sunset, that the same sun looked down mournfully on the passion of such a martyr. And here, adds the narrator, is the pillar before which he fell. Our visitor, we say, is perplexed-he is unwilling entirely to disbelieve the account -he has a sort of general notion that some building, which may have resembled this in many respects, existed on this site or near to it from a very remote date. The names of which he is told are those of historical personages connected more or less with the scene. But then he has some architectural knowledge, and this more than half convinces him that his informant is either mistaken in his facts or incorrect in his chronology. On consulting his books he discovers, that though the facts have a foundation in truth, they are connected with an older edifice whose associations have been transferred to one of a later age, perhaps through mere inadvertence, perhaps through a not unnatural wish to advance pretensions to antiquity for what one admires and reverences, perhaps through other motives not altogether so excusable.1

As it is with particular buildings, so it is with cities. Rome was "the City of Seven Hills," even when more were taken into its circuit than the Festival Septimontium2 indicated. The line,

'Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces,' 113 how true soever of the infant settlement, was true only by accommodation of Rome in its maturer days. Still piety, or poetry, or both, tenaciously clung to the old name.

But I speak not of edifices or cities, except so far as the popular handling of their legends may illustrate certain points which are my more immediate concern. I dismiss them with the further remarks, that inquiry into the real state of their case is never objected to in the archæologist; that he is allowed, if he does it with candour, to sift their anuals to the uttermost; and that nothing of real value is ever destroyed by his investigations.

And now I pass on to observe that this tendency of the human mind to invest comparatively modern things with the sanctions and associations of the past, is discoverable in its treatment of institutions; in its treatment especially of that Divine and Apostolical Institution, I mean "the Lord's Day," which, (I trust not rashly, but rather as one treading on holy ground), I have undertaken to examine in such a place and before such an assembly. My excuse for doing so will be found in the following considerations. I believe that great confusion of thought exists on this deeply important subject, and that the institution in question, though sufficiently venerable in itself, has been regarded as identical with, instead of, at the most, analogous to, one of greater antiquity indeed, but of more limited application, the Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment. I believe that from this confusion have arisen not merely misapprehensions of a speculative nature, but errors affecting practice, and productive of misunderstandings among brethren. I see that the result has been, on the part of the more learned Clergy, an avoidance of a topic which they cannot treat of logically and historically without being exposed to obloquy, and which they cannot treat of popularly without apologizing to their self-respect and sense of duty on the part of the better informed laity, a distaste for a doctrine, which, treated, (as it generally is), illogically and with want of historical precision, they condemn together with its advocates, and dismiss summarily, either as a clumsy artifice, or as a burthen too heavy to be borne. But I see, further, that this was not always so; that there was a time when Κυριακὴ and Σάββατον respectively had their meanings accurately and sharply defined. Hence I venture to hope that an attempt to restate those meanings, and to clear up certain difficulties connected with them, may not be altogether in vain.

I will only make two requests: the first, that the liberty

of candid inquiry, so readily allowed in other matters, may be as readily allowed here; the second, that my audience will carefully discriminate between two things, which, though essentially distinct, are often confounded in popular nomenclature-a respectful desire to set an institution on its true basis, and a disrespectful desire to undermine it. I hold this institution to be, in a spiritual sense of the words, "The day which the Lord hath made;" "I rejoice and am glad in it: "4 and I believe the way in which it is regarded to be no uncertain index of Christian stedfastness or decline, "signum aut stantis aut cadentis Christiani."

