after he was gone, represented his latest Sabbatic opinions.1 One of these hymns, composed in 1525, runs :— "Honour my name in word and deed, And call on me in time of need: Keep holy too the Sabbath-day, That work in thee I also may." And the other of the previous year, has the words : "Hallow the day which God hath blest, Lastly, it may even be allowed that the Reformers erred to some extent in regard to the weekly holy day, while it is held that they did not thereby forfeit their claim to be ranked among the friends of the institution, inasmuch as the truth decidedly outweighs the error. Calvin, Luther, and, indeed, all the principal men of the Reformation except Knox, were of the opinion of Augustine and others of the Fathers, that the fourth was distinguished from the rest of the commandments by being partly of a ceremonial character. They seemed not to know how the transference of the sacred rest from the last to the first day of the week could be reconciled to the doctrine of a moral, unchangeable precept, and therefore adopted the theory of a double aspect of the commandment, one part being ceremonial which has passed away, the other being moral and enduring. The distinction is as unnecessary as it is untenable. The Second Commandment might as well be supposed to have a twofold character, inasmuch as the means of worship, which it rules, have been changed from Jewish to Christian ordinances. The alteration in both cases was in the circumstances of the law, provided for by positive appointment and special revelation, not in the law itself. The Sabbath had a ceremonial or typical character under the Levitical economy, but not so its royal precept. This was the distinction that ought to have been made by the Fathers and Reformers, but their adopting another, though an error, did not originate in a low estimate 1 Brunsman, Sab. Quies, par. 215, 219. * Geistliche Leider, Lond. (1845), pp. 53, 56, and Massie's Translation, etc., pp. 53, 55. of the day of rest, which they regarded, the typical aspect having disappeared, as still the charge of a moral statute. The error, however, had the effect of perplexing their views on the subject, and leading to the use of certain expressions, which have exposed their respect for the institution to suspicion, and the cause itself to practical injury. Another matter in which all the Reformers, with the exception again of Knox, appear to us to have more or less fallen into error, was that of holidays. We have seen that some would have removed such days entirely, which in fact was done in Geneva, and at Strasburg, and that the number of them in several instances was reduced. But none of the Reformers was so decided in opinion and practice on the subject as Knox. Even Calvin treated the question as one of comparative unimportance. Whatever was the cause, Luther's early desire for the abolition of holidays was not fulfilled. The prejudice in favour of some of them was strong, as we learn from the feelings of the Bernese, of the Belgian magistrates, and of a few in Scotland, who continued to observe certain feast-days for some time after the Reformation. These observances were restored in Geneva, and have been permanently disregarded among Protestants only by the Paritans of England, and the Presbyterians of Scotland, with their descendants in America and other countries, and by the missionary. churches which they have planted in various lands. But the failure of the good men of the Reformation to carry into effect Luther's desire for the disbanding of the holidays, while to be regretted, does not appear a sufficient ground for questioning their respect for the Lord's day, which, though in some instances it was classed by them as if it were only the chief in a series of such days, they repeatedly declared to be an express appointment of Heaven, and indispensable to the welfare of the church, withholding, at the same time, that honour from other days of rest and worship. Having endeavoured to present the Sabbatic opinions of the Reformers in the light of truth and facts, we venture to claim on their behalf from our readers a verdict of "not guilty" of the offence of hostility or even indifference to the institution. They erred, it is allowed, in some of their expressions and proceedings. They unhappily failed to distinguish between the Sabbath as it stood in the Decalogue, and the Sabbath as connected with the judicial and ceremonial appendages of Judaism, and to eradicate what some of themselves called "the useless and hurtful practice of holiday keeping." Theirs, however, were the mistakes of ardent friends of piety and good morals, who in eagerly opposing enormities fell into some errors, and in checking the gross abuse of the external and preceptive, as well as in aiming at a high measure of the spiritual and the voluntary in religion, did not sufficiently adjust the claims of the outward and the inward, of liberty and law. Knox avoided their mistakes. In 1547, he adopted, as the result of independent inquiry, the great principles, which guided his future career, and by which he was honoured to effect the most thorough of the salutary revolutions accomplished at the Reformation. In that year he taught at St. Andrews the doctrine