but carefully distinguished from it, as an institution under the law of liberty, as observed on a different day and with different feelings; and moreover, that, as a matter of fact, it was exempt from the severity of the provisions which had been the characteristic of the Sabbath in theory, or in practice, or in both.

That after the first three centuries,36 a new era in the history of the Lord's Day commenced; tendencies towards Sabbatarianism, or confusion of the Christian with the Jewish institution, beginning to manifest themselves. These, however, were slight, until the end of the Fifth Century, and are traceable chiefly to and in the civil legislation of the period. Afterwards they 37 developed themselves more decidedly; Sabbatarianism became at length systematized, in one of its phases, in the ante-Reformation Church both in England and on the Continent, by the later Schoolmen, probably in their desire to lay down exact rules for consciences, and under a fancied necessity of urging the precedent of Jewish enactments in support of Christian Holy-Days.

That Sabbatarianism, of every phase,38 was expressly repudiated by the chief reformers of almost every country, (even by Calvin, the friend of Knox, and by Knox himself,39 who is supposed, though incorrectly, to have introduced it into Scotland), and in particular that it does not appear in the fully authorized documents of the Church of England.

That Sabbatarianism, as a dogma,40 sprang up in England in this way. Men had been educated to reverence the Lord's Day, and happily retained their early prepossessions. But, in the reaction from the bondage of tradition which was the result of the Reformation, they determined, rightly enough, to believe nothing except what could be proved by Scripture. Unfortunately they went on to demand from Scripture, in reference to the Lord's Day, more than, as a

law of liberty, it could be expected to supply, i.e. exact rules for the observance of the day, and passages in which the day, (or something like it, for the age was not a critical one), seemed to be legislatively enjoined. Accordingly, (defending themselves, if assailed, by a false method of spiritualizing, or, unintentionally of course, by a transparent fallacy of an ambiguous term), they took a good deal of what is said in Scripture of the Sabbath, and unhesitatingly applied it to the Lord's Day. To this period, by the way, must be assigned the common use of the phrase Christian Sabbath, which had hitherto been quite rare, if indeed it had been at all known in the Church.

That Sabbatarianism, as a practical tenet,41 was rendered acceptable to earnest men in England as a refuge, they may have thought it the only refuge, from the laxity with which the Lord's Day was observed even after the Reformation had fairly set in; such laxity being a remnant of Rome, whose practice differed much from the theory of her Schoolmen. But that it was not introduced as a dogma without attracting immediate notice from writers, generally of a sounder character, but inclined to advance too far in the opposite direction; or as a practical tenet without provoking that almost systematic lowering in the tone of the Lord's Day which was evidenced in that strongest and strangest development of Dominicalism, the Book of Sports.

That meanwhile,42 through all the fluctuations of opinion within and about the English Church, and though her Prayer-book was frequently revised, Sabbatarianism never succeeded in establishing itself formally in any of her fully authorized documents.

That this assertion 48 is quite compatible with the introduction into the Liturgy of the Fourth Commandment and the accompanying responsive petition, (in the Second Book of King Edward the Sixth), which may be understood and

used without either volatilizing that particular Commandment or impairing the authority of the Decalogue as in general moral.

That the position 44 that the Fourth Commandment is binding in the very letter, and is par excellence the ground for the observance of our weekly festival, proves too much, for it would drive us either to the observance of Saturday, (as the advanced and more consistent Sabbatarians urged), or, at the very least, to a Judaic observance of the Lord's Day.

That Sabbatarianism,45 the strange varieties of which really demand serious notice, is a return not merely to Judaism but to theoretic Romanism.

That the mention 46 of God's rest after the Creation in the Fourth Commandment, and the introduction of the word "Remember," do not prove that the Patriarchs observed or even knew of a Sabbath before Moses used the words, "To-morrow is a Sabbath," &c.

That this assertion 47 is quite compatible with the existence of an hebdomadal division of time anterior to the days of Moses.

That it is strengthened 48 by the fact that the heathen were never reproached with the non-observance of the Sabbath, which we may presume they would have been, had the obligation to observe it been a moral one, i.e. a matter of natural law.

That the Sabbath,49 as it appears in the Fourth Commandment, was of the nature of a positive ordinance on the part of the Almighty, and as a positive ordinance was capable of being annulled by the same authority, when it had served its purpose, without alteration in the constitution of His creatures; and that this is not the only instance of the occurrence of something positive in a table generally moral.

Yet, that the occurrence 50 of a commandment to keep

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the Sabbath, in a table generally moral, implies that there is a moral element in that commandment, (not a moral tendency merely, for this would embrace every type and ceremony, but a moral element), viz. an obligation, cognizable by the moral sense, to devote some time, perhaps even a periodically recurring time, to God's service, and, inferentially, to rest from worldly occupations as a necessary condition to the performance of such obligation.

That the Sabbath,51 as it appears in the Fourth Commandment, was a development of such moral element in a manner suited to a particular people, and being thus rendered political and ceremonial, does not, in that form, come under the precepts that are called moral.

Yet that the political and ceremonial elements 52 may be abolished, the moral element remaining and being developed in a different way by Christianity.

That the Creation labour and rest 53 were exemplary, typical and consolatory, and were so understood by the writers of Holy Scripture and by the Fathers-the antitheses being,

Labour and rest generally.

Israelitic labour in Egypt and in the Wilderness, and rest in Canaan.

The Old Dispensation and the New.

The Christian's labour on earth, and the Divine peace which alleviates it.

The Christian's general course in this world, and his rest in the world to come.

That to state 54 the Divine institution and Apostolical observance of the Lord's Day as we have stated them, is a very different thing from making the sacred character of

the day depend upon merely ecclesiastical authority; yet that, in the highest sense of the word, such institution and observance may be designated as ecclesiastical.

That though the Sabbath,55 as an ordinance, has passed away, and though neither Apostles nor early writers allude to it or to the Fourth Commandment as a precedent or as the ground for observing the Lord's Day, we may conceive the analogy of them to have been among the reasons which determined the proportion of time which should be the Lord's.

That the same analogy 56 may direct us, though in a much fainter degree, because of the different characters of the two dispensations, to the employments and enjoyments suitable or not unsuitable to the Lord's Day.

That on the Sabbath itself 57 there appears to have been a greater liberty of employment and enjoyment than is generally supposed; and that our Lord, so far as He dealt with it, concerned Himself, not with proving that it was about to expire, (this it was to do, of course, when the ceremonial and political laws generally were to expire), but in purifying it from superstitions, in making it practically useful so long as it should last, and in redeeming it from the charge of enjoining absolute inactivity.

That still, though the Lord's Day 58 is not to be Judaic in the way of over-strictness, it is not to be Judaic, (in the sense in which the later Jews were often reproached by the Fathers for the use of their Sabbaths), in the way of license, i.e. it is not to be a mere gala-day, as on the Continent with the Romanists, and, to a great extent, even with the Protestant and Reformed Communions.

That the origin and obligation 59 of the Lord's Day being such as is supposed, Divine and Apostolic, the Church, subsequent to the age of the Apostles, has not, (as Calvin and others imagined), ability to remove it to any other day in the week, but that her authority over it extends to