The terms of my subject are these: "The origin, history, and present obligation of the Lord's Day, or Sunday." Philosophically speaking, these terms embrace the whole reason of that day, its past history, its present state, its transition to that state, its destination. Of the method in which I shall treat of it, and of the date to be assumed for its commencement, I shall speak presently. But, before doing so, as controversy on the subject has existed chiefly in, and on the borders of, the English Church, I would mention a few of the theories which have been propounded in England concerning it since the Reformation, an acquaintance with which may be useful to us in the discussion which is to follow. Their diversity will at any rate justify an attempt to exhibit some view which shall bind the conscience as scriptural, and satisfy the historical inquirer as consistent with early antiquity; which shall leave a law under Christianity, and yet involve no Jewish legality. I do not at this moment enter at length on their comparative merits or defects. These will appear as we proceed. I do little more than state the theories themselves as concisely but as fairly as I can, giving not the exact words, but what appears to be the spirit of the several theorists.

Here, then, is the first view.

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"Christianity admits of no distinction of days. The "whole Mosaic Law, call it what you will, ceremonial, political, moral, has been fulfilled and has passed away. "Christ did not Himself institute, He did not give author"ity to others to institute, nor may others institute with"out His authority, any special day of worship or rest in "lieu of, or in succession to, the Sabbath. Therefore, the "Sunday is altogether a fiction; there is now either no "Sabbath at all, or, if the mere word be contended for, it 66 may be understood that a true Christian now observes a "spiritual-every-day-Sabbath, a type of the better Sabbath "in heaven." These tenets were advocated by certain Antinomians and Anabaptists.

And here is the second view, though, perhaps, chronologically speaking, it should stand after the third, of which it is the honest development.

"The Decalogue is altogether and in every part of it "moral. The Sabbath, therefore, which is enjoined in it, "is still in force under Christianity, for our Lord did not "come to destroy the law. Though generally observed on "the First day in the week, it cannot be observed on that "day without sin. It ought to be observed on the Seventh day, that is, on Saturday, and of course with all the rigour prescribed both in the Fourth Commandment, and in other "parts of Scripture." This is what may be called the extreme Sabbatarian view. It was partially held in England during the seventeenth century. There are a few professors of it now, but they are chiefly to be found in America. Its most prominent champion was a certain Theophilus Brabourne,' who published more than one work upon it. He was formally answered by Bishop Francis White, of Ely, whose name we shall meet with again.

Here is the third view.s

"The Sabbath existed from the beginning, was re-enacted "and regulated by Moses, and has never since been abolished

"or superseded. The day, indeed, has been changed, but "as the seventh day' and 'one day in seven' obviously mean the same thing, we may fairly transfer to the first "day whatever Scripture says of the seventh day. Thus "our Sabbath, for so we prefer to designate it, must be "observed as strictly as was that of the Jews, in the wil"derness under Moses, or in Jerusalem under Nehemiah." This is, on the whole, the Sabbatarian view as it appears in the celebrated work of Dr. Nicholas Bownd, which was first put forth A.D. 1595, and afterwards republished with additions A.D. 1606. It was formalized by the Westminster Divines in the statements made in their "Confession of Faith" and their "Larger" and "Shorter" Catechisms. Two of their number, Daniel Cawdrey and Herbert Palmer,10 published a very elaborate work in vindication and explanation of it A.D. 1645 and A.D. 1652.

Here is the fourth view."

Sunday is the Christian representative of an earlier "Sabbath-in fact, of a Patriarchal Sabbath, which may be "presumed to have existed, and of the Jewish Sabbath, "which is known to have existed. Therefore it may justly "be called the Christian Sabbath. It may be called a "Sabbath, because we refer to the Fourth Commandment "for its moral sanction; it may be qualified as the Chris"tian Sabbath, because Christianity has eliminated from "the observance of that commandment whatever is Jewish "and ceremonial, and, on the principle that 'one day in "seven' is covered by the expression 'seventh day,' has "substituted a day of its own for that which is specified "in the document. "The Sabbath was made for man,' 12 "asserts our Saviour-that is, for all men, Gentiles as well "as Jews; and, though St. Paul says, 'Let no man judge "you in respect of the Sabbath days, '13 he must of course "be supposed to allude only, to the Jewish aspect of them. "The change of the day, the softening of the rigour of