 
8 The Sabbath at Home and Abroad, p. 47. 

Venn in Scott s Discourse on Wilberjorce, p. 32, note. 

9 



182 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

and even to the preservation of life. One of them remarks, that 
" on more than ene occasion he has found that continued applica 
tion to labour during six days in the busy season, and consequent 
long hours, was more than his constitution would bear, and that 
if he had attempted to dispense with the relaxation of the Sabbath, 
he should long since, he firmly believed, have retired to the rest 
and silence of the grave." 1 Another says, " Many a man would 
tell us that he could not support himself under his arduous toils, 
were it not for the periodical return of the Lord s day." 2 When 
persons who have attempted to work on the seventh, as on the 
other days of the week, have been compelled to resort to its rest, 
the evidence is even strengthened. A party of gold-diggers in 
California made trial of the former practice. The result is thus 
stated by Dr. Brooks, one of their number : " After dinner we 
determined to rest till the next day. The fact is, that the human 
frame will not stand, and was never intended to stand, a course of 
incessant toil ; indeed, I believe that in civilized, that is to say, in 
industrious communities, the Sabbath bringing round as it does a 
stated remission from labour, is an institution physically necessary. 
We have all of us given over working on Sundays, as we found the 
toil on six successive days quite hard enough." 3 The French, it 
is well known, had sufficient experience of both a seventh and a 
tenth day s rest ; and that the change from the former to the lat 
ter had been, in respect of sanitary interests, found wanting, formed 
one of the reasons of their return to their ancient practice. Akin 
to the testimony just presented is that of persons who have been 
engaged in the more exhausting labours of the mind. A distin 
guished financier charged with an immense amount of property 
during the great pecuniary pressure of 1836 and 1837, said, I 
should have been a dead man had it not been for the Sabbath. 4 
Similar was the experience of Wilberforce in another department 
of mental exertion. " I have often heard him assert," observes 
the Rev. John Venn, " that he never could have sustained the 
labour and stretch of mind required in his early political life, if it 
had not been for the rest of the Sabbath. "5 p r . Farre, who has 

1 Prize Essays by Five Working Men, p. 174. 2 j&^ p. 45. 

8 Four Months among the Gold-finders in Alta California, pp 5S-60, 82. 

* Permanent Sabbath Documents, No. 1, pp. 27, 28. 

Venn, in Scott s Discourse on Wilberforce, p. 32, note. 



PHYSICAL RELATIONS. 183 

afforded its the benefit of his acquaintance with the human frame, 
may again be called to attest the influence of professional toils 
which may be considered as both mental and bodily. " I have 
found it essential to my own wellbeing," he says, " to abridge 
my labours on the Sabbath to what is actually necessary." 

A very interesting department of our subject respects the 
benefit accruing from a weekly day of rest to certain of the lower 
animals. These creatures have in common with man physical 
natures, which are worn down by excessive labour and recruited 
by rest. They are observed to be amenable to laws of health 
and disease no less unerring, and in some instances even more 
appreciable, than those which apply to their masters. And it is 
found that such of them as are employed in our service require 
equally as we the rest of the seventh day. The statement made 
before a statistical society by Mr. Bianconi of Clonmel in Ireland, 
proprietor at the time of one hundred and ten vehicles which 
travelled from eight to ten miles an hour, is well known. He 
mentioned that none of the cars, except those connected with the 
mail, were run on Sunday ; that he found it much easier to work 
a horse eight miles every week-day, in place of six miles, than an 
additional six miles on Sundays ; and that by this plan there is 
a saving of thirteen per cent., adding, I am persuaded, that man 
cannot be wiser than his Maker. 1 Intelligent coach-proprietors 
have confirmed the views of Bianconi. 2 And an American writer, 
after adducing some interesting facts in proof of the necessity of 
the Sabbath s rest to man and beast, proceeds to say, " Great 
numbers have made similar experiments and uniformly with simi 
lar results ; so that it is now settled by facts, that the observance 
of the Sabbath is required by a natural law, and that were man no 
thing more than an animal, and were his existence to be confined to 
this world, it would be for his interest to observe the Sabbath." 3 

That the Sabbatic institution is eminently calculated to pro 
mote the intellectual improvement of mankind, will appear from 
two considerations. 

1 See Life of Sir A. Agnew, p. 9. 

2 Report on the Observance of the Sabbath-day from Select Committee of House of 
Commons, etc. (1832), pp. 126, 127, 130. 

Permanent Documents, No. 1, pp. 40, 41. 



184 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

First, it affords regularly the opportunity and facilities for 
desisting from pursuits which, if not so interrupted, are fatal o 
mental cultivation, and a season for employing the means of im 
proving the mind, which, without such an institution, could not 
be provided. 

Let us look at this consideration, in the first instance, as ap 
plying to persons whose occupations are of an intellectual rather 
than of a physical nature, men of science and literature, states 
men, financiers, merchants, and others. It is well known that 
the exertion of thought on any subject, if prolonged beyond a cer 
tain time, is detrimental to both body and mind. Health fails, 
and nothing is more unfavourable to mental vigour than physical 
exhaustion. The views become clouded ; the power of attention 
is impaired ; and the result of persistence in such a course must, 
as already remarked, be idiocy, insanity, or death. What would 
have prevented these evils 1 Nothing but a discontinuance of the 
customary mental exertion. It is not the activity of the intellect, 
but its activity as put forth in one uniform mode, that does the 
injury. The cure, or the preventive, as the case may be, must be 
sought for, not in total rest, which is not necessary, and is indeed, 
from the nature of spirit, impossible, but in variety of exercise. 
There must be, in fact, a regularly recurring day on which the 
current of thought shall flow in a new channel a day neither too 
frequent nor too rare in its return. And it must be prescribed, 
not by physicians, or by any human law merely, but by an indis 
putable, over-awing authority, as well as be connected with en 
gagements and sanctions fitted to absorb in themselves, and 
neutralize the most powerful attractions and propensities that 
bind men to their ordinary pursuits. 

Let us next turn for a moment to the case of the far greater 
number who subsist by the work of their hands. To them a 
Sabbath is no less necessary, intellectually, than to the other 
class. Were there BO such day, the continual drudgery to which 
they should be consigned would preclude every means of mental 
culture. Working men there must be ; and it is manifest that if 
their toils were interrupted only by night and an occasional holi 
day, there could be no disposition, motive, or even time, for 
acquiring knowledge and otherwise improving their minds. While 



INTELLECTUAL ADAPTATIONS. 185 

the every-day labour in many trades ought to be lessened, there 
must, moreover, be periodical seasons, and these at no great in 
tervals, which the labourer can count upon and call his own 
there must, in other words, be a weekly Sabbath. 

But, second, the Sabbatic institution provides subjects and 
occupations fitted to stimulate and discipline the faculties of the 
human mind. 

The period that can be allowed the great majority of men in a 
civilized country for cessation from their ordinary business, must 
necessarily be a small proportion of their whole time. It would, 
therefore, require to be well husbanded and laid out, so as most 
effectually to secure to intellectual labourers engagement on sub 
jects the most important, and yet the most diverse from those 
that usually engross their thoughts, and to manual labourers the 
best nourishment and exercise for their spiritual nature. If so 
brief and precious a season be not thus spent, it might, in so far as 
mental profit is concerned, be as well not possessed at all. And 
to the mass of men there must in such a matter be prescription. 
To leave them in ignorance and uncertainty as to the manner of 
employing their leisure time, would be, in the far greater number 
of cases, to render the time useless, or rather a burden and a 
curse. ~&gt; H 

How fully does the Sabbath meet those demands ! Its work, 
as well as its specific time, is appointed. In adaptation to our 
constitution, that work is not only different from the secular 
business of other days, but diversified in its parts, uniting the 
public, the domestic, and the personal the pleasure and the 
profit of acquiring knowledge, by the various channels of reading, 
hearing, and reflection and the opportunities of imparting in 
struction and administering comfort to our fellow-creatures. 
Such are the wise arrangements and determination of the work of 
the day. 

Then what grander, more interesting, or more beneficial sub 
jects can be presented to human inquiry than creation and its 
works the world in its divine government and redemption tho 
Supreme Being in his infinite and glorious perfections the rela 
tion of man to his Maker, to the present scene, and to a future 
state the cause and results of his manifest depravation and the 



186 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

knowledge, purity, and happiness which are the destined inherit 
ance of a coming age ! What engagements, too, can be more 
ennobling or gladdening than drawing near to the Eternal, offer 
ing him homage, investigating his character and works, and cele 
brating his praise ? Intelligent on such topics, and stimulated by 
such exercises, what higher learning or better mental training can 
a man receive to what other kind of knowledge or intellectual 
effort can he be either indifferent or inadequate ? 

There is one special means of favourably influencing the general 
mind, which may be considered as almost identified with the 
Sabbath, being a kindred institution that has sprung up with it, 
and shared its fortunes of prosperity or decay. We refer to the 
pulpit. One man has by previous training been prepared for the 
office of a preacher, and devotes himself to the collection of those 
stores of truth which he gives out on the first day of the week 
to hundreds or thousands, whereby he stirs dormant faculties, 
enlightens ignorance, and suggests topics of consolation and en 
couragement under the toils and trials of life. The work of one 
saves that of many, and as he profits by the exertions of the 
merchant, husbandman, and mechanic, so they receive the fruit of 
his studies without being subjected to his peculiar labours. When 
to these considerations we add the power of the living voice, the 
sympathies of associated hearers, and, above all, the magnitude of 
the themes illustrated and enforced, we venture to affirm that no 
means are more adapted to the constitution and improvement of 
the human mind, than the Christian pulpit. The fit occupant of 
so commanding a post must wield a mighty influence over the 
minds of his fellow-men. " The messenger of truth " 

" Armed himself in panoply complete 
Of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms 
Bright as his own, and trains, by every rule 
Of holy discipline, to glorious war, 
The sacramental host of God s elect. 
Are all such teachers? Would to Heaven all were !" 

There is another specific means of intellectual benefit connected 
with the institution Sabbath-evening instruction which may 
"be ranked next in importance to the pulpit itself. By requiring 



INTELLECTUAL ADAPTATIONS. 187 

from children and domestics an account of what they have heard 
from their ministers during the day, and by catechetical exer 
cises on that evening, heads of families may largely promote their 
own improvement and that of their households. Where these 
duties are conducted with wisdom xind affection, what an amount 
of information may be lodged in the memories, what an impulse, 
given to the faculties, of teachers, and taught ! Nor is this the 
only way in which the evening of a holy day can be turned to 
account in the communication of knowledge. Many are so cir 
cumstanced as to have it in their power to take charge of young 
persons who have no others to care for their welfare, and Sab 
bath-schools prove, like parental tuition and deeds of charity, the 
means of blessing both the givers and the receivers. If there 
were no such day, however, or if it were devoted to manual 
labour or to pleasure, the vast machinery of mental and moral 
education to which we have now referred could not exist. 

But valuable as are the engagements of the day in these respects, 
we should not fully estimate their worth, if we did not take into 
account the means of instruction and mental improvement on 
other days, which they stimulate and maintain. 

The Sabbatic institution stands related not merely to the public 
teaching of the preacher, but to the more frequent private mini 
strations of the pastor. The presence of such a man, educated as 
he ought ever to be and usually is, must be a light to his neigh 
bours. By his conversation in company by his official visits 
from house to house by his attention to the young by his en 
couragement of reading and education and by the necessity laid 
upon him, in connexion with other office-bearers of the Church, to 
exclude the grossly ignorant from certain Christian privileges, he 
is perhaps more than any other single individual the instrument 
of awakening inquiry and diffusing knowledge. 

While idleness, secular work, and frivolous or worse pursuits on 
the sacred day, give their corresponding tone to the mind in the 
progress of the week, the person who has been on that day con 
versant with highly intellectual and interesting themes will be 
constrained to follow out those trains of thought which such engage 
ments have originated. One inquiry suggests another. Acquisi 
tions are successively made. And thus from week to week the 



188 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

man advances in the highest, most comprehensive, most useful of 
all departments of knowledge the knowledge of himself, and of 
the Being who alone presents an object that answers the demands 
of the human understanding, and satisfies the cravings of the 
human heart. 

The observer of the Sabbath, moreover, is induced by its in 
structions, and by his own conscience and inclinations to practise, 
daily, certain duties than which no means can be conceived more 
subservient to intellectual profit. He who has on that day heard 
with proper earnestness and interest the public reading and exposi 
tion of portions of the sacred volume, must desire to repair to its 
pages for further information, and for testing the sentiments of the 
preacher. Every one knows the effect of persevering diligence in 
any pursuit. And what must be the expanding, assimilating power 
of a Book, containing confessedly the loftiest truths, the most 
perfect rules of morals, the finest poetry, the most ancient history, 
the most graphic pictures of nature, the profoundest views of 
man, the noblest strains of eloquence, over the mind of him who 
" gives his days and his nights " to its perusal 1 If the saying, 
" Beware of the man of one book," as intimating the intellectual 
prowess of such a reader, was ever in its fullest sense applicable 
to any one, it must have been to the student of the greatest and 
best of books the Bible. 

To the searching of the Scriptures, the friend of the Sabbath 
adds a service no less effectual for mental elevation. He holds 
intercourse by prayer with the All- wise and the Almighty. And 
if converse with the intelligent has the effect of informing and 
expanding the mind, how mighty the influence on the intellectual 
faculties of frequent communion with " the Father of lights !" 

It is the practice of all heads of families who are marked by 
their reverence for the Lord s day, to convene their households 
morning and evening, when possible, for devotion, including praise, 
the reading of the word of God, and prayer. " This is a school 
of religious instruction. The whole contents of the sacred volume 
are in due course laid open before the members of the family. 
Every day they are receiving * line upon line, precept upon pre 
cept. A fresh accession is continually making to their stock of 
knowledge ; new truths are gradually opened to their view, and 



INTELLECTUAL ADAPTATIONS. 189 

the impressions of old truths are revived." l That this admirable 
discipline of the intellect is provided by the authority which 
appointed the day of sacred rest might be shown. It is sufficient, 
however, for our present purpose to state, that Sabbath observers 
feel both an obligation and a disposition to follow up their public 
services on that day with those of personal and domestic devotion. 
When David, King of Israel, had been employed in the public acts 
of religion, he "returned to bless his household." "Public exer 
cises of religion, when properly conducted, have a happy tendency 
to prepare the mind for those of a more private nature. When the 
soul is elevated and the heart softened by the feelings which 
public worship is calculated to inspire, we are prepared to address 
the throne of grace with peculiar advantage : we are disposed to 
enter with a proper relish on such a duty, and thus to go from 
strength to strength." 2 

To the means of intellectual improvement furnished by the in 
stitution, may be added the useful reading, the rational con 
versation, and the meetings for religious conference, for secular 
instruction, and for other important objects to which the friends 
of the Sabbath are incited by its teachings and studies, and which, 
while indisposing for and precluding indolence and unworthy occu 
pations, make them intelligent and acute on all subjects that con 
cern their true interests. The desire of knowledge, awakened in 
reference to the momentous matters of religion, will " seek and 
intermeddle with all wisdom." 

From the account of the educational provisions of the Sabbath 
which has thus been presented, it might be conclusively inferred 
that an institution so adapted to the constitution and improvement 
of the human mind must yield correspondent fruit ; in other 
words, that individuals must be distinguished by intelligence, and 
communities by civilisation, in proportion as they have observed a 
weekly day of sacred rest. It ought to require no tedious process 
of reasoning, or long array of facts, to convince any one that a 
person who rests every seventh day from severe intellectual efforts, 
and refreshes his spirit for new exertions, will be more enlightened 
and more capable of adding to the stock of human knowledge 
than another who goes on in an unrelieved, unvarying, and there* 

* Robert Hall s Works, ]2mo. vol. v p. 289. * Ibid. pp. 283, 284, 

9* 



190 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

fore depressing and enfeebling course of application to the same 
studies. Argument and evidence ought still less to be demanded 
in support of the very obvious truth, that the man who spends 
fifty-two days of the year in dealing with the most intellectual and 
varied of all subjects, will be superior in mental capacity and 
acquirements to him who spends the same amount of time in un 
remitting bodily toil, or in mere recreation and. amusement. In 
proportion as this is true of the individuals composing a society, 
it must be true of the aggregate body. The inveterate dislike to 
the institution, however, which has set many to the utmost stretch 
of their ingenuity for the purpose of perplexing and complicating 
a very plain matter, requires us to show that intellectual improve 
ment, besides being among the adaptations, is everywhere the 
actual result of a hallowed Sabbath. 

What Sabbath-observing nation, it has been asked, has ever 
been barbarous or ignorant ? The lands of the Sabbath and of the 
Bible have always been the chosen abodes of knowledge, and the 
lights of the earth. The Jews were in possession of a literature 
when darkness covered all other people. Every nation that 
received the gospel and the Christian Sabbath found them to be 
the elements of learning and civilisation. Corrupted though 
Christianity soon became, it remained even in the dark ages in 
some measure an asylum of literature and a conservator of learned 
works. Whence that corruption ? Rome perverted the Sabbath, 
discouraged the general reading of the sacred volume, and well- 
jiigh quenched the light of the pulpit in spectacles, pageants, buf 
foonery, and the mysteries of the mass, and its life in pa?ans to 
Mary and curses against heretics, proving herself then, as she is 
at ill, an incubus on the progress of Europe to light and pros 
perity. But the Reformation, which liberated the sacred day from 
human impositions, raised it from the degrading level of un 
authorized festivals, restored the Scriptures to unrestricted use, 
and elevated the pulpit to its place as the great instrument of un 
folding and enforcing sacred truth and law, was everywhere the 
reviver of letters, and the nurse of a spirit of inquiry and intelli 
gence. Let England and France, Scotland and Spain, Canada 
Upper and Canada Lower, the United States and Mexico, Ulster 
and Counanght, show h DW much intellectual character is affected 



INTELLECTUAL ADAPTATIONS. 191 

by the presence or absence of a holy Sabbath. No country has 
continued so long to maintain its superiority in respect of the 
attainments of its learned men, and the general intelligence of its 
people, as Britain ; and in no country has more regard been 
evinced to the Lord s day. Next in order to Britain comes 
America, advancing with rapid strides in " the march of intellect" 
as well as of religion, and already, perhaps, in the department of 
common education, outstripping its rival. Nor in their own mental 
supremacy merely, but in taking the lead of all others as pro 
pagators of knowledge and civilisation throughout the world, do 
these great nations exhibit the power of the principles which it 
is the business of the Sabbath to expound and conserve, to enforce 
and diffuse. Never was more done in defence of the institution, 
or more of its spirit felt, than from the middle of Elizabeth s 
reign to the Restoration, a period which a high authority pro 
nounces to be unequalled in point of " real force and originality 
of genius" by any other age, those of Pericles, of Augustus, of 
Leo x., and of Louis xrv., being unworthy of comparison with it. 1 
No less distinguished, as regards the body of the people, were the 
times in the history of Scotland when not only the claims and 
observance of the Lord s day were contended for, but efforts were 
successfully made to set up an adequate number of schools in 
every parish, as well as to raise a high standard of theological 
literature ; and the times of those Puritans who settled in 
America, and who, the friends of a day of holy rest, were also 
educated and intelligent men, few if any of them being unable to 
read, and one of the first subjects of their attention being a suit 
able provision for the establishment of common schools and 
academies. In our own day, it is Sabbath-observing parents who 
are most anxious to have their children educated ; it is Sabbath - 
keeping artisans who are the most diligent readers of their class, 
as well as the most numerous pupils in our schools of art. The 
fact of one thousand and forty-five working men having written 
essays on the institution all of them creditable to the writers 
six hundred of them so respectable, as, in the opinion of a gentle 
man who had carefully examined them, to be worthy of appearing 

i Francis Jeffrey. See Edinburgh Review, vol. xviii. pp. 275, 276 ; and Jeffrey s 
Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, vol. ii. pp. 38, 39. 



192 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

in print, and a few such as would have done no discredit to the 
most practised pens, is indeed a phenomenon in the literary world, 
which nothing but the mighty power of the Sabbath and of its 
connected influences can explain. Many working men, however, 
have no weekly resting-day. Now, as one of the above-mentioned 
writers asks, " When did we ever meet with any one who from 
the nature of his employment is required to labour on the Sabbath 
as on other days, who has come out of his obscurity, and taken 
his stand as an author in literature, science, morals, or religion ? 
Indeed," as he adds, " no one expects it ; the bare supposition is 
ludicrous." 1 And yet these men are not inferior in natural 
capacities to other men. Their frequent efforts to obtain eman 
cipation from their protracted hours of labour, that they might 
enjoy the rest of the seventh day, have evinced a desire of better 
things, as well as a deep conviction, that, while the cause of their 
degradation is the loss of that sacred season, its recovery is the 
main instrument for elevating their mental condition. 

If the Sabbath had done nothing more than promote the intelli 
gence and civilisation of the masses, it would be entitled to our 
high regards. But this is not its only intellectual triumph. It 
blesses in the same way all classes of minds that come under its 
influence. In the department of secular knowledge, it is a means 
of good to both foes and friends ; to foes, who are trained in 
youth under its auspices, and afterwards feel the salutary impulse 
of its encompassing spirit ; to friends, among whom may ever be 
discovered the most distinguished men in all kinds of mental 
endowments and exertion, with a few, such as Lord Bacon, Sir 
Isaac Newton, John Locke, and Jonathan Edwards, who, by gene 
ral consent, occupy a pre-eminent place among the intellectually 
great. And there is another department of knowledge, the spiri 
tual, belonging exclusively to true Christians, who, in proportion 
as they have maintained the integrity and honour of their religious 
institutions, have, by "rising from nature" to its Author, by 
searching after " the cause of causes," and in the range of their 
vision taking in the infinite and eternal, proved themselves to be 
long to a higher order of intelligences, and to possess far greater 
grasp and power of mind than those philosophers, scholars, and 

1 The Univer$al Treasure, p. 126. 



INTELLECTUAL ADAPTATIONS. 193 

sages, who are learned in the writings of men, but not in the 
Word of God ; who have measured the distance of the stars, and 
told us what is contained in the bowels of the earth, but have not 
soared to the heaven above, nor sounded the hell below ; who 
have calculated the period of an eclipse, but not the hour of 
death; who have explored the constitution of the soul, but con 
sidered not its accountableness or destination ; who have wasted 
themselves in investigating the changes which this earth has 
undergone, without a single reflection on their concern in that 
great crisis, when " the earth and the works that are therein shall 
ba burnt up." 



194 ADVANTAGES HE SABBATH. 



CHAPTER 1L 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE OF THE SABBATH. 

A corruption of morals usually follows a profanation of the Sabbath." BLACKSTONK. 
" II n y a pas de religion sans culte, et il n y a pas de culte sans dimanche." 

MONTALEMBEBT. 

JOHN FOSTEK describes the Sabbath as " a remarkable ap 
pointment for .raising the general tenour of moral existence." 1 
The saying, and that of Blackstone, as may afterwards appear, 
are abundantly verified by facts. Meanwhile, a brief inquiry 
into the rationale of the matter will discover grounds for accredit 
ing the institution with the results uniformly seen to follow its 
observance in other words, for identifying it as an essential 
instrument in their production. 

First) then, if we view the weekly holy day as a periodical 
pause of labour, we shall find that it is conducive to the interests 
of morality. Its regular rest recruits the animal frame, and 
prevents some strong temptations to intemperance. Men must 
have either rest, or artificial means of enabling them to sustain 
an unnatural amount of effort. The Sabbath provides the former, 
intoxicating drink supplies the latter. The weekly season of free 
dom from toil and trouble secures also a regular opportunity for the 
cultivation of domestic intercourse, that powerful incentive to virtue. 
In the nature of things can virtue thrive, or vice fail to abound, 
among married persons who are deprived of the soothing, refining 
influences of home, and must not the unmarried be led by the 
same circumstances to forego the hope of honourable matrimony, 
and to resort to an unhallowed substitute ? Incessant labour, 
moreover, renders moral improvement impracticable, as it allows 
no sufficient or regular time for attention to the matter. It op- 

i Evil* of Popular Ignorance (1839), pp. 47, 4& 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE. 195 

presses and irritates the workman, and thus tempts him to save 
his exertions by a hurried unfaithful performance of his task, or 
by the still easier process of stealing or begging his bread. And 
from the contracting influence of one ever-present engrossing ob 
ject, as well as from the controlling, assimilating power of scenes 
of impurity and discomfort, it not only prevents expansion of 
mind beyond the narrow sphere of his own fatigues and wants, and 
precludes any lofty aspirings to what is either good or great, but 
tends to sink the man in the animal to brutalize him to make 
him utterly selfish and savage, unless, as sometimes happens, it 
reduce him to so entire a prostration of spirit and energy as to 
render him incapable of doing much of either good or evil. 
Scarcely less immoral in its tendency is mental toil, absorbing as 
it does the mind in its one subject, so that no other can command 
its interest, and impairing the intellectual and physical powers, 
the health and vigour of which are so necessary to high moral 
attainments, and to sustained moral efforts. 

But, secondly, we must consider the Sabbath as a day of in 
struction and worship in order to complete the evidence of its 
moral power. 

The provision of respite from ordinary labour is but a part of 
the Sabbatic arrangement a part of it, indeed, good in its place 
capable of advantage, but convertible also to evil, and then only 
answering its whole design, as well as serving fully its end of rest, 
when it is made tributary to its sacred objects. It is as a day of 
holy rest that it is so powerful in promoting the physical well- 
being and mental improvement of mankind. And it will not 
accomplish much for their moral benefit, if the enjoyment of its 
rest be not conjoined with the right use of its means of religious 
knowledge and worship. 

What the institution and observances are which are found to 
be connected with a high measure of morality in any case, we 
have already described in the preceding remarks on the arrange 
ments which have been shown to be favourable to the improve 
ment of the mind, and which might be proved to be equally so to 
that of the manners. It is necessary, in addition, merely to advert 
in a few words to the following characteristics of the Sabbath 
wherever it stands related to superior virtue among a people. 



196 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

The most perfect rule of ethics, according to the confessions 
even of infidels, is expounded and studied on that day a rule 
extending to the relations and circumstances of all mankind 
uniting with this universality of reference, a wonderful concise 
ness, simplicity, and clearness unassailably self-consistent em 
bracing the regulation of every outward act, and yet preferring its 
chief claims to a pure heart and inculcating love to all men, 
founded on a paramount love to the Supreme Being. This rule is 
held forth under the authority of the Divine Creator and Governor 
of the Universe, who has declared the penalty of its violation to 
be eternal death. But along with these truths, it is announced 
that the Lawgiver himself, in compassion to his creatures, and 
yet resolved that the purity of his name and government shall 
receive no taint, has provided in the substitution and sacrifice of 
a Personage, at once Divine and human, an atonement for trans 
gression. It is proclaimed, also, that he is willing to receive into 
favour all who repent and accept reconciliation through this 
medium, and that those who do so shall then come under the 
Divine law as divested of the condemnatioi) and terror which the 
breach of it had caused, and shall find a course of obedience to it 
accompanied by abundant help, profit, and pleasure here, and fol 
lowed by perpetual honour and happiness in a nobler state of 
being hereafter. It is impossible to conceive considerations more 
powerful than these for awing and melting human hearts, and for 
inspiring those feelings of penitence, fear, hope, joy, love, which 
bear irresistible sway over the minds of men. There is the highest 
moral discipline in the study of such themes. But to this are 
added the elevating approach to the Being of infinite greatness, 
purity, and love the communion of fellow-men in circumstances 
so fitted to beget feelings of mutual sympathy and regard the 
watchful care of faithful guardians over the temporal interests and 
moral condition of the people on every day and the various in 
fluences of reading, reflection, example, instruction, and counsel, 
for which the Sabbath guarantees time and opportunity to those 
who hallow its sacred hours. We have to add that in connexion 
with such means of good there is imparted a celestial influence 
the necessity of which human frailty prcves, and the actual re 
ceiving of which the experience of the most virtuous men attests, 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE. 197 

disposing the individual to abandon the most vicious habits and 
to live soberly, righteously, and piously in the world. 

Where, we may ask, can there be pointed out a similar provi 
sion for teaching and enforcing morality, or the laws of any society 
or country 1 The purest ethics of Greece and Rome were pol 
luted by foul admixtures ; wanted authority ; were recommended 
by no perfect example in gods or men ; relaxed law to accommo 
date human imperfection, instead of presenting means of vindicat 
ing the law by the punishment of the offence, and yet of restoring 
the offender to favour and purity ; and contained no provision for 
securing influence to prompt and strengthen virtuous endeavour. 
Passing over other systems liable to equally fatal objections, we 
find those Protestants, who claim the right to abridge the time 
and to lower the obligation of the Christian Sabbath, stripping it 
of well-nigh everything that seems to constitute its moral power. 
To secularize the day in any form or degree does not appear a 
likely means of enabling a man to shake off the dust of earth, and 
to nourish his mental part, his immortal spirit. Nor do the 
services usually attached to such a Sabbath the devotions en 
gaged in as if they were a disrelished task, and cold prelections 
on virtue, with little or no reference to resources and commanding 
motives for its cultivation, and to the means of its acceptance 
above give the best promise of moral fruit. 

How a Sabbath, sneeringly called puritanical, but in reality 
regulated, as will be proved, by the law of its Author, should exert 
an influence on character so much more potent and salutary than 
that of any other scheme, it is not difficult to perceive. Some of 
the principles involved in the subject have been recognised by 
persons of the greatest name in ethical science, and in practical 
philanthropy. Sir James Mackintosh, when referring to the supe 
rior excellence of certain communities, observes, " Those who 
preached faith, or, in other words, a pure mind, have always pro 
duced more popular virtue than those who preached good works, 
or the mere regulation of outward acts." 1 The principle of faith, 
which, terminating on merely human testimony, is so controlling 
a power in the business of life, is, when its object is the Word of 
God, as much more operative as the evidence is more certain, and 

i Memoirs, vol. i. p. 411. 



198 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

as the truths and facts are immensely more important. Let men 
believe that they are under the eye of an omniscient, almighty, 
pure, and benignant Intelligence, to whom they are responsible 
for every thought as well as every action, and especially that " the 
same awful Being submitted to pay the forfeiture of sin in his 
own person," that they might not die for ever ; and must not 
this belief " work by love," " purify the heart," and " overcome 
the world," so as that it shall be powerless to terrify or seduce 
from the path of rectitude 1 A philosopher, even more distin 
guished than the one just named, has borne a still fuller testimony 
to our principles. It is a well-known fact, for which they have 
often been vilified, that the advocates of a strictly observed Sab 
bath hold at the same time the necessity, if we would lead men 
to happiness and virtue, of the greatest prominence being given in 
its instructions to the doctrine of the Atonement as the means of 
reconciliation with Heaven. Dr. Adam Smith had the sagacity to 
see the truth and importance of this doctrine. " If man," he 
says, " would hope for happiness, he is conscious that he cannot 
demand it from the justice, but that he must entreat it from the 
mercy of God. Repentance, sorrow, humiliation, contrition at the 
thought of his past conduct, are, upon this account, the sentiments 
which become him, and seem to be the only means which he has 
left for appeasing that wrath which, he knows, he has justly pro 
voked. He even distrusts the efficacy of all these, and naturally 
fears lest the wisdom of God should not, like the weakness of 
man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime, by the most impor 
tunate lamentations of the criminal. Some other intercession, 
some other sacrifice, some other Atonement, he imagines, must be 
made for him, beyond what he himself is capable of making, before 
the purity of the Divine justice can be reconciled to his manifold 
offences. The doctrines of revelation coincide, in every respect, 
with these original anticipations of nature ; and, as they teach us 
how little we can depend upon the imperfection of our own vir 
tues, so they show us, at the same time, that the most powerful 
intercession has been made, and that the most dreadful atonement 
has been paid, for our manifold transgressions and iniquities." 1 

1 Theory of Moral Sentwients (1759), pp. 205, 206. These juid some other noble soa* 
tences are omitted in later editions. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE. 199 

Another characteristic of societies in which the Lord s day is 
regarded with peculiar respect is a watchful care over their mem 
bers. Let us hear the words of the same writer, adducing evidence 
for the moral benefit of the practice only the more reliable that 
it plainly comes from no partisan. Referring to a person passing 
from his notoriety in a country village to the obscurity of a large 
town, where, unnoticed, he is very likely to abandon himself to 
every sort of lowest profligacy and vice, he adds, " He never 
emerges so effectually from this obscurity ; his conduct never 
excites so much the attention of any respectable society as by his 
becoming the member of a small religious sect. He from that 
moment acquires a degree of consideration which he never had 
before. All his brother sectaries are, for the credit of the sect, 
interested to observe his conduct ; and if he gives occasion to any 
scandal, if he deviates very much from those austere morals, which 
they almost always require of one another, to punish him by what 
is always a very severe punishment, even where no civil effects 
attend it expulsion or excommunication. In little religious 
sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people have been 
almost always remarkably regular and orderly, generally much 
more so than in the Established Church. The morals of those 
little sects, indeed, have frequently been rather disagreeably rigor 
ous and unsocial." l 

While philosophy has thus appreciated some of the principles 
of our subject, philanthropy has borrowed others of them for the 
reformation of society. The effective exertions of Mrs. Fry, for 
the good of prisoners, proceeded on the principle that to reach the 
hearts of men, and to inspire them with the only morality worth 
the name, that which is of love and choice, you must treat them 
with kindness a principle involved in the whole of Christianity ; 
in its law, the sum of which is love ; in its doctrines, which with 
out omitting to influence the fears and to secure the respect of 
human beings, overpower the heart by their matchless exhibitions 
of benevolence and mercy ; and in its institutions, not the least 
benignant of which is the day when man is recreated by bodily 
rest, and has the opportunity of coming under the discipline of a 
system BO mighty for winning him from a wretched course of folly 

i Wealth of Nations., B. v. ch. i. Art. iii. 



200 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

to the path of purity and peace. But, in fact, as art has derived 
many of its finest designs from nature, so all classes have attested 
the excellence of religion, either by reverently and for good copy 
ing its measures, or by stealing them with the view of effecting 
different or hostile ends. Julian saw it necessary to adopt its 
system of preaching in support of his new faith. Its music has 
been imitated by those who would enliven their meetings for good 
or evil. Its festivals have led to the institution of days in honour 
of great men. Its means of circulating knowledge have been 
applied to the dissemination of error. And how much, to add no 
more, has its Sabbath been made use of by those who never cease 
to malign one of their chief boons ! 

Let us now endeavour to show that the Sabbatic institution is 
an indispensable means of religious good. 

The necessity of a weekly day of rest to the prosperity and even 
preservation of religion in the world has been proclaimed by the 
almost universal voice of mankind. Jews and Christians have 
ever devoted a seventh day to holy uses. Mohammedanism has 
always appropriated Friday to public devotion and instruction. 
Paganism, hojding sacred in many instances the same propor 
tion of time, has in no instance dropped all periodical festivals, 
till its people have well-nigh lost the conception of an object of 
worship. That so many, in regions and periods widely remote from 
each other, have observed a Sabbath, or some analogous arrange 
ment, is a strong testimony to its religious necessity. And the re 
maining members of the human family, by whom religion has been 
partially or altogether discarded, come in to complete the univer 
sality of the testimony. Jeroboam, king of Israel, renounces the 
worship of Jehovah ; but finds it necessary to have some kind of 
worship, with its relative places, times, and priesthood. Julian 
abandons Christianity, but sees the advantage to his new religion 
of introducing into the temples of idolatry a system of public in 
struction after the model of that of the Christian Church. 1 The 
French, exchanging Popery for the religion of so-called Reason, 
must yet have their temples and decades for upholding and pro 
moting their altered faith, and are soon obliged to furnish a 

i Prideaux s Connexion, tie. Part i. p. 390. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE. 201 

stronger verdict on the subject by restoring their former worship 
and institutions such as they were. And in our own country 
vaiious classes, who have rejected the authority of the Sabbath, 
have, notwithstanding, justified the appointment to the extent of 
appropriating the day to meetings for the advancement of their 
peculiar opinions. By approving of the Sabbath abstractly con 
sidered, and lauding it in this view as an admirable provision for 
rest, recreation, and mental culture, these classes unwittingly pro 
nounce a judgment in favour of the religious institution, for they 
never saw or heard of a holy day entitled to such praise but the 
one which religion originated and has maintained. There is yet 
another way in which the wise are taken in their own craftiness, 
and, contrary to their intention, made to confess the religious 
power of the holy Sabbath. Whence the desire and attempt to 
destroy the day as a day of sacred rest and service ? Whence but 
that in this character it is an adjunct and indispensable help to 
religion ? The French were aware that, most summarily and effec 
tually to put down religion, they must remove its weekly holy day. 
Despotic rulers have known well that to break down the Sabbath 
is to crush the spirit and the liberty which religious instruction 
and worship inspire. And when infidelity would liberate itself 
from the restraints of Christianity, it labours to reduce the Lord s 
day to the continental standard, convinced that a day devoted en 
tirely to rest and piety is the chief barder to the compassing of 
its designs. 

Conclusive in favour of our position though evidence so ample 
and varied is, the necessity of a Sabbath to the prosperity and 
even existence of religion is a doctrine which derives even stronger 
support from the nature of religion itself, considered as a creed to 
be understood and believed, a ritual to be observed, and a rule of 
moral conduct to be obeyed. 

First, Religion must have some time for its consideration and 
practice. This is surely a self-evident truth. 

Second, Religion must have times free to be applied to its busi 
ness. This proposition is scarcely less obviously true than the 
preceding. " The heathen men by the light of nature have seen 
that everything is then best ordered when it hath but one office 
that is, whatsoever is done, it must be thoroughly done, it must 



202 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

be alonely done. The reason is, we are finite creatures ; and if 
two things be done at once, one part of our thoughts will be taken 
from the other : we cannot wholly intend two things at once." 1 

Third, Religion must have fixed times for its teachings and 
worship. In the ordinary affairs of life, should the time of any 
matter be left indefinite, there would be no provision for its being 
attended to at all. If without some peremptory arrangement, many 
things that are agreeable to us would be forgotten, what would be 
the Me of those to which we are disinclined or averse ? How 
constantly would the excuse be made, " Go thy way for thia 
time ; when I have a convenient season I will call for thee ;" and 
how constantly would the convenient season fail to come ! It is 
of importance, therefore, that times for the duties of religion 
should be determined. If they had not their understood days and 
hours, certain religious services could not be performed at all. 

Public worship is a becoming as well as prescribed homage 
to the Great King. It is a means of receiving blessings from 
heaven. It elevates, purifies, and gladdens human hearts. It is 
a proclamation of great truths to the world. It is a commemora 
tion of great facts. But it must have its set times. The time 
and place are co-relative. If there were no common time, there 
could be no appointed place. " Ye shall keep my Sabbaths and 
reverence my sanctuary, I am the Lord," was an order once given 
from the court above. It was perfectly in keeping that when an 
atheistical people abrogated the day, they should proceed forth 
with to desecrate the temples of religion. 

We have, in the preceding chapter, adverted to the wisdom and 
power of the provision whereby the preacher applies the fruits of 
study to general advantage, and one living voice can reach the 
ears, and thrill the hearts of many. But without fixed times that 
voice could not be heard those fruits could not be distributed 
there could, in fact, be no public instruction. 

Family religion is right and good. But we believe that there 
would be no such thing without a Sabbath. Such is the state of 
society, that this is the only day on which some are disposed, and 
others have it in their power to engage in family prayer. Take 
away the Sabbath, and while one class would be without the im- 

1 The Moral Law Expounded, by Bishop Aiulrewes (1642), p. 328. 



MORAL AND EELIGIOUS INFLUENCE 203 

pulse which the regularly returning sacred day gives to domestic 
piety, the greater number would be in the situation of the omni 
bus men in London, who, never seeing their children except when 
these are in bed, can have neither the inclination nor opportunity 
to worship with or instruct their families. 

Religion consists greatly in the discharge of beneficent offices 
beyond the circle of home. But take away the Sabbath, and you 
cbsolutely preclude to tens of thousands the advantage and plea 
sure of doing, and to many more the profit of receiving, this 
species of good. 

Personal religion is " the one thing needful." But its attain 
ments and duties are next to impracticable without a Sabbath. 
How without this institution would men, oppressed with toil, and 
allured by temptations to drown their cares in sleep or intoxica 
tion, feel any disposition for communing with their own hearts, 
with their Creator, or with a future world 1 Is it not true that- 
many do not call on the Almighty, or study the truths and facts of 
Christianity, because, keeping no holy day, they are continually 
immersed in business or in worldly pleasure ? It is sad to think 
that those who might redeem one day in seven for attending to 
the claims of God, of their souls, and of a future existence, do not 
avail themselves of the opportunity. How much more melancholy 
were this, from the want of a Sabbath, the inevitable condition of 
all ! The thought will intrude amidst the most incessant occupa 
tions and bustle of life, For what purpose all this labour 1 For 
what end these cares, or these gratifications 1 Whither am I 
bound ] Where shall I be when a few years have passed away ? 
Is it worthy of my nature to be ever looking down to this earth, 
or engrossed with the present 1 These thoughts do occur, and it 
is irrational to seek oblivion of them in mirth, or to dispel them 
by courting a different train of reflection. If the impulses of 
nature suggest repose, the dictates of conscience demand the trial 
of some means of genuine relief to remorse and apprehension. 
It is not enough to have the season of night for a pause in the 
perpetual iteration of engagements, for that requiring physical 
rest, admits of little speculation. There must be a Sabbath, 
unless one class are to be for ever bound to the chariot-wheel of 
labour, and another so continually whirled in the vortex of plea- 



204 , ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

sure, as to render it no less easy for a camel to go through the 
eye of a needle than for the sons of men to enter into the kingdom 
of God. 

Fourth, The time must regularly and frequently recur ; in 
short, must be one day in seven. No subject can be properly 
studied, no art acquired, if application to them be interrupted 
during long intervals. Interest is impaired ; lessons are for 
gotten ; habits cannot be formed ; and, after losing time and 
labour the professed learner has in the end accomplished nothing. 
The question then is, What is the necessary frequency of time for 
religion the time, that is, which its more deliberate study, and 
its more public exercises statedly require ? We answer, the 
greatest frequency compatible with the secular and spiritual inter 
ests of mankind in other words, one whole day in every seven. 
This arrangement being, as we have seen, most adapted to the 
physical, mental, and moral nature of man, must be most conson 
ant, also, to his religious character determining the proportion 
of holy time which is most conducive to his temporal advantage, 
and which thereby enables him to bring the greatest amount of 
health, energy, leisure, and comfort to bear on his sacred studies 
and business. 

It follows from the preceding statements in this chapter that 
religion and morality will flourish, fade, or die, according as a 
weekly holy day is observed, perverted, or lost. And if we 
show that such is, in point of fact, the relation of religious and 
moral character to the institution, the truth of our thesis is 
established. 

Let it be remarked, then, that where the Sabbath is duly 
honoured and observed, religion and morality prosper. The facts 
that prove this position are too numerous to be particularized. 
They are to be found in the history of the early Christians ; of 
the Waldenses ; of the Puritans in England and America ; of the 
Covenanters and Seceders in Scotland ; of the evangelical parties 
in the English and Scottish Church Establishments, and of the 
converts to Protestant Christianity in heathen lands. In all these 
cases, without exception, a vigorous, purifying, elevating Chris 
tian influence has been exerted in connexion with a devout, sacred 
respect for the Lord s day. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE. 205 

Let it be observed, further, that in proportion to the perversion 
of the institution religion and morals decline. Hogarth, like him 
self, is true to nature, when, in one of the early plates of the 
Series of Industry and Idleness, he represents the idle apprentice, 
whose course ends at the gallows, as gambling on a Sunday upon 
a temb-stone during Divine service. The downward movement in 
religious creed and character has substantially the same commence 
ment. This is the acknowledgment of almost all criminals. It is 
the experience of many others not yet criminals in the eye of 
human law the victims of a state of society which they cannot 
control, and which, unnecessarily and wickedly excluding them 
from places of worship, soon extinguishes the impressions of an 
early religious education. And good men confirm these testi 
monies to the danger of tampering with a benignant yet holy 
institute. " I have long found it a most important and beneficial 
rule," says Bickersteth, " to give the Sabbath to God as entirely 
as possible, and especially to spend at least an hour or two alone. 
I am sure, humanly speaking, all religion would soon be gone 
from me, if I did not adopt this plan." 1 The corruption of 
churches begins and proceeds in the same way. It might be shown 
that nothing has had more influence in debasing the Church of 
Rome than the holidays, feasts, and ceremonies, by which one 
after another of the associated observances, and simple benevolent 
provisions of the Lord s day have been supplanted and neutralized. 
If that one institution had been preserved in its integrity, and 
unique authority as a sacred day, and maintained in its proper" 
accessories of a pure worship, a preached gospel, and a free Bible, 
it would have been impossible to uphold, if not to introduce, the 
domination of the priesthood, the idolatrous worship of the Virgin 
and of the mass, the abominations of celibacy and the confessional, 
the manifold enormities, in short, by which that Church has made 
religion an object of contempt and disgust, and filled the greater 
part of Europe with ignorance, poverty, and crime. The infidelity 
and other evils, which have so laid waste the Protestant churches 
on the Continent, have a close connexion with wrong views and 
practices in reference to the Sabbath. The Reformed and Lutheran 
Churches, particularly the former, were at first careful to maintain 

1 Memoir of Rev. E. Bicl:ersteth, vol. i. p. 224 
10 



206 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

the celebration of the day, but the example of Romanists and 
infidels around led to a gradual departure from this practice, 
which was abetted by certain unguarded expressions of the 
Reformers tending to lower the claims of the institution. " The 
evil once begun," says Fairbairn, " proceeded rapidly from bad to 
worse, till it scarcely left in many places so much as the form of 
religion." l The history of religion in England is rife with ex 
amples of similar unhappy effects of a disregarded or maltreated 
Sabbath. From the Reformation downwards to the present time 
there have been two ecclesiastical parties, which have* been dis 
tinguished by their different views and treatment of the Lord s 
day, and which have in consequence displayed an equal diversity 
in religious character and influence. They might be compared to 
two rivers one foul, fierce, and desolating as the Aar ; the other, 
" a pure river of water of life, having on either side the tree of 
life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations." For a time 
the one or the other may almost disappear, or their waters par 
tially intermingle, but in general they flow on in separate and 
parallel currents. The Puritans within and without the Church 
of England have been at once the warm friends of the Sabbath, 
the most decided Christians, and the best members of society. 
In Scotland, too, the periods distinguished by the profanation of 
the Lord s day have been precisely the periods in which the inter 
ests of religion and morality have sustained the greatest damage, 
and the abettors of the profanation have ever been identical with 
the ungodly and immoral. 

Let it be observed, once more, that where no Sabbath is known, 
there is no religion or virtue at all. The following facts are suf 
ficient to confirm the statement. The great majority of 100,000 
men employed on the inland navigation of England are deprived 
of the blessings of the Lord s day, and are consequently, with their 
wives and children, generally speaking, in a state of deplorable 
ignorance of the gospel and of the power of religion. 2 Baroi 
Gurney, when passing sentence of death on two boatmen at the 
Stafford assizes, said, " There is no body of men so destitute of 
all moral culture as boatmen ; they know no Sabbath, and are 

1 Typology, vol. ii. p. 475. 

2 Baylee s Facts and Statistics, p. 05. 



MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE. 207 

possessed of no means of religious instruction." 1 It has been 
said that no class of men are more frequently before the magis 
trates than the London cab and omnibus drivers, who are employed 
every day from thirteen to sixteen hours in their calling. Habits 
of intoxication and profane swearing prevail to a great extent 
amongst both classes j and the same characteristic attaches to 
them as to others who are deprived of the privileges of the Lord s 
day, namely, demoralization and degradation. 2 Mr. Edge, of Man 
chester, observes, respecting the London bakers, that "the low 
mental and moral condition of the trade generally in London at 
the present time is notorious." 3 Mr. Henry Ellis, a master 
baker, says of them, " Those good and moral impressions which 
they first received in their early days are entirely lost, from the 
continual practice of working on the Sabbath day." 4 The city 
and metropolitan police, numbering 5000, although guardians of 
the public peace, as a body live almost without regard to religion, 
or thought of another world. 5 In four years, 1849-1852, 54 of 
that body were convicted of offences, 970 were dismissed, and 
524 were suspended ; 2495 were fined, 64 were reduced in rank, 
3151 resigned. The value of the property stolen during that 
period was 153,942, of which 34,032 was recovered. 6 The 
want of a day of rest and moral training is found to corrupt a 
class, who from their circumstances in life might be expected to 
rise superior to deeds of villany. We refer to servants in our 
post-offices, who number 14,000, and labour in many instances 
from six to ten or even twelve hours on the Sabbath. It is stated 
in a Report of 1843 by a Committee of the House of Commons, 
that, from January 5, 1837, to January 5, 1842, the immense 
sum of 322,033, contained in letters, was lost in passing 
through the post-office. 

Whatsoever, therefore, impairs the authority of a sacred resting 
day tends to quench virtuous feeling, and to obliterate from the 
world the truths, laws, and blessings of religion. In referring to 
the public teaching of Christianity on the Sabbath, Dean Prideaux 

Baylee s Facts and Statistics, p. 64. 2 Ibid. p. 84. 

Quoted in Address on the Evils of Sabbath Labour, p. 11. 
Evidence before the House of Commons Committee in 1832, p. 150. 
London City Mission Report (1845), p. 24. 
Christian Times (1853), p. 27f. 



208 ADVANTAGES OP THE SABBATH. 

remarks, that " It is not to be doubted but that if this method 
were once dropped among us, the generality of the people, what 
ever else might be done to obviate it, would in seven years 
relapse into as bad a state of barbarity as was ever in practice 
among the worst of our Saxon or Danish ancestors." 1 If along 
with the pulpit the Sabbath itself were set aside, we should re 
quire to take a worse state of society than that to represent the 
woful result. The weekly day of rest and worship may in some 
imperfect form survive the extinction of Christianity, but Chris 
tianity has never existed without its Sabbath. Let this be lost 
to our country or to any land, and the religion which employs it 
for its own preservation and advancement must, with all the 
blessings of the highest civilisation, disappear along with it. And 
it is lamentable to reflect that so many of the inhabitants of Great 
Britain are employed in strenuous endeavours to pull down that 
fabric of religion, morality, and social happiness, which by means 
of the Sabbath has been reared and consolidated in these lands, 
and which has for centuries been no less the envy and admiration 
of the world than the blessing and glory of cur people. 

Old and New Testament conn:ted, etc. (1720), part L p. S3J. 



fcCONOMICAL BEAEINGS. 209 



CHAPTEK III. 

ECONOMY OF A WEEKLY HOLY DAY. 

" If the Sunday had not been observed as a day of rest, but the axe, the spade, the 
anvil, and the loom had been at work every day, during the last three centuries, I have 
not the smallest doubt that we should have been at this moment a poorer people and 
a less civilized people than we are." LORD MACAULAY. 

IT is a remarkable fact, that, while the multiplication of holi 
days impoverishes individuals and communities, the opposite effect 
is produced by a weekly day of sacred rest. The labourer receives 
the same amount of wages for his six days work that he would 
receive for the work of seven. 1 The institution, therefore, brings to 
the working classes once in the week a clear gain of a resting 
day, which they can apply to the husbanding of their strength, to 
the cultivation of their minds, and to the instruction of their 
families. By means of the wise and merciful appointment of a 
Sabbath, they are enabled to spend fifty-two days of the year 
most profitably to their own interests, physical, mental, and moral, 
and beneficially in various ways to their kindred and neighbours, 
not only without lessening the amount, but with the effect of 
enhancing the value of their marketable time. 

That the Sabbath is a financial benefit is manifest from its 
sanitary power. The natural result of the more uninterrupted 
health and greater physical strength which it secures, combined 
with the pleasure and hope suffused by its rest over the engage 
ments of the week, is an increased amount of human labour in 
every grade of society. Dr. Farre has told us that men of what 
ever class who must necessarily be occupied six days in the week 
would, in the course of life, gain by abstinence on the seventh. 
One class would by the increased vigour imparted, accpm- 

i " The workmen are aware, and the masters in many trades admit the fact, that were 
Sunday labour to cease, it would occasion no diminution of the weekly wages." .Kjrorf 
on tke Sabbath (1832), p. 8. 

O 



210 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

plisli more mental work. l Every student would find, like Hey of 
Leeds, that the complete suspending for one day in the week of 
all his secular pursuits would prepare him to " resume his studies 
with renewed ardour and alacrity." 2 The lawyer would expe 
rience a greater facility in transacting business on the Monday 
morning, arid would feel the relief afforded by a weekly day of 
rest to be beneficial in every point of view. 3 And those who are 
called labouring men would, in like manner, do more work. To 
the sentence employed as our motto, Macaulay adds, " Of course 
I do not mean that a man will not produce more in a week by 
working seven days than by working six days. But I very much 
doubt whether, at the end of a year, he will generally have pro 
duced more by working seven days a week than by working six 
days a week, and I firmly believe that at the end of twenty years 
he will have produced less by working seven days a week than by 
working six days a week." 4 If a labourer had no regular day of 
rest, his ability for exertion would continually decrease. For a 
time he might do more in seven than in six days, but this, as a 
few facts will make certain, could not continue for a course of 
years, or even of months. Wilberforce, writing to Christophe, 
king of Hayti, October 8, 1818, and referring, besides other 
means for the welfare of his people, to the proper observance of 
the Sabbath, says, " I well remember that during the war, when 
it was proposed to work all Sunday in one of the royal manufac 
tories, for a continuance, not for an occasional service, it was 
found that the workmen who obtained Government consent to 
abstain from working on Sundays executed in a few months even 
more work than the others." 5 Similar trials were made in the 
public service of the United States and of France, and the prac 
tice was abandoned in both instances because, from less work 
being done, it was not profitable to the state. 6 Mr. Bagnall, 
an extensive iron-master, discontinued the working of his blast 
furnaces on the Lord s day, and in 1841, about two years after 

1 Report on thr. Sabbath (1832), p. 119. 

2 Life ofW. Hey, Esq., F.R.S. 2d Edit. vol. i. p. 153. 

8 Evidence of James Bridges, Esq., in Report on the Sabbath, p. 201. 

&lt; Speeches (1854), pp. 450, 451. 

Life of Wilberforce, vol. i. p. 275. 

Permanent Sabbath Documents, No. I. pp. 33, 34 



ECONOMICAL BEARINGS. 211 

the change had been adopted, stated to a committee of the House 
of Lords, " We have made rather more iron since we stopped on 
Sundays than we did before." After a seven years trial of the 
plan, Mr. Bagnall wrote thus, " We have made a larger quantity 
of iron than ever, and gone on in all our six iron-works much 
more free from accidents and interruptions than during any pre 
ceding seven years of our lives." - 1 Such facts as these prepare us 
for crediting a statement which has been made, that the amount 
of productive labour in France was diminished by the change from 
a seventh to a tenth day s rest, 2 and for rejecting the policy of 
Arkwright and others, which, in the spirit of the Egyptian task 
masters, and of slavery wherever found, and blind no less to the 
material than to all the higher interests of society, would cancel 
the Sabbath as if it were a day of idleness and loss, and condemn 
the great majority of mankind to one monotonous course of 
grinding toil. 

The arrangement which thus secures to the workman every 
seventh day for rest and mental profit without any pecuniary loss, 
and to the employer a larger return for his capital, has this other 
great advantage to both, that it favourably affects the quality of 
labour. Work, in the circumstances which the want of a weekly 
day of rest supposes, must be carelessly and improperly performed. 
It is observed that at the close of a day s employment the men 
become less efficient, and the work is more imperfect. A falling 
off in excellence, as the consequence of exhaustion, has been 
noticed also in literary performances. When labour is continued 
over the Sabbath, the spirits and strength flag. A steamer on 
the Thames having blown up some years ago, the foreman and 
stokers laid the blame on Sabbath work, which " stupified and 
embittered them, made them blunder, and heedless what havoc 
they might occasion." Mr. Swan, the intelligent superintendent 
of machinery to the Eastern and Continental Steam Packet 
Company, states that when the engines were getting constantly 
damaged, the mischief was instantly repaired by giving the men 
the rest of each seventh day. 3 It is thus evident that we cannot 

1 Baylee s Statistics, ppr 88, 89. 

a Spring s Obligations of the World to the Bible (Collins), p. 215. 

Memorial to the Chairman of the Company. 



212 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

violate the laws of our constitution without doing injury to our 
selves and to society. But, on the other hand, since in all labour 
there is profit, it is not difficult to see that the observance of the 
Sabbath which, by its influence on the physical frame, enables 
labourers, with less rather than greater effort, to do better as well 
as more work than they could otherwise perform must contribute 
largely to the increase of individual comfort and of the national 
wealth. One important item in the gains of such labourers is the 
saving effected by them in many instances of the expenditure 
which the feebleness and disease of the overtasked and the un- 
rested infallibly entail. 

A similar profitable result to that produced by the sanitary 
power of the institution might be expected from its ascertained 
tendency to promote intellectual improvement. " Knowledge is 
power," says Bacon ; " wisdom is better than strength," says the 
wiser Solomon. It is the mechanic of superior intelligence who 
may be expected to obtain the most remunerative employment, 
and it is the men of highest acquirements who enjoy the best 
means of advancement in the learned professions. 

We have yet to mention the economic benefit of the Sabbath 
through means of the moral and religious character which it does 
so much to form. The hand of the diligent maketh rich, while 
sobriety and care husband.the gains of industry. Idleness, on the 
other hand, clothes a man with rags ; and vice, the most unpro 
ductive of all labour, speedily scatters the fortune of the rich and 
the pittance of the poor. Nothing, however, secures a high and 
abiding morality but religion, and nothing is more necessary to 
the preservation and influence of religion than its weekly holy day. 
How much, to say no more, must the lessons of wisdom and the 
habits of order, that are learnt on that day, help to guide in the 
use of all time, and in the performance of every work ! " I know 
from experience that persons who are in the habit of attending a 
place of worship are more careful in their pecuniary transactions, 
they are more careful in their language, they are more economical 
in their arrangements at home, they are more affectionate and 
humane, and in every respect superior beings by far than persons 
of contrary habits. Those who neglect a place of worship gene 
rally become idle, neglectful of their person, filthy in their habit*. 



ECONOMICAL BEARINGS. 213 

careless as to their children, and equally careless in their pecuniary 
transactions." 1 The want of the Sabbath in France prevented 
regular industry during the week ; and employers in this country 
inform us that their servants who attend a place of worship are, 
generally speaking, honest and diligent men, "never losing an 
hour of their time," and that " they are very glad to get hold of 
such men ; " but that morality is obliterated by Sabbath labour, 
and that they have been compelled to discontinue such labour in 
consequence of the state of the men, who, from their not having 
proper instruction, could not be trusted with anything. 2 Inces 
sant toil of itself demoralizes its victims. The overtasked resort 
to stimulants, and the delays, interruptions, waste, and injury 
occasioned by intemperate habits, must involve immense loss in 
various ways to the employers, to the employed, and to society at 
large. And how can men subjected to undue labour be supposed 
to care for the interests of their masters, and to rise above the 
temptations to wrong in many forms those whom they are apt to 
regard as treating them *with severity and injustice ? But give 
these men their weekly resting day at least, and you remove some 
strong inducements to improper indulgences, to unfaithfulness, and 
to dishonesty. Let them be taught to respect and observe the 
Sabbath, and much more will be accomplished than the withdrawal 
of the occasions of vice and crime. They will become intelligent 
and virtuous, skilful, industrious, and efficient, temperate and eco 
nomical ; and in all these ways they will promote their own in 
terest, benefit their employers, and add largely to the general 
amount of wealth. 

On such grounds as these we are prepared to expect that a 
country will prosper, and individuals be well-to-do, or the reverse, 
according as they enjoy or want the enriching influence of a weekly 
holy day. Nor are we disappointed. 

The Popish cantons of Switzerland, with their numerous festi 
vals, are poor and depressed compared with the Protestant cantons. 
Italy is a poor country, swarming with beggars as with worse than 
useless priests. In Rome, every third man is a pauper. In Naples, 
out of a population of 380,000, there were lately 220,000 with- 

1 Evidence of Mr. J. S. Thomas, Superintendent of Police, in Report on the Sabbath, 
p. S9. 3 ibid. pp. 46, 104, 126, 1(50. 

10* 



214 ADVANTAGES CF THE SABBATH. 

out any fixed employment. In Spain, 3000 needy relations and 
dependants are maintained on the estates of the Duke of Arcos. 
Need we mention Ireland, where, so far as they are Roman Catho 
lics, the people are as destitute of the comforts of life as they are 
of a hallowed day ? Not long before the commencement of the 
late famine, " two-thirds of the population subsisted on potatoes, 
nearly one-third were out of work and in distress thirty weeks in 
the year, and one-eighth were paupers or on the verge of pauper 
ism. The merchant was poorer than the English clerk; the 
farmer would have been thankful for the food which servants in 
England threw away." 1 Mayo, the most Popish, is also the 
poorest county in Ireland. How different from Italy, Spain, and 
Ireland are those communities which, seeking at the Divine com 
mand spiritual riches for fifty-two days in the year, have the 
" other things added thereto," in a wealth largely accumulated in 
particular instances, and widely diffused among the population. 
We see one example in the United States. And we have another 
in Great Britain, where the periods of most earnest attention to 
Christian institutions have been the seasons of general prosperity, 
and where the chief drawback to social comfort is to be found in 
the pauperism, losses, and public burdens, which are obviously, 
and according to their own frequent confession, caused by men 
many of them not natives who keep no sacred Sabbath. 2 

Let us now turn to the component parts of a community in 
which the Sabbatic institution is known. The inhabitants of 
Great Britain may be divided into those who more or less respect 
the institution, and those who utterly disregard it. We need not 
say to which of these classes the greater proportion of general 
worth and comfort belongs. When we view them again, as ar 
ranged under the higher, the middle, and the lower orders of 
society, and attend to their comparative regard for the Sabbath, 
we find that the intermediate are the most distinguished at once 
by their observance of the day, and by their prosperity. If we 
contemplate the population of our land according to their employ 
ments, we discover that those who to the greatest extent trespass 

1 Dill s Ireland? s Miseries, p. 11. 

2 The average income of every person in Great Britain is fully three times 6 rant* 
aa that of an inhabitant of France. Gold and tht Gospel, p. 232. 



ECONOMICAL BEARINGS. 215 

in their callings against the law of a weekly day of rest and worship 
are the least prosperous. " There is no trade that we are aware of 
that violates the Sabbath law by labour so much as the bakers do, 
and no trade has suffered so much in consequence. A rich master 
baker, who has got his wealth by the profits of his business, is a rare 
thing to be met with. There are more journeymen in the baking 
trade who are decayed masters than in any other." l If we compare 
persons in the same profession or trade, whether in America or in 
England, the result will not be different. " A distinguished mer 
chant said to the writer of this &lt; There is no need of breaking the 
Sabbath, and no benefit from it. We have not had a vessel leave the 
harbour on the Sabbath for more than twenty years. It is alto 
gether better to get them off on a week-day than on the Sabbath. 
It is about thirty years since I came to this city ; and every man 
through this whole range, who came down to his store, or suffered 
his counting-room to be opened on the Sabbath, has lost his pro 
perty. " "An old gentleman in Boston remarked, * Men do not 
gain anything by working on the Sabbath. I can recollect men, 
who, when I was a boy, used to load their vessels down on 
Long Wharf, and keep their men at work from morning to night 
on the Sabbath-day. But they have come to nothing. Their 
children have come to nothing. Depend upon it, men do not 
gain anything in the end by working on the Sabbath. " 2 "Do 
you conceive serving on a Sunday is injurious to the pecuniary 
interests ? I see it by most tradesmen round, that those who shut 
their shops on the Sunday are the people that do the best." 3 In 
the case of working men the influence of the Sabbatic rest and 
duties, or the want of it, appears with like certainty. When it 
was stated before the Commons Sabbath Committee in 1832, 
that certain characters, on being induced to respect the institution, 
began to procure for themselves better food, and to refuse aid 
from the poor-rates, the fact was not a rare one. There is not 
a Christian missionary employed in instructing the neglected in 
habitants of our towns who cannot relate many instances of the 
improved funds, diet, and dress, that very speedily attend tho 

1 Address on the, Evils of Sabbath Labour, p. 11. 

* Permanent Sabbath Documents, No. I. pp. 52, 56. 

* Report on the Sabbath, p. 50 



216 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

resumption of religious observances, while it almost as invariably 
happens, that when the claims of public worship and of sacred 
time cease to be regarded, there commences a process of deteriora 
tion alike in character and in condition. Many such facts might 
be presented, but we must limit ourselves to two other cases be 
longing to very different periods. It is recorded by Calderwood 
that in the congregation of Mr. David Black, St. Andrews, which 
numbered 3000 communicants, there was not a single beggar or 
Sabbath -breaker. 1 " There is not," says a working man, " a neigh 
bourhood, village, or township that is notable for its profanation 
of the sacred day of rest, but is proverbial for its poverty and its 
crime. The writer is acquainted with one within his. own imme 
diate neighbourhood, where all the people make it a practice to 
bake their bread upon the Sabbath-day for the sake of saving 
time ; but it is questionable whether there is another village in 
England where the labouring classes have got so little bread to 
bake. Many have been transported and imprisoned within the 
last few years from this dirty poaching village for the crimes of 
arson and other felonies." 2 

Simply, then, as a commercial or pecuniary matter, it is for the 
advantage of individuals and communities to observe a weekly day 
of rest. Let us again listen to the eloquent Macaulay : " Rely on 
it, that intense labour, beginning too early in life, continued too 
long every day, stunting the growth of the body, stunting the 
growth of the mind, leaving no time for healthful exercise, leaving 
no time for intellectual culture, must impair all those high quali 
ties which have made our country great. ... On the other hand, 
a day of rest recurring in every week, two or three hours of leisure, 
exercise, innocent amusement, or useful study, recurring every day, 
must improve the whole man physically, morally, intellectually ; 
and the improvement of the man will improve all that the man 
produces." 3 

1 Altar. Damasc. Ep. Phil. Vindic. p. 65. 
a Prize Essays by Five Working Men, p. 160. 
Speeches, p. 451. 



CONNEXION WITH PERSONAL PROSPERITY, 217 



CHAPTER IV. 

INFLUENCE OF THE SABBATH ON THE RESPECTABILITY 
AND HAPPINESS OF INDIVIDUALS. 

" They who always labour can have no true judgment ; they exhaust their attention, 
burn out their candles, and are left in the dark." BURKE. 

OUR attention has been occupied with the evidence which ap 
pears to demonstrate the peculiarly beneficial bearings of the 
Sabbatic institution on the interests of health, wealth, intelligence, 
morality, and religion. The testimony, however, of reason and 
experience to the practical value of the institution would be in 
complete without some consideration of still further results which 
by means of these interests, and otherwise, it is fitted to secure 
results in personal, domestic, and national good. 

On the benefits that accrue to individuals let two remarks 
suffice. 

First, The Sabbatic institution is a means of elevating them to 
true respectability and honour. Every deduction from physical 
evil, every accession to mental improvement, and especially eveiy 
advance in piety and virtue attainments, as has been shown, all 
dependent in a great measure on the Sabbath are so many con 
tributions to respectability of character and condition. 

A man to be in his proper position must be free. It is cer 
tainly unworthy of their nature that human beings should be in 
the situation of the slaves of Cuba or the Carolinas, of the serfs 
in Russia, of "the puppets of the Pope," or of the men and 
women in this country who are doomed to excessive toil. But 
degraded above all is the man who, considering himself free, is the 
victim of his guilt and passions, of his prejudices and errors, of 
his fears and follies. Such a state of things is the source of all 
slavery. What but sin has ever made one class of men tyrants, 



218 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATlf. 

and another, bondsmen ? All attempts at human aggrandizement 
must fail where sin continues to condemn and rule human beings. 
Without peace with Heaven, and a heart that loves God and man, 
not only will a moral vassalage remain which no form of civil free 
dom can countervail, but its bitter fruits in abject dependence of 
all kinds will continually be reaped. And what has ever been 
found capable of giving liberty to such captives but the good tid 
ings of Revelation 1 

11 He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, 

And all are slaves beside ; 

.... he has wings, that neither sickness, pain, 

Nor penury, can cripple or confine. 

No nook so narrow but he spreads them there 

With ease, and is at large." 

And what more than the Christian Sabbath is tributary to the 
knowledge and influence of the expanding, emancipating truth ? 
This institution is an essential means of removing the cause of all 
bondage, and of thereby destroying or preventing the effects. In 
its absence or neglect there is no security against the power of one 
class, and the depression of another. How manifest is it from the 
principles and facts set forth in previous chapters, that if all pos 
sessed and rightly used the weekly holy day, neither the oppressor 
nor the oppressed could exist in any part of the earth ! It is 
only when men want, or, like the Jews, despise the Sabbath, that 
they can be made captives, or at least so crushed as that the spirit 
of liberty shall not survive and struggle till it win for itself a com 
plete deliverance. It is the men in our own land who have no 
regard for the institution that subject their brethren to the degra 
dation of perpetual labour, and it is the workmen who despise 
their birthright that can be so degraded. The employer who 
values, cannot but allow his servants to enjoy, the rest of every 
seventh day, as he respects its authority, knows its advantages to 
himself, and has learned by its means to honour all men, and to 
do to them as he would be done by ; and the labourer or me 
chanic who breathes the spirit and relishes the repose of the 
sacred season, who has been taught by its lessons to economize 
his earnings and respect himself, will be prepared to negotiate 
from a higher platform with the dispenser of work and wages. 



CONNEXION WITH PERSONAL PROSPERITY. 219 

Whatever promotes efficiency in the business of life contributes 
to respectability and honour. But he who obeys what he holds 
to be a Divine law will be dutiful to men ; and he who has been 
physically refreshed by the rest, and morally braced by the in 
structions of the Sabbath, will proceed to the work of the week, 
" rejoicing as a strong man to run a race." The influences which 
operate so favourably from week to week on his whole nature and 
condition impart, as the united result, energy to his character and 
proceedings. Some of the most remarkable men have been thus 
formed, as, for example, Sir Isaac Newton, who said that if in 
anything he excelled others it was by virtue of his power of ap 
plication, which, we know, was invigorated by the hebdomadal 
rest and worship ; and Howard, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Chalmers, 
and Buxton, none of whom allowed anything to bend him from 
the great purpose of his life and soul, and all of whom highly 
valued the Lord s day. The early Christians, the Keformevs, the 
Puritans, and the Covenanters sanctified the Sabbath, and they 
were the most resolute of men. And what but the collective 
might of many individuals, nurtured by the same institution, has 
imparted an activity, enterprise, and determination, beyond all 
modern nations, to Britons and Americans, whose energy may be 
read in reclaimed wastes, in extending commerce and civilisation, 
in national wealth and comfort, in the cultivation of science and 
letters, and even in the prowess of the battle-field 1 

The man who is the object of respect and confidence among his 
fellows has attained true elevation and fame. Need a word be 
said to show that the infidel, the irreligious, and the immoral 
inspire no such feelings in their own or any other class of minds 1 
Voltaire, who must be allowed to have been free from temptation 
to traduce his own creed, confessed that he avoided the utterance 
of infidel sentiments in the presence of his servants, lest, adopting 
and acting on them, " they should cut his throat." No less well 
known and generally believed is the trust-worthiness of Christian 
men of all ranks who are observant of their own religious insti 
tutions. 

Nothing more ennobles a human being than the combined dis 
position and power to be useful to be one of the world s bene 
factors. Every one who " labours, working with his hands the 



220 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that 
needeth," and every person of substance and influence who em 
ploys them for good, occupy stations which the general voice pro 
nounces to be honourable. And these "posts of honour" are 
usually rilled by the men who are distinguished by their religious 
observances. It might be expected to be so. The lessons of 
benevolence, of brotherhood, of economy, of obligation and re 
sponsibility, of which others do not avail themselves, are from 
week to week set before them, pressed on their attention, studied 
and wrought into their minds ; and the convocations of the sacred 
day, which others abjure, bring them into stated impressive inter 
course with their neighbours and families, give them a deeper 
interest in both, allay prejudices and animosities, and continually 
remind them of the circumstances and claims of those whom but 
for such associations they would but slightly regard, or entirely 
forget. These lessons and associations, in creating a desire of use 
fulness, contribute at the same time to a mental and moral cha 
racter which is necessary to give one power over others. " The 
writer has seen a town and neighbourhood kept in peace and good 
order at a time of high political ferment by the influence and 
mutual co-operation of some half-dozen poor men who observed 
and kept holy the Sabbath." 1 If it were not for a day of dis 
engagement from ordinary labour, millions would be precluded not 
only the means of having a spirit of benevolence formed and 
cherished, but every opportunity for its exercise in their own 
families and among their neighbours. Let the Sabbath cease, and 
even in one department of education the injury would be vast and 
irreparable. As the greater proportion of 250,000 Sunday-school 
teachers subsist by daily labour, their self-improving and self- 
elevating instructions would be no longer possible, multitudes of 
children would be destitute of their sole means of education, and 
it could not in future be true, that " thousands of the working 
classes, now moving in a respectable sphere of life, owe their posi 
tion in society to their attendance at the Sabbath-school." 2 

Thus it is that the great ordinance of the Sabbath raises a man 
to his proper place in society. How peacefully, righteously, and 
surely does it accomplish the object ! No violence, disturbance, 01 

1 Prize Essays by Five Working Men, p. 142. 2 j^id p. 87. 



CONNEXION WITH PERSONAL PROSPERITY 221 

failure attends the application of this mighty lever. It is " the 
cheap" elevator of individuals as of "nations." Of all other 
schemes for advancing a person to respectability and honour it. may 
be said that they are either unrighteous, or, without this one, in 
competent. Secular education may do much, but mainly as the 
handmaid of moral principle. The economy and industry which are 
not guided by benevolence and wisdom, will either fail to secure 
wealth, or amass it to the hurt of its owner. There are many who 
attempt to raise themselves by illegitimate means, but they cannot, 
as they ought not to succeed. Such are our gamblers of various 
classes ; our professional men who deviate from their line, and 
make haste to be rich by foolish speculations ; our fraudulent 
tradesmen, and those working men who squander their earnings 
on their appetites, subject themselves to continual toil, or attempt 
to force the price of labour. The disappointments and woes that 
have ever followed such measures are incalculable. Among the 
working classes how disastrous, for example, has been the last- 
named expedient ! The strike of the Glasgow cotton-spinners in 
1837, when, besides other unjust proceedings, they appointed " a 
persecuting committee, to persecute to the utmost" their recusant 
brethren, lasted for seventeen weeks and five days, and ended in 
tneir " giving in," not, however, without involving unspeakable 
hardships to many families, a fearful increase of immorality, 
crime, and disease, and a useless expense of 194,540. Similar 
were the termination and effects of the Preston strikes of 1836 
and 1854 (the latter causing a total loss to the community of 
532,250); of that among the Lanarkshire colliers in 1837, 
and of others too numerous to be specified. Let us attend to the 
wise words of a working man, whose remarks might well be 
pondered by persons of every rank : " We have listened to every 
nostrum, and tried every scheme that has been propounded by 
every demagogue, and set forth by every scribe ; we have wit 
nessed great changes in the State ; we have seen the House of 
Commons reformed ; the fiscal code revised, and restrictive laws 
repealed ; we have expected much from all and from each of these 
great changes and many others. But our hopes have not been 
realized. The social condition of the working classes is still de 
plorable. . . . There are no evils to which we are subjected but 



222 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

the blessed God has provided a remedy. That remedy is tho 
universal obedience to his laws, one of the most emphatic of which 
is, * Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. "* 

Second, The Sabbath is eminently conducive to personal happi 
ness. The reverse has been maintained by those who are ignorant 
of the true nature of the institution, and prejudiced or inadvertent 
in regard to the condition of its friends. But what is there in 
the institution to make its friends unhappy 1 Ministering to 
repose and health, elevating the mind by connecting it periodically 
with the grandest subjects of thought, purifying the moral feelings 
and taste, fostering pious sentiments and emotions, affording 
opportunities of beneficence, promoting personal prosperity, and 
cherishing the domestic intercourse and virtues, the Sabbath, so 
far from being the cause of any unhappiness, appears to include in 
itself all the elements of the highest enjoyment. 

When we consider the pursuits of those who contemn the day 
of sacred rest, we shall perhaps discover another reason for con 
cluding that their opinions on this subject must be erroneous. 
They seek after secular knowledge, health, pleasure, fame, and 
wealth, respectively, without a primary regard to what will 
" minister to a mind diseased," or satisfy the cravings for an in 
finite and enduring good. How is it possible that any human 
being can be happy without the possession of blessings that will 
never be exhausted, and never be taken away 1 He who attends 
to the votaries of such pursuits as are circumscribed in extent, and 
limited by time, or who has reflected on his own feelings in fol 
lowing the same course, must perceive that the pleasure enjoyed 
has a sting, is feverish, and demands for its maintenance constant 
excitement, and the oblivion of certain objects and questions that 
have not been duly considered. It in fact proceeds on a great de 
lusion. It cannot stand adversity. It withers under the look of 
death. Its possessor is fain to banish recollections and forebodings 
by bustle, movement, company, sleep, inebriety, and not rarely by 
suicide. This, however, is the pleasure generally of the men who 
neglect or trample upon sacred institutions. That they should con 
ceive the Sabbath to be a gloomy appointment, *md its friends to be 
unhappy, is not wonderful. They have formed their views of plea- 

1 Prize Essays by Five Working Men, pp. 130, 131. 



CONNEXION WITH PERSONAL PROSPERITY. 223 

sure by the low standard of their own desires, appetites, and tastes, 
and according to a common deception in moral optics, transferred 
to others the misery which exists only in their own spirits. 

We are not, however, left to principles and reasonings as the 
sole means of deciding whether the institution be conducive or 
not to personal happiness. The tree is known by its fruits. So 
happy, according to all our observation, are the majority of our 
acquaintance and friends who keep the Sabbath, that we are dis 
posed to impute the very few exceptions either to disease or to a 
want of religion. And the observation is in harmony with the 
history of the class, ancient and modern. Unhappiness is the 
exceptional case, which ought not to be considered as the exponent 
of Sabbatic tendencies. No class were happier beings than the 
early Christians, and their Sabbath was their most joyful day. 
Asceticism was of Pagan origin, 1 and gained ground among Chris 
tians in proportion as their doctrines and institutions were cor 
rupted by foreign admixtures. The Reformers were not gloomy 
men ; nor were the Puritans as a body, although they have been 
so maligned. They received treatment at one time enough to 
drive less resolute spirits to distraction, and at another they had 
an Augean task to perform requiring stern severity. But we ven 
ture to affirm that, where that assumed its harshest features, it 
was among the pretended friends of the new dynasty, who bounded 
so suddenly to the opposite extreme of licentiousness at the Resto 
ration. We may estimate the character of the Puritans with con 
siderable accuracy from that of their leading men. The following 
is the account given of Owen : " He was very affable and cour 
teous, familiar and sociable ; the meanest persons found easy 
access to his conversation and friendship. He was facetious and 
pleasant in his common discourse, but with sobriety and measure. 
He was of a serene and even temper, neither elated with honour, 
credit, friends, or estate, and not easily depressed with troubles 
and difficulties." 2 What superiority to the depressing influence 
of adversity must he have attained who could compose his noblest 
and most laborious works amidst the turbulent elements of the 
Commonwealth, when concealing himself for safety, or when racked 

1 Neander s Church History, vol. i. p. 375. 

2 Life of Owen, by Orme, pp. 349, 350. 



224 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

with the stone ! 1 Rogers thus describes Howe " He had nothing 
either of the anchorite or ascetic in his composition ; dignified 
but not austere, he was grave without moroseness, and cheerful 
without levity." 2 "The benevolence of Charnock," says Calamy, 
" was universal, and his love took in whatever person OF 
thing had anything lovely in it." 3 Who can doubt that Char 
nock must have been a happy man ? It is mentioned by the 
same writer that Bates s " wit was never vain or light, but 
most facetious and pleasant." 4 Of Gouge, who went about 
continually doing good, Baxter said, " He never saw him sad, 
but cheerful." 5 It was the remark of a heathen philosopher, 
that no man could be called happy before death. The biographies 
of many of the Puritans record their blessedness not only during 
life, but in the immediate prospect of dissolution. Among Baxter s 
last words were these " I bless God I have a well-grounded 
assurance of my eternal happiness, and great peace and comfort 
within." Almost well." 

These were some of the most noted of the Puritans at the time 
to which the charge in question has been chiefly applied. Many 
more of the same class of men who lived then and previously 
might be cited in proof that their religion did not " make their 
pleasures less." Their friends, who emigrated to America at dif 
ferent times, were persons of the same pious and cheerful spirit. 
Such also were the descendants of these expatriated Puritans. 
After remarking the sobriety, the industry, the suppression of 
crime, the total absence of beggary, the general diffusion of edu 
cation, and the patriotic spirit, which distinguished New England 
towards the close of the seventeenth century, Grahame observes 
" Yet this state of society was by no means inconsistent either 
with refinement of manners, or with innocent hilarity. Lord 
Bellamont was agreeably surprised with the graceful and courtly 
demeanour of the gentlemen and clergy of Connecticut, and con 
fessed that he found the aspect and address that were, thought 
peculiar to nobility, in a land where this aristocratical distinction 
was unknown. From Dunston s account of his residence in Boston 
in 1686, it appears that the inhabitants of Massachusetts were at 

Life of Owen, p. 352. 2 nf e ofjohn Howe, by Henry Rogers, pp. 494, 504. 

*&gt; Abridgment, vol. ii. p. 56. &lt; Ibid. vol. ii. p. 49. iud. vol. ii. p. 11. 



CONNEXION WITH PERSONAL PROSPERITY. 226 

that time distinguished in a very high degree by the cheerfulness 
of their manners, their hospitality, and a courtesy, the more estim 
able that it was indicative of real benevolence." 1 Were it neces 
sary, the connexion between a strictly observed Sabbath, and 
every appearance of true peace and joy, might be traced down to 
the present day, in the lives and deaths of such men as Henry, 
Hervey, John Newton, Bickersteth, with many others, who all 
proved, by the alacrity with which they performed the duties of 
religion, and by their whole deportment, that they experienced 
wisdom s " ways to be ways of pleasantness, and all her paths to 
be peace." 

Let us present the following beautiful tributes of two eminent 
men to the character of Wilberforce. " I never," says Sir James 
Mackintosh, " saw any one who touched life at so many points ; 
and this is the more remarkable in a man who is supposed to live 
absolutely in the contemplation of a future state. When he was 
in the House of Commons, he seemed to have the freshest mind of 
any of those there. There was all the charm of youth about him, 
and he is quite as remarkable in this bright evening of his day, as 
when I saw him in his glory many years ago." " I never," says 
Southey, " saw any other man who seemed to enjoy such a per 
petual serenity and sunshine of spirit. In conversing with him 
you feel assured that there is no guile in him ; that if ever there 
was a good man and a happy man on earth, he was one." 
" There is," the same individual remarks, " such a constant hilarity 
in every look and motion, such a sweetness in all his tones, such 
a benignity in all his thoughts, words, and actions, that you can 
feel nothing but love and admiration for a creature of so happy 
and blessed a nature." 2 

The strictest views and practice in regard to the Sabbath are 
thus found to be compatible with pleasure, and so commonly 
associated with it as to warrant us in regarding them as cause and 
effect. This conclusion derives confirmation from the biographies 
of many ardent friends of the institution, which exhibit them as 
persons, not only of happy temperament, at all times, but especially 
so on the first day of the week. Venn, author of The Complete 

1 History of Hie Rise and Progress of the U. S. ofN. America, vol. i. pp. 504, 505. 
* Life of Jay, 9d edition, p. 321. 

F 



226 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

Duty of Man, says, " My Sabbaths are sweet to my soul." 1 Hey 
of Leeds informs us that in early life his Sabbaths were his hap 
piest days, and that in later life he conceived that this day should 
be begun, carried on, and concluded with holy cheerfulness. 2 
Philip Henry would sometimes at. the close of the Sabbath-day 
duties remark, " Well, if this be not the way to heaven, I do not 
know what is." 3 That day must have been " a delight " to Wil- 
berforce. " blessed day," he says, " which allows us a precious 
interval wherein to pause, to come out from the thickets of worldly 
concerns, and to give ourselves up to heaven and spiritual objects. 
And, oh ! what language can do justice to the emotions of grati 
tude which ought to fill my heart, when I consider how few of 
my fellows know and feel its value and proper uses. Oh, the 
infinite goodness and mercy of my God and Saviour !" 4 Of 
Henry Martyn it is said, that " the Sabbath, that sacred portion 
of time set apart for holy purposes in paradise itself, was so em 
ployed by him as to prove frequently a paradise to his soul on 
earth, and as certainly prepared him for an endless state of 
spiritual enjoyment hereafter." 5 Another thus writes, "Every 
day was a day of tranquil satisfaction, in which we had little to 
wish and much to enjoy : but the Sabbath presented us with 
peculiar consolations. We saluted every return of that holy day 
with undissembled joy, cheerfully laying aside all our usual studies 
and employments, except such as had a manifest tendency, either 
to enlarge our acquaintance with, or to advance our preparation 
for, the kingdom of God." 

After quoting from Gilpin s Monument of Parental Affection 
the beautiful passage, of which the preceding words are a part, a 
writer asks, " Where shall we find in scenes of worldly mirth or 
amusement anything that can furnish such a rational and exalted 
source of enjoyment, and which will so well bear the retrospect, 
as in this T 6 Certainly not among those of the upper classes to 
whose round of gaieties the day of rest brings hardly any inter 

1 Lift of Venn, 4th edition, p. 468. 

2 Life, 2d edition, vol. i. p. 153, and vol. ii. p. 64. Life, by his Son, ch. viii. 
* Life, vol. iii. pp. 96, 97. Memoir (1828), p. 479. 

* Dr. Inncs (Tract for the Tines, p. 9), himself an example of cheerful piety through 
out a long life. * 



CONNEXION WITH PERSONAL PROSPERITY. 227 

ruption, for ennui is their own common and appropriate name for 
their feelings ; nor among those of the middle and lower ranks, 
who work every day, or spend the first day of the week in amuse 
ment ; for their languid appearance, their abbreviated lives, their 
sullenness, irritability, and frequent resort to stimulants, tell a 
very different tale. There have been many such confessors as 
Colonel Gardiner, Gibbon, and Lord Byron. Colonel Gardiner 
said that when he appeared to his boon companions to be the 
most joyous of men, he was in reality so miserable as to wish he 
were the dog under the table. Byron, we presume, " held," as 
was his wont, " the mirror up to nature," when he wrote these 
Words in Childe Harold : 

" It is that weariness which springs 

From all I meet, or hear, or see : 

To me no pleasure Beauty brings ; 

Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me. 

" It is that settled, ceaseless gloom 

The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore ; 
That will not look beyond the tomb, 
But cannot hope for rest before." 

And Gibbon, after referring to the " autumnal " as by some 
deemed the happiest season of a literary life, has this sad reflection 
" But I must reluctantly observe that two causes, the abbrevia 
tion of time and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a 
bro&lt;vner shade the evening of life." (Life, 1837, p. 117.) 
How different the Christian ! , Eeligion proves its superiority to 
nature and philosophy by painting its bright bow in the clouds of 
adversity in the noon-tide of his day, and by fulfilling to him at 
its close the words, " at evening time it is light." 

" I may not tread 

With them those pathways to the feverish bed 
Of sickness bound ; yet, my God ! I bless 
Thy mercy, that with Sabbath peace hath filled 
My chastened heart, and all its throbbings stilled 
To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness." x 

* SattatJi Sonnet, Mrs. Hemans Works XI 830), voL vii. p. 286. 



228 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 



CHAPTER V. 

DOMESTIC BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

" A peculiar blessing may be expected upon those families where there is due caio 
taken that the Sabbath be strictly and devoutly observed. " JONATHAN EDWARDS. 

THE diversities in the domestic life of various countries and 
times have generally turned on the place assigned to woman. 
Her equality to man in all that is most important and enduring 
entitles her to his companionship, and while her feebler frame 
calls for his protection, her gentler and more patient spirit qualifies 
her for rendering to him the sympathy and help which he requires. 

" When pain and anguish wring the brew, 
A ministering angel them !" 

But although thus fitted to be his associate and friend, and be 
longing to a sex nearly as numerous as his own, it is but rarely 
that she has obtained her just rights, and that the world has fully 
availed itself of her salutary influence. It is only in the Bible 
that her claims are clearly and authoritatively ascertained ; it is 
only as the Bible is known and believed that these claims are 
practically recognised, and that Milton s glowing lines are seen to 
be a picture of life : 

" Hail, wedded love, mysterious law, true source 
Of human offspring ; sole propriety 
In paradise of all tilings common else 
By thee, adulterous Lust was driven from men 
Among the bestial herds to range: by thee 
Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure, 
Relations dear, and all the charities 
Of father, son, and brother, first were known. 



DOMESTIC BENEFITS. 229 

Far be it, that I should write thee sin, or blame, 
Or think thee unbefitting holiest place, 
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets." 1 

In countries, accordingly, where justice and kindness rule the 
relation of the sexes, we discover, in beautiful combination, pure 
religion and morals, high intelligence and civilisation, general 
wealth, and a large amount of happiness. Wherever, on the 
other hand, that relation has been superseded by prevalent poly 
gamy, or other substitutes, and wherever influences have exten 
sively operated tending to relax and sever what ought to be a secure 
and life-long tie, the laws of nature, reason, and justice have been 
violated, woman has been degraded, and man in all his interests, 
physical, intellectual, moral, and social, has necessarily sunk along 
with her. The family, that sanctuary of infancy, that earliest 
and best school of piety, wisdom, and virtue, that retreat of toiled 
and weary man, that dearest asylum to the sorrowful, the sick, 
and the dying, has been dissolved, or never known. There is 
wanting the " humble hearth-stone, which is the corner-stone of 
the temple, and the foundation-stone of the city." Whatever, 
therefore, serves to form or to uphold the true family institution 
must be an unspeakable boon to the world. To this object the 
Sabbath conduces, and is even indispensable, as will appear, we 
conceive, from the following statements of facts and principles : 

1. We shall look in vain for a true and happy home in those 
places where no weekly holy day exists, or where its advantages 
cannot be enjoyed. In the lands of Paganism, the relation of 
the sexes has been debased by polygamy in some instances, by the 
facility and frequency of divorce in others, and by the depression 
of woman in all. What the domestic circumstances of the Greeks 
and Romans latterly were may be conceived from the fact, that 
in Athens and Borne " impurity was considered neither as an 
offence nor as a dishonour." China is honourably distinguished 
by the filial reverence and attachments of its people, to which may 
possibly be wing the " long life " and comparative " prosperity " 
of the empire ; but deplorable must be the state of families in 
a country where the wife is the victim of the husband s caprice and 
tyranny, where concubinage is permitted, and where the father has 

1 Paradise Lott, Book iv. 
11 



230 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

power over the life of his child. The history of slave colonies, 
and the condition of many servants amongst ourselves, show that 
the Sabbath may have a place in the laws and calendar of a nation, 
and yet to certain classes bring no pause of toil, and yield no 
benefit. In slave colonies, the demand of every-day labour, the 
neglect to legalize marriage, and the most unrestrained licentious 
ness, have gone hand in hand, 1 while among certain classes of 
servants, as the cabmen of London, who labour on all days for 
sixteen or eighteen hours, it is found that not a few live with the 
lowest class of females in an unmarried state, and that their 
abodes are ordinarily scenes of wretchedness and destitution. 2 To 
the wellbeing of the family, therefore, some Sabbath appears to 
be indispensable. 

2. Nor is domestic life virtuous or comfortable where the 
weekly day of rest stands connected with a false or an impure re 
ligion. The people of Guinea dedicate one day in the week to 
the honour of their idols. But what avails for their domestic 
advantage a day which is associated with demon-worship, with 
human sacrifices, and with the belief that women are slaves, who 
must compensate by their labour for the price of their purchase ? 
The Mohammedans and the Mormons, in common, keep a Sabbath, 
follow impostors, add to the Bible a so-called new revelation from 
heaven, debase woman, and practise polygamy. The fruits, in 
both cases, are, accordingly, licentious manners and social degra 
dation, the former class being sunk in " apparently irremediable 
barbarism," and the latter obviously ripening for destruction. 
Popery has freely imitated Paganism, but it has surpassed its 
prototype in this, with other particulars, that, corrupting the wife 
and dishonouring the husband, it has humbled both. Let French 
writers say how it is with the family in France. One relates that 
" six hundred and twenty thousand girls are educated by nuns, 
under the direction of the priests, and that these girls will soon 
be women and mothers, who, as far as they are able, will deliver 
their sons and daughters into the hands of the priests," adding, 
" Young man, you must ask of the priest the hand of the maiden 
before applying to her parents. . . . Poor man ! you will have 

1 Negro Slavery, C. Observer (1826), p. 679. 

3 Baylee, p. 81, and Tenth London City Mission Report, p. 18. 



DOMESTIC BENEFITS. 231 

a wife minus her heart and soul ; and you will learn by experience 
that he who gave her to you on such terms, knows well how to 
resume his sway over her." 1 Another remarks, "In France we 
are obliged to use a periphrase, as if we were strangers to the 
thing : the home of England and the chez-soi of France." 2 It is 
not long since some of the leading men in that country, alarmed 
at the effects of the prevalent profanation of the Lord s day among 
the people, united in an attempt to stay the plague. One of 
them, Baron Augustin Cauchy, a member of the French Institute, 
wrote on the occasion in these strong terms : " Wherever a nation 
fails to keep this commandment [respecting the Sabbath], Chris 
tianity ceases to exist. There would then be an end to domestic 
life, to family ties ; and civilisation would soon be succeeded by 
barbarism." 3 In Spain, there is no holy Sabbath. The first day 
of the week is the great day for the theatre, and particularly for 
the bull-fight, which is patronized by royalty, the nobility, and 
the priesthood. 

" The Sabbath comes, a day of blessed rest ; 

What hallows it upon this Christian shore ? 
Lo ! it is sacred to a solemn feast : 

Hark ! heard you not the forest monarch s roar?" 
The poet proceeds to describe the scene, where 

" Yells the mad crowd o er entrails freshly torn, 

Nor shrinks the female eye, nor ev n affects to mourn." 
And adds : 

" Such the ungentle sport that oft invites 

The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain. 
Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights 
In vengeance, gloating on another s pain. 
What private feuds the troubled village stain!" 4 

In harmony with such amusements, such a Sunday, and such a 
priesthood, is the disorganized state of the family and of general 
society in Spain, where every man must wear a weapon ; where 
the most petty journey requires the preparation of a warlike en- 

1 Priests, Women, and Families (1846), pp. 61, 62. 

Roussel, Catholic and Protestant Nations, vol. ii. p. 80. 

Letter, in My Connexion with the Sabbath Movement in France, by C. Cochraao. 

Ck&de Harold, cant i. st. 68-80. 



ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

terprise ; a and where " every town has its Casa de Expositos, that 
of Seville alone (seven-tenths or seven-ninths of whose inhabitants 
are entire strangers to religious ordinances) having nearly 1100 
poor infants thrown upon its care every year, to which must be 
added that the mortality of that class is tremendous, and the real 
amount of infanticide, owing to the general licentiousness of the 
people, is incalculable." 2 But we must revert for a moment to 
France, which at one time exchanged Popery for Atheism, the 
Sabbath for the Decade. The experiment showed that infidelity 
was, even more than a corrupt religion, detrimental to the family. 
What the institution suffered from the worship of a strumpet let 
the following facts declare : The National Convention enacted a 
law permitting divorce, of which there were registered, within about 
a year and a half, 20,000 cases ; and within three months, 562 
cases, or one to every three marriages, in Paris alone. Well might 
the Abb Gregoire exclaim, " This law will soon ruin the nation." 
But this was not all. " Infancy was committed to the tender 
mercies of State nurseries, in which nine out of ten died ; a system 
which, by infanticide and disease, had, in fifty years, reduced by 
one half the population of the Sandwich Islands, and were it to 
be universal and permanent, would, in a few centuries, nearly 
depopulate the earth." 3 The worship of the Goddess of Reason, 
who had been able to bestow nothing of that endowment on her 
votaries, was abolished, and the law of divorce was modified and 
then repealed ; but Popery, which is still, as we have seen, laying 
waste the family of France, was not able when restored to coun 
teract the mischief produced by infidelity, for writers in the earlier 
part of this century said of the country : " A chilling egotism has 
dried up all the springs of sentiment. The domestic affections 
are extinct. No one any longer enters into those valuable and 
wise connexions by which the present generation is united to 
the generations which are to come." " Domestic crimes, parri 
cides, the murder of husbands by their wives, and wives by 
their husbands, are almost as common as larcenies were wont 
to be." 4 

living s Alhambra (1832), vol. i. p. 7. 

2 Rule s Mission to Gibraltar and Spain, pp. 237-239. 

8 Beecher s Perils of Atheism, p. 86. 

* Dr. Esquirol and Mennais, in Boyle T^tcturetfor 1821, T&gt;y Harness, vol. ii. pp. 110, 111 . 



DOMESTIC BENEFITS. 233 

3. The family deteriorates under a neglected or profaned Chris 
tian Sabbath. "The Keformed faith," it has been remarked by 
a Roman Catholic writer, "is particularly favourable to family 
affection." 1 We accept the confession, which is not only honour 
able to the writer, but just. We shall find, however, in the 
countries of the Reformation too many examples of Sabbath dese 
cration, and of slackened or even sundered family ties, because all 
Protestants are not sincere or consistent holders of their professed 
creed. Manifold influences pride and fashion, avarice and the 
love of pleasure, by their exaction of untimely or interminable 
labour from tradesmen and servants ; intemperance, by its neglect, 
brutal treatment, and beggaring of families ; and licentiousness, 
by its "vile" adulteries, heartless seductions, and base patronage 
of " the Social Evil " unceasingly operate to the overthrow of a 
holy Sabbath, and to the ruin of domestic sanctities, enjoyments, 
and hopes. But " what are the high places of Judah 1 are they 
not Jerusalem ?" 

" The seventh day this ; the jubilee of man. 
London ! right well thou know st the day of prayer." 

In Lord Byron s time " the day of prayer " was known by many 
"a spruce citizen," "washed artisan," and "smug apprentice," 
only as a day of play a day on which they might " gulp their 
weekly air," and indulge themselves "with draught and dance 
till morn." Since the noble poet s time, the evil has gone on 
and increased. A million of Londoners have abandoned church- 
going. An unprecedented number pour themselves by railways 
into the country. Amusements are provided for loiterers at 
home. And efforts have been made to have the Crystal Palace 
and other public resorts thrown open on the Lord s day, and thus 
to introduce a wholesale desecration of sacred time. The evil 
spreads from the capital over England, Scotland, and Ireland. 
That five millions of people in the United Kingdom abjure the 
claims of the Sabbath and the sanctuary is, in other words, to say 
that one million of families are without the benefits, physical, in 
tellectual, moral, religious, and economical, which these institu 
tions convey. Let those who know England better than we, speak 

i Viel-Castel, in Roussel, vol. ii. p. 81. 



234 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

to its consequent domestic condition. As for Scotland, we know 
that its home virtues and comforts have, in not a few instances, 
degenerated. The excessive competition in all kinds of trade has 
been injurious to personal and social religion, and the wages 
earned have gone into " a bag with holes." When families are 
formed in our cities and towns, it is too frequently forgotten to 
erect an altar the protection, blessing, and glory of a house. 
Even in rural scenes, it is not so common as formerly 

" To hear the song 
Of kindred praise arise from humble roofs." 

Our agricultural servants are in many instances detached from 
the families of their masters, and yet precluded the means of 
forming their own domestic circles whence rudeness, wickedness, 
and crime. Intemperance has committed many ravages on house 
hold piety, peace, and order, and this, like other evils, from the 
very want of that Sabbatic strictness to which it has been so un 
truly and preposterously imputed. In short, objects of gain, 
education, and even benevolence, have occasioned removals of 
children from the care of parents, or parents from the society of 
their children, to the weakening of the foundations of the family 
and the church. 

4. And yet it is certain that the family flourishes wherever 
the Christian Sabbath is rightly observed, and nowhere more than 
in Great Britain and America, which, with all their faults, are 
proverbially superior to other nations as Sabbath-keeping com 
munities. There, ancient custom, law, and, what is better, the 
deep convictions and feelings of the majority of the people, are 
arrayed on the side of the institution. It is to these countries, 
accordingly, that several intelligent writers, Roman Catholic as 
well as Protestant, assign the palm for domestic virtue and 
happiness. " Nowhere," says Madame de Stael, " can be seen 
such faithful protection on one side, and such tender and pious 
devotedness on the other, as in married life in England. Nowhere 
do the wives share with so much courage and simplicity the 
troubles and dangers of their husbands, wherever the duties of 
their profession may call them." Baron D Haussez observes, 
"All things considered, ceteris paribus, thanks to* the influence 



DOMESTIC BENEFITS. 235 

of the manners, the married state in England is happier than 
in any other country." In equally laudatory terms do M. de 
Tocqueville and M. Michel Chevalier write of the marriage tie 
and conjugal happiness as they exist in America. 1 Of Scotland, 
Dr. Currie remarks, "A striking particular in the character of 
the Scottish peasantry is one which it is hoped will not be lost 
the strength of their domestic attachments. The privations to 
which many parents submit for the good of their children, and 
particularly to obtain for them instruction, has already been 
noticed. If their children live and prosper, they have their cer 
tain reward, not merely as witnessing, but as sharing in their 
prosperity. Even in the humblest ranks of the peasantry, the 
earnings of the children may generally be considered as at the 
disposal of their parents ; perhaps in no country is so large a 
portion of the wages of labour applied to the support and comfort 
of those whose days of labour are past. A similar strength of 
attachment extends through all the domestic relations." 2 That 
France owes its low domestic state not to its soil, not to the 
mental or physical character of its people, but to its want of a 
holy Sabbath and a pure . Christianity, might be largely shown 
from facts in the history of its Protestant Church. Let one case 
suffice, in reading which the Christian will recognise the leading 
features of his religion, and the Scottish Christian, in particular, 
might conceive that the scene is laid in his own land, instead of 
Africa. " Towards the end of the seventeenth century, there were 
about three thousand French refugees established at twelve leagues 
to the north of the Cape, in a fertile valley, which bears, to the 
present day, the name of French Valley. . . . There is a fourth 
village, the most considerable of all, that of La Perle, whose 
inhabitants, exclusively devoted to agriculture, are the richest in 
that Old Dutch Colony, now belonging to the English. This 
population has not forgotten the rigid principles and fervid piety 
of their ancestors. The traveller who crosses their hospitable 
threshold invariably finds upon the table one of those great folio 
Bibles which the French Protestants were wont to hand down 
from father to son, as a sacred patrimony and inestimable trea- 

1 See, for all these testimonies, Rtmssel, as before, vol. i. pp. 57, 58 ; voL ii. f. 80. 

2 Life &lt;tf Burns, Prefatory Remarks, 



236 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

sure. The date of birth and the names of all the members of 
the family are invariably inscribed in it. Sometimes, too, one 
finds pious books in their houses, such as the Psalms put into 
verse by Clement Marot. An affecting custom has been pre 
served amongst these simple and austere men. Night and morn 
ing the members of each family assemble for prayer. There are 
no formalities or pompous ceremonies ; they content themselves 
with praying with all their hearts, and with reading the Bible. 
Every Sunday, at sunrise, the farmers set out in their rustic 
vehicles, covered with hides or with coarse cloth, to attend 
Divine service, and at night they return peaceably to their homes. 
Gambling is unknown amongst them, and the refined corruption 
of European civilisation has not reached them. The useful arts 
and practical instruction are all they care for and cultivate. They 
seek to diffuse them among their former slaves, whom they have 
always treated with kindness, and they willingly devote much 
time and pains to the propagation of the gospel amongst the 
idolatrous races that surround them." 1 

5. When Sabbath observance is begun or resumed by any 
family or people, the sure and speedy consequence is an improve 
ment in their domestic character and condition. The proof of this 
averment may be found in every report of Protestant missions, 
home and foreign. We give two or three of the more recent 
examples. The Keport of the London City Mission presents the 
following among the statistics of the good effected by the Society 
during the year 1859-1860 : "Shops closed on the Lord s day, 
293 ; persons who have become communicants, 1236 ; backsliders 
restored to church communion, 253 ; drunkards reclaimed, 1102; 
fallen females rescued, 524 ; unmarried couples induced to marry, 
300; family prayer commenced, 587. " 2 A mission was begun 
in Aneiteum, one of the islands of the New Hebrides, in 1848. 
Formerly bigamy, polygamy, and repudiation of wives prevailed 
there. Female infanticide was frequent. Widows were strangled, 
and cast into the sea along with their husbands. In 1860, the 
Sabbath is as well observed as in any part of Scotland. Family 
worship is universally observed every morning and evening ; in 
each of fifty or sixty districts, anto which the island has been 

1 Roussel, vol. ii. pp. 205, 206. 2 News -&gt;f the Church**, vol.. vi. p. 162. 



DOMESTIC BENEFITS. 237 

divided, tjiere is a teacher, with his wife, and Christianity has in 
twelve years saved the lives of upwards of 100 females, widows, 
and infants. " I have married," says Mr. Inglis, one of the mis 
sionaries, " about 160 couples during the last six or seven years, 
and, with very few exceptions, they are enjoying as much domestic 
happiness as could reasonably be looked for." 1 Scarcely less 
interesting is the change that has passed over another island in 
Polynesia, which, from the excessive ferocity of its inhabitants, 
was by Captain Cook named Savage Island. The people retained 
the same character for sixty years after his time, but consented 
eleven years ago to receive missionaries, and now all of them, 
being 4300, are Christian, with the exception of some ten, who 
still stand aloof. In the days of heathenism there had been a 
fearful destruction of children, but now the natives, in whose cot 
tages the voice of prayer and praise is daily heard, are "a loving 
and grateful people." 2 We may add, that the respect for the 
Lord s day which began to be entertained by the slaves in Jamaica 
and other colonies was connected with the observance of the law 
of marriage, and with a greatly improved morality in all respects. 
6. Families in contiguous countries, districts, or villages, are 
strikingly distinguished from one another in respect of morals and 
comfort according to their treatment of the Sabbath. Such con 
trasts are frequently to be met with in town and country, at home 
and abroad. In Belgium, for example, " the population, fond, 
like the French, of pleasure, may be seen at the theatres, gar 
dens, and all places of public resort," w*nile in Holland, where, "it 
is said, no person wishing to retain a decent character in society, 
can absent himself on Sundays from the place of worship to which 
he belongs," " the chief pleasure is found at home, and the family 
circle furnishes the truest happiness." 3 A writer, describing two 
villages in the south of England, inhabited by fishermen, supplies 
anothei striking contrast. " Although but a mile and a half apart 
from eacn other, there is a great difference between the character 
and habits of the people of Mousehole and those of Newlyn. There 
is much more recklessness in the latter than in the former. The 

^ Reformed Presbyterian Magazine for September 1860. 

2 Evangelical Magazine for August 1860. 

Thorn on the Sabbath (1830), p. 273. Rousscl, vol. i. p. 280. 



238 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

men of Newlyn do not drink on board, but they drink a good deal 
on shore. A tipsy man is scarcely ever seen in Mousehole. This 
great reform is the work of the last few years. There were for 
merly five public-houses in the village, and now, although it has 
a population of about 1500, it does not afford sufficient custom to 
support even one. The habits of the people are in all respects 
superior to those of Newlyn. No fisherman from Mousehole will 
take to the sea on a Sunday. Every one of them attends some 
place of worship or other on that day. They are generally Method 
ists. They are also well educated according to their circumstances. 
The village school is a very efficient one. As indicative of their 
energy, I may here mention that the fishermen of Mousehole have, 
at a cost of 1400, built for themselves a pier, which, with the 
breakwater built many years ago by the Government, forms their 
little harbour. To construct it, they raised 1200 on their own 
joint bond, which they are paying off by instalments, each boat 
being put under a yearly contribution for the purpose." 1 

A third illustration, embracing eleven families, and extending 
over three generations, is even more important and conclusive 
than that of the two villages. In New Hampshire there are two 
neighbourhoods one of six families, and the other five. The 
advantages of the two were nearly equal, except that the five 
families were about three miles farther from church, and had to 
pass one of those mountain ridges so common in that vicinity, 
called " Governor s Hill." The six families were fond of social 
intercourse, and used to spend their Sabbaths in visiting from 
house to house never visiting the sanctuary. Some of them 
totally disregarded the Sabbath, and all eventually formed the 
habit. In the course of years, five were broken up by the sepa 
ration of husband and wife, and the other by the father becoming 
a thief, and fleeing to parts unknown. Eight or nine of the 
parents became drunkards, most of whom have found a drunkard s 
grave. One committed suicide, and nearly all have suffered for 
want of the comforts of life. Of some forty or forty-five descend 
ants, about twenty are known to be notorious drunkards, jockeys, 
or gamblers. Four or five are or have been in the State s prison. 
One fell in a duel. Some entered the army, and have never been 

1 Labour and the Poor, Morning Chronicle, Nov. 21, 1849. 



DOMESTIC BENEFITS. 239 

heard from others have gone to sea and never returned ; and 
only a small number remain within the knowledge of their friends. 
Some are in the alms-house. Only one of the whole is known to 
have become a Christian, he having been " plucked as a brand 
from the burning" after having pursued a vicious miserable course 
from his youth ; and he is the only one who has a competency of 
property, or the confidence of his neighbours. But how has it 
fared with the other five families, by whom, it is stated, no work 
was done nor visits made on the Sabbath, but who were all sure 
to be seen, riding or walking, on the way to the House of God ; 
not without occasional taunts from their Sabbath-breaking neigh 
bours 1 They all lived in peace, and were prospered in their 
labours. A large number of their children were reared up around 
them, numbering now, with their descendants, from two to three 
hundred. Eight of ten of the children are members of the Church, 
and adorn their profession. In only one instance has there been 
committed by any of the descendants a crime, which was followed 
by a speedy and deep repentance ; and but one is known to be 
intemperate. Some of them are ministers of the Gospel. One is 
a missionary to China. Numbers are supporters and officers of 
churches. There has been among them no separation of husband 
and wife, except by death, and no suffering for want of the neces 
saries of life. The heads of these families lived to a good old age, 
and with a score or more of their descendants have gone down to 
the grave in peace, most of whom have left evidence that they 
died in the Lord. The homestead of a number of the families 
is now in the hands of the third generation. A colony has been 
planted by the descendants on the prairies of the West, main 
taining the institutions of their fathers, and now reaping the 
benefits of their Sabbath-keeping habits and principles. These 
facts, say the narrators, speak a language not to be mistaken, 
and they come to you from the hand of the descendants of the 
five families. 1 

7. Thus it is invariably found, that where the Sabbatic institu 
tion is in force, the domestic institution flourishes ; and that where 
the former is in abeyance, the latter is disorganized. The con 
nexion of the one with the other, therefore, cannot be arbitrary, 

i Purttan Recorder, quoted in Christian Treasury for 1850, p. 549. 



240 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH. 

There must be something in the Christian Sabbath that is neces 
sary to the family. The influence, indeed, is reciprocal. It has 
been said that " none but married parents build churches, support 
ministers, or frequent the worship of God." 1 The head of the 
house is appointed in the Decalogue a custodier, teacher, and 
propagator of the Sabbath law. On the other hand, the Sabbath, 
or rather the pure religion, of which a day of sacred rest is an 
essential part, gives existence, stability, and prosperity to the 
family. The mighty agency operates by promoting all the interests 
physical, mental, moral, and economical of the person by whom 
the weekly holy day is respected, so that if each inhabitant of a 
house were to rest and worship in a Christian manner on that day, 
the various beneficial tendencies of the practice would concur to 
secure for him a large amount of good, and " the resultant" of the 
improved character and circumstances of the individual members 
would be the general welfare of the household. The same agency 
operates, also, by means of the instructions and laws which require 
a Sabbath for their promulgation and study, and by which persons 
are taught that marriage is a Divine ordinance ; that it is the 
voluntary union of one man and one woman only, a union which 
nothing but the death or infidelity of one or other of the parties 
ean lawfully dissolve ; that husband and wife are bound to love 
each other, the former giving honour to the latter as being an heir 
with him of the grace of life ; that parents and children, masters 
and servants, have their respective rights and obligations ; and 
that, while multiplied evils must be awarded to all who trample on 
or neglect, many blessings are pledged to all who perform, their 
relative duties truths, lessons, and sanctions, that no one can 
credit without recognising the importance o^ every human being, 
and abhorring both tyranny and insubordination in the family and 
everywhere else. And Christianity by its Sabbath favourably 
influences domestic life in yet another way. On that day the 
members of a household who are in many cases necessarily separated 
on other days, can, and do meet together, when mutual acquaint 
ance, affection, and sympathy are cultivated ; children and domestics 
are instructed ; and family ties are strengthened, hallowed, and 
blessed by family prayer. Who that has participated in the pious, 

1 Dwight s Tlieology, Sr. 1!9. 



DOMESTIC BENEFITS. 24-J 

rational, benevolent engagements and tranquil enjoyments of such 
a society, can, without doing violence to the strongest convictions, 
prefer the portion here and hereafter of the votaries and victims 
of delusive " pleasure," to 

" Finding in the calm of troth-tried love, 
Joys that her stormy raptures never knew ?" 

Thus it is that many acquire the views of married life, with the 
domestic habits which prevail in this, and some other countries, 
where, according to the confession of foreigners, are realized the 
highest idea and the best blessings of home. 

If, therefore, " My dear, my native soil" would not allow those 
scenes to depart, from which 

" Old Scotia s grandeur springs, 
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad ;" 

if England would retain and brighten her 

" Domestic happiness, the only bliss 
Of Paradise that has survived the Fall ;" 

if Britain and America would not forfeit but increase their great 
ness ; if France would " let the fire-side regain its influence," so 
that her " tottering edifice of religion and politics might acquire 
both tone and power;" if, in fine, the earth would shake from her 
the abominations of polygamy, concubinage, adultery, causeless 
divorce, and " the social evil," with all their present horrors, and 
their preparation of myriads for everlasting degradation and woe, 
there must be a sacred remembrance in the church, the world, 
the house, the heart, of that indispensable auxiliary and safeguard 
of liberty and law, of the Bible and the school, of the sanctuary 
and the hearth the Sabbath-day. 



ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 



CHAPTEK VI. 

ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH TO NATIONS. 

"I have lived long enough to know what at one time T did not believe that no 
ociety can be upheld in happiness and honour, without the sentiments of religion. " 
Words of LAPLACE, not long before his death, to Professor Sedgwick. 

" The Sabbath, as a political institution, is of inestimable value, independently of 
its claims to Divine authority." ADAM SMITH.! 

" WEALTH," says a popular writer on Political Economy, " is 
but one among a number of causes which conduce to the happi 
ness of a people. Social happiness is the result of a pure religion, 
good morals, a wise government, and a general diffusion of know 
ledge." 2 Let us consider these and other elements which enter 
into national prosperity, with the view of ascertaining how much 
they are dependent for their existence and power on the Sabbatic 
institution. 

The welfare of a country is in no small degree promoted by its 
wealth, provided this be not limited to a few, but, while possessed in 
a larger share by some, be diffused in a competent measure among all 
classes. It is in such circumstances that nations are more industri 
ous, and have more leisure as well as inclination for the improving 
and refining pursuits of science, literature, and general knowledge. 
These circumstances remove society farther away from the evils of 
disorganization and barbarism. The augmented capital and the 
higher standard of enjoyment connected with such a state of 

i "The baronet s next undertaking was a quarto essay against what he then con 
sidered a too strict and puritanical observance of the Sabbath in Scotland, but with 
singular conscientiousness he destroyed the whole manuscript on hearing this remark 
from his friend, Dr. Adam Smith, which was the more memorable as coming from the 
apologist of David Hume : Your book, Sir John, is very ably composed ; but the 
Sabbath, as a political institution, is of inestimable value, independently of its claims 
to Divine authority. "Memoir of Sir John Sinclair, by Chambers. 

9 Conversations on Polit. Econ. , sixth edit. p. 24. 



TO NATIONS. 243 

things supply increased stimulus to trade, and multiply the pro 
ducts of industry. And while a general plenty is a blessing, 
the affluence of individuals is a fund which can be drawn upon 
for large and expensive undertakings, and for any emergencies that 
may arise from unpropitious seasons or from prevailing disease. 
It has been remarked, that the kingdom of Judah was in all 
respects in its best state when its commerce was most extended, 
and its wealth most plentiful. A prevailing poverty, on the 
other hand, is in various ways injurious to society. It is one cause 
of the crime that destroys confidence, and entails a vast expense on 
a nation. It directly absorbs much of the capital of a country to 
the oppression of the industrious, and the prevention of many 
useful applications of money. It in many cases induces, invites, 
and localizes disease, whereby terror and death are spread all 
round. Of thousands thus made widows and orphans every 
year, the greater portion become burdens to the country, while 
the loss in productive labour by sickness and funerals, is im 
mense. Add to this the destruction of property to which many 
in these circumstances are impelled, who are not under the con 
trol of intelligence and moral principle. And the evil ends not 
with one generation, but goes down to a sickly and degenerate 
posterity. 

The riches, which prevent so much injury, and secure so much 
good to a nation, are the fruits, in abundant amount, of its pro 
ductive labour. The persons who labour and economize, are 
benefactors of their country, the idle and the wasteful dimin 
ish its wealth. It has been shown in a previous chapter, that 
incessant toil is detrimental to the commercial interests of a com 
munity in the diminished amount and depreciated quality of its 
material and mental products, as the consequence of its demoral 
izing tendency, and the physical exhaustion of the workmen ; 
while, on the other hand, every kind of labour becomes, by the 
interposed rest of the Lord s day, more valuable, and therefore 
more remunerative. Connected with that day s rest, there are, 
we have seen, some remarkable provisions for benefiting both the 
labourers and the State. And it has appeared, that in point of 
fact the wealth of nations graduates according to the measure in 
which the day is religiously respected and observed. 



244 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 

Akin to the element of wealth is another a spirit of im 
provement and useful enterprise. Of this spirit, although on a 
small scale, a happy illustration has been supplied by the Morning 
Chronicle Commissioner, in the case of the Sabbath-respecting and 
energetic fishermen of one of the contiguous villages, mentioned 
in the preceding chapter. The same cause produces the same 
effect, and as in that village, so everywhere it will be found that 
the Sabbath well kept promotes a desire for social improvement. 
And it produces the effect in two ways, directly on its friends, 
and indirectly on their neighbours who are cold or hostile to its 
claims. So powerful is the institution that it operates benefi 
cially, not only on its own adherents, but through them on indi 
viduals and communities that to a great extent disregard its 
authority. Many of our principal inventions, discoveries, and 
arrangements, our steam-engines, our railways, and telegraphs, our 
schools of art, our agricultural, manufacturing, and postal im 
provements, take their rise in Britain or America, those lands of 
the Sabbath ; and other lands follow in their wake. France, in 
deed, sends over her contributions to our civilisation ; but they 
abound in the frivolous and the effeminate, and when substantial, 
are much helped by foreign impulse. Italy excels in the fine 
arts, and we are sufficiently willing to learn of her in that depart 
ment, but we cannot forget that Rome, the seat of a government 
which ought, from the assumed infallibility of its head and church, 
to be the most enlightened and advanced on the face of the earth, 
is nevertheless found, as to all that is of the greatest importance 
to a country, lagging ingloriously behind. It will drain no 
marshes. It will introduce no subsoil plough into its Campagna 
di Roma. It abjures winnowing machines and iron bridges. It 
would form no railways, and strongly resisted the proposals of 
foreigners to introduce improved light into its dismal streets, and 
only the other day yielded to the pressure of universal opinion 
and example in these matters of obvious utility. Every at 
tempted improvement, indeed, originated with English skill and 
capital. And " so effectually has the Pontifical Government de 
veloped its influence, as to have all but annihilated trade in the 
Papal States." In the other states, if we except Lombardy, 
matters are not much better, and even that fertile, well-watered 



TO NATIONS. 245 

portion of Italy is far behind in the march of improvement. We 
have seen that considerably more than a half of the inhabitants of 
Naples are without any fixed employment, yet the Neapolitan 
territory, which miserably maintains a population of between 
seven and eight millions, is capable of yielding abundant food for 
at least twenty millions of people, or three times the present 
amount. 

