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Cornell University Library 
 
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HISTORY 
 
 INSTITUTION OF THE pATH DAI 
 
 ITS USES AND ABUSES ; 
 
 NOTICES OF THE PUEITANS, QUAKERS, ETC. 
 
 WILLIAM LOGAN FISHER. 
 
 SECOND KDITION, REVISED AND ENLAROED. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 T. B. PUGH, BOOKSELLER AND STATIONER, 
 
 NO. 615 CHESTNUT STEEET. 
 
 1859. 
 
coisrTEisrTs. 
 
 Preliminary ObserratioQS — General Principles 9 
 
 Laws of Moses — Sabbath an institution peculiar to the Jews... 25 
 
 Sabbath of the early Christians 47 
 
 Sunday of Constantine 61 
 
 Puritans of Bngland, Originators of the term Christian Sab- 
 bath 85 
 
 Puritans of New England 100 
 
 The Quakers 139 
 
 The Spiritual Element — The doctrine of the Inner Light 175 
 
 The Scripture— The Clergy 192 
 
 The employment of Chaplains — Days of public thanksgiv- 
 ing — Sabbath Conventions 208 
 
 Man cannot work unceasingly — Closing courts, no reason for 
 closing railroads — All who hold according to reason, 
 Christians — TJniyersality of the Christian religion — Conclu- 
 sion 224 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The first edition of this work having been long since 
 exhausted, without exhausting the demand for it, 
 a part of the present edition has been re-written, 
 and considerable evidence added. 
 
 I have received from Robert Cox, Esq., of Edin- 
 burgh, his work entitled "Sabbath Laws and Sab- 
 bath Duties, considered in relation to their Natural 
 and Scriptural grounds, and to the principles of Re- 
 ligious Liberty." Also a pamphlet, entitled " Sab- 
 baths ;" an inquiry into the origin of septenary 
 institutions. Both works exhibit great research; 
 and I am indebted to them for various extracts. 
 
b PREFACE. 
 
 Since the following pages yrere printed, several 
 of the annual police reports of our large cities for 
 the year 1858 have been published. 
 
 In New York, called the City of Churches and of 
 Palaces, there were 61,455 arrests for criminal of- 
 fences, 49 cases of which were for murder ; in addi- 
 tion to this, there were 121,597 vagrants lodged in 
 the station houses, and this in a city peculiarly 
 abounding in Sabbath Laws, Sabbath Schools, and 
 'Associations for the observance of the Sabbath — filled 
 with clergymen, with wealth and benevolence ; the 
 arrests having more than doubled in ten years. In 
 Massachusetts it is stated that the criminals have 
 trebled in the last fourteen years. The account says, 
 " That the criminals are not made from a foreign, but 
 from the home-made article," and that unless there 
 is a practical reformation, before half a century is over 
 " we shall be ruled by the criminals themselves." 
 (See New Bedford Mercury.) In Philadelphia, for 
 the last year, the arrests were 22,367, being less than 
 the average for several preceding years. These num- 
 bers, though official, are of too uncertain a character 
 to be any criterion as to the relative proportion of 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 crime, but they all alike indicate a radical defect in 
 the systems of reformation that are pursued. These 
 crimes and thid misery are not necessary attendants 
 upon city organizations ; they are mostly produced 
 by man himself, and are, in the same degree, under 
 his control. As the common law, interpreted by 
 wise men, is the most valuable of all law ; so is com- 
 mon sense, interpreted by truth and wisdom, the 
 most valuable of all sense. Yet in the reformatory 
 systems of the day, common sense is laid aside for 
 Sabbath enactments, which it is vainly believed are 
 sufficient to reform the world, and for theological 
 dogmaa, which, above all else, have ever been the 
 cause of crime, and suffering, and degradation. True 
 to their own nature, they bring forth fruit according 
 to their kind. These melancholy records of crime 
 in our large cities, are alike interesting to the states- 
 man and the moralist. The statesman may read in 
 them the presages of revolution and bloodshed ; mo- 
 ralists may see' how little they comport with the vain 
 boasting of our country ; and all alike may under- 
 stand how incompetent the present means of reforma- 
 tion are to accomplish the end proposed. The Mas- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 sachusetts account states, " That in the past fourteen 
 years efforts for reforming criminals and punishing 
 crime have been more active than at any previous 
 time, and yet crime has trebled." 
 
HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 INSTITUTION OF THE SABBATH DAY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Preliminary Observations — General Principles — Violations of 
 Sanday Laws — Extracts from Sunday Publications — Sep- 
 tenary Institutions not Universal — No Sabbath in the Patri- 
 archal age. 
 
 "No man," says Southey, "was ever convinced of 
 any momentous truth, without feeling in himself the 
 power as well as the desire of communicating it." ^ 
 
 Whether this be universally correct it is not need- 
 ful to inquire, but a very careful consideration of the 
 historical facts connected with our theological litera- 
 ture, on the subject of the Sabbath, has resulted in a 
 conviction that it is false, anti- Christian in its nature, 
 immoral in its tendency, and unworthy of the intelli- 
 gence of an enlightened people. This subject I now 
 propose candidly to consider, with as much brevity 
 as the circumstances will permit, without fear and 
 
 without aflFection. 
 
 1 
 
10 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 An institution, wMcIl for the last two centuries has 
 been the subject of conflicting legislation, which has 
 been by turns cherished and rejected by respectable 
 men, about which judges in their ofScial capacity 
 have been unable to decide whether it was an ecclesi- 
 astical or a civil institution, upon the proper obser- 
 vance of which scarcely any two men agree, and 
 which has been made the occasion of severe penal- 
 ties, may well claim an impartial narrative of the 
 facts connected with its history. 
 
 The Constitution of Pennsylvania, in language as 
 plain as can be written, guarantees to all, liberty of 
 conscience; the amended Constitution of the United 
 States restricts Congress from making any law "re- 
 specting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting 
 the free exercise thereof." (Article 3d, Amend. 
 Const. United States.) Most of the individual States 
 have corresponding constitutional provisions, yet ex- 
 cept in the young commonwealth of California, the 
 judges have not had independence enough to save 
 the people from oppression, on account of enactments 
 regarding the first day of the week. The Jews and 
 Seventh-day Baptists have both been persecuted by sec] 
 tarians who differed from themselves, and many other 
 eminently pious persons have been fined and impris- 
 oned for their scruples relative to this particular day, 
 and this by laws that are absolutely believed to be 
 unconstitutional. The States of this Union furnish 
 
SABBATH DAY. 11 
 
 on no other case legislation so conflicting as that re- 
 garding the Sabbath. The learned and the simple are 
 alike ignorant of what the law is, because it is made 
 by the courts in the most arbitrary manner, to suit 
 the particular case under consideration. 
 
 In the State of Pennsylvania, some of the Supreme 
 Judges, in their official capacity, have decided, that if 
 these laws were of an ecclesiastical nature they were 
 void, because the Legislature has no authority to en- 
 act laws of that character ; other Judges, with equal 
 confidence, have declared that if they were merely 
 civil enactments they were void, because the Legisla- 
 ture has no right to impair civil liberty. In one 
 court the Judge has ruled, that a man could not re- 
 cover for the hire of a horse to be used on Sunday. 
 In some cases, contracts made on Sunday were held 
 to be void, in others they have been confirmed. 
 
 There are no laws in the statute book so openly 
 violated ; those who should enforce them set them at 
 naught, and the whole community, almost with one 
 accord, disregard them. The New York Tribune of 
 Nov. 20th, 1858, has the following remarks : 
 
 "The Annual Report of the General Superintendent 
 of Police, just issued, announces the humiliating fact 
 that 19,902 complaints for the violation of the statute 
 against the Sunday liquor traffic have been lodged 
 with the District Attorney, not one of which has been 
 prosecuted. Is the law an obsolete affair ? On the 
 
12 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 contrary, it is a part of the statute under which the 
 Metropolitan Police force was organized. District 
 Attorney Hall, in his " instructions to patrolmen," 
 says he is ' charged by law with a duty whose dis- 
 obedience renders him liable to a prosecution for mis- 
 demeanor himself.' Eighteen months have gone by, 
 and twenty thousand out of the millions of actual vio- 
 lations of the statute, are filed in the Attorney's of- 
 fice — unheeded." 
 
 The reason of this manifold neglect is obvious ; 
 such laws conflict with the principles of human nature. 
 The outskirts of our towns and cities' are filled as 
 well with the aged as the youth, taking that manly 
 exercise on Sunday which nature calls for, in de- 
 fiance of all law. Thus, from very childhood, men 
 are made familiar with legal offences, because legisla- 
 tors, in their weakness and sectarianism, in opposi- 
 tion to the New Testament, lay upon the people bur- 
 thens which they are unable to bear. (Acts xxv. 28.) 
 
 The extraordinary pretensions of those who peti- 
 tion year, after year, for still further coercive laws for 
 the observance of the Sabbath, may be gathered from 
 the following extracts, taken from late publications : 
 
 " Give up the Sabbath — ^blot out that orb of day — 
 suspend its blessed attractions — and the reign of 
 Chaos and old night would return. The waves of 
 our unquiet sea, high as our mountains, would roll 
 and wash from West to East, and East to West, 
 
SABBATH DAY. 13 " 
 
 South to North and North to South, shipwrecking 
 the hopes of patriots and the world. 
 
 " The American character, and our glorious institu- 
 tions, will go down into the same grave that entombs 
 the Sabbath; and our epitaph will stand forth, a 
 warning to the world."* 
 
 An address by the Rhode Island Sabbath Union 
 says: 
 
 "Violating the Sabbath, now rife through the land, 
 must be done away, or the consuming judgments of 
 God, which he has denounced on the nations that dis- 
 honor his day, will lay waste our goodly heritage, 
 and overspread it with the blight of his anger." 
 
 A highly respectable Sabbath convention uses this 
 language : 
 
 " Property earned or increased by Sabbath dese- 
 cration is soon squandered, so that the profligate and 
 beggared son trudges in rags, where a Sabbath-break- 
 ing father rode in his chariot." 
 
 Another of these degraded papers is in these words : 
 
 "A wonder in three worlds. 
 
 "Are you a Sabbath-breaker ? I hope not, but if 
 you are, you are that wonder. 
 
 " You are a wonder in heaven ; there all are so happy 
 that they wonder how you can profane that blessed 
 day. If you die a Sabbath-breaker, where they are 
 you can never come. 
 
 * Rev. Lyman Beecber. 
 1° 
 
14 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 " You are a wonder upon earth. All true Chris- 
 tians enjoy such holy pleasures on the Lord's day. 
 
 "You are a wonder in hell. Demons and lost 
 souls are so miserable that they are astonished at 
 you," etc.* 
 
 Upwards of twenty respectable men in New York, 
 a committee "on the religious and civil relations of 
 the Sabbath," declare that "the observance of the 
 dayis of paramount importance to the purity and per- 
 petuity of our free institutions;" that " it is a blessed 
 day," that "it is he type of heaven," "vital to the 
 prosperity of true religion," etc. 
 
 If these things are true, it is important that they 
 should be known and understood. To truth, every 
 reflecting mind should yield, let that be what it may. 
 
 Some of these extracts it would be as presumptuous 
 to deny as to aifirm. No intelligent man would pre- 
 sume to decide what is going on in other worlds ; but 
 so far as they can be understood, in connection with the 
 most authentic historical and moral evidences respect- 
 ing the Sabbath, every word is believed to be false — 
 false in principle as in fact, and it indicates a vitiated 
 taste, injurious alike in those who utter such senti- 
 ments and in those who believe them to be true, 
 which is calculated to retard that refinement and en- 
 largement of mind that are essential to the well being of 
 society. Let us not deceive ourselves; God is not 
 f Issued by the American Tract Society, No. 20. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 15 
 
 mocked ; such as we sow, such shall we reap. Every 
 false principle in morals produces fruit after its kind. 
 Every attempt to preserve order through erroneous 
 principles, is but sapping the foundation on which 
 true order rests. Hence it is, as history will demon- 
 strate, that coercive enactments relative to the first 
 day of the week have resulted in evil instead of good. 
 Those nations, and those periods of time, in which the 
 Sabbath laws have been most severe, have been uni- 
 formly marked by an increase of moral oflFences. The 
 power of man cannot prevent it ; grapes do not grow 
 of thorns, or figs of thistles. 
 
 The observance of Sunday is by many so associated 
 with piety and religion, that they reject any attempt 
 to investigate the authority on which its supposed 
 sanctity reposes. They contribute liberally to ex- 
 pose the superstitions of pagan nations, but cling 
 with tenacity to those of their own. 
 
 Nothing could be more foreign to my feelings than 
 to promote any erroneous views. I seek to cherish, not 
 to impair, the beautiful simplicity of the Christian re- 
 ligion ; to show that it exists not in form but in 
 spirit ; but I am not prepared to believe that idolatry, 
 in any of the various shapes it assumes, is beneficial 
 to the human character. 
 
 The timid may be alarmed at any attempt to lessen 
 the sanctity attached to what is termed the Sabbath ; 
 but it must be obvious that every improvement in the 
 
16 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 morals of society must be the effect, not of a Sunday 
 religion, but of an every-day practice of virtue ; and 
 those efforts should not be disregarded which tend to 
 demonstrate that every day is alike holy. 
 
 The historical evidences respecting the Sabbath, if 
 men seek truth, are too plain and direct to admit of 
 dispute. The schoolmen said to Galileo, " If nature 
 is opposed to the Bible, then nature is mistaken, for 
 the Bible is certainly right." Thus it is that truth 
 brings no conviction to minds which are filled with 
 their own preconceived opinions, superstition and 
 prejudice. 
 
 To be prepared to learn, is one of the greatest of 
 human attainments. To minds thus prepared, and 
 such there are in every community, words fitly spoken 
 are like indexes to mark sensations, and to confirm 
 sentiments which are already believed to be true, and 
 thus they do their work. To sectarians I need not 
 speak ; excellent as they may be in their private char- 
 acters, they seek not truth, but to be established in their 
 own preconceived opinions; to these they sacrifice 
 truth, and in many cases they are dearer to them than 
 life. Yet with all there is a certain conviction, that 
 in the end truth will prevail. It is this which gives zest 
 to all our hopes, and animates all our expectations, 
 even in moments of despondency. 
 
 There are two points of view in which the history of 
 the Sabbath should be considered. First, as a civil 
 
SABBATH DAY. 17 
 
 institution, as a day of rest and relaxation. Second, 
 in its theological and ecclesiastical aspect. 
 
 Those alone who reject its ecclesiastical character, 
 are prepared to appreciate it as a civil institution. 
 Divest it of its superstition, and it assumes a beauty 
 that it never had before. Of this I shall treat here- 
 after. My principal object is to consider the subject 
 as one of an ecclesiastical character. 
 
 A true history of the institution mil show: 1st. 
 That its alleged sacredness derives no support from 
 the septennial division of time. 
 
 2d. That the patriarchs kept no Sabbaths. 
 
 3d. That the Sabbath was a local ceremonial insti- 
 tution of the Jews ; that it never had application to 
 any other people, not even to the Gentiles who lived 
 among them. 
 
 4th. That keeping one day more holy than another 
 is contrary to the spirit and to the letter of the New 
 Testament, at variance with the practice of the early 
 Christians, and with the principles of the Christian 
 religion. 
 
 5th. That the observance of the Sunday, as prac- 
 ticed in these United States, is one of the superstitions 
 of the day ; and as such, it has been injurious to the 
 morals of the people, and increased moral depravity. 
 
 1. — As to the septennial division of time. 
 The strongest argument of the Sabbatarians for the 
 observance of the Sabbath is, that God has established 
 
18 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 it as a primeval institution for religious purposes ; and 
 they refer to the 2d chapter of Grenesis, wherein it is 
 stated that the heavens and earth being finished, God 
 rested on the seventh day from all his works, and 
 blessed and sanctified the day. 
 
 In this account of creation, Nature speaks one lan- 
 guage, the Bible another ; shall we put aside those 
 unchangeable marks of a creation long anterior to 
 that recorded, to be guided by records written when 
 or by whom no one knows. 
 
 The account in the book of Genesis can only be con- 
 sidered as an allegory calculated to please children and 
 ignorant men. In its literal sense it is entitled to no 
 confidence. Were it even true, it does not warrant the 
 conclusion which has been drawn from it. 
 
 It is evident that it was written thousands of years 
 after it was alleged to have happened, whether by 
 Moses or Ezra, or whomsoever else, one fact is probable, 
 it was written after the ■ establishment of the Sabbath 
 among the Hebrews, and the inference is irresistible 
 , that thence the Sabbath has taken its peculiar type. 
 
 Whether the institution may derive any authority 
 or not from this particular text, would be of little con- 
 sequence, if it could be shown that the division of 
 time into seven days, for holy purposes, was primeval, 
 ordered by God, of universal observation, or in other 
 words a law of nature. 
 
 It has been very hastily assumed by sectarians that 
 
SABBATH DAY. 19 
 
 ttis is SO. The division of time into seven days is of 
 great antiquity ; it is found among the Hebrews and 
 all people connected with them ; it is traced through 
 all the languages of India, in Arabia, in Syria, in the 
 sacred books of the Veda, in the Sanscrit, the language 
 of the holy writings of Hindostan, and probable had 
 its origin in the lunar festivals of " new moon days, 
 half moon days, full moon days," &c. Yet extensive 
 as this septennial division of time is, it is doubtful 
 whether it is now, or ever has been, observed by one- 
 half the population of the globe : and this is evidence 
 drawn from the most authentic history, that the Sab- 
 bath was not a primeval institution, of universal ap- 
 pointment. No traces of it have been found in North 
 or South America, in Australia, in the Polynesian 
 Islands, in China, or among the Mongolian races com- 
 posing the vast population of Eastern Asia, from Thibet 
 to Java. The ancient Mexican calendar shows a nicer 
 adjustment of civil to solar time than any that has 
 been found in the world besides, since more than five 
 centuries must elapse before the loss of an extra day. 
 It had a week of five days, and their months were 
 periods of twenty days; it is a very curious coinci- 
 dence that this division of time corresponded with 
 that of Western Asia and China, and it is equally re- 
 markable that this should also correspond with the 
 Sothiac period of the Egyptians, wherein the annual 
 
20 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 season and festivals returned precisely at the same 
 point in 1461 years.* 
 
 The curious searches into archaiology place these 
 facts upon the most reliable authority, yet they find 
 no traces of a weekly Sabbath. In Mahommedan 
 countries, where prayers are said five times a day, and 
 where the rituals of their religion are severe, though 
 they have the seventh-day division of time, it is not 
 held sinful to attend to business after the intervals of 
 worship : thus in all Hindostan, after their seventh- 
 day festivals, the business of the week is resumed as 
 usual.f 
 
 There are divisions of time existing in their own 
 nature or in the appointment of God, obvious to all. 
 Such are the regular return of the sun and moon to 
 their appointed place in the heavens, day and night, 
 evening and morning, summer and winter. These are 
 not partial in their character, but universal, dispensed 
 alike to all the world. 
 
 No one mistakes that season of rest which God has 
 appointed to all flesh. In the fulfilment of this rest, 
 the bird retumeth to its nest and the beast lieth 
 down in his lair. And there is not a man on the wide 
 expanse of earth that can pass by this rest and live. 
 Even the insect understandeth his appointed season, 
 and ceaseth from his labor. 
 
 * See Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. page 102. 
 f Inquiry into the Origin of Septenary Institutions. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 21 
 
 Can any reflective mind be so biased as to pretend 
 tliat the first day of the week, carrying with it no par- 
 ticular marks, bearing on its character no peculiari- 
 ties, should be a day appointed by Grod for religious 
 observances, in which no labor should be done ? 
 
 Who among us, on any one occasion, has witnessed 
 little children, the peculiar favorites of heaven, un- 
 tramelled by sectarianism, ceasing from their gambols, 
 because the first day of the week had come ? Who 
 has seen the bee laying aside its industry and stopping 
 its work ? Do the birds and the beasts retire to their 
 nests ? No such thing has ever occurred, and herein 
 we witness the perpetual and universal law of the uni- 
 verse. The law of nature is the law of God. 
 
 May we not rather believe that the weekly division 
 of time has been made by man for his own special 
 convenience, like the division of the years into months, 
 and the days into hours ; that it has been created by 
 human laws, is not universal but partial in its charac- 
 ter, and is subject to the powers which created it. 
 Thus the ancient Greeks divided the months into dec- 
 ades or periods of ten days. The Romans had 
 neither decades nor periods of seven days, but divided 
 their months into three parts, called the Kalends, the 
 Nones and the Ides. Thus, Brutus stabbed Csesar at 
 the Ides of March.* These were all subject to change, 
 and were done away as the Jewish calendar prevailed. 
 
 * Plutarch's Lives, Caesar. 
 2 
 
22 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 And this too, in its turn, will cease to exist, whenever 
 society shall believe that its convenience will be pro- 
 moted thereby. Night as a season of rest is univer- 
 sal and unchangeable. But the seventh-day rest of 
 man has no fixity, and every attempt to give it a cha- 
 racter which it does not deserve, is not only injurious 
 to the day itself and to its proper offices, but imparts 
 injury to all who partake therein. 
 
 The universality of the institution and of the sep- 
 tennial division of time, being essential to the proof of 
 its divine origin, these being found to be false, the argu- 
 ment fails. 
 
 An institution founded in the nature of man, and 
 needful to his perfect development, and yet un- 
 known _to one-half the inhabitants of the earth, is so 
 utterly irreconcilable with the justice and mercy of 
 God, as hardly to be entitled to a moment's considera- 
 tion. 
 
 These are the truths of history, and they tend en- 
 tirely to abrogate all reliance upon the institution of 
 the Sabbath-day, founded upon the law of nature. 
 This is confirmed by the history of the patriarchal 
 age, the most ancient of all histories, as recorded in 
 the Bible. It embraces a period of upwards of 2000 
 years, in which we have the lives of Abraham, Isaac, 
 Jacob and their descendants. 
 
 This history is not without a record of its religious 
 rites, some of them very remarkable ; there are ac- 
 
SABBATH DAY. 23 
 
 counts of covenants of the Lord with his people, the 
 erection of altars, of prayer, and of sacrifices, yet with all 
 there is no record of the observance of the Sabbath- 
 day. On the contrary, the evidence is as conclusive as 
 any thing of the kind can be expected to be derived 
 from such ancient history, that there were no Sab- 
 baths in the days of the patriarchs. The word is not 
 found in the book of Job, probably the most ancient 
 of aU books ; neither in Genesis ; but they mention 
 customs that are irreconcilable with it. There were 
 marriage feasts that lasted for seven full days. See 
 Judges xiv. 12 ; thus also in Genesis xxix. a feast of a 
 week was to be made for the marriage of Jacob with 
 Rachel. Again, at the funeral obsequies of Jacob, 
 seven full days were spent. 
 
 Those who recollect the continual recurrence to 
 the Sabbath that is found in Jewish history, "to- 
 day is the Sabbath of the Lord," "to-morrow is the 
 Sabbath," &c. will readily believe that if the Sabbath 
 had been founded at this period, it would have been 
 mentioned in the account of festivities, each of which 
 must have embraced one Sabbath. 
 
 Irenaeus and Justin Martyr, men eminent for their 
 piety, who lived in the first ages of the Christian era, 
 have united in the opinion that no Sabbath was ob- 
 served in the patriarchal ages.* 
 
 * See Bailey's Dictionary. Translation of Justin by the Bishop 
 of Lincoln. 
 
24 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 Eusebius says expressly, that no Sabbaths were ob- 
 served by the ancient patriarchs, yet he adds that 
 they excelled in piety, righteousness and all virtues.f 
 
 It should be considered conclusive upon this subject, 
 that in the orders given to erect a tabernacle or place 
 of worship to the east of Eden — in those to Cain and 
 Abel relative to sacrifice — to Noah to sacrifice on 
 coming out of the Ark, and to abstain from eating 
 bloodj and when the institution of circumcision was 
 described, not one word should have been said respect- 
 ing the Sabbath. 
 
 An attempt has been made to remove the objection 
 which arises from this omission, by asserting that from 
 the notoriety of the custom it was unnecessary, and 
 from the circumstance that circumcision was not 
 named from the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan, 
 down to the circumcision of Jesus Christ. But this 
 argument the whole of the 17th chapter of Genesis 
 completely refutes. All the circumstances therein 
 detailed evidently show that it had not been commonly 
 used before that time. If the observance of the Sab- 
 bath had been a common thing, like circumcision, it 
 would have been named without further notice, as cir- 
 cumcision is named when Jesus is circumcised. The 
 difiierence in the treatment of the two cases is mani- 
 fest. We thus consider the argument that the Sab- 
 bath derives no authority from the septennial division 
 of time, or from the patriarchal age, conclusive, 
 t Euaebius' Ecclesiastical History, folio, 1G01, page 7. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Laws of Moses — Sabbath an institution peculiar to the Jews — 
 Observed by them as a day of rest and recreation — Labor 
 strictly forbidden — Feasting and cheerful enjoyment encour- 
 aged — The Hebrevf interpretation of the term holy. 
 
 We come next to the consideration of that period 
 of time in which the Sabbath day became a distinct, 
 positive legal, institution of the Jews. The law is 
 explicit : " Six days may work be done; but in the 
 seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord; 
 whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he 
 shall surely be put to death." Exodus xxxi. 15. 
 
 There are several reasons given by the Jewish laws 
 for keeping holy the Sabbath day. 
 
 From the Decalogue of Exodus. From the Decalogue of Deuter- 
 
 "For in six days the Lord onomy. 
 
 made heaven and earth, the sea, "And remember that thou 
 
 and all that in them is, and wast a servant in the laud o^ 
 
 rested the seventli day ; where- Egypt, and that the Lord thy 
 
 fore the Lord blessed the Sabbath God brought thee ont'thence 
 
 day and hallowed it." — xx. 11. through a mighty hand, and by 
 
 Again — " Verily, my Sabbaths a stretched-out arm ; therefore 
 
 ye shall keep, as a sign between the Lord thy God commanded 
 
 me and you throughout your thee to keep the Sabbath day.'' 
 
 generations. * * * Every one — v. 15. 
 that defileth it shall surely be 
 put to death, for whosoever 
 doeth any work therein, that 
 soul shall be cut off from among 
 
 his people." — Ex. xxxi. 13. 
 
 2* 
 
26 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 These reasons being essentially different, no certain 
 reliance can be placed upon either. 
 
 There is still another reason given by Apion, an 
 Egyptian author, and professor at Rome, in the reign 
 of Tiberius ; it is this : " That travelling had induced 
 boils or ulcers on the Hebrews, and hence the rest of 
 the seventh day became necessary on their journey.* 
 That these ailments being called sabbatosis in the 
 Egyptian language, hence the Egyptians called the 
 seventh day of the week by the term Sabbath." Jo- 
 sephus, in his work against Apion, makes strong ob- 
 jections to this statement, yet it seems highly proba- 
 ble that a long journey in a warm climate would 
 have this effect, and cause a necessity for periodical 
 days of rest. We give the history as we find it. 
 
 The works of Justin Martyr mark the commence- 
 ment of what has been termed ecclesiastical history. 
 He says, " The ceremonial law was in truth given to 
 the Jews on account of the hardness of their hearts ; 
 as a mark of God's displeasure at their apostasy, 
 when they made the golden calf in Horeb." All its 
 ordinances, its sacrifices, its Sabbaths, the prohibition 
 of certain kinds of food, were designed to counteract 
 the inveterate tendency of the Jews to fall into 
 idolatry. "If," says Justin, "we contend that the 
 ceremonial law is of universal and perpetual obliga- 
 tion, we run the hazard of charging God with incon- 
 * Josephus against Apion ; Works, 4th vol. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 27 
 
 sistency, as if he had appointed different modes of 
 justification at different times; since they who lived 
 before Abraham were not circumcised, and they who 
 liyed before Moses neither observed the Sabbath nor 
 offered sacrifices, although God bore testimony to 
 them that they were righteous."* 
 
 Beausobr^, an eminent French protestant, in his 
 introduction to the New Testament, expressly admits, 
 and gives his reasons for his opinion, that the Sabbath 
 was not instituted until the time of Moses."t 
 
 It was 215 years from the time Jacob and his re- 
 tinue settled in Goshen, in Egypt, until the period 
 when the Israelites finally left that country. During 
 all this time there is no mention of the Sabbath day. 
 It is first spoken of in the wilderness, on their journey 
 to the land of Canaan, when they had manna given 
 to them for food. On the sixth day they foimd 
 twice the quantity as on any other day. The account 
 speaks of it as so extraordinary a circumstance, that 
 all the rulers of the congregation came and told 
 Moses. They seemed to be altogether at a loss to 
 know why it should be thus ; theyhadthen been on their 
 journey more than forty days, and it is evident that 
 this astonishment would not have been manifested if 
 
 * The works of Justin Martyr. I have made use of the trans- 
 lation of the Bishop of Lincoln, in his "Account of the Writings 
 and Opinions of Justin.'' Page 22. 
 
 •j- Horse SabbaticiE. 
 
28 INSTITUTION OV THE 
 
 they had been familiar with the institution. After- 
 wards, at Mount Sinai, it was more expressly spoken 
 of; but all the evidence goes to show, that it was 
 never known as an institution before this period. 
 
 The prophet Nehemiah says, " Thou camest down 
 also upon Mount Sinai, * * * * and madest known 
 unto them thy holy Sabbath, and commandedst them 
 precepts, statutes and laws by the hand of Moses, thy 
 servant." - Chap. ix. 13, 14. 
 
 The Bishop of Lincoln, in speaking of Selden's 
 work, "De Jure Naturali," says, that he has col- 
 lected all that can be found on the interesting sub- 
 ject of the institution of the Sabbath. His investi- 
 gations show the most extensive research. The work 
 is old and of rare occurrence, and appears to have 
 been written without sectarian bias. 
 
 He takes the same view of the subject, and says 
 the institution was first given to the Jews at Marah, 
 in the wilderness, after leaving Egypt. That it was a 
 sign between God and the Jews, and that the Jewish 
 writers maintained that it is not binding upon Gen- 
 tiles. Exodus xxxi. 15, 16, 17. 
 
 Paley, after having examined the subject with great 
 care, says : 
 
 " So far as Scripture history can be relied upon, it 
 was at Mount Sinai, in the wilderness, that keeping a 
 Sabbath was first made a law to the Jews, and it was 
 repeated at different times, " Six days may work be 
 
SABBATH DAY. 29 
 
 done, but in the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy 
 unto the Lord : whosoever doeth any work in the Sab- 
 bath day, he shall surely be put to death. "Where- 
 fore 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 
 forever : for in six days the Lord made heaven and 
 earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was re- 
 freshed."* 
 
 Again : " Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and 
 six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather 
 in the fruit thereof; but in the seventh year shall be 
 a Sabbath of rest unto the land, a Sabbath for the 
 Lord ; thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy 
 vineyaxd. That which groweth of its own accord of 
 thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the 
 grapes of thy vine undressed : for it is a year of rest 
 unto the land."f 
 
 After seven Sabbath years there was still to be an- 
 other year of rest, called the year of jubilee, in which 
 liberty and restitution were to be proclaimed. 
 
 This has always seemed to me the most beautiful 
 part of the Jewish policy. No matter how unwise or 
 unfortunate (as the term is) families or individuals 
 may have been, the jubilee year restored to them their 
 possessions. 
 
 * Exodus xxxi. 15, 16, IT. fLey. xxv. 3, 4, 5. 
 
30 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 If Christians are bound to observe the Jewish Sab- 
 bath, they are bound also to observe the Sabbatical 
 year and the year of jubilee. 
 
 Many of the laws of the Jews 'appear enlightened, 
 some of them trifling, and others we are unable to 
 understand. Among them we find the following: 
 " Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as 
 of woollen and linen together." " Thou shalt make 
 thee fringes upon the four quarters of thy vesture 
 wherewith thou cover est thyself."* And others of 
 the same character. 
 
 These laws were no doubt applicable to the Jews, 
 but while we know so little of their policy we are un- 
 able to understand them. 
 
 The particular kind of cultivation that obtains in 
 parts of several States in this Union, requires that the 
 land should have rest every third year. They neither 
 sow nor reap, nor gather its produce. It is -as com- 
 plete a Sabbath of rest to the soil as ever was observed 
 in the land of Judah, and probably from the same 
 cause. 
 
 In the lower parts of Maryland and Virginia, where 
 they exhaust the soil by cropping without a corres- 
 ponding nourishment, they give it rest every third or 
 fourth year. This is analogous to what occurs in the 
 animal creation ; give a man unceasing work and he 
 will perish, and the reason for the establishment of a 
 * Deuteronomy xxii. 11, 12. 
 
SABBATH DAY, 31 
 
 Sabbath-day among the Jews, would perhaps be found 
 in the necessity of rest on their journey, in their 
 diet, or mode of employment. They fed upon food 
 less savory than that of the present day ; acrimonious 
 fruits and vegetables have been succeeded by those of 
 a bland and nutritious character. Man can no more 
 be worked beyond the nutriment that he receives, and 
 the powers of nature, than a horse or an inanimate 
 machine. 
 
 No one at this remote period can decide, why the 
 Sabbath was instituted. The septenary lunar festi- 
 vals of India, Chaldea and Egypt, were public holi- 
 days.* Little doubt can remain, that this was the 
 primary source of the Jewish Sabbath. We have 
 before referred to the opinion of Apion, the Egyp- 
 tian historian, that it was induced by the prevalence 
 of disease among the Hebrews in their journey through 
 the wilderness : this idea is strengthened by a critical 
 observation of the Jewish laws ; it was not a day of 
 religious solemnities, but simply a day of rest, relaxa- 
 tion and rejoicing. The Jewish laws have no applica- 
 tion to us. We were nevpr servants in the land of 
 Egypt. He brought us not thence, neither our fore- 
 fathers, "through a mighty hand and stretched out 
 arm." It is not esteemed to be a sign to us, that in 
 six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the 
 seventh he rested and was refreshed. Exodus xxxi. 
 
 * Septenary Institutions, page 54. 
 
32 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 17. We recognize in the divine harmony no exhaus- 
 tion, and of course no refreshing ; we read the beauti- 
 ful sentiment of Christ upon this subject : " My Fa- 
 ther worketh hitherto, and I work;" we recognize it 
 alike for its beauty and its truth, and yet .we are to be 
 dragged back to acknowledge musty records which if 
 they are true, tend to degrade all that we know and 
 all that we believe of the efficacy of the Divine 
 power. 
 
 In Exodus xxxi. 13, 14, also in other places, the 
 Sabbath is as expressly confined to the children of 
 Israel as words can make it : " Speak thou also unto 
 the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths 
 ye shall keep : for it is a sign between me and you 
 throughout your generations ; that ye may know that 
 I am the Lord that doth sanctify you." "It is holy 
 unto you." "It is a sign between me and the chil- 
 dren of Israel forever." The same ideas are expressed 
 in Exodus xxxv. 2, 3, Leviticus xxiii. 3, and xv. 25. 
 In consideration of these passages, it is not easy to 
 understand how any unbiased mind can, for a mo- 
 ment, believe that an institution so expressly com- 
 manded for the Israelites, should be intended to apply 
 to the whole world ; or how Nehemiah, in the text al- 
 ready referred to, could have spoken of the Sabbath 
 as first made known to them when Moses came down 
 from Mount Sinai, if it had been known before, or had 
 been designed for any other people. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 33 
 
 The prophet Ezekiel says, "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, 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."* 
 
 The Bible refers, in many instances, to the vices of 
 the Gentiles ; but among these it is never once inti- 
 mated that they had neglected the observance of the 
 Sabbath day. The reason seems obvious ; the law in 
 regard to the Sabbath had no application to them. 
 
 Besides every seventh day, there were nine other 
 days, on which the Jews were required to abstain 
 from all servile labor. The Sabbath of atonement, 
 as it is called in Scripture ; the first day of the feast 
 of Tabernacles; the eighth day of the samp, both 
 called sabbaths in the Old Testament; the first day of 
 the Passover; the seventh day of the same; the first 
 and seventh day of the feast of unleavened bread; the 
 day of the wave ofiering, and the first day of the 
 Seventh month. There were also the daily sacrifice, 
 meat and drink offering, the sacrifice of the new 
 moon, &c. On all these days labor was alike pro- 
 hibited. 
 
 The Rabbins have enumerated more than thirty 
 
 » Ezekiel xxi. 10; 11, 12. 
 3 
 
34 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 different acts as unlawful for the Jews on the Sab- 
 bath day. They were forbidden to sow or reap, to 
 kindle a fire or to extinguish it, to expose any thing 
 for sale, to write or scratch out; and many other 
 things too numerous to mention. A fresh wound 
 was not to be bound up on the Sabbath day ; if a Jew 
 fell down in the dirt, he was not to rise up ; if he was 
 overtaken on a journey, no matter where, he was not 
 to stir from the spot ; if he fell into a pit, he was not 
 to be removed. 
 
 The day was observed with different degrees of 
 severity by the various sects of the Jewish nation, 
 and at different eras. There is a story of one Rabbi 
 Solomon, who having fallen into a pit, a Christian 
 wished to extricate him, when he is said to have ex- 
 claimed : , 
 
 " Out of this slough I will not rise, 
 For holy Sabbath day I prize." 
 
 On the following day, being Sunday, he desired to 
 be assisted, but the Christian, in his turn, replied : 
 
 " 'Tis Sunday, Solomon, you know. 
 You therefore, must remain below." 
 
 The Essenes, the strictest sect of the Jews, carried 
 matters so far, that that they would not perform those 
 common offices of nature, which involved any degree 
 of labor. See Prideaux's Connection, page 348, edi- 
 tion 1718, and which is copied from Josephus, vol. ii. 
 chap. 12. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 36 
 
 One prominent feature was everywhere apparent, 
 an entire relaxation from labor ; no cooking was per- 
 mitted, but still it was a day of feasting, and not of 
 fasting ; of joy, and not of austerity. 
 
 The text says expressly, "Whosoever doeth any 
 work on the Sabbath day, he shall be put to death." 
 Now the Jewish law is either binding on Christians 
 or it is not. If it is, the penalty for disobedience is 
 plain and direct ; he shall surely be put to death. 
 
 " While the children of Israel were in the wilder- 
 ness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the 
 Sabbath day. And they that found him gathering 
 sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto 
 all the congregation. And they put him in ward, be- 
 cause it was not declared what should be done to him. 
 And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be 
 surely put to death ; all the congregation shall stone 
 him with stones, without the camp. And all the con- 
 gregation brought him without the camp and stoned 
 him with stones, and he died ; as the Lord commanded 
 Moses.*" 
 
 We have here the law and the penalty ; if the law is 
 binding, it is in the whole, and not in parts. Break 
 the Sabbath, gather a few sticks, and thou shalt be 
 put to death. 
 
 It would be a new thing in jurisprudence for peo- 
 ple to be allowed to take one part of the law, that 
 
 * Numbers xv. 32-36. 
 
36 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 suited their own convenience, and reject the rest; they 
 must take the whole or none. Yet sectarians, who 
 pretend to sustain the Sabbath day, say the law for 
 its observance is binding, yet that the penalty does 
 not attach to it, I leave it to them to reconcile such 
 discrepancies. 
 
 But this is not all; after having rejected the 
 penalty which awaited its violation, they attach to it 
 another, which is not to be found in the text — ^that is? 
 everlasting misery. Retribution in a life to come, is 
 not one of the penalties denounced for a violation of 
 the laws of the Old Testament. The Jewish policy 
 was altogether of a temporal and outward nature ; the 
 doctrine of a future state ^is not to be found in the 
 Mosaic code. 
 
 Warburton, one of the most learned bishops of Eng- 
 land, has proved this truth, as he thinks, conclusively, 
 in a large work of several volumes.* 
 
 Thus it will appear that these zealous sectarians 
 are moulding the Scriptures relative to this institu- 
 tion, taking from it in one part, and putting on in an- 
 other, to suit their own unhallowed prejudices. 
 
