Viewed in any other light, or in any other bearing, the atonement is not only unintelligible, but it is also indefensible, because wholly irreconcilable with Divine goodness and love; for it must be ever kept in mind, that it was made by the Son to the Father, not in order to produce a change in his nature and eternal purpose, which are clearly incapable of any change, but to produce a penitential, softening, purifying change in the hearts of sinners; not to excite pity in his breast, which was previously devoid of pity; not to render him merciful who was previously unmerciful; not to purchase forgiveness of him who was previously disinclined to forgive. This, it is to be lamented, is the too current popular notion of multitudes respecting the propitiatory death of Christ; and the notion also of many of God's regenerate children, who should have their spiritual senses exercised to discern and know better. The notion, however, be it adopted by whom it may, not only furnishes solid argument for the rejection of atonement altogether, but it has no ground of support whatever in the inspired Scriptures, when rightly understood and interpreted; for it is utterly inconsistent with, and highly derogatory to, the revealed character of God the Father, who is truly "a God of love," and whose compassions are infinite. delighteth in mercy" (Micah, vii. 13); "with him is plenteous redemption" (Ps. cxxx. 7); "he will have all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth;" and expressly declares," as I live, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth" (Ezek. xviii. 32). If, therefore, sinners ultimately perish, the cause of their ruin is entirely their own wilful impenitence and unbelief. They are not constrained by any extrinsic influence, or secret decree, to do evil, nor are they restrained from doing good. They act in every instance freely and voluntarily, according to the prevailing convictions of their minds, and the preponderating inclination of their wills; and this is all that a moral, responsible, free agent can in equity claim of his Maker, as constituting the ground of his obligation to "love him with all his heart,

"He

In order, then, to elucidate more fully this delightful part of our subject, and chiefly with a desire to assist the plain readers of this essay in getting a deep, melting, heartaffecting view of their heavenly Father's love, and in banishing from their minds every chilling and hard thought of Him, as if he were a stern, vindictive, unrelenting God, clothed in frowns of terror and vengeance, and reluctant to pity, to pardon, and to save them,-let it be further observed, that it is evident, from the recorded history of the fact, that the first sin of Adam, viewed exclusively as a personal offence committed against God the Father (personally considered as the Father), was pardoned as soon as it was committed; for it was He, the Father of grace and mercy, who gave our offending parents that first cheering, though mysterious promise, that "the seed of the woman should one day bruise the serpent's head" (Gen. iii. 15). In the New Testament (not to swell this essay by adducing passages from the Old), this gracious promise is thus explicitly unfolded: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son (he could not give more), that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved" (John, iii. 16, 17). And the same inspired writer, in his first epistle (iv. 9, 10), repeats the same sweet, consolatory truth, by declaring," in this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." And in order to shew that the predisposing motive of this exuberant grace originated solely in the bosom of the Father, he further adds, "Herein is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." From this testimony of Scripture, which need not be strengthened by additional quotations, it is as clear and decisive as language can express, that it was the Father's own infinite wisdom which devised the plan of salvation by a propitiatory sacrifice, and that it was his own infinite love which provided the endeared victim. He gave, at a cost ex

sacred, nay, almost regarded as divine in the Church of Rome, on account of the extraordinary merit and authority of that illustrious bishop; and, at the same time, was almost diametrically opposite to the sentiments generally received among the Jesuits,-these latter could scarcely consider the books of Jansenius in any other light than as a tacit but formidable refutation of their opinions concerning human liberty and divine grace and accordingly they not only drew their pens against this book, but also used their most zealous endeavours to obtain a public condemnation of it from Rome."

The executors of Jansenius disregarded the solemn injunctions contained in his will. They had good reason to fear that Jesuitical influence would be called into exercise to sway the mind of the pope, and to condemn the doctrines of his work. In two years after the author's death, it was published; and to this may be traced many of those deeds of violence for which the Jesuits have been notorious, and which abundantly prove the rancorous hostility of the sects of the Romanists towards each other; shewing the utter fallacy, as has been hinted, of the opinion, that one spirit animates the popish Church.