As with Italy, so in many respects it is with all other countries 
which are burdened with an exacting superstition, that yields 
no compensating return, and are encumbered with a multitude of 
holidays, 1 without feeling the refreshing and animating influence of 
a weekly day of repose and religious instruction. These coun 
tries, however much they profit by the indirect influence of the 
institution coming upon them from other lands, and stimulating 
them by means of commerce to the exertions by which their 
natural capabilities are turned to some account, are yet low in 
the scale of material prosperity, for want of the direct impulse of 
the institution in exciting a spirit of improvement among the 
people. While the manufactures of Portugal are inconsiderable, 
its agriculture is the worst in Europe. How lamentable is the 
state of Spain, where the great body of the people are abandoned 
to idleness and vice, where, with a climate and soil admitting 
in some spots of three or four crops in the year, not above a 
fourth part of the surface of the country is applied to any useful 
purpose, and where, with excellent facilities for commerce, the 
exports are less than those of some of our leading commercial 
towns. 2 "The Protestants of the United States," as Macaulay 
remarks, "have left far behind them the Eoman Catholics of 
Mexico, Peru, and Brazil ; the Roman Catholics of Lower Canada 
remain inert, while the whole continent round them is in a fer 
ment with Protestant activity and enterprise." 

It is so much easier for human nature to do evil than good 
that it is not wonderful that the Protestants on the Continent 

1 It has been estimated that the sum lost to Spain every holy-day or feast-day by the 
suspension of labour is 166,666, 13s. 4d., making an annual loss of nearly seven mil 
lions. Bell s Geography, vol. ii. 272, note. 

2 Christian Treasury (1846), p. 3f9. The writer informs us tkat 400,000 quarters of 
grain, on an average, need to be imported every year to prevent multitudes from perisu- 
ing by famine. 



246 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 

of Europe should, under the influence of Rome and of infidelity, 
have departed from the strict observance of the Sabbath which 
was for a long period maintained both in the Lutheran and 
Calvinistic churches. But when we bear in mind that this 
deviation, while at no time universal, has never proceeded to the 
same desecration of the institution as has prevailed among Roman 
ists, and that those churches have always enjoyed in connexion 
with the Lord s day the means of Christian instruction, together 
with freedom from the burden of numerous holidays, we are 
prepared for the state of things which actually exists, a measure 
of enterprise inferior to that of British and American Protestants, 
and yet beyond that of their Roman Catholic neighbours. 

In Switzerland what an improvement in every respect strikes 
the eye as you pass from Valais to Vaud, or from Lucerne to 
Zurich ! And how spiritless appears the town of Lucerne with 
its alternate shops of bijouterie and cigars, compared with the 
bustling Zurich, so like our Birmingham or Belfast, or with 
thriving Geneva, although all the three have the common advan 
tage of being situated near noble rivers and lakes ! " The Can 
tons of Zurich, Basle, Geneva, Neuchatel, Glarus, and Outer 
Appenzell, which are all Protestant, are distinguished above the 
rest by their industry. One circumstance is remarkable, namely, 
that almost all the manufacturing industry of Switzerland is 
found in the Protestant part of it, while the Catholics possess 
little or none. Very often, as in Appenzell, the line of demarca 
tion is quite sharply drawn. Manufactures and Protestantism 
cease at once, and give way to the herdsman and the shepherd ; 
and that, not because there is any sudden change in the natural 
features of the country, for the little Canton of Glarus, for in 
stance, is a high mountain land, and yet it abounds in industrial 
activity. But the people of Glarus are Protestants ; they have 
fewer fast-days and holidays ; and Protestantism awakens the 
powers of the mind, abates the influence of the priesthood, and 
teaches men to rely on their own exertions." 1 The writer 
observes that the same remark applies to Germany, where " of 
two villages close together, the Protestant community will be 
clean, industrious, and prosperous, while tLeir Catholic neighbours 

i Mugge s Switzerland in 1847, voL I pp. 202, 203. 



TO NATIONS. 247 

will remain always poor and dirty." 1 "Crossing St. Maurice s 
Bridge, our passports are inspected, and so we are free to enter 
Switzerland again from Savoy : the religion, Protestantism, seems 
at once to make all things cleaner, happier, and more prosperous ; 
never was a change more remarkable. English-looking breadth 
of tillage, vines and maize, and walnut groves and pleasant villages 
have succeeded to all their opposites and absences ; and so these 
go on improvingly all through the Canton de Vaud." 2 Turning 
from the Continent to our own country, we see Ireland, possessed 
of every advantage in soil, climate, minerals, rivers, and harbours, 
for agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, and yet surpassed 
considerably in the amount of national revenue, and in its shipping, 
by somewhat smaller, and far less populous Scotland, while her 
people, though remarkable for their shrewdness and vivacity, are 
in the mass characterized by ignorance, sloth, filth, a general state 
of mind bordering on the savage, and a social condition continually 
approximating to destitution and famine. But you require not to 
go out of Ireland to be convinced that the blame rests on its 
prevalent religion, for passing from the south or west into the 
north, u you cannot but feel that Ulster is at least fifty years 
ahead of its sister provinces in all the true elements of national 
progress ; and in its general aspect so much more resembles 
Britain than Ireland, that one could almost fancy some physical 
convulsion to have severed it from the one island, and attached it 
to the other." 3 This is the language of an Irishman, who also 
states that "in 1846, the Tidal Harbour Commissioners pro 
nounced Belfast the first town in Ireland for enterprise and com 
mercial prosperity. The revenue of its port increased during 
1786-1850, from 1500 to 29,000." Of the comparative 
progress of the principal ports in Ireland we may judge from the 
following figures : 

1797. 1842. 

Belfast, . , . . Tons 13,062 136,747 

Londonderry, . . 2,856 33,299 

Cork 13,424 87,925 

Dublin, 33,485 61,257 

i Mugge s Switzerland, vol. i. p. 203. 

3 Diary, by Paterfamilias (1856), p. 220. s Dill s Ireland s Miseries, pp. SO, SS. 



248 ADVANTAGES OP THE SABBATH 

There is, however, a higher species of activity than any that 
respects only our own material comforts. There is the enterprise 
that aims at the general good of society, and particularly its 
mental and moral improvement. It is necessary only to say here 
that no system has accomplished much good in this department, 
except in so far as it has reflected the light and radiated the heat 
which by means of the Sabbatic institution it has received from 
Revelation. 

The reason of all this spirit-stirring effect of the Christian 
weekly festival is no mystery. Its observance withstands the 
depressing influence of toil. It is a protection against the plea 
sures which dissipate mental energy, and enfeeble moral purpose. 
It introduces men into the encouraging and animating fellow 
ship of their fellow-creatures. And above all, it places them, 
consciously, under the Divine eye, which stirs into a correspond 
ingly pure and benevolent activity every feeling and faculty of 
their being. 

t No country can in the highest sense prosper without such a 
/ government as, by good laws faithfully administered, and con 
sistently exemplified by its rulers, discourages on the one hand 
injustice and oppression, and restrains on the other the encroach 
ments of a lawless liberty. And it would be impossible to name 
an expedient better adapted to prevent the extremes of despotism 
and weakness in a government than the Sabbatic institution. The 
Sabbath is a constant memorial and safeguard to the rulers and 
the rich to keep them from forgetting their duty and responsibility. 
It is a perpetual bulwark for all the sons and daughters of toil 
against the undue exaction of labour, and against encroachment on 
their property of a seventh part of their time. And effectual as 
it is for producing popular intelligence and virtue, there must 
spring up in the country that respects it those lawgivers and ma 
gistrates who will consult the rights and the welfare of high and 
low, rich and poor, and who, strong in their own character, as 
well as in the support of a sound public opinion, will be able to 
repress the risings of turbulence and disorder. How strikiE^rly 
does history confirm these views ! In the days of Solomon, 
when the Jewish religion, including its Sabbaths, was in full 
operation, Judah and Israel enjoyed abundant comforts and great 



TO NATIONS. 249 

prosperity, and the account of this state of things is followed by 
the significant words, " And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every 
man under his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan even to 
Beersheba, all the days of Solomon." " And Solomon s wisdom 
excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and 
all the wisdom of Egypt." 1 To the Sabbath did England in no 
small degree owe a government so puissant and beneficial as that 
of Cromwell, the happy domestic influence of which is admitted 
by Bishop Burnet, while its foreign aspect is eulogized by a no 
less unbiassed judge, Sir Walter Scott, who says, " Perhaps no 
government was ever more respected abroad." 2 To the Sabbath, 
as a principal cause, was Britain indebted for such a reign as that 
of William in., Prince of Orange, and for the superiority of our 
present constitution to the governments of Russia, France, and 
Italy, where the people are in chains, which the expansive spirit 
of a nation imbued with the influence of Christian truth and in 
stitutions, if we could suppose it thus fettered, would calmly 
break in pieces. The policy of those rulers, who amuse their 
subjects with frivolous objects on the Lord s day, that they may 
not by serious thought be led to discover that they are men and 
deeply injured men, may be cunning and successful for a time, 
but it is not wise, since its purpose is as short-sighted as it is 
unjust. The convulsions on the Continent in 1848 furnished 
impressive illustrations of this truth. It is a fact that these 
convulsions were more destructive in Roman Catholic kingdoms, 
where there was nothing entitled to the name of a Sabbath, than 
in Protestant communities, where the institution, inasmuch as it 
brought along with it the opportunities of a more rational worship 
and of better instruction, had not suffered so much deterioration. 
No Protestant prince lost his throne. And it is especially worthy 
of grateful remembrance that Britain, where, above almost all coun 
tries the Lord s day receives its meed, though far from its due meed 
of honour, stood firm and unscathed in all its interests amidst the 
shakings of the nations of Europe. " I see," says the Chevalier 
Bunsen, personating Hippolytus, " that you have erected most won 
derful factories and cotton "mills ; but you do not make the poor 

1 1 Kings iv. 20-34. 

2 Tales of a Grandfather, 8vo. (1848), p. 211. 



250 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 

people, men, women, and children, work in them on Sundays, as 
the Gauls [the French] do in their country. . . . You have 
known how to unite freedom with order, popular rights with a 
national aristocracy and hereditary monarchy, which union, our 
great heathen prophet Cicero said, would, if ever it could be 
brought to pass, form the most perfect of governments." l 

The prevailing tranquillity which is maintained by a wise and 
just government is of the greatest moment to all the enjoyments 
and interests of a country. Spain, Italy, and Ireland, might be 
pointed to as presenting obvious contrasts to such a state of 
things, and reference too might be made to those occasional scenes 
of outrage and bloodshed in countries usually peaceful, which 
enhance to the inhabitants their prevailing advantages. In 
Scotland, 1800 soldiers suffice to keep the peace, while Ireland 
required, for the eight years preceding 1852, troops numbering *at 
an average more than 25,000. Of these troops, scarcely 3000 
are found in Ulster, and except in its southern counties, even 
these are wholly unnecessary. Not a soldier is stationed between 
Belfast and Derry, a distance of seventy miles, embracing two most 
populous counties, and various large towns. Of the 13,000 police 
in Ireland, the number stationed in Ulster in 1851 was 1901, 
little more than a seventh of the force for a third of the popula 
tion. 2 What says M. de Montalembert, in name of a Commission 
reporting to the French Parliament in 1850 on Sabbath Obser 
vance ? After remarking that the Almighty conferred success and 
security on human labour in proportion as nations respect the 
Lord s day, he refers in proof to England and the United States, 
and says, "Witness that city London, the capital and focus of 
the commerce of the world, s where Sunday is observed with the 
most scrupulous care, and where two and a half millions of peo 
pie are kept in order by three battalions of infantry, and some 
troops of guards, while Paris requires the presence of 50,000 
men." 4 

The connexion thus observed to subsist between a Christian 

1 Bunsen s Hippolytus and his Age, vol. Ti. pp. 16, 17. 

2 Thorn s Statistics, quoted in Dill, pp. 74, 8?. 

3 " thou, resort and mart of all the earth. C 
* Rapport, etc. (1850), pp. 37, 38. 



TO NATIONS. 251 

institution and social order is not a matter of accident. From the 
whole preceding discussion in these pages, it follows that a 
Sabbath-keeping community will be healthy, intelligent, moral, and 
comfortable to the extent in which the influences of the institution 
are permitted to operate. Those who enjoy such blessings can 
have no interest in turmoil, or in mere change, and only the direst 
necessity would make them revolutionists, when all their feelings 
are in favour of peace and quiet. These men, too, can appreciate 
and make allowance for the difficulties of rulers, and their attempts 
at reformation will be rational and discreet. The meetings once 
a week of rich and poor prevent selfish insulation, remove igno 
rant prejudices, smooth asperities, cherish kindliness of feeling, 
create a mutual interest, teach lessons of civility, and promote 
refinement of taste and courtesy in manners. " The keeping one 
day in seven holy," says Blackstone, " as a time of relaxation and 
refreshment, as well as for public worship, is of admirable service 
to a State, considered merely as a civil institution. It humanizes, 
by the help of conversation and society, the manners of the lower 
classes, which would otherwise degenerate into a sordid ferocity 
and savage selfishness of spirit. It enables the industrious work 
man to pursue his occupation in the ensuing week with health and 
cheerfulness ; it imprints on the minds of the people that sense of 
their duty to God, so necessary to make them good citizens ; but 
which yet would be worn out and defaced by an unrernitted con 
tinuance of labour without any stated times of recalling them to 
the worship of their Maker." 1 He might have extended his 
remarks to other classes of society. There are those besides the 
lower orders who can be selfish and disorderly, noted for family 
broils, and for their breaches of the public peace, but a truthful 
biography of such characters would let us see that those who do 
such things neither relish the business, nor experience the tran 
quillizing pleasures of a sacred resting day. The saying of Burke, 
that " whatever alienates man from God, must needs disunite man 
from man," holds good of all classes. Let us again borrow a few 
sentences from Bunsen s Ilippolytus. After remarking, as already 
quoted, that our manufacturing people are not, like the Gauls [the 
French], condemned to Sunday labour, he thus proceeds : " You 

1 Blaokstone s Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 6d. 



252 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 

have, like them, labourers and mechanics, aspiring to better their 
condition ; but yours prefer working, and quietly associating 
together, to the making of revolutions, and plunging others and 
themselves into misery. You have ragged children ; but you 
clothe and educate them for useful work, instead of enlisting them 
as soldiers to kill their fellow- citizens ; and they like learning to 
read and to work, rather than making an attempt to convulse 
society by their votes, and to subvert order by arms. 
You have just shown to the world the practical effect of the prin 
ciple on which your social arrangements are based. People on the 
Continent believed (or tried to make others believe) that the 
gathering of so many hundreds of thousands of your working and 
labouring men around the spectacle of the Great Exhibition would 
be the signal, if not of famine and pestilence, certainly of revolution 
and bloodshed. But I have seen them surround their Queen with 
respectful affection : and far from any disturbance taking place, 
good-will and good-humour and plenty never have reigned more 
paramount anywhere than during these months among you. Now 
when I ask myself, since what time you have possessed this liberty 
and enjoyed this peace and tranquillity, I cannot help remarking 
that you owe it all to that godly reform you began to make of 
Christianity about three hundred years ago." 1 

The occasion, however although ever to be deprecated may 
call for the defence of a land against domestic or foreign foes. 
And who are the men best prepared in such a crisis to stand by 
their sanctuaries and hearths ? The very persons who have by 
means of the Sabbath been disciplined not less to energy, enter 
prise, self-reliance, and physical strength, than to all the finer 
and gentler feelings of humanity. Macaulay describes Cromwell s 
army as one that never found, either in the British Islands or on the 
Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset as startling and 
delighting Turenne by its fearless energy ; and mentions a brigade, 
outnumbered by foes and abandoned by allies, which nevertheless 
drove before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain. He 
lets us into the secret of all this power, when he says, " But that 
which chiefly distinguished the army of Cromwell from other 
armies was the austere morality, and the fear of God which per- 

1 Bunsen s Hipvolytus t vol. li. pp. 16-18. 



TO NATIONS. 25 S 

vaded all ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous royalists 
that in that singular camp no oath was heard, no drunkenness or 
gambling was seen, and that during the long dominion of the 
soldiery, the property of the peaceable citizen and the honour of 
women were held sacred." 1 Thus "the people that do know 
their God are strong and do exploits." It was ever so in the 
history of the Jews, down to the time of the Maccabees* When 
they forgot their religion and its Sabbaths they became weak and 
dastardly, and were finally reduced to a condition of abject 
dependence and servitude. In France as compared with Britain, 
in Spain as compared with Holland, in South as compared with 
North America, we find proofs that the people whose character, 
mental, moral, and corporeal, has been deteriorated by ignor 
ance, superstition, and the pursuits of frivolity and pleasure, are 
surpassed in energy and prowess by the men who have, through 
the Scriptures and the institutions of Christianity, imbibed the 
spirit of faith and courage, and had their intellectual and physical 
powers trained to activity and endurance. And who are those 
that at the close of a war return to their homes and ordinary 
avocations, without having been corrupted by the life of a camp 
or the excitements of the battle-field, and blend again in general 
society without the slightest disturbance of its order and peace r i 
The men who, like Cromwell s warriors, have learned by the 
lessons of the Sabbath that war is not a matter of desire or taste 
but a painful necessity, and that " the post of honour is a private* 
station." The historian proceeds to record the following remark 
able facts connected with the disbandment of the army whose 
virtue and bravery in the campaign he had eulogized. " Fifty 
thousand men, accustomed to the profession of arms, were at once 
thrown on the world ; and experience seemed to warrant the 
belief that this change would produce much misery and crime, 
that the discharged veterans would be seen begging in every street, 
or would be driven by hunger to pillage. But no such result 
followed. In a few months, there remained not a trace indicating 
that the most formidable army in the world had just been absorbed 

1 Macaulay s History of England, vol. i. p. 122. How different from the following j 
* No woman s honour is safe in any village through which a French detachment hap 
pens to be passing." Letters from Turin.- Daily Kxprett, June 82, 1869. 

12 



254 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 

into the mass of the community. The royalists themselves con 
fessed that in every department of honest industry, the discardeo 
warriors prospered beyond other men, that none was charged with 
any theft or robbery, that none was heard to ask an alms, and 
that if a baker, a mason, or a waggoner attracted notice by his 
diligence or sobriety, he was in all probability one of Oliver s old 
soldiers." 1 

When a society is characterized in its successive generations by 
a growing measure of health and longevity, it is generally re 
garded as in an improving condition. And what sound-minded 
person can doubt that the cultivation of the virtues of respect for 
life, industry, temperance, and providence, together with the im 
proved physical comforts which such a condition implies, not to 
mention the pleasures of health itself, must presuppose as well as 
contribute to national wealth, energy, and happiness 1 When we 
compare the present state of our own country with that of de 
graded and short-lived savage tribes, with that of half-civilized 
China, where so many of the young are left to perish, or even 
with that of Europe, in those times when fell diseases created so 
much alarm and calamity, we have an impressive illustration of 
the blessings included in the increasing duration of human life. 
But England teaches us the same lesson in another way, for while 
" the value of life is greater there than in any country in the 
world," 2 with all other elements of greatness and prosperity in 
proportion, she presents over-against these honours the spectacle 
of life in its lowest form of discomfort and abbreviation. We see 
a large class destroyed for lack of knowledge of the simplest sani 
tary rules, of the plainest principles of political economy, and 
especially of those intellectual and moral subjects which, above all 
other means, dignify, bless, and prolong the life of man. We see 
a vast number the victims of crimes, which not only in many in 
stances entail capital punishment, but as connected with imprison 
ment and other sufferings, are equivalent to 30 years tear and 
wear of life, the criminal of 35 years being 65 years old in con 
stitution, and by imprisonment itself increase exactly fourfold the 
chances of death. 3 And we see tens of thousands ruined by vice, 

1 Macaulay s History of England, vol. i. p. 15-*. 

* Dr. S. Smith s Philosophy of Health, vol. i. (1851), p. HT. 3 Ibid. p. 108. 



TO NATIONS. 256 

avarice, vanity, ambition, luxury, indolence, intemperance, and 
other abettors of the claims of the grave. " The death-rate in 
Great Britain," said Mr. Chadwick, at the recent Social Science 
Congress in Glasgow, " may be stated in round numbers alto 
gether at half-a-million annually. On an analysis of the causes 
of death with a knowledge of the present state of sanitary science, 
it is declared by others than myself that one-half may be pre 
vented, and that, too, not by rudimentary, but by tried and well- 
ascertained means." Who can compute the moral, physical, and 
social evils involved in so many deaths with their foregoing suf 
ferings, the guilt of so many human sacrifices to human passions, 
the lamentation, mourning, and woe of the sufferers and sur 
vivors, the destitution to which so many widows and orphans 
are reduced, and the irreparable injury to society from lost labour, 
superadded burdens, increased disease, and multiplied crimes 1 

Science teaches us that many of such evils are preventible, and 
that, though there are bounds to life which cannot be passed, 
human beings might be so circumstanced, and might so act as to 
fill up happily the measure of their days. In confirmation of this 
position, it points to the higher average life attained by some 
nations and classes than by others, and to cases of countries, dis 
tricts, and towns, where comparative health is enjoyed by all 
orders of the population. It is deeply to be regretted, however, 
that writers on sanitary reform, not fully applying the Baconian 
principle of gathering truth from a sufficient induction of particu 
lars, have failed in so many instances to discover the root of the 
prevailing evil to be impiety, and to learn that all appliances 
which are not guided by this fact are mere palliatives, not 
remedies. 

To one sanitary expedient this objection does not apply, for if 
there be any expression which the amplest evidence has proved 
to indicate more comprehensively than another the instrumen 
tality by which so much waste of life is to be prevented, and the 
benefits of general and prolonged health are to be secured, it is 
to be found in the words, " Remember the Sabbath-day to keep 
it holy." For that evidence we refer to the preceding pages, and 
to a few statements now to be submitted, with the view of show- 
ing that the condition of large classes of men, in respect of health, 



256 ADTANTAGES OP THE SABBATH 

bodily vigour, and longevity, according as they have laboured or 
rested on the Sabbath, is actually such as from the physical adap 
tations, and salutary effects in particular instances of the institu 
tion, might have been anticipated. 

The countries of Europe where the duration of life varies most 
widely are England and Italy, and it will be admitted that no 
two countries differ more in their treatment of the day of sacred 
rest. While, as already remarked, the value of life is in no part 
of the world higher than in England, " the proportion of deaths 
to the whole number of inhabitants is greater in Italy than in 
any country of Europe," l It does not affect our conclusion, that 
this excessive mortality is owing in good part to undrained 
marshes and swamps. Let the refusal of Rome to accept the offer 
of Englishmen to remove the causes of fatal malaria set aside the 
apology, and show, moreover, what a change of religious institu 
tions would do for the health of Italy. The intermediate rates of 
mortality in Russia, Austria, Sweden, Belgium, and Holland, and 
France, are not at variance with the results which their religious 
observances would lead us to expect. According to a census pre 
sented to Parliament, the proportion of sickness in the different 
provinces of Ireland was as follows : Ulster, 1 in 47 36 ; Lein- 
ster, 1 in 22-63 ; Connaught, 1 in 20-19 ; and Munster, 1 in 
11-78. The lowest average life, in short, is to be found -among 
savage men, criminals, prisoners, and slaves, who either have no 
knowledge of a holy Sabbath, or recklessly disregard it, while 
"the best lives" are to be found in Great Britain, and there 
among the " multitude that go to the house of God, that keep 
holy day." It has been said, that among the humbler provident 
classes who enrol themselves members of friendly societies in this 
country, there is experienced a prolonged duration of life above 
all others. 2 Not to mention how much the existence of a Sab 
bath in a land, and its observance by many, influence all classes 
to some extent, and contribute to the formation of such societies, 
we believe it will be found that the members who generally com 
pose them are at the same time members of Christian churches. 
And it is indeed one of the glories of Christianity and its Sabbath, 

1 System of Universal Geography founded on the works ofMalte Brun and Balbi, p. 56i 
Burton s PoUt. and Soe. Econ. (1849), pp. 76, 77. 



TO NATIONS. 257 

that a class of men are thereby elevated from circumstances which 
depress and cut short the earthly existence of their fellows, to a 
degree of comfort and a measure of life equal to those of their 
wealthier brethren, and proper to their rank as men. 

In the same way would health and length of days become, 
much more than they are at present, the inheritance of society at 
large. Most certainly, if ignorance were generally enlightened, if 
crime and vice were everywhere suppressed, if labour were in all 
cases regulated by a due regard to human strength, and if people 
had comfortable dwellings, sufficient food, pure air, and cleanly 
persons, that happiness of individuals and nations arising from a 
pleasurable and protracted life would be realized which is thus 
with exquisite beauty described " There shall be no more thence 
an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days ; 
for the child shall die an hundred years old. And they shall build 
houses, and inhabit them ; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat 
the fruit of them. For as the days of a tree are the days of my 
people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." 
Let us mark the closing words of the magnificent account 
"And it shall come to pass, that from one Sabbath to another, 
shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord." 1 

On the importance of a prevailing morality to the welfare of 
a State it would be superfluous to enlarge. Let falsehood be 
general, and all confidence would be subverted. Abounding 
idleness would be abounding penury. If crime were unrestrained, 
where would be the security for property, the inducements to in 
dustry, economy, and improvement, or the opportunity for culti 
vating science and literature ? A community corrupted by luxury 
and vice is always regarded as ready to become the prey of some 
powerful neighbour, or to waste away under poverty and disease. 
The greatest empires and many petty kingdoms have perished, 
the victims of their own wickedness. But for the check of a 
public morality, society generally would in due time reach the 
crisis of those tribes which have cast themselves out of the pale 
of civilisation and law ; might become right, industry discarded, 
the land uncultivated, war and plunder the chief occupations, 
famine, pestilence, and death following in the train of sloth, iguo- 

i Isaiah Ixv. 20-22 ; IxvL 23. 



258 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 

ranee, and rapacity, and the scene enacted in many places which 
was witnessed in a Polynesian island, where the three or four 
survivors of an exterminating war contended who should be king. 
But where is the security for a morality, which, not merely arrest 
ing decay, will impel society onward in a course of continual 
improvement 1 Let us learn from the dissolute manners of the 
Babylonians ; from " the private debauchery and public profli 
gacy in which the Greeks and Eomans were steeped ; " from the 
impure and cruel rites of idolatry ; from the powerlessness of 
Islamism to preserve its adherents from vice, and its countries 
from degradation ; from the incapacity of a corrupt Christianity, 
as in Spain, Italy, and Ireland, to stay the plague of moral evil, 
and to throw off the gangrene of political decline ; and from the 
inroads of infidelity and immorality on continental and British 
Protestantism, let us learn from, all these facts that there is no 
sure provision for a conservative and elevating national virtue in 
science, literature, the arts, or in any religion that is without a 
weekly day devoted exclusively to rest and to the occupations and 
pleasures of a rational earnest piety. That the Sabbath as thus 
observed is the security for the morals and consequent preserva 
tion and advancement of nations, appears not only from the failure 
of all other expedients to secure these results, but from the uni 
form success in attaining them, which has distinguished the insti 
tution. The authorities in France, civil and ecclesiastical, began 
a few years ago to perceive that something better than a conti 
nental Sabbath is required, as was evinced in the efforts of M. de 
Montalembert, and of the Archbishop of Paris, to expose and cor 
rect its enormities. It would be well that foreigners who are 
desirous of promoting the observance of the Lord s day, would 
ponder the peculiarities which have imparted to the practice in 
this country a salutary influence such as they have not failed to 
observe and acknowledge, and that those Englishmen, too, who 
sigh for a continental license in this matter, would weigh the 
same subject in connexion with the failure of holidays in neigh 
bouring countries to secure the morality of the people, and the 
prosperity and stability of States. Let both classes reflect on 
what constitutes the power of an institution which has done so 
much to make Britain a great country, and which is the means 



TO NATIONS. 259 

of raising up every year thousands from among those whom their 
o\vn Sabbath-breaking and that of others have sunk in the lowest 
moral and social degradation, to the dignified position of virtue, 
usefulness, and comfort. Let them remember that there must be 
some admirable contrivance and energy in an instrument which 
has without an exception been employed in producing those re 
markable changes of character, from a slothfulness hardly admit 
ting of the moderate exertion necessary for cooking food to dili 
gence in cultivating the soil, building comfortable dwellings, and 
engaging in commerce ; from a total recklessness of life to feelings 
of mercy towards man and beast ; from the desire of plunder to 
respect for property ; from lawless libertinism to conjugal affec 
tion and fidelity, which have crowned missionary efforts in 
heathen lands, and been among the glories of our age. If they 
considered these things, and drew the necessary inference that 
what has accomplished such results among all classes of men 
must be capable of accomplishing them universally, they could 
not but feel the obligation imposed upon them to cease from the 
suicidal, unpatriotic, unphila^ithropic policy of ridiculing and 
opposing the sacred Sabbath, and to unite with its friends in 
maintaining its sanctity and extending its blessings. 

Another element in social prosperity and happiness one on 
which political economists place much reliance, and which has 
existed, as well as been beneficial in its operation, precisely in pro 
portion to the observance of the Christian Sabbath is a generally 
diffused intelligence. Knowledge is the parent and nurse of those 
arts which abridge human labour, multiply our comforts, and em 
bellish and refine society. There are two great evils to which it 
is in no small degree an antidote. It is well ascertained that 
disease prevails and destroys in many casss where intelligence on 
the part of its victims would have arrested its progress, or even 
prevented its attack ; that for want of the due exercise of the 
mental faculties whole tribes of human beings physically degene 
rate, and that from ignorance many others prematurely perish. 
Let men be properly instructed ; and aware of the causes of injury 
to health, they will avoid them as they now eschew poison. 
For poverty, also, a principal remedy is to be found in the gene 
ral information of the people. Impart instruction to an indivi- 



260 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 

dual, and he acquires a self-respect which will make him unwill 
ing to depend on the bounty of others, and he will therefore strive 
against sinking into penury. Intelligence will suggest to him 
reasons for providence and plans of economy. It will induce a 
readiness to discern the symptoms of a decaying trade, or of a 
threatened scarcity of employment, with a promptitude in turning 
to some other means of support, and the ability to meet the de 
mands for a superior kind of work. Agricultural labourers in 
some parts of this country have, it is alleged, been prevented from 
going in quest of employment by " profound ignorance of every 
thing connected with the countries whither they would be sent." 1 
" The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because 
he knoweth not how to go to the city." It is the peculiarity of 
work of every kind, as a writer observes, that a small addition to 
the expertness makes a large addition to the remuneration, and 
that the higher the grade the more marked is this difference. The 
superior education of the Scotsman, accordingly, gives him an ad 
vantage wherever he goes. His " knowledge is power " to adapt 
himself to circumstances, and to do^vhat others cannot do ; power, 
therefore, to raise himself above want, and to get on in the world. 
And what is thus for the benefit of the individual is for the com 
mon good. We find employers attesting that " educated work 
men turn out the greatest quantity of the best work in the best 
manner;" that " the educated and cultivated workpeople of all 
ages are decidedly the best ; more valuable as mechanics, because 
more regular in their habits, and more to be relied on in their 
work ;" and that " their best servants are those who have been 
taught in their youth." The importance of intelligence on the 
part of those servants on railways, and in other situations, to whom 
in our day so great and dangerous powers are intrusted, it is im 
possible adequately to estimate. 

1 This has been said of labourers in the south of England. The following furnishes 
toth a contrast and a counterpart : " I am old enough to remember the Highland 
tenantry of Scotland driven in multitudes from a soil to which their race had for ages 
been attached, nearly in a state of serfage, to make room, as is the case in Hungary, 
for sheep ; and I had afterwards the happy opportunity of seeing the poor High 
landers attaining the means of independent living amidst the wilds of America ; but 
the wretched serfs of Hungary have neither the intelligence nor the means to find w 
totes s*d an asylum."- A uftria and the Austrians, /el. i. p. 19. 



TO NATIONS. 261 

There remains to be noticed one more requisite to social pro 
sperity a pure religion. The conviction that the public recogni 
tion of a Supreme Being is indispensable to the good of society 
has been all but universal. The exceptions are like the monstrosi 
ties in nature, which do not disprove the existence of pervading 
general laws. When a Berkeley affirms the impossibility of mat 
ter, and a Hume fancies himself to be constituted, as described in 
four lines suggested for inscription on his monument 

" Within this circular idea, 
Called vulgarly a tomb, 
The impressions and ideas rest, 
That constituted Hume " l 

such paradoxes are regarded as no more affecting the common rule 
of faith in the existence of matter and mind than any lusus does 
the ordinary course of nature. So the rare and unnatural ap 
pearance of a man who discards all religion proves nothing against 
it, if it does not strengthen, as exceptions do a rule, the evidence 
in its favour. The extravagance of opinion occasionally uttered 
on such a subject may be fitly compared to the aberrations of the 
person who conceives himself made of glass, or of the beggar who 
imagines himself a king, with this difference, that the views of 
the sceptic admit not of the apology of mental hallucination, but 
have originated, as the recantations of infidelity have afterwards 
proved, in some criminal passion. Mankind from Numa Pom- 
pilius downwards have been convinced that society cannot go on 
without religion. Even Robert Owen, who said so much against 
it, and did so little without it, was constrained at last to call in 
the aid of a supernatural element. 

This general consent is itself a strong proof of the importance 
of religion to social prosperity, but it is impressively confirmed b;y 
the miserable situation, verging on dissolution, of all those com 
munities in which the religious element has through neglect or 
violence been almost or altogether extinguished. It has been 
supposed that some savage tribes have no notion of a God, as 
they have no name for him in their language. Among the 
Esquimaux and the aborigines of New Holland, the impression of 

i Lines by Mr. George IJarrlnv. Christ Mag. (1813), p. ail. 

12* 



262 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 

a Supreme Being was too feeble to inspire any religious worship. 
There was a class of the Tambookies, an African tribe, who dis 
regarded what their parents said of Tixo, the Creator and Preserver 
of all things, considering them old and ignorant people, and said 
to the Moravian missionaries, "As we left off believing in God, 
you came to instruct us and to tell us more than our fathers and 
ancestors knew." All these may be said to belong to the very 
lowest class of human beings, and prove that man s descent as a 
religious being, and his prostration as a rational and social 
creature, are in melancholy coincidence and proportion. Nor will 
civilisation protect against decline or anarchy the nations that 
have been smitten with a prevailing infidelity. Witness Greece 
before its loss of liberty, Rome at the wane of the republic, Italy 
amidst the corruption of its Church and State, and France before 
its first revolution. 1 The most remarkable of these is France, 
which is perhaps the only country that infidelity ever conquered 
to its views, and which amidst the reflected light of sixty centuries, 
and the blaze of civilisation, ventured on the tremendous experi 
ment of proclaiming independence of Heaven ; at one fell swoop 
abrogating the Sabbath, abolishing worship, and abjuring the 
faith of immortality and of a God ! The results are well known 
- the disruption of all social bonds, the opening of the flood 
gates of immorality and crime, and an incalculable amount of 
misery, all tending to the sure and speedy ruin of the nation. 
Meanwhile the very mimicry of religion in their decades, in their 
goddess and temples of reason, in their orations and hymns in 
honour of their deities, was a tribute to the necessity of rest, 
instruction, and worship of some sort the counterfeit confessing 
the felt need of the real the new expedients, so grotesque and 
pitiful, while they betrayed man s helplessness without all religion, 
showing how shallow and idiotic his schemes are to contrive and 
provide a substitute. And the testimony in favour of religion 
received its full triumph, when the forced return of a proud people 
to their ancient faith, such as it was, attested that the civilized no 
less than the barbarous require a God, a religion, and a Sabbath, 
and when by the earliness of the return it was demonstrated 
that the reins of government could not even for a brief spaca 

1 Douglas s Truths of Religion, p. 12. 



TO NATIONS. 263 

be intrusted to the hands of Atheism without involving general 
ruin, any more than Phaeton could for- a day attempt to guide 
the steeds and chariot of the sun without setting the world on 
fire. 

Although, however, infidelity has been tried and found wanting, 
it does not follow that every system claiming the name of religionr 
should be adapted for much good to society. It is a pure religion 
which statesmen and political economists affirm to be important 
to social prosperity. We must judge of systems by their fruits. 
It is hardly necessary to say that the religions of savage nations 
will not stand this test. The New Zealanclers had the idea of a 
Great Spirit, who thundered, brought the wind, and was the cause 
of any unforeseen loss of property or life, but they were neverthe 
less cannibals, and as far advanced in 1642 as they were a cen 
tury later. The Polynesian nations without an exception enter 
tained the belief of a Supreme Being, and yet their notions of the 
Deity were too gross and absurd to prevent exterminating wars 
and wasting licentiousness. Such are all savage tribes, except 
those who have sunk to the still lower depth of utter depression, 
which some have mistaken for simplicity and innocence. When 
we turn to nations of a superior grade, we shall find that none 
but those that have embraced Christianity have ever reached a 
complete civilisation. The religions of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, 
the most perfect ancient faith, failed to banish the most cruel 
customs, to humanize the upper classes, or to enlighten and elevate 
the great body of the people. And the creeds of Confucius, 
Mohammed, Brahma, and Boodh, have for ages down to the 
present day held multitudes of the human race in abject bondage, 
general poverty, and deep depravity. The difference, in short, 
of Europe and North America from the other regions of the earth, 
is the exponent of the superiority of the Christian to every other 
faith. 

But the name Christian itself has been claimed by a variety of 
sects, entertaining opinions very dissimilar, and requiring us to 
apply the test by which we discriminate Christian from non- 
Christian systems, their practical results. The chief of these 
parties are the Roman Catholic, Greek, and Protestant churches. 
There must be some superior vitality common to the creed of 



264 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH 

those Churches, to account for the superior social condition of 
their members to that of the whole world besides, but there must 
also be more life in Protestantism than in the other systems, in 
the ratio of its more salutary influence on the countries where it 
prevails. Roman Catholics themselves will admit, with one of 
their own journalists, that "unquestionably since 1789, the 
balance of power between Catholic and non-Catholic civilisation 
has been reversed." The evidence of history, much of which has 
been already presented, would support a more unqualified con 
fession. But it is sufficient to add that, while Protestant mis 
sions have raised men of every clime from the lowest condition to 
all the decencies, and to many of the comforts of civilized life, 
Rome has signally failed here, and for the reason assigned in the 
following words, a reason no less applicable to its comparative 
inefficiency at home : " The Church of Rome represses independ 
ent judgment and action, keeps its heathen nephytes submissive 
and in fetters, keeps them as it finds them, children. In Para 
guay, in India, in every place where they have planted the cross, 
this has been a result, and never in a heathen country have we 
seen any national progress, social or religious, grow out of the 
propagation of the faith." 1 

But amidst the various creeds of nominal Protestants some 
of them " wide as the poles asunder" we have to inquire for 
the specific faith which most favourably influences the state of 
society. That Unitarianism is not entitled to this honour might 
be presumed from the closeness of its approximation to infidelity, 
and actually appears from its tried incapacity to propagate and 
maintain itself. We are saved the necessity of leading a proof of 
the former assertion by the admission of the great champion of the 
system, Dr. Priestley, who, in writing to Mr. Theophilus Lindsey 
respecting President Jefferson, said : " He is generally reported to 
be an unbeliever, but if so, you know he cannot be far from us." 2 
The other assertion is established by the history of Unitarianism. 
Let the following facts speak for the rest. In Massachusetts, the 
stronghold of the system in America, while the Puritans were 
successfully employed in forming a Christian community in the 

1 Quarterly Review, voL xciv. p. 184. 
* Robert Hall s Works, vol. v. p. 1S4. 



TO NATIONS. 265 

Sandwich Islands, which would on the whole bear advantageous 
comparison with that of the best regulated societies of the old 
world, 1 their Socinian neighbours were utterly indifferent to the 
claims of the Pagan world. While, according to Dr. Pierce, one 
of themselves, their settled ministers had, in the course of the 
years 1812-1846, decreased from 138 to 124, those of orthodox 
opinions had in the same period increased from 197 to 417. A 
writer who quotes these statistics remarks that Unitarianism had 
made little progress in the other States, that its professors show 
little interest in propagating their faith, and that during the 
years to which Dr. Pierce refers, evangelical Christianity had 
given existence to the Home and Foreign Bible and Tract So 
cieties, and had covered the entire West with churches, academies, 
and schools, while Unitarianism had maintained a kind of dying 
life almost exclusively within a single State. 2 The want of dif 
fusive and moral power in the creed as held in this country, was 
fully exposed by Hall and Fuller, till its friends, probably pro 
voked by such strictures, and constrained by surrounding example, 
were led to make some feeble attempts to extend their views. 
Altogether it appears that Unitarianism is a parasitic plant which, 
having no hold of the soil, has struck its roots into other plants, 
and thence derives its scanty nourishment and feeble growth. 
Where would have been its fruits, such as they are, if it had not 
been for the trees of life and their healthful atmosphere, from 
which it has received aliment and support 1 

Nor is the Protestantism which steers a middle course between 
the Socinian and Evangelical schemes fitted to make much head 
against social evils. We refer to the creed intended by Sir James 
Mackintosh, when he represents those who preached works, or the 
mere regulation of outward acts, as having comparatively failed 
to make a favourable impression on public morals. 3 This creed 
has been fully tried in Protestant countries on the Continent as 
well as in England and Scotland, for both abroad and at home 
there have been predominant classes who have avowed and de 
fended it, notwithstanding that they have subscribed another and 
a better. And we have only to look to the extensive symbolizing 

Quarterly Review, vol. xciv. p. 61. 2 Christian Times, Jan. 27, 1854. 

tTfmmrs, vol. i. ]&gt;. 411. 



266 ADVANTAGES OF THE SABBATH TO NATIONS. 

of continental Protestantism with Romanism or with infidelity, 
and to the utter inefficacy of High Churchism in England, and of 
Moderatism in Scotland to leaven our people, not to mention 
foreigners, with Christian principle and character, to be convinced 
that "the pure religion" which the best interests of society 
demand has yet to be named. 

That " pure religion" is principally to be found where the doc 
trines of the Reformation are in good faith embraced, as they are 
by many on the Continent, by the evangelical clergy and people 
of the established churches of England and Scotland, by far the 
larger proportion of the dissenters of both countries, and by great 
numbers in North America, to whom might be added our Protest 
ant missionaries to a man. It is by the men of these views that 
all our great institutions for the circulation of the Scriptures, for 
Christianizing the heathen, and for the religious instruction of the 
neglected of all classes at home, have been originated and are 
sustained. In almost every scheme for promoting the temporal 
good of society, it is men of these views that take the lead and the 
labour. And it is persons of this class who, fully maintaining and 
carrying out the principles, most largely experience the blessings 
of the Sabbatic rest as these principles and blessings are thus 
associated : " If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from 
doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the Sabbath a de 
light, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and shalt honour him, 
not doing thine own ways, nor rinding thine own pleasure, nor 
speaking thine own words : then shalt thou delight thyself in the 
Lord ; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the 
earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father ; for the 
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 1 

i IBS. Iviii. IS, 1& 



DIVINE ORIGIN OP THE SABBATH. 267 



CHAPTER VII. 

APPLICATION OF PRECEDING PRINCIPLES AND FACTS IN 
PROOF OF THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH. 

"If this counsel or work be of man, it will come to nought; but if it be of God 
ye cannot overthrow it." GAMALIEL. 

FROM the principles and facts set forth in the immediately pre 
ceding part of this volume, it appears that a weekly holy day 
cannot be dispensed with, if health, intelligence, religion, virtue, 
and happiness be of importance to mankind. There are some, 
however, who accord to the institution no slight measure of the 
credit due to it as an instrument of good, without yielding up 
their minds to the faith of its Divine authority. Such persons, 
it seems to us, neglect to follow out the light of evidence to its 
legitimate conclusions, and thus subject themselves to the imputa 
tion of inconsistency. Let us, following that light, attempt to 
show, that the considerations which evince the excellence and 
utility of the weekly rest, concur with other things in attesting 
that it is the contrivance, appointment, and charge of Heaven. 

" Paley has deduced an argument, for this world being the 
work of an intelligent cause, from the relation of sleep to night. 
He says, It appears to me to be a relation which was expressly 
intended. Two points are manifest ; first, that the animal frame 
requires sleep ; secondly, that night brings with it a silence, and 
a cessation of activity, which allows of sleep being taken without 
interruption, and without loss. . . . But what the rest of sleep 
is to the body, the repose of the Sabbath is to the soul. An argu 
ment less apparently demonstrative, because more refined and in 
tellectual, might be deduced from the appointment of the Sabbath, 
that God is the Author of revelation" [and of the Sabbath], " as 
well as that He is the Author of nature from the relation of sleep to 



268 DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH. 

night. The body demands, by the necessity of its nature, a certain 
period of relaxation from toil ; but the mind, ever active, though not 
always active to [good] purpose, requires a positive rest, prescribed 
to it, in order that, by interrupting the ordinary chain of its 
thoughts, it may profit by a cessation of its usual cares ; and, 
since it cannot cease to think, may at least have a complete change 
of thought, at fixed intervals, which is its proper repose. Nor 
by this cessation or interchange of labour is the work which it is 
pursuing delayed. The mind reverts with a new energy to the 
object which for a season it has ceased to pursue. These pauses 
are common in the development of all organized beings." 1 

The Sabbath must have been the suggestion of infinite bene 
volence. Human beings are naturally selfish, but the selfish 
think only of themselves, and are neither inventive nor ready, 
neither exuberant nor painstaking, with expedients for relieving 
the misery or promoting the happiness of others. Many, indeed, 
of the race have become truly benevolent, but we have no evidence 
that they acquired the character in any other way than through 
the religion of the Sabbath. It is only in countries where that 
religion has existed that benevolent institutions have been 
known. 2 It is in the lands, at least, in which the Sabbath flour 
ishes that charity abounds. It is the classes and individuals of these 
lands who reverence the institution that are pre-eminent for bene 
ficence. The selfishness of man would not originate the benignant 
airangement ; the benevolence of man came too late to contrive 
what already existed. But other considerations decide the matter 
not only against human, but against all creature claims. The 
Sabbath embraces in its provisions too large an extent of good 
for creatures to have imagined, evolves in its course beneficial 
tendencies which no finite mind could have foreseen, and attains 
its objects with an unfailing certainty which no dependent being 
could have commanded proving itself to have had its source in 
the deep thoughts and warm feelings of a Divine heart. 

The adaptations of the institution proclaim it to have been the 
device of Divine wisdom. The schemes and works of man, after 

1 Address by Douglas of Cavers on Slavery, Sabbath Protection, etc., pp. 35-37. 
8 China has been lately held to be an exception to the remark-, but on gronnds whicfc 
require further elucidation. 



PROOFS FROM REASON. 2S9 

the greatest care and labour have been expended on them, exhibit 
palpable marks of imperfection, but the Sabbath has never needed 
improvement. Human legislation, regulated as it is by endlessly 
diversified and continually changing peculiarities of place and 
time, must frequently be enlarged, modified, or abrogated, but the 
Sabbath has for ages stood out from week to week a reproach to 
all earthly ordinances a glorious monument of unerring legis 
lative skill. While other regular divisions of time as day and 
night, the month and year were made to man s hand in nature, 
there was nothing of this kind, nothing in the revolutions of the 
heavenly bodies, to guide him to the adoption of the seventh day 
for any purpose, but, nevertheless, the week, including in not a 
few instances a sacred day, has prevailed in many parts of the 
world from a remote antiquity. No people without a Sabbath 
have ever of their own impulse introduced it. After a long-con 
tinued experience of its value in some countries, there are numer 
ous instances in which persons show sometimes by their language, 
more frequently by their conduct, that they account it a burden 
and a curse. Notwithstanding all the regard which many have 
ever entertained for it, its excellence is still far from being fully 
understood and appreciated even by the wise and good. How 
much light has but lately been thrown on its importance to the 
welfare of society ! That a seventh day of sacred rest renders 
the labour of six days more remunerative than would be that of 
seven under a system of unremitting toil, and that it interposes a 
barrier against the enslaving of mankind, are proofs of the pro 
found wisdom of the institution which it was reserved for recent 
times to bring into clearer view, if not entirely to discover. It is 
one thing, moreover, to see and unfold the merits of a discovery, 
and altogether another thing to make it. To the origination, in 
short, of an institution, proved to be adapted to the whole con 
stitution and circumstances of mankind, there was indispensable 
so large a measure of knowledge, as to make it manifest that the 
claim by the Author of the Sabbath to omniscience itself would 
be no arrogance, and His exercise of the attribute no difficulty. 

The sanctity of the Sabbath is a further evidence of its Divine 
original. The ordinance is too sacred for human beings to desire 
or even to think of. They could have imagined and wished a 



270 DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE SABBATH. 

day of rest, but judging from the views and feelings of those who 
slight or scorn the present Sabbath (and the formation of a differ 
ent character is one of the results and triumphs of the institution), 
there is in it, as a day of worship and holy rest, a class of quali 
ties the reverse of those which man esteems and loves. But " of 
thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble-bush gather they 
grapes. An evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth 
forth that which is evil." The Sabbath was evidently made for 
man, but not by man. Its author must have been divinely holy, 
as well as divinely benignant, intelligent, and wise. 

Our position is established also by the justice of an arrangement 
which shows no respect of persons, prescribing the same duties 
and securing the same privileges alike to rich and poor, kings and 
subjects. 

The preceding proofs respect the Sabbath as a contrivance, to 
the conception and origination of which, as has been shown, only 
a Divine being was competent. But to be of any avail, the 
institution must be adopted and employed by those for whose 
benefit it was designed. That they would never have appropriated 
the gift in its full extent without an external and controlling in 
fluence exerted on their minds and hearts, is manifest not only 
from the dislike which men feel to a holy day, but from the igno 
rance and pride by which they are led into the greatest divergences 
of opinion and practice on all sorts of subjects. The Sabbath 
must be socially as well as personally received and observed. And 
what but Divine power could bring so many various individuals, 
with all their supposed conflict of interests as masters and ser 
vants, employers and employed, sovereigns and subjects, to agree 
ment respecting the propriety, the time, and the engagements of 
such an institution, or what but Divine authority could secure 
for it an unquestioning submission ? Without that commanding 
influence, the discrepancy of sentiment on the matter must have 
produced a Sabbath of so endless a diversity of season and observ 
ance as to contain the elements of its speedy dissolution, or rather 
must have prevented the introduction of a Sabbath altogether. 
The remarkable harmony, however, among men of many ages and 
countries with respect to the proportion of time, the day, and the 
duties of a periodical rest a harmony which has frequently awed 



PROOFS FROM REASON. 271 

its enemies into respect points not only to Divine wisdom as 
contriving the institute, but to Divine power and authority as 
giving it establishment. Since writing these remarks we are 
happy to find that we can confirm and adorn the views expressed 
in them by the eloquent words of Dr. Croly. " The divine origin 
of the Sabbath might almost be proved from its opposition to the 
lower propensities of mankind. In no age of the world, since 
labour was known, would any master of the serf, the slave, or the 
cattle, have spontaneously given up a seventh part of their toil. 
No human legislator would have proposed such a law of property, 
or, if he had, no nation would have endured it. ... The Sabbath 
in its whole character is so strongly opposed to the avarice, the 
heartlessness, and the irreligion of man, that, except in the days 
of Moses and Joshua, it has probably never been observed with 
due reverence by any nation of the world." 1 

In the awe with which, as just remarked, the institution inspires 
the hearts of its enemies, we discover another testimony to its 
superhuman ordination and character. The inconsistency is not 
in our statement, but in the person s own mind, when we say 
that the same individual may feel a consciousness, and utter a 
confession of the excellence of an object to which he once had, 
and may still have a dislike. Ovid has described no uncommon 
case : 

"I see the good, and I approve it too 
Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue." 

There are many, indeed, who profess a superiority to the fears 
and convictions which haunt evil-doers, and especially Sabbath- 
breakers, affecting to regard such feelings as mere superstition, 
and who in the midst of their pleasures would seem to be at ease 
as respects responsibility to a superior Power. But certain facts 
indicate that an inward disquiet lies at the root of their apparent 
indifference or joy. It has been said, that the disasters which 
frequently befall the profaners of the Lord s day, are owing in 
part to a sense of guilt, which so enervates and confounds them 
in the hour of danger as to deprive them of their usual power to 
employ the means of escape. Not unfrequently, too, persons who 
have lived in the neglect of religious ordinances and laws change 

i Divine Origin and Oo.igation of the Sabbath (1850), p. 17. 



272 DIVINE ORIGIN OP THE SABBATH. 

their views and conduct, and then divulge the truth, that under 
all their seeming gaiety they have been wretched men. But jus 
tice overtakes others in their profligate career, and they become 
amenable to the outraged laws of their country. In these circum 
stances, as has often been observed, the confession is very com 
monly made, that their fall and ruin are traceable, in particular, 
to one great error that of contemning the sacred day. The 
acknowledgment is entitled to all credit. It has not been bribed 
or wrung from them. It has been given spontaneously, and at a 
time when there is no possible temptation to falsehood. Why 
those persons uniformly fix on the desecration of the Lord s day 
as the primary cause of their undoing can be. explained only on 
these two suppositions that what they utter is true, and that 
there is a potency of evil in their conduct proceeding from the 
despite of no ordinary blessing, from the infraction of no human 
law. 

Finally, the preservation of such an institution in such a world 
as ours affords evidence of an inward vitality, and an external 
guardianship, that are more than human. That it should have 
been continued in the decayed state in which we find it in some 
heathen countries, is a testimony to its original power, and to its 
deep seat in the wants and consciences of men. But that it 
should for many centuries have been maintained, as in other cases 
it has been, in its pristine vigour, is a fact which nothing can 
explain but its having been planted and cared for by a Divine 
husbandman. The Sabbath has had to contend with many adverse 
elements sufficient to have long ago withered any production 
reared and tended by human hands. There is the desire of change. 
There is the aversion to holy duties. There is the love of unre 
strained pleasure. There is a grasping avarice. There is the 
strong passion for worldly eminence and fame. Under the in 
fluence of some one or other of these feelings, many pervert the 
institution one class spending the day in amusement and revelry 
another, in merchandise a third, in prosecuting their literary 
or scientific studies. Many, again, compel those who are under 
their authority to ply their exhausting labours that they them 
selves may be enriched, though at the expense of the ruined health 
and neglected minds and morals of their servants. All this, which 



PROOFS FROM REASON. 273 

has nearly obliterated a holy Sabbath over the entire continent of 
Europe, shows how little patronage such a day receives from the 
world, and sufficiently accounts for the deterioration which in any 
instance it has suffered. Whence is this state of matters not uni 
versal 1 Whence has it never been universal ? Whence is it that 
the institution flourishes in some places, and is seen springing up 
in others where it had been trodden down 1 The only answer is, 
it is a tree which has been planted, and is under the care of the 
superintending Providence, of Him who, while in justice He 
removes it from the hands of violence, is in mercy disposed not 
utterly to take away, but even to cherish and restore what is so 
medicinal to the nations. In our motto we have applied to the 
Sabbath the words of the sagacious Gamaliel, uttered 1800 years 
ago. According to him, Christianity must have long ago perished 
if it had been of men. It has not been overthrown. Neither 
has the Sabbath. Let his warning be pondered by all who set 
themselves against the friends of either : " Eefrain from these 
men, and let them afone ; lest haply ye be found even to fight 
against God." 



TESTIMOISTY OF EEVELATION TO A SACKED 
AND PEKPETUAL SABBATH. 



CHAPTER I. 

DIVINE INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH AT THE CREATION, 
AND ITS OBSEEVANCE BY THE PATRIARCHS. 

" The Sabbath was made for man." 

THE evidence for a weekly day of rest and devotion is of great 
variety and amount. Geography points to traces of the institution 
in almost every region of the globe. History records its early 
existence, its course of many centuries, and its remarkable preser 
vation amidst the countless changes and hostile influences of 
society. Physiology concedes its sanitary power. Mental philo 
sophy proclaims its intellectual adaptations. Ethics, law, and 
biography, together attest its importance to man as a moral and 
religious being ; and economic science acknowledges its intimate 
connexion with individual comfort and social prosperity. Contri 
butions such as these are of no slight value to the cause which 
they favour. They are, independently, capable of showing that 
the distribution of our time into six days of labour and one of 
holy rest is an arrangement too long-lived, too wide-spread, too 
wise, pure, and benevolent, to have " sprung of earth." They 
echo the announcements of Scripture. They ought thus to confirm 
the faith of the Christian, and induce unbelievers to bow to claims 
which so many witnesses concur without collusion to establish. 
It is no depreciation, however, of the evidence supplied by reason 
and experience on behalf of the institution, to say, that the Sab- 

274 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 275 

bath derives its best support and defence from the sacred Scrip 
tures, which in its turn it so eminently serves to make known. 
It is in the testimony of revelation that perfect confidence as to 
the Divine origin and authority of the ordinance finds its inspira 
tion and strength, and it is there alone that we discover the in 
fallible rule, which must be followed, if we would rightly discharge 
tne obligations, and fully receive the blessings of the day of rest. 
The testimony of revelation concerning the Sabbatic institution 
may be comprised under three heads its Divine obligation on 
mankind in all time, its Duties, and its Importance. Following 
this order, we proceed, in the first instance, to the illustration of 
a series of propositions on the subject of the Divine, universal, and 
permanent obligation of the institution. 

FIRST PROPOSITION. THE SABBATH WAS INSTITUTED BY GOD 

AT THE CREATION. 

In the Book of Genesis, after his beautifully simple but magni 
ficent account of the creation of the heavens and the earth, the 
sacred historian proceeds as follows : " Thus the heavens and the 
earth were finished, and all the host of them. And 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." 1 

No improvement in the translation would affect the substantial 
meaning of these words, which are generally admitted to be a 
faithful version of the original language. A critical examination 
of the terms employed, and the light of parallel texts, would only 
confirm the views of the passage which a first reading at once 
ascertains. 

Without dwelling on the superlative value of the information 
here and in the preceding chapter for the first time recorded 
respecting the original of the world and of man, let us mark the 
leading facts as they bear upon our subject. 

God rested on the seventh day from all his work which he 
had made. As the Almighty " fainteth not, neither is weary," 

i Gen. ii. 1-3. 



276 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

and as "the Father worketh hitherto" in the production of 
human spirits, and in the sustentation and government of the 
universe, his rest on this occasion is obviously to be understood 
in a sense compatible with the constant activity and worthy of 
the majesty of the Creator as a rest not from all work, but 
from the one work specified a rest of cessation and satisfaction, 
not of languid repose. 1 He who afterwards on renewing the 
face of the earth rejoiced in his works, did, after making heaven 
and earth in six days, rest on the seventh, and "was refreshed," 2 
regarding with complacency and delight his completed creation. 

While the Creator pronounced all the works of the six days to 
be very good, he reserved his benediction for the day of rest. 
" And God blessed the seventh day." When human beings utter 
words of blessing, they are only helpless petitioners. But it is 
the practice, as it is the prerogative, of the Divinity to impart 
the good which he pronounces with his lips. And he blesses 
creatures variously according to their natures ; men, by bestowing 
favours which rational beings can alone relish and enjoy ; the 
lower animals, agreeably to their limited capacities, opening his 
hand and satisfying the desire of every living thing ; and " things 
without life," by making them the means of benefit and pleasure 
to intellectual and sentient creatures. In this last-mentioned 
form did he bless the seventh day. In no other mode could un 
conscious, insensible time be blessed. That day was distinguished 
above the others by being constituted a season and means of pecu 
liar advantage and happiness. 

The seventh day was devoted to sacred use, " God sanctified 
it." The radical idea in " sanctify," as the word is employed by 
the inspired writers, is separation from a common to a holy pur 
pose, consecration to the Divine service. 3 Like blessing, sancti- 
fication is predicated of beings according to their natures. As all 
days are God s, and ought to be spent in his work, the sanctify - 

1 Shabath, as in 1 Sam. xxv. 9 ; Job xxxii. 1, " signifieth not such a rest as wherein 
one sitteth and doeth nothing, as the word Noach doth, but only a resting and ceasing 
from that which he did before." Leigh, Critica Sacra, sub. voc. "It implies resting 
from, not in work." New Translation, by De Sola, etc. 

Ex. xxxi. 17. 

3 " Ab usu et statu communiad peculiarem et sacrum separare." Eichlwrn. " Usi- 
bus divinis accommodavit a communi et pr jfano nsu segregavit in usum sacrum ad 
cultum Dei destinavit." Kirch. Concord. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 277 

ing of the seventh in particular would be a meaningless expres 
sion, unless it indicated a special appropriation of the day to the 
worship and glory of the Creator. 

The benediction and sanctification of the seventh day had re 
spect to the Divine rest as their reason or cause. " God blessed 
the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested 
from all his work which God created and made," or, as we have 
it in the Decalogue, " In six days the Lord made the heaven and 
the earth, the sea and all things therein, and rested the seventh 
day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed 
it." 1 The holy day recalls its occasion. They are linked to 
gether. Nor is the association incidental It is designed. It 
was manifestly the purpose and arrangement of the Author of 
nature, that the day which saw the creation finished should be 
sat apart in honour of the great work, or rather of himself as its 
Architect. 

The institution thus appointed at the creation was designed to 
be a law, right, and blessing to mankind in all time. There is 
every indication of universality in the primaeval arrangement. 
The example of the Almighty in working and resting was in 
scribed as it were on the creation itself, and partook of the ex 
tent and durability of the workmanship of his hands. It was an 
example addressed to the father of mankind, and through him to 
all his posterity. That would have been no blessing to Adam 
himself, and none to any other, which should light and expend 
itself on one solitary day. The blessing was pronounced on that 
day as the first-fruits of all sacred time. It applied as truly as 
the blessing of marriage to Adam s descendants. The seventh 
portion of time was hallowed for all ages, when the earliest in 
stalment was sanctified. Having been prior to all special dispen 
sations of religion, the Sabbatic institution is not liable to perish 
with any. The appointment is couched in terms that prove its 
capacity of incorporation with every economy. Its " sound went 
into all the earth, and its words unto the ends of the world," 
calling upon every human being to remember his Creator, and to 
enjoy the liberty and rest which He has provided for all who are 
willing to receive them. Who has any reason or authority for 

Ex . 11. 

IS 



278 DIVINE AUTHORITY OP THE SABBATH. 

affirming that the law has become obsolete that it does not re 
main in full force on the human family 2 And who may not, on 
the best grounds and with perfect confidence, say, " Here is an 
indefeasible right on which I take my stand against every at 
tempt to deprive me of the seventh part of my time here is a 
boon which, as divinely conferred, no man can justly or with im 
punity take away ?" 



SECOND PROPOSITION. WHILE NO FORMAL NOTICE OF THE 

INSTITUTION OCCURS IN THE SUBSEQUENT HISTORY TILL 
THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL HAVE DEPARTED FROM EGYPT, 
AND COMMENCED THEIR JOURNEYINGS IN THE WILDERNESS 
OF ARABIA, CIRCUMSTANCES ARE RECORDED, WHICH, BUT 
FOR THE ANTECEDENT INSTITUTION AND CONTINUED OBLI 
GATION OF A SACRED SEVENTH DAY, COULD NOT HAVE BEEN 
MENTIONED, OR EVEN HAVE EXISTED. 

Although desirous to reserve controversy as much as possible 
to a subsequent stage of our discussion, and meanwhile to present 
simply the evidence for a permanent Sabbath, we cannot in 
justice to the latter object avoid reference here to the opinion 
maintained by Dr. Heylyn, Dr. Paley, and others, that notwith 
standing the early notice in Scripture of the sanctification by the 
Creator of the seventh day, its actual institution as a Sabbath did 
not occur till twenty-five centuries thereafter. It appears a 
remarkable psychological fact that the mind which so acutely 
detected and so skilfully collated the indications of design in 
nature, and the coincidences between the Acts and the Writings of 
the apostles, should have seen no appointment of a day of rest in 
the narrative of the Divine proceedings at tne creation of the 
world, and not even the slightest allusion to such a day in the 
remaining history for so many years. Had the eye been as 
morally single as purged from prejudice in favour of a theory as 
it was intellectually penetrating, might it not have discovered the 
materials for a Horce Sabbaticce, scarcely less interesting and con 
vincing than the Horce Paulince ? 

One of the circumstances that could not have occurred but for 



TESTIMONY OF KEVELATION. 279 

the primseval institution of the Sabbath is the narrative itself of 
the event, considered in its manner and place. No one can 
suppose that the sacred writer is there describing what was not 
to take place till many years after the creation, without imputing 
to him either incompetency to write history and to express his 
own thoughts, or a disregard of truth, inasmuch as he has intro 
duced a fact in such a connexion and in such terms as naturally 
and necessarily to lead us into the serious mistake that it was 
contemporaneous with the Creator s rest from his work of six 
days. That an inspired man should so write is an impossibility. 
The interpretation, therefore, must be false. How, after the 
light which the transactions of Sin and Sinai had in the view of 
Israel shed on the Sabbath, the words describing it should appear 
where they are at all, is to be explained only by the fact and im 
portance of its early institution. 

A second circumstance that presupposes the primitive appoint 
ment of the weekly holy day is the respect which began soon 
after to be shown for the septenary number. Let it be observed 
that it was the Creator himself, in denouncing "sevenfold" 
vengeance against the person that should take the life of Cain, 1 
who first employed the number as a synonym of completeness or 
perfection, and that by the same authority it continued to be 
signalized in the arrangement that the beasts and fowls should 
be selected by sevens for preservation in the ark, in the allotted 
periods of plenty and scarcity in Egypt, in the prohibition of 
leavened bread for seven days in the passover, and in many other 
intimations of the Divine will down to the time when the Apostle 
John had in Patrnos his vision of the seven golden candlesticks, 
and of one in the midst of them like unto the Son of man. This 
use, then, of the number was no superstitious practice of human 
device. It was Divine speech, and it had an important meaning. 
But that meaning could not consist in any intrinsic value of the 
number above others, for it had no such value. The first mention 
of it in a new application stands in almost immediate connexion 
in the sacred history with the seventh day on which God rested 
from the work of creation, and that application is not arbitrary, 
the "sevenfold" vengeance being a vengeance which completes its 

A Gen. iv. 15. 



280 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

purpose, sheaths the sword, and is satisfied, even as the Creator 
finished his work, rested, and was refreshed. The language 
addressed to Cain had a meaning, and was intended to be under 
stood by all readers ; but where is the signification of " sevenfold" 
to be found, if not in the preceding context 1 The meaning was 
the same to Cain as to them. And he and they are presented 
by the historian as having their eyes turned to the same great 
fact of a day of rest, blessed and sanctified when the world was 
made. Nor is this all. That a marked respect for the septenary 
number has, by the Divine example and sanction, been evinced 
alike in the Pentateuch and in the Apocalypse is a proof that the 
Creator will have his name remembered, and a seventh day hal 
lowed in all generations. 

No less significant in its bearing on our subject is the observance 
by the patriarchs of the weekly division of time. Noah " stayed 
seven days" three several times before he "sent forth the dove 
out of the ark." 1 The friends of Job sat down with him, in token 
of their sympathy, seven days and seven nights. 2 We read of the 
" week" in the days of Laban and Jacob. 3 And Joseph made a 
mourning for his father seven days. 4 But whence this regard to 
periods of seven days 1 There was nothing in nature to suggest 
or recommend it for adoption any more than there was some 
peculiar excellence in the number " seven" to secure for it a 
preference above other numbers. If there had, it would have 
been even more generally observed than it is. No human being 
would independently have conceived of such a notation of time 
no number of human beings could have given it prevalence 
or perpetuity. The history, however, leaves no room for specula 
tion. It informs us that the week was appointed at the creation, 
not by any provision made on the fourth day in the lights which 
were to be " for signs and seasons for days and years," but by the 
example of the Creator, who occupied six days in making the 
world, rested on the seventh, blessed and sanctified that day 
not the eighth, or following days, on which he alike rested from 
creative work ; and thus prescribed to us the same distribution of 
time, and of its work and rest, no less certainly or impressively, 
than if he had written the law on the phenomena of nature. 

1 Gen. viii. Job ii. 13. Gen. xxlx. 27, 28. &lt; Gen. L 10. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 281 

From these facts we are led to infer what the week was which 
Noah and others observed, and why they so regulated their time. 
The week, as denned by the Creator, consisted of six days for work 
and a day of rest of sacred rest ; and such also must have been 
the week of the patriarchs. It is possible, indeed, for this cycle 
of time to be observed in some form after its Sabbath has ceased, 
but if the seventh day was and still is connected with sacred 
rites among heathen nations, is it conceivable that Noah could 
have forgotten or disregarded so important an alliance 1 His own 
piety, the language of God announcing to him that in seven days 
he would cause it to rain on the earth, and the warrant which the 
historian has given us for tracing a connexion of cause and effect 
between the week as originally appointed, and the week as ob 
served by the patriarch, all forbid the supposition that he did not 
work for six days, and rest and worship on the seventh! 

The prevalence of public worship, with its various accessories, 
necessarily implies the obligation and observance of a Sabbath. 
Keligious assemblies are convened. Cain and Abel come together 
for Divine service. They were not the only persons present, as 
appears from Cain s postponement of his murderous deed till he 
and his victim were out of the sight of others in the field. This 
is the first recorded instance of public worship, if we may apply 
that epithet to a convocation and exercises on the small scale of 
an infant society. In the time of Seth " men began to call on 
the name of the Lord " not that they for the first time professed 
or practised religion, as the history proves, but that, whether they 
were then called by, or invoked the name of the Lord, their pro 
fession and practice had become more public. Twice are we told 
in the Book of Job that " the sons of God came to present 
themselves before the Lord," and that Satan, as he has often since 
done, " came also among them." The services on such occasions 
are mentioned. There were sacrifices and offerings, which formed 
so important a part of ancient worship. Cain and Abel bring 
offerings. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob erect altars, and 
devote victims thereon to Jehovah. Bishop Patrick, in expound 
ing the account of the offerings of Cain and Abel, observes that 
the Hebrew word for brougfa is used never in reference to private 
and domestic sacrifices, but always of such as were in the times of 



282 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

the Jewish polity brought to the door of the tabernacle of the 
congregation. The friends of Job were divinely instructed to offer 
up for themselves a burnt-offering of seven bullocks and of seven 
rams. Instruction, too, was communicated in the assemblies for 
worship. Job had " instructed many and strengthened the weak 
hands," and where though not exclusively he had done so is inti 
mated in his words, " I stood up and I cried in the congregation." 
Noah was a preacher of righteousness. We read also of the 
sacraments of circumcision and the passover and of a priesthood 
with tithes for its maintenance. As there was a law for the 
consecration of property and of a certain proportion of it to the 
service of God, it is to be presumed that there would be one for 
the consecration of a certain amount of time to the same purpose. 
For all this worship understood places of convocation were 
requisite. Cain and Abel " came together into one place." It 
is chiefly the scene of public ordinances that is favoured with the 
presence of the Lord, from which Satan is said twice to have gone 
forth, and Cain once and for ever. And even more necessary must 
have been appointed places of worship when men began on a large 
scale to call upon the name of the Lord. But set times were 
also indispensable. Order and fixed places demanded them. If 
the sons of Job had their days for feasting, we cannot reasonably 
doubt that the sons of God had their days for worship. And it 
was so. " There was a day when the sons of God came to present 
themselves before the Lord." It was "in process of time," or 
rather, in the end of days, that Cain and Abel brought their 
offerings unto the Lord. We might plead that the time, like the 
age of a very young child, "an infant of days," 1 admitted of 
reckoning not by years, months, or weeks, but by days. But it 
is sufficient for our purpose that the language unquestionably 
means an appointed season. We are informed in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews that Abel was accepted because he offered in faith, 
consulting the Divine will in regard to the matter, circumstances, 
and principle of the service. Cain was blamed, not for error as 
to the time or place, but for the state of his mind, and the blood 
less nature of his offering. We can conceive him overawed by the 
appointed day of rest and worship, and induced by the customary 
i Isa. Ixv. 20. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 283 

suspension of labour into a compliance with the law and the 
custom, but we cannot conceive of so secular a character leaving 
his farm on working days for the purpose of appearing at the 
altar of God. And the historian here again has warranted the 
conclusion that the time of these offerings was the seventh 
day. He has recorded the consecration of that day to rest and 
holy use, and must have known that, in proceeding soon after 
to mention the first case of social worship, nothing was more 
natural than for his readers to take for granted that on this 
occasion the day so set apart would be applied to its appropriate 
purpose. Aware that such was the inference which would be 
drawn from his manner of writing, has he not sanctioned that 
inference ? 

Our position is confirmed by the remarkable instances of piety 
and virtue which distinguished the period under review. Is it 
requisite to name Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Job, Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Aaron 1 It was by the grace of 
God, and in the observance of religious institutions, that they 
became what they were. That the Sabbath must have been a 
principal means in fostering the faith, by which those " elders ob 
tained a good report," appears from the felt and proved necsesity of 
a periodical day of rest and worship to the religion of present days. 
We have already cited the acknowledgment of one of the best men 
whom our age has produced Edward Bickersteth that, but for 
a weekly day given as entirely as possible to God, religion would 
soon have abandoned him. And all who in any measure resemble 
that excellent individual will readily indorse the remark. To con 
ceive that the patriarchs, who were men of like passions, men ex 
posed to like temptations, toils, and sufferings, with others, could 
maintain for centuries a holy and happy life, without the stimulus 
and refreshment of the Sabbath, is to suppose a case which, if 
true, would prove the uselessness of the institution in any circum 
stances, but which, in fact, is a simple impossibility and a mere 
dream. 

The long life and prosperity attained by good men in primitive 
times utter the same language. It was the arrangement of Pro 
vidence, for important ends, that those men should live " many 
days," and " see good." But we have no reason to believe that 



284 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

their longevity was miraculous, or their success achieved indepen 
dently of their own efforts. Both blessings were bestowed in 
connexion with their diligence, temperance, and care both are 
divinely pledged to a race yet to come, and to them as sacredly 
observant of the weekly rest. What has been said in this volume 
of the necessity of the institution to health, prosperity, to mental, 
moral, and religious culture, while it applies to the present and 
the future, must have been equally true of the remote past. 

Once more : there are incidents in the history of Israel in Egypt 
which give indication of a pre-existing Sabbatism. Moses and 
Aaron, by the direction and in the name of Jehovah, asked of 
Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go, that they might hold a feast unto 
God in the wilderness. What the feast was appears from the 
answer of the King of Egypt to their demand : " Wherefore do 
ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works 1 Get you 
unto your burdens. Behold, the people of the land now are many, 
and ye make them rest [sabbatize] from their burdens ;" and 
more decisively from the fact, that no sooner had the people gained 
their liberty than they celebrated " the rest of the holy Sabbath 
unto the Lord," feasting on the bread of heaven. Before this 
time, and on the very eve of the Exode, the Passover was insti 
tuted, where the Sabbatic circumstances of " seven days," " resting 
from all manner of work," and " holy convocations, are all men 
tioned as matters with which it is taken for granted that they 
were well acquainted. 

The doctrine of a paradisiacal and patriarchal Sabbath does not 
depend on the circumstances now reviewed, but however imper 
fectly they may have been stated, we venture to call for this ver 
dict from our readers, that but for the antecedent institution and 
continued observance of a sacred seventh day. these circumstances 
could not have existed. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 285 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SABBATH PROMULGATED FROM SINAI AS ONE OP 
THE COMMANDMENTS OF THE MORAL LAW. 

" Remember the Sabbath-Day to keep it holy." 

,_ WHEN we pass from the Patriarchal to the Jewish dispensation 
of religion, we discover increasing evidence that the Sabbath was 
designed to be a law and blessing to mankind. That under an 
economy so different in many respects from that which preceded it, 
and providing so many additional seasons for worship, the aboriginal 
holy day was not superseded, but retained with superadded tokens 
of respect, was a circumstance which gave promise of its continu 
ing to hold a place among the laws and ordinances of heaven while 
the world itself should last ) 

THIRD PROPOSITION. THE SABBATH, AS INSTITUTED AT THE 

CREATION, HAD A PLACE ASSIGNED TO IT IN THE MORAL 
LAW GIVEN FROM SINAI. 

When the Almighty gave forth the Law of the Decalogue with 
his own voice from Sinai, one of the utterances was, " Remember 
the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, 
and do all thy work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the 
Lord thy God ; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy 
son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, 
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates ; 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 Sabbath-day, and hallowed it." J 

. x^. 9-11. 

18* 



286 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

( That the Decalogue was not even as a code prescribed to the 
Jews only, or abrogated along with the other laws of Moses, but 
epitomizes the duty of human beings in all places and times, 
appears from the distinction conferred in Scripture on its precepts 
above the other co"*"iflmff n fo flftlivprp.d to f.hp. Jp^fr^AnjVip 
from the catholic nature of the precepts themselves, and from 
their declared obligation on mankind. 

1. The Scriptures have in various and unequivocal forms done 
special honour to the law of the ten commandments. J 

Its promulgation was heralded by solemn preparations. " Moses 
went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the 
mountain." He is instructed to inform Israel of the Divine con 
descension and kindness about to be shown to them in the cove 
nant to be established between God and them, and the necessity 
of holy obedience on their part, that they might be a peculiar 
treasure unto him above all people. He intimates these things 
to the people, and " returns their words unto the Lord." For 
two days they must sanctify themselves, that they might be 
ready on the third day, on which Jehovah was to come down in 
the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai. Death was to be 
the penalty of going up into the mount, or touching the border of 
it. " And it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that 
there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the 
mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all 
the people trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of 
the camp to meet with God : and they stood at the nether part 
of the mount. And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, 
because the Lord descended upon it in fire : and the smoke 
thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole moun 
tain quaked greatly." 1 

In these circumstances of glory, grandeur, and terrible majesty, 
which made Moses himself say, " I exceedingly fear and quake," 
did Jehovah proclaim with his own lips the ten commandments. 
And thus, not only by priority of promulgation, but by the august 
solemnities attending it, did he distinguish these commandments 
above the civil and ceremonial statutes which were afterwards 
privately communicated to Moses. " These words the Lord spake 

1 Ex. xix. 16-18. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 287 

unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, 
of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice, and 
he added no more." But in reference to " the law of command 
ments contained in ordinances," it is said : " But as for thee stand 
thou here by me, and I will speak unto thee all the command 
ments, and the statutes, and the judgments which thou shalt 
teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give 
them to possess it." * 

Nor was this all. It is possible for ingenuity, under a partial 
bias, to make too much of the following circumstances ; but to 
deny that they impressively teach us the distinction of the De 
calogue above the other laws of the Jews would seem to be " a 
refusing of him that spake on earth." The law of the ten com 
mandments, uttered by " the great voice" of God, was also 
written by his own finger. It was too holy and glorious to be 
spoken " with the tongues of men and of angels," or to be taken 
down from the Divine lips by any human amanuensis. The Law 
giver must proclaim his eternal law with his own mouth, and 
indite it with his own hand. Twice was it so written. It was 
inscribed on tablets of stone, and in this form deposited in the 
ark, with all the security which incorruptible shittim-wood, and 
gold overlaid within, without, and above, could provide, and 
under the overshadowing cherubim, and inviolable Shechinah. 
But no Divine voice is heard announcing the laws of a temporary 
polity, or of a shadowy ritual ; they are uttered in the ears of 
Moses alone. No Divine finger traces their written characters ; 
for this the hand of Moses is deemed adequate. They are com 
mitted to no secure and precious casket ; but placed beside the 
ark, as things warranting less reverence and care, and ready to be 
removed. In all these honours of the ten " words," the fourth 
commandment fully shared. Prefaced by the same solemnities, 
attended by thunders and lightnings, articulated by the Divine 
voice, all its words engraved by the Divine finger, and intrusted 
to the sacred keeping of the ark, who could have any reason to 
imagine that the Sabbath was a Jewish rite, belonging entirely 
to a covenant which was to decay, wax old, and be ready to 
vanish away 1 

i Dent. v. 22, 31. 



288 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

The language in which the laws of the Jews are respectively 
mentioned in several parts of Scripture concurs with the circum 
stances now mentioned in discriminating them from each other. 
Not that the transitory rules of their politico-ecclesiastical state 
are ever absolutely depreciated. They are included in " the right 
judgments and true laws, the good statutes and commandments," 
" which were given them by the hand of Moses." The neglect or 
transgression of them was held to be an act of contempt to the 
Divine Lawgiver and King, and was visited with severe retribu 
tion. The loss of them in the Captivity was deplored as one of 
jtsrael s chief calamities ; their recovery is promised as one of their 
greatest mercies. But there are several statements which indicate 
the inferiority of these privileges to others. Thus it is written in 
Hosea, " For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice ; and the know 
ledge of God more than burnt-offerings ;" x and in Jeremiah, " I 
spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that 
I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt-offer 
ings and sacrifice ; but this thing I commanded them, saying, 
Obey my voice." 2 We have similar statements in the New Tes 
tament : " Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites !" says 
our Lord, " for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and 
have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, 
and faith : these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the 
other undone." 3 How different the terms in which two of the 
apostles speak of the law of ceremonies and the law of morality ! 
In referring to the former, the apostle Peter asks, " Now, there 
fore, why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the dis 
ciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" 4 
while the apostle Paul says of another law plainly that of the 
Decalogue " Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment 
is holy, just, and good. We know that the law is spiritual ; I 
delight in the law of God after the inward man." 5 And when 
mentioning the " advantage" the profit which belonged to " the 
Jew" to " circumcision," largely and " every way," the writer 
does not fail to give the preference to this one of their privileges, 
" that unto them were committed the oracles cf God." Compar- 

i Hos. vi. 6. 2 j er . vii. 22, 23. Matt. Jodii 28. 

* Acts xv. 10. * Rom. vii. 12, 14, 22. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 289 

ing these passages with each other, we arrive at the conclusion 
that the law of the Decalogue was honoured above the other laws. 

2. When from the manner in which the laws of the Jews were 
delivered, and from the language of the sacred writers respecting 
them, we turn to the laws themselves, and consider their nature 
and designs, we discover further proofs of their diversity, and that 
they fall under two distinct classes. 

One class, consisting of ceremonial and political regulations, 
were, like some of the ordinances of Christianity, manifestly pro 
vided, not for all time, but for the period of the particular economy 
to which they were attached and adapted. As the Lord s Supper 
would not have been appropriate to the circumstances of the Jews, 
BO neither would the Passover have been congruous to those of 
Christians. And what is true of the Passover is true of the whole 
Jewish polity and ritual, which were suited exclusively to a certain 
spot of earth, as well as to a people that stood in special relations 
to the Almighty, and had extraordinary functions to fulfil. With 
the enlargement of the church beyond its former pale, the cessation 
of the theocracy, and the accomplishment of the objects that were 
to be attained by the severance of Israel from other nations, the 
authority of their rites and political code came to an end. This 
fact we read in the utter inapplicability of the ancient priesthood 
and sacrifices to a period when the substance of these shadows 
has been realized, and in the impossibility that a system which 
demanded a periodical resort to Jerusalem for worship, the sus 
pension of agricultural industry at certain times, and various other 
peculiarities, should be practised by men scattered over the globe, 
and having no miraculous means of defence, guidance, or support. 
And yet these transitory rules were as really binding while their 
occasion lasted as any of the most enduring commandments. They 
were founded on the one great law of love to God and man, in 
which our Lord has summarily expressed all human obligations. 
They involved in them the undying principles of truth and right 
eousness. The Mosaic ritual was another form of the everlasting 
gospel. Circumcision and the Passover pointed to the most mo 
mentous facts and blessings, as do still our baptism and eucharist. 
And the judicial law was distinguished by its perfect equity, and 
by its merciful regard to the stranger, the widow, the fatherless, 



290 DIVINE AUTHOKITY OF THE SABBATH. 

and even the lower animals. The change which befell these in 
stitutions was the annulling, not of principles or of essential law, 
but of certain applications of them, or of subsidiary arrangements, 
when the object of such bye-laws had been gained. 

The other class of laws those of the ten commandments are 
evidently of such a nature as to be adapted and necessary not to 
the Jews alone, but to men of all countries and times. If it was 
right for the Jew to have no god but the one living and true God ; 
to employ no images in his worship , to serve Him in spirit and 
in truth ; to spend one day in seven in resting from ordinary work 
and in sacred engagements ; to honour parents ; to have respect 
to the life, purity, property, and reputation of himself and others, 
and to shun all covetous desire, the same things must be right 
for the Gentile. If these commands were holy and just, and could 
not be violated without sin and injury as regarded the former, 
they are plainly as holy and just, and the transgression of them 
as truly deserving of blame and punishment in the case of the 
latter. If they were good to the one, it is impossible to conceive 
how they are not good to the other. They are, in fact, the laws 
of nature and of God to every human being. All this, indeed, is 
generally admitted as to nine of these commandments. The only 
question respects the fourth, which some hold to be only one of a 
number of Jewish rites, and doomed to share their fate. 

But what is there in the law of the Sabbath to make it an 
exception ? It provides rest from labour. Its very name signi 
fies a ceasing from work. Other days are in contradistinction 
from it called working days. " Six days shalt thou labour, and 
do all thy work : but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord 
thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son 
nor thy daughter, thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant, nor thy 
cattle nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. " But for six 
thousand years man and beast have been subject to exhausting 
labour, and it would be no easy task to show how the Jews 
needed a day of rest more than many others both in ancient and 
in present times, or to prove that Christianity is less merciful to 
toiling man and his weary beast than was any preceding dispen 
sation of religion. That the law of rest contemplated a much 
wider range of application than the people of Palestine appears 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 291 

from the little labour which for forty years after the proclamation 
of the law from Sinai they had to perform, and from their mira 
culous exemption during many years of their subsequent history 
from much of the toil of other men. 

The Sabbath was also an appointed season of mental improve 
ment and spiritual good. And was the soul more precious, or its 
salvation and improvement more important in Judea than in any 
other part of the world in the days of Moses than in those of 
Abraham or of Christ 2 A more spiritual economy would rather 
imply the necessity of higher mental cultivation, and of greater 
attention to "the things that belong to our peace." But how 
would it be possible for the majority of our people to acquire the 
one and do the other without a Sabbath 1 It is easy to talk of 
the freedom from restraint, and the liberty secured by Chris 
tianity ; but unless we have a set day and place for religious 
duties, they cannot fail to be neglected. Christians, as much as 
the good men of a former economy, have found that a day for 
a periodical dismissing from their minds of all secular business 
and cares, and for directing their thoughts and regards to " the 
things that are above," is indispensable to their preparation for a 
future world. 

The Sabbath, in short, was a stated day of sacred service in 
honour of its almighty and gracious Author. Having rested 
from his work of creation, God blessed and sanctified the Sab 
bath-day. But the creation of the world by Jehovah is a fact 
which respects, not one nation only, but mankind, and the belief 
of which is fundamental to all true religion. If it was the duty 
of the Jews to remember their Creator, no less was it the duty of 
the patriarchs, and no less is it the duty of men now. If the 
one stood in need of the knowledge of God as the maker of all 
things, and required a Sabbath as the means, equally were these 
blessings indispensable to the others. If the Sabbath in old 
time was marked more than ordinary days by typical shadows of 
a coming Saviour, is it reasonable to conceive that there should 
be no day to remind us, by its returning rest and meditations, of 
the great Eedemption a work which, like the creation, concerns 
men f every time and class, and is much more glorious than any 
other work or deliverance of the Almighty ] How comprehen- 



292 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

sive in itself, and how decisive of this, as of other questions on 
the subject, is the maxim of our Lord, " The Sabbath was made 
for man 1" 

3. But the proof of the permanence of the Decalogue is com 
pleted and sealed by the fact of the declared obligation of its pre 
cepts under all economies. 

Formally given from Sinai, it had been the rule of man s con 
duct from the beginning. In the history recorded in Genesis we 
find traces of the knowledge of all the ten commandments. The 
offerings of Abel, Noah, and others, and the language to Abra 
ham, "I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou per 
fect," prove that these persons were acquainted with the obliga 
tion to worship and serve the one living and true God. That the 
use of images in worship was forbidden appears from Jacob s 
exhortation to his family to put away strange gods. The rever 
ential regard to the Divine name which is required in the third 
commandment is implied in the practice of administering an oath, 
and in the prevalent respect for promises thus solemnized. The 
honour due to parents was acknowledged in the conduct of Noah s 
sons, as also in their father s prophetic intimation of its conse 
quences, in the obedience of Isaac to Abraham, and in other in 
stances. Cain was condemned for taking the life of his brother, 
and was conscious of his guilt, while at the commencement, again 
as it were, of the world, after the flood, the law subsequently form 
ing the sixth in the Decalogue was impressively renewed. The 
indignation of Jacob s sons on account of the dishonour done to 
their sister, the father s resentment of the cruelty by which they 
avenged the deed, and the conduct of Joseph, with his words, 
"How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" 
showed the authority of the seventh as well as of the sixth. The 
protest of Joseph s brethren against the charge of theft indicated 
that both parties were acquainted with the precept which says, 
"Thou shalt not steal." The same knowledge on the part of 
Laban and Jacob is proved in the matter of the stolen images. 
The ninth precept was known even to Pharaoh, the contemporary 
of Abraham, as was manifested by his remonstrance with the 
patriarch for not adhering to truth in representing his wife as his 
sister. And kings are recorded to have been punished for their 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 293 

covetousness. It might be reasonably concluded from the pre 
ceding instances of respect for nine of the commandments that 
the Sabbatic law was in force ; but we are not left to this inferen 
tial mode of ascertaining the fact, there being none of the pre 
cepts of the Decalogue presented in so full detail as the fourth is 
presented in the narrative of the original appointment of the 
day of sacred rest. 

But not only were the patriarchs under Divine law, the 
same law which after their time was formally given to their de 
scendants. The heathen who never had any communication with 
the children of Abraham, and who were not within hearing of the 
thunders of Sinai, and "the great voice" of the Lawgiver, were 
under law to God. The apostle Paul in the Epistle to the 
Romans classes them with the Jews, as composing that "world" 
which is throughout " guilty before God," and charges them with 
every variety of sin. But where no law is, there is no transgres 
sion. Yet they knew that "they who commit such things" as 
" unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malicious 
ness, hatred of God, pride, disobedience to parents," and other 
sins, "are worthy of death." "For when the Gentiles, which 
have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, 
these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves : which show 
the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also 
bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or 
else excusing one another." They are indeed said to be " without 
law." They were destitute of the knowledge of the will of God 
as contained in the sacred oracles, or, according to the language 
of these oracles, " He showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes 
and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any 
nation." " What advantage hath the Jew 1 or what profit is 
there of circumcision ? Much every way : chiefly, because that 
unto them were committed the oracles of God." In the Law and 
Gospel known to the Jews, the one more clearly than to other 
nations, the other exclusively, both classes were alike concerned, 
else where would have been the alleged advantage of the Jew ] 
The Gentiles and. the Jews are supposed by the apostle to be 
under the same law, known, indeed, in different degrees, but so 
known by both as that the former who have not the law are said 



294 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

when obedient to do by nature the things contained in the law, 
and to show the work of the law written in their hearts, while 
the Jews are said to "do the same" as the Gentiles when both 
transgress it. And it is when the apostle has proved that Jews 
and Gentiles are all under sin, that he thus declares the result of 
their trial by the everlasting rule of righteousness : " Now we 
know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who 
are under the law : that every mouth may be stopped, and all the 
world may become guilty before God." 

It is not questioned that the Jews were under the law of the 
Decalogue. It only remains, then, to inquire whether we have 
evidence that its obligation descends to Christians. 

In more than one respect is it true that they are delivered 
from the law given to Israel With the political part of that law 
as a directory, except as regards its principles and maxims of eternal 
morality, they have no concern. They are freed or rather ex 
empted from any obligation to observe the Levitical ceremonies. 
And there is a sense in which they are delivered from the De 
calogue itself, but delivered in a manner that binds them the 
more strongly to its requirements. The law of the ten command 
ments, proclaimed from Sinai, was, as it had been since the fall 
of man, a law of condemnation and cu r se as well as a law of 
liberty. It is so under the dispensation of the Gospel. Thus 
the apostle Paul says, " Cursed is every one that continueth not 
in all things written in the book of the law to do them ;" and thus 
the apostle James, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and 
yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." No one was more 
stern in preaching the terrors of the law than the Saviour him 
self. And what was the purpose of all this ? It was that sinful 
men might be delivered from the condemnation and curse of the 
law, and brought to obey its precepts, the very precepts for trans 
gressing which they were condemned, but which are still their 
rule, as unbending as ever, yet rendered practicable and attrac 
tive by the Saviour s atonement, love, and grace. " We are 
delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, 
that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the old- 
ness of the letter. What shall we say then ? Is the law- 
Bin 1 God forbid. The law is holy, and the commandment 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 295 

holy, just, and good. I delight in the law of God after the in 
ward man." 

That Christians are under the law of the ten commandments is 
the doctrine of the New Testament. Think not," said Christ, 
" that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets : I am not 
come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till 
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass 
from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever, therefore, shall 
break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, 
he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven : but who 
soever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in 
the kingdom of heaven." 1 That our Lord here, under the ex 
pression "the kingdom of heaven," refers to the Christian dis 
pensation, is certain. He and John the Baptist announced that 
dispensation under the same phrase, " the kingdom of heaven is 
at hand." And that he speaks of the law of the Decalogue is 
manifest from the immediately subsequent words of his sermon, 
in which he proceeds to expound and enforce some of its precepts, 
vindicating them from the perversions and limitations by which 
the Jews had corrupted them. He does not specify every one of 
the commandments ; but a general proposition respecting a law, 
illustrated by a few examples, must be understood as involving a 
principle applicable to all the particulars of that law. The Sab 
bath is not mentioned, neither is the Fifth Commandment. Our 
Lord, however, takes other opportunities of freeing both from 
Jewish additions and abuses the Fifth, in the case of the person 
who, that he might be exempted from the duty of applying his 
property in aid of his parents, called it " corban," or something 
devoted to God ; and the Fourth in numerous instances. It is a 
striking confirmation of our views that our Lord never does honour 
to any ceremonial or judicial enactment by redeeming it from the 
false glosses of the scribes and Pharisees. 

On various other occasions did our Lord so speak and act as 
beyond all doubt to teach us the continued obligation of the 
Decalogue. JThus, whenjhejroung_ man asked what gojKJjbhing 
he ^oul(lj[o^tha^Ji^jght have_eternal life. Jesus^re^lied^J* If 
Uiou wilt entgr_Jnto Iife7 keep the commandments ;" and theu^T 

l Matt. v. 17-19. 



296 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

in answer to another question inquiring what these were, said, 
"Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, 
Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour 
thy father and thy mother : and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
as thyself." 1 Here five of the ten commandments are speci 
fied, and affirmed to be binding. Our Lord s purpose was to show 
the individual his true character, and it was sufficient for this 
end to set before him a Eart_of^ the__law. But by this selection 
he .has attested the authority of the whole Decalogue. ) 

(Our Lord teaches the same doctrine to the lawyer who asked 
which was the great commandment in the law, when he said, 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great 
commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love 
thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all 
the law and the prophets." 2 As in his language to the young 
man, he had summed up the precepts of the second table in love 
to our neighbour, so here he comprehends the whole Decalogue 
in love to God and man, declaring as plainly as language could 
express it that everr one of the ten commanthrrentij continues in 
_all its ancient authority. ) 

The language of~the apostles, in like manner, recognises the 
permanence of the Decalogue. In applying the Fifth Command 
ment to the children of Christian parents, and enforcing it by its 
ancient promise of long life, 3 the apostle Paul has no idea that the 
language in the land made the precept a merely Jewish one, as 
originally given, but clearly regards it as one which embraced the 
Gentiles as well as the Jews the time to come as well as the 
time then present. How indubitably does the same apostle re 
cognise the obligation of the ten commandments in the Epistle to 
the Romans, when he says, " Do we make void the law through 
faith 1 God forbid ; yea, we establish the law" when he de 
clares "the law" to be "holy, and the commandment to be holy, 
just, and good ;" and when he expressly enjoins specific precepts 
of the law. 4 The apostle James, also, thus writes respecting the 
law of the ten commandments : " Whosoever shall keep the whole 

i Matt. six. 16-19. Matt. xxii. 37-40. 

s Eph. vi. 1-3. &lt; Rom. iii. 31, vii. 12, jdit 9. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 297 

law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that 
said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now, if 
thou commit no adultery, yet, if thou kill, thou art become a 
transgressor of the law." 1 The principle here implied would 
warrant equally the statement, " He that said, Honour thy parents, 
said also, Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Now, if 
thou do no dishonour to thy parents, yet, if thou profane the 
Sabbath, thou art become a transgressor of the law." 

iL 10, 11. 



DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SABBATH, UNDER A CHANGE OF DAY, A CHRISTIAN 
ORDINANCE AND LAW. 

"And it shall come to pass, that from one Sabbath to another shall all flesh come to 
worship before me, saith the Lord." 

FOURTH PROPOSITION. A VARIETY OF CIRCUMSTANCES CON 
CURRED TO JUSTIFY THE CONFIDENT EXPECTATION, THAT 
THE SABBATIC INSTITUTION WAS TO BE PERPETUATED UNDER 
CHRISTIANITY. 

WHEN this last and best dispensation of religion was introduced 
the world stood as much as ever in need of a Sabbath. The 
physical nature and necessities of mankind remained the same as 
they had been. A time had been predicted when " the thousand 
natural shocks that flesh is heir to " should be removed or abated, 
but it has not yet fully come, and when it shall come, there is 
no reason for conceiving that it will bring with it the entire cessa 
tion of fatiguing exertion. " They shall labour," but " not in 
vain ;" they shall build houses and inhabit them ; plant vine 
yards and eat their fruit. The absence of all labour would be a 
curse and not a blessing. Far advanced as we are in the nine 
teenth century of Christianity, we see man and beast still wearied 
with toil, and still requiring the rest of night and of every seventh 
day. 

When men became Christians, they continued to have mental 
and religious wants. All of them needed for the improvement of 
their intellectual faculties a weekly change of employment, and 
for their moral and spiritual welfare a frequently returning season 
of rest from their ordinary business, and of instruction, reflection, 
and devotion. Many of them had scarcely any other means of 



TESTIMONY OF EEVELATION. 299 

mental improvement, or any other opportunity of deliberately 
attending to their own eternal interests, and those of their children, 
than a Sabbath afforded. And there is still no possibility that 
human beings can live piously, morally, and happily, without a 
day of sacred rest. To imagine that Christianity would, in 
these unchanged circumstances of man, be without its holy day, 
would be to suppose that it would be less wise, pure, and bene 
volent, than preceding economies, or rather, that it would be so 
different a system as to be no religion at all. 

There remained also the irrevocable obligation of worship in all 
its parts personal, domestic, and public, and how any human 
being in the present condition of society could observe that wor 
ship in a manner becoming the claims of its great object, and with 
any satisfaction or advantage to himself, or rather how he could 
observe it at all, it is for them who would improve on the plans 
of Divine wisdom and benevolence to show. 

Besides the existence of the same necessity for the Sabbath, 
such an institution was capable of yielding the same advantages 
as ever, and it was to be presumed from the promises of a happier 
era that Divine blessings, instead of being restricted, would be 
continued and even increased. 

The statute of the primaeval rest, too, was unrepealed. All 
along from the time of its institution to the departure of Israel 
from Egypt even though it were true that in a brief history it 
is not alluded to it remained a standing rule for the world. 
When next expressly introduced, it is in the form not of a revoca 
tion, but of a revival. Immediately thereafter, it is solemnly 
recognised in a law promulgated for mankind. Had the proceed 
ings in Sin, or at Sinai, issued in an appointment that contra 
vened or superseded the original enactment, there would be *a plea 
for the opinion that the Sabbath of Paradise had ceased. But 
what plea of this nature can be preferred where that institution is 
made the basis of legislation, and its ancient reason, character, 
and sanction, only in expanded form and more solemn manner, 
renewed 1 

The law given from Sinai, in like manner as that given in Eden, 
remained in full force. Christ was careful to clear it from Jewish 
corruptions, and if there was any precept more particularly vindi- 



300 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

cated by him and honoured than another, it was that requiring 
the Sabbath-day to be kept holy. It is not the practice of a wise 
man to repair a house which he is about to pull down. 

Add to such reasons for expecting a Christian holy day the 
fact, that the hope was cherished by Old Testament predictions 
and promises, which declared that the Sabbath would exist, be 
honoured and blessed under the reign of Messiah. In more than 
one part of this volume are the prophetic and gracious intimations 
on these points quoted and considered. Let us only, after re 
ferring our readers to the fifty-sixth and fifty-eighth chapters of 
Isaiah, where there are glowing representations of the coming dis 
pensation with its Sabbatic blessings for men of all classes, and its 
house of prayer for all people, advert for a moment to the last 
sentence but one in the writings of that prophet. It is this : 
" And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, 
and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship 
before me, saith the Lord." 1 

It is not the meaning of these words, that a time is coming 
when every day will resemble the day of the new moon and the 
Sabbath-day, that is, when its holier service of God will be like 
a worship all the month and week over. It is true that the 
Word of God holds out the prospect of a time when the labours of 
our race in procuring what is necessary for food and defence will 
be diminished, and when their opportunities for attending to the 
soul will be multiplied. But it is not said that they shall come 
from day to day, but from month to month, and from week to 
week. In the language of Scripture as well as in common speech; 
what is done from year to year, as in the case of the command of 
Israel to keep the passover from year to year, is done annually 
what is done from month to month, or from week to week, is 
done monthly or weekly. Nor is it the meaning of these words, 
that the stated Jewish days new moons and Sabbaths should 
be continued or revived in future times. The Scripture must be 
expounded in consistency with itself. If there are to be the 
Jewish times, there must also be priests and Levites, and an 
actual repairing of " all flesh" to the literal Jerusalem. If on the 
other hand, the priests and Levites of a preceding verse denote 

* Isaiah Ixvi. 28. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 501 

the office-bearers of the Christian Church, and if Jerusalem signify 
the church itself, then the new moons and Sabbaths must only 
refer to the seasons of public worship under Christianity whatever 
these seasons may be. In no other way could the prophet have 
made himself understood than by mentioning religious observances 
as they then prevailed. All that we are warranted, therefore, to 
draw from the verse before us is, that as the people of Judea at 
set times repaired to Jerusalem to worship, and as they observed 
their new moons and Sabbaths, so in a future age all flesh, or 
men of every land, shall connect themselves with the church of 
God, and engage from month to month, and from week to week, 
in " its stated observances and solemn forms." 1 



FIFTH PROPOSITION. WHILE A VARIETY OF CIRCUMSTANCES 

HELD OUT THE PROSPECT OF A PERENNIAL HOLY DAY, 
THERE WERE OTHERS THAT TENDED TO PREPARE THE MINDS 
OF MEN FOR SOME CHANGE IN THE INSTITUTION. 

lit had already undergone changes in its relations and bearings. 
From being a simple rule of duty it became a part of the condition 
on which depended man s happiness. It passed into the provi 
sions of the covenant of grace. It was received into the Jewish 
economy, and in that connexion was a memorial of the deliverance 
of the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage, as well as of the 
world s creation a political regulation and a ceremonial type, as 
well as a moral law. These were precedents which indicated that 
there might be future changes in the application, which should not 
affect the substance, of the institution. J 

A dispensation so important, and in some respects so new as 
that of Christianity, might be presumed to require, in adaptation 
to its own character and purposes, some alterations in the Sabbath. 
It might be expected, for example, that the work of redemption 
would have a prominent niche and statue in this monumental 
institute. The Scriptures had presented this work as one that 
should cast all preceding works into shade. They had told us of 
a new creation more glorious than the old, and therefore more 

Alexander s Proph?cir-s ofltaiak. 

u 



302 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

entitled to remembrance ; of a redemption more precious far than 
the rescue from Egyptian thraldom, and therefore much more 
worthy to be immortalized. If the material creation merited a 
memorial, still more the moral if the~temporal deliverance of a 
single nation deserved to have an institution enacted in i,ts honour, 
incalculably more the spiritual and eternal salvation of a multitude 
that no man can number. 

Nor were there wanting intimations of what the necessary 
change would be. The seventh was an important day under the 
Mosaic economy, but various instances occur in which the eighth 
was honoured. Circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the 
faith which Abraham had yet being uncircumcised, was to be 
administered on the eighth day. On the eighth day were the first 
born of cattle to be offered to the Lord, and the sheaf of the 
first-fruits to be presented and accepted. On that day the con 
secration of Aaron and his sons, and the sanctification of the 
Temple, were completed. These and similar transactions were 
shadows of things to come, but the body is of Christ. And where 
shall we find an eighth day signalized by any doings or blessings 
of Christ correspondent with those types except the day on which 
He rose from the dead ? There is one typical representation in 
particular that calls for remark. It occurs in Ezekiel s vision of 
the Temple. That this vision was not realized in the building of 
the second temple appears from, besides other facts, the differences 
in its worship from that prescribed by the law of Moses ; and 
that there will be no literal fulfilment of it at a future day, is 
obvious from several considerations, one of which is sufficient, and 
is, that sacrifice is for ever abolished by Christ, so that to attempt 
its revival would be to deny His sacrifice. The only supposable 
accomplishment of the vision is in the condition of the Christian 
Church : And what is there that fulfils the following prediction, 
if not the first day of the week and its Christian worship 1 " And 
when these days are expired, it shall be, that upon the eighth day, 
and so forward, the priest shall make your burnt-offerings upon 
the altar, and your peace-offerings ; and I will accept you, saith 
the Lord." 1 

* Kaek. xliii. 27. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 303 

SIXTH PROPOSITION. THE FACTS RECORDED IN THE NEW 

TESTAMENT, AS REGARDS BOTH THE PERPETUITY AND 
BLESSINGS OF THE SABBATH, AND THE CHANGE OF ITS 
DAY, HAVE FULFILLED THE PREDICTIONS AND REALIZED 
THE TYPES, OF THE OLD. 

The obligation of observing the seventh day as the Sabbath has 
ceased. This is conclusively established by a variety of evidence. 

It appears from several passages in the New Testament that on 
the introduction of Christianity attempts were made by certain 
converts from among the Jews to impose upon Gentile believers 
the observance of the law of Moses, particularly circumcision, .the 
distinction of meat s,~aiiH~sacred seasonsr~ Bu ch"attempts were 
repeatedly resisted by the apostles. We have the judgment of 
the apostle Paul on the subject, as regarded the days of the old^ 
ritual, in these words to the Colossians : " Let no imuTjudge you 
ISTmeat or drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, 
or of the sabbath-days _; whjch are a shadow of things to come ; 
but the body is of Christ." \ In the preceding verses the apostle 
had referred to the privilege enjoyed by the Christians at Colosse, 
of freedom from the obligation to observe Jewish ceremonies. 
They had been circumcised, indeed, but it was with " the circum 
cision made without hands." " The handwriting of ordinances, 
which was contrary" both to them and to the apostle, had been 
" taken out of the way by Christ, who nailed it to his cross." 
And then, in the words before us, they are told that no man 
ought to judge or condemn them in reference to meat o&gt;* drink, a 
holy day or festival, the new moon or Sabbath-days. ( The word 
in the original for Sabbath-days is plural, and always in that form 
has the sense of the Jewish Sabbath in the New Testament. In 
its singular form it is employed with the same meaning, only two 
exceptions being pleaded for in which it is supposed by some to 
denote the Christian Sabbath, 2 and which will again come under 
our notice. Whether, then, we consider the relation of the words 
to the apostle s subject and purpose, the connexion of confessedly 
Jewish ceremonies -with the Sabbath-days in the verse, or the 
meaning of this term itself, we must believe tliat the Colossian 

l CoLti. 1, 17. 2 Matt xxiv. 20; Acts xui 42. 



304 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

converts, and, by parity of reason, all Christians, were by tMs 
sentence" of the apostle exempted froni the o 



^ 

the seventh-day Sabbath, ks really as they were from that of paying 
regard to the distinctions -in food, the festivals, and new moons of the 
preceding economy. The same, or at least a corresponding truth, 
is taught in the words addressed to the Galatians (iv. 9-11): " But 
now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, 
how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto 
ye desire again to be in bondage 1 Ye observe days, and months, 
and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed 
upon you labour in vain." But as it is not said that Christians 
were raised above the necessity, or deprived of the advantage and 
enjoyment of meat and drink, so neither is it intimated that they 
were to have no set day of sacred rest and service. The text 
must be adhered to, and it relates to ritual matters alone to 
Sabbaths, as, like new moons and holidays, forming a part of the 
Jewish ceremonial. Beyond the application of the term to what 
was common in Sabbath-days with distinctions in meat and drink, 
and with the festivals and new moons of the Jews, we have no 
warrant to go in interpreting the apostolic decree. Let us recol 
lect, besides, that the apostle is writing at the distance of thirty 
years from the date of our Lord s resurrection, and at a time when 
the assembling of Christians for public worship on the first day of 
the week had become an established practice. The Colossians 
must, therefore, have understood him, not as setting aside all 
sabbatical observance which, without dropping a hint of discourage 
ment, he was aware prevailed under a change of day, but simply 
as discharging from obligation on conscience a day which every 
one knew to be the last of the week. While, moreover, his words 
discard the days of Judaism, they touch not the authority of the 
ancient statute of Paradise, and in undermining ceremonial rites, 
leave unshaken the moral foundation on which rests the prescrip 
tion, " Kemember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy." 

However they may be conceived to differ, the. earlier deci 
sion on the subject of the observance of particular days in the 
Epistle to the Romans, is in unison with that in the Epistle 
to the Colossians, and furnishes additional evidence that the obli 
gation of observing the seventh day as a sacred day had been an- 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 305 

nulled. The apostle addressing the church at Rome, which was 
composed partly of converted heathen, and partly of converted 
Jews, and in which a diversity of view existed in reference to the 
keeping of certain days, says, " One man esteemeth one day above 
another ; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be 
fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day re- 
gardeth it unto the Lord ; and he that regardeth not the day, to 
the Lord he doth not regard it." l As the design of the whole 
Epistle is to show that the way of salvation through Christ is opened 
alike to Jews and Gentiles, Jewish rites and ceremonies being 
superseded, and as abstinence from certain meats is adduced along 
with days, as the subject of difference on which the apostle de 
cides, it is obvious that the days in question are the Mosaic holy 
days. The class who had been Jews had a special regard for these 
days ; the class who had been heathen attached no importance to 
them. In this case they were not to condemn each other, but to 
act on their respective conscientious convictions. Was this the 
language appropriate to the fact of the continued obligation of the 
seventh day ? The sacred observance of that day had at one 
time been the solemn duty of the Jews, frequently pressed on their 
attention, and enforced by the promise of valuable blessings to 
those who discharged it, as well as by denunciations of calamity 
against the disobedient. Now, however, to adhere to what was 
formerly so indispensable, places the person in the very different 
position of the weak though well-meaning object of forbearance. 

The fate of the seventh-day Sabbath is in accordance with 
the apostolical decisions. Silence here is very different in its im 
port from the silence that followed the birth of the institution. 
There is this difference, with others, that in the latter case the 
silence was broken, while in the former it remains undisturbed. 
Amidst the circumstantial details of the early Christian Church, 
we never after his resurrection find the followers of Jesus assem 
bling for sacred services on the seventh day. Nor was it the 
manner of the Saviour during his stay for forty days on earth to 
go as formerly into the synagogue on that day. He honours the 
meetings of his disciples, but it is no longer on the seventh day. 
Frequently do the apostles and Christians " come together," but 

i Rom. xiv. 5, 6. 



306 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

in several instances the first day of the week is expressly men 
tioned as the set time, while the old day of the Sabbath is never 
said to be selected for such assemblies. It affects not the truth 
of our statement, that the apostle Paul repeatedly met with the 
Jews on that day, 1 and " reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, 
as his manner was." This practice did not in his case involve 
agreement with them in their adherence to the day, or in any of 
their peculiarities, else he must be supposed to have also fraternized 
with pagans by preaching in the Areopagus, thereby defeating his 
avowed purpose not to sanction but to revolutionize the views and 
customs both of Jews and heathens on all such occasions. His 
philanthropy impelled him to go about, like his Master, doing 
good doing good as he had opportunity to all. It was in parti 
cular his heart s desire and prayer for his kinsmen according to 
the flesh, that they might be saved ; and in acting on this feeling 
he was guided by the Master s arrangement, to which he thus 
refers when addressing the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia : "It was 
necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to 
you." To fulfil these benevolent wishes to the utmost it was obvi 
ously wise and necessary that he should embrace the favourable 
opportunities of access to his brethren and fellow-men afforded by 
the scenes and seasons of their wonted and largest concourse. 
Where it did not compromise truth or duty, he was ready to go 
farther than this even to become all things to all men, that he 
might save some. He could keep the passover, circumcise Timothy, 
purify himself according to a Jewish rite, call himself a Pharisee, 
own Ananias as high-priest such conformity being allowed to a 
Jew in tenderness to his brethren, that they might not be driven 
from Christianity, but be gradually won over from an abrogated 
ritual. And yet in perfect consistency with these concessions, he 
taught the doctrines that the Mosaic ceremonies were virtually dis 
placed, that it was a denial of the Messiah to attempt their revival 
as necessary to salvation, and that no man was to judge those 
Gentiles who refused to submit to them, while practically he would 
have withstood the apostles to the face, if they had attempted to 
compel a Titus, or even a recusant Jew, to be circumcised. The 
sutfiequent history of the seventh- day Sabbath, while it illustrates 

i Acts ix. 20 ; xiii. 14-16; xvi IS ; xvli. 1-3 ; xviii. 4, 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 307 

the wisdom of this policy, confirms our doctrine of its authoritative 
abolition. Regard for it died out, and another day rose gradually 
and peacefully to ascendency. For a time the former continued 
as a subordinate season of worship, but for some fifteen or sixteen 
centuries it has been, except by the Jews and a very small sect of 
Christians, altogether disregarded. Is it within the limits of moral 
possibility that a day which has for so long a period failed to 
secure the respect and observance of the Christian Church is en 
titled to the claim of Divine authority ] 

The first day of the week was divinely appointed to be the 
Christian Sabbath. 

Let it be remembered that no new institution required to be 
enacted. The law prescribing a day of rest after six days of 
labour had been from the beginning. It was given in Paradise, 
impressively recognised in the wilderness of Sin, and solemnly 
announced from Mount Sinai. Promises of blessing to its friends, 
and proclamations of calamity to its enemies, were from time to 
time sounded in the ears of the Jews by the prophets. The 
primaeval appointment and the fourth commandment remaining 
unrepealed and irrevocable, with their unchanged and unalterable 
reasons, the hopes of the ancient church were at the same time 
pointed to a permanent day of rest and worship with adaptations 
to the new and more glorious creation. Our Lord had confirmed 
all these views of the institution, and these hopes of men. He 
declared that the Sabbath was made for man, and yet that man 
was not made for the Sabbath. He claimed to be the Lord of 
the Sabbath. He cleared it^. law and the other moral precepts 
from misrepresentation. And while he thus taught the import 
ance and value of a weekly holy day, he rebuked the superstitious 
regard for a particular day (the design of which had been accom 
plished), and prepared the minds of men for a change. If Israel 
in the wilderness of Sin, as Henry expresses it, so " readily took 
the hint" of a Sabbath there given, much- more might it be sup 
posed that there was abundant light reflected from the glorious 
resurrection of the Saviour to indicate to his disciples the day 
which should henceforth be devoted to sacred rest and service. 
And how inexcusable are we if his marked selection of a par 
ticular season for his visits to them, and for sending them the 



308 DIVINE AUTHOEITY OF THE SABBATH. 

Holy Ghost their use of the same season in their public cele 
bration of his praise and ordinances, and the name given to it by 
which he asserted and they admitted his claim to it as his own, 
if these facts do not carry ample evidence to our minds that the 
time referred to, the first day of the week, is by his authority 
constituted the Sabbath of Christianity. 

The resurrection of our Lord from the dead was both the indi 
cation and the cause of the transference of the Sabbatic day 
from the end to the beginning of the week. All the evangelists 
record the fact that the former event took place on the first day 
of the week ; but one of them more concisely and directly : 
" Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he 
appeared first to Mary Magdalene." It was not by accident 
that the Eedeemer rose from the dead on that day. There are 
reasons for the times of much less important events. Circum 
stances might have been so arranged as that Jesus should have 
risen on the seventh day of the week ; but it was not so ordered. 
That on this day he should lie in the dust of death was a plain 
token that it was no longer to be " a delight " a day of joyful 
commemoration. The day of His resurrection was the first day 
of the Saviour s rest, and the analogy, to say nothing more, to 
the Divine procedure in creation required that the day on which 
He rested from a transcendently more glorious work should be 
the season of rest and celebration in His kingdom. " There 
remaineth therefore a rest," the keeping of a Sabbath, " to the 
people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath 
ceased from his own works, as God^did from his." 

In proof that the day of His own rest was to be the season of 
rest and prayer to His followers, our Lord met with His disciples 
on the very day of His resurrection. After favouring individuals 
of them with His presence and instructions, so that their hearts 
burned within them while he talked with them by the way, and 
opened to them the Scriptures, He appeared in the midst of the 
assembled eleven, and other friends, and said unto them, " Peace 
be unto you. Why are ye troubled ? and why do thoughts arise 
in your hearts ? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I my 
self." 1 The scene is thus described by another evangelist: 

i Lnk xxiv 36, 38, 30 



4 - T TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 309 

" Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, 
when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled, for 
fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith 
unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he 
showed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the dis 
ciples glad when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them 
again, Peace be unto you : as my Father hath sent me, even so 
send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, 
and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever 
sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whose soever 
sins ye retain, they are retained." 1 It is added that "Thomas 
was not with them when Jesus came," and that when informed 
by the other disciples that they had seen the Lord, he said, 
" Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put 
my fingers into the print of the nails, and my hand into his side, 
I will not believe." 

The establishment of the first day of the week as the Chris 
tian Sabbath still further appears from the time and incidents 
of our Lord s second visit to his assembled followers. " And 
after eight days, again his disciples were within, and Thomas 
with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood 
in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to 
Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands ; and reach 
hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side : and be not faithless, 
but believing." Here we have plainly a stated day of religious 
convocation, and that the first day of the week. From another 
part of the narrative it appears that the disciples had returned 
to their accustomed manual labours. Their dependence on these 
labours for their subsistence required that they should attend to 
their secular calling, the more so that their time had lately been 
occupied, and their thoughts absorbed by the events that pre 
ceded and attended the crucifixion. They needed, however, as 
before, a weekly holy day. They could not and would not 
observe two Sabbaths. The resurrection of their Lord had pre 
scribed the proper day, and this, with His visit, taught them to 
expect His presence on the first day of the week. Accordingly, 
" after eight days again his disciples were within." And on His 

i John xx. 19-23. 



