ner, have poured out the vials of their wrath against the Bishop of London; but it will tend very materially towards leading the public to a right conclusion on the subject. It will open the eyes of some to the misrepresentations to which his lordship has been exposed. They will perceive, that while the advocates of the Tracts may be disposed to introduce novel and unauthorized usages, it is the bounden duty of all consistent Churchmen to comply with all the requirements of the Church. Our obvious course at the present moment is this: to take our stand upon the rubrics-to say, thus far are we authorized to go, and no further. This is the very course which has been pursued by the Bishop of London. That, ere long, the line adopted by that right reverend prelate-a line between the two extremes by which the Church is now so harassed-will be approved by all right-minded men, is our most decided conviction."

ART. II.-The Christian's Day of Rest. By the Rev. H. H. SWINNY, M.A. Cambridge: Stevenson. 1843.

2. The Restoration of the Jews to their own Land, in connexion with their future Conversion, and the final Blessedness of our Earth. London: Longman.

WE could scarcely name a subject more important in itself, or one which has more frequently occupied the attention of the Church, in the able dissertations which have been written concerning it, than the Sabbath, or the Lord's day. And rightly has the attention of the Church been especially directed to the first most solemn and most sacred of the institutions of God-to that institution which points to the commencement, and prepares for the consummation of the present constitution of things; which commemorates the creation, and anticipates in acts of faith the rest that remaineth for the people of God. Yet it is a subject which very few have rightly apprehended, and concerning which all the discussions would have been much simplified, and some of them wholly superseded, if men had regarded the Sabbath in its true character, with light derived both from its first institution at creation, and as it is now restored in the Lord's day; and by dismissing from our minds, during this investigation of its true and abiding character, such adjuncts of the Sabbath as came in, either by the fall or at the giving of the law, and which have been superseded by Christianity, like circumcision and the Mosaic ordinances.

The law and the gospel are contrasted in Scripture, as Hagar and Sarah-as the bondwoman and the free. The law, taken

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as a whole, was intended for discipline-was, in all its ordinances, a bondage and restraint upon sin not yet atoned for, and corruption not yet removed-was added because of transgression. And the Jews, by attempting to evade the conviction of sin and bondage, to which they were shut up under the law, only thereby manifested a deeper corruption, and added hypocrisy to transgression. The true and honest convictions which the law was calculated to produce are those which are expressed by St. Paul (Rom vii. 13), "that sin, by the commandment, might become exceeding sinful." And as from this conviction there was no honest escape, and the law itself provided no remedy, the sincere Jew could only cry out in present anguish, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?" and look forward in faith to a coming Saviour, who should both atone for the sin, and furnish strength to overcome the corruption. And there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus; for the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; and He that raised up Christ from the dead doth quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit (Rom. viii. 1, 4, 11).

Instead of yielding to the honest convictions of the law, and being content with being shut up unto the faith in a promised Redeemer, the Pharisees stifled conscience by multiplying forms, and substituted these in place of the weightier matters of the aw, and of those spiritual realities which should be the foundation of all forms, and the end to which they lead. Therefore our Lord called them whited sepulchres, and platters clean on the outside, and hypocrites; and took every opportunity, by his actions, as well as words, to show them that God regarded man more than the law, and the heart more than the demeanour. And while they were continually accusing him of breaking the law, when he disregarded those trifling punctilios with which they, by their traditions, had encumbered the Sabbath, he was continually teaching them, both by word and by deed, that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." At a far earlier period also, while the first temple subsisted, and before the traditions alluded to in the Gospels came in, the Jews had begun the practice of substituting forms for realities in worship; and in proportion as the spirit of the reality became degenerate they increased the rigidity of the forms, till the very observances, which were most unquestionably of divine appointment, became an abomination to the Lord.

"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord. Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I

cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood." (Isa. i.)

And in a subsequent strain of warning and exhortation, occasion is taken both to point out the futility of the mere external observances on which the Jews prided themselves, and also to show the true character of the Sabbath, as God required it to be observed; into the spirit of which David, and some few of the more illustrious of the Old Testament saints, unquestionably entered, and which every Christian should seek to imbibe, and endeavour to make the principle of thought and action in his observance of the Lord's day.

"Cry aloud, spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours."

And then, concerning the right observance of the day of the Lord, it is written

"If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy-day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." (Isa. lviii.)

