great pain to the serious part of a congregation, as | fect is in general to be looked for, but that inwell as afford a profane diversion to the levity of dolence will find in it an excuse, and piety be disthe other part. concerted by impatience.

These advantages of a liturgy are connected with two principal inconveniences: first, that forms of prayer composed in one age become unfit for another, by the unavoidable change of language, circumstances, and opinions: secondly, that the perpetual repetition of the same form of words produces weariness and inattentiveness in the congregation. However, both these inconveniences are in their nature vincible. Occasional revisions of a liturgy may obviate the first, and devotion will supply a remedy for the second: or they may both subsist in a considerable degree, and yet be out-weighed by the objections which are insepara-If, together with these alterations, the Epistles ble from extemporary prayer.

The Lord's Prayer is a precedent, as well as a pattern, for forms of prayer. Our Lord appears, if not to have prescribed, at least to have authorized, the use of fixed forms, when he complied with the request of the disciple, who said unto him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." Luke xi. 1.

The properties required in a public liturgy are, that it be compendious; that it express just conceptions of the Divine Attributes; that it recite such wants as a congregation are likely to feel, and no other; and that it contain as few controverted propositions as possible.

I. That it be compendious.

The length and repetitions complained of in our liturgy, are not so much the fault of the compilers, as the effect of uniting into one service what was originally, but with very little regard to the conveniency of the people, distributed into three. Notwithstanding that dread of innovations in religion, which seems to have become the panic of the age,-few, I should suppose, would be displeased with such omissions, abridgements, or change in the arrangement, as the combination of separate services must necessarily require, even supposing each to have been faultless in itself. and Gospels, and Collects which precede them, were composed and selected with more regard to unity of subject and design; and the Psalms and Lessons either left to the choice of the minister, or better accommodated to the capacity of the audience, and the edification of modern life; the church of England would be in possession of a liturgy, in which those who assent to her doctrines would have little to blame, and the most dissatisfied must acknowledge many beauties. The style throughout is excellent; calm, without coldness; and, though every where sedate, oftentimes affecting. The pauses in the service are disposed at proper intervals. The transitions from one office of devotion to another, from confession to It were no difficult task to contract the liturgies prayer, from prayer to thanksgiving, from thanksof most churches into half their present compass, giving to "hearing of the word," are contrived and yet retain every distinct petition, as well as like scenes in the drama, to supply the mind with the substance of every sentiment which can be a succession of diversified engagements. As much found in them. But brevity may be studied too variety is introduced also in the form of praying, much. The composer of a liturgy must not sit as this kind of composition seems capable of addown to his work with the hope, that the devotion mitting. The prayer at one time is continued; of the congregation will be uniformly sustained at another, broken by responses, or cast into short throughout, or that every part will be attended to articulate ejaculations: and sometimes the conby every hearer. If this could be depended upon, gregation is called upon to take its share in the a very short service would be sufficient for every service, by being left to complete a sentence purpose that can be answered or designed by so-which the minister had begun. The enumeration cial worship: but seeing the attention of most men is apt to wander and return at intervals, and by starts, he will admit a certain degree of amplification and repetition, of diversity of expression upon the same subject, and variety of phrase and form with little addition to the sense, to the end that the attention, which has been slumbering or absent during one part of the service, may be ex- This is an article in which no care can be too cited and recalled by another; and the assembly great. The popular notions of God are formed, kept together until it may reasonably be presumed, in a great measure, from the accounts which the that the most heedless and inadvertent have per-people receive of his nature and character in their formed some act of devotion, and the most desultory attention been caught by some part or other of the public service. On the other hand, the too great length of church-services is more unfavourable to piety, than almost any fault of composition can be. It begets, in many, an early and unconquerable dislike to the public worship of their country or communion. They come to church seldom, and enter the doors, when they do come, under the apprehension of a tediousattendance, which they prepare for at first, or soon after relieve, by composing themselves to a drowsy forgetfulness of the place and duty, or by sending abroad their thoughts in search of more amusing occupation. Although there may be some few of a disposition not to be wearied with religious exercises; yet, where a ritual is prolix, and the celebration of divine service long, no ef

of human wants and sufferings in the Litany, is almost complete. A Christian petitioner can have few things to ask of God, or to deprecate, which he will not find there expressed, and for the most part with inimitable tenderness and simplicity.

II. That it express just conceptions of the Divine Attributes.

religious assemblies. An error here becomes the error of multitudes: and as it is a subject in which almost every opinion leads the way to some practical consequence, the purity or depravation of public manners will be affected, amongst other causes, by the truth or corruption of the public forms of worship.