310 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. . 

part our Lord shows his regard to the day. He absents Himself 
from the disciples for a whole week, and by appearing among 
them a second time on the first day of the week, and in the scene 
of public worship, expresses^ in the most emphatic manner, his 
approval of "the order," both as respects the time and the 
engagements of this infant Church. Thus, too, the apostle Paul 
and his friends tarried at Troas seven days, and yet the first day 
of the week is the only one mentioned on which the disciples 
came together to break bread, or on which the apostle preached 
to them. 1 We may presume that it was in like manner to hold 
public fellowship with the Christians in Tyre, and to preach the 
gospel, that his sojourn there too was for the same period, as thus 
related : " And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days : 
who said to Paul through the Spirit, that he should not go up to 
Jerusalem. And when we had accomplished those days, we de 
parted, and went our way." 2 

The sacred observance of the first day of the week extends over 
a wider space than Jerusalem, and to a later time than that of the 
events there that have been mentioned. We alluded to the apostle 
Paul s conduct at Troas as a case in which other days are allowed 
to pass unnoticed, and public religious services are postponed till 
the first day of the week should come round. But his whole pro 
ceedings there, with those of the Church, are justly regarded as 
very clearly pointing to the first day of the week as the recognised 
Christian Sabbath. The narrative is as follows : " And we sailed 
away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came 
unto them to Troas in five days, where we abode seven days. 
And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came 
together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart 
on the morrow ; and continued his speech until midnight. And 
there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were 
gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young 
man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep : and as Paul 
was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from 
the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, 
and fell on him, and embracing him, said, Trouble not yourselves ; 
for his life is in him. When he, therefore, was come up again, 

1 Acts xx. 7. z Acts xxi. 4, 5. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 311 

and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even 
till break of day, so he departed. And they brought the young 
man alive, and were not a little comforted." 1 Let these facts be 
adverted to in addition to that already noticed. The Christians at 
Troas "came together," or assembled together, the common phrase 
for church-meetings in the New Testament. As Peter talked with 
Cornelius, " he went in, and found many that were come together. " 2 
" Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye 
come together not for the better, but fo&the worse. For first of 
all, when ye come togetJier in the church, I hear that there be 
divisions among you." 3 " If therefore the whole church be come 
together into one place, how is it then, brethren ? when ye come 
together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a 
tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things 
be done unto edifying." 4 " Not forsaking the assembling of your 
selves together, as the manner of some is." 5 Further, they came 
together "to break bread." That similar language in Acts 
xxvii. 35 refers to an ordinary meal, appears from the previous 
advice of the apostle to his fellow-voyagers, who had fasted for 
fourteen days, to take some food, as it was for their health; from 
the words, " Then were they all of good cheer, and they also took 
some meat ;" and, indeed, from the occasion and the persons so 
employed. Nor do we doubt that in one or two instances, besides, 
the reference in such language is to the same thing. But when 
it is said, " They continued in the apostles doctrine and fellow 
ship, and breaking of bread and prayer," and when they " came to 
gether to eat bread," there can be no question that the observance 
of the Lord s Supper is to be understood. It was a meeting for the 
public celebration of Divine ordinances at which the apostle was 
present and preached. In a word, this coming together was the 
ordinary practice of the disciples at Troas. The use of a common 
expression for Christian worshipping assemblies determines this, 
while it is to be observed in corroboration of the view, that it is 
not said that the apostle, as he did in the case of the elders at 
Ephesus, called the members of the church together, but that "upon 
the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to 

i Acts xx. 6-12. 2 Acts x. 27. 1 Cor. xi 17, 18. 

1 Cor. xiv. 23, 26. Heb. x. 25. 



312 DIVINE AUTHORITY OP THE SABBATH. 

break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the 
morrow." If the case now described does not intimate that the 
Christians at Troas at least were in the custom of keeping holy 
the first day of the week, and that one of the apostles sanctioned 
that custom by everything that could express sympathy and fellow 
ship in their meeting and engagements, we know not what the 
narrative can mean, or what other terms could more clearly convey 
the facts. The statement is the more conclusive that the inci 
dents are so natural in their character and expression. And what 
different custom from that at Troas prevalent as it was at so 
great a distance from Jerusalem, and well-nigh thirty years after 
the date of the first Christian assembly can we suppose to have 
then prevailed in any other part of the Christian world 1 

Let another case embracing a number of churches supply the 
answer. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians it is thus written : 
" Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given 
order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. 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." 1 
The first day of the week is never before mentioned but as the 
day of the Eedeemer s resurrection, and of religious assemblies 
and business. These are its only distinctions the only marks 
by which it is discriminated from the other days of the week, and 
by which we are to know its character. We are fully warranted 
by this history, therefore, to regard it as a sacred day. And here 
we are made acquainted with the important fact not the less 
certain that it required no formal declaration that it was well 
known in this its only character by the Corinthian and Galatian 
churches, if not also by " all that in every place call upon the 
name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours," to whom, 
with the Christians at Corinth, the epistle is addressed. The 
writer takes it for granted that all Christians observed it as a holy 
day. The prescription of benevolent contributions to be made on 
it not once or twice, but constantly is only in harmony with 
its nature. The seasons of worship were anciently sanctified by 
such gifts and offerings. 2 Our Lord asserted the doing of good 
as an appropriate duty of the Sabbath-day. The frequent period!- 

1 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 7 3 Deut. xv i. 10. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 313 

cal return of such a day its facilities for calm reflection and the 
cultivation of social affections its bringing the rich and poor 
together, and equalizing them in the Divine presence its sacred 
recollections/ services, and hopes all tend to promote beneficence, 
to impart principle and regularity to its exercise, and at once to 
prevent undue pressure on the resources, and to swell the ultimate 
amount, of liberality. 

The expression, " Lord s day," in Rev. i. 10, is justly regarded 
as a decisive testimony to the Christian Sabbath. " I was in the 
Spirit," said the apostle John, " on the Lord s day." This latter 
expression corresponds with the phraseology of the Old Testament, 
"A Sabbath to the Lord," "The Sabbath of the Lord thy God." 
and still more with the Saviour s language, " The Son of man is 
Lord even of the Sabbath-day." 1 The designation of " Lord " in 
the New Testament is usually to be understood of Jesus Christ. 
We read of the word of Christ the ministers of Christ the 
Lord s table the cup of the Lord the body and blood of the 
Lord the Lord s supper the Lord s death so we read of the 
Lord s day. He has appropriated a day to himself ; but as his 
word, his ministers, his table, his death, are for the benefit of 
men, to be applied, however, in securing that end, according to 
his prescription, so is it with his day. Which day of the week 
that is, cannot be reasonably questioned. The apostle refers to 
it as well known to the churches of Asia. He knew that the 
first day of the week was the day of the resurrection and visits of 
his Lord the day held as sacred by the churches of Troas, 
Corinth, and Galatia and by the simple mention of its name as 
the Lord s, he, or rather the Spirit of God, has authorized us to 
conclude that " the first day of the week " and the " Lord s day " 
are expressions which denote the same day. His testimony, more 
over, proves that the day was not only honoured by the Christian 
churches and by himself, after the lapse of nearly a century from 
the time of the Redeemer s advent, but honoured under the name 
and sanction of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

1 Kvpios K&lt;tl TOV cra$3aTOU rfj KvpiaKy yy-tpy., a different expression from the 
day of the Lord, r) i]fj,{pa Kvplov. 



314 DIVINE AUTHORITY OP THE SABBATH. 

SEVENTH PROPOSITION. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE THAT THE FIRST 
DAY OF THE WEEK SHOULD HAVE COME TO BE THUS 
GENERALLY RECEIVED AND OBSERVED AS A HOLY DAY, 

OR RATHER AS the weekly HOLY DAY, WITHOUT DIVINE 

AUTHORITY. 

And this for the following reasons : 

First, The existing prepossessions in favour of the seventh day. 
It was natural that the Jews should have strong attachments to 
the whole Mosaic system, which was of Divine appointment, which 
was that of their fathers, and hallowed in their minds and hearts 
by its antiquity, glory, and so many tender recollections. How 
difficult, accordingly, was it for the apostles to believe that all 
distinctions between Jews and Gentiles had ceased ! The apostles 
had to bear much with their converted brethren, and to make 
concessions to their prejudices. And yet, while they were per 
mitted for a time to respect the former distinctions of meats and 
days, we do not find any evidence in the New Testament that 
they refused to keep holy the first day of the week. Many of 
them, at all events, with the apostles at their head, sanctified 
that day. That this should take place in the case of any, and 
eventually to the exclusion of regard for the seventh day, in that 
of almost all, can, we conceive, be accounted for only on the 
ground that they had sufficient evidence and the clear conviction 
that the change of day was of God. 

Second, The regard which Jehovah has to his worship, and 
his rejection of human interference in its appointment and regula 
tion. Of this, we have ample evidence in the second command 
ment ; in the charges repeatedly given to add nothing to his words ; 
and in the condemnation and punishment of such persons as JN"adab 
and Abihu for offering strange fire on his altar, Jeroboam for de 
vising a religious feast of his own heart, the antichristian powei 
that should "think to change times and laws," Ananias and 
Sapphira, and others. That the apostles and early Christians 
should of their own accord abandon the seventh day, and institute 
the first as a day to the Lord, would be to suppose that their 
Master had permitted them to violate the order of His own house, 
and to teach for doctrines the commandments of men. 



TESTIMONY OP REVELATION. 315 

Third, The abundant provision made for regulating all the 
observances of religion. Jesus had before his ascension " given 
commandments through the Holy Ghost unto the apostles," and 
commissioned them to " teach" mankind " all things whatsoever 
he had commanded them." And the words of the apostle Paul to 
the Thessalonian Christians show the authority .under which he 
acted in his preaching and writings : " We beseech you, brethren, 
and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us 
how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound 
more and more. For ye know what commandments we gave you 
by the Lord Jesus." 1 From several parts of the New Testament, 
we learn that in acting and ordering as we have seen one of them 
did in reference to the first day of the week, they are to be regarded 
as ruling our conduct, their ordinances and commandments being 
those of their Master and Lord. 2 How was it possible, therefore, 
for them to appoint the churches to assemble for worship on that 
day, to encourage the practice, or to induce believers to follow it, 
if they had not received of the Lord how to teach and act in this 
most important matter ? 

Fourth, The apostolic censure of the observance of days. 
The Galatians were remonstrated with for this conduct : " But 
now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, 
how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto 
ye desire again to be in bondage 1 Ye observe days, and months, 
and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed 
upon you labour in vain." 3 Now it is impossible that inspired 
men should both condemn the observance of days, and yet observe 
them themselves, and countenance by their words and deeds the 
practice, unless the two things were distinct unless, while other 
days were set aside, the first day of the week had come into 
authorized and sacred use. 

Fifth, The prophetic intimations of a Christian Sabbath. If 
the consecration of the first day of the week be not the fulfilment 
of these intimations, they have failed of accomplishment, for that 
was for centuries the only recognised Sabbath, and still is the 
Sabbath of nearly the whole Christian Church. 

1 1 Thess. iv. 1, 2. 

i Acts xv. 24, 28, 29 ; Luke x. 16 ; 1 Cor. xiv. 37 ; 1 John iv. 6, GaL iv. 9-11. 



316 DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SABBATH. 

Sixth, The events and blessings which have attended this day. 
If the ancient Sabbath was attested by extraordinary occurrences, 
not less the new. The day of the Redeemer s resurrection was a 
day of marvels. It was also a day of blessing, when he announced 
peace, breathed on His disciples the influences of the Spirit, gave 
them their commission, and_ held with them the most condescend 
ing and endeared intercourse. It was on the first day of the week 
that He removed the doubts of one of their number. It was on 
the first day of the week, when the Christians were all with one 
accord in one place, that the Holy Ghost came down, an event so 
great in itself, and so fraught with good to mankind. On this 
day the first Christian sermon was preached ; thousands were 
converted, the Church was fully formed, and the Lord s supper 
publicly celebrated. It was on the Lord s day that the apostle 
John was in the Spirit, heard a great voice as of a trumpet, saw 
the glorified Saviour in the midst of the churches, and was com 
manded to write the things which he had seen, the things that 
then were, and the things that should be thereafter. And it has 
been on the Christian Sabbath ever since that the greatest good 
has been done to mankind, by that Word and Grace which have 
covered so many regions of the earth with moral beauty, and pre 
pared so many human beings for heaven, and which shall, in yet 
more auspicious times, reclaim a revolted world to the service and 
enjoyment of its Maker. 

What, then, is wanting to the evidence that the day on which 
Christians cease from labour, and worship their Divine Saviour, is 
truly the Sabbath of God, the Lord s day T, We have seen the 
first day of the week to be coseval with the second and more- 
glorious rest of God, sanctified by His example and word, and 
blessed with His favour, presence, and grace from the beginning 
till now. If not " the day which the Lord hath made," it is 
surely its morning and meridian too. If not the consummation of 
" the rest which remaineth to the people of God," it is certainly 
the season of a Sabbatism of which heaven will be, in more per 
fect form, and more unceasing flow, the prolongation for ever. 



CTSTIMONY OP KEVELATION. 317 



CHAPTEK IV. 

DUTIES OF THE SABBATH. 

" Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work ; but the seventh day is th 
Sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, 
nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy 
stranger that is within thy gates." 

NOTHING ,s more certain than that any portion of time, how 
ever in itself valuable, or capable of being turned to profitable 
account, is in fact a blessing or a curse according to the purposes 
to which it is appropriated, and the way in which it is spent. 
The excesses that have usually attended the festivals of idolatry, 
and the abuse of holidays by many of our own people, are suffi 
cient confirmation of the remark. To estimate the Sabbatic in 
stitution aright we must view it complexly, not as an abstraction, 
or even as so much time measured off for any use that men may 
prefer, but in its concomitants of sacred design, appropriate in 
structions, fitting observance, and the blessing of its Author ; and 
its importance must be understood to consist in the opportunity 
which at proper intervals it affords not only of rest from secular 
labour, but of attending to objects and of being acted on by 
influences which mould into their own elevated and pure character 
the nature of man, and which without such an arrangement could 
not be to the same extent, if at all, available. 

One of the designs of the Sabbath has ever been to afford rest 
from labour, with a view to the refreshment of the animal nature, 
and its invigoration for the work of the six days. 

The Almighty himself, who is never weary, rested from the 
six days work of creation as a pattern to man. He " rested and 
was refreshed." And He blessed the seventh day, setting it 
apart as a day of repose to human beings. The first man, while 



318 DUTIES OP THE SABBATH. 

untainted by sin, had these things in common with us, that he 
partook of food, had an employment which demanded the exertion 
of his bodily energies, and was capable of sleep all involving the 
means of maintaining the existence and ministering to the well- 
being and pleasure of his physical nature. As these things were 
compatible with perfection in excellence and happiness, not less so 
were the rest of night and the rest of the seventh day. It will be 
admitted that had he not fallen from purity, he, with his race, 
would have remained under the law of the Sabbath, and enjoyed 
its blessings. It may be conceded, on the other hand, that had 
he, like the angels that sinned, been abandoned by his Maker, his 
Sabbath would have ceased as irreconcilable with a scene where 
the inhabitants " rest not day or night." But we are ill qualified 
to affirm what on certain suppositions might be the procedure of 
an infinite Being. Man, however, neither persevered in obedi 
ence, nor was hopelessly cast off. As he is the object of for 
bearance and mercy, it does not appear that he is placed beyond 
the pale of the blessings, or exempted from the obligations of a 
day of holy and happy rest. There is no intimation that the 
statute was cancelled, or its benefit withdrawn. It was given to 
man as a creature consisting of body as well as soul, and placed 
in a material world. It is plainly so expressed as to be adapted 
to all dispensations. If man in innocence needed a weekly rest- 
ing-day, no less certainly was the provision required by himself 
and his posterity after their transition to the state involved in 
the sentence : " Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of 
thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, 
saying, Thou shalt not eat of it : cursed is the ground for thy 
sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. 
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou 
shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt 
thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground." l Accordingly, 
while we find him precluded access to the tree of life, and driven 
from Eden, nothing is said implying that the Sabbath has been 
set aside. Cain and such as he went out from the presence of the 
Lord that is, voluntarily forsook the scene of sacred privilege, 
af worship, and of Sabbaths, that, like many -&gt;f our own day, 

* Gen. iii. 17-18. 



TESTTMOIVY OF EEVELATION. 319 

they might uninterruptedly prosecute their worldly views and 
pleasures. That such men as Enoch and Noah, who walked with 
God, were without the benefit and happiness of the Sabbatic rest, 
it is on various grounds unreasonable to conceive. If a brief life 
as ours were insupportable without a weekly day of repose, how 
impossible for the patriarchs to pass their eight or nine centuries 
thus ! All their interests of mind and body, time and eternity, 
demanded such a day. It might be the hard lot of Israel, when 
borne down by Egyptian bondage, to be deprived partially or 
wholly of this blessing, but on their arrival in the wilderness of 
Sin, they are put in full possession of the great charter of human 
liberty and rights, and begin to enjoy it, none making them afraid. 
The law, as given from Sinai, sets forth the same design of the 
institution rest from labour : " Six days shalt thou labour, and 
do all thy work ; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the 
Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy 
son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, 
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates ; 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 Sabbath-day and hallowed it." 1 The work, of which 
there must be a cessation, is the work of our calling or business. 
This must all be done in the six days. On the seventh there 
must not be any such work. Nothing can be plainer than the 
prohibition. And the only reason why it could be necessary to 
illustrate its meaning is that the human mind can pervert the 
clearest law to its own sinister purposes. Hence it is that we are 
furnished with Divine comments on this law. The prophet 
Isaiah informs us, that it is against the law of the Sabbath to do 
our own ways, or to speak our own words, or to find our own 
pleasure on that day. The terms of the law imply all this for 
its object is rest from all secular work and how can he fulfil 
this object who busies himself with action, or word, or thought 
about such work 1 But, on the other hand, no one could reasonably 
suppose from this commandment that a sheep was not to be lifted 
from a pit, that the diseased must not be cured, or that the 
hungry must not be fed. Actions necessary for the preservation 

i Exod. xx. 9-11. 



320 DUTIES OF THE SABBATH. 

of life or the relief of distress do not constitute ordinary secular 
work. It was to clear the law from such mistaken views of it 
that our Lord condescended to teach the Jews that works of 
piety, necessity, and mercy, might be done on the Sabbath, which 
they themselves knew might be done, and did not object to till 
they had a purpose to serve. As Jesus was " Lord of the Sab 
bath," he knew best its design and requirements, and therefore 
all these works must have been accordant with both. He re 
peatedly asked whether such actions were not agreeable to the 
law, and his enemies themselves could not say that they were not. 
Yet our Lord did not make a practice or labour of healing on the 
Sabbath ; nor did he authorize his disciples to adopt a custom of 
plucking and bruising ears of corn ; nor command a systematic 
preparation of appliances for providing against the possible acci 
dent of an animal falling into a pit. It is deeds of mercy to the 
suffering deeds essential to the duties of piety deeds of neces 
sity, incapable of being provided f&lt;5r beforehand or postponed, that 
he practised and recommended. 

And when we examine the narratives cf the New Testament, 
we find nothing, after the introduction of the Christian dispensa 
tion, done by Christ, or his apostles, or the churches, that was 
contrary to the old commandment of resting one day in seven. We 
have seen that the institution is permanent, and what would it be 
without rest ? And the testimony of Christian writers after the 
time of the apostles is most harmonious as to the observance of 
the Lord s day as a season of abstinence from labour. 

As rest, then, has been the law of the Sabbath in all periods 
of its recognition in Scripture, it is the law now as really as ever. 
Now as formerly it is a duty to cease from our usual business. 
The plough must stand the counting-house and sale-room and 
workshop must be shut the artisan must suspend the use of his 
implements the transactions of buying, selling, and getting gain 
must be discontinued the author and scribe must drop their 
pens the man of literature and science must lay aside his ordin 
ary reading and investigations. We have said, all this must be, 
or ought to be ; but what is thus imperative, is at the same time 
so reasonable and good as should be felt to be freedom and plea 
sure. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 321 

Nor are our usual avocations all that ought to be suspended on 
the Sabbath of God. We are not to-do any secular work ; we 
are not to do our own ways, or speak our own words, or find our 
own pleasure. All that does not involve sacred service must be 
laid aside, as without this there is not rest. Suppose, for example, 
the day to be spent in unnecessary thoughts about the business of 
the world, it would not gain its object of rest to the body, as 
continual thought about one set of matters is destructive to those 
material organs which the mind employs, and thus to the whole 
system. The statesman, equally as the man who is constantly 
engaged in manual labour, has a short life. Suppose, again, that 
the day were devoted to recreation, amusement, or convivial in 
dulgence, All observation and experience show that these afford 
no proper rest to body or mind. Such occupation converts the day 
into a working-day of the worst description. He who knows our 
frame, and all whose ordinances are adapted to its wants and wel 
fare, has prescribed rest from our own pleasures, and from our own 
words (which are in one sense actions, and bring no repose to the 
spirit) as well as from our own works and ways. 

To fulfil this purpose of rest, the whole day must be so spent. A 
Sabbath-day is just as long as another day. We find the Saviour 
rising early on the first day of the week, and it was not till the 
Sabbath s sun had set that he proceeded to heal the multitudes 
of sick that were brought to him. 1 The hours allowed for repose 
are, especially in the case of the great majority of mankind, too 
precious to admit of being alienated from their great purpose. 
One infraction of the law has its injurious effect. Many smaller 
deviations constitute a large total of injury. The smaller leads 
on to the greater. And admit the principle that one hour of the 
day of rest may be sacrificed, where shall the admission and the 
practice stop, short of the abandonment of the whole day 1 Here, 
too, the Author of the Sabbath has evinced his wisdom and his 
goodness in exactly defining and peremptorily requiring a certain 
time a day of rest. So important is the object of this part of 
the arrangement, the distribution of all time into that of work 
and that of rest, that no encroachment must take place on the 
smaller proportion allotted to the latter object. A portion ia 

Luke iv. 18-41. 



322 DUTIES OF THE SABBATH. 

rather allowed to be taken from the greater and added to the less. 
The obligation of labour on the six days is as binding as rest on 
the seventh, but not in the same measure. Secular days may be 
applied in certain circumstances otherwise than in the work of 
our callings, but we have no liberty to throw away any part of 
the seventh day. One abstraction from ordinary time which is 
allowed and required, is the portion of it that is necessary to pre 
paration for the day of rest. The children of Israel gathered and 
prepared the Sabbath s manna on the preceding day. If we are 
fully to enjoy our rest, it is necessary, when the time of it arrives, 
that we be as completely disengaged as possible from disturbing 
work and cares, and this can be accomplished only by despatching 
business so that no violent transition is required. 

But rest for bodily refreshment and invigoration is not the only 
or chief design of the Sabbatic institute. Another and higher 
purpose of its rest was, that it might give man facilities for sacred 
engagements. The law is, " Remember the Sabbath-day to keep 
it holy," and the example of Jehovah is set forth as our pattern. 
But what was His procedure ? He rested from one class of works, 
but not from all working. In like manner we are to rest from the 
works appropriated to the six days, but not from all activity. 
This would be the rest of a mere animal, not of a man. It would 
be an impossibility. The spirit of man, like its Maker, is from 
its very nature incessantly active. And this very activity is 
compatible with continued mental vigour and bodily health. 
Variety of exercise both of body and mind is, under certain con 
ditions and limitations, the repose and refreshment of both. The 
person who has toiled with his hands during the week finds it 
rest, not only to cease from such labour, but to exercise his mmd 
on intellectual subjects. The other person who has laboured 
mentally during the week finds his spirit refreshed by a change 
of theme. Nor must we forget what is the chief ingredient in 
the felt rest of both the change from the unsatisfying and dis 
tracting things of earthly pursuit to intercourse with those tran 
quillizing and gladdening objects of a spiritual and holy heaven, 
to which man s nature was originally adapted, and without which 
it can never be in its proper state of health, order, and happi- 
ness. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 323 

It is a great truth that the Sabbath was made for man, both 
for the health of his body and for the good of his mind. But 
when this oracle was uttered, it was to overthrow the idea that 
man was made for the Sabbath, not the idea that the Sabbath 
was made for God. Man himself was made for the Divine ser 
vice and glory, and this is the highest end of the Sabbath as of 
all things. 

" That as the world serves ns, we may serve Thee, 
And both Thy servants be." 1 

The glory of Jehovah required a day on which man should be 
more fully than on other days engaged in serving Him on which 
rent should be paid to the Proprietor, tribute to the Government 
on which the sons of God should come together and swear fealty 
to their Master on which subjects should wait on their King, 
and testify their reverence and loyalty on which the head of the 
lower creation should offer the collected homage of all his charge 
to the universal Lord. The Sabbath is " the Sabbath of the Lord 
thy God " it is " the Lord s day." It is designed for man s 
benefit subordinately, but it is not man s day, and therefore not a 
day for man s business. It is God s day, and therefore a day for 
God s work. And it is beneficial to man just in the measure in 
which it is applied to its chief object, the serving and honouring 
of its Author. 

The God of the Sabbath has prescribed its business. In all 
ages there has been a service appointed for that day. It would 
appear that Adam himself had a special work to perform on it. 
While his thoughts and desires were all holy in the engagements 
of the six days, it is not inconsistent with his perfect excellence to 
suppose that his mind required once a week a day of more im 
mediate fellowship with his Maker. The holiness of an angel is 
that of continual immediate consecration to God. The holiness of 
an embodied spirit is that of a creature devoted to the service of 
God in secular occupations for one period of time, and in direct 
homage for another period of time. Man is finite, and while en 
gaged in the foriner cannot attend with equal intensity to the 
latter. And while necessary to his own full happiness, it was 
i Hercert. 



324 DUTIES OF THE SABBATH. 

requisite as a duty to his Maker that innocent man should offer g 
special weekly homage to his Creator, Benefactor, and King. 

But passing from this period of man s history, as to which our 
information is scanty, and looking to the subsequent accounts of Sab 
bath observance, we find increasing light thrown on this subject. 

It is a principal part of the duty of the Sabbath to attend 
the house of God, and engage in its services of praise, prayer, and 
religious instruction. Early in the history of mankind are Cain 
and Abel mentioned as bringing their offerings unto the Lord. 
TSiis was " in process of time," or at the end of days. As the 
Sabbath was a divine ordinance, Abel, a good man, must have 
observed it, and Cain, who had not yet cast off all religion, must 
have been, as formerly remarked, too engrossed with the world to 
have any other day to spare for his worship. In the acceptance 
of Abel s offering and in the rejection of Cain s, we see the Divine 
approbation of worship that was according to appointment, and the 
ivine disapprobation of a service that wanted authority. The 
stated day and place had been attended to by Cain, else there would 
have been a will-worship which would be condemned, as well as 
his want of an offering of blood. Cain soon after went out from 
the presence of the Lord not from God s presence absolutely, but 
froEi his gracious presence the scene of Sabbaths and worship, 
and therefore of Divine favour. While men were few, the ser 
vices of the Sabbath were comparatively private and domestic. 
But in course of time, it is said, " Then began men to call on the 
name of the Lord" that is, more publicly to profess or invoke 
the name of the Lord. Under the Mosaic economy, there was 
the public worship of the tabernacle, temple, and synagogue on 
the Sabbath. And under Christianity, the followers of the Saviour 
are" found meeting together on his day for sacred service. 

Of the services connected with the house of God under both 
economies it will be proper here to present a brief enumeration. 

Prayer was so much the practice of the ancient church that the 
house of God is called the house of prayer ; and prayer was no 
ceremonial service which has passed away, for that house of 
prayer was to be for all people, and the first Christian churches 
" continued in prayer." Praise was another part of the public 
worship. "Praise waiteth for thee, God, in Zion." "Enter 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 323 

his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise." Christ 
sang a hymn with his disciples after the institution of the Supper. 
And his first followers " were continually in the temple, praising 
and blessing God." The reading and preaching of the Word are 
ordinances common to the Jewish and Christian Churches. In 
the former, " the prophets were read every Sabbath-day" (Acts 
xiii. 27), and "Moses of old time hath in every city them that 
preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day" 
(Acts xv. 21). This, like praise and prayer, being a part of the 
worship of the synagogue, and not of a ceremonial character, is 
properly continued in the Christian Church ; and we find Paul 
giving charges for the reading of his Epistles in the churches 
(1 Thess. v. 27 ; Col. iv. 16). Ezra not only read the Scriptures 
but gave the sense. When Christ ascended on high He gave 
pastors and teachers for the edifying of His body, the Church. The 
apostles preached on the day of Pentecost, at Troas, and wherever 
they went, on the Lord s day, though not exclusively on that day. 
One of them solemnly charges Timothy to preach the Word, and 
instructs him to commit this trust to faithful men who should be 
able to teach others. It is unnecessary to enlarge on an ordinance 
of which the Scriptures are so full. The offering of their sub 
stance for the service of God is another duty of the assembled 
worshippers on the Sabbath. By such contributions were the 
priests, and the poor, and the expenses of religious institutions 
provided for under the law. The Israelites were not to appear 
before the Lord empty, and Paul gives instructions to the churches 
to perform on the first day of the week a similar service. In the 
Christian Church baptism was to accompany instruction, and the 
Lord s Supper was administered on the Lord s day. 

All these ordinances supposed not only persons to dispense 
them, but persons to wait on the dispensation and enjoy its bene 
fits. In ancient times he was pronounced blessed who waited at 
the posts of Wisdom s gates. In New Testament times, it is 
said, " How shall they believe in him of whom they have not 
heard?" "Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, 
as the manner of some is ; but exhorting one another, and so 
much the more as ye see the day approaching. For if we sin 
wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, 

If, 



326 DUTIES OF THE SABBATH. 

there remaineth no more sacriiice for sins." The same danger 
was incurred at the very outset of religion. Cain s going out 
from the presence of the Lord led not only to his own ruin, but 
to that universal corruption of manners among his descendants, 
which, infecting also the descendants of Seth, brought on the 
flood that swept not merely all save one family from the land of 
the living ; but millions, there is reason to fear, into the place of 
woe. And all indifference to the public means of grace and wor 
ship, evinced by total desertion of the sanctuary, or by occasional 
unnecessary absences, is an act of contempt to the great King of 
the Church, and proves that apostasy from the truth and from 
the ways of God has taken one of its most decided steps. The 
evil is the more criminal and injurious that, besides involving a 
personal neglect of the Creator and Redeemer, it is an omission 
of an important testimony to the world on behalf of religion. 
How becoming and profitable when "the whole Church conies 
together !" And there are those who are ever so regular in this 
matter that nothing but dire necessity prevails to make their seats 
empty. These are the persons who are likely to profit by the 
means of grace, and who, as far as this goes, strengthen the 
hands and encourage the hearts of the ministers of religion, rear 
orderly families, and build up the Church of God. One thing 
ought to be added as of no small importance. We refer to 
punctuality in keeping appointments with God, the want of which 
is surely very like an evidence of indifference to His service. 
They were men of a different spirit, of whom one of their number 
could say, " Now, therefore, are we all here present before God, 
to hear all things commanded thee of God." 

" Sundays observe ; think when the bells do chime, 
"Pis angels music, therefore come not late : 

God then deals blessings. . . . 
Let vain or busy thoughts have there no part ; 

Bring not thy plough, thy plots, thy pleasures thithofc 
Christ purged His temple, so must thou thy heart." 1 
* Herbert s Temple. 



TESTIMONY OF IIEVELATION. 32 7 



CHAPTER V. 

DUTIES OF THE SABBATH. 

" I was in the Spirit on the Lord s day." 

THE Sabbath is a day appropriated to the services of domestic 
piety. "It is the Sabbath of the Lord your God in all your 
dwellings." 

Family worship is one of its duties. It is not the only day 
for that interesting and profitable service, for it is not the only day 
on which families stand in need of, and receive blessings from 
above ; it is not the only day, therefore, on which it is proper 
and necessary for them to acknowledge their Benefactor. But 
certainly the Sabbath is a day on which it would be peculiarly 
inexcusable and criminal to omit such a duty, and on which it 
ought to be performed with special interest and care. The daily 
sacrifice under the law was doubled on the seventh day, and in 
the temple service of Ezekiel was to be tripled. 1 The fourth 
commandment is specially directed to heads of families, requiring 
them, as such, to keep the day holy. On that day " it is a 
good thing to show forth God s loving-kindness in the morning, 
and his faithfulness every night." Reason itself dictates this as 
the duty of every morning and evening. The heathen had their 
household gods. The members of families salute their head as 
they part at night and meet in the morning, and can they retire 
and assemble without any recognition of Him from whom their 
being and blessings are all derived ? " The ox knoweth his 
owner, the ass his master s crib." "If I be a father, where is 
mine honour 1 If I be a master, where is my fear ?" A service, 
BO evidently to reason itself a duty and a privilege, required not 

1 Ezek. xlvi. 4, 5. Hence perhaps the practice, at one time more common, than, we 
presume, it now is, in Scotland, of the observance of worship in families three timea ua 
the Lord s day. 



328 DUTIES OF THE SABBATH. 

BO much prescription, as directing and animating examples, pro 
mises to encourage its observance, and warnings to deter us from 
its omission. And we have all these. We see Job offering sacri 
fices continually for his children ; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as 
they journeyed with their families, building altars wherever they 
went ; David, after engaging in public worship, returning to 
bless his household ; Esther fasting with her maidens ; 1 Daniel 
going into his house, and kneeling down and praying three times 
a day, as he had done aforetime, which was family prayer, since 
otherwise it could not be known, as it was, to be his custom ; 
Cornelius fearing the Lord with his house, and praying in his 
house or with his household ; above all, our Lord praying with 
his family of disciples, and teaching them how to pray. These 
are examples, and we have the following promise and warning : 
" If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything 
that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which 
is in heaven." "Pour out thy wrath upon the families that 
call not on thy name." The worship of a family includes, with 
prayer, the melody of praise, and the devout reading of a portion 
of the sacred volume. " The voice of rejoicing" was heard of old 
" in the tabernacles of the righteous." Paul and Silas did not 
omit to sing praises to God even in a prison. Christians are thus 
commanded : " Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in 
all wisdom ; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms 
and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts 
to the Lord." The religious instruction of families is the business 
of every day. It was no ceremonial rule which enjoined parents 
to speak of the Divine law to their children day by day, as they 
rose up and sat down, in the house and by the way and to train 
up a child in the way it should go. This is the law of Christ in 
all ages. " Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath ; but 
bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." " I 
know him" Abraham " that he will command his children and 
his household after him." Solomon bears testimony to his father s 
care, and walks in his steps. 2 Hezekiah appears to have had 
three great objects in view for his remaining life on recovery from 

1 " Fasting is always connected with prayer in Scripture." M Crie s Estfor, p. 13ft. 
8 Prov. iv. 1-4. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 329 

sickness -walking humbly, the praise of God in the temple, and 
making known divine truth to his children. Timothy is congratu 
lated on his unfeigned faith which dwelt first in his grandmother 
Lois and his mother Eunice, and on his having from a child known 
the holy Scriptures by whom he was taught them it is unneces 
sary to say " which were able to make him wise unto salvation 
through faith which is in Christ Jesus." 1 This " delightful task" 
cannot be too regularly and diligently performed during the week, 
and when thus attended to, answers the important end of showing 
the young that religion is a matter for every day. One day s 
instruction, too, would do little comparatively to inform the mind 
one day s training would do little to check inclinations to evil, 
and to form habits of goodness. But the Lord s day presents 
more abundant time, leisure, opportunity, and calm for calling a 
family together, and ascertaining and promoting their progress in 
Divine knowledge. The sacredness of the day and its associations 
give additional impression to what is taught on it. It is worthy 
of notice that, after preaching to the multitude, our Lord taught 
his disciples in private. 2 

Conversation on "the great things of God s law" is another 
duty of a family on the Lord s day. The primitive Christians 
saluted each other every first day of the week with the words, 
" The Lord is risen." The conversation of Christ and his disciples 
related almost entirely to such subjects, even on common days. 
And on all the Sabbaths and Lord s days which the Redeemer 
spent on earth, and the conversation of which is recorded, his dis 
course, except a sentence or two relating to matters of necessity, 
bore on the things that concerned salvation and eternity, so that 
men were constrained on one of these days to wonder at " the 
gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth;" on another to 
say, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God ;" 
and on. a third to exclaim, " Did not our hearts burn within us, 
while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us 
the Scriptures ?" And can that be restraint or bondage which the 
benevolent Saviour has taught us by his example ? or can we be 
wrong w T hen we walk in his steps 1 If the mind that was in him 
be in us, in proportion as it is so will grace, as it was with him, bo 

1 2 Tim. I 5 ; iii. 15. a Mark iv. 84. 



330 DUTIES OF THE SABBATH. 

poured into our lips, for " out of the abundance of the heart the 
mouth speaketh." We err in not speaking more on common days 
of the subjects on which the Saviour delighted to expatiate. How 
mean are all our secular matters compared with the interests of 
the soul, the things of God s law, the great salvation, and a mo 
mentous eternity ! David invited all that feared God to come near 
and he would tell them about his wars, his prowess, and wealth ? 
no, but what God had done for his soul. To a commonplace 
question from a king, Jacob returned a pious and an instructive 
answer. Moses and Jethro sanctified their meeting by sacrifice. 
The men in Malachi s time who " spake often one to another," 
must have spoken of the name on which they " thought." Chris* 
and Moses and Elias spake (some conceive that the day of the 
transfiguration was the Sabbath-day) of the decease which Jesus 
should accomplish at Jerusalem. " A word about Christ," said 
Ussher to a friend, " ere we part." And if this should be the 
most delightful, as it is incomparably the most important and 
glorious subject for every-day converse, how especially should the 
Sabbath be felt to be its appropriate season ! Brain erd says 01 
those who talked on the Sabbath of secular affairs, " Oh, I 
thought what a hell it would be to live with such men to 
eternity." And again, in reference to .some irreligious characters : 
" All their discourse turned on the things of the world, which was 
no small exercise to my mind. Oh, what a hell it would be to 
spend an eternity with such men ! Well might David say, I 
beheld the transgressors, and was grieved. But adored be God, 
heaven is a place into which no unclean thing enters." 1 

Personal devotion, and attention to the means of spiritual im 
provement in private, form a congenial work of the Lord s day. 
The study of God s word, communing with our own hearts, re 
flection on our past lives, the remembrance of our Creator, the 
consideration of the work of redemption, the anticipation of death, 
judgment, and eternity, and the pouring out of the soul in prayer 
to God, these are duties of every day, and specially of a day that 
affords so many facilities and reasons for such occupations. Said 
a good man, " how I love thy law ! it is my meditation all 
the day." To quote a psalm or song for the Sabbath-day : " It 

i Edwards Works (1839), vol. ii. pp. 334, 337. 



TESTIMONY OF KEVELATIOJf. 331 

is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises 
to thy name, Most High. For thou, Lord, hast made me 
glad through thy work : I will triumph in the works of thy 
hands. Lord, how great are thy works ! and thy thoughts are 
very deep." The feelings of good men in anticipating and re 
flecting on the public services of the sanctuary are thus indicated : 
" I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of 
the Lord." "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand." 
" When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me : for 
I had gone with the multitude ; I went with them to the house 
of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that 
kept holy day." The Sabbath, " the holy of the Lord," was to 
be called " honourable " and "a delight ;" and as the command 
was that persons were on that day not to do their own ways or 
find their own pleasure, the ways they were to do were God s 
ways, and the pleasure they were to find was pleasure in him and 
in his service. 

No pretence of personal or family duties can exempt from the 
obligations of public worship. But neither must public interfere 
with domestic, nor either with personal duties. If there is one 
class of engagements that are more than another an evidence to a 
person himself of his own piety, it is the class of personal duties, 
secret prayer, meditation, self-examination, and the study of the 
Scriptures, and of other holy books. And yet it is not the 
observance of certain practices that shows the character so much 
as the spirit in which they are performed. How is it with us in 
this respect 1 Are we seen by Him who seeth in secret retiring 
from society on the Lord s day, that we may converse with our 
spirits, and with their great and gracious Father and Redeemer ? 
Alas ! if it be not so, it is too certain that we are not " spiritually 
minded, which is life and peace, but carnally minded, which is 
death." Our attendance in the house of God in this case is a 
mere self-righteous task, instead of a work of gratitude and love ; 
a cloak to hide us from ourselves, instead of a gratification and a 
profitable discipline of the heart. 

It is in accordance with the nature and designs of the Sabbath 
to devote a portion of it to works of benevolence and mercy. 
And our Lord, who hath left us an .example that we should walk 



332 DUTIES OP THE SABBATH. 

in his steps, calls us by his own practice to these labours of love. 
On the Sabbath he cured a demoniac, and healed Simon s wife s 
mother of a fever. We find him afterwards restoring to strength 
on that day the man who had for thirty-eight years been impo 
tent, and commanding him to take up his bed and walk. He 
next vindicates his disciples against the cavils of persons who had 
censured them for plucking some ears of corn, and rubbing them 
in their hands, for the purpose of satisfying their hunger. He 
further heals a man whose hand was withered, and gives sight to 
another who had been bora blind, having previously prepared 
clay and appl ied it to the man s eyes. He looses from her infir 
mity a woman who had been for eighteen years bowed together 
by Satan, and cures a man of the dropsy. The apostle Paul, who 
says, Be ye followers of me, even as I am of Christ, and who re 
membered that God will have mercy and not sacrifice, abruptly 
ended his discourse at Troas, that he might employ means for 
restoring to life the young man, Eutychus, who, overpowered with 
sleep, had " fallen down from the third loft, and was taken up 
dead." "Pure religion and undefiled before God the Father" 
consists greatly in this, " to visit the fatherless and the widow in 
their affliction." "As we have opportunity," we are to "do 
good," temporal and spiritual, "unto all, especially to them who 
are of the household of faith." And what day is more season 
able for " doing well " than the day which was appointed to be a 
blessing to man, provided we, like the Saviour, attend to its 
claims on us personally, and do not unnecessarily postpone to the 
Sabbath-day what may and ought to be done before 1 

The law of the Sabbath requires more than the work which is 
limited to the day itself. It takes in all our time. It says, 
" Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work." Not that we 
are bound to spend the whole six days in secular work. Com 
mands of moderation, of regard to health, and of daily acts of 
devotion and beneficence, come in to claim their share of attention, 
and to regulate a labour which becomes criminal and injurious by 
excess. 1 The importance of redeeming time in general, and of 
diligence in all our business, is frequently recognised in Scripture. 

1 Affirmativa ligant semper, sed non ad semper, negativa ligant neuter ct ad 
Mm*. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 333 

" Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well 
to thy herds." " Seest thou a man diligent in business 1 he shall 
stand before kings ; he shall not stand before mean men." " Even 
when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would 
not work, neither should he eat." And besides many other im 
portant reasons for such conduct, it is necessary to the sanctifica- 
tion of the Sabbath. The more diligent and regular we are in the 
business of the preceding week, the more prepared are we for that 
day : prepared in having all despatched in such time as not to 
encroach on sacred hours, and prepared in a free mind, a clear 
conscience, and in that full, satisfactory exertion of body and spirit 
in the matters of this life, which stimulates a desire for a holy 
rest. " He that is not faithful in his calling, will never care to 
keep the Sabbath ; and he that keepeth the Sabbath, will be dili 
gent in his calling. Those two are like the two cherubim whose 
faces looked one towards another." 1 

Nor is this the only preparation necessary for gaining the ob 
ject of the Sabbath. This day fits us for the work of the others ; 
but the others do not so much fit us for the work of this. An 
abridgment of the labour of the six days, while necessary to the 
full enjoyment of the seventh even as a day of rest, is no less 
essential to the complete attainment of its end as a day of holy 
service and happiness. To be immersed in worldly cares and 
pleasures, up to the last hour of Saturday, is incompatible with a 
right observance of the first day of the week. In like manner, if 
the design of the Sabbath is to be fully answered, we must not 
immediately when it is over plunge into those occupations and 
pleasures which destroy the impressions, and prevent the benefit 
of the engagements of the day. 

Another important duty connected with the Sabbath, and not 
confined to the day, is our promotion of its observance by others. 
" Thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daugh 
ter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor 
thy stranger that is within thy gates." It is the duty of doing 
good in this particular respect to our neighbour and brother \ it 
is the duty of "not- suffering sin." the sin of breaking the fourth 
commandment, " upon our neighbour." 

i Weoiaes s Works, vol. 11. p. 22S. 
15* 



334 DUTIES OF THE SABBATH. 

In concluding this exposition of Sabbatic duties, we must advert 
briefly to two additional topics. 

First, It is only through faith in Jesus Christ that we can be safe, 
obedient, or happy under this law. By the law, including this as 
well as other precepts, is the knowledge of sin. The apostle says, 
without excepting the fourth commandment, " We know that the 
law is spiritual," reaching to the thoughts, desires, and aims of the 
mind equally as to the words and acts of the life. Tried by this one 
statute, who is not convicted by it of sin in heart and in conduct ] 
But the wages of sin is death. " Cursed is every one that con- 
tinueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do 
them." " Christ Jesus," however, " came into the world to save 
sinners." " There is salvation in no other." " By him all that 
believe are justified." And not until we are united to Him by 
faith, pardoned and renewed in the spirit of our minds, can we 
have any pleasure in His law and day ; not until we have his 
grace given to us shall we be disposed to keep any one of the 
Divine commandments. " How deeply sensible," says the Rev. 
Henry Venn, referring to the Sabbath, " should we be of our own 
inability to observe the day according to the will of God." Faith 
works by love, and, believing, we rejoice with unspeakable joy ; 
love to the person and law of Him who died for us and rose 
again ; joy on account of His atonement, resurrection, and glory, 
and in the assurance thereby inspired of a blessed immortality. This 
spirit was attainable and attained in ancient times. Bight-hearted 
men calling the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honour 
able, received the promise, " Then shalt thou delight thyself in 
God ;" and seeing, like Abraham, the day of Christ, the day of 
His advent and reign, afar off, were glad ; or beholding, like others, 
the stone which the builders rejected become the head of the cor 
ner, raised these notes of praise, " This is the day which the Lord 
hath made ; we will rejoice and be glad in it." 

Second, The Sabbath law is as sacred amidst the liberties of 
Christianity as it was under a severer economy, and enforced by 
yet more impressive sanctions. That its circumstances should be 
different was to be expected. They were not the same after the 
fall as they had been in Paradise, and they changed again when 
the seed of Abraham, from being only families and wanderers, had 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 335 

become a settled and numerous people. The Sabbath could no 
longer be a type when the things shadowed by it had come. It 
could no longer be sanctioned by a penalty of temporal death, 
because Christianity was not a theocracy. It could not offer 
rewards in the land of Palestine, for it is now part of a system, of 
which the field is the world. As time had made progress, and 
the natural had been succeeded by the moral creation the deliver 
ance from Egypt followed by the redemption from sin it could 
now enter into relation to an event greater than even those of all 
preceding ages, and in adaptation to this event might be trans 
ferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, to the day 
when the Redeemer rose from the dead, and entered on his glorious 
rest. None of these changes could affect the nature of the Sab 
bath as a day of rest a day of holiness and service to the Lord. 
As the sun is the same orb that shone on the world yet unvisited 
by sin and un blasted by the curse, and now enlightens it as a re 
volted and blighted province of the universe the same when 
rising brightly in the east, then enveloped in clouds, and then 
breaking forth in all its glory so it is. the same Sabbath which 
has cheered mankind in their conditions of original purity and 
subsequent depravation, and which, after varied fortunes, is now 
risen to its highest earthly honour. The Sabbath, like the sun, 
has never essentially changed. In ancient times, as really as now, 
it was a delight, and combined mercy with sanctity. Now, as 
well as then, it is not a day of idleness, or worldly business, or 
worldly pleasure. Has the removal of its penalty of death made 
its profanation less criminal than idolatry and disobedience to 
parents, which also no longer incur the forfeiture of the offender s 
life 1 Is redemption less holy and spiritual a subject of remem 
brance than creation 1 Because we are brought nearer to heaven, 
are we permitted to become more worldly more occupied with 
amusements and vanities less obliged to meditate, pray, and praise 
on the day which now more than ever borders on and resembles 
the days of eternity 1 This would be to say that God s moral 
law is mutable ; that Christ came to relax it, to destroy founda 
tions, to make man less just as to God s time, less holy in his 
service, and therefore less happy. What saith the New Testa 
ment 1 " That He would grant unto us, that we, being de- 



336 DUTIES OF THE SABBATH. 

livered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him with 
out fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days 
of our life." " Wherefore, receiving a kingdom which cannot be 
moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably, 
with reverence and godly fear : for our God is a consuming fire." 
He is a consuming fire a holy God and His jealousy burns still 
round His sanctuary and His day. " For this cause," saith the 
apostle, referring to want of reverent regard to a Divine institu 
tion, " many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." 
" Not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, as the 
manner of some is. For, if we sin wilfully after that we have 
received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more 
sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and 
fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries." 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION 337 



OHAPTEK VI 

DIVINE ESTIMATE OF THE IMPOKTANCE OF THE SABBATH. 

" And call the Sabbath a delight ; the holy of the Lord, honourable." 

THE importance of the Sabbath has been very fully considered 
as it appears in the light of Keason and Experience, but we have 
still to view the subject in the clearer light of Revelation. 

First, A precedency of rank has been accorded to the Sabbatic 
institution under all the economies of religion. It appears to have 
been the earliest provision of a sacred kind made for the benefit of 
our first progenitors, preceding, even, the establishment of the cove 
nant of life. It was, as Jeremy Taylor observes, the first point of 
religion that was settled after Israel came out of Egypt. It had 
a place assigned it, not only in the Decalogue, and thus above all 
political and ceremonial regulations, but in the first table of the 
law, which summed up in love to God, "the first and great 
commandment " lies at the foundation of all morality, and trans 
gressions of which are more aggravated as subversive of all justice, 
order, and good in the universe ; and as involving a more imme 
diate aggression on the authority and person of the Lawgiver 1 a 
ground on which idolatry and the desecration of sacred time are 
alike forbidden. Elevated thus highly by its place in the first 
table, the fourth commandment is honourable even as compared 
with the preceding three, not merely as connecting them with 
those of the second table, but as " the only commandment," to 
use the words of Dr. Winter Hamilton, " that affirmatively and 
directly requires duty to God." And as the original institution 
was contemporaneous with the completion of creation, so when the 

1 1 Sam. ii. 25. 



338 IMPORTANCE OF THE SABBATH. 

Saviour rose from the grave He by this act at once proved the per 
fection of the atonement, and reared its monument in a day con 
secrated to His service. 

Second, No institution has been more frequently promulgated 
than the Sabbath. It is announced at the Creation. It is again 
stamped with the Divine authority in the sight of assembled 
Israel in the wilderness of Sin. In a few weeks thereafter and 
that was certainly of no small moment which must so soon be 
repeated we hear it proclaimed in thunder from Sinai. And 
once more does it come forth from the excellent glory with altered 
day and name, and with superadded purpose and honour, but in 
all its substantial import, when Christ rests after a consummated 
redemption. This frequency of formal intimation has never been 
accorded to any other statute of ancient or modern times. Was 
it thus cared for and protected as being a chief bulwark of reli 
gion, and yet a law the importance of which was not so obvious 
to the human mind, or the sacredness of which was peculiarly 
repugnant to the human heart ? Whatever may be the reason, 
certain it is that its Author has taken special care to provide the 
means of securing to Himself the glory of His own day, and to 
man its blessings. 

Third, The terms of legislation in reference to the institution 
have been unusually copious and explicit. All the commandments 
are expressed with a Divine comprehensiveness and perspicuity. 
But the fourth has some remarkable peculiarities. It is the 
largest and fullest of them all. It alone is prefaced by a solemn 
memento. Unlike the rest, it is presented in two forms, first 
positively, stating what we are to do, and then negatively, stating 
what we are not to do. Unlike all but the -tenth, it is minute in 
the specification of the persons whom it concerns. The other 
precepts are not so enforced most of them containing no argu 
ments, and none of them so many as the fourth. No law could 
be stated more unequivocally, as none has been more frequently 
set forth. For all this particularity there was occasion. There 
is nothing that man feels to be a greater restraint on his sinful 
inclinations than a day devoted to God. There is nothing which 
he is more ready to abuse to the purposes of a lawless liberty under 
the pretence of its grant of a right to rest. There is nothing 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 339 

which has been more assailed and mutilated than the law of the 
Sabbath. And there is nothing so surely detrimental to a true 
religion as the success of its enemies in secularizing throughout 
a country, and wresting from men the day which has been pro 
vided as a principal means of guarding Divine truth, and advanc 
ing human piety. 

fourth, The Sabbath has been honoured by its relation to pecu 
liarly important facts. The Creation was a great event great 
in itself as the work of Divine wisdom, goodness, and power 
and great as the theatre of other works no less wondrous. In 
honour of the Deity as the Author of this mighty work was the 
day of sacred rest appointed. Had man not sinned, Creation 
would have been, it is probable, the chief means of declaring the 
glory of the Divinity. In his fallen state, it does teach him 
those doctrines of the Divine existence and attributes which lie 
at the foundation of all religion. How important the institution 
which was designed and fitted to be to innocent man a perpetual 
remembrancer of his Maker, especially as a regularly recurring 
season for the more immediate contemplation of His perfections, 
and which is equally suited, as, from the want of all evidence of 
the revoking of the destination, it is obviously intended to answer 
the same purpose to man guilty and depraved ! In the present 
condition of human beings, who dislike to " retain God in their 
knowledge," a weekly festival with religious instruction, is, still 
more than it was in their first estate, needed by them, that the 
Creator may not be forgotten in these His own dominions, and by 
us His own offspring. 

There is another event of extensive and abiding importance 
an event greater than the Creation, as it reveals more of the 
character of the Supreme Being, and secures a higher and more 
enduring, even an eternal happiness to man. Compared with 
Redemption, all other works are unworthy to " come into mind." 
To this completed work the Lord s day has been indissolubly 
linked. 

Creation and Redemption are facts wherein Jehovah is seen in 
His full glory, and which it is most of all things for man s good 
to know and remember. What a sacred and benign lustre is 
thrown over the Sabbath by its association with such facts ! how 



34:0 IMPORTANCE OF THE SABBATH. 

important the institution which has their memory intrusted to 
its keeping ! With what reverence and interest should that day 
be regarded which brings us so immediately into the presence of 
the Almighty and the All-merciful ! 

Fifth, The manner in which the institution has been appointed 
and at different times proclaimed, is no less significant of its 
peculiar importance. The solemnities of Sinai did not signalize 
the law of the Sabbath more than the other nine commandments } 
but it says not a little on its behalf that it partook equally with 
the others of the awful and impressive testimonies which that 
occasion supplied to the glory of the moral law. But there were 
demonstrations of the sacred excellence of the institution which 
belonged exclusively to itself. "What an august occasion for the 
expression of the Divine will when man had just come into being, 
and when his ears were saluted with the voice of his Maker calling 
him to remember his Creator on the first day of his youth, while 
the morning stars were singing together, and all the sons of God 
were shouting for joy ! How stupendous the work which had just 
been finished ! How noble the argument Jehovah is resting 
from His work, and invites thee by His example to enter into His 
Divine rest ! Then, looking forward over a space of two thousand 
and five hundred years, we see the Author of the Sabbath not 
only overcoming the evil of mistrustful men by giving them food 
from heaven, but glorifying His own day by miraculous works. 
Nor was this the wonder of a day. For forty years the uncor- 
rupted manna gathered on the sixth day for the following day s 
use, and the preservation of the portion laid up beside the ark, gave 
special attestation and honour to the Sabbatic institution. Let 
us only add, that the manner in which the Lord s day was intro 
duced, though more in accordance with a kingdom that " cometh 
not with observation," had a moral sublimity more truly august 
and impressive than had been the thunders and lightnings of 
Sinai. The Lord of glory, after condescending to suffer and die 
for men (what infinite love was this !) stepped from the tomb, and 
sanctified the day of His resurrection to be the Sabbath of Chris 
tianity, and a monument of His finished redemption. He too, as 
God did, rested from His work appropriated the day as His 
own and taught us by His example, and by His appearances in 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 341 

the midst of His disciples, that there still remained a rest to the 
people of God. 

Sixth, The means which the Author of the Sabbath still more 
directly employs to maintain its authority and to enforce its ob 
servance, demonstrate its eminent sanctity and value. 

The frequency and solemnity of His commands on the subject 
show how momentous the keeping of the day of holy rest was in 
the view of God. He had scarcely uttered His charge by Moses 
to Israel, that " no man was to go out of his place on the seventh 
day," when He pronounces in tones of thunder the law, " Re 
member the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy," which is soon followed 
up by large and repeated commands to the same effect : " Verily 
my Sabbaths ye shall keep ye shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, 
for it is holy unto you ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence 
my sanctuary keep the Sabbath-day to sanctify it, as the Lord 
thy God hath commanded thee." 

He remonstrates and complains, as well as enjoins. " How 
long refuse ye," were his words to Moses at the descent of the 
manna, " to keep my commandments and my laws f " Then I 
contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them," were 
the words of Nehemiah from God, " What evil thing is this that 
ye do, and profane the Sabbath-day ? Did not your fathers thus, 
and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this 
city 1 yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sab 
bath." " Notwithstanding, the children rebelled against me they 
polluted my Sabbaths." 

He appeals to the dignity, reasonableness, and value of the in 
stitution. It is the holy Sabbath a Sabbath to the Lord a 
delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable the Sabbath of the 
Lord thy God the Lord s day. It is one day in seven. " See, 
for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath." " Moreover also 
I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, 
that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them 
but my Sabbaths they greatly polluted." The Son of man is 
Lord even of the Sabbath. 

He condescends, to vindicate and interpret His law. He does 
so by the prophets. He does so especially by Jesus Christ. What 
clearer evidence could have been given of the Divine regard for 



342 IMPORTANCE OF THE SABBATH. 

the institution than the means employed to free it from the addi 
tions and corruptions by which man had disfigured and perverted 
the simple and gracious ordinance of heaven ? " We may collect," 
says Howe, " there is an awful regard due to the Sabbath-day. 
When our Lord justifies the cure now wrought on their Sabbath 
only on this account, that it was an act of mercy toward a daughter 
of Abraham ; by the exception of such a case he strengthens the 
general rule, and intimates so holy a day should not, upon light 
occasions, be otherwise employed than for the proper end of its 
appointment. Though our day be not the same, the business of 
it, in great part, is." 1 

He warns by words of threatening and acts of retribution. The 
law which assigned death as the punishment of Sabbath-breaking 
was obligatory only during the time and within the local limits 
of the theocracy. Nor was this the only offence which incurred 
among the Jews the awful penalty. Adultery, murder, and stub 
born disobedience to parents were capital crimes. The transgres 
sion even of certain ceremonial requirements involved the forfeiture 
of life. But, while this punishment of the Sabbath-breaker teaches 
to all ages and places the lesson that his sin was no trifle, there is 
something in the enactment of the law in the matter, and in the 
only recorded instance of its execution, which serves to impress 
our minds with the conviction that a peculiar enormity attached 
to the infraction of the fourth commandment. " Ye shall keep 
the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy unto you. Every one that 
defileth it shall be put to death ; for whosoever doeth any work 
therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six 
days may work be done ; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of 
rest, holy to the Lord, whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath- 
day, he shall surely be put to death." 2 "And while the children 
of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered 
sticks upon the Sabbath-day. And they that found him gather 
ing sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the 
congregation. And they put him in ward, because it was not 
declared what should be done to him. And the Lord said unto 
Moses, The man shall be surely put to death : all the congrega 
tion shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the 

1 On Luke xiii. 16, WorTcs, LontL (1836), p. 1010. 2 Ex. xxxi. 14, 15. 



TESTIMONY OF KEVELATION. 343 

congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with 
stones, and he died ; as the Lord commanded Moses." 1 Whether 
similar cases occurred we are not informed. But death under the 
direction of the judicial law was not the only way in which the 
punishment of offences against the Sabbath was threatened and 
visited. That law contemplated, with the remarkable exception 
of the case of suspected conjugal infidelity, only overt acts. Israel, 
however, were under other laws, which took cognizance of the 
heart, and of many actions which, though not amenable to the 
civil jurisdiction, subjected offenders to the Divine displeasure, 
expressed in various forms of calamity. And no sin appears to 
have called forth more comminations and judgments than that of 
contemning sacred institutions, particularly the Sabbath. Jehovah 
is represented as lifting up his hand to that people in the wil 
derness, that he would not bring them into the land which he 
had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory 
of all lands, because they despised his judgments, and walked not 
in his statutes, but polluted his Sabbaths, for their hearts went 
after their idols. This determination was fulfilled in the case of 
many, but his eye spared others, so that he did not make an end 
of them in the wilderness. When, after renewing his covenant 
with them, and charging them to hallow his Sabbaths, they proved 
disobedient, and polluted his Sabbaths, he said he would pour out 
his fury upon them to accomplish his anger against them in the 
wilderness ; but withdrew his hand, and wrought for his name s , 
sake that it should not be dishonoured in the sight of the heathen, 
in whose sight he had brought them forth. And again, he lifted 
up his hand in the wilderness, that he would scatter them among 
the heathen and disperse them through the countries, because they 
had not executed his judgments, but had despised his statutes, 
and polluted his ^bbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers 
idols. This last threatening, which had been uttered in the days 
of Moses, had begun to be carried into effect when the prophet 
Ezekiel thus recorded it. To these attestations of the solemn 
importance of the Sabbath, let us add another from the Old Tes 
tament Scriptures.- It appears, from a passage in the- prophecies 
of Jeremiah, that the welfare and even the continued existence of 

i Numb. xv. 32-36. 



344 IMPORTANCE OF THE SABBATH. 

the Jewish State were suspended on the observance by the people 
of that institution ; for he declares, that if they hallowed it, and 
did no work therein, the nation should in the highest measure 
prosper, and the city remain for ever, but that if they would not 
hearken unto God to hallow the Sabbath-day, and not to bear a 
burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath- 
day, then should he kindle a fire in the gates thereof, which should 
devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and not be quenched. Although 
we had no evidence of the fulfilment of this denunciation, its ut 
terance might suffice to convince us that the institution must have 
been precious in God s sight, which was so fenced round against 
its foes by the terrors of devouring fire and of national ruin. But 
the words of the prophet were verified in the destruction of Jeru 
salem by the Romans, with fire, and on the Sabbath-day. 

Nor are equally solemn proofs of the Divine respect for holy 
seasons and appointments wanting under Christianity. This be- 
nignest form of true religion w T as introduced with "just judgments 
on wicked men." As it advanced, the abuse of a Divine insti 
tution was followed by sickness and death. It was to avowed 
Christians that the warning was addressed : " Not forsaking the 
assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is ; but 
exhorting one another ; and so much the more as ye see the day 
approaching. For if we sin wilfully after that we have received 
the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for 
sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indig 
nation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised 
Moses law died without mercy under two or three witnesses ; of 
how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought 
worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath 
counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, 
an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto tft Spirit of grace ? 
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." 1 
These dread words proclaim that Christianity has its penalties no 
less than had Judaism penalties the more fatal that they are 
spiritual and lasting ; that " our God is a consuming fire," who 
will be sanctified in "them that come nigh" him, as certainly as 
vhen for oifering strange fire the sons of Aaron " died before the 

i Het. x. 25-31. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 346 

Lord," or when he swore by his excellency that he would not 
forget their works who in the time of Amos wearied of his Sab 
bath, but would send them a famine of his word, with other cala 
mities ; and that he is as resolved to assert the claims of his 
forsaken institutions and assemblies now as when the un circum 
cised were doomed to excision from their people. It is extremely 
wicked for poor mortals to judge their fellow-men, to deal out 
disaster according to their own views and passions, and not to 
unite charity and mercy towards others with severity against 
their own misdeeds. But it would, on the other hand, be a base 
betrayal of truth, and a cowardly shrinking from duty, to evade 
the perception and avowal that peculiar retributions are in our 
own day awarded to the profaners of the Sabbath. It must be 
so, unless God has ceased to rule the world, and to maintain the 
authority of his law. It is so, for although there is no death by 
the laws of nations to such men, they themselves, in untold num 
bers, have confessed that their sin has found them out, and brought 
them to this doom. It is so, for although no voice from heaven 
says to particular classes or individuals as to the Jews, " I will visit 
you with this or that penalty for contempt of my day ; " or, after 
the infliction, " This was owing to your profanation of the Sab 
bath," yet the principles of the Divine government remain the 
same the Divine menaces against the offence are still on record 
the same causes produce their wonted effects the practice 
abounds, and two classes of facts are manifest the one, calamit 
ous events which point as with the finger to their guilty cause ; 
the other, those natural consequences of the sin the increased 
irreligion, the immorality, the abbreviated life, and other evils 
which ifc requires a considerable portion of this volume to present 
even in an imperfect outline, and which have there been proved 
to prevail to a large extent in the measure of a personal, domestic, 
and national disregard for the Sabbatic institution. And let it 
not be presumed, because no injury seems to attend such a course 
in the present state, that the Divine word, and the evidence for 
the importance of the institution, have in any degree failed. For 
there is reserved a perfect retribution to individuals in a future 
world, and the words lately cited direct our thoughts to a con 
summation of punishment there, which completes the proof from 



846 IMPOKTANCE OF THE SABBATH. 

the penal sanctions of the Sabbath, that no " common thing" is 
trampled upon, and no venial fault committed, when men forsake 
the assembling of themselves together on the day, and for the 
worship, of the Almighty. 

But the Sabbath is recommended by promises of good as well 
as guarded by penalties. Its Author, at its original institution, 
pronounced on it a benediction which He has never recalled, but 
again and again renewed. This benediction was repeated in the 
most impressive manner from Sinai. And prophets were com 
missioned to unfold the boon. " Thus saith the Lord," by Isaiah, 
" Keep ye judgment, and do justice : for my salvation is near to 
come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man 
that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it ; that 
keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from 
doing any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath 
joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly 
separated me from his people : neither let the eunuch say, Behold 
I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that 
keep my Sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take 
hold of my covenant ; even unto them will I give in mine house, 
and within my walls, a place and a name better than of sons 
and of daughters : I will give them an everlasting name, that 
shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, that join 
themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of 
the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath 
from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant ; even them 
will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my 
house of prayer : their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be 
accepted upon mine altar ; for mine house shall be called an house 
of prayer for all people." 1 The same prophet is directed to de 
scribe the duties of the Sabbath, and the happiness and honour 
which the performance of them insures, in these remarkable 
terms : " If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from 
doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the Sabbath a de 
light, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and shalt honour him, not 
doing thine own ways, nor rinding thine own pleasure, nor speak 
ing thine own words : Then shalt thou delight thyself in the 

i Isaiah Ivi. 1-7. 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 347 

Lord ; and I will cause thee to riae upon the high places of the 
earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father : for 
the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 1 Similar is the testimony 
of the prophet Jeremiah : " And it shall come to pass, if ye dili 
gently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden 
through the gates of this city on the Sabbath-day, but hallow the 
Sabbath-day, to do no work therein ; then shall there enter into 
the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of 
David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, 
the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this 
city shall remain for ever. And they shall come from the cities 
of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land 
of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and 
from the south, bringing burnt-offerings, and sacrifices, and meat 
offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the 
house of the Lord." 2 And judging from such promises, made 
to individuals and to classes to Gentiles and Jews the following 
character of the most glorious era in the history of this earth is 
to be viewed as not the least of the causes of that glory : " And 
it shall come to pass, that from one Sabbath to another, shall all 
flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord." 3 

Finally, The Sabbath is distinguished by its antiquity and 
duration. 

It is nearly as old as the creation. On the sixth day of time 
that work was completed, and its Author stamped the following 
day with his signature, in perpetual memory of Himself as the 
Being by whose underived wisdom the vast undertaking was de 
vised by whose uncaused power it was achieved. Adam awoke 
from his first sleep to behold the light of the earliest Sabbath-day. 
Almost contemporaneous with the appointment of marriage, it 
might be said of the corrupters of the one as it was to the per- 
verters of the other, "From the beginning it was not so." Age, 
indeed, does not consecrate evil or magnify a trifle, but it imparts 
interest to what is innocent, and venerableness to what is great 
and good. We are commanded to ask for the old paths ; and 
where shall we find- older paths than the law of the Sabbath, and 
the way of salvation through the seed of the woman 1 The hoary 

i Isaiah Iviii. 13, 14. * Jer. xvii. 24-26. * Isaiah Ixvi 23 



348 IMPORTANCE OF THE SABBATH. 

head is a crown of glory when found in the way of righteousness. 
Our Magna Charta is an ancient guarantee of civil rights, but. 
neither in antiquity, nor in its own nature and extent, can it for 
a moment vie with the world-old and world-wide charter of a free 
seventh day, which the Creator hath given to the human race for 
all time. How many changes and catastrophes has it survived ! 
Kingdoms have, in multiplied instances, risen and fallen. Systems 
&lt;of opinion on all subjects have succeeded each other in constant 
succession. The institutions of man have perished one after 
another. Keligious ordinances themselves have fulfilled their 
temporary destinies and disappeared. But the Sabbath, like the 
perpetual hills, has outlasted the patriarchal altars, witnessed the 
decay of all other sacred monuments, survived the tabernacle, 
temples, and sacrifices of a gorgeous ritual, and, after the various 
fortunes of eighteen Christian centuries, is still as full of vitality 
and vigour as at any former period of its history. And we have 
reason to believe that, like the ordinances of heaven, it will live 
through all the ages of time. Nor will it end when the sun has 
ceased to run its course. Then, indeed, it will no more bless the 
men who shall be found to have preferred death to life a lawless 
freedom to a holy rest. But there will " remain a rest to the 
people of God," and for them the Sabbath will begin a brighter 
career, as the one day the unchanging holy day of eternity. 



TFSTIMONY OF REVELATION. 349 



CHAPTEK VII. 

THE SABBATISM OF HEAVEN. 
* There reinaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." 

IN the preceding part of this volume, the Sabbath has been 
considered as a law and ordinance belonging to the present state. 
It is solely in this point of view that writers for the most part re 
gard it. The Sabbatism of a future world, however, is a doctrine 
which is not only favoured by the analogy of the Divine procedure 
hitherto, but revealed in the Holy Scriptures. 

First, we have the doctrine announced in the words of our 
motto, which occur in Heb. iv. 9. In this chapter, according to 
the learned and profound Owen, three periods, with three great 
works, having each its Divine rest and its memorial day for men, 
are mentioned. The first is the time when the Almighty finished 
His work of creation, rested and was refreshed, and sanctified and 
blessed the seventh day. The second is the period when He re 
deemed the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage. Of this 
work it is said : " I am the Lord thy God, that divided the sea, 
whose waters roared : the Lord of Hosts is his name. And I 
have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the 
shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens and lay the 
foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people " 
(Isa. li. 15, 16). On that occasion, too, Jehovah rested, saying, 
" This is my rest, and here will I dwell," and though some of 
those who were invited to enter into His rest, fell short of it and 
died in the wilderness, others participated in the Divine blessing, 
enjoying the inheritance of the promised land. The day selected for 
the celebration of the rest of God in this case was the old seventh 
day. " The time for the change of the day was not yet come, for 
this work was but preparatory for a greater." The third period 

16 



350 THE SABBATH IN HEAVEN. 

was coincident with the accomplishment by Jesus Christ of human 
redemption. The work itself, the rest of the Saviour, and the 
consequent resting- day for men, are all expressed in these words : 
" There remaineth therefore a rest " the keeping of a Sabbath 
" to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he 
also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his." The 
rest into which the Redeemer entered was not His lying in the 
grave, for this was part of his humiliation and subjection to the 
curse of the law, but His rising from the dead on the third day, 
for then He began to rest from His labours, and to receive the re 
ward of His work and that third day the first day of the week 
fitly became the day of celebration in His kingdom. But this is 
the kingdom of heaven the kingdom not only of grace, but of 
glory an everlasting kingdom. And " there remaineth there 
fore a rest to the people of God" a Sabbatisni suited not only to 
the church on earth, but to the church in heaven. 

Accordingly, second, the happiness of a future state, as unfolded 
in the Word of God, includes the great elements of a Sabbath 
day. 

Best is one of these elements. At death the spirits of the 
just " rest from their labours" they " enter into peace." But 
the rest of a spirit can neither on earth nor in heaven be in 
action. It is, in the case of a holy being, rest, as opposed not to 
activity, but to hurry, distraction, toil, uneasiness. There is 
accordingly service the immediate service of God as well as 
rest. "His servants shall serve him." They "rest not day 
and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which 
was, and is, and is to come." There is the commemoration of 
the same works as on earth. Creation is celebrated. " The 
four-and-twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the 
throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast 
their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, Lord, 
to receive glory, and honour, and power ; for thou hast created 
all things, and for thy pleasure they are, and were created." 
Redemption is eminently the subject of remembrance and praise. 
" The four living creatures and four-and-twenty elders fell down 
before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden 
vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. And they 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 351 

sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and 
to open the seals thereof : for tliou wast slain, and hast redeemed 
us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and 
people, and nation ; and hast made us unto our God kings and 
priests : and we shall reign on the earth." One great end of a 
day of rest is to afford the means of public worship. Such is the 
worship which everywhere pervades the record of celestial occu 
pations. The leisure of the weekly holy day was designed also 
to enable us to receive religious instruction, and to engage in 
sacred studies. And in another world there appears to be re 
quired the opportunity of a perpetual Sabbath for the same ob 
ject. It seems impossible to bring a created being to a state of 
perfection in knowledge at which it could be said that further he 
could not advance. It seems necessary to the very nature of a 
rational creature to grow, whether it be in good or in evil. God 
alone is unchangeably and absolutely perfect in intelligence. The 
angels, who have ever beheld the face of God, are still learners. 
It was the one desire of a good man to dwell in the house of the 
Lord all the days of his life, that he might behold His beauty 
and inquire in His temple. His confident hope was thus ex 
pressed, " As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness : 1 
shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." And one 
object of the Saviour s desire that His followers might be with 
Him in heaven was, that they might behold His glory. If when 
they behold in a glass the glory of the Lord they are changed into 
His image from glory to glory, much more when they see no 
longer through a glass darkly, but face to face. His servants 
shall serve Him, and they shall see His face. The performance 
of benevolent acts is peculiarly appropriate to the day of rest, and 
is even enjoined in Scripture (1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2). The law of earth, 
" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," is also the law of 
heaven. Charity or love is greater than either faith or hope, and 
never faileth. And in the heavenly state it must express itself, 
though not in reproof, or in words of condolence, or in acts of relief, 
yet in the benignant eye, in the affectionate voice, in the animating 
song, in the communication of intelligence, in offices of kindness 
and friendship. The penitence of a sinner, the conversion of the 
kingdoms of this world into the kingdoms of Christ, the casting 



352 THE SABBATH IN HEAVEN. 

out of the great dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil and 
Satan, and the destruction of Babylon, are represented in the 
sacred volume as spreading joy and inspiring songs of praise 
among the inhabitants of heaven. The seraphim do not indulge 
solitary and selfish joys, but cry one to another, Holy, holy, holy 
is the Lord of hosts : the whole earth is full of His glory. And 
in the same spirit the nations of them that are saved rejoice in a 
common salvation, and above all things, rejoice in the highness 
of their Lord and Saviour. The Sabbath-day on earth is a 
time consecrated entirely to God, and such, as appears from words 
already cited, is the Sabbath of heaven. And as there is one 
service in particular in which Christians feel themselves on the 
Lord s day to be brought to the gate of heaven, we find that if 
one thing more than another is the distinction of the engage 
ments and happiness of eternity, it is the celebration of the de 
cease which was accomplished at Jerusalem. 

Third, the Sabbath remaining substantially unchanged, at 
tains its highest honours in the world above. There it must in 
all time have been known and prized as an instrument of good 
on earth, but its value in this aspect will then only be fully seen 
when its services, as a means of bringing many sons to glory, have 
been completed. When a building has been finished, the scaffold 
ing is taken down and forgotten. It is not so when the cope- 
stone is laid on the house of God. The great means of its erec 
tion was the obedience unto death of Jesus Christ ; and this, we 
find, divides the interest and the praise of heaven with the agency 
of Him who sitteth upon the throne (Rev. vii. 10). Even crea 
tures themselves, although only serviceable as they have re 
ceived grace and blessing from the Divine Saviour, are acknow 
ledged and rewarded as the instruments of turning many to 
righteousness. And the Sabbath, too, receives an honour which is 
not conferred on merely positive institutions, inasmuch as it is re 
ceived into the economy of heaven the service of eternity. The 
Sabbatic good to which Dr. Croly in the following sentence refers, 
may be expected to be in a large measure attained in a golden 
age awaiting the earth, but its perfect realization is reserved for 
the new heavens and the new earth : " As the full possession 
of providential blessings is given only to the completeness of 



TESTIMONY OF KEVELATION. 353 

human obedience, it is probable that neither the natural results 
nor the full knowledge of the Sabbath have ever yet been en 
joyed by the fallen race of mankind." 1 

In the glorious rest of the Saviour, the people of God partici 
pate when they sit down with Him on his throne. Let these 
words suffice to describe their condition : " God shall wipe away 
all tears from their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, 
neither sorrow, nor crying neither shall there be any more pain : 
for the former things are passed away. There shall be no more 
curse. There shall be no night there ; and they need no candle, 
neither light of the sun ; for the Lord God giveth them light : 
and they shall reign for ever and ever " (Rev. xxi. 4 ; xxii. 3, 5). 

Their worship is perfect. They are without fault. "These 
are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed 
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 
Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day 
and night in his temple : and he that sitteth on the throne shall 
dwell among them" (Rev. vii. 14, 15). It has been said that 
praise on earth is the chief emblem of the occupations of eternity. 
" All that we know o the saints above, 

Is that they sing and that they love." 

Reading, preaching, prayer in some of its parts, and certain other 
-forms of devotion, are superseded, but praise remains that dis 
interested, delightful employment of the angels, and of every man 
who has had the enmity and selfishness of his heart thawed by the 
Divine grace and love, and been formed in this way to show forth 
God s praise. " The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come 
to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads." The 
following incident gives some idea of what praise should be : A 
prayer-meeting iu the south of Scotland was scattered by perse 
cution, which consigned some to the horrors of Dunnottar Castle, 
and banished others to foreign parts. At the Revolution, the 
survivors re-assembled for prayer, and began the devotions of the 
evening with the Psalm 

" Had not the Lord been on our side, 
May Israel now say ; 
Had not the Lord been on our side, 
When men rose us to slay ; 
i Divine Origin and Obligation of the Sabbath, p. 8. 
Z 



354 THE SABBATH IN HEAVEN. 

They had us swallowed quick, when as 
Their wrath gainst us did flame : 
Waters had covered us, our soul 
Had sunk beneath the stream." 

A person who was present on that occasion, a relation of my 
informant, declared, " Such singing I never heard before, and 
expect never to hear again till I get to heaven." Praise must 
have been a chief part of the devotion of Paradise, and would, we 
may conceive, have been the employment of unfallen men for 
ever. But how superior the praises of a countless host to those 
of Eden, and how has redemption, with, its superadded themes, its 
new songs, and, we may add, the higher tone of sentiment which 
it has inspired, improved the melody ! The account of the univer 
sal anthem (Rev. v. 9-14) is unspeakably sublime ; but for a still 
nobler swell of praise we must look forward to the day of complete 
redemption. Who would not desire to hear that music 1 rather 
for to hear it from hell would but add to our misery who would 
not wish to " bear some humble part in that immortal song ? " 

Heaven s commemoration of great events is all that God would 
have it to be. Here material objects are employed and are 
necessary to conduct our thoughts and feelings to the Unseen, and 
to preserve the remembrance of redemption. Bread and wine 
must be used. And these emblems are few, simple, and expressive. 
But there is no need of such things in a spiritual temple, where 
God is seen face to face, where stands " a Lamb as it had been 
slain," and where the perfected understanding, memory, and heart 
are delightfully and exclusively devoted to the highest subjects. 
The glass is unnecessary when we clearly see the object the 
streams are superseded when we are at the fountain. How undis- 
tracted, spiritual, and pure must be the devotions and celebrations 
of heaven, when perfect minds will be directly employed on Divine 
and eternal things ! 

The investigation of truth is not peculiar to the final condition 
of " the people of God," but it is then conducted under the best 
auspices* The first man had the garden to keep and dress, and 
was thus prevented from devoting himself entirely to the contem 
plation of spiritual objects. He had not God as the object of 
direct vision, or Christ as the manifestation of the Divine 



TESTIMONY OP REVELATION. 355 

perfections to behold, or the whole universe to study, or the im 
mediate teaching of Him who is the Light of the world. The re 
deemed, again, had on earth many disadvantages for inquiry, in an 
encumbering body, which required so much attention, and by its 
frailty and cares interrupted the exercises of the mind in evil 
propensities, which diverted the spirit from its proper engagements, 
and darkened its views in the many surrounding things which 
often unprofitably occupied the time and in a thousand avocations 
which exhausted the strength without having any connexion with 
the improvement of the intellectual faculties. The spirits of the 
just themselves are inferior in this matter to those who after the 
resurrection inhabit the heavenly world, in not having the glori 
fied organs of sense by which to communicate with their appro 
priate objects, and in having neither the completed mystery of 
God, nor the full assembly of holy beings to call forth and sustain 
their noblest energies. From all this we may see how abundant 
are the advantages which men who are delivered in soul and body 
from all evil must have for prosecuting the search of truth in the 
eternal world. And how superior their pursuits to all others, 
even to many that were laudable and necessary in this life ! They 
themselves were in many instances, through their connexion with 
the earth, and from an impaired bodily constitution, subjected to 
employments which are not congenial to the high faculties and 
sanctified desires of the mind. Much of their time and strength 
was expended on the body, on the acquisition of food and raiment, 
health and perishing objects engagements which, though neces 
sary, and when properly attended to profitable to men, and 
honouring to God, are yet peculiar to a state of things induced by 
sin, and are not in themselves worthy of the origin and capacities 
of a spiritual and immortal being. But now they rest from all 
such labours, and are entirely occupied with services suited to their 
powers and characters services such as angels engage in, and 
tending to bring them near to God, as well as to assimilate their 
nature to His. The pursuits of the philosopher are despised by 
the ignorant, and by the men who place all value in houses and 
lands, trade and money. But as mind is more excellent than 
matter, and as it is from the former that all other things receive 
direction, improvement, and importance, so are the labours of the 



356 THE SABBATH IN HEAVEN. 

philosopher worthy and useful above those of the merchant, Img- 
baudman, and mechanic. Still higher in the scale are the studies 
and aims of the man of God. So thought David when he longed 
to appear before God, preferred a day in His courts to a thousand, 
and would have rejoiced, as we have already remarked, to spend 
all the days of his life in the house of God, beholding His beauty 
and inquiring in His temple. So judged the apostle Paul, who 
counted everything but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of 
Jesus Christ his Lord. So decided the Son of God when He 
showed His preference of Mary s devout attention to His instruc 
tions above Martha s bustling care about His personal comfort, 
and pronounced the object of Mary s choice to be the good part 
the one thing needful. And from the brief but pregnant notices 
furnished in the Scriptures respecting the studies and tastes of 
holy, happy angels, and glorified men, we find their spirit to be 
in unison with that of David, that of Paul, and that of their Lord 
in other words, that they have none in heaven but God, that 
there is none upon earth that they desire beside Him, that He is 
their portion for ever, and that whether they study, converse, or 
sing, or whatsoever they do, they do all to His glory. 

The holiness and benevolence of heaven are of the most exalted 
drder. The Sabbath is " the holy of the Lord" a day which is 
to be kept holy on which we are required to honour Him, not 
doing our own ways, or finding our own pleasure, or speaking our 
own words, a day for the exercise of loving- kindness, and to be 
called a delight. In heaven, -the day is sacredly observed by the 
inhabitants. They are in the fear of the Lord all the day long. How 
deep were their reverence of Him and their humility even on earth 
Isaiah and Job for example ! But how much more purely and 
powerfully, though without any consciousness of vileness, do these 
feelings operate in the hearts of the redeemed before the throm \ 
who know so much of the sanctity and majesty of God ! They 
fall down before Him ! They cast their crowns before the throne. 
Then what ardent love and fervent gratitude ! When the day of 
judgment has fully disclosed the destinies of mankind, and heaven 
has received the whole company of the blessed ; when the work 
of redemption in all its parts is finished, Christ will be glorified 
in his saints, and admired in all them that believe. To sit down 



TESTIMONY OF REVELATION. 357 

at the feast of eternity, a feast prepared from the foundation of 
the world, and prepared at such an expense a feast enjoyed in 
security, while many are " without," exposed to all the fury of 
the tempest of Divine indignation how glowing must be their 
love and gratitude to the Father who chose them, to the Son who 
bought them, to the Spirit who qualified them for these everlast 
ing joys ! Their enlarged knowledge and deepened humility have 
increased their sense of obligation, and their growing intelligence 
and lowliness of mind will increase it for ever. Every recollec 
tion of sin, every thought of the misery of the lost, eveiy new 
view of the greatness and purity and goodness of God their 
Saviour will impart additional warmth to the ardour of their love 
and to the fervour of their thankfulness. 

It is God who is the judge of what is the most honourable 
employment for His rational creatures, and it is to the highest and 
last state of His servants as appointed and made known by Him 
that we are to look for a model. It is heaven that should give 
law to earth, not earth to heaven. " Thy will be done on earth 
even as it is done in heaven," is a petition which Christ has 
taught us to offer at the throne of grace. The exercises of pa 
tience, of contrition, of well-doing to the ignorant, the poor, the 
afflicted, the dying, noble as they are on earth, are superseded in 
heaven, but this impairs not the glory of heaven s occupations. 
It will be better even here when one shall not need to say to his 
neighbour, Know the Lord. The celebration of victory is better 
than the battle. Who but a fool would wish the times of tempta 
tion, ignorance, and conquest to return I Who but a mere animal 
would desire the Elysium of paganism or the paradise of Moham 
med ? Who but a poor self-seeker, an earth-worm, would consider 
an existence spent in accumulating lore or money to be the glory 
or happiness of man 1 Who but a devil would deem it " better 
to reign in hell than serve in heaven 1 " The service of heaven is 
itself to reign. " His servants shall serve him" and "they shall 
reign for ever and ever." To serve by loving supremely Him 
who is altogether lovely by increasing in the knowledge of Him 
who comprehends in Himself all that is true, great, and good 
and by praising Him who alone is excellent, and the Author of all 
being and happiness this is the high end of man s existence at- 

16* 



358 THE SABBATH IN HEAVEN 

tained this is liberty, this is honour, this is blessedness, this is 
perfection. 

It is a characteristic of the Sabbath that it is the means of 
manifold blessings, and this distinction is eminently displayed in 
heaven. The institution, as has been amply shown, strewed its 
earthly path with every variety of good, and would have- conferred 
a much greater amount of benefit but for mistaken friends whe 
misrepresented its character and detracted from its authority but 
for real enemies who rejected the doctrine of its Divine origin and 
obligation, or disobeyed its law. Even on earth it was the means 
of forming a character and bestowing a happiness, of which the 
holiness and bliss of heaven are the consummation. And its rest, 
worship, commemorations, studies, and employments there will 
yield, in continually growing amount, the fruits of righteousness 
and joy. For all this it has facilities formerly unknown facilities 
in the perfect unanimity of the inhabitants respecting its claims 
and character in the absence of all internal and outward hinder- 
ances to its observance in the place itself, where, dwelling on high 
and in a quiet habitation, they enjoy perfect security and peace 
and where they not only have the instructive, animating society of 
all the holy angels and all good men, but walk in the light of 
that temple of which it is said, " The glory of God did lighten it, 
and the Lamb is the light thereof." 

But it crowns the glory of the Sabbath in heaven, that it is 
eternal. This is that greatest Sabbath which has no evening. 1 
Its rest, its worship, its society, its commemorations, its advanc 
ing knowledge, holiness, and happiness, are to be without end. 
Spirits replenished with Divine influence, and having bodies 
endowed with undecaying health and strength, will be occupied 
in services which produce no weariness, and enjoy pleasures 
which never pail. The thought, beyond expression great, is 
gloomy to " men of the world, who have their portion in this 
life," but transporting to such as David, who expected to " dwell 
in the house of the Lord for ever," and to " sing praises, to God 
while he had any being," to such too, as the apostle, who felt that 
he could administer no stronger consolation to sorrowing Christians 
than to say, " and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 

1 Sabbathum maximum, non habens vesperam. August. De Civit. Dei, cap. 80. 



EVIDENCE FROM HISTORY FOR A WEEKLY 
DAY OF REST AND WORSHIP. 



TRACES OF SEPTENARY INSTITUTIONS AMONG 
PAGAN NATIONS. 

THERE are certain observances which have prevailed to a wide 
extent, as well as from an early period, in the heathen $orld, and 
which, as bearing an affinity greater or less to the Sabbatic insti 
tution, may be considered as affording striking testimony to its 
primeval origin. These are threefold : the appropriation of peri 
odical days to religion and rest frcfcn ordinary labour the division 
of time into weeks and the ascription of special importance to 
the septenary number. 

Traces of sacred days of some sort, though varying in frequency 
in different countries, may be discovered in many Pagan nations, 
the exceptions being limited to certain tribes sunk, like the abori 
gines of New Holland, to a very low point in the social scale. 

The Phoenicians, according to Porphyry, "consecrated the 
seventh day as holy." 1 Before Mohammed s time, the Saracens 
kept their Sabbath on Friday, and from them he and his followers 
adopted the custom. 2 It is stated by Purchas, that the natives 
of Pegu had a weekly day on which they assembled to receive instruc 
tion, from a class of men appointed for the purpose. 3 The Pagan 
Slavonians held a weekly festival. 4 In the greater part of Guinea, 
the seventh day Tuesday is set apart to religious worship. 6 

i Euseb. Prcepar. Evang. lib. a. c. 9. 2 Purchas s Pilgrimage, p. 264. 8 Ibid. p. 574. 
* Helmpldus, cited by Ussher. The Judgment of the late Archbishop of Armagh, pp. 79, 80. 
6 HuM s Religious Rites, etc. (1812), p. 423. BeU a Geography, iv. 30. 



360 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

It would appear that the Chinese, who have now no Sabbath, at 
one time honoured the seventh day of the week. 1 

Among the ancient Persians, the eighth was the festal day, the 
calendar of the Magi having this day marked in it as holy. 2 The 
old Roman week consisted of eight days, and every eighth day 
was specially devoted to religious and other public purposes, under 
the name Nonse or Nundinse, so called from the Roman practice 
of adding the two nundinse to the seven intervening and ordinary 
days ; in the same way as in Germany and in our own country, 
the expression, "eight days," is used for a week, and as the 
French and Italians call a fortnight quinze jours, and quindici 
giorni, respectively. 3 The people of Old Calabar observe an 
eighth-day Sabbath, termed Aqua-erere. 4 Humboldt refers to an 
ancient law which required the Peruvians to work eight consecu 
tive days, and to rest on the ninth. 5 

The Burman feasts are held at the full and change of the moon.6 
According to another authority, the quarters are also observed as 
festivals. 7 A sacrifice was celebrated by the Mexicans every 
month, at the period of the full moon, in a public place, to which, 
in every village, the high road led from the house of the chief of 
the tribe. 8 The inhabitants o Madagascar and of Senegambia, 
on the other hand, preferred the time of new rnoou for their 
devotions. 9 One of the principal stated festivals in the South 
Sea Islands the pae atua was held every three moons. 10 The 
Babylonians solemnized, with great magnificence, five days of the 
year. Twice every year, at the winter and summer solstices, the 
Emperor of China, in his character as high priest of the nation, 
offers prayer and sacrifice to Shang-Te, the Supreme Being. 11 

1 In a work ascribed to Full-he, who is supposed to have lived considerably more 
than four thousand years ago, the following remarkable sentence is to be found : 
" Every seven days comes the revolution" that is, of the heavenly bodies, as generally 
explained by Chinese scholars ; and it is a singular fact, that in the Chinese almanacs 
of the present day there are four names applicable, during the course of each lunar 
month, to the days which answer to our Sundays. Gillespie s Land ofSinim, pp. 161, 162. 

2 Hyde De Relig. Vet. Pers., pp. 189, 190. 

3 Smith s Diet. ofGr. and Rom. Antiq., words Calendarium and Saturnalia. 

4 Communication by Rev. H. Goldie, of Old Calabar, to the writer. 

5 Researches, i. 285. 6 Knowles s Life of Mrs. Judson, p. 9& 
1 Crawford s Embassy. 8 Humboldt s ResearcJies, ii. 123. 

9 Scott. Miss. Register, i. 230. Bell s Geography (1849), iv. 6. 
Ellis j Polvncs. Researches (1831), i. 350. 11 Gille.&gt;pit s Land ofSinim, p. 166. 



PAGAN NATIONS. 361 

Annual seasons of worship, also, have prevailed in many coun 
tries. Besides their daily offerings and frequent ablutions, the 
Hindus have a grand annual sacrifice. 1 In China, in addition to 
the worship constantly performed by the priests at the temples, 
and numerous occasions, when the gods receive special honour, 
there is " the festival of the New Year," which is observed in the 
month of February of our year, as a season of idolatrous worship 
and general festivity ; and is the only season, during the whole 
.twelve months, of universal gaiety, and total cessation from busi 
ness. 2 The conclusion of the year called its "ripening" was 
celebrated in Huahine, one of the Society Islands, with a festival, 
which was regarded as a kind of annual acknowledgment to the 
gods. 3 Of the Saturnalia, which, with the Opalia and the Sigil- 
kria, occupied seven days once a year, Macrobius affirms that it 
was a festival older than Rome itself. 4 The anniversary of Bel 
or Baal (Beltein), lately lingered, if it does not still linger, in some 
parts of Scotland. 5 But it were endless to enumerate examples 
of annual festivals, as these, particularly on the first day of the 
year, have been common in almost all countries. 

While it will be admitted that the instances adduced of weekly 
holy days have a direct bearing on our subject, it may be asked, 
What relation have octonary, monthly, quarterly, or annual obser 
vances to a seventh day of rest and worship ? 

Our first answer to this question is, that such observances ex 
emplify the Sabbatic principle, so far as regards stated seasons of 
devotion, and of exemption from ordinary labour. This labour is 
discontinued, and homage is rendered to some deity, at certain 
periodical times. Cases of Sabbatism, to this extent, are frequent. 
The people of Calabar were wont, on their Sabbath, to approach 
the Supreme Being (Abasi) in prayer ; and though they now ob 
serve the day merely as a holiday and in merry-making, they 
abstain from labour in the fields, and suppose, that if they did 
not so abstain, their labour would be unprofitable, and some evil 
would befall the labo-urers. 6 The Ashantees on their sacred day, 

1 Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge, p. 623. 2 Gillespie s Sinim, pp. 67, 7i 

Ellis s Polynes. Researches (1831), i. 351, 352. * Saturnal, lib. i. cap. 7. 

Stewart s Sketches of the Highlanders of Scotland, i. 9. 

Communication of Mr. Goldie. 



362 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

worship their fetiches, and circumcise their children. 1 In Guinea, 
generally, similar practices have prevailed. Purchas says of the 
people, " The seventh day they leave working, and reckon that to 
be their day of ease and abstinence from work, or their Sunday, 
which they call Dio Fetissos. They hold it on Tuesday. That 
day the fishermen go not to the sea for fish, etc. They have a 
priest or fetissero. He, upon their Sabbath-day, sits upon a stool 
in the middle of the market, before the altar or place whereupon 
they sacrifice unto their fetisso, and then all the men, women, and. 
children come and sit round about him, and then he speaketh unto 
them, and they sit still to hear." 2 A recent account states, that 
the negroes of Guinea desist on the seventh day from the labour 
of fishing, though no other occupation is interrupted, and that 
every man dedicates to the honour of his tutelar divinity one day 
in the week, on which he drinks no palm-wine till sunset. 3 The 
only religious service in Pegu was one of public instruction. The 
preachers rose early, and by the ringing of a bason, called together 
the people to their sermons. 4 The Peruvians, we have seen, were 
to rest every ninth day. On the days of the Burrnan feasts, all 
public business is suspended the people pay their homage to 
Gaudama at the temples, presenting to the image, rice, fruits, 
flowers, candles, etc. Aged persons often fast during the whole 
day. Some visit the colleges, and hear the priests read portions 
of the Boodhist writings. 5 The purpose of the Mexican monthly, 
and of the Hindoo annual, festival, was the offering of sacrifice. 
In Senegambia, both the Kafirs and Mohammedan converts, at 
the appearance of the new moon, give vent to an ejaculatory 
address to the Deity, thanking him for his goodness during the 
month that has elapsed, and imploring a continuance of his favour 
during the month that is commencing. 6 The quarterly feast of 
the South Sea Islanders was observed with religious rites, followed 
by an entertainment ; and on occasion of the annual festival in 
Huahine, there were prayers at the Marae (temple), and a banquet, 
after which each individual returned to his home, or to hi family 

1 Hurd, 423. 

2 Purchas s Pilgrimage, "bonk 7, ch. 2, Beet. 4. 

* Bell s Geography (1849), iv. 30. * Purchas s Pilgrimage, p. 574. 

6 Knowles s Life of Mrs. Judson, p. 98. 6 Bell s Geography, iy. 6. 



PAGAN NATIONS. 363 

marae, there to offer special prayers for the spirits of departed 
relatives. 1 

Such, too, were the Sabbatical observances of ancient times. 
The Persians worshipped the sun : in allusion to which practice, 
Tertullian says, J^que si diem solis laetitise indulgemus, alia 
longe ratione quam religione solis " If we spend Sunday joyfully, 
as well as they, it is for a very different reason from the worship 
of the sun." 2 The Greeks and Komans, according to Aretius, 
consecrated Saturday to rest, conceiving it unfit for civil actions 
and warlike affairs, but suited for contemplation ; and a day, 
therefore, on which the Divine patronage was to be implored 
against dangers and misfortunes. 3 The following lines of the old 
annalist, Lucius Accius, quoted by Macrobius, inform us that the 
Greeks, in town and countiy, especially in Athens, celebrated the 
feast of the Saturnalia in honour of Saturn, masters and servants 
feasting together : 

" Maxima pars graiurn Saturno ; et maxirne Athenae 
Conficiunt sacra, quse Cronia esse iterantur ab illis. 
Cumque diem celebrant, per agros, urbesque fere omnea 
Exercent epulis Iseti, famulosque procurant 
Quisque suos : nostrisque itidem et mos traditus illhinc 
Iste, ut cum dominis famuli turn epuleotur ibidem." * 

" The manner in which all public ferice were kept," to quote 
again from one of the best works on Greek and Roman antiquities, 
" bears great analogy to our Sunday. The people generally visited 
the temples of the gods, and offered up their prayers and sacri 
fices. The most serious and solemn seem to have been the ferice 
imperative, but all the others were generally attended by rejoic 
ings and feastings. All kinds of business, especially law-suits, were 
suspended during the public ferice, as they were considered to 
pollute the sacred season." 5 The author proceeds to give speci 
mens of decisions by Roman pontiffs, in cases of doubt, as to the 
kinds of work that might be done on the ferice ; and when we 
mention that the works pronounced lawful were such as had refer- 

1 Ellis s Polynesian Researches, i. 351, 352. 2 Apol. v. Gent. xvii. 

8 Problem loc. de Sab. Observ. * Saturnal, lib. i cap. 7 

6 Dictionary, article Ferice, 



364 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

ence to the gods, to the supply of the urgent wants of human 
life, to circumstances in which injury or suffering would be the 
result of neglect or delay, as of a tottering house, or of an ox fall 
ing into a pit, we must admit the striking resemblance, in some 
respects, of the ferice to the Sabbath of Revelation. 

But the question of the relevancy of heathen holidays to our 
subject requires a further answer. There is good reason to believe 
that these holidays are corruptions of the Sabbatic institution, as 
respects both its proportion of time, and the nature of its engage 
ments. The curtailing of its time has been the result, in some 
instances, of a process by which septenary have gradually passed 
into less frequent, because thus more congenial observances; and 
in others, of the violent and crafty measures of rulers, who have 
been known summarily to transfer the stated rest from the seventh 
day to a tenth, or to expunge all but a yearly sacred day from the 
national calendars. Such facts as Jeroboam s substitution of his 
one feast of the eighth month for the Jewish feasts the reducing 
of the seasons of worship in Persia by Yezdegerd to that of Nau- 
ruz, or New- Year s Day and the institution of decades in France, 
prepare us for more readily assenting to a statement made by some 
of the Fathers, to the effect that, at a very early period, the place 
of the weekly Sabbath was usurped by an annual religious festival. 
And the revolutionized object and rites, as well as day of the French 
worship the weekly prayers of Calabar succeeded by mere rest 
and merriment the desecrated Sabbath of the Jews, at various 
periods of their history, and of many professed Christians, still, 
with the entire disappearance of a seventh sacred day in China, 
if not also in the islands of Polynesia are proofs how possible 
it is, that a holy day may not only become a day of revelry and 
wickedness, but ultimately be absorbed in the current of ordinary 
time. 

The distribution of time into weeks, is another observance which 
appears to have a close connexion with a septenary day of rest 
and sacredness. The antiquity and extensive prevalence of this 
practice might be established by ample historical details. Let it 
suffice, however, in a matter on which there is so general an agree 
ment, to present the words of four eminent writers : " The 
septenary arrangement of days," says Scaliger 3 " was in use among 



PAGAN NATIONS. 365 

the Orientals from the remotest antiquity." 1 " We have reason 
to believe," observes President de Goguet, " that the institution 
of that short period of seven days, called a week, was the first step 
taken by mankind in dividing and measuring their time. We find, 
from time immemorial, the use of this period among all nations, 
without any variation in the form of it. The Israelites, Assyrians, 
Egyptians, Indians, Arabians, and, in a word, all the nations of 
the east, have in all ages made use of a week, consisting of seven 
days. We find the same custom among the ancient Eomans, 
Gauls, Britons, Germans, the nations of the north, and of Ame 
rica." 2 According to Laplace, " the week is perhaps the most 
ancient and incontestable monument of human knowledge." 3 We 
add a sentence from Humboldt, venturing, however, to premise, 
that the Peruvian ninth day of rest seems to prove a former nota 
tion of time by weeks even in America. " It appears," he re 
marks, " that no nation of the New Continent was acquainted 
with the week or cycle of seven days, which we find among the 
Hindoos, the Chinese, the Assyrians, and the Egyptians, and 
which, as Le Gentil has very justly observed, is followed by the 
greater part of the nations of the Old World." 4 

The respect shown to the septenary number is a third pagan 
observance of a Sabbatic character, which calls for notice. How 
ever much certain numbers, as three, four, ten, and others, might 
be prized, none appears to have been honoured with so permanent 
and general an estimation as the numerus septenarius. There is 
no species of subject, religious or secular, divine or human, spiri 
tual or material, which it has not been employed to illustrate and 
magnify. And it has been in use for these purposes by peoples 
the most diversified in condition, and the most remote from each 
other in place and time. It has been consulted in the construc 
tion alike of Egyptian pyramids and cities, Assyrian and Arabian 
temples, and Indian pagodas. It has been sacred equally to Saturn 
and to the planets, to the sun-god of Persia, and to the elements 
and week-gods of Scandinavia. It has determined the number of 
the seasons of mourning, and the days of expiation of the won 
ders of the world, .and the wise among men. It directed the 

i De Emend. Temp. lib. i. 3 The Origin of Laws (1761), vol. i. p. 230. 

(Euvres, torn. vi. (1846), liv. i. ch. 3. * Researches, vol. i. p. 283. 



366 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

heating of Nebuchadnezzar s furnace. It ruled the retinue of the 
court of Shushan. It has sounded the depths of slavery. It has 
measured noble deeds. Ajax bore his shield covered with seven 
hides. Boreas ruled in his sevenfold, many-celled cave. The 
classes of the Polynesian areois, supposed to be a society of divine 
original, were seven. The chosen conductors of the great annual 
sacrifice offered by the wild Indians were seven. The priests 
who prepared the more solemn feasts in ancient Eome were seven. 
Seven was the complete number of sacrificial victims with Deio- 
phobe as with Balaam in Athens as in the land of Uz. Seven 
ewe-lambs sealed the covenant between Abraham and Abimelech. 
Agamemnon s peace-offering to Achilles included seven tripods and 
seven maids. Seven ages were the gift of the gods to Tithonus ; 
and according to Shakspere, 

" All the world s a stage,- 
And all the men and women merely players : 
They have tlieir exits and their entrances, 
And one man in his time plays many parts : 
His acts being seven ages." 

And taking a loftier flight than our poet, the Hindu, not unlike 
the Mohammedan, whose expected paradise is seven heavens, 
imagines a sidereal ladder, through whose seven gates his soul 
is to ascend to the residence of Brama its own pristine as well 
as last abode of bliss. 

In accounting for facts so diversified, and yet having so much 
in common, we must resort to some powerful variable force, not 
to a physical or natural law. If, for example, there had been 
anything, as there was not, in the revolution of the moon, or in 
the peculiar excellence of the number " Seven," to originate sep 
tenary observances, the observances would have been found where- 
ever the course of the planet was seen, or the number known. 
We must, moreover, trace the facts to a cause operating at a re 
mote fountainhead of nations. Laplace assigns to the week a 
high antiquity, and its existence among all successive generations 
is held to be " a proof of their common origin." 1 The septenary 
enumeration of the planets, and Jewish example t came too late to 

1 Qtuvres, torn. vi. liv. i. chap. iii. 



PAGAN NATIONS. 367 

produce the first instances of the week in heathendom. Finally, 
the greater prevalence of this division of time in the East seems 
to point to its origin in that direction. 

All these conditions are fulfilled by the account in the Penta 
teuch, the oldest of books, which relates, that the Creator having 
made the world in six days, rested on, blessed, and sanctified the 
seventh ; and which, after repeated notices of worship, and of re 
spect for the number seven, as applied to time as to other things, 
acquaints us with the dispersion from Shinar, into all countries, 
of the descendants of the only family that had survived the deso 
lating flood. By them were the creation, the week, the state of 
innocence, the fall, the deluge, and other subjects all recorded 
afterwards by Moses, and found pervading and partially redeem 
ing so many heathen mythologies made known throughout the 
world. In the relation of septenary observances to religion, crea 
tion, and the flood, aided by the proverbial power of customs de 
rived from ancestors, we find the moral force adequate to the 
conveyance of these observances, despite of many hostile influences, 
over thousands of years. But a momentum, depending upon 
fading traditions, must decrease ; and hence changes have come 
over the week and Sabbath of Paganism, while in countries en 
joying a written revelation, they have remained in their integrity 
and power. 

If philosophy, which disclaims the fanciful and the intricate, 
when she has found the simple and the satisfactory, be listened to, 
it will be admitted that the traces of pagan rites confirm the 
Mosaic record, and the doctrine of a primal, Divine Sabbath, by 
an amount of evidence which, in a matter involving no fierce 
antipathies, would command an unhesitating and unqualified 
belief. " Many vain conjectures have been formed concerning 
the reasons and motives which determined all mankind to agree 
in this primitive division of their time. Nothing but tradition 
concerning the space of time employed in the creation of the 
world, could give rise to this universal, immemorial practice." 1 

President de Goguet Origin of Law, TO! L p. 280. 



368 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 



THE SABBATH OR LORD S DAY IN THE FIRST THREE 
CENTURIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

A statement of the evidence for the authority and value of the 
Sabbath would be incomplete without some account of its history. 
The Word of God, indeed, is the standard of all religious faith 
and practice, but we must be indebted to the annals of the world, 
and especially of the Church, for help in ascertaining the canon 
of revelation, in interpreting its language, and in verifying its 
declarations and prophecies, its promises and warnings. In the 
aid derived from these annals our subject largely shares. The 
manifold vestiges of the Sabbatic institution, traceable in the 
written remains of heathen nations, strikingly confirm the doctrine 
of its primaeval and Divine appointment. And as we follow its 
track in Christendom, we find that ecclesiastical records render, in 
various forms, still more important service. 

The history of the earlier centuries of Christianity throws light 
on the meaning of certain Scripture terms which have been the 
occasion of a vexed question among controversialists. In desig 
nating what is now known amongst us as the Christian Sabbath, 
the Fathers make use of names which they never apply to any 
other day of the week. With them " the eighth day," " the day 
of the Sun," the first day of the week," and " the Lord s Day," 
signify one particular day and no other. Barnabas, or whoever 
was the author of the Catholic Epistle ascribed to him, mentions 
" the eighth day" as that on which " Jesus rose from the dead," 
and which the Christians of his time observed as a festal day. 1 
We are informed by Justin Martyr, that the Christians of the 
second century assembled on " the day of the Sun," and that they 
did so, " because on this first clay God made the world, and Jesus 
Christ our Saviour rose from the dead." 2 The same Father 
affirms, that " Christ rose from the dead on the eighth day," 
which, he adds, " may be called the eighth and yet remains the 
first." 3 In the third century, Cyprian represents the eighth day 
as both "the first after the Sabbath, and the Lord s Day." 4 

1 Epist. c. 15. 2 Apol 1, adjlnem. 

Dial, cum Tryph. c. 41. * Epist. 64. 



CENIUEIES I.-IIL 369 

When we compare these passages with each other, we find that 
" the eighth day," " the day of the Sun," or Sunday, " the day of 
the Redeemer s resurrection," " the first day of the week," and 
11 the Lord s Day," are, according to the combined testimony of 
Barnabas, Justin Martyr, and Cyprian, the same day. Were it 
not that we are limited by our theme to a certain period, we might 
enlarge the proof from the language of Hilary, Ambrose, Chry- 
sostom, and Augustine. Theorists, who affirm that the Jewish 
seventh day continues the day of the Christian Sabbath, and others, 
who assert that there is no evidence in the New Testament for 
the Divine appointment of a day of sacred rest under Christianity 
at all, have thus one of the chief grounds of their opinions swept 
away the ground, that the expressions, " the first day of the 
week," and " the Lord s Day," do not denote the day to which in 
our time they are usually applied. There is the most satisfactory 
proof in Scripture itself, that the designations must be so under 
stood ; but when Christian writers some of whom were conver 
sant with persons that might have seen and heard the apostle 
John agree with the great body of Christians in their views of 
such phraseology, not a shade of doubt ought to remain as to tht 
correctness of the interpretation. 

It is otherwise, as respects uniformity of meaning, with the 
word " Sabbath," which is not in the writings of the Fathers 
employed to indicate exclusively one day. The earlier Fathers 
appear always to express by it the " seventh " day, while they 
designate by some one or other of the above-mentioned terms the 
distinctive season of Christian worship. As "the Sabbath" had 
been for so long a time the well-known title of the weekly holy 
day among the Jews, it was obviously needful for preventing mis 
take, that the institution which had passed to a new day should 
have a new name. But as time advanced, and may not we add, as 
the Lord s day came to be no longer in danger of being confounded 
with the Jewish Sabbath, the old name was gradually resumed 
and attached to the Christian holy day. The earliest instance of 
the restoration of the word to its ancient honour, that we have 
discovered, occurs in a passage of Irenseus (A.D. 178), where, 
after showing that Christ in healing the sick did nothing " beyond 
the law of the Sabbath-day," he draws the conclusion, that " the 



370 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

true sanctification of the Sabbath consists in doing works of 
mercy." 1 He is followed by Clemens Alexandrinus, who holds 
the eighth day "to be properly the Sabbath, but the seventh a 
working day ;" 2 and by Origen, who says, " Leaving the Jewish 
observances, let us see how the Sabbath ought to be kept by a 
Christian ;" concluding his description with the words, " This is 
the observance of the Christian Sabbath." 3 Examples might 
also be given from the writings of Gregory of JSTyssa, Jerome, 
Augustine, Rufinus, and Chrysostom, but they belong to a later 
date. Several instances, doubtless, exist in which Augustine and 
others employ the word " Sabbath" in its original acceptation. 
But this they do when they have occasion to mention and discrimi 
nate the Jewish and Christian weekly days of rest ; and, even in 
this case, they sometimes say, " the Jewish Sabbath." On other 
occasions, they feel that there is no need of any explanatory or 
qualifying epithet when they call the Lord s day the Sabbath ; 
a fact which is only in harmony with the conviction, everywhere 
manifest in their writings, that the Sabbatic institution had, be 
sides specific relations to the Mosaic and Christian economies, a 
generic rest and sacredness common to all times. The Fathers 
might conceive, as many since their days have done, that there is 
something in a name, and that though circumstances required 
them for a time to restrict themselves to -certain expressions, they 
could not, in justice to ancient rights, or dutifully to the immut 
able Decalogue, surrender a word so significant of their privileges 
and obligations as " the Sabbath." 

There is a particular instance of the employment of the word 
" Sabbath-day," in the New Testament, as to the reference of 
which, whether to the seventh-day or to the first-day Sabbath, 
there has been some controversy. It has occurred to us that a 
solution of the difficulty may be found in the following remarks. 
Jerusalem was taken and destroyed by Titus in A.D. 70. Our 
Lord had, in reference to that event, said to his disciples, " There 
shall not an hair of your head perish. When ye shall see Jeru 
salem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation 
thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the 

i Adv. Hceres, lib. iv. t. 19. 2 Strom, lib. vi. c. 10. 

* Horn. 23, in Num. 



CENTURIES i.-m. 371 

mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it depart out " 
(Luke xxi. 18, 20, 21). In fulfilment of these words, both of 
promise and command, the Christians had escaped and taken re 
fuge at Pella. 1 From the tactics employed by the Roman gene 
ral, we learn what day was intended in another command of our 
Lord to his disciples : " Pray ye that your flight be not in the 
winter, neither on the Sabbath-day" (Matt. xxiv. 20). We are 
nowhere informed of the precise time at which the Christians left 
the city. It is only in general terms stated by Eusebius that 
they did so after the war had commenced under the conduct of 
Titus. It has often been affirmed that they left the city at the 
time of the retreat of Cestius Gallus, when, according to Josephus, 
many of the most eminent of the Jews swam away from the city 
as from a sinking ship. 2 But the departure of the Christians is 
not mentioned by that historian as having then occurred, nor does 
the supposition agree with the language either of Eusebius or of 
the evangelists, the latter defining the time as that when Jeru 
salem was to be encompassed with armies, and the abomination of 
desolation should stand in the holy place (Matt. xxiv. 15 ; Mark 
xiii. 14 ; Luke xxi. 20). The military ensigns were the chief 
objects of Roman idolatry, and when these were brought to the 
temple, and sacrifices were offered to them, " the abomination of 
desolation stood in the holy place." This was the signal for flight 
to the followers of Christ. The season was summer, and the day 
was not the Lord s day, for on that day Titus made his attacks, 
but a Jewish Sabbath-day, when, knowing that the inhabitants 
would not desecrate the time by any military or other work, he 
employed himself in constructing machines, and making his pre 
parations for the active prosecution of the siege on the other 
days. 3 Saturday was the most convenient, if not the only pos 
sible day, on which the Christians could leave the city. In their 
situation, it is not conceivable that they could forget their Lord s 
command to them to pray. Their supplications were heard as 

i Euseb. Hist. lib. ii; c. 5. 2 Wars of the Jews, B. li. cli. 20. 

3 Titus employed the Sabbath-days in constructing machines, etc., previous to his 
attacks on the following Sundays. His first assault was on Sunday, April 22, A.D. 70. 
Part of the lower city was taken, Sunday, May 6 ; the temple was burnt, Sunday. 
August 5 ; and the upper city was taken and destroyed, Sunday, Sept. 2. Kitto S 
History of Palestine, vol. ii. p. 756. 



372 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

regarded the season. They must have been heard also as to 
the day. If we are right in conceiving that the day of their 
escape was a Saturday, the Sabbath-day referred to in Matt, 
xxiv. 20 was not, as some contend, the last, but the first day 
of the week. 

We have abundant evidence that a stated day was sacredly ob 
served by the Christians in the first three centuries, and that this 
was the first day of the week. 

Clement of Eome (68-70), in writing on behalf of the Church 
there to the Church of Corinth, says : " We ought to do in order 
all things which the Lord hath required us to observe at stated 
times. The offerings and sacred services, which it is our duty to 
render, he hath commanded to be presented neither carelessly 
nor irregularly, but at appointed times and hours." 1 The writer 
here intimates, as a fact known to both churches, that Christ had 
prescribed seasons for divine worship. The want of reference 
to any particular season by name implies the notoriety of the 
matter. 

We have followed the transactions of the second century for 
only a very few years, when we light upon a record of sacred usage 
in Bithynia, the more satisfactory in some respects that it comes 
from a hostile quarter. We refer to the celebrated letter of Pliny 
the younger, written to the Emperor Trajan. As lieutenant oi 
the emperor in Pontus and Bithynia, he had been ordered to em 
ploy the severest measures against the Christians under his 
authority, but judged it prudent, before proceeding to the utmost 
rigour, to represent their case to his master. He says, that after 
being examined, " they affirmed that the whole of their fault or 
error lay in this, that they were wont to meet together on a stated 
day, before it was light, and sing among themselves by turns a 
hymn to Christ as God, and to bind themselves by an oath, not 
to the commission of any wickedness, but not to be guilty of 
theft, or robbery, or adultery, never to break a promise, or to 
deny a pledge committed to them when called upon to return it. 
When these things were performed, it was their custom to sepa 
rate, and then to come together again to a meal, which they ate 
in common without any disorder ; but this they had forborne 

1 Epist. sect. 40. 



CENTURIES I. -III. 37 

since the publication of my edict, whereby, according to your 
commands, I prohibited assemblies." 1 How extensively the reli 
gion, which Pliny calls " the superstition," of these good and 
peaceful members of society, had spread, appears when he adds : 
" Many of all ages, and every rank, of both sexes likewise, are 
accused and will be accused. Nor has the contagion of the super 
stition seized cities only, but the smaller towns also, and the open 
country. Nevertheless, it seems to me that it may be restrained or 
corrected. It is certain that the temples, which were almost for 
saken, begin to be more frequented, and the sacred solemnities, 
after a long intermission, are revived. Victims, also, are every 
where bought up, whereas for some time there were few pur 
chasers." 

Fr6m this time, for a period of some thirty years, we find no 
trace of the Lord s Day. But the circumstantial account of the 
manner in which the Christians spent their holy day, as given 
by Justin Martyr, in his first Apology (A.D. 138 or 139), fully 
compensates the preceding blank. " On the day called Sunday," 
he writes, " there is a meeting in one place of all who reside 
whether in the towns or in the country, and the memoirs of the 
apostles, and the writings of the prophets are read. The reader 
having concluded, the president delivers a discourse, instructing 
the people, and exhorting them to imitate the good things which 
they have heard. Then we all stand up together, and engage in 
prayer, after which bread is brought in, with wine and water. 
The president offers uj5, according to his ability, prayers and 
thanks a second time, to which the people express their assent 
with a loud Amen. Then follow a general distribution and partir 
cipation of the things for which thanks have been given, and a 
portion is conveyed to the absent by the deacons. The more 
affluent contribute of their substance as each is inclined, and the 
remnant is intrusted to the president, wherewith he relieves the 
orphans, widows, etc. We all assemble together in common on 
Sunday, because it was on this first day that God having changed 
darkness and chaos, made the world, and because on the same day 
Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead. For he was crucified 
;he day before that of Saturn, and on the day after that of 

i C. Plin. C. Sac. lib. x. er&gt;. 97. 
17 



374 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, he appeared to his apostles 
and disciples, and taught them what we now submit to your con 
sideration." 1 

After a lapse of another period of thirty years, we are again 
furnished with ample testimony to the continued life and vigour 
of the institution. In A.D. 170, the Lord s day is known at 
Sardis, for Melito, bishop of the church there, writes a book on 
the subject, and Eusebius, who supplies the information, and who 
attests the character of the weekly holy day in his own time, must 
be considered as intimating the identity of the sacred season in 
Sardis and Caesarea. Of the same date is the evidence of 
Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, who appeals to the observance of 
the Lord s day as a custom in the churches, and of Dionysius, 
bishop of Corinth, who, in writing to the Romans, and to Soter, 
their bishop, and after commending them for their liberality to 
their brethren and to other churches, which had distinguished 
them during their whole history, remarks, " We have passed (or 
kept) the Lord s day and perused your epistle, which we shall 
hereafter read continually, as we do that of Clemens, that we may 
be replenished with precepts and wholesome instructions." 2 Al 
ready, we see, had a practice been introduced different from that 
described by Justin Martyr, who says nothing of any reading in 
the church but of the sacred writings. -The words of Dionysius, 
however, while they clearly certify the regular observance of the 
Lord s day at Corinth, imply a common understanding and interest 
in the subject there and in Rome, and also suggest what must have 
been " the appointed times," referred to in the epistle which 
Clement had written from the church of the latter city to that of 
the former a hundred years before. 

The words of Irenasus and Clemens Alexandrinus (A.D. 178) 
on the subject, are more appropriate to a subsequent page. It is 
enough at present to say, that the language of both writers indi 
cates the general respect for the Lord s day which was entertained 
at the period when they flourished. 

