we must award the palm to Mr. Conder, whose observations on the Political Law of the Sabbath are, it appears to us, particularly clear and judicious. He has, moreover, done much towards ascertaining those limits within which the civil magistrate should restrict his efforts; a branch of the subject which, in a practical point of view, is at once the most important, and the most difficult. "The third branch of our inquiry relates to the duty of the Legislature, and the expediency of upholding and enforcing the observation of the day by penal enactments. Two questions here suggest themselves: First, Upon what grounds ought the observance of the Sabbath to be made a political duty? Secondly, What are the legitimate objects and the proper limit of such legislative interference? Where shall we draw the line at which the restrictive power of the law should terminate? As to the principle of the law, it must be admitted, that, in former times, very mistaken notions have prevailed as to the province of the magistrate and the legitimate ends of civil goverment, which have led to the enactment of laws proper only under a strict theocracy. Religion has been rendered odious by enactments having for their professed object to compel the discharge of spiritual duties, the very essence of which consists in the consent of the will and the service of the heart; laws broadly marked with the mistaken piety of the times, and dictated by an erring zeal closely allied to intolerance. Of this description are the old statutes for keeping holy days and fasting days, which require all persons to resort on such days to the parish church, or some usual church or chapel, and there to abide during the time of service. These statutes, though repealed so far as regards Protestant Dissenters, are still binding upon all members of the Church of England. The same character is impressed upon the legislative enact A clause in the first Act of Unifor. mity imposes a penalty upon all persons who, having no reasonable excuse, shall not diligently and faithfully endeavour themselves to resort to their parish church upon every Sunday. All persons are required to resort to the parish church, or some usual church, &c. on the 5th of November, the 20th of May, and ments regarding the Lord's-day passed in the time of the Commonwealth, as by the first colonists of the State of Conwell as upon some of the old laws made necticut-laws not less at variance with any just notions of civil and religious liberty. "It does not belong to the Legislature to inculcate or to enforce the re ligious observance of the Lord's-day, or to compel the discharge of any other duty purely religious. It must be left to the ministers of religion to teach and to enforce upon the consciences of men, an observance of those duties for the neglect of which they must give an account, not to man but to God. But, although the civil government cannot compel men to be religious, it can and ought to protect them in the exercise of their religion. Admitted that it is not within the province of our civil governors to ordain that every person should exercise himself on the Lord's-day in the duties of piety and true religion, it is strictly within their province, it is moreprovide that all and every person or perover their bounden and sacred duty, to liberty, means, and opportunity of applying sons should, on the Lord's-day, have the themselves to the observation of the day, by so exercising themselves in the duties of religion. This distinction, though often overlooked, is sufficiently palpable; and it makes all the difference as to the prin ciple of the law. The religious obligation of keeping the Sabbath, and the common consent of Christians respecting it, may be justly and reasonably assumed on the part of a Christian legislature. These form the ground and reason of the enactments which have for their legitimate object to secure the benefit of the institution to all classes of the community ; to protect more especially the trading and labouring classes against those encroachments, and that natural result of unrestrained competition which would otherwise deprive them of the means and the opportunity of paying any regard to the ordinances of religion. "The fact is, that some public law relating to the Sabbath, there must be, if it is to be observed at all. The Lord'sday must either be publicly recognized as the law of the land, and enforced as such by the suspension of all the legislative and judicial functions of government, and the ordinary transactions of trade and commerce; or it must be for. the 30th of January, by 3 James I. c. 1, 12 Charles II. c. 14, and 12 Charles II. c. 30. mally abolished, by letting the whole business of administration, law, and trade proceed as usual. Our Houses of Parliament, our courts of justice, the public offices, the Bank, the East India House, the London Post Office, the theatres, are all closed on the Lord's day; and the same law of the land says, that all shops, warehouses, and wharfs, shall, in like manner, be shut, that markets shall not be held, that waggons and droves shall not proceed. It may be a