III. That it recite such wants as the congregation are likely to feel, and no other.

Of forms of prayer which offend not egregiously against truth and decency, that has the most merit, which is best calculated to keep alive the devotion of the assembly. It were to be wished, therefore, that every part of a liturgy were personally applicable to every individual in the congregation; and that nothing were introduced to interrupt the passion, or damp the flame, which it is not easy to rekindle. Upon this principle, the

state prayers in our liturgy should be fewer and shorter. Whatever may be pretended, the congregation do not feel that concern in the subject of these prayers, which must be felt, ere ever prayers be made to God with earnestness. The state style likewise seems unseasonably introduced into these prayers, as ill according with that annihilation of human greatness, of which every act that carries the mind to God, presents the idea. IV. That it contain as few controverted propositions as possible.

mere rest from the ordinary occupations of civil life: and he who would defend the institution, as it is required by law to be observed in Christian countries, unless he can produce a command for a Christian Sabbath, must point out the uses of it in that view.

First, then, that interval of relaxation which Sunday affords to the laborious part of mankind, contributes greatly to the comfort and satisfaction of their lives, both as it refreshes them for the time, and as it relieves their six days' labour by We allow to each church the truth of its pe- the prospect of a day of rest always approaching; culiar tenets, and all the importance which zeal which could not be said of casual indulgences of can ascribe to them. We dispute not here the leisure and rest, even were they more frequent right or the expediency of framing creeds, or of than there is reason to expect they would be if imposing subscriptions. But why should every left to the discretion or humanity of interested position which a church maintains, be woven task-masters. To this difference it may be added, with so much industry into her forms of public that holy-days which come seldom and unexpected; worship? Some are offended, and some are ex- are unprovided, when they do come, with any cluded; this is an evil of itself, at least to them: duty or employment; and the manner of spending and what advantage or satisfaction can be derived them being regulated by no public decency or esto the rest, from the separation of their brethren, tablished usage, they are commonly consumed in it is difficult to imagine; unless it were a duty to rude, if not criminal pastimes, in stupid sloth, or publish our system of polemic divinity, under the brutish intemperance. Whoever considers how name of making confession of our faith, every much sabbatical institutions conduce, in this retime we worship God; or a sin to agree in respect, to the happiness and civilization of the laligious exercises with those from whom we differ bouring classes of mankind, and reflects how great in some religious opinions. Indeed, where one a majority of the human species these classes comman thinks it his duty constantly to worship a pose, will acknowledge the utility, whatever he being, whom another cannot, with the assent of may believe of the origin, of this distinction; and his conscience, permit himself to worship at all, will consequently perceive it to be every man's there seems to be no place for comprehension, or duty to uphold the observation of Sunday when any expedient left but a quiet secession. All other once established, let the establishment have prodifferences may be compromised by silence. If ceeded from whom or from what authority it will. sects and schisms be an evil, they are as much to be avoided by one side as the other. If sectaries are blamed for taking unnecessary offence, es-the week. For, in countries tolerably advanced in tablished churches are no less culpable for unnecessarily giving it; they are bound at least to produce a command, or a reason of equivalent utility, for shutting out any from their communion, by mixing with divine worship doctrines, which, whether true or false, are unconnected in their nature with devotion.

CHAPTER VI.

Nor is there any thing lost to the community by the intermission of public industry one day in

population and the arts of civil life, there is always enough of human labour, and to spare. The difficulty is not so much to procure, as to employ it. The addition of the seventh day's labour to that of the other six, would have no other effect than to reduce the price. The labourer himself, who deserved and suffered most by the change, would gain nothing.

many do not convert their leisure to this purpose; but it is of moment, and is all which a public constitution can effect, that to every one be allowed the opportunity.

2. Sunday, by suspending many public diver sions, and the ordinary rotation of employment, leaves to men of all ranks and professions sufOf the Use of Sabbatical Institutions. ficient leisure, and not more than what is sufficient, both for the external offices of Christianity, AN assembly cannot be collected, unless the and the retired, but equally necessary duties of time of assembling be fixed and known before-religious meditation and inquiry. It is true, that hand: and if the design of the assembly require that it be holden frequently, it is easiest that it should return at stated intervals. This produces a necessity of appropriating set seasons to the social offices of religion. It is also highly convenient that the same seasons be observed throughout the country, that all may be employed, or all at leisure, together; for if the recess from worldly occupation be not general, one man's business will perpetually interfere with another man's devotion; the buyer will be calling at the shop when the seller is gone to church. This part, therefore, of the religious distinction of seasons, namely, a general intermission of labour and business during times previously set apart for the exercise of public worship, is founded in the reasons which make public worship itself a duty. But the celebration of divine service never occupies the whole day. What remains, therefore, of Sunday, beside the part of it employed at church, must be considered as a

3. They, whose humanity embraces the whole sensitive creation, will esteem it no inconsiderable recommendation of a weekly return of public rest, that it affords a respite to the toil of brutes. Nor can we omit to recount this among the uses which the Divine Founder of the Jewish Sabbath expressly appointed a law of the institution.