Like Pliny and Justin Martyr, but with still more detail, Ter- 
tullian sets forth the manner in which Christian worship was con 
ducted in his time. Although he does not mention the tiaj in 

i Apol 1, adfinem. Euseb. Eccl Hist. lib. iv. c. 22. 



CENTURIES r.-m. 375 

the description itself, he has, in a preceding chapter of the same 
work, declared, that the Christians solemnized " the day of the 
Sun," " the day after Saturday, in distinction from those who call 
this day their Sabbath." The passage is too long for insertion, 
but the following is, we trust, a faithful translation of so much of 
it as bears upon our subject : " We Christians, incorporated by 
our common faith, worship, and hopes, meet for prayer, in which 
we as it were take the kingdom of heaven by a violence grateful 
to God, not forgetting to offer up supplications for emperors, and 
all in authority, for the prosperity and peace of the state, and 
for the delay of the final doom. We assemble, also, for receiving 
instruction, warning; and exhortation from the Divine Word, 
whereby we nourish our faith, animate our hope, establish our 
confidence, and stir up ourselves by every argument to the practice 
of good works. On these occasions discipline is administered witk 
all solemnity, and the censures pronounced on offenders are re 
garded as anticipating the judgment to come. Every one puts 
something into the public stock once a month, or when he pleases, 
and according to his ability and inclination, for there is no com 
pulsion ; these pious deposits being applied, not to the indulgence 
of appetite, but in aid of the poor, orphans, the aged, the ship 
wrecked, the persecuted, and for burying the dead. Then follows 
a supper, a love-feast, not an entertainment for the sensual, but a 
refreshment to the hungry and the needy. To this supper we do 
not sit down till we have previously tasted the pleasure of prayer 
to God ; we sup in the recollection that God is to be worshipped 
in the night season, and we converse with the consciousness that 
He hears us. Praise succeeds, and the whole is concluded with 
prayer, when we depart ; not for the purposes of dissipation, licen 
tiousness, or violence, but with the same regard to purity and 
moderation as in our coming together, like men who have been 
enjoying a spiritual banquet rather than a common supper." 1 
Thus, for another century, notwithstanding a variety of influences 
tending to its injury, has the Lord s day continued to maintain its 
pre-eminence, and to be kept with sacred care. And it is import 
ant to remark the connexion of a well-observed holy day with the 
general excellence of the Church, since it was at this time that 

i Apol. c. 89 



376 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

the beautiful panegyric was extorted from her enemies, " Behold 
how these Christians love one another ! " l 

In the third century, amidst various internal sources of weak 
ness to the Church, and assaults against her from without, the 
weekly holy day continued to be held in honour. " On a solemn 
day," says Minucius Felix, referring to the day of public worship, 
and of the love-feast which followed, " persons of both sexes, and 
of every age, assemble at a feast with all their children, sisters 
and mothers." 2 The writings of Origen show that the Lord s 
day was observed at Alexandria, and that he was careful to instruct 
his flock in the duties of the day. 3 Cyprian of Carthage has a 
single sentence on the subject, afterwards to be quoted, which is 
the more important that it expresses the views of a Council held 
in A.D. 253, and which implies the unchallenged recognition in 
his time of the institution itself. And the evidence of Commodian 
(A.D. 270), who mentions the Lord s day, and of Victorine (A.D. 
290), who says, " It is our custom then [on the seventh day] to 
fast, lest we should seem to observe the Sabbath of the Jews ;" 4 
was only wanting to complete the proof that the lapse of three 
centuries, with the assaults of heathen and Jewish persecution, 
and the growing corruption of the Church, has left to a great ex 
tent in its primitive simplicity and sacredness, the ordinance of a 
weekly season of rest and devotion. 

The history of the period under review, besides throwing light 
on the names and observance of the Sabbath, acquaints us with 
the doctrinal views entertained by the early Fathers in reference to 
the institution. We indeed have the same Scriptures to deter 
mine our creed on the subject as they had ; but when a doctrine 
is apparently consonant to that supreme authority, our confidence 
in the conviction that we have read the document correctly, is 
strongly confirmed by the coincidence of our opinions with those 
of good men, especially of such of them as lived within a compa 
ratively short time of the apostolic age. Tertullian, Origen, and 
Cyprian, uncontradicted by any early Christian writers, held, that 
the Sabbath was of primaeval appointment. Little has been said 

1 Ibid. Tertullian mentions (Adv. Psyc. c. 13), that the psalm most frequently sung 
ty the Christians was the 133d. 2 Octavius, c. 9. 

9 Contr. Celmm, lib. 8. Horn. 5. in Isa. H. 4 Holden on the Sabbath, p. 306. 



CENTT7EIES I.-IU. 377 

on the theory of the institution by the Fathers who preceded 
Tertullian. He states, " that Christ himself made the Sabbath- 
day more holy by his well-doing on it, which by the blessing of 
the Father was made holy from the beginning;" 1 and declares, 
that this view of the antiquity of the day was entertained by the 
Jews of his time. 2 Origen expresses the opinion, that Job ob 
served a seventh day, and regards the narrative in Genesis ii. 1-3, 
as intimating the institution of the Sabbath when the work of 
creation was finished. 3 

The Fathers of the first three centuries believed that the Jewish 
Sabbath-day had been set aside. To Trypho s assumption of the . 
permanence of the seventh-day rest, Justin Martyr replies, " There 
was no need of the Sabbaths, nor festivals, nor oblations, before 
Moses ; so now, in like manner, there is no need of them, since 
Jesus Christ the Son of God, was, by the determinate counsel of 
God, born of a virgin, of the seed of Abraham, without sin." 4 
Clemens Alexandrinus regards the seventh day as no longer en 
titled to be called the Sabbath, but as having taken the place of 
a working day. 5 The same doctrine is held by Tertullian, who 
says, in name of Christians, " We have nothing to do with the 
Sabbaths, new moons, and feasts in which God at one time took 
pleasure." 6 He .affirms, and enlarges on the statement, that the 
seventh day was "a temporary Sabbath." 7 Additional illustra 
tions will occur under our next remark. 

According to the early Fathers, the first day of the week has 
been by Divine authority appointed the day of rest and worship 
for Christians, in place of the seventh, the day of the Jewish 
Sabbath. Clement of Eome, as we have seen, urges attention to 
the seasons of worship which Christ had commanded to be ob 
served. Barnabas, disclaiming the old Sabbath-day, declares the 
eighth day to be its acceptable substitute. 8 Justin Martyr, too, 
not only condemns the Jews for adhering to the former day, but 
describes the worship of the Christians in his time as observed on 
the day of the sun, and states that they assembled for that pur- 

1 Adv. Marcion, lib. iv. c. 12. 2 Adv. Jud. c. iv. 

Kennicott s Two Dissert, p. 169, note. Origenis Con. Cels., lib. 6 (Cantab. 1658), p. 
817, et in Mat. Tract, p. 20. * Dial, cum Tryph, sect 23. * Strom, lib. Ti . 16. 
De Idolatrid, c. 14. T Adv. Jud. lib. ir. Eptst. c. 15. 



378 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

pose on the first day, as it was the day on which God made the 
world, and Jesus Christ our Saviour rose from the dead. 1 " This 
commandment," says Clement of Alexandria, " informs us that the 
world was made by God, and that he gave us the seventh day for 
rest on account of the sufferings and afflictions of life ; and the 
eighth day," he adds, " appears rightly to be named the seventh, 
and to be the true Sabbath, but the seventh to be a working 
day." 2 The writings of Tertullian abound in testimonies to his 
faith in the Divine authority of the Lord s day, some of which 
will fall to be noticed under another head. Cyprian testifies to 
the same belief. In writing to Fidus, one of the clergy of Car 
thage, who held that infants ought not to be baptized before the 
eighth day, and informing him of the decision against him of a 
council called to consider his opinion, he says, that the practice 
of observing circumcision on the eighth day was a type fulfilled 
in Christ, and adds, "For because the eighth day, that is the first 
after the Sabbath, was to be the day on which the Lord should 
rise, quicken us, and give us the circumcision of the Spirit, this 
eighth day or the first after the Sabbath, and the Lord s day, was 
foreshown in the figure, which figure ceased with the realization 
of its import, and the bestowal of the spiritual circumcision." 3 
Unlike some modern writers, the Clements, and others, do not 
arrogate to the Church the appointment of the weekly holy day. 
Let us hear Tertullian, " The apostles introduced nothing at their 
own discretion, but faithfully assigned to the people the discipline 
which they had received from Christ." 4 

It was the creed of the Fathers, that the Lord s day ought to be 
wholly spent in sacred rest and service. All ordinary work was 
to be discontinued on that day. Tertullian, in remarking on the 
words, " Thou shalt do no work," asks, " What work ?" and 
answers, " Thine own, doubtless. For it follows that he should 
take away those works from the Sabbath, which he had previously 
indicated to belong to the six days. Thine own that is, human 
and customary works." 5 The same writer, in contending for the 
honours of the Lord s day, and after mentioning that it was the 
practice of a very few to abstain from kneeling in prayer on 

i Apol. I. ad fin. * Strom, lib. vi. c. 16. Epist. 64. 

* D Praeeript. adv. Hatret. c. 6. * Adv. Marcion, lib. ii. c. 21. 



CENTURIES I.-III. 379 

Sabbath that is, Saturday, says, " But we ought, according to the 
doctrine received by us, to beware on the Lord s day alone, not of 
that only" kneeling in prayer " but of all anxiety, deferring 
even business, lest we should give place in any degree to the 
devil." 1 Like-minded as to the duty of entire rest from work was 
Origen, who remarks, " Leaving the Jewish observances, let us see 
how the Sabbath ought to be observed by a Christian. That 
Sabbatism, mentioned Heb. iv. 9, is the observation of the Sab 
bath, on which no worldly actions ought to be done." 2 Not that 
the Fathers supposed that sacred time was profaned by labour 
in cases of necessity. When Tertullian has shown, as already 
quoted, that we are not to do our own works, he adds, " But to 
carry about the Ark, that is, round the walls of Jericho, can seem 
neither a daily work nor a human, but a rare and holy work, and 
therefore by the very commandment of God divine." 3 "The 
priests," says Irenseus, " in kindling a fire and slaying beasts on 
the Sabbath-day, were not guilty of any sin." 4 That worldly 
pleasures were to be shunned, while frequently inculcated by the 
later Fathers as one of the duties of the Lord s day, is plainly 
involved in the language already quoted. The proper business of 
that day, be it further remarked, was, in the view of these excel 
lent men, the service of God in works of piety and benevolence. 
Origen not only excludes secular work from the engagements of 
the Sabbath, as in the words formerly adduced, but completes the 
description of a sanctified day thus : " If, therefore, you cease 
from all worldly works, and execute nothing worldly, but give 
yourselves up to spiritual exercises, repairing to church, attending 
to sacred reading and instruction, thinking of celestial things, 
solicitous for the future, placing the judgment to come before your 
eyes, not looking to things present and visible, but to those which 
are future and invisible this is the observance of the Christian 
Sabbath." 5 But works of benevolence are to be added. Irenaeus 
shows that Christ in healing the sick did nothing beyond the law, 
which did not prohibit cures upon the Sabbath-day, or even 
caring for cattle ; and then draws the conclusion, " That the 
true sanctification of the Sabbath consists in doing works of 

De Orat., c. 23. * Horn. 23, in Num. Adv. Martion, lib. ii. c. SL 
Contr. Patent., lib. iv. c. Id. Horn, 23, In Num. 



380 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

mercy." 1 To the same effect is a chapter in Tertullian s work 
against Marcion. 2 

Let us, under this topic, add, that the Fathers, while they 
sufficiently disclaimed the Jewish ceremonies, have occasionally 
avowed their faith in the substantial sameness of Sabbatic obliga 
tions under the Jewish and Christian dispensations, and that 
several of them, earlier and later, have, without dissent so far as 
we have seen on the part of any, recognised the Fourth Command 
ment as the abiding rule of the Christian holy day. Thus Irenseus : 
" Preparing men 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." 3 Clemens Alexan- 
drinus held the continued authority of the Decalogue, from his 
exposition of the fourth precept of which we have already extracted 
a remarkable sentence on the Sabbatic institution. Let us add 
another remark, which is, that the Fathers, with all honest men, 
recognised in a day devoted to the Divine service, a whole day. 
The ancient tithes consisted of a tenth part of a person s substance, 
which was consecrated to a religious use. In like manner, when 
a seventh day was set apart to God, it was one entire day out of 
the seven. The sacred half-days the intercisi of the heathen, 
had an analogy to some of the Mosaic holy days, but not to 
the weekly Sabbath. When Dionysius of Corinth said that he 
and the Church had kept the Lord s day, his language means 
that they had kept the day throughout. Sabbaths, in the 
estimate of Irenseus, were whole days. Origen upbraids those 
" who gave one or two hours of the day to God, and came to 
church to prayers, or heard the Word of God in passing, but 
expended the remaining portion of it on the world and their 
appetites." 4 

Contr. Valent., lib. iv. c. !. Lib. iv. 3. 12. 

Adv. Hare*., lib. iv. o. 31. * Horn, in Num. 



CENTURIES IV. -XV. 381 

There is yet another part of the Sabbatic creed, held by the 
early Christians, which deserves a concluding brief notice. We 
refer to their high estimate of the Lord s day. They called it the 
first of days, the chief of days, a day of gladness. They honoured 
it by standing in prayer, and by not fasting. They rose early 
and sat late, that they might redeem their holy time. Persecution 
could not cool their ardent regard for " the Lord s solemnities." 
And Tertullian recommends to those who could not celebrate the 
day and its worship with sunshine, to meet for that purpose in 
the night season, which would be "illumined by the light of 
Christ." 



THE SABBATH IN CENTURIES IV.-XV. 

The first three centuries of ecclesiastical history furnish the 
most valuable support to the claims of the weekly holy day. But 
the subsequent periods are not wanting in scarcely less important 
aid to the same cause. The history, as it advances, multiplies 
the tests of prophetic truth relative to the promised preservation, 
prevalence, and blessings of the institution. We therefore pro 
ceed, though necessarily in a somewhat perfunctory manner, with 
the annals of the Sabbath. 



THE TERMS, " FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK," " LORD S DAY," AND 
" SABBATH." 

It has already been stated, that persons of widely different 
opinions on the question have contended for an exegesis of the 
above-mentioned names, which militates against the generally re 
ceived doctrine of the Christian Sabbath. Having produced some 
of the earlier Christian writers as witnesses against such misinter 
pretations, let us confirm their testimony by that of their most 
distinguished successors. Jerome, who will be admitted to have 
been no mean proficient in the knowledge of the versions and 
style, to say the least, of the sacred writings, explains the words, 
"the first day of the week," by the words, " the Lord s day." 1 

i " Per unam Sabbati, hoc est, in die dominico." Quoted by Beza, Annot. In 1 Got 
xvi. 2. 

17* 



382 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

In expounding the verse, " And upon the first day of the week, 
when the disciples came together to break bread," Chrysostoin 
observes, " It was then the feast of Pentecost, and the Lord s 
day." 1 At a much later time, the venerable Bede interprets the 
phrase as meaning the same day. " The Sabbath," says Augustine, 
" is the seventh day, but the Lord s day, coming after the seventh, 
must be the eighth, and is also to be reckoned the first. For it is 
called the first day of the week (una Sabbati)." 2 These words while 
they confirm the general belief in the identity of the time indicated 
by the first, eighth, and Lord s day, show that the word Sabbath 
continues to be made use of when it is necessary to distinguish 
the first day of the week from the Jewish Sabbath-day. But 
various Fathers in the fourth century, including Augustine himself, 
repeatedly apply the word, as Irenseus and Origen had done, to 
the weekly sacred season of the Christian Church. Instances will 
occur in subsequent quotations. Let two, meanwhile, suffice. 
"We enjoy," says Hilary, A.D. 354, "the festivity of a perfect 
Sabbath on the eighth, which is also the first day of the week." 3 
To these accord the words of Gregory Nyssen : " Behold the 
Sabbath, blessed for thee from the beginning ; mark by that 
Sabbath, the Sabbath of the present day, the day of rest which 
God hath blessed above other days." 4 Alexander of Hales might 
have taken higher ground than that in the following sentence : 
"Because the Sabbath-day, taken indeterminately, is called the 
day of rest, or vacation to God ; after this manner the Lord s 
day may be called the Sabbath-day, without any prejudice of the 
Christian name, or scandal of Christians." 5 

DOCTEINES. 

Dr. Paley, proceeding to answer what he calls the main question 
Involved in the controversy on our subject, which is, " Whether the 
command by which the Jewish Sabbath was instituted, extend to 
us 1 " says, " If the Divine command was actually delivered at the 
Creation, it was addressed, no doubt, to the whole human species 
alike, and continues, unless repealed by some subsequent revela- 

i Horn, in Acts xx. 7. In Ps. cl. ProZ. in Ps. 

Omt. 38. * Cited in Dr. Tomng s Dies Dominica, p. 26. 



CENTURIES rv.-xv. 383 

tion, binding upon all who come to the knowledge of it. This 
opinion precludes all debate about the extent of the obligation." 1 
That opinion, or rather truth, of a primal Sabbath, is so trans 
parently presented in the Sacred Volume, as to have gained the 
general assent of Christian men. We have to include the Fathers 
of the fourth and following centuries in the number. On this 
turning point they are at one with each other, and with Tertul- 
lian, Origen, and Cyprian. Thus writes Lactantius, " God 
completed the world, and this admirable work of nature, in the 
space of six days, and then consecrated the seventh, from which 
he had rested from his works. This is the Sabbath-day." 2 
Athanasius expresses the conviction, that the things which Moses 
taught, the same Abraham observed, and Noah understood very 
well. 3 " The first Sabbath," says Epiphanius, "from the begin 
ning decreed and declared by the Lord in the creation of the 
world, has revolved in its cycle of seven days from that day till 
now." 4 In the preceding section, the words of Gregory Nyssen 
to the same effect have been quoted. Augustine, in his City of 
God t dates the Sabbath of eternity from the creation of man. 5 
The intimation of a weekly holy day is, in a sentence afterwards 
to be produced, regarded by Chrysostom as having been divinely 
made " from the beginning." 6 And Theodoret says, " When 
God had made all things, instead of creating on the seventh 
day, He bestowed on it a blessing, lest, of the seven, that day 
only should be without honour." 7 As the doctrine continued 
to pass current down to the sixteenth century, when it was cor 
dially embraced by Luther, Calvin, and the other Reformers, it 
is unnecessary any further minutely to mark its traces in the 
history. 

In the Christian Church, from the fourth to the sixteenth cen 
tury, it was the prevalent belief that the use of the seventh day 
as a Sabbath was set aside with the dispensation to which it had 
belonged. Whatever regard was shown to Saturday, the feeling 
was never among Christians of a kind to compete with their vene 
ration for the Lord s day. This has been demonstrated in the 

1 Mor. Phil, book iv. ch. 7. 2 Dlvin. Instil, lib. vii. o. 14 

8 De Sab. et Circ. * Panar. H&r. 61. 

* Lib. rrii. o. SO. Horn. 10, In Cte. Qwest. 21, in Gte. 



384 THE SABBATH IN HISTOKY. 

learned works of Milton s tutor and Bingham. 1 When attachment 
to the seventh day was tending to the dishonour of the first, the 
Council of Laodicea interfered to repress the indignity by enacting 
as follows : " Christians ought not to act as Jews, and rest from 
labour on the Sabbath [Saturday], but should work on that day. 
And, giving pre-eminent honour to the Lord s day, they ought 
then, if they can, to rest from labour." 2 When it is considered 
that the canons of this assembly were received by the Sixth (Ecu 
menical Council into the general law of the Church, it will be 
allowed that the abrogation of the Jewish Sabbath has been an 
extensively-received doctrine among professed Christians. It is, 
besides, recognised in subsequent councils, in the legislation of 
the period, and in the works of the Fathers. No small part of 
these works are devoted to the overthrow of the synagogue and all 
its peculiarities. " The disciples of Christ," says Epiphanius, 
when contending against the Ebionites, who kept both the Sab 
bath and the Lord s day, " knew very well from his conversation 
with them, and from his doctrine before his passion, that the 
Sabbath was discharged." 3 And both Chrysostom and Theodoret 
consider " days," in these words, " Ye observe days, and months, 
and times, and years ; I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed 
upon you labour in vain," as signifying Jewish Sabbaths in con 
tradistinction from the Lord s day of Christianity. 4 But this 
position will receive further confirmation from the illustration of 
the following. 

That the Lord s day had, by Divine authority, been constituted 
the weekly day of rest and devotion under Christianity, is another 
of those doctrines which were generally received in the period 
under review. According to statements of the Fathers already 
quoted, the cycle of seven days still revolves, and " God hath 
blessed the Sabbath of the present day above other days." Euse- 
bius thus writes : " The Word [Christ], by the new covenant, trans 
lated and transferred the feast of the Sabbath to the morning light, 
and gave us the symbol of true rest the Lord s day, the first of 
the light, in which the Saviour obtained the victory over death." 5 

1 Dies Dominica, p. 37, etc. ; Antiq. D. xx. ch. 3. 

2 Can. 29, Condi, per Ruel et Hartman. vol. iii. p. 254. 

* Contr. Bbion. Hcer. xxx. c. 32. * In Gal. ir. 10. * Comment on Ps. xci. 



CENTURIES IV. -XV. 385 

Referring to our Lord s appearing to his disciples when they 
were met together after his resurrection, Cyril draws this conclu 
sion : " By right, therefore, are holy assemblies held in the 
churches on the eighth day." 1 The Lord s day is by Gregory 
Nazianzen called " God s own day." 2 Augustine declares that 
" the Lord s day was established by Christ," that " there is one 
Lord of the Sabbath and of the Lord s day," that it is " called the 
Lord s day because the Lord made it," and that it " seems pro 
perly to belong to the Lord." 3 According to Chrysostom, "God 
from the beginning intimates to us the doctrine, that within the 
compass of a week one whole day is to be set apart to spiritual 
works." 4 In the fifth century, Maximus, Bishop of Turin, Sedu- 
lius, and Leo I., Bishop of Koine, testify to the same truth. We 
quote the words of Sedulius : 

" Cceperat interea post trifjtia Sabbata felix 
Irradiare dies, culmenque nominis alti 
A Domino dominants trab.it, primusque videre 
Promeruit nasci mundum, atque resurgere Christum. 
Septima nam Genesis cum dicit Sabbata, claret 
Hunc orbis caput esse diem, quern gloria regis 
Nunc etiam proprii don an s fulgore tropsei, 
Primatum retinere dedit." 6 

The testimonies of writers in the sixth century of Anastasius 
Sinaita, Gregory of Tours, and Isidore, Bishop of Seville har 
monize with the preceding. It is sufficient to quote the last : 
" The apostles ordained the Lord s day to be kept with religious 
solemnity, because on it our Redeemer rose from the dead, which 
was therefore called the Lord s day. 6 To A.D. 601, belongs 
Hesychius, Bishop of Jerusalem, " author of several productions," 
particularly a commentary on Leviticus, in which he says, " Fol 
lowing their (the apostles ) tradition, we set apart the Lord s day 
to Divine assemblies ;" and expresses the generally received opin 
ion, that the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles 
was the Lord s day. 7 And the venerable Bede, who adorned the 
eighth century, holds that " the rest of the seventh day, after six 

1 In Joan, lib. xii. c. -53. a Horn. 1, in Pasch. 

Epist. 86, Young s Dies Domin. p. 71. * Horn. 10, in Ge. 

Dt Remtr. Carmen, lib. v. * Opera (1617), p. 396. In Lvit. lib. ii. c. 9. 

2 B 



386 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

days working, was always wont to be celebrated, and that the 
Lord s day was the memorial of the Lord s resurrection." 1 It 
was in the ninth century that Charlemagne called five councils for 
remedying the prevailing disregard of the Lord s day, with other 
evils of the Church, and said, in his edict, " We do ordain, as it is 
required in the law of God, that no man do any servile work on the 
Lord s day," but that all come to the church to magnify the Lord 
their God for those good things which on this day He bestowed 
upon them." 2 His son, Louis the Pious, several Popes, Alfred the 
Great, and Leo the Philosopher, testified, in the same century, to 
the Divine authority and sacred character of the day. These 
views, as appears from the writings of Bernard, Theophylact, 
Anselm, P. Alphonsus, Alexander de Hales, Aquinas, Wycliffe, 
from the decrees of councils, from the edicts of princes, and the 
Constitutions of bishops, continued to prevail in the following cen 
turies. Our space will admit of only two or three examples. 
"The Lord s day," according to Anselm, "signifies that true rest 
which He who rose from the dead on the Lord s day now secures 
and promises to the saints, and therefore we do rest on that day 
from labour." 3 "The vacation of the Lord s day," says the 
irrefragable doctor, " is the moral part of the Decalogue in the 
time of grace, as the seventh day was in the time of the law ;" and 
again, " The observance of a day indeterminately, that at some time 
we should attend on God, is moral in nature and immutable ; but 
the observance of a determinate time is moral by discipline by 
the adding of Divine institution. When that time ought to be, is 
not for man to determine, but God." 4 We have to add, that the 
Waldenses and Bohemian Brethren, who bore testimony against 
the growing errors and corruptions of the Church, acquiesced in 
her creed as regarded the weekly rest. Thus, in an explanation 
of the Ten Commandments, dated by Boyer A.D. 1120, the Fourth 
is held to be the rule of the Lord s day to Christians. 5 The 
Taborites the remnant of whom, afterwards joining with a party 
from the Calixtines, took the name of Bohemian Brethren main 
tained that the faithful are not bound to keep any festival but the 

1 Beda, Lib. de Offic. 3 Morer On the Lard s Day, p. 261. 

K Opera (1612), Enar. in Apoc. 5. 10. Cited in Young s Dies Domin., p. 46, 

Blair s Hist, of Waldenses, vol. i.p, 20. 



CENTURIES IT. -XV. 387 

Lord s day. 1 After that union, the Brethren took advantage of a 
respite from persecution, about A.D. 1471, for regulating their 
government and discipline, when they declared "the observance 
of the Sabbath to be of moral obligation ; because the seventh day 
was sanctified at the Creation, the Ten Commandments enjoined 
the Sabbath, and in the days of the apostles the Lord s day was 
appointed instead of the Jewish Sabbath, and therefore was not 
ceremonial." 2 

PBACTICAL TEACHINGS. 

On the important subject of the manner in which the Lord s 
day ought to be spent, the latter coincide with the earlier opinions 
of the Christian Church. Eusebius, after mentioning the trans 
ference of the Sabbath and its duties to the first day of the week, 
observes, "These duties more appropriately belong to this day, 
because it has a precedence, is first in rank, and more honourable 
than the Jewish Sabbath." He continues, "It is delivered to 
ns that we should meet together on this day, and it is ordered 
that we should do those things announced in this Psalm." 3 We 
see what idea of the sacredness of the day Athanasius entertained, 
when he described "a multitude of soldiers with arms, drawn 
swords, bows, and spears, proceeding to attack the people, though 
it was the Lord s day." 4 Cyril thus addressed his hearers: 
" Manual labour is forbidden on a feast-day, that you may exer 
cise yourselves more entirely in Divine matters." 5 The Council 
of Laodicea, while they repudiated the regular cessation of work 
on Saturday, enjoined abstinence from labour on the Lord s day. 
ID unison with these sentiments is the language of Chrysostom in 
the following exhortation to his flock : " You ought not, when 
you have retired from the church assembly, to involve yourselves 
in engagements contrary to the exercises in which you have been 
occupied, but immediately on coming home read the sacred Scrip 
tures, and call together the family, wife and children, to confer 
about the things that have been spoken, and after they have been 

i M Crie s Miscell. Writings, p. 162. 2 Blair s Waldenses, vol. ii. p. 109. 

in Comment, on Ps. xci. (xcii.) * Histor. Tracts (Oxford, 1843), p. 192. 

f Lib. viii. c. 5, in Joan. 



388 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

more deeply and thoroughly impressed upon the mind, then proceed 
to attend to such matters as are necessary for this life." 1 The last 
clause has, in the absence of better arguments, been eagerly laid 
hold of to show that the preacher approved of a return to worldly 
business after the public and private duties of religion had been 
discharged. Not to mention the incompatibility of such a recom 
mendation with the moral object aimed at in the homily, if not even 
with the physical powers of his hearers, Chrysostom has elsewhere 
stated enough to satisfy us that he had no such meaning. In other 
passages of his works he says, " The Lord s day hath rest and 
immunity from toils ;" 2 and holds abstinence from worldly affairs 
on the day to be " an immovable law." 3 To these might be added 
a variety of statements by the Fathers, which imply their convic 
tion that worldly pleasures were to be shunned at the times sacred 
to heaven. We cite two or three in which that conviction is 
clearly expressed. "The sanctification of the Sabbath," says 
Gregory Nazianzen, " consists not in the hilarity of our bodies, nor 
in the variety of glorious garments, nor in eatings, the fruit whereof 
we know to be wantonness, nor in strewing of flowers in the way, 
which we know to be the manner of the Gentiles, but rather in 
the purity of the soul, and the cheerfulness of the mind, and pious 
meditations, as when we use holy hymns instead of tabors, and 
psalms instead of wicked songs and dancings." 4 Opposed though 
Augustine was to secular work, he was still more averse to the 
indulgence of worldly pleasure on the Lord s day. His saying, 
" It is better to plough than to dance," is well known. It occurs 
in connexion with a reference to the Jews, as in his time spending 
their Sabbath in idleness and pleasure : " They are at leisure for 
trifles, and spend the Sabbath in such things as God forbids. Oui 
rest is from evil works, theirs from good works. For it is better 
to plough than to dance." 5 But it was still better, in his view, to 
abstain from both, and to act in the spirit of his own words, " Let 
us show ourselves Christians by keeping holy the Lord s day." 6 
The same spirit breathes in the words of Basil, Gregory Nazian- 
zen, and Chrysostom. The Bishop of Csesarea, having given as a 

i Horn. 5, in Matt. 2 Horn. 43, in 1 Cor. xvi. 1. Hem. 5, in Matt 

* Quoted by Twisse in Mor. of tlie Fourth Commandment, p. 173. 

* In Ps. xcii. 6 Ad CasuL, Eyist. 86. 



CENTURIES IV.- XV. 389 

reason for the practice of standing in prayer on the Lord s day, 
not only that Christians are risen together with Christ, but that 
the day seems in some measure an image of the world to come, 
adds : " The Church instructs her disciples to offer their prayers 
standing, that by being from day to day reminded of the life that 
will never end, we may not neglect to make provision for the 
change of habitation." 1 In a similar spirit writes his friend of 
Nazianzum : " But we who worship the Word should find our 
only pleasure in the Scriptures, in the Divine law, and in narrat 
ing the events relative to the feast." 2 "The Sabbath," remarks 
Chrysostom, "is not a day of idleness, but of spiritual action." 3 
In its duties, as in other things, the weekly holy day has ever been 
in substance the same institution. The objection, that Moses and 
Christ had different doctrines, Augustine does not hesitate to re 
pel with the assertion, " The doctrine was the same, the difference 
respected only the time." 4 Passing to later centuries, we find 
that such views continued to be held. Ca3sarius, Bishop of Aries, 
rebukes the impiety of Christians who do not entertain the rever 
ence for the Lord s day which the Jews appear to have for their 
Sabbath." 5 The testimony of Colurnba is specially interesting, as 
it expresses the feelings of the heart at a moment which tests the 
sincerity of faith, and the value of a creed : " This day," he said 
to his servant, " in the Sacred Volume is called the Sabbath, that 
is, rest ; and will indeed be a Sabbath to me, for it is to me the 
last day of this toilsome life, the day on which I am to rest (sab- 
batize) after all my labours and troubles, for on this coming sacred 
night of the Lord (Dominica nocte), at the midnight hour, I shall, 
as the Scriptures speak, go the way of my fathers." 6 According 
to Isidore of Spain, " the observance of the apostolic institution, 
with religious solemnity," is to " rest on that day from all earthly 
acts, and the temptations of the world, that we may apply our 
selves to God s holy worship, giving this day due honour for the 
hope of the resurrection we have therein." 7 Aquinas held that 
" such a day was appointed not for play, but for praise and 
prayer. "8 And in harmony on this subject, with good men of 

i De Spirit. Sanct. e. 27. a Orat. 38. De Laz. Cone. 1. 

* Contr. Faust, lib. xvi. c. 28. * Horn. 12. Life, by Adamna (1857), p. 230, 

* Opera, p. 396. 8 Qpusc. de Prcec. t 10. 



390 THE SABBATH IN HISTOKY. 

every age and clime, was Wycliffe, who, in his Exposition of the 
Decalogue, remarks on the precept concerning the Sabbath-day, 
that this day should be kept by " three manners of occupations, 
1st, In thinking, how God is Almighty, All-knowing, All-good, 
All-just, All-merciful and thinking, that creation was completed 
on that day, that Christ rose from the dead on that day, that 
knowledge and wisdom came to the earth by the descent of the Holy 
Spirit on that day, and that on that day, as many clerks say, shall 
be doom s-day, for Sunday was the first day, and Sunday shall be 
the last day." He concludes an exhortation to his reader, to 
" bethink " him of redemption, with the words, " It should be full 
sweet and delightful to us, to think thus on this great kindness, 
and this great love of Jesus Christ." 2d, In speaking, speaking 
in confession of sin to God, in " crying heartily to God, for grace 
and power to leave all sin, and ever after to live in virtue," and 
in urging neighbours to better living. 3d, In carefully attending 
public worship, preparing for it by endeavouring to bring to it 
pure motives, and by avoiding indulgence in the pleasures of the 
table, that the mind may be in its best state for performing 
the duties of the day, and following up the services of the house 
of God, by visiting the sick and the infirm, and relieving the poor 
with our goods. "And so," he adds, "men should not be idle, 
but busy on the Sabbath-day about the soul, as men are on the 
week-day about the body." 1 

ECCLESIASTICAL MEASURES. 

The means employed by the Church in centuries iv.-xv. 
for restraining the abuse and promoting the observance of the 
Lord s day, though liable to exception in several particulars, con 
cur with contemporary writings in showing that the institu 
tion continued to be generally regarded as of Divine appoint 
ment and sacred obligation. Minute detail here would not 
be necessary, were it practicable. It is sufficient to refer to the 
leading facts. 

From a list before us, admitting, probably, of considerable en 
largement, it appears that, during the above-mentioned centuries, 

1 Tracts and Treatises of John de Wycliffe, pp. 4-6. 



CENTURIES IV. -XV. 391 

no fewer than about seventy councils and synods recognised the 
weekly holy day as a Christian ordinance, most of them adopting 
canons on its behalf. These conventions extended over the whole 
period, there having been no century in which some assemblage 
of the clergy did not express respect for the Lord s day ; and 
they were spread over the then known world, particularly 
Europe. They were attended by the most eminent ecclesias 
tics, and from the number as well as from the character of 
the members, their canons may be considered as among the 
best means of ascertaining the state of opinion at their respec 
tive dates. To these collective indications of the general doctrine 
respecting the institution, and to the united measures adopted 
to promote its better observance, we have to add the services 
rendered in both respects to its cause by the ministers of re 
ligion in their several charges, by the Fathers, as Ambrose, 
Augustine, and Chrysostom, and by such men as Ecgbright, 
Egbert, and Alcuin. 

Both councils and individuals exerted themselves from time to 
time to remedy indolent neglect in reference to the Lord s day. 
The twenty-first canon of the Council of Eliberis (A.D. 305) or 
dained that, for absence from church three successive Lord s days, 
a layman should be temporarily excluded from communion. In 
347, the council of Sardica decreed that no bishop should be per 
mitted to be absent from his church for more than three weeks ; 
and the Council in Trullo (A.D. 691), combining the two canons, 
enacted that a clergyman, unnecessarily absent from his own church 
more than three Lord s days, should be deposed, and a similarly 
negligent layman cut off from communion. 1 One great object, 
indeed, of the councils, and of bishops in their respective spheres, 
was to secure the attendance of the people in the house of God ; 
and in their canons and constitutions they sometimes descended to 
such particulars as that the hearers should remain to the close of 
the service. 

Secular labour on the Lord s day was inhibited. Husbandry 

i Our facts have been derived from several works on the councils ; but to save a 
multitude of references, we may state, that in Neale s Feasts and Fasts, and Morer on 
the Lord s Day, may be found the chief heads of what relates to our subject, with the 
authorities. 



392 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

in its various operations, all mechanical works, merchandise, and 
unnecessary travelling, were forbidden. Legal proceedings must 
" cease and determine." No folkmote or political assembly must 
hold. Marriages were not to be solemnized, criminals were not to 
be executed. In a word, persons, of whatever country or quality, 
were required to forbear servile work, that they might have leisure 
for the worship of God. 

Worldly amusements, moreover, were condemned. We meet 
with frequent denunciations against the exhibitions and encpurage- 
rnent of theatrical shows and dancings, as well as against hunting 
and various pastimes, on the sacred day. When the Bulgarians 
sent questions on this and other matters to Pope Nicholas, in A.D. 
858, his reply was, "That they should desist from all secular 
work and carnal pleasure, or whatever contributed to defile the 
body ; and do nothing but what was suitable to the day." Dun- 
stan, Archbishop of Canterbury, did himself honour by issuing a 
special order, that " King Edgar should not continue to hunt on 
the Lord s day." 

Such things were enjoined as included or furthered the positive 
duties of the day. Instruction by regularly officiating incumbents 
in churches, or, in their indispensable absence, by substitutes, was 
provided. All vicars were required, even at so late a time in 
media3val history as 1360, to read the word of God to the people 
in their own language. Repeatedly do we find more frequent 
communicating urged as a means of promoting Sabbatic observ 
ance. With the same view, councils defined the time of holy 
rest, and exhorted the people to be present at the public worship 
of Saturday. One peculiar arrangement was, that " the arch 
deacon, or some other dignitary, should take special care that all 
prisoners, every Lord s day, might be well relieved in what their 
necessities called for." The following is a specimen of a synodi- 
cal decree on the manner of observing the day. The bishops 
assembled at Friuli, in Italy, thus resolved : " That all people 
shall with due reverence and devotion honour the Lord s day, 
beginning on the evening of the day before, and that thereon 
they more especially abstain from all kinds of sin, as also 
from all carnal acts, and secular labours : and that they go 
to church in a grave manner, laying aside all suits of law and 



CENTURIES IV. -XV. 393 

controversies, which might hinder their praising God s name to 
gether." 

The good men of those days were urgent, if not always wise, 
in the arguments and inducements employed by them for the ac 
complishment of their object. In not a few instances they pro 
perly confined themselves to their own spiritual province, the ad 
ministration of the truth, law, and discipline of Christ. But in too 
many others, they called in the help of the weapons that are car 
nal. Pecuniary fines were exacted. The man who used his cattle 
in customary work forfeited an ox or a team. Stripes constituted, 
in certain cases, the punishment of the Sabbath-breaker. Nay, 
the partial loss of patrimony, and degradation to slavery, were in 
flicted according to circumstances. These were mistaken awards 
of clergy and councils to the violaters of Christian institutions and 
laws. But the men who thus punished offenders, proved at least 
their conviction of the enormity of the offence. It is more pleas 
ant to mark " the more excellent way" of religious argument and 
appeal, when the authorities refer the people to " the law of God," 
as demanding the sanctification of the Lord s day, when they en 
treat their observance of it by a regard to " the reverence and 
rest of the Lord s resurrection," when they remind them of the 
Divine example, and when, with Bishop Riculphus, they complain 
" That some people made no conscience of going to market, and 
doing such other things on the Lord s day as all laws human and 
Divine forbade them to do," and like him decree, that " All 
imaginable care shall be taken to redress and put a stop to those 
ungodly courses, as being a great folly and shame, that any Chris 
tian should so overlook the day which is the memorial of Christ s 
resurrection, and our redemption by him, and so eagerly pursue 
his worldly gain at a time when he ought to be employed in holy 
offices for God s honour, and the good of his own soul, and theirs 
belonging to him." 

Nor was it forgotten to warn Christians against a formal and 
superstitious Sabbat ism. While they were to abstain from rural 
works, and this world s and their own pleasures, " they were to 
be filled with spiritual joys, and busily vacant with all their heart 
in unwearied praises." When some had conceived that no work 
whatever was to be done, they were reminded that it was lawful 



394 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

to ride, to dress victuals, and to do what concerned the neat 
ness of the body or of the house. How remote from superstition 
and mere form, and yet how true and just the representation of 
Theodulph, Bishop of Orleans : " Such is the sanctity of the Lord s 
day, that nothing should be done in it except religious and neces 
sary exercises ; for if liberty be given of sailing and travelling, it 
must only be in cases of necessity, and so as not to interfere with 
public worship. Every Christian should go to the house of God, 
early and late, and avoid improper conversation on the way. 
We should have leisure only for God, in holy exercises and bene 
volence, and in the praises of the Lord with our friends. As for 
our feasting, it is to be spiritual with our neighbours and with 
strangers." 

LEGISLATION. 

In March, A.D. 321, Constantino issued a decree that all should 
rest on the venerable day of the Sun, with the exception of those 
engaged in husbandry, who were allowed to attend to the work 
of their calling. In June of the same year he renewed the order, 
with the additional exception, of such actions as concerned the libe 
ration of prisoners, and the manumission of slaves. The Lord s 
day was to be consecrated to prayer. Christian soldiers were 
allowed freely to frequent the churches, and there without moles 
tation offer up their prayers to God. Others of the army " who 
had not tasted the sweetness of Divine knowledge," he com 
manded to repair to the fields, and join together in acts of devo 
tion. He even prescribed a form of prayer, which he required all 
his soldiers to use on the first day of the week, and in their daily 
worship. Governors of provinces were instructed to observe the 
Lord s day. All were likewise enjoined to honour other holidays 
and feasts of the Church ; but the same abstinence from labour 
was not made imperative on such occasions. 

It may in this place be remarked, that important evidence in 
favour of the institution can be extracted from edicts of the civil 
powers, as also from the canons of councils, while both may have 
been connected with objectionable measures. When Constantino 
could not be neutral as to the Lord s day when for him not to 



CENTUEIES IV. -XV. 395 

hold and obey the Sabbatic law must have involved the rejection 
and transgression of a Divine commandment, and the refusal of a 
provision essential to the well-being of the empire it was right 
and good that he determined to recognise and protect the weekly 
holy day. But this proceeding on his part, and as followed in 
other cases, may be pleaded as a strong testimony to the value 
and necessity of the institution, by those who hold that the magis 
trate has no right to sanction holy days of human appointment, 
to permit agricultural or other secular labour on the day of rest 
and worship, or to compel his subjects to perform those devotional 
services which lie out of the legitimate reach and power of civil 
authority. 

Constantine died in A.D. 337. After the intervening reigns of 
his three sons, his nephew, Julian, ascended the throne, and pro 
ceeded to restore idolatry. Even he, as we have had repeated 
occasion to remark, gave evidence, however unwittingly, in favour 
of Christianity and its weekly holy day, by introducing into his 
Pagan system improvements borrowed from the Christian worship. 
The following emperors Valentinian, Gratian, Valentinian IL, 
and Honorius, in the west, with Valens, Theodosius the Great, 
Arcadius, Theodosius IL, in the east issued edicts, designed re 
spectively to prohibit certain law proceedings, and to put an end 
to theatrical exhibitions on the Lord s day. In one of these laws 
the words occur, " the day of the sun, which our fathers rightly 
called the Lord s day." From another we cite the following 
sentence : " Nor let any man think himself obliged in honour 
and reverence to us " when the anniversaries of his birth and 
accession to the throne happened to fall on such days " to 
neglect the sacred religion and business of the day, and apply 
himself to public diversions ; for let him not doubt, that we 
look upon ourselves as then best served and honoured when the 
excellencies of the great God and his mercies to mankind are 
most devoutly celebrated." The Emperors Leo and Anthemius 
(A.D. 460) prohibited worldly pleasures, as well as law proceed 
ings, on the Lord s day, under the penalty that the offender, if 
having a place under government, should lose it, and forfeit his 
estate. There followed enactments by Theodoric the Great, seve 
ral kings of France, Ina, king of the West Saxons, and Withred, 



396 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

king of Kent, all having for their object to prevent the desecn 
tion of the day of rest by secular business or labour. Chaiie 
magrie, benefiting by the advice of Alcuin, evinced special zeal in. 
calling councils for the reformation of abuses connected with the 
Lord s day ; and it is worthy of remark that, though he punished 
the disturbers of worship with death, he on several occasions 
affixed no penalty to the neglect of religious ordinances or to the 
desecration of sacred time, leaving these offences to be dealt with 
by the ecclesiastical power. In his edict calling five councils, in 
A.D. 813, he has these words : " We ordain, as it is required in 
the law of God, that no man do any servile work on the Lord s 
day," of which a variety of examples are given, but that 
men and women " come all to the church to magnify the Lord 
their God for those good things which on this day he bestowed 
on them." His son, Louis the Pious, walked in his steps ; and, 
aware how much depended on the example of persons in superioi 
station, put forth the following decree : " It is necessary that, 
in the first place, priests, kings, and princes, and all the faithful, 
should most devoutly exhibit a due observance and reverence of 
this day." 

Alfred the Great was the ornament of the closing years of the 
ninth century, as Charlemagne was the distinction of its com 
mencement, and of the latter part of the preceding. One of his 
laws, in 876, while appointing penalties for offences on the Lord s 
day and certain holidays, declared that " among the festivals, this 
day ought more especially to be solemnly kept, because it was the 
day wherein our Saviour, Christ, overcame the devil." In the 
same centuiy was issued the well-known edict of the Emperor Leo, 
" the Philosopher," which, affer mentioning that the Lord s day 
was to be honoured with rest from labour, and that he had seen 
a law (Constantino s) which, restraining some works but permit 
ting others, did dishonour to the day, proceeds as follows : " It is 
our will and pleasure, according to the true meaning of the Holy 
Ghost, and of the apostles by Him directed, that on that sacred 
day, whereon we were restored to our integrity, all men should 
rest themselves and cease from labour, neither the husbandman 
nor others putting their hand that day to prohibited work. For 
if the Jews did so much reverence their Sabbath, which was only 



CENTURIES IV. -XV. 397 

a shadow of ours, are not we, who inhabit light and the truth of 
grace, obliged to honour that day which the Lord hath honoured, 
and hath therein delivered us both from dishonour and from 
death ? Are not we bound to keep it singularly and inviolably, 
sufficiently contented with a liberal grant of all the rest, and not 
encroaching on that one which God hath chosen for his service ] 
Nay, were it not a reckless slighting and contemning of all reli 
gion to make that day common, and think we may do thereon as 
we do on others T 1 Athelstan and Edgar, Edward the Elder, 
and the Emperor Otho, in the tenth century ; Ethelred, Canute, 
and Edward the Confessor, in the eleventh ; Manuel Comnenus and 
Henry IL, in the twelfth ; the Parliament at Scone and Henry in., 
in the thirteenth Edward in. in the fourteenth ; and Henry vi., 
with Edward rv., in the fifteenth, are all recorded to have 
employed their authority to maintain the observance of the weekly 
rest. An order issued in the fifteenth century by Catworth, the 
Lord Mayor of London, in concurrence with the Common Council, 
was more worthy of the cause than some royal decrees. Refer 
ring only to the Lord s day, it required "that no manner of com 
modities be within the freedom bought or sold on Lord s days, 
neither provision nor any other thing ; and that no artificer should 
bring his ware unto any man to be worn or occupied that day." 

ASCENDENCY. 

The history of Christendom, from the beginning of the fourth 
to the close of the fifteenth century, presents a variety of facts 
illustrative of the peculiar importance which continued to be 
attached to the first day of the week. 

One of the evidences of this feeling is discovered in certain 
things which were to be done on that day. If the Church mado 
too much of the circumstance of posture in prayer, her insisting 
that on the Lord s day her members should stand up in perform 
ing the duty, proved the honour in which the day was held as a 
memorial of a completed and accepted redemption. Early in the 
fourth centmy (A.D. -306), Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, informs us, 
that the Christians did not kneel in prayer on the Lord s day, as 

1 Hylyn s Hist, of the. Sab., Part ii. p. 140. 

IS 



398 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

that was a day of rejoicing, because on it Jesus Christ was raised 
from the dead. 1 The celebrated Council of Nice (A.D. 325), at 
tended by no fewer than 318 bishops, and by Athanasius, pro 
nounced against kneeling in prayer on that day. This, too, was 
eminently and usually the day of the communion. It was also the 
day on which Easter was, after some time, universally celebrated, as 
well as the sentence of excommunication pronounced. 

Another token of special respect for the first day of the week, 
is to be found in the exclusion of certain other things from the 
services of the day. Abstinence from labour came to be required 
on holidays as well as on the Lord s day ; but it is worthy of 
notice, that this practice was not enjoined by any eastern law for 
the first seven centuries, though in the west it was otherwise. 2 
Fasting, which, so far as we have observed, was not forbidden to 
be practised on holidays, and was excluded from Saturdays in the 
east, though required in the west, was held to be dishonouring to 
the Lord s day, and frequently declared to involve the severest 
censures of the Church. The guilty person, if a clergyman, was 
to be deposed, if a layman, to be excommunicated. " Let him," 
it is said " be anathema." The west and east agreed in except 
ing the Lord s days from the period of fasting, whatever might 
be its length. 3 Litanies, also, fixed for a particular day, were 
deferred when that day was a Sunday. 

We see in the preparations that were to be made for the proper 
observance of the day, how sacredly it was regarded. Thus, in a 
Council at Croy, in Spain, it was agreed that all Christians 
should be admonished every Saturday evening to go to church by 
way of preparation for the Lord s day." Directions are repeat 
edly given to begin the observance of the day on the previous 
evening. Kings and councils, in a number of instances, decreed 
that the weekly rest should extend from noontide of Saturday to 
Monday morning. 

The manifold and persevering exertions put forth for the up 
holding and observance of the weekly holy day, declare the esteem 
in which it was held. It employed, we have seen, the care of 
many councils and synods. The dignitaries of the Church werr 

1 Dupin s Ecd. Writers, vol. ii. p. 28. 

Neale s Feast* and Fasts, p. 10L Ibid. p. 31L 



CENTURIES IV. -XV. 399 

often engaged in framing canons for its better observance. Authors 
commended it to their readers. The pulpit poured out eloquent 
tributes to its excellence, and urgent appeals on its behalf. Princes 
and inferior magistrates acknowledged its Divine claims, and felt 
its value as a beneficent institution. That was regarded as no 
common or trifling matter, for the neglect and contempt of which 
men were deposed from the ministry, expelled from the church, 
subjected to corporal chastisement, deprived of patrimony, or re 
duced to serfdom. And we have to add, that the resort to more 
remarkable, if less injurious measures in the cause, was significant 
of the importance supposed to belong to it. The story of an ap 
parition said to be seen by Henry n. of England, and charging 
him to have no servile work done throughout his dominions on 
the Lord s day, except what concerned the provision of meat and 
drink, that so he might succeed in all his affairs, and of his mis 
fortunes in consequence of neglecting the mandate, has a meaning 
and use to the extent of indicating the opinion, that the day was 
the charge of Heaven, and that its sacred observance was con 
nected with human prosperity and happiness. The same lesson 
is taught by the case of Eustachius, Abbot de Flay, in the follow 
ing century. This ardent person preached from city to city, and 
from place to place, throughout England, forbidding the holding 
of markets on the first day of the week. Many entered into his 
views, but their undue zeal in overturning the booths and stalls 
of those who persisted in the practice, led the king and council to 
cite and fine them for disorderly proceedings. The Abbot, then, 
produced what he called a mandate from Heaven for the strict ob 
servance of the Lord s day, in which various calamities were de 
nounced on those who did not keep that day and the festivals of 
the saints. The same warrant was produced and read in a Scot 
tish Council of A.D. 1203, when the King, with consent of his 
Parliament, passed it into a law, that Saturday from noon was to 
be counted holy, and that the people were to engage in holy 
actions, going to sermons and the like, from that time till Monday 
morning, or be subjected to a penalty. It appears, however, that 
a relaxation of this law, so far as regarded fishing, was made by 
Alexander in. in a Parliament at Scone in 1214, and confirmed 
afterwards by James T., the prohibition of such work being limited 



4:00 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

to the time between the evening of Saturday and sunrise of 
Monday. 

We have been pleading certain facts as, notwithstanding the 
enthusiasm and other evils mixed up with them, contributing to 
prove that the Sabbatic institution has a testimony in the heart 
even of a degenerate Christian society. And we will take the 
liberty of making use of another fact for the same purpose. 
Holidays have no warrant in Scripture, and have contributed 
sadly to foster superstition and immorality. And yet, usurpers 
though they are of Sabbatic rights, and detrimental to Sabbatic 
objects, they had their origin in the recognised authority and felt 
benefit of the only true holy day. It was in the more advanced 
stage of human festivals and feasts that a class arose, who made 
use of them for upholding despotism and an overbearing hierarchy, 
and for attempting the subversion of the Lord s day. In the 
earlier days of the Church, Christians, desirous of recalling the 
various facts in a religion which they reverenced and loved, and 
finding spiritual profit and pleasure in the duties of a stated season 
of worship, sought, in the multiplication of memorial times, and 
of their attendant devotions, to do honour to the birth, death, and 
ascension, as had been done to the resurrection of Christ, and to 
augment their own spiritual advantage and pleasure. This was 
well meant, but it involved the great error of being wise above 
\vhat is written the evil of being righteous overmuch. It was 
a testimony, however, to the heavenly and good institution, as 
the counterfeit is to the genuine and valuable coin. 

The doctrine of Divine judgments, as attending the violation of 
Divine laws, has frequently been supposed to be the peculiarity, 
and merited reproach of the Puritans. The history of the Church, 
however, reveals it as a doctrine of Fathers, Prelates, and even of 
Popes. It was held by Gregory of Tours. 1 Pope Eugemus, ob 
serving that certain persons, especially women, spent their time 
in dancing and singing, gave directions to a Synod, held, about 
A.D. 826, at Rome, "That the parish priest should from time to 
time admonish such oifen&ers, and desire them to go to church 
and offer prayers, lest otherwise they might bring some great 
calamity on themselves and others." The Pope had a conviction 

Heylyn s Hist, of thf Sab., Part ii. pp. 113, 114. 



CENTURIES IV. -XV. 401 

that the neglect of Divine institutions exposed men to disasters. 
Nor was the conviction rare. At a Provincial Council held at 
Paris, about A.D. 829, under Louis and Lotharius, Emperors, the 
prelates complained that the Lord s day was not kept with the re 
verence becoming religion and the practice of their forefathers ; 
"which," they add, "was the reason that God had sent several 
judgments on them, and in a very remarkable manner punished 
some people for slighting and abusing it." In confirmation of this 
statement, they refer to cases known to many of them, and heard 
of by others, of several countrymen following their husbandry on 
this day, who had been killed with lightning, or had miserably per 
ished under convulsions, " whereby it is apparent how high the 
displeasure of God was upon their neglect of this day." We ad 
duce these views and instances, not as showing that profanation of 
the Lord s day is sometimes visited with remarkable expressions of 
the Divine wrath, though of this position there is ample proof, but 
as another evidence of the solemn importance which, in the times 
to which the facts belong, was attached to the institution. 

We have to mention the language in which the Lord s day is 
spoken of as yet another proof of our position. The frequent ap 
plication to the first day of the week, in the writings and enact 
ments of the time, of such expressions as " the venerable day of 
the sun," "the chief of the festivals," "the feast of feasts," "the 
beginning of our life," "the primate," "the queen," "the first 
and chief" of days, "the regal day," "the day which is better 
than all other days, common or festive," evinces the high and 
peculiar regard which was entertained for the sacred season. The 
Emperors Leo ancfr Anthemius speak of the Lord s day as " ever 
honourable and worthy of veneration ;" and Alfred the Great, we 
have seen, declares, in a law on the subject, that among the festi 
vals the Lord s day more especially ought to be solemnly kept, 
because it was the day wherein our Saviour, Christ, overcame the 
devil. It is the "sacred day," says Leo the Philosopher, "where 
on we were restored to our integrity, the day which the Lord 
honoured by rescuing us from the captivity of death," the 
day " which God . hath named for his service, and which it 
were a reckless slighting and contemning of all religion to make 
common." 

2 o 



402 THE SABBATH IN HISTOEY. 



OBSERVANCE. 

Of the means employed in the period of our present survey for 
securing honour and respect to the Lord s day, more is recorded 
than of the successful results. It would be wrong, however, to 
draw the conclusion, that the measure of practical regard to the 
institution is to be estimated by the space which it occupies in 
iristory. " It is not necessary, that those things which are con 
stantly done should be noted in history, but those things which 
are rarely done. The preaching, writings, and other labours of 
such men as Athanasius, Ambrose, Chrysostom, and Augustine 
must, among their happy effects, have been instrumental in form 
ing many to so essential a character as that of willing subjection 
to the Fourth Commandment. The diligence and zeal of councils 
in prosecuting the same object could not be in vain. But when 
the eminent Fathers of the fourth and beginning of the fifth cen 
tury disappeared from the scene, so many impediments to the ad 
vance of Sabbath profanation were removed. The spirit, which in 
other times made that day to be a delight, gave way to one which 
regarded it as a form and a burden ; and the new appliances of 
fines and bodily chastisement to restrain its abuse, showed that 
open violation and slothful neglect of the sacred rest had become 
more prevalent. One token of good, however, was the desire 
shown throughout the sixth century to stay the progress of the 
evil. The succession of efforts employed for this purpose by 
twenty councils, and the views of the institution entertained, 
proved how excellent it is in itself, and how it commends itself to 
the reason and convictions of mankind. In the* following century, 
we have accounts of the general observance of the day ; one of 
them by Cummianus, an Irish Abbot or Bishop, of the year 640, 
and another by Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, both in the 
same terms. " On the Lord s day," says the latter, in his Pceni- 
tential, " the Greeks and Romans neither sail nor ride on horse 
back ; they do not make bread, nor travel in a carriage, except to 
church only, nor do they bathe." The Emperor Charlemagne hav 
ing been desired by the clergy to provide for the stricter observa 
tion of the day, " he accordingly did so, and left no stone unturned 
to secure its honour, and restrain his subjects from abusing it. 



CENTUKIES IV. -XV. 403 

His care succeeded, and during his reign the Lord s day bore a 
considerable figure. But after his decease it put on another face." 1 
This relapse, however, served to rouse the friends of the institu 
tion to greater exertion. Councils were convened at Paris and 
Aken (Auchen, Aix la Chapelle). Bishop Jona and others set 
themselves against the evil. And when we take into account, also, 
the efforts of Leo, the Philosopher, and Alfred the Great, we are 
not surprised at the remark of an historian as respects Christen 
dom generally in the ninth century : " We are now prepared to 
allow that there is considerable truth in the statement, that during 
the contests concerning image -worship, society was strict in all 
religious observances, and great attention was paid to Sunday." 2 
It was a part of the creed of the \Valdenses, " that the observa 
tion of the Sabbath, by ceasing from worldly labours and from 
sin, by good works, and by promoting the edification of the soul 
through prayer and hearing the word, is enjoined" in the law of 
God. 3 We are furnished with information respecting their morals 
by Reinerus Sacco, an apostate from their church, and a Jacobin 
inquisitor, who wrote a book against them about 1204, and 
whose testimony is above suspicion. Besides mentioning, " that 
they work on feast days, and disregard the fasts of the Church, 
dedications, and benedictions," and referring to their churches and 
schools, he says, " They are composed and modest in manners. 
They do not multiply riches, but are content with necessaries. 
They are also chaste, especially the Leonists. They are temperate 
in eating and drinking. They do not go to taverns, nor to danc 
ings, nor to other vanities. They restrain themselves from anger. 
. . . They avoid scurrility, detraction, levity of conversation, 
lying and swearing." 4 We may conceive what their deportment 
on the first day of the week would be, from the circumstance, 
that, when a barbe or minister was appointed, an oath was adminis 
tered to him before the assembled barbes, in this form, " Thou, 
such a one, swearest on thy faith to maintain, multiply, and in 
crease our law, and not to discover the same to any in the world, 
and that thou promisest not in any manner to swear by God, 
and that thou observe the Lord s day, and that thou wilt not 

1 Morer On the Lord s Day, pp. 270, 271. 3 Blair s Waldenses, vol. i. p. 220. 

* Fialay s Byzan. Empire, vol. I. p. 311. * Ibid. vol. i. pp. 408, 412. 



404 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

do anything to thy neighbour which thou wouldst not have him 
to do to thee, and that thou dost believe in God who has made 
the sun and nioon, the heaven and the earth, the cherubim and 
seraphim, and all that thou seest." 1 

The practice of the Bohemian Brethren in relation to the Chris 
tian weekly holy day, which, we have already seen, they held to 
be appointed instead of the Jewish Sabbath, was the following : 
" The brethren rested from all secular employments. Their do 
mestics and cattle also rested. They strictly avoided drunkenness, 
gambling, dancing, idle conversation, lounging, and the like ; and 
spent the day in singing God s praise, reading the Bible, and attend 
ing four or five services at church." 2 Besides several days for com 
memorating events in the history of Christ, and others relating to 
Mary, the Apostles, and the martyrs, but on which every one after 
the public services returned to his work, they kept fasts four times 
a year, and on occasions of remarkable calamities, or of the ex 
clusion of an individual from the Church. 3 They made a distinc 
tion between the Sabbath and the other days ; the former being 
considered by them as of inviolable obligation, the others observed 
with Christian liberty, for recalling important facts, and for giv 
ing opportunities of useful admonition, that, " after preaching and 
prayers are over, they may apply themselves to their ordinary 
works as on other days." 4 

From the facts set forth in this and two preceding sections, it 
appears that for fifteen centuries the first day of the week was, 
under various names, recognised throughout Christendom as a 
divinely-appointed day of worship and sacred rest ; that it was re 
garded as the old ordinance of paradise and Sinai, adapted by 
extrinsic changes to the New Economy ; and that many writings, 
canons, edicts, and other measures, attested the concern of good 
men for its observance, and their conviction of its high dignity 
and excellence. It is not necessary to the evidence for the 
Sabbath, which the history of that long period supplies, that 
the language used respecting it, the measures employed on its be 
half, and the performance of its duties, should have been immacu 
late. There have been writers Dr. Heylyn, for example who 

i Blair s Waldenset, vol. ii. p 157. 2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 109. 

Ibid. p. 110. * Bruce s An. Steal, p. 202. 



CENTURIES IV. -XV. 405 

have subjected this evidence to a process of disingenuous, unjust, 
and naughty criticism, which shows a disposition to bear down 
rather than to discover truth, and under which, as generally ap 
plied, no document, no testimony, no man on trial for life, no inter 
est, however important, could be safe. The marvel is, that amidst 
the growing corruption of a great part of that period, there was 
such a unanimity of opinion respecting the Lord s day, and that 
the day did not cease to exist. Nor let it be said that the pre 
vailing evil betrayed any inefficiency in the ordinance. From two 
causes at least from endlessly multiplying holidays, which ob 
scured its authority, and diluted its strength, and from the ever 
increasing neglect and perversion of its essential agencies of instruc 
tion and worship it was not allowed its full and proper influence. 
In all cases in which the Sabbath has been dissociated from en 
feebling, demoralizing festivals of human device, and been joined 
to its natural allies of sound religious instruction, and a simple, 
pure worship, it has evinced itself to be the power of God in 
stemming the tide of error and immorality, and in making com 
munities pious, virtuous, and happy. And that must be a mighty 
institute which has been found to live and bless mankind under 
manifold disadvantages, and which, in the case before us, crippled 
though it was, not only maintained its ground amidst such ele 
ments of destruction, but for so long a time prevented the entire 
overthrow of the religious and social edifice. 

THE SABBATH AT THE INFORMATION. 

In the controversy respecting a weekly holy day, parties have 
eagerly sought support for their respective opinions in the writings 
of the Reformers. These eminent men have, on the one hand, been 
represented as holding the common creed of Christians on the sub 
ject, although it is admitted that their language in several instances 
is not in seeming accordance with such views, and have, on the 
other, been considered as denying the Divine obligation of a stated 
day of sacredness and rest. Of late years scarcely a volume or 
tract in defence of- the latter notion has appeared, which has not 
"bristled" with the names of Luther and Calvin as the advocates 
of liberty from all Sabbatarian impositions. Much, indeed, as 



406 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

Luther, Calvin, and their associates, are entitled to our admiration 
for their learning, piety, and zeal, and to our gratitude for the 
services which they rendered to all the interests of mankind, it 
must be recollected that their sentiments do not on this or on any 
other point amount to a test of truth. It is not, however, incon 
sistent with the great principle, that no man is our master in such 
matters, to feel a desire to have the sanction of the Reformers for 
our interpretation of the sacred oracles. The friends of the Sab 
bath, in particular, would be gratified by the persuasion, that such 
men had vindicated for themselves a place in the " great cloud of 
witnesses" for the Divine origin, perpetual sacredness, and indis 
pensable value of that blessed institution. Let us, therefore, in 
quire what were the views on this subject of the distinguished 
persons by whose instrumentality our deliverance from Papal 
bondage was accomplished. 

The following remarks and illustrations will, we trust, present 
in a just light the views of the Reformers on the subject of the 
Sabbatic institution : 

1. They regarded the weekly day of rest and worship as a most 
reasonable, useful, and indispensable arrangement. In the Con 
fessions of Augsburg, Saxony, and Helvetia, we find such expres 
sions as these applied to the institution : " It was requisite to 
appoint a certain day, that the people might know when to come 
together." 1 "Natural reason doth know that there is an order ; 
and the understanding of order is an evident testimony of God ; 
neither is it possible that men should live without any order, as 
we see that in families there must be distinct times of labour, rest, 
meat, and sleep ; and every nature, as it is best, so doth it chiefly 
love order throughout the whole life." 2 "Although religion be 
not tied unto time, yet it cannot be planted and exercised without 

a due dividing and allotting out of time unto it Except some 

due time and leisure were allotted to the outward exercise of reli 
gion, without doubt men would be quite drawn from it by their 
own affairs." 3 These passages teach vis that the Lutheran and 
Reformed Churches were agreed as to the propriety, and the ne 
cessity to the ends of religion, of certain times being set apart for 
its exercises and study. The Reformers individually apply these 

i Hall s Harmony of Coufextons, p. 401. JWd. p. 402. Ibid. p. 388. 



THE REFORMATION. 407 

principles to specific seasons. Thus Luther says, " It is good and 
even necessary that men should keep a particular day in the week, 
on which they are to meditate, hear, and learn, for all cannot com 
mand every day ; and nature also requires that one day in the week 
should be kept quiet, without labour either for man or beast." 1 
On two occasions we find him utter his earnest desire for the aboli 
tion of holidays, and on both, with the express exception of the 
"Dies Dominicus" 2 On the worth and absolute need of the weekly 
Sabbath, Calvin is still more explicit. It is as requisite now as it 
ever was : "While the day has ceased as the figure of a spiritual 
and important mystery, there are other and different ends for 
which it is set apart ; and in respect of the duty of resting from 
all earthly cares and employments, and applying to spiritual exer 
cises in public and private, the necessity of a Sabbath is common 
to us with the people of old." 3 The observance of it comprises in 
it all religion : " Under the observance of the Sabbath is com 
prehended the sum of all piety." 4 The neglect of it indicates the 
destitution and the contempt of Christian blessings : "And hereby 
it appears what affection we have towards all Christianity, and 
towards the serving of God, seeing we make that thing an occa 
sion of withdrawing ourselves further off from God, which is given 
us as a help to bring us nearer unto him ; and be we once gone 
astray, it serveth to pull us quite and clean away and is not that 
a devilish spite of men T 5 Such neglect not only is an act of in 
dignity to religion, but renders every part of it ineffectual and value 
less : "He who setteth at nought the Sabbath-day, has cast under 
foot all God s service, as much as is in him ; and if the Sabbath-day 
be not observed, all the rest shall be worth nothing." 6 The obser 
vance of it, on the other hand, brings happiness to the individual, 
and secures protection to the state. "The Sabbath, or rest of 
God le repos de Dieu, is not idleness, but true perfection, which 
brings along with it a calm state of peace." 7 "The city will be 
safe, if God be truly and devoutly worshipped, and this is attested 
by the sanctification of the Sabbath." 8 We add the words of 

i Quoted in Fairbairn s Typol. vol. ii. p. 467. a See p. 17 of this vol., note 4. 

8 Comment, on Exod. xx. 8-11. * Comment, on Exod. xvi. 38. 

8 Ser. 34 011 Deut v. On Deut. v. Ser. 34 

On John v. 17. On Jer. xvii. 



408 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

Bucer : " It must needs be a very great contempt of God, not to 
bestow one day in the whole week in the knowing and serving of 
our Creator, of whom we have received ourselves and all thing*? 
else that we enjoy." 1 

2. The sacred observance of the first day of the week was a 
duty which the leaders of the Reformation were careful to enforce. 
" Farel s first experiments in discipline," as Dr. Henry informs us, 
" had proved very distasteful. Among the things forbidden were 
games of chance, swearing, slandering, dancing, the singing of idle 
songs, and masquerading. The people were commanded to attend 
church, to keep Sunday strict, and to be at home by nine o clock 
in the evening. These laws were proclaimed with the sound of a 
trumpet, and with threats of severe punishment against trans 
gressors. Four preachers and two deacons were appointed, and a 
school was established. Farel published a short formulary of 
belief, consisting of twenty- one articles, and was probably asso 
ciated in this with Calvin, who published a catechism in French." 2 
What a disciplinarian Calvin was, and how he laboured by un 
wearied preaching and writing- to enlighten and reform the Gene- 
vese, while on him " came the care of all the churches," we need 
not say. But he has not received the credit due to him as a 
friend of the Sabbath. Partial extracts from his notices of the 
subject have been industriously circulated, while care has not been 
shown to set forth such passages as the following : " It is for us 
to dedicate ourselves wholly to God, renouncing our feelings and 
all our affections ; and then, since we have this external ordinance, 
to act as becomes us, that is, to lay aside our earthly a/airs, so 
that we may be entirely free to meditate on the works of God." 3 
" The Sabbath is the bark of a spiritual substance, the use of 
which is still in force, of denying ourselves, of renouncing all our 
own thoughts and affections, and of bidding farewell to one and 
all of "our own employments, so that God may reign in us, then of 
employing ourselves in the worship of God." 4 " Every man," he 
remarks, as a reason why Christians should not go to law upon 
the Lord s day, " ought to withdraw himself from everything but 
the consideration of God and His works, that all men may be 

i On Ps. xcii. 3 sen 34, Deut. T. 

Lift and Times o/ John Calvin, vol. i. p. 113. f1&lt;vl. 



THE REFORMATION. 409 

stirred up to serve and honour Him." 1 And as he excludes 
secular labour, so also worldly recreations : " If we employ the 
Lord s day to make good cheer, to sport ourselves, to go to games 
and pastimes, shall God in this be honoured 1 Is it not a mockery ? 
Is not this an unhallowing of his name 1 " 2 Peter Viret, his col 
league, was like-minded : "One end of bodily rest on the Sabbath," 
he says, " is that men might attend upon the ministry and service 
of God in the church, and that we might meditate upon the works 
of God, and be occupied in the duties of charity to our neigh 
bours." 3 The friend of Calvin, as well as of Luther, Bucer, re 
ferring to the service of God as required on the Lord s day above 
all others, gives utterance to these earnest words : " Let our man 
ners show it, let the holiness of our lives testify to it, let our 
works prove it ; for who will believe that he has been present at 
the assemblies of the Church, and has heard the word of God with 
a sincere heart and a true faith, who bestows the remainder, not 
only of that day, but of his life ; not only more vainly, but more 
wickedly 1 ?" 4 Zuinglius, Bullinger, who succeeded him in his 
pastoral charge, (Ecolampadius, Peter Martyr, and Zanchius, have 
written to the same effect. Thus also taught Luther and his 
friends. "Although the Sabbath," Luther says, " is now abolished, 
and the conscience is freed from it, it is still good and even neces 
sary, that men should keep a particular day in the week for the 
sake of the word of God, on which they are to meditate, hear, 
and learn, for all cannot command every day ; and nature also 
requires that one day in the week should be kept quiet, without 
labour either for man or beast." 5 Even when, in the vehemence 
of his zeal against a return to Judaical observance, he rashly 
orders persons to trample on the institution rather than pervert it 
in that form, he does not forget to say, " Keep it holy for its use 
sake, both to body and soul." 6 In treating of the Third [Fourth] 
Commandment, Melanchthon mentions, among the breaches of it, 
the neglect of the public ministry of the church. Bucer says, 
"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 

1 Ser. 93 on Deut. v. 2 Ser. 34 on Deut. v. * On Fourth Commandment. 

Mn Matt. xii. 11. * Fairba:rn, as before. Coleridge s Table Talk, ii 315. 



410 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

to hear G-od s word, to pour out their prayers, to confess their 
faith, to give thanks, to make oblations, and to receive the holy 
communion : hence the Lord s day was consecrated to these by the 
very apostles." 1 Let us add Chemnitz, who, though he belongs 
to a later time, was an able and learned expounder of Lutheran 
doctrine, and has been brought forward against us. In his view, 
" the Sabbath is violated chiefly by those who abuse that time of 
rest unto pleasures, lightness, surfeiting, drunkenness, and all other 
kind of wickedness ; whereby it cometh to pass, that commonly 
God is upon no day more offended than upon those which arc 
specially appointed unto his worship and service." 2 And again, 
" Christ by his example doth show how the time between the 
public assemblies ought to be devoted to spiritual improvement, 
for after he had taught in public, and the assembly was dismissed, 
he privately examined and further instructed his disciples." 3 
These last words remind us that the Reformers, like the Fathers 
and all " good Christians," regarded the Lord s day as lasting 
beyond the hours of public worship, as having the same extent 
with any other day, and as a day to be sanctified throughout. 
" Let us bear in mind," says Calvin, " that this day is not 
appointed for us only to come to the sermon, but that we might 
employ the rest of the time in praising God;" and, as he after 
wards remarks, " in digesting the good doctrine, that by this 
means we may be so formed and fashioned as that during the 
week it may cost us nothing to raise our hearts to God." 4 

3. The lessons which the Reformers taught on this subject 
were by them and by their flocks conscientiously practised. We 
have seen no account of Luther s more private deportment on the 
day of rest ; but^ from the character of the man, and from his 
more deliberate utterances regarding the sacredness and importance 
of the institution, we may presume that his Sabbath-keeping 
would be such as became one so pious and prayerful as he was. 
The same conclusion seems to be warranted by the habits which 
he was the means of forming in others. For it appears that such 
Sabbath desecration as became general in later times, was for a 
considerable period unknown in the Lutheran Church. Plitt, of 

1 De Reg. Christ., lib. i. c. 11 . 3 Exam, de Die bus Festii. 

8 Exam, de Diebus Festi-s. * On Deut. v. Ser. 34. 



THE REFORMATION. 411 

Bonn, who mentions this fact, at the same time states, respecting 
the Protestants who held the Calvinian creed, that " of old the 
Reformed Church specially maintained a strict Sabbath celebra 
tion in accordance with the law of God." 1 On this subject Calvin 
remarks, " I am obliged to be a little more prolix here, because in 
our day some unquiet spirits make an outcry about the Lord s day. 
They complain that the Christian people are nursed in Judaism 
because some observance of days is retained." 2 " When our 
shop windows," he observes in another publication, " are shut on 
the Lord s day when we travel not, after the common order and 
fashion of men this is to the end we should have more liberty 
and leisure to attend on that which God commandeth, that is, 
to be taught by His word, to meet together, to make confession 
of our faith, to call upon His name, to exercise ourselves in the 
use of His sacraments the purpose which this order ought to 
serve." 3 

4. The Reformers believed the Sabbath to have been appointed 
by God at the creation. In explaining Gen. ii. 3, Luther says, 
" It therefore follows from this place, that if Adam had abode in 
innocence, he should yet have kept holy the seventh day that is, 
he should have instructed his descendants concerning the will and 
worship of God, and rendered to Him praise, thanksgiving, and 
offerings. On other days, he should have cultivated the soil and 
tended his flocks. Nay, after the fall he sanctified that seventh 
day ; in other words, he instructed his family on that day, as is 
testified by the offerings of his sons, Cain and Abel. Wherefore, 
the Sabbath was from the beginning of the world set apart to 
Divine worship." 4 According to The Confession of Saxony, which 
was drawn up by Melanchthon, and expresses the views of Luther 
and his friends, "There hath been at all times, even from the 
beginning of mankind, a certain order of public meetings. There 
hath been also a certain distinction of times, and of some other 
ceremonies, and that, without doubt, full of gravity and elegancy, 
among those excellent lights of mankind, whenas in the same 
garden or cottage there sat together Shem, Abraham, Isaac, and 

1 In Rclig. Condit. of Christendom (1852), p. 465. 

Instit. on Fourth Commandment. 8 Ser 34, on D0ut V. 

l-utheri Opera (M B.L.), torn, v. p. 23. 



412 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

their families ; and whenas, that sermon which Shem made con 
cerning the true God, the son of God, the distinction of the 
Church and other nations, being heard, afterward they together 
used invocation." 1 Melanchthon, in his Commentary on Genesis, 
remarks, when considering ch. ii. 3, that the seventh day, as the 
word sanctify denotes, was appropriated to the Divine service. In 
expounding Exodus xx. 8, Calvin has these words : " Unquestion 
ably, when he had finished the creation of the world, God assumed 
to Himself, and consecrated the seventh day, that He might keep 
His worshippers entirely free from all other cares when engaged 
in considering the beauty, excellence, and glory of His works/ 
On the llth verse of the same chapter, he remarks, that the pro 
hibition to gather manna on the seventh day, seems to imply the 
received knowledge and use of the Sabbath, and that it is in 
credible that, when God delivered the rite of sacrifice to the saints, 
the observance of the Sabbath could have been neglected. Let us 
add a sentence from his notes on Genesis ii. 3 : " God, therefore, 
first rested, then blessed this rest, that in all ages it might be sacred 
among men ; in other words, He consecrated every seventh day to 
rest, that His own example might be a perpetual rule According 
to Peter Martyr, the fourth ranks in antiquity with its associated 
requirements in the Decalogue : " This commandment of the Sab 
bath was no more then first given when it was pronounced from 
heaven by the Lord, than any other of the moral precepts." 2 Of 
the Sabbath, Bullinger, commenting on Rom. xiv. 5, says, " As it 
was in the beginning of the world, so it must continue to its end." 
Beza, in his annotations on Rev. i. 10, observes, that "the seventh 
day having stood from the creation of the world to the resurrec 
tion of Christ, was exchanged by the apostles, doubtless at the 
dictation of the Holy Spirit, for that which was the first day of 
the new world." And Ursinus, in his Catechism, after mention 
ing the reasons for the institution, remarks, " As these relate to 
no definite period, but to all times and ages of the world, it fol 
lows that God would have men bound from the beginning of the 
world even to its end to keep a certain Sabbath." 

o. With such views of a primal Sabbath, the Reformers could 
not but regard it as in substance perpetuated in the Jewish weekly 

1 Hall s Harmony of Confessions, p. 402. 2 On Gen. ii. 



THE REFOBMATION. 413 

holy day. While they agreed with all Christians that God com 
manded the Jews to sanctify one day in seven, they had no con 
ception of its dating from the 2500th year of the world, but 
considered the transactions of Sin and Sinai as the recognition of 
a world-old institution. And on two grounds its origination in 
the example and command of Jehovah at the creation, and its 
renewal in the Decalogue they held it to be of Divine authority. 

6. In like manner, their views respecting the early appoint 
ment of the weekly day of rest fully committed the Reformers to 
the doctrine of the Divine authority of the Christian Sabbath. 
This they knew had been the holy day of the Church from the 
time of the Kedeemer s resurrection. They themselves had regu 
larly observed it as such. In this and in no other day they saw 
their idea of a primitive and permanent weekly rest realized. 
They were therefore shut up to the conclusion that the Lord s day, 
being the continuance of a heaven-born institute, must necessarily 
be an ordinance of God. 

But sufficient though this evidence is, it is not the only ground 
on which we can rest the assertion, that the Reformers maintained 
the doctrine in question. Let us adduce the following additional 
proofs. These men are found to reject certain practices which had 
been customary in the Church, for the express reason that they 
were not sanctioned by the word of God. " The fast of Lent," 
says the latter Helvetic Confession, " hath testimony of antiquity, 
but none out of the apostles writings ; and therefore ought not, 
nor cannot, be imposed on the faithful." 1 In the same Confes 
sion it is declared, " As for Popish visiting with the extreme 
unction, we have said before that we do not like of it, because it 
hath many absurd things in it, and such as be not approved by 
the canonical Scriptures." 2 On the fast of Lent, the Confession 
of Wurtemburg harmonizes with that of Helvetia, as these words 
show : " It is manifest that Christ did not command this fast ; 
neither can the constitution of our nature abide it, that we should 
imitate the example of Christ s fasting, who did abstain full forty 
days and forty nights from all meat and drink." 3 We have seen, 
in an early part of this volume, that holidays were entirely re 
jected by the Scottish Reformers, because they " had no institn- 

1 Htll s Harmony of Confessions, p. 383. * TUd. p. 385. 3 Ibid. p. 405. 



414 THE SABBATH IN HISTOKY. 

tion ;" that they were ousted from Geneva, first by Farel and 
Viret, and a second time by the Council ; that there was none in 
reformed Strasburg ; that the Church of Zurich discarded twelve 
feast-days ; and that Luther and the Belgic churches would have 
banished them if it had been in their power. Henry, in his Life 
cf Calvin, remarks, " The Bernese, after accomplishing the expul 
sion of the ministers" Calvin, Farel, and Courad (or Couralt), 
" had re-established in Geneva the following festivals : the cir 
cumcision, the annunciation, the ascension, and Christmas-day. 
These the Genevese now at once abolished, and by so doing highly 
incensed their allies. Calvin, to whom this movement was gene 
rally attributed, did not think it necessary to take any steps 
against it, recollecting, probably, that the observance of holy days 
is nowhere expressly enjoined in Scripture." 1 In another part of 
the work, the author unnecessarily laments the sacrifice in the 
Protestant Church of " that joyous life which was connected with 
the Catholic festivals, and which Zwingle, Farel, and Calvin, so 
disturbed by their abridgment of the holidays. Thus, while the 
Lutheran Church retained even the least of the festivals in the 
ecclesiastical year, the Reformed Church could with difficulty 
retain the four high festivals, the preachers not even alluding to 
the rest in their discourses. Calvin was neither in favour of, nor 
absolutely against, the festivals ; but was obliged to yield to the 
common wish of the people." The writer introduces here this 
note : " In the register of December 19, 1554, we find the fol 
lowing notice : &lt; Christmas-day shall be celebrated as usual, 
though Calvin has represented to the Council that it would be as 
well to dispense with this festival as with the other three ; " and 
proceeds thus : "He was slanderously accused of wishing to 
abolish the Sabbath : against this statement he defended himself, 
and showed, in a letter to Haller, how the report arose. 2 Farel 
and Viret had at first pursued the practice of noticing the festivals 
which had occurred in the week on the following Sunday. After 
the expulsion of the ministers, these festivals were celebrated on 
the original days. On Calvin s return, and when he was strenu- 

1 Vol. ii. p. 115. 

2 John Haller, " of the illustrious family of that name," was paitor of the Bernese 
Church. Bonnet, in his Letters of Calvin, voL ii. p. 235, ttote. 



THE KEFOKMATION. 415 

ously endeavouring to establish his reformation according to the 
Gospel, he appointed, though regarding the observation of the 
festivals as a matter of indifference, certain hours for prayer on 
those days, and during which the shops were to be kept closed. 
At noon every one was to return to his usual occupations. Christ 
mas-day was the only festival retained. The Council, however, 
without asking him, abolished, in 1551, all the attendant solem 
nities." 1 Although, then, particular expressions have been con 
ceived to imply the contrary, the facts that have just been ad 
duced prove that the Reformers considered the Lord s day as 
belonging to a very different category from holidays. They re 
duced the number and altered the observance of holidays in some 
instances, wholly excluded them and, if they had had their wish, 
would in every case have done so. In no instance was it ever 
attempted, or even proposed to them, to displace the Lord s day. 
The charge preferred by Barclay against Calvin, that " he had a 
consultation once as to transferring the Lord s day observances to 
Thursday," had nothing to support it but the word of a man who 
lived in the Court of James L, as a spy in the interest of the 
Queen-Mother of France, and who, says Dr. Twisse, " if he could 
not prove true and loyal to his natural prince, could not be ex 
pected to carry himself truly and honestly towards John Calvin." 2 
A charge, which was not even attempted to be sustained by a 
particle of evidence, and yet still figures in anti-Sabbatic works, 
merits no refutation, but we may state that it is disproved by the 
uniform respect for the day which Calvin expressed in his words 
and by his life. 

There are, besides, direct references by the Reformers to the 
Christian Sabbath which establish the position, that they held it 
to be a Divine ordinance. They believed, we have seen, that 
nature and order demanded some time to be set apart in every 
age to rest and religion, and that a seventh day for these pur 
poses was prescribed at the creation for the human race in their 
successive generations. They, at the same time, believed that all 
obligation to observe Saturday as a Sabbath had ceased. The 
question, then, to be determined was, On what other day are we 
to enjoy the indispensable rest and worship of a weekly holy day 

l Vol. L p. 41& - Moral, of Fourth Com., p. 35. 



416 THE SABBATH IN HISTOKY. 

on what day are we to be favoured with the provisions, and to 
fulfil the enduring appointment of Paradise ? That appointment, 
and the moral part, as they called it, of the Fourth Commandment, 
they believed to be still in force. They might have seen that 
nothing more than some indication of the particular day was re 
quired. They did say, that there is no express command in the 
New Testament declaring, " Thou shalt keep holy the first day of 
the week." The conclusion to which some suppose they came 
was, that the early Christians were left at liberty to take the day 
which they might agree to prefer. Such a conclusion, it might be 
shown, was utterly unwarranted. Nor could they hold it consis 
tently with what they themselves thus declare respecting the man 
ner in which the Lord s day was appointed. In the Confession of 
Saxony we find these words : " We thank God, the everlasting 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, for His Son and by Him, 
gathered an eternal Church, for that even from the first beginning 
of mankind He hath preserved the public ministry of the gospel 
and honest assemblies ; who Himself also hath set apart certain 
times for the same ; and we pray Him that henceforth He will 
save and govern His Church." 1 " The general rule," as we read in 
the Confession of Augsburg, " abideth still in the moral law, that 
at eertain times we should come together to these godly exercises ; 
but the special day, which was but a ceremony, is free. Where 
upon the apostles retained not the seventh day, but did rather take 
the first day of the week for that use, that by it they might ad 
monish the godly both of their liberty, and of Christ s resurrec 
tion." 2 We add a sentence from the same Confession, " The true 
unity of the Church doth consist in several points of doctrine, in 
the true and uniform preaching of the gospel, and in such rites as 
the Lord himself hath set down" 5 Let us compare two sentences, 
the one in the former, the other in the latter Helvetic Confession : 
" Even the Lord s day itself, ever since the apostles time, was 
consecrated to religious exercises, and unto a holy rest ; which 
also is now very well observed of our churches, for the worship of 
God, and increase of charity." 4 " The which [the true] Church, 
though it be manifest to the eyes of God alone, yet is it not only 

Hall s Harmony of Confessions, p. 435. 2 Tbvi. p. 430. 

Itnd. p. 217. i Ibid. p. 382. 



TUB KEFOEMATION. 417 

seen and known, by certain outward rites, instituted of Christ 
himself, and by the Word of God, as by a public and lawful dis 
cipline ; but it is so appointed, that without these marks no man 
can be judged to be in this Church, but by the special privilege 
of God." 1 " Consecrated since the apostles time," in the former 
of these sentences, points to the inspired means by which the will 
of Christ was made known. " It was meet," says Melanchthon, 
" that the apostles should on this account " the resurrection of 
Christ " have changed the day." 2 Bucer observes, " The Lord s 
day was consecrated " as a day on which the people might have 
nothing else to do than engage in religious services " by the 
very apostles." 3 "The Sabbath," according to Bullinger, "is 
ordained of God not for rest in itself, for he nowhere alloweth 
idleness ; therefore the rest of the Sabbath is commanded for 
another end, namely, for the diligent study of religion, for it is 
therefore commanded to rest from manual labour, that we may 
spend this whole day in the exercise of religion." 4 The apostles 
must have been Calvin s " ancients " in the following words : " It 
was not without reason, that the ancients substituted what we 
call the Lord s day in the room of the Sabbath. For when the 
true rest, which the old Sabbath symbolized, had its fulfilment in 
the resurrection of Christ, by that very day which ended the 
shadows, Christians are warned not to cleave to the shadowy 
ceremonial." 5 If Calvin had represented Christians as substitut 
ing the Lord s day for the Sabbath, he would, in contradiction to 
his own solemn protest, have justified one of the pretensions of 
Rome, that of afi ecting power to change times and laws. Such 
a power is greater than that of prescribing a single duty of the 
first day of the week ; and yet for this the word of an inspired 
apostle was required, for, as Calvin says, " It was for this use" 
the peace (the good) of Christian society " that the Sabbath 
was retained in the churches planted by him" (the apostle Paul), 
" for he appoints that day to the Corinthians, whereon to collect 
their contributions in aid of their brethren in Jerusalem." 6 We 
have found Beza afiirming, that the first day of the new world 

1 Hail s Harmony of Confessions, p. 217. 2 Wells Practical Sabbatarian, p. 612&gt; 

De Reg. Christ, lib. i. c. 11. * On Rom. xiv. 5. 

Instit. Fourth Commandment. Ibid. 



418 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

was adopted by the apostles in place of the seventh day, " doubt 
less at the dictation of the Holy Spirit" In words similar to 
those of Beza, both Gallasius (Nicolas des Gallars), one of the 
ministers of Geneva, and Faius, a successor of Calvin, ascribe the 
change of day to the Holy Spirit. 1 The latter adds, The ob 
servance of this day, therefore, is not to be accounted a matter of 
mere indifference, but to be carefully attended to as a perpetual 
apostolic tradition." 

In yet another way did the Reformers show their faith in the 
doctrine of a Divine and permanent Sabbath. They considered 
the Lord s day as coming under the authoritative direction of the 
Fourth Commandment. They erred, indeed, as we conceive, by 
regarding this commandment as partly ceremonial, an error which 
has involved some of their other statements in confusion, if not 
contradiction, and has been turned to bad account in anti-Sab 
batic opinion and practice, both on the Continent, and in this 
country. But the ceremonial part of the precept they believed to 
have passed away, leaving the moral part to sanction the Chris 
tian Sabbath and guide its observance. Thus Luther, after telling 
us that " this commandment, literally understood, does not apply 
to us Christians," says, " But in order that the simple may obtain 
a Christian view of that which God requires of us in this command 
ment, observe that we keep a festival." He then refers to two 
objects of the institution applying to our times, the provision of 
rest for the children of toil, and of time and opportunity to men 
in general, such as they could not otherwise have, for attending to 
religion. 2 The ideas of Calvin on the subject are thus expressed : 
" The ancients are accustomed to call the fourth precept shadowy, 
because it comprehended an external observance of the day, which 
at the coming of Christ has along with other figures been 
abolished, which, indeed, is by them expressed justly." But he 
adds, " This gives only the half of the truth. Whereupon a 
higher sense has to be sought, and there are three reasons to be 
considered why this command is to be observed." He then pro 
ceeds to state and enlarge on the reasons, and adds, " The sum is, 
as the truth was delivered to the Jews under a figure, so it is 
commanded to us without shadows : First, that we aim at a per- 

1 In Exort. xxxi. Disput. 47, in 4 Legis Prcecept, 2 In his larger Catechism. 



THE REFOKMATION. 419 

petual resting from our works during the whole of life, that God 
may work in us by his Spirit. Again, that every one should 
diligently exercise himself in private in the pious recognition of 
the works of God, as often as he has leisure ; then also that all 
may together observe the lawful order of the Church established 
for hearing the Word, for the administration of the sacraments, 
&,nd for public prayers. Thirdly, That we may not inhumanly 
oppress those placed under us." 1 The following words of the 
same individual are clear and decided : " Most certainly what was 
commanded concerning the day of rest must belong to us as well 
as to them [the Jews]. For, let us take God s law in itself, and 
we shall have an everlasting rule of righteousness. And, doubt 
less, under the ten commandments, God intended to give a rule 
that should endure for ever. Therefore let us not think that the 
things which Moses speaks respecting the Sabbath-day are need 
less for us : not because the figure remaineth still in force, but 
because we have the truth thereof." 2 We need add nothing more 
than that the Reformers were all pledged by the Formularies 
which they had subscribed, and by their expositions of the Ten 
Commandments in their Treatises and Catechisms, to the doctrine, 
that though the Mosaic ceremonies were repealed, and though 
the curse of the law was to all believers abrogated, the Moral 
Law, including the Fourth Commandment, is " a perpetual rule 
to mankind." 3 

But it remains that we listen to a few words from two distin 
guished men, whom we have not yet heard on any part of the 
subject ; from Zwingle, one of the most learned of the Reformers, 
and John Knox, whom an able writer has lately characterized as 
" perhaps, in an extraordinary age, its most extraordinary man." 
The former, after declaring that Christ hath freed u s from the 
Sabbath in so far as it was ceremonial, says, " But as far as 
regards the spirit of the law, which always remains, it eminently 
respects us. The spirit of the law is to love God supremely, and 
to love our neighbour. Now to hear the Word, to meditate on 
God s mercies, and to assemble for public prayers, belong to the 

1 Institut. on Fourth- Free. 2 Ser. 34, on Deut. v. 

8 See Statements in Hall s Harmony ; of latter Helvetic Confession, p. 109 ; of 
French, p. 113 ; of Belgian, p. 114 ; and of Augustan, p. 178. 



420 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

spirit of the law, and then that our family and their works may 
rest concerns the love of our neighbour. For although we are not 
bound to a certain time, we are bound to the glory of God, to his 
Word, to the celebration of his praise, and to the love of our neigh 
bours. Love, therefore, will teach us, when to labour, when to 
keep holy day. For love never fails." 1 In another place, referring 
to persons who betray their folly and ignorance by " babbling about 
ceremonies," and " affirming that the Sabbath is one of them," 
he says, " The Sabbath is established by the first two and chief 
commands of God, which constitute the foundation and basis, as 
it were, of all laws and of the prophets. The authority of the first 
command, or love to God, conjoins with it the Sabbath, and 
affirms and approves it, because this is the time when men are 
wont to meet to hear the Word of God, by the guidance of which, 
as far as can be attributed to doctrine, we are led into the true 
knowledge of the Lord himself, as the apostle Paul says in Ro 
mans x. 14. The Sabbath, therefore, is not a ceremony, nor 
ought to be classed with ceremonies. So the second command, the 
love of our neighbour, confirms the use and religious obligation of 
the Sabbath. For equity demands that some rest and recreation 
of the body should be allowed to our servants. We render it cere 
monial by a Jewish observance." 2 The following words show 
how he conceived the day should be spent : " The observance of 
the Sabbath is here so carefully taught us by God, that we may 
cease and rest from sins, and withdraw our foot from evil (Isa. 
Iviii.), and that we may apply ourselves to Divine things, to the 
reading of the Irfw, to the Word of God, to thanksgiving, to prayers, 
to the recollection of Divine blessings. In fine, God having a re 
gard to our good, has appointed a rest for our wearied bodies (for 
which reason the night also has been made for the use of men), 
for that which is without alternate repose is not enduring. "3 It 
is to be regretted that Knox, than whom no Reformer had a 
clearer or more logical head, should have written so little respect 
ing the Sabbath. What his views of it were, however, may be 
certainly known from the Confession of Faith, and the First Boole 
of Discipline which were drawn up by him and five other minis- 

1 In Epist. ad Coloss. c. li. torn. iv. p. 515 

2 Oper. torn. i. pp. 253, 254 8 In Matt vii. torn. iv. p. 59. 



THE REFORMATION. 421 

ters ; from the Acts of the General Assembly, at which he was 
usually present ; and, indeed, from the proverbial views and 
habits in the matter of the Scottish people, on whom he has exer 
cised so powerful and salutary an influence. The summary of the 
" most just, most equal, most holy, and most perfect law of God" 
given in the Confession, though the duties not the precise words 
of almost any of the commandments are given, and the rejection 
of everything in religion and in the worship of God that " has no 
other assurance but the invention and opinion of man," prepare us 
for two things in the First Book of Discipline : First, the decisive 
condemnation of festivals in these words, " The holy days invented 
by men, Christmas, Circumcision, Epiphany [and so forth], we 
judge utterly to be abolished forth of this realm, becaiise they have 
no assurance in God s Word ;" and second, the following injunction 
relative to the observance of the only holy day recognised by the 
.Reformers of Scotland : " The Sabbath must be kept strictly in 
all t0wns, both forenoon and afternoon for hearing of the Word ; 
at afternoon upon the Sabbath, the Catechism shall be taught, 
the children examined, and the baptism ministered. Public 
prayers shall be used upon the Sabbath, as well afternoon as be 
fore, when sermons cannot be had." In the third Assembly, which 
met in June 1562, the year in which the English Convocation 
agreed to adopt and publish thirty-eight of the now thirty-nine 
Articles, and the enlarged Boole of Homilies, it was resolved " that 
supplication be made to Queen Mary for the punishing of Sabbath 
breaking, and of all vices commanded by the law of God to be 
punished, and yet not commanded by the law of the realm," and 
the Queen was again petitioned to the same effect in the Assembly 
of June 1565, while articles were prepared to be sent to her 
Majesty, one of which mentions " manifest breaking of the Sabbath 
day," among " the horrible and detestable crimes" which ought 
to be punished. It was in the Assembly of December 1566 that 
the Helvetic Confession was approved, with the express exception 
of the part that tolerated festival days. On all these occasions 
probably at the meetings of 1562 and 1566 certainly Knox 
was present, and must have been, as he was in everything that 
respected the welfare of the Scottish Church, the leader in the 
proceedings. 

Ifl 



422 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

Were we to imitate certain anti-Sabbatic writers, we should be 
satisfied with having presented only such statements on this sub 
ject as favour our own dogma, and with leaving our readers to the 
unqualified impression that the Keformers were consistent advo 
cates of a permanent Sabbath. It is not easy, indeed, to conceive 
how men, who held opinions and maintained the practice which 
have been represented in their own words, could have afforded 
occasion to any for claiming their patronage of a very different 
creed. But as our cause appears to us too good to expose us even 
to the temptation of withholding any part of the truth, we intend 
to produce in a following chapter certain expressions of the emi 
nent men in question which have been considered as hostile to our 
doctrine. If it should be found that the result does not deprive 
us of their names as friends of the Sabbath, we take out of the 
hands of its enemies a weapon of which they have made an un 
sparing and injurious but unwarranted use. If they should bo 
seen to be inconsistent with themselves, their influence on either 
side is neutralized. If it turn out that the scale preponderates 
against us, the question is where it was, to be decided not by 
authority but by evidence. 

Before concluding our notices of the Sabbath at the Reforma 
tion, let us turn for a moment to the Church of Rome, and see 
how the institution then fared within l;er pale. The Council of 
Trent was convened by Pope Paul in. in 1545, professedly for 
the purpose of correcting the ecclesiastical disorders of which 
many so loudly complained. In its canons and decrees there are 
a few references to the Lord s day and holy days as seasons to be 
devoutly and religiously celebrated, and to be taken advantage of 
by bishops and preachers for instructing the people in the Scrip 
tures and in the mysteries of the mass. The Catechism put forth 
by the Council devotes a chapter to the Third (our Fourth) Com 
mandment. There we find it stated that the Sabbath dates from 
the time of the Exodus ; that, while the other commandments of 
the Decalogue are precepts of the natural and perpetual law, the 
third, as regards the time of observing the Sabbath, belongs not 
to the moral but ceremonial law, i.t which sense the obligation to 
observe it was to cease with the abrogation of the other Jewish 
rites at the death of Christ ; that it, however, comprises some- 



THE REFORMATION, 423 

thing that appertains to the natural and moral law in other 
words, the worship of God and practice of religion ; that the 
apostles therefore resolved to consecrate the first day of the seven 
to worship, and called it the Lord s day ; and that, in order to 
their knowing what they are to do and abstain from on this day, 
it will not be foreign to the pastor s purpose to explain to the 
faithful word for word the whole precept. The Catechism fur 
ther represents the Jewish Sabbath as a sign of a spiritual and 
mystic, and also of a celestial rest. It then, with Rome s usual 
art, glides into language which identifies the Apostles with the 
Church : " It hath pleased the Church of God, in her wisdom, 
that the religious celebration of the Sabbath-day should be trans 
ferred to the Lord s day. By the resurrection, on that day, of 
our Redeemer, our life was called out of darkness into light, and 
hence the Apostles would have it -called the Lord s day." Proofs 
from the Scriptures and the Fathers are produced for a number of 
these statements, but none is alleged for the following : " From 
the infancy of the Church, and in subsequent times, other days 
were instituted by the Apostles and by our holy Fathers, in order 
to commemorate with piety and holiness the beneficent gifts 
of God." The way is thus prepared for placing the Sabbath and 
Feast-days in close* connexion, and finally, as in the following 
words, for putting them on the same level : " There are many 
other things which our Lord in the Gospel declares may be done 
on Sundays and holidays, and which may be easily seen by the 
pastor in St. Matthew (ch. xii. 1, et seq.) and St. John" (v. 10, 
et seq. ; vii. 22, et seq.) Thus Rome, faithful to her policy, seeks 
to neutralize truth by error, and to gain the purposes of error by 
fortifying and dignifying it with an alliance to truth. She finds 
in Cardinal Tolet, Sir Thomas More, and others, defenders of her 
assumed power over sacred times, and in the civil authorities the 
means of enforcing it, for already (in 1538) had three or four 
men of Stirling suffered death " because they did eat flesh" 
meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving 
" in Lent," at a marriage ; and even while the Council is sitting, 
a poor man, for working on a holy day, that his family might 
not starve, is consigned to the flamea. 



THE SABBATH IN HISTOET. 



THE SABBATH AFTER THE REFORMATION. 

The period now to be surveyed brings to the Lord s day no 
improvement of position or observance in the church or countries 
of the Papacy. It is something, however, that a portion of its 
sound doctrine is contained in the creed of the former, and its 
statute embodied, in the laws of the latter, both the doctrine and 
the statute bearing their silent testimony against the thoughtless 
folly by which they are reproached, and the foul deeds by which 
they are continually defied. Who can say that there have not 
been some in every age of that church who ^have been its devout 
observers ? It is not long since the friends of the Sabbath were 
surprised and gratified by the zeal of the Archbishop of Paris, and 
the courage of M. de Montalembert on its behalf, and by the wel 
come with which many of the people of France hailed the labours 
of Cochrane for the same object. 

The free spirit, on the other hand, inspired by the Keformation, 
has prompted inquiry ; and, accordingly, the Sabbath has, with other 
subjects, been the matter of earnest consideration and discussion. 
Two facts are worthy of remark. First, The^ institution has con 
tinued for three centuries to be a law of the Protestant nations of 
Europe. It has not been the spirit of the Keformation, but the 
spirit of Popery that has ever endangered that law. It was this 
latter spirit that produced the Book of Sports. The following 
anecdote derives credibility from the whole circumstances of that 
celebrated publication. The subject of the recovery of England to 
Popery was considered in a conclave of cardinals at Eome, and 
after various modes of effecting this desirable consummation had 
been suggested, a wily member of the fraternity said, " Take away 
England s Sabbath, and your object is gained." Not long after, 
the Declaration of Sports appeared. 1 Second, The agitation of the 
subject has led to clearer, more settled, and more salutary opinions 
respecting it. The controversies about ceremonies in England led 
to the more satisfactory form in which the doctrine of the Sabbath 
was set forth in the Homilies than it had assumed in Cranmer s 

1 Related at a public meeting in Islington a good many years ago by the Rev. Dr. 
Wilson, son of the late Bishop of Calcutta. 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 425 

Catechism and other authorized documents. Similar controversies 
between the ministers of the Church of Scotland, and those who 
thrust upon that country the Articles of Perth, confirmed Scotsmen 
in their early view of the Sabbath, and prepared Henderson and 
his brethren for the prominent and effective part which they took 
in framing the "Westminster formularies. It has been said, too, 
that the Sabbatic strifes in Holland contributed to the lucid state 
ments on our subject in the same formularies. In this last case, 
the discussions must have operated more by warning than by ex 
ample, as the doctrine of the Assembly at Westminster was a de 
cided improvement on that of the Synod of Dort, and was in fact 
the same doctrine as Robinson and Teellinck had carried from 
England and Scotland to the Netherlands. 

In following the remaining course of Sabbatic history, which 
runs most strongly and clearly in English and Scottish channels, 
we begin with the views of a weekly holy day which have been 
embodied in the formularies of our several churches. 



DOCTRINE OF OUR CHURCHES. 

The Sabbatic doctrine of the Church of England is to be found 
in her Articles, Liturgy, and Homilies. Her seventh Article re 
cognises the continued obligation of the Ten Commandments thus : 
" Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching cere 
monies and rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the civil precepts 
thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth, 
yet, notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from 
the obedience of the commandments which are called moral." In 
" the Order of the Administration of the Lord s Supper," it is re 
quired that " the priest, turning to the people, rehearse distinctly 
all the TEN COMMANDMENTS ; and that the people still kneeling 
shall, after every commandment, ask God mercy for their trans 
gression thereof for the time past, and grace to keep the same for 
the time to come." The words of this prayer are set down for 
them in the Prayer-Book, When the " minister," for example, 
has recited the Fourth Commandment, the " people" are di 
rected to say, " Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts 
to keep this law." In the ministration of both public and pri- 



426 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

vate baptism of children, the sureties are enjoined to provide that 
those who have been baptized shall be taught to learn the Creed, 
the Lord s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, in the vulgar 
tongue ; and in the form of public baptism they are farther re 
quired to take care that the children be brought to the Bishop to 
be confirmed by him, so soon as they can say these lessons. Ac 
cordingly, in " the Order of Confirmation," it is said, " The 
Church hath thought good to order, that none hereafter shall be 
confirmed, but such as can say the Creed, the Lord s Prayer, and 
the Ten Commandments ; and can also answer to such other ques 
tions, as in the Short Catechism are contained : which order is 
very convenient to be observed ; to the end, that children, being 
now come to the years of discretion, and having learned what 
their god -fathers and god-mothers have promised for them in 
baptism, they may themselves, with their own mouth and 
consent, openly before the Church, ratify and confirm the 
same." One of the things promised for them, and which at 
their confirmation they take it upon them to perform, is, " I 
will endeavour obediently to keep God s holy will and command 
ments, and walk in the same all the days of my life, God being 
my helper." 

Referring to pp. 40-42 of this volnme for the consentaneous 
doctrine of the Homilies on the subject, let us now present the 
views held by the Westminster Divines, as they are expressed in 
the Westminster Confession of Faith, and in the words to many 
more familiar and endeared of the Shorter Catechism : 

"As it is of the law of Nature, that, in general, a due pro 
portion of time be set apart for the worship of God ; so, in his 
Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding 
all men in all ages, He hath particularly appointed one day in 
seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him : which, from the 
beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last 
day of the week ; and, from the resurrection of Christ, was 
changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called 
the Lord s Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, 
as the Christian Sabbath." 

" This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, 
after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their com- 



AFTER THE BEFOKMATION. 427 

mon affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the 
day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their 
worldly employments and recreations ; but also are taken up the 
whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship, 
and in the duties of necessity and mercy." 1 

" Which is the Fourth Commandment 1 

" The Fourth Commandment is, Eemember the Sabbath-day, 
to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work ; 
but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it 
thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, 
thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy 
stranger that is within thy gates. 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 Sabbath-day, and 
hallowed it. 

" What is required in the Fourth Commandment ? 
" The Fourth Commandment requireth the keeping holy 
to God such set times as he hath appointed in his Word ; 
expressly one whole day in seven, to be a holy Sabbath to 
himself. 

" Which day of the seven hath God appointed to be the weekly 
Sabbath 1 

" From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of 
Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the 
weekly Sabbath ; and the first day of the week ever since, to 
continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian Sab 
bath. 

" How is the Sabbath to be sanctified 1 

" The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, 
even from such worldly employments and recreations as are law 
ful on other days ; and spending the whole time in the public and 
private exercises of God s worship, except so much as is to be taken 
up in the works of necessity and mercy. 

" What is forbidden in the Fourth Commandment ? 

" The Fourth Commandment forbiddeth the omission or care 
less performance of the duties required, and the profaning the day 
by idleness, or doing that which is in itself sinful, or by unnecessary 

1 Confetsion, eh. xxi. sects. 7,8. 



4-28 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

thoughts, words, or works, about our worldly employments or rs- 
creations. 

" What are the reasons annexed to the Fourth Commandment ? 

" The reasons annexed to the Fourth Commandment are, God s 
allowing us six days of the week for our own employments, his 
Challenging a special propriety in the seventh, his own example, 
and his blessing the Sabbath-day." l 

Such was the clearly and scripturally stated doctrine of the 
Sabbath that proceeded from one of the most learned and pious 
assemblies ever convened, including a Lightfoot, a Gataker, a 
Twisse, a Henderson, a Rutherford, a Wallis, and a Reynolds, 
and such ever since, as it was more or less before, has been the 
faith of the best men of Scotland, England, and the continents of 
Europe and America, the only drawback being that too many have 
risen up to counteract such views by perverse disputings or by 
ungodly practice. 

The Independents, who formed a small minority in the Westmin 
ster Assembly, though they differed from the other members on cer 
tain points, took no exception to the general opinion on the subject 
of the Sabbath. No fewer than a hundred ministers and messengers 
of their denomination, including Dr. Owen, met in a Synod held in 
1658, and drew up a Confession of their Faith, of which, as com 
pared with that of the Westminster divines, Neal remarks, " The 
difference between these two Confessions, in points of doctrine, is so 
very small, that modern Independents have in a manner laid aside 
the use of it in their families, and agreed with the Presbyterians in 
the use of the Assembly s Catechism." 2 The general doctrine of 
this admirable summary of Divine truth, which is substantially 
that of the Thirty-nine Articles and Homilies of the Church of 
England, was cordially held by the evangelical members of that 
Church, and, with few exceptions, by the English Non-Conform 
ists, till the rise of Methodism, when, while Whitefield and his 
friends adhered to the old creed, Wesley and his numerous fol 
lowers in some important respects departed from it. No class, 
however, have been more zealous abettors of a holy Sabbath than 
the Wesleyan Methodists. From England, the Westminster For 
mularies were imported into Scotland, which, having suggested and 

1 Shorter Cattchum. History of the Puritan* (1738), Tol. iv. p. 101. 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 429 

materially contributed to their production, adopted them, with the 
valuable addition of her own Directory for Family Worship, to be 
henceforth and eminently her inheritance. She had been fami 
liarized by her Reformers with a Sabbath, attended by no com- 
peting holidays, and strictly observed, but she gladly welcomed the 
fuller testimony on the subject supplied in the Confession of Faith, 
Directory, and Catechisms. Nor have the separations from her 
Church of some considerable parties diminished the Sabbatic teach 
ing and practice of the land. These parties have both retained 
the old zeal for the Lord s day, and given an impulse to the feel 
ing in the society from which they sprang. The Secession Church, 
including the Erskines, the Moncrieffs, Adam Gib, and Brown of 
Haddington, Drs. Young of Hawick and Lawson of Selkirk, Drs. 
Jamieson of Edinburgh and "VVaugh of London, Drs. Ferrier of 
Paisley and Dick of Glasgow, the Relief Church, represented by 
Gillespie, Thomas Bell, and Dr. Struthers, the Reformed Pres 
byterian Church and its leaders, Macmillan and the Symingtons, 
the Independents and Baptists, headed the one by Glas, Greville 
Ewing, and Dr. Wardlaw, the other by the Haldanes and Dr. 
Innes, the United Original Seceders, who rejoiced in such spiri 
tual guides as Drs. M Crie, Paxton, and Stevenson, and the 
Free Church, of which Dr. Chalmers was the facile princeps, all 
held, as their successors to a man still hold, the Sabbatic doctrine 
of the Confession of Faith. From some of these Churches have 
proceeded independent and able declarations and defences of that 
doctrine, which, but for overcrowding our pages, we should have 
been happy to introduce in this place. 1 

One other doctrinal statement may suffice. It is " The Primary 
Address" of the Society for Promoting the Observance of the 
Lord s Day a manifesto which was written by Dr. Daniel Wilson, 
late Bishop of Calcutta, and not only expressed the views of the 
members of the society, many of whom belonged to the Church of 
England, but was unanimously assented to in 1855 by the Metro 
politan Committee, composed of " many ministers of religion of 

1 We refer, in particular, to " The Testimony of the United Associate Synod of the 
Secession Church," and "" The Testimony to the Truths of Christ, agreed to by the 
United Original Seceders," the former drawn up by Dr. Stark, Dennyloanhead, and 
Professor Duncan of Mid-Caider the other, by Drs. M Crie and Stevenson (Ayr). 

19* 



430 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

various denominations :" " That the dedication of one day in 
every seven to religious rest and the worship of Almighty God is 
of Divine authority and perpetual obligation, as a characteristic of 
revealed religion during all its successive periods ; having been 
enjoined upon man at the creation recognised and confirmed in 
the most solemn manner in the Ten Commandments urged by 
the prophets as an essential duty, about to form a part of the in 
stitutions of the Messiah s kingdom vindicated by our Divine 
Lord from the unauthorized additions and impositions of the Jewish 
teachers transferred by Him and his apostles, upon the abroga 
tion of the ceremonies of the Mosaic Law, to the first day of the 
week, in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ, and on that 
account called The Lord s Day and finally established in more 
than all its primitive glory as an ordinance of the spiritual uni 
versal Church of the New Testament, and a standing pledge and 
foretaste of the eternal rest of heaven. And that this meeting 
believes that every person in a Christian country is bound in con 
science to devote this seventh portion of his time to the honour of 
God, by resting from the business of his calling ; by abstaining 
altogether from the pursuit of gain, and from ordinary pastimes 
and recreations ; by guarding against every worldly avocation and 
interruption ; and by spending the entire day in the public and 
private duties of religion, with the exception of such works of 
necessity and charity as our Saviour by his example was pleased 
to allow and command : so as to designate this one day of rest 
and Divine service, after six days of labour, as a more distinguished 
privilege of the Christian, than it was of the Patriarchal and Jewish 
dispensations." 1 

PEESONAL TESTIMONIES. 

It is only a few of such testimonies which might be inde 
finitely multiplied that our space allows us to record. But 
these few are sufficient to show how individuals of various times, 
stations, and other circumstances, are at one as to the authority 
and value of the weekly rest. Let Lord Bacon be our first wit 
ness in the cause, " A Christian," he says, " thinks sometime* 

1 Baylce s Hist. oftlieSalbath, pp. 219, 220. 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 431 

that the ordinances of God do him no good, yet he would rather 
part with his life than be deprived of them." " In the distribu 
tion of days, we see the day wherein God did rest and contemplate 
His own works was blessed above all the days wherein he did 
effect and accomplish them." " It is an easy thing 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." 1 Sir 
Matthew Hale s name as a friend of the institution is familiar, 
but the following sentence from his writings is not so com 
monly cited as some others : "And thus you have the reason of 
the obligation upon us Christians, to observe the first day of the 
week, because by more than a human institution, the morality of 
the fourth commandment is transferred to the first day of the 
week, being our Christian Sabbath ; and so the fourth command 
ment is not abrogated, but only the day changed, and the moral 
ity of that command only translated, not annulled." 2 "The 
very life of religion," says Archbishop Leighton, " doth much 
depend upon the solemn observation of this day ; consider but, if 
we should intermit the keeping of it for one year, to what a 
height profaneness would rise in those that fear not God ; which 
are yet restrained (though not converted) by the preaching of the 
Word and their outward partaking of public worship ; yea, those 
that are most spiritual would find themselves losers by the inter 
mission." 3 The Archbishop s contemporary, Bishop Pearson, has 
these words in his Exposition of the Creed : " From this resurrec 
tion of our Saviour, and the constant practice of the apostles, 
this first day of the week came to have the name of ( the Lord s 
day ; and is so called by St. John, who says of himself in the 
Kevelation, ( I was in the Spirit on the Lord s day (Rev. i. 10). 
And thus the observation of that day, which the Jews did sanctify, 
ceased, and was buried with our Saviour ; and, in the stead of it, 
the religious observation of that day on which the Son of God 

i Works (1855), vol. ii. p 230 ; (1852), vol. i. p. 175 ; (1730), vol. iv. p. 429. 
* Contemplations (1676), vol. I. pp. 483, 484. Works, vol. iv. p. 14. 



43:2 THE SABBATH IN HISTOKY. 

rose from the dead, by the constant practice of the blessed apos 
tles, was transmitted to the Church of God, and so continued in 
all ages." 1 Passing over the similar views of Dr. H. More, 
Bishop Hopkins, Drs. John Scott (author of the Christian Life) 
and Littleton, we come to the following interesting words the 
more so as proceeding from such a man : " Besides his particular 
calling for the support of life," says John Locke, " every one has 
a concern in a future life, which he is bound to look after. This 
engages his thoughts in religion ; and here it mightily lies upon 
him to understand and reason right. Men therefore cannot be 
excused from understanding the words and framing the general 
notions relating to religion right. THE ONE DAY IN SEVEN, be 
sides other days of rest, allows in the Christian world time enough 
for this (had they no other idle hours), if they would but make 
use of these vacancies from their daily labour, and apply them 
selves to an improvement of knowledge with as much diligence 
as they often do to a great many other things that are useless." 2 
To the judgment of Locke we add that of Addison : " I am al 
ways very well pleased with a country Sunday, and think, if keep 
ing holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would 
be the best method that could have been thought of for the 
polishing and civilizing of mankind. "3 Lord Kames, Adam Smith, 
and Burke are names of great weight, as those of men eminent 
for talent, knowledge, and sagacity. The first-mentioned says : 
" The setting apart one day in seven, for public worship, is not a 
pious institution merely, but highly moral with regard to the 
latter, all men are equal in the presence of God ; and, when a 
congregation pray for mercy and protection, one must be inflamed 
with good-will and brotherly love to all. In the next place, the 
serious and devout tone of mind, inspired by public worship, sug 
gests naturally self-examination. Retired from the bustle of the 
world, on that day of rest, the errors we have been guilty of are 
recalled to memory : we are afflicted for those errors, and firmly 
resolve to be more on our guard in time coming. In short, Sun 
day is a day of rest from worldly concerns, in order to be more 
usefully emplo3^ed upon those that are internal. Sunday, accord- 

i Edit, of 1845, p. 415. * Conduct of the Understanding, sect 8. 

