support. Hence, though other causes were no doubt at work, arises the difference which will appear in the language of Theophilus, of Jerom, of Augustine, of Chrysostom, of the Councils of Eliberis, of Antioch, and of Laodicea, from that of earlier Christian writers. And, partially at least, to the same source must be traced, through the Middle Ages to the present hour, the gradually increasing practice of insisting on Lord's Day observance. So far, then, from considering the infrequency of exhortation to keep the Lord's Day to be an argument that it was not held by the primitive Christians to be a Scriptural institution, I conceive that it is an argument which tells just the other way. I should have been surprised to find more said about it. I should have suspected either the genuineness of the documents put into my hands, or a latent distrust on the part of the writers as to the status of the institution.

To the third objection it is more difficult to reply, not however so much from its intrinsic weight as from the almost impossibility of finding common ground with those who speak of the stated celebration of Christ's Resurrection as "simply commemorating an event." It is a commemoration, indeed; but what is the event commemorated? Is it one like the Battle of the Nile, or even the Battle of Waterloo, important indeed at the time, and involving great heroism and great suffering, but of which the effects may at length cease to be traceable even on the nations benefited by them, and in which the greater part of the world was never interested at all? Or, is it not rather an event unexampled in the history of our race, the triumph of the Son of God, "made perfect by suffering," over His and our enemies, and one by which He who enacted it, not merely rose Himself but caused mankind to rise with Him, gave them a new principle of life here, and became the firstfruits of their resurrection hereafter? Is it not an

event which increases in interest, yea, which becomes more overpoweringly mysterious year by year, and hour by hour, as soul upon soul enters upon this scene of the flesh to perform his part in the strength of it, or departs from this scene "in sure and certain hope" of the benefits obtained by his Forerunner? He who knows "the power of Christ's Resurrection" cannot celebrate it as a man "simply commemorates an event," a dead past fact, in which his forefathers were chiefly concerned:

"Like circles widening round

Upon a clear blue river

Orb after orb, the wondrous sound

Is echoed on for ever." 136

He must adore the love and mercy which brought that event to pass, which sustains its efficacy, which makes it a living fact, yea, very life to himself. Such a celebration is not "a degeneration into keeping the day holy on which it is commemorated:" of itself, and in right of the ideas which it involves, it makes the commemorative Day a holy one. So we doubt not that the early Christians, those who "of all men were most miserable if in this life only they had hope in Christ," did indeed keep with holy joy their Lord's Resurrection Day.

In a similar way may be explained the omission on the part of early writers of the enforcement of rest on the Lord's Day. They realised, very perfectly, I believe much more perfectly than we do, the Humanity of our Blessed Lord, and their own participation in His nature as the Son of Man. Hence, remembering that He "was wearied and sat by the well," the worshippers of the Son of Man, so far as they could, rested on His own day with Him.

But we must not further anticipate.

Many interesting points have been brought to our notice in the quotations adduced. The writers speak variously of the Sabbath; some insisting on the fact of its abrogation,

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some bringing out its allegorical and typical character. And they speak variously of the Lord's Day; some referring to the Circumcision day as a type of it; some to the commencement of the manna shower, as an honor conferred by anticipation upon it; some to the primeval creation of light for its sanction; some, in fact the great majority, to the Lord's Resurrection as having been its reason. They are not critics,138 and perhaps we cannot always coincide with their exegesis of Scripture, or sympathise with all their expressions, either in the passages now adduced or in the rest of their compositions. But with every abatement, their negative agreement is most valuable. None of them speak of the Sabbath as binding upon Christians, or as connected with the Christian life, except in a typical and instructive sense; none of them identify it with the Lord's Day; none of them transfuse the spirit of the Sabbath into the Lord's Day, or refer either to the Fourth Commandment, or to God's rest after the Creation, for the sanctions of the Lord's Day. With the exception perhaps of what is said in that one passage of Tertullian, (which however need mean no more than I have attributed to it), and with merely this difference, that a form of worship, an orderly arrangement of teaching and of administration of the Lord's Supper, have sprung up, and that recognized buildings 139 for the holding of its Christian assemblies now exist, the Lord's Day is the same free and purely Christian institution, after the lapse of so long a time, as it was when St. Paul preached at Troas, or St. John was in the Spirit on the desert rock in the Ægæan.

