of Jewish elements in its composition, gradually came to rank the Sabbath as a Festival, co-ordinate, or nearly so, with the Lord's Day. It is not exactly known when this became general in that branch of the Church. It may have become so in the ante-Nicene period; but probably not for some time afterwards. It finds its chief encouragement in the Apostolical Constitutions, which relate principally to the Eastern Church. For the Western practice of fasting on the Sabbath another excuse was discovered in later times: "St. Peter fasted 145 on that day to prepare himself for the dispute with Simon Magus." With such points, however, as the origin and obligation of Holy Seasons and Holy Days, beyond and besides the Lord's Day, we are not here concerned. The sole object of the latter part of this present Lecture has been to inquire whether at the end of the third century the Lord's Day remained the same simple and unencumbered ordinance which the Apostles bequeathed to the Church. I think we have answered this question in the affirmative. Whether it continued such, in the centuries from that date to the Reformation, I shall consider in the next Lecture.

LECTURE III.

GALATIANS II. 18.

FOR IF I BUILD AGAIN THE THINGS WHICH I DESTROYED, I MAKE MYSELF A TRANSGRESSOR.

Εἰ γὰρ ἃ κατέλυσα, ταῦτα πάλιν· οἰκοδομῶ, παραβάτην ἐμαυτὸν συνιστάνω.

IT is very difficult to determine in what manner the celebrated edict of Constantine, which introduces a new era in the history of the Lord's Day, should be regarded, or how his motives should be interpreted. There is scarcely a single portion of it which has not been criticised, and criticised in different ways. The document itself is as follows: :

IMPERATOR CONSTANTINUS AUG. HELPIDIO.

Omnes judices 146 urbanæque plebes et cunctarum artium officia venerabili die Solis quiescant. Ruri tamen positi agrorum culturæ liberè licenterque inserviant, quoniam frequenter evenit ut non aptius alio die frumenta sulcis aut vineæ scrobibus mandentur, ne occasione momenti pereat commoditas cœlesti provisione concessa. Dat. Non. Mart. Crispo II. et Constantino II. Coss.

THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE TO HELPIDIUS.

On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in the work of cultivation may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or for vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. Given, the seventh day of March. Crispus and Constantine being Consuls each of them for the second time. (A.D. 321.)

One of the Westminster Divines, whose work has been already noticed, I mean Cawdrey,147 appears to think very highly both of the document itself, and of the position occupied by Constantine in working out the development of a law of the Almighty. In fact, he compares the Emperor to Moses, and intimates that he performed a part in reference to the Lord's Day analogous to that which he ascribes to Moses in reference to the Sabbath. His comparison is so unique, and is withal so little known, that I venture to quote it. It is part of a series of analogies, but I content myself with the first four.

"As the first Sabbath was kept, (it is probable), by God Himself alone, and was propounded as a copy for Adam to imitate; so likewise the first Lord's Day was kept by Christ alone, and commended to the practice of His Apostles, and the Church's.

"Adam and the Patriarchs, whether by command or inspiration, did, (we think), imitate God in the observation of a weekly day, but in a different manner from after times, viz. in their private families, in which the Church, as then, resided. So the Apostles, upon the same grounds, (as we conceive), imitated their Lord and Master, but in private families at first, or private meetings, not so publicly as afterward.

"The children of Israel, (the then only people of God), being in Egypt, under sore pressure, nor did, nor could keep the Sabbath in any solemn manner, not being permitted either rest or assemblies. So the Church of the New Testament for three hundred years, living in persecution, could not keep the Lord's Day with that solemnity that they should or would; but as for place secretly, so for time as they could find opportunity, in the day or night.

"The want of a settled government and a governor of their own, together with the former consideration, made some think that Moses was the first that settled the Sabbath,

so that however the observation of it might be voluntary before, yet not necessary till now: so, the want of a Christian magistrate for the first three hundred years of the Church, makes some also think and say, that Constantine was the first that commanded the observation of the Lord's Day whereas Moses did but revive what was by long tract of time almost obliterated, nor did Constantine constitute but confirm the day which had been from the very Apostles' times, and by the Apostles themselves instituted, and by the succeeding Churches constantly observed, as well as they might. And this is so certainly and confessedly true, that we cannot but wonder that any should ever question it. And herein they are alike; that as Moses did settle the observation of the Sabbath, not institute it; so, the most that Constantine did, was but to rectify the observation of the Lord's Day, not to appoint the day itself."

There can be little doubt that Constantine is unduly exalted by this comparison of him to the Jewish Lawgiver, who, whatever he did in reference to the Sabbath, whether he instituted it or revived it, (a question which I waive for the present), was directly commissioned from heaven.

It is worth noticing, too,148 that though Eusebius has anticipated our Presbyterian writer in instituting an historical parallel between these two personages, he ignores the very points from which the other has drawn his parallel.

Others have looked at the transaction in a totally different light, and refused to discover in the document, or to suppose in the mind of the enactor, any recognition of the Lord's Day as a matter of Divine obligation. They remark, and very truly, that Constantine designates it by its astrological or heathen title, Dies Solis, and insist that the epithet venerabilis with which it is introduced has reference to the rites performed on that day in honor of Hercules,

Apollo, and Mithras. And in support of their assertion they urge that in the same year Constantine promulgated an edict of an unquestionably heathen character 149 for the better observance of sacrificial customs. They would have it that the edict is purely a kalendarial regulation, and that the Dies Solis is only rendered by it a holiday in a civil sense, not authoritatively stamped as a holy day, much less as the Lord's Day in a religious sense-that much confusion had arisen by the astrological week being all but universally employed in private matters, while for public purposes the older division by Kalends, Nones, Ides and Nundines 150 prevailed-that festivals had become. multiplied and diversified, according to the diversities of religions, to a very inconvenient extent, (this had been a matter of complaint as long ago as the Actiones Verrinæ)— and that therefore he determined to compose these chronological difficulties, by a weekly holiday, which would be acceptable in the existing state of public feeling, both to his heathen and to his Christian subjects.

A still lower view 151 of the transaction is this. It is known from several sources that the heathen deity to whom, before his conversion, the Emperor professed to be especially devoted, was Sol or Apollo. It is known also, that whether from their constant use of the Scripture phrase, "the Sun of Righteousness," which described Christ as o péyas λos, or from their Holy Day being ý тоû ýλíοv ýμéρa, or from their ordinary practice of praying towards the East, the Christians were popularly represented as sun-worshippers. In vain had Tertullian and others protested against such a misrepresentation. This, and many other extravagant fables were widely spread and currently believed. Constantine, as yet only partially informed as to the nature of Christianity, may have been somewhat misled by it. He had an Empire of strangely jarring elements which required to be consolidated. The