question how far the restrictions of the law should extend, but it can be no question, whether the public observance of the Sabbath is the proper subject of legislative interference, seeing that the repeal of all restrictions would be tantamount to a positive decision that the Sabbath should not be observed. We are not now arguing the matter à priori, but may take the facts as they exist The people of this country are in possession of a Sabbath, as their birthright, a boon originally bestowed by their Creator, rectified by the law of Christianity, and confirmed to them by prescriptive right and statute law.' We maintain it to be the duty of the government to secure to them the undiminished proprietorship of this portion of time. What would be the consequence of breaking down this barrier of protection thrown round the interests of the labouring classes? Why, as Paley most truly remarks, the addition of the seventh day's labour to the other six, would have no other effect than to reduce the price. The labourer himself, who deserved and suffered most by the change, would gain nothing.' The poor man may not see this. He sees what seems opposed to it; that petty and illicit gains may be obtained by the man who works on the Sunday, in violation of the law. But let the day of rest be universally disregarded, let the labourer that is at present withdrawn from the market on that day, be set at liberty from all restrictions, and those private gains would totally disappear before the effects of competition, leaving the poor man poor indeed. Those who would represent the strictest observance of the sabbath, as a hardship upon the poor man, must be worse than ignorant, must be as perfidious as they are irreligious, despisers of God, and enemies to their neighbour. "But the enforcement of the law of the Sabbath has been objected to by some persons as an infringement upon religious liberty; especially when extended to Roman Catholics, whose religious opinions do not compel them to close their shops on that day, or to Jews, and persons of other creeds. A very few words will furnish a sufficient exposure of this insidious representation. In the first place, it is obvious, that no man can have a right to plead his conscience as a bar against the enforcement of a law which compels him to do nothing against his conscience; and secondly, no subject of a government has any claim to an exemption from the operation of laws having for their avowed object, the general interests of the community. That the law of the Sabbath is intolerant, that it offends against any man's conscience or real interests, can by no ingenuity be made to appear. It cannot, then, be intolerance to enforce that law; since intolerance consists in the nature of enactments, not in the execution of them. To tolerate the non-observance of the laws by any portion of the community, is not liberality, but negligence and laxity; and the magistrate who connives at the open breach of the laws, virtually reproaches the legislature. "Besides the representation erroneously assumes, that the government compels the Roman Catholic, Turk, or Jew to observe the Lord's day with a religious strictness not required by his own faith, and punishes him for not observing it. It does no such thing. It leaves men to observe the day religiously, or not so to observe it, as their conscience or creed may dictate. It tolerates their irreligion up to the point at which it would interfere with the religion of their neighbours; and then, it does not deal with them penally for being irreligious, but simply restrains them froin breaking a salutary social compact, ratified by the state, for the general benefit of the community. The observance of the Sabbath, it is true, is far from being a mere voluntary compact: it rests upon an antecedent religious obligation, binding upon every man. Still, this does not render it less really a compact between man and man, and which it is the duty of the government to ratify and enforce, in common with other compacts, relating more immediately to social rights and possessions. The time of the labourer is as much his property as the estate of the rich man. Both are protected by the law of God; the one by the fourth, the other by the eighth commandment. If it be intolerance in the state to enforce the compact of the Sabbath, it must be equally so to enforce the compact of hereditary or other legal tenures.”