The Sabbath, it is true, either through the charity of the orthodox Christians, or through the pertinacity with which Christians of Jewish descent adhered to their ancestral prepossessions, (as in an instance which I shall mention directly), for a time obtained a partial respect. And, provided that it was not insisted upon as necessary to be

imposed on Gentile Christians, but only cherished as a matter of private regard, the Church did not seriously object to this. It was natural enough that, in the words of Hooker,140 "So long as the glory of the Temple continued, and until the time of that final desolation was accomplished, the [very] Christian Jews should continue with their sacrifices and other parts of legal service." They did so continue. The Apostles did not interefere with them; and even showed, by their own occasional conformity, that they considered their prepossessions to be, under the circumstances, excusable, and in themselves harmless. Besides, as, in the words of Bishop Stillingfleet," "The laws of Moses were incorporated into the very republic of the Jews, and their subsistence and government depended upon them, and their religion and laws were so interwoven one with the other, that one could not be broken off from the other," the Apostles no doubt considered this adherence to the old forms to be a matter of national usage, with which, so long as it was not absolutely anti-Christian, Christianity was not bound to meddle. The Jewish ceremonies,142 (says one of old), though mortua, were not mortifera. And the same charitable and wise forbearance was exercised even after the destruction of the Temple. The Nazarenes,143 (a name at first applied to all Christians, but eventually limited to Judaizing Christians, especially those who withdrew to Pella as the last days of Jerusalem seemed nigh), were connived at, and, in their origin at least, considered to be orthodox, on this principle, that they merely took the law upon themselves, without making any attempt to impose it on the Gentiles. But forbearance had its limits, even in Apostolic times. St. Paul would not circumcise Titus, who was a Greek; and so the Ebionites of the second century and later, who, besides their other errors, considered the Sabbath, which they rigorously observed themselves, to be of universal obligation, were held to be heretics. It is one

argument 144 against the genuineness both of the larger edition of Ignatius' Epistles, and of the document called "the Apostolic Constitutions," that they go counter to the whole stream of ante-Nicene testimony and teaching,the former in asserting that the early Church observed, the latter in asserting that it ought to observe, the Sabbath as well as the Lord's Day. (See Lardner, c. 85, and PseudoIgn. to Magn. μETÀ Tò σаßßаTíoal, &c.). It is true, again, that other Festivals began to be added to the Christian ritual, and that certain Fasts began to be instituted, probably in development of an idea which is apparent in the New Testament, and which no doubt, under the Divine guidance, influenced the Apostles in the choice of the day of the Resurrection as a weekly Christian Festival; that Christ is to be seen in everything, and that His course is a type and allegory and earnest of the Christian's life. But side-shoots from a tree, so far from altering the character of the parent stem, rather evidence its vigorous existence, and the distance to which its roots have spread themselves in the adjacent soil.

And what if the Sabbath was considered in the Western Church, (with the exception perhaps of the Church at Milan), to be a Fast, before the end of the third century had quite set in? It was so considered, not in right of its being a Jewish institution, i.e. not as the Sabbath, but in connexion with something altogether Christian. Friday had become a Fast, in commemoration of our Lord's Crucifixion; bye and bye this Fast was continued into the Saturday. Thus the Sabbath came to be observed by way of vπéρleσis, or super-positio, not for its own sake, but as a corollary to the day which preceded it. Somewhat later it formed a recognised part of the discipline and preparation for the Kupiain, the day of joy. The Eastern Church, professedly for reasons of its own, which will be noticed hereafter, but no doubt in consequence of the greater proportion