* Spectator, No. 112. 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 433 

ingly, is a day of account ; and a candid account every seventh 
day is the best preparation for the great day of account. A per 
son who diligently follows out this preparatory discipline will sel 
dom be at a loss to answer for his own conduct, called upon by 
God or man. This leads me naturally to condemn the practice 
of abandoning to diversion or merriment what remains of Sunday 
after public worship, such as parties of pleasure, gaming, etc., or 
anything that trifles away the time without a serious thought, as 
if the purpose were to cancel every virtuous impression made at 
public worship. Unhappily this salutary institution can only be 
preserved in vigour during the days of piety and virtue. Power 
and opulence are the darling objects of every nation ; and yet, in 
every nation possessed of power and opulence, virtue subsides, 
selfishness prevails, and sensuality becomes the ruling passion. 
Then it is that the most sacred institutions first lose their hold, 
next are disregarded, and at last are made a subject of ridicule." 1 
The words of Smith, already employed as a motto, deserve to be 
again presented. " The Sabbath," he said, " as a political insti 
tution, is of inestimable value, independently of its claims to 
Divine authority." And, in his Letter to a Member of the National 
Assembly, Burke gave utterance to these memorable sentences : 
"They who always labour can have no true judgment. You 
never give yourselves time to cool. You can never survey from 
its proper point of sight the work you have finished before you 
decree its final execution. You can never plan the future by the 
past. These are among the effects of unremitted labour, when 
men exhaust their attention, burn out their candles, and are left 
in the dark. Malo meorum negligentiam, guam istorum obscuram 
diligentiam" Next in order is Cowper, who, in a letter to the Rev. 
Wm. Unwin, thus fully propounds his Sabbatic views : " With 
respect to the advice you are required to give to a young lady, 
that she may be properly instructed in the manner of keeping the 
Sabbath, I just subjoin a few hints which have occurred to me 
upon the occasion ; not because I think you want them, but be 
cause it would seem unkind to withhold them. The Sabbath, 
then, I think, may be considered, first, as a commandment, no 
less binding upon modern Christians than upon ancient Jews ; 

i Creech s Fugitive Pieces, p. 181. 
2 E 



434 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

because the spiritual people amongst them did not think it 
enough to abstain from manual occupations on that day, but, 
entering more deeply into the meaning of the precept, allotted 
those hours they took from the world to the cultivation of holi 
ness in their own souls ; which ever was, and ever will be, a duty 
incumbent upon all who ever heard of a Sabbath ; and is of per 
petual obligation both upon Jews and Christians (the command 
ment therefore enjoins it, the prophets have also enforced it, and, 
in many instances, both scriptural and modern, the breach of it has 
been punished with a providential and judicial severity, that may 
make bystanders tremble) : secondly , As a privilege which you 
well know how to dilate upon, better than I can tell you ; thirdly, 
As a sign of that covenant, by which believers are entitled to a rest 
which yet remaineth ; fourthly, As the sine qua non or neces 
sary part of the Christian character ; and, on this head, I should 
guard against being misunderstood to mean no more than two at 
tendances upon public worship, which is a form complied with by 
thousands who never kept a Sabbath in their lives. Consistence 
is necessary to give substance and solidity to the w r hole. To sanc 
tify the Sabbath at church, and to trifle it away out of church, is 
profanation, and vitiates all ! After all, I could ask my catechu 
men one short question, Do you love the day, or do you not 1 If 
you love it, you will never inquire how far you may safely deprive 
yourself of the enjoyment of it. If you do not love it, and you 
find yourself obliged in conscience to acknowledge it, that is an 
alarming symptom, and ought to make you tremble. If you do not 
love it, then you wish it was over, because it is a weariness to 
you. The ideas of labour and rest are not more opposite to each 
other, than the idea of a Sabbath, and that dislike and disgust 
with which it fills the minds of thousands, to be obliged to keep it. 
It is worse than bodily labour." " Sir John Shore," afterwards 
Lord Teignmouth, " neglected not, amidst the toils and cares of 
empire, those literary pursuits which were ever congenial to his 
taste, and which he cultivated in the society of his friend, Sir W. 
Jones, who, like himself, was the son of a widowed mother, whose 
maternal solicitudes were amply repaid by their auspicious results. 
On the death of that unrivalled Oriental scholar, Sir John Shore 
lucceeded to the chair of the Asiatic Society, and pronounced an 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 435 

elegant and luminous eulogium on his predecessor." It is added, 
in a note, " How anxiously he felt in after years upon the subject 
of the observance of the Lord s day may be seen by a paper from 
his Lordship s pen, which he addressed to us for insertion in our 
volume for 1803, p. 537, signed Sunday. His Lordship makes 
Sunday complain of the grievous neglect shown to him, in this 
professedly Christian and Protestant country. His Lordship did not 
view the Christian Sabbath as the mere creature of ecclesiastical 
authority ; but, on the contrary, makes it derive all its title to 
consideration from its Divine origin. He mentions many of the 
ways of idleness, business, and pleasure the last he calls " the 
devil s allurements in which the day is too often violated, both 
by the rich and the poor. We quote one passage, which de 
serves to be seriously considered at the present moment : I 
remark many of the poorer classes who find the respect which 
they pay to me (Sunday) most amply rewarded, not merely by 
an exemption from their daily labours, but by a composed frame 
of mind, which is the natural consequence of a due attention to 
me. With many, it is the only consolation they enjoy ; and 
I cannot but therefore deprecate that more than common species 
of cruelty which would endeavour to deprive these poor people, 
not only of bodily rest, but of spiritual consolation. Of this 
cruelty every man who, by example, encouragement, or authority, 
endeavours to degrade me in their estimation, is most palpably 
guilty ; and whatever he may think, incurs by it a most awful 
responsibility, which he will be called upon one day to answer. " x 
It would not be easy to find a more comprehensive or more 
beautiful tribute to the Day of Rest than the following by the 
biographer of Knox and Melville, the late Dr. M Crie : The 
Sabbath is the wisest and most beneficent, as well as the most 
ancient, institute of heaven ; the first gift which God conferred 
on our newly created parents, and by which he continues to 
testify at once his care for our bodies and our spirits, by provid 
ing relaxation for the one, and refreshment for the other ; the 
joint memorial of creation and redemption ; the token of God s 
residence on earth; and the earnest of man s elevation to heaven ; 
an institute which blends together, like the colours of the rainbow, 

i Christian Observer 0834), pp. 264, 265 



436 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

itself a sacred emblem, recollections of the innocence of our 
primeval state, and the grace of our recovery, with anticipations 
of the glory to which we are called ; an institute in the observ 
ance of which we feel ourselves associated, not only with all who 
in every region, yea, on every sea, believe on the same 
Saviour ; but also with holy men, apostles, prophets, and 
patriarchs, in every age since men began to call on the name of 
the Lord ; nay, in which we are raised to communion with the 
Father of our spirits ; and, by resting with Him on the seventh 
day, receive his sacred pledge, that in labouring and doing all our 
work on the six days, we shall have that blessing which alone 
maketh rich, and addeth no sorrow." 1 Let the eloquent words 
of Principal Forbes close these testimonies : " One result of a 
due economy of time, is a due amount of relaxation. He whose 
waking hours are well occupied, need not grudge himself a good 
night s rest. His very holidays are part of his economy ; and 
the seventh day sheds its invigorating influence over the other 
six. By earnestness in your studies during the week, I advise 
you to reap the enjoyment of that beneficent provision of the 
Almighty, and by a sedulous abstinence in thought, as well as 
in act, from your occupations, to restore the tone of your minds 
and the capacity for vigorous exertion. None who have not 
made a strong effort are aware of the admirably tranquillizing 
influence of twenty-four hours studiously segregated from the 
ordinary current of thought. Monday morning is the epoch of 
a periodic renovation." 2 

CIVIL ENACTMENTS. 

The late clerical secretary of the Society for Promoting the due 
Observance of the Lord s Day has thus summed up the Sabbath 
laws enacted in England from the year 1604 : "In the reign of 
James i., trading in boots and shoes on the Lord s day is pro 
hibited by law ; and by an act passed in the first year of the 
reign of Charles I., it was found necessary to restrain by a law 
of persons from various parishes on the Lord s day. 

1 The Witness, Aug. 28, 1861. 

1 Rev. D. C. A. Agnew s Occasional Paptn on Sabbath Observance. No. 1 J. 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 437 

And in the second year of the same king, travelling of carriages 
is prohibited. We can easily conceive how inconsistent with such 
legislation must have appeared to his subjects the re-issuing, on 
the part of the king, of the Book of Sports of his father, which 
virtually encouraged what the Act of the first year of his reign 
pronounced unlawful. The Act of the 29th Ch. n. c. 7, is a 
very important one, still in force, and needing only some amend 
ments, chiefly as regards an increase in the amount of the penal 
ties, to render it efficient. It prohibits the following of ordinary 
callings, and enjoins upon all, publicly and privately, to exercise 
themselves in the duties of piety and true religion. The Act 2 1 
Geo. in. c. 40 has proved a highly beneficial law, in preventing 
places of amusement being opened for payment of money on the 
Lord s Day. Bishop Porteus was the first who suggested the 
necessity of an Act of this nature, in order to suppress assem 
blages of an immoral and irreligious tendency on the Lord s day. 
The Act, though stringent and efficient for its purposes, is evaded 
with impunity in London, persons being admitted to public gar 
dens by means of refreshment tickets purchased on the ordinary 
days of the week. In the reign of George iv., and subsequently 
at different times, Acts were passed regulating inns, taverns, etc., 
on the Lord s day. It is to be hoped the day is not far distant 
when the law will require them to be closed wholly on the Lord s 
day, with such exceptions as charity may require ; for it is now 
an established fact, that crime increases in the same degree 
in which public-houses are allowed to be opened on the Lord s 
day. The Act 3 and 4 William iv. is deserving of special 
notice. It enables the election of officers of corporations, formerly 
required to be held on the Lord s day, to be held on Saturday or 
Monday. It is the Act of the late Sir Andrew Agnew, and way 
passed in 1833. The bill was drawn up by Mr. George Eochfort 
Clarke ; the preamble of it is important, for it asserts it to be the 
duty of the Legislature to remove as much as possible impediments 
to the due observance of the Lord s day. Imperfect as is our legis 
lation on the subject of the Lord s day, yet it has proved a 
mighty barrier to keep out the tide of profanation of the day with 
which the love of gain and of pleasure, more than of God, would 
otherwise have inundated us ; it has also proved highly protective 



438 THE SABBATH IN HISTOEY. 

to society in general, in securing to a population the most active, 
industrious, and hard- worked in Europe, the privilege of one day 
in seven for religious instruction and rest." 1 

Of the civil enactments in Scotland relative to the Sabbath, and 
belonging to the years 1661, 1672, 1693, 1695, and 1701, the 
late Lord President Blair said, in 1823, "By these Statutes, every 
person guilty of profaning the Sabbath-day in any manner what 
ever, is made liable in a pecuniary penalty, toties quoties, to be 
recovered, by prosecution before sheriffs, justices of peace, or any 
other judge ordinary. And the minister of every parish, the kirk- 
session, or the presbytery, or a person named by them, is entitled 
to prosecute. There appears, therefore, to be no defect in the 
law as it stands, if duly executed." 

ECCLESIASTICAL COUNSELS. 

Turning to the practical teachings on our subject with which 
this nation has been blessed, we begin with a few sentences taken 
from the Homily Of the Place and Time for Prayer : " " 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." " 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." 
" Wherefore, ye people of God, lay your hands upon your 
hearts, repent and amend this grievous and dangerous wickedness 
[profaning the day by riding, marketing, labour, rioting, and ex 
cess], stand in awe of the commandment of God, gladly follow 
the example of God himself, be not disobedient to the godly order 
of Christ s church, used and kept from the apostles time until 
this day. Fear the displeasure and just plagues of Almighty 
God, if ye be negligent and forbear not labouring and travelling on 
the Sabbath-day or Sunday, and do not resort together to celebrate 
and magnify God s blessed name in quiet holiness and godly re- 
Verence." 

1 Hitt. of the Sdb. t by the Rev. John Baylee, pp. 134-186. 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 439 

The following are the more copious instructions of the West 
minster Assembly on "the Sanctificatiou of the Lord s day :" 

" The Lord s day ought to be BO remembered beforehand, as 
that all worldly business of our ordinary callings may be so 
ordered, and so timely and seasonably laid aside, as they may 
not be impediments to the due sanctifying of the day when it 
comes. 

" The whole day is to be celebrated as holy to the Lord, both 
in public and private, as being the Christian Sabbath. To which 
end, it is requisite, that there be a holy cessation or resting all 
that day from all unnecessary labours ; and an abstaining, not only 
from all sports and pastimes, but also from all worldly words and 
thoughts. 

" That the diet on that day be so ordered, as that neither ser 
vants be unnecessarily detained from the public worship of God, 
nor any other person hindered from the sanctifying that day. 

" That there be private preparations of every person and family, 
by prayer for themselves, and for God s assistance of the minister, 
and for a blessing upon his ministry ; and by such other holy 
exercises, as may further dispose them to a more comfortable com 
munion with God in his public ordinances. 

" That all the people meet so timely for public worship, 
that the whole congregation may be present at the beginning, and 
with one heart solemnly join together in all parts of the public 
worship, and not depart till after the blessing. 

" That what time is vacant, between or after the solemn meet 
ings of the congregation in public, be spent in reading, meditation, 
repetition of sermons ; especially by calling their families to an 
account of what they have heard, and catechising of them, holy 
conferences, prayer for a blessing upon the public ordinances, sing 
ing of psalms, visiting the sick, relieving the poor, and such like 
duties of piety, charity, and mercy, accounting the Sabbath a 
delight." 

In adopting the preceding document, the General Assembly of 
the Church of Scotland added to it a " Directory for Family Wor 
ship." " On the -Lord s day, after every one of the family apart, 
and the whole family together, have sought the Lord (in whose 
hands the preparation of men s hearts is), to fit them for the public 



440 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

worship, and to bless to them the public ordinances, the master 
of the family ought to take care that all within his charge repair 
to the public worship, that he and they may join with the rest 
of the congregation : and the public worship being finished, after 
prayer, he should take an account what they have heard ; and 
thereafter, to spend the rest of the time which they may spare 
in catechising, and in spiritual conferences upon the Word of God : 
or else (going apart) they ought to apply themselves to reading, 
meditation, and secret prayer, that they may confirm and increase 
their communion with God : that so the profit which they found 
in the public ordinances may be cherished and preserved, and they 
more edified unto eternal life." 

The United Secession Church, which has since coalesced with 
the Relief body, under the name of the United Presbyterian 
Church, gave forth along with her statement of principles a warn 
ing against practical evils, which thus deals with the evil of Sab 
bath desecration : " Another indication and form of impiety, is 
the lamentably extensive profanation of the Sabbath, by parties of 
pleasure, by unnecessary travelling, by the transaction of business, 
and by devoting the day to mere bodily recreation. To what de 
vices do many resort for the purpose of evading the laws which 
have been wisely and justly enacted to secure its external observ 
ance ! and how is the authority of the Divine precept disregarded 
by those who privately appropriate this sacred portion of time to 
the assorting of accounts, writing letters of business, and other 
arrangements as to secular affairs ! The precept is as really, and 
sometimes as grossly, violated by the carnal, and altogether unbe 
coming conversation too prevalent among those who make other 
and higher professions. We cannot too strongly reprobate the 
practice of limiting the observance of the Sabbath to the hours of 
public worship, and forthwith, as if no further obligation existed, 
indulging in feasting, visiting, walking, amusements, the reading 
of profane authors, and of newspapers, and the prosecution of se 
cular studies. Ought religion to be deemed a labour to be as 
slightly undergone, and as speedily dispatched as possible ? Hov 
criminal every attempt to rob the Most High of what, in a liberal 
grant to man, he hath appropriated to himself ! No recreation can 
be lawful on the Sabbath, but what accords with the principal de- 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 441 

sign of the day, which is manifestly to rest with God in the delighted 
contemplation of his glory as displayed in the works of nature, but 
especially in the mystery of redemption ; and to render to him the 
homage he requires. It is thus only we are fitted for returning to 
the business of life, under pious impressions, and prepared for that 
Sabbath, when bodily recreation shall be no longer needful. So 
far from tolerating the least encroachment on that sacred day, the 
Scriptures condemn the very disposition to say, * What a weari 
ness is it, when will the Sabbath be over/ that we may return to 
our secular employments 1 Amos viii. 5 ; Mai. i. 1 3, 1 4. Both 
spiritual and temporal prosperity are, by the promise of Him who 
alone can bestow them, connected with due respect to the Sabbath. 
Isa.lvi. 2-7; Iviii. 13, 14." 1 

From the Laws and Regulations of the Wesleyan Methodists, 
in which there are several directions concerning the observance of 
the Lord s day, we select one addressed to the Chairmen of Dis 
tricts : " Let us earnestly exhort our societies to make the best 
and most religious use of the rest and leisure of the Lord s day : 
let us admonish any individuals who shall be found to neglect our 
public worship, under pretence of visiting the sick or other simi 
lar engagements : let us show to our people the evil of ivasting 
those portions of the Sabbath, which are not spent in public wor 
ship, in visits or in receiving company, to the neglect of private 
prayer, of the perusal of the Scriptures, and of family duties, and, 
often to the serious spiritual injury of servants, who are thus im 
properly employed, and deprived of the public means of grace ; 
let us set an example in this matter, by refusing for ourselves and 
for our families, to spend in visits, when there is no call of duty 
or necessity, the sacred hours of the Holy Sabbath ; and let us 
never allow the Lord s day to be secularized by meetings of mere 
business, when such business refers only to the temporal affairs of 
the Church of God." 2 

1 Testimony, pp. 167, 168. 

3 Warren s Digest of the Laws and Regulationt of fh Wesleyan Methciiistl, p. 77. 



442 THE SABBATH IN HISTOEY. 

PRACTICAL MEASURES. 

It has been too characteristic of the Continental churches and 
people to allow their Sabbatic doctrine and laws to slumber in 
their Confessions and statute-books. This has been too much the 
case at home, but still more abroad. In England, there have al 
ways been men who have endeavoured to carry out their principles 
into measures for promoting the observance, and remedying the 
desecration of a day which they reverenced and loved. The Puri 
tans ; their evangelical successors within and without the pale of 
the Church ; and the Methodists, have been the means of preserv 
ing true religion, including the sanctification of the Sabbath, in the 
land. They have employed for this purpose the pulpit and the 
press, and in their families and neighbourhoods, private instruc 
tion, and the silent influence of holy example. Scotland has been 
no less favoured with the practical measures by which her creed 
has been prevented from becoming a dead letter. John Knox gave 
the impulse, which the Melvilles, Welch, and others, carried on 
and increased. 1 The immediate successors of the great reformer, 
and the Covenanters struggled, as did the Puritans, for Sabbatic 
rights and privileges in times of danger and persecution. The 
number of Acts passed by the General Assembly on this subject 
is very great, says the Rev. Dr. M Farkne, who supplies instances, 
from 1638 to 1708, and adds, "From" these specimens of Acts 
of Assembly, it will be seen how the Church availed herself of the 
aid which the laws afforded for the suppression of gross breaches 
of the Sabbath. To show, however, that these venerable fathers 
of the Church, and chief framers of the habits of our country de 
pended not merely, or even chiefly, on police regulations, for carry 
ing their ends into effect, we have only now to turn to the means 
which they employed for the suppression of profanity [profane- 
ness] in general." 2 The means urged for this purpose were that 

i See Booke of the Universatt Kirk of Scotland, p. 344, for evidence of the faithfulness 
of the General Assembly in calling to account certain nobles of the land on the subject 
of Sabbath-breaking, and of the gratifying success which attended their measures. At 
a later period, the session-records of Ayr bear testimony to the vigilant care of John 
Welch to have the institution sanctified in that town. We trust, that a satisfactory 
" life" of this remarkable man, which has employed the con amore labours of our friend, 
the Rev. James Young of Edinburgh, will be forthcoming at no distant date. 

* Treatise on the Christian Sabbath, pp. 258, 262. 



AFTER THE REFOEMATION. 443 

ministers should be " much in prayer and supplication on account 
of these evils," that they " preach plainly and faithfully against" 
them, that they " deal earnestly and much with the consciences 
of evil-doers," that " Church judicatories do faithfully exercise 
church discipline against all such scandalous offenders," that 
" ministers and elders take care that the worship of God be per 
formed in each family" under their care, and that " all prudence 
and meekness of wisdom, along with fidelity, be shown" in the 
use of the various expedients for the reclamation of the erring. 
The churches that at various times disconnected themselves from 
the Church of Scotland, while, as we have already seen, they re 
tained her doctrine respecting the Sabbath, have strenuously sought 
to secure for it due regard and honour. 

In the present century the friends of the Sabbath, imitating 
the example of the promoters of Bible circulation and of mis 
sions, have resorted to the new form of associated effort outside 
the walls of their respective churches for vindicating the claims, 
and advancing the interests of an institution, in regard to the 
Divine authority and indispensable importance of which they 
were agreed. In 1831, the Society for promoting the due 
observance of the Lord s day was formed in London. " In all 
the movements in reference to the Sabbath, which have been 
made since its formation, it has taken a prominent," and we 
may add, an energetic " part." " The continually increasing 
desecration of the Lord s day in Scotland led to the formation," 
in 1847, of the Sabbath Alliance, designed to embrace the whole 
of that division of the United Kingdom, and having for its basis, 
" the Divine authority and universal and perpetual obligation of 
the Sabbath, as declared at large in the Word of God, and more 
formally and particularly in the Fourth Commandment of the 
Moral Law." By its publications, public meetings, the visits to 
the country of its agents, its exertions against Sabbath profana 
tion, by means of railways, the post-office, the traffic in liquor, 
baking, and other practices, it has rendered important service to 
the cause of religion. A society in Glasgow having the same 
object has also been successful. When the appeal, as mentioned 
in pp. 167, 168, was responded to by 1045 working men, who 
competed for the prizes offered to their class for the three best 



444 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

essays on the " temporal advantages of the Sabbath," seventy of 
the writers were Glasgow men. These seventy met in the year 
1849, and formed themselves into "The Glasgow Working 
Men s Sabbath Protection Association." Their object was to de 
fend the Sabbath against all unnecessary encroachments on its 
sacred time, and, in the prosecution of this object, they were to 
avail themselves of every means sanctioned by Christian prin 
ciple, especially sermons, lectures, addresses at public meetings, 
and the circulation of tracts and pamphlets bearing on the sub 
ject. They have laboured assiduously to prevent or remove 
various forms of Sabbath desecration connected with railways, 
the post-office, the Sydenham Palace, the British Museum, the 
employment of cabs and carriages, the opening of shops for the 
transaction of ordinary business, Sunday steamers, and the liquor 
traffic. We have much pleasure in quoting a sentence or two 
from a letter, addressed in 1858, by their President, at that time 
Mr. James Lemon, in name of the Association, to Lord Stanley, 
when a petition of certain savans prayed the Government to open 
various places of amusement for public exhibition on the Lord s 
day : " We beg most respectfully to state that aggressions such 
as these which your Lordship is attempting to make on the day 
of rest have been the very means of banding us together for the 
protection of our inalienable birthright to rest one day in seven ; 
and it pains and alarms us when we hear of a peer of the realm 
endeavouring to annihilate the very principles which his ancestors 
in the worst of times so nobly defended. And we consider that 
we are in duty bound at this crisis, to remonstrate with your Lord 
ship, by declaring that we repudiate all systematic and predeter 
mined labour, however amusing it may be, if it enslaves our neigh 
bours on the Sabbath day, inasmuch as all such labour undermines 
the Word of God, the grand basis of Sabbath preservation, and tends 
to foster principles which sap the foundations of domestic virtue, 
true piety, and national prosperity." Various other associations, 
in England and Scotland, have contributed to the advancement of 
the great cause of Sabbath observance ; but they are too numer 
ous for specific mention. 

No one who truly regards the weekly holy day himself, will be 
Indifferent to its desecration, or unwilling to employ his influence 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 446 

for remedying the evil. But there are individuals, who from 
their better opportunities, their greater ability, or more fervent 
zeal, have rendered a wider or more enduring service to the 
institution than others have accomplished, and who are there 
fore entitled to our special grateful commemoration. Such men 
have been a Knox, a Greenham, a Bownd, a Twisse, a Young, 
an Owen, a Durham, a Willison. Such too, have been Bishop 
Porteus, Holden, Bishop Blomfield, Dr. Wilson, Mr. Joseph 
Wilson, Sir Andrew Agnew, the Rev. William Leake and the 
Rev. John Davies, the Earl of Shaftesbury, John Henderson, 
Esq., of Park, and Mr. Peter Drummond of Stirling. 

OBSERVANCE. 

The sanctification of the Sabbath in the family is one of the 
best evidences of the influence of its doctrine, and yet is itself one 
of the most effectual measures for extending its beneficial power, 
a measure second only to that which is wielded from the pulpit. 
Let us present a brief account of instances in which the Sabbath 
has shed its purity and peace in the dwellings of our people. 

From a number of contemporary examples we select one from 
a situation in life very far from being favourable to a holy rest. 
Lord Harrington died at the early age of twenty-two in 1 6 1 3, only 
a few years before the is*suing of the Book of Sports. This young 
nobleman " usually rose every morning at five, and sometimes at 
four. When he first waked, his constant care was to cultivate 
communion with God, by offering up the first-fruits of the day 
and of his thoughts to the uncreated Majesty. So soon as dressed, 
he endeavoured to put his heart in tune for family worship, by 
reading a portion of Scripture ; after which, he prayed with his 
servants. This duty concluded, he spent about an hour in read 
ing some valuable book, calculated to inform his understanding, 
and to animate his graces. Calvin s Institutions and Mr. Rogers s 
Treatise were among the performances which he highly esteemed, 
and which he carefully studied. Before dinner and before supper 
his family were called together to wait on God in reading, singing, 
and prayer. After supper, prayer was repeated." ... On the 
Lord s day, " after evening sermon, two of his servants repeated 
in the family, before supper, the substance of that and the mom- 

20 



446 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

ing discourse, from notes which they had written at the times of 
preaching ; and so great was his memory, that he himself would 
usually repeat more than they had committed to writing. He 
then entered the heads and principal passages of each sermon, in 
a plain paper book which he kept for that purpose, and afterwards 
dismissed his domestics with prayer, in which he had a very ex 
traordinary gift." 1 

The same spirit reigns half a century thereafter in the domestic 
circle at Broad Oak, and in many families about that time, both 
while they were in the Church of England, and when they had 
been ejected from its communion. The distinguished commenta 
tor, Matthew Henry, has given the following interesting account 
of the manner in which the Sabbath was spent in his father s 
house. " The Lord s day he (the Kev. Philip Henry) called and 
counted the queen of days, the pearl of the week, and observed 
it accordingly. The Fourth Commandment intimates a special 
regard to be had to the Sabbath in families : thou and thy son, 
and thy daughter, etc. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in 
all your dwellings. In this, therefore, he was very exact, and 
abounded in the work of the Lord in his family on that day. 
Whatever were the circumstances of his public opportunities 
(which varied, as we shall find afterwards}, his family religion was 
the same : extraordinary sacrifices must never supersede the con 
tinual burnt-offering and his meat-offering, Num. xxviii. 15. His 
common salutation of his family or friends on the Lord s day in 
the morning, was that of the primitive Christians : * The Lord is 
risen, he is risen indeed ; making it his chief business on that 
day to celebrate the memory of Christ s resurrection ; and he 
would say sometimes, Every Lord s day is a true Christian s 
Easter-day. He took care to have his family ready early on 
that day, and was larger in exposition and prayer on Sabbath 
mornings than on other days. He would often remember, that 
under the law the daily sacrifice was doubled on Sabbath days, 
two lambs in the morning, and two in the evening. He had 
always a particular subject for his expositions on Sabbath morn 
ings, the harmony of the evangelists several times over, the Scrip 
ture prayers, Old Testament prophecies of Christ, * Christ the 

1 Toplarly s Works, (1837), pp. 469, 470. 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 447 

true treasure (so he entitled that subject), sought and found 
in the Old Testament. He constantly sung a Psalin after dinner, 
and another after supper on the Lord s days. And in the even 
ing of the day his children and servants were catechized and ex 
amined in the sense and meaning of the answers in the catechism, 
that they might not say it (as he used to tell them) like a parrot, 
by rote. Then the day s sermons were repeated, commonly by 
one of his children when they were grown up, and while they 
were with him ; and the family gave an account what they could 
remember of the word of the day, which he endeavoured to fasten 
upon them, as a nail in a sure place. In his prayers on the 
evening of. the Sabbath, he was often more than ordinarily en 
larged, as one that found not only God s service perfect freedom, 
but his work its own wages, and a great reward, not only after 
keeping, but (as he used to observe from Ps. xix. 1 1) in keeping 
God s commandments a present reward of obedience in obedience. 
In that prayer he was usually very particular, in praying for his 
family and all that belonged to it. It was a prayer he often put 
up, that we might have grace to carry it as a minister, and a 
minister s wife, and a minister s children, and a minister s ser 
vant should carry it, that the ministry might in nothing be blamed. 
He would sometimes be a particular intercessor for the towns and 
parishes adjacent. How have I heard him, when he hath been 
in the mount with God, in a Sabbath evening prayer, wrestle with 
the Lord for Chester, and Shrewsbury, and Nantwich, and Wrex- 
ham, and Whitchurch, etc., those nests of souls, wherein there are 
so many that cannot discern between their right hand and their 
left in spiritual things, etc. He closed his Sabbath work in his 
family with singing Ps. cxxxiv., and after it a solemn blessing." 1 
Another half-century elapses, and the excellent Dr. Doddridge 
is found walking in the steps of Philip Henry : " The Lord s day 
was most strictly and religiously observed in his family ; and 
after the public and domestic services of it, he often took them 
[his pupils] separately into his study, conversed with them con 
cerning the state of religion in their souls, and gave them suitable 
advice. Often on the Lord s-day evening he discoursed seriously 
with them [his servants] by themselves, and prayed with them." a 

1 *4/ of Jtf&gt; Plilip Henry, pp. 7-t-Tfi. s Life, by Orton, pp. 98, 138. 



448 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

Dr. R. W. Hamilton has in eloquent strain described the old 
Puritan Sabbath with its domestic devotions morning and evening 
and its public assemblies and worship. Of the latter, he says, 
" Sermons full of thought and powerful in application, having 
much unity and closeness, with doctrine raised and improvement 
enforced, repaid the long-exacted attention. They knew not our 
miscellany of vocal praise, but breathed their gratitude and adora 
tion through the strains of the sweet singer of Israel. Public 
prayer was systematic, still various, abounding in intercession, 
such as the minister s closet had indited, and his heart had already 
made his own." Referring to the Sabbath evening counsels of 
a father and the instructions of a mother, to the catechism heard 
and the preaching reviewed, he observes, " That made their gener 
ations strong. . . . Thus were they trained and formed. ... In 
the change of all this we are weak." He adds, " Some of us 
knew the likenesses well. We have seen the counterparts. These 
customs had come down to us. Such were the families to which 
birth added us. Such were our fathers, and such the mothers who 
bore us. We. declaim no inventions, we draw no pictures, we 
speak no unknown things. In them was reflected the Puritan race. 
In them those saints revived and stood up once more. In this 
resemblance but little degenerated, we may measure their worth, 
and as by a personal observation, fully know their doctrine, manner 
of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, patience." 1 

We have quoted, in p. 226, part of a description of an English 
Sabbath, as it was passed at a later period,, for the purpose of 
showing that a sacred weekly day holily spent is not a day of 
gloom. We now give a few more sentences. " It was a day 
truly honourable in our eyes, and marked as a season of sacred 
delights. Its various exercises, whether public or private, pro 
duced an exhilarating effect upon our minds, and never failed to 
set us some paces nearer the object of our supreme desires. It 
was a kind of transfiguration-day, shedding a mild glory upon 
every creature, and enabling us to view the concerns of time in 
connexion with those of eternity. . . . Many a joyful Sabbath 
have we thus spent together, especially during the latter years of 
our Joshua s continuance with us. And now when his mother 

1 Horae et Vindunte Sabbat, pp. 183, 185, 187. 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 44:9 

and I are disposed, on the return of these sacred seasons, to look 
with regret towards his vacant place, we endeavour to animate 
each other with the hope of shortly following our dearest son to 
the celebration of that eternal Sabbath above, of which we have 
enjoyed so many sweet anticipations here below." 1 

It is said of the late Princess Charlotte and her husband, Prince 
Leopold, " Their whole domestic habits were marked by sobriety 
and virtue. Kespect for the Lord s day formed a prominent fea 
ture in their domestic arrangements. Divine service was re 
gularly attended ; and the evening hours of the sacred day were 
employed in the perusal of pious writings, or in other exercises 
suited to its design." 2 

We add a few illustrations of a domestic Sabbath, as it once 
existed, and still exists in Scotland. Ruddiman, the distinguished 
grammarian, printer, and librarian of the Advocates Library, "was 
frugal of his time, and moderate, both in his pleasures and amuse 
ments. His day was usually employed in the following manner. 
He rose early, and devoted the morning to study. During the 
sitting of the Court of Session, he used to attend the Advocates 
Library from ten till three. He commonly retired from dinner at 
four, except when it was necessary to show respect to friends. 
His evenings were generally spent in conversation with the 
learned. During the decline of his age, when an amanuensis be 
came requisite, his day was spent somewhat differently. His first 
act of the morning was to kneel down, while his amanuensis read 
prayers. He lived chiefly in his library. A basin of tea was 
brought him for his breakfast ; he dined about two o clock ; and 
tea was again sent in to him a little after four. His amanuensis 
generally read to him seven hours a day, Sunday alone excepted, 
which, in the presence of his family, and with the help of the 
Rev. Mr. Harper, was dedicated to the service of God." 3 Of Pro 
fessor Lawson of Selkirk it is said by Dr. Belfrage, " So different 
was his conduct from the common practice of indulging longer in 
sleep on the Sabbath morning than on others, that he rose earlier, 
and made his family do so. His domestic instructions and prayers 

1 Gilpin a Monument of Parental Affection, quoted in Gilfillan s Essay on tht Sa Kc, i#* 
tation of the Lord s Day (9th Edit.), p. 124, etc. 
Sermon by Dr. John Campbell of Edinburgh (1817), p. 14. * Life, p. 27d. 

2 F 



450 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

were never hurried over, but discharged as a duty, felt to be plead 
ing as well as solemn. Of Fisher s Catechism he had a very high 
opinion, made his young people read portions of it again and again 
with great care, and meditate on them, and he then examined them 
as to their conceptions of its meaning, and the impressions which 
it should produce. There was a circumstance in his family instruc 
tion which showed his admirable skill, and which rendered it 
most delightful to the young ; with his questions and counsels 
he mingled appropriate anecdotes, exhibiting the pleasures of reli 
gion, God s care of His saints, the beauty of early piety, the happi 
ness of the family whose God is the Lord, how the fear of 
God operates as a preservative from sin, what God has done in 
honour of His own day, and what consolations and hopes the 
promises of the gospel have yielded in sickness and death." 1 
" To the deep tone of his piety," says the biographer of the 
late Rev. John Jameson of Methven, a man at once of high 
genius, the most saintly character, and the warmest, tenderest 
heart, " may be ascribed that calm delight, combined with solemn 
concern about his public work, which were so visible in his very 
countenance on the Lord s day. On that day he rose early, seemed 
in haste to realize it as a day of rest from the labours of the week ; 
was often heard to say, What a blessing is it, after all, that on 
this day God does not require us to waste our thoughts on earth- 
born cares ! He seldom spoke with his family, beyond inquiring 
after their welfare, till his public duties were over ; and to those 
in whom he chose to confide, he accounted for this by saying, that, 
when his family were all in health, he could not even think of 
them till he had done what he could ; so heavily did the work of 
God press on his spirit. But after the public services of the day 
were over, he delighted in having his family all about him, and 
would often speak on for a long time, with great ease and cheer 
fulness, about those passages of Scripture which circumstances 
happened to suggest to him. For some time before his death, 
his mind on these occasions turned very frequently to the doctrine 
of the resurrection ; and at one time, with the view perhaps of 
apologizing for this, he spoke nearly as follows : * My children, 
I never like to dwell long on the thought of death ; that is a 

1 Memoir prefixed to Dr. Lawson s Discourse* on- David, p. xxi. 



AFTER THE REFORMATION. 451 

gloomy subject ; my mind is always for bounding off to the bright 
morning of the resurrection, a morning so full of life, and peace, 
and joy. Ah ! that is the morning which will vanquish death, 
and swallow up in perfect victory all the ill it has ever done to this 
poor heart of mine, by tearing asunder the finest ties which bound 
it to the earth, and sending some of our fairest flowers to the dull 
cold grave. Why should death hold so many, all their days, in 
the bondage of its fear 1 What is it to die, but just to wink and 
to be with Christ 1 This last thought seemed to dwell in his 
mind, and to yield him much enjoyment. When, not long before 
his death, a Christian friend spoke to him rather despondingly of 
the long and weary ages that the body must lie in the grave, he 
replied, in his usual hearty way, It is just to-morrow morning ; 
you never think the night long when your sleep is sound. " 1 
Of Mr. John M Lelland, a " Christian farmer," it is said, " Indeed, 
from the account sent me by one who remains on the farm, and 
was with him for several years, and from what I knew otherwise, 
it does appear as if his Sabbath work alone was more than he was 
able to perform. His general rule, after returning from the place 
of public worship, five miles distant, was to visit one workman s 
family, and join with them in reading, expounding Scripture, and 
prayers to gather all the children who could or would come into 
his own house for instruction and afterwards to take his own 
children by themselves, and his female servants by themselves, 
and close up the employments and enjoyments of the day by family 
prayers. It is well to work while it is day, for the night cometh 
when no man can work, and to him it was drawing nigh." 2 

We have yet to notice the public respect which the Sabbath 
has received in the United Kingdom, to an extent, especially in 
Scotland, which is paralleled elsewhere only in the United States 
of America. Its fortunes, indeed, have from various causes been 
considerably chequered, but in none of its descents has it ever 
reached the same depression as in other countries, and it has spine- 
times culminated to a point of honour somewhat corresponding 
with its standard and its final triumph. A writer on the subject 
thus describes some of its palmy days in England : " As we do not 

1 Remains, with Memoir, by the Rev. D. Young, D.D., Perth, 3d edit, pp. 19-21 
8 The Christian Farmer, by the Rev. J. Towers, Birkenhead, p. 42. 



452 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

find any other Reformed Church hath either so clearly maintained 
the doctrine of the Sabbath as ours, both in tne Homily of the Time 
and Place of Prayer, and in so many authorized writers for more 
than sixty years ; or so solemnly observed it by command of laws, 
injunctions, and canons, and the conscientiousness of governors of 
families and private Christians ; so we find a special ratification 
of the promised blessing, both in spiritual and temporal respects." x 
For nearly the twenty years from 1640 to 1660, the Sabbath 
was allowed to maintain its benignant sway. The Revolution 
improved its condition after a sad reverse. And the revival of 
religion through the labours of Romaine, Whitfield, and Wesley, 
was the life of all Christian institutions. " A number of the 
converts of Wesley and Whitfield," says Jay of Bath, " were yet 
living when I began to appear in public, and some of them I knew 
intimately ; and they made too deep an impression upon me to be 

forgotten Their attachment to the means of grace was 

intense ; nor would they suffer distance or weather, or slight in 
dispositions to detain them. The Sabbath was their delight, and 
they numbered the days till its arrival. And as to the poorer of 
them 

Though pinched with poverty at home, 

With sharp affliction daily fed ; 
It made amends, if they could come 

To God s own house for heavenly bread. 

Nor were these services only pleasing to them in the performance, 
they were remembered and talked over for weeks after. For the 
sermons they heard, if not highly polished, left effects which were as 
goads, and as nails fastened in a sure place by the hand of the 
Master of assemblies. They also seemed to have more venera 
tion for the Scriptures, and to peruse them with more directness, 
simplicity, and docility, for the Bible, as yet, had not been turned 
into a work of science rather than of faith, and of everlasting 
criticism rather than of devotion, nor were thousands of tutors 
and multitudes of volumes found necessary to explain a simple 
book designed for the poor, and the l common people by the 
only wise God Himself." 2 Methodism still leavens a portion of 

1 Sab. Redivivum, by Cavrdrey and P. ilmer (1645). Epist. to the Reader, pp. 4, 5. 
8 Autobiography (second dition, 1855), pp. 175-177. 



AFTER THE KEFORMATION. 453 

the masses, and though multitudes of working men have in our 
day forsaken the house of God, their places are increasingly sup 
plied from the middle and higher ranks. If in Scotland the Sab 
bath was for some time after the Reformation not so well observed 
as afterwards, this was owing to no want of zealous efforts on its 
behalf, but to the rooted customs of Romanism ; and that very 
period was the seed-time, when the Reformers were sowing in 
tears what was to be reaped in joy. The Covenanters were dis 
tinguished by their ardent love to the Sabbath. This was well 
known by their persecutors, some of whom, when in pursuit of an 
intended victim, and hearing him chant, in lively strains, some 
Scottish air, passed on, saying, " That, at least, is not Alexander 
Brown ; he would not sing songs on the Sabbath-day." 1 Sir Wal 
ter Scott, employing the cant term of a certain class, has charged 
their mode of keeping the day " as Judaical." The charge has been 
repelled by two writers, than whom few were more qualified to pro 
nounce on the point. " We do not know," remarks Dr. M Crie, 
" what our author means, and we are not sure that he has himself 
any distinct idea of what is meant by a Judaical observance of the 
Sabbath. We know of no peculiar strictness on this head exacted 
by our Presbyterian forefathers, above what is practised by the 
sober and religious part of the inhabitants of Scotland to this day. 
And whatever he may be pleased to think of it, there are many 
of as enlightened minds, and of as liberal principles, as he can 
pretend to, who glory in this national distinction ; and one reason 
why we will not suffer our ancestors to be misrepresented by him, 
or by any writer of the present times, is the gratitude which we 
feel to them, for having transmitted to their posterity a hereditary 
and deep veneration for the Lord s day." 2 Principal Lee, when 
under examination, in 1832, by a Committee of the House of Com 
mons on the Observance of the Sabbath, was asked, " Can you 
say, from, your knowledge of history, whether the description given 
by a celebrated novelist of the period of the Covenanters is his 
torically correct, and whether their precise manners were as 
strongly marked in contrast to the other party as that ingenious 
writer would have us to suppose 3 " His answer was, " Most cer- 

1 Simpson s Traditions of the Covenanters^ 1844, Series First, p. 225. 
1 ilissxll&neous Writings, p. 276. 

20* 



454 THE SABBATH IN HISTORY. 

tainly that description is not historically correct ; there never was 
such gloom attending the observance of the Sabbath in Scotland 
as that celebrated writer alleges. The Sabbath, though observed 
with the greatest reverence, was a day rather of sober and cheer 
ful piety, than of any painful restraint. It may be, as the ques 
tion has been asked, not improper to state, that the greater part 
of the description applying to the religion and morals of that class 
of persons in Scotland who are known by the name of Covenanters, 
must have been supplied almost altogether by the imagination of the 
writer." The Principal then specifies some instances of glaring 
ignorance on the part of the accuser of these good men, and con 
cludes thus : "I refer to these particulars merely as specimens of 
the inaccuracy of the descriptions which have probably made an 
impression not easily effaced, though it has done great injustice 
to the characters of an oppressed and persecuted race, who, derided 
as they have been as feeble-minded fanatics, did more than any 
other body of men both to maintain the interests of religion, and 
to secure for their posterity the enjoyment of civil liberty." 1 When 
we consider that it was not till the Revolution that the Scottish 
people of that time had " rest round about," for keeping the 
Sabbath, and carrying out their principles and wishes, we are pre 
pared to admit the consistency of the admitted high regard for the 
institution on the part of the Covenanters .with the following state 
ment of Dr. Lee : "I have great reason to think that the Sab 
bath was observed with the greatest strictness and solemnity in 
Scotland, soon after the period of the Revolution of 1688, till 
about the year 1730," a fact, which he ascribes "to the very 
great vigilance, faithfulness, and zeal with which both ministers 
and elders performed their duty towards those who were placed 
under their charge, and more, perhaps, than to any other cause, to 
the universal practice of Bible education." 2 About the time, 
however, when the institution began to wane in the Church of 
Scotland, a new society was about to take its rise the Secession 
in which the Sabbath has for more than a century been peculiarly 

1 Minutes of Evidence, pp. 272, 273. It is right to state that Sir Walter Scott made 
some, if an inadequate, reparation of his error, and bore a testimony to the truth, in 
the more favourable representation which he gave of the Covenanters in his subsequent 
novels and in his Tales of a Grandfather. " Minvtet, p. 269. 



AFTER THE BEFURMATION. 4-5-5 

respected, and by which an impulse was given to religion in the 
Mother Church, that has led, through the zeal of those who have 
been disrupted from her communion, and the improvement of those 
who have remained in it, to the greatest good in this and other lands. 
What conclusions are we warranted to draw from the whole 
history in the preceding pages 1 These two propositions, at least, 
eeem to follow from the facts : that a taste and practice opposed 
to the hatred of restraint, and to the love of selfish, worldly in 
dulgence, which are naturally so strong in man, must have had 
their origin and support from a Supernal source ; and that the 
Sabbath, which the human heart has been brought by a Divine 
hand to relish, must itself, like every good and perfect gift, have 
come down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variable 
ness, neither shadow of turning. 



456 THE SABBATH DEFENDED, 



THE SABBATH DEFENDED AGAINST OPPOSING 
ARGUMENTS, THEORIES, AND SCHEMES. 



CHAPTER I. 
ALLEGED ANTI-SABBATISM OF THE REFORMERS. 

THE Reformers, as was shown in a former chapter, believed the 
Sabbath to be of Divine and perpetual obligation, regarded it as 
of supreme importance, and enforced as well as exemplified its 
sacred observance. It is not denied, however, that they sometimes 
expressed themselves respecting it in terms which have given occa 
sion and some plausibleness to the charge of hostility to the in 
stitution. This is the more to be regretted that their unguarded 
language must have often been recited,- as certainly it has re 
peatedly been printed, unaccompanied by their better utterances 
on the subject, and that many, in such a case, do not trouble 
themselves to inquire into the circumstances, so as to under 
stand the proper import and value of the words employed. It 
is the opinion of Dr. Fairbairn, who has fully and carefully ex 
amined the whole matter, that they were substantially sound 
upon the question, in so far as concerns the obligations and prac 
tice of Christians, and it will be a satisfaction to us, if, under 
the following heads, we can advance any facts or considerations 
for confirming the opinion. 

In the first place, let it be understood on both sides, that 
whatever were the views of the Reformers, their name does 
not decide the controversy between the friends and the opponents 
of a Divine, sacred, and permanent Sabbath. It is too evident 
that the latter have employed that name as if it ought to silence 



CHARGE AGAINST THE REFORMERS. 457 

every plea for such an institution and we will not affirm that 
the former may not have been too anxious to have men of such 
repute on their side. Both classes in such a case forget the 
example which the Keformers have set them, and, what is of 
much more consequence, the law of Christ, which says, " Call no 
man master." Men may err, but not the Word of God. 

Second, If we duly weighed the circumstances of the Re 
formers, we should be disposed to moderate our estimate of the 
value of their judgment in this matter. They had, for example, 
but limited means for examining and discussing the subject. The 
Great Apostasy has ever been a perversion, not an open re 
nunciation of Christianity " a noble vine," not rooted up, but 
"turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine." Rome, 
professing to retain, has yet corrupted every doctrine, institution, 
and law of Jesus Christ recognising, for example, the Mediator 
between God and men, but associating with Him many other 
intercessors ; avowing adherence to the Scripture, but to the 
Scripture as supplemented and made void by the writings and 
traditions of men ; and, in short, without discarding the Lord s 
day, adding a number of encumbering holidays, giving them in 
many instances an honour equal and even superior to God s own 
day, and claiming for " the Vicar of Christ " lordship " even of 
the Sabbath." It was thus with arrogant claims, and gross 
abuses, affecting the Lord s day, not with the open denial of its 
authority, or rejection of its sacred character, that the Reformers 
had to grapple. The latter subjects formed no part of their 
controversy with Rome, and, indeed, had never come under dis 
cussion to any extent in the Church. Their circumstances did 
not call them particularly and critically to consider the general 
question, and, judging from the small space allowed to the 
weekly holy day in their works, as well as from their occasional 
manner of writing respecting it, the institution appears to have 
received less than most other points in theology of their careful 
attention. They knew it in their Christian love and practice 
more than as a doctrine. The heats, besides, and the turmoils of 
a great revolution, were not the most favourable state in which 
calmly to weigh and adjust a system of truth. And when long- 
continued, deep-seated, and wide-spread evils had to be remedied, 



458 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

much of the work of reformation was necessarily left by the 
originators to those who should come after them. Such con 
siderations might guard us against the mistake of supposing that 
Luther and Calvin had clearer views of the Sabbatic institution 
than its friends in later times, and of attaching the whole weight 
of honour acquired by them in other fields of labour and prowess, 
to their sayings and doings on an arena where they had not put 
forth their might. Another circumstance was, the state of the 
institution in the Church which they sought to reform. It was 
the confession of Koman Catholic writers themselves, that the 
Church had, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, reached a 
measure of corruption which rendered her incapable of bearing 
either her disorders or the remedies. One of her intolerable 
disorders was that of holidays, which, begun early, was now nearly 
at its worst. Pious, but misguided zeal, as we have already seen, 
introduced stated feasts and fasts. In Constantino s tampering 
with the Fourth Commandment, by permitting agricultural labour 
on the Lord s day, and ordering the observance of certain holidays, 
we discover the germ of bolder assumptions afterwards made by 
the Papacy when it sought to change the times and laws of the 
Most High. The greater festivals were promoted to the rank of 
Sabbath-days. Then, as by Bernard, all other holy days were 
held, equally with the only true holy day, to be grounded upon 
the Divine law. The next step, of which we have an instance 
in an edict of Edward iv. of England, was to sink in the general 
class of such days the Lord s day. In the same century (the 
fifteenth) the seasons of rest from labour had so multiplied, and 
been the occasions of so much profligacy and riot, as to excite the 
alarm and remonstrances of thoughtful men, only, however, to be 
disregarded by the Popes, who " did not only keep the holidays, 
which they found established, in the state in which they found 
them, but added others daily as they saw occasion." 1 " The third 
part of the year," in consequence, "passed away in idle festivals." 2 
The Sabbath, than which, as in a former part of this volume has 
been shown, nothing tends more to the moral and monetary good 
of society, was prostituted into a means of general demoralization 

i Heylyn s Hist, of the Sab., Part ii. p, 1C& 
s Beza, On Song of Solomon, Ser. 8 on ch. iJi, 



CHARGE AGAINST THE REFORMERS. 459 

and poverty. That day, designed and fitted to be a season of wor 
ship and religious instruction, was, from its uncongenial connexion 
with so many unhallowed festivals, compelled to serve in the 
cause of profaneness, infidelity, and vice. It was found easier 
and more "pleasant, by priests and people, to spend a multitude of 
consecrated days in attending on processions and the mass, than 
in the labours of teaching and learning Divine knowledge. "What 
was worse, holidays came to be regarded as the whole of man s 
salvation and sanctity. They were considered as holy in them 
selves, and as rendering sacred what was done on them. The 
doctrine of grace, according to the Augsburg Confession, " is 
almost wholly smothered by traditions, which have bred an 
opinion, that, by making difference in meats, and such like ser 
vices, a man must merit remission of sins and justification. In 
their doctrine of repentance there was no mention of faith, only 
these satisfactory works were spoken of; repentance seemed to 
stand wholly in these. Secondly, these traditions obscured the 
commandments of God that they could not be known, because 
that traditions were preferred far above the commandments 
of God. All Christianity was thought to be an observation 
of certain holy days, rites, fasts, and attire." 1 Ochin says, " If 
thou wouldest ask at what time God ought to be loved, they 
[the Papists] will answer, on the Sabbath and festival days." 
" For observing the first and chief est 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 things ; and that this, through our most 
[sic] and mighty free will, is always in our power." 2 Men s 
minds were thus turned away from the means of salvation, and 
from the study and practice of true religion, into the endless and 
perplexing labyrinth of a vast system of casuistry relating to 
meats, drinks, days, and " the putting on of apparel ;" and " many 
fell into despair, some murdering themselves because they could 
not keep the traditions." 3 The design of the Papacy in the 
whole matter was to promote its own ascendency, and to fill its 

1 Hall s Harmony.of Confessions, p. 397. 

8 Sermons, quoted in James s Sermons on the Sacraments, pp. 218, 219. 

Hall s Harmony of Confessions, p. 8&8. 



460 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

coffers, " the monks daily heaping up ceremonies, both with new 
superstitions, and also with new ways to bring in money." And 
to bind down and perpetuate thess burdens on the minds and 
consciences of men, it was taught and believed, that " Christ gave 
the charge of devising new ceremonies, which should be necessary 
to salvation, to the apostles and bishops." 1 From this the tran 
sition was easy to the daring, blasphemous dogma, that the 
bishops, by virtue of this authority, had " dispensed with a precept 
of the Moral Law, and changed the Sabbath into the Lord s day." 2 
Such, while the institution was professedly maintained and hon 
oured, were the evils by which its rights were invaded, and its 
influence was impaired. Trained under such a system, how could 
it be supposed that the Keformers should retain no taint of its 
errors ? and yet, exasperated at the enormities which they had 
discovered, how could they be expected to avoid every extreme in 
the opposite direction 1 Such views would imply them to be 
more than human. 

Third, The views of the Reformers on the subject of the Sab 
bath have not been fairly presented. It is possible that on both 
sides of the controversy there may be writers who, in searching 
for passages that favour their own views and wishes, unintention 
ally omit those of a different description. Such a method of 
leading evidence, if it cannot be pronounced in their case to be 
wrong in morals, and indefensible in logic, unless we are sure that 
it was knowingly resorted to, betrays at least a carelessness which 
proves their unfitness for their task. We are willing to place in 
this category a number of works of recent date, in which certain 
strong and peculiar statements of the Reformers appear, while 
much clearer and more decisive declarations, containing nearly all 
the received doctrines on the Sabbath, are excluded. It is especi 
ally painful to find Dr. Hengstenberg chargeable with this con 
duct, the more so that the influence of his name imparts greater 
currency and power to the injury and wrong. 

Fourth, The words of the Reformers have been in some instances 
misunderstood. Let us give an example from a passage in the 
Institutions of Calvin, who says, " Nor do I so value the septen 
ary number as to bind the Church to its servitude, nor shall I 

1 Hall s Harmony of Confessions, p. 401. 3 jfrfcj. 



CHARGE AGAINST THE REFORMERS. 461 

condemn the churches which observe other days for their meet 
ings, provided they avoid superstition, which they will do if they 
only observe the day from regard to discipline and good order. 
. . . Thus vanish the trifles of false teachers who have in former 
days imbued the people with Judaical notions, alleging that only 
what was ceremonial in this commandment was abrogated, that 
is, the appointment of the seventh day, and that what was moral, 
or the observance of one day in seven, remained. But that is 
nothing else than to change the day in reproach of the Jews, and 
yet to retain the same holiness of a day, forasmuch as there con 
tinues among us the same mystery in the meaning of days that 
prevailed among the Jews. And verily we see what they have 
made by such doctrine who adhere to their constitutions, and thrice 
surpass the Jews in the gross, carnal superstition of Sabbatism, 
so that the rebukes of Isaiah (Isa. i. 1 3 ; Iviii. 1 3) are no less 
applicable to the men of our day than to those whom he censured 
in his own time." 1 That when he said he would not restrict the 
Church to the number seven, or condemn the churches which ob 
served other days for their meetings, he meant that he would not 
diminish but increase the opportunities of worship, and would add 
to, not change, the day of the hitherto observed Sabbath, is manifest 
from his very words, not to say from his practice, and from all 
that he elsewhere advances respecting a perpetual seventh day of 
rest, the duties divinely assigned to it, and its vast importance. 
He will admit of superadded days of worship, but not supersti 
tious holidays. In the second part of the quotation, he has been 
erroneously supposed to deny the morality of a septenary rest. 
This supposition would make him contradict what he has re 
peatedly affirmed of the Divine example of resting at the Creation 
as a perpetual rule, and of the Fourth Commandment as an ever 
lasting law of righteousness to mankind. In the words referred 
to, however, he assails not a seventh day, but a fancied change of 
one seventh day of Jewish observance into another seventh day of 
Jewish observance ; a change made under colour, that by keeping 
the proportion of time they honoured the morality of the institu 
tion, while, in fact,, they carried along with them the ceremonial 
character of the old Sabbath. To substitute the first for the 

1 On Fourth Commandment. 



462 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

seventh day in such circumstances was merely to put a slight on 
the Jewish day, not to turn Jewish into Christian practice. He 
concludes his remarks thus : " But the general doctrine is prin 
cipally to be maintained, lest religion should fall or languish, that 
sacred assemblies are to be diligently observed, and attention 
given to the external aids which foster the worship of God." The 
amount of the whole is, that the seventh proportion of time is not 
to be regarded as something in itself holy, or to be observed with 
superstitious feelings and forms, but to be employed in spiritual 
exercises, and for furthering piety as the business of the whole 
life. 

Our remark applies also to a few expressions which, common to 
the Reformers in general, sound strangely to ears trained to the 
distinct sounds emitted on our subject by the Puritans of England 
and the Eeformers and Covenanters of Scotland. " It was not 
without a reason that the ancients substituted what we call the 
Lord s day for the Sabbath." (Calvin in Institutions.) " The 
Church did appoint the Lord s day, which day for this cause also 
seemed to have better liked the Church, that in it men might 
have an example of Christian liberty, and might know that the 
observance neither of the Sabbath, nor of any other day, was of 
necessity." (Augsburg Confession.) " For we believe neither 
that one day is holier than another, nor that rest by itself is 
acceptable to God, but yet we keep the Lord s day, not the 
Sabbath, by a voluntary observance." (Helvetic Confession.) 
" They did not desist from manual labour on the ground of its 
interfering with sacred study and meditation, but from a sort of 
religious obligation, because they dreamed that by ceasing from 
work they revived mysteries which were at one time authorized." 
(Calvin, Institutions.) It is manifest, not only from the doctrines 
already shown to have been held by the Reformers, as well as 
from their whole conduct, but also from their plain statements 
already adduced, that the liberty claimed by them as to times was 
a freedom not from the keeping of a day of holy rest, but from 
the yoke of ancient ceremonies, firm that yoke particularly, as 
wreathed round the necks of Christians by Rome, and held ne 
cessary to be worn by them if they would be saved ; and that 
when they say, " The Church chose a day," or "such a thing 



CHARGE AGAINST THE REFORMERS. 463 

liked the Church ;" they are not to be understood as denying the 
appointment of the Lord s day to have been made by Christ. 
Thus, in words already quoted, the Augsburg Confession says, 
" The general rule abideth still in the moral law, that at certain 
times we should come together to these godly exercises ; but the 
special day, which was but a ceremony, was free." But did Chris 
tians determine what clay they were to sanctify ? Let the Con 
fession declare that Luther and his friends had no such idea, for 
it adds : ll Whereupon the apostles retained not the seventh day, 
but did rather take the first day of the week for that use, that by 
it they might admonish the godly both of their liberty and of 
Christ s resurrection." While the Helvetic Confession states : 
" We keep the Lord s day, not the Sabbath, by a voluntary ob 
servance," and " every Church chooses for itself a certain time 
for public prayer and the preaching of the gospel," it declares, 
" that the Lord s day was devoted to religious meetings and sacred 
leisure, even as early as the times of the apostles, and that it is 
not left free to every one capriciously to overturn this arrangement 
of the Church." 

John Knox himself whose love and reverence for the Lord s 
day are written in the First Book of Discipline ; in the Acts of the 
early Assemblies of his Church, which repudiated holy days, and 
testified against the desecration of the holy day ; and in three cen 
turies history of his country has been represented as conceiving 
" the Sabbath to have been an exclusively Jewish institution, and 
never meant for this advanced dispensation ; " and this on the 
grounds, that there is no express mention of the sanctification 
of the Sabbath in the Confession of Faith, which he with 
others drew up [the substance, however, is there], and that 
the Duke of Chatellerault and the English Ambassador supped 
with him on a Sunday evening. Our preamble to this charge, 
and our statement of the charge itself, are its refutation, and 
we draw the conclusion to which every considerate and candid 
mind will come, when we add, It is a pure fancy. It is 
true indeed, as alleged, that the Duke of Chatellerault supped 
with the Reformer, but we leave it to our readers to judge 
from the following words whether there was anything in the 
matter inconsistent with the most sacred respect for the institu 



464 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

tion : " Upon Sondaye at night, the Duke supped with Mr. Knox, 
wher the Duke desired that I shold be. Thre speciall pointes he 
hathe promised to perform to Mr. Knox before me : the one is 
never to goe for any respecte from that he hath promised to be, a 
professor of Christ s worde, and setter forthe of the same to his 
power : the nexte, alwayes to shewe hymself an obedyent subjecte 
to his sovereigne, as far as in duetie and in conscience he is 
bounde : the thyrde, never to alter from that promes he hathe 
made for the mayntenance of peace and amytie betwene both the 
realmes. I had of hym besides thys, manie good words myselfe 
touchinge thys latter poynte." 1 

Again, the Reformers, in their zeal against superstition, made 
use of strong language which ought not to be interpreted literally, 
or viewed apart from the other sayings, and from the practice of 
its authors. Such is the character of the expressions of Zuing- 
lius, who said that man was lord of the Sabbath ; of Tyndale ; 
and of his convert, Frith (pp. 35, 36 of this volume). It is 
remarked of Tyndale and Frith, " These excellent men (cut 
off before the Reformation had made much progress in England, 
Frith in 1533, Tyndale three years afterwards), wrote at the time 
when the evil of the number of the Romish holidays, and the 
superstitious observance of them by the people, was so strongly 
felt, as to call for a check even from those who had not then em 
braced the opinions of the Reformers. Yet we should notice that 
they both speak of Sunday, as made the day of public religious 
instruction, instead of the ancient Sabbath ; and though Tyndale 
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 
gated the Jewish Sabbath." 2 We may add, that none of these 
men ever attempted to carry his vehement words into effect, and 
that Tyndale, as noted page 36, was evidently a devout observer 
of the Lord s day. But Luther was still more given to such 
paroxysms of zeal. "The law of Moses," Dr. Hengstenberg re- 

1 Letter from Kandolph (English Ambassador; to Cecil, in Wright s Queen Elizabeth 
and her Times, vol. i pp. .114, 115. 
3 James s Four Sermons, pp. 221, 222. 



CHARGE AGAINST THE REFORMERS. 465 

presents him as saying, " belongs to the Jews, and is no longer 
binding upon us. The words of Scripture prove clearly to us that 
the ten commandments do not affect us ; for God has not brought 
us out of Egypt, but only the Jews. We are willing to take 
Moses as a teacher, but not as our Lawgiver, except when he 
agrees with the New Testament, and with the law of nature." 1 
Hotter still he becomes, according to Coleridge, who treats us, in 
Table Talk, to the following explosion : " Keep it holy," are 
the words of the Reformer, " for its use sake, both to body and 
soul ! But if anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day s 
sake, if anywhere any one sets up its observance upon a Jewish 
foundation, then I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance 
on it, to feast on it, to do anything that shall reprove this en 
croachment on the Christian spirit and liberty." " 2 "As for the 
Sabbath or Lord s day," he remarks, " there is no necessity for 
keeping it ; but if we do so, it ought to be not on account of Moses 
commandment, but because nature teaches us from time to time to 
take a day of rest, in order that men and animals may recruit 
their strength, and that we may attend the preaching of God s 
word." 3 On other occasions, however, he declares that "it is 
good and necessary that men should keep a particular day ;" speaks 
of what " God requires of us in this [the fourth] commandment," 
and holds that, " because the Lord s day has been appointed from 
the earliest times, we ought to keep to this arrangement." It so 
far explains the two modes of expression to suppose, that the 
Reformer objects only to a superstitious regard for a day ; but 
the full verification of the saying, " Luther is to be interpreted 
by Luther," must, in the present instance, be sought for by com 
paring Luther less cool and informed, with Luther calm and in 
structed. He himself would not thank us for attempting to make 
him at one with himself, for he says, "If at the outset I 
inveighed against the law, both from the pulpit and in my writ 
ings, the reason was, that the Christian Church at the time was 
overladen with superstitions, under which Christ was altogether 
buried and hidden, and that I yearned to save and liberate pious 
and God-fearing souls from this tyranny over the conscience. But 



i Lord s Day, p. 61. 2 T abi e T^ vo i t ft pp . 315) 316&gt; 

* Miclielet s Life of Luther, Book iv. chap. ii. 



466 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

I have never rejected the law." " He who pulls down the law, 
pulls down at the same time the whole framework of human 
polity and society. If the law be thrust out of the Church, there 
will no longer be anything recognised as a sin in the world, since 
the gospel defines and punishes sin only by recurring to the law." 1 
And again, " Let us leave Moses to his laws, excepting only the 
Moralia, which God hath planted in nature, as &lt; the Ten Command 
ments. " 2 When, accordingly, John Agricola Islebius, the founder 
of the Antinomian party (1538), represented the Reformer as 
holding the doctrine, that the law was abrogated, the latter, in an 
epistolary exposure of the opinions of the party, said, " And truly 
I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me, that I 
should reject the law or ten commandments, there being so many 
of my own expositions (and those of several sorts) upon the com 
mandments, which also are daily expounded and used in our 
churches, to say nothing of the Confession, and Apology, and other 
books of ours. Add hereunto the custom we have to sing the 
commandments in two different tunes, besides the painting, print 
ing, carving, and rehearsing them by children, both morning, noon, 
and evening ; so that I know no other way than what we have 
used, but that we do not, alas ! as we ought, really express them 
in our lives and conversation." 3 As an evidence how sensible 
he was that his opinions were far from being infallible, we find 
that when a friend informed him of some persons in Belgium, 
who were offended at certain parts of his writings, his reply 
was, " When you meet with anything of no worth, delete it, 
delete it." 

Further, it is due to the Reformers to give prominence and 
weight to the latest expression of their sentiments. We have not 
seen any express indication on the part of Luther of " compunctious 
visitings " for Ms language respecting the Sabbath, yet we cannot 
but accord with a Lutheran writer in the conviction, that his com 
mentary on Genesis, written not long before his death, and ex 
pressing the formerly quoted, clear, decided views of the primitive 
appointment of the institution, with his hymns on the Decalogue, 
which he wished to be sung in the Church while he lived and 

1 For this and preceding quotation, see Michelet as above, chap iv. 

* Luther s Table Talk, No. 271. Rutherford s Spiritual Antichrist, p. TL 



CHARGE AGAINST THE REFORMERS. 467 

after he was gone, represented his latest Sabbatic opinions. 1 One 
of these hymns, composed in 1525, runs : 

" Honour my name in word and deed, 
And call on me. in time of need : 
Keep holy too the Sabbath-day, 
That work in thee I also may." 

And the other of the previous year, has the words : 

" Hallow the day which God hath blest, 
That thou and all thy house may -rest : 
Keep hand and heart from labour free, 
That God may have his work in thee." 2 

Lastly, it may even be allowed that the Reformers erred to 
some extent in regard to the weekly holy day, while it is held 
that they did not thereby forfeit their claim to be ranked among 
the friends of the institution, inasmuch as the truth decidedly 
outweighs the error. Calvin, Luther, and, indeed, all the prin 
cipal men of the Reformation except Knox, were of the opinion 
of Augustine and others of the Fathers, that the fourth was dis 
tinguished from the rest of the commandments by being partly of 
a ceremonial character. They seemed not to know how the trans 
ference of the sacred rest from the last to the first day of the 
week could be reconciled to the doctrine of a moral, unchangeable 
precept, and therefore adopted the theory of a double aspect of the 
commandment, one part being ceremonial which has passed away, 
the other being moral and enduring. The distinction is as unne 
cessary as it is untenable. The Second Commandment might as 
well be supposed to have a twofold character, inasmuch as the 
means of worship, which it rules, have been changed from Jewish 
to Christian ordinances. The alteration in both cases was in the 
circumstances of the law, provided for by positive appointment 
and special revelation, not in the law itself. The Sabbath had a 
ceremonial or typical character under the Levitical economy, but 
not so its royal precept. This was the distinction that ought to 
have been made by the Fathers and Reformers, but their adopt 
ing another, though an error, did not originate in a low estimate 

1 Brunsman, Sab. Quies, par, 215, 219. 

Geistliche Leider, Lend. (1845), pp. 53, 56, and Hassle s Translation, etc., pp 53, 55t 



468 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

Df the day of rest, which they regarded, the typical aspect having 
disappeared, as still the charge of a moral statute. The error, 
however, had the effect of perplexing their views on the subject, 
and leading to the use of certain expressions, which have exposed 
their respect for the institution to suspicion, and the cause itself 
to practical injury. Another matter in which all the Keforrners, 
with the exception again of Knox, appear to us to have more or 
less fallen into error, was that of holidays. We have seen that 
some would have removed such days entirely, which in fact was 
done in Geneva, and at Strasburg, and that the number of them in 
several instances was reduced. But none of the Eeformers was 
so decided in opinion and practice on the subject as Knox. Even 
Calvin treated the question as one of comparative unimportance. 
Whatever was the cause, Luther s early desire for the abolition of 
holidays was not fulfilled. The prejudice in favour of some of 
them was strong, as we learn from the feelings of the Bernese, 
of the Belgian magistrates, and of a few in Scotland, who con 
tinued to observe certain feast-days for some time after the Re 
formation. These observances were restored in Geneva, and have 
been permanently disregarded among Protestants only by the 
Psiritans of England, and the Presbyterians of Scotland, with their 
descendants in America and other countries, and by the mission 
ary churches which they have planted in various lands. But the 
failure of the good men of the Reformation to carry into effect 
Luther s desire for the disbanding of the holidays, while to be 
regretted, does not appear a sufficient ground for questioning their 
respect for the Lord s day, which, though in some instances it was 
classed by them as if it were only the chief in a series of such 
days, they repeatedly declared to be an express appointment of 
Heaven, and indispensable to the welfare of the church, withhold 
ing, at the same time, that honour from other days of rest and 
worship. 

Having endeavoured to present the Sabbatic opinions of the 
Reformers in the light of truth and facts, we venture to claim on 
their behalf from our readers a verdict of "not guilty" of the 
offence of hostility or even indifference to the institution. They 
erred, it is allowed, in some of their expressions and proceedings. 
They unhappily failed to distinguish between the Sabbath as it 



CBARGE AGAINST THE REFORMERS. 469 

stood in the Decalogue, and the Sabbath as connected with the 
judicial and ceremonial appendages of Judaism, and to eradicate 
what some of themselves called " the useless and hurtful practice 
of holiday keeping." Theirs, however, were the mistakes of ar 
dent friends of piety and good morals, who in eagerly opposing 
enormities fell into some errors, and in checking the gross abuse of 
the external and preceptive, as well as in aiming at a high measure 
of the spiritual and the voluntary in religion, did not sufficiently 
adjust the claims of the outward and the inward, of liberty and 
law. Knox avoided their mistakes. In 1547, he adopted, as 
the result of independent inquiry, the great principles, which 
guided his future career, and by which he was honoured to effect 
the most thorough of the salutary revolutions accomplished at 
the Reformation. In that year he taught at St. Andrews the 
doctrine that everything in religion ought to be regulated, not by 
the pleasure and appointment of men, but according to the Word 
of God, and in the same year maintained in a public disputation, 
that the church has no authority, on pretext of decorating Divine 
service, to devise ceremonies, and impose upon them significations 
of her own. Row, referring to the six ministers, including Knox 
and himself, who were employed to draw up the First Book of 
Discipline, says, " They took not their example from any kirk in 
the world ; no, not from Geneva ; but drew their plan from the 
sacred Scriptures." It was in this way, we believe, that Knox 
formed those views of the Sabbath, which were afterwards so 
fully expounded by the Puritans, and to which his country owes 
so much. That the Puritans were indebted to him on the subject, 
we do not affirm. We know that he took some part in revising 
the Articles of the English Church, effected some alterations in her 
service-book, had much influence with the authorities, and produced 
great impression by his preaching, while from 1549 to the end of 
1553 he resided in England ; and we should conceive it more likely 
that the Puritans borrowed from him, than, as has been supposed, 
he from them. But it is not necessary to suppose either case, as 
the more that men make the Scriptures their study and their rule, 
the uiore will they " see eye to eye. 



470 THE SABBATH IXKFEWT&gt;cn. 



CHAPTER II. 

MILTON AND OTHER EMINENT MEN. 

WE are not done yet with the argument which arrays against 
a holy Sabbath a few great names. Although it has failed as 
respects the Keformers, those who advance it have other names in 
reserve, of which the greatest is John Milton. True it is, that even 
after the Puritan training which he had received from his learned 
and idolized tutor, and after uttering as with " the tongues of 
angels" the praises of Him who 

" From work, 

Now resting, blessed and hallowed the seventh day, 
As resting on that day from all his work" 

Milton did indeed, by his latterly abandoning public and domes 
tic worship, and by a posthumous attack on the authority of 
the Christian Sabbath, lend his influence to opinions subversive 
of three kindred institutions, to which in his youth and man 
hood he owed the direction and impulse that issued in his noble 
prose writings, and in his yet nobler poetry. " In the dis 
tribution of his hours," as Dr. Johnson in his Life of the Poet 
observes, " there was no hour of prayer, either solitary or with 
his household ; omitting public prayers, he omitted all." In 
such circumstances, the less that is said of Milton s hostility 
to us the better. The melancholy change of religious practice, 
to which his biographer refers, not merely neutralizes his anti- 
Sabbatic influence, but is a potent argument for his former and 
against his latter creed. We would recommend to our op 
ponents to say nothing of another remarkable man, Selden, who 
has written more learnedly than satisfactorily respecting the Sab 
bath in his De Jure Naturali et Gentium. For they will be 



MILTON AND OTHERS. 471 

reminded that this prodigy of lore was a member of the West 
minster Assembly, did not appear to intimate at any of its meet 
ings dissent from its doctrine on the Sabbath, and subscribed the 
Solemn League and Covenant, while in the following words he 
takes a middle course between the tenets of the Confession of 
Faith, and those of the anti-Sabbatists : " Why should I think 
all the Fourth Commandment belongs to me, when all the Fifth 
does not 1 What land will the Lord give me for honouring my 
father 1 It was spoken to the Jews with reference to the land 
of Canaan, but the meaning is, if I honour my parents, God will 
also bless me. We read the commandments in the Church ser 
vice, as we do David s Psalms ; not that all concerns us, but a great 
deal of them does." 1 It is affirmed of Selden that he "seems to 
have been often led by the current of circumstances to act against 
his personal convictions." He, therefore, is not a man of suck 
religious and moral weight as to turn the scale against the per 
petual obligation of a weekly day of entire rest and worship. 
Exceptions might also be taken to others of the class, who are 
relied on as authorities against us. 

Were the question to be decided by mere names, the friends of 
the Sabbath would have no reason to shrink from the trial. But 
they disclaim such means of settling it. They bear in mind that 
no human being is infallible or to be held entitled to prescribe a 
creed to his fellow-creatures, that their duty is to try the spirits 
and prove all things, and that the greatest, wisest, and best of 
mankind fall into errors, which tend to recall us from confidence 
in men, to entire trust only in the Infinite. They yet, consistently 
with all this, believe that they ought to despise no man, that 
much importance may justly be attached to the opinions of the 
learned, and particularly of those who combine goodness with in 
telligence, and it becomes us to consider well before we dissent 
from views which have been entertained by persons of the greatest 
mental and moral excellence, and, especially, on which the Catho 
lic Church has uttered all but a unanimous voice. Before, then, 
we agree to follow Milton, let us hear what other oracles have 
uttered, and then bring all to the oracles that are sacred au-i 
Divine. 

i Table Talk, 1819, p. lt. 



472 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

In questions that concern our physical frame, we naturally apply 
for information, and appeal for judgment, to persons who have 
made the human body their study, or by reason of their occupa 
tions in life have had better means than others of knowing the 
effects of labour and rest. Dr. Carpenter, who stands at the head 
of physiologists, has said, " My own experience is very strong as 
to the importance of the complete rest and change of thought once 
in the week ;" and Dr. Farre s well-known testimony to the neces 
sity of the weekly Sabbath as respects health, has been corrobo 
rated by many physicians of this country and America, without 
having, so far as we have observed, been contradicted by any. " He 
could, as an old soldier," said Major- General Anderson of himself, 
at the recent annual meeting of the Sabbath Alliance, " give an 
emphatic testimony in favour of the Sabbath. For a good many 
years before he gave up his last command, his duties were of a 
more arduous nature than fell to the general lot of men, particu 
larly during the Crimean war, when latterly he knew not, from 
an early hour in the morning till a late hour at night, what 
it was to have an hour s rest. He looked forward with most 
anxious desire for the rest of the Sabbath, and felt on the Satur 
day as if he could not have gone on longer. But for the Sabbath, 
he hesitated not to say that he would have sunk under the pro 
tracted and incessant toil to which he was exposed. God blessed 
the Sabbath-day to his poor, exhausted frame ; he was strength 
ened, and, he trusted, refreshed also in spirit, so that he was 
able to discharge his duties till the close." 1 The sighs and 
groans of animal nature in man and beast, wherever oppressed 
by unbroken labour, proclaim the indispensable need of a Sab 
bath. 

Another valuable class of witnesses on this subject are our hard 
students, our philosophers, who are well acquainted with the laws 
of mind or matter ; our philologists, who are versed in languages 
and criticism ; and our men of historical research, who, in the 
successes and failures of the past, see rules and beacons for the 
present and future. Let the laborious Principal Forbes, Isaac 
Taylor, and Henry Rogers, express the value of the Sabbath to 
students. Lord Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Wallis, John 

i Daily Rtritw, February 11, 18(52. 



MILTON AND OTHERS. 473 

Lcke, and Sir David Brewster, shall guarantee the philosophy 
of the institution. Archbishop Ussher, Drs. Owen and Kenni- 
cott, Sir William Jones, Dr. Jamreson, Dr. Pye Smith, and Pro 
fessor S. Lee, have proved by their Sabbatic opinions some of 
them by their researches on the subject also that profound 
erudition has accepted and justified the commonly -received doc 
trine of the weekly rest ; while Principal Lee and Lord Macaulay, 
thoroughly versant in the annals of our country, have shed some 
vivid rays on our national obligations to the institution. 

Magistrates, statesmen, judges, divines, and moralists ought to 
be competent to say how far a Sabbath is valuable to the moral or 
the economical interests of a State. Oliver Cromwell and Washing 
ton knew well what was necessaiy to the defence and prosperity 
of a country, and the Sabbath was in their view essential to a 
virtuous and flourishing people. No judge has excelled Sir 
Matthew Hale, or lawyer, Blackstone, and they pleaded earnestly 
for a sanctified Sabbath. Lord Kames was both a judge and a 
philosopher, and his words were, " Sunday is a day of account, 
and a candid account every seventh day is the best preparation 
for the great day of account." No moral writer has surpassed 
Addison for simplicity and elegance, Johnson for power and 
vigour, and Foster for originality and depth, and they appreciated 
and commended the weekly rest. The most classical and beauti 
ful writer of the English language, and one of the most impres 
sive of pulpit orators, Robert Hall, was a conscientious observer of 
the Lord s day. The clear-headed, logical, and persuasive Ward- 
law defended a careful attention to Sabbatic duties. Henry, 
" the prince of commentators," and Bunyan, the author of the 
finest allegory in any language, pleaded for and practised the 
sanctification of the first day of the week. And the institution 
has been venerated by Howe, Bishop Hopkins, Lightfoot, Burnet, 
Stillingfleet, Tillotson, Doddridge, Dean Prideaux, Dr. Samuel 
Clarke, Rev. Thomas Scott, Dr. Dwight, Dr. M Crie, Dr. Paxton, 
Dr. Dick, Dr. John Brown, and many others of the greatest name 
in theological literature. 

Men of rank form a peculiar class, among whom temptations 
to vice are many and great, and any voice that proceeds from such 
a quarter calling for a weekly restraint on their own pleasures, 



474 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

and a general pause of labour to servants and working men, is 
entitled to respect. Such persons have been a Lord Harrington, 
a Lord Dartmouth, who could " wear a coronet and pray," and 
Lord Gambier ; and such are some of our nobility in present 
times. " Whether at sea or on shore," it is said of Lord 
Gambier, " our departed friend duly and devotedly observed the 
day of the Lord, that day which is so awfully desecrated in this 
Christian land. During the thirty years that I had the happi 
ness to number him in my congregation, his attendance in the 
sanctuary was uniform. Whoever was absent, he was there, as 
long as the state of his health would admit. Nor did he think 
it sufficient to come once to worship on the Sabbath : this pious 
servant of God made conscience of attending both the morning 
and evening services ; and whenever the Lord s Supper was ad 
ministered, he was a regular guest at the sacred table." 1 Nor 
have there been wanting instances of crowned heads, like our late 
King George in. and the Protector, who have not been ashamed 
to " Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy." 

It is not unimportant to have the testimony of persons of 
superior talents and sagacity adduced in favour of a cause of 
which they are not partisans or plighted supporters. Let those 
who would sneeringly impugn the sacred observance of the Lord s 
day, ponder the words of Sir Walter Scott, who was- placed in 
early life under a religious training as strict as any Covenanter or 
Puritan, and who, though no Sabbatarian, said, " Give to the 
world one-half of Sunday, and you will find that religion has 
no strong hold of the other." How far another mind, worthy of 
a station near the greatest, was indebted to the lessons and disci 
pline of a Sabbath, we are not aware. Dr. Sprague informs us 
that the Practical View had, according to the statement of Mr. 
Wilberforce, the author, the cordial approbation of Burke, who 
must have uttered his opinion in the year that he died. We 
know that the great statesman and orator sought his chief solace 
in the bosom of his family. We might presume also, from his 
language in condemning the sittings of the National Assembly of 

1 Ward s Funeral Sermon for Admiral Lord Gambier. He refers to his devout and 
fervent manner in worship, and his piety as not confined to stated seasons of devo 
tion, but hallowing and gladdening his whole life. Christian Observer (1833), 507. 



MILTON AND OTHEES. 475 

France on the Lord s day, that he had experienced its rest to be 
a benefit to Ms apdent and active spirit, which, fully knowing 
the injury of great tension of thought, could therefore prize the 
value of a stated interval of repose and relief .to its overtasked 
powers. Dr. Adam Smith was still more exempt, we suspect, 
from Sabbatic prepossessions than either Sir Walter Scott or Mr. 
Burke, and yet we find him attesting the importance of religious 
institutions to the welfare of society in his Wealth of Nations, 
and in his already cited words addressed to Sir John Sinclair. 

We have more than once adverted to Milton in connexion with 
the institution ; in one place as " surrendering every authoritative 
claim of the Lord s day, except what it derives from ecclesiastical 
appointment," 1 and in another as having discontinued the ob 
servance of public and private worship. Let us now see how the 
Sabbath was regarded by a few others, who, like him, by general 
acclaim, occupy a pre-eminent place among the intellectually great. 
Of Lord Bacon, it was said by Ben Jonson, that he seemed to 
him " one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that 
had been in many ages ;" and the lapse of time has detracted 
nothing from, but rather confirmed the eulogium. He erred, but. 
who has not 1 and the following words may be regarded as the 
language at once of the penitent, and of the friend to Christian 
institutions : " I have loved the assemblies, I have delighted in 
the brightness of thy sanctuary. . . . Thy creatures have been 
my books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have sought thee in 
the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found thee in thy 
temples." 2 Laplace, a fitting judge, has observed that the dis 
coveries and profound views presented in The Principia, " will 
insure to it a lasting pre-eminence over all other productions of 
the human mind ; " and it is deeply interesting to connect with 
this signal tribute to the genius of Sir Isaac Newton, the state 
ments of his biographer, that his observance of the religious insti 
tutions of his church was irreproachable, and that the book 
which he read with the greatest assiduity was the Bible. 3 In 
the same order of minds as Bacon and Newton, although he has 
not attained their high reputation, or exhibited their variety of 

1 Page 143. * Worltt (1852), vol. ii p. 406. 

Li/e (Tract Society), p. 82. 



476 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

gifts, some have been disposed to rank President Edwards^ of 
America, whose powers Hume, Mackintosh, Stewart, and Chal 
mers have alike honoured, and whom Kobert Hall characterized, 
somewhat extravagantly indeed, as the greatest of the sons of 
men. " Never," says Henry Rogers, " was a triumph of genius 
more decisive than that of Jonathan Edwards. By the concur 
rent voice of all who have perused his writings, he is assigned 
one of the first, if not the very first place, among the masters of 
human reason." 1 Now, Edwards was eminently a nurseling, as 
well as an unanswerable defender of the Sabbatic rest and influ 
ences ; and " his observation of the Sabbath was such as to 
make it throughout a day of real religion ; so that not only were 
his conversation and reading conformed to the great design of the 
day, but he allowed himself in no thoughts or meditations which 
were not of a decidedly religious character." 2 

More important far, however, than worldly rank, scholarship, 
talent, or genius, is moral excellence ; and it is one of the chief 
glories of the Sabbath that it has ever been the object of venera 
tion and regard to the men who have risen to the highest point in 
the scale of piety, or been the most ardent in benevolent exertion 
and philanthropic enterprise. Where shall we find the fire of 
devotion and love burn more intensely than in the breasts of 
Baxter, Rutherford, Leighton, Brainerd, Simeon, Bickersteth 1 or 
bowels of compassion for suffering humanity yearn more tenderly 
aud constantly than in Howard, Clarkson, Wilberforce, Buxton 1 
or zeal for the glory of God, and desire for the eternal good of men 
glow more strongly than in Eliot, Martyn, Carey, Chalmers 1 all 
of whom felt the Sabbath to be a delight, and esteemed the holy of 
the Lord, honourable. And some there have been, as Jonathan 
Edwards, in whom it is hard to say whether the powers of intel 
lect, or the religious affections, were the more transcendent. It is 
a memorable saying of Dr. Chalmers : " We never, in the whole 
course of our recollections, met with a Christian friend, who bore 
upon his character every other evidence of the Spirit s operation, 
who did not remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy ;" 3 and the 
fervent M Cheyne asks, " Can you name one godly minister, of 

1 Essay on the Genius anc] Writings of Jonathan Edwards, prefixed to Work* 
(1839), p. 1. 2 Works (1S30), Life, p. cexxv. Wtrrfa, vol. ix. ;&gt;. 3S5. 



MILTON AND OTHERS. 477 

any denomination in all Scotland, who does not hold the duty of 
the entire sanctification of the Lord s day 1 Did you ever meet 
with a lively believer in any countiy under heaven one who 
loved Christ, and lived a holy life who did not delight in keep 
ing holy to God the entire Lord s day I" 1 

It is recorded of Eliot, the missionary, "His observance of 
the Sabbath was remarkable. He knew that our whole religion 
fares according to our Sabbaths ; that poor Sabbaths make poor 
Christians ; and that a strictness in our Sabbaths inspires a vigour 
into all our other duties. Hence, in his work among the Indians, 
he brought them, by a particular article, to bind themselves, as a 
principal means of confirming them in Christianity, To remem 
ber the Sabbath-day tu keep it holy, as long as we live. For 
himself, the sun did not set the evening before the Sabbath 
till he had begun his preparation for it. Every day was a 
sort of Sabbath to him ; but the Sabbath-day was with him 
a type and foretaste of heaven ; nor would you hear anything 
drop from his lips on that day but the milk and honey of that 
country, in which there yet remaineth a rest for the people of 
God. " 2 

Howard thus writes, "Turin, Nov. 30, 1769. My return 
without seeing the southern part of Italy was on much delibera 
tion, as I feared a misimprovement of a talent spent for mere 
curiosity at the loss of many Sabbaths, and as many donations [to 
the poor] must be suspended for my pleasure." 

"Hoping," he said, at a later period, "I shall be carried safely 
to my native country and friends, and see the face of my dear 
boy in peace, remember, my soul, to cultivate a more serious, 
humble, thankful, and resigned temper of mind. As thou hast 
seen more of the world by travelling than others more of the 
happiness of being born in a Protestant country, and the dreadful 
abuse of holy Sabbaths so may thy walk, thy Sabbaths, thy con 
versation, be more becoming the Holy Gospel. Let not pride and 
vanity fill up so -much of thy thoughts ; learn here [in Rome] the 
vanity and folly of all earthly grandeur ; endeavour to be a wisei 
and better man when thou returnest. Kemember many eyes will 

1 Memoir and Remains (1846), pp. 561, 562- 
Mitzionary Register, vol. ii. (for 1814), p. 310. 

21* 



478 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

be upon thee, and, above all, the eye of that God before whom 
thou will shortly have to appear." 

" As will have been gathered from the foregoing, Sunday was 
with Howard a sacred day a section of times not belonging to 
this life or to this world. He never travelled, nor did any manner 
of work on it. When on the road, he rested the Sabbath over 
in whatsover place the accidents of the journey might have con 
ducted him to. If no opportunities offered for attending public 
worship, he retired for the whole day into his secret chamber, and 
passed it in pious services and spiritual self-examinations. "* 
i Bison s iifeq/ Howard (aaeoad edition), pp. 10T, 119, 120. 



THEORIES TRIED. 479 



CHAPTEK III. 

THEORIES TRIED BY THE PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVINE 
GOVERNMENT. 

IT is intended to apply in some following chapters certain tests 
derived from both Reason and Revelation, to the leading opinions 
that have been entertained on the subject of the Sabbath, with 
the view of adjudicating on their conflicting claims. As we pro 
ceed, occasion will be afforded for adverting to the more important 
arguments which have been advanced, and to several schemes 
which have been propounded, in reference to the institution. The 
test to be applied in this chapter is furnished in those principles 
of the Divine government, which are discovered in its history, and 
more plainly in the inspired volume. 

1. One of such principles is unity of plan. In proving "the 
unity" of God from " the uniformity" observable in the physical 
universe, Dr. Paley has truly and beautifully said, " We never get 
amongst such original or totally different modes of existence as to 
indicate that we are come into the province of a different Creator, 
or under the direction of a different will." l In confirmation of 
this statement, he refers, among various facts, to the one law of 
attraction carrying all the planets about the sun, one atmosphere 
investing and connecting all parts of the globe, one moon in 
fluencing all tides, and one kind of blood circulating in all ani 
mals. What is true of the material is no less true of the moral 
world in all its known provinces and eras. In physical nature we 
observe an endless variety of bodies and phenomena under the 
uniform regulation of great common principles, and in like man 
ner, amidst a diversity of circumstances and forms, we discover a 
pervading unity in .the laws of the moral government of God. 
We find the same benevolence, sovereignty, and love of righteous- 

1 Works, Nat. Theol. ch. xxv. 



480 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

ness reigning in the Divine procedure ; one Saviour for Jew and 
Gentile, one method of justification, and one indispensable requi 
site of regeneration, in all ages ; one kind of worship substantially 
offered, and one moral code obeyed, by Adam, Abraham, Moses, 
David, and Paul ; and one Church, which, in obedience to the 
Divine call " Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch 
forth the curtains of thine habitations" (Isa. liv. 2) has passed 
from a circumscribed into an extended economy. In holding that 
the great Master has ever regulated the time of his servants 
that the King of kings has never been without his appointed 
seasons for receiving the petitions and homage of his subjects, the 
theories that maintain a permanent and universal Sabbath pre 
serve the consistency of the Divine administration. But the other 
theories violate this harmony when they suppose that for many 
centuries there was no Sabbath at all, and then, for many more, a 
Sabbath rigidly ruled, and when they countenance either the 
entire abolition of the sacred day, or the new appointment of a 
partial one, a dies intercisus, or the opinion that the arrangement 
of resting and holy time has been left entirely to human dis 
cretion. We confidently ask whether, in passing from the Patri 
archal to the Jewish, and then to the Christian manner of religion 
and life as represented by these theories, we do not find ourselves 
amongst so original and totally different modes of existence as to 
indicate that we are come under the direction of a different will 1 
2. It is at the same time a character of the Divine government 
that its plans are progressive in their development ; that, while 
the great outlines are in all ages the same, there is a gradual fill 
ing up of the scheme. Paley and others imagine a transition 
from no Sabbath to one whose rules were of the most stringent 
description, a view implying not only a violent change utterly 
unlike the usual method of the Divine procedure, but the intro 
duction of an entirely new principle, of which we have no paral 
lel case in the history of the moral government of God. "We may 
indeed be reminded of the Incarnation as an unprecedented fact, 
peculiar to the latest dispensation of religion, but this fact did not 
burst on an unprepared world ; it was intimated in the first pro 
mise, it was more clearly made known in the prophecies that fol 
lowed, it was shadowed by frequent appearances of the Divinity 



THEORIES TRIEB. 481 

in human form, and its benefit was really enjoyed by all believers 
in ancient times. It is like the Atonement, which, though not 
actually made till thousands of years had elapsed, was from the 
beginning a declared principle and felt blessing of religion. The 
objection from the Incarnation would be in point, if the Sabbath 
had been anticipated and its good realized long before it came 
into existence. This, however, could not be. Advantage may 
and does spring from a future moral fact, but not from a prospec 
tive institute. Nor is the theory which restricts the Sabbath of 
Christianity to the old day less opposed to the principle of pro 
gress. While Paley introduces an element so new in its nature, 
and so abrupt in its entrance, as to disturb the orderly and equable 
march of the Divine government, this altogether arrests it, and 
stays progress and improvement. It stereotypes a moral precept 
on a mere accident. It is an attempt, however undesigned, to 
perpetuate Judaism. It reverses the command to forget the 
things which are behind, and to reach forth to those which are 
before. How much more consonant that any of these theories, 
to an identical and yet advancing scheme, is that of a Sabbath 
which, as the same holy and benignant institution in all time, 
presents a history, not of unnatural stagnation or of violent tran 
sitions, but of harmony with the unfolding plans of its Author, 
subserving the piety and bliss of paradise ; then sustaining the 
hope of a coming Saviour, as well as faith in the Creator ; now 
commemorating, along with the ever-to-be-remernbered fact of 
a finished creation, the more glorious fact of a perfected redemp 
tion, and offering a more immediate and satisfying foretaste of 
heavenly joy and, finally, receiving its highest and most last 
ing honour at the consummation of all things, when, entirely 
transferred to the world above, it will be the sole measure of the 
eternal life ! 

3. A regard to order is a manifest feature of the Divine rule. 
" God is not the author of confusion." He who requires that all 
things should be " done decently and in order," is Himself the 
perfection and pattern of His own law. The Great Master " gives 
authority to His servants, and to every man his work." In cor 
respondence with this principle of order which pervades the Divine 
administration, and which prevails in every well-regulated society 

2 H 



482 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

among men, is the theory which affirms a perpetual Sabbath ; 
which affirms, in other words, that the Ruler of the world has 
never failed to legislate on one of the most important affairs of His 
Court and Kingdom the days when He will confer favours on 
His people, and receive their homage. But how strange and ano 
malous are the views supposed by other theories that, while man 
kind in general have had their distribution of time for secular 
work and sacred service, the only possessors of a true religion 
should for many generations have been without such arrangement ; 
that while " gods many and lords many" "which are yet no gods," 
have received the tribute of periodical holy days, the only living 
and true God should have been without this order and honour, 
and should have introduced the custom only after it had been 
practised by idolaters and outcasts from His favour ; that He who 
regulates the time for all other things, for daily labour and nightly 
repose, for sowing and reaping, for the migrations of the swallow 
and the fall of a sparrow equally as for the removal of kings and 
the destruction of empires, in short, " for every purpose," should 
have, in any instance, omitted the prescription of a season for His 
own immediate service, and what is especially remarkable, that 
He should appoint such a season for the Jews and not for the 
Patriarchs or for Christians ! Such views involve a charge of dis 
order, derogatory to the perfection of that "kingdom which ruleth 
over all," And yet the notion of a rigid adherence to one day, 
the seventh, while it seems a tribute to order, may in reality be an 
imputation to the Divine Government of a human frailty which 
so often amongst us perverts a noble virtue into the vice of a 
slavish punctiliousness. The Disposer of time is not under its 
control. " He changeth the times and the seasons." " The Son 
of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." He who commanded 
Israel on their coming out of Egypt to commence their year in a 
different month, and who abolished the years, months, and days 
of the Jewish ceremonial, has it no less in His power to say, " It 
is my will that henceforth the first instead of the last day of the 
week shall be the day of rest to the world, and the day of my 
special worship." Such a change would only be agreeable to the 
authority which the God of order claims and has_repeatedly exer 
cised over man s time, while not to exert it in this case might be 



THEORIES TRIED. 483 

to transgress the higher order of assigning to Redemption its 
proper precedency among the Divine works. 

4. Among the excellencies of the Divine government is that 
" goodness which endureth continually." If we refer to provi 
dence, Scripture and facts assure us that " the Lord is good to 
all," and that " his tender mercies are over all his works," while 
He is peculiarly kind to " them that love him, and are the called 
according to his purpose," to whom " all things work together for 
good." If we turn to the scheme of redemption, we find that it 
has uniformly combined with saving mercy to some, a bountiful 
proffer of its blessings to all. Now it is not in accordance with 
either the general philanthropy or the special love of God to 
conceive that the Sabbath is not a provision for all time. It is 
contrary to His benevolence to suppose that many centuries had 
passed away ere mankind were favoured with an institution which 
has been proved to be in all respects so conducive, and even indis 
pensable, to their wellbeing ; and it is especially contradictory to 
that peculiar regard which the God of salvation entertains for His 
own obedient children, to imagine that He should have withheld 
so great a boon as the Sabbath from such men as Enoch, Noah, and 
Abraham. Christianity is, still more than preceding dispensations, 
distinguished by its catholicity and benevolence ; and how incon 
gruous the idea, that it has entirely set aside a law which provides 
a periodical rest for man and beast, or that, beyond two or three 
hours for public worship, it has made no appointment for the still 
more important interests of the soul ! And what shall be said of 
their views who, admitting the benignant character, and expediency 
of the institution, maintain nevertheless that there is no express 
authority for the Lord s day ? No express authority for a day which 
is essential to the welfare of men and the lower animals ! The 
notion, on other grounds untenable, is a reflection on the love and 
care of the universal Kuler, and equally on the grace of the Author 
of Christianity, as it implies that the former could cease to pre 
serve man and beast, and that the latter would abandon His friends 
to perpetual and perplexing uncertainty respecting the seasons of 
Divine worship. A better theory, however, not only leaves un- 
iinpeached, but glorifies the goodness of God, since it teaches the 
doctrine of a Sabbath instituted for man from the beginning, and 



484 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

destined to continue to the end of time, a Sabbath, too, which 
would have been universally and uninterruptedly possessed, had 
men not cast off its salutary but for them too holy restraints and 
demands, and which the good have never failed to be favoured 
with, to prize, and to enjoy. That there is no want of express 
authority for the Christian Sabbath is obvious, not at present to 
mention still more convincing considerations, from the remarkable 
harmony among true Christians in the matter, from their readi 
ness in general to recognise the obligation of the institution with 
out feeling any doubt or difficulty in regard to the path of duty, 
and from the profit and pleasure received by them in proportion 
as they devote a whole day in seven to holy rest. And would not 
that small minority of Christians who honour the Divine goodness 
by holding in common with their brethren the perpetuity of the 
Sabbath, still more honour it if they were brought to see that in 
checking a superstitious fondness for mere times, and in magni 
fying the new creation by the transference of the ordinance from 
the day of a preparatory economy, to that which ushered in the 
better covenant, it has won for itself not the least of its benign 
glories ? 

5. The Divine Ruler must regulate His subjects by laws. 
Without these there could be no good government. A state of 
things in which every one is allowed to do what he pleases, is 
identical with disorganization, disorder, and all evil. Better far 
any government than none. The reign of Jehovah is a reign of 
law. Even among those who have not liked to retain Him in 
their knowledge, His law is recognised by their consciences. And 
where He has favoured any of the human race with the revela 
tion of His merciful designs towards man, whether immediately 
after the fall, or after they had lost sight of them, there He has 
at the same time made known His will as to all that they 
should do in His service. The patriarchs and the Jews had the 
means of directing them in their conduct. And so have Chris 
tians. They " are not without law to God, but under the law to 
Christ." And what the excellence of the law of God is we are 
abundantly informed. It is perfect, exceeding broad, spiritual,. 
hty&gt; Just? and good. 

But certain theories of the Sabbath appear to be irreconciJ 



THEORIES TRIED. 485 

able with this character of the Divine government, by detracting 
from the excellence, if they do not even set aside the obliga 
tion, of the law of God. For many centuries, according to several 
of them, there was no rule for a Sabbath ; during the period of 
the Mosaic economy, there were very definite, and full, and solemn 
regulations on that subject ; and, under Christianity, there is no 
authorized day for rest and worship, say some, and none, say 
others, beyond the appropriation of a day to rest, and of a few 
of its hours to Divine service. And yet the supporters of all 
these theories regard the Sabbath as a great and indispensable 
blessing. But such views exhibit Divine legislation as at one 
time complete and at another imperfect, wholly or in part over 
looking the provision of an acknowledged necessary boon and 
direction relative to the important matter of the seasons in which 
the social worship of God is to be observed ; in other words, as 
a matter of partiality and fluctuation. Nor is this all. These 
theorists set aside from being a law to us not only the Fourth 
Commandment, but the other nine as given from Sinai. The 
laws of the New Testament, according to them, are our only rule 
of conduct. Thus we are without law. For the New Testament 
has no law of its own. It is a commentary, not a law. 

The doctrine of a perpetual Sabbath, on the other hand, recog 
nises the Divine law as, like its Author, perfect and immutable ; 
as holy and impartial, prescribing the same distribution of time for 
men of all ages and nations as good, setting forth the Divine will 
in clear and unequivocal terms, and providing a day of rest and 
worship adapted for all. Let it not be considered as a satisfactory 
reply to this view, that some things were required of the Jews 
that are not required of us, and that many such changes have 
taken place under the government of God. It is true that the an 
cients were to offer sacrifice in anticipation of a Saviour, while we 
are to observe the Lord s Supper in memory of a Saviour ; that 
there is a wide difference between heathen men and Christians, in 
respect of the measure of obligation and responsibility ; that the 
Jews were to observe certain feasts, annual and monthly, as well 
as the sacred rest of the seventh day of the week, while we are to 
observe only one stated day, and that, the first day of the week* 
The varieties in all these cases are in the circumstances of man- 



486 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

Jrind, not in the law. These circumstances determine the 
cation of the one law, without altering it by a single jot or tittle. 
To imagine, however, a change from no Sabbath to a Sabbath, 
and then from a Sabbath to none at all, or to one that is limited 
to two or three hours, is to imagine a change not in the circum 
stances but in the essential principles of law and government, 
since one day of rest and worship in the seven is a statute founded 
on the Divine example at the Creation of the world, and on the 
demonstrated demands of the human constitution : moreover, be 
the matter what it may, we are not legislators, but subjects bound 
in everything to obey our Divine Sovereign, who has given us a 
rule that embraces all our thoughts, words, and actions. And 
whatever changes may take place in the circumstances of the Sab 
bath, it is not conceivable that these can ever be in the direction 
of diminishing its value or the amount of its time. The new fact 
of a finished redemption, and the increased privileges entailed by 
it, only serve more clearly to show the importance of the institu 
tion, and to supply motives for its more spiritual and earnest ob 
servance ; while, instead of subtracting from its allotted and neces 
sary time, they direct our views, and approximate us more nearly 
to the eternal period when the condition of man no longer requir 
ing the labour of six days for the supply of his bodily wants, his 
whole time shall be sacred time ; his exclusive occupation that of 
keeping a Sabbath. 

We deny not to those friends of the institution who cling to 
its ancient day the credit of a conscientious respect for the law 
of the Ten Commandments. But we conceive that their scheme 
and pleadings do, in fact, misrepresent and dishonour that law. 
It is right to ascertain and vindicate its real meaning. But 
assuredly the Lawgiver must be the best interpreter of His own 
law. Now, we find two things done by His apostles, who must 
have acted in both by His authority, else their writings are not 
a part of the Word of God, nor their example, though expressly 
declared to be so, a ride for us. The Jewish Sabbath-days are 
repealed, as " a shadow of things to come," and yet on the first 
day of the week, worshipping assemblies are repeatedly declared 
to be held by the apostles and the Christian churches. While it 
would be as absurd to infer from these facts a change in the 



THEORIES TRIED. 487 

fourth commandment as it would be to suppose that the fifth is 
no longer binding on those who are not resident in "the land" 
to which it primarily referred; on the other hand, it would be 
no less absurd, in opposition to inspired interpretation, to construe 
the former as binding us to the observance of the seventh day. 
Let it be observed, in a word, that an opinion which insists on 
such a meaning of the expression, " the seventh day," as brings 
the statute into collision with apostolic appointment and practice, 
when the language admits of another and harmonious explanation, 
and which lends a perpetual glory to a day no longer, according 
to a sacred writer, to be gloried in, strikes, in one blow, at the 
authority of the New Testament, of the Sabbath law, and of the 
entire Decalogue. 

6. In close connexion with the principle of an administration 
by law, is another principle in the government of God, that of an 
exclusively Divine legislation. It is the prerogative of the Most 
High to frame and authorize the rules by which His worship and 
service are to be conducted. According as this right is recognised 
in Sabbatic theories may we estimate their truth. 

Theorists have not been satisfied with shaping Divine laws to 
their own views and wishes, but, to complete the dishonour done 
to the Lawgiver, they have fancied man himself rightfully vault 
ing into the seat, and seizing the reins of government. The 
Church, say some, has the power of enacting a weekly holy day. 
The State has it, say others. Every man, says a third class, is in 
this matter a law to himself. The advocates of a Sabbath ap 
pointed by the Supreme Ruler for all time, while recognising, as 
we have seen, the existence and perfection of the Divine law, 
acknowledge also the authority of its Author as exclusive, admit 
ting of no co-ordinate rule, and leaving no legislative power in the 
hands of creatures. 

The civil power may undertake too much, and burden itself 
with matters which would be better left to individual discretion 
and private arrangement. And yet were the surveillance perfect, 
there would be reason rather for satisfaction than for complaint. 
It is because private .associations and individuals know best how to 
promote their own interests, and are in this way larger benefactors 
of the State, that a redundancy of law is an evil. But the legis- 



488 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

lation of infinite intelligence, jnstice and goodness, cannot be too 
comprehensive and supreme. 

There is but "one Lawgiver," and His law is "exceeding 
broad." In instituting the ancient worship, everything, down to 
the smallest vessel and pin, was embraced in His prescriptions. 
How frequently are we told that this and that part of the work 
in the construction of the tabernacle, and this and the other par 
ticular in its connected service, were done " as the Lord com 
manded Moses ! " And the temple as well as the tabernacle was 
built and furnished according to a Divine pattern. Nor, in 
settling the affairs of the Christian economy, was the Head of 
the Church less mindful of His prerogative, or of the good of 
men. " Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant, but 
Christ as a Son over His own house." The sole Lawgiver still 
rejects from the rule of His Church, "the commandments of 
men." The apostles enacted no laws, instituted no ordinances. 
Their business was to " teach all things whatsoever their Master 
commanded them." They disclaimed " dominion over the faith" 
of their disciples. And their instructions have been deposited in 
the New Testament as the complement of Revelation, that volume 
which is not to be altered, and by which all the teachings of in 
dividuals, and all the dogmas of councils are to be tried. 

It is, as with other things, so with the appropriation of time. 
As to this also we are under a complete and exclusive law. He 
who has appointed to every thing its time, and who " changeth 
the times and the seasons," has ever refused to give this " glory to 
another." In the instance even of ritual observance, Elijah shall 
wait for, and Gabriel respect, the time of the evening sacrifice, 
and the man " who made Israel to sin" is held forth to execra 
tion for "devising of his own heart" the day of a religious feast. 
It is an antagonist of " the Most High and of His saints," an 
anti-Christian power, that is predicted as "thinking to change times 
and laws," as, in other words, " presuming to alter the appointed 
seasons and the law." 1 And the Lawgiver is as "jealous" as ever 
of His prerogative : " For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sab 
bath." When do we find Him surrendering this Divine right, and 
conveying it to any man or number of men 1 Among His last words 

1 Wintle s Version. 



THEORIP:S TRIED. 489 

on earth were : " All power is given unto me in heaven and in 
earth." When, therefore, the Pope ventured to substitute " festi 
vals" 1 for the "Sabbath-day," in the Fourth Commandment, and 
otherwise to claim a power over the institution, he perpetrated not 
the least of the enormities of that usurped authority by which he 
conceives himself at liberty to suspend, alter, or abrogate Divine 
laws, and serves himself heir to the names and to the doom of 
"the opponent of the Most High," and "the man of sin." 
Closely did they follow in his track who devised, proclaimed, and 
patronized " The Book of Sports." And to plead, as Archbishop 
Whately does, for the right of the Church, and, as others do, for 
the right of the State, to institute a Sabbath, are surely errors of 
the same description, and, however plausibly presented, infringe 
ments as real of His prerogative, who is Head of the Church and 
Lord of the Sabbath. 

And let not those who maintain that all days are now alike, 
and nevertheless observe a weekly Sabbath from mere considera 
tions of its utility, or of its former or present prevalence, imagine 
that their views escape the charge of interference with the Divine 
prerogative. These views tend to the conclusions, that the Deity 
has abdicated his dominion over the times of worship, and aban 
doned men in that matter to anarchy and confusion. They hold 
that sacred days have been abrogated, and yet they keep them, 
in other words, they institute an ordinance, and make a law, " of 
their own hearts." 

Nor can the theory which maintains the continued obligation 
of the seventh day stand the test of the principle now under con 
sideration. If the Sabbath be in all respects simply moral, it 
must also be to that extent immutable. That the appropriation 
of a seventh day to rest and worship is moral, positive, and, on 
earth, unchangeable, we admit. It is not more conceivable that 
this law of Creation and of Sinai could be repealed in the pre 
sent state than that the whole economy of nature could be sub 
verted. It is as impossible that the consecration of one day in 
seven to sacred service should be set aside in this world as that 

1 Eicordati di Santificare le Feste Remember to keep holy the festivals. Dottrina 
Cristiana, etc., p. 24 (composed by Bellarmine, by order of Clement vin., and approved 
by th Congregation of Reform). 



490 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

the second or the fifth precept should be obliterated from the 
Decalogue. The continued demand for such a day, at once by the 
physical wants and by the spiritual necessities of man, is an ad 
ditional evidence of its moral character and of its permanence. 
But the Lord of the Sabbath not only refused to impose the ob 
servance of the Jewish " sabbath-days" on His Gentile followers, 
but after His resurrection paid no respect to them in His own 
practice, met with His disciples on the first day of the week, and 
was imitated in His regard for the latter by all the Christian 
churches of whose assemblies for worship there is any account. 
Circumstances, as we have already seen, are mentioned, showing 
that arrangements were made for it as the stated and understood 
day of such meetings. It follows that there was something in 
the old Sabbath which could be changed, that the institution ad 
mitted of transference from the last to the first day of the week ; 
and as it has appeared that various theorists have asserted for 
human beings the power of appointing a Sabbath, it is now as 
manifest, that there are others who refuse to accord to the Divine 
Lawgiver that prerogative of " changing the times and the sea 
sons," which He has challenged for Himself, and which His own 
proceedings, and the practice of the apostles proved Him to have 
exercised. 



THEOJJIES TRIKD. 491 



CHAPTEK IY. 

THEOEIES TEIED BY THEIR TENDENCIES AND RESULTS. 

REASON itself might and frequently does decide on such ques 
tions as are now under trial, by pronouncing certain opinions to 
be sound or the opposite according to their manifest operations 
and effects. The character of the Divine government as revealed 
in Scripture leads to the same conclusions, for it is a government 
of truth and righteousness which by its constitution, and demands 
on mankind, proves itself favourable to whatever is just, true, and 
good, and hostile to " the unfruitful works of darkness." In like 
manner, the Word of God expressly declares the fruits of dogmas 
to be a test of their merits, and connects the evidence for the 
truth of its predictions respecting the ultimate prevalence of Chris 
tianity with the benign influences of Christian institutions, and the 
virtues of Christian men. Let us therefore apply this test of good 
tendency and results as a means of enabling us to judge between 
the contending pretensions of theories on the subject before us. 

We must here class together the " no Sabbath" and the 
" every-day Sabbath" opinions, as, how different soever in their 
professed moral objects, they are agreed in their antagonism to a 
periodical holy day. For illustrations of the influence of the for 
mer creed, we refer to the most degraded parts of the heathen 
world, to the worst characters of European society, and to France 
after she had discarded her weekly Sabbath. If Scotsmen or 
Englishmen, who are favoured in temporal things beyond all other 
nations, and those of them who are blessed above many of their own 
countrymen, long to be reduced to the condition of savages, slaves, 
devils incarnate or their victims, let them retire from a country 
which they dishonour, and establish a Sabbathless community, but 
let them not suppose that their views will influence any one whom 
reason and common sense have not forsaken. And as it is a fact, 



492 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

that nothing great or good has ever sprung up in a land entirely 
destitute of sacred time, so it is equally true that a region of the 
earth in which all time was alike holy has never been witnessed, 
a fact, which is itself a proof that neither the great Ruler nor the 
mass of mankind have ever approved of the introduction on earth 
of an arrangement which is adapted only for the constitution and 
circumstances of the inhabitants of heaven. Some approach has 
indeed been made to it in the manifold holidays of the Church of 
Rome ; but a church which has done so little comparatively for the 
religion or for any interest of the world is not a model to be 
copied by patriots or philanthropists. And looking to the few 
who have at any time embraced the theory, we shall admit that 
aiming at too much they have lost all, and exposed themselves to 
the charge thus caustically expressed : 

" Shrewd men, indeed, these new reformers are ! 
Each week-day is a Sabbath, they declare : 
A Christian theory ! the un-Christian fact is, 
Each Sabbath is a week-day in their practice." 1 

The professed believers in all other mistaken theories declare 
that they maintain the usefulness, or even necessity of a weekly 
day of rest. We must reason with them on this their own avowed 
principle ; and, if it can be proved that they cannot hold both the 
principle and their theories, they ought to renounce the latter, and 
give their influence to an institution which they admit to be salu 
tary or indispensable to the good of mankind. 

The class of theorists who have entertained the doctrine of the 
perpetual seventh-day Sabbath have been so few, and so sur 
rounded by the influences of more prevailing sentiments, as to 
afford but limited means of enabling us to judge respecting the 
religious and moral character which the system contributes to form, 
or the good of any kind which it tends to diffuse. The very fact 
of the limited extent to which the theory has prevailed is un 
favourably significant, and fatal, we conceive, to its claim of being 
the Sabbath of God or the Sabbath for man. The cause of truth, 
indeed, has sometimes been intrusted to a few hands, as when the 
witnesses for true religion are represented as being only two, while 
the world wondered after the Beast. But that in times alike of 

1 Washington Irving. 



THEORIES TRIED. 493 

prosperity and of adversity, of a reviving and declining religion, so 
few holding the doctrine in question should be found in any part 
of the world, is surely a proof that it is possessed of little vital 
power, and not destined to regenerate and bless the world. What, 
for instance as, judging from the limited observance of the last day 
of the week, we may be permitted to ask would have become of 
the Sabbath itself, the instrument of so much good, if other views 
of it had not prevailed 1 The same unanswerable objection applies 
to the dogma which would convert the days of creation into mil 
lenary cycles and confound, to borrow an expression of Bishop 
Horsley, the writing of a history with the composition of riddles. 

The view which confines the ground of the Sabbatic institution 
to apostolic practice and appointment virtually sets aside a day of 
sacred rest. On the supposition of a previously-enacted and still- 
existing law providing for such a day, the language and proceed 
ings of the apostles are all that the new dispensation required. 
But they are not complete or sufficient as an independent authority 
for an entirely Christian institute. The apostles, in their mention 
of the first day of the week, say nothing of its design and observ 
ance beyond those of public worship, and contributions of our 
substance to the poor ; nothing of further rest from secular 
labour ; nothing, in short, of the way in which the greater part 
of a whole day, and that " the Lord s day," is to be spent. 
Whether, then, we consider the divine manner of clearly defining 
the purposes and duties of religious ordinances, or the uselessness 
of any law that is indefinite and doubtful, we are shut up to the 
conclusion, which other considerations no less demand, that we 
must seek in the Old Testament as well as in the New in primi 
tive institution and in Sinaitic legislation, as well as in Apostolic 
instruction and example for the obligations and characters that 
complete the Christian Sabbath. It is well for the institution 
and for mankind that few of the best friends of both have adopted 
a theory which rejects the Divine and only adequate security for 
a periodical day of rest to man and beast, and secularizes all but 
a few hours in the week, thus frustrating both the moral and 
physical ends of sacred time, and exposing its tiny spark to ex 
tinction on an ocean of worldly business, pleasures, and cares. 

Those who call in question the primeval origin of the Sabbath 



494 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

are chargeable with doing an injury and a wrong to the institu 
tion. They would remove one of its main pillars the evidence, 
afforded by its appointment at so early a period, to prove its 
destination for the race. They would take away from its vener- 
ableness ; they would disprove, if they could, its necessity. Their 
theory says, " The patriarchs lived and died without a Sabbath, 
attaining long life and high measures of moral excellence indepen 
dently of its aid ; and what they could dispense with so may we." 
And who would care to contend for a Jewish ceremony which the 
experience of the patriarchs has proved to be a local and tem 
porary expedient, useless to men in general, nay, if useless, an 
encumbrance and an evil ? 

Certain theorists, by grounding the institution on human 
authority, ecclesiastical or civil, place it on a foundation of sand. 
The conscience is not reached. The law must vary with every 
latitude and every reign. Independence and caprice, allowed 
exemption from the immediate control of a Supreme Being, de 
clare " that they will not be trammelled where the Creator has 
left man free." The love of pleasure or of gain says, " I will take 
such a law into my own hands, and spurn enactments which stand 
in the way of my interest and gratification." Thus made supreme 
in a matter in which the feelings are opposed to restraint, how 
can it be conceived that man s submission to Sabbatic law can be 
either hearty or lasting, or that the law itself can stand ? 

We have yet to compare, in respect of adaptations and effects, 
the creed on which the Christian Sabbath is founded with that of 
not a few who would improve on it. The latter and their nos 
trums may be thus described. There are men who seem to be 
deficient in the capacity of knowing when it is well with them in 
any situation, and consequently to be wanting in the wisdom that 
would direct them to "let well alone." It is worse still when 
any one is ignorant of his highest mercies, " the things that be 
long to his peace." Those who quarrel with the day of rest com 
bine both kinds of folly. Not content with the worry of six days, 
they must prolong it into the seventh, and, grudging the pause 
and respite of one day in the week, they will not, on the one hand, 
avail themselves of it as an indispensable means of preparation for 
the " rest that remaineth to the people of God ;" or on the other, 



THEORIES TRIED. 495 

take the full use of its facilities for mere repose of mind and body, 
as some compensation for the coming long future when they can 
have no rest day or night. It is such men, we believe, who are 
satisfied neither with the outer nor with the inner peace of the 
Sabbath, and would have a sacred day mutilated or abolished. It 
is not to be supposed that, with such blindness te&gt; their own weal, 
they should be fully aware of the true reason for their wishes 
respecting the institution. They have, however, ventured to as 
sign a reason, involving a fiction as great as ever was invented, or 
attempted to be palmed on human credulity the notion that a 
carefully observed Sabbath injures health, and genders and fosters 
vice. For these evils they propose as a remedy the removal of 
their supposed cause, and the substitution for a day of sacred rest 
of one devoted, in part at least, to recreation and amusement, or 
to the study of science and of the arts. We have already abun 
dantly established the physical, intellectual, and moral adaptations, 
blessings, and even necessity of a holy Sabbath ; but to make " as 
surance doubly sure," let us confront the old with the new ex 
pedients, and show that the latter are as insufficient as they are 
unnecessary for their alleged purpose. 

