have been most appalling. Perhaps the words of the Homily, written some thirty-five years before, are not too strong to express it: "God was more dishonored, and the Devil better served on the Sunday, than upon all the days in the week beside." Dr. Bownd's book was designed to counteract such desecration, and it produced in many parts of the kingdom well nigh a revolution in outward practice. "It is almost incredible, (says Fuller), 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 corporations, began to be precisely kept, men becoming a law to themselves, forbearing such sports as yet by statute permitted-yea, many rejoicing at their own restraint herein."

462

It did not, indeed, escape animadversion. Archbishop Whitgift 463 condemned it in his synods and visitations, called in whatever copies he could lay his hands on, and forbade it to be reprinted. This was in A.D. 1599. Lord Chief Justice Popham did the same in A.D. 1600. Its language in reference to the other festivals occasioned the thirteenth Canon of A.D. 1603, and various severities were exercised towards those who adopted its tenets, which drove them to Holland or elsewhere. And if the immediate results of it were those mentioned by Strype, 464 no wonder that the authorities, ecclesiastical and civil, put into operation the various methods of discouraging its adherents, which at that time were employed without scruple. "It was preached in Oxfordshire, (says that writer), that to do any work on the Sabbath was as great a sin as to kill or to commit adultery. It was preached in Somersetshire, that to throw a bowl on the Sabbath Day was as great a sin as to commit murder. It was preached in Norfolk, that to make a feast or wedding dinner on that day was as great a sin as for a father to take a knife and cut his son's throat. It was preached in Suffolk, (and my author saith

that he could name the man), that to ring more bells than one on the Lord's Day, to call the people to Church, was as great a sin as to do an act of murder."

It is probable, however, that these extravagances did not develop themselves at once. The tendency of the positions contained in the book would not have been discovered directly-and it would have taken some time to carry out the tyranny of the inquisition into private life, in which it eventuated, and which an able opponent of it called "more

than either kingly or popely." 465 "Learned men," says Fuller, 466

were much divided 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 a pity to oppose them, seeing none have just reason to complain, being deceived to their own good; but a third sort flatly fell out with these positions, as galling men's necks with a Jewish yoke, against the liberty of Christians; that Christ, as Lord of the Sabbath, had removed the rigour thereof, and allowed men lawful recreation; that this doctrine put an unequal lustre on the Sunday, on set purpose to eclipse all other holy days, to the derogation of the authority of the Church; that this strict observance was set up out of faction, to be a character of difference, to brand all for libertines who did not entertain it.”

One cannot but feel somewhat surprised, that Hooker,467 generally so clear, is to a certain extent inexact in his statements on such a subject, and at such a time. I ventured in my Fourth Lecture to make some remarks upon this fact. I will only add here that the first Four Books of his Polity came out in A.D. 1592, before Dr. Bownd's performance appeared; that the Fifth Book came out in A.D. 1597, before it was fully known, at least in its dan

gerous aspect; that he was more concerned in defending the theory of other holy days, and of the Church system generally, which were speculatively assailed, than the Lord's Day, which, though practically disregarded, was in some way or other speculatively acknowledged; and that, had he gone out of the way to discuss the obligation of the Lord's Day separately, he might have appeared to symbolize with those who urged that other holy days were unlawful. This is somewhat confirmed by his language in b.v. 70. 9. "The rest (remainder) of the Festivals, they (the Puritans) say we ought to abolish, because the continuance of them doth nourish wicked superstition in the minds of men; besides, they are all abused by the Papists, the enemies of God, yea certain of them, as Easter or Pentecost even by the Jews." It is perilous to differ from such a man, but I still presume to suggest the following considerations. That his supposition that St. Paul, when writing to the Galatians, meant Sabbaths in the Jewish aspect exclusively, is unsupported by antiquity. That he has not shown how the obligation to observe one day in seven is moral in the primary sense of that word, or, if the morality of that obligation is proved by the appearance of the seventh day in the commandment, how the Sabbath may be changed in the day and manner of observance. And finally, that he has no support from antiquity for his assertion, that the Church had a right to change, or did change the day and manner of observance. Thus much, however, is satisfactory in what he says. He gives no such minute instruction for keeping the Lord's Day as can interfere with Christian liberty.

Whitgift was scarcely dead,468 (his death occurred in A.D. 1604), when a new and enlarged edition of Dr. Bownd's book was issued, in A.D. 1606. For a good while, as Fuller 469 quaintly expresses it, "not so much as a feather of a quill in print did wag against him." And Heylin

says, 470 "that in a very little time it grew the most bewitching error, the most popular deceit, that had ever been set on foot in the Church of England." Abbot, who occupied Canterbury after the short tenure of Bancroft, was by no means disposed to use very harsh measures. And those who really discerned the unsoundness of the doctrines in vogue, were probably of opinion that it was as well to take advantage of whatever good they might produce, and trust to time for the elimination of the evil. But in A.D. 1618, King James, in one of his progresses in Lancashire, had it represented to him that the people were greatly dissatisfied with the curtailment of the rude amusements on Sundays and holy days to which they had been accustomed. Their education had scarcely prepared them for anything better, and they found time hang heavily on their hands.471 He accordingly issued what was called "the Book of Sports," by which persons were allowed after churchtime on Sundays, to cultivate athletic games, and pursue such pastimes as were not in themselves unlawful. This document, which was in the form of a declaration, was to be read by clergymen during the Church Service. This was not, however, very generally enforced. Abbot refused to allow it to be read at Croydon, and it was at length silently dropped. It was, so it seems to me, most faulty in principle. By its enumeration of things permitted, it gave occasion to the same minute casuistry, which the enumeration of things forbidden had produced on the other side. But the animus which had dictated the issue of the Book of Sports continued more or less in action, and contributed to carry out that remarkable emigration to America of the men whom we generally call "the Pilgrim Fathers." As long ago as A.D. 1607, various Independents had fled from England to Holland, finding their non-conformity expose them to hardships. Here they set up what they termed "the Pilgrim Church." 473] But they

found themselves losing their nationality, and, though not persecuted, were in danger, so they expressed it, of being corrupted by the world around them. A division of them. accordingly set out from Leyden, in A.D. 1620, having been joined by some of those who objected to the Book of Sports. The observance of the Lord's Day in Holland was no more satisfactory to them than that which was now obtruded upon their brethren in England. They were, in fact, Puritans of the most austere cast. Literal interpreters of such parts of the Old Testament as they chose to consider binding upon them in consequence of the absolute morality of the Fourth Commandment, they were distressed at finding their views controverted in this particular. They allowed indeed Sunday to be substituted for the Sabbath, but the Judaism of their views would allow no more. And with the Sabbath, which they could not help seeing was the great sign between God and His people, under Judaism, and was intimately connected. with the Jewish polity, they thought themselves bound to re-introduce, so far as they could, all such positive enactments of the older covenant, as Christianity did not appear on the very surface to contradict. To erect a similar commonwealth, and with it, to re-establish "the Sabbath" in its integrity, these men had originally quitted England.

To obtain, I say, a freer development of their opinions, they quitted Holland in A.D. 1620, and went to New Plymouth. In imitation of them a larger body left the mother country in A.D. 1629, for Massachusetts Bay. One cannot help greatly respecting these sufferers for conscience' sake. It is with no slight interest that the log-book, for so it may be called, of the religious voyage of the good ship "May-Flower," which carried out the earlier adventurers, is perused. And the artist yet loves to dwell on the parting from Delph-haven,474 when Robinson, their pastor, knelt down on the shore and prayed with and for those