gospel, of course consider the Lord's day as a mere ecclesiastical institution, resting on the authority of the church, not on any precept of Christ or his apostles. But this position is wholly subverted by several of the testimonies before adduced, which declare that our Lord sanctified the first day of the week by his resurrection, and that it was appointed a festival by the primitive teachers of Christianity. This is an indisputable fact; and it evinces, that in the judgment of the ancient fathers, a divine origin is to be ascribed to the Christian sabbath.

But the argument in this chapter does not rest so much upon the express declarations of the fathers, as upon the uniform and undeviating practice of believers from the apostolic age. This practice could not have sprung from any legislative enactment, while the sceptre of the world was swayed by Pagan hands; neither could it be enjoined by ecclesiastical authority, separated as the different churches were from each other by distance, manners, and languages. While they continued mutually independent, yet all destitute alike of temporal power, it cannot be conceived that they would entertain the absurd project of establishing an institution which, in those ages of Christianity, they had no power to enforce. Nor can it be supposed that the governors of the nascent church would of themselves, without any

divine sanction, institute a festival, which, by interfering, as it must, with the civil obligations of the converts, would have inflamed the hostility of their numerous and potent enemies, who were ever on the alert for grounds of accusation. They were not so devoid of prudence as to alarm the Pagans by an infringement of their civil rights, the effect of which must have been to expose the faithful to reproach and persecution, and to augment the obstacles to the propagation of the gospel. Besides, the practice prevailed long previous to any general council subsequent to the apostolic age, and no council ever pretended to the first establishment of it; which confirms its sacred derivation, according to the sound rule of Augustine, that, "whatever the universal church holds, and has always held, without being instituted by councils, must be accounted to be derived from apostolical authority" No authority, independently of theirs, was sufficiently early and extensive and commanding, to give rise to the universal

¶ "Quod universa tenet Ecclesia, nec conciliis institutum, sed semper retentum est, non nisi auctoritate Apostolica traditum rectissime creditur." Augustine, Contra Donatistas, lib. iv. cap. xxiii. This is the general voice of the fathers: see Irenæus, Adv. Hæres. lib. iii. cap. iv.; Tertullian, De Præscript. § 21.; Clemens Alexand. Stromat. 7. p. 755, B. p. 757, A. P. 764, B. D.; Origen, De Principiis, lib. i. Proœm.; Ruffinus, Præfat. in Origen De Princip. lib. iii.; Vincentius Lirinens. Adv. Hæres. cap. ii, et seq.

sanctification of the Lord's day. The heathens, who held the reins of empire, would not sanction it; the rulers in the church could not; it must therefore have been by common consent; a consent so general and unanimous as could have no other origin than a conviction of its being ordained by Christ and the apostles. It was a matter respecting which the early Christians could not be mistaken, and how is it possible for all the churches throughout the Christian world to have agreed, even from the beginning of their plantation, to make the first day of the week a festival, unless they had been directed by the founders of their religion? Hence, as it has been shewn by evidence which cannot, in fairness, be disputed, that the consecration of a septenary day was the universal practice by the orthodox in the best and purest ages of the church, it must have originated in divine appointment, which proves the perpetual sanctity and obligation of a weekly religious festival.

CHAPTER VI.

Inquiry into the Duties of the Sabbath.

We are now arrived at that stage of our inquiry, from which many, who have travelled together in unanimity, have diverged into very opposite directions. In the ample and spacious field which opens to the view, we shall be liable, without the utmost caution, though treading upon firm ground, to be led astray into wandering and devious paths. Resting upon the previously established conclusion, that it is a bounden duty, ratified by the scriptures, and by the practice of the Christian church from the earliest ages, to dedicate every seventh day to the service of Him in whom we live and move, and have our being, it still remains to undertake the difficult investigation of the mode in which this homage is to paid. The holy solemnization of one day in the week, though admitted to be incumbent upon believers in the gospel, is a subject which has given birth to a wide contrariety of opinion; it being prescribed, on the one hand,

with a laxity which loosens, if not entirely dissolves, its religious obligation; and on the other, with a rigid austerity scarcely practicable, and certainly but ill-adapted to the present constitution of human nature. To draw the necessary line of distinction requires the prudent exercise of a chastised judgment; and, had the plan of this inquiry admitted it, the author would gladly have avoided an attempt, to the execution of which he is far from presuming himself to be fully competent.

In entering upon this task, it is impossible not to feel the greater hesitation and diffidence, as the sacred Scriptures furnish us with but little direct and particular information. To legislate minutely on any particular branch of moral and religious conduct, on which the Almighty has not promulged his revealed will, is often presumptuous, and not unfrequently mischievous. If we hold the fundamental truth of Protestantism, the sufficiency of Holy Writ, correctly interpreted, in matters of faith, to enjoin aught as a religious duty which is not written there, must be at least a dangerous experiment. It is especially so in regard to the external duties of our sacred vocation, as an error here has a natural tendency to induce weak, but well-disposed minds, to depend too much upon ceremonial observances. What has contributed more to sully and obscure

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