If we look, in the first instance, to the scheme which proposes 
an entire or partial holiday, or day of amusement and pleasure, we 
shall see that it is condemned by all experience, alike by that of 
a sacred and by that of a merry-making day. The necessity of a 
weekly day of rest to the physical welfare of men is admitted even 
by those who are unfriendly to a holy Sabbath. " The infidel," 
says one, " can have no interest in revoking its blessings, or ac 
celerating its ruin. He may laugh at the ravings of fanaticism, 
or sneer at the fears and reasoning of inflamed zeal ; but the sub 
stantial benefits of the Sabbath he is as anxious to preserve as 
any." 1 " There is no one," observes another, " who denies that 
a day of repose and relaxation from labour once a week is for the 
benefit of the working classes, and there is no one who would wish 
to do away with that usage. It is nearly the only breathing-time 
in a life of toil which the poor man enjoys." 2 We accept these 
statements as in so far a testimony, and, coming from such quarters, 
an important testimony, in favour of a Sabbatical institution. But 

1 A Voice frvin ill* Worl-sJiop p. 15. "- Speech of Janios Ayto m. Esq., 1847, p. 4. 



496 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

when we are told, as we are by the former writer, and by others, 
that in advancing proofs of the physical advantages of the institu 
tion we only " beat the winds," we must crave liberty to dissent 
from the opinion, and to say that such a task, so far from being 
bootless, as merely establishing a dogma generally received and 
plainly true, is one that is called for, just because it is fitted to 
produce the convictions which the quotations now given express, and 
to lead their authors and others to the further knowledge and con 
clusions on the subject which it is evident they have not yet reached. 
Let it be remarked, that certain views may not be rejected, and 
yet not be sufficiently influential on the conduct, and that it is on 
this account requisite frequently to reproduce, illustrate, and en 
force them, that they may take more of the shape of living, prac 
tical principles in the minds of those by whom they are professedly 
held. But we confidently deny the allegation of a universally 
existing belief as to the utility of the Sabbath, viewed even simplj 
as a day of rest. Who does not know that many voluntarily 
labour on that day, and that many require such labour from their 
servants ? Is it possible that these persons are convinced of the 
physical necessity of a weekly day of rest ? Who, again, does not 
know that the call of so many for a Sabbath of amusement and 
pleasure, either in whole or in part, is in reality the demand of 
such a mode of spending its hours as must subject multitudes to 
continual labour and its fatal results, that others may enjoy rest 
and indulgence 1 Do those men sincerely believe that a Sabbath- 
day is desirable as a season of respite from the toils of life, who 
plead for " a system, which providing for the gain of some, and 
the recreation, the amusement, and the vices of others, at the ex 
pense of their fellows, has a direct tendency to undermine health, 
exhaust the strength, and shorten the lives of those who are its 
victims V l On the supposition, so contrary to all experience, that 
no vice were indulged, it is an unanswerable objection to Sunday 
excursions by trains and otherwise, and to all public amusements 
on that day, that the health of thousands, employed in affording 
the means of pleasure to others, is necessarily sacrificed. The 
superiority of a day of sacred rest to that which some would put 

1 Petition of 641 Physicians and Surgeons in London against the opening of tho 
Crystal Palace on Subbith. 



THEORIES TRIED. 497 

in its place appears in this, as in other respects, that its tendency, 
like the mission of its Lord, is not to destroy but to save life. 
According to its wise and benevolent provisions, families may have 
all that is conducive to health and happiness without the drawback 
of slavery and pain to any one, and hundreds may have the means 
of public instruction and enjoyment at the cost of a measure of 
exertion on the part of one individual, which, judging from the 
longevity of his class, necessitates no bodily harm. There is another 
great mistake or fallacy in the language employed on this subject 
by those who profess to be satisfied as to the physical necessity of 
a Sabbath, which they would nevertheless alienate from what they 
are pleased to call puritanical practices. They speak and write in 
seeming ignorance or forgetfulness, that the principal, if not almost 
the entire evidence in favour of such a day goes to prove the im 
portance of a Christian Sabbath, while we have no evidence of the 
sanitary benefit of a day consumed in idleness, in recreation, or 
even in the study of nature or science. Whence have those per 
sons almost any idea at all of a Sabbath but from the observance 
around them of the Sabbath of Christianity 1 Whence, especially, 
have they much proof of the utility of such a day but from facts 
connected with that observance 1 Let them do justice to tho 
truth, and own that they have derived the very conception of a 
weekly day of rest from Revelation, or from its friends, and that 
they know little or nothing of its physical advantages, except in 
so far, as these have appeared in its contrasted honour and neglect 
as a religious institute. In the absence of evidence that a weekly 
day of rest is capable of yielding greater or even equal benefit to 
health by being wholly or partially severed from religion, they 
are not authorized to affirm, as some confidently do, that the 
separation would be productive of any such effect. They are stilJ 
less warranted to employ the facts which demonstrate its benefi 
cent influence as a Christian appointment, for the purpose of 
evincing its excellence in any other character. Until we have 
some assurance that a community, or any portion of it, could be 
persuaded to spend a seventh day in harmless amusement, or in 
listening to lectures on science and art, with the result, too, of a 
larger accession to health than arises from a religiously employed 
Sabbath, it would, simply on grounds of expediency, be extremely 

8 i 



498 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

foolish to part with a present real for a future imaginary good. 
This experiment would be the more unwise that we already have 
enough in ascertained principles and facts to enable us to predict 
its complete failure. The continental Sabbath is precisely such 
an institution as many in our land seem amlitious to set up. 
But we have yet to learn that the Sabbath abroad has achieved 
more for the physical nature of Frenchmen or Germans than the 
Sabbath at home has done for that of Scotsmen or Englishmen. 
Let Paris under its first Revolution warn us of the health-consum 
ing and life-destroying orgies that would attend the worship of 
Nature and Science, as surely as they waited on the rites of the 
Goddess of Reason. Let the wasting profligacy which followed 
the republication of the Book of Sports tell us what would be the 
effect of reviving a Sabbath of pleasure. In the intemperance, the 
jaded appearance, the reluctant, tardy return to work, of Sunday 
pleasure seekers, we have already specimens of the wider-spread 
evil which would ensue, if the religious occupations of the day 
were generally exchanged for the delights of the rural excursion 
or the excitements of the tea-garden. " Physiologically consi 
dered," to employ the words of Dr. Fane, " power saved is power 
gained, and the waste of power from every kind of excitement 
defeats the purpose of the day. So that on the Sabbath the 
labouring man is expending the powers of his body, instead of 
husbanding them for the following week, and chiefly if he be 
engaged in drinking," 1 Take away the religion of the Sabbath, 
and you remove the chief if not the only barrier in such a country 
as this against the encroaching covetousness of one class and the 
perpetual slavery of another evils of which the least enormity 
is, that they prey upon the flesh, blood, and bones of their victims. 
"If," says the Times, " the sacred character of the day be once 
obscured, there would not remain behind any influence strong 
enough to keep a thrifty tradesman from his counter for twelve 
hours together. A man who would observe the day as a Sabbath 
would retrench it as a holiday, and thus competition and imitation 
would at length bring all to the common level of universal pro- 
faneness and continuous toil." 2 And the amplest experience will 

Report on tlte Observance of the Lord s Day (1832), p. 11& 
* Editorial Article, July 14, 1848. 



THEORIES TRIED. 499 

be found to confirm the following statement of men well acquainted 
with the human constitution : " While they are most especially 
called to minister to the physical sufferings of their fellow-crea 
tures, your petitioners cannot overlook the close relation subsist 
ing between moral and physical disease, or entertain the hope that 
any plans which do not make full provision for their spiritual as 
well as their physical necessities will effect any great or permanent 
improvement in the health or habits of the labouring population. !] 
But, in the second place, it is said that all the intellectual 
benefit which a religious Sabbath is supposed to yield might be 
attained by means still more consonant to the constitution of the 
human mind, and more effectual for its elevation. " You boast," 
it is affirmed, " of the power of your day of preaching and prayer, 
but is there not the alternative of a Crystal Palace, or of lecture- 
rooms supplied with facilities for the study of science and the arts, 
and would not this be a much better means of informing and in 
vigorating the intellect, as well as of promoting health, than the 
immuring, dull, and deadening engagements of a day devoted to 
religion ]" We might satisfy ourselves by referring to the obser 
vations already made, on the " Intellectual Adapations of the Sab 
bath," as a sufficient reply, so far as principles are concerned, to 
these questions. If the views there advanced be just, they ought 
to satisfy the propounders of a weekly day of literary and scientific 
instruction as a substitute for a religious Sabbath, that such a 
scheme could not for any considerable period be maintained or 
even come into general observance, for want of some adequate 
authority to impose on the world a common time for any species 
of secular studies ; that it would fail of adaptation to all classes, 
since it would afford no relief from customary toil to at least two 
large portions of society, to the many servants whose physical 
labour would be required for the carrying out of its designs, and 
to the cultivators of science, literature, and the arts, who would 
be without the change of thought so essential to the refreshment 
and renovation of their powers, and to their energy and success in 
the education of their fellow-men &gt; and that its topics and busi 
ness wculd exert but a feeble influence over the public mind com 
pared with religion, having no similar response in the human 

1 Petition of 641 Physicals and Suifceona. 



00 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

conscience, and no text-book like the Bible, which, never yet 
either falsified or improved by the results of inquiry, or by the 
progress of discovery, has remained for ages down to this hour 
the most instructive, interesting, and powerful of all books. The 
allegation of dulness as attaching to a day spent in the duties 
of religion has been disposed of in a former part of this work 
(pp. 222-227). We will further say of it only, that it could be 
hazarded by no man who had not coloured the day and its ob 
servers with the dark shade of his own spirit. But the questions 
admit of reply from the testimony of experience, and if we exa 
mine for a little the comparative claims of the proposed expedient 
and of that which it is intended to displace, we shall find not only 
that the former is utterly inadequate for its purpose, but that 
proof has been accumulated of the pre-eminent adaptation of the 
latter to the constitution and improvement of the human mind. 

Looking then, first, at the practicability of the measures under 
consideration, we find the evidence to be decisive in favour of a 
sacred day. It is an important circumstance that there never has 
been an instance of a Sabbatic institution apart from some kind 
of religion. This has not been owing to the want of opportuni 
ties, of endeavours, or even of partially successful efforts to found 
such an institution. In this country, and in many others, no 
man is compelled to keep a sacred Sabbath ; any one may not 
only abstain from going to a place of worship, but may employ 
the day in the study of science, either individually or socially. 
Such things have been done. The French converted their churches 
into temples of so-called Reason, where public affairs were descanted 
on, moral orations pronounced, and political hymns sung. The 
Socinians in London had "several debating clubs established 
among them in the metropolis on the Lord s day." 1 There have 
been rejecters of Christianity who have had their assemblies on 
the first day of the week for their edification in unbelief. And 
yet the supporters of these and similar schemes, with the idea 
and all the details of the working of a Sabbath before their eyes, 
with the convenience of a da^ in general observance on which to 
attempt their supposed improvements, with the influence of man s 
aversion to what is sacred in favour of their designs, and with all 

i Works of Robert If all (1839), vol. *. p. ISO 



THEORIES TRIED. 501 

their concessions, moreover, to the religious convictions and cus 
toms of society, have never been able to secure more than a very 
partial and temporary adoption of a weekly day for instruction, 
whether in infidelity or in any merely secular matter. Avarice 
and the love of animal pleasure have ever proved more than a 
match for such devices. It is religion alone that has provided a 
Sabbath suited to all men, established it against the opposition of 
the strongest human passions, and maintained it in all ages. 
From the earliest period of authentic history to the present time, 
the world has never wanted its seventh-day festival. Wherever 
Christianity has prevailed, it has carried its Sabbath along with 
it. And we have only to examine the records of modern missions 
to be convinced how admirably adapted the institution is to men 
in every clime ; how speedily and effectually it displaces the old 
customs when its religion has been embraced, and how firm a 
lodgment it effects in the consciences and affections of the con 
verts. On the score, then, of practicability, it has the decided 
evidence of experience in its favour, while all such evidence pro 
nounces the proposed substitute to be a hopeless project. 

Let us now turn to another criterion of the intellectual adapta 
tion of a seventh day, according as it is employed in religious 
services, or in other means of mental improvement ; we mean 
power or efficiency, and let us see what facts disclose on this 
point. If it be said that the religious institution has so pre 
occupied men s minds as to preclude a fair trial of other expedi 
ents which have but rarely been invested with a formal appoint 
ment, we reply, that considering the facilities and favourable 
feelings for a change already mentioned, we can see nothing in all 
this but a testimony to the efficiency of a sacred, and the imbe 
cility of a secular Sabbath. That surely which is too feeble to 
struggle into general use, or to maintain its ground, promises no 
good should it by any possibility be brought into full operation. 
That, on the other hand, which, with the whole tide of human 
immorality set in against it, has nevertheless prevailed in the 
world, proclaims thereby its power to reign. But it is not true 
that the former has not had a sufficient trial. It was the subject 
of experiment, under a formal appointment, for ten years in 
France, the result of which was that it had to take refuge in reli- 

22* 



502 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

gion. There are many in our own land engaged in the pursuit 
of knowledge who never keep a religious holiday, and who enjoy 
the freedom from interruption in their studies which such a day 
secures. This state of things has long existed, and is to be fou&gt; 1 
in other countries as well. In all Popish lands the Lord s day is, 
for the most part, free to be applied to mental exercises or to any 
thing else, and will be taken advantage of for the former purpose 
by some of each community. Add to these cases that of the far 
greater proportion of mankind who have been without the re 
straints of a sacred day, and who therefore have had more time 
for making acquisitions in learning. It appears, therefore, that 
the proposed and other methods of intellectual discipline which 
have been deemed worthy to supplant the Christian Sabbath have 
been sufficiently tried to enable us to judge of their merits. And 
we are willing to accept the history of the latter, circumscribed 
and abated though its proper influence has been by the keenest 
opposition, as furnishing the means of deciding on its fitness as 
an instrument of mental improvement. To that history, as for 
merly presented in a summary form, we add only the comprehen 
sive words of Jortin : "To whom are we indebted," asks the 
learned writer, " for the knowledge of antiquities, sacred and secu 
lar, for everything that is called philology or polite literature 1 To 
Christians. To whom for grammars and dictionaries of the learned 
languages ? To Christians. To whom for chronology, and the 
continuation of history through many centuries 1 To Christians. 
To whom for rational systems of morality and of natural religion 1 
To Christians. To whom for improvements in natural philosophy, 
and for the application of these discoveries to religious purposes ? 
To Christians. To whom for metaphysical researches carried as 
far as the subject will permit? To Christians. To whom for 
jurisprudence and political knowledge, and for settling the rights 
of subjects, both civil and religious, upon a proper foundation 1 
To Christians." 1 

We have yet, thirdly, to show that the reason alleged for mea 
sures which would abridge or even supplant a carefully sanctified 
Sabbath has no foundation in fact. It is the weekly holy day as 
observed in this country that is affirmed to be immoral in its ten- 

1 Jortiu s Sermon*, vol. vii. pp. 373, 374 



THEORIES TRIED. 5&gt;03 

deney, and it will be a sufficient answer to the charge if we can 
show that it finds a thorough refutation in certain moral contrasts 
furnished by our country s annals, in briefly tracing these con 
trasts we shall see enough to justify Foster s eulogimn, that " the 
Sabbath is a remarkable appointment for raising the general tenor 
of moral existence," and the words of Blackstone and Pollok : "A 
corruption of morals usually follows a profanation of the Sab 
bath;" 

" Sure sign, whenever seen, 
That holiness is dying in a land, 
The Sabbath was profaned and set at nought." 

How dissimilar was England when above one hundred murders 
had been committed in the kingdom by ecclesiastics, of whom not 
one had been punished so much as with degradation, the punish 
ment enjoined by the canons, to England in the time of Queen 
Elizabeth ! What an alteration in the other direction, followed 
the publication and republication of the Book of Sports, which 
opened the flood-gates to all kinds of licentiousness ! Mark the 
improvement which was the result of a change of measures. 
Never were the claims of the Lord s day more ably defended and 
enforced from the pulpit and the press, or more zealously complied 
with in the practice of the people, than during the times of the 
Commonwealth and of the preceding struggles. "You might 
walk the streets [of London] on the evening of the Lord s day," 
as Neal observes of "the people in the Parliament quarters," 
" without seeing an idle person or hearing anything but the voice 
of prayer or praise from churches and private houses." 1 He 
further says that there were no gaming-houses nor houses of 
pleasure, nor was there any profane swearing nor any kind of 
debauchery to be seen or heard in the streets. 2 Kef erring to the 
period when the monarchy had been overturned, he remarks : " In 
the midst of all these disorders there was a very great appearance 
of sobriety both in city and country ; the indefatigable pains of 
the Presbyterian ministers in catechising, instructing, and visit 
ing their parishioners, can never be sufficiently commended. The 
whole nation was civilized, and considerably improved in sound 
knowledge." 3 Compare with these years some later periods 

i ffisto-y of the Puritans, ii. 591. 8 TWA 594. Ibid. iv. 18. 



504 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

when the Sabbath law was not so obeyed : the time, for example, 
of Charles n., when " religion, which had been the fashion 
of the late times, was universally discountenanced, those who ob 
served the Sabbath, scrupled profane swearing, etc., being branded 
as fanatics, and the exorbitant vices of the Court spread over the 
whole nation, and occasioned so general a licentiousness as to 
require the king s notice of it in addressing the Parliament;" 1 
and the days of Walpole, when corruption was so notorious as to 
elicit from that statesman the saying, that " every man had hia 
price ;" and when London itself was infected with banditti, so that 
many gentlemen were robbed and even murdered on the public 
streets in open day. Let us observe the opposite effect of a con 
tinued respect for the institution among the Puritans w r ho were 
driven from their country, as well as among their descendants. 
The Pilgrim Fathers took refuge in Holland. But, as Mather, in 
his Magnolia, says, " they saw that, whatever banks the Dutch 
had against the inroads of the sea, they had not sufficient ones 
against a flood of manifold profaneness ; they could not with ten 
years endeavour bring their neighbours particularly to any suitable 
observation of the Lord s day, without which they knew that all 
practical religion must wither miserably." 2 So they resolved to 
leave Holland. What character they maintained while in that 
country may be known from the testimony of the magistrates of 
Leyden, who, while reproving the Walloons, say, " These English 
have lived now ten years among us, and yet we never had 
any accusation against any of them, whereas your quarrels 
are continual." 3 After this noble race had been settled for 
one hundred years in America, they are found persevering in 
a dutiful respect to the Sabbath and its sacred services, and 
in a course of practical morality becoming their principles and 
profession of religion. The same alternations of good and evil, 
arising from the same causes as are presented in the history 
of England, appear in that of Scotland. The interval between 
her first and second Reformations was marked by a very efficient 
system of Christian instruction, and by the " very healthful moral 
condition of her people," 4 the efforts of the bishops who were 

* History of the Puritans, iv. 354, 355. Mather s Magnolia, p. 5. 

Mather s M ignalia, p. 6. * Chalmers s Works, voL xvi. p. 288. 



THEORIES TRIED. 505 

introduced by the Court, in propagating their views of religion, 
and in attempting to bring the observance of the Sabbath into 
conformity to that encouraged by royal proclamation, serving to 
stimulate the zeal and exertions of the faithful ministers of the 
land. The period, again, from the second Reformation to the 
Restoration of the Monarchy was even more distinguished by the 
religious and moral elevation of the country. Kirkton s account 
of its concluding years is well known. We give a portion of it : 
" In the interval betwixt the two kings, religion advanced the 
greatest step it had made for many years. Now, the ministry 
was notably purified, the magistracy was altered, and the people 
strangely refined. No scandalous person could live, no scandal 
could be concealed in all Scotland, so strict a correspondence 
there was betwixt ministers and congregations. At the king s 
return every parish had a minister, every village had a school, 
every family almost had a Bible, yea, in most of the country all 
the children of age could read the Scriptures, and were provided 
of Bibles, either by the parents or their ministers. I have lived 
many years in a parish where I never heard an oath, and you 
might have ridden many miles before you heard any. Also, you 
could not for a great part of the country, have lodged in a family 
where the Lord was not worshipped by reading, singing, and 
public prayer. Nobody complained more of our Church govern 
ment than our taverners, whose ordinary lamentation was, their 
trade was broke, people were become so sober." 1 In this state 
of things Charles n. ascended the throne. This event was soon 
followed by an attempt to enforce Episcopacy upon the Scottish 
nation, which gave rise to a war of about twenty-eight years 
duration. The act for the establishment of parochial schools was 
repealed. Three hundred and fifty ministers were ejected from 
their parishes, and forbidden to preach even in the fields, or to 
approach within twenty miles of their former charges. In their 
place were appointed men whom Burnet describes as " mean and 
despicable in all respects, the worst preachers he ever heard, 
ignorant to a reproach, and many of them openly vicious." 2 
With these men, and their persecuting, profligate, and profane 

1 Kirkton s History of the Church of Scotland, pp. 48, 49, 64, 66. 
a History of his own Times (Edit, of 1850), p. 103. 



506 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

supporters, compare the Covenanters, whose attachment to the 
weekly holy day, though, alas ! to them no day of security and 
rest, we have already seen : " It is ascertained," as Principal Lee 
deposed before the House of Commons Committee on the Sab 
bath in 1832, "that in the time of the Covenanters, which I 
believe to have been a period of great religious light, and of great 
strictness and purity of morals, there was scarcely an individual 
in the lowlands of Scotland who could not read, and who was 
not in the habit of reading the Bible ; and scarcely a family in 
which the worship of God was not regularly performed, both by 
celebrating the praises of God, reading the Scriptures and prayer." 1 
The Revolution, indeed, put an end to persecution, rescinded the 
acts establishing a form of religion opposed to the wishes of the 
people, and led to the restoration of the parochial schools. But 
it is not surprising that the evils which had been inflicted by a 
tyrannical government, a brutal soldiery, and a clergy sunk in 
sloth, ignorance, and vice, should not cease with their causes, 
particularly as hundreds of these clergy were retained in their 
charges. So late, accordingly, as 1898, ten years after the 
Revolution, there were, according to Fletcher of Saltoun, 200,000 
people who subsisted by begging from door to door, and the hall 
of whom were vagabonds, living without any regard or submis 
sion either to the laws of the land, or even those of God and 
nature ; robbing, murdering, and at country weddings, markets, 
burials, and on other public occasions, to be seen, both men and 
women, perpetually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and righting 
together. But how improved the times when Scotland had be 
gun to recover from the effects of political oppression and of 
anti-Sabbatic influences, and to feel the reforming power of its 
religious faith and institutions ! " After the Revolution, I find 
from the accounts of the schools in towns and lowland parishes, 
some of which I have in my possession, that in the periodical 
examinations which took place, there are regular returns of the 
numbers of the children who were reading different books, some 
of them the New Testament, but the greater part reading the 
entire Bible ; and that was the period certainly when the Sab 
bath was most strictly observed, and when, according to all the 

* If imtea of Evidence, p. ill. 



THEORIES TRIED. 507 

accounts that can be best relied upon, the morals of the people 
were likewise the most healthy." 1 Defoe writes thus of the 
state of Scottish morality in 1717 : "The people are restrained 
in the ordinary practice of common immoralities, such as swear 
ing, drunkenness, slander, fornication, and the like. As to theft, 
murder, and other capital crimes, they come under the cognizance 
of the civil magistrates, as in other countries ; but, in those 
things which the Church has power to punish, the people being 
constantly and impartially prosecuted, they are thereby the more 
restrained, kept sober, and under government, and you may pass 
through twenty towns in Scotland without seeing any broil or 
hearing one oath in the streets ; whereas, if a blind man was to 
come from there into England, he shall know the first town he 
sets his foot in within the English border, by hearing the name 
of God blasphemed and profanely used even by the little children 
on the street." 2 The same contrasts may be seen at other times 
and even in our own day. We shall be told, indeed, of particular 
vices which have brought a stigma upon the best Sabbath-keep 
ing country in the world, and on some of its most God-fearing 
cities. No little exaggeration, it has been proved, has been em 
ployed on the subject a natural resource of those who envy a 
high reputation, and hate a holy institution. Without enlarging 
on this part of the question, for which we cannot afford space, 
let a few facts relative to the morals of the cities referred to, 
and of a country parish, at different periods, serve to show that 
it is the neglect, not the observance of the Lord s day, that ac 
counts for any real deterioration in the character of the people. 

Mr. Creech, well known in his day, and still remembered as 
an author, bookseller, and Lord Provost of Edinburgh, contri 
buted to the Statistical Account of Scotland some remarkable 
sketches, which were afterwards published in his Fugitive Pieces, 
of the modes of living, trade, manners, etc., of that city, as these 
appeared in the years 1763, 1783, 1793. The following are a 
few specimens : "In 1763 it was fashionable to go to church, 
and people were interested about religion. Sunday was strictly 
observed by all ranks as a day of devotion, and it was disgrace- 

1 Pri^vipal Lee Minutes of Evidence, p. 271. 
Jfe.o*r of (he Church of Scotland (1844), p. 353. 



508 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

ful to be seen on the streets during the time of public worship. 
Families attended church with their children and servants, and 
family worship \--as frequent. The collections at the church 
doors for the poor amounted yearly to 1500 and upwards. In 
1783 attendance on church was greatly neglected, and particu 
larly by the men. Sunday was by many made a day of relaxa 
tion, and young people were allowed to stroll about at all hours. 
Families thought it ungenteel to take their domestics to church 
with them. The streets were far from being void of people in 
the time of public worship, and, in the evenings, were frequently 
loose and riotous, particularly owing to bands of apprentice boys 
and young lads. Family worship was almost disused. The 
collections at the church doors for the poor had fallen to 1000. 
In no respect were the manners of 1763 and 1783 more re 
markable than in the decency, dignity, and delicacy of the one 
period, compared with the looseness, dissipation, and licentious 
ness of the other. Many people ceased to blush at what would 
formerly have been reckoned a crime. 

"In 1763, masters took charge of their apprentices, and kept 
them under their eye in their own houses. In 1783, few masters 
would receive apprentices to stay in their houses, and yet from 
them an important part of succeeding society is to be formed. If 
they attended their hours of business, masters took no further 
charge. The rest of their time might be passed (as too frequently 
happens) in vice and debauchery, hence they become idle, insolent, 
and dishonest. In 1791, the practice had become still more pre 
valent. Reformation of manners must begin in families to be 
general or effectual. 

"In 1763, the clergy visited, catechised, and instructed the 
families within their respective parishes, in the principles of 
morality, Christianity, and the relative duties of life. In 1783, 
visiting and catechising were disused (except by very few), and 
since continue to be so. Nor, perhaps, would the clergy now be 
received with welcome on such an occasion. If people do not 
choose to go to church, they may remain as ignorant as 
Hottentots, and the Ten Commandments be as little known as 
obsolete Acts of Parliament. Religion is the only tie that can 
restrain, in any degree, the licentiousness either of the rich or of 



THEORIES TRIED. 509 

the lower ranks ; when that is lost, ferocity of manners and 
every breach of morality may be expected. 

Hoc fonte derivata, clades 
In patriara popul unique fluxit. 

"In 1763, house-breaking and robbery were extremely rare. 
Many people thought it unnecessary to lock their doors at night. 
In 1783, 1784, 1785, 1786, and 1787, house-breaking, theft, 
and robbery were astonishingly frequent, and many of these crimes 
were committed by boys, whose age prevented them from being 
objects of capital punishment. In no respect was the sobriety 
and decorum of the lower ranks in 1763 more remarkable than 
by contrasting them with the riot and licentiousness of 1783, 
particularly on Sundays and holidays. The king s birthday, and 
the last night of the year, were, in 1783, devoted to drunken 
ness, folly, and riot, which in 1763 were attended with peace 
and harmony. 

" In 1 7 63, young ladies (even by themselves) might have walked 
through the streets of the city in perfect security, at any hour. JS"o 
person would have interrupted or spoken to them. In 1 7 8 3, the mis 
tresses of boarding-schools found it necessary to advertise, that their 
young ladies were not permitted to go abroad without proper atten 
dants. In 1 7 9 1 , boys, from bad example at home, and worse abroad, 
had become forward and insolent. They early frequented taverns, 
and were soon initiated in folly and vice, without any religious 
principle to restrain them. It has been an error of twenty years, 
to precipitate the education of boys, and make them too soon men." 1 

u In 1763, the question respecting the morality of stage-plays 
was much agitated. By those who attended the theatre even 
without scruple, Saturday night was thought the most improper 
in the week for going to the play. In 1783, the morality of 
stage-plays, or their effects on society were not thought of. The 
most crowded houses were always on Saturday night. The cus 
tom of taking a box for the Saturday night through the season, 
was much practised by boarding mistresses, so that there could be 
no choice of the play, but the young ladies could only take what 
was set before them by the manager. The galleries never failed to 

1 Edinburgh Fugitive Pieces, pp. 100-112 - 



510 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

applaud what they formerly would have hissed, as improper in 
sentiment or decorum. 1 

" In 1763, hairdressers were few, and hardly permitted to dress 
hair on Sundays ; and many of them voluntarily declined it. In 
1783, hairdressers were more than tripled in number ; and their 
busiest day was Sunday. In 1763, the revenue arising from the 
distillery in Scotland amounted to 4739, 18s. lOd. in 1783, 
to 192,000." 2 

In the same work there is an account of a country parish as 
it was in the years 1763 and 1783. We give an extract. "In 
1763, all persons attended divine worship on Sunday. There 
were only four Seceders in the parish. Sunday was regularly and 
religiously observed. In 1783, there is such a disregard of pub 
lic worship and ordinances, that few attend divine worship with 
that attention which was formerly given. Ignorance prevails, al 
though privileged with excellent instructions in public sermons, in 
examination, and in visiting from house to house by the pastor. 
When the form of religion is disregarded, surely the power of it 
is near dissolution. In 1763, few in this parish were guilty of 
the breach of the third commandment. The name of God was 
reverenced and held sacred. In 1783, the third commandment 
seems to be almost forgotten, and swearing abounds. I may say 
the same of all the rest of the ten, as- to public practice. The 
decay of religion and growth of vice, in this parish, is very re 
markable within these twenty years." 3 

Let us now take the case of Glasgow, where, after allowing for 
over-statement, it is admitted that a rapidly accumulating popula 
tion, including vast hordes of immigrants from various parts of 
the world, are in many instances regardless of the laws of sobriety. 
There was a time, however, when our western capital, and Scot 
land at large, were eminent not only for temperance, but for gene 
ral moral excellence. An Englishman, who sojourned in Glasgow 
in 1703, testifies that "all the while he was there he never saw 
any drunk, nor heard any swear, and in all the inns of the road 
to that part of Scotland they had family worship performed." 4 
Another Englishman, Defoe, as we have seen, bears a remarkable 

i Edinburgh Fugitive Pieces, p. 113. 2 Ibid. pp. T8, 79. 3 7^4. p. 142 
&lt; Works of Matthew Henry (1853), vol. 1. p. 685. 



THEORIES TRIED. 511 

attestation to Scottish morality in 1717. It will surely not be 
pretended that the Sabbath is better observed or better enforced 
in 1862 than it was in 1703 and 1717 years comprehended in 
the period which, according to Principal Lee, was the halcyon 
time of Scotland s weekly holy day. The reverse is the fact. 
What then has the Sabbath to do with the immorality of Glas 
gow ? The commercial metropolis of Scotland " flourished" once 
" by the preaching of the Word," but she has deteriorated in our 
day because so many refuse to hear the Word. Vice has kept 
pace, not with the observance, but with the neglect of the Lord s 
day. But there is another contrast which must not be forgotten 
in this argument that between the distinguished excellence of the 
many who honour the day, and the moral and physical degrada 
tion of the too numerous class who despise it. Intemperance and 
profaneness are both cause and effect. Sabbath -breakers and 
drunkards are usually one and the same class of men ; while it is 
true everywhere that the men who most respect the institution are 
not only the most temperate members of society, but the most moral 
in all respects in their conduct, and almost the only persons who 
do anything in their localities for promoting sobriety and every 
virtue among their neighbours. It is among those that devoutly 
regard the sacred day in our large cities that we find the in 
dividuals who dive into the darkest, filthiest, and most dangerous 
haunts of wickedness, with the view of reclaiming the inhabitants 
from ignorance, wretchedness, and crime, or who, while most of 
others care not for the neglected and profligate except to scowl 
upon them as they cross their path, patiently labour in the self- 
denied and arduous work of instructing the young that they may 
rescue them from ruin, and guide them in the way of purity and 
happiness. It is from among them, too, that those go forth who 
brave the hazards, or suffer the privations of a residence in unpro- 
pitious climes and among savage tribes, solely for the spiritual 
good of their fellow-creatures. What scheme, indeed, for en 
lightening the ignorant, reforming the immoral, relieving poverty, 
abating disease, and comforting sorrow, has not among its princi 
pal patrons, and most active auxiliaries, the very men who arc 
charged as demoralizing their fellow-citizens for no other reason 
than their fidelity to the Divine and benignant law of the Sab- 



512 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

bath, and so charged by the persons who owe it to the Sabbath- 
keeping and other excellences of the objects of their abuse that 
they are preserved and in peace amidst the elements of destruc 
tion. Is it possible that a law which produces such fruits of 
mercy and kindness can be a bad law 1 The imputation of 
hypocrisy to men who are the friends of such a law, and bright 
illustrations of its moral excellence, is itself a confirmation of our 
views, for certainly, if those who prefer such a charge had enjoyed 
the mental discipline of the Sabbath, or had imbibed its spirit, 
they could not have been so ignorant of language and character, 
so wanting in courtesy and candour, or so destitute of prudence 
and self-respect, as to apply to the most upright and useful members 
of society a term so notoriously, wickedly, and stupidly inapposite. 
But we feel that we have said more than enough of these accu 
sations and their fabricators and we conclude the chapter with a 
passage relating to Sweden, which not only adds to the proof of 
the fallacy of the views that we have been combating ; but gives 
a striking warning against the slightest countenance to " doing 
evil that good may come :" " We have frequently of late been told 
by a certain class of philanthropists," says the Rev. James Lums- 
den, " that our Scottish habits of Sabbath observance are the 
main cause of the intemperance of our land, and that the true and 
effectual method of promoting sobriety is to give facilities and en 
couragement to our hard-working artisans, to escape from their 
homes by railway and steam -boat on Sunday afternoons and enjoy 
the healthful atmosphere and instructive landscapes of the country. 
It is well to inquire what success this experiment of employing 
Satan &lt; to cast out Satan, has had in a country where it has 
been carried on for a period of satisfactory length, and in circum 
stances peculiarly favourable, in a climate very similar to our own, 
among a people of the same race, and free from the disturbing 
element of the Sabbatarian denunciations of the pulpit and the 
press. And what has been the effect of this holiday Sabbath upon 
the sobriety of the nation ] Why, that by the confession of the 
Swedes themselves, their nation is the most intemperate in Europe ; T 
that in a country where manufacturers have not drawn a promis- 

1 As a proof of this, the recent Parliament has increased the duty on the manufac 
ture of ardent spirits two-and -thirty fold. 



THEORIES TRIED. 

uous population into over-grown villages and crowded towns, 
where incentives to vice, arising from high wages, rapid prosperity, 
and commercial bustle and over-working, are absent, where the 
people are almost as thinly spread as in cur Highlands, the rate 
of consumption of ardent spirits is higher than in this country ; 
and that a region, where primitive purity as well as primitive quiet 
might be supposed to have found a refuge, is pervaded by the in 
temperance of our neglected lanes and luxurious cities. 1 

1 Sweden ; iti Religious State and Prospects, 1856, ppt 12-14 



THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 



CHAPTER V. 

THEOKIES AND AKGUMENTS TRIED BY THE DOCTRINE 
AND LAW OF REVELATION. 

WHEN it has been already proved, on the one hand, by the 
amplest evidence of Reason, Revelation, and History, that the 
Sabbath, according to one of its theories, is of Divine original and 
authority, and an indispensable blessing to mankind, and, on the 
other, that rival theories and schemes, as tested by the principles 
of the Divine Government, and by experience, are destitute of 
worth, power, and benefit, it may seem superfluous to prosecute 
the contest. But our opponents endeavour to find in Scripture 
support for opinions which have failed to gain the suffrages of 
the greatest and best of men, or to supply any satisfying creden 
tials of their success. To Scripture they appeal, and to Scripture the 
very tower of our strength, it can be no disadvantage for us to go. 

But the most conflicting doctrines and practices have been held 
to be scriptural and it is possible for persons of any party to 
come to the Word of God, and because they are proud, to be sent 
empty away. If we would derive instruction and guidance from 
that Word, we must understand its meaning, and for that purpose 
follow the rules according to which it demands to be interpreted, 
and which commend themselves to the reason and common sense 
of mankind. Let us, therefore, enunciate some of these Scrip 
tural, rational, and common-sense rules, and apply each rule as we 
proceed for enabling us to decide on the claims of various theories 
and arguments, which have been put forth on our subject. We 
do not profess to dictate to others, but we cannot, in this part of 
fche volume, argue with those who appeal to Revelation, if they 



THEORIES TRIED. 515 

nevertheless reject its authoritative prescription of the manner in 
which its meaning is to be ascertained. 

First Rule. It is necessary that we recognise the Old and 
New Testaments as alone constituting the Word of God. No 
writing, besides those in the Protestant canon, and no oral tradi 
tion, have any claim to be received as parts of Divine revelation. 
^Vhatever, therefore, Rome advances from tradition to justify her 
assumed right to change the day of the Sabbath, or to appoint 
holy days of her own, has to us nothing of the character of 
" proofs of holy writ." 

Second Rule. We must receive the Word of God, thus defined 
and complete in its parts, as a Revelation divinely perfect in its 
whole character. It is true of the Old Testament as of the New, 
that it is " given by inspiration of God, and is profitable foj 
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and instruction in righteous 
ness ; that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished 
unto all good works." 1 To neglect either division of the Bible, 
or to magnify it at the expense of the other, would betray so 
utter a misconception of the whole book, as must preclude the 
discovery of truth on every one of its great subjects. Let this 
treatment be shown to a volume of human production, and 
the injustice no less than the folly of such procedure would be 
seen and condemned by all. But in deciding with respect to 
the Sabbath and other matters, there are those who are chargeable 
with this partiality, so directly in opposition to the demands of 
Scripture and of reason, and who, therefore, must fail of arriving 
at the knowledge of the Divine mind and will. These persons 
conceive that the selection of a particular people to be the objects 
of Divine favour, and the depositaries of the Divine oracles, is a 
circumstance with which we have nothing to do, further than as 
a matter of curiosity or of historical interest. How many regard 
the people of Israel as if they had been the inhabitants of another 
planet, and their system of religion as if it had almost nothing in 
common with the Christian! How many look upon the Old 
Testament as an obsolete part of Divine revelation, which it is 
unnecessary to read for instruction of life and manners whose 
Psalms are not to be sung whose principles apply not to us 

i 2 Tim. iii. 1C, 17. 



616 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

whose worthies are no models whose spirit is unchristian ! No 
thing could be more remote from the truth nothing more daringly 
impious if it were not so vastly ignorant. Judaism was a Divine, 
wise, holy, good, sanctifying, saving system of religion substan 
tially one with the Christian. It was a local and stationary, not 
like Christianity a moving, circulating light, but it was the means 
of preserving religion in the world, and it steadily bore testimony 
to the existence of the one living and true God, the God of mercy 
and salvation, while its privileges were open to all Gentiles who 
abandoned idolatry, and acceded to the profession of the true 
faith. Considered even as to their transitory peculiarities, the 
Jews were appointed to serve great ends with respect both to the 
surrounding world and to future ages. But, more than this, the 
Jews were men who, in common with others, stood in need of a 
Saviour, and of a law to guide them as rational and immortal 
beings. To them, accordingly, a Saviour was made known by 
typical representations and the preaching of the prophets to them 
a moral law was given. There are, doubtless, matters in the Old 
Testament that are not a rule for us, but so are there in the New. 
There are many things, in both that directly concern all, and there 
are many things of this universal application in each that are not 
in the other. That we may know the whole of our faith and 
duty, we must repair to both, and along with other parts of 
doctrine and practice search for the true character and obligations 
of a weekly rest in the earlier as well as in the later revelation. 
We have as much to do with, what Genesis testifies respecting the 
Sabbath as we have to do with what it declares concerning the 
institution and law of marriage. What was moral in Judaism is 
as truly binding upon us as it was obligatory upon the Jews. 
This rule of interpreting Scripture, therefore, while it sanctions 
the perpetual obligation of a seventh day s rest and worship, sets 
aside the notion that the institution of the Sabbath in Paradise, 
and its promulgation at Sinai, had no respect to mankind in 
general, or if they had respect to us, that it was only by way of 
an analogy which directed but did not bind. 

The perfection of Revelation has other bearings on our subject. 
It teaches inquirers that, as its thoughts and reasonings have 
come forth from infinite wisdom, and as its very words are " the 



THEORIES TRIED. 617 

words of the Lord, which are pure words, as silver tried in a fur- 
nace of earth, purified seven times," they must be reverently exa 
mined, not wrested, not instructed by the reader, but listened to, 
that he may receive whatever instruction and impression they are 
designed to impart. If we would not defeat the great end of lan 
guage, which is the transmission of thought, and if we would not 
dishonour a Divine composition, which, as in everything else, so in 
adaptedness to its design of conveying salutary and indispensable 
information to " the common people," and to the poor as well as 
to the learned and the rich, must transcend the literature of 
earth, we ought to be persuaded that holy men, speaking as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost, could not utter unintelligible 
words, or express one thing when they meant another. And yet 
how confidently do some who give evidence that they have not 
attentively considered what they profess to have read, pronounce 
on this and that passage of Scripture, and how deliberately do 
others assert a particular view of a text to be just, when they 
ought to know that they are forcing it into the service of a favour 
ite theory ! One of the most remarkable instances of the bold 
freedom with which certain writers have treated the sacred text, 
is furnished in the attempt to set aside the idea of a primitive 
Sabbath, by the notion that the mention of it in Genesis ante 
dates the institution by thousands of years. Let us again present 
the beautifully simple and clear words of the record : " Thus the 
heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 
And 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 ; be 
cause that in it he had rested from all his work which God 
created and made." 1 

It might be presumed that no one could come to the perusal of 
this earliest notice of the Sabbath, with the view of transferring 
the meaning of the words to his mind, rather than of imparting 
his own previous impressions to the words, without learning that 
the consecration and observance of the seventh day were immedi 
ate consequences of the Divine rest. So plain a matter is this to 
all who read only for instruction, that one would feel as if an 



Gen. ii. 1-3. 
oo 



THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

apology were needed for the apparent childishness of elevating 
into a formal proposition so obvious a truism. But certain writers 
have so insulted the understandings of mankind, and so trifled with 
the sacred page, as to affirm that a space of 2500 years inter 
vened between the day of rest, and the actual appointment of the 
institution by which it was to be commemorated, the order of 
time being departed from for the sake of the connexion of subject ; 
and have on this mere assertion, so gratuitous and wild, built 
theories and systems for guiding the faith and conduct of the 
world in some of the most important duties and concerns of men. 
The view which the words as clearly indicate as language ever ex 
pressed thought or fact, and which has commended itself to the 
common sense of the generality of readers, is to the effect that the 
seventh day on which God rested, was the identical day which he 
blessed and sanctified, its transactions being as immediately con 
secutive to those of the sixth day as these were to the proceedings 
of the fifth. If the Creator performed the works of the six days 
on these days, He must have rested, sanctified, and blessed the 
seventh day on the seventh day. If the acts of the seventh day 
were not done on the seventh day, neither were the acts of the 
six days done on the six days. In other words, there was neither 
creation nor Sabbath till the children of Israel had encamped in 
the wilderness of Sin ! What is the conclusion to which the theory 
in question would shut us up ? It is, that a sacred writer has 
expressed himself in such terms as necessarily to lead us into error, 
from which there is no escape but into the domain of absurdity. 
How low those conceptions of the character of holy writ, which 
could inspire the proleptic dream, or how forlorn the hopes of a 
cause which has driven its friends to an expedient so foolish as 
well as so allied to the irreverent and profane ! 

Let us offer a second example of the forced and unnatural con 
struction which has been perpetrated on the narrative of creation. 
We refer to the interpretation which makes the six days of the 
Creator s working denote periods of long duration. The good 
sense of its most ingenious defender, Faber, led him ultimately to 
discard an opinion, which, however unintentionally on the part of 
its supporters, is in reality a libel on the simplest and most per 
fect style of historical writing. It is true that the term " &lt;l^y" 



THEORIES TltlED. 5i9 

is employed in Scripture in different meanings, some of which 
occur within the compass of a few sentences in the account of the 
creation, but in none of the cases is the sense at all obscure. 
"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called 
Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." 
Each of the days of creation being defined to include the light 
and the darkness must therefore have been a period of twenty-four 
hours, the time on which the earth performs one revolution upon 
its axis. The seventh day, though wanting the definition given 
of the others, yet as belonging to a numbered series having the 
same common name of day, must, as nothing is said to the con 
trary, have been of the same duration as its predecessors. And 
when the sacred writer, having informed us that the heavens and 
the earth were finished in six of those periods, adds, " These are 
the generations of the heavens and of the earth, in the day that 
the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, "-where the word 
comprises six common days, there is no difficulty in distinguish 
ing " day" in the summary, from " day" in the details, and in 
perceiving that it denotes generally a time. " In what manner 
the creation was conducted," says Bishop Horsley, "is a question 
about a fact, and, "like all questions about facts, must be deter 
mined, not by theory, but by testimony ; and if no testimony were 
extant, the fact must remain uncertain. But the testimony of the 
sacred historian is peremptory and explicit. No expressions could 
be found in any language, to describe a gradual progress of the 
work of six successive days, and the completion of it on the sixth, 
in the literal and common sense of the word * day, more definite 
and unequivocal than those employed by Moses ; and they who 
seek or admit figurative expositions of such expressions as these, 
seem to be not sufficiently aware, that it is one thing to write a 
history, and quite another to compose riddles. The expressions in 
which Moses describes the days of the creation, literally rendered, 
are these : When he has described the first day s work, he says 
* And there was evening, and there was morning, one day ; when 
he has described the second day s work, &lt; There was evening, and 
there was morning, a second day ; when he has described the 
third day s work, There was evening, and there was morning, a 
third day. Thus, in the progress of his narrative, at the end of 



THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

each day s work, he counts up the days which had passed off from 
the beginning of the business ; and, to obviate all doubt what 
portion of time he meant to denote by the appellation of * a day, 
he describes each day of which the mention occurs as consisting of 
one evening and one morning, or, as the Hebrew words literally 
import, of the decay of light and the return of it. By what de 
scription could the word * day be more expressly limited to its 
literal and common meaning, as denoting that portion of time 
which is measured and consumed by the earth s revolution on her 
axis 3 That this revolution was performed in the same space of 
time in the beginning of the world as now, I would not over con 
fidently affirm ; but we are not at present concerned in the reso 
lution of that question : a day, whatever was its space, was still 
the same thing in nature a portion of time measured by the same 
motion, divisible into the same seasons as morning and noon, even 
ing and midnight, and making the like part of longer portions of 
time measured by other motions. The day was itself marked by 
the vicissitudes of darkness and light ; and so many times re 
peated, it made a month, and so many times more a year. For 
six such days, God was making the heaven and the earth, the sea, 
and all that therein is, and rested on the seventh day. This fact, 
clearly established by the sacred writer s testimony, in the literal 
meaning of these plain words, abundantly evinces the perpetual 
importance and propriety of consecrating one day in seven to the 
public worship of the Creator." 1 To these remarks of an emi 
nent scholar, we add the words of an able geologist as well as 
theologian : " We have then six days, which I conceive there is 
good reason to regard as six natural days, six rotations of our 
globe upon its axis, each in about twenty-four hours." 2 

Third Rule. In examining particular passages of Scripture, 
we must consider them in connexion both with their context and 
with other passages relating to the same topics. Such a process 
of induction is due even to the humblest of writers. And it is 
due still more to inspired men, whose words, purer and more 
precious than gold, we must carefully gather and generalize if we 
would know what the great Teacher would have us believe and 

1 Sermon xxiii. 

s Dr. J. Py Smith in " Cours* of Lecture* to Young Men" (1838), p. 18. 



THEORIES TRIED. 521 

do. We must compare spiritual things with spiritual. Of the 
extent to which the testimony of Revelation on the subject before 
us has been misrepresented by the disregard of this undoubted 
canon, the following are illustrations : 

A noted case occurs in the attempt to set aside the primaeval 
Sabbath on the ground, that after the notice in the second chap 
ter of Genesis no further mention of a hallowed day is made by 
the historian till he has proceeded to record the miraculous pro 
vision of the manna. " If the Sabbath had been instituted at the 
time of the creation, as the words in Genesis may seem at first 
sight to import, and if it had been observed all along, from that 
time to the departure of the Jews out of Egypt, a period of about 
two thousand five hundred years ; it appears unaccountable that 
no mention of it, no occasion of even the obscurest allusion to it, 
should occur, either in the general history of the world before the 
call of Abraham, which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs 
ofHts early ages, and those extremely abridged ; or, which is more 
to be wondered at, in that of the lives of the first three Jewish 
patriarchs, which in many parts of the account, is sufficiently cir 
cumstantial and domestic." x 

It is not for man to decide on the manner in which a Divine 
Kevelation should be made. It belongs to him to examine the 
actual revelation, under the conviction that both in its matter and 
in its mode, it must be perfect. Instead, therefore, of indulging 
in uncertain speculations on such a circumstance as that referred 
to, and we must say, exaggerated, by Dr. Paley, we ought to have 
recourse to the light, if any, that has been shed upon it by other 
parts of Scripture. If we would do justice to the character of 
Manasseh, we must read not only of his monstrous wickedness, as 
recorded in the second book of Kings, but of his penitence and re 
formation, as related in the second book of Chronicles. It would 
be an unwarranted inference from the biography of Solomon if we 
conceived that his sun had gone down under a dark cloud of 
apostasy, for, turning to the Ecclesiastes, we see the luminary set 
ting in cloudless and mild glory. If we did not trace the sacred 
history far beyond the close of the Pentateuch, we should not be 
aware that the true law of marriage, which, from the hardness of 

* Paley s Workt, 18mo, vol. iv. pp. 290, 2fil. 



522 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

Jewish hearts, had been for four thousand years in abeyance, was 
finally re-asserted in its original purity and obligation. 

In the passage which we have cited, the eminent author has 
not entirely neglected to compare one part of Scripture with an 
other. But his induction is both faulty and incomplete. 

It is faulty. He has examined the history in Genesis, but he 
has inverted the universally admitted order of procedure in com 
paring the separate parts, having employed the obscure to de 
fine the clear, the negative to illustrate the positive, or having, 
in other words, instead of interpreting the subsequent silence of 
the historian by his simple narrative of the Creation, interpreted 
the narrative by a silence, his construction of which is a mere con 
jecture. If the terms in which the alleged appointment is couched 
had been dark and doubtful, the omission of reference to it 
afterwards might be an element in determining their import, but 
the fact of the appointment has been put on record in the clear 
and indubitable language of inspiration, and no such omission can 
alter a fact, which must stand for ever. Had the author of Gene 
sis never more mentioned the Sabbath, although this circumstance 
could not have annihilated the fact of the appointment, it would 
have afforded a plausible ground for the doubt whether the evi 
dently instituted day of rest and worship had not been permitted 
to expire. But the silence was ultimately broken, faintly by the 
still small voice of the descending manna, and soon after, effec 
tually, by the thunders of Sinai. The true meaning of silence, 
therefore, in this as in many other instances, is consent. It inti 
mates that nothing had transpired from which it could justly be 
inferred that the conveyance of a Sabbatic boon had been with 
drawn, or that the imposition of Sabbatic obligations had been 
cancelled. It conveys even more than this, and emphatically, as 
on numerous occasions, implies the superfluousness of utterance. 

But Dr. Paley s induction is also incomplete. Had his survey 
been more comprehensive, and had he thus performed a simple act 
of justice to the inspired writers and to truth, he would have found 
that the circumstance made use of by him to abridge the pedigree, 
limit the extent, and weaken the authority, of a confessedly be 
nignant institute, which every friend of morals and humanity 
should desire to see surrounded and fortified by every Divine sane- 



THEORIES TRIED. 523 

tion, is in entire agreement with the history of other great enact 
ments and facts, and with the general history of the Sabbath 
itself. 

How fares it with various institutions, laws, and events 1 Of 
the Fall of man nothing is said for the period during which the 
Sabbath receives no particular notice. That momentous event is 
trace! only in the sins and miseries of the race, just as the appoint 
ment of the weekly rest is seen in its results in the prevalent re 
gard to the septenary number, and distribution of time, and in the 
indications of social religion, with its priesthood, tithes, set places 
and seasons of worship ; circumstances which were the natural 
sequences of the Creator s working and rest, and which cannot be 
accounted for but on the supposition of that prior Divine ex 
ample and arrangement. Was the account of the Fall in the 
beginning of Genesis the mere intimation of a destined or prospec 
tive event, as it is alleged the account of the Sabbath was ? An 
affirmative answer would be as reasonable in the one case as in 
the other. The announcement of Redemption was indeed a pre 
diction, but in harmony with other facts we find that the greatest 
of all events, after an early and obscure notice, is hardly again 
mentioned for the long period of two thousand five hundred years. 
" Although particular instances of the observance of the Sabbath 
by the old patriarchs, could not be given and evinced, yet we 
ought no more on that account to deny that they did observe 
it, than we ought to deny their faith in the promised Seed, 
because it is nowhere expressly recorded in the story of their 
lives." J 

How scanty the references in Genesis to the creation if we ex 
cept the first and second chapters ! The observance of the ordin 
ance of circumcision is never once alluded to between the times of 
Joshua and John the Baptist. There is no notice of the Passover 
from the date of Deuteronomy xvi. 2, to the days of Isaiah. We 
have already adverted to the long-continued omission of any asser 
tion of the true law of marriage. The Sabbatical year is during 
a space of nine hundred years passed over in silence. And not 
one of the laws of the Decalogue except the sixth, is ever formally 
announced till they are promulgated from Sinai, although we have 

1 Owen on Sab., Exvre. 8&lt;L, geci. 3T. 



524 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

evidence that they were obligatory and known. " Excepting Jacob s 
supplication at Bethel, scarcely a single allusion to prayer is to be 
found in all the Pentateuch ; yet, considering the eminent piety 
of the worthies recorded in it, we cannot doubt the frequency 
of their devotional exercises." 1 How "unaccountable" on Dr. 
Paley s principle, such intervals of neglected reference, if the in 
stitutions and laws were really appointed and observed, and if 
the events actually took place ! But notwithstanding the silence 
of history, we know that these were all veritable transactions. 
And such also must have been the early institution of a day of 
sacred rest. 

The obscurity which for a time rested on the fortunes of the 
Sabbath is, moreover, in coincidence with its own general history. 
In the account of the time from Moses to Elisha, when the Jewish 
ritual and laws were in all their vigour, and the record of events 
was so full, " no mention of" the institution, " no occasion of 
even the slightest allusion to it," occurs. And yet, as Archdeacon 
Stopford observes, " That was a much longer period of history 
than we have of the patriarchal age." 2 Dr. Paley is satisfied 
with the evidence in the New Testament for a Christian Sabbath, 
but that evidence does not consist in the number of notices or 
even allusions on the subject, which are few and scattered. It is 
only, indeed, in such cases as the introduction of new economies, 
or the necessary exposure of flagrant perversions, neglects, or dese 
crations of the sacred rest by the professors of the true religion, 
that the mention of it is at all particular, as at the Creation, the 
descent of the manna, the giving of the Law, the charges preferred 
against Israel by the prophets, the predictions by the same per 
sons of the nature and glory of the Christian dispensation, and 
the vindication by our Lord of the Sabbath law from the abuses 
of Jewish tradition and superstition. Unless there are such de 
mands for specific remark, it is the practice of the inspired writers 
to maintain an entire abstinence on the subject, as, for example, in 
the time following the transactions of Sinai, or to make those in 
cidental references to it, as in 2 Kings iv. 23, which the relation 
of other facts renders necessary. That there are circumstances 
throughout the history of the period from the Creation to the 

Holden on the Christian Setbbath, p. 8T. 2 Srvpto.i*. Arcount offhe Sabbath, p. tt. 



THEORIES TRIED. 525 

Exodus, which imply the appointment of a Sabbath, has already 
been adverted to ; but even on the supposition of the absence of 
all allusion to any such institution during that long period, the 
method of Revelation, comprehensively viewed, precludes the in 
ference that it is unnoticed, either because it had been abrogated, 
o: because it had never been appointed. 

The argument, therefore, of Dr. Paley is disproved, as it leads 
to conclusions which, besides being contrary to " the seeming im 
port," as he allows, "of the words in Genesis," or, as ought 
rather to be said, to their only possible meaning, are discounte 
nanced by the analogy in Scripture of cases in which the existence 
of Sabbatic and other institutions and laws is unquestionable, and 
which would, in fact, be as fatal to their authority as to the claims 
of a primaeval day of rest. The argument, in other words, by 
proving too much, is utterly useless for its purpose, and forms 
another evidence of the weakness of the cause which it is brought 
to support. 

Rather let the blank in the history of the Sabbath, of which 
so much has been made, be permitted to remain " unaccountable," 
than be explained by wresting from its true meaning a sacred 
narrative of surpassing simplicity and clearness. May it not, 
however, be accounted for in a legitimate way 1 In some preced 
ing remarks it has been traced to a principle or rule in revelation, 
that there is for inspired as for other men, "a time to keep 
silence and a time to speak." But this rule itself has reasons, 
which it discloses in the instances in which it is applied to regu 
late both the omissions and notices of the Sabbath. In circum 
stances such as those of Cain, who went out from the presence of 
the Lord, and became the father and founder of a godless race, it 
is unnecessary to specify the disappearance of any particular in 
stitution, when all have been swallowed up in the vortex of a 
general irreligion. It is different with a people like the Jews, 
who were banished to Babylon on account partly of their neglect 
of Sabbatic privileges, and of whom it is natural to record both 
Jerusalem s "remembrance, in the days of her affliction and 
misery, of her pleasant things in the days of old," as contrasted 
with her Sabbaths now mocked, her sanctuary violated, and her 
bread taken away, and Jeremiah s lamentation over the forgotten 

23* 



526 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

solemn feasts and Sabbaths in Zion. When, on the other hand, 
the institution is generally respected by a pious race, like the de 
scendants of Seth, it would be as superfluous to relate the fact as 
it would be formally to announce the continued shining of the 
sun ; and where individuals obey the law of the Sabbath in their 
hearts and in the privacies of their homes, a chariness in the dis 
closure of such matters is only in keeping with the character of 
good men who are not forward to divulge their religious experience, 
and with the spirit, too, of the sacred penmen, who usually draw a 
veil over such scenes, choosing, except in a particular case, as of 
David, who must sacrifice in the Psalms his private feelings for the 
public good, to present their worthies in the attitude rather of 
public action for God and man than of personal devotion. That 
the sacred writers dwell on certain matters of truth and conduct 
still more than on the weekly rest, and refer to the observance of 
it and of other institutions as of no avail without the faith and love 
of the heart, and the obedience of the life, are clear indications 
that it is only a means to the higher end of salvation and moral ex 
cellence. And yet that they do not thereby prejudice the institution 
itself is no less manifest. Isaiah and our Lord, who unsparingly 
denounce the substitution of ordinances and forms for faith and 
holy character, are careful to assert the authority and true designs 
of the Sabbath. When the spirit of the world encroaches on its 
limits and duties, it is seen that piety and morals are endangered 
in another form, and it is now the time for an Amos to sound the 
alarm to those who long for the cessation of its brief hours that 
they may return to the congenial occupation of " setting forth 
wheat." The mention of it in the first and last books of Scripture, 
and in intervening ones of various dates, the particularity with 
which it is noticed at the introduction of all the great changes in 
the forms of religious polity, and the ancient predictions of its 
prevalence in the last days, all proclaim its great and permanent 
importance. And when we add that it is frequently referred to 
incidentally, and that its names occur nearly a hundred times in the 
Bible, it will appear that it has not been without a proportionate 
share of attention in a volume which is not large, and comprehends 
the records of some four thousand years, with, predictions extend 
ing to thousands more. 



THEORIES TEIED, 527 



CHAPTER VI. 

THEORIES ANE ARGUMENTS TRIED BY THE DOCTRINE 
AND LAW OF REVELATION continued. 

LET us now apply the rule which Dr. Paley has overlooked, 
and we shall find that there are references in various parts of 
Scripture to a primitive Sabbath which not only confirm the com 
mon view of the narrative in Genesis ii. 1-3, but, by the incidental 
way in which they are made, show how unnecessary the sacred 
writers deemed it to unfold and fortify the obvious meaning of 
the historian. 

1. One of the references is to be found in the account of the 
giving of the manna. The children of Israel had, in their jour 
neying from Egypt, reached the wilderness of Sin, when they 
charged Moses and Aaron with bringing them into so inhospitable 
a region for the purpose of " killing them with hunger." God 
informed Moses that He was to " rain bread from heaven," that 
the people should gather a certain rate every day, that on the 
sixth day they should prepare what they brought in, and that it 
should be twice as much as they gathered daily. The rulers 
having reported to Moses this double quantity as " an accomplished 
fact," he replied, " This is that which the Lord hath said, To 
morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath to the Lord." It is im 
possible that this last expression could have been employed if 
there had been no preceding institution of the Sabbath, for in 
this case there would have been no idea in the minds of the rulers 
that corresponded with the word " Sabbath," and no fact in their 
memories of any such observance as is intimated in the phrase, 
" the rest of the holy Sabbath." The rulers, however, ask no 
explanation, and Moses gives none either then or next day, when 
he says, " To-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord." The ordinance. 



528 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

therefore, existed before this time, and its name must have been 
a -household word. Let us now look at the arrangement of this 
and the preceding history as it appears to readers in all subsequent 
time. They have seen, in the beginning of the second chapter of 
Genesis, a notice of the seventh day as sanctified and blessed, 
and also the next express mention of such a day in the sixteenth 
chapter of Exodus. They have found the latter pointing to a 
pre-existent institution, and have turned to the former as the 
only account of such a thing in the previous history. They have 
identified the two. If this be a mistake, they have of necessity 
fallen into it, not only from the want of any words to guard them 
against the error, but from the manner in which the historian has 
arranged his materials and expressed his ideas. The mistake, 
accordingly, is general, only a few learned men, who had a pur 
pose to serve, having escaped it. If we would not impute to a 
sacred writer literary inability or intentional deception, we have 
no alternative but to believe that the Sabbath was instituted at 
the creation. 

2. Within a few weeks after the transactions in the wilderness of 
Sin, for the weekly reckoning of time had not been lost in Egypt, 
the following words were uttered from Sinai : " Remember the 
Sabbath-day to keep it holy." The language reduplicates on the 
earliest notice of the seventh day s rest, and in two distinct forms 
establishes the antiquity of the institution. It refers to a pre 
viously appointed and understood holy day, the only account of the 
origin and object of which is given in Genesis ii. ; and it deter 
mines the duty of observing it to have been binding from the 
beginning, for it is not said, as it would if the obligation had been 
new, " Wherefore the Lord blesseth the Sabbath-day and hallo weth 
it," but " Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hal 
lowed it." It is the Sabbath-day, therefore, not merely as ob 
served and confirmed at the giving of the manna, and mentioned 
abruptly, and without explanation or reasons in Exodus xvi., but 
as originated at the creation and described in Genesis, that is com 
manded to be kept in sacred remembrance. 

3. We arrive at the same conclusion respecting the original of 
the Sabbath by comparing the words of Genesis with a passage 
in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The writer of that Epistle hag 



THEORIES TRIED. 529 

been warning the Christian converts from Judaism against the 
unbelief which excluded their fathers from the rest in the pro 
mised land, and which would make them fall short of another 
rest promised to themselves. This could not be the rest of 
Canaan, which was now past. Nor could it, he says, be the rest 
of the seventh day, because this rest immediately followed the 
creation, and could not therefore remain to be entered into : " For 
we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have 
sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest : although 
the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 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." " There re- 
maineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is 
entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as 
God did from his." Without recurring to the service otherwise 
rendered to the cause of the Christian Sabbath by the argument 
and language of the apostle which has already been considered, let 
it suffice in this place to say, that they could have no bearing or 
meaning, if the rest of the seventh day had not subsisted and been 
enjoyed from the beginning of time. 

4. The self-evident sense of the history in Gen. ii. 1-3 is con 
firmed by our Lord, when he says, " The Sabbath was made for 
man." 

Let another of those expedients to which the opponents of a 
primaeval Sabbath have been driven in support of their cause, be 
exhibited for a little in the concentrated light of Scripture. Some 
have maintained, that the appropriation by Jehovah of the seventh 
day to beneficent and sacred use contemplated His own good and 
His own observance, not a benefit to be enjoyed and a service to 
be performed by man. That He rested on the first seventh day, 
and was refreshed or satisfied with His work of creation, and that 
the work and the rest were designed for the ultimate and highest 
end of His own glory, we readily acknowledge. But the direct 
purpose of the whole was the good of human beings. For man 
was all this done, and " for our sakes, no doubt, this is written." 
This purpose of the Divine procedure neither excluded the benefit 
of other cre-atures as a subordinate design, nor interfered with the 
ultimate end of the Creator s glory, for which man himself and 

2 L 



030 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

all other beings were made, but was rather tributary to both. 
As to the Sabbath, the connexion of the words in the narmtive of 
the creation ought to leave no one in doubt that the immediate 
design of its appointment was the happiness of mankind. When 
we consider that the work of the six days consisted in the provid 
ing of a residence for man, with everything in it to supply his 
wants, as well as bright luminaries hung over it to give him light, 
to be for signs and for seasons, for days and for years, and that 
to man was given dominion over every living thing that moved on 
the earth a grant renewed in some respects to Noah and his sons, 
when, as the representatives of the race, they took possession of 
the renewed world we cannot avoid the obvious conclusion, that 
the proceedings of the seventh day were in like manner designed 
for the direction and good of human beings. The sanctifying and 
the blessing of the day must have respected the same being, a 
being sentient as well as capable of having a time set apart for 
him ; but Jehovah needed not a day for His own holy use, and 
could receive no blessing from such a day. And when we extend 
our induction beyond the words in Genesis when we consider the 
great things recorded in other parts of Scripture as done by the 
Almighty for our race in the donation to them of the earth in 
the co-operation of all events " for good to them who love" Him 
in His preference before all temples, before that even of the whole 
material universe, of "the upright heart and pure" in the pre 
paration for every one who faithfully serves Him in this world, 
of a seat with Himself on the throne of heaven in writing to us 
the great things of His law above all, in His manifesting Him 
self in human nature for man s redemption, it appears to be only 
like Himself, having occupied six days in a work which He 
could have performed in an instant of time, to rest on the seventh, 
as an example of order, activity, and repose to us, and to appoint 
a day of special blessing and sanctity for human happiness and 
guidance. To this meaning of the Creator s conduct, so transparent 
in itself, and so entirely in harmony with all His other procedure, 
the Redeemer has set His seal in the words of the Fourth Com 
mandment, and in His memorable saying, " The Sabbath was 
made for man." 

Our rule, in like manner, satisfactorily disposes of certain philo- 



THEOEIES TRIED. 531 

logical objections which are advanced against the authority of the 
Lord s day. The friends of the seventh-day Sabbath, by dwelling 
so much on certain idiomatic expressions in the original text of 
Scripture, show how much they regard their explanations of these 
phrases as among the strongholds of their system. In order to 
get rid of the Lord s day, they endeavour to show that the ex 
pression fita cra/^aTwv, rendered in our Bibles " the first day of 
the week," cannot refer to this day, but signifies " one of the 
Sabbaths," or " one day of the week." But what Mark and the 
other evangelists call /u a arajSpdTuv, the former designates Tr/atory 
&lt;ra/3/3aTov, thus determining the meaning of both expressions to 
be the same, the first day of the week. The females who designed 
to embalm the body of Jesus did not proceed to fulfil their inten 
tion till after the Sabbath, or seventh day, was over, for it is said, 
" They rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment," 1 
and " in the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the 
ftrst day of the week, came to see the sepulchre," 2 when they 
found Jesus was not there. It was, therefore, on the day after 
the seventh day, or, in other words, on the first day of the week, 
that his resurrection occurred. " You say," observes the emi 
nent mathematician, Dr. Wallis, in his controversy with Mr. 
Thomas Bampfield, " the Greek word /u a signifies one, and e? 
/ua Ij/ is rendered (not the first, but) one, about an hundred times 
in our translation of the New Testament ; and /u a o-a/3/3dr(Dv 
(which we translate the first day of the week} you render by one 
of the Sabbaths. Now, tis very true that pia in Greek doth sig 
nify one (and it may be so translated, for ought I know, as often 
as you say). But if you were so good a critic as to correct the 
translation, you might have known that pia o-a/^arwv cannot sig 
nify one of the Sabbaths, for then it should have been ev cra/3(3a.- 
TO&gt;V, because o-a/^ara is the neuter gender. Would you think 
una SMatorum to be good Latin for one of the Sabbaths 1 And 
you do not much mend it when you say, one of the week, meaning 
one day of the week ; for if by one, you mean some one, it should 
then be TIS ypepa, not /u a ypepa. And Matt, xxviii. 1, it dawned 
or drew near eis rrjv /uav to the one, not to some one day inde 
finitely, but to that certain day which was known by the name of 

i Luke xxlii. 5fl. * Matt xxviii 1. 



532 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

pia &lt;ra/?/3aTwv, and so here [Acts xx. 7] ev rrj pia in the one, etc. . . . 
But since you are now content to allow, that by /xia craft pdruv is 
generally meant the first day of the week, and in some places cer 
tainly so meant, and may be so meant in this place, and probably 
is so meant here (to which you may add, that it doth not appear 
any where to be otherwise meant, nor do you offer any reason or 
pretence of reason why not so meant here as it is every where else). 
I hope you will not be offended with me for calling it trifling to 
tell us again and again (and yet to insist upon it) that /u a signifies 
one. If, in an argument at Westminster Hall, when it doth ap 
pear that such a thing was done one hour after twelve o clock, you 
should still insist upon it that six o clock is one hour, and that it 
is after twelve, and therefore this might be at six o clock (or any 
other hour of the day) and would be thought in earnest when you 
so argue ; you would not be offended if the Bar or the Bench 
should take this to be trifling, and the best excuse that could be 
made for it would be, surely he is not in earnest. " 1 

Again, from the manner in which the time of our Lord s second 
visit to his disciples is intimated in John xx. 26, "And after 
eight days, again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. 
Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, 
and said, Peace be unto you," it is inferred that eight complete 
days must have intervened, and consequently that it did not take 
place on the day which is observed as the Christian Sabbath. In 
support of this view, it is attempted to explain away a peculiar 
phraseology common to the sacred writers, customary with other 
authors, as well as in the ordinary speech of various nations, and 
understood by all as exclusive, not inclusive, of parts of the first 
and last days in the series. Thus when it is said in Luke ii. 21, 
" And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of 

i Defense of the Christian Sabbath, Partii. pp. 34, 36. Dr. Wallis s Defense abounds 
in learning, ingenuity, and a vein of good-natured wit. In pleading that the word 
Sabbath, in Matt. xxiv. 20, and Acts xiii. 42, denotes the Christian Sabbath, he says, in 
reference to the latter text, " The Gentiles besought that these words might be preached 
to them the next Sabbath :" " The next Sabbath (TO fj-era^it (rdpfiaTOv) is the 
Sabbath between or the intermediate Sabbath. Now what can be that intermediate 
Sabbath (between two next Sabbaths of the Jews) on which they should preach to the 
Gentiles, in contradistinction to the Jews, but the Christian Sabbath on the first day 
of the week ?" None of the commentators that we have consulted adopts this meaning 
but it appears to us to deserve more consideration than it has received. 



THEORIES TRIED. 533 

the child, his name was called Jesus," the meaning is, not that 
the child was circumcised on the ninth day, but on the eighth, 
the day appointed in the law of Moses. It is repeatedly stated 
that Christ was to rise from the dead after the third day. 1 But 
Christ is expressly declared to have risen on the third day. 2 Jero 
boam and Israel were desired by Eehoboam to come to him after 
three days. 3 Their coming on the third day (ver. 12), proved this 
to be the day intended. The Romans used the expression, "post 
paucos dies" after a few days, meaning a few days after. A third- 
day ague was, in Latin phrase, a quartan, one occurring every 
other day was a tertian. The French call a fortnight, quinze jours, 
and a week, huit jours, or eight days. And it is common with 
many amongst ourselves to say, "This day eight days," eight 
days, in fact, if they include the whole of the first and last day of 
the series, but only seven, "This day se n-night," when they 
count from a certain hour of the first to the corresponding hour of 
the last. 4 

Dr. Paley and others adduce the following passages as evi 
dence that 2500 years had passed away ere a Sabbatic appoint 
ment took place : " I caused them to go forth out of the land of 
Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness ; and I gave them 
my statutes, and shewed them my judgments, which if a man do, 
he shall even live in them. Moreover, also, I gave them my 
Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might 
know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." 5 " Thou earnest 
down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from 
heaven, and gavest them right judgments and true laws, good 
statutes and commandments : and madest known unto them thy 
holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, 
by the hand of Moses thy servant." 6 To insist that such lan 
guage establishes the origination of the Sabbath at the time to 
which it refers, requires us no less to believe, that all the other 
statutes mentioned in connexion with that institution were then 
also enacted. According to this doctrine, sacrifices, the Deca 
logue, and circumcision, must have then in the first instance been 

i Matt, xxvii. 63 ; Mark viii 31. 2 Luke xxviL 7 ; 1 Cor. xv. 4. 

8 2 Chron. x. 5. Compare Esther iv. 16 ; v. 1. 

* Exek. xx 10, It. Neh. ix. IS, 14. 



634 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

appointed. But sacrifices had been offered as early as the days 
of Abel ; the ten commandments had been in force from the 
creation, for there are traces of them all in the Book of Genesis : 
" For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not im 
puted when there is no law ;" and circumcision had been insti 
tuted four hundred years before. How strikingly, as to this 
last-mentioned ordinance, does the rule of induction expose the 
fallacy of Dr. Paley s argument ! Circumcision, like the Sabbath, 
is mentioned as given at the commencement of the Levitical dis 
pensation : " Moses gave unto you circumcision ; not because it 
is of Moses, but of the fathers." 1 No less decisive is another 
example. While it is said, " Thou madest known unto them thy 
holy Sabbath," it is in other parts of Scripture declared, " He 
showeth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto 
Israel." But Abraham knew the word, statutes, and judgments 
of God, though not so fully, yet as substantially as his descend 
ants, else it could not have been said of him : " I know him, 
that he will command his children and his household after him, 
and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judg 
ment ; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he 
hath spoken of him." 2 The explanation of " the giving of Sab 
baths," " the making known of God s holy Sabbath," " the giving 
of right judgments and true laws, good statutes and command 
ments," " the showing of his word, his statutes and his judg 
ments " to Israel, as compared with earlier gifts and command 
ments to mankind, is, that laws arid institutions previously 
appointed and known were at Sinai, with superadded ceremonies 
and political statutes, formally promulgated, committed to writing, 
and organized into a regular system. This was a great boon, 
indeed, but it no more disproves the antecedent institution of the 
Sabbath than it does that of circumcision, or of the existing laws 
requiring honour to parents, and respect for property and human 
life. Still less do the words, " I gave them my Sabbaths to be 
a sign between me and them," convey the idea of an entirely 
new gift. This is manifest from Deut. vi. 4-9, where it is 
said, " Hear, Israel ; The Lord our God is one Lord : and 
thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with 

i John vii. 22, * Gea xviii. \9, 



THEORIES TRIED. 535 

all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I 
command thee this day, shall be in thine heart ; and thou shalt 
teach them diligently unto thy children and thou shalt bind 
them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets 
between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of 
thy house, and on thy gates." The law, which was a sign to 
Israel, was to " go forth out of Zion," and did go forth. And 
so the Sabbath, notwithstanding any local or temporary purpose 
served by it, might be destined to be, as it has in reality become, 
a law and blessing to mankind. 

Some of these remarks serve to introduce another mistaken view 
of the laws of Moses. The writers in question confound things 
that differ, blending together the moral, ceremonial, and civil laws 
of the Jews. Dr. Paley, for the purpose, we presume, of showing 
that the Sabbath must have taken its rise in the wilderness, and 
in connexion with the Jewish economy, adduces some adjuncts of 
the institution as it existed under that economy. He mentions, 
in the first place, the strict cessation from work, enjoined by the 
law of the Jewish Sabbath upon Jews and all residing within the 
limits of the State, the permission of such cessation to their slaves 
and their cattle, and the punishment of the violation of this rest 
with death. 1 Now, here, that able writer conceives of the 
Fourth Commandment, and of certain judicial regulations, pecu 
liar to that people and time, as if they were the same thing. 
But the penalty of death, forming a part of the political law, 
which assigned the same punishment to idolatry and disobedience 
to parents, is not specified in the Fourth Commandment. The 
political law, except in so far as it expressed the eternal principles 
of morality, was the law of a nation only in which the Church and 
State were one, and is not therefore generally applicable to any 
other nation. It might be as justly affirmed that duty to parents 
was a peculiarity of Judaism, beginning and ending with it, as 
that the observance of the Sabbath was such a peculiarity, since 
the one as well as the other was, by the law of Moses, required 
on pain of death. 2 As Dr. Paley does not cite instances from 
Scripture of strictness in the injunction of rest, but only facts in 
the conduct of the Jews, we will not go with him into this 

1 Exodus xxxl. 15. 2 Dent xxi. 18, 21. 



536 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

subject, observing only that what the Fourth Commandment re 
quired in this matter must not be identified with anything really 
burdensome, or with oppressive ceremonies added by the Jews, 
since the institution which it regulated was to be called " a de 
light, the holy of the Lord, and honourable." 1 

" Besides which," says Dr. Paley, " the seventh day was to be 
solemnized by double sacrifices." 2 These sacrifices, however, as 
compared with those offered in some other festivals, were not bur 
densome. Whether the former were required before the time of 
Moses we are not informed. In the temple-worship described by 
Ezekiel, and not without good reason supposed emblematically to 
portray the state of things in the Christian Church, the sacrifices 
of the Sabbath were to be still more numerous. 3 The double sa 
crifices under the law make nothing against the early origin and 
permanent obligation of a day of sacred rest. They were shadows 
of good things to come, to pass away when the substance was 
realized, but as types have their corresponding realities, so these 
sacrifices and those described by Ezekiel appear to have prefigured 
not only the sacred services of the future Christian Sabbath, but 
the multiplication on that day of religious observances which their 
own simplicity, the spirituality of the worshippers, and a larger 
supply of Divine influence, would render a yoke that should be 
easy and a burden that should be light. 

The "holy convocations" 4 which Dr. Paley further adduces as 
a characteristic of the Mosaical Sabbath, although in the case of 
the Jews connected with ritual observances that were more frequent 
and organized than in the times of the patriarchs, and belong not 
to Christianity, have always been practised from the period when 
men began to call on the name of the Lord down to our own 
day. The same law which gave authority to the Patriarchal and 
Jewish convocations requires " the assembling of ourselves toge 
ther" for the simpler services of the Christian worship. 

The distinction, however, between the various laws of Moses, 
although lost sight of in some cases, as we have seen, is at other 
times recognised by Dr. Paley, who does not hesitate to rank the 
Jewish Sabbath among merely ritual appointments. " The 3is 

i Isa. Iviii. 13. 2 j$ um . xxviii. 9, 10. 

Ezk. xxvi. 4 Lev. xxiii. 8. 



THEORIES TRIED, 537 

tinction of the Sabbath," he observes, " is, in its nature, as much 
a positive ceremonial institution, as that of many other seasons 
which were appointed by the Levitical law to be kept holy, and 
to be observed by a strict rest ; as the first and seventh days of 
unleavened bread ; the feast of Pentecost ; the feast of Taber 
nacles : and in Exodus xxiii. the Sabbath and these are recited to 
gether." 1 One important difference between the Sabbath and the 
other institutions here compared, however, is that none of the 
latter has a place in the Decalogue. Dr. Paley sees something in 
the recital of the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, but nothing in 
the recital of the twentieth chapter. He himself overturns his 
only proof of the preceding statement by afterwards producing 
cases in which " ceremonial and political duties, confessedly of 
partial obligation, are enumerated along with others which are 
natural and universal," "the distinction between positive and 
natural duties, like other distinctions of modern ethics, being un 
known to the simplicity of ancient language." 2 We object not to 
his taking one or other of the grounds that the juxtaposition of 
subjects is or is not an evidence of their character, but it is too 
much to urge that the Sabbath is a positive duty because classed 
with ceremonies, and not a moral duty because included in an 
enumeration of matters belonging to morals. There are undoubt 
edly instances in which the two classes of subjects are intermingled, 
but not when laws are formally enacted or proclaimed, and when 
accuracy, order, and the interest and intelligent obedience of those 
to be ruled by them, require that they should be placed in their 
respective categories. And our minds must be peculiarly con 
structed or biassed, if, considering the Decalogue as consisting of 
laws not only of universal concern, but carefully detached from 
political and ceremonial statutes, and alone announced in circum 
stances of special solemnity and grandeur, we can discern no dif 
ference in character between a precept prohibiting idolatry or 
murder, and one forbidding to touch a dead body, or to plough 
with an ox and an ass together. 

The other reasons assigned by the same writer for regarding the 
Sabbath " as part of the peculiar law of the Jewish policy," if 
more consistent, are not much more weighty, than the one now 

i Paley s WorTct, vol. iv. p. 20d Ibid. pp. 297, 298. 



538 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

examined. He says, "If the command by which the Sabbatlj 
was instituted be binding upon Christians, it must be binding as 
to the day, the duties, and the penalty ; in none of which it is 
received." He might have as well said, The command of worship 
given to the Jews, if binding on us, must bind us to go to Jeru 
salem at certain times for that purpose, to practise circumcision, 
and to observe the passover with all the other sacrifices. He 
might have said, The command of reverence in worship, if apply 
ing to us, must require us to put off our shoes, and to direct our 
eyes to a holy place, made with hands. He might have said, If 
the law which obliged the Jews to abstain from idolatry and to 
honour their parents be obligatory upon us, it must be so in both 
cases on pain of death. Again, he alleges, the observance of the 
Sabbath was not one of the articles enjoined by the apostles in 
Acts xv. upon them " which from among the Gentiles were turned 
unto God." The enumeration referred to in this passage makes 
nothing against the institution, as it is not complete in respect of 
either ritual or moral duties, and is utterly irrelevant to the 
writer s purpose. But it is relevant to the purpose of proving the 
opposite of what it is adduced to establish. The decision of the 
Synod of Jerusalem was, that the Gentile believers were to abstain 
from certain things which were offensive to their Jewish brethren. 
And as nothing would have been more offensive to those Christians 
who had formerly been Jews than the neglect of a day of rest on 
the part of the converts from among the heathen, the absence of 
any injunction to keep such a day indicates that no offence existed 
on that score. Finally, it is affirmed that " St. Paul evidently 
appears to have considered the Sabbath as part of the Jewish 
ritual, and not obligatory upon Christians as such : * Let no man 
judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of 
the new moon, or of the Sabbath-days, which are a shadow of 
things to come ; but the body is of Christ." 1 These words have 
been already noticed. Let us add a very few remarks. The pas 
sage goes to protect Christians against attempts to impose upon 
them the Jewish ceremonies of distinctions of meat, and the dis 
tinctions of such days as holy days, new moons, and Sabbath-days. 
But the Fourth Commandment was not ceremonial There was no 

i Col. ii. 16, 17. 



THEORIES TBIED. 539 

ceremony in a season of rest and devotion on a seventh day more 
than in the diligent labour of the other six. If the Apostle vindi 
cated their right to keep no day holy, he also vindicated their right 
to occupy no day in a secular calling. If they were left free to 
have every man his own day of worship, they were left free also 
vo disregard the anciently appointed season of industry. That 
some professing Christians had taken up these loose notions appears 
from the reproof which the same Apostle addresses in another 
epistle to the disorderly persons who made every day a day of rest. 
How obvious that by the Sabbath days the Apostle cannot mean 
a day of holy rest absolutely viewed, but the days fixed of old 
among the Jews, including the particular day of the ancient Sab 
bath, which as being all typical had been fulfilled in Christ, and 
any imposition of which now involved a rejection of Him ! It was 
with the former weekly resting-day as with circumcision, there was 
to be a bearing with Jewish prejudice ; but as the attempt to com 
pel Gentiles to be circumcised was condemned by the Apostle as 
an infringement of their rights, and as even involving a renuncia 
tion of Christianity, so for the Jews to judge Gentile converts in 
regard to meats and days was also an infraction of their liberty, 
and an act of constructive treason against Christ as their risen 
Saviour, and the author of a finished redemption. This was more 
than the law of Moses itself had required, as Gentiles might be 
proselytes without being bound to the ceremonies of that law. 

It thus appears that various theories and arguments militating 
against our doctrine are incapable of standing before the applica 
tion of the just and Divine rule which requires us to " compare 
spiritual things with spiritual." To give one more example, how 
completely does a writer, acting on this rule, overthrow the tenet 
of an e very-day Sabbath in two sentences ! " Some indeed here 
argue : it [the New Dispensation] is more spiritual, because we 
consider every day a Sabbath ; we are every day to live to the 
glory of God. But was not this the duty of the people of God in 
former times as well as now, and this did not prevent a seventh 
part of their time being immediately consecrated to the Divine 
service." 1 

Fourth Rule. It must be remembered that the mind and wiU 

1 Innes s Christ. Sab. p. 62. 



540 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

of God are made known to us in various modes. It would be a 
serious mistake in any reader of the Bible to conceive that the 
Divine Being must be limited to an express declaration for every 
truth that He propounds, and to an express command for every duty 
that He enjoins that He cannot convey his thoughts in the differ 
ent forms of explicit affirmation, figurative language, examples, or 
statements from which conclusions are to be drawn and that He 
may not utter to a few individuals matters of universal concern, 
as well as, for the benefit of a small circle, frame laws of general 
and abiding importance that He may not, for example, announce 
to Adam a catholic Sabbath, or to the small nation of the Jews 
an everlasting gospel and a world-embracing Decalogue. This 
would be to deny to the Supreme a right which we ourselves fre 
quently exercise ; this would be to refuse to the All-wise and the 
All-kind, the ability or the disposition to communicate with us 
after the manner of men a mode of communication which in con 
descension and mercy to the creatures of the dust He has ever 
employed. If we will not follow this obvious rule for coming to 
the knowledge of the truth and our duty, we must walk on in 
darkness. 

This rule is transgressed by an opinion which has led to much 
error on our subject, and which is itself demonstratively erroneous. 
The opinion is, that, because there is no formal command in the 
narrative of Genesis ii. 1-3 for the observance of the seventh day, 
or in the New Testament for the observance of the first day of 
the week, we have no proof that either a primitive Sabbath or 
the Lord s day has, or ever had, the force of a law. The error 
takes its rise in a preconceived notion of what is necessary as evi 
dence on this subject. When we look into the sacred volume, we 
find that the Divine will may be made known by actions or by state 
ments, from which we have to infer our duty or privilege, as well 
as in a directly preceptive or declaratory form. If express statute 
were in every case required to constitute obligation, then no law 
of marriage was enacted in Paradise, because the Creator merely 
performed an action and pronounced a benediction ; no real, be 
cause only an inferential, prohibition of murder was uttered in the 
words, " Whoso sheddeth man s blood, by man shall his blood 
be shed ;" and in the promise, " They shall not teach every man 



THEORIES TRIED. 541 

his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the 
Lord," there is no actual, because no explicit, injunction to every 
Christian to impart religious instruction to others so long as all 
know not the Lord from the least to the greatest. On the same 
principle, there never existed even a Jewish Sabbath, for both in 
the wilderness of Sin and at Sinai the commands respecting a day 
of rest refer to a previous gift and law, of which, however, we 
have no record except in the narrative of Genesis. The principle, 
therefore, must be false. It is false, for from the case of the law 
of marriage, which our Lord declares was from the beginning, and 
from the other cases named, we learn that actions and statements, 
without the formality of a precept, have been employed to express 
" the will of God concerning us." It is false, for nothing is more 
certain than the existence of a Jewish Sabbath, promulgated in 
the Decalogue, not, however, as a new, but as an old institution, 
founded on the work and rest of the first week of time. " If 
they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be per 
suaded though one rose from the dead." 

Let us present another instance of the violation of a divinely 
given law of Scripture interpretation. It has been held to be a 
just objection to the general and permanent character of legislation, 
that it has been connected with local and temporary circumstances. 
This is an unfounded objection, and calls in question a rule accord 
ing to which the infinite Intelligence has seen it meet to act in 
divulging saving truth and human obligations. It has been the 
Divine method to make known matters of universal concern in 
connexion with particular places and occurrences, and to present 
them, not in cold abstractions, but as naturally springing up 
amidst the business and occasions of human life. Thus the 
appointment of deacons grew out of the circumstances of the 
Apostles and the increasing accessions to the Church. The Lord s 
Supper was instituted by Christ in the presence only of his 
disciples, and a renewed revelation of its divine authority arose 
from the abuses which certain individuals had introduced, and was 
given only to one church. A great part, indeed, of the instruc 
tion which we find in Scripture respecting the everlasting and 
catholic truth as it is in Jesus, was addressed to churches and 
individuals of the first age of Christianity. It was the same in 

24 



542 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

times still more remote. The very earliest notice of a Saviour 
was not directly addressed to the world, which it was intended to 
encourage and bless, but to the great enemy of the Saviour and 
of man. And other animating promises, which have cheered 
the people of God in all subsequent time, were made to indi 
viduals. From the remarks now made we should be led to expect, 
and prepared to account for, the embedding as it were of laws, 
susceptible of the most extensive and enduring application, in a 
phraseology and in allusions of a local and temporary character. 
And yet the actual specialties in the Decalogue are so few and so 
clearly consonant to the universality of its import and bearings, as 
to show how careful the Lawgiver was to render it inexcusable for 
any one to reject its right and claim to be the law of the world. 
There is the preface, " I am the Lord thy God, that brought thee 
out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage." Strictly 
speaking, the preface or preamble does not enter into the law. In 
the present case, it is the Gospel rather than a part of the Law. 
How obvious the principle implied, which is, that the mercy of 
the Lawgiver, especially as exhibited in the work of Redemption, 
is the mighty inducement to do His will ; for when we consider 
the faithful among Israel as constituting with Christians one 
Church, " the seed of Abraham," and " heirs according to the 
promise," and that the redemption from Egypt was a type of the 
great redemption, as well as a step to its accomplishment, it does not 
require what is called an " accommodation" to apply this preface 
far beyond the typical deliverance, and to regard it as pointing 
to the infinitely more influential motives to obedience that are 
supplied by a spiritual and everlasting salvation. There is also 
this promise to filial obedience, " That thy days may be long upon 
the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." The apostle 
Paul does not hesitate to apply the fifth commandment, and its 
promise too, to the children of Christian parents, " Children, obey 
your parents in the Lord : for this is right. Honour thy father 
and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that 
it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth." 
And, once more, the second commandment has annexed to it a 
threatening and a promise, which may be conceived by some to bd 
applicable only to the Jews : " Visiting the iniquity of the fathers 



THEOEIES TRIED. 543 

upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them 
that hate me ; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that 
love me and keep my commandments." But both the curse and 
the blessing were attached to the law of God long before it was 
given at Sinai, and have extended far beyond the boundaries of 
Judea, as well as endured long after the Mosaic economy had 
ceased. Was there anything Judaical in the blessing pronounced 
upon Sheni and Japheth, or in the curse uttered against Ham ? 
Did not both the curse and the blessing begin to take effect before 
the time of Moses 1 Have they not continued to operate in all 
nations 1 And are not their effects perceptible in the circumstances 
of the descendants of Noah even at this hour 1 

Fifth Rule. There are matters, external to the Word of God, 
which serve to illustrate its import, as well as to establish par 
ticular meanings, and which cannofe be innocently, or without 
injury, overlooked. The understanding of Scripture, as of other 
writings, is aided by our " intermeddling with all wisdom." It 
is the glory, indeed, of that Book that a person devoid of erudition 
may learn there all that he needs to know for his salvation, duty, 
and eternal happiness. But such a person, though uninitiated in 
the learning of the schools, has access to valuable means of illu 
minating to him the page of Revelation means, in the events of 
Providence, in the knowledge of himself, in the experience of the 
truth, in the observed conduct of others, and in his own obedience 
to the Divine law all of which pour a flood of illustration on 
the meaning, and of evidence on the authority, of the Sacred 
Volume. The more generally intelligent the reader is, however, 
the more is he prepared to profit by its study. " Ye shall know 
them by their fruits," " The secret of the Lord is with them 
that fear Him." " If any man will do the will of God, he shall 
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." " Wisdom and 
knowledge shall be the stability of thy times." 

The testimony of the Fathers to the meaning of the expressions, 
"the first day of the week," and "the Lord s day" (see pp. 
368-370), the "fruits" of the weekly holiday considered as a 
Divinely-appointed day of entire rest and worship for all ages 
(pp. 173-266), and the history of septenary observances in Pagan 
and Christian countries (pp. 359-455), satisfy the conditions of 



544 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

this rule to the effect of showing that the above-defined institution 
has the appointment and sanction of Revelation. As to all other 
doctrines and practices in the matter, we ask, Where is the external 
evidence by which they are proved to be authorized in the Word of 
God evidence in the events of Providence, in the experience of 
good, and the consciences of bad men, in the superior virtue and 
happiness of individuals and families, in the purity, progress, and 
active benevolence of churches, in the peace, enterprise, and pros 
perity of nations 1 The only answer that is or can be returned, 
is that of Echo shouting, Where ? 

Sixth Rule. This is contained in the words : " The light of 
the body is the eye : therefore when thine eye is single, thy 
whole body also is full of light ; but when thine eye is evil, thy 
body also is full of darkness. Take heed, therefore, that the 
light which is in thee be not darkness." * 

Seventh Rule. If we would study the sacred volume to any 
right and good purpose, we must continually apply for help to its 
Author, who, as is in a limited sense true of human authors, must 
be best acquainted with His own work. Without His direct teach 
ing neither its truths nor its laws can be understood and estimated. 
This is owing not to any imperfection in the Record, for " the law 
uf the Lord is perfect," but to the blinding prejudices and passions 
of the human mind. It is only as we are purged from this in 
fluence by the Holy Spirit, that we shall clearly see the light, and 
truly receive the testimony, of Heaven. The best of all means 
for understanding the Word of God in regard to the Sabbath, as 
to all other matters, is thus described : " Trust in the Lord with 
all thine heart ; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In 
all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." 
" Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out 
of thy law." " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, 
that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not ; and it shall 
be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For 
he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind 
and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any 
thing of the Lord." 

Let it not be said, The world is without the means of knov- 

i Luke xl. 34, 35. 



THEORIES TKTFJX 

ing that this or that person is favoured with "the single eye" 
or with the spirit of dependence upon " the Father of lights," 
in the study of Scripture, and, therefore, Rules 6 and 7 can 
afford no help in deciding between contending opinions in this 
controversy. Not only, however, are these rules necessary to the 
discovery of the truth, and thus to the practical and experimental 
settlement of the dispute, on the part of each individual, but they 
are also relevant and important as means of enabling us to adju 
dicate on conflicting opinions even in open court. Honest and 
earnest inquirers " cannot be hid." There are churches and 
communities in which the love of truth and the spirit of devo 
tion have manifestly prevailed. And as the Divine promises to 
men of such a character cannot fail, the irresistible conclusion is 
that in these societies right views of the Sabbath have been 
on the whole attained, and attained in proportion to the sim 
plicity of the aim and the measure of the piety. To identify 
these successful inquirers, we should have only to repeat the names, 
already given in this volume, of those classes of men, at home and 
abroad, who are most signalized at once by the sacred observance 
of the weekly rest, by their reverence and love for the other in 
stitutions and laws of Jesus Christ, and by their zeal in 
them over the earth. 



046 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THEORIES TRIED BY DIVINE PREDICTIONS. 

THE Pentateuch is by far the oldest historical record. There 
we find it stated that the seventh day of time was blessed and 
sanctified by the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Various 
references in the history of the Patriarchs, and many vestiges of 
the institution among heathen nations, admit of but one explana 
tion, which is, that it had been continued from the beginning of 
time. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, their law 
giver and leader referred to the day of rest as an appointment with 
which they were acquainted. The Saviour declared without chal 
lenge, that Moses was read in the synagogue every Sabbath-day. 
We have also the testimony of Josephus and Philo to the existence 
of the institution during the Jewish ecomony. In the writings of 
Isaiah, besides promises to those who should observe the Sabbath, of 
an everlasting name, and of a place in the house of prayer for all 
people, which plainly point to the times of Christianity, we have this 
prediction and pledge : "For as the new heavens, and the new earth, 
which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall 
your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that 
from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, 
shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord." 1 
And to mention only one other intimation regarding the perpe 
tuity of the Sabbath, the Founder of Christianity said, eighteen 
hundred years ago, concerning the law, of which the Sabbath was 
a part, " Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in 
no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." 2 These words 
have been verified down to this day. We can trace the never- 
failing observance of the Sabbath for eighteen centuries prior to 

i In. Irvi. 22, 23. 2 Matt v. 18. 



THEORIES TEIED. 54V 

the present time. Thus far, then, the language of Christ and of 
Isaiah has held true. The ordinance, indeed, has not been uni 
versal, and only by some maintained in its purity, but its preser 
vation and true observance among any and so many in all ages, 
establish the truth of the foregoing promises respecting it, and 
thus its own Divine authority. Nor are the instances in which 
the Sabbath is abolished or lost unavailing as evidence on its be 
half. They are adducible to establish its Divine authority, as thej 
are the fulfilment of another class of predictions those, we mean, 
which have foretold its withdrawal as the result of its abuse. 
But the fulfilment of prophecy does more than prove the truth of 
the Divine Word as respects the promised continuance of the in 
stitution. It enables us to decide between contending theories 
relative to other aspects of the subject, and it is to this point that 
we are now to call the attention of our readers. 

First of all, the accomplishment of prophecy settles the ques 
tions that have been raised respecting the proportion of time and 
the particular day of the Christian Sabbath. The words lately 
quoted from the prophecies of Isaiah stand connected with his 
glowing descriptions of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that 
should follow, both in His own exaltation and in His benignant 
reign over the earth. Of the happy times of the new heavens 
and the new earth, or the Christian dispensation, when the 
Gentiles should be brought for an offering unto the Lord out of 
all nations, it is declared, " And it shall come to pass, that from 
one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, 
saith the Lord." 1 Then, again, when the prophet Ezekiel had 
his vision of the Temple a vision, which, as we have already 
shown, applying neither to the Jewish dispensation, nor literally 
to the Christian, must be considered as a figurative representation 
of the latter ; he was inspired to utter these words : " And it 
shall be, that upon the eighth day, and so forward, the priests 
shall make your burnt-offerings upon the altar, and your peace- 
offerings and I will accept you, saith the Lord God." 2 Here we 
have a day, a weekly day, and the eighth day, not the eighth day 
of a week of eight days, but the eighth day in reference to the 
ancient, then common, and still prevalent week, the day after ite 

i Is*. Ixvi. 23. 2 Ezek. xliii. 27. 



548 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

seventh day ; in other words, the first day of the week. Two 
facts are unquestionable : first, that the seventh day of the Jews 
has never been the generally recognised day of rest and worship 
among Christians ; and, second, that the first day of the week, 
frequently by the Fathers called the eighth day, has ever been the 
Christian Sabbath, The theories, therefore, which propound re 
spectively an " every-day Sabbath," a " no-day Sabbath," " the 
seventh-day Sabbath," " a half-day, or a two-or-three-hours Sab 
bath each week," do not agree with the predictions to which 
we have referred, and are on this, as they are on other grounds, 
excluded from the right to compete for the honour of being Divine 
institutions. 

Further, Prophecy defines the engagements of its promised 
weekly holy day. That holy day is not merely named a Sabbath, 
a rest ; but has concomitants of duty which are incompatible alike 
with idleness and with secular pursuits. It was to be a day of wor 
ship. They " shall come and worship before me ;" " I will make 
them joyful in my house of prayer ;" " It shall come to pass in 
the last days, that the mountain of the Lord s house shall be esta 
blished in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above 
the hills ; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people 
shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of 
the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us 
of his ways, and we will walk in his paths : for out of Zion shall 
go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. " 1 
Here ; again, the every-day Sabbath is shown to be contrary to 
Scripture prediction, as it is to Scripture rule. A Sabbath of 
worldly pleasure and amusement has no place assigned to it 
under Christianity. A Sabbath devoted in whole or in part to 
the study of science and art is not provided for. Christians were 
to be made joyful, but it was to be in the house of prayer, and 
were not to do their own pleasure on God s holy day. They 
were to be occupied in studying nobler and more important things 
than science or art. Popery has fulfilled the Sabbatic predictions 
of Scripture in some respects, but not in the amount of time, not 
in intelligent devotion, not in religious instruction. The Scripture 
is fulfilled by those only who devote the weekly holy day, with 



THEORIES TRIED. 549 

the exception of so much time as is due to the objects of necessity 
and mercy, entirely to rest and religion. 

Prophecy, which indicates the means, indicates also the man 
ner of worship in Christian times. A blessing is pronounced on 
the man who should not only keep the Sabbath from polluting it, 
" but keep his hand from doing any evil." 1 In the same chap 
ter, promises of better blessings and higher honours than those of 
this world are made to those who should keep God s Sabbaths, 
and choose the things that please Him, among which things are 
"loving-kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth :" for 
" in these things," He declares, " I delight ;" and to " the sons 
of the stranger," the Gentiles, " that join themselves to the Lord, 
to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his ser 
vants, every one that, keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and 
taketh hold of my covenant," it is pledged that they should be 
made joyful, and be accepted in their worship, by Jehovah. In 
another chapter (Iviii.) we are informed that the observance of 
the Sabbath was to consist not only in turning away the foot 
from the Sabbath, from doing one s pleasure on God s holy day, 
but in calling the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honour 
able. The doctrines of an " every-day Sabbath," of the Sab 
bath as an ecclesiastical or political arrangement," or of the 
Sabbath as a clay that may be given partly to pleasure or busi 
ness, and partly to religion, are utterly irreconcilable with the 
standard of excellence thus presented. It is only the doctrine 
of a solemn and yet benignant statute, of a careful, conscientious, 
and yet cheerful, affectionate Sabbatism, that, according to the 
words of Scripture, fulfils the claims of the institution. It is 
the Puritan s and Covenanter s holy day, not the Continental 
holiday, that copies the Divine model, and it is just in propor 
tion as this is done, that the man is happy. 

Pledges of happiness, prosperity, and honour, are given to the 
individual who thus hallows the day of rest. " Blessed is the 
man that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it." " Every one " 
that did so was to be " made joyful." " A place and a name " 
" better than of sons and daughters," " an everlasting name," 
were to be given to all such persons. Ho that delighted in the 

i Isa. Ivt 2. 

24* 



550 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

Sabbath, and honoured God, not doing his own ways, or finding 
his own pleasure, or speaking his own words, was to delight him 
self in the Lord. And we have found, accordingly, when point 
ing out " the advantages " of the institution, that it brings good 
in every form to the individual who duly observes it, good to his 
body and mind, to his moral and religious character, to his cir 
cumstances and name. The experience of the conscientious ob 
servers of the Lord s day, attests the faithfulness of Him who 
promises thus to reward his servants. Those certainly who have 
made frequent use of an instrument are competent to speak of its 
worth, and if, besides being men of known veracity, their evidence 
of its efficiency is such as every one may see in their case and try 
in his own, their testimony must be unexceptionable. Few have 
been more qualified by both character and profession to pronounce 
a correct judgment respecting the value of the Sabbath than the 
distinguished Sir Matthew Hale, whose views, besides, were the 
result of careful attention to the subject, and confirmed by the 
experience of a long life. " I have," are his words, " by long 
and sound experience found, that the due observance of this day, 
and of the duties of it, have been of singular comfort and advan 
tage 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 ; and as it 
is but just that we should consecrate this part of that time to 
him, so I have found, by a strict and diligent observation, that a 
due observation 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 following, by 
the manner of my passing of this day : and this I do not write 
lightly or inconsiderately, but upon a long and sound observation 
and experience." 1 Similar was the experience of a lawyer of 
great talents, who on his death-bed said to his friend, " Charge 
every young lawyer not to do anything in the business of his pro 
fession on the Sabbath. It will injure him, and lessen the pro- 

* Contemplations (Lond. 1676), pp. 480, 481. 



THEORIES TRIED. 551 

spect of his success. I have tried it. I do not know how it is, 
but there is something about it very striking. My Sabbath efforts 
have always failed." l We find the same experience, in the 
medical profession, expressed by Dr. Farre, Mr. Hey, and, as has 
been said, by one of its brightest ornaments, Boerhaave. Per 
sons invested with the sacred office have felt in the same way. 
" I never find it well," was the remark of Dr. Doddridge, " OB 
common days, when it is not so on the Lord s." 2 To the like 
conclusion, " that there was a special blessing vouchsafed to the 
keeping of that day devoted to spiritual purposes," was Mr. 
Wilberforce led in his different field of labour ; 3 and he relates 
that he remained at home one Sabbath to write a letter to the 
Emperor Alexander on the abolition of the slave-trade, conceiving 
it to be his duty, and even supplicating the Divine blessing on 
the act, " yet it did not answer," he observes ; " my mind felt a 
weight on it, a constraint which impeded the free and unfettered 
movements of the imagination or intellect ; and I am sure that 
this last week I might have saved for that work four times as 
much time as I assigned to it on Sunday. 4 The instances in 
which mercantile men, sailors, tradesmen, and mechanics, have 
been sensible of a connexion between their use of the day of rest, 
and their success in their several undertakings, are too numerous 
for detail. We select one. The learned and enterprising Captain 
Scoresby, in an account of one of his whaling expeditions, makes 
the following remarks : " It is worthy of observation, that in no 
instance, when on fishing stations, was our refraining from the 
ordinary duties of our profession on the Sunday ever supposed 
eventually to have been a loss to us, for we in general found, that 
if others who were less regardful, or had not the same view of 
the obligatory nature of the command respecting the Sabbath-day, 
succeeded in their endeavours to promote the success of the voy 
age, we seldom failed to procure a decided advantage in the suc 
ceeding week. Independently, indeed, of the Divine blessing on 
honouring the Sabbath-day, I found that the restraint put upon 
the natural inclination of the men for pursuing the fishery at all 
opportunities, acted with some advantage, by proving an extraor- 

1 Permanent Safyath Documents, No. 4, p. 51. * Life, vol. ii. p. 292. 

* Memoirs by Orton, 2d ed. p. 23, n. * lAfe, vol. iv. p. 179. 



552 THE SABBATH DEPENDED. 

dinary stimulus to their exertions when they were next sent cut 
after whales. Were it not out of place here, I could relate several 
instances, in which, after refraining to fish upon the Sabbath, while 
others were thus successfully employed, our subsequent labours suc 
ceeded under circumstances so striking, that there was not, I be 
lieve, a man in the ship who did not consider it the effect of the 
Divine blessing." 1 

In the same ancient document, in which a blessing is pro 
nounced on the individual observer of the sacred day, are benefits 
assured to the Sabbath-keeping community. Such a community 
was to ride on the high places of the earth. 2 And it has been 
shown that the tendency and actual results of national respect for 
the weekly day of rest and devotion have been most beneficial to 
all the interests of society. Britain and America, the countries 
in which that day is most sacredly regarded, do indeed verify the 
language of the prophet, and realize the promised pre-eminence 
among the nations. Let the confession of M. de Montalembert, 
already cited, 3 bear a just testimony to the truth of prophecy re 
specting the Sabbath, and thereby to the Divine original of the 
appointment. Let the following words of other foreigners confirm 
his judgment, and conduct us to the conclusion which so many 
facts in the preceding pages conspire to establish. "Impartial 
men," says one, " are convinced that the political education by 
which the lower classes of the English nation surpass other 
nations that the extraordinary wealth of England, and its 
supreme maritime power are clear proofs of the blessing of God 
bestowed upon this nation for its distinguished Sabbath observance. 
Those who behold the enormous commerce of England, in the 
harbours, the railways, the manufactories, etc., cannot see without 
astonishment the quiet of the Sabbath-day." 4 Another says : 
11 Amongst the French whom the Great Exhibition has brought to 
London, there are some who are usefully impressed with the quiet 
and order which reign on the Sunday in the capital of Great 
Britain. I know a Roman Catholic politician, formerly Minister 
under Louis Philippe, who has been singularly struck by this. 

1 Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whole, Fishery (Edin. 1823), 382, 383, and cots. 
1 Isa Iviii. 13, 14. See also Jer. xvii. 24, 25. 3 Page 250. 

* IW.igimis Condition of Christendom, p. 469. 



THEORIES TRIED. 553 

He said, a few days ago, to one of my acquaintance, who repeated 
it to me, that if it were possible to lead the French to pass their 
Sunday like the English, much would be gained for the repose of 
the mind, which would act as a moral preservative upon the soul." 
The writer states that, in addressing from twelve to fifteen hun 
dred persons at the Oratoire in Paris, on the 29th of June 1851, 
he remarked as follows : " It is but three weeks ago that he who 
now addresses you was on the other side of the Channel, in the 
capital of Great Britain. He saw there a wonder greater than that 
of the immense and magnificent Crystal Palace, which encloses, aa 
it were, the epitome and compendium of all the industrial trea 
sures of the known world ; he saw a free, a peaceful, a happy 
people, moving forward, without hindrance, and without revolu 
tion, in the path of progressive improvement, loving their laws, 
loving their Government, respecting authority, rich, prosperous 
in all their concerns. Would you know why, my brethren ? It 
is especially, and above all, because they are a people who know 
and invoke, at least among the majority of their members, the 
God that I preach to you ; it is because public worship is there 
offered in His temples ; it is because the day which is consecrated 
to Him is religiously observed ; it is because His Word is read, 
and prayer is offered in the family ; it is because that people are 
convinced that Jehovah reigns, and that there is no happiness for 
a nation, as there is none for a family or for an individual, but 
in the love of His Word and obedience to His commandments. 
Happy is the nation, says the prophet, whose God is the 
Lord. " 1 

The universal prevalence of a day of rest and worship is fore 
shown in the sacred oracles. There are declarations which sup 
pose that some time everywhere is to be religiously occupied : " All 
the ends of the world shall remember, and turn unto the Lord : 
and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For 
the kingdom is the Lord s ; and he is the governor among the 
nations." 2 "From the rising of the sun, even unto the going 
down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles y 
and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a 
pure offering : for my name shall be great among the heathen, 

i Religious Condition of Christendom,, pp. 305, 806. Ps. xxii 27 28. 



554 THE SABBATH DEFENDED. 

saith the Lord of hosts." 1 But not only is there to be universal 
worship, but a seventh proportion of time, and a particular day, 
are to the same extent to be consecrated to sacred purposes. In 
confirmation of our statement, we again quote these words : " From 
one Sabbath to another shall all flesh come and worship before 
me, saith the Lord." 2 "It shall be, that upon the eighth day," 
the first day of the week, "and so forward, the priests shall 
make your burnt-offerings upon the altar, and your peace-offerings ; 
and I will accept you, saith the Lord God." 3 Although these pre 
dictions are not yet fulfilled, they have not failed, as the time for 
their accomplishment, fixed and declared in the same record, is 
still future. The conversion of the Jews, and the removal of a 
professedly Christian but corrupt system, must take place, it is 
intimated, before the true religion can be universal. As so great 
an enterprise as tlie regeneration of the world requires much time, 
we might presume that there would be evidence of its gradual pro 
gress. What, then, is the religion that has for the longest period 
maintained its ground, and at the same time, by present appear 
ances, promises to take possession of the earth ? Only the reli 
gion which fully recognises the perpetual and the sacred weekly 
rest. Paganism, with its unenlightening, uncheering, bloody rites, 
whether annual, monthly, or even weekly, everywhere yields to 
Christianity and civilisation. Mohammedanism, with its ineffi 
cient Friday, is on the wane. Popery has been a long-continued 
proof of the ignorance, immorality, and pauperism, which holy-days, 
with superstition and without the gospel, inflict on society ; and 
totters to its fall. Socinianism, depending on the merely human 
both for its heartless Christianity and its cold Sabbath, shows 
itself unable to extend or even to maintain itself. The Friends, 
who are not all Gurneys or Clarksons as to the Sabbath, date their 
denominational existence so late as from about the middle of the 
seventeenth century, and by 1852 numbered in Great Britain and 
Ireland only from 18,000 to 20,000. The seventh-day Sabbatists 
have ever been a small body. The every-day Sabbatists have 
hitherto been not only few, but far between. And the friends of 
a merely ecclesiastical or political holy day have never done much 
to bless the world, and, happily, not much more to extend their 

i Mai. i. I 1 2 Isa. Ixvi. 23. Ezek. xliii. 27. 



THEORIES TRIED. 555 

faith. There is but one class of religionists who make steady 
progress, and these are Christians who believe in a Divine, per 
manent, holy Sabbath. These have their missions, their converts, 
their sacredly observed Lord s day in every part of the world, 
tokens that they are fulfilling the ancient oracles of a blessed and 
extended Sabbatisin, and that men of like views who shall come 
after them are destined to realize the completed purpose and boon. 
Thus the terms of prophecy respecting the Sabbath of Chris 
tianity have been fulfilled only by the theory which recognises the 
first day of the week as consecrated by Dfvine authority to sacred 
rest and service. While other theories, when tried by this test, 
are found wanting, that which has been generally received and 
practised by Christians proves itself to be of God, and destined to 
continue to the end of time, as well as to be universal in the 
earth. 



556 THE SABBATH ENFOKCED. 



THE CLAIMS OF THE SABBATH 

PEAOTICALLY ENFORCED. 



DESECRATION OF THE SABBATH ITS NATUKE. 

IT has been indiscriminately and confidently affirmed that the 
Jews were required to keep the Sabbath with a strictness which 
is not demanded of Christians. It is true that the institution as 
belonging to the Mosaic economy involved more physical labour 
than is now necessary, and that its judicial penalty imparted to it 
a severity which is not congenial to the free spirit of Christianity. 
But with the exception of such circumstances which belonged to 
a temporary economy, to the accidents not the substance of the 
Sabbatic law we are under that law as much as the Jews were. 
It has not modified to Christians the other precepts of the De 
calogue that they too have been detached from the Levitical cere 
monies and the political law of Judaism. iSTo one will affirm 
that a Christian is not to be as strictly obedient to parents, or as 
rigidly truthful and honest in his dealings, as was the Jew. The 
prohibition to the latter of going out of his place on the seventh 
day, refers to the unnecessary work of gathering manna, on that 
day. The law forbidding the kindling of a fire on the Sabbath 
must, from its connexion with the account of the rearing of the 
tabernacle, and from our Lord s exposition of the Fourth Command 
ment, in which he vindicates the performance of works of necessity 
and mercy on the day of rest, be understood of such an action as 
had respect to secular work, or as was not indispensable. The 
Jews, no doubt, made the law of the Sabbath rigorous by their 
additions to its requirements, but we are to take our views of 



DESECRATION NATUEE. 557 

Sabbatical duties from the Bible, and not from the opinions or 
practices of its corrupters. The privileges of Christians are greater 
than those of the ancients ; but as it would be no privilege to be 
less truthful and honest than they were required to be, so it 
would be no blessing, whether for body or soul, to have the day 
of sacred rest abridged. The addition which Christianity makes 
to our privileges is designed and fitted to raise us to closer con 
formity to the demands of the law. It is never the exactness of 
compliance with the letter of any law that the Scriptures condemn, 
but attention to the mere letter the form without the power of 
godliness. 

Having set forth so fully the duties of the Sabbath, it is not 
necessary that we should enlarge on those omissions and acts by 
which the institution is profaned. We will do little more than 
name them as they are admirably presented in the Westminster 
Shorter Catechism. The Sabbath is profaned by the omission of 
its duties. If the house of God be forsaken, if the preaching of 
the Gospel, the public celebration of Divine praise, and the offer 
ing of prayer, collecting for the poor, observing the Lord s Supper, 
and the cultivation of domestic and personal piety be neglected, 
not only are these ordinances and claims of our religion set at 
nought, but the day of the Lord* is not devoted to some of its 
most sacred and important objects. The day is profaned by idle 
ness. To take advantage of its leisure for doing nothing, is to 
pervert the day of Him who rose early on the first day of the 
week, and, both before and after his resurrection, redeemed in 
holy and beneficent works the season sacred to the immediate ser 
vice of God. The Lord s day is profaned by the careless perform 
ance of its duties. All these should be performed with the vigour 
and ardour which love and delight inspire, and not in the spirit 
and manner thus described : " Behold, what a weariness is it I" 1 
" When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn ? and 
the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat ?" 2 The Lord s day is 
profaned by the doing on it of anything which is in itself sinful. 
Whatever the sin intemperance or theft, for example it is made 
double by being perpetrated on that day. " Moreover, this they 
have done unto me ; they have defiled my sanctuary in the same 

i Mai. i. 12, * uq. * Ainos via". 4. b 



558 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

day, and have profaned my Sabbaths. For when they had slain 
their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my 
sanctuary to profane it ; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst 
of mine house." 1 The Lord s day is profaned by unnecessary 
thoughts about secular matters. The people of Israel are blamed 
because their hearts on the Sabbath and in the sanctuary went after 
their covetousness.. We are not to find our own pleasure on that 
day ; these things " choke the word," interfere with every spiritual 
exercise and enjoyment, and are offensive to Him who demands 
our whole attention and interest on His own day. And he who 
has faith in God will comply with His requirement, casting all 
his care upon Him, and seeking his happiness in the things that 
are above. The Lord s day is profaned by unnecessary words about 
the world. "Not speaking thine own words." This "honours 
the Lord." 2 And the Lord s day is profaned by unnecessary 
secular work. Not doing our own ways on that day honours 
Jehovah. 3 

SABBATH DESECRATION AT HOME. 

It is the confession of foreigners, as we have before noticed, 
that in no country, except it may be America in some places, is 
the Lord s day so well observed as in our own. But to compare 
the state of Sabbath observance with that of other lands, and not 
with the standard of piety and morals in the Scriptures, and to 
rest satisfied- with our condition, would not be wise. While 
others, judging of us by themselves, bestow commendation, we, 
estimating ourselves by "the law and the testimony," shall see so 
much in our own conduct to condemn as ought to fill us with 
shame on account of our transgressions of the Divine law. And 
as this volume is especially intended for the good of our own 
countrymen, it is proper to be more particular in the scrutiny of 
our errors than we should deem necessary in searching into those 
of our neighbours. 

The Lord s day is extensively desecrated in this country by secu 
lar labour. We should be very inconsiderate or ungrateful if we 
did not cordially acknowledge the manifold advantages enjoyed by 

i Ezek. xxiii. 38, 39. Isa. IviiL 13. * Hid. 



DESECRATION EXTENT. 559 



us under the British Government, and the benefit which it has 
done to the Sabbath cause by its resistance of attempts to assimi 
late its character to that of the Continent. But one of the ex 
pressions of right feeling towards our rulers is to show them 
wherein they err. And it is under the influence of this feeling, 
we trust, that we must condemn any measure of theirs by which 
the law of a higher power is transgressed. We will advert to two 
forms in which they are accessory to the infraction of the Divine 
law by patronizing secular labour on the holy Sabbath. 

One is in the department of Police. The Metropolitan and City 
Police Force form a large body, who, although appointed to be 
guardians of property and of the public peace, in general " live 
almost without regard to religion or thought of another world, few 
if any of them enjoying at any time an uninterrupted Sabbath." 
Measures were adopted some years ago for securing the presence 
at Divine service, upon the Lord s day, of those of them who were 
not on duty, but no means of this nature will avail so long as the 
number of men is so inadequate to the amount of the duty to be 
done. It is certainly most unjust to these servants of the public, 
and most impolitic, as all wrong must be, to commit to them an 
amount of service which precludes a due attention on their part to 
their moral and religious interests. 

The other form in which the Divine law is set aside by the law 
of man in this land is in the business which is authorized to be 
done on the Sabbath in the department of the Post-Office, involv 
ing thousands of persons in multifarious labours connected with 
the running of mails, and the sorting, despatching, and delivery of 
letters, not to mention a far greater number who by these means 
are induced to occupy themselves in the reading and writing of 
letters, and the reading of newspapers on the Lord s day. To this 
may be added the labour which the system produces as acted on 
in the Colonies. 

It is truly gratifying to reflect that there is a considerable, we 
trust a growing number of our nobility and gentry, who esteem it 
their highest honour to obey the laws of the Most High, but with 
too many the Lord s day is the selected time for travelling or for 
entertainments, and forms no exception to the parade with which 
they appear in the scenes of public resort. For their convenience 



560 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 



and pleasure the labours of thousands, whom the preceding week 
has sufficiently employed and exhausted, must be drawn upon, to 
the abridgement of liberty and life, and to the ruin of the soul. 