 The Bible also says, "Ye shall kindle no fire 
 throughout your habitations on the Sabbath day." 
 I ask these sectarians, who are unsparing in their 
 denunciations of those who do not observe the Sab- 
 bath as a holy day according to their own opinions, 
 * Divine Legation of Moses. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 37 
 
 whether they are quietly eating their meals, drinking 
 their tea and coffee, made by fires kindled in direct 
 opposition to the decree relative to the Sabbath 
 day? 
 
 The command to the Jews, contained in the Deca- 
 logue, to observe the Sabbath day, related entirely to 
 the Jewish Sabbath, which was the seventh day of 
 the week ; and if it is binding, it is the seventh day 
 that should be kept. To pretend that that command 
 was fixed and unchangeable, and yet to alter it to please 
 the fancy of men, is in itself ridiculous. But, consider- 
 ing that the precepts contained in what is called the 
 Decalogue, are believed by many people to have an 
 authority which does not belong to the other Mosaic 
 laws, and to be of perpetual moral obligation, binding 
 upon Christians, I may observe, that the ten com- 
 mandments furnish within themselves conclusive evi- 
 dence that they do not belong to the Christian code. 
 
 The third commandment is in these words : " Thou 
 shalt not take the name of the Lord thy Grod in vain ; 
 for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh 
 his name in vain." The simple meaning of this is, 
 that thou shalt not profane thine oaths. 
 
 Among the Jews all the public testimonies were 
 ratified by an oath. In a discourse concerning pub- 
 lic oaths and the lawfulness of swearing, by Doctor 
 Gauden, Bishop of Exeter, there is the following 
 passage : "It is clear, then, some swearing is morally 
 
 3* 
 
38 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 lawful, agreeable to the express law of God ; even in 
 the third commandment, in which we are not only 
 forbidden to profane the name of God, but the affirm- 
 ative also is included, as sanctifying his name by 
 swearing, if in doing thus upon just occasion, private 
 or public, we sin not against any moral law."* 
 Whether the sentiment is true or false, it is evident 
 that this commandment was expressly alluded to and con- 
 demned by Christ in his Sermon on the Mount : " Ye 
 have heard that it has been said by them of old time, 
 thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform 
 unto the Lord thine oaths : but I say unto you, swear 
 not at all ; neither by heaven, for it is God's throne ; 
 nor by the earth, for it is his footstool."t ; Persons who 
 are curious upon this subject, may see that biblical- 
 writers refer to these two parts of the Scriptures as 
 being connected together. If the declaration of 
 Christ does refer to it, and I think there can be - no 
 doubt of it, sectarians of the present day, in attempt- - 
 ing to make the ten commandments a moral law of 
 perpetual obligation, are violating one of the plainest 
 and most positive precepts of Jesus Christ. 
 
 " Honor thy fajiher and thy mother, that thy days 
 maybe long in the land,"^this is Judaism, but not 
 Christianity. Christianity is pursuing virtue for vir- 
 tue's sake. There is hardly a Christian of any refine- 
 
 *Discourse Concerning Public Oaths, p. 2T. 
 t Matthew y. 33, 34, 
 
SABBATH DAT. 39 
 
 ment of feeling, that wotild be willing to acknowledge 
 that he honored his father and mother that his days 
 might be long in the land. Many generations agOj 
 there appeared at Alexandria a woman with dis- 
 hevelled hair, bearing a pitcher of water in one hand, 
 and a torch in the other, making this exclamation : 
 " I will burn up the heavens with this torch, and ex- 
 tinguish the fires of hell with this water, that man 
 may love his God for himself alone."* 
 
 Again : " Thou shalt not make unto thee any 
 graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is 
 in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or 
 that is in the water under the earth." 
 
 Is this a moral law of perpetual obligation, bind- 
 ing upon Christians, and whieh we are continually 
 violating by making to ourselves the likenesses of 
 every thing on the earth, and under the earth, that is 
 worthy of observation? After the captivity, many 
 of the Jews gave to this a strictly literal sense, with- 
 out applying it to idolatrous observances. Mohammed, 
 under the influence of Jewish traditions, prohibited 
 sculpture and painting, except the representation of 
 trees and things without soul.f 
 
 Somu aects make images and bow down to them, 
 and think that therein they do God service. 
 
 The same outward nature of the Jewish laws is 
 
 * Percy Anecdotes. 
 
 f See Septenary Institutions, page 35. 
 
40 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 again exemplified in the declaration, " I, the Lord 
 thy Grod, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of 
 the fathers upon the children unto- the third and 
 fourth generations of them that hate me." 
 The homely primer distich, 
 
 In Adam's fall 
 We sinned all, 
 
 has been repeated a thousand times' in" a" thousand 
 ■ways, by the most learned as well as the most igno- 
 rant ; but whatever men say to the contrary, all seem 
 practically to reject the idea, that as respects the 
 great ends of existence children suffer for the sins of 
 their forefathers, who lived perhaps hundreds of 
 years before them. It may have a physical applica. 
 tion, but it makes no part of the Christian code. 
 
 And is it Christianity to repeat the idea, " I, the 
 Lord thy God, am a jealous God?" This language 
 suited Moses, but it does not so well apply to us, 
 
 I have thus far assumed the ten commandments to 
 be literally correct, but this is by no means probable. 
 About the period of the Christian era, the Hebrew 
 text was known to be greatly corrupted. At the 
 time of Origen, in the third century, there were no ten 
 commandments, but the quinary division prevailed, 
 after the fashion of the Pythagoreans. At a later 
 period the Talmudic Mishnu commences, and then the 
 Gemara ; each of which proves the increase of textual 
 
SABBATH DAY. 41 
 
 errors. This is also proved by the most notable 
 writings, Saint Jerome and others.* 
 
 There are those that appear to believe that the ten 
 commandments derive much authority from having 
 been written, as it is stated, by the finger of God, on 
 tables of stone. 
 
 In the peculiar language of the Hebrews, even the 
 minute concerns of making fringes and ornaments, 
 were, as it is said, wrought by the immediate direction 
 of God ; and the writing on stone was a usual affair. 
 Many of the ancient temples, which date as far back 
 as the Jewish period, have inscriptions of various 
 kinds still existing written on tables of stone ; and it 
 has become one of the great arts of archaiological 
 science to decipher them; that properly considered, 
 the Sunday observances of the present day derive no 
 authority from this source. 
 
 Did any doubt remain, the third chapter of Second 
 Corinthians, by the apostle Paul, referring expressly 
 to these tables of stone, calls them (as they surely 
 are) "the ministration of death," saying that though 
 they were glorious to the children of Israel, the veil 
 has been done away in Christ and they are glorious 
 no longer. 
 
 Even these Sabbath laws, so explicit and absolute, 
 were rejected by the Jews themselves, when they had 
 occasion therefor. Their enemies took advantage o* 
 • See Types of Mankind, p. 627, 
 
42 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 them and slew them by hundreds and thousands, men, 
 women and children being burned in their caves with- 
 out resistance. Thereupon, Matthias a priest of the 
 order of Joarib, a citizen of Jerusalem, taught them 
 that unless they would fight on the Sabbath day all of 
 them would perish ; they took his advice, rejected 
 their Sabbath lawSj fought and conquered. Thus, ac- 
 cording to the Jews themselves, they were not univer- 
 sal laws, but were laws for peace and not for war ; and 
 though a poor man was to be stoned to death for 
 gathering a few sticks on the Sabbath day, the whole 
 nation could fight and conquer when there was occa- 
 sion therefor.* 
 
 There are immutable truths contained in the ten 
 commandments, but they belong to those universal 
 principles that are found among mankind the world 
 over, and that existed before the Bible was written. 
 Their spirit pervades the Old as well as the New Tes- 
 tament — ^they are intuitive in their nature — ^they are 
 the foundation of all order, of all law, of all truth. 
 Were it possible to do them away, moral society would 
 come to an end. We believe in them, not because 
 they may be written in the ten commandments, or in 
 the New or the Old Testament, but because they carry 
 their own evidence, bring conviction to every bosom ; 
 and it shows the degraded nature of sectarianism, that 
 it should attempt to place among these universal moral 
 
 'Antiquities of the Jews, vol. ii. p. 169. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 43 
 
 truths, the local Mosaic law, to observe the Sabbath 
 day ; a law so partial and limited in its nature, that 
 upon the details of its application, the Jews themselves, 
 for whom it was instituted, could not agree. The laws 
 of morality pervade the Koran of Mohamet and the 
 Pandects of Justinian. Shall we thence take these 
 for our text books, and be bound thereby ? 
 
 The term rejoicing, which so often occurs in connec- 
 tion with the Sabbath, is thus defined : " Thou shalt 
 bestow thy money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth af- 
 ter, for oxen or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong 
 drink: thou shalt eat thereof before the Lord thy 
 God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou and thy household," 
 Deuteronomy xiv. 26. 
 
 An attentive consideration of the Jewish laws re- 
 specting' the Sabbath would manifest much more com- 
 mon sense, than the definition which sectarians of the 
 present day give to them. They required a day of 
 rest, and they obtained it. We ask for a day of rest, 
 (for mankind is essentially alike in every age,) and we 
 obtain a day of ascetic gloom and severity.- Among 
 the Hebrews there were those, who, like sectarians of 
 the present time, were disposed to pervert the day 
 to purposes of gloom for which it never was 
 designed, and instead of making it a period of rejoic- 
 ing, they had "solemn meetings " and "many pray- 
 ers;" these are characterized as an iniquity and an 
 abomination, in these emphatic words : " The new 
 
44 INSTITUTION OF IHE 
 
 moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I can- 
 not away with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn meet- 
 ing." In place of these, there is this beautiful ad- 
 monition : " Wash you, make you clean ; put away the 
 evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to 
 do evil ; learn to do well ; seek judgment, relieve the 
 oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow," 
 Isaiah chap. i. 
 
 Words could scarcely be more impressive, or more 
 distinct, in opposition to the pretended sanctity of the 
 Sabbath day, and it is entirely consistent with the 
 whole Jewish policy, in making it a day of relaxation 
 and rejoicing, and not a day of solemnity. 
 
 At one period the Jewish laws were entirely lost ; 
 for the account of finding them I refer to 2d Chroni- 
 cles xxxiv. and to 2d Kings xxii., also to Josephus, 
 book 10, page 163. It appears they were missing for 
 a period of three hundred and fifty years. Lost is a 
 fiction in law, often used to change titles and to alter 
 successions, when in reality there is no evidence that 
 any title has ever been had ; and it seems highly pro- 
 bable that at this period, in the reign of Josiah, the 
 Pentateuch was promulgated for the first time. This 
 I leave to the curious. 
 
 Historians construe the word ' ' holy " * into a meaning 
 of solemnity, even of gloom, fasting and prayer. It 
 was not so considered among the Hebrews. Nehemiah 
 * Quarterly Review, for October, 1850. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 45 
 
 gives the foUomng precise instructions how a day was 
 to be kept "holy unto the Lord:" "Go your way: 
 eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions 
 unto them for whom nothing is prepared, for this day 
 is holy unto our Lord : for the joy of the Lord is your 
 strength." 
 
 " And all the people went their way to eat and to 
 drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, 
 because they had understood the words that were de- 
 clared unto them," Nehemiah viii. 10, 12. 
 
 Doctor McCrie says of the ancient Jews, " that so 
 far from converting the day thus redeemed from ordi- 
 nary toil into a day of ascetic gloom, they devoted it 
 more than any other day to carnal ease and festive in- 
 dulgence. The Sabbatine rules enjoin the sons of 
 Abraham to prepare for the feast. The costlier the 
 viands and wine were, the more honor was done to the 
 Sabbath; the festal cup was to circulate freely, 
 marriages were frequently celebrated on the Sabbath, 
 and the evening was occasionally spent in music and 
 dancing."* 
 
 Dean Milman, in his History of the Jews, says 
 " that in latter times the Sabbath became a day of 
 public instruction in the principles of law and of so- 
 cial equality among all classes. Eich and poor, young 
 and old, master and slave, met before the gate of the 
 
 * Memoirs of Sir Andrew Agnew, page 194. 
 4 
 
46 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 city and indulged in innocent mirth, or in the pleasures 
 of friendly intercourse, "f 
 
 The celebrated scholar Lightfoot says, "that the 
 Jewish tables were. generally better spread on the 
 Sabbath than on any other day."{ 
 
 Among the various festivals instituted by Moses, 
 there was but one to which] sorrow was attached ; this 
 was the mourning festival of the autumnal equinox ; 
 and this was observed on a tenth and not on a seventh 
 day. 
 
 The passover, the most solemn festival of the Jews, 
 was a feast and not a fast ; a lamb was to be roasted, 
 the whole of which was to be eaten before morning. 
 
 From all these facts no doubt can exist that the 
 Sabbath was an institution peculiar to the Jews, and 
 to them alone. We shall proceed to show that it has 
 no relation to Christians. 
 
 f Murray's Family Library. 
 i Exercitations on St. Luke. 
 
BAJBBATH DAY. 47 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SABBATH OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 
 
 All the authority for the observance of the Sabbath 
 begins and ends with the Old Testament. The New 
 Testament does not sustain the institution, either as a 
 day of rest or recreation, or as a day of religious 
 rites. 
 
 Sectarians have alleged that authority is given in 
 the New Testament to change the day from the sev- 
 enth to the first day of the week, and hence they have 
 designated it as the " Christian Sabbath," a term 
 which originated with the Puritans, and for which 
 there is no authority in ecclesiastical hiitory. The 
 Sabbath was established by the Jewish laws ; it was 
 expressly directed to be held on the seventh day of 
 the week, beginning on the evening of the sixth day, 
 now called Friday, and continuing till the evening of 
 the seventh day, when it ceased. If we are Jews let 
 us then observe the Sabbath according to the Jewish 
 rites. The first reason that is given for the change 
 from the seventh to the first day is this : that Christ 
 met his disciples on the first day of the week, after 
 his resurrection, and thus sanctified it. In consider- 
 ing this subject it is needful for us to understand the 
 
48 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 Jewish computation of time, "the evening and the 
 morning were the first day;" and the express law of 
 Moses says, "from even until even shall you celebrate 
 your Sabbaths." There are many difi"erent modes of 
 computing time; we begin our day at 12 o'clock at 
 night, nautical men at 12 o'clock at noon ; some na- 
 tions begin the day at sunrise, and the' Jews at 6 o'clock 
 in the afternoon. The first account of the meeting of 
 Jesus with his disciples after the resurrection, is in 
 John XX. 19 : " Then the same day at evening, being 
 the first day of the week, when the doors were shut 
 where the disciples were assembled for fear of the 
 Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith 
 unto them. Peace be unto you." 
 
 It is expressly stated that the resurrection took 
 place early on the morning of the first day of the 
 week, and ^he evening of that day, according to the 
 Jewish computation of time, (and we have no right to 
 adopt any other,) was not the first day, but the second 
 day of the week. 
 
 I am not aware that it is of the slightest consequence 
 to my argument, whether this meeting was on the 
 first, second, or any other day : but the texts upon this 
 subject have been so singularly perverted by Sabbata- 
 rians to prove their own particular doctrines, that I 
 have deemed it proper to be thus critical. 
 
 Purver's translation of the Bible, John xx. 1, uses 
 this language : "Afterwards, on the first day after the 
 Sabbath, Mary Magdalen comes in the morning," &c.; 
 
SABBATH DAY. 49 
 
 and in verse 19th it says, " When it was therefore the 
 evening of that day, on the first after the Sabbath, 
 the doors being shut," &c. This still confirms the 
 same point, that this meeting was not on the fif st day 
 of the week. 
 
 The Puritans, upon their arrival in New England, 
 decided, upon solemn debate, that the Mosaic law 
 should prevail; and, of course, that the evening of 
 the first day, on which Jesus met the disciples, was not 
 a part of the Christian Sabbath ; and it is not gener- 
 ally observed as such in New England at the present 
 period. 
 
 The second meeting of Jesus with his disciples is 
 stated to have been eight days after this, which, ac- 
 cording to the usual computation, was on the second 
 day of the week ; and hence it is not true, as is as- 
 sumed, that Jesus met the disciples again on the first 
 day. The text, John xx. 26, is explicit on this subject; 
 and it thus clearly appears, that neither of the meet- 
 ings of Jesus with his disciples after his resurrection 
 was on the first day of the week ; and the authority 
 which sectarians wish to derive from this circumstance 
 for the peculiar observance of the first day, and which 
 is the result of a forced construction of Scripture, is 
 altogether wanting. The learned Doctor Adam Clark, 
 in his Commentaries, referring to the 26th verse, and 
 quoting "after eight days," says, "It seems likely 
 that this was precisely on that day se'nnight on which- 
 
 Christ had appeared to them before ; and from this we 
 
 4* 
 
50 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 may learn, that this was the weekly meeting of the 
 apostles. ' ' Such perversions of plain, direct language, 
 are met with on almost every page, wherein Sabbata- 
 rians undertake to show the necessity of the observ- 
 ance of the first day of the week, as a day of religious 
 exercises. The object is the maintenance of their 
 own particular opinions ; if they speak the truth, the 
 Scripture does not support them. It is not alone in 
 the writings of Doctor Clark that this perversion is 
 to be found ; Paley 'and others adopt the same view, 
 pretending that eight days after the evening of the first 
 day of the week, is again the first day. 
 
 There is still another passage, (1 Corinthians xvi. 
 2,) on which Sabbatarians rely to make out their case : 
 " Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you 
 lay by him in store as God has prospered him, that 
 there be no gathering when I come." This text, 
 which says that they" are to " lay by in store as Grod 
 has prospered them," has this meaning, that they are 
 to reckon up their accounts on the first day for the 
 week preceding, and is directly opposed to a sanctifi- 
 cation of that day. 
 
 If these texts prove any thing, it is the reverse of 
 what is attempted to be drawn from them. But there 
 are two other points connected with the resurrection, 
 which are worthy of all observation from men who 
 claim to adhere to a strict literal construction of the 
 Scriptures, and which show conclusively, that so far 
 from particularly sanctifying the first day of the week, 
 
SABBATH DAY. 51 
 
 Jesus left, in his conduct, the most express testimony 
 against it. We read in Luke xxiv. 13-15, that upon 
 the first day of the week, two of his disciples went to 
 a village called Emmaus, " which was from Jerusalem 
 about three score furlongs," * * * * that "while 
 they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself 
 drew near and went with them." 
 
 A Sabbath day's journey was seven furlongs and a 
 half.* It thus appears that the journey was about 
 eight times the distance of what was allowed by the 
 Jewish laws, or nearly eight BngHsh miles. This dis- 
 tance is also sustained by Josephus,f and it was travel- 
 led directly from Jerusalem, where he had been accus- 
 tomed to meet his disciples. Even Bethany, where it 
 is said he led his disciples out, and lifted up his hands 
 and blessed them, was fifteen furlongs, or two Sabbath 
 day's journeys from Jerusalem.J 
 
 I am aware that there is little probability that those 
 whose opinions are already formed will be willing 
 candidly to examine the foregoing texts with a steady 
 eye to truth ; but I may ask reasonable men to judge 
 for themselves, and the result will be, that there is no 
 authority for the substitution of the first day of the 
 week in place of the Jewish Sabbath; and I shall 
 show hereafter that there is no authority for the con- 
 tinuance of that as a holy day. 
 
 John the Divine speaks of being in the spirit oti 
 
 * Clark's Notes on the Scriptures, Acts i. 12. 
 
 f See War, book vii. section 6. | Clark's Coimnentavies. 
 
52 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 the Lord's day ; and hence in the limited views that 
 are taken of it, and to establish particular sectarian 
 notions, it is pretended that the visions that he had at 
 the isle of Patmos were on the first day of the week, 
 and that this is a proof of the sanctification of the 
 day. If that day were called in Scripture the Lord's 
 day, there might be some reason in the application ; 
 but it is not called so in any part of the Bible. It is 
 much more natural to suppose that it is so' spoken of 
 as a particular period of illumination of mind, than 
 as having relation to any particular day. The word 
 day is used in many parts of the Scriptures without 
 application to any -precise period — thus : " To-day, if 
 ye will hear his voice," &c. — "Abraham desired to 
 see my day," &c. The word day in these instances 
 has no relation to any particular period of time ; and 
 it is not necessary to suppose that all the visions of 
 John the Divine, as recorded in the book of Revela- 
 tions, were seen on the first day of the week ; it is 
 much more likely that they embraced many days, per- 
 haps weeks and months. 
 
 It is even doubtful whether the term " Lord's day " 
 did not arise from the customary heathen addresses to 
 the sun, "god of day." 
 
 Higgins, in his " Horse Sabbaticse," states that 
 " every one of the ancient nations called the sun 
 Lord or Master;" using the word "Dominus," or its 
 equivalent term. 
 
 Even the authenticity of the Revelations themselves 
 
SABBATH DAY. 53 
 
 has been a matter of great dispute among the learned. 
 Many of the ancient churches did not receive it. It 
 is not among the canonical books referred to at the 
 council of Laodicea. Luther rejected it, and there 
 have been long continued disputes, not only as to the 
 time, but respecting the author by whom it was writ- 
 ten. It shows most conclusively the feebleness of the 
 Sabbatarian cause, that it should rest its authority 
 for the change from the seventh to the first day upon 
 such evidence. It is in truth no evidence ! The 
 New Testament furnishes none, and it is for this rea- 
 son that these feeble texts are resorted to.* 
 
 There are six texts on which the Sabbatarians rely 
 to prove the divine Institution of Sunday. They are 
 John XX. 19 ; John xx. 26 ; Acts ii. 1 ; Acts xx. 6, 7 ; 
 1 Corinthians xvi. 1, 2, and Revelations i. 10. Those 
 who are curious may read 'them for themselves ; it is 
 sufficient for me to say that the Sabbath is not men- 
 tioned in any one of them, neither is there even a 
 remote reference to it as an institution that was to be 
 observed by Christians. 
 
 The whole of the New Testament teems with evi- 
 dence of the truth of the opinions that I have ex- 
 pressed. I could appeal to sectarians to establish 
 this, but that they may be said not to believe in the 
 Scriptures, and they would not be willing to submit 
 
 * See Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, also Ency. Brit., article 
 Apocalypse. 
 
64 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 the subject to the candid observation of disinterested 
 men. A belief in the Scriptures would be, in their 
 plain obvious doctrine, in giving to each word and 
 sentence the explanation which was consistent with 
 the rules of grammar and common sense, without pre- 
 varication or deception of any kind, and without any 
 reference to the truth or falsehood which might be 
 supposed to be involved in it. Such a belief in the 
 Scriptures would not suit sectarians ; it would often 
 prove too much or too little for them ; it would at 
 once put an end to Sabbath conventions. The views 
 they promulgate cannot be sustained upon any other 
 principle than a disbelief in the doctrines of the New 
 Testament. Every respect is due to the opinions of 
 men of truth and candor, however much they may be 
 at variance with their own; but those of the Sabbata- 
 rians are entitled to the less respect, because they 
 seem unwilling to listen to the truth upon the sub- 
 ject. They have often been refuted, but still they 
 repeat their assertions, sustaining them by perver- 
 sions of texts. Men of deep, abiding prejudices can- 
 not believe the truth, however plainly it may be 
 brought before them ; and it seems a hopeless task to 
 make any appeal to them. They reply not by argu- 
 ment, but by opinion and denunciation. 
 
 To others I may say, and I wish them to examine 
 the subject carefully for themselves, that there is not 
 one verse or text contained in the whole canon of the 
 New Testament, which recommends or inculcates the 
 
SABBATH DAY. 55 
 
 observance of the first day of the week, or any other 
 day, as one of peculiar holiness, or as a day to be de- 
 voted to religious exercises. There is not one word 
 said against Sabbath-breakers, nor a single text 
 that gives the slightest idea that it was deemed un- 
 lawful by Christ, or his immediate followers, to do 
 any work on the first day of the week, that was pro- 
 per to be performed on any other day. There are 
 some of the Jewish laws expressly revived by the 
 apostle Paul : — ^that we shall abstain from blood, and 
 from things strangled, &c. See Acts xxi. 25, and 
 XV. 28. But among these, the laws relative to the 
 Sabbath day are entirely omitted. It is singular 
 enough that sectarians should pay no attention to this 
 positive prohibition of the apostle ; that they should 
 eat blood and things strangled whenever it suits them 
 to do so ; that they should reject what has been re- 
 vived by the apostle, and revive what has been ex- 
 pressly rejected by him. See 2 Colossians 16, 17. 
 "Let no man judge you in respect of the Sabbath 
 day." It proves what I have adverted to above, that 
 sectarians do not believe in the Scriptures. 
 
 I shall quote some of the texts upon this subject ; 
 but I may here remark, that the total omission to in- 
 culcate the observance of any particular day, is in 
 itself proof against it. There are abundant instances 
 in which the observance, of the moral law was incul- 
 cated both by Christ and his apostles, but that one 
 thing, upon which so much stress is now laid, is en- 
 tirely omitted. 
 
56 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 Upon all suitable occasions, Jesus opposed the 
 superstitions of the Jews respecting the Sabbath day. 
 In treating upon the subject we must steadily bear in 
 mind the great importance attached to the Sabbath in 
 the Jewish policy. And no reasonable doubt can ex- 
 ist, that if he had considered the day one of holiness 
 and importance, some occasion would have presented 
 itself, wherein his feelings might have been mani- 
 fested. None such occurred, and it is a natural pre- 
 sumption that none such was required.- 
 
 It is contended by Sabbatarians, that Jesus " re- 
 ligiously observed the Sabbath day;"* they make as- 
 sertions which they are unable to prove. He not 
 only did not sanction the observance of the day, but 
 his doctrine, his precepts, his example, show directly 
 the reverse. Let the texts be carefully examined, 
 that the truth may prevail. 
 
 He travelled, as I have before stated, on the first 
 day of the week ; thus giving, by his conduct, after 
 his resurrection, direct evidence that he did not re- 
 gard what is now called the Christian Sabbath. He 
 also travelled on the Jewish Sabbath ;f it might have 
 been what was called a Sabbath day's journey, which 
 was permitted to the Jews, though it does not appear 
 so by the text. 
 
 I ask these sectarians how it is, that, with the 
 
 * See proceedings of the HarrLsburg Sabbath Convention, 
 f Mark ii. 23. 
 
SABBATH DAT. 67 
 
 New Testament in their hand, and taking that for 
 their guide, they can condemn people for doing just 
 what Jesus did ? 
 
 He visited on the Sabbath. I have examined seve- 
 ral translations relative to the account of this, re- 
 corded in Luke xiv. 1. The venerable Charles Thorn, 
 son, secretary to the Continental Congress, told the 
 author of these pages, that he had written every line 
 in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelations, five differ- 
 ent times with his own hands, in order to make his 
 translation perfect. He takes a broader ground than 
 any of the rest, and uses these words, " Observing 
 how eager the guests were for the first places at the 
 table, he addressed them," &c. In verse 12, hia 
 translation says, " Then he said to him who had in. 
 vited him," &c. : one translation says, " He went to 
 eat bread ;" another, " to eat victuals ;" another, sim- 
 ply "to eat." The distinctions are not material, but 
 the text altogether shows this, that Jesus was invited 
 on the Sabbath day, to a feast at the house of one of 
 the chief Pharisees ; that the company was so large 
 that different rooms were opened, and that there was 
 what would be called in this country a rush to get 
 seats at the table. As there is not the slightest in- 
 timation, that the invitation of this company on the 
 Sabbath day was improper in any way, it is sufficient, 
 in connection with other things of the same character, 
 
 5 
 
58 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 to show how little dependence is to be placed upon the 
 statements of these Sabbatarians. 
 
 I have before me one of their publications, which 
 says, "Visiting and trayelling are enormous profa- 
 nations of this holy day." I have stated that Jesus 
 visited, and that Jesus travelled ; they cannot contror 
 vert it ; and if their position is true, it is Jesus Christ, — 
 and I record with great sorrow, such an instance of 
 degraded sectarianism proceeding from a respectable 
 Sabbath convention, — ^I say if their position is true, it 
 is Jesus Christ who has set the example of profaning 
 the day. 
 
 The Jewish law says, " Take heed to yourselves 
 and bear no burden on the Sabbath day ;* yet in 
 direct contradiction of this, the man who was healed 
 was directed by Jesus to take up his bed and walk 
 on the Sabbath day ; and it is stated that the Jews 
 sought to kill him, because he had thus broken the 
 Sabbath. There are other instances of the same 
 character, all directly opposed to the doctrines of the 
 Sabbatarians. 
 
 Besides these negative proofs, there are a variety 
 of positive texts in the New Testament, which seem 
 to forbid, not only the observance of the Jewish Sab- 
 bath, but which cover the whole ground, and object to 
 the observance of any one day as a day of peculiar 
 holiness. It would take many pages to recount them 
 all ; I quote some of the most material. 
 * Jeremiah xvii. 21, 22. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 59 
 
 "But now after ye have known God, or rather 
 are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak 
 and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again 
 to be in bondage ? Ye observe days and noionths, and 
 times, and years. I am afraid of you lest I have 
 bestowed upon you labor in vain."* Again : " Let 
 no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or 
 in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of 
 the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to 
 come."t 
 
 As to the words, " The Sabbath was made for 
 man," which seems to be a very favorite quotation, 
 for the want of any thing better, if Sabbatarians 
 would not garble the whole context, it would show 
 that it was part of an absolute reproof to the Jews 
 for their superstitious regard to the day. 
 
 I subjoin the whole of it, that there may be no mis- 
 
 "And it came to pass, that he went through the 
 cornfields on the Sabbath day ; and his disciples 
 began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. And 
 the Pharisees said unto him. Behold, why do they on 
 the Sabbath day that which is not lawful ? And he 
 said unto them. Have ye never read what David did, 
 when he had need, and was an hungered, he and they 
 that were with him ? How he went into the house 
 of God, in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and 
 did eat the show bread, which is not lawful to eat, but 
 
 * Galatinns iv. 9-11, t Col. ii. 16, IT. 
 
CO INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 for the priests, and gave also to them ■which were with 
 him ? And he said unto them, The Sabbath was 
 made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."* 
 
 I add also the following from John, to which I 
 have before alluded: when Jesus had directed the 
 man whom he had cured to take up his bed and walk, 
 the Jews said unto him, " It is the Sabbath day, it 
 is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed." "And 
 therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought 
 to slay him, because he had done these things on 
 the Sabbath day. But Jesus answered them: My 
 father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore 
 the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not 
 only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God 
 was his father, making himself equal with God."f 
 
 I have given all the evidence that I find in the New 
 Testament upon the subject. It will be seen that not 
 even as a day of rest was the Sabbath observed ; or 
 the Jewish laws respecting it sustained by the early 
 Christians. 
 
 Without any of these testimonies, it might be be- 
 lieved, a priori, from the nature of the doctrine pro- 
 mulgated by Christ and his apostles, that keeping 
 one day more holy than the rest was incompatible 
 with the precepts they taught. Their views were of 
 a much holier and more enlarged character. It was 
 not to days, or times, or ceremonies, that they di- 
 rected their followers, but to truth, which existed in- 
 * Mark U. 23-27. f John v. 10, 16-18. 
 
SABBATH DAY. . 61 
 
 dependent of them. And there is evidence, that no 
 Jewish Sabbath, no Christian Sabbath, or Lord's day, 
 was observed with peculiar holiness by the early 
 Christians. 
 
 The whole tenor of the New Testament incidcates 
 this idea — ^not that the Sabbath was to be broken 
 down in the spirit of licentiousness or irreligion, 
 but that every day should be elevated, so as to be 
 equal to it in holiness. Such is the language of 
 the New Testament, such, the voice of nature and 
 of truth. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SUNDAY OF OONSTANTINE. 
 
 After the lapse of so many centuries, the exact 
 usages of the early 'Christians may not be distinctly 
 known, but one thing is evident, that there was no 
 particular sacredness attached to any one day. The 
 following fact seems conclusive respecting the opin- 
 ions of the apostles on this subject. 
 
 The first ecclesiastical council that was held after 
 the Christian era by the Apostles themselves, in ref- 
 erence to which of the laws of Moses should be bind- 
 ing upon Christians, rejected the observance of the 
 Sabbath day ; the Apostle Paul, writing to the Gen- 
 
 5* 
 
62 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 tile converts, says, " For it seemed good to the Holy 
 Ghost and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden 
 than these necessary things.*" 
 
 There is one remarkable circumstance relative to 
 their public assemblies. If not altogether, they were 
 to a great extent, held in the evenings, or before day- 
 light. In the account of the first meeting of Jesus 
 with his disciples, after his resurrection, it is men- 
 tioned that it was "at evening;" it is added, "the 
 doors being shut for fear of the Jews." So in the 
 letter from Pliny, to which I shall advert, the meet- 
 ings of the Christians are said to have been before 
 daylight. Tertullian often mentions the nightly meet- 
 ings of the Christians. There are other repeated no- 
 tices of the same thing. Some of these meetings 
 might have been the result of a fear of persecution ; 
 but the constant practice, in so many countries, to- 
 gether with the knowledge that the converts were 
 persons almost entirely among the laboring classes of 
 the community — men who contributed to their neces- 
 sities by the labor of their own hands — leads to the 
 conclusion, that, during the daytime, they were work- 
 ing at their usual employments. This is confirmed 
 by Justin Martyr, when he reproaches the Jew for 
 spending the Sabbath in idleness, and by the Jew who 
 says, that the Christians keep no Sabbath, to which 
 also I shall refer hereafter. 
 
 There is no doubt that the early Christians held re- 
 
 * Acts XY. 28. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 63 
 
 ligious meetings. A letter from Pliny to Trajan, con- 
 tained in Book X., Letter 97, says, that "the Chris- 
 tians whom he had examined, declared that they had 
 made it a practice, on a stated day, to meet together 
 before daylight to sing hymns with responses to 
 Christ as a God, and to bind themselves by a solemn 
 institution not to do any wrong act." This letter, 
 which bears the marks of authenticity, has been pro- 
 nounced a forgery by Dr. Semler, of Leipsig, and 
 other learned German critics. Admitting it to be 
 true, it proves nothing ; it does not speak of the first 
 day of the week, and alludes only to the Christians in 
 Bithynia. 
 
 The works of Justin Martyr are still more explicit, 
 though written at a later period. He says, that 
 " they met together on Sunday ; that the memoirs of 
 the apostles and writings of the prophets, are read as 
 long as circumstances will admit ;" and it is otherwise 
 mentioned that the poor were provided for, and that 
 there were regular feasts of charity — " sober repasts." 
 There is incontestable evidence, that worship was 
 celebrated in a different manner in different countries, 
 that the early Christians not only assembled on the 
 first day of the week, but also on the fourth, sixth 
 and seventh days.* 
 
 In some parts, especially in the eastern countries, 
 Saturday was appointed for religious meetings, not, 
 as it is stated, because they were infected with Juda- 
 * Mosheim, 1st vol. 
 
G4 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 ism, but to worsMp the Lord Jesus Christ, as is ex- 
 pressly affirmed by Athanasius and others.* 
 
 The proof that any peculiar sacredness was at- 
 tached to any particluar day, is altogether wanting. 
 On the contrary, it will be shown hereafter, that no 
 distinction between days was made by the early 
 Christians, until the church became corrupt. 
 
 Many of the ceremonies of the church, a consider- 
 able proportion of which have come down to us, had 
 their origin in the superstitions of the Pagans and the 
 Jews. Mosheim, speaking of the first century, says, 
 that the Christian religion was peculiarly commenda- 
 ble on account of its beautiful and divine simplicity ; 
 and that many of the external rites were adopted, 
 that they might captivate the senses of the vulgar, 
 and refute the reprdaches which had been cast upon 
 the Christians, by the Pagan priests, on account of 
 the simplicity of the worship ; and because they had 
 no temples, altars, victims, priests, " nor any thing 
 of that external pomp, in which the vulgar are so 
 prone to place the essence of religion." 
 
 The works of Justin Martyr are the first of an ec- 
 clesiastical character, on which implicit reliance is 
 placed by all. Accomplished in the learning of his 
 age, his life and his death were marked by sincerity 
 in the cause of truth. 
 
 There is preserved in his works a dialogue between 
 * See Cave's Primitive Christianity. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 65 
 
 himself and Trypho, a learned Jew, in which the 
 Jew objects to the Christians, that they did not ob- 
 serve the Sabbath day. The Jew says to Justin, 
 " The Christians, though they boasted of the truth 
 of their religion, and wished to excel aU other people, 
 differed in nothing from the heathen in their manner 
 of living, because they neither observed the festivals, 
 nor the Sabbath, nor circumcision." To which Justin 
 replies, " There is another kind of circumcision, and 
 you think highly of that of the flesh. The law will 
 have you keep a perpetual Sabbath, and you, when 
 you have spent one day in idleness, think you are re- 
 ligious, not knowiag why it is commanded. 
 
 "As, therefore, circumcision began from Abraham, 
 and Sabbath, and sacrifice, and oblation, from Moses, 
 which it has been shown were ordained on account of 
 your nation's hardness of heart, so, according to the 
 counsel of the fathers, they were to end in Jesus 
 Christ the Son of God." 
 
 " Do you not see," he says to Trypho, " that the 
 elements are never idle, nor keep a Sabbath ? Con- 
 tinue as you were created, for if there was no need of 
 circumcision before Abraham, nor of the observance 
 of the Sabbath, and festivals, and oblations before 
 Moses, neither now is there likewise after Christ."* 
 
 Again : " If any among you is guilty of perjury, 
 
 * I have copied the above from a work called " Sunday Po- 
 lice." The translation has been compared, and found correct. 
 
66 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 or fraud, let him cease from these crimes ; if he is an 
 adulterer, let him repent, and he will have kept the 
 kind of Sabbath pleasing to God." 
 
 In his dialogue, page 241, Paris edition, Justin 
 sajs, "A greater mystery was annexed by God to 
 the eighth than the seventh day." This mystery he 
 afterwards states to be the command to circumcise 
 on the eighth day, which was a type of the true cir- 
 cumcision from error and wickedness;" and for 
 several other reasons which may therein be referred 
 to. Justin Martyr was supposed to have written 
 within fifty years of the death of some of the writers 
 of the New Testament, and his evidence may be con- 
 sidered to be conclusive, that no one day was considered 
 more holy than another by the early Christians. 
 
 The first decree for the observance of the first day 
 of the week, called Sunday, was the result of that 
 corrupt union between church and state, which has so 
 often been productive of the most injurious effects to 
 the cause of vital religion. 
 
 It was promulgated by Oonstantine the Great. I 
 extract it entire, as it is extant in the Corpus Juris 
 Civilis, under the head of De Feriis. Lib. iii., Tit. 12. 
 
 In the Life of Constantino, by Eusebius, it is called 
 "The Salutary Day;" and as a matter of course, 
 Eusebius, who was bishop of Csesarea in Palestine, 
 gives the Emperor great praise for the enactment of 
 the law. It is as follows : 
 
SABBATH DAT. 67 
 
 3. Imp. Oonstant. 
 
 Omnea judices, urbanseque plebes, et eTinctanim 
 artium officia venerabili die solis quiescant. Ruri 
 tamen positi agromm culturse libere licenterque in- 
 serviant: quoniam frequenter evenit, ut non aptius 
 alio dio frumenta sulcis, aut vinese scrobibus man- 
 dentur, ne occasione momenti pereat commoditas 
 coelesti provisione^concessa. Dat. Nonis Mart. Crispo 
 2, & Constantino 2. Coss. 321. 
 
 It will be observed that this law only speaks of 
 Sunday as a day of rest, and that it applies only to 
 judges, town-people and tradesmen. I subjoin the 
 literal translation. 
 
 " Let all the judges and town-people, and the oc- 
 cupations of all trades, rest on the venerable day of 
 the sun ; but let those who are situated in the coun- 
 try, freely and at full liberty attend to the business 
 of agriculture; because it often happens that no 
 other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines, 
 lest the critical moment being let slip, men should 
 lose the commodities granted by the providence of 
 Heaven." 
 