About midnight, Dec. 10, 1657, the inscription over the grave of Jansenius was secretly removed, and the tomb so completely demolished, that not a vestige remained. On the following morning the chapter of Ypres, on the discovery of the facts, expressed the strongest indignation, but had no remedy; as it was found that the bishop who had succeeded to the see was the author of the spoliation, instigated by the Jesuits. In 1672, a second epitaph, on a plain white marble slab, was erected where the monument had stood; but this was not suffered to remain; it was removed by the Jesuits in less than a month after it was erected. A simple cross pattee was the only mark which pointed out his grave. In 1733 it was, for the first time, announced by the Jesuit, Père du Chesne, that, on the first spoliation of the tomb, the body of Jansenius was removed. A few years after this announcement, the cathedral was newly paved; and no trace remains to mark the grave.

I

After the publication of Jansenius's work, the Jesuits tried by every method to quash its circulation; and at length Father Cornet, one of their body, produced five propositions, said to be taken from the work, and most artfully and ambiguously worded, many of the phrases admitting of a double meaning. These propositions were laid before Innocent X. and the Sorbonne, and were pronounced, after various discussions, by both to be heretical, most of the dignitaries of the Gallican Church agreeing with the decision. A formula was now drawn up, containing these five propositions, with a declaration of their heretical character subjoined; and which was ordered to be signed by all the clergy, all teachers, religious houses, and candidates for orders. This paper, contrary to the expectations of their enemies, the Jansenists did not refuse to sign; each, however, adding to his signature a protest against the propositions being found in the writings of their founder, and pointing out the difference, much to their mortification, for they now thought their triumph complete. A second application was now made to Rome. On 16th Nov., 1686, a bull was issued by Alexander VII., confirming the former, declaring that the propositions were heretical, and that they were taken from Jansenius. A second formulary was drawn up, and the declaration described by Mosheim as one "of unexampled temerity and contentious tendency," couched in the following strong terms "I condemn, from my inmost soul, and by word of mouth, the doctrine of the five propositions contained in the works of C. Jansenius-a doctrine which is not that of St. Augustin, whose sentiments Jansenius has misinterpreted."

When this was presented to the Jansenists for sig

nature, they all refused, opposing it with the utmost energy. They declared that the Catholic Church, whilst she asserts the divine authority of the see of Rome on subjects of faith, yet allows her only a human judgment on matters of fact. The doctrine of the propositions was unquestionably an object of faith; their having been advanced by Jansenius was a matter of fact. With respect, therefore, to the heresy of the doctrines, they fully submitted to the decision of the apostolic see. But with regard to the fact that such propositions were to be found in the writings of Jansenius, they conceived it was a matter of private judgment; and their full belief was, that the opinions of their founder were grossly misrepresented. On this declaration being made, persecution beset them on every side. The court, the Jesuits, and the clergy, united together to oppress, or rather to extirpate them. "The Jesuits," says Mosheim, "had audaciously asserted in the city of Paris, and in the face of the Gallican Church, that faith and confidence in the papal decisions relating to a matter of fact, had no less the characters of a well-grounded and divine faith, than when these decisions related merely to matters of doctrine and opinion." It is to be remarked, moreover, that all the Jansenists were by no means so resolute and intrepid as those above mentioned. Some of them declared, that they would neither subscribe nor reject the form in question; but testify their veneration for the authority of the pope by observing a profound silence on that subject. Others professed themselves ready to subscribe it; not, indeed, without exception and reserve; but on the condition of being allowed to explain, either verbally or in writing, the sense in which they understood it, or the distinction and limitations with which they were willing to adopt it. Others employed a variety of methods and stratagems to elude the force of this tyrannical declaration. But nothing of this kind was sufficient to satisfy the violent demands of the Jesuits; nothing less than the entire ruin of the Jansenists could appease their fury. Such, therefore, among the latter as made the least opposition to the declaration in question were cast into prison, or sent into exile, or involved in some other species of persecution; and it is well known that this severity was a consequence of the suggestions of the Jesuits, or of their influence in cabinet-councils.

