should have been said definitely. Some may desire the precision of the Jewish religion. I rather hold 570 with Dr. Stanley, that the omission of particularity is one of the characteristics of the New Testament, and one of the strongest guarantees that the religion which it inculcates may be spread everywhere. The Lord's Day at the death of St. John presented the features of periodical assembling for prayer, thanksgiving, partaking in the Christian mysteries, and religious instruction. Charity to the brethren, and thoughts upon Divine things, were other employments of it. Nothing was said of rest; but rest, so far as those times admitted, from worldly employments was no doubt a feature of it, from the nature of Him whom they worshipped, from the necessity of the case, from the physical demands of the body, from the analogy of the Jewish law, from the example of the Creator,-considerations which the Apostles must have had before them when under Divine direction they observed a Lord's Day.

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Such a Lord's Day as this, was, I think, contemplated by the Apostles, and observed by them and by the early Church, and intended to be adopted by the Church of England. At any rate, for reasons which I have given, I believe the theory now set forth to be less exposed to objections than any other theory. My two next Lectures will enter upon the controversies which have beset the subject on the Continent and in England

from the Reformation until now. And the last Lecture will be occupied with the Question, How shall the Lord's Day be so observed as to benefit man both in body and soul, until he pass

"To where beyond these voices there is peace." 371

LECTURE VI.

JEREMIAH V. 10.

GO YE UP UPON HER WALLS, AND DESTROY; BUT MAKE NOT A FULL END; TAKE AWAY HER BATTLEMENTS; FOR THEY ARE NOT THE LORD'S.

̓Ανάβητε ἐπὶ τοὺς προμαχώνας αὐτῆς, καὶ κατασκάψατε, συντέλειαν δὲ οὐ μὴ ποιήσετε. ὑπολίπεσθε τὰ ὑποστηρίγματα αὐτῆς, ὅτι τοῦ Κυρίου εἰσίν. Jer. v. 10: ex Vers. LXX.

GO YE UP UPON HER BATTLEMENTS, AND DESTROY; BUT MAKE NOT A FULL END; LEAVE HER UNDERWORKS; FOR THEY ARE THE LORD'S.

You will remember that at the conclusion of my Third Lecture I made this statement: "That the Reformation found the Lord's Day obscured by a sort of Sabbatarianism established on an Ecclesiastical foundation." I explained this to mean, that by the time that movement commenced, the Church of Rome, having forgotten the Apostolical and Divine origin of the Lord's Day and its singular claim to the regard of Christians, had surrounded it with a crowd of other days obviously of inferior claims to regard, and loaded both it and them with most vexatious restrictions. Having done this, she had found herself obliged to discover some sanction for them which should bind men's consciences. The attribute of infallibility indeed, which, in her view, invests

with Divine authority what we should call Ecclesiastical in the lower sense of the word, might have answered her purpose. She might, consistently enough, have rested on this only. But man's reasoning powers could not be entirely ignored, or his desire for something like Scripture precedent entirely repressed. Besides, it seemed a safer course not to exercise directly her assumed right of adding to the Word of God. The same object might be attained by accommodation of the enactments of the older dispensation to that of Christianity. The number of special days, and the observances provided for them, were such as already to exhibit a likeness to Judaism, and in fact were a conscious or unconscious imitation of Judaism. It was but one step further to lay down, formally, that Christian institutions were the legitimate and antitypical successors of those of the Jews, and, mutatis mutandis, to inculcate as far as possible, not merely the scriptural, but the traditional manner of observing Jewish institutions.

So far as the elaboration of a system went, the Church of Rome was perfectly successful. Christian men were thoroughly entangled in it, and if they tried to carry it out, to live it, (so to speak), they were hampered at every turn. So far, however, as practice went, the strictness of the provisions supplied produced an effect the reverse of what was intended. Human nature rebelled

against it. The days now made co-ordinate, or nearly so, both as to origin and as to observance, with the Lord's Day, were either not kept at all as holy days, (they were too numerous for that,372 compatibly with the business of life), or they became holidays of the worst kind, mere excuses for licentiousness. And the desecration of these involved with it the desecration of the Lord's Day. The multitude did not pause to make subtle distinctions. Perhaps the Lord's Day was even worse observed than the other days, for, in spite of the Church, men had a vague impression that it was one of specially allowed intermission of ordinary employments. This they interpreted to mean of more special permission of dissipation than the other days noted in the kalendar.

Irregular and partial protests about this state of things, (which was the growth of centuries), had from time to time, as we have seen, been uttered. But it was reserved for the sixteenth century to witness a more general protest against the Church of Rome, both in this matter, and in other matters which need not be entered upon here. How that general protest affected the Lord's Day upon the Continent, what it did and what it omitted to do, to what causes such omission is to be traced, and with what lasting results it has been attended, and finally, what has been the state of feeling and practice on the subject from that time to the present, I propose to consider to-day. The