that everything in religion ought to be regulated, not by the pleasure and appointment of men, but according to the Word of God, and in the same year maintained in a public disputation, that the church has no authority, on pretext of decorating Divine service, to devise ceremonies, and impose upon them significations of her own. Row, referring to the six ministers, including Knox and himself, who were employed to draw up the First Book of Discipline, says, "They took not their example from any kirk in the world; no, not from Geneva; but drew their plan from the sacred Scriptures." It was in this way, we believe, that Knox formed those views of the Sabbath, which were afterwards so fully expounded by the Puritans, and to which his country owes so much. That the Puritans were indebted to him on the subject, we do not affirm. We know that he took some part in revising the Articles of the English Church, effected some alterations in her service-book, had much influence with the authorities, and produced great impression by his preaching, while from 1549 to the end of 1553 he resided in England; and we should conceive it more likely that the Puritans borrowed from him, than, as has been supposed, he from them. But it is not necessary to suppose either case, as the more that men make the Scriptures their study and their rule, the more will they "see eye to eye." CHAPTER IL MILTON AND OTHER EMINENT MEN. WE are not done yet with the argument which arrays against a holy Sabbath a few great names. Although it has failed as respects the Reformers, those who advance it have other names in reserve, of which the greatest is John Milton. True it is, that even after the Puritan training which he had received from his learned and idolized tutor, and after uttering as with "the tongues of angels" the praises of Him who "From work, Now resting, blessed and hallowed the seventh day, In Milton did indeed, by his latterly abandoning public and domestic worship, and by a posthumous attack on the authority of the Christian Sabbath, lend his influence to opinions subversive of three kindred institutions, to which in his youth and manhood he owed the direction and impulse that issued in his noble prose writings, and in his yet nobler poetry. "In the distribution of his hours," as Dr. Johnson in his Life of the Poet observes, "there was no hour of prayer, either solitary or with his household; omitting public prayers, he omitted all." such circumstances, the less that is said of Milton's hostility to us the better. The melancholy change of religious practice, to which his biographer refers, not merely neutralizes his antiSabbatic influence, but is a potent argument for his former and against his latter creed. We would recommend to our opponents to say nothing of another remarkable man, Selden, who has written more learnedly than satisfactorily respecting the Sabbath in his De Jure Naturali et Gentium. For they will be reminded that this prodigy of lore was a member of the Westminster Assembly, did not appear to intimate at any of its meetings dissent from its doctrine on the Sabbath, and subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant, while in the following words he takes a middle course between the tenets of the Confession of Faith, and those of the anti-Sabbatists: "Why should I think all the Fourth Commandment belongs to me, when all the Fifth does not ? What land will the Lord give me for honouring my father? It was spoken to the Jews with reference to the land of Canaan, but the meaning is, if I honour my parents, God will also bless me. We read the commandments in the Church service, as we do David's Psalms; not that all concerns us, but a great deal of them does." It is affirmed of Selden that he "seems to have been often led by the current of circumstances to act against his personal convictions." He, therefore, is not a man of such religious and moral weight as to turn the scale against the perpetual obligation of a weekly day of entire rest and worship. Exceptions might also be taken to others of the class, who are relied on as authorities against us. Were the question to be decided by mere names, the friends of the Sabbath would have no reason to shrink from the trial. But they disclaim such means of settling it. They bear in mind that no human being is infallible or to be held entitled to prescribe a creed to his fellow-creatures, that their duty is to try the spirits and prove all things, and that the greatest, wisest, and best of mankind fall into errors, which tend to recall us from confidence in men, to entire trust only in the Infinite. They yet, consistently with all this, believe that they ought to despise no man, that much importance may justly be attached to the opinions of the learned, and particularly of those who combine goodness with intelligence, and it becomes us to consider well before we dissent from views which have been entertained by persons of the greatest mental and moral excellence, and, especially, on which the Catholic Church has uttered all but a unanimous voice. Before, then, we agree to follow Milton, let us hear what other oracles have uttered, and then bring all to the oracles that are sacred and Divine. 1 Table Talk, 1819, p. 169. |