 The character of Constantine is well known. He 
 was the second Roman Emperor* that embraced the 
 
 * Constantine is frequently spoken of as being the first Chris- 
 tian Emperor. Philip, who was crowned in the year 246, was 
 the first. (Ensebius, edition 1607, page 3 ; also, chronology in 
 the same work.( 
 
68 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 Christian faith; he presided at the council of Nice, 
 that council of bishops which undertook to decide 
 which part of the New Testament should be con- 
 sidered canonical, and which rejected. He was, in 
 some respects, a great man ; but his domestic life is 
 marked by such atrocities, as would seem to render 
 him unfit to be a judge in any matter pertaining to 
 religion. The voices of sycophants have sung his 
 praises, because he embraced the "Christian religion. 
 Yet this man, in the very year that he presided at 
 the council of Nice, murdered the husbands of his 
 sisters, Constantia and Anastasia. He murdered his 
 sister's son, a boy only twelve years of age, under 
 the most frivolous pretext.* In the year that he 
 issued his decree for the observance of the Sunday, 
 he murdered his familiar friend, Sopater; and the 
 year before, destroyed his wife, Fausta, by putting 
 her in a bath of boiling water. These, though not 
 all the atrocities he perpetrated in his own imme- 
 diate family, are sufficient to show the character of 
 the man; and sectarians may have all the benefit 
 they can derive from the knowledge that it was this 
 man, stained with the blood of his own domestic cir- 
 cle, that issued the first decree in a Christian country, 
 for making any distinction between Sunday and any 
 other day in the week. 
 
 The sun in the heavens was the apotheosis of Con- 
 * Taylor's Diojesis. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 69 
 
 stantine ; hence, naturally came the transfer of holi- 
 ness to a day -which should bear the name of Sunday. 
 It is this decree, and not the New Testament, which 
 forms the basis of the "Sunday Sabbath," or the 
 " Christian Sabbath," as sectarians call it. It should 
 be called "The Sunday of Constantino." This de- 
 cree of Constantine was not effectual in closing the 
 courts ; other laws of like character were passed by 
 Theodosius and others, and finally, in the year 466, 
 the Emperor Leo directed that the spectacle of wild 
 beasts at the theatre should be closed on Sunday. 
 
 The decree is in these words : " Not to infringe 
 the rest of that holy day, we do not suffer any one to 
 indulge in obscene pleasures. Let this day witness 
 no theatrical representations ; no combats of the cir- 
 cus ; no doleful exhibitions of wild beasts."* 
 
 Sylvester, who was Bishop of Rome whilst Con- 
 stantino was Emperor, in order, as it is stated, to give 
 more solemnity to the first day of the week, changed 
 its name from Sunday, which Constantine had given 
 it, to the more imposing one of "the Lord's day." 
 See Lucius' Eccl. Hist. Cent. 4, p. 740. Bamp. 
 Eng. p. 98. 
 
 As the church became ceremonial, symbols of re- 
 ligion and festivals were appointed. They com- 
 menced at an earlier era than the reign of Constan- 
 tine ; but it was then for the first time that the State 
 
 * Col. L. 3, Tit. 12. 
 6 
 
70 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 became a party in them, and lent its power to make 
 the Christian religion one of splendor and consequence 
 in the world, so as to captivate the Pagans who had 
 been used to the imposing forms of heathen worship. 
 
 Christmas had been appointed a festival to com- 
 memorate the nativity of Christ; Easter,* as an 
 annual mark of his resurrection ; Whitsunday, and 
 others of like character, for particular periods. Among 
 these, was the first day of the week. Fasting had 
 been introduced as a penance ; but this was so di- 
 rectly in opposition to a day of rejoicing, that a 
 variety of church edicts were passed, prohibiting fast- 
 ing on that day. But even in this thing, there ap- 
 pears to have been no particular sanctity attached to 
 the day. I have said before, that meetings for wor- 
 ship were held on different days in different countries, 
 and the same practice prevailed when a weekly festival 
 was more distinctly established. 
 
 Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who lived but a few 
 years after the edict of Constantino was issued, 
 when he was consulted upon the subject of there 
 being no uniformity of days, advised that people 
 should be governed by the usages of countries where 
 they were.f But whether the festival was held on 
 
 * I am aware that the term Easter occurs in the New Testa- 
 ment. It is considered an interpolation, and that it derives its 
 name from the goddess Eostre, worshipped by the Saxons. 
 
 t Care's " Primitive Christianity,'' chsi,p. vii. page 114. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 71 
 
 Saturday or Sunday, fasting was positively pro- 
 hibited. The Motanists, a sect who arose in the 
 second century, were remarkable for the greatest 
 severity ia their lives and doctrines. They had' 
 many absurd tenets, among which were laws of great 
 strictness for fasting, but they excepted the first day 
 of the week out of their austerities.* 
 
 The first man that was executed in the Christian 
 era, by the secular power, for heresy, was Priscil- 
 lianus. It was done at the instance of some of the 
 bishops. One of the charges against him was, that 
 he kept the Lord's day by fasting. A council of the 
 church was assembled on the fourth of October, 381, 
 in reference theretOj which expressly anathematized 
 all such as fasted on that day, whether by mispersua- 
 sion or superstition. 
 
 In the epistles of Ignatius to the Philippians, it is 
 stated, " that he is a killer of Christ who fasts on 
 the Lord's day, or on Saturday ;"t and there is a 
 variety of evidence to show that the Sunday was 
 considered to be a day of relaxation, of joy, and re- 
 joicing, rather than of gloom. The Pharisaical 
 doctrine, which is now so prevalent, of keeping that 
 day with strictness, was, among the Christians of this 
 early period, counted to be a great wickedness. 
 Eustathius renewed the practice of keeping it as a 
 
 * Busebins, Mosheim and Howell's Ecclesiastical Histories, 
 ■f Howell's Ecclesiastical History, folio, vol. It. 
 
72 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 fast day, and it was again condemned by a provincial 
 synod, held at Gangra, in Paphlagonia, wliicli de- 
 creed, that "if any, upon pretence of abstinence, 
 fasted on the Lord's day, he should be anathema." 
 
 One of the canons of the council of Nice decreed, 
 that praying by kneeling should be especially inter- 
 dicted on the day of the resurrection of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, because it indicated fear and sorrow, 
 on a day in which the whole church exults and re- 
 joices."* 
 
 In the fifth century, Mosheim says, " to enumerate 
 the rites and institutions which were added in this 
 century to the Christian worship, would require a 
 volume of considerable size ;" and again, in the next 
 century, " the cause of true religion sunk apace, and 
 the gloomy reign of superstition extended itself in 
 proportion to the decay of genuine piety. This la- 
 mentable decay^was supplied by a multitude of rites 
 and ceremonies. "t Among these, the canon of the 
 mass was for the first time established. Almost as a 
 necessary consequence of this departure from the 
 truth, an edict was passed by the council of Orleans, 
 in the year 538, to enforce more strictly the observ- 
 ance of the first day of the week. J Country labor, 
 which had been left open by the edict of Constantino, 
 
 * 16th Canon of the Council of Nice. 
 
 t MoEheim's Ecclesiastical History ,>ol. ii. 6th and 1th centurie. 
 
 t Encyclopedia, article Sunday, 
 
SABBATH DAY. 73 
 
 was interdicted. Still it was declared, that to hold it 
 unlawful to travel with horses, cattle and carriages, to 
 prepare food, or to do any thing necessary to the 
 cleanliness or decency of persons or houses, savored 
 more of Judaism than Christianity; and the council 
 of Laodicea enjoined that men should abstain from 
 work if possible ; but if any were found to Judaize, 
 that is to say, to keep the day with great strictness, 
 "they were to be censured as great trangressors."* 
 Whilst, in the corruptions of the church, they 
 thus increased their laws relative to labor on that 
 day, it is everywhere apparent that they rejected 
 the idea of the Jewish strictness ; and it is equally 
 apparent that the church had become extremely 
 ceremonial. Thus, at the council of Gangra, before 
 referred to, an edict was passed, that " if any shoidd 
 take upon him, out of the church, privately to 
 preach at home, and making light of the church, 
 shall do those things that belong only to the church, 
 without the presence of the priests, and the leave 
 and allowance of the bishop, let him be accursed, "t 
 These things are connected together, and they are 
 equally the effect of a ceremonial religion. It would 
 take volumes to recount them, and they are all alike 
 separated from that beautiful simplicity inculcated 
 
 *Bncyclopedia Brit., Art. " Sabbath." 
 
 t Cave's Primitive Christianity,chap. vii. page 110. 
 
 6* 
 
74 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 by Jesus Christ, which was the daily and hourly 
 practice of virtue. 
 
 It is stated by Merer, that in the fifth century, 
 th« Christians, after divine service, followed their 
 daily employments. "It was not done," he says, 
 until the meeting or service was quite over, when 
 they might with innocency enough resume them, 
 because the length of time, and the number of hours 
 assigned for piety, were not then so well understood 
 as at present." (See Dialogue on the Lord's day.) 
 
 In the funeral oration for the Lady Paula, St. 
 Jerome says, " She, with all her virgins and widows, 
 who lived at Bethlehem in a cloister with her, upon 
 the Lord's day, repaired duly to the church or house 
 of God, which was nigh to her cell ; and after her re- 
 turn from thence to her own lodgings, she herself, 
 and all her company, fell to work, and every one per- 
 formed their task, which was the making of clothes 
 and garments for themselves and for others, as they 
 were appointed." 
 
 St. Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople, re- 
 commended to his audience, after impressing upon 
 themselves and their families what they had heard on 
 the Lord's day, to return to their daily employments 
 and trades.* 
 
 There is a letter from St. Gregory the Great, in- 
 serted in the canon law, in which he says, "What 
 * Burnside on the Sabbath, p. 16. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 
 
 75 
 
 shall I call them but the preachers of Anti-Ohrist, 
 who, at his coming, will make men abstain from 
 all work on the Sabbath, and on the Lord's day? 
 I have been informed also, of the preaching of certain 
 evil-disposed men, who say no one should bathe on 
 the Lord's day. If, indeed, it is a question of bathing 
 through a spirit of sensuality, we do not allow it on 
 any day whatever ; but if a person resort to it for some 
 useful purpose, we do not forbid it, even on the 
 Lord's day." 
 
 There were other attempts to solemnize the day, 
 which are not mentioned in ecclesiastical history; 
 and, so far as they can be traced, they appear to have 
 been most apparent wherever people most departed 
 from the simplicity of the gospel. Thus it is men- 
 tioned of the Saxons, by Bacon, in his Notes on Sel- 
 den, that when they first settled in England, they 
 began their Sunday on Saturday at 3 o'clock in the 
 afternoon, and held it imtil Monday morning; during 
 which time they refrained from their usual occupations 
 of hunting, &c. Many of their laws are still pre- 
 served, showing them to have been an extremely 
 superstitious people, and Hume says they were worse 
 than the ancient Britons. 
 
 I may remark that the Roman laws upon the sub- 
 ject of Sunday are extantinthe " Corpus Juris Civilis,", 
 collected by Dionysius Gothofredus. There is at least 
 one distinct notice that the enactments were made at 
 
76 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 the instance of the clergy ; and Warburton, himself 
 a bishop, in his work upon Julian, referring to the 
 severities that were exercised towards the popular 
 clergy, at the period succeeding Constantino, says, 
 " It cannot be denied, that their turbulent and insolent 
 manners deserved all the severities that were put upon 
 them." Sabbatarians may object to these laws, as 
 having resulted from a church more or less corrupted ; 
 but they are left in this dilemma, to accept them or 
 none. They have been the foundation of all our laws 
 relative to the observance of Sunday — they have been 
 revised, and modified, and changed, according to the 
 caprices of particular periods of time, but they rest 
 upon no other foundation than ceremonial union be- 
 tween churqh and state. 
 
 According to Heylyn, it was many ages after Chris- 
 tianity was received in Great Britain, before they paid 
 any respect to the first day of the week. 
 
 All the amusements and labor, common in other 
 parts of Europe, had been allowed in England. By 
 act of Parliament, festival days included Sundays: 
 and a law was passed, during the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, in these words : " All pastors, vicars and 
 curates shall teach and declare unto the people, that 
 they may, with a safe and quiet conscience, after 
 their common prayer, in time of harvest, labor upon 
 the holy and festival days, and save that thing which 
 God hath sent ; and if, for any scrupulosity or grudge 
 of conscience, they abstain from working on that day, 
 
SABBATH DAY. 7T 
 
 that then they shall grievously offend and displease 
 God."* 
 
 The Parliament of England met on Sundays until 
 the time of Richard the Third, in the year 1483. 
 
 Many of the kings were crowned on Sunday, among 
 whom were Rufus, Stephen, Henry II., Richard I. 
 and John. Richard I. was crowned twice, — once in 
 the beginning of his reign, and again upon his return 
 from the Holy Land, — and both times on Sunday. 
 The daughter of Henry II. was on Sunday crowned 
 Queen of Sicily, at Palermo. King John was first 
 inaugurated Duke of Normandy, and afterwards 
 crowned king, each event transpiring on Sunday. 
 
 The first law of England made for the keeping of 
 Sunday, was in the time of Edward "VT., about 1470. 
 " Parliament then passed an act by which Sunday and 
 many holy days, the feast of All Saints,.of Holy Inno- 
 cents, &c., were established as festivals by law. This 
 provided also, that it should be lawful for husbandmen, 
 laborer^, fishermen and all others in harvest, or any 
 other time of the year when necessity should require, 
 to labor, ride, fish, or do any other kind of work, at 
 their own free will and pleasure upon any of the said 
 days."t 
 
 In the morning of Sunday, the churches and chapels 
 
 were opened; the after part of the day was devoted to 
 
 rational enjoyments; this was not confined to 
 
 the Roman Catholics. The Waldenses and other 
 
 * Horaa Sabbaticae. f Heylyn. 
 
78 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 mystics, also rejected the sacredness of the day, and 
 all the eminent reformers, to whose writings we have 
 had access, except only such as hate been connected 
 with the puritan movement, have opposed this Sabbath 
 doctrine. Luther in his "Instruction to Christians 
 how to make use of Moses," says, " The law of Moses 
 belongs to the Jews, and is no longer binding upon us. 
 The words of Scripture prove clearly to us that the 
 ten commandments do not affect us ; for God has not 
 brought us out of Egypt, but only the Jews. We are 
 willing to take Moses as a teacher, but not as our law- 
 giver, except when he agrees with the New Testament 
 and with the law of nature. * * * * jq^Q single point 
 in Moses binds us. * * * * Leave Moses and his 
 people alone. Their work is done. He has nothing 
 to do with me. I listen to the word which concerns 
 me. We have the gospel." * * * * In his "Expla- 
 nation of the Ten Commandments," he says, "We 
 must remark at the outset, that the ten command- 
 ments do not apply to us Gentiles and Christians, but 
 only to the Jews. If a preacher wishes to force you 
 back to Moses, ask him whether you were brought by 
 Moses out of Egypt ? If he says, No ! then say. How 
 then does Moses concern me, since he speaks to the 
 people that have been brought out of Egypt ?"**** 
 In another passage of the same work he says, ' We 
 must stop the mouths of the factious spirits who say, 
 ' thus says Moses ;' then do you reply, ' Moses does not 
 concern us ; if I accept Moses in one commandment. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 79 
 
 I must accept the whole Moses ; in that case I should 
 be obliged to be circumcised, and to wash my clothes 
 in a Jewish manner. Therefore, we will not obey 
 Moses, or accept him. Moses died, and his govern- 
 ment terminated when Christ came.'"* 
 
 I make the following extracts from the institute of 
 John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian church: 
 
 "But it cannot be doubted that every thing was 
 abolished at the coming of Christ our Lord. For he 
 is the reality, at whose presence all types vanish ; the 
 substance, at whose sight shadows are forsaken ; he, 
 I say, is the true fulfilment of the Sabbath. Being 
 by baptism buried with him, we have been grafted in- 
 to a share of his death, that, being partakers of the 
 resurrection, we should walk in newness of life. 
 Therefore, the apostle in another place says, that the 
 Sabbath was the shadow of something future, — ^that 
 in Christ is the body ; that is, the solid, real substance, 
 which in that place he has well explained. This is 
 content, not with one day, but with the whole course 
 of our life, until, being wholly dead to ourselves, we 
 are filled with the life of God. Far, therefore, from 
 Christians ought to be the superstitious observance of 
 days."t 
 
 * See Michelet's Life of Luther, translated by Hazlitt ; also Heng- 
 stenberg. 
 
 t Translated for this work from a Latin copy in the Phila- 
 delphia Library. 
 
80 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 In another place he says, The false prophets have 
 said that nothing was abrogated but what was cere- 
 monial in the commandment, while the moral part re- 
 mains — to wit : ' the observance of one day in seven ;' 
 but this is nothing else than to insult the Jews by 
 changing the day, and yet mentally attributing to it 
 the same sanctity, thus retaining the same typical 
 distinction of days as had place among the Jews."* 
 
 Melancthon, in the Augsburg Confession of Faith, 
 has these sentences : 
 
 " For they who think the observance of the Lord's 
 day has been appointed by the authority of the Church, 
 instead of the Sabbath, as a thing necessary, greatly 
 err. The Scripture allows that we are not bound to 
 keep the Sabbath ; for it teaches that the ceremonies 
 of the law of Moses are not necessary after the reve- 
 lation of the gospel. And yet, because it was requi- 
 site to appoint a certain day, that the people might 
 know when to assemble together, it appears that the 
 Church appointed for this purpose the Lord's day, 
 which for this reason, also, seems to have pleased the 
 more, that men might have an example of Christian 
 liberty, and might know that the observance neither 
 of the Sabbath nor of any other day is necessary." 
 
 Zuinglius, the Swiss reformer, expresses the opinion 
 that it is lawful for any man, after divine service, to 
 pursue his labors. 
 
 * Institutes, vol 1. 459 and 466. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 8% 
 
 Martin Bu^er, one of the most enmii^nt reformers 
 f^ the sixteenth century, says Heylyn, " Go^^ furth^ 
 yet, and doth not only call it a superstition, but an 
 apostacy from Christ, to think that working on the 
 Lord's da,y in itself considered is a sinful thing."!" 
 Bucer was one of the most eminent men of the Ee- 
 formation. Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, gave 
 him an invitation to come over to England, where hp 
 became a great favorite with Edward VI. He was 
 buried at Cambridge with great pomp. Five years 
 afterwards, in the reign of Queen Mary, his remains 
 were dug up and publicly burnt. He composed many 
 works on the Evangelists ^.nd Gospels, and considered 
 it a sinful thing to omit working on Sunday. 
 
 Kn,ox, the eminent Scottish reformer, wrote before 
 th^ Sabbath excitement in Scotland. His confession in 
 1560, in which the works that are reputed " good be- 
 fore God," to use bis own words, are recounted with 
 great minuteness, is altogether silent iq)ou the ^ntj 
 of keeping holy the Sabbath day. This may be con- 
 sidered conclusive that he was not a Sabbatarian, and 
 it is known that theatrical diversions were permitted 
 on that day, in Scotland, flntil after his death. 
 
 In the year 1516 Erasmus characterised the tendency 
 towards Judaism as a pest the most dangerous to 
 Christianity, f 
 
 It may be observed that the Romish Church as- 
 ^ Bucer on Mat. p. 181. -I- Erasmus, Epistles, p. 207. 
 8 
 
82 INSTITDTION OF THE 
 
 sumed that Sunday and all festivals were under the 
 control of the Vatican, and that the sanctity of the 
 day derived no authority from the Jewish laws. 
 
 The Episcopalians, though denying the authority of 
 the Pope, took essentially the same ground. 
 
 Paley ; Heylin, chaplain to King Charles the First ; 
 Wheatly, D. D., of Oriel College, Oxford, and many 
 others, have been conspicuous in resisting the super- 
 stition. 
 
 Bishop White, so favorably known for many years 
 in Philadelphia, in his work on the Catechism, pages 
 64 and 66, says, "That any employment con- 
 ducive to the public weal, which cannot be suspended 
 without defeating the object, such as gathering the 
 harvest on Sunday, &c., may be allowed on Sunday." 
 
 Again, in his lectures he says, "The blessing of the 
 seventh day is mentioned in the twelfth chapter cif 
 Genesis, at the closing of the act of creation ; but this 
 is thought by some to have been done without any in- 
 timation of an appointment in Paradise, and only to ac- 
 count for its being made to the children of Israel 
 in the wilderness. Certain it is, that we meet with 
 no instance of an actual hallowing of the Sabbath, 
 until we reach the 16th chapter of Exodus : and the 
 manner of the giving and the receiving of the insti- 
 tution, carries strong appearances of its not being 
 familiar to the Israelites. This seems not easily to 
 be accounted for, if it had been observed by their 
 
SABBATH DAY. 83 
 
 patriarchal forefathers, of which, also, there is not a 
 hint in their history. * * * 
 
 " In regard to its duration, it appears evident, that 
 so far as regarded the authority of the injunction to 
 the Israelites, and unless some new obligation can be 
 shown, the institution ceased, even in relation to 
 Jewish converts to Christianity, at the destruction of 
 their religious polity, and that it was never extended 
 to the Grentile Christians ; of this there shall be given 
 but one proof, it being decisive to the point. It is in 
 the 2d chapter of Colossians : — ' Let no man there- 
 fore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of 
 an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath 
 days.' Here the Sabbath is considered as falling 
 with the whole body of the ritual laws of Moses. 
 And this may show the reason, on which the church 
 avoids the calling of the day of public worship, ' the 
 Sabbath.' It is never so called in the New Testa- 
 ment : and in the primitive church, the term ' Sab- 
 batising ' carried with it the reproach of a leaning to 
 the abrogated observance of the law." * * * 
 
 Thomas Arnold, D. D., Professor in the University 
 of Oxford so late as 1840, speaking in favor of re- 
 creation, says, " If the railway enables people in the 
 great towns to get out into the country on Sunday, I 
 should think it a very great good." (See his works, 
 second English edition, 204-206 :) 
 
 To copy the sentiments of the eminent ecclesiasti- 
 
84 INSTITUTION OF THK 
 
 cal writers upon this subject, would swell our pages 
 beyond what is needful for this work, and I content 
 myself with one further extract from " The British 
 Critic, Quarterly Theological Review, and Ecclesiasti- 
 cal Recorder :" 
 
 " The Jews, who, in this respect at least, may be 
 admitted to be the best interpreters of their own la*, 
 iiniformly maintained, that the Sabbath, like circum- 
 cision, was given ezelusiveli/ to thera, as the sign of 
 the covenant which God had made with them ; that it 
 belonged, in no sense, to the Gentiles ; and that it 
 was not lawful even for the proselytes of the gate to 
 observe it. 'It is a sign between me and the children 
 cf Israel forever.' Exodus xxxi. 17. ' Moreover? 
 also, I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between 
 me and them.' Ezek. xxi. 12. 'And hallow my 
 Sabbaths ; and they shall be a mgn between me and 
 yoit.' Ezek. xxi. 20. When that covenant, of Which 
 the Sabbath was a sign, was abrogated, the Sabbath 
 itself was of course abrogated with it. This is con- 
 fessed; but it is said, that the observance of the 
 seventh-day Sabbath is transferred, in the Christian 
 church, to the first day of the week. We ask, by 
 what authority? and are much mistaken, if an exami- 
 nation of all the texts in the New Testament, in which 
 the first day of the week, or Lord's day, is mentioned, 
 does not prove that there is no divine or apostolical 
 precept enjoining its observance, nor any certain evi- 
 
SABBATH DAY. 85 
 
 dence from Scripture that it it was, in fact, so observed 
 in the time of the apostles." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PUKITANS OP ENGLAND, ORIGINATORS OP THE TERM 
 CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 
 
 From the advent of Christ throughout the Apostolic 
 and Middle ages, one feeling and sentiment prevailed 
 respecting the first day of the week, — an entire re- 
 jection of the Jewish doctrine regarding it. In this, 
 as we have seen, Christ and the apostles, various eccle- 
 siastical councils, the eminent reformers. Church and 
 State, all with one accord participated. Adopting 
 the spirit of the decree of Constantino, they made 
 the Sunday a day of rejoicing, a day of rest, where 
 it was most convenient to rest,a day of labor, where 
 that was most proper, without attaching any supersti- 
 tion to it. 
 
 A change came over the British nation, in the six 
 teenth century, through the influence of the Puritans, 
 As an organized body they are now extinct; but 
 at that period they embraced a great variety of 
 heterogeneous people. There were the Millenarians, 
 who required that all government should be abolished 
 in order to prepare the way for Christ's second com- 
 ing ; the Levellers, who asked for an equal div-ision of 
 
 8* 
 
86 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 property; the Antinomians, who insisted that the 
 obligations of morality should be suspended, that the 
 elect might reign ; the Republicans, who were intoxi 
 cated with their own saintly character ; others who 
 desired the extinction of the whole system of English 
 jurisprudence. A considerable party declaimed 
 against tythes.* These and many others were'^lassed 
 under the general name of Puritans. Many of thenr 
 were known by the name Sabbatarians, from their 
 calling the first day of the week Sabbath instead of 
 Simday. 
 
 We do great injustice to the truth of history by 
 Confoundiiig together, the different classes of Puritans 
 fcmong whom there were greater differences than be- 
 tween Protestants and Catholics. They were united 
 for a common object, the destruction of the Catholic 
 religion, and the Episcopal Hierarchy, which they be- 
 lieved to be closely connected with it. When these 
 ends were gained, though intermixed, they were no 
 longer one people, and finally centered in three great 
 divisions, the Independents, the Presbyterians and 
 the Brownists. Each of these gained supreme power : 
 the two former in England, the latter in America. 
 Of these, the Independents, with Cromwell at their 
 head, were the most liberal, and we do them injustice 
 by ascribing their forbearance to either the Presby- 
 terians or the Brownists. Neither of them had any 
 true conception of civil or religious liberty. With 
 
 * Hume's History of England. 
 
SABBATH DAT. 87 
 
 one heart and spirit they all united againfet the Roman 
 Catholics. 
 
 Cromwell wrote in favor of liberty of conscience 
 without understanding it. Henry Vane, the younger, 
 was deemed to be a curse to New England, where at 
 one period he acted as GoTernor, because of his 
 liberal sentiments.* Yet in ^England he was at 
 the head of the Covenanters against the Roman 
 Catholics ; and this alone marks not liberty of con- 
 science, but an uncertain and limited toleration. 
 Toleration is not liberty of conscience, but a proclama- 
 tion of the power to abridge it ; a government that has 
 power to tolerate has also the power to do it away, as 
 was the case in the revocation of the edict of Nantes. 
 The Puritans declared unequivocally the supremacy 
 of their interpretation of what they called the word 
 of God, in opposition to all traditions and human 
 constitutions ; that the form of government ordained 
 by the apostles was aristocratical, according to the 
 constitution of the Jewish Sanhedrim, and was de- 
 signed as a pattern for the chmrches in after ages ; 
 and that the standard of uniformity, and which was 
 to be supported by the sword, was not liberty of con- 
 science and freedom of profession, but the " decrees 
 of provincial and national synods."t 
 
 It was Dr. Bound, one of the rigid Puritans, who 
 
 * Mather's Magnalia. 
 
 fNeal's History of the Puritans, London edition, vol. i. p. 136. 
 
88 INSTITUTION OF THK 
 
 applied the name Sabbath to the first day of the week. 
 About the year 1595, he published a book upon the 
 subject, particularly decrying the Romish festivals, in 
 which he stated that the Church of Rome had joined 
 many other days to the seventh day, making them 
 equal, if not superior, as well in the solemnity of 
 divine offices, as in restraint from labor; that the 
 commandment for sanctifying every seventh day in 
 the Mosaic Decalogue, is natural, moral and perpetual, 
 and that the church had no authority to sanctify any 
 other day. 
 
 This new Sabbath doctrine, as it was called, of 
 Bound's, met with violent opposition from the Epis- 
 copal and other churches. Archbishop Whitgift con- 
 demned the book, and Rogers, another clergyman, 
 said, "that it was the comfort of his soul, and would 
 be to his dying day, that he had been the man and 
 the means by which the Sabbatarian errors were 
 brought to the light and knowledge of the State."* To 
 . counteract this doctrine, the book " Concerning lawful 
 sports, to be used on Sundays after divine service," 
 , which had been heretofore issued, was republished by 
 King Charles I., with an order that it should be cir- 
 culated through all the parish churches. This allowed 
 of all kinds of diversions on Sunday ; and the king 
 declared that it was done " out of pious care for the 
 
 * Neal's Hist. Puritans, London edition, 1768, vol. i. p. 495 and 
 vol. ii. pp. 238-39. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 89 
 
 service of God, and for suppressing of those humors 
 that oppose truth, and for the ease, comfort, and re- 
 creation of his majesty's well deserving people."* 
 The bishops recommended these recreations, "as 
 bringing the people more willingly to church, as tend- 
 ing to civilize them, and to compose differences among 
 them, and as serving to increase love and imity."* 
 The Puritans violently opposed them ; many of the 
 clergy refused to read the king's orders in their 
 churches. The animosity was very severe, and was 
 carried on for many years. The whole argument of 
 the Sabbatarians rested upon the Mosaic code. It 
 serves to show the error of trying to make the con- 
 sciences of men depend upon State laws. What is 
 sanctioned in one age is condemned in another, from 
 the particular caprices of those who may happen to 
 be in power. 
 
 It is stated that every passage in the Bible, whether 
 relating to the legal Sabbath, or to the spiritual Sab- 
 bath of the soul, was tortured to prove their position ; 
 and this was carried to such a length, that chief justice 
 Popham commanded these books to be called in, and 
 neither be printed nor made public for a time to come. 
 
 This is the origin of the term Christian Sabbath, a 
 name which has not generally been adopted among 
 
 * Neal's Hist. PuritanB, London edition, ] 768, vol. i. p. 495 ; 
 and vol. il. pp. 238-39. 
 
90 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 Christians ; and it ought never to be adopted, because, 
 applied to a day, it is a falsehood. 
 
 The Puritanical zeal upon the subject appears to 
 have had no other foundation than the attempt to gain 
 power by destroying festivals which were sustained 
 by the Romish and Episcopal churches. Pretending 
 to consider themselves peculiarly the church of Christ, 
 their fanaticism was directed against every thing 
 which they had not themselves created. 
 
 They carried their enmity against churchmen so 
 far, as to regard it as profane and superstitious to eat 
 mince-pies at the period of Christmas. They objected 
 to the day as a festival, to establish other festival 
 days of their own ; they declaimed against human 
 learning, challenging the professors from Oxford to 
 prove that their calling was from Christ, and set up 
 theological schools to disseminate their own doctrines. 
 They denounced, as we have seen, innocent diversions 
 on Sunday, to appoint by act of parliament, when 
 they had the power, another day in its place ; and 
 their whole history leads to but one conclusion, that 
 if they could best have gained their point by abolish- 
 ing the Sabbath, instead of enforcing it, they would 
 have done so. They rejected the doctrines of the 
 early Christians, and the opinions o£ Calvin, without 
 considering that a day made holy by them, had no 
 more authority than a holy day created by the church 
 of Rome. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 91 
 
 Their doctrine gave great offence to the younger 
 part of the community, who had been used to con- 
 sider Sunday as a day of rest and of innocent amuse- 
 ments ; and to satisfy them, the second Tuesday in 
 every month was appointed in its place by act of 
 parliament.* 
 
 In the excited state of the public mind against the 
 Catholic church, this scheme had a wonderful influ- 
 ence with the people. Many ways had been tried for 
 several years to suppress these festivals, but they 
 were all in vain, till this new Sabbath doctrine was 
 brought up. 
 
 The contagion spread, to a limited extent, in those 
 countries where there was an opposition to the Romish 
 see. Frederic V., Prince Elector of Palatine, in 
 an early period of the 17th century, under the influ- 
 ence of the English clergy, for the first time, ordered 
 what was termed religious service, to be held in the 
 afternoon of the first day of the week, in the Calvin- 
 istic churches of Germany. The same influence pre- 
 vailed in the Low Countries, where, by the constitution, 
 divine offices had been absolutely prohibited on the 
 afternoon of that day.f 
 
 Books were issued by the royal authority at a later 
 period, licensing particular sports and amusements on 
 the Sunday. As the Puritans gained power, the House 
 
 * Hume's History of England, vol. vii. page 33. 
 f Heylyn's History of the Presbyterians. 
 
92 
 
 INSTITUTION OF THB 
 
 of Commons, without any consultation Vfiih. the king, 
 directed that these books should be burnt by the 
 hangman, which was done. 
 
 They finally consummated their work by beheading 
 the king, and assuming all the power of the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The existing abuses might have been sufficient to 
 change the religion of the State, but they were 
 not sufficient, nor is any thing sufficient to warrant 
 corruption of another kind — deception, cant and hy- 
 pocrisy. The Puritans were horrified at the sight of 
 a surplice, a ring, or a cross, while the great princi- 
 ples of humanity, justice, mercy, and truth, were 
 violated. Under their rule the whole nation became 
 convulsed with the most frivolous disputes. It was 
 not only the great leading doctrine, "That saving 
 grace is not given, or communicated, to all men, and 
 that those who are not predestinated to salvation 
 shall necessarily be damned, "f that distracted the 
 country, but the government itself was thrown into 
 violent convulsions respecting the use of the surplice, 
 the rails placed about the altar, the ring in marriage, 
 the cross in baptism, and other rites which Hume calls 
 mean and contemptible. But they were not con- 
 temptible, if they involved principle. 
 
 By the Puritan book of discipline, the minister was 
 
 not allowed to baptize children by the names of 
 
 *HeyUu's History. 
 
 t Nine articles of Lambeth in Hist., Presbyterians, p. 342. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 93 
 
 Richard, Robert, &c., which savored of paganism; 
 they were to use Scripture names, such as Obadiah, 
 Zephaniah, Hezekiah, &c., which are so common 
 among the descendants of the Puritans at the present 
 day ; and to the same source are we indebted for such 
 names as Deliverance, Virtue, Fear, Hope, Charity, 
 Thankful, Consolation, The Lord is Near, and a 
 variety of others of the same character. 
 
 The name of the Speaker of the Long Parliament 
 was " Praise-God Barebones." The names of a jury, 
 in Sussex, are thus given in Broom's Travels: — 
 Accepted Trevor, Redeemed Compton, Faint-not 
 Hewitt, Make-Peace Heaton, God-Reward Smart, 
 Hope-for Bending, Earth Adams, Called Lower, 
 Kill-Sin Pimple, Return Spelman, Be-Faithful Joiner, 
 Fly-Debate Roberts, Fight-the-good-Fight-of-Faith 
 White, More-Fruit Fowler, Stand-fast-on-high String- 
 er, Graceful Herding, Weep-not Billing, Meek Brewer. 
 
 The Puritans ordained, that not only labor and 
 amusements should be interdicted, but that all travel- 
 ling should be stopped ; May-poles, which appeared 
 like heathenish vanities, should be removed ; no barber 
 should be allowed to shave a man on Sunday ; no 
 tailor to carry home a suit of clothes ; no one was 
 allowed to sit at his own door, to walk the streets, or 
 to enjoy the fresh air in the open fields. It is said to 
 have been preached from the pulpits, that to do any ser- 
 
 9 
 
94 INSTITUTION OP THK 
 
 vile work or business on the Lord's day, was as great a 
 sin as to kill a man ; that to make a feast, or to dress 
 a wedding-dinner, was as unlawful as for a father to 
 take a knife and cut his child's throat.* 
 
 Laws of this nature, more or less severe, are every- 
 where intermixed with the Puritanic discipline ; they 
 were, in the true sense of the word, a Sabbath-keep- 
 ing people ; it formed one of the most prominent traits 
 of their character ; and if there is a page of history 
 that can exemplify the peculiar efifectof a Sabbath-day 
 religion, it is to be found in the recorded account of 
 the Puritans. 
 
 Hume, in his History of England,t says, "Their 
 whole discourse and language were polluted with 
 mysterious jargon, and full of the lowest and most 
 vulgar hypocrisy." 
 
 Whether allowance is to be made or not for the 
 opinion of a royalist author, it is certain, that their 
 conduct seemed to threaten the destruction of the 
 social fabric. They were called democratic in their 
 principles, and they certainly resisted arbitrary power. 
 They resisted it in order to gain it for themselves, 
 and they gained it but to abuse it. They obtained an 
 ascendency in religion to open rivers of blood, and to 
 establish ridiculous innovations. 
 
 Heylyn, in his History of the Presbyterians, says 
 
 * History of the Presbyterians, 
 t Vol. vi. page 390. 
 
SABBATH DAY. iJi) 
 
 of them, " More goodly houses were plundered and 
 burnt do-wn to the ground, more churches sacrilegiously 
 profaned and spoiled, more blood poured out like 
 water, within four years space, than had been done in 
 the long course of civil wars between York and Lan. 
 caster. With all which spoil and public ruin, they 
 purchased nothing to themselves but shame and infamy, 
 as may be shown by taking a brief view of their true 
 condition before and after they put the state into 
 these confusions."* 
 
 A few years completed the sovereignty of the Pres- 
 byterians in Great Britain. They were out voted and 
 out generalled by the Independents, who, with Crom- 
 well at their head, obtained the control of the British 
 Empire. 
 
 The Presbyterians were established by law in Scot- 
 land. The Brownists had been banished first to 
 Holland, and thence emigrated to America, and these 
 comprise the whole number of those who maintained" 
 that ascetic severity regarding Sunday, which is the 
 object of our inquiry. 
 
 We have said, in our prefatory pages, that the 
 tendency of the Sabbath superstition was to impair 
 the morals of the people. We have traced the history 
 of the institution through all its phases up to the 
 period of the Puritans. We have given to no text, 
 to no history, an interpretation which it does not war- 
 rant ; and we think the candid inquirer will readily 
 * Heylyn, 469. 
 
96 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 arrive at the conclusion, that the Sunday of England 
 and the Sunday of America, with its gloom and asce- 
 ticism, rests upon no adequate foundation, is a belief 
 without evidence, and as such, may be properly termed 
 a gross superstition. 
 
 Admitting that this reasoning is correct, it will 
 hardly be denied that superstition is injurious to the 
 human character, and the Sabbath forms no exception 
 to a universal rule. History confirms this conclusion, 
 in England, Scotland, and America. We shall pro- 
 ceed to show that moral offences increased at the 
 period when the observance of the Sabbath was most 
 rigidly enforced, and we may learn from analogy that 
 universally, other things being equal, an enforced asce- 
 tic observance of Sunday, or of any other sectarian 
 rites, is injurious to society. 
 