Y.

THE SABBATH.

Its Origin and Perpetuity vindicated, from the Old and New Testaments.

BY THE REV. THOMAS PYNE, A.M.
Assistant Minister of Ram's Chapel, Homerton.

No. I.

WHEN we find any remarkable custom existing in the world, it is natural and even desirable for the mind to inquire into its origin. A positive institution, whether secular or religious, must always have had some cause or combination of causes at its commencement; and this is certain in the degree in which the institution is peculiar.

The above canon applies forcibly to the Sabbath. We perceive, among many millions of people, residing in different countries, speaking various languages, and having a diversity of habits in other respects, the year divided into weeks, and a regular habit of intermission from worldly labours on one day in each seven, and a dedication, more or less complete, of that day to the purposes of devotion and religious instruction. Our thoughts then turn to the origin of so remarkable a custom; a custom which the nature of external things would never of itself have led men to adopt, which presents to view only an interruption of their callings and pleasures; but which, really calcu

lated by the repose and change of thoughts which it offers for their temporal welfare, is yet of far higher consequence in a moral sense, as being that on which, more perhaps than on any other thing, has depended the continuance of the knowledge of the true God among mankind, and all the social blessings which hence have flowed. Now, but one satisfactory account can be given of this institution, and one rule discovered for its nature, and the spirit in which it should be kept; and this account and this rule are found in the holy Bible.

It will be the purpose of these pages to place before the reader the institution and perpetual obligation of the day of sacred rest, as set forth alike in the Old and New Testaments. At present, we shall confine ourselves to the arguments from the Old Testament on the subject. May He who is the Lord even of the Sabbath-day open our minds to the due recognition of this sacred rest, and fill us with "the Spirit," | as week by week we endeavour to honour his appointment!

First, then, our thoughts naturally turn to the primeval law of the Sabbath. It is said in the second chapter of Genesis, that "the heavens and the earth being finished, on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."

We cannot suppose that there is weariness with God. No. He who could create an infinite universe is himself infinite, and therefore needs no repose. Hence, when we find Jehovah thus speaking of the Sabbath, we learn that he had a purpose in the appointment for man's benefit. In the text just quoted there is an evident setting apart the day-a making it unlike common days-a designation of it to religious repose. Now this was done in paradise. It was before the fall. Slight as were the labours, happy the duties, abundant the opportunities, for the Divine service at other seasons, here was a distinct period mentioned, and that given to man at the very commencement of his being. A seventh portion of time was hallowed, even before the fruit was forbidden, or the earth had learnt its orbital course. But a command given to the human race, under such circumstances, may justly be considered a command of universal obligation. No ceremonial was appointed to our first parents; nothing but one, and that the simplest possible test of obedience; but with it, yea, before it, "God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." From this reason, then, the duty of remembering the Sabbath may be pronounced incumbent on us. But, further; the apportionment of a seventh portion of time to the Divine service is not only the one command inscribed on the order of creation; it is the chief vestige of our paradisaical state. We tread the same earth with our first parents; but how changed! how polluted! Where shall we turn for the memento of man's state of happiness and obedience? The week-day world is full of the bustle of business and pleasure; men are found labouring, as in the fire, for the various objects which they have placed before their minds. Every thing we commonly see is for time to increase men's luxuries, to add to their power, to prolong their name upon the perishing earth. But the Sunday restores us to God, and gives a glimpse of paradise. In the quietness, order, and propriety of the day, we trace the loveliness of heavenly law; and in the higher, and more peculiar, and more sacred associations of it, we recognise the hand of the Creator-of him who has twice created us; who first gave man an Eden, and when he forfeited it, opened the way to a yet better state at his own right hand.

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Whenever, then, you awaken on the Sabbathmorning, let such thoughts occupy your soul. Remem

ber the Sabbath as the command of the one God the Creator, and the record of a lost paradise; remember it with fear and awe, with grief and shame, but yet with hope and gratitude; and doubt not that in following out the doctrines and duties to which it points, a better Sabbath will await you through your Saviour's merits in his own kingdom.

