resurrection, while the queen was fasting on account of his crucifixion! To get rid of this inconvenience, the king summoned a

council to

original of

meet at Withby, to determine the Easter. The clergy, on the one side, rested their cause on tradition derived from St. John, while the clergy, on the other, urged that which came from St. Peter. The king was judge; the balance inclined neither way, and he was long perplexed with authorities quite equal. At length, being informed that however great St. John might be, St. Peter kept the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, the king very prudently took care of the main chance, declared for St. Peter, and Easter has fallen on a Sunday in England ever since!

Good Friday had the fate of all other holidays: it had a solemn service composed for it; and, being established by the civil power, the people were obliged to fast, and to pray, and to sing, and so on to the end of the chapter.

When Henry VIII. reformed the British church, although he discarded many festivals, he yet thought proper to retain Easter, and Lent, its appendage. The old service was afterwards new vamped; and during the succeeding reigns of Elizabeth and the Stuarts, many were persecuted for refusing to comply with it. That inestimable prince, William III., procured a toleration, the present august family protect it, and the inhabi

tants of Britain now enjoy the liberty of keeping festivals, or of renouncing them, at their pleasure.

The history, then, is briefly this: Neither Good Friday, nor any other good day, fasts or feasts, were appointed to be observed, by Jesus Christ or his apostles. The time of Christ's birth cannot be made out, and that of his crucifixion is uncertain. Could we assure ourselves of the year, we could not prove that the Jews observed the regressions of the equinox, nor that they made use of accurate astronomical tables. No traces of Easter are to be found in the first century, nor for a great part of the second. When the first observers of it appeared, they could not make out evidence of their coming honestly by it. Councils decreed that it should not be kept before the 21st of March, nor after the 20th of April. Some, however, kept it on the 22nd of April, while others celebrated it on the 25th of March, others, at times, different from both, and others kept no day at all. Our ancestors murdered one another for variety of opinion on this subject; but we are fallen under wiser and better governors, who allow us to think and act as we please, provided the state receive no injury. Thus the language of scripture is spoken by the laws of our country: "He who regardeth a day, let him regard it to the Lord; and he who regardeth not a day to the Lord, let him not regard it."

171

CHAP. XIV.

HISTORY OF CHURCH HOLIDAYS, CONTINUED.

DULL and uninteresting as this poor subject may be, as an article of history, it becomes extremely important, when it is foisted into the religion of Christ, enjoined on all Christian people, under pain of God's displeasure, and considered as the livery of loyalty and piety. In such a case, the disciples of the Son of God are compelled to inquire, whose are we, and whom do we serve? His we are whom we obey.

Should a man form an idea of the Christian church from reading the New Testament, in which Jewish ceremonies are said to be a yoke, which neither the Jews of Christ's time, nor their ancestors were able to bear,-in which those rites are called weak and beggarly elements,-rudiments of the world,-shadows of good things to come, of which Christ was the substance ;-should he then behold a Christian church laden with ceremonies of Pagan and Jewish extraction, there would naturally arise a violent prejudice in his mind against such

a Christian church, and he would be obliged to inquire what Joab had a hand in this alteration?

It must be allowed, that consummate wisdom, cool and unbiassed judgment, rectitude the most rigid, and benevolence and power the most extensive, are absolute and indispensable qualifications in religious legislation. The nature of God and man; the relation of each to the other, and of both to all; the countless conditions and circumstances of all the rest of mankind; the kind of worship, and the manner of performing it; the necessary requisitions of justice, and the proper effusions of goodness, with a thousand other articles, form one grand complex whole, which would baffle all, except infinite penetration, in forming a system of real religion.

As an assumption of legislative power in religion is an ascent to the most elevated degree of honour, and as it requires a kind of submission to which human dignity is loth to bow, so, it must be supposed, the clearest evidence of a right to exercise it is naturally expected. No blind submission ; no precarious titles; no spurious records; no popular clamour; nothing but clear revelation, interpreted by accurate reasoning, can be taken as evidence here. An immortal intelligence is the noblest production of infinite power and skill; when it pays its homage to the Deity it is in its noblest exercise; and no mean guide must conduct such a being then.

On these just principles I take up church holidays, where I find them, as part of the established religion of my country; and I modestly inquire the authority that made them so? A few old women refer me to the fourth verse of the twelfth chapter of Acts for the word Easter, and I return the compliment by referring them to their grandsons at school, who say St. Luke wrote passover. I could, were I inclined to revenge, be even with these old ladies, by telling them the tale of Lady Easter, Ashtar, or Ashtaroth, a Sidonian toast; but I am too busy, and too placid now, and I take my leave of this goddess, and also of the godly translator, who profaned a Jewish fast, by nick-naming it after a pagan prostitute, and laid the blame on innocent St. Luke.

The established clergy do not pretend to support their festivals by authority of scripture; but they say, their legal authority arises from that Act of Parliament which ratified the thirty-nine articles of their faith, one of which affirms, "the church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith." This clause is said by them to mean, that the " governors of the church have power to determine what shall be received and professed for truth among the members of the church, and to bind them to submission to their sentence, though they err in their sentence." These are their own words.

The thirty-nine articles were first produced in a