hoof of the same," "much rather any other holiday instituted by man," we come to a declaration of sabbatic opinion, which, like that of the Convocation, has the advantage of coming from the collective wisdom of the English Church at the time. It is contained in The Godly and Pious Institution of a Christian, which appeared in 1537, with the signatures of Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Latimer, Protestants; and of Bishops Stokesley, Tonstall, Gardiner, Archdeacons Bonner and Heathall, except in the matter of the Pope's supremacy, Romanists; and, substantially repeated in the editions of 1540 and of 1543, the latter bearing the new title-A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man, states that "the fourth commandment is distinguished from the other nine-the latter being merely moral, the former ceremonial as regards 'rest from bodily labour the seventh day,' which belonged only to the Jews, but moral as respects the spiritual rest from sin, which binds Christians at all times the command, however, binding also to rest from all bodily labour, and to the exclusive service of God at certain times -not as formerly on the Saturday, instead of which succeedeth the Sunday, and many other holy and feastful days, ordained from time to time by the Church and called holy days, not because one day is more acceptable to God than another, but because the Church hath ordained that on these days we give ourselves wholly to holy works without impediment." Directions follow to the bishops and clergy to teach the people not to be over-scrupulous in time of necessity in abstaining from labour on the holy day, and that idleness, gluttony, or other vain and idle pastimes on that day, do not please God, but offend Him.

There appeared in 1545, The Primer; or Book of Prayers, containing the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, etc.," where," to borrow the remarkable statement of another, "the general confession, enumerating the violation of each of the commandments, on the fourth says, I have not sanctified the holy days with works which be acceptable unto thee, nor instructing my neighbour in virtue accordingly ;' when we turn to the Decalogue, we find, in strict conformity with this notion, nothing more of the fourth commandment than these words only- Re

1 Wilk. Concil. iii. 827.

member that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.'

This lopping off all mention of the six days' creation, and of the hallowed rest on the seventh, in order to make the commandment square with the Romish doctrine, might have been a hint to Cranmer, that his opinions on this head were not yet those we are taught in the Ten Commandments of Almighty God." 1

Cranmer's Catechism (1548) states, that Christians are freed from the Mosaic law as regards differences of times and meatsthat they have the liberty of using other sacred days than the Jewish-that to maintain this liberty they observe not Saturday but Sunday, and certain other days, as the magistrates, whom in this thing they ought to obey, judge it convenient-that they must employ and bestow the Sabbath-day upon godly works and business and that to spend the holy days in the neglect of such works, or "in idleness, banqueting, dancing," etc., is "a great sin," "for which God punisheth us with divers kinds of plagues, but specially with need and poverty."

"2

It appears from the preceding extracts, that, while the Romanists were disposed to support their practical abuse of the Lord's Day by corrupting its doctrine, the Reformers, as religious earnest men, would have the institution applied to pious and practical use, but knew not how to carry out, or did not clearly apprehend, the only theory by which their object could be fully gained-the theory, we mean, of a Sabbath, moral, perpetual, and admitting of no competitor. It was reserved for Bishop Hooper to make the nearest approach to this theory that had been made since the time of Wycliffe. In his Exposition of the Ten Commandments, published in 1550, he not only advocates, with Cranmer, abstinence from ordinary labour, and from pastimes, on the Lord's Day, but, though admitting the Jewish Sabbath, as regarded its specific day of the week, to have been ceremonial, "during for the time," holds that the fourth commandment is no more ceremonial than the second, "all the commandments being of one virtue and strength."

1 James' Four Sermons on the Christian Sacraments and Sabbath, p. 228. The original work, written in German "for the use of the younger sort" in Nuremberg, was, in 1539, translated by Justus Jonas, junior, into Latin, from which It was rendered into English by the archbishop, Jonas being at the time his guest.

These views, which were not new but very old, cannot reasonably be conceived to have been then peculiar to Hooper. But it is not unlikely that the writings of so learned and good a man would, with his preaching, exercise a powerful influence on sabbatic opinion in his lifetime, and that this would receive fresh energy from his heroic death in the cause of the doctrines and institutions of Christ. Whatever truth there may be in this supposition, certain it is, that so early after the appearance of his treatise as 1551, when the Book of Common Prayer was confirmed by Parliament, though the Preamble of the Act rang the old changes on holidays, the commandments were for the first time added to the Liturgy, the fourth, "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day," etc., being, as well as the others, succeeded by the prayer, Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law ;" and that in Cranmer's Fortytwo Articles, agreed to at a convocation of bishops and learned men in 1552, are to be found the following positions of vital importance to our subject, and expressed in singularly clear and decided terms:-First, the exclusive competency of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to the establishment of any doctrine; and, Second, the threefold distinction in the law given from God by Moses, which as touching ceremonies does not bind Christian men, as respects civil precepts ought not of necessity to be received in any commonwealth, and as moral consists of commandments from the obligation of which no Christian man whatsoever is free.