 First, respecting its effect in England. William Penn 
 thus characterizes this period : " Oh, the unheard-of 
 hypocrisy of that age ! Sycophants in grain, enough 
 to poison the whole world with their flatteries, whose 
 interest was their conscience, and power their re- 
 ligion ; devotion only serving to stalk their stratagems 
 to promotion ; but the just God has swept ,them off 
 the stage, and their sun is set and shall never rise 
 more."* 
 
 We make the following extracts from Hume's His- 
 tory of England : 
 
 * Folio Works, vol. ii. p. 86. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 97 
 
 " The gloomy enthusiasm which prevailed among 
 the Parliamentary (Puritan) party is surely the most 
 curious spectacle presented by any history, and the 
 most instructive, as well as entertaining, to a philoso- 
 phical mind. * * * * Though the English nation be 
 naturally candid and sincere, hypocrisy prevailed 
 among them beyond any example in ancient or modern 
 times." * * * * " Your friends, the Cavaliers," said 
 a Puritan to a Royalist, " are very dissolute and de- 
 bauched." " True," replied the Royalist, " they have 
 the infirmities of men, but your friends the Puritans 
 have the vices of devils."* 
 
 Macaulay says, " Those passions and tastes which 
 had been sternly repressed (by the Sabbatarians) broke 
 forth with ungovernable violence as soon as the check 
 was withdrawn. Men flew to frivolous amusements 
 and to criminal pleasures, with the greediness which 
 long and enforced abstinence naturally produces. 
 Little restraint was imposed by public opinion. For 
 the nation, nauseated by cant, suspicious of all pre- 
 tensions to sanctity, and still smarting from the 
 recent tyranny of rulers austere in life and power- 
 ful in prayer, looked for a time with complacency on 
 the softer and gayer vices."t 
 
 D'Israeli says, "The ascetic penances (of the 
 Puritans) were afterwards succeeded in the nation by 
 
 * Hume, vol. vii. p. 331, 332. 
 
 f Macaulay's History of England, vol. i. p. 179, 5th edition. 
 9* 
 
98 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 an era of hypocritical sanctity, and we may trace this 
 last stage of insanity and of immorality, closing with 
 impiety." * * * * "Without inquiring into the causes, 
 even if we thought we could ascertain them, of that 
 frightful dissolution of religion which so long pre- 
 vailed in our country, of which the very corruption it 
 has left behind still breeds in monstrous shapes."* 
 
 Were it needful, I might produce much further his- 
 torical data, all tending to one issue, that in propor- 
 tion as forms, rites and dogmas were made of primary 
 importance, so were the morals of the people cor- 
 rupted. All those severities which were enacted in 
 England, were renewed in Scotland under the influence 
 of the Presbyterians. Prom evening to evening the 
 Sabbath was to be celebrated ; no persons were allowed 
 to walk in the streets ; pecuniary fines, close and 
 rigorous confinement and corporal punishment, were 
 the penalties for disobedience. Margaret Dixon was 
 fined eight marks for having "spits and roasts" at 
 the fire in time of "sermon."t 
 
 These proceedings were connected with severe prose- 
 cutions of those who differed from them in religious 
 opinions. 
 
 The National Covenant was subscribed in 1580, 
 and renewed in 1639, at the very period of the Sabbath 
 
 * Curiosities of Literature, vol. vi. p. 275, &c. 
 fSee Wodrow's Biographical Collections, vol. ii. Selections 
 from the Records of Kirk's sessions, page 21. 
 
SABBATH DAY. &9- 
 
 excitement. It ordains, " that all papists and priests 
 shall be punished with manifold civil and ecclesiasti- 
 cal pains, as adversaries to God's true religion."* 
 
 The morals of Scotland may be gathered from the 
 following extracts. 
 
 Cromwell, when he invaded Scotland, says in a 
 letter to the Lord President of the Council of 
 State, dated 25th of September, 1650, "I thought 
 I should have found in Scotland a conscientious 
 people, and a barren country ; about Edinburgh it is 
 as fertile for corn as any part of England ; but the 
 people generally (are so) given to the most impudent 
 lying and frequent swearing, as is incredible to be be- 
 lieved."* 
 
 On the 17th of February, 1650, it is recorded, 
 "much falsehood and cheating at this time was daily 
 detected by the Lords of the Session ; there was daily 
 hanging, scourging, boring of tongues, so that it was 
 one fatal year for falsehood as daily experience did 
 witness; and as for adultery, fornication, incest, 
 bigamy, and other uncleanness and filthyness, it did 
 never abound more nor at this time." In 1653 there 
 is the following item : " The growth of sin of all sorts, 
 particularly pride, uncleanness, contempt of ordi- 
 nances, oppression, violence, fraudulent dealing, and 
 that under the rod, the most part of the people 
 
 * Act 3£xiv. 2d Parliament, King James VI. 
 fCarlyle's Cromwell, toI. ii.p. 72. 
 
100 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 growing worse and worse, and revolting more and 
 more."* 
 
 It was in 1595, as we have stated, that Dr. Bound 
 published his Sabbath book before referred to ; thus 
 it appears that at the time these extracts were written, 
 the Sabbath doctrine had had a full and almost unin- 
 terrupted sway for more than half a century, an4 the 
 facts appear to be conclusive, that in Scotland, as in 
 England, the superstition made society worse instead 
 of better. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PURITANS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 The full development of the Sabbath excitement 
 was reserved for the Brownists of New England, their 
 original and proper name. To call them Puritans, 
 the term usually employed, though strictly correct, 
 leads to confusion, because that was a generic name 
 applied to all Nonconformists, among whom there 
 were many other organizations, some of them much 
 larger than the Brownists ; such as the Presbyterians, 
 Independents, Baptists, Antinomians, Quakers, &;c. 
 
 Robinson, their pastor in Holland, advised them to 
 change their name to Congregationalists, which they 
 did. To use this term would be to identify them with 
 the present inhabitants of New England, who are in 
 
 * Pages 3, 4 and 101. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 101 
 
 many respects a distinct people. Much error arises 
 from the want of a proper understanding of the term 
 Puritan. Many of the New England writers are de- 
 ficient either in intelligence or honesty, in confound- 
 ing them with the Independents, a more liberal class 
 of Puritans. 
 
 The Brownists owed their origin to Robert Brown, 
 who was one of the first to recommend the independent 
 system of church government, to which they have 
 mostly adhered. He also recommended that lay- 
 members should be at liberty to speak in their meet- 
 ings. If we recollect right, Brown boasted of having 
 been committed to thirty prisons, and it was believed 
 that he only escaped execution by his connection with 
 the British Ministry. Thacker and Capper, two minis- 
 tors of the Brownist persuasion, had been hanged in Eng- 
 land for dispersing books against the Common Prayer ; 
 and in 1591, Greenwood, Barrow and Penry, were 
 also put to death for being Brownists; besides this 
 they suffered other severe persecutions. 
 
 The Brownists gained nothing by experience. Suf- 
 fering, which softens most men, softened not them. 
 It seems diflScult to imagine how a people who had 
 earnestly claimed liberty of conscience for themselves, 
 could have become the bitter, unrelenting persecutors 
 of others. Yet such was the fact. 
 
 In England, the Puritans had been restrained to a 
 certain extent by the Roman Catholics and the Epis- 
 
102 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 copalians. In the wilderness of America there was 
 none to molest them ; they claimed it as being pecu- 
 liarly their country ; they controlled the government) 
 and there was no hindrance to a full experiment of 
 their doctrine respecting Sunday. In Great Britain 
 it was so much mixed up with politics, with the struggle 
 for supremacy in the British Empire, that it is difficult 
 to decide what may be due to each. In this country 
 the subject was greatly freed from these influences, 
 and hence the lesson is the more impressive. 
 
 In a Boston Sabbath work, speaking of the great 
 advantages of keeping holy the Sabbath day, it is said, , 
 " The manner in which people keep the Sabbath will 
 be a test of their character, an index of their morality 
 and religion."* We have in the Puritans of New 
 England one of the fairest tests that the world can 
 afford; and, in so interesting an inquiry, it is due to 
 the cause of truth and justice, that their characters 
 should be carefully considered as an index, according to 
 the Boston writer, of what may be expected from a 
 Sabbath-keeping people. 
 
 I am not aware that the pages of ecclesiastical his- 
 tory furnish any examples of intolerance, so severe, 
 so uncalled for, as those of the Puritans of New 
 England. 
 
 Persecutions had been often more extensive and en 
 * Permanent Sabbath Doctrines, No. 1. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 103 
 
 during, but the settlers of New England were few in 
 number, and of the same race as their victims. 
 
 They derived all their power from charters granted 
 by the British crown, which prohibited their transcend- 
 ing the British laws, yet these were of no avail. 
 They persecuted by turns the Antinomians, the 
 Roman Catholics, the Episcopalians, the Presby- 
 terians, the Baptists, the Quakers, and not least, the 
 poor unhappy, defenceless Indians. 
 
 It was this people that brought the Sabbath super- 
 stition to the American colonies, now these United 
 States. 
 
 It has become the custom in New England to eulo- 
 gize their Puritan ancestors, and to claim for them 
 the establishment of civil and religious liberty in this 
 country. This is partaken of by many respectable 
 orators, who seem disposed to make the public believe 
 that it is true. It is not true, let the story be told 
 by whom it may; civil and religious liberty are the 
 effect of causes which did not exist among the 
 Brownists of New England. The Sabbath doctrine, 
 the philosophy of authority, was incapable of produc- 
 ing them. In morals, as in physics, events are in- 
 volved in the causes from which they spring, and it 
 argues great ignorance of the principles of human 
 nature to suppose that such a thing was possible. 
 
 Oakes, President of Harvard College, said in the 
 year 1673, that "he looked upon toleration as the first- 
 
104 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 born of all abominations." (See Belknap's History 
 of New Hampsbire, vol. i. p. 71.) And Hutcbinson 
 writes, toleration was preacbed against as a sin in 
 rulers, tbat would bring down tbe judgment of Heaven 
 on tbe land. Mr. Dudley, one of tbeir eminent 
 men, died witb a copy of verses in his pocket, written 
 witb bis own hand ; tbe two following lines, which 
 made part of it, may be considered as the Puritan 
 creed in New England :* 
 
 " Let men of God in court and churches, watch 
 O'er such as do a toleration hatch." 
 
 Before we can believe tbat civil and religious liberty 
 was established in New England, these sentiments 
 must be erased, and the facts connected with the 
 settlement of the colony be obliterated. 
 
 The history of the early settlements in this country 
 involves considerations of deep and peculiar interest. 
 
 It is well known that there have long been two sys- 
 tems of philosophy respecting tbe origin of our ideas ; 
 one, the sensuous theory espoused of latter time 
 more particularly by the celebrated John Locke, 
 which traced all our ideas to the senses and to reflec- 
 tions growing out of them. Tbe Sabbath doctrine of 
 the Puritans is founded upon this theory. The Sab- 
 bath as a day of holiness, having no existence in 
 nature, is derived from authority which man has ob- 
 tained through his eyes and his ears. This sensuous 
 theory was the basis of tbe system of tbe Brownists, 
 * Hutchinson's Hist. vol. i. p. 15. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 105 
 
 and it was put forth in all its strength in the colonies 
 of New England. , 
 
 The second system embraced the philosophy of in- 
 tuitive ideas, that there were spiritual influences not 
 dependent upon the senses, which man learned in the 
 secret of his own soul; that, however, valuable out- 
 ward information might be, however animating and 
 encouraging, as showing a community of feeling in 
 kindred minds, yet that this was not the place of our 
 rest, that there was a higher life, a spiritual element 
 which was alone the test of truth, and which was to 
 be only imderstood and comprehended in the secret 
 recesses of man's own mind. 
 
 The elementary principles from which these two 
 systems flow, were openly avowed and maintained by 
 several of the different colonies of this country. They 
 were in direct opposition to each other. Though 
 neither of them was carried out to its legitimate 
 issue, yet there were broad lines of distinction in 
 the colonies that are worthy of the careful considera- 
 tion of a philosophic mind ; because, so far as either 
 of them may be proved to have been wrong or right 
 from the data which these histories present, we may 
 find some evidence to sustain correct principles for the 
 government of society. 
 
 The one was a system of authority, adhered to by 
 the Brownists. The second, a system of intuitive 
 ideas, which formed the elementary principle of the 
 
 Quakers. 
 
 10 
 
106 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 In the early settlement of this country, the Quakers 
 controlled the goyemments of Rhode Island, of New 
 Jersey, of Pennsylvania, of Delaware, and of the 
 Carolinas. 
 
 The historical facts before us, which are seldom 
 furnished, so far as they go, may be considered a test 
 of the power of human learning on the one hand, and 
 of the spiritual element on the other, as a means of 
 refining and purifying society. This is the more 
 interesting when it is considered that the popular 
 religion of the day is founded upon the doctrine that 
 man is to learn religion from his; fellow-man ; that 
 through the means of Bibles and priests, prayers and 
 psalm singing, many of them ostentatious in the 
 highest degree, and all within the control of man, 
 known and understood only by the outward senses, 
 man is to learn religion ; to use a Scripture figure, 
 they are ladders by which he is to climb into the sheep- 
 fold, not by the door appointed by heaven, but in 
 some other way. 
 
 It is a subject of regret, in examining this question 
 that the histories of the early settlers of New Eng- 
 land, instead of being reliable, are in many cases 
 misrepresentations. Bancroft, the most philosophi- 
 cal of our historians, speaking of his narrow escape 
 from deception by Martin, in his account of Carolina, 
 says, " It is not history which is treacherous, but hasty 
 
SABBATH DAY. 107 
 
 writers who are credulous and careless."* Yet he 
 has committed the same error. 
 
 History is lost upon us if we fail to read its pre- 
 cepts, and to be benefited by its example. To accom- 
 plish this we require truth and not error. To torture 
 it in order to eulogize the past, is to do positive wrong 
 to the present and to that which is to come. It may 
 be doubtful, whether a plain unvarnished history of 
 the settlement of New England is to be found, and 
 this alone can furnish a true basis for our argument. 
 
 Instead of suppressing the truth, it should be pub- 
 lished, how sad soever the picture might be, as sug- 
 gesting the deepest and most profound reflections upon 
 the character of man and the nature of the human 
 mind. 
 
 The following extracts will show how little reliance 
 is to be placed upon the New England authorities. 
 
 Brerett says, "we are indebted Justice Story saya, "The 
 
 to them, (the Puritans,) for two fundamental error of our an- 
 
 great principles, one of which is cestors, an error which began 
 
 the separation of Church and with the very settlement of the 
 
 State."f Bancroft says, "An colony, was a doctrine which 
 
 entire separation was made be- has since been happily exploded, 
 
 tween Church and State."t I mean the necessity of a union 
 
 This was said of Salem, when between Church and State. To 
 
 they were rebuking the Baptists this they clung as the ark of 
 
 and expelling the Episcopalians, their safety."§ 
 
 1 u ii, ^ I.- «„.. -A- letter from James Cud- 
 
 •|- Everett s Orations, page 225. 
 
 j Bancroft, vol. i. page 348. g Story's Miscellany, p. 6G. 
 
 * See vol. ii. p. 162, note. 
 
108 INSTITUTION OF THK 
 
 Again, speaking of the settle- worth, datedin December, 1658, 
 ment of Plymouth, Bancroft says of Plymouth, " As for the 
 says, " A wide experience had state and condition of things 
 emancipated them from bigotry; among us, it is sad, and like to 
 and they were neyer betrayed continue so. 
 into the excesses of religious The Anti-Christian perse- 
 persecution, though they some- cuting spirit is very active, and 
 times permitted a dispropor- that in the powers of this world 
 tion between punishment and he that will not whip and lash 
 crime."* persecute and punish men that 
 
 differ in matters of religion, must 
 * Bancroft, vol. i. 322. not sit on the bench, nor sus- 
 
 tain any office in the common- 
 wealth."* 
 
 This man had been a magis - 
 trate and commission officer in 
 the colony. 
 
 " The history of the world is the world's tribunal." — & 
 
 The Brownists were brave men in their way, of in- 
 dividual worth, staunch, courageous, patient and en- 
 during. Without intentional wrong, they acted wrongly 
 under wrong influences. The Chief Justice of Boston, 
 after condemning many mnocent men to death, de- 
 clared that he had done so in the fear of the Lord. 
 There is no reason to doubt it. Conscience is swayed 
 by education, and is in itself but the proof of sincerity. 
 The phief Justice, wise and learned as he may have 
 been, was influenced by the authority of the Jewish 
 laws, without bringing them to the test of his own 
 
 *Besse's Sufferings of the Quakers, vol. ii. p. 191. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 109 
 
 inward feelings. Serious persuasions are always to be 
 respected. He was conscientiously right, but wrong 
 in his elementary principles. Like the superstitions 
 of the Papists, so finely characterized in the epigram 
 of Swift : 
 
 " Who can believe with common sense, 
 A bacon slice gives God offence ; 
 Or how a herring hath a charm, 
 Almighty vengeance to disarm ? 
 Wrapt np in majesty divine, 
 Does He regard on what we dine 1" 
 
 The application is different, but the principle is the 
 same. The actions of men and of societies depend 
 upon their elementary principles ; if these are correct, 
 conscientious convictions must be correct also. The ele- 
 mentary principle of the Brownists were not correct, 
 and thence proceeded those marked errors which have 
 been adverted to ; were these principles unchangeable, 
 men's conduct would be as fixed as that of an inani- 
 mate machine. It is the power of volition that con- 
 stitutes the man, — ^the ability to change those influ- 
 ences by which he is governed ; and in the accomplish- 
 ment of this are embraced the refinement and advance- 
 ment of the human family. 
 
 A knowledge of physical things comes by observa- 
 tion, but the spiritual faculties have no type on earth, 
 and are to be traced to no other source than the im- 
 press of the Divine mind on the mind of man. Des 
 Cartes and Malabranche, two of the most eminent 
 
 10* 
 
110 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 philosophers of the seventeenth century, destroyed their 
 books, and rejected authority, that they might thence 
 entirely depend upon their own convictions for the 
 attainment of truth. The Puritans of Boston relied 
 upon books and upon authority to gain the same end. 
 There is a principle of common sense, of Divine intelli- 
 gence, which is superior to all authority. This the 
 Brownists rejected, blindly yielding themselves up to 
 the government of laws, adapted to a different people 
 in a distant age. 
 
 The Jews, feeling the beneficent influence of the 
 Divine power, without a corresponding intelligence, 
 believed themselves to be a peculiar people, the espe- 
 cial favorites of heaven. Hence their extermination 
 of those who thought differently from themselves. 
 A like influence and want of intelligence persuaded the 
 Puritans that they also were the favorites of Heaven, 
 the true Israel of God, that he had delivered all other 
 people into their hands, and the supreme authority of 
 the Mosaic code and of the ten commandments followed 
 almost as a matter of course. They called it religion, 
 but however animating social communions may be, 
 in which kindred minds seem, as it were, to mingle to- 
 gether, every organization from the Jewish Sanhedrim 
 to the present day, let it bear what name it may and 
 be established for what purpose soever, is but a civil 
 compact, created by the sympathies of society, and is 
 not necessarily religious because it bears that name. 
 It was from this system that the Brownists received 
 
SABBATH DAY. Ill 
 
 their bigoted superstition. It was a system of types 
 and shadows, of forms and ceremonies, the natural 
 tendency of which, while it made one day more holy, 
 was to profane every other day of the week. 
 
 Of course, the more men have of such a religion as 
 this, if religion it may be called, the worse they are ; 
 and there is evidence to show that the ministers and 
 elders were more rigorous and severe than the common 
 people. The source of religion is in man's own bosom; 
 when he departs from that, he is cast afloat on the great 
 ocean of uncertainty, and he takes up with any doc- 
 trine which may coincide with his own preconceived 
 opinions. 
 
 There are sentiments and feelings to be developed 
 within us, as exalted as ever existed in any other 
 people. We refer to ancient sages, and to the philoso- 
 phers of other generations, but what sources of truth 
 had they that we have not ? 
 
 The laws of all countries necessarily take their 
 type from the character of the people: those of one' 
 nation can never be exactly adapted to another, be- 
 cause no two were ever under precisely the same cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 The only true foundation for the laws and ordi- 
 nances of men, is that sense of justice and truth 
 which can alone adapt them to our respective situa- 
 tions. It is that which purifies and elevates every in- 
 
112 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 dividual, so far as he adheres to it ; and as it elevates 
 individuals, it perfects nations. 
 
 Locke, the great writer on the human mind, always 
 professed religion, and yet his doctrine went to destroy 
 it. He travelled far to find some nation destitute of 
 religious belief, by which he could establish his theory, 
 but he found none. In place of that sublime science, 
 the study of the man within, inhabiting, in the whole 
 scope of the intellect, a world more extensive than 
 the world without us, his doctrine taught that we were 
 to look to the senses for the knowledge of truth, that 
 it was there alone that it was to be found. 
 
 It was this false principle that blinded the eyes of 
 the Puritans, so that they were unable to distinguish 
 right from wrong. They thought they were Christians, 
 while they were worse than barbarians. 
 
 We see an apple fall to the ground, under the un- 
 changing laws of gravity, without seeming to consider 
 that the laws of mind are equally immutable. 
 
 The Puritans laid, claim to the greatest holiness ; 
 some of them even went so far as to say that Jesus 
 Christ was the first Puritan. The good men among 
 them were made so, not by what they called their 
 religion, but in despite of it ; and this applies to every 
 individual who is seeking for religion through the 
 medium of the senses. They advocate the idea that 
 there is nothing in the mind that has not been in the 
 senses. This was the doctrine that Locke and Hobbes, 
 
SABBATH DAY. 113 
 
 and men of that school, tried to establish, to which 
 Leibnitz, the German philosopher, made this reply : 
 "Nothing except the intellect itself;" and no man, 
 however acute, has been able to deny this position. 
 But whether or not, it has little bearing to the practi- 
 cal man, who may easily understand that we can have 
 no real knowledge of truth, virtue, and godhness, 
 from the opinions of other men. 
 
 The doctrines of the Brownists were never fully 
 carried out : so far as they led the minds of men to 
 the senses, to the eye, or the ear, as the source of 
 truth, they naturally led to the destruction of all 
 religion. This influence was continually checked by 
 that grace of God which the priest denied to be his 
 rule, but which was still operating to save them from 
 further degradation. 
 
 A religion of ordinances is in its nature a persecu- 
 ting religion, and that of the Sabbath forms no ex- 
 ception ; fanatical men use it to accomphsh their own 
 selfish purposes. Among the Jews it was often di- 
 verted from a day of rest to a day of persecution ; 
 thus a poor man was stoned to death for gathering 
 a few sticks on that day, and Jesus Christ was con- 
 demned for being a Sabbath-breaker. We have seen 
 the effects of the superstition in England and Scot- 
 land ; in this country, where the laws were still more 
 severe, the effects were more deeply marked. Each of 
 of the individual colonies of New England, Plymouth 
 Massachusetts, New Haven, Connecticut, with the 
 
114 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 exception of Rhode Island, had severe enactments 
 relative to the first day of the week. 
 
 Following the institutions of Moses, the first draught 
 of the laws in Massachusetts, by Cotton, made pro- 
 faning the Lord's day a capital ofience. The punish- 
 ment of death was erased by Winthrop ; but they 
 totally refused to make any alteration in that par* 
 which forbade persons from walking in the streets or 
 fields on that day.* 
 
 In Connecticut the laws were thus: '{No one shall 
 run on the Sabbath day, or walk in his garden, or 
 elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting." 
 
 " No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, 
 sweep house, cut hair or shave on the Sabbath day." 
 
 "No woman shall kiss her child on Sabbath or 
 fasting days." 
 
 "The Sabbath shall begin at sunset on Saturday." 
 
 " If any man shall kiss his wife, or wife her hus- 
 band, on the Lord's day, the party in fault shall be 
 punished at the discretion of the Court of Magis- 
 trates'.! / 
 
 At this period, in America, and we may hope for 
 the last time, in the history of the world, the Sabba- 
 tarians controlled the government of a State with un- 
 disputed authority. They had learning without intel- 
 ligence, knowledge without wisdom. The supersti- 
 
 *Hatohinsoii's Hist. 
 
 ■J- Blue Laws, pp. 206, 122 and 130. 
 
SABBATH DAT. 115 
 
 tion whicli enacted these laws, acted and re-acted 
 upon itself, and its fruits, and those resulting from a 
 strict observance of the Sabbath, were directly at 
 variance with the promises that are now held forth by 
 the Sabbatarians, and to which we have heretofore re- 
 ferred. The facts are so curious and conclusive, as 
 to be worthy of a calm and attentive consideration. 
 
 These Sabbath laws, interfering as they did with the 
 inherent rights of man, and with that divine harmony 
 which is essential to his well-being on earth, were con- 
 nected with the most bitter and unrelenting persecu- 
 tions. In less than ten years from the settlement of 
 Boston, Roger Williams, one of their own ministers 
 of Salem, was persecuted, and had to flee the colony 
 for his opinions upon baptism ; and Anne Hutchinson, 
 a woman of superior abilities, tinctured with Antino- 
 mian doctrine, was charged with holding meetings in 
 her own house, and was banished among the Indians, 
 where she was murdered with nearly all her family. 
 
 Vane, the fourth Governor, an Independent, Cod- 
 dington, Winthrop, and others. Episcopalians, soon 
 followed. Coddington, in a letter to Ralph Fretful, 
 says, that he with other magistrates resisted the power 
 of the priests for several days, to save Hutchinson and 
 Wheelwright ; at length, he says, the priests got the 
 ascendency, they were condemned ;* many others left 
 the colony. 
 
 Some Baptists who came from Rhode Island to visit 
 * Besse's Sufferings of the Quakers. 
 
116 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 a sick friend, and held a prayer-meeting in the house, 
 were publicly whipped for the ofifence ; and it does not 
 appear that any of the sects that came in contact with 
 the Brownists, of Boston, escaped with impunity. 
 
 Men were fined for not attending their churches, 
 and whipped if unwilling to pay their fines. 
 
 By an act, dated so early as 1647, a person only 
 suspected of Popery was to be banished, and if he 
 returned, was liable to be hung. 
 
 In the year 1600, by another law, the penalty 
 against the Papists was "perpetual imprisonment or 
 death," and it allowed those who were suspected to 
 be appi'ehended "without warrant."* The Catholics 
 kept out of the colony, and escaped the penalty. 
 
 The law against the Quakers was still more severe ; 
 not only were they banished upon pain of death, 
 but the most cruel indignities and sufferings were 
 heaped upon them ; the tools of the mechanic were 
 taken from him ; the plow and the oxen were seized 
 at the moment when the farmer was putting in his 
 seed or taking in his harvest; the cow that gave 
 nourishment to the little children was taken away, 
 and the cattle from the field to pay fines, which they 
 had no right to impose. A law was passed authoriz- 
 ing not only stripping and scourging men and women 
 in the open streets, but cutting off their ears and 
 boring their tongues for no other crime than being 
 Quakers. Hored Gardner, a Friend from Rhode 
 * Blot's Massachusetts Laws, p. 134, quoted by White. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 117 
 
 Island, was publicly whipped, and no protection was 
 given to her poor . innocent infant clinging to her 
 breast but the arms of its agonized mother. 
 
 These were the tender mercies of a Sabbath-day 
 religion. After she had thus suffered, she knelt down 
 and prayed for her persecutors, and this was deemed 
 fanaticism. 
 
 We would willingly give to our forefathers the bene- 
 fit of an apology which they often claim, that these 
 peculiar hardships of the Quakers were the result of 
 their own extravagant behaviour. As they claim it, it 
 is not true. The first Quakers that came to New 
 England, were Mary Fisher and Anne Austin. 
 While yet on ship-board, before they had had the 
 opportunity to commit any overt act whatever, they 
 were arrested, were brought on shore by an officer de- 
 puted for the purpose, taken to prison, their books 
 and papers seized and ordered to be burned by the 
 hangman, and they to be transported out of the 
 colony. This was the first salutation which the 
 Quakers received. The order signed by the Grovernor 
 and Lieutenant-Governor, directed the jailor to open 
 their trimks and chests as often as he thought neces- 
 sary. 
 
 A still greater indignity was offered them ; they 
 were stripped to a state of nudity and examined to 
 discover whether they had teats, tokens by which 
 they could nourish witches. And this, it will be ob- 
 
 11 
 
118 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 served, was before these or any other Quakers had 
 committed any act ■whatever in the colony. 
 
 At this period, the whole moral atmosphere, both 
 of Old England and New England, was tinctured 
 with fanaticism, and the Quakers certainly did not 
 escape the infection. Yet the fanaticism of the 
 Quakers was an infringement of morals, the fanaticism 
 of other Puritans was manifested in the abridgement 
 of the civil and religious rights of man. The fanati- 
 cism of the Quakers of New England never manifested 
 itself till after they had been goaded on almost to 
 madness by intense sufferings ; after these cruelties 
 had been continued for a period of nine years, two, as 
 it was stated, innocent and modest women appeared 
 partially unclothed, one in the congregation of New- 
 bury, the other in the streets of Salem, taking this 
 mode almost in fits of desperation, as they declared, 
 to testify against the cruelty and immodesty of the 
 authorities, in stripping and whipping females in the 
 public streets. One woman appeared with blackened 
 face, clothed in sack-cloth and ashes, to foretell the 
 appearance of the black-pox among them. These 
 were the excesses that were committed. There were 
 other trifling offences with which they were charged. 
 Like the members of the Third Estate in the French 
 National Assembly, they declined pulling off their 
 hats, to make obeisance to men whom they considered 
 
SABBATH DAY. 119 
 
 no better than themselves, and this was deemed a 
 great crime. 
 
 Their only real offence was that they were Quakers, 
 and their sufferings were the result of pure unmixed 
 bigotry, intolerance and superstition. 
 
 The general law of the province says of the Quakers 
 that " they frequented meetings of their own, in op- 
 position to our church order " — that " they held horrid 
 opinions " — ^that " they denied the established forms 
 of worship" — and were "in opposition to the or- 
 thodox opinions of the godly."* This is the sum 
 of all the charges which were made against the 
 Quakers, and for which they were made to suffer so 
 severely. 
 
 As a matter of true history, I subjoin two warrants, 
 which will speak for themselves. 
 
 Boston, September 16th, 1668. 
 " To the Marshal-General, or to his Deputy : You 
 are to take with you the Executioner, and to repair 
 to the House of Correction, and there see him cut off 
 the right ears of John Copeland, Christopher Holder 
 and John Rouse, Quakers, in execution of the sen- 
 tence of the Court of Assistants, for the breach of 
 the law entitled Quakers." 
 
 "Bdwabd Rawson, Secretary." 
 
 " To the Constables of Dover, Hampton, Salisbury, 
 
 * See "An Act made at a General Court, held at Boston, the 
 20th of October, 1658. 
 
120 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 Newbury, Kowley, Ipswich, Wenham, Lynn, Boston, 
 Roxbury, Dedham ; and until these vagabond Quakers 
 are carried out of this jurisdiction, you and every of 
 you are required, in the King's Majesty's name, to 
 take these vagabond Quakers, Anne Coleman, Mary 
 Tomkins and Alice Ambrose, and make them fast to 
 the cart tail, and, driving the cart through your 
 several towns, to whip them upon their naked backs, 
 not exceeding ten stripes apiece on each of them, in 
 each town, and so to convey them, from constable to 
 constable, till they are out of this jurisdiction, as you 
 shall answer it at your peril, and this shall be your 
 warrant. Per me,* 
 
 "RicHAED Warden." 
 
 "■ Dover, Bee. 22nd, 1662." 
 
 Thus through the fiery zeal of these Puritans, 
 these tender women were to be whipped through eleven 
 towns, a distance of 80 miles. The account says, that 
 on a very cold day they were stripped naked, from 
 the middle upwards, and tied to a cart, and whipped, 
 while the priest looked on and laughed. The sentence 
 was executed through several towns, carrying them 
 through dirt and snow half leg deep, till a clerk of 
 one of the courts had the independence to say, " I am 
 here to see your wickedness and cruelty, that, if you 
 kill these women, I may be able to testify against you." 
 The only opposition to their release seems to have 
 been from John Wheelright, the priest, who advised 
 *Sewel's Hist. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 121 
 
 the constable to drive on as his safest way. Soon 
 after which, another priest said to them, " Ye have 
 spoken well, and prayed well — pray what is your 
 rule ?" They replied, " The spirit of God is our rule, 
 and it ought to be thine, and all men's to walk by:" 
 to which he replied, " It is not my rule, and I hope 
 never will be."* 
 
 In England, calling religion to their aid, they held 
 a prayer meeting of five hours' continuance,! to ascer- 
 tain, as they pretended, whether the^ should cut ofi" 
 Eng Charles' head or not. The answer was accord- 
 ing to their own prejudices, and the king was beheaded. 
 They then thought it honorable to resist the arbitrary 
 power of the king; but it was quite another a£fair 
 when the Quakers objected to their own arbitrary 
 proceedings, and asked for liberty of conscience for 
 themselves. 
 
 They executed the king for objecting to liberty of 
 conscience, and the Quakers, for pleading for it. 
 There was no charge of immoral conduct against 
 them ; they were persons estimable in every way, 
 but they had this unpardonable sin to answer for — 
 that their faith differed from that of the Brownists ; 
 and for this alone they were hurried into the prisons, 
 and condemned to death. 
 
 I copy these words from the warrant : " Because 
 it appears by their own confession, words, and actions, 
 * Hutchinson's History. f D'Israeli's History of Chailes I. 
 11* 
 
122 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 that they are Quakers, wherefore a sentence was pro- 
 nounced against them to depart this jurisdiction on 
 pain of death."* One of these was Mary Dyer, a 
 pious and exemplary woman, who came from Rhode 
 Island. On going to the gallows, she used these 
 words : " No eye can see, no ear can hear, no tongue 
 can utter, and no heart can understand the sweet in- 
 comes or influence, and the refreshings of the spirit 
 of the Lord, which now I feel." 
 
 After her two friends had been hung beside her, 
 the halter put about her neck, and her face covered 
 with a handkerchief, she was reprieved at the inter- 
 cession of her son, and the next day wrote the fol- 
 lowing letter : 
 
 28th of the 6th Mo. 1659. 
 " Once more to the General Court, assembled in 
 Boston, speaks Mary Dyer, even as before : My life 
 is not accepted, neither availeth me, in comparison 
 of the lives and liberty of the truth, and servants of 
 the living God, for which, in the bowels of love and 
 meekness, I sought you : yet, nevertheless, with 
 wicked hands have you put two of them to death, 
 which makes me feel, that the mercies of the wicked 
 is cruelty ; I rather choose to die than to live as from 
 you, as guilty of their innocent blood: Therefore, 
 seeing my request is hindered, I leave you to the 
 righteous Judge and Searcher of all hearts, who, with 
 * Sewel's History of the Quakers. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 123 
 
 the pure measure of light he hath given to every man 
 to profit withal, will, in due time, let you see whose 
 servants you are, and of whom you have taken coun- 
 sel, which I desire you to search into." All these 
 appeals were vain — Mary Dyer was himg.* 
 
 Two others, who were first sentenced with her and 
 executed, were Marmaduke Stephenson, a respectable 
 countryman of Yorkshire, and WiUiam Bobinson, a 
 merchant of London. Robinson being a man of learn- 
 ing, the ofience was deemed the greater, and he was 
 first condemned to be severely whipped, the constable 
 being "commanded to procure an able-bodied man 
 for the purpose." 
 
 The fourth victim was William Leddra. He was 
 kept in a cold prison during the winter, chained to a 
 log of wood, and on his trial he was brought into 
 court with his chains and the log at his heels. 
 The charges against him were, " that he owned those 
 Quakers that were put to death, and that they were 
 innocent;" "that he would not put off his hat in 
 court;" "that he said thee and thou." Leddra re- 
 plied: "Will you put me to death for breathing the 
 air of your jurisdiction ? I appeal to the laws of 
 
 * The aon of Mary Dyer came to the State of Delaware, and her 
 descendants are among the most respectable inhabitants of the 
 United States. The children of Louis M'Lane, late Secretary of 
 the Treasury, are her descendants in the seventh descending line. 
 Also Judge Milligan, of Delaware. Some of her personal trinkets 
 still remain in the family. 
 
124 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 England. If by them I am guilty, I refuse not to 
 die." 
 
 They took no notice of his request, but endeavored 
 to persuade him to recant his error, to which, as the 
 account saith, " with grave magnanimity he replied," 
 " What ! to join with such murderers as you are ? 
 Then let every' man that meets me say, Lo, this is 
 the man that hath forsaken the God of his salvation!" 
 
 The day before Leddra's execution, he wrote a let- 
 ter^to his friends, beginning with these beautiful words : 
 
 Most dear and inwardly beloved : — The sweet in- 
 fluences of the morning star, like a flood, distilling 
 into my innocent habitation, hath so filled me with 
 the joy of the Lord, in the beauty of holiness, that 
 my spirit is as if it did not inhabit a tabernacle of 
 clay, but is wholly swallowed up in the bosom of eter- 
 nity, from whence it had its being."* 
 
 The innocent character of these victims is material, 
 to show the unmixed nature of that bigotry which was 
 the result of principles of intolerance, called religion, 
 one of the prominent traits of which was a strict ob- 
 servance of the Sabbath day. 
 
 The fifth Quaker who was condemned to death in 
 Boston, was Wenlock Christison. His execution was 
 prevented by a mandamus from the king, forbidding 
 them to proceed. It was brought to Boston by a 
 ship-load of Quakers, and came from a quarter alto- 
 
 * Sewel's History, p. 266, 267. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 125 
 
 gether unexpected ; the colonists sent a deputation to 
 the king to avert his anger, but wisely concluded to obey 
 his authority, and Christison, and twenty-seven of his 
 friends who were imprisoned, were immediately^r eleased. 
 
 Bancroft, alluding to this transaction, has the ten- 
 derness to ascribe it to a conviction of the magistrates 
 of their error. (See 1st vol. p. 458.) It was the man- 
 damus that convinced them, and it led to a curious 
 piece of etiquette. The King's messenger was a 
 Quaker. Endicott, the governor, not knowing his 
 business, directed that his hat should be taken off. 
 On learning that he was a King's messenger, he or- 
 dered his hat to be given to him, and immediately pulled 
 off his ovm, in deference to royal authority. These were 
 the first and last capital convictions in the English 
 Colonies of America, for opinions respecting religion. 
 
 It will be naturally asked, what right these persons 
 had to impose themselves upon the government, and 
 subject themselves to such cruel laws. To this it may 
 be replied, — precisely the same right as their perse- 
 cutors. In some parts of the colony there were a 
 large number of Quaker settlers. In the town of 
 Sandwich, nigh unto Plymouth, nearly the whole 
 population were Quakers ; they had a perfect right to 
 be there ; the charter gave to the Brownists no pecu- 
 liar privileges ; they were not an independent body, 
 had no authority to exclude the Quakers, or to subject 
 them to indignities of any kind, yet the latter could 
 
126 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 not hold a religious meeting after their own manner, 
 without being subjected to excessive fines ; and these 
 Quakers who forfeited their lives, asked from their 
 persecutors a repeal of these unrighteous laws. They 
 were the champions of civil and religious liberty. 
 They were buried in Boston common, where it is pre- 
 sumed their remains now repose, and the friends of 
 civil and religious liberty might here erect a monu- 
 ment to their memory. Edward Shippen, at the time 
 Mayor of Philadelphia, a highly respectable man, and 
 from whom many estimable families are descended, 
 and who was twice publicly whipped in Boston for 
 being a Quaker, applied to the authorities for liberty 
 to erect some token to their memory ; he found the 
 spot, but his request was refused, and he was only 
 permitted to place in the ground two posts. Tradition 
 may still point out where their remains rest. 
 
 These executions were believed to be clear cases 
 of murder, being contrary to the laws of England ; 
 two of the actors in the tragedy, on going to England, 
 found it necessary to secrete themselves from the 
 father of Robinson, who was not a Quaker, in order 
 to save themselves from a public indictment. 
 
 The execution of the Quakers was a crisis in New 
 England affairs ; the English mind was shocked at 
 the barbarity, and the Greneral Court of Massachusetts, 
 calling themselves "your poor Mephibosheths," came 
 " kneeling" before the king, whom they called "most 
 
SABBATH DAY. 127 
 
 gracious and dread sovereign," supplicating him that 
 their civil privileges and patent might not be taken 
 from them. Their dread sovereign granted them a 
 charter, but it was altogether a different affair from 
 what they had heretofore had; it secured liberty of 
 conscience to all except Papists ; and as the mandamus 
 in favor of the Quakers was brought to the colony by 
 a Quaker messenger, this charter was brought by a 
 reverend gentleman of the Church of England, with 
 his surplice and common prayer-book, which had here- 
 tofore given such horror to the Puritans. 
 
