THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH: ITS HISTORY AND AUTHORITY.* THE number of treatises whose titles again laid to rest. During this period of we have placed at the head of this article controversy, while the solid foundations is a plain proof that the various questions of prescriptions are broken up, and pubconnected with the Sabbath its au- lic opinion is fluctuating in the vacuity of thority, the modes of its observance, the doubt, it behoves wise men to revolve right of Government to defend its sanc- thoughtfully the questions at issue, and to tity, or regulate its observance, etc., give free and fearless expression to their have thoroughly aroused the public at- deliberate judgment, since it is manifest tention, and that they must undergo new that any change in the sentiments and and exhaustive discussion ere they be laws of the people in reference to the Sabbath will produce great corresponding changes in the complexion of their entire life. * 1. Three Letters to a Friend on the "Sunday Question," viewed chiefly in relation to its Social and Political Aspects; with a Parliamentary Speech which will not be found in any of the "Debutes." By N. M. P. London: Longman. 1856. It would be impossible to conceive of stronger contrasts or plainer contradictions in opinion than we have discovered in perusing the sermons, lectures, tract 2. The People's Day: an Appeal to the Right Hon. Lord Stanley, M.P., against his Advocacy of a French Sunday. By WILLIAM ARTHUR, A.M. Lon-ates, etc., noticed above, and which are don: Hamilton, Adams & Co. 1855. but a tithe of the publications that have been issued during the recent agitation in Parliament and the country upon Sir Joshua Walmsley's Bill. They are all lying peacefully on our table, in amiable contact with each other; but we have thought, if the spirits they embody were now unloosed, what a whirlwind of war would sweep before us, what discordant clamors would interrupt our quietude, what havoc would be witnessed in their 1 ghostly battle round our desk! Merci- vice-vers; whereas no such inference fully, the warfare is waged by silent is warrantable by the rules of logic, or by books, and, since it is so, we have been facts. The third topic is, at the present thankful even for the contrariety of opin- moment, the most important and urgent ion which they express; for this is the in its practical issues, since there is a process by which the seeds of truth are body of men associated to agitate the winnowed from the chaff of heresy. For people and to importune Government for ourselves, we feel that our opinions are certain alterations of the Sunday laws, freer and purer from passing under the slight indeed in themselves, but most tribulum of a sifting opposition. ominous in the revolution of domestic and social manners which they presage. We do hope, therefore, that all who are agreed as to the pernicious tendency of these changes will not be deterred from alliance with each other, in order to prevent them, by reason of speculative dif ferences on the other questions. Not that we gainsay or depreciate their importance; they attract us by their intrinsic greatness as matters of theological inquiry, and we acknowledge that they contain within themselves the ground and obligation, the nature and final cause, of this great ordinance and privilege of the Christian's course. The cultivation of our spiritual life, indeed, is mainly dependent on the mode on which our Sabbath is kept. Clear views, moreover, on these topics will open our way for a full consideration of the subsequent political question. So profoundly have we been convinced of this, that whilst it is our main purpose to discuss the latter question in reference to the demands put forth by the National Sunday League, we have been constrained to explain and justify the ground we take on this preliminary question, Is the authority of the Sabbath human or Divine? Some of these publications are written with distinguished ability and high-toned moral purpose. Others, however, weary us with their indescribable feebleness, or annoy by their ignorant one-sideness. The pamphlets of Henry Rogers, Arthur, and Kingsmill, strand preeminent among those written in defense of the Sabbath, though their argument regards it only as a national institution; and the treatise by Louis V. Mellet, which bears purely on the scriptural and ecclesiastical authority of the day, stands alone on the other side. We did expect some fresh and powerful thinking in the sermons published by the Rev. B. Powell and Mr. George Dawson; but our hope has been disappointed. We shall make reference to the former in the course of our article. The latter requires only this passing notice. The matter of Mr. Dawson's sermons is an ill-remembered repetition of the arguments and authorities lucidly expounded by L. V. Mellet; but this miserable hash is garnished with the "huffing, braggart, puft" language, and well spiced with the rare dogmatism, which usually flows from his "rattling tongue Of saucy and audacious eloquence." There are three separate subjects connected with the Sabbath which have not been sufficiently defined, and which, though interconnected with each other, empathically require distinct treatment; viz., the grounds on which the obligation of the Christian Sabbath rests; the mode of its observance; the duty of Government with regard to it. We are the less disposed to avoid this inquiry, since recent objections have been started against the argument for its Divine authority, which are said to be alltriumphant and irrefutable. It is our purpose briefly to consider these objections, and at the same time to delineate afresh the main features of that progressive argument which seems to us to be irresistible in its cumulative force. The ground on which the obligation of From confounding these very distinct the Christian Sabbath rests may be subjects, it has been erroneously assumed, presented under these two divisions: that all who ground the obligation of the 1. The authoritative will of God, as made Christian Sabbath upon manifest expe- known in the Bible, or in the history of diency and the hallowed customs of the the Church while governed by His AposChurch are favorable to the lax observ-tles. 2. Its adaption to the circumstanance of the day, and encourage the pro- ces of human life and the manifest rejects of the National Sunday League, and quirements of our physical and moral |