with the observation of the Lord's day". The learned doctors of those ages knew well, and constantly held, that the Jewish sabbath was abrogated; and those who devoted it to religious purposes, like those who kept the wednesday and friday, never considered it as a divine institution, binding upon Christians. No contradiction, therefore, exists between the doctrine and practice of the primitive believers, between their observance of the seventh day of the week, and their openly professed conviction that our Saviour has abolished all the Jewish holy days. Though in some places they kept the sabbath with a certain degree of sacredness, they never considered it a point of doctrinal necessity, while they resolutely opposed every thing which they deemed to be Judaizing. They uniformly gave a preference to the Lord's day, which they regarded as the sole weekly festival obligatory by the Christian law. The observation of the seventh day they vindicated from motives of expediency, but held the sanctification of sunday to be a religious obligation.

From these remarks it is clear that the custom of keeping the seventh day of the week as a festival, though it probably took its rise in the earliest

P Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. xxvii.; Nicephorus, Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. xiii.; Epiphanius, Hæres. 30.

ages of Christianity, was but partially received till some centuries afterwards; that so far from being universal, it prevailed chiefly in the eastern empire; and that where it was adopted, it was from such motives, and was attended with such rites and ceremonies, as designated it to be, in their estimation, of subordinate authority to the sacredness of the Lord's day. This was regarded as a divine and apostolical institution, while the former was an ordinance of some particular churches, partly out of deference to the opinions of the Jewish converts, and partly from that proneness to ritual observances and superstitious practices with which the faith of Christ was but too soon encumbered. A pharisaic and puritanical spirit was early in operation, a spirit which represented useless rigour and austerity as virtue, which presumed to win the favour of the Deity by observances and practices unauthorized in his revealed Word, and which has, more or less, in all ages of the church, produced "hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife," a stern, forbidding temper within, and an uncharitable disposition towards others, to the great and lamentable perversion of the pure religion of Jesus. To this spirit is mainly attributable that multiplication of fasts and festivals, of mortifications and penances, of rites and ceremonies, of the long train of inventions by which bigotry and enthusiasm have

in all periods essayed to climb into heaven. The observance of the saturday sabbath by Christians, originated, no doubt, in prudential motives; but as little doubt can there be, that at length it participated of the pharisaic and self-righteous spirit which aims at salvation by a road different from that pointed out in the sacred writings.

Be this as it may, the practice of which I am speaking does not lessen the authority of the primitive church in favour of the septenary festival. Neither is that authority at all diminished by any of the objections which have now been examined; and hence we may rest, without any hesitation, in the inference that the consecration of one day in the week is sanctioned by the practice of the church in uninterrupted continuance from the time of the apostles.

Highly valuable is this attestation, since it goes far to prove the sacred appointment of the Lord's day; for to what other origin can so universal à practice be ascribed? Reason demands the dedication of some portion of our time to God; with believers in revelation a seventh part may be peculiarly proper, as commemorative of the creation of the universe; yet, as the adoption of one particular day in the week is no natural dictate, it is most reasonable to refer it to some positive injunction, human or divine. Those who assert that all distinction of days is abolished under the

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. Prooem.; Ruffinus, Præfat. in Origen De Princip. lib. iii.; Vincentius Lirinens. Adv. Hæres. cap. ii. et seq.