 Thus through the power of the king and the sacri- 
 fice of her life, Mary Dyer's prayer was answered, — 
 " I will not accept my life at your hands until you 
 repeal your unrighteous laws." The laws were re- 
 pealed, and the Episcopalians, after being banished from 
 the colony, were enabled to establish their regular 
 service in Boston ; the Baptists were no longer in 
 dread of the whipping post, in coming to visit their 
 sick friends; ears were no longer cut off, nor 
 tongues bored ; innocent women were in no fear of 
 being stripped and whipped through the streets of 
 Boston, tied to carts' tails, and the Quakers were per- 
 mitted, fromThat time forward, to hold their meetings 
 in peace ; thus was the triumph of the constancy of 
 the Quakers accomplished ; and it may be added, that 
 the fanaticism of the Quakers themselves ended with 
 the occasion which had called it forth. 
 
 These are believed to be the truths of history, and it 
 
128 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 is apparent that the people of Massachusetts, at the 
 present day, are still feeling the benefits of the con- 
 stancy and heroic martyrdom of the despised anti-Sab- 
 bath Quakers ; they gained a freedom which they had 
 never before enjoyed, with that expansion of mind which 
 was its necessary consequence. Though superstition 
 was too deeply ingrafted in thtir system to be at once 
 done away, yet a higher degree of civil and religious 
 liberty than they had heretofore known, was at once 
 bestowed upon the colony. 
 
 It is not my purpose to enter into the subject of 
 the right of the Quakers to settle in the colony, fur- 
 ther than may be gathered from the following facts. 
 The Great Charter of England contains these wprds : 
 First. " Every Englishman is born free." 
 Fourth. " No freeman shall be outlawed." 
 Fifth. "No freeman shall be exiled." 
 Seventh. " No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, 
 dissiesed, outlawed, exiled, or be destroyed of his 
 liberties, freeholds, and free customs, but by the law- 
 ful judgment of his peers." 
 
 These are the words of the great charter of English 
 liberty ; and to give solemnity to the act, the arch- 
 bishops and bishops of England, apparelled in high 
 pontificals, with tapers burning, in the name of 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and of the 
 blessed apostles, and all martyrs, accursed in advance 
 all those who should break this charter of English 
 liberties. 
 
SABBATH DAT. 129 
 
 We turn next to the royal charter, as granted to 
 the Massachusetts colony. We give nearly its own 
 words, as taken from Story's Commentaries, page 21. 
 "All subjects of the Crown, who shall become in- 
 habitants of the colony, shall enjoy all the liberties 
 and immunities ot the natural subjects of England." 
 Again ; they were permitted to enact laws and ordi- 
 nances: "So as such laws and ordinances be not con- 
 trary or repugnant to the laws and statutes of this 
 our realm of England." 
 
 If these enactments are true, then it must be evident 
 that these Quakers had the same rights in the colony 
 as their persecutors. If the Puritans of Great 
 Britain are to be honored for successfully resisting 
 the power of the Crown, and for their contests mth 
 bigoted and [ignorant church hierarchies, still more 
 the anti-Sabbath Quakers of New England should be 
 honored, for resisting a church hierarchy as appalling 
 and cruel as any that was met with in the old country. 
 It was not alone against the schismatics in religion 
 that the zeal of the puritans was directed. Children 
 of tender age were believed to be possessed with 
 devils, and nineteen persons were publicly executed 
 in Massachusetts for witchcraft, protesting their in- 
 nocence. 
 
 Herein, too, they neglected common sense, to be 
 guided by authority. Moses had said, " Thou shalt 
 not suffer a witch to live;" and they had no diffi- 
 culty in finding subjects. Little children from nine 
 
 II 
 
130 INSTITUTION or THE 
 
 to ten years of age were suffered to give evidence 
 against their parents, and women testified before the 
 Court, that they had gone to witch meetings on broom- 
 sticks, riding through the air. It is well said by 
 Chief Justice Marshall, in his Life of Washington, — 
 " Never was there given a more melancholy proof of 
 the degree of depravity always to be counted upon 
 when the public passions countenance crime."* Were 
 these people enlightened by their rigid Sabbaths, their 
 abundant fasts, and ostentatious religious displays? 
 The conduct of the Brownists to the poor unhappy 
 Indians was marked by a cruelty which was unknown 
 in any other of the colonies. By forced treaties and 
 treachery, they separated the Pequods from the Nar- 
 ragansetts, and then destroyed both in detail. Men, 
 women, and children, were butchered or burned in 
 their wigwams, in the most revolting manner. In 
 Philip, the Sachem of the Wampanoags, they found a 
 man of renown and high spirit, worthy of their con- 
 fidence. He was hunted like a wild beast, shot 
 down, his body quartered and hung upon poles, while 
 his head was carried to Plymouth as a trophy, and 
 there exhibited as a curiosity for twenty years ; and 
 his son, a child only nine years of age, was doomed 
 to death in cold blood, and received banishment and 
 slavery as a boon. Canonicus was the Grand Sachem 
 of the Narragansetts, when the English landed at 
 
 * Note 5 to first rol. Life of Washington. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 131 
 
 Plymouth. Roger Williams calls him a wise and 
 peaceable prince. He told Williams, " I have never 
 suffered any wrong to be offered to the English. If 
 Englishman speak true, if he mean truly, then shall I 
 go to my grave in peace." The Englishman did not 
 speak true ; Miantinomi, his nephew, who succeeded 
 him, was captured and executed, and Canonchet, the 
 son of the brave but unfortunate Miantinomi, was the 
 last Sachem of his race. He was offered his life by 
 the English, upon the condition that he would treat 
 for the submission of his subjects; this he indignantly 
 rejected, and he was condemned to death for the 
 crime of defending his country. When this sentence 
 was announced to him, he replied in these heroic 
 words : "I like it well that I shall die before my 
 heart grows soft, or that I have said any thing un- 
 worthy of myself." These were the men who had the 
 unhappiness to fall a prey to the New England Puri- 
 tans. 
 
 One hundred and fifty friendly Indians, who had 
 claimed and received the promise of protection, were 
 marched from old Dartmouth, now in part New Bed- 
 ford, to Plymouth, where they were embarked and 
 sold as slaves. Thirty were carried out into Boston 
 Bay, and thrown into the sea ; two were pursued and 
 murdered by the women of Marblehead, who dis- 
 covered them as they came from church.* 
 
 * See Hutchinson's History ; Drake's Book of the Indians, book 
 2, 106 ; Felt's Salem ; Quite's Puritanism, page 420, 421. 
 
132 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 Two innocent children of Lawrence Southwick, de- 
 clining to attend meeting on account of some severi- 
 ties to their parents, were, for that offence alone, fined 
 ten pounds, and having no visible estates, being minors, 
 the G-eneral Court, under an order signed by Edward 
 Rawson, Secretary, directed that they should be sold 
 as slaves " to any of the English nations, as Virginia 
 or Barbadoes, to answer the said fines." The exe- 
 cution of this sentence was only prevented by the 
 greater humanity of a shipmaster, who refused to 
 carry away such innocent children. 
 
 The account of these atrocities, so needful to a 
 proper understanding of the spirit of Sabbath-day 
 religion, and to which only a slight allusion is made 
 here, may well cause the feeling heart to bleed. 
 
 Before the passengers in the Mayflower had made 
 their formal landing at Plymouth, some of them 
 "being on shore, discovered some sepulchres of the 
 dead, and a granary of corn ; these they rifled, and 
 gave God thanks that he had delivered this corn into 
 their hands.* These acts were returned by a shower 
 of arrows from the poor Indians. Yet, ridiculous as 
 it may appear, the first day of the week occurring, 
 they deemed it their duty to observe it as a Sabbath, 
 with great strictness : thus obeying the written 
 precepts of Moses, while they violated moral integrity. 
 
 * Journal of the proceedings of the Plantation settled at Ply- 
 mouth. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 133 
 
 Those who have read the pathetic account of their 
 embarkation, in Holland, only a few weeks before, 
 where it is presumed these mdividual men were pre- 
 sent, and when the Dutch spectators themselves, 
 standing on the shore, were drowned in tears, and 
 even the shore itself seemed to respond to their 
 vows, will hardly accuse them of any intentional 
 wrong. Bending into each other's arms, they joined 
 in solemn prayer, that God would have pity on his 
 poor children, and go with them into that waste wil- 
 derness. 
 
 These events, seemingly so different, proceeded not 
 from moral turpitude, but were the necessary conse- 
 quence of those principles which had guided their 
 life in other similar circumstances. 
 
 Another very curious illustration of their character 
 was manifested in their attempt to bribe the king. 
 Apprehending that their chartered rights were en- 
 dangered, agents were appointed, and according to 
 their never-failing practice, they held a day of fast- 
 ing and prayer for the preservation of their patent, 
 and the success of the agency. Thus fortified, they 
 took another precaution ; with prayers almost in their 
 mouths, they tendered to the Lord Chancellor two 
 thousand guineas, or ten thousand dollars, as a bribe, 
 for his majesty's private use. This is related on the 
 unquestionable authority of Chalmers, page 461, 462. 
 And he adds, in justice to the other colonies, that 
 
 11* 
 
134 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 there is no evidence to show that they ever employed 
 similar means. According to Hutchinson, the bait 
 toot, and was approved by the General Court.* 
 
 They justified this act, also, by Scripture. A let- 
 ter of Shirley, a Plymouth agent, to Gov. Bradford, 
 says, in justification of bribes, "But as Festus said to 
 Paul, with no small sum obtained I this freedom."* 
 
 Even the civil laws, instead of being ameliorated, 
 as might have been expected from persons professing 
 so much, were made, in many cases, more sanguinary 
 than those of England, having incorporated into them 
 offences which were made capital by the Mosaic code. 
 " To blaspheme the name of God :" " wilful perjury ;" 
 "to 'ponword,or to perform outward worship to false 
 gods;" "burglary and theft on the Lord's day;" "de- 
 nial of the books of the Old or New Testament," and 
 a variety of other ofi'ences, were made capital. A 
 child over sixteen years of age, " who smote or cursed 
 father or mother, was to suffer death," according to 
 the Mosaic code. For the ofi'ence of keeping Christ- 
 mas day, there was a fine of five pounds. See Mas- 
 sachusetts State Papers, page 419. Also Hutch- 
 inson's History, Article Laws. And withal there 
 was that absolute decline in the public morals which 
 we have heretofore noticed as connected with the 
 Sabbath excitemeut in England and Scotland. 
 
 * Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 303. 
 
 f Mass. Hist. Coll., 1st series, vol. iii. Id, 
 
SABBATH DAY. 135 
 
 Mather's Magnalla, a book of unquestionable au- 
 thority, thus describes this period : — 
 
 " There is a great and visible decay of the power 
 of godliness amongst many professors in these 
 churches. It may be feared that there is in too 
 many, spiritual and heart apostasy from God." 
 " Litigious lawsuits have scandalously multiplied 
 among us;" "many people have sinned horribly, 
 upon the presumption that theyjhave sinned secretly ;" 
 " secret murders have shamefully been discovered 
 among us, and I believe that there are yet more to 
 be discovered." "There has been devilish filthiness 
 committed among us." " There have been church 
 members among us, who have made no mean pro- 
 fession of religion ; these have gone on from year to 
 year, in a trade of secret filthiness." " I have 
 known some wretched young men in several societies, 
 who have been the chief debauchers of the society 
 they belonged unto." Many other particulars are 
 recorded by Mather, second volume, page 342, etc., 
 such as we think never existed in any other of the 
 early colonies. 
 
 It will be recollected that this was a young country, 
 far removed from the tumults and vices of Europe, 
 where, if anywhere, purity of manners might be ex- 
 pected ; yet, so different are the facts, that it may be 
 doubted whether, during all that part of the seven- 
 teenth century, comprising a period of eighty years, 
 
136 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 in which these severe laws were enforced, there was a 
 single day of repose to the new colonies ; and let it 
 be observed, during all this period, the strictest ob- 
 servance of the Sabbath was required and enforced. 
 
 The commonwealth of England was a failure ; so 
 also was the early government of Massachusetts ; 
 many of their irrational laws have been repealed, 
 others have become obsolete by the lapse of time ; the 
 connection between church and state has been dis- 
 solved: and as these have successively given way, the 
 State has been able to hold a position in the country 
 which it never could have obtained under the old sys- 
 tem of government. This contained in itself the seeds 
 of revolution ; had it not been subverted, its effect 
 would have been to destroy the charter, and to de- 
 liver the colony to the Crown, to be governed by its 
 arbitrary will. Yet, it is evident, to use the language 
 of D'Israeli, that the errors of the Puritans still breed 
 in monstrous shapes around us. The country has 
 received from them the poison of an abuse of the first 
 day of the week. And all the thanksgivings and 
 fasts by law, which are spreading through the country, 
 so childish to intelligent minds, may be traced to them. 
 
 The laws still in force in New England contain 
 the principle that " a religious establishment of the 
 Christian Protestant religion and public worship, . 
 ought to be maintained by legal coercion."* And 
 
 * Dakes vorsus Hill, 10 Pick. Rep. 333. See Kent's Commen- 
 taries, page 6 IS. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 137 
 
 Justice Story, with his New England predilections, 
 has in the case of Smith and Sparrow, 4 Bingham, 
 84, 88, by following the fraud of the English judges 
 introduced the Christian rehgion into the American 
 Constitution, with which it has no connection, and cut 
 off the Chinese, who are now settling in such numbers 
 in California, the Jew, the Turk, etc., from those bene- 
 fits which that instrument was apparently designed to 
 confer upon all.* 
 
 The poor Chinese are at this moment suffering 
 under great disabilities in California ; their oaths are 
 refused in a court of justice ; they cannot sue or be 
 sued ; they are thus placed out of the protection of 
 the law, and at the mercy of every unprincipled ad- 
 venturer who finds it his interest to rob them ; and 
 yet, as a whole, they are known to be industrious, 
 and are believed to be a worthy and good people. 
 
 These things arise from the sectarian bias of judges, 
 and for which their learning, great soever as it may 
 be, is no compensation. The spirit of the Christian 
 religion enters into the human mind, and thus per- 
 vades all our institutions. It is not subject to the 
 control of men. It is beneficent and elevating in its 
 nature. Sectarian Christianity is Sabbath Chris- 
 tianity, — persecuting, intolerant, and narrow-minded, 
 and never was designed to make any part of our laws. 
 To make religion dependent upon law, would be to 
 
 * See Jefferson's letter to Cartwright. 
 
138 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 impair it, if that were possible. It is only -within 
 the present century that intolerant religious distinc- 
 tions have been removed from the Constitutions of 
 Massachusetts and Connecticut, and that not with- 
 out severe and long continued struggles. 
 
 In whatever country the religious element shall be 
 most exalted, free from dogmas, and sects, and Sab- 
 baths, that country will be most elevated in science, 
 in the arts, in whatever is noble or good in the char- 
 acter of man. Schools and colleges cannot furnish 
 this ; on the contrary, as at present established, they 
 retard it ; all the good that they do is in the primary 
 instruction of youth, and we are not disposed to un- 
 dervalue this, yet it is not a compenssttion for the de- 
 rangement of society, resulting from the inculcation 
 of those principles which were so injurious to the 
 Brownists, in the early history of the colony. They 
 have, indeed, abandoned the Mosaic code ; the Jewish 
 laws are not held to be binding upon them, but their 
 divinity schools send forth yearly hundreds of what 
 they call pious young men, as we may believe, with 
 every good intention, but deeply imbued with that 
 idolatry, which, though different in character from 
 that of their forefathers, is in spirit "essentially the 
 same. Though these things fail, yet there is no 
 cause of despair ; but there is cause for earnest in- 
 quiry by intelligent minds, whether more correct 
 elementary principles will not slowly but surely, in 
 
SABBATH DAY. 139 
 
 despite of all influences that may be brought against 
 them, produce, as their inevitable result, a higher civi- 
 lization, and an amelioration of the condition of so- 
 ciety. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE QUAKERS. 
 
 The foregoing chapter furnishes some imperfect 
 sketches of the most remarkable events in the colo- 
 nial history of this country. Many of them bear the 
 character of religious movements. How far they 
 may have been the effect of a genuine, but mistaken 
 endeavor to do right, no man can determine. Religion 
 is alluded to in these pages, in its popular sense. 
 Though superstition may always be considered a bur- 
 den upon society, a source of unhappiness to indi- 
 viduals, and often productive of the most dreadful 
 evils, yet it would be presumptuous to deny, on this 
 ground, genuine piety to the Brownists, or to claim 
 it for others who adhere to a more philosophical and 
 simple profession of faith. The cause of superstition 
 in individual minds is not easily traced ; the facts be- 
 fore us demonstrate, and it is sufficient for our argu- 
 ment, that the enactment of severe Sabbath laws, and 
 
140 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 a strict observance of the Sabbath, are not calculated 
 to refine society. They also prove that the morals of 
 society have not been degraded, where the day has 
 not been considered more holy than other days, but 
 the reverse ; for this obvious reason, that every su- 
 perstition is injurious to the morals and well-being 
 of man. On the one hand, there is a religion of 
 ceremonies, deriving its authority from the Jewish 
 code, of which the Brownists were the type ; on the 
 other, a professedly spiritual religion, founded on man's 
 own convictions, the type of which is the Quakers. 
 
 No one has yet penetrated the power of the 
 spiritual element in man. We witness the influence 
 of the same Divine power in things around us. The 
 trees bud and bring forth their fruit ; they toil not, 
 neither do they spin, yet they are arrayed in a glory 
 greater than that of Solomon. Inasmuch as man, 
 according to his capacity, is penetrated with the same 
 influence, he also may be supposed to attain perfec- 
 tion according to his nature. 
 
 Of the innumerable organizations which bear the 
 name of Christ, we know of but one, that rejecting 
 all Sabbaths and festal days, all forms and ceremo- 
 nies, except such as may be needful to accomplish 
 the ends of existence, maintains the sufficiency of the 
 power of God in the soul, to make men wise in this 
 life, and to prepare them for a union and communion 
 with the spirits of the just in the world to come. 
 
SABBATH DAT. 141 
 
 Bancroft, in his History of the United States, says : 
 
 " The rise of the people called Quakers, is one of 
 the memorable events in the history of man. It 
 marks the moment when intellectual freedom was 
 claimed by the people as an inalienable birthright. 
 The principles of the Quakers contained amoral revolu- 
 tion. If it flattered self-love, and fed enthusiasm, it 
 also established absolute freedom of mind, trod every 
 idolatry nnder foot, and entered the strongest protest 
 against the forms of a hierarchy." 
 
 Words can hardly be more true than those of Ban- 
 croft. George Fox says, " Our religion stands wholly 
 out of that, which all their religion stands in." Ad- 
 dress to the Royal Society. And Penington, — " Our 
 religion stands in a principle that changes the mind." 
 
 The religion of the Quakers, in their palmy days, 
 stood in its own power, and had in it a strength 
 which no other doctrine could impart ; it was a doc- 
 trine of individualism, the first principle of which 
 was obedience to God — that man should first know 
 himself, his wants and capacities, that he might thence 
 be qualified to understand the wants and capacities of 
 others. It was in itself, a charter of human rights, 
 superior to all written precepts, and embraced the 
 very spirit of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 It seems, even at this late day, when the subject 
 of organization has been deeply studied, not to be 
 sufficiently understood, that the successful develop- 
 
 12 
 
142 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 ment of every organization depends upon the har- 
 mony of its parts. The governments of Europe rely 
 upon the sword, to reconcile their contradictions ; a 
 free government, with a reasonably virtuous people, 
 needs no sword, provided each part dove-tail and fit 
 to its fellow ; without this, there is conflict and con- 
 fusion. The beautiful, simple principles of the So- 
 ciety of Friends never were fully carried out ; they 
 were too ultra for the day, hence the Quaker diffi- 
 culty in conducting the politics of Pennsylvania. A 
 democratic government, with a hereditary Governor 
 at its head, was a contradiction, and to this cause 
 may be ascribed nearly all the difficulty that occui-red 
 in the government of the colony of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Other contradictions have been the fruitful som-ce 
 of schisms and revolutions in the Quaker society ; 
 departing from their original foundation, they have 
 to some degree, like the Brownists, become men of 
 authority, and have overlaid a beautiful elementary 
 principle with dogmas, which, so far from having any 
 connection with it, are absolutely in contradiction to 
 it. From having the control of five of the early 
 colonies of this country, they have ceased to influence 
 the government of either. Acting faithfully upon con- 
 tradictory principles, with the utmost individual in- 
 tegrity, they cannot maintain peace even in their 
 own Society. A remarkable case in point, is the 
 government of the United States ; a more perfect 
 
SABBATH DAY. 143 
 
 system can hardly be found, each part corresponding 
 with the rest, requiring only a virtuous people to 
 carry it into effect, with the exception of one fearful 
 contradiction. The South may argue as they think 
 proper, on the subject of negro slavery, but it never 
 can be made to harmonize with the general princi- 
 ples of a free government ; it is only suited to a despot- 
 ism, to be ruled by the power of the sword. Those 
 who framed the Constitution seemed perfectly to un- 
 derstand this, — none more decidedly than Mason and 
 Washington, and other Southern members, yet in- 
 stead of being abated, its evils are increasing. Every 
 thing of a contradictory character, even down to Sab- 
 bath laws, whether in religious or civil society, is 
 productive of evil. 
 
 In considering the doctrine of the Quakers, it is 
 apart from their imperfections, discipline, and pecu- 
 liarities, be they what they may. Falling fars hort of 
 what might have been expected, yet so far as they 
 have acted under the spiritual element, or under the 
 influence of the divine light in their own souls, they 
 have been the means of unfolding great principles of 
 human nature, the inevitable effect of which has been 
 the refinement and civilization of man. In every 
 stage of their being, they have been anti-Sabbata- 
 rians, and their history will demonstrate that they 
 have not been injured thereby. 
 
 New England furnishes one beautiful illustration 
 
144 • INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 of correct principles without the aid of Sabbath laws, 
 which cannot be too much admired. It is never al- 
 luded to, in their many celebrations, orations, and 
 toast-drinkings. To allude to it might be a reproach 
 and condemnation of the Brownists of Plymouth and 
 Boston. 
 
 It was in the little colony of Rhode Island proper, 
 distinct alike from the Narragansett country, which 
 was called the King's Province, and from the Provi- 
 dence Plantations, which were under the government of 
 Roger Williams, that the true principles of civil and 
 religious liberty were first promulgated in British 
 America. It will be recollected, that for a long 
 period, Rhode Island, small as the State now is, was 
 divided into three provinces.* 
 
 William Ooddington, who has been referred to be- 
 fore, a magistrate, and treasurer of Suffolk county; 
 an Episcopalian, and who built the first house in Bos- 
 ton, after being banished from Massachusetts, found 
 his way to the island of Rhode Island, where, in the 
 year 1652, he was appointed by the Crown governor 
 for life, though afterwards superseded. He embraced 
 the great idea that there was an inward' principle in 
 man, which qualified him for self-government, and it 
 was here that that "holy experiment," afterwards 
 
 * The name of Rhode Island being applied as well to the general 
 colony as to the particular island, in each of which there were at 
 one time separate governments, has led to ambiguity in their early 
 history. I give what I believe to be correct. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 145 
 
 spoken of by William Penn, of man's ability to take 
 care of himself, without Sunday laws, or coercive 
 laws of any kind, was first tried. The result was one of 
 the most curious which history can furnish. Different 
 from all others of the New England colonies, there 
 was no law to oblige people to go to what they called 
 a place of worship, on Sunday, and liberty of con- 
 science was said to be carried to an irreligious ex- 
 treme. Their conduct to the unhappy natives was 
 equally remarkable; they who were called Tawny 
 Devils in Massachusetts, and believed to be unworthy 
 of confidence, were found in Rhode Island to be wise 
 and peaceful men. Canonicus, Miantinomi, and Ca- 
 nonchet, grand sachems, were heroes in their way, 
 and are said to have exhibited a fortitude and heroism 
 equal to any in ancient or modern times.* These 
 Indians and their tribe were treated like men ; their 
 evidence was taken in the Courts, they were allowed 
 to sit on juries, in all cases afi'ecting themselves, and 
 great efibrts were mado to ameliorate their condition. 
 This kindness was met by a corresponding feeling on 
 the part of the Narragansetts, and when war and 
 Hoodshed reigned around, Rhode Island remained 
 safe. 
 
 When the Massachusetts and other colonies entered 
 into a league against the Indians, and it was esti- 
 mated that one-twentieth of the inhabitants were de- 
 
 * History of the Narragansett Church. 
 12* 
 
146 INSTITUTION- OF THE 
 
 stroyed, and one-twentieth of tlie houses burned, the 
 little colony of Rhode Island remained undisturbed; 
 not a house was burned, nor an inhabitant injured ; 
 nay, further, the colony was made an asylum for the 
 oppressed. Those that were uninjured, found there 
 repose ; those that were injured, came there to die. 
 This is one of the most beautiful pictures which the 
 early colonial history presents, and is that of a non- 
 Sabbath keeping people. 
 
 The Quaker views respecting government were 
 these : that there was a divine spirit or principle in the 
 mind of man, given to him by the Author of all good, 
 the centre of all truth, of all spiritual intelligence, 
 of all harmony, of all virtue, which, as it was the 
 true governing principle of the individual man, might 
 also be relied on as the governing principle of na- 
 tions. All men, as with one accord, seemed to unite 
 in condemning these views. The philosopher in his 
 closet, and the priest at his desk, joined with the 
 learned man and the ignorant man, in their attempt 
 to bring them into ridicule. Priest Wilson, in Bos- 
 ton, when the poor Quaker women were being 
 whipped through the streets, said to them, as we have 
 related, that this spirit was not his rule, and he 
 trusted it never would be ; and the politicians in Eng-. 
 land told the king that such persons were entitled to 
 no favor. Yet in Pennsylvania was quietly laid on 
 an extended scale, without parade or ostentation, the 
 
SABBATH DAT. 147 
 
 true democratic principle of government, which was 
 to spread from colony to colony, to be adopted by the 
 government of the United States, and finally, to 
 threaten the strongest despotisms of Europe. 
 
 The unfaltering confidence of Wm. Penn in this 
 Divine Spirit, his living experience of it in his own 
 soul, gave him strength to proclaim it as the ele- 
 mentary principle of his government. He wrote va- 
 rious treatises to prove its universality, and being so, 
 it was necessarily as true in politics as it was in morals. 
 To borrow a figure from Scripture, it might seem 
 that when Wm. Penn proclaimed his exalted views 
 respecting government, his lips might have been 
 " touched by a seraphim, with a live coal from off the 
 altar." 
 
 His frame of government was not an affair of ex- 
 pediency, of patriotism, or of policy ; none of these 
 things moved him. In his confidential letters to his 
 secretary, Logan, which embrace every subject of an 
 unreserved character, and which are yet in existence, 
 in his own hand writing, extending over a series of 
 years, to the last letter he ever wrote, when the pen 
 dropped from his hand, not a word escapes him which 
 indicates a dishonorable mind. 
 
 No monument has been erected, no pseans have 
 been sung, no orations have been made, no dinners 
 eaten or toasts drunk, yet the early laws of the great 
 colony of Pennsylvania are a permanent monument. 
 
148 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 that there, civil and religious liberty, and the rights of 
 man, were placed upon a safe and enduring basis. 
 
 It was, as Penn calls it, a " holy experiment " of 
 the power of man for self-government ; not a theory, 
 but founded upon the elementary principles of hu- 
 manity, in which those coercive laws which had grown 
 holy from antiquity were at once removed, and man 
 was left to think and to act as he might deem proper, 
 with this only restriction, — that he should do no in- 
 jury to his fellow man. In the midst of nations 
 called savage and relentless, there was no sword or 
 gun, or military establishment — there was not even 
 protection against the pirates of the ocean. It was 
 a bold experiment, and none could have made it but 
 men of superior minds. 
 
 No one can rob Penn of his honor but by a viola- 
 tion of truth. His government resulted from no un- 
 worthy appliances — not from things around him, but 
 from his knowledge of the nature of man, his wants 
 and capacities ; from 'the knowledge of himself, 
 the only true source of human intelligence. Thus 
 he at once cut loose from the popular idea of imputed 
 sin, and elevated man to a dignity which under no 
 other circumstances he could enjoy. 
 
 This was a moral revolution, the foundation of which 
 was individual virtue, for which mankind are proba- 
 bly more indebted to Penn than to any one that 
 
SABBATH DAY. 149 
 
 ever lived, and the extent of which no man can fore- 
 see ; and yet, as we shall show, Penn was a decided 
 anti-Sabbatarian. 
 
 It is a noble, but a costly victim, involving often 
 our dearest prejudices, to offer on the altar of truth 
 our own self-love. But until men do this, they might 
 as well expect to sow their grain in the desert and 
 reap a harvest, as to be able clearly to distinguish 
 right from wrong. This was the victim that was of- 
 fered by Penn and the early Quakers — their own 
 self-love — their dearest prejudices — as a means of at- 
 taining truth. 
 
 It has been said in a former chapter, that the peo- 
 ple of Massachusetts are now reaping the benefit of 
 the constancy of the Quaker martyrs ; it may also be 
 said, that it is to the anti-Sabbath Quakers mainly, 
 that the United States are indebted for those princi- 
 ples of civil and religious liberty, which are so much 
 the pride and boast of our country. Let us calmly 
 consider the facts before us; it is not by crying 
 peace, that peace is obtained ; but by establishing 
 those principles from which peace flows as a neces- 
 sary consequence. So, also, of civil and religious 
 liberty; they come not at our bidding, but are the 
 natural effect of causes already existing in the human 
 mind. It was the Quakers alone who proclaimed and 
 established that great truth, that there is a living 
 principle imparted to man by the Divine Spirit, which 
 
150 INSTITUTION • OF THB 
 
 is the source of all true civil and religious liberty ; " it 
 is the truth alone that makes man free." They de- 
 monstrated this great idea in the government of Penn- 
 sylvania, not perfectly, indeed, but in a way in which 
 it had^never been demonstrated before. The early 
 government of Pennsylvania was the admiration of 
 the world ; the wise man and the weak man, the be- 
 liever and the sceptic, those who had condemned 
 Penn and Fox as visionary enthusiasts, united in be- 
 stowing on it unqualified praise. The King of Prus- 
 sia, Frederick the Great, and Voltaire, expressed 
 their astonishment at its success ; Peter the Great 
 went to the Quaker meetings, where, understanding 
 the language, which his officers did not, he inter- 
 preted to them what had been said, and commended 
 it, adding, that if they attended to it, it would lead 
 them to happiness.* 
 
 Both Charles the Second, and James the Second, 
 in their extremity, placed themselves under the care 
 of Quakers, not because they were their friends, 
 but because they were believed to be governed by 
 true principles. In this critical moment, their faith 
 did not forsake them ; they uncocked their pistols 
 to prevent bloodshed : though large rewards were at 
 their service, yet following virtue for virtue's sake, 
 they refused all compensation. 
 
 Jeiferson alludes to the success of Pennsylvania, as 
 
 Store's Journal, p. 494. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 151 
 
 a reason why Virginia should abolish her church 
 hierarchy. Lawrence Washington, as recorded m 
 Irving' s Life of Washington, p. 50, says, that the prin- 
 ciples of Pennsylvania are the admiration of the world. 
 
 Five of the early colonies were under the con- 
 trol of the Quakers ; excepting these, all the 
 colonies of this country were persecuting colonies. 
 Our last chapter refers to New England ; in New 
 York, though more limited, there were severe whip- 
 ping and imprisonments ; entertaining of a Quaker 
 was subjected to a fine of fifty pounds ; and a vessel 
 that brought one to the province was forfeited. 
 
 In Episcopal Virginia there were several acts 
 making it penal for parents to refuse to have their 
 children baptized; it was also made penal for a master 
 of a vessel to bring a Quaker into the colony ; those 
 already there were to be imprisoned, and the punish- 
 ment of death was awarded if they returned the third 
 time. Jefferson says, in his Notes on Virginia, " if no 
 execution took place here, as did in New England, it 
 was not owing to the moderation of the Church, or 
 spirit of the Legislature." Page 233. 
 
 The two most liberal colonies were the Catholic 
 colony of Maryland, and the Baptist colony of the 
 Providence Plantations. Yet the Hberty of conscience 
 claimed to have been estabhshed by Lord Baltimore, 
 and by Roger Williams, was but a feeble and par- 
 tial toleration, existing to-day, but to be changed to- 
 morrow, by the caprices of successive Legislatures. 
 
152 INSTITUTION or THE 
 
 Thus, in Maryland, there was a law which enacted 
 that those who should reproach the Holy Trinity 
 or any of the three persons thereof, should suffer 
 death ; and in the Providence Plantations, the Roman 
 Catholics were excluded from the colony, by a law 
 which existed more than a hundred years ; besides 
 these, in each colony there were many minor acts 
 which violated liberty of conscience. Wm. Penn had 
 several interviews with Lord Baltimore,pleading for the 
 repeal of these laws ; and George Fox appeared at a 
 public meeting at Providence, saying, "You are the 
 unworthiest men upon earth, if you do lose the liberty 
 wherewith Christ has made you free in life and glory." 
 See Bancroft's History. 
 
 It will be recollected that at the early period of which 
 we speak, these were all the colonies, New Hampshire 
 being absorbed into Massachusetts. That the anti- 
 Sabbath Quakers were first in establishing those 
 principles from which civil and religious liberty 
 naturally flow, and then carrying them into effect, 
 admits of no denial.* 
 
 In Carolina, the Quaker principles were peculiarly 
 vindicated. The proprietors of that province — for 
 the two formed one colony in their early day — applied 
 to the celebrated John Locke, to form a constitution 
 for its government. He had written extensively 
 
 * The Quakers at one time controlled the goTernments of Rhode 
 Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the two Caro- 
 linas. The other colonies were those of New Hampshire, Massa- 
 chusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland and Virginia. 
 
SABBATH bAY. 153 
 
 on the human mind^ on toleratioh, and on govern- 
 ment, and was supposed, above all other men in Eng- 
 land, to be qualified for the task ; he performed his 
 work, and it was believed by the wise men of Eng- 
 land to be a perfect model ; yet in practice it was 
 utterly worthless, and produced nothing but discord. 
 The colony was relieved from its difficidties by elect- 
 ing John Archdale, a Quaker, of Buckinghamshire, 
 as Governor, and it immediately began to thrive under 
 his administration. Locke's constitution was aiban- 
 doned^ and the representatives voted Archdale an ad» 
 dress of thanks, saying that " by his wisdom and 
 labor he had laid a firm fotindation for a most glo- 
 rious superstructure." (Archdale's Carolina, page 18.) 
 In juxtaposition tO Locke's constitution, we may 
 refer to that of Penn, for the government of Penn- 
 sylvama. State after State, in this Union, has 
 copied not only his ideas, but in many instances his 
 words; and they remain recorded as an enduring 
 monument to his memory. 
 
 Penn came to Pennsylvania, using this language : 
 "As to consecrated days and times, we boldly tes- 
 tify against them, aS beggarly and Jewish." "He 
 certainly little deserves to be styled an evangelical 
 minister, who, instead of preaching the end of all 
 holy days, feasts, new moons, solemn assemblies, and 
 Sabbath days, is asserting and maintaining the abso- 
 
 13 
 
154 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 lute necessity and service of them under the gospel."* 
 Robert Barclay, the defender of the Quaker faith, 
 writes thus : some one had said, " John was in the 
 spirit on the Lord's day, therefore the first day of 
 the week ought to be kept;" Barclay replied, " how 
 hangs this together ? Prove that John meant the 
 first day of the week. We read much in Scripture 
 of the day of the Lord, which is the Lord's day ; 
 but nowhere do we find it called the first day of the 
 week, or any other natural day ; for it is spiritual : 
 and as God called the natural light, day, so he calleth 
 the spiritual light of his appearance, day." Again, 
 "If ye keep one day for his resurrection, why not 
 one day for his conception, another for his birth, 
 another for the annunciation of the angel, another 
 for his being crucified, another for his ascension ? 
 and then we shall not want holy days in good 
 store." In his Apology he says — " We, not seeing 
 any ground in Scripture for it, cannot be so super- 
 stitious as to believe that either the Jewish Sabbath 
 now continues, or that the first day of the week is 
 the anti-type thereof, or the true Christian Sabbath, "f 
 " We know no moral obligation by the fourth com- 
 mandment or elsewhere, to keep the first day of the 
 week more thaii any other, or as any holiness in- 
 herent in it." 
 
 * Penn'a Works, 2d volume, page 21. 
 t Apology oa Sabbath. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 155 
 
 The first section of the first law of the province of 
 Pennsylvania, enacted at Upland, now Chester, within 
 a few days after Penn's arrival in the province, and 
 which is still preserved among the archives at Harris- 
 burg, was a bold and fearless declaration in favor of 
 civil and religious liberty. The second section says, 
 that for the ease of creation, ordinary labor should be 
 suspended on the first day of the week. 
 
 A^quarter of a century afterwards, the first Sabbath 
 law of the province was enacted. It, like the former, 
 was accompanied by a broad declaration in favor of 
 liberty of conscience. This latter law was rejected 
 by the British Crown, as being too liberal for the 
 British constitution. It interdicted ordinary labor, 
 but directed that cook-shops, victualling houses, fer- 
 ries, etc., should be kept open for the accommodation 
 of travellers, and there was no restriction upon sports 
 or recreations of any kind. 
 
 Thus things remained for a period of more than one 
 hundred years, when sports and recreations were for 
 the first time interdicted in Pennsylvania. Yet, to 
 the disgrace of the State, by laws made by the judges 
 themselves, to suit the occasion, the Seventh-day 
 Baptists have been denied the rights which, to men 
 of common sense, appear to have been guaranteed 
 to all. I give the opinion of General Washington 
 upon this subject. 
 
 On the 2d of October, 1798, at New Mills, Bur- 
 
156 INSTITUTION Off THE 
 
 lington county, State of New Jersey, a Seventh-day 
 Baptist, being indicted before a Justice of the Peace 
 for working on Sunday, and fined, he appealed ; 
 during the trial at Court, an extract of a letter from 
 Gen. Washington was produced by the Judge in 
 his charge to the Jury, which was in answer to a 
 Committee of a Baptist Society in Virginia, dated 
 August 4, 1789, as follows : — 
 
 " If I had had the least idea of any difficulty resulting 
 from the Constitution adopted by the Convention of 
 which I had the honor to be President, when it was 
 formed, so as to endanger the rights of any religious 
 denomination, then I never should have attached my 
 name to that instrument. If I had any idea that the 
 General Government was so administered that liberty 
 of conscience was endangered, I pray you be assured 
 that no man would be more willing than myself to re- 
 vise and alter that part of it, so as to avoid all re- 
 ligious persecution. You can, without any doubt, re- 
 member that I have often expressed- as my opinion, 
 that every man who conducts himself as a good citizen 
 is accountable alone to God for his religious faith, 
 and should be proteeted in worshipping God accord- 
 ing to his own conscience. 
 
 Signed, Geokqe Washington." 
 
 The result was, acquittal by the Jury. 
 
 The principles of Pennsylvania, repeatedly de- 
 clared and summed up by William Penn, were, that 
 
SABBATH DAY. 157 
 
 " the object of government is to support power with 
 reverence to the people, and to secure the people 
 from the abuse of power."* I have before alluded 
 to the anti-toleration principles in New England. The 
 London Presbyterian ministers in their confession of 
 faith, say, " The last error they witness against, and 
 in which all agree, is called the error of toleration, 
 patronizing and promoting all other errors, heresies, 
 and blasphemies whatsoever, under the grossly abused 
 notion of liberty of conscience. "f 
 
 Penn says, liberty of conscience is the first step 
 to religion. "I have written," he says, "many 
 apologies to defend it." "No party could ever 
 bias me to the prejudice of my country, nor any per- 
 sonal interest oblige me to her wrong." 
 
 "Till I saw my friends, with the kingdom, delivered 
 from the legal bondage, which penal laws for religion, 
 had subjected them to, I could, with no satisfaction, 
 think of leaving England ; * * * having in all this 
 time never had either office or pension, and always 
 refusing the rewards or gratuities of those I have 
 been able to oblige. "| (Penn's letter to Popple.) 
 
