LECTURE VII.

JEREMIAH VI. 16.

STAND YE IN THE WAYS, AND SEE, AND ASK FOR THE OLD PATHS, WHERE IS THE GOOD WAY, AND WALK THEREIN, AND YE SHALL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.

Στῆτε ἐπὶ ταῖς ὁδοῖς καὶ ἴδετε, καὶ ἐρωτήσατε τρίβους Κυρίου αἰωνίους· καὶ ἴδετε ποία ἐστιν ἡ ὁδὸς ἡ ἀγαθὴ, καὶ βαδίσατε ἐν αὐτῇ, καὶ εὑρήσετε ἁγνισμὸν (v. 7. ἁγιασμὸν) ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν.

(Conf. Matt. xi. 29, καὶ εὑρήσετε ἀνάπαυσιν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν.)

We

OUR inquiries have at length brought us to England. will suppose ourselves to-day to be tracing the stream of thought and practice amongst us, in reference to the Lord's Day, from the Reformation to the present time. Not that we can allude, even by name, to more than a few of the writers on the subject, or touch upon any but the most striking events connected with it. We may, however, be able to exhibit in a compendious form a succession of facts, the careful consideration of which may lead us to some practical conclusion.

Some important questions present themselves.

Is it possible to discover, in the fully authorised documents of the English Church, such definite statements about the Lord's Day as will favour decidedly, either the Sunday-Sabbatarian view on the one hand, or the purely Ecclesiastical view on the other?

Is it possible to frame such a Catena of writers in the English Church, as will, by the number of its links and the solidity of each link, serve as an adequate interpretation of those documents in one direction or the other?

If neither of these courses is possible, should not the acknowledged moderation of the English Church be an element in the discovery of her view? And may we not interpret her by antiquity, to which she has ever had regard?

Certain cognate questions, will, by God's permission, be discussed in the concluding Lecture.

Something has been said already to the effect that Sunday-Sabbatarianism at any rate is not authoritatively sanctioned by the Church of England. For this I may perhaps refer you to the latter part of my Fifth Lecture. Nor is what was stated there invalidated by the existence of the document usually styled the Westminster Confession,1 ,431 which was drawn up A.D. 1643. It was indeed examined and approved A.D. 1647 by the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland, and ratified by Scottish Acts of Parliament A.D. 1649 and 1690. But it had nothing to do with England except during the abnormal period of the Great Rebellion, and was, de facto, ignored by the Savoy Conference. Its language is as follows:-" As it is of the law of nature that in general a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God, so, in His word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual Commandment, binding all men, in all ages, He hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto Him; which, from the beginning of the world to the Resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and from the Resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's Day, and is to be continued

to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath. This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations; but are also taken up the whole time in public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy."

On the Continent this is frequently supposed to be our view. I confidently assert that it is not ours. It may have been, indeed it was, derived from the English Puritans, but it was not derived from the English Church. Their influence carried it into Scotland. In Scotland it found a congenial soil; took root and became eventually the predominant view. Thenceforward it belonged to Scotland, where it was developed in a most exaggerated form, as the Records of the Kirk Sessions may show. (And as little is the Church of England concerned in the statements made by the Westminster Assembly in the Larger and Shorter Catechisms,432 both of which were adopted by the Kirk of Scotland A.D. 1648. I need not quote them here, for they are little more than the Confession itself exhibited in a catechetical shape.) It is obvious at first sight how strong is the contrast presented by the reckless historical assertions of the Confession, and by its particular designation of the things demanded or forbidden on the Lord's Day, to the simplicity of the Church of England. She asserts indeed practically, by her prepared services, that “a due proportion of time is to be set apart for the worship of God." And accidentally, because the first day in seven is one in seven, and is shadowed forth by her presentation of the Fourth Commandment to the people, she appears to speak of one day in seven. But, apart from this, there is scarcely a proposition contained in the Confession which

finds a counterpart in her fully authorised documents. For instance she nowhere lays down—

That from the beginning, one day in seven was particularly appointed to be kept holy unto God, or

That from the beginning of the world to the Resurrection of Christ this was the last day of the week, or

That from the Resurrection of Christ this was changed to the first day of the week, or

That the Lord's Day is the Christian Sabbath, except perhaps metaphorically.

Much less has she so ignored the compound nature of man, as to pronounce—

That the whole time of a man on the Lord's Day is to be taken up in public and private exercises of God's worship, and in works of necessity and mercy, to the exclusion of recreation for mind and body.

The utmost that she has done in this direction has been, as we have said, to present the Commandments to the people in the Jewish form, as a convenient summary of duty, qualifying that presentation by the Seventh Article of Religion. She has also inserted them in the Church Catechism; but the comment with which they are there accompanied does not bear the slightest resemblance to the Westminster Confession.

This latter fact, however, has been employed as an argument the other way. Some have held it to indicate at least a leaning to the purely Ecclesiastical view; to imply, that is, that Sundays and other Holy days stand exactly upon the same ground; that no higher sanction is possessed by the former than belongs to the latter; and that whatever belongs to the former is possessed by the latter in the same measure. It is urged that the Lord's Day is not mentioned in our Catechism-but it seems to have been forgotten that the inspiration of Holy Scripture is not mentioned in our Articles--and that therefore the argument

from omission may perhaps prove too much. Both the inspiration of Holy Scripture and the obligation of the Lord's Day, though beset with difficulties of man's devising, may have been taken for facts in Christianity, and so not specially alluded to. (Thus, as we saw in the Third Lecture, even the Great Council of Nicea only noticed the Lord's Day in order to regulate a perfectly indifferent matter, the bodily posture of the worshipper, during the continuance of its Services.) All were agreed as to the fact of the inspiration of Holy Scripture,433 however widely they might differ as to the mode in which it was effected, or as to the degree to which it was extended. So, all or nearly all, were agreed as to the fact of the Lord's Day being obligatory in some way or other, though they might have serious differences as to the ground of its obligation, or as to the exact manner in which it should be observed.

But in truth, neither the argument just noticed, nor another which I am about to notice, is at all conclusive for the purely Ecclesiastical view. Our Church, it is said, has a Table of proper Lessons for the Sundays and other Holy days throughout the year,434 therefore she regards both classes in the same light. But if so, how is it, I reply, that she immediately proceeds to separate the classes? How is it that the selections from the Bible are arranged in order for the former merely? How is it that no Apocryphal Lesson is admitted on the Lord's Day? And how can we possibly compare the Festival of the Resurrection which occurs once in a week, with a collection of Festivals each of which occurs only once in a year? It is surely a gross fallacy to consider Sunday as merely one among the Festivals; it is one repeated fifty-two times, while the others have a single celebration. Besides, if mentioning Sundays and other Holy days together brings the former to the level of the latter, then Wednesdays and Fridays are also equal to Sundays, for on all these three days the Litany is