Though this is indisputably the light in which the Sabbath should have been always regarded, we know that it was not so regarded by the Jews of old, nor is it so regarded by the Jews of the present day. And their example, in making the Sabbath a day of gloom and penance, has been too much followed by Christians in our observance of the Lord's day, when both the change of the dispensation and the change in the day combine to render such a mistake doubly inexcusable. The Mosaic dispensation was, in all its institutions, designed for discipline and restraint-it was the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; and it is not inconsistent with this purpose to regard the Sabbath as of the same character, and even make the yoke heavier, to attribute the greater merit to those who underwent the burden. But Christianity implanted a new principle in man, which both

empowers and restrains the spirit, and can therefore dispense with the external and formal restraints; and the whole genius and character of the Gospel is freedom, the glorious liberty of the sons of God; the especial characteristic of the mission of Christ being, that he brake every yoke.

The early Christians were careful to mark this, by making all their church services of a festal and joyous, as well as of a holy character; and the Lord's day was regarded by them as especially a day of rejoicing, in commemoration of the greatest act of triumph and the greatest cause for joy which had ever occurred in the history of fallen man-the resurrection of the Son of Man, and the commencement of a new epoch-the new creation. Church history informs us that the common salutation of the primitive Christians was the joyful cry, " HE IS RISEN!" And the Lord's day was regarded as ever worthy of being observed for a festal holy-day, and fasting on that day was strictly prohibited; and it was enjoined also that prayer should be made standing, on the Lord's day, in token of the resurrection. Praying standing was enacted by the council of Nice, canon 20. And Cave, in his "Primitive Christianity," writes thus :—

"After Christ's resurrection, the apostles and primitive Christians did especially assemble upon the first day of the week; and, whatever they might do at other times, the first day of the week was their more solemn time of meeting. They looked upon the Lord's day as a time to be celebrated with great expressions of joy, as being the happy memory of Christ's resurrection, and accordingly restrained whatever might savour of sorrow and sadness. Fasting on that day they prohibited with the greatest severity, accounting it utterly unlawful; and as they accounted it a joyful and good day, so they did whatever they thought might contribute to honour it. Constantine, and the elder and younger Theodosius, passed many laws to prohibit works and shows, and to hallow the day...... Their great observance of this day appears from their constant attendance upon the solemnities of public worship, from which nothing but sickness and absolute necessity did detain them......And Ignatius says, Let every one keep the Lord's day festival, the resurrection day, the queen and empress of all days, in which our life was raised again, and death conquered by our Lord and Saviour.""

There are clearly three views of the Sabbath, and three meanings attached to the word, according as we think of the Creation Sabbath, the Jewish Sabbath, or the Christian Sabbath. Yet these three holy-days have such connexion with each other, and such community of purpose, as to make the law of the first institution at creation of perpetual obligation, and applicable to the Jewish and the Christian Sabbath. But still we should distinguish that part of the institution which is obligatory through

out, and shall subsist for ever, from the accidental circumstances which belong rather to the dispensations than to the Sabbath itself, and so may pass away when the dispensation changes, and yet the Sabbath itself remain in its integrity and obligation; and this especially applies to the Christian, as succeeding to the Jewish Sabbath.

We, who have been emancipated by Christianity, both from the real and the factitious bondage of the Jewish Sabbath, in exchanging it for the Lord's day, are not always able to rise into the full liberty and joy of our Sabbath-partly from the influence which habit and precedent continue to exercise, and still more from our dwelling too much upon the secondary and accidental accompaniments of the day, consequent upon the fall, and commemorative of the Egyptian bondage, and not insisting enough upon its primary character, as deducible from the original institution of the Sabbath. The six days' work of creation, and the rest of God on the seventh day, teaches us the primary character of the Sabbath; but we are in the midst of a fallen creation-the children of Israel were just delivered from the bondage of Egypt; and rest after labour, relief from suffering, deliverance from captivity, are among the secondary ideas which we associate with the Sabbath. And both characters of the day are recognized in the Pentateuch: the creation being that referred to in Exodus-the deliverance from Egypt that referred to in Deuteronomy.

"Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day" (Deut. v. 25).

It cannot but be acknowledged that, circumstanced as we are since the fall, a returning day of rest, after six days of toil, is a most merciful provision for a weary creation to be re-invigorated so as to resume its toil; and the neglect of this provision is found to bring its appropriate punishment in premature decay both of body and mind. As members of the Church, we find a day of leisure once a week, when all may meet to join in common worship and receive common instruction, to be a most important provision for the well-being of the Church, and also for her bearing witness to Christ, and carrying out the blessings of salvation to the world. And as individuals, each of whom must answer for himself before God, a day on which we are thus regularly invited to retire from the bustle and care of a world engrossed in external things, and the passing interests of a day, and to fall back upon the deep privacy of our own being, and