Medical men, it is admitted, are occasionally under the neces 
sity of practising their art on this day. But how many calls are 
made, prescriptions written, and surgical operations performed, 
which might have been arranged to occur on another day ! Some 
of our best-employed and ablest practitioners have guided their 
affairs with such discretion and diligence as to admit of their regu 
lar attendance in the house of prayer. It is sad that persons who 
so well know the need which the physical system has of a periodi 
cal rest should act in opposition to their knowledge, and in viola 
tion of their own rules ; and that, familiar with disease and death, 
they should lose the best season for pondering their own coming 
change, and teach others to go and do likewise. 

There are many of the legal profession to whom the Sabbath 
brings no rest. Forgetful of the law of God, their care is to study 
the rules of human jurisprudence, and the laws of the land. When 
they ought to be making ready for the last assize, and securing 
the inheritance that fadeth not away, they are too often engaged 
in preparing to plead before an earthly tribunal, or in examining 
the titles to property that must soon paes from the possessors into 
other hands. Important transactions in themselves, but wofully 
mistimed ! U I do not think," said a Scottish lawyer, when ex 
amined by a Committee of the House -of Commons, " that in 
Edinburgh there are any who transact as much business on Sun 
day as on other days ; but there are many, I believe, who do 
carry on business, more or less, upon that day. I know at the 
same time that there is a proportion who decline business on that 
day." 1 

Even the ministers of religion themselves may not be found 
blameless in this matter. It is possible that as the physicians of 
the body avail themselves of their professional liberty to labour 
unnecessarily on the day of rest, so the physicians of the soul may 
take improper advantage of the maxim, that " on the Sabbath- 
days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blame 
less." 2 Is there no unnecessary travelling tc fulfil sacred appcint- 

1 Report on the SaVoaihfor 1832, p. 201. a Matt xii. 5. 



DESECRATION EXTENT. 561 

ments 1 Are there no studies, which, though their subjects are 
theological, are as really secular labours as the studies of law or 
science 1 And have there not been Protestant as well as Roman 
Catholic clergymen, who, when they have dropped their canoni 
cals, have shouldered their fowling-pieces or other implements of 
to-morrow s sport 1 

Judging from the biographies and writings of men of science 
and literature, it appears that not a few of them make little dis 
tinction between God s time and their own. 

How much prostitution of sacred time is involved in the labours 
of the newspaper press may be in some degree estimated if we 
bear in mind the fact, that there is a circulation of eighteen 
millions of newspapers which leads in one way or another to the 
desecration of the Lord s day. 1 

The most numerous class of persons, however, who are charge 
able with doing habitual dishonour to the Sabbath are those who 
are engaged in trade of various kinds on the day, and those who 
spend it in idleness, recreation, and pleasure. Referring to Baylee 
and other writers for the statistics on these points, we can only 
add a few words to show the extent of Sabbath desecration in this 
country. As the results of an exact calculation made in some of 
the largest towns in England, it is found that in place of five-eighths 
of the population repairing regularly to places of worship, as would 
be the proportion so employed were religion in a healthy condi 
tion, the case is nearly the reverse. Out of a population, for ex 
ample, of 30,000, the number absent for good reasons would be 
11,000, and the number in attendance ought to be 19,000 ; but 
only 10,000 are found in the house of God, while 20,000 live 
in the constant neglect of this part of their duty. In London, the 
proportion of absentees is not so great, but the absolute number 
may be reckoned at the enormous amount of 650,000. In Edin 
burgh, according to a late City Mission Report, there are localities 
where two-thirds of the people live in the neglect of Divine or 
dinances, and others where the proportion is still greater, the 
number altogether of those who are living in this manner being 
60,000. In the smaller towns, and in rural districts, the people 
have not in such numbers cast off the fear of God. According to 

i Baylee ?. Statistics, p. 8. 
2 H 



562 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

the census of 1851, 5,288,294 are absent every Sunday from the 
house of God. 

This fearful extent of ungodliness is chargeable in different 
measures on all classes of the community. Much of it belongs 
to persons of rank, to professional men, to merchants, clerks, and 
others. But a very large proportion of the evil attaches to the 
labouring population. In the Report for 1849 of the London 
City Mission, we are informed that " the neglect of public wor 
ship among the working classes of the metropolis, and especially 
the men, is .almost universal." Similar and equally recent is the 
testimony of the Directors of the Edinburgh City Mission, where 
they say, " What strikes one most is the breaking off of the 
working classes from the public ordinances of Divine worship, 
their disregard and even hostility to Christian ministers." It 
is stated of a working man in England that he had made a point 
of learning how his shop-mates spent the Sabbath, and that he 
had found that an awfully irreligious feeling had taken possession 
of the minds of a great majority of them, not one in ten, and 
sometimes not one in twenty attending a place of worship, and 
the majority looking down upon the churches and chapels as. 
built not for them, but for the masters and middle classes who 
get their living by oppressing the poor workmen. This is the 
alleged reason of one class. But there are many who will tell 
you that they cannot go to church and also cook their dinner. 
Yet there are many, too, in the situation of the dying boatman, 
who, when his master endeavoured to give him religious instruction 
and consolation, observed, " You forced me to break one of God s 
commands, and when I broke one, I thought there was little use 
in trying to keep the others." 1 "In the least unfavourable 
aspect," says Mr. Mann in his remarks prefixed to his Report on 
the Census of 1851, " and assuming that the 5,288,294 absent 
every Sunday are not always the same individuals, it must be 
apparent that a sadly formidable portion of the English people 
are habitual neglecters of the public ordinances of religion. JSTor 
is it difficult to indicate to what class of the community this 
portion in the main belongs. The middle classes have augmented 
rather than diminished that -devotional sentiment and strictness of 

1 Baylce s Statistics and Facts, p. 65. 



DESECRATION EXTENT. 563 

attention to religious services by which, for several centuries, 
they have so eminently been distinguished. With the upper 
classes, too, the subject of religion has obtained of late a marked 
degree of notice ; and a regular church attendance is now ranked 
amongst the recognised proprieties of life. But while the labour 
ing myriads of our country have been multiplying with our mul 
tiplied material prosperity, it cannot, it is feared, be stated that a 
corresponding increase has occurred in the attendance of this class 
in our religious edifices. More especially in cities and large 
towns it is observable how absolutely insignificant a portion of 
the congregations is composed of artisans. This [secularism] is 
the creed which probably with most exactness indicates the faith 
which virtually, though not professedly, is entertained by the 
masses of our working population. They are unconscious secular 
ists, engrossed by the demands, the trials, or the pleasures of the 
passing hour, and ignorant or careless of a future." 

SABBATH DESECRATION ABROAD. 

Although our proper subject is the manner in which the Chris 
tian Sabbath is treated, it may not be altogether out of place 
simply to glance for a moment at the kind of Sabbatism which 
obtains among two classes who recognise in part only the Divine 
revelation. 

Among the Jews there is a variety of practice in regard to 
the observance of their Sabbath. Messrs. M Cheyne and Bonar 
state that when they visited Altona, which contained 2600 Jews, 
they found many of their shops were opened though it was their 
Sabbath. 1 They also mention the following fact : Mr. Moritz, 
before his conversion from Judaism, was on a visit to London, 
and on inquiring of a Jewess, in whose house he lodged, why 
there was such quietness in the streets on a Lord s day, w^as 
answered, " The people of England are a God-fearing people, and 
if we had kept our Sabbath as they keep theirs, Messiah would 
have come long ago." 2 And yet it is affirmed that there are 
Jews in foreign lands who are more strict than their English 
brethren ; some going to the extreme of observing the day with 

1 Narrative of a Mission to the Jews, p. 518. - Ibid. p. 512. 



664 THE SABBATH ENFOHCED. 

uncommanded rigour, and regarding even the extinguishing of a 
fire as a violation of the Sabbath. 1 

The Mohammedans have also their weekly Sabbath. In 
Constantinople, we are told, it is a day of universal sport and 
diversion. 

" Friday," says a traveller, " is the Sabbath of the Moham 
medans, as that was the day on which Adam, they say, was 
made, and the day on which the resurrection will take place. 
Chria dans are prohibited from attending their mosques during 
public worship, and females, without being expressly forbidden, 
are ordered to pray at home on the Sabbath, which it is alleged 
they never do." 2 

Turning to those who profess themselves Christians, we advert, 
first of all, to the Greek and other Eastern Churches. How the 
Sabbath is spent by the members of the Greek Church may be 
learned from the following statements of Bremner : " In Russia 
it is impossible to escape being struck with the way in which the 
Sabbath is kept. People are everywhere busy at work in the 
fields, and the market-places, in all the provincial towns, are 
crowded with peasants selling potatoes, mushrooms, apples, tur 
nips, cucumbers, etc., just as on the ordinary week-days. In 
short, Sunday seems to be the great fair-day in most parts of 
Russia." 3 Among the Nestorians there are various festivals in 
which, as on the Sabbath-day, they do not labour ; but, as one 
of them said, the Sabbath-day we reckon far, far above the 
others." In the Armenian churches " there are at least fourteen 
great feast-days in the course of the year in which all ordinary 
labour is suspended, and the day is more strictly observed than 
the Sabbath." 4 

The disregard of the true law of the Lord s day is proverbially 
prevalent in all Roman Catholic countries. The notorious prac 
tice of the body of Romanists in every region of the earth where 
they are to be found is to limit the sacred duties of the day to the 
time of mass. The remaining hours are devoted to secular busi 
ness or to pleasure. The desecration is various in circumstances 

1 The Jew, pp. 40, 41. 2 Anderson s Visit to Eastern Landt, p. 18. 

8 Excursions in Russia, vol. ii. p. 291. 

4 Colman s Antiquities of the Christian Church (Loud.), p. 205. 



DESECRATION EXTENT. 565 

and measure, but what we have stated is the usual character of 
a Popish Sabbath. It is unnecessary, therefore, to fill our pages 
with illustrative cases. A few may suffice. In Madeira, when 
the priest s voice is silenced, and the candles are extinguished, the 
Sabbath is over. Multitudes parade the street with guitar and 
song, and the evening gathers in its votaries of gaming, and danc 
ing, and folly. It is otherwise with the holiday, on which no work 
must be done, and the churches are full. Thus there is idleness 
where God has commanded toil, and profaneness where He has 
commanded rest. 1 To the French Canadian people, the Sabbath, 
at least after those hours which the Church of Kome claims for 
her service, is a day of sport and pleasure ; and with the dance, 
the chase, or at the tavern, do they often cheat away its sacred 
hours. Nor is the conduct of the priest less suicidal, for at the 
whist-table, or in equally unsuitable occupations, this " blind leader 
of the blind" not unfrequently gives to his people the example 
of trampling on the Lord s day. 2 Among the 575,000 Roman 
Catholics in Lower Canada there is no holy Sabbath, and the 
afternoon of the day, both by priests and people, is made a season 
of recreation and pleasure. And the Sabbath with them is not 
considered half as sacred as their set holidays. The afternoon of 
the day is a peculiar time for trading and trafficking in horses 
and cattle. 3 

We have in another place cited the account of the Sabbath in 
Spain given by Mr. Meyrick, who states that to the poor man in 
that country it brings no rest, all in-door trades being carried on, 
and that to the rich it is a day of pleasure, of bull-fights and 
theatrical amusements. The author of Souvenirs of a Summer 
in Germany says of a Sunday which she spent in Brussels : 
"All the shops are open, stalls in the streets, etc., and the 
every- day business of life no way interrupted. While we were 
at breakfast, Guillaume came in to say, that if Monsieur wished 
to have his coat repaired, the ouvrier was outside and would 
have it done in an hour ; and he seemed quite disappointed at 
not being allowed to take it. Shortly after, tickets were sent 

1 State of Religion in Madeira, Christian Herald for 1843, p. 2SL 

2 Record of French Canadian Society. 

Rev. Joel Fisk, Christian Treasury (1851). 189. 

25 



566 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

in for the theatre that night, with the compliments of the British 
Minister." 

The writer has spent Sabbaths in several continental towns, 
and must say that nowhere did he witness so utter a prostitution 
of the sacred day as in Paris, where the morning was signalized 
by the sale and reading of newspapers, the day by busy merchan 
dise and labour, and the evening by crowded cafe s and brilliantly 
lighted places of amusement. A correspondent writes in the 
Record newspaper in 1841 : "In Paris, tailors, shoemakers, and 
all who supply articles of dress and ornament, are fully occupied 
on Sunday morning. Many of the working classes work on Sab 
bath, and rest during the week. This is the case, too, with those 
employed about theatres, shows, etc. The great majority of the 
French abstain on Sunday, as on every other day, from any reli 
gious act ; and the few who differ are content to go and hear a 
mass. They do this on the way to the country, or at some vil 
lage where they go for sport. They praise a man by saying he 
is a horse, and works on feast-days and Sunday. In the best de 
scription which we have seen of a Paris Sabbath, but which is 
too long for transcription here, it is mentioned that that day in 
the capital, and almost universally in French territory, the shops 
are open ; the restaurants and coffee-houses are more than usually 
splendid ; the theatres more numerously and eagerly frequented 
than on other days ; that all the artisans work on Sunday and 
rest on Monday ; that marriages invariably take place amongst 
the lower and the middle classes on the Saturday, because they 
have Sunday before them for rest or amusement ; that balls are 
similarly given on Saturday, because after a night of dissipation 
they have Sunday for rest ; that, in short, Sunday is the chosen 
day for military reviews, the inauguration of public buildings and 
public festivals ; the day for excursions, balls, promenades, con 
certs, and festivities of all sorts." 1 

Let us now see how it is with the day of rest in foreign Pro 
testant countries. The following account of a Sabbath in Berlin 
is too applicable to other parts of Protestant Germany : " The 

1 Religious Condition of Christendom, pp. 303-305. " Ce bienfait est m6connu en France 
comme il ne Va te nulle parte et jamais." Montalembert, 7)e I Observ. 
etc. p. 7. 



DESECEATION EXTENT. 567 

Sabbath desecration of Berlin is most lamentable. It is not like 
the gay pleasure-days of Paris, nor like the day of show and parade 
in London, but it is like a common business day. Most of the 
shops are open and busily frequented, and most of the people wear 
their week-day clothes. In the evening, it was saddening to see 
the large theatres open and lighted up. Guilty city ! Paris sins 
in comparative ignorance, but Berlin sins against the light of a 
faithfully preached gospel, and the testimony of many holy be 
lievers." l " For aught I know," says Mr. Plitt, " there is not, 
one town in all Germany where the theatres are closed on the 
Sabbath." 2 

Mr. Eae Wilson, in his Travels in Norway, Sweden, etc., says, 
" No regard is paid in these countries after church to the Divine 
command, * Thou shalt keep the Sabbath holy, for the afternoon 
is spent by all classes in singing, dancing, visiting the theatre, and 
other kinds of merriment. This appeared to me highly indeco 
rous, considering that the Norwegians and Swedes profess the Pro 
testant faith, and cannot be said to labour under the darkness of 
the Komish Church" (p. 125). Sabbath observance would appear, 
indeed, to be of a lower tone in all the Lutheran communities than 
in those of the Reformed Church. Mr. Laing, in his Travels in 
Norway, says, "It is a peculiarity in all Lutheran churches which 
strikes the traveller, especially from Scotland, that the evening of 
Sunday is not passed as with us, in quiet and stillness at least, if 
not in devotional exercises. He must be a very superficial ob 
server, however, who ascribes this to a want of religious feeling. 
It arises from the peculiar, and in the Free Lutheran Church uni 
versally received interpretation of the scriptural words, that the 
evening and the morning made the first day. The evening of 
Saturday and the morning of Sunday, make the seventh day or 
Sabbath, according to the Lutheran Church. This interpretation 
is so fully established and interwoven with their thinking and act 
ing, that entertainments, dances, card-parties, and all public 
amusements take place regularly on Sunday evenings" (p. 190). 
Mr. Laing adds that " a Lutheran minister gives a party on Sun 
day evening at his house at which you find music, dancing^ 

1 Narrative of a Mission to the Jeu-s, p. 507. 

2 Religious Condition of Ch.rixtcntlom, p. 479. 



568 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

and cards," and " would think it superstitious to object to it." 
But do the Lutherans shorten their own days as they do the 
Lord s day 1 If not, the apology of the charitable traveller will not 
avail them. The state of the Sabbath in America is much what 
it is in the mother country. And yet, we were not prepared for 
a. late statement in one of the Boston papers, to the effect that a 
musical society in that city were giving public concerts on the 
Sabbath evenings. 1 

CAUSES OF SABBATH DESECRATION. 

The human mind is naturally unwilling to stoop to authority, 
even when that authority may be interposed in favour of a work 
not repulsive to it. Many dislike to be told to do what they are 
inclined to, and will on this very account do the opposite. But to 
be required to do what is contrary to our inclinations is doubly 
offensive, and to have to continue in such a course exasperates the 
feelings beyond all endurance. There is nothing in any Divine 
requirement that is not holy, just, and good that is not in itself 
reasonable, beneficial, and pleasant. In the heart of man, how 
ever, there is that which converts all into gloom, oppression, in 
justice and misery. " The carnal mind is enmity against God ; 
for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." 
Now, because the Sabbath requires total abstinence from thought 
and occupation relative to the things of the world, which are 
supremely loved, and the concentration of the spirit on all that is 
spiritual, and thoroughly hated, the whole opposition of the per 
son to the Divine law is stirred against the all-comprehending 
statute, " Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy." The re 
sult is either such a constrained observance of it as excites the 
feeling, Behold what a weariness is it ! When will the Sabbath 
be gone 1 or a bold renunciation of the yoke, and a joining with* 
others in the unholy confederacy of plotting against the day itself, 
"Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords 
from us." 

This is the secret source of bitterness against one of the wisest 
and most benign of institutions ; the principle which gives potency 

1 Montreal Witness, March 11, 1856. 



DESECRATION CAUSES. 569 

to nil influences of an external nature, and to all arguments against 
the consecration of an entire day to the service of Him who is re 
garded as an enemy. But for this state of mind, how would it be 
possible for any rational being to resist the evidence for the Sab 
bath, presented in its own apparent wisdom, simplicity and beauty, 
in the plain statements of Kevelation, and in the actual results 
of its observance in the formation of a personal excellence in 
thousands such as is produced by no other means, and in a social 
dignity, purity, and happiness by which Sabbath-observing com 
munities are so distinguished above all others ? Let us learn, 
however, from this cause of opposition to the Lord s day, that our 
chief endeavour must be to encounter it by the only means cap 
able of fully meeting and dislodging it, and of securing both a 
genuine and abiding respect for the Divine Commandment, that 
Word of the Lord which transforms the dispositions of the heart, 
that armoury of spiritual weapons which are mighty through God 
for pulling down strongholds. 

It would be well if the opponents of the Sabbath were to con 
sider the imposition which they practise upon themselves in 
giving heed to the calumnies listened to, or invented by them 
against the friends of the institution as persons of narrow, bigoted 
notions, and in mistaking their own prejudices and prepossessions 
for argument and truth. It would be well for them to ponder 
their proceedings, the more that able men may advance much that 
is ingenious and plausible in support of a bad cause, and that 
such ability may serve only to place a man more hopelessly be 
yond the reach of that truth which is obvious to simpler and 
more unsophisticated minds. Let them consider, too, that many 
have thought like them respecting the Sabbath, but have lived to 
lament their opinions, or have died retracting them. No incon 
sistency in professed Christians, none of the subsidiary agencies 
*or neglects now to be mentioned as contributing to their state of 
mind, will free them from responsibility. Their own dislike to 
the Sabbath is at the foundation of all their views and feelings 
on the subject, and that dislike is voluntary, uncoerced, and 
criminal. 

We fear that much of the prevailing desecration of the Sabbath 
is owing to the apathy and evil example of its professed friends. 



570 THE SABBATH ENFOECED. 

We have no sympathy with those who take advantage of the 
errors of individuals to condemn and expose classes of men. But 
we trust that we commit no such fault, when, recollecting the 
power of the sacred office for evil or for good, we affirm that some 
of those holding that office have done much to promote the dese 
cration of the Lord s day ; that others have done too little to 
arrest the evil ; and that many, than whom none will be readier 
to acknowledge the fact than themselves, have not done what they 
could to vindicate the claims and to diffuse the spirit of the day 
of rest. Truth requires us to say that the desecration of the 
Sabbath in Koman Catholic countries is attributable in a great 
measure to the priesthood, who having so much control over their 
people, withhold from them the Word of God, and both by pre 
cept and example teach them that they sufficiently fulfil the 
demands of the Sabbath law by attending once on the service of 
the mass, while, instead of appealing to the legal tribunals when 
the evil becomes too much even for them, they could by moral 
means have secured at least an external decency of character on 
the Lord s day. But there are Protestant clergymen who are 
even worse than they, inasmuch as they offend amidst the clearer 
light and better profession of the Reformation. When such men 
are found significantly pointing their flocks to the discarded 
festivals of Koine as worthy of their admiration ; when they are 
seen performing the most sacred offices of religion with manifest 
indifference or with pompous display ; when they are not careful 
to declare all the counsel of God, the grace of the gospel as well 
as the claims of the law ; when they prophesy smooth things, 
and when they are chargeable with immoralities, worldly con 
formity, or profaneness, what is to be expected but that there 
shall be, like priest, like people 1 The misconduct of the clergy 
had no small influence upon the celebrated Earl of Rochester, as 
he himself confessed, to make him an atheist. The increase of 
Sabbath desecration in Germany had its origin in times when 
infidelity was spread by the universities amongst the clergy, and 
by the clergy amongst the people. 

But the members of churches have their influence and responsi 
bilities. Those who profess to be Protestants, hold it as a part of 
their creed that they have a right to bring the sentiments and 



DESECRA TION CAUSES. 571 

practice of their spiritual guides " to the law and to the testi 
mony." They are ready enough to exercise this right in matters 
of worldly concern, and it will not avail them to allege, in refer 
ence to moral and religious things, that they followed the example 
of their pastors. Many of these pastors, besides, have taught 
and done what was right, and their people are found failing to 
profit by their instructions, and to walk in their steps. We are 
entitled, therefore, to separate the members of churches from their 
ministers, and to view them as a distinct and independent source 
of influence in regard to the observance of the Sabbath. Every 
professed Christian who is careless in this respect contributes to 
the discouragement of faithful ministers, to the impairing of the 
power of Christianity, and to the corruption of society in a de 
gree which is incalculable. Let us refer to one principal mode in 
which the improper conduct of such persons operates. We refer 
to the want of parental care and example. While many, like 
Abraham, command their children and households after them to 
do what is right, there are others who resemble Eli, of whom it 
is said that when his sons made themselves vile he restrained 
them not. " You attribute," said the chairman of the Sabbath 
committee of the House of Commons, when examining Mr. H. F. 
Isaac, a Jew, " the observance of the Sabbath on the part of the 
Jew, to the force of early religious education ?" " I am satisfied 
it is so," was the reply. We may conceive a variety of ways in 
which heads of families professing religion, do what tends to de 
feat as to them its great end. One is frequently called from 
home, and his house on the Lord s day is exposed to intrusion 
from the worldly men with whom he is connected in business. 
The result is, that a numerous family grow up practical pagans. 
Another leaves his family very much to themselves ; and while 
some are constrained by early affliction to direct their attention to 
matters of chief moment, others become the disgrace of his name. 
A third is so much occupied with attending religious meetings, 
and with the theory of religion, that his children are in a great 
measure neglected, and what they learn is a sort of form of godli 
ness, so that none of- them gives decided indications of Christian 
character. A fourth is so stern and harsh in his discipline 
respecting Sabbath-keeping and other duties, that the effect of 



672 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

freedom from parental control is the bounding to a worse extreme. 
But cases accumulate to the view beyond the possibility of being 
recorded in our allowed space, and impress us with the conviction 
that parents have much to answer for in reference to prevailing 
Sabbath desecration. A London City Missionary says, " I have 
never discovered a single case of juvenile delinquency where the 
child had been the subject from infancy of the double teaching by 
precept and example in the ways of Christ, at the hands of 
parents, both of whom were evidentfy truly converted to God. I 
do not strain the promise so far as to believe such is never the 
case ; I simply state the result of systematic inquiry and studies 
of human nature, pursued most extensively for years, at no small 
pains." 1 

There are other forms, however, in which the injurious influ 
ence of professed friends of the Sabbath is exerted. The conver 
sation which takes place when persons are congregated about the 
house of God, or when they meet with their friends, goes to pro 
duce the impression that they recognise no difference of day, so 
far as that is concerned. There are those who take liberties with 
the Sabbath by visits to their acquaintance, under the delusive 
persuasion that they still maintain the sanctity of the day by 
attending church at the stated time of service. There are others 
who indulge themselves on that day with walking or in feasting. 
To these we must add a class who subject many to unnecessary 
labour by employing vehicles in going to church. We cannot con 
ceive a better use of such conveniences than conveying the infirm 
and the sickly to the house of God, when this is so done as to 
interfere with no servant s religious rights and benefit on the 
Sabbath. But this condition is often violated. It should seem 
that "it is a common thing for persons to ride on Sundays to 
their places of worship," 2 and that some go considerable distances 
for this object. 3 That this is not necessary, appears from the dif 
ferent conduct of " the religious persons of Islington, who are 
proverbial for not riding in omnibuses on Sundays." 4 

A large proportion of Sabbath profanation is chargeable to the 
account of the higher and wealthier classes of society. Many of 

1 Notes, etc., by R. W. Vanderkiste, p. 260. 2 Baylee s Statistics, p 79. 

* Baylee s Statistics, ]&gt;. 7&gt;, Ibid. p. 80. 



DESECRATION C A USES. 573 

these classes corrupt others by their example. The disposition to 
throw off the restraints of religion is ready to avail itself of some 
apology or encouragement. And nothing is more likely to furnish 
it than the conduct of our superiors in station. A writer on 
Sabbath desecration in Germany says, " Persons of high rank 
gave a very bad example, and the people followed it willingly. 
The officers of the government were seen very seldom at public 
worship. During the morning you found them generally in their 
offices, in the afternoon on some pleasure party, and in the even 
ing at the theatre." 1 In the evidence on the Sabbath given be 
fore a committee of the House of Commons in 1832, the influence 
of the example of the upper classes in inducing their inferiors to 
mis-spend the Lord s day is amply attested. " The opportunity 
of knowing, through the public press and other sources, how the 
higher classes of society generally, but more particularly in the 
metropolis, are employed on the Lord s day, has a powerful influ 
ence on the minds of the lower classes, as a temptation or en 
couragement in their habits of Sabbath profanation." 2 "When 
you have endeavoured to enforce the duty of observing the Sabbath 
upon the lower classes, do they frequently allege the example of 
those in a higher sphere of life in justification of their own neglect, 
and violation of that day T " Continually ; and, in more than 
one instance, the meeting of Cabinet ministers on that day." 3 "I 
have met with instances where the lower classes have said, The 
greater ones do it buying fish on Sunday * and why should 
we not do it V " 4 

Then how many unnecessary works and pleasures of the great 
and rich make it in some sort imperative on tradesmen and 
others to encroach on sacred time. The journeys undertaken that 
might have been arranged for another day, the entertainments 
that might be postponed, the luxury of a particular dress, or 
article of food, or newspaper, these things, so utterly contemptible, 
involve many human beings in Sabbath labour, to the loss of the 
weekly rest required by their physical powers, and of the means 
of spiritual good indispensable to their higher being and interests. 

1 Religious Condition of Christendom (1S52), p. 466. 

J Report, Evidence of Mr. D. Rowland, p. 94. 

Evidence of Rev. J. W. Cunningham. Harrow, p. 177. 4 Evidence, p. 101. 



574 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

What is the penalty of the gratification of such desires to their 
victims, but slavery, sin against their great Master, shortened life 
here, and the forfeiture of the better life hereafter ? " Masters 
and men are wholly employed during the day, and more so on the 
Sunday, because many noblemen and gentlemen who are members 
of Parliament, have more company on Saturday and Sunday, these 
being the only leisure their parliamentary duties afford them, con 
sequently there is more done on these days than on others." l 
" Amongst the nobility and gentry there is most business done on 
Saturday and Sunday." 2 " From the nature of your business, do 
you see any means of diminishing your occupation, as long as the 
upper classes continue to give dinners on that day [Sunday] 1 " 
" I do not see that there is." ..." Then, speaking as a conscien 
tious man, it would be agreeable to you if the upper classes of 
society did fix on other days rather than Sunday for their great 
dinners ? " "I should most decidedly say so, as far as regards 
myself individually, and the comfort and happiness of my ser 
vants ; for I consider it to be a duty that I owe them to relieve 
them as much as possible from their duties on Sunday ; whether 
they employ it in religious subjects, or in any other manner, it 
gives them the opportunity, if they think proper, to improve it ; 
and if they do not, it still affords them the same advantages which 
most other people enjoy, that is, a day of repose after a week of 
hard work." 3 

To masters and employers of workmen another large share of 
Sabbath desecration must be ascribed. While many tradesmen, 
forty-nine out of fifty in London, desire to be relieved from Sunday 
trading, there are many others who are influenced by the cupidity 
and speculation so prevalent in our time voluntarily to bind 
fetters on working men in place of the holy and merciful restraints 
of the Sabbath law. Let us hear the following statements on 
this latter point : " Does the journeyman get additional wages for 
working on Sunday?" "None at all." "Then it is only the 
desire of gain on the part of the master that induces them to go 

1 Report, Evidence of Mr. J. B., Fishmonger, p. 96. 
3 Report, Evidence of W. D., Fishmonger, p. 104. 

3 Report, Evidence of Mr. J. Chaplain, proprietor of Clarendon Hotel, Bond Street 
pp. m-8. 



DESECRATION CAUSES. 575 

on 1 " " That circumstance is the whole of it." x " Is there a 
general desire on the part of the tradesmen in Eichmond to see 
the Sunday better observed than it is at present ? " "I think 
there is with one part, but the other part are more anxious to get 
money." 2 

In defence of this reckless spirit, which, for the sake of money, 
disregards the law of God and the rights of man, it is pleaded 
that it is impossible to avoid it, and that in the general race and 
rush they must do like others if they would not be distanced in 
the course, or run over in the crowd. But what is in opposition 
to those Divine statutes which forbid and condemn the too eager 
pursuit of gain, the hastening to be rich, and the " adding of house 
to house, and laying field to field, till there be no place, that they 
may be placed alone in the earth," admits of no apology. The 
spirit is not only ungodly, but selfish and unfeeling as regards the 
interests of those whom it employs to be the instruments of its 
gratification, turning them into beasts of burden or mere machines, 
and caring not, if they serve such a turn, what becomes of their 
mental improvement, their souls, their everlasting interests. Mam 
mon is indeed a cruel God, who has no regard for the flesh and 
blood, the noble faculties and feelings, the precious souls which 
his votaries sacrifice in his honour. Many examples there are to 
be found indeed in the commercial world of men who really feel 
for their workmen, and provide for them the means of promoting 
their health, comfort, and instruction. There are our Buxtons 
and other kindred spirits. Where, however, human beings are 
persuaded that the great object of life is to be rich, how can we 
suppose that they will allow their dependants time and oppor 
tunity for that mental and moral culture, of the value of which to 
themselves, and especially to working men, they have no just 
conception 1 

There is one way in which employers promote the desecration 
of the Sabbath that has not even the plea of the smallest contri 
bution to their advantage or pleasure. We refer to the payment 
of their men at a time that exposes the latter to various 
temptations and injuries, and in some cases necessitates the in 
fraction of the Divine law. There have been instances in which 

i Report, Evidence of Mr. J. C., Jr., Baker, Richmond, p. 189. 2 IlriA, p. I9(X 



576 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

wages were actually paid on the Lord s day. It is not long since 
this was done in some parts of England, cases few, we trust, and 
now discontinued. It was proved in the evidence from which we 
have been quoting, that masters, by not paying their men till 
Saturday night, obliged them to make Sunday marketings, which 
occasioned crowds on Sabbath, subjected the workman to increased 
expense, and made him abstain from going to church ; and that 
there was no necessity for Sunday marketing. 1 

There are influences from without which do much to lower the 
general tone of religion and morals, and to foster Sabbath dese 
cration. One kind of influence affects chiefly the upper and 
middle ranks of the community, that originating in their inter 
course with foreigners. It is not to be supposed that the visits 
of our countrymen to the Continent, so multiplied of late by the 
facilities of communication, can have been without considerable 
injury to our national customs and manners. Familiarity with a 
secular Sabbath tends to abate a sense of the evil. A partial at 
tendance in the house of God, and occasional absences, cease to be 
considered as anything wrong. And the frivolity and demoraliz 
ing amusements of other lands fascinate the mind and corrupt the 
heart. 

Another species of influence has had its sphere of action among 
the remaining class of society. The immigration of so many 
natives of the sister island has been felt in an immense addition 
to the poor-rates, in defeating attempts to repress crime and dis 
ease, and in bringing down our comparatively instructed and moral 
population to their own level, and in some cases below it, as the 
impetus in consequence of the greater height fallen from must be 
greater. All this must be unfavourable to a regard for sacred 
institutions. But as the persons imported bring with them a 
religion which recognises only a fraction of a Sabbath, their prac 
tices on that day come to be regarded with decreasing aversion 
and fear, and in course of time to be imitated. 

The defective, erroneous, and worthless opinions propagated 
through the press form the only other cause of the evil in ques 
tion which we have to name. Among these opinions are deficient 
and incorrect views with regard to the institution itself We pre~ 

1 Report, Evidence, pp. 29, 30. 



DESECRATION CAUSES. 577 

sent a specimen or two. The first concerns the Continent. " You 
know," observes the Rev. T. Plitt of Bonn, "that an opinion pre 
vails in our country that there is no real connexion between the 
Christian Sunday and the command of God, &lt; Kemember the 
Sabbath-day to keep it holy ; but that the Sunday celebration 
is a human institution which must be left to Christian liberty, 
because it is good, and because it is enjoined by the Church. This 
view, in different gradations, you find too general in Germany ; 
and I am quite convinced you agree with me in believing that a 
truly Christian Sabbath observance is only possible if we hold 
that the law given to Adam, and repeated on Mount Sinai, Re 
member the Sabbath-day to keep it holy, has an eternal obliga 
tion." 1 We give another specimen, one relating to our own 
country : " The thought of writing at all was suggested to me by 
a few words only, which I heard interchanged in the street of a 
country town, but which were sufficient to convince rne that Dr. 
Whately s pamphlet, Thoughts on the Sabbath, was doing extreme 
mischief ; and that through it an opinion was gaining ground 
that the Episcopacy of our Church was opposed to the principle 
of keeping holy the Sabbath-day. Under such circumstances, I 
was induced to write these pages, to vindicate the Divine institu 
tion of the Christian Sabbath." 2 We find in the pamphlet itself, 
on which Mr. Barter animadverts, evidence that its views are not 
fitted to produce the most elevated morality. In an address to 
the inhabitants of Dublin and its vicinity, the Archbishop says, 
" If, for instance, after devoutly attending Divine worship with 
your family, you just turn into a shop to buy some trifling article, 
you indeed may not feel that you are doing anything that inter 
feres with your own devout observance of the day \ but you uhculd 
remember that the expectation of some such chance-customers 
may induce the tradesman to remain all day in his shop, occupied 
in his ordinary worldly affairs, and deprived of his best, and per 
haps only opportunity, of attending to the concerns of his soul. "3 
From a sentence in the Thoughts on the Sabbath, to which the 
Address is appended, we learn the following fact relative to per 
sons known to the writer as entertaining his opinions on the ques- 

1 Religious Condition of Christendom, pp. 479, 480. 

2 Barter s Answer to Whately, p. 35. 3 Pp. 43, 44 

2o 



578 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

tion : " I have formerly hinted my suspicions, in an essay already 
before the public [On the Love of Truth], that some persons who 
do not really believe the Mosaic law relative to the Sabbath to be 
binding on Christians, yet think it right to encourage or tacitly 
connive at that belief from views of expediency, for fear of un 
settling the minds of the common people. Indeed, I know, as a 
fact, respecting several persons, what is probably the case with 
many others, that they fully coincide with my views on the pre 
sent question, though they judge it not advisable, at present at 
least, to come forward and avow their opinion. l 

The influence of the unguarded expressions of Luther and 
others on the subject before us was very extensively, and has been 
also permanently, injurious to the interests of religion and morality. 
We have only to look to the Protestant countries of the Continent 
for the proof. " Their view about the Sabbath of the Fourth 
Commandment as a Jewish ordinance," observes Fairbairn, " told 
most unfavourably upon the interests of religion on the Continent. 
There can be little doubt that this was the evil root from which 
chiefly sprung so soon afterwards such a mass of Sabbath desecra 
tion, and which has rendered it so difficult ever since to restore 
the day of God to its proper place in the feelings and observances 
of the people. . . . The evil, once begun, proceeded rapidly 
from bad to worse, till it scarcely left in many places so much as 
the form of religion. No doubt many other causes were at work 
in bringing about so disastrous a result, but much was certainly 
owing to the error under consideration. And it reads a solemn 
and impressive warning to both ministers and people, not only to 
resist to the utmost all encroachments upon the sanctity of the 
Lord s day, but also to beware of weakening any of^ the founda 
tions on which the obligation to keep that day is made to rest ; 
and here, as well as in other things, to seek, with Leighton, that 
they may be saved from the errors of wise men, yea, and of good 
men. " 2 

There is another class of opinions which, without referring to 
our institution at all, operate against it, by fostering the suppo 
sition that religion is not the principal concern of man. The 
mere absence of religion from a publication which is constantly 

1 Thoughts on the Sabbath, p. 1. 3 Typology, vol. ii. pp. 475, 478 



DESECEATION CAUSES. 579 

read, and the treatment of every topic as if there were nothing 
of importance beyond the present scene, have a most seculariz 
ing effect on the public mind. Kobert Hall informs us that the 
evil effect of a perusal of Miss Edge worth s writings, which are 
marked by "a universal and studied omission of religion," was 
experienced by him for weeks. 1 We have been informed by a 
working man that he was obliged from the same cause to discon 
tinue the reading of a popular miscellany which prides itself on 
its harmlessness and moral purity. If works of this cast tend 
to make their readers mere " men of the world who have their 
portion in this life/ such a publication as Punch would deprive 
them of any little dignity which the other writers had left to 
their time-bounded existence. Even where there may be nothing 
profane or licentious in the literature of the day, its entirely 
worldly or frivolous character imparts its own impress to the 
mind of the reader. 

And how much more prejudicial the influence of those number 
less works which more avowedly or covertly seek to sap the foun 
dations of all religion and morals ! Of this class of publications 
it was stated, in 1847, that there was an annual issue of not less 
than 28,000,000. This would give an average weekly number 
of above 500,000, and supposing five readers to each, there must 
have been in that year upwards of two and a half millions of people 
under the perpetual operation of the fatal leaven. Let us conclude 
this part of our subject with the impressive words of Dr. Warren : 
" I can most conscientiously express my belief, that for a long time 
no periodical of note has been established in this country which has 
not disclosed the desire of its conductors to fit it for the purpose 
of innocent recreation and information to readers of both sexes, and 
of all ages and classes. It is a fact, however, stated with concern 
and reluctance, that there is a poisonous growth of libertine litera 
ture if the last word be not indeed libelled by such a us* of it 
designed for the lowest classes of society ; supplied, moreover, to 
an extent scarcely equal to the demand for it, and which exists to 
an extent unfortunately little suspected. I know not how this 
dreadful evil is to be encountered, except by affording every pos 
sible encouragement, from every quarter, to the dissemination, in 

i Life, p. 1T4. 



580 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

the cheapest practicable form, of wholesome and engaging litera 
ture. If poison be cheap, let its antidote be cheaper." 1 

REMEDIES FOR SABBATH DESECRATION. 

We have nothing new to propose on this part of our subject. 
We are firmly convinced that the grand panacea for the ills of the 
world has been long ago discovered and prescribed, and that what 
is wanting is only its more general and earnest application. Be 
sides this chief remedy, there are others important in their place, 
but even on these little room has been left for originality. As 
truth, however, needs to be often presented, we offer no apology 
for the following suggestions. 

The preaching of the Word by the appointed servants of Christ 
is perhaps next to prayer the most important remedy for a dese 
crated Sabbath. This was the great instrument by which Christi 
anity was established in the world. It was the chief means of the 
Reformation. It has done more than any other human agency for 
the conversion of the heathen in our own time. It is the glory of 
our land. It would enlighten and bless all nations were it wielded 
as extensively as there are human beings. It would still more 
elevate Christian countries were it more fully and earnestly em 
ployed. And we have only to examine the doctrines and spirit of 
the apostle Paul to know what the true and effectual preaching 
of the gospel is. His great subject was a crucified Saviour, and 
he preached well and successfully because he believed, felt, prayed. 
Let a philosopher who knew human nature well, and had observed 
much, be heard on the kind of preaching that does good. His re 
mark has been quoted already, but deserves repetition. " Those," 
he says, " who preach faith, or in other words a pure mind, have 
always produced more popular virtue than those who preached 
good wo$ks, or the mere regulation of outward acts." It is not 
difficult to trace the connexion between right preaching and a 
sanctified Sabbath. Let a man hear and believe the Word of God, 
and he immediately feels the value and obligation of the Lord s 
day, as of every Christian ordinance. If a person live under a 
faithful ministry he learns more and more of the value and obliga- 

1 Intellectual and Moral Development of the Present Age. By Samuel Warren, etc. p. 7 



DESECRATION REMEDIES. 581 

tion of that institution. To what mainly does Great Britain owe 
a Sabbath to such an extent honoured by her people, and blessing 
them in return with temporal and spiritual good, but to the teach 
ings of an evangelical ministry 1 Let it be the endeavour of all 
who wish well to their country to have such an instrumentality 
extended to every part of the land. It is a melancholy fact&gt; as 
we have already seen, that there are multitudes who will not at 
tend on Divine ordinances in the usual places of worship. In these 
circumstances let us remember the wise words of Dr. Chalmers, 
" The gospel is a message, not a thing for which the people will 
come to them, but a thing with which they must go to the 
people." 

Another mode of diffusing sacred knowledge, and an important 
pioneer and auxiliary to the other, is realized in the labours of 
missionaries. And they would, we conceive, still more efficiently 
promote their object by being trained and sent forth as foreign 
agents are. It is delightful to think of what has been accom 
plished by those excellent men who are employed in the London 
City Mission, in inducing Sabbath observance and its associated 
practices. In the Eeports of the Society it is mentioned that in 
the course of one year they prevailed on 1914 adults regularly to 
attend public worship ; and, in the progress of another, persuaded 
2736 to follow their example. They have, in thousands of in 
stances, influenced persons to give up their secular work, and 
families to keep their shops shut on the Lord s day. These are 
only specimens of results of the same nature which annually 
attend their exertions. And yet a much larger field might be 
occupied if there were only more abundant pecuniary means. Is 
it not painful in the extreme to reflect that multitudes, by tramp 
ling on the laws of God in our large cities, are continually pro 
voking His displeasure, spreading moral and physical disease, bur 
dening society, and destroying themselves, when there are so many 
able to provide the means of healing, in the fountain, these 
waters of bitterness ?. 

The less official style of personal appeal and remonstrance by 
individuals of any class of society is an important aid in the pro 
motion of this cause. Many instances of the efficacy of this 
means might be adduced. We cite the following. The late ex- 



5S2 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

cellent Bishop Porteus, when so infirm as to require to be carried, 
waited on the Prince of Wales at Carlton House, and by his 
faithful representations procured the alteration, to another day of 
the week, of a meeting which was held by the Prince and some 
military friends regularly on the Sabbath. It is recorded of the 
Rev. Henry Venn, the author of the Complete Duty of Man, that 
by employing persons to attempt, through persuasion, the repres 
sion of the open violation of the Sabbath, he accomplished a 
great reformation in Huddersfield. 1 Even by children and ser 
vants may the Sabbath-breaker be reclaimed. We have read of 
the former addressing salutary and successful instruction and reproof 
to their seniors of that character. And the following is an in 
stance of the wise and faithful rebuke of a servant who, in influ 
encing the object of it to amend his ways, has been through him 
a blessing to many. It is mentioned in the Life of Fletcher of 
Madeley, that, when a young man about twenty-three, and em 
ployed one Sabbath in writing some music, a servant coming into 
his room looked at him with serious concern, and said, " Sir, I am 
sorry to see you so employed on the Lord s day." At first his 
pride and resentment were moved at being reproved by a servant ; 
but on reflection he felt that the reproof was just, immediately 
put away his music, and from that time became a strict observer 
of the Lord s day. 2 

The press is confessedly an organ of great power in the cause 
of either truth or error, and one therefore of which the friends of 
religion and of the Sabbath ought largely to avail themselves. 
And certainly as its earliest was, so its principal application 
ought to be, in the multiplication and circulation of the most 
powerful of all writings, the sacred Scriptures. Human writings 
are imperfect. There is none of them in which there is not some 
defect or mistake. Enemies fasten on these things. But if fault 
be found with Scripture, it is without cause. " We question if 
any person of any class or school ever read the Scriptures regu 
larly and thoroughly without being or becoming not only religious 
but sensible and consistent." 3 It was the reading of a Bible 
which originated the Reformation. And in our own days its truths 

i Life, pp. 50, 51. 2 Life, 18mo, p. 23. 

Editorial Article in the Times, August 20, 1847. 



DESECRATION REMEDIES. 583 

have diffused knowledge, piety, happiness, and civilisation among 
men of every character, colour, and clime. Wherever they have 
penetrated, human beings have reverently acknowledged the claims 
of their Creator on their spirits and bodies, their substance and 
time. The truth as it is in Jesus is able to overthrow all error 
and evil, and to transform the character of mankind into the like 
ness of the Divine nature. It has a commission from its Author 
to accomplish this revolution over the whole world, and the com 
mission is accompanied with His promise of entire success. What, 
then, is required to its further victories over sin in every form, is 
to present to the minds of men the Word of the Lord, with 
entire confidence in its mightiness through God to the pulling 
down of strongholds. And that it is still " quick and powerful" 
let the following facts show : " Dr. Carey mentions that two 
of the most active and useful native preachers, and several 
other brethren, had been the fruits of a New Testament left 
at a shop, and states also that early in 1813 some Brahmins 
and persons of caste, not many miles from Serampore, obtained 
the knowledge of the truth, and met for Christian worship on the 
Lord s day before they had any intercourse with the missionaries, 
simply by reading the Scriptures. These were baptized, and re 
ported that hundreds of their neighbours were convinced of the 
truth of the Christian religion, and were kept back from profess 
ing it only by the fear of losing caste, and its consequences." 
Mr. Dudley, in his Analysis of the System of the Bible Society, 
remarks, that " a greater regard for the Sabbath and more general 
and regular attendance on Divine worship was another and early 
result of the Society s labours, and an evidence that they were 
not in vain." 1 

But the circulation of the Scriptures does not supersede the 
employment of other publications for advancing the cause of 
truth and righteousness, provided they are agreeable to that 
supreme standard, and provided especially they set forth and en 
force its doctrines and laws. Every department of knowledge and 
every form of publication may be rendered tributary to the de 
signs of Eevelationj and to the confirmation and defence of its 
great discoveries and lessons. The Keformation was eminently 

i Pp. 94 95. 



584 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

forwarded by the writings of Luther. What a blessing to the 
world have been the works of Baxter, Owen, Bunyan, Hervey, 
Leighton, and Chalmers ! How potent an instrumentality in our 
own day has been the publication of tracts ! Nor must the lead 
ing truths of Christianity, prominent though the exhibition of 
them ought to be made, be the exclusive subjects of such works. 
It may be necessary to single out such a topic as that of the 
Sabbath for frequent admonition or occasionally for full illustra 
tion. The lucubrations of Heylyn rendered imperative the elabo 
rate treatises of Owen and Baxter. The speculations of Paiey 
and Whately have demanded the strictures of Dwight, Holden, 
and Wardlaw. Prevalent error in opinion, and sin in practice, 
have called forth the various essays by ministers and working 
men with which the name of Henderson stands so honourably 
associated. And have these labours been in vain ? It is stated 
that the works of Greenham and Twisse contributed greatly to 
promote the observance of the Sabbath in their times. The 
treatises, on the institution, of the seventeenth century, constitute 
to this day an armoury of weapons to defeat the continually re 
appearing, though frequently demolished, arguments of its ene 
mies. How much in recent times have the works of Horsley, 
Edwards, and many others, corroborated the influence of the pul 
pit, and reassured the courage of the members of their respective 
communions, and of the friends of the Sabbath generally, as well 
as rolled back the tide of error and evil ! And most encouraging, 
too, has been the success of smaller works. The movement in 
Germany, afterwards to be mentioned, was essentially aided by the 
issuing of addresses, in thousands of copies, on Sabbath celebration, 
and by the circulation of the Pearl of Days, and other prize essays. 
The sowing broadcast of many treatises and tracts over England 
and Scotland, within these few years, has resulted in a rich 
harvest. But perhaps the most effective use of the press has been 
made by the Sabbath Union of America, which, with the energy 
characteristic of the nation, has not only sent forth its secretary 
over the whole country to promote the observance of the Sabbath, 
by addressing meetings, and by interviews with influential indi 
viduals, but scattered in great profusion its Reports and Permanent 
Documents, in which the whole question is dealt with scriptur- 



DESECRATION REMEDIES. 586 

ally, and brought home by striking facts to men s business and 
bosoms. 

One of the most important agencies for promoting reverence for 
the Sabbath and religion in general, and thus for advancing all the 
great interests of society, is lodged in the hands of parents. To 
them it belongs to train up the young in their earliest and most 
susceptible days, by instruction, example, and government, in the 
knowledge and practice of all excellence. And not the least effec 
tual of the means which they ought to employ is the exercise of 
the authority with which they have been intrusted by the Supreme 
Ruler. The language of God to Abraham is their warrant for 
making use of this power : " I know him, that he will command 
his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the 
way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment ; that the Lord may 
bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." 1 Their 
duty is taught them by a case, than which nothing in conduct and 
results can be conceived more unlike the procedure of the father of 
the faithful, and its consequences the case of Eli, who wli^n his 
sons made themselves vile restrained them not. Parental neglect 
is one of the chief occasions of the ignorance, immorality, and irre- 
ligion of a country. And we may add that there is nothing in 
which parents are so apt to fail, as in the exercise of their autho 
rity over their offspring. Although all other means were employed, 
if they are on the one hand too indulgent, or on the other too 
severe, what would avail those means 1 The young will too fre 
quently in such a case despise the inconsistent teaching and example, 
or be driven from a path which they are not allowed in their 
homes to find a way of pleasantness and a path of peace. Equally 
necessary is the practice of two injunctions if a population is to be 
trained to fear God and keep His commandments : " Correct thy 
son, and he shall give thee rest ; yea, he shall give delight unto 
thy soul." 2 " Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath ; 
but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." 3 

The example of consistent character and deportment is a means 
of good which all Christians may employ, and which every one is 
capable of appreciating as well as most prepared to feel and respect 
The law of Christ applies to this, as to all other departments of 

i Gen, xviii. 19. 2 Prov. xxix. 17. * Eph. vi. 4 



586 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

duty : " Let your light so shine before men, that they also may 
see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. 
The exemplary conduct of the humblest person has the most power 
ful influence over a family, and over all who have occasion to 
observe it. But the power of such example is the greater that 
the individual occupies a high standing in the church or in society 
such, for instance, as the cases of a Sir M. Hale, a Howard, 
a Wilberforce, and a R Hall, all of whom were distinguished by 
their sacred regard to the Lord s day. No apparent improvement 
may in some instances be the result in those who witness the 
example, but benefit is frequently the obvious, and still more fre 
quently the actual effect. No good action is lost. It is ever 
beneficial to him who performs it. It is approved by the Judge 
of all. When seen, it is a witness for Him. And the influence 
of the character and the deeds of the good operates in ways and 
to an extent, which, whether known or not to them, are incalcul 
able in their beneficent amount. Such men are the light of the 
world, the salt of the earth. 

Of many instances in which persons under the authority of 
others have been ready to sacrifice their means of support for the 
sake of a good conscience, we particularize that of an overseer in a 
factory at Manchester, related by the Bishop of Chester at a public 
meeting. Being told by one of the proprietors on a Saturday that 
his attendance would be necessary next day, when certain repairs 
in the machinery were to be made, he replied that he regretted 
much to disobey his employer, but he could not attend at work on 
the Sunday. " Then," said the proprietor, " you will come on 
that day, or you will not come again at all." In the course of 
the Monday following, his employer sent for him, and asked why 
it was that he had not returned : the man said that after what 
had been told him on the Saturday, he did not consider himself 
at liberty to return. " Oh !" said his employer, "perhaps I was 
a little hasty in what I said : attend in your place as usual." See 
the value of a man of principle ! It was felt by one who perhaps 
disregarded the religious feeling on which the principle was founded, 
but who still set a just value on the individual who conscientiously 
adhered to it. 1 Instances of many others in various situations in 

i Missionary Register for 1836, p. 313. 



DESECRATION REMEDIES. 587 

life, who have acted with equal firmness in similar circumstances, 
must be known to our readers. The person who so acts performs 
a valuable service to the cause of the Sabbath. Let others, put 
ting their trust in the Lord of the institution, the Proprietor of 
the earth and its fulness, go and do likewise. 

Ellis, in his Polynesian Researches, states that the example of 
the missionaries in Tahiti led to the strict and general observance 
of the Lord s day by the nation at large, and that the prevailing 
attention to the public worship of God, and the exemplary Chris 
tian deportment of many of the people, have proved not only de 
lightful, but beneficial to their visitors.; there being probably many 
instances of good besides, which the revelations of the last day 
alone will disclose. It would be well that a similar example were 
set by the multitude of our countrymen who visit foreign lands 
for other purposes than those of missionary enterprise. How de 
sirable that they should bear with them the thought, " Thou God 
seest me," and that, constrained by His love, they should spend 
His day according to the commandment, and as every Christian 
delights to do. The following cases might supply a directory and 
stimulus : " This day, being Sunday," writes a Christian traveller, 
" was devoted to repose. The want of religious ordinances is the 
greatest of all privations. May I henceforth duly estimate the 
privileges of my native land." 1 " We remained all day (Sunday) 
in Wady Sudr. We had determined before setting off from Cairo, 
always to rest on the Christian Sabbath, if possible ; and during 
all our journeys in the Holy Land, we were never compelled to 
break over this rule but once. Strange as it may at first seem, 
these Sabbaths in the desert had a peculiar charm, and left upon 
the mind an impression which never can be forgotten." 2 

Example may operate where its living form was not seen, and 
far beyond the sphere in which it shone. A medical gentleman 
acknowledged that it was his reading that Mr. Hey of Leeds rarely 
missed attending the morning and afternoon service of the church, 
which led him to arrange his time better, and follow the same 
plan. This occurred when he was a young man, and he never 
had altered the practice. 3 A correspondent of the Record news- 

1 Remains of the late A. L. Ross, p. 379. 2 Robinson s Palestine, 1. p. 94 

W. Brown, Esq. late President of the Royal College of Surgeona 



588 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

paper stated, some years ago, that the debate in the House of 
Commons on the Lord s-day Bill, and the serious manner in which 
it was conducted, had been noticed in more than one of the leading 
newspapers at Paris, and that one of them directs the particular 
attention of its readers to this part of the British character as 
worthy of imitation. " Thus," the writer justly remarks, " Sir 
Andrew Agnew and his associates in Parliament are in reality act 
ing on all Europe, though apparently only on England and the 
sister kingdoms." 

When a duty is performed in circumstances of strong tempta 
tion to an opposite course, the example has increased claims to our 
consideration and respect. It required no small measure of prin 
ciple in Wilberforce, when, a Minister of State having called upon 
him on some public business on a Sunday, he at once excused 
himself, saying he would wait upon his Lordship at any hour he 
might fix the next day, but he was then going to church ; this, 
too, after he had already attended the morning service. 1 Still 
stronger was the temptation of a command, addressed by a late 
King to an excellent person still living, to dine with his Majesty 
on a Sabbath-day, and the polite declining of the intended honour, 
received without offence, did credit to both the subject and his 
Prince. 2 But to act such a part towards one from whom some 
thing worse than displeasure may be apprehended, is to encounter 
a greater temptation still, and to evince a higher degree of cour 
age. There were those who boldly refused to read the Book of 
Sports from their pulpits in the times of James I. and Charles I., 
though liable thereby to suspension. Dr. Twisse was one of these 
faithful men. He even warned his people against Sabbath pro 
fanation. It was to the credit of James that he gave secret 
orders not to molest the Doctor. When Charles renewed the 
edict, he preached and published on the subject, " which pro 
duced a powerful impression on the public mind in favour of the 
Sabbath." 

There is a special obligation lying on persons of high standing 
in society to exemplify the principles of our holy religion, since 
the more elevated the station the more conspicuous and regarded 
is the individual. And it is a peculiar pleasure to refer to in- 

i Scott s Discourse on Wilberforce, p. 29. 2 Life of Lady Colqulwun, 106-]. r &gt;Q. 



DESECRATION REMEDIES. 589 

stances of the union of piety and rank in such men as were Lords 
Harrington, Dartmouth, Teignmouth, Gambier, and Earl Ducie. 
Nor is it impossible for those in the very highest grade of earthly 
distinction, amidst all the pleasures, temptations, and cares of a 
throne, to be patterns of Sabbath observance. It was a king who 
delighted to go with the multitude that kept holy day ; who was 
glad when it was said, Let us go up to the house of the Lord ; 
who would have preferred being a door-keeper in the house of his 
God, to dwelling in the tents of wickedness ; and who esteemed a 
day in the courts of the Lord better than a thousand anywhere 
else. Kings and emperors have followed his example. King 
George in. evinced, in various ways, his veneration for the law of 
the Sabbath. " To every pious subject it must be a source of 
lively satisfaction to know that in the pavilion itself originated 
measures which have materially tended to promote the better 
observance of the Sabbath in Brighton. It is said that there 
were certain arrangements in the royal household which unde- 
signedly entailed a large amount of Sunday labour ; but when 
the facts were represented to Queen Adelaide, she immediately com 
manded that the orders in question should be given on Monday 
instead of Saturday as heretofore. And this act of Christian 
consideration has been extensively copied, to the great relief of 
many a laundress, who formerly could not remember the Sabbath 
day to keep it holy. In unison with this tribute to the Divine 
command, was the injunction of our present Queen, forbidding 
the exhibition, on the Lord s day, of the State apartments at 
Windsor Castle ; an act which, along with Her Majesty s patron 
age of the Sabbath observance movement among the working 
classes, has given a much-loved sovereign an additional claim to 
the gratitude and attachment of a Christian people." 1 

" Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that 
build it : except the JLord keep the city, the watchman waketh 
but in vain." Whence but from Divine patronage has a day of 
sacred rest, so opposed to the avarice, love of pleasure, and irre- 
ligion of the world, which give birth to so many opinions and 
practices tending to obliterate its name from the calendar, main 
tained, notwithstanding, its ground, and been not only valued by 

1 Life of Lady Colquhoun, pp. 159, 160. 



590 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

men of the world, but venerated, loved, and observed by Chris- 
tians 2 And on what other power than that of its Author can 
we justly depend for the preservation and universal prevalence of 
the institution, when the human mind is naturally as much as 
ever liable to error, and prone to evil, in regard to this as well as 
all the doctrines and laws of a kingdom which is not of this 
world 1 All hearts and events are in the hands of the Almighty. 
His own institutions are under His special care, and He can easily 
secure for them favour and honour. To Him, therefore, ought we 
to come ; in Him repose our confidence, for guidance, help, and 
success in every plan that we adopt, and in every exertion that we 
put forth on behalf of the day which He has consecrated for Him 
self, and blessed for man. 

It promises well for our cause when the paramount importance 
of this remedy is practically recognised. In the Stuttgard Con 
ference of 1850, at which about two thousand Christians of all 
the countries of Germany were assembled, an address was agreed 
to, in which, after various useful suggestions, it is stated, " But, 
above all, every one should pray often and ardently to the Lord 
our God, that the Sabbath celebration may be restored amongst 
his people, and that all Governments and Chambers of Deputies 
may understand how pernicious it is fcr the people if this duty is 
more and more disregarded, by the example of persons high in 
station, by working in the Government offices, by military reviews, 
by meetings of the public, and of societies, during the hours of 
Divine worship, by noisy or immoral public feasts, and by a lax 
legislature ;" and at which, in addition, it was, on the motion of 
the Rev. S. C. Kapff, resolved " That the third Sabbath of every 
month should be a day for common prayer with all the evangeli 
cal Christians of Germany, especially on behalf of Home Missions 
and Sabbath observance." "We know," adds the relator, "that 
this resolution did not remain without consequences that new 
prayer-meetings were established ; and, we trust, if the number of 
Christians increase who pray for Sabbath celebration, that the 
Lord will also send us an abundant answer, in a better observance 
of His holy day." 1 That answer has been sent. For of the year 
1855 we have to present the following gratifying statements : 

i Religious Condition of Christendom, pp. 471, 477, 478. 



DESECRATION REMEDIES. 591 

* In Prussia, Wiirtemberg, Baden, Sabbath observance has un 
doubtedly improved in the course of the last years. Not only 
stricter laws of former times have been enjoined, but what is of 
greater importance, public opinion, as also the manners and 
customs of the people, have been ameliorated." This was written 
in July of that year. The writer, referring again to the subject 
in the following month, observes, " Though much remains to be 
done for the better observance of the Sabbath in Germany, yet, 
as I remarked in my last letter, in many, if not in most, countries 
an improvement is going on." 1 

The same spirit has actuated Christians in this land, and has 
undoubtedly been the means of carrying our ark over many a 
raging billow, and deepened the interest of our people in its 
future safety. Members of Parliament, while pleading its cause 
with man, did not forget to present their suit at a higher 
tribunal. When the friends of the Sabbath were employing on 
its behalf the eloquence of the orator and the power of the press, 
they neglected not to unite their petitions at the throne of grace. 
In circumstances the most inauspicious to such a spirit has it 
been evoked and prevailed. We give an interesting example. 
For three years the men on the Mersey and Jrwell had petitioned 
their employers to be emancipated from Sabbath slavery, and 
their petitions had no effect. At length some of them said, 
"We have tried men without effect ; let us appeal to God." 
For six weeks before the next annual meeting of their masters, 
they humbly besought God to put it into their hearts to comply 
with their request ; they did that which, whether it proceed from 
the cottage or the palace, from the prince or the peasant, is sure 
to produce a favourable result they offered prayer in faith. The 
result was that, after some demur on the part of one or two indi 
viduals, the masters at length unanimously resolved to comply 
with their request. The sailing of thirty-nine boats on the canal 
was stopped on Sabbath. 

These things are well. But it is not an outwardly-guarded 
and respected Sabbath, however important and desirable this is, 
that will satisfy the Divine claims or human necessities. The 
institution must be loved and venerated as the appointment of 

i News of the Chunk*, vol. ii. pp. 186, 205 



592 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

Heaven, and kept in the sanctuary of the heart. How can this 
be attained, however, without the saving knowledge and faith of 
the gospel, produced by the agency of the Spirit of Go-d, or how 
can the bestowal of this agency be secured but by prayer ? 
" Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by 
the house of Israel to do it for them." " Ye that make mention 
of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no rest till he estab 
lish and make Jerusalem a praise in the earth/ " Arise, God, 
plead thine own cause, remember how the foolish man reproacheth 
thee daily." 

PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS OF OUR CAUSE. 

The friends of the Sabbath have, we trust, such a regard for 
truth, as to preserve them from consciously understating the 
amount of Sabbath profanation as it exists in this country or in 
foreign lands. Honesty is in this, as in everything else, the best 
policy, the policy in the present case being fully to set forth the 
evil, that every man who " desireth life, and loveth many days, 
that he may see good," and who would wish others to enjoy the 
same blessings, may be roused to efforts for its removal. For let 
it be true, that the words of Shakspere describe a case, not now of 
rare but of common occurrence on the Continent : 

"Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task 
Does not divide the Sunday from the week ? 
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste 
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day ? 
Who is t that can inform me ? " 

and that the language of Wordsworth is not yet obsolete as a de 
scription of England, 

" Where now the beauty of the Sabbath kept 
With conscientious reverence, as a day 
By the Almighty Lawgiver pronounced 
Holy and blest?" 

we have, nevertheless, the confidence, that great though the enor 
mity is, there is in the truth and in prayer an adequate instrument 
ality for coping with it, and in the Divine agency and promises a 
perfect guarantee of victory. And we owe it as a tribute to the 



PEOGRESS AND PROSPECTS. 593 

glory of the Author of the Sabbath, as well as an encouragement 
to those who are fighting its battles, to adduce some further illus 
trative instances of the success that has crowned the exertions of 
its friends, and that heralds its coming triumph. 

A considerable volume might be filled with the facts which 
show how auspicious have been the attempts of missionaries to 
plant the institution among various classes of Pagans, notwith 
standing the aversion to sacred exercises and restraints that must 
especially be felt by men previously accustomed to a wild freedom 
on all days, or to a galling bondage on six days of the week. Let 
a few of the many particulars that might be adduced suffice. 
When slavery was the law and practice in the West Indies, the 
Sabbath was the market-day, and the day selected for the punish 
ment of the slaves. That was a noted time of immorality. Con 
trast with this the following : " Among other pleasing features 
presented by this station," it was reported of Hampden, in Jamaica, 
" the progress of marriage among the negroes is not the least 
encouraging. The number of couples which have been married 
since its commencement amount to 511. A great improvement 
has taken place in regard to the observation of the Lord s day. 
Public worship is not only well attended, but the Sabbath is, 
in other respects, sanctified in a manner, which, considering the 
former habits of the negroes, is truly surprising. Prayer-meetings 
are established in every district of the congregation. Family- 
worship is observed in many of their dwellings, unity and brotherly 
love prevail, parents are more anxious for the instruction of their 
children, and more careful in watching over their morals. A 
Bible and Missionary Society has been formed in the congregation, 
which, in the first eleven months, raised 150 currency. Tem 
perance societies have also been established, which number no 
fewer than 593 members. A session has been formed in the 
congregation, which takes the entire charge of the discipline of 
the church ; and though nearly all the elders are, or lately were, 
apprentices, they discharge the duties of their office with propriety, 
zeal, and prudence, firmness and fidelity. Mr. Blyth" the Rev. 
George Blyth, the missionary at the station " has also begun a 
system of family visitation similar to what prevails in many of the 
best regulated congregations in this country." " Altogether," Mr. 

2 P 



594 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

B. says, " this part of the island has assumed the aspect of a 
Christian country." 1 Of Lucea, another missionary station in 
Jamaica, the Rev. James Watson, the missionary, reported : " The 
improvement of the Black population is particularly remarkable. 
It is astonishing to see the change that has been wrought upon 
them in so short a space of time. In a merely civil point of view, 
it is exceedingly interesting. They seem much more cheerful, 
and much more attentive to matters of decency and propriety of 
conduct than formerly. Marriage is now rapidly advancing among 
them. Hundreds have left off their former mode of living, and 
have entered into this honourable relation within the last year. 
The Sabbath is almost universally observed as a day of rest by 
an entire cessation of everything in the shape of work." 2 As it 
is in Jamaica, so also in the South Sea Islands. Stewart, in his 
Visit to the South, Seas, devotes a chapter (or letter) to a de 
scription of a Tahitian Sabbath in 1829, concluding with these 
words, " The whole external observance of the day by the natives, 
in a suspension of all ordinary occupations and amusements, was 
such as to be worth the imitation of older and more enlightened 
Christian nations " (p. 253). The well-known and excellent mis 
sionary, Mr. Pritchard, confirms this testimony : "On almost all 
the islands where the gospel has been introduced, and the people 
have made a profession of Christianity, a most diligent attention 
is paid to the public ordinances of religion. This is particularly 
the case in those stations which are not visited by foreign ship 
ping. They very strictly observe the Sabbath. Their food for 
the Sabbath is cooked on the Saturday, consequently none are 
detained from a place of worship, to cook hot dinners on the 
Sabbath, as is so common in England even among professing 
Christians. They usually attend three services on the Sabbath. 
The first is a prayer-meeting held early in the morning. These 
meetings are generally well attended. It would be considered a 
great disgrace for a church member to absent himself from the 
prayer-meeting. All who profess to feel any concern about good 
things will be there. Most of the natives consider it as import 
ant to attend the prayer-meeting as the preaching of the gospel 

1 Sketches by Dr. W. Brown, Secretary of the Scottish Missionary Society, in Chris 
tian Tcaclier, vol. i. p. 504. Ibid. p. 565. 



PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS. 595 

It is exceedingly interesting at these meetings to hear how par 
ticularly and affectionately they pray for their missionaries, for the 
ministers of the gospel generally, and for the increase of vital 
religion in their own hearts, and especially for the best of bless 
ings to rest upon their Christian friends in Britain, who have sent 
them the gospel. In the forenoon there is usually a very full 
attendance. Some of the chapels are so crowded that many 
persons have to sit outside. On these occasions most of them are 
neatly dressed. Many of them take paper and pencils, and write 
the particulars of the discourse. But few congregations in Eng 
land surpass them, in serious attention and decent behaviour in 
the house of God. At the close of the afternoon service many of 
them frequently stop, to talk over what they have heard through 
the day, and to pray that the seed which has been sown may 
spring up and produce an abundant harvest. Besides attending 
schools daily, they have two religious services each week." l We 
find the same spirit among the converts of New Zealand : "It 
was customary with the missionaries on their first settling in 
New Zealand to erect a flag at their station on the Sabbath-day, 
and this was the sign for many distant tribes of natives to desist 
from work, or from war ; indeed, they seem to have shown at a 
very early period of the mission a decided respect and honour for 
the Sabbath, which the missionaries told them was set apart by 
them in honour of the Atua nue, the Great Jehovah." 2 Mr. 
Davis, a missionary, says, " Our chapel could not contain the 
whole of our congregation yesterday ; so that we shall have to 
enlarge it as soon as possible. Ripi and his party continue to 
listen with attention, and are steady in their attendance on the 
means of grace. The manner in which the Lord s day is kept 
by this tribe would shame many country parishes in England, 
even where the gospel is faithfully preached. Their firewood is 
always prepared, and their potatoes scraped and got ready, on 
the Saturday afternoon, to be cooked on the Sunday ; and this is 
no new thing, as they have proceeded in this way now for a long 
time." 3 

We must content ourselves with only a few more illustrations. 

l Pritchard s Missionary Reward, pp. 78-80. 

* Mutionary Guide-Book, p. 279. 3 Ramsden s Miuiont, p. 19L 



596 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

derived chiefly from the lately published and very interesting 
volume, Nineteen Tears in Polynesia, by the Rev. George Turner : 
" We had the pleasure of spending a Sabbath at Eromanga, and met 
with about a hundred and fifty of the people in their little chapel. 
All were quiet and orderly. It thrilled our inmost soul to hear 
them, as led by Mrs. Gordon, strike up the tune of New Lydia, 
and also the translation and tune of There is a happy land.* 
Mr. Macfarlane and I addressed them through Mr. Gordon. They 
were startled and deeply interested, as I told them of former times, 
and to show them that we were different from other white men 
who had visited their shores" (pp. 487, 488). " We left Uea 
early on the morning bound for Guarnha, Mr. Creagh s station, 
there to land Mr. Jones, and the supplies of Mr. Creagh, and 
his native teachers. We were close in by nine A.M., on Sabbath, 
when Mr. Jones, Mr. Turpie, the first officer, and I went on shore 
in the whale-boat. As we reached the beach, I had a vivid recol 
lection of the naked savage crowd Mr. Murray and I saw there 
on my first visit fourteen years ago. TJien some were painted from 
head to foot, and all were armed with clubs, spears, or tomahawks. 
Old leui gave the word of command, when an avenue was formed 
for us to walk up through the motley group, to his large round 
house, where we talked to them of Chrbt, and his peaceful king 
dom, and entreated them to abandon heathenism and embrace the 
gospel. But how changed the scene now ! As Mr. Jones, Mr. 
Turpie, and I walked up from the boat, all was quiet. It was the 
hour of Divine service, and the people were assembled in the 
chapel on the rising ground a little to the left. We walked up 
to the place, a stone building eighty feet by sixty, looked in at the 
door, and saw that it was filled with 900 attentive worshippers. 
Mr. Creagh was in the pulpit, and a black precentor stood 
leading the whole in one harmonious song of praise. I felt it 
quite overpowering, as we walked up the aisle, and took our 
places in the missionary s pew. Mr. Creagh preached, and as 
it was their day for administering the ordinance of the Lord s 
Supper, we had the further pleasure of uniting, at the close 
of the morning service, with the church of ninety-four mem 
bers, in commemorating the death of Christ" (pp. 513, 514). 
"In summing up our progress in these islands just visited, 



PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS. 597 

where twenty years ago we had not a single missionary, or a 
single convert from heathenism, and at the very entrance to which 
John Williams then fell, we find that, out of a population, in 
the twelve islands which we now occupy, of about 65,500 souls, 
we have 19,743 who have renounced heathenism, and are pro 
fessedly Christian. Of these there are 645 church members, and 
689 who are candidates for admission to the church. And there 
are now labouring among them ten European missionaries, and 
231 native teachers and assistants. Three printing-presses, also, 
are at work, especially devoted to the Papuan vernacular of the 
respective islands" (p. 533). To this summary of what has been 
done by missionaries in a single fraction of the field, let there be 
added a mere outline, sketched by us some years ago, of the 
achievements of such men within little more than half a century 
over the world, and we feel ourselves warranted, as we said then, 
to challenge any one to produce measures worthy for a moment to 
be placed in competition with Christian missions as the means of 
enlightening and civilizing human beings : Greenland and Labra 
dor raised from their deep degradation a hundred spots in the 
North and South Pacific, once the dark domains of ignorance, en 
lightened the reproach of hopeless stupidity wiped away from the 
Hottentots, many of whom now equal Europeans in their skill as 
artisans the elevation of New Zealanders, Negroes, and Bush 
men, to the rank of intelligent beings the education of between 
300,000 and 400,000 young persons in heathen lands the erec 
tion of numerous churches and school-houses the reduction of 
many languages to writing the preparation of millions of tracts 
and books and the translation of the Scriptures into one hundred 
languages spoken by upwards of half the human family. In all 
these cases, the missionaries, after being themselves trained by the 
help of the Sabbath, introduced it into the scenes of their labours, 
where it has been as well observed by the converts as in any 
country, and where it has performed an indispensable and not the 
least important part in the happy transformation which the cha 
racter and condition of many among the most uncivilized of our 
race have undergone. 

We are aware of little that is pleasing to set over against the 
deeply shaded picture of a Popish Sabbath on the Continent which 

26* 



598 THE SABBATH EJs 7 FORCED. 

truth required us in some preceding pages to present. Allowance 
must be made, so far as the people are concerned, on the ground 
of the ignorance in which they are left by their spiritual guides, 
and the example which their leaders set before them. There have 
been exceptions, moreover, among the clergy one, at least, ap 
pears, the already mentioned instance of the Archbishop of Paris, 
whose efforts, with those of M. de Montalembert, to secure a bet 
ter-observed Sabbath in France, were deserving of no slight praise, 
notwithstanding that they have not been so successful as every 
friend of the institution would desire. A writer, in a work re 
peatedly drawn upon, observes, " It seemed to me that in Pro 
testant countries public Sabbath desecration never proceeded to 
so great a length as in Catholic districts." 1 In his opinion, so 
far as our limited observation has gone, we are disposed to con 
cur. "We found Geneva, in 1851, not so bad in respect of Sab 
bath desecration as we have seen it described, or as Lucerne 
and Frankfort-on-the-Maine. The streets of the city of Calvin 
were tolerably quiet, as much so as in some of our English towns, 
though we have been informed that many of the inhabitants re 
pair to the environs, and had the testimony of a rattling sound as 
we passed along that others retreated to the billiard room, for 
the purposes of amusement. In Basle and Amsterdam we saw 
in numerous strollers, and their levity, an evidence that there 
were many who had no reverence for the first day of the week ; 
but the shops were not generally open or business carried on as 
in Lucerne. In 1861, we had an opportunity of contrasting 
Basle, which seemed improved since we had seen it ten years be 
fore, though we noticed some open shops, with Roman Catholic 
Macon in France, where, after mass was over, the population, 
with the exception of a few sober, devout Protestants, appeared to 
be " wholly given to idolatry " the idolatry of spectacles, music, 
and wine. There are, moreover, such symptoms of conviction on 
the part of not a few of the inhabitants of Continental countries 
that religion is low, and so much anxiety for better things as 
themselves evince progress and improvement. Take Germany, 
where Protestantism is so encompassed by the contaminating 
influence of Popery ; and it may be said that, while it had de- 

1 Eeligion& Condition of Christendom, p. 466. 



PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS. 599 

clined from the Sabbath-keeping of the Reformers, earlier and 
later, there have ever been " faithful Christians, who, in their 
small circles, observed the commandment faithful working men 
who did no work on Sabbath-day, faithful merchants who sold 
nothing on Sabbath-day that though the number of these faith 
ful men was small, and though their voice expired in the vast 
desert, they ardently desired reformation and that the object 
which they longed for is in our day beginning to be attained." l 
The events of 1848, and the circulation of the English Sabbath 
prize essays, gave a powerful impulse to the cause of the Sabbath 
in Germany. Conferences at Wittenberg and Stuttgard took up 
the question with great earnestness. Addresses to the German 
nation and Governments were published. The address to the 
people recommended the following things : " 1st. All should be 
prepared on Saturday, that it may not be necessary to do any 
labour in the household on Sunday. 2d. Every one should dine 
very plainly on the Sabbath-day, that the servants may have time 
to attend the services of God, and also for rest. 3d. Every one 
should be regularly present at public worship, and at domestic de 
votion. th. All the labour done on week-days must be omitted ; 
chiefly the payment of the labourers, the delivering of finished, or 
the bespeaking of new orders, and generally all business and trade. 
5th. Children and servants should be looked after most conscien 
tiously in respect of their employment of the Sunday ; above all, 
that every one should pray often and ardently to the Lord our 
God, that the Sabbath celebration may be restored amongst His 
people." Petitions, moreover, were presented to the Prussian 
Government. The results were encouraging. The post-offices in 
Prussia were shut from 9 to 12 A.M., and from 1 to 5 P.M. The 
Government expressed its desire to stop the running of the rail 
ways, which was resisted by the mercantile boards. The Chamber 
of Deputies in Saxony, in consequence of the petition of a clergy 
man, resolved unanimously to recommend to the Government the 
strict enforcement of the law of 1811, with respect to the celebra 
tion of the Lord s day. Similar measures were adopted in the 
kingdom of Hanover, and in the Duchy of Brunswick. To all 
these efforts must be added the means employed with success by 

1 Religious Condition of Christendom, p. 467. 



600 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

voluntary societies, and eminent individuals, to promote the great 
object. It is painful to have to say that the authorities of the 
Grand Duchy of Hesse were opposed to the movement, and that 
the only step towards reformation was a resolution, " that public 
dancing parties and music be closed on Saturday at midnight, and 
begin on Sunday only after the service." The only appearance in 
Germany in favour of the Sabbath by Roman Catholics is the fol 
lowing, which, however, was on this account the more honourable 
to the mover and to the Government. In the kingdom of Bavaria, 
the Roman bishop applied to the Government to protect Sabbath 
celebration, and the Government in consequence republished all 
the laws upon the subject, and distributed them to all the civic 
boards and parishes. 1 

It was mentioned at the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance 
in Paris, by M. Descombaz, in his report on the Sabbath, that 
the observance of the Lord s day was diminishing in Switzerland. 
We have reason to believe, however, that a beneficial change in 
this respect will come over that honoured land, and is already 
begun. There, indeed, we have had a Victor Mellet, who was 
one of the ablest and most ingenious pleaders for anti-Sabbatic 
opinions, and was the more dangerous an opponent of the com 
monly received views, that he seemed to have taken up the 
wrong side so conscientiously. But then, on the other hand, we 
have a Malan, who has appeared as an author on behalf of a 
sanctified Sabbath, the spirit of which and of heaven he has so 
much imbibed ; and a Merle D Aubignd, who has more than 
once proclaimed his sympathy with our Sabbath and with our 
exertions on its behalf, as, for example, a few years ago in these 
words : " In Geneva he had looked to this Sunday question as 
if England were his own country. He felt that it was very im 
portant, not only to England, but to the whole Continent. Eng 
land was like a citadel a strong tower ; and if that tower was 
broken down, what should be done ? How would the Church 
exist without the sanctification of the Lord s day 1 He would say 
to England, Keep it holy, keep it holy." 2 We anticipate much 
good to Switzerland and the whole continent from the recent 

1 Religious Condit jon of Christendom, pp. 467, 473. 

3 Speech at a meeting in Liverpool.- C. Times, May 30, 1856 



PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS. 601 

Conference of the Evangelical Alliance, at which the Sabbath 
was a subject of prominent notice. One result of that meeting 
was an agreement on the part of certain ministers of Geneva to 
preach a course of sermons early this year on the all-important 
theme. The volume containing the proceedings of the Conference 
will, without doubt, be largely circulated, and give an impulse to 
the cause. Indeed, the general meetings, and the ramifications of 
the Alliance, must have great influence in spreading Divine truth, 
not only on the Sabbath question, but on many subjects deeply 
affecting the interests of humanity. 

In no part of the world, perhaps, has more been successfully 
attempted of late years for the reformation of Sabbatic abuses and 
for promoting the observance of the institution than in the United 
States. Through the efforts of the Secretary of the Sabbath 
Union and others nearly twenty years ago, an increased attention 
was awakened, and in many places a great change in sentiment 
and practice was effected with regard to this subject. We give a 
few sentences from the summary of the good accomplished, as 
contained in the first Annual Report of the Union : " The trans 
portation of the mails on the Sabbath has, on numerous routes, 
been discontinued ; and stage-coaches, steamboats, rail cars, and 
canal boats, have in many cases ceased to run on that day. 
Stockholders, directors, distinguished merchants, and civilians, 
have expressed the conviction that, should this be the case uni 
versally, it would greatly promote the welfare of all. The number 
of those who go or send to the post-office, who are disposed to 
labour, or engage in secular business, travelling, or amusement on 
the Sabbath, is diminishing, and the number is increasing of those 
who are disposed to attend the public worship of God. Sabbath- 
breaking is becoming more and more disreputable, and is viewed 
by increasing numbers as evidence of a low, reckless, and vicious 
mind. The conviction is extending that it is not only morally 
wrong, but unprofitable and dangerous. And should all the facts 
with regard to this subject be known and duly appreciated, that 
conviction, we believe, will become universal" (pp. 4, 5). It is 
to be regretted that this movement was interrupted, but it has 
not been without much advantage, and has been succeeded by an 
other, which, though local, promises, through the energy of its 



602 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

chief promoter, the Rev. R S. Cook, New York, to extend ovei 
and bless the whole continent of North America. We have re 
ferred, in our sketch of the Sabbath Literature of the United States, 
to " some important documents" issued by the Sabbath Committee 
of New York. From a " Circular Letter of the Committee to the 
Clergy," of date Nov. 20, 1861, printed in one of these docu 
ments, we give the following most gratifying vidimus of "the 
Sabbath reform" in that city : " It is not easy to exaggerate the 
deplorable and apparently hopeless condition of things here four 
years ago. The change already effected seems scarcely credible to 
ourselves. Then, Sunday laws were as obsolete and inoperative 
in New York as in Vienna : nobody attempted or expected their 
enforcement. Now, they are as efficiently executed as other sta 
tutes, with the cordial approval of our citizens generally. Then, 
hundreds of news-boys overran the city every Sabbath, disturbing 
the peace of the whole population ; now, the nuisance is abated, 
and most of our streets are as quiet as those of a country village. 
Then, more than 5000 dramshops plied their deadly traffic openly, 
and without hindrance ; now, their doors and shutters are gene 
rally closed, and if liquors are sold, it is by stealth, and at the 
hazard of instant arrest for the misdemeanour. Then, a score of 
theatres made Sunday their chief day of profit and pleasure, with 
no adequate law to restrain them ; now, a stringent law is on our 
statute-book, its constitutionality affirmed, and its penalties in 
flicted, in spite of the most powerful combinations. Then, the 
arrests for Sunday crime exceeded the average by 25 per cent. ; 
now, the week-day arrests are 50 per cent, more than on Sunday. 
Then, the secular press ignored the Sunday question as foreign to 
its objects ; since and now, the entire press of the city, uninter 
ested in Sunday issues with, perhaps, a single exception has 
been and is earnestly enlisted in support of this reform. Then, 
the entire German population was claimed to be wedded to Sun 
day pastimes and opposed to American Sabbath restraints ; now, 
a large and influential body of Germans are avowedly friendly to 
the due observance of the Lord s day, and actively hostile to the 
demoralizing views and customs of the beer-garden classes. In a 
word, the more offensive forms of Sabbath desecration have been 
suppressed, ifl the face of the most virulent opposition of interested 



PEOGEESS AND PROSPECTS. 603 

parties, by the co-operation of the orderly classes with the public 
authorities. And a permanent foundation has been laid for all 
needed future action legislative, judicial, or executive for the 
protection of our civil Sabbath." 1 In the document from which 
these words are taken, there are resolutions of more than 100 
clergymen of New York (1858) Minutes of the General Assem 
blies of the Presbyterian Church, 0. S. and N. S. (May 1861) 
Resolution of the General Synod of the Reformed Dutch Church 
(June 1861) and resolutions of 2000 Germans in Cooper Insti 
tute all expressive of the strongest attachment to the sacred day, 
and of determination to maintain and promote its observance. 

It would be truly lamentable if Great Britain should, after all, 
put away from her that Sabbath which has been her bulwark, 
blessing, and honour which foreigners have so greatly admired 
and coveted and which she has done so much to revive in con 
tinental, as well as to plant in heathen nations. Some of her un 
worthy sons no doubt have a desire to witness this catastrophe, as 
incendiaries have a taste for the destruction of food, property, or 
life. Too many, besides, are by their neglect and violation of the 
institution inconsiderately working towards such a result. And 
opinions, which unsettle the foundations of a weekly holy day as 
they exist in primseval appointment, in the Decalogue, and in the 
words and example of Jesus Christ, have a tendency to the same 
fatal issue. It is true, that the Sabbath does not depend upon 
any particular country, and that the loss of it would only be our 
own ruin. But there is " hope in Israel concerning this thing." 
We are not without " tokens for good." Many of our working 
men have proved false to the trust, which their fathers, after 
nobly contending for the divinely given right, committed to their 
hands ; but the recent prize essays, and the numerously subscribed 
petitions against threatened spoliations of the boon, have afforded 
gratifying evidence, that the profound regard for the Lord s day, 
which was derived from the religious instruction for so long a time 
the glory of this country, still largely distinguishes our peasantry 
and artisans. 2 Another cheering circumstance is the extent to 

1 Doc. No. xx., The Sabbath and the Pulpit, pp. 2, 3. 

2 There were presented during the Session of 1853, chiefly from working men, 764 
petitions, with 165,757 signatures, against the opening of the Crystal Palace on the 
Lord s day : in favour of it, only 119 petitions, with 23,081 signatures. 



604 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

which the middle classes are imbued with the spirit of the institu 
tion, evinced in their exertions on its behalf. 1 A third encourage 
ment arises from certain services, as the Forbes Mackenzie Act, 
and the frequent negativing of proposals to open places of public 
amusement on the Lord s day, which have been rendered to our cause 
in Parliament. 2 Further, when some years ago the same newspaper 
recorded the coronation of the Emperor of Eussia on the Sabbath- 
day, and informed us that the Emperor and Empress of the French 
were present on a Sunday at a bull-fight at Bayonne, remaining 
at it to the end, we had the pleasure of knowing that such things 
could not have been enacted in this land. 3 To these symptoms 
of good, we have to add the manifestations of a reviving religion, 
the strong desires for an extended and improved education (soon, 
we trust, to be fulfilled), so prevalent in our day, experiments 
showing that Sabbath labour, held for so long a time to be neces- 

1 For example : All the banking firms in London, with two exceptions, memorialized 
the Lords of the Treasury in 1838, against the opening on Sunday of the General Post- 
Office and branch offices in London, for the reception of letters, etc. Besides memorials 
from merchants, solicitors, and others to the same effect, the Common Council of Lon 
don unanimously adopted a resolution in harmony with the memorials. In Glasgow 
forty-one of the fifty members of the Town-Council the managers of nine of the eleven 
banks twenty-two physicians and surgeons, including the most eminent sixty-eight 
procurators, brokers, etc. , and 3S2 merchants and manufacturers Nos. 68 and 382 em 
bracing "a very large section of the most affluent and influential portion of the com 
munity," declared, in a petition to Parliament against Sunday labour in the Post-Office, 
" that many of your petitioners are engaged in mercantile and professional pursuits, 
and are quite prepared to dispense with all postal communications on the Sabbath : 
and they are fully persuaded that the adoption of this course would be unattended with 
any serious commercial disadvantages, and, on the whole, greatly conducive to the in 
terests of the entire community." We have already mentioned the petition of 641 
medical men of London against the opening of the Crystal Palace and add only one 
other fact out of many, which is, that the petitions against opening public exhibitions 
on the Lord s day, during the session of 1856, was 4996, with 629,178 signatures ; in 
favour of the opening, 123 petitions, with 24,056 signatures. 

3 A Bill which was introduced into the House of Commons last session, and which 
passed a select committee, but at too late a period to become law, has been again intro 
duced this Session, intituled " The Public Houses (Scotland) Amendment Acts Bill," 
and if passed into a law, will eminently serve the interests of the Sabbath, and of 
morality. 

3 On Saturday the Queen laid the foundation-stone of the mausoleum at Frogmore, in 
which are to be deposited the remains of her dearly-loved husband the Prince Consort, 
and ultimately her own. Her Majesty had "wished that this mournful ceremony should 
take place upon the first anniversary of the death of her revered mother the Duchess of 
Kent, but, as that day was Sunday, the eve of the anniversary was selected. British 
Ensign, March 19, 1862. 



CONCLUDING APPEAL. 605 

sary in certain callings, may be safely and even beneficially dis 
pensed with 1 and the continually increasing exertions of churches, 
and other societies for evangelizing the masses at home, and con 
verting the heathen abroad. 2 

But our confidence as to the ultimate universality and triumph 
of the Sabbath is not reposed on men, however great or good. 
Nor does it rest on past success, or present promising appearances, 
however encouraging these may be. Hope has no sure ground of 
anchorage, in the changing, dying men, or in the shifting scenes, 
of this earth. It must " enter into that within the veil." The 
Word and Power of the invisible, the unchangeable, and eternal 
God of the Sabbath, are our all-sufficient security that the insti 
tution is to be universal in the world, and to endure for ever. 
" From one Sabbath to another shall all flesh come to worship 
before me, saith the Lord." "There remaineth" even to all 
eternity " a rest to the people of God." " God is not a man, 
that he should lie ; neither the son of man, that he should re 
pent : hath he said, and shall he not do it : or hath he spoken, 
and shall he not make it good 1 " 

In bringing this extended discussion to a close, we wish briefly 
to urge upon our readers two considerations, which ought to dis 
pose all to increased respect and gratitude for so benignant an in 
stitution as the Sabbath, and to lead those who have not already 
done so, earnestly to ponder its claims. 

Mrst, The present interests of all classes are deeply involved in 
their views of the Sabbatic institution. As to working men, it is 
eminently their charter the security for their all for their time, 
their health, their respectability, their defence against the exaction 

1 As in iron-works (pp. 210, 211) in gas-works and cheese-making (Baylee s Hist, of 
the Sab. p. 274) and in baking, as appear from trials made by master-bakers in Edin 
burgh (see report in the newspapers by the Secretary of the Sabbath Alliance, who has 
interested himself much in this matter). 

2 We give a second specimen of the results of such exertions in connexion with one 
benevolent institution the London City Mission : " Communicants, 1535 Backsliders 
restored to church communion, 307 Families induced to commence family prayer, 
681 Drunkards reclaimed, 1230 Unmarried couples induced to marry, 361 Fallen 
females rescued, 681 Shops closed on the Lord s day, 212 Children sent to schools, 
10,158." Taken from Summary for 1860-61, circulated by Rev. F. Tyrell, one of th 
secretaries. 



606 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

of undue toil, the improvement of their minds and morals, and, 
above all, their means of eternal salvation. Its importance is 
enhanced by the numerical greatness of their class, who form an 
immense majority, more than two-thirds of the population of the 
United Kingdom. According to their character and circumstances 
must their own millions comprise a vast amount of suffering or 
enjoyment, and it is impossible for them to be virtuous and com 
fortable, or the reverse, without affecting for good or evil the entire 
nation. The condition of the labouring portion of society has of 
late years largely and properly engaged the thoughts of statesmen 
and philanthropists. Among the elements of social good, and the 
remedies for prevalent evil, the value of a day of sacred rest has 
not been overlooked. Its friends have not neglected to remind 
their countrymen of its beneficial influence on the conduct and 
prosperity of those who honour its claims, and enjoy its privileges ; 
and of the injury that ever results from a compulsory deprivation, 
or a voluntary rejection of its advantages. The highest praise is 
due to those who have exerted themselves to diffuse information 
regarding the institution, with the view of securing its apprecia 
tion by the great body of the people themselves, and of imparting 
both the power and the inclination to apply it to its holy and bene 
volent ends. And there is good reason -to believe that rever 
ence for the Lord s day has thereby not only been increased, but 
extended to not a few "who had declined from the piety of their 
fathers. 

But the welfare and happiness of the remaining portion of the 
community are also deeply involved in the subject before us. 
Although less numerous, they are certainly in some respects the 
more influential members of society. The middle classes imitate 
their superiors in dress, manners, and conduct, and are in their 
turn followed by multitudes who have many opportunities of hear 
ing their language, knowing their opinions, and observing their 
behaviour. Infidelity in France, prior to the first Revolution, 
began with the higher grades in the Ste.te ; and our country has 
been found to be licentious or moral as the Court and nobility 
have been profligate, or the reverse. It would not be easy to 
calculate the amount of moral injury inflicted on a rural district 
by a resident proprietor of profane and gambling propensities, or 



CONCLUDING APPEAL. 607 

on the provincial town by its free-living men of wealth. How- 
beneficial to the morals of a land if our merchants were Thorn 
tons in their spirit ; if our squires had the piety and philanthropy 
of a "Wllberforce ; if our noblemen were as devoted to the cause 
of benevolence as a Shaftesbury ! It is a happy sign of the times 
that among all these ranks there are so many counterparts of 
such men. And it is our singular privilege to see the personal 
and relative virtues, as well as the proprieties of life, daily exempli 
fied in the most elevated station by our Queen and her princely 
Consort. 1 Well were it for many if the maxim held good : 

" Componitur orbis 

Kegis ad exemplum ; nee sic inflectere sensus 
Humanos edicta valeut, ut vita regentis." 

CLAUDIAN. 

No classes are more concerned in the stability and observance 
of religious institutions than the middle and upper ranks of a 
nation. In all countries every man should have free scope, for 
obtaining wealth by honest industry, and for reaching distinction 
by the force of intellect, and by the cultivation of moral excel 
lence. It is in proportion as religion prevails in any land, that 
such facilities exist. And when riches and honours are gained, 
religion is the security for the conservation of all just possessions. 
The Sabbath is itself the means of upholding truth and piety, is 
a pillar of the throne, and a protection of property and honour 
able distinction against the tide of revolution. If the fear of 
God be rooted out, where is the guarantee that the king shall be 
honoured, the noble and the rich respected, or the laws obeyed ? 
Indispensable to the children of toil, the Sabbath is scarcely less 
important to the other orders of a State. It concerns their 
safety amidst materials of combustion, which it would require 
only a little more infidelity and irreligion amongst themselves, 
and amongst their neighbours, to kindle into a conflagration de- 

1 Since these words were first printed, death has been commissioned to bereave 
our Q icen of her beloved husband, and the nation of one of its chief ornaments and 
benefactors ; but that Prince Albert contributed by his position and virtues to " our 
singular privilege," is a tact which remains unchanged in itself, and is too important 
and interesting to be cancelled or altered in one of its humblest memorials. 



608 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

structive of all the securities for station and property that are 
maintained, under Providence, by a well-observed Sabbath. 

But, Second, the subject concerns still higher and more enduring 
interests. In the world that is unseen and eternal there are only 
two conditions of human beings, as the results, thus foretold, of 
the Grand Assize : " These shall go away into everlasting pun 
ishment, but the righteous into life eternal. 5 With these des 
tinies of men the Sabbath has momentous connexions. It is ona 
of the laws of God, for the transgression of which men deserva 
the former lot, and by perfect obedience to which Jesus delivered 
his followers from the wrath to come : " The wages of sin is 
death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ 
our Lord," " in whom we have redemption through his blood, 
the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." 
The Sabbath is one of those laws of God, the affectionate keep 
ing of which is necessary to prove our saving relation to Christ, 
and our title to heaven : " Blessed are they that do his com 
mandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and 
may enter in through the gates into the city." " Not every one 
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in 
heaven." When some of the Pharisees said, " This man is not 
of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath-day," 1 they were 
right in so far as the principle was concerned, but utterly wrong 
in ics application. Of those who by " scorn of God s commands" 
show that they are unblessed with spiritual life, Cowper has 
terrnly but truly said 

" That want uncured till man resigns his breath, 
Speaks him a criminal assured of everlasting death. 
Sad period to a pleasant course ! Yet so will God repay 
Sabbaths profaned without remorse, and mercy cast away." * 

On the other hand, how happy the condition of the man who, 
under " the conviction that he stood almost on the verge of eternity, 
and that the days could not be many before the secret and awful 
things of futurity should be unveiled to him/ invoked the spirit 
of God to enable him to cherish, with other habits, that of " de 
dicating the Sabbath to its proper duties not wasting its precious 

i John ix. 16. 2 Poems Nichol s edit. vol. ii. p. 124. 



CONCLUDING APfEAl* 609 

hours, not worshipping God with a wandering and unsteady mind, 
not stealing its moments for secular purposes," and that, of " call 
ing himself to account for the use of his money, of his time, of 
his powers." 1 The Sabbath, moreover, is a law the love of which, 
besides attesting the title to heavenly glory and blessedness, proves 
that a character congenial to the employments, society, and joys 
of the world above has begun to be formed, or rather is far ad 
vanced the character equally as the title being among those 
" gifts and callings of God which are without repentance." The 
person who has pleasure in a weekly day of holy rest and service 
will not feel himself out of his element when he sits down with 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God. But how 
could he who dislikes the Sabbath, spend eternity in beholding, 
loving, and lauding the Creator and Redeemer of men 1 " For 
what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness 1 What 
communion hath light with darkness 1 And what concord hath 
Christ with Belial ? or what part hath he that believeth with an 
infidel 1 " The Sabbath, in short, has been given as a necessary 
means of directing us "in the way of life which is above to the 
wise, that he may depart from hell beneath." 2 It brings leisure 
to immortal beings, too engrossed with the perishing objects of the 
earth, to attend to the claims of the soul and of the future. It gives 
us a periodical pause in the race of life that we may " wear off 
by meditation the worldly soil contracted during the week." 3 It 
is "the combs, and hive, and home of rest." It is heaven let 
down from week to week, that we may dwell in its light, breathe 
its air, and learn its music. And only as we redeem the precious 
fleeting season are we becoming qualified 

"to rest eternally 
With him that is the God of Sabbath hight." 

But if we would intelligently and sincerely join the poet in his 
following fervent aspiration, 

" that great Sabbath ! God grant me that Sabbath s sight, 
and if we would " rest eternally" in the favour, in the perfections, 
to &lt;he service, arid holy happinest of God, a change in our re- 

1 Memoirs of Sir T. F. Buxton, 5th edit.,^p. 306, 307. 

2 Prov. xv. 24 3 Dr. Johnson. 

2Q 



610 THE SABBATH ENFORCED. 

lation and feelings to Him must be effected. And it must lw 
effected in the present state. It cannot take place in a future 
world, for in that world there is an impassable gulph between 
the two classes of men, and, while " the holy" remain holy, 
&lt;: the filthy" must be " filthy still." Nor would it be reason 
able to indulge the hope that it will be realized in the article, 
or immediate prospect, of death. The thief on the cross obtained 
mercy as he was about to die. But how foolish to regulate our 
procedure by the only authenticated case of so late a repentance, 
the one exception ; and to forget the all but universal rule 1 
Because one man has thrown himself over a precipice, and been 
mercifully preserved, would it be wise in us to try the same 
experiment ? While every period, then, even of this life, is not 
favourable for beginning the preparation for heaven, it is only in 
this life that it can be commenced. The Scriptures represent this 
world as the only training-place for eternity. It is the lower form 
in the school of knowledge, where the rudiments of celestial wis 
dom must be learned. There is no provision in a future state for 
instructing tyros. There is beyond death " no more sacrifice for 
sins," and no gospel to be "the power of God unto salvation." 
Let us, therefore, now hear, that our souls may live, the joyful 
sound as it cornea from the lips of the Divine and compassionate 
Saviour : " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of 
me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall find rest 
unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my buiden is light." 



GENERAL INDEX. 



ABBOT, George, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
forbade King James vi. s Declaration for 
Sports on the Lord s day to be read in the 
church at Croydon, 87. 

Abbot, George, member of the Long Parlia 
ment, his Work in defence of the Sabbath, 
138, 145. 

Acronius, Ruardus, his sentiments on the 
Sabbath, 93. 

Addison, Joseph, his testimony to the authority 
and value of the Sabbath, 432, 473. 

Adelaide, Queen, 589. 

Agnew, Sir Andrew, his exertions against 
Sabbath desecration, 148, 437, 588. 

Agnew, Professor, of America, 154. 

Agricola, John, Islebius, founder of the An- 
tinomians in Germany, ground on which he 
incorrectly charged Luther with affirming 
the abrogation of the Decalogue, 35, 466. 

Agrippa, 6. 

Ahasuerus, Jews under, successfully defend 
their religion, 5. 

Albert, Prince, 167, 604, 607. 

Albro, Dr. John A., American biographer of 
Thomas Shepard, 151. 

Alcuin, 391, 396. 

Alden, Dr. Ebenezer, of Massachusetts, 180. 

Alexander in. of Scotland, 399. 

Alexander of Hales, 382, 386. 

Alexander, Emperor of Russia, 551. 

Alexandria, The church of, did not observe 
the seventh and first days of the week, as 
was done by many of the early Christians, 
11. 

Alfred the Great, 386, 396, 401, 403. 

Allein, Rev. William, wrote on the sanctifica- 
tion of the Sabbath, 146. 

Alphonsus, Petrus, 386. 

Alting, James, held that the primitive Sabbath 
was posterior to the fall of man, 144. 

Ambrose, 369, 391, 402. 

America, Pilgrim Fathers of, 23 ; their care 
for the due observance of the Sabbath, 90, 
91, 150, 191, 504 ; favourable testimony to, 
by the magistrates of Leyden, 504. See 
Holland, and New England. 

America, United States of, Sabbatic Contro 
versies in, 149-157 ; influence of the Sabbath 
in, on literature and general intelligence, 
191 ; on domestic virtue and happiness, 234, 
235, 241 ; on the spirit of useful enterprise, 
244, 253 ; and on national prosperity, 210, 
214, 215, 219, 245, 250, 263, 451, 552 ; success 
ful attempts for the reformation of Sabbatic 
abuses in, 584, 601-603 ; Unitarianism in, 264, 
26. 

American and Foreign Sabbath Union, 154. 



Ames, Dr. William, wrote on the question of 
the ceremonies, 24-26 ; his encomium on 
William Teellinck, 91 ; his Medulla Thcolo- 
gica, 97 ; notice of, 98 ; his work on the 
Sabbath, 107. 

Amner, Richard, 147. 

Amsterdam, Sabbath in, 598. 

Amusement, Proposed expedient of converting 
the Sabbath into a day of, 495-499, 512. 

Anderson, Major-General, 472. 

Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, held the per 
manent obligation of the Sabbath, 77, 84, 88, 
118, 138. 

Aneiteurn, one of the islands of the New Heb 
rides, 236. 

Anselm, 386. 

Anthemius, Emperor, 401. 

Antiochus Epiplianes, 3. 

Apocrypha, 6. 

Appian, his hostility to the Jewish religion and 
Sabbath, 3. 

Aquinas, Thomas, 386, 389. 

Arkwright, Sir Richard, 211. 

Armenian churches, Disregard of the Sabbath 
by, 564. 

Arnoklus, Nicolaus, Professor in the University 
of Franeker, 116. 

Arnold, Dr. Thomas, Obligation of the Fourth 
Commandment on Christians denied by, 
142, 143. 

Arthur, Rev. William, author of The People s 
Day, 149. 

Articles, Thirty-nine, of the Church of England, 
subscription to, required, 66 ; doctrine of, 
as to the Sabbath, 118, 421, 425, 428. 

Asceticism, Pagan origin of, 223. 

Aspinwall, his work in refutation of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, 144. 

Assembly, General, of the Church of Scotland, 
sympathy of, with the suffering English Puri 
tans, 23 ; nullity of Assembly of 1618, 26 ; 
Assembly of 1596, 152, 159; Assembly of 
1638, 159 ; Assembly of 1647 adopt the West 
minster Confession of Faith, ib. ; Directory 
for Family Worship added to the Confession. 
439; numerous Acts of Assembly on tha 
Sabbath, 442. 

Atcheson, A. S., his reply to Beausobre, o\ 
the doctrine of the Sabbath, 148. 

Athanasius, writes in defence of the Lord s day 
against the Jews, 8, 383, 387, 398, 402. 

Atonement, Doctrine of, taught in Dr. Adam 
Smith s Theory of Moral Sentiments, 198. 

Avgsburg, Confession of; its doctrine as to holi 
days, 14, 15, 459 ; and as to the Sabbath, 406, 
416, 463. 

Augustus, Roman Emperor, his order that the 
Jews should not be obliged to appear befor* 
any judge on the Sabbath-day, 6, 181. 



612 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Augustine, 3 ; writes in defence of the Lord s 
day against the Jews, 8; defends holidays, 
15, 369, 370, 382, 385, 3SS, 389, 391, 402; his 
error in regard to the Sabbath, 467. 

Aylmer, Bishop of London, 52 ; from being an 
ardent Reformer becomes a Conformist, 53 ; 
usually played at bowls on the Sabbath 
afternoon, ib. ; his severe treatment of the 
Puritan ministers, 54, 57, 58, 61. 

Aytoun, James, writes against the Sabbath, 
*167 



BABHSGTON, Gervase, Bishop of "Worcester, 
defends in his writings the divine authority 
of the Sabbath, 58, 59, 64, 69, 70, 77, 118. 

Babylonians, their hostility to the Jewish Sab 
bath, 2, 3, 360. 

Bacon, Lord, Eulogiumpronouncedupon Arch 
bishop Grindal by, 55 ; his interposition in 
behalf of John Traske, 88 ; held the perma 
nent obligation of the Sabbath, 118, 153, 193, 
2*2, 430, 475. 

Badham, Dr. Charles, his remarks on Juvenal s 
misinterpretation of the Jewish religion, 5. 

Bagnall, Mr., 211. 

Bagshaw, William, his publication on the Sab 
bath, 145. 

Baillie, Robert, Principal of the University of 
Glasgow, 27, 163. 

Bakers, 207, 215. 

Ball, Richard, his publication on the Sabbath. 
148. 

Bampfield, Francis, wrote in defence of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, 142, 144, 531. 

Bannerman, Obligation of the Fourth Com 
mandment on Christians denied by, 142, 143, 
148. 

Barclay, John, the Berean, 165. 

Barclay, Robert, the Quaker, his sentiments 
on the Sabbath, 164, 415. 

Barlow, Thomas, Bishop of Lincoln, 24. 

Barnabas, 368, 369, 377. 

Barnes, Dr. Albert, 154. 

Barrow, Dr. Isaac, regarded the Fourth Com 
mandment as a Jewish and temporary ordi 
nance, 196, 142, 143. 

Barter, William Brudenell, his reply to Arch 
bishop Whately on the doctrine of the Sab 
bath, 148, 577, 578. 

Barvvick, Dr. John, his statement of Bishop 
Morton s account of the origin of James 
vi. s Declaration for Sports on the Lord s 
day, 83, 84. 

Basil, commonly called St., writes in defence 
of the Lord s day against the Jews, 8 ; en 
courages the observance of holidays, 15, 388. 

Basle, Sabbath in, 598. 

Bastwick, Dr. John, savage treatment of, 125. 

Battely, his Original Institution of the Sabbath, 
146. 

Bates, Dr. William, 140; 224. 

Baxter, Richard, wrote on the question of the 
ceremonies, 24 ; his sentiments on Noncon 
formity influenced by a work of Dr. Ames s, 
25, 26; and by Calderwood s Altare Damas- 
cenum, 27, 28 ; Sabbath profanation at the 
Court of Charles i. comes under his personal 



observation, 130; his Divine Appointment 
of the Lord s Day, 144, 145, 163. 224, 476, 584. 

Baylee, John T., his labours on the history 
and statistics of the Sabbath, 149, 605. 

Bayly, Lewis, Bishop of Bangor, 44 ; held the 
sentiments of the Puritans as to the Sabbath, 
118 ; his Practice of Piety, 118, 119. 

Bear and bull-baiting, a Sabbath amusement, 
48, 49, 51 ; put down by James vi. , 51, 82, 85. 

Beausobre, Mons. ; reply of Atcheson to his 
doctrine on the Sabbath, 148. 

Bede, 382, 385. 

Bel, or Baal (Beltein), The anniversary of, 
lately lingered in some parts of Scotland, 
361. 

Belfast, 250. 

Belgium, 237, 256. 

Belgic churches, The, prevented by the 
magistrates from abolishing holidays, 19, 
414. See Netherlands. 

Belsham, Rev. Thos., held the opinion that 
every day is alike, 142. 

Beneficence, Disposition to exercise, fostered 
by the Sabbath, 219, 220 ; works of, a part 
of the duties of the Sabbath, 331, 332. 

Benevolence of God, The Sabbath the sugges 
tion of, 268. 

Benevolent institutions have only existed in 
lands where the Sabbath has been known, 
268. 

Benn, William, of Dorchester, his treatise iu 
vindication of the Christian Sabbath, 144. 

Berlin, Desecration of the Sabbath in, 566, 567. 

Bernard, commonly called St., 386 ; held that 
holidays were equally sacred as the Sab 
bath,. 458. 

Bernard, Dr. Nicholas, 140. 

Bernard, Richard, Rector of Batcombe. hia 
work in defence of the Sabbath, 138. 

Berne, Holidays observed in, 18. 

Beveridge, Bishop, wrote against the dese 
cration of the Sabbath, 146. 

Beza, Theodore, Professor of Theology at 
Geneva, his sentiments as to the Sabbath, 
412, 417, 418. 

Bianconi, Mr. , of Clonmel in Ireland, his testi 
mony to the physical necessity of the rest 
of the Sabbath to horses, 183. 

Bible, The, Number of editions of, published 
during the reign of Elizabeth, 55 ; pro 
motes intellectual improvement, 188 ; the 
reading of, originated the Reformation, 
582, 583. See Word of God. 

Bickersteth, Edward, 205, 225, 283, 476. 

Bid-ales, a Sunday s feast, object of, 126, 127. 

Billingsley, Nicholas, his publication on the 
Sabbath, 145. 

Bingham, his Antiquities quoted, 11, 384 ; 
his sound views on the Sabbath, 146, 384. 

Black, Mr. David, minister of St. Andrews, 
216. 

Blackstone, his testimony in favour of the 
Sabbath, 194, 251, 473, 503. 

Blair, Lord President, 438. 

Blomfield, Bishop, Letter of, to inhabitants 
of London on the Sabbath, 147. 

Bohemian Brethren, 386, 387; their strict 
observance of the Sabbath, 404. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



613 



jUton, Robert, Dean of Carlisle, wrote against 
Babbath desecration, 147. 

Jjonner, Edmund, Archdeacon, afterwards 
Bishop, his sentiments as to the Sabbath, 
37 ; unsuccessfully endeavours to exclude 
common plays fi.o:n churches, 49. 

Book of Common Prayer, is confirmed by 
Parliament in 1551, 39; the command 
ments then for the first time added to the 
Liturgy, 39, 40, 55 ; two Puritan ministers 
executed in reign of Queen Elizabeth for 
circulating a work against, 67 ; subscrip 
tion to, required, 66. 

Boston, Thomas, 66, 161. 

Bouchier, Rev. Barton, his replj to H. May- 
hew on the doctrine of the Sabbath, 148. 

Bownd, Nicholas, 13. D., minister of Norton 
in Suffolk, his account of the profanation 
of the Sabbath in England in 1606, 45; 
publication of his important "Work on the 
Sabbath, 66 ; a summary of the views 
maintained in it, 67, 68 ; second edition, 
69 ; its great influence in promoting more 
correct ideas and a better observance of the 
Sabbath, 69, 70, 79-81 ; followed by writ 
ings and disputations in support of its 
opinions, 70, 71 ; his treatise said to have 
been called in, 53 ; this statement ques 
tioned, 53, 74, 75, 79, 80 (see Rogers, 
Thomas) ; misinterpretations of, by Fuller, 
corrected, 81. 

Brabourae, Theophilus, a minister in Nor 
folk, his Discourse, in which he defends 
the seventh day of the week as the Chris 
tian Sabbath, 122 ; his larger work on the 
same subject, 125 ; his recantation before 
the High Commission, 125, 126, 132, 142. 

Brain erd, David, 330, 476. 

Bramhall, John, Bishop, afterwards Arch 
bishop, regarded the Fourth Command 
ment as a Jewish and temporary ordinance, 
136, 142, 143. 

Brerewood, Edward, Professor of Astronomy 
in Gresham College, his controversy on the 
Sabbath with Nicholas Byfield, 122, 123 ; 
his work on the Sabbath answered by 
Richard Byfield, 124. 

Brewer, Rev. J. S., editor of Fuller s 
Church History, corrects some misrepre 
sentations as to Bownd in that history, 81. 

Brewster, Sir David, 473. 

Bridges, James, his publication on the Sab 
bath, 167. 

Britain, Great, influence of the Sabbath on its 
literature and general intelligence, 191 ; on 
its wealth and enterprise, 214, 219 ; on its 
domestic virtues and happiness, 234, 235, 241, 
244 ; on its good government, 249, 25f , 253, 
258 ; and on its greatness, 552, 553 ; number 
who have abandoned church-going in, 233 ; 
favourable prospects as to the Sabbath in, 
603-605. See England. 

Broad, Thomas, Rector of Retcomb, 109 ; his 
Three Questions on the Fourth Commandment, 
119, 120 ; his Latin treatise against the 
Sabbath, 121. 

Brooke, Rev. Thomas, his reply to Burnside 
and Bannennan on ttie Sabbath. 148. 



Brooks, J. T., M.D., 182. 

Brown, Mr. John, minister of Wamphray, 
notice of, 115 ; his Work on the Sabbath 
the largest ever published, ib. ; its value, 
116; his complaint of the prevailing pro 
fanation of the Sabbath in Holland, 116. 

Brown, Mr. John, minister of Haddington, 
161, 165. 

Brown, Rev. J. Newton, of America, 155. 

Brown, Dr. John, of Edinburgh, 473. 

Brown, Moses, Verse made tributary to tb* 
cause of the Sabbath by, 147. 

Brownistic opinions, 100. 

Bruce, Archibald, Professor, his Annus Sectt- 
laris, 16, 17 ; object of that Work, 28. 

Bruce, Rev. John, Edinburgh, his publica 
tion in defence of the Sabbath, 167. 

Bucer, Martin, opposed to holidays, 17 ; vindi 
cates the claims of the Sabbath, 408, 409, 
417. 

Bullinger, Henry, 19, 61 ; his sentiments as to 
the Sabbath, 409, 412, 417. 

Bunsen, Chevalier, 249, 251. 

Bunyan, John, his defence of the Lord s day 
published, 144, 584. 

Burder, Dr. Henry Forster, his Work on the 
Sabbath, 147. 

Burghley, Lord (William Cecil), condemns 
Whitgift s severe treatment of the Puritan 
ministers, 54 ; his eminence as a statesman, 
55, 57, 58. 

Burke, Edmund, 153, 217, 25] ; his testimony 
to the authority and value of the Sabbath, 
432, 433, 474, 475. 

Burman feasts, held at the full and change of 
the moon, 360, 362. 

Burmann, Francis, Professor of Theology at 
Utrecht, maintained that the Sabbath waa 
merely a custom and ordinance of the Church, 
111,112 ; controversy between him and Essen 
on the subject, 112-116. 

Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop, 159-161 ; his sermon 
on the Sabbath, 164, 169, 473, 505. 

Burns, Rev. William, of Kilsyth, 166. 

Burnside, Robert, held the perpetuity of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, 142, 148. 

Burs, Mr. Giles, one of the ministers of the 
Reformed Church in Middleburg, 95, 101. 

Burs, James, son of the preceding, author of 
the first book published in the Netherlands 
against the Sabbath, 95, 96 ; this book 
answered by Voetius, 96, 98 ; and replied to 
by Teellinck, 99, 100. 

Burton, Mr. Henry, Rector of St. Matthew s, 
Friday Street, London, contended for the 

divine authority of the Sabbath, 124, 125 ; 
savage treatment of, 125, 135. 

Burton, William, publishes an abstract of 
Bownd s work on the Sabbath, 70. 

Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, 219, 476, 608, 609. 

Byfield, Nicholas, minister of St. Peter s 
Church, Chester, his controversy with Ed 
ward Brerewood as to the Sabbath, 122, 123 ; 
notice of, 123, 124. 

Byfield, Richard, minister of Long Ditton in 
Surrey, his reply to Brerewood s work on 
the Sabbath, 124. 

Byron. Lord, 927, 231. 2S3 



614 



GENERAL INDEX, 



CAB-DRIVERS, 207, 230. 

Csesarius, Bishop of Aries, 389. 

Calabar, Old, People of, 360, 361. 

Calderwood, David, wrote on the question of 
the ceremonies, 24 ; and in opposition to the 
five articles of Perth, 26; his Altare Dama- 
scenum pronounced by James vi. to be 
unanswerable, 27, 162, 169, 216. 

California, Rest of the Sabbath found neces 
sary at gold diggings of, 182. 

Calvin, John, not absolutely against holidays, 
17, 18, 414 ; letter from Bullinger to, 19, 33 ; 
held the doctrine of a primaeval Sabbath, 
383, 405, 406, 412 ; regarded the Sabbath as 
reasonable, useful, and indispensable, 407 ; 
enforced and practised the observance of the 
Lord s day, 408-411 ; slanderously accused 
of wishing to abolish the Sabbath, 414, 415 ; 
his sentiments as to the change of the day, 
417 ; held the Lord s day as coming under 
the authoritative direction of the Fourth 
Commandment, 418, 419, 445 ; vindication 
of, from alleged hostility to the Sabbath, 
458-460 ; his language as to the Sabbath has 
been misunderstood, 460-462 ; erred to some 
extent in regard to the Sabbath, 467, 463 ; 
and in regard to holidays, ib. 

Calvinists, 93. 

Cambray, Cardinal of, his opposition to holi 
days, 16, 17. 

Cambridge, University of, 36, 58, 62, 65, 66, 71, 
95, 98, 118, 163. 

Cameron, Rev. C. R., his reply to Archbishop 
Whately on the doctrine of the Sabbath, 
148. 

Canada, Lower, 245 ; disregard of the Sabbath 
in, 565. 

Candlish, Dr. Robert, 168. 

Carey, Dr. William, 476, 583. 

Carlow, George, held the perpetual obligation 
of the seventh-day Sabbath, 142. 

Carpenter, Dr. W. B., his testimony to the 
necessity of the Sabbath to man s physi 
cal wellbeing, 174-176, 179, 472. 

Carson, R. H., Perth, his publication in de 
fence of the Sabbath, 167. 

Cartwright, Thomas, his sentiments on the 
Sabbath, 43, 118. 

Catcott, Rev. A. S., defends the antiquity of 
the Sabbath, 147. 

Catworth, Lord Mayor of London in fifteenth 
century, 397. 

Cauchy, Baron Augustin, his testimony to the 
necessity of the Sabbath, 231. 

Cawdrey, Daniel, joint author with Herbert 
Palmer of Sabbatum Redivivum, 139. 

Celsus, his hostility to Christianity, 8, 12. 