Secondly,-But another view is to be taken of the Sabbath. It is the grand external symbol of revealed religion. Traces of the hallowing of the Sabbath are to be met with among the worshippers of Jehovah from the time of the first bestowment of the command through every successive age to the present. It is true that in Genesis nothing very direct is said on the subject; but in so succinct a book, extending, as its history does, over a period of 1689 years, any full detail of it was scarcely to be expected. No mention is made of sacrifices till the deluge-a period of 1500 years; nor from the arrival of Jacob at Beersheba till the deliverance from Egypt-a space of upwards of 300 more; but does this prove that sacrifices were omitted? We read nothing about circumcision from the death of Moses till the time of Jeremiah-an interval of nearly a thousand years; but does any one imagine that circumcision was not performed? No mention of the Sabbath occurs in the books of Joshua, Ruth, 1st and 2d Samuel, and 1st Kings, which are so much more detailed than is Genesis, and when the Mosaic law was confessedly in its fullest vigour. This would be enough to shew that the silence of Moses in Genesis does not prove that the Sabbath was not thought by mankind to be binding on them; any more than the loss of the original institution of marriage for 2000 years invalidates its re-enactment by the Saviour.

But the fact is, there are clear marks of the admeasurement of time by weeks, and therefore of a Sabbath, during the patriarchal ages. Cain and Abel brought their offerings at the "end of the days," i. e. on the Sabbath. The description of Enoch," who walked with God," when viewed by the light of the passage in Heb. xi., where express reference is made to his faith in Jehovah as the Creator of all things, as well as the rewarder of his people, is highly consistent with the patriarch's maintenance of the day established in memorial of the creative rest. As to Noah, living as he did sixteen centuries from the appointment of the day of rest, the method of reckoning by weeks is a thing familiarly referred to as the ordinary division of time in his age. "Yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain." After seven days "the flood was on the earth;" he stayed "yet other seven days," and sent forth a dove: and again, "yet other seven days," and sent it forth a third time. The word seven, va in Hebrew and other kindred languages, is from a word primarily signifying fulness or completion, and was probably applied to a week, because that was the space occupied in completing

creation.

We descend to Abraham, who "commanded his household to keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment;" yea, who, as God condescended to say of him, in reference to Isaac, "obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, and my laws." What could be this way of the Lord; what this voice, this charge, these commandments, these laws, if the original institution of the Sabbath, the charge, the commandment, the law issued in paradise, was not among them? Jacob seems to have recognised the duty of stated worship by speaking of a "house of God;" even Laban talked about the "week" to his son-in-law; and yet more, the ancient Job himself, dwelling at the distance of Uz of the Chaldees, more than once reminds us of "a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord."

I have dwelt on this point, because it is important in two respects: one, that the opponents of the divine

institution of the Sabbath take it for granted that there was no mention of it before the law; the other, that the establishment of the fact of its observation during the first 2000 years, or one-third of the whole period of the earth's history, and that before the giving of the law, is a powerful argument for its permanent authority.

Thirdly, We are to speak of it now in the period in which the statutes of God are left more definitely on record. But before we enter on this, a remarkable incident occurs. Bear in mind that the law is not yet given; and observe the narrative. The Israelites in the wilderness murmur for the want of bread; then said the Lord, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily."

