find any other Reformed Church hath either so clearly maintained the doctrine of the Sabbath as ours, both in the Homily of the Time and Place of Prayer, and in so many authorized writers for more than sixty years; or so solemnly observed it by command of laws, injunctions, and canons, and the conscientiousness of governors of families and private Christians; so we find a special ratification of the promised blessing, both in spiritual and temporal respects." 1 For nearly the twenty years from 1640 to 1660, the Sabbath was allowed to maintain its benignant sway. The Revolution improved its condition after a sad reverse. And the revival of religion through the labours of Romaine, Whitfield, and Wesley, was the life of all Christian institutions. "A number of the converts of Wesley and Whitfield," says Jay of Bath, "were yet living when I began to appear in public, and some of them I knew intimately; and they made too deep an impression upon me to be forgotten. Their attachment to the means of grace was intense; nor would they suffer distance or weather, or slight indispositions to detain them. The Sabbath was their delight, and they numbered the days till its arrival. And as to the poorer of them 'Though pinched with poverty at home, With sharp affliction daily fed; It made amends, if they could come To God's own house for heavenly bread.' Nor were these services only pleasing to them in the performance, they were remembered and talked over for weeks after. For the sermons they heard, if not highly polished, left effects which were as goads, and as nails fastened in a sure place by the hand of the Master of assemblies. They also seemed to have more veneration for the Scriptures, and to peruse them with more directness, simplicity, and docility,-for the Bible, as yet, had not been turned into a work of science rather than of faith, and of everlasting criticism rather than of devotion, nor were thousands of tutors and multitudes of volumes found necessary to explain a simple book designed for the poor,' and the common people' by the only wise God Himself." 2 Methodism still leavens a portion of 1 Sab. Redivivum, by Cawdrey and Palmer (1645). Epist. to the Reader, pp. 4, 5. 3 Autobiography (second edition, 1855), pp. 175-177. the masses, and though multitudes of working men have in our day forsaken the house of God, their places are increasingly supplied from the middle and higher ranks. If in Scotland the Sabbath was for some time after the Reformation not so well observed as afterwards, this was owing to no want of zealous efforts on its behalf, but to the rooted customs of Romanism; and that very period was the seed-time, when the Reformers were sowing in tears what was to be reaped in joy. The Covenanters were distinguished by their ardent love to the Sabbath. This was well known by their persecutors, some of whom, when in pursuit of an intended victim, and hearing him chant, in lively strains, some Scottish air, passed on, saying, "That, at least, is not Alexander Brown; he would not sing songs on the Sabbath-day."1 Sir Walter Scott, employing the cant term of a certain class, has charged their mode of keeping the day "as Judaical." The charge has been repelled by two writers, than whom few were more qualified to pronounce on the point. "We do not know," remarks Dr. M'Crie, "what our author means, and we are not sure that he has himself any distinct idea of what is meant by a Judaical observance of the Sabbath. We know of no peculiar strictness on this head exacted by our Presbyterian forefathers, above what is practised by the sober and religious part of the inhabitants of Scotland to this day. And whatever he may be pleased to think of it, there are many of as enlightened minds, and of as liberal principles, as he can pretend to, who glory in this national distinction; and one reason why we will not suffer our ancestors to be misrepresented by him, or by any writer of the present times, is the gratitude which we feel to them, for having transmitted to their posterity a hereditary and deep veneration for the Lord's day."2 Principal Lee, when under examination, in 1832, by a Committee of the House of Commons on the Observance of the Sabbath, was asked, "Can you say, from your knowledge of history, whether the description given by a celebrated novelist of the period of the Covenanters is historically correct, and whether their precise manners were as strongly marked in contrast to the other party as that ingenious writer would have us to suppose?" His answer was, "Most cer 1 Simpson's Traditions of the Covenanters, 1844, Series First, p. 225. tainly that description is not historically correct; there never was such gloom attending the observance of the Sabbath in Scotland as that celebrated writer alleges. The Sabbath, though observed with the greatest reverence, was a day rather of sober and cheerful piety, than of any painful restraint. It may be, as the question has been asked, not improper to state, that the greater part of the description applying to the religion and morals of that class of persons in Scotland who are known by the name of Covenanters, must have been supplied almost altogether by the imagination of the writer." The Principal then specifies some instances of glaring ignorance on the part of the accuser of these good men, and concludes thus: "I refer to these particulars merely as specimens of the inaccuracy of the descriptions which have probably made an impression not easily effaced, though it has done great injustice to the characters of an oppressed and persecuted race, who, derided as they have been as feeble-minded fanatics, did more than any other body of men both to maintain the interests of religion, and to secure for their posterity the enjoyment of civil liberty." When we consider that it was not till the Revolution that the Scottish people of that time had "rest round about," for keeping the Sabbath, and carrying out their principles and wishes, we are prepared to admit the consistency of the admitted high regard for the institution on the part of the Covenanters with the following statement of Dr. Lee : "I have great reason to think that the Sabbath was observed with the greatest strictness and solemnity in Scotland, soon after the period of the Revolution of 1688, till about the year 1730," a fact, which he ascribes "to the very great vigilance, faithfulness, and zeal with which both ministers and elders performed their duty towards those who were placed under their charge, and more, perhaps, than to any other cause, to the universal practice of Bible education."2 About the time, however, when the institution began to wane in the Church of Scotland, a new society was about to take its rise-the Secessionin which the Sabbath has for more than a century been peculiarly 1 Minutes of Evidence, pp. 272, 273. It is right to state that Sir Walter Scott made some, if an inadequate, reparation of his error, and bore a testimony to the truth, in the more favourable representation which he gave of the Covenanters in his subsequent novels and in his Tales of a Grandfather. 2 Minutes, p. 269. respected, and by which an impulse was given to religion in the Mother Church, that has led, through the zeal of those who have been disrupted from her communion, and the improvement of those who have remained in it, to the greatest good in this and other lands. What conclusions are we warranted to draw from the whole history in the preceding pages? These two propositions, at least, seem to follow from the facts: that a taste and practice opposed to the hatred of restraint, and to the love of selfish, worldly indulgence, which are naturally so strong in man, must have had their origin and support from a Supernal source; and that the Sabbath, which the human heart has been brought by a Divine hand to relish, must itself, like every good and perfect gift, have come down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. THE SABBATH DEFENDED AGAINST OPPOSING ARGUMENTS, THEORIES, AND SCHEMES. CHAPTER I. ALLEGED ANTI-SABBATISM OF THE REFORMERS. THE Reformers, as was shown in a former chapter, believed the Sabbath to be of Divine and perpetual obligation, regarded it as of supreme importance, and enforced as well as exemplified its sacred observance. It is not denied, however, that they sometimes expressed themselves respecting it in terms which have given occasion and some plausibleness to the charge of hostility to the institution. This is the more to be regretted that their unguarded language must have often been recited, as certainly it has repeatedly been printed, unaccompanied by their better utterances on the subject, and that many, in such a case, do not trouble themselves to inquire into the circumstances, so as to understand the proper import and value of the words employed. It is the opinion of Dr. Fairbairn, who has fully and carefully examined the whole matter, that they were substantially sound upon the question, in so far as concerns the obligations and practice of Christians, and it will be a satisfaction to us, if, under the following heads, we can advance any facts or considerations for confirming the opinion. In the first place, let it be understood on both sides, that whatever were the views of the Reformers, their name does not decide the controversy between the friends and the opponents of a Divine, sacred, and permanent Sabbath. It is too evident that the latter have employed that name as if it ought to silence |