* first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as "God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I

"" come. 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2. Which direction affords a probable proof, that the first day of the week was already, amongst the Christians both of Corinth and Galatia, distinguished from the rest by some religious application or other. At the time that St. John wrote the book of his Revelation, the first day of the week had obtained the name of the Lord's Day;-"I was in the spirit" (says he)" on the Lord's Day.” Rev i. 10, Which name, and St. John's use of it, sufficiently denote the appropriation of this day to the service of religion, and that this appropriation was perfectly known to the Churches of Asia. I make no doubt but that by the Lord's Day was meant the first day of the week; for, we find no footsteps of any distinction of days, which could entitle any other to that appellation. The subsequent history of Christianity corresponds with the accounts delivered on this subject in Scripture.

It will be remembered, that we are contending, by these proofs, for no other duty upon the first day of the week, than that of holding and frequenting religious assemblies. A cessation upon that day from labour, beyond the time of attendance upon public wor ship, is not intimated in any passage of the New Testament; nor did Christ or his apostles deliver, that we know of, any command to their disciples for a discontinuance, upon that day, of the common offices of their professions: a reserve which none will see reason to wonder at, or to blame as a defect in the institution, who consider that, in the primitive condition of Christianity, the observation of a new sabbath would have been useless, or inconvenient, or impracticable. During Christ's personal ministry, his religion was preached to the Jews alone. They already had a sabbath, which, as citizens and subjects of that economy, they were obliged to keep, and did keep. It was not therefore probable that Christ would enjoin another day of rest in conjunction with this. When the new religion came forth into the Gentile world, converts to it were for the most part, made from those classes of society who have not their time and labour at their own disposal; and it was scarcely to be expected, that unbelieving masters and magistrates, and they who directed the employment of others, would permit their slaves and labourers to rest from their work every seventh day; or that civil goverment, indeed, would have submitted to the loss of a seventh part of the public industry, and that too in addition to the numerous festivals which the national religions indulged to the people; at least, this would have been an en

cumbrance, which might have greatly retarded the reception of Christianity in the world. In reality, the institution of a weekly sabbath is so connected with the functions of civil life, and requires so much of the concurrence of civil law, in its regulation and support, that it cannot, perhaps, properly be made the ordinance of any religion, till that religion be received as the religion of the state.

The opinion that Christ and his Apostles meant to retain the duties of the Jewish sabbath, shifting only the day from the seventh to the first, seems to prevail without sufficient proof; nor does any evidence remain in Scripture, (of what, however, is not improbable,) that the first day of the week was thus distinguished in commemoration of our Lord's resurrection.

The conclusion from the whole inquiry, (for it is our business to follow the arguments to whatever probability they conduct us,) is this: The assembling upon the first day of the week for the purpose of public worship and religious instruction, is a law of Christianity, of divine appointment; the resting on that day from our employments longer than we are detained from them by attendance upon these assemblies, is to Christians an ordinance of human institution; binding nevertheless upon the conscience of every individual of a country in which a weekly sabbath is established, for the sake of the beneficial purposes which the public and regular observation of it promotes, and recommended perhaps in some degree to the divine approbation, by the resemblance it bears to what God was pleased to make a solemn part of the law which he delivered to the people of Israel, and by its subserviency to many of the same uses.

CHAPTER VIII.

BY WHAT ACTS AND OMISSIONS THE DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH IS VIOLATED.

SINCE the obligation upon Christians to comply with the religious observation of Sunday, arises from the public uses of the institution and the authority of the apostolic practice, the manner of observing it ought to be that which best fulfils these uses, and conforms the nearest to this practice.

The uses proposed by the institution are:

1. To facilitate attendence upon public worship.

2. To meliorate the condition of the laborious classes of mankind, by regular and seasonable returns of rest.

3. By a general suspension of business and amusement, to invite and enable persons of every description to apply their time and thoughts to subjects appertaining to their salvation.

With the primitive Christians, the peculiar, and probably for some time the only, distinction of the first day of the week, was the holding of religious assemblies upon that day. We learn, however, from the testimony of a very early writer amongst them, that they also reserved the day for religious meditations :-Unusquisque nostrum (saith Irenæus) sabbatizat spiritualiter, meditatione legis gaudens, opificium Dei admirans.

WHEREFORE the duty of the day is violated,

1st, By all such employments or engagements as (though differing from our ordinary occupation) hinder our attendance upon public worship, or take up so much of our time as not to leave a sufficient part of the day at leisure for religious reflection; as the going of journies, the paying or receiving of visits which engage the whole day; or employing the time at home in writing letters, settling accounts, or in applying ourselves to studies, or the reading of books, which bear no relation to the business of religion.

2dly, By unnecessary encroachments upon the rest and liberty which Sunday ought to bring to the inferior orders of the community as by keeping servants on that day confined and busied in preparations for th superfluous elegancies of our table, or dress.

3dly, By such recreations as are customarily forborne out of respect to the day; as hunting, shooting, fishing, public diversions, frequenting taverns, playing at cards, or dice.

If it be asked, as it often has been, wherein consists the difference between walking out with your stick, or with your gun? between spending the evening at home, or in a tavern? between - passing the Sunday afternoon at a game of cards, or in conversation not more edifying, nor always so inoffensive ?-To these, and to the same question under a variety of forms, and in a multitude of similar examples, we return the following answer :-That the religious observation of Sunday, if it ought to be retained at all, must be upheld by some public and visible distinctions: That, draw the line of distinction where you will, many actions which are situated on the confines of the line, will differ very little and yet lie on opposite sides of it: That every trespass upon that reserve which public decency has established, breaks down the fence by which the day is separated to the service of religion: That it is unsafe to trifle with scruples and habits that have a beneficial tendency, although founded merely in custom: That these liberties, however intended, will certainly be considered by those who observe them,

not only as disrespectful to the day and institution, but as proceeding from a secret contempt of the Christian faith: That, consequently, they diminish a reverence for religion in others, so far as the authority of our opinion, or the efficacy of our example reaches; or rather, so far as either will serve for an excuse of negligence to those who are glad of any That as to cards and dice, which put in their claim to be considered amongst the harmless occupations of a vacant hour, it may be observed, that few find any difficulty in refraining from play on Sunday, except they who sit down to it with the views and eagerness of gamesters: That gaming is seldom innocent: That the anxiety and perturbations, however, which it excites, are inconsistent with the tranquillity and frame of temper in which the duties and thoughts of religion should always both find and leave us: And, lastly, we shall remark, that the example of other countries, where the same or greater license is allowed, affords no apology for irregularities in our own; because a practice which is tolerated by public order and usage, neither receives the same construction, nor gives the same offence, as where it is censured and prohibited by both.

CHAPTER IX.

OF REVERENCING THE DEITY.

IN many persons, a seriousness, and sense of awe, overspread the imagination whenever the idea of the Supreme Being is presented to their thoughts. This effect, which forms a considerable security against vice, is the consequence, not so much of reflection, as of habit; which habit being generated by the external expressions of reverence which we use ourselves, and observe in those about us, may be destroyed by causes opposite to these, and especially by that familiar levity with which some learn to speak of the Deity, of his attributes, providence, revelations, or worship.

God hath been pleased (no matter for what reason, although probably for this,) to forbid the vain mention of his name: "Thou "shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Now the mention is vain, when it is useless; and it is useless, when it is neither likely nor intended to serve any good purpose; as, when it flows from the lips idle or unmeaning, or is applied upon occasions inconsistent with any consideration of religion or devotion, to express our anger, our earnestness, our courage, or our mirth; or,

indeed, when it is used at all, except in acts of religion, or in serious and seasonable discourse upon religious subjects.

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The prohibition of the third commandment is recognized by Christ, in his sermon upon the Mount; which sermon adverts to none but the moral parts of the Jewish law: "I say unto you, "Swear not at all; but let your communication be yea, yea; nay, nay: for, whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil." Jews probably interpreted the prohibition as restrained to the name JEHOVAH, the name which the Deity had appointed and appropri ated to himself, Exod. vi. 3. The words of Christ, extend the prohibition beyond the name of God, to every thing associated with the idea; "Swear not, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; "nor by earth, for it is his footstool; neither by Jerusalem, for it "is the city of the great King." Matt. v. 35.

The offence of profane swearing is aggravated by the consideration, that duty and decency are sacrificed thereby to the slenderest of temptations. Suppose the habit, either from affectation or by negligence and inadvertency, to be already formed, it costs, one would think, little to relinquish the pleasure and honour which it confers; and it must always be within the power of the most ordinary resolution to correct it. Zeal, and a concern for duty, are, in fact, never strong, when the exertion requisite to vanquish a habit, founded in no antecedent propensity, is thought too much or too painful.

A contempt of positive duties, or rather of those duties for which the reason is not so plain as the command, indicates a disposition upon which the authority of revelation has obtained little influence. This remark is applicable to the offence of profane swearing, and describes, perhaps, pretty exactly, the general character of those who are most addicted to it.

Mockery and ridicule, when exercised upon the Scriptures, or even upon the places, persons, and forms set apart for the ministration of religion, fall within the mischief of the law which forbids the profanation of God's name; especially as it is extended by Christ's interpretation. They are moreover inconsistent with a religious frame of mind; for, as no one ever feels himself either disposed to pleasantry, or capable of being diverted with the pleasantry of others, upon matters in which he is cordially interested; so a mind intent upon the entertainment of heaven, rejects with indignation every attempt to entertain it with jests, calculated to degrade or deride subjects, which it never recollects, but with seriousness and anxiety. Nothing but stupidity, or the most frivolous dissipation of thought, can make even the inconsiderate forget