We admit, that none of these reasons show why Sunday should be preferred to any other day in the week, or one day in seven to one day in six, or eight but these points, which in their nature are of arbitrary determination, being established to our hands, our obligation applies to the subsisting establishment, so long as we confess that some such institution is necessary, and are neither able nor attempt to substitute any other in its place.

CHAPTER VII.

been instituted at the time of the creation, as the words in Genesis may seem at first sight to im

Of the Scripture Account of Sabbatical Institu- port; and if it had been observed all along from

tions.

that time to the departure of the Jews out of Egypt, a period of about two thousand five hunTHE subject, so far as it makes any part of dred years; it appears unaccountable that no menChristian morality, is contained in two questions:tion of it, no occasion of even the obscurest allu

I. Whether the command, by which the Jewish Sabbath was instituted, extends to Christians? II. Whether any new command was delivered by Christ; or any other day substituted in the place of the Jewish Sabbath by the authority or example of his apostles?

sion to it, should occur, either in the general history of the world before the call of Abraham," which contains, we admit, only a few memoirs of its early ages, and those extremely abridged; or, which is more to be wondered at, in that of the lives of the first three Jewish patriarchs, which, In treating of the first question, it will be ne- in many parts of the account, is sufficiently cir cessary to collect the accounts which are pre-cumstantial and domestic. Nor is there, in the served of the institution, in the Jewish history: for the sceing these accounts together, and in one point of view, will be the best preparation for the discussing or judging of any arguments on one side or the other.

passage above quoted from the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, any intimation that the Sabbath, when appointed to be observed, was only the revival of an ancient institution, which had been neglected, forgotten, or suspended; nor is any such neglect imputed either to the inhabitants of the old world, or to any part of the family of Noah; nor, lastly, is any permission recorded to dispense with the institution during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, or on any other public emergency.

The passage in the second chapter of Genesis, which creates the whole controversy upon the subject, is not inconsistent with this opinion: for as the seventh day was erected into a Sabbath, on account of God's resting upon that day from the work of the creation, it was natural in the historian, when he had related the history of the creation, and of God's ceasing from it on the seventh

and sanctified it, because that on it he had rested from all his work which God created and made;" although the blessing and sanctification, i. e. the religious distinction and appropriation of that day, were not actually made till many ages afterwards. The words do not assert that God then "blessed” and "sanctified" the seventh day, but that he blessed and sanctified it for that reason; and if any ask, why the Sabbath, or sanctification of the seventh day, was then mentioned, if it was not then appointed, the answer is at hand: the order of connexion, and not of time, introduced the mention of the Sabbath, in the history of the subject which it was ordained to commemorate.

In the second chapter of Genesis, the historian, having concluded his account of the six days' creation, proceeds thus: "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made; and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." After this, we hear no more of the Sabbath, or of the seventh day, as in any manner distinguished from the other six, until the history brings us down to the sojourning of the Jews in the wilderness, when the following remarkable passage occurs. Upon the complaint of the peo-day, to add; " And God blessed the seventh day, ple for want of food, God was pleased to provide for their relief by a miraculous supply of manna, which was found every morning upon the ground about the camp: "and they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating; and when the sun waxed hot, it melted: and it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man; and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses: and he said unto them, this is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the Holy-Sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over, lay up for you, to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade; and it did not stink [as it had done before, when some of them left it till the morning, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that to-day for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord; to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days: abide ye every man in his place: let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day." Exodus xvi.

This interpretation is strongly supported by a passage in the prophet Ezekiel, where the Sabbath is plainly spoken of as given, (and what else can that mean, but as first instituted?) in the wilderness. "Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness: and I gave them my statutes and showed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them: moreover also I gare them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Ezek. xx. 10, 11, 12.