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A blank in sabbatic discussion and literature of fully five years (1553-58) is accounted for by the reign of Mary and Popery, under which Coverdale, Jewell, Becon, Fox, with many more, were obliged to quit their country, and Rogers, Hooper, Bradford, Ridley, Latimer, Cranmer, and others, were committed to the flames. But good resulted. The blood of the martyrs was the life of their creed, and the exiles returned, after the death of Queen Mary, only the more qualified to take part in the recovery and advancement of the Reformation. To the impression of those martyrdoms, and to the efforts of the men whose characters had been matured by their residence abroad, England in no small measure owed her free Bible, her improved Articles and Homilies,

her Augustan age of learning, and her Puritans, with the liberty, virtue, enterprise, and prosperity, which were the fruits of the principles, labours, and sufferings of these oppressed but noble

men.

To the same means was she indebted for not the least of her privileges—a Sabbath doctrinally recognised as an institution of perpetual obligation, having its changed day divinely appointed, as well as its Christian observance ruled by the fourth commandment; and which, but for her own princes and prelates, would, through the removal of useless and pernicious devices from Divine worship, have reached a closer conformity to the Word of God. Queen Elizabeth had not been above four years seated on the throne when, at her desire, the Convocation of 1562 was assembled for the settlement of doctrine in the Church. The publication of thirty-eight Articles, and of the Second Book of Homilies, now appended to the First, as all agreed to by that body, was one of the chief results. These documents, supplemented with a thirty-ninth Article, and otherwise slightly changed, were approved by the Convocation of 1571, and in the same year confirmed by the Queen and Parliament, as constituting, with the Book of Common Prayer, the formularies of Doctrine and Worship in the Church of England. As such, with one important and several minor alterations subsequently made, they have been recognised by her members down to the present day, 1

When we examine these documents, we find the following to be their doctrine respecting the Sabbath :-That while we ought always and everywhere gratefully to remember our beffeficent Creator, it appears to be His good-will and pleasure that there should be special times and places for His worship and glorythat the appointed solemn time is ascertained from the Fourth Commandment, and is a standing day in the week-that this commandment does not require of us, as of the Jews, abstinence

1 The important alteration referred to was the introduction into the Twentieth Article of the words,-"The Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies, and authority in controversies of faith." As this, or any similar clause, had no place in the Forty-two Articles of Edward vi., none in the subscribed MS. Articles of 1562 and 1571, and none in any such book-"an imprinted English book "—as was alone confirmed by this Act of Parliament, it follows that the Church did not in her Articles of either of those years claim the power which the clause arrogates for her.

from ordinary labour in time of great necessity, or the observance of the seventh day-that Christians keep the first day of the week, and make that their Sabbath, or day of rest, in honour of Christ, who upon that day rose from, and conquered, death—that God hath given express charge by this commandment as a thing belonging to the law of nature, and therefore as most godly, just, and good, to be retained and kept of all good Christian people, that all men shall, upon the Sabbath-day, which is now our Sunday, cease from all weekly and work-day labour in which they ought to be employed during the six days, and give themselves. wholly to heavenly exercises of God's true religion and service, even as God wrought six days and rested the seventh, and blessed and sanctified it, and consecrated it to quietness and rest from labour-that this example and commandment of God the godly Christian people began to follow immediately after the ascension of our Lord, and to choose for their standing day of worship in the week, the Lord's Day, the day after the seventh, of which mention is made in 1 Cor. xvi. and Apoc. i.—that since that time the day has been observed without gainsaying in the Church-that notwithstanding the warning against the breach of it given in the stoning to death of the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbathday, there are still those that would be counted God's people who devote the Sunday to travelling and business without extreme need, or to what is worse, gluttony, drunkenness, quarrelling and fighting, excess and superfluity, toyish talking, and fleshly filthiness, so that God is more dishonoured, and the Devil better served on that day than upon all the days of the week besides; and that if men will be negligent, and not forbear to labour and travel on the Sabbath-day, or Sunday, and do not resort together to magnify His name in quiet holiness and godly reverence, they have reason to fear the displeasure and just plagues of Almighty God. To this analysis of what is contained in the Homilies on the subject, let us add an extract from the Book of Common Prayer: "Minister.-Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no manner of work, etc. People.

1 Homily of the Place and Time of Prayer. Homilies, edit. London, 1687.