have enjoyed under it, should be jealously guarded from vitiation, should not be made a yoke of bondage on the one hand, or a cloak for licentiousness on the other. "The Sundays of man's life Threaded together on Time's string, Make bracelets to adorn the wife Of the eternal, glorious King. On Sunday, heaven's gate stands ope; More plentiful than hope." 70 We shall, if God permit, begin our formal discussion in the next Lecture, taking as our starting-point the moment indicated in the text. The last Sabbath of the old dispensation, that is, the Saturday of our Lord's lying in the grave (called afterwards by the ancient Church the Sabbatum Magnum), has passed, and with it the honor of the seventh day has passed away. It is very early in the morning, the first day of the week. The sun has risen. The Sun of Righteousness has risen also. The first day of the week has become "The Lord's Day." LECTURE II. MARK XVI. 1, 2, 5, 6. AND WHEN THE SABBATH WAS PAST, MARY MAGDALENE, AND MARY THE MOTHER OF JAMES, AND SALOME, HAD BOUGHT SWEET SPICES, THAT THEY MIGHT COME AND ANOINT HIM. AND VERY EARLY IN THE MORNING THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK THEY CAME UNTO THE SEPULCHRE AT THE RISING OF THE SUN. AND ENTERING INTO THE SEPULCHRE, THEY SAW A YOUNG MAN SITTING ON THE RIGHT SIDE, CLOTHED IN A LONG WHITE GARMENT, AND THEY WERE AFFRIGHTED. AND HE SAID UNTO THEM, BE NOT AFFRIGHTED: YE SEEK JESUS OF NAZARETH WHICH WAS CRUCIFIED: HE IS RISEN. Καὶ διαγενομένου τοῦ σαββάτου, Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ καὶ Μαρία ἡ τοῦ ̓Ιακώβου καὶ Σαλώμη ἠγόρασαν ἀρώματα, ἵνα ἐλθοῦσαι ἀλείψωσιν αὐτόν. Καὶ λίαν πρωὶ τῆς μιᾶς σαββάτων ἔρχονται ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεῖον, ἀνατέλλοντος (v. 7. ἀνατείλαντος) τοῦ ἡλίου. Καὶ εἰσελθοῦσαι εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, εἶδον νεανίσκον καθήμενον ἐν τοῖς δεξιοῖς, περιβεβλημένον στολὴν λευκήν· καὶ ἐξεθαμβήθησαν. 'Ο δὲ λέγει αὐταῖς, Μὴ ἐκθαμβεῖσθε· Ἰησοῦν ζητεῖτε τὸν Ναζαρηνὸν τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον· ἀγέρθη. It is very early in the morning, the first day of the week. The sun has risen. The Sun of Righteousness has risen also. The first day of the week has become “The Lord's Day." With these words, you will remember, I closed my first Lecture. Perhaps you may be inclined to suppose that I meant to imply by them that at the moment to which they refer, or almost immediately afterwards, the Lord's Day began to be observed as an ordinance of the Christian Church, and to presume that our blessed Lord, either by the very fact of His rising from the dead on the first day of the week, or by instructions given to His Apostles during "the Great Forty Days," sanctified and set apart that day for His own service for ever. Now I meant nothing of the sort. I cannot see, on the one hand, how an act or a fact can establish an ordinance not necessarily connected with it, unless it is declared by the agent, (as in the case of the Sabbath), that it is intended to give sanction to it. On the other hand, I find no Scriptural authority for asserting that though Christ did, during the interval alluded to, speak to His disciples of "the things pertaining to the kingdom of God," this subject was amongst those upon which He held high converse. The extent of my meaning was this, that from that moment, the first day of the week, on which Christ "overcame the sharpness of death and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers," was invested with an interest not before attached to it, and became worthy of the new title which it afterwards obtained from the partakers in and preachers of Christ's Resurrection. Besides, I hold that the Lord's Day is, as to its origin, much on a par with Confirmation." And this, while it would at once exclude it from the category of positive institutions ordained by Christ Himself, would also enable me to claim for it, (on this ground alone, whatever others may be adducible), an Apostolic, and, so far as anything Apostolic can be called divine, a divine origin. Now we usually call Confirmation an Ecclesiastical ordinance, and point to certain places in Scripture from which we argue that it was a custom introduced by the Apostles, and esteemed by them an element of the religion which they were divinely commissioned to declare to man, and, as far as it required immediate organization, to organize. For their practice in this matter we refer to Acts viii. 14—17 and xix. 1–6, which recount the proceedings of St. Peter and St. John in Samaria, and of St. Paul at Ephesus. For their estimate of the custom we refer to Hebrews vi. 2, where "laying on of hands" is mentioned among "the principles of the doctrine of Christ," as a specimen of the fundamental points of Christianity. It would appear then that if Confirmation has this origin, (which is generally admitted), and yet is of Ecclesiastical institution, that the word Ecclesiastical has, in reference to it and to ordinances contemporaneous with it and observed on the same grounds, a high and peculiar sense. In the Ecclesia and its authorities at that time were included inspired men, who, in reference to what they practised, (I do not mean as men, but as regulators of the Church), and what they ordained, were unable to err. They might say,72 in a sense that the Church could never say afterwards, "it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." Whereas ever since the time when the Canon of Scripture was closed, although "the Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies," and is represented in General Councils, yet her Councils, being "assemblies of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God, may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God." In fact, the Ecclesia afterwards was composed of uninspired men, who, though they might enjoin methods of procedure,—let us say, for the carrying out of what appears in Scripture,— might not bestow upon their ordinances a divine and lasting obligation. We obtain, therefore, two distinct senses of the word Ecclesiastical-the one, co-extensive in the matters to which it applies with the term Apostolic, and in fact synonymous with it: the other, that in which it may be employed at the present hour, when, if deemed advisable, the Church might meet and make regulations, Ecclesiastical indeed, because they emanate from her, but only of human authority, and capable of being repealed the next day. It is in the former sense that Confirmation, that Orders, that Infant Baptism, and, I shall now add, that the ordinance of the Lord's Day, and whatever Scripture attaches to them, are Ecclesiastical. It is in the latter sense that whatever else is attached to them, (not being actually read in Scripture or proveable thereby), as necessary or desirable for their being carried out, and in itself of an indifferent or accidental character, is Ecclesiastical. In this sense, too, Church customs in general are Ecclesiastical. If anything further is required to illustrate my meaning, let it be this Ordinances emanating from Christ are of two cha racters. First. Those appointed by Christ Himself, as Baptism and the Lord's Supper. These are Divine in the strictest sense of the term. Secondly. Those appointed by Christ, mediately through His Apostles, of which I have just exhibited specimens. These are Divine in a secondary sense of the term. Under this head would come things ordained by the Apostles, not merely in so many words, but by the precedents which they supply in their actions. Ordinances emanating from the Church are also of two characters. First. Exactly the same ordinances just described as Divine in a secondary sense. The Ecclesia practised them before the Canon of Scripture was closed, while Apostles were yet included among the Faithful, and before special inspiration had ceased. They are, therefore, not merely Ecclesiastical, but Scriptural, Apostolical, Divine. 73 Secondly. Such other ordinances as the Church has from time to time established in right of her general power "to bind and loose," not in right of any special inspiration. Under this head would be included, (I care not how early |