Nehemiah also recounts the promulgation of the sabbatical law amongst the transactions in the wilderness; which supplies another considerable argument in aid of our opinion:-" Moreover thou leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar, and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go. Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgNow, in my opinion, the transaction in the ments and true laws, good statutes and comwilderness above recited, was the first actual in-mandments, and madest known unto them thy stitution of the Sabbath. For if the Sabbath had holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts,

Not long after this, the Sabbath, as is well known, was established with great solemnity, in the fourth commandment.

statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant, and gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock."* Nehem. ix. 12.

repealed by some subsequent revelation, binding upon all who come to the knowledge of it. If the command was published for the first time in the wilderness, then it was immediately directed to the Jewish people alone; and something further, either in the subject or circumstances of the command, will be necessary to show, that it was de

the question concerning the date of the institution was first to be considered. The former opinion precludes all debate about the extent of the obligation: the latter admits, and, prima facie induces a belief, that the Sabbath ought to be considered as part of the peculiar law of the Jewish policy.

Which belief receives great confirmation from the following arguments:

If it be inquired what duties were appointed for the Jewish Sabbath, and under what penalties and in what manner it was observed amongst the ancient Jews; we find that, by the fourth com-signed for any other. It is on this account that mandment, a strict cessation from work was enjoined, not only upon Jews by birth, or religious profession, but upon all who resided within the limits of the Jewish state; that the same was to be permitted to their slaves and their cattle; that this rest was not to be violated, under pain of death: "Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath-day, he shall surely be put to death." Exod. xxxi. 15. Beside which, the seventh day was to be solemnized by double sacrifices in the temple:- The Sabbath is described as a sign between "And on the Sabbath-day two lambs of the first God and the people of Israel:-"Wherefore the year without spot, and two tenth-deals of flour for children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to oba meat-offering, mingled with oil, and the drink-serve the Sabbath throughout their generations, offering thereof; this is the burnt-offering of every Sabbath, beside the continual burnt-offering and his drink-offering." Numb. xxviii. 9, 10. Also holy convocations, which mean, we presume, assemblies for the purpose of public worship or religious instruction, were directed to be holden on the Sabbath-day: "the seventh day is a sabbath of rest, an holy convocation." Levit. xxiii. 3.

for a perpetual covenant; it is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever." Exodus xxxi. 16, 17. Again: And I gave them my statutes, and showed them my judgments, which if a man do he shall even live in them; moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." Ezek. xx. 12. Now it does not seem easy to understand how the Sabbath could be a sign between God and the people of Israel, unless the observance of it was peculiar to that people, and designed to be so.

The distinction of the Sabbath is, in its nature, as much a positive ceremonial institution, as that of many other seasons. which were appointed by the Levitical law to be kept holy, and to be ob served by a strict rest; as the first and seventh days of unleavened bread; the feast of Pentecost; the feast of tabernacles; and in the twenty-third chapter of Exodus, the Sabbath and these are re

And accordingly we read, that the Sabbath was in fact observed amongst the Jews by a scrupulous abstinence from every thing which, by any possible construction, could be deemed labour; as from dressing meat, from travelling beyond a Sabbath-day's journey, or about a single mile. In the Maccabean wars, they suffered a thousand of their number to be slain, rather than do any thing in their own defence on the Sabbath-day. In the final siege of Jerusalem, after they had so far overcome their scruples as to defend their persons when attacked, they refused any operation on the Sabbath-day, by which they might have inter-cited together. rupted the enemy in filling up the trench. After the establishment of synagogues, (of the origin of which we have no account,) it was the custom to assemble in them on the Sabbath-day, for the purpose of hearing the law rehearsed and explained, and for the exercise, it is probable, of public devotion; "For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day." The seventh St. Paul evidently appears to have considered day is Saturday; and, agreeably to the Jewish the Sabbath as part of the Jewish ritual, and not way of computing the day, the Sabbath held from obligatory upon Christians as such:-"Let no six o'clock on the Friday evening, to six o'clock man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or on Saturday evening.-These observations being in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or premised, we approach the main question, Whe-of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of ther the command by which the Jewish Sabbath things to come, but the body is of Christ." Col. was instituted, extend to us? ii. 16, 17.

If the Divine command was actually delivered at the creation, it was addressed, no doubt, to the whole human species alike, and continues, unless

From the mention of the Sabbath in so close a con

nexion with the descent of God upon mount Sinai, and

the delivery of the law from thence, one would be in

clined to believe that Nehemiah referred solely to the fourth commandment. But the fourth commandment certainly did not first make known the Sabbatır. And it is apparent, that Nehemiah observed not the order of events; for he speaks of what passed upon mount Sinai before he mentions the miraculous supplies of bread and water, though the Jews did not arrive at mount Sinai, till some time after both these miracles were wrought.

If the command by which the Sabbath was instituted be binding upon. Christians, it must be binding as to the day, the duties, and the penalty; in none of which it is received.

The observance of the Sabbath was not one of the articles enjoined by the Apostles, in the fifteenth chapter of Acts, upon them-" which, from among the Gentiles, were turned unto God."