 * Proud's History of Pennsylvania. 
 
 ■fNeal's Hist. Puritans, London edition, 1768, vol. i. pp. 136, 
 137, and vol. ill. p. 360. 
 
 t The character of William Penn, as Is well known, has heen 
 the subject of obloquy from his youth. The present day has 
 not been without its calumnies ; they have alike proceeded from 
 minds incapable of understanding him, and may be considerpd. 
 
 13* 
 
158 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 The first article of the Constitution of Pennsyl- 
 vania was in these words : " In reverence to God, 
 the father of lights and spirits, the author as well 
 as object of all divine knowledge, faith and worship, 
 
 as tributes paid to men inferior to himself, as the price of supe- 
 rior excellence. 
 
 I am able to present a sketch of his character altogether 
 unique — an extract from his will, in his own hand-writing, 
 and comprising several folio sheets, which he executed on 
 leaving America for the last time. One of the ancestors of the 
 writer was a witness, and one of the executors. This will being 
 superseded by another testament in England, which was carried 
 into effect, this has come down unimpaired to the present day. 
 I give the beginning and conclusion, omitting the body of the 
 instrument. To the best of my knowlfedge, it has never been 
 published. The conclusion is remarkable, as giving a sketch of 
 his life, under his own hand, and being witnessed by the most 
 respectable men, who, \inquestionably, were weU acquainted 
 with Penn. It is in itself a refutation of the calumnies that 
 have been circulated. The will is dated 
 
 "New Castle, on Delaware, 30, %th, 1701. 
 Because it is appointed for all men once to die, nnd their days 
 are in the hands of the Almighty their Creator, I think fit upon 
 this present voyage to make my last will and testament. * * * 
 And now if ever I have done amiss to any, I desire their forgive- 
 ness, and for all ye good offices I have ever done, I give God 
 who enabled me, ye honor and thanks, and for all my enemies 
 and their evil reflections and reports, and endeavors to ruin me 
 in name and estate, I do say, ye Lord forgive them and amend 
 them ; for I have ever, from a child, loved the best things and 
 people, and have had a heart to bless the name of Almighty 
 Grod, to do good without gain, yea, sometimes for evil, and to 
 consume my own to serve others, which has been my greatest 
 
SABBATH DAY. 159 
 
 I do for me and mine declare and establish, for the 
 first fundamental of the government of this country, 
 that every person that doth or shall reside therein 
 shall have and enjoy the free possession of his or her 
 
 burden smd infirmity, having a mind not only just, tut kind, 
 even to a fanlt, for it has made me sometimes hardly so just, 
 by means of debts thereby contracted, as my integrity would 
 have made me : and now for all my good friends that have loved 
 and helped me, do so still, in my poor children, w' you can, and 
 God Almighty be to you and yours an ample reward ; you have 
 my hearty and grateful acknowledgements and commemoration, 
 who never lived to myself from my very youth, but to yon and 
 the whole world in love and service. This I ordain to be, and 
 accoroingly is, my last will and testament, revoking all other. 
 Given under my hand and seal, the day and year above written. ' ' 
 
 Wm. Penn. [seal.] 
 
 Sealed and delivered in ye presence of Richard Halliworth, 
 Jos. Wood, JameaJjOgau. 
 
 Cobb, in his late work on Slavery, says "As a body, the 
 Quakers or Society of Friends, were the first to take bold posi- 
 tion as to the sinfulness both of the trade and the system. ' ' Else- 
 where he says, " It is a mooted (xuestion whether William Penn 
 himself did or did not die a slaveholder." I am able to give 
 this question, which has been long in dispute, a satisfactory solu- 
 tion. I extract the following from this will : 
 
 ' ' I give to my blacks their freedom as under my hand already, 
 and to old Sam one hundred acres to be his children's after he 
 and wife are dead, forever on common rent of one bushel of 
 wheat yearly forever." 
 
 This will, as has been stated, was never carried into effect, and 
 as they were not mentioned in the subsequent will, the blacks 
 were not freed, Hannah Penn, several years after her husband's 
 death, made inquiry of James Logan respecting these negroes. 
 
160 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 faith, and exercise o'f worship towards God, in such 
 way and manner, as every such person shall in con- 
 science believe is most acceptable to God."* 
 
 These principles were declared at the period, when 
 the courts in Massachusetts exhibited the deplorable 
 infatuation of condemning innocent persons to be 
 hung as witches, and were carrying on bitter religious 
 persecutions. 
 
 Such was the Anti-Sabbath doctrine of the Penn- 
 sylvania colonists. It was the result of those princi- 
 
 He replies under date 11th day of 3d mo., May, 1721, as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " The Proprietor, in a will left with me at his departure hence, 
 (being undoubtedly the will referred to above, ) left all his negroes 
 their freedom, but this is entirely private ; however there are 
 very few left. Sam died soon after your departure hence, and 
 his brother James, very lately ; Chevalier, by a written order from 
 his master, had his liberty several years ago, so that there are 
 none left but Sue, whom Letitia claims or did claim as given to 
 her when she went to England, but how rightfully I know not ; 
 these things you can best discuss ; she has several children : 
 there are besides two old negroes, quite worn, that remained of 
 three that I recovered near eighteen years ago of E. Gibbs' estate 
 of New Castle County." 
 
 As the authenticity of these papers admits of no dispute, they 
 prove that when William Penn died, several of his old servants 
 In Pennsylvania were slaves ; it may be mentioned that at this 
 period Negro Slavery was legalized by England and other Euro- 
 pean nations, and with the exception of Georgia, which was 
 settled afterwards, and whose organic law prohibited it, it existed 
 in all the American Colonies. 
 
 * See Historical Register for the year 1723, pp. 107, 108. 
 
SABBATH DAT. 161 
 
 pies which enabled them to endure the bitterest per- 
 secutions with unshaken constancy, without, in any 
 one instance, plotting or contriving the injury of those 
 who were oppressing them. They were beaten and 
 abused, but they remained unchanged; they sought 
 for no power or distinction among men ; they yielded 
 not to the government, but the government yielded to 
 them. The conduct of Penn to the Indians was 
 marked by the same benign spirit. The following is 
 a letter that he wrote to them. It is delightful to 
 contemplate such sentiments, proceeding as they did 
 from the pure principles of peace. 
 
 " Lcmdon, the 18iA of %th mo., 1681. 
 " My Friends, — There is a great God and power 
 that hath made the world, and all things therein ; to 
 whom you and I, and all people, owe their being and 
 well-being, to whom you and I must one day give an 
 account for all that we do in the world. This great 
 Grod hath written his law in our hearts, by which we 
 are taught amd commanded to love and help, and do 
 good to one another, and not to do harm and mischief 
 one to another. Now this great God hath been pleased 
 to make me concerned in your part of the world, and 
 the King of the country where I live hath given me 
 a great province therein. But I desire to enjoy it 
 with your love and consent, that we may always live 
 together as neighbors and friends. Else what would 
 the great God do to us, who hath made us not to devour 
 
162 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 and destroy one another, but to live soberly and kindly 
 in the world ?****! have great love and regard 
 towards you ; and I desire to win and gain your love 
 and friendship by a kind, just, and peaceable life ; and 
 the people I send are of the same mind, and shall in 
 all things behave themselves accordingly. And if in 
 any thing any shall offend you or your people, 
 you shall have a full and speedy satisfaction for the 
 same, by an equal number of just men on both sides, 
 that by no means you may have just occasion of being 
 offended against them. I shall shortly come to you 
 myself, at which time we may more largely and freely 
 confer and discourse of these matters. In the mean 
 time I have sent my commissioners to treat with you 
 about land, and a firm league of peace. Let me de- 
 sire you to be kind to them and the people, and re- 
 ceive these presents and tokens which I have sent you 
 as a testimony of my good will to you, and my reso- 
 lution to live justly, peaceably, and friendly with 
 you.* 
 
 "I am your loving friend, W. Penn." 
 
 In the first law made by Penn are these words : 
 
 " No man shall, by any way or means, or in word 
 
 . or deed, affront or wrong any Indian, but he shall 
 
 incur the same penalty of the law as it' he had 
 
 committed it against his fellow planter. All dif- 
 
 * Proud's Hist. Pennsylvania. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 163 
 
 ferences between the planters and the natives shall 
 be ended by twelve men — six planters and six na- 
 tives," &c.* 
 
 Coming among the Indians with feelings of hos- 
 tility, the Brownists believed them to be a treacherous 
 people, miworthy to be trusted. 
 
 The Quakers, with the olive branch of peace," found 
 them kind and docile, easily to be entreated. These 
 went in and out among them, never drew a sword nor 
 fired a gun, and their dominion was everywhere one 
 of peace. 
 
 I have s-'en an unpublished letter from James 
 Logan, who had the principal direction of Indian 
 afiairs for nearly half a century, in which he says, 
 " that whatever he might have been in other respects, 
 to the Indians he was always kind, humane, and 
 generous." It produced an efiect on them which has 
 never been effaced to the present day. Previous to 
 Jay's treaty, the influence of the Quakers with the 
 Indians was so great, that General Washington en- 
 couraged several distinguished members of the Society* 
 to accompany General Lincoln and others to Detroit, 
 in the hope of being able to effect a peace: and I 
 have in my possession letters from a Senator of the 
 
 * The names of the commissioners were Governor Lincoln, 
 Beverly Randolph, and Timothy Pickering. 
 
 The Quakers, John Parrish, William Savery, Jacob Lindley, 
 John BUiott, Joseph Moore. 
 
164 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 United States, during the administration of Jefferson, 
 proposing that the Quakers should take the whole 
 management of Indian affairs. 
 
 The facts relating to criminal law are equally re- 
 markable ; while, as we have stated, the laws of 
 New England were made more severe, those of Penn- 
 sylvania were ameliorated. 
 
 While the laws of Great Britain recognised one 
 hundred and sixty crimes punishable by death, the 
 Quakers, on establishing their government, restricted 
 the punishment by death to wilful murder. 
 
 Queen Anne refused her assent to this legislation, 
 till then unknown in the British Empire. The colonists, 
 however, retained and acted upon their own laws; 
 they were again set aside by the British Crown ; the 
 Quakers persisted in their own views, and finally pre- 
 vailed, and thus Pennsylvania became the pioneer in 
 ameliorating the criminal jurisprudence of the world. 
 
 At this particular period, when Queen Anne was 
 refusing her assent to the amelioration of the criminal 
 code in this part of her kingdom, there was printed 
 by her authority, in the liturgies of the Episcopal 
 Church, of which she was the head, the form of the 
 royal touch for the cure of the king's evil ; and one 
 of the bishops, who died in the year 1709, asserted 
 its miraculous power in the lineal descendants of 
 Saint Edward the Confessor.* 
 
 It might seem from such facts as these, of which 
 ♦Strickland's Queens of England, vol. 12, page 109. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 165 
 
 there are many, that apart from man's spiritual nature 
 he is degraded below the irrational creation. 
 
 The history of the Brownists and the Quakers, 
 however imperfectly their principles may have been 
 developed, exhibits in a remarkable degree the differ- 
 ence between a religion that had for a primary object 
 the observance of the Sabbath day, and one that, 
 without making any distinction, sought to do right 
 every day in the week. I advert, to the Quakers only 
 to illustrate a principle ; all that is valuable in their 
 doctrines is common to the whole human family. What- 
 ever men may think of their sectarianism, and of that 
 there can be but one opinion, their exertions have 
 tended to ameliorate the condition of society ;* and 
 in this colony they resulted in a purer government 
 than had ever been maintained before. They have 
 proved that society can exist without war, when in 
 all similar cases the sword was deemed absolutely 
 needful; they have proved that society can exist 
 
 * The ascendancy of the Quakers in the province of Pennsyl- 
 vania ceased about the time of the old French war, when Brad- 
 dock was defeated, after they had held it about seventy years, 
 because they did not choose to imbrue their hands in the blood 
 of their fellow men. A vast nusaber of people had come into 
 the province, who were aliens to the principles of peace ; fighting 
 was a necessary consequence, and they abandoned the govern- 
 ment. The venerable Isaac Norris, a distinguished Quaker, for 
 many years Speaker of the House of Representatives, solicited 
 year after year not to be elected, but they refused aU his entrea- 
 ties, and continued to elect him until he would stay no longer. 
 
 14 
 
166 INSTITUTION OP THE " 
 
 better -without than with an established clergy : they 
 have provedj and are still proving, the errors that are 
 promulgated by Sabbath conventions, and by Sabba- 
 tarians of every grade ; and I may ask every candid 
 and inquiring mind, whether views that produce such 
 extraordinary results are to be easily abandoned or 
 lightly esteemed.* 
 
 It has been my lot to know many excellent and 
 virtuous individuals, who practically carried these 
 principles into effect. One, an eminent and distin- 
 guished minister in the Society of Friends, respected 
 and esteemed by all, worked in his fields on that day 
 as often as it suited him to do so, and frequently ex- 
 pressed the satisfaction he derived from it. It ac- 
 corded with his sense of right, and I never heard of 
 inconvenience or loss resulting to him or others from 
 such a course. 
 
 The leading principle of the Quakers, so true and 
 so exalted as it is, has been so much mixed up with 
 sectarianism, with creeds, and peculiarities of disci- 
 pline and of dress, the natural effects of imperfection, 
 and perhaps inherent in the nature of sects, but which 
 have nothing to do with religion, that the world seems 
 never to have given them credit for what they really 
 deserve. 
 
 Even at this day there are townships in which the 
 Quaker influence has prevailed, where there is no one 
 
 * See. Works of Sidney Smith. Article Quakers. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 167 
 
 ■willing to accept the office of magistrate, because 
 there is no occasion for one. In one township there 
 is no tavern, no magistrate, no constable, no clergy- 
 man, no lawyer. In another, thickly settled, it is 
 said, there has never been a case of assault and battery 
 since its first settlement, a period of more than a hun- 
 dred years. These people, though they open their 
 meeting-houses for public worship on the first day 
 and other days of the week, in conformity with the 
 practice of the early Christians, they are yet, as de- 
 fined above, to use a modern sectarian term, " dese- 
 crators of the Sabbath." 
 
 If these facts can be sustained, the conclusion is 
 irresistible, that so far as respects the Brownists and 
 the Quakers, the position taken by the Sabbath con- 
 ventions, and by many Sectarians, " that man is purified 
 by attending to the fourth commandment, and making 
 one day more holy than another," is absolutely false. 
 
 I place in juxtaposition extracts from three re- 
 markable addresses to King Charles II. on his restora^ 
 tion, in order to show the aspect of Sabbatarian and 
 Anti-Sabbatarian doctrines, when they approach 
 royalty. Either of them is too long to be inserted 
 here, but I believe I preserve the spirit of each in the 
 portions I have selected. They fully sustain the cha- 
 racter of the two people as developed in these pages. 
 
 Each address alludes to the persecutions to which 
 
168 
 
 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 their party had been subject, and seems to 
 interposition of the king. 
 The Puritans say : 
 
 ask the 
 
 "Most Gracious and dread 
 Sovereign : 
 
 " May it please your majesty, 
 in the day wherein you happily 
 say, you now know that you 
 are again king over your Brit- 
 ish Israel, to oast a favorable 
 eye upon your poor Mephibo- 
 Bheths, now, and by reason of 
 lameness, in respect of distance, 
 not until now, appearing in 
 your presence, we mean New 
 England, kneeling, with the 
 rest of your subjects, before 
 your majesty, as her restored 
 king. * * * * We present 
 this scrip, the transcript of our 
 loyal hearts, into your royal 
 hands, wherein we crave leave : 
 
 " To supplicate your majesty 
 for your gracious protection of 
 us, in the continuance of our 
 civil privileges. * * * * 
 
 " With a religions salutation 
 of our prayers, we (prostrate at 
 your royal feet) beg pardon for 
 this our boldness, craving final- 
 ly that our names may be en- 
 rolled among your majesty's 
 most humble subjects and sup- 
 plicants." 
 
 " To Charles II. King, &c. 
 
 "Robert Barclay, a servant 
 of Jesus Christ, called of God 
 to the dispensation of the gos- 
 pel, wishes health and salva- 
 tion. As it is inconsistent with 
 the truth I bear, so it is far 
 from me to use this epistle as 
 an engine to flatter thee. * * * 
 To God alone I owe what I 
 have, and that more immedi- 
 ately In matters spiritual ; and 
 therefore to Him alone, and to 
 the service of His truth, I dedi- 
 cate whatever work He brings 
 forth in me. 
 
 "Thou hast tasted of pros- 
 perity and adversity; thou 
 knowest what it is to be ban- 
 ished thy native country, to be 
 overruled as well as to rule 
 and sit upon the throne ; and 
 being oppressed, thou hast rea- 
 son to know how hateful the 
 oppression is both to God and 
 man. 
 
 ' ' God hath done great things 
 for thee ; He hath sufficiently 
 shown thee, that it is by Him 
 princes rule, and that He can 
 pull down and set up at his 
 
SABBATH DAY. 
 
 169 
 
 "To the King's most excellent 
 
 majesty. 
 "The humble supplication of 
 
 the General Court of the 
 
 Massachusetts Colony in New 
 
 England. 
 ' ' Dread Sovereign ; 
 
 "If your poor subjects, who 
 have removed themselves into 
 a remote corner of the earth to 
 enjoy peace with God and man, 
 do, in this day of their trouble, 
 prostrate themselves at your 
 royal feet, and beg your favor, 
 we hope it will be graciously 
 accepted by your majesty. And 
 that as the high place you sus- 
 tain on earth doth number you 
 here among the gods, so you 
 wiU imitate the God of heaven, 
 in being ready to maintain the 
 cause of the afflicted, and the 
 right of the poor, and to receive 
 their cries and addresses to that 
 end."* 
 
 pleasure. He hath often faith- 
 fully warned thee by His ser- 
 vants, since He restored thee to 
 the royal dignity, that thy heart 
 might not wax wanton against 
 Him to forget His mercies 
 and providence towards thee ; 
 whereby He might permit thee 
 to be soothed up and lulled 
 asleep in thy sins by the flatter- 
 ing of court parasites, who by 
 their fawning are the ruin of 
 many princes. 
 
 "God Almighty, who hath 
 so signally hitherto visited thee 
 with his love, so touch and 
 reach thy heart, ere the day of 
 thy visitation be expired, that 
 thou mayest effectually turn to 
 bim so as to improve thy place 
 and station for his name. So 
 wisheth, so prayeth, 
 
 " Thy faithful friend and 
 subject. 
 
 " EoBBBT Barclay, "t 
 
 Considering the great hostility the Brownists had 
 evinced towards royalty, that they had been instru- 
 mental in the dethronement of King Charles I, these 
 
 * Notes to Marshall's Life of ■Washington, and Hutchinson's 
 
 History. 
 
 t Barclay's Works. 
 
 14* 
 
170 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 epistles to his son may be considered as evincing the 
 perfection of cant and hypocrisy. 
 
 Voltaire, in his letters concerning the English na- 
 tion, says of this letter of Robert Barclay, " This 
 epistle is not filled with mean flattering encomiums, 
 but abounds with bold touches in favor of truth, and 
 with the wisest counsels;" and he adds, "it was so 
 happy in its effects, as to put an end to persecutions 
 against the Quakers."* 
 
 To this I add, as pertinent to my subject, the fol- 
 lowing extracts from two histories of Massachusetts 
 and of Pennsylvania, each written about eighty years 
 after the settlement of the respective colonies; they 
 are believed to be entirely authentic : 
 
 Cotton Mather says of Massa- Robert Proud, of Pennsylva- 
 
 cliusetts : "It may be that the nia, says : — "The enjoyment of 
 
 wrath which we hare had that rational freedom of think- 
 
 against one another has had ing and religious worship, with 
 
 more than a little influence the j ast and equal participation 
 
 upon the coming down of the of natural and civil rights has 
 
 devil in that wrath which now been both the cause and the 
 
 amazes us. Have not many of means of the extraordinary and 
 
 us been devils one unto another, so long continued prosperity 
 
 for slanderings, for backhitings, and unparalleled felicity for 
 
 for animosities ? For this among which this province has been 
 
 other causes, perhaps, God has long so justly famed, above all 
 
 permitted the devils to be otheroountries,atleastinAmer- 
 
 worrying, as they now are lea, if not in the whole world ; 
 
 * See Bailey's Dictionary, vol. ii. page 657. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 171 
 
 among us. But it is high time a state, in some respects, so 
 
 to leave off all devilism, when nearly resembling those Satur- 
 
 the devil himself is falling upon nian times in Italy, which, we 
 
 us ; and it is no time for us to are told, formerly produced the 
 
 he censuring and reviling one golden age, and so far actually 
 
 another with a devilish wrath, realizing ancient fable to its in- 
 
 when the wrath of the devil is habitants, perhaps, before any 
 
 annoying us." — Mather's Booh other people on the surface of 
 
 of Witches, page i5. the globe." — Proud's History, 
 
 vol. ii. page 235, 
 
 I am quite aware that statistics are not to be im- 
 plicitly relied upon ; but by an account of the num- 
 ber of criminals in the different departments of France, 
 the average appears to have been about one to six 
 thousand inhabitants ; in the north there was one crimi- 
 nal to 3984 ; in the south, one to 7584 ; in the centre, 
 one to 8264.* It will be observed this was among 
 a non-Sabbath-keeping people. 
 
 In the State of Massachusetts, with its Sabbath- 
 keeping habits, and where tithingmen are still em- 
 ployed to see that the day is observed, there was one 
 convict for 2257 inhabitants. In the State of Penn- 
 sylvania, where the day is less observed, there was 
 one in 3300. In Virginia, where it is probable there is 
 still greater disregard to the day, there is one convict 
 to 5673 inhabitants. The convicts on an average for 
 five years in Virginia were 189 persons, and it is re 
 
 * Annales de Hygiene, tome 9. 
 
172 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 markable that the average is about the same whether 
 we include the colored population or not.* 
 
 Laing, in his "Notes of a Traveller," expresses his 
 belief that the French, among whom Sunday is ob" 
 served only as a festival devoted to social enjoyment, 
 are a more honest people than the British. He says, 
 "the beggar, though hungry, respects the fruit on the 
 road-side within his reach, and that practical morality 
 is more generally taught in France than in any other 
 country in Europe." 
 
 Dr. Guthrie, in his plea on behalf of drunkards, 
 says, he spent some five or six months in Paris ; his 
 avocations led him often through the worst parts of 
 the city, and he saw but one drunken man, and no 
 drunken woman. He adds : "we saw in one hour in 
 London and Edinburgh every day more drunkenness 
 than we saw in Paris in five long months." 
 
 These are curious statements, and though by no 
 means conclusive, they are worthy of serious atten- 
 tion. 
 
 The facts connected with the early colonial history, 
 to which I have referred, are the moi'e interesting, 
 because the present state of society cannot last for- 
 ever. Crime, misery, and degradation, are stalking as 
 at noonday before us, penetrating into our institutions 
 and turning justice backwards. If these things are 
 
 * See Governor McDonald's message on the colored population, 
 American Almanac for 1846, and Prisons and Prison Discipline. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 173 
 
 to increase faster than the ratio of population, which 
 it is believed they now do, our republican institutions 
 are at an end ; and our beautiful frame of government, 
 the boast of our country, can exist no more. 
 
 Since the foregoing pages have been sent to the 
 press, the New England annual festival to celebrate 
 the landing of the Sabbatarian Puritans in Plymouth, 
 has been held in Philadelphia. The following are two 
 of the toasts : 
 
 " Our Puritan Fathers — Hard as the rock that re- 
 ceived them, stern as the shore that welcomed them, 
 and sturdy as the forests that surrounded them. They 
 sowed in tears the seed of that harvest of civil and 
 religious liberty which we now reap in joy." 
 
 " Old Massachusetts — Mother of States and of 
 ideas. Her leaven causes a brisk effervescence, and 
 makes the whole country rise." 
 
 I refer the curious reader to Besse's Sufferings of 
 the Quakers, in which the names of one hundred and 
 seventy Quakers are given who suffered deeply by the 
 persecutions in New England. 
 
 I refer also to a work of upwards of 500 pages, 
 called " Puritanism, or a Churchman's Defence against 
 its Aspersions," by Thomas W. Coit, D. D. Also to 
 a work by George Bishop, called "New England 
 judged by the Spirit of the Lord," a work of 498 
 pages. Also to a work by John Whiting, called 
 " Truth and Innocency Defended," a work of upwards 
 
174 INSTITUTION 01? THE 
 
 of 200 psfges ; Hutchinson's History, 3 vols. ; Ma- 
 ther's Magnalia, and other works. 
 
 These works furnish evidence that if there was 
 any one principle that the New England settlers 
 were more opposed to than others, as manifested both 
 in word and deed, it was that of civil and religious 
 liberty. Since the writer's recollection, the law 
 authorized the imprisonment of men in Massachusetts 
 for not paying a tax for the support of a Church 
 hierarchy, with which they had no more connection 
 than with that of the Grand Lama, and this law was 
 carried into effect. Neither is Massachusetts, as is 
 claimed, peculiarly the mother of ideas ; these are the 
 inspiration of God. " There is a spirit in man, and 
 the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him under- 
 standing." 
 
 It is a subject of regret that the examination of 
 principles connected with the Sabbath superstition 
 should lead, even by remote implication, to things 
 that are personal, with which they have nothing to do, 
 but such deviations from correct historical facts only 
 serve to show either the ignorance of the writers, or a 
 disposition to evade the truth. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 175 
 
 CHAPTER VIII, 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL ELEMENT — THE DOCTRINE OF THE INNER 
 LIGHT. 
 
 An apple falling to the ground suggested to Newton 
 that the principle of gravitation was the conservative 
 principle of the material world. It had with unerring 
 certainty performed its office from the beginning of 
 time, yet it was not till this late period that its power 
 and influence were acknowledged. Gradually it swept 
 away, never to return, the vortices of Germany, the 
 Grecian peripatetic philosophy that had been in vogue 
 for thousands of years, and all other systems that had 
 preceded it, and established itself by universal con- 
 sent, on the immutable basis of truth. Can any in- 
 telligent mind believe that the Father of Mercies has 
 provided a conservative power to preserve and uphold 
 all physical things, and yet has left man a prey to 
 chance; made him dependent for truth, upon the 
 Scriptures, which so late as the year 1536 Tyndale was 
 burnt at the stake for translating into the English 
 language, and which at 'a much later period were 
 chained to the altars of the churches to prevent the 
 common people from reading them ; which the Roman 
 Catholics forbid to be read except under their super- 
 
176 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 vision, and whicli the Episcopalians believe should be 
 accompanied by a prayer book formed by their own 
 hierarchy ? 
 
 Can any one believe that this book, ambiguous in 
 its language, uncertain in its conjectures, is designed 
 by the Almighty to be the rule of life for man? 
 
 The history of the Brownists is before us, and so 
 far as history can prove any thing, it proves the error 
 of such a conclusion. 
 
 The Newtonian philosophy, simple and natural as 
 it is now acknowledged to be, was so earnestly resisted 
 for a series of years, that it finally was introduced by 
 stealth into the Universities of England. Yet great 
 as were the contradictions and errors of natural phi- 
 losophy, in mixing superstition and theology, and de- 
 ducing from thence the most extravagant and absurd 
 results, it may be doubted whether there were more 
 absurd conclusions in physics than those which are 
 embraced in the dogmas of the Christian world. 
 
 The triumphs of science are identified with the 
 triumphs of true religion. The discoveries in Geology 
 are placing Chronology upon a more certain basis 
 than it ever had before, and the mind cannot rest 
 upon any one scientific discovery without perceiving 
 more and more the beauty of the Divine laws. In this 
 there is great and increasing hope to the moralist, to 
 the lover of truth and of vital religion, because, as 
 certainly as true science is taking the place of that 
 which in former ages was absurd and contradictory. 
 
SABBATH DAT, 177 
 
 SO assuredly, in the progress of events, moral science 
 will feel the influence of the same renovating power. 
 
 At the present moment physical science is far in 
 advance of intellectual science. This cannot last 
 forever. Some Newton or Plato or Bacon, some 
 apostle, some high-priest, will yet arise clothed with 
 power and strength for the work he has to accomplish ; 
 or it may come by the silent but still powerful opera- 
 tion of truth in individual minds, but come it surely 
 will ; and as certainly as Newton's philosophy drove 
 from the minds of men that of Aristotle, so also will 
 moral philosophy be placed upon a basis which will 
 extinguish forever all the dogmas which the Brownists 
 promulgated, with their Sabbaths and superstitions, to 
 replace them by principles which can never be over- 
 turned. Whenever this may come, and not before, 
 we may look for a renovation in moral society, the 
 fulness of which the mind can hardly conceive. 
 
 The existence of a spiritual element in man, as a 
 guide to his life, would seem to be too self-evident to 
 admit of doubt. The judge who appeals to the cul- 
 prit in the dock acknowledges this principle ; without 
 it, instead of being a subject for punishment, he would 
 be fit for the madhouse. It is the man within the 
 breast, the intuitive feelings of his own heart, that 
 alone is capable of adapting means to ends; not reason, 
 which is but the deduction of things from each other ; 
 not conscience, which is liable to the fluctuations of 
 
 15 
 
178 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 education : but reason and conscience enlightened by 
 convictions -wMch are found within. To trust our lives 
 to the slow operation of reason, would be to destroy 
 them. To trust our actions to the hasty persuasions 
 of a prejudiced or sectarian mind, would lead to self- 
 deception. Yet withal, amidst the passions and weak- 
 nesses that assail us, wherein we may not be able at 
 all times to distinguish right from wrong, there is an 
 underlying sense of truth, which gives strength to 
 our purposes and a confidence to our lives which no- 
 thing else can bestow. 
 
 The time has been when philosophy was believed to 
 be opposed to religion : gradually the supposed barriers 
 have been broken down, investigations into the divine 
 laws have been freely made, seeming contradictions 
 have been removed, harmony has been found where 
 there was supposed to be discord, and if not already 
 acknowledged, every thing is tending to this issue, 
 that there is nothing true in religion that is not true 
 in philosophy, nor in philosophy that is not true in 
 religion. 
 
 There is abundant evidence from the hesitations 
 and waverings and uncertainties which marked the 
 course of the Brownists, that better feelings were 
 struggling within them ; but unlike the plant in the 
 partially darkened room, which, following the laws of 
 Divine Providence, turns to every crack where the 
 light of the sun shows itself, these men turned their 
 
SABBATH DAY. 179 
 
 backs to the light, and thanked God that they had a 
 higher and a better way. 
 
 It would hardly be too much to say that all the 
 persecutions in the ecclesiastical world may be traced 
 to this one fact, that men have laid aside the instincts 
 of their nature, the evidences of truth which they find 
 in their own bosoms, to be governed by the written 
 precepts of older generations, imperfect and often 
 grossly immoral, and which can never be a certain 
 criterion to the men of the present day. 
 
 The senses, according to their nature, recognise all 
 outward things ; by them we know that a house is a 
 house, and a man a man, but piirely spiritual truths 
 are not recognised by the senses, and_ cannot be re- 
 ceived through their means. The senses take no cog- 
 nizance of truth. The sense of beauty is wholly an in- 
 tellectual perception. Taste, so nearly allied to beauty, 
 is an affair of the mind. Who has seen with his eyes, 
 joy, hope, or volition ? These are spiritual subjects, 
 which are recognised by our spiritual natui%, and by that 
 alone. They are intuitive, and are to be traced to the 
 immediate revelation of Grod, and nothing to else. The 
 metaphysical proposition so prevalent throughout the 
 world, that all our ideas come from the senses, and 
 that they are to be judged of by experience, is effect 
 without cause, reaction without action, experience 
 without basis, and as such is unphilosophical as well 
 
180 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 as irreligious, and unworthy of the intelligence of a 
 rational mind. 
 
 The mind without the senses cannot comprehend 
 colors, neither can the senses without the mind compre- 
 hend truth. The one is physical, the other is intel- 
 lectual and spiritual. 
 
 All that hooks or preaching can do, is to refer man to 
 sensations which are already in his own soul — to awaken 
 him to himself. Were it not so, all words would he as 
 vain as if spoken to an inanimate object. Every thing 
 spiritual we understand from the spiritual nature in our- 
 selves, the divine by the divine; and just in proportion 
 as the divine nature is awakened in man, so is he in 
 communion with the Divine Mind, and can understand 
 divine things. The converse also may be assumed to 
 be true, that men conceive of sin in proportion as they 
 are allied to its nature. Yet moral offences, outward 
 in their character and recognised by the senses, are 
 seen by all ahke. 
 
 We enjoy a brilliant sunset by the sense of beauty 
 which is within us ; without this, the outward object 
 would give us no pleasure. Words are like diction- 
 aries, which give forms to our sensations and awaken 
 the spiritual energies. The enjoyment which particu- 
 lar expressions convey is only because they meet con- 
 current sentiments with us. 
 
 We believe these to be unchangeable philosophical 
 truths; and if so, they put an end to the popular 
 
SABBATH DAY. 181 
 
 delusion that the Scriptures are the rule of life, 
 and establish in its place that sublime idea of the 
 constant omnipresence of God, comforting us in our 
 affiction, and guiding us according to his own pur- 
 poses through all the intricate scenes of our exist- 
 ence. 
 
 The world is perhaps more indebted to John Locke 
 for this material philosophy, which looks to the senses 
 as the source of all truth, than to any other person. 
 I have found the following beautiful letter addressed 
 to some Quaker women whom he had heard preach. 
 It was written during the latter period of his life, 
 when he was nearly seventy years of age, and may be 
 understood as a refutation of that sensuous theory for 
 which he has been so celebrated, and an admission of 
 the beauty of that spiritual philosophy to which we 
 have referred. 
 
 " My sweet Friends, — A paper of sweetmeats by 
 the bearer to attend your journey, comes to testify 
 the sweetness I found in your society. I admire no 
 converse like that of Christian freedom, and fear no 
 bondage like that of pride and prejudice. I now see 
 that acquaintance by sight cannot reach that height 
 of enjoyment which acquaintance by knowledge 
 arrives unto. Outward hearing may misguide us, but 
 internal knowledge cannot err; we have something 
 here of what we shall have hereafter, to know as we 
 are known, and this we with other friends were even 
 
 15* 
 
182 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 at first view partakers of; and the more there is of 
 this in the life, the less we need enquire of what na- 
 tion, country, party or persuasion our friends are, for 
 our knowledge is more sure than another's is to us ; 
 this we know when we have believed. 
 
 Now the God of all grace grant that you may hold 
 fast that rare grace of Love and Charity, that un- 
 biassed and unbounded love, which, if it decays not, 
 will spring up mightily as the waters of the sanctuary, 
 higher and higher, till you with the Universal Church 
 swim together in the ocean of Divine Love. 
 
 Women indeed had the honor first to publish, the 
 resurrection of the Spirit of Love, and let all the 
 Disciples of Christ rejoice herein, as doth 
 
 Your partner, John Locke, 
 
 Gray's Inn, Nov. '21st, 1696." 
 
 Of the being and existence of Grod, no rational 
 man doubts. 
 
 It has indeed been said that there are nations so 
 degraded as to have no name for God or for Heaven. 
 To understand the attributes of God is to know God. 
 And if there is any nation or any people who know 
 not good from evil, they must necessarily become ex- 
 tinct, because knowledge of good and evil is as need- 
 ful to the existence of man, as the air that he breathes 
 or the food that nom-ishes him.* 
 
 Bancroft, vol. i. page 447, says, " Atheism is a folly 
 * See Tjpes of Mankind. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 183 
 
 of the metaphysician, not the folly of human nature." 
 Of savage life " Roger Williams declared that he had 
 never found one native American who denied the ex- 
 istence of a God. "Men revolt against the oppressions 
 of superstition, the exactions of ecclesiastical tyranny, 
 but never against religion itself." 
 
 Not only the existence of God is deeply impressed 
 upon the minds of men, but a conviction also of his omni- 
 presence, as a necessary attribute to his sovereignty. 
 Every man is a praying man. In his wants and de- 
 sires, selfish indeed as they generally are, in his suf- 
 ferings and distresses, his appeals and aspirations are 
 unto God, and herein he recognises his omnipresence. 
 Thus, Hagar when she was cast out of the house of 
 Abraham, used these touching words: "Thou God, 
 seest me," and in the sorrows and sadness which over- 
 take us there is deep consolation in the idea that we 
 are the creatures of an ever present and beneficent 
 Creator, who does all things well and wisely. 
 
 This omnipresence has been recognised by the 
 masses of men in all ages and countries : it has also 
 found its philosophical advocates among many of the 
 most profound thinkers. The Pundits of Hindoostan, 
 the most learned men of the East, introduce the 
 Supreme Being as the immediate cause of every efiect, 
 however trivial. According to the Brahmins, all the 
 motions of the universe are caused by the immediate 
 agency of the Spirit of God.* 
 
 * Ency. Brit. 14, 5T4. 
 
184 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 Malebranche, a French philosopher, one of the 
 deepest and most acute men who ever lived, rejected 
 all idea of discovering truth, (intellectual truth,) by the 
 senses and laying aside all books, his 'favorite 
 maxim was, that " He saw all things in God."* 
 
 It was one of the beautiful ideas of Sir Isaac Newton 
 that every motion from gravity or other inanimate 
 sources, was identified with the continued volition of 
 the Deity. 
 
 Dr. Samuel Clark observes, "All those effects 
 which we commonly say are the effects of the natural 
 powers of matter and laws of motion, of gravitation, 
 attraction, and the like, are indeed (if we speak strictly 
 and properly) the effect of God acting upon matter 
 continually and every moment." (Works, vol. ii. 698, 
 folio.) 
 
 Dugald Stewart on this subject says: "There are 
 insurmountable objections to every other doctrine than 
 that which supposes the order of the universe to be 
 not only at first established, but every moment main- 
 tained by the incessant agency of one supreme mind > 
 a doctrine against which no objection can be stated, 
 but what is founded on prejudices resulting from our 
 own imperfections. (Vol. iii. Stewart's Works, p. 442.) 
 Agassiz, in his present work on Zoology, has re- 
 corded corresponding sentiments respecting the spirit- 
 
 * See Stewart's Philosophy, vol. iii. 
 
SABBATH DAT. 185 
 
 ual nature of man, and his affinity to the Divine 
 Mind. 
 
 " Do we not find," he says, " in this adaptability of 
 the human intellect to the facts of creation, by which 
 we become instinctively, and as I have said uncon- 
 sciously, the translators of the thoughts of God, the 
 most conclusive proof of our affinity with the Divine 
 Mind ? And is not this intellectual and spiritual con- 
 nection with the Almighty worthy our deepest con- 
 sideration ? * * It is surely not amiss for the philoso- 
 pher to endeavor, by the study of his own mental 
 operations, to approximate the workings of the Divine 
 reason, learning from the nature of his own mind 
 better to understand the infinite intellect from which 
 it is derived. * * Who is the truly humble, but he 
 who penetrating into the secrets of creation, recog- 
 nises his glorious affinity with the Creator, and in 
 deepest gratitude for so sublime a birthright, strives 
 to be the faithful interpreter of that Divine intellect 
 with whom he is permitted, nay, with whom he is in- 
 tended, according to the ,laws of his being, to enter 
 into communion."* 
 
 It may be said without fiction, that no man has 
 ever seen his fellow man. He sees an extended body, 
 with head and hands and feet, but the spirit that 
 animates them, that gives them all their value, no eye 
 hath ever seen. Yet this unseen essence, this spirit 
 
 * Contiibutions to Natural History, vol. i. p. 8. 
 
186 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 or whatever else it may be called, originates all the 
 work in the material world, and there can be no doubt 
 that so far as it is in unison with the Divine harmony, 
 everything upon which it operates, from the lowest to 
 the most exalted, is perfected. Natural and moral 
 philosophy, all the different kingdoms of the animal 
 and vegetable world, every art and every science, 
 have their only sure basis in the Divine harmony, and 
 this is manifested as perfectly in the dew drop on the 
 spear of grass as in the oceaji. 
 
