used without either volatilizing that particular Commandment or impairing the authority of the Decalogue as in general moral.

That the position" that the Fourth Commandment is binding in the very letter, and is par excellence the ground for the observance of our weekly festival, proves too much, for it would drive us either to the observance of Saturday, (as the advanced and more consistent Sabbatarians urged), or, at the very least, to a Judaic observance of the Lord's Day.

That Sabbatarianism, the strange varieties of which really demand serious notice, is a return not merely to Judaism but to theoretic Romanism.

That the mention 46 of God's rest after the Creation in the Fourth Commandment, and the introduction of the word "Remember," do not prove that the Patriarchs observed or even knew of a Sabbath before Moses used the words, "To-morrow is a Sabbath," &c.

That this assertion 47 is quite compatible with the existence of an hebdomadal division of time anterior to the days of Moses.

48

That it is strengthened by the fact that the heathen were never reproached with the non-observance of the Sabbath, which we may presume they would have been, had the obligation to observe it been a moral one, i.e. a matter of natural law.

That the Sabbath," as it appears in the Fourth Commandment, was of the nature of a positive ordinance on the part of the Almighty, and as a positive ordinance was capable of being annulled by the same authority, when it had served its purpose, without alteration in the constitution of His creatures; and that this is not the only instance of the occurrence of something positive in a table generally moral.

50

Yet, that the occurrence of a commandment to keep

the Sabbath, in a table generally moral, implies that there is a moral element in that commandment, (not a moral tendency merely, for this would embrace every type and ceremony, but a moral element), viz. an obligation, cognizable by the moral sense, to devote some time, perhaps even a periodically recurring time, to God's service, and, inferentially, to rest from worldly occupations as a necessary condition to the performance of such obligation.

That the Sabbath 51 as it appears in the Fourth Commandment, was a development of such moral element in a manner suited to a particular people, and being thus rendered political and ceremonial, does not, in that form, come under the precepts that are called moral.

Yet that the political and ceremonial elements 52 may be abolished, the moral element remaining and being developed in a different way by Christianity.

53

That the Creation labour and rest 63 were exemplary, typical, and consolatory, and were so understood by the writers of Holy Scripture and by the Fathers-the antitheses being

Labour and rest generally.

Israelitic labour in Egypt and in the Wilderness, and rest in Canaan.

The Old Dispensation and the New.

The Christian's labour on earth, and the Divine peace which alleviates it.

The Christian's general course in this world, and his rest in the world to come.

That to state the Divine institution and Apostolical observance of the Lord's Day as we have stated them, is a very different thing from making the sacred character of

the day depend upon merely Ecclesiastical authority; yet that, in the highest sense of the word, such institution and observance may be designated as Ecclesiastical.

That though the Sabbath,55 as an ordinance, has passed away, and though neither Apostles nor early writers allude to it or to the Fourth Commandment as a precedent or as the ground for observing the Lord's Day, we may conceive the analogy of them to have been among the reasons which determined the proportion of time which should be the Lord's.

That the same analogy may direct us, though in a much fainter degree, because of the different characters of the two dispensations, to the employments and enjoyments suitable or not unsuitable to the Lord's Day.

That on the Sabbath itself 57 there appears to have been a greater liberty of employment and enjoyment than is generally supposed; and that our Lord, so far as He dealt with it, concerned Himself, not with proving that it was about to expire, (this it was to do, of course, when the ceremonial and political laws generally were to expire), but in purifying it from superstitions, in making it practically useful so long as it should last, and in redeeming it from the charge of enjoining absolute inactivity.

That still, though the Lord's Day 58 is not to be Judaic in the way of over-strictness, it is not to be Judaic, (in the sense in which the later Jews were often reproached by the Fathers for the use of their Sabbaths), in the way of license, i.e. it is not to be a mere gala-day, as on the Continent with the Romanists, and, to a great extent, even with the Protestant and Reformed Communions.

That the origin and obligation 50 of the Lord's Day being such as is supposed, Divine and Apostolic, the Church, subsequent to the age of the Apostles, has not, (as Calvin and others imagined), ability to remove it to any other day in the week, but that her authority over it extends to

arrangement of its services and recommendation of employments upon it, provided that "the diversity of countries and men's manners" is considered, and nothing is enjoined, of obligation, incompatible with the "law of liberty."

60

That the Lord's Day being intended for the visible Church, in which evil is ever mingled with the good, it is not very reasonable to urge that it would be better if we could do without it. This might be so; but then the present state of things would have disappeared.

That the civil power1 should interfere as little as possible with the observance of the Lord's Day, but that, a due regard being had to the compound nature of man, it may fairly prohibit on that day what offers men profound temptations to forget their souls or to wear out their bodies.

Yet that, even here, care should be taken that there be not one law for the rich and another for the poor.

That the subject of prohibitions 63 should be approached both by legislators and by clergy, as practical men, (so the preacher approaches it, having lived in a great city for years), and with a due consideration for the different circumstances of town and country, and for the exigencies of society.

64

That the exercise 4 of such consideration is no compromise of principle, but a lawful and necessary discretion in a matter upon which no definite directions are found in Holy Scripture.

65

That care should be taken not to impose burthens upon men's consciences which are too heavy to be borne, or to make that a matter of right and wrong which is really a matter of expediency. And this on two principles: 1st, that to break a merely supposed obligation while it is supposed to be a real one, has a weakening effect upon the character; 2d, that an advocacy of what is right on insufficient grounds is sooner or later exposed and called a

pious fraud, and produces disgust of all pious injunctions, whether frauds or no.

66

That such an injunction as the following, if used by those who are not absolutely satisfied of the soundness of the Sabbatarian ground, is, (for truth can do no harm), a very faithless and timorous policy; "Do not loosen men's adherence to the Fourth Commandment, lest they neglect the Lord's Day altogether."

67

That, since much will, after all, be left to individuals, the law of charity should induce every one who can rest when he likes, to promote and procure rest on the Lord's Day for those who are otherwise circumstanced.

That the present states of the controversy respecting the observance of the Lord's Day is owing to these facts: first, that each side overstates a truth by the implied addition of the word exclusively; one side saying, " Men's souls are to be cared for [exclusively]," the other, " Men's bodies are to be cared for [exclusively];" and, secondly, that while the Sabbatarian ground is wrongly presumed to be the true and only ground on which the care of men's souls can be maintained, the Dominical ground is unfairly charged with leading necessarily to exclusive regard for men's bodies.

69

That in reference to such social questions as whether places of mere amusement or of secular instruction should be opened, or travelling permitted at all, or if at all in what degree, and the like, on the Lord's Day, principles should rather be sought for than exact rules.

That, on the whole, the Lord's Day, being an institution so Divine and especially Christian, so commended to us by prescription and universal adoption, even from the Apostles' time, so wonderfully preserved to us through many vicissitudes, so founded on moral obligation, so recommended to us by the analogy of the Jewish polity, so adapted a priori to the whole nature of man, so recommended a posteriori by the advantages which many ages