its commencement at that time, than the appointment of the rainbow proved that it was to be but a temporary sign; or its mention after the flood, that it had not commenced at the creation! And to go on to the after-ages of the Jewish Church, we may learn the consideration in which the Sabbath was regarded by the holiest of the Jews; by such an example as that of Nehemiah and his companions, who "entered into an oath to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses, the servant of God; and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our God, and his

statutes and his judgments." "And if the people of the land," he continues, "bring ware, or any victuals, on the Sabbath-day to sell, that we would not buy it of them on the Sabbath." And so again, to his own people, "I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath-day Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and on our city? Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath. And it came to pass, that when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the Sabbath, I commanded that the gates should be shut, and charged that they should not be opened till after the Sabbath; and some of my servants set I at the gates, that there should no burden be brought in on the Sabbath-day. And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates to sanctify the Sabbath." We cannot, indeed, neither do we wish, to put barriers in our streets to prevent the stream of Sabbath-breakers, who, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, pass along, willingly ignorant of heavenly truth, careless of the malignity of sin. The genius of the Gospel is to apply moral, and not physical, checks to evil. If the former are found in any heart, that person will at once leave off ungodliness; he will know that the ways of religion "are ways of pleasantness, and that all her paths are peace;" and there will be little or no occasion for lower influences, the soul being filled with the love of Christ. But we can close our houses, our hearts, to the intrusion of worldly friends and cares; we can magnify Him who hath both created and redeemed us; and by example, as well as precept, invite men to join us in the worship of our God. "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! my soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord."

This cannot be considered the institution of the Sabbath, because, first, the Lord speaks of it incidentally as a thing known; and then Moses, referring in the same chapter to the day, says, "See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath" (it would have been does, or will give, had the appointment then been new): he hath given the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days. The Sabbath had been kept up as the record of creation, and of the one creative hand before the flood; it had distinguished the true worshippers in their pastoral life; it had been maintained by the chosen family during their persecutions and afflictions in Egypt; it has survived all the vicissitudes to which the human race had been exposed; and now it is referred to as a thing well known by the leader of Israel guiding the people to the promised land. But even a more distinct recognition of its sacred character than this was to be made. The heart is deceitful; it is prone to think that a burden which should be deemed a privilege; and having once esteemed a thing a burden, to lay it aside, however clear the command from God, however decisive the duty. Hence, as Jehovah was pleased to republish the moral law (for no one will say that the duties inculcated in the ten commandments were not duties from the beginning), he included among those purely moral duties this positive institution, "Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy;" and that for the very same cause which had given it its sanction at first. "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and rested on the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it." Now this is very decisive; the judicial and ceremonial portions of the law were still unappointed; and when they were, they were proved, both by their nature and by the express testimony of God, to be only temporary. Intended for a single nation, and being in themselves but shadows of good things to come, they would necessarily vanish when the Sun of Righteousness should arise upon the nations. But do the ten commandments vanish? Are they suited only to one people, and that for a defined time? Are they not re-enacted in spirit by the Lord in his solemn appeal to man, to love God, and to love our neighbour? And as the method of shewing love to others is by certain definite outward acts-such as honouring parents, abstaining from murder, and other crimes,-so, does it not follow, that in shewing our love to God, we should do so by worshipping him as the only Jehovah, by honouring his holy name and word, and retaining stated ordinances, and therefore stated seasons, for his worship? It is true, God afterwards speaks of the Sabbath as a sign between him and the Israelites; and it would be a very remarkable sign of the separation of that people from their unsabbatical heathen neighbours; and refers to it in relation to their deliverance from Egypt, which might be considered as the creation of Israel as a people: but the Sabbath being made in this sense a sign, no more limits its intention to a prescribed period, or proves

Indeed, one striking feature in the procession of ages is the gradual advancement observable in the writings of the prophets, from the dwelling on the ceremonial to the inculcation of the spiritual duties of the Sabbath. In many other things, they seem to have enjoyed a bright anticipation of the excellency of the Gospel-times. The law in its numberless rites was a burden which neither they nor their fathers could bear; they understood that the superiority of the Christian dispensation would consist in the more direct and simple application of spiritual truths to the conscience; and they spoke of the Sabbath with such an impression on their minds. Hear Isaiah, for instance: first, because of the superstitious use of this ordinance, rebuking the people; "The new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." But does any one think that, in consequence of these abuses, the moral obligation of the Sabbath would cease? Attend to the message of God by the same prophet, in reference to the due observance of this sacred day; a command, as you will perceive, with promise, and that too not confined in application