 Most sublime, indeed, is the idea that things that 
 seem so arbitrary as taste, beauty and architecture, 
 law, morals, and that which is above all others con- 
 fused, metaphysics, have each a foundation, sure and 
 steadfast, which, though unseen and unappreciable, no 
 man can remove. 
 
 The plummet and square, held in the hands of an 
 obscure mechanic, point to principles whose source is 
 God. Any deviation from these ^ in the building he 
 may erect, is a deviation from the Divine harmony. 
 The roof is needful for the foundation, and the foun- 
 dation for the roof, the beam and the rafter are 
 adapted to each other ; and the humblest as well as the 
 most elaborate structure has special proportions which 
 are never deviated from with impunity. 
 
 Ruskin, the author of several works upon archi- 
 tecture, confirms the same idea in its application to 
 the fine arts. He says, that it was only when the bull 
 of Clement V. had excommunicated the Venetians and 
 
TH DAY. 187 
 
 their Doge, likening them to Dathan, Abiram, Ab- 
 salom, and Lucifer, and when individual religion en- 
 tered into all the concerns of life, giving a serenity 
 of mind, and energy to all their actions, — ^it was then 
 only that the fine arts flourished in Italy ; as this de- 
 clined, their spirit dwindled down, and the authors 
 became copyists one of another.* 
 
 The following remarks, by the same author, are so 
 beautiful, that I cannot omit them : — 
 
 " Though it may not be necessarily the interest of 
 religion to admit the service of the arts, the arts 
 will never flourish until they have been primarily de- 
 voted to that service — devoted^ both by architect and 
 employer ; by the one, in scrupulous, earnest, afi'ec- 
 tionate design ; by the other, in expenditure, at least 
 more frank, at least less calculating, than that which 
 he would admit in the indulgence of his own private 
 feelings. Let this principle be but once fairly ac- 
 knowledged among us, and however it may be chilled 
 and repressed in practice, however feeble may be its 
 real influence, however the sacredness of it may be 
 diminished by counter-workings of vanity and self in- 
 terest, yet, its mere acknowledgement would bring 
 a reward ; and with our j^esent accumulation of means 
 and of intellect, there would be such an impulse and 
 vitality given to art, as it has not felt since the thir- 
 teenth century. * * * The influence to which I refer 
 
 * Stones of Venice, page 89. 
 
188 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 would be the natural result of doing our best in all 
 things." Again — " However mean or inconsiderable 
 the act, there is something in the well doing of it 
 which has fellowship with the noblest forms of manly- 
 virtue. * * * Thus, every action, down even to the 
 drawing of a line or utterance of a syllable, is capable 
 of a peculiar dignity in the manner of it, which we some- 
 times express by saying it is truly done, (as a line or 
 tone is true ;) so also, it is capable of dignity still 
 higher in the motive of it. For there is no action so 
 slight, nor so mean, but it may be done to a great pur- 
 pose, and ennobled therefore ; nor is any purpose so 
 great, but that slight actions may help it much, most 
 especially that chief of all purposes, the pleasing of 
 of God." Hence George Herbert, — 
 
 "A servant with this clause 
 Makes drudgery divine ; 
 Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, 
 Makes that and the action fine." 
 
 Mozart, on being asked by Baron V , as to his 
 
 manner of composing, gave, in substance, this reply: 
 " I would willingly pass over your request in silence, 
 for my pen denies its service ; still I will try. When 
 I am, as it were, completely^ myself, entirely alone, 
 my ideas flow best and most abundantly ; whence and 
 how they come, I know not, nor can I force them. 
 If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I 
 may turn this or that morsel to account. All this 
 fires my soul, and although the subject be long, it 
 
SABBATH DAY. 189 
 
 stands almost complete and finished in my mind, as a 
 beautiful picture. Nor do I hear the parts succes- 
 sively, but all at once. All this takes place in a 
 pleasing, lively dream. What has been thus produced 
 I do not easily forget, and this is, perhaps, the best 
 gift I have to thank my Divine Master for."* 
 
 Hooker speaks in the following sublime strain of 
 law, and which Sir William Jones says is the founda- 
 tion of all human law. " Of law, there can be no 
 less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of 
 God, her service the harmony of the world ; all things 
 in heaven and earth do her homage ; the very least as 
 feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted 
 from her power ; both angels and men, and creatures 
 of yhat condition soever, though each in difi"erent 
 sort and manner, yet all, with uniform consent, ad- 
 miring her as the mother of their peace and joy."t 
 
 It is a remark of Dugald Stewart, that the most 
 important discoveries, both in moral and physical sci- 
 ence, have been made by men friendly to the princi- 
 ples of natural religion. (Vol. iii. page 464 of Stew- 
 art's works.) Natural religion is the intuitive religion 
 of the heart ; the true and only revealed religion ; 
 yet sectarians speak of it in opposition to what they 
 term " revealed religion," the source of which is 
 the Scriptures, and which is conveyed to them ,by 
 outward means, within the control of man ; a doc- 
 
 * See Life of Mozart. 
 •j-Life of Sir Wiiliam Jones, p. 333. 
 16 
 
190 INSTITUTION OS THE 
 
 trine from which flowed so much error and confusion 
 to the early inhabitants of New England, and which 
 is but a system of materialism and idolatry. 
 
 It is this vital religion that we speak of as being 
 connected with every work of art. Every machine 
 coming from the hands of man, so far as it is per- 
 fect, must be consistent with the religious element of 
 man's nature. Without this, a house could not be built, 
 or a machine constructed. 
 
 Men are so prone to become copyists, that they 
 little consider the principles upon which they act, or 
 the source of the intelligence which they possess, yet 
 even the knowledge which a man has of his own exist- 
 ence, which seems above all others a self-evident truth, 
 can have no other source than divine revelation to his 
 soul. So far as we know, this knowledge is peculiar 
 to man. 
 
 In Exodus xxxi. it is mentioned that "The Lord spake 
 unto Moses, saying, I have filled Bazaleel with wis- 
 dom and understanding to devise cunning works ; to 
 work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cut- 
 ting stones." And it may be assumed as an un- 
 changeable truth, that in proportion as the mind of 
 man is perfect, so will his works be perfect, be they 
 what they may. No other conclusion can be arrived 
 at, unless we deny the unalterable sequence between 
 cause and efiiect. 
 
 In every work of art, there is a point of perfection 
 in which each part will harmonize with every other 
 
SABBATH DAY. 191 
 
 part. The mechanic congratulates himself, when he 
 simplifies his work ; its perfection is in the fulfilment 
 of the divine laws ; all that man can do is to trace 
 out these laws, and in proportion as individual minds 
 are in harmony with them, may they b e relied upon as 
 being better artificers, better lawyers, merchants, or 
 mechanics. 
 
 Agassiz suggests that " those systems to which we 
 have given the names of the great leaders of our 
 science, are in truth but translations into human lan- 
 guage of the thoughts of the Creator." May we not 
 extend these ideas into every other science ? Astro- 
 nomy, geology, chemistry, botany, each has its own 
 laws, traced by men, but originated and perfected by 
 the Divine mind. As in science, so also in moral af- 
 fairs. The desire of association appears to be inherent 
 in man : what then more interesting than civil and re- 
 ligious government ? In proportion as these approxi- 
 mate to the fulfilment of the divine laws, they ap- 
 proach perfection. There is a harmony for each con- 
 sistent with itself, yet by a mystical communion, em- 
 bracing in a universal harmony all science and all 
 moral afiairs, so that they become, as it were, brethren 
 to each other. In its application to the spiritual nature 
 of man, it is to be found by him in his own bosom, and 
 there alone, and it may be assumed that those conten- 
 tions which are witnessed in religious associations in 
 a reasonably correct community, arise from the at- 
 
192 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 tempts to harmonize contradictory and discordant 
 elements. If these vie-ffs are true, we have at once 
 the origin and the natural remedy of evils which 
 sometimes seem obscure. Without reaching the cause 
 of the evil, we may ask for peace, but no peace will 
 come. A Sabbath-day religion being, as we have 
 shown, out of this universal harmony, its enforcement, 
 instead of reforming the world, is productive of evil. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SCRIPTUEE — THE CLERGY. 
 
 There is perhaps no country upon earth so deeply 
 interested in upholding correct moral sentiments as 
 the United States. In most of the nations of Eu- 
 rope, and perhaps throughout the world, there are 
 Emperors or Kings, Princes or Potentates, with su- 
 preme power, to hold in check the excesses of popular 
 excitement. In this country, the sovereignty is in 
 the people themselves ; if they become degraded, it is 
 easy to imagine that, from having the best, we may 
 have the worst government in the world — a many- 
 headed monster, combining a greater evil than the 
 despotisms of foreign countries, evil as they may b*e; 
 so that it becomes a more serious question here than 
 elsewhere, to consider the best means by which society 
 can be regulated and reformed. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 193 
 
 In a country increasing so rapidly as the United 
 States, the asylum of foreigners of every descrip- 
 tion, without accurate statistics it is not easy to ar- 
 rive at any conclusion respecting the relative increase 
 of crime ; but there is at least a general sentiment 
 that since the country became an independent na- 
 tion, moral depravity has increased faster than popu- 
 lation. There can be no doubt whatever that this is 
 the case in political affairs : there is a want of moral 
 integrity — a degradation in our government, such as 
 never was known for many years after the period of 
 the American Revolution; and it becomes a grave 
 consideration how the problem of our government is to 
 work itself out. 
 
 All may agree that correct elementary principles 
 will inevitably produce fruit according to their kind, 
 but the serious question occurs, how are these to be 
 attained ? in what way shall they be instilled into the 
 minds of men? The historical evidences which have 
 been referred to, may throw some light upon this in- 
 tricate question. The colonies of Massachusetts Bay, 
 from the period when the Puritans first landed, in.the 
 year 1620, till the revolution in 1688, were engaged 
 in an effort to produce uniformity of opinion, under 
 the mistaken idea that spiritual intelligence could be 
 received through the senses. This philosophy still 
 remains among us; it is taught in our schools, and 
 preached from our pulpits, producing principles radi- 
 
 16* 
 
194 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 cally wrong, and dangerous to the ■well-being of so- 
 ciety. Tlie authority of the laws of Moses, which was 
 adhered to by the Puritans, has greatly lessened, but 
 the authority of the Scriptures generally, among 
 those who profess to be the teachers of men, remains 
 in its pristine vigor ; and if our reasoning is true, such 
 a doctrine is of incalculable evil to the morals and 
 welfare of society. 
 
 From infancy, children are instructed that this 
 book is " the word of Grod," the " revelation of his 
 will, the guide of life," and with these preconceived 
 opinions, false in their very nature, every effort to re- 
 form society fails. 
 
 No serious, intelligent mind would be disposed to 
 lessen a proper regard for the Scriptures, as contain- 
 ing the oldest historical data, and the experience of pious 
 and excellent men ; they have in their vast compass a 
 value which belongs to no other book ; but there is a 
 spirit that underlies them, which produced them, which 
 existed before they were created, and which we may 
 suppose will continue to exist when they shall be no 
 more ; and this is that principle which children should 
 be taught as the guide of their life, which is ever 
 present with them, and which contains in itself the 
 elements of that reformation which society most 
 needs. We are not questioning the devoted piety of 
 those who think otherwise, but we desire to expose 
 those influences which, in despite of every effort to re- 
 form the world, produce evil. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 195 
 
 These are not visionary ideas. As we have stated 
 in a former part of this work, their truth is practi- 
 cally demonstrated in parts of this country, where the 
 idolatry of the Bible has hut little existence. They 
 are demonstrated in every individual who is adhering 
 to his own perceptions of truth and justice, and it 
 may be assumed that there are many such in every 
 nation, kindred, and people under heaven. 
 
 It appears to be a self-evident truth, that every 
 crime and every suffering that is induced by man, 
 must have a remedy within man's control. Most of 
 the evils under which men suffer, are the natural ef- 
 fects of derangements in society, arising from wrong 
 elementary principles.. It is stated, that in the city 
 of New York, during the last year, 1858, there were 
 fifty murders ; assuredly, there is some remedy for a 
 disease so appalling. If none other, a severe mili. 
 tary despotism, to preserve order, is preferable 
 to a mild republican government : or will sectarians 
 believe that severe Sabbath enactments will cure the 
 evil ? On the contrary, experience teaches us that in 
 their -very nature they will increase it. 
 
 We have, at the present period, in this country, 
 two remarkable instances of the errors and absurdities 
 flowing from an authoritative religion. The Shakers 
 in the East, are conducting their economy in a state 
 of celibacy. Under the dictation of their assumed 
 prophetess, Anne Lee, sustained and supported, of 
 
196 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 course, by Scripture evidence, no marrying or giving 
 in marriage is allowed among them. Under this 
 system, they have for a long time sustained various 
 establishments, seemingly in contradiction to the Di- 
 vine law's. In the West, there are the Mormons, 
 claiming that polygamy, or a plurality of wives, is 
 the true economy of life. This also they sustain by 
 the Scriptures ; and there probably are few religious 
 societies in this widely extended country, where it may 
 be assumed that upwards of fifty different languages 
 are spoken, and as many different sects exist, who are 
 not contending respecting the dogmas they obtain from 
 the Scriptures. The evils of an authoritative religion 
 are not confined to Christianity. The burning of 
 widows on the funeral pyres of their deceased husbands, 
 so long practised in India, is to be traced to the un- 
 certain dogmas of the Vedas, the sacred books of the 
 Hindoos.* 
 
 Foxton, an intelligent Episcopal clergyman, in his 
 work on Popular Christianity, makes this remark : — ■ 
 
 "We find in the Scriptures, every evidence of 
 human infirmity, both in the writers and in the re- 
 cord, that can possibly be conceived, and yet we are 
 to believe, on their authority, facts the most repulsive 
 to common sense; that the order of nature was 
 changed, and the law of gravitation suspended in the 
 valleys of Palestine, and that God himself specially 
 * See works of Rainohan Roy. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 197 
 
 inspired them with false philosophy, vicious logic, and 
 bad grammar. This is certainly the popular notion 
 of the inspiration of the Scriptures, and the great 
 mass of the Christian world are at this moment, in- 
 stead of worshipping God, worshipping the Bible — 
 putting the assumed record of God's will before the 
 ' inward witness ' of his Spirit. But can such a be- 
 lief as this long survive in an age of intelligent in- 
 quiry ? A juster and more rational idea of God's 
 dealings with us is fast spreading through the Chris- 
 tian world. The sublime philosophy of the gospel 
 tea;ches us that the Spirit of God is poured upon all 
 flesh. * * * * The human soul has sympathy and 
 comprehension for the God dwelling within us, but 
 the spiritual idea is degraded and lost by asso- 
 ciation with a material substance." (Popular Chris- 
 tianity, p. 73.) 
 
 In some beautiful remarks made by Robertson, the 
 late incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, he is 
 very distinct upon the subject, that the revelation of 
 God, respecting things of a spiritual nature, cannot 
 be received through the medium of the senses. " No 
 revelation," he says, " can be adequately given by the 
 address of man to man, either by writing or orally." 
 " The highest revelation is not made by Christ, but 
 comes directly from the universal mind; so that 
 ap9stles themselves, and prophets, speaking to the 
 ear, cannot reveal truth to the soul: no, not if 
 
198 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 God himself were to touch, their lips with fire. A 
 verbal revelation is only a revelation to the ear."* , 
 
 These extracts are worthy of more particular re- 
 mark, as coming from that class of men, who from 
 dwelling upon authority, and reverencing ancient 
 dogmas, appear to be most ignorant on that subject 
 which they profess to teach. 
 
 I touch upon the subject of the clergy with regret, 
 because I am liable to be misunderstood ; yet there 
 can be no doubt that it is mainly through their influ- 
 ence that the Sabbath superstition is spread through 
 the country. There are many individuals among 
 them, humble-minded and devoted to the cause of 
 truth, whose feelings I would not willingly wound ; I 
 would rather contribute to build them up than pull 
 them down; but the system of paying men for preach- 
 ing and praying is liable to great abuse. It is hardly 
 possible, in the nature of man, that a class of society 
 should be receiving pay for their services, and not be 
 influenced thereby. In the nature of things, they 
 will avoid such doctrines as are repugnant to those 
 who give them bread. 
 
 Lord Brougham, in his speech on the Irish elective 
 franchise bill, says, " Perjury ought certainly to be 
 discountenanced, but we are not the persons to' dis- 
 franchise for that offence,, or we may disfranchise our" 
 selves." * * * " How will the reverend bishops _ of 
 
 * First Sermon. 
 
SABBATH DAT. 199 
 
 the other house be able to express their due abhor- 
 rence of such a crime, who solemnly declare in the 
 presence of their Grod, that when they are called upon 
 to accept a living, perhaps of ^64000 a year, at that 
 very instant, they are moved by the Holy Ghost to 
 accept the office and administration thereof, and for 
 no other reason whatever,"* 
 
 The first day of the week is the 'great harvest day 
 of the clergy ; hence so little reliance is to be placed 
 upon any thing they say upon the subject. Where 
 a deep pecuniary interest is at stake, evidence from 
 the party concerned is not received in any Court 
 in the United States. 
 
 The good and excellent men among them, do not 
 change the effects of the system. In the Southern 
 States, the established clergy uphold and justify 
 slavery ; in the North they condemn it. They are 
 found in armies directly opposed to each other, ask- 
 ing blessings on each, and the inference is obvious 
 that many of them would take either side of the Sab- 
 bath question, as their interest might dictate. A 
 large number of young men are annually to be pro- 
 vided for, and it is a natural consequence that as 
 the Sabbath supports them, they will support the 
 Sabbath. 
 
 The clergy, from the time of the dark ages, (when 
 churches and monasteries contained the learning of 
 the world,) have had an influence to which they were 
 * Morning Chronicle, April 2t, 1825. 
 
200 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 never entitled. In tlie present day, as they cannot 
 control literature, they have been found willing to 
 pervert it, to serve their own purposes, and to uphold 
 their powar.* Hence in an- inquiry for truth, great 
 caution is to be observed in receiving statements 
 emanating from them. This observation applies 
 with peculiar force to their accounts of the morality 
 and religion of Pagan nations. Their prejudices are 
 so deep, and their interests so immediate, that it is 
 scarcely possible that .their statements should be cor- 
 rect. 
 
 A little inquiry will convince us, that whether in 
 religion or literature, the clergy have always been 
 behind the age ; from them have emanated all the 
 persecutions which have disgraced the name of reli- 
 gion ; to them we may trace the opposition which has 
 so often obscured for a time the light of science, 
 and in many instances consigned its disciples — the 
 benefactors of mankind, to imprisonment and a shame- 
 ful death. 
 
 The spirit which persecuted Galileo, is not extinct 
 in the present day ; it has descended with the mantle of 
 the priesthood, and its influence is felt in the opposition 
 of the clergy to all attempts to enlarge the limits of 
 human knowledge. 
 
 * See speech of John Hare Powel, in the Senate of Pennsyl- 
 vania. Also, "Dangers from Presbjterianism," p. 14. Also New 
 York Observer, Saturday, November, 1844. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 201 
 
 This alone is sufficient evidence that the religion 
 of the clergy is not true religion ; the latter is, in 
 its nature, expansive and comprehensive. Ema- 
 nating from perfect wisdom, it harmonizes with all 
 that is true — every discovery in science aflfords ad- 
 ditional proof of its doctrines. Religion has, in 
 truth, aU to hope, and the clergy have all to fear, 
 from the expansion of knowledge. The pretensions 
 of the one are founded in error and prejudice, whil©^ 
 the other is based upon immutable and everlasting 
 truth. 
 
 There is doubtless much learning among the clergy, 
 but generally it is unfruitful and barren of any good 
 result ; it is oftener employed to gild ancient error, 
 than to assist the candid enquirer. 
 
 Erasmus said, in his day " it was a matter of wit 
 to be a Christian; that faith was rather in their 
 papers than in their souls ; that there were almost 
 as many creeds as professors." What was true then 
 is true now. The strength of a man's understanding, 
 the power of his voice and his eloquence, are made 
 the proofs of his Christianity. 
 
 Persons who make books their study, and hope to 
 obtain religion from them, are liable above all others, 
 to be led . astray. We may learn from them the 
 dogmas of different sects, and all the complicated 
 affairs of church history ; they are valuable, as con- 
 taining the opinions of other men, and the records 
 
 17 
 
202 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 of former generations ; but out of their proper place 
 they may come to be curses rather than blessings ; 
 and this without regard to the excellence of the books 
 themselves. The latent springs of human action 
 each man has within him, whether they be good or 
 bad. The fragrance of ■ the rose is of no value to 
 such as have not the power of smell ; man must first 
 have truth within him, to know what truth is ; people 
 who pretend to derive wisdom from books, must ne- 
 cessarily be behind the age ; and without better de- 
 pendence than books for religion, we can neither un- 
 derstand nor appreciate it. An implicit reliance on 
 written religion debased the Puritans, and the same 
 evil influence is felt in the present day. 
 
 " The heart 
 May give an useful lesson to the hea.d, 
 And learning wiser grow without his books. 
 Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, 
 Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells 
 In heads replete with thoughts of other men, 
 
 Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. 
 ****** 
 
 Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much ; 
 Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." 
 
 Cowper's Task. 
 
 Connected with the subject of the clergy, is the 
 continued recommendation of the Sabbatarians to 
 attend the churches. The different reports which I 
 have read, bear conclusive internal evidence that they are 
 
SABBATH DAY. 203 
 
 written by clergymen. They arrogate to the clergy 
 powers which they never had, and assume for the 
 ministry an influence which it does not possess. This 
 is the natural effect of making a trade of preaching. 
 
 The national address speaks of the " privileges of 
 an attendance on the instructions' of an intelligent 
 Christian ministry;" I have no wish to destroy the 
 churches j they harmonize in a degree with the state 
 of society ; but such a ministry, I conceive, is not to 
 be found among the Sabbatarians. Calvinism, Episco- 
 pacy, Romanism, Puseyism, Unity and Trinity, sprink- 
 ling and baptizing, breaking the Sabbath, dogmas 
 and rituals, often form the prominent subjects of their 
 discourses. If a person of sound intelligence was to 
 hear some of these sermons, he might ask whether 
 the principle of Christianity made any part of the 
 doctrine of the preacher. Churches are only objec- 
 tionable on account of the doctrines that are promul- 
 gated in them. Making the distinction between days, 
 leads to the greater error arising from the distinction 
 between what they call secular and religious things. 
 They have one God for Sunday, and another for the 
 other six days. If it were not that a man returns 
 day by day to his own bosom for the knowledge of 
 right and wrong, sermons of this character would de- 
 stroy by degrees every vestige of religion there is in 
 the world. The very nature of their doctrines is often 
 
204 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 at variance with the great principles of human na- 
 ture. 
 
 Neal, himself a clergyman, in his History of the 
 Puritans, gives the following account of their ministry 
 in the early days of the Sabbath excitement. " The 
 Puritan (or Parliament) clergy, were zealous Calvin- 
 iets, and having been prohibited for some years from 
 preaching against the Arminians, they no^r pointed 
 all their artillery against them, insisting upon little 
 else in their sermons but the doctrines of predestina- 
 tion, justification hy faith- alone, salvation by free 
 gruee, and the inability of man to do that which is 
 good. The duties of the second table were too much 
 neglected; from a strong aversion to Arminianism, 
 these divines unhappily made way for Antinomianismy 
 verging from one extreme to another, till at length 
 some of the weaker sort were lost in the wild mazes 
 of enthusiastic dreams and visions ; and others, from 
 false principles, pretended to justify the hidden works 
 of dishonesty." 
 
 It may be supposed that the Sabbatarian ministry 
 of the present day is better than this. A talented 
 and distinguished Protestant clergymen of Philadel- 
 phia, gives the following account of it in the present 
 year : " Congregations, instead of being taught from 
 the pulpit to adorn their profession by all the lovely 
 graces of the gospel, by kind -and affectionate bearing 
 in the world, by earnest and ever active endeavors to 
 
SABBATH DAY. 205 
 
 secure for themselves and others the blessings of 
 peace, were annoyed with inflammatory harangues upon 
 the 'great schism,' and upon the ' abominations of the 
 Roman church.' The Pope, and the Pope, and the 
 Pope, was the beginning and end of sermons in cer- 
 tain churches ; and women and . children were 
 frightened with the details of him at Rome."* 
 
 This ministry, which is so much recommended, 
 breathes habitually intolerance and sectarianism ; it 
 prays twice and thrice a day at Sabbath conventions; 
 but it has been proved to have created riots and dis- 
 cord, and is in truth subversive of the morals of 
 society. 
 
 In the last two hundred years, there has been, it is 
 said, a constant and accelerated decrease of the clergy 
 in Europe. In Denmark, in twenty years, they have 
 decreased more than one half; in Russia, in thirty-three 
 years, more than one-third ; in England, in one hun- 
 dred and thirty-three years, more than two-thirds, and 
 it is stated that in six Catholic States there has been 
 a decrease of eight hundred and fifty-five thousand of 
 priests, monks, and nuns. There is cause for all this ; 
 the people believe that it is they who have been the 
 principal promoters of all the absurdities that have 
 been promulgated under the name of Christianity. 
 
 There is even reason to believe, that the clergymen 
 as a class preach doctrines which they do not believe 
 
 *" Dangers from Presbyteriani^m," p. 21. 
 17* 
 
206 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 themselvea, but wHch they have derived from the for- 
 mulas of the churches with which they are connected. 
 Luther candidly says : " Often do I think within my- 
 self that I scarcely know where I am and whether I 
 teach the truth or not." (Luther, Col. Isleb de 
 Christo.) 
 
 John Matthei, the author of many writings on the 
 life of Luther, has a curious anecdote touching the 
 convictions of Luther. It is this : " A preacher called 
 John Musa related to me that he one day complained 
 to Luther that he could not prevail on himself to be- 
 lieve what he taught to others. 'Blessed be God,' 
 (said Luther,) ' that the same thing happens to others 
 as to myself; I believed till now that that was a thing 
 that happened only to me.' " (John Matthei, Cone. 12. 
 Quoted by Rev. J. Balmes in his works on Protes- 
 tantism.) 
 
 Foxton, the Episcopal clergyman to whom we 
 have already referred, thus writes : 
 
 " Of the ministering clergy I require alone, that 
 they suffer, as far as possible, that "judgment should 
 go by default," where they have no rational plea for 
 the defence of an insignificant rite or obsolete form. 
 If the Church will not speak the truth, let her at least 
 be silent. If she will not inform, if she fears to en- 
 lighten the consciences of her hearers, let her at least 
 cease to mystify and deceive them. The concession I 
 require is far less than her bigoted supporters are will- 
 
SABBATH DAY. 207 
 
 ing to believe, for her authority is hourly decreasing, 
 and every attempt to restore it but hastens its de- 
 cline. * * * * [Dq tjjg t)ggt ajiji purest of her minis- 
 ters, her cumbrous and antiquated machinery is 
 daily becoming more and more an encumbrance and 
 a snare, and the brightest ornaments of her communion 
 are those who virtually renounce their allegiance to 
 her laws. * * * * The clergy are simply called upon 
 openly to profess what so many of them secretly be- 
 lieve. Let no honest preacher any longer continue to 
 teach what he believes to be unreal and untrue, even 
 though it be consecrated by the formularies of the 
 Church. * * * * Every sect of Christians, almost 
 every school of philosophers, acknowledge in some 
 sense the doctrine of spiritual influences, of our alle- 
 giance to a power beyond the visible world, and the 
 immortality of the soul."* 
 
 If it is true that the divine laws lie at the bottom 
 of all things, even those of a mechanical nature ; if 
 every department of natural and moral philosophy 
 points to an ever present superintending Providence, 
 may there not be an expanded field for pulpit eloquence, 
 a thousand times more rational than the dogmas which 
 pass under the name of Christianity. 
 
 If there is truth in the foregoing historical sketches, 
 superstition, with its terrible persecutions, is the 
 natural result of erroneous elementary principles 
 
 * Popular Christianity, page 122 and 123. 
 
208 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 which men receive from education. How important 
 then is it to close the. avenues by which these errors 
 are instilled into the youthful mind ; among these, 
 Theological or Divinity schools hold a prominent 
 place, and if our reasoning is true, they are an evil 
 to the students themselves, who might otherwise be 
 earning a respectable living; an evil to the clergy 
 who thus imbibe a dependence on the musty records 
 of other generations ; above all they are an evil to the 
 whole mass of society, in making men artificial and 
 incidently increasing moral ofiences, and as such there 
 can be no reasonable doubt that the public would be 
 benefited if all such institutions were closed forever. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHAPLAINS — DATS OF PUBLIC 
 THANKSGIVING — SABBATH CONVENTIONS . 
 
 Chaplains were originally appointed by the ancient 
 kings of France, as conservators of the relics of the 
 saints. From the covering of these shrines came the 
 name of chaplain. Their history is a curious one: 
 the king and nobility having according to their rank 
 a number of chaplains appointed for them by law, 
 whose ofiice was to pray for them, to ofiiciate in their 
 
SABBATH DAY. 209 
 
 chapels, to say grace, and to have the caare of their 
 souls. 
 
 It may be received as an axiom in government, 
 that a legislature has no right to expend money for 
 any purpose for 'which it has no right to lay a tax > 
 and if it is admitted the Congress cannot tax the people 
 for ecclesiastical purposes, it will follow that it has no 
 right to expend money to pay chaplains. The whole 
 basis of the constitution is opposed to the principle. 
 In Pennsylvania and some other States, the appoint- 
 ment of a chaplain would be a violation of the spirit 
 of our laws. An usurpation of this kind was carried 
 into effect in New York some years since, and created 
 great dissatisfaction. There was no apology for it, 
 either in the laws or customs of the State. To make 
 it the more acceptable, the law stated, that the clergy 
 of Albany, " without discrimination or preference," 
 should be appointed to the office of chaplain. It 
 altered in no respect the principle, but it led to this 
 dilemma, that a colored orthodox clergyman claimed 
 his equal right to pray and to be paid. White clergy- 
 men were willing to pray for the blacks, but for blacks 
 to pray for the whites was an unheard of thing, which 
 could, under no circumstances, be submitted to. It 
 became a subject of negotiation, which resulted in a 
 compromise, by which the black pastor was paid from 
 the public purse, not for saying prayers for the legis- 
 lature, as other chaplains did, but for not saying 
 them. 
 
210 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 These public prayers, so expressly forbidden by 
 the New Testament, seem to me equally objectionable 
 in principle and in detail. I know of no point of 
 view in which they can be defended, but as a source 
 of emolument to the clergy. 
 
 The employment of chaplains by our national and State 
 legislatures may be considered to be at variance with 
 the spirit of our institutions. The Constitution of the 
 United States says, " Congress shall make no law re- 
 specting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting 
 the free exercise thereof." Here is another broad 
 ground taken in favor of conscientious liberty ; but 
 this, so just and equitable to all, has given great offence 
 to the Presbyterians, who are now deemed the princi- 
 pal Sabbatarians. In a general synod, held at Pitts- 
 burg, in the year 1834, they pretended to establish, 
 not only the immorality of the Constitution, as they 
 termed it, but that " it contained the infidel and anti- 
 Christian principle, that Congress shall make no law 
 respecting the establishment of religion. Or prohibiting 
 the free exercise thereof." Every movement they 
 make upon this subject evinces that the intolerance 
 which marked the rise of the society is still rife in 
 the present day. 
 
 John Adams, the elder, the great expounder of 
 constitutional law in this country, when President of 
 the United States, wrote to the Dey of Algiers, that 
 " the Constitution of the United States was in no sense 
 
SABBATH DAY. 211 
 
 founded upon the Christian religion." Leaving re- 
 ligion, of course, ■where it always ought to be left, to 
 individual minds, and knowing no distinction among 
 those who led a peaceable and quiet life. 
 
 The late envoy extraordinary to the court of China 
 writes as follows : " Dr. Bridgeman is chaplain to the 
 legation in title and fact. I have, deemed it essential 
 to have religious services performed at the residence 
 of the legation every Lord's day, and shall adhere to 
 the practice as long as my mission lasts." I presume 
 this is the first time that such an affair was ever got 
 up officially by any of the representatives of the 
 United States in a foreign country. 
 
 The appropriation of money by Congress for such 
 a purpose, is an innovation upon former practices, 
 and may be considered an infringement of the Con- 
 stitution of the United States. K John Adams' 
 opinion is correct, it might be well, before agents and 
 officers are selected to fill important stations in govern- 
 ment, that they should learn that the Constitution is a 
 civil contract, having no relation to religious rites. 
 The Presbyterian synods may lament as they please 
 over such a state of things, but " it is error alone that 
 needs the support of government : truth can stand by 
 itself."* 
 
 Every law of a religious or sectarian character is 
 so far a union of church and state; and however 
 * JeflFerson's Notes on Virginia. 
 
212 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 plausible may be tlie pretext, religion is an affair in 
 which the legislature has no right to meddle, and such 
 a course is always injurious, and a violation of the 
 constitution. 
 
 Days of thanksgiving and of fasts, appointed by 
 law, are liable to the same objection, and are so far 
 perverted from their professed office as to be made 
 days of licentiousness ; they are suited to the ancient 
 usages of New England, but are irreconcilable with 
 the more expanded laws or practices of the Middle 
 and Southern States. 
 
 Can it be belieVed, by any intelligent man, that 
 people can give thanks because a day has been ap- 
 pointed for the purpose, and the hour has come? 
 Ppople are thankful when they have pure and thank- 
 ful hearts — it is a feeling that flows spontaneously 
 fropa the exuberance of their own emotions. The 
 law may make men hypocrites, but it can never make 
 them religious. 
 
 I have before stated, that, in the austerities of the 
 Puritans relative to the first day of the week, another 
 day of recreation was appointed by act of Parliament. 
 Their zeal against Christmas, and other holidays, re- 
 sulted in festival days of their own ; not only days for 
 public thanksgiving, but fast days, were agreed upon by 
 the Presbyterian assembly of divines, held at West- 
 minster in 1645 ; and directions were also given how 
 they should be held, how long they should continue, 
 
SABBATH DAY. 213 
 
 and for the particular preparation of mind necessary 
 thereto. This is believed to be the origin of the 
 thanksgiving days of the Eastern States. Attempts 
 to fill churches by civil enactments, (for it amounts to 
 that,) are worse than useless : persons who advocate 
 such measures, forget that there is no such thing as a 
 religion of force ; in fact, just so far as it is based 
 upon force, its effect is, to add hypocrisy to a want of 
 faith ; my candid conviction is, that churches would 
 be as weU attended, and attended to better purpose, 
 if every law on the subject was repealed, and the 
 pretensions of particular days to exclusive sanctity 
 were disclaimed forever. 
 
 The National Sabbath Address to the people of the 
 United States uses this language: "However pure 
 and healthful the fountain, if poison be cast into it, 
 it sends forth only streams of death ; and so wiU 
 desecrated and polluted Sabbaths work our more 
 speedy and dreadful ruin." 
 
 In the proceedings of the Harrisburg Convention 
 we find the following sentence : " Property earned or 
 increased by Sabbath desecration, reaches a second 
 generation, accompanied by the impious parental 
 lesson, that the claims of duty and human happiness 
 may yield to the clamors of interest and convenience. 
 Hence it is no wonder that such inheritances are soon 
 squandered, so that the profligate and beggared son 
 trudges in rags, where a Sabbath-breaking father rode 
 
 18 
 
214 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 in Ms chariot." I ask myself how it is possible that 
 deliberate assemblies sanction such language. Is it 
 true, that the laws of nature are inviolate to those 
 who desecrate the Sabbath, as well as to those who do 
 not ? If it is so, the conclusions to be drawn from 
 these paragraphs are false, and it is not too much to 
 say, that the enlightened men of those congregations 
 knew that they were so. 
 
 Where are the nobility of England, the acknow- 
 ledged desecrators of the Sabbath day, with their 
 property preserved to their families from one genera- 
 tion to another for a thousand years ? 
 
 It may be said that their estates have been pro- 
 tected by particular laws, but what are human laws to 
 that power that burns a barn or sinks a steamboat, as 
 a judgment upon Sabbath-breakers ? Where is the 
 Quaker property? instead of going down with this 
 curse attached to it, it is preserved in a remarkable 
 degree, from one generation to another. 
 
 But admitting that the parents had done wrong in 
 working on the first day of the week, which I totally 
 deny, who has delegated authority to these conven- 
 tions to pass judgment upon their children, and to 
 make them answerable for sins which they never com- 
 mitted ? 
 
 Such sentiments, no matter how respectable the 
 source whence they come, are degrading to human 
 natm-e, and unworthy of enlightened assemblies. 
 
SABBATH DAY.' 215 
 
 Why should not perfect liberty of conscience be ex- 
 tended to all ? Those who travel on that day have 
 the example of Jesus Christ and the doctrines of the 
 New Testament in their favor ; there is no objection 
 to persons staying at home on .that day, if they pre- 
 fer not to travel. 
 
 Turnpike roads are established by the same power 
 and for the same purpose as railroads ; but society 
 would never suffer them to be subjected to sectarian 
 influence. 
 
 The national address says, with some exultation, 
 " It is not he who fears God, and keeps his Sabbath, 
 that robs his neighbor or murders him." .... 
 Every body knows that. " Norjs his place among 
 the debased of his species in any respect or any- 
 where He will understand and value 
 
 his political rights, and respect the rights of others. 
 
 The world has never witnessed the 
 
 spectacle of an universal obedience to the Sabbath 
 in any country, and its full power to bless a nation is 
 yet unrevealed." 
 
 Were those who issued this address so blind, or 
 so ignorant, or so prejudiced, as not to know that 
 every statement herein is untrue? The Sabbata- 
 rians at one time wielded the power of the British 
 Parliament ; they enforced the observance of the 
 day by every law that ingenuity could devise ; they 
 came to this country with both the civil and eccle- 
 
216 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 siastical power in their hands. Every individual 
 in the colony was of the class of Sahhatarians. Is 
 there no truth in the histories that have heen al- 
 luded to? Were the Quakers and the witches not 
 hung ? Who was it exercised such dreadful cruel- 
 ties upon the defenceless aborigines of the country? 
 Who was it made such despotic laws against the 
 Roman Catholics, that it was death for a Catholic 
 priest to remain in their territories ? If history is 
 true, the answer to all these questions will be, that 
 it was the Sabbatarians. Who had such bitter quar- 
 rels and denunciations among themselves, that when 
 they had only been settled a few years in the coun- 
 try, Vane, one of the most pious among these Puri- 
 tans, left the country in disgust ? In the contest, 
 Cotton, and Winthrop, and Hutchinson, were promi- 
 nent actors. The answer still is, it was the Sabba- 
 tarians. And it is the Sabbatarians that at the 
 present day are issuing denunciations against some 
 of the most respectable men in the country. 
 
 In one of the leading addresses of the convention, 
 it is said, " No one can rebel against the Sabbath as 
 a religious institution, without the most heaven-daring 
 sin;" and another work, speaking of the Sabbath- 
 breakers, says, " Judgment in due time linger eth not, 
 and damnation slumbereth not."* Such sentiments 
 can only be sustained by falsehood. In every aspect 
 * Boston Permanent Documents. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 217 
 
 they are equally untrue. I have observed the man- 
 agement of extensive operations, where large numbers 
 of people were employed ; I have worked on the first 
 day of the week whenever it has suited me to do so ; 
 I have employed others to do the same ; I have 
 travelled and visited on that day ; I have done every- 
 thing that I would do on any other day of the week. 
 I have seen, times without number, children enjoying 
 the innocent amusements of their kites and their 
 marbles, and I have never seen the slightest loss or 
 harm resulting from it, in any way whatever. So 
 far as I have acted myself, I have done it with great 
 peace and tranquillity of mind ; nay, to use a Scrip- 
 ture expression, if I had observed one day as more 
 holy than the rest, the stones in the street would have 
 cried out against me. 
 