I am aware of only two objections which can be opposed to the force of these arguments; one is, that the reason assigned in the fourth commandment for hallowing the seventh day, namely, "because God rested on the seventh day from the work of the creation," is a reason which pertains to all mankind: the other, that the command which enjoins the observance of the Sabbath is inserted in the Decalogue, of which all the other precepts and prohibitions are of moral and universal obligation.

Upon the first objection it may be remarked, that although in Exodus the commandment is founded upon God's rest from the creation, in

house of Israel; neither hath defiled his neighbour's wife, neither hath come near to a menstruous woman; and hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge; hath spoiled none by violence; hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment; he that hath not given upon usury, neither hath taken any increase; that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity; hath executed true judgment between man and man; hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God." Ezekiel xviii. 5-9. The same thing may be observed of the apostolic decree recorded in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts:-"It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burthen than these necessary things, that ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well.".

Deuteronomy the commandment is repeated with, a reference to a different event :-"Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work; thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou: and 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." It is farther observable, that God's rest from the creation is proposed as the reason of the institution, even where the institution itself is spoken of as peculiar to the Jews:"Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant: it is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: II. If the law by which the Sabbath was infor in six-days the Lord made heaven and earth, stituted, was a law only to the Jews, it becomes an and on the seventh day he rested and was re-important question with the Christian inquirer, freshed." The truth is, these different reasons whether the Founder of his religion delivered any were assigned, to account for different circum-new command upon the subject; or, if that should stances in the command. If a Jew inquired, why not appear to be the case, whether any day was the seventh day was sanctified rather than the appropriated to the service of religion by the ausixth or eighth, his law told him, because God thority or example of his apostles. rested on the seventh day from the creation. If The practice of holding religious assemblies he asked, why was the same rest indulged to upon the first day of the week, was so early and slaves? his law bade him remember, that he also universal in the Christian Church, that it carries was a slave in the land of Egypt, and "that the with it considerable proof of having originated Lord his God brought him out thence." In this from some precept of Christ, or of his apostles, view, the two reasons are perfectly compatible though none such be now extant. It was upon with each other, and with a third end of the in- the first day of the week that the disciples were stitution, its being a sign between God and the assembled, when Christ appeared to them for the people of Israel; but in this view they determine first time after his resurrection; "then the same nothing concerning the extent of the obligation. day at evening, being the first day of the week, If the reason by its proper energy had constituted when the doors were shut where the disciples were a natural obligation, or if it had been mentioned assembled, for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and with a view to the extent of the obligation, we stood in the midst of them." John xx. 19. This, should submit to the conclusion that all were for any thing that appears in the account, might, comprehended by the command who are concerned as to the day, have been accidental; but in the in the reason. But the sabbatic rest being a duty 26th verse of the same chapter we read, that which results from the ordination and authority "after eight days," that is, on the first day of the of a positive law, the reason can be alleged no week following, "again the disciples were withfarther than as it explains the design of the legis-in;" which second meeting upon the same day of lator: and if it appear to be recited with an intentional application to one part of the law, it explains his design upon no other; if it be mentioned merely to account for the choice of the day, it does not explain his design as to the extent of the obligation.

the week looks like an appointment and design to meet on that particular day. In the twentieth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we find the saine custom in a Christian church at a great distance from Jerusalem:-" And we came unto them to Troas in five days, where we abode seven With respect to the second objection, that in- days; and upon the first day of the week, when asmuch as the other nine commandments are con- the disciples came together to break bread, Paul fessedly of moral and universal obligation, it may preached unto them." Acts xx. 6, 7. The manreasonably be presumed that this is of the same; ner in which the historian mentions the disciples we answer, that this argument will have less coming together to break bread on the first day weight, when it is considered that the distinction of the week, shows, I think, that the practice by between positive and natural duties, like other this time was familiar and established. St. Paul distinctions of modern ethics, was unknown to the to the Corinthians writes thus: "Concerning the simplicity of ancient language; and that there are collection for the saints, as I have given order to various passages in Scripture, in which duties of the Churches of Galatia, even so do ye; upon the a political, or ceremonial, or positive nature, and first day of the week let every one of you lay by confessedly of partial obligation, are enumerated, him in store as God hath prospered him, that there and without any mark of discrimination, along be no gathering when I come." 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2. with others which are natural and universal. Of Which direction affords. a probable proof, that the this the following is an incontestable example. first day of the week was already, amongst the "But if a man be just, and do that which is law- Christians both of Corinth and Galatia, distinful and right; and hath not eaten upon the moun-guished from the rest by some religious applicatains, nor hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the [tion or other. At the time that St. John wrote