Ceremonial law, Honour shown to the moral 
law above, 286-289 ; intended only for a par 
ticular economy, 289, 294 ; freedom of 
Christians from its obligation, 303, 304, 
306, 315. 

Ceremonies, Rise of the contest among the 
Protestants of England about, 21, 22 ; peti 
tion for their removal rejected by Convo- 
O tion of 1562 by only one proxy vote, 24 : 



controversial writings on the question ot, 
24-28. 

Chafie, Thomas, Vicar of Nutshelling, his ti act 
on behalf of the Sabbath, 140. 

Chalmers, Dr. Thomas, 72, 166, 169, 219, 429, 
476, 581, 584. 

Chamberlain, Dr., held the perpetuity of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, 142. 

Chandler, Dr. Samuel, 147. 

Chapelle, or Capel (Cappellus), Louis, his Dis- 
putatio de Die Dotninico, 110. 

Charlemagne, 386, 396, 402, 403. 

Charles i., his persecution of the Nonconform 
ists, 22 ; his Book of Sports, 86, 118, 119 ; 
was said never to hunt on the Lord s 
day, 120, 127, 128 ; Second Declaration of 
Sports issued by, 128-130 ; theatrical per 
formances on the Sabbath before the Court 
of, 130-132, 137 ; his sentiments as to the 
Lord s day, 139, 140, 158 ; is dealt with by 
Mr. Alexander Henderson for spending the 
afternoon of the Sabbath at golf, 161 ; civil 
enactments for promoting the due obser 
vance of the Sabbath in the reign of, 436, 
437, 588. 

Charles n., his persecution of the Noncon 
formists, 22, 115, 158, 505 ; profligacy con 
sequent upon his restoration, 141 ; Sab 
bath-day scene in the Court of, ib. ; civil 
enactments for promoting the due observ 
ance of the Sabbath in the reign of, 437 ; 
desecration of the Sabbath during his reign, 
504. 

Charlotte, Princess, her respect for the Sab 
bath, 449. 

Chatellerault, Duke of, supped with John 
Knox on a Sabbath evening, 463, 464. 

Cheerfulness of mind, Tendency of the Sabbath 
to promote, 176-178. 

Chemnitz, Martin, his sentiments as to the 
Sabbath, 410. 

China, 229, 254, 268, 360, 361, 365. 

Christ, subjects of his conversation on the 
Sabbath, 329, 330 ; performed works of be 
nevolence and mercy on that day, 332 ; his 
incarnation, 480, 481 ; the sole Lawgiver of 
the Church, 488, 489. 

Christian economy, Circumstances justifying 
the expectation that the Sabbatic institution 
would be perpetuated under, 298-301. 

Christianity, assailed by the heathen with a 
severity proportioned to its aggressive 
character, 7, 554 ; has its penalties not less 
than had Judaism, 344, 345. 

Christians, Early, punished by the Romans for 
their faithful observance of the Sabbath, 7 ; 
manner of their observing it described by 
Justin Martyr and Tertullian, 9, 10; the 
observance of Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, 
as well as the Christian, gains ground among, 
especially in the East, 11, 12 ; accused of 
practising immorality at their meetings on 
the Sabbath, 12 ; vindicated from this 
charge, ib. ; why the days of their martyr 
dom were called Natalitia, 14. 

Christmas, observed by the Reformed Church 
of Geneva, 18, 140, 414. 

Chrysostom, wrote in defence of the Lord s 



GENERAL INDEX. 



616 



dy against the Jews, 8; encouraged the 
observance of holidays, 15, 369, 370, 382-385, 
387-389, 391, 402. 

Chubb, Thomas, upheld the first against the 
seventh day of rest, 147. 

Church, The, has no power to exact a weekly 
holy day, 487, 488 ; such a power would be 
an infringement of Christ s prerogative as 
head of the Church, 489 ; and would place 
the Sabbath on a foundation of sand, 494. 

Church. Greek. Disregard of the Sabbath by, 
564. 

Church, Lutheran, 205, 206, 414, 567. 

Church, Reformed, Popular prejudice general 
in, against the entire abolition of holidays, 
20, 21, 205, 206, 414. 

Churches, Festivals instituted in memory of 
the dedication of, 126, 191. 

Church-ales, Object of, 126, 127. 

Cicero, hostile to the Jewish religion and 
Sabbath, 3 ; yet commends festival days, 4. 

Civilisation, linked with the Christian Sabbath, 
190-193, 262, 263. 

Clark, Allan, writes against the Sabbath, 167. 

Clarke, author of History of the Sabbatarians 
in the, United States, 155. 

Clarke, Mr. George, Rochfort, 437. 

Clarke, Dr. Samuel, his sermon on the Sab 
bath, 146, 473. 

Clarkson, Thomas, 219, 476, 554. 

Claudius, Bishop of Turin, opposes holidays, 
16. 

Clayton, Rev. John, jun. , his Work on the Sab 
bath, 147. 

Cleandon, Thomas, his Brief Discourse on the 
Sabbath, 146. 

Cleanliness, Tendency of the Sabbath to foster 
habits of, 176. 

Cleaver, Robert, minister of Drayton, wrote 
in defence of the Sabbath, 70. 

Clemangis, Nicholas de, his description of the 
wickedness practised on holidays, 17. 

Clement of Alexandria, wrote in defence of the 
Lord s day against the Jews, 8 ; his testi 
mony against the observance of Saturday, 
the Jewish Sabbath, by Christians, 11, 370, 
374, 377, 378, 380. 

Clement of Rome, 372, 377. 

Clerk-ales, Object of, 126, 127. 

Cobbet, Rev. Thomas, of Lynn, and afterwards 
of Ipswich, New England, 151. 

Cocceius, or Coch, John, Professor of Theo 
logy in the University of Leyden, maintained 
that the Fourth Commandment was cere 
monial and Jewish, 108, 109 ; regarded the 
Bible as a book of types and of words to be 
understood in every possible sense, 109, 
110 : querulous spirit with which he con 
ducted the Sabbath controversy, 111. 

Cocceius, John Henry, son of the preceding, 
111. 

Coetlogon, Rev. C. de, 147. 

Coleman, Rev. Lyman, of America, 15-1. 

Coleridge, Samuel, his testimony in favour of 
the Sabbath, 173 ; " Table Talk," 465. 

Collier, Giles, Vicar of Blockley, his vindica 
tion of the Sabbath, 140. 

Collier, Jeremy, the historian. 80. 8T 



Collinges, Dr. John, of Norwich, 126 ; his 
publication in confutation of Christmas as a 
divine institution, 140 ; his Modest Plea for 
the Lord s day, 144. 

Colville, William, Principal of the University 
of Edinburgh, 164. 

Colvin, Rev. John, 168. 

Columba, 3S9. 

Comedies performed on the Lord s day derived 
from the Church of Rome, 160. 

Commission, High, 125, 129, 138. 

Commodian, a Christian poet of the third 
century, mentions the Lord s day, 376. 

Conder, Josiah, his publication on the Sab 
bath, 148. 

Constantino, the Emperor, his decree as to the 
Sabbath, in which he permits agricultural 
labour, and orders the observance of certain 
holidays, 394, 395, 458. 

Continent, Sabbath desecration on, 498, 549, 
576 ; which has chiefly sprung from the un 
guarded expressions of Luther and other 
Reformers as to the Sabbath, 578 ; Popish 
Sabbaths on, 597, 598. 

Conversation, Religious, 329, 330. 

Convocation of 1536, 20, 36 ; of 1552, 39 ; of 
1562, 24, 40, 42, 56, 421 ; and of 1571, 40. 

Cook, Rev. Russell S., New York, 602. 

Copping, Mr. John, executed in reign of Quesn 
Elizabeth for circulating a work against th 
Book of Common Prayer, 57, 75. 

Coppinger, Matthew, contended for the per 
petual obligation of the seventh-day Sab 
bath, 142. 

Cornwall, Petition to Parliament from the 
inhabitants of, complaining of the immoral 
character of most of the ministers in that 
county, 44. 

Cotton, John, minister of Boston, America, 
151. 

Couralt, Augustin, one of the ministers of 
Geneva, opposed to holidays, 17 ; expelled 
by the magistrates, 414. 

Council of Constance in 1414, The subject of 
holidays brought before, 16 ; adopt some 
measures of reformation, 17, 19. 

Court, Mr. Robert, Glasgow, controversy with 
Mr. Langley, 169. 

Covenanters in Scotland, 204, 219, 442 ; their 
sanctification of the Sabbath, 453, 454, 549 : 
defended from the attacks of Sir Walter 
Scott in his Tales of My Landlord, 453, 
454. 

Coverdale, Myles, 39. 

Cowper, William, Scottish Bishop, a Sabbatist, 
162. 

Cowper, William, the poet, his testimony to 
the authority and value of the Sabbath, 433, 
434, 608. 

Cox, Richard, Bishop, 73. 

Cox, Robert, 168. 

Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop, his sentiments 
as to the Sabbath, 37, 38 ; his Catechism, 
38, 55, 424; his Forty-two Articles, 39; 
committed to the flames in the reign of 
Queen Mary, 39, 51. 

Crawford, Matthew, minister of Eastwood, hla 
account of the profanation of the Sabbath 



616 



GENERAL INDEX. 



In the Netherlands, 114 ; his Work on the 
Sabbath, 114, 115 ; notice of, 115, 161, 164. 

Crease, James, 168. 

Creation, The, 339 ; commemorated in 
heaven, 350 ; the six days of, six natural 
days, 518-520. 

Creech, William, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, 
his contrast between the moral and religious 
condition of Edinburgh in 1763 and 1783, 
507-510. 

Criminals often trace their criminal career to 
their desecration of the Sabbath, 272. 

Croiy, Dr. George, his publication on the 
Sabbath, 148, 271. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 20 ; government of, 249 ; 
virtue and bravery of his army, 252-254, 
473, 474. 

Crystal Palace ; Petitions to Parliament 
signed by numerous medical men in Lon 
don against opening it on the Lord s day, 
180 ; and by many of the middle and work 
ing classes, 603, 604. 

Cummianus, an Irish Bishop, 402. 

Cuthbert, Bishop of London, reduces the 
number of holidays in his diocese, 19. 

Cyprian, writes in defence of the Lord s day 
against the Jews, 8, 368, 369, 376, 378, 
383. 

Cyril, 385, 387. 

D 

DABNEY, Professor, of America, 154. 

Dartmouth, Lord, 589. 

David, King of Israel, an example of attention 
to family devotion, 189. 

Davidson, Rev. Alexander, his publication in 
defence of the Sabbath, 167. 

Davidson, Mr. John, minister at Prestonpans, 
159 ; as moderator of Synod of Lothian, 
administered censure on two ministers 
(afterwards archbishops) for Sabbath pro 
fanation, his remarkable words on the occa 
sion, 159, n. 

Davis, Mrs., of America, authoress of a His 
tory of Sabbatarianism, 155. 

Dawson, Henry, 142. 

D Aubigne, Merle, 600. 

Decalogue, honoured above the other laws of 
the Jews, 286-289 ; adapted and necessary 
to men of all countries and times, 289, 
290 ; traces of the knowledge of, among the 
patriarchs, before its promulgation from 
Sinai, 292 ; its obligation declared to be 
permanent under all economies, 292-297. 

tefoe, Daniel, his account of the state of 
morality in Scotland in 1717, 507, 510. 

Demoeritus, his hostility to the Jewish reli 
gion *nd Sabbath, 3. 

DenhiBi, Baron, concurs in the issuing of an 
order for the suppression of ales and revels 
on the Lord s day in Somersetshire, 127. 

Deny, 250. 

Descombaz, M., 600. 

Devotion, Personal, a specia duty of the 
Sabbath, 330, 331. 

Dice-houses, Leave to put down, granted to 
magistrates by Queen Elizabeth. 50. 

- -ick. Dr. John, 47S. 



Dionysius of Alexandria, his testimony 
against the observance of Saturday aa 
Sabbath by Christians, 11. 

Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, 374, 380. 

Discipline, First Book of, in the Kirk of Scot 
land, Holidays abolished by, 18. 

Discipline, Book of, which became the 
Ecclesiastical Directory of the Common 
wealth, 25. 

Dobel, his Work in refutation of the seventh- 
day Sabbath, 144. 

Dobie, James, on the law of Scotland, re 
lative to the observance of the Lord s day, 
166. 

Dod, John, minister of Hanwell, Oxfordshire, 
his zeal for the Sabbath, 59 ; encomium on, 
by Archbishop Ussher, 70, 91, 121. 

Doddridge, Dr. Philip, 147 ; sanctiflcation of 
the Sabbath in his family, 447, 473, 551. 

Domville, Sir William, obligation of the 
Fourth Commandment on Christians denied 
by, 142, 143. 

Dort, Synod of, in 1574, 19. 

in 1578, its resolutions as to holidays, 

19. 

in 1618, its views on the Sabbath, 93 ; 

petition from, to the States General, 94, 97, 
98, 101, 103, 425. 

Douglas, James, of Cavers, 166. 

Dow, Christopher, anti-Sabbatic character of 
his Discourse -of the Sabbath and the Lord s 
Day, 134, 135 ; a creature of Archbishop 
Laud s, 136. 

Drummond, Rev. D. T. K., 167. 

Ducie, Lord, 589. 

Dudley, Mr. C. S., 583. 

Duncan, Dr., of Mid-Calder, Professor of Pas 
toral Theology in the United Secession 
Church, 166, 169, 429. 

Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 92. 

Durell, John, his lucubrations on the ques 
tion of the ceremonies, 28. 

Durham, James, one of the ministers of Glas 
gow, 164, 169. 

Dury. John, 161. 

Dutch, The. See Netherlands. 

Dwight, Dr! Timothy, his five Discourses on 
the Fourth Commandment, 153 ; good which 
they must have accomplished, 153, 154, 
473, 584, 

E 

EASTER, The festival, defended by Chrysostom, 
15 ; observed by the reformed Church of 
Geneva, 18, 139. 

Eaton, Nathanael, a native of England, hia 
Latin work on the Sabbath published in 
the Netherlands, 107. 

Ebionites, The, maintained the necessity of 
keeping the whole law of Moses, 10 ; denied 
the divinity of Christ, ib. ; observed both 
the Jewish and Christian Sabbath, 384. 

Ecbright, Archbishop of York, 391. 

Edgar, King, 392. 

Edge, Mr., of Manchester, 207. 

p]dgeworth, Mrs., her writings, 579. 

Edinburgh, Contrast between the moral and 
re?igious condition of, in 1763 and 1783, 507- 



GENERAL INDEX. 



617 



51$; tha mvmoer who live in the habitual 
neglect of public worship in, 561, 562. 

Edmonds, Rev. T., his work in refutation of 
the seventh -day Sabbath, 144. 

Edward iv. of England, 458. 

Edward vi., 24, 40, 40, 49. 

Edwards, Jonathan, his three Sermons on the 
Sabbath, 152-154, 193, 228, 476, 584. 

Edwards, Dr. Justin, Secretary to the Ameri 
can Sabbath Union, 154. 

Egbert, or Ecgbert, Archbishop of York, 391. 

Egypt, The religion of, 263, 365. 

Eliberis, Council of, 391. 

Eliot, John, the apostle of the Indians, 152, 
476. 477. 

Elizabeth, Queen, her acts and measures against 
Nonconforming ministers, 21, 23, 24, 40, 43, 
44, 47 ; scarcity and bad character of 
preachers in the reign of, 44, 49 ; and conse 
quent irreligion, 44, 45 ; commanded Arch 
bishop Grindal to put down prophesyings, 
46 (see Grindal, Archbishop) ; her desecra 
tion of the Sabbath, 48 ; her habit of pro 
fane swearing, ib. ; small number of the 
Popish ecclesiastics who quitted their livings 
at her succession, 49] yields to grant magis 
trates authority to interdict plays on the 
Sabbath, 50 (see Theatres) ; criminal calendar 
during her reign, 51, 52, 57, 60 ; principles of 
true liberty not altogether unknown to her 
Council, 54 ; means by which the principles 
of the Reformation were preserved in Eng 
land during her reign, 55, 56 ; two Puritan 
ministers executed under, 57, 58 ; Puritan 
ministers suspended under, 59 ; quashed 
Parliamentary bills for the better observance 
of the Sabbath, 59, 62, 119 ; character of the 
leading prelates under, 59 ; her charge to 
Whitgift on his elevation to the primacy to 
restore uniformity, 61 ; liberty of the press 
abridged by, ib. ; subscription required to 
the article that she was the supreme head of 
the Church, 66 ; change in the articles re 
quired to be subscribed, 61, 63, 127 ; from 
the middle of her reign to the Restoration, a 
period unequalled for original literary genius, 
191 ; prevalence of the crime of murder 
among ecclesiastics in her reign, 503. 

Elizabeth, Charlotte, her publication on the 
Sabbath, 148. 

Ellis, Mr. Henry, 207. 

Elwall, Edward, 142. 

Emmons, Dr. Nathaniel, of America, 154. 

England, the scene of the earliest conflict as to 
the divine authority of the Sabbath, 34 ; 
prevalence of swearing in, in and before the 
sixteenth century, 48 ; what it owes to the 
Reformation, 55 ; revival of the Sabbatarian 
controversy in, 119 ; longevity of the higher 
and middle classes in, compared with the 
working, 174 (see Working Classes) ; value of 
life greater in, than in any other country, 
254, 256 ; its recovery to Popery considered 
in a conclave of cardinals at Rome, 424. See 
Britain, Great 

England, The Church of ; James vi. s opinion 
of the service of, 19, 82 ; attempts to secure 
the better observance of the existing holi 



days in, 19; origin of the controversy on 
rites and ceremonies in, 21 ; sentiments of 
the Reformers of, regarding the Sabbath, 
36-38, 40-42 ; dignitaries of, set themselvei 
against further reformation, 52 ; and perse 
cute the Puritans, ib. 

England, Commonwealth of, Holidays annulled 
by the Parliament under, 22, 163 ; sanctifica- 
tion of the Sabbath during the time of, 503. 

Enterprise, Useful, promoted bv the Sabbath 
244. 

Enthusiasts, 114, 150. 

Epiphanius(A.D. 368), Bishop of El eutheropolis 
in Palestine, wrote against the Ebionites, 10, 
383, 384. 

Episcopius, Simon, his doctrine overthrown 
by Andrew Essen, 110. 

Erskine, Ebenezer, minister at Stirling, 161, 
165. 

Erskine, Ralph, minister at Dunfermline, 165. 

Essaei, heretics so called; their views as to 
the Sabbath, 68. 

Essays, Prize, on the Sabbath, 167, 168, 192, 
443. 

Essen, Andrew, Professor of Theology in the 
University of Utrecht, held that the Fourth 
Commandment is moral, 108 ; his Disserta 
tion on the Perpetual Morality of the Deca 
logue, 108, 109 ; notice of, 110 ; excellent 
spirit with which he conducted the Sabbath 
controversy, 111 ; his ability and success in 
defending the divine authority of the Sab 
bath in opposition to Burmann, 112-115. 

Ethics, Christian, 196 ; their superiority to 
those of Greece and Rome, 197. 

Eugenius, Pope, 400. 

Eusebius (A.D. 320), Bishop of Caesarea, wrote 
in defence of the Lord s day against the Jews, 
8 ; and Ebionites, 10 ; his clear testimony to 
the Christian Sabbath, 384, 387. 

Eustachius, Abbot de Flay, 399. 

Evanson, E., the Socinian, 147. 

Evelyn, John, his sketch of a Sabbath-day 
scene at the Court of Charles n., 141. 

Example, Good, its influence in promoting the 
Christian observance of the Sabbath, 685- 
590. 



FABER, Dr. George Stanley, 518. 

Fairbairn, Dr. Patrick, 33 ; his publication 
on the Sabbatic opinions of the Reformers, 
167. 

Faith, Observation of Sir James Mackintosh 
on the salutary influence of preaching, 197, 
265 ; faith in Christ necessary for the per 
formance of the duties of the Sabbath, 
334. 

Faius, Antonius, Professor at Geneva, 95, 100, 

Familists, 150. 

Family institution, The, Necessity of the 
Sabbath to form and to uphold, 229, 23C ; 
deteriorates or flourishes according as the 
Sabbath is neglected or observed, 233-241. 

Family instruction, one of the duties of the 
Sabbath, 187, 328, 329; examplas of the 
sanctification of the Sabbath ic families, 
445-455. 



618 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Family worship, an admirable discipline of 
the intellect, 189, 327, 328 ; directory for, 
439; could not exist without the Sabbath, 
202. 

Farel, William, effects the removal of holidays 
from Geneva, 17, 414 ; his first experiments 
in discipline, 408. 

Farquhar, David, machinist, Dundee, 167. 

Farre, Dr. John Richard, his testimony to the 
necessity of the rest of the Sabbath to man s 
physical wellbeing, 174, 179, 180, 182, 209, 
472, 498, 551. 

Fathers, The, of the first three centuries, list 
of those of them who defended the Christian 
Sabbath against the Jews and Pagans, 8-12 ; 
names by which they designated the Chris 
tian Sabbath, 368-370 ; their testimony that 
the first day of the week was sacredly ob 
served by the Christians, 372-376; their 
sentiments as to the Sabbath, 376-381. 

Fathers, The, in fourth century and down 
wards, held the doctrine of a primaeval 
Sabbath, 381-383 ; and that the seventh day 
of the week was abolished, and the first ap 
pointed in its place, 383-387 ; their practical 
teaching as to the Sabbath, 387-390. 

Fearon, Henry Bradshaw, 142, 143. 

Feasts, Romish. See Holidays. 

Felix, Minucius, vindicates the Christians 
from the charge of practising immorality at 
their meetings on the Sabbath, 12. 

Festivals. See Churches, and Holidays. 

Fisher, Edward, undertakes to prove that 
Christmas and the Lord s day are of equal 
authority, 140. 

Fisher, Mr. James, minister in Glasgow, his 
Catechism, 165. 

Fisher, William Logan, his daring opposition 
to the Sabbath, 155, 156. 

Fleming, Caleb, his writings in refutation of 
the seventh-day Sabbath, 144. 

Fletcher, Rev. J. W., of Madeley, 582. 

Fletcher, Andrew, of Saltoun, 506. 

Forbes, Mr. John, minister of Alford, 92, 161. 

Forbes, Rev. Dr. John, Glasgow, 166. 

Forbes, J. D., Principal of the United College 
of St. Salvator and St. Leonard, St. Andrews, 
his testimony to the authority and value of 
the Sabbath, 436, 472. 

Foster, John, 148, 194, 473, 503. 

Foster, Rev. William, of Collon, Ireland, his 
reply to Archbishop Whately on the Sab 
bath, 148. 

Fox, John, 20, 36, 39, 55. 

France, Disregard to cleanliness produced by 
the abolition of the Sabbath in, 176 ; found 
it necessary to restore the Christian Sab 
bath, 182, 200, 201 ; less work done when the 
Sabbath was abolished in, 210, 211, 213, 214 ; 
corrupting influence of Popery on the family 
institution in, 230, 231 ; atheism more de 
structive to the family institution in, than 
Popery, 232 ; cause of its low domestic 
condition, 235, 241, 244, 250-253, 256 ; efforts 
to correct Sabbath profanation in, 258 ; re 
sults of the triumph of infidelity in, 262, 
363, 474, 475, 491, 498, 500, 501; gain it 
would make by Sabbath observance, 553; 



infidelity in, began with the higher cl 

606. 

Franeker, University of, 25, 97, 99, 
Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Sabbath in, 598. 
Freedom, is fostered and maintained by th 

Sabbath, 218. 

French, Emperor of the, 604. 
French Protestants, hostile to holidays, 19 ; 

compelled by Edict of Nantes to abstain 

from work on the Roman Catholis holidays, 

ib. 
French Protestant refugees at the Cape itt 

Africa, their high Christian character, 235, 

236. 
Frith, John, his erroneous sentiments on. th 

Sabbath, 36, 464. 
Fry, Mrs., 199. 
Fulke, Dr. William, his work against the 

Rhemes New Testament, and in vindication 

of the Sabbath, 62, 63 ; his erudition, 64, 

118. 

Fuller, Andrew, 265. 
Fuller, Thomas, the historian, 58, 63, 69-76, 

79, 81, 86, 122 126. 



GALLAHS, Nicolas des, one of the ministers oi 
Geneva, 418. 

Gambier, Admiral Lord, his sanctification of 
the Sabbath, 474, 589. 

Gardiner, Bishop Stephen, his sentiments as 
to the Sabbath, 37. 

Gardiner, Colonel, 227. 

Gataker, Thomas, junior, 428. 

Geneva, The removal of holidays from, by 
Farel and Viret, 17 ; holidays re-established 
and again abolished in, 18, 414, 468 ; cen 
sured by James vi. for keeping Easter and 
Christmas, 18, 82 ; professors in the Aca 
demy of, 95 ; the Sabbath in, in 1851, 598, 
600 ; Conference of Evangelical Allianc 
at, 601. 

Geological periods, The six days of creation 
not to be understood of, 171, 493, 518- 
520. 

George in., 437, 474, 589. 

George iv., 437, 582. 

Germany, Protracted controversy on the Sab 
bath question in some parts of, 33, 360 ; 
origin of Sabbath desecration in, 570, 573 ; 
Stuttgard Conference of 1850 in, for pro 
moting the observance of the Sabbath, 
590, 591, 599; the Sabbath in, 498, 584, 
598-600. 

Gerson, John Charlier, Chancellor of the Uni 
versity of Paris, his sentiments as to holi 
days in his sermon before the Council of 
Constance in 1414, 17. 

Gib, Adam, minister of the Gospel, Edin 
burgh, 26, 27. 

Gibbon, Edward, the historian, 227. 

Gibbons, Dr. Thomas, 147. 

Gibson, Edmund, Bishop of London, 147. 

Giliillan, Rev. Samuel, of Comrie, his Work on 

the Sabbath, 165. 

I Gillespie, Mr. George, his Work on \iio quea 
tion of the ceremonies, 24, 27. 



Gilpin, Rev. Joshua, 226, 448, 449. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



619 



Glasgow, Moral and religious condition of, in 
1703, 510, 511. 

Glas, John, 165. 

Glen, Rev. Jolm, Portobello, his Work on the 
Sabbath, 166. 

God, Some savags tribes have no notion of a, 
261 ; proof of the unity of, 479 ; his will 
made known to us in various ways, 540. 

Goguet, Anthony Yves, President de, 365. 

Gomar, Francis, Professor of Theology suc 
cessively at Leydcn and Groningen, 94- 
100 ; notice of, 103 ; his Investigation of the 
Sabbath described, 103, 104 (see Rivet, 
Andrew) ; his reputation not enhanced by 
his Sabbatic efforts, 104 ; his answer to 
Rivet, 105-107. 

Goodwin, John, 24. 

Goodwin, Philip, minister at Watford, his 
work in defence of the Sabbath, 140. 

Gordon, John, 168. 

Gorrie, D., 16S. 

Gouge, Thomas, his publication on the Sab 
bath, 145, 224. 

Gouge, Dr. William, minister of Blackfriars, 
London, 138. 

Government, Divine, Evidence for a perpetual 
Sabbath from unity of, 479 ; from its plans 
being progressive in their development, 
480, 48*1 ; from its regard to order, 481, 
482 ; from its benevolence, 483, 484 ; from 
its being a government by law, 4S4 ; from 
its assertion of exclusive legislation, 487. 

Government, Good, The Sabbath contributes 
to secure, 248. 

Grahame, James, his poem on the Sabbath, 
165. 

Grainger, R. D., surgeon, F.R.S., 175. 

Grascome, Samuel, denied the obligatiorf of 
the Fourth Commandment on Christians, 
142, 143 ; rejected the doctrine of a prim- 
aval Sabbath, 146, 147. 

Greece or Greeks, 229, 262 ; the religion of, 
263, 363. 

Greek Writers, their hostility to the religion 
of the Jews, 3. 

Greenham, Richard, minister at Dry Dray- 
ton, his zeal for the Sabbath, 59 ; his 
Treatise of the Sabbath, widely circulated in 
MS. many years before it was printed, 65 ; 
his peaceful end, 66 ; his Treatise on the Sab 
bath published, 71 ; was a strict observer 
of the Sabbath, 72 ; his labours and liber 
ality, ib.; his nonconformity, 73, 118, 584. 

Gregoire, Abbe, 232. 

Gregory, John, wrote in defence of the Sab 
bath, 146. 

Gregory Nazianzen, 370, 382, 383, 385, 388, 
389. 

Gregory, of Tours, 385, 400. 

Grcville, Dr. Robert Kaye, 16S. 

Grindal, Edmund, successively Bishop of [ 
London, and Archbishop of York and 
Canterbury, his character, 23, 44 ; com 
manded by Queen Elizabeth to put down 
prophesyings, 46 ; his letter of remon 
strance to her, declining to obey this com 
mand, 46, 47, 51. 

Orotius, Hugo, 100. 



Guild, Dr. Wm., Principal of King s College, 

Aberdeen, 162. 

Guinea, The people of, 230, 359, 362. 
Gurney, Baron, 206. 
Gurney, Joseph John, his publication on the 

Sabbath, 148, 154. 
Guthrie, Mr. William, minister of Fenwick, 

161. 

H 

HAKEWILL, Dr. George, Rector of Exeter Col 
lege, Oxford, 138. 

Haldaue, James, a writer on the Sabbath, ; 56, 
169. 

Haldane, Robert, his tracts on the Sabbath, 
167, 169. 

Hale, Sir Matthew, 146, 431, 473, 550, 586. 

Hall, Joseph, Bishop of Norwich, 73, 74, 118. 

Hall, Robert, of Leicester, 148, 265, 473, 476, 
579. 

Hallet, Joseph, junr., 146. 

Halyburton, Thomas, Professor of Divinity at 
St. Andrews, 161. 

Hamilton, Dr. Richard Winter, 148, 837, 448. 

Hamilton, Dr. Robert, 166, 168. 

Hamilton, Sir ^Villiam, 24. 

Hammersley, Richard, a barber, wrote against 
the violation of the Sabbath, 146. 

Hammond, Dr. Henry, 24 ; regarded the Sab 
bath as a Jewish and temporary ordinance, 
134, 136, 142. 

Hampshire, New, Contrast between two neigh 
bourhoods in, from their difference as to the 
observance of the Sabbath, 238, 239. 

Hampton Court Conference, James vi. s abuse 
of the Puritans at, 22, 23 ; flattery offered to 
James by Archbishop Whitgift at, 54, 82. 

Hanson, his Work in refutation of the seventh- 
day Sabbath, 144. 

Happiness, Personal, The Sabbath eminently 
conducive to, 222-227. 

Harrington, Lord, Sanctiflcation of the Sab 
bath in the family of, 445, 474, 589. 

Harrison, Dr., of the Ohio Medical College, 
180. 

Health, Favourable bearings of the Sabbath 
on, 254, 495. 

Heathen, The, Jewish religion embraced by 
some of, 4 ; hostility of, to Christianity, 7 ; 
traces of the Sabbath among, 272, 274 ; law 
under which they are placed, 293 ; holidays 
of, a corruption of the Sabbatic institution, 
364. 

Heaven, Sabbatism of, 349-358. 

Heidan, Abraham, Professor of Theology in 
the University of Leyden, maintained that 
the Fourth Commandment was merely cere 
monial and Jewish, 108 ; his Work on the 
Sabbath, 108, 109 ; it has little merit, 110 ; 
bitter spirit with which he conducted th 
Sabbath controversy, 111, 112. 

Helvetic Confession, Holidays sanctioned by, 
18 ; its doctrine as to the"Sabbath, 406. 416, 
463 ; the fast of Lent and extreme unction 
rejected by, 413 ; approved of by the General 
Assembly of the Church of Scotland, with 
the exception of the part which tolerated 
holidays, 421. 



620 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Hemans, Mrs., 227. 

Henderson, Mr. Alexander, one cf the minis 
ters of Edinburgh, wrote in opposition to 
the five articles of Perth, 26 (see Charles i.) ; 
had a chief hand in drawing up the Confes 
sion of Faith, etc., 162, 425, 428. 

Henderson, John, of Park, his munificent 
liberality in the cause of the Sabbath, 167, 584. 

Hengstenberg, Dr. , his loose views as to the 
Christian Sabbath, 34, 117 ; his account of 
the origin of the controversy on the Sabbath 
in the Netherlands incorrect, 02, 169 ; has 
not fairly presented the views of the Re 
formers on the Sabbath, 460, 464. 

Henry vin. of England, Various holidays of 
the Church of Rome abolished by, 20. See 
Tyndale, William. 

Henry, Matthew, wrote against the violation of 
the Sabbath, 146, 446, 473. 

Henry, Philip, 225, 226 ; sanctification of the 
Sabbath in the family of, 446, 447. 

Herbert, George, 147, 323, 32&lt;5. 

Hervey, James, 225, 584. 

Hessey, Dr. James Augustus, his Sunday re 
ferred to, 1 ; article on, in North British 
Review, 169. 

Hesychius, Bishop of Jerusalem, 385. 

Hetlierington, John, held the opinion that 
every day is alike, 142. 

Hey, William, F.R.S., of Leeds, his strictures 
on Dr. Paley s views of the Sabbath, 148, 210, 
226, 551, 587. 

Heylyn, Dr. Peter, 16, 17, 53, 71, 74, 75, 77-81, 
118 ; his character of Broad s work on the 
Sabbath, 119 ; translates into English Dr. 
Prideaux s Latin oration on the Sabbatic in 
stitution, 120, 121 ; publication of his History 
of the Sabbath, 132 ; anti-Sabbatic character 
of this work, 132-134 ; his Brief and Moderate 
Answer to Henry Burton, 135; a protege of 
Archbishop Laud, 136 ; his renewed attack 
on the Sabbath, 140, 141 ; is successfully met 
in the field of history by Richard Baxter, 
145, 146 ; is replied to by James of Cobham, 
148 ; denied the institution of the Sabbath 
at the creation, and dated its institution at 
the promulgation of the Decalogue, 278, 404, 
405, 584. 

Higgins, Godfrey, Obligation of the Fourth 
Commandment on Christians denied by, 
142, 143. 

Higher and wealthier classes, Conduct of, a 
cause of prevalent Sabbath desecration. 
572-574. 

Highlanders in America, 260. 

Hilary, 369, 382. 

Hilder&ham, Arthur, 91. 

Hill, Robert, Rector of Stanhow, his Rcj^ly to 
Drs. Heylyn and Wallis, 146. 

Hill, Rev. Micaiah, author of the prize essay, 
The Sabbath made for Man, 148. 

Hipi&gt;olytus, wrote in defence of the Lord s day 
against the Jews, 8. 

Hodge, Dr. Charles, of America, his defence of 
the Sabbath, 155. 

Hogarth, 205. 

Holden, Rev. George, hia Christian Sabbath, 
148, 584. 



Holidays, Origin of, 14 ; evils that grew out of ; 
14-16 ; the later Fathers encouraged the ob 
servance of, 15 ; names of some opponents 
of, 15, 16 (see Constantine) ; the observance 
of, abolished in Scotland at the Reformation, 
18, 413, 421 ; sanctioned by the Helvetic 
Confession, 18 (see Belgic churches ; French 
Protestants ; Henry vin.; and Churches, Re 
formed) ; introduction of. into Scotland, 22 ; 
annulled by the English Parliament under 
the Commonwealth, ib. ; Wheatly s argu 
ments in support of, 28 ; arguments of Dr. 
Ames and Dr. Owen against, 29, 30 ; ques 
tions involved in the controversy as to, 30, 
31 ; evils of the retention of, and benefits 
which have resulted from the abolition of, 
as proved from history, 31, 32; confused 
notions of the Sabbath arising from its hav 
ing been mixed up with, 35 ; argument of 
the Rhemes New Testament for the Church s 
authority to appoint, 63 ; Puritans charged 
with upholding the Sabbath at the expense 
of, 76 (see Netherlands) ; written against by 
Koelman, 116, 117 ; debasing influence of, 
in the Church of Rome, 205 ; impoverishing 
effect of the multitude of, 209, 317 ; origin 
ated in a well-meant though objectionable 
motive, 400, 458; closely allied by the Council 
of Trent with the Sabbath, 423 ; injury 
which the Sabbath and religion have sus 
tained from, 457-460, 464 ; most of the Re 
formers erred as to, 468 ; power claimed by 
the Pope to substitute them for the Sabbath, 
489, 492, 515. See Heathen. 

Holland, Protracted controversy in, on the 
Sabbath question, 33, 253, 256, 425 ; reason 
why the -Pilgrim Fathers resolved to leave, 
91/504 : observance of the Sabbath in, 237. 
See Netherlands. 

Homes, Dr. Nathaniel, his essay, The Sabbath- 
day s Rest from Controversie, 146. 

Homilies of the Church of England, 40, 42, 43, 
46, 55, 64, 69, 75, 86, 118, 124, 133, 139, 421, 
424-426, 428, 438, 452. 

Hooker, Thomas, of New England, 151. 

Hooker, Richard, 25 ; character of his Ecclesi 
astical Polity, ib. ; maintained the immutable 
obligation of the Sabbath, 118. 

Hooper, John, Bishop, contended against 
clerical vestments, 24 ; held the moral ob 
ligation of the Fourth Commandment, 38, 39, 
64 ; was committed to the flames in the reign 
of Queen Mary, 39. 

Hoornbeek, John, Professor of Theology in the 
University of Leyden, held that the Fourth 
Commandment is moral, 108, 109 ; notice 
of, 109, 110 ; excellent spirit with which 
he conducted the Sabbath controversy, 
111. 

Hope, Dr., of London, 176. 

Hopkins, Ezekiel, Bishop of Derry, wrote in 
support of the Sabbath, 146, 432, 473. 

Hopkins, Dr. Samuel, of America, 153. 

Horace, 4. 

Home, Dr. Thomas, his pamphlet on th 
Sabbath, 147. 

Horsley, Bishop Samuel, his three Sermons on 
the Sabbath, 141, 148 ; argues that the sii 



GENERAL INDEX. 



C21 



days of ireation were six natural days, 519, 

520, 584 

Howard, John, 219, 476-478, 586. 
Howe, John. 24, 140 ; his character, 224, 473. 
Howell, John, Presbyter of Church of Eng 
land, wrote against the violation of the 

Sabbath, 146. 
Hughes, George, of Plymouth, his Aphorisms, 

145. 

Humboldt, Alexander Von, 365. 
Hume, David, 21, 242, 261, 476. 
Humphrey, Dr. Heman, of Araherst College, 

America, his Essays reprinted, 147, 154, 180. 
Humphries (or Humfrey), John, wrote against 

the violation of the Sabbath, 146. 
Hunter, John, 168. 
Hutchinson, Ann, of New England, 150. 



IMMORALITY, Refutation of the charge that 
the Sabbath has a tendency to produce, 
502-512. 

Independents, The, Confession of Faith drawn 
up by, 428. 

Indies, West, Change produced by mission 
aries among the negroes in, 593, 594. 

Infidelity, Hostility of, to the Sabbath, 201, 
205, 206, 219 ; civilisation will not protect 
against anarchy from, 262 ; results of the 
triumph of, in France, 262, 264. 

Infidel publications, Vast number of, 579. 

Innes, Dr. William, of Edinburgh, 166, 539, 
540. 

Instruction of families, Religious, 328, 329. 

Intellectual improvement, Influence of the 
Sabbath in promoting, 183-193. 

Ireland, its criminal calendar, in recent years, 
compared with that of England during the 
reign of Elizabeth, 52 ; poverty of its Roman 
Catholic population, 214 ; condition of its 
Roman Catholic population compared with 
the province of Ulster, 247, 250, 256, 258 ; 
emigration from, to Britain, a cause of in 
creased Sabbath desecration, 576. 

Irenseus, writes in defence of the Lord s day 
against the Jews, 9, 369, 374, 379, 380, 382. 

Irenaeus Philaletnes (an assumed name), an 
ingenious work in defence of the Sabbath 
by, 139. 

Irish Church Articles, ratified by James I. of 
England, in 1615, 83. 

Ironside, Gilbert, his Seven Questions of tlie 
Sabbath, and its anti-Sabbatic character, 
135, 137. 

Isidore, Bishop of Seville, 385, 389. 

Israelites, The, under Egyptian bondage, 319. 

Italy, 213, 214, 244, 245 ; social disorder of, 
250 ; low value of life in, 256, 258, 262, 360. 

Ives, Jeremiah, his work in refutation of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, 144. 



JACKSON, Alexander, silversmith, his Treatise 

on the Sabbath, 165. 
Jamaica, Change produced by missionaries 

among the negroes in, 237, 593, 594. 
James i. of Scotland, 399. 
James vi. of Scotland and i. of England, his 



encomium on the Reformed Kirk of Scotland, 
18 ; Millenary petition presented by the Puri 
tans to, 21, 22, 82, 83; his hostility to the Puri 
tans, 22 (see Calderwood, David ; and Hamp 
ton Court Conference); the first anti-Sabbatic 
publication dedicated to, 74-76 ; hopes enter 
tained by the Puritans from, 82, 83 ; the 
I sanctification of the Sabbath enjoined in 
his Basilicon Down, 82 ; his proclamation 
against bear and bull-baiting on the Sab 
bath, 82, 85 ; legislation of his first Parlia 
ment on the Sabbath, 83 ; Declaration for 
Sports on the Lord s day issued by, 83, 15S 
(see Sports on the Lord s day); comedy 
acted on a Sabbath evening before, 89, 119, 
127, 128, 415 ; civil enactment in his reign 
for promoting the due observance of the 
Sabbath, 436, 588. 
James n. of England, his severe persecution of 

the Nonconformists, 22, 23, 158. 
James, Rev. William, of Cobham, his reply to 

Dr. Heylyn, 148. 

Jameson, Rev. John, of Methven, sanctifica 
tion of the Sabbath in the family of, 450, 
451. 

Jamieson, Rev. Dr. John, Edinburgh, 429, 473. 
Jay, Rev. William, of Bath, 452. 
Jeanes, Henry, rector, his character as a 

controversial writer, 24, 26. 
Jefferson, Thomas, President of America, 

264. 

Jeffreys, George, Lord Chief-Jiistiee, 22. 
Jephson, Alexander, his Discourse on the Reli 
gious Observation of the Lord s Day, 141, 
146. 
Jerome, wrote in defence of holidays. 16, 370, 

381. 
Jewel, John, bishop, 39 ; his Apology, 42, 43, 

55. 

Jews, The, differences between them and the 
Pagans on the question of the Sabbath, 2-7 ; 
allusion of Horace to their being spread over 
the Roman empire, 4 ; instance in which 
justice is done to their religion by Tacitus, 
5 ; defend their religion and institutions by 
the sword, ib. ; by diplomacy, 6 ; and by 
the pen, ib. ; are to be blamed for thinking 
it wrong to resist their assailants on the Sab 
bath, 5, 6 ; were unrelenting persecutors oi 
the primitive Christians, 7 ; their observance 
of days not obligatory on Christians, 10 ; 
converts to Christianity were numerous in 
the East among, 11 ; festivals of, 29 ; variety 
of practice as to the observance of their Sab 
bath among, 9, 563, 571. 
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 143, 473, 609. 
Johnstone, Rev. William Henry, his publica 

tion on the Sabbath, 148. 
Jona, or Jonas, Bishopof Orleans, 403. 
Jonas, Justus, junr., 38. 
Jones, Herbert, his work in refutation if the 

seventh-day Sabbath, 144. 
Jones, Sir William, 434, 473. 
Jordan, Rev. John, Light thrown by, on sey- 

tenary institutions in heathendom, 149. 
Jortin, Dr. John, 5C?. 

Josephus, 4-6 ; light shed by his history on th 
sacred Scriptures, 6, 7 ; not a Christian, 6 



27* 



622 



GENERAL INDEX. 



bis testimony to the existence of the Sab 
bath during the Jewish economy, 546. 

Judaism, State of, in the first century, 7 ; sub 
stantially one with the Christian system, 
516. 

Judges, Testimony of, in favour of the Sab 
bath, 473. 

Judgments, Divine, connexion of, with the 
violation of the Sabbath, 400, 401. 

/ adicial law, Honour shown to the moral law 
above the, 286-290, 294. 

J ulian, the Apostate, contemplated the adop 
tion of an institution similar to the Sabbath 
for reviving heathenism, 7 ; adopted from 
Christianity the system of preaching for the 
same purpose, 200, 395. 

Junius, Francis, Professor at Leyden, his sen 
timents on the Sabbath, 93. 

Juvenal, ridicules the Sabbath of the Jews, 3 ; 
his misrepresentation of the Jewish religion, 
i, 5. 

K 

KAMES, Lord, his testimony to the authority 
and value of the Sabbath, 432, 473. 

Keach, Benjamin, his Work in defence of the 
Lord s day, 144 ; his defective doctrine on i 
the Sabbath, 146. 

Kennicott, Dr., declares for a perpetual Sab- | 
bath, 147, 473. 

Kiugsmill, Rev. Joseph, 149. 

Kirk ton. James, minister of Edinburgh, 161, j 
505. 

Knowledge, an element in social prosperity 
aud happiness, 259, 260; the Sabbath con 
ducive to promote, ib. 

Knox, John, 160 ; held a divine and permanent 
Sabbath, 419-422 ; representation that he 
regarded the Sabbath to have been an exclu 
sively Jewish institution, unfounded, 463, 
464, 467 ; none of the Reformers so decided 
against holidays as, 468, 469. 

Kcelman, James, his Work, DeHistoire, etc., 1 ; 
a laborious and able writer, 92, 108, 115 ; 
notice of, 116, 117 ; his Work on the Sabbath 
a complete thesaurus on its subject, ib. 



LABOUR, Incessant, Demoralizing tendency of, 
194, 195, 213 ; Burke s .testimony against, 
217 ; detrimental to the commercial interests 
of a community, 210, 211, 243, 268, 269; rest 
from secular labour one of the duties of the 
Sabbath, 317, 322. 

Loctantius, 383. 

La ing, Rev. Benjamin, his publication on the 
Sabbath, 168. 

Lake, Bishop Arthur, held the same senti 
ments with Dr. Bownd as to the Sabbath, 
77 ; publication of his work in defence of the 
Sabbath, 138. 

Langley, Mr. J. Baxter, replied to by Rev. 
Robert M Guire on the Sabbath, 148, 169. 

Laodicea, Council of, 334, 387. 

Laplace, his testimony to the necessity of 
religion to the happiness and honour of 
society, 242, 475. 

Latlmer, Hugh, Bishop, his sentiments on 



the Sabbath, 37; was committed to the 
flames in the reign of Queen Mary, 39. 

Laud, William, Archbishop, chief instigator 
of Charles i. to the persecution of the Non 
conformists, 22, 76 ; probably encouraged 
James vi. to publish the Declaration for 
Sports on the Lord s Day, 84, 124 ; his letter 
to Bishop Pierce against the suppression of 
ales and revels on the Sabbath, 127, 128 ; 
raised to the primacy, 128; a zealous abettor 
of the Second Declaration of Sports, 129, 
132, 134-136 ; his persecuting anti-Sabbatic 
policy denounced in Parliament by Sir B. 
Rudyerd, 137, 139, 150, 151. 

Law of God. A formal command not necessary 
to constitute a, 540, 541 ; a general and 
permanent law may spring out of local and 
temporary circumstances, 541-543. 

Lawson, Dr. George, Professor, of Selkirk, 
Sanctiflcation of the Sabbath in the family 
of, 449. 

Lawson, John, his work in defence of the 
Sabbath, 139. 

Lawyers and the Sabbath, 560. 

Lee, John, Principal of the University of 
Edinburgh, 160, 453, 454, 473, 506, 511. 

Lee, Samuel, Professor, his reply to Arch 
bishop Whately on the Sabbath, 148, 473. 

L Estrange, Hamon, son of Sir Hamon 
L Estrange, his Work in defence of the 
Sabbath, 138. 

Leighton, Dr. Robert, Archbishop, 164, 269 ; 
his testimony to the authority and value of 
the Sabbath, 431, 476, 578, 584. 

Lemon, Mr. James, 444. 

Leo i., Bishop of Rome, 385. 

Leo, "the Philosopher," Emperor, in tha 
ninth century, 386, 395, 396, 401, 403. 

Leo x., Pope, 191. 

Leopold, Prince, his respect for the Sabbath, 
449. 

Lewelyn, Rev. William, Leominster, 147. 

Lewis, Rev. James, 168. 

Ley, Rev. John, pastor of Great Budworth, 
his two treatises in defence of the Sabbath, 
138. 

Leyden, University of, 25 ; care of the States- 
General in electing sound as well as learned 
professors in, 95, 99, 100, 108, 109. 

Liberty, True, Ignorance of the principles 
of, an inadequate apology for persecution, 
54. 

Life, Average duration of, in different coun 
tries, 256. 

Lightfoot, Dr. John, 428, 473. 

Limborch, Philip, 165. 

Literature, linked with the Christian Sabbath, 
190-193. 

Littleton, Dr. Edward, 432. 

Liturgy of the Church of England, Doctrine 
of, as to the Sabbath, 425, 426. 

Livingstone, John, his labours in Ireland, 
162. 

Locke, John, the friend of the Sabbath, 153, 
193, 432, 473. 

Loe, Robert, author of the first anti-Sabbatic 
publication, 75 ; which was a fitting pr^ 
cursor of the Bock of Sports, 76. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



623 



London, A petition from the city of, to Par 
liament in 1579, complaining of the scarcity 
and negligence of ministers, 45-47 ; plague 
of 1574 in, 50 ; and of 1578, 53 ; ease with 
which peace and order are preserved in, 
compared with Paris, 250 ; number who 
have abandoned church-going in, 233, 561 ; 
quiet and order which reign on the Sabbath 
in, 552 ; contrasted at different periods 
with its religious and moral condition dur 
ing the period of the Commonwealth, 503, 
504 ; exertions on behalf of the Sabbath 
by the working and middle classes in, 603, 
604. 

London, Lord Mayors of, concern evinced by 
many of them for the Sabbath in the time 
of Queen Elizabeth, 57 ; Lord Mayor of, 
and James i., 87. 

London, City Mission of, 236, 581, 605. 

Longevity, Favourable bearings of the Sab 
bath on, 254-257; longevity of the patriarchs, 
283, 284. 

Lorimer, Rev. John G, Glasgow, his publica 
tion on the Sabbath, 167. 

Louis, the Pious, son of Charlemagne, 386, 396. 

Louis xiv. of France, 191. 

Lowe, Rev. John, of Huddersfleld, his pam 
phlet on the Sabbath, 147. 

Lower animals, Physical necessity of the 
Sabbath to, 183. 

Lucerne, Sabbath in, 598. 

Luther, Martin, his disapproval of holidays, 
17, 19, 33, 414; in his zeal against the 
Church of Rome, used unguarded language 
respecting the Mosaic law and the Sab 
bath, 35, 36 ; principles of true liberty not 
altogether unknown to, 54 ; held the doc 
trine of a primaeval Sabbath, 383, 405, 406, 
411 ; regarded the Sabbath as reasonable, 
useful, and indispensable, 407 ; enforced its 
sacred observance, 409, 410 ; believed thst 
the Lord s day comes under the direction of 
the Fourth Commandment, 418 ; vindica 
tion of, from alleged hostility to the Sab 
bath, 458-460, 463-466 ; to be his own inter 
preter, 465 ; defends himself against the 
charge of Antinomiauism, 466 ; his latest 
expressed opinions as to the Sabbath, 466, 
407 ; erred, to some extent, in regard to the 
Sabbath, 467 ; and as to holidays, 468 ; de 
sired the abolition of holidays, ib. ; in 
jurious effects of his unguarded expressions 
as to the Sabbath, 578, 584. 

Lutheran Church. See Church, Lutheran. 

M 

MACAULAY, Lord, his testimony in favour of 
the Sabbath, 209, 210, 216, 252, 253, 473. 

Maccabees, The, Strict observance of the Sab 
bath by the Jews in the time of, 6, 253. 

M Cheyne, Rev. Robert M., 476. 

n Orie", Dr. Thomas, his Free Thoughts on the 
Celebration of the Funeral of Charlotte, Princess 
of Wales, 28 ; his observations on the bene 
fits wh ich have resulted to Scotland from the 
abolition of holidays at the Reformation, 31. 
32, 429 ; his testimony to the authority and 
value of the Sabbath, 435, 436, 453, 473. 



M Fie, Rev. "William, 163. 

M Guire, Rev. Robert, his controversy with 
Langley on the Sabbath, 148. 

M Kenzie, Forbes, his Act, 604. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 197, 225, 265. 

M Lelland, Mr. John, a Christian farmer, sane- 
tification of the Sabbath in the family of, 
451. 

M Naughtun, Rev. J., 169. 

M Ward, Robert, one of the ministers of Glas 
gow, 116. 

Madeira, Disregard of the Sabbath in, 565. 

Magistrates, Testimony of. in favour of the 
Sabbath. 473. 

Majoribanks, Alexander, of that ilk, one of the 
earliest Scottish writers who scoffingly as 
sailed the Sabbath, 166, 167. 

Malan, Dr. Cesar, 600. 

Malcolm, John, minister of Perth, his Expcti- 
tioii of the Acts, 162. 

Man s physical system, Rest of the Sabbath 
necessary to the wellbeing of, 173-175; 
every seventh day as a day of rest necessary 
to the wellbeing of, 178-183. 

Maresius, Controversy between Voetius and, 

Marlow, Isaac, his work in refutation of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, 144. 

Marot, Clement, Psalms of, 236. 

Martyn, Henry, 226, 476. 

Martyr, Justin, wrote in defence of the Lord s 
day against the Jews, 8 ; his Dialogue with 
Trypho, a Jew, 8, 9, 377 ; incorrect interpre 
tation put upon his sentiments as to the 
Sabbath, 10; his testimony against the ob 
servance of Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, 
by Christians, 11, 368, 369, 373, 374 ; vindi 
cates the Christians from the charge of prac 
tising immorality at their meetings on the 
Sabbath, 12. 

Martyr, Peter, his sentiments on the Sabbath. 
409, 412. 

Mary, Queen of England, persecution of the 
Protestants by, 39 ; good which resulted 
from that persecution, 39, 40, 53. 

Mary, Queen of Scots, 421. 

Mussey, Dr., of the Ohio Medical College, 180. 

Masters and employers of workmen, A large 
share of Sabbath desecration to be attributed 
to, 574-576. 

Mather, Dr. Cotton, 152, 504. 

Mather, Increase, father of the preceding, 152. 

May- games, 69, 85. 

Mayhew, Henry, replied to by Bouchier on 
the Sabbath, 148. 

Maximus, Bishop of Turin, 385. 

Mode, Joseph, 133. 

Medical men. See Physicians. 

Melanchthon, Philip, 409; believed the Sabbath 
to have been appointed by God at the cre 
ation, 411, 412 ; held the Christian Sabbath 
to be a Divine appointment, 417. 

Melito, Bishop of Sardis, 374. 

Mellet, Louis Victor, Pastor of Yvorne, 600. 

Melville, Andrew, Principal successively of the 
Universities of Glassow and St. Andrews, 
91, 160, 161, 442. 

Methodists, 442. 



624 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Micklethwaite, Dr. Paul, his sentiments on 

the Sabbath, 85. 

Middleburg, Revival of religion and of Sab 
bath-keeping in, 91, 92, 100, 101. See Teel- 
linck, William. 

Miller, James, Professor of Surgery in the Uni 
versity of Edinburgh, 16S. 

Miller, Professor Samuel, of America, 154. 

Milner, Dr. Isaac, Dean, his sermons on the 
Sabbath, 148. 

Milton, 24 ; held the Lord s day to be merely 
an ecclesiastical appointment, 143, 144 ; his 
elegy on his old preceptor, Mr. Thomas 
Young, 163, 164 ; his picture of wedded love, 
22S ; his sentiments on the Sabbath con 
sidered, 470, 471, 475. 

Mind, Necessity of the Sabbath to the, 268. 

Ministers of Religion, acted the Miracle Plays, 
49 ; wherein they may fail in a due regard to 
the Sabbath, 560. 

Minucius Felix, 376. 

Missions, Success of Protestant, 264 ; failure 
of Romish, ib. ; proofs from, of the adapta 
tion of the Sabbath to every clime, 501. 

Missionaries, Testimonies of, in favour of the 
Sabbath, 476, 477 ; success of, in planting 
the institution of the Sabbath among Pagans, 
593-597. 

Mitchell, Rev. James, his essay on the Sabbath, 
165. 

Mohammedanism, Friday the Sabbath of, 200, 
263, 554, 564. 

Moncrietf, Rev. Alexander, of Abernethy, 161. 

MoJitalembert, M. de, his testimony in favour 
of the Sabbath, 194, 250 ; his efforts to cor 
rect Sabbath profanation in France, 258, 
424 ; attributes the greatness of England to 
its observance of the Sabbath, 552, 598. 

Moral Law. See Decalogue. 

Morality, The Sabbath conducive to the inter 
ests of, 194-200, 212, 213, 257, 258; salutary 
influence of preaching faith on, attested by 
Sir James Mackintosh, 197, 265 ; has declined 
in proportion to the perversion of the Sab 
bath, 205, 206 ; no morality where there is 
no Sabbath, 206-20S. 

Moralities. See Mysteries. 

Moravian Missionaries, 262. 

More, Dr. Henry, 432. 

More, Sir Thomas, maintained that the Sabbath 
is only an ecclesiastical appointment, 35, 
423. 

Morer, Rev. Thomas, London, denied the obli 
gation of the Fourth Commandment on 
Christians, 142, 143, 146. 

Moritz, Mr , 563. 

Mormons, The, 230. 

Morris-dances and dancers, 69, 85, 131. 

Morton, Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Durham, his 
Work on the question of the ceremonies, 25, 
27 ; had a share in the preparation of the 
Declaration for Sports on the Lord s day 
published by James i , 83 ; his account of 
the origin of that document., 83. 84. 

Mosaic Law, Threefold distinction in, 39. 

Mosheim, Dr. J. Lawrence, his high opinion 
of Perkins writings, 65 ; his estimate of the 
writings of Voetius, 97, 98, 111. 



Mousehole, Fishing village of, 237, 238, 244. 

Murray, Mr. John, minister at Leith, after 
wards at Dunferm.ine, 26. 

Murray, Rev. John, Morton, 167. 

Mysteries, Miracle Plays, and Moralities, in 
troduced into the service of the Cturch, 40 
performed on the Lord s day, 160. 

N 

NANTES, Edict of. See French Protestants. 

Napier, Right Hon. Joseph, M.P., 149. 

Naples, 213, 245. 

Natalitia. See Christians, Early. 

Nazarenes, The, Sentiments of, 11. 

Nelson, Robert, wrote against the violation of 
the Sabbath, 146. 

Netherlands, The, Sabbatic controversy in, 
90 ; the churches of, engaged in a fruitless 
struggle with the magistrates for the exclu 
sion of Popish holidays, ib. ; neglect of the 
observance of the Sabbath in, 90, 91 ; reli 
gion revived in, by William Teellinck, 91 ; 
commencement of the controversy ou the 
Sabbath in 1618 in, 32-94; the first book 
published against the Sabbath in, 95 ; third 
Sabbatic controversy in, 108 ; the fourth. 
Ill ; accounts of the profanation of the Sab 
bath in, in seventeenth century, 114, 116. 
See Holland, and Utrecht. 

Netherlands, States-General of, Petition of the 
Synod of Doit to, 94. 

Nevins, Rev. Dr. William, of America, 155. 

Newcome, Rev. Peter, his sound views on the 
Sabbath, 146. 

New England, Account of sectaries in. by 
Samuel Rutherford, 150 ; churches in, adopt 
the Westminster Confession of Faith, 151, 
152 ; zeal for the Sabbath by the first ministers 
of, 152 ; care of the Puritan settlers in. for the 
education of the young, 192, 204 ; state of, 
towards the close of the seventeenth cer - 
tury, described, 224, 225. Sec America, Pil 
grim Fathers of. 

Newlyn, Fishing village of, 237, 238. 

New Testament, Rhemish, 24. See Rheme 
New Testament. 

New Testament, Tyndale s version of, 36. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, a friend of the SabbatL, 
193, 219, 472, 475. 

Newton, John, 144, 225. 

New York, Sabbath committee of, 155. 

Nice, Council of, pronounced against kneeling 
in prayer on the Lord s day, 398. 

Nicholas, Pope, 392. 

Nisbet, Rev. Alexander, minister of the 
Secession Church, Portsburgh, Edinburgh, 
166. 

Nobility and gentry and the Sabbath, 559. 

Noell (Nowell, Novvel, Noel), Dr. Alexander, 
Dean of St. Paul s, his Catechism, 42; his 
fidelity m preaching before Queen Elizabeth, 

Noel, Hon. and Rev. Baptist W., 149. 

Nonconformists, their high character both in 
England and Scotland, 26, 31 ; their doc 
trine as to the Sabbath in the reign of Queen 
Elizabeth, 43 ; number of them without the 
pole of tli* Church in 1592, 59 ; abounding 



GENERAL INDEX. 



625 



Sabbath desecration preys on the vitals of 

their churches, 146. See Puritans, The. 
Northampton, New England, Origin of revival 

in, in 1734, 153. 
North brooke, John, his treatise against idle 

pastimes on the Sabbath, 56, 57. 
Norway, Desecration of the Sabbath in, 567 ; 

Lutheran Church in, ib. 
Nbvatian, treats of the Sabbatic institution, 

8, 11. 
Numitianus, Rutilius, assails the Christian 

Sabbath, 12. 



OCCTTN, Bernard, 459. 

Ockford, James, held the perpetuity of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, 142. 

OZcolampadius, 409. 

Ogden, Rev. Dr. Samuel, denied the obligation 
of the Fourth Commandment on Christians, 
142, 143. 

Oliver, Rev. Alexander, 168. 

Ollyffe, Rev. John, his sound views on the Sab 
bath, 146. 

Omnibus drivers, 207. 

Order, Social, The Sabbath contributes to 
secure, 250-254. 

Origen, his defence of Christianity against 
Celsus, 12, 370, 376, 377, 379, 380, 382, 383. 

Orton, Rev. Job, 66, 147. 

Ovid, his reprehension of the Sabbath of the 
Jews, 3. 

Owen, Dr. John, wrote on the question of the 
ceremonies, 24, 26, 28, 66, 81 ; his examina 
tion of the arguments of the opponents of 
the Sabbath, 113 ; his treatise on the Sab 
bath, 145, 153, 164; his character, 223,423, 
473, 584. 

Owen, Robert, 261. 

Oxford, University of, 36, 95, 122. 



PAGAN nations, Difference on the question of 
the Sabbath between the Jews and, 2-7; 
opposition of, to the Christian Sabbath, 7, 
8 ; traces of sacred days of some sort among, 
1, 179, 200, 359-364, 554. See Missionaries. 

1 aley, Dr. William, his sentiments on the 
Sabbath, 142, 143; reply to, by Hey of 
Leeds, 148 ; his argument for the existence 
of a God from the relation of sleep to night, 
applied in proof of the divine authority of 
the Sabbath, 267 ; denied the institution of 
the Sabbath at the creation, and dated its 
institution at the promulgation of the de 
calogue, 278, 382, 480, 48 L ; his argument 
for the unity of a God, 479 ; his arguments 
against a primaeval Sabbath, and that the 
Sabbath was peculiar to the Jews, exam 
ined, 521-539, 584. 

Palmer, Herbert, joint author with Daniel 
Cawdrey of f- abbatum Redivivum, 139. 

Palmer, Rev. Samuel, 147. 

Papacy, The. See Rome, Church of. 

Papists, Many ecclesiastical incumbents were 
so in disguise in the reign of Queen Eliza 
beth, 49. See Lancashire. 

Parent, Neglect and bad example of, a caise 



of Sabbath desecration, 571, 572 ; duties of. 
585. 

Paris, 250 ; Sabbath profanation in, during 
the first French Revolution, 498, 553 ; and ia 
the present day, 566 ; meeting of Evangeli 
cal Alliance in, 600. 

Paris, Archbishop of, his efforts to correct 
Sabbath profanation, i58, 424, 598. 

Paris garden in Southwark, Barbarous and 
demoralizing sports in, on the Sabbath, in 
the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 50 ; fatal 
accident at, 51 ; these exhibitions put down 
by James i., ib. 

Parker, Rev. Gavin, his publication on tha 
Sabbath, 166. 

Parker, Matthew, Archbishop, 43 ; his dis 
regard of the Sabbath, 52 ; his severe treat 
ment of the Puritans, 53. 

Parker, Robert, rector, wrote on the question 
of the ceremonies, 24. 

Parkhurst, John, Bishop of Norwich, 55. 

Parliament, English, its sympathy with the 
suffering Puritans, 23 ; legislation of, in the 
time of James i , in favour of the Sabbath, 
83. 

Parliament, Long, Important services it ren 
dered to the Sabbath, 137, 162 ; Westminster 
Assembly called together by, 138; numerous 
treatises in defence of the Sabbath published 
in consequence of the liberty granted by, ib. 
See Pocklington, Dr. 

Parliament of Scotland. See Scotland. 

Parry, Rev. Richard, defends the antiquity of 
the Sabbath, 147. 

Paschasius, John, his work on the Sabbath, 
109, 111. 

Pastor, The Christian, 188. 

Paton, J. N., wrote against the Sabbath, 167. 

Patriarchs, The, Existence of the Sabbnth 
among, implied in their division of time 
into weeks, 280, 281 ; and in their regular 
observance of public worship, 281, 282 ; 
remarkable instances of piety among, 283 ; 
longevity of, 283, 284. 

Patrick. Bishop, 10. 

Paul in., Pope, 422. 

Paxton, Dr. George, 473. 

Fearce, Zachary, Bishop of Rochester, 147. 

Pearl of Days, The, by a female author, It ll". 

Pearson, John, Bishop of Chester, his defeuca 
of the Sabbath in his Exposition of the Creed, 
140, 431. 

Pedlars, disposed of their wares in the porches 
of churches in the time of Cranmer and 
Queen Elizabeth, 51. 

Pegu, The natives of, 359, 362. 

Pembroke, Maria Sidney (sister to Sir Philip 
Sidney), Countess of, 58. 

Perkins, William, minister at Cambridge, his 
zeal for the Sabbath, 59, 64, 118 ; his re 
markable conversion, 65 ; European fame 
of his writings, ib. ; his peaceful end, 66 ; 
testimony in favour of his writings by Or 
ton, 66, 69, 70, 77, 98. 

Persecution. See Liberty, True. 

Persians, The, The eighth day the festal dij 
of, 360, 362, 363, 365. 

Persius, derides the Sabbath of tha Je.fi,, 8. 



626 



GENERAL INDEX. 



Perth, Five Articles of, 26, 27, 89, 162, 425. 
Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, 397. 
Peters, Hugh, 91. 

Phelps s Perpetuity of the Sabbath, Boston, 
U.S., 154. 

Philanthropists, Testimony of, in favour of the 
Sabbath, 476-478. 

Philanthropy, Connexion between the devout 
observance of the Sabbath and, 511. 

Philosophers, Testimony of, in favour of the 
Sabbath, 472. 473, 475, 476. 

Phoenicians, The, 359. 

Physicians, Testimony of, in favour of the 
Sabbath, 174, 175, ISO, 472, 560. 

Pierce, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 28 ; advo 
cates recreations on the Sabbath, 127, 128. 

Pierce, Dr., a Socinian minister in America, 
265. 

Pilgrim Fathers. See America, Pilgrim Fa 
thers of. 

Plato, extols festivals as the gift of the gods, 4. 

Plautus, Play of, represented before Queen 
Elizabeth in King s College Church, Cam 
bridge, 48. 

Plays, acted on the Sabbath, 50, 62. See. 
Mysteries, and Theatres. 

Pliny, the younger, his testimony that a 
stated day was sacredly observed by the 
Christians, 372-374. 

Pliuner, Dr. William S., of America, 155. 

Plutarch, his hostility to the Jewish religion 
and Sabbath, 3. 

Pocklington, Dr. John, chaplain to Charles 
i., his Sunday no Sabbath, 133 ; this and 
another of his productions ordained by the 
Long Parliament to be publicly burned, 
133, 140. 

Polanus, Amanclus, (a Polaudsdorff,) Pro 
fessor at Basle, 100. 

Police, Metropolitan, 207 ; violation of the 
Sabbath by, 559. 

Pollock, J. M., 168. 

Pollok, Robert, 503. 

Polyander, John, Professor of Divinity in the 
University of Leyden, 95. 

Polynesia, Change produced by missionary 
labours in, 237, 258, 596, 597 ; heathen con 
dition of, 263. 

Poole, Matthew, author of the Synopsis, 176. 

Pope, The, his usurped authority to suspend 
or abrogate Divine laws, 488, 489. 

Popery, Vestments of, 24 ; its corrupting 
influence on the family institution, 230, 
231 ; blights a spirit of improvement and 
useful enterprise, 244-247 ; fulfilment of 
Scripture predictions in, 548, 554. See 
Rome, Church of. 

I opham, Sir John, Lord Chief-Justice of Eng 
land, 74, 75, 79, 80. 

Porter, Edm., B.D., held the opinion that 
every day is alike, 142, 165. 

Portftu s, Beilby, Bishop of London, the Sab 
bath defended iu his writings, 147, 582. 

Portugal, 245. 

Post- Office, Servants in, 207 ; desecration of 
the Sabbath in, 559. 

Pott, Joseph Holden, Archdeacon, The Sab 
bath defended in I m writings, 147. 



Poverty, Prevalence of, wheie the Sablath Is 
disregarded, 213, 214, 243. 

Powell, Rev. Baden, Obligation of the Fourth 
Commandment on Christians denied by, 
142, 143; replied to by a writer in the 
London Quarterly Review, 148. 

Praise, 324, 353, 354. 

Prayer, Tendency of, to produce mental elo- 
vation, 189, 324 ; its influence on the sauc- 
tiflcation of the Sabbath, 589-591. 

Prayer-meeting held in London by various 
Puritan ministers, 91. 92. 

Preaching of the Word, a Divine ordinance, 
325. See Pulpit, The Christian. 

Precisians. See Puritans. 

Predictions as to the observance of the Sab 
bath under Christianity, 546-554. 

Presbytery, Smectyninuus, a work on, 108. 

Press, The, Liberty of, abridged in the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth, 61 ; corrupting opinions 
propagated through, a cause of Sabbath 
desecration, 576-580 ; .ts power, 582. 

Prideaux, Humphrey, Dean, his testimony 
to the necessity of the Sabbath, 207, 208, 
473. 

Prideaux, Dr. John, Rector and Professor of 
Theology, Exeter College, Oxford, after 
wards Bishop of Worcester, 106. 109 ; his 
Latin oration, in which he assailed the Sab 
batic institution, translated into English by 
Dr. Heylyn, 120, 121 ; the oration answered 
by Dr. Twisse, 121, 137. 

Priestley, Dr. Joseph, supports the orthodox 
opinion as to the Sabbath, 147 ; Unitarian- 
ism of, 264. 

Primerose, Mr. Gilbert, minister of a French 
congregation in London, 134 ; chaplain to 
Charles r., 136. 

Primerose, David, minister of the Protestant 
Church at Rouen, his work on the Sabbath, 
109, 134; its anti-Sabbatic character, 134. 
137. 

Princeton Rpview, 155. 

Pritchard, George, 594. 

Prynne, William, Savage treatment of, 125 &gt; 
his tracts in defence of the Sabbath, 135. 

Pulpit, The Christian, its adaptation to the 
constitution and improvement of the human 
mind, 186, 187, 202 ; the light of, well nigh 
quenched by the Church of Rome, 191, 208. 
See Preaching of the Word ; and Julian, the 
Apostate. 

! Puritans, The, Acts and measures of Queen 
j Elizabeth against, 21 ; millenary petition 
presented by, to James i., 21, 22, 59 (see 
James vi. of Scotland) ; statesmen and ec 
clesiastics who sympathized with, 23 ; de 
prived of the liberty of the press. 61 ; had a 
printing press abroad, ib.; the religious ob 
servance of the Sabbath becomes a dis- 
i tinguishing mark of, 62 ; charged with up- 
I holding the Sabbath at the expense of the 
j holidays, 76 ; misrepresentation of their sen 
timents as to the Sabbath, 76-78 ; not singu 
lar in their sentiments as to the Sabbath, 
77, 118; enactment against, in James i. s 
Declaration for Sports on the Lord s day, 85, 
86, 120, 126; a-e preached against at the 



GENERAL INDEX, 



627 



Court of Charles i. , 30 ; all in earnest about 
religion so called in reign of Charles i., 131, 
139 ; distinguished for religion and morality, 
2*04, 206, 219 ; not gloomy men, 223, 264, 265, 
400, 44-2 ; against holidays, 468, 469 ; their 
sauctiiication of the Sabbath, 448, 449, 503, 
504. 

Puritan ministers, hard treatment of, in the 
rsign ?f Queen Elizabeth, 44, 47, 52, 54, 59 ; 
good accomplished by, as chaplains and 
tutors in private families, 55 ; number of, 
within the Church in 1603, 59 ; notes of their 
sermons taken by zealous hearers widely 
circulated in MS. , 64, 65 ; sixty suspended 
in 15S3, 66 ; their sufferings for refusing to 
read from the pulpit the Second Declaration 
of Sports, 129, 130. 

Puritanism. Triumph of, in England. 119, 
123. 

Puritans, who first settled in America. See 
America, Pilgrim Fathers of. 

Pyott, Samuel, 168. 



QUAKERS, Persecution of, under the reign of 
James n., 22, 23; their number in Great 
Britain and Ireland, 554. 

Quintin, John, journeyman printer, Ipswich, 
167. 



RAINOLDS. Dr. John, Professor, Oxford, the 
originator of our vernacular version of the 
Scriptures, 82 ; his complaint of the profa 
nation of the Sabbath to James i., 82, 95. 

Rank, Men of, Testimony of, in favour of the 
Sabbath, 473, 474. 

Randolph, Thomas, English ambassador at 
the Scottish Court, 463, 464. 

Redemption, Work of, 339 ; commemorated in 
heaven, 350, 351. 

Reformation, The, Effects of, 191 ; two eccle 
siastical parties since, who have taken dif 
ferent views as to the Sabbath, 206 ; con 
nexion of pure religion with the doc 
trines of, 266 ; originated in the reading of 
the Bible, 582 ; promoted by the writings of 
the Reformers, 583. 

Reformed Church. See Church, Reformed. 

Reformers of the 16th century, The, No full 
exposition of Sabbatic doctrine to be 
found in the writings of, 33 ; early justice 
done to the Sabbath by the Scottish, ib., 
219 ; not gloomy men, 223 ; regarded the 
Lord s day as reasonable, useful, and indis 
pensable, 406-408 ; and strictly observed it, 
408-411 ; believed the Sabbath to have been 
appointed at the creation for all time, 411, 
412 ; their retention of the Sabbath, while 
they rejected holidays, an argument that 
they believed in its divine authority, 413- 
415 ; direct references by, to the Christian 
Sabbath, which prove that they held its 
Divine authority, 415-422 ; the controversy 
to be decided not by their sentiments, but 
by the Word of God, 455; their circum 
stances to be weighed in estimating their 
judgment and statements on this* question, 



i 457, 464-466 ; their sentiments regarding it 
have not been fairly represented, 46 ft -462 ; 
allowing that they erred to some extent as to 
the Sabbath, still to be ranked among its 
friends, 467-469. 

i Reiehel, Rev. Dr. C. P., 142, 148, 149. 
Religion, the Sabbath necessary to its pros 
perity and even preservation in the world, 
200-208, 212 ; pure religion essential to 
social progress, 261-266 ; injurious effects of 
the/ mere absence of, from literary publica 
tions, 578, 579. 

! Rennison, Rev. Alexander, 168. 
! Resurrection of Christ, 308. 
i Retributions still for violations of the Sabbath, 

345. 
i Revival of Religion in Northampton, New 

England, in 1734, Origin of, 153. 
I Revolution of 1688, 23. 

Reynolds, Dr. Edward, Bishop of Norwich, 
428. 

Rhemes New Testament, its false renderings 
and sophistical notes, 62, 63. 

Richardson, Sir Thomas, Lord Chief-Justice, 
issues an order for suppression of ales and 
revels on the Sabbath, in Somersetshire, 
127 ; enjoined by the Council to revoke the 
order, ib. 

Riculphus, Bishop, 393. 

Ridgley, Dr. Thomas, 147. 

Ridley, Nicholas, Bishop of Rochester, 39. 

Rites. See Ceremonies. 

Rivet, Andrew, Professor of Theology in ths 
University of Leyden, 75, 95 ; replied to 
Gomar s Investigation of the Sabbath, 103, 
104 ; is answered by Gomar in a Defence of 
the Investigation, 105 ; his rejoinder, 105- 
107 ; takes low ground on the Fourth Com 
mandment and the Lord s day, 106 ; evil 
tendency of his doctrine on this head, ib. 

Robartes, Humphrey, his work on the Sab 
bath, 57. 

Robinson, Dr. , Archdeacon of Gloucester, de 
fends recreations on the Lord s day, 121, 122. 

Robinson, Dr. Edward, his respect for the 
Sabbath in his travels in the East, 588. 

Robinson, John, pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, 
did not differ in judgment, though in prac 
tice, from the Belgic Churches in regard to 
the sanctification of the Sabbath, 90-93 ; he 
and his congregation resolved to leave Hol 
land because the Sabbath was there practi 
cally disregarded, 91, 504 ; maintained the 
divine authority of the Sabbath, 106, 425. 

Rochester, Earl of, 570. 

Rogers, Henry, his opposition to the opening 
of places of public amusement on the Sab 
bath, 149, 224, 472, 476. 

Rogers, John, the proto-martyr, 39. 

Rogers, Thomas, minister at Horningsheath, 
in Suffolk, his sentiments on the Sabbath, 
59 ; his hostility to Dr. Bownd s Treatise on 
the Sabbath, 74, 75, 445 ; writes against it, 
76; his misrepresentation of the doctrine 
taught by Bownd, 76-78; is replied to by 
Dr. Twisse, 76-79, 81. 

Romans, The old, punished the Christians 
for their faithful observance of the Sabbath. 



628 



GENERAL INDEX. 



7; their religion failed to purify and to 
humanize, 229, 262, 363, 365. 

Roman Empire, The Christian religion be 
comes a law of the, 7. 

Roman Week (old) consisted of eight days, 
360. 

Roman Writers, their hostility to the Sabbath 
of the Jews, 3. 

Rome, Church of, 11, 14 ; always the same, 
20 ; her boasted unity, 34 ; comedies per 
formed on the Lord s day, a custom derived 
from, 160 ; the Sabbath perverted by, 191 ; 
debasing influence of her holidays, 205, 206, 
457-460, 492 ; has signally failed in her 
missions, 264. See Popery; and Trent, 
Council of. 

Rome, City of, its Pauperism, 213. 

Roman Catholic countries, Disregard of the 
Sabbath in, 564-566 ; this attributable in a 
great measure to the priesthood, 570. 

Romaine, William, Sanctification of the Sab 
bath by the converts of, 452. 

Rotterdam, Synod held at, approve of Teel- 
linck s treatise on the Sabbath, 95. 

Rudcl Anthony, Bishop of St. David s, 23. 

Rudrliman, Thomas, his sanctiflcation of the 
Sabbath, 449. 

Rudyerd, Sir Ben,]., denounced in Parliament 
Laud s persecuting, atiti-Sabbatic policy, 
137. 

Rufinus, of Aquileia, 370. 

Russell, Francis, writes against the Sabbath, 
167. 

Russia, 256 ; Emperor of, 604. See Church, 
Greek. 

Rutherford, Samuel, 35 ; his letters translated 
into Dutch by Koelman, 117 ; entered the 
lists with Saltmarsh, 162, 428, 476. See New 
England. 

S 

SABBATH, Advantages of ; its physical and in 
tellectual adaptations, 173-193 ; its moral 
and religious influence, 194-208 : its econo 
mical bearings, 209-216 ; its connexion with 
personal prosperity, 217-227 ; its domestic 
benefits, 228-241 ; its advantages to nations, 
242-266. 

Sabbath, Change of, from the seventh to the 
first day of the week, 63, 64, 170, 171, 301- 
316, 369, 482, 486, 487. 

Sabbath, Controversies and literature respect 
ing; Pagans against Jews both against 
Christians, 2-13 ; holidays, 13-32 ; Sabbatic 
controversies in England, 32-90 ; in the 
Netherlands, 90-117 ; in England continued, 
118-149 ; in the United States of America, 
149-157 ; in Scotland, 157-169 ; summary of 
opinions as to the Sabbath, 170-172. 

Sabbath, defended, 456; alleged anti-Sabba- 
tism of the Reformers, 456-469; Sabbatic 
sentiments of Milton and other eminent 
men, 470-4^8 ; Sabbath theories tried by the 
principles of the Divine government, 479- 
490 ; by tVeir tendencies and results, 491- 
513 ; by the doctrine and law of revelation, 
514-545 ; by divine predictions, 546-555. 

Sabbath, Desecration of, Efforts against, in the 



nineteenth century, 147, 148 ; influences 
which have contributed in Scotland to, 158; 
Acts passed in the Parliament of Scotland 
against, 158, 159; connexion of Divine judg 
ments with, 400, 401 ; nature of, 556-558 ; 
its desecration at home, 558-563 ; and abroad, 
563-568 ; causes of, 568-580 ; remedies for, 
580-592. 

Sabbath, Divine authority of, 274-316. 

Sabbath, Divine estimate of the importance 
of, 337-348. 

Sabbath, Duties of, 317-336. 

Sabbath, in heaven, 349-358. 

Sabbath, in history, 359-455; traces of sep 
tenary institutions among Pagan nations, 
359-367 ; the Sabbath in the first three cen 
turies, 368-381 ; in centuries iv.-xv., 381-405 ; 
at the Reformation, 405-424 ; after the Refor 
mation, 424-455. 

Sabbath, the opinion that it is ceremonial and 
Jewish, derogatory to the Ruler of the world, 
482; contrary to his benevolence, 483, 491. 
492. 

Sabbath, the opinion that every day is alike 
sacred, derogatory to the government of 
God, 489 ; its evil tendencies and. results, 
491, 492, 539 ; held by few, 554. 

Sabbath, the opinion that under Christianity 
there is no authorized day of rest and wor 
ship, derogatory to the Ruler of the world, 
482; contrary to his benevolence, 483; do- 
tracts from the law of God, 484-486. 

Sabbath, Opinion that there shoiild be no, 
evil tendencies and results of, 538, 539. 

Sabbath, Personal testimonies to the, 430-436. 

Sabbath, Practical measures for promoting 
the observance of the ; civil enactments, 
436-438 ; teachings of ecclesiastical councils 
as to, 438-445. 

Sabbath, primaeval and patriarchal, writers 
by whom it has been rejected, 143, 146, 
170 ; held by the Fathers of the first cen 
turies of the Church, 383 ; the denial of, 
derogatory to God as the Ruler of the 
world, 482 ; contrary to his benevolence, 
483 ; is one of the main pillars of the insti 
tution, 493, 494 : attempt to set aside the 
idea of, by the notion that the mention of 
it in Genesis antedates the institution 2500 
years, considered, 517, 518 ; Paley s argu 
ment against, 521-539 ; incidental reference 
in various parts of Scripture to, 527-529, 
540, 541. 

Sabbath, Prize Essays on. See Essays. 

Sabbath, Progress and prospects of the cause 
of the, 592-605. 

Sabbath, Sanctification of, Teaching of the 
Church from the fourth to the sixteenth 
century as to, 387-390 ; examples of its 
Sanctification in families, 445-455. 

Sabbath, The seventh day or Saturday Sab 
bath, Observance of, gains ground among 
Christians in the early ages, especially in 
the East, 11, 12 ; unchangeable obligation 
of, held by some, but not many, 60, 554 ; 
authors by whom this opinion has been 
maintained, 88, 122, 139, 142 ; authors who 
have written in its refutation, 144, 14& 



GENERAL INDEX. 



629 



168 ; the obligation of, declaratively set 
aside 303 307, 369 ; the Fathers of the first 
three centuries believed that it was so, 
877 ; and the Christian Church from the 
fourth to the sixteenth century, 383-387 ; 
objection to, 486, 487, 489, 490, 492, 493 ; 
philological objection of the friends of, 
against the authority of the Lord s day, 
531-533. 

8abbath-bre.aker, The punishment of, by 
death, obligatory only under the Jewish 
dispensation, 343, 535. 

Sabbatarians, or those who hold the continued 
obligation of the seventh-day Sabbath. See 
Sabbath, The seventh day or Saturday Sab 
bath. 

Saeco, Reinerus, an apostate from the Wal- 
denses. his account of their opinions, 16. 

Saints, The great number of, commemorated | 
by holidays, 14. 

Saints Days. See Holidays. 

Sailer, William, held the perpetuity of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, 142. 

Saltmarsh, John, held that every day is alike, 
142 ; answered by Samuel Rutherford, 162. 

Sampson, Dr. Thomas, his sentiments on the 
Sabbath, 43. 

Sanderson, Dr. Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, 
his Sovereign Antidote against Sabbatarian 
Errors, in which he defends recreations on 
the Lord s day, 134 ; regards the Fourth 
Commandment as a Jewish and temporary 
ordinance, 136. 

Saracens, The. 359. 

Sardica, Council of, 3G1. 

Saturnalia, The, 361, 363. 

Saxony, Chamber of Deputies in, 599. 

Saxony, Confession of, its doctrine as to the 
Sabbath, 406, 411, 416. 

Scaliger, Joseph Justus, Professor of Belles 
Lettres at Leyden, 100, 364. 

Schmucker, Dr. S. S., of America, 157. 

Schools, Parish, 192; Sabbath, 187, 220. 

Sehotanus, Christian, Professor of Greek and 
Church History in the University of Frane- 
ker, 107. 

Science and arts, The expedient of devoting 
the Sabbath to the study of, 499-502. 

Scientific men and the Sabbath, 561. 

Scoresby, Captain (Rev. Dr. Win.), his testi 
mony to the connexion between the observ 
ance of the Sabbath and secular success, 
*51, 552. 

Scot, William, minister of Cupar, in Fife, 26. 

Scott, Dr. John, 432. 

Scott, Rv. Thomas, 473. 

Scott, Sir Walter ; animadversions on his 
Talcs of My Landlord, 453, 454 ; his testi 
mony in favour of the Sab. bath, 474, 475. 

Scotland, Holidays abolished in, at the Re 
formation, 18, 413, 46S ; introduction of 
prelacy and holidays into, 22, 26 ; the claims 
of the Sabbath more fully recognised in, 
than in any other Protestant land, 32, 33 ; 
the doctrine of the Church of, on the Sab 
bath, the same from the Reformation to the 
present time, 157 ; influences by which 
Sabbath obsarvances in, have been impaired, 



158 ; Acts for the protection of the Sabbath 
passed in Parliament and ecelesiasticaJ 
courts of, 158-160 ; ministers of the Church 
in, have contributed the most to make it a 
Sabbath-keeping country, 160, 161 ; its in 
fluence on the summoning of the Long Par 
liament, 162 ; writers in defence of the Sab 
bath in, 162-168, 176 ; strength of domestic 
attachments in, 235, 241 ; prevailing tran 
quillity in, owing to the Sabbath, 250, 451, 
Sabbath in, from first Reformation till aftc-I 
the Revolution, 504-507. 

Seceders in Scotland, 204; sanctification cA 
the Sabbath by, 454. 

Seeker, Thomas, Archbishop, 147. 

Sedulius, Ccelius, Scotus, 385. 

Selden, John, his sentiments on the Sabbath, 
470, 471. 

Seneca, vilifies the Sabbath of the Jews, 3 ; 
yet applauds the holidays of heathendom, 
4, 8. 

Senegambia, The inhabitants of, 360, 362 

Septenary number, Foundation of the respect 
anciently shown for, 279, 280, 365-367. 

Sessions, Kirk, their efforts against Sabbath 
desecration, 159, 160. 

Shaftesbury, Earl of, 607. 

Shakspere, 49, 249, 592. 

Sharp, John, Archbishop, his sound views on 
the Sabbath, 146. 

Shenston, J. B., perpetuity of the seventh- 
day Sabbath held by, 142. 

Shepard, Thomas, minister of Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, his work in defence of the 
Sabbath, 139, 150; his Theses Sabbaticce, 
151. 

Sherman, Rev. James, his work on the Sab 
bath. 147. 

Shore, Sir John, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, 
his testimony to the authority and value of 
the Sabbath, 434, 435. 

Simeon, Rev. Charles, of Cambridge, 470 

Sinclair, Catherine, 168. 

Sinclair, Sir John, 242, 475. 

Slave Colonies, 23*0. 

Slavonians, The Pagan, 359. 

Small, J., a Presbyter of the Episcopal Church 
of Scotland, his tract on the Sabbath, 164, 
165. 

Smith, Dr. Adam, taught the doctrine of the 
atonement in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, 
198; cause assigned by, for the superior 
morality of small religious sects, 199 ; his 
testimony to the divine authority and value 
of the Sabbath, 242, 432, 433, 475. 

Smith, Dr. Gilbert, of New York, 180. 

Smith, Mr. Hugh, 59 ; his sermon before the 
University of Cambridge against the profana 
tion of the Sabbath, 61, 62. 

Smith, John, 146. 

Smith, Nicholas, Vicar of Braughing, 146. 

Smith, Dr. Pye, 6, 473, 520. 

Smith, Dr. Southwood, 177. 

Social prosperity, Pure religion essential to, 
261-266. 

Social Science Congress in Glasgow, 255. 

Society in London for promoting the ol 
ance of the Lord s day, 429, 430, 443. 



630 



GENERAI INDEX. 



Societies, Various, for promoting the due ob 
servance of the Lord s day, 443. 444. 

Society Islar ds, Huahine, cue of, 361, 362. 

Socinianism, 554. 

Socinians, 114. 

Socrates, the historian, 11 ; his opposition to 
holidays, 15. 

Somersetshire, Violation of the Sabbath in, 
128, 127 ; endeavours of the justices of 
the peace in, for the suppression of ales on 
the Lord s day, 127, 128. 

Somerville, Dr. Andrew, his tract on the Sab 
bath, 167. 

South Sea Islands, 360, 362. 

Southey, Robert, 225. 

Sozomen, the historian, 11. 

Spain, its heavy criminal calendar, 52 ; its 
poverty, 214 ; no holy Sabbath in, 231, 565 ; 
disorganized state of the family institution 
in, 231, 232 ; annual loss to, by ker holidays, 
245 ; social disorder of, 250, 253, 258. 

Spanheim. Frederick, the younger, Professor 
of Theology at Leyden, 115, 116. 

Spencer, John, denied the obligation of the 
Fourth Commandment on Christians, 142, 
143. 

Spittlehouse, J., held the perpetuity of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, 142. 

Sports on the Lord s Day, The Declaration for, 
published by James i., in 1618, 76, 83; 
origin of, 83, 84 ; abstract of, 84-86 ; un 
paralleled atrocity of this measure, 86, 87 ; 
alarm and sorrow it produced, 87 ; its failure, 
87, 88. 

Sports on the Lord s Day, Second Declaration of, 
118-120, 128 ; 800 ministers refuse to read it 
from the pulpit, 129 ; their sufferings in con 
sequence, ib.; injury it inflicted on religion 
and morality, 130, 131, 498, 503 ; publications 
in defence of, 131-135 ; the opponents of, de 
prived of liberty to express or publish their 
sentiments, 135, 141, 424, 437, 445, 489, 
588. 

Spotswood, John, minister of Calder, after 
wards Archbishop of St. Andrews. 27, 
159. 

Sprague, Dr. William B., 474. 

Spring, Dr. Gardiner, of America, 155. 

Sprint, Dr. John, Dean of Bristol, 81. 

Sprint, Mr. John, a Puritan, and minister at 
Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, his work on 
the Sabbath described, 81, 82, 135. 

Stael, Madame de, 234. 

Stanley, Lord, 444. 

Star Chamber, 46, 88, 138. 

Stark, Dr. James, of Dennyloanhead, 429. 

State, The, Difference of sentiment as to how 
the Sabbath ought to be dealt with by, 171 ; 
has no power of enacting a weekly holiday, 
487-489, 494. 

Statesmen, Testimony of, in favour of the 
Sabbath, 473. 

StefTe, John, the first who enlarged on the 
policy of a weekly day of rest and worship, 

Stennets, The, Edward, Joseph, and Samuel, 
held the perpetual obligation of the seventh- 
day Sabbath, 142. 



Steven, Rev. Dr. William, his History of fito 
Scotch Church, Rotterdam, 92, 116, 117. 

Stevens, Rev. Dr. Wm. Bacon, of America. 
154. 

Stewart, Professor Dugald, 476. 

Stewart, Rev. James G. , 168. 

Stillingfleet, Edward, Bishop of Worcester, 
473. 

Stockwood, John, schoolmaster of Tunbridge, 
60, 61. 

Stokesley, John, Bishop of London, his senti 
ments on the Sabbath, 37. 

Stone, Dr. John S., of America, 154. 

Stopford, Dr. Edward, Archdeacon of Armagh, 



bath, 



his reply to Archbishop Wiiately on the Sab- 



Strabo, his hostility to the Jewish religion 
and Sabbath, 3. 

Strafford, Lord, 136. 

Strasburg, The Sabbath the only holiday ob 
served in, IS, 414, 468. 

Strikes, 221. 

Strong, Dr. Nathan, minister in Hartford, Con 
necticut, America, his sermons on the Sab 
bath, 153. 

Struthers, Rev. Dr. Gavin, 166. 

Struthers, John, his Poor Man s Sabbath, 166, 

Stuart, John, of Ayr, 160. 

Stuttgard Conference of 1850, 590, 591. 

Subscription of the clergy, Change in the 
articles they were required to subscribe i 
the reign of Elizabeth, 66. 

Sunday newspaper, 149. 

Swan, Mr., 211. 

Sweden, 256; disregard of the Sabbath and 
prevalent intemperance in, 512, 513, 507. 

Switzerland, 213 ; its Protestant cantons su 
perior to its Roman Catholic in industry. 
246 ; Sabbath in, 600, 601. 

Sylvius, Pastor at Amsterdam, 102. 

Symons, Jeylinger, The Sabbath defended in 
his writings, 147. 



TABOKITES, The, 386. 

Tacitus, his hostility to the Jewish religion, 
3 ; instance in which he does it justice, 5, 8. 

Tambookies, an African tribe, 262. 

Taylor, Isaac, his testimony in favour of the 
Sabbath, 173, 472. 

Taylor, Jeremy, Bishop, 24; regarded the 
Fourth Commandment as a Jewish and tem 
porary ordinance, 136, 142, 143, 337. 

Taylor, Dr. John, the Sabbath defended in his 
writings, 147. 

Taylor, John, Unitarian minister, Glasgow, 
writes against the Sabbath, 167. 

Taylor, W. B., of America, 155. 

Teellinck, or Teelling, William, minister of 
the Reformed Church in Middleburgh, hia 
successful endeavours in promoting the sanc- 
tification of the Sabbath in Zealand, 91, 425 ; 
particulars of his history, 91 -P3 ; his treatise 
on the Sabbat?i, 94-96, 98; his Necessary 
Demonstration c^ncei-ning the Present AJftii:ted 
Staie of God s People, &lt;JS, 99 : his death, 99, 
101, 761. 

Teignmouth, Lord. See Shore, Sir Joha. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



631 



TsrtulHan, writes in defence of the Lord s day 
against the Jews, 8, 9 ; incorrect interpreta 
tion put upon his sentiments as to the Sab 
bath, 10 ; his testimony against the obser 
vance of Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, by 
Christians, 11 ; vindicates the Christians 
from the charge of practising immorality at 
their meetings on the Sabbath, 12, 363 ; his 
testimony that the first day of the week was 
sacredly observed by the Christians, 374- 
381, 383. 

Testament, Old, inspired equally with the New, 
515, 516. 

Thacker, Mr. Elias, executed in the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth for circulating a work 
against the Book of Common Prayer, 57, 75. 

Theatres, leave granted to magistrates by 
Queen Elizabeth to raze them to the ground, 
44, 50 ; a regular theatre established under 
her authority, 51. 

Theatrical performances, The Sabbath dese 
crated by, before the Court of Charles i., 
130, 131 ; ecclesiastical measures against, on 
the Sabbath, 392, 395. See Plays. 

Theodore, of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canter 
bury CA.D. 668), 402. 

Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus (A.D. 429), 383, 384. 

Theodulph, Bishop of Orleans (A.D. 794), 394. 

Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch (A.D. 181), 374. 

Theophylact, Archbishop of Acridia (A. D. 1077), 



Thomas, William, his publication on the Sab 
bath, 145. 

Thomson, Dr. Andrew, St. George s Church, 
Edinburgh, 28. 

Thomson, Dr. Andrew, of Broughton Place 
Church, Edinburgh, 167, 169. 

Thomson, Rev. John, Leith, hia publications 
on the Sabbath, 167. 

Thorn, William, his treatise on the Sabbath, 148. 

Thysius, Antonius, Professor of Divinity in 
the University of Leyden, 94 ; his sentiments 
on the Sabbath, 95. 

Tillain, Thomas, held the perpetuity of the 
seventh-day Sabbath, 142, 144. 

Tillotson, John, Archbishop, 473. 

Time, Duty of redeeming, 332, 333. 

Titus, the Roman Emperor, his assaults on 
Jerusalem made on Sunday, 371. 

Tolet, Cardinal, maintained that the Sabbath 
is merely an ecclesiastical appointment, 35, 
423. 

Tonstall, Cuthbert, Bishop of London, his sen 
timents on the Sabbath, 37. 

Traders and the Sabbath, 501. 

Trajan, The Emperor, 372. 

Traske, John, maintained the obligation of 
the seventh-day Sabbath, 88 ; sentence 
passed upon him by the Star Chamber, ib. ; 
his recantation, 89, 122, 142. 

Traske, Mrs., wife of the preceding, impri 
soned fifteen years for holding the same 
opinions as her husband, 88. 

Travers, Walter, Provost of Trinity College, 
Dublin, 35 ; held the moral and perpetual 
obligation of the Sabbath, 118. 

Trefiry, Richard, his publication on the Sab 
bath. 148. 



Treleatius, Lucas, his sentiments on the Sab. 
bath, 93. 

Trent, Council of, Abuses of the Church of 
Rome stereotyped by, 20 ; its doctrine as 
to the Sabbath, 422, 423. 

Trosse, George, of Exeter, his treatise in de 
fence of the Lord s day, 144. 

Trullo, Council in, 391. 

Trypho, a Jew, Justin Martyr s Dialogue 
with, 8, 377 ; uncertain whether a real or 
fictitious person, 8. 

Twisse, Dr. William, 53, 74, 75 ; his answer to 
Thomas Rogers attack upon Bownd s work 
on the Sabbath, 76-79, 81 ; refused to read 
and condemned from the pulpit James i. s 
Declaration for Sports on the Lord s day, 
87 ; his animadversions on the evil tendency 
of Dr. Rivet s doctrine on the Sj^bath, 
106 ; answers Dr. Prideaux s Latin oration 
against the Sabbath, 121, 133 ; his Morality 
of tJie Fourth Commandment, and its ability, 
138 ; letter of Archbishop Ussher to, in de 
fence of the doctrine of the Irish articles, 
140, 415, 428, 584, 588. 

Tyndale, William, translator of the Bible, his 
erroneous sentiments on the Sabbath, 35, 
36, 464 ; manner in which he spent the 
Sabbath at Antwerp, 36, 56 ; is assassi 
nated, 36 ; his dying prayer for Henry viu , 
ib. 

U 

UDEMANN, Godfrey, minister at Zierikzee, his 
works on Ethics, in which he treats of the 
moral and perpetual obligation of the Sab 
bath, 92, 93 ; urges Walseus to publish his 
treatise on the Sabbath, 99, 100 ; his de 
scription of James Burs s work against the 
Sabbath, 100 ; congratulates Walseus on 
the publication of his treatise on the Sab 
bath, 101, 102. 

Uitenbogart, John, 101. 

Ulster. See Ireland. 

Uniformity, Act of, passed in 1662. 

Unitarianism, its approximation to infidelity, 
264 ; its want of diffusive and moral 
power, 265. 

United Provinces, 145. See Netherlands. 

United Secession Church, Warning of, against 
Sabbath profanation, 440, 441. 

United States of America. See America, 
United States of. 

Ursinus, Zacharias, 60 ; his Catechism, 412. 

Ussher, James, Archbishop, 25 ; effect of 
some notes of Perkins sermons on him 
when a boy, 65, 66 ; his encomium on Mr. 
John Dod, 70, 138 ; wrote in defence of the 
Sabbath, 140, 330, 473. 

Utrecht, 97 ; flourishing state of University 
and Church of, about the middle of tho 
seventeenth century, 108 ; Sabbath more 
strictly observed at, than in other parts of 
the Netherlands, 108-112. 



VAUD, Canton tie, superior in industry and 
prosperity to the neighbouring Roraaa 
Catholic cantons. 246, 247. 



632 



GENEEAL INDEX. 



Venn, Henry, author of the Complete Duty of 
Man, 225, 552. 

Venn, Rev. John, 182. 

Victoria, Queen, 167, 589, 604, 607. 

Victorine, his testimony against the obser 
vance of Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, by 
Christians, 11, 376. 

Vigilautius, a Presbyter of Barcelona, de 
nounces the abuses connected with vigils 
and festivals, 16. 

Villerne, M., 174. 

Virct, Peter, effects the removal of holidays 
from Geneva, ] 7, 409, 414. 

Vitringa, Campegius, his Aphorisms, anno 
tated, referred to, 1. 

Voetius, Gisbertus, Professor at Utrecht, his 
answer to Burs s work against the Sabbath, 
96 ; ""notice of, 97 ; pasquinade directed 
against, 97, 114-116. 

Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet De, 219. 

Vulcanius, Bonaventura, Professor of Greek 
Literature at Leyden, 95. 

W 

WAITE, J., wrote in support of the Sabbath, 
146. 

Wakes, kept on the Lord s dav, Origin of, 
126, 128. 

Walaeus, Antonius, Professor of Theology in 
the University of Leyden, 93-96; letter of 
Teellinck to, urging him to publish his 
treatise on the Sabbath, 9S ; letter to the 
same effect from Udemarmtc, 99, 100 ; notice 
of, 100, 101 ; publishes his Treatise on the 
Sabbath, 101 ; is congratulated by Ude- 
mann on its publication, 101, 102 ; posi 
tions maintained in it, 102 ; its defects, 
ib. ; his answer to Gomar s Investigation of 
the Sabbath, 103, 104, 106, 107. 

Walcheren, 91, 92, 100. See Zealand. 

Waldenses, The, opposed to holidays, 16, 204, 
386 ; their strict observance of the Sabbath, 
403, 404. 

Walker, Mr. George, Rector of St. John the 
Evangelist, London, received canonical ad 
monition from Laud for recommending from 
the pulpit the observance of the Sabbath, 
135 ; his work in defence of the Sabbath, 
138 ; held that the primitive Sabbath was 
posterior to the fall of Adam, 144. 

Walker, Samuel, Curate of Truro, 147. 

Wallis, Dr. John, his two tracts in defence of 
the Sabbath, 145, 531, 532 ; his defective 
doctrine on the Sabbath, 146, 428, 472. 

Walpole, Robert, Earl of Orford, Moral and 
religious condition of English society in the 
time of, 504. 

Wardlaw, Dr. Ralph, his Discourses on the 
Sabbath, 166, 169, 473, 584. 

Warren, Edmund, minister of St. Peter s in 
Colchester, his Jewish Sabbath Antiquated, 
character of that work, 144. 

Warren, Dr. John C., of Boston, ISO. 

Warren, Samuel, D.C.L., 579. 

Washington, George, 473. 

Watts, Dr. Isaac, Sabbatic institution, de 
fended in his writings, 146, 147. 

Wayland, Dr. Francis, of America, 154 



Wealth, The welfare of a country promoted 
by, 242 ; the Sabbath contributes to, 243. 

Weber, Carl Maria von, 176. 

Weeks, or the division cf tirne into periods 
of seven days ; this among the Patriarchs, 
implied the existence of the Sabbath, 280, 
281 ; and, among the nations of antiquity, 
traceable to the institution of the Sab 
bath, 364, 365. 

Wesmse, John, of Lathooker, his Exposition of 
the Laws of Moses, the fust Scottish work 
that treats with considerable fulness of 
the Sabbath, 162, 169. 

Webster, Dr. W., Vicar of Ware, his sentiment* 
on the Sabbath, 147. 

Welch, John, minister of Ayr, his reply to 
Gilbert Brown, 115 ; his zeal for the Sab 
bath, 160, 161, 442. 

Wells, John, his publication on the Sabbath, 
145, 417. 

Wemyss, Thomas, his publication on the Sab 
bath, 166. 

Wesley, John, 428 ; sanctification of the Sab 
bath by the converts of, 452. 

Wesleyan Methodists, direction in their regu 
lations concerning the observance of the 
Lord s day, 441. 

Westminster Assembly called together by the 
Long Parliament, 138, 139, ; doctrine of, as 
to the Sabbath, 425-428, 439. 

Westminster Confession of Faith, adopted by 
the Churches in New England, 151, 152 ; 
adopted by the General Assembly of the 
Church of Scotland in 1647, 159, 162, 428, 
429. 

Whately, Bichard, Archbishop, Obligation of 
the Fourth Commandment on Christians 
denied by, 142, 143, 489 ; authors who have 
replied to, 148. 577, 578, 584. 

Whitaker, William, Professor of Divinity, at 
Cambridge, 95. 

White, Francis, Bishop of Ely, an opponent of 
the Divine authority of the Sabbath, 79, 118, 
125 ; publication of his Treatise of tlie Sab- 
bath, 132 ; anti-Sabbatic character of that 
work, 133-136. 

White, John, Rector of Trinity Church, and 
usually called the "patriarch" of, Dor 
chester, his valuable Dissertation on the 
Sabbath, 139. 

Whiteh eld, George, 428 ; sanctification of the 
Sabbath by the converts of, 452. 

Whitgift, Robert, Archbishop, his works on 
the question of the ceremonies, 24 ; his 
sentiments on the Sabbath, 43, 52 ; calls 
in Bownd s Sabbatum, 53 ; pomp affected 
by, in his numerous retinue, 54 ; his se 
vere treatment of the Puritan ministers 
condemned by Lord Burghley, 54 ; stifles 
the writings of the Puritans, 61, 62 ; his 
three articles to which subscription was 
required, 61, 66 ; took measures for the 
suppression of Bcwnd s Treatise on the Sab 
bath, 74, 75, 79, 80. See Hampton Court 
Conference. 

Whitsun-ales, 85. 

Widley, George, minister in Portsmouth, hii 
work on the Sabbath, 71. 



GENERAL INDEX. 



633 



Wilbcrforce, William, 178, 181, 182, 210,, 219, 

225. 226, 474, 476, 551, 586, 588, 607. 
Wilkie, Sir David, 181. 
Wilkins, John, Bishop of Chester, 73. 
Wilkinson, Dr. Heury, his Dissertation on the 

Sabbath, 140. 
Willard, Samuel, minister of Boston, New 

England, 152. 
Willet, Dr. Andrew, his Commentary on Genesis, 

74; held Dr. Bownd s sentiments on the 

Sabbath, 77, US. 

William in., Prince of Orange, 249. 
William iv., Act in his reign for promoting the 

due observance of the Sabbath, 437. 
Williams, John, Bishop of Lincoln, afterwards 

Archbishop of York, his sympathy with the 

suffering Puritans, 23. 
Williams, John, 597. 
Will i son, John, of Dundee, his treatise on the 

Sabbath, 165, 169. 
Wilson, Dr. Daniel, Bishop of Calcutta, his 

work on the Sabbath, 148, 154, 166, 429. 
Wilson, Thomas, minister of Otham in Kent, 

sent for to Lambeth, and examined for hav 
ing declined to read from the pulpit the 

Second Declaration of Sports, 129 ; his noble 

defence, 129, 130. 
Withers, Dr. George, his View of the marginal 

notes in the Popish New Testament, printed 

at Rheims, 63. 
Witsius, Hermann, his veneration for Andrew 

Essen, his preceptor and father in the Lord, 

no. 

Wittenberg, Conference at, for promoting the 
observance of the Sabbath, 599. 

Wodrow, Robert, minister of Eastwood, 115. 

Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal, his unsuccessful 
attempt to put an end to ministers acting 
miracle plays, 49 ; reference to the pomp af 
fected by, 54. 

Woman, owes to the Bible the practical recog 
nition of her just claims, 228 ; evil conse 
quences wherever she has been degraded, 
229, 230. 

Woods, Rev. Dr. Leonard, of America, 154. 

Woodstock, Royal Palace of, 89. 

Woodward, Hezekiah, his work in defence of 
the Sabbath, 139. 

Woolwich lectures, The, 148. 

Word of God, Rules to be observed for its 
right interpretation, 515, 520, 539, 543, 544 ; 
all vicars required to read it in the vernacu 
lar tongue to the people down to 1360, 392 
(see Bible) ; preaching of, next to prayer, the 
most important remedy for Sabbath dese 
cration, 580. 

Wordsworth, William, 592. 

Working classes, Average duration of the lives 
of the, shorter than that of those of the higher 
and middle, in Britain and France, 174 ; a 
principal cause of this, protracted labour, 
174-176 ; the Sabbath a clear gain to, 209, 
269 ; public -worship habitually neglected by 
vast numbers of, 561-563 ; essays on the Sab 
bath by, 584, 603 ; the Sabbath the charter 



of, 605, 606.. See Essays, Prize, on the Sab 
bath. 

Works, Good, Failure of the mere preaching 
of, to produce good morals, 197, 265, 266. 

Worship, Public, could not exist without the 
Sabbath, 202 ; prevalence of, among the 
patriarchs, implied the obligation and ob 
servance of the Sabbath, 281, 282 ; forms a 
part of the duties of the Sabbath, 324; 
waiting upon enforced, 325, 326 ; reason 
assigned by the Fathers for standing dur- 
the time of prayer in, 389, 397. 398. 

Worthington, Thomas, writer of the notes in 
the Rhemes New Testament, 62. 

Wotton, Rev. William, his views of the Sab 
bath, 146. 

Wright, H. C. , of America, writes against the 
Sabbath, 167. 

Wright, Dr. Samuel, his work on the Sab 
bath, 146. 

Wiirtemburg, Confession of, Feast of Lent re 
jected by, 413. 

Wycliffe, John, opposed to holidays, 16 ; held 
the moral obligation of the Fourth Com 
mandment, 38, 386 ; observations of, on the 
sanctification of the Sabbath, 390. 

Wyncup, N. , held the perpetual obligation of 
the seventh-day Sabbath, 142. 



YOUNG, James, his publication on the Sab 
bath, 169. 

Young, Dr. Thomas, vicar of Stowmarket, 
in Suffolk, his Dies Dominica, special 
merits of that work, 163 ; notice of, ib.; 
elegy on, and letters to, by John Milton, 
164, 169, 384. 

Younger, John, shoemaker, St. Boswell s 
Green, 167. 

York, New, Sabbath reform effected in, 602, 
603. 



ZANCHIUS, Jerome, his sentiments on the Sab 
bath, 409. 

Zealand, Successful endeavours of William 
Teellinck for Sabbath observance in, 91, 
161 ; Sabbatic controversy in the Nether 
lands took its rise in 1618 among the mini 
sters of, 92, 93 ; is again agitated on the 
question of the Sabbath, 96, 101. See 
Netherlands. 

Zealand, New, Success of missionaries in 
planting the institution of the Sabbath 
among the natives of, 595, 597. 

Zealanders, The New, 263. 

Zuinglius, Ulric, the Reformer of Switzerland, 
33 ; principles of true liberty not altogether 
x;nknown to, 54; his sentiments on the 
Sabbath, 409, 414 ; held the Lord s day as 
coming under the authoritative direction 
of the Fourth Commandment, 419, 420, 
464. 

Zurich, Reformed Church of, discarded twelve 
feast days of Rome, 19, 414.. 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



GENESIS. 
Cfep. Ver. Page 


Chap. Ver. 
xvi. 10, . . . . 
xviii. 18, 21, . . . . 


Page 
312 
535 


Chap. Ver. ?*& 
cxxiv. . . . 353, 354 
cxxxiv. . . 447 


i. 5 519 

ii. 1-3,.. 275, 517,527, 
529, 540 
2, 3, .... 114 
3, ... 10, 77 
iii. 17, 19, .... 318 
iv. 3 .... 282 


I. SAMUEL. 

ii. 25 
xxv. 9, . . . . 


337 
276 


PROVERBS, 
iii. 5, 6 544 
iv. 1-4, . . . .328 
xv. 24, .... 609 
xxix. 17, .... 585 


tfj ...... ,, 279 

viii. .... 280 
ix. 6, .... 541 
25, 27, .... 543 
sviii. 19, . . 534, 585 
xxix. 27, 28, .... 280 


II. SAMUEL. 
vi. 20 

I. KINGS. 
xiL 33, . . . . 


197 
30 


xxx. 6 30 

ECCLESIASTES. 

iii. 7, . . . .525 
ix. 16, .... 212 


EXODUS. 

vi. 1, 4, 5, . . . . 284 
xvL . . 527, 528 


II. KINGS. 

iv. 23 
xxL 1-9, . . . . 


524 

521 


x. 15 260 

ISAIAH, 
i. 13, .... 461 


xx. 2 542 






ii. 2, 3, . . . . 548 


4, 5, .... 30 
5, .... 542 


x. 5 


533 


xxxv. 10, .... 353 


8,.. 222, 285, 322, 
528 


xxxiii. 12-19 


521 


Ii. 15, 16, .. . . 349 
liv. 2 480 
IvL 1-7, .... 346 


9-11, . . 285, 319 
11, . . 277, 528 
12, . . 471, 542 
xxiii. .... 527 


NEHEMIAH. 

ix. 13, 14, .. . 

xiii. 18, . . . . 


533 
341 


2 549 

6, . . . .549 
2-7 441 
7, .... 548 


xxxi. 14, 15, .... 342 
15, .... 535 
17, .... 276 
xl. .... 30 


ESTHER. 

iv. 16 
v. 1, . . . . 


633 
533 


Iviii. 13,.. 461, 536, 549, 
558 
13, 14,.. 266, 337, 347, 
441, 552 


1. 10, .... 280 

LEVITICUS. 

xix. 30, .... 202 
xxiii. 3, . . . .536 


JOB. 

i. 6, . . 281, 
ii. 1, . . 281, 
13 


282 
282 
280 


14, . . 549, 550 
Ixv. 20, .... 282 
20-22, .... 257 
21, 23, .... 298 
Ixvi. 22, 23, .... 546 
23,.. 257, 298, 300, 


NUMBERS. 

xv. 32-36, . . .343 
xxviu. 9, 10 536 
15, .... 446 


iv. 3, . . . . 
xxx, 28, . . . . 

XXXV. 1, . . . . 

PSALMS. 


282 
282 
276 


554 

JEREMIAH 

vii. 22, 23, .... 288 
xvii. 24, 25, .... 552 


DEUTERONOMY. 

1-7. 2 30 
v. 22, 31, .... 287 
vi. 4, 9, . . 534, 535 
xil. 32, .... 30 
xvi 2 523 


xix. 11, .... 
xxii. 27, 28, .... 
xxv. 14, .... 
xxvii. 4, .... 
xxxiii. 12, .... 
xcii. . . 884, 388, 
cxix. 18, .... 


447 
553 
543 
351 
553 
408 
544 


24-26, .... 347 

LAMENTATIONS. 

i. 7, . . 8,n.,525 
ii. 6, . . 525,626 
V it . . 3.*. 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



635 



EZEKIEL. 

Chap. Ver. Page 
Xiv. 4, . . . .113 
xx. 10, 12, .... 533 
13-24, .... 343 
xxiii. 38, 39, . . 557, 558 
xxvi. 4, . . . .536 
xliii. 27, . . 302, 547, 554 
xlvL 4, 5, . . . . 327 

DANIEL. 

f l,vi. .... 5 

ii. 21, .... 482 
vii. 25, .... 488 
xi. 32, .... 253 


Chap. Ver. Page 
x. 16, . . 315 
xi. 34, 35, . . 544 
xiii. 16, . . 342 
xvi. 31, . . 541 
xx. 26, . . 532 
xxi. 18,20,21, . 371 
20, . . 371 
xxiii. 56, . . 531 
xxiv. 7, . . 533 
36,38,39, . 308 

JOHN. 

v. 10, etc., . . .423 
vii. 17, .... 543 


GALATIANS. 

Chap. Ver. Page 
iii. 10, .... 294 
iv. 9-11, . . 304, 315 

EPHESIANS. 

iv. 10, .... 384 
28, . . 219, 220 
vi. 1-3, . . 296, 542, 543 
4, .... 585 

PHILIPPIANS. 
iv. 3, . . 303, 304 


HOSEA 


,, 22, etc., . . .422 
22, .... 534 
ix. 16 608 


COLOSSIANS. 
ii. 16, 17, . 10, 303, 304, 


vi 6, .... 288 

AMOS. 

Till 4, 5, . . 557 
5, . . 441, 526 


xx. 19-26, . . 309, 310 

ACTS. 

i. 2, . . 63 
v. 38, 39, . . 267, 273 
ix. 20, . . . . 306 


538, 539 
iii. 16, .... 328 
iv. 16 325 

I. THESSALONIANS. 

iv. 1, 2, . . . 315 

V 27 325 


MICAH. 
L 5, .... 233 

MALACHI. 

L 11, .. 553, 554 
12, .... 557 
, 13 14 . . 441 


x. 27, .... 311 
xiii. 14-16 306 
27, .... 325 
42,.. 303, 532, n. 
xv. 10, .... 288 
19 10 
20, .... 325 
24,28,29, . . .315 


II. TIMOTHY. 

i. 5 329 
iii. 15 329 

HEBREWS, 
iv 3 4 9 10 529 


iv. 4, .... 30 


xvii. 1-3, . . . .306 


9, . . 349, 477 


MATTHEW. 


xx. 6, 12, . . 310, 311 
7,.. 310, 392, 531 
xxi 4, 5, . . . . 310 


9, 10, . 308, 529 
viii. 11, .... 541 
13 7 


v. 17-19 295 
18, .... 546 
vii. 16, .... 543 
xi. 28-30, .... 610 
xii. 1, etc., .... 423 
5, .... 560 
,, 8, . . 482, 488 
xix. 16-19, .... 296 
xxii. 37-40, . . . .296 


25, .... 10 
xxiv. 25, .... 202 

ROMANS. 

ii. 14, 15, .... 293 
iii. 1, 2, . . 288, 293 
31 206 


X. 25, .... 311 
,, 25, 26, . . 325, 326 
25-31, .... 344 

JAMES. 

i. 5-7, . . 544, 545 
ii. 10, .... 294 
10, 1], .... 297 


xxiiL 23, .... 288 
xxiv. 15, .... 371 
20,.. 303, 371, 372, 
532, n. 
xxvii. 63, . . . . 533 
Txviii. 1, . . . .531 


v. 13, .... 534 
vii. 6, . . . .294 
12, . . 288, 296 
14, .... 288 
22, .. 288, 295 
xiii. 9, . . . .296 


II. PETER, 
iii. 10, .... 193 

I. JOHN. 


MAEK. 

ii. 27, . . 529, 5BO 
iv. 34 329 


xiv. ,, . . . .138 
5, 6, .... 305 


iv. 6 315 

REVELATION, 
i . 41 


vii. 10, 11, . ... 295 
viii. 31, .... 533 


ix. 10 529 


10, . 63, 64, 313, 
327 431 


ziii. 14, .... 371 
xvi. 19, . . 308, 531 

LUKE. 


x. 14. . . 420 
xi. 17, IS, . . . 311 
xiv. 23, 26 311 
,, 37, .... 315 
xv. 4, . . . .533 


iv. 8,10,11, . . .350 
V. 8-10, . . 350, 351 
9-14, . . .354 
viL 10, .. . 352 
,, 14, 15, .. . 353 


IL 21, . . 532, 533 
tv. 18-41, . . . .321 


xvi. .... 41 
1, 2, . . 812, 351 


xiii. 8, . . . 492 
xxi. 28, . . .358 



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