 The Sabbath doctrines produced, as we have seen, 
 discord and animosity in Old and New England, sub- 
 stituting cant and hypocrisy for the vitality of truth ; 
 and so far as the people of these United States may 
 be induced to adopt them, it may be considered to be 
 both an individual and a national calamity. 
 
 We are told, by an unanimous vote of the Harris- 
 burg Sabbath Convention, that if we withhold our 
 contributions to the funds necessary to maintain the 
 families of the missionaries, "we and our children 
 must abide the fearful consequences here and here- 
 after." 
 
 18* 
 
218 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 People may honestly take different views of the 
 same subject; but when writers descend to false 
 reasoning and puerile statements, in order, as it 
 would seem, to influence men who have not time to 
 examine and reflect for themselves, they pursue a 
 course in which honorable men would hardly be will- 
 ing to follow them. This applies peculiarly to the 
 proceedings of Sabbath conventions. The minds of 
 the members seem to be deeply tinctured with super- 
 stition and prejudice, and there is scarcely a state- 
 ment they publish, which, in all its bearings, is strictly 
 true. 
 
 One of the conventions recommends that the facts 
 relative to " the voice of God in his providence," for 
 violating the Sabbath, be collected and circulated. 
 The Boston work enumerates a great number of cases 
 of the kind. 
 
 It is at variance with facts, and the common sense 
 observations of the age, that the judgments of the 
 Lord are peculiarly heaped upon Sabbath-breakers. 
 If there is any truth in these pages. Sabbath-breakers, 
 as they are called by sectarians, are not worse than 
 any other class of society. Even if they were bad 
 men, the rain descends and the sun shines upon them, 
 and the providence of God watches continually over 
 them for good. The ideas promulgated upon this 
 subject are calculated to operate upon the fears of 
 the people, and appear to be founded wholly in de- 
 lusion and superstition. 
 
SABBATH DAY, 219 
 
 One man lost his barn by lightning, as a judgment . 
 for violating the Sabbath ; another from a fire com- 
 municated from a gun ; others failed ; some were 
 not equally successful in making salt who worked on 
 Sunday ; some did not succeed in fishing, and the 
 like. Such reasoning may suit the superstitious, but it 
 deserves very little attention from rational minds. 
 
 Perhaps some of the men who have promulgated 
 these sentiments, have been themselves sufferers — 
 have had their barns burnt, and been subjected to 
 distress and difficulty of various kinds. Do these 
 things never happen to those who keep the Sabbath? 
 There are cars that have, for a number of years, 
 started from Philadelphia as regularly on the first 
 day of the week as on any other day. Have they 
 been more subject to accidents on that day ? Cer- 
 tainly not ! In England, the rail road companies are 
 compelled to furnish cars for Sunday use, in order to 
 accommodate the working people who are at leisure 
 on that day. When an attempt was made to stop 
 some of the trains, it was brought before Parliament 
 as a subject of complaint. 
 
 The National Convention, in its address to the peo- 
 ple of the United States, degrades itself by saying, 
 that we are warned by the "awful providences of 
 God," against the profanation of the Christian Sab- 
 bath. I hesitate not to say that the statement is not 
 true. 
 
220 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 . Respecting the inmates of our prisons. 
 
 It is said that a large proportion of such persons 
 did not value the Sabbath, and were in the habit of 
 profaning it, and a false argument is founded there- 
 on, that this is the principal cause of their errors. 
 Men of depraved minds will naturally profane the 
 Sabbath, but they equally profane every other day 
 in the week. Pious and good men, who are op- 
 posed to the movements of the Sabbatarians, and 
 object to Sabbath conventions, and whom they term 
 "desecrators of the Sabbath," are as much opposed, 
 nay, more than sectarians are likely to be, to pro- 
 faneness of any kind whatever. 
 
 As I have stated, the efforts of these conventions 
 are directed against those who are peculiarly Sab- 
 bath-breakers — against men who are pursuing their 
 lawful callings during six days, and are not, to use 
 their own expression, " giving the seventh peculiarly 
 unto God." 
 
 " Six days of the week alone are the property of 
 mankind for the performance of secular business — 
 the seventh belongs to God, and whosoever does 
 not devote one day in seven to the worship of our 
 Heavenly Father, is a robber of God." This sen- 
 timent is published as the third resolution of the 
 National Sabbath Convention ; it contains the shock- 
 ing idea, that six days belong to man, and but one 
 to God. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 221 
 
 Can they show any instance of people who pur- 
 sue the paths of rectitude, do righteously and justly 
 on six days, and yet are licentious on the first day 
 of the week? If they can, their argument on this 
 subject may have some force. Have the inmates of 
 our prisons been of this character ? Surely not ! I 
 presume no such instance can be found, and yet 
 they speak as if it were so. 
 
 Admitting it to be true, that the inmates of our 
 prisons have been Sabbath-breakers, a charge which 
 perhaps would apply to every person in the United 
 States ; what has first made them the violators of 
 law but Sabbath enactments, which have no founda- 
 tion in truth, and which are at variance with the very 
 spirit of the Christian religion ? Thus man himself 
 makes sinners of his fellow men. 
 
 But let us look at the other side of the question. 
 How many Sabbath-keepers are violating the moral 
 law ? How many are robbing the poor of their 
 bread ? Are these debased by keeping the Sabbath ? 
 There is as much argument on one side of the ques- 
 tion as on the other. 
 
 The sentiment of putting no unnecessary burdens 
 upon society, or of the injurious efi'ects of coimting 
 that sin which is not sin, has been repeated by many 
 wise men since the days of the apostle. 
 
 Milton says, " It is the height of injustice, as well 
 as an example of most dangerous tendency in re- 
 
222 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 ligion, to account as sin what is not such in real- 
 ity."* 
 
 " The laws of religion," says Montesquieu, " should 
 never inspire an aversion to any thing but vice, and 
 above all they should never estrange man from a love 
 and tenderness for his own species, "f 
 
 I also transcribe one of the maxims of Burke, — 
 " Lawful enjoyment is the surest method to prevent 
 unlawful gratification."! 
 
 If these maxims are true, we may draw the conclu- 
 sion that ascetic laws for the observance of Sunday are 
 productive of moral evil. Laws may be enforced, but 
 all other things being equal, if there is any one State 
 in this Union where the Sabbath is more attended to 
 than in the others, and I do not know that there is 
 such a State, the morals of the inhabitants will, I be- 
 lieve, be found to be injured thereby. 
 
 I here close my remarks upon Sabbath conven- 
 tions. What I have said has been in no unkind spirit ; 
 some among the members are my*personal friends, 
 and no one can deny that the assemblies in question 
 have contained much individual virtue, respectability, 
 and intelligence. Against their proceedings, how- 
 ever, I have felt called upon to protest, as a Christian 
 and as a citizen. The fictions which they have brought 
 
 * Treatise on Christian Doctrine, p 231. 
 
 t Spirit of Laws, B. xxiv., Ch. 22. 
 
 j Burke's Works, vol. vi. p. 312. Ed. 1823. 
 
SABBATH DAY. 223 
 
 forward are so monstrous, as to disgust any candid 
 inquirer after truth ; the end which they propose to 
 gain, is subversive alike of religion and good govern- 
 ment; they would destroy liberty of conscience, to 
 gain which the world has seen so much sufferiug ; 
 they would retard the progress of science and the 
 arts, which can never flourish when the mind is en- 
 slaved ; they would establish a religion of rites and 
 ceremonies, in place of the pure and simple doctrines 
 of the Christian faith ; they would recall, in . effect, 
 the formal spirit of Paganism, to preside at the altars 
 of a spiritual church ; they would debase religion to 
 glorify themselves ; to gain such ends, they now in- 
 voke the aid of public opinion, and the power of the 
 civil government ; should they succeed, they would es- 
 tablish a persecution as oppressive m its nature as 
 any that deforms the pages of history. 
 
224 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 CHAPTEK XI, 
 
 MAN CANNOT WORK UNCEASINGLY — CLOSING COURTS, 
 NO REASON POR CLOSING RAILROADS — ALL WHO HOLD 
 ACCORDING TO REASON, CHRISTIANS— ^UNIVERSALITY 
 OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION — CONCLUSION. 
 
 The great physiological truth, that man cannot 
 work unceasingly, is brought forward continually to 
 sustain the " Christian Sabbath " as a religious rite. 
 
 No truth is more certain than that there is a maxi- 
 mum to the labors of men and horses and inanimate 
 machines which cannot be exceeded without injury. 
 
 A locomotive that has seventy miles to travel each 
 day, win perform it with less wear and tear, less fric- 
 tion, less injury, both to the locomotive and to the 
 railroad, by doing the work in seven hours than in 
 six. 
 
 What is true of a locomotive is true of other ma- 
 chines : and it is true also of animals. There is an 
 amount of labor which each will perform in a year, 
 or in any other given time, and that will be accom- 
 plished with less injury by a regular division of it 
 than in any other way. It may be true that a horse 
 on a journey will be better for resting one day in 
 
SABBATH DAY. 
 
 226 
 
 seven ; but if so, it is only because the work has been 
 too hard on the other six : so of man, one or two, or 
 three days in seven may be highly necessary to him, 
 as a relief from excessive toil ; but it is from causes 
 which in themselves are deviations from the laws of 
 nature ; and in attempting to apply a remedy, if we 
 do not first understand the cause, we are liable to do 
 evil instead of good. 
 
 In the concern which Sabbatarians profess for 
 laboring men, would they encourage them to leave 
 the confinement of the towns and cities, and ride out 
 into the country? Would they wish them to have 
 the pleasure of visiting their friends, and walking in 
 the fields to enjoy rural scenery ? These things for 
 their physical enjoyment would seem to be most 
 natural and proper. There were two instances in 
 which the Sabbatarians had all power in their own 
 hands, in both of which they abused it ; they made 
 the most severe laws against every species of rational 
 enjoyment which a laboring man could desire, and 
 which would be most in accordaince with his physical 
 nature. The same feelings exist now. 
 
 The clergy themselves appear to be the greatest 
 offenders in this respect. I do not perceive the dif- 
 ference between making merchandise of the labor of 
 a man's head, or of his hands. I do not say that 
 either is wrong, but the principle is the same. Clergy- 
 men, who work on the first day, take the liberty of 
 
 19 
 
226 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 judging whether they will rest on any other day or 
 not. ' Many of them probably work every day in the 
 week, but they deny that right to others which they 
 take for themselves. 
 
 In this country almost every man is a working man. 
 The judge who sits on the bench, and the merchant 
 who writes in his office, may work as hard, nay, much 
 harder, than he who carries a mattock and labors on 
 the highway. 
 
 The one class would be most benefited by a day of 
 rest, the other by a day of activity ; and so far as our 
 physical nature is concerned, if our judges and legis- 
 lators, and all who lead sedentary lives, could be in- 
 duced to ride out on the first day of the week, and 
 take active exercise, society would be benefited there- 
 
 These are obvious truths, that can be understood 
 by all. Yet it is proposed to bring the judge and 
 the legislator from one sedentary employment to 
 another ; from the court and the legislative hall to 
 the church ; if that, as is sometimes the case, is a 
 place of quietness and rest, still further to violate the 
 laws of nature. 
 
 If the views upon this subject,, taken by the Sabba- 
 tarians, are correct, it is one of the strongest reasons 
 that can be given for the extension of a perfect 
 liberty of conscience. The idle man, if he could be 
 induced to do so, should go to work, the sedentary 
 
SABBATH DAY. 227 
 
 man should ride out and take the open air in the coun- 
 try, and religious exercises should be put a stop to, 
 because nature requires that one day in seven should 
 be held purely as a day of rest and refreshment for 
 the preservation of our physical frames. 
 
 No rule of conduct would be of universal applica- 
 tion. It is a subject of deep regret that there should 
 be licentiousness on any day ; but the reformation 
 which is so desirable, is least of all to be expected 
 from the plans of the modern Sabbatarians. Even if 
 they promised great good, there is one all-sufficient 
 reason against them, that they are not founded in 
 truth. 
 
 In Scotland first, in this country, and in England 
 next, where the Puritan principles have prevailed, 
 the first day of the week has been invariably per- 
 verted from a day of joy and rejoicing to one of 
 gloom and superstition. It is in these countries, not- 
 withstanding the great professions of concern for the 
 physical nature of man, that nature has been most of 
 aU violated, by the denial of liberty of conscience to 
 use the day of rest as would most promote health and 
 happiness. 
 
 Men in some employments require to be relieved 
 every eight hours ; or to give it another division of 
 time, to have two Sabbaths of rest in a week. I have 
 known many other men, when the labor was less 
 severe, whose occupations required that they should 
 
228 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 attend to their respective duties twelve hours in the 
 twenty-four, every day in the year. There was no 
 decay of health and vigor, no exhausted energies, no 
 prostration of body or of spirit, which Sabbatarians 
 pretend to say is the inevitable consequence of not 
 keeping the Sabbath day. Not one single instance 
 of the kind has ever come under my observation, 
 during a period of many years. In regard to intel- 
 lectual occupations on that day, which it is stated will 
 result in "less clearness of perception, power of 
 description, and soundness of judgment," I may men- 
 tion, that some of the best works that have ever been 
 written in this country, works which have received 
 great commendation in foreign lands for their literary 
 and scientific character, have been composed almost 
 exclusively on Sundays, in the leisure thenfce afforded 
 from constant employment on other days in the week. 
 The views which I have given on this subject are be- 
 lieved to be the only true ones ; and the sentiments 
 "of the Sabbatarians, differing materially from these 
 as they do, are certainly incorrect both in principle 
 and in practice. 
 
 There are thousands of cases, in which men are re- 
 quired to work on .the first day of the week, in the 
 proper performance of their duty ; the nurse in the 
 sick room must work, the navigators of ships on the 
 ocean, and the conductors on railroads. Each in 
 his proper place is fulfilling his duty, by working on 
 
SABBATH DAY. 229 
 
 that day, thus contributing to the welfare of his fel- 
 low men, and herein also worshipping God. 
 
 We defeat our object by requiring too much ; let us 
 get rid of the superstition, and the thing in the end 
 will find its own level ; it is the unnatural require- 
 ments that reacts and produce evil. 
 
 We would open to the people every means of rational 
 enjoyment^ and then we may come before them with 
 confidence, and ask their aid to suppress every thing 
 that is irrational and wrong ; at present they are in 
 arms against the observance of the day, because of its 
 austerities; make no irrational requisition, and we 
 make them our friends. 
 
 Next, as to the arguments which are adduced in 
 favor of closing railroads, because courts and the 
 public offices are closed on the first day of the week. 
 
 At the early period of the Christian religion, when 
 that faith prevailed, all the secular power was in the 
 hands of the Romans. Constantino, who first united 
 Church and State, in the edict already referred 
 to, interdicted the opening of courts on Sunday, 
 which was afterwards confirmed by Theodosius, Valen- 
 tinian and Arcadius, who published a law prohibiting 
 arbitrations on holy days. In this prohibition, Sun- 
 days, their birth-days, and festival days, were all 
 placed on the same footing. These edicts were 
 still further enforced by Leo, in 466, who gives as a 
 reason, " that adversaries might meet together on that 
 
 19* 
 
230 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 day without fear." The same law directed that the 
 spectacle of wild beasts, the theatre, and other places 
 of diversion, should be closed ; and a distinction was 
 made, for the first time, between birth-days and 
 Sunday.* 
 
 Such were the imperial laws relative to closing 
 courts on the first day of the week. There were, no 
 doubt, many special usages, in dififerent countries, 
 upon the subject; and they seem to have been regu- 
 lated by the caprices of those who held the power. 
 In the reign of Alfred, bishops were the judges, and 
 several parts of the New Testament were incorporated 
 into the Saxon laws.f The closing of the courts has 
 become a law by long usage, enforcing particular 
 statutes upon the subject, and the practice is univer- 
 sally assented to and approved. It has a basis in our 
 physical nature, which would in itself be imperative. 
 I apprehend there is no employment so severe for a 
 conscientious magistrate, as setting as a judge in our 
 supreme courts, where there is no appeal. The 
 stretch of thought and research which is required in 
 cases often extremely intricate ; the mists that are 
 thrown around by advocates, whose business it is to 
 tell their own side of the story ; the elaborate opinions 
 that are often to be written out, make it one of the 
 
 * See Corpus Juris Civilis, where these laws are extant. Article 
 Perii. Also Howell's Ecclesiastical History, folio, vol. iii. 
 
 t See Hume's Hist. Eng., reign of Alfred ; also, Jefferson's 
 Letter to Castipr. 
 
SABBATH DAT. 231 
 
 most onerous employments that are to be found. In- 
 stead of curtailing the relaxation of the judges, two 
 days of rest in each week had better be appointed for 
 them. 
 
 If there is no other reason why the courts should 
 be closed, the usages of our forefathers, many cen- 
 turies ago, should not be deemed authority for us, 
 under circumstances entirely different. The first 
 frame of laws in this province, made by William Penn, 
 permitted all the civil affairs of government to be 
 transacted on the first day of the week, "in cases of 
 emergency:" and the legislature and civil officers of 
 this'^tate are at liberty to transact business on that 
 day whenever it is required.. 
 
 It ought to be considered a settled law of the land, 
 that conscientious men are at liberty to work on the 
 first day of the week, if they choose to do so. I 
 think there can be no doubt that such is the law of 
 this State, and that it would be so interpreted by en- 
 lightened and disinterested men. 
 
 It looks like a subterfuge and evasion, for the 
 Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to assume, that though 
 the Sunday laws are not ecclesiastical, they are con- 
 stitutional as civil enactments. Has the Constitution 
 given to the legislature, or to the courts, any authority 
 to say when men shall work, or when they shall be 
 idle ? No such thing can be found therein, even by 
 inference. The right to interfere, if any there be, 
 
232 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 19 by prescriptions resting on a very uncertain and 
 doubtful basis ; and yet upon this, the Jew and the 
 Seventh-day Baptist are fined for -working on the 
 first day of the week. Such violations of the natural 
 rights of man are calculated to lessen the authority 
 of all law, and to impair the obligations of society. 
 
 The introduction of religion into the common law 
 was an usurpation founded upon the " base falsehoods " 
 of the law judges in England.* This has been per- 
 petuated in this country, and will continue to be the 
 case, so long as people want confidence in the power 
 of truth. f 
 
 There could hardly be a greater [stigma cast upon 
 the Christian religion, than the idea that is is not 
 able to sustain itself without the power of the 
 sword. 
 
 A very curious trial occurred a few years since in 
 
 * See Jefferson's Letter to Major Cartwright. Jefferion's Cor- 
 respondence, vol. IT. p. 393. 
 
 j- The President of the College at Columbia, South Carolina, 
 in a letter to a member of Congress, says, " This usurpation has 
 been so completely put down by Jefferson , that it never can be 
 repeated except for purposes of fraud." And he asks, in refer- 
 ence to the case, (" Smith and Sparrow, 4 Bingh. 84, 88,") " did 
 Judge Story never read the Year Book cited by Mr. Jefferson, 
 which shows the barefaced, wilful ignorance of the English 
 bench ? The Judge either has read Prisot's opinion, or he hag 
 not. If not, he is grossly ignorant; if he has, he has asserted 
 what he knows is not law." 
 
SABBATH DAY. 233 
 
 Pennsylvania. A man came before the court with 
 his hat on. The Quakers, as a class, objected to the 
 formal recognition of respect, where they felt none ; 
 and, preferring to show it by their conduct rather 
 than by unmeaning forms, they steadily refused to 
 pull off their hats in reverence to any court or body 
 of men. This was so well settled, that if the man 
 had been a Quaker, there would have been no question 
 upon the subject ; he was not a Quaker, but still he 
 chose to keep his hat on, and the court ordered it to 
 be taken off. For this offence, the judge was im- 
 peached before the Senate of the State, the impeach- 
 ment was sustained, and he lost his oflSce for this, and 
 for this alone. The man pleaded that he had done 
 no civil injury to any one — that the Constitution gave 
 him a right to take his hat off or keep it on — and the 
 high court of appeals sustained him in this position. 
 
 This may appear as a very small affair, but the 
 Senate was right. Courts have no right to usurp 
 legislative powers, and the more earnestly this is ob- 
 jected to the more harmonious will be the opera- 
 tion of our laws. The Sabbath laws of Pennsylvania 
 are a perfect absurdity and a disgrace to the State ; 
 the judges of the Supreme Court cannot agree upon 
 their interpretation, and the local courts and magis- 
 trates give them a construction to suit their own 
 sectarian notions. It has lately been discovered that 
 though an act itself is lawful, the peaceful means by 
 
234 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 which that act should be accomplished is unlawful ; 
 the major does not, as in all other cases, include the 
 minor. A i-ailroad car which accommodates hundreds 
 of travellers, pursuing their lawful calling, decided to 
 be such by the Supreme Court, may be stopped on Sun- 
 day, because the driver of the car is pursuing only 
 his ordinary labor, which is unlawful. 
 
 At almost every session of our Legislature, petitions 
 are presented for further enactments relative to the 
 first day of the week,; they are referred to committees, 
 and uniformly rejected. Still, while men's minds are 
 prejudiced, there is no certain security for liberty of 
 conscience. The Constitution may remain as it is ; 
 but laws are but cobwebs to a sectarian community. 
 
 Courts, that are to explain them, partake of the 
 influence, and the people sustain them in it. At pre- 
 sent, the most certain reliance for the preservation of 
 liberty of conscience in this country, is in the antago- 
 nist principles of the different sects. It might seem 
 to be a sad thing that caused religious sects to quarrel 
 as they do, but thence arises safety to honest and en- 
 lightened men. Let them combine upon the subject 
 of Sunday police, or upon any other point whatever, 
 and the liberties of the country are in danger. 
 
 Those who are disposed to multiply penal enact- 
 ments, seem not to understand their nature. Severi- 
 ties against doctrines, have so much augmented the 
 evil, that persecutions have been called the seed of 
 
SABBATH DAY, 235 
 
 the church. And it is probable that penal laws have 
 often increased rather than lessened crime. In the 
 reign of Henry VIII., there were hanged in England 
 seventy-two thousand thieves and rogues, besides other 
 malefactors, being about two thousand a year.* Exe- 
 cutions have been gradually decreasing, until they 
 have become of rare occurrence. Laws have been 
 softened, and the morals of the people have improved ; 
 it is probable that this improvement is to be ascribed 
 in no inconsiderable degree, to the public being 
 rendered less familiar with crime, through the amenity 
 of the civil code. 
 
 Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, makes it a 
 question, whether no law at all, or too much law, is 
 the greater evil. He pronounces the latter to be the 
 case ; he founds his opinion on the Indian nations on 
 one side, (amongst whom, he says, governed as they 
 are by the moral sense of right and wrong, crimes are 
 of very rare occurrence,) and the civilized nations of 
 Europe on the other, f 
 
 Ordinances are of no avail unless supported by pub- 
 lic opinion. The laws of Pennsylvania, so far as re- 
 spects the abstaining from labor on the first day of 
 the week, are effectual. Society universally assents 
 to them ; but of what avail are other provisions re- 
 specting Sunday. It is supposed there is double the 
 
 * See Hume's History of England, vol. v. note, (MM.) p. 633. 
 f Jefferson's Notes, p. 138. 
 
286 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 amount of licentiousness on that as on any other day. 
 And if we multiply the statutes upon this subject, it 
 is more likely to increase than to decrease crime. 
 
 Our canals and railroads are used by persons who 
 believe they are enjoined to keep the seventh day of 
 the week as a Sabbath, and by others who are con- 
 scientious in keeping every day as a day of holiness. 
 These persons are all taxed to support them, and they 
 can never be placed on a footing with other men, if 
 their conscientious rights are not equally attended to. 
 
 Our railroads have been designed for public high- 
 ways, under regulations necessary for their preserva- 
 tion, and the legislature has no more right to put any 
 other restrictions upon them, than it has to interfere 
 with our State or turnpike roads. Travelling on the 
 first day of the week is expressly permitted by the 
 laws of the State, and I am not aware of any differ- 
 ence in principle between travelling by water and by 
 land'. Sunday has been considered a lucky day for 
 seamen to leave port, and raftsmen travel on the river 
 by hundreds when the water suits them. I believe 
 no idea is ever expressed that this is wrong. Why 
 then should not the farmer take in his grain with 
 equal propriety ? The grain is ripe in the fields but 
 a few days in the year. The raftsman who depends 
 upon accidental freshets is equally limited as to time ; 
 they stand upon the same footing. The law makes 
 a distinction, which has no foundation in reason or 
 
SABBATH DAY. 237 
 
 common sense. There are usually more days suitable 
 for the raftsman than for the husbandman to take in 
 his grain. 
 
 The edict of Constantine, and the old English 
 laws, heretofore referred to, allowed all kinds of work 
 in the harrest field. 
 
 If our government is, as is pretended, a civil 
 compact, the propriety of any laws of this character 
 may be questioned ; they are, in fact, an incongruous 
 mixture of church and state, warranted in some 
 degree by old usages, but inconsistent with the 
 nature of our institutions. They have one origin, 
 a want of reliance on the power of truth. Having 
 confidence in the influence of religion on the human 
 mind — ^in its universality — in its sufficiency to sustain 
 itself without the aid of the civil power, I should 
 fear no evil from abolishing every law upon the subject. 
 
 The Sabbatarians would object to such a course, 
 because they imagine that religion depends upon the 
 observance of one day as the Sabbath. Not many 
 years since, it was thought needful that religion 
 should be supported by the power of the State. The 
 opinion has prevailed still more generally that an 
 established clergy is necessary. Experience has 
 demonstrated that these ideas are unfounded, and that 
 such institutions are not required. 
 
 The toleration act in England was only obtained 
 after a desperate struggle with the power of the 
 
 20 
 
238 INSTITUTION OP THE 
 
 clergy ; and yet that act was fraught with unnum- 
 bered blessings, and enlarged, in every direction, the 
 sphere of the human mind. At a later day, the cor- 
 poration and test acts fell before the same liberal 
 spirit, and in despite of the same opposition ; in our 
 own country, established church governments in Vir- 
 ginia and in New England, have been successively 
 overthrown after every effort on the part of the clergy 
 to sustain them. 
 
 While we have to lament the continued existence 
 of so much bigotry and intolerance, it is pleasing 
 to record these examples of progress. The day is, 
 we may hope, not far distant, when all men will 
 acknowledge the insufficiency of form and ceremony 
 to illustrate a spiritual religion. 
 
 Sabbath conventions will then assume their place 
 in history with other sectarian movements, which 
 have attempted to repress the spirit of enquiry, and 
 which, after a brief success, have become a mockery 
 and a warning to succeeding generations. 
 
 Enactments on this subject are but a species of sec- 
 tarianism upon a broader scale, the evils of which 
 have been shown in many ways in this country. 
 
 A few years since, in the neighborhood of Boston, 
 a Catholic seminary was burnfr to the ground by a 
 combination of zealous Protestants. The same thing 
 has occurred in Philadelphia. Catholic seminaries 
 have been destroyed, and the community was so cor- 
 
SABBATH DAY. 239 
 
 rupted by sectarian influence, as to be unwilling to 
 arrest the flames. The attempt is making to create 
 another kind of sectarianism, not less intolerant, by 
 casting odium upon those who observe the first day 
 of the week after the manner of the early Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 The present constitution of Pennsylvania minis- 
 ters, in a slight degree, to this sectarianism. It pro- 
 vides on this subject, " That no person who acknow- 
 ledges the being of a God, and a future state of 
 rewards and punishments, shall, on account of his 
 religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any 
 office, or place of trust and profit under this common- 
 wealth." From this we are of course to infer, that 
 persons who do not believe in a God, and a future 
 state of rewards and punishments, are incompetent 
 to hold office. 
 
 This is, in fact, so far as it goes, a test act ; it is 
 wrong in principle, because a civil code has pro- 
 perly" no concern with religion. Any interference 
 by a civil power with the conscience, is generally 
 of no avail ; if efi'ectual, it is tyranny. The in- 
 terest both of religion and of good government is 
 advanced by keeping them wholly distinct. They 
 have separate provinces for their action — distinct 
 duties to perform — and they are never combined 
 without decreasing the efficacy of both. All his- 
 tory bears witness to the evils arising from a union. 
 
240 INSTITUTION OS THE 
 
 in any form, of Church and State. The bitterest con- 
 tentions, the worst persecutions, the most intense de- 
 moralization, which the world has ever witnessed, 
 have arisen from this cause. We may fairly con- 
 clude, that in whatever degree it may be accomplished 
 in this country, religion will become corrupt, and the 
 seeds of contention and tyranny be infused into our 
 government. 
 
 Some of the other States of the Union are, at 
 present, much more intolerant than Pennsylvania. 
 Here, though the principle is false, the practical 
 operation of the restriction referred to above, is of 
 little account. It can scarcely be called exclusive, 
 because it is almost impossible that any one should 
 come within its limits. 
 
 There never was a nation found, where the people 
 had not a belief in God^ and in a future state of 
 rewards and punishments. The Egyptians first built 
 altars and temples to religion ; but before their erec- 
 tion, there is evidence of the universal belief in Grod 
 among those who were called Pagans, and connected 
 with it, a belief in future retribution. 
 
 There is no such thing as entire irreligion. Truth 
 is as needful to our preservation, as blood to the 
 physical frame ; the whole faUric of society rests 
 upon it. Every individual is, to a certain extent, 
 a religious man ; but what is called religion has 
 been so long prostituted to the worst purposes, and 
 
SABBAXH BAY. 241 
 
 is SO much connected with childish forms, that many 
 excellent men turn from the name instinctively. 
 That man is not to be found, who has no respect for 
 truth and virtue ; and he who recognises the attri- 
 butes of God, believes in God, without regard to the 
 name he bears. 
 
 There is but one religion in the world. The word 
 comes from religo, to hind anew. There is no false 
 religion ; this, in its nature, is impossible. We are 
 familiar with Catholicism, Episcopacy, and many 
 minor sects ; they are merely forms of church gov- 
 ernment, which have no necessary connection with 
 religion. They rise and fall, but religion remains un- 
 changed. 
 
 Justin Martyr, that eminent Christian father of 
 whom I have spoken, says, "All who lived accord- 
 ing to reason were Christians, even though they 
 were reputed to be Atheists; for instance, Socrates, 
 Heraclitus, and others among the Greeks; Abra- 
 ham, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, Elias, among the 
 barbarians." (Jews being so considered by the 
 Greeks and Romans.) Whilst on the other hand, 
 they who lived contrary to reason, were bad men, 
 and enemies to Christ ; that " whatever right opin- 
 ions the Gentile philosophers entertained respecting 
 the nature of the Deity, the relation in which man 
 
 stands to him, and the duties arising out of that re- 
 - 20* 
 
242 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 lation, were to be ascribed to the reason (logos) im 
 planted in their own bosoms."* 
 
 This is consistent with the doctrines of the New 
 Testament — "He is not a Jew which is one out- 
 wardly ;****** but he is a Jew which is one 
 inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in 
 the spirit, and not in the letter ; whose praise is 
 not of men, but of God." These views are sustained 
 by every sound principle of philosophy and common 
 sense, and they introduce us into universal sympathy 
 and brotherhood with the whole family of man. 
 
 The Esquimaux in the frozen regions of the north, 
 and the Hottentot basking under the palm tree, be- 
 neath a vertical sun, so fai- as they are actuated by 
 this logos, -or, as Adam Smith calls it, "the man 
 within the breast," are as effectually saved from their 
 sins, as Christians can be. The institution of a Sab- 
 bath has never come to them ; but they understand 
 the great moral principles of right and wrong as per- 
 fectly as we do. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, after 
 travelling thousands of miles amongst nations which 
 we deem barbarous, left behind him this sentiment : 
 " I have seen human nature in almost all its forms ; 
 it is everywhere the same, but the wilder it is, the 
 more virtuous." See Fitzgerald's Letters. 
 
 Plutarch, the great Pagan philosopher and his- 
 
 * " Some account of the writings and opinions of Justin Mar- 
 tyr, by John, Bishop of Lincoln." 
 
SABBATH DAY. 243 
 
 torian, in his work against Ooloteus, says, " Examine 
 the face of the globe, and you may find cities un- 
 fortified, unlettered, without a regular magistrate, 
 or appropriated habitations; without possessions, 
 property, or the use of money, and unskilled in all 
 the magnificent and polite arts of life. But a city 
 without the knowledge of a God, no man can or ever 
 will find." 
 
 Some of the doctrines of the ancient Platonists 
 and Stoics appear to have been as pure as those of 
 the Christian period. If all men, so far as they are 
 actuated by the pure principles of religion, are 
 Christians, according to Justin Martyr and the New 
 Testament, (and we must believe this, unless we 
 believe in two religions, or that they are cut off 
 from salvation altogether,) it will follow that "the 
 dispensations of the law and of the gospel," are to 
 be referred rather to individual minds, than to any 
 particular period of time ; and that the opinions of 
 Jews and Pagans concerning religion may as essen- 
 tially exist with us, as they did before the coming 
 of Christ. Mosheim relates, as has been mentioned 
 before, that many of the ceremonies of Pagan wor- 
 ship were incorporated as symbols into the Chris- 
 tian church, to captivate the vulgar. They seem to 
 exist almost in their pristine vigor in the present 
 day ; it must be evident to all, that image worship 
 may be performed without the presence of idols. 
 
244 INSTITUTION 03? THE 
 
 Jesus left no writings behind him as a rule for others 
 — he directed none to do so ; hut, in the most beauti- 
 ful and touching language, he inculcated everywhere 
 the practice of virtue and truth. Those who are not 
 satisfied with this, will naturally inculcate the neces- 
 sity of Sabbath days, and other idolatrous forms. 
 
 Christmas, as it is observed in Pennsylvania, pre- 
 sents an instance of a festival day, preserved from 
 generation to generation by public opinion. The 
 public offices, markets, and other places of the kind, 
 are closed. People who are conscientiously scrupu- 
 lous against observing the day, open their stores, and 
 work as it suits them ; no one is offended thereat ; 
 entire liberty of conscience is enjoyed. Many of the 
 churches are opened and well attended ; none are 
 made offenders; and the cause of vital religion, in 
 my opinion, would be promoted by putting the first 
 day of the week upon the same footing. 
 
 This is a festival, flowing from the spontaneous 
 feelings of the heart ; and as such, is a day of repose 
 and rejoicing. There is indeed a Christian Sabbath, 
 which has no application to any particular time ; but 
 to that quiet rest, which is the result of conscious in- 
 tegrity, which no man can give or take from his fel- 
 low man ; which applies to every individual — ^to the 
 learned man and the ignorant man, to the prince and 
 the beggar. This Sabbath is enforced by no law ; it 
 is interrupted by none of the ordinances of men ; it 
 is referred to abundantly, both in the Old and Nevr 
 
SABBATH DAT. 245 
 
 Testaments. Though they give it no name, men feel 
 it, and understand it, in their every-day walks of life, 
 in their intercourse with society, in attending to all 
 the complicated duties of their existence. It belongs 
 to no sect, to no church, to no nation or color — to no 
 peculiar organization among men, but is the natural 
 result of a mind purified by a fulfilnient of the Divine 
 laws. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 These pages have been prepared without favor or 
 affection towards any class of men, and amid engage- 
 ments which have prevented a more elaborate view of 
 the subject ; but, so far as I have gone, I have en- 
 deavored simply to state the truth. I have examined 
 several different translations of the Scriptures, both 
 from the Hebrew and the Septuagint, with notes and 
 annotations more extensive than the text; have traced, 
 as far as my leisure would permit, various ecclesiasti- 
 cal histories, some of them voluminous and of ancient 
 date ; have paid considerable attention to the writings 
 of the earliest authors in the Christian era, and to 
 rare works, old and difficult of access, which treat 
 upon this subject. I have read with care many of 
 the publications of sectarians to sustain the institu- 
 tion ; I have omitted nothing within my reach, and I 
 have not found one shred of argument, or authority 
 of any kind, that may not be deemed of a partial and 
 sectarian character, to support the institution of the 
 
246 
 
 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 first day of the week as a day of peculiar holiness. 
 But, in the place of argument, I have found opinions 
 ■vyithout number — volumes filled with idle words that 
 have no truth in them. In the want of texts of 
 Scripture, I have found perversions ; in the want of 
 truth, false statements. I have seen it mentioned, 
 that Justin Martyr, in his Apology, speaks of Sun- 
 day as a holy day ; that Eusebius, Bishop of Cesarea, 
 who lived in the fourth century, establishes the fact 
 of the transfer of the Sabbath from the seventh to the 
 first day by Christ himself. These things are not true 
 — ^these authors say no such thing. But there are none 
 to contradict — the volumes are not at hand, and they 
 pass for truth. I have seen other early authors re- 
 ferred to, as establishing the same point, but they are 
 equally false — there is no such thing to be found in 
 them. On the contrary, evidence has accumulated 
 upon me as I have pursued the investigation, showing 
 exactly the reverse. These statements are likely to 
 be contradicted — ^they are contradicted every day, and 
 that mostly by men who ought to know better, but 
 they are true, however much men may deny them. 
 
 Having thus endeavored to follow the Sabbatarians 
 through some of their devious wanderings, I come 
 finally to consider the objection to their argument, 
 which arises from the entire accountability of man. 
 
 This is a doctrine worth all the rest ; books may 
 perish, but this will endure forever. It is not limited 
 
SABBATH DAY. 247 
 
 to one age or sect, but applies to every individual 
 in the world ; as people attend to it, they understand 
 the internal nature of truth, that it depends not upon 
 the ingenuity of man — upon no books, however excel- 
 lent they may be — ^upon no rules, which the most re- 
 fined sects may establish. * 
 
 This doctrine has been taught by all the sages of 
 ancient and modern times ; it is taught in our books, 
 in our schools and in our meeting-houses ; above all 
 it is the teaching of our own bosoms. If, then, it 
 is true, it leaves no room for one day or time to be 
 more holy than another. We are born for active 
 exertions ; without them we should perish ; and we 
 perform our duty to God as well when we take care 
 of our physical frames as when we perfect our moral 
 character. There is no true ground for the distinc- 
 tion between secular and religious affairs. Every 
 action of our lives is moral action ; everything in- 
 volves religion. 
 
 There is a principle of harmony throughout the 
 universe. In physical affairs, it may be traced from 
 the order that marks the solar system, to the minutest 
 insect that crawls on the ground. In all the opera- 
 tions of men, there is a striving after harmony, an 
 effort after perfection. The child who makes his 
 tiny coach, and the artificer of the splendid steam- 
 ship, are actuated by the same principle ; it is this 
 harmony, applied to mind, which forms the perfec- 
 tion of the human character ; so far as it prevails, 
 
248 INSTITUTION OF THE 
 
 every man is a religious man, and every act of his 
 life is an act of worship. 
 
 Everything that we do has relation to this great 
 harmony of the world. We cannot fail to perceive 
 that the greatest events hang upon the most trivial 
 causes. 
 
 Shall these causes, on which so much depends, be 
 considered of no account ? or how shall we draw the line 
 of distinction ? It cannot be done, it does not exist. 
 But we can cut the knot we cannot untie ; make 
 every day a day of religion, and feel that we are ac- 
 countable for every action of our lives. So far as 
 man does this, he comes into the universal harmony 
 of truth. Let me not be told that these principles 
 are adapted only to men of refinement ; it is not so ; 
 they are applicable to all. All feel them according 
 to their capacity, though they may never have thought 
 of giving language to their sensations. 
 
 Feelings of this character, put an end at once to 
 the distinction of sects and days ; they embrace all 
 the religion which exists in the world. The means 
 which would be most likely to produce that reforma- 
 tion so much needed in society, would be to impress 
 man with the idea that he is just as accountable one 
 day as another ; that the sanctuary of the Most High 
 is ever open in his own bosom ; that every place i^ 
 God's temple, and that his altar should be erected in 
 man's own heart. 
 
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