—pp. 39–43. See Resolutions passed at a public meeting held at Mobile, in the United States, in Miss. Reg. Aug. 1830, p. 384. (To be continued.) NEW PUBLICATIONS, WITH SHORT NOTICES. The Family Expositor; or a Paraphrase and Version of the New Testament; with critical Notes and a practical Improvement to each Section, by Philip Doddridge, D. D. With Memoirs of the Author by Job Or ton, and Extracts from Dr. Kippis. With a portrait engraved from an original pic ture in Wymondley House, Herts, by permission of the Trustees of the late William Coward, Esq. 980. pp-Westley & Co. THE Family Expositor needs not our praise. "It should find a place, (says a celebrated bibliographer) upon the shelf, and upon the table of every mansion where the moral duties of a Christian are enjoined. Doddridge's heart was made up of all the kindlier affections of our nature; and was wholly devoted to the salvation of men's souls. Whatever he did, he appears to have done "to the glory of God." He read, he wrote, he preached-with a zeal which knew no abatement, and with an earnestness which left no doubt of the sincerity of his motives He was snatched from his flock and the world-both of which had been enlightened and benefited by his labours in the prime of life and in the full possession of his faculties; but HE who has left such fruits behind him, cannot be said to have immaturely perished." At the time Dr. Dibdin penned these remarks, the libraries of mansions were the places in which it was most probable the Expositor would be found; for ten years ago the work was not accessible to humble readers; there was "the best old edition, large type, six volumes quarto, calf, neat," to be obtained at about three guineas; and a paltry octavo edition in six volumes might have been obtained for about half that price. But happily the admirable press of Messrs. J. R. and C. Childs, of Bungay, has furnished the public with the edition before us, incomparably superior in elegance, and we believe in accuracy, to any edition of the work which we have before seen. This noble volume forms a companion to the Miscellaneous Works of Doddridge, which we recommended (at page 250) in our last volume, and we must congratulate their enterprising proprietors and the public, that now an edition of the complete works of that incomparable man may be obtained, in two volumes, at less than one half the price at which they were formerly published, and that for typographiit is greatly to be preferred to the old cal beauty and general convenience, edition in ten octavos. A Review of the Two Letters on Baptism in the August and October Numbers of the Evangelical Magazine: with some Observations on the respective Merits of the "Welsh and Scotch Systems." By a Welsh Minister. Westley and Davis. MOST of our readers have probably seen the letters to which we now allude. That in the August Magazine was written by a Welsh minister, who maintains that" a child's right to baptism is founded not on any parental relationship, but on its relation to the kingdom of Christ." That in the October Magazine was written by a Scotch minister, who, on the contrary, maintains" that the right of baptism does not belong to a child as it stands related to the kingdom of Christ, but that it is a privilege belonging to the parent, and communicated to the child in virtue of that relationship.' The former extends the privilege to children in general, as having an acknowledged right to be instructed in the principles of the Gospel: the latter confines the privilege to the children of church members. The reviewer's "Observations on the respective merits of the Welsh and Scotch systems,” are intended to prove the Scripture authority of the former, and to show that the latter is as inconsistent with reason as it is contrary to the Word of God; and that as such it must prove highly injurious to the cause of Christianity. Deeming the subject as one of vast practical importance in the present state of Christian Missions; and fully agreeing with the reviewer, that a candid discussion of it might be productive of much good, we feel pleasure in recommending his "Observations" to the attention of parents, teachers, ministers, and missionaries. Greenland Missions, with Biographical Sketches of some of the Native Converts. Dublin, published by the Religious Tract and Book Society for Ireland, 1831. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. The Moravians in Green and. Second Edition. Edinburgh, published by William Oliphant, 22, South Bridge Street. NOTHING truly great and important was ever attempted without an adequate stimulus. The man of the world is prompted by the motives, and animated by the prospects of earthly emolument or fame; and, when we read of the intrepid self-devotement of a Leonidas or a Regulus, it requires no arguments to prove the extent to which patriotism and the love of posthumous glory fixed their spirits and braced their resolution to the last extremity. Every hardship thus encountered, every sacrifice thus incurred, is sure to receive from the world its meed of admiration and applause. But, when first an extraordinary effort is made for the moral and spiritual illumination of a remote and degraded portion of our species, the magnanimity of the Christian hero, who, at the expense of incalculable risk and suffering, braves the perils of the deep, and penetrates to the icebound regions of the Pole, is too often regarded with the frigid eye of suspicion, or condemned as a species of Quixotic wild-fire, or the ebullition of an insane mind. Such, indeed was the public estimate, formed of the enterprize, which, exactly one hundred years ago, (1732,) was undertaken by Mr. Hans Egede, a pious clergyman of Norway, whose heart was inflamed with the benevolent design of carrying the tidings of salvation by the blood of Christ, to the distant and frozen shores of Greenland. The interval, however, which has elapsed since that devoted and honoured servant of God commenced his labours, has afforded abundant proof, that his faith was not less rational and well founded, than it was fervid and unabating. The success of the Moravian Missions to the Greenlanders has contributed in no small degree to produce the new tone of feeling that now prevails, generally, on the subject of aiming to Christianize the heathen, and, indeed, it is not at all surprising, that the strongest prejudice should give way, before such a mass of interesting N. S. No. 87. and striking evidence as is compressed within the narrow compass of either of the little volumes before us. The former, at the head of this article, is compiled" from Mr. Crantz's valuable history of Greenland, and the periodical accounts of the Missions of the United Brethren ;" and "the compiler has interspersed reflections" which are neither tedious nor unimpressive, but add much to the intrinsic value of the work. The Scotch edition is a more regularly detailed account of the mission, and the establishment of each successive station or settlement. The biographical notices of converts, however, being interwoven throughout the narrative, are necessarily much shorter than in the Dublin edition. Each has its respective merits. And we conclude by expressing a decided opinion, that no friend to Missionary exertions-and we may add, no man whose mind is not steeled against the impressions of truth and simplicity, can fail to be deeply interested in the unvarnished details of a whole century's arduous labours, for a long season ineffective, but finally resulting in the most astonishing triumphs of the cross over ignorance, superstition, and complete savageness. TRANSACTIONS OF THE CONGREGATIONAL DISSENTERS. CONGREGATIONAL UNION. The following circular has been issued by the Provisional Committee of the Congregational Union. REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, -The interest which we presume is mutually felt by us on the subject of the Congregational Union, will supply an apology, should one be required, for again bringing it under your personal attention. Although we have inserted, in the February Number of the Congational Magazine, an official notice to the Secretaries and Officers of the various County Associations, requesting them to bring forward the subject at their Spring meetings, and communicate with us, in due time, preparatory to the annual meeting in May; yet, lest this notice should not have reached you, and fearing lest the object should not be noticed, or but slightly noticed, under the supposition that an opinion already given may be considered as definitive on your part; and apprehensive also, lest your silence should, in so important a matter, be construed into partial or total disapproval, we have thought it our duty to address to you the present circular. We trust that the vast importance of the proposed Union will continue to enjoy the most attentive deliberation of the ministers and congregations connected with our body, throughout the kingdom. The lapse of another year has not diminished in our view the value of those advantages which were at first anticipated: on the contrary, "the signs of the times," accumulating in grandeur and importance, impress our minds with a sense of the duty of closer combination against the tremendous dangers to be feared, from errors in doctrine, from infidelity, and from licentiousnsss; while the extraordinary convulsions which agi tate the nations, appear to us to call for the most concentrated efforts to promote that kingdom which shall not be moved. We therefore indulge the hope that you will be ready to forward the object in your own Association, by giving to it all due prominence at your next meeting; and that you will also have the kindness to transmit to us the result, both of that, and of any previous meeting, which may have been held since the general meeting in May last. It will be important to the arrangements of the next general meeting in May, that we should receive some written communication from you in answer to the third of the concluding Resolutions contained in the Report of the general meeting already forwarded to you; and which, for more ready reference, we beg to subjoin. 66 That the Provisional Committee be instructed to give the widest circulation to the proceedings of this day, and after obtaining the sentiments of the brethren throughout the country, on the plan now prepared for their consideration, that they do give it a farther revision, so that it may be presented for final adoption in the most perfect and satisfactory form, at a General Meeting of the body, to be held (D. V.) in this place, on Tuesday, May 8th, 1832, at 10 o'clock, A. M.” Hoping to receive your communication by the end of April ensuing, We are, Rev. and Dear Sir, in the bonds of sincere Christian regard, your faithful friends and servants, (On behalf of the Committee,) ARTHUR TIDMAN, JOSEPH TURNBULL, JOSHUA WILSON, Provisional Secretaries. Congregational Library, Finsbury, 12th March, 1832. |