that by the Lord's day was meant the first day of the week; for we find no footsteps of any dif tinction of days, which could entitle any other to that appellation. The fubfequent hiftory of Chriftianity correfponds with the accounts delivered on this subject in scripture.

It will be remembered, that we are contending by thefe proofs, for no other duty upon the first day of the week, than that of holding and frequenting religious affemblies. A ceffation upon that day from labour, beyond the time of attendance upon public worship, is not intimated in any paffage of the New Teftament; nor did Chrift or his Apoftles deliver, that we know of, any command to their difciples for a discontinuance upon that day of the common offices of their profeffions: a reserve which none will fee reason to wonder at, or to blame as a defect in the inftitution, who confider that, in the primitive condition of Chriftianity, the obfervance of a new fabbath would have been useless, or inconvenient, or impracticable. During Chrift's perfonal miniftry his religion was preached to the Jews alone. They already had a fabbath, which, as citizens and fubjects of that oeconomy, they were obliged to keep, and did keep. It was not therefore probable that Chrift would enjoin another

another day of reft in conjunction with this. When the new religion came forth into the Gentile world, converts to it were, for the most part, made from thofe claffes of fociety who have not their time and labour at their own disposal; and it was fcarcely to be expected that unbelieving mafters and magiftrates, and they who directed the employment of others, would permit their flaves and labourers to reft from their

work every feventh day; or that civil government, indeed, would have fubmitted to the lofs of a feventh part of the public industry, and that too in addition to the numerous feftivals which the national religions indulged to the people: at leaft this would have been an incumbrance, which might have greatly retarded the reception of Christianity in the world. In reality, the inftitution of a weekly fabbath is fo connected with the functions of civil life, and requires fo much of the concurrence of civil laws in its regulation and fupport, that it cannot, perhaps, properly be made the ordinance of any religion, till that religion be received as the religion of the ftate.

The opinion that Chrift and his Apoftles meant to retain the duties of the Jewish fabbath, fhifting only the day from the feventh to the firft,

feems

seems to prevail without fufficient proof; nor does any evidence remain in scripture (of what, however, is not improbable) that the first day of the week was thus diftinguished in commemoration of our Lord's refurrection.

The conclufion from the whole enquiry (for it is our bufinefs to follow the arguments to whatever probability they conduct us) is this: The affembling upon the first day of the week for the purpose of public worship and religious inftruction, is a law of Christianity, of divine appointment; the refting on that day from our employments longer than we are detained from them by attendance upon thefe affemblies, is to Chriftians an ordinance of human inftitution; binding nevertheless upon the confcience of every individual of a country in which a weekly fabbath is established, for the fake of the beneficial purposes which the public and regular observance of it promotes; and recommended perhaps in fome degree to the divine approbation, by the refemblance it bears to what God was pleased to make a folemn part of the law which he delivered to the people of Ifrael, and by its fubferviency to many of the fame uses.

CHAP.

CHAP. VIII.

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

INCE the obligation upon Chriftians, to

SIN

comply with the religious obfervance of Sunday, arifes from the public uses of the inftitution, and the authority of the apostolic practice, the manner of observing it ought to be that which beft fulfils thefe ufes, and conforms the nearest to this practice.

The uses propofed by the inftitution are→

1. To facilitate attendance upon public worfhip.

2. To meliorate the condition of the laborious claffes of mankind, by regular and seasonable returns of reft.

3. By a general suspension of business and amusement, to invite and enable perfons of every description to apply their time and thoughts to fubjects appertaining to their falvation.

With the primitive Chriftians the peculiar, and probably for fome time the only diftin&tion of the first day of the week, was the holding of religious affemblies upon that day. We learn, however, from the teftimony of a very early writer amongst them, that they also reserved the day for religious meditations-Unufquifque noftrum, faith Irenæus, fabbatizat fpiritualiter, meditatione legis gaudens, opificium Dei admirans.

WHEREFORE the duty of the day is violated,

ift. By all fuch employments or engagements as (though differing from our ordinary occupation) hinder our attendance upon public worship, or take up fo much of our time as not to leave a fufficient part of the day at leisure for religious reflection; as the going of journeys, the paying or receiving of vifits which engage the whole day, or employing the time at home in writing letters, fettling accounts, or in applying ourselves to ftudies, or the reading of books, which bear no relation to the business of religion.

2dly. By unneceffary encroachments upon the rest and liberty which Sunday ought to bring to the inferior orders of the community